History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 186

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co.
Number of Pages: 1100

USA > Maine > Penobscot County > History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 186

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Our financial support rests on a basis exceedingly simple-it being to pass the hat at our public meetings, and to put our hands in our own pockets in the interval. If our public meetings were more frequent, and our pockets deeper, our work could greatly expand. With our time and strength all claimed by the direct work of temperance, we have not undertaken to earn money by entertainments, or by personal solicitation.

We know what it is to be footsore and few, to be poor and perplexed, but we have not yet found out what it may be to. lose our courage and our faith. In the cold weather we have carried to our place of meeting sticks of wood in mystic wrappers on our arms, and bundles of shavings, invisible, under our shawls, and the altar-fire within has never burned low.

Our growth as a society has been steady and gratifying, our mem- bership having more than doubled since the first trembling ten of us launched our Mayflower.

At the close of the next year (1877-78) the Secretary, after recording the continuance and prosperity of the weekly business and prayer meetings, says:

Our report of last year records the opening meetings of the Maine Central Depot Mission. This has to tell of its successful continuance till the end of September. This mission was no holiday task, in our inex- perience, in the imperfect accommodations and distance of the place, the heats of the season, and the roughness of the material we are at- tempting to mould. But we feel our toils repaid when we count up some of the known results; besides the cases of individual light and blessing confessed to us, the many names there given to the pledge, and the fervent entreaties to us to "come and hold some more meet- ings!" We have learned that patience and practice will sharpen even such dull tools as we confess ourselves to be, and that it pays to make acquaintance with the " elbow-heathen."

Our congregation at the depot was gathered from those who seldom or never enter any other such meeting. We have been assisted in these meetings by words in season from some of our pastors, and from non- resident pastors, and by the voices of several of our favorite singers.

Our visiting at the rum-shops and distribution of temperance litera- ture in shops, streets, or wharves, etc., was continued till November. The visits were of the same painful interest as ever, and of the "souls rescued from their sinful way" we do not count with certainty even one for every dram-shop; but though our harvest may be not many sheaves, yet is already enough to richly repay our labors.

Many thousand pages of our literature have been distributed thus. In December and January wall-pockets were put up in the railroad depots, conveniently disposed for ticket-buyers, which were weekly furnished with five to eight hundred pages of reading mat- ter, of a style both entertaining and useful, and this was continued till April. We have heard of passengers on out-going trains profiting by the gift to speed the slow hours; but in all these distributions we trust that much more good is wrought than can possibly come to our hear- ing.

At all our meetings we furnish the National Leaflets, or some other tract, chiefly educational, as recommended by the Woman's National Union; and we have also complied with their plan in the appointment of our own Literature Committee, who have made a promising begin- ning in the further work laid out.

The appointment of the 13th of December as a national day of prayer, made by the Chicago Convention, found us most happy to obey the call. Such days of union and unison of voice and spirit are the

fitting feasts of a cause so full of brotherhood as is the temperance movement of the present day.

The Sunday before, December 9, seven of the ten Protestant preach- ers then occupying pulpits in the city had made temperance the subject of discourse, in response to the invitation which we had extended to them from the National Union ;- an auspicious precedent.

No month has passed since the close of the Depot Mission without some presentation of our cause to the public ear, either by words of our own, or of able speakers, or by lectures in aid of our working fund. In October we had an enthusiastic meeting at Pine Street church, the speakers being Mr. and Mrs. D. W. Hunt, of Indiana; in November a highly interesting and instructive address from Rev. Dr. Hamlin, upon "Islam and Wine," at Hammond Street church; in December the prayer and mass-meetings in City Hall; in January the excellent lecture by Rev. Mr. Bolton, on "The Three H's that Win," in City Hall, for the benefit of our treasury; in February the admirable address upon "Woman and Temperance," delivered in the Unitarian church by Mrs. Eliza K. Churchill, of Providence; in March a literary lecture by the same speaker, for which tickets were sold, from which we hoped to de- rive a profit.

