The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1880-11-05
EXTRACTS FROM THE ADDRESS Oh
MISS WILLARD.
Refore the National Convention of the
w. @. 4. u, Mt Boston.
EDUCATIONAL WORK.

w. @. 4. u, ut Boston.
EDUCATIONAL WORK.
Natures way of bringing beauty and L
order out of chaos Is to flood darkness
with light. We shall never get beyond
this method by any spasmodic pyro-
technics, which, no natter how popu-
lar for the time, only serve to make
the darkness more visible when their |
artificial coruscations are withdrawn.
The work among the children yields |
a much larger dividend on our invest |
ment of time and toll than is afforded |
by our work among the drinking class. |
We may as well face that fact and
learn its lesson thoroughly. When
see our schoolboys stunning their
growth and drying up their brains with
smoke; when l discover that their
very cigars are soaked in alcoholic
LIQUORS, and they are baited with beer
and enticed into saloons by music and
by games; when 1 am told of their
degeneracy in scholarship, so that the
percentage of girls who graduate and
who take honors is steadily gaining on
have been strangely, If not culpably,
negligent as temperance workers.
But because they are beginning right
at home we are none the less DESTROYS
that their habit of enlightened thought
should be strengthened by specific in
struction in the Sabbath school, the
public school, and the cold water
army. For we must lengthen onr
cords and strengthen our stakes until
total abstinence shall be inculcatcd
with all the majesty of science and the
sweet persuasions of religion-the two
blessed revelations of Gods will con-
corning us. When brewers and distil
lers emblazon passages of Scripturein-
their convention halls, that system OF
Sabbath school instruction is indeed
deficient which fails to furnish the off
set of systematic teaching in temper
ance exegess.
The editing of temperance column
in the weekly press has been too much
neglected the past year, our workers
seeming to forget that the local news
paper goes into the blacksmith's shop
and bankers counting-room alike, and
even passes into the hands of brewers,
distillers, and saloon keepers, so that
we have no other medium so cheap and
universal in Its application as this,
which we seem so little to appreciate.
Is this because women as yet read the
newspapers but little themselves?
Dear friends, suffer a word of exhorta-
ton here. AS one has admirably
phrased the thought: "We must keep
for ourselves seat In the parliament of
public opinion" but this we cannot do
unless we know what the opinion of
the public is, and it is the journals of
the day that hold the mirror up to the
eloquent and changeful countenance of
"that splendid Everybody who knows
so much more than anybody" No
temperance woman can afford not TO be
reader of the newspaper.
EvANGELIsTC WORK.
If ever faith and works went hand-in-
hand, it was in the days of the cru
SADIE. Some of our sisters, who hold
their prayer-meeting and then go
home, need to be reminded that
straight from theirs the praying band
of the crusade marched out into the
highways and hedges of sin, and with
loving compulsion invited wanderers
to the Gospel feast. The best feature
OF this years work is that we are meas
uring up more nearly to the Saviors
standard of going about doing good
Imagine that the hours between Sab
bath school and tea time should be EN-.
ployed by all members of the church in
going out, two by two, with earnest in.
vitations into the homes of the non-
churchgoing class, and into the
saloons and other iaunts of sin would
there be vacant seat in the Lords
house at evening? Not one. This /
firmly believe, because our temperance
work has taught me most hopeful
definition of the genus homo. Plato
said man is a biped without feathers
Hugo calls him the only animal who
laughs; but believe truer definition
is this; Man is the most persuadable of
all created beings; with his heart full OF
aches and his eyes full of tears, he can
be won by Kindness. Knowing, then,
the terrors of Gods broken law, and
the tenderness of Christ, we persuade
men. We are going out after the un-
gospelled masses as never before since
the crusade. Theatre meetings are
multiplying; depot meetings and open
air gatherings are more frequent; tenn
perance tabernacles are attracting inter-
rested attention.; visitation of prisons
and charitable institutions increases !;
meetings for sailors are kept mp, and
the question presses npon us, How
shall our women be trained SO that
they might rightly divide the word of
God to these hungry multitndes who
come to hear? ft
The Gospel training institute con-
Quoted by Mrs. S. M. l. Henry, at
Lake Bluff, opened the eyes of some
among us to this new and sorely
needed line of evangelistic work-viz.,
the training of women, especially our
younger workers, to conduct Gospel
meetings and to speak for Christ
AS DIR. Charles G. Finney, the reviv-
aiist, said IN the last years of his life,
zine church that silences the women
Is shorn of half its power" So general
has this silencing process been, how.
ever, in some localities that, what a
young lady said recently to me, thous-
ands have secretly thought: "You
must no more expect me to speak than
yon would expect Chinese woman,
whose feet had been bound all her
days, to win the first prize at walk.
ing match" Now, if ever Lucifer re-
Joiced, it must have been when good
and sanity men, by narrow interpre-
tation of the letter and total blind
ness to the spirit of the Gospel,
silenced the womanly voice in the cir
Gle OF prayer and denied to the faithful
Marys of the present day a place
among the heralds of Christ's resurrec-
ton. 'f