CHRISTIAN” HERALD.
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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*«
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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