The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-01-24 00:00:00

THE BISHOP OF RIPON ON INTEM.

PENCE.

The Bishop of Ripon presided on Monday at a c3nterence
held at Letds in connection with the annual meeting of the
Ripon Diocesan Branch of the Church of England remper-
aLce Society.

The bishop, in his opening speech, said he hardly
knew how far one could state, without promoting
controversy, that the sin of intemperance was the
great besetting Bin of the nation. He had been accus.
tomed himself to think that it was so, Whether or
not they allowed that it was the great besetting sin of
the nation, at all events he thought the evidence)
brought to their notice by statistics was unanswer-
able—that drunkenness was the parent of crime,
check to the
no
insanity, and pauperism; so that if only by God's
blessing they were instrumental in putting a
sat a
lel at d
edrunkenness, i
pauperism,sh
they would
w
ul
crime, and insanity. They knew that there
was scarcely a judge on the bench who had net
borne his testimony at one time or another to the in.
fluence of habits of temperance in the prevention of
crime. No one who was at all acquainted with the
criminal statistics of the country could question for a
moment that a very large proportion of the crime com-
mitted in their midst would never have been committed
were it not for the habits of drunkenness. The same
testimony was given by those who bad the best oppor-
tunity of forming a sound judgment on the question,
that a very large proportion of the pauperism of the
country was occasioned, directly or indirectly, through
the sin of intemperance. Precisely the same testi-
mony came from those who had the opportunity of
judging of the state of the case as regarded the inmates of
their lunatic asylums. A very large proportion of the
lunacy of the country was unquestionably due to in.
temperance. If it were the case that the habit ef in-
dulging to excess in intoxicating beverages tended to
promote the spread of pauperiam, disease, crime, and
lunacy, he held that a case was made out for a very
strong and urgent endeavour to do all in their power
to repress the vice of drunkenness' and to form the
habits of temperance. He wished to say as much as
this for two reasons—first, because his sympathy
was entirely engaged in behalf of the Church
of England Society. This was a society formed
not many years since for thee express ',purpose
of welding together all thos who felt it a
duty to try and promote habits of temperance in one
general effort to withstand drunkenness and to pro.
mote habits and the practice of sobriety. Then, again,
it was a society which was called the Church of Eng.
land Temperance Society, and for his own part he
could not understand that a national Church could be
fulfilling the obligations which rested on it as such
unless it was taking some direct steps in order to pre-
vent the progress of such a vice as that of intemper. ,
slam. While they did all honour to those who in time '
past, before that society was formed, were doing a
vast amount of good in checking the progress of In-
temperance, he thought that they would agree with
liii In this, that the Church of England would not
have been faithful to the high trust which had devolved
upon her as a national Church if she had not taken
the foremost place in this crusade against drunkenness
and the effort to promote habits of sobriety.