y gathered. The Society, with its guns silenced on the
popular foes, lingered a year or two, and was heard of no more. It was
the policy of these worldly wise men to restrict the debate on
temperance within such narrow limits as to disturb none of the
existing conditions of society. They said, treat it as a purely moral
and religious question; "pray over it," it being too knotty a problem
to be solved on earth, they proposed to have the whole case adjusted
in the courts of Heaven: very much as the wise men to-day think best
to dispose of the temperance reform.

Thus these politic gentlemen manipulated the association, eliminated
the woman's rights element _per se_, which, having been educated in
the anti-slavery school of morals, could not be blinded with any male
sophistries or considerations of policy. It was the universal plea
then as now, in advocating reforms, "Sacrifice principle to numbers,
if you would secure victory," forgetting that one company of brave men
could clear their path to the enemy quicker than a battalion of
cowards. A multitude of timid, undeveloped men and women, afraid of
priests and politicians, are a hindrance rather than help in any
reform. When Garrison's forces had been thoroughly sifted, and only
the picked men and women remained, he soon made political parties and
church organizations feel the power of his burning words. The
temperance cause has had no organized body of fearless leaders. Psalm
singing and prayer it was supposed would accomplish what only could be
done by just laws, enlightened public sentiment, and pure religion,
applied to the practical interests of mankind. When abolitionists left
parties and churches, because of their pro-slavery codes and creeds,
they began alike to purify their organizations in order to win back
that noble army of patriots. Women were urged to enroll themselves as
members of men's associations, pay their initiation fee of one dollar,
gather petitions, do all in their power to rouse enthusiasm; but they
must not presume to sit on the platform, nor speak, nor vote in the
meetings. Those women who had no proper self-respect accepted the
conditions; those who had, tested their status on the platform, and
not being received as equals, abandoned all temperance organizations,
as the same proper pride that forbade them to accept the conditions of
a proscribed class in men's conventions, also prevented their
affiliation with women who would tolerate such insu