Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1874-04-18
THE WoMEN,s CRUSADE.

The following Is leIter iIoni ~
Abbey to the Nashville AdUOeote. Dr.
! Abbey is one of the most prominent
men in the NJ. E. Church South, and
has been in Washington City for some
time attending TO important business
OF his Church before Congress This
letter throws new light upon the Tenn
psrance movement in the West. This
article was prompted upon hearing DR..
Dio Lewis address 3 temperance meet
ing at Washington, a few days ago =
In the forty minutes / learned more
about the whisky war in the West than
I had learned from the newspaper re-
ports from the first, or, in all likelihood,
would learn from such sources in a
twelyemonth to come, with all my dull
ness of personal comprehension thrown
in.
begin to see the key to the thing. 1t
! is as simple as child, and as philo-
sophical as God and nature. The histo-
~, the character, the philosophy, the
social attitude, the threatening and ruin
of whisky, all, all, all call upon woman
as the only power, or the possessor OF
the only earthly power, adequate to its
proper handling. There are social and
philosophical reasons why men cannot
| do it. 1t requires the gentleness, the
softness, the mild, persuasive, entreating,
forbearing, loving influence which wo-
man alone possesses. This, all this,
resting upun the deep and impregnable
foundation of Christian piety in its
highest and sublimest forms and express
sions, can alone grasp and WELD the
mighty spiritual force adequate TO CRAP
pie with this peculiar form of iniquity.
Men don't possess it, Nature didn't
endow them with it. This power has
been discovered in woman, ard few
have learned the secret of using it.
The surface, onion-skin-deep descrip-
tons of the enterprise with which news
paper men have been attempting to en-
terrain their customers every morning
now for several months, would lead US
to suppose that this was of sort Of az
gressive, opposing, offensive attack that
these women were waging against the
doggery-men. It's the very reverse of
all this. 1t is the true Christian minis
try of women. While it comes in the
spirit and power of Divine agency, it
comes in the softness of tears-in the
kindness of angelic visitation, in the
sweetness and temper of mothers, of
wives, of daughters and of sisters. The
salient point being discovered, unguard-
ed, and made so by Him who made the
rest, resistance is useless 1t is con-
quest Of the completest kind.
Dr. Lewis mentioned a number OF
towns (ten to twenty, 1 do not remem-
ber-did not COUNTY which supported
fifty to two hundred doggeries, requir-
ing twenty to one hundred barrels of
beer per day. where now there was not
the vestige of one He asked a lady at
one of them if she was not afraid some
would return. She wished they would,
Just to see how quickly they would be
swept out. They are the conscious,
confident masters of the situation. They
occupy the entire place, with undlsputed
possession, with the enemy surrendered,
disarmed, dispersed, discomftted fled,
utterly.
On one occasion a sturdy, intrepid
German went to one of these empty
towns, with forty beer-barrels, from
Cincinnati. He was monarch OF all he
surveyed. At 9 in the morning his
single went out, and at 10 he was VS.
tied by one hundred and ten customers
he did not look for; and before the sun
went down that day his beer barrels
were in freight-car, marked-thence.
The newspapers, which seldom gett
know more than the half or the quarter
of a thing, would lead us to suppose
that this woman's work was all, or near
ly all, performed on the streets, or in
and around whisky saloons. No, sew
en.tenths of the work Is performed at
home and at Church, in preparatory
prayer, singing, and the most devout
worship. They arm themselves with
large spiritual preparation first; and
when they 90 out they don't pray al
the saloon-keepers, but for them.
After all, the thing is just as won
derful, as real, true, spiritual Christian
power is wonderful, and no more so.
The newspaper accounts would lead us
to conclude that these women were,
bands of aggressive, vengeance-seeking
Amazons. No; they 60 rather in the
character of affectionate, loving angels
of mercy. Their weapon, their only
weapon, is true, genuine, Christian love.
It's Christianity in its divinest forms
and most loving aspects. 1t is a slight
divergence from the more accustomed
modes of preaching the gospel of love,
with some special adoption. They in
tensify the purely religious aspects of
Christianity, while they. largely dis
pense with its theology. =
One other remark, and am done.
Whether they may, or may not, be seen
in this woman's movement an OCCASION
al infringement of the incest and bes.
taste, if they shall succeed in waking
up the American people so much as to
cause them to look with steady eye
upon this monster national ruin, they
will have done more than has been done
in the last forty five years of aggressive
measures. There is not iron enough in
human composition to enable the people
of this land to look for ten consecutive