EMPTY LAMPS.

White Ribbon, Volume 30, Issue 362, 18 August 1925, Page 5

EMPTY LAMPS.

At a Church meeting 1 atiend<?d laie. ly, the subject was the virgins witu well-filled lamps, and those whose Lam t -s went out early. If 1 had properly trained powers of concentration, my mind would have attended to the speaker, and not gone off suddenly to wonder how many of us ure keeping our lamps well filled, ready for the elections. Our lamps of personal Interest and understanding in what is being done I moui. And of personal wx>rk. For to succeed in this election there is more needi*l than our prayers, or faith, or constant giving, and that is our work in the senae of effort. We may not appear to have much material to work on. You may live where everyone's vote is safe, but that is no reason why you should Ik 1 wasted. Are you keeping your lamp burning ready to help the neutral, or perhaps the outsider, or the other-sider, who is sure to turn up any day now. Even if he or she asks only what is your Union doing, can you tell them enough to make them feel that that Union is a jolly good thing, and want to join such a go ahead business. If net, why not? You can shift the cause, can’t you? If he or she wants to know what we expect No License will do in New /(‘aland, have you a* vivid picture? Some good it will do in your own neighbourhood. If not, why not? If yours is the only district where drink does m liarm. how eager you must be to sha**? your luck. But you know, you cannot help knowing, even if you are not In personal contact with them, homes where harm has been done, or still It doing. Tell him the W.C.T.U., your Branch of it, is trying to safeguard the country, and our boys and girls from more harm like these cases If he wants to know how Prohibition has worked in the U.S.A., are you sure

of your facts? Sure of some you can give that he or she can't gain say? Anyway, you can be sure drink works in New Zealand. But are you? Are we all? If drink does not touch us in our own houw holds, are we keeping our lamps we!! filled? There is plenty of oil, solid fads and living enthusiasm, for us to draw on, and if our lower lights are to keep burning we need to draw freely, and use constantly. For working purposes there is no oil more valuable than elbow-grease. The more we work the more we’ll have to draw on. The question Is, are our lower lights keeping ourselves burning, attending to our stores of oil? If not, why not?