SOCIAL PROBLEMS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1028, 18 January 1911, Page 6

SOCIAL PROBLEMS.

THE VOICE OF METHODISM. THREE ADDRESSES. ■The Concovt Chamber at the Town Hall was well filled last eveuing, wheii addresses on public questions wero delivered by ministers who have coiuo to "Wellington to attend the annual conference of the Primitive Methodist Church. The Rev. G. H. Mann presided, Mr. AY. Dobbs being vice-chairman. Solos were rendered during tho evening by Messrs. G. Higgott, V. Cutforthj and Miss Ida Snelby. A particularly bright feature was the chorus-singing of tho children of the AVebb Street Sunday School. In a preliminary oddress, Mr. W. Dobbs apologised for the absence, on account of ill-health, of Mr. D. Goldie, who was to have presided over. the meeting. THE GREATEST EVIL. The Rev. S. Henderson spoke on "Tho Driuk Curse/' was, he- said, the greatest public question now demanding notice. John Burns had said that the liquor vino had three clusters—pleasure, intoxication, and outrage. In Great Britain one hundred and twenty thousand souls wero slain every year through strong drink, and throughout tho world one million. Neither war nor pestilence were so frightful i& their ravages as strong drink. New Zealand had been called God's own country, but it had been said, by experts, that in this country there were twenty thousand drunkards and two thousand deaths annually were due to drink. In Africa tho natives caught monkeys by making them drunk on native beer, and.beer here bamboozled men just as effectively as it did monkeys. No greater condemnation. of auy trado could be imagined than the legislative provision which in New Zealand forbade the sale »of • liquor to lads under the age of twenty-one years.

THE GAMBLING EVIL. The Rev. E. Drake dealt with "The Gambling Evil." • Prom the time of Henry VIII right down to the prcseut day, he declared, attempts had been made by legislation to curb this great evil. It had been argued that tho tendency to gamble was instinctive, but this was no reason .why the' vice should be pandered to. The essence of gambling was an ahan'donment of reason. Legislation put on the Statute-book in New Zealand had a very long way towards ..solving this problem, and they ought to be very thankful to tho Government for taking pains to limit the vice. The speaker believed that a majority of our legislators wero sincere in their desire to curb the gambling evil.

/A DIVINE MESSAGE. The final speaker of the evening, the Rev. G. lvnowles-Smith, delivered an eloquent address ou. the subject of the "Church and the Masses/' Two- banal facts, ho said, must be clearly understood. The iirst was. that the Church was not, and never had been, absolutely essential to God or man, and the second was that the snirit of indifferentism rather than of antagonism was the prevailing attitude of tho vast majority of tho uon-churchgoing masses. It was true that God had used the Church to convey to the world the greatest and grandest revelations of His will and work, but more than once in history tho Church had arrogated to herself powers not rightfully hers, or rested on some fancied absolute and despotic authority over men. In all such cases God had vindidated Himself, and raised up other agents or agencies. Tho Church. had no prerogative to demand attention to her ordinances. It was true,. gloriously true, that' in tho past the voicc of the Church had been the voice of God, but unless sho still hail a Divine-messago and-faithfully delivered tho truth, sho had no claim upon the car of the-people. Sympathy and not scourging, said the speaker, at a later stage of his address, would win back to God and the Church thoso ivho had lost their manhood and womanhood, and sank into the depths of sin and all its attendant miseries. The remedy was in the hands .of tho Church, 'l'he true messago of the Church to tho -syorld . was tho word . .of God. Body, soul, spirit, 'our salvation, were not mere pords in the dictionary of theological terms;-words with which a profession could juggle, but tho nomenclature of great and eternal facts.