TEMPERANCE COLUMN

Otago Witness, Issue 2829, 3 June 1908, Page 15

TEMPERANCE COLUMN

NOT THE CHURCH BUT JESUS. HAVE THE CHURCHES DONE ALL THEIR DUTY IN THE GREAT BATTLE WITH LEGALISED LIQUOR SELLING? The following is taken from the National Prohibitionist, United States. Clinton N. Howard is a faithful Methodist, and one of the foremost orators in the- Temperance cause in the United States. • It has been noticeable during the late elections that nearly every place he has lectured in has g-one " drj- " at the elections following. In Rochester (his native city) hie popularity an-d drawing power ,are amazing. He has delivered over 300 addresses there, and his last series was crowded to overflowing. The words of such a man are worth pondering. Of course, conditions in New Zealand «,re not the same, but the lesson "to be learnt is the same. — Editor Temperance Column. Rochester, N.Y.. January 14. — (Special correspondence). — Clinton N. Howard made, yesterday, his third appearance in four weeks, before the Rochester preachers, addressing first the Presbyterian Association, then the Ministerial Association of the city, and yesterday the Methodist preachers' meeting at First Church. The subject asssigned to Mr Hovferd in yesterday's address was the outgrowth of his address two weeks ago, and was entitled " Sources and Meaning of the Ethical Wave." This third address did not meet with entire approbation as did the other two. At its close ministers were on their feet to take sides, some condemning and others warmly defending the statement* and conclusions of the speaker. The discussion grew so warm and general that time for debate was extended nearly one hour before peace and harmony were restored. One minister insisted that such a criticism could not be directed against the Methodist Church, that her voice was unmistakable in opposition to the saloon, and that years ago she had set up her standard that "It could never be legalised without sin." r Others, among the foremost, members. - admitted ' that METHODISM DID SAY and stopped right there, admitting -the -sin. and even the very bishops who wrote the declaration, keeping right on sinning, voting iri every succeeding election for the party that legalised the sin her voioa condemned, and that the famous declaration is not worth* paper it is written on until the church backs up what she eaid with her votes. That part of Mr Howard's address which awakened , tfye ariiption was- in part as follows : — Howard'.s Pkophet Voice. An ethical revival followed the execution of old John Brown. Standing by his dead body, from which slavery- ' had strangled his heroic soul, Wendell Phillips cried, " Marvellous old man ! He has.- abolished slavery in the land that slew him. History will date emancipation from His death. ' An ethical revolution" was on. and in six years the noose that sent John Brown to heaven became the halter that sent the slave power in the opposite direction. What was the source of that ethical awatoening? -> y Shall the impartial historian give the credit to a church that whipped William LJoyd Garrison from every church door and opened for .his phillipics against the curse of slavery the pnblip hall -of an infidel society of Boston? Shall it give the credit to a church that sawed the . floor from trader tKc pew of Wendell Phillips because he leaped over the bolted door with a black man as his guest in the house of the Lord? Shall the credit go to a church that, even .in Methodism, -expelled ministers of the Gosoel because they dared to preach against the curse of human bondage? To a church that Henry Ward Beecher said was " busy dusting the flitches of wornout truths that hung in the smoke house of decayed theology, while God was thundering through the age the rights of humanity with the voice of a trumpet?" Shall we lay ths laurel upon the brow of a church over Hvhose complicity with The curse Abraham Lincoln wept bitter tears, as ho looked over the canvass of the Protestant ministers in the city of Springfield and said, "Here are twenty-seven ministers of "the Gospel, and all of them arc against me except three.. I do not &o understand this Bible. I know that Christ teaches liberty, these men will find that they have not read their Bibles right." Shall the credit go to a church that taught, a& did the president of Brown University, as late as 1840, that a man could be a Christian and steal a man, and bo damned if ho eiole a sheep? Examples could be multiplied that might help answer the question, Did this ethical awakening that liberated the American slave hare its source and power in the church? If not, where then did it rise? Of Garrison, Lowell sang — In a small chamber, friendless and unknown, Toiled o'er his types on.c -pobx unlearned young man. The place was dark tnifurnituxed and mean, Yet there the •freedom of a race began. Nothing of the kind! It had its 6ource ! centurk'A~before that. Paul, the bondman lof Christ, sent back the runaway slave Oneslmus to his master Philemon as a freo man. Paul learned that Gospel of human j brotherhood, which made master and bond- ' men equal before God, at the feet of Jcsve Christ. Whatever may have been the attitude of the church in the nineteenth osntury, there is where the ethical Gospel of Abolition had ifs source. The twentieth century is face to face with a similar condition. God is thundering the doom of the saloon thiough this generation with a trumpet of fire. Where is the church? Where has been the church in the last generation? Silent often, when she ought to have spoken. Indifferent often, when she ought to have been a flame of fire. Consenting ! often, when she ought rather to have died than to hold her peace. Closing her doors to the voices that God hath sent to prepare the way. Punishing her own prophets, who would commit the unpardonable sin if they held their peace. And with a form of godliness, denying the power thereof, compelling her most loyal sons and daughters to organise, unions, lodges, associations, federations and leagues, promote ethical righteousness outside of the church, to do the work which the church, by divine appointment, was designed to do.

I would not make this charge except to preachers by invitation, but as her loyal son, I challenge the church to deny the ! impeachment. j The present ethical revolution is born of "Christ— outside of the church. Employers and employees joi^, hands to : crush out the devil's saloon as a commercial,; j necessity? while high ehUrchmee- split hairs ovei — 'a "liberal- Sunday" and ,are too "conservative." to lift- their voices in protest against the slaughter of the innocents and damning of .humanity in their . own community.' There are individual Christians, thoueatfrts of them, who owe all they are "to Jesus Christ, who are lilting tbnsfof'God, ! but the church as an organised institution | is scarcely lifting a pound. I For the source you must go ' back to [ Christ ; for the present power you must look outside of fehe church. A religion that leaves the saloon undisturbed, unattacked, when day by day ife record of crime, outrage and assassination is chronicled by the daily press, isnot worthy to be called after the name of Jesus Christ. Again have we reached a time in the march of Christ down the centuries, when "if these should hold their peace, the very stones will immediately cry out." This ethical wave against the ealoon has come like a hurricane upon the deck of a pirate ship. There is but one explanation : Jesus Christ is walking across the^ American continent ; every place from" which his holy foot is lifted there it leaves a dry spot.