Extracts from the Minutes of the Yearly Meeting of Friends, Convening at ... Race Street

SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE ON TEMPERANCE AND INTOXICATING BEVERAGES.

To the Yearly Meeting:

Our stated meetings have been held with a generally good attendance. There has been a free interchange of sentiment regarding the various methods we have used to bring this important subject fully to the notice of our members.

Conferences continue to be an important feature of our work, and during the past year seventy-six have been held throughout the Yearly Meeting. These have been instrumental in interesting our younger members, who have participated by furnishing essays, readings, etc. They have also been of great benefit in presenting to the people the evils that attend the use of intoxicants, as well as enlighten ing the minds of those present regarding the baneful effects of the use of wines, cider, and all other alcoholics in the preparation of food, for in this way the habit of drink is not infrequently formed.

While we have not accomplished all that we desired, we can share in the hopeful signs of the times and acknowledge that the spirit of Truth is operating on the minds of many in authority, leading them to exercise a care and a restriction in the granting of licenses quite unprecedented.

A new and important branch of the work, as reported by two Quarters, has been the formation of societies of Young Temperance Workers. Six of these have been formed with

a membership of about four hundred.

This new field of labor promises much good fruit, and the co-operation of parents is needed to encourage their children to continue in the work.

Many thousand pages of literature have been purchased and circulated, and in addition to these the "Address to Druggists," prepared last year, has been printed and distributed, also an address delivered by Aaron M. Powell, an earnest worker in the cause.

Superintendents and Committees of Schools have been appealed to in regard to the proper carrying out of the law requiring instruction upon the effects of alcohol and narcotics on the human system. Of the 154 superintendents addressed, 117 have replied; and we learn from them that an effort is made to carry out the spirit of the law, though many difficulties are met with, in the opposition or lukewarmness of the Directors and lack of qualification in teachers. The superintendents themselves are in unity. with the law, and appreciate any help that is given them.

If children receive this knowledge in their tender years, they will be fortified against the temptations so liable to assail them in after life. And if all the members of our religious society would set the example of total abstinence from the sale and use of all intoxicants and narcotics, they would have a much greater influence in this important work.

Our Legislative Committee believing that strength might be given to the enacting of a Local Option law in New Jersey, presented a memorial to the Legislature of that

State. The subject of memorializing Congress in regard to an amendment to the Constitution in relation to prohibiting the manufacture, importation and sale of alcoholic. liquors as a beverage, was considered, and a memorial was prepared, approved, and directed to be forwarded with our report to the Yearly Meeting for its action.

Since our last annual report it has been our duty to record the death of three earnest, faithful laborers, Aaron Borton, Ezer Lamborn, and John W. Scarboro, whose efficient services and devotion to duty have left an example worthy of imitation.

Orders have been drawn upon the Treasurer for two hundred and twelve and 5 dollars.

($212.51.)

Signed in and on behalf of the Committee.

JAMES H. ATKINSON,

ANNIE CALEY DORLAND,

Philadelphia, Fourth month 14th, 1888.