GOOD TEMPLARISM.

Press, Volume XXII, Issue 2646, 29 January 1874, Page 3

GOOD TEMPLARISM.

. TO .THE KDITOB OF. THE PRESS. , DeXb Slß,— While it would bo ari impropriety to assail any project having for its object the amelioration of mankind, it may .not be beyond the region of laudable criticism to animadvert upon a manifest ab: surdity When., found . in connection with even such a project. Such was my mental reflection after reading a printed lecture on "Good Templarism" while travelling by train to Christchurch this morning. It is stated that the' lecture was delivered in Christchurch on the 23rd December last, and has been subsequently "published by request." I can have no hesitation in pronouncing the project absurd, inasmuch as., the avowed mission of the sbi-disanli Good Templar G.D.R. Worthies is the reformation, not of a people or nation only, but the race, by means of a Temperance Society. Surely to worthy grands of such calibre -it may be said, for such men as yon the page of history, has been writteh' in" vain. Even a district school boy could shovy you how l that for thousands of years the greatest intellects the world saw have been at work to reform the race, still the race has yet to be reformed, Good Templars being ; witness. Philosophers and sages have propounded their theories, founded their Utopias, dazzled or bewildered a certain number—for the most part possessing- some obliquity of mental vision ; anon the bubble burst, vanished into thin air, and the very names of their highsounding titles, together with their authors, now rauk with the moa and the mammoth. Does it require a prophet to predict a similar finale to Good Templarism 2 From the lecture I farther learn that the ranks of the G.T.S are to be maintained by requiring from initiates an irrevocable, lifelong vow of total abstinence. Here the lecturer finds he is on bad ground, and though he still tries to defend the position, the effort is simply a flounder through a piece of sophistry, which with a knowledge of merely the rudiments of logic, he might perceive only, made against him. Because a man has lied is he henceforth to forego the use of speech? Or if he has been tbrowq by a spirited horse, must he therefore never mount a horse again, and must further maintain an exterminating war against horses and all concerned therein ? Every argument advanced by the lecturer in defence of irrevocable vows might equally well be advanced for the enforced celibacy of nung and priests. In conclusion. I would briefly advert to a panorama of harrowing scenes, the result of drunkenness in individuals, introduced, towards the close of the lecture, and which vividly remind mc of some ' sermons I heard preached over forty years ago, descriptive of hell and its inmates (but religious teachers don't often indulge in the like of that now-a-days). Now, sir, while abhorring drunkenness quite as mnoh as any Good Templar, I object to the lecturer's- assumption that ■• nearly all the evils which afflict sooiety have their fountain and origin in " what teetotallers choose to call "the liquor traffic." The assertion is not ; agreeable to fact. Every vice to which humanity is prone produces its proportion of suffering, and they have all ia their turn been productive of horrors quite as dreadful as those teetotallers 'are accustomed to depict in connection^sraSt

dram-drinking. Few who have lived fifty years in, and seen the great world, can be ignorant of this fact, and there Is no 6ne who has read history to any purpose but knows it. I could point to a country with over a hundred and fifty millions of inhabitants, of whom, perhaps not one iv a hundred thousand drinks; and these millions are, individually aud socially, mentally and physically, in a worse couditiou than are the people in our most drunkeu towns and cities. Individually, instances of as great longevity are to be found among those who took their liquor as among those who did not, and nationally, Our virile British people, who drink, vn'll compare advantageously with the pusillanimous Hindoo or supine Mahometan; and, coming nearer home, with some of our' Continental neighbours who sip their gingerbeer and lemonade, and who know not the taste of generous wine nor the health-giving properties of a draught of genuine English ale. I beg to add that I have no interest whatever in the "liquor traffic," nor ami in any way connected with the production or sale of liquor, bnt I am, on principles which I should be happy to explain did opportunity offer, opposed to all Butopian schemes for man's salvation, knowing that the regeneration of the race is decreed, and in due time it will become an accomplished fact, but without the interference of Good Templars. Your, &c., Anti-TeetOTAXLEB. Christchurch, January 26, 1874.