CONVENTION SERMON.

White Ribbon, Volume 26, Issue 309, 18 March 1921, Page 6

CONVENTION SERMON.

I’reached in the Anglican Church. A.sl.burton, on Sunday, March nth. 1921, by Rev. K. (Juise Hrittun.

Homans lt:2t—"L is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine nor anything whereb; thy brother stumbleth.” Jt was with Home slight hesitation that 1 decided to accent the invitation to address you this morning upon the allimportant subject of abstinence from intoxicating drink, and that not from any want of sympathy with the move, men!, for no wine person can shut his eyes to the evils caused to the community by alcoholic liquors, but because I have not been hitherto identified with what is known as the Prohibition cause, nor have at any time taken any prominent part in any active Temperance movement. None the less am I convinced of the enormous lieneflt to the society at large of such as Society as is here represented to-day, and am pleased to have the opportunity of expressing this morning my sincere sympathy with the Temperance Society, and to extend a hearty welcome to New Zealand delegates of the Women's Christian Temperance I'nion. The whole world just now is n a state of bewilderment and confusion. "The Church of Christ." says the Archbishop of Canterbury, "is now enrolled and banded for active service to a degree hitherto unknown.” Never in history have the statesmen of a country had to look out upon so seething and whirling a storm of human needs and rivalries. If these things, as part of the work which C.od is giving us to do as a people, are to be handled rightly, it must be with His help end lacking of us all all of us. that is, who believe that there are sacred duties, and that the only source of any victory over these strifes is a spiritual source; and by a spiritual source I mean the com bined endeavour of men and women, who look upward as well as downward, who expectantly say their prayers, and who are going in this year that has lately begun to stand shoulder to shoulder, day by day. with the knowledge of the Master’s presence and the assurance of the Master's help until vhe tangles become clearer and evil gives place to good. Intemperance in drinking may not bo as some say. the only evil fn the world.

but it is large!) this influencing factor of all the others. It Is true that there is hardly anything that may not be and is not abused. (iluttonous people are not called upon to give up food altogether. The most innocent amusements may be lorried to excess, but they are not required to be alxindoned entirely. No, a sane man’s attitude to any question of this kind is determined by the nature of the thing and measur* of the evil occasioned or attached. As a general rule, it is a pretty safe procedure for a man who wants to do the right thing, who wonders if he should identify himself with an> custom or habit, to ask himself. Is thi thing essentially evil, or only associated with evil? Is it in itself provocative of that evil? Does the good associated with it out-balance the evil, or the evil the good? Is it reasonably possible to eliminate or reduce the evil until good preponderates. Let us try the use of alcohol as a leverage on these lines fairly and without prejudice, and sec where our conclusions will lead us. \V» need not waste time in discussing or emphasising the enormous evil and misery caused by excessive drinking. It is al>out us and around us wherever we look. However many may Is* found to excuse or justify moderate drinking, no one has yet been l>old enough to defend drunkenness. It is as the late Judge IVnniston called it, "A cancer upon the l*ody politic.” Doctors, judges, ministers, merchants, statesmen, all unite their testimony. Said Joseph Chamher In in, himself a moderate drinker and anti-prohibitionist: "If I could take away the excessive use of strong drink in (I rent Hritain, I should change t lawhole aspect of this country as though some beneficent fairy had waved a magic W’nnd over the land." At the Supreme Court sittings at New Ely* mouth, some little time ago, the Chief Justice said that at least one-third of the crime in New Zealand could In* traced to the drink habit. He thought that the people were dead to all sense of humanity by not stopping heavy drinking. It has been said that New Zealand is one of the most sober couii tries in the world, an<’ probably it is so. Put suppose that in this comparatively sober country we could to-mori-ow close every drinking place and stop absolutely all use of alcoholics as a beverage, what would it do? If we ask the doctors, they w’ould say: It would reduce disease and lunacy, enormously benefit

child life, and raise the standard of general health. Let us ask the Judges and Magistrates. They say it would so lessen crime that the gaols would lie half emptied, and the Magistrates and police left with comparitively little to do Ask the Charitable Aid Hoards, ft would reduce real pov< rty to a negligible quantity. Masterton, we are told, for many years had a IXmits Society. After a period of No-Lteen.se. it disbanded and sent the clothes on hand to YVellingtmi, as there was no one to give them to in Masterton. Ask the merchants, and what is their reply? It would wipe out one third of the l»nd debts and boom legitimate trade. Is this evil inseparable from the use of alcohol, or will wise laws and right handling of the trade reduce it to a minimum, and result in the moderate and reasonable use of a harmless luxury. Opponent* are never tired of representing prohibitionists as emotional fanatics, who, horrified at evil, hastily jumps at the conclusion that the only remedy is to destroy instead of trying to regu'ate. "There’s not a leading prohibitionist to-day," says one of the best known pioneers of the Temperance cause in this country, over fifty years of age who did not start as a regulationist end moral suaxionist, not a man who has figured prominently in the movement in New Zealand, from Sir William Fox onward, who oid not lenrn his prohibition convictions fix.”*! bitter failure in all re mem?., measures. To day there are over TOO laws on the British Statute Hook for regulating what is still unregulated. Tile fact is that the evil is in alcohol itself. Granted that scores of thousands of people can use it all their lives and never go to conscious excess, yet that does not alter the fact that it is a drug capable of creating a diseased and irresistible craving for itself in a large percentage of the human family. No one knows whether this weakness attaches to himself or herself until they try the experiment. As one prohibition lecturer is fond of putting it. on th cone band you have the drug alcohol with the power to ;-reate this diseased appetitite, on the other successive generations of men and women with a large percentage with the weakness tlial an sw’ers to this power. The drinking habit will continue unless you can do one of tw’o things: either take the power out of the drug or the weakness out of that percentage. If you bring

