GOLDEN WORDS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 182, 22 September 1876, Page 14

GOLDEN WORDS.

The Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster has addressed the following interesting message to the Rev. Patrick Byrne, President of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America, on the subject of temperance — a cause which is very dear to the heart of the eminent prelate, as is known by his untiring action for its furtherance in Great Britain. The message reads as follows : "In thanking you for the address of affection and sympathy which you have sent to me, in the name of your whole body assembled at Cincinnati in convention, I must begin by saying that I would to God I was worthy of the love and veneration or of the gratitude which you express to me. If I needed anything to bind me, to the last hour of my life, in maintaining our common conflict with the pestilence of intoxication, it would be enough to remember that the little I have hitherto done has been in any way a support to your efforts. As a pastor of souk I have before me the wreck of men, women, children, home, and all the sanctities of domestic life. I see prosperity turned into temptation; the wages of industry not only wasted, but, as they increase, making the plague more deadly. I see legislation impotent to remove the evils it has caused, and I am driven to the last slow but sure hope, an appeal to the Catholic heart and the Christian conscience of the people. The Apostle says : 'It is good not to eat flesh and not to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother is offended or scandalized or made weak.' — Rom. xiv. 21. St. Pa,ul did not lin£it this to the meats offered to idols. He lays down the lawArf generous charity : If my liberty in using what is safe to me encourages others in the use of the same, which is dangerous to them, then I will use it no more. If my denying myself in this, which I am free to renounce, shall help or encourage even one soul who has fallen through intoxication to rise up and break his bonds, then I will gladly abstain as long as I five. If we can spread this higher law of love and generous self-denial, a public opinion will soon grow up before which our legislation will give way. "As a pastor of a great flock of the children of Catholic Ireland it gives me a great joy to receive your address. I will tell them how, across the wide sea, you join with them and me. They will join in every word I am writing, and their prayers will be offered for you all, and for the spread of your Catholic Total Abstinence Union throughout the New World. Our League of the Cross will be in line with you in the Old World, and my prayers at the altar will go up for both to the Good Shepherd in whom we are all one. "Heverend and dear fathers and brethren in Jesus Christ, may every best and every perfect gift descend upon you and yours and upon your country. " Convey these words in my name to the Catholic Union in its next convention, to be held at Philadelphia, and believe me to be always your affectionate servant in Jesus Christ, "f HENRY EDWARD, " Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. " Westminster, June 15, 1876."