The first successful step in the sublime drama of the temperance reformation took place in the same month of April, referred to a moment ago, when Dr. Clark made his memorable visit to his minister. I quote from Armstrong: "After having projected a plan of a temperance organization, the doctor determined on a visit to his minister, the author of these memoirs, who was then the pastor of the flourishing Congregational church in the town of Moreau. The visit was made on a dark evening, no moon and cloudy. After riding on horseback about three miles, through deep mud of clay road, in the breaking-up of winter, the doctor knocked at his minister's door, and on entrance, before taking seat in the house, he earnestly uttered the following words: 'Mr. Armstrong, I have come to see you on important business.' Then, lifting up both hands, he continued: 'We shall all become a community of drunkards in this town unless something is done to arrest the progress of intemperance.'" The poet has sung in soul-stirring numbers of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. There are, indeed, certain resemblances between it and Dr. Clark's historic adventure. It was night; there was national peril; heroes were in the saddle, and the voices of their fervent appeals were destined to reverberate down the aisles of time--"words that shall echo forevermore." Due notice having been given to the people of the towns of Moreau and Northumberland, a meeting for the purpose of forming a temperance society was held at the public house of Captain Peter L. Mawney, at Clark's Corners, on April 13, 1808. Resolutions were adopted, the chief of which was that "in the opinion of this meeting it is proper, practicable and necessary to form a temperance society in this place; and that the great and leading object of this society is wholly to abstain from ardent spirits." A committee, of which Dr. Clark was chairman, was appointed to prepare the Bylaws for the organization, and twenty-three persons enrolled themselves as members. The following is the list of the signers: Isaac B. Payn, Ichabod Hawley, David Parsons, James Mott, Alvaro Hawley, Thomas Cotton, David Tillotson, Billy J. Clark, Charles Kellogg, Jr., Elnathan Spencer, Asaph Putnam, Hawley St. John, Nicholas W. Angle, Dan Kellogg, Ephraim Ross, John M. Berry, John T. Sealy, Cyrus Wood, James Rogers, Henry Martin, Sidney Berry, Joseph Sill, Solomon St. John. The meeting having adjourned one week, to April 20, at the Mawney house, a long and comprehensive system of By-laws was then adopted. Article I stated that "This society shall be known by the appellation of Union Temperance Society of Moreau and Northumberland." Like Dr. Rush's essay, the Constitution of the society took grounds only against spirituous liquors, making exceptions regarding the use of them in circumstances of religious ordinances, sickness and public dinners.