The Blandford and Wimbourne Telegram. — 1882-02-24 (Blandford, Dorset, England)

WNW  • 1882.  well as in making others happy ; God himself gave His Son that He might redeemllH and make us happy, though we were not wet thy of it. Some years ego, when they were getting up a Total Abstinenc Insurance Society, he insured his life f, r £100; he did not know what position he might be in when he was 50, and thought if he could lay his hand upon £lOO, it would be a Food thing. He paid £4 Sc. 3d. a year; now £4 lie. is just the annual cost of a pint of beer, en he had 2.. 9d. a year left out of the price of his pint of beer, and at 50 years old he applied for and received the money, and there were handed over to him £lO9. ( pplause.) The working man ought to have his awn house to live in, and he may have it if he chooses; there is not an honest working man who is a teetotaler, but may have his own house in 21 years. On Monday morning after the Temperance Mission, the ma;ist rates had a meeting, and all the five cases were caused by intoxicating drink; one was for thi eatening to murder with a knife, two for stealing ; then there was a husband found drunk on the Esplanade, and the wife drunk with a black eye against the Methodist chapel, and by her side was a poor child crying. He said to her— " Can you look at that child crying there, and not be moved ?" But she could, fr drink brutalises and takes away all humanity from father or nether. Can a woman forget her sticking child ?" Yis lit is drink that makes them do it ; it is the great brutaliser, the great dehumaniser. Mr. 'Weans then spoke of the influence of example, and urged upon them that of Christ ; for if we, amidst these evils, stand aloof, asking—" Am I my brother's keeper r we shall not be guiltless of our brother's blood, we are responsible if our example leads him astray. (Hesr, hear.) He asked all Christian friends to unite on this subject ; the blue ribbon would, he trusted, bind all together ; but if any had done good service to the cause, the Good Templars had. (Applause.) He then asked them to come and throw in their lot with them, and with God's blessing, they would accomplish greater things still. (Applause.)—[).C. Templar Holmwood expreesed his surprise that a gentleman for whom they had as much respect as Dr. Lush should have written to protest against what the Doctor called " the fanatical utterances and the excitement of the past week." The speaker knew that 1,000 people had signed the pledge its Weymouth, and that many families in good positions in this town had put the drink out of their houses ,• they had been led by the excitement and the Po called " fanatical utterances" to think seriously over the matter, and father, mother, and children had all donned the blue ribbon. The Doctor found especial fault with Canon Wilberforce,—that he should make such statements about the brew, r, because the great Wilberforce had been twisted in emancipeti g the slave by Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton. He wondered what the ancestors of these gentlemen had to do with the present movement ; but lie would tell them whet Mr. Buxton, himself a brewer, said—" The war of the temperance societies, the schools, and the churches, against the beer shops and the gin ralaces, is one development of the war between heaven and hell." (Applau-e.) Another Mr. Buxton said he should vote for Local Option; this showed that the people are ripe for some strong measures. He believed nearly 50 persons had been initiated into the Good Templar lodges this week. (Applause.) As to their meetings being private, why every family held such a private meeting every night; they would not let people in by their firesides without knocking at the door and ascertaining whether they were fit to come. In concleeion he spoke of Canon Stephenson in deservedly high terms, eliciting great applause.—Bro. Rendall, the first W.C.T. of Hope of Weymouth, said he, when a young man, insured himself for £lOO, to have it when he was 60, and he expected to receive £125. But not only from selfish motives he urged them to become total abstainers; their thought would rise from this life to that which is to come, for it was a stepping stone to religion.—Bro. Staple and Mr. White also addressed the meeting.