Fieldside, Keswick, February 5th, 1890

Child of the brother to that generous man
      Who, vowed to Death, bequeathed his friend
          release
    From trivial care, and gave the Muses ease,
And set laborious Wordsworth in the van—
You knew ‘Nurse Wilsey,’ coaxed old ‘Clogger Dan,’
    Climbed unreproved on Southey’s genial knees,
    Watched for the bard’s homecoming through the trees,
And, wreath in hand, to crown the Laureate ran.

Bright shone the sun, the Crosthwaite bells rang clear,
    When blue-eyed Sara and that Rydal maid,
      The gentle Dora, tended you as bride.
But now another bridal morn is here,
      Christ in the heavens has called you to His side,
    And all the vale is rolled from sun to shade.

(Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 133)

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‘March Many-weathers’—that was one of the old names for this month, and it is true to its title.  Nay, it is because of this very changeableness of the month which comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb that gives it so much interest in our Lake Country.  The meres and tarns to-day lie like sapphires among the hills, to-morrow they will be as white as a dead man’s face.  The fells to-day are purple or amethyst, to-morrow they will look wan and colourless as a chalk wold whence the herbage was faded.  To-morrow we shall find all the ‘tops’ white as midwinter, to-day they are sun-bright and almost summer-hearted. (p. 30)

But the glory of March is not that it is many-hued and many-mooded on earth, but that its heavens are one with its earth in Protæan change and swiftness of expression.  It is the moving of the heavens through all the gamut of appeal to the many changing temper of man which seems to constitute its chiefest charm.  It is not that the changes from clear sky to storm are frequent, that suddenly a veil of sleet will be flung upon the hills to their entire hiding, and that as swiftly the whole world will be revealed in burnished splendour, but the clouds themselves in March seem to take on a new beauty of sun-bright whiteness and dazzle in deeps of blue, and after forming themselves into flying squadrons or sailing galleons all through the day, will suddenly towards sunset drop for rest upon the hills, and leave a boundless horizon of untroubled saffron and gold that fades into green at the zenith with such a sense of rest and peace as only after trouble heals the soul. (pp. 30-31)

At no time better than at evenfall does the Lake Country in March put on such mystic change.  The clear, full light of sunset flooding hill and vale suddenly seem to leave the land.  The hills that just now glowed and gleamed become pale and blanched and cold, as if there never could come to these fells the cheerfulness of spring.  Then in about twenty minutes or half-an-hour’s time all the old glory returns, and mountain breasts burn as with fire.  Beneath the witchery of the after-glow it seems almost as if a sunrise from the west had begun to shed its wonder on the hills and the impatient stars must hide for another day.  The birds that had ceased from their first passionate requiem break out to music once again, and ere the witchery of the new and unexpected dawn has faded, the moon in all its splendour is casting long shadows upon the grass. (p. 31)….   

But what is the predominant colouring of March?  If January is grey and February is brown, March is purple and gold.  For never are the contrasts of greys and green so sure to bring the purples of the woodland into prominence.  Dim purple of oak, dark purple of alder, rich purple of birch and sweet gale, all these are emphasised by the greys of the stems of the oaks and the greens of the mosses in the wood and the background of grey green fellside, while always the silver grey of the naked ash tree branches rise up in mid woodland with such effect as almost to make one think that the wild cherry is just blossoming, and the white ‘pussies,’ as they are called, of the willow seem to be budding almond trees in the purple thickets.  Then again far off the hills are purple blue, so purple blue that the great billows of cloud that are laid upon them seem almost to become by reflection purple blue themselves.  As to the gold, the bracken has been so washed into the fellside as to seem gold engrain.  The vast stretches of what last month were rain-blanched miles of mountain grass and rushes upon the higher moors or fell tops, take on in March a golden stain, which in the level sun of morn and evening burn like amber, while in the plantations the larches become squirrel colour,—lucent pyramids of feathery gold that soon will go through a chameleon change and become of tenderest green.  Purple and gold then may be truly called the favourite colour of March.  The east wind seems to be undecided which is best.  For the fallows purple at the morn are by midday changed to tawny yellow, and the ploughman is well pleased—a peck of dust in March is like a peck of dust in May, the surety of a good time coming. (pp. 34-36)

