Misc: WCTU Speech by Mother Lydia Somers, Mahanoy City 1885 

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ADDRESS OF WELCOME DELIVERED BY MOTHER LYDIA SOMERS AT THE
W.C.T.U. CONVENTION HELD IN MAHANOY CITY ABOUT 1885.

Ladies and gentlemen and children,

In behalf of our Union, I welcome you to our public meeting,
hoping it may be pleasing and profitable.  And, as we spend
this evening together, I would say as one of old:  "Come, 
let us reason together".

Is it reasonable that we, as Christian workers, should stand
idly by when there is so much to be done.  Surely, the harvest
is great but the laborers are few.  Yet, it seems to me never
at any time has woman felt a greater responsibility; that she
individually has something to do in the great cause of temperance.
All over this beautiful land of ours and in foreign lands, she is
coming forward, laying aside all predjudices, and showing her
willingness to do anything and everything for this grand cause.

When God, by the hand of Moses, commanded the people of Israel
to build a Tabernacle for all manner of service, they came, both
men and women, as many as were willing hearted, and brought jewels
of gold and other offerings on to the Lord.  Is not this a great
temperance reform for which the Christian women all over our land
are laboring?

A Tabernacle for the Holy Father to dwell in, was it not begun
in prayer?  Are not the very beams of the building the broken
hearts of mothers, wives and children.  Reaching out after
infinite help, God alone knows all the bright jewels which have
been laid at his feet - such as sons and fathers and husbands for
which prayers have ascended - but God has heard their cry and the
time is not far distant, when those which are enslaved by this 
evil, shall be set at liberty; if we as Christian people stand
shoulder to shoulder in this great conflict.  We cannot expect
the hotel and distillery men to be leaders or to even help in
this cause for they are as the Ephesians of old:  they cry, 
"Great is Diana of the Ephesians, she brings much gain to her 
craftsmen".  It is the dollars and cents they are looking for.
Their hearts have grown hard and cannot be touched by the cries
of the suffering ones.  Friends, this evil is not going to be
driven back "by might nor by power but by my spirit", saith the
Lord, and when the final accounts are rendered, let it be said
of us, "She hath done what she could".