Nelson Chronicle, Colne Observer, and Clitheroe Division News. — 1900-03-02 (Nelson, Lancashire, England)

OUR PRIDE. emptory order to Jameson to return. The . Government promised also to guarant.o the Several of our statesmen, and multitudes in ' independence of the Transvaal if a more men- the nation say: "We must see this thing -'enable spirit was shown to the Vitlanders. through." I wish they would always add the But the offer was refused, and the oppression words: "God willing.' Second, we need to was made more severe. It was said that the acknowledge before God our own national sin— Boers were made suspicious by the Raid. But intemperance. What of such Liverpool merwhat right has any oligarchy to oppress on sus- chants as have grown rich by sending their picion, and to continue year after year visiting tire-water to the Congo and other African the sin of a few misguided men on an innocent rivers? They are murderers of the worst type. nation or on the thousands of I:Wanders living No Boers have oppressed the natives worse it their side. The last of these plea., of de- than such men have oppressed them. What fence is that the Uitlanders are only birds of of our sin against China in the matter of the passage, that they go to make a - pile" and to opium trade? Surely it is time that we purged return and hence they have no claim to politi- ourselves from this national iniquity, and nil enfranchisement. This plea is, I hold, un- should not shame cover us when we think of fair. It is quite true that many go out mean- the -C154,000,000 that we spend yearly in ing to return, but in regard to what is prob- drink? What of our drinking and gambling ably the majority they do not come back. hells in Nelson and Barrowford. Had George They form new friendships; they marry; the Lomax been living now, how he would have friends at home, whom they might have longed poured out his withering scorn on the men who to see die there, COMP over; there comes over haunt these dons! They have forgotten both them a growing disinclination to sail or travel God and their own manliness when they give thousands of miles ; or means fail. Thus they themselves up to such brutalitie.. Then do do not return. In this way the Eitlander po- we not need to confess also our Sabbath dese.. - . .. .  I boliove that the wavo of Socialism  which passed over Lancashire four or five years ago helped to foster this sin. It put material things before things unseen and eternal. It was a materialising force. It made the improvement of the environment, which we all should desire, a greater thing than the improvement and change of the heart. What hundreds of men are found every Sunday during the summer months driving into the country, carousing in public homses, reading their Sunday sporting papers, while they who try to  TRAIN THE YOUNG FOR GOD and for righteousness are left a comparativaly feeble and overburdened band. While we rejoice in any tokens of progress in the liberality shawn by working men to hospitals, we have still need to pray that Lancashire may be freed from its practical heathenism, and that its young men may keep God better in their thoughts. Let us hope that the sufferings of this present time of war may deepen in us, as nation, a conviction of the seriou.sness of life. Then out of the evil there may come good. We mourn with the bereaved friends of our fallen heroes. We stretch out a helping hand to the survivors at the same time. I have the conviction that the suffering occasioned by this war will not sum up to so great a total as would have been reached had we left the Uithinders and the natives to generations of oppres.sion, and suffered our Empire to be broken up. Heneo I pray that God may crown our cause with victory, and that we, as a nation, zany lay to heart the lessons which His judgments are so well desitr,ned to teach.—A collection in aid of the NI ar Relief Fund realised £3 17s. 6d.  . ; Loma  11, !rot* 15 <ING IN THE KITCHEN