THE APOSTLE ISITT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4385, 5 April 1893, Page 3

THE APOSTLE ISITT.

Ttio llov. Isittnml Dulroa era having a bud time of it from Civis in t!to Otago Daily Tinier lu laat Butur day's ibbuo he ihns discourse I—lt ianQ aid ntory that" (hoy didn't know anything down in Judco." Thoy certainly did not know in St. Void's time that moderation was one of the seven cardinal siuH. " Lot your moderation bo known unto ull men,'* writes tho benighted apostte. Had thoro been in those days any Reverend laitt " dowa ia Jiuleo" St Paul would have been culled to ovcler, end requested to employ less dangerous language, " Take a liitto wine for thy atomaoli'e sake and thine often infirmities/' writes the apostle again in bis fatherly way to the youthful Timothy, The Eev. leitl, liud: he been there, would have labelled tbe bottle, "Poison —for external application only." What be would have dono at (Jutta of Galilee, when, as che Eton boy wrote "Nympha pttdica Deum vijiit, et erubuit" one can only imagine. Capsized : the water pots, probably, and delivered a lecture on Prohibition.. Certainly we have travelled;: far when virtue is made to depend upon coercion, when moderation is proclaimed a vice, and when oar moral teachers are purer than Paul and more Christian than Christ. As lor Horace with his " aurea mediocritas,"—"galdun mean," and Aristotle 'who said the same thing before him, they of course are not; worth considering. These moderatiomsta were poor pagans at the best arid knew no better. A " golden mean," forsooth, and " medio tutissimus ibis! " What I rubbish all this " wisdom of the | ancients," sacred: and profane, is: seen jto be when oiioeyou have accepted the and tha 4 , logically you ought to be either a drunkard or a prohibitionist. Speaking for myself, I have not yet attained to this grace. As between drunkard and prohibitionist I am resolved to be neither. To this extent I am an unworthy disciple of Paul that I atill "take a little" for my stomach's sake, and thst too by way of internal application. For which cause I expect havd times in the immediate future. l ata waiting in fear and trembling to see whether the leitta, and firq superseding St Paul will be able—taking mo by tho scruff of 'ho neok, ea it were—to compel me to be virtuous in Bpite of myself. ;