"If it be true that those who have suffered by intemperance personally and have reformed are the most powerful and efficient instruments to push the reformation to ultimate success, it does not follow that those who have not suffered have no part left them to perform. Whether or not the world would be vastly benefited by a total and final banishment from it of all intoxicating drinks seems to me not now an open question. Three fourths of mankind confess the affirmative with their tongues; and, I believe, all the rest acknowledge it in their hearts. "But it is said by some, that men will think and act for themselves; that none will disuse spirits or anything else because his neighbors do; and that moral influence is not that powerful engine contended for. Let us examine this. Let me ask the man who could maintain this position most stiffly, what compensation he will accept to go to church some Sunday and sit during the sermon with his wife's bonnet upon his head? Not a trifle, I'll venture. And why not? There would be nothing irreligious in it, nothing immoral, nothing uncomfortable--then why not? Is it not because there would be something egregiously unfashionable in it? Then, it is the influence of fashion. And what is the influence of fashion but the influence that other people's actions have on our own actions--the strong inclination each of us feels to do as we see all our neighbors do? Nor is the influence of fashion confined to any particular thing or class of things. It is just as strong on one subject as another. Let us make it as unfashionable to withhold our names from the temperance pledge as for husbands to wear their wives' bonnets to church, and instances will be just as rare in the one case as in the other." The people saw the moral point clearly. They felt the force of what the young orator had said. No one was willing to follow him. "Have you anything to say, Mr. Crawford?" said the moderator. Josiah merely shook his head. "He don't care to put on his wife's bonnet agin public opinion," said the blacksmith. CHAPTER XVI. THE SCHOOL THAT MADE LINCOLN PRESIDENT. While teaching and preaching in Decatur, Jasper heard of the new village of Salem, Illinois, on the Sangamon. He thought that the little town might offer him a chance to exert a new influence, and he resolved to visit it, and to preach and to teach there for a time should the people receive him kindly. The village was a small one, consisting of a community store, a school-house, a tavern, and a few houses; and Jasper knew of only one friend there at the time, a certain Mr. Duncan, who lived some two miles from the main street and the store. One afternoon, after a long journey over prairie land, Jasper came to Mrs. Duncan's door, and was met cordially by the good woman, and invited by her to make his home there for a time.