The W. C. T. U.

THE W.C.T.U.

Their Monthly Meeting Plans for an Acquaintance Day.

The regular meeting of the W. C. T. U. was held last Thursday afternoon, Dec. 8, with quite a number of ladies present. Each member was requested to secure one or more names to be known as Willard members and Feb. 17, 1899, the anniversary of Miss Willard's death was fixed for an acquaintance meeting. It is hoped that a large number of new members will be secured.

The president, Mrs. Jennie Voorheis. who was in attendance at the national W. C. T. U. convention held in St. Paul, Minn., last month gave a most interesting report of the meeting and which we regret cannot appear in full. We have made some excerpts which will prove interesting reading:

A veil of sadness rested upon the convention during the first day. Like wounded horses upon the battlefield which at the sound of the bugle, it is said, will sometimes struggle to lift their heads and rise to their feet, so the executive officers upon the platform wounded and bereft of their beloved leader, struggled heroically to meet the duties of the hour.

Memorial service took the place of the time given in the past to Miss Willard's annual address.

Mrs. Forbes, of Connecticut, spoke for the eastern states. She said in part: Mrs. Willard has consecrated when she took for her motto "My life is a vow." She was consecrated not only to the Lord and His work, but to this special work to which she gave herself.

Mrs. White-Kinney spoke in behalf of the Pacific states: Miss Willard's death caused mourning all along the Pacific coast. "Her death brought to our ranks more members than had been brought even in her life time."

Mrs. Ellis, of Washington, spoke for the south land : "More than any other person living, I think, Miss Willard helped to bridge over the chasm between the north and the south. Years ago the governor of Tennessee, in his welcome address to the national convention held at Nashville, said, addressing Miss Willard, "Madame, we welcome you as a representative of the south as well as of the north."

Mrs. Carse, of Chicago, said that Miss Willard followed Christ the most closely of any person she had ever known. She followed Him in her humility and in her love for humanity."

So the testimonials came. Each recalled loving remembrances of one of whom Lady Henry Somerset has said: "We shall never see her like again."

The afternoon was filled with reports of officers and superintendents. All very encouraging, especially that of our national superintendent of scientific temperance institutions, Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, of Boston. She said: "The civilized natives of the earth are putting cause and effect together in the alcohol question as never before. In France, Switzerland and Belgium, the increasing use of alcohol is recognized as the cause of a physical decline in stature that is filling these natives with alarm for the future. Close investigation is proving to the Kaiser that the beer-drinking soldier has only about 80 per cent of the endurance of the total abstainer and economists are calling attention to the bad effects that increasing drink habits are having upon German industries. The young Czar of Russia, alarmed at the inroad which he sees alcohol making upon his army and people, is striving to stem the tide. Thoughtful Englishmen are saying that Britain's greatest enemy is alcohol. In our own country its effects upon our soldiers, in home camps, and in the field, has been made sadly evident to the American people. The truth against alcohol is out. Everything that its advocates can say in its favor is contradicted by the strongest scientific authorities of the world who pronounce it a poison, the genius of degeneracy.

The per capita consumption of alcohol has begun to decline in this country, although its consumption is increasing in other countries.

The New York Medical Record puts this decline during the last 10 years at 30 per cent, notwithstanding the fact that during these years 4,000,000 and more people have come to us from foreign lands bringing with them the alcoholic habits of the old world. Temperance education in our public schools has carried the truth to the people so generally as already to bear fruit."

It is well known that it is through the efforts of Mrs. Hunt, aided by the W. C. T, U., of the respective state that laws requiring scientific temperance teaching in the public schools have been enacted in all but three states of our union.

Miss French and Master Harrison Van Valekenburg furnished the music for the afternoon.

The next meeting, Dec. 22, will be devoted to the consideration of the army canteen. Miss Rose Wood-Allen will tell of what impressed her at the national convention.