TEETOTAL MEETING.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 436, 27 December 1861, Page 3

TEETOTAL MEETING.

To the Editor of the Colonist. Sir—ln your issue of'the 24th I observed a letter signed k Critic,' in which he makes several 'observations on my speech at the opening of the femperiinoa Hull, He saya ;-»'J thought that

the Bible, long ago, had been set aside as a source of total abstinence advocacy, on the acknowledged philosophical axiom, that any book, or instrument, capable of proving both sides of a question, was incapable of proving any side of a question ; and it is well known that both sides of the ques'ion under consideration has been advocated, from the Bible.'

The writer does not assert that the Bible is capable of ' proving' both sides of the question; but that both sides have been ' advocated' from the Bible. Unless the terms 'prpving1 and 'advocated' are synonomous, his philosophical axiom does not apply to the case. If it could be proved from the-Bible that the use of intoxicating liquors lias received the divine sanction, total abstinence with me would cease to bea matter of principle.. 'Critic' also accuses me of 'insulting and libelling the Deity,' by (if I understand him) ascribing to God the power to work without the laws or nature. I believe on the authority of Scripture that God has all power; but to suppose that God can work only according to the laws of nature would be to limit His power. Also in the Scriptures, acts are ascribed to God which are contrary to the known laws ot nature. But if I did ascribe too much to divitie power, does that alter the fact that God does work by ins rumentalities ? or that the total abstinence is an instrument in the hands of God for suppressing the use ot intoxicating liquors? Yours, ifcc, WILLIAM CRESSWELL.

HOMOEOPATHY. 7o the Editor of the Colonist,