"Now, friends, it is for us to do our duty—to work, to sacrifice, to suffer, and, having done all, to stand. Let us each and every one resolve that now we have carried this Act, that when the time comes for it to become law it must and shall be respected; and that those who violate it with impunity shall be punished.
"I congratulate the men and women who have prayed and worked in the good cause for the success which has crowned our efforts. Let us be firm to our purpose, and let nothing daunt us or keep us from performing our duty, and God will uphold and bless the right."
When Mrs. Holman sat down there was loud applause, and many were the vows audibly registered that, God helping them, they would be true.
Just then an old lady, with hair of snowy whiteness and a face which, though beautiful with the goodness and benevolence which it expressed, was marked and seamed with care, arose. Her trembling limbs had scarcely strength to sustain her body, emaciated though it was with care and suffering. She attempted two or three times to speak, but not a word escaped from her quivering lips; and the tears gushing from her eyes followed each other in quick succession down her cheeks; and, finally, her pent-up feelings found expression in short, convulsive sobs. Her inability to speak because of her emotion had a greater power to move the meeting than the most fervid eloquence could have had. Soon there was scarcely a dry eye in the room, and many were sobbing in sympathy with her inexpressible woe. Her voice was finally heard, and though low and quavering, the sweetly modulated tones indicated a cultivated mind and loving nature:
"I thank my heavenly Father," she murmured, "for this day's victory. He only knows what I have suffered; Rum has blighted and ruined my fondest anticipations. It has changed a life radiant with joy into blackest desolation. It robbed me of peace in my young womanhood. It made my middle age one terrible struggle with poverty and despair, and has left me in my old age—bereft of all my natural supports—like an aged tree in a desert; withered and alone.
"I had a husband, and God and my own heart know how pure and true he was. It first robbed him of his manhood and his purity, and then murdered him. No tongue can depict, no mind can imagine, the torture, the agony I suffered during the years that he was sinking deeper, deeper into the unholy abyss; nor my utter despair when they brought him home to me dead, slain by rum, and I was left with my helpless little ones to struggle on alone. And now my only son, for whom I toiled, and wept, and prayed, and who was—as many of you know—worthy of a mother's love, is a wretched drunkard. Oh! I pray that this victory may be the means of his salvation, that my grey hairs may not go down in sorrow to the grave."
When she took her seat there was not a person in the room but was visibly affected.
Several others made good speeches, but one of the most telling of the evening was made by the Rev. J. H. Mason. He, though a young man, had won for himself an enviable reputation as a brilliant preacher and humble Christian worker. In fact, he had manifested, by what he had accomplished and by the hold he had gained of his people's affections, that he was eminently qualified for the position he occupied.
He was now pastor of the most influential church in Bayton, and had thrown himself, heart and soul, into the campaign which was now ended. He said he had borne calumny and insult in the cause, and expected he would still have to endure it; but, God helping him, he would, in the future as in the past, do his duty, and had no doubt but every one who had worked for the end now accomplished would do the same.
They were about to close the meeting when a man arose and asked permission to read a communication from the Globe. Permission was given, and he read amid the profoundest silence, the following: