wm giimiiiHHiwniwii 4 ^ rVV' JfV £ feet wide, and “ dark as midnight.” 4, Door connecting with Drunken Alley and the Den of Thieves. 5, Another entrance to the Den of Thieves. 6, Door leading to a gambling area, or yard in the rear. 147. Ornamental Initial Letter. 423 148. “The Little Chap that Told Me to Holler” .... 424 149. His Money’s Worth of Clothes. 426 150. An Unexpected Catastrophe. 430 151. An Awful Pitch Over ..431 152. Ha, Ha !.432 153. An Exciting Ride in California. 438 Xll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 154. Ornamental Initial Letter.441 155. “Shall I Pray with You?” . 443 156. My Audience of Outcasts.444 157. “I Wonder Where My Boy Is”. 446 158. A Desperate Struggle.447 159. A Moment of Danger. 449 160. Memories of My Youthful Days. 452 161. “She Burst out Crying and Dropped on her Knees” . 453 162. A MINISTER’S DOWNFALL. — PREACHING HIS OLD SERMONS FOR LIQUOR. (Full Page.) Designed by George G. White. To face 457 And that doctor of divinity, who had preached the gospel to thousands for eight and twenty years, has since stood in a low dram-shop, with his face bruised and blackened, and a number of degraded and dissolute men jeer¬ ing him. — stood there and preached his old sermons for whiskey to stave of delirium tremens. 163. Ornamental Initial Letter. 461 164. Julius Caesar’s Downfall. 465 165. Interrupting a Family Row. 466 166. Elected Constable — “Father and Me.”. 468 167. “Unperceived, He Opened the Cabin Door”. 472 168. Not a Friend in the World. 476 169. Ornamental Initial Letter. 478 170. “There’s Mother”.483 171. “It Seems but Yesterday”. 485 172. AN INTERVIEW WITH SENATOR McCONNELL SIX DAYS BEFORE HIS DEATH. (Full Page.) Designed by F. O. C. Darley. To face 488 He had a cane in his hand, and on the top was engraven, “ Felix G. McCon¬ nell, Alabama. O God, have mercy on me.” ... I shall never forget how he suddenly sprang to his feet, and, throwing his cane on the floor with a loud crash, said, “Gentlemen, you ask me to give up the drink. Ask me to sever my right hand from the wrist, and I can do it; but to give up the drink — never ! ” Six days after that, he cut himself all to pieces with a bowie knife, in the St. Charles Hotel. That was his end. 173. At Home.—Fireside Thoughts. * 493 174. At Sea.—Tempest-Tossed. 493 175. Ornamental Initial Letter. 496 176. “Gie Me a Dram”. 498 177. “I’ve Got a Terrible Bunch on My Side”. 501 178. The Bunch. 501 179. A Dinner on the Sly. 502 180. An Ineffectual Appeal. 504 181. A MEMORABLE VICTORY. (Full Page.) Designed by F. O. C. Darley. To face 507 Coming up the hill on my return to the hall, a man in the wagon in front of us stopped, stood up, and cried, “Halt, halt! Look at the grog-shops closed at sundown. Thirty-five years I ’ve lived in this town and I never saw a sight like that. I’ve seen drunkards go in at one door as a funeral started from the other. Three cheers for cold water.” We gave the cheers, and the ex-dramsellers came out aud helped us. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Xlll 182. Drunken Jake. 508 183. A Sudden Invasion. 511 184. In Front of the Tavern. 513 185. “Look! Look! the Prairie is on Fire”. 517 186. Ornamental Initial Letter. 518 187. “Don’t put me out, I’m a Teetotaler”. 522 188. The Past — Tuesday Night, Oct., 1842 525 189. Ornamental Initial Letter. 528 190. Joe. 531 191. One Year Afterwards. 531 192. “You’re coming again, are you?”. 534 193. A TIMELY RESCUE. A MEMORABLE INCIDENT IN MY CAREER. (Full Page.) Designed by T. W. Wil¬ liams . To face 536 She was very drunk. The young men were pushing her about in the rudest manner. One would push her one way, and another the other. I said, “ Do you call it sport to push that helpless girl about like that ? ” Somebody said, “ That’s Gough.” I said, “ Yes, that is my name.” They allowed me to approach the girl, who was swaying to and fro, — she could not stand still, — and was crying bitterly, uttering that wail pitiful to hear from an animal, but far more pitiful to hear from a woman. 1 said, “ Where do you live ? ” etc. • 194. An Unwelcome Guest. 543 195. “Hum — signed Elizabeth” . . . .. 545 196. Ornamental Initial Letter. 548 197. A Wretched Wreck. 552 198. A Suspicious Place to Pass the Night.553 199. An Unexpected Proceeding. 554 200. “I don’t want to get up”. 555 201. Death Stared them in the Face. 557 202. Daddy Moses and Dick. 560 203. Ornamental Initial Letter. 562 204. “I — don’t—know”. 566 205. An Unwilling Bridegroom. 571 206. Struck Bottom. 574 207. “Hurry up, I’m all Unravelling!”. 575 208. A “ LIMPSY” COUPLE. SANDY AND THE LAIRD. (Full Page.) Designed by F. O. C. Darley. To face 576 Sandy helped the laird on the horse, but unfortunately he was this time mounted the wrong side before. “ Now, Sandy, gie me the bridle ; gie me the bridle, Sandy.” “ Wait till I find the bridle. There is na any bridle, and there is na any place for a bridle,” said Sandy. “ Gie me the bridle, Sandy; I must hae one to steer the beast wi,” exclaimed the laird. “Ah, laird,” replied Sandy, “ here’s a miracle. The horse’s head’s aff, an’ I can- na find the place where it was, and there’s naething left but a long piece o’ his mane.” 209. For Life. 580 210. Ornamental Initial Letter.582 211. An Obliging Husband. 584 212. Two O’clock in the Morning. “Isii it the Sun, or ish it the Moon?”. 587 213. “Oh, Sandy, I’m havin’ an awfu’ Tumble!”.593 214. “I will Fight You”. 594 X1Y LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 215. A Tough Patient. 595 216. Ornamental Initial Letter. . . 597 217. A Truthful Signboard. 598 218. On Exhibition .599 219. A Terrible Reality .. 605 220. “You SAY" DAT AGAIN, NlGGEIl!” .611 221. “John, come Home, the Fire is Burning Brightly” . . 613 222. Ornamental Initial Letter. 617 223. THE CAUSE OF LONDON WANT AND WOE. SATURDAY NIGHT IN A LONDON BAR-ROOM. (Full Page.) De¬ signed by W. L. Sheppard. To face 622 I saw women go in, with babes in their arms looking as if they had been born to suiter and gasp and die — poor, pallid, rheum-eyed wretches, drinking their liquor. I saw little bundles of rags standing on tip-toe to put the money on the counter, and receiving whiskey in exchange. One little girl had but one garment on her, but she had her bottle filled and took it away. I saw everything from a blacking-bottle to a tin pail, brought there to be filled with liquor. 224. A Pettifogging Shyster. 626 225. Exhausted Patience. 628 226. The Jurymen — Ten of whom ate the Bacon. 631 227. “ Oh, Buy me a bit of Bread, for I am Hungry ”... 634 “HILLSIDE”—RESIDENCE OF THE LATE JOHN B. GOUGH. CHAPTER I. HABIT —ITS POWER, USE, AND ABUSE —HOW TO SUBDUE A TYRANT AND SECURE A FRIEND. What I Aim to Give — The Lessons of Experience — A Peculiar Clock — “What on Earth Will That Fellow Do Next?” —“Oh, I Bite My Nails!”—Ridiculous Habits — Scene at a Railway Ticket-office — Mem¬ ory— Recognizing a Deserter After Thirty Years — Slaves of Fashion — Description of the Suit I Wore at Twenty-one — The “ Style ” Forty Years Ago—A Stunning Attire—A Remarkable Inventory — Avarice — “ Only a Little More ” —The Vice of Lying — The Habit of Swearing — The Boy Who Swore by “Old Dan Tucker” — “I’m Sot, Yes, I’m Sot” —Daniel Webster’s Testimony — Two Words Spoken in Season — Ruin and Re¬ morse— “By and By” — A Persistent Lover — A Narrow Escape — “ Come Down Wid Ye, Thady”—The Warfare of Life .... 71 CHAPTER II. TO YOUNG MEN —SOWING THE WIND AND REAPING THE WHIRLWIND—A TALE OF RUIN, REMORSE, AND DEATH. Sticking One’s Hand in a Rattlesnake’s Den — Beware ! — “ Captain, There’s One of ’Em”—Sowing Wild Oats — Gliding Down the Stream — “Be Yon. a Drugger?”—The Yerdant Young Man in Search of “Scentin’ Stuff ”— Smelling Round for the Right Thing — A Sniff That Astonished Him — The Story of Daniel Webster’s Classmate — How Webster Tried to Save Him — His Tragic Death — “Get Up! Get Up! The Train is Coming!” — Cries of Despair from the Pit — A Road Strewn with Spectres — The Most Painful Scene I Ever Witnessed — Why the Boy Thrashed the Cat — A Cold Day for Puss — An Unexpected Scene at the Marriage Altar — The Story of Adam and His Whiskey Jug — Cramming Adam into the Closet — A Laughable Story — A Story of Ruin and Death—“Tom, Old Fellow, is This You?” — “Too Late, Jem, Don’t Leave Me”—Taking the Wrong Direction. . . 9J xv XVI CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. FRIEND OR FOE?—THE DIVIDING LINE —WHERE DO YOU STAND ? —SLAVES OF FASHION — LUDICROUS INCIDENTS. The Word “But” —Popping the Question —Anecdote of Dr. Lawson — A Slim Congregation — A Sermon That Was “ Too Personal” — How Mrs. Remington Stood It — A Duel in the Dark — Retreating Up the Chimney — A Surprise to Both Parties — Giving a Reason — Defining Men’s Position — “Three Cheers for Elder Gray” — The Bank Cashier’s Story — The Reason Why — Comical Excuses for Drinking — Grounds for Suspicion — Letting Down the Bars — An Ugly Threat — Catching the Measles — Drinking in Society — Sipping in “Style”—Fashionable Dissipation — Silly Customs — A Ludicrous Picture — The Dutchman and His Lost “Poy”—Story of the Tempted Negro — A Coveted Pair of Boots — “ The Devil Says Take ’Em” —Queer Ideas of Faith — “Good¬ ness Gracious ! Has It Come to That ? ” — Funny Incidents — Forward — God Speed the Right.113 CHAPTER IV. BLUNDERS, COMICAL, CURIOUS, SERIOUS, AND CRIMINAL, AND PEOPLE WHO MAKE THEM —FUNNY STORIES. Various Sources of Blunders — Heading a Boy in a Barrel — Absent-minded People — Anecdote of Dr. Duncan — Amusing Incidents — Ministerial Blunders — The “Pibrock and the Slogan” — The “Coisoned Pup” — Laughable Mistakes — Blunders of the Past — Blunders of Society — Irish Bulls — Killing a Man Twice— The “Red Cow” — Common Errors — Misuse of Words — Blunders in Language —A Musician with Carved Legs — Religious Horses — Human Parasites — The Curse of Mormonism— Serious Blunders — Sowing Dragon’s Teeth—Office Seekers—How to Secure Honest Legislation — Curious Blunders in Literature — Sacrificing Sense to Rhyme — The Lawyer and the Sailor — Neatly Caught — Funny Blunders — A Viper with Feet—“No. 45, Stick No Bills”—“Let Her Drop” — Moulting Angels — Take Your Soundings —The Prodigal Son.131 CHAPTER V. RETRIBUTION—PLAIN TALK AND PLAINER FACTS —REMI¬ NISCENCES OF MY DARK DAYS — DELIRIUM TREMENS. Plain Talk to a Scotch Audience — Street Sights and Scenes After Dark — Wretchedness and Woe—“Jem, Is My John in There?”—A Poor Woman’s Plea — A Cowardly and Brutal Husband — Incident After Inci¬ dent — What I Saw on One of My Exploring Expeditions — Personal CONTENTS. xvii Experiences — Scenes I Have Witnessed — Their Effect Upon Me — Memories of My Days of Dissipation — A Terrible Picture of Delirium Tremens — A Victim’s Testimony — Peculiarities of the Disease — A Horrible Experience — Transfixed With Terror — My Own Experience — Civility and Incivility — How I Was Snubbed in Church — Reminiscences of My Dark Days — A Reckless Act — The Drunkard’s Sleep — Memory a Curse — A Forgiving Wife — The Hardest Audience I Ever Faced — I Am Discouraged — The Miner Who Spoke After Me — His Wonderful Speech — Tramp, Tramp, Tramp — Buckle On the Armor . . . 14&—- CHAPTER VI. ‘AS A MEDICINE”—A FAIR NAME FOR A FOUL THING —A PRECIOUS SCOUNDREL WITH A PIOUS FACE. Fault Finders — A Tippling LL.D. — A Cheese Argument — Scene at a Dinner Party — Drink as a Medicine — Doctors Who Prescribe Liquor — A Good Deal and Often — Effects of Alcohol on the Nervous System — Testimony of Two Thousand Physicians — A Distinguished Physician’s Opinion — Diseases Produced by Alcohol — Personal Experience of an Eminent Surgeon — My Own Experience — An Exceedingly Suspicious Mixture — A Compound Fearfully and Wonderfully Made — Extraordi¬ nary Prescriptions — Mrs. McCarthy’s “Noggin of Rum”—How the Upholsterer Got Even with the Doctor — A Good Story — Anecdote of Rev. Mr. Reid — “ Ask My Doctor ? ” — Sticking to the Same Remedy for Seven Years — An Offer to Loan a Thousand Dollars — Chasing a Bubble — My Visit to Werner’s Room — A Delightful Afternoon — A Musical Feast.170 CHAPTER VII. SAFETY BETTER THAN RISK — TOUCHING HOME-SCENES — STARTLING FACTS AND UNDISPUTED TESTIMONY. Human Sacrifices — A Mother’s Sad Story — Turning a Dissipated Son out of Doors — My Interview with Him — On the Edge of a Precipice — A Thrilling Incident — Mad With Delirium Tremens — A Fearful Leap — A Devoted Wife — A Story from Real Life — That Little Word “No” — The Yankee Merchant and his Eggs — A Laughable Story — Startling Facts — The Greatest Swindle of the Age — What I saw in a Distillery — Effect of Liquor on Animals — How it Affects the Human Body — A Most Extraordinary Story — A Physician’s Horrible Experiments — A Corpse Distended with Liquor Gas — Puncturing the Body and Lighting the Gas in Sixteen Places — Authentic and Undisputed Testimony — The Child’s Rescue — A Thrilling Scene — A Very Obstinate Deacon — A Funny Story — The Dutchman and His Setting Hen — Record of a Noble Woman — My Disagreeable Neighbor.184 XV111 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. FACT AND FICTION OF EVERYDAY LIFE — SMILING FACES AND TREACHEROUS HEARTS—MEN WHO WEAR MASKS. Variety the Spice of Life — Difficult Things for Me to do — What I Aim to do — Life often a Disguise — Snakes in the Grass — Men Who Wear Masks — Duels, Debts, and “Innocent Amusements” — A Persistent Collector — “ I ’ll Fix Ye ” — The Boy and the Cherry Pie — Absurd Sen¬ tences — Amusing Illustrations — White Lies — Story of a Minister, a Bull, and a Bass Viol — A Matter-of-fact Musician — The Old Lady who was Struck by Lightning — Loving “ Everyting zat is Beastly ” — Woman’s Rights — A Vision of Eden — “ Bridge! Bridge!! ” — An Animated Poli¬ tical Discussion — Its Sudden End — A Laughable Story — A Cool Boarder — His Opinion of His Landlady’s Butter—Choosing Between Three Lovers—The Captain’s Device — How it Worked—Wasted Lives — Human Wrecks — Real Heroes ..206 CHAPTER IX. IN THE TOILS OF THE TEMPTER — CHARMED UNTIL CHAINED — THE BATTLE OF LIFE —A STAINED RECORD. The Old Lady and the Haystack — Driving Nails in One’s Own Coffin — The Green-eyed, Fiery-tongued Serpent — Robbing Birds’ Nests — Suspended in Mid-air — A Frightful Position — Only a Single Strand Between Life and Death — A Thrilling Incident — Narrow Escape — My Frolic with a Child — A Boy Again — The Drunken Loafer — Look on this Picture, then on That — Youth and Old Age Side by Side — A Picture for Young Men — Past, Present, and Future — A Physician’s Story — A Pathetic Incident — Alone — A Night in the Cold and Dark — A Little Girl’s Sad Story—The Old Lady’s Feelings — “A Certain-sort-of-Goneness” — Nearer and Nearer to the End — A Stained Record — Life is What You Choose to Make it — “ Where Are Those Dogs Going ?” — Treasures Laid up Above — Life’s Battlefield — Honorable Scars — A Disgraced Regiment Winning Back its Colors — Honor Retrieved.226 CHAPTER X. PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE —THE PATHOS OF LIFE — CHILDREN BORN TO SIN AND SORROW. Tell-tale Scars — A Modern Life of Moses — Underrating the Capacity of Children — A Boy’s Idea of How Flies are Made — “ Putting on ’em To¬ gether, and a-Fitting of ’em”—Saving Half Fare — “Only Ten, in the Cars ” — A New Way to Sign the Pledge — A Father who Would not he CONTENTS. XIX Outdone by His Boy — A True Incident — What the Jug Contained — Value of Children’s Aid — An Incident from My Own Experience — Cries of Distress —A Peep Over the Fence—A Triumphal Procession — What a Temperance Boy Accomplished — An Army Officer’s Story — Charity Children — A Tour Through a Tenement House — What was Discovered Under the Kafters — A Dying Little Waif—Hiding from Father — Friendless and Motherless — An Affecting Scene — The Dying Boy’s Hymn — Death in a Garret — Best at Last — How a Minister Argued the Points — Convinced — God Bless the Children.239 CHAPTER XI. MY POSITION DEFINED — BEASON AND BEVELATION — THE CUBTAIN LIFTED —TALES OF THE FALLEN. A Titled Toll-Man — Learning versus Common Sense — Our Standpoint — An Actor with a Proud Becord — Incidents of my First Visit to Califor¬ nia — “ Help Me Out of This Hell ” — A Cry of Agony— “ Drink’s My Curse”—Lifting the Curtain — Secrets of the Charnel House — My Inter¬ view with a Physician — “ It’s No Use, I’m a Lost Laddie, Good-by ” — A Clergyman’s Sad Downfall — Employed as a Hostler in a Stable — “You Know Who I Am, go Away from Me” — “Lost! Lost! LOST!” — An Explorer’s Testimony — An Interesting Narrative — A Campaign Full of Hardship and Danger — Soldiers Without Grog — What they Endured — Sir Henry Havelock’s Beport — Storming a Fortress after a March of Forty Miles — Sitting on a Hornet’s Nest — A Boy’s Com¬ position on a Pin — Stimulus not Strength.256 CHAPTER XII. WHO ABE THE VICTIMS ? — LIFE IN A BAB-BOOM — LIFE HISTOBIES TBACED IN TEABS AND WBITTEN IN BLOOD. The Next Morning after a Spree — Maddening Thirst — A Visit to a Gin Shop — Scenes Inside — Victims at the Bar—Horrible Wrecks and Bloated Sots — The Suicide’s Death-bed — Dreadful Scenes — The Billing Passion Strong in Death — “Mary! Mary! I have Signed the Pledge” — The Sailor’s Speech — A Bealistic Dream — Life Histories Traced in Tears and Written in Blood — Women who Drink in Low Life — Fearful Degra¬ dation — The Dead Mother and Her Babe — The Negro Jury’s Bidiculous Verdict — Women who Drink in High Life — A Sad Story — An Awful Death — An Audience of Drunkards— James McCurrey—Inviting a Sot to Sleep in his House — Burning the Bed Clothes next Day — Noble Act of a Noble Man — What Followed— The Prize Fighter’s Story — Saved by Kindness — The History of a Grog-shop Fiddler — The Shipwreck — Man the Lifeboat!.270 2 XX CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIII. CURIOSITY —STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPHS OF MEN OF GENIUS — STORIES OF INQUISITIVE AND MEDDLESOME PEOPLE. Curiosity; What Is It? — What it Has Led To — Utilizing Steam — Thrown into a Madhouse — “I am not Mad” — Left to Die — The Kilsby Tunnel — Hidden Quicksand — Solving the Problem — Stephenson’s Stupendous Undertaking — The Electric Telegraph — Early Struggles of Prof. Samuel Morse — Gloomy Prospects — Help at Last — Unknown Heroes —Pick¬ wick and the Cabman — A Very Ancient Horse — An Inquisitive Com¬ panion— Judging from Appearances — “What Will Y r ou Give?” — A Printer’s Self-Denial for His Little Blind Sister — A Noble Act — The Miser of Marseilles — His Will — Why He Hoarded His Gains — An Inci¬ dent in a Sleeping Car — A Bachelor’s Experience — Taking Care of the Baby—Shakespeare’s Skull — Story of the Philosopher and the Calf’s Tail — Things We Do Not Know — Queer Reasons — “ Who Made You ? ” — Five Pounds of “Ditto” — Wonderful Scientific Facts . . . 290 CHAPTER XIV. THE RUGGED ROAD TO SUCCESS — HEROES AND HEROISM IN HUMBLE LIFE — THRILLING INCIDENTS AND STORIES. Patience and Perseverance Necessary to Success — The Man who First Thought of the Steamboat—“Poor Fellow; He’s Crazy Y"et” — His Last Request — A Nobleman’s Foolish Boast — Eating the Boiler of a Steamboat — Among the Cornwall Miners — A Thrilling Incident — Touching off a Blast at the Bottom of a Deep Shaft — A Moment of Ter¬ rible Suspense— “Up with Yel I’ll be in Heaven in a Minute” —An Act of Noble Self-sacrifice — A Hero in Humble Life — The Explosion — Descending the Shaft — A Champagne Factory in New Jersey—Stepping into the Slush — Burnt Boots—A Hard Fight — Fable of the Cat and the Wily Mouse — Getting the best of the Cat — A Humorous Story — The Old Couple who “Swore off” — “Well, I will if you will” — A Meal of Toasted Cheese—Building the Temple.308 CHAPTER XY. GOSPEL TEMPERANCE — ILLUSTRATIVE INCIDENTS AND STORIES — LEAVES FROM MY OWN EXPERIENCE. Why I Do Not Preach the Gospel —The Meanest Man I Ever Knew — The Grace of God — My Belief — Found Dead — The Frenchman and the City Missionary — An Honest Opinion—An Emphatic Statement—“Bosh” — Drinking First and Finding an Excuse Afterwards — A Clergyman’s CONTENTS. XXl Story— “ I Take it as a Medicine” —A Dandy’s Worthless Advice — A Negro’s Practical Help — Power of Man’s Will — My Horror of Drunken¬ ness— Terrible Dreams—“It Tasted Good”—My Idea of Sin — Want of Cordiality in Our Churches— Chilly Reception to Strangers— My Own Experience — Painful Truths — A Novel Way of Getting Acquainted — Looking Back Thirty Years — A Good Story— Betty and the Bear — The Husband’s Sudden Retreat to the Rafters — A Plucky Wife — “ Take Him on the Other Side, Betty! ” — “We” Have Done Gloriously . . 323 CHAPTER XVI. SLIPPERY PLACES—TRAPS FOR THE UNWARY — PATHETIC SCENES AND INCIDENTS — HOME SHADOWS. Alsopp’s Brewery—An Incident of My Visit to Old Virginia — Firm Con¬ victions— Ridiculous Arguments of Women — Extracts From Letters I Have Received — When Does Drinking Become a Sm ? — How a Church Member Behaved at One of My Lectures — Moderate Drinking — How the Church Regards It — A Quaker’s Advice to His Son — How Not to Get Drunk — The Power of Will — The Fakir of India — Cries of De¬ spair — The Curse of the World — The Little Cripple — A Pitiable Sight— Dreadful Afflictions — “I Am So Tired”—Pathetic Incidents — A Father’s Prayer — Touching Home Scenes — “ Hush ! Hush ! Hush !” — Dealing With Facts — A Father’s Sad Story — A Terrible Scene — The Power of Appetite — A Minister’s Experience—A Night of Agony — Wrestling with the Destroyer — An Awful Fight—Onward, Upward, Victory.342 CHAPTER XVII.. p. WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE? —WAIFS AND STRAYS OF CITY STREETS —LIFE IN RAGGED HOMES —HOMELESS CHILDREN. Boys of the Street — Danger of Chaffing Them — Can They Be Rescued?— A Scene I Once Witnessed — Training-Schools of Crime —Life Below the Surface — A City Slum — Dens of Iniquity and Vice — Filth and Squalor on Every Side — Herding Together Like Animals — My New Pair of Boots — Trying Them to See How They Fit — I Am Assailed by Swarms of Boys —“Boots ! Boots !”—Pelted with Potatoes and Carrots —My Ignominious Flight — The Boys and the Pumpkin Seeds — An Anxious Farmer—An Extraordinary Story of Crime — Appalling Facts—An Affecting Story of Hospital Life —Two Little Invalids — One Crushed, the Other Starved — “ Bobby, Did You Ever Hear of Jesus ?” — Propping Up the Sick Boy’s Arm — Dead; His Little Hand Held Up for Jesus — A Street Scene in London — The Claims of Humanity — The Burning Ship — A Noble Act — True Heroism.358 XXII CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVIII. NOW AND THEN ; OR, PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE — PER¬ SONAL EXPERIENCES AND REMINISCENCES. Past, Present, and Future — Wliat We Owe to the Past — Our First Century — One Hundred Years Ago — A Bundle of Stamps — Exciting Times — A Memorable Snow-ball Fight — Discovering Tea in Her Hus¬ band’s Shoes — “ Disperse, Ye Rebels ” — Determined Patriots — “ Who Is That Person?” — “Will He Fight?”—Antony Burns, the Fugitive Slave — How He Was Marched Through the Streets of Boston — Wonder¬ ful Progress— Fifty Years Ago — Grand Achievements — How We Printed When I Was a Boy — The Light of Other Days — Travelling in the Olden Time — Personal Experiences — Three Miles an Hour—“I Must Take a Pill” —My Ride on the First Railroad Built in America — The Electric Telegraph — Reminiscences of My Boyhood — The Tele¬ phone— The “ Fire Cart” —An Old Couple’s Idea of Telegraphing — A Negro’s Description — The “ Puir Whales ” — Jonathan Hull — “ I’m the Nineteenth Century ”.377 CHAPTER XIX. DANGER SIGNALS.—NOTES OF WARNING FROM EARLIER DAYS AND SCENES —RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PAST. Lamentable Ignorance — Thin-skinned People —How Some of Them Show Their Indignation — Proving a Man a Liar — Gentility is Not Always Respectability — Clothes Do Not Always Proclaim the Man — “A Man’s a Man for a’ That ” — The Curtain Lifted — A Peep Behind the Scenes — Personal Recollections — My First Address in Boston — Recalling My Theatrical Days — Companions of My Youth — Tragic Deaths — Fate of Some of My Comrades — An Incident in Glasgow — A Dastardly Act — Terrible Consequences That Followed — Found Dead Among the Rushes— My Visit to the Indianapolis Lunatic Asylum — Raving of Devils. Snakes, and Creeping Things — “Oh! How They Glare at Me!” — “They Creep! They Crawl!”—Awful Scenes — Graphic Pen Picture of a Toper — The Devil’s Workshop — Satan’s Abode—Calling His Satellites Around Him—Alcohol, the Right Hand of the Devil — An Uncom¬ promising Fight ..390 CHAPTER XX. WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR? —LIFE IN THE BACK STREETS OF NEW YORK—VOICES FROM THE SLUMS. Fast Young Men — Seeing a Little of Life — A Sea Captain’s Story — What One Glass of Rum Did—A Young Man’s Story — A Son’s Hand Stained CONTENTS. xx iii with Blood !— “Out, Damned Spot ” — What is a True Gentleman ? —A Letter Carrier’s Story—Calling Her Neighbor a “Hindewidual”—“I Ups with a Pail of Water,” etc. — Leaders of Society—Women Who Fol¬ low Them— John Pounds, the Portsmouth Cobbler — Noble Women — Clara Barton’s Self-sacrifice and Heroism — The Iron Cross of Germany — The “Old Brewery” in New York — Murderers’ Alley—What a Police¬ man Told Me —A Dreadful Locality — Human Fiends—Stripping a Corpse and Selling the Grave Clothes — Raising the Money to Buy the Place —A Memorable Meeting — A Street Scene in New York —Little Mary Morrison— God Speed the Right.407 CHAPTER XXL WILL IT PAY? —LIFE’S OPPORTUNITIES — GROTESQUE SCENES AND AMUSING STORIES —ON THE BRINK. Men Who Cannot Understand a Joke— “ The Little Chap That Told Me To Holler ’ ’ — First-class Stupidity — ‘ ‘ Comfortably ” Full — The Stingy Drinker — Drink’s Direful Work—Breaking a Mother’s Heart — Scenes in a Lunatic Asylum — Raving Idiots — A Tipsy Lover— A Visit to the Pig-sty — An Unlooked-for Catastrophe — Another Pig in the Pen — “I Am as Good as Any of You” —Fighting the Pump — An Unceremonious Tip-over — The Tipsy Students — Decidedly Muddled — Kicking Each Other Out of Bed—A Grotesque Scene — The Indian and His Fire¬ water— “Only This Once” — A Clergyman’s Downfall — A Wife’s Story — In Jail—Reminiscences of Forty Years Ago — An Appeal to Young Men — Coach Driving in California — A Death-bed Scene — “I Can’t Find the Brake ” — Sowing Wild Oats.423 CHAPTER XXJI. OUR DUTY TO THE FALLEN — BRANDS PLUCKED FROM THE BURNING —STORY OF THE WICKEDEST MAN IN NEW YORK. An Incident of the War—Clean Linen First, Religion Afterwards—Work Among the Poor and Depraved — Dens of Vice — Bread Before Tracts — Speaking to an Audience of Eight Hundred Outcasts — The Wickedest Man in New York —Story of Orville Gardiner—A Mother’s Love for a Wayward Son — A. Thrilling Experience — A Nine Hours’ Fight with a Jug of Whisky — A Thoroughly Reformed Gambler and Prize-fighter — Tempted at Communion Service — Cutting it Off “as Square as a Piece of Cheese”—Daily Trials — Trusting in God — My Boyish Dislike of Attending Church — Incident of a Lecture Tour in Ohio — Sad Down¬ fall of a Once Devoted Christian Woman — A Minister Drunk in His Own Pulpit — Scene at One of My Lectures — Selling the Last Blanket for Rum — Death and Desolation — The Breach in the Dike — A Thrilling Story of Holland Life.441 XXIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXIII. MEN AND METHODS, MANNERS AND MORALS OF OUR OWN TIMES — ILLUSTRATIVE ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS. Reflection — Aping Extravagance — Beginning Life Where Their Fathers Left Off — Odd Reasons for Getting Married — Butterflies of Fashion — Old Aunt Cliloe — “ Tie ’Em Together ” — The Husband Who Proclaimed Himself “a Regular Julius Ciesar”—What His Wife Thought About It—“Who Keeps This House?”—How the Question Was Settled — Family Jars — “Will the Sheriff Sell Me?”—Power of Money — Spoils of Office — “Grandpa, Have a Weed?” — Old-time Politeness — Dif¬ ference Between “ Then” and “Now” — “I Knocks My Boys Down and They Ain’t Good” — Influence of Example — A Father’s Cruel Act — “Do It Again, Papa”—Henry Clay and the Farmer — John on His Knees — The Ship Captain and the Sailor — Past and Present — Elisha Kent Kane — A Remarkable Career—One of Sin’s Victims—A Dark Picture — Broken Hopes and Buried Aspirations — The Alabaster Box.461 CHAPTER XXIV. FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS — LESSONS DRAWN FROM LIFE — HUMAN WRECKS — ILLUSTRATIVE STORIES AND FACTS. Death’s Harvest Field — The Fatal Sliding Scale—What I Saw in a Railway Carriage — A Terrible Spectacle — Father, Mother, and Child Intoxi¬ cated — A Mother’s Story — The Rapids at Niagara Falls — Fascination of Danger—A Terrible Tragedy — “Stand Back! Stand Back!”—The Fatal Plunge — Story of the Poor Emigrant Woman — A Mother’s Love — “Fire!” — “Make Way There. Police!”—Temptations of a Great City — An Incident of Chicago Life — Return of the Prodigal Son — A Scene in a London Cellar — A City Missionary’s Story — Horace Greeley — We Visit Senator McConnell — His Wretched Appearance — Tender Re¬ gard for His Wife — A Precious Memento—“Give Up the Drink? Never!” — His Awful Death — A Two-bottle Man — The Old Scotch Bailie ! — Fire-side Thoughts — Captain Creighton and the Ship “Three Bells ” — Terrible Suspense — Great Rejoicing.478 CHAPTER XXV. POWER OF EXAMPLE —LIFE IN A GREAT CITY —STORY OF DRUNKEN JAKE —SCENES IN MY EARLIER DAYS. “Don’t Believe It” — Incredulous People — Street Children—Little Crea¬ tures in Tatters and Filth — The Mouth of Hell — “I Have a Terrible CONTENTS. XXV Bunch on My Side ” — Fool’s Pence — A Good Story — “ Dip Your Scone in Your Own Gravy ” — A Tough Audience — A Leaf from My Experience in Connecticut — A Marvellously Interesting Story — Thrilling Scenes — Bribing Drunken Jake to Disturb the Meeting — An Unexpected Result — A Happy Day — Personal Experience in Vermont—Another Tough Audience — Willing Hands and Hearts — My Proposition to Twenty-seven Ladies — “ Hark ! There Is the Bell ! ” — Remarkable Scenes — Interest¬ ing Reminiscences — My Experience in Cincinnati — P. T. Barnum and Jenny Lind — Mr. Barnum Offers Five Thousand Dollars for the Use of a Church — Why His Offer Was Declined — “ Look ! The Prairie Is on Fire ! ” —Faith in God.496 CHAPTER XXYI. THE GREAT CONFLICT IN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND —THE DESTROYER’S MARCH —PERSONAL WORK AND EXPERIENCES. The Temperance Cause in England — Mr. Spurgeon’s Opinion — Alarming Increase of Dram-shops — London — Different Classes of Society — Grave Apprehensions for the Future — The Tide of Evil — Drinking Among Women — Fighting the Demon of Intemperance — My Labors in Eng¬ land— The Hardest Work of Thirty Years — Powerful Champions — Hoxton Hall — Its Former Vile Reputation — Touching Scenes — Imi¬ tating Jerry McAuley’s Mission — Work Among the Ragged and Wretched — Rational Enjoyment for the Homeless — Edinburgh — A Total Abstinence Club-room — A Drunken Teetotaller — Seeking Safety — Testimony of Eminent Physicians — A Remarkable Incident — Recollec¬ tions of the Past — A Leaf from My Own Experience — An Awful Struggle — Rev. C. H. Spurgeon — How I Became Acquainted with Him — Mrs. Spurgeon—A Noble Woman — Disobeying the Doctor — Mr. Spurgeon’s Substitute for Beer.578 CHAPTER XXVII. POWER OF WOMAN’S INFLUENCE — SOCIAL CUSTOMS THAT LEAD TO RUIN —MEMORABLE INCIDENTS IN MY CAREER. Woman’s Power and Influence — A True Incident —How Joe Was Induced to Sign the Pledge —One Year Afterwards —A Romantic Story —An Intemperate Lover — A Romance from Real Life — A Telling Crusade Against a Dram-shop —A Well-Planned Campaign —An Astonished Rumseller— “ Worse Than it Was Yesterday” — Deciding Who Was the Head of the House—A Memorable Incident in My Career — Twenty Years After — Young Girls Who Drink — The Downward Path — A Lover Tempted by His Affianced — The Shaft of Ridicule — The Fall — Tempter and Tempted — Found Dead — Social Customs That Lead to Ruin — Unwelcome Guests — Incidents of My Work in Cincinnati — A XXVI CONTENTS. Shower of One Hundred and Forty-three Autograph Albums—Writing the Pledge in Each One — What Followed — A Flood of Eight Hun¬ dred Albums— Story of the Colored Preacher — Jumping Through a Wall.528 CHAPTER XXVIII. RANDOM THOUGHTS — STORIES AND SKETCHES FROM BOTH SIDES OF LIFE — GLEANINGS OF A LEISURE HOUR. Religion in Everyday Life — Silent Influence — The Sentry of Pompeii — Faithful Unto Death — Origin of the Term “Teetotal”—Dickey Turner — Death Before Bondage — Trading in Human Lives — The Auction-block — A Strong Man’s Agony — Clinging to Respectability — The Traveller and His Gold — Seeking Shelter — The Pioneer’s Hut — An Hour of Fear and Trembling — “It’s Time to Go to Bed ” — A Re¬ markable Incident — Anecdote of a Poor Negro — “Come, Cato, Get Up”—A Thrilling Incident — A Disabled Steamer — Drifting Toward the Shore — Power of Christian Example — A Ship in Distress — The Alarm Gun — Launching the Lifeboat— “I Will Go ; Who Will Follow Me ” — Pulling for Life — Saved at Last — The Moderate Drinker — The Negro and His Potato Patch — A Disastrous Invasion — Old Tom’s Pigs — “ Pay De Damage ” — “ Daddy Moses ” — Imparting Strength to Others.548 CHAPTER XXIX. MODERATION —THE CUP OF DEATH —THE HUMOROUS SIDE OF DRUNKENNESS — THE DARK SIDE. A Minister’s Dangerous Advice — Men Who “Can’t Stand It”—Story of the Church Member Who Went After a Load of Wood — Taking a “ Nip ” to Keep Out the Cold — Another “Nip” — A Ludicrous Tableau — Listening to an Account of a Surgical Operation — I Am Compelled to Leave the Room—An Actor’s Foolish Wish—“ Cuttings-up ” — A Story for the Benefit of Young Women — An Unwilling Bride¬ groom — The Humorous Side of Drunkenness — Ludicrous Incidents — “Toodles” — “That’s the Way I Always Come Down Stairs” — Anecdote of Bishop Clarke — The Man Who Swallowed the Spool of Silk —“Wife! Wife! I’m All Unravelling” —A Good Story — An Exceedingly Comical Situation — The Dark Side — A Bridegroom Sentenced to be Hanged — What Rum Did.562 CONTENTS. xxvii CHAPTER XXX. THE REASON WHY —THE FIRST GLASS — RECOLLECTIONS OF MY FATHER —HUMOROUS STORIES. Standpoint — Opposition We Meet — An Obliging Blacksmith — My Respect for Other People’s^ Opinions — Power of Truth — What Makes Public Sentiment— Our Duty — A Funny Story as Told by Bishop Clark — A Disputed Question in Astronomy — A Laughable Incident — An Unnatural Appetite — The Struggle of a Lifetime — Why I Am Polite to Dogs — Giving the Curs a Wide Berth — My Dread of Hydro¬ phobia — What Rev. E. IT. Chapin Said — Terrible Results of the First Glass —A Graphic Picture — Recollections of My Father — His Habit of Moderate Drinking — His Death at Ninety-four — Advice to Moderate Drinkers — An Infamous Example — The Man at the Top of the Church Spire — A Dangerous Position — “O Sandy, I’m having an AwfA Tumble”—Talking to a Plug of Tobacco — A Physician’s Story — Air Inveterate Smoker — Smoked to Death.. 582 CHAPTER XXXI. AGENTS OF THE DEYIL — HOW LIQUOR-SELLERS MAKE PAUPERS, FEED JAILS, AND INCITE CRIME. A Truthful Sign-board—Specimens of the Rumseller’s Work — A Remi¬ niscence of Other Days — A Pitiable Spectacle — Placing a Drunkard on Exhibition at a Fair — Fruit of the Dram-Shop — Protecting the Rum- seller — Fearful Responsibility — Remarkable Offer of P. T. Barnum — Stubborn Facts — Startling Figures — Sad Results — Haunts of Vice — Where Criminals and Paupers Come From — Hot-beds of Crime — A Sug¬ gestive Incident — Empty Jails — Terrible Scenes — Newgate Prison — A Pocket With a Hole in It — An Incident of London Life — Sunday Scene at the Seven Dials — Watching the Door of “The Grapes” — A Wretched Crowd — Disgraceful Scenes — A Terrible Threat Against My Life — Amusing Incident — Recalling My Dark Days — A Faithful Wife — “John, Don’t be Soft” — Incident of the Great Coal Strike — Howto Blot Out the Curse...597 CHAPTER XXXII. ANNIHILATION OUR WAR CRY —FRUIT OF THE DRAM-SHOP —l BRUTES IN HUMAN FORM —THE DAWN OF DAY. / My First View of Niagara Falls — “ Back ! Back for your Lives ” — Receiv¬ ing His Just Deserts — Moral Suasion — A Poor Woman’s Story—/A Brute in Human Form — A Mother’s Plea — “For God’s Sake Spare CONTEXTS. xxviii My Child ! ” — The Lowest of the Low — Your Money and Your Life — A Mother’s Grief — A Tour of Observation after Dark — Wliat I Saw — Dreadful Scenes in a Whiskey Shop — Pettyfogging Shysters — Blood- money — Trial by Jury — “ Did You Smell It ?” — The Patient Old Man and His Hay — A Young Man’s Story — A Thrilling Incident — Carrying Home the Dead Body of His Father—Temperance Bitters — The Jury and the Stolen Bacon — A Foregone Conclusion — A Corrupt Judge — Retributive Justice — “A Bit of Bread, Please, for I’m Hungry” — Pull¬ ing a Tooth by Degrees — An Astonished Partner — Steps in the Right Direction.617 SOUTH VIEW OF MR. GOUGH’S RESIDENCE. HE story of tlie life and work of John B. Gough is the story of the progress of the tem¬ perance reformation for over forty years. I propose in these pages to give the essen¬ tial facts in the history of that reformation, a movement as influential in its bearing on the welfare of the human race as any in the long campaign between light and darkness, good and evil; the essential facts, too, in the story of that life, a life dramatic in its experiences, and striking in its contrasts of sunlight and shadow, more so than is often to be seen on life’s stage, whose tragedy and comedy tread so closely on each other’s heels. * It is proper to state here, to guard against any possible misapprehen¬ sion, that I was requested by the publishers to prepare this introduction ; that I had no consultation with Mr. Gough respecting its character or con¬ tents, and derived no information from him in its preparation, though, dur¬ ing his absence from home, I had access in his library to his records and scrap-books ; that all the matters herein described are matters of public rec¬ ord, chiefly, however, scattered through newspapers and periodical publica¬ tions during the past forty years ; that while some parts of the history here told have never been connectedly told before, the authority for it has all been before the public, and is matter of public record. 29 30 PLATFORM ECHOES. Prior to the seventeenth century drunkenness did not differ essentially, as a vice, from gluttony. One was excess in drinking; the other was excess in eating. It is true that alcohol intoxicates; and that alcohol, in distinctly appre¬ ciable quantities, exists in all fermented juice of the fruits of the earth. But it is also true that intoxication produced by fermented liquors is a distinctly different phenomenon from intoxication produced by distilled liquors. Drunkenness, in the worst of Roman debauches, did not produce the madden¬ ing influences produced in our own time by strong drink. Drunkenness, as a vice, has existed ever since the days when the sons of Noah endeavored to hide the shame of their father’s nakedness. But the epoch of drunkenness as an epidemic dates from the close of the seventeenth century. It was in that century that the dangerous and deadly art of distillation came into use. By this process the alcohol is separated from the product in which nature has evolved it. • It can be easily converted into an attractive if not a pala¬ table drink. This strong drink is a dangerous and even a deadly poison. Used at first as a specific for the plague, it speedily came into general use as a medicine, then as a stimu¬ lant and beverage. The downward history of many an indi¬ vidual repeats the downward history of the European races, especially in the North. Lecky, in his history of the eigh¬ teenth century, gives a fearful picture of the extent to which the habit of drinking and the vice of drunkenness had taken hold of all classes of society in England. The medicine originally prescribed for the plague had proved worse than the disease. Hard drinking had become a national habit. It pervaded all classes from the highest to the lowest. Addison, the foremost moralist of his time, was not free from it. Ox¬ ford, whose private character was in most respects singularly high, is said to have frequently come intoxicated into the very presence of the Queen. Bolingbroke, when in office, sat up whole nights drinking, and in the morning, having bound a wet napkin around his forehead and his eyes, to drive away the effects of his intemperance, hastened without sleep to his official business. When Walpole was a young INTRODUCTION. 31 man his father was accustomed to pour into his glass a double portion of wine, saying, “ Come, Robert, you shall drink twice while I drink once; for I will not permit the son, in his sober senses, to be witness to the intoxication of his father.” The fashion set by the high was quickly followed by the low. In half a century the quantity of distilled liquors sold rose from 527,000 to over 5,000,000 gallons. “Retailers of gin were accustomed to hang out painted boards announcing that their customers could be made drunk for a penny, and dead drunk for twopence, and should have straw for nothing ; and cellars strewn with straw were accordingly provided, into which those who had become insensible were dragged, and where they remained till they had sufficiently recovered to renew their orgies.” A law imposing a heavy tax on the sale of liquor was resisted by violent riots and evaded by clandestine sales. The drinking habits imported originally from Holland into England were imported thence, or directly from its birth-place, to this coun¬ try. Drinking was universal; drunkenness was no crime, hardly a social vice. In New England all the stores kept New England rum, and it was the custom to give a drink to any trader who drove a considerable trade. Strong drink was universally provided, not only at all entertainments, but on all special occasions — house-warmings, hay-makings, and the like. Both in England and America drunkenness was regarded as an amiable weakness, or a good joke ; the current opinion respecting it is faithfully represented in Charles Dickens’s “ Pickwick Papers,” published in 1835-36, and read in all circles of society without a protest. The church did little to rebuke the drunkenness, and did much to en¬ courage the drinking customs of society. At ordinations and dedications it was not unusual for the church to provide for its guests, out of the church treasury, not only wines and beer, but whiskey, gin, and rum. It was as customary for the host on such occasions then to provide alcoholic drinks, as it would be now for him to provide tea and coffee. Dr. Lyman Beecher thus describes the scene, evidently not an unusual one: — 32 PLATFORM ECHOES. “At the ordination at Plymouth, the preparation for our creature com¬ forts, in the sitting-room of Mr. Heart’s house, besides food, was a broad sideboard covered with decanters, and bottles, and sugar, and pitchers of water. There we found all the various kinds of liquors then in vogue. The drinking was apparently universal. This preparation was made by the Society as a matter of course. When the Consociation arrived, they always took something to drink round; also before public services, and always on their return. As they could not all drink at once, they were obliged to stand and wait as people do when they go to mill. “ There was a decanter of spirits also on the dinner-table, to help diges¬ tion, and gentlemen partook of it through the afternoon and evening as they felt the need, some more, some less; and the sideboard, with the spilling of w T ater, and sugar, and liquor, looked and smelled like the bar of a very active grog-shop. None of the Consociation were drunk; but that there was not, at times, a considerable amount of exhilaration, I cannot affirm.” * From a very early period isolated attempts were made to regulate or to restrain these drinking habits. In 1676 a new constitution of Virginia contained a clause prohibiting the sale of wines and ardent spirits. In 1777 Congress passed a resolution recommending the several legislatures to “ pass laws the most effective for putting an immediate stop to the pernicious practice of distilling grain.” In 1789 a tem¬ perance society was formed in Litchfield, Conn., to discuss the use of spirituous liquors. Resolutions of total absti¬ nence were passed a few years later by the Quarterly Metho¬ dist Episcopal Conference of Virginia and the Presbyterian Synod of Pennsylvania. But these spasmodic and local movements accomplished only temporary and local results. At the close of the first quarter of the present century, though there were some temperance reformers, there was no movement in either England or the United States sufficiently general to be worthy of being called a temperance reforma¬ tion. Such a movement never has a single source. Like a mighty river, it rises from half a score of springs, and is augmented in its flow by many more. One of the springs of the temperance movement in this country was furnished by Dr. Lyman Beecher’s famous Six Sermons on Intemperance, * Lyman Beecher’s autobiography, vol. i. chap, xxxvii. Compare “ History of the Temperance Movement,” by Rev. J. B. Dunn, D.D., in the “Centennial Temperance Volume,” pp. 428, 429. INTRODUCTION. 33 in 1825. The impulse was furnished by a sad but not un¬ common case ; the father and husband of a Christian woman in a neighborhood where he preached became victims of the drink. The sermons were preached in his country parish at Litchfield, Conn. But the intense excitement which they aroused was not confined to the neighborhood. They were printed. Other ministers took up the theme. The con¬ science of New England was fired. Whiskey and rum were banished, first from the sideboard on ordination occasions, then from the minister’s tables altogether. In fifteen years nineteen twentieths of the clergy of New England were habitual if not total abstainers. The ministers of New England were at that time the leaders of society. Total abstinence became socially respected. Drunkenness became recognized as a vice. Wine, beer, ale, and cider still re¬ mained common table drinks; but New England rum and Irish whiskey gradually disappeared, first from the side¬ board, then from the table, little by little from the closet. In ten years the consumption of strong drink had been decreased more than one half per capita. The population had increased forty per cent; the amount of strong drink consumed had decreased forty per cent. The temperance movement had begun ; — where the great reforms have gen¬ erally begun, in the church of Christ. Life is never spontaneous. That axiom is as true in morals as in physics. The life that seems to spring uncaused in flower from the soil, or in animalculse in the water, has been brought to its birth by wing or wind. The air is full of the seeds of life ; they drop unseen, germinate, grow. The Washingtonian movement did not spring, spontaneous, from a tavern. Temperance sentiment was in the air; Christian society was full of it; the seed was carried by some invisible minister of grace and goodness and dropped in the un¬ promising soil. The growth was marvellous, miraculous. A drinking club was wont to meet at Chase’s tavern in the city of Baltimore. They appointed, probably in jest, two of the number to go and hear a temperance lecturer —Rev. Matthew Hale Smith — in one of the churches, and return and report. 84 PLATFORM ECHOES. On this report a hot debate ensued. It waxed hotter and hotter. The interference of the landlord added fuel to the flames. Six of the club formed on the spot a total absti¬ nence society. They gave it the name of the Washingtonian Total Abstinence Society.. We cannot learn that there was any special reason for the adoption of the name Washing¬ tonian. Washington was a good name, and lent a certain respectability to the organization. The date was April, 1840. A drinking tavern was a strange manger for such a child to be cradled in; but life is full of such dramatic episodes. The six separated, agreeing to meet the next night in a carpenter’s shop ; each member pledged himself to bring another member. Then began the actual realization of Edward Everett Hale’s dream of “ Ten Times One is Ten.” If the upper classes had felt the disgrace, the lower classes had felt the bondage of the drink. The drinkers became apostles of emancipation. Washingtonian societies were multiplied. Early the movement was joined by a re¬ formed drunkard by the name of John H. W. Hawkins. For eighteen years he carried on an itinerant ministry of reform, speaking to mixed audiences, but largely, if not chiefly, to drinkers, temperate or intemperate. Other and less notable apostles of the temperance movement sprang up to follow in his footsteps and imitate his example. Temper¬ ance newspapers were organized; most of them have proved ephemeral publications ; but they served their purpose while they lived; not always wisely, as we shall see, not always unselfishly; but when was ever any great movement for a reformation of the world, from the days of the Apostles down, free from folly and from selfishness? Washingtonian socie¬ ties have now gone out of existence. If one exists it must be rather as an anachronistic curiosity than as a living force. The Washingtonian methods are no longer in vogue to any considerable extent among temperance workers. The era of universal pledge-taking has passed; it can hardly be expected to return. The custom of considering a drunken life and a resolution of reform sufficient guarantee of good conduct to put the as yet hardly steadied inebriate into cultured society, INTRODUCTION. 85 not to learn but to teach, on the platform and even in the pulpit, can only be defended on the ground that a desperate disease justifies desperate remedies. The fatal weakness of the Washingtonian movement was its false assumption that every one who wishes to break off his drinking habits can do so. It ignored the fact, attested by experience and con¬ firmed both by pathology and moral science, that one of the worst effects of the drink is an enervation and destruction of the will power. It was a call to men swept by on the current to swim for their lives, and it counted every man saved who attempted to swim. It measured its work by the number of the pledges it administered. It proclaimed Boston reformed because 44 four fifths of all the Boston drunkards had signed the pledge.” Born in a tavern, and apostled by reformed drunkards, it possessed, as a movement, neither the wisdom of philosophy nor the steadiness of religion. But it possessed, what was for that epoch a more valuable quality than either wisdom or steadiness, enthusiasm. It was dead in earnest. Its earnestness was that of newly emancipated men who had known in their own experience the horrors of the drink bondage. It furnished not instruction, but arous¬ ing; and arousing was what the community then needed. It was a crying in the night of Fire ! Fire ! Wisdom and religion, who had been busy with other problems, heard the cry, woke up to the awful conflagration, and set themselves to work — quite too calmly and leisurely — to devise means to put out the flames; or, quite as likely, to criticise the means which others, more alive to the present danger, were employing. It is not for us now to go back to the methods of the Washingtonians; but we owe an incalculable debt of gratitude to them for sounding the alarm. If the Washingtonian movement had done the world no other service, the world would owe it a large debt for giving us John B. Gough. John B. Gough was born Aug. 22, 1817, at Sandgate in the county of Kent, England. His mother was a woman of tenderness and piety. His father was a discharged soldier on a pension; a man of unbending integrity, but of severity 3 36 PLATFORM ECHOES. of character, whose virtues were those of a “good soldier,’* wrought in a school of stern discipline. The family was in straitened circumstances; an English village in that day afforded much less facility than it does to-day for education to a boy so circumstanced, and the young lad’s education was of the simplest description. But he evidently took full advantage of such facilities as were given him. He became somewhat noted as a reader; he gives in his autobiography a pathetic story of the succor brought to a weary mother and an empty cupboard by his earning, or at least winning, five shillings and sixpence, nearly equal to a dollar and a half of our money, and equivalent to a great deal more, a gift to him by a gentleman who was pleased at his proficiency. Mimicry was a favorite diversion with him, and there must have been some native talent, for it diverted older friends as well as playmates of his own age. He practised writing to good purpose, too; there lies before me now a book containing his arithmetical exercises, done before he had reached his teens; the pages are beautiful specimens of penmanship, and are almost literally without a blot or an erasure. At twelve years of age he was apprenticed to a neighboring family about emigrating to America, who undertook to take him with them, teach him a trade, and provide for him till he was twenty-one. The issue was just what it usually is in such cases. The family taught him nothing; for two years he had no opportunity to go to either day school or Sunday school; he grew discontented; and in 1831 left the family, who had a farm in Oneida County, N. Y., and came to New York city to make or mar his own fortunes. He was in his fifteenth year. Two years later his mother and sister joined him. The story of their want and suffering it is needless for our purpose here to narrate. Mr. Gough has told it with terrible simplicity in his autobiography. It is a photograph of many a life; a tragic illustration of the declaration, “The poor ye have always with you.” The mother died, arid was buried in the Potter’s Field, without even a shroud or a burial service. The young man grew bitter and reckless. He alternated between his bookbinder’s trade and irregular INTRODUCTION. 37 employment in other directions. He spent a good share of his earnings in drink. At this time his dramatic talent opened a dangerous way for him upon the stage. He was a singer as well as an elocutionist; perhaps might have won a professional success; but he never gave himself to the stage with any settled purpose. An old programme of a concert in which he was evidently the “ star,” affords a fair illustration of his professional position. I venture to copy a part of it: — CONCERT AT AMESBUKY. Mr. M. G. Stanwood and Mr. C. Warren respectfully inform the ladies and gentlemen of Amesbury, that they will give a concert at Franklin Hall, this evening, March 22, for the purpose of introducing the Accordion into use, as it is thought by many to be an instrument that cannot be performed on. The performance will consist of some of the most popular music from the latest operas. Mr. John B. Gough, the celebrated singer from the New York and Boston theatres, will also appear in his most popular songs. The programme included five songs and three recitations by Mr. Gough. The tickets were twenty-five cents. He married; his sister had already married and was living in Providence — still her home. But marriage did nothing to mend either his ways or his fortunes ; drink had become an uncontrollable passion ; his wife and infant child died ; and he drank more deeply to drown his grief. When he had no money he earned his drink by telling facetious stories and singing comic songs to the crowd in the bar-room. More than once he meditated suicide; once almost accomplished It, but dashed the laudanum from his lips and lived on. He had one attack of delirium tremens. He had reached the bottom of the descending grade; he was without friends, or home, or hope. We shall not attempt to tell here the story of how he was rescued from this death in life by love. It is a familiar story, which Mr. Gough has often told. A stranger arrests him on the street by a touch and a word of kindness ; an invitation to sign the pledge arouses a despairing resolution; he re¬ solves and signs; he knows not when it is done whether to 88 PLATFORM ECHOES. be glad or sorry ; a second friend calls on him at his bench, bringing words of cheer and hope ; he battles with his appetite, a frightful battle but a victorious one; the tem¬ perance meetings take the place of the bar-room and the theatre; temperance friends take the place of the old cronies; in their respect he finds his own self-respect; he begins his new life. That he should have been at once invited to speak on temperance platforms was as natural then as it would be under similar circumstances unnatural now. The temper¬ ance meetings in those days were experience meetings. They were held in district school-houses, court-houses, or public halls. The churches were occasionally, but by no means very commonly, opened to them. Mr. Gough gives a humorous picture of one of his first experiences as a public speaker in a district school-house. He had not respectable clothes and was compelled to hide them beneath an old overcoat snugly buttoned up to the chin. The platform was close to a well-heated stove. The heat of the room, the active exertion of the speaker, and the warmth of the overcoat threatened to dissolve him. Tem¬ perate habits and a little money from friends or from school- house lectures enabled him before long to buy better apparel. Invitations to speak began to flow in upon him. He obtained leave of absence from his employers for a week or two, leaving a pile of unbound Bibles on his bench to be completed on his return. He never after returned to his bookbinder’s bench. Audiences increased; reputation increased. Wherever he went he made friends. Society opened its doors to him. Among his earliest auditors was a Miss Mary Whitcomb, daughter of a New England farmer, who had left home at eighteen and was alternately teaching and attending school when she met the young orator. She was charmed with him; he with her; on the 24th of Novem¬ ber, 1843, they were married. She brought him those stay¬ ing and steadying qualities — that strength of decision and that practical wisdom—which the impulsive, ardent, sensi¬ tive orator needed. She added tenacity to his earnestness INTRODUCTION. 39 What the world owes to Mr. Gough it partly knows; what it owes through him to Mrs. Gough it does not suspect. With marriage the old life faded gradually away; the new life dawned rapidly. Friends gathered about him; some merely to flatter; some really to love. Among the fastest and best of these friends was Deacon Moses Grant, of Dr. Lath- rop’s (Unitarian) church of Boston, who became an adviser and friendly manager for the young lecturer. Fie travelled through New England, visited New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Richmond. His popularity as an orator in¬ creased ; his fame widened. The story of the ovations given to him and the oratorical triumphs won by him it is no part of our purpose here to relate. These are the ephemeral facts in a noble and useful life; we are here concerned only with the work done and with the principles which underlie it. Mr. Gough’s popularity was partly a result of his prin¬ ciples. He introduced a new spirit and gradually new methods into the temperance reformation. Fie took no part in the not uncommon criticism of the churches. He early became a member of the Mount Vernon Church of Boston 5 —the Rev. Dr. Edward N. Kirk’s. He gradually lifted the temperance movement from a mere moral reform movement to a religious plane. Fie spoke in the vernacular of the com¬ mon people; but he did not shock the sensibilities of his audiences by vulgarities or their charity by denunciations. The chprches opened their doors to him. In New York city he spoke in fourteen different churches, representing several different denominations. At Yale and Princeton he was warmly welcomed by the students; in the latter college he was elected a member of one of the literary societies. His youth—he was about twenty-seven— his small stature, thin melancholy face, and bright eyes — which could and still can flash fire under excitement — won for him attention before he began to speak. His fluent language, his dramatic action, his intense and impassioned earnestness, his suppressed feel¬ ing, and the lightning-like rapidity with which he changed the moods of the audience with his own from the humorous >o the pathetic, took all audiences by storm. We draw this 40 PLATFORM ECHOES. picture wholly from contemporaneous newspapers, and give it almost in the words of the newspapers which describe him. His career from 1842 onward has been one of steadily increasing oratorical fame and popularity. But his life was by no means merely an ovation. It was yet more a battle. He had enemies without and worse enemies within. Once he broke his pledge. It was about five months after he had taken it. A physician prescribed medicine for him for an old illness. It contained ether and alcohol. It awoke the old appetite and he yielded to it. The lapse was not a serious one ; except as every lapse is serious. He re-signed the pledge, yielded to the counsels of his friends, and resumed his work. Two years and a half later he suffered a more terrible experience, which has been fully related in his autobiography. A stranger claimed acquaintance with Mr. Gough and invited him to take a glass of soda-water with him. The invitation was accepted. The soda-water was drugged, and Mr. Gough, in the state of semi-unconsciousness which resulted, was spirited away and kept from his friends and the public for several days. When at last found by his friends he was still suffering from the effects of the drug. The physician who was called to attend him pronounced the evidences of poisoning unmistakable. The facts were fully investigated by the church of which he was a member, and it was unanimously voted that they called for no church censure. The reputable press, at the time, almost without exception, expressed the same judgment. He had been drugged and abducted for a triple purpose, — partly robbery, partly blackmail, partly his overthrow as a temperance lecturer. The robbery was effected; the other two objects were not. This attempt to ruin Mr. Gough was somewhat more bold than any other which the drink traffic has ever made ; but it is by no means the only one. Traps were laid for him again and again. Generally he was wise enough to see them, or his friends were wise enough to forewarn him. His wife’s practical sagacity saved him more than once. On one occasion a bottle of liquor was sent to his room at a INTRODUCTION. 41 hotel by a hotel clerk. Fortunately, he was in, followed the waiter down stairs, denounced the clerk to his face, and received an apology. Once in a hotel office he heard a toper declare that Mr. Gough had drank with him ; he walked up to him, told him he lied, and compelled him to retract then and there. Once, early in his lecture experience, a restaurant keeper of Newburyport, — a church member, — circulated the report that Mr. Gough had come into his restaurant and called for and drank a glass of strong beer. Mr. Gough’s friends got wind of the story, got authority from Mr. Gough, went to the pious seller of beer, threatened him with prose¬ cution, and extorted from him in writing a most abject retraction. Of course a hundred such stories have been circulated to one that has been retracted. We shall meet with more of this sort of business, and worse, by-and-by. Opposition from the liquor-sellers was by no means, how¬ ever, the only opposition which Mr. Gough had to encounter. That furnished by jealous competitors in the temperance work was almost as bitter and much harder to bear. Men of some local celebrity were envious of his growing fame. They ac¬ cused him of mercenary motives. The average temperance lecturer received in those days for a lecture 82 or $3; sometimes as much as 85. Mr. Gough’s account-book shows on page after page in those earlier years his lecture fees as 85, 87, and 88* When it rose to 810 competing lec¬ turers began to remonstrate. One Washingtonian journal undertook to fix the maximum rate for such lectures for all time to come. “Anything over five dollars,” said this poli¬ tical economist, u is too much, and only tempts unprincipled and selfish men to advocate temperance for the sake of the money.” For some time Mr. Gough’s fees remained at 810 and travelling expenses. The largest halls were filled at 25 cents a head. Hall rent, fuel, and gas were not large items; the profits that somebody made can be easily es¬ timated. These profits went nominally, and generally really, into the treasury of some temperance society, for Mr. Gough’s lectures were uniformly at first under the auspices and for the benefit of local Washingtonian societies. But 42 PLATFORM ECHOES. there grew up a reasonable suspicion that it did not always all get into the treasury. Some of Mr. Gough’s friends thought, after he had lectured night after night in New York city for $10 a night, paying his own hotel-bills, that he was not getting his share. They hired a hall, announced a “ benefit ” night, stood at the door themselves, took the money, paid all the expenses, and handed him over the sur¬ plus. It was over $600. When the amount was known it did not allay the jealousy which Mr. Gough’s popularity had aroused. This jealousy was intensified by his kindly but frank criticism of the Washingtonian methods. Washingto- nianism was not a religious movement; it made but small account of God, Bible, or immortality. The meetings were not often opened with prayer; they were often marred by criticisms on the churches and the clergy, which would better have been omitted. Some of its most active workers were Chris¬ tian men ; others were infidels. Mr. Gough gradually passed out of the hands of the infidels into the hands of the Chris¬ tians ; out of the school-houses into the churches. Attacked for this, he replied with commendable candor that temper¬ ance was only one virtue, and that no virtue can grow when solitary. Virtues grow in clumps; they are gregarious. Tim only final remedy for intemperance is manhood, with all which manhood involves and implies. He told them frankly the truth. “ In New England there is a class of men who are a curse to the cause. This may seem singular, but it is nevertheless true. They are anti-slavery men, anti-hanging men, moral reform men; but, because the ministers of the Gospel do not think these reforms paramount to the Gospel of Christ, they withdraw from the church and style them¬ selves ‘ Come-outers.’ ” Any one familiar with the history of New England from 1840 to 1860 will recognize the truth of this portraiture, but the men who were photographed took umbrage at it. They retorted by charging him with being a sectarian ; with using the temperance platform to promote an orthodox propagandism. They said that he declared that the end of the drink was eternal death. They proved his sectarian spirit by citing the fact that orthodox people ap- INTRODUCTION. 43 proved his course and flocked to hear him. One journal cited in triumphal demonstration a paragraph from the New York “Evangelist,” saying that “Mr. Gough intimately con¬ nects the temperance reformation with man’s ETERNAL interests, and wherever he goes greatly commends himself to the religious community .” The unsectarian editor put Eternal in capitals and the religious community in italics, as we have done, to emphasize the enormity of Mr. Gough’s offence. Another equally zealous advocate of unsectarian temperance harangued him on the iniquity of going about accompanied by such an orthodox backer as Deacon Grant; it was rather perplexed to defend its criticism when it discovered that Mr. Grant was a Unitarian. The criticisms made on Mr. Gough by professedly temperance journals were by no means merely criticisms on his methods. They were assaults on his good name. One libellous pamphlet, gotten out in the evident interest of the liquor traffic, was publicly sold at the doors of a prominent Washingtonian hall. When the Washingto¬ nians were taxed with it, they replied that it was not sold by the Society. When the scandal was circulated in New York, at least one journal damned him with a faint defence, and an¬ other advised hiuj to abandon the lecture-field and return to his bench. It is not pleasant to recall these experiences. But history has nothing to do with the pleasant or the unpleas¬ ant. It has only to tell the truth. It must not, however, be forgotten that this is only a part of the truth. In spite of blackmailers, and backbiters, and secret slanderers, and open abuse, Mr. Gough’s fame steadily extended, his popularity steadily widened, and his friends increased in number and deepened in affection for him. Meantime the same causes which produced the temper¬ ance reformation in the United States had operated in Great Britain. In both countries the church gave to it its first impulse and its first success. In the United States this was given by the Protestant churches ; in Great Britain by the Roman Catholic church. Total abstinence, which was mat¬ ter of jibe and jest in Cork in 1836, had grown by 1845 to be almost as popular a cry as “ Repeal.” The fame of Father 44 PLATFORM ECHOES. Matthew equalled, if it did not eclipse, the fame of O’Con¬ nell. The excitement wherever the eloquent Capuchin went was such as is only possible in an excitable Celtic race, and such as no moral question has ever aroused among them be¬ fore or since. In Ulster county, Orangemen greeted him with their Orange flags, and Roman Catholics accompanying him greeted the hateu symbol of Protestantism with cheers. At Limerick the throng that came to greet him literally pushed a troop of dragoons into the river. By 1840 it is estimated that nearly 2,000,000 persons had signed his tem¬ perance pledge. The immediate results, according to the testimony of official reports, were seen in other and more important points than a mere roll-call of temperance soldiers. Trade increased; crime diminished; the churches were filled; the jails were emptied. With an increasing population the committals for crime from 1839 to 1845, when the Father Matthew movement reached its height, diminished from 12,000 to 7,000; capital sentences declined from 66 to 14, and penal convictions from 900 in 1839 to 500 in 1845. England felt the throb of excitement. Father Matthew was not only thronged by crowds, but feted by the “ best society ” during his visit to England in 1843. The picture, partly comic, partly pathetic, which Mrs. Carlyle has painted of herself climbing upon his platform in her enthusiasm to shake hands with the great orator, illustrates the sort of enthusiasm the man and his work aroused. The “ moderation ” societies went out of existence; the total abstinence societies took their place. The Presbyterian Church of Scotland followed the lead of the Capuchin; English clergymen followed a little later; physicians followed the ministers ; and before 1850 a total abstinence declaration had been signed in England by over 800 ministers of different denominations, and a kindred declaration against the use of wine, beer, or spirits in a state of health had been given to the public, signed by 2,000 medi¬ cal practitioners of all grades, from the court physician to the village practitioner. Thus a very vital and aggressive temperance sentiment had been already aroused in Great Britain, when, in the sum- INTRODUCTION. 45 mer of 1853, Mr. Gough set sail for his native land. It was his first visit. He left it unfriended and alone in 1829 ; he returned to it twenty-five years later an orator with a reputa¬ tion which had been borne across the ocean, at a time when not only the Atlantic was a greater barrier than it is to-day, but American reputations were less esteemed in Great Brit¬ ain than they are to-day. He stood in need of rest. In the three or four months prior to his sail, he had lectured ninety- three times in ninety-one days. The early workers in the temperance reformation were enthusiasts. They believed in their principles, a faith which time has done nothing to weaken; they had an ardent expec¬ tation that their principles would speedily convert the world, a hope which time has done much to cool. Experience had not in 1853 proved that every pledge-taker is not necessarily a permanent total abstainer. They counted their converts by their signatures — that is by the thousands. They thought the battle already almost won. In America the English have the reputation of being cold and phlegmatic. The reputation is a false one. An English audience is much more emotional and much more demonstrative than an Amer¬ ican audience. The temperance reformation in 1853 was chiefly confined to the middle classes. Since then bishops and noble lords have become both preachers and practisers of total abstinence. Sir Wilfred Lawson leads the political temperance movement in the House of Commons. One of the wealthiest noblemen in all England sets his tenantry a good example for abstinence from beer by his own abstinence from wine. More than one Oxford and Cambridge professor gives the movement a dignity in literary circles; more than one high dignitary gives it character in the church. The clergy have organized The Church of England Temperance Society. This was all unknown in 1853. The temperance movement in 1853 in England might be justly characterized as Christianity was characterized by Paul in the first cen¬ tury ; not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble were called. It was essentially a middle- class movement. The enthusiasm was not always tempered 46 PLATFORM ECHOES. with discretion nor guided by good taste. The coming of the orator from America had been heralded far and near. Exeter Hall, London, was hired for a grand demonstration. The galleries were covered with a cloth emblazoned with the legend “The London Temperance League.” Two persons were stationed on either side of the platform to wave, one the American, the other the British flag, as Mr. Gough entered. An extraordinary ode was prepared for the occasion, printed, and distributed through the hall to be sung. A choir of five hundred vocalists had been gathered to sing it. The first stanza indicates the character at once of the audience and the enthusiasm. THE TEMPERANCE HERO. Air. — See the Conquering Hero Comes! See, the Temperance Hero comes! Sound the trumpets, beat the drums! Rend the air, in rapture sing With heart and voice to welcome him! Mr. Gough fortunately got a glimpse of the programme in the committee room. He protested against the perform¬ ance. There were enough sensible men on the platform to second the protest. The ode was not sung. But one can readily imagine the kind of ovation which greeted the “Con¬ quering Hero ” when he entered the platform and faced the audience whose poet had given this interpretation to their enthusiasm. The hall was packed by an immense audience. In August no one is in town in London. But the audience was not only large, it was “respectable.” This word, which the English reporters used to characterize the gathering, lias a significance in England which no untravelled American can understand. “We were hardly prepared,” said the “ British Banner,” “to see so noble a gathering at this season of the year. It was one which could have been collected by no other than this celebrated stranger.” And the “British Banner ” was thought by the temperance advocates to be an unfriendly, rather than a friendly critic. It could be defended as friendly only on the ground that “ faithful are the wounds of a friend.” An enthusiastic friendly audience is always INTRODUCTION. 4T more difficult to master than a hostile one. Admiration is the orator’s greatest enemy; for to conquer his audience he must both forget himself and make them forget both him and themselves. The minds of his auditors must be emptied of all else in order that they may be filled with the theme; and it is easier to empty them of personal prejudice than of personal enthusiasm. With the instincts of a true orator, which in this respect are those also of a modest gentleman, — for we cannot doubt that Quintillian is right in declaring that they are identical, — Mr. Gough perceived that the enthusiasm of such an audience could not be sustained. He must calm them before he could inspire them; take them down before he could elevate them; disappoint them in order not to disappoint them. He must destroy their enthusiasm for him in order that he might arouse their enthusiasm for his cause. He began, as is indeed his wont, in a conversa¬ tional tone of voice. He spoke without gesture and in sentences that were almost commonplace. His voice indi¬ cated none of its astonishing resources of power and pathos. He saw disappointment gathering in the faces of his audience. Men behind him whispered to one another “ This will never do.” But when he had thus gently let his audience down from the perilous height to which they had climbed, and from which they expected him to take them in still higher flights, he had achieved the orator’s always most difficult and most perilous feat. The rest of his victory was easy. How com¬ plete that victory was is best indicated by an extract from the “ British Banner ” of the next day. The extract is long. But it affords an admirable pen and ink portrait of the great orator on one of the most trying occasions of his life. We therefore make no apology for reproducing it, and no attempt to condense it: — Mr. Gough is a well-adjusted mixture of the poet, orator, and dramatist — in fact, an English Gavazzi. Gough is, in all respects, in stature, in voice, and in force of manner on a scale considerably lower than the great Italian orator. Gavazzi is more grand, more tragic, more thoroughly Italian, but much less adapted to an English auditory. In their natural attributes, how¬ ever, they have much in common. If Gavazzi possesses more power, Gough has more pathos. This is the main difference, the chief distinction, and here 48 PLATFORM ECHOES. the difference is in favor of Gough. Gough excels Gavazzi in pathos far more than Gavazzi excels Gough in power. Then, Gough is more moderate in his theatrical displays. He paints much more, and acts much less ; while as to force and general effect, he is, of course, on high vantage ground, speaking his native tongue and among his fellow-countrymen. He is in this respect in England what Gavazzi would be in Italy. Both find, and find to an equal extent, their account in their histrionic manner. The absence of unmitigated vehemence is highly favorable to the economy of strength, and a large measure of repose pervades the whole exhibition. Resting himself, he gives rest to his audience, and hence both remain unwearied till the end. Mr. Gough gave no signs of fatigue last night. At the close of nearly an hour and forty minutes, he seemed quite as fresh as when he began, and quite capable of continuing till midnight, cock-crowing, or morning ! No heat even was apparent to 11 s ; perspiration was out of the question ; the hand¬ kerchief was never, y'Vit we observed, once in requisition throughout the whole of his surprising’display. He resembled a clump of Highland heather, under the blaze of a burning sun —as dry as powder ! It is as natural to him to speak — and that on a scale to be heard by the largest auditory — as to breathe. It ceases now to be a matter of astonishment that he makes so little of stand¬ ing up to speak every night in succession, for weeks together, and travelling for that purpose one or more hundreds of miles by day ! There is an utter absence of all mental perturbation ; before he commences there seems no idea of his being about to do anything at all extraordinary, or, when he has finished, that anything extraordinary has been performed. It seems to be as much a matter of course as walking or running, sitting down or rising up. His self-command is perfect, and hence his control over an assembly is com¬ plete. Governing himself, he easily governs all around him. It was impos¬ sible for any man to have been more thoroughly at home than he was last night. Like a w r ell-bred man, once on his feet, there was the absence alike of baslifulness and impudence. The address was entirely without order of any sort — nay, for this the assembly was prepared at the outset by the intimation that lie had never written, and never premeditated a speech in his life ! Last night the address was a succession of pictures, delivered in a manner the most natural, and hence, at one time, feeling was in the ascendancy, and, at another, power. His gifts of mimicry seemed great ; this perilous, though valuable faculty, however, was but sparingly exercised. It is only as the lightning, in a single flash, illumining all and gone, making way for the rolling peal and the falling torrent. Throughout the whole of last night he addressed himself to the fancy and to the heart. We cannot doubt, however, that Mr. Gough is in a very high degree capable of dealing with principles and of grappling with an adversary by way of argument, but he adopted a different, and, as we think, a much wiser course for a first appearance. The mode of address is one of which mankind will never tire till human nature becomes divested of its in¬ herent properties. He recited a series of strikingly pertinent facts, all of which he set in beautiful pictures. Nothing could exceed the unity of the impression, while nothing could be more multifarious than the means employed to effect it. It was a species of mortar-firing, in which old nails, broken bottles, chips of iron, and bits of metal, together with balls of lead — INTRODUCTION. 49 anything, everything partaking of the nature of a missile — was available. The compound mass was showered forth with resistless might and powerful execution. The great idea, which was uppermost all the evening, was the evils of drinking ; and, under a deep conviction of that truth, every man must have left the assembly. The conclusion to which we have come, then, is that the merits of Mr. Gough have been by no means over-rated. In England he would take a stand quite as high as he has taken in the United States. There is no hazard now in say¬ ing that there will be no disappointment. He will nowhere fail to equal, if not to surpass, expectation ; and his triumph will, among Englishmen, be all the more complete from the utter absence of all pretension. His air makes promise of nothing ; and hence all that is given is so much above the contract. It is impossible to conceive of anything more entirely free from empiricism. From first to last, it is nature acting in one of her favorite sons. Oratorically considered, he is never at fault. While the voca pronunciation, with scarcely an exception, is perfect, the elocutionary element is in every way worthy of it. He is wholly free, on the one hand, from heavy monotony, and, on the other, from ranting declamation, properly so-called. There is no mouthing — no stilted shouting. His whole speaking was eminently true ; there is nothing false either in tone or inflection ; and the same remark applies to emphasis. All is truth ; the result is undeviating pleasure and irresistible impression. His air is that of a man who never thought five minutes on the subject of public speaking; but who surrenders himself to the guidance of his genius, while he ofttimes snatches a grace beyond the reach of art. In Mr. Gough, however, there are far higher considerations than those of eloquence. We cannot close without adverting to the highest attribute of his speaking—it is pervaded by a spirit of religion. Not a word escapes him which is objectionable on that score. Other things being equal, this never fails to lift a speaker far above his fellows. In this respect, he is a pattern to temperance advocates. He did not, to be sure, preach Christianity ; that was not his business ; but the whole of his enchanting effusion was in harmony with its doctrines, always breathing its spirit, and occasionally pay¬ ing it a natural and graceful tribute. At the close, in particular, that was strongly marked. He there stated that the temperance cause was the off¬ spring of the Christian church, adding that whatever was such was in its own nature immortal, and thence predicting the ultimate triumph of the cause in which he was embarked. The oratorical victory at Exeter Hall was at once the prelude to, and the preparation for, a continuous victory throughout England and Scotland. We shall make no at¬ tempt to tell the story of the succession of ovations which extended from London to Edinburgh ; and from August, 1853, to August, 1855. We doubt whether modern history records any case of an oratorical triumph more continuous and more extraoidinary. Whitfield had the many-sided subject of 50 PLATFORM ECHOES. religion ; Mr. Gough but the one theme of temperance. Mr. Beecher’s famous English speeches during the civil war are unparalleled in the history of oratory; but these were but six, while Mr. Gough spoke almost continuously for two years. Most of his addresses were given under the auspices of the local temperance societies, and these generally made arrangements for the signing of the pledge at the close of every address. The pledge was of a simple and comprehensive character; the signer promised to abstain from all intoxicating liquors, and to exert all his influence against drinking customs and the drink traffic. How he should do this was left wholly to his own conscience. The epoch of open and violent opposi¬ tion had nearly passed. The only place, we believe, where Mr.' Gough suffered any serious opposition was at Oxford ; and there the interruption, though serious enough to the speaker, was only u fun ” to the boys. The speaker took it in such im¬ perturbable good humor that he was finally allowed to finish his address in peace. The religious prejudice which existed in the United States against the Washingtonian movement, because it was conducted by men out of sympathy with the churches, existed in England, and was perhaps intensified by Mr. Gough’s trenchant criticisms on wine-drinking among the clergy. Whatever the cause, the fact is certain that in not a few localities the churches were refused to the societies which desired them for his addresses. In Edinburgh the largest church was first granted, and then under some mys¬ terious influence withdrawn. At Cupar all the churches, except the United Presbyterian, which was the least com¬ modious, were refused. The story was then circulated that the galleries of the church were not safe. At Stirling the largest church was granted, and then under legal proceedings brought by some pew-holder, the nature of which we do not pretend to understand, an interdict was issued and the church was closed. At Dunse the churches were all refused; the temperance people, not to be balked, erected a pavilion capable of holding an audience of three thousand persons. Mr. Gough spoke in it twice, both times to crowded au- INTRODUCTION. 51 diences, though the entire population of the town is but two thousand six hundred. The pavilion was then taken down. We do not recall any other instance recorded in history in which a building was erected for two speeches from a single speaker. A greater opposition was that of a serene and cul¬ tured indifference or a complacent ridicule. Some one has said that all great movements pass through three stages before they can reach their final success: first, indifference, then ridicule, then argument, then comes victory. The tem¬ perance cause had passed into the second stage when Mr. Gough arrived in England. It had already got into “Punch.” That journal, with a style of wit somewhat characteristic, expressed great alarm when it heard of the anticipated meet¬ ing at Exeter Hall, and called on the trustees to look to the drainage, lest damage should be done by “a combination of several thousand floods of tears with the orator's flood of eloquence.” Arguments were sometimes attempted; but they were not better than the wit. “ Why does he not attack the draper as well as the licensed victualler,” cried the “ Northern Examiner.” “ The love of dress ruins as many , perhaps , as the abuse of drink.” (The italics are our own.) The strength of the temperance cause is its weakness. Most causes can be argued; there is something to be said on the other side. This cause has no other side. Like the man found without a wedding garment, the liquor traffic is speech¬ less. When Mr. Gough called on his audience at Oxford to select a representative of the liquor interest, and send him upon the platform for a fair debate, each speaker taking ten minutes, the audience appreciated the hit, if not the point; no advocate of the drink could be found, and Mr. Gough was allowed to finish his speech without much further interrup¬ tion. We do not mean to say that all the principles incul¬ cated by so-called temperance reformers are undeniable and undisputable. We do not even mean to say that all the principles laid down by Mr. Gough are so. The reader will find his principles and the reasons for them as given by Mr. Gough himself in the following pages; they need neither definition nor defence from us. But we do mean to say that 4 52 PLATFORM ECHOES. the drinking customs of society as they have existed, and still to a considerable extent exist, and the drinking traffic as it is actually carried on, are without either defence or de¬ fender. We think, too, that all persons experienced in public speaking will agree with us that indifference is a more diffi¬ cult foe to convert than open enmity, and that it is always easier to debate a somewhat doubtful cause than to present the claims of one about which there is no doubt. We hardly know what Christian ministers would do for sermons if they could not occasionally attack infidel opinions or defend Christianity from infidel attacks. It is not the least evi¬ dence of Mr. Gough’s oratorical power that he was able for over forty years to argue for temperance, and against the drinking customs of society and the drink traffic, without falling into the folly of some of his contemporaries and de¬ bating with other temperance workers doubtful questions as to ways and means. Mr. Gough returned home in August, 1853, after an absence of two years. He had delivered over four hundred lectures. There is no record, so far as we know, of the number of pledges which he had taken. Since he first began his temperance addresses in 1842 a great change had taken place, not only in temperance sentiment, but also in temperance methods. A new party had arisen, dissatisfied with the slow methods of moral suasion. Moral suasion depends on persuading each individual to give up the drink; the new party proposed to keep the drink away from all individuals. The necessity of a change had been forced upon temperance reformers by bitter experience. Thousands of men had signed the pledge only to yield to the influence of old cronies and the attractions of the bar-room, and return to drink again. The argument for the change was a simple one. The drink traffic is a social and political wrong; there¬ fore it should be prohibited. The work of the temperance reformers had prepared the way. The indignation of the country had been aroused against the traffic; and not a few who were not themselves, on principle, total abstainers, were willing to join in a movement to close the bar-rooms. Pro¬ hibition had been adopted in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode INTRODUCTION. 