He always loved the Scriptures. He said one day to a friend, as he laid his hand on his well-worn Bible, "I always read from that book every morning, and have done so from my boyhood, except in a comparatively few cases of unusual interruption or special hindrance."
He was often heard to say, "I have now a very short time for this world, but I take no concern about that; no matter where or when I die, I hope I am ready to go when called."
The temperance work needs another Daniel Hand to furnish a million dollars for its labors among the colored men of the South, where, says the thirtieth annual report of the National Temperance Society, "the saloon is everywhere working their ruin. It destroys their manhood, despoils their homes, impoverishes their families, defrauds their wives and children, and debauches the whole community."
The National Temperance Society, whose efficient and lamented Secretary, John N. Stearns, died April 21, 1895, was organized in 1865. It has printed and scattered over 900,000,000 pages of total-abstinence literature. With its board of thirty managers representing nearly all denominations and temperance organizations, ever on the alert to assist in making and enforcing helpful laws and to lessen the power of the liquor traffic, it is doing its work all over the nation. Says one who has long been identified with this organization, "I believe there is no Missionary Society, either Home or Foreign, that is doing more for the cause of Christ than this society, especially in saving the boys and girls; and yet, so far as I know, it receives less donations than any other society, and very rarely a legacy." Mr. William E. Dodge, the well-known merchant of New York, left the Society, by will, $5,000. Mr. W. B. Spooner of Boston, and Mr. James H. Kellogg of Rochester, N.Y., each left $5,000.
It is a hopeful sign of the times when laws are passed in thirty-nine States and all the Territories requiring the teaching of the nature and effects of alcoholic drinks upon the human system. It is encouraging when a million members of Christian Endeavor societies pledge themselves "to seek the overthrow of this evil at all times in every lawful way." Our country has given grandly for education; it will in the future give more generously to reforms which help to do away with poverty and crime.
GEORGE T. ANGELL.
George T. Angell, the president and founder of "The American Humane Education Society," and president and one of the founders of "The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals," deserves, with the late lamented Henry Bergh of New York, the thanks of the nation for their noble work in teaching kindness to dumb creatures, and preventing cruelty. No charity can lie nearer to my own heart than the societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals.