Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-06-28
Frances Willard's Plea for Temper
ance in the Sunday
School Lesson.
FIFTEEN STATES BACK OF HER.
Teachers Whose Breaths Smell of Wine,
Beer or Rye Not Wanted in
Sunday School.
FOUR TEMPERANCE TALKS A YEAR
bAIl the Memorialists Ask, But They Must be Very
Practical

The proceedings of the international Sun
day School Convention yesterday were un-
usually interesting. When the temperance
question was taken up breezy discussion
arose over the time to be allotted to Miss
Frances Willard. After a short but sharp
tilt il was decided that Miss Willard's ad-
dress should be delivered in the afternoon.
1t was the feature of that session, and as the
utterances Of Miss " lizard on this question
cannot but command National attention,
THE DISPATCH herewith presents her ad-
dress in Its entirety. She SAID;
DEAR FRIENDS-I am here in a representa-
tive capacity Fifteen State Sunday School
Conventions have memorialized this vast meet
ing for four specific temperance lessons year.
They are Ohio, New York, Indiana. Pennsyl-
vania, Iowa, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts,
Vermont. New Hampshire, Delaware,
Connecticut, Rhode Island, Arkansas,
Oregon. Chicago sends a memorial with
L5OO names, including almost all her
pastors and Sunday school superintendents.
Boston sends another of equal unanimity;
Rev. Dr. Noble. of Chicago, personally me-
morializes the convention in a notable appeal:
DR.. Gray, Of the Interior; DR.. Gilbert of the
.4dudnce; Dr. Edwards. of the Northwestern
ChTistian Aduocdte; DR.. Hewich Johnson, OF
everywhere. send urgent pleas. We do not
ask for new Bible, but for an applied power
of the old one; We do not ask for nXed oates,
but for four Sundays as the minimum. and we
are confident the blessed Book will prove
itself amply equal to the strain
WHAT THEY EARNESTLY ASK.
lam also here to represent the National W.
g. 7. U. in its Sunday school department, and
the Is States and two great cities that have set
their seal to our memorial We ask you to ad-
lust this belt to the great driving wheel; to
give us specific temperance lessons at least
four times a year; to place our temperance
books on the shelves of the Sunday school
library; distribute the Young Crusader OF the
W. c. I. u. and the Temperance Bdnner, OF
the National I emperance society to the schol-
ars once a month; to teach them Anna Goods
marching songs; to keep the Roll of Honoy
with its triple pledge always In sight upon the
schoolroom wall; and to retain no officer or
teacher whose breath reveals familiarity with
the wine cup. the beer mug or the demiiohn.
We do not ask, as some have said, for new
Bible." We are abundantly content with the
old one. Miss Luceu E. F. Kimball, Of Chi
eago is at the head of Sunday school work in
our National W. c. T. U. A native of Maine,
with all the temperance education that nom
Ored name implies; graduate OF Mt. Holyoke,
where Mary Lyons spirit is genus loci; sue
cessful public school teacher in Chicago, Miss
Kimball resigned her position when our mu-
nicipal authorities threw the Bible out
of the public schools This was in
1874, and since then this indomitable
woman has steadily worked on to secure the
Temperance education of the children in our
Sunday schools. 1t was by her efforts, seconded
bv her faithful coadjutors in every State and
Territory and in our local w. {. 7. unions, that
the great petition was presented resulting in
the present arrangement, through the LOUIS
vile Sunday School Convention, which called
for the quarterly lesson, not as an option but
an established rule. Miss kimball is in this
convention as delegate from Illinois. and her
thanks are yours, true men and women, who
have borne and labored and had patience until
this crisis hour.
WHERE REFORM SHOULD LEAD.
Myhrst points that temperancer reform should
conduct toward the church. and never away
from it. Just as "citizens' league" is but a
Temporary expedienr to be set aside when
municipal government ceases to be the sham
that now disgraces our Republic, so tenn
perance societies will be superfuous in the
exact proportion that the Church of Christ
comes TO be what 1t ought always to have been,
the one great temperance society. For myself
/ am first a Christian. afterward a White Rib
boner, and nothing so fills my heart with Joy as
to see the Church take any step by which the
temperance cause becomes more welcome at
the sacred affairs where it was Graded at the
first. For movements come ana movements
go, but the Church of Jesus Christ goes on
forever.
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union
does not come with its petition in any other
spirit than one of love and good will. We are
yourselves. At our national convention in
Chicago last November. with its 466 delegates.
when all the Sunday school workers
were asked to rise less than half a
dozen remained in their seats. We
come with our own when we come here.
We rejoice in the International Sunday school
lessons; they are the first great reciprocity
treaty among the nations; they are Gods
blessed John the Baptist of universal peace.
Themselves the coinage of Heaven they predict
a common coinage for commerce; themselves
Gods standard of moral weights and measures,
they
sUGC EST A UNIFORM STANDARD
upon the earthly plane; themselves a universal
language of peace on earth, good will to men;
they help conduct to the unifcation of this
planet's babel-iargon; themselves the incarna-
tlon of Gods idea in government, they predict
the prohibition of the dram shops and pioneer
"The Parliament of Man.
The Federation of the world"
They have come in Gods good time and come
to stay.
But what shall we who are devoted sons and
daughters of the household of faith say to
such facts as the following: The Japanese
Government sent a commission to Great
Britain to see about making the Church of
England the State church of Japan, but after
careful investigation an adverse report was
rendered on the ground that christianity had
not saved England from becoming a drunken
nation" Alas nor has it saved England and
America from making OIner nations drunken
Let Africa stretch out her hands to God and
bear witness to the crimes of Christian En-
gland and America, whose BOTTLES of alcoholic
poison are in many places the only coin in
which Europeans pay Tor the rich products of
that tropical region debauching whole villages
and blotting out tribes by the whisky-lighted
fires of hell
There are 1000. 900 young men in America to-
day of whom over 100000 never darken a
church door. That is about Is out of every 100
Of these young men do not attend church
Ninety-fve out of every hundred do not belong
TO the church, and pinety-seven out of every
hundred DO nothing to spread 0nflSflanity of 81
one hundred criminals are young men, and
young men are the chief patrons OF the saloon.
the gambling house, the haunt Of infamy. 1t
was noticed recently that into single saloon
of Cincinnati and within a single hour went 252
men, 236 of whom-or all but l6-were young
men. As result the death rate steadily in
creases from Il to % years of age. Their eVll
habits reporting themselves in deteriorated
bodies and dIstempered souls, at the age when
they should nave attained their manly prime
THE TERRIBLE STATEMENT
is made that three-fourths of the convicts in
the penitentiary of Ohio which we women
loved to call 'the Crusade State" were once
Sunday school scholars, and an equally large
proportion Of them are in prison because of
crimes growing out of tfieir incorporate habits.
If this statement is correct we know that il is
not essentially different from the showing that
all our prisons make. Fitty-two Sundays in
the year are devoted by the growers of dark
ness, through their emissaries. the $50 600
legRlized saloons Of the nation, to the produc-
tion of intemperance.
Now am here to ask most solemnly and
tenderly: viii not our leaders dedicate tour
Sundays in a year to the promotion OF personal
temperance? This is the practical Question
before US. Sunday is the saloons harvest time:
IN al our cities children must pass its omen
"a oh ha Grnd nda anhn NIX