53 Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York. The temperance campaign had been converted from a moral to a political campaign. The new movement had extended from America to Great Britain. The temperance w.orkers there organized in two wings; the one working on the public conscience and public- opinion, by pamphlets and addresses, the other for such legal changes as would eventually bring about the total suppression of the liquor traffic by law. The first were organized in the “National and Scottish Temper¬ ance League; ” the second in the “ United Kingdom Alliance.” The National and Scottish Temperance League, organized in 1856, but growing out of the London Temperance League, organized in 1851, was the result of a union of several tem¬ perance societies which had previously done good work in temperance agitation by moral methods ; the Alliance, organ¬ ized at Manchester in 1853, announced from its birth its purpose “ to promote the total and immediate legislative sup¬ pression of the traffic in all intoxicating liquors as beverages.” We do not propose to argue here the question of prohibi¬ tion. We do propose to state what we suppose to be the principles which must be applied in determining that ques¬ tion. We have no doubt of the right of the community to prohibit the liquor traffic. It has a right to do whatever is necessary for its own self-protection. No private property right is superior to the general right of the community to self-protection. France prohibits the importation of all American pork, because some American pork has trichinae. The United States prevents the importation of Egyptian rags because the cholera is raging in Egypt and the rags may be infected. By the same right the community may prohibit the importation, sale, and manufacture of alcoholic liquors, the general evils from which to the community far exceed those threatened by either trichinae or cholera. The one evil is remote, the other near; the one hypothetical, the other certain; the one relatively small, the other gigantic in its proportions. The right to regulate cannot be defended without conceding the right to prohibit. If the State has a right to prohibit the sale to minors, because of the evils which 54 PLATFORM ECHOES. such sale produces, it has a right to prohibit the sale to adults because of the greater evils which that sale produces. If it may prohibit the sale on Sundays, it may prohibit the sale on week-days. If it may prohibit the sale, except by a few specially licensed venders, it may prohibit the sale except by a few specially appointed agents. The right of prohibition is established by a hundred analogies and precedents. It is undisputable. But right is one thing and power is another. This distinc¬ tion which Burke has so admirably illustrated, has been often lost sight of in legislation. A mere majority may have the right, but it has not the power, to prohibit the liquor traffic in any free community. It can undoubtedly put a law on the statute book or a clause in the constitution; but this is not enough. There are some things which a mere majority can do; there are other things which it is powerless to do. It can determine on new policies; it cannot make new crimes. A law prohibiting any act as criminal has no greater power ' in a free community country than the public conscience of the community. In the reign of Charles II., when adultery was a jest in society and on the stage, a law prohibiting adul¬ tery would have been valueless. In Utah a law prohibiting potygamy is of no effect, even with the United States gov¬ ernment and United States judges to enforce it. A single policeman can put to flight a crowd of roughs; because the roughs know that he has behind him, invisible, the entire force of the moral portion of the community. But he is powerless to close a liquor saloon, if the saloon keeper knows that the community is evenly divided on the question whether his selling is a crime or not. In such a divided state of pub¬ lic sentiment the law becomes a dead letter. Grand juries will not indict; district attorneys will not prosecute; petit juries will not convict; judges will not sentence; and governors will pardon. To make any criminal law effective, the conscience of the vast majority of the community must sanction it. The conscience of the vast majority has not yet been educated to the point of regarding the liquor traffic as a crime. It is so regarded by only a small majority even in INTRODUCTION. 55 the most temperate States, with perhaps the single exception of Maine; in most of the States not even a small majority so regard it. A change in the public conscience must precede any effectual change in the public law. We believe that these principles are not only sound but self-evident. We shall leave our readers to ascertain for themselves Mr. Gough’s position on this matter from his own words in the pages of this volume ; but this we understand to be substantially his position. From the very earliest he had claimed that the liquor traffic had no moral right to exist. His motto had been — to quote his own words — “ kindness, sympathy, and persuasion for the victim, for the tempter, law.” His aim had been — we quote his own words again — “not only prohibition, but annihilation.” But he had never been an active prohibitionist. His critics afterward declared that “he was no enthusiast in his attachment to the cause of prohibition.” If by this they meant that he had never been an enthusiastic laborer in the cause of immediate law reform, the statement is undoubtedly correct. He had been an enthusiast in the work of changing public sentiment. He had no fear but that when public sentiment was made right the rectifying of the law would follow. It was declared of him that he had even said, “ Do not expect prohibition until you have four fifths of the community on your side.” Whether Mr. Gough ever did say this we do not know. It was attributed to him by an assailant; and anything attri¬ buted to him by an assailant is presumably false. On the other hand, Mr. Gough was a sensible man, and this is a very sensible remark. We have but one criticism to make upon it. We doubt whether a majority of four fifths is quite enough to ensure the success of a prohibition policy. We should ourselves be inclined to call for a larger majority. Mr. Gough, returning to the United States at almost the very time that one of the foremost advocates of prohibition was setting sail for England, found in New England the prohibition policy adopted on the statute books and disre¬ garded in execution. The policy which ruled in the Eastern States was the policy of the voter who sarcastically remarked 56 PLATFORM ECHOES. that lie was “in favor of the Maine law and against its ex¬ ecution.” It had been repealed in Maine, but the prohi¬ bitionists felt confidence that it would be re-enacted with more stringent provisions the following year; and they were right. It has never been repealed there since. But it was either ill-executed or not executed at all in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont. In New York it had been declared unconstitutional by the Court of Appeals. The confident assertion that it would be re-enacted by the people of that State has not proved true. That State has never again given a majority nor even an in¬ fluential minority for prohibition. Mr. Gough, finding this condition of affairs, in writing to a friend in England, told him the facts. He kept no copy of the letter. The letter itself was lost or mislaid. His friend gave certain portions of it to the public as containing matter of public interest. The published portions of this letter were as follows: — The cause in this country is in a depressed state; the Maine law is a dead letter everywhere, — more liquor sold than I ever knew before in Massa¬ chusetts,— and in other States it is about as bad. Were it not that I feel desirous of laboring with you again, I should be inclined to ask for the loan of another year to labor here. I never had so many and so earnest applica¬ tions for labor; and the field is truly ready, not for the sickle, but for steady, persevering tillage: but we shall leave our dear home in July, with the expectation of laboring with you, as far as health and strength will permit for the next three years. . . . I see that Neal How is to be in England. I am glad. You will all like him; he is a noble man, a faithful worker. He can tell better than any other man the state of the Maine law movement here, and the cause of the uni¬ versal failure of the law to produce the desired results. Mr. Gougli was very severely criticised for writing this letter. We are unable to see the justice of the criticism. Parties were divided in England, as in America, on the ques¬ tion whether the chief work of the temperance reformers should be moral or legal; whether they should work on public opinion or on Parliament. This was an important question. There was every reason why Mr. Gough should give to his friends in England the benefit of American ex¬ perience. There was absolutely no reason why he should not. The recipient of the letter has also been severely criti- INTRODUCTION. 57 cised for giving it to the public. It is certainly true, as a general thing, that private letters should not be published. But it is a rule which has many exceptions. The expression of opinion by a well-informed temperance reformer respect¬ ing the actual results of a new temperance experiment would seem to constitute such an exception. There was nothing in the paragraph published of a personal nature ; nothing which Mr. Gough might not have said in public ; nothing which he did not afterwards say; nothing of a secret or confidential nature. But the publication of this innocent letter produced a most tremendous excitement in temperance circles in Great Britain. One cannot read the pages on pages of newspaper correspondence to which it gave rise without a feeling of commingled astonishment and amusement that so small a spark should have kindled so great a fire. Neal Dow was just arriving in Great Britain when this letter was given to the public. The “Temperance Alliance” was just inaugu¬ rating a political temperance campaign, with him for the chief speaker. They chose to regard this letter as a direct assault on them and their methods. They declared that it “ was not worthy of notice,” and then ransacked America with letters and circulars to disprove it. They declared of Mr. Gough that “ upon prohibition he was not and never was supposed to be an enthusiast; ” that his statement was “ entirely untrue, as a very little inquiry would have led Mr. Gough to know ; ” “ that no one even now really believes the statement that Mr. Gough has made; for, fortunately, it is so mon¬ strously absurd that no one can believe it, even when they try to make others swallow the camel; ” “ that it must have been written by an individual who, at the time of writing, did not understand what he was saying.” The excuses made for Mr. Gough by his critics were more aggravating than their accusations; their charity was harder to bear than their malice. One attributed it to his “ dramatic imagination; ” another remarked that he was not an authority on questions of fact; a third, that he probably wrote it “ in a fit of un¬ reasonable depression; ” a fourth, that it ought to be excused 58 PLATFORM ECHOES. because it was in a private letter not intended for publica¬ tion. The “ Glasgow Commonwealth,” however, surpassed all the rest in the kindness of its explanation: “All his friends know that he is subject to fits of severe mental depression ; in short, he has not so fully recovered from tire effect of stimulants as to escape from the peculiar malady commonly called the ‘blues.’” In the midst of this excite¬ ment Mr. Gough arrived in Liverpool to enter on a second temperance campaign which had been arranged for before his departure for America the year before. We do not need to repeat here the evidences adduced by him in support of his statement, nor that furnished by his opponents in refutation of it. It was made very clear that there was a very decided difference of opinion in the United States respecting the efficacy of prohibition and the permanence of the political victories already won. Letters were published by Mr. Gough from leading ministers, lawyers, senators, and representa¬ tives, temperance workers, prosecuting attorneys, and one governor, fully sustaining his declaration. The “ blues ” appeared to be epidemic in New England. Letters were published of equal number, if not of equal weight, upon the other side. It is needless now, thirty years after, to compare the testimony of these witnesses. History has determined the question on which they differed. Prohibitorv laws were enacted in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York. Pro¬ hibition is no longer maintained in any of these States, except in Maine and Vermont. The State of Maine 1ms but one city of more than twenty thousand inhabitants; the State of Vermont, none. In the former State the pre¬ liminary work of education, before the prohibitory statute was adopted, was thoroughly done by sowing the State with temperance literature from the New Hampshire border to tlie Aroostook. Prohibition prohibits in Maine because public sentiment regards the drink traffic as a public curse. Both parties sustain it. The conditions which Mr. Gough de¬ mands have been secured. Four fifths of the community condemn the liquor traffic. But even in Maine it is doubt- INTRODUCTION. 59 ful whether prohibition has been truly successful; while outside of Maine and Vermont it has been generally aban¬ doned. It has given place in the other New England States to local option. There is no present prospect of its revival in New York State. It is still somewhat of an experiment in Kansas and in Iowa, and in many cities of the latter State is openly ignored. It has commanded a large vote in Ohio, but the vote is a long way from the “ four fifths ” which give pro¬ hibition its moral power in Maine. Prohibition may be the ultimate form which liquor legislation will assume in this country. That is a question on which opinions may well differ; and it is one not necessary for us to discuss here. We are writing history, not philosophy; and as matter of history there can be no question, in the light of all that has occurred since 1857, that the temperance cause was entering at that time politically upon a period of reaction and depres¬ sion, and that the Maine law had not proved a success, and was not likely to prove a success until an enormous amount of preliminary agitation and education had been first done. Even if history had proved Mr. Gough mistaken, his mis¬ take would have been poor justification for personal abuse. But to a perfect storm of abuse he found himself subjected on his first landing in Liverpool. All the slanders in America were showers compared with the steady and per¬ sistent deluge of attack poured upon him. He met a number of his friends at a public breakfast on his arrival, and in a speech of considerable length, and of a much more philo¬ sophical cast than is customary with him, he defined his position. He repudiated with considerable vigor the apolo¬ gies which had been made for him. The fact that his letter was a private letter not intended for publication he refused to accept as a shield. “ If a man,” said he, “ is a liar to his friend, he is a liar to the public.” He declared himself a believer in the principles of prohibition. He paid a hand¬ some tribute to “our noble friend and coadjutor, Neal Dow.” He read a number of letters from distinguished temperance men from various parts of the United States testifying to the facts as he had portrayed them in his letter. He declared 60 PLATFORM ECHOES. that, since Ins character had been impugned, his character must be justified. His friends, by resolutions unanimously passed, fully and heartily vindicated him. With this he pro¬ posed to leave the question and go on with his work. But there were those who were determined that it should not be left; and since neither open argument nor public abuse could efface the impression which Mr. Gough had produced, or impair his influence, they set themselves to do it by pri¬ vate slander. The leader in this attempt was Dr. F. It. Lees, a representative, perhaps the most prominent representative, of the rival temperance society, the “ United Kingdom Al¬ liance.” Of all the influences which demoralize and destroy charac¬ ter, we are inclined to regard partisanship as the most subtle and therefore the most dangerous. It corrupts the best natures; it enlists the higher virtues on the side of falsehood and inhumanity; it perverts courage into cruelty, serves truth with falsehood, makes conscience justify wrong-doing, gilds shame with a false honor. It is specious, insinuating, subtle, undermining. The partisan begins by identifying himself with his party and his cause; he ends by identifying his party and his cause with the cause of universal virtue and goodness. He makes it the standard by which to judge all men. Whoever supports his cause is a saint; whoever opposes it is a sinner. He makes it the standard by which he judges all conduct. Whatever promotes his cause is right; whatever impedes it is wrong. No one of his adherents is to be censured; no act of his opponents is free from the sus¬ picion of an evil motive and the fear of an evil result. The Jewish partisan in the time of Christ looked on with approv¬ ing conscience while the mob stoned Stephen. The Roman Catholic partisan in the sixteenth century applauded the rack of the Inquisition in Spain ; the sword of Alva in tlie Netherlands; the massacre of St. Bartholomew in France. It is only in the light of these historic illustrations that we are able to understand the course of Dr. F. R. Lees. He was a temperance and a prohibition partisan. In the manifold discussions provoked by Mr. Gough’s INTRODUCTION. 61 letter, two articles which reflected on a friend of Dr. Lees, by the name of Peter Sinclair, appeared, one in the “ Con- gregationalist” of Boston, the other in the “Edinburgh News.” Mr. Gough had nothing more to do with the writing of either of these articles than with the writing of the New Testament. But Mr. Gough was from Massachusetts and the “ Congregationalist ” was published in Massachusetts; Mr. Gough Avas in Scotland, and the “ Edinburgh News ” was published in Scotland. In the judgment of a partisan this evidence was quite sufficient to justify the conclusion that he inspired both the articles. Dr. Lees determined that they should be withdrawn. He proceeded to the accomplish¬ ment of his purpose by writing a letter to a friend of Mr. Gough, demanding their instant withdrawal under penalty of Mr. Gough’s exposure. “ Your friend St. Bartholomew,” he said, “has often been seen narcotically and helplessly in¬ toxicated. I should have announced that fact before, of which I have distinct proof; but, out of fear of injuring the cause, and out of pity for the saint himself, I forbore, on receipt of his apology. ... If Mr. Dexter is not instructed to recall his article and apologize for it, and to make amends to poor Sinclair, my next letter to the States shall contain all the information I possess anent St. Bartholomew himself, whom I believe to be as rank a hypocrite and as wretched a man as breathes in the queen’s dominions.” When a man makes a threat of this kind to extort money it is called black¬ mail ; when it is made to extort personal influence there is no recognized name for it. This letter was followed by others in the same line ; if possible more explicit both in their declarations and in their threats. The writer declared that the saint had been often intoxicated with drugs — once insensibly so-—in the streets of London, many times help¬ lessly so in Glasgow; that there were many witnesses to the facts ; that he knew a score of persons who had seen him intoxicated; that two of the occasions were within his own certain knowledge; and he challenged Mr. Gough to bring the matter before a jury of twelve Englishmen, and pledged himself, “on the honor of a gentleman and the faith of a 62 PLATFORM ECHOES. Christian, to furnish names and adduce further evidence of what I have now asserted.” Similar letters w'ere written to others in England. A secret suspicion was thus set afloat in the air. There was but one way to meet it; Mr. Gough took that way. He accepted Dr. Lees’s challenge, sued him for libel, and brought him before the twelve Englishmen of character to make good his assertions. Dr. Lees had declared the facts to be within his own knowledge; he had declared that lie could furnish the names of a score of witnesses cognizant of them; he had invited the test. The case came on for trial. The public interest was great. Mr. Gough’s counsel opened the case, stated the facts, and called Mr. Gough to go into the witness box. Mr. Gough thus at the outset offered himself to the opposing counsel for a searching cross-examination into his whole life. It was a simple thing to do if the charges were wholly false; it would have been a disastrous thing to do if there had been any color of truth in them, any ground even for a reasonable suspicion of their truth. Mr. Gough carried with him into the witness box a little hand-bag. He swore positively that since 1845 never had wine, spirits, or any fermented liquor touched his lips; that he had never eaten opium, bought opium, possessed opium; that he had never touched or owned laudanum, except on that one occasion before his reformation, when he stopped on the edge of suicide; that the whole story, in all its parts, was an absolute fabrication ; that he had nothing to do, directly or indirectly, with the publication of either of the two articles in the “ Congregationalist ” and in the “Edin¬ burgh News.” Then, in answer to a question from his counsel, lie opened his hand-bag and took out a little memorandum-book. It was one of several. It then appeared that ever since the commencement of his lecturing experi¬ ences lie had kept a diary. In this diary he entered upon every day the place where he spent it, the persons with whom he spent it, his occupation, and, if he had lectured, the price received for his lecture. He was thus able to fix with certainty his exact place and the witnesses who could testify to his condition on every day. Slander was dumb. It dared INTRODUCTION. 63 not face that diary. A hurried consultation took place between Dr. Lees and his counsel. Then, in Dr. Lees name, and in his presence, his counsel retracted the charges. He retracted the statement that his client knew of his own certain knowledge of Mr. Gough’s intoxication. Everything was withdrawn. Mr. Gough left the witness stand without even being cross-examined. By consent a verdict was given for him of five guineas, a sum sufficient to carry costs. The case was hardly thus closed before Dr. Lees sent a letter to the papers declaring that the retraction made by his counsel, in his presence, and after consultation with him, was made without his authority and against his protest. This state¬ ment was instantly and indignantly denied by his counsel. It is difficult to account for such a phenomenon even by call¬ ing it partisanship. We prefer to leave it unaccounted for. Dr. Lees never paid the costs. No persuasions could induce Mr. Gough to take the necessary proceedings to compel their payment. He had proved not only the falsity but the utter groundlessness of the slander. This sufficed; he paid the costs of the proceedings himself. But from that day to his death, slander against his good name never rose above a whisper. Neither envy, nor malice, nor even partisanship dares face that diary. Since 1858 a gradual change has taken place in the meth¬ ods of temperance reformation. No special moral reform agitation can be kept alive for an indefinite period. The public weary of it. They will not go to hear repeated for the fortieth time arguments whose conclusions they anticipate before they enter the hall, or experiences portrayed with which lectures and literature have already made them fa¬ miliar. Temperance meetings and temperance lectures are no longer popular. But the practice of total abstinence is more common in England and not less common in the United States than it was twenty years ago. Dean Stanley has borne striking testimony to the diminution of drinking habits in the best society in England. The wine breakfasts which formed so striking a feature of “ Tom Brown at Oxford” are now almost unknown at the Universities. In society, the 64 PLATFORM ECHOES. ladies leave the gentlemen over their wine at the close of the dinner; but when the gentlemen join the ladies in the parlor they are none the worse for their wine. In the United States there may be more room to question whether drinking habits are decreasing or no, because immigration counteracts the temperance work, and brings every decade a new population to be converted. But the statistics indicate that the retail trade in liquor does not keep pace with the population. The United States government levies a tax of $25 a year on all retail liquor dealers, including druggists. Very few escape the payment of this tax; the penalty is heavy and the tax is light. The figures at the United States Treasury Department in Washington show an absolute decrease in the number of the dealers; ten years ago there were 200,676 retailers; now there are 195,869. These include the druggists. Evidently the apparent decrease in temperance enthusiasm does not indi¬ cate a decrease in temperance sentiment, or a weakening of the temperance conscience. It only indicates a change in tem¬ perance methods. Temperance is ceasing to be a moral spe¬ cialty. We have tried every specific from constitutional pro¬ hibition in Virginia in 1676 to the prayer crusade in Ohio in 1874. Each has done something; none has done all. Tem¬ perance is taking its place where Paul put it, between right¬ eousness and judgment to come ; where Peter put it, between virtue and knowledge. It is coming to be recognized, it has *come to be recognized, as a necessary element in every manly character. We are beginning to teach it in our churches, our Sunday schools, our day schools. It is growing from a special reform inculcated by temperance lecturers and prac¬ tised by pledged total abstainers, into a generic virtue, incul¬ cated by all our systems of education and belonging to every Christian gentleman. This change marks progress not re¬ gress. In his later life, Mr. Gough ceased to be a temperance lecturer, but his enthusiasm infused all his lectures with the principles and interests of temperance. Whether he lectured on “Life in London,” or on “People I have met,” or on “ Power,” he always had something to say on his INTRODUCTION. 65 favorite theme, and his audience never failed to receive some warning against the dangers of drink, or some inspiration toward the practice of temperance. He was unquestionably the most popular orator in America, — a popularity which was steadily on the increase. It was only on the most inclement nights, and under the most unpropitious circum¬ stances, that the largest hall in any town or city of the Union was not filled, if John B. Gough was announced to speak. Mr. Gough always lectured at high nervous pressure. Before he rose to speak, — in some instances, for many hours before,—he was harassed by a fear of breaking down, a fear which his perpetual success never materially diminished. He had hardly begun, however, before he threw himself into his subject with an unsparing energy, which often left his audience exhausted from mere sympathy. The poor air of many of the halls he spoke in and the extreme warmth of his own exertions told upon his physique, although it did not lessen his spontaneous energy. In the winter of 1885, he was obliged to stop in the midst of a lec¬ ture, exhausted, if not poisoned, by the vitiated atmosphere so common to our ill-ventilated, crowded halls. It was a menacing prophecy of what was soon to come. On one Monday evening, Feb. 15, 1886, Mr. Gough was lecturing in a crowded church in Frankford, a suburb of Philadelphia. During the intense, but unconscious exertions of his oratory, he was stricken with apoplexy. It was only when he fell prostrate to the floor that those present realized his condition. He was lifted up helpless, and from that moment there was no hope of his further activity. He was taken to the resi¬ dence of Dr. R. Bruce Burns in Frankford, and his wife and relatives were summoned to his bedside. How long he might survive the attack, could not then be known. The stroke, however, proved fatal; and Mr. Gough, three days later, passed quietly away. He died, as he would have desired, in the harness. The funeral services, which were held at his Hillside home, on Wednesday, Feb. 24, were as simple and unostentatious as even he could have wished. It was incom¬ pliance with wishes he had often expressed in his life that no 66 PLATFORM ECHOES. public funeral was arranged. A few friends and fellow- workers from abroad mingled with the personal friends of the famity in Worcester. Addresses were made, tender, touching, and simply affectionate, by Rev. Israel Ainsworth, of the Boylston Congregational Church, of the immediate vicinity; Rev. Dr. D. O. Means, of Worcester, Mr. Gough’s pastor; Rev. Dr. William M. Taylor, of the Broadway Tabernacle Church of New York city, Mr. Gough’s lifelong friend; and Dr. George H. Gould, of Worcester. At the conclusion of the services, the casket was taken to Worcester, and placed in the Rural Cemetery tomb to await final interment later. Memorial services were held at various points throughout the country on the Sabbath following. Of these, the most interesting, perhaps, was the meeting held in Mechanics’ Hall, Worcester, the largest auditorium in the city. Long before the hour appointed, the hall was filled to its utmost capacity. The speakers were eight in number, and included Protestant pastors, Catholic priests, a judge, a college pro¬ fessor, and a representative of the Y. M. C. A. We shall not venture here upon a description of either Mr. Gough’s person or his oratory. Such a description in these pages, intended chiefly for American readers, would be superfluous. We count him to have been by far the most eminent dramatic orator of our time. In the contagious vital¬ ity of his sympathies, in the rapidity of his intellectual move¬ ment, in his power of graphic portraiture of character, in the grace and ease of his modest self-possession before an audience, in the intensity of his passion, in the tenderness of his pathos, in the geniality of his humor, and in the flexibility of voice and figure to interpret the soul within, he was with¬ out a superior, on platform or in pulpit, in either England or America. But we may add a word of characterization of the man. In our judgment, he possessed qualities of a more solid and substantial nature, which have been dimmed in popular estimation by his brilliant oratorical gifts. No mere actor and story-teller could have kept the ear of two nations for forty years, as did Mr. Gough. He disavowed being a log¬ ical or philosophical speaker; and it is true that his addresses INTRODUCTION. 67 were never cast in a logical or philosophical form. But it is also true that he possessed a mind whose predominant characteristic was common sense, and a heart whose pre¬ dominant characteristic was common sympathy. We believe that the reader of these pages will find embodied in them every fundamental principle which underlies the temperance movement, and conspicuously absent from them every idio¬ syncrasy which has marred it. There is no pathological nonsense about alcohol in its minutest quantities being always a poison, a doctrine which would banish every loaf of risen bread from our tables; no exegetical non¬ sense about two kinds of Bible wines,— one fermented, the other unfermented,— a doctrine which would banish almost every scholarly commentary from our libraries. There is no maudlin charity for the drunkard, and no un¬ christian invective against the moderate drinker. There is a passionate earnestness against the drink, and a Christian sympathy for the drinker. In moral earnest¬ ness Mr. Gough has among eminent temperance workers no superior; in large charity it would be difficult to find among them his peer. He was a temperance apostle without being a partisan. He has done more than any other man to lift the temperance reformation out of the plane of a partisan agitation into the higher plane of a great Christian movement for the regeneration of the individual and of society. Sensi¬ tive to a fault, with a mercurial temperament and an impres¬ sible nature, he was never swerved from his settled convic¬ tions by temporary excitement; and, as we have seen, had the wisdom to foresee the dangers which threatened the tem¬ perance cause from the attempt to change a moral into a merely political agitation, and the courage to pursue his own way undeviated by the wild excitement of others, and unhin¬ dered by their opposition and abuse. His instincts, his sympa¬ thies, and his mind were broad; identification with one great cause did nothing to narrow him. Without early education or early culture, he took on both with wonderful facility; was welcomed, not merely tolerated, in the best society, and moved in it the recognized peer of gentlemen, scholars, and 68 PLATFORM ECHOES. statesmen. He never forgot the bitter and degrading expe¬ riences of his early years; but no vulgarity in word and no discourtesy or rudeness in act ever reminded others of it. Greatness is quite as often an accident as an achievement. More men are born great or have greatness thrust upon them than achieve greatness by their own effort. What we call greatness is quite often, perhaps oftenest, the result of position rather than of character. Mr. Gough was neither born great nor did he have greatness thrust upon him. He achieved it; achieved it in spite of tremendous odds; in spite of hate from enemies, and rivalry and jealousy from pseudo-friends; in spite, too, of a shrinking, a lack of self-esteem, a nervous timidity which is generally at once the greatest weakness and the greatest power of all true orators. He not only achieved greatness, he retained it. It has been well said that it is more difficult to keep money than to acquire it: the remark is equally applicable to influence and position; and no influence is so difficult to retain as that of the popular orator. Curiosity listens to him at first with enthusiasm; but repeated hearings satisfy curiosity, and enthusiasm gives place to a languid interest. If the popular orator defies public sentiment, it either over¬ whelms him, or flows away and leaves him without an auditor. If he flatters the public, every new flattery must surpass its predecessor, till by and by flattery dies of its own extravagance. Mr. Gough not only achieved a position of pre-eminence among the orators of America and England, and this without any advantages of either birth or culture, but he retained that position during nearly half a century, in spite of changes of public thought and feeling respecting his chosen theme which would have rendered the speech¬ making of any ordinary man born upon the platform in 1840 an anachronism before 1886. But Mr. Gough was not an ordinary man. He combined qualities not often seen in combination. To the thoughtless auditor who went to hear him much as, if less Puritanically minded, he might have gone to hear Booth or Irving, Mr. Gough was only a remarkable story-teller, with an actor’s INTRODUCTION. 69 knack and a rare versatility of emotion which mingled the pathetic and the humorous in artistic proportions. But to one who knew him at all intimately, and studied either his character or his work at all carefully, it was quite clear that no such superficial estimate could account for his hold upon his audience for even a single night, much less for his influ¬ ence upon two nations during forty years of platform oratory. He had that keen sensitiveness which is the secret of tact, that broad sympathy with men which is the source both of humor and of pathos, that strong English common sense which often serves in place of a philosophic culture, but for which no philosophic culture is a sufficient substi¬ tute, and that Puritan conscience which gives the highest form of moral courage. Without that sensitiveness which made him always afraid to face an audience or even to enter a room full of company, lie could not have touched men as he did; for he touched them because he was so sensi¬ tive to their touch. Without his broad sympathy with men he could not have been the dramatic orator that he was; in his portraiture of character he appeared to his audience for the moment as the man whom he was depicting, because he for the moment entered into the life, however foreign it might be to his own. Without his strong English common sense he could not have been identified with the temperance cause for nearly half a century and never identified with any of the vagaries and the isms which have cast such dis¬ credit upon it. Without his strong Puritan conscience h^ could not have withstood as he did the attacks of foes who are now forgotten, or remembered only by their unsuccessful assaults upon him; he could not have remained, from his first entrance upon the platform to the day of his death, a firm adherent to the doctrine that temperance is a Christian virtue, that Christ is the redeemer from intemperance as from every other sin, and that every attempt at temperance reform, whether by Washingtonian pledges or political measures, if dissociated from the Christian faith and the Christian Church, is doomed to inevitable failure. His home at Hillside was a model, in neatness, culture, and 70 PLATFORM ECHOES. unostentatious comfort, of what a Christian home should be. The winding avenue leading up to the house suggested the descriptions which we so often read in English stories of the approach to an English country seat. Five acres of lawn sloped down toward a meadow land, melting into a valley across which one looked upon rounded wooded hills; here smooth and velvety, where the farmer gathered his grass; there clothed with woods of varied hues of green, where the axe has gone only to thin out the underbrush. Within, the house spoke in plain language of much attention to the cul¬ ture and the comforts of life, and none to its show and its pre¬ tension. Mr. Gough’s family consisted of the wife and four adopted daughters — he had no children of his own — and an adopted son, engaged in the orange culture in Florida. The library of over 3,000 volumes was rich in Christian litera¬ ture and in art. Among the books were some rare vol¬ umes which are monuments to Mr. Gough’s personal skill in his old trade as a bookbinder. He mounted with his own hands, in his summer recreation, nine volumes of photo¬ graphs, a rarely beautiful collection apart from its associa- tional value; for each photograph is a reminder of some scene visited, some pleasure experienced. Still more nota¬ ble is his collection of Cruikshankiana. This collection comprises twenty-six large folio volumes, and contains up¬ ward of 3,700 engravings, and more than 200 original draw¬ ings. These are classified and carefully indexed. The work was Mr. Gough’s summer recreation for years. The result is certainly the finest collection in existence of the works of the greatest master of caricature. Many other are the me¬ mentoes of the work he did and the friendships he formed, which the casual visitor would hardly notice, but which the inmate of the household generally discovered; the silver ink- stand on the library table; the set of china manufactured in England, with a portrait of Mr. Gough on each piece; the collections of photographs presented by different temperance societies ; the welcome signed by ministers of different denom¬ inations on his return to America after his second visit to England ; another memorial, signed by leading citizens, min- INTKODUCTION. 71 isters, and temperance reformers in New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan; a third, with 1,100 signatures, presented to him in Huntingdon¬ shire, England, each signature an implied pledge and an explicit approval of the principle of total abstinence; a fourth, presented on behalf of a Christian temperance society formed in London by fifteen young men who had been stimu¬ lated to their work by Mr. Gough’s addresses, and presented in a chapel which had grown out of the work to which he had inspired them; several great volumes of signatures to the pledge which he obtained in his various tours, some autographs, others duplicate copies of the lost originals — these are among the memorials which made this Christian home in some sense a monument of a busy and profitable Christian life. Of the home life of Mr. Gough with his delightful family we have no right here to speak. For we still hold, despite some eminent authorities to the contrary, that the private life of even a public man is his own, which no penman has a right to invade, and which no one has a right to invite the common public to inspect. Among the memorials which give this home a peculiar and historic sacredness is a silver trowel, bearing the following inscription: — “Presented to J. B. GOUGH, Esq., OX HIS LAYING THE CORNER STONE OF COFFEE TAVERN, IN SANDGATE, KENT, JUNE 2d, 1879.” This trowel suggests to him who knows its history and significance the story of Mr. Gough’s life. On the 4th of June, 1829, John B. Gough, then a boy of twelve j^ears of age, took his seat on the mail coach that ran through the then humble and straggling village of Sandgate, to join the ship that was to carry him across the Atlantic with the family to which he was apprenticed. The last sight he saw, 72 PLATFORM ECHOES. as the coach rolled away from the village, was the figure and the tear-bedewed face of his mother crouching behind the low wall built to guard the village from the inroads of the sea; she had come out to get a last fond look at her boy. He left behind him a loyal and loving mother, a sturdy and honest father; but almost nothing else. It was a poor home he went out from, and an unknown name he bore. On the 5th of June, 1879, fifty years almost to a day from that morning, he came back to his native village to lay the corner stone of a coffee tavern bearing his name, and reared partly by funds raised through his influence. During that fifty years Sandgate had grown from a hamlet of 120 houses, with a population of 700, to a thriving and growing town of 2,400 population. A procession, including the representatives of the town, the local clergy, the military, and two temperance societies, accompanied the orator to the place where the ceremonies were to take place. The onlookers who lined the way greeted him with cheers. As he approached the town a body of stalwart men stepped forward, and, removing the horses, dragged the carriage containing the once un¬ known boy, but now world-famous orator, to the site of the Gough Coffee Tavern, in the centre of the village, where the stone was laid, and where a characteristic address was given, to a throng which not even the pouring rain could disperse. These two scenes, framing in the busy intervening years, tell their own story of battle fought and victory won. Mr. Gough’s life is more eloquent than his oratory. His prin¬ ciples, and the fidelity with which he maintained them, have earned him the respect, as his dramatic eloquence won for him the admiration, of two nations; while his sym¬ pathy and helpfulness have won for him that which is better than either, — the love and blessings of unnumbered myriads whom his words have inspired with a lofty purpose, a noble ambition, and a divine hope, and perhaps rescued from poverty, degradation, and hopeless wretchedness, to a life of honored manhood here, and a hope of glorious immortality hereafter. •* CHAPTER I. HABIT — ITS POWER, USE, AND ABUSE — HOW TO SUBDUE A TYRANT AND SECURE A FRIEND. Wliat I Aim to Give — The Lessons of Experience — A Peculiar Clock — “ What on Earth will that Fellow do Next ?” — “ Oh, I Bite my Nails ” — PJdiculous Habits — Scene at a Railway Ticket-Office — Memory — Recog¬ nizing a Deserter After Thirty Years — Slaves of Fashion — Description of the Suit I Wore at Twenty-One—’The “ Style” Forty Y^ears Ago — A Stunning Attire — A Remarkable Inventory — Avarice—“Only a Little More”—The Vice of Lying — The Habit of Swearing—The Boy Who Swore by “Old Dan Tucker” — “I’m Sot, Y'es, I’m Sot”—Daniel Webster’s Testimony — Two Words Spoken in Season — Ruin and Re¬ morse— “By and By” — A Persistent Lover — A Narrow Escape — “ Come Down Wid Ye, Thady ” — The Warfare of Life. HE public do not expect from me a literary entertainment, an intellectual feast, or a logical argument. I come before you, not to tell you what I have heard or read, but to tell that which I know, and to testify to that which I have seen. I shall simply aim to give some of the results of my experience and observation during * the past forty-three years of my public life. The lessons I have learned are the bitter les¬ sons of experience, hard to learn and difficult to forget. I care but little for the unity of what I shall say, and I would 71 72 WHAT I AIM TO GIVE. as soon obtain the reputation a man gave his clock as any other. He said, “ I have a very reliable clock, for when it points at two, it always strikes twelve, and then I know it’s half-past seven o'clock.” I care but little in what direc¬ tion I point or how I strike, if I can accomplish my purpose of enlisting sympathy for our cause, stimulating investigation of our statements, or exciting interest in our behalf. I may be so discursive as to remind you of a man w'ho was con¬ stantly astonishing his employer, a farmer, by doing strange and unexpected things. One day the farmer went into the barn, and found his man had hung himself. Looking at the dangling body a few minutes, he exclaimed, “ What on earth will that fellow do next?” Among the ideas expressible by the term “habit” are habi¬ tude, rule, routine, custom, practice, observance, fashion, and the like. I shall endeavor, as well as I am able, to discourse on habit. I shall probably utter many of what critics call commonplaces. It is often the custom to use the term com¬ monplace with contempt; but are there not fresh truths, delicious as flowers on the world’s highway, often to be found in commonplaces? Sir Walter Scott, once hearing his daughter speak of some¬ thing as vulgar, asked her if she knew the meaning of the word vulgar, remarking, “ ’T is only common; and nothing common, except wickedness, deserves contempt; and when you have lived to my years you will thank God that nothing really worth having or caring for in this world is uncommon.” Habit is acquired; instinct is natural; what we are accus¬ tomed to do gives a facility and proneness to do. An old writer said, “ All is habit in mankind, even virtue itself.” How insensibly we acquire habits that soon become an annoyance and vexation! Ask that young lady why her fingers are so marred and unsightly. “ Oh, I bite my nails.” RIDICULOUS HABITS. 73 “ Why do you? ” “I have the habit.” “ Why do you not stop?” “I can’t.” “What a bald spot you have on the top of your head, why is it? ” “ Oh, when I read, I twist the hair round my lingers and pull it out.” “ Why are you so fool¬ ish?” “I have the habit of twisting my hair round my lingers when I read, and the habit is so strong that I cannot read with comfort unless I linger my hair.” “What makes your lingers so deformed with large joints? ” “Oh, I pull my fingers and crack them.” “ How ridiculous.” “ Well, I can- VICTIMS OF HABIT. not help it. I have acquired the habit.” So of many habits, trifling in themselves, but often sadly annoying to those who acquire them. I heard of one man, I believe it was Dr. Johnson, who had acquired the habit of touching every post he passed in the street, and, if by accident he missed one, was uneasy, irritable, and nervous, till he went back and touched the post. Locke says, “We are born with powers and faculties, capa¬ ble almost of anything, but it is onty the exercise of these powers and faculties which gives us ability and skill in any¬ thing, and leads on to perfection.” Perseverance in a right course of action renders it more and more certain, the longer we continue it. Each act of goodness imparts new strength to the will, and renders it more certain that the act will be repeated. 74 PATIENCE AND POLITENESS. Habit is second nature; we can almost make ourselves what we will; how many rude, surly, ungracious people we meet who, for the lack of common politeness, which might be acquired, become morose and disagreeable. I know that it is more difficult for some to be polite than for others; to many persons, true politeness, modest, unpretending, and generous, seems natural, while others must conquer the dis¬ position to be surly, before they can be civil. To be polite under all circumstances requires patience and self-control. We hear the remark that such a man — a conductor, for in¬ stance — is uncivil, when, if you could know all the petty annoyances, the silly questions asked, vexations by ignorant, foolish, and nervous passengers, combined with the care and responsibility of an important train, the wonder perhaps would be that he is civil at all. Yet we do come in contact with bears in manners, men from whom you cannot obtain a civil answer to a civil question, who have an idea that civil¬ ity is a species of servility that weakens their independence; but we often expect too much, and if we were inclined to exercise the “charity that suffers long and is kind,” we might not find so much fault. I sat once for an hour in the ticket-office of a railway station, and wondered how it was possible for the agent to keep his temper; it certainly did require great self-control and patience. “ When does the next train start ? ” “ Two o’clock for Boston.” “ What time is it ? ” “ Quarter of two.” “ Is your time right ? ” “ Yes.” “ I want a ticket to Newton.” “ This is an express train; does n’t stop.” “ Don’t it stop anywhere ? ” “ Stops at Framingham.” “ Can’t I stop at Newton ? ” “ No.” “ When does the next train go ? ” “ Four o’clock.” AN EXASPERATING TRAVELLER. 75 “ Does that stop ? ” “ Yes.” “How long does it take to go to Newton?” “ An hour and a half.” “ Can’t I go by the express ? ” “ That train don’t stop at Newton.” “Well, give me a ticket. How much?” “ One dollar.” “ Is that a good bill ? ” “ Yes.” “When did you say the train started?” “ Express at two ; the other at four.” “ Express don’t stop at Newton ? ” “ No.” A MAN WE OFTEN MEET. “ The other does ? ” “Yes. Please stand out of the way.” “Well, you needn’t be so huffy about it.” All this while other passengers are calling for tickets and asking ques¬ tions. How can a man speak very civilly on such an occasion ? It is hard to be civil under certain circumstances. “ Why don’t you take off your hat ? ” said a lord to a boy struggling to lead a calf. “ So I will, if your lordship will hold my calf.” An eccentric gentleman offered this apology for not taking off his hat while speaking to George the Third, when hunting: “ My hat is fastened to my wig, my wig is fastened to my head, I’m on a high-trotting horse, and if anything goes off, we must all go off together.” There is a power in 76 “OH, I FORGOT! I FORGOT !” suavity, and a charm in simple politeness, far greater than all the studied manners of the most polished courtier, and it will pay in the long run to cultivate the habit of politeness. Memory itself may be greatly strengthened by habit. What mistakes and errors are made, and, I might say, crimes are committed, through forgetfulness. u Oh, I forgot! I for¬ got!” Yes, forgot to post the letter to the physician when that poor girl lay in an agony. She is dead; the doctor failed to reach her because you forgot. “ I forgot to give the message.” Yes, a message that, if delivered, would have brought that onty son to the deathbed of his mother, and she died without a sight of her bo}^, crying for him to the last. “ I forgot; ” is that an excuse ? I know some inherit a remarkable power of .memory and never forget. When Douglas Jerrold was a midshipman, he was left in command of the gig while the commander went up into the town. Two men asked permission to go ashore to buy fruit. “ Yes, you may go, and you may as well buy me some apples and pears.” “ All right, sir.” The men deserted, and Jerrold was dis¬ graced. Thirty years after, in London, he saw a baker in the street, carrying a load of bread on his head. Walking up he laid his hand on the baker’s shoulder, and said: “ I say, my friend, don’t you think you have been rather a long time after that fruit?” “ Lor’, sir, is that you?” After thirty years’ separation, they recognized each other at once. Some people can find room in their memory for but one thing at a time. “ Where is the medicine you were to bring from the city?” “ Oh, I forgot that: I was to get some fruit and medicine; I have the fruit, but I forgot the other.” It is our duty to set ourselves diligently at work to remedy, as far as we may, even a natural defect; and I believe a man can overcome a natural propensity and remedy a natural defect if he sets himself to work, by God’s help and the power of his own will. SLAVES OF FASHION. 77 What absolute slaves we are to fashion or custom ! Health, comfort, usefulness, even life, sacrificed in obedience to its commands. Fashion bids that a young lady must yield the beautiful symmetry of her figure to be squeezed, braced, com¬ pressed, and laced, till the “human form divine” becomes so distorted that a sculptor would, copy it only as a deformity. For fashion’s sake we invite pain, from corns on the toes to neuralgia in the head; we court the ridiculous, and wel¬ come the absurd. We must all con¬ form to fashion. Better be out of the world than out of the fashion. Few young men would have the courage to wear in the street now the suit I wore at twenty-one; a plum-colored coat with high collar, tight sleeves, narrow body,— so narrow that to get into it you must obey the directions of the negro, “ Now, sah, first shove one arm in, then t’other, and give one general conwulsion,”—bright brass buttons, long slender tails; with trousers the same color as the’coat, fitting tightly “ STYLE,” FORTY YEARS AGO. to the skin, strapped down so close that, in sitting, you felt that something must go somewhere (and something was con¬ tinually going somewhere; a man never fell down and got up whole in those days); — a figured velvet waistcoat, so contrived as to exhibit a broad domain of shirt-front; with a collar stiff and starched, pushing out some inches in ad¬ vance of the chin ; and a silken stock buckled so tight as to prevent seeing the feet without an effort; boots narrow and pointed, with room enough beyond the toes for part of a pound of cotton; and a hat very stove-pipey, inclining 78 A REMARKABLE INVENTORY. slightly to the bell, and broad in the brim. Yet that was u style ” forty odd years ago, and the present fashion would have been considered as absurd then as that is now. I am not sufficiently acquainted with ladies’ dress for criti¬ cism ; but I know their apparel requires ribbon, insertion, braid, lace, silk, whalebone, steel springs, buttons, muslin, tassels, velvet, beads, spangles, worsted, fringe, tatting, ruffles, gimp, flounces, founda¬ tions, tucks, puffs, skirts, ruches, waists, belts, padding, collars, cuffs, frills, under¬ sleeves, spit curls, nets, veils, rosettes, bracelets, finger and car rings, mitts, furs, capes, victorines, muffs, gloves, switches, plum¬ pers, chains, brooches, pins, hooks and eyes, plumes, hair-pihs, combs, powder, rouge, artificial flowers, chate¬ laines, fans, parasols, ^ mrTT , ’ ’ 1 ’ SCENE OF TIIE WRECK. handkerchiefs, perfum¬ ery, newspapers, and many other articles too numerous to mention. An old man with a rag-bag in his hand, picking up pieces of whalebone and other matters in the street, was asked, 44 How did all those things come here ? ” 44 Don’t know; I ’spect some unfortunate female was wrecked here- .abouts somewhere.” THE VICE OF LYING. T9 But there remain habits to speak of, more serious in their influence on the moral part of man’s nature than those men¬ tioned. Avarice, which has been termed “ criminal poverty,” which makes men grow mean and cruel, and starve and pinch themselves, to heap up yellow dust, scratching and scraping for that “ little more,” only a “ little more,” with hearts as hard as the coin they love and as tough as the bag that holds their treasure. A man with many thousand dollars, a mem¬ ber of the church in a country town, who is perfectly satisfied with the minister, regularly contributes five cents for himself and wife to the support of the church every sabbath. This is a fact, and no fiction. The habit of lying is acquired in the first place by a want of reverence for truth as truth; for instance, in the desire to create a sensation by an exaggeration of the simple facts, then by occasional equivocation, until, at length, the vice of lying becomes a second nature. A man may become a colos¬ sal liar who would lie for the mere sake of lying. In these days of sensationalism the danger is greatly increased. There is a great difference between relating an anecdote merely for the purpose of illustration, as a parable or alle¬ gory, and the exaggeration of a simple fact. A person addicted to lying related a story to another which made him stare. “Did you ever hear that before?” said he. “No,” said the other, “ did you ? ” I once read of a prisoner who was charged with highway robbery. During the trial he roared out, “I’m guilty!” when the jury immediately pro¬ nounced him not guilty. “ Why, gentlemen,” said the judge, “did you not hear the man declare himself guilty?” “Yes, my lord, and that was the reason we acquitted him, for we know the fellow to be such a notorious liar that he never told a word of truth in his life.” Some of these men might be agreeable companions, but the great drawback to your 80 A TENDER CONSCIENCE. enjoyment of their society is the want of confidence in their statements. The habit of profane swearing is gradually and almost in¬ sensibly acquired. Many a swearer can remember when he shuddered at an oath, and he who now uses the name of the Creator and Redeemer in the most horrible and blasphemous associations learned to swear. In his false estimate of man¬ liness he uttered his first oath perhaps with a trembling heart, conscience upbraiding him; but among those who swear he must swear too. There is no habit more foolishly and insanely wicked than this. All sin is folly, but this is pure folly and wickedness. Men generally sin for profit or pleasure, for preferment, or indulgence of some propensity, but, to use the language of an old minister, “ To swear is to bite the bare hook of God Almighty's wrath ; there is no bait to tempt to it; it is simply wicked.” I know that some make the excuse that they swear with¬ out thinking. If they do, what a fearful illustration of the power of habit; but men generally swear because they be¬ lieve it is wicked. Hear a profane man when he is angry; his rage boils over in oaths and curses. A boy was crying bitterly. His mother asked, “ What’s the matter ? ” “I’ve been swearing.” “ What did you say ? ” “ Oh ! I’ve been swearing, oh dear ! ” “ Well, my child, what did you say ? ” “ Oh ! oh! mother — I got mad, and I said, ‘ Old Dan Tucker.’ ” His conscience troubled him for the intention to say something wicked. Young men, it is neither noble, heroic, nor manly to swear. It is a mean, offensive sin. To swear in public is an outrage that no true gentleman will be guilty of. Swear not at all. Break the habit if you have acquired it; conquer it you can. I asked a boy who had overcome the propensity, “ Did you find it hard ? ” “ Oh, yes, and it comes hard now.” I well remember, in a shop where I WINNING HIS FIRST VICTORY. 81 worked, profanity was so frightfully rampant that an agree- ment was made that sixpence should be paid as a fine for every oath. One young man, a notorious swearer, was fined several times, once for say¬ ing with a n oath that he would not be fined again. One day h e m e t with a provoking ac¬ cident at his work, and the sprung to his lips. The men stopped their work to THE BOY AYIIO SWORE BY “ OLD DAN TUCKER.” Watch him. He set his teeth, he stamped his feet, his face grew red, the veins in his forehead swelled, he clenched his fists, he seemed choking, and at last he cried out, 44 Constamparampus! There ! I did n’t swear, did I ? I feel better.” It was his first struggle against the habit, and it seemed easier for him, after that, to refrain. Many men pride themselves on their firmness, which is a name they give to an acquired obstinacy. 44 You cannot move me,” as the old man said, 44 1’m sot, yes I’m sot, and when I ’m sot, a meetin’-house ain’t sotter! ” Such a man does n’t hold opinions, but opinions hold him; when he is possessed of an error*, it is like the evil spirit, cast out with difficulty; what he lays hold of he never loses, though it ready oath 82 PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. help to sink him ; the slighter and more inconsistent his fancies are, the tighter he clings to them. Some of them would fall to pieces if he did not. He opposes you in things indifferent and frivolous, and would suffer martyrdom rather than part with the least scruple of his prejudices. He under¬ stands no man’s reason but his own ; his understanding is as hard as Pharaoh’s heart, and is proof against argument; with him, a prejudice once conceived, or a passion once cherished, will resist all rational argument for its relinquish¬ ment. 44 He will deny all he has never witnessed, and refuse to witness all he is resolved to deny.” In many cases the recklessness of youth, indulged with¬ out restraint, leads to a habit of sj^stematically ignoring all individual responsibility. Every man has felt, more or less, the consciousness of his personal responsibility to God and his fellow-men pressing upon him ; the world’s great men have acknowledged it as of the highest importance. Some years ago, when Mr. Webster was Secretary of State, he was dining with a party of friends, by whom great efforts had been made to draw him into conversation, but without suc¬ cess. At last one of the gentlemen turned to him and said, 4 Mr. Webster, I want you to tell me what was the most important thought that ever occupied your mind.” Mr. Webster slowly passed his hand across his forehead, looked over the table, and said, “The most important thought that ever occupied my mind was that of my individual responsi¬ bility as a man to God! ” In too many cases a persistent course of selfishness and self-gratification stifles and chokes this sense of obligation, and men grow into the habit of living simply in reference to themselves and the present life. 44 Oh, if I was ever lucky enough to call this estate mine, I should be a happy fellow,” said a young man. “And then?” said a friend. “And BATTLING FOR VICTORY. 83 then ? Why, then I ’d pull down the old house and build a palace, have lots of prime fellows around me, keep the best wines and the finest horses and dogs in the country.” “And then?” “Why, then I’d hunt, and ride, and smoke, and drink, and dance, and keep open house, and enjoy life gloriously.” “And then?” “Why, then, I suppose, like other people, I should grow old and not care so much for these things.” “And then?” “Why, then, I suppose, in the course of nature I should leave all these pleasant things and — well, yes — die ! ” “ And then ? ” “ Oh, bother your 4 thens ; ’ I must be off.” Many years after, the friend was accosted with, “ God bless you; I owe my happiness to you!” “How?” “ By two words spoken in season long ago, — ‘and then?’” Would I could reach some young man who is drifting into the dead sea of an aimless life, — an aimless existence. What a mockery of life ! Who can describe the fearful void, the yearning for an object, the self-reproach for wasted powers, the weariness, the loathing of pleasure and frivolit} r , the consciousness of a deadening life, a spiritual paralysis, with no response to human interests, no enthusiasm, no sympathy with noble deeds; when the world becomes a blank, and nothing is left but the heavy benumbing weight of personal helplessness and desolation. Better, nobler, to stand face to face with wrong and sin, battling ever for victory, than as a human machine in one daily round of self-indulgence, dul- ness, and folly. Oh, let my pulses swell like a torrent, and pour themselves out till they cease. Let heart and brain work their work. Be my life short and swift as a shuttle through the loom. Let it be a life full, strong, rich. Though it be but a day only, it shall be as one of the days of God, which are as a thousand years. Time would fail to enumerate the many habits that, 6 84 A. PITIFUL SPECTACLE. acquired and indulged, mar the beauty and destroy the sym¬ metry of the true man. Oh, if we could find one man free. Is there such a one ? Stand up! thou grand image of a true manhood. Raise that face, sublime in its gentleness, with the pure lips through which the foul impieties of boasting youth have never yet passed, with the eyes that have not scorned to let their lashes droop over a tear of sorrow or sympathy for others! Lift up the hand which never used its strength against a weaker fellow-creature! Stand forth in the midst of a debased and degraded world, adorned with integrity, sobriety, chastity, and all virtue ! Stand up ! noble and meek-hearted, and show us the likeness of a man. We love to contemplate such a vision, and turn away to look sadly on men as they make themselves. Is it not pitiful to see the many, many slaves of evil habit, pressing hard into the ranks, and enlisting under the black banner of intemperance, licentiousness, and the hosts of debasing, degrading passions, that cling to and destroy the victim, alluring, fascinating like the fabled vampire, fanning to sleep with its broad wings while he draws vitality at every breath ? Look at him! Stand up, if you can, victim of vice! Stand up, if you dare, slave to intemperance and its companion sins! See how habit, with its iron net, envelops him in its folds ! He curses his misery, while he hugs the chains that bind him; he frets his very heart-strings against the rivets of his fetters, forever protesting against the fierce over-mastering curb-chain that galls him, yet forever sub¬ mitting to receive the horrible bit in his mouth. Behind him lowers the thunder-cloud of retribution ; before him is the smooth steep whose base is ruin and despair. By his own will he rushes on; every particle of the propelling power emanates from himself; yet he shrieks in agony as he remem¬ bers his former hopes and ambitions. RUSHING TO DESTRUCTION. 85 Then, in the noisy revel, the debauch, and fierce excite¬ ment of drink, he tries to forget his being. Memory is his foe, so he flies for false solace to the wine-cup. He stuns his enemy at evening, but she rends him like a giant in the morning. Once he could pray; once he loved purity; once he drank from the fountain-head of peace. He thinks of this and it maddens him. The mother’s hymn that once lulled him to sleep now rings in his ear and wakes him to agony. His face once bore God’s image; now the foul brand of intemperance is on his brow, sensuality sits upon his lip, the dull water of disease stands stagnant in his eye, and the bright image of God is marred. Once purity was his gar¬ ment ; now he is appa¬ relled in the filthy livery of his tyrant master. He bartered his freedom for a lust, and now endures unutterable thraldom. He sold his birthright for a pleasure, and now is cursed with a heritage of woe. He dissolved his pearl of price in the cup, and drank it. Thus he rushes on, scorned and despised by his fellow-men, his better nature loathing the thing he has made himself, carrying a foretaste of the undying worm within his breast, wrapped in dull despair, or shouting in fearful wildness, or laughing in the glee of the maniac, shrinking, shivering, dreading, yet wil¬ fully approaching, he staggers on the brink, shrieking, cursing, reeling on the edge. With one look upon the past, the mighty deluge of sin rolling after him, he clasps his poor, swollen hands, and in mad despair plunges into utter ruin. MEMOItlES OF THE PAST. 86 PROCRASTINATION AND INDOLENCE. Oh, young men, if you would be great and happy, hold the reins, assume and maintain the regal power over your passions and appetites, battle every evil propensity bravely, breast the tide of temptation; then you will appreciate and realize the truth and power of Solomon’s declaration, “ He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city.” The habit of procrastination often causes vexation, loss of friends, and even ruin. How many utterly fail to accomplish their life’s work through this habit, never doing what ought to be done at the time it should be done; their life is one great neglect. “ I intend to do it! ” It is said that the road to a certain place is paved with good intentions. Letters are received ; I must answer them ; I will, by-and-by. Days pass, the by-and-by is as far off as ever, friends are grieved, business disarranged, losses are incurred, character is endangered, for the lack of promptness. Pass by the house of the procras¬ tinator. How dilapidated and forlorn ! Why ? He has intended to repair ; and when the wind and rain drive in, oh ! “I must do something ! I will at once ! ” Fair weather comes ; “I will by-and-by,” like the Irishman who said, “ Why don’t I thatch my roof? Because, when it rains, it’s wet, and I can’t, and when it’s dry, it don’t need it.” Many a man’s fortune has been marred by the putting off till to¬ morrow what ought to be done to-day. A large proportion of men’s sins are not acts committed, but acts they have failed to perform. A habit nearly allied to this is that of indolence. Some men grow unutterably lazy. Thomson, author of “The Seasons,” was once found by a friend in bed late in the day. “Why do you not get up?” “Oh, I have no motive.” In¬ dustry, promptness, and perseverance are essential to success. A shiftless, lazy, unstable man never succeeds, except in becoming a nuisance. There is a power in persistence. I THE PRACTICE OF VIRTUE. 87 remember a Scotch friend of mine used to speak of per¬ sistence as one of the cardinal virtues. I heard of a man who went courting every evening, a distance of three miles and back, for fourteen years, walking about fifteen thousand miles. He got his wife ; and I hope she was as good as such perseverance merited. We often say a man “has made a lucky hit,” and some men may, by a bold venture, make such a hit; but, as a rule, it is not accident, but a strong purpose and patient industry, that helps a man on in the world. Read the lives of great men, and you read of resolution, patience, and perseverance. By long and sometimes painful labor have they wrought a rich inheritance of thoughts and deeds for their successors, and for themselves immortalitv. Every man who would break a bad habit must exercise patient persistence, never flinching till victory is gained. But remember this, young men,—habit strengthens with age. In proportion to the loss of shame at a vice is the gain of recklessness in pursuing it. Many a man reels through » the street, drunk at noon-day, whose first act of intoxication was a mortification to his pride. The turning becomes more difficult. The practice of virtue may become a habit by discipline. Some men become habitually truthful, honorable, generous, and virtuous, and maintain their integrity even to their own apparent damage. A young man was pointed out to me with the remark, “There is a young man who has come out of the army as pure as he entered it.” Among those who shall inhabit the holy lull are they who swear to their own hurt and change not. A poor soldier was seated on the top of a stage-coach at the time when in England the penalty for overstaying a furlough was flogging. These floggings were very severe. Men have died under the lash. He had, or thought he had, overstayed his time, and was resolutely set 88 THE STORY OF THADY. on going to his regiment with the certainty of receiving a flogging. Below stood his mother, brother, and sweetheart, all earnestly entreating him not to return to certain and severe punishment. “ Come down wid ye, Thady; come down, now, to your old mother; sure it’s flog ye they will, and strip the flesh off the bones of yez. Come down, Thady darlint.” “ It’s honor, mother dear,” as he set his teeth, and fixed himself more firmly on his seat. “ Thady, come down, ye fool of the world; come 1| along down wid ye.” “It’s honor, brother; 1 ^ it’s honor,” sitting more erect. “ O Thady ! come down ! sure it’s me, your own Kathleen, that bids ye; come down, or ye ’ll break the heart of J f/ me, Thady, jewel; come down, then.” v “It’s honor, honor bright, Kath¬ leen, darlint,” as he fixed his eye steadily before him. “ Come down, Thady, honey.” COME DOWN WID YE, TIIADY.” “ Thady, ye fool, come down.” “O Thady, come down to me!” was the chorus from mother, brother, and sweetheart. “ It’s honor, mother; it’s my promise; it’s honor, bro¬ ther ; it’s honor bright, my own Kathleen.” A gentleman, making inquiries, was informed of the facts. “ When does your furlough expire, my man ? ” “ The first of March, your honor, bad luck to it of all the THE IMPORTANCE OF LITTLE THINGS. 89 black clays of the world, and here it is come sudden on me like a shot.” 14 The first of March, why, my good fellow, you have a day to spare then ; to-morrow is the first of March; it is leap- year, and February has twenty-nine days.” 44 Twenty-nine days, is it ? Say it again, you ’re sure of that same ? O mother ! mother 1 the divil fly away with yer old almanac, a base cratur of a book to be desavin’ me, after living so long in the family of us.” Off he jumped from the coach, and hugged mother, brother, and Kath¬ leen. 44 Hurrah! my darlint. Kathleen, dear, hurrah! It’s a happy man I am. God bless your honor, and con¬ found the dirty old almanac; my word’s saved! May ye live a long hundred years, and every one of them a leap-year ! ” a “ desavin cratur.” Some may complain that I have given undue prominence to habits that are deemed trivial; but can any habit be deemed trivial that affects the character for good or evil? We grow into the habit, often, of despising little things, and yet some of the greatest discoveries have originated in the observance of familiar and simple facts. The greatness of some of the world’s great men is not so much the utterance of great thoughts as their readiness to detect the significance of little things. Galileo, when eighteen, saw in the cathe¬ dral at Pisa a lamp swinging to and fro, and from that con¬ ceived the idea of the pendulum for marking time. Sir Samuel Brown, by noticing a spider’s web, conceived the idea of the suspension-bridge. Seaweed floating past his ship enabled Columbus to quell the mutiny and discover the 90 THE PATH OF DESOLATION. new world. Franklin’s first experiments in electricity were by a kite made of two sticks and a silk handkerchief. The first brushes of West, the painter, were made from the cat’s tail. Watts’s first model of the condensing steam-engine was made of a syringe. Professor Faraday made his first- experiment in an old bottle. Much might be written on the value and importance of little things. How little things will grow, and how mighty is an accumulation of little things ! A flake of snow, how softly and quietly it comes; how small and frail it is, breathe on it and it is gone; it rests on yonder crag, an insect could brush it off with its wing: but another falls, and another, descending noiselessly, till an avalanche hangs over the valley. Scientists have told us that even the motion of air produced by a human voice will sometimes loosen a tottering avalanche and send it, like a winding-sheet of death, down, down ! The trees in its fearful track, that have for centuries stood firm against the mountain torrent and braved the mountain storm, with the snapping of ten thousand roots and crashing of their giant arms, slip from their anchorage and drift away! The huge rocks, ancient as the everlasting hills, roll from their bed and join in the ter¬ rible devastation; the valley is filled with desolation, the village is lost in the wreck and ruin, and men in after years point tremblingly to the track of the awful avalanche. There are those who unfortunately have a constitutional tendency to weaknesses or vices, and such may ask, “ If I am born with impulses and passions so strong, and, in some cases, with a will so weak, can I be blamed for the results ? ” Every man is responsible for his voluntary acts, whatever may be the moving impulse. Sin and crime are always sin and crime, whatever the constitutional tendency. There are facts to prove that one man is born with im¬ pulses and tendencies to particular forms of virtue and vice THE WARFARE OF LIFE. 91 stronger than others. The passions and appetites are more difficult to control in those who have inherited them, for instance, from parents who have never checked them in their own lives, as the inherited appetite for drink. It is much easier for those who inherit a placid, even temperament, with no strong emotions, to be orderly and virtuous, than for some others ; but all can — yes, despite all allurements and temptations, all can — conquer evil passions and appetites. Here man differs from the brute; for man can be what he will. Nothing reduces a man nearer to the level of the brute than indulgence in habits of selfishness, disregard to the rights of others, vice, or immorality. Life is a warfare. To some it is more severe than to others, but all may fight the good fight and attain the reward. None are born in¬ capable of virtue, though one may be born with such a constitutional tendency to wrong that his life will be one mighty struggle against the power of evil. But is it not a glorious struggle to see a man in God’s name battling his own evil nature ? Oh, it is sublime, this wrestling with an evil desire, this crushing out a wicked passion, this mastery of self by the force of his high resolve and the power of the mighty will: “ I will! I will! by the help of God I will.” To him that overcometh — ah, yes! glorious repetition, “ him that overcometh,” seven times repeated, overcometh ! — the tree of life, safety from the second death, the white stone with the new name, the morning star, the white rai¬ ment, a pillar in the temple, a seat on the throne with Him in whose name he has conquered. To him that overcometh. Then buckle on the armor, brave heart; stand firm in the fight. If you fall, your enemies shall not rejoice. Ay, though you fall ten times, yet up again, battered, bruised, covered with scars more glorious than were ever borne by earth’s greatest warriors, till by-and-by — yes, by-and-by, 92 VICTORY. standing erect, your armor dented and broken—you shall shout Victory, victory! and the angels will take up the jubi¬ lant hosanna, Victory! victory! as you hang your battered armor on the battlements of heaven, and, having fought the good fight, lay your laurels at the feet of Him through whom and by whom you stand redeemed forever from the power and dominion of every evil habit. CHAPTER II. TO YOUNG MEN — SOWING THE WIND AND REAPING THE WHIRLWIND — A TALE OF RUIN, REMORSE, AND DEATH. Sticking One’s Hand in a Rattlesnake’s Den — Beware — “ Captain, There’s One of ’Em” — Sowing Wild Oats — Gliding Down the Stream — “ Be You a Drugger?” — The Verdant Young Man in Search of “Scentin’ Stuff ” — Smelling Round for the Right Thing — A Sniff that Astonished Him — The Story of Daniel Webster’s Classmate — How Webster Tried to Save Him —His Tragic Death— “ Get Up ! Get Up ! The Train is Com¬ ing !” — Cries of Despair from the Pit —A Road Strewn with Spectres — The Most Painful Scene I Ever Witnessed — Why the Boy Thrashed the Cat — A Cold Day for Puss — An Unexpected Scene at the Marriage Altar—The Story of Adam and His Whiskey Jug—Cramming Adam Into the Closet — A Laughable Story — A Story of Ruin and Death — “Tom, Old Fellow, is This You?” — “Too Late, Jem; Don’t Leave Me ” — Taking the Wrong Direction. NE favorite argument of young men in reference to the use of intoxicating drink is, “ When I find out that it is doing me an injury, then I will give it up.” That is making an admission and coming to a conclusion. The admission is true; the conclu¬ sion is false. You admit it may injure you, and when it has — no, there would be some sense in that; but when you find out that it has injured you, then you will quit it. You won’t use such an argument in reference to any other matter. “ I will put my hand into the den of a rattlesnake, and when 1 93 94 “CAPTAIN, THERE’S ONE OF ’EM.” find out that he has stuck his fangs into me I will draw it out and get it cured as quickly as possible.” There is no common sense in that. Young men, beware of this thing, because it is a snare. It is fearfully deceptive. Every man who drinks intends to be a moderate drinker. I have said this over and over again, because I believe it to be important. Every man who be¬ comes intemperate does so by a course of argument from the beginning all the way down to ruin. Young men, you say, “ When I find out that it is injuring me , then I will give it up” Is that sensible ? I once heard of a pilot who said he could pilot a vessel into Boston Harbor. “ Now,” said he to the captain, “ I ’ll stand ’midships, and you can take the helm. I know every rock in this channel — eveiy one of’em — I know’em all, and I ’ll give you warning.” By and by the vessel struck upon a rock, and the shock threw everybody down upon the deck. The poor pilot got up, rubbing himself, and said, “ Captain, there’s one of ’em.” Now we say to young men, “There’s one of them. Hard up your helm before you strike ! ” That is sensible. If you liave struck, haul off and repair damages, and then strike again. Is that sensible ? In time the poor old battered hulk will not bear any more damages, and men will bury you, a broken wreck. That is the end of it in many cases. “ When 1 find out that it is injuring me , then I will give it up.” Gather all the drunkards of this country together, and ask them every one, “Are you drinking enough to injure you?” A large proportion will declare that they are not. Each one of them has become a drunkard in the sight of God and man before he has become one in his own estimation. Intoxicating drink is deceptive in its very nature. It re¬ minds me of the fable of the serpent in a circle of fire. SOWING WILD OATS. 95 A man was passing by, and the snake said to him, “ Help me out of my difficulty.” “If I do, you ’ll bite me.” “Oh, no, I won’t.” “I’m afraid to trust you,” “Help me out of the fire, or it will consume me, and I promise on my word of honor I won’t bite you.” The man took the snake out of the fire, and threw it on the ground. Instantly the serpent said, “Now I’ll bite you.” “But didn’t you promise me you wouldn’t?” “Yes, but don’t you know it's my nature to bite , and I cannot help it.” So it is with the drink. It is its nature to bite; it is its nature to deceive. Young men say (and I have heard them more than once) that they “ must sow their wild oats.” Remember this, young gentlemen, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” If you sow corn, you reap corn. If you sow weeds, you reap weeds. If you sow to the flesh, you will of the flesh reap corruption. But if you sow to the spirit, you will of the spirit reap life everlasting. Ah, young men, look at that reaping, and then contemplate the awful reaping of men to-day who are reaping as they have sown, in bitterness of spirit and anguish of soul. “T VJien I find out that it is injuring me , then I will give it up." Surely that is not common sense. Such is the fascination thrown around a man by the power of this habit, that it must have essentially injured him before he will acknowledge the hurt and consent to give it up. Many a man has been struck down in his prosperity, has been sent to prison for crime, before he acknowledged that his evil habit was injur¬ ing him. I remember riding from Buffalo to Niagara Falls, and I said to a gentleman, “What river is that, sir?” “That,” he said, “is Niagara River.” “It is a beautiful stream,” said I, “ bright, smooth, and glassy; how far off are the rapids?” “Only a few miles,” was the reply. “Is it possible that only a few miles from us we shall find the 96 GLIDING TO DESTRUCTION. water in the turbulence which it must show when near the rapids?” “You will find it so, sir.” And so I found it, and that first sight of Niagara Falls I shall never forget. Now, launch your bark on that river; the water is smooth, beautiful, and glassy. There is a ripple at the bow of your boat, and the silvery wake it leaves behind adds to your enjoyment. You set out on: your pleasure excursion. Down the stream you glide; oars, sails, and helm in proper trim. Suddenly some one cries out from the bank, “Young men, ahoy!” “What is it?” “ The rapids are below you.” “ Ha, ha ! we have heard of the rapids, but we are not such fools as to get into them. When we find we are go- ON THE BRINK. ing too fast, then we shall up with the helm and steer to the shore; we will set the mast in the socket, hoist the sail, and speed to land. Then on, boys, don’t be alarmed, there’s no danger.” “Young men, ahoy there ! ” “ What is it ? ” “ The rapids are below you.” “Ha, ha? we will laugh and quaff; all things delight us. What care we for the future ? No man ever saw it. Suffi¬ cient for the day is the evil thereof. We will enjoy life while we may; we will catch pleasure as it flies. This is enjoyment, time enough to steer out of danger when we are sailing too swiftly with the current.” “ Young men, ahoy! ” “What is it?” “Beware, beware! the rapids are below you.” Now you feel them ! See the water foaming all around! See how fast you pass that point! Up with the IN SEARCH OF “ SCENTIN’ STUFF.” 97 helm! Now turn! Pull hard; quick, quick ! Pull for your lives! Pull till the blood starts from the nostrils and the veins stand like whipcord upon the brow. Set the mast in the socket, hoist the sail! Ah, ah, it is too late; faster and faster you near the awful cataract, and then, shrieking, cursing, howling, praying, over you go. Thousands launch their barks in smooth water and realize no danger till on the verge of ruin, boasting all the while to the last, “ When I find out that it is injuring me, then I will give it up.” The power of this habit, I repeat, is fascinating, is deceptive, and men may go on arguing and coming to Conclusions while on the way down to destruction. People do not act with common sense in this matter as they do in others. I read of a Yankee who went into an apothecary’s shop in Boston. “ Be you a drugger ? ” he asked. “I am an apothecary, and I sell drugs.” “Well, have you got any of this ’ere scentin’ stuff that gals put on their handkerchiefs?” “ Yes, I have.” “Well, my sister Sal gave me ninepence, and told me to invest the whole amount in jest sich truck if I could git anything to suit; and I should like to smell round if you have no objection.” “ Certainly not,” said the chemist, “ here is some essence of peppermint.” “ O, that’s royal,” said the man. “ Here is some essence of lemon.” “ That’s royaller.” At last the apothecary took some strong spirits of harts¬ horn. “ This,” said he, “ is a very subtle essence, and if you want to get the full virtue of it, the pure scent, you must draw in as hard as you can; a simple sniff will do no good.” 98 AN ASTONISHED COUNTRYMAN. “Hold on a minute,” said the man, “till I git ready, and when I say, ‘Now,’ you let her rip.” Then he shouted, “Now,” and over he went. What did he do? Did he get up and smell again ? No, he had too much common sense ; as soon as he got on his feet he squared his arms and began THE RESULT OF SMELLING ROUND. to show fight, saying, “ If you make me smell that ’tarnal everlastin’ stuff again, I ’ll make you smell fire and brim¬ stone.” There was some common sense in that. Yet, in the matter of drinking, men go up to their old enemy and lie knocks them over; up they get, and over they go again; and so it continues until they have hardly strength enough to ofet down on their hands and knees to kiss the foot of A TERRIBLE STORY. 99 their foe, who with the next spurn sends the poor shriek¬ ing spirit into eternity, infatuated by the influence of drink. Yet men boast that they will not “sign away their privi¬ leges.” Drunkenness deludes its victims from the first glass down to false conclusions. “I don’t intend to injure myself” is one. Dr. Condict told me the story of a young man who was a classmate of Daniel Webster, whose prospects at the time of his marriage to a gifted and beautiful woman could hardly have been exceeded in promise. He then drank in moderation; but the desire for stimulants grew upon him, and he began to drink to excess. His friends saw this, but did n’t like to say anything to him about it lest they should “hurt his feelings.” How foolish! If we saw a man walk¬ ing on the edge of a precipice, should we abstain from cau¬ tioning him,because we did not want to “hurt his feelings?” The young man grew worse and worse, and his wife became exceedingly affected in her health, and even in her mind; but he saw nothing. At length Mr. Webster came to the city, and friends told him of the condition of his old classmate. “ He is ruining himself and his law practice; the other day when an import¬ ant case was to be heard he was unfit to go into court.” “But,” said Webster, “has nothing been done? Has no one spoken to him about it? ” They told him no, they wished to spare his feelings. “Feelings, sir ? I must go and see him.” He went into the office, and when the young man rose to greet him, Webster gave him a look such as he only could give, and said, “Mr.-, I tell you plainly, I see you are becoming a drunkard. Stop; now sit down quietly, and let me tell you the whole truth.” Then he told him of his declining practice, and the failing state of his wife’s health; and the result was that the young man said, “Webster, you 7 100 DRIVEN TO INSANITY. have opened my eyes, I will drink no more.” After that he did not drink intoxicating drinks for months. He took his wife to watering-place after watering-place, and sur¬ rounded her with every luxury his increasing practice enabled him to afford; but she did not seem to improve. One evening, as she was sitting with some ladies in Mrs. CondictV parlor, they noticed that her manner was strange. Presently the door opened, and her husband entered, with an eager smile upon his face, as if to announce some new provision for her comfort. The wife rose to meet him with the silly laugh of an idiot. “ Oh, my God! ” he exclaimed, “ I could bear to see my wife a maniac ; but an idiot, an idiot! — never,” and he went webster pleading with his classmate, away and drank him- self to death. Mrs. Condict told me, some time after his death, that on a subsequent visit to that afflicted household she found the wife sitting on the floor, playing with the chil¬ dren, quarrelling and fighting with them for their toys, a complete and hopeless idiot. You say, young man, you have no intention of doing yourself an injury. Let me tell you that the subtle influ¬ ences of drink upon you are injuring you more and more every day. A man is being damaged a long time before he knows it. Intoxicating liquor is fearfully deceptive in its nature. To return for a minute to the argument, “I can let it alone when I please.” Suppose I lie upon the railway track; some A ROAD STREWN WITH SPECTRES. 101 one cries out to me, “ Get up, get up, the train is coming.” “ You mind your own business; I’m not fool enough to be run over, am I ? I can get up when I ’ye a mind to, and I can lie here as long as I please, can’t I?” I boast of a power I positively possess, but I have no will to exercise the power, and the train comes thundering on and cuts me in two. What am I ? I am a self-murderer. I had the power ; I had the warning; I refused to exercise this power; and, when swift destruction came, the power was taken from me. Every man that dies a drunkard, dies a suicide. He had the pow- er to escape, and 7 <.