It is a pleasant surprise to read the proceedings of the recent national convention of the W. C. T. U., held in Louisville, Ky. This is certainly one of the most complete and efficient temperance organizations this nation ever produced. The women have divided their work into several departments: temperance literature, the evangelistic work, prison and police station work, the Southern work, the German work, work among colored people, the young women’s work, hygiene, legislative department, etc., etc. The convention was entertained handsomely by the good people of Louisville. Its session was harmonious, and its proceedings will create a stronger temperance sentiment wherever they are read. Miss Frances E. Willard was re-elected president, receiving every vote of every delegate in the convention, and there were more than thirty States represented. Elsewhere in this number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN our readers will find an article that was read before the convention, which traces the history of the W. C. T. U. back to Chautauqua as the place of its origin. The W. C. T. U., with its fifty thousand workers, can say of Chautauqua, “I was born there.”
The _Advance_ puts our “winter work” in these words: “It presses now—what is it? First and chiefly, at least for ministers, to edify believers in holy character; for the perfecting of the saints, the edifying of the body of Christ. For it is Christian character which converts sinners to Christ, which burns with a holy evangelistic zeal, and is likely to secure conversions even without directly aiming at them. It is consecrated character which has power with God and with men.”
Mr. Bezkrovoff, a Russian engineer, is in this country. He said to a reporter recently: “Our government ordered me to study your ways and means of transportation. We have a costly system of canals uniting our seas, the Baltic, the White, the Caspian, and the Black; we have many great navigable rivers, and, besides, we have built tens of thousands of versts of railroads, and yet transportation in our country is in its infancy. Thousands of tons of grain rot annually at our railroad stations, for there are no stores. In the southern part of Russia there is abundance of fish, meat, vegetables, and other provisions, and yet in the northern part of the country the people can not afford to buy those provisions, for the cost of transportation puts it beyond their means. We have plenty of coal and kerosene, but at St. Petersburg, and even at Moscow, the English coal and the American kerosene are cheaper than the Russian. Our canals and railroads don’t pay to the government the cost of keeping.”