The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1888-10-17
Steeples, and Quicksands-

In the county of Kent, EnglarS, says the
Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts, in the Voice, is the
little borough Of Tenterden, containing
about five thousand inhabitants. About
thirty miles away, in early times. was the
estate of Earl Godwine, on the sea coast
Half century after the Earls death, about
500 years ago, the bishop Of the diocese built
steeple to Tenterden church. A few months
afterwards the sea swept through the dikes
and carried away the Earls estate, which be-
came dangerous 9uicSsand, known since as
Goodwin Sands. No sooner had the angry
sea carried off his prey than the villagers
gathered together to ask themselves why the
calamity had occurred The older men of the
village were asked for their opinions in turn.
At length one old man, pointing to the
steepie thirty miles away, said solemnly,
''Tenterden Steeple was the cause OF Goodwin
Sands" The remark was greeted with a
burst of laughter, and for centuries was used
as a proverb whenever any one fell into
the illogical argument known as post hoe,
ergo, propter hoc-after this, therefore, be-.
cause of this. But later explorations prove
that the old man was right Historic docu-
ments show that revenues previously de.
voted to keeping the sea-wall in repair were
taken by the bishop, because the sea had been
quiet for a year or two, to build the church
and gave way before the wild charge Of the
waves, and a fair estate became deadly
quick-sand.
Why have the floods of intemperance in
the last thirty years captured so much of
our national estate, and made it quicksand
full Of licensed pits Of death! ''Tenterden
steeple was the cause Of Goodwin Sands" "
Our churches have given too much of their
time and money and energy to building
steeples of ecclesiasticism, and too little to
the practical dike-buildng of preventive re-
form work. Let us not put into the steeple-
building of church pride the money and
effort and work that is more imperatively
needed to make every Sabbath-school regi-
ment or company in the Cold Water Army:
to make every. Christian an abstainer and
an advocate of abstinence. Down there
in the pews there are men and
even boys whose flushed faces and
beery breath proclaim that the alcoholic
flood is breaking through upon them. What
is the minister doing up there in the pulpit!
Steeple-building- preaching about future
probation for dead heathen that cannot be
helped by any theories we may devise. Man
of God, bark! Do you not hear the crash of
the wild sea on the neglected dykes close at
hand? Do you not see men and boys-aye,
women and girls-right before whose fair
estate Of health and home and hope will soon
be the drunkard's quicksand if you do not
strengthen the old dikes of the pledge and
Prohibition?
Come down from your SteepleS, " men or
God, preachers, teachers, parents, and
strengthen these dikes.
Think of preachers meeting discussing
"The Politics of Calvin" when the politics of
the devil, with its mad waves OF rum, is
iashing against their very doors! Well has
it been said that a pulpit Silent on the temper.
ance question discredits itself as much as q
pulpit silent about dishonesty. Both of these
Questions are "in politics" as subjects Of leg
islation. Let not that fact make conserva-
tives neglect the dixie of Prohibition, nor
radicals the equally important dixie Of the
pledge