The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation
"cry aloud and spare not and show my people their sins." I find this
class so hungry for something better. These poor actresses, who dress
in tights and sing indecent songs, are a weary, tired, heart-sick lot of
slaves. I mingle with them as a sister. When I can say a warning word
I say it. I call them affectionate names and mean it. God will judge
both of us. He knows who loved much; he can forgive much. Christ
said to a lot of men who took the amen pews: "The publicans and harlots
will go into heaven before you." Why? They "repented when they
heard". "How are they to bear without a preacher?" I never see a man
or woman so low but as a sculptor said of the marble: "There is an
angel there." Oh, God, help me to bring it out!
Jesus received sinners and ate with them. He left a command that
Christians should invite these to feasts in their homes. Oh! what a
revival of religion there would be if the homes of Christians were opened
to the lost and sinful, who are dying for some demonstration of love.
If the Son of God, the lovely, the pure, the blessed ate with sinners,
ought it not to be a privilege to follow Him. We are commanded to
"warn, rebuke, and reprove with all long suffering and doctrine." People
will work in a revival to get sinners saved, and will pass them day
after day on the street and not a word of Scripture, do they use to
remind them of God's judgements. Jesus said: "The world hateth me
because I testify that the works thereof are evil." I have had men to
swear at me, call me names and threaten to knock me down. At first
this caused me to feel mortified but that passed off. These very men
have afterward told me I was right and they were wrong. The devil
"threw some on the ground and they foamed at the mouth" before he
was cast out. I have often taken cigars and cigarettes out of men's and
boy's mouths. I wished to show them the wrong and that I was a friend.
Would you let one you love take a knife to open a vein or cut himself?
Oh! the sweetness and force of that promise: "Your LABOR is never in
vain in the Lord." This covers all cases, if you, for the love of God, do
anything. I often say to myself, after rebuking for sin: "You made a
mistake in the way you did this or that, and are you sure it was done
for the love of God and your neighbor?" "Yes." Then "your labor is
never in vain in the Lord". It is not WHAT we do that prospers, but what
God blesses.. "He that planteth is nothing and he that watereth is
nothing, but it is God that giveth the increase." And it matters not how
awkward the work, if it be done from love of God, it will prosper. Like
other things, the more you do, the better you can do.
All the Christian work I ever did seemed to meet with severe opposition
from church members. This is a great stumbling-block to some.
The church crucified our blessed Christ, that is, it was the hypocrites;
for the church is the light and salt, the body of Christ. "If I yet please
men, I should not be the servant of Christ." There is no other organization
but the church of Christ that persecutes its own followers. The
hierarchy in the church told Christ "He had a devil," but they could not
meet the argument when He said: "A kingdom divided against itself
will not stand." "If I, by the spirit of Beelzebub, cast out devils, by what
kind of a spirit do your children cast them out." The devil never destroys
his own work. If the saloon is of the devil, the power that destroys it
is the opposite. If a mother should see a gun pointed at her son would
she break the law to snatch the gun and smash it? The gun was not
hers. It may have been worth a thousand dollars. The saloon is worse
than the gun which could only destroy the body.
It is a great blessing to know your mission in life. I know why
Christians are waiting with folded hands, not being able to see their
mission. They are not willing to pay the great price for their commission.
The rich young man could have been a follower of Jesus, the greatest
honor in earth or heaven, and could have had eternal treasure in heaven
for the transient gain of earth. He would not pay the price. You must
give all, to get all. The effect of smashing has always been to cause
the people to arouse themselves. The Levite that severed his dead concubine
and sent parts of her body to the different tribes of Israel was
to cause the people to "consider, take advice and speak." Then they
acted and four hundred thousand men presented themselves to redress
this wrong.
The smashing in Kansas was to arouse the people. If some ordinary
means had been used, people would have heard and forgotten, but the
"strange act" demanded an explanation and the people wanted that,
and they never will stop talking about this until the question is settled.
Let us consider the character of Moses. It is said this man disobeyed
God but once, and he was the "meekest of all men". We are first attracted
to him peculiarly because he "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's
daughter, rather suffering afflictions with the people of God than to
enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." Rather be counted with the poor
despised, afflicted slaves under the taskmaster's lash than be a king or
an absolute monarch. This brought out his characteristic prohibition of
sin,--the renouncing of every worldly ambition, He here made the choice,
at the time when the temptations were greatest, for all that the world
could offer was his. He gave all and paid the price it requires to get all.
On the banks of the Nile he sees one man oppressing another. That
spirit of prohibition of this great wrong caused him to strike (smash)
the oppressor.
Here is a lovable trait of this great man. Moses, could not look on
and see the helpless suffer at the hands of another, even though it brought
death to himself. Forgetful of his own safety, defying the absolute power
and authority of this despot, so far as it lay in his power, against all
these odds he redressed the wrong of a fellow creature. God saw in
Moses a man whom He could use. From the golden throne he sought
a retreat, and for forty years was an humble shepherd, learning the lesson
of caring for the flocks of Jethro, before he should be called to take the
oversight of the flock of God. "He that is faithful in that which is least
is faithful also in that which is much." God called this man out of the
wilderness to go to the greatest court on earth as His ambassador. Not
one compromise would he make, still true to his prohibition principles.
