On his ninetieth birthday the hale veteran sent my wife his photograph.  She placed his white locks alongside of the photograph which Gladstone gave her, and she calls them her duet of grand old men.  The closing years of General Dow’s life, like the closing years of Martin Luther, were clouded with anxiety.  He saw the great movement which he had championed checked by many difficulties and suffering some disastrous reverses.  Some States which had enacted total prohibition forty years before had repealed the law.  In the five States which retained it on their statute books its salutary enforcement was dependent on the moral sentiments in the various localities.  In his own, beloved Maine, his own beloved law had been trampled down in some places; in others made the football of designing politicians.  These reverses saddened the old hero’s heart, and he sent to the public meeting in Portland which celebrated his ninety-third birthday this message:  “That the purpose of my life work will be fully accomplished at some time I do not doubt, and my hope and expectation is that the obstacles which now obstruct us will not long block the way.”  The name of Neal Dow will be always memorable as one of the truest, bravest and purest philanthropists of the nineteenth century.

The most important organization for the promotion of temperance in our country is the National Temperance Society and Publication House, which was founded in 1865.  I prepared its constitution, and the committee which organized it met in the counting room of that eminent Christian merchant, the late Hon. William E. Dodge.  I once introduced him to the Earl of Shaftesbury at a Lord Mayor’s reception in London in these words:  “My lord, let me introduce you to William E. Dodge, the Shaftesbury of America.”  To this day he is remembered as an ideal Christian merchant and philanthropist.  With him conscience ruled everything, and God ruled conscience.  He was one of the founders of a great railway and cut the first sod for its construction.  Long afterwards the Board of Directors of the road proposed to drive their trains and traffic through the Lord’s day.  Mr. Dodge said to his fellow directors:  “Then, gentlemen, put a flag on every locomotive with these words inscribed on it, ‘We break God’s law for a dividend.’  As for me, I go out.”  He did go out, and disposed of his stock.  Within a few years the road went into the hands of a receiver, and the stock sank to thirty cents on the dollar.

During the Civil War, General Dix and his military staff gave Mr. Dodge a complimentary dinner at Fortress Monroe.  General Dix rapped on the table and said to his brother officers:  “Gentlemen, you are aware that our honored guest is a water-drinker.  I propose that to-day we join him in his favorite beverage.”  Forthwith every wine-glass was turned upside down as a silent tribute to the Christian conscience of their guest.  When the whole Christian community of America shall imitate the wise example