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A Temperance Procession

Standard
Jan 7, 1842
Temperance Procession
Pursuant to notice and according to announcement in the last number of this paper, the procession of the members of the Catholic total Abstinence Society took place on Saturday last the Instant. It was a glorious sight, well timed, commencing with the New Year, and well deserving of the warmest approbation of the philanthropist, and every well wisher of humanity. it was a glorious sight we repeat, to see some hundred so persons of all ages and sexes, an indication and guarantee, that hundreds upon hundreds will follow their brilliant example, to see them by a most public act in the face of the world, ratify the promise they had previously made, ever to abandon the use of intoxicating spirits, the great source of evils and abuses.
            After the celebration of High Mass in the Catholic church, the members of the Society retired into the new and commodious School House, and having suspended their medals, appointed the flag and banner bearers, and ? on the line of route, they were drawn out into line and marched in the following order:
            Band of Music
            The solders of the Garrison, being members, with a blue and union flag,
            Male juvenile Members of the Society, two deep, with Medals suspended from green and blue ribbons,
            Females, two deep.
            Banner with a full length portrait of the Apostle of Temperance, in the act of administering the Pledge to a number of postulants
            Male adults, two deep, who composed a formidable body of well attired and respectable men.
After the procession hade gone through the appointed route (the principal streets in the town) at several of the most public place so which they were met by groups of respectable inhabitants, who to show approbation, and good feeling at the strange, but happy scene which they witnessed greeted them most cordially. The procession returned in the same manner and re-entered the Church. Owing to the excellent arrangements made for the return of the members of the Society, and . . . occupying he galleries of the Church, comfortably accommodated. When the noise and hubbub had subsided, and everybody had taken the places the Rev. Quin ascended the pulpit and in his usual free, but animate and persuasive style, entertained the crowded audience for nearly an hour and a half on the all absorbing and important subject to temperance.
            In the evening the juvenile Members of the Society, male and female, under the superintendence of Mr. and Mrs. Daly, who preside over the Parochial School, enjoyed themselves by partaking of a temperance repast, which in joyful and innocent merriment with sentiments, speeches, and songs, they prolonged to a late hour, when they separated, highly delighted with he entertainments.
            we did ourselves the pleasure of visiting them, and shared fully in their hilarity, and although the occasion was one of joy, it was to us one of serious thought;--the dangers and perils, and the wreck of virtue and fortune, from which many a youth before us were perhaps rescued by the happy circumstance which gave rise to the festive scene we were witnessing, fleeting across our mind; and whilst we envied them, for the propitious stars under which they wert born, we could not help congratulating them on the happy, prospers and unsullied life upon which they were just entering, and with these commingled feelings we returned to our home having completed one of the most interesting and we hope instructive days of our lives. [The editor at this time is A. W. Smith]