THE TEMPERANCE HAND-BOOK

FOR THE USE OF

THE W. C. T. UNIONS

OF CANADA.

CHAPTER I.

SUFFERING.

It has been said "Woman has a capacity for suffering," and during all the years of the past, in all countries and among all nations, woman has been proving this true. Since the dark day when "there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother," and there came to that mother's heart the agony of bereavement, the human disappointment and pangs, whose torture only the Father God could understand,—from that day till the present, disappointment, trial and sorrow have entered largely into the life and experience of women. But of all clouds that have darkened their lives and among all sharp swords that have pierced their hearts, the cloud of the liquor traffic has been the darkest, and its blade the keenest. Myriads of women have looked with anguish on sacrifices offered and loved ones slain, not to save humanity or to draw men nearer to God, but destroyed at the hands of a tyrant as relentless as death, and as pitiless.