USA > Ohio > Memories of the crusade a thrilling account of the great uprising of the women of Ohio in 1873, against the liquor crime > Part 30
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was that this young guardian found that her love for the helpless little one had become a control- ling passion. She endeavored to console herself with the thought that it was her duty to give the child up, and that it could not be otherwise. But her great love would not be answered, and out of its restless yearning grew a vague purpose that sometime she would make a home for such children. But in all probability, left to itself, this laudable scheme would have in time passed from her mind. It seemed, therefore, laid upon that mite of humanity to do a deeper work. While the young missionary was striving to con- quer what she esteemed a sinful sorrow, to forget the anguish of the last kiss, when with gentle force, she parted from round her neck, the arms of the babe clinging as with instinctive dread of the dark fate before it, news came that the child was dead. In a drunken quarrel between her adopted father and mother she had been acci- dentally killed. This intelligence fell like a crush- ing blow upon that loving heart, already so sore. Her health gave way under the combined power of sorrow and self- reproach. Being so advised by her physician, she returned to Ohio, and arrived home weak in body but strong in her pur- pose to devote her life to the establishment of a children's home."
Her health came back and she bent all her energies to the one purpose of her life. She taught school for several years, saving every cent of her salary till she was able to buy twelve acres
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of land. Then buildings must be erected, the little stray lambs must be gathered in, provided and cared for, and all this my friend did out of her meagre earnings, and through her own labors and personal supervision, with very little help, except as God would, in answer to her cries to Him, put it into the hearts of some of the more benev- olent people to bring her aid.
The recital of the toil and trials, even persecu- tions, that my friend endured while working out the problem to which she had set her life, would, if space allowed, read more like the creations of a highly imaginative brain than the hard realities of a most practical life. But these, all beautified and made glorious by her faith in her mission and her trust in God, culminated, after the long years of single-handed effort, in the realization of her hope-a home for the homeless and a fitting monument to the Little Martyr of the Drink Curse.
A BIT OF ROMANCE.
I have given so many sad and pitiful incidents as the result of the liquor curse, that I am glad to give this little love story as a sort of silver lining to the sombre cloud of sorrow and misery.
I was engaged by the Ladies' Union of a pleas- ant university town for a series of meetings. On Sabbath evening I addressed a fine audience of young people, and at the close of my lecture called for signers to the pledge, and quite a num- ber came forward. But the President, with whom
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I was stopping, told me after meeting that there was one young man at the meeting who had failed to sign, though some of his friends had seen with much concern for a good while that he was, unaware to himself, passing the danger line in his social habits, and they had hoped to see him take the much-needed step. He was of good family and very popular, and of course there was that night, as he stood in the choir, one by his side who was very quietly, but with prayerful interest, watching him. As soon as the meeting was over she hastened to the President and unburdened her heart. She had noticed his agi- tation as the truth had seemed for the first time to flash upon him, that he was already in the breakers, with weakened power to contend against them. She said while he could not be induced to go forward, he stood there as one transfixed, gazing intently at the speaker, while his knees perceptibly trembled under him. The President of the University announced at the close that I would address the students at chapel next morn- ing. The young lady invited her friend to go, saying she would be there, and he promised her he would. When the hour came, it found our young friend there, and the young lady sat near him, though without any words, simply in that way testifying her intense interest on his behalf. At the close of my address I invited the students to come and sign the pledge, and let me pin on the badge of blue. I think all, both gentlemen and ladies, who did not sign the evening before,