April 28 we began a second series of meetings with the churches, upon a plan differing from those of the first year in giving special prom- inence to a Bible reading, the central thought of which is followed up by the speakers as the controlling thought of the evening. .

. These have been among the most effective meetings we have had. The record is not complete without the mention of the meeting of June 7, 1877, which opened the year, at which the natural gladness of an anniversary in good work was enhanced by the sympathetic and en- couraging address of Rev. Professor Barbour, and the enthusiasm of Rev. Mr. Angier.

Near the commencement of the record of the year 1878-79 the Secretary says :-

Following our anniversary meeting of last June, which owed much to the earnest addresses of two of our faithful temperance men,-Rev. Dr. Hamlin and Rev. Mr. Bolton, - the special meetings of last sum- mer were those of the Maine Central Depot Mission.

After a series of memorable expériences in the preliminaries, these were commenced on June 30, the "hot Sunday," and continued four weeks. We had great difficulty in procuring seats, and owing to the lack of shipping and sailors in the port, and to other causes, our con- gregation was not of the same character as the previous season, nor such as we especially hoped for. Some good work was done there, and not in vain, we trust, but the Mission was not as successful as it should have been to justify our continued outlay, and was therefore closed.

In October we succeeded in procuring the services of Miss Lucia E. F. Kimball, of Chicago, Superintendent of the Sunday-school work of the National Union, who held a series of effective meetings and created an interest in the subject of Sunday-school temperance work, such as was greatly needed in our churches, and will prove, we trust, not a quick-growing and quick-withering plant on shallow soil, but a strong and living tree, rich in fruit for time and eternity.

Preparatory to her coming, the Union had invited thirteen Sunday- schools to join in a temperance concert on Sunday afternoon, October 20, at Hammond Street Church, where Superintendent Daggett had arranged the presentation of one of Miss Kimball's concert exercises, " The Test of the Rechabites."

Miss Kimball addressed the children at this meeting, winning their ears, eyes, and hearts at once with her lessons and her object-teaching, and that evening delivered a thoughtful and suggestive lecture on "Temperance Training," at the First Parish Church. The following evening, by invitation from the Union, a conference of pastors, super- intendents, teachers, and "all interested," was held at the Baptist Chapel, and addressed by Miss Kimball, who presented the simple and serviceable "Plan" of the Woman's National Union, for systematic temperance work in Sunday-schools, and persuasively urged its adop- tion. She also spoke in the City Hall on Tuesday evening, the 22d, upon "Gospel Temperance Work in Chicago."

The plan of the systematic temperance lessons was so new to our Sunday-schools that the work of securing its adoption has proved, as we were warned it would do, one requiring time, much personal labor, and reiterated explanation, as one after another becomes interested to inquire into it.

In furtherance of the work begun by Miss Kimball, the Union held two more conferences, participated in by many of those interested, who missed the first one, and has since appointed a committee of its own

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HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

members to take the work in charge. These have labored diligently, but this work is great enough for twice their number.

But this year goes out with bright omen and definite advance, with the news that one of our churches has joined in the national system, - the Second Baptist having notified us of their intention to assign the quarterly lesson, appoint the Secretary, and carry out the further sug- gestions of the Plan, so far as practicable. This is heartily encourag- ing. . . Several Superintendents, while declining to estab- lish a regular temperance lesson, have promised to give some time to it. . We have distributed many specimens of the ad- mirable lesson-leaves prepared by Miss Coleman, and are confident that they will win their way.

December 23, the day ever memorable as that on which our gentle "Mother Thompson," of Hillsboro', first led forth her crusade band to deliver the loved ones and close the rum-shop door, we thankfully marked with a commemorative service, held in the Baptist Chapel. By invitation, the Women's Temperance Crusade united with us in the services.

The preceding Sunday had been designated at Baltimore as our "National Temperance Sunday," and four of our city pastors had ac- cepted our invitation to preach a temperance sermon that day,-two others being prevented by Christmas services, taking an early oppor- tunity thereafter to address their people on this subject.

