Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1874-05-11
LETTER FROM MRS. ZINA FAY
PIERCE.


gagged ~ tie Woman's Temperance
Crusade:
Ladies The news that this remak-
able movement has reached st. Adams,
aud that you have honored my sister,
Mrs Francis ". Smith, by choosing
her as the presiding officer of your meet
ings, makes me feel 50 much that it has
come within the sphere of my natural
interest, that it emboldens me to send
you the thoughts which have been pass
ing through my mind while watching
its birth and progress.
The women who SO strangely and IN
expectedly are dealing in their own way
with one of the most inveterate vices of
our common humanity, ought to consider
in the first place that to attain their
ends they have invoked the tremendous
agency Of prayer, or, in other words,
that despairing of the finite help of man,
they are calling upon the Most High for
His infinite help, and infinite wisdom,
to enable them to reach difficulty
which hitherto has baffled all human
effort.
The solemn question then arises
having thus taken the Most High into
their weak and finite human councils
how far are women prepared to go with
Him in working out the salvation of the
humanity which He has created? How
far are we prepared to make a study of
its universal instinct passions-and
consequently needs-and, having discov-
cred, to find innocent and elevating ways
to satisfy them?
This is side of the question which
has hitherto been overlooked in the
temperance reform, but which it seems
the women of the West are partially
aware OF, for We read that if they are
praying to shut up bar rooms, they
are also laboring to open reading rooms.
And this is right, since to accomplish
any lasting good work, prayer and effort
must always 90 together. How l wish
that the women of the East would take
a still broader and deeper view of this
whole subject, and see if they cannot
arrive at conclusions which would enable
them in very truth, to begin practical
regeneration of modern society. What
can women do to extirpate vice? an
swer:
FIRST make rirtue pleasant.
There Is parable of our Saviour's
which the Christian Church has not as
yet, it seems to me, really laid to heart.
1t is this, when the unclean spirit is
gone out of man, he walketh through
dry places, seeking rest and finding
none. Then he saith, II will return to
my house from whence l came out; and
when he Is come, he fndeth it empty.
swept and garnished. Then goeth he.
and taketh with himself seven other
spirits more wicked than himself. and
they enter in and dwell there, and the
last state of that man is worse than the
hrst. Even so shall it be also unto this
wicked generation" Mathew xii. 43:
A.
Now, Christian teachers and parents
In general, make no distinction between
innocent pleasures and actual vices.
Many and maay a clergyman, many
and many a pious woman, is as much
shocked II young man drinks glass
OF beer, plays game of billiards or a
game Of cards, or if a young woman goes
to a dancing party, as if they drank
Whlskey or gambled. And vet | ask
what is the harm. the sin, the vice of q
game of billiards, any more than of a
game of croquet? Or what is the sin Of
game Of whist or euchre, any more
than game of backgammon ? Or what
Is the wickedness of dancing in the CAV.
ETY. of ones heart, any more than there
Is IN skating? Or what is the crime Of
a glass Of ale or beer. any more than
there is in a cup of coffee a?
Everybody must admit that there !,
no harm, iatrinsicaIly. in any of these
acts. Where, then, is the harm, / ask :
You will answer-First, in the assoeia.
ton, second in the excess.
Oh yes, there it is ! The first harm !.
IN the associatiOn-in the places that
young men have to 90 in order to gel
their game of billiards, or their game
OF cards, or their gay dance, or theil
glass Of beer. But whose fault is il
that they have to seek these things awav
from the society of their mothers. tbeir
wives, their sisters, and their lady
friends?
My own observation and experience
limited, 1t is true-leads me to the he.
lief that it is principally the fault Of
the women and the clergyman; for they
have banished so many pleasures and
lndulgences, innocent in themselves
from the family circle, and the social
circle, that young men have to 90 to low
and disreputable haunts to get the rec.
reatlon, the enjoyment, the gayety. fin
If you will not be frightened at the
term-that their high spirits and their
vigorous young bodies require; and
then, being in those haunts away from
all those they love and revere. and sur.