TEMPERANCE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 813, 30 September 1887, Page 7

TEMPERANCE.

THE SALOON AND THE CHURCH. The fact is that the Church is bound to lift up its voice against this abuse continually. The sluggish neglect with which the community generally regards the familiar evil should only be an additional incentive to zealous denunciation. The saloon in politics lowers the whole tone of society. If it keeps politics corrupt, it also deadens religion, interferes with intellectual progress, popularises all mean and vulgar things and ideas, brutalises the amusements 1 of the people generally, and degrades the prevailing standard of morals and manners. Unfortunately the lack of accord between the Churches hinders them from, bringing concentrated influence to bear upon the evil. The saloon is one. It is organised, harmonious, welldisciplined. The churches are divided, discordant, disorganised. Here and there a pulpit utters a note of protest or denunciation, but there is not, and at present cannot be, any concerted action; and so the public opinion that should be forced into one solid column is wasted and scattered, and the worst enemy of society reaps the advantage of this absence of harmony and concentration. Against a united Church the saloon in politics could hardly maintain itself; but when will it be confronted with such an opponent?’—New York Tribune.

A CLERGYMAN’S TESTIMONY. Writing to the Record ‘ A Septuagenarian Clergyman’ says: ‘When—more than a quarter of a century ago—l came to the conclusion that “for the present distress” it was good for one who had to watch for souls not to take strong drink as a beverage, I made my account for a battle with my own sensations and with the doctors. The first came in the course of a few weeks, and lasted for more than a year. The last arrived three or four years afterwards, on the heels of a somewhat serious illness. I was told that what I wanted was a liberal allowance of port wine. Had I taken the advice, I would probably before this have followed my adviser to an early grave.. As it was on recovering from the illness I went on with my prescribed rule, and, as a consequence, I have found in succeeding years a disappearance of former ailments, and an inorease of bodily and mental vigour, enabling me to go through a consderable amount of intellectual, and at times physical labour with an ease to which I was a stranger when 1 was ayounger man. But then it was no part of my experiment to ‘ digest easily great masses of food.’ On the contrary, having no help from alcohol in stimulating the digestion to undue exertion, I was content to allow the appetite to follow its natural dictates. It has thus regained its normal condition, which, I am bold to say, is one tolerating less food—notably less animal food—than is usually taken. The more perfect nutrition produced by the smaller quantity repairs the waste both of muscular and brain tissue more speedily and more durable than the “ great masses ” would do under the artificial excitement of alcohol. And the system escapes the long train of diseases which the ally in question, when once called in, is apt to leave behind him.’