TEMPERANCE MEETINGS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14354, 26 October 1908, Page 2

TEMPERANCE MEETINGS.

REV. L. M. ISITT AT TIIE CARRISt)N HALT/. Tho lower portion of tho Garrison Hall was about throe parts full ye.iterday afternoon when the Rev. L. M. isitt gave the first of a number. of addresses which he intends to deliver in Dtmedin this week The Rev. W. Slado prceidd.

Mr Isitt is one of tho most forcible speakers in the ranks of lihc Temperance party in the Dominion. He is well known in Duncdin, as ho is in nearly every other part of New Zealand, and when ho rose to speak ho received a very hearty welcome. In his address that afternoon, ho said, he wanted t every man and every woman associated with tho no-license movement to recognise that they wore part and parcel of a giant reform. Only God understood what the movement, meant in the uplifting of the'human race. The reason they stood there that- day absolutely and uncompromisingly antagonistic to the liquor traffic and to the liquor Habit they claimed that centuries of experience and the lost half-century of careful .study had convincai every inteilig«nt man that alcohol as a beverage was a .scientific stupidity. It did not work nil sorts of good: it worked ill and ill con-, tinuouslv, and therefore they were not prepared to save and pitch tip a system that could never be run lo the. good of mankind. They said the tiling was utterly evil, and i hat |ho_ comnven-seuso way to deal with it was lo snuff it out of existence.—(Applause.') It was three years sinos lie was last in JDuuedin. and those years had been years of progress. Ho did not know hpw many districts they would win. .•for flo-lieere-c or how many (hoy would fail to win, but ho was confident that they 'would poll a bigger vote for no-licensc in Now Zealand at the next poll than they had ever polled before.—(Applause.) A few weeks ngo lie started travelling through the North Island, and lie had been delighted and astonished at the waj' things were working, at Mm'sentiment he found prevailing'everywhere, and at the number of men who a few years ago were antagonistic and who were to-day declaring that they would strike out the top line.—(Applause.) No-license did not have only tho support of tho convinced tectotallere,/ but what astonished him was that in the circle usually roaarded as hostile the Mine determination existed. Ho'was in Waihi a few weeks ago, and on a Sunday afternoon spoke to a block meeting of 600 or 700 miners. He had been told that the minors thero did not care for two ■persons—parsons and mine managers. But they gave him a most courteous and patient hearing; they followed every point he made with keenness, and at tho close of tho meeting one jnan put the position to him in this opigrimattie form: "I ain't a teetotaller, hut this (adjective) business has Skimmed the cream off our pail of milk long enough, and inc and my. mates is going to strike out the top line."—(Applause.) During his ■ lifo, ( while lie had altered his opinions on all .sorts of matteis, so far as the liquor question was concerned, . although be had honestly given it all the study ho could and had read everything 'for and against be could lay his hands on, ho had never had a doubt, and to-day lie was more firmly convinced than over that .in fighting against tho licensed liquor bar and against the uso of alcohol as a beverage they were on tiho 6ide of right, truth, common sense, and righteousness, and that God was with thorn.—(Applause.) Mr Isitt also referred to the testimony of tho medical profession as to the harmful effects of alcohol and to the changed attitude of the churches to-day towards tho drink traffic. Their Anglican friends wero also joining them. Look at tho resolution of tho Auckland Synod,—(Applause.) There was something wrong when the churches were 'not doing more to reach ar.d influence the masses of the people, awl they wero never going to seize upon the masses of the people or to make Duncdin and Wellington and Christchurch and Auckland the cities of the Dominion that thev ought, to he until side by side with evangelistic effort thoy realised far niore clearly than they bad ever done the responsibility of Christian citizenship that lay upon them, and as part of tho warp and woof of their religious life they worked as ought to work, definitely and enthusiastically, for the overthrow of every condition that made for the degradation of man and for tho establishment of everything that tended to level u ptlio moral and the physical and the mental conditions of the people.— .pplauGO.) Lost evening tho hall was almost packed. Tho Rev. Mr Isitt spoke from the words "Wherefore, if meat mako my brother to offend, I shall eat no flesh while tho world slandelh, lest I make my brother to offend." In tho course of his remarks ho said that during the last sevoayaars 35,000 people in New Zealand had lwnn arrested as first oft'endom for drunkenness.