The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1874-05-28

4
verse the order of his mental opera
tions, aud to contrast the bewildeIing,
dazzling intoxicationfof the beautiful
widow with the calm, heaven breath
ing spirit of his wife's serenity. In
some mysterious way. he hardly knew
how, he awoke to consciousness OF
what had been his danger, aud the
brink on which he and Emma Long
had been standing. faaars
HEwAs SAVED,
-lured from the dizzy depths into
which be might have dragged down
an innocent if indiscreet woman, back
to the safe, and sure, and satisfying
paths of steady, true, pure, home love
and trust. The strong, aAcomplain-
ing affection of John Gray's wife had
''kept her husband"
The details may vary, but, take it,
the descent is pretty much the same
in all the downward courses of, hus-
bands, fathers, sons, and brothers,
from the light and love of, happy
hemes TO the dark dispair. of sin
full and forbidden pleasures dizzy
ing, beWildering coulse, approached
imperceptibly, and pursued half un-
consciously, or a blind infatuation.
And, for the few whose feet are so
blest as ever, by painful steps. to creep
back up the slopes, the path is smooth
ed by this same loving ignorance
this same utter trust in spite of APP
pearances, even realities, the darkest
and most hopeless. /s.,.s..,..1'
Many counselOrs are saying to wo-
men now, go where your husbands,
your sons, your brothers, your neigh
bors go. Follow them to their places
of resort. Let them see that you know
just how bad they are, and they viii
become ashamed. Sins and sinners
brought to the light are half reform
ed.n
Such reasoning believe to be
CONTRARY TO NATURE AND EXPERIENCE,
appeal to the consciousness of eve
ry Intelligent observer of the work
iDgs of his own mind, to support my
position. Who have been the people
that have most helped you. in those
crises of life when opposing forces
were struggling for the mastery over
you? Was it he or she who, you felt,
had gauged your spiritual littleness,
and scanned and measured Your spir-
itual poverty and naGedness? Was it
not, rather, the noble soul, so pure as
not to betrav that suspicion? Is it
the employer who dogs the very foot
step that wins fidelity? Is it not,
rather, he whose frank confiding
abashed the rising thought of guilty
falseness? Does it ever help men TO
suspect them, or reform them TO
deepen suspicion with certainty, and
set its brand upon them? If so, why
the Instinct of man or woman to get
away among strangers for s'fair
chance TO begin anew? ?" Why the
impulse of affection to shield the fair
name--to avert the eye from the tell
tale marks of disgrace on loved feat
ures? 1t is an instinct as old as the
profess, of Cain against the brand of
his guilt-as old as the impulse of fl
ial reverence in the son of Noah to
turn from the sight fof his fathers
shame: 1t is preeminenily the in
woman's intuitiVe and delicate logic,
Let no grosser or more clumsy syl-
fogfsn1s of the spiritual machinery
makers cause her to think slightingly
of it.
Will the mother, or wife, or sister,
or daughter, make great gain when
she has tracked her son, or husband,
or brother, or father, to his hannts,
when she can confidently assure him
that she "knows" because she has
heard the ribald oaths and obscene
tests of his inebriated debaucheries
Will the fruit of this tree of knowl-
edge of the bar-rooms and brothels
serve to sweeten, and make whole
some and life-giYing, the homes to
which it is carried Women, if you
wish to preserve your homes and
make them holy and helpful, ...s-.
sHUN TO KNOW MANY THINGS. ~
Do not familiarize yourself with the
details of vice and crime, or know
any more about them than you ineyi-
tably must Avoid them as they are
forced upon you in the daily news
paper, in private gossip, in public
lecture. / take it that those persons
who can give you the exact statistics
of the haunts of infamy in your neigh
borhood, and call by name the men
and women who frequent them, are
not, as rule, the persons whose in
fiuence is most tending to diminish
the number and power of such places
of temptation. r.
Do 1, therefore, deny that any good
can result from the action of those
women who started the temperance
crusade, and who, putting aside their
womanly weakness, went forth, clad
in superhuman strength, to battle
with the whisky-demon? Far from
it. But the exalted Inspiration which
dares set al defiance for the nonce the
prudent suggestions of time-honor-
ed conventionalism, and which rises,
in the act, to the high plane of the
moral sublime, before which every
| true heart bows with grateful rever-
ence, is always attended with risk; is
possible but seldom is not to be pro-
posed for secondhand use; and least
of all is its subtle essence to be caught,
bottled, and dealt out to organize
armies in daily rations. Such depar-
lures from recognized standards
moral apestrophes-are allowable and
effective only in intensities of feeling
to which but few persons attain. Any
attempt to make them commonplaces
will
DEGRADE AND BRING THEM TO RIDIcULE.
The beautiful and chaste Godiva put
off her princely robes, and letting fall
her golden hair around her shapely
shoulders, rode forth naked vet cloth
ed i'll her chastity" :" that she might
fulfill the hard condition on which
alone, as prophecy had foretold, her
city could avert threatening doom
the self-abnegnation of yirtuous
woman. Men turned away their faces
reverently from The vision, and she
rode on, and Coventry was saved.
But would even the chaste Godiva
| have dared repeat the experiment,
lest that one craven, peeping Tom of
| Coventry might have become thou
sand? Was not transcendent faiths
sure evidence of success all that made
4 it pardonable even for once? I speak
of the legend as truth, for truth it is
| to Nature.
The beauteous Una walked forth in
the majesty of "simple truth. and
wronged innocence" and, as her San
gel face shyned bright and made a
-. Aba sho1r valaoa A.,