But there are two birds and one flower which have quite made up their minds that purple March was specially meant to show their beauty off to full perfection, and we welcome them both to the English Lakeland as harbingers of spring—the yellow wagtail and the yellow bunting, and the golden daffodil.  The coltsfoot is scarcely yet in beauty on the railway embankment that faces the south, but there is hardly an orchard where the daffodil has not bent his spear and turned his hint of warfare to a loving-cup of gold, and though not yet the willows have changed their silver buds to honey-scented flower of radiant sun, the celandine is bright in the hedgerows, and the children’s hearts are once more glad because of it, and not a hazel copse in the dale but has hung out its yellow catkins for their hungry hands.  March is a month much after the children’s mind.  It is in March the girls are seen to bring their skipping ropes to school, and marbles and peggies and whipping tops once more reappear. (p. 36)

(Months at the Lakes, pp. 30-36)

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But once at least in the year Mardale has ‘a gay good getherin o fwoke fra far and near.’  On the third Sunday of November, the shepherds’ meeting of the year is held at Mardale. Determining to combine pleasure with business, a hunt is organised, and after the sheep are sorted out and claimed, the rest of the day is spent in merriment and cheer. (pp. 216-217)

It was Friday evening, November 17th, that a lover of the shepherd life and shepherd customs of the dales found himself at the Shap station and began his walk of nine miles towards the nick in the grey hills that told where Nan Bield lay. (p. 217)….

A shepherd passes by with twenty ‘herdwicks’ bound for the Dun Bull, and the Shepherds’ Meeting.  “It’s gan to be a nippy neet I’se thinkin’, and ivvry way it’s mappen like a fine daay for t’do up at t’Dunny tomorrer,” he said. (p. 219)

So on the wanderer went through the tingling air.  The Laythwaite crags and the breast of Bampton Moor, brown and grizzled grey, rose up to the great rampire of the Roman Road on the right hand, and Whelter crags, Basing crag, and Castle crag, stood dark and gaunt in front.  The little Mardale Church and its ancient yew trees appeared, and the road turned sharply to the left round the churchyard and bore towards the Mardale beck, beyond which lay the goal of the journey—the ‘Dun Bull’ inn. (pp. 219-220)….

Riggindale opened out finely on the right hand, but the wanderer turned his back to Kidsty Pike and High Rause and Rough Crags and set his face for Selside, crossing the beck from Mardale Green.  He was soon sitting a weary but not welcome guest by the cosy kitchen fire of the Dun Bull. (p. 222)

Why not welcome?  Because every bed had been engaged by a party of Manchester men who were going to join the Mardale Hunt on the day following, but a bed was found at a farm near by and meals at the ‘Dunny’ were possible. (p. 222)….

“We sat down to tea,—'haver bread,’ cheese, tea cakes, jam and apple pasty galore, and then I strolled up to the farm where a kindly body had promised to give me shelter for the night. (p. 223)….

I went down with my host to ‘Dunny’ at seven o’clock with the wife’s voice of warning in my ears, that if we were late ‘heam’ we mud sleep ‘i’t byre, fur she wadn’t stay up for us, sea theere.’  Already one felt the breath of the shepherds’ meeting had possessed the Dun Bull.  Farmers and shepherds who had come over the fells with sheep for the morrow’s meeting were sitting on the settles, with their dogs at their feet and with pots of hardly-tasted ale in front of them.  Very silent and weary they seemed and well they might be.  They had been ‘raking’ the high fells for a week past in quest of their neighbours’ sheep.  Presently one whose thoughts were evidently with his dogs out on the moorland said as if he was speaking almost in his sleep, and was addressing nobody in particular, “Ah saw that yan o thine wid t’lamb this mornin’.  Ah tried to git till far side on’t but my dog wasn’t ‘wiet’ eneuf, and t’yow bolted and got crag fast, sea ah hed to leave it, but Ah’ll hev anudder try furst thing i’t morning.” (p. 225)

