Rev.L.M. Isitt's Mission.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 213, 10 November 1896, Page 4

Rev.L.M. Isitt's Mission.

«, "ROBBERY FOR BURNT OFFERING." The Rev. L. M. Isitt commenced his Gore mission at the Town Hall on Sunday night. The building was well filled, a good number having to be accommodated with seats on the platform. The rev. gentleman, in his opening remarks, said that it was his intention of giving them a sermon on the right relation of the church to the liquor traffic. This was the subject of his discourse when he last visited Gore, but this time he wished to speak on another phase of the question. He took his text from I_aiah lxi and 8, " For I the Lord, love judgment ; I hate robbery for burnt offering." Carlyle had said that he believed not only in a gospel of love, but in a gospel of ha„ also. This was his (the speaker's) belief also. It might appear a strange statement to start an address with, but he had no sympathy with the immasculate, apologetic religion rife at the present time, which would apologise for the very Devil. There could be no true manhood or womanhood into which the element of hate did not enter. God had recognised the part which hate should play in the Christian life, as through the inspired lips of His prophet He said, " I love judgment ; I hate robbery for burnt offering." The speaker then went on to refer to the hypocrisy of modern times ; how in anyone with claims to religious belief it was held up to the hate of mankind generally. Hypocrisy was the cheapest form of religion in the world, and he frequently noticed that those who railed most against it objected to it in other people. How often did they hear men gloating over the fall of some pillar of the church from grace, boasting at the same time that they thanked God they were not hypocrites themselves ? They did not go about boasting that they were not thieves and murderers, yet hypocrisy was no more condoned by God than was sinning in those other ways. If they could find anywhere in the Bible that hypocrisy was condoned, then there might be some justification for their continually hurling at Christ the inconsistency of the lives of some of those bearing His name. There were a lot of counterfeit sovereigns and notes about, but were they going to discard money altogether on that account ? Coiners did not counterfeit brouze coins when they could counterfeit gold— no ; they chose the sterling article of most value ; consequently there being so many cou-iter-feits of religion in the world was a high compliment to religion, and showed the article was sterling. He had been accused of perverting the Scriptures to suit his own purpose, but what did the blood of bullocks and the fat of rams mean but the money of to-day ? "I hate robbery for burnt offering " said God, and he (the speaker) took it to mean the money that was made out of trade hurtful to God's people. If that money was not acceptable to God, then it should not be acceptable to the Christian Church for the prosecution of God's work on earth. This applied, in his opinion, to the money made from the brewery and liquor trade. The Rev. Mr Mackerras, at the Presbyterian Synod, had been indignant because he (the speaker) was supposed to have said that it was wrong for any minister to take a publican's money. He said no such thing. He thought it wrong in himself to do so, therefore it became a sin to him, and the reason he thought it wrong for the church to take the money and service of publicans was because it was made out of the robbery aud degradation of the people. The testimony of men in tho trade — and none knew better — had proved that conclusively. Every second day, all the year round, the secular newspapers of the colony chronicled a drink death. Did that not mean that the trade was one of robbery of men's purity, happiness, and substance ? Mr W. W. Collins had said that it was absurd for him (Mr Isitt) to say that the soil of the colony, wherever thickly populated, was red with the blood of victims of the driuk traffic. Why absurd ? They knew it to be the case, and even in the young town of Gore, if they put up a cross in Main street for every man and woman killed by the traffic, they would not be very proud of the result. Was it consistent to take the money made out of human degradation and ruin for the purpose of carrying on the work of God ? He said. No. Dr Richardson had computed that the liquor traffic was responsible for the blotting out of a million men, women, and children every year. The Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain (a bitter opponent of Prohibition) gave it as his opinion that tho trade destroyed in Great Britain every year one in every twenty of the inhabitants. So long as the Church took the money made out of the trade, she would be muzzled against raising her voice in its condemnation. When they took it they were guilty of deceiving the men connected with the trade ; lulling their consciences and leading them to suppose that the good they did with one hand, counterbalanced the evil done by the other. If they voted the liquor bars into existeuce for another three years, they would do the same amount of evil they had done during the past three years ; and had they had no liquor victims, no poor creatures whose end was hastened by the traffic ? If there was a mother present who could thank God for the good influence exerted over her son by the most respectable hotel bar in Gore, then she could go away and vote "license," and he would not quarrel with her. If they believed that the hotels would do no more harm than the grocery stores, and would run in harmony with the Sunday schools, then by all means let them vote for a continuance of the system. But if they believed that they existed upon the robbery and hurt of the people, then it was just as consistent for them to pray to God to bless the work they were doing as to vote them into existence . for another term. The meeting closed with the Benediction.