<=>• “get up, get up, the train is coming.” he had the warn¬ ing ; there is not a man who dares to say, “ I have had no warn¬ ing.” Stop one moment; stop and listen; you can hear the shrieks that come up from the vortex, — shrieks, piercing shrieks of despair from those who are sinking to rise no more. Your whole way is lined with spectres that are point¬ ing to the future of those who heedlessly argue their way down the fatal sliding scale. Therefore every man who dies a drunkard, dies a suicide. I heard a gentleman dispute that once. He said, “ A man that is a suicide is one that destroys his life at once.” I said to him, “ Don’t you consider a man a suicide if he shortens 102 A PAINFUL SCENE. his life ten minutes?” “No,” said he; “I don’t.” At that time there was a man under sentence of death. “Now,”said I, “ suppose, ten minutes before that man is to be hung, he cuts his throat, what is he ? ” “ He is a suicide, certainly.” “ But he has only shortened his life ten minutes.” I believe that every man who shortens his existence by the pursuit of gratification that is injurious to him is in a degree a destroyer of his own life. “I can, but I won’t.” You remember Samson was bound three times, and each time Delilah said to him, “The Philistines be upon thee, Samson,” and three times he burst the thongs that bound him, and stood up again free. By-and-by he told her all his heart, and laid his head on her lap, and she called a man of her people, who sheared his locks. Then she said to him, “ The Philistines be upon thee, Samson.” What did he say? “ I will go out and shake my¬ self, as at other times.” He went out, but the power was gone, and in his helplessness they put out his eyes. God pity any man when he begins to feel the fetters of a habit gall him, who, when he goes out to burst his chains, finds the welded iron bands entering into his marrow, until he lifts his shackled hands to heaven and cries, “ Who shall deliver me from the slavery of drunkenness ? ” “I can, but I won’t.” The most painful scene I ever witnessed in my life was by the bedside of a man who said, “ I would, but I can’t.” The difference between you and the poor sot is : you can, but you won’t; he would with all his heart, but he fears that he can’t. You see a man standing before the bar or before the counter. His cry is, “ Give me drink ; I must have it. I will give you my own hard earnings, but give me drink! I will give you more than that. I married a wife ; I took her from her girlhood's home ; I promised to love her and cherish her, and protect her, and I have driven her out to work for me. Ah, ah! I have stolen her wages, and I have brought A COLD DAY FOR PUSS. 103 them to you; I will give them to you if you will give me drink. More yet: I will give you the price of bread that I snatched from the parched lips of my famished child. More yet: I have some money in my hand; I drove out my little child to lie and to cheat in the street, and I will give you that if you will give me drink. Yes, I have sold my child, body and soul, and I will give you the payment. More yet: I will give you my health; I will give you my humanity. More yet: I will give you my hopes of heaven; I will give you body and soul, but give me drink! ” And there are men to-day barter¬ ing their birthright for a dram, and selling their heritage for drink. “ When I find out it is injuring me, then I will give it up.” But ivhen will a man find out it is injur¬ ing him? And when a man finds that out, that is the very time when he will not give it up. A man be¬ comes an intemperate man, and is , deceived by supposing that no one THE CAT’s PLEDGE. y ° knows anything about it. He has been indulging, and thinks no one knows it! Why, the very children in the street know it. I remember hearing what a boy once said to his mother. His mother saw him thrashing the cat severely, when she said, “ What is the matter with the cat?” “ Three days ago,” the boy said, “I got that cat under my arm, and I put my pen to her paw, and wrote ‘Puss’ on the pledge, and now she has been breaking her pledge.” “How do you know?” “I saw her come out of old Ramsey’s rum-shop, licking her chops.” Now, do you suppose you can go into the saloon, or into any one of 104 REJECTED AT THE ALTAR. those places of resort, at eleven o’clock in the morning, and come out wiping your lips, and no one know anything about it? You may chew peppermint till you are sick, and pastils, and all sorts of things to take away the smell of the no! you have deceived me.” drink from your breath; but others know what you have been at. That odor of alcohol is wonderfully pungent. I heard (and I say this for the benefit of the ladies) of a young lady who was engaged to be married. Before she gave her consent, she made the young gentleman promise that he would drink no more intoxicating liquor. They stood up before the minister to be married. He turned his face to her ADAM’S WHISKEY JUG. 105 to give her his right hand, and she detected the smell of liquor in his breath. The minister said, “ Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband ? ” Looking him right in the face, she said, “No ! ” “ Why, you came here for that purpose.” “ I did.” Then she said to the young man, “ You have deceived me ; you have told me a lie. You said you would not drink, and I smell it in your breath; and the pros¬ pects for me, if I become your wife, are so dreadful, that my own safety and future happiness demand that I shall say no.” You think no one knows it. It reminds me of a story of a time when we used to call ministers, “ dominies ; ” and in those days dominies liked whiskey. Perhaps they do not now, but they did then. There was one woman who | had a drunken husband, and his name was Adam. One day the dominie was to call, and the wife said, “Now, Adam, the whiskey- jug is empty, and you must go down to the store and get it filled; but do not drink any; don’t take the cork out and get to smelling it, for I know what the result will be ; and if you are a good man and a good, dear husband, Adam, and come back perfectly straight, when the dominie is gone I will give you a little whiskey.” So off he went, but he was gone a long time. When he came back he was in a terrible state. His hat was smashed all to pieces, his trous¬ ers’ knees broken across, his coat ripped, and he himself covered with mud, and in a beastly state. “Well, you have been and gone and done it; you have, haven’t you? You NOW, ADAM. 106 ADAM’S FALL. are a nice husband to break a woman’s heart, you poor, miserable, drunken coot; can’t you come home sober ? Here comes the dominie. I would not for the world have him know that my husband got drunk; I would not have him find you in this state for the best farm in the county. Get into this closet, and draw yourself right up so that I can shut the door, and don’t you make the least bit of noise ; if you do, I will be the death of you when you come out; and if you are only per¬ fectly still till the dominie goes, per¬ haps I will give you a little more whis¬ key.” So she crammed Adam into the closet just as the dominie came in at the door. “ Good afternoon, madam.” “ Good afternoon, dominie.” “Well,” he said, “I have come to talk about religious subjects. You know how we are all suffering through Adam’s fall ? ” “ Why, how did you find that out ? ” “ My dear sister,” said the dominie, “ I don’t understand you. You know adam’s return. th e w hole world is suffering terribly from the effects of Adam’s fall.” “ Oh, no; it is not so bad as that, and I have seen him far worse.” “Really, my dear sister, I don’t understand you; I tell you that for all generations to come the world will groan through the effects of Adam’s fall.” “ Now,” says she, “ dominie, you need not tell me another word. I know he has torn his trousers, and I know he has split his coat, and I know he has smashed a new hat all to STARTING ON THE DOWNWARD PATH. 107 pieces, and I know lie is all covered with mud. Adam, you can come out now ; the dominie has found it all out. He knows it! ” Yes ; everybody knows it; and suppose they did not, does it depend on their knowledge whether you are ruined or not ? Now let me give you another fact. People say I have no argument; that I do not use logic. Well, I draw my argu¬ ments from facts, and illustrate my arguments by facts. I can speak from a personal knowledge of the facts in the following incident; for I Mi\]\^ y know one of '"'nik the parties: A young man went through college with the highest honor; his record and character were clean and pure. About the time he grad¬ uated he met with a great misfortune in having a legacy left him of forty thousand dollars. “Now,” he said, “before I buckle down to life’s work, I will see the world.” And he did so. He was of a nervous, susceptible temperament; he boarded in one of the best hotels, and commenced drinking. I will not follow his course. After he had been there some time, the landlord said to him, “ Look here, you and I know each other; we are men of the world, and it is always busi¬ ness before friendship. Now, you know the kind of house I mean to keep. I have lady boarders with me, and they adam’s exit from the closet. 108 LOWER AND LOWER. may be fastidious; but that has nothing to do with it. They complain of your coming in late at night and mak¬ ing a noise. That will not do ; I think you had better find some other quarters. We are friends just the same as ever, but I think it would be better for us both if you shift your quarters.” And he did. Now, young men, where did he go ? Did he go to a more respectable house? No; he went to a less respectable house. Every step a man takes in this course is down , never up ; never, never! He went where he could make a little more noise without, troubling any¬ one. When he was too noisy for that house, they ordered him away. He went to a lower and a lower and a lower place, every step still lower. Eight years passed away. He was seated in a grog-shop, — well, I can hardly describe it, — it was a place where they kept bunks for men to sleep off the drink, and where a certain kind of food called “all-sorts soup” was provided for them. It was a most wretched place. He sat on a dilapidated chair, destitute of linen, with a wretched coat buttoned close up to his neck; a greasy cap lay on his forehead ; his hair, brown and wavy, was yet rich and glossy; one foot was naked, the other was thrust into an old India- rubber shoe. He sat there with his feet stretched out, his arms folded, asleep and snoring. Several of the wretched victims of this vice were seated around the room. The landlord came in. “Look here! wake up here ! What are you doing here? Wake up! ” “ What are } T ou talking to me in this way for?” “I will let you know what I talk in this way for; get out of my house I ” “ What do you mean ? ” “ I won’t have you hanging round here any longer; you have become a complete nuisance ; get out with you! ” 109 “TOM, OLD FELLOW, IS THIS YOU?” “ What do you talk to me in this way for ? ” “ I will let you know what I mean if you don’t get out.” “ Don’t lay your hand on me. I tell you, sir, look out before you arouse the devil in me. Don’t touch me. What do you talk to me in this way for ? ' When I first came to your house you treated me civilly; you took my money for liquor and for treating others; you gave me the best bunk in your house, and you have often put me to bed when I was drunk. What do you talk to me in this way for, now ? ” “What do I talk to you in this way for ? Because you are not the same man you were when you first came here.” “I am not the same man, am I? That is true. Don’t lay your hand on me, I say. He says I am not the same man I was when I first came to his house. Now, I will go ; you need not put me out; I will go. He says I am not the same man I was; I don’t look like it, and I don’t feel like it. Look at me, and see what you and such as you have made me. I remember when I delivered the salutatory to my class, and now I am a nuisance. Now I will go. Good-by.” He staggered forth and fell in the gutter. They picked him up and brought him back to the house. The man would not allow him to be brought in, so they put him in a cellar on a heap of straw. They found out who he was, and sent for an old college classmate who was practising as a lawyer in that city. He came to him and said: — “ Why, Tom, old fellow, is this you ? ” “ Yes, all there is left of me.” “ This is bad business, Tom.” “Yes, as bad as it could be.” “ Don’t say that, old fellow; I have come to get you up and take care of you. I am not going to leave you till I get you on your feet again.” 110 THE DEATH OF TOM. “No, it is too late ; I shall never stand on my feet again; I shall die where I lie. He says I am not the same man I was, and I will die here ; I want to die here; I have no hope.” “ Why, Tom, don’t talk like that, old fellow. Don’t you remember the good old times?” “Yes; I remember them.”' “Well, now, just cheer up.” “I cannot cheer up. Jem, Jem, will you kiss me ?” The friend turned and pressed his lips to the bloated face of the dying man, who then said, “ It is getting dark.” “ But, Tom, Tom, dear fellow, remember Him who said, 4 Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden.’ ” “Too late, Jem. Don’t leave me; don’t leave me ! Oh, it is getting dark ; it is getting dark.” Straightening himself up, while convulsions shook his frame, he said, “ This is the last act of the play that is played out,” and he fell back dead. Ah! my friends, it is an awful risk to take a wrong direction. They tell us that eight miles from the earth nothing can live. There is death to all animal life only eight miles above us. Travel eight miles in this direction or that, you come to home, and life, and peace, and love, and happiness. In that direction, death! It does not matter what the distance is, but it is the direction you take that will make or mar you. Men say that, when they find drink is injuring them, then they will give it up. Young men, do you know what the appetite for drink is? God forbid you ever should know by your own experience. “Too late, Jem. Don’t leave me; don’t leave me! Oh, it is getting dark; it is getting dark.” Straightening himself up, while convulsions shook his frame, he said, “This is the last act of the play that is played out,” and he fell back dead. CHAPTER III. FRIEND OR FOE? — THE DIVIDING LINE — WHERE DO YOU STAND?—SLAVES OF FASHION — LUDICROUS INCIDENTS. The Word “But”—Popping the Question — Anecdote of Dr. Lawson —A Slim Congregation — A Sermon That Was “Too Personal”—How Mrs. Remington Stood It —A Duel in the Dark — Retreating Up the Chimney— A Surprise to Both Parties — Giving a Reason — Both Sides of the Question—“Three Cheers for Elder Gray” — The Bank Cashier’s Story The Reason Why — Comical Excuses for Drinking — Grounds for Suspicion — Letting Down the Bars — An Ugly Threat — Catching the Measles — Drinking in Society — Sipping in “ Style ” —Fashionable Dissipation — Silly Customs — A Ludicrous Picture — The Dutchman and His Lost “Poy”—Story of the Tempted Negro —A Coveted Pair of Boots — “ The Devil Says Take ’Em ” — Queer Ideas of Faith — “ Good¬ ness Gracious ! Has It Come to That ? ” — Funny Incidents — Forward — God Speed the Right. F a man has anything to say against the temperance movement, let him come boldly forward and state it. We have a right to demand of opposers their reasons for opposition. I cannot under¬ stand the position of that man who will say to us, as many men do say, “ Yours is a good cause, you are doing a great deal of good, but, but—.” That word “but” stands in the way of a great many good enterprises. “ But ” blocks more good intentions towards the total abstinence movement than any other word. “ It is a good cause; drunkenness is an evil, and I wish you well, but — ” Now, 113 114 THAT LITTLE WORD “BUT.” what is the use of all this? Does it help us to be told that our cause is a good one, and that they wish us well, “but—?” Young gentleman, what would you think if, when you had paid your addresses to a young lady, had screwed your courage up to the point of popping the impor¬ tant question, and as you stood there in eager expectation to hear the affirmative reply, she were to say: “ Well, my opinion of you is a very high one; I have regarded you with a great deal of interest; and my father thinks that your char¬ acter is irreproachable, that your temper is good, and your position in society is all that I could expect. I wish to return to you my grateful acknowledgments for having selected me as the object of your affection, and I really feel as if I could return the love you have confessed for me, but —.” Now, all these expressions of esteem, admi¬ ration and respect, only make the sting felt more deeply. I positively would rather hear a man say, “ I don’t believe in your principles, and I am ready to give reasons for it,” than to hear him say, “ It is a good cause, you are doing a great deal of good,” and so on. We do not desire to show that you are wrong, but that we are right. I am reminded of a story told of the late Dr. Lawson, of Selkirk. Walking to Fala on one occasion to assist at the sacrament, he was overtaken by a snowstorm, and sought shelter in a house by the roadside. The good wife was a bust¬ ling, clever, kind-hearted woman, and, as the storm did not abate with the close of day, she said to the Doctor, supposing from his simple appearance that he was some plain country¬ man, “ Ye seem tae be clean, and, gin ye like, ye can bide tae the mornin’.” Supper was prepared, and before retiring to rest the family were gathered for worship. If the husband was the “ head ” of the house, the wife at least seemed to be the “ neck ” of it, for she read the chapter and led the devo- A SLIM CONGREGATION. 116 tional part of the service. In the morning the Doctor took his departure ; and what was the good woman’s surprise, on attending church that day, to see the stranger she had lodged ascend the pulpit and “ address the table!” On the Tues- ’ day following, as the Doctor made his way home, he called at the house that had sheltered him, and, addressing the mistress, said, “I could not pass the door without again thankin’ you for your kind¬ ness to a stranger; but, oh, woman, I lik’d your pray¬ ers far better than your brose.” * We ask you to define your position. If you do not, it will be defined for you in a way you do not expect. One rainy day a man went into church and found no one there but the minister. “ Well,” said the minister, “ what am I to do ? ” “ Why, preach, to TOO PERSONAL be sure ! I pay the minister-tax.” “You want me to preach a sermon, do you ? ” “ Of course, I came on purpose to hear one.” “ Then take a seat; there’s plenty of room.” He preached a pithy, close, searching sermon, and hit his auditor hard. On going home, he was asked how he liked the sermon. “Oh, I liked it well enough, but it was too personal.” People sometimes say, “Were you at the meeting last night?” “Yes.” “Did you hear Mr. So-and-So?” “Yes.” “Did you notice that gentleman who sat on the platform, how awfully he got it? ” I was once told of a certain man who * A Scotch dish, —a preparation of oatmeal 116 A DUEL IX THE DARK. had gained the reputation of not being very particular in telling the truth; in fact, he was a notorious liar. The min¬ ister of the place was requested to preach a sermon against the sin of lying. After the sermon — a pretty strong one — had been delivered, this man was asked how he liked it. “.Like it? Why, it was first-rate, admirable, just the thing A SURPRISE TO BOTH DUELLISTS. that’s wanted. I think we ought to raise our minister’s salary. I really did enjoy it, but I could n’t help wondering how Mrs. Remington stood it.” Two men were fighting a duel in a very dark room. One of them, who was a very brave man and did not want to shoot, groped all round the room, seeking for some con¬ venient place to fire his pistol without the risk of hurting his adversary. At last he felt himself near the chimney, which he thought was just the place for his purpose, so he fired up the chimney, and down tumbled the other man. BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION. 117 A great many people think themselves safe up the chimney. Our teetotal gun is one which will shoot round the corner. It so happens that when anything is said, fitted to hit, every one lays it all on somebody else. If what we say in defence of our cause is the truth, and any man is hurt by it, the Lord help him to get his hurt healed. There are only two sides to this question, and no man can be on both sides at the same time. Many say it is a good cause, and doing much good, and yet throw cold water on our efforts. We like cold water well enough, but do not like it dashed about us in this indiscriminate manner. I wish such individuals would define their position. A gentleman in Massachusetts, conversing with me at one time on differ¬ ent topics, at length spoke of temperance. “I wish you all success,” said he; “ I believe the cause to be a good one, and likely to confer great and important benefits on society.” “ Have you signed the pledge ? ” said I. u Hem — no — no.” Said I, “Why not?” Had he said, “Because I believe it to be wrong,” I would have been satisfied; but he gave no reason. A man said to me at another place, “I shan’t sign your pledge.” “Why?” “ Because I love liquor.” “You are an honest man, give me your hand. I like you ; you have given me a reason which is an honest one, and I believe you.” If a man says, “ I love liquor and mean to drink,” that is a satisfactory reason; it is enough, you do not belong to us. We believe that total abstinence from all that can intoxi¬ cate is lawful, is expedient; and that it is good “neither to eat flesh, nor drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.” We believe it is our duty to adopt the principle on these grounds, and there remains only the opposite. Will you adopt it, then? One gentleman says, “I shan’t, because I sell liquor, and mean to do it.” Well, sir, go over there and take your place. 8 118 THE DIVIDING LINE. Another says, “ I shan’t sign the pledge.” You shan’t, why not? “Oh, I dislike drunkenness as much as you do, and am much opposed to it; but the nature of my business leads me into society, and I occasionally take a social glass.” Very well, sir, that is enough; go over there. A lady says, “I can’t.” Why not ? “ Oh, I hate drunkenness; I despise it; still I can’t come to the conclusion to abolish wine entirely. You know there are wedding parties and occasions —.” That is enough, go over there. Now, where are you going to place a poor, wretched, miserable drunkard? With a face woefully debauched, he comes reeling up. “ I shan’t.” Why not ? “ Down with all your total abstinence, I say.” That is enough, only go over there with the others. We stand on the ground of total abstinence, and you stand against us. That is the line of division. Now, if we are right, if we convince you that we are, will you help us ? If, on the contrary, you can show us that we are all wrong, and that we have no right to pray and labor for the advancement of the cause, I, for one, will tear my pledge in pieces, and join with you. But while there are those who bitterly oppose us, I do not believe there is one reputable person in all this land who would be so inhuman as to willingly lift a finger, if, by that simple act, he could bring the temperance cause to naught; nor one who would willingly lift a finger, if, by so doing, he could send the drunk¬ ards redeemed by this movement back to a life of wretched¬ ness and woe, undoing at once all the good our cause has con¬ ferred upon them. Why ? Because you know in your hearts that abstinence has done a good work, and will yet do more. And we look forward with hearts full of gratitude to God, believing that brighter days are dawning. The drinking customs of society will yet receive their death-blow, and they will be buried with no hope of resurrection. “HOORAY FOR ELDER GRAY!” 119 If men refuse to define their position, it will be defined for them, and sometimes in a way they will not relish. Many a man has been driven to take different ground by his posi¬ tion being defined for him. On the borders of Lake Ontario lived a minister named Gray. Those who knew him gen¬ erally designated him by the title of Elder Gray. He was much opposed to the total abstinence movement, sometimes declaring it to be unscriptural, and objecting to it for various other reasons. He went at one time to a temperance meet¬ ing, a large one, and the manager of it desired him to open the meeting with prayer. Elder Gray, however, would not pray, but rose and stated that he had come there to oppose them, to find out the weakness of their position, and that he would watch them, believing that their position was unscriptural. After he had sat down, a noted toper of the place rose, and, taking his almost crownless hat in his hand, he waved it round his head, exclaiming, 44 Hooray for Elder Gray ! Three cheers for Elder Gray! ” Here the position of the minister was defined for him. Elder Gray was extremely offended at this, and became quite indignant. 44 Sit down, I tell you,” he cried, addressing the man who spoke. Then, throwing suspicious glances at the managers and looking displeased, he said, 44 I don’t understand this.” Everybody else understood it. “Have you a pledge here?” he at last interrogated. 44 Yes,” said they; and, on its being handed to him, he wrote his name on it. Then he prayed, and it was a wonderful prayer for the temperance movement. This was after he saw his position defined for him, saw himself, a minister, occupy¬ ing such a position, and heard an intoxicated man who was witness to his conduct exclaiming, 44 Three cheers for Elder Gray! ” Thus, if men do not define their position, they sometimes have it defined for them. A gentleman, the cashier of abandonee said to me: 44 1 120 THE CASHIER’S STORY. was a good temperance man; I drank wine and the lighter drinks, but I opposed the use of ardent spirits, and thought I was a very benevolent man indeed. I used to talk on tem¬ perance, and go home and take a glass of wine to cheer me up. A man living opposite to me was in the habit of getting drunk, and when drunk he was very abusive ; and he had been in jail for it several times. However, I thought I would endeavor to reform him. So I said, 4 Why don’t you join our temperance society ? ’ 44 4 Join what? ’ 44 4 Our temperance society.’ 44 4 Oh, well, I could be just as good a temperance man as you are, and as drunk as a fool every night of my life.’ 44 4 Why, how so ? ’ 44 4 You drink wine, don’t you?’ 44 4 Yes, I do.’ 44 4 Well, if I could afford it, I would; I drink whiskey; whiskey is my wine, and wine is your whiskey.’ To use his own expression, 4 You drink for the fuddle, and I drink for the fuddle; you are satisfied with a little, I am not satisfied unless I get a good deal; if I drink one glass, I must have another; you can drink one glass of wine and go about your business, I can’t. If I were as well off as you, I might have all my arrangements about me, and be as good a temperance man as you are.’ 44 4 But then our positions are different; you had better sign the pledge that you will not drink anything that intoxicates.’ 44 4 Will you?’ 44 4 Well, in my case, you know, it is not at all necessary.' 44 4 Ugh ! I knew you would n’t; you come to me and ask me to do what you won’t do yourself. If I sign the pledge, I must make a sacrifice; you give up nothing; you can sign the pledge and drink wine and the lighter drinks, but I can’t INFLUENCE OF EXAMPLE. 121 afford it; don’t you think you are a very benevolent man to talk to me in that way ? ’ “‘Well, if I sign the pledge that I will not drink any intoxicating liquor at all, will you?’ “ 4 Yes, I will; I will dare you to do it ? ’ “ We went into the bank; I wrote a pledge, and both of us signed it. ‘Now, don’t break it without coming to the bank to tell me that you are going to break it, and then we can both break it together.’ I saw him two or three days afterwards, and said to him, ‘ How do you get along ? ’ 4 Oh,’ said he, ‘I do not know how you get along, Mr. Segur, but it is almost death to me ; but I am going to stick to it.’ And that is the way I saved him. I said to myself, ‘ If the other method will not save him, I will adopt that which will.’ ” And I say that no man can exert an influence to save his brother unless he adopts the principle which he asks his brother to adopt. A minister of the gospel said to me : “ I took my brother with me to a temperance meeting, and the result was, he signed the pledge and is now a Christian man. But he said to me: ‘Brother, if you had asked me to go to that meeting and had not been an abstainer yourself, had not shown such a respect for the principles there advocated as to adopt them, instead of signing the pledge I should have laughed at the whole matter; but when you asked me to go to that meeting I knew you respected the principles that were advocated there, and adopted them yourself; and when I sat by your side and looked at you, I was convinced that you were right, and I felt that I could not possibly resist, so I gave my name and my influence.’ ” The vicar of a certain parish in Kent once said: “ I will tell you why I am an abstainer. I had no influence for good over the drunkards in my parish until I signed the pledge; 122 A MINISTER’S TESTIMONY. for it was no use to say to them,‘ Go and join the temperance society ; go among the teetotalers and sign the pledge.’ I once saw one of my parishioners very much intoxicated, and I told him that I was very much ashamed to see him in that con¬ dition, a nuisance to himself and a disgrace to the parish. ‘Now,’ said I, ‘why don’t you do as I used to do ? ’ He looked at me, and said, ‘You ( kept your wine in your cellar, and took it regular every day. I takes mine when I gets my wages, once a fortnight, and then perhaps I gets drunk.’ ‘ But why don’t you do as I do now,’ said I; ‘I don’t drink wine at all.’ ‘Not at all, sir?’ ‘No, I drink no intoxicating liquor.’ ‘ No ? have you signed the pledge?’ ‘Yes, I have.’ ‘Well, sir, if you can give up your wine and your spirits, with all the company you have, I think I can give up my beer, and I will,’ and he signed the pledge.” THE MAN WHO DRINKS BECAUSE HE IS COLD. Now for a moment let us look at some of the reasons given for drinking, or some of the excuses for taking a glass. We total abstainers have no excuse or apology to offer for our position of antagonism to the drink. A man once rose in a meeting which I held and said, “I will sign the pledge if you will let me have a little drop when I want it as a medicine.” When a man prescribes for sickness so long in advance, I look at him with suspicion. I said, “When the doctor prescribes it you may take it.” “ But,” said he, COMICAL EXCUSES FOR DRINKING. 123 44 I don’t want to go to the doctor every time I am sick; I want to take a little when I feel I need it; if you will let me do that I will join the society, because I think you are doing a great work.” Anyone would give us his name in that way, for it would cost him nothing. 44 When I feel I need it! ” 44 It is very cold to-day, I shiver from head to foot; I must have a little something because it is so cold, and I need it.” Or, 44 It is very hot to-day; dear me! such weather as this swelters a man to death; I must have something to keep me up in such hot weather; I need it.” Another man drinks a little in sum¬ mer-time because there are insects in the water, and spirits kill them. Another thinks he needs some- THE MAN WHO DRINKS BECAUSE HE IS HOT. thing in winter-time because it is so hurtful to drink cold water. Another man is very ill; for eighteen years he has taken the same remedy, and he will go and try a little more of it. Another is toler¬ ably well, but the weather-glass is falling, and the last time the wind was in that quarter it gave him a terrible pain ; he needs something as a preventive, and he will try it once more. This reminds me of the man who wanted some brandy and water. 44 1 must have it this morning,” he said, 44 because I am so thirsty, but what makes me thirsty I do not know, unless it is that I am going to have some salt fish for dinner.” One man said* he would sign the pledge if they would let him drink when they washed sheep, that being usually done only once a year. He took the pledge accordingly, and ob- 124 RIDICULOUS CUSTOMS. tained a sheep which he kept in his barn and washed regu¬ larly four times a day all the year round, till he washed the poor creature nearly to death. I heard a man say that because he heard a sentiment advanced at a temperance meeting that he did not like, he went home and began drinking again. That was just as silly as the boy that said, “ Mother, if you don’t give me a penny, I know another boy that’s got the measles, and I ’ll go and catch ’em.” We have to meet with many such contemptible excuses for drinking. One obstacle to our success is the tenacity with which some persons cling to the fashionable drinking customs. I know but little of the custom of persons at table “ taking wine together,” though I know enough to be aware of what it is. It is a silly custom. You smile at a lady and ask her to take wine. She smiles and bows. The waiter then fills her glass and fills yours. Then you take the wineglass in your hand, and smile. You must smile. Even if you have the toothache very badly, you must smile. It may be an agoniz¬ ing smile, but you must smile. Then she smiles and bows and sips, and you smile and bow and sip, then both smile and bow together, and it is all over. Now suppose I should ask the lady, “May I take a small piece of bread and butter with you?” She bows and smiles. The waiter gives her a piece of bread and butter, and I take a piece; and she takes her piece of bread and butter, and smiles and bows and bites; I do the same, and while we both masticate, we smile and bow to¬ gether. It would be perfectly ridiculous, but not more so than this custom of drinking and bowing and smiling over a glass of wine, and far less injurious. It does not, and cannot, hurt a man or woman to eat a small piece of bread and butter, but it may do a vast deal of harm to take a glass of wine. I do not say it will , but it may. There is a risk. But we want men who are decided on this subject; men A COVETED PAIR OF BOOTS. 125 who know where they are. I remember once hearing of a Dutchman who lost his boy. He said: “ I lost my poy, and I could not find him novheres, never. He runned avay, and I vent after him, and I looks and looks all rount, and finds him on de curbstone, and I feels very pad. I dells him to go home along mit his fader, and he say he vould. I dinks to mineself, ‘ I got dat poy now.’ look at him, and he 1< at me, and den I cry, and he cry, and we bote cry. And den I dell him to stood up, and he stood up. And I look him right in de face, and he look me right in de face, and I put my arms rount his neck, and — it vas not him.” If this course of so-called moderate drinking goes on, then the ranks o r he drunk¬ ards will be filled. And what shall we do ? That is the ques¬ tion. Fight the drink ! Fight it, fight it wherever we find it, fight it in the social circle, n r , ., j r i i “DE DEBBIL SAYS ‘TAKE ’EM.’ " tight it in the dram-shop, fight it at home, and fight it abroad. No compromise! I am not one of those who believe in compromises. These compromises are very curious things. I once heard of a negro who was talking with another negro about his expe¬ rience, and he said, “ Oh, I’m awfully tempted, dreffully tempted.” “Well, how are you tempted?” “Oh, I’m tempted to steal, dar ’s where I’m tempted — tempted to steal, can’t 126 A “FEARFUL EXAMPLE.” resist. Why, I went into a boot and shoe store de odder day. Dere was a handsome pair of boots ; handsomest pair of boots I eber saw in my life. Dem was bery expensive boots, deni was ; de best boots I eber set my eyes on. An’ I wanted ’em. De debbil says, 4 Take ’em.’ De Lawd says, 4 Leave ’em alone.’ Now what was I going to do? I wanted dem boots. Debbil says, 4 Take ’em,’ and de Lawd says, 4 Let ’em alone.’ Dat’s two to one; we is in cl’ar majority, an’ I don’t know what to do. So I jes’ made a compro¬ mise w i d d e Lawd, an’ took a cheap pair of shoes off anoder shelf, and walk off wid ’em.” Some of these people who re¬ gard t h e m- selves as advo¬ cates of the cause do more harm than good. I remember reading a story of a man who was drunk, and a gentleman came to him and said, 44 What are you doing?” 44 Doing? Well, that’s just what I’m doing.” u No, but what are you about?” 44 What am I about? That’s just exactly what I am about.” 44 But what is your business?” “Business? I’m in the temperance business.” 44 In the temperance busi¬ ness. Why, how in the world do you make that out ? ” 44 Why look here: you see I’ve got a brother, and he’s a PEOPLE HARD TO PLEASE. 127 temperance lecturer, and I go along with him as the fearful example of the evils of intemperance.” I do not know but that man was honest, for a man will think anything almost, when he is in the habit of drinking. Our method is simple, it is lawful , and it is expedient , when we adopt it for the sake of others. And I ask, if a principle is worth adopting for the sake of example to save others, is it not worth adopting for its own sake ? We need, and ask for, your influence. Many persons are afflicted with a great deal of modesty, and when asked to sign the pledge, say, “ I don’t know that I have any particular in¬ fluence.” Such persons would not be pleased if I should say they had no particular influence. I once made a man very angry who said, “ I don’t know that I have any particular in¬ fluence.” I said, “ I don’t know that you have.” He was quite vexed because I agreed with him. He was like the man that stood up in a church meeting and said that he had not been as good a man as he ought to have been, and that he had cheated and over-reached people; he would now confess and declare that it should not be so any more. A friend rose and said, “ I am very glad our brother has confessed _ \ -f :• and repented, for X can testify to the truth of every word he has said.” “It is false,” was the immediate reply. Many excuse themselves by under-rating their own ability or influence, asking, “ What can I do ? If I should give up my position in this matter for you, what good can I do ? ” When that boy went to hear Jesus Christ preach, we may say that he went as we would go nowadays to a camp-meeting. His mother put him up a little lunch, five small barley loaves and a few fishes. Five thousand hungry folks were gathered there; they came to the boy for his loaves and fishes. He might have said, “ They are only enough for myself. Mother put them up for my lunch. I cannot give up my cakes. It 128 QUEER IDEAS OF FAITH. would not be of any use if I did.” But no, he did not say this; he gave up his cakes. And — what? The Master blessed them, and the five thousand were fed, and there were twelve basketsful left. Now, I say to you, man or woman, child or youth, bring your five barley cakes and ask the Mas¬ ter to bless them, and you will see the result; for it is the small things that He makes mighty, through His power, to the overturning of things that are great. All we need is faith, and our work will then be faith in action. Some people have curious ideas about faith. A lady Edinburgh said to me : u There,” pointing to him, “is a boy who « illustrates *some people’s ideas of faith. As we were going from Edinburgh to Dunfermline, the ves¬ sel struck a rock and began to set¬ tle. A tug pushed out from the shore to take off the passengers, and my boy said, ‘ Oh, mamma, we are all going to drown.’ 4 My dar¬ ling, have I not always told you to trust in Providence ? ’ 4 Yes, mamma, and I will trust in Providence as quick as ever I get into that boat.’ ” Once, when a vessel was in danger, a lady said to the captain, 44 Captain, are we in any danger?” “Yes, ma’am, there is nothing left for us now but to trust in Providence.” And she said, 44 Goodness gracious, has it come to that?” What strange ideas people have of Providence ! A washerwoman, whose little shanty was burnt down, as she stood before the ruin, shut her fist and said, 44 You see if I don’t work on A DREADFUL TJlliEAT. WHAT IS FAITH? 129 Sundays to pay for that,” just as if the Lord had brought down her shanty, and she would get satisfaction by break¬ ing one of His commandments. Men have strange ideas of God’s dealings with us, and of faith in Him. What is faith ? To walk right on to the edge of the precipice, and then stop? No, walk on! What, set my feet upon nothing ? Yes, upon nothing, if it is in the path of duty; boldly set your feet on nothing, and a solid rock, firm as the everlasting hills, shall meet your feet at every step you take in the path of duty, only do it unwaver¬ ingly and in faith. What we have to do is to settle the point that we are right; and then onward. You remember, when the children of Israel went out of Egypt, when they were a band of escaped fugitives. Their ranks were encumbered with many women and children, and their mighty, but meek, leader was armed only with a rod. Here come the chariots and horsemen of Pharaoh, treading on their very shadow. A pillar of fire went before the Israelites by night, and a pillar of cloud by day; and they marched till they came to the shores of the Red Sea, and then — what ? Read the magnificent narrative. And the Lord God said unto Moses from out of the cloud, “Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward.” That was the only command. How can they go forward ? There is no other command for them ; but to Moses came these words: “Stretch forth thy rod,” and the way opened. God never yet gave us a duty to do but he opened the way for us when we were ready to do it. He never yet gave an impossible command. So Moses stretched forth his rod and the water stood in heaps. Tramp, tramp, tramp went the three millions over the bed of the sea, and their enemies came in after them in the night-time. Now — what ? “ Forward ! ” “But our enemies are in the rear.” “Forward! ” “Yes, 130 GOD SPEED THE RIGHT. but before us is, — we know not what, — and the waters are on either side.” “ Forivard ! ” “ Yes, but we can feel the very breath of the horses upon our necks, and hear the chariot wheels grind in the shingle as they pursue us.” “j Forward!” “Yes, but we must defend our wives and little ones.” “ Forward ! ” And the pillar that went before them passed over and stood in their rear. It was light unto them, it was darkness to their enemies; “and they came not near each other all the night.” Those who had obeyed the command, “ forward! ” stood on the other side, and then the Lord God looked out from the pillar of fire, and troubled the Egyptians, and brake their chariot wheels. Those who had obeyed the command, “ forward! ” saw the wrecks of chariots, and the carcasses of the horses, and the bodies of men strewing the strand. Let us settle the question, “Am I right?” And then, shoulder to shoulder, march on, our motto, “Excelsior;” our hope, that there is a better day ♦ coming; and our prayer, “ God speed the right.” CHAPTER IV. BLUNDERS, COMICAL, CURIOUS, SERIOUS, AND CRIMINAL, AND PEOPLE WHO MAKE THEM — EUNNY STORIES. Various Sources of Blunders — Heading a Boy in a Barrel — Absent-minded People — Anecdote of Dr. Duncan — Amusing Incidents — Ministerial Blunders — The Pibroch and the Slogan — The “Coisoned Pup” — Laughable Mistakes — Blunders of the Past — Blunders of Society — Irish Bulls — Killing a Man Twice— The “Red Cow” — Common Errors — Misuse of Words — Blunders in Language — A Musician with Carved Legs — Religious Horses — Human Parasites — The Curse of Mormonism— Serious Blunders — Sowing Dragons’ Teeth — Office Seekers —How to Secure Honest Legislation — Curious Blunders in Literature — Sacrificing Sense to Rhyme — The Lawyer and the Sailor — Neatly Caught — Funny Blunders — A Viper with Feet — “ No. 45, Stick No Bills ”— “ Let Her Drop”—Moulting Angels — Take Your Soundings. Y the term “blunders” I em¬ brace a wide range of mean¬ ing: errors, mistakes, bulls, and the like, — an error being a departure or deviation from that which is right; mistake, the taking of one thing for another; a blunder being a mistake or error of the grossest kind, and generally considered blamable, usu¬ ally exposing a person to shame or ridicule; while a bull is simply a verbal blunder, containing a laughable incongruity of ideas. One source of blunders is the failure to fasten the mind on the business which is immediately in hand. The mechanic spoils his work by thinking of something else. A cooper puts his 131 132 AMUSING INCIDENTS. son inside the barrel to hold up the head, and finds, when he has finished, that his boy is headed in the barrel, with no way of escape but through the bung-hole,—a foolish blunder. A dentist may extract the wrong tooth, — a stupid blunder. A physician may prescribe the wrong medicine, or a druggist may put up the wrong prescription, — criminal blunders. Another source is chronic, permanent, and habitual absent- mindedness. Dr. Duncan of Edinburgh, while going to a meeting, took out his paper of snuff; the wind blew; he turned to leeward to take his pinch, forgot that he had turned, walked straight away from the meeting, and failed to fulfil his engagement. Another eminent Scotch divine, Dr. Lawson, was constantly blundering from this cause. He was often so absorbed in his studies as to confound the realities of life with his imagination. Once, he left his lecture-room taking with him a student’s hat instead of his own book which he was to carry home. Another time he was leaving the house with a lady’s bonnet on his head, the bonnet having been left hanging on a peg where his own hat ought to have been. Once, when walking in a heavy shower, a friend loaned him an umbrella, which he carefully put under his coat, through fear of wetting it. On one occasion, while in his study, intent on his books, the servant rushed in, exclaim¬ ing, “ Sir, sir, the house is on fire! ” The Doctor did not intermit his studies for a moment, but simply said, “ Go and tell your mistress. I have no charge of household matters, so do not disturb me.” The celebrated Neander would start from his house to his lecture in his night-gown, only to be brought back by his sister. Once, having put one foot in the gutter, he hobbled along the whole length of the street, and, as soon as he reached home, hastily sent for the doc¬ tor to cure him of his imaginary lameness. Sometimes blunders occur through a sensitive desire to HINTS TO DIFFIDENT PEOPLE. 133 avoid them. If, in carrying a pan of water, you spill the liquid on one side, you are almost certain to spill it on the other. In rolling ten-pins, if you roll your ball off the alley on one side, at the next roll it is almost sure to go off on the other. A diffident person who has been studying and posing for appearance at the coming party, is almost certain to make a succes¬ sion of blunders in the effort to be easy and graceful. The orator who is over anxious for appearances, appropriate ges¬ tures, or the very precise modula¬ tions of his voice, is apt to become artificial, and is almost sure to blunder either b;y an inappropriate gesture, or by “sir! sir! the house is on fire!” wrong time. A speaker should not be striving for pretty sentences or obedi¬ ence to certain rules. Bunyan would have blundered into the Slough of Despond, and stayed there, if he had aimed to write prettily rather than vigorously and usefully. An orator is the least apt to blunder who is natural, who has something to say, and says it. 9 134 THE “ COISOjSTED PUP.” Ludicrous blunders arise in attempting to correct them. A clergyman, using as an illustration the scene at Lucknow where Jessie Brown cries out, “ Dinna ye hear it, the pi¬ broch and the slogan?” said, “Dinna ye hear it, the pigan and the slobroch ? ” A friend told him of his blunder, and he, wishing to be correct, took occasion at the evening service to say: “I have been informed that I said in the morning sermon,‘the pigan and the slobroch;’ I intended saying, 4 the slobroch and the pigan.’ Receive the blessing.” One minister could never say, “ Sweet for bitter, and bitter for sweet; ” but, in his nervous efforts to be correct, invariably repeated, “ Switter for beet, and beet for switter.” Macready tells of an actor who, in rendering the words, “ The poisoned cup,” constantly said, “the coisoned pup,” to the great delight of his audiences. On one occasion he rendered it correctly. Instantly there was an uproar, and he was not permitted to proceed till he had given “ the coisoned pup,” and was rewarded with shouts of applause. While innocent and most amusing blunders are constantly occurring, giving occasion for merriment and making whole¬ some changes of thought and feeling from grave to gay, there are also many that take hold on our deepest life. Often, just the thought of them sweeps off the foam from the waves of our daily experience, and compels us to note the tremendous under-roll of blunders that shift our barks, yours and mine, from crest of wave to trough of sea on the ocean of our lives. Now, if the cargo we carry is more precious than gold, is it not of grave consequence that we make no mis¬ takes in our navigation ? Have we blundered in the past ? Yes. For many years, great sections tried to believe, and to crowd all others to admit, the doctrine that some of the races had no rights that others were bound to respect. For years a sleepless endeavor DIREFUL RESULTS OF A BLUNDER. 135 was made to bend and twist all social, and organized, and legislative life to the justification and protection of this infa¬ mous doctrine. For many years, only a few heard a voice say¬ ing, “ Shall not I visit for these things ? ” Even the holiest things and the holiest book were fiercely held and bent and twisted, too, to make them justify this doctrine. u What came of it ? ” You remember the hour when there was a high and resistless interference with our blind, cowardly, and wicked treaties with the great wrong of slavery, and half a million lives were the direct victims, a million more, less direct, and the heavy burdens laid on us for many years to come showed to the world the awful blunder we had made. Now, shall we let other seeds, noxious and baleful, grow and spread and multiply a myriadfold, while we sleep as we did, when the moral sense of the nation was drugged, in the mat¬ ter of slavery? In what a condition are masses of the children of this nation ? The mortality of children in poor localities in large cities reveals a fearful blunder of society in its neglect of these pitiable objects. Six hundred and forty- eight of these little ones died under five years of age in one week in the city of New York. At that rate, in one month two per cent of all the children in that city would be swept away. We are apt to call all blunders that arise from the misuse of words, bulls; and most of these we attribute to the Irish. Miss Edgeworth, in her essay on Irish bulls, observes that it never yet has been decided what it is that constitutes a bull. The Duke of Argyll says that the definition she means is not the definition of a bull, but the definition of that kind of bull supposed to be especially Irish, and she gives an illustra¬ tion : “ When I first saw you, I thought it was you, but now I see it is your brother.” Carleton, in his “ Traits of the Irish Peasantry,” says that Miss Edgeworth wrote an essay 136 BULLS OF VARIOUS NATIONS. on that which does not, and never did, exist; and he further says that the source of this error in reference to Irish bulls is in the fact that their language is in a transition state, the English tongue gradually superseding the Irish, and their blunders are the result of the use of a language they do not fully understand. We find ludicrous blundering by the French and Germans when learning another language, such as, “ My boy bit himself mit a little dog,” etc.; but there is a neatness and complete¬ ness of confusion in an Irish bull which is inimitable and unapproachable, and which constitutes at once its humor and its innocence. The bulls of other nations have the absurdity without the fun. The pure bull is the contra¬ diction in terms, the assertion of something which is denied in the very terms of the as¬ sertion, or the denial of some¬ thing which is asserted in the A SHILLING SHORT. ° terms of the denial, some¬ times apparently obscure. A hat was passed around to col¬ lect a shilling from each person at a meeting; the deacon who counted the money exclaimed, “Here’s a shilling short; who put it in?” A lady wrote to her friend, “I met you this morning, and you didn’t come; I’ll meet you to-morrow morning whether you come or not.” A man remarked to his friend, “ If I had stayed in that climate till now, I’d have been dead two years ago.” His friend remarked, “Ah, if I only knew where people never died, I’d end my days ENGLISH BULLS. 137 there.” One said, “ I see no reason why women should not become medical men.” During the Irish rebellion, some of the insurgents, being very angry at a banker, determined to ruin him. They collected all his bank notes and destroyed them, thus making his fortune. An Irish paper published this item: “ A deaf man named Taff was run down by a passenger-train, and killed on Wednesday. He was injured in a similar way about a year ago.” I will dismiss the Irish bulls by a story that was told me in Ireland. An Irish gen¬ tleman was entertained by a party of Englishmen at a hotel in a certain town in England, and the conversation turned on Irish bulls, and the Irish gentleman, being a little nettled, said: “ Bulls, bulls, what are you bothering me about bulls for? You can’t talk about an Irishman without speaking of a bull. You have as many bulls in England as we. In Eng¬ land you are bull-headed, and bull-tempered, and bull-necked ; you are John Bull; you are bull all over. Now, you can’t put up a sign on a public-house without sticking up a bull. In the very street where we are sitting now, there are six public-houses with signs of bulls.” “ Oh, no,” said one of the gentlemen, “not so many as that.” “But I tell you there are, just so many.” “No, we have counted them, and we know there are not six.” “Well, I will wager the din¬ ner for the company in the same place where we are sitting now that there are six public-houses with signs of bulls on them.” “Very well, let’s hear them.” “There is the White Bull, that’s one ; the Black Bull is two ; the Brown Bull is three ; the Spotted Bull is four; the Pied Bull is five, —.” “Ah, that’s all, that’s all.” “No, there’s another one.” “ Ah, but we know better.” “ I tell you there’s another one. Black, white, brown, spotted, pied, and there’s the Red Cow.” “Ha, ha! That’s an Irish bull.” “Very well, if the Red Cow is an Irish bull, that makes six, and I’ve won my wager.” 138 EVERYDAY BLUNDERS. Now, we make as many blunders in language as the Irish. We say, we shell peas when we unshell them; we husk corn when we unhusk it; we dust the furniture when we undust it; we skin a calf when we unskin it; we weed a garden when we unweed it; we unbend when we bend; we boil the kettle, etc. I once saw a notice on a ferry boat, 44 Persons are requested not to leave the boat until made fast to the dock.” A man, in de¬ fence of tobacco, said: “There’s my father, he smokes and chews, and he is eighty years old.” 44 Ah,” said his oppo¬ nent, 44 if he had not used tobac¬ co, he might have been nine¬ ty by this time.” A colored preacher said: 44 There will be a fo’ days’ meet¬ ing every night next week except Wednesday afternoon.” A woman, rebuking her two boys, said: 44 Now, if you don’t quit, I ’ll tell both your fathers.” I heard a person say of his neighbor, “Pie died and made a will.” A woman fell into a well, and said: “If it had not been for Providence and another woman, I should never have got out.” During an a “fo’ days’ meeting.” NATIONAL BLUNDERS. 139 epidemic, a man said : 44 There are a great man y people dying this year, who never died before.” A minister announced, 44 A young woman died suddenly last Sabbath while I was preaching in a state of beastly intoxication.” Blunders in advertisements are illimitable. 44 All persons in this town owning dogs shall be muzzled.” “Wanted: Two appren¬ tices who will be treated as one of the family.” 44 Lost: a large lady’s bead bag.” 44 To be sold: a piano-forte, the property of a musician with carved legs.” An advertise¬ ment of a washing-machine commenced, “Everyman his own washerwoman.” In a western paper, a person advertised for a young man to take care of a pair of horses of a religious turn of mind. Then there are blunders of omission and com¬ mission in legislation that have their causes away back in the places where men vote heedlessly and carelessly, when ster¬ ling honesty and an upright conscience are ignored in a can¬ didate, and some plausible Mr. By-ends gets the great power to legislate. Why is it that while the legislator, the repre¬ sentative of the people, should be, like Caesar’s wife, above Suspicion, there should be the curl of the lip, the unspoken sneer, the shrug of the shoulders, and the contemptuous word at the congressman? Yet there is, even among some thoughtful and wflse men. Surely this is not because the average congressman, assemblyman or representative has made his place shining with steadfast virtue; not because every vote and every speech and all his reflection of himself in character and life is a high wall of smooth rock on which no lobbyist could climb, no parasite of an office-seeker could fasten himself? No, but there has been such trickery, false¬ hood, bribery, and self-seeking fastened on so many members, such lack of principle, such mean truckling to the veriest ragamuffin or rowdy for his vote, that, like the dead flies in the ointment of the apothecary, they have injured the repu- 140 OUR NATION’S DISGRACE. tation of the whole body of legislators. When this is the case, somebody has blundered fearfully. Ought not such blunders to be charged to the electors, who fail to remember that it is righteousness that exalts a nation; who fail to remember that when any people “ establish iniquity by law,” even in their material luxury and prosperity, there is cause for alarm. Of this, the careful reader of history all down the ages can be assured, not even the unfinished histories falsifying this truth. Think you, if the voters who send men to Congress had been faithful to their high privilege, that the huge moral ulcer at Salt Lake City could still continue to spread in spite of all the efforts by Congress to suppress the abomination ? I was once asked by a gentleman if I had ever read the life of Madame Du Barry, and he advised me if I had not, to read it. I think I never read of such awful depravity and wickedness as that record of the reign of Louis XV. It was loathsome and disgusting, yet from reliable sources of infor¬ mation we gather facts in our own land more terrible and more abominable than any that were ever recorded of Louis XV., or of any other monarch. In a letter I received from a minister of the gospel residing at Salt Lake City, he states that a couple came to him to be married legally, and he found that the woman had five living husbands, each one of them separated from her by the will of the chief man of this odious system; and there were other statements too abom¬ inable for print. What a tremendous menace to all justice and purity and truth are the secret, oath-bound, extra-judicial organizations, where the free air of public discussion and comment cannot blow through, nor over, nor under, their principles and doings! Can a blunder like this be anything but a sowing of dragons’ teeth broadcast in this land, and are not the recruits THE CURSE OF OFFICE-SEEKING. 141 of this great army of wronged and cheated women, and duped and brutal men brought from your vicinity and mine? You say it is only the ignorant that are led astray. But are not the ignorant and misled entitled to all the protection that the intelligent and clear-sighted can give? Then let us shun the blunder that narrows knowledge and culture to the people, and puts a hook in their nostrils for them to be led only as the crafty few would dictate; and let us elect such men to places of legislative power as will remember that it is not a party, or an office, or a hierarch, but righteousness that exalteth a nation. What a pitiful sight, in a Christian land, are men standing before their fellow-citizens, appealing to the basest motives of the base, the vilest passions of the vile, taking advantage of the ignorance of the ignorant, fawning on the lowest, full of lies and all deceit, for what? For office, where they may plunder those who send them. Oh, is it not pitiful to see men so rabid with the madness for office that, to gain it, they would thrust the Bible from our common schools, and tread on the open page of the desecrated Scriptures to gain place? How we are fallen since Rufus Choate uttered these memorable words in New York City, “What! Banish the Bible from our schools? Never, while there is a piece of Plymouth Rock left large enough to make a gun-flint of.” Yes, we have men who owe their position to-day, and the ability to stand where they do, to the education received in our common schools, who would demolish the system that has made them, and make our magnificent institution of free education which has been, and is, the admiration of the world, a thing of the past, just to lift themselves to place and power. I declare that any man who dares to lift hand or voice against that free common- school system which is the glory of our country, either to sustain Mormonism, or for the sake of a vote, or at the bid- 142 PRIVATE AND PUBLIC HONESTY. ding of a priesthood, is guilty of .treason to his country, treason against humanity, treason against God. Thank God, there are unstained names and well-equipped minds in whom honor and truth are regnant, who honor public office; but such do not often seek it, the office must seek them if it secures their services. Would that the day might come when for a man to seek public office from dishonorable motives, or for merely selfish ends, would be to secure his prompt rejection. Then, again, there are people who scrupulously discharge every real debt, and are even generous and liberal, yet who have no scruple against practising some petty fraud on the public revenue. Private interests are regarded, while the public interests are set at naught. Very respect¬ able people get into the habit of dealing with the State as they would not with one another. Is not every man’s duty to the commonwealth as high, to say the least, as his duty to any one member of that commonwealth? Is it really pure patriotism to rush with a crowd at a trumpet’s call in defence of your country, to march with the beat of drum and thrill¬ ing music, while a nation looks on with sympathy and praise, and then to cut the very sinews of defence by cheating the revenue, adding to the heavy mountain load of obliga¬ tion under which we are staggering ? So it is with corpo¬ rations. Many a man and woman who would scorn a mean act towards an individual would steal a ride on a rail¬ road, and swindle a corporation without shame or remorse. Can you expect a fountain to rise higher than its source? Will you find in the halls of Congress or in the State House a higher honesty in dealing with great public interests than you practise when dealing yourself with the Commonwealth? Cheat a corporation, defraud the State, and boast of it before your boy, or let him hear of it; and do you know that you LITERARY BLUNDERS. 143 may be training your State senator, your congressman, to rob the public treasury, and bring just disgrace on your name, possibly in this quick-ripening age before your own ears are past hearing of it? Would not that be a blunder to repent ■of too late? There are very curious blunders in literature. I suppose Byron sacrificed sense to rhyme when he wrote, “I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, a palace and a prison on each hand.” And Allan Cunningham, in the 44 Mariners’ Song,” blundered as Dibdin never would have done, when he wrote of the 44 Wet sheet and the flowing sea,” forgetting that a nautical sheet is not a sail, but a rope. A celebrated lawyer was once neatly caught in a blunder in cross-ques¬ tioning a sailor in reference to the position of the ship at the time a certain occurence took place. 44 Now, sir, where was your ship at that time?” “ Well, sir, we were just on the line.” 44 In what latitude ? ” 44 Eh, what ? ” 44 1 ask you in what latitude were you ? ” 44 Ha, ha ! ho, ho ! ” 44 What are you laughing at ? I ask you again, in what latitude were you at the time?” “Now do you mean it, or are you joking?” 44 1 am not joking, and I ask you to answer my question.” 44 Well, you ’re a pretty lawyer not to know that there ain’t no latitude at the equator.” Many funny blunders occur from false orthography and false construction; many of us receive letters that are laughable from this cause. I received a letter from a young professor, requesting aid in starting a classical school, and there were several blunders in spelling in the communi¬ cation. A speaker said in commendation of the judiciary that 44 our judges do not sit like marble statues to be wafted about by every idle breeze.” I once heard a speaker in England say, 44 We will march forth with our axes on our shoulders, and plough the mighty deep so that our gallant 144 GRANDILOQUENT PEOPLE. ship shall sail gloriously over the land.” An English counsel said with regard to the defendant, “Until that viper put his foot among them.” A lawyer said, “My client lives from hand to mouth, like the birds of the air.” Another said, “We shall knock the hydra-head of faction a rap on the knuckles.” A member of Congress is reported to have commenced a speech with, “ Mr. Speaker, the gener¬ ality of mankind in gen¬ eral is disposed to exer¬ cise oppression on the generality of mankind in general,” when he was pulled down by his friend with the remark, “You ’d better stop, you are com¬ ing out of the same hole you went in at.” I have been amused at the poor Frenchman’s blunder, who, not understanding the English language, was advised by a friend, in order to avoid losing him¬ self on his visit to the exhibition in London, to take down on a card the name and number of the street where he lodged; and by showing that to a policeman he would be directed to his quarters. The poor fellow wandered all over the city, showing to every policeman a card, on which was written, “No. 45, Stick no Bills.” Teachers, especially Sunday-school teachers, often blunder in putting questions unwarily to children, obtaining very ludicrous replies. “Now, boys, what did the Israelites do A PUZZLED FRENCHMAN. COMICALITIES IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 145 after they crossed the Red Sea ? ” One boy shouted out, “ I guess they dried theirselves.” A teacher endeavoring to illustrate a point, said, “ Now, if I ignite a match, and care¬ fully place it over the gas-burner, why do I not get a light? Why does not the gas burn ? ” A boy said, “ Because you have not paid your gas bill.” “ Now, boys,” said a teacher, “ I want you to be so still that you can hear a pin drop; now, quiet — hush — listen.” At that moment a small boy squeaked out, “ Let her drop.” All burst out laughing, and the teacher lost control of them. A teacher asked the scholars in his class why it was that if the angels had wings they needed a lad¬ der to ascend and descend in Jacob’s dream, and re¬ ceived from a little boy the suggestion that per¬ haps they were moulting. Lord Shaftesbury once asked a little girl, “Now, my little girl who made your vile body ? ” and received this reply, “Betsy Jones made the body, and I made the skirt myself.” “What’s a miracle?” “ Dunno.” “Well, if the sun were to shine in the middle of the night, what would you say it was ? ” “ The moon.” “ But if you were told it was the sun, what would you say it was?” “A lie.” “I don’t tell lies; suppose I told you it was the sun, what would you i BETSY JONES. 146 PRECOCIOUS CHILDREN. say then?” “That you were drunk.” “Now, Jenny Wells, can you tell me what is meant by a miracle ? ” “ Yes, teacher, mother says if you don’t marry the new parson, it vill be a miracle.” We often blunder in forgetting the precocity of children, and are often mortified at their repetition of some remarl that we have been imprudent enough to make in their pres* ence. A little girl once asked a gentleman caller, “Who lives next door to you?” “Why, my little dear?” “Oh, ’cause my mother said you was next door to a fool.” A couple of visitors asked a child, “ Did you tell your mamma we had called ? ” “ Yes.” “ And what did she say ? ” “ She said, ‘bother! ’ ” “Well, Master Fred, you don’t know who I am.” “ Oh, but I do, though, you ’re the chap ma says would be such a catch for our Mary.” Young men, yes, middle-aged, old men and women, too, take a glance back at the way you have come, take your soundings. The ship that takes no soundings finds no safety. Can you not recall blunders for which you have paid, and are paying, the penalty? All wrong-doing is a blunder. The righteous are wise, the wicked are foolish. Have you not committed blunders that have caused you sleepless nights and sad wakeful hours, bitter regrets, the pangs of remorse, the terrible consciousness of transgression, and the dread forebodings of the consequences, the reaping of the sowing? Will you not repair the blunders and bring peace to your soul? You can, if you will. How many to-day look with tearful eyes, but with a glad heart, on blunders rectified. True, there was a hard struggle, but the victory was won by perseverance, and what a glorious victory! Young men, when the younger son demanded of his hither his portion, he made a blunder. When he spent his sub¬ stance in riotous living he still blundered; continuing his THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 147 erratic course, he spent all, and was reduced to living on husks. All the companions of his free life had deserted him, and he was left alone with the swine. He was in a pitiable condition; and when conscience, not quite dead, and the good spirit that God never wholly takes from us till the measure of iniquity is full, moved on his stricken heart, had he resisted these, it would have been the most perilous blunder of all; but he said within himself, “I will arise and go to my father,” a noble resolve, and his father met him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. The lost was found, the dead was alive. To depart was a blunder, the return was no blunder; will you not prove it so ? Some may say this is no place to advocate religious truth, but I ask you, is not the most important question with us all, How is it be¬ tween me and my Maker? Is it well with us? Should we not seek the highest enjoyment we are capable of, the most perfect safety, the most useful living? When we conform our wills to the will of the unchangeable, when our whole being is penetrated by the sacred influence of Christianity, it is filled with a sublimity that time or change cannot im¬ pair. Our lives will not then be barren of good results. This is the spirit that sees the end of all temptation, the i rectifying of all blunders. It gives quietness of heart under every solicitude, there is no darkness or desolation which it cannot brighten, no gloom it cannot dispel. It has no fear, no wavering, no despondency. It is ever constant, ever cheerful, in all trials, distresses, and conflicts of life, it is a never-failing helper and comforter, and in its hands are the keys of the kingdom of heaven. CHAPTER Y. RETRIBUTION — PLAIN TALK AND PLAINER FACTS — REMI¬ NISCENCES OF MY DARK DAYS — DELIRIUM TREMENS. Plain Talk to a Scotch Audience — Street Sights and Scenes After Dark — Wretchedness and Woe—“Jem, Is My John in There?”—A Poor Woman’s Plea — A Cowardly and Brutal Husband — Incident After Inci¬ dent—What I Saw on One of My Exploring Expeditions—Awful Brutality Caused by Drink — Scenes I Have Witnessed — Their Effect Upon Me — Memories of My Days of Dissipation — A Terrible Picture of Delirium Tremens — A Victim’s Testimony — Peculiarities of the Disease — Horrible Visions — Transfixed With Terror — My Own Experience — Civility and Incivility — How I Was Snubbed in Church — Reminiscences of My Dark Days — A Reckless Act — The Drunkard’s Sleep — Memory a Curse — A Forgiving Wife — The Hardest Audience I Ever Faced — I Am Discouraged — The Miner Who Spoke After Me — His Wonderful Speech — Tramp, Tramp, Tramp — Buckle On the Armor. O earnest or intelligent man can deny that drunkenness is the curse of the two great nations, the United States and Great Britain. And those who love their coun¬ try, and are most desirous for its best interests and welfare, are among those who mourn most over this terrible evil. I do not mean “ rabid teetotalers.” Your judges, statesmen, magistrates, law¬ yers, the very best and most intelligent men in the commu¬ nity, are ready to acknowledge that this is a terrible curse, which, if not checked, will sap the very vitals of this nation. I once said in Scotland, “This is a land of Sabbaths, a 148 PLAIN TALK. 149 land of Bibles, a land of gospel privileges, of liberty as great as we enjoy in America, a land of martyrs who counted it not loss to shed their blood on the moors and mountain sides, the land of Cameron, the land of Guthrie, the land of Knox, the land of heroes, — of Wallace and of Bruce. Oh, how you have degenerated, and become the most drunken people in the world! ” I know very well that this is plain talk, but we must have plain talk on this subject. It seems to me sometimes that there is a frightful significance in the story that is told of a little Russian boy, who had such wonderful powers of imitation. He would walk along, perfectly impas¬ sive, with a stolid face, and carrying a pipe in his mouth. The onlookers would shout, “ Turk! Turk! ” Then he would suddenly change his attitude, and start forward, with a quick, light step, and those about him would cry, “ Frenchman ! Frenchman! ” But when he came before them reeling and staggering, they called out, “ Englishman ! Englishman ! ” Let any man go through the streets of our large cities at night, and note the sights and scenes that meet the eye in connection with the drinking system,—I mean, of course, an intelligent and sober man. If you start with us on such a tour of exploration, go without your little drop of beer or your glass of wine, that you may see clearly. Is it characteristic of Anglo-Saxons to be brutal ? Is it characteristic of Englishmen to be brutal ? Why, there is not a nation on the face of this globe with a larger or more sympathetic heart beating for the woes, sorrows, and suffer¬ ings of others than the English. All foreign visitors, such as Guizot and Montalambert, are struck with the magnificent charity of England. Guizot speaks of it as a charity “ deep, comprehensive, sincere, and searching; a charity which, in the language of the apostle, covers a multitude of sins.’ Let there be a cry for help, through any disaster upon the river 10 150 PRACTICAL SYMPATHY. or in the coal mines; liow quickly comes the response! After the dreadful disaster on the Thames, when the 44 Princess Alice ” was wrecked, and hundreds of lives lost, over <£90,000 sterling were collected in various places, and from all classes, in sums ranging from £100, from the rich man, down to a penny from the workingman and a halfpenny from the boot- black. Let there be a cry for help from India, from China, from Japan, yes, and we say it gratefully, from the United States, and how prompt they are to reply I I was in Chicago just after the great fire, and I rode through ruins covering an area five miles in length by half to three quarters of a mile in breadth. A hundred acres an hour were consumed for twenty-four hours, and the people sat mourning in dust and smoke and ashes, shedding bitter and unavailing tears. I very well remember when the despatch came from Eng! and, by cable, 44 Draw on us, in London, for £10,000;” how it encouraged and comforted us. To be sure, we were doing all we could. The very workmen were giving one day’s work, and one little fellow stuck up a notice, 44 Black your boots for twenty cents to-day, for Chicago; ” and he sent twenty-three dollars to the fire fund. THE LITTLE PHILANTHROPIST. LOSS OF RESPECTABILITY. 157 one man die from it, and I shall never forget his look; he was but twenty-three years old, and he died mad. Very few sink so low as to lose all pride, and it is this sensitiveness to the opinions of others, and this lingering desire for the approbation of others, that is one of the causes of what is termed recklessness in man; the consciousness of the loss of respectability induces antagonism to those who are superior to him in the estimation of society, and we say he is an impudent fellow, resisting all efforts to approach him. It'is delightful to be respected; it is pleasant, when meeting a gentleman, to hear his “Good morning, sir, pleasant morning;” to bow to a lady in the street,-and to receive her salutation in return. Why I have known young men to walk two inches taller directly afterwards. Yes, it is very pleasant to be respected. Now, suppose you have lost, by some means or other, the respect of society and the esteem of your friends. What is the effect on you of losing this respect? I main¬ tain that no man, whose heart is not renewed by the grace of God, can bear the scorn of his fellows without paying it back, scorn for scorn, contempt for contempt. Retaliation is human nature. Supposing, then, you have, deservedly or not, been deprived of the respect of others. You go to the mar¬ ket or the exchange, and see a merchant well known to you turn suddenly round as you approach him, and begin talking earnestly to a third person. What is its effect? Why, if you have not the Divine forgiveness taught bv the gospel, you immediately say, “ Oh, I am as good as you are, any day; if you don’t choose to speak to me, I shan’t speak to you/’ Suppose a lady, getting out of a carriage, has her dress entangled, and she seems likely to fall; you hasten to offer assistance; she declines it haughtily, and requests you to move out of the way. The first thing you do is to turn r i i. i i 158 A MORTIFYING SNUB round to see if anybody saw that rebuff, your pride is morti¬ fied, and you pursue your way, considerably less happy than before ; and perhaps if you see another lady in a similar pre¬ dicament, you leave her there and pass sullenly on, — the incivility of the one makes you regardless of the other. I never was considered very gallant. I have a profound respect for women, and I believe the society of pure-minded, intelligent women does more to refine the manners and purify the heart of a young man than any other influence, except the gospel. But it happened that in the early part of my life I was debarred from the society of women, and I feel the effects thereof to this day. One Sunday I went to church, feeling, that day, in remarkably good humor, both with my¬ self and all around me. When the hymn was given out, I found the page and timidly offered the open book to a lady who sat near me. It was quite an effort. She looked at me from head to foot with a cold stare, took another book, and turned her back to me. The effect was most mortifying. It was cruel that an act so well meant should be so contemptu¬ ously rejected. One result of the occurrence is that I have never found a page for any strange lady in a church since, and I fear I may never muster sufficient courage again to risk incurring such a rebuff. The kindly intention increased the mortification. It is just so all the way down in different classes of society. If a gentleman is very unkindly treated in the course of the day’s transactions, when he reaches home his son, who meets him with a pleasant remark, is told crustily, 44 Don’t bother me.” The young man is not pleased, and when the man-servant speaks to him, he is told to 44 clear out.” The man, puzzled and annoyed, takes an opportunity to cuff his own boy for some trifling fault, or none at all. The boy rubs his head, and wonders what it is all about, and if he A RECKLESS ACT. 159 chance to meet just then with a favorite dog, he gives the animal a kick, and tells it to “ get out.” This is the secret of the drunkard’s recklessness. It is human nature, and, indeed, it seems to be animal nature, for the poor dog slinks with his tail between his legs into the street to snarl at, and bite, if he dares, the first dog he meets. I will not attempt to palliate the sin of drunkenness, and say that the drunkard does not deserve all that he feels; but, nevertheless, I repeat that this is often the secret of his reck¬ lessness. I once associated in bar-rooms with young men who were greatly my superiors in life, the sons of respectable merchants, or professional men, and though they delighted to hear me sing and tell my stories, they would not speak to me when they saw me in the street. They were genteel young men ; I was not. They walked with ladies and played the part of the accomplished beau; I did not. One day, when going through the streets, I saw one of my companions coming from an opposite direction with a lady on his arm. I tried to avoid him, as I had no wish to meet him, and I looked for some means of getting out of the way; but some¬ how I could not manage it. The moment he saw me he made a turn and crossed the street. Seeing this, I immedi¬ ately went across, and, walking up, addressed him in a jovial tone, “How are you? We had rare fun at ‘The Eagle ’ last night, but you were drunk as a fool. You are coming to¬ night, remember; don’t disappoint us.” I chuckled, because I felt I had power over him ; that, although despised, I could make his lip as white as his cheek, and bring the hot blood on the cheek of the lady at her gallant’s being recognized by a tavern companion when in her society. The drunkard is reckless, but there is another point of suffering. He has not only to bear the scorn and contempt of others, but he has to bear the load of self-contempt 160 THE DRUNKARD’S SLEEP. besides. You may bear the scorn of your fellows; but let the concentrated scorn of the community be pointed with hissing at you, and you can bear that better than the load of self-contempt,—better than you can bear the feeling that you are a wretched, miserable thing, from which your better nature shrinks in disgust; feeling as if you had a dead body bound to your living frame by thongs you cannot sever, that body a mass of putrefaction, and yet ever with you, when you walk abroad, and when you lie down to sleep. Sleep! The drunkard never sleeps. The drunkard never knows that calm sleep such as God gives to his beloved. Can you call that stertorous breathing sleep? Halloo in his ear; build a fire round him ; he stirs not, but it is not sleep. God pity the poor wretch, there is no sleep there. He grinds his teeth ; the oath, the curse, the word of blasphemy escaping his lips, the sweat standing in large drops on his brow; is that sleep ? God save you, young men, from suffering the only sleep the drunkard knows. Sleep is sweet, but this is torture. Wherever he goes, he carries his load of self-con¬ tempt with him. But there is another kind of misery which he endures. We forget that the drunkard may be a man of like feelings with ourselves, but the fact really is that those very faculties which drunkenness cannot kill are his curse. Memory to us may be pleasant; you can remember some severe trial from which you have, it may be, come out with locks shorn, but with face shining, and the remembrance of the contest is a comfort; it gives you strength on the battle-field of life. But what has the drunkard to contemplate ? The past to him is only as a point from which he has strayed. His memorv is a curse. He is like an instrument out of tune, and yet lie has a love for purest harmony, and is as sensitive as an iEolian harp. He would fain be so secluded that the POVERTY NO SIN. 161 winds of the morning should not blow a breath, lest they jar upon his ear. I repeat, he is an instrument all out of tune; and by his side stands a weird sister, a skilful performer, and her name is Memory, and she strikes every chord with her fingers, jarring through him with most horrible discords, making him mad; and he steeps his soul and senses in drink that he may forget the past. The sense of degradation is the curse of the man who has not become entirely depraved and reckless. He keenly feels his humiliation. Drink, not poverty, has degraded him. No, there is no degradation or sin in poverty. An old colored servant was asked (although I do not know why we should call them “colored” people,for a negro was once asked whether he was a colored man, and he said, “No, I was born so ; I never was colored ”), “How do you manage to live in such a smoke ? ” What did she say? “ Why, honey, I ’se THANKFUL FOR SMALL FAVORS. thankful to get any¬ thing to make a smoke of.” Another poor creature said, when some one talked to her about her sufferings, “ Oh, honey, dat is nothing. Don’t you know dat is just in de hands of de Lord ? and sometimes He whips us and leaves us to see if we won’t work. But, bless your heart, honey, just as 162 A WIFE’S LOVE. soon as we cries like a baby, He takes us up and comforts us.” We meet with some magnificent experiences of Christian faith and trust and devotedness among the poor, I think sometimes more than among the rich. Poverty does not degrade, but sin does. Everything that defiles the spirit is degrading, and there is no degradation like that of drunken¬ ness, none in this wide world. I know, when we hear of wife-beating and all that kind of thing, we say, 44 Men are brutes.” They are not brutes. I have worked among them for forty years, and have never found a brute among them. Yet I have found 44 hard cases.” But I attribute most of it to the influence of drink. A man will not beat his wife if he is sober. Oh, is it not pitiful to hear of beaten wives ? What did one of them say the other day? When a gentleman called to see her, her face was bruised and her eye black, and she said, 44 Yes, he did beat me, but he was in liquor when he did it. He was drunk when he did it; and this morning he asked my pardon, and before he went out to look for work he kissed me with his famished lips, and left half a dozen potatoes for myself and the children. God bl^ss him. I would give my life for him to¬ day.” These are the women who are abused and crushed by men, some of them with hearts naturally as warm as yours, 0 and feelings as tender, but debased by the abominable influ¬ ence of drink. I once heard a speech, and it is a much better one than I can make, and therefore I will repeat it. On one occasion I spoke to an audience of eight hundred of the hardest men I ever came across in my life. If you threw a joke at them it dropped like a stone falling into a bed of mud, chuck! You could not move them to laughter or tears or anything else. There they sat, as if inquiring, 44 What are you going to do next?” All were alike. I sat down very AN ILLITERATE ORATOR. 163 much discouraged, and the chairman said to me: “ Now, Mr. Gough, if you have no objection, I should like to ask a man I see in the audience to come on the platform. You think these people have no enthusiasm, but you will find that they have. You have not yet seen them. This man cannot read or write, but he knows a great deal of the Scriptures, and when he preaches on the hillside, on the Sabbath, he gathers hundreds to hear him. If you have no objection, and would like to hear him, I will invite him to speak, and you will see how he can move this audience.” I said, “ Objection ? I should be delighted to hear him.” So up he came, in fustian jacket and corduroy trousers. He had been in the mine, and had evidently given himself a splash and a wipe. He had a good, clear eye, and an honest face. The first thing he said was: — “ How d’ ye do, lads ? The gentleman axed me to come •on th’ platform b’cause he thowt ye ’d loike to have a look at me. I hain’t no objection to ony man’s lookin’ at me; ye- may look at me if ye loike. Dunnot ye see how fat I’m agettin’ ? I doan’t drink no beer, neither. Look at me. I bean’t ashamed. My elbows bean’t stickin’ out o’ my jacket, and my toes bean’t stickin’ out o’ my boots. I’ve got a •clean shirt on, and I gets one once a weeak; an’ by th’ look •o’ some o’ you, ye doan’t get one once a month. Ye may look at me if ye loike. I bean’t ashamed if ye do. I say, lads, I’ve made a change. I’ve changed beer fur bread, an’ brandy fur beef, an’ I’ve changed gin fur good clothes. They ’re pretty good uns, though they bean’t very stylish-loike. And I’ve changed rum fur a happy wife an’ a comfortable ’ome. My wife doan’t lay no longer on a bundle o’ rotten rags, an’ call’t a bed; an’ my childer doan’t run no longer i’ the streets, learnin’ devil’s tricks; they goas to school, an’ I pays a penny a week fur each on ’em, and they ’re goin’ 164 THE MINER’S SPEECH. to be better educated than their dad ever was. I ’ve made a change. Ye remember th’ owd song we used to sing: — ‘ When a man buys beef, be buys bones; When a man buys plums, he buys stones; When a man buys heggs, he buys shells; When a man buys drink, be buys nothing else.’ Ain’t it true ? Ay, lads, that’s all true, an’ every one o’ you knows it;” and they began to shout, “Hurrah, hurrah!” Every one of them. “ THE DEN I WAS BURROWIN’ IN.” “ I doan’t want you to ’oiler. I did n’t coom ’ere for any ’ollering. I ’ll tell ye what I did th’ fust thing when I’d put my name on th’ temperance pledge. I went whoam and towd my missus, an’ that brightened her up a bit. Then I took my childer out o’ th’ gutter. Then I got out o’ th’ den I was burrowin’ in, and took a ’ouse, a two-roomed ’ouse. DICK’S STORY. 165 I am a ‘ ’ousekeeper’ now, I am. And then I thowt I must cut a dash myself, an’ I did, but I’ll never do it again. 1 got a black pair o trousers, a canary-colored waistcoat, an’ jacket to match, an a foine big necktie wi’ dots on it, an' then I got a stiff at, an I 11 be bio wed if ’t warn’t a stiff un; an then I strutted up an down, an’ when the people that knowed me afore seed me, blowed if they warn’t all putrified, every one on ’em.” Again the audience shouted. 44 Now, look ’ere, I doan’t want none o’ your ’offering; I want to make this 'ere speech what some of the learned gentlemen caff a prac¬ ticable speech. There ’s Dick ower there. Dick bobbed his head down when I said, 4 Dick.’ Everybody knows Dick. He’d share his last crust wi’ a brother pitman, and lend his tools to his CUTTING A DASH. brother workman if he know'd he’d pawn ’em next day. Dick would lie on his back sixteen hours pickin’ coal, and spend t’ other eight takkin’ keer o’ a sick child ut belonged to a neighbor, Dick would. But what did Dick bob his head down fur when I said 4 Dick ? ’ Dick, my lad, you knows me and I knows you. I want to ax you a question. D’ ye remember that bitter November night when th’ wind was drivin’ the sleet through the thick cloas of a man, an’ you sent your little lass out, an’ she had but one garment on her, an’ that was acling- 11 166 AN APPEAL TO TOM. in’ to her bare blue legs wi’ tli’ wet, and you sent her wi’ a blackin’-bottle, an’ she could hardly stand on her bare toes aid put tli’ blackin’-bottle on tli’ counter, an’ you sent her wi’ a silver sixpence for gin; an’ there was your ’alf- starved wife lyin’ on th’ floor, wi’ a new-born babe wailin’ at her side. Ah, Dick, that was bad. I say, lads, was’t Dick as turned tli’ lass out that night ? No, ’t was tTC cursed drink did that. Down wi’ tli’ drink, an’ up wi’ tli’ man! That’s my doctrine. “ An’ there’s Tom there, just such another as Dick. Tom bobbed his head down when I said 4 Tom.’ Ah, every¬ body knows him. I want to ax you a ques¬ tion, Tom. What did you promise the lass when you took her from her mother’s ’ome? Did n’t } r ou promise to love her, an’ cherish her, an’ protect her? Have you done it, Tom? Who gied her th’ black eye three weeks since ? Who thrust her down stairs an’ tore her flesh from her wrist to her elber? An’ she covered the place ower wi’ her apron, an’ towd folks lies to shield you, an’ said she tumbled. Ah, that’s bad, lads. Was ’t Tom as struck a woman? Was ’t Tom as threw his wife down th’ stairs ? No, ’£ was tli cursed drink as did it. Down with tli’ drink, an’ up wi’ the man ! That’s my doctrine. “I say, lads, do ye want to smooth tli’ wrinkles out o’ your wife’s face like ye smooth out th’ wrinkles in a sheet DRIVEN OUT INTO THE STORM. * A REMARKABLE SCENE. 169 wi’ a smoothing-iron? I have. Put your name on the pledge ; that ’ll do it. I say, Dick! Dick is coming, Dick is coming! Tom, Tom, look here! Ah, that’s right, Tom. Now, lads, follow a good example.” And fifty-eight men came tramp, tramp, tramp, on the platform. They seized the pen as if it were a pen of iron, and wrote as if they were graving their names into stone. That man did more work in ten minutes than I could do in ten hours, because his discourse was adapted to the character of his audience. To the drunkard who has any desire to reform, I give my hand. I say to him, “ My brother, you can fight this battle. You can do it.” Some people say, “I can’t.” So said a poor creature when he took up his pen and tried to write, dropped it again, and turned away. He took it up again and said, “If anybody will take the next six weeks from me, I will put my name down.” Yes, that is it, my man. You are afraid of the next six weeks. We will stand by you for the next six weeks. It is a hard struggle, I know. Oh, it is terrible ! Yet I say to you, my friend and brother, the longer you fight the surer is the victory. The longer you fight the less power your enemy has over you. He is weakened by every struggle, and you are the stronger. Therefore, it is a sure thing. Then, buckle on the armor, and fight, for victory is certain. CHAPTER VI. “AS A MEDICINE”—A FAIR NAME FOR A FOUL THING — A PRECIOUS SCOUNDREL WITH A FAIR FACE. Fault Finders — A Tippling LL.D. — A Cheese Argument — Scene at a Dinner Party — Drink as a Medicine — Doctors Who Prescribe Liquor — A Good Deal and Often — Effects of Alcohol on the Nervous System — Testimony of Two Thousand Physicians — A Distinguished Physician’s Opinion — Diseases Produced by Alcohol — Personal Experience of an Eminent Surgeon — My Own Experience — An Exceedingly Suspicious Mixture — A Compound Fearfully and Wonderfully Made — Extraordi¬ nary Prescriptions — Mrs. McCarthy’s “Noggin of Rum”—How the Upholsterer Got Even with the Doctor — A Good Story — Anecdote of Rev. Mr. Reid — “ Ask My Doctor ? ” — Sticking to the Same Remedy for Seven Years — An Offer to Loan a Thousand Dollars — Chasing a Bubble — My Visit to Werner’s Room — A Delightful Afternoon — A Musical Feast. O moderate drinkers we ap¬ peal for help. We do not abuse you. We do not tell you that you are worse than the drunkard, and all that sort of thing; and we do not desire to deprive you of a gratification with no reason but our own whim. But we can ask you to give it up, making no demand upon you except in the name of our common humanity. But some per¬ sons find fault with us, and tell us we are unjust in endeav¬ oring to deprive moderate drinkers of that which is a lawful gratification. A lady friend of mine, who never offers wine, gave a dinner- 170 RESULTS OF EATING CHEESE. 171 party at which were some literary gentlemen. One LL.D. said to her, 44 Mrs. So-and-so, I think you do me, and such as I am, an injustice.” “ How so ? ” “Well, you know I drink a glass of wine at my dinner. I am accustomed to it. I don’t think it ever hurt me. It does me good. I am fond of it. You say to me when I come to your house, 4 Now, doctor, I shall give you no wine, because a bad use is made of it by some, and here is a person who, if he drinks it, injures him¬ self.’ You take from me an innocent gratification, at the least, and that which I am used to, and which I miss if I do not obtain, because somebody makes a fool of himself; and be¬ cause somebody can’t drink without being injured, you say I shall have none. Now is that fair? By-and-by you will take from us all our little luxuries, and there is no knowing where these encroachments will end. Now I like a little bit of cheese after my dinner; I think it promotes digestion. Now suppose you say, 4 Doctor, here is a man who cannot eat cheese with impunity; I shall give you no cheese ; I will not give a particle of cheese to my guests, because some people eat cheese to their detriment.’ Is that fair?” I ask any intelligent person if that is a fair way of putting it ? Did you ever hear of a man on the scaffold, about to be hung, saying to those who came to witness his execution, 44 Take warning by me, and never eat cheese ? ” Did you ever hear of a man murdering his wife, and giving as his excuse that he had been eating cheese? Was there ever a row in the streets, ribs broken, and blood shed, which the news¬ papers next morning stated was because these men had been eating cheese ? Did you ever hear a mother mourn over the dead body of her child, crying, “Would I had died for thee, O, my son ! I have no hope in his death : he died from eating cheese ? ” All I have to say is just this : Prove to me that the use of cheese produces the same results as does the 172 TAKING IT “AS A MEDICINE.” use of drink, and, by the grace of God, I will fight the cheese as heartily as I do the drink. I consider it the height of stu¬ pidity and nonsense to bring such an argument as that against us while we are advocating the disuse of intoxicating liquor as a beverage. We do not seek to take it away from you by force; we want you to be made so far acquainted with the evils of drink that, with your heart and soul, and in the exer¬ cise of large- hearted, self-de¬ nying benevo¬ lence, you will give it up for the sake of others . That is the grand principle on which we base our appeal, and it is the highest prin¬ ciple. Some say, however, “You will certainly let us have a little as a medicine.” Yes, certainly we will; we do not condemn it as a medi¬ cine ; that is, when men really take it as such. I was once at a dinner-party when a gentleman at table, holding a glass in his hand, said to a lady present, “ I assure your ladyship I am personally an abstainer, and am opposed ” — and he swallowed the wine — “to the drinking usages of society; but I take wine by the prescription of my medical man.” I thought I would see how much medicine he took, and before the meat I TAKE IT “AS A MEDICINE HYPOCRITICAL DRINKERS. 173 was brought on he drank three glasses of sherry. I did not wonder, then, that people lay in their medicine a pipe at a time, or by so many dozen bottles. I believe a great deal of this medicine-taking is rank, sheer hypocrisy. It may not be in your case, but I believe it is in the majority of cases. A physician once told me that some men, whose consciences condemn them for sustaining the drinking customs of society, say to their physician, “I feel a little torpidity in my system, I think my digestive organs are not exactly right, and I thought I would ask if a glass or two of wine would not, perhaps, promote digestion? ” “Well, I don’t know but you might take a little, carefully.” “ Thank you; ” and away he goes, drinking several times each day, saying, “I take my wine by the prescription of my physician.” Some almost force the doctor to say that they may take it. If the medical men, however, were all like a medical man in Birmingham, there would be less taking it as a medicine. A lady afflicted with spasms had used intoxicating liquor as a remedy, by her doctor’s prescription. Having changed her physician, something else was prescribed by the new one. “Doctor,” she said, “why have you changed my medicine ?” “I never,” he replied, “prescribe intoxicating liquor for a sick person if I can help it, for I have known fearful cases of an appetite for it being formed in a weak state of health ; and if I do prescribe stimulants, I make them so nauseous that my ^patients don’t like them, and they don’t urge me again to prescribe the tonic.” I do not run a tilt against the physi¬ cians ; but when I find that two thousand physicians — among them Sir Benjamin Brodie, Sir James Clark, and others — years ago put their names to a testimonial that any individual may at once, or by degrees, break off the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage, with no detriment to his health, and that perfect health is compatible with entire abstinence from 174 TESTIMONY FROM HIGH SOURCES. stimulating drink as a beverage, I am surprised to find so many persons taking it “by the prescription of their phy¬ sician.” Sir William Gull, before the parliamentary commission on intemperance, in reference to the treatment of fever without alcohol, states: “I cured many cases of typhus in young sub¬ jects under twenty-five years of age, with camomile tea and with no other remedy but light diet.” He further says that, “ the error prevalent is that alcohol cures the disease, whereas the disease runs its physiological course irrespective of the alcohol. The advantage of alcohol is, if it has an advantage, its effect upon the nervous system for the time being, rendering the patient more indifferent to the processes going on. I am disposed also to believe, although I think we could not do without alcohol as a drug , that it is still over-prescribed.” Again he says: “ Instead of ffying to alcohol, as many people do when they are exhausted, they might very well drink water, or they might very well take food, and would be very much better without the alcohol. If I am fatigued with overwork personally, my food is very simple. I eat the raisins instead of taking the wine. I have had very large experience in that practice for thirty years. It is my own personal experience, and I have recommended it to my per¬ sonal friends. It is a limited experience, but I believe that it is a very good and true experience.” Again (I quote from the blue book) : “ All alcohol, and all things of an alcoholic nature, injure the nerve tissues pro tempore , if not altogether; } r ou may quicken the operations, but you do not improve them. Therefore, the constant use of alcohol, even in a moderate measure, may injure the nerve tissues and be deleterious to health. I should say that one of the commonest things in our society is that people are A DISTINGUISHED SURGEON’S EXPERIENCE. 175 injured by drink without being drunkards. It goes on so quietly that it is very difficult to observe, even. I know alcohol is a most deleterious poison. I would like to say that a very large number of people in society are dying day by day, poisoned by alcohol, but not supposed to be poisoned by it.” Of diseases produced by alcohol, he states: “There is disease of the liver, which is of very common occurrence, and then from disease of the liver we get disordered conditions of the blood, and consequent upon that we get diseased kidneys, we get a diseased nervous system, we get gout, and we get diseased heart; I hardly know any more potent cause of disease than alcohol, leaving out of view the fact that it is a frequent source of crime of all descriptions.” Dr. Benjamin West Richardson, F. R. S., stated a fact before the same committee, in reference to the fallacy of using alcoholic stimulants on extraordinary occasions, to the following effect (I quote from the blue book) : — “ On Monday last, I was drawn by a big dog under a cab, and received a wound from three to four inches long in my scalp, down to the skull, and lost a great number of ounces of blood. Dr. Symes Thompson came to my assistance, and took me from Cumberland Place in a cab home to Hinde Street; I, in the meanwhile, holding the wound to prevent further bleeding. I was very greatly exhausted from the loss of blood and the shock and the pain which afterward followed in stitching up the wound ; but I never took a drop of alcohol in any shape or way, and in two hours I was quite ready to resume work. I have had no fever. I have had no inflammation. I have slept well, and have continued my work up to this time, with the only difference that I have not been out at night to a dinner party or a meeting. Ten years ago, I should have thought it would have been necessary to 176 CHAMPAGNE FOR BALD HEADS. have taken three or four ounces of alcohol, and I am sure I should have taken it; the result would probably have been an increased action of the heart from twelve thousand to sixteen thousand beats in the twelve hours, and therefore a certain amount of inflammation of the wound, the necessity the next morning of taking a black draught and a pill, and afterward, perhaps, some saline, and at least two or three days’ rest. Less than ten years ago I should have thought that a neces¬ sary part of the treatment.” A gentleman said to me, “ Ah, if you go on the Continent you ought, at your age, to take a little wine—the water is doubtful.” They told me so when I went to California ; and they told me so when I went to Montreal. I said, “ I don’t think I need it.” “But I think you do.” “Well, look at me. I am sixty-one years of age. I have delivered seven thousand eight hundred addresses on the subject of temper¬ ance, and on other topics. I have travelled four hundred and twenty thousand miles, and I have not been in bed a whole day from illness since 1846.” That is how I have managed on cold water without the aid of stimulants. I think there are some doctors who prescribe wine because they like to take a little medicine with their patients when they call. I think some prescribe it because they believe it to be necessary, and I rather guess that the physician who prescribed it for a very dear friend of mine was one of that sort. When my friend was in London, he consulted a physician, who said, “You ought to take a little champagne.” “Why?” he asked. “Well, you are very tall, and you are very bald, and the top of your head is necessarily cold, and you need some stimulants to send the blood over the top of your head! ” I suppose he believed it to be necessary. Some prescribe it because they do not know anything about it. A SUSPICIOUS BLACK BOTTLE. 177 I heard of a man who prescribed his own medicines and furnished his own prescriptions. He was a very stingy man; and when a small quantity of any of his mixtures was left, he put it in a black bottle. It soon contained a little ipecac¬ uanha, rhubarb, salts and senna, antimony, mercury, — a little of everything he had prescribed for years. Some one said to him, “ What are you going to do with that stuff?” “Use it.” “How?” u When I get hold of a fellow who has a complication of disorders I don’t understand, I take the black bottle, shake it up, and give him a dose out of it.” Medical men prescribe a stimu¬ lant because they do not know any better. It is an easy medicine for them to prescribe, and for their pa¬ tients to take. I am not going to deal with the medical aspect of this question. There are some learned and noble men who are grappling with that, and they can do it better than I, because they do it understandingly. I have been very busy lately in gathering up physicians’ prescriptions, and the other day I had quite a bundle sent to me. Among others I have a prescription signed by the surgeon of a certain hospital, as the diet for an individual: “Two glasses of brandy and water, four glasses of port wine, OLD MIXEM’S CURE ALL. 178 GETTING EVEN WITH THE DOCTOR. one bottle of porter, and one pint of milk.” And what do you suppose ails the patient ? He has a sprained ankle ! Another is from a surgeon to a large iron foundry, one of the proprietors of which gave it to me : “ Give Mrs. McCarthy a noggin of rum.” A gentleman who took the place of a surgeon in another hospital, told me that there was pre¬ scribed for one man eighty-six gallons of ale in six months, and the man’s disorder was an ulcer on the leg. The ulcer had a rim round it nearly half an inch deep; but the beer was discontinued, and the ulcer soon afterwards came up even with the surface. I do not say that medical men are always dishonest, but let me give you a case that occurred. An upholsterer in a cer¬ tain town constantly suffered from serious bilious attacks; and he paid his doctor a pretty round bill every year, besides sending him all the furniture he wanted. At last the up¬ holsterer signed the pledge, and at the next settling the bills were about square; but at the end of the next year the pa¬ tient had not had a single visit, nor taken a single dose of medicine, so that the doctor had to pay him the whole bill. The doctor then said, “ You seem to have got over your bilious attacks.” “ Oh, yes, pretty well; I am a teetotaler.” “A teetotaler, how long?” “Since the 1st of January last.” “My dear fellow,” said the doctor, “you have taken a new lease of your life; I shall never be called upon to attend you for bilious attacks again, I assure you.” Now, why was that not said before ? And why should he go on doctoring his patient year after year, and withhold from him the advice which he most needed ? I heard the following anecdote from the Rev. Mr. Reid. Two gentlemen from Scotland, when in America, visited Dr. Paton. While in his house, as he was a strict teetotaler, they adopted the principle, and it was right in them to do so. A WELL-TRIED REMEDY. m Some time after, when Dr. Paton was in Scotland, he dined with one of them, and observed that wine was on the table. “What,” said he, addressing his friend, “I thought you were an abstainer.” “ Oh, I use it as a medicine.” “Do you require it for your health?” “You must ask my doctor there,” replied his friend, point¬ ing to a gentleman who was at the other end of the table. “Is that true, sir?” said Dr. Paton, looking inquisitively at the person referred to. “ Yes, sir, quite true ; necessary for him.” “How long have you been prescribing it?” “Seven years.” “Is it customary,” continued the Doctor, “for physicians to continue prescribing the same medicine when no cure is being effected? ” “ I don’t know; I never thought about it.” There is not a physician who, if asked to give his honest answer to the question, would not admit that alcohol, used in a healthy state of the body, produces disease. “Ah, but,” say some, “there is enjoyment and gratifies tion in it.” So there is; I have experienced that myself. I have felt it thrilling to the tips of nry fingers with a new, strange, delightfully exhilarating sensation. I have been in a club-room when the wine has passed from one to the other, and we have felt ourselves great men presently, with plenty of money in our pockets when we really had hardty enough to pay our board-bill. One man said to another, “Look here, if you want to borrow a thousand dollars in your business, come down to my office and I shall be very happy to lend it you.” The man thought he could use a thousand dollars admirably, and he went to his friend the next morning and said, “You told 180 GRATUITOUS ADVICE. me if I came to your office, you could let me have a thousand dollars to use in my business.” “Did I?” “Yes.” “ Well, I have n’t got it now, but I may have it by night.” I heard once of a man who, in a wretched, dilapidated condition, was looking at the launch of a ship. Some of the owners held a consultation, and thought the ship had better r e- rnain on the stocks two or three days longer. One of them said, “I should be unwilling to take the responsibility of it.” This poor, miser¬ able fellow came u. p, w i t h his trousers shin¬ ing with old age, boots broken, and hat battered, and said: “ Let her slide, I will take the respon¬ sibility.” Yes, there is a gratification, an exhilaration, an excitement produced by the drink. Any mistakes in the cabinet, send for one of us; we will reconcile all ques¬ tions to the satisfaction of all parties, foreign nations in¬ cluded. When we were half drunk, beautiful visions passed LET HER SLIDE. CHASING A BUBBLE. 181 before us, and we only wanted the canvas and the pencil to immortalize ourselves. There is a gratification in drink¬ ing. What is it? It is the gratification of intoxication. Men talk about enjoyment in drinking! There is really none. It is merely momentary and imaginary. No man ever received satisfaction enough in wicked pursuits to say, “ Ah, now I am happy! ” It is gone from him. All the enjoyments that can be obtained in this world, apart from the enjoyments God has sanctioned, lead to destruction. It is as if a man should start in a chase after a bubble, attracted by its bright and gorgeous hues. It leads him through vine¬ yards, under trellised vines with grapes hanging in all their purpled glory; it leads him past sparkling fountains, amid the music of singing birds; it leads him through orchards hanging thick with golden fruit. He laughs and dances. It is a merry chase. By and by that excitement becomes in¬ tense, that intensity becomes a passion, that passion a disease. Now his eye is fixed upon the bubble with fretful earnest¬ ness. Now he leaps with desperation and disappointment. Now it leads him away from all that is bright and beautiful, from all the tender, clustering, hallowed associations of by¬ gone days, up the steep hot sides of a fearful volcano. Now there is pain and anguish in the chase. He leaps and falls, and rises, bruised, scorched, and blistered; but the excitement has the mastery over him; he forgets all that is past, and in his terrible chase life leaps again. It is gone! He curses, and bites his lips in agony, and shrieks almost the wild shriek of despair. Yet still he pursues his prize. He must secure it. Ivnee-deep in the hot ashes, he falls, then up again with limbs torn and bruised, the last semblance of humanity scorched out of him. Yet there is his prize ! He will have it. With one desperate effort he makes a sudden leap. Ah, he has it now ; but he has leaped into the volcano, 182 AN AFTERNOON WITH WERNER. and, with, a burst bubble in his hand, goes to his retribu¬ tion. Heaven pity every man who follows, and is fascinated by, an enjoyment God has not sanctioned. The result of all God's good gifts to him is a burst bubble ! An Indian chief bartered away costly diamonds for a few glass beads and a plated button. Young men are every day bartering away jewels worth all the kingdoms of the earth for less than a plated button, for that which vanishes in their eager grasp. Enjoyment! We have wonderful capacities for enjoyment, and wonderful sources of enjoyment. But I have come to this conclusion, young men, That there is no enjoyment worth having for which you cannot thank God. None ! And if you can get drunk, and then thank God for it the next morning, then I have nothing more to say to you. We have sources of enjoyment all around us and beneath us and above us and everywhere. I remember a lady asking me once, in Cincin¬ nati, if I would go and hear Werner play. Now I am exceed¬ ingly fond of music, and he is an admirable musician. We went to his room, and he said he would play for me on Wednes¬ day afternoon as long as I chose to listen. O, those wild, weird, wailing discords of Chopin, resolved into such wonder¬ ful harmony! All I could say was, like Olivei Twist, IMoie, more,” and he gave me more for nearly two hours. And then he stood up, twisting his fingers, and said, “\ou fill me full of music; you are such a grand listener; I will give you a sonata from Beethoven.” When I went out I said to the lady who accompanied me, “ I thank God for such a capacity for enjoyment.” There is something to be thankful for. Stand with me on the summit of the Br^ven. Yonder are the white ridges of the Vaudois and Bernese Alps. Behind us, Sallenche with its bridge; before us, hoary-headed Mont Blanc, the monarch of the Alps; there, the D6me du G6ut£, the Aiguille du Dru, the Mer de Glace, the Glacier d’Argen- THE DANGER OF GRATIFICATION. pg 3 tiere, the Glacier des Bossons, the Glacier de Taconnay, and Chamouni, like a nest of ant-hills at our feet. The Arveyron, rushing from the Mer de Glace, joins the Arve, and, like a sil¬ ver ribbon, winds through the valley. How deeply, darkly, beautifully blue the sky! How clear the atmosphere ! Hark! Is that distant thunder ? No; it is the ice cracking, miles away in yonder glacier. Listen. It is the soft sound of fall¬ ing water, sweetly breaking the hush and stillness of nature in repose. How grand, how sublime, how awful! Your eyes hll with tears, your nerves quiver, your heart thrills, and your whole soul seems to be absorbed by the wonderful grandeur and sublimity and beauty. And you thank God that you are created with such a capacity for enjoyment, and with such sources of gratification all around you and about you and above you, worthy of a God to give to man, and of man to receive reverently from his Maker. And that one fact of a little temporary gratification is all that you can bring in favor of the drink! Why, if there was no gratification, there would be no danger. It is the gratification to a man of nervous susceptibility that consti¬ tutes the danger. The gratification produced by the action of drink on the brain and nervous system, in whatever phase it may present itself to you, is always harmful; whether you are very jolly, or whether you are outrageously merry, or whether you are sullen and surly, it makes very little differ¬ ence. It is no more degrading to be brutally drunk than it is to be sillily drunk, and have a whole city laughing at you. Ihe very fact of intoxication is debasing and degrading to the man, whether you get enjoyment from it, or whether it brings upon you the horrors of delirium tremens . God speed the day when our dear country shall be freed from the agencies that tend to promote and perpetuate this great evil. 12 CHAPTER VII. SAFETY BETTER THAN RISK — TOUCHING HOME SCENES — STARTLING FACTS AND UNDISPUTED TESTIMONY. Human Sacrifices — A-Mother’s Sad Story — Turning a Dissipated Son Out of Doors — My Interview with Him — On the Edge of a Precipice — A Thrilling Incident — Mad With Delirium Tremens — A Fearful Leap to Destruction — A Story from Real Life — That Little Word “No” — The Yankee Merchant and his Eggs — A Laughable Story—Startling Facts — The Greatest Swindle of the Age — What I Saw in a Distillery — Effect of Liquor on Animals — How it Affects the Human Body — A Most Extraordinary Story — A Physician’s Horrible Experiments on a Corpse Distended with Liquor Gas — Puncturing the Body, and Lighting the Gas in Sixteen Places — A Child’s Rescue — A Thrilling Scene — A Very Obstinate Deacon — A Funny Story — The Dutchman and His Setting Hen — Record of a Noble Woman — My Disagreeable Neighbor — A Ship on Her First Cruise — The Storm. REMEMBER reading in Prescott’s “ History of Mexi¬ co,” that when the natives offered human sacrifices they elected the noblest and bright¬ est young men of their nation, and trained them intellectu¬ ally and physically, so that they might become fit sacrifices to their gods. Then they led them up on a platform, before the assembled thou¬ sands, and the priest, armed with a sharp stone, opened the breast of the victim, tore out the heart, and held it up, quivering with life, and the people shouted their approval. That was a heathen sacrifice to heathen gods in a heathen land; and yet, in Christendom, 184 A DISTRESSED MOTHER. 185 altars are erected in households, and worship is offered and sacrifice made to the blood-stained, gore-smeared Moloch, Drink, and the victim is often a brother or child or friend. Men and women, professing Christianity, gather round those altars and feed the fire that consumes the sacrifice; for on every altar there is a sacrifice, and in every household a vic¬ tim, and when the charred bones alone are left, they are buried, and the work goes on as fearfully as ever. A gentleman in a large city sent for me to call at his house. I almost thought, as I entered the house, “ I cannot be needed here.” The servant showed me to the drawing¬ room, richly appointed with all that wealth could afford. A lady of aristocratic bearing soon made her appearance, and after the usual commonplaces she asked me a strange question. “You have had great experience,” she said, “but have you ever known or heard of a son striking his mother ? ” “ More than once,” I said, “but never unless that son was influenced by drink; indeed, I cannot believe that any young man, in his sober senses, would strike his mother.” She seemed relieved to know that hers was not a solitary case, and she informed me that she had a son who had been dissipated for years. Thev had tried fair means and harsh measures with him, but to no purpose. “ At length,” said she, “ we have turned him out of the house. We have provided him with no money, but he will get money, and has obtained it in a way I dare not tell you. I wish you could see him; but you must not let him know I have seen you.” Three weeks after, a gentleman called on me and requested me to meet this young man at a hotel. He said he would introduce me, but I was not to speak on any but general top¬ ics. The young man met me very cordially. There seemed to be something admirable in his disposition, but he had evi- 186 “I WILL DRINK TILL I DIE.” dently drank much. Shortly after, he said he knew me, and that he had heard me speak in the tabernacle, and that I had told the truth, “for,” he said, “I am a drunkard.” I began then to speak to him about drink. He said he never would give it up. “Perhaps you don’t believe me,” he said, “but I’ll tell you the reason; it is because I cannot, I cannot .” “I don’t believe you,” said I. “ I have tried to do it,” said he, “ time after time. Yes, sir,” and he became excit¬ ed and paced the room; “ I have disgraced my GO BACK, BACK TO HER, I SAY. family; yes, and they have turned me out of doors. They tried to keep money from me, but I got it; I stole it, and will steal it again. I must have drink; I will drink till I die; and when I die I hope I shall die drunk.” “I have heard men before talk as you do,” said I; “you don’t mean what you say.” I spoke of his mother. He sprang to his feet, and cried out, “ Look here, have you seen my mother ? ” I endeavored to evade his question. “Have you seen my mother?” he continued; “be honest, and tell me.” “I have.” “And she sent you to me, did she not? ” Then he drew himself up, his face changed, and, with his hand clenched and a fierce expression of countenance, he shouted, “Go back, back to her, I say; tell her it is too late “MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME.” 187 to send a temperance lecturer now; it is too late for her to do anything for me. My mother is a good woman, and I respect her, but I don’t love her; every particle of affection for her is burnt out of me. I remember how, in that ac¬ cursed dining-room, she used to say, 4 Only a half-glass, my dear,’ when she asked me to drink the health of the gentle¬ men there. Now what am I to do,” added he, 44 but to drink on? for my mother taught meT Oh, but, it may be said, if he had not learned to drink at his mother’s table, he might somewhere else. 44 It must needs be that offences come, but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.” And when you give a child a glass, you give him that which can do him no good, but which may be the means of his ruin, and may lead him by and by into a course of evil that will be painful to contemplate. Some ladies have said to me, 44 But you total abstainers seem to blame us for recklessly conforming to the customs of society, as if we had no care whether our friends became intemperate or not.” It is not so. Do you suppose I would dare to say that the mother who gives her child drink has no love for her child? I remember an incident that occurred upon Table Rock, Niagara Falls, before it fell. A lady was standing upon the brink of the precipice, and, seeing a shrub just below her, stooped forward to pluck it, when her foot slipped, and she fell over the precipice and was dashed to pieces. Now, I ask, if a brother and sister were standing on Table Rock, and he should say, 44 Sister, I ’ll pluck that shrub and bring it to you; a poor, timid woman, in attempting to pluck it, fell; but I have nerve enough; I can stand, and stoop quietly, and deliberately pluck the shrub,” where is the sister that would sa}q 44 Well, my brother, you are not such a fool as to fall; you have nerve enough to pluck it?” There is not a sister that would not say, 44 Brother, there is risk in POSSESSED OF A DEVIL. 188 it, stand back! ” And yet the sister is saying, “ Brother, pluck the wreath entwined around this goblet; thousands have been stung to death by the serpent concealed in the flowers; but bind the wreath on your brow; to you it shall be a wreath of honor, although to thousands it has been a band of ever¬ lasting infamy.” It is fearful when we look at the fascina¬ tion which seems to have laid hold of the people through the length and breadth of the land in sustaining and supporting the drinking customs of society. A young man, the son of a wealthy merchant, after drink¬ ing freely, was seized with delirium tremens in a hotel. His friends came to see him, but hardly understood his ravings as he begged them to tear away the serpents that were twin¬ ing themselves around him. At last, feeling one of the paroxysms of this terrible disease stealing upon him, he started from his bed and cried, “ Hold me! ” and dashed out of the window, In the street, amid broken glass, blood, and mire, they found him, broken and bruised, his poor spirit fluttering against the bars of the crippled body. They took him up and laid him upon his bed. They lifted the heavy, steaming hair from his brow, and wiped the blood from his face and mouth. Delirium was now gone. His face was pale as ashes. He clenched his fingers as if he would press the nails into the flesh, his lip curled over his white teeth in the agonies of death, and his eyes glared upon Ins companions with the ferocity of a tiger as he said, “ Oli, why did you not hold me ? Curse ye, why did you not hold me ? Why did they not hold him ? It was too late ; the demon of drink had full possession of him, and no mortal power could have held him then. But when, as a boy, he stood at Ins mother’s side and looked in her face with his blight blue eye, why did not she hold him ? When, as a boy, he sat on his father’s knee, with his arm around his neck, and his face laid I I » A WIFE’S DEVOTION. 191 to his cheek, in God’s name why did not he hold him ? From what? From that which no physician would dare to say was beneficial for a healthy child. I know a gentleman who married a sweet and lovely girl. She was very devoted to him, and when she discovered his to shield him. When he stayed out at night she would send the servants to bed, while she waited and watched for him ; and then, in her night-dress, and a pair of slippers on her feet, she would glide down very gently and let him in. One night he came home late. The servants were in bed. The house had a front door, 4 then a marble vestibule, and then an inner door. She opened the one, stepped upon the cold marble, and opened the outer door. The drunken husband en¬ tered, seized her by the shoulders, swung her round, opened the inner door, quickly passed through, and locked it before his wife could enter; she would not speak or cry out, lest she should disgrace her husband before the servants. In the morning she was found with her night-dress drawn under her feet, crouching in the corner, almost chilled to death. On her death-bed she told her father all about it, or the circumstance would never have been known. There is much that is never known, as well as a vast amount of misery and dissipated habits she endeavored /, SAYING A HUSBAND FROM DISGRACE. 192 AN UNFORTUNATE YANKEE MERCHANT. degradation that does crop out, and which is startling in its reality. Young men sometimes say it is very difficult to say “No ” to a young lady when asked to take wine. I do not know what amount of moral courage might be necessary, for I have never been tried. These young men put me in mind of a Yankee storekeeper, who was a great stutterer; he could always say any word but the one he wanted. He had a quantity of eggs to sell. They rose in price from ninepence to a shilling a dozen. A customer came in one day. “ Have you any eggs ? ” “ Yes, quite a qu-quantity.” “ What do you sell them at? ” “ A sh-she-she-she-ninepence a dozen.” “Well, I’ll take five dozen.” After the customer left he resolved to guard against further loss, and commenced to practise: “ A shilling a dozen, a shilling a dozen, a shilling a dozen.” In came another customer. “Any eggs to sell? “ Yes, quite a qu-quantity.” “ What’s the price of ’em ? ” “ A sh-slie— a she-she— ninepence a dozen.” “Well, I ’ll take seven dozen.” Again the store-keeper commenced his practice: “ A shil¬ ling a dozen, a shilling a dozen.” In came a third customer. “ Any eggs to sell ? ” “ Yes, qu-quite a quantity.” “ What’s the price ? ” “Well, eggs, you know, are riz. They used to be ni-nine- pence a dozen.” “ But what do you sell them at now ? ” “Well, some sell ’em at eighteen-pence, some fifteen-pence.” CHAMPAGNE AND REAL PAIN. 193 44 But what do you sell them at ? ” 44 How many will you take ? ” 44 Oh, perhaps twelve dozen.” 44 Oh, well, I ’ll let you have ’em for ah — eh — eh — ah — ” 44 Well, how much ? ” “A sh-she-she-she—hang those eggs; take ’em all at ninepence a dozen.” So young men when invited to take a glass of wine, 44 Ah, n-n-n-, well, yes, thank you.” But, ladies, what right have you to ask any young man to take wine ? None. You have no right to offer to an}mne that which may injure him. There is no benefit to be derived from drinking; there is no good in the wine you drink. How much wine is there drunk in the country, do you think? When I visited the island of Jersey, I was informed that there was more port wine manufactured in Oporto and sent to London than was consumed of the real wine in all the world. Yet everybody drinks pure wine! Young men drink champagne sometimes, — sham pain at night, and real pain the next morning. Why, there is more champagne bought and sold in the city of New York than there is real wine manufactured in the whole world. Then what do London, Paris, and all the other cities do for theirs? For they all have it pure ! Is it not ridiculous that persons should pay such a high premium for being poisoned ? Yes, sparkling champagne! Cider filtered through charcoal, with sugar of lead put into it, and carbonic acid gas enough to make it fizz, — sham enough in all conscience. I talked with a champagne merchant once, and he said, 44 It is n’t a cheat. When you cheat a man, you deceive him, but nobody can be deceived about this. When it is sold for one dollar or one dollar and a half per bottle, do you think the public are Such confounded fools as not to know it is manufactured? Why, the pure champagne would 194 CONFESSIONS OF A LIQUOR-SELLER. be from three to eight dollars per bottle: and we, after giving the wholesale and retail dealers a profit, put it into the mar¬ ket for one dollar. They must know it is spurious, but they don’t know that it costs us less than thirty cents per bottle.” “ But,” I said, “ many people buy it in bond.” “ Ha, ha! ” said he, “ They are the most cheated of any. We can send tens of thousands of baskets of champagne to France, and have it sent back again; people then pay freight and duty both ways, and then they have it pure, you know.” I met Dr. Collenette, one of the surgeons of a hospital in Guernsey, who manufactures port wine before an audience and defies the best connoisseurs to distinguish it from the real. That wine costs him three halfpence a bottle, and he makes the port-wine crust for four bottles for about three farthings. This manufacture of wine is the most abominable cheat, the most transparent swindle of the age. Young men who quaff your wine, you are most thoroughly humbugged. If you don’t believe it, get “ Lacour on the Manufacture of Wines,” and, if you can, obtain “The Wine-Merchant’s Guide, or the Liquor-Seller’s Vade Mecum,” and your eyes will be opened to this abominable adulteration of liquors. Dickens has given us long articles on this subject; and it has been said that, if you want a keg of port wine, you must go to Oporto and see it made, and then sit astride the barrel all the way home. You remember there was a failure of grapes in Madeira some years ago, and grapes are failing now in France. But to you who drink Madeira or French wine it will make no difference. There may not be another grape grown; but still if you want Madeira or any other wine, there will always be an abundant supply of it. A gentleman was going into the wine business in New York, and a friend said, “ What are you going into the business for?” “Oh,” said he, “to make A DOUBTFUL CENSUS. 195 money. I am tired of the old jog-trot way of going to work.” “ But are there not a great many people engaged in the business?” “Yes,” said the wine-merchant, “but I have obtained the services of a man from England, who has been engaged in London in the manufacture of wine nearly thirty years. I pay him $3,500 a year, and he can make any wine you ask for out of the water in that kennel.” That is the way wine is made, a great deal of it, and I repeat, there is no good in it, and there is a positive evil arising from its use. Some time ago I sat at the table of a Christian gentleman who said to me, “ Mr. Gough, if I should die to-night, a comfort to my mind beyond description would be the fact that my three girls and five boys never saw one drop of the drink in their father’s house.” Thank God, there are many such families to-day and their number is increasing. Let me illustrate how unhealthy the fat of these stout gentlemen must be who drink spirituous liquor, wine, and beer. I once went into a large distillery on the banks of the Ohio, in which 1,700 bushels of corn are used every day, except Sundays, all the year round. They use steam power, taking the cobs of the corn for fuel, and the product of the distillery is about a hundred gallons of whiskey every day. It was said in a newspaper that the town in which this distillery stood was a thriving place with 14,500 inhabitants, — 2,500 bipeds and 12,000 hogs, — and that the hogs were fed on the distillery slops entirely. Certainly I never saw such handsome-looking animals in my life. They were round and fat, and, looking at one of them, you would say, “ What a handsome porker that is! ” Yes, but they had to keep men to watch them; for as soon as a pig got a scratch on the skin it never would heal; it turned to a running sore, and the animal had to be killed. The flesh of a man who 196 A HORRIBLE EXPERIMENT. grows stout by drinking is not healthy. Physicians in hos¬ pitals will tell you that the worst cases of fracture they have to deal with are those of brewers’ draymen, who drink so much beer; that the cases which are most incurable are those of men who have a healthy appearance, but are puffed up and bloated by drinking beer. Sir William Gull, in his testimony before the select committee of the House of Lords on intemperance, says : — “ I mention what I once saw myself, in the case of one of Barclay & Perkins’ draymen. The case is recorded. The man was admitted into Guy’s Hospital with heart disease; I* just now said that heart disease may come through drink ; he was a very stout man; he died at about a quarter past ten at night, at about this season of the year, and the next day he was so distended with gas in all directions that he was quite a curious sight. Wishing to know what this gas meant, we punctured the skin in many parts, and tested it. It was ear- buretted hydrogen, and I remember lighting on his body fifteen or sixteen gaslights at once. They continued burning until the gas had burned away.” He also stated that this result had occurred in several cases. After all, the main reason we advance for engaging in this crusade against drink is our regard for others. We want something of the spirit of benevolence that prompted an old lady in New Haven. A horse ran away with a wagon, and there was a little boy in it; and she ran screaming after it. Somebody said, “Madam, is that your boy?” “ No,” said she, “but it’s somebody’s boy, is n’t it? ” Suppose you should see a child drowning in the river, would you, in place of rushing in to save it, say, “Why, look at that child in the river, whose child is that? I wonder nobody looks after it; I ’m thankful it’s not mine.. What a RESCUED FROM THE FLAMES. 197 pity it should be left to drown. Why don't parents look after children a little better ? If that child was mine, I ’d be more careful to keep it from peril.” Or suppose at night a fire breaks out in the city. If you knew the fire had broken out in a house inhabited by human beings, would not your sympathies be excited to the utmost? See, the flames are bursting out at that window, up there! Every eye is fixed on the spot. There’s a child there ! Who, who will save him ? See how the flames are rolling out¬ wards and upwards ! A lad¬ der is raised, one of the sympathizing crowd ascends, he’s at the window, boldly he dashes into the burning building; the spectators are awe-struck, their eyes are fixed on the window he has entered ; it is a moment of painful suspense. Ha! he has the child, he has the child ; he is safe, safe ! The deliverer is overwhelmed by the grateful manifestations of the citizens, and the noble deed is recorded in all the news¬ papers. What is moderation to one may be drunkenness and death to another. Suppose a bridge built over a deep gulf, and capable of holding a weight of one hundred and fifty pounds. Your weight is one hundred and thirty pounds ; that is a just saved! 198 OBSTINATE PEOPLE. safe bridge for you; you walk up and down in perfect safety. But there stands your son, who weighs two hundred pounds, and you tell him to follow your example. “ But I don’t like the bridge, father.” “ Don’t be a fool; I have walked over it for years in perfect safety; there is no crack about it, I have never felt it give way.” “Yes, but they say—.” “ Don’t be such a fool as to mind what they say. One man •can do what another can. Follow my example, and don’t mind the fanatics.” The young man sets his foot on the bridge; there is a crash and a shriek, and he goes down to •destruction. Why did not the father set a good example? Because he did not take into consideration the difference in the weight. I say to any gentleman, or to any lady, that you cannot, with any regard for the safety of that boy of yours, of a nervous temperament, full of fire, easily excited, — you cannot, in view of the evils of drunkenness cursing the land and sweeping away some of the brightest and best among mankind, say that you set him a good example by your moderation. This point is of such vital importance that it will bear repetition. We ask 3 m u to help us, to help us in prevention, and to help us in cure. I know it is vain to appeal to some people,— utterly vain. There are men who take pride in being very firm, when in reality they are simply very obstinate. They say, “ Oh, yes, I will go to the meeting, but he can’t move me. I defy any man to make me laugh or cry. I will hear what he says, but I can never be persuaded to give up my little drop of beer. I won’t.” “And why?” “Because I won’t.” They are not able to give a reason. A minister of the gospel told me that once he had a man in his church who was so persistently obstinate that he could do nothing with him. He tried on all occasions to move him. No use. He was a member of the church, and they thought PRAYING FOR THE DEACON. 199 if they made him a deacon that would do him good. So they made him a deacon, and then he was worse than ever. Now I have found out in my experience that when a man is absolutely obstinate, the best thing is to let him alone. His obstinacy is his only stock in trade for notoriety; take that from him and he comes to his own level, — and that is, mor¬ ally speaking, a lot of clothes with a hat on the top of them. The more you plead with such men, the more you cultivate and strengthen their spirit of obstinacy. Well, this man became a deacon, and then he troubled the church ten times more than before. At last, at a church meeting, the minister was perfectly worn out with the deacon’s obstinacy, and he said: “ Brethren, we will resolve this church meeting into a prayer meeting. We have done all we possibly can for Deacon Williams, and now, as a last resort, we will make him the subject of prayer. Brother So-and-So, we will unite with you in prayer for the deacon.” So he prayed, and at the conclusion he said: “Now that we have done everything we can upon earth for this brother, we pray thee to prepare him and take him to heaven.” And the deacon rose and said very deliberately: “ Brethren, I won’t go.” And there are men who will not go to heaven if you want them to, and the best way to get them there is to let them alone. I very well remember meeting a man of this kind when I began to speak on the subject of temperance. I had not quite as much experience then as I have now. Some one said to me : “ Now, there’s a man ; if you can get him to sign the pledge, it will be a great victory.” “ Great victory! why ? ” “ Because he’s such an obstinate fellow that it will be a great victory to overcome his obstinacy.” I met him, and I said: “ Mr. Rice, why don’t you sign the temperance pledge?” “Because I won’t.” “But why won’t you?” “Because I won’t.” “Well,” I said, “Mr. Rice ” (I thought 200 THE DUTCHMAN’S SETTING HEN. a funny story might reach him), “you remind me very much of a Dutchman who had a hen, and he said to a friend: ‘ I vants dot hen to set, und she von’t set. She hops off dose eggs und runs avay. Den I makes a leetle pox, shust so long von vay und shust so long t’udder vay, und I puts dose eggs in dot pox, und den I catches dot old hen, und snubs her dis vay und dot vay, to let her know vot I means, und says. “ Now set! ” But so soon as I turns mine pack, avay goes dot hen ; und den I catch her von, two, free, ’leven dimes, und knocks her dis vay und dot, efery dime, und say, “Now sit dere ! ” But I vinds I could do not- ting mit her. So I gets a leetle lid to dot pox, und says “Now I dinks I’ve cot you; ” and I puts dose eggs in dot box, und chams dot hen town, und I say, Hurrah ! A leetle vile after- vords I goes to see how she , t TiVi gets on, und 1 lilts up von cor- ‘-f 1 ner of dot lid, and I shust “oh, my goodness!” looks in. Oh, my goodness ! dere vas dot old hen shust a - setting standing up!’” Well, I didn’t get a smile from him, but he said this much: “ I think I’ve got a good deal of the old hen in me.” Now there are some men we cannot move. If we move those to help us who are not themselves injured and ruined by the drink, we must ask them to abstain for the sake of others. And as I have said before (and I am not going to A NOBLE WOMAN. 201 repeat the words, but the sentiment) all heroism lies in self-sacrifice ; and if you would be a hero, it must be by doing and suffering for others. For a man to be a hero it is not requisite that he should be scientific, literary, intellectual, logical, oratorical, or eloquent; not at all. How many heroes are there in humble life, who are doing their work in the spirit of self-sacrifice! Let me relate to you the case of one in our own country. During the last year of the war, three gentlemen, one of them an Englishman, were riding through some of the out¬ lying towns of New England. The Englishman said, “The painful feature to me in New England country life is the immense amount of human vegetation one sees.” “What do you mean?” “Well, in these isolated country towns without railroad communication, what do the people do? What do they see? Where have they been? What do they know? You, who are working in the busy haunts of men and know what life is, cannot call that ‘life ’ which you see here. Why, it is existing in a circle; it is a sort of vegetation. Now there you see a specimen of just what I mean.” They were passing a farm place, and on one side was a little house, a one-and-a-half-story house, and at a window sat a woman knitting. She had a black band round her white widow’s cap, and was of advanced age. “There,” he con¬ tinued, “that’s just what I mean. Look at that woman. She eats and drinks and sleeps and knits and knits and sleeps and drinks and eats, day by day; but you can’t call eating and drinking and sleeping and knitting, life. What does she know ? Where has she been ? What has she seen ? What has she done ? There sits a human vegetable.” Stop, sir; stand still awhile and look well at that woman. Her name is not known beyond the circle of her acquaintance, within the radius of a mile or two, but look at her. Sixteen 13 202 A MOTHER OF HEROES. years ago slie was left a poor widow with six children — the youngest a boy of four years old. She owned that little old house and four acres of land ; she was poor, for New England. Where is her eldest son ? Doing his work as a missionary in a foreign field. Where is her second son? Doing his work as a home missionary in western Iowa and Kansas. Where is her third son? His work is done, and he lies under the sod at Gettysburg. She gave him up without a murmur and she wears that black band for him. Where is her youngest, her Benjamin? With his regiment, doing his duty in defence of the Union. But there were six of them? Ay, but a requisition came from Roanoke and Newbern, “ Send us teachers for our contraband negroes, teachers who are willing to endure privations and to make sacrifices with¬ out remuneration,” and her two daughters have left her for their field of labor, and she is alone, eating and drinking and sleeping and knitting. Well, let her eat and drink and sleep and knit, struggling with poverty. She has, nevertheless, brought up her family of children; she has given them to her country and her God, and now she sits, quietly biding her time. If that is a “ human vegetable,” God send to our dear country a plentiful crop of such vegetables. You stand on one side, and drink your glass coolly, and despise another man because he is weak-minded. Can he help that? It is his infirmity. And instead of despising him for his infirmity, you will, if you are a Christian, fulfil the law of Christ by bearing the infirmity of your weaker brother. Why do you despise a man because he cannot do what you can do ? We are very apt to despise men for their infirmities. And I, old as I am, am learning many lessons about this, and so are you. I once went into a strange church in a city in the United States. I was on a lecturing tour. The usher gave me a seat “JUST AS I AM.” 203 and placed a man by my side, poorly dressed, and, in fact, a very disagreeable man. He would shrug his shoulders and jerk his elbows. His face twitched as if sheet-lightning was playing over it. He was exceedingly disagreeable. I said to myself, “I wish they had put me near any other man than this.” By and by he put his tongue out and made a gasping noise. “Dear me, what a disagreeable man!” I began to dislike him. I began to detest him. I said to myself, “I wish they had put him in an¬ other pew,” and I moved as far from him as I con¬ veniently could. He was a disagreeable man. The hymn was given out for the congregation to sing, y and it was this: — “ Just as I am, without one plea, But that thy blood was shed for me.” I heard that man try to sing, and 1 .. thought to myself, “Well, really, if he knows that hymn, he cannot be so ex¬ ceedingly disagreeable.” So I moved nearer to him until I heard his singing. It was awful. I am exceedingly fond of music; I would travel miles to hear good music. It was positively painful to hear his attempt at sing¬ ing. Such groaning, and squeaking, and hesitating! He would stop in a line to make that strange noise. Then he would begin just where he left off, and sing as fast as he could to catch up with the others. Then he would go on with such a rush that he was two or three words ahead of them. I said to myself, “ At any rate, this is a disagreeable A DISAGREEABLE NEIGHBOR. 204 THE LAUNCH. man.” I moved away from him again. He came to a line where he evidently had forgotten the words, and without looking at me, but turning toward where I stood, he said, 44 Would you please give me the first line of the next verse?” I said, 44 Yes, sir, ‘Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind.’ ” He said, 44 Thank you sir, I know it now, for I am blind , God help me. And I am paralytic.” Then I heard him try to sing, “ Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind,” and I tell you, I never heard a symphony of Beethoven that thrilled me as the jagged music of that Christian man with whom God was dealing, and I could have taken him, disagreeable as he was, right to my heart. How many times we take a strong dislike to, or experience disagreeable feelings toward, some brother man, and when we know something of him we find that he is an angel whom we have sent away from us with rude words and harsh looks. One word more. We have occasional reactions, and many are discouraged. There may be something like reaction, and we can call it reaction, but it may be simply the settling down from a spe¬ cial excitement to the solid ground of principle. We are not to be carried away by excitement, and should not be. We are advocating glorious principles, high and lofty principles, and we will seek for God’s help in our noble cause. But we must prepare for experiences that may, perhaps, be not a little discouraging. Observe a noble ship as she is launched. She is fully rigged, and is now ready for sea; and as she sails down the river, she sweeps past most majestically on her first voyage. There is a band of music on the quarter-deck, the sailors are decked in their holiday rig, each at his station, and from the trucks to the main-chains are flags flying on either THE STORM. 205 side. On the wharves and on the banks of the river stand the assembled multitudes with waving hats and handker¬ chiefs, cheering the noble ship on her first cruise, and bidding good-by to the passengers on their first voyage. Are all these gayeties to last; is all this excitement to continue? No. She passes down the river; she gets out into the ocean; by and by the captain sees a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand. Does he keep that band of music on the quarter¬ deck? Does he keep the sailors in their holiday attire? Does he keep the flags streaming mast high? No. He issues his orders through the speaking-trumpet in tones that may be heard all over the ship. No music now on the quarter-deck; the sailors have on their tarpaulins and sou’-westers, and are clad in fitting garments for the coming storm; the flags are hauled down and stowed away. Now man those yards, stow every light spar, furl this sail and reef the other. Every man at his post, two at the helm, and now we are prepared for the storm, and we will trust in Providence. The tempest bursts upon the gallant ship, and she quivers in every timber. The waves grow mighty, strong, and fierce, yet she rises on their crests and again plunges into the mighty trough of the sea. “ Keep her head to the wind,” shouts the captain. By hard struggling and a great display of skill and courage she is kept afloat. By and by the sunlight breaks through the murky clouds, the sky becomes clear, she passes into smooth water, and they are all safe, with not a plank started, and why? Because in calm weather they prepared for the coming storm, and then trusted in God. Let us imitate their example. CHAPTER VIII. FACT AND FICTION OF EVERYDAY LIFE — SMILING FACES AND TREACHEROUS HEARTS — MEN WHO WEAR MASKS. Variety the Spice of Life — Difficult Things for Me to Do — What I Aim to Do — Life Often a Disguise — Snakes in the Grass — Men Who Wear Masks — Duels, Debts, and “Innocent Amusements” — A Persistent Collector — “ I ’ll Fix Ye ” — The Boy and the Cherry Pie — Absurd Sen¬ tences — Amusing Illustrations — White Lies — Story of a Minister, a Bull, and a Bass Viol — A Matter-of-fact Musician — The Old Lady who was Struck by Lightning — Loving “ Everyting zat is Beastly ” —Woman’s Rights — A Vision of Eden—“Bridge! Bridge!”—An Animated Poli¬ tical Discussion — Its Sudden End — A Laughable Story — A Cool Boarder — His Opinion of His Landlady’s Butter—Choosing Between Three Lovers — The CaDtain’s Device — How it Worked — Wasted Lives — SUPPOSE an indispensable requisite for a discourse of any kind is a title, and this is a difficult matter for me to fix upon. “Variety is the spice of life,” and I suppose it will be considered as spice to a chapter of this book. For my¬ self, I decide that a title is necessary as a peg to hang a few thoughts upon. No one expects me to write an elaborate essay on a given sub¬ ject ; I could not if I tried. I find it very difficult to stick to my text. If I select a subject, I cannot treat it philoso¬ phically or scientifically, and hardly methodically. I like to interest if I can, and amuse if I can; but, above all, my 206 MASQUERADING IN REAL LIFE. 207 earnest desire is to benefit. I know that a lecture from me is often a thing of shreds and patches; but if I can say any word or utter a thought that will be a help or stimulus to anyone in the great conflict of life which is to all of us a daily battle, and may be a daily victory, I am content. I have some things to say that will not be arranged under any particular head, and therefore I trust to the kindness of my readers to pardon the liberties I take in my ramblings. I have selected the title, then, of “Fact and Fiction.” I might say truth and falsehood, or the true and the false, shadow and substance, outward show and inward feeling, or right and wrong; for truth is always right, and wrong is ever false. In modern society, life is often a disguise. Almost every man walks in masquerade, and his most intimate friend very often does not know his real character. Many wear smiles constantly on their faces, whose hearts are unprincipled and treacherous; their smiles are more to be dreaded than their frowns. They smile and smile, and murder with a smile. Many, with all the external calmness and serenity of an even temper, carry within them a volcano of passion. Some, while they speak with sympathy, are full of gall and bitterness. Ah, yes; and perhaps if we could look into the inner heart of the man whose hand we clasp in friendship, we would shrink from him with loathing and disgust. There is so much hidden beneath the surface, that we know, at the very best, but a portion of the truth. The best and worst deeds of men are unchronicled. Men who have been hung on the gallows amid execrations, and men who have been carved in marble, may have been surpassed in villainy or virtue by hundreds whose names will be forever unknown. Could we see the weakness of the strong, the ignorance of the learned, the cowardice of the brave, the folly of the 208 BELIEF AND CONVICTION. wise, — could we discern the motives that influence the best and the worst of men, — we should be compelled to regard every man as wearing a mask, and concealing the real fea¬ tures of his mind. It is true that we hide more than we exhibit. How often do we seek to appear other than we really are, stifling our emotions, trying to appear happy when our hearts are bursting, affecting calmness when strong- passion, burning in our veins, is clamoring to break forth. Many who are ill scrupulously hide their infirmities; those who are well affect ill health; rich people try to appear poor, and poor people endeavor to pass themselves off as being very rich. How often we take evil for good, and good for evil. When Joseph was stripped of his coat of many colors, cast into the pit, and sold to the Ishmaelites, it seemed a rugged path, but it proved to be the highway to Pharaoh’s favor. When Hainan erected a gallows fifty cubits high, he imagined that he saw Mordecai hanging on it, but he was hung there himself. Then, again, there is all the difference in the world be¬ tween mere belief and conviction. There is a belief which has not the slightest influence over man’s actions, for men scarcely ever act from opinions to which they have given mere theoretical consent. A thief believes that “honesty is the best policy,” but he does not live up to this truth. That young man knows he will injure his health by this or that practice. He will acknowledge, “ I know smoking hurts me;” “I am aware that coffee is not good for me;” “I know that these late hours and dissipation are ruining me.” That young lady will acknowledge that many of the customs she follows are injurious; but no impression is made on her mind. Such persons proceed to do that which, when pain and pangs torment, and coughs rack and consume, they bitterly repent of; and had they youth and health again, DEBTS OF HONOR. 209 with their experience and convictions, they would scrupu¬ lously avoid the follies and indiscretions of life. Draw up a set of propositions on which half a million of people are agreed, and nine tenths of those giving their assent would violate the agreement by their conduct. All agree that fresh air is necessary; exercise is necessary; moderation in eating and drinking is necessary. Now, if people were really con¬ vinced of these facts, their conduct would show it; but they are not convinced, nor anything like it. It is often difficult to induce men to acknowledge their conviction of the most obvious and admitted truths, even if their own welfare depends upon acting on these truths. How often, too, does the “ father of lies ” deck his own offspring in the garb of innocence. How many terms we use which are untrue! An “affair of honor” means a man’s being compelled against his own conscience to risk his life and that of another by a mean, cowardly fear of the world’s opinion. “ Debts of honor ” mean that a man must sell his coat, if necessary, to pay a loss at the gaming-table when he would not, if he could, pay his washerwoman. “ Inno¬ cent amusements ” often mean pleasures which derive their piquancy from not being innocent. “ A good fellow ” often means a wild, headstrong character who seems bent on his own destruction. “ A smart fellow ” often means a dishonest one, like the man who was employed in collecting a bill of one hundred dollars from an obstinate debtor, his employer offering him half if he could collect the bill. Some weeks after, he asked him how he succeeded. “ Lookee here ! ” he exclaimed, “ I had considerable luck with that bill of yourn. You see I stuck tew him like a dog tew a root, but for the first week or two ’twarn’t no use, not a bit. If he was at home, he was short; if he was n’t at home, I got no satisfac¬ tion. By and by, says I, arter going sixteen times, 4 1 ’ll fix 210 THEFT OK SMARTNESS? ye,' so I sot down on the door-step, and sot, and sot, all day and evenin', and began early next day, and about ten o’clock he gin it up. He paid me my half, and I gin up the note.” Another story of the same kind is related of a traveller who stopped in a diligence at Brussels, and, being hungry, was desirious of obtaining a piece of cherry pie, but was afraid the vehicle would drive off and leave him. He called to an urchin in the streets, “ Here, go and get me a piece of cherry pie, and here’s money enough to buy yourself a piece.” Presently the boy came back, eat¬ ing his pie with great relish, and returned one of the pieces of money, with the remark, “ The man did n’t have only one piece, so I bought that with the money you gave me.” I suppose if you entrusted a basket of peaches or pears, or a box of oranges, to an express carrier, and he ate the best of your fruit while in transit, some might call him a smart fellow; I should call him a thief. Not that fruit is ever stolen in transit, although I have heard people complain at the shrinkage of fruit during a passage of a few miles by rail; but then fruit will shrink. How absurd sentences may be made by false construction or punctuation. A man who was suddenly taken sick, “ has¬ tened home while every means for his recovery were resorted to. In spite of all their efforts he died in the triumphs of the Christian religion.” Or this, “A man was killed by a railroad car running into Boston, supposed to be deaf.” I SOT, AND SOT. LITERARY ABSURDITIES. 211 A man writes: “We have decided to erect a school-house large enough to accommodate five hundred scholars five stories high.” An old edition of a geography has this: “ Albany has four hundred dwelling-houses, and two thou¬ sand four hundred inhabitants, all standing with their gable- ends to the street.” On a certain railway the following lumi¬ nous direction was printed: “ Hereafter, when trains moving in an opposite direction are approaching each other on sepa¬ rate lines, conductors and engineers will be requested to bring their respective trains to a dead halt before the point of meeting, and be careful not to proceed till each train has passed the other.” A steamboat captain, advertising an excursion, says: “ Tickets twenty-five cents; children half price, to be had at the office.” Coroner’s verdict: “That A. B. came to his death by excessive drinking, producing apo¬ plexy in the minds of the jury.” A hotel was thus adver¬ tised : “ This hotel will be kept by the widow of the former landlord, Mr. Brown, who died last summer on a new and improved plan.” Wanted, “A saddle horse for a lady weigh¬ ing about nine hundred and fifty pounds.” An Iowa editor says: “We have received a basket of fine grapes from our friend W, for which he will please accept our compliments, some of which are nearly two inches in diameter.” “ Board may be had at No. 4 Pearl Street for two gentlemen with gas.” Over a bridge at Athens, Ga., is the following: “ Any person driving over this bridge in a pace faster than a walk, shall, if a white man, be fined five dollars, and if a negro, receive twenty-five lashes, half the penalty to be bestowed on the informer.” A newspaper contained this: “We have two schoolrooms sufficiently large to accommodate three hundred pupils one above another.” Another newspaper, in describ¬ ing the doings of a convention at Cleveland, said: “ The procession was very fine and nearly two miles long, as was also the prayer of Dr. Perry, the chaplain.” 212 UNFORTUNATE MR. LONG. Sometimes men will gain their ends by what is called a pleasant fiction, and I do not know that there is any moral wrong committed, if there is no intention to deceive. An old minister, who was very much opposed to the introduction of a bass-viol into church, was in the midst of his sermon, when a bull that had escaped from the pasture stopped in front of the church and began to bellow. The doctor paused, and looking up into the singers’ seats, said: 44 I would thank the musicians not to me. long’s accuser. tune their instruments dur¬ ing the sermon.” In another minute 44 Boo ! ” went the bull. 44 1 really wish the singers would not tune their instruments while I am preaching; it annoys me very much.” 44 Boo! ” went the bull the third time. 44 1 have twice re¬ quested the musicians in the gallery not to tune their instruments during sermon time. I now particularly re¬ quest Mr. Long to desist from tuning // his big fiddle while I am preaching.” Up jumped Mr. Long, 44 It is n’t me ; it’s that confounded bull.” The big fiddle was never heard again in that church. This Mr. Long was some¬ what matter-of-fact, like the old lady who, when complaining of rheumatism, was asked if she had ever tried electricity for MR. LONG. STRUCK BY LIGHTNING. 213 it. “ Law, yes,” said she, 44 I was struck with lightning once, and it did n’t do me a bit of good.” Again, there is truth often in an apparent contradiction, as when the Irishman in the House of Commons remarked of the French people that they were so restless they would never be at peace till they were engaged in another war. Or truth may be conveyed when there is no intention. A Frenchman, when asked if he loved dogs, said: 44 Oui! I love dogs and cats and horses and cows, and I do love everyting zat is beastly.” We hear a great deal said of woman’s rights and woman’s wrongs, of woman’s mission, and all that sort of thing. I believe in woman’s rights; but what are they? Are there not false ideas current in reference to woman and her rightful position ? Pardon me if I introduce here a few words about woman; and I will, with your permission, take you into the garden of Eden. 44 And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” We have here a human being as perfect as God could make, with mental and moral powers fresh from the hand of his Creator, with a perfect and holy body. God had planted the garden for him to live in. Flowers, trees, shrubs, were of divine choice; every bower, and walk, and lawn was planned by divine wisdom. What a garden must Paradise have been ! The shady grove, the forest, the hill and vale, the rose of Sharon and lily of the valley, were perfect. There was no alloy, not a care to distract, not an object disagreeable to the man with powers in perfection to enjoy, fully enjoy. And yet his solitary condition is the only thing in Paradise which Jehovah pronounced not good. He looked on every¬ thing else and behold it was very good, but, 44 It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” Imagine Adam in Paradise ; everything to please the 214 WOMAN’S POSITION AND HANK. eye, and cliarm the ear, and minister to a pure taste. If ever there was a being of whom it could be said, “ It is good for him to be alone,” that being was Adam, and yet “ It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” The creation was incomplete without woman. If God has attached such importance to female influence as to pronounce the Eden of his own planting a solitary abode until Eve inhabited it, shall not we attach importance to the fact sufficient to assert the high character of her destiny, and qualify her to fulfil the station allotted her by Divine Providence as man’s helpmate? We must under¬ stand “helpmate ” as a help of equal rank and corresponding dignity with man. There are thousands of men who imagine that women are created merely to flirt with, to amuse them when young, to be petted and caressed and played with, and by and by to cook their food, look after the household affairs, and gratify their wants and wishes. Helpmates, with such, are only a superior order of domestic animals rather than man’s intellectual and moral associate, a help meet for the rank and dignity of man. Burns says that Nature tried her ’prentice hand on man before venturing on the finer task of fashioning woman; but men in general are slow to admit woman even to an equality with themselves, and the prevalent opinion certainly is that women are inferior in point of intellect. We cannot come to a decision on such a question until the position of women in society is such as to give fair play to their capabilities. Take a class of boys and girls learning the same lessons or studying the same subject; you never find girls inferior to the boys. Their memories are as strong, their per¬ ceptions as clear, and their understandings are as vigor¬ ous. They learn as fast, and as easily comprehend what they are taught. They make as rapid progress in arith- EQUALITY OF 130YS AND GIRLS. 215 metic, grammar, languages, and history. Many teachers give it as their opinion that you can often make girls understand a difficult subject better than boys, and I believe that experiment and observation can detect no inferiority, to say the least, in the minds of the weaker vessel during infancy, childhood, or youth. But let the woman grow up with the idea that — as the boy said — while “ the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, the chief end of woman is to get married; ” that her sole object is to look out for a suitable match, to lay plans or traps to catch an eligible husband; that she needs no insight into science; that to be literary is to be blue; that she is to have no vocation in which the cultivation of her intellectual power is necessary; that if she is too learned she will frighten away that very polite and agreeable young man who intends never to marry a woman who knows more than he does; that she must contract her intellect to the dimensions of his; that all the education and training will be of no use when she is married; that she will forget her French when she is married; that she will have no time for music when she is married; no necessity for natural philosophy when she is married ; and the education which is to elevate her will be pursued with a listlessness and apathy that always fall on man or woman engaged in any pursuit of which they can say, “ What’s the use?” I might give a list of illustrious women who have demon¬ strated that woman’s mental inferiority is a mere fiction. We have the publications of women on history, natural philosophy, poetry, religion, and fiction, that will bear com- panson with the general literature of the other sex. The wives of missionaries find no greater difficulty than their husbands do in acquiring the language of the people among whom they labor. Many women are distinguished botanists, 216 MY OPINION OF WOMAN’S RIGHTS. conchologists, and geologists; their collections, specimens, and cabinets are quite equal to those of the other sex. Jane Taylor was thoroughly acquainted with divinity. Had Hannah More not been a woman, she might have had her B.A., M.A., D.D., or LL. D. Walter Scott has given strong testimony to his high appreciation of Joanna Baillie. I might multiply cases and weary you with the catalogue. Oh, but — well, but; but what ? Why, women have not the application of men. How rarely does a woman give up when she is determined, and how seldom does she fail. How many a noble enterprise would have been abandoned but for the firmness of woman. Often her zeal is quickened and her diligence doubled by obstacles. I hold that woman is capa¬ ble of being a helpmate corresponding to the nobility of man. In sensibility she is his superior, and the great requisite is that her intelligence and sympathy should mutually influence each other; intelligence and moral principle must be blended with sensibility to make woman what God designed her to be. I am not an advocate of woman’s rights according to the theory of strong-minded women, as I have said before. I have very little sympathy with what are called strong- minded women, who would thrust woman out of her sphere, and force her to occupy a position for which she is not qualified in any respect. Woman in her sphere is all-power¬ ful, but dress her in male attire, let her unsex herself, and sacrifice woman’s softness, tenderness, and modesty to an insane desire for woman’s rights, and she loses her influence for good. I dislike to see women strutting about in Bloomer costume, men’s jackets, and standing collars, as if they could not assert their rights without making themselves ridiculous. Women have work to do, and every woman who has force of character enough to conceive any rational enterprise of AN ERRAND OF MERCY. 217 benevolence is sure to carry it through. When Elizabeth Fry and her noble helpers first entered the cell where a wild, half-savage looking crew of women were mustered, the sheriff said, “Ladies, you see your materials.” A lady who accompanied her said, “ I felt as if I were going into a den of wild beasts, and shuddered as the door was closed upon me,” yet the brave, gentle-hearted leader was left alone with them THE PRISON VISITORS. for hours, and such was the effect produced that the “New¬ gate ladies,” as they were called, became advisers at the Home Office in the matter of prisons and convict-ships. When Florence Nightingale, at Scutari, wanted blankets for the poor, sick soldiers, she was told that they could not be obtained without an order from some official, signed and countersigned. She cut the red tape by ordering the doors to be broken open on her own responsibility, and the blankets 14 218 UNFAIR ADVANTAGES. were appropriated by the poor, wounded men. Clara Barton and scores of noble women in our own country devoted years of unwearied devotion in ministering to our brave soldiers. Some men have the faculty of obtaining their ends by taking advantage of accidents, forgetting that truth cannot be affected by contingencies; and they often obtain a tempo¬ rary triumph, although for the moment they may seem to A UNANIMOUS VOTE. have achieved their purpose. And the truth is no more revealed than when, on board a canal-boat, a company of politicians stood on the deck, highly excited in a political discussion as to the coming presidential election. They were approaching a low bridge, when the steersman called out “ Bridge, bridge ! ” But they were so absorbed in their discussion that no one heard the warning, except one man, who took advantage of it to cry out, “ Look here ! let’s take THE TOWER OF FLATTERY. 219 a vote; all in favor of Martin Van Buren, stoop; all opposed stand up.” The Van Burenites ducked their heads, and all the others were knocked down — a unanimous vote for Mar¬ tin Van Buren! An assent to our assertion is sometimes not very pleasant. I suppose the lady at the boarding-house was a little annoyed at the coolness of the boarder who generally managed to con¬ sume his three dollars’ worth in about four days, and who was very fond of butter, and ate it freely. The poor woman at last said, “ Mr. Short do you know that that butter you are eating so freely cost sixty cents a pound.” “Ah, did it?” taking another large slice, and rolling it in his mouth with great relish, “ did it ? well, I should say that that butter was worth sixty cents a pound.” Compliment has been defined as implying something not entirely to be credited. We all like smooth words. We see ourselves in our glass, and although we may be old and plain, yet there is a pleasant satisfaction in being told that we are young and handsome, and all are more or less open to this form of compliment. But there are people to whom anything can be said with a good chance of being believed, who see no incongruity between their deserts and the highest praise, and whose vanity seems to be a vast magnifying and embellishing power. How easily and pleasantly we are flat¬ tered for qualities we do not possess. In truth, one can flatter a man more by telling him he can do things well that he cannot do at all, than by telling him he can do things well for which he has specially qualified himself. Take a deacon of a church, who is a very good bootmaker, and tell him he can preach a better sermon than his minister, and he is better pleased than if you tell him he can make a better boot than anyone in the neighborhood. Tell a man whose legs on horseback look like a pair of compasses, and whose 220 HOW TO CHOOSE A HUSBAND. every nerve is strained by the exertion of an hour’s riding, that he is an easy rider, and, though aching in every limb, very little persuasion will be required to induce him to re¬ mount. There are various judgments by different individuals of what is sensible in a man. Leslie tells a story of a captain of a packet-ship, who often had ladies placed under his LOVE’S TEST.—THE MEN WHO JUMPED. t , lady who was very attractive received particular attentions from three young gentlemen, and consulted the captain as to which she should encourage. “Well, you come on deck some calm day, and I will have a boat lowered, and you shall jump overboard. I ’ll take care of you, and see which of them will jump after you.” She did so, jumped overboard, and two of them leaped into the sea. Here was another difficulty; which of the two should she encourage ? She consulted the captain. EXAGGERATION. 221 His advice was, “ Take the one that did not jump, he’s the most sensible man of the three.” Then there is the exaggeration in speech that is not so harmless in its effect; such as, “the place was crowded to suffocation; ” “I had the headache, I thought I should have died;” “I was up to my knees in mud;” “I’d give the world to hear Jenny Lind.” Now do not call me fanatical and puritanical if I say that the practice of expressing our¬ selves in an inflated and thoughtless way is more mischievous than we may be aware of. It may lead us to sacrifice truth; the purity of truth may be sullied; or the standard of integrity lowered by incorrect observations. While on this point let me go a little further, looking at the matter freely and faithfully. You cannot give greater offence than to call a man a liar. How many young men would shrink from telling a dishonest lie, because they are honest; or a boastful lie, because they are modest; or a malicious lie, because they are good-natured; and yet would swerve from the truth and tell a lie which they considered perfectly innocent. Think¬ ing that there is no harm in a simple falsehood, are they not, though honest, modest and good-natured, liars ? and is the truth in them ? A man should value truth for its own sake. Once undermine the reverence for truth, and the vice of lying may increase by exercise, until, by and by, one may spurn the bonds that truth would lay upon his tongue, and go to the widest extent of his invention and the utmost stretch of his imagination. Let not our good-humor prevent us from giving right names to wrong things. Begging the question is cowardly, and judgment is perverted by calling evil good. What, must I tell the truth if it hurts the feel¬ ings of another? Unpleasant truths need not always be told; men who always blurt out unwelcome truths are offen¬ sive, and a lie may be told with the kindest motives; but 222 LIVING AN AIMLESS LIFE. there are cases in which you must tell either the truth or a lie. You are not responsible for consequences or results. Do right and leave the consequences with Him who is truth, and loves and guards his own. If we do evil that good may come, we take the matter out of His hands into our own. Direct falsehood, under any circumstances, I consider to be wrong, though it may involve no other sin but itself. There is an uprightness of speech as well as of action that we should strive to attain. Love the truth, follow the truth, and practice truth in word, thought, and deed. How many men’s lives run to waste, not because the dis- position is intensely wicked, but because there is no settled purpose to live right; not because the mind is preoccupied by bad intention, but because it is unoccupied by any inten¬ tion at all. Without purpose, they begin life ; they plough a little, sow a little, but reap no harvest. They pay a price, but secure no purchase; letting the spirit of achievement die, they become drones in the hive of society; with a man’s faculty for enjoyment, improvement, and usefulness, they fritter away their energies, become morbidly miserable them¬ selves, do no good to others, and become as disgusted with life as the rich man who committed suicide, leaving a paper on which he had written, “I die because I am weary of living to eat, drink, and sleep,” — or settle down into the selfish, useless man of the world, content, after their poor, miserable fashion to be, till death thrills them into a wakeful consciousness of what they are, what they have been, what they might have been. They have lived well for themselves, have kept good society, furnished a good table, and held high state, but no blessing comes upon them from anyone whom they have saved. They present to the Father no soul saved by their influence as a token and result of work in his vine¬ yard, but all is a blank, their life is a sham, and their passing A MELANCHOLY SIGHT. 223 away leaves all survivors indifferent, and the world will never miss them; gone, gone, are they to their own place. But more painful is the wilful wasting and squandering of life, health, talent, and energy which God has given to glorify him and bless the world, in wicked, sensual gratifications. See that young man, rich in all that might make him great, with robust and vigorous health, and even with high and noble am¬ bition, starting in that deceitful, flowery path of sensual delights, chasing the bubble pleasure, AS SHE WAS AND AS SHE IS. breaking through every restraint that the law of God would throw around him, blasting his reputation, stultifying his intellect, changing the image of God into the stamp of the Devil’s die, until he becomes a wreck. See that battered hulk lying on the strand. Once she was a fair bark, trim, copper- fastened ; with rigging all taut, and streamers flying, she walked the waters like a thing of life. Now her black, broken ribs stand up irregular and gaunt, like spectres of the past; the waves washing through her gaping seams, and wind sighing 224 TYPES OF MEN. through her rotten rigging, seem to sound a sad requiem of departed days. Do you not feel sad as you gaze upon the ruin of man’s workmanship? Oh, how unutterably sad to look upon the wreck, the ruin of a man, a being fearfully and wonderfully made, endowed with glorious capacities for all that is noble and grand; the tenement shattered, and the tenant, once capable of serving God, now stained, defiled, driven out before its time, where, ah, where ? God know- etli. Oh, it is pitiful, pitiful, and, God forgive us, these wrecks are all around us; these ruins lie across our foot¬ path, wrecks of men, ruins of men. Oh, that every young man would heed the solemn injunction, “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.” There are braggarts and blusterers in society, but there are many kind-hearted souls who are happy, when they can make others so. There are tattlers and busy-bodies; but there are silent, reflecting observers of men and things, who say but little; but when they speak, it is as an oracle. There are men who wear smiles on their faces, whose hearts are unprincipled and treacherous; but there are true friends with a rough outside, who speak with their hands more than with their tongues, with deeds rather than words. There are brutal, hard men; but there are many loving men, who act as a balm to the rankling wounds of humanity. There are men who are full of gall and bitterness, hateful, and hating one another; but there are compassionate spirits whose “ charity thinketh no evil, suffereth long, and is kind.” There are thankless repiners, always magnifying their little troubles; but there are grateful spirits that, come good or ill, always sing of mercy ; to them “ the heavens declare the glory of God,” and “ the earth is full of his goodness.” There are proud and supercilious sceptics who affect to pity simple- minded Christians; but, thank God, there are men and UNNOTICED HEROES. 225 women who set a value on his word above all earthly things. That is the stronghold where they go for safety, the treasure- house where they obtain riches, a never-failing source of wisdom, encouragement, reproof, and correction. The world’s estimate of men is not generally the correct one in the highest sense. How many real heroes pass by unnoticed, modest, quiet, unattractive, and unassuming; the gay avoid them and 'pass them by with a sneer; only those who know them fully appreciate and love them. They would not particularly grace a drawing-room, the thoughtless throng heeds them not; to them they seem stained, marred. Why, my fine gentleman, these marks and stains are hon¬ orable scars, obtained on many a well-fought field; they have entered the conflict of life with brave, true hearts, and will be at last ranked among those who have overcome. CHAPTER IX. IN THE TOILS OF THE TEMPTER — CHARMED UNTIL CHAINED — THE BATTLE OF LIFE — A STAINED RECORD. The Old Lady and the Haystack — Driving Nails in One’s Own Coffin— The Green-eyed, Fiery-tongued Serpent — Robbing Birds’ Nests — Suspended in Mid-air — A Frightful Position — Only a Single Strand Between Life and Death — A Thrilling Incident — Narrow Escape — My Frolic With a Child — A Boy Again — The Drunken Loafer — Look on This Picture, Then on That — Youth and Old Age Side by Side — A Picture for Young Men — Past, Present, and Future — A Physician’s Story — A Pathetic Incident — Alone — A Night in the Cold and Dark — A Little Girl’s Sad Story—The Old Lady’s Feelings — “A Certain-sort-of-Goneness ” — Nearer and Nearer to the End — A Stained Record — Life is What You Choose to Make it — “ Where Are Those Dogs Going ?” — Treasures Laid up Above — Life’s Battlefield — Honorable Scars — A Disgraced Regiment Winning Back Their Colors — Honor Retrieved. HE great object we have in view is to stir up the people to do something against the fearful curse of intemperance. We think we gain one great point when we can make them acquainted, in some de¬ gree, with this terrible evil. A great many persons tell us that they see nothing of all the evils we describe. The fact is, they know no more about the evils of drunkenness than the old lady knew of the scenery through which she passed the first time she ever rode in a railroad car. Some one said to her, “Well, madam, what did you see?” “See! nothing at all but a haystack, and that was going the other way! ” We 22 c> THE FASCINATION OF DRINK. 