God never used or blessed any man or woman that was not a prohibitionist.
Eli was one of those conservatives and said only, "Nay verily
my sons." And he got his neck broke and both of his sons killed in one
day, because he "restrained (or prohibited) not his sons in the iniquity
which he knew." Moses, although the meekest of all men, he said to
Pharaoh, "There shall not a hoof be left behind." True to the uncompromising
spirit of a great leader. When in the Mount, seeing the idolatry,
smashed the two tables of stone. Why? He would not deliver the
holy laws to a people who were insulting God. This smashing was a
demonstration of Moses jealousy for his God. After this I can see him
striding down to the place of this "ball" or "hugging". The round dance
of the present day is but a repetition of those lascivious plays, and with
his ax or hatchet he hacked up that malicious property, shaped into a
golden calf. This did not belong to Moses. It was very valuable but
he smashed it and ground it to powder and then to further humiliate these
rebels, he made them drink the dust mixed with water, then to absolutely
destroy and stamp with a vengeance this insult to God, he divided the
people and those who were "on the Lord's side" fought with these rebels
and slew (smashed) three thousand men. In one of the canonical books
of the Catholic Bible we have the story of the holy woman Judeth who
cut off the head of Hollifernese to save God's people. Esther the gentle
loving queen had the wicked sons of Haman hanged. Our supremest
idea of justice is a reward for the good and a punishment for the wicked.
We amputate the arm to save the body. David says: "I will not know
a wicked person; he that telleth lies shall not dwell in my sight."
The devil has his agents in the churches, and among those who are
doing his work the best, are a class of professors who testify that you
must not speak ill of any one, not even the devil. They are the "non-
resistives". The devil is delighted to be respected, and not fought. He
gets his work in just as he wants to and he can imitate true conversion,
if he can place in the church those who hinder a warfare against sin.
Paul said: "I tell you even weeping they are enemies of the cross of
Christ." They are the devils in light. "But there must needs be heresies
among you that they who are approved may be manifest." Persons
often propose to do something. I may not see the advisability, but because
there is action in it, I never object. Oh! for somebody to "do with
their might what their hands find to do." "Well DONE" is the best
commendation. Faith is like the wind, we cannot see it, but by the quantity
of motion and commotion. There are workers "jerkers" and "shirkers";
but through much tribulation and temptation must we enter into the
kingdom of heaven. The counterfeit proves the genuine dollar; counterfeits
are not counterfeited. So hypocrites prove the genuine Christians.
If there were not a genuine there would not be a hypocrite. Our mother
and grandmothers who went into saloons praying and spilling the poisoned
slop of these houses of crime and tears were blessed in their DEEDS.
Oh! that the W. C. T. U. would do as they did, what a reform would
take place. I love the organization of mothers. I love their holy impulses
but I am heart-sick at their conventionality, their red tape. This
organization could put out of existence every drinking hell in the United
States if they would demand it and use the power they have even without the
ballot. I intend to help the women of the Kansas W. C. T. U., but not
one that has any respect for either Republican or Democratic parties
shall ever be called on to aid me in my work, women who are not wise
enough to know that the rum voting parties are traitors, can be nothing
but a hindrance to the interests of mothers. One said to me, "You will
cause many women to leave the organization." I said: "Good riddance
to bad rubbish, the quicker they get out the better." As Nehemiah, that
grand prohibitionist, said: "What have you to do to build the walls of
our God."
CHAPTER XVI.
IN NEBRASKA.--WHAT I DID WITH THE FIRST MONEY I GAVE TO THE LORD.--
AT CONEY ISLAND.--WHAT I SAID OF MR. MCKINLEY.--IN CALIFORNIA.
"CRIBS" AT LOS ANGELES.--ARREST IN SAN FRANCISCO.--CONDEMNED BY
SOME MINISTERS.--WHISKEY AND TOBACCO ADVERTISEMENTS,
I told my manager James E. Furlong, to give W. C. T. U. and Prohibitionists
the preference, and not to charge them as much. I tried to
get into churches, but only a few would open to me. I had many inducements
financially to go on the stage but I refused to do so for sometime.
Like a little child I have had to sit alone, creep and walk. I paid my fines
by monthly installments and in December, of 1902, I settled with the court
at Topeka for the "Malicious destruction of property," when, in fact, it
was the "Destruction of malicious property."
In the spring of 1902, I went to Nebraska, under the management
of Mrs. M. A. S. Monegan. This woman had also made dates for J. G.
Woolley and other prominent prohibition lecturers. She was a thorough
prohibitionist and by conversing with her I for the first time found the
remedy for the licensed saloon. This is "National Prohibition".
I held a debate in Lincoln with Bixbee, of the Journal, a rank republican,