With profound thankfulness must we temperance women confess our debt to the clergymen of Bangor, who have been and are a tower of strength to the cause. We have leaned upon their faithfulness, and not found it wanting.

January 2 and 3 saw the fulfillment of long cherished desires of our Union, in the assembling in this city of the Massachusetts convention called by the State Union, in aid of which we had been glad to be enabled to offer a promised address from our eloquent Canadian friend, Professor George E. Foster, and the use of City Hall. Our citizens hospitably opened their homes in entertainment of our visitors, and, the Women's Crusade joining us in welcome to the delegations, it was to us all an occasion of pleasure and profit, and gave a good impulse to the work in this community.

January 5 Professor Foster delivered a lecture for our society, enti- tled, "Reforms and Reformers," compact of his strong logic and fit illustration, to a large and attentive audience, at the First Methodist church.

The Union held three Bible temperance meetings in churches this year, occasional saloon and station visiting was done, a few private prayer-meetings were held by invitation, and the Month of Prayer was observed by additional weekly prayer-meetings, with special subjects. Also, the members united in five scientific temperance readings, for their own benefit.

Early in February a piece of work was given us to do of a kind wholly new in our experience, in the circulation of the " Petition of the National Union for relief and inquiry." This petition, asking Congress to do its utmost to keep the drink traffic out of the country, and to establish the commission of inquiry thrice passed by the Senate and smothered in the House, was welcomed as the embodied voice of many soul-felt hopes and prayers, and we girded ourselves for our first step in the path at the end of whose long vista shines a glorious goal.

The blanks came late, and we had but five days in which to circulate them, and one of these was stormy. We took our bows and arrows and went a-hunting. Homes, stores, counting-rooms, and workshops we invaded, and came out rich in trophies and experience.

Six hundred and twenty-eight signatures were secured, a little more than one-third of which were women. Seven of our city pastors signed,-we had not time to see them all,-Seminary professors and a Presiding Elder; prominent members of all the learned professions- except the editorial-and of almost every honest occupation; office- holders, bankers, merchants; the comprehending ones who said, "Now you are striking at the root-amen," and those who, though hopeless for their own lifetime, yet were glad to do their duty; the white-haired, reverend scholar of nearly four-score years and ten, and the youth to whom our talk was the first hint of a glorious possibility that lies before his coming ballot. One sheet contained the names of seventeen of the grand jury, then in session, and the sum of them all was a weighty representation of the character, intelligence, and enterprise of the city, as well as of its social refinement and culture.

Among the resolutions adopted by the State Convention, none has called us to action with a more profound sense of its importance than that which urges the introduction of exact teaching upon the nature and effects of alcohol into the public schools, as one of the most effec- tive safeguards against the drinking habit.

The movement in England, and its success in Sweden, are constant encouragement to us, if we needed more than its utter reasonableness to urge it here. A prompt indorsement was given to the suggestion in the sermon of one of our leading clergymen soon after the convention, and the proposition continues to meet with emphatic approval from growing numbers of our most thoughtful people.

Upon the election of the new Board of Superintending School Com- mittee, at the end of March, we made the formal request that they would introduce the study of scientific temperance into the public school course in such a way as to reach the greatest number of scholars -proposing Richardson's Temperance Lesson Book for the high school, and the Catechism on Alcohol for the intermediate and suburban grades. The board met our delegation in a conference at their com- mittee-room, April 8, heard our plea with courteous attention, and have had the text-books under examination, but we are not informed what their decision will be for the next school year.

April 22 we held a mass meeting in City Hall, in support of the movement for scientific temperance teaching, which was well attended by an intelligent audience, and addressed by several of our most able and experienced educators, in strong advocacy of the idea. We had weighty support in Professors Hamlin, Sewall, and Paine, Hon. A. G. Wakefield, and Rev. Mr. Spear.

In the important department of the literature work, progress has been made during the year. Ninety subscriptions have been sent to the newspaper organ, Our Union-our premiums amounting to $10.70.

In July we began a canvass with Mrs. Wittenmeyer's History of the Woman's Temperance Crusade, the book of which Rev. Dr. Hamlin has said-and we may give credence to such an expert : "There is no book of modern times, I am quite sure, which exhibits so much of human nature in all its shades, from sootiest black to purest white. It is a book which every lawyer, legislator, voter, physician, and minister should read. It exhibits courage never equaled at Plevna, benevolence and humility unsurpassed on earth, and deviltry right out of hell." Nine copies have been given away, and forty-two sold, at a net profit of $13.75.

In this kind of money-getting we feel that we are spending our strength on a two-edged weapon, and directly promoting the cause in the circulation of the book. For there is nowhere to be found an ar- raignment of the monstrous traffic so biting as this plain, unvarnished story of its acts toward women. Upon the other literature there is no profit to our purse.

Holding no public meeting in March, we called upon the excellent leaflet, "Let the Church Awake," to speak for us, and distributed nine hundred and twenty-five of these in the different churches. We have distributed about eight thousand three hundred pages of these and other tracts during the year. We have also sold since January one hundred and eleven books and pamphlets, besides twenty packets of Union leaflet, and five of children's tracts.

The only remaining extracts which will be given from this year's report refer to the following facts: In Sep- tember, 1878, a Sheriff well known to be a friend of the drink-traffic, was elected ; and in March a Mayor, who, it was generally supposed, would not enforce the prohibitory law, and who confirmed the supposition by saying in his inaugural-after quoting a few lines from the city charter touching the duties of the Chief Execu- tive Magistrate: "If I can cause the regulations of the city to be executed and enforced, I shall feel that I have done my whole duty in this respect, and do not propose to magnify my office by going beyond the limits marked out in the city ordinance."

But we have been told that our work is a failure. The charge is a serious one, and so often made, summons us at this beginning of an- other year to seriously consider the situation, and if we are in fault, to amend our methods.

Then, after "considering the situation," and eloquently painting the effects of this unchaining of the insatiate demon, the Secretary continues :

Is this, then, our failure? But our will and taste have not been con- sulted in the matter. It is some one's failure. It is shameful and sor- rowful. Being but women, we continue to pray.

We confess our fcebleness ; we have indeed failed to attain the full

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HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

measure of our desires. But when a grand work for humanity appeals, implores for helpers, and reels under the mailed fist of the smiter, then that criticism which simply stands apart and blames its weakness-not that trembling effort which does its faithful best to uphold the bruised and shaking limb-is the failure.

But we are told our work "is a failure, because men talk temperance and vote rum! " Ah! this is the oldest story of all, that has echoed down to us from creation's dawn-man's sin is woman's fault. Truly the blood of Adam still flows in the veins of his sons.

We see failure, but we see success also. We see the stains fading from faces we are wont to meet, and heads held erect that were hung down. We see a new energy and higher life in temperance organiza- tions, , and a deeper and broader thought of what this reform means. May it grow abundantly.

We have seen a quiet and happy quickening of spiritual life in some of our churches, and lives blessedly won from the service of appetite to the service of God. One church has, for a part of the year, set apart one service in each month tor temperance. And when the church shall be awake in all her members, we shall hear no more of failure. .

And more than these, we, standing within these walls, as women do, see tokens in many a home of the growing care, and thought, and love of women for this cause, which is woman's cause as none other has ever been-except that which was born in a manger at Bethlehem. And this growing care is full of hopefulness, for when temperance is loved, and served, and taught, as it should be, in the home, the sons will not love and serve the poison in the streets.

We are thus introduced to the work of the year 1879- 80 :

The year's labor has been carried on, according to our ability, in each of the three great branches into which the national movement has re- solved itself ; the religious, the educational, and the legal.

Under the first head we must name our own most prized weekly prayer meetings, without whose cheer we should be unable to face our difficulties and continue in the warfare. These are open and free to all who may like to join us.

We have held forty-four prayer meetings, including three of national appointment or significance, viz: October 17, for the Indianapolis Con- vention; the Crusade Anniversary, December 23; and for temperance throughout our land, January 2; to supply the omission of the subject from the following week of prayer. The last named meeting was held in City Hall, forenoon and afternoon, with a change of subjects and leaders each hour, and a new Bible lesson.