I learned that the shepherds’ meeting at Mardale “wasn’t founded in’t memory of man.”  That the shepherds gave up a week to ‘raking’ the fells and bringing down to the Dun Bull the sheep that were not their own.  That though there is a Shepherds’ Guide with all the lug-marks and smit marks of the various flocks in it, it is very seldom referred to, for all the shepherds ken the marks as well as they ken their own bairns.  From the time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, a hunt succeeded by a good dinner ushers in the shepherds’ ceremony of ‘swortn’ the sheep; and after the sorting a hound trail and pigeon shooting at clay pigeons affords diversion till daylight fades; then tea is served and the shepherds who determine ‘to remain on spree,’ as they call it, instead of driving their sheep home, make a night of it.  I gathered from the old farmers that they thought ‘nowt’ to the hound-trail and pigeon shooting.  ‘They wur new-fanglements and mud varra weel be dispensed wid.’ (pp. 225-226)

“Do you ever have any difficulty about handing the sheep back to their rightful owners?” I said.  “Naay, naay, nobbut when smit-mark’s weshed oot or lug-mark hes got destroyed by wear and tear.  Noo and agean we send yan back as neaboddy can claaim ye kna.”  Poor little unclaimed herdwick!  What a picture of forlornness!  Surely the scape-goat in the wilderness was not much more forlorn than the friendless sheep that none could own, sent back to the winter mountains. (p. 226)

I learned that as many as two hundred sheep were thus annually brought together and returned to their rightful masters.  “It’s very good of you to take so much trouble,” said I.  “Naay, naay barn, why its nowt,” was the rejoinder.  “Ye see its fair aw roond. They deu t’saame fer me.” (pp. 226-227)

A great barking filled the kitchen and all the dogs rushed out, for the noise of wheels was heard and soon Manchester poured itself into the hostelry.  Sturdy young fellows in knickerbockers, in leggings, in shooting jackets and every form of unkempt, rough, untidy dress, their faces glowed from the frost, their appetites were keen, and we were all of us soon seated round a supper table where ‘taty pot’ was the principal dish.  Then pipes were filled, songs were called for, and liquor flowed.  The Manchester men meant well, but they did ill. The fellside shepherd is not one who thinks that the only way to be happy is to be full of liquor, but he is much too much of a gentleman to wish to hurt the feelings of the man who proffers it, and in his very fear of offence he deems it his duty to take the liquor provided.  There was a deal of duty done that evening at the Dun Bull. (p. 227)….

Breakfast was now the word.  We all sat down together,—hunters, shepherds, Manchester men, landlord and wife.  ‘Poddish,’ ham and sausage ‘for ivver,’ as my neighbour said, was the fare.  Then, after breakfast, Joe Bowman went for his dogs.  With but little hope of scent, he ‘lowsed,’ as it is called, at the Grove Brae farm, and the dogs went up across Branstreet towards the head of the dale.  Three of the hounds were seen to disappear over the top.  Gone off on a hunt on their own account, Joe knew well what hounds there were, and bidding us, if we wanted to see anything of the sport, get across the valley and climb up to the top of Rough Crags, he went on bravely with the rest of the pack, and was soon lost to view among the crags and the mist that rose, as the sun rose, along the steaming heights. (p. 229)

