The present position of the temperance question, especially in relation to the Christian Church.

Date:
[between 1800 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The present position of the temperance question, especially in relation to the Christian Church. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION % ESPECIALLY IN RELATION TO THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH1 A Public Meeting was held in the Shirehall, Gloucester, on Monday evening, April 5 th, “to consider the Present Position of the Temperance Question, especially in relation to the Christian Church.” The room was crowded by a highly-respectable audience, among whom were a large number of ladies. Special interest attached to the demonstration on account of the presence of the Bishop, and of the Rev. Basil Wilber¬ force, son of the late Bishop Wilberforce, the fame of whose eloquence on the Temperance Question has spread far and wide. The Lord Bishop occupied the chair, and was supported by the Rev. Basil Wilberforce, Mr. S. Bowly, Capt. Knox, Rev. J. Emeris, Mr. Sawyer, barrister-at-law, and others. After singing and prayer, The CHAIRMAN said: My dear Christian friends, it has been arranged that while some of my valued friends are preparing to put before you much that will profoundly interest you, I should take upon myself the easy duty of a few opening and preliminary remarks. As far as I understand the purpose of this our meeting it must be con¬ sidered in the form rather of a conference, in which serious people, feeling the greatness of the cause which brings them together, confer among themselves on what would seem best to be done. I will not endeavour to bring before you the greatness of the evil, or the frightful magnitude of the sin; because I feel persuaded that the very presence of every man and woman I see before me is a kind of evidence that it is felt that this sin of intemperance is eating out the core, I will not only say of Christian, but of our national English life. I therefore feel there is no need of dwelling upon the magnitude of the prevailing sin of intemperance ; nor do I at all purpose to make any comments on what I fear must be said to be the increasing numbers that are becoming week by week, aye, almost day by day, slaves to this prevailing drink. The numbers, I am afraid, are increasing in what are called our working classes, and those that are called the upper or middle classes are not themselves free from some of the contagion of the national sin. I have no statistics of these things to put before you; I did not care to