eye swept over the
house he saw four of the six members of his church who were up for
office at the coming election in two weeks.

For an hour Philip spoke as he had never spoken in all his life before.
His subject, the cause it represented, the immense audience, the entire
occasion caught him up in a genuine burst of eloquent fury, and his
sermon swept through the house like a prairie fire driven by a high
gale. At the close, he spoke of the power of the Church compared with
the saloon, and showed how easily it could win the victory against any
kind of evil if it were only united and determined.

"Men and women of Milton, fathers, mothers and citizens," he said, "this
evil is one which cannot be driven out unless the Christian people of
this place unite to condemn it and fight it, regardless of results. It
is too firmly established. It has its clutch on business, the municipal
life, and even the Church itself. It is a fact that the Church in Milton
have been afraid to take the right stand in this matter. Members of the
churches have become involved in the terrible entanglement of the
long-established rum-power, until to-day you witness a condition of
affairs which ought to stir the righteous indignation of every citizen
and father. What is it you are enduring? An institution which blasts
with its poisonous breath every soul that enters it, which ruins young
manhood, which kills more citizens in times of peace than the most
bloody war ever slew in times of revolution; an institution that has not
one good thing to commend it; an institution that is established for the
open and declared purpose of getting money from the people by the sale
of stuff that creates criminals; an institution that robs the honest
workingman of his savings, and looks with indifference on the tears of
the wife, the sobs of the mother; an institution that never gives one
cent of its enormous wealth to build churches, colleges, or homes for
the needy; an institution that has the brand of the murderer, the
harlot, the gambler burned into it with a brand of the Devil's own
forging in the furnace of his hottest hell--this institution so rules
and governs this town of Milton to-day that honest citizens tremble
before it, business men dare not oppose it for fear of losing money,
church-members fawn before it in order to gain place in politics, and
ministers of the gospel confront its hideous influence and say nothing!
It is high time we faced this mons