Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1874-06-24
The Crusade.

The women's temperance revival. as it
was called, gradually faded out of the
newspapers. and there arc not wanting
those who ask what was the use Of it, and
who, like jesting PLATE. stay not for an
answer. The use of it is that of all sin.
eere and earnest appeals against conceded
wrongs and abuses. When a case is con-
tinued In the courts, or the decision is re.
served, do we ask what was the use of all
this argument and all this testimony? So
in the great tribunal of the human consci.
ence and of civilization tho case may be
continued and the decision reserved, but
none the less has the great appeal been
heard and the shrewd argument weighed
The women walking in throngs and kneel-
Iog at the doors may not all have been
free from some lower motive there may
have been love of excitement and of dis.
play; there may have been much igno.
rance and folly and fustian: but wha,
sent them forth--what do you sec in the
experience of women that should have filled
the street with praying band ? This is
the real inquiry. All movements of deep
emotion have au unreasonable asIect, if
you will choose that point of view. When
q hard, cruel, rcmorseless power held
man in It's grasp, and promised him par
9 don and comfort and peace if he would
say certain words, and if not, death for
himself and torment for those whom he
should leave behind him, why did he not
say the words under mental and moral
protest, as he would have given bis purse
to robber who held the knife at his
throat 10 the polished, skeptical schol-
-ars of Rome the persistence and suffering
Of the carly Christians were the height Of
folly. What are words, they would have
said, when uttered under compulsion
Why not say what the tyrant requires,
and enjoy your own spiritual freedom be-
yond his reach ? The same skepticism
would easily see what is dlsagreeable and
unhandsome and sensational in the WON.
ans temperance crusade; but neither in
the earlier nor in the latter Christians
cou.d that spirit see or understand the
profound and supreme feeling from which
the conduct springs.
l. Think Of the tragedy Of a single home
ravaged by the drunkenness Of the hus.
band aud father, Of the oaths and blows
falling upon the innocent and helpless. Of
the bruised babe, the terror Of children
who dread the coming Of the parent, of the
horror and long heart.brake Of the wife,
her hopeless vigils, her endless and use
less and endless toll, her hope against
hope. and faith against sight, all the light
and beauty of life fading away, anxiety,
poverty, hunger, despoir, crowding swift.
ly on; think Of the daily story Of thou.
sand houses in the city. Of the novels in
the town and in the country, Of the den in
which the demon is coiled that works this
woe, Of the doubts aud delays of Legisla-
lures, of the coolness Of. science, of the
practical fatalism that serves as the pa
noply Of every high eyil--and is it wou-
derful that women any where who had
lived for years in the midst of hell 60 down
upon their knees in public or in private,
amidst scoffers or among friends. to move
the hearts of those who seem to them the
authors of their despair The "use 1t"
is the appeal that it makes to the consci-
ence and mind of the country, arousing
and renewing the conviction that the evil
can not be dismissed, can not be left to
cure itself, but that every good man and
woman must consider how it may best be
abated. OF rajq8iO n bsaodord ia7Db0'
1t would be very wrong, however, to
suppose that there has been noprogress in
the cause of temperance. The most strk-
ing fact in the case is that within aocen-
tury opinion has vitality changed. To be
drunk was no lscredit to man ut the be-
ginning of the century. To offer ardent
spirits upon all occasions was the rule, Of
courtesy. To drink copiously was the lest
of manliness. Within the memory of mid
,dle-aged men liquor-drinking at public ta-
bles was almost universal. !. 1t is so no
longer; and there is even consciousness
ofopposiug public opinion if you order a
bottle Of vine. This is SO true that this
pressure ofopiuion is called tyranny by
those who can not escape the conscl-
BUSINESS Of it, but who resent it. The
ovasions in the signs of bar-rooms. calling
them ''samplo.rooms" and "''wine-rooms'l
and ''saloons," the blinds which surround
them, the shame with which 50 many en-
ter them, all show q universal sense of the
stigma which public opinion has placed
upon dram,dsnkipg. It is this public