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came up and took the pledge. After they had hurried away to their classes, I was standing, talking with some of the Professors, when a lady touched my arm and in a low tone said there was a young man in the hall who wished to talk with me. I went to him and found him with his head bowed on the seat before him, weeping and manifesting much agitation. I talked to him as well as I could, urging the importance of his taking the decisive step at once by signing the pledge. At length he exclaimed, "Oh, my stubborn will !" Said I, "My son, if you have a stubborn will, thank God for it. If properly exercised it will be your salvation in helping you to resist temptation." We knelt down and prayed over it. And having a card in my pocket with my own name on it, I handed it to him and asked him to put his name down by it, and he did so. I met him at the depot a few hours later and had an interesting conversation with him while we were waiting for our respective trains. I told him upon parting, that when I reached my next place I would make and send him a badge, which I did, and promptly came a manly letter in response. He said, " I shall not attempt to say how greatly pleased and gratified I was when I received and read your letter this morn- ing. I hasten to acknowledge its receipt and say that I believe the best way for me to show my appreciation and express my thanks for the interest you have taken in me, is by wearing each day the badge you have kindly made and
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presented with your good-will and prayers. I accept it with due acknowledgement for the honor, as I consider it, and shall now certainly hang my banner on the outer wall, -that is, I shall as soon as I get to my home in -, and you will, I know, pardon me for thus waiting, when I tell you that it has been requested of me by a young lady at home, that in the event of your sending it to me, (and I knew you would), she should be allowed the privilege of 'nailing fast the colors.' You can very easily imagine the reply a young man would give to such a request. I begin to realize that henceforth it is to be with me a continual fight with my own nature if I hold fast to what I have pledged myself. Yet, I have never for a moment regretted the step I have taken."
I had advised him to put himself further out of the reach of temptation, by at once going to work in the interest of the cause. He says, "I have already done a little. ( IIe was in the U. S. Mail service. ) Our coming election in our State, for Governor, is hanging on the result of a strong fight being now waged by the temperance and anti-temperance men. Last week I proposed to my partner in the Mail Service, an Ex-Senator and a very strong temperance man, that I would do his work for three days while he went to his county and worked for the temperance party. He went, and it is now clearly shown that by his efforts the sentiment, which before had been strongly in favor of the whisky party, was so
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changed that the county voted to send a temper- ance delegate to the State Convention, with the help of which the outlook appears quite hopeful. Now, I think I helped the cause just a little."
Their candidate was elected. I heard from my dear, brave boy occasionally afterwards, till at length came these beautiful wedding cards, that I have kept as a sweet reminder of my cherished young friends ever since. These were soon fol- lowed by a paper giving a glowing account of the wedding, with a long list of beautiful and useful wedding presents.
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CHAPTER XXII.
Work in Virginia-Waterford-Lincoln-Ham- ilton-Leesburg.
HE first year of active work and exciting scenes had passed, but, though so much had been accomplished, and the women so aroused, we began to take in the fact that it was only the beginning-the conflict must stretch out into the long years.
The form had changed, but the work must be persistently prosecuted. A large army of ear- nest lecturers and organizers were entering the field. The work was spreading throughout the land -throughout the Northern States, I should say with more exactness-and my calls still were coming from all directions. I wish I might tell of the calls and work done in all the prominent cities of New York, many of the towns and cities of Western Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Iowa, in the years succeeding the "Uprising." The limits of this volume, how- ever, forbid it. But I had long since seen that the call was to the Christian women of whatever name or nation. How could those of other lands than our own be reached ? I had bethought
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me of a committee to be appointed by our First National Convention, with instructions to pre- pare a letter of invitation to our sisters of all Christendom to join us, but for some reason it failed of accomplishment, -perhaps the right time had not come. But the burden still lay on my heart, and I was crying to the Lord to make a way possible for me to go and carry my message to my sisters across the seas myself, when, at the National Temperance Convention in Chicago, in 1875, I met Mrs. Parker, of Dundee, Scotland, and Mrs. Watson, of London, England, who were here as delegates to the R. W. Grand Lodge of Good Templars, that had just closed its session in Bloomington, Illinois. These ladies invited me to come and help them open up the work in their country.