In the sphere of religious work will be reckoned our Sunday-school effort, which has made progress. .

. Last June one ex- ercise of fifteen minutes in one school was all the specific temperance teaching we could learn of in the Sunday-schools of the city for several months. This year we have reports showing active temperance work in many of the schools, and the beginning of an awakening in some others. There is every encouragement to press forward.

Of the eight schools which the Secretary says have done some temperance work in the past year, we will quote the record of the three most favorable :

. The Second Methodist, four quarterly lessons, and one concert. First Congregational, four quarterly lessons, five open- ing exercises of fifteen minutes each, one concert, one address before the school, twenty-two copies of "Youths' Temperance Banner," and a growing interest. Second Baptist, four quarterly lessons, four con- certs, two addresses before the school, eleven copies of the. "Banner" used, and much interest among both teachers and scholars. ,

. The Union lesson-leaves (Miss Colman's) have been used in five of these schools and have received high praise from superintend- ents and teachers.

The educational work of the year was begun in what is doubtless the proper quarter-at home-ten meetings of our own members being held last summer for scientific reading, and one to read the "Maine Law." ,

Our cause has a rich, worthy, and convincing literature, and we be- lieve the old method of "precept upon precept, line upon line," has not lost its virtue. Forty-nine books, ninety-one pamphlets, one thou- sand five hundred and fifty lesson-leaves, and two thousand and thirty- seven pages of tracts have been sold, three thousand five hundred and twenty-two pages distributed by Union funds, and about one thousand pages given as specimens, for which the national and local committees have paid.

That scientific temperance instruction must be given to the children in the public schools of America, is no longer an open question. The problem to-day is to overcome the inertia of school committees in the shortest possible time.

But we have taken a lesson from our brothers' books, and observed that when they wish any line of public policy pursued they elect to office such men as will pursue it. Finding, as the weeks passed into months, that the School Committee were not likely to introduce the study of temperance, and feeling that every consideration of humanity was for it (and nothing against it but superstition, inherited from a dark age of philosophy, which named brandy "water of life"), the resolve was taken in our meeting of July 31, to petition the Legislature of Maine to give women the privilege of voting for School Committees, as seven other States had already done. When we are among their constitu- ents they will take more interest in the book.

The proposed movement for school committee suffrage for women was submitted to the State Union at the next annual meeting in Octo- ber, unanimously adopted as a branch of the State work, and petitions to the Legislature issued in December for general circulation. But the disturbed condition of affairs at the capital soon induced the committee to suspend the canvass, and postpone the appeal to the Legislature another year. The petition was received with much favor in this city, in the brief period it was in circulation, and we believe it will be numer- ously signed when the canvass is resumed.

Meanwhile we have continued our efforts to persuade committees, by other arguments than the ballot. Our first work in this direction this year was a lecture from Professor George E. Foster, entitled, "Forma- tive Influences, or the Place of Temperance in Education." This was delivered September 21, at a union meeting in Central Church, con- ducted by the pastor, assisted by Rev. R. L. Howard. The lecture, luminous with fine logic and elevated feeling, was not only an able argument for temperance in the schools, but was in itself an educative influence of rare quality, and was listened to with keen enjoyment by a large and appreciative audience.

The State annual meeting, held in this city soon after, afforded our public another opportunity for consideration of the educational move- ment, in listening to the exquisite address of Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, of Boston.

April 13 we again procured the assistance of Mrs. Hunt, who delivered a lecture on "Forces that Have Shaped Destiny," in City Hall. It was well attended and full of unanswerable persuasion to the introduction of the study.

The next day Rev. Mr. Spear courteously opened his house for a parlor conference, to which we invited the School Committee, and a number of other friends, to confer with Mrs. Hunt upon practical as- pects of this most vital movement against the drink system. Two of the committee were present, and expressed themselves at the close in a manner most cheering to our hopes.

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History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 186

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio) Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co. Number of Pages: 1100

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co.
Number of Pages: 1100