227 want to show people, if we can, the terrible evil we seek to remove. I wish I could lift the curtain that conceals from their view the secrets of this awful charnel-house. That ter¬ rible curse of drunkenness ! the mind of man cannot grasp it in its wide extent. God never gave a man an imagination powerful enough to conceive it, or eloquence sufficient to illustrate it so that it could be at all understood. This great curse is caused by one thing, and only by that, and that is the drinking of intoxicating liquor as a beverage. Therefore we fight the liquor because that is the cause which produces these results. I have said before, and I say again, no man intends to be¬ come a drunkard. No man starts with the intention of ruin¬ ing himself, bringing disgrace upon his family, staining his reputation, blasting his prospects, destroying his manliness, and ruining himself, body and soul. No man intends to do it. But the fearfully deceptive influence of the drink is made manifest by the way in which men go down the fatal sliding-scale, inch by inch, foot by foot, to utter ruin. Oh, the fascination of the drink! How great its fasci¬ nation over men who are overpowered and overruled and overmastered by the curse of this appetite! We see men to-day destroying themselves by it, and they knoiv it. Do not tell me that such a man does not know that he is going to de¬ struction. He knows that every glass he takes is another nail driven and clenched in his coffin. He knows it, and still he proceeds. Sometimes, in his desperation, he wrestles with his enemy, only to feel his own weakness, —wrestling sometimes for life, with the serpent twining about his body, twisting round his throat, glaring in his eyes with its green orbs, and licking his lips with its forked fiery tongue. He struggles hard, and comes out of the conflict defeated. On the island of Hoy, in the Orkneys, the inhabitants earn 228 A THRILLING STORY a precarious livelihood by robbing the birds of their eggs. To get at their nests, men are let down by a rope from a cliff one thousand feet in height, and when they are down per¬ haps five hundred feet, the men at the top make the end of the rope fast. Each man has a signal cord. Then, as they hang out clear of the cliff, they, with a swinging motion, work themselves toward it. By and by they catch hold of some jagged rock or a root or shrub, and there they hang in mid-air, and fill bags with the eggs of the birds. One man, sus- pended thus between heaven and earth by a single rope, swung himself into a crevice, and was busy at his work when he was attacked b} r an eagle. The eagle came at him with full force, with wings and beak and talons. The man swung out into the air, while the eagle battered him with its wings “the strands began to snap.” THE BOTTOMLESS GULF. 229 and tore at him with its beak and claws. Holding on with one hand, the man, with his other hand, drew his long, sharp knife, and made a desperate blow at the eagle; but he missed the bird and cut through the rope by which he was suspended, all but a few strands, and these began rapidly to untwist and the threads to snap. He made the signal, was hauled up to the edge of the cliff, and—just saved. But they told us his hair had become white during that awful experience. There are young men hanging over the bottomless gulf by a single cord. It is all that binds them to life, home, hap¬ piness, and heaven; it is all that holds them. Instead of making the signal to be hauled up to the edge, they are using their knives in cutting away eveiy strand of the rope. Thousands of them are dropping into the awful gulf, utterly ruined for time and eternit}^ by their own act and by their own purpose, fascinated by the power of the drink. Let us put aside pauperism, wretchedness, suffering, and loss of life, as minor matters. I place the loss of life among minor matters, for what if drink should destroy this body, this tenement of my soul? If it leaves the tenant untouched it is a small matter. Should drunkenness destroy the casket and leave the gem, what matter? An old divine has said, “I care but little where the bark of my flesh is wrecked, if I can but save the passenger.” But drunkenness destroys both the casket and the gem, it wrecks the bark and engulfs the pas¬ senger, ruins both body and soul, blasting everything that is noble and glorious and grand and beautiful and manly and godlike in man. Look at its effects; contemplate it in its awful reality as crushing humanity down to the level of the beasts. Do we treat the drunkard as a man? No. Do we feel for him as a man? No. Do we think of him as a man ? No. We see him thrust out with the stench and filth of the 230 LOWER THAN THE BEASTS. grogshop; we see and think of him as drink has made him, and we are apt to conclude that he was so always. Some¬ times it is a hard matter to look upon a blear-eyed, bloated drunkard as made in God’s image, for it seems as if debauch¬ ery had been effacing that image, and had pretty well suc¬ ceeded. His intellectual nature has become a devil, and his animal nature has become a beast. He is not like one occu¬ pying the same scale of being, a member of the same family. With his blotched countenance and the gibbering idiocy of his expression, we ask, What is this thing? Can it be a man made in the image of God? Yea, a man, our brother. Some time ago, in the grounds of a friend, I was playing with a beautiful boy. We enjoyed a frolic in the garden for awhile, I making of myself a sort of mimic wheelbarrow, and carrying him to and fro upon my back. You would scarce have been able to tell whether the little boy or the big boy was the more delighted with the fun, for I loved him and I knew that he loved me. While we were so engaged, the gardener told us, that in a field at the foot of the lawn, a man was lying on the grass, very drunk. I took the hand of my little companion, and asked him to go with me and look at the man. There lay before us a man of hoary hairs ; his hat near him, his gray locks waving with the wind. With one hand he had seized the breast of his coat and vest as if it were with the grasp of death, and the other was twisted up behind him ; his lips were convulsively moving, and with his breath there came a stench which polluted the pure air of heaven. There lay the form of a man, his face upturned to the bright blue sky ; the sunbeam that warmed and cheered and illumed us, playing unfelt and unenjoyed upon his bloated, greasy face. There he lay as drink made him ; and, as I gazed on him in his degradation, the very horses and cows looked far nobler than he. PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 231 As I looked upon the poor degraded wretch, and then upon the child beside me, with his noble brow, his beautiful blue eyes, his rosy cheeks, his pearly teeth, and ruby lips, the perfect picture of health, peace, and innocence, and compared these with what was exhibited by the miserable being before us;. as I looked upon the man, and then upon the child, and felt his little hand convulsively twitching in mine, and saw his little lips grow white, and his eyes fill with tears as he gazed upon this poor drunkard, — oh, then, did I praj^ God, in my heart of hearts, to give me an everlasting and increas¬ ing capacity to hate — hate , hate with a burning hatred — every instrumentality that could degrade and sink the nobility of man into the horrid thing that lay before me. Young men, let me bring before you a vision. Before us stands a bright, fair-haired, beautiful boy, — the type, the picture of health and beauty. That is youth; that is your past. Another figure stands before us, the youth grown to the man, genius flashing from his eye; his broad brow denoting intellectual strength as he claims for himself power over the minds of his fellow-men. There he stands, a glor¬ ious being. That is your ideal. Then appears a trembling, wretched thing, fetters on his limbs, his brow seamed, sensu¬ ality seated on his swollen lip, the image of God marred. What is that? Is that your present? Then you shall see another vision. It is a wretched, emaciated creature; you see his heart is all on fire ; the worm that never dies has begun its fearful gnawings. What is that? It is your future. The power of evil habit does not destroy conscious¬ ness. The curse, to the man who is going down step by step, is the remembrance of the past. All the bright dreams of his imagination are vividly before him, but separated from him by a continent of grief and disappointment, pain of body, and fever of spirit. Distant, clear, but cold, is the moon 232 A DREADFUL CONDITION. that shines on his waking agony or on his desperate repose. He has been the slave to evil habit; he has spent his life and his fortune, sold his birthright. And what has he obtained? Can any condition be more dreadful than his, with ambition and no expectation; desire for better things, but no hope; with pride, but no freshness of feeling ? When we know there are so many men wrecked and ruined by this one agency, and especially when we know by experience some¬ thing of its power, — can we sit still and not wage an aggressive war upon our enemy and the enemy of our race and country? There is no power on earth that will make a man or a woman a fiend like the power of drink. A physician told me that once, when he was employed in visiting some poor families, he found a girl, about fifteen years of age, an intel¬ ligent little creature, ill of consumption. He knew the father and mother were drinkers, but he did not dream they would neglect their suffering child. The physician came home very late one night after a hard day’s work, and had not vis¬ ited his little patient. He felt so uneasy all night about her that, early next morning, a bitter cold morning he went to her house. There he found the little creature alone in a squalid room, sitting by an empty fireplace, her arms tightly folded round her, as if to keep her little shivering frame from falling to pieces', racked, as it was, by the cough from which she suffered. “Elizabeth, my child,” said the physician, “what are you doing here? Why are you not in bed?” “I have not been to bed, sir.” “Have you not been to bed all night?” “No, sir.” “ Where are your father and mother ? ” “ They have gone to bed, sir.” “Why did they go to bed and leave you up?” “ Father A PITIFUL CASE. 233 brought home a bottle of rum last night, and they drank it and went to bed.” “And have you been sitting here all night, my child?” “ Yes, sir.” “Have you had no light?” “No, sir.” “ No fire ? ” “ No, sir.” “Have you been sitting all night in the cold and dark, alone?” “Yes, sir.” Think of the suffering in body and mind that ^ little girl en¬ dured in the long hours of that bitter win¬ try night, sitting from night till morning, in a bare and deso¬ late room, ill, no fire, no light, and without sufficient cloth¬ ing to keep her frail body warm. And there, in an ad¬ joining room, lay her father and mother beastly drunk. I say, then, there is no power on earth that will make a man or a woman a devil so quickly as the power of drink. Look at the effects of drunkenness upon a man. God made man in his own image; what mars that image and stamps it with the counterfeit die of the devil? Drink does it. “ Man by nature walks erect and lifts his forehead to the 15 'V. v \ \ ' \ \ \ , 4\\\\W> # V&mAvVNv. THE PHYSICIAN’S DISCO VEKY. 234 GHASTLY WITNESSES. stars,” and he is crowned lord of creation : what breaks his sceptre, tears his crown from his brow, and degrades him below the level of the beasts ? Drink does it. What sears his heart, and dams up the fountain of pure and holy affec¬ tion ? It is the drink. What fills our almshouses and our jails? What hangs yon trembling wretch upon the gallows? It is the drink. And we might almost call upon the tomb to break forth. Ye mouldering victims, wipe the crumbling grave-dust from your brow; stalk forth in your tattered shrouds and bony whiteness to testify against the drink ! Come, come from the gallows, you spirit-maddened man- slayer, grip your bloody knife, and stalk forth to testify against it! Crawl from the slimy ooze, ye drowned drunk¬ ards, and with suffocation’s blue and livid lips speak out against the drink. Snap your burning chains, ye denizens of the pit, and come up, sheeted in fire, dripping with the flames of hell, and with your trumpet tongues testifying against the deep “damnation of the drink.” No young man expects that anything of this kind will come upon him. I do not say that it will, but I want young men who drink to test this matter. Just test it. A man in business takes account of his stock, does he qot, to see how he stands commercially? The captain of a vessel takes his bearings, and makes an observation to know where he is. Now, young man, is it not well for you to ascertain precisely where you are, and where you stand on the question of drink? Then I will ask you this question. You say you have no appetite for the drink. I say to you, just test it. I do not ask you to sign the pledge. I do not ask you to become a teetotaler; but I ask you to test it when you want a glass of ale. What is that want ? It is a want created by the use of ale. If you had never drunk it, you would never want it. It is not a natural want. A boy never came into AN UNNATURAL APPETITE. 235 the world longing for a glass of ale, any more than for a quid of tobacco. It is an acquired appetite. Now if you desire a glass of ale, as many of you will, or if you want one to-morrow morning, all I ask is — let it alone, and see how much you want it. Some of you will begin to argue the point: “Well, I am one of those who cannot do without a little; I really believe it is necessary for my constitution. I feel, as the old lady said, ‘a certain-sort-of-goneness without it.’ It is always upon me.” Ah, there is the fallacy. You say you have no appetite for it. And you think that is so, because when the appetite craves, you gratify it and satisfy it for the time being. By and by, the appetite craves again. Now let it alone till you do not feel the want of it any more, and if you attempt that, some of you will find you have a difficult task to accomplish. It has a grip upon you, and you will find that you are one of the subjects of this craving. I will ask you another question. Do you not drink more now than you did five years ago ? Do you not take a glass of ale oftener than you did five years ago? Are you not increasing the quantity? Some of you drink twice as much as you did five years ago, and you know it. You expect to live thirty years, or thirty-five years, longer. What will it be if you double your quantity every five years? If you drink more now than you did five years ago, it will be easier for you to give it up now than it ever will be again. All I ask of young men is to test the matter. There are those of us who have come out of the fire, who are scarred and bruised, who will never be what we might have been had it not been for the accursed drink. As year after year rolls on and brings us nearer and nearer to the end, what would we not give could we wipe out our record! Oh, that awful record, young man! You are writing a new record every day. You begin in the morning with a clean 286 WHAT IS YOUR RECORD? page, perfectly clean, and at night it is smeared, and smudged, and blotted, and then you hastily turn it oyer and think it is gone. No. You never can wipe out a word of your record; you never can blot out a stain, nor erase one. No, sir! You are making an ineffaceable record. What a grand thing it is to be a young man, with all of life before you to make of it what you choose, to mould it as you will, to make it just what you please. How many are making their life a desert, when it might be a garden; making it a dreary, barren waste when it might be fruitful in good works and holy influences, stumbling, blundering, aimless, almost re¬ minding you of the story of a boy walking through the streets with a couple of dogs. Some one said to him, “Where are those dogs going?” “I don’t know,” was the reply, “ they have come in by the coach and have eaten their directions.” These men positively look as if they had drunk their directions and did not know where they were going; and their appearance would be absurd if it were not so deplorable to see them groping through life with no defi¬ nite purpose or fixed principle to direct their course. Oh, the beginning! So many go into ruin with all of life before them. You are like a switchman on the rail¬ way. Here comes the locomotive and the train of cars freighted with human life, hopes, and happiness, and your hand is on that switch. You can turn that train on the main track, you can turn it on the siding, you can turn it down the bank; but when it has passed by, your control over it has gone forever. Never will you have another such opportunity, and opportunities are passing you day by day, day by day. By and by you will say, as poor Churchill did on his death-bed, w All gone; every opportunity lost; what a fool I have been! ” Young man, is that to be the end of your life with all its THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 287 prospects and all its bright hopes? Now let me tell you this one thing: ninety-nine out of every hundred ruined men are ruined by strong drink. I do not mean ruined financially, for I do not consider that any ruin at all, because, when a man dies, it is not what he leaves or what he carries with him, but what is laid up there ! He may die so poor that the parish may have to bury him, but yonder is the crown of life “to him that overcometh.” Now I say, young man, is that to be the end of it? Ninety-nine out of every hundred men who are ruined morally, and I might almost say physically, intellectually, and religiously, are ruined by the use of drink. It is the great curse of this country. Then what shall we do ? What we want is to stir up the people to move in this matter. We want you to help us, young men. It may cost something, but life is a battlefield. Yes, it is. Oh, I like these fights. A man said to me once, “ I never fought a battle in my life.” Then I said, “Well, I pity you, if, among all the forces for evil in this world, none of them thought you worth the tackling.” There are some, I sup¬ pose, who never fight battles, — quiet-tempered, easy going people, very sweet children. They have no emotional nature, no strong propensities; they are good, negatively good, and when they reach the goal they are without a mark, smooth and sleek. And you praise these men. “Ah, that is the man for me; see how smoothly he went through life.” And the other one that started with him began to stumble and fall, and rose and fell again; and when he reached the goal he was scarred and marred, and battered and bruised, and you despise him. Why? He came into the world with a fierce, passionate nature that needed one constant battle to control, and sometimes he fell. But he cried out, “ Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy; when I fall, I shall arise.” I 238 HONOR RETRIEVED. prefer the fighter to the man who never fights. All honor to the fighters! Now, young men, for yourselves and for others, enter into this conflict. It is a grand one. An English regiment in India had its colors taken away for insubordination. Every man drew his rations and pay just as usual. No punishment of any sort was added. And yet every man in that regiment, whatever he might be,— possibly coarse, illiterate, or brutal, — and however lowered ■ r • > i by his miserable mistakes, had an ideal sense of honor. Every man groaned and suffered under the chastisement of the loss of their flag. But the time came when a fort was to be stormed on the top of a steep hill. It was a perilous thing to charge up that long, cannon-swept ascent. But the opportunity was there. The commanding officer rode down the line in front of the disgraced regiment and said, 44 Attention, men! your colors are on the top of that hill. f. •* • * Charge.” And they did charge. Up that hill, under the fiery storm of shot and shell, through the abatis, over the " ? • . ' *i rampart, into the fort, — a ghastly, battered, bleeding few, to receive their flag, — only a fragment of the regiment. The rest lay dead in heaps all up the slope; but they gave their lives gladly for such a thing as the honor of their regimental flag. Young men, your prize is higher and nobler than this. I leave the lesson with you. May you be able to say, though covered with scars in the conflict, 44 1 have fought the good fight and obtained the victory, and the immortal crown is mine. CHAPTER X. PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE — THE PATHOS OF LIFE — CHILDREN BORN TO SIN AND SORROW. Tell-tale Scars — A Modern Life of Moses — Underrating the Capacity of Children — A Boy’s Idea of How Flies are Made— “Puttin’ on ’em To¬ gether, and a-Fittin’ of ’em”—Saving Half Fare—“Only Ten, in the Cars ” — A New Way to Sign the Pledge — A Father who Would not be Outdone by His Boy — A True Incident — What the Jug Contained — Value of Children’s Aid — An Incident from My Own Experience — Cries of Distress — A Peep Over the Fence — A Triumphal Procession — What a Temperance Boy Accomplished — An Army Officer’s Story — Charity Children — A Tour Through a Tenement House — W T hat was Discovered Under the Rafters — A Dying Little Waif — Hiding from Father — Friendless and Motherless — An Affecting Scene — The Dying Boy’s Hymn — Death in a Garret — Rest at Last — How a Minister Argued the Points — Convinced — God Bless the Children. T is a great work to save a drunkard. It is worth a life-effort to lift a man from degradation. It is worth a might} 7 self-sacrifice to raise a man, and enable him to stand as a man free from his debasement and fetters; but to pre¬ vent his fall is far better. A boy, when asked, “Would you tell a lie for fifty dollars ? ” replied, “ No; because when the dollars are gone, the lie will stick.” Though we may reform a man from drunkenness, no one can ever fully recover from the effects of years of dissipation and intemperance. You put your hand in the hand of a giant, and he crushes it. You 239 240 CAPACITY OF CHILDREN. shriek in your agony, and by and by, with a desperate effort, you draw forth your hand. It is crushed and torn, mangled and bleeding. That hand may be at last healed, but it will be a mutilated hand as long as you live. And so a man may be cured of this evil of drunkenness, but the marks are upon him, and will be to the day of his death. Many a man in perfect health has a face fearfully marred and scarred from smallpox; the disease has gone, but the marks remain. Therefore it is a more important work to prevent than it is to cure. Now, one would suppose there would be no opposition to this work. But there are some persons who oppose every¬ thing that does not suit their own narrow views, or that they have not suggested, and so there is opposition. The great objection seems to be that “ these children are led and enticed to sign the pledge, without appealing to their understanding.” We underrate the capacity of children to understand,— altogether underrate it. There is a kind of literature grow¬ ing out of an attempt to make the scripture narratives com¬ prehended by infant minds. You read the life of Jesus, the life of Moses, or the life of Joseph, to your boy of five years from the Bible; and if he does not understand these narra¬ tives he will understand nothing. And yet we have namby- pamby editions of the life of Moses after this fashion: — “ Moses was a very nice little darling love of a child, with blue eyes, and flaxen hair hanging over his shoulders, and little dimples on his knuckles, and the points of his fingers pink and beautiful; and his mother loved her dear little darling child, and she found that bad men wanted to kill him; so she made a basket of bulrushes, and called it an ark, and lined it with something to keep the water out and cotton wool to make it soft and warm, and pushed it out into the stream; and when the little child saw its mother stand- HOW FLIES ARE MADE. 241 ing on the bank, it stretched out its dimpled hands with the little pink finger-nails, and the mother began to cry — And all such nonsense as that. Sir Walter Scott once said, “It is all folly to talk of writing down to the capacity of children. Give them something to grasp after, and they will grasp that which will astonish you.” We often hear shrewd remarks from children, and we call them “haphazard.” But they are not. They are the result of a process of reasoning, and I want to give you one or two illustrations. I knew two boys very well, — at least, I knew their father very well. One of the boys was about ten years old. His name was Willie, and the other, who was about six, was named Jamie. Jamie was seated on the doorstep •|i whittling a stick, as Yankee if bovs do. Willie had caught S- •/ o I* a fly, and, holding it in his fingers, said : “What a queer thing a fly is, ain’t it? Just | |ji look at its legs. Look at its IT- J.il* ' wings. When I blow him, he ’ll buzz. Ain’t it queer ? I wonder how God made ain’t it queer ? 1 him.” That has been a wonder to many. Professor Huxley cannot answer that question. No scientist can. “ Jamie, how d’ye suppose God makes flies?” The little fellow, whittling away at his stick, said: “Why, Willie, God don’t make flies as carpenters make things,—puttin’ on ’em together and afittin’ of ’em. God says, 4 Let there be flies,’ and then there is flies.” Call that haphazard? No. That 242 LITTLE MIMICS. boy had heard or read the sublime passage, “ God said, Let there be light, and there was light; ” and thence he reasoned out the creative power of the Almighty. I say again, we underrate the capacity of children. We forget that they have imitative faculties. A boy, when asked his age by a railway conductor, said: u At home I ’m twelve; but mother says I’m only ten in the cars.” I would not affirm that this is a general practice, but the frequency of such things is really suggestive. Conductors tell me that good-looking children, well-dressed children, educated chil¬ dren, are sometimes taught to lie for the sake of saving a half-fare on the railroad. Now, I ask, what is to be the honesty of the next genera¬ tion if this sort of-thing is continued? These children re - member , and we underrate their capacity to remember, and forget that they imitate. You do not wish to destroy the respect of a child for his father or his mother, do you? I glory in the boy who said : “ I tell you what it is; if my mother says a thing is so, it is so, even if it is not so.” What a profound conviction that boy must have had of his mother’s veracity ! One other illustration. A lady I knew, a godly woman whose husband was very profane, had a boy who was the light of her eyes, the pride of her heart. One day she heard him swear. She said to him, with her heart breaking; “ My boy, you said a very naughty word, and you must ask God to forgive you.” Well, he was obedient to his mother, but was a little sulky at the idea of confession. She followed him to his room, and he knelt down and said, in a very sulky tone: “Oh, God, I’m sorry I said that naughty word, and I hope you ’ll forgive me, and I guess you will. But I want you to hurry and grow me up a man quick, so as I can swear like father does, and then you would n't care about my “I’LL TAKE WHAT FATHER TAKES.” 243 swearing.” Let a father hear that from the lips of his child, and will he ever dare to utter a profane word in his hearing again? These children understand well enough. What effect will a father’s precepts have upon a boy when he can say: “ I wonder what makes father laugh and tell us how he ran away from school, and put wax on the schoolmaster’s seat, and plagued the other boys, and then turn round and shut me up and whip me when I just tried to be as smart as he was ? ” Ah, we underrate the capacity of the young to understand and remember. Rev. Charles Garratt, I believe, tells us that a little fellow of thirteen years of age sat at the table with his father. The waiter came round and asked him what he would take. - • -. • , .. . • >> There was wine on the table. “ What will you take ? ” “I ’ll take what father takes.” The father had the decanter in his hand, just about to pour out the wine, and he dropped it as if it were fire. Laying his hand lovingly on the head of the boy, he said: “Waiter, I’ll take water.” Now, this is what we want, — that fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and all who have influence with children shall help us in inspiring them with a hatred of that which never benefited a human being, and has brought many to destruction and perdition. I know people tell us sometimes: “ It is no use working among children; it is no use laboring with them. They do not understand what they are doing, have no idea what they are about. They will sign your pledge, and belong to your band of hope, and then they will break the pledge by and by.” Why do you not raise the same objection against your Sunday schools ? You cannot make all your Sunday scholars Christians, can you? But there is a large proportion of them who do come into the church. And there is a large propor¬ tion of those who adopt the principle and join these bands of 244 A CHILD’S INFLUENCE. hope, and sign the pledge of total abstinence, who do keep it, for I meet them by scores almost every week of my life. A gentleman in the city of Boston, who was in the habit of using wine, was asked by one of his promising boys if he might go to one of our meetings. 44 Yes, my boy, you may go, but you must not sign the pledge.” Now, in our cold- water army we don’t allow the children to sign the pledge without the consent of their parents. We believe the boy’s first duty is to obey his father and mother. Well, the boy came; he was a noble little fellow, full of fire and life and ingenuousness. We sang and sang, and the chorus of one of the songs was shouted by the children; — “ Cheer up my lively lads, In spite of rum and cider; Cheer up, my lively lads, We’ve signed the pledge together.” We sung it several times, and the little fellow I speak of sung it too. As he was walking home, however, the thought struck him that he had been singing what was not true: 44 We have signed the pledge together ; ” he had not signed the pledge. When he reached home he sat down at the table, and on it was a jug of cider. 44 Jem,” says one of his brothers, 44 Will you have some cider?” 44 No, thank you,” was the reply. 44 Why not? Don’t you like it ? ” 44 Yes, I like it, but I ’m never going to drink any more cider ; nothing that is intoxicating for me.” 44 My boy,” said his father, 44 you have not disobeyed me, — you have not signed the pledge ? ” 44 No, father,” said he, sobbing, 44 1 have not signed the pledge, but I’ve sung it, and that’s enough for me.” That father come up to the temperance meeting, at which three thousand people were assembled, and told the “THE BEER MOTHER MAKES.” 245 story, and said: “ I ’ll not be outdone by my boy; though I have not sung the pledge I will sign it.” He did so, and is at the present day one of the truest and noblest supporters of the cause. Now, I like to see conscientiousness, and children are conscientious before they become warped and stultified by contact with the world; and if we can bring them to the right point at starting, we may feel assured they will go on, by God’s grace, to a glorious consummation. Some persons say: “ What is the use of let¬ ting a child of six or seven years old sign the pledge ? They don’t understand it.” Now, children under¬ stand a great deal more than we give them credit for. They do under¬ stand what is meant by the pledge and by ^ temperance, and they understand, and often use, the arguments. I was once engaged in forming a cold-water army at Bangor, and a boy said to me, “ If I sign the pledge, may I drink cider and the beer mother makes?” Now, I knew that what he called the beer made by his mother was a drink which was not intoxicating; so I said he might drink that, but cider, — no. “ Oh, well, I like cider,” said he, and away he went. Other boys joined him, and they talked earnestly together. Presently he came back and said: “ I ’ll put my name down, I ’ll sign.” A gentleman in Virginia had a boy six or seven years old, “i’ll not be outdone by my boy.” 246 A CANDID REPLY. who wanted to sign the pledge ; all in the family had done so, but the father thought him too young and would not permit him. At last, however, after much entreaty, permission was given. Soon after, the father went on a journey. At one stopping-place, away from a town, he called for some water. It did not come, so he called again; still he could not get it, but cider was brought instead, and, being very thirsty, he drank that. When he returned home he related the circum¬ stance. After he had finished, the little boy came up to his knee with his eyes full of tears, and he said, “ Father, how far were you from James River when you drank the cider?” “Rather more than fifteen miles, m} r boy.” “Well,” said the little fellow, sobbing, “I’d have walked to Janies River and back again rather than have broken my pledge.” God bless the children! We have thousands such as these; children who understand the principle and keep to the practice. I sometimes wish the adults kept the pledge as well as the boys do. I said just now that the children understand the argu¬ ments. A lady who kept a school told me that when she was teaching spelling in a class, they came one day to the word “jug.” “What,” she asked, “do people put in a jug.” “ Rum,” said a boy. “ I hope,” said the lady, “ none of you know anything of rum.” “I do,” said the boy; “my father drinks it, and I like it.” At the recess, the other children gathered round that boy, and argued with such force that at last, as many older than he have done, he backed against a wall and said, “ I don’t care if it is so ; I don’t care if you are right.” They do understand the argument. Children may be made glorious coadjutors in the ranks. The children in our country have been exerting an in¬ fluence outside of their armies; they know well what is meant by sympathy and benevolence. We have taught them that a drunkard is a man ; although he is poor, miserable, POWER OF SYMPATHY. 247 and debased, and although he sometimes frightens them, yet that he is a man, and was once a boy as pure and bright as the}"; therefore we teach the children that they should have sympathy with a drunkard who has a man’s heart and sensi¬ bility. I have approached the most hardened wretches, and have spoken to them in tones of kindness and sympathy; and, although the eye was bleared and bloodshot, yet I could see the crystal drops welling up and falling down the bloated face. One man, I remember, lifted his hands, and said, “I did n’t know I had a friend in the world.” No power on earth is so debasing to a man as the power of drink, but we have taught the children to look upon the intemperate as human beings. On one occasion I was walking at the end of a procession. The band was playing, banners were waving, the girls wore medals, and the boys were shouting “ Hurrah for cold water! ” when I heard a sound of crying, which seemed to proceed from a field we were passing. I looked over the bars, and there I saw a little, scantily-dressed boy on his knees, rub' bing his eyes, and crying most piteously. I said, “ What is the matter, my boy ? ” “ My father won’t let me go with the procession.” “Do you want to go, then?” “Yes, but my father won’t let me; may I go ? ” “ No, you must not if your father says you must not.” I left him there and walked to the place where the procession had assembled. In address¬ ing the children I told them what 1 had witnessed, and observed how happy and grateful they ought to be that they were allowed to take part in so joyful a scene. I continued in this strain for a little time, when a man pushed his way through the crowd up to the platform, and said, “ Have you a pledge ? ” “ Yes.” “ I ’ll put my name down on it.” Then facing the children, he said, “ That boy is my boy, and I told him this morning that he should not come up here; but I am 248 A HAPPY SCENE. willing that he should come now if you will have him. “Have him?” shouted every boy, “we’ll have lnm; and away some scores of them started down the hill. I never saw boys run so before in my life, and presently they were A PEEP OVER THE FENCE. seen escorting the little boy in triumph to the place where we were. There they shook hands with him, and nothing would satisfy them but he must be lifted to the platform. There he stood, twisting his old straw hat in his fingers, completely bewildered. A little girl put a medal round his neck, and all AN ARMY OFFICER’S STORY. 249 shouted “Hurrah!” It is always encouraging to speak to the children, because they understand and are conscientious. I have one little fact to relate on the subject of children’s usefulness. Children can be useful by consistency, consci¬ entious consistency. I was on my way to Canada once, and, while on the St. Lawrence, a gentleman who was one of a very pleasant party of passengers came to me and said, “Mr. Gough, I believe.” “Yes, sir, my name is Gough.” “You probably do not know me; I am Captain-, of the Rifle Brigade. Do you remember, when you were lecturing at Niagara, a gentleman in uniform passed the pledge ? ” I said that I did distinctly. “Well, I am the man. When you appealed to the people to adopt the principle of total abstinence, I hap¬ pened to be present in uniform, and, to encourage others, I undertook the task I have mentioned. My boy signed that pledge, and on coming home he said, 4 Papa, I have signed the pledge; will you help me keep it?’ ‘Certainly,’ I said. ‘Well, I have brought home a copy of the pledge, will you sign it?’ ‘Nonsense, nonsense, my child; what could I do when my brother officers called, if I was a teetotaler ? ’ ‘ But do try, papa.’ ‘ Tut, tut, why you are quite a little radical.’ i Well, you won’t ask me to pass the bottle? ’ ‘ You are quite a fanatic, my child ; but I promise not to ask you to touch it.’ Six weeks after that, two officers came in to spend the evening. ‘What have you to drink?’ said they; ‘have you anymore of that prime Scotch ale?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I have not, but I will get some. Here, Willy, run to the canteen, and tell them to give you some bottles of ale, and bring them at once.’ The boy stood there respectfully, but did not go. ‘Come, Willy; why, what’s the matter? Come, run along.’ He went, but came back presently without the ale. 4 Where’s the ale, Willy?’ ‘I asked them for it, papa, at the canteen, and they put it upon the counter, but I could not touch it. 16 250 A FATHER SAVED BY HIS SON. O papa, don’t be angry; I told them to send it up, but I could not touch it myself.’ I could not but feel deeply moved. I said, ‘Gentlemen, you hear that? You can do as you please; when the ale comes you may drink it, but not another drop after that shall be drunk in my house, and not another drop shall pass my tongue. Willy, have you your temperance pledge? ’ 4 O papa, I have.’ 4 Bring it then,’ and the boy was back with it in a moment. I signed it, and the little fellow clung round my neck in a frenzy of delight.” That officer is now one of the most self-denying advocates the temperance cause possesses, doing more good than any half-dozen men in his regiment. It cost him something to become a teetotaler. He met at first with ridicule, but, as he said to me : 44 1 have the best of it. Sometimes after a mess- dinner they will rub their heads, and I will say, tapping my forehead, 4 Ah, perfectly clear, perfectly clear,’ and they will reply, 4 Well, captain, you certainly have the best of it.’ ” These children are very impressible. A friend of mine, seeking for objects of charity, reached the upper room of a tenement house. It was vacant. He saw a ladder pushed through a hole in the ceiling. Thinking that perhaps some poor creature had crept up there, he climbed the ladder, drew himself through the hole, and found himself under the rafters. There was no light but that which came through a bull’s-eye in the place of a tile. Soon he saw a heap of chips and shav¬ ings, and on them lay a boy about ten years old. 44 Boy, what are you doing here ? ” “Hush, don’t tell anybody, please, sir.” “What are you doing here?” “ Hush, please don’t tell anybody, sir; I’m ahiding.” “ What are you hiding for ? ” “ Don’t tell anybody, please, sir.” “ Where’s your mother?” AN AFFECTING SCENE. 251 “ Please, sir, mother’s dead.” “ Where’s your father ? ” “ Hush, don’t tell him. But look here.” He turned him¬ self on his face, and through the rags of his jacket and shirt my friend saw that the boy’s flesh was terribly bruised and his skin was broken. “ Why, my boy, who beat you like that ? ” “ Father did, sir.” “ What did he beat you for?” “ Father got drunk, sir, and beat me ’cos I would n’t steal.” “Did you ever steal?” “Yes, sir; I was a street-thief once.” “ And why won’t you steal any more ? ” “ Please, sir, I went to the mission school, and they told me there of God and of heaven and of Jesus, and they taught me, ‘ Thou shalt not steal,’ and I ’ll never steal again, if my father kills me for it. But please don’t tell him.” “My boy, you must n’t stay here. You ’ll die. Now you wait patiently here for a little time. I’m going away to see a lady. We will get a better place for you than this.” “Thank you, sir; but please, sir, would you like to hear me sing my little hymn ? ” Bruised, battered, forlorn, friendless, motherless, hiding from an infuriated father, he had a little hymn to sing. “ Yes, I will hear you sing your little hymn.” He raised himself on his elbow and then sang: — “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Look upon a little child, Pity my simplicity, Suffer me to come to thee. “ Fain would I to thee be brought, Gracious Lofd, forbid it not: In the kingdom of thy grace, Give a little child a place.” “That’s the little hymn, sir. Good-by.” 252 LABORING FOR POSTERITY. The gentleman hurried away for restoratives and help, came back again in less than two hours, and climbed the ladder. There were the chips, there were the shavings, and there was the little motherless boy with one hand by his side and the other tucked in his bosom — dead . Oh, I thank God that he who said, “ Suffer little children to come unto me,” did not say “respectable children,” or “well-educated chil¬ dren.” No, he sends his angels into the homes of poverty and sin and crime where you do not like to go, and brings out his redeemed ones, and they are as stars in the crown of rejoicing to those who have been instrumental in enlighten¬ ing their darkness. A gentleman told me that once, when speaking at a place, he said: “ Ladies and gentlemen, we are not laboring for ourselves, but for posterity. Posterity will come and ask you, ‘What have you done for us?’” Fifteen years after¬ wards, he went to the same place to speak again, and he observed children present of various ages, — fifteen, fourteen, ten. He remembered what he had said on the previous occasion, and in addressing the audience he observed: “La¬ dies and gentlemen, fifteen years ago I said we were not laboring for ourselves, but for posterity; and posterit} r would come and ask us what we had done. Posterity has come. They are here to-day. What have you done for them in the last fifteen years?” What will you do in the next fifteen years for those who are now coming up? We ask you, parents, to give the subject your serious, prayerful consid¬ eration. I would not use any argument to make people tee¬ totalers that were not honest , if I knew it. I have tried, as far as I am able, to elevate our standard, to keep it from trailing in the dust, and not to make our principles a matter of bargain. An Independent minister walked from Stroud to Ciren- » b* P'S P -i ia.« iw S O " a. p ^ o* r+ tJ=P cr o c+ a , S' 2 •-» 3 ® £ 3 5 ftp* §23* c+ H- *"< g“< o ro » 3 s SP Hi {T» 2. B p- cd c H- (t> «—- crjr a> 5^3 oo - j» JT2 a j;3 ®3o o'® a ^cr| ^p2. S o » 5 .?r® p+ m Pp' O O'* 3 3 £.a 2. 3 S' £f —w \Z M d 3 M, O'SrS p*2g S'p ® ® 3 =• a'rt- -o § ° p' & oS t* 2 o- d“d ® 2 S* O'* rt- Cg 3* “3 CD ffi a^ ►» - r* O B* 3 S3rt> S-Bp- >- ^ 3 £3 “an - *2 00 sf <6 ® ►* rt O’? 3 3 £*• M GOD BLESS THE CHILDREN. 255 cester to hear me speak. He says the arguments used af¬ fected him deeply. I had said, “ I wish a man to sign the pledge if it is right to do so ; if it is wrong, let it alone; but be sure you are right, and if a man refuses to join, let him have a reason he is not ashamed of, — one that is satisfactory to him when he kneels down and asks God for a blessing; let it be a reason he will be satisfied with when in his best moods; one which will satisfy him at the last of his life; a reason he is willing should meet him on that day when he receives the reward for the deeds done in the body.” This minister told me he argued the point with himself the whole twelve miles home, arguing as if for life, stopping on the road and thrusting his stick into the ground, bringing every reason forward and carefully examining it. He came to the conclusion that he had not a reason against total absti¬ nence which would stand the test of judgment. The next morning he signed the pledge and was ready to work with us. Have a reason. The hope of our temperance enterprise is the children, and again I say, “ God bless the children and save them from the influences that are degrading to so many thousands.” If we can save the children, the day of triumph will soon draw near. Will you help us? Help us for the sake of your own children and the children of others, that these may be saved from the power and influence of intem¬ perance. CHAPTER XI. MY POSITION DEFINED — REASON AND REVELATION — THE CURTAIN LIFTED—TALES OF THE FALLEN. A Titled Toll-Man — Learning versus Common Sense — Our Standpoint — An Actor with a Proud Record — Incidents of my Visit to Califor¬ nia — “ Help Me Out of This Hell ” — A Cry of Agony— “ Drink’s My Curse”—Lifting the Curtain — Secrets of the Charnel House — My Inter¬ view with a Physician — “ It’s No Use, I ’in a Lost Laddie, Good-by” — A Clergyman’s Sad Downfall — Employed as a Hostler in a Stable — “You Know Who I Am, Go Away from Me” — “Lost! Lost! LOST!” — An Explorer’s Testimony — An Interesting Narrative — A Campaign Full of Hardship and Danger — Soldiers Without Grog — What they Endured — Sir Henry Havelock’s Report — Storming a Fortress after a March of Forty Miles — Sitting on a Hornet’s Nest — A Boy’s Com¬ position on a Pin — Stimulus not Strength. E know some persons con¬ sider it a condescension to patronize us, but a good enterprise patronizes every human being that thorough¬ ly engages in it; there is no stooping in the matter. Every man, I do not care who he is, who will sign the temper¬ ance pledge for the benefit of his brother, takes a step upwards. We cannot stoop in doing a good work. Do you think the Duke of Buccleuch has taken a step down, because, in order to prevent drink being sold in the toll¬ houses on his large estate, he has taken those toll-houses into his own hands, and on every toll-gate has had painted: 250 A GRAND AND NOBLE ENTERPRISE. 257 “Walter Scott, Duke of Buccleuck, toll-man?” Do you suppose he lowered himself in becoming a toll-man for the sake of his neighbors, his tenants, and the community at large? He never took a higher step in his life. There is grandeur and nobility about our enterprise. Men call it tame and commonplace. It forms a grand epic poem such as the world has never read, and has not the faculty to read to-day, of struggle, sorrow, degradation, triumph, and victory, with the assurance that, in the end, right will triumph and sit upon the throne, and the wrong shall be overthrown. Then let us stand by the right. And we claim that we are right when we define our position by declaring that total abstinence is lawful. A gentleman said to me, “ The Bible is against you.” “ Oh, .no,” I replied. “Well, you have no command in the Bible to abstain.” “Don’t want one.” I do not go to the Bible to find a command, “Thou shalt abstain from intoxicating liquors.” I do not seek for a command in the Bible to abstain from gambling, horse-racing, prize-fighting, dog-fighting, cock-fight¬ ing, and all that sort of thing. As a Christian man, I abstain from these things, believing them to be detrimental to the best interests of society; and because I am a Christian it is not only lawful for me to do so, but an absolute duty. I give to these men all the} r claim. I am not a learned man. I do not understand Hebrew or Greek. Show me Hebrew words and Greek words and they are all Greek to me. But I have found out this: If a man is right according to the com¬ mon sense God has given him, he can stand his ground if he does not go out of his depth. If I should pretend to deliver a physiological lecture, knowing nothing of the science, and should attempt to learnedly discuss the effects of drink on the nervous system, the brain, or on the tissues, I might be floored by a few hard 258 MY POSITION DEFINED. words that I do not understand. My opponent may be wrong and I may be right; I get the kicks and he gets the sympathy, because I go out of my depth and attempt to argue the point beyond my knowledge. There are men who have talked about the meaning of tirosh , and yayin and oinos, and other learned words, men who did not understand them, and who discoursed about the wines of Scripture, when an educated man could upset them in five minutes. Well, “the Bible permits the use of wine.” “Yes.” “ Approves it.” “ Yes.” “ Our Saviour made wine.” “Yes.” “He drank wine.” “Yes.” “It is lawful to drink wine.” “Yes; what more do you want?” We will grant you, if you demand it, that the Bible permits, sanc¬ tions, and appro-ves its use, that the Saviour made it, and it is lawful to use it. I will give you all that, but I want to say, in defining my position, that every man who brings the Bible to sustain him in the use of drink must accept the Bible as a rule of faith and practice; for it is mean, sneaking, cowardly, and contemptible to search the Bible for permis¬ sion to gratify a propensity, and then reject all God’s require¬ ments. I speak of the Bible argument to Bible believers and Bible lovers. I give them all they ask, and now I define my position in reply. With my views of Christianity and its claims upon me, by my allegiance to God, by my faith in Christ, by the vows I took upon myself in His presence and before His people, I am bound to give up a lawful gratifica¬ tion, if, by so doing, my example will save a weaker brother from falling into sin. That is my position; can you take that away from me ? I will hold it, and take my stand upon it in the day of judgment. My principle, then, — judged from the Bible standpoint,— is a lawful one. I say again, I do not search the Bible for a command. I seek in the Bible reverently for a permission, CHRISTIANITY AND TEMPERANCE. 259 and if I find there a permission to abstain, I act upon it as if it were a command, in view of the evil of drunkenness and that which promotes and perpetuates it. Some persons will ask us, again: “ What do you expect to do with total abstinence? You do not expect by it to make men Christians, do you?” Oh, no. We have our gospel temperance associations, I know; but we do not expect that every man who signs the total abstinence pledge is to be at once a Christian. We cannot make men Chris¬ tians; no minister — however holy his life and earnest his preaching — can do that. When the disciples failed to cast the devil out of the boy while the Saviour was in the moun¬ tain, they told Jesus, and he said, “Bring him to me.” Now, if my principle is a lawful one, and by it I can remove the hindrance to a man’s hearing the truth, and be indirectly the means of bringing him to the Saviour, I demand the sym¬ pathy of those who love the Saviour. We ask your sympathy and co-operation. It has done this work, will do it, is doing it day by day. Some tell us: “You are doing nothing more.” We do not profess to do anything more. It is true we can¬ not say to a man: “You cannot stop drinking unless you become a Christian,” because he can. I have known men who are not Christians, who have been abstainers twenty years. We do not go to a man and say, “If you do not be¬ come a Christian you cannot stop lying; if you do not become a Christian you cannot stop swearing; if you do not become a Christian you cannot stop thieving; if you do not become a Christian you cannot stop drinking.” I have more than once defined my position on this point, that the only absolute safety for a man who would reform from drunkenness or any other sin is a determined will and the grace of God; all else is a risk. Our principle of total abstinence, then, is a lawful prin- 260 AN ACTOR’S STORY. ciple. It is also a sensible principle. Can you find me a man who will say: “ I am sixty years of age, and I never drank a drop of intoxicating liquor, and I regret that I did not learn to drink it when I was a young man?” Find me such a man anywhere. When I was in California, a gentle¬ man who was attached to a theatre called upon me, and said: “ I am no reformer. It is not in my line. Sunday-schools and temperance societies are very well in their wa|, but they are not in my line. I have been an actor since I was eighteen years of age, and I am now forty-two, and I never drank a drop of intoxicating liquor in my life. What do you think of that ? I am proud of it myself.” He was no “ howling dervish of a temperance lecturer.” He cared but little for the ab¬ stract principle, but as to the fact of his own total absti¬ nence he said, “ I’m proud of it.” Yet there were men who came to me in that city by the score, — I say it within bounds, — one of them the son of a well-known lawyer in New York, who, as he grovelled at my feet and clasped my hands, said: “For the love of God, help me out of this hell!” “What’s the matter with you?” “Drink’s my curse! ” Yes, that’s it. It comes from the prison, “ Drink’s my curse ! ” It comes from your houses of correction, “ Drink’s my curse ! ” It comes echoing from the lunatic asylum, “ Drink’s my curse ! ” It comes from the pale-faced wife and the starving children, “ Drink’s my curse ! ” It comes hissing hot through the black lips of the “drink’s my curse.” “DRINK’S MY CURSE.” 261 dying drunkard, “Drink ’s my curse ! ” And not a man who has escaped but to-day rejoices in the fact of his escape. Look at the wrecks of men to be seen on every hand. Oh, young men, I wish I could lift the curtain that conceals from your view the secrets of this charnel-house. A man about forty years of age, a graduate of Edinburgh University, came to me and showed me his diploma as a physician. He was a fluent linguist and a very cultivated gentleman, “YOU KNOW WHO I AM.” but the mark was upon him. I was with him some time, and when he left me he said, “ I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Gough; you have told me the truth, but it’s no use. There’s no help for me. Will you shake hands with me ? I’m a lost laddie ; good-by.” How many lost laddies are there to-day! Lost! lost! A living man lost! Yes. It’s an awful sight to see a living man a lost man , and there are such. Lost! lost! lost ! I knelt at the family altar with a doctor of divinity in New England, in 1852. He was the pastor of a large church. To-day he is a drunkard, and employed as a hostler in a stable. At one time it was decided to visit him, and a committee of Christian men was appointed to see him. What was the result? “Go 262 LOST! LOST! LOST! away from me! You know who I am; you know what I am; you know what I have been. Go away from me. The doctor prescribed liquor in order to save my life, but he has damned my soul. Go away from me.” Lost! Lost! Lost! And there are men who are becoming lost to-day, going across that line which, if they cross it, leaves them but little hope. It is horrible to note the results of the drink, and yet observe men stepping forward to fill up the ranks as death mows others down. It is fearful, it is pitiful, to see such results, and no possible good to be derived from the use of that which directly produces them. We oppose the employment of intoxicating liquor as a beverage because it is utterly useless as such; no man is benefited by the use of it, either morally, physically, or intel¬ lectually. I know some are prepared to doubt it. They say, “Ah, there is a good in it.” I should like to know what good. You cannot bring me a man who, by the use of the drink as a beverage, has been in any degree benefited. But some men say, “ I can do more work under the influ¬ ence of drink, you know, than I can do without it.” Some of our agricultural laborers say they can go through a harder day’s work at haying, and some say they can lift heavier loads and endure more fatigue, with it than they can without it. Very well; perhaps they can for the time being, but we have evidence upon evidence to prove that this is a fallacy in the end. Lieutenant Lynch, who went on an exploring expe¬ dition to the Dead Sea, says: — “ I took with me twelve sailors; I obtained from them a promise—a pledge—that they would use no intoxicating liquor as a beverage. After enduring fatigue such as seldom falls to the lot even of explorers, I have brought them all back again, safe and sound and in good health; and I believe I owe it to their abstinence from all intoxicating drinks.” TESTIMONY OF MEDICAL EXPERTS. 263 A man may be able to do a little more work with stimulus than he could do without it, but every man who does it in that way, whether on the platform, in the workshop, at the bar, or in the pulpit, does it to the injury of his constitution. Sir William Gull said that he would deny the proposition that intellectual work cannot be half so well done without wine or alcohol, and that he would hold the opposite. Dr. Richardson, in his examination before the Lords’ committee, 1878, said that “if all the alcoholic liquor in the world could be tapped, let flow, and disappear, the world would be much better; we should be stronger and healthier, the spirits more regular, and life would be lengthened.” Lieutenant-Colonel Wakefield, speaking in reference to the troops in India during the war, says: — “Among other places we had to take was a very strong place called Ghuznee; we had to blow in the gate, and we lost a good number of men. I am now speaking of a circum¬ stance that has often been mentioned, but still I like to men- tion it because it proves the truth of my arguments. The men, after entering the place, spread to the right and left. Of course — as is always given on these occasions — the order was, 4 Do not commit any outrage; ’ but I tell you plainly that they just care as much for their officers as they do for anybody else, and I tell you what they will do. If their officers speak to them, they will club their muskets and say, 4 You hold your jaw.’ Not so at Ghuznee. Although under fire from the houses, they received their orders from the offi¬ cers not to fire. Not one of them did, and there was not an outrage committed in Ghuznee, there was not a woman or child maltreated, there was not a single complaint. I am sure you all feel and understand what the noble character of the Englishman is when he is sober. What is it? Why a man that would not hurt or harm anything except in the 264 SOLDIERS WITHOUT GROG. service of his queen and country; and it was illustrated here. Here were perfectly sober men. Havelock wrote in raptures to the Foreign and Home Temperance Society. He says, ‘It gives me immense pleasure to tell you that Ghuznee was taken by perfectly sober men.’ Was not this a picture of what is called sobriety. “ Time rolled on; our forces had to undergo all sorts of vicissitudes, a climate of extreme heat in summer and of extreme cold in winter: the commissariat could not reach them from Bengal, for they had to go right through the whole of the Punjaub, and up those passes which were con¬ stantly filled with hostile tribes. The consequence Avas that half the men in the regiments were Avithout shoes or coats ; they got Avhat they called the ‘ posteen ’ or sheepskin dress of the country. They Avore these sheepskins. I merely mention all this to shoAv you the privations they had to undergo. They had to sleep on the ground and to march through snow at one time and under a blazing sun at another, that would take the skin off your face before you can think of it; they did it all on cold Avater. “ Noav comes the painful part of my story. The wise men of those days — I hope Ave shall never have such another generation — began to say, ‘Oh, but the poor soldier is without his grog; Ave must send him some grog! ’ The governor-general, Avho, of course, is the greatest man in all India, very soon writes to the commissariat, and says, ‘ Make arrangements to send fourteen hundred camel-loads of rum into Afghanistan.’ What Avas the consequence ? From that day there were courts-martial, from that day men Avere guilty of striking their officers in the execution of their duty — coming under the frightful lash — coming under sentence of transportation for life, just for one act of passion, .simply arising from drink, which they never Avould have AN ILLUSTRIOUS GARRISON. 265 done if they had been sober. I never knew a thing that convinced the officers of the army I belonged to of the truth of Havelock’s ‘crotchet,’ as they called it. They said, ‘It is a wondrous crotchet! There is a great deal of truth in it.’ After they had seen the army sober for eight months, with the greatest freedom from crime, the officers not constantly in their regimentals sitting on courts-martial, trying their men; then comes in the liquor and the old story, — I say they had overwhelming proof, and I will defy any man to overcome it; it is stronger than an axiom of Euclid, it is as plain as a post, that sobriety and this ‘abstinence question’ was tried there and tested. “Well, now, you must know that when part of this force was besieged in a place called Jellalabad, the garrison of which, you know, stood out for some months under every kind of privation. There were five hundred men told off daily for working with spades to raise bastions around the place, and repair the walls. Government gave them the name of the ‘ illustrious garrison,’ in consequence of their bearing all the extremes of hunger and deprivation, and of their exploits both in the open field and in the defence of the place. My good friends, the whole of that garrison were upon cold water. They did their work like men ; they worked all day, and they sometimes got only half, sometimes only quarter rations; they w r ere in the ruddiest health; they were hungry men, but, blessed be God, they were never drunken men.” Here is Sir Henry Havelock’s account of it: — “Without fear of contradiction it may be asserted that not only has the amount of the laborious work they have completed without this factitious aid been surprising, but the state and the garrison have gained full one third in manual exertion by their entire sobriety. Every hand has been constantly employed with the shovel and pickaxe. If 266 SIR HENRY HAVELOCK’S TESTIMONY. there had been a spirit ration, one third of the labor would have been diminished in consequence of soldiers becoming the inmates of the hospital and guard-houses, or coming to their work with fevered brain and trembling hand, or sulky and disaffected after the protracted debauch. Now all is health , cheerfulness , industry , and resolution. “ The energy with which our troops labored in restor¬ ing the defences exceeds all calculation, and beggars all commendation. They worked like men struggling for their existence, but with as much cheerfulness and good humor as industry and perseverance. They had no rum to para¬ lyze their nerves, sour their tempers, or predispose them to idleness or sullen discontent. A long course of sobriety and labor had made men of mere boys of recruits, and brought the almost raw levy, which formed two thirds of the array of the 13th light infantry, to the firm standard of the Roman discipline. They are now instructed to entrench themselves nightly, as well as to fight a battle every day. “It has been proved that the troops can make forced marches of forty miles, and storm a fortress in forty-five minutes, without the aid of rum, behaving, after success, with a forbearance and humanity unparalleled in history. Let it not henceforth be argued that distilled spirits are an indispensable portion of a soldier’s ration.” Dr. Richardson, Sir William Gull, Sir Henry Thompson, and other eminent physicians deal with this question on scientific grounds. Now I know nothing about scientific grounds; I cannot explain to the people how alcohol affects the system, affects the stomach, or affects the blood ; I am ignorant of that, but we are glad to have other people tell us. But when they have moulded the nail and put it in the place where it is to go, we may be able to come up and hit it and help drive it where it should be. We ignorant and A PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATION. 267 illiterate people go among what are called the common classes with our common notions, and once in a while a common man may affect a common mind by a very common¬ place illustration. I once heard a man affect an audience wonderfully by what he said. Dr. Richardson would have put it in much better shape, but the man did a good work by his method of putting the point. He said : — “ They tell us that alcohol gives strength and nourishment. Now it does not; it gives stimulus.” “But,” says his opponent, “there can be no stimulus with¬ out some nourishment.” His reply was, “ You sit down on a hornet’s nest, and it’s very quickening, but it is not nourish- mg. When we do not understand the science of the question, , we are forced to use common illustrations; I give you another as a specimen. A man once said to a friend of mine, — “You are fighting whiskey; whiskey has done a great deal of good; why, whiskey has saved a great many lives.” My friend said, “What do you mean?” “ Why,” said the man, “ I mean that whiskey has saved a great man} 7 lives.” “Well,” said my friend, “you remind me of a composi¬ tion a boy wrote on the subject of a pin. “‘A pin is a very queer sort of a thing. It has a round head and a sharp point; and if you stick pins into you, they 17 STIMULUS. 268 AX INTERESTING COMPOSITION. hurts. Women use pins to pin on their cuffs and collars, and men use pins when the buttons is off. You can get pins for five cents a paper; but if you swallow them, they will kill you; but they have saved thousands of lives.’ “The teacher said: ‘Why, Thomas, what do you mean by that? ’ Said the boy: ‘By people not swallowin’ of ’em.’ ” I say there is no good in intoxicating liquors as a bever¬ age. “Yes, but,” say some, “I know better than that.” Once when I was crossing the Atlantic in the steamship “America,” a person on board, who called himself a gentle¬ man, I suppose, tried to insult me; but such a man never can insult me, and so he failed. “What!” said he, “going to Great Britain to tell the Englishman that he must give up his beer! Why, beer is the life of an Englishman.” I thought to myself, “What a beery sort of existence that must be.” But some say, “ I can do better with beer than without it.” I doubt it. Have you ever tried long enough? Remember that in every one hundred gallons of beer there are ninety-one and a half gallons of water, and five gallons of alcohol. So far you have water and poison; there is no nutriment yet; about three gallons of what is called extrac¬ tive is all the nourishment you can obtain. If you boil a gallon of beer, you will find all the nourishment sticking to the bottom of the kettle; and a nice-looking mess it is, too. Baron Liebig says that if a man drinks eight quarts of the strongest ale per day, he gets as much nourishment as there is in the flour which you can hold on the point of a knife; and if he drinks that quantity every day in the year, he will get as much nourishment as there is in a five-pound loaf of bread or about three pounds of meat. But a man may say: “ I can do more work under the influence of the beer than without it.” You may. A man under the influence of stimulants may lift more than at other times; but is that any STIMULUS NOT STRENGTH. 269 good to him ? Suppose a horse cannot start a very heavy load, and you say he shall do it. You pull up the reins and shout, and the horse puts his shoulder to the collar, and strains with all his might, but he does n’t start. Your neigh¬ bor says he can’t start, but you say he shall. You pull up the reins again; the horse puts his shoulder to the collar, every nerve stands out in bold relief; you take that big black whip of yours, and, as he is straining to the utmost, you hit him a terrible crack on the flank, and he starts the load. But did you give him strength? No, you gave him stimu¬ lus ; you made him do what he had no right to do, and what you had no right to make him do. So, as I said just now, any man who does work under the influence of stimulant, — whether in the coal pit or in the iron mine, whether at the forge or at the bench, on the platform or in the pulpit, — that he could not do without it, does it to the damage of his constitution; pay-day will come by and by. Nature is a hard creditor; interest accumulates, and when pay-day comes, the man is broken down far in advance of his time. I say there is no good in beer, but there is positive evil. Is there any gratification ? If there is, it is all in the time of drinking. Did you ever experience any gratification the next morning after a night of drinking? The gratification was produced by stimulating the system. Then there is a reac¬ tion, — it must come. My word for it, the beer and spirit drinkers enjoy less of this world’s good than any other class of men among us; they are either in fiery excitement, their brain bewildered, their senses confused, and their capacity to enjoy destroyed for the time being, or else they are recover¬ ing from excess of excitement, and feel most miserable and wretched. Then do not common sense and sound judgment dictate to you to abandon intoxicating liquors forever ? CHAPTER XII. WHO ARE THE VICTIMS? — LIFE IN A BAR-ROOM — LIFE HISTORIES TRACED IN TEARS AND WRITTEN IN BLOOD. The Next Morning After Spree — Maddening Thirst — A Visit to a Gin Shop — Scenes Inside — Victims at the Bar — Horrible Wrecks and Bloated Sots — The Suicide’s Death-bed — Dreadful Scenes — The Ruling Passion Strong in Death—- “Mary! Mary! I Have Signed the Pledge” — The Sailor’s Speech — A Realistic Dream — Life Histories Traced in Tears and Written in Blood — Women who Drink in Low Life — Fearful Degra¬ dation — The Dead Mother and Her Babe — The Negro Jury’s Ridiculous Verdict — Women Who Drink in High Life — A Sad Story — An Awful Death — An Audience of Drunkards — James McCurrey— Inviting a Sot to Sleep in His House — Burning the Bed Clothes Next Day — Noble Act of a Noble Man — What Followed — The Prize-Fighter’s Story — Saved by Kindness — The History of a Grog-shop Fiddler — The Shipwreck — Man the Lifeboat! T is a gross insult to call a man a fool. Every man would resent it. But in the suffer¬ ing of the next morning after a night of dissipation and de¬ bauchery, how then ? Did you never lie in your bed wondering how you came there, with disturbed conscience, aching head, lips dry and parched, temples throb¬ bing, racking brain, hot, feverish tongue ? Did you never, in the terrible suffering that is sure to follow a night of dissolute revelry, clasp your burning hands and bitterly call yourself “Fool! fool!” and add: “I made a miserable fool of myself last night, and now I am 270 TERRIBLE CRAVING FOR LIQUOR. 271 suffering these unutterable torments ! What a fool I am ! ” If the first glass brought at once the suffering of the reaction, and the excitement came the next morning, who would drink? If delirium tremens came first, and the fun after, who would drink ? My friend, it does not pay to begin. First, you tol¬ erate the drink; then touch and taste it; then jest and laugh at it; and then revel in it. What may it come to when it becomes your master ? A man will not then drink for sociability and with pleasant companions, but for the ex¬ citement ; not for the plea¬ sure of drink, but to get drunk. In solitude he will gulp down glass after glass of anything that will gratify his morbid appetite, carrying liquor with him in his pocket; getting up in the night and crawling round in the dark to find it; and then sucking out of a <' ? a-S “ WHAT A FOOL I AM.” 272 THE GIN FIEND. bottle anything that will stay this morbid craving. There is no outbreak of convivial cheer now, no poetry, no wreath around the goblet; but a mad furious instinct for solitary excess. A celebrated surgeon once said: “ I feel the most terrible and infernal craving that anyone out of hell can imagine. It is not because I want to drink. I do not want to drink. It is because I want to feel drunk. I am miserable and gloomy without knowing why. Everything seems going wrong. I shudder at times, shed tears, aud fight against this longing. Oh, this terrible — this horrible desire to get drunk ! ” Look at the low grog-shops and drinking-houses, and see the miserable victims of this damning vice. Tell them they are drinking oil of vitriol, oil of turpentine, sulphuric acid, benzine, or any other acrid and poisonous compound; tell them that the tap they drink from spurts corroding fire, and they, will still drink on; and to get drunk they will drink themselves to death. To be a drunkard! to lead a drunk¬ ard’s life! — what a history is that; commencing with the time when he was a pure, rosy-cheeked boy, then on through wasted youth, blasted manhood, days of alternate revelling and cursing, a life of unrelieved misery, a death of shame and anguish. Is it wise to drink? Go, if you please, into one of your drinking-rooms, one of your gin-shops, and see men standing at the counter. Look at that pale-faced, pallid-looking gin-drinker; see his eyes, how large they are, how deeply sunken in the sockets, as with his fingers, like the claws of an unclean bird, he clutches that glass of gin. Why, he looks almost as if he had come up out of his grave to get his gin and had forgotten the way back again. It is horrible to look at him. And yet that is a man! See, there is another one, the dull waters of disease stagnant in his eye; sensuality seated upon his cracked, swollen, parched lip; see him gibbering in all the idiocy of WHAT DRINK DOES. 273 drunkenness. That is a man ! I know it is sometimes hard to look at the blear-eyed, bloated sot, and feel, “ That is a man.” Have you ever seen that admirable picture by Cruik- shank, “ The man that thinks and acts, and the thing that drinks and smokes ? ” I have looked at the two, and yet the one is just as much a man as the other. God created him with the same faculties, “ in the image of God created He him.” He gave him dominion over the beasts of the field, and crowned him lord of creation. That a man ? A blear- eyed, bloated thing like that? A man? God has given power and dominion to man, and made him nature’s king. What has broken his sceptre ? What has torn the imperial crown from his brow and debased him below the beasts? Drunkenness. God has given to man reason, and set before him a destiny high and glorious, reaching into eternity. What has dethroned his reason and hidden her bright beams in “mystic clouds that roll around the shat¬ tered temple of the human soul,” curtained in midnight? Drunkenness. God has given him a healthy body; he is smitten with disease from head to foot. His body, so “fearfully and wonderfully made,” is now a mass of corrup¬ tion more hideous than the leprosy of Naaman or the sores of Lazarus. What has done it ? The drink, the drink has « done it. You say, “but then I would give it up.” You cannot. But perhaps that word should not be used; at least, we will say that you find it harder to give it up than you ever dreamed of. I have heard some men declare, “I cannot do it; ” and an educated man once said, “ Doctor, if a glass of brandy were set before me, and I knew that if I drank it I should sink the next minute into an everlasting hell, I’d drink it.” The man was on his death-bed, and the fact is related in the Rev. W. Reid’s Temperance Encyclopaedia. 274 A DREADFUL SCENE. A physician of Greenock once told me: 44 Mr. Gough, a few weeks since, I had a most horrible case. A man, when intox¬ icated, cut his throat. I sewed the wound up as well as I could, but I knew the poor fellow would die. They sent for a minister. The wounded man lay on his back and waved his hand, but could scarcely articulate to express his mean¬ ing. He was asked, 4 Do you want a minister ? ’ He shook his head, waved his hand again, and moved his lips. The doctor stooped and put his ear to the man’s mouth, but he could not understand what he said. At last, the man fairly pinched the wound closely together with his fingers, and feebly articulated, 4 Doctor, for Christ’s sake give me anothei glass.’ ” I say no man has power to describe or imagination to conceive an appetite like that. You may form some con¬ ception of it by seeing what men will give up to gratify it. We are in the habit of calling the drunkard a brute. Some¬ times we are thrilled with indignation when we hear of the brutal outrages perpetrated under the influence of drink. But they are men, — debased and degraded, I grant you, but still they are men. I heard a man say, — and I shall never forget it, — 44 Oh! what a time I had of it before I signed the pledge! I was. a poor, miserable drunkard, and I had never thought of my wife with any sort of kindness for years; but the moment ] put my name to the pledge the first thought that came into my mind was, — I wonder how Mary will feel when I tell her I have signed it. Poor thing, she is so weak and feeble, she will faint away; and I did not know how I should tell her.. When I went home, there she was, crouching over a fire¬ place, with her fingers over a few bits of embers. When I went in, she did not look up, she never used to. Sometimes; it was a blow, sometimes a kick, sometimes a curse, and hei heart was nearly broken. She did not look up. Thinks I tc A STORY OF REAL LIFE. 275 myself, what shall I do ? I shuffled with my feet; she did not turn round. I said, ‘Mary! Mary!’ ‘Well.’ ‘I think you work too hard, Mary; I think you are getting a good deal thinner than you used to be, Mary; you work a great deal too much, Mary.’ ‘Work!’ said she. ‘I must work; what should we do ? The children have no bread for sup¬ per ; ’ and she bowed her head. ‘ Mary, you need not work so hard, because I will help you.’ ‘You?’ ‘Mary, Mary, I’ve signed the pledge.’ She got up, and then fell fain ting in my arms, and as that sweet face lay there, I shall never forget it. Oh, how I cried! The tears seemed like boiling water down my face, and they fell in the face of my wife. The lids of her “ MARY, MARY, I ’VE SIGNED THE PLEDGE.” ti eyes were so blue, I feared she would never come to again; but she is alive and well, and thanks God night and morning for the temper¬ ance pledge. I have now a little piece of land of my own, and my children go to Sabbath school, but I never shall forget how I felt when I said, ‘ Mary, Mary, I have signed the pledge.’ ” I remember distinctly a little speech I once heard in the Bethel. A sailor stood up and said he had been a regular brute to his wife. He used to think nothing of coming home 276 THE SAILOR’S STORY. and knocking her down without the slightest provocation. “ But,” he said, “ my wife never used to cry; I thought she never did. I positively, ladies and gentlemen, have knocked her down, and she has got up and smiled at me. I thought Sally never cried; I really thought she had not a tear to “it came nearer and nearer.” shed; but I drank, and drank, and I abused her shamefully. One night, after abusing her pretty badly, I lay down on the bed and fell asleep, and I had a dream. I dreamed I was ship¬ wrecked, and that a lot of us clung to the floating wreckage, and there we all were, clinging for dear life, until at last all were washed off but me, and there I was, lashed to the BROKEN-HEARTED WOMEN. 277 broken spars, tossing and tumbling in the water. At a distance I thought I saw one of those little, nasty, sharp, waves, — not one of the long rolling swells, but it seemed to be a little spiteful thing that kept bobbing up and down with considerable force; and it glistened as if there was a light gleaming upon it, and it came nearer and nearer; and I watched it, and it grew smaller and smaller until it seemed almost like a star, and the whole force of the waves seemed to dash into my face; and the water felt warm and it woke me; and there was Sally leaning over me, and the tears raining down on my face, and, for the first time, I felt she did cry, — and such hot tears they were, they almost scalded me. I sprang up, and on my knees swore to Sally that I would never again ill use her. And I never have.” Think of the sufferings of all who are connected with an intemperate man, — not only of his children, but of his wife. I have had many communications from wives of drunkards, from many a broken-hearted woman whose life is a burden to her, from those who started with as fair and bright prospects as many that are entering life to-day, and whose prospects have been blasted and blighted. If I could read you some sentences from those letters, you would feel that they were prompted by a heart wrung with terrible anguish. A drunkard’s wife, what is she ? Think of it, young women, think of it? Linked for life to a man you cannot respect, tied to him by bonds that you feel cannot be broken? I believe that, in the judgment day, the crushed, the bruised, the broken-hearted women will rise against those who have crushed them; and that they will testify in trumpet tones against those who have folded their arms and looked coolly on and seen them trampled beneath the iron hoof of the destroyer, without so much as lifting a finger to stem the tide of burning desolation. The history of a drunkard’s wife HARROWING SCENES. might be traced in tears and written in blood, and there would not be a man with nerve enough to read it. Woman, too, more often sinned against, is yet sometimes the sinner by means of intoxicants. Every holy instinct and every womanly shame have been thus destroyed. The Pro¬ phet Isaiah, when describing the endurance of God’s love towards Israel, calls to mind the devotion of a woman to her offspring, and asks, 44 Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the fruit of her womb?” Yes, we reply, the drunken one can, and often does. My valued friend, Mr. Samuel Bowly, gives us an instance of this in the mother at Bristol, who left her infant of a few weeks old for sixteen hours, which time she spent in a gin-palace; and when brought back in an intoxicated state, her poor neglected baby was famished to death. It had wailed forth its tender life piteously and painfully, and there was none to heed its cries till the little sufferer was relieved by death. Can you not loathe the drink, the mate¬ rial that will cause such an unnatural crime as this ? “I met,” says Prof. Henry Cooper, of Cambridge, 44 a few days since, an account of a young mother whose baby was but sixteen months old, who shut herself up in a room and there drunk herself to death. When the police broke in, they found her dead, an empty pint-and-a-half gin bottle by her side, and her poor baby in vain endeavoring to extract its food from her cold and lifeless breasts. The coroner’s in¬ quest brought in a verdict of 4 died by visitation of God.’ But what think you? Ought it not to have been ‘suicide from drink ’ ? ” There have been verdicts given by coroners’ juries, where, although drunkenness was evidently the cause of death, the verdict was, 44 died by the visitation of God,” etc. In one case a verdict of this kind was returned when a man expired VERDICTS OF CORONERS’ JURIES. 279 while sustaining a bet as to who could drink the largest quantity of spirits at a time. In another instance a man was found buried in snow, where he had fallen while in an intoxicated state. The verdict of the jury was, “ died of fatigue and exposure to the cold.” In another case of sud¬ den death from intoxication, the verdict was, “ died in a fit.” These verdicts are contemptible. There is a distinction be¬ tween contemptible and ridiculous. A man may be absurd “ WASHED ASHORE AND FRIZ TO DEATH.” and ridiculous, and yet not contemptible. Here is an example of a ridiculous verdict: A dead man was found on the shores of New Jersey, with a wound on the back of his head. A colored jury was impanelled and the verdict was, “that the deceased came to his death by a blow on the back of his head — fust; given by some person or persons unknown to the jury; then he was thrown overboard and was drowned — second ; thirdly, he was washed ashore and friz to death.” That verdict was ridiculous and absurd, but it was not contemptible, because there was an evident desire to get at the truth, and that is the distinction. 280 DISGRACE IN HIGH LIFE. “ It is not tlie poor woman only, or the one in an inferior social position that drink has depraved.” I quote from Prof. Cooper. “ I have lately heard a painful case of this degrada¬ tion in one who occupied a good position in society, a young lady who resided in one of the most fashionable parts of Bir¬ mingham. She was amiable, beautiful, highly accomplished and educated, the delight of the circle in which she moved, and the good angel to administer to the wants of those below her in life. She was daily to be seen on some errand of mercy, driving in the brougham of her brother with whom •she lived. Her brother received much company, and the wine was freely circulated at his hospitable board. Without thinking of the danger, she partook with her guests and began to like wine. The taste grew upon her, and at length she craved it. She imperceptibly acquired the habit of taking it several times a day, and always kept it in her boudoir or private room. After a while it was perceived that she was often in an unfit state to receive company, her errands of benevolence were forgotten, and she herself became an object of pity to her friends. Remonstrance was tried in vain; she was beyond recovery, deeply enslaved by this vice. She eventually threw over all restraint and was scarcely sober night or day. Her broken-hearted brother, unable to endure her disgrace any longer, resolved to banish her from his home. She was sent to Guernsey with an allowance of <£150 a year. There she lived a year or two, spending all her income in the indulgence of her love for drink, and sank lower and lower, even to the lowest depth of degradation. Then it happened, that, after a more than usually severe debauch, she became seriously ill, and the medical man who recites this tale was sent for about four days before her death. He found her the remains of a once noble-looking woman, disfigured through her degrading vice, AN AWFUL DEATH. 281 evidently once enjoying a respectable social position, but then stretched on a miserable bed, in a wretched attic, in a low neighborhood. Though made aware of her approaching dissolution, she would listen to no religious appeal; her only thought, her only wish, her only cry, was for ‘ gin.’ She uttered impious oaths and blasphemies in reply to all entrea¬ ties to prepare for her death, and died in an awful paroxysm, shrieking, 4 Gin ! gin ! gin ! ’ What can be more appalling than such a scene as this? Friend of humanity, Christian, we ask you again, 4 Can you love the material that pro¬ duces such ruin as this ? ’ ” I have great sympathy for the poor and fallen. Some say, 44 Yes, but they have brought it upon themselves.” 44 Judge not, that ye be not judged: for with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again.” What would become of you or I if He who was set before us as a pattern should judge as you judge? 44 Let them alone, they are polluted, ♦ depraved, debased; the jaws of hell are ready to swallow them up; let them alone; they have brought it upon them¬ selves.” What a horrible sight would this world present to the angels who should look down upon it, if these poor fallen men and women were left in despair and hopelessness be¬ cause they brought ruin upon themselves! But oh! He manifested his love for us, in that while we were yet sin¬ ners, He died for us. Oh! look at the foot of the hill — who is that toiling beneath the burden of his cross, the crown of thorns piercing his temples, and the drops of blood streaming down his face ? See him there, lifted between the heavens and the earth, between two thieves nailed to the accursed tree ! Not one groan, not one moan of anguish, not one cry but this: 44 Eloi, eloi, lama Sabachthani ? ” 44 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? ” Angels were looking upon that scene, and devils trembled as they gazed upon it. For what? 282 AN AUDIENCE OF DRUNKARDS. For me, for you, who brought judgment on ourselves for our wilful transgressions of law. Oh, the drunkard is your brother; he is a man. In that day for which all other days were made he will be judged with you. Look upon him, then, as a brother; a weak-minded brother, perhaps, but still a brother. If you have what some are pleased to call self- control, if you possess a strong physi¬ cal frame, if you have tough nerves so that you can do what he cannot, will you not abandon for his sake that which may be lawful for you ? Bring him up, stand by his side, sustain and support him in his resolution. What shall we do with regard to the intemperate ? That is a question we must face. Many people say: “ Why don’t you get an audience of drunk¬ ards ? ” Why, what should I do if I had them ? I am willing to address an audience of drunkards at any time; selected, if you will; I care not whether they be the worst specimens or not. I want to get at them. But it is per¬ A RAG SHOW. sonal appeal that is to do the work with the drunkard. It is personal interest in him that will affect him. I saw a drunkard two-and-twenty years ago in Exeter Hall, London, and after he had made his mark to the pledge (for he could not write), he attempted to show us how ragged he was. We begged him to cover up his nakedness. James McCurrey, — God bless him, — as noble a man as any in the world, stood by his side, and said to him not, “ I hope you will keep that pledge; it will be a good thing for you if you stick to it,” thereby conveying an idea that no confidence A. NEW METHOD OF INSTRUCTION. 283 could be placed in his word. But “ Where are you going to sleep to-night?” “Where I slept last night.” “Where is that?” “In the streets.” “Come home with me.” And I tell you, my friends, there is something grand in such an invitation as that. They went away together. James McCurrey told me that his wife burnt the bed-clothes the next morning; but he added: “ What is a set of bed-clothes compared with the salvation of a man ? ” That man kept his pledge. His after-history is exceedingly interest¬ ing. He was a prize-fighter, broken down by dissipation, ignorant and friendless. When he became perfectly sober he realized in some degree his THE TEACHER TAUGHT. position as an ignorant man. He worked steadily for his benefactor till he had earned a suit of clothes, and one shilling with which he purchased some pictures, a dozen for a ha’penny, and went to the superintendent of a Sunday school and asked him to give him a position in the school as a teacher. He was asked what kind of boys he would like. He said: “ The smallest boys in the school; I am very fond of small boys.” So a class was given him, and as he sat before them, he said: “Now, boys, I am going to teach you, perhaps as you were never taught before. I am going to find out what you know.” (Remember, this man did not know one letter from another.) “ I want to ascertain what you know, and when I ask you, if you tell me true, I ’ll give you a picture ! ” Hold- 284 STORY OF A GROG-SHOP FIDDLER. ing a book open, and pointing to a letter, lie said to the first boy: 44 What letter is that ? ” The boy told him. Keeping his finger over it, and holding the book before the last boy in the class, he said: 44 Now you point out the letter which he said is 4 A ’, so that I can be sure.” The boy told him. He began to put letters together in the same way, and after a while put words together and learned to read. After he had been two years in the school he stood up and told them that he had come into that school not knowing a letter; he came as a teacher, but the boys had taught him. And that was not the greatest advantage; he believed the Holy Spirit had taught him to give his heart to the Saviour, which he had. He soon after took up the labor of a city missionary and became an effective worker. They are not all fools who have become drunkards. Opposite a grog-shop, in a certain town, you might have seen a drivelling, idiotic drunkard seated upon a box, with a slouched hat drawn over his eyes and a fiddle in his hand, attempting to scrape out such music as would please the company of inebriates that surrounded him; and they, in turn, attempting to shuffle and dance, paying the miserable music-maker his wages in rum. No doubt they looked at him with great contempt, thinking themselves superior to him. Just look at him; what a fool! See how he chuckles as the glass is presented to him, as he puts it to his blistered lips and quaffs the liquor; now he wipes his frothy mouth, first with the back of his hand and then with his palm; what a fool! This was the man and his employment in 1840. That man signed the pledge, and in three years he was a representative in Congress. In 1848 that same man was nominated by his party as a candidate for the gubernatorial chair of the State; neither did those who have heard him as I have, when his form seemed to dilate with the great thoughts Opposite a grog-shop, in a certain town, you might have seen a drivelling, idiotic drunkard seated upon a box, with a slouched hat drawn over his eyes, and a fiddle in his hand, attempting to scrape out such music as would please the company of inebriates that surrounded him; and they, in turn, attempting to shuffle and dance, paying the miserable music-maker his wages in rum. This was the man and his employment in 1840. That man signed the pledge, and in three years he waB a representative in Congress. WORKING FOR OTHERS. 28T to which he gave utterance in a torrent of burning words that sunk deep into the hearts of his hearers, nor did the Congress that was occasionally electrified by his eloquence or melted by his pathos ever dream that he was a fool. Yet this poor creature of 1840 possessed the same mind, the same genius with the man of 1848; and when his fellow- countrymen proposed him for and carried him into the high seat of honor, did they esteem him a fool ? It is drunkenness that befools men more than any other vice. I remember reading that in the Bosphorus a beautiful jewel was dropped in the water, and they desired to ascertain the place where the gem had fallen, for it was valuable; but the surface was so rough they could not discern it. Some one proposed to pour oil on the water; they did so, saw the jewel, and obtained it. Now the drunkard’s breast is like troubled waters, casting up mire and dirt. Let us drop the oil of sympathy upon the heaving waters, and just as sure as God put a jewel there we will have it. Bright and beau¬ tiful ones are now shining like stars in the firmament of talent, virtue, morality, and religion, that have been brought to the surface by the oil of sympathy. It makes the water clear, so that we know just where to dive. It is worth while to work for others. It is worth some¬ thing to save life. As the day broke, one fearfully stormy morning, a large barque ran on a bank of sand, eight miles from the British coast, and lay there at the mercy of the tempest, filling with water. She rapidly began to settle, the waves breaking fiercly over her. Her boats were knocked to pieces, her hatches were stove in. Eighteen men were in the rigging, clinging to the shrouds of that sprung and broken foremast; the mainmast was gone. No hope was in their hearts, no help was nigh. But is there no hope, no help? They are seen from the shore. No sooner is the word 288 “MAN THE LIFE-BOAT!” passed, “ A wreck! a wreck ! ” than the gallant boatmen spring to the beach. “Man the lifeboat!” Yes, but the waves are driving furiously in to shore. “ Man the lifeboat! ” Yes, but the snow is drifting in blinding squalls. “Man the lifeboat! ” One by one the noble fellows take their places. Out they dash in the teeth of the gale. “ Oars out, my men. Steady! Oars out! ” They are knee-deep in water. The waves beat upon them; they are drenched, and all but drowned. Yet how cheerfully they bend their backs to the ashen oars. “ Hold on, every man of you! ” Every man holds on to the thwart before him, whilst an immense wave rolls over, burying them fathoms deep. They rise and shake their locks. But where is the wreck? The weather is so thick they cannot see her. Now there is a break in the drift; there she lies, the starboard bow the only part of the hull visible. Are there any men in that tangled rigging? Yes, see ! the rigging is full of them. “ Now, steady, men, steady. Keep clear of the wreck. Steady! Ah, we have them now.” She lies alongside; and one by one the poor, half-drowned, half-frozen wretches drop into the boat, and out she drifts into the boiling sea. Amid the peril of the return, with the fierce waves hissing after them, how steadily they row. And now the lights break upon them from the shore, and soon the lookers-out on the beach hail them, “ Lifeboat, ahoy! Are they all safe ? ” “ Ay, ay, every man safe.” How they cheer! and the cheer is louder and more hearty than that which greets the champion boat in a race. And why? Because these men have saved human life. Are there no wrecks around us, wrecks of intellect, wrecks of genius, wrecks of all that makes men noble? Man the lifeboat! man the lifeboat, and save them ! See how they are drifting. Helm gone, compass gone. Man the life¬ boat ! See how they are dashed by the fierce waves upon SAVE THE FALLEN. 