TEMPERANCE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume I, Issue 26, 26 December 1861, Page 3

TEMPERANCE.

The Saturday Review told working men that, if they have a shilling to spend on food they had belter spend ninepence on bread and meat and threepence in alcoholic drinks, and they will be better and stronger than if they spent the shilling in meat and bread and washed it down with cold water. In reply to that we tell them as a sample the facts with reference to the sick club at Preston, detailed in Dr. Miller’s book on Nephalism. There, one thousand persons have been taken, one thousand ordinary drinkers, and one thousand teetotallers. It was found, that in the case of the drinkers during the year, twenty-three persons were ill for fiftythree days, at an average cost of £2 165., whereas on the teetotal side only thirteen persons were ill during twenty-three days at a cost of £1 Os. Putting the figures in another way, drinkers twentythree, teetotallers thirteen, drinkers ill fiftty-six days, teetotallers twenty-three days ; drinkers cost £2 IGs., teetotallers £1 9s. There is your fact. Against the Saturday Review, wo may say that we who insure our lives in the Temperance and General Life Office, received only the other day a printed statement to the effect that a bonus was becoming due, and that those of us who had signed annually the teetotal pledge to the officers of the association, would receive a bonus of at least twenty per cent, higher than those who did not sign the pledge ; our lives being so much better. Well, then, with such facts as these, facts verified by working men at all our meetings, I have heard myself—carpenters, bricklayers, and sewer-fludi-ers, tell us that they are better, stronger, and happier in every way on cold water than on beer, ai d with such facts we will still manage to survive the Saturday Review. We survive banter and ridicule ; we arc quite willing, sir, to be occasionally laughed at; we are so ; of course we do not mind a bit. We are so benevolent, that if we give pleasure to other peonls it is a very croat satisfaction

to ourselves. They may say, if it pleases them, the only pictures we admire are pictures of waterfalls, that the only place we like to live at is the waterside, that the only vegetable that we eat is watercresses, that our favourite fruit is water melons, that our constant diet is water gruel. And that the only song we sing is “The Jolly Young Waterman and we are very well content to let them have the laugh at us when wo know that there are thousands of firesides in this England of ours whore a song is sung in the heart if not in the lips, which was never known before we taught it, “Horae Sweet Home.” And we remembeT the old adage, “ Let them laugh who win,” and as we know we are on the winning side we will lau"-h the loudest. At any rate, though they ridicule our cold water, they cannot say, as wo can of the strong drink, putting a good deal into one sentence, that it drives the elbows out of the coat, the health out of the bones, the wit out of the brain and the love out of the heart ; that it pull the purse out ot the pocket, the cake out of the cupboard, the bedding out of the bed, peace out of the party, quietness out of the conscience, and salvation out ot the soul. W e can survive the criticisms of the theologians ; w-o have long ago refuted the calumny and need not repeat it a,Tain, that “ \ve put the teetotal pledge in the place of Christian laith, and substitute a human expedient for the grace of God.” Ao such thing; Christian faith leads us to adopt the teetotal pledge, and the grace of God enables us to deny ourselves for the benefit of our brother man. Tectotalism is nothing apart from the Gospel, any more than rag-ged-schools,—any more than benevolent associations of any kind. Oh :it is the Gospel which animates the promoters of all these enterprises, and that sheds its benignant smile upon all. It is not true that we have got the wooden saw, tcetotalism, which only covers ourselves with sawdust and confusion ; but is is true that in the good old steel saw of the G ospol, we so sharpen and shape some of the teeth as to adapt them to a special exigency. That saw having been entrustted to the Christian Church so to sharpen it in adaptation to the times that it may be always best fitted to go through the material on which we are working. —The Itcu. Newman Hall.