TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14684, 18 November 1909, Page 3

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

ALCOHOL AND THE HOME. MR AND MRS BRAMWELL BOOTH, (Continued from last week.) DETRIMENTAL TO AUTHORITY. 4. Alcohol tends to weaken and ultimately overthrow the authority of tho family, to the great injury o[ the children.

Discipline is a part of life. Without it the world would be a chaos of disorder, if not a hell of despair.- The discipline which the world gives is based on the operation of unchanging law. If wo aro to produce men and women who will work in harmony with that law, and who will obtain by such work results leading to their own peacc and to the well-being of others, they must be trained in the acceptance, and, as fa. as may be, in the appreciation, of the discipline adapted to their earlyyears. The father, tire mother., are to command their cnildren (before God); the simple rules of home are to represent the parents' mind, and the penalties attached to 1 heir negleect, tho measure of the * parents' _ condemnation for their breach; all this is to exalt authority and to train in its acceptance, so that by-and-bye the young citizens may descend int'u the world's arena possessed by tho steady purpose of resolute men, but ready, while seeking freedom for themselves, to observe the laws of equal freedom for others. But how can such training bo possible if the father—or, nore dreadful still, tho mother is seen to be a self-induglent habitue of the dram-shop, or, worse still, is known to bo quietly drinking the poison on the By? The young people instinctively lose their natural respect iov such a father Ilia word ceases to be anything to them. His jaw loses its claims upon them. His punishments are tiansformec! into brutal injustices in their eyes. Little by little, and more and more, that righteous fear ivhich was tho beginning of wisdom in them, is destroyed, and in their tiny sphcic they sir© translated into neglectors and despirers of all authority. The father, who ought to have been the emblem of all lawful power to them—the representative of God Himself—is become as but a chip of wood on the waters of a sensual life. Perhaps in nothing is the evil effect of the use of intoxicants fraught with more gravity for the future than in this. Here is the degradation and destruction, at its very 6ource, of that lawful and natural authority without the recognition of which the human home would' be little better than a habitation of wild beasts. AN ALLY OF BASENESS. 5. Alcohol opens the door of tho home to the most vicious forms of self-indul-gence and impurity. "Leave the door open," says the old adage, "and the devil will como in," Who can doubt that it is so here? The home—no matter how humble—was designed to be tho sheltered harbour of innocence, the temple of lovo for one woman

by one man, and the field in which appetito is subjected t« reason and controlled by affection. But only let alcohol enter there, und the door, is, ever after, open for all that represents the antipodes of restraint, or chastity, and of purity. Strong drink incites appetite, changes the sweetest love of earth into lust, which being denied becomes hate, and carries men away into license and vice. It is always tho faithful ally of the baser nature. It is ever the friend of tho beast m man. Impurity in one form or another is, perhaps, tho greatest danger o! the new century facing tho Western nations. On every hand, its prewnce and power coilfront US-young and old-rich and poor alike. Who can doubt—certainly we of Salvation Army cannot—that intoxicating liquors open the door of tho home —aye, of the very nursery—to this t'oui and soul-destroving fiend; und when once he is admitted stand firmly by Jiini as ail auxiliary and confederate in the work of moral and physical destruction which ever

accompanies his pce.senco? 6. Alcoholism is the implacable enemy of all that belongs to the ethical advance of the community. Nowhere is there such an opeiiing for the moral and spiritual cultivation 0° tho people as in the home. There,■t in the highest degree, the influences of unselfish love and tho example of disinterested de\otion are potent tactors in the training and encouragement of all that is good in man. It is there that the leaven of Jesus Uinst's teaching will most readily enter the human soul, leading it to covet lowlmcss, to be patient in injustices, and to welcome even dishonour for TruthY, sab. No alter-inlluences can achieve for tho youth of our peoples what can bo accomplished at home. It seems to 11s, who Hlld in. all the wise arrangements of human life evidences of a Divine solicitude, that fami.r life was leally designed for the very purpose of rooting tho young trees planted thero in all that is true and honourable _ and bravo and pure, That it is by Divine appointment intended to be the great school of moral.';--!hat. there should meet the Umdcrest influences oi earthly affection and the first revelation of the love of God, both alike inspiring to a life of goodness and of labour for others. FOE TO GOD AND MAN. Alcohol is the foe of all those sacred things. Its uso weakens the ability to discern between that which is evil and that which is good It emboldens nien to neglect God, lb sets up false staiidajils of duty and ambition, standards, that is, which aro warped and dwarfed by tho claims of indulgence Alcohol confuses conscience until it cails right wrong and wrong right, It exalts pi went advantage and nulls the power of nobler ambition. In short, alcohol is the handmaid of the lifo of senso, of fleshly gratification, of passion, to tho refusal of tho higher life of self-respect, . of self-denial, and 01 KicrilicD.

Once the drink habit is entrenched in tlio home, all those baneful antagonisms manifest themselves in a thousand ways. The childien feel them; the grown youths and maidens suffer from them; the visitors and friends, the servants and attendants— if such thero be—do jiot escape their inilucnces, and tho heads of the family receive back a further dreadful impetus on the way to moral and spiritual atrophy and death. Tlio home so degraded, instead of a nursery of moral beauty and of spiritual lie, becomes little more than a charnel-house of dead or dving souls. For the reasons here briefly referred to, we of the Salvation Army say that strong drink ought to bo banished from the home, fro 11 tlio Church—which » the earthly home of tho family of Christ—and from the use of all civilised peoples. And on the-so grounds wo have, in Gor's name, already and for ever banished the accursed things from all our borders. VITAL STATISTICS. (Per United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, November 14. I he following ore the vital statistics for October £•2 £.2 &. js raS «c. - - "1 S an - ~ o § •■3.2 t g oS ffl R £ 0 Auckland aud suburbs.. 75,343 1?" w o.S Wellington and suburbs 73,6G7 155 51 O.SJ Cliristchurch and suburbs 62,096 156 46 0.71 Dunedin and suburbs . 61,279 135 57 0 93 Onmitfu 5.257 11 5 0.95 Invcrcargill (Greater) .. 13,700 46 11 0.80 lh'3 total births in tho four principal oentres amounted to 623, as against 701 in Septcmbei— a decrease of 78. Tho deatlis in October woro 203—a decrease of 13 on tho number in Scptombor, Of tho total deaths, males contributed 103 and females 100. Forty-three of the deatlw were of children under five yeaw of age, being 21.18 per cent, of the whole number, and 36 of theso were under one year of age. There were To deaths of persons of 65 years and upwards. 'Nine men (67, 67, 67, 68, £>8, 72, 72, 77, 89) and seven women (65, 68, 68, 71, 72, r i, 79) died at Auckland, seven men (63, 70, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78) and six women (65, 71; 76, 77, 87, 87) at Wellington, 12 men (63, 71, 71, 71, 72, 73, 73, 76, 80, 80, 31, 83) and 10 women (65, 68, 69, 71, 72, 72,

73, 76, 77, 78) at Christchureh, and 15 men (65, 65, 65, 65, 70, 74, 75, 75, 75, 75, 76, 76. 73, Bb, 85) and 12 women (66, 67, 69, 70, 70, 71, 72, 76, 78, 82, 83, 85) at Dunedin.