295 367 Be kind to the Folks at Home...... 349 Evermore Temperance Blossoms & Bible Truths 385 dan 1024 Friends' School, at Ackworth .......... 131 206 448 Fly from Temptation ................. 467, Household Treasures.................. to our Drinking Customs 124 276 472 deserve..... Sida 51 The French Drink.. Moral Night-fall The Progress of the People ................ 27 The Right Sort of Thing .................. 257 The Sunday School and Band of Hope 325 492 The Sunny Spot ....................... 202 The Two Villages 19 The Wine prescribed to Timothy ... 150 The Worship of Bachus........... 464 Thoughts on Bands of Hope ............ 228 To Correspondents.......................... 456 .... 250, 274, 302, 313, ................... .................. 112 Water and Wine 27 Progress of the People, the Public Speaking. what are we Host-Wine and Waterki ..j • 221 Religious Services for Working Men... 490 Reflections and Maxims 297 357 193 ....... BAND OF HOPE RECORD. cause. THE EDITOR'S PRELUDE, HONOUR to our predecessor! He devoted valuable time to the pages of this Magazine, and did good service to the temperance Invited to occupy the editorial chair, we consented, in the expectation that we may thus promote the spread of truth and virtue. We contemplate our duties with pleasure. To expound the principles, and to rehearse the progress of Bands of Hope, will be a labour of love. No doubt we shall meet with difficulties. We shall not be able to please everybody, nor will it be in our power to present faultless pages. But we purpose endeavouring to discharge our duties with courtesy, and to make the Record an organ which none of our friends will be ashamed to own as an exponent of their views. We shall aspire to lead our juvenile friends into the beautiful paths of knowledge, goodness, and peace; to aid parents and teachers in their efforts to raise a sober generation; to vindicate our principles when attacked; to stimulate fellow-workers to more zealous action; and to furnish the means of temperance culture on a Christian basis. We do not cherish any jealousy of similar periodicals. May they prosper abundantly! From us they will ever receive a kind word. Never will these pages bear the imprint of ungenial language. We recognize the law of love. It came from the Everlasting Father. We owe it our homage. As a Divine Law it shall be our guide. We ask for sympathy. We seek co-operation. Books, essays, poems, accounts of festivals, anecdotes, reports, and sketches of good men who died in honour, may be sent to us, and we will do our best to use them. Young men and women who wish to engage in Bands of Hope may write to us, and we will cheerfully remember them when arranging our monthly Secretaries may rely on our desire to help them in their arduous duties, and all who are willing to work, and long to know how to begin, are invited to correspond with us. We have said all we have in our hearts. Let us arise, and numbers. serve our generation according to the will of God. We are pledged in a noble cause! Happy the man who does his duty in the name of the Great Master, who "went about doing good." PLAIN TRUTHS PLAINLY PUT.* ♪ ei vononiaВY THE REV. NEWMAN HALL, LL.B. 94190 ? W ΤΟ JI ! Among other departments of usefulness is the temperance enterprise. The object is to rescue multitudes ready to perish' through strong drink. All England approved of the effort to save the one hundred and fifty men of the Franklin expedition. It was worth while to expend money, to endure fatigue, to risk danger, in order to rescue even so small a number of our brethren. Should not all England approve still more the effort to save 600,000 drundards, 60,000 of whom every year enter a drunkard's grave, a drunkard's eternity? Is it less deserving of sympathy because its objects are perishOLA ing at our very doors, because it tends to preserve rather than imperil the life of those engaged in it, and requires health and only the giving up of a trifling sensual indulgence, and the uthe courage of non-compliance with prevailing but perilous social customs? The misery caused by drink, surpasses all the suffering endured by the victims of Arctic discovery. By far the greater half of the pauperism, insanity, and crime which prevail, are traceable to it. It degrades its slaves below the brutes. This very week I was with a week I was with a poor woman whose husband had left her, with her children, to starve. Her baby was only nine days old when he came home drunk, and, without any provocation, struck her with a bludgeon, which broke her teeth and rendered her insensible. Then he dragged her out of bed, down stairs, and with only her night-dress on, pushed her into the street, where she found insensible by the vote was police on a dark winter's night. We talk about drink being brutalizing, There is no brute in creation that ever did so vile a thing. Such deeds are constantly occurring. O, the Prite a secret woes of thousands of British homes and hearts through drink! made by it in the Christian kouravages Church? More professors have made shipwreck of faith under its influence than under all