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I ask for sound temperance legislation, for a law that will protect the present and coming generations. Our present license law is a marvellous anomaly. Who does not know that the very largest factor in crime in every land, as proved by police reports, is intemperance? Yet this Christian Government deliberately makes a law for feeding the fires of crime. Fair, is it not, and funny too? Sell a man an emetic and fine him for feeling sick-eh? Sell a man snuff, and put him in jail for sneezing! That is what our Government is doing by its out-still system. My venerable preceptor in New York, Dr. Willard Parker, says: To license shops that beget murder, and then to punish the murder that the State itself has begotten, is indefensible from a moral point of view."

The licenselaw an anomaly.

needed.

What is it we want? For two years I have been pleading for the poor Santals in the jungles. Now, thank God, a large number of the out-stills in their country have been closed. I hope many more may be shut up the year to come. I am sure that if it were to be left to the people they would be shut. We want a law of Local option Local Option. I may mention the name of a man-would that he would come to India and work out this problem for us--Sir Wilfrid Lawson. What William Wilberforce did in behalf of the slave, Sir Wilfrid Lawson is doing in behalf of the victims of intemperance. He is wiping out a dark deep stain from the escutcheon of British rule. And there are men here in India, Sir, officers of the Government and others, who are thoroughly roused on this subject and determined to do their duty. It is not always easy or wise for some of them to speak out boldly, but, friends, they stand behind us and mean to stand by us. They can give us the facts and figures and cheer us on in this effort to rid British rule of a bad blot in the eyes of the world.

We are hearing a great deal of self-government of late. It is said to be increasing, and this is cheering. Why cannot this whole matter be left to the local committees? If cities and towns have power to suppress nuisances, to shut or open streets, to act authoritatively in behalf of the general weal, why should they not have power to say that our boys shall not be tempted by the gin-shop over the way? I hope local government will insist upon this. What can we do as Christians? First we must pray. "This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." I have little faith in much of our cheap temperance declamation. We have too much religious buffoonery on this subject. Let us stand by the truth; let us be sure of our facts; let us be ready to be questioned; above all, let us pray much. I have read that Father Mathew, the apostle of Irish Temperance, whenever he gave the pledge, made the man sign it on his knees, and in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. He thus made it more a sacrament than a ceremony. We need such Christian earnestness as this in our work as Temperance men and women.

Pray

And while we pray, we must also WORK. I was addressing and work. several hundred educated Hindus on this subject the other day.

I feel sure they are ready to vote right on this question, if Government gives them a chance. We should be full of work for the victims of intemperance, particularly the young. Dr. Chalmers used to say to his pupils, "Pray as if God did all, but work as if you did all." Let us agitate, agitate, AGITATE. We cannot hold our peace until the victory is won. Let us work on

"Till all men find their own in all men's good

And all men work in noble brotherhood."

ADDRESS BY DR. E. CHESTER, A. B. F. M., Dindigul. After travelling 2,500 miles-five days-the first words I heard at the railway station here were, "You are to deliver a Temperance address." My first thought was that the Committee of Management had put the 450 names representing the members of this Conference in a box and drawn out at random names of speakers. I said, "What shall I do? I've never made a Temperance address in my life," and then the thought came to me that I've been in India twenty-one years, and if I can't speak on this subject I'd better go home. In our Mission we all obey orders; we don't like to write the Annual Report, but when our turn comes we do it, and so I obey orders. When I thought of the very great kindness of our Calcutta friends and the members of the General Committee especially, I felt I could not add to Drink and their burdens by refusing to speak. On Christmas day, at a railway railway station not a thousand miles from Calcutta, I noticed a travelling. drinking room back of the refreshment room: the kind-hearted (?) station-master, seeing that it was Christmas day, was taking the guards and drivers into this back room and giving them something to drink. When they came out and the train started I noticed that the guard with the greatest difficulty got on the train. This station-master said to me, "You see I drink a little; I formerly suffered from neuralgia: Dr. told me that I had a cold liver, and said I must take King's pills and drink something, and so I have." The man walked steadily enough and talked plainly, but it was only noon; what his condition was at night I do not know.

Suffering of women and

children.

I remember a similar instance in South India. I was called from my bungalow one night by a station-master, who desired me to go and see whether or not a certain driver was too drunk to carry on his train. It was a dangerous part of the line, a heavy incline where there was need of putting on the brake both upon the carriages and the engine. Think how many railway employés, drivers, guards and others there are all over India who are in the habit of getting drunk. Think of the thousands of lives thus imperilled every day. It is the manifest providence of God that makes accidents on the railway lines so few.

One of the saddest things connected with intemperance is, that innocent women and helpless children are made to suffer. I remember one home in India where the husband was a man of cul

ture, a good friend, kind-hearted; his wife a refined lady. More than once I have been called to treat the husband when intoxicated. I have seen the anxiety of the wife and mother to keep the children out of the way of the drunken man. Once I went to see him when he seemed on the border of delirium tremens. He said to me," I'm ready to sign the pledge." I answered, "Let that now, I'll do what I can to help you out." He was not a Christian, and I do not believe that such men can keep the pledge even if they sign it. God's grace is needed in the heart.

go

I have many friends among civilians: I dine with them and they with me, but I never put wine on my table. I tell them if they want it they can bring it with them. The money spent by Church-going civilians in India on wines would support all the Missions in India.

The Station Master at spoke of a "cold liver," a new thing under the sun. Since coming to India I have heard a great deal about "liver," but in my opinion more than half of what is called "liver" is brandy and soda. We hear certain men spoken of as "cranky," "peppery," peppery," and the climate is blamed for it: I believe it is not climate but brandy and other drinks that cause this. At an ordinary dinner party think how much of this stuff is swallowed, claret, port, brandy, &c. I speak as a physician when I say we can live in India without these things; if we attend to hygienic rules and abstain from injurious things, we shall get on here as at home. It is not " the sun" that hurts people so much as drink. Who are the people that consume Eno's Fruit Salt, Cockle's Pills and a host of like articles? It is those who take brandy and soda, and thus make it necessary to take these other things. There are good old ladies who have a universal remedy-" put your feet in hot water, supply a poultice and take camomile tea." When I came to India people told me, "You must take beer and claret if you want to get on." I drank for a short time and gave it up. I dared not drink longer. I saw that the servants noticed it, that my native helpers remarked it, and I put it away. I believe that we must deny ourselves for the good of others. I love to read of good king Hezekiah. He set a good example to all about him. The reform inaugurated by him spread to the Levites and then to the people. The example of the king and the Levites was helpful. I read in the Bible the words of Paul: "If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no meat." Christ taught self-denial.

Ten years ago at our Allahabad Conference I met a Missionary who was in the habit of taking beer, although ashamed to have it known. I am glad to say he has since given it up and is now a temperance lecturer. I say again, it is a great mistake to think that one must drink beer in India.

ADDRESS BY THE REV. BUCHANAN BLAKE, F. C. M., Bombay.

"Liver" disease.

Example to

others.

The great and distinguishing principle of our holy religion is Self-denial. renunciation, self-denial. This principle should be emphasized

Duty of

here. In a grog-shop at home one man came in and said, "Give me a glass of beer, I'm so hot ;" another asked the same because he was tired; and so on, until it began to seem as if the glass of beer were a universal specific. At last one man, more honest than the others, said, "Give me a glass of beer because I like it!" So all about us men drink because they like it, because it is fashionable, because no dinner is considered complete without wines, because it is thought no one can be in good spirits without drinking a great quantity of bad spirits. I stand here to-night not as an advocate of temperance but as a total abstainer: my creed is, Touch not, taste not the unclean thing. Temperance is a good thing in regard to that which does no harm, but as to that which is evil in its nature as well as in its results we should advocate not temperance but total abstinence. When I became a Home Missionary I felt it my duty to become a total abstainer and to let this be known, otherwise I felt that I could not succeed in working among men with drinking habits.

We hear it said, "Drinking is a good thing." Dear friends, Christians. let us give up even a good thing if it produces evil. Give it up, and you will be blessed in the deed. This is a practical subject. Drinking produces evil results in the brother for whom Christ died. As a Christian, am I not bound to remove every thing that may hurt my brother? As Christian workers in India we are all interested in this work. Since coming to Calcutta I have heard of a gentleman, formerly a Sunday School teacher, who has been brought low by drink. At College I was told that it is a weak thing to be a teetotaler, to sign a pledge; that it is stronger to drink moderately, not to intoxication. There is temptation in drinking; no man is safe. We are our brothers' keepers; is the spirit of Cain still abroad in the Church? As Missionaries we should remember the influence we exert. What the Sahib does the native wants to do; to wear English clothes, to carry a cane, to smoke, and to drink. I know cases of the very best young men who have been ruined. As to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, I rejoice to know that in many churches unfermented wine is used.

Progress

A

The Christian Church is taking up a noble position on this great question in England, Scotland, Ireland and elsewhere. Note the progress of the Blue Ribbon Movement everywhere. few years ago, would such progress have been possible? Go to the Assemblies of the Scotch Churches; you will see not apathy, but motions, petitions to Parliament, advice to the Churches to form Temperance Societies. Once this subject was hooted at, but now Christian people are rallying around Total Abstinence. When the Christian Church speaks out loudly and clearly on the subject of Total Abstinence, then will the Government of England be ready to pass laws on this great subject.

REPORT

OF THE

PUBLIC MISSIONARY MEETING

HELD IN THE

METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH,

DHURRUMTOLLAH.

On Saturday Evening, December 30th, 1882.

His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor presided at the public Missionary meeting, which was held in the Methodist Episcopal Church on Saturday evening, an hour after the regular sitting of the Conference had closed. There was a very numerous gathering present, the body of the church and the gallery being full. The proceedings opened with the singing of a hymn, followed by prayer by Dr. Murray Mitchell, after which his Honor addressed the meeting.

He said that before he asked the Rev. J. E. Payne to read the paper on the census, entrusted to his hands, he would make a few observations. He took it that the presence there in the capital of India of nearly five hundred Missionaries, coming from every part of the country, was a spectacle not without its meaning or moral. In the true spirit of thankfulness they might contemplate the scene as the fulfilment of a duty the Missionaries designed to

in

Speech of the

Lieut. Gov.

of Bengal.

work.

carry out, that in coming there together they intended Importance of that nothing should be left undone. Into their hands Missionary a great measure is committed the direction of British influence in this large empire. The Government. is quite ready to acknowledge the number of Missionaries in India that have been sent out, and the true success of Missions generally. To an argument of this kind it might be represented that for the great exertions of the Societies and the expenditure, they receive no adequate return, and that the money is wasted. The reply to this is that the matter is not in their hands, but in the hands of Him who enjoined the work of Missions. He could, if He so willed, command the desired success in a day. From the history of the Bible, by the experience of all history, and from the knowledge of all Missionary efforts, it is shown that progress, however sure, must be slow, or, putting it in another form, that there

Progress is

slow.

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