This is the fourth installment in Mr. Bowen's interesting story on Princeton's great awakening. Because of the excellence of these articles, we would suggest that our readers keep the entire series to lend to friends and neighbors. If your back numbers are missing, they can be obtained from the publishers.
The sequel of the story will appear in our next issue — a recital of how the little church at Thirty-third and Pine was built.
MR. and Mrs. Lewis found good seats at the town hall about an hour before the time appointed for the temperance man from Washington to speak. Already the people were pouring in; and half an hour before time to begin, even standing room was at a premium.
"My, I'm glad we came early," whispered Mrs. Lewis to her husband.
He weakly assented, for somehow he had a premonition that something out of the ordinary was soon to happen. Presently four fine-looking young men stepped forward on the platform, as the deep-toned pipe organ began thundering deep chords from the distance, and the great audience was hushed into stillness as distinctly every ear heard:
"Yonder Rum's camp lights are burning.
Hark to the revelry there!
Waiting the conflict's returning,
Scouts are abroad everywhere.
We must be watchful and ready,
See every entrance is barred,
Keeping our heads cool and steady.
All is lost sleeping on guard."
From Fire to Ice Water
THESE were but a few of the words of that impressive song. As the last notes died away, the mayor introduced Mr. Knight, from Washington. He was not so very large. At first, Mrs. Lewis was just a little disappointed. But from the start, his very soul seemed on fire. His eyes sparkled with fervency as he began dealing such blows to the rum traffic as many — very many — in that audience had never before heard. He presented facts and figures, similes, pointed anecdotes, and cold sarcasm, until the audience felt much as a piece of steel must feel after being made first hot, then cold, as it is thrust into the fire, then plunged into cold water.
Mr. Lewis's eyes seemed riveted upon the speaker, and his wife was a bit alarmed at his paleness; but just then the speaker was interrupted apparently by an old drunken man coming in from a side door, covered with rags and mud — a fit specimen of the saloon's output. Mr. Knight introduced him to the audience as "your husband," "your boy." Mrs. Lewis's heart almost stopped. "Yes, that might be almost any time now my Ed," she thought.
Talk about painting the whisky traffic in lifelike colors! It surely was done that night in a manner not soon to be forgotten. Mr. Knight went on past Sunday-closing enactments, past the high license schemes, local option, and all other temporary makeshifts, until he got down to the bedrock principles, and showed why every saloon in the country should be shut up, nailed up, and that, too, for every day in the year.
But what nearly took Mrs. Lewis's breath was one fire-flashed statement that "the wives and mothers are helping on this terrible traffic by the hot foodstuffs, red-peppered, thirst-producing stews, etc., served up from their kitchens as a common, everyday menu."
"The Finest Ever"
IT was shown that any man, to be a man, must get hold of some genuine principles of self-government, and live by them, rather than continue to be a weakling by giving up to every whim and temptation that happens to come along, as well as helping to deliver his fallen brother. The hour and ten minutes occupied by Mr. Knight passed before the large audience realized it, so interested were they; and many were the nods of approval one to another as the people slowly filed out.
At the door, Mr. Wilkinson caught Tom's eye, and on getting up closer, whispered in his ear, "What did you think of that?"
"The finest thing I ever heard in the line of a temperance lecture," came back the reply.
"I'll tell you what, Tom, I'm going to vote dry hereafter as long as I live. You can count on that," said Mr. Wilkinson, just a bit louder.
"Here!" "Here!" came a dozen voices all about, from men who had caught his remark. And as a sequel, the city of Princeton went dry that very autumn, as did the whole state. And one of the happiest women in the place was Mrs. Lewis, who saw, just in time, that her Ed was one of the rescued ones.
Nearly Plowed Under
A FEW weeks had passed. The time for the monthly meeting of allied pastors had come. Mr. Bradley overtook Mr. Clark on his way down to the large Methodist church where they were to meet that night.
"Well, it was a stiff fight the liquor men put up, wasn't it?" remarked Mr. Bradley, for the heavy campaigning was still fresh in mind. "I feared one while we should be plowed under."
"Yes," the other minister replied; "I was just thinking it over, and running back a little mentally to see where the tide really began to turn in favor of a saloon-free city. I was thinking that maybe that large town hall temperance meeting had something to do with it, in turning the tide here in Princeton."
