OUR PLEDGE.

White Ribbon, Volume 32, Issue 376, 18 November 1926, Page 14

OUR PLEDGE.

(By J.F.)

All through the Dominion, as our members gather for their monthly meeting our Pledge is being re-aflirm-ed, standing all together, we repeat our promise of total abstinence from all intoxicating liquors, and our purpose to employ all proper means to discourage the use and traffic in the same. And then, we pledge ourselves to work and pray till death or victory in the name of Jehorah, who has said: “Certainly, I will be with thee.” Seven thousand women who have made this promise, from which there is no going back, from which nothing but death or victory can release us!!! Do we gloiy in it? We have put our hand to the plough, there can be no turning back, no lookiug behind. For the past thirty-three years we have sought through the Poll to bring in the prohibition of the Liquor Tratfic, and so far, we have tailed. We have worked and we have spent money, thousands and thousands of pounds, and the Trade has worked and spent more money, and at both games they can beat us. The question for us to face now. as women, is, why have we failed? It, is not because the Trade can spend more than we can, nor is -t becaur* of any legal handicap. It is not because have not yet earned success? God’s laws are just “Whatever a man soweth that shall he reap.” Somehow, somewhere, we have not sown the right seed. Since the last Poll, it has been increasingly borne in upon some of us, the members of the Women’s Temperance Union, and remembering our Pledge, w’e ask, where have our prayers faited? Maude Uoyden, in “Prayer as a Farce,” says in reference to unanswered prayers, that we do get our desires. Our motives are often so mixed, w'p ask for one thing ami really want another, like the Pharisees at the street corners. Do w’e know that what we want is Abolition, and Prohibition may not be the best means to that end? Woman’s work is not fighting, her work should not be breaking down or destroying, but building up, creating. '“Sesist not evil, but overcome evil with good.” When we attack any evil and fight it, we arouse all the opposing forces, but if we cultivate the opposite virtue, we draw to our aid all the forces for good.

So we may, by our prayer and our desire, first in our own minds and later in the world around us, create the things we truly desire. In this way let us see the vision of a clean land, where what are now traps for unwary feet are turned to useful purposes, shops and offices where there ar now open bars, factories instead of breweries, and a people from whom the desire for strong drink has departed. To some, this may seem a vague, foolish way to work, but to those who realise the tremendous power of united thought and who ano weary with the fruitlesbattle, it will come as a haven of lest and shelter. In regard to prayer, there may be some w ho have not yet realised that petition is not the highest form of prayer. If a child never came to his father, except to ask for something, coultl there be much real love or affection between them. Our Father lias given us freely over and over what we can desire. He is always pouring out everything we can need. So. le tour prayers be thanks and praise for all He has done, and let us in turn, give out to al laround us. good and bad alike, something of what we have received. Let us remember, that in everyone there is the divine spark, hidden It may be under much that to us seems evil. When we met those w’hose first impression on u? is that of selfish indulgence, let m forget it and say, almost 'though w’e spoke aloud, “You do not desire this thine, in your heart you hate it.” Knowing that this is absolutely true, no soul, however depraved. but longs to be freed from it thraldom. Our work as women is to loose the prisoners. When we sit in condemnation of others and blame them for their failure, we rouse the evil and bring it to the surface, when w r e call to the good in them we help them upward. Shall our noontide be a time of vision? “Wlien you have started forth towards your vision. When you have counted up the gain and loss; When you have faced the old, old world, Its tale of all endeavour lost. Then, then, the joy of battle surges in you, The splendour of the quite unequal strife. And all the strength of brain and sinew,

Proclaims that you shall win, and this is life.” Let us see visions! Let us dream dreams till our visions and our dreams come true.