Year: 1874

The Moral Power Of Women.


| Nothing in American history has more
nobly illustrated the moral power of wo
men, than the past and current crusade
against the vice of drinking and the trafli,
upon which it feeds. The exhibition anC
demonstration of this power are so full O
suggestion and instruction, both to mer
and women, that they demand more thar
passing consideration, especially in theil
bearing upon some of the most stirring
questions of the time.


? Why is it that the hardened rum seller
who, behind his bar, has dealt out the
liquid death to his victims for years, quails
before band of praying, beseeching wo
men-women who, coming from their COM
Portable retirement, brave wind and storm
and mud-brave obloquy and misrepresen
tation and curses, and all the harsh OBJ
stacles that brutality can throw in theil
path, to compass a reform that shall keep
their natural supporters and protectors
pure and prosperous? Why is it that men
looking on form new resolutions of sobriety,
and reform the vicious habits of their lives
Why is it that changes which involve the
destruction of a brutal business, and of
habits to which hundreds of thousands are
welded with all the power of burning
appetite, awake no more violence than they
do? Why is it that SO many good men,
whose souls protest against the sacrifice of
ease and privacy which these women make,
bow to the movement as something su-
premely Christian, and, therefore, veritably
divine?


First, of course, because there is no man,
however brutal, who does not know that
the women are right-that whisky is a
curse, not only to those who drink it, but
to the unoffending who do not drink it.
Every man feels that the action of the
womep is an embodiment and expression
of the dictates Of his own conscience
Approached in a way which disarms all
violent opposition, with an appeal to God
and to all the manlness which he possesses,
the vilest panderer to debased appetite
trembles not only before the pure embodied
conscience without, but before the answer
ing conscience within. He hears Gods
voice in the souls which approach him. and
the same voice in his own soul. There is
something terrible in this. A mob which
would tear his house down, descent of
the officer of the law. the threats of out
ragged fathers and brothers, would only
stimulate his opposition. and give him an
apology for continuing his crime; but this
quiet appeal to his conscience, by those
whose consciences he knows to be pure is
awful to him.


Second, the mind of man is so consti-
tuted as to feel most sensltively the praise
and the blame of women. 1t is hard for
any man to feel that he rests under the
censure of all the good women by whom
he is surrounded. The harshest words
that have been spoken against the crusad-
ers have been spoken by the women whom
they have found behind the bars they have
visited; and these poor creatures were
speaking to win the approval of the brutal
men they loved. A man who has not some
woman somewhere, who believes in him,
point where selfrespect is gone. All men,
who deserve the nams of men, desire the
respect Of women; and when man finds
himself in business which fixes upon him
tl,a of 1ph NJ
women, power is brought to bear upon him
which he certainly cannot ignore, and which
he finds it difficult to resist. The power of
woman, simply as woman, has had too
many illustrations in history to need furthe r
discussion here. A mans self-respect can
only be nursed to it's best estate in the
approval of the finer sense and quicker
conscience OF the women who know him.


The third reason is that the end which
these women seek is purely and benef-
Gently moral one. They are not after
money, they do not pursue revenge, they
work in the interest of no party. All they
desire, and all they labor for, is the reform
and safety of their husbands, brothers,
fathers and sons, and the extinction of
those temptations and sources of tempta-
ton which endanger them. They bear no
ill will to the dram seller, but the. moment
he relinquishes his traffic, they cover him
with their kindness and sympathy. They
not only do not have the sympathy of party
men, as such, but they are denied the SYM
pathy Of portions of tie Christian Church.
They pursue much desired moral end by
purely moral means. They seek nothing
for themselves, but everything for the men
they love, and for the men that other
women love. The element of self-sacrifice
is in it all. They go from peaceful home
pursuits, from the retirement which is
most congenial TO them. from prayers where
they have begged for the blessing of heaven
upon their enterprise, into the street, into
foul dens of debauchery into private ex-
postulations with brutal men. into atmos-
pheres reeking with rbaldry, and all to
save others. No man with spark OF
manliness in him-which, after all, is only
godiness expressed in human character
can regard such spectacle as this without
being moved to admiration and reverence.


And now for the lesson which this
crusade teaches us. 1t will be 4 hard one
for some women to learn, but desire for
the conservation of the best forces OF
society demands that it shall not only be
stated, but needed. The ballot, even when
exercised in the right direction, has not
yet, in any State, proved cure for drunk,
enness. No law that has been enacted for
the suppression of dram selling, even in
States where special constabulary ma
chinery has been instituted for executing