DEFICIENCY OF THE FIRST TEMPERANCE PLEDGE. 27

complicated, and effectual stratagem of Satan to destroy the Church of God among the millions of drunkards, who would be swept, by the overwhelming flood of intoxicating liquors, into the oceanic whirlpool of endless perdition.

The temperance reformation, though feeble in its commencement, began, in the providence of God, just as many other important events have commenced, which have blessed the world in past ages, and will bless it to the end of time. A little cloud, like a man's hand, once seen "rising from the sea," was the first token of a plentiful rain on the whole land of Israel, after a three-and-an-halfyear's famine by drought, in the reign of wicked Ahab.

Time was, when the whole Church of God on earth, eight persons in number, were inclosed in an ark of "gopher-wood," tossing on the billows of a shoreless ocean! At another period the whole Church was found in a patriarchal family. Afterward an upper room contained the whole company; and still the Church is God's kingdom, and is divinely ordained to people the earth, from the rising to the setting sun.

Time was, when young Joseph was envied, hated, cast luto a pit to die, taken out, sold a slave, imprisoned on false accusation; then, from the depth of that humiliation, was raised to honor and fame, and eventually became the temporal saviour of his brethren who hated him, and of the whole patriarchal household of his father from the impending desolation of famine and death.

The whole house and Church of Israel once groaned under Egyptian bondage, oppression, and tyrannical in

28 DEFICIENCY OF THE FIRST TEMPERANCE PLEDGE.

fanticide. But time was, when their temporal deliverer and lawgiver was an Hebrew infant, under sentence of death, concealed in an ark of bulrushes among the flags of the Nile; and, when found by the king's daughter, lay helpless and weeping in his little boat! Sweet babesafe in danger! born to be great, good, and eminently useful in God's vineyard!

The great Redeemer of mankind was once God incarnate; an infant of poverty in the manger of Bethlehem; in manhood was hated to death; but now lives to save lost sinners of earth, that the seats in heaven, once vacated by apostate angels, may be filled with redeemed saints, the purchase of His precious blood; and God have all the glory. Hence, evidently, God's eye is upon little things. Surely, then, it is His divine prerogative to bring to pass great events from small beginnings; and, doubtless, millions will forever praise Him in glory, that the temperance reformation now pending is one of this class. This standard of the Lord's lifting up, is to show forth His power and glory by the choice of "weak things of the world to confound the mighty, and things which are despised to bring to NAUGHT things that are," even such things as the woes, and sorrows, and degradation, and crime of a life of drunkenness, and all the concomitant curses of intemper

auce.

That little feeble band of temperance brethren, holding their quarterly and annual meetings in a country district school-house from April, 1808, onward, for several years, without the presence of a single female at their temperance meetings: who were made the song of the drunkard;

SECOND AND THIRD EPOCHS.

29

who were ridiculed by the scoffs of the intemperate world; undisciplined in arms of even moral-suasive tactics for warfare, and unable of themselves to encounter the Prince of Hell, with his legions of instrumentalities, pouring forth the alcoholic waters of death as a flood, were, nevertheless, the seed of the great temperance reformation, which has already poured the blessings of a renovating spirit upon millions of mankind; and which, when consummated by the POWER that gave it existence, will redeem the Church from the curse of intemperance, and make this earth a sober world, preparatory to an entrance upon the enjoyment of the foreordained and foretold blessings of millennial temperance, peace, unity, prosperity, and consequent happiness on earth, in preparation for an eternal state of rest and glory in heaven.

SECOND AND THIRD EPOCHS.

During these epochs of the temperance reformation, comprising a period of about a quarter of a century, the temperance cause increased and spread extensively over nations and kingdoms of the earth, by the formation of town, city-ward, county, state, and national temperance societies and associations. And all this increase was brought to pass, solely through the blessing of Almighty God on the various divinely appointed instrumentalities of moral suasion.

Among the most distinguished events of this period, the following are deemed worthy of special notice: The organization of the American Temperance Union in Boston, A. D. 1826. The organization of the New York State

30

SECOND AND THIRD EPOCHS.

Temperance Society, about the same time, principally through the influence of the distinguished temperance philanthropist, the Honorable Edward Cornelius Delavan, a rich, retired merchant, in the city of Albany, who gave, even to the State of Maine, the noble example of taking from his own cellars, vessels full of the choicest wines, in store for family and social beverages, as occasion required, and rolling them out into the street (amounting in value to several hundred-perhaps to about $500), and there conscientiously pouring their contents into the "mouth" of mother earth, to be swallowed up a manner described in ancient Divine prophecy, relating to a subsequent period of special reformation, to thwart the dragon's device for the destruction of mankind.—[Vid. Rev. xii. 15, 16.] Quere: Was not the venerable Mr. E. C. Delavan the first man, known on earth, who poured his stock of wines into the mouth of the earth for destruction, to save it from the mouths of wine-bibbers, who might quaff it to their destruction?

in

Also, the establishment of the Temperance Recorder, a state paper, published in Albany, which was admirably conducted and devoted to the dissemination of light and truth, for the promotion of temperance.

Other state temperance unions were also organized, and temperance papers of various appellations and descriptions were published, and associations formed throughout the nations and islands of Christendom. And what was most peculiarly interesting, men of distinguished talents for piety, erudition, and science, and others, deeply skilled in the knowledge of law and national government, from

SECOND AND THIRD EPOCHS.

31

the highest to the lowest gradation, in connection with others of the various professional offices, both of church and state, all of whom, with apparent parity of feeling, enlisted as volunteers under the banners of temperance reform, and gave the influence of their membership and examples for the promotion of the cause they espoused; and thus continued to do, in the exercise of their various powers of moral suasion [the art of persuading], the best weapons then known as Battering Rams, to break down the walls and strongholds of intemperance fortifications.

And what was still more encouraging, the ladies in thousands-yea tens, hundreds of thousands, even to millions during these epochs, gave their cheerful influence to the promotion of the temperance reformation, by their attendance on temperance meetings, and liberal donations in support of the national reform. And best of all, was the adoption of the American PLEDGE OF TOTAL ABSTINENCE from all intoxicating liquors, at the National Convention of the American Temperance Union, at Saratoga Springs, in August, A. D. 1836. This was the triumphant cap of the climax of the third epoch of the temperance reformation, which gave a new zest to every pulsation of the universal system of temperance reform. Joyfully and most cordially did the parent temperance society at Moreau, at a subsequent period, after a long season of declension, call a special meeting of surviving members, which was holden at the Union House of Worship in Moreau, on the last Monday in October, 1843, for the purpose of taking the important step in advance, by the unanimous voice of the surviving pioneers, and all members in ad