A Remarkable Sermon.

Evening Star, Issue 8772, 12 March 1892, Page 4

A Remarkable Sermon.

In the course of a recent sermon on 'lntemperance,' the Rev. Dr Strong, of Moibjurue, advocated the nationalisation of publichouses, He ia reported by the ' Ago' to have said:

Undoubtedly drunkenness is a crying evil and a serious menace to tho nation. This fact ia too patent to need proof, though 3ometimea we ftvgefc to shut our eyes to it. Many of us have only to recall our own experience, to summon up the namea and faces of old friends <;ud acquaintances, and the sad scenes v.'lu.'h we have had to witness, in order to briug vividly before ns the evils of drink. I sometimes thick of noting down in. writing ail the cases that have come under my own notice of men and women who have lost themselves and spread desolation around thorn through this form of intemperance. It would bo k bag sad list of all sorts and condition* of men and women, working people, d luturs, clergymen, business men, youug, old. And, doubtless, there are others hctc who cuuld tell the same dark story. How few arc there amongst us who have not lost one friend through drink, one relative who do not know of some of their acquaintances whose acute have been lost through slavery to this demon? What sorrow, what miatry, wh.it sad desoUtion of heart and home has its root in into. What cm be done to st.'.y the plague ? There are thoae who advocate total ab3tinc-.ee, and fur what the total abstainers have done to call attention to a great evil, and to rescue many from a fearful pit, we must all be grateful. For many people, too, nothing but total abstinence will do. They havo a hereditary weakness, or they are so constituted physically that drink maddens them even when taken in small quantities, But all men will not be teetotaller?, we may be assured of that, and wo have got to look at thiug3 as they are. We may lie total abstainer ourselves, feeling this to be the bc=.t for 113, and thereby we may do oar bos': to check the evil. We rauss in any case seo that the iovo of liqucr doe 3 not in spier us and make ua slaves. We cats, if we are young men, resolve never to contract the habit of drinking, tor it is often nothing but a habit contracted in youth without thought. Wo cm do something to discountenance drinking customs in business. Men have told me how hard it 13 to avoid drinking in business, The bargain has to be concluded in tho wine cup, and the buyer has to bo won over by being "shouted" for. We can set our faces against "nipping," as it is called, a custom which too large'ly prevails from early morning onwards. Wo can impress on children the danger of alcohol, and absolutely prohibit a child from touching strong drink. It is madness and folly to allow boys and girls to drink. Thty unconsciously contract habits in this way which may cause them sorrow and remorse in later years, and whatever may be our opinion about alcohol for adults, none of us can think it neceßsary for a child or a child's enjoyment. It ia a matter for thankfulness that lessons on temperance are now introduced into State schools. They should be taught in ail schools. For remember it is not the children of tho poorer, or working classes, who need to be taught the lesson of temperance. Much is said about the drinking habits of these elatmep, but they drink le»s perhaps on the whole than the " upper classes," and their poverty, if we are to trust some of the latest statistics given in ' Problems of Poverty/ a book which I recommend you all to read, is far less caused by drunkenness than it is often represented to be. But besides cultivating temperance in ourselves, and in our children, there is more, I think, which we might do and ought to do. We take revenue from public-houses and the sale of drink—drink which helps to breed the poverty which society has to relieve, and the diseases which affect all classes. The State, therefore, has a right and a duty. The State ought, in the first place, to provide hospitals or asylums for the cure of a disease which it helps to create, in which the drunken could be compulsorily detained, and, if possible, cured. It is nonsense to talk of the liberty of the subject. Are we not to think of the precious liberty of wives and children who are the slaves of drunken men ? The drunkard Las forfeited his right as a free man. But further than this, if the State {i.e., organised society) draws a revenue from drink, and if society has to bear the burden of poverty, and so run the risk of the disease which springs from drink or poverty, ought it not to take the whole liquor traffic under its supervision and control ? I can see no effectual remedy for present abußea but the State control of the publiohouaes. This is no doubt surrounded with many practical difficulties, but any accompanying drawbacks seem more than counterbalanced by the fearful drawbacks and dangers of the present system. The liquor, we might expect, would then be genuine, and not half so intoxicating and hurtful as it often is. There would bo no temptation to adulterate, or to sell maddening stuff. It would not be anyone's interest to tempt people to drink, and the publichouses would be improved in character and cease to be associated with scenes of rioting or excess. "You cannot make men sober by Act of Parliament." No. But it is a mockery to tell poor degraded people, who have lost their free will, and children who have not yet found it, to be temperate, and then to put down as their drawing room and recreation ground a little public-house at every corner. Can you wonder if people who have no lawns, no gardens, and who are to be seen on a hot summer evening Hquatting on *he pavements by the gutter streams, betake themselves to the public-houses which you beset them with, behind and before ? Surely common sense must tell ub what folly and even wickedness there is in this, and what hypocrisy it is in us after doing this to talk of the loathsome drinking habits of the " lower orders," and •.ietd missionaries to convert them. It seems to m«j to be the duty of the State now to t-ake up this question. Only by society as a whole can this gigantic evil be coped with. Bat, after al! is said and done, we come .back to what we started with. Temperance ia a character flowing ont of Christian reason and love. And true temperance can only be reached by the effort of eaoh to cultivate that character, and by an uplifting of the whole ideal of human life. Such an uplifting seems to have begun. We shall be temperate when we adopt the human ideal of life, and drop the animal and mechanical, and when we reorganise and remould society and all our institutions on the basis

of the rational and the spiritual. Our drunkenness ia bat one symptom of a disease, one form of that intemperance which has its root in our individual and sooial character. «' Be not drunkon," we read, " but be filled with the breath " of a new humanity.