GOOD TEMPLARISM.

Press, Volume XXII, Issue 2647, 30 January 1874, Page 3

GOOD TEMPLARISM.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE TRESS. Sir,—ln your issue of yesterday appears a letter from " Anti-Teetotaller" in which the moaand the mammoth, the Hindoo, and • the Mahommedan, the, nun and the priest, and last, though not ieast, the Good Templar, are mixed up together with a versatility and ingenuity quite unique in its style, and would only be looked upon'as oue of the usual absurd phillipics against the grand object, and the hitherto grand success of Good Templarism, but that there is in the gross sophistry of the letter an appearance of reasoning which to the unthinking and perhaps wavering mind might possibly carry some little weight. The sum and substance of the writer's long letter become of nutshell proportions when one had waded through the unnecessary verbiage, and just amount to this, that because several of the " greatest intellects the world ever saw have still been at work to reform the race, still the race has yet to be reformed." There should be no effort on the part of any other body or bodies of men to do good to manhood, or " because a man has lied, is he henceforth to forego the use of speech ?" Is this the style of reasoning to be indulged in on subjects such as these ? Is there any parity of reasoning between a drunkard becoming a teetotaller and a man foregoing speech ? No, none whatever. Neither is there in any other of his apt and ingenious similies. In fact to the enquiring and thoughtful mind the very queries bear their refutation upon the face of them. But in the paragraph lastly indulged in, he at length comes, I suppose by accident, in contact with a fact, a quotation from the lecture which hurt him so much, viz, " nearly all evils which afflict society have their fountain and origin in the liquor traffic," and then writes " The assertion is not agreeable to fact," following up by pointing oat with his usual casuistry the superiority of British people over Hindoos or Mahomedans, though the former did drink English ale. "What! compare the Eastern hordes of uncivilised barbarians and untutored savages with the men of Britain, with the inhabitants of civilised and christianised Albion, Hibernia, and Scotia; fie on him that his eagerness in argument should let him travel so far outside the bounds of reason. Sir, it is my belief, as well as that of many thousands of Good Templars, that in the carrying out, spreading, and exercising of the principles of the order, a great good and incalculable benefit will be conferred upon mankind ; and notwithstanding the horror of your correspondent to all Utopian schemes for mam's benefit, the time will come and is not far distant when the monster liquor will sink his diminished head, and Bacchus will be god of the past only. In conclusion, it may be stated very briefly that no doubt whatever exists " that nearly all the evils which afflict society have their fountain and origin in the liquor traffic," and consequently any order or body of men who in the least diminish its use do a real good. I am, Sir, yours, &c, Dauntless No. 14. Tuam street, Christchurch, Jan. 29th, 1874