289 the strand, wrecked and ruined. Man the lifeboat and save them! And if so be that you help some poor struggling soul through this world’s wickedness into the haven of peace and rest, cheer after cheer from human voices may never salute you; but the shining white-robed angels shall smile upon you, and God’s approval shall crown your noble endeavor, and the souls you have saved shall be as stars forever in the crown of your rejoicing. CHAPTER XIII. CURIOSITY — STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPHS OF MEN OF GENIUS —- STORIES OF INQUISITIVE AND MEDDLESOME PEOPLE. Curiosity; What Is It? — What it Has Led To — Utilizing Steam — Thrown into a Madhouse — “I am not Mad” — Left to Die — The Kilsby Tunnel — Hidden Quicksand — Solving the Problem — Stephenson’s Stupendous Undertaking—The Electric Telegraph — Early Struggles of Prof. Samuel Morse— Gloomy Prospects — Help at Last — Unknown Heroes —Pick¬ wick and the Cabman — A Very Ancient Horse — An Inquisitive Com¬ panion— Judging from Appearances — “What Will You Give?” — A Printer’s Self-Denial for His Little Blind Sister—A Noble Act — The Miser of Marseilles — His Will — Why He Hoarded His Gains — An Inci¬ dent in a Sleeping Car — A Bachelor’s Experience — Taking Care of the Baby—Shakespeare’s Skull — Story of the Philosopher and the Calf’s Tail — Things We Do Not Know— Queer Reasons — “ Who Made You ? ” — Five Pounds of “ Ditto ” — Wonderful Scientific Facts. HE definition of the term curiosity, according to Web¬ ster, is: the disposition to inquire, investigate, or seek after knowledge ; a desire to gratify the mind with new information on objects of interest; inquisitiveness. It is an element of our nature the first to be developed ; at the dawning of the intellect comes the desire to know; the child’s first reaching out its little hand to touch, the first inquiry, “What is it?” is its manifestation. “Why is it? where is it? when is it? how is it? ” are evidences that the feeling of insatiable curi¬ osity possesses the mind in the dawn of life ; and that desire 290 WHAT WE OWE TO CURIOSITY. 291 tor knowledge natural to all ages is most vivid during the earliest period of life. Feeling the want of knowledge, the mind is eager to acquire it. Sterne says: “ Curiosity seems woven into the frame of every son and daughter of Adam.” It is of curiosity, the desire to know, that I would write, taking the term in its broadest meaning, and highest and noblest significance. Strip us of this element of curiosity and the mind would doze forever; content with objects that presented them¬ selves directly to us, we should make no progress, the world would stand still, and ambition would die. Bulwer says: “ It is a glorious fever, that desire to know.” But, though this element is glorified by using it for high pur¬ poses, it is debased by using it for unworthy ends. In great minds it leads to grand discoveries, important and useful inventions; in medium minds, to storing information on facts and things; in little minds, to pitiful peddlings of gossip, and minding other people’s business. Curiosity is the thirst of the soul. Dr. Johnson once said that science, though perhaps the nursling of interest, was the daughter of curiosity. We owe to the stimulus of curiosity all we know of the natural world, of the heavens above us, or the earth beneath. The burning desire to know, to investigate, has overcome every obstacle, confronted privation, scorn, con¬ tempt, persecution,—yes, even braved death itself. It is a sublime sight to see brave, patient, earnest human beings working their arduous way, struggling through the iron walls of penury into the magnificent infinite. How they have worked and suffered, none but He who inspired them knows; the world sees the result, and often receives it as a simple matter of fact, when, if it could know the dark¬ ness through which these men have struggled into light, the price that has been paid to secure that result, every new dis- 292 A MADMAN’S DISCOVERY. covery would stand out radiant with glory, and every discov¬ erer a pioneer in the wonderful path of knowledge that should lead the race of man nearer and nearer to the throne of the Infinite. It is wise to make ourselves acquainted with the struggles of these benefactors in their progress, and to know, so far as we may, how and at what cost these results have been achieved. The faith of Columbus in the existence of an unknown continent, which gave such loftiness and dignity to his character, grew out of curiosity to learn what was beyond the sea, roused at first by simple rumors of an undiscovered land. But even he did not know, when he first set his foot on America and solved the great mystery of the ocean, all we know to-day of what his faith achieved for him and for us, and for the world. For nearly a thousand years how many men of iron mould, of unflinching nerve, of undoubted skill, the picked men of the maritime world, have been worsted in the unequal conflict with the awful powers of nature, impelled and sustained by the curiosity to solve the question, “ Is there a northwest passage ? ” Solomon De Caus, a Norman, was perhaps the man who first projected the idea of moving ships and carriages by steam. He presented his plan to the French king, then tried the church, and, following a cardinal too perseveringly, was by him thrown into a mad-house. When the Marquis of Worcester went in 1641 to visit him, a frightful face appeared behind the bars, and a hoarse voice exclaimed, “ I am not mad, I am not mad ! I have made a discovery that would enrich any country that adopted it.” “ What has he dis¬ covered?” “Oh, something trifling enough, you would never guess it; the use of the steam of boiling water. To listen to him, you would imagine that, with steam, ships could be navigated, carriages be moved; in fact, there is no end to PREJUDICE, IGNORANCE, AND ARTIFICE. 293 the miracles he insists could be performed with its aid, — oh, he is very mad ! ” And so he was left to die. But men per¬ severed, and thought, toiled, experimented, lost their property, ruined their health, and died neglected 5 yet they lived not in vain, nor la¬ bored and spent their strength for naught. Even their dis¬ ap p o i n t in ents inspired emula¬ tion, and their failures taught others the way to a glorious success. It is humili¬ ating to record the prejudice, ignorance, and artifice by which many of the most valuable inventions were opposed, and by which they were so often and so long thwarted. Take the history of the early railroads. One might have supposed there would have been a general desire on the part of the community to receive with open arms,- and hail with gratitude, an invention which would enable them, at about half price, to travel at five times the speed their utmost efforts had previously been able to attain. Not only that, but to “ 1 am not mad!” 294 OPPOSITION THAT DID NOT PAY. afford similar facilities to millions of tons of merchandise. And yet, in tracing the lines for our great railways, the engi¬ neers were often looked upon as magicians and unclean spirits, whose unearthly object was to frighten the land from its pro¬ prietors. In many instances where it was proposed to give vigor and animation to a town by tapping it with a railway, the inhabitants fancied their interests would expire under the operation. Take, for instance, the opposition to Mr. Robert Stephenson’s endeavors to locate the route of the London and Northwestern Railway, when the people of North¬ ampton, urged and excited by men of influence and education, opposed the scheme with such barbarous force that they suc¬ ceeded in distorting the line from that healthy and handsome town to a point five miles distant. But for that opposition the town would at once have attained to a position of com¬ mercial importance of inestimable value. They considered it utterly incredible that a railway could supersede mail and stage coaches. The invention was declared to be a smoky substitute for canals. Men of property inveighed against it, and their tenants were equally opposed. On one occasion, one of the engineers employed to trace out a line which was to confer inestimable advantages upon the locality, was attacked by the proprietors of the soil, and a conflict ensued which ended in serious legal results. Still, in spite of all this opposition, these men were determined to succeed. The following incident in connection with the London and Northwestern Railway, related in “Stokers and Pokers,” is interesting. The Ivilsby tunnel was to be driven one hundred and sixty feet below the surface for a distance of about seven thousand yards. • The work was actively pro¬ gressing, when suddenly it was found that about two hundred yards from the south end of the tunnel there existed a hidden quicksand, which extended four hundred yards into the pro- A GREAT ENGINEERING FEAT. 295 posed tunnel. Overwhelmed at the discovery, the contractor for the construction of the tunnel, though relieved by the company from his engagement, took to his bed and died. Then Robert Stephenson offered, after mature reflection, to undertake the responsibility of proceeding, and was authorized to do so. But the difficulties threatened that the effort would be hopeless, so much so that the directors had about deter¬ mined to abandon it, but Robert Stephenson prayed for one fortnight more; and b}~ the strength of twelve hundred and fifty men, two hundred horses, and thirteen steam engines, the work was gradually completed. During night and day, for eight months, the astonishing quantity of eighteen hundred gallons per minute from the quicksand alone was raised by Mr. Stephenson and conducted away. George Stephenson, the father of Robert, worked fifteen years at the improvement of his locomotive before he achieved success. Watt was engaged thirty years upon the condensing engine before he brought it to perfection. Samuel Morse, from his first experiment with the electric telegraph in 1835, till his experimental essay in 1844, struggled hard against obstacles and indifference, with scanty means, for nine years. The Congressional session of 1842-43 was a memorable one. On the last night he waited, almost without hope, and left the House discouraged and poor, reduced to his last dollar. He retired to bed, after arranging for his departure home the aext day. On the morning of that day, March 4, 1843, he was startled by the announcement that, in the midnight hour of the expiring session, Congress had voted to place at his dis¬ posal thirty thousand dollars for his experimental essay. Many of us remember that first line from Washington to Baltimore, when the practicability and utility of the electric telegraph was demonstrated to the world. The ocean telegraph, bring¬ ing two continents into almost instant communication, is a 296 PIONEERS OF DISCOVERY AND INVENTION. triumph of scientific skill, a monument of enterprise and faith in human capability, an evidence of persevering determination in overcoming the most discouraging obstacles. All honor to the men who, through discouragements and failures, by their indomitable perseverance bore so honorable a part in that great enterprise. We, as Americans, are proud to claim them as our countrymen, and we rejoice in their success. They are but a few of the noble men who have by dis¬ covery and invention increased the desire for knowledge and light, and bequeathed an ample inheritance to the world. The names of many are forgotten, the successful only have been remembered; but all, known or unknown, have been as the sentinels of great ideas answering each other across the heads of many generations. Curiosity prompts men of a certain class to gather stores of information, furnishing themselves with facts that others have obtained. It is well to know all we can that is use¬ ful, and right to avail ourselves of other men’s labors and investigations. God has given to but few favored ones the intellect and ability to discover truth; therefore it is a lawful curiosity that induces men to gain general information from the toils of others. Many a minister has been ruined in voice and health for the want of a knowledge of acoustics; the health of thousands of persons is destroyed through a want of the knowledge of physical laws, by thin shoes, tight lacing and tight boots ; thousands of lives are lost by the use of improper food and the want of exercise. Many an audience has been poisoned by foul air, for the want of a knowledge of the laws of ventilation. Read the “Appeal to the Sextant:” “There are one commodity which is more than gold, which don’t cost nothing, I mean pure air. But, O sextant, you shet up five hundred men, wimen, and children up in a tite place. O sex¬ tant, don’t you know our lungs is belluses to blow the fire MR. PICKWICK AND THE CABMAN. 297 of life, and keep it from goin’ out ? And how can belluses blow without wind? And ain’t wind air? Air is for us to breathe. Wot signifies who preaches, if I can’t breathe? Wot’s Paul, wot’s ’Pollus to sinners wot are ded, —ded for want of breth ? O sextant, let a little air into our church: how it will rouse the people up, and sperrit up the preacher, and stop garps and fidgets as effectooal as wind on the dry bones the prophet tells of.” Very curious people are sometimes im¬ posed on ludi¬ crously. All remember the amusing scene between Pick¬ wick and the cabman. “ How old is that horse, my friend ? ” “Forty- two.” “ What ! ” as he noted the fact in his book. “How long do you keep him out at a time?” “Two or three veeks.” “ Weeks ? ” “We seldom takes him home on account of his veakness.” “ Weakness ? ” “ He always falls down when he’s took out o’ the cab; but when he’s in it, we bears him up werry tight and takes him in werry short, so as he can’t werry well fall down; and A REMARKABLE HORSE. 298 AN inquisitive travelling companion. •* we ’ve got a pair o’ precious large wheels on, so ven he does move they run after him, and he must go on, — he can’t help it.” Every word of which Mr. Pickwick entered in his book as veritable information, and the result was an offer from the cabman to fight him for the fare. Some experiences in travelling are very annoying, and yet very amusing. You are comfortably seated in a railway car, absorbed in your book. “Is this seat taken?” “No, sir.” “Fine day.” “Yes, sir.” “Going far?” “Yes, sir.” “New York, I presume?” “Yes, sir.” “Going farther?” “Yes, sir.” “Ah, South?” “Yes, sir.” “Business?” “Yes, sir.” “Dry goods?” “No, sir.” “Ah! engaged in insur¬ ance?” “No, sir.” “Speculation?” “No, sir.” “Come from the East?” “Yes, sir.” “Boston?” “No, sir.” “What is your age, may I ask?” “No, sir.” “Ah! yes, married?” “Yes, sir.” “Children?” “No, sir.” “Hum! adopt any?” “No, sir.” “I should think you would. Be¬ long to the church?” “Yes, sir.” “Orthodox?” “I sup¬ pose so.” “ Who’s your minister ? ” “ Dr. Smith.” “ Smart preacher?” “Yes, sir.” “Practical?” “Somewhat so.” “ Abolitionist ? ” “Yes, sir.” “ What might your name be ? ” Bless the man, it might be Belshazzar, but it is n’t. The study of the character of others is very interesting, but in our judgment of men we are apt to forget circum¬ stances ; each one has an experience peculiarly his own, and not to be judged according to that of another. We have no right to judge unless we know all the circumstances of the case. What right have we to judge men simply from appear¬ ances ? How often we are deceived in this ! Have you never reversed your judgment? Have you never said, “I am sorry I said so and so about a man; for, when I knew all the circum¬ stances, the case appeared so very different ? ” Let me relate an incident to you. You know I deal pretty A PRINTER’S SELF-DENIAL. 299 much in illustration. I once heard Dr. Parker preach a ser¬ mon in which he encouraged me wonderfully. In speaking of those who endeavor to preach by illustration, anecdote, and parable, he said that some of them are doing work equal to that of great logicians. So I felt very much comforted, and I mean to continue with my anecdotes, stories, and illustra¬ tions. The incident to which I refer occurred in the city of New York. About fifty men were employed in a printing establishment. One of them had requested permission to sleep on the papers, under a bench, to save the expense of lodging, —he spent no money except for the commonest neces¬ saries of life. His fellow-workmen set him down as a mean man, a cowardly sneak, because, while they insulted him, he did not resent it. He bore all their persecution patiently, and they left no stone unturned to worry, to harass, and to annoy him in his business. This went on for months. It was the custom of the men in this office to have an annual picnic, or excursion party. One pay-day, in the month of June, the men were standing round the imposing-stone, when some one proposed that the excursion should take place the following month. “Very good.” “Then we will make up our com¬ mittees, — committee on invitation and finance.” “ What will you give?” was asked, “and you? and you?” This man stood, “sent to Coventry,” isolated, alone. Some one asked him how much he would subscribe for the picnic. He quietly refused to give anything for any pleasure excursion. The man who had asked him said something so grossly insult¬ ing that his patience was exhausted, and he let him have it right straight from the shoulder, and sent him to the floor. Then he said: “Now, gentlemen, I am no fighter; I did not seek this quarrel, but matters have come to a crisis. You have treated me shamefully for months, and I have borne it pa¬ tiently. Now I suppose the place will be too hot to hold me, 300 UNEXPECTED KINDNESS. and I must find some other employment. I have never told you why I have been obliged to appear to you mean and ava¬ ricious, but I will do so now. I have a sister, whom I love, and I have been supporting her at a boarding-school; this I found comparatively easy, but my sister has become blind. My poor little, blind, orphan sister is without a friend on earth, except myself, to care for her. I have ascertained that in Paris there resides a physician who has been very successful in curing the form of blindness with which my sister is afflicted; and, gentlemen, I have been starving myself for months to raise the money necessary to take her to Paris; and by the help of God I will do it yet, in spite of your op¬ position.” The man whom he had knocked down then said: “ Look here, will you shake hands with me ? Have you any objec¬ tions to shaking hands with me? From my heart and soul I beg your pardon. Now, men, we will have no excursion this year, but I ask every man in this shop to put down ten dollars on that imposing-stone.” “ Gentlemen, I do not ask your money.” “ Down with the money, every man of you.” In a fortnight, every man in that shop waited upon him on board the ship with his sister. Two years afterwards, they gladly welcomed him as he brought her back with sight restored, like one coming from the pool of Siloam. Some years ago, in Marseilles, there lived an old man, known to every urchin in the streets as a niggard in his dealings, and with habits of the utmost penury. From his boyhood, he had lived in the city, and though the people treated him with scorn and disgust, hooted at him in the streets, insulted him in every way, and though he was without one friend to give him a kind word, he could not be driven out of the place. At last he died, and left an ample fortune. On opening his A SCORNED AND HOOTED MISER, 301 will, they found these words: “ Haying observed from my childhood that the poor of Marseilles are ill supplied with water, which can only be procured at a great price, I have the miser of Marseilles. aqueduct for their use.” In one of our sleep¬ ing-cars a child was crying, and annoying the passengers, in spite of the attempts of the father to quiet it. One surly man —they said he was an old bachelor and hated children — pushed aside the curtain, and said: “ Why is not that child 19 302 AX OLD BACHELOR’S TEXDER SPOT. kept quiet ? Where is the mother of that child ? Why does she not try to stop its crying? Why does she not attend to it ? ” The father said: “The mother of this child is in the baggage-car, in her coffin. I have been travelling with the baby for two nights and days, and the little creature is rest¬ less for its mother. I am very sorry if it has disturbed any person’s rest.” “ Bless my soul, my friend; wait a minute till I dress my¬ self,” said the grumbler. And then he made the father lie down to sleep, took the baby himself, and cared for it till the morning. Any old bachelor who hates children will know that the man must have taken up his cross to care for that child through the night. We have curiosity about things that do not exist. All of us, without exception, seem to possess this desire. I remem¬ ber when I visited Alloway Kirk, I, with others, looked in at the same window through which Tam O’Shanter saw the dance of the witches. We are told that a skull was once exhibited as Shakespeare’s skull. Some one made the remark that the skull was very small. The reply was, “ That was his skull when he was a little boy.” Many persons who visit the Cats- kill Mountains are exceedingly anxious to visit the spot where Rip Van Winkle slept his long sleep. Then we have a curiosity about things we can never know; for there are some things very difficult to find out. A dealer in hides, wishing to attract customers by a striking sign, bored a hole through the door-post of his store, and stuck in it a calf’s tail, with the bushy end hanging down. One day a man dressed in black, with spectacles, stood a long time intently studying the tail. “ Good morning, sir.” “ Good morning.” “ Want to buy hides ? ” u No.” A HARD PROBLEM. 803 “ Want to sell any ? ” “ No.” “ Are you a farmer ? ” “ No.” “ A minister ? ” “ No.” “A doctor?” “No.” “Well, what are you, then?” “I am a philosopher. I have been studying for an hour to solve the problem of how that calf got through that auger- hole.” Can you tell how many trunks a fashionable lady needs for a week at Saratoga? Why some people write their names in con¬ spicuous places? Why boys always laugh when a man falls down? Why women cry at wed¬ dings? “Punch” has a picture of a wedding breakfast where all are cry¬ ing ; and the father, rising to propose the health of the newly-married couple, says : “ This is the happiest day of my life ! ” Can you tell what will be the next style of bonnets ? Why peo¬ ple never return borrowed umbrellas? Why a street car or an omnibus will always hold one more ? • Why there is THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE CALF’S TAIL. 304 UNANSWERABLE QUESTIONS. never any one to blame for a railroad accident ? Why a snob is always on intimate terms with great people ? Did you ever see a dandy who did not think everybody admired him ? Can you tell how old your middle-aged lady friend is ? Did you THE BIG BOY AND LITTLE DICKEY TILTON. that are as profoundly in the dark as the author of “Junius” or the executioner of Charles the First. Queer reasons are sometimes given for the knowledge that others possess. “Who made you?” inquired a teacher, of a big lubberly boy of fourteen who had lately joined the class. “I don’t know.” “Don’t know? You ought to be ashamed of yourself; why, there’s little Dickey Tilton,— A CONFOUNDED FOOL AND HIS “DITTO.” 305 he can tell, I dare say, and lie is but three years old. Come here, Dickey; who made you?” “Dod,” lisped the child. “ I here, said the teacher triumphantly, “I knew he would remember.” “Well, he oughter,” said the over¬ grown boy, “’t ain’t but a little while since he was made.” There are odd ways of obtaining information. A man came into the house with a bill in his hand. “ Wife, what on earth is all this ditto you have bought at the store?” “Ditto? I never ordered any ditto.” “Why, here it is on the bill: one pound of tea, one pound of ditto, ten pounds of sugar, five pounds of ditto.” “I never bought an ounce of ditto in my life.” He went to the store-keeper. “ I say, my old woman says she never bought an ounce of ditto, and you have charged it by the pound.” The matter was ex¬ plained. He went home. “Well, husband, have you found out what all that ditto means?” “Yes, I have.” “Well, what is it?” “Why, that I’m a confounded fool, and you’re ditto.” If our happiness consists in gratifying the love of learning new truths here, what will be the happiness in heaven, where we shall be forever satisfying the desire after more and yet more knowledge! Here, in our finite state, our knowledge must be very imperfect, our capacities are so limited. Astron¬ omers tell us the sun is about ninety-five millions of miles from us, and Neptune thirty times as far; that light comes to us from the sun in eight minutes, and from Neptune in four hours. How do they know this? I cannot tell, but it is evident they do know the movements of the planets, for they calculate eclipses with absolute accuracy. We receive their statements with credence; and talk of the millions of miles, but we cannot comprehend such distances; our ideas are extremely vague and confused. Well, we are told the sun is ninety-five millions of miles from us; all we can say is, it is 306 INCOMPREHENSIBLE FIGURES. a vast distance, and that is about all we know of it. Our idea of distance is obtained from the time it takes to travel over it. Put a baby, as soon as he is born, into an express train going at the rate of one hundred miles an hour, and he would grow to be a boy, the boy grow to be a man, the man grow old and die, without reaching the sun; for it is one hundred and eight years’ distance from us, if we trav¬ elled towards it day and night, without stopping, at the rate of one hundred miles an hour. If Adam and Eve had started at the rate of fifty miles an hour for Neptune, they would not have reached it yet. But when we come to the fixed stars, the nearest is so far that light, travelling one hundred and ninety thousand miles a second, is three years in coming to us; and there are stars whose light would take two thousand years to reach us. Here we are lost, and we gain but a very faint conception of immensity, or rather a confused notion of these incomprehensible distances. But, “ in the soul of man, powers lie hidden like living seeds in the earth, which have not produced all their fruit. Eternal sunshine, the dew of ages, the everlasting seasons, are requi¬ site for the development of all the capabilities that are within us, and which can never die.” There will be in the future state an eternally progressive perception of Omnipotence, receiving the meaning of the divine mind an atom at a time. Infinite perfections can never be exhausted; God can never be comprehended by us. He would cease to be God, could we understand him. The mysteries of the Godhead will be eternally revealing themselves with new developments of his power, his wisdom, his love, new revela¬ tions of his works, his dispensations. We shall be everlast¬ ingly approaching the unapproachable, continually accumu¬ lating knowledge, and gaining more power to grasp it. We shall find that this advancement only enlarges the conception THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD. 807 of the immeasurable distance between the creature and the Creator. “We shall learn and love infinitely as the divine attributes rise before us unsearchable and unlimited, eter¬ nally discovering more and more of their might, beauty, and harmony, and views mighty and ever-enlarging of all that is august in the nature of God, and wonderful in his works.” “ Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive.” Oh, I believe that, “at every new development of the amazing power and love of God, the hearts of the redeemed will beat with a higher pulse of devotion, their harps be swept with a bolder hand, their tongues send forth a mightier chorus; the voice which is to be as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thun¬ der, shall grow louder and louder, each manifestation of his power and love adding a new wave to the many waters, and a new peal to the great thunder, as they go on from strength to strength, always increasing in knowledge, admitted to richer and richer discoveries ; 4 eternity a glorious morning, the sun climbing higher and higher, one blessed, eternal spring¬ time.’ ” Thought itself cannot measure such a portion when a flood of splendid light will be poured over creation and redemption alike, as “ in his light we shall see light.” CHAPTER XIV. THE RUGGED ROAD TO SUCCESS — HEROES AND HEROISM IN HUMBLE LIFE — THRILLING INCIDENTS AND STORIES. Patience and Perseverance Necessary to Success — The Man Who Thought of the Steamboat — “Poor Fellow; He’s Crazy Yet” —His Last Request —A Nobleman’s Foolish Boast —Eating the Boiler of a Steamboat — Among the Cornwall Miners —A Thrilling Incident — Touching off a Blast at the Bottom of a Deep Shaft — A Moment of Ter¬ rible Suspense — “Up with Ye! I ’ll Be in Heaven in a Minute” — An Act of Noble Self-sacrifice — A Hero in Humble Life — The Explosion — Descending the Shaft — A Champagne Factory in New Jersey—Stepping Into the Slush —Burnt Boots —A Hard Fight—Fable of the Cat and the Wily Mouse — Getting the Best of the Cat —A Humorous Story — The Old Couple Who “Swore off” — “Well, I Will if you Will”_A Meal of Toasted Cheese—Building the Temple. OR more than half a century, men from all grades of so¬ ciety, from all professions, and of multiform experience, have thought, spoken, and written on every phase of temperance reform, but still it has been, and is, a pro¬ gressive work. Some people have an idea that reforms consist of one great spasmodic effort; but, to suc¬ ceed, we must be willing to work slov ly, by patient and often unheralded endeavor. Read the history of the reforms of the world. What patient per¬ sistence ! What endeavor to build better! Who can measure or weigh the throes endured as nation after nation has come 80S EMINENT DEFENDERS OF WRONG. 309 to the birth-hour of its best reforms ? And from what small beginnings these great enterprises have started ! To-day we smile at the weakness of those early efforts, as in the strength of our manhood we smile at the feeble efforts of childhood. I have seen the first constitution and by-laws of the first association in the United States for the promotion of temper¬ ance, formed in 1804. One of the provisions of the consti¬ tution was this: — “Any member of this association who shall be convicted of gross intoxi¬ cation shall be fined twenty-five cents, unless such act of intoxication shall take place on the 4th of July, or on any regularly appointed military muster.” We smile at that to-day, but that was in advance of public sentiment, and the men who adopted it were iconoclasts, who went out in advance of their fellows to beat down the dagons their fathers had worshipped, and they were perse¬ cuted. There never yet was an enterprise that touched men’s interests, appetites, or passions, that did not subject its pro¬ moters to persecution. We remember the terrible opposition to the anti-slavery movement, when men of the highest intellect and bright¬ est genius were called into requisition to defend a wrong. Daniel Webster said once, at a large meeting in Faneuil Hall, in reference to the agitation against the fugitive slave, law: “ This agitation must be stopped.” Who will stop it ? Stopped! An agitation of right against wrong stopped! Christ against Belial stopped! The agitation of human rights against men’s interests stopped! Who will stop it ? Thank God, no power on earth can avail when He moves, and no voice can be heard when He speaks; and in his own good time every evil thing shall be abolished, even though it vanish in smoke and fire and blood, as slavery was extin¬ guished in our country. Men have ever spoken of an enterprise that was in advance 310 DYING OF THE ONE-IDEA DISEASE. of public sentiment as a Utopian scheme. When a boy, I attended school at Folkestone, in Kent, and on my way I passed every day the house where Dr. Harvey lived. And who was he? The man who discovered the circulation of the blood, and he was bitterly opposed by members of his own profession. Men always persecute those who are in advance of public sentiment; they say, “You cannot do it.” We are told that a man in Philadelphia invented an engine by which he proposed to propel vessels through water against wind and tide, by the aid of steam. He was laughed at. “Propel vessels against wind and tide? Perfectly ridiculous.” He exhibited his diagrams, plans, and models. The whole thing was looked upon as a palpable absurdity, and the man as a monomaniac. He was treated as you would now treat the man who spends fifteen hours out of the twenty-four in trying to discover perpetual motion. He died in Kentucky, and during his last illness one of his friends, stooping over him, said: “ Is there any request you have to make.” “ Yes,” he said, his eyes brightening, “I have a last request to make. When I die, bury me by the banks of the Ohio, that in after years my spirit may be soothed by the songs ‘of the boatmen and the music of the steam-engine, as the vessels pass and repass, conveying the product of one clime to another.” His friend turned away, exclaiming: “Poor fellow! He is crazy yet. What a pity! He dies of the one-idea disease.” One-idea disease! His mind was like a mountain-top towering above its fellows, catching the first beams of the morning light, and basking in the full sun¬ shine, while those in the valley were shrouded in gloom; and if his spirit may be permitted to wander by the banks of the Ohio, he will know that there the music of the steam- engine never ceases, night or day; it is one glorious psean of triumph for the mighty power of science. A TOUGH MEAL. 311 When men first agitated the railroad scheme, they were laughed at. “ Railroads ! How, in the name of common sense, can you build a railroad? We are willing to believe anything in reason, but how can you ascend a hill with a rail¬ road? Why, some of these fanatical fellows talk of going at the rate of twenty miles an hour. At such a break-neck pace they would endanger the lives of all the passengers.” One gentleman in Boston said he would oppose the granting life in a kailway car. an hour. One gentle¬ man in England, now an earl, said: “ The}^ talk of bridging the Atlantic by steam; I will eat the boiler of the first steamboat that goes across the Atlantic.” Steamers are daily crossing, but I have never heard that the gentleman has eaten a boiler. You will see in a railway train the lawyer looking over his brief, the minister studying his next Sunday’s sermon, a couple in a corner talking soft nonsense; and nobody thinks of breaking necks now. Perhaps, too, you will see a couple of the most inveterate grumblers the world ever produced, men who battled to the very last against grant¬ ing the charter. “ W e are a wonderful people, are n’t we?” says one. “Yes, we are an astonishingly wonderful people; this 312 AN AGE OF DEVELOPMENT. is an age of progress, sir. Why, I remember when we were two weeks in performing a journey which is now accom¬ plished in twenty-four hours.” Yes, it is “we” now. Why? Because the work is done ; because the plan is carried out, and proved to be popular. Plenty of men oppose a thing till it becomes popular; then they will ride on a railway that others have built in spite of them, drawn by a locomotive other men have made in spite of opposition and ridicule; and then have the impudence to say, “ We have done it.” We are living in an age of progress. In science, me¬ chanics, locomotion, there has been vast progress. We live in an age in which great and glorious truths are being developed; I say developed , for there are no new truths. Truth is eternal; it was as true thousands of years ago that messages could be transmitted by the telegraphic wires as it is to-day. It was as true centuries ago that vessels could be propelled by steam against wind and tide as it is to-day. It has always been true that God made of one blood all the nations of the earth. Men have forgotten that truth, but they are now coming back to it. They are beginning to look upon their fellow-men as brethren. Have faith in human progress. There may be dark clouds about us, but stand on yonder rock, take your place upon the cliff, and, though you cannot see, have faith and listen, and the breeze will bring to your ear the boom of the bell that is to ring the death-knell of oppression and wrong-doing over all God’s universe. Have faith in human progress; such progress as shall lead to the realization of what is com¬ prehended under the terms liberty, fraternity, equality, when these terms shall be understood in their highest signifi- cance. These words are not to be made mere by-words, but words which, when spoken, will make men’s hearts burn with a desire to do something to redeem fallen humanity. “ CRUCIFY THEM, CRUCIFY THEM!” 313 This is the age of progress, true and certain progress. Time was when men were burnt at the stake, and were beheaded on the scaffold for the simple reading of God’s word, and the world was quiet. When the Madiai were imprisoned in Tus¬ cany for Bible reading, was the world quiet? No. From pulpit, press, and platform, from the White House at Wash¬ ington, from the Parliament of Great Britain, came forth one cry of indignant remonstrance, and the prison-doors were thrown open, and the prisoners set free. How was this accomplished? Was it by bloodshed? by force of arms? by war? No. I am a peace man, and I rejoice that the bloody banner is no longer applauded as it has been. It was accom¬ plished by the almost omnipotent power of human sympathjr. Then let us have faith in our enterprise; for side by side with the great enterprises of the day we claim to place the enter¬ prise of temperance. The men who laid its foundation stood alone when others stood by and laughed them to scorn. They had faith, and as they looked down the future they saw the beam inclining to the side of justice. In the olden time men were imprisoned in dungeons so vile that when we visit them to-day we are filled with horror. Men were mutilated and murdered for advocating civil and religious freedom. One generation persecuted them to the death, crying, 44 Crucify them, crucify them ! ” But, thanks be to God, another generation has gathered the scattered ashes of the martyred heroes of the past, to deposit them in the 44 golden urn of the nation’s history.” Ah, yes, the men who fight the early battles are they who bear the burden and heat of the day, sustained by the consciousness of right, and knowing that he who seeth in secret knows the desire, steady purpose, and firm self-denial of those who serve him, and that he will reward them openly though they may die and see no sign of victorv. So shall it be in the future, in the final tri- o *J umph of every good enterprise. 314 A LITTLE GILL’S FAMOUS ACT. Little Mary Newton, a girl of four years of age, touched an electric instrument with her baby finger, and the sunken rocks that had impeded navigation for centuries were burst in pieces with a roar and a crash, and a mighty upheaval of the water. Did Mary Newton do it? Oh, no. There had been men under the surface placing dynamite. For months they had worked in the dark and in the wet. Those unseen men, who were toiling and laboring night and day, while ships were sailing over them, and men were passing on either side unconscious of all this hard toil, — they were the men that did the work, and Mary Newton was only the medium that God saw fit to touch the instrument that sent the elec¬ tric current on its mission. Now some of you are placing the dynamite. You are preparing that which is to explode by and by, when God sends some man that shall apply the match or turn on the electric current. There are no heroes who are selfish and mean. Meanness and selfishness are not elements of heroism. True heroism is to do for others, to work, to sacrifice for others; that is true heroism. Ask the world’s great men “In what does your greatness consist?” “I make marble breathe.” “Yours?” “I make canvas speak.” “Yours?” “I weigh the sun, and tell the courses of the stars.” “Yours?” “I discover a world.” “Yours?” “I conquer a world.” Hark! Amid the hills of Galilee is heard the voice of Him who spake as never man spake. Reverently we ask, “ Prophet of Nazareth, what is thy greatness? ” Hear the reply: “I came to seek and to save men.” “ By what means?” “ By giving myself a sacrifice for them.” Competitors for heroism, fix your eyes there, and take your rank according to the most magni¬ ficent standard of heroism the universe has ever gazed upon. We are ready to acknowledge such heroism. I remember a little incident that happened many years INCIDENT IN A CORNISH MINE. 315 asfo. When I was in Cornwall, in 1854, I visited the mine where the incident occurred. Carlyle refers to the story in one of the chapters of his “Life of Sterling.” Two men were sinking a shaft. It was danger¬ ous business, for it was necessary to blast the rock. It was their custom to cut the fuse with a sharp knife. One man then entered the bucket and made a signal to be hauled up. When the bucket again descended, the other man enter¬ ed it, and with one hand on the signal rope and the other hold¬ ing the fire, he touched the fuse, made the signal, and was rapidly drawn up before the explosion took place. One day they left the knife above, and rather than ascend to procure it, they f, ONLY ONE COULD BE SAVED. cut the tuse with a sharp stone. It took fire. “ The fuse is on fire ! ” Both men leaped into the bucket, and made the signal; but the windlass would haul up but one man at a time; only one could escape. One of the men instantly leaped out, and said 316 AN ACT OF HEROISM. to the other, “ Up wi’ ye; I ’ll be in heaven in a minute.” With lightning speed the bucket was drawn up, and the one man was saved. The explosion took place. Men descended, expecting to find the mangled body of the other miner; but the blast had loosened a mass of rock, and it lay diagonally across him ; and, with the exception of a few bruises and a little scorching, he was unhurt. When asked why he urged his comrade to escape, he gave a reason that sceptics would laugh at. If there is any being on the face of the earth I pity, it is a sceptic. I would not be what is called “a sceptic,” to-day, for all this world’s wealth. They may call it super¬ stition and fanaticism, or whatever they choose. But what did this hero say when asked, 44 Why did you insist on this other man’s ascending?” In his quaint dialect, he replied, 44 Because I knowed my soul was safe ; for I’ve gie it in the hands of Him of whom it is said, that 4 faithfulness is the girdle of his reins,’ and I knowed that what I gied Him He’d never gie up. But t ’other chap was an awful wicked lad, and I wanted to gie him another chance.” All the infidelity in the world cannot produce such a signal act of heroism as that. We admire and applaud the principle of self-sacrifice; and yet, when asked to give up a paltry gratification, we refuse. I ask you to bring before us all the good that has been produced in this country from the use of intoxicating liquors. What man has been made better by it, morally, physically, intellectually, or spiritually ? Religiously spiri¬ tual , I mean. No man. 44 Oh,” 3-011 say, 44 but many men have been benefited by it physically.” Well, I leave you in the hands of Dr. Richardson and Sir William Gull and Dr. Norman Kerr and a great many others who have written learnedly on the subject. Make the best you can of it, liquor is but a luxury. It is, to be sure, a gratification. I NEW JERSEY CHAMPAGNE. 317 grant you there is a gratification in it. And what is it ? The gratification of intoxication. “Ah, but I don’t get intoxicated.” Then what do you drink it for? Let me take all the intoxicating principle out of that glass of cham¬ pagne, and then do you want it? Why, you know very well that dead beer is detestable stuff to drink. Take the fuddle out of it, and you do not want it. Let me take it out of your sherry, madeira, or burgundy, and who will drink them ? And then, what are you drinking? Oh, you are drinking FRENCH CHAMPAGNE MADE IN NEW JERSEY. fine champagne and sherry, are you? Who gets the “sham pain?” Do you think you can obtain champagne in New York or London ? I was going to say I would give five hundred dollars to any man who will bring me a bottle of champagne, bought to-day in this country, that will stand a chemical test. There is more champagne bought and sold in New York city^ than is produced in the whole of the champagne district. I have heard of a champagne manufactory in New Jersey, where they send out hundreds and thousands of baskets of champagne marked with the French mark ! And they say that a man crossing the street where one of these champagne manufactories was in full blast, stepped into the debris or slush coming from the place, and when he got home 20 318 A TYRANNICAL APPETITE. he found his boots were burnt! You must remember that was the stuff met with outside; I do not mean to say they would put such stuff as that into it. That was the refuse ! But we say not only, what are men drinking? but, why are they drinking? “ Ah,” says some one, “but I have not the kind of appetite you are speaking about; a man must have a terrible appetite to sacrifice everything for drink; I have no appetite of that kind.” I do not know that you have, but I will give you a very easy method of test¬ ing it. You can either say, “ O thou invisible spirit of wine, if we had no other name by which to call thee, we would call thee devil; but, devil as thou art, I am your master,” — you can either say that, or it is your master. You are either free from it or you are not. There may be different degrees of bondage. I will give you an easy method of testing the matter. When you want drink again, remem¬ ber that the want is produced by the use of the article you desire. Now see how strong that want is. The next time you want drink, just let it alone, go about your business, and }~ou will soon begin to feel nervous, irri¬ table, and cross. Things do not go right — “I believe I must go and have a — ” Ah! just let it alone. Sit down to dinner, you have no appetite — “I really believe I need a tonic — ” Now just let it alone. You can do it safely, there is no doubt of that, just let it alone. “ But how long must T let it alone?” Let it alone till 3 r ou have ceased to wrlnt it. My word for it, some of you will have to fight for a month, for two months, for three or four months, before you are completely rid of all desire for it; and you will find it has a firmer grip than you imagine. A young man said to me after he had given it a trial, “ Mr. Gough, I ’ll never touch it again ;* I had no conception that drink had such a hold of me; I thought I could leave it off when I’d a mind DRINK’S TERRIBLE GRIP. 319 to, but I had to fight against it as if I were fighting for my life; now I will have no more of it.” Some people say, “We have tried abstinence, but it don’t suit us.” Why don’t it suit them? I’ll tell you. Because they don’t; try it long enough. A gentleman in a certain town in England where I spoke, after the second meeting, went home, and the porter was put on the supper table. The servant was leaving the room, and he said, “Jane, Jane! come here, take away that porter. I’m not going to drink any more porter, and you must put no more of it on the table.” Jane took away the porter. The next day, he came in to lunch about one o’clock, and there was no porter on the table. As the servant was going out, he called her back and said, “Jane, ah-m—-bring in the porter; I’ve stood it so long, I can’t stand it any longer.” I suppose that man would say he had no appetite, and yet he could not stand it without his porter for twenty-four hours, Some men, while they boast they have no appetite for intoxicating liquor, are positively ready to sacrifice that which they believe to be right and true, for the sake of it. No appetite? Why, I have seen men go into a dram-shop who looked as if they were ashamed to be seen entering such a place. I once saw a young man in Boston passing by a dram-shop that was kept in a cellar. He looked down to see who was there, and walked on. He came back again pres¬ ently, and peeped down again. Then, slyly looking around him, he mustered courage to go in, and, as he was diving down, the liquor-seller met him at the bottom of the stairs with the rebuff, “If you are ashamed to come in like a man, I am not ashamed to put }mu out like a dog.” That young man might have said he had no appetite, yet he was sneaking into the dram-shop to get his drink under the influence of an appetite he denied. 820 PROMISES MADE IN LIQUOR. I remember a little story of a mouse that fell into a beer- vat, poor tiling! and a cat passing by saw the struggling little creature. The mouse said to the cat, “ Help me out of my difficulty.” “If I do I shall eat you,” said the cat. “Very well,” replied the mouse, “I would rather be eaten by a decent cat than drowned in such a horrible mess of stuff as this.” It was a sensible cat, and it said, “ I certainly shall eat you, and you must promise me on your word of honor that I may do so.” “Very well, I will give you the promise ; I promise.” So the cat fished the mouse out; and, trusting to the promise, she dropped it an instant to clean her own mouth of the abomination of the vat, thinking she had better do so before she took a decent meal off the mouse. The mouse instantly darted away and crept into a hole in the corner, where the cat could not get him. “ But did n’t you promise me I might eat you?” “Yes, I did, but don't you know that when I made that promise I teas in liquor ?” And how many promises made in liquor have been broken! An old lady and gentlemen — not very old either — were once riding home from a temperance meeting where the speakers had been laying it down pretty plainly. They went along very quietly for some time. By and by the gentleman said to his wife with a sigh, “Well ?” To which she replied, “Well?” The old gentleman then, with a deeper sigh, said, “Well?” to which the lady replied, “Well, I will if you will.” Said the gentleman, “Agreed.” “Agreed,” said the lady, “we are teetotalers.” “We are teetotalers.” “When shall we begin?” “At once.” “Agreed.” “Go along!” They went home. “Well, wife, we must have something for supper; what have you in the house, any cold meat?” “I believe there is no cold meat.” “What shall we have?” “Suppose we have some toasted cheese?” “Very well, some toasted cheese.” The bell was rung, and the servant A MEAL OF TOASTED CHEESE. 821 came in. “Bring us some toasted cheese, and m-m-m- water.” Supper came in, and they began on the cheese. Said the wife, “Well?” The old gentleman, making an effort to swallow the cheese, replied, “Well?” “Well,” said the lady, “it’s rather dry; what shall we do?” “Suppose we begin to-morrow.” The bell was rung and the servant was ordered to bring in the porter. But they never began on the morrow. Their conscience was touched, they thought they could get on easily without the drink, but found they could not. However, the old man now U WELL, ITS RATHER DRY. goes by the nickname of “Old Well,” and he never will get rid of it as long as he lives, for he was foolish enough to tell the whole story. I think a man should ascertain whether he has an appetite or not, before he boasts that he has none. As I said in the opening of this chapter, temperance reform was a serious matter in those early daj r s when the beginnings were small. The very men that adopted the con¬ stitution I alluded to were persecuted, hooted at, and pelted through the streets. The doors of their houses were black- i 322 THE TEMPLE OF TEMPERANCE. ened, their cattle mutilated, their fruit-trees girdled. The fire of persecution scorched some men so that they left the work. Others worked on, and God blessed them. Some are living to-day. They worked hard. They lifted the first turf, prepared the bed in which to lay the corner-stone. They laid it amid persecution and storm, they worked under the surface. There were busy hands laying the solid founda¬ tion far down beneath. By and by, the superstructure rose above the surface, and then commenced another storm of persecution, but still they persevered. Now we see pillar after pillar, tower after tower, column after column with the capitals emblazoned with, “ Love, truth, sympathy, and good will to men.” Old men gaze upon it as it grows up before them. They will not live to see it completed, but they see in faith the crowning cope-stone set upon it. Sad-eyed women weep as it grows in beauty ; children strew the pathway of the workmen with flowers, and bind wreaths upon their brows. We do not see its beauty yet, we do not yet see the magnificence of this superstructure, because it is in course of erection. Scaffolding, ropes, ladders, workmen ascending and descending, hide the beauty of the building ; but by and by the scaffolding will fall with a crash, and the building will be seen in its wondrous beauty by an astonished world. The last poor drunkard shall go into it and find a refuge there; loud shouts of rejoicing shall be heard; and there shall be joy in heaven when the triumph of a great enterprise shall usher in the day of the triumph of the cross of Christ. I believe it. Will you help us? CHAPTER XV. GOSPEL TEMPERANCE — ILLUSTRATIVE INCIDENTS AND STORIES — LEAVES FROM MY OWN EXPERIENCE. Why I Do Not Preach the Gospel — The Biggest Rascal I Ever Knew — The Grace of God — My Belief — Found Dead — The Frenchman and the City Missionary — An Honest Opinion—An Emphatic Statement—“Bosh” — Drinking First and Finding an Excuse Afterwards—A Clergyman’s Story—“ I Take it as a Medicine” — A Dandy’s Worthless Advice — A Negro’s Practical Help — Power of Man’s Will — My Horror of Drunken¬ ness— Terrible Dreams—“It Tasted Good”—My Idea of Sin — Want of Cordiality in Our Churches— Chilly Reception to Strangers— My Own Experience—Painful Truths — A Novel Way of Getting Acquainted — Looking Back Thirty Years — A Good Story— Betty and the Bear — The Husband’s Sudden Retreat to the Rafters— A Plucky Wife — “ Take Him on the Other Side, Betty!” — “We” Have Done Gloriously. REMEMBER, some years ago, after I had delivered an address in which, subsequent to an exploring expedition in company with a detective, I had depicted the “ sins and sorrows of a great city,” a gentleman said to me: “You O have revealed to us a state of things which is fearful, an amount of moral evil that is perfectly appalling. What do you consider the remedy for all tliis moral evil ? ” I said to him, as I would say to you or to any one, “ The only remedy for moral evil is the power of the gospel of the grace of God.” He replied: 323 824 AN UNMITIGATED RASCAL. 44 Why don’t you preach the gospel, then ? ” I said: 44 The reason why I do not preach the gospel, according to your idea of preaching it, is that I have such an idea of the awful responsibility that rests upon any man who dares to stand between the living and the dead to deliver God’s message to dying men, that unless I felt in the core of my heart, 4 Woe is me, if I preach not the gospel,’ with my sense of the requirements for the office, and with my views of it, I should not dare to occupy the position.” Then he said: 44 You are preaching something else instead.” 44 Oh, no ! ” 44 Is not drunkenness a moral evil?” 44 Yes.” 44 Is not the power of the gospel of the grace of God the only remedy for moral evil?” 44 Yes.” Now, by the total abstinence movement, we do not pretend to do more than the one thing. Drunk¬ enness is a moral evil produced by a physical agency. Remove the agency, and the moral evil ceases, so far as drunkenness is concerned. In advocating total abstinence, we do not present it as the remedy for all the evil and all the sin in the world. We do not pretend to say that if a man signs the total abstin¬ ence pledge he becomes endowed with all the cardinal virtues under the sun. There are some awfully mean men who do not drink. One of the most unmitigated specimens of ras¬ cality I ever knew had one redeeming feature, and that was he did not get drunk; and yet he was guilty of almost every form of wickedness prohibited in the decalogue. 44 But you are putting temperance in the place of the gospel.” I do not think so. The gospel is 44 the power of God unto salvation to every man that believeth.” The total abstinence pledge and principle will do a certain work, and no more. If a drunkard adopts it, he cannot be drunk¬ ard. If your boy never uses intoxicating liquor, he cannot be intemperate. Begging your pardon, he may be a thief, a INFIDELITY AND TOTAL ABSTINENCE. 325 liar, a Sabbath-breaker ; he may be the boldest, brazen-faced blasphemer that ever lived, but he cannot be a drunkard. There is no virtue in the total abstinence pledge or principle, to make an intemperate man anything else but a sober man ; it will do that. You say the grace of God alone will effect it. Here is an infidel, and there is no virtue in total absti¬ nence to make him a Christian; but I would rather have a sober infidel than a drunken professor of religion, because I love the church better than temperance associations, and I believe these associations promote the very highest interests of the church. Suppose I go into the ditch and bring out a drunkard. I strip him of the grave-clothes of inebriation, I lead him along and whisper encouraging words in his ear, bringing him as near as I can to the very threshold of your church. Have n’t I done a good work by mere human agency, as far as it goes ? Would n’t you rather have him there sober than drunk? Drunkenness is a physical evil, and it may be removed by human agency. The man’s sin may not be removed, but he can no longer be a drunkard. Suppose you have a friend on a death-bed (I now speak to professing Christians), in a raging fever. He bites his lips, clenches his fist, and mutters unintelligible jargon. You know it is the grace of God only that can renew him in the spirit of his mind. Bring in your minister, let him point to the sacrifice once made for sin. The man knows nothing about it; he is mad; he does not know the wife that bends tearfully over him. What will you do? You send for the physician; by cool appliances he reduces the fever, and by mere human agency brings the patient to a sane state of mind. Now whisper in his ear: “Faithful is the saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” He hears, he understands, light dawns upon 326 HUMAN AGENCY. his mind, and you may be the instrument of his salvation, when without that agency you could not. Reading my Bible, T have come to the conclusion that, when human agency can do no more, then God does the rest. At the tomb of Lazarus, Christ said: “ Take away the stone.” He might have removed it, but he saw fit to use human instrumentality. They rolled away the stone, but they could do no more; they stood by while Jesus spoke; incipient putrefaction quivered and trembled into life, and Lazarus came forth. It was the power of God that raised the dead, but human agency removed the stone. And I believe the total abstinence enterprise has been instrumental in removing many a rock from the door of the dark tomb where the drunkard has lain, and the corpse of a drunkard has been seen in God's house a living man, — yes, a Christian man,— not saved by temperance, but brought under the influ¬ ence of those instrumentalities by which he has heard and believed, by the agency we advocate as a lawful remedy for the evil of drunkenness. I can ask God, therefore, to sanctif}’ the enterprise to a higher end than merely lifting a man from the ditch. I thank God that some who were in the ditch have been redeemed. People talk sometimes of “temperance and religion.” I know no such distinction in my own case; my temperance is a part of my religion. I cannot be a Christian and a mode¬ rate drinker, any more than I can be a thief and a Christian. I am not judging you. Don’t understand me as saying that a man cannot be a Christian unless he is a teetotaler. I am only judging myself, and with my view of the horrible evil of drunkenness, with my view of the way in which I came to it, with my view of the influence every man exerts, with my view of the drinking customs of society, if I countenance those customs, I am violating my allegiance to heaven. We WORKING TOGETHER FOR GOOD. 327 are not presuming to put temperance in the place of the gospel, but we believe that temperance associations spring from the gospel, like every other benevolent enterprise. Some have said that this tends to infidelity. I defy you to bring me one man who was ever made an infidel by becoming a teetotaler. He may have been an infidel before he signed the pledge. You say we must not receive such a one. Now, though I am what is called an orthodox Congre- gationalist, shall I ask a man, “Do you belong to my church?” before I will put shoulder to shoulder with him to Help a man out of the ditch? No, we will work together to do good, if we are as wide asunder as the poles in politics and in religious opinions. We have no right to push men off the platform because they do not believe as we believe. I tell you one tiling: if all professing Christians and ministers of the gospel had taken the position they ought to have taken upon the temperance question, I believe there would be fewer infidels among the teetotalers. I know some of our reformed drunkards have said hard tilings, but remember who they were. The iron entered into their souls; they were miserable, poor, wretched, debased, and degraded. Some kind friend whispered words of hope in their ears; they wiped the dull film from their eyes and saw there was hope, and then they were brought into the house of God. I am not making a supposition only, but detailing facts which have more than once occurred. The man knows he is better than he was; better to himself, to his family, and to society. He sits in God’s house for the first time for years, he is affected by the singing and by the devotional exercises, and then the minister denounces as fanatical and unscriptural the move¬ ment that has brought him from the ditch. What is his opinion of that religion and that preaching? “ Here I was,” he says, “in misery and wretchedness, a cursing and bias- 328 INCONSISTENT WORKERS. pheming wretch; I want to be better ; I go to the house of God, where I have not been since I was a child, and I hear the minister say it is all infidelity, anti-Bible, anti-Christian, it is putting temperance in the place of religion, and he denounces the movement that has benefited me.” I feel as if there was fault on both sides. Let us throw back, however, the cause of infidelity where it belongs. What if temperance advocates have said hard things? will you at¬ tack the Christian religion because of its professors? I read in a Carlisle paper that the Rev. Mr. So-and-so, after divine service, went to a public house and became so intoxicated that the hostler wished to drive him home; but he refused, and started full speed by himself. He was afterward found in the road, dead, with his face horribly bruised and mutilated. Will you say, “Is that the religion you boast of?” No, the fault of a minister of the gospel no more mars the glorious structure of Christianity than the fall of a workman from the scaffolding will mar the beauty of the building. Do not, then, denounce the movement for the faults of its advocates. I believe the indifference to religion among many abstainers is engendered and supported by the inconsistencies of profess¬ ing Christians more than by all the teetotalism that ever has been promulgated. A young man once came to me and said, “ Mr. Gough, Mr. Mason came to see me, to talk about reli¬ gion, and what do you suppose I told him? I said, 4 Do you own the American Hotel ? ’ 4 Yes, I do.’ 4 Now,’ said I, 4 Mr. Mason, there’s drunkenness in that hotel from Saturday night till Sunday morning, drinking and gambling and scenes that are enough to make a man shudder. Now you give up your hotel, and then come and talk to me about religion, and I will hear you.’ ” Now that was perfectly natural. Riding from Edinburgh to Dunfermline in company with a Frenchman, — not a religious man, nor a total abstainer,— MUCH RELIGION, BUT LITTLE CHRISTIANITY. 329 I heard him conversing with a city missionary. He was evi¬ dently a sceptic. In the course of the conversation the city missionary said, “ You must acknowledge that Scotland is a religious country.” “Yes, sair,” said the Frenchman, “I sup¬ pose you will call Scotland very releegious; I find, sair, zat zere is a great deal of releegion, but very leetle Christianity. I will explain what I mean. You have in Scotland society WHAT FOR DO HE SAY ZAT OF MY COUNTRY ? ” for good tings, Sabbat- school, ragged-school; very good. You have society for observance of ze Lord’s day, to make ze people keep ze Sunday. Now, sair, I went to a meeting of ze society for ze better obsairv- ance of ze Sabbat, and a big, large gentleman zere make one grand speech. 4 Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘look at France [zat is my country] ; France is accursed of God, He has trodden her in ze wine-press of his fury for years because she has trodden under foot ze Sabbat day.’ What for do he say zat of my country? I know very well zat ze people of Paris seek 330 “ONE BIG, GREAT HYPOCRITE.” zere amusement on Sunday at Versailles, in ze teatre, in ze ball-room, in ze cafe chantant, ze Bois de Boulogne, and in all kinds of amusement zey seek zere recreation on Sunday. Now, sair, I agree zat, but wliat business have zat man to say God lias cursed France because ze people go for amusement on ze Sabbat day, when zat very man keeps twelve men in his distillery to work all day Sunday? You may call zat man, sair, very releegious, but I call him one big, great hypocrite. To go into ze fields is to go for pleasure, to hear ze birds sing is one delight, but to take ze beautiful grain God has given us, and to kill it, and out of ze rottenness of ze putrefaction of ze death obtain an agency zat does no good, but burns up men’s bodies and sends zere souls to hell, according to his own releegion, is not zat worse zan pleasure on Sunday, eh ? I drinks my wine, but wiskey, ah, wiskey is ze most abomi¬ nation ting zat ever was made. Oh, zat man is very bad hypocrite.” A minister of the gospel, in England, once said to me, “Mr. Gough, I think this is an unscriptural movement of yours.” “Why so, sir?” “Because I do not find any direct command in the Bible to form associations for the promotion of any particular virtue — and temperance is a virtue — or the suppression of any particular vice.” “Well, sir,” I said, “Did you not address a meeting that was called by the Early- closing Association ? ” “Yes.” “And did you not advocate the forming of such associations on moral grounds?” “Yes.” “ Then, according to your doctrine, you advocated an unscrip¬ tural measure. If you take that ground against the temper¬ ance enterprise, you must take it against ragged-schools and apprentices’ libraries, and it would sweep away nine tenths of the benevolent enterprises that are now the glory of Great Britain.” Dr. Candlish says it is a species of infidelity creeping into the church that demands a “thus saith the THE GREAT STUMBLING-BLOCK. 331 Lord ” before a man will go out of the way to help a brother. The Rev. W. Reid said, “If by lifting a straw I injure my brother, I am as much bound to desist as if I read in the decalogue, 1 Thou shalt not lift a straw.’ ” While our principle as a direct agency accomplishes just this one thing, and no other, as an indirect agency for good we hold it has claims on the sympathy and co-operation of all Christian men, and of all Christian ministers. The gospel is “ The power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth.” How shall the } 7 believe unless they hear ? What is the great hindrance to their hearing ? Ask your city missionaries, ask the ministers of the gospel, inquire of all who are seeking to save men, “ What is the great hindrance to men’s hearing the gospel?” The reply will be, “Drunk¬ enness keeps more men from hearing the gospel than any other one agency.” Now, if my principle is a lawful princi¬ ple (and the time has gone by for us to defend the principle of total abstinence as lawful), and by it I can remove the hindrance to men’s hearing the gospel, then I demand the sympathy of those who love the gospel. It has done that, and it will do it. I could give you fact after fact, case after case. I often hear the excuse for drinking, “ I cannot do without it; it is necessary for me as a medicine.” Now, with all due respect to the physician, I believe that taking alcohol as a medicine is, as a general thing, what we call — and it is very emphatic — “ bosh.” A clergyman of the Church of England told me that his wife would not become a teetotaler because she wanted her glass of ale at lunch and her glass of ale at dinner, and would have it. It seemed to be one of those cases where an excuse is needed. The physician said she might take it. She brought her little boy on a visit to London. On looking out of the window one day, he saw a woman come 332 SAVED BY HER BOY. out of a public-house and fall down, and he said, “ O mamma dear, look there ! What’s that ? ” “ It is a woman fallen down, darling.” “ What’s the matter with her, mamma ? ” “ She has been drinking too much beer, darling.” “ Is that what you drink, mamma?” “Yes, darling; but you know I take it as a medicine.” The child said no more. When they went home, some days passed before anything occurred. One bright day he came bounding into the room where his mamma sat at lunch with her glass of ale, and said, “ I feel so well, mamma, to-day. Are you well ? ” “ Yes, my dear.” “Are you perfectly well, mamma?” “Yes, dear, I am perfectly well.” “ Then what do you take medicine for, mamma?” She could not answer. Then the little fellow put his hands into the pockets of his knickerbockers, and said, “ If you won’t take any more beer, mamma, I will give you all my pocket-money till I am a man.” “ That was irre¬ sistible,” said the clergyman, “and now my wife is an ab¬ stainer, and never touches wine or beer, under any circum¬ stances, nor does she need it.” But it costs something to give it up. We want women to do something to help us. We want help, rather than patronage. I care but little for the patting on the back, and encouraging with a few commonplace words, and then being let alone. I remember once, in Boston, seeing a man with a horse and cart. The horse had a heavy load, and was going up a hill, and could not get along. The driver was very kind, and said, “Get up!” But the horse did not get up. There was a dude standing close by, who looked as if he had just come out of a bandbox. Said he: “ My man, you don’t understand a horse. You don’t manage right. You will never get that load up the hill in that way. That horse has got ‘set.’ Now you take hold of the horse and do just as I tell .you. Don't stand just before him, stand back a little. POWER OF THE WILL. 333 Take hold of the horse’s head. Stand back now. Don’t stand right in front. Now stand sideways. Oh dear, you will never get your horse up the hill in that way; ” and so he went on. A negro, standing on the other side of the road, came across, and, putting his shoulder to the wheel, said, “Now, boss, give dat horse a little cut,” and up the hill they went. Which was the better man, the dandy or the negro ? THE NEGRO AND THE DUDE. Give me the man who will help ; who will say, 44 1 will help you: do your part, and I will do mine.” A man can do what he will. That is doubtful only in cases where the will is weakened by constant indulgence. We ap¬ peal to you, then, to exercise your will in giving up that which is to you but a gratification, for the sake of those who cannot use it, taste it, or smell it, without longing for it with all the power a man has, and this is not their fault. I know a great many people say you are coddling the drunkard by that sort of language, and you are endeavoring to excuse drunkenness. No, I do not. Drunkenness is a sin ; but it is 21 334 MY HORRIBLE DREAMS. a sin that in this life brings a penalty with it, while there are some sins that do not. I do not mean to say that getting drunk is the worst sin in the world, yet I have such a horror of drunkenness that the worst dreams I have are when I dream I am drinking. I get up sometimes and say, “O Mary, I have had such a horrible dream.” 44 What was it ? ” 44 1 dreamed I was chewing tobacco and drinking rum, and ugh! it tasted good.” Oh, how I hate it, and, with all the power of prayer I have, I pray God to keep me from it. I am not one of those who believe in great sins and little sins. I believe my soul is bound to God by the chain of his moral law, and if one link of that chain is broken, my soul is as essentially severed from God as if every link were shat¬ tered, and must remain so till I am reconciled to Him whose law I have broken. That is my idea of sin. A sin is a sin, but this sin of drunkenness seems to embrace all others. It seems in itself to involve the wholesale violation of the deca¬ logue : for men do have other gods beside Him; men do take the name of the Lord their God in vain; men do dis¬ honor their fathers and their mothers; men do break the seventh commandment; men do disobey his command with regard to the Sabbath; men do steal; men do kill; men do bear false witness every day; men do covet; all through the influence of drink, — either directly or indirectly. I wish we could have meetings of moderate drinkers, and that some of the most prominent of them would reveal to us all the benefits they derive from it, and all the beauties of the system. Why should we have it all our own way? Why should teetotalers hold meetings, and not liquor-sellers, drunkards, and moderate drinkers? We have it alhour own way because there can be no reproach brought against the principle of total abstinence—pure and simple total absti¬ nence — from its bitterest opponents. Mark me, I am not MORE SYMPATHY AND LESS FORMALITY NEEDED. 335 anatomizing the characters and reputations of all total ab¬ stainers. By no means. I am speaking of the total absti¬ nence principle. What harm has it ever wrought in the community, directly or indirectly ? One word here in reference to the lack of sympathy witli humanity in some of our churches. What we need in our religious meetings is more cordiality, more recognition of the claims of humanity. I have been into a church, a stranger, and have accepted the general invitation to partake of the communion. As a participant in that service, I am a recog¬ nized member of the church. I have partaken of the ele¬ ments, or the element rather—for I never touch intoxicating wine, even at the communion, and I believe I am right — I have partaken of the element, and felt I was in this way fulfilling the law of Christ, and showing forth the Lord’s death until he should come, and it would have been most gratifying to me if a Christian hand had grasped mine as a brother’s, or if a voice had said to me, “ Good day, sir; glad to see you here.” But no ; every one walked out coldly and cheerlessly, and I have turned my back on them, going forth alone, and have gone away sad. Now, if it had been in an Odd Fellows’ lodge, or a Free¬ masons’ lodge, or a Good Templars’ room, as soon as I was identified with the movement, as I was by that communion identified with the church, there would not have been a man in the lodge who would not have said, U I am glad to see you.” Why should we not have that cordiality in the church ? I once heard a man say at a meeting: “We started a Young Men’s Christian Association, and we succeeded very poorty in reaching young men. We spent a great deal of money. We had our reading-room,—a place where young men might read the daily and the illustrated newspapers. —* 336 WHY HE KEPT HIS HAT ON. and a library, with a warm room where they might sit and talk if they wished. We provided them with chess, checkers, and occasionally a little music; but we did not seem to get on. One evening I saw a young man walking about the room with his hat on. I thought this was an evidence of contempt for us. I stepped up to him and said, ‘ Do you see that notice ; “ Gentlemen are requested to remove their hats ” ?’ ‘Yes, I see it.’ ‘Well, why do you not take your hat off?’ He replied, ‘I have been here every night for some three? or four weeks, off and on, and no one has spoken a word to me; r// y/ so I thought, if I kept my hat on, perhaps some one would ask me to take it off, and I should get ac¬ quainted.’ From that moment we saw what our work was, and we soon began to lay our hands on the young men, and now we have a men’s Bible-class numbering some HATS OFF hundreds, and many have been converted. That one inch dent opened our eyes.” Why should the Church of Christ be shut to any individual who comes to the door. Oh I thank Him that He is to be our Judge, knowing all the circumstances of each case. Many a poor creature comes to the door of the church and is repelled. I say to re¬ formed drunkards, Do not be discouraged. The church is opening her doors on all sides for you. If she shuts her doors against you the Lord Jesus is ready to take you. His arms are wide open, and he will help you EMINENT FELLOW-WORKERS. 337 through all your difficulties and give you the victory over your foes. I plead on behalf of this movement, entreating you to give it—if not your whole influence—your best thoughts. We rejoice to-day that there is such a coming towards us on the part of those who have hitherto held aloof. When I was in England some thirty years ago, if we had engaged the vicar of a parish to preside at a meeting, we were wonderfully set up, whispering all round, “ The vicar is to preside.” Now we have four or five teetotal bishops; two of them have presided at my meetings,—the Bishop of Exeter and the Bishop of Rochester,—and I never heard stronger teetotal speeches from mortal man than from these men. Now such men are working with us. I am told that six or seven of the Queen’s chaplains are teetotalers. The Church of England Temperance Society is embracing a large number of men and women. This society reminds me of a man who said, “ I am wearing this hat out by degrees, for the rim is gone and there is a hole in the crown,” — and the leaders of the Church of England Temperance Society are taking men in by degrees. They are willing to take them on the moderate ground, and they will take them on the ground of drinking at the social circle only, and they will take them as personal abstainers. I do not condemn them at all. I am glad of anything that tends to the great end of abolishing the drinking cus¬ toms, and I believe that the total abstinence movement to¬ day is advocated by such men and supported by such agencies and influences that no Christian man can engage in it, even in the very outskirts, without being drawn into the centre by the power of the attraction of the love of souls. There¬ fore I rejoice fully in this Church of England Temperance Society. And I find that everywhere men are willing to 838 BETTY’S FIGHT WITH A BEAR. give us their countenance. You know I care but little for what is called patronage; in fact, I do not like it. I care but little for those who are merely lookers-on. “ You do the work, it is a good cause, but I am not identified with you.” You know it is a good cause. These non-committal people remind me of a story I have often told. It is an old story, but you can scarcely get a new one unless you make it; and often when you have in¬ vented the story and used it, some other speaker will appro¬ priate it and say you stole it from him; so it is as well to use the old story if it illustrates the point. There was a man who was something of a coward. He was in his house one day, with his wife, when a bear walked in. He was awfully afraid of bears. When this bear came in, the man looked round, not for a weapon of defence, but for a way of escape; and, seeing a ladder leading to the rafters, he climbed the ladder and drew it up after him. His wife was a courageous woman. She seized a shovel. Putting her two children behind her, she faced the bear in their defence. As the animal approached, the shovel was raised, and the woman hit the bear a terrible crack, bringing his head between his legs. And there on the rafter sat her husband. Now that man’s sympathies were all in the right direction. He had no sympathy with the bear and he really hoped that Betty would be very successful in her glorious enterprise. As the fight went on, he became excited. By and by he began to encourage her, and shouted, “ Well done, Betty! That was a good knock. Now take him on the other side,” and so on till Betty hit the final blow and the bear gave a final kick. And then the husband came down from his safe retreat. “ Well, that’s a bigger bear than I thought it was, Betty, and I consider we have done gloriously.” When the work is done, “we,” and when the work is to be done, “yow.” § © O «> ® ^ "-P i> p © EL—. 3 i £f f? p- 2 . “ © d J P» iggn a> 3 <><% 53 <[5 00 5-' P- ?T c-t- 2 tr* ® p ® 51 S ct £ a ' °®o[S 0'p'*-;S5 © - B &Z.S 1 1b*b S ft m fi - i o 2. 'O' O (0 ^ J C JL O • « sr. g «•<) © © — P't? O ©•! c c+v. °S-^> £©-; O a) V! tt> jo c * £3 3 § ^ o » a SScj 2 fB £ <5 m P £ 3 3 § go B^p &°~ 3 s« W O O H CO o c 05 rn rr+ O *-* 00 £ > 3 &■ 05 o o 3 •-« o B ’ O * o *?: o> L S.3 oq 2. «*B CTD- o ^5*33 CD v. A NEW WAY TO PLANT PUMPKIN SEEDS. 865 kind. Seed will germinate. A farmer set two boys plant¬ ing pumpkin seeds. “Now, boys, put all these seeds in the ground between the rows of corn, and then you may go fishing.” At it they went. But it was slow work, and the seeds were many. Three o’clock came, and almost four, and there were lots of seeds yet to plant. The youngest said: “ If we stop to plant all these seeds, we shall have no fishing. Let’s put ’em under this rock.” “Agreed.” So, raising the heavy stone, they de¬ posited the seeds, and went fishing. A NAUGHTY PAIR. At night, the farmer said, “Boys, did you put all them pumpkin seeds in the ground?” “ Oh, yes.” Time went on, and the farmer discovered that on a certain part of the ground the pumpkins did not grow. They were coming up all right between the rows of corn up to this point but no further. “ Boj^s, are you sure you put all them pumpkin seeds in the ground?” “Yes.” Time still went on. No pumpkins on a part of the field! At last the farmer discovered a large cluster of vines climbing and stretching in luxuriance over a A DISCOVERY. 366 A MOTHER OF CRIMINALS. large rock, and, on lifting it up, the truth stood revealed that the seed had been hidden under the rock. Let me give you one fact. Mr. Dugdale, of the New York Prison Association has investigated the whole matter. Over a hundred years ago, a little neglected waif and her three sisters were floating about the villages and towns on the Hudson River. For a few dollars they might have been provided with some instruction, and have been placed in a respectable farmer’s family, and have grown up — as many similarly cared for have done — and been mothers of honest men and virtuous women. But Margaret was left to grow up in the lanes and roads, sometimes fed, sometimes hungry; in the winter in the poor-house, in the summer a tramp, sleeping in the fields. Fifty dollars would have saved that girl. But she fell naturally into vicious courses. What do you expect of children thus brought up? Do you expect these girls to become as pure and sweet and lovely as your children who go to school every day and to Sunday-school every week ? That girl fell into bad habits, and her son became the progenitor of a distinctive criminal line. As the children of Margaret and her sisters grew up, they shifted to the poor- house, to vagrancy, and to crime. Some were petty thieves; others were bolder criminals; some were tramps; and others were even worse. Again the line extended, and the criminal qualities became intensified. Many became drunkards, lunatics, or idiots. And now the descendants number over 1,000, of whom 140 were convicted criminals, and have spent in the aggregate over 140 years in prison. Margaret’s descendants alone spent over seventy-five years in prison, averaging over one year each. Now reckon the crop if you can. Count the cost, to the country, of this pauperism and crime; the loss of property, the prison ex¬ penses, the moral taint reaching far beyond the control of A REMARKABLE STORY OF CRIME. 367 society; and, tell me, Is not society responsible in a great degree for the crime, degradation, and drunkenness, that curse the country? Oh, for some moral Hercules to strangle these serpents of vice that are enfolding and destroying so many all around us.* But to return for a moment or two to the children. Did you ever talk to them? “ Oh, yes! I have talked to them. They are very saucy.” How did you talk to them? You take a boy well dressed, with a little white collar on, and his hair nicely combed, giving evidence of a mother’s care ; by his side stands a ragged boy, toes out of his shoes, elbows out of his jacket, hair uncombed and sticking out of his cap; yet the latter is just as good-looking a boy as the other. Now, you talk to them! You do not talk to them in the same tone of voice. You will talk to the rough boy roughly, and to the smooth boy smoothly. You say to the nicely-dressed boy, “Well, my little man, I hope you like your school, and * In addition to the facts given above, Mr. Dugdale, in a little book entitled the “ Jukes,” gives some startling statistics and estimates in regard to the pos¬ terity of Margaret and her sister, which he calls by a fictitious name, the “ Jukes ” family. The Jukes grew so numerous and so depraved that the name of their family became a term of reproach. A few items in Mr. Dugdale’s estimates are here given of the cost of the Jukes family to the community at large. Number of pauperized adults.. 280 Number of arrests and trials.250 Number of criminals and offenders.140 Number of years depredations of 60 thieves, at 12 years each . . . 720 Number of lives sacrificed by murder.7 Cost of maintenance of paupers.$47,250 Cost of maintenance of prisoners . . . ... . .. . 28,000 Cost of depredation of thieves. 86,400 And so he goes on reckoning up the various items of expense from disease and pauperism and crime and waste of life and vice of various kinds, till he reaches a sum total and exclaims — “ Over a million and a quarter of dollars of loss in 75 years, caused by a single family 1,200 strong, without reckoning the cash paid for whiskey, or taking into account the entailment of pauperism and crime on the survivors in successive generations, and the incurable disease, idiocy, and insanity growing out of this debauchery, and reaching farther than we can calculate.” 368 TALKING TO A SUIT OF CLOTHES. learn your lessons, like a good little boy.” To the other you say, in a rough, sharp tone, “ Who do you belong to? What are you doing here? Eh!” Take these boys and change their appearance. Put the good clothes on this boy, and wash him and make him clean, and clothe the other in rags, and you speak to him as roughly as you did to the other. You do not talk to the boy, you talk to the clothes. You forget that under rags and dirt may beat a heart full of human sympathy and with a longing for human love. You forget what makes these boys what they are. On your way to the Sunday-school with your boy, as you pass the corner of the street, you may see boys collected, pitching coppers on Sunday morning, boys who will swear, lie, and steal; you are thankful your boy is not like these. What made him differ¬ ent from them? Nothing but his education and training. You may place the three-year-old boy of the best family in the land in the hands of some horrible hag, and let her train him, and he will swear, lie, thieve, and pitch coppers on Sunday, just the same as those of whom I have been speak¬ ing. Education and training make your boy what he is; education and training make these other boys what they are: but the difference in the education and training of your boy and those boys is as wide as the difference between heaven and hell. “Oh,” you say, “it is no use doing anything for them, they are such impudent children, they are such a rude set.” Ah, my friends, we know better. I have been more cheered by results of work among children than I have among adults, over and over again. I could give you fact after fact. Let me give you one. A poor little fellow was picked up in the street, with both thighs crushed by a dray, fie was carried to a hospital. By his side was tem¬ porarily placed, from the same slum, a little fellow who was very ill with the famine fever, a disease caused by hunger A STORY OF HOSPITAL LIFE. 369 and bad air. He lay side by side with this broken-legged little boy. Creeping up to him he said, “ Bobby, did you never hear of Jesus?” “No, I never ’eard o’ him.” “ Bobby, I went to the Mission School once, and they told me that Jesus would take you to heaven when you die, and you would n’t never be hungry no more, if you’d ax him.” “ Oh, I don’t know no sich great big gentleman as he is; and if I did, he would n’t speak to a poor boy like me.” “In the Mission School they told me he would. Don’t you want never to be hungry no more?” “ Oh, just don’t I ? ” “ Then you ax him.” “ How could I ax the gentleman if I don’t know where he lives? and if I did know, my leg is broke, and I could n’t go.” “Bobby, they told me in the Mission School that Jesus passes by, and we sunged about Jesus passing by, and teacher told us it means he comes round. How do you know he bean’t coming round this ’ere hospital to-night? And if he should, and you was watching for him, you could see him, and then you could ax him.” “ I could n’t watch for him, my legs ache so awful; and I could n’t keep my eyes open.” “ But I say, Bobby, you can hold your hand up, and if he / e should come round and see your hand up, he’d know you wos arter something.” He held his hand up, but it dropped. He held it up again, and it dropped. He held it up the third time, and as it dropped he burst out crying, and said, “ I ’ll give it up, I can’t hold my hand up no longer.” “ Bobby, I don’t want my pillow. You let me prop your elbow up with it.” 23 3T0 MAKING ALLOWANCES FOR CIRCUMSTANCES. And the child — whom, perhaps, you would sweep off your doorstep, or turn away from with disgust — took his own hos¬ pital pillow, and, placing it under the elbow of his sick com¬ panion, propped up his arm. In the morning the little fellow lay dead, with his hand held up for Jesus. You may search the world over, and you cannot find a grander illustration of faith, trust, and confidence than was manifested in that little fellow who had been in the Mission School but once. Now, then, in judging these little creatures, let us make allow¬ ances, and try to help them. What do we know of 3 circumstances when we k of intemperate people? How irritating they are ! They will drink! Mark, I am not palliating or excusing the sin of drunkenness. But I tell you we condemn drunken¬ ness among what we call the lower classes, and dare not say anything about the evil among the aristocracy. It is just as degrading for a nobleman to get drunk as it is for a costermonger. Still, what do we know of the circumstances of the case ? What do we know of the history of the man ? I was once walking in one of the parks of London, and inside the rails lay a girl asleep, perhaps drunk, I did not know which. She was ragged and slip-shod, resting her head on one hand, and the other lay listlessly by her side. I ADVERSITY. vj n ** OS -JO LIFE’S CONTRASTS. 373 looked at her, and thought what a contrast to that beautiful woman within a few feet of her, reclining in her carriage, with a footman to do her bidding, clothed in rich apparel, and faring sumptuously every day ! And yet, according to the Scripture, is not the Lord God the Maker of them both? Is not this girl’s hand as delicately formed and as curiously constructed as the hand ^ that lies on the velvet cush¬ ion, sparkling with gems? not life as great a mystery one as in the other? Is 1 immortality as great a boon ? We look with admiration on one, bow to her with re¬ spect ; we hold our garments as we come near the other, and thank God we are not like her. Do we know anything of the circumstances that may have brought that poor girl here ? I believe in humanity, and its claims upon us. We call men heroes who do great deeds; and they are heroes. We admire heroes. We glory in heroism. ' A large ship, carry¬ ing some four hundred sailors and soldiers, with their offi¬ cers, besides women and children, took fire in mid-ocean. When all hopes of saving the ship were given up, the boats were examined, to ascertain how many could be saved. Only one hundred and twenty men, with their quota of officers, besides women and children, could be taken in. Then they drew lots; and as each man drew the lot that doomed PKOSPEIUTY. 