The result was a visit to that country,-a warm-hearted reception, and co-operation in inaugurating the work of the British Women's Temperance Association. But the purpose and limit of these pages will not admit of the history of these few months of abundant and happy work, though if life and health shall not fail me, I hope to give it to my friends ere long. But a great field in our own beloved land was still unoccupied, and now my heart was going out to my sisters of the South land.
It is true that Mrs. Wittenmyer, our first Presi- dent, had, in 1876, visited some points in the South and organized a few unions, but the Southern ladies did not as yet look upon the work with favor.
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They had taken the impression that the Crusade was some sort of unwomanly demonstration that they could not endorse. The sectional prejudices had in the past kept us apart and given each section erroneous and exaggerated ideas of the other, and the war had intensified these senti- ments into bitter hate. Neither could believe any good could come out of the Nazareth that contained everything that we considered wrong. Then the political "reconstruction," and the forever harping on the "bloody shirt" and "lost cause," in every political campaign, by unprincipled leaders, was serving to increase the hate and widen the breach. Years had gone since the war troubles were proclaimed as "settled, and we once more a whole, united people," yet there was no unity or community of interests ; nor could there be while the dema- gogues from year to year continued to deliver their harangues and excite the ignorant rabble of both sections, and thus seek to carry the election for their party and their own personal interests. Must this go on forever? The Lord showed me by the teaching of His Holy Spirit that He had given it into the hands of the Christian Temperance Women, with the watchword and battle cry, "For God and Home and Native Land," to reach out the olive branch of Christian sisterhood and to pour the oil of peace on the turbid and forever seething sea of political strife and sectional animosities.
And again was I crying to Him, " Here am
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I, send me," when an invitation, unsought on my part, came from the Good Templars of Loudon county, Virginia, requesting me to come and give them a few weeks' work. I gladly hastened to respond, and spent a month in the spring of 1877, in that delightful section of "Old Virginia," working with the Good Templars and Friends. By the aid of Mr. J. Edward Walker, -one of the Lord's noblest men-Mrs. N. A. Beans, the Misses Steares and others of Waterford ; Mr. and Mrs. Joseph M. Jewett, and Dr. Stone and lady, of Lincoln ; Dr. Susie Gore, Mr. Thomas Taylor, Mr. and Mrs. Hoag, and Yardly Brown, editor of the Telephone, Hamilton ; and my young friend, Charlie Han- ford, of Guilford ; and indeed, by the co-opera- tion of the temperance friends all over the county, I was enabled to put in a month of active and, I think, profitable work. We formed a W. C. T. U. at Lincoln, Mrs. Jewett being made Presi- dent. Mrs. Jewett was a sister of that saintly man, Rev. Samuel M. Janney, whose home was in Lincoln, and who became an honorary member of the Union, and a sympathetic and valuable counselor. He has since gone up to sit among the Elders in his Father's house.
We also formed Unions at Waterford and Hamilton. The sisters at once took up the work among the children, and soon after I left they joined the brethren with great earnestness in the Local Option campaign.
It was my pleasure to organize the first colored
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Blue Ribbon Club in the South ( as far as I have any knowledge ), at Waterford. They seemed to possess much more intelligence and thrift than the colored people generally through the country ; the secret being that two sisters - devoted young Quaker ladies, the Misses Steares-had opened a school for that unfortunate people as soon as it was made possible by the fortunes of the war, and had continued their Christian work till the results were seen in the community enjoying a degree of education, morals and prosperity very much in advance of the gener- ality of the freedmen. But no one who has not been in the South can understand the trials, the ostracism, experienced by these young ladies, or any, who attempted to reach out a hand to help those poor, liberated slaves.
While in Virginia I was told of a young Quakeress of very superior education and refine- ment, who came from Philadelphia as soon as it was possible after the emancipation, and opened a school in one of the towns in that region; but while every one saw and acknowledged that she was a lady in the highest sense of the term, and a superior educator, -saying they wished they could only have such a teacher for their own children, -yet they would not give her recogni- tion any more than if she had been the lowest name- less woman on the street. No one would speak to her ; of course no one would give her board- ing,-she was obliged to take a room adjoining an old colored woman and board with her. Oh,
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what an army of moral heroes and heroines will answer to the roll-call of the Master in that day of assizes, and with wondering gladness hear the blessed, " Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto me."
