Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1886-10-09
[Erom the St. Louis Presbyterian.

ton movement Ill yOui toWh S
give me his name, and also ask MN u
send me samples of any prohlbltloi
tracts I may scatter broadcast through
the country"
That's refreshing. After strenuous
effort in deciphering the tipsy-iooklns
hieroglyphics of the postal, that s aoso'
lutely ali there was of it. Galloway
and her Athens must be hard up fol
prohibition leaders and prohibition
literature when they have TO o &c
Saline for specimens.
And vet we have all sorts and sizes
without regard to color or previous
conditions of servitude. There are
good men who honestly nate the saloon
and the entire liquor-trafic so intense
" that they are glad to adopt any hon.
orable method to rid the mourning
land of the curse; and they believe the
ballot to be the only effective remedy.
Some of these would make safe leaders.
perhaps. There are others who anec'
prohibition zeal merely as a new expe'
dent for personal ACKNOWLEDGEMENT, q
wedge with which to split up old poll
teal parties, and bride and saddle
fresh hobby on which to ride into
power. There are those who would
fanatically subordinate all else to their
schemes, subsidizing church and socie,
ty and pulpit and deity to this ont
craze, and o%stracizing all who differ
as to methods, Some would willingly
invent a new test oath,as in war times,
to exclude from the ministry such as
will not bark as they do. There are
those who are ready to bring in all
grades of tainted temperance lecturers,
without character or conscience, liber-
tines, dead beats, anything, provided
only they have been drunkards and
have professedly reformed and have
the cheek to foist themselves upon
decent people as propagandists whom
Gods children must lionize and impli-
CITY obey or be secuted as anti-temper-
ance and partisans of the whisky
rings. All these various r~hapsodists
aspire to leadership.
The postal therefore was a puzzler
Starting one OF the most difficult pro-
blems we have ever tackled. How
could it be determined who was the
leading leader? Unfortunately the
fanatical kind usually manages to get
to the front. Men who never had the
confidence of the community, and
neyer can have, seize the opportunity
to be the noisiest of all and thus graft
fy an old constitutional itching for
prominence. There are tricksters who
are prompt to marshal to the aid OF
prohibition the intrlgues and short cuts
and falsehoods of the low politician
and set afloat all the filth of uncOnscion-
able demagogues. These somehow
engineer themselves into the van The
solid temperance sentiment is not re-
presented fairly in the front columns.
Yonder, in the dim rear, the conserVa-
tives must follow the bidding OF the
self-constituted ~manipulators, or be
read out of the party. How to get the
columns reversed, urn the whole busl-
ness end for- end, and get the trust
worthy in the lead for a grand ad-
vance, is a piece of tactics never as yet
satisfactorily achieved. The trouble
seems to be that whenever a religious
question takes a political chute i'll this
great land, this stony kingdom tor
sooth, Immediately all the usual char
acteristics OF American politics are
sure to float along with it. The preach
or who undertakes to follow its intri-
cacies and keep step with such leaders,
will O hardly know his head OF his
heart from his heels.
Thus it became a very nice and criti-
cal matter to designate the true leader
of the temperance squadrons. Perhaps
it would have been safer tor all con-
cerned to have boldly assigned the
post of honor, the baton of leadership,
to the waysider himself! Of course he
was too meek to make such a sugges-
ton to the facetiOus writer of the pos
tai. However, in one way and another.
the blushing honOrs have been thrust
upon the bashful worthy and he has
been wearing them as gracefully as he
cana miserable imposter Of a t-t-tem-
perance CHI ch-champion, who is still
loose in the state wholly irresponsible,
rabid for money, denouncing his bet
tiers, sneering at Gods ordained instru-
mentalities Of evangelization, TRADING
against the substantial elements of our
city to his dark hearts content and
then going off and getting as drunk as
q fool before q fortnight, this fellow
helped to push the writer forward to
fame. An obstinate defense of the old
bible as Gods own message to man
for the alienation of all earth's evils,
tended the same way. Winning inc
briates to Christ and hope and happi-
ness by pure gospel means, did not
dim the temperance laurels. Thus it
was of the purest mOdesty the anxious
inquirer Of the postal was directed 10
the Waysider himself as the leader he
was after.
Beside, we have on hand some tenn,
perance tracts which we cal confident
Iy recommend. On our table lays 9
handy little booklet, published sepa-
rately by the American Bible Society,
and called the proverbs of Solomon,
the son of David, which reproves ill.,
temperance as we'll as a few other
things. Perhaps it was written, too
by a reformed drunkard, since tina
seems to be a desideratum, and on,
about whose reformation we thinl
there cannot be as much as in som,
other cases. True, it does not com,
up to the advanced standard of some o
the temperance literature of the times
but the new testament itself has ais
been compelled to rest under that sam
stigma. The fact is we have a goo,
many modern Solomons with whor
the ancient Solomon cannot be expect
ed to compete. The same publishin
house issues the productions of sever,
other Judean authors whose reliabilit
we venture to endorse, although til
avowal may sound old-fogyish an
heretical according to the sublimate
humanitarian shibboleths of later era
The Wayslder is a prohibitionist tC
all that, a prohibitionist ''with modif
cations"-like some other free-thinke
we wot of. In other words, he wou'
prohibit a great many things. AS
preacher, he has no deliverance c
prohibition as a piece of municip
machinery. Pulpit politicians are /;
unmitigated nuisance. AS citizens, Il
organizing and c%ompacting of Il
whisky and beer elements tor control
ing legislation in their own interes,
and debating the policy OF present pc
itical parties may force all true frieu
of temperance to the polls in self.d
tense. Let the issue come. We
have the right to vote upon it. But ,
don't want to hear Gods ministe
ranting around upon that issue, he
nobbing with politicians, getting doy
to their low level, s%quabblIng for off
and b%uttonhOling for votes. III
style of prohibition we would pl
aibit as co~nscientiously as