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 TEMPERANCE

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TEMPERANCE

similar measures of dofenoe on tlio part of the trade. The Alliance Annual enumerates 10 main assoeiations of those engaged in the drink trafiic and estimates the local societies throughout the I'nited Kingdom at about 700. On the grounds that their trade is a lawful one and, under proper conditions (which they profess their readiness to observe), even necessary for social well-being, the sellers of drink are justified in resisting attacks which deny the soundness of those grounds. No CathoUc temperance society will ba.se its opposition to the drink traffic on such unsound foundations.

As an organization existing to teach and make fea.sible man's duty of self-control, the Catholic Church is the first and the greatest of temperance societies. She teaches, and has always taught, that all are bound under sin not to misuse strong drink themselves or co-operate in the abuse of it by others — and this, whatever means they employ, is the ulti- mate end of all temperance associations. With the social evil of drunkenness (before she was robbed of her due influence and before the common use of spirits intensified the evil), the Church had been able in great measure to cope by her ordinary discipline — her preaching of self-denial, her administration of the Sacrament of Penance, her institution of peniten- tial seasons, and her canonical legislation. All these moral influences were swept away at the Ref- ormation and notliing effective set in their place. Hence the excesses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are largelj^ attributable to the destruction of Catholicism as a social force. Even after Emanci- pation in 1829, the effects of the Penal Laws still continued, and it is not till 18.38 that we find mention in Great Britain of a purely Catholic temperance association. It is true that in 1819 there was founded at Skibbereen in Kerry a temperance organization presumably Catholic, but it seems to have been rather of the nature of a benefit society with a tem- perance resolution amongst its rules. At Chelsea, in 1838, the Rev. T. Sisk started a Catholic Total Abstinence Society, and in 1840 we find mention of a South London Catholic Temperance Association which w-as addressed by Daniel O'Connell. More- over in the same year a Metropolitan Catholic Association was instituted through the exertions of Mr. John Giles, a Quaker. But these little local efforts were thrown completely into the shade by the gigantic w'ork accomplished (at the providential instigation of another Quaker, William Martin) by the greatest temperance apostle the world has ever seen. Father Theobald Mathew. As a re- sult of his advocacy in the years 1838 to 184.5 it is computed that Ireland, with a population of over eight million, counted from three to four million total abstainers, and the annual consimiption of spirits, which from 18.3.5 to 1839 averaged 11,595,536 gallons, sank in 1842 to 5,290,650 gallons. The want of permanence that marked this great movement was no doubt mainly due to the catastrophe of the famine, but also in no slight degree to the fact that it won scant support amongst the upper and middle ckisses and even from the clergy themselves. Its inspira- tion, however, is alive and growing in strength to-day, not only in the land of its origin, but in Great Britain as well. For Great Britain in 1843 came under the spell of Father Mathew's zeal and eloquence, and many Catholic associations were formed in the towns he visited in England and Scotland as parts of the parocliial organization.

.\fter the general reaction that preceded and fol- lowed the vear of Revolution (1848) there is record of further "Catholic effort. St. Patrick's Total Ab- stinence Society, founded in Dundalk in 18.50, still flourishes. In 18.58 a Catholic Temperance Hall was opened in Spitalfields by the Rev. Dr. Spratt of Dublin, one of Father Mathew's most zealous

coadjutors; in 18.58, we are told, a new Roman Catho- lic Total Abstinence Society was founded in London, where also in 1863 there is recorded a meeting of the Roman Catholic Teetotal Union. But not until 1866, when Archbishop Manning liegan to take practi- cal interest in the temperance question, was anything attempted on a larger scale. The United Kingdom Alliance of Manchester and the late Mgr. Nugent of Liverpool put facts and figures before him with the result that both in Liverpool and in London in 1873 a Catholic organization was formed called the League of the Cross which, under those zealous leaders, ac- complished a vast deal for temperance in Great Britain. Branches of this organization were set up in many parishes abroad as well as in England and Scotland, and under the eyes of its founders it became a great social force. In 1869 Dr. Delany of Cork promoted a temperance revival in his diocese, and the bishops, by their joint pastoral in 1875, gave a great stimulus to the movement. In that year was instituted in Dublin the Confraternity of the Sacred Thirst of Jesus and in Salford the Diocesan Crusade by Bishop, afterwards Cardinal, Vaughan. The Crusade, or Catholic Association for the Suppression of Drunkenness, inaugurated by Dr. Richardson of London, and various lesser associations date from the same period. Another remarkable revival in Catho- lic advocacy of total abstinence in the British Isles began towards the end of last century. Father James Nugent did wonderful work in Liverpool for the cause. As a temperance reformer. Father F. C. Hays, a nephew of Father Nugent, has won a like renown. In 1896 he founded his Catholic Temperance Crusade, which aims toprevent,ratherthan reclaim from, intemperance, and includes members who are total abstainers, children over ten who take the resolution till the age of twenty-one years, and associates who lead a strictly temperate life. There is no central governing body, but the crusade readily co-operates with aU other temperance endeavours, aiming at establishing some sort of organization in every parish and, by means of lectures and literature, at spreading a healthy public opinion on the matter. The promoter of the crusade has tra\ollod and worked extensively in its interests, and lh(> iiiducnce of his zeal is felt in the whole English-spi-aking world. The League of the Cross, under the care of Canon Murnane, one of Cardinal Manning's earliest and most energetic lieutenants, is renewing its youth in England and Scotland.

A Father Mathew Union, the membership of which is confined to the clerg}', was founded in London in 1908. But it is in Ireland, where poverty and de- population make the ravages of strong drink most apparent, that the most strenuous efforts are being made to combat it. In 1898 there was formed in Dublin by Father James CuUen, S.J., the Pioneer Total Abstinence League of the Sacred Heart which numbers to-day 180,000 members and 172 centres. Particularly noticeable is the large accession to its ranks of the younger clergy. It was the first tem- perance association to insist on a two-years' probation as a test of purpose and a guarantee of stability; it was enriched by Pius X with many indulgences in 1905. In that year, moreover, the Irish Hierarchy called upon the Capuchins, the religious brethren of Father Mathew, to take up again his work. This they have done with much of his success. Recently under their stimulating zeal one-fourth of the whole population of Limerick took the pledge. Still more recent is the formation by the bishops of the western province of St. Patrick's League of the West, an organization planned to cover the whole of Connaught with a network of temperance societies and to stamp out dnmkenne.ss by the most carefully devised methods. Other le.ss heroic devices, like the Anti- Treating League, aim at counteracting one of the