PRINCIPLES OF GO TO TEMPLARISM.

Clutha Leader, Volume I, Issue 27, 14 January 1875, Page 5

PRINCIPLES OF GO TO TEMPLARISM.

IjECTTJKB BY REV. ME BOSS. On Monday evening a lecture on this subject was delivered in the Presbyterian Church by the Rev Mr Ross (Queenstown) The attendance wa» good. The Rev Mr M'Ara occupied the chair: In introducing tbe lecturer, the chairman alluded to the necessity for such a lecture being given, so as to enable those who were not otherwise acquainted with the working of the order, to know and understand its benfits, and the objects aimed at by the society. Mr Ross commenced bis address by defining the origin of Good Templary,— how it was first introduced into New Zealand, about three years ago, by the Rev Mr Stan brook, a Presbyterian minister in Invercargill; its progress through New Zealand; and especially in Queenstown where he (Mr Ross) was an eye-witness of the great work the Good Templars were doing. In proceeding, the lecturer gave . several instance* ia which men had been '

raised Irom drunkenness to that of sobriety and respectability/ Even men who had been landlords of public-houses were now, he said, the most energetic members of the order. Homes that were most miserable bad been made happy, aud wretchedness supplanted by peace and happiness. He then went on to criticise the (would-be) objections to Good Templary, and also expounded his own opinions in regard to the matter before he fully understood the ob jects and working of the order. Tn dealing with this b-'anch of the subject, he stated that these objections were not to be compared with the good wrought by the prin ciples- of the order. In fact he did not consider them objections at all. With regard to religion it was, he maintained, a religious order, and there was nothing conflicting with Christianity in the slighn st degree.^ It was a brother and sistet hood, one striving to uphold tbe other aud keep him from falling. If one did fall it was not the object of the society to pounce upon him and: turn him out, but to try by every means in tbeir power to biing him back again and 'keep him in their mid?t. At tbe close of the lecture, which was listened to throughout with marked attention, the W.C.T. of the Hope of Balclutha Lodge e&ve a few details regarding the working of the order in Dunedin and elsewhere, especially as regards the progress of the order in Balclutha. The usual votes of thanks were duly proposed and most enthusiastically responded to, and the meeting closed with the benediction.