The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1890-01-03
JANET GRAYDON: OR. TIL wOMAN's
BALLOT IN X.

Wcnutu ucI way bhIuuPu sieeb anu siusn VI
the school where her duties lay. eve
teachers are teaching and training future
citizens, and we must be consistent, and
place in offices of trust and responsibility
only such citizens as our boys and girls can
respect, and those whose example it would
be safe to follow. Very little sense in
teaching our youth to be honest, sober,
righteous, truthful, and then going and
giving the Offices of trust and honor to men
known to be the reverse of all these !"
Ia this line ran her thoughts; for Janet
was endowed with the right of voting in
the coming election for school trustees
aud municipal officers. and the sense fiber
responsibility in the discharge of her daty
led to these reflections.
The municipality was preparing for these
elections, and the usual array of candi-
dates were coming out" The town pa
per, issued weekly, contained their s'cards''
soliciting the suffrages of the electors, and
their promises to work for all the interests
entrusted to them.
One of these cards was issued by the
partner of one of the Oldest and largest
business houses in town: Jakes 81 Co.,
wholesale liq~uor-dealers. James Jakes, OF
Young Jim," as he was Familiarity called
was 'sgoing to rum" Brought up in close
intimacy with liquor-sellers and liquor
drinkers, Jim was a steady soaker; good
natured, sharp in business, but with loose
morals, a champion billiard-player, a lover
of the turf; in short, the last man for a
sober, intelligent, God fearing community
to honor with office. But this man was
running for mayor of K, and the rum in
terest and their followers, the,drink-loveIs,
the obscene, the Indifferent, the loose ele-
ment of the town generally, were bound to
run him A."
Of the candidates presenting themselves
for school trustees and councillors, two
w~ereopenly opposed to prohibition and total
abstinence; one was an habitual drinker,
and two openly immoral. Here was a fine
ticket, truly.
How did his all come about? Very east
ly. The truly intelligent and Christian
element had not sufficiently awakened to
the important duties of citizenship. The
best men were immersed in their W bust
ness, and thought they had no time to give
the town, forgetting the bearing which the
rule of unpr1ncipled men must have upon
their chiIdran Afasf that in mn oauntrr
the spirit oftrue patriotism is SO lightly
esteemed, and the high claims of citizen
ship so frequently ignored by good people,
But the heart and conscience of one NO.
man were aroused, and as Janet Graydon
conducted her school that day, the elder
boys and girls noticed she was possessed
by an unusual spirit, which seemed even to
express itself in her steps around the room.
They saw and wondered. Ontario boys
and girls are quick to perceive. These felt
sure some new movement was bursting up
on them.
When the duties of the day were over,
this heart-full teacher opened her case, and
startled her pupils with the question:
"What is patriotism?"
Up went several hands, and the deini-
ton was satisfactory.
Various questions followed in regular
course, concerning government, national,
municipal, educational, their several func-
tions, eliciting peculiar and varied, but on
the whole intelligent, replies from these
citizens in embryo. The absolute need of
good men to enforce good laws was dwelt
upon; in short, a condensed and interesting
study, which the pupils were then pledged
TO report and discuss at home.
In the course of the next few days the
minister, whose children had communicat-
ed the substance of the teachers study at
the tea-table that evening, was visited with
the laudable desire to enlarge upon the
responsibilities of Christian citizenship at
the prayer-meeting that night. One of the
prominent members, hearing him, suggest
ed that the discourse De repeated on the
succeeding Sunday. This idea suggested
to the minister to ask the other ministers
of the town to cooperate; and, all feeling
the Importance of the matter, the citizens
were informed in the Friday issue of the
paper of their decision.
Thus on Sunday all the churches were
brought to the point of considering the
practical Christianity which is necessary to
the upbuilding of a God-fearing nation,
and to the great fact that God calls toe
often in vain to good, industrious, honest
men to go into his vineyard of government
and work for him. So prone are we to
think thai the church is the vineyard, and
the church alone.
In his discourse that day. the good old
Presbyterian minister, who had labored
there before the present generation came
upon the scene, received a new inspiration,
and amazed his congregation by stating
that the hope of his heart for the puriics-
ton of all government, and the infusion OF
righteousness into public affairs, was about
to be realized by the introduction of the
voice of woman through the ballot. 1.-THE
limited ballot now in the hands of woman
is a power We are just beginning to feel the
good off, he declared, land l am content
to repudiate all past opposition and pre-
JUDGE on my part, by the strong conviction
which | have to-day that the conscience Of
wnnaohond nrustaJsza1 in tbo balfnr-