‘I don’t know what it does before the Lord,’ answered the patrolman, ‘but down South here it makes a difference. In this section we have nothing like social equality, and never will, in church or out of church.’”
THE SOUTH.
NOTES IN THE SADDLE.
BY FIELD-SUPERINTENDENT C. J RYDER.
In the “Notes” of last month I spoke of the floods that threatened the destruction of plantations and villages in Western Mississippi. From Mississippi I passed over into Texas, and this was passing from flood to drought. In some sections of the latter State there have been only two showers in as many years. Cattle are dying by thousands on prairie ranches. Water is held at fabulous prices, and in some sections it is impossible to get it, even for gold. The reports of suffering which come from the Western part of the State are painful in the extreme. All Christian hearts are turning in agonizing prayer to Him “who holds the waters in His hand.” Special prayer services are held in many places, and every Sabbath petitions are offered in the pulpits for rain. It is a fearful experience through which Texas is passing just now, and unless relief comes speedily the loss of property will be enormous, and the lives of the settlers will be endangered.
I wonder if there be any occult logical connection between the want of water and the prohibition agitation? However that may be, Texas is stirred to its centre by this temperance movement.
Next August a prohibitory amendment to the State constitution is to be voted upon by the citizens. Churches, public halls and school houses are filled almost nightly with interested and excited audiences listening to the discussion of their political duties concerning this great moral question. The leading temperance advocates have confident hopes that this coming election will wheel the Lone Star State into line with the goodly number of prohibitory States. In the hotels, on the streets, in railway carriages, everywhere, prohibition is the absorbing question.
In the cars, as I journeyed from Paris to Dallas, two gentlemen sat just behind me. They were, of course, discussing this perplexing question of prohibition, although from their arguments I learned that they were both opposed to temperance legislation. One was a Georgian, the other a Texan. They both freely admitted that they “liked their bitters,” and neither believed in prohibition, “because, you see, it wouldn’t prohibit!” Said the Texan: “There always have been, and there always will be, certain besetting sins, and you cannot abolish them by law. People have kept getting drunk ever since Eve got drunk in the Garden of Eden, and I reckon they always will, and you can’t prohibit it by law.”