But my Blue Ribbon Club, how grateful they were for the interest I showed them.
At the close of my address the aged men and women arose one after another, and with a peculiar sort of courtesy, and simple but feeling language, expressed their thanks.
Among the sunniest memories of my life are those delightful, leisurely drives with Dr. Susie Gore, to the various appointments, over the beautiful roads and among the stately old home- steads of old Loudon. In one of these-" Oat- land,"-I was hospitably entertained by Mr. and Mrs. Carter and Major and Mrs. Minnegerode. This beautiful estate was a "crown grant" way back in old colonial times, and had never since passed out of the Carter family.
These dear friends were on the Confederate side in the war, but ready to join now with might and influence with the Northern Crusader against our great common enemy. Major Minnegerode was one of the finest specimens of southern young manhood I had ever met; tall and finely proportioned, a genial, warm-hearted gentleman, a son of that eminent divine, Dr. Minnegerode, of Richmond. He was in Gen. Lee's army, and it was his misfortune to receive the last shot on Appomattox battle-field, only
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some twenty minutes before the surrender, which laid him on his back for two years. I sometime since saw a statement that Major Minnegerode, being in Boston, attended the theatre, taking a box. In a few moments another gentleman was ushered in, and looking up he saw the surgeon of the Federal army who came to his assistance on the battle-field and tended him with a brother's care, saving his life. The recognition was mutual, though long years had intervened, and the eager embrace of those two men told of an undying friendship formed on that battle-field, though one wore the blue and the other the gray.
My last meeting was in the old, aristocratic, rebel town of Leesburg. It took a good deal of management on the part of the temperance ladies to get the door sufficiently opened in this old, conservative place to get a hearing for our cause, but perseverance and strategy won, and our meeting was announced for the court-house, and a large audience was gathered, my friends from the other towns escorting me in. It was very discernible that, though the audience was composed of the best class of ladies and gentle- men in the town, it was more of curiosity to see and hear a "sure enough" Crusader than inter- est in the cause that had called them out. As I took my seat upon entering, an elderly gentle- man came forward and shook hands, giving me his name and saying he understood that I was a Methodist, and added that he was also. I
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expressed my pleasure and said I had now been a Methodist for forty-six years. He answered that he had been something longer; so we started off the best of friends. He took his seat in front of the platform to assist in the singing, being a very fine singer. Lawyer Janney pre- sided, and our meeting started off in fine style.
It was just after that wonderful contrivance to cheat the simple Christian people and please his Satanic majesty, the "Moffett bell-punch " had been introduced, and I felt called upon to pay my respects to it, and also to the nine " respect- able" men who had been endorsed by good worthy citizens as competent to wield that curiously contrived death-knell, very probably by good church members. I turned suddenly to my Methodist brother, saying: "My brother, has any member of the Methodist church signed the petitions of these 'respectable men ?' If he has, report him to the minister and have him turned out; he has no business in the Methodist church." Why, mercy ! What had I done !
That audience fairly screamed, and drowned my voice, so that I had to stand there speech- less. I could not see any such exciting point to that little advice, and became greatly alarmed lest the people had in that way decided to silence me. But I stood with as composed a countenance as possible, till there was a moment's lull, then I quietly thanked the audience for their apprecia- tion of the point that seemed to have been made, but explained that my meetings were always in
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the nature of religious services, and I hoped they would observe the same decorum that they would in the sanctuary. From this out there was respectful and silent attention. Upon turn- ing to my Good Templar brethren for an expla- nation, at the close of the meeting, I was informed that my dear Methodist brother, who was also a Good Templar, was renting one of his houses for a saloon, and there had been a very serious time about it. Sides had been taken, and it had resulted in nearly causing a split in the Lodge. One gentleman brought his hand down on Brother Taylor's knee with startling vehemence, saying he would not take five dollars for that. But I have been a little careful since about "selling out " my Methodist brethren.
