FATHER LYNCH AND INTEMPERANCE.

Waipa Post, Volume II, Issue 67, 5 December 1911, Page 3

FATHER LYNCH AND INTEMPERANCE.

(Published by Arrangement)

I must congratulate Father Lynch on being a good fighter at a distance. He likes a battle, but unlike his countrymen he does not wish to be in the thick of it, and so he says of the challenge of the Rev. Woollass, to debate the question of the failure or success of No-License, that “it is a very inoffensive form of criticism and he congratulates the rev. gentleman on knowing how to keep out of all trouble.” This is what is commonly called the “tu quoque” argument. But I venture to assert, that Father Lynch dare not take the platform in defence of the liquor trade, although he can sit quietly in his study and write letters in its favour. To my mind the cowardice is on the other side, and it is usually taken for granted that the one who refuses a challenge, is the one that is afraid. But -to come to the rest of the letter. I have not the slightest desire to appear discourteous to any one and particularly a minister of the Gospel, but I cannot help saying that the Rev. Father had nothing to say, and took a lot of space to say it. Ihere is not a single argument in the letter worth considering, and life is too short to take notice of a lot of twaddle. When the rev. gentleman connects our Divine Saviour with the liquor trade as we know it to-day, all that can be said, is that he has not begun to understand the A. B. C. of the question, and has a tremendous long way to go and the election is too near for me to take his education in hand. The rev.gentleman reminds me of a lot of people who are convinced of the evils of liquor, but it is impossible to convince them that they don’t like the stuff itself, and so they vote for it. It is easily seen where the shoe pinches in the case of my rev. friend, but I would strongly urge him to look at the matter from a higher standpoint, and if he wants a basis for his argument I would commend to him the text, “ Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” If the fruits of the liquor traffic are good then uphold it and support it; but i'f they are bad, and we say that they are unutterably bad, then it is not the vocation of the ministers of the Gospel to find excuses for it, but to put the axe to the root of the tree and cut it down.