We crossed the river by a couple of larch tree poles that do duty for a bridge and clambered up to a vantage ground 2042 ft. above sea level; all the time we heard a kind of elfin music, the voices of a hunt in a dream.  “Dogs is gaen” was all that was said.  At last a keen-eyed sportsman said, “By gocks! dogs is coomin back,” and sure enough, with the fox in front of them, came tearing over the lower end of Branstreet, then doubling back right across the breast of the Fell above Dunny and so on to Harter Fell, they doubled back again on to Branstreet, dashed along for nearly the whole length of the fell breast, till the music and crying that was caught up, echoed back from all the crags of the vale, ceased, and we knew by the twinkle of bodies that clustered round a mass of fallen rocks a few hundred yards above the Dun Bull that the Tod had gone to earth, and the hunt was ended. (pp. 229-230)

There was a rush down and across the dale to be in at the death, but my sympathy was with the ‘varmint.’  I had never been able to understand the nobility or the sport in sending terriers into a ‘bield’ to worry a holed fox, and I was glad to meet Bowman walking away from the crowd with a look of disquiet and disgust on his fine bronzed face to think that when foxes had been so thinned they should not have let this poor ‘varmint’ live to run another day. (p. 230)  

The hunt had begun at 9.  It had ended at noon, and the fox deserved better treatment, for he had brought the hunters back to their dinner table almost to a moment.  Such a dinner!  Beef boiled and roast, plum-pudding and mince pies.  I heard one old shepherd say when pudding time came, “Naay Ah’ll nut hev any pudding, thank tha.  It’ll spoil t’taaste o’t round o’ beef.” (p. 230)

Before dinner the sheep had been driven into a garth at the back of ‘the Dunny,’ and dinner ended and the fifty shepherds satisfied that they had done all that could in justice be expected of them to do by the roast beef and the plum-pudding, we sallied forth to see the ‘sworting out’ of the herdwicks and the return of the lost sheep to their respective owners.  What struck one was first the quickness of eye that in that sea of faces could detect in a moment the particular mark, the cropped or ‘stuffed’ ear, or the particular smit that the owner claimed by.  And the dogs were as keen as their masters.  “Why, why,” a shepherd said to me, “dogs ken as weel as ony of us.  Ken by t’smell on em, I think, and wad pick em oot like a man if they were left to theersels.” (pp. 230-231)

Certainly as the sheep thus sorted out were released from the pen and headed for home, the dogs seemed as proud and pleased as their masters, and we heard their rejoiceful yapping and barking far away down the valley.  But the next thing that struck one was the honesty and honour amongst these fellside shepherd fold.  “Is that yan thine, Joe?” a shepherd would say.  Nayther me nor Isaac can make owt on’t.  It’s been badly lug-marked and t’smit marks is worn off.  I saaid and he thowt it leuked like yan o’ thine.  T’pop on’t showder’s t’saame.” (p. 231)

“Naay Thomas,” came the answer, “it’s nut mine.  Ah only wish it war.  What’s ta mak o’t lug mark o that hauf-bred yowe theer wid Scotch lamb?” (p. 231)

“Ah mak it oot to be varra nar a fork, but nut quite,” says a voice by my side, and I hear the answer, “Dusta ken what that un is thoo hes hod on.  Ah think it mud be Jim Birkett’s.  It hes his mark on, hooiver, an hesn’t pop. Ah’ll back owt he’s missed poppin it.”  And up comes Birkett.  “Nay he’ll not saay of hissel,” but if that is the opinion of the majority he’ll claim to be the owner of the half-marked sheep. (pp. 231-232)….

Little by little the ‘herdwick’ assembly melts away, and ere the last shepherd has left the garth, we hear the hounds baying in their leashes at the hostel door, for the man with the aniseed cloth has been scented, and they know that in a moment or two they will be flying on the trail, across the valley and up the fellside and so home to the inn. (p. 232)

Hardly had the hounds started when a knot of younger shepherds was seen gathering round a catapult which sent clay pigeons into the air.  “Well, you see,” said one, “pigeon-shooting at live birds, it’s not sport, it’s just cruelty, and we’ll hev’ nin of it at Mardale.”  Bang went the guns and the clay pigeon generally lived to fly again.  It seemed a little incongruous to have any pigeon-shooting of clay-kind or live-kind at Mardale. (pp. 232-233)