374 AN OCEAN HORROR. him to stay by the burning ship, with face a shade paler and lip quivering he took his stand amidships, till two hun¬ dred and eighty doomed men stood together. Then they placed the women and children in the boats, and the men were employed in passing provisions and water to their more fortunate comrades. One sailor, with tears in his eyes (and they were manly tears), leaning over the bulwarks, said, “ I say, shipmate, if you get ashore I wish that you would see that my wife gets my back pay. God bless her, she will need it badly; she and the little ones. Good-by.” Another said, “Do you think you can catch this ’ere, if I chuck it to you? It is the Bible my mother gave me when I left home. If you get ashore, tell her I have found out how a fellow feels when the angels rejoice because he has changed his tack. God bless her! ” When all but the officers had passed over the side, one young lieutenant, clasping his hands, dropped upon the deck, crying out, “ Oh, my wife and my children! ” A brother officer lifted him on his feet. “ My brother, we have fought together, messed together, camped together, prayed together; we love each other, you and I. You have a lovely wife and two sweet, children. I have seen them in your own happy home. I have none. I am a bachelor. I have neither father nor mother., brother, sister, wife, child, kith, nor kin. No heart would leap at my coming, and no eye be dim should I never return. I shall take your place on the deck, and put you in the boat.” “No! no! no! ” “Yes, my brother, yes; think of the children that will clamber on your knee: only tell them I did it.” “ No ! no ! oh, no ! ” “ It is but the chance of a lot, my brother; it might have been you, and it shall he me. You shall go into the boat.” He threw him in, — the last officer to leave the ship. “ It is all right. Cast off! ” There he stood, with folded arms, till the boats had rowed to a safe dis- TRUE HEROISM 375 tance, and then the oarsmen rested on their oars. Here stood the two hundred and eighty men, with the noble officer in their midst, waving adieus to those in the boats, until the fire DOOMED.—THE BURNING SHIP IN MID-OCEAN. reached the magazine, when, with a terrible explosion, they were blown into eternity. That is true heroism. And just in proportion as you stoop, — ah, yes, and you are digni- 376 SYMPATHY FOR THE UNFORTUNATE. fied when you do so stoop to the weakness of your fellow- creatures, for the purpose of helping them up, — just so near do you approach to heroism; doing or enduring for the sake of others. And I tell you that those men and women who, by the circumstances of their lives, and by the influences of society, are led into temptation, and through human weak¬ nesses are drawn into sin and suffering, demand your sympa¬ thy and your help, to lift them up. CHAPTER XVIII. HOW AND THEN; OR, PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE—PER¬ SONAL EXPERIENCES AND REMINISCENCES. Past, Present, and Future — What We Owe to the Past — Our First Century — One Hundred Years Ago — A Bundle of Stamps — Exciting Times — A Memorable Snow-ball Fight — Discovering Tea in Her Hus¬ band’s Shoes — “Disperse, Ye Rebels”—Determined Patriots — “Who Is That Person? ” — “Will He Fight? ” — Anthony Bums, the Fugitive Slave — How He Was Marched Through the Streets of Boston — Wonder¬ ful Progress— Fifty Years Ago — Grand Achievements — How We Printed When I Was a Boy — The Light of Other Days — Travelling in the Olden Time — Personal Experiences — Three Miles an Hour—“I Must Take a Pill” —My Ride on the First Railroad Built in America — The Electric Telegraph — Reminiscences of My Boyhood — The Tele¬ phone — The “ Fire Cart ” — An Old Couple’s Idea of Telegraphing — A Negro’s Description — The “ Puir Whales ” — Jonathan Hulls —“I’m the Nineteenth Century.” OW and then ” is a term often used to signify “ occasion¬ ally,” “once in awhile,” etc., but there are thoughts, per¬ haps, worthy of utterance, suggested by its higher and broader significance, as we stand in the “now” that is, and con¬ template the “ then ” that was, and look into the future that will be. So that I might announce, Thoughts on the Past, Present, and Future. To-day we reap the fruit of the workers of the past, and in the by-and-by another generation shall garner the harvest .sown by the workers of to-day. To-day we can reckon our gains from the past, and it is well to acknowledge the debt. 377 878 HOW THE KE VOLUTION WAS BEGUN. As a nation we have celebrated the events of one hundred years ago, and commemorated the birthday of our nation, — a prosperous republic, that has been solving the problem of government by the people for a century, — and now shall we not call up the past, the far-off “ then,” and refresh our minds by a brief review of the scenes fraught with such mighty re¬ sults to us to-day ? One hundred years ago the people of the good city of Boston were in great perplexity about a bundle of paper, — where to put it, what to do with it. They could not receive it, for that would be to admit the right of Great Britain to tax them. Then came burnings in effigy, processions, meet¬ ings, and preparations for a struggle, till the stamp act was repealed. But that stamped paper carried more value than all the notes of the banks. Then came more oppression, and the citizens pledged themselves not to import or use more British goods. Recre¬ ant merchants were watched, and British soldiers were sent into the streets to disperse assemblies of the people. One February day, in 1770, some boys were carrying about caricatures of merchants who had imported goods, when an informer destroyed the pictures, and was hooted by the boys. He seized a gun, and threatened them, to which they re¬ plied by snowballs. He fired, and killed a boy; the first per¬ son slain in the beginning of the Revolution. Men felt at the funeral of that boy that a great act in the world’s history had opened over his grave. Snowballs became significant. Eleven days after, occurred the first great riot, begun by snowballing a sentinel. The soldiers gathered, more snow¬ balls were thrown; they fired, and three persons were killed, and the Revolution was begun. Not all the cannon in the Franco-Prussian war sent balls weighted with such results to the world as those few snowballs flung in the streets of Boston one hundred years ago. THE BOSTON TEA PAKTY. 379 Soon came the affair of the tea, so well known to every American schoolboy. The destruction of that tea was the true declaration of war against Great Britain by her North American colonies. Fifty gentlemen put their necks in peril, and wives and children in fifty homes in Boston asked no questions that night as to where the head of the house had been. We are told that one wife, thinking her husband’s shoes might be damp, brought his slippers to him, took the shoes up to dry them, and found a quantity of tea inside. She concealed her consternation, and asked no questions till the King of England ceased to hold power in the Colonies. The tea destroyed in Boston was worth more to the world than all the spices of the East. It seems useless to tell over the old, well-known tale of hardship, patriotism, and heroic endurance, that characterized that great struggle ; but it is so full of beauty, wonder, pathos, tragedy, and sublimity that no history is, or should be, more attractive to Americans than this. How, when Gage de¬ termined to destroy the military stores at Concord, young men, on fleet horses, knocked at the house doors, rousing the TELL-TALE SHOES. 880 OLD-TIME PATRIOTISM. minute-men, while a mysterious light, streaming from the stee¬ ple of one of the Boston churches, proclaimed that peril was at hand; and how, after the reply by musket-shots to Pitcairn’s demand, “Disperse, ye rebels,” the British troops made their way back through Concord to Boston. Major Buttrick, leap¬ ing forward, cried out, “ Fire, fellow-soldiers, for God’s sake, fire ! ” At noon, that day, a splendid detachment of British soldiers marched gaily out of Boston, their band playing “Yankee Doodle,” their officers boasting that at the mere sight of the grenadiers’ caps the rebels would take to their heels; yet before the evening gun was fired, foot-sore and jaded, the British soldiers flocked back to their quarters, to find themselves prisoners in Boston. How the little band of patriots determined to gain possession of Bunker’s Hill, and, commanded by Colonel Pepperell, who declared, “ I am re¬ solved never to be taken alive,” threw up the entrenchments by night. When the sun rose, the redoubt was seen with astonishment by Gage that morning. How, under a scorch¬ ing sun, and a storm of shot and shell, from Copp’s Hill and the war-sloop “Lively,” the patriots bravely pursued their work where now a lofty column overlooks prosperous cities, the fair, peaceful landscape, and the calm water. Prescott, that day, in his calico frock, as serene as if on parade, issued his orders to the little band of resolute men. “ Who is that person ? ” said General Gage, as he stood on the opposite side of the Charles River. “ My brother-in-law, Colonel Pres¬ cott.” “ Will he fight ? ” “ Ay, to the last drop of his blood.” How Joseph Warren came, as a volunteer, inquiring where his musket would do the most service. “ Go to the redoubt; you will there be covered,” said Prescott. “ I came not to be covered,” said Warren. “Tell me where the fight will be the hottest.” As the two thousand men marched up to attack them, at Prescott’s order, “ Fire! ” the volley swept THE BATTLE OF BUXKER HILL. 381 their ranks; and, wavering and advancing in the teeth of that fearful discharge, the British carried the redoubt; but not till the grenadiers and light infantry had lost three fourths of their men, and the dead covered the ground; and only when resistance was fruitless did Prescott give the order to retire. The battle of Bunker Hill manifested significantly that the colonists could fight, and with a steadiness and cour¬ age that proved them capable of coping with the disciplined troops of the mother country. ANTHONY BURNS, THE FUGITIVE SLAVE. This is history. And I might tell of the struggle in the long years afterward, but I forbear. Shame on those who tell us we love our country too well. We are bound to cher¬ ish our free institutions, bought for us with so much sacrifice. All this was before the memory of this generation; but many of us can remember when troops paraded Boston streets. The court-house was guarded, pistol-shots were heard within the walls, the alarm-bell clanged in defence of law and order, when Anthony Burns, the fugitive slave, marched through the streets with an escort of dragoons, 382 AN AGE OF PROGRESS. marines, guards, and artillery, while all along the line was heard the hiss and execration, rising and redoubling from street to street. Ah, well, thank God, when Abraham Lin¬ coln set his name to that immortal document, the Emanci¬ pation Proclamation, slavery was doomed, and when Lee gave up his sword to Grant its doom was sealed. Much has been boastingly said about the wonderful pro¬ gress the world has made in the present century. But we who can look back fifty years realize the advance that has been made far more than the generation of to-day. It is a small affair to speak of, but the friction match is one of the most important inventions and contrivances for promoting the comfort of daily life. How many inventions contributing to our comfort we can record in the last half century ! —-indeed it is not too much to say that, for comfort, convenience, and personal advantage, more has been done, richer and more prolific discoveries have been made, grander achievements have been realized, in the past half-century of* our nation’s lifetime, than in all the previous lifetime of the race since states or nations such as history makes us acquainted with have had their being. In philosophy, poetry, sculpture, painting, and architecture we have made but little progress. We have not advanced on Homer’s poetry or Phidias’s sculpture. The palaces of the Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, and other ancient nations were probably as luxurious, but incomparably more gorgeous and enduring, than our own. But in how many significant par¬ ticulars the progress of the world has been concentrated into the last century! Printing was invented four centuries ago, and yet books printed fifty years after that time were as clear, perfect, and as beautiful specimens as many books of to-day. The sum total of improvement in printing is cheapness and rapidity of OLD-TIME PRINTING. 383 production. In the good old times a book was bequeathed as an invaluable legacy; if given to a religious house it was offered on the altar. When a prelate borrowed a Bible his cathedral gave a bond for its return. Libraries consisted of a few tracts, and books, chained or kept in chests. I remember the tedious process of printing in the office attached to the bindery where I learned my trade. The press¬ man would wet down the paper over-night; then in the morn¬ ing he would carefully place a sheet on the tympan, close the frisket over it, and shut them down upon the form of type; then, by a crank, he would run the table in under the platen, and pull the handle of the lever over by his full weight, bring¬ ing a powerful pressure on the tympan, producing upon the paper a facsimile of the type; as he released his hold, the balance- weight raised the platen, the tympan and the frisket were raised by the pressman, the fris¬ ket was thrown up to the catch, and the paper was then taken off the spurs of the points; and thus one side of a sheet was printed. Now, by improved presses and the wonderful art of stereotyping, one hundred thousand readers can be supplied with newspapers in four hours. But it is in means of light, locomotion, and communication that the progress in this generation contrasts with the aggre¬ gate of progress in all generations put together since the earliest days of authentic history. The lamps and torches which illuminated Belshazzar’s NOT A CIRCULATING LIBRARY. 384 MODERN LIGHT AND LOCOMOTION. feast were probably as brilliant, and perhaps formed of the same materials, as those which shone on th q fetes of Versailles when Marie Antoinette presided oyer them, or the Tuileries during the magnificence of the first Napoleon; or at the receptions of Washington in the Capitol of our country. Pine wood, oil, and perhaps wax, were the materials for light in the eighteenth century before Christ and in the eighteenth century after Christ. A hundred years ago we burned the same materials, and obtained about the same amount of light, as they did five thousand years ago. The streets of cities which from the days of Pharaoh till 1800 were dim and gloomy are now lit up with the brightness of moonlight. Many of us remember the oil lamps in our streets, making darkness visible. Now we use gas, of which each burner is equal to fifteen or twenty candles, and the electric light, still more brilliant, is introduced all over our country. We have the Bude light and the calcium light, with analogous inven¬ tions fifty-fold more brilliant. We remember the method of illumination as it was in the days of Solomon; we see it as Faraday and Drummond and Edison have made it. The same may be said of locomotion. Nimrod and Noah travelled in much the same way and at about the same rate of speed as our fathers, — yes, as some of us did when we were young. When Abraham wanted to send a message to Lot, he despatched a man on horseback, who might gallop twelve miles an hour; when our fathers would send a message to their nephews, they could do no better and go no quicker. When we travelled from Boston to New York, we did well to average eight miles an hour. I remember travelling, in 1829, from Albany to Utica in a canal-boat, and made three miles an hour; and in 1832 I travelled from Utica to Albany by stage, and made six miles an hour. At that time we de¬ pended on the speed and endurance of the horses. “How THE PASSENGER FOR FISHKILL. 385 far is it to Jefferson? ” asked a man of a negro. “ Well, sah, wid dat lioss it’s seventeen miles; wid a good boss it’s seven miles, but if you had Massa Sam’s hoss, you’m dar now.” Now we can leave Portland in the morning, breakfast in Boston, lunch in Springfield, dine in New York, sleep in Philadelphia, or go on and breakfast next morning in Rich¬ mond. I can leave New York in the morning and reach Buffalo in ample time to lecture the same evening. An old story will illus¬ trate the confidence in the prompt arrival of trains. On the Hudson River Railroad a man contin¬ ually inquired of the con- ductor whether the train had arrived at Fishkill. No, sir, you rest content, I will tell you when we get there.” At last Fish¬ kill was reached, and as the train started again the conductor came into the car. “ Conductor, is this Fishkill ? ” “ Dear me, yes, I forgot you.” He pulled the cord and stopped the train. “Now then, hurry up and get out, this is the place, and we are losing time.” “ Oh, I don’t want to get out, but my wife told me when I got to Fishkill, I must take a pill.” Everything that has been done in the line of fast travel since the world began has been done since we were boys. To be sure, greater speed has been and is constantly being attained by the improvement of roads. I remember the talk SEVENTEEN MILES “ WID DAT HOSS. 386 REMINISCENCES OF THE PAST. about coaches without horses, and when I was a boy I used to sing the following song: — “ Oil dear, oh dear, the truth I say, Something new starts every day; Steam for boiling, steam for baking, Steam for brewing and sausage-making, Steam to fire large balls and bullets, Steam to hatch out chickens and pullets, Oh dear, oh dear, the truth I say.” In 1831 I rode from Albany to Schenectady on the first railroad built in this country, when we travelled sixteen miles in an hour and twenty minutes, the cars being open, some¬ thing like the summer street-cars of the present day. The rails were flat, spiked on timbers, and the passengers were constantly in danger of “snake-heads.” Now in our luxurious palace-cars we travel from New York to Chicago, a thousand miles, in twenty-six hours. In 1829 I was sixty-three days in crossing the Atlantic, and a quick passage was thirty days; in 1879 I crossed in nine days; and now the voyage is often made in less than seven days. The progress in the means of communication is more re¬ markable than all. Washington was no better off in this respect than the consuls of ancient Rome, or the Pitt minis¬ try of England than Julius Caesar when he landed on the shores of Great Britain eighteen hundred years before. I remember the clumsy method of telegraphing on the martello towers and stone round-houses, on eminences along the coast, by horizontal arms worked on an upright timber, operated by pulleys; signs were made from hill-top to hill-top, conveying information slowly and tediously from point to point. Now the clocks in all Great Britain can be regulated by Greenwich time through electricity, and Washington can communicate with St. Stephen’s as fast as the words can be written. If David wished to send a word of love to Jonathan, a hundred A QUEER IDEA OF TELEGRAPHING. 387 miles away, he could not have done it in less than ten hours, Nor could we have sent word faster fifty years ago. Now we send a message a thousand miles in ten seconds. At our breakfast tables we read in our morning papers all that oc¬ curred of importance the day before, and what the state of the weather was the world over. I well remember being in Baltimore on the day when the first message was sent from Washington, and how great the excitement was in the streets. Men readily paid one dollar to send a short message to Washington for the purpose of obtaining the slip of paper marked, at that time, with dots conveying the intelligence that the message had been received. Time and space would fail me to speak of the new and wonderful invention of the telephone, by which articulate sounds can be conveyed from Chicago to New York, one thousand miles, and the voice of the speaker be distinctly recognized. This generation can hardly conceive the astonishment once expressed at what are to them common things. Men travelled miles to see the “ fire-cart.” A steamboat was described as having a saw-mill on one side and a grist-mill on the other, a blacksmith’s shop in the middle, and a great pot a-boiling all the time in the cellar. During the Mexican war, in a thunderstorm, the lightning ran along the wires; a man cried out, “ There goes the news from the seat of war.” A man said to his wife: “Well, I don’t see for my part how they send letters on them ’ere wires without tearing ’em all to bits.” “ Laws me! ” his wife said, “ they don’t send the paper, only just the writin’.” I must confess that the magnetic telegraph is to me a puzzle. Operators have often endeavored to explain it to me, but I may be so dull of apprehension that I cannot comprehend it. The very best description of it I ever heard was from a negro, who said to his companion: — “ Sam, do you know what de ’lectric telegraph is?” “No, 24 388 AN ORIGINAL EXPLANATION. I don’t know wliat it am.” “But I can ’splain one to you.” “Well, ’splain away, den.” “S’pose dere was a dog with his head in New York and his tail in Pennsylvania.” “But dere nebber was sich a dog as clat.” “I said, s’pose dere was sich a dog.” “Werry well, s’pose away den.” “S’pose dere was a dog with his head in New York and his tail in Pennsylvania. Well, when I tread on dat dog’s tail in Pennsylvania, he would bark in New York, would n’t he? Dat’s de ’lectric telegraph.” When gas was first introduced, an old lady in E dinburgh threw up her hands, exclaim¬ ing, “ Ah, me, what is to be¬ come of the puir whales ? ” Scarcely any EXPLAINING U DE ’LECTRIC TELEGRAPH.” important invention has started at once into being, and it is curious to trace their progress from the inception to the final grand practical result. Dr. Johnson saw a lamplighter in Bolt Court, trying unsuccessfully to light a lamp, until there was a black vapor on the wick. “Ah,” said the Doctor, “ one of these days we shall see London lighted by smoke.” A hundred and fifty years before gas was used, Dr. Clayton distilled coal in a retort, but could not condense the gas thus obtained. He amused his friends by burning gas, as it is¬ sued through holes pricked with a pin in a bladder in which PUFFED UP WITH PEIDE. 389 he had. confined it. The history of steam invention is famil¬ iar to all. Jonathan Hulls did actually make a model of a steamboat in 1736; it failed, and the boys sung this doggerel in the streets where he lived: — Jonathan Hulls, With liis paper sculls, Invented a machine To go against stream, But he, being an ass, Could not bring it to pass, And so was ashamed to be seen.” Yes, there is much to excite our wonder in the giant strides of progress in the last fifty years, and there is a clear call to a real festival of hope, gladness, and rejoicing in the present light. But what should be our attitude in this steadily growing radiance? If we stand now in the flush and gold and hope of the morning, instead of the shifting light and shadow of the night, is it not the wisest course to take frequent observations, look close to our reckonings, while we are going so fast, and see just where we are? It requires more thought and watchfulness to cross the path of the lightning express than it does to cross that of a donkey- cart in a country lane; and as all progress is a learning, is not the safe attitude of a learner to be modest, reverent, self- restrained, and observant? Will noise and boastfulness ap¬ prehend the glory of the growing day ? Do we not see men on every side making boastful con¬ gratulations that we are not as our grandsires were ? Is it not a common occurrence for newspaper articles on the times to begin with, “In these days of refinement,” “In this era of enlightenment and civilization,” “In this age of progress,” etc.? while the nineteenth century runs up and down in the land, decked in its phylacteries, or, like a hen that has laid its virgin egg, struts about cackling, “Look at me; admire me, I’m the nineteenth century.” CHAPTER XIX. DANGER SIGNALS — NOTES OF WARNING FROM EARLIER DAYS AND SCENES — RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PAST. Lamentable Ignorance — Tliin-skinned People —How Some of Them Show Their Indignation — Proving a Man a Liar — Gentility is Not Always Respectability — Clothes Do Not Always Proclaim the Man — “A Man's a Man for a’ That ” — The Curtain Lifted — A Peep Behind the Scenes — Personal Recollections — My First Address in Boston — Recalling My Theatrical Days — Companions of My Youth — Tragic Deaths — Fate of Some of My Comrades — An Incident in Glasgow — A Dastardly Act — Terrible Consequences That Followed — Found Dead Among the Rushes— My Visit to the Indianapolis Lunatic Asylum— Raving of Devils. Snakes, and Creeping Things — “Oh! How They Glare at Me!” — “They Creep! They Crawl!”—Awful Scenes — Graphic Pen Picture of a Toper — The Devil’s Workshop — Satan’s Abode—Calling His Satellites Around Him —Alcohol, the Right Hand of the Devil — An Uncom- . promising Fight. HAVE been surprised at the lamentable ignorance which exists with regard to the tem¬ perance enterprise among a class by no means ill-informed, men who, perhaps, on otliei subjects, have forgotten more than I ever knew or ever shall know. A friend told me he was asked by a gentleman if he ever drank coffee. 44 What do you mean ? ” 44 Do you ever drink coffee ? ” 44 What do you mean ? ” 44 Why, you are a teetotaler, and I suppose you drink only tea.” That was his idea of teetotalism. Other manifestations of a want of knowledge regarding the subject are the spiteful sneers at our principles, and the contempt which some men cast upon our 390 “I DESPISE EVERYBODY.” 391 movement. I have often been astonished to find gentlemen speaking so slightingly and acting so unwisely in this matter. When I hear any man speak contemptuously of this movement, I know at once that he is ignorant concerning it. I defy any man of common sense to despise it after he is acquainted with the history of the reform from the time when a feeble barrier was first raised against the tide of death; I defy him to despise it after he has made himself ac¬ quainted with an instrumentality feeble in itself, but made mighty by God’s power to pulling down the strongholds of intemperance; I defy him to witness the revo¬ lution now going on in society, and despise the means by which that revolution is produced. The temperance enterprise rises before him in its glory, grandeur, and beauty, claiming and receiving, in proportion to his knowledge, in¬ voluntary respect, however much he may be led to oppose it. When we speak of effects, no¬ body gets angry; but when we speak of the causes, we touch indi¬ viduals, for these causes cannot exist without human agency. I have seen some persons manifest decided wrath when they did not approve of some sentiment uttered at a meeting. I have seen a thin-skinned man button up his coat — the more buttons the better — and look very fiercely around him as if he longed to try his powers on somebody, take up his hat, and smash it down over his eyes till he looked like a certain mem¬ ber of Parliament when he said, “I despise everybody.” I A THIN-SKINNED MAN. 892 PROVING A MAN A LIxYR. have seen persons walk out of the hall and bang the door after them because something that was said offended them. Now that is the smallest, most cowardly method of showing resent¬ ment, that I know of. I saw a man once go out of a place of worship because the minister said something he did not ap¬ prove, just as if a minister was placed in the sacred desk to consult the tastes and opinions of his people, and ask how much, or how little, of the gospel he should preach. A man, if he has God’s spirit in his heart and God’s message in his hand, can command the respect of his people by the rules laid down in the gospel; and if preaching the gospel drives men out of the church, let them go, for the church is better off without them. The strength of the church of Christ, I believe, con¬ sists not so much in its numbers, its wealth, or its popularity, as in its purity. I do not say that respectable moderate drinkers perpetuate the evil of drunkenness intentionally, but I say that they do it; and if I should prove it, I have no doubt that some one would be very angry. The assertion itself will not make people angry ; they will say, “ O, that is a man’s opinion and nothing more; ” but if the man proves his opinions to be cor¬ rect, then is the time when offence is given. A man went to his neighbor and said: — “ So-and-so called me a liar.” “ Oh, never mind that.” “ But I do mind it; it pains me, it hurts my feelings when a man calls me a liar.” “ Oh, never mind, I should not mind it.” “ I say you would mind it as much as I do.” “ Oh no, think nothing of it; you know he can’t prove it.” “ Why, confound the fellow, he has proved it, and that’s what makes me so mad.” Now, I do not condemn the respectable moderate drinker THE SOT’S INVITATION. 393 as purposely perpetuating drunkenness, but lie does it. And when I say the respectable moderate drinker, it must be under¬ stood that I do not judge of a man’s respectability by the qual¬ ity of his coat or the amount of his bank stock. I do not think a man who is what we call genteel is necessarily respectable. Gentility is not always respectability. A man may have a hand as hard as horn; he may wear a fustian jacket, moleskin trousers, and hob-nailed shoes; if he is only right in his head and heart he is a gentleman. I do not care whether he digs coal in the deepest mine in the land or pleads in the highest court. “A man’s a man for a’ that.” It is the respectability of a man, morally considered, that I speak of when I use the term “respectable moderate drinker.” Now let me prove my point. Suppose some respectable young man, — your son, for instance, — while walking through the street should meet the worst drunkard in town,— one of those miserable, pale-faced, ghastly, hollow-eyed gin-drinkers, or one of those blear-eyed, bloated wretches, offensive to every sense. He comes up to your son, puts his hand on his shoulder, looks him in the face with a maudlin look, and says, “ Come, I’ve got a bottle of liquor in my pocket, and I shall be very much obliged to you for the privilege of taking a social glass with you.” Now, if your son never drinks till he drinks with him, he will never drink at all; if he waits to take the first glass till he takes it in such company, he will never take it; he will TEMPTATION RESISTED. 394 THE CURTAIN LIFTED. be a total abstainer as long as he lives. But if a respecta- ble young lady were to ask your son to take wine, he would probably say, “if you please, madam,” and take it in a min¬ ute. If any respectable gentleman asked him to take wine at his table, he might take it without a blush on his cheek. It is a respectable practice, maintained and supported by a respectable community. But if we can only make it dis¬ reputable to use strong 1 drink as a beverage, dis¬ graceful to offer it as an. article of entertainment., the next generation it saved with very little trouble. Saved from what ? Let us unroll the canvas, let us lift the curtain. I once belonged to a club of young men, which at one time was called I! the Shakespeare Club, because many of its mem¬ bers were theatrical gen¬ tlemen ; and in that pro¬ fession you will find some splendid fellows, as the world terms them, with natural ability and genius. Some such there were in that club. I knew them well. They received me into their society, and out of the thirty-five or thirty-six members of that club, I was among the least in intellect and genius. Many years after I left that club, I delivered the first temperance address that was ever delivered in the Boston Melodeon. I said: — “Ladies and gentlemen, — Twelve years ago I stood in A DOOR TO RUIN. REMINISCENCES OF MY EARLY DAYS. 895 this building, the last time it was opened for theatrical per¬ formances. The play then was, ‘Departed Spirits; or, the Temperance Hoax,’ in which some of the best and most glorious pioneers and leaders of this enterprise were held up to scorn and contempt. Where I stand was the stage ; where that organ stands were the scenery and machinery; before me was the pit; there is the first, and there the second row of boxes ; the third taken away ; there is the door which led to one dressing- room ; and there the door which led to another. “ This house is very little changed, ^ but circumstances i ' 1 are greatly changed. Where are the young men who, twelve years ago, associated with me in this house, — where? Echo only SAD FATE OF ONE OF MY COMPANIONS. ‘Where?’ I knew them, — one a fine singer, a man who kept horses worth seven hundred dollars at Reed’s establishment, at the back of the Pemberton House, used to invite us to ride, and many a ride I have had with him to Brighton and Brookline and vicinity. Where is he ? Dead! Where did he die ? He died in a horse-trough in the stable where he once kept his fine horses. No one was with him when he died except a city missionary, John Augustus. The thought that saddened him when dying was, ‘ My old friends have left me; and there is no one with me to wipe the cold sweat from my 396 COMPANIONS OF MY YOUTH. brow but a city missionary that I have scoffed and laughed at as a fanatic.’ He died, struggling in his wretched bed, cursing those who had brought him to ruin.” “Another, a classical scholar, a college graduate, a man whose presence of mind in danger or difficulty exceeded that of any man I ever knew. He was the most intensely practical joker I ever saw in my life, one that nothing in the world could daunt, a man who always (as we say) had his wits about him. Where is he ? Dead! Where did he die ? He died in a drunken debauch, falling down a flight of stairs when endea- yoring to find his way without a light in a Pittsburg hotel. He broke his neck, and scarce a dozen persons went to his funeral.” I spoke of another and another. And one of them, — I saw him die. He had not seen his twenty-third birthday. He had bitten his tongue through twice, until it grew so large that he could not articulate, and he spat out the bloody foam in his attempt to utter words. lie sprang from his bed, dashed himself against the wall, fell back in quivering con¬ vulsions, was taken up and laid down again on the bed, and there he died. Another one said to me : “ I am longing to quit this course of living; I shall go to sea, and get out of temptation.” He got drunk for the last time, as he said; went on board a whaleship, and, going up aloft while under the influence of the shakes from his last night’s spree, fell and dashed his brains out on the deck. I remember a friend said to me one morning, “ Philip R. is dead.” “No!” “Yes.” “Where did he die? I was at a supper given by an engine company last night, and he was there rather how-come-you-so —. He can’t be dead.” “ But he is. The watchman found him in the gutter. He started to walk home while intoxicated, and fell. His warm body A COWARDLY TRICK. 397 melted the ice, and you know how cold the night Avas. He was found badly frozen. They took him to a house, but he was too far gone, and died in a few hours.” A gentleman in Glasgow once gave me the following in writing. A young man, a machinist, a splendid workman, but a notorious drunkard, was induced to put his name to the pledge, and he kept that pledge for six years. He withstood all temptation, — the temptation at the corner of the street, in the social circle, among his friends, and, what was worse than all, the temptation in his shop; for I think that in many cases the persecution of workingmen by Avorkingmen is ten¬ fold Avorse than the persecution of Avorkingmen by their employers. I think that the tyrannous drinking customs of these shops are an abomination. There are knoAvn men in this country, — I have seen them and read their letters in the newspapers,—Avho are noAV Avandering about in quest of work, honest, sober, industrious men, who haAm been driven from shop to shop because their companions have made each place too hot to hold them, in consequence of their refusal to boAV doAvn to the accursed drinking customs of their fellow- workmen. (This refers to GlasgOAV some years since.) That man Avithstood all these temptations. When his only sister was married, he Avent to the wedding. They kneAV that, if they asked him to drink, he would refuse; that, if they offered him Avhiskey, he would spurn it Avitli contempt; indeed, they Avere afraid to ask him, for he had. strong fists, and he threatened to thrash any man that would tempt him to drink. In the midst of the festivities, hoAvever, tea was passed around, and some one Avickedly and fiendishly, Avith a coward’s spirit, put a quantity of Avhiskey in his tea. He drank it. He was not aware that there was in it an influ¬ ence that would operate on his system as it did; and he never dreAV a sober breath after that. Three Aveeks from that day 898 A VISIT TO AN INSANE ASYLUM. he was found among the rushes by the river, staring, as only a dead man can stare, into the bright blue sky, the foam oozing from his livid lips. He knew not that he had drank the spirit; but its influence was upon his physical frame, run¬ ning like fire through his blood and nerves, and dragging him down to drunkenness and death. It is a hard matter to save a drunk¬ ard, when this fearful habit is acquired. I remember visiting the lun¬ atic asylum in Indianapolis, when a minister of the gospel found dead among the . , j , , • -i RUSHES. pointed out to me a young girl. A more beautiful girl I think I never saw, but she was rav¬ ing mad, and her hands were confined to keep her from doing herself injury. The minister said : — “That girl was a member of my church, and I believe she was a Christian. Her father was a drunkard. She would come to me and ask : 4 What shall I do? What can I do? I will do anything to save my father, but I am hopeless. Why, sir, he abuses my mother so brutally that I shall go mad. I will not leave her, and she will not leave my father.’ One A TERRIBLE SPECTACLE. 399 day that man came home raying mad with drink; he seized his wife and dashed her to the floor, and with his fist began to beat her upturned face till his hand was bloody to the wrist. The girl was there. What did she do ? What could she do ? It was her mother whom she saw thus abused. Her brain reeled; she rushed into a wood-house, seized an axe, and struck her father with it several times; and the doctor said there was not a blow but would have killed him. As her father fell dead, she went mad, and not a single ray of light has penetrated the darkness of her mind from that time to this.” When I saw in his description a man beating the face of a woman whom he had sworn to love and cher¬ ish, I own I felt indignation in my heart, sending the hot blood to the tips of my fingers. Said I, “It served him right, the miserable brute; I am glad she killed him.” “Stop, sir,” said the minister, “I am sorry to hear you say that. That man, when sober, was a tender-hearted man, and one of the kindest men I ever knew. He was a noble-hearted, gen¬ erous man, ready with his means to help the distressed; but when he was drunk he was a fiend.” When we speak of the brutality of the drunkard, let us raise a voice of indignation and condemnation against the cause that brutalizes men more than any other instrumentality. Oh, it is pitiful to see the brutalizing influences of the drink made manifest among us! See that strong man raving of devils, snakes, and creeping things innumerable, small and great. Mark his flushed face, eyes bloodshot and glaring, his tongue bitten through, his black lips streaked with bloody foam, struggling with all his might against imaginary demons, shouting, and hoarsely yell¬ ing : “ Oh, how they glare on me ! Ah, I will have it out with you yet! Off! off! I say. Ah, yes. Crawl, — crawl. Creep, — creep. Help! oh, help!” Then gabbling, implor¬ ing pity, a prey to horrors unutterable, hideous things glaring 400 “OH, HORROR! DRIVE THEM AWAY!” at him from the walls, stretching out their long, glistening arms; disgusting, slimy reptiles crawling over him in swarms. Turn which way he will, there they are, — on the floor, the walls, the ceiling, writhing under the door; millions of them! « Oh, horror ! Drive them away ! They creep, they crawl! Pity, oh pity ! Help ! help I ” He suffers days and nights of indescribable agony and horror. This is the awful scourge, “ Mania a potu ,” the trembling madness that the drunkard manufactures for his own torment. Mark me, I do not say that all this will come to you; that if you taste, you must pay this awful penalty. But there is no curse like that of appetite. This frightful visitation that I have been speaking of may not come to you; but it has come, and is coming, to many. What numbers are being, and have been, swept down by the hurricane of temptation! In the mad fever of this passion they have burst the bonds of a mother’s love, trampled a father’s counsels in the dust, mocked at reproofs and tears and prayers; and now, with tattered sails, leaking hull, and splintered masts, the poor bark is drift¬ ing on, amid howling winds and wintry seas, to utter ruin, when it might have reached the haven of peace and security, laden with honor and happiness. All this with no possible good to balance it. I grant you there is a stimulus in the liquor, and that is the reason men drink it. A FRIGHTFUL VISION. WHAT THE DRUNKARD CRAVES. 401 There was a very amusing little picture in “ Punch,” a year or two ago, I think. A gentleman, wishing to give to his tenant farmers the light wines of France, provided several bottles of them for dinner. One man had drunk a good deal, and the host said to him, “ Don’t you think this light wine very good? ” “ Oh yes, it is very nice, but we don’t seem to get no forrarder .” Now if they do not get any forrarder they might as well be drinking tea, lemonade, chocolate, or anything else. But everybody who drinks, drinks because he wants to get a little forrarder. Why, this is the very princi¬ ple that is the ruin of these men. It is the gratification pro¬ duced by the drink that makes men seek it. I grant you there is social gratification, too. I have experienced it my¬ self, as well as observed it in other men. There is social gratification when men sit together and talk and chat, and one glass follows another till they get “ altogetherish,” as men do sometimes. Yes, there is gratification in the drink. That is what the drunkard craves ? Did you ever see such a one early in the morning ? for the drunkard is an early riser. He rises early that he may, in the words of Scripture, “ seek it yet again ; ” slouching along the street towards the liquor- shop, shivering with the cold, holding himself together, his eyes dull and bleared, licking his white lips with his whiter tongue as he longs for the stimulant. Have you ever watched him going up to the bar and calling for his drink? Have you ever seen him take the glass of spirits in his hand ? I have, over and over again. He lifts it to his lips, and then, with a shudder sets it down again. What is the matter? All there is in him revolts at it. Everything there is in him loathes it. Is he going to drink in order to gratify his palate ? He loathes the spirit, yet he will have it. He grips the glass again. He brings it to his lips. The very smell of it so sick¬ ens him that he turns away with disgust, and he will make 402 WAITING FOR THE EFFECT. the attempt half a dozen times and fail. Give him a pickle or a slice of lemon or anything with a pungent taste to it; he will grip that in one hand, and with all the energy he has left he will, with the other hand, pour the fiery draught down his throat, and dig his teeth into the lemon, or what¬ ever it may be, to enable him to keep the liquor down. Then he will sit quite still. Do not speak to him now. He wants to be perfectly quiet now. For what? lie is waiting for the effect. That is what he wants, and it soon comes. The fiery fluid starts the stagnant blood in the ves¬ sels of his diseased stomach, and he feels better. See, his eyes are clearer. Instead of that pallid, pasty hue, there is a flush on his face, there is a little perspiration. He was burning hot before, but he feels better now. “ Ah, I feel better. What a fool I was just now. I had some thought of jumping into the river. Let teetotalers say what they like; a glass of HE GRIPS THE GLASS AGAIN. SATELLITES OF SATAN. 403 spirits is the poor man’s friend in the morning when he feels badly. I feel all right now.” It is but a momentary experience; the liquor fiend has done its work; it has started the stagnant blood. Now comes the reaction; the effect of the stimulus is passing. Oh, if he could only hold it! It is going. It has been but a brief gratification. Now he has what drunkards call “ dead liquor” in him, and that is so awful. The appetite is aroused. He will have more liquor now, will have it, though he should trample on the upturned face of his only child to obtain it. Stop him now if you can. The appetite is aroused. All the powers of earth — I was going to say, of heaven, — can¬ not stop him. That is the gratification the drunkard wants. And every moderate drinker who drinks for the stimulus drinks on the self-same principle, though in a lesser degree. These are the results we seek to prevent. Intoxicating liquor is deceptive in its nature, and it does seem to me sometimes as if Satan himself had no power on earth that was doing his work so effectually as this. We might almost fancy him seated on his high and burning throne in Pandemonium, crowned with a coronet of everlast¬ ing fire, calling around him his satellites and asking each to show his power to bring men to that awful abode and to enlist recruits for perdition. We may imagine Mammon, the meanest of all the gods, standing up and saying: “ Send me. I can send men from their homes across the burning desert or the trackless ocean, to fight, and dig in the earth for yellow dust. I can so harden the heart that the cry of the widow and the fatherless shall be unheard. I can so seal up every avenue of human affection that the heart of my victim shall become as hard as the metal he loves, and in his death strug¬ gle he will clutch closer and closer to his heart the bag of 25 404 A HORRIBLE MONSTER. gold, which is the only god he ever worshipped.” Belial, filthiest of all the gods, next proclaims his power. Then the Destroyer asserts his claim; he holds war, pestilence, and famine in his hand, and makes men, whose trade it shall be to deface God’s image, rank themselves in hostile array, and hurry each other shrieking, unshrouded, into another world. Then all is silent, and we may imagine a mighty, rumbling sound, at which hell quakes, and far off in the distance is seen, borne upon the fiery tide, a monstrous being,—his hair a mass of snakes matted together with blood, his face besmeared with human gore. He rises half his length, and the waves dashing against his breast fall back in a shower of fiery spray. “Who art thou?” U I am an earth-born spirit. I heard your proclamation and I have come. Send me. I will turn the hand of the father against the mother, the mother against the child, the husband against the wife. I will wrap in my cerement the young man in the pride of his manliness, and wither him. I will make that fair young girl such a thing that the vilest wretch shall shrink from her in disgust. I will do more. I will so deceive them that f he mother shall know that I destroyed her first-born, and yet offer me her second. The father shall know that I destroyed the hope of his house, and yet lift the deadly draught to the lips of others. Governors shall know how I have sapped the roots of states, and yet spread over me the robe of their protection. Legis¬ lators shall know the crime and misery I cause, but shall still shield and encourage me. Ministers shall know that I have torn the surplice from the shoulders of many who have stood in the holy place, and hurled them in the dust, and some of them shall plead for me. In heathen lands I shall be called fire-water, spirit of the Devil; but in Christendom men shall call me ‘ a good creature of God.’ ” All hell resounds with a X ¥ AN UNCOMPROMISING FIGHT. 405 shout, and Satan exclaims, “ Come up hither, and take a seat on the throne till we hear your name.” As he mounts to the throne, the spirit shouts aloud, “ My name is Alcohol! ” And the name is shouted in every part of hell, and the cry is raised, “ Go forth and the benison of the pit go with you.” It does seem to me that no power on earth is so deceptive. No man, as I have already said, ever intended to become intemperate. Thousands are dying to-da}q — the poor, shrieking spirits flying wildly into eternity, every one of which drank the first glass with no intention of becoming a drunkard. Young men, we are striving, God helping us, to go like divers into the depths; for many bright and beautiful pearls are found hidden under the black rocks of intemperance. Many have been brought up that are now shining with the hues of the Christian graces. And though we do not affirm that our principle is to entirely reform and regenerate a man, we are waging, by this instrumentality, warfare against this one sin; because, ruinous as are its effects, mentally and mor¬ ally, it is also a physical evil to be removed by physical means. And we shall succeed, though neither you nor I may see the day. I sometimes think that the grass is now in the sod which is to wave over my grave, but what of that ? Shall I not sow and plant and water and pray, though there be not a blade of grass in the sand to cheer my sight? If the enter¬ prise be a righteous one, it is in God’s hands. We shall work, toil, labor, and pray. Yes, pray. I pray that, when death comes to me, he may come while the harness is on, while I am battling for the right against a hard, black-hearted in¬ iquity. We fight, sure and certain of success. Some will say, “Do you really believe that intemperance will ever dis¬ appear?” Yes. His will is to be “done in earth as it is in heaven,” and I know when His will shall be done on earth, 406 DO WHAT YOU CAN. there will not be a dram-shop, nor a drunkard on the face of the whole earth. Oh, young man, is there nothing attrac¬ tive in this enterprise? You say, “If I wanted to serve you. there is not much I can do.” Do what you can. It was said of old in approval of one, “ She hath done what she could.” You remember reading that Andrew followed our Saviour; but you do not read that he made very great speeches, or preached many eloquent sermons, or that he gathered the people about him in a multitude; but you read that Andrew went and called Peter, and Peter stood up, and three thous¬ and were converted in one day. You have influence to save? some poor soul, to bring him up from the depths. You may be instrumental in setting up some great reformer. And the blessing of God and the people will rest upon you. CHAPTER XX. WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR? — LIFE IN THE BACK STREETS OF NEW YORK — VOICES FROM THE SLUMS. Fast Young Men — Seeing a Little of Life — A Sea Captain’s Story — Effects of One Glass of Grog—A Young Man’s Story — A Son’s Hand Stained with Blood !— “Out, Damned Spot ” —What is a True Gentleman ?—A Letter-Carrier’s Story—Calling Her Neighbor a “Hindewidual ”—“1 Ups with a Pail of Water,” etc. — Leaders of Society—Women Who Fol¬ low Them— John Pounds, the Portsmouth Cobbler — Noble Women — Clara Barton’s Self-sacrifice and Heroism — The Iron Cross of Germany — The “Old Brewery” in New York — Murderer’s Alley—What a Police¬ man Told Me — A Dreadful Locality — Human Fiends—Stripping a Corpse and Selling the Grave Clothes — Raising the Money to Buy the Place—A Memorable Meeting in Old Tripler Hall — A Street Scene in New York — Little Mary Morrison. VERY young man has ambi¬ tion. There is no young man who does not intend to make his position next year higher than it is this year. You are looking forward to something better. You desire to be manly. What is it to be be manly, be brave, to be noble ? There is class of young men who think that manly is to swear, swagger, and trample on the decencies of human life, to smoke, drink, gam¬ ble, and drive a fast horse. They consider it manly to toss off their glass “ like a man,” and swear “ like a man.” Are these manly young men? We call them “fast young men.” Now there is not in this world a more contemptible set of men than 407 408 SEEING A LITTLE OF LIFE. “ fast young men.” It requires neither genius, education, nor intellect, to drink, smoke, swear, or drive a fast horse. Give the materials to the biggest lunatic in an insane asylum, and he will do all these things as well as the best “fast young man ” you have. We are brave — when ? We are brave when we overcome that which threatens to overwhelm us. Young men, we are heroes when we are able to chain some cherished desire, and to say to some powerful passion, “ Be still! I am your master.” To be bold against an enemy is common to the brute. Man’s prerogative is to be bold against himself, to conquer his own lusts and wicked ambitions and fancies in the sacred name of God. That is to be noble, that is to be brave and manly. The excuses young men give for entering into dissipation are various ; but they are usually summed up in this, — that they “must see a little of life.” Why, my young friend, has not God spread out before you, in His magnificent bound¬ lessness of wealth, everything that can satisfy your noblest nature? You want to see life; you desire to indulge in for¬ bidden “ luxuries,” presuming that you can “ touch pitch and not be defiled.” Young men begin to use intoxicating liquors with no in¬ tention, desire, or expectation of being injured by them. The moderate drinker supposes that, because he does not get in¬ toxicated, drink is doing him no harm. A captain of a vessel trading between Liverpool and New York spoke to me as follows: “Mr. Gough, I never was in¬ toxicated in my life, never; and yet I have mourned and repented over years of excess.” “I don’t understand you.” “ I repeat, I never was drunk in my life; and yet I have mourned over years of excess.” “Well, how do you explain that?” “I think I can. When at sea I always took a glass of grog after my dinner, that was all. I used to mix it A SEA CAPTAIN’S PKIDE. 409 pretty stiff; and I liked it. It seemed to do me good. After taking it I would come on deck and be a little sociable with my passengers, and a little more agreeable with my officers; and then I would walk the deck. None but those who have commanded a noble clipper can have any idea of the conscious¬ ness of power a man feels as he walks the quarter-deck. He knows 4 1 am master here.’ Often when I have come on deck when a heavy gale was blowing and a pretty rough sea rolling, I ’d say to myself, 4 This is grand! She works like a beauty ! This is magnificent! How she dips into it! I have always had the ambition to make the fastest pas¬ sage on record ; perhaps I shall some day. There’s a pretty good gale of wind, and we are making good headway; I think she might bear a little more canvas.’ Then I would order the mate to send the men aloft to shake the reefs out of the foretopsail. The mate would stand and look as the men ascended the ratlines, and he would put his hand upon the stanchions and gaze up as the vessel felt the press of sail. The mast would bend, and the vessel’s head would dive almost under water, and I would still walk the deck, say¬ ing, 4 This is grand! I shall make the fastest passage yet. She works gloriously. Ah ! that’s a header for her ; how she dives into it! ’ Presently the influence of the grog would pass away, and then I would look up aloft and see how every rope was strained, and would perhaps turn to the mate and say, 4 It’s getting rather dirty weather to the wind¬ ward; we shall have a nasty night. Send the men aloft, and close-reef the foretopsail, and make everything snug for the night.’ Under the influence of one glass of grog I would spread sail enough to drive the bows of the vessel under the water; and when the influence of the grog passed away I would prudently take in sail and make things safe ! 410 A SOLDIER’S MISFORTUNE. “Now,” said he, “I believe that many a good ship, with passengers, cargo, and crew has foundered at sea through the influence of one glass of grog on the brain of her captain.” Now, sitting at home in safety, you may call that modera¬ tion , but on board that ship you would not; you would call it DRINKING TO EXCESS. A most unfortunate circumstance occurred when I was in Halifax, Nova Scotia. A sergeant of a regiment in the cita¬ del, who was within six months of his discharge, and who would have been entitled to a good-conduct pension, got drunk, and drew a weapon upon a superior officer. In view of his previous excellent conduct, the court-martial so far remitted his sentence that he was only degraded to the ranks and put into the kitchen as one of the cooks. Four days after that sentence was pronounced, he hung himself. He told one of his comrades he, knew noth¬ ing of what he did after he had taken his first glass. Now, moderate drinkers, or those who call themselves so, beware ! One other fact, — and I deal in facts. A young man said to me, “ Mr. Gough, I never was intoxicated, or anything like it, but once in my life,— never ; and on the occasion to which I refer I was not so far intoxicated but that I knew everything that occurred. I had been with some young companions, and after reaching home I ascended the stairs whistling. As I went up towards the top of the house — my room being at the very top — I saw the open door of a room occupied by a ser¬ vant-girl. I went in. I never should have gone if I had not been drinking. I was not just right. The girl screamed. My mother came up, and said, 4 George, my son, I am ashamed of you.’ I just shut my fist and struck my mother a terrific blow in the mouth. Tins hand was stained with my mother s TRUE GENTLEMEN. 411 blood ! And now, sir, looking at that hand, I say sometimes, as Shakespeare makes Lady Macbeth say, 4 Out, damned spot! ’ And I would willingly have that hand cut off at the wrist if I could only forget that blow given while under the influ¬ ence of liquor, — the first and the last time I was ever intoxicated.” Our appeal is to young men. We want you to be manly. There is nothing that dissipates manliness like the drink. We want you to be men , to be noble men , to be free from every debas¬ ing habit, to be gen¬ tlemen. What is a gentleman ? A true gentleman is noble, truthful, chivalrous, pure in speech and in life. A true gentle¬ man inspires the fear of all bad men; he is admired by all good men. In the presence of a true gentleman none dare say a mean, low, ribald, or contemptible thing. Brave men love a true gentleman, feeling themselves nerved to do their duty better. Cowards slip away from his presence like bats and owls before the sunlight. Be a gentleman ! High birth does not constitute a gentleman. A man may have a pedigree as long as that of the Scotchman who, when engaged in a dis¬ pute about his long line of ancestors, boasted, “ The Mac- phersons were in the ark with Noah!” “Hoot toot, mon ! ” replied the other fellow, “ the Cam’ells had a boat o’ A HAND STAINED WITH BLOOD. 412 A TENDER-HEARTED LETTER CARRIER. their ain!” I say a man may have a pedigree as long as either of these disputants, and yet be mean and worth¬ less. Family lineage cannot perpetuate gentlemen. There are many families who are very much like a hill of potatoes; the best of them are underground. Wealth cannot perpetuate gentlemen. A man may possess millions, and yet be a wretched, miserly, contemptible screw, and no gentleman; while another, who may have battled for his daily bread from infancy to old age, may possess the elements which constitute the true gentleman. Many who have labored among the poor and the lowly, among those whom the world terms “ outcasts,” have discovered germs of the finest sensibility, of the highest nobility of character, and manliest heroism among them. A letter-carrier said to a gentleman, who related the incident to me : “ Ah, sir, we letter-carriers are n’t always the most welcome people. I have carried a letter to a door, and have seen the lady, when she came to take it, shiver and turn white on receiving the black-edged envelope; and at such a time as that, sir, I always takes off my hat. She don’t see it, and it don’t do her no good, but somehow or other I always feel a little better for just lifting my hat on such an occasion as that.” That is one of the elements that consti¬ tute a true gentleman. But there is a class of persons to whom indifference is the test of high breeding. According to their idea, if you educate a man to the insensibility of a post, you make him a perfect gentleman ; if you cultivate the heart out of a young woman, and make her seemingly as pulseless as a turnip, she is the lady to perfection. Some people have strange ideas of what con¬ stitutes a lady or a gentleman. A woman was brought before a police court one day, and said: “Me and another lady was SOCIAL SETS AND CIRCLES. 413 a-having a few words, and she called me a ‘hindewidual,* and I ups with a pail of water and chucked it all over her; and that began the row.” Me and another lady ! The following notice was once put up over a show: 44 No lady or gentleman admitted to this exhibition in a state of intoxication .” Once when I was in St. Louis I saw a handbill on the wall: 44 One hundred rats to be killed by one dog in ten minutes. None but gen¬ tlemen are expected to be present on the occasion.” Now we appeal to the respecta¬ bility, the Christianity that is not with us in this temperance move¬ ment. Why do we ask you to give up that which is to you, ac¬ cording to your idea of it, an inno¬ cent gratification? On what ground do we ask you? I will tell you. 44 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength;” and the second commandment is like unto it, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself .” 44 On these two” _ not on the one or the other — 44 hang all the law and the prophets.” Now, it is for the sake of your neighbors that we ask you to abstain. Well, 44 Who is my neighbor ? ” There are some persons who have no neighbors out of their visiting circle. Some seek for their neighbors on the church books, and they have no others. The fact is, we are divided into sets and circles, and the difficulty is to penetrate these sets and circles. We move in that circle and revolve in this circle, and we have nothing to do with any other HINDEWIDTJAL.” 414 A CELEBRATED COBBLER. circle. And each circle has its leader; Mrs. Harris leads this, Mrs. Smith leads that, Mrs. What ’s-her-name leads another, and the Hon. Mrs. Thingamy leads another. The members of these circles revolve around their leaders. They have no minds of their own, only such as their leaders permit them to have. They have no will of their own, but are entirely sub¬ servient to the will of their leaders. They are very much like the toys children play with. You have often seen them. They are pasteboard men, and when a string is pulled they are set in motion this way and that way; and so Mrs. Harris pulls her string this way, and her circle responds; Mrs. Smith pulls her string that way; Mrs. What ’s-her-name pulls her string the other way; and so it goes on, each circle respond¬ ing to the will of its leader. And these people call them¬ selves independent thinkers! Why, if there is a contribution or subscription required for any person or cause whatever, those who solicit aid do not come to you. You are of no consequence whatever. It is the leader of your circle to whom they appeal first, and having obtained her subscription, then they come to you. You do not ask, “ What is this money for ? ” It may be for flannel waistcoats for the Hot¬ tentots, or pocket-handkerchiefs for a lot of Kaffirs, for all that you know about it. You say, “Is Mrs. Harris’s name down?” “ Yes.” “Then I will put my name down.” And you have done your duty after the fashion of the gospel according to Mrs. Harris. Now, who is my neighbor? Who are the grandest men and women the world has ever seen ? Those who have sought for their neighbors outside of their own circle of society. The cobbler at Portsmouth, England, found his neighbors on the wharf,—wretched, ragged, homeless chil¬ dren. He coaxed them with roasted potatoes to come into his shop, that he might teach them spelling, reading, how to RECORD OF A NOBLE LIFE. 415 mend their clothes, and how to cook their food; and to-day the greatest peer of England is not ashamed to preside at the anniversary meeting of one of these ragged schools at the East End of London. Yes, in Portsmouth they erected a monument to the memory, and kept the birthday, of poor John Pounds, the Portsmouth cobbler. Florence Nightingale searched for her neighbors amongst the bruised and battered soldiers of the Crimea; Mary Carpenter found her neighbors among the city arabs; Mrs. Wightman found her neighbors among the drunkards of Butchers’ Row, Shrewsbury ; Mrs. Bayly found her neighbors among the denizens of the Kensington potteries; Sarah Pellat found her neighbors among the Californian gold-diggers; Miss Dix found her neighbors in the asylums for the insane. I have held in my hand that which few Americans have held in theirs, the Iron Cross of Germany. As I held it, that little black cross on its silver bed, I remembered that money could not purchase it, birth could not procure it. It can be obtained only in reward for the very highest order of heroic service. Then I held in my hand The Golden Cross of Remembrance. Then I held in my hand The Red Cross of Geneva. Who owned them? A feeble woman who has often sat at my own table. The Emperor of Germany gave her the Iron Cross of Germany. The Court of Germany gave her the Golden Cross of Remembrance. The Grand Duchess of Baden placed upon her breast, with her own hands, the Red Cross of Geneva. Why ? During our war she devoted her life to the care of sick and suffering soldiers. In later years, when she heard of the Franco-German war, she started at once for the field, supported by her own private means. It is reported (and I suppose it is true — although when you speak of royalty you ought to be sure, and accordingly say that it is reported) that the Queen, her gracious Majesty, AS IT APPEARED PREVIOUS TO BEING DEMOLISHED BY THE LADIES’ HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF THE M. E. CHURCH. 1. Murderers’Alley, a narrow, dark passage, 148 feet long. 2. The principal groggery. 3. Entrance to a Den of Thieves; a long, narrow passage, 2^ feet wide, and “ dark as midnight.” 4. Door connecting with Drunken Alley and the Den of Thieves. 5. Another entrance to the Den of Thieves. 6. Door leading to a gambling area or yard in the rear. A MEMORABLE MEETING. 419 “ Murderer’s Alley; ” and policemen would go up that alley well armed and always on the alert. One of the members of the police force said to me, “ There have been known to take place here, in one house, twenty-two deaths in one month, without a funeral. Every corpse was taken to the hospital, sold, and the proceeds spent in dissipation. We tried all we could to break up the gang. No, we could not do it. Ladies helped us; young men helped us; but nothing could be done. So we thought we would find out when there was a corpse in any of the rooms, and whenever we found there was one, we would go in and decently shroud it; and, sir, in more than one instance, before we could get out of the house, the grave-clothes have been torn from the corpse, and we have seen people at the corner of the street selling those shrouds as old rags, at four cents a pound, for the purpose of procuring whiskey. We could do nothing with the human fiends in that place. Well, the ladies undertook the matter — God bless the ladies! When they undertake to do any¬ thing, they generally do it. “When she will, she will, you may depend on’t, And when she won’t, she won’t, and there’s an end on’t.” I do not mean that women are proverbially obstinate, but they are proverbially persevering. The ladies made up their minds that, as they could not reform the place, they ivould de¬ stroy it . They said, “ We will destroy the place. We will buy it; and then we will pull it down, and build a Mission House on its site.” To raise the money we held a meeting in old Tripler Hall. It held an audience of about three thousand. Mr. Havemeyer, then mayor of the city, presided. Dr. Theodore Cuyler made a speech. Horace Greeley made a speech. I was to speak at the close. The speeches were rather long, 420 LITTLE MARY MORRISON. and. I was very much interested in some seventy or eighty children who were ranged on the platform to sing. I particu¬ larly noticed one little creature, a very pretty child. Perhaps if she had not been nice-looking I should not have called her to my side, for we are always attracted by beauty everywhere, and it is right we should be. I called this pretty little girl to my side, and said: — “What is your name?” “My name is Mary Morrison.” “I used to know a song about little Mary Morrison.” “Did you? ” “Yes. Now,” I said, “ I want to talk to you a little while; but we must not talk loud, because the gentlemen are speaking. So your name is Mary Morrison ? ” “Yes. Do you see that woman down there in the crowd with a black bonnet on ? ” “There are ever so many ladies there with black bon¬ nets on.” “ I don’t mean a lady; I mean my mother. My mother’s down there in that crowd. My mother used to get drunk, and used to whip me, and she used to turn me out of doors; and my mother used to be took to the police office, and I used to run in the streets. But my mother goes to the Mission Church now, and I go to the-Mission School; and I. have learned to read ” — and she became so excited that she began to stammer; and she began talking so loud that I had to say, “ Hush,” to the little thing. “ I know ever so many little hymns, — nice hymns, — and I sing them. And I’ve got some mottoes, — did you ever see any mottoes ? — red and green and yellow and blue. My mother is going to have one of my mottoes framed and hung up. And I have got a little medal with some blue ribbon to it. One of the other girls had yellow, and some one else had green, and another had CHAPTER XXL WILL IT PAY? — LIFE’S OPPORTUNITIES — GROTESQUE SCENES AND AMUSING STORIES — ON THE BRINK. Men Who Cannot Understand a Joke — “ The Little Chap That Told Me To Holler ’ ’ — First-class Stupidity — ‘ ‘ Comfortably ’ ’ Full — The Stingy Drinker — Drink’s Direful Work—Breaking a Mother’s Heart — Scenes in a Lunatic Asylum — Raving Idiots — A Tipsy Lover—A Visit to the Pig-sty — An Unlooked-for Catastrophe — Another Pig in the Pen—“I Am as Good as Any of You” —Fighting the Pump — An Unceremonious Tip-over—The Tipsy Students — Decidedly Muddled — Kicking Each Other Out of Bed —A Grotesque Scene — The Indian and His Fire¬ water— ‘“Only This Once” — A Clergyman’s Downfall — A Wife’s Story —In Jail — Reminiscences of Forty Years Ago —An Appeal to Young Men —Coach-Driving in California —A Death-bed Scene —“I Can’t Find the Brake ” — Sowing Wild Oats. T depends a great deal more upon the temperament than upon the strength of mind or intellect, whether, if you follow the drinking customs of society, you become intem¬ perate. Who are the men most liable to become drunkards ? I bring before you, for illustration, three men of the same class in society, as much alike as it is possible for three persons to be who are possessed of different temperaments. Ihe first, cold and phlegmatic, is little affected by aught surrounding him. He never laughs at anything. A joke must be explained for him before he can understand it. If you should tell him you could not drive a joke into him with 423 424 “THREE CHEERS FOR MR. HENRY.” a sledge-hammer, he would ask, Do people ever drive jokes into other people with sledge-hammers ? If he does not un¬ derstand a joke, he will often perpetrate one on himself, like the man who was very angry because some one set fire to a barn and burnt up two cows. “Any man,” he said, “who would set fire to a barn and burn up two cows ought to be kicked to death by a jackass — and I should like to do it.” If you tell him a funny story, his remarks are as funny as the story itself. I once told a man of this kind one of the best stories I ever heard in my life. It was in connection with a political meeting. One man in the crowd kept shouting, “Henry! Hen¬ ry ! Make way for Mr. Henry! Mr. Henry is called for ! ” Every sub¬ sequent speaker only made this man shout all the loud- “the little chap that told me to er, “ Henry ! Mr. Henry is holler.” called for! Three cheers for Mr. Henry! Mr. Henry is wanted ! ” A little man, amidst these calls, was introduced to the platform, but still there were cries of “ Henry ! Mr. Henry is wanted! ” and so on. At length the chairman said, “ I wish that gentleman would keep still. It is Mr. Henry who is now addressing the audience.” “ Henry! ” said the man, “ that ain’t Henry ! That’s the little chap that told me THE MAN WHO COULDN’T SEE A JOKE. 425 to holler.” I thought my friend would be amused, but instead of that he asked, “ What did he tell him to holler for ? ” And that to me was more funny than the story itself. Such persons can never repeat a joke correctly. A friend told me that he knew a gentleman who never could under¬ stand a joke, and one of his friends was constantly perpetrating jokes on him. One day he said, u You are always joking me ; now, the next time you joke, just wink, so that I may know whether it is or is not a joke.” One day he was lying help¬ less with rheumatism, when his friend called, and said, “ Sorry to see you in the stationary line,” and winked. So the poor fellow pondered on the remark, trying to discover the joke. Another friend called, and the invalid said, “See here, so-and-so has perpetrated a joke on me; I know he has, because he winked. You see I was ill in bed, and he said he was sorry to see me keeping a book-store. What was the joke? ” If such a man should meet you, after a separation of years, he would not rush forward and take you by the hand, giving a hearty shake, nor slap you on the back, with “ Holloa, old fellow! ” but he presents the tips of his fingers, and if by chance he gets his whole hand in yours, it comes with a flap, reminding you of a dead fish. These phlegmatic people are naturally conservative ; they are driven by public sentiment. Some of them continue the same from year to year. They are like barrel-organs; turn the crank and you get the same tunes till the whole list is played off, when you may begin again and get exactly the same music ; if you go faster, there is a quicker measure ; all depends on the turning of the crank. They will never become drunkards, for they are moderate in everything. Give such a man a glass of liquor, what is the effect ? He is “ comfortable.” Give him another, he is “ com¬ fortable and warm,” and he thinks it has done him good; an- * other, and he is “ com-fort-a-bler.” By and by his lower lip 426 CLOSE-FISTED MEN AND STINGY DRINKERS. will drop over liis chin, his chin will rest on his chest, he will fold his arms and fall “ com-fa-blur-r-r ” to sleep. He will wake up and take another glass, and you cannot get him beyond the point of “ comfortable ” if you fill him up. Now, such a man can go on drinking to the day of his death, doing business keenly day in and day out, week in, week out; and you try to beat him in a trade if you can! Pie grows fat and puffy and red. The physi¬ cians tell us that such men are destroying their vital organs, but that we have nothing to do with just now. There are men com¬ fortably full every day in the year and yet never drunk. Then there is the stingy, close-fisted man, whose entire philosophy lies within the precincts of the multiplication-table He never has an article of clothing that fits him ; for when he wants a coat, or a hat, or any other article of clothing, he fre¬ quents the ready-made shops and buys the largest garment he can get for the money, that he may have a big pennyworth. He his money’s worth may be able to drink any given quantity, OF CLOTHES. . , , . , , r . , . but seldom gets drunk, tor his tempera¬ ment prevents his parting with his money; his love of that is stronger than any love of the drink can be in him. The third is the young man full of fire and poetry and music, of a nervous temperament, easily excited, fond of society, the life of the company, the admiration of his com¬ panions. He can sing a song, and sing it well; tell a good story, and his eye flashes as he makes the point to it. Pie will become a drunkard more readily than the two others. BLIGHTED HOPES. 427 When he drinks, he enters the outer circle of the whirl¬ pool ; round and round he wheels, swifter and swifter, narrower and narrower, until, at length, he is drawn into the awful vortex. It is often remarked that there is a famine of great men in our day. What is one of the causes? They are cut down in their youth by drunkenness in thousands. Behold that youth at college, the leader of his class, the pride of his tutor, the joy of his parents, the one likely to become the ornament of his age. Strong drink has taken hold of him and done its direful work, administered at first, it may be, by the hand of friendship and of kindness. Awfully fatal and mistaken are all such expressions of friendship and of kindness. We ask that mother what has become of her boy. Behold her bowed down with grief, her countenance the picture of disappointed expectation; your question receives no answer but a vacant look of despair; her heart is broken. You ask his sister for tidings of that brother whom she loved with all a sister’s affection, and the answer is a convulsive sob. You turn to the old man, his father, who looked upon him once with a father’s pride; with lips compressed, and with clenched hand as if he would send his nails through his flesh, the gray-haired sire turns away, and you receive no answer. At last, your inquiry is made of a fellow-student. “ Noble-hearted fellow, sir, first in his class, the soul of the company, the admired of his class-mates. But — the fact is — he took to drink, and now no one knows anything about him.” That’s the fate, often, of thousands of young men who might have been among the greatest men of their day. Ah, you say, but these men are not noble, they are utterly destitute of pride, ambition, or even natural affection; they are simply brutal. Can you find a young man who has no respect or love for a good mother? When I hear a man 428 DEGRADED TO THE LEVEL OF THE BEASTS. speak contemptuously of his mother I know that either he is a bad man, or his mother was a bad woman. It is impos¬ sible to speak otherwise than lovingly and with respect of a good mother. Let me say one word that will insult your mother, bring tears to her eyes, or make her cheeks burn with indignation — you will knock me down. Serve me right! Let me hurt her in person or in feeling, you would trample on me as if I were a rat. And yet many a young man is steadily, deliberately, and wilfully breaking his mother’s heart. “Oh no, no, no! that is all wrong,” you say, “a young man ivilfully does it? ” There is not a young man who is breaking the heart of his mother but he knows it; he knows that her face grows paler, the furrows grow deeper, and her hair grows whiter. He knows it, and yet he will go on, though he is conscious that she lies awake at night and wets her pillow with tears, weeping over his way¬ ward life. Therefore we hate the drink because of its power to paralyze every noble ambition, dry up every fountain of affection, and debase and degrade the manhood of its victims. What does a man do when he gets drunk? He brings himself to the level of the slavering idiot, or the gibbering, raving madman. Go into a lunatic asylum, and see that man picking an imaginary thing from his coat sleeve; another listlessly gazing on nothing; another uttering “the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind ”; or yet another raving in his madness; how sad such sights! If you are grateful to God for the possession of reason, your thanks¬ giving, night and morning, would be, “ Father, I thank thee that thou hast made me a man, and crowned me with the noble faculty of reason and continued that great blessing till now.” To the mere animal there is no beauty in the setting sun, there is no loveliness in the flower, no glory in the land- A TERRIBLE TRANSFORMATION. 429 scape, no splendor in the starry heavens, no sublimity in the thunder’s peal and the lightning’s flash; the animal raises its dull, meaningless eyes, and gazes on all the beauties and grandeur of nature unmoved. Not so with man. He views the glowing landscape, the setting sun, or lifts his eyes to the heavens, beholding the star-studded sky, and sees and feels the beauty and the glory of the scene. The sense of beauty is in his soul, and to him all creation is beautiful. When the mother speaks of her babe, does she waste her eloquence in descanting on his ruby lips, his pearly teeth, his blooming, dimpled cheek, his rounded forehead? No, ’tis what he knows, what he observes, how he imitates; it is the budding of his mind. The external beauties might all be there, and yet how would that mother feel were the beautiful infant that slumbers sweetly in its cradle an idiot ? It is in the gem the value lies, not in the beauty of the casket. That beauty bpt becomes the more terrible when the shrine is that in which there is nothing. God has a right to take from you reason, and becloud your mind, and send you forth a raving, slavering, silly thing ; he has a right to lay his hand upon you and wither your intellect. But will anyone say, “ I have a right, when I please, by the use of intoxicating drink, to dethrone my reason, and transform myself into a drivelling idiot?” What if God should say, “Let him alone, let him stagger on, through the rest of his life, what he has chosen to make himself by one simple act of intoxication.” What if he should thus make you always what you have once made your¬ self? Can you imagine a more horrible fate to come upon you than that? It is sometimes said, “ That man is as drunk as a beast.” Such language is a libel on the brutes. Man is the only animal that thus degrades himself. No brute beast will step down from the position in which its Maker placed it, and every man who gets drunk does just that. 430 AX UNWELCOME INTRUDER. Think how contemptibly silly some men make themselves when intoxicated, by placing themselves in positions they are ashamed of when sober. I heard of one of these young men who never would “ sign away his liberty,” who was paying particular attentions to a young lady. Occasionally he would call to see her when he was parti¬ ally intoxicated; but when so far gone that he dared not ask for the lady, he would content himself with the company of his prospective father-in-law, who was a moderate drinker, and was therefore a little sliort-sighted in reference to the habit. On one of these occasions the old gentle¬ man told him there were a lot of sheep, some horses, and some fine pigs, that would be given to him, adding, “I should like you to look at the pigs.” Arrived at the pen the young man stooped to look into it, lost his balance, and over he went. The hogs resented the intrusion of a drunkard by loud grunts of dissatisfaction. The young man didn’t like that, and raising himself as well as he could, he said, “ Hold your tongue ; I’m as good as any of you.” I should like to AN UNEXPECTED CATASTROPHE. KICKED OUT OF BED. 431 know whether any lacly would like to associate with a young gentleman who at any time considered himself only the equal of hogs. Two students, who occupied tAVO different beds in the same room, came home very drunk one night, and groped their way to bed the best way they could; but it so happened that both tumbled into one bed. “How d’ye get on, Bill?” cried one to the other. “ Why, there’s another fellow in my bed. How are you getting along?” “I’ve got a felloAV in my bed, too.” “ Oh, then, we’d better kick ’em both out; ” and at it they went, when by and by one of them Avas launched into the mid¬ dle of the floor. “Well, Bill, Iioav have you managed ? ” “ Why, I have kicked my man out. What have you done with AN AWFUL PITCH OVER. yOUrS ? ” “ Oil,” > said he, “My man has kicked me out.” Another fellow, stumbling against a pump as he was reel¬ ing home, drew off, and, shutting his fists, said, “Young man, if you Avill just lay doAvn that stick I Avill Avhip you in about three minutes.” I remember reading of a man who was riding in a Avagon over a very rough road, and, being intoxicated, was suddenly pitched out. He sat up and said, as he rubbed his head, “ That was an aAvful pitch over ! If I had knoAvn what it Avas going to be, I Avould not have got out.” I remember seeing an intoxicated man attempting to Avdieel another, in a similar state, in a wheel-barroAV. The 432 A GROTESQUE SCENE. tipsy gravity (you all know how silly a drunken man looks when he tries to appear sober) with which one held the han¬ dles, and the other tried to keep his balance, looking now on one side and now on another, was painfully grotesque. At length the barrow turned on one side, and out the man rolled. Turning to his companion, he said, “ You are drunk.” A blow w^as struck, and at it they went, hitting the air. They hit in every ^ direction and struck nowhere, until at last one of them put up his hand, and that happened to hit the other, and they fell one upon the other. Dr. John¬ son must have had such a scene as that in his mind's eye when he described “ Higgledy-piggledy ” to be ^ “A conglomerated mass of s ■* heterogeneous matter.” ha, ha! Such sights, however . ri¬ diculous, are always sad when we remember that the actors in them are men. It is worth something to be able to say, as did the Indian, holding the bottle in his hand, “ Ah, devil’s spittle, fire-water, broth of hell, I am your master! Ha, ha! ” There was a great deal of difference between him and another Indian, who said, “Please to give poor Indian some rum ; me good Indian.” “Ah, but good Indians never go round begging for rum.” “ Then me great big rascal. Give me some rum.” The drink will make a man say or do anything to get it. Men often promise themselves, “ It is only for this once; WILL IT PAY? 433 I will do so no more.” As Shakespeare said: 44 1 will wink, and it is done.” Yes, done. Ah! the doing is hut the beginning. If nothing followed, there would be no punish¬ ment for folly, no chastisement for crime. It is not done. The deed is done, but the results are not ephemeral. There is no such thing as getting rid of them. And how many fly for relief to the very thing which has harmed them, and thus multiply the spectres of the past, like 44 trying the hair of the dog that bit you,” which is 44 laying up a store of the same horrors to last you a week.” 44 What hast thou done? ” was the question asked of Eve after the first sin. She only ate some fruit, a little thing, but of what tremendous conse¬ quence. So a simple 44 yes ” or 44 no,” that a breath can utter, may mark the transition point between the eternal right and wrong, and fix the destiny of a man forever. Edward Irving once said: 44 Does the devil, as in the old tales, offer royal gifts and pardons to those who serve him?” Some few may seem to make a good bargain of his service; but what he doeth to the many, the sluggard in his poverty, and the violator of law, can tell in the penalty that surely comes. Then, young men, as you lift the sparkling wine to your lips in the jollity and reck¬ lessness of a night’s spree, ask yourselves, 44 Will it pay?” Will it ? Yes, it will. But how? It is pitiful to see educated men degraded and ruined by the love of drink. I was once called upon by a lady in Exeter, who told me that her husband was once an Indepen¬ dent minister; that he had been a popular and acceptable preacher for some years in Hampshire. He was invited to start a new interest in Nottinghamshire, and he preached three or four years there. He was a nervous, energetic man ; he preached night and day, and almost wore himself out. The doctor said he must take some wine and beer. 44 Oh, lear ! ” said the lady, and she wept as if her heart would 434 FROM PULPIT TO PRISON. break, “ to give beer and wine to my husband to stimulate him more. If the doctor had prescribed a sedative and ordered him rest, the people would have given it to him; instead of that, he only added fuel to the fire. He did more work for a time, but the habit of drinking grew upon him as a kind of fascination; it fastened upon him till it became a master passion. He left his church, and preached for two years at a place eight miles from Torquay. The habit grew so fast upon him that he gave up his charge and the ministry altogether; and now I want you to see him in Exeter jail, where he lies awaiting his trial in July for larceny.” You may tell me, if you please, about education ; educated men become drunkards as well as others. Such cases are by no means rare, but there is a tendency to hush and hide their disgrace. Men have died of disease, have died in railway carriages, have been crushed to death by accident, have been blown up in steamboats ; we may speak of these; but when men fall from high positions and die drunkards, the disposi¬ tion of the people is to let down the curtain between them and the public, and one must not speak about them for fear of hurting the feelings of others. At some period of our lives a time comes to all of us when we have certain opportunities. Opportunities are pass¬ ing day by day, — opportunities of helping others, of doing good, of serving God, of girding ourselves with all the strength of Christian manhood. Duty ! Is it your duty to make a sacrifice for others ? Do IT. Is it your duty to give up that which is debasing and degrading you, or bringing 3 r our family to poverty, wretchedness, and ruin ? Do it. Ah, young men, if I could but prevail upon you in the morning of your life to do it. Young men, over forty years ago I began to speak on the subject of temperance. I was a young man then ; I had AN INEFFACEABLE RECORD. 435 forty years of life before me. Now those forty years are behind me; and there is not a word I have spoken, not a whisper I have uttered, there is not a line I have written, there is not a mark I have made, that I can change to save my soul. It is my record. And you are making your record. Some of you turned over a clean, clear page this morning. Look at it now. Are there no blots on it, no marks on it, no stains on it ? To-night, as you look at your record, you hurriedly close it up ? Ah, my friend, you cannot close it. You can never remove one single stain from your record. It is there. Sixty years of life ! It is an awful thing to live, — no good done, a mere life of self-indulgence and sin, leaving the very dregs to be drunk at last, and those dregs bitter beyond description. Young men, we need you in the strength of your man¬ hood to declare war against this fearful evil. We want you all; yes, we want all classes to help us. There is a time coming, and coming to us all, when duty is plain. Perhaps some of you will feel it your duty now to join in this work and help us. Duty first! Duty ! Put your hand in the hand of Duty, and let her lead you, whether through storm or sunshine, light or darkness, life or death, — do your DUTY. In your young manhood you are a hero-worshipper; but the heroes who are the noblest are not always martial or political. It is the quiet endurance, the quiet suffering, and the quiet struggling, for the benefit of others and for the country in which we live, that constitutes the noblest heroism and true greatness. He who ranks himself on the side of right is the hero. Nero, Emperor of Rome, sat upon his throne clothed in purple; a nation bowed to him ; at his nod men trembled. Who can touch him? In the Mamertine dungeon sat a man chained to a soldier, writing a letter to 136 THE TRIUMPH OF RIGHT. Timothy to send him his cloak, for he was shivering in the cold cell of that Roman prison. What a contrast between the two; this poor prisoner and that mighty emperor, the right and the wrong. The wrong on the throne, and the right in the dungeon. But read on, read on! That hateful wretch, a slave to every evil passion, fled from his infuriated soldiers, and, like a coward, with the help of an attendant, committed suicide, and his name is now a by-word. No Christian will give it to his children, and men will only occa¬ sionally give it to a dog. The other finished his letter: u I have fought the good fight; I have finished my course ; I have kept the faith; ” and wrote words that have thrilled the hearts and shaped the lives of millions, and will for ages yet to come. Those who are with the right are with God, and those who are with the wrong are against him. Tell me that such a battle as ours is Utopian ! I grant you we may never see the full results ; but we are seeing the growth of a public sentiment which, under God, is to sweep intemperance away forever. Young men, life is opening out to you ; to us it is closing. Oh, to be a young man again, with all the energies, with the fulness of life, the young blood coursing in the veins, with the emotion and ambition that you possess to-day, and which I have possessed. There is not a young man who is not looking towards his future position in life. You are looking forward into the future, trusting that you will occupy a higher and grander position than is yours to-day. Yes, and every man that started in life as you are starting had just the same ambition. You will be A MAN ; you will suffer and sacrifice rather than become degraded. That clergvman of the Church of England who was fined five shil- lings and costs for drunkenness, at Marylebone, did not sup¬ pose that would be the result when he started in life and COACHING IN CALIFORNIA. 