A SERMON ON TRUTH.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1272, 30 October 1911, Page 6

A SERMON ON TRUTH.

AN EGREGIOUS AND MANIFEST FAILURE. PROHIBITION "FOUNDED UPON A LIE." "Know the Truth and tho Truth shall set you free."—John 8, 32. ■pREACHING on "Truth" at St. John's -*■ Church, Stockton, recently, file vicar, the Kev. F. S. Willoughby said:—"Of all pampered, petted, and pattcd-on-thc-back 'isms' in the last (say) half century, I should class Prohibitionism amongst the very lirst. All its peculiar nostrums and vanities have occupied tho stage hero or there, more or less. So much so is tills the case, that it is safe to say that all its many and various jerrymanderings and poltrooneries have boon abundantly tried, and most of them as abundantly found wanting, in that where they are supposed to cffect' a cure, they invariably increase what they wanted to cure in another direction. And why should this be so? It is because the foundation of Prohibitionism is built on the shifting sand of a grotesque assumption or illusion. .It confuses drinking with drunkenness, and in order to keep on its tirade against the former it boldly transfers the denunciations contained in Holy Scripture against drunkenness to drinking. It confuses, I repuat, drinking intoxicants with drunkenness. To bolster up this impossible tcnot which results from its mental confusion, it resorts to tho pious fraud plan, and works its trumped-up mixed medley of things that differ as true for all it is worth. And with what result? I will tell you. Its objective when seemingly gained always successfully eludes its grasp."

After extolling the Truth and its power to free men from all forms of the bondago of evil tho reverend gentleman concluded:—

"I have no hesitation in saying that our prohibition-mongering is an egregious and manifest failure. It is founded on a lie. It has brought out licensing legislation into the most befogged and befooled muddlo imaginable. It has imposed guards on drunkenness with ono hand, and opened concurrently other channels for it galore with tho other. It has undormined religion in our land. Much of the indiffcrcuco wo see around us was bred in teetotal circles, where taking no intoxicants was taught as the sum and substance of Christianity. As I said before, prohibitionism has had an unimpeded innings in our land, its pious, fraudulent tales have been allowed every hearing and practical help by legislation and administration; and the propagation of its specific t'arradiddlo has begotten tarradiddles in the public mind."

Therefore, if the people would pnt an end to a movement that lives ostensibly upon tarradiddlos and is founded upon a lie, they will strike out the bottom lines on bot'h ballot papers. Every lover of truo temperance will do it.