The Irish standard., 1900-06-30
and fear not any man" as Aourishing
farmers, honest sons of toll.

1AAAoAlS 1AoAl llS lOlol oOol1ANuSC
movement in this great and growing
state of ours, fair Minnesota, we can
look upon many well-settled family
rescued from the city and its dangers,
glad as they see their focks and herds,
their golden harvests and the health and
strength that country life brings.
Church and school form the nucleus
OF their comfortable homes, and the
sons and daughters of these pioneers
bring back to the cities their strong
minds and their strong bodies to honor
the professions. Doctors and lawyers,
clergymen and teachers find springing
up from country life the minds clearest
and best adapted to the reception of
truth whether natural or supernatural
Well has the church been repaid, and
the ranks OF her clergy maintained, as
we learn when we look over the long list
in colleges, seminaries and universities
and find that the best and brightest
grew to early manhood on the farm.
Many time have the enemies of
our holy religion made grievous charg-
es against the church, because so many
so-called Catholics had fallen victims to
the evils of intemperance. Many Of
them we're poor, for "the poor we shall
have always with u.s." and poverty has
its special temptations. They pointed
to the children of Catholics trained to
vice upon the streets OF our cities, whose
goal was surely to be the reformatory
or the prison, they reproached the
church with keeping her children ig-
norant and neglecting their temporal
welfare.
The good achieved by the total absti-
nence societies of Minnesota brands as
false these oft-repeated charges.
Now, men who belong not to the
Catholic church, whose life's training
was in bitterest antagonism to that
church and her doctrines, rise up and
bless total abstinence and welcome the
changes it has wrought.
The judges in our courts, the officials
in Our government, the citizens who
have the welfare of the country at heart,
are outspoken in their praise and bid
God-specd to the work of the Father
Mathew societies.
Furthermore, under the protection OF
the total abstinence society there has
risen society of untold value, with the
motto that prevention is better than
cure"-tlle young have been trained in
habits of total abstinence by the cadet
societies.
Here are young boys, here young
girls, who never acquired the taste for
alcoholic drinks.
Can you ever weigh the full value OF
that training?
We are sometimes prone to take a
gloomy view Of our relations to the
great God who made lis and to whom
we have to give account.
O, brethren of the total abstinence
society, God is not a hard taskmaster,
no tyrant He, anxious to catch us His
poor creatures tripping, that He may
consign us to eternal flames.
Nay, rather is He not ever treasuring
up in our behalf the little good we do,
as Christ Himself reminds us when He
announces the solemn fact OF our judg-
ment, Come We blessed of my Father,
possess the Kingdom prepared for you
from the beginning, for I was hungry
and we gave me to eat, thirsty and We
gave me to drink, naked and in prison
and We visited me-"
And they, as not knowing and never
remembering the good they had done,
shall say, lord, when did we see Thee
hungry and gave Thee to eat?" and so
of the rest, and He shall answer,
"Amen, say to thee, as often as you
did it to the least of these little ones,
you did it to me-"
To Our establishment, to our happy
surprise, every good act OF Ours long
passed from memory, will plead in our
behalf with Him whose power reaches
over the infinitely little as we'll as over
the infinitely great
Your society is. a signal blessing to
a parish both for the prevention of
evil and the promotion OF good.
When man who has devoted his
life to the careful study OF intemperance
and its results-Dr. Hargreaves-tells
us that twenty per cent OF the idiots,
forty per cent of the lunatics, seventy-
five per cent of the criminals, ninety per
cent of the paupers, and ninety-fve per
cent of the broken-down and shiftless
can be traced to the drink evil, then in
Heavens name as lovers of your kind,
go forward with full faith in the value
of your work. Be not disheartened at
failure here or there; it is Gods work
and we are gathered round His altar to
ask His blessing and His tender care
upon our poor efforts.
The inspiring message of increased
energy in Our Total Abstinence Union,
east and west, OF increased success
throughout the whole Union, tells us
that as we thank His goodness for our
growth in the past we may rely upon
Him for our advance in the future.
President T. F. Naughton, of St.
Paul, presided at all the sessions and
he was ah1v assisted nv Misc Marv T