Temperance.

Southern Cross, Volume 6, Issue 5, 7 May 1898, Page 6

Temperance.

(Published by arrangement with the W.C.T.U.) If any maa defile the temple of God, him ehall Grod destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.—l. Cor. 111, 17. ALL THIS AND MORE, The following indictment was written ten years ago. It remains true to-day, by permission of the people:— The brewers and distillers, and their lieutenants, the saloon-keepers, stand in opposition to every class that makes any pretension to goodness or even decency. Their business is opposed to everything in the way of good morals or of good order. It is the one business which has demoralisation at its basis, which lives and thrives upon vice. It kills out of a man every good impulse before that man is valuable to it, and the customer becomes valuable exactly in proportion as he becomes bad. It is a business which is at the bottom of all the political corruption of the country, the tool that has always been used by unscrupulous politicians, from ‘ Boss ’ Tweed to the very latest bargainer in politics. It is the business which is a drag upon progress, the enemy of civilisation, and the bar to improvement. It is the business that is answerable for a vast majority of the speculations and embezzlements and frauds by men in positions of trust. It is the business that sweeps down every year thousands of young men, transforming them from the decent to the disreputable. It is the business of which no one dares assert that it does no harm, the only dispute about which is as to the amount of harm it accomplishes. It is undermining our institutions destroying the country. There is no use in temporising or compromising with it. The issue is made up. We have either to submit to its dictation or kill it. If the people are wise, they will kill it. No matter what it costs, the rum powder must be destroyed. It has grown to too great proportions now, and it is time that it be killed.