About Temperance

The women's teraperance revival, as it ' was called, gradually faded out of the 1 nowspapers, and there are not wanting ' those who ask what was the use of it, and ' who like jesting Pilate, stay not for an " answer. The use of it is that of all sin1 oere and earnest appeals against conceded 1 wrongs and abuses. Wben a case is continued in the courts, or the decisión is reserved, do we ask what was the use of all 1 this argument and all this testimony 'i 1 So in the great tribunal of the huinan conscience and of civilization the case 1 may be continued and the decisión reserv1 ed, but nono the less has the great appeal 1 been heard and the shrewd urguuient ' weighed. ' The women walking in throngs and 1 kneeling at the doors may not all have 1 been freo from some lower motive ; there ■ may have been niuch iguorance and folly and fustian ; but what sent them forth - what do you see in the experience of women that should have filled the street , with a praying band 'Í This is the real iuquiry. All movements of deep emotion have an unreasonable aspect, if you will choose that point of view. When a hitrd, cruel, remorseless power held a man in its grasp, and promised hiin pardon and peace and comfort if he would Bay certain wcrds, and if not, death for himself and torment for those whom he should leave behiud him, why did he not say the words under mental and moral protest, as he would have given bis purse to a robber who held the kuife at his throat? To the polished, skeptical scholars of Rome the persisteuce and suffering of the early Christians were the height of folly. What are words, they would have said, when uttered uuder compulsión ï Why not say what the tyrant requires, and enjoy your own spiritual freedom beyond his reach 'f The same skepticisru would easily see what is disagieeable and unhandsome and sensational in the woman's tem perauce crusade ; but ueither in theearlier nor in the later Christians could that spirit see or undei stand the profouud and supreuie feeling trom which the conduct springs. Think of the tragedy of a single home ravaged by the drunkeuuess of the lius band and tather, of the oaths and blows falling upon the innocent and helpless of the bruised babe, the terror of chüdreu who dread the coming of the parent, o: the horrible and long heart-break of the wife, her hopelss vigüs, her endless anc uoeless toil, her hope against hope, anc faith against sight, all the light and beauty of lite fading away, anxiety, poverty hunger, despair, crowding swiftly on think of the daily story of a thousand houses in the oity, of the hovels in the town and thecouutry, of the den in which the demon is coiled that works this woe, of the doubts and delays of Legislaturas, of the cooluess of scienoe, of the practical fatalism that serves as the panoply of every huge evil - and is it wondert' ui that women any wheie who had lived for years in the midst of heil, go down upon their knees in public orin piivate, aimdst scofters or among friends, to move the hearts ot those who seein to theni the authors of their despair 't The " usa of it" is the appeal that it makes to the conscience and uiind of the country, arousing and renewïng the convictiou that the evil cannot be dismissed, cannot be left to cure itself, but that every good man and wouuii must cunsider how it may best be abatorl It would be very wrong, however, to suppose that thore has been no progress in the cause of temperance. The most striking tact in the case is that within a century public opinión has vitally ohauged. To be druuk was uo discredit to a man at the beginning of the century. - To cffer ardent spirits upon all occasions was the rule of courtesy. To drink copiously was the test of manliness. Within the niemory of middle-aged men, liquordrinking at public tables was almost universal. It is so no longer ; and there is even a consciousness of opposing public opinión if you order a bottle of wine. - Xnis is so true that this pressure of opinión is called tyrauny by those who can not escape the consciousness of it, but who resent it. The evasions in the signs of bar-rooms, calling them " samplerooms" and " wine-rooms ' and " saloons," the blinds which surround them, the sharne with which so inauy enter them, all show a universal sense of the stigma which public opinión has placed upon dram-drinking. It is this public opinión which will be the most poweiful element in the reform hereafter, whether it take the form of Ie gal or ot moral pressure. But what has affected it in the past, stimulated it, di rected it ' Will anybody deny that it is ihe agitation which has done it - the agitatiou whether wise or foolish, whether tasteful or ridiculous V There has been plenty of iuconsequence and sophistry and absurdity. But if the world is eaved by preaching, and all preachiug must be wise to be successtul, what a lost world it would be ! Certainly it is not the folly which has done the work ; it has been wrought by the profound consciousness of that misery which has driven the women in these last months to pray in tne streets, and which no folly of the prayer could conceal. The same consciousness will carry ou the work, now under one lorm, now under another, each, like the " crusade" of prayer, will have its day. Each will pass by, and Pilate will stiil ask, " What is truth '(" But under all the forms the work will continue ; public opinión will be strouger ; and only those who do not believe in human progress at all will doubt that the puvver of that opiulon will be as beneficial in this moveinent as it has been in so manv others. About the year 1776 Nieholas Linguet, the celebrated Parisian journalist and awyer, was at the height of his fame. fcLe enjoyed a great reputation for his skill in getting up cases, and for surrouuding them with such dramatic accessories as were likely to teil on the minds of excitable French judges. One day a beautiful lady, Madame de Bethune, carne to ask his professional services in an action about some land, which she wished to bring against the Marshal Duke de Broglie, a great-grandfather of the present minister. Linguet had scarcely heard htr to the end when he eaid, " You are so lovely, madame, that your face is worth a speech iu itelf. What I'U do is this : I will write a speech. Ton sball learn it by heart, and then renearRe it to me. When you deliver it in court you must be dressed in a light blue sillc, the color best suited to your style of beauty, and if you speak as I shall direct you, I defy any bench of Frenchmen to find for the defondant." The event proved that Linguet knew human nature and [lis own countrymen well. Madame de Bethune turned out the most apt of scholars. She learned her speech thoroughly, and delivered it with all the traces of style and uianner that might Save belonged to a ñnished actress. It [asted seven hours, and seven hours she leid the judgas entranced. She carried ber cause without a dissenting voice. "I'm not much for shtump-spakin," declared a candidato at Dubuque, " but for honesty and capacity and integrity, 1 bate the divil - ao T do."