National temperance : a jubilee biography of the National Temperance League instituted 1856 / by William Gourlay ; with an introduction by John Turner Rae.

  • Gourlay, William.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: National temperance : a jubilee biography of the National Temperance League instituted 1856 / by William Gourlay ; with an introduction by John Turner Rae. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    “ That a voice comes up from every part of the globe, calling upon kings and all who are in authority, upon reflecting and influential men of all classes, upon parents, teachers of youth, medical men, Ministers of religion, and all who love their race, to put forth the hand and stay the plague which is filling our world with woe, and, unless checked, will continue to sweep down thousands of succeeding generations prematurely and wretchedly to eternity.” The Convention was evidently anxious that some impression should be made on the religious world, and, knowing that the Wesleyan Conference was then in session at Bristol, an address was framed and sent to them. The address is a model of diplomatic caution, showing a tender regard for the then tender suscepti- bilities of the Christian conscience at the approach of Teetotal heresy. Remembering the emphatic terms of condemnation in which John Wesley spoke of alcoholic drink, and of those who traffic in it, it is marvellous to think that half a century later his followers, carrying on the evangelistic work he inaugurated, and meeting the same obstacles through drink as he encountered, should be so touchy at the suggestion that the Temperance question was one deserving their serious consideration. Here is how the Convention in London approached the Conference at Bristol : “ The attention of the Convention has been particularly directed to the vast importance of obtaining, at least, the candid and kind consideration of all Christian Churches, seeing that the interests of religion and morals, throughout the world, are so essentially connected with the Temperance cause ; and that to a far greater extent than can be imagined by those who have not yet taken into their most serious and pious consideration the enormous evils which accrue