Grappling with the Monster; Or, the Curse and the Cure of Strong Drink

by T. S. Arthur

"The last and greatest victory is Detroit. Slow, critical, conservative, staid, not-any-shams-for-me Detroit.

"Friday and Saturday nights there were crowded houses. Sabbath afternoon, two thousand five hundred men together, and a club of three hundred and forty-five formed. Sabbath evening, no room could hold the people, and the club reached nearly nine hundred. It is safe to say to-day that a thousand men in the city of Detroit are wearing the red ribbon.

"Dr. Reynolds has done another grand work, and that is in bringing up the W.C.T. Unions. Everywhere this follows, churches are packed with women. Dr. Reynolds tells them how they can help the men and their families, and they fall into line by the hundreds. Three hundred have enlisted in Bay City, four hundred in Lansing, two hundred in East Saginaw, and so on, all over the State."

The establishment of reform clubs has been more general in New England and the Western States than in other parts of the country, though their organization in some of the Middle States has been attended with marked success. Vermont has a large number of clubs, the membership ranging from one hundred to fifteen hundred.

FRANCIS MURPHY.

The work of Francis Murphy, which, has been attended with such remarkable fervors of excitement in nearly every community where he has labored, is not so definite in its purpose, nor so closely organized, nor so permanent in its results as that of Dr. Reynolds. He draws vast assemblies, and obtains large numbers of signers to his pledge, which, reads:

"With malice towards none and charity for all, I, the undersigned, do pledge my word and honor, God helping me, to abstain from all intoxicating liquors as a beverage, and that I will, by all honorable means, encourage others to abstain."

An Irishman by birth, and full of the warm impulse and quick enthusiasm of his people, he has thrown himself into the work of temperance reform with an earnestness that commands a hearing, and with an ardor of appeal and solicitation that is, for the time, almost irresistible.

In the fall of 1869, Francis Murphy found himself in the cell of a prison in the city of Portland, Maine, to which he had been committed for drunkenness. He had been a liquor-seller, commencing the work as a sober man with a good character, and ending it in ruin to himself and family, and with the curse of the drunkard's appetite upon him. A Christian gentleman, Captain Cyrus Sturdevant, had obtained permission of the authorities to visit the jail and talk and pray with the prisoners. This brought him into personal contact with Mr. Murphy, who was not only deeply humiliated at the disgrace into which his intemperate life had brought him, but almost in despair. He tells the story of this part of his life with a moving eloquence. Capt. Sturdevant, after some solicitation, induced him to leave his cell one Sunday morning and attend religious services with the prisoners. He was in a state of mind to be deeply impressed by these services, and the result was a solemn resolution to walk, with God's help, in a new and better way. While yet a prisoner, he began his work of trying to save men from the curse of drink, and to lead them to enter upon a religious life; and his influence with his fellow-prisoners was very marked and for good. On leaving the jail, he began at once his efforts to rescue others from the slavery from which he had escaped. His first appearance as a lecturer was in the city of Portland. The effort was well received by the audience, and at its close he found himself an object of special interest. From this time, he gave himself almost wholly to the cause of temperance. After working for a time in Portland, and assisting in the organization of a reform club, he extended his efforts to other parts of the State of Maine, and afterwards to New Hampshire and the adjoining States, in which, he labored for nearly three years with marked and often extraordinary success. From New England, Mr. Murphy went, on invitation, to the West, and was very active there, especially in Iowa and Illinois, in which States he aroused the people, and was instrumental in the organization of large numbers of local societies and reform clubs.

In the winter of 1876-7, his work in Pittsburgh was attended with remarkable results; over sixty thousand signatures were obtained to his pledge, and over five hundred saloons in Allegheny and neighboring counties closed their doors for want of patronage. The succeeding spring and summer Mr. Murphy spent in Philadelphia, where the excitement was almost as great as it had been in Pittsburgh. But, as in the last-named city, too large a portion of the harvest which had been reaped was left to perish on the ground for lack of the means, or the will, to gather and garner it. The real substantial and enduring work here has been that of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union; which not only held its meetings daily during the exciting time of the Murphy meetings, but has held them daily ever since, keeping, all the while, hand and heart upon the men who are trying in earnest to reform, and helping, encouraging and protecting them by all the means in their power.