Excerpt from An Appeal to the People for the Suppression of the Liquor Traffic: A Prize Essay
IN the progress of every great Reform, there are successive stages, marked by new aspects of the work, and demanding from time to time new aims and measures. We commence the work experimentally. We know not where the strength of the enemy lies. Point after point of greater apparent vitality is assailed and carried, and yet the strength of the evil is not broken. Gradually we come to know where the heart of the mischief is to be found. That heart itself is not s'tationary. There is in every great social wrong a shifting vitality, which retreats as it is assailed, and is found at last in what, perhaps, was once no vital point. Aiming ever at this, we must change as it changes, and strike at the life of the evil wherever en trenched.
Meantime we are ourselves in a process of development. Our work educates us. Each stage prepares us for the next. The volume of reformed and reforming sentiment is augmented, and gathers vigor as it advances. Thus we come to each more des perate struggle trained to the requisite wisdom and strength. Not an effort has been fruitless - not a delay, nor a reverse, nor an apparent failure has been without its use. We do not find the last citadel of the foe until the search has prepared us for victory.
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