CHRISTIANITY AND THE PROHIBITION SCHISM.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1289, 12 November 1896, Page 19

CHRISTIANITY AND THE PROHIBITION SCHISM.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—Mr John Plimmer having forwarded you a letter on the above subject, with your kind permission, I also should like to have a say on the matter. There is no doubt your correspondent J.P. looks at the subject through gold-rimmed spectacles. In the 6th chapter of Genesis, sth verse, we read, " And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" ; 7th verse, " And the Lord said I' will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth" ; Bth verse, "But Noah found grace (or favour) in the eyes of the Lord"; 9th verse, "Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generation (a very bad one), and Noah walked with God." And so did Adam and Eve till the woman began flirting with the devil. Will Mr Plimmer kindly put on his ordinary specs, and read the evil fruits that Noah's drunkenness produced. Gen., Oth chap., 20 to 27 v. : "And Noah began to be an husbandman, and ho planted a vineyard, and he drank' of the wine and was drunken, and ho was uncovered within his tent: and Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without ; and Shem and Japhefch took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father, and their faces were backward and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him; and he said cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.' And he said, ' Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant/" The cursing and blighting of the inhabitants of a Continent

■■:■ ~. V . \-- }.,f. with brutal murderous; slavery that ha,s continued-.for oyer 4000 years,, and which the. i millennium alone will end when the Gospel of our Lerd and Saviour Jesus <3h*isjb'.shall have ffb'e course ahdl be' glorified, when the Israelitish missionary will indeed reap a rich harvest of souls from slavish heathendom. I do not find Noah's conduct commended after his drunkenness. If you read Genesis, 19th chapter, 30-38 verse, you will find, in the case of Lot's daughters, of the use wine is put to by evilly-disposed persons. If Father Plimmer will read the 35th chapter of Jeremiah, he will find there what God's prophet thought of those who would not drink wine. The 6th verse says : —" We will drink ,no wine, for Jonadab; the son bf Reehab, our father; commanded lis, saying, 'Yo shall drink no' wine; neither ye nor your sons for ever'.' "

The l9th verse reads :—" Therefore, thug saith the Lord df Hosts, the God of Israel, Jonadab, the son of Bechab; shall not want a man to stand before me for ever;" And I doubt not* iii the restored kingdom of Israel and judah, the Rechabites will come to the fore, and their identity be as clear as the sun, and proof of the prophecy. And now, in reference to the wine at the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee. The question is : Was the wine that Jesus made intoxicating or not P Learned men differ on the subject. My idea is that it wad not intoxicating • it was new wine, and therefore unfermented, and consequently not intoxicating: If yon will get a bottle of unfermented wine as supplied for the communion services in many churches (I am thankful to say), I believe you will prefer it to much of the logw roodpolluted port that finds its -way to many markets. And now, sir, on Prohibition I am not rabid. I have been a total abstainer since 1857, and I think it is likely, ashore and afloat; my experience dxc'eeds Mr Plimmer's in a general way/ a 3 to, the blessing or otherwise of intoxicating.drinks; Ido hob like the word " Prohibition." All laws are prohibitory to sonde ohe or other—a terror to evildoers and a praise to those who do well. I believe in national option —the majority to rule. As Mr Martin Kennedy aptly put it in Dublin on the Irish question (vide New Zealand •Times, of October 15), " The majority must bind the minority." I will give you, sir, my idea of fair play as regards closing publichouses. I recognise a vested interest, but not to be compensated by cash, but by fair notice, according to the years each hotel has been established. For example, if national option became law, I would not close Barrett's Hotel, licensed in 1840, at the same time as the hotel licensed at Newtown in 1895. The one at Newtown should receive one, two, or three months' notice as the Legislature may determine ; the other, established 56 3'ears, should receive 56 times that amount ■ —or every hotel notice in proportion to the number of years it has been licensed. 1 would like to see fair play. If the people are anxious to be deli vet ed from temptation 3 by all that's good and gracious help them, not handicap them against their will by temptation to use strong drink.—l am, &c, P. G. Knight. Wellington, November 9th, 1896.