“The Catch-my-pal Movement” is attracting great public attention
in the northern or Protestant section of Ireland. The nature of
the movement will scarcely be suspected from the designation
which has attached to it in popular speech; it is really an
organization for the reclamation of drunkards. The originator,
who is a Presbyterian layman living at Armagh--Patterson by
name--had no intention of launching a general reform work; he
stumbled into his present great service in a spontaneous attempt
to help a poor fellow whom he found dead drunk at the foot
of an Armagh lamp-post one day last July. By dint of genuine
Christian sympathy and much hard work, Mr. Patterson succeeded
in sobering the man up and persuading him to quit the drink.
Then he sent the fellow to get a drunken “pal” and together they
saved him. The three then went to work for a fourth. By the
time Mr. Patterson had reformed six of the tipplers, he found
to his surprize that he had actually started a “movement.” It
was organized later under the dignified name of “The Protestant
Total Abstinence Union,” but the public has not been able to
remember that title. The main idea of using drunkards to save
drunkards has been so perfectly exprest in the phrase “Catch my
pal” that only that name is known to the “man in the street.”
(2354)
=Personal Influence Pervading the World=--SEE FAITH, A CHILD’S.