As we bade adieu and went back towards Shap through the waning light of the frosty eventide, one could not help wishing that neither Manchester jovialities nor Hurlingham hospitalities had ever been introduced to Mardale.  Something of the simplicity of that time-out-of-mind shepherds’ meeting in the wilderness had been lost never to return.  But there was also something in the surroundings and in the naturalness of those fine gentlemen-shepherds of the fell which nothing could annul; and the honour of give and take at that shepherds’ garth at the Dun Bull was a memory that could not fade, a heritage that no modern invention or invasion could destroy. (p. 233)

(Months at the Lakes, pp. 214-233)

[Mardale
Shepherds]

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Each year also we are being led by the powers of the Unseen, by chemical discovery, electricity and magnetism, to perceive how God gives His great invisible creation no rest.  The activity of the Will of God, as thus revealed in worlds we cannot see, quickens our feeling for the need of activity in the viewless world of spirit, in the unseen realm of moral force and strong invisible will.  The Power Divine, which Wordsworth said “rolls thro’ all things,” is each year, I believe, being made more manifest in the affairs of men.  The book of parable that science is each year unfolding is making men feel the reality of the forces of the invisible, the potential energy in the world of spirit. (pp. 6-7)

This is one cause of hope for those who man the walls of the City of Temperance; and another cause of rejoicing is that we are each year being led now by trade unions, now by labour organisation, now by co-operative societies, now by franchise extension, now by local government measures, to realise that each man is his brother’s keeper, that each of us has a stake in the Commonweal; that, for God and for the Nation’s well-being, we must all of us justify our citizenship by taking our turn upon the wall, and doing what we can to face a common foe. (p. 7)

And the enemy is at the gate.  What shape does he take?  He is Protean, he is hydra-headed.  His worst form to-day is want of strength of will and purpose in the hearts of men, to be masters of themselves. (p. 7)

Talk of it as we may, the national sin, whether it take the form of drink or gambling or lust, is what the Greeks called “Want of self-mastery,” what the translators of the Greek Testament call “Intemperance.”  This too in a nation that has proved by more than a thousand years of glorious history that it can on occasion by the grace of God “endure all things,” and in strength of will and stubbornness of purpose lead the world. (p. 7)….

We shall do well to watch upon the wall against this insidious foe that is slowly undermining English strength of will and force of character, and uses, as one of its deadliest weapons, the poisoned cup of death and deceitfulness we call Strong Drink. (p. 8)

Away there in Sweden there is one public house to every 834 people in towns; one to every 18,207 people in the country.  Here in Keswick we have 20 public houses for 4,000; in Gothenburg they have 18, that is, one public-house for 6,333 inhabitants.  Here in Cumberland, with its population of 227,373 and its 953 public-houses, its 115 beer-houses to sell on the premises, its 21 beer-houses off the premises, and its 40 grocers’ licences, or a place for sale of drink to every 201 of the people, we can hardly shut our eyes to the fact that the drink fiend is strong and safely entrenched against us; and when we remember that our forefathers were Vikings who, when they came to possess the land, brought over an inheritance of liquor love; and that we are living in the “rain belt,” and suffer dark days and wet clothes more than most; we know how desperate will need to be the determination of the county to shake itself free from the Drink Habit, we feel how still God needs his watchmen on the wall “to rest not day nor night.” (pp. 8-9)

It is quite clear, if one may trust police statistics, that these drink-and-death houses in Cumberland are better managed than they were; our Chief Constable vouches for this in his last report.  There were no endorsements upon licences last year.  There was a decrease of 36 in summonses against public-house keepers for breaches of the liquor law, as contrasted with the former year. (p. 9)  

But nevertheless the tide of drunkenness shews no sign of ebbing. 1 ,248 people were apprehended last year for drunkenness and riotous behaviour in the County; and, with shame be it said, there was an increase of 84 upon this dark calendar of selfishness over the former year. (p. 9)

As it is in Cumberland, so it is also elsewhere.  In Birmingham, the Queen of the Midlands, with its population nearly the double of the whole of Cumberland, the Chief Constable tells me that close upon 3,000 people were proceeded against last year; and nearly 200 cases above the number of the former year were recorded on the black list of the city’s crime. (p. 9)

Nor does it seem that the connection between drink and poverty is so clear as it was at first thought to be.  Birmingham and Cumberland have both been passing through a time of comparative poverty, but the drink bill goes up.  Brewers do not allow accounts to run, and seem as prosperous as ever; and Great Britain paid over the counter last year close on 139 million of pounds in liquor, and probably wasted another 100 million of pounds sterling in the process. (pp. 9-10)

On the other hand, notwithstanding all this deadly waste, England is to-day less poverty-stricken than she was 60 years ago.  Her total pauperism is less than half what it was then; and her paupers over 69 years of age have been reduced from 21 per cent to 13 per cent.  The fact is, there is less money needed for the necessities of life, which are so much cheaper, and there is more for this fatal indulgence. (p. 10)

Still the Drink Bill swells and, notwithstanding we have our six millions of total abstainers to man the wall of the City of Temperance, the standing army of 600,000 habitual drunkards also grows.  The 88 millions of bushels of grain that might have been bread is turned, in the brewer’s vat, the distiller’s worm, to what may become poison to body and soul.  And here we are crying out that our foreign trade is on the wane, and are spending positively more on a luxury, that means the sapping of a nation’s life, than all we get by our foreign and colonial trade, all we obtain of profit from our foreign and colonial investments. (p. 10)

Friends, we are hearing a good deal about China now.  There is an old Chinese proverb that says that when the Emperor of China, 4,000 years ago, forbade intoxicants it rained gold for three days.  If our Government forbade this to-morrow, it would rain gold in England for a whole year.  Gold not only of man’s making, but golden strength of character, pure gold stamped with the image of God.  It would rain virtue for vice, and health for disease; for money and sin it would rain godliness and true joy—showers of blessing for the Commonweal would be ours. (pp. 10-11)

“I believe,” said Hawkins, the judge, “that nine-tenths of the crime of the country is engendered inside the doors of public-houses.”  “Where the drink trade rises highest,” said Baron Dowse, “there too is the high-water mark of suicide, mortality, and crime.” (p. 11)

Think of unhappy France, her sorrow and her sin, her suicides, her restless anarchy and social fret and fever, her broken faith, her forsaken altars.  Do you know that the drinking of alcohol in France has in the last ten years gone up by 15 per cent? (p. 11)

Yet there are brighter times ahead.  What Mahomet did for Islam, and Brahma for India, and Buddha and Confucius for China and Japan, slowly but most surely—yea, how much more surely—our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ will do for England, for France, and the world. (p. 11)

The agony and death that the drink poison can be to a nation’s vital force is being recognised, even in uncivilised countries.  King Khama came all the way from Southern Africa to pray our Queen that no drink shall be allowed, at English hands, to enter his country—and his prayer was granted.  Rhodes, of Rhodesia, gives his bond that the Chartered Company that takes over Matabeleland shall not permit the sale of alcohol in that vast territory.  Yea, and at home, the cry of the people to be delivered from the chains of this sin is entering into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and the Spirit of our God is stirring in our Churches and Council chambers; is moving in the conscience of the people and in the hearts of our rulers to mend or end the traffic. (pp. 11-12)….

