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PROHIBITION.

[To THE Editos.] Sm, —I think it is decidedly unfair and most reprehensible for any one to deliberately attack another by name, and then conclude his epistle with a ««« tie jU It is un-English, unmanly and cowardly. Yonr correspond* nt No Lover of Shams'' ought to have left ont the first three words of his title. He'seeais to desire to give a few words of advice to ministers. He wants them to k>ave the iexppotr&oee question to right itself. , .That i*. A dog-ia-lhe-inangei policy* j iC'«A!T J* . -r

If all the reformers acted upon that advice, would bo the world today ? The mi 1' -t arc a-Ivi.--.od to think iill -ro tf "p 1 Christiani fcy." The Prohibition pnrtv in New Zealand are goiut? to tarn the tables at the no?:t election. The men who wiil not advance with public opinion, will bs left behind. My idea of practical Christianity is to uproot the very upas tree of wickedness, and make home 3 and hearts and lives brighter. King Khama, one of the African chiefs, said, " I dread the white man's drink more than all the assegias of my enemies." Charles Buxton, no mean authority, said, some time ago, " The straggle of the school, the library, and the Church, ail united against the beer-house and the gin-palace, is but development of the war between heaven and hell." Even Mahomet used to say that " Alcohol is the mother of sins," and Lord Beaconsfield said that the " Beer-shops are the curse of the country." Dr Adam C'iarke said that " Strong drink is not only man's way to the devil, hut the devil's way to man." Lord Bacon said that " Wine is the most powerful of all agents for exciting and inflaming th' pa^ions." Lord Wolselcy, to come down to the present, said, not long ago, that " Ninety per cent of the crime of the Annv is through Drink." Lord Chief Justice Coleridge cannot be pronounced by any man to be a faddist ; and he said that " every crime has its origin, more or less, in drunkenness." Gladstone said that " Its ravages are greater than pestilence, war, and famine combined." The Duke of Albany said that "The only terrible enemy Great Britain has to fear is strong drink." Joseph Chamberlain, the brewer's friend, says that " Drink is the curse of the country," and Professor F. YV. Newman said that " Intoxicating drink is the greatest factor of crime, pauperism, orphanhood, disease and insanity." The Great Surgeon, Sir Astley Cooper, said that '• I never suffer spirits in my house, thinking them evil spirits." As far back in history as the first century of the Christian era, we lind Seneca, the Roman philosopher, saying that "To argue that a man may take wine, and retain a right frame of mind, is as bad as to argue that he may take poison and not die." If strong drink is therefore such a curse, I fail to see why any man, who has the interests of the community at heart, could be quiet to allow it to be in full swing. The people of New Zealand are awaking up to the enormities of this evil, and the tide of public opinion will sweep the traffic away at the next election, when "No license " will be voted from one end of the colony to the other. Now to set " No Lover of Shams " a good example, in the hope that he will not stab another man in the dark, behind a coward's castle, I have very great pleasure in signing my full name, and I hope that if I ever write anything that I am ashamed to put my name to, I will have the manliness to burn it. —I am, yours &e., -John lloskixg. "Wesleyan Parsonage, Hastings, July 7, 1890.

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/HAST18960709.2.18.1

Bibliographic details

Hastings Standard, Issue 63, 9 July 1896, Page 4

Word Count
633

PROHIBITION. Hastings Standard, Issue 63, 9 July 1896, Page 4

PROHIBITION. Hastings Standard, Issue 63, 9 July 1896, Page 4

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