We find also in the opposition, with very few exceptions, the entire class of venders of intoxicating drinks, drunkards, gamblers, and other notoriously vicious characters.  Is there any reason for such an aggregation?  On the other hand, the friends of the measure, though fewer in number, are generally found among the intelligent and religious members of the community.  It is true that a few of those who desired to be recognized as leaders of the movement are known as free-thinkers or infidels; and a still smaller number have been advocates of free-love and other loathsome vagaries.  The opponents of the cause have skillfully presented their names as representatives of the idea, and have thus cast such odium upon it that many timid persons, dreading even an apparent association with them, have feared to express their own convictions.  These odious parties, however, are very few in number, and their influence is constantly diminishing.  There can be no question that four-fifths of the friends of female suffrage are to-day active members of various Christian Churches; and of them no small number are ministers distinguished for their learning, benevolence, and piety.

The signs of the times indicate a determined struggle between temperance and intemperance.  The use of intoxicating liquors is the source of nine-tenths of all the dark and terrible crimes that disgrace humanity.  It whets the assassin’s dagger, and pours poison into the cup of the suicide.  It beggars the laborer, breaks the heart of the anguished wife, and starves the helpless children.  It fills jails and penitentiaries with victims, and hospitals and asylums with the injured and hopelessly wrecked.  It fastens on society an army of police to be supported, and it oppresses the land with taxes.  The money amassed by the venders buys our legislators, corrupts our judges and governors, and controls our political parties.  Who shall stay its ravages, or curtail its power?

My conviction is, and for years has been, that the only hope is in giving the ballot to women.  True, some women love strong drink, and some are vile; yet the vast majority are utterly opposed to intemperance.  None so well as the drunkard’s wife knows the terrible evil, or so keenly feels its pangs.  Could the mother, who bows her head in sorrow as she beholds her loved boy hastening to ruin; the wife, whose once affectionate husband has been transformed into a demon; the daughter, whose cheek has been mantled with shame at her father’s fall, and who has suffered the bitterness of blasted hopes and of dismal poverty,—­could they have the ballot, how quickly would the rum-shops be closed, and our youth be preserved from multi-fold temptations!  What other triumph could compare with this?

With this conviction, I hail with pleasure this volume from the pen of Dr. Webster.  It discusses an important question calmly, clearly, forcibly.  I may not agree with all of his positions, or with some of his Biblical criticisms, yet I believe the work possesses much merit, will lead to serious thoughtfulness, and be productive of good.