The Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1837-1867, 1863-11-06
A Plain Word with Temperance
Men.

A Plain Word with Temperance
Under the above head Rev. Theodore l..
Guy Ter writes stining appeal to the temper
ance people of America in late number of
the Independent. The text was the anniyer-
sary of the order of the Sons of Temperance.
held at the Cooper Institute, New York, last
month. After showing the decline in their
order from $4,000 members in 1850, to Jj-
600 in 1868, and corresponding decline in
the temperance cause all over the country, he
closes as follows
In Great Britain the temperance cause is
better organized and more widely successful
than ever before: but in its birth place,
America, it is suffering wide spread, shame
tul and ruirous neglect Its great leaders
are passing away. The hand that wrote the
Six Sermons against Intemperance is in
Frelinghuysen, Gov. Briggs, Mclean, Ad-
mlra Focte, have gone to their graves; the
noble author Of the prohibitory law is Cap
tive in the hands of the rebels and the un-
rivaled eloquence Of Cough is less frequently
employed for the temperance reform than in
days gone by. Sermons on the perls of the
bottle are becoming rarer from the pulpit
with few faithful exceptions: > and all this
time the traffic in the viiest OF adulterated
liquors, the drinking -usages of society, and
ioatheSome lntempeTance, are rushing back
upon US with appalling Volume and violence.
Ills is the actual state of ati.irs. We have
preferred to look at the reality in its terrific
face
IIhct NEXT! This is the question. Good
friends, shall We rack our brains to invent
some new device to arrest the popular mind ?
Shall We aim TO put new laws on the statute
books before We have got stiff wholesome
public sentiment to sustain them? Shall We
give over in despair. and let Cur growing
generation be swept into the widening vor-
'ex, and even the church i,S.if be as thor
oughl, dpluged WITH drink as the Scotch and
Irish churches were during th- opening years
OF this century? TO all these questions my
humble voice, Tor one, says no. If church
falls of into rulnous declens!on. a WISE pas
tor does lot counsel cunning resort to new
"Simcrack experiments lie says, Let Us
have more PRAYER, more hard work, and more
personal effort to save the lost; let US put
new fire into old agencies; they worked
beautifully before, they can 10 so acain
So have our temperance agencies wroush,
gloriousIy when We work them. The best
will not draw pound when without hand
full Of fuel in the furnace
When we used 10 open the school-houses
and lecture halls, and thoroughly instruct the
masses or the nature Of alcohol and the ben
etits OF ahstlnence-when the ministers o;
Christ used to uncover the pit before the eyes
Of young men. and show them the dark
earnest appeals from the peas Of kiteridSe
AID Beecher and Barnes aad Sargent and
MeIlvaine and Edwards, flooded nearly every
home, when societies and "orders" met OF
ten, and leavened the public coacence with
fresh truth-,hen society was revolutionzed
The bottle was hanished from nearly every
respectable table dram-sellers were left to
De their only customers it was as much
as man 5 character was worth to be seen on
his way to the bar, or TO be detected with a
decanter at his side. Personal efforts were
made to save indididuals and personal ap-
peals were followed up by combined labOrs OF
societies. The two simple mighty agencies,
under God were the Tuth and the Pledye.
Why not 90 back 10 them again? Tenn
perance legislation will come land will slay)
when the people are educated up to it-no,
before. I:et us bring out the well tried weap
ons-the pledge, the appeal. the sermon, the
organized society. the power of example
let US nfc oWr ordnance. and then ever,
man to his gun, A million of young Amer
leans are growing up who never heard of d
temperance pledge
write this brief appeal under sol;citude
too deep for words. A 1t. ter, couched in the
language of refinement, and written in til,
tears of a mothers broken heart, lies before
me. She says, in her agony, :" He is m,
first bora fear he is wrecked; what ear
you do for him ," Such messages from
wives and mothers reach me CONSTANTLY
lOung men are swarmns into the drinking
saloon. Female drunkedress grows fright
fully. Church members are slowly sliding
back to their tables the decanter tha, con-
tains the poisen of their children Friend.
of humanity, and friends OF Christ, while
we are giving the the death blow to treason
and slavery intemperance is dealing death
blow at US Every one Of US can DO ou;
share TO avert it and in the name of God
let US do it J."