Temperance Column. THE CHURCH AND HER TRUE POSITION.

Evening Post, Volume XLVII, Issue 147, 23 June 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

Temperance Column. THE CHURCH AND HER TRUE POSITION.

At a meeting of the Dundee Free Church Office-bearers' Union, held recently, with ex-Provost Moncur presiding, the subject for discussion was "The Church and the Temperance.Question." Theopening paper waa read by Mr. J. H. Martin, who spoke of the rapid progress Temperance had made in the Church aince 1849. On the whole, he said, Dundee was fortunate in its civic rulers. Many men of pi'obity and high character freely gave of then timeand energy to the public service ; but the high level could not be maintained if those to whom tho people looked as leaders in the moral and spiritual sphere acted as if they cared little and did less for -what he might call municipal politics. It was the utmobt importance that those who were sent to the Council Board should be all-rouud good men. He did not think it was out with the constitution of the Union to take a lively interest in the November elections. Such action and interest would tend to invigorate the Society and greatly strengthen the moral tone of the city. At the same meeting, ex-Bailie Terrier said the Church had not yet taken her true position in regard to this matter. He hoped to see the day when the Church would tuke good care that no one holding office in it would be connected directly with tho drink traffic. And Rev. C. M. Gordon, a Canadian Presbyterian minister, contrasting the attitudes of the Scottish and Canadian Churches towards the drink traffic, said there were no church Temperance organisations in Canada, because it was taken for granted that all the Churches were solidly for Temperance. And ex-Bailie Moncur, the chairman, said that when the Church ordained that there should be total Prohibition the good day when that would ba obtained was not far off. There was a time coming when every minister in the Freo Church would be an abstainer.