Mrs. Voorheis On The W. C. T. U. Convention

The following interesting extracts from the reports of the national convention of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, held in Cleveland, Ohio, were given by Mrs. Jennie Voorheis, of Ann Arbor, before a meeting of the local society of this city: The Woman's Christian Temperance Union is an outgrowth of the crusade, that wonderful movement which Miss Willard is pleased to cali "That whirlwind of the Lord." It began in Hillsboro, Ohio, Dec, 1873, and spread like wildfire from state to state. It was followed by a great religious temperance revival, and as a result of the fifty days of heroic and unexampled faith and works, the liquor traffic was banished from two hundred and fifty towns and villages. The following August, a small company of ladies knelt on the sawdust in the board tent at Chautauqua, N. Y., and then and there decreed that the work should be systematized. Mrs. Jennie Fowler Willing, sister of Bishop Fowler, wrote the cali for the first convention, to be held at Cleveland, Ohio, the following November and presided at that notable meeting. To that convention, says Miss Willard, "We ralhed from raountain and prairie, seaside and river, cottage and hall; but the cottageswere chief. For in every on-moving of humanity, it is not the sediment of the wave, nor yet its foaming white-cap that carries the momentum; but it is the solid resistless wave itself, and where the wave goes, the white-caps follow. " Eighteen states were represented by two hundred and seventy-four delegates; but that was a mass convention; while at the recent twentyfirst anniversary of that occasion, held in the same city, there were in attendance four hundred and five delegates, each of whom represented five hundred paying members. Three hundred of the original crusaders, among theni tnany distinguished as wnters, teachers, and otherwise, werein attendance as visïtors. They were provided with aadges and given seats on the spacious platform. Every state and territory and nearly every quarter of the globe was represented. There was Madam Lakarie, from Japan, and Miss Anna Cummings from South África. The latter exhibited seven ten dollar bilis, sent by the young women of that far-off land, to complete their one hundred dollar gift to the temperance temple at Chicago. There was our Miss Jessie Ackerman, who has circumnavigated the world twice, alone, carrying the Bible in one hand and the pledge in ihe other. Miss Willard exhibited the well-worn traveling bag of Miss Ackerman, covered with custora house stamps and suggested that "only a woraan could have carried a bag 150,000 miles and brought it back with its component parts;" to which Miss Ackerman replied, "Tne most interesting thing about that bag is that it has contained 30,000 pledges of men, and 9,000 membership cards of women in the W. C. T. U." She further said, "I shall not return to África or China. 1 have no message to the heathen today. My message is to the christian voters of America and England. Never can the world be won for Christ, until the liquor question and the opium traffic are forever settled." Numerous letters of regrets, telegrams and cablegrams of greeting were received from friends of the cause everywhere. Rev. Joseph Cook, of Boston, was present and spoke words of greeting thus: "I congratúlate the Woman's Christian Temperance Union on having reached its twenty-first birthday. This great organi.ation is like a banyan tree, with its root here in America, but with daughter branches in every land on the globe. Nowhere on the earth can a woman have just complaints to make, and this society not be able to give them voice that shall be heard to the ends of the world. Mr. Gladstone says the House of Lords must be ended, or mended. Neal Dow says, and this society says it, and I give it to jou as a watchword for the twentieth century: The liquor traffic must be ended, because it cannot be mended." Dr. J. VV. Bashford, president of the Ohio VVesleyan University, delivered the annual sermón, in which he said, "We cannot share in the profits of this business, and then deny the responsibility. Better for us as christian citizens to say to the drunkard-makers of our land, 'We will outlaw the traffic. If you viólate the law by selling, we will punisfa you if we can, but, God helping us, we will never compromise with you, and stain our hands with blood money'." A telegram of love, flowers, and a case containing reports of convention were sent to our beloved state president, Mrs. Mary T. Lathrop, absent for the tirst time in twenty years, and whose recent death was anticipated at that time. As Miss Willard was about to begin her address, the entire audience broke out into singing "Welcome, Chieftain, Welcome," a special song written for the occasion. Touched with surprise and emotion, she thanked them for their kindly welcome, and asked them to lift up their hearts to God for her while she should try to speak. A condensed report of this magnificent address may be found in the columns of the Union Signal, while the address in full may be procured for ten cents of the National Treasurer, The Temnle. Ohicairo. Miss Willard prefaced her address by saying: "As we carne along Ihis morning I noticed the quiet, gentle footsteps of the womanly figures, filing their way to this hall, in that wonderfully significant procession that began with the crusades, and I did not wonder, as I looked at them, that the liquor dealers of Ohio, in their recent annual meeting, said in a resolution, 'Our only enemy isthe W. C. T..U.'" She closed with these words: "Twenty-one years :rom now, the National VV. C. T. U. will doubtless meet for the third ime in Cleveland, but the good, ray heads of Mother Thompson, vlother Stewart and Mother Wallace will not be here. Most of us will )e gone. 'Not as though we had attained' shall we pass onward, but )y God's grace we shall have 'fought a good fight,' and when we have fihished our course' the best outcome of our lives will not have been the building up in systematic fashon of the fair edifice of woman's work for temperance, for home protection, and for purity, although he world may say so; but it will be that by word and deed, and most of all by character, we have tried to ollow the Gospel's gleam along the lilis of hope, and to help prepare he way for the coming of our Lord n custom and in law; it will be that we have tried to teaoh and live consecrated, christian lives."