THE NATIONAL CURSE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1605, 9 February 1884, Page 3

THE NATIONAL CURSE.

In Westminster Abbey on November 20 Canon .Farrar preached to ii numerous congregation 011 the occasion of t!oo twenty-first anniversary festival scrvico ,ot the Church of England Temperance Society, It was • with deliberate purpose .that he'meant It to tc almost exclusively a plain statement of facts—not wishing .tp appeal to the imagination or the. emotions, .but to the a sense of duty, to the conscience of Christians in a Christian land. If the facts were indisputable, And lor the most part undisputed, and did not speak to his hearers, then he,did not know anything that would spur tlieni to seek redress. Those who pleaded for temperance reform were I daily charged with exaggerations. Exaggeration was never right or w'se oven when moral indignation rendered it excusable. But before they repeated the hackneyed or irrelevant charges of exaggeration they should remember that there never.was a reformer or prophet since the world began against whom the same charge had not been made. , There was, however, no'.need for exaggeration in regard to intemior the case against it was so wnjrliclming and so strong. The direct expenditure of this nation for intoxicating drinks was .£130.000,00.0, and (he indirect expense:) which had to be paid for the result of drunkenness was L 100,000,000. They might main-tain-that alcohol was'a harmless luxury, but lliey could not say that it was for the. vast majority a necessity, There were 20,000 prisoners in England from whom it was totally cut oil' from the first day of their imprisonment, and they were tlio better and the stronger for their abstinence," There wen: now 5,000,000 total abstainers in England, and the impartial statistics of insurance offices proved conclusively that their longevity was thereby increased. The most magnilicicnt feats of,endurance and strength of which mankind had ever heard had boon those done by total abstainers. Therefore at best alcohol was but a luxury, liven, however, if no harm came IVom its use, lit would ask whether in ilieso days we could bear the exhaustion which arose from the terrible strain upon our national resourtv;;. Could there Le a doubt doubt but that (he nation would be the belter if we abandoned the needless 'and therefore the wasteful expenditure 1 The position of England would be more secure if the vast rivers of wasted gold were diverted into more fruitful channels—if the 88,500,000 bushels of grain (as much as Was produced in all Scotlund)—now used for- the deleterious drinks were turned into useful food; if tlio G9.000 acres of good land now devoted to hops were devoted to cereals; If England were relieved from the burden of supporting the mass of misery, pauperism, and the madness which drunkenness entailed. Let them look at it only from the simple ground of economy—to the fact that the working classes iiad drunk in beer and maddening spirits as much as they jwid in rent, and considering that them was hardly a pauper in England who had not wasted in intoxicating drinks as much as would secure him a freehold house and a good annuity, if the eur.se of drink were banished from England it would rain gold not for throe but for many days. But every man knew that alcohol was more than, a harmless luxury, and that its moderate use was the cause of many painful disorders, Wherever drinking was national it became nationally dangerous, because alcohol was one of a number of drugs ; which created a craving which in mul- ] titudes became an appetite which ' strengthened into a vice, which ended in a disease, which constituted a ' crushing and degrading slavery. Tim curse of drink did not slay with him who caused it, hut almost invariably dragged down the wife and family, In confirmation of this the preacher alluded to the horrible Saturday-night scenes in and around the gin-palaces in the pauperised districts of the metropolis and other large cities. In most of the large towns there were whole streets and alleys of districts where were drunkards' homes and places which sheltered hundreds of blighted families, the disgrace of our civilisation and our country,—Times.