TESTIMONY ON TEMPERANCE. We reaffirm our conviction that the use of alcoholic beverages is a degrading and destructive vice; and that their manufacture and sale constitute a crime, whether perpetrated by the individual who in any way encourages the traffic or by the State which authorizes it by license, But as each voter constitutes a factor of the State, the responsibility of this crime rests primarily on the individual voter. While we urge the citizen to look well to his duty as a voter, we would by no means relax our efforts in carrying this work forward as a moral reform. Especially would we invite the schools and colleges to their clear duty to instruct the youth in the scientific character of alcohol and its effects upon the body and mind. First amendment proposed would make the testimony read thus: We reaffirm our conviction that the use of alcoholic liquors as a beverage or as a medicine is a degrading, &c. Second amendment, instead of the first as follows: We also offer our earnest caution against the common and inconsiderate use of alcoholic medical' preparations, believing that they cause vastly more disease than they cute and often sow the seeds of fatal appetite. EXAMPLE. We believe that the influence of example is most potent, and that the duty of pure, high living is our first and clearest duty. Those who stand in high places and have been blessed with large opportunities for culture, who are preachers, teachers and professors, too often bring shame and reproach upon their calling and neutralize if they do not utterly destroy their power for good, by indulgence in fashionable vices. The toasting wine at the dinner party, passing the lips that have just spoken words of purity and truth. The poluting weed defiling the face that was just before radiant with what seemed to be fire from heaven; the dropping down from the high level of an occasion, to the low level of life, too often gives the lie to the sincerity of high profession, and constitutes in the minds of youth who are looking to their superiors for guidance, a silent yet potential influence for evil. Cleanliness in its high sense and Godliness are one. CAPITAL AND LABOR. The members of this society testify to their deep concern in the question of Labor and Capital and in the relations of the employer and employed. It is evident to all who will study this matter, that the ancient loyalty between those who have men to work for them and the men they hire is almost lost out of our common life. We think this must work only for the commonwealth to which we all belong, and remember with pride and pleasure that the society of Friends from which many of us spring have always tried to maintain this loyalty; have not tried to pay in money merely or to take money only for good service, but have cultivated a pure concern each for the welfare of the other by which men are drawn more truly to each other than they can ever hope to be in the barter of many for strength and skill. We would have all our testimony can reach follow this good example of the elders, and further would commend the serious study of the larger question of Capital and Labor that we may find the true ground on which a community of interests may take the place of the present enmity and antagonism of interests. A community founded on a tair and generous partnership in interests and in profits which will hold each true man to his best and slay the base axiom that corporations have no souls. STATEMENT OF OPINIONS BY E. M. DAVIS. This testimony has many sides, allow me to present the following, with a request that it be published in the appendix of your proceedings: FIRST That money is not wealtn, but the representative of wealth. SECOND-That it is the medium by which we exchange wealth; pay for labor and the various things we buy or sell. THIRD That it should be created and issued by the general government only. FOURTH-That that issue should be a full legal tender. FIFTH-That it should be of a volume and of denominations to meet the wants of the country. SIXTH-That it should be of as inexpensive a material as suits the purposes of its use. I cannot see without awe, that no man thinks alone, and no man acts alone, but the divine assessors who came up with him into life; now under one disguise, now under another, in like a police citizens' clothes, walk with him, step for step, through all the kingdom of time. To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done bis best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. That only which we have within, can we see without. If we meet no gods, it is because we harbor none. The religion which is to guide and fultil the present and coming ages, whatever else it be, must be intellectual. The uses of travel are occasional, and short; but the best fruit it finds, when it finds it, is conversation; and this a main Junction of life. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps wit perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. Profligacy consists not in spending years of time or chests of money-but in spending them off the line of your career. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. The same correspondence that is between thirst in the stomach, and water in the spring, exists between the whole of man and the whole of nature. One of the benefits of a college education is, to show the boy its little avail. A cheerful, intelligent face is the end of culture, and success enough. For it indicates the purpose of nature and wisdom attained. We say, the old forms of religion decay, and that a skepticism devastates the community. I do not think it can be cured or stayed by any modification of theologic creeds, much less by theologic discipline. The cure for false theology is otherwit. Forget your books and traditions and obey your moral percep |