“I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day or night.”  It is to the Temperance Societies of the land that, humanly speaking, we owe this splendid rousing of the public conscience.  The Temperance Societies are the vigilant watchmen upon the wall in this matter. (pp. 12-13)

And these Temperance Societies are leagued with great helpers—Faith in a good cause, Hope for a happier time, Charity to all who are victims of the sin of selfishness.  Not only is the Christian Church of all denominations rallying to their call, but there are gathering within the walls other mighty battalions to help them to man the walls in time of need.  The childhood of the land, as yet unpoisoned, undemoralised is with them.  England is discovering that if she is to remain great, she must keep a tender heart as well as a prayerful.  The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals are ranging round the Temperance standards.  They realise that drink is the brutaliser, drink the deadly anodyne to those fine angel-feelings that make man fit to be with God, and move the nation to its finest issues to be God’s helper upon earth.  And to-day, anyone who knows the horror of the rabbit-course, or the misery of the hell-houses where little children are being by neglect, or by savage treatment, done slowly to death (as 38,000 innocents that have been rescued during the ten years past through the organisation of one society testify) must feel that the Temperance Movement, and the Temperance Societies of all the Churches,

                  Plead like angels trumpet-tongued against
                  The deep damnation of the taking off

of this demoniac lust, the lust of drink; and are standing to-day for God’s dumb creatures and Christ’s little ones against the drink curse of our time. (pp. 13-14)But it is little use that watchmen be upon the walls unless they have some concerted plan of defence.  We have in the past ten years seen that the Temperance cause has been sadly hampered and its progress marred by disunion in the ranks of its supporters – one party crying for one panacea, another for another, and the Legislature paralysed because the friends of Temperance would not be agreed as to what legislation they would have. (p. 14)

Thank God for it, I believe we are slowly learning wisdom.  If I am not misinformed, the Bill Sir William Harcourt is to bring in, is the Church of England Temperance Bill, with certain modifications, notably the refusal to admit of compensation.  Friends, what we demand, and I trust shall demand with clearer voice each year, is not that this or that party nostrum should be tried, but rather that a great and comprehensive Imperial Measure that shall contain and combine all the main points of the Temperance programme, and that shall by elasticity allow various localities to decide what part of that programme is best for their county, their district, or their village. (p. 14)

Let the local veto be part; let Sunday closing be part; let the Gothenburg or any other company system be part; but let the measure be no longer at the mercy of the liquor merchants or liquor sellers or even of the tenets of temperance reformers; let it be “broad-based upon a people’s will”; and let the Church of Christ, by the help of God, strengthen, educate, and keep that will to the right sticking point; let the people feel that they, through their representative, through their parish, their district, their county councils, have sole control and fullest powers of local option.  Till this is done we shall but beat the wind; for till this is done we shall never disabuse men’s minds in the mass, of the old fallacy that a licence carries with it proprietary rights, and that the brewer with his tied house, or the liquor seller with his licence, if he behaves, has a kind of vested right in the deadly traffic.  Once let imperial authority or local authority demand that whatever property qualification the liquor-selling trade has is vested in itself to use or put aside, and we shall be able to begin to put the nation’s feet upon the dragon’s neck, and chain the lion that lieth in wait in his den, that lurketh in secret places, whose eyes are privily set against the righteous. (pp. 14-15)

But I remember that “Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”  In this great council of war of the poor and the oppressed against the hydra-headed demon drink, it is God and His Holy Spirit alone can give us wisdom and strength of purpose—charity for those who disagree, reason for those who are as yet unpersuadable.  In His power and His might, let us lay aside dissension and difference of opinion as to detail.  Let us for the great end, even in matters of personal choice of weapons, take up the Cross of Jesus, and deny ourselves, our own pet schemes and imaginations, and shoulder to shoulder let us keep watch and ward, take common action against the foe.  So, friends, as watchmen upon the wall of a better England, a more heavenly, with the cry of “Where there’s drink there’s danger,” let us not hold our peace day or night; let us give God no rest till he establish and till he make our Jerusalem a praise in the earth. (p. 16)

(A Temperance Sermon Preached in St John’s Church, Keswick. Wednesday, Feb. 13^th, 1895)

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