Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1901-05-03

"" 'rih'lii''i nov nc ldN III state 10
the historic hall which had resouuded ia
the notes of that long struggle, while a
century with its living and its dead pro.
nounced Judgment on that finished life.
Abroad were murmurs of revercnt praise
And tenderest dew OF tears.
/ While suddenly then, old thoughts were
stirred
That silent had lain Tor years;
Till at the shrine of a dead mans face.
The Thought ol the world grew clear.
They brought him again to the plain old
hail
Cradle of Liberty'S lore
How silent the lips that with golden speech
Had filled it in days of yore;
And into the stiffness with blossoms sweet
Halted the world with its tardy feet
And crowned him for eyermore."
OF the divinity which bore him through
the struggle of the great anti-slavery re-
form, his own lips testified, when only a
few hours before his death he said /:
"Nothing but the spirit of Christ has
enabled me to suffer and endure what |
have"
1t is vain to attempt the explanation
of certain lives or certain great move
ments which lift humanity to higher
levels, and leave out the supernatural;
and no observer, however thoughtful or
kindly, is prepared to judge fairly the
beginning and evolution of this society
of the white ribbon unless he under
stands the word enthusiasm according to
the Greek, which means. "God in us"
and not according to the German which
signifies, "A swarm OF people with US.
1t is not strange that the radicalsm
of the Woman's Christian Temperance
Union is often called in question: for
the reason that the principles back Of
that radicalism are so little understood.
Distinctions are being clouded 10y the
sophstry of the hour Men and women
profess to believe in temperance, and
yet put wine on their tables and drink
socially before others to their harm, and
these moderate users of alcoholic bever-
ages insist that only excess is wrong.
A political party may declare belief in
temperance and morality, and yet stand
for the perpetuatiOn of the saloon by
law. The high creed of the white rib
bon sweeps far beyond these positions
We are more than Temperance people.
We are total abstaiier That means
an utter Punishment from our lips and
homes, of any beverage OF which alcohol
is the center, and with large majority
OF our women it means its Punishment
even as a medicine. This is. not the re-
suit of a prejudice, narrow aud unrea
sonable, for years of earnest study have
cleared away the mists, and science is
with our position. 1t is the man who
drinks that is shut up to the ignorance
of the past. Dr. Benjamin Richardson,
of England, was drinker when the
London physicians assigned to him
the task of investigating the action of
alcohol on living tissues. He took
year for his experiments and came out
a total abstainer; his science had con
victed his conscience and controlled his
life.
With such reasons for being total alb
stainers we must be pr0hjbiGoHjStS. We
believe that which is harmful aud
wrong for one human being to use is
equally harmful for another to sell for
his own advantage. We believe that
the license system is an iniquity, and
that in making legally right a thing
morally wrong the nation becomes par
taker of the sins and infamy of the
liquor traffic. 1t is not drunkenness
which is orr national e,n, drunkonneeo
is the ugly outbreak of human weakness
and appetite; it is licensing a sin by
choice of the imperial power of govern
ment, with which God takes issue, and
on which His Judgment waits. We are
often told that very good people differ
in, opinion about total abstinence and
prohibition; as well might we say that
good people differ in opinion about
stealing, or treason. The Saloon is the
organized expression of Satan's king
dom on earth. 1t breaks all the ten
commandments, and teaches men so to
do. TO protect and perpetuate it, is to
DEFY God, to ruin men, and to be trait,
ors to the state by aiding and abetting
its worst enemies. "No drunkard shall
inherit eternal life," is the creed of the
Christian, yet we license three hundred
thousand men to make them drunkards,
put their gain in our Golfers, their SER
wants in power, their greed into govern
| ment, and this is made possible by the
ballots of Christian men.
In presence of these truths touching
the value of individual life and the cost
of great civilization, we can be nothing
else than radical. Between right and
wrong there is no ground save battle
ground