Smyrna times., 1877-05-23

ADVERTISEMENTS viii be inserted at the rate of
Seven Cents line for the first insertions subsequent
insertions Three-and a-hafcents AliberaldScount
made to quarterly, scmi-annual and yearly 0dverti
sers.
The TEMPERANCE MoYEMENT.-We very
much question whether Church temperance
meetings will ever fully accomplish the
ends they aim at. They do not seem to hit
the mark. There is an air Of denomina-
tional eXclusiveness about them that shut
them up within their own narrow sphere
and prevent them from reaching the
masses. The very class they aim to bene-
fit do not come within their reach, as
rule, and will not Even religious tenn
perance men Of the most pronounced type
are apt to stand aloof from these Church
meetings unless they are held i'll church
of their own creed. Temperance people
of one denomination rarely manifest their
zeal for the cause, when the cause is in the
hands of temperance people OF another de-
nomination. They do not recognize the
same call to the work that they would if
the meeting were somewhere else. The
meeting seems circumscribed by the re-
Egious organization that brings it into
existence.
We believe that the wonderful results
accomplished by the woman's crusade, two
or three years ago, were attributable in great
measure to the fact that the women
took their meetings to the wine bibbers
instead Of waiting for the wine bibbers to
come to the meetings. True, women's prayers
and tears and songs did great things,
but they would have accomplished very
little if they had had nothing to work
upon. They went where the men were that
needed the reform. So now, in the tenn
perance revival that is going on under the
name of the Murphy movement" in
Pennsylvania and some of the near Western
States, the meetings are held in public
halls, theaters, court houses, and the like,
where the mass Of men are in the habit OF
congregating, without regard for, or any
thought OF prejudice, party, sectarianism,
or anything Of that sort. The place of as
semblage is suited to the tastes of the peo-
pie, like political meetings always are.
In Wilmington, when the wonderful
movement was first started there recently
there was very little promise in it until the
leaders took the meetings TO the city hall
where the people could congregate without
regard to creed, color or condition. A
meeting in the city hall means free and
easy assemblage for the tax payers, and the
citizens dropped in from the street with
out any feeling Of restraint or starchines;
of propriety. The result was that the audi
ences soon outswelled the limits of the
hall and had to seek larger quarters
Even the Opera House, on Sunday after
moons, with its 800 seats, was nothing
like capacious enough. Men of bibulou
proclivities went in and were moved BY
songs and appeals that never woulC
have reached their cars if delivered in
church, and they now find themselves il
hearty accord with men they had before
ridiculed and derided for being opposed t.
4" little wine for the stomach's sake
The shape the meetings have assumed
have proved captivating to those of non
church-going habits especially, it seems
and the personal experience of old asso
ciates, backed up by the touching songs o
the audience, took the subject home t.
them better than anything else has eve
done. And the meetings have taken roo
because they are held in places where al
sorts and conditions of men feel at perfec
liberty to so. Church meetings reach tn
ninety and nine that lay safe in tn
1old;" but these other meetings have COM
within reach Of the one that's estray.
We are not condemning the Church TEN
perance work, however. Far from it, Tn
idea we wish to convey is, that if this worl
never gets beyond Church walls it vii
never occupy the field that stretches so ia
beyond. Take the meetings to the peopl
outside Of the Church as well as those il
it. Then we will recognize the wide scop
there is to b. covered by the good work
The move IN tn.s town this week is in til
right direction, we think.
Noun l.1lao and huriq