Page:An address to women (Goodwin).djvu/20

 such persons. I trust there are none here to-night, so don't think I am speaking personally; but there are such persons. Female drinking has increased of late years, and that which was considered almost impossible some years ago is now proved to be only too possible. How horrified one is, how one's heart is pained and vexed and grieved, when one reads of a woman being brought up before the magistrates for being drunk! And though I hope there is no woman here this evening who has given herself to the horrible vice of drunkenness, or even the habit of drinking, there must be some who are liable to be assaulted by the temptation. Therefore don't think it unkind on my part to give you a little warning. I was once talking to a man who was well informed on this subject, and I said to him, "Do you think a man who has once become a drunkard can be reformed?" "Oh, yes," he said, "I have seen many who have been drunkards, and who, by taking the pledge and by other means, have been brought back, but never a woman yet." Now that is a fearful thing. It would seem that when a woman is depraved by that horrible vice, it sinks into her gentler nature, and defiles her pure body, more completely and hopelessly than it does the rougher natures and coarser bodies of us men. Let that be a