University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.

Mike made a very prudent use of all the little savings
of his wages, in putting the house into more comfortable
order for his mother. When he returned to Mr.
Ralston's he took an early opportunity to call the attention
of that gentleman to the figures he had made
at home. Mr. Ralston, though a temperate man for
those days, was astonished at the result. He gave
the subject his serious attention. He assisted Mike
in getting at some further statistics upon the subject.
Mike pursued it with the ardour of a man whose heart
is in his work. The further he proceeded the more
he was astonished—overwhelmed. At length, he ventured
to put his investigations in the form of an essay,
which he sent to one of the leading journals of the
city, with the signature, “Total Abstinence.”

That article was the leader of one of the mightiest
revolutions that ever swept over the face of society.
It was copied into all the papers. It attracted
universal attention. It was talked of in all the streets,
and at every table, and at every fireside. It was fiercely
attacked on every side, and that by some of the
ablest pens in the nation. But its positions were impregnable.
Not one of them was ever refuted, or
even so much as shaken. They are to this day, the
grand colossal columns that support the central dome
of the Temple of Temperance.

This essay was followed up by others, by the same
hand. And when, by-and-by, it came out, that the
mover of all this far-reaching excitement, was an
humble lad scarcely nineteen years of age, in an inferior
station in society, the excitement became still
deeper and more general. Mike was called out—not
to fight, as would perhaps have been the case if all
this had happened elsewhere—but to explain himself
more fully.

So well had he availed himself of the advantages
to which his relation to Mr. Ralston had introduced
him, that he did not hesitate, after consultation with
that gentleman, and receiving his approbation, to propose
a public lecture. This was attended by a crowded
audience, who were astounded at the fearful picture
of the then state of our country. So many desired
to hear it who could not be accommodated, that
it was necessary to repeat it. Then it was called for
in other places. Every where it produced a marked
impression. It excited inquiry. It provoked discussion.
It led to self-examination.

Mike's hands were now full. He had made his
beginning, and a noble beginning it was. But where
was it to end? What was the remedy for the tremendous
evils that were consuming the vitals of society.
On this point the young orator allowed no compromise.
It was “total abstinence!” and he laid it down
with great emphasis, showing clearly that this was
the only ground on which the intemperate could ever
hope to become temperate or the temperate to remain
so.

The results of that grand moral movement are well
known. Look abroad over our fair land, and see millions
of acres then arid and sterile, now blooming and
fruitful; thousands and tens of thousands of hearths
then desolate, now cheerful and bright as the early
remembrance of home—countless broken widowed
hearts made whole by the returning sunshine of love
and plenty, and whole families, yea, whole communities,
then dispersed, divided, hovering around the
purlieus of the almshouse or the prison, now gathered,
united, industrious, intelligent—as if it were a nation
born in a day, or a whole tribe redeemed from
servile bondage. Men, fathers, husbands, legislators,
teachers, once raving, delirious, fierce, brutal, now
clothed and in their right minds, risen as it were from
the second death, and standing erect, beloved and honoured,
in the high places of our land.

Discouraging as was the prospect in his native village,
Mike did not despair. He was frequently there,
and so diligently and faithfully did he ply the arguments
and persuasions of a heart warm to the life in
his subject, that he succeeded, at length, in obtaining
a solemn promise from his father that he would try
the experiment for one year. Zeb Smiley was a man
of more than ordinary natural abilities, and his resolution,
once taken, was proverbially unchangeable.
By his influence, Uncle Nat was brought to the same
stand. Both of them signed their names to the same
paper, and thus each became a sentinel over the other.
The whole neighbourhood of tipplers was in consternation.
Tim Cochrane was in a rage. His craft

was in danger. In his passion, he pounced upon
Uncle Nat's forge and tools, to secure the balance of
his score at the counter, and turned him out of his
shop. The effect of this was salutary. Uncle Nat
and Zeb immediately went off together at the suggestion
of Mike, and, by his aid, secured a valuable contract
for labour in clearing a new road, which furnished
full and profitable employment for the whole season.
They laboured side by side, encouraging and strengthening
each other. And daily, as the effects of their
old habits wore off, and their strength, physical and
mental, increased, they found their toils grow sweeter
and lighter. Mike continued his labours in the
village, till he obtained the names of more than two-thirds
of the old topers to his pledge. By the aid of
Mr. Ralston, he set up a temperance store, which
was kept by one of his cousins; and, before the year
was out, Tim Cochrane was obliged to move away
for want of customers to sustain his business.

Go through that village now, and what a change!
The houses are all neatly painted or white-washed, the
fences in good repair, the fields waving with plentiful
harvests, or green and blooming with the first promise
of the year. The daily gathering of bright-faced,
happy throngs of children to the school-house, and
the Sabbath meeting of a grave, decent, devout congregation
of parents in the house of God, all tell of
the marvellous, the almost miraculous change that has
come over the scene. If the story had been told fifty,
or even twenty years ago, it would have been set
down for fiction—a picture that might look well on

paper, but could never be reduced to real life. But
we have seen it with our own eyes. We know the
spot. We know many of them, and if it is worth a
voyage across the Atlantic to see Herculaneum and
Pompeii recovered, all dead and silent and soulless,
from the burial of ages, what is it not worth to the
heart of a philanthropist, to see hamlets and villages
and towns recovered from a moral burial, and not only
dwellings and fields thrown open to the reviving light
and showers of heaven, but their occupants restored
to life, and health, and beauty, and men, women, and
children, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers,
young men and maidens, rejoicing together, and blessing
God and each other in their marvellous resurrection
from the dead.