St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1880-01-16

what they advocate. Legislation is
good and necessary, but men of pluck
enough to dare to do right and keep
doing so are of much more importance.
Our critic also denounces as ''utterly
wrong in principle" all attempts to in
duce children to sign temperance
pledges. He calls them "Petty shams
to ensnare followers" kidnapping
children"
1t is simply amazing that any friend
of good morals in society can SO speak
of the efforts put forth to fix the atten-
ton of even very young children upon
matter of such vital Importance to
the next quarter of a century, as is the
opinion which the children of to-day
shall hold on the temperance question.
Has he forgotten that the children OF
to-day are to be the men and women
twenty-five years henceq Has he for
gotten that the gutter drunkards, the
drunken destroyer of families, the
bloats and walking rum barrels of that
future day, are mostly beautiful boys,
the pride of home and hope of commu-
nifty
Iptemperance is active and daily
places allurements before them to Sc
cure their favor and patronage, and
shall we fold our hands in silence and
let the children grow up to youth and
maturity under all the vile influences
and cunning of the rum traffic without
a word of warning, lest we pledge them
too young, lest we take them by the
force of our persuasion into a cause
which they may not favor in mature
years?
Did not the South in the days before
the Rebellion raise this same cry of
"let us alone" by which they well nigh
destroyed the government No class
of people are more successful in estab-
fishing their religious notions accord
ing to their means than the Roman
Catholics, and one of their clergy once
said to Protestant minister, "Give-us
the children and you may have the
grown folks" He was right and show
ed the clearest notions of the growth of
public character.
The raising of a strong, vigorous
moral principle in the children is the
Gibraltar of the temperance cause.
SUCH clear ideas of manhood and of the
things which spoil and destroy that
manhood cannot be too early planted
or too strongly urged to healthy
growth. The lord of Marengo began
his career when a little boy playing
war with his schoolmates, The pillars
of righteousness in church and state to-
day had their earliest ideas trimmed,
fashioned and guarded by the strictest
of parental solicitude.
Again we say legislation is needful
upon this subject, but that cannot
create moral principle, nor can sad
heart and adorn the life of middle
aged man with freshness and beauty at
will. For the support of desirable laws
against intemperance there must be
public sentiment educated to that
point, and to secure that measure of
public uprightness, the moral character
must be taken and placed under prop
er instruction in its earliest stages.
The children must learn to love hon
or if they become honorable men.
They must early learn to love temper
ance principles if their mature life is
unspotted by any of the vicious fruits
of intemperance.
Therefore give the helping hand and
cheering words to all those who are
striving to save the men of tomorrow
from drunkenness, by pledging the
children of to-day in temperance soci
cites.