1883 



GLEAKINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



399 



lur %cm§. 



Then Moses stood in the pate of the camp, and 

 said. Who is on the Lord's side? let him come unto 

 me. And all the sons of Levi ernthered themselves 

 together unto him.— Exodus 32:26. 



IIAA'E talked to you so many limes on 

 the subject of temperance, friends, I 

 presume I shall need to make no apolo- 

 gy for taking up the subject once more to- 

 day. The foe is a common one, I think, for 

 I am pretty sure that in your native town as 

 well as mine there are men who are braving 

 an intelligent public opinion by keeping open 

 dram-sliops at this very minute while I 

 write. They nre doing this, too, when per- 

 haps a great majority of the people all around 

 them are stiongly opposed to the business. 

 In our town we have to-day a strong element 

 in favor of education, "intelligence, and 

 Christianity ; and numbers of good strong 

 Christian men and women are laboring hard 

 to bring up our youth in wisdom's ways; 

 but although we have wealth and iniluence 

 on our side, and almost all that one could 

 desire, it would seem that, in spite of us, we 

 have two saloons with open doors, doing a 

 thriving business day and night. Drunken 

 men and boys reel along the streets, and 

 more men and boys come in streams from 

 tlie country, as well as our town, and turn 

 right directly into these saloons, to come out 

 of them an hour or two afterward with black 

 and bloated faces and leering eyes, to insult 

 the intelligence of a civilized community. 

 Who are the men who keep these saloons, 

 and who continue on in this work V They 

 are just about like those who keep the sa- 

 loons in your town. They are uneducated, 

 as well as lurprincipled, and they ply their 

 vocation day by day, of tearing down and 

 sending to drunkards' graves the youth of 

 our country, while the superintendent of our 

 schools, with the best help our county af- 

 fords, labors against the dangers of intem- 

 perance, and pleads with our boys to choose 

 the straight and narrow path. The superin- 

 tendent of our schools is a man of whom our 

 county and State nnght well be proud. I 

 very much dislike to speak ill of any of my 

 neighbors, so I think I won't say any thing 

 of the fellow who stands behind the bar. 

 You can imagine the kind of a man he prob- 

 ably would be, to be engaged in that kind of 

 work. And yet he is working against our 

 free school institutions, and stands, day aft- 

 er day, blocking the way, and dealing out 

 ruin, as if he had as good a right to do it as 

 the schools and churches and Sabbath - 

 schools have to lift humanity up to God. 

 The saloon-keeper has no money, no influ- 

 ence, and no standing. I don't believe he is 

 even making money. Jlis predecessors have 

 failed and became bankrupts. The work is 

 no comfort to him, and no profit. Why does 

 he persist in it V I really do not know, un- 

 less it is because the master whom he is 

 serving is really in him. 



About a year ago I asked the question at 

 our teachers' meeting, whether we could not 

 rid ourselves of this curse by getting togeth- 

 er in a band of 500 strong, and marching 



down upon the fellow, telling him that we, 

 as citizens of Medina County, in the name 

 of God, and for the salvation of the youth of 

 our county, demanded him to stop. Would 

 it cause him to stop ^ To be sure, it would, 

 said several. Some one suggested that fifty 

 good solid citizens would close him up in a 

 minute, if they should go to him that way, 

 telling him they meant business. I know 

 him well, and I am inclined to think he 

 would be scared out, if only ten good men 

 whom I can name would go to him in that 

 way. The only trouble is, then, in getting 

 the ten men to come up boldly, and declare 

 themselves on the Lord's side, in the lan- 

 guage of our opening text. I was strongly 

 in favor of trying it in that way ; but now 

 God opens a better way for you and me and 

 all to act. Bear in mind, wliile you consid- 

 er it, that the penitentiary of the State of 

 Ohio is overcrowded, and mostly with young 

 men at that, and it is also admitted on all 

 sides now, that whisky and saloons are the 

 cause of by far the greater part of it. Now 

 I will let friend Hasty tells where it is God 

 calls, and how he has opened up the way. 



FOR " OUR HOMES " DEPARTMENT. 



Now that different bodies of ministers of different 

 denominations have spoken out unanimously in fa- 

 vor of the prohibition amendment to the Ohio con- 

 sfitution, I venture to ask Our Homes to insert 

 something on the subject. I want to sot the sub- 

 scribers who live in Ohio to doing something in the 

 matter; and I think the subject will not bo uninter- 

 esting to subscribers in other States. There need 

 scarcely be a doubt that Ohio will prohibit the man- 

 ufacture and sale of liquor this fall by at least 50,000 

 mnjority, if a wise and earnest canvass is made; 

 and only think how many thousands of women and 

 children, worse than widows and orphans, will shed 

 tears of joy, and say, "I never hoped to see this 

 day." Besides the direct good in the way of stop- 

 ping drunkenness in our State, the moral effect of 

 such a mighty breach in the center of the enemy's 

 walls will bo even more valuable. Ohio Is the most 

 influential State in the Union; let U3 put her in the 

 van of a good cause. 



This is nice and rose-colored, but there is an // in 

 the way. J/ we can surmount the two great obsta- 

 cles in the way, we shall see the rose-colored picture 

 become a reality. The obstacles are, first, and 

 worst, the jealousy between different bands of tem- 

 perance folks; and second, the faint-heartedness 

 caused by seeing so little good come from such nu- 

 merous and long-continued efforfs in the past. 



Let us now look the worst difficulty in the face. It 

 isn't wise to hide our heads under a leaf, like quails, 

 and think the danger is obviated in that way. The 

 great mass of the temperance folks in Ohio ai'c 

 members of the Republican and Democratic parties; 

 but a band, perhaps a majority of the very active 

 workers, have long maintained a party of their own, 

 under the name of the Prohibition party. Unfortu- 

 nately there is bitterness between these two bands. 

 In the eyes of the latter, the former are mean hypo- 

 crites, who pray one way and always vote the con- 

 trary. In the eyes of the former, the Prohibition 

 party has wantonly run itself as a political nuisance 

 for the last ten years and more; is destitute of polit- 

 ical common sense, and dead as Pharaoh's grand- 

 mother. As for them, they will have none of it. 

 " And if this amendment is only the outcome of an- 



