The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-10-23 00:00:00

THE BISHOP OF LIVERPOOL ON
INTEMPERANCE.

Sermons were preached on Sunday in nearly all the
churches of Liverpool and neighbourhood in anticipation of
the Church of England Temperance Society's conferences and
meetings to be held during the Week.
_ _ _

At St. Peter's Pro-cathedral the Lord Bishop of the
diocese occupied the pulpit, and made special refer-
ence to the temperance moyement. There was a large
congregation. His lordship took as his text the 16th
verse of the fifth chapter of Ephesians :—" And be not
drunk with wine, wherein is.excess ; but be filled with
the spirit." The text, he said, was a very remarkable
one—so strong, so forcible, so plain spoken, that per-
haps they would hardly expect to find it in an epistie
of St. Paul. The writer of those words round it
needful to speak of so low, so gross, so degrading a sin
as drunkenness in plain terms. The plain speaking;
-cvhich St. Paul practised war not common in the pre-
sent day. There were two things to consider im con-
nection with the text—the thing which was forbidden,
being drunk with wine, and the thing recommended
in place of being drunk with wine, being filled with
the spirit. When the apostle spoke of being drunk
with wine, he did not confine himself to wine merely,
purely, and literally; he meant any strong intoxi-
cating drink which existed at the time the apostle
lived. The apostle said, "Be not drunk with wine ; "
but
.he did not go so far as to say that no wine ought
to be drunk on any oceasion, for this same writer
wrote to Timothy, "Drink no longer water,
but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake
and thine often infirmities." He need hardly say of
the sins by which England was degraded there was
no sin so common in the land at this moment as the
sin of drunkenness. There was no country upon earth
in which so much drunkenness prevailed as in Great
Britain and Ireland at this present moment. There
was no sin so common and so detestable and for which
so many excuses were nnade, and all true Christians
should endeavour by all means to do what they could
to check the evil. Every one knew—there was
ne denying it—that drunken habits were the ruin
of souls. It was laid down in God's Word that no
drunkard should inherit the kingdom of heaven. It
was a solemn question and one which should commend
itself to their attention. Habits of intemperence
were the ruin of the country. How many had lost
their positions in life because they could not resist
drink. How many in the country sacrificed every-

thing for the sale of drink I—After some further re-
marks on the evils of intemperance, the right rev.
bishop said, When a man was completely under the
influence of drink his reason was gone ; he did not
know what he might do, and he was little less than a
beast. Those who had to do with lunatic asylums
could tell them a great deal about this part of the
subject. If anything was like the possession of
the devil he believed it to be the state of a man
when he became an incurable drunkard. They
should beware of everything that led to this detest-
able habit of drinking. He did not suppose habi-
tual drunkards were before him that day, because
their consciences were ashamed of hearing themselves
"shown up" and exposed. He begged of them
tp beware of anything that led to intemperance—of
ainusements which required drinking too much; of
places where people drank too much; of company
that would lead to drinking. He condemned the
practice of drinking between meals. If they did
drink, let' t'nena drink at meals. They must beware
of the first steps, because if they once commenced to
~o down, they would sink to the bottom step by step.
If they professed themselves Christians, and were
living lives of faith in the Son of God, they should be-
ware of the slightest temptation to take up that which
would ruin them. lie did not say that Liverpool
was worse than other places, but there was far more
drunkenness in this great city than there ought to le.
They should all try to do all they coulti to check the
drinking habits of this country. They were called
upon that day to help the cause of the Church of Eng-
land Temperance Society, which tried, by the use of
proper means, to check the drunkenness by which this
land was cursed. A great deal of harm was done by
giving money for drink to servants, railway porters,
guards, and others. If they wanted to help forward
the Church of England Temperance Society those were
the kind of things they should not do.