others; and ministers of learning eloquence have fallen on this slippery ground, to the incal 120000 21 ται. and th TB Who can tell the From a small volume of excellent Sermons under the above title, culable injury of immortal souls, Strong drink is the chief incentive to Sabbath breaking and irreligion. The congregations of the London gin-palaces, this day, far out-number all those of our churches and chapels. What can be done? By sermons, lectures, tracts, let us warn against drunkenness. But many are sure to become drunkards, and drunkards in almost all cases must continue so, unless they altogether abstain. For them total abstinence is a necessity. Let us then urge it. But will not our persuasion be more influential if backed by our own example? The general custom of drinking makes abstinence additionally difficult to those who have acquired the habit. Shall we not lessen the difficulty which thus hinders the reformation of the drunkard, by abating the custom? If the tide is carrying away its victims, do we not render escape easier, by checking its force or creating a contrary eddy? Some ask if there is any sin in drinking. I reply, "Is there any sin in abstaining?" Suppose you could not afford to buy wine, or that it made you ill, or was unpalatable, you would not feel bound to take it. Are you then not justified in giving it up for the benefit of your fellow-men? m borem, TAS This is the principle of Temperance Societies. Bands of Hope are designed especially for the young. It is easier to avoid bad habits than to break them. The boys of our Sunday School are tempted to drink on the first day they enter the workshop. Unless trained to total abstinence, it is almost a moral certainty that they are at the very outset overcome. Self-respect gone, they are carried away by the stream. teach them to drink but to be on their guard, is in the present age, to place them on a steep icy slope, and bid them not fall down the precipice. Is it not wiser to encourage them to keep out of danger's reach ?" a To Children are often instrumental in the rescue of their parents. A little boy in our Band of Hope was told by his father to fetch some beer. "I will go if you say I must, father; but, please don't send me." "Do what I tell you." "Well, father, then I will go; but I have been saving up this sixpence, and if you won't send me I will give it it you." The father's heart was softened." My boy, I will not send you for the beer, and I will go with you to your next meeting." He signed the pledge, and became a regular attendant at church, The blessing of him who was ready to perish fell upon that little boy. ** All have some. A Do not say you have no influence. gentleman lecturing in the neighbourhood of London said"Everybody has influence, even that child," pointing to a little At girl in her father's arms. "That's true," cried the man, the clase he said to the lecturer," I beg your pardon, sir; but I could not help speaking. I was a drunkard; but as I did not like to go to the public-house alone, I used to carry this child. As I approached the public house one night, hearing a great noise inside, she said, Don't go, father. Hold your tongue,. child.''Please, father, don't go. Hold your tongue, I say.' Presently I felt a big tear fall on my cheek. I could not go a step further, sir. I turned round, and went home, and have never been in a public-house since, thank God for it! I am now a happy man, sir-and this little girl's done it all, and when you said that even she had influence, I couldn't help saying That's true, sir.' ezince no ndo no wi 6 All have influence. If you do not use it to discourage the drinking customs which lead so many to ruin, are you not using it in their support? We are pulling at the rope of total abstinence. Do not pull in the opposite direction. Apply to this case the Apostle's words All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient.""It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, is offended, or made weak." Give up a paltry indulgence, however innocent in your case, for the sake of others; and thus co-operate in gabwork which will cause multitudes "ready to perish," to bless you, and many a widow's heart to sing for joy. 900 190 19ned flgend 120 I need not say that temperance, any more than cleanliness, or veracity, or honesty, is godliness. Teetotalism alone cannot save the soul. No! There is none other name" but that of Jesus whereby we can be saved. But drunkenness keeps thousands from the gospel. And abstinence has been the means of bringing thousands to listen to it and embrace it. The love of Christ prompts us in this enterprise. And with confidence we can ask the help of Him who taught us to 66 take up cross," and who is "not willing that any should perish." "God bless the temperance, idque box 1415 8 cause! God at a help the perishing drunkard! Assist us O Lord, in this, and "in all our doings with thy most gracious favour, and further us with thy continual help, that in all our works, begun, continued, and ended in Thee, we may glorify thy holy Name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. .978 the |