The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-08-31 00:00:00

CARDINAL MANNING AT LIVERPOOL.

Addressing the members of the Catholic Total
Abstinence League in the League-hall, Liverpool, on
Monday night, Cardinal Manning remarked that since
he was last in Liverpool many things had happened.
First of all, they had to lament the loss of their
beloved Holy Father, Pius the Ninth, almost the last
act of whose life was to bestow a special benediction
with great spiritual indulgences upon the League of the
Cross in England. Another event was the selection of
their Holy Father Leo the Thirteenth, one of whose first
acts was to bestow the same benediction and the same
spiritual indulgence upon a league of the association
of total abstainers in the diocese of Ferns, at his sup-
plication, in the name of the bishop of that diocese.
Having then the benediction of two Pontiffs upon
their work he thought if there was a faint heart among
them he might pluck up courage for the future. They
could not doubt that their work was Catholic, that it
was recognized by the highest authority of the
Catholic Church, that it was faunded upon sound
Catholic principles, and it remained within them
only to be true in the Catholic spirit of humility,
of self - control, and of charity to all men—
those who might not agree with them or act
as they did. If they on their part acted thus, he did
not know how the League of the Cross could fail to
prosper. Many more things had happened since they
last met. First of all, in the Dominion of Canf.da
permissive bill had become the law of Vie land—an
act which gave to the people of that country the legal
power to prevent the establishing of places in which
intoxicating drink was sold. According to their
judgment there was a power of controlling that traffic,
which he believed to be the great and menacing
danger of our country.
Referring next to the passing at the last moment of
the Irish Sunday Closing Bill, Cardinal Manning
said the people of the sister isle had now obtained
that great salutary and purifying power of closing on
one day in the week at least—and that on the Lord's
day—places where intoxicating drink was sold
There were some people who would still tell them that
although there might be less drinking in public tilt, )
would be more in private. Those who said these things
were very wise, and could see through wooden doors and
brick walls. Even if it should be the fact that there would
be private drinking shut up within the walls of houses,
it was a great gain, and ten times better than having
the Lord's day desecrated, and all manner of scandal,
tumult, fighting, and drunkenness in the streets of their
towns and villages. Was not that a gain? But he
doubted what these seers told them, for the same thing
had been said in Scotland ever since the passing of
the Forbes Mackenzie Act, and the amount of intoxi-
cating drink consumed in Scotland was less by one-
seventh than it had been, though the population had
increased. And therefore he most heartily con-
gratulated Ireland and all Irish hearts upon the passing
of the Sunday Closing Bill. He would tell them why
there had .been so great an opposition in England to
It. Men knew very well that Scotland had closed all
public houses upon the Sunday, and they were shrewd
enough to know that if the same were done in Ireland
it would not be long before a similar law was passed
for England. And they were right, for it had doomed
the public.houses of England to an Act of the same
kind and of the same stringency before they were many
years older.