THE LOYAL TEMPERANCE LEGION.

White Ribbon, Volume 32, Issue 374, 18 August 1926, Page 18

THE LOYAL TEMPERANCE LEGION.

OUR GREAT ASSET. (By Mrs Myra Miller Hauffer). The Women’s Christian Temperance Union built splendidly, when, in the very beginning of its life, it took up the work of training the children, thereby laying a sure foundation for National Prohibition.

We can, with just pride, point to many of our present-day legislators, who were taught in boyhood days, by W.C.T.U. workers through the Band of Hope, and later through the Loyal Temperance Legion, as well as by Scientific Temperance Instruction in the schools, the gigantic evils of the Liquor Traffic, who, now in theii manhood when afforded the opportunity, have given the abominable liquor business in its death blow.

In the words of Misn Anna Gordon, “It is a sacred privilege to count as one in the ranks of the W.C.T.U., to become an inheritor of the radiant past, a participant in its luminous present, and a builder in its brightening future!” Verily, verily, the past is radiant, the present is luminous. and henceforth must we continue to brighten the future by increasingly training and developing childhood in the ranks of our victorious Loyal Temperance Legion. If the ideals of any nation are to be realized, they must be planted in the hearts of its children. Experience has shown the Christian Church that its most faithful service is among the children and youth of the nation. Jesus said to adult disciples: “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” He said to Peter: “Lovest thou me? Feed my lambs.”

Would you invest your time, your talents, your money where they will bring the largest returns? Would you lay up treasures where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal? Would you alleviate the world suffering, right the world’s wrong? Would you advance the Kingdom of God’s son? Then put your life into the service of training children in the way that they should go. Who so thus leads a child saves a soul, plus a life for His service. Oh, for a voice, a persuasive voice, of unexcelled power to,sound a clarion call to the remotest corners of our country, and rivet upon the heart and mind of every W.C.T.U. worker the

plea by the youth of our laud, as by the Macedonian of old “Come and help us." Will you feed His lambs? out of a heart filled to overflowing with zeal for the welfare of the boys and girls. We beg of you all to give the work of the Loyal Temperance Legion a far greater place in your plans. If all of us could, to a greater degree, catch the vision of the glorious men and women, that some day, these boys and girls will be (if properly guided in youth), it would help us immensely in the h*ad«‘rship problem. Beloved, how can you. as local officials, rW. easv, permitting the Host of cl;. Mren ii your country, in your uiity, to be leaderless, in thi stup.ndous warfare against ail unrighteousness? Leaderless children. This is aot only a most unfortunate condition, but it is a sin of omission on our part to let them remain leaderless. The passage “A little child shall lead them,” is very well-known; but to that knowledge we must add the fact that it is our business to lead the little child. Make untold sacrifices, If need be, in order that the work of training the youth may be placed in the most capable hands! Never cease in your efforts until you do locate someone who will make the L.T.L. her first and chief concern. There are departments of work which we may drop if there are not workers enough for them, but most emphatically we say the L.T.L. is not sich a department.

May God give us a new point of view, a great step in advance of a any former attempt, a beginning of things from which there can be no retreat, and may we, from this day forth, be irrepressible and irresistable in our forward movement for the Loyal Temperance Legion.