William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 2

[315] have failed; preachers and missionaries have also failed. They have tried crusaders of both sexes, not only preaching men but singing women. In all these efforts they have failed, yet not so signally as to discourage new attempts. The singing movement, though abated by the magistrates as a public nuisance, is regarded by pious people as having left behind it in Ohio some exceedingly precious fruits.

Few subjects are more tempting to an artist than the comic side presented by Mother Carey and her female troop of singers; but I feel too much respect for women, even when I cannot go all lengths with them, to treat these ladies otherwise than with the reverence due to spotless motives and noble aims. These singing women were good and decent females, members of various churches, and especially of the Wesleyan Churches. Watching the temperance societies, and noting what they thought the causes of their failure, these ladies came to the conclusion that as moral agents, men are played out, and that women must set their shoulders to the wheel. With feminine ways of thought, they put the matter in this light before themselves. The thirst for strong