"Perhaps so. I really think some of my men decided that night to vote in favor of uprightness and manliness despite the cry of a depleted treasury for lack of liquor-license revenues."
"But there is one thing I can't quite see," Mr. Clark went on to say. "Those Seventh-day Adventists have defeated our plans more than once for putting through laws to protect our American sabbath; yet when it comes to the rum business, they seem to think that ought to be voted out of existence."
Fight One, Support the Other
"Say, isn't that Mr. Knight across the street there? It looks to me like the very same man that lectured that night," broke in Mr. Bradley.
"I believe it is, really. Let's go over and make sure."
"Pardon us, but we thought we recognized you as the Mr. Knight who lectured here on temperance a while ago," said Mr. Clark, extending his hand.
"Yes, gentlemen, I was here with you a few weeks ago. I am just passing through to-day, and my connections were such that I had enough time to call on a friend, but I have learned he is out of town."
"Well, this is fortunate. Mr. Knight, my friend here, Dr. Bradley, and I were just talking about that lecture, and that led to another query. I'm going now to ask you straight out how it comes that you seventh-day folks are so down on Sunday laws, and do not oppose laws prohibiting the sale of liquor."
"Briefly," said Mr. Knight, looking at his watch, "as I have only about ten minutes to spare, I'll tell you why it is. Sunday, if it is anything, is a religious institution. Take the religion out, and you have no Sabbath. To uphold, by civil enactment, a religious institution, places the supporters of such a proposition squarely upon the platform occupied by the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
Set Up Engine of Tyranny
"You have, gentlemen, only to look back over the centuries of bloody martyrdom of the580not-so-very-ancient past to find out just what that means to people. To enact Sunday laws in America, the Stars and Stripes of which stand for religious freedom, is but to set up once more here an engine of religious tyranny, such as our forefathers fled from Europe to escape, and which would not only be the death knell for religious freedom, yours as well as mine, but would ultimately end in persecution and the extreme penalty for dissenters — 'heretics,' if you please. It takes no prophet, nor son of a prophet, to see this."
"But suppose you seventh-day folks were in the majority, and people did not keep your Sabbath; wouldn't you want some Sabbath laws?" asked Mr. Bradley.
"No, sir. God is able to protect His own Sabbath. He does not need the help of the state to compel men to keep the day He has blessed. That would make hypocrites, but never Christians. Majorities have nothing whatever to do in prescribing religion for minorities. Jesus said, 'Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.' The Sabbath belongs to God, not to Caesar.
Would You License a Cesspool?
"On the other hand," Mr. Knight continued, while holding his watch in his hand, "the liquor business is not a religious institution. It is a menace to civilization. It ruins homes by ruining men and boys — yes, and many of our women as well. It breeds poverty, disease, death. Would you think it a crime to clean out a filthy cesspool in your back yard? But suppose the cesspool was just over your line on the next man's premises, and your neighbor cherished it as a precious revenue-producing treasure of his. Would you sit idly by, with the death-laden fumes from it wafting into your kitchen and your dining room, exposing your loved ones to actual disease and death? — Hardly.
"Thus we view the saloon. It is a hole of vice, a death trap for boys and men; and our duty as men is to help to stamp out the venomous reptile-producing nest that it is. In a nutshell, gentlemen, this is why we fight one set of laws and favor the other. I see I'll have to run to catch my train."
"Thank you, Mr. Knight. We hope you'll make your train," said Dr. Clark, as they hastily shook hands in parting.
Not Novices at the Game
"It looks as though he has the straight of it, doesn't it?" queried Mr. Bradley.
"It certainly looks that way," Dr. Clark replied. "Those are good old American doctrines, anyhow, on which all of us, the Catholics thrown in, have thrived here in the United States. Religion and politics don't mix very well, that's sure.
"And when we get into religio-politics," he continued, "we must reckon with the Roman Catholics, for they are not novices at that game. And I tell you, Brother Bradley, it's beginning to look as though religion were getting into politics to a significant extent here in this country. If it were not for that old Jewish Sabbath of theirs, I think I could work first-rate with Mr. Knight and his folks; but —"
Here we lost them as they went into the ministers' meeting.
