TEMPERANCE AND THE CHURCH.
By Editor
ONE of the strangest things in modern so-called Christianity is the idea that the church in its church capacity is not a temperance society; that it needs a temperance organization within its church organization, to inculcate the principles of temperance. A church that does not include temperance in all things (1 Cor. 9:25), in its precept and example, is not worthy the name of a Christian church. The following letter illustrates the thought. It is from Rev. A. Jeffery, a missionary at Ceres, South Africa, and is taken from the Mission Field. The village referred to is Prince Alfred's Hamlet, in the diocese of Cape Town. "A fairly good and promising work is being carried on by a female native teacher in charge of the station. This village, before we started a lodge in it, was renowned for the insobriety of the inhabitants, which evil was by no means confined to the native races. The population consists of about 200 white people, all of whom belong to the Dutch Reformed Church, and a mixed population of 150 persons, representing Bushmen, Hottentots, Fingoes, and Kaffirs, nearly all of whom belong to us and are baptized, many of the adults being confirmed and communicants. Since our temperance lodge has been opened, in 1891, there has been, I rejoice to say, a very visible improvement in the morals both of white and native races. "There have been a good many failures, which I suppose one must reasonably expect, considering the temptation to which these people are exposed in a wine-growing district; but the fact of a temperance lodge doing its steady and persistent work amongst them has had the very desirable effect of checking an evil which threatened at one time to completely undermine our mission work."