On my return I took in Washington, and by invitation of Rev. Rankin, of the Congregational church, who was carrying on a Blue Ribbon revival, I had the pleasure of assisting him in a few meetings.
I also made use of my prerogative, while at the Capital, as an American citizen, to call on our Chief Executive, and for lack of anything at hand worth saying, I remarked to the President that I wished him to understand that I was not an applicant for office, and had no axe to grind, and yet if he had anything in the way of a consulate, or something of that sort, I should cer- tainly very gratefully accept. "Well, now," said he, "I am sorry to hear you say you are not seeking an office, for Mrs. Hayes is just now
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in correspondence with the Queen of Madagascar -you know they have the Maine Law there. She complains that while the representatives of all other governments respect her law, our consul disregards it, claiming by virtue of the commer- cial treaty the right to enter liquors into her ports. "Now," said he, "if it is found necessary to recall him, I am sure you would respect the law."
I thanked him and assured him I should most certainly respect the Queen's laws. If I failed to get my appointment, my luck was not worse than that of several others.
The Blue Ribbon movement followed in the wake of our Crusade and gathered in thousands of men that otherwise would have filled the drunkard's grave. We were glad to give it our most earnest support and assistance. I had the happiness of being the first to carry that work across the Mississippi into Iowa, where it was taken up with much enthusiasm and many cases of "saved" I could recount if admissible. In our own city it was introduced by Col. Richard Realf, that brilliant orator, poet, journalist and brave soldier. My heart aches and the tears will well up as I recall that wonderful, generous and genial friend, "son, " as he asked me to call him.
What a remarkable and eventful history was his. An Englishman by birth, who showed unusual poetical genius, even when a boy, and by his productions attracted the notice of literary
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people, among them Lady Byron, who took him under her patronage. But his enthusiastic nature became enlisted in America and her political struggles. Coming to our country, he at once espoused the anti-slavery cause, and seeking out that old martyr, John Brown, became his secre- tary, and only escaped his fate by having gone for the time back to England. But returning, he made his way into the extreme South and com- menced a lecturing tour, when he was discovered, taken prisoner and had a thrilling experience, barely escaping death several times at the hands of the infuriated Southern mobs that surrounded him and his escort at the different points on their way to Washington.
At one place he was taken from the hands of the officers by the mob, a rope put about his neck, and hauled up, once, twice, and again they were about to draw him up for the last time, when a gentleman who had just arrived on the train stepped forward and shamed them for cow- ards, and ordered them to desist. Said he was a Southern man, a Virginian, was coming to find a home in the Southwest, and was in sympathy with them, but he would not see an unarmed man set upon in that way, and the next that touched the rope would receive the contents of his revolver. They released him, and being taken to Washington, it was found that he was not guilty of any overt act, and so he was set at liberty. He then enlisted in the Federal army and fought bravely, coming near, at different times, to
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being taken prisoner, where he knew very well he would have had no hope of mercy. He brought from Chickamauga a testimony of his bravery and loyalty to his adopted country in a bullet wound, the effects of which he carried to the grave. But he added one more to the long list of conquered by drink.
But when Francis Murphy opened his wonder- ful work in Pittsburgh, Col. Realf signed the pledge and at once took the platform, and brought all his earnestness and eloquence into the cause and did a grand work. If only Francis Murphy had made use of such an opportunity as never was given to another man in this country, and taken a stand for total prohibition at the ballot box and exhorted his army of reformed men to do the same, I am honest in the belief that the result would have been seen in the great advance of prohibition all over the country, and the shielding of many of those poor slaves of appe- tite who were struggling for deliverance against such fearful odds, and who did go down again. Like many another, he failed to see and grasp the great opportunity of his life.
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