Won’t you come to our Band of Hope?

Abstract

…time as our speakers have in these days. For instance, he once had to address a meeting at Geddington, in Northamptonshire, speaking from the base of the Queen Eleanor Cross. Many of the people had been given drink in order to disturb the evening. One man threw an empty barrel amongst the people; another wanted to fight the lecturer. Still, amidst the jeers and laughter of the people, the meeting went on. A policeman appeared, and said he has orders to take Mr. Bell into custody. This was not done, however, and Mr. Bell’s courage and good temper carried him through; but after the meeting he had to walk backwards out of the village with his face to the mob for fear they should attack him. Mr. Bell feared that no good had been done by this rowdy gathering, but eleven years afterwards two big, well-dressed navvies told Mr. Bell that at that meeting they had determined to sign the pledge. They had done so, and were still firm abstainers. Up to the time of Mr. Bell’s death in May, 1896, he had given 10,200 addresses to 2,400,000 persons, travelled 222,000 miles, and taken 60,000 pledges. What a wonderful record! I hope that some of our clever Band of Hope boys and girls will grow up to be workers like him.
I have no doubt that very many of you have heard addresses in your various schools on the subject of “Alcohol and the Human Body,” but perhaps you have not known that most of these addresses are given by gentlemen sent out from the Band of Hope Union.
At the present time, as I have already told you, the Union has thirty lecturers, some in the country, and some in London. Some are at work in Day Schools, and others give their whole attention to Bands of Hope; but all doing their utmost to teach boys and girls the evil nature of alcoholic drinks.
We Band of Hope boys and girls are very grateful – are we not? – to all these friends and many thousands of conductors and workers in our Bands of Hope who are helping to spread the light and advance the cause of Temperance year by year; but we cannot forget that boys and girls can help, and are helping, the Cause.
Do not forget that you are a part of the great Union, and it needs your help. It wants you to become recruiting-sergeants, and to get your school-fellows and play-fellows, and all the boys and girls that you know, whose parents are willing, to join the Band of Hope. Every new soldier we get in our army makes it easier to fight the cruel foe Strong Drink.
Let us all work with a hearty good will, so that all the children in the land may know what a very bad thing strong drink is. We must never be satisfied with what has been done. We must not be content with one effort, or one recruit, but we must get another, and another, till all our friends and companions have been brought in. What a nice thing it would be to be able to say next year that instead of three and a half millions of young abstainers the United Kingdom Band of Hope Union could report that FOUR MILLIONS of boys and girls were enrolled under the banner of Total Abstinence!

“Won’t you come to our Band of Hope?”
A Young Recruiting Sergeant.