Father Le Menant des Chesnais on Temperance.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4425, 10 March 1883, Page 2

Father Le Menant dcs Chesnais on Temperance.

At St. Francis' Church, Shortlnnd, last night, the Rev. Father Dcs Chesnais in continuation of his missionary exercises, took for his subject " Drunkenness and its Evils," and delivered an exhaustive and fervid address. The reverend gentleman dealt with the subject from a temperance rather than a teetotal standpoint, admitting that a moderate use of drink was not in itself reprehensible, though in the course of his farther remarks he adduced several cogent reasons why even moderate drinkers should become abstainers. He first examined the subject from a physical -and scien'iflc point of view, detailing the pernicious effects of alcohol upon the system, more especially upon the reasoning faculties. He sketched with graphic power the ingenious achievements of the human brain in a healthy and'unclouded condition, instancing the modern triumphs in telegraphy, electricity, serial navigation, and the giftod eloquence of the orator, and contrasted these with the impotence and incoherency of the same beings under the influence of drink~drawing a harrowing j picture of the atrocious and brutal inhumanities perpetrated by people under the same baneful influence. He next referred to the statistics of orime and insanity as taken from the records of prisons and lunatic asylums, showing that a great preponderance of cases in both instances are the direct results of drink, while it is often the indirect cause of many cases (of lunacy especially) not usually catalogued to its credit. Advert ing to the liquor traffic, while disclaiming to pass any sweeping censure, he said the great superfluity of public^houses—as much as one public to every six private houses in some large centres —must strike every enquiring person. He held it to be the duty of the State to legislate in correcting this state of things, but he deplored the hostility which all atttempts to legislate in this direction encounters from thejlaw-makers themselves, interested in this traffic. While admitting that many publicans were respectable members of society, he regretted to say that many also were not so, and proceeded to castigate the latter with a scathing and incisive irony. He then took the religious and theological aspect oi the question, dwelling on the mortal guilt of that being who drinks till reason departs from her throno. The murderer, the malefactor, may, even the moment after committing the deed, repent, and ask for mercy, and perhaps receive forgiveness, but the drunken sinner is incapable of contrition. In conclusion, he invited Jill those who desired to take the pledge to adjourn with him to the school-room. He did not expect, nor did he counsel, a wholesale taking of the pledge, but such of his hearers as could not always restrain themselves within the strict bounds of temperance—who could not take drink without the risk of drinking to excess, he exhorted them to come, also their families or immediate relatives, if even moderate drinkers, would do well to aid the cause by the powerful influence of their example. He left it to the promptings of their own consciences, but such as came he expected to come like men with a resolute determination to stick to their pledge. The discourse, of which the above is but a very imperfect outline, occupied two hours in delivery, and was illustrated with many apt and telling examples.