The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1885-12-11
THE TEMPERANCE CAUSE.


THE TEMPERANCE CAUSE.
Intemperance Responsible for the Ruin of
the Noblest Hearts and InteIlects in
Ancient as Well rs in Modern Times.
In the course of his able address at
the great Temperance reception, given
him by the National Temperance So
ciety and the Church Temperance So
ciety, Archdeacon Farrar said:
From the disgraeeful day of the pa
triarch in his tent the use of intoxicants
had been responsible for the ruin of the
nOblest hearts and intellects.
Again, the AIchdeacon could refer
his hearers to many standard works of
English history, in no way written with
the remotest intent of benefiting the
Temperance cause, in which the most
unanswerable truths stood forth to
trumpet the necessity of Temperance
reform. He would ask them to read
Mr.. Trevelyan'S brilliant life of Charles
James Fox, and they would learn how
nearly all the public men of that day
were afflicted with the gout-the con-
sequence of much dissipation. He
would commend to them Sir John
Kay's and Mr.. Kinglake's histories, the
former of which told how battles were
lost in India because of drunkenness,
and the latter of which declared that
the British soldiers in the Crimea were
as brave as lions though gentle as
women, when they did not degrade
themselves by drinking. He would re-
mind them how Lccky, in his "Histo-
ny of European Morals" had singled
out the year 1924 as one prolific of
calamity to England, because in that
year the gin manufacture was begun.
He would ask them to ponder over that
passage of Shakespeare:
90 thou invisible spirit of wine! If thou
hast no name to be known by, let US call thee
devil"
and over that of Milton'S:
"Who knows not Gree,
The daughter Of the Sun! Whose charmed
cup
Whoever tasted lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into grovelling swine"
From such writers as John Morley
and Thomas Carlyle he could quote
passages which, if any Temperance adj
vocate should use them, we would be
charged with the employment of pecu-
liarly censurable Incorporate language.
The day had gone by when the Tenn
perance advocates could be resisted by
their opponents with any other argu-
ments but those afforded by the con-
spiracy of silence and the enginery of
contempt As for the conspiracy of
silence, the Temperance advocates did
not intend to allow that to hurt the adj
vance of the reform, for they intended
to speak, and in that intent their spirit
was akin to Hotspur's. AS for the
enginery of contempt, it was perfectly
powerless against the proof that science,
history, the cause of humanity and good
sense adduce. The British House of
Commons was no doubt the least sus-
ceptible of all bodies to the passion for
reform and the least likely to be swept
by sudden gusts of enthusiasm. On
only two occasions had he ever wit
messed it thrilled by deep emotion.
One of these occasions was four years
ago, on the 18th of March, he believed,
when Mr.. Gladstone, standing by his
table as Prime Minister, made use of
words which had caused the coolest to
SILVER.
1T has been said that greater calamItes are
Inflicted on mank nd by intemperance than
by the three great historical scOurges-war,
pestilence and flmine This is true for us,
and it is the measure for our discredt and
disgrace"
These words were not original with
Mr.. Gladstone; they had been uttered
by very able member of Parliament,
Mr.. Charles Buxton, himself a brewer.
But Mr.. Gladstone had given them the
weight of his sanction.
The Archdeacon, in splendid pero-
alton, recited the terrible evils wrought
by war, pestilence and famine, and
asked how was it that vice perfectly
preventaoie, which outdid them all
combined, should be allowed to stalk
among us. He appealed eloquently to
the humane feelings of his hearers,
saying that it was pity, above every
thing else, which had led him to de-
vote his energies to the Temperance
cause. Many were weary and dis
beartened at the slowness with which
the movement pushed itself forward.
Golden and Bright had organized a
great reform agitation, and within ten
years their labors had been crowned
with success. But it was now fifty
years since Joseph Livesey's famous
seven men of Preston signed the first
total-abstinence pledge in England,
and yet the movement could only be
said to have got well started. Never
theless, he had immense hopes from
the late extension of the franchise in
England. Whenever he walked into
Westminster Abbey he had all around
him memorials of the great anti
slavery struggle. There was the tomb
of Wilberforce, and there were the
names of the other mighty heroes of
that glorious past written in imperish-
able letters. He reminded his hearers
of.the debt that America owes to En-
gland for her origin and progress, and
particularly for her freedom from the
curse of slavery. He would have
Americans know that they now have
ala opportunity of discharging that
debt America was distinctly and de-
cidedly in advance of England on the
Temperance question-this he said not
in fattery, but because it was true. Let
America now inspire England and En-
gland help America in this second great
crusade for humanity. The last words