The American Missionary — Volume 41, No. 6, June, 1887Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 41, No. 6, June, 1887
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
Next August a prohibitory amendment to the State constitution is
to be voted upon by the citizens. Churches, public halls and
school houses are filled almost nightly with interested and excited
audiences listening to the discussion of their political duties
concerning this great moral question. The leading temperance
advocates have confident hopes that this coming election will wheel
the Lone Star State into line with the goodly number of prohibitory
States. In the hotels, on the streets, in railway carriages,
everywhere, prohibition is the absorbing question.
In the cars, as I journeyed from Paris to Dallas, two gentlemen sat
just behind me. They were, of course, discussing this perplexing
question of prohibition, although from their arguments I learned
that they were both opposed to temperance legislation. One was
a Georgian, the other a Texan. They both freely admitted that
they “liked their bitters,” and neither believed in prohibition,
“because, you see, it wouldn’t prohibit!” Said the Texan: “There
always have been, and there always will be, certain besetting sins,
and you cannot abolish them by law. People have kept getting drunk
ever since Eve got drunk in the Garden of Eden, and I reckon they
always will, and you can’t prohibit it by law.”
Poor old mother Eve! The apple must have had hard cider in it. This
was the argument of a lawyer, and fairly averages the arguments
urged throughout the State against prohibition. Agitation and fair
discussion are all that are needed to convince every man that the
thing to do with crime is to prohibit it. Every A. M. A. preacher
and teacher was pronounced and energetic in his advocacy of this
sound temperance principle. The influence of these Christian
workers will be felt in the coming election. The colored vote is an
important factor in the settlement of this question, and our A. M.
A. workers will do their utmost to make it solid for prohibition.
* * * * *
The Sunday laws in Texas are strict and well enforced. Even at
the news counter at the hotels, cigars and tobacco are not sold.
Congregational leaven, or some other moral force, has agitated
society most healthfully. Texas is a worthy example to many of our
older States in respect to Sunday observance. There is now before
the Legislature a law prohibiting hunting on Sunday, and there is
every reason to believe that it will pass.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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