the Are into contact with the fuel excess will inevitably ensue. The onl> logical conclusion that we i~un arrive at to prevent this enormous evil is to prohibit the sale of what is at Is-st a dangerous and non-essential luxury. Surely the sacrifice is small compared with the pain. There are very many arguments which can he brought forward on behalf of total abstinence from intoxicating drink. The highest unquestionably is that of Mr Paul, who would subordinate his own personal freedom in this matter to strengthen another’s weak nature. "If meat,” h<■aid, “make my brother to offend. I will eat no flesh while the world standeth.’* hut there is another nrgu ment which appeals to a larger number of hearers, and that probably Idealise it is a more selfish one. and that is the medical point of view. Nine out of ten of those who drink care nothing for what effect their example may have upon others, but they are keenly interested in what concern* their bodily health. Hear what Dr. Shaw Mclairen says: "Alcohol is an irritant poison. To all men of all ages alcohol as a beverage is scentifically an error." Sir Andrew Clark: "Alcohol is a poison, so is strychnine, so is arsenic, so is opium. It ranks with these agents. Health is always in some way or other injured by it.” Field Marshal Von Moltke: "lieer is a far more dangerous enemy to (iermany than all the armies of France." Lloyd (leorge: "Drink is doing us more damage in the war than all the Herman submarines put together.” Sir Thomas Austen: “From the medical and scientific point of view, the first thing alcohol does in cases out of 100 is to affect the mental working of the brain of the man who imbibes." Dr. Robert Jones, F.R.C.S.: "Alcohol prevents the moral nature, affects the judgment, and impairs the memory. It moreover especially affects the nervous system, and creates an enormous loss to the community through destroying the productiveness of the skilled craftsmen." Lord

(lore 11: "1 am firmly convinced that if drink >were eradicated this Court (tinDivorce I’ourt) might shut its doors, at any rate for the greater part of tintime.” Judge Rentoul: “Several of our greatest Judges have stated that t»o per cent, of all the crimes tl *y have tried arises from drink. 1 can say exactly the same, but I have found the evils arising from drink greater in Uncivil than in the criminal courts. The unhappiness, hatred, poverty, and illwill arising from tin- amount of money spent by some member* of the family are worse in their effects than actual crime.” “The there entered the asylums of France more than 57,000. Of the relapsed cases, 78 per cent, were drinkers, while of violent lunatics 88 per cent, were drinkers.” Sir J. Ross, Arctic explorer: ”1 was twenty years older than any of the officers or crew, yet I could stand the cold better than any of them, who all made use of tobacco and spirits. 1 entirely abstained from them." Sir William Bruadbent: "A falsehood which dies hard is the idea tthat stimulants of whatever kind actually give strength. Such is not the case. They an- the whip and spur, not the corn and grass." Sir Thomas Harlow: "The most tragic thing that can happen is that stirring up of the alcoholic craving in children and young people." Dr. Ferguson: "To administer spirits to a soldier under a burning sun as an article of food is al*out ns judicious as it would be to give him a Mow on the head." Lord Roberts: "Give me a teetotal army, and I will lead it anywhere.” Now these are the opinions not of fatuities and visionaries, but the confirmed opinions of men eminent in every department of life. Put all this evidence together, and we have a mass so overwhelming that we can only reecho the words of England’s greatest poet: "Oh, that men should put an cnemy in their mouths to steal away their hr:#u«; that we should with joy, pleasauce, revel and applause, transform ourselves into beasts." If we go back.

the story is still the same from the French Republic. The Committee of the supervision of the relief of the poor there is this striking report; "The habit of drinking leads to neglect of family, to forgetfulness of all -«oc,al duties, lo distaste for work, to ward, thefts, and crime. It is one of the most frightful scourges, whether it be regarded from the point of view of the health of the individual, of the existence of tinfamily, or of the future of the country." Yes, from whatever point of view we look at it, from the social, moral, medical. or economical aspect, the argument against alcohol is incontrovertible, but higher than them all is the spiritual standpoint, the Christian call to self sacrifice for others. "It 1* good neither to cat flesh nor to drink wine nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth. ’