Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1874-05-07

prayer, is as natural in its birth and
growth as the oak that springs from
the acorn. If God and the God like
element in woman cannot help, there
is no help. If the pulpit, the press,
the politicians, the reformers, the law,
cannot bring reform, who is left to
do it but God and the wOmenS We
bow to this movement with reverence.
We do not stop to question methods;
we do not pause to query about per
manent results. We simply say to
the glorious women engaged in this
marvellous crusade: MAY GOD HELP
AND PROSPER YoU, AND GIVE you THE
DESIRE OF YOUR HEARTS IN THE FRUIT
OF YOUR LABoRsi
1t becomes men to be either hum
bly, helpful or dumb. We who have
dallied with this question; we who
have dispassionately drawn the line
between temperance and total absti-
nence; we who have deplOred drunk
enness with wine-glasses in our
hands; we who have consented to in
volve a great moral reform with poll
tics; we who have been politically
afraid of the power of the brutal ele
ment associated with the liquor traf-
fie; we who have split hairs in our
discussions of public policy; We who
have given social sanction to habits
that in the great cities have made
drunkards of even the women them
selves, and led their sons and ours
into dissolute life; we who have
shown either our unwillingness or
our impotence to save the country
from the gulf that yawns before it,
can only step aside with shame faced
humility while the great crusade goes
on, or heartily give to it our approval
and our aid.
This is not a crusade of profes-
siOnal agitatOrs. clamoring for an alb
stract right, but an enterprise of suf-
fering, pure and devoted women, la
boring for the overthrow of con-
crete wrong. 1t is no pleasant, hOli-
day business in which these women
are engaged, but one of selfdenying
hardship, pregnant in every part with
a sense of duty. 1t is the offspring
of a grand religious impulse which
gives to our time it's superb touch of
heroism, and redeems it from it's pO-
litical debasement and the degrade
tion of its materialism. 1t is a shame
to manhood that it is necessary; it is
a glory to wOmanhOOd that it is posi-
BILE.
If the experience of the last cen
tury has demonstrated anything, it is
that total abstinence is the only
ground on which any well-wisher of
society can stand. The liquor traf-
fic has been bOlstered up for years,
and is strong to-day, simply through
influence which is deemed respecta-
ble.' 1t must be made infaaons by
the combination of all of the respect
able clements of society against it.
1t must cease to be respectable to
drink at all. 1t must cease to be re-
spectacle to rent building in which
liquors are sold. There is no practi-
cable middle ground. So long as
men drink temperately, men will
drink intemperately, whether it
ought to be otherwise or not; and it
is with reference to the development
of healthy public opinion on this
subject, that we particularly rejoice
/ in the women's crusade Our own
vision is so blinded and perverted
that we can only see the defOrmity
of the monster which oppresses us
through woman's eyes, uplifted in
prayer, fearful in shame and suffer
ing, or bright in triumph as the
strongholds of her lifelong enemy
fa II hafora har