condition? have we
not temptations strong enough within and without? Shall men
progress too fast in the "onward and upward" road of virtue and
happiness, that you leave before them these sinks of pollution,
these trap-doors of ruin, these fatal sirens, enticing the unwary
listener to destruction? Call us not fanatical. Indifference is
crime; silence is fatal here. When the midnight cry of fire is
sounded, you rush from your slumbers, and, heedless of danger,
hasten to extinguish the flames; but here is a devouring element,
burning on from year to year, consuming not mere shingles and
rafters, but the priceless hopes and aspirations of immortal
souls, leaving blackened ruins in the place of beauty; and we
must continue to cry "Fire! fire!" until you hasten to stop the
fearful conflagration. Tell us not of liberty and natural right,
as a plea for this traffic. It is the liberty to rob innocent
families and reduce them to pauperism; the right to break hearts
and hopes, to reduce men to demons, to scatter vice and anguish
and desolation around the land. Well may we exclaim with Madame
Roland, when she was taken along the bloody streets of Paris,
about to be murdered in the abused name of freedom, "Oh, Liberty,
what crimes are committed in thy name!"

Fathers and brothers, shall woman in her agony, and man in his
degradation, appeal to you in vain? Too long has this evil been
borne, too long have minor points of public good taken precedence
of this reform. It must not be that you will be content to dwell
in quiet indifference, in the midst of a rum-selling community,
and die, leaving your children exposed to the tempter's snare. It
must not be endured that this infernal traffic, this shame to
civilization, this slur on Christianity, shall continue amongst
us. It must not be endured that men shall be clothed with the
monstrous authority to demoralize neighborhoods and scatter the
fire-brands of death and destruction. The power to arrest this
horrible work is in your hands. Be vigilant, be active. There is
resistless might in the energy of earnest wills devoted to a
noble cause. Petition, remonstrate, work while yet it is day. Say
not that we can gain nothing by petitioning. Was it not through
this means, we obtained the law under which a vote of the