Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1901-12-09
THE INCONSISTENCY OF LOCAL
OPTION.

church, Barton, by Rev. w. @ John
son:
Should a person have liberty to
destroy his powers of self-control?
Should person have such personal
liberty to destroy the slow gains of
innumerable years? The elements of
true personal liberty are enlighten
ment, self-control, and mutual de-
votedness. Is it true personal liberty
to hand down the torch of truth and
freedom committed to our care with
lessened light, to those who come after
US? We are under the law of God TO
help man to liberty by helping him to
individual success over the lower
nature that is In him. Upon this all
true principles of society are based.
To help every man so that when the
worlds brief year is ended he will not
be weakened by the fact, nor haunted
by the memory that when he had
chance to be a man, the conditions
that surrounded him helped him to
be a brute. "God made man to be
after many days complete in his own
image" To help by education, by
law, by gospel, this end, is to help
man to liberty. This answers in some
measure the plea of demagogues and
anarchists and shows how spurious is
the individual plea. We have also to
meet the pleas that public sentiment
is not ripe for prohibition. That the
70 70 10 ho hoh TO
of our large towns and cities prohibi
ton when majority of our population
are opposed to such a law, this is
pressed alike by the foes and friends
of prohibition, and stoutly advocated
by some of the noblest Christian tenn
perance reformers of our day. We
are governed by majorities, say they,
and unless majority favor the law it
ought to be dead letter. Hence we
ought to have waited the prohibition
until the majority ofsll localities in
our State favored it. In substance we
ought not to enforce prohibition law
where public sentiment is largely OPP
posed to it. Public sentiment is the
sentiment of the public, each member
of that public contributes his or her
share to it. The only method of
creating public sentiment rightly, is
for the individual to think and act
rightly. Only thus far are we individ
ually responsible for public sentiment;
but this degree of responsibility no
one can escape. If there is unripeness
of public sentiment it is the best argu
ment possible to urge all good citizens
to redoubled activity for making it
ripe. If prohibition is right thing,
praying, preaching and voting prohi-
bition, are the means of educating
public sentiment. While failing to do
SO is to assume responsibility for it's
unripeness. Public sentiment is
responsible for the righteousness of
the law, but not for the enforcement |
of the law. The plea of waiting until |
sentiment should be ripe in all Sc ctions
of our State is an unchristian plea. |
The decalogue is to this day in ad-
vance of public sentiment. Christ |
came to earth far in advance of the |
ripeness of public sentiment to receive |
him; had he acted on the public |
sentiment doctrine many generations |
yet unborn would have had to wait |
for his coming. The statement that |
majorities ought to rule is both a truth |
and a fiction. Often majority rule has
been the great curse of our cities; it |
depends wholly on the character of |
the majorities. If the majority are |
debased, the rule may be the worst |
and most terrible despotism imagin-
able. 1t is true that no community |
was ever governed by the majority, |
but always by an energetic iron willed |
who knew what they wanted,
and knew how to instruct, and make |
the majority do their will. 1t is a |
fiction to assume that the majority in
voting express their own convictions.
Convictions are only born of a con-
science which is educated by the |
truth. The one picture exhibited in |
the ward of a great city, entitled |
"Who Will You Vote For?' demon
strates this truth. Delineated in a |
clear manner was the way of intern
perance and it's results, versus the |
way of temperance and thrift-When !
tattered and starving man after a
long inspection said, ] am an example |
of the truth of those illustrations;
will in future vote for cleanliness,
virtue, and temperance, God helping
me. If the good, able, and sincere
friends of prohibition will unitedly
work with will, the sentiment of our
loved commonwealth will support