THE CHANGEABLE TEMPERAMENT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2419, 6 February 1909, Page 12 (Supplement)

THE CHANGEABLE TEMPERAMENT.

SOME HELPFUL THOUGHTS

Jt is as -ignoble to be the slave of temperament, the victim of a. mood, as to -accept any other form of tyrain nv. The 'beginning of manhood is t-o keep one’s will acting freely and vigorously ; to protect one’s intellect From the -false coloring 'which' comes from emotion and* feeling: to -assort one’s sell in the -lace of the -pas*ions and influences that assail the stability of a mail’s integrity -and independence. This is never an easy thing to do. , , The victim of moods or tlie s.ave ol a. temperament is never a free person. Tlio Rev. Paul Revere Frotlnng-li-am puts the matter of moods with admirable clearness. First of all there is the- district m the mysterious land of selfhood that is occupied by our methods. It appears "to me tliat over ■'this each one or us iuav exercise a use! ill if not an casv system of control. All of us, that is to say, h-avo our alternating periods of. sunshine and of storm, ot cheerfulness and depression, of energy and relaxation, of faith -and doubt, of hope and despair, of confidence and weak uncertainty. Now wo are lifted into conscious joy and throbbing hopes; but -again wc feel ourselves forlorn and desolate. Life to-day appears -a privilege and radiant opportunity for usefulness; to-morrow we seriously wonder if anything is really much worth while. So there are times when our work, our duties, our drudgeries even are done easily and gladly. Instead, o findincr them burdensome, -we rejoice in tlieT various cares and responsibilities which fill the hours of each day so fall. But then, -again, deep gloom oppresses -us, and -we can neitliei seem to do nor be at our best. -Ant all such moods are natural, they come upon nearly all of -us. very few people can hope to live m such divinely ordered latitudes of soul that their sky is always clear. Me can not. therefore, put -an absolute enc to these, various and changeable conditions. But we ca n and should control them. Little by little we may learn by very commonplace expedience that tlie gloom and the depression need not cause -us genuine despair. However dark the curtain ot tlio cloud may bang; the Wuc sky is behind it still. Night falls, and yet tlie stars sliino out. All of. us may work for ourselves a. very practical and helpful philosophy in this respect, and we ought to work it out and discipline, ourselves to -live by it as well. hen tlie soul is -feeble to believe, when we led ouiselves indifferent" to Hie good -and true, when things scorn burdensome and life appears -a giant '.loacl of care, it is possible to remind ourselves that -we have been along that very road before, and have watched the leaden darkness of those same great clouds, and yet beyond them wo have been refreshed. AVo musthave our discouragements, -iiMjeed, hut wc need not, therefore, be utterly cast down. AVe may despond, hut we need not feel despair.

THE SALOON-SMASHER. MRS. CARRIE NATION’S TEMPERANCE CRUSADE. VIGOROUS TALK ON THE DRINK EVIL. - A cablegram in the “Times” Horn London on January 20 stated Onefiy“Carrie Nation, the American saloonsmasher, appeared un thc Mage the Canterbury Music Hall, E<™don. The audience abruptly stopped the turn, pelting her with and drenching her witlr water. Nation left hew York on No\oniber 21 to lead a temperance crusade in the large cities ol ( M C W, f/.JJ ain ' and, in response to. an invitation [rum Mr. E. Scrimgeour, .socretai j ox the Scottish Prohibition Pb'D’ to visit Scotland and iw ;:uu! ior three months. Hie M" Orleans Timcs-Democrat, . on the morning of the lady’s departure, had the following:— Airs. Nation says she was heeding the -Macedonian cry m going to the help of the prohibitionists of. Great Britain and Ireland. She said she would close up, if she could, the bai on tlie steamer Columbian (the boat by which she was travelling) and cutdown tig: bar receipts. “I would not consent to go to bcov lanci'until I had registered evei-y vote possible against the rum power, sue saiid. “The Republican P-arty, m 1862, put rum on a license basis, anu therefore the Republican Party is the father of the rum. T used to smash the saloons, but now I am smashing, the cause of the saloons. At the present time the Republicans and i>emocarts -are the bulls in the rum traffic and the Prohibitionists the bears. “In the big cities drinking it becoming widespread,” Mrs. Nation continued. “New York is noted ioi its drinking women; I mean the women of the 400. The woman who works is the sober woman. The women of wealth get the bad habits, and surely are influencing their children to follow their, example.” Airs. Nation arrived in Dundee in early December, and a pressman had a chat with her on the morning alter her arrival. . , , Mrs. Carrie A. Nation, the prohibitionist of hatchet and saloon-bar fame, makes her first public appearance in this country to-morrow (wrote ti*:> pressman) when she will open a . bazaar in Dundee in aid of the prohibic o« - movement. - I had an .-interview with Airs. Nation this morning on the subject ol her mission, and was her guide on Her first round of publis-house visits m Scotland. She is accompanied bv nei niece, and will remain in Scotland until January, when she hopes to go to London. “According to all accounts,” she said, “London will be a hard nut to crack. Negotiations are in' progress with the Prohibition Partv there towards securing a nan. Afterwards I will visit P-aris. AAV made a start on our journey oj entering a public-house.. Mrs. Nation asked the barman for Ins license, in America the license hangs on tfic saloon wall. The barman explained that was not necessary in this country. He was quite agreeable to slum the license, -blit it was locked lip in the safe. Airs. Nation did not insist on its production. The barman, becoming aware of the identity of bis visitor., asked if she had brought her hatchet with her. “The only hatchet I have brought to England,” replied Airs. Nation, “is tlie Bible.” Tlie bar loungers forgot to lilt their glasses as they listened to the discussion between the refoimci and the barman. . “Surely there is no harm m moderation,” ventured a navvy. “The first drink makes a man drunk,” retorted Airs. Nation. “It was -a wise saloon-keeper that told me that.” v • , . . . A shore laborer hinted at repentance. . , ~ “Ah!” said Airs. Nation, “but the day of repentance may never come. AViien tfic ship I came over in left New York I warned a young man whose breath smelt of liquor. He did not heed me. In three days lie was dead, -and on the • fourth we buried him in the sea.” “Drink,” she continued, “is poison. It is made of rotton apples and rotton grain, and will rot the roof off your house and the shirt off your back.” When wc came to a licensed grocer’s were brisk. Tlie shopman confessed that he smoked. “Tobacco is an intoxicant,” argued Airs. Norton. “I would arrest a man who had tobacco in his shop or <m his person.” She is a believer in woman’s suffrage,. and is convinced things will not be right till we bring the moral influence of women to the ballot box. She spoke very proudly of her saloonsmashing exploits. “I would enter -a saloon,” she said, “with a handful of rocks and smash the liquor bottles, and saloon keepers whom I have converted are among my best friends. I will gh r e £5 to anyone who will meet me.in a public hall in debate on the proposition that the drink traffic is detrimental to the liberties, health, and morals of Britain.”