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Temperance
Open-Air Temperance Meetings in New Zealand
—Some of
the hearers were very enthusiastic over the matter. The mayor, the
policeman, and several others, said it was by far the best gospel
temperance discourse that they had ever heard. We pronounced it
a success and decided that we would have a similar meeting the
next Sunday afternoon. Although the sky was cloudy and threatened
rain, we were favored, and I had more listeners than the Sunday
previous. There were a large number of young men who listened
as if spellbound. Some of them were as solemn as the grave. This
was a special time. There had been a two days’ horse race and a
cattle show. This had excited the people to such an intensity that I
feared we would not have so good a hearing. The agricultural and
cattle show had been talked of for weeks, and preparations made for
the same. Well, this was my opportunity to speak to those whom I
would not have had a chance to speak to had it not been a special
occasion.
One youth, about seventeen years of age, wept like a child as
I read an article of how a youth of seventeen was enticed into a
liquor saloon, and drank his first glass of liquor, and it did what it
always will do, maddened the brain. After taking this liquor the
youth remembered nothing about what had transpired. A quarrel
had taken place in this saloon, and in the youth’s hand was found a
knife that had taken the life or a human being, and he was charged
with the murder, and five years’ imprisonment was his sentence. It
was a touching article and brought tears to many eyes of both old
and young.—
Letter 68, 1893
.
Attention Held by Unique Approach
—My subject was tem-
perance, treated from the Christian standpoint, the fall of Adam, the
promise of Eden, the coming of Christ to our world, His baptism,
His temptation in the wilderness, and His victory. And all this to
give man another trial, making it possible for man to overcome in his
own behalf, on his own account, through the merits of Jesus Christ.
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Christ came to bring to man moral power that he may be victorious
in overcoming temptations on the point of appetite, and break the
chain of the slavery of habit and indulgence of perverted appetite
and stand forth in moral power as a man, and the record of heaven
accredits him in its books as a man in the sight of God.