CORRESPONDENCE.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9326, 29 January 1896, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

-*«■ TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Wβ cannot undertake to publish letters copies of which hare been sent to any other journal. Correspondents desiring insertion of their Communications should, therefore, send us a statement that they have not been and will not be forwarded to any other- paper. "PROHIBITIONIST" "GOOD TASTE." TO THE EDITOR OF THE PKKSS. SIR, —You apparently think that you have proved the Prohibitionist guilty of saying harsh and unkind things of tho drink victims about whom you wrote because you are able to quote a paragraph in which it said " Wa have heard of more unspeakably horrible things in connection with this woman who, but for drink, might have graced any home and position, than we have heard of any other." "You evidently think that these words can only refer to " horrible things" done by the poor creature, whereas in our minds were the things we knew that she had suffered. As I believe you to be completely blinded by prejudice against those who attack a trade it is to your interest to defend, I should despair of convincing you by the ■confidential narration of that awful story. I am, however, prepared to submit to, say, Bishop Julius, the consideration of the question as to whether it may not possibly be much more dreadful to hush up suoh stories entirely than to risk the remote probability of giving pain to distant relatives by stating facts that ought to touch every feeling heart and more the community to the destruction of the licensed evil under which they occur. Whether it be right or wrong, wise or unwise, to adopt our methods is a question upon which you have, of course, a right to express your opinion ; but for ourselves, we value that opinion as little as we do the clamour of the trade itself. When your brothers and ours go down before the drink as pool McGirr did, as, despite your protestations, we know that this poor woman's husband did—as scores do every year—when your sisters and ours come to tha untimely end of the poor woman whose memory you would pretend to guard more earnestly than you ever tried to save herself, we cannot fiud that you ever said one burning word in condemnation of the traffic that destroys them. But when, after taking these poor victims of the trade that you defend into our houses, spending our time, our money, our Btiength in the vain effort to save them, we speak in protest against being asked to perpetually sweep up the moral 61th that the trade creates, when we seek by every fair means to emphasise the horror of it, and when, with no thought bat a loving one, we point to the victims, and declare that God will avenge their licensed murder, we are met by you with a cant that v nauseating and a profession of philanthropy that is utterly belied by your indifference to the tragedies themselves. Believing your whole article to be written in the same spirit, I do not care to answer it further. —I am, &c, Thb Editor of the "Prohibitionist." [Right feeling is not to be instilled by argument, and if our correspondent . does not now realise the bad taste— to use ti o harsher term—of the issue of the Prohibitionist to which we drew attention, we are not hopeful of being able to bring him to * more wholesome frame of mind. We * would point out to the reverend gentleman, however, that he will not rehabilitate his character either for good taste or Christian charity by abusing those who differ from him, and imputing to them vulgar and sot did motives. In reference to his offer to submit the question he propounds to Bishop Julius, we shall be glad to know whether he is also prepared to refer the " Drinkeellers' Litany " and the parody on the Lord's Prayer to hie Lordship's judgment at the same time.—Kd. Press ] TO TUB EDITOR OF THE PKKSS. Sir, —It is due to a large number (perhaps the majority) of the members of his own particular denomination that the .general public, and especially the Christians of other churches, should know that Wesleyans not only disclaim any sympathy with the discreditable tactics of the Editor of the Prohibitionist in general, bat that they hold in utter detestation hie blasphemous parody recently published on the Lord's Prayer, and his holding up to contempt a portion of the beautiful ritual of the Church of Eogland. Since the appearance of this ribald and notorious article —whether he did actually write " Oar Ruler which art in Heaven " or "Oar Vather which art in Heaven," and when his fine distinction comes in I fail to

Mβ—many have expressed the feeling that to them the sanctity and beauty of thesi utterances of onr Lord have for the time been completely spoiled. With such thoughts in his mind, bovr this rev. person can stand and publicly repeat these devotional sentences as a supplement te his own exercises appears 03 a glaring inconsistency to many who would subscribe themselves the same as—Yours, <&c, Wesleyan. January 28th. P.S.—Many will thank yon for your trenchant and well-timed article in to-day's Press, and will cherish the hops that the Wesleyan Church Courts will put down with a strong hand such offensive conduct. W.