ECCLESIASTICAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9830, 27 May 1895, Page 3

ECCLESIASTICAL.

Anniversary missionary sermons were preached yesterday at the United Free Methodist Church, Pitt and Vincent-streets. The Rev. D. McNicoll preached in the morning from Acts iii. 21. In the coarse of his sermon he referred I to the China Inland Mission and mission work in South Africa, and particularly to Wesleyan mission work in Fiji, in which the Rev. F. B. Langham had borne a par*. Mr. Crabb preached in the afternoon, his discourse being principally on temperance matters, from the passage in Nehemiah, " Be not ye afraid of them ; remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wires, and your houses." A collection was taken up for Home and Foreign Missions. la the evening Mr. Crabb again preached, his text being Romans viii., 17, his subject being,two phases of Christian life, suffering: and glorification. There were good congrega- ] tions throughout the day. 5 Mr. Crabb, Grand Lodge lecturer, 1.0. G.T., New South Wales, opened a week's temperance mission last evening, at St. James's Hall. There was a good attendance, the hall being comfortably filled. The Rev. A. Peters presided. After the singing of the hymn, Toiling On," the chairman engaged in prayer. The hymn, "Rescue the Perishing," was then sung, after which the chairman suitably introduced the lecturer, who stated his subject was "Nuts to Crack; or, the Temperance Question from a Scriptural Standpoint." He said there were sixtysix passages in Scripture denouncing intoxicating liquor, and bearing with it God's curse, and 56 passages in which unintoxicating liquor was referred to associ- | ated with God's blessing. Before the Flood Noah was honoured of God, as a social reformer. After the Flood, when "he drank of the wine and was drunken," he disappeared from the page of history as a man of usefulness. Samson, the strongest man who over lived, was a Nazarite. Proverbs contained strong denunciations of drink. Isaiah was practically a temperance lecturer, while the Minor Prophets bitterly denounced strong drink. Daniel and his Hebrew companions who lived on pulse and water "appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat of the portion of the king's meat, thus Melgar took away tho portion of their meat, and the wine that they should drink.'" The New Testament was just as good a guide to the temperance people as the Old Testament. He denied that the wine made at the marriage feast of Cana in Galilee was intoxicating, as the whole surrounding circumstances showed otherwise. With regard to Paul's injunction to Timothy, the early Christians, in contradistinction to the heathen who offered intoxicating wine to idols, used a sort of congealed fruit or jelly, which was diluted in water. Coming down to modern times, Wesley made it a condition of membership with both preachers and members of his communion that they should be total abstainers, and the Church to-day would be stronger and better if this rule were universally observed and enforced.