Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1870-03-31
A Revival of Temperance.

Next to revival of true religion we
need at this time in every city and viii
! lage of our land a Temperance Revival
and We use the phrase to imply absti-
nence from all inebriating drinks, ac-
companied with honest work and infiu-
ence to suppress the sale and use of
alcoholic liquors as a'beverage every
where. There are cheering igns of such
revival. Some of the cities and towns
of Massachusetts are moving. We hear
of new Temperance Societies formed in
Worcester, Lowell, and other large
places, where the friends of the cause
are buckling on their armor to fight the
moral battle after the fashion of thirty
or forty years ago. A clear ringing ut
terance goes out to the country from
the Congressional Temperance Society,
giving the people a new sensation, and
contradicting again the proverb which
hints that no good thing can come out
Of: n Nazareth. 1t seems as if many true
and staunch friends of the cause who
have been writing for redemption from
rum through the law, and intermitting
personal efforts the while, were waking
uPto the consciousness of a peril which
threatens to overwhelm the whole
cause. Law, social usages, moral efforts.
education and public sentiment are all
in danger. An INSCRIPTIONS business
interest, represented by comparatively
sm all, but rich and influential class of
citizens, seems about to be made guar
dian of the public morals. God save the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts,, or of
any other sovereign State, when the
liquor interest dictates its laws and con-
trolls its social customs. 1t is case of
lambs put into the special charge of a
wolf
But the wolf can be bound. He is ugly
enough to be sure, and has dreadful
teeth, and a black mouth, and an insa-
table NAV, and is cruel as the grave;
but he can be held in check, and made
harmless. The forces which control
Christian State are too much for him.
Any community which has i'll it virtue
enough to suppress theft, and robbery,
aud to make the people generally safe
from the steel of the assassin, or the
blow of the pugilist, can also, just as eff
fectually, shut up dram-shops, and sup
press intemperance. 1t will not be a
perfect success in either case, until
society comes into perfect state, which
may he a long time yet; but it can be
substantially accomplished in ary coun-
ty, town, or neighborhood in the land,
IN aOhich the people aUish t to be done.
They are said in the Fee-Jee Islands to
eat baked missionaries, because the peo-
pie esteem that sort of food a luxury.
Rats and puppies will certainly be in
demand for pies, when the public taste
favors that kind of delicacy. The blub-
Der of the whale, the walrus, and the
seal, will be equally grateful to the
palate of Greenlauders and Alaskans.
In all places the people are law unto
themselves. They are so in Salt Lake
City, in Richmond, in New York, in Bos-
ton and in Chicago. The $4,000 signers
to petition in the last-named city ft
the suppression of dram-sheps, if those
twenty thousand names represent char
acter and standing in that community,
will tell with great power upon the
temperance question. Let the personal
example, and expressed opinions of the
people in any place be prevailingly in
favor Of the use of intoxicating liquors
as a drink, and there is no power on
earth which can exclude liquor from
that place. Let the public sentiment
be as strongly and decidedly the other