ER XI.

THE WOMAN'S CRUSADE.

For every one saved through the agency of inebriate asylums and
reformatory homes, hundreds are lost and hundreds added yearly to the
great army of drunkards. Good and useful as such institutions are, they
do not meet the desperate exigencies of the case. Something of wider
reach and quicker application is demanded. What shall it be? In
prohibition many look for the means by which the curse of drunkenness is
to be abated. But, while we wait for a public sentiment strong enough to
determine legislation, sixty thousand unhappy beings are yearly
consigned to drunkards' graves.

What have temperance men accomplished in the fifty years during which
they have so earnestly opposed the drinking usages of society and the
traffic in alcoholic drinks? And what have they done for the prevention
and cure of drunkenness? In limiting the use of intoxicants, in
restricting the liquor traffic and in giving a right direction to public
sentiment, they have done a great and good work; but their efforts to
reclaim the fallen drunkard have met with sad discouragements. In the
work of prevention, much has been accomplished; in the work of cure,
alas! how little. The appetite once formed, and the unhappy victim finds
himself under the control of a power from which he can rarely get free.
Pledges, new associations, better and more favorable surroundings, all
are tried, and many are saved; but the number of the saved are few in
comparison with those who, after a season of sobriety, fall back into
their old ways.

In all these many years of untiring efforts to lift up and save the
fallen, what sad disappointments have met our earnest and devoted
temperance workers. From how many fields, which seemed full of a rich
promise, have they gathered only a meagre harvest. But still they have
worked on, gaining strength from defeat and disappointment; for they
knew that the cause in which they were engaged was the cause of God and
humanity, and that in the end it must prevail.

Meantime, the bitter, half-despairing cry, "O Lord, how long!" was going
up from the lips of brokenhearted wives and mothers all over the land,
and year by year this cry grew deeper and more desperate. All hope in
man was failing from their hearts. They saw restrictive legislation here
and there, and even prohibition; but, except in a few cases, no removal
of the curse; for behind law, usage, prejudice, interest and appetite
the traffic stood i