Mississippi leader. (Jackson, Miss.) 1892-1895, 1893-06-06
ACALL TO DUTY.
MARY +. LATHRAP.


| lean people to-day.
Not the drunkard, but the drunkard
maker; not the drunkard's home, but
the saloon, is the question that every
one of us is meeting, because we find
cut that the saloon is the boulder on
the track, and the reason why we do
not succeed.
If the saloon is the thing in the way,
then that must be the thing to be
struck.
The next question is, where shall we
go to strike it?
Now, shall we go TO the prayer-meet-
ing?
Well, the saloon is not in the prayer
meeting; if twas, there are good many
men in this country that wouldn't find
it, for they do not go themselves. Isit
in the realm of scientific instruction?
Scarcely
Is it in the realm of the reformed
mems meetings?
No!
When we came to look carefully into
this question, we found out that the
saloon was in politics, leaning up
tllC COlIu Jul W dl Nd Va oIdbC dAiA
national law.
Talk about the saloon being a moral
question.
There is not a shred of morality
within a million miles of the saloon.
1t is political inside and political out
side; it is political upside and downside;
it is political on the Republican and on
the Democratic side, and it is political
clear through.
And any man whose religion is so
sublime, so ethereal, SO thin, SO heav-
emily, that he cannot carry it where it
is needed, and speak for home and
country there from the heights of con-
science, the heights of prayer and the
heights of his Christian living he had
better be gently chloroformed and sent
to heaven, for he is of no use here.
Where is the saloon power of which
we complain and every body complains?
Does it lie in the number of men en-
gagged in business?
Certainly not!
Does it lie in the amount of money
invested?
Certainly not!
Where then is the power of the saloon
to-day?
Dear friends, it lies in the wrong
attitude of the government toward it.
Wherever our flag floats to-day, it
says with the saloon tucked away under
its folds: you can stay here by law,
and the United States of America holds
for twenty-five dollars the golden key
that unlocks the sluice-ways of death
to the feet of our children
Men call it revenue.
What is the cry of our reform to-
day?
The men and women stand on the
heights of better thinking and they
ring down into the hearts of our people
the old cry:
you can't make legally and gov
ernmentally right the thing that is
morally wrong"
Already the conscientious believe; al
ready the thoughtful pause to listen.
The hour is at the door when awak-
ened citizenship and awakened con-
science shall elevate Prohibition in
state and nation to the throne of sue
cessful majorities, and this evil will go
down.
There is not a thing possible to hui
manity but what this intelligent re-
public with the aid of God Almighty
can do
The morning light breaks over our
hilltops and the hour of our deliverance
is near.
What, then, is our duty?
Te stand in our place and do the
thing that God would have us do from
the heights of conscience.
God doesn't need any political party
but he does need men! men! men!
Men too clean to compromise, too
strong to swerve, too noble to be bad
gered out of their rights.
God doesn't need the Repu blican
party; lie doesn't need the Democratic
party; He doesn't need the Prohibition
party; lie needs men that will do His
will, and that is all that is needed this
hour.
Father, that is your question.
Blue eyes, gray eyes, brown eyes, so
like your own or his mothers.
Read the gospel of your political duty
from your baby's eyes and ask the
question, as you stand amid the prob
lens of to-day:
What is my ballot worth to me if il
will not shelter the head of my own
darling?
What shelters the cradle will shelter
the republic.
What keeps your wife's heart from
breaking will keep other wives hearts
from breaking; what is good for the
home is good for the universal brother.
hood of this great land of ours.