Mississippi leader. (Jackson, Miss.) 1892-1895, 1894-10-30
A Correspondent Sends Us Some Interest
ing Facts.
NEW YORK, Monday Morning.

NEW YORK, Monday Morning.
To THE EDIToR-The most conspicu-
Gus object in the brewery district ON the
upper east side in New York city Is the
beautiful. tall spire of the great granite
church of st. John the Evangelist, or
Father Floods church," as it is pop
ularly called, and there is no individual
in the district more Objectionable to the
brewers and saloon keepers than the
founder and present incumbent of St.
Johns, the Rev. James J. Flood.
Father Flood cannot be said to be a
muscular Christian, being rather spare
and ascetic looking, but he has deter
mination and will power enough for
dozen men, and this fact no class of
men in his parish realize more fully
than the traffickers in strong drink. He
is no orator, but he can talk, and talk
to the point, only too well for the COM
placency of some people, and l am
credibly informed that they recently
sought to have him removed. What i'm
pertinence!
! Some of them are good contributors
to his church, they say, and yet he is
fast running their business They would
be forever obliged to the archbishop. no
doubt, if he would graciously remove
the obnoxious priest to some out Of the
way country parish. where his philip
pics against the brewing interests could
do no harm.
| It is said that when the church was
erected one of the brewers in the neigh
| borhood-a Catholic-offered to defray
the whole of the expenses on condition
that his name should be placed on the
exterior of the front gable. A brewers
church! Who can imagine such thing?
st. Johns is anything but brewers
church, and tolerant of the mantraps
licensed saloons it can never be
while Father Flood is its pastor.
Here are some clippings from the
monthly calendar published for free dis
tribution among the parishioners:
Step out with the minority and God.
A moderate drinker is bad example
as Sabbath school teacher, for he is
the saloon keepers best friend.
Boys, never be a "good fellow" in the
common acceptance of the term. Every
alcoholic wreck started life by being
"good fellow"
If drunkenness is disease, the Bible
must be "off" when it says that no
drunkard shall inherit the kingdom OF
God. 1t doesn't apply that rule to small
pox or consumption or any other disease.
Who has the fat Of the land, all that
money can buy-you or the saloon keep
| er?
Is your head clearer, your soul purer,
your intellect brighter, your hand
steadier, your pockets fuller, your homo
happier when you drink beer or whisky?
If we do not see in the sin of intem-
perance the loss of an immortal soul,
we do not realize its full horror.
Prohibition is Gods way of dealing
with all sin, personal or political.
License gives the saloon keeper q
mortgage over every cradle in the land.
The church thrives on the religious
instinct, which. born in a mans heart,
leads him to offer an acceptable service
to God. The saloon crushes that instinct
and thrives ON the horrid craving for
alcohol, which, once created, 1T seeks to
foster by the most ingenious devices un-
til the one whom the church would have
made noble, God fearing Christian be-
comes besotted, trembling, slavish
victim.
These are only few of the good
things which came across in the cal
endar, and though some Of them are not
original and are familiar TO Prohibition
lists of wide reading, yet they are new
in this interesting corner of New York,
and who can say the amount of good
they may produce there?
In one of last years numbers found
christian Temperance Song" writ
ten by the Rev. Alfred Young, one Of
the famous Paulist fathers. Here is the
fifth verse:
Iheard a voice from prison doors, from pauper
graves in ban,
Which shrieked: Behold the handiwork OF the
un-Christian man.
Whose trade breeds crime and beggary,
Though great our sin and shamei
But the day will come when God win
Show on whom TO lay the blame
p j. BoyLAS.
354 East Fifty-third street