Mexico weekly ledger., 1894-01-18
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE FOUNDA
TION OF THE wOMAN,s CHRIS.
TIAN TEMPERANCE UNION.
''Crusade Day" Observed In IA Fitting
Manner In This City-Noble
Women In n Noble
Work.

the old spelling of the word erus.
Christ has always had his cross
bearers, taking up the cross to fol-
low Him. Every individual Christ
ian life is a cross bearing life, and
in taking up and bearing the cross
is linked with Christ in deathless
strength.
Every great reform is a cross
bearing undertakings stepping out
from the ease and obscurity of GUS
tom, and an assumption OF the badge
and the labor of the new life.
The great temperance crusade of
1873 in Hillsboro, Ohio, and a
hundred other towns, was pre-
eminently an emergence of woman
into paths and work untried before,
and very plain and unmistakeable
were the evidences that the Lord
had called her and had work for her
to do.
Behold that consecrated band OF
women, bearing the cross, going
from saloon to saloon singing, pray
ing, pleading, prevailing, till the
arch-fiend alcohol dropped his hor'
rid wings, held his sulphurous
breath, skunk abashed from theil
presence, and fled through the
shadows of the night to his OWL
place. How the spirit Of reform
spread like wild fire. How the
hearts of those sisters exulted anC
praised God! How they hoped anC
believed that the reform would rol
on and spread all over the nation
and that whiskey, rum and bee.
with all their attendant imps would
find no more resting place in all on
fair land.
Bitter indeed was their disap
pointment when the exercised de
mon, having taken to itself sever
other spirits more wicked thai
itself, returned into those purified
Ohio towns and made them tenfol(
more the children of wrath than be
fore.
But was the crusade work in vain
Strongly can we enunciate a mos
emphatic No! We see looking bacl
over these twenty fruitful years tina
their work was the foundation, thu
conservation of the W. c. 7. U
work. Yes, and in a very signifi
cant sense a prophecy of its future
work and accomplishment.
God has shown us in His history
of His leadings of our race that the
opening act in many a reformation
is but an epitome of the great work
to follow.
Moses, called to free his country
men from the CALLING Egyptian
bondage, rose in his wrath and slew
one of the tyrants he found beating
a Hebrew. This was not that he
should go on staying and hiding
bodies in the sand. 1t was but the
opening act to his long drama o.
freedom, the seal, the prophecy O.
the Hebrews grand triumph anG
ascendency, not only over the
Egyptian bondage, but over the
Egyptian nation.
So, also, the early apostles; they
gave sight to the blind, healed the
sick, raised the dead. Did this in.
dictate that in these ways should the
gospel be spread through all the
ages? Weknow now that those mirac'
| ulous wonders were but Gods sigr
and seal, His conservation an(
prophecy that the religion of Chris
should be a tree Of life whose leave;
are for the healing of the nations.
So with the Temperance Crusade
which to-day we celebrate. 1t was
a starting point and a condensed
prophecy of the future work of thu
better organized forces of the Wo
mans Christian Temperance Union
We should like to pause RICH
here and take a long look northwart
and southwark, eastward and west
ward and see our sister-workert
quietly and steadily advancing il
their victory for Christ and temper
anee, our numbers increasing, bette.
laws for purity and temperance, in
struction being enacted, young PEG
pile and children forming societies
the US and the Loyal Temperance
Legions, the interest spreading ant
our holy cause siren gthening. Sucl
a look would cheer our sometime:
faint hearts and make US laugh fol
Joy. That is the outlook. But W,
must take an inlook to-day. W,
must "come AVA hame," as th'
Scotch say, and think and talk seri
ously of our Crusade here in Mexico
and in Audrain county. We sis
tiers of the w. C. T. L. have gladly
and solemnly received and born,
the cross to signify our. love Il
Christ, our love of our fellow mortals
for whom he died, our love of tenn
perance, purity and truth and ouI
hatred aud determined war agains'
their opposites, especially to the
whiskey power-that central and
corrupt fount from which flow in
radiate streams impurity, falsehood:
drunkenness and eternal death.