SERMONS IN PERPETUITY

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 55, 7 March 1927, Page 18

SERMONS IN PERPETUITY

"TEMPERANCE IN ALL THINGS."

A paradoxical position has arisen in Bradford (England), where an hotel li T cense has endowed annual temperance semons to be preached in perpetuity at St. Stephen's Ohurch, Bowling. The man responsible is Mr. Albert Cowling, a well-known publican, whose hostelry has been licensed for 160 years, and has been in the hands of the Cowling family for over seventy years. The endowment fund, which totals' £100, has been handed over to the church authorities, and it is estimated that it will produce £5 a year, which will go to the vicar of the church as fee for preaching the sermons. ■ There will be two each year-fit the morning; and evening service oh a given Sunday shortly before Easter. The:terms of the deed provide that the preacher shall treat of "temperanue in all things," and it is understood that the Bishop of Bradford (Dr. Perowne) has acquiesced in the arrangement. "Are not the sermons calculated to damage your business, "a "Daily Dispatch" representative asked Mr. Cowling.- "Not at all," he replied. "What we want in the public house is the man who will come and take a drink or two in a reasonable way and go out sober. People who get drunk are no good to our trade. They are a nuisance on the premises, they are a nuisance in the home, they lower the reputation of the business, and they endanger our licenses. Drink in moderation, however, does no man any harm; To the contrary, I think it does him definite good. I am a moderate drinker myself—not an .abstainer, as gome seem to think;'J