The Somerset reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1868-1909, 1902-02-13

| THIS SUBJECT, ard sUrrinRs Il the pubic
conscience The nations are coming to
! Rether IN Their interests ard sympathies,
and there are plans II arbitration and
schemes Of world councils; all Of which
/ forecast the better dav When the bloody
arbitrament OF war viii no longer BE-
appealed To. May the 10Th century
bring that day.
Almost contemporary with The rise Of
the antsaYery sfuggle in the Uuifed
States the first temperance agitation
came into beng. But while the anti
/ slavery conflict WAS ended nearly forty
years ago. the war against the saloon i
still on. There are many who think II
Is hopeless battle, that its advocates
are blind partZaus Of lost cause, and
that whatever might have been the case
IN earlier days, at the present time pro-
hibition no longer prohibits. IL would
do such people good to read something
about the manners and customs OF the
days before the temperance agiatOrs be-
gan 10 agitate, Of the drunken Congress
men under Their desks, Of dram drinking
ministers aud brutal teachers, Of impov-
efshed farms and debauehed society.
When the temperance movement reached
Maine, sometime In the thitties, the con-
dition Of the State WAS deplorable Hard
cider aud West India rum had sapped
the manhood Of the population. Drunk
Ing habits were almost universal il il
sad that there were roads leading out
OF this town or which every farm had
been sold for drink. 1t is difficult "a be-
lleYe that in town adjoining TO this Of
less than 20O0 inhabitants, a hogshead Of
rum was retalled from a single store In
one week; or that in another adjoining
town the amount of the towns yaluA-
ton was spent for drink three times il
thirty years. This was when liquor WIS
so cheap that a man could get drunk for
SIX cents. The temperance revival that
swept over the State with its sequel, the
prohibitory law, lifted it upon n higher
plane both morally and materially. Tit
men of Maine and other men from Maine
who in the last thirty years have led il
councils OF the nation and in the educa-
tlonal and business worlds, have beer
those whose boyhood and young man
hood were passed under the wing Of oul
earliest temperance legislation. What
ever should be the outcome Of prohibi
ton in Maine, that we have had tn
Maine law for 80 years has been an III
ealeuable benefit both to the State ant
to the country. The nations Of cont
mental Europe are now aroused to III,
menace of the drink evil, and the battl'
against the saloon is at its height TIN
world over The 10Th century deliver!
it sadly and yet hopefully into the chafg'
OF its successor.
The religious condition of the world n
any time is more difficult to measur,
than its moral We hear it said that vi
are now in state of religious declensior
not to say decadence. | wonder if thu
is not always said except during thos'
times Of spiritual quickening which lii
the church upon the mountain top. "Fh'
spirit blOweth where it listeth.' II
these days as of old the church is witt
ing on her Lord, aud Is listening for tn
sound OF the going in the tops of th'
mulberry trees. But il the religion
condition of the present time is not al
we could desire, it need not for momen
he compared unfavorably with that o
one hundred years ago. DR.. Leonard
Bacon says "the closing years of the ISL
century show the lowest low water mari
of the lowest ebb tide of spiritual lif'
in the history OF the American church.
When President Dwight came to YALE
College in l79s nearly all the students
were avowed skeptics. Only two stu
dents in Princeton College professed Il
believe in Christianity in l7S2. 1t WA
in the last decade of the 18th century
that France attempted to abolish Chris
tianity by law, and that distinguished
writer said of England that there wa
no religion in the country. In the yea
1900 citizen of Old Canaan, drafting
plan for the reorganization OF the pastor
less and virtually extinct church whicl
represented the religious life OF the com
munity, spoke of "beholding with deeI
/ concern the present languishing state o
religion in this place, and the dreadful
GOODNESS that seems to cloud the mind
of the dear children of "A kind and Heav
emily Parent 1t may we'll be doubted
If there was ever time when Christian
ity had so much Influence over tn
thought and action of the world, o
when its founder had so many devoter
, followers, as at the beginning Of tn
Doth century.
There are several respects in which
the church of today is different from tina
of one hundred years ago, notably in 1t
institutions for Christian work. Th
Sunday school, of which the first exper
ment was made by Robert Raikes il
1850, became in the early years of tn
10th century one of the institutions o
the church. Today there are over twent
million young people in the Sunda
schools OF England and America. Tn
history of the Sunday school is contem
p0rary with the century, and what
has been to successive generations o
boys and girls, and what ii has meant a
, the seed thought OF innumerable actiy
tiles both ia the church and out of it i
aid of helpless childhood and imperillt
youth is more than the pen of the histc
ran can estimate.
, Another enterprise of the churc
, whose life is virtually eontemporar
, with the 10Th century, is foreig
missions. The missionary idea is as ol
as the church. but it came to the chri:
: tan world as new discovery ou
! hundred years ago. The last deead
THDEE coin MEnAIC