St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1888-04-19

person of helpless womanhood and in
nocent childhood, arouse every Chris
tan, yea, every true man and woman,
out of the stupid, selfish, contemplate
indifference which has hung like a pail
over SO many hearts, binding them to
their immutable relations to their fell
low men! May it arouse every drop
of blood until it tingles in your veins,
with the demand for earnest thought
and noble, courageous, conscientious
action in the home, in the community,
in the church and at the polls!
May God forefend US from the effect
of curses breathed by despair! Miser-
able homes of poverty and drunken
ness are seedbeds of crime, and crime
will some day bespatter us with the
blood of its victims.
One neglected garden will scatter
weeds throughout whole community,
and one neglected, wretched home will
infect the entire region round about.
1t were wise for you to do all you can
to disinfect, and to restore to health,
and to prevent its spread, or the dead
ly disease will claim its victims from
among those you love. If deadly
plague breaks out among the cattle in
neighboring state, what an immense
amount of anxiety is felt, and how
much is said about it in the papers.
We demand a quarantine for our own
state, we demand an investigation, we
demand that all possible means be used
to remedy the evil. We tolerate no
Indifference and shiftless incompetence
in the matter. We believe in no local
option or license in regard to the spread
81 " Il
Are not our children of as much ac
count in our sight as our cattle2 Can
we keep them always under the home
roof, that we are so Indifferent about
the traps and temptations they will
surely encounter when they leave the
shadow of the trees around their child
hoods home?
A third consideration which should
urge us to action, or at least to inter
est, is the fact that alcohol is deterlor-
ating the skill and strength of our
workers, and thus our industries and
manufactures, the basis of our wealth
as a nation, and our comfort as indi
viduals, are seriously affected. No
amount of protective tariff will com
pensate for the deadening of brain and
nerve in those who are to do our skill
ed labor. Again, a diseased nation,
diseased in large part through the eff
fects of this terrible habit, will be an
accommodating curse through the laws
of heredity. 1t will be drain upon
our resources, decimating our labor
force in numbers and ability, calling
for and filling our hospitals and poor
houses, transmitting weaker brains and
weaker bodies, weaker to resist disease
and weaker to accomplish labor.
So all our selfishness and Indifference
has a reflex action, and it behoOves US
to forsake such a suicidal policy, by
purifying our personal habits. The
time has long since passed for an in
telligent, well-informed people to deny
the extensive sweep of personal in
fuence, and to ignore the inevitable
accompaniment of personal responsi-
bility. If any nearer carries my teach
ing to it's logical result, L am response
BILE for dropping the seed that would
bring forth such fruitage. If my
neighbOr runs the line of my action
farther in the same direction than |
dared or cared to go, L am responsible
for the direction given to the line.
For my part, acknowledging the
eternal and Interchangeable law of in
fuence and responsibility, | cannot
avoid feeling of contempt for one who
says he cannot or will not give up some
paltry self-indulgence for the sake of
others. There are plenty of selfish
souls who take this position and quiet
their cOnsciences with the excuse that
no one need take occasion by their ex-
ample to go further than they do in
this indulgence of their lower nature.
But God has declared a woe upon him
who puts stumbling block or an Oc
casiOn to fall in his brothers way and
if our weaker brother stumble over us
into the depths of vicious indulgence,
God will not hold us guiltless because
we claim innocence for ourselves. Let
the past of our lives suffice us to have
wrought the will of the flesh, and
henceforth let US labor to counterfeit the
effect of our example, following the
teaching and example of Christ, and
emulating the spirit of His disciple
when he said, "If meat make my broth
er to offend, will eat no flesh while
the world standeth, lest | make my
brother to Offend"
"Destroy not him with thy meat for
whom Christ died" "Now if any man
have not the spirit of Christ, he is
none of His" and the spirit of Christ is
the spirit of self-sacrifice in behalf of
those whom we can benefit by the sac
rifice. awe then that are strong
ought to bear the infirmities of the
weak, and not to please ourselves, for
even Christ pleased not Himself"