Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1876-04-28
The Real Work.

Anything spasmodic is necessarily of short
duration. Emotion and impulse, however
sharp and quick, are seldom decisive when a
fort of evil is to be carried. 1t is the long
patient, steady pull that achieves the grand
results. A man, fairly bubbIing with zeal
will rise up and proclaim that within thirty
or sixty days, this or that curse can be ban
ished from the land. Girding about his
loins, he goes forth like some David to STAY
a Goliah, expecting to announce in the words
Of the commodore, 1--WE have met the enemy
and they are ours" Such emotion aud mar
tial spirit are by no means unworthy though
transient aud quickly wasted.
lutemperance is not visible hydra which
men, when once aroused, may 90 out to
cinch it is terrible principle that inheres
In men, interviewer into the very sinews of
beug-an Unsuitable appetite which men are
as prone to satisfy as water to rush into a
vacuum. 1t is well for literature to person.
iiy this principle and represent it as hideous
and unshapely as possible-well, that the
names demoniac, Internal, soluble stroying,
are applied to it, for every new prejudice
and hatred created against it, is partial
victory. But the campaign that shall secure
the complete and permanent triumph, is the
campaign of centuries. New faiths and re.
ligions will spring up, wax old and die out,
and still the principle Of intomperance will
stare at men, bald and blunt as ever. More
than legislation, more than legal penalty,
more than the revelations of science, more
than the voice of relgion-nay even the
combined efforts of all reforming men and
all the conserving forces of society are needed
to restore a nation diseased by generations
Of excess. The same question will confront
the bi-centennal managers a century hence
that Vexes the commissioners Of to- day. aud
government will then as now, no doubt, de.
rive its revenues largely from the manufac-
ture of what in no small degree, makes gov
ernment necessary.
Men, as a rule, are not eager to grapple
with what seems immovable or impracticable
while reluctant TO invest their energies with.
out immediate gains. And Just here lies the
difficulty. Judged from the retrospect Of
ten or fifty years intemperancs is, IN the az.
gregate, about the same Natures are not
renewed nor mysteriously transmitted ton
denotes abated as the fast mail goes from
New York to Chicago
Roiormatory processes are not convulsive
or immediate They are marked, like
growth, by small and almost nappreciabe
increments, Neither a Clymer nor Bris-
tow can take dissecting knife, search out
this evil and nail it, 1t is beyond law, cvad.
ing law and practically defying law, What
it is, we know, and where it is, and why it
is, but before it is not, all the conserving
forces Of society-law, morality, phiIanthrO-
by, science, religion-must combine against
it and not for one or twenty years but as
long as society eudures No social cogs can
be invented on which this evil will turn, nor
any theory discovered to figure it out of OK.
istonce. Temperance is the last great re-
form of ALL and its champions must be oou.
tent with the days of small things, striking
blow wherever they eau, and dying hoping