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In April, 1838, William Martin knocked at Father Mathew’s door in obedience to a summons. The friar met him at the threshold, his handsome face radiant with kindness and good-nature.
“Welcome, Mr. Martin, welcome! I have sent for you to assist me in forming a temperance society in this neighborhood.”
“I knew it,” said the Quaker; “something seemed to tell me that thou would’st do it at last.”
“For long I could not see my way clearly to take up the question. I have been asked by several good men to take up the cause, and I feel I can no longer refuse. How are we to begin?”
They began with a little meeting in the friar’s school-room, when Father Mathew, after his address on temperance, said, “I will be the first to sign my name in the book which is on the table, and I hope we shall soon have it full.” He then approached the table; and, taking the pen, said in a loud voice, “Here goes, in the name of God!”
In three months from the day that Father Mathew signed the book “in the name of God,” the number on the roll was 25,000; in five months it rose to 131,000; in less than nine months it was 156,000.—Edward Gilliat, “Heroes of Modern Crusades.”
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