The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1885-06-05
THE PRESIDENTS + ON TO
al ABSTINENCE.
Miss CIeyeland,s ImpassiOned KejOindel
to the Rev. DR.. Howard Crosby.

l do not wonder that excellent women,
whose husbands or sons have become sots,
should advocate total abstinence for every
one. We have heard Il good woman, whose
boy had cut his finger nearly off with Il knife,
wish there were no knives in the world; and,
if she could have her way, she would have
them all destroyed forthwith. 1t is natu-
raj, and a woman's cry ON sucha an occasion eX-
cites our tenderest sympathy. But who Will
count that an argument
The above paragraph from "a Calm
View of DR.. Nelson by the Rev. Howard
Crosby, d d., in the Eoangetist of March
II, has most pertinaciously haunted me
ever since the perusal of the article last
evening. That this, above any other para
graph, should most impress itself upon the
lmpressible mind of one emotional woman
in particular, or Of woman as an emotional
creature in general, will surprise no man.
1t is, as the doctor says, natural; and | am
certain that multitudes of women besides
myself are to-day smarting under these
''calm" words, against the imputation of
which every fibre of the woman nature
rises up in revolt.
The male animal is very fierce; the fe-
male of all genera is very, comparatively
and in general, uncombative. But the
same science which tells us this. tells us
also that the mother, among all beasts, in
defence of her young, is the fercest OF liy-
INC creatures. The l%ioness, under ordinary
circumstances, is quite easy of conquest;
l,+ tl,a 1;o,n.a raJ1,a1 Of Inp u1,al,.s No
man or beast cares to encouter. Both
these phases of the female are undoubtedly
natural" They belong, as Bishop But
Ter said of so-called supernatural phen-
omena, to the natural, of which there are
two courses"-the one ordinary, The
other not supernatural, still less super
human. but extraordinary.
You see, Mrs. Foster, that this mad
dog you talk about is to be put, by a
calm view of the thing as it is, into the
same category with cutlery. You have no
more real right to cry about this u%nloos-
ened beast because it may meet your chill
dren on their way to school and bite one
or two of them, then you have to cry out
against the manufacture and sale of knives,
because your boy cut himself once. The
perfectly clear thing is-if yon only had
head enough to see it-that the manufac-
ture (by fermentation, not distillation) of
the mad dog (not very mad, only some
mad) ought to go on, and that one mac
dog (of this good kind) for every one
thousand people ought to be protected by
law from the bullets of ~hydrophobia
haters.
This Calm View of ''the evil which
because of some, in fact several, cases of
~hydrophobia among us-has come to be
called by u%nthinking people a mad dog"
is proven by concurrent testimony of eX-
perience, science, scholarship, sound phil
osophy, and, above all, rightly read Scrip
ture, to be a good creature of God. The
calmly Christian thing for you to do ION
such an occasion is not to go up and
down crying but to stay at home and
teach your little boys how 4 little mad
dogs bite is good for them, but a big mad
dogs bite is very bad for them.
You ought-if you would only do the
thing you ought, instead Of the thing you
like-to mix up a little wine and water for
your little boys at dinner. so that they may
early learn the difference between true tenn
perance and this miserable parody on true
temperance called total abstinence and
may be prepared to make a manly protest
against drunkenness when they shall be
grown up. It is simply silly-yes, while
we feel the tendereSt sympathy for our sor-
row, we must say tit is silly of you to
refuse to see that knives and mad dogs are
equally dangerous. 1t is as ridiculous for
you to demand that all alcohol shall be
banished from the beverages of mankind,
because this fiery liquor is burning out the
manhood lin more ways than by its con-
sumption) of the world, as it wonld~be for
you to demand that all the wells should be
dried up because men lose their lives by
drowning, Alcohol and water are so ex-
actly analogous, if you could but see, you
foolish woman. Your cry is no argument:
it We're better you should stop your crying.
DR.. Crosby, we cannot, try we never so
hard, we cannot defy or deny nature. God
has made lis a crying genus. We cannot
understand how knives and mad dogs are
Just alike; we cannot understand why a
mad dog should not be killed. We cannot
help crying if only one to every thousand
human beings is let loose in our streets.
These things are too high for MS; we can
no. find them ont. 1t is not our blame. it
is our nature.
And we dare to say that through the pure
and unsophisticated nature of the human
mother, Gods argument against any use of
alcohol, except as a medicine, is given to
the world to-day.
When the young Queen of Austria,
pressed on every side by the ruthless OPP
preston of the great Prusslan king, fed
trembling into Hungary, and, with her in
FAINT in her arms, her royal crown upon her
head. appealed for the protection of her
kingdom to her loyal subjects there, those
stalwart Hungarian mobiles rose in a mass,
and laying their right hands upon the
swords at their sides, swore, in a shout
whose heroic ring echoes down the years,
"Moriaimnr pro rege nostr0. Maria The