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About Christian herald. (Portland ;) 1882-18?? | View Entire Issue (March 2, 1883)
CHRISTIAN” HERALD. —-——:— l —;------------ ;—. - Temperance Department. Miss Willard Coming. Miss Frances E. Willard, Presi dent of the Woman’s National Christian Temperance Union will visit Oregon and Washington Ter- «twy AftHdlimeTn March or April. Miss Willard is a woman of rare natural endowments, superior men tal culture, and an eloquent lectur er. She was formerly a successful educator, exerting an influence in litery circles excelled by few. She subsequently spent three years in foreign lands, visiting nearly every European capital, and traveling extensively in Egypt, Greece and Asia Minor. Miss Willard has been in the temperance field since the Woman’s Crusade of 1874 and here stands pre-eminent among the gift ed women of our land. We bespeak for her the hearty cooperation not only of temperance organizations, but of the ministers and Christian |>eople of Oregon and Washington. Miss Anna Gordon, Miss Willard’s private secretary, also a lady of cut- ture, accompanies her, and holds very attractive meetings for the young. Being in correspondence with Miss Willard, I shall soon be able to announce more definitely in re gard to the exact time of her visit among us. In the meantime let the Unions already organized be marshalling all their forces, and let the Christian women of every com munity prepare co enter the ranks of those already enlisted “ For God and Home and Native Land.” Miss Willard will assist in the organization of a State Union, and when thus organized we shall be the better prepared for thorough systematic work. M rs . H. K. II ines , State Brest. W. C. T. U. Social “Luxuries.” “ Look not on the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it moveth aright, for in the end it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder.” As we look out on the sea of so cial life we behold many wrecks— lives stranded all too soon on the sand bar of temptation. We have but to lift our eyes, at the present day, toward fashionable society to see positive proof of the sad degenerating and demoralizing influence of social luxuries, pas times, and pleasures; and how it is daily sending men and women to i "Bacchus, as the lowest men who ruin—men of noble mind and fine pass their hours in wild bachanalian attainments, fitted to adorn the revels and midnight orgies. highest positions—brought low by ■ How sad a sight to see the flush of wine on woman’s cheek, where the luxury of a social glass. Women too ; how our cheeks only the mantling blush should tingle with shame for our sex, as glow. «• .»H» 4t—women -rntn Trtlose —How «n a iniiroriemporance hands are entrusted tbe precious Leachings, reared in the light of a and hallowed sanctities of home, Christian home seek for a life com those who should be the ever vigi panion one of such habits ? A society woman of this age too lant sentinels, set to guard the out posts around the citadel of their often, alas, represents this class, love, lest some wary foe enter in and yet men of true worth jare and destroy all that makes it holy blindly infatuated and choose wives —they too, alas ! sometimes treat! out of the social ranks, whose office too lightly on this controverted, in life will be to reduce the home ground, and in open violation of they should seek to make a type of temperance training, either remain Heaven, to a pandemonium. Deplorable, indeed, such a fate; stolidly indifferent, or else in fla grant defiance of abstinence rules, Oh if our sex would become a unit daily tipple. Become social tip on this question of abstinence, how radical would be the change in our plers. w * Custom and habit soon blunt tbe prospects as workers. While hosts of noble women are finer sensibilities of their nature and the barriers of pride are over laboring by word, pen, precept and leaped, hence women who love example to undermine the foe, wine and other stimulants, soon others are holding out the sparkling feel no compunction in offering a ruby wine, or the ale whose white glass to their ipfends, and perhaps -foam tilleth the cfqT/tO Iheif friend regard it but as an act of courtwy. and brother, whose weak will, per Alas that the courtesies of life chance, needs strong re-inforcement should thus be pervertod to wrong to resist. The lax social customs of the ends. We know of women, who moving present day are acting as an impet in high circles, yet privately con us in hurling precious souls perdi sume their gallons of wine, and if tionward, and who shall remedy, without it for any length of time, the evil? Women of society ; pause in your become frantic to renew the supply and are cross and petulant in their mad career, and seek safety for homes. A habit so fully formed as yourselves, and for those who fall to produce such results, is not o«nly beneath your influence in total ab 4 dangerous to the possessor, but au stinence. “Look not on the wine when it gurs too surely an ultimate statie of is red, when it giveth its color in groveling drunkenness. Yet these same women would the cup, when it moveth aright, for scoff at the idea of their ever sink in the end it biteth like a serpent ing below what they are pleased to and stingeth like an adder.”— term their present social level, and “ B eulah ,” in Rescue. forgot that appetite is a fiery steed An Unprofitable Trade. when driven by mad alcohol. Taken in all, the liquor trafic isn’t They feel secure though treading profitable to either party in the on quicksands. It fills our hearts with sadness transaction. Now and theu you that any one of our sex should hear of a man who has made a have such laxity of principle—that comfortable little fortune in the woman on whose brow God set the trade, but it generally happens that signet of intellect and power—with these men have had sagacious wives face and form of beauteous mould, who held fast to the profits. A graceful, accomplished and consti large majority of those men who tuted to adorn, purify and ennoble have gone into saloon-keeping or »<>ciety—and above all, designed by tavern-keeping to get rich or to her maker to hold sovereignty over make a living by easier means than tbe realm of home, the dearest trust productive labor, have lost money. Look at the commercial reports to her given—toying first with the social glass, thei^ as appetite has of Dunn or Bradstreet; month after birth, taking a glass for the relish month I have noticed that the fail until daily tippling follows and she ures in the liquor business have becopres just as much a deyotee of outnumbered those in any other VlllfetV WAV*« ------------- , — — .. branch of trade, and in some States they have exceeded in number the failures in all other branches. Of course, in a large measure, this fact is accounted for not by the small ness of profits, but by the damaging personal consequences of the trade upon the dealers. The man who makes drunkards, soon or late, be comes a drunkard himself, and that means bank-ruptcy all around. Moreover, the liquor seller ruins his health, almost without exception. Here is testimony from -a reliable source. . The general life insurance office of Canada has lately issued the following order: “In conse quence of the excessive mortality experienced in the case of inn-keep ers whose lives have been assured with the company, it is hereby no tified that from this date the direc tors will not undertake these risks on any terms.” Everybody under stands the meaning of this state ment. In every locality may be found conspicuous illustrations of the facts here stated. Where can you point to a liquor-9elling hotel or restaurant that has had a quarter of a century of. unbroken prosperity, that has not changed proprietors, settled its obligations at a discount, or been sold out under the hammer ? There are some, of course, but they are few. I believe that not a dozen liquor dealers of Onondaga County, either wholesale or retail, can look back on an unbroken quarter-cen tury of honest financial success; those acquainted with the facts will recognize the general truth of this statement withoutdisagreeable spec ification, and if the estimate is found to be slightly erroneous, they can make their adjustment. I might name village after village whose inn keeper has fallen from a position of respectibility (as the word is commonly applied) down to the level of beggary or" imbecili ty, or has gone to jail for crime. There is now pending in the United States court the case of a man, a hotel keeper, who a dozen years ago controlled the politics of the largest town in the country. His present condition is truly pitiable, and strikingly contrasts with his afllu- ence of a few yeai s ago. II is head is white, his strong frame is shaken, his credit is ruined, his home brok en up, and he stands indicted*for one of the most serious offenses against the Government. Another case quite as distressing came to my notice not many days ago. A man who had lon£ had a