The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1895-07-26
w. G. T. U. COLUrlN.
Church Resolutions VS.. the Saloon
Resolution.


ed in Boston before the Convention
of the United Societies of Christian
Endeavor, July 11th, by John G..
Woolley.]
The bewildering paradox of the
Christian reformer, in these days,
is that he must speak of politics
without mentioning politics, unless,
indeed. he feel constrained to say
something contemptuous of the only
political thing that the Church,
politically, stands for. You smile,
but that is the indispensable con-
dition of commanding the cordial
attention of that touchy fugitive
from divine justice that goes by the
alias of "Christian Public Senti-
ment." I refuse to try to do it. |
refuse to try to do it. l should
despise myself for such capacity of
shrinkage in my manhood as would
fit me to scull an argument along
the devious larvae breeding lagoons
that go by the name of "policy."
Away back at the sky line of
history, limned in heroic outline on
the flushing East of legendary time,
whoever looks may see a glorious
crank or, in theological language,
a minor prophet. And like a bugle
blast of some blenched and horror
stricken but unflinching Titan,
sounding challenge to perdition's
envoy extraordinary and minister
plenipotentiary, his voice splits the
great deep of twenty five centuries
of cruelty, as rapiers of the light
ming flash through summer clouds,
and scandalizes the "good FORM of
decorous and perfunctory litanism,
hallooing, "Woe unto them that
supply drink to other men !"
Voices of his critics do not sur
vive, but doubtless, prude "per
diem" orthodoxy shrunk aghast
into it's gabardine and said, "this
Prohibitionist is nuisance and a
seditionaly. You cannot make men
sober by law, statutes should never
be in advance of public sentiment.
That was the blunder of the Golden
Rule. the weakness of the decalOgue,
the farce of Sinai. | am as good a
Prohibitionist as he is but not third
party. He is throwing his influence
away. He is setting the cause back
twenty years. He wants an Office.
He is a sore head. He is in it for
money. He is paid by Babylonish
gold. The best we can do now is
to work vice ON shares and coniine
it to the tenement districts. Why
does he not content himself with
scotching sin in general, or tweak-
ing the nose of heterodoXy as the
major prophets did. Noah made
wine and so did David. Solomon
said, Wine is a mocker,' a thing
for medicine and pudding. Let
this upstart fanatic stick to that, or
hold his peace !"
But he said, "There is no muzzle
in Palestine that will stop my
mouth. | will wear no armor that
does not fit me, | will worship no
book nor retrogress to any other
mans ideal; | refuse TO be careful
for anything, but in everything, by
prayer and thanksgiving, let my
wants be made known unto God:
will stand upon my watch tower
and see what He will say unto me "
SO |, least of the prophets of the
great reform, a fugitive from the
black galleys of the pirate ship of
drinks despair, with the purple
wcits of thousand whippings on
my heart and whom it is as lawful
for any drinksellep to entpap and
damn, as it is to kill rat, have
come again, dead spent with toiling
up and down the land, to tell you,
in the name of the transcendant
citizen who threw his vote away on
Calvary, what God has been saying
to me in the swish of the cat-0'-
nine-tails of two hundred and fifty
thousand licensed bastinadoes in
this Christian land, Expect no
soft, sheeny sentences from lie to-
night. Let no sleek polite doctrin-
aire admonish me to be careful
The white faces Of my dead father
and mother came to me this morn
ing before the dawn and said, acct
up and curse the saloon - O
friends, o father, O mother, O