437 began to take a wrong direction. That physician who once possessed a large and lucrative practice, who was fined in the same court, just after the clergyman, for attacking a man, when he was drunk, did not suppose that would be the end of it when he began to drink. A man I knew well, who was governor of his State and representative in Congress for two sessions, did not suppose that he would ever become the poor, miserable, drunken loafer that he did. There was a man whom I knew, a graduate of Harvard University, who became utterly degraded and ruined by drink. I found him in California, or rather he found me, and a more terrible blasphemer I never knew. He was a drunk¬ ard, almost a beast, if you can call a human being a beast; he was awfully brutalized. Men gave him work occasionally at driving one of the coaches, but only at odd times, and for short distances, for they could not trust him on a long road. He came to see me, and I was never more disgusted with any man in my life. He was a man of wonderful genius. He is dead now, so I can mention his case. You know in Califor¬ nia coaches are driven down very steep mountains, and, to insure safety, they have a very strong brake, operated and controlled by the foot, and with this brake the coach is con¬ trolled and kept steady. A driver once said to me, as we were going down the side of a mountain with an incline of two thousand feet in two and a half miles: “ These horses are in full gallop, but they don’t pull.” He had his foot on the brake, and we were going at such a tremendous rate that I had to hold on to both sides of the seat on which I sat, lest I should go over with the impetus of swirling round the curves. It is for just such occasions that these powerful brakes are required. The man of whom I have spoken was visited on his death-bed by his sister, who said to him: “ George, why don’t you keep your foot still ? What is the 27 438 KEEP YOUR FOOT ON THE BRAKE matter with you? What do you keep lifting your knee for ? ” “ Oh! ” he said, “ I am on an awful down grade, and I cannot find the brake.” Young man, your foot is on the brake to-day. Keep it there ! In God’s name keep it there ! You may make your future just what you choose to make it. AN EXCITING IilDE IN C ALIFOKNI A. How many young men are going to wreck! I once asked a young man why he would not sign the temperance pledge. “ Because,” said he, “ I will not sign away my liberty.” I said, “ Liberty! ” And he said, “ I want to do as I please.” Young men, every man who does as he pleases, independent; of moral, physical, and divine law, is a mean, miserable slave. Every man who is not held by the freedom of law is a slave SOWING AND REAPING. 439 There is the great difficulty. Young men want to do as they please in their young, brisk manhood. They throw off re¬ straint ; so they take the wrong direction, and they know it. There is not a young man who is taking the wrong direction but knows it. You do not hear them defend their course; they palliate it. “ Oh, young men will be young men.” So they ought to be young men. “ Yes, but they will sow their wild oats.” Then they will reap them. “ Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Sow wheat and you reap wheat. Sow wild oats and you reap wild oats in the by and by. And many there are who possess in their bodies the pains, cramps, neuralgia, and rheumatism, the result of the sins and the follies of their youth. They must reap that which they have sown. You say, “It will come right by and by.” What will? Begin wrong and end right? Never ! Two divergent lines go on widening to all eternity. There is no coming together. I tell you a man is a fool who undertakes to go wrong, and expects he will come out right somehow or other at the end. If he comes back, he will come back with bleeding feet and torn flesh and streaming eyes and a broken heart. He must come back thus if he ever comes to the right. Then I ask you, young gentlemen, with bright prospects before you, with ambition, with hope, with desire, what are you going to make of the time that is to come ? There is no power on earth that tends so much to the degradation and to the loss of young men; to their ruin morally, physically, spiritually, religiously, and, I might say, financially, like the drink. It stands head and shoulders, like Saul, above all other influences and tendencies. I know there are a great many who do not believe it. How sad to know that many of the intemperate are drawn out of Young Men’s Christian Associations, are drawn out of Sunday- 440 OPPORTUNITIES FOR GOOD. schools, are drawn out of churches, are drawn out of the most godly homes in the land. Young men, you have an influence to exert. Perhaps you say, “ I can’t talk on this subject; I am engaged largely in my own business, and can’t employ my time in this matter.” We should all exert our influence for good, whenever we have opportunity. I was reading, the other day, the history of the Woman of Samaria. You remember Jesus sat by the well, and the woman came to draw water. His disciples had gone to buy bread, and he was faint and weary. But the woman came to draw water, and there was an opportunity of doing good. If he had been as selfish as some of us, he would have said, “ I am weary, I am tired, I am faint, I must take some refreshment, I am continually laboring, I shall have another opportunity.” But no; he forgot his faintness and his weariness; there was an opportunity to do good, and he talked with the woman. Suppose he had argued like some of us, what would have been the result ? She would have gone back with the water on her shoulders. Her neighbors might have said, “Well, what news at the well?” “Nothing; an interesting stranger sat there; but he said nothing to me, and I said nothing to him.” But what was the result ? She forgot her water-pot, and went into the city and said, “ Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did; ” and the whole city came out unto him. That was doing good as he had opportunity; and there is not a young man but may lead another into the path of truth and safety, or send him forth as a minister of mercy to others. CHAPTER XXII. OUR DUTY TO THE FALLEN — BRANDS PLUCKED FROM THE BURNING — STORY OF THE WICKEDEST MAN IN NEW YORK. An Incident of the War — Clean Linen First, Religion Afterwards—Work Among the Poor and Depraved — Dens of Vice — Bread Before Tracts — Speaking to an Audience of Eight Hundred Outcasts — The Wickedest Man in New York —Story of Orville Gardiner—A Mother’s Love for a Wayward Son — A Thrilling Experience — A Nine Hours’ Fight with a Jug of Whiskey — A Thoroughly Reformed Gambler and Prize-fighter — Tempted at Communion Service — Cutting it Off “as Square as a Piece of Cheese”—Daily Trials — Trusting in God — My Boyish Dislike of Attending Church — Incident of a Lecture Tour in Ohio — Sad Down¬ fall of a Once Devoted Christian Woman — A Minister Drunk in His Own Pulpit — Scene at One of My Lectures — Selling the Last Blanket for Drink — Death and Desolation — The Breach in the Dike — A Thrilling Story of Holland Life. E are often asked, “ If you in¬ duce a number of men to sign the pledge, will they keep it ? ” Here we find the value of organization. Take, for in¬ stance, the temperance organ¬ izations which care for these men, keep them, and look after them ; the results show one of the great ad¬ vantages of organized effort. Dr. Goodell of St. Louis, in a speech at Chautauqua, speaking of the advantages of organization, re¬ ferred to the career and work of Whitefield and Wesley; the first simply a preacher, the other a preacher and organizer; thus, while Whitefield is now comparatively unknown by his influence on the world, the power of Wesley’s influence is 441 442 HUMANITARIANISM IN RELIGION. felt all round the globe. The permanency of the drunkard’s reform is secured by taking personal interest in them. It is for you to lay your hand on them. You say they are “very hard cases.” So they are, but I never found a case so hard that it could not be reached by perseverance. You strike once or twice, and then leave them because there is no response. Yet let us try again. It is our business to knock at the door of a man’s heart till there is a response, if we knock till the day of his death. Never give him up while there is life, — never. Ah, there is where you can work. You can work by your influence ; but it must be by your example as well, so that you can say to those men, 44 Come with me,” not 44 go as I direct,” but 44 come with me.” There is a mighty power in that word come. I believe in humanitarianism in religion. Some people have too much, and some too little. We wish to save men. Our object is to make this total abstinence pledge a means of grace to them. One of the men who went to the war as chaplain, a volun¬ teer chaplain, came back and said: 44 I soon found that my business was on the battle-field. I came to one poor fellow who had been wounded and was very feverish. He was lying on a wretched bed with a hard pillow, and the poor fellow was very ill, and very uncomfortable, and very miserable, tossing from side to side. I sat down by him, and I pitied him so much that I actually cried. I said to him, 4 My poor friend, shall I pray with you ? ’ 4 1 don’t care whether you pray or not. Pray, if you want to. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear ! I wish I had a clean shirt.’ I saw that was my first work. When I had given him clean linen, and made his pillow easier, and his bed softer, I laid my cool hand upon his forehead. Moistening his dry lips, I held his hand in mine, and prayed with him for about a minute, and he cried like a child.” That clean linen PRACTICAL MISSION WORK. 443 was as much a means of grace as the prayer, and under the circumstances it was needed first. First put forth the effort to relieve. You can do that with prayer. You may pray all the time you are putting the clean linen on. And then, when you pray to Him who is able to save to the uttermost, the prayer will touch the sufferer as it never would do under any other condition. I often see the work men and women are doing among the poor. I saw them in Philadel¬ phia, in Bedford Street, distrib¬ uting tracts. They went down into the lowest dens of vice, ,'iih U»| v\\\ . mm %m w running the risk of infection and dis¬ ease and insult, en¬ tering garrets and cellars in the dis- - ' charge of their duty — many of them ladies belonging to the best families. I spoke in the Academy of Music on the Monday after I had seen them at their good work on Sunday. I said, after alluding to their missionary spirit, 44 Ladies, you are engaged in a good work, a magnificent work. But, ladies, when you go to a home of poverty, where there is a constant battle for bread, “ SHALL I PRAY WITH YOU ? ” where the}^ know what hard, griping, grinding starvation means, go with your tracts in one hand, but with a loaf of bread in the other. Then, out of respect to you, a man will not tear up your tract, nor light his pipe with it when your back is turned, because you show sympathy with the man and 444 A WRETCHED COMPANY. with liis class in their sorrows.” So did the Master. He laid his hands on the afflicted. We read more about His healing the sick, curing diseases, and cleansing lepers than we do of His preaching. He went among the people and laid His hands on them,, and as Christian people we should follow His example. I was once asked to speak to an audience of the most mis¬ erable outcasts that the eye of man ever rested upon. The meeting was held in a loft, and there were about eight hundred MY AUDIENCE OF OUTCASTS. outcasts present, — forlorn, hopeless, homeless, ragged, mise¬ rable. The very stench of the audience was sickening. There were a few ladies present — running the risk of infection — who came to sing a few Sunday-school hymns. There were gentlemen there to read passages of Scripture and expound them in language simple and appropriate. Some were present to tell them lively stories, each having its moral, and others to sing their hymns. It seemed as if no impression was made upon the audience. They sat, many of them with folded hands, and listened stolidly. Why did they come ? Why are they here ? Why do they sit so still that you could hear a whisper ? GIVING A SON TO JESUS. 445 Because every one of them knew that if they remained in the hall for one hour, and behaved themselves, they would get a loaf of bread as they went out. “ Oh, that is using wrong means altogether to bring men under the gospel.” Is it ? Feed them with the bread that perisheth, if by that means you can bring them to hear of the bread which endureth unto eternal life. A lady in Glasgow said to me, u I never give a poor man a tract but I give a sixpence with it.” When we give tracts to the hungry with one hand, let us give loaves of bread with the other. We are not setting gifts in the place of the gospel, but making them subservient to the gospel. What is our great object in the reformation of the drunk¬ ard ? What should be the great object of loving, Christian men ? To bring that man to Christ, and indirectly to use this total abstinence principle to that end. I have often said, It is grand to see a man fighting an evil habit, and none but those who have passed through such a battle know what a conflict it is. Orville Gardiner of New York was called the most wicked man in that city. More than once since he became a Christian he has been in my house; and a warmer, tenderer heart than his never beat in a human bosom. I have seen him sit and cry as he said, “ Only to think that Jesus should love me.” He was a prize¬ fighter, a blasphemer, a drunkard, in every respect a wicked man; and there was nothing bad that he would not do. Let me say here to mothers, he had a godly mother. When they would say to her, “Well, Mrs. Gardiner, what do you think of Orville now ? ” she would say, “ I have given him to Jesus ; I pray for him three times a day, and Orville will be brought into the kingdom yet.” He had a wife and one child. The boy died, — was drowned. He became more desperate than ever, almost raving mad. “ Drink! drink ! ” he said, “ I drank 446 THE WICKEDEST MAN IN NEW YORK. sixty glasses in twenty-four hours.” Soon after the death of his boy he was in a saloon, drinking with several fight¬ ing men. The room was very warm and close. They were smoking, and he went out. It was a bright night. Look¬ ing up overhead at the narrow strip of sky visible above the narrow street, he saw two stars shining brightly. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead, and the thought struck him, 44 1 wonder where my boy is.” It flashed upon him that he was not on the right road ever to see his boy again. He went home and sent away two men whom he had been training for the ring; and then he went up to see his old mother, and they knelt and prayed together. 44 But,” he said, 44 mother, I cannot be a Christian until I give up the drink, and that is the hardest work of all. Now,” said he, 44 mother, to-day I will drink myself to death or I will get the victory.” He bought a jug of liquor — it contained about two quarts of whiskey — and carried it in a boat across the river, went into the woods, found a clear space, and then set the jug down on a stone and began to fight it. 44 Now it is give you up forever, or I will never leave this place alive. I will drink the whole of you, or I will conquer you.” For nine hours that man fought and struggled with his appetite. He said, 44 1 was afraid to break the jug for fear the smell of the FIGHTING A JUG OF WHISKEY. 447 liquor would drive me mad. My knees were so sore from kneeling while crying to God to help me, that I could hardly move. I knew my mother was praying for me. I kicked a place in the soft loam, and took up the jug, holding it at arm’s length, and placed it in the hole. Then I covered it up, and stamped upon it. And from that day to this not a drop has ever passed my lips.” It requires strength of mind and % firmness of purpose to do such a thing as that. What I want to impress upon every man is this. You have a will. Did you ever ex¬ ercise your will? Did you ever resolutely determine, “ I will ? ” Why, there are circumstances that seem almost inevitable, that you can often fight off by the power of your will. I believe there are a great many people living to-day who, A DESPERATE STRUGGLE. 448 A SMOULDERING VOLCANO. if they had not willed otherwise, would have been dead and buried years ago. I have heard it said of a woman that “ she would have been dead years ago if it had not been for the power of her will.” We say to every intemperate person, We come to offer you freedom from the drink. We have a “ Declaration of In¬ dependence ” for you to sign; and if you sign it you declare, not that you are free, but that you will be free. That is it. However, there is a fight. I never tell a man that he can leave off drinking as easily as he can turn over his hand. It is not true. He has to fight. I love a fighter. Some men never fight. Now, we must fight. There is one thing I want to say to those who belong to the Gospel Temperance Society, and it is treading on delicate ground. But it is a matter that sometimes troubles us. I have heard men say that the love of Jesus or the grace of God has taken away their appetite. Now, I have a letter from a gentleman, who says, “I prayed earnestly, and God took from me all desire for drink.” Granted that He may do so. But beware ! The appetite is physical, and is produced by the immoderate use of alcohol. And there is not one who has been a drunkard who can touch it, who can safely take to moderate drinking. I do not care if you call yourself fifty times a Christian. The grace of God will keep you from the drink; but it will not keep you from the effects, if you drink. If you think the appetite is gone, beware how you tamper with the devil that lies there quiet and dormant, for the demon is ever ready to rouse into fury at the first drop of alcohol you put to your lips. The craving appetite is like the smouldering fire of a vol¬ cano within, ready to be roused by the first dram. Do not tamper with that appetite. Do not think, if you have ab¬ stained for years, that you can drink moderately. I remem- THE TIGER’S THIRST FOR BLOOD. 449 ber reading of a man who had a pet tiger. The gentleman was in his study one day, his hand hanging over the chair. The tiger was licking his hand, and when the man attempted to remove it, the animal, with a low growl and a snarl, fixed its claws in his arm, and then crouched with its ears thrown back, its eyes green, waving its tail. There was danger. The man kept his eyes fixed upon the tiger, rang the bell, and A MOMENT OF DANGER. ordered the servant to bring his pistol, with which he shot the tiger dead. He then looked at his hand, and observed blood upon it. The taste had aroused the tiger’s dormant appetite for blood. So is it with the appetite for drink, which is ever ready, like the tiger, to make the fatal spring when¬ ever it is tampered with. The appetite for intoxicating drinks, what is it ? As near as I can define it, it is a mysterious something, produced in certain systems by the use of intoxicating liquors, that will at once respond to alcohol, when touched by it. You cannot 450 TEMPTED AT COMMUNION SERVICE! make a moderate drinker out of a drunkard. I do not care how many times he joins the church. It has been tried over and over again. Total abstinence is absolutely necessary to save a man who has once been a drunkard. A gentleman in New York said to me: “ I was a sad drunkard. I became a Christian at Mr. Moody’s hippodrome meetings in New York. I had signed the pledge ; I wanted to work for the Lord ; I joined the church of a minister who sympathized with me ; and I had been working in his gospel tent and trying to rescue men. Well, I believed and boasted that the love of Jesus had taken away all appetite for the drink. Three weeks ago there was a communion service. I smelt the drink and wanted it. My fingers began to tingle. There was an itching, burning, dry sensation in my throat. I wanted it. I tried to pray. I tried to think that I had come there to 4 show the Lord’s death till he come.’ It was no use. I gripped the seat. I ground my teeth. I sat in per¬ fect agony. The wine approached me. I shuddered from head to foot. If I had taken it in my hand, there would not have been a drop of it left in the cup. I know it. I have been fighting that appetite for three weeks with all the power I had to fight anything, and am very glad you have comforted me by the assurance that I may yet be a child of God, and still be subject to this terrible temptation.” The grace of God enables a man to overcome, but it does not take away from him the appetite. It can. The grace of God is able to do anything, but that is not its province. It can take away the appetite, I suppose; but in how many cases has it done so ? I could give you so many fearful, sor¬ rowful illustrations of this over-confidence, not in the grace of God, but in mistaken notions of the province of the grace of God; and I say to every reformed drunkard, whether you are a Christian or not, let the drink alone. Total absti¬ nence IS YOUR ONLY SAFETY. CUTTING IT OFF SQUARELY. 451 A gentleman was so far enslaved that he was known to take a quart of brandy in a day. How he stood it no one knew. He was a fine business man, and yet, in the estima¬ tion of those who knew him well, he was ruining himself. One day, when in the house, he said: “Wife, come and sit on my knee.” She sat there, and then she said: “ If my husband did not drink, I should be the happiest woman in the world.” “Well, my dear,” he replied, “ I married you to make you happy, and I ought to do so; and if that will make you happy, I will never drink another drop as long as I live.” Now, that man cut it off “as square as a piece of cheese,” no slivers, no splinters, and kept his word for years without any practical belief in Christianity. Walking down the street with him a little while ago, he said: “ Do you see that red- fronted drinking-saloon? Well, I have been for many years afraid to pass the door of that house, so I used to turn down another street and go round it; but, Mr. Gough, since I have had the grace of God in my heart, I go right by that saloon; and if I have the slightest desire for drink, I breathe a prayer, 4 God, keep me for Christ’s sake,’ and I go by it safely.” Now, when a man abstains from drink, and endeavors to control an appetite in his own strength, he does it at daily risk; but when he puts forth all the energy God has given him, and trusts God for the result, he is safe, absolutely safe. It is there we seek to bring the man. We cannot truly tell a man that he will not have to fight after he signs the temperance pledge. I do not believe in a Christian life with¬ out work and fighting. I have no patience with men who talk of this life being no battlefield. I have heard them sing: — “ Nothing for me to do, Nothing for me to do.” 452 A LITTLE MARTYR. And I have also heard them sing: — “ My willing soul would stay In such a frame as this And sit and sing herself away To everlasting bliss.” Now, I have not very much sympathy with that kind of negative religion. When I was a boy, my father always demanded my attendance at church, and I grew so wearied of it that I hated it. It was very unpleasant. I sat on a hard bench, with my feet dangling over, and my poor little legs would get “pins and needles,” and they would go to sleep, and I dared not rub them, for father sat beside me. It was not very comforting, when I was suffering on a hot July afternoon in every nerve of my body, to hear them sing: “ Congregations ne’er break up, And Sabbaths never end,” and I thought if heaven was a place where we were compelled to sit constantly on uncomfortable seats, I did not care to go there. Let me relate one incident, to give you more fully an idea of what we mean when we say we want to bring men to Christ as well as to make them teetotalers. I was once travelling in Ohio on a lecturing tour, and, on entering the car, I found it very much crowded; but I espied one vacant seat by the side of a gentleman. I said to him : “ May I sit by you ? ” MEMORIES OF MY YOUTHFUL DAYS. AN HONEST CONFESSION. 453 44 Yes, Mr. Gough, you may. I am very glad to have you for a fellow-traveller. I heard you speak last night. Now, I’m a pretty hard drinker. I look like it, don’t I ? ” “ Some¬ what.” “ I am worth some property, but I might be worth SHE BURST OUT CRYING AND DROPPED ON HER KNEES.” •Hundreds where I am only worth tens to-day. I’m a pretty tough character, but I have always considered myself a man of my word. After hearing your lecture, I went home, and said to my wife, 4 1 will never drink another drop of liquor as long as I live.’ I thought she would be tickled at it, but she burst out crying and dropped on her knees. I did n’t like it. I am not that sort of a man. I hadn’t been 28 454 EFFICACY OF PRAYER. on my knees since I was eight years old; and as for the in¬ side of a church, I hardly know what it is. I did n’t like it, and I said: ‘ What in thunder are you on your knees for ? ’ I went to bed sulky; got up this morning, and I wanted whis¬ key. I had never promised anybody before that I would not drink; but I had done so now, and I’m a man of my word. I’m going to see about a piece of property I bought when I was drunk. I’m going right among the drink and into temptation, but I would rather be carried home dead to-night than carried home drunk. I want whiskey now, but I don’t mean to have it. I tried to take my breakfast this morning. I could n’t get it down; the more I tried to eat, the more I loathed the food. I wanted whiskey; I felt as if I must have whiskey. And I knew where I was going.” Then the tears came, and the lip quivered as he said: “Well, Mr. Gough, you may think it very queer of me, but I have been on my knees this morning for over an hour.” “ Have you? ” “ Yes.” “ Then,” I said, “ keep there, and you will go home sober. No man ever drank a glass of liquor while he was honestly praying God to keep him from it.” There is safety there , but all the rest is risk. A man may keep the pledge to the day of his death, but he does it at a risk. Thus we bring the intemperate not only to fight the battle, but to trust in God for the victory. Are there no men ruined who ever had the grace of God in their hearts? Will you dare to say that every deposed minister never had the grace of God in his heart ? Will you tell me that the wife of a minister, who spent eight years in China, teaching Chinese women Christianity as a devoted Christian, and then came home and delivered lectures to ladies on the wants of the women of China, for the purpose of raising money, not for herself, but for them,—will you tell me she had no grace in her heart? And yet she died A MINISTER’S DOWNFALL. PREACHING HIS OLD SERMONS FOR LIQUOR. And that doctor of divinity, wild had preached the gospel to thousands for eight and twenty years, has since stood in a low dram-shop, with his face bruised and blackened, and a number of degraded and dissolute men jeering him,—stood there and preached his old sermons, for whisky to stave off delirium tremens. INTEMPERANCE IN THE PULPIT. 457 drunk in a hotel in Boston, an empty brandy-bottle by her side. This lady I personally knew. I may be approaching delicate subjects, but I have to deal with pacts, not theories . I have to deal with men and their experiences. I knew a clergyman, from whose pulpit I once spoke. I was told that he was one of the most eloquent of ministers. He was the pastor of a very fashionable church. On the night that I spoke in his church he was to offer prayer. He was very much intoxicated. I was asked some time after if I would testify in the case. They were going to try him for drunkenness. I said, “No, I will give no testimony what¬ ever.” He was deposed, and that doctor of divinity, who had preached the gospel to thousands for eight and twenty years, has since stood in a low dram-shop, with his face bruised and blackened, and a number of degraded and dissolute men jeer¬ ing him, — stood there and preached his old sermons, for whiskey to stave off delirium tremens. Now we appeal to you in behalf of those who cannot drink moderately, and we ask you to help us in putting away a temptation from their very sight and from their senses. Oh, it is pitiful to find, as we do, in many a family, a victim of this vice, a son, a brother, a father, a husband, with no help in his home. Sometimes we find poverty and sorrow. Once we found a dead child lying in one corner of a room, unburied, and the living inmates had nothing to eat but a bit of dry bread and a cup of weak tea. Everything else in the house was gone, because the father was a drunkard, and he had taken the last blankets and pawned them for drink. This is a positive fact, for I know the circumstances, and the drunkard was once a gentleman. Dr. Alfred Carpenter said at Croydon that he knew nearly a score of similar cases. Well, we laid hold of this poor victim. He said, “ I will sign the pledge.” 458 AWFUL RESPONSIBILITY. We turned to his relatives, “ Will you sign it?” “Oh no, we don’t drink enough to hurt us, and we must have our little drop of beer.” “ What, will you dare to bring it into the house, and let him see it, and smell it, and see you drink it ? Do you know Avhat you are doing ? Do you know that the very sight of it rouses in him a desire for it ? The smell of it sends a stinging, burning, itching sensation through every nerve of his system. Let him taste it, and you cannot save him.” “We cannot help it, he may sign if he will; and he ought to. But we cannot do without our beer.” And for the sake of a little drop of beer, there are those who will not sign the pledge to save husband, brother, son, or father. Now the incident just related is a fact. We are stating that which is true. We wish to appeal to those who thus hold themselves aloof. It is on the ground of helping others that we appeal to you. We do not tell the respectable, moderate drinker he is ruining himself. Certainly not. There are to-day respecta¬ ble, Christian, moderate drinkers. I do not judge them. I can only judge them from my standpoint, and I have no right to condemn them. But I have a right to throw upon their pathway all the light God g:ves me the ability to do, so that they may measure in one hand the glass of ale, and in the other the salvation of a man ■ and let them remember that they must stand in the day of judgment to render their ac¬ count. There are times in every man’s life when duty is plain, though it may be difficult to*perform. Ease, comfort, luxury, inclination, stand in the way. If duty is performed, it must be at a sacrifice ; but it always “pays” to take the hand of duty, and let her lead, whether through storm or sunshine, darkness or light, grief or joy, life or death. Duty! duty! always first. Men who have fouglib mighty battles have A STORY OF HOLLAND. 459 found that whenever they have yielded to sloth, or fear, or inclination, it has been at a loss; and when triumphing over every obstacle and apparent impossibility, and have obeyed the stern demands of duty, it has paid them — gloriously paid them. On the northernmost part of the mainland of Holland there is a point of low land extending nine miles, unprotected by any natural defence against invasion by the sea. More than two hundred years ago the inhabitants undertook the gigantic task of raising dykes of clay, earth, and stone; and now, behind the shelter of the embankment, numerous vil¬ lages and towns are safe from their powerful enemy, the sea. The spire of Alkmond, a town of 10,000 inhabitants, is on a level with the top of the dyke. A master is appointed to oversee the workmen constantly employed in watching those dykes. A century ago, one November night, a fierce gale was blowing from the northwest, and increasing in fury every minute. The dyke-master had planned to go to Amsterdam It was the time of the spring tide. He thought of the dyke. Should he give up his pleasant trip to Amsterdam ? The dyke! The urgency of his visit was great. But the dyke ! His friends would be sadly disappointed if he did not go to Amsterdam. But the dyke! Inclination against duty. It was six o’clock; the tide had turned, and would rise till twelve. But at seven the stage would start for Amsterdam. Should he go ? A struggle; his inclination was to go, his duty was to remain. He looked up at the wild and fast in¬ creasing storm, and he decided to go with all speed to his post of duty. When he reached the dyke, the men, two hundred in number, were in utter and almost hopeless confusion. The storm had risen to a hurricane. They had used up their store of hurdles and canvas in striving to check the inroads 460 DOING HIS DUTY. of their relentless foe. Then they shouted, u Here’s the master! Thanks be to God! All right now ! ” The master placed every man at his post; and then a glorious battle commenced, — the battle of men against the furious ocean,. About half past eleven the cry was heard from the centre., 44 Help ! help ! ” 44 What’s the matter ? ” “ Four stones out at once.” u Where ? ” 44 Here.” The master flung a rope round his waist, four men did the same, forty hands held the ends of the ropes as the five men glided down the sloping side of the dyke. The waves buffeted and tossed them, bruising their limbs and bodies; but they closed the breach, and were then drawn up. Cries for help came from all quarters. 44 Is there any more canvas ? ” 44 All gone ! ” u Any more hurdles ? ” 44 All gone ! ” 44 Off with your coats, men, and thrust them into the breach,” shouted the master, throwing off his own. There they stood, half naked in the raging November storm. At a quarter to twelve, only a few inches higher, and the sea would rush over the dyke, and not a living soul would be left in all North Holland. The coats were all used up. The tide had yet to rise till midnight. 44 Now, my men,” said the master, 44 we can do no more. Down on your knees, every one of you, and pray to God.” And two hundred men knelt down on the shaking, trembling dyke, amid the roar of the storm and the thunder of the waves, and lifted up their hands and hearts to Him who could say to the waves, 44 Be still!” And, as of old, he heard them, and saved them out of their trouble. And the people of Alkmond were eating and drinking, dancing and singing, and never knew that there was but an inch between them and death during that terrible night. A country was saved by one man’s decision for duty. CHAPTER XXIII. MEN AND METHODS, MANNERS AND MORALS OF OUR OWN TIMES — ILLUSTRATIVE ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS. Reflection — Aping Extravagance — Beginning Life Where Their Fathers Left Off — Odd Reasons for Getting Married — Butterflies of Fashion — Old Aunt Chloe — “ Tie ’Em Together ” — The Husband Who Proclaimed Himself “a Regular Julius Csesar”—What His Wife Thought About It — “Who Keeps This House?”—How the Question Was Settled — Family Jars — “Will the Sheriff Sell Me?”—Power of Money — Spoils of Office — “Grandpa, Have a Weed?” — Old-time Politeness — Dif¬ ference Between “Then” and “Now” — “I Knocks My Boys Down and They Ain’t Good” — Influence of Example—A Father’s Cruel Act — “Do It Again, Papa”—Henry Clay and the Farmer — John on His Knees — The Ship Captain and the Sailor — Past and Present — Elisha Kent Kane — A Remarkable Career — One of Sin’s Victims — Broken Hopes and Buried Aspirations — The Alabaster Box. KNOW that it is pleasant to imagine our own era as the grandest that was ever known, but let us turn the cool, calm eye of reflection on our boastings and see how much that seems gold, shrivels here and there into tinsel. When progress touches our fancied interests, what we call our rights, — our passions, or appetites—we often cry out against it as fanaticism. Is not much that we call refinement a tendency to ape the extravagances and follies of the grade above us in the social scale, an effort to grasp the shadow or flitter of an external existence, to the wholesale 461 462 WHY SOME PEOPLE MARRY. neglect of the inner life? Just as a certain kind of liquid assists in polishing steel to the brightness of a mirror, but, if not wiped away, will bite into the steel, so I believe much of the so-called refinement applied to brighter society may consume its very life by the rust it has deposited. In the old times a couple married for love, not display, for a happy, economical home and a plain fireside, — their best company, each other. Now, do not a couple often begin in surroundings just where their fathers ended ? And the mar¬ riage relation, with its hallowed influence from which ought to spring the kindly offices of domestic love and the gentle charities of social life, is made a matter of barter and sale, and family life is metamorphosed into a wretched struggle for fashionable display. In the entire history of the race, it has been seen that just in proportion as families were broken, divided, ajar, mil¬ dewed in any way, just so far the communities, the nations, composed of such families, bear ineffaceable signs of those errors. Nowadays, with what thoughtless haste, for what frivolous reasons, are marriages made. One man marries to increase his respectability; another, to please his friends; another, to spite his relations; another, to procure service without being obliged to pay for it, his object, like any other slaveholder’s, being to secure the longest hours of laborious toil, the most thorough guardianship of his interests, without fee or reward but the honor and glory of serving him and receiving his approval. Generous, magnanimous being! We hear of a widow, inconsolable for the loss of her husband, who took another to keep herself from fretting over her loss. Prudent lady! One young girl gets married because the children had never seen a wedding, and it would gratify them. A young man married an Irish servant girl. That was all right, but OLD AUNT CHLOE’S OPINION. 463 he gave as a reason that if he married in his own sphere, he must keep a girl for his wife’s service, so he married the girl instead. It is well there are differences of opinion as to suitability and compatibility. A man once said, “ Now if everybody had been of my opinion, they would all have wanted my old wo¬ man ; ” another man said, “ If everybody had been of my opinion, nobody would have had her.” One girl will marry because she does not like to work, and wants to be supported in doing nothing, and to have plenty of leisure. I sometimes see these silly butterflies fluttering on the streets in abundance of flounces, cheap jewelry, and head-gear that you would not break the second commandment to worship, for it is unlike anything in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. I think sadly of the home and family of which they will make a wreck, when the lowliest households might be, as many are, homes of brightness and happiness. God be thanked that here, in this marred and furrowed earth of ours, the peace and truth and love and goodness that is the very essence of all home happiness is the right of no one class, is the privilege of the lowliest as well as the loftiest. Old Aunt Chloe said, when asked “When is de married or single life de happiest ? ” “ Dat depends on how dey enjoy demselves.” I know it is the fashion to make old maids and old bachelors subjects of ridicule ; but would it not be better to be laughed at for not being married than never to be able to laugh because you are married ? If a woman is remarkably neat in her person, she ’ll be an old maid. Is she reserved toward gentlemen, diffident, retiring? Oh, she ’ll assuredly be an old maid. Is she frugal in her expenses ? she ’ll certainly be an old maid. Is she exact in her domestic concerns ? there’s no doubt she ’ll be an old 464 GOVERNOR TRUMBULL’S ADVICE. maid. Is she kind to animals ? she is cut out for an old maid. Neatness, modesty, economy, thrift, order, and humanity seem to be the never-failing characteristics of that terrible creature, an old maid. I assure you they are not all fussy bodies, pushing themselves in everywhere, and loving, above all things, to hear themselves talk. What a noble list of spin¬ sters’ names could be given: Florence Nightingale, Mary Lyon, Miss Carpenter, Emily Faithful, Fidelia Fisk, Clara Barton, Miss Dix, and a host of others. Some of the best women that have blessed the world were of this class, besides the numbers whose presence is like a cool shadow on a sum¬ mer’s day, and whose quiet lives of doing and enduring are sending rills of blessing in myriad directions over the land. How many divorces would be avoided if the advice of Governor Trumbull was taken, who, when a friend applied to him for advice about a divorce, asked, “How did you treat your wife when you were courting her?” “Why, I treated her as well as I could, for I loved her dearly.” “Well,” said the Governor, “ go home and court her as you did then, for a year, and come and tell me the result.” At the year’s end, it was, “ My wife and I are as happy as when we first married, and I mean to court her all the days of my life.” Ah, yes, and why should he not ? It is hard for some people to live peaceably together. A couple, who were constantly quarrelling, were seated by the fireside, where the cat and dog were tying quietly side by side. “ Ah,” said the woman, “ it’s a shame we should be always quarrelling. See how peaceably the cat and dog get along.” “Oh,” growled the husband, “just tie ’em together, and then see how they ’ll fight.” It is amusing to hear some men boast of their government at home. One of this class, in the absence of his wife, invited JULIUS (LESAE AT HOME 465 some gentlemen friends to spend an evening with him. The conversation turned on the marriage relation, when the host boasted, “I am master in my own house. I do not believe in woman’s ruling. I do as I please, and I make my wife submit to my rule. I am a regular Julius Csesar in my own house.” Just then his wife came in, and said, “ Gentlemen, you had better go home, and Julius Caesar will just walk right up-stairs along with me.” A traveller stopped at a house for rest and refreshment. He knocked at the front door, but no one responded. He knocked again, and with the same result. After pounding away vigorously for some time without obtaining an answer, he went round to the back of the house, and found a little 466 SETTLING A FAMILY DISPUTE. white-headed old man and his wife engaged in a most furious fight. “ Hello ! ” said the traveller, “ hello ! who keeps this house?” The little man, gasping for breath, panted out, “ Stranger, that’s just what we are trying to settle.” There is a class of young women who are always on the look¬ out for a son-in-law for their mother, who prefer ostentation to happiness, and a dandy husband to a mechanic. One girl is reported to have said, “ I ’ll marry any man with plenty of INTERRUPTING A FAMILY ROW. money, if he is so ugly I have to scream every time I look at him.” On the other hand, we know that many times a man dives into the sea of matrimony and brings up a pearl. A bankrupt merchant returned home one night and said to his wife, “ My dear, I am ruined; everything we have is in the hands of the sheriff.” After a few moments of silence, his noble wife, looking him calmly in the face, said, “Will the sheriff sell you?” “No.” “Will he sell me?” “No, no,” “Then don’t sa} r we have lost everything. All that is most profitable to us, manhood, womanhood, remains; THE POWER OF MONEY. 467 we have but lost the result of our skill and industry; we may make another fortune if our hearts and hands are left us.” If men and women would take as much pains to hold each other as they do to catch each other, there would be fewer unhappy marriages. The marriage relation touches with beauty or blight, with fragrance or ill savor, every after¬ hour of life and of influence; yes, it takes hold of eternity in its outcome. As a people, we boast of our independence. True, we are republicans, and yet we have a king; we are Christians, and yet we worship the meanest of all gods, and bow the knee to Mammon. The purse-bearing scoundrel is honored, while the moneyless person is despised. Even the law can do little for me if I have not the cash, and there seems to be one legisla¬ tion for the poor and another for the rich; the moneyed villain is out on bail, while the moneyless one pines in prison. You can scarcely convict a man of crime in some of our cities, and the question too often is, not of right or wrong, guilt or inno¬ cence, but wealth or poverty. Almost every man who can command money can command an entree to circles called select, from which a superior poor man is debarred. Can you not point out men whose lives are gross, with no redeeming qualities of education, genius, or refinement, whose names are on the roll of magistrates, judges, and members of Congress, and who are admitted to society into which a poor man hardly dares to look? The colored woman was right when she said, “ ’Tain’t de white nor yet de black folks dat hab de most influence in dis world, it’s de yaller boys.” A man is too often measured by his wealth rather than by his qualities and character. Oh, the servile baseness of money worship, mothers cast their children under the wheels of this Jugger¬ naut; men grow prematurely gray in its pursuit; women scheme and wreck heart and soul to gain its favor; minis- 468 GREED FOR OFFICE. SO. ters of the gospel prostrate themselves before it; and even churches strive to catch the moneyed man, and pass the lowly poor man by with indifference, or worse. In the ab¬ sorption of money-getting, men forget their higher destiny. A little girl said to her mother, u If I am good, I shall go to heaven.” “Yes, dear.” “Will grandpa be there?” “I hope “Will you be there?” “I hope so, darling.” “Will Jemmy and Susie be there?” “ Oh, yes, dear, and papa, too, I hope.” “ Oh, no,” said the child, “ Papa won’t be there, he can’t leave the store.” We do not boast much of our political honesty. There are honorable exceptions, it is true; but where can be found more corruption than among our politicians? The object of legisla¬ tion is the greatest good of the greatest number; but some of our politicians understand the greatest number to be number one It is a grand scramble for self, and for the spoils of office. What a mania for office! Anything will do, if only it is an office; and what strutting there is over it! A man having been appointed constable in a small town, one of his children asked, “Mother, are we all constables?” “No, my child, only father and me.” In revenge for some per¬ sonal slight, or in gratification of some petty malice, some men would ruin their country if they could, and when one ELECTED CONSTABLE— “FATHER AND ME.” BOYS OF THE PERIOD. 469 party has thrown them over, they generally have strength enough to swim to the other. Well, the Constitution says all classes are to be fairly represented, so I suppose that occa¬ sionally a fool or a rogue must be elected to represent the fools and rogues in his district. Is parental government acknowledged and enforced now as it was in the old time ? Our mere boys are men now, and our mere girls are fine ladies. They assume to know more than the old fogies, their parents, and affect the most dis¬ respectful familiarity 4 with the old folks. “ Grandpa, have a weed?” “A what?” “A weed, you know, a cigar.” “No, sir, I do not smoke ; I never did smoke.” “Ah, then, I’d advise you never to begin.” They early evince their dislike of system or work. “I have the tenderest-hearted boys in the world,” said a father ; “ I can’t ask one of ’em to fetch a pail of water but he busts out a-crying.” “ Gus, have you had it out with the old boy? ” “ Yes, and what do you thing the undutiful old governor says?” “I have n’t an idea.” “ Why, he says I must do something to get my own living; I can’t do that, you know.” An old gentleman said : “ When I was a young man, it was customary to lift the hat when passing a schoolhouse, nowadays you must look in every direction to escape a flying brick-bat.” How many of our young men have yet to learn that they know but little! How hard for some young men to say, “ I do not know ! ” It is ridiculous and contemptible to pretend knowledge we have never gained. There is nothing unmanly in acknowledging ignorance. One of our conceited youngsters, who had but one idea, — and that died for want of company, — said: “Ah, I think Shakespeare is a very much overrated man.” In the discipline of children we have been so careful to avoid one extreme that we have run into the other.—We are justly indignant at the tales of cruelty to children in schools. 470 PUTTING A THREAT INTO EXECUTION. and at parents whipping them to break their wills, and at the punishments so out of all proportion to the offence, and at the exercise of cruel discipline to make them good. A father said: “ I orders my boys down to prayers night and morning, and when they won’t go down, I knocks ’em down, and yet they ain’t good.” But there is a medium between that and the lax discipline of to-day. Children have no right to rule in the household, and it is not the best and truest love that will remit punishment for all offences. I know but little, and therefore can say but little, about the discipline of children. They are wonderful creatures; the child is, indeed, the father of the man; there is as much human nature in them as in the older ones, and some of them are hard to manage. A gentleman told me that his little boy, about six years of age, was in the habit of going upon the ice while it was in a dangerous condition. Finding him there one morning, he said: u Now, if I catch you on the ice again, I will duck you.” The next morning he found him there again, and declared a second time: “Now, if I find you on the ice again, I’ll duck you.” Said the boy: “You said you would yesterday.” The next morning the boy was on the ice again, as was to be expected. The father said: “ If I keep my word with my boy, I must duck him. I broke the ice and plunged him into the water. The first word he said when I took him out was, ‘Do it again, papa.’ I plunged him in again. Blowing out the water from his mouth and nostrils, he gasped, ‘Do it again, papa.’ Four times I plunged that boy under the water; each time it was* ‘ Do it again, papa.’ Fearing that another ducking might be dangerous to him, I was compelled to let him go, mortified that I could not produce any impression upon him by his intended punishment.” A little boy, in saying his prayers, went on : “ Oh, Lord, bless papa and mamma and Susie and A PRAYER FOR “ OLD BESSIE.” 471 everybody but nasty old Bessie.” “ Why, my dear, what has Bessie done ? ” “ She stole iny peanuts.” “ I told her to take away the peanuts; she is very kind and good to you, and that is a naughty prayer.” The boy being sullen, the mother left him without the usual good-night kiss; when she reached the foot of the stairs, she heard him call, “ Mamma, mamma.” “Well, my son, what is it?” “God bless old nasty Bessie, I don’t care.” Ah, heaven bless the little ones so soon to take our places. In the matter of keeping the Sabbath, have we improved on the example of the early fathers ? When we advocate the strict observance of the Sabbath Day we are jeeringly re¬ minded of the “ Connecticut Blue Laws,” in which, we are told, a man was prohibited from kissing his wife on Sundays. Ah, yes! Connecticut Blue Laws! We want no Connec¬ ticut Blue Laws, and we have made merry over such pro¬ visions as these: “No one shall travel, cook victuals, cut hair, or shave on the Sabbath Day. No woman shall kiss her child on the Sabbath or fasting day. No one shall read common prayer, keep Christmas or saint days, make mince pies, dance, play cards, or play on any instrument of music except the drum, trumpet, and jews-harp. Every male shall have his hair cut round according to a cap.” Well, ’t is a pity, perhaps, but these “ Blue Laws ” are without historical foun¬ dation. The author of the fiction was Samuel Peters, a loyalist and refugee, who published it in England in 1781. Trumbull, the conscientious historian of Connecticut, said of him that, of all men with whom he had ever been acquainted, Dr. Peters was the least to be depended on as to any state¬ ment of fact. The test of the matter is to examine the fruit of the things we scorn. Are the men and women of to-day, as a whole, better, truer, nobler, than they were in the early days of New 29 472 A PEEP INTO THE CABIN. England. Is not the greater part of the courage and noble¬ ness, the truth, and loyalty to duty and right, and indeed of the stalwart virtues as well as of those that beautify the lowlier places of life, the direct outcome of the very prin¬ ciples and training in which we find weak places to ridicule ? When Henry Clay was visiting Berkshire he asked an old farmer, “What do you raise on these hills?” “Men,” was the reply. “Your farms are not very productive; you , must work hard to get a crop.” “ We do work hard, and when night comes we are too tired to sin.” You may speak sneering- ly of a man’s religion, but you will trust him more for it; the mere act of worship has set¬ tled the matter “unperceived, he opened the cabin door.” A shipmaster, having discharged his cargo and crew, em¬ ployed a sailor to take charge of his ship during his absence in the country. He had little confidence in the man — he believed all sailors would steal; but as he could do no better, he put everything possible under lock and key. Before leav¬ ing for the country, in the morning, he thought he would take an early peep at his ship. He quietly stepped on board, and, unperceived, opened the cabin door. There was John on his knees, the Bible opened before him. He carefully closed the door, and, when John appeared, he handed him a bunch PROGRESS OF THE AGE. 473 of keys, u Here, John, you had better open all these drawers and trunks, and air the things. Keep everything snug, I shall be home in a few days.” There is much to be deplored, and, we hope, remedied. There are encouraging improvements in many directions; in a more universal acknowledgment of the claims of humanity; in our treatment of the insane, and the prisoner; in our homes for the aged, the friendless, the orphan, the street boys, and the penitent; in our reform schools, industrial schools, refuges, asylums, hospitals, and other benevolent institutions ; in the Sunday schools, mission schools, and the great Christian institutions, — the Bible Society, missionary societies, both home and foreign, tract, temperance, educa¬ tional, seamen’s friend, and kindred associations, — almost unknown in the beginning of this century; in our magnifi¬ cent system of free education, the admiration of the world; in our colleges, academies, and seminaries of learning; in the recognition of woman’s rights, the emancipation of millions of human beings from bondage, establishing freedom for every man, woman, and child in our beloved country for¬ ever,— all this, and more, should give us courage for the future, and, may be some excuse for our boasting. In some directions, as in education, I think we are inclined to the extreme, and I believe the graduates of our colleges forty years ago were more solidly educated than the gradu¬ ates of to-day. What we lack in quality we make up in quantity. The course of study pursued in some of our schools, as published in their advertisements, fairly makes one’s head ache to read. In some schools, students acquire knowledge at the expense of muscle, and feed the mind at the sacrifice of health. I have known young girls who have studied them¬ selves to death, and others who have graduated with systems broken down and exhausted, requiring the utmost care, for 474 EDUCATION VERSUS HEALTH. years, to save life even. I know some men who are broken in health to-day, and will be to the end, occasioned by overwork in their determination to keep up and graduate with honor. If I had children, I think I would rather have them at sixteen with vigorous health and fine physiques, though compara¬ tively ignorant, than graduated at twenty with the highest honors and broken health, useless to the world, sufferers them¬ selves, and a burden to their friends. I do not depreciate learning, but I do believe in health. But what has all this to do with us; this reckoning, this observation we have been taking of the past and present, the “now ” and “ then,” in the morning light of to-day? Society is composed of individuals, each the centre of a circle. It is to the individual that our thoughts turn as we think of grand inventions, mighty reforms, and discoveries that have blessed the world. Astronomy, science, revolutions, explorations, all bring to us vividly some one individual associated forever with the plan or leadership. Turn to Arctic explorations, and at once there rises before us the man who, at twenty-one, feel¬ ing himself doomed to a painful life, resolved never to marry; attacked by the plague in Egypt, by the coast-fever in Africa, by lockjaw in Philadelphia; wounded by a lance in Mexico and reported dead; smitten with paralysis; chronically and acutely afflicted; bearing up under every form of suffering; ransacking the earth, undertaking gigantic toils, braving every kind of danger; aiming at nothing for himself, but dedicating a life of daring devotion to the service of human- * ity, and dying at the age of thirty-seven,— Elisha Kent Kane. Young men, you are to mould the future; and as you mould yourselves, so will you be a power for good or evil. That was fine statesmanship that, in a great public work of old historic times, planned the repairing of a battered and broken-down city’s wall, to be done by each man over against PAST AND PRESENT. 475 his own house, until from one great gate to another, from one eminence to another, the repairs met, and the last cementing was finished with such a universal festival of gladness as is not to be seen in our boasted grander days. Can it not be so with us ? All of us bear, inseparably, a real, sharply defined relation to the “ then ” of the past, to the golden “ now ” that is, and to the “then” that is to come. One is gone by, and henceforth can only be a radiant, encouraging star in memory, or a beacon to warn us off the breakers, as far as the choices of this hour are concerned. But oh, the golden “ now,” freighted with opportunities, with wholesome prickings of penitent memories, with its inviting voices, telling us what we can do for the world. God be thanked, each one of us can make the “now” that is, the starting-point for a “then ” shin¬ ing “more and more unto the perfect day; ” a day to which the light of our “ now ” will be but the shining of a far-off Neptune. Young men, you are beginning the world with high aspira¬ tions, you will follow the truth,"you will strive to win honor, you will never do a base action, you will forego ease and plea¬ sure that you may achieve a name ; that is your ambition, that is your desire now. Many a poor wretch to-day, worn out and old, bankrupt in fame, wealth, and hope, commenced life with as noble views and generous schemes as you; but weakness, idleness, passion, dissipation have turned him away, and the bark that sailed out on the sunny sea with life and aspira¬ tion, now lies stranded on the shore, a broken wreck. How dark an annal, what a fearfully mournful sight, that of a man of genius, education, wit, pride, ambition, whose talents might have brought him an honored immortality, sink¬ ing down, down, step by step. How sad to trace the gradual break-down of dignity, the mental degradation, to see the pride and sensitiveness of such a man, increasing with the 476 “DOWN, DOWN, STEP BY STEP.” decrease of hope, fortune, and reputation, conscious of what he ought to be and what he might be; with scarce a coat on his back or shoes on his feet, or a dinner to give him strength, oi a pillow to rest his head, or a lodging to afford him shelter, with not a friend he has not disappointed, or an enemy he has not irritated; a proud, penniless va¬ grant, attractive by his intellectuality, yet repulsive by his evil conduct, pride in his heart, and penury round his person; an old man before he has ceased to be young, a brok¬ en-down man when he should be green and strong; falling, falling, falling, as branch after branch j breaks under him, and friend after friend departs and fades in the distance; and then dying without a friend to close his eyes, no one to speak to him of a Saviour, to tell him that for sinners like him God’s immeasurable love sent the Redeemer to save, — tidings that might have shed glory round his dying bed. Does not such a record challenge and command our truest pity ? And yet, could we lift the cur¬ tain, how many such wrecks should we discover? Yes, NOT A FRIEND IN THE WORLD. TO YOUNG MEN. 477 young men, the future of yourselves and of your country is in your hands. The most loving friend you have on earth cannot alone make your destiny a bright one, your bitterest enemy can never mar its essential success if you steadfastly abide by the written and unwritten eternal laws. CHAPTER XXIV. FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS — LESSONS DRAWN FROM LIFE- HUMAN WRECKS — ILLUSTRATIVE STORIES AND FACTS. Death’s Harvest Field — The Fatal Sliding Scale — What I Saw in a Railway Carriage — A Terrible Spectacle — Father, Mother, and Child Intoxi¬ cated — A Mother’s Story — The Rapids at Niagara Falls —Fascination of Danger—A Terrible Tragedy—“Stand Back! Stand Back!”—The Fatal Plunge — Story of the Poor Emigrant Woman — A Mother’s Love — “Fire! Fire!” — “Make Way There!”—Temptations of a Great City — An Incident of Chicago Life — Return of the Prodigal Son — A Scene in a London Cellar — A City Missionary’s Story — Horace Greeley — We Visit Senator McConnell — His Wretched Appearance — Tender Re¬ gard for His Wife — A Precious Memento—“Give Up the Drink? Never!” — His Awful Death — A Two-bottle Man — The Old Scotch Bailie ! — Fire-side Thoughts — Captain Creighton and the Ship “Three Bells ” — Terrible Suspense — Great Rejoicing. Upf N speaking to the public on the subject of temperance I feel always bound to speak fairly and freely with regard to the obstacles in the way of the movement. I believe I have never in my life volun¬ teered an address to the peo- I never speak unless I am invited, and therefore only speak where people desire to hear me; and if they come, they must expect that I shall utter my opinions fully and fearlessly. I do not ask you to believe what I say simply because I say it, for I am liable to error and misapprehension; all I ask of you is to put what I say into the crucible and set it over the furnace, 478 DEATH AS A TEMPERANCE WORKER. 479 and try it out, and if among the white ashes of error you find one sparkling gem of truth, that is worth something; take that, and let the white ashes go to the winds. Engaging in this work we feel that we are entering into a mighty moral conflict and warfare against instrumentalities that tend to promote and perpetuate a great evil. Death alone, that gaunt, grizzly reformer, would sweep drunkenness from the land in twenty-five years, if there were no more drunkards made. Of whom are drunkards made? Thank God, not of total abstainers. No man takes one step from total abstinence down to drunkenness. Every individual who becomes intemperate becomes so by taking the first step and going down the fatal sliding scale by degrees to the ditch. Among the generation now living there are intemper¬ ate men, horrible as it is, whom we have no expectation of saving ; but we look with hope to the coming generation, and feel that a great part of our business is to build a barrier between the unpolluted lip and the intoxicating cup. There¬ fore we appeal to fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, guardians and teachers, to help us in the work of breaking down the instrumentalities that tend to promote and per¬ petuate the evil of drunkenness. Chief among these instru¬ mentalities are the social drinking customs of society,— useless in themselves, and productive of evils, the extent of which we shall never know until that bright day dawns, for which all other days were made, when we shall see things as they are. I have been astonished to see mothers who love their children giving them that which may, not must , produce results fearful to contemplate. The mother, when she gives the child drink, has no idea that such results will be pro¬ duced. On one occasion, when riding in a railway carriage from Liverpool to Halifax, England, a lady, gentleman, and a little 480 A MOTHER’S THOUGHTLESS ACT. child, — a beautiful boy, a lovely creature to look upon, — entered the compartment. By their appearance they evi¬ dently moved in genteel society. I have noticed that persons who carry bottles with them generally get faint at the outset of the journey. Soon after they entered, a bottle and rail¬ way glass were produced. I do not know how much drink the bottle held, but I know how many glasses, for I counted, and there were eight. The gentleman drank one, the lady five, and the child two. The child, however, would not have had the second if it had not cried for it. The lady settled herself comfortably in the cushions, shut her eyes, and opened her mouth; her under lip dropped as if she had not strength to hold it up; and though it is not polite to say that a lady snored, she did, and that most vigorously. But what of the child? He was positively drunk. In ten minutes his face was marred as if a foul hand had passed over it; the spirit in the wine had sent the blood through the tender vessels into the child’s face, the eyes looked bloodshot, and, from being a beautiful child to look upon, he became a perfect nuisance, so much so that I was glad to leave the carriage. But who will dare to say that mother did not love her child? Had he been lying upon a sick-bed, she would have wound her loving arms around him to save him, if possible, from pain and anguish; she would have spent days and nights of waking agony to shield the child from suffering; yet she was giving him that which might produce an appetite that would become a master-passion, to gratify which he would barter all the jewels that God had given him, — jewels worth all the kingdoms of the earth, for “what shall a man give in ex¬ change for his soul?” A lady said to me while we were riding in her carriage: “ I wish you could get my boy to sign the pledge ; he is between eight and nine years of age, but he is a complete IRRESISTIBLE IMPULSE. 481 little winebibber. We only allow him half a glass occasion¬ ally, but he will watch for the wine, and even count the days to the time when he expects to have some.” I suppose it would be outrageous for me to say that that mother was des¬ titute of natural affection, but there seems to be a perfect fascination in the drinking customs of society, for fathers and mothers do not seem willing to give up a paltry glass of wine or ale to save their own children. A party went from Buffalo to spend a week or two at Niagara Falls. * Among them was a beautiful child; her golden hair hung upon her snowy shoulders; she was the life of the company; she plucked flowers, twined them into wreaths for her own peerless brow, and presented bouquets to her friends. There was also there a young man just from college, rather conceited, yet high-spirited and noble, just the kind of a man who would climb the bare face of the rock and rob the eagle of her nest. Those of you who have visited Niagara Falls know that just beyond the dashing, foaming waters of the rapids, the river, on the American side, becomes almost as smooth as polished glass, eighty or one hundred yards before it takes its leap. Years ago it had become quite a fascination for people to look at that water; lying on their faces they could touch it with their fingers. You have been, perhaps, at a railway station when an express train dashed by, and if you have stood on the very edge of the platform you may have felt an impulse almost irresistible to jump upon the train, — an impulse requiring nerve to resist it; there was fascination, but danger, in it. Small stakes, then, were placed in the ground at the falls, with straps to fasten at the ankles of those who wished to lie down and touch the water. The young man laughed at the precaution. “Precau¬ tions,” said he, “for timid women and silly men; I have no need of them, ha, ha! ” He stood on the edge and looked 482 A TRAGEDY AT NIAGARA FALLS. into the water; the ladies screamed. That only increased his bravado ; he laughed at them, and still kept his dangerous position. They cried, “ Stand back, stand back! ” He turned and caught up the little child who was passing behind him. “ My darling,” he said, “ I will hold you where no child was ever yet held,” and he held her over the rapids. He might have held her there for an hour; he was a strong man, and had a firm grip of the child. But she was afraid; she saw the water beneath her, and grew nervous; she gave a cry, one twist — and he dropped her. With a sharp *cry, “ God have mercy on me! ” he leaped after her, and both went over the falls, and neither their bodies or a particle of their clothing were ever found afterward. Now, I say to you, sir, I say to you, madam, if you give your child drink, you are holding him over the rapids. You may hold him there safely, ninety- nine out of a hundred may hold him safely; but he may be more nervous than you dream of, you may not have that control of him you suppose you have, he may slip and go over, and in that case your hands are not clear of his blood. I know the mother would rather God would smite her child with any disease under the sun than that he should be a drunkard. It is a fearful thing for a child to be burned to death, but you would rather that than have him die a drunkard. I remember reading in a paper an account of the burning of Harper’s establishment some years since. Half a column was devoted to an account of the loss of property and more than half a column to a circumstance connected with the fire. An emigrant woman had just then landed at New York with two children and all her property. She left them in the Mor¬ ton House, in Franklin Square, and went to Forty-third Street to find her sister, who had offered her a temporary home for herself and her children; and, glad at heart, the woman has¬ tened back for the children and the property. Passing along, FIRE! FIRE! 483 she heard the cry of “ Fire, fire ! ” and the bells rang out a stirring peal. She paid no attention till she heard some one ask: “Where is the fire?” The reply was, “In Franklin Square.” The Morton House was there, and her children were in that house. To her there was only one side of that square, and only one house on that side. A fire-engine rat¬ tled through the streets. She followed it; the people made way for it and closed up the gap again like waves of the sea, and she was shut out. Her cry was, “My children, my children! Let me pass! ” “ Stand back, stand back! ” “ THERE ’S MOTHER.” said the crowd. “ I cannot, let me pass ! ” A policeman came up and asked, “ What do you want ? ” “ My children,” she said, “ are in the Morton House.” “ Every individual,” said he, “ in that house is saved, but all the property is lost. Now, take my hand. Make way there.” And he dragged the woman through the crowd and brought her in front of the burning building. There, on a heap of broken furniture, were her two children, 484 BREAKING A MOTHER’S HEART. with their hands folded, and one of them called out, “ There's mother.” That mother was a happy woman; she had lost * every bit of property she possessed on the face of the earth, but her bonny bairns were saved. Now, there is not a mother who would not rather see her child burned to death, and have its pure spirit take its flight into the bosom of Him who said, “ Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not,” than see it grow up in pride and manliness and become a drunkard. She had rather take the little bits of charred bones raked out from the ashes of the fire, and bury them with hope, than follow her poor, drunkard son to the grave with no hope in his death. Ah, I tell you, I have found the most comfortless creature on earth the mother who has buried a drunken son. A young man from the country, the son of a minister of the gospel, went to Chicago to better his condition and make money. He fell into dissipated habits, consorted with the low and vile, to his own disgrace and the sorrow and grief of his friends. He was a fine, handsome, noble-looking boy before he was stained and soiled. His mother, who loved him dearly, induced a gentleman to see him and plead with him to reform. The interview was exceedingly interesting. After a few com¬ monplace words, the question was abruptly asked, “Have you not a good mother? ” “Yes, as good a mother as ever boy had.” “ Do you love your mother ? ” “ Indeed I love her.” “ Do you know you are killing your mother, breaking her heart ? Hear me. Only last Sabbath your mother rose in church at the singing; her book dropped from her hand, and she fell backward, fainting. One of your father’s dea¬ cons helped her home, and the whisper went round, 4 That is the work of her boy. Last evening she received a letter from a friend in Chicago, telling her that the boy she loved was frequenting low saloons and notoriously bad company. She A MOTHER’S LOVE. 485 slept but little last night, and, as you see, fainted in church. Poor woman, she is growing very pale and thin; it is too bad.’ ” The young man cried out, “ It is too bad, and I will never drink again.” But he did, and soon grew worse. At last, sick, penniless, homeless, friendless, and forlorn, he determined to return home to his mother. Ah, that’s it, young men. When friends are gone, when compan¬ ions have left you alone, when reputa¬ tion and means are gone, when health and strength are gone, then the long¬ ing comes for the mother. “Take me to my mother, though all the world turn from me, she will receive me and care for me.” He went home to die, and the mother said, “ When I look at my “ it seems but yes- boy lying dead, it seems but yesterday TEEDAY.” that his father sprinkled on his forehead the water of baptism, and there he lies dead, and my heart is broken.” Remember, drunkenness does not exist altogether among the lower orders of society. Some people say, “I advise you to go among the outcasts and talk to the people there.” In my opinion, drunkenness has been a curse to the middle and the upper classes of society as much as it has been to the lowest. I consider a man as much a drunkard if he lies upon his bed of down, and rolls from it upon his magnificent car- 486 A SCENE IN A LONDON CELLAR. pet in a sumptuous apartment, with mirrors all around him showing him his own bestiality — as much a debased, de graded, and imbruted sot as the man who lies in the kennel, his hair soaking in the filth of the gutter; it is only the cir¬ cumstances by which he is surrounded which save him from the position of the other. The drunkard, in whatever station he may be, who stupefies his intellect, dethrones his reason, beclouds his mind, puts an extinguisher on the light that God has given him, commits as grievous a sin against God and his own soul as the man who wallows in the lowest kennel. A city missionary once showed me a cellar in St. Giles’s, London. “ There,” he said, “ I once saw a man on his death¬ bed — a heap of rotten straw — who, six years ago, hung pictures in the Suffolk gallery, and moved in the best circles of society. I asked, ‘What has brought you to this?’ and lifting up his emaciated arms and fingers like the claws of an unclean bird, he cried out, as his thin lips drew tight across his teeth and the rattle in his throat told of. the approaching end, ‘ The bottle, the bottle, the accursed bottle brought me to this.’ ” And that is the story of thousands who die and are remembered no more. In Sunderland I was shown a picture painted by a person who was at one time an intimate acquaintance of Sir Walter Scott, and spent weeks with him at Abbottsford. He would paint pictures on tin, the heads of barrels, or on plain boards, and send his wife or daughters out to sell them. They re¬ ceived Is. 6d ., 2s., or 2s. 6d. for them; and those who have them now prize them as works of art. I have one of them in my library. The man died miserably, and his wife and two daughters became intemperate and degraded. A city missionary once asked me if I was to remain in London. I said, “ I leave at two o’clock.” “ I am sorry for A CITY MISSIONARY’S STORY. 487 that,” he said, “ for there is a young man I should like to save, and I would be glad if you could see him. He is the son of a minister of the gospel, well educated, speaks five languages fluently — a noble-hearted young man; he has taught some of our first ministers elocution, and now he is herding with the lowest of the low, in the vilest lodging- houses of the city. When I picked him up, he had fallen from faintness arising from want of food.” The vicar of a certain parish stood up in Cheltenham and said: “I was asked to visit the union to see a poor wretch who had broken a bloodvessel. I found that he was the son of a beneficed clergyman, and that his mother was living in affluence. I sent word to her that her sick boy was with me, and she sent this reply: 4 We have cast him off forever.’ I obtained money from her sufficient to purchase an invalid’s chair, and for three months he drew it about for his bread, and kept a little school at night to eke out his scanty means. But his appetite overcame him in temptation ; he sold his chair and his books, and staggered out on his way to Gloucester as miserable as ever.” Drunkenness is confined to no rank or country; it is an evil that permeates every class, causing misery, wretchedness, and woe. It is pitiful indeed to witness, and painful to record, the results which it produces. When that United States senator signed the total abstinence pledge, the news was telegraphed all over the United States, and there was a universal expression of delight. Yet, some few years after¬ wards, three gentlemen went to see him, and he said: “ I know why you have come to see me. It is of no use. I have been Governor of this State for four years, and I have been Senator of the United States for eight years. I have sat at the tables of the good and the great and the gifted. Now look at me. A man thrust me out of a saloon three days 488 A DRAMATIC SCENE. ago because I had not a dime to pay for the whiskey I had drunk.” I remember very well Felix G. McConnell, of Alabama. Horace Greeley was in Washington, and he, in company with another gentleman, said to me, “ Will you go with us and see McConnell?” I said, “Yes.” We went to see him. He sat in front of the hotel, among the usual crowd of loafers, his feet pushed into an old broken pair of India-rubber shoes, treating those who came up, and setting the negro boys scrambling for coppers. He had a cane in his hand, and on the top was engraven, — “ Felix G. McConnell, Alabama. O God, have mercy on me.” We entered into conversation with him. Mr. Greeley knew his family and alluded to his wife. Then he said, “Mr. Greeley, you know my wife. She is a good woman.” He then took a dirty rag out of his pocket, unfolded it, and came to a piece of clean paper: he opened that and showed us a beautifully bound copy of the Bible. Said he: “My wife gave me this when I left home. She is a good woman. She put my name in it, as you see. I am trying to keep the book clean until I go home.” We earnestly pleaded with him to give up the drink. I shall never forget how he suddenly sprang to his feet, and, throwing his cane on the floor with a loud crash, said, “ Gentlemen, you ask me to give up the drink. Ask me to sever my right hand from the wrist, and I can do it; but to give up the drink — never!” Six days after that he cut himself all to pieces with a bowie knife, in the St. Charles Hotel. That was his end. Now we ask you, for the sake of others, to give up that which may be a gratification to yourself. That is the nobility of our enterprise; it requires benevolence, and true benevo¬ lence always costs something. But some say, “ Will nothing but total abstinence do ? ” To use a Yankee expression, “ I CL s'**© a 2 ' — © GO Q Cj 3 » < a g ?r p'p p tt ® p O'M'S ? Q O & ® z. Out—. 2.05 2 - CD < 2.t3- ?r 5 ST 2.0oo -r 3-» CO M a i> >-3 5 S§ S'®* g w re _ l-re o O O 3 H t"< f yScrq ^ &&»•» Q £" = Sg§2 ga-§P i:i ?OB o O s Orq *■* a> <33'“ CD ►— L rt- Lt> ’—, .g 6 **? M a* g* a ®oB *§.-* CO P ‘3 O w . - « I ®c « S5 P*5 o »- C, < s- w 2.- P CLp —' < I; CD 'OS Mg © M CD Q. ST ' <5 -sis »- = ! re O re a a CO a a > re-OfQ oo c. 2'p 4 Bo£ as ^ — 4 £-0 » *-b O p C: 504 A TOUGH LOT. pose you have come to ask me to give up business; I shall be very glad to do so; I have been once or twice to hear you, and I am pretty well convinced that it ’s a miserable, mean business; I ’ll go and hear you this afternoon, and if I am entirely convinced, I will give it up and keep a temperance house; and if that don’t keep me, I have two hands that will.” I said to him, “You’re a gentleman.” The next man I visited looked like a turtle poking out his head every now and then and bob¬ bing it in again. Said he, “ I keep a decent house, all the drunkards go to the other place to get d r u n k; it’s no use coming to me.” So I went away. The gentleman with whom I stayed was an excellent man, and prayed for the success of the enterprise at family worship. I am always glad to find men praying for us, because I do not think any man will pray for the success of anything he does not believe to be right. But when we sat down to supper there was a mug of cider for each individual. I did not like the look of it, and I said, “Would you willingly put temptation in the way of a brother? I never drink cider, but if that was a glass of brandy and water it would be a a temptation to me.” (I had not signed the pledge at that time more than a couple of years.) AN INEFFECTUAL APPEAL. » rf a) C j- ° Si'S * *2r •*-• »c a> ^ J3 os — 1 cz Is-X'l K g g s i * /O S *d c c 2 £ a £$ £ n3 > ° g~z ^ o B**= 'c P o3 a ^5 £ o „, -. o S ‘ CD •** ^ > C a> 'tVc o..£Pj ©. DC + bn ® sS't K 00 te ! o S«‘ Eh “ ! RoS! >th H 2 c < 5 a r x a O o W £ £ „ ◄ 6 c . o © fl a> s £-5 -C-tf £§2 rt> ** SUCCESS AT LAST. 507 I then said to him, 44 You can exert great influence in this town.” Said he, 44 If I could only get Mr.-(a poor, broken-down lawyer, who had been placed in the Post Office and turned away through drink, because he could not attend to the business properly) — “if I could only get him to sign the pledge, I ’d turn the best hogshead of cider I’ve got into vinegar, and sign the pledge myself.” 44 You profess to be a Christian man and you would not agree to do that unless you believed it to be right. We have settled the point, then, that it is right to sign the pledge. You say you would do so and so if good would result. Good will be the result; no man ever denied himself for the sake of another, but good was the result.” Said he, 44 1 ’ll think of it.” At the meeting, the tall gray-haired man stood up and signed the pledge ; the next was the ex-postmaster; then the two liquor-sellers came up, and almost bumped their heads over the table as they signed the pledge. Eighty-two came forward, and if they did not make a flourish with the pen, some of them did with the tongue. They put their names down as if they meant it. All agreed that we must have another meeting at eight o’clock. I went for some refreshments. Coming up the hill on my return to the hall, a man in the wagon in front of us stopped, stood up, cried out, 44 Halt, halt! Look at the grog-shops closed at sun-down. Thirty- five years I’ve lived in this town and I never saw a sight like that. I’ve seen drunkards go in at one door as a funeral started from the other. Three cheers for cold water.” We gave the cheers, and the ex-dramsellers came out and helped us. At the meeting, all went on well. There was a class of young men in the town who looked with a great deal of contempt on every moral movement. You will find such young men everywhere. They have no contempt for a horse-race or prize-fight, for the new fashion 31 508 MAKING A CAT’S PAW OF DRUNKEN JAKE. of a coat, or hat, or pair of boots, and there is a large amount of intellectual power often wasted by them in the appreciation and description of this sort of thing. Some of them give their whole mind, or what they call their mind, to the ar¬ rangement of a necktie or the cultivation of their whiskers. However, the young gentlemen in this town who thought a moral movement so much beneath them did not hesitate to in¬ duce a poor drunkard to come and disturb the meeting. After 1 had delivered my speech, which was to the intemperate, the poor drunkard stood up, and I have seldom heard such a speech as he made. The young men were looking on, expect¬ ing to see the sport, and were rubbing their hands with great glee. He said: “Look here, I’ve got a bottle of liquor in my pocket and they have given me half a dollar, that is, they BURNING THE MONKEYS’ FINGERS. 509 said they would — them’s the fellows up there ” [pointing to them] ; 44 they gave me a bottle of liquor and said they would give me half a dollar if I would come to this meeting, and every now and then pull out the cork, and say, 4 Mr. Gough, here’s your very good health.’ Young men, you may keep your money ; I shan’t do it.” He went out, and we heard a bottle smash on the steps. Then he came in and said to the audience, 44 I have been called Drunken Jake long enough, I have had my hat knocked over my eyes often enough; Mr. Gough has told me I am a man, and I believe I am; I have not acted like one, but I ’ll sign the pledge, see if I don’t.” His hand shook and he could not do it. 44 I will, see if I don’t.” At last he succeeded in scrawling his name; it looked just as if he had taken a fly and dipped it in ink and set it to run across the paper, but it was his name, and it is there to this day. I went to that town some time afterwards to attend a temperance celebration; the governor of the State made a speech on the occasion, and the first words he uttered were these : — 44 Ladies and gentlemen, I was invited to attend a military review to be held at Norwich to-day; I said I would be there if nothing special should intervene, but a temperance celebration in my native town is something so special that I am with you to-day.” The ex-postmaster was in the chair. Children and wives of reformed drunkards were there. The children sung, 44 Away, away the bowl,” and unfurled a ban¬ ner on which was inscribed, 44 All is right now father is sober.” It was a happy day. One woman shook hands with me and said, 44 Mr. Gough, when you were here last, I felt that if my husband would only keep sober and take care of the children, I should be perfectly willing to die, but I never wanted to live so much as I do now.” The husband wished me to go home with him. I went. 44 There,” said he, 44 is my 510 A HARD TOWN IN VERMONT. wife. When you were here last she was with her friends. There’s a girl ” [showing me his daughter] “ who was out at service. There are two children who were in the almshouse, and I was a miserable hanger-on at the saloons. My children are now at home ; I have too much pride, with cold water, to let the town take care of them.” I believe the influence of that one man, now in heaven, will be felt to all eternity. I remember speaking two or three evenings in a town in Vermont, to a very hard audience. There was no making any impression upon them. If anything was said calculated to make them smile, and one person began to titter, every¬ body looked at him, and he held down his head as if he were ashamed. It was a strange audience. I said to them, on the second night: “ Gentlemen, I know by your looks that you will do nothing, I know you do not intend to do anything; you have come here with sneers on your faces, and armed against me; it would take three nights to address you, to get through that armor and reach your hearts. There are some ladies here, however, who can do something if they will, and if they say they will, I know they will. It is to them that I appeal.” I was entertained at a house in the town, and the next day twenty-seven ladies came to see me. I assure you I was somewhat startled, for I had not been used to meeting such a committee, and although I have been before the public for the last forty years I still have a feeling of diffidence that I shall never overcome. So when these twenty-seven ladies came in, if they had said nothing to me I think they might have been there till now and I should have said nothing to them. “Well, Mr. Gough,” they said, “you told us last night to do something ; if you will tell us what we can do, we are willing to do it.” “ Well,” I said, “it’s rather a strange position to place me in to tell you what you can do. Have you a society of children here, a cold-water army?” ENLISTING THE LADIES. 511 “ No, we have not.” “ Then,” said I, “ there are enough of you to canvass this whole town and get every child, with its parent’s consent — not without — to adopt the principle of total abstinence. Get every child to sign the pledge; go to A SUDDEN INVASION. the ministers’ houses, to drunkards’ houses, to abstainers’ houses, go everywhere. Get every child you can to sign the pledge. I shall leave town after to-night’s meeting, but will return on Saturday. If you get the children, and it is fine weather, we can go into the grove and sing and talk with the children, and I believe good will be done.” They said they 512 A CLEVER DODGE. would do so and I felt satisfied that the thing would be a success. That night we went to the place of meeting, a large room up two flights of stairs, — for the place of worship, usually granted to us in every village in those days, had, in this instance, been denied us. Some one, however, said, “ Hark, there is the bell ringing,” and sure enough it was. The bell of the church was ringing, and such a ringing I never before heard. It appeared that the husband of one of the ladies had one of the keys of the church, and she obtained it and opened the door, and rang the bell as well as she could, think¬ ing that when we were once inside they would not turn us out. And they did not. The church was not lighted, but the ladies procured some candles, so that we had light enough to talk by. Now, I do not suppose this could happen in every town. This happened in a country village, where it could be done with perfect propriety, while in the city it might be an absurdity. But I am only showing what the ladies can do if they please. The next Saturday a band of music was heard in the streets; not a very good band, it is true ; but they mustered as many instruments as they could to make a noise, and marched up the streets with a large banner, on which was inscribed : — “ THE LADIES OF B-. TEETOTAL, OR NO HUSBAND. RELIGION OUR SAFEGUARD, TEMPERANCE OUR SHIELD.” And they marched uj:> with three hundred and six chil¬ dren into the grove. Several ministers were there, and spoke in behalf of the enterprise. The procession then came down the streets again, and hap¬ pened to pass by some young men who were in front of one SOME ASTONISHED YOUNG MEN. 513 of the taverns, young men of good families, who had nothing to do but to smoke cigars and puff the smoke in spiral wreaths around their hats. One of them said: “Listen! There is some music in the street.” “Yes,” said another, “they have been mustering a parcel of women and children, and call it a teetotal army; ” and they pooh-poohed and sneered, as a great many persons do who know but little about our movement. At last one of them said: “ Holloa ! What is that? 4 The ladies of B-, teetotal, or no husband.’ Well, that’s a good ’un! ” and the young men laughed and chuckled, and were very merry over it, and thought it a very IN FRONT OF THE TAVERN. absurd thing. But by and by one of the young gentlemen heard that there was a certain Miss So-and-so in the proces¬ sion. He looked, and, sure enough, there she was. At once he began to arrange his dress; put his cigar behind him, buttoned up his coat, and looked very demure. Now, that town was one of the most drunken towns in the State; the young men were going to destruction by scores; they were growing in wickedness and dissipation; but before the sun went down that night fifty-nine young men had signed the pledge. That was in 1844, and the results are felt to this day. Some have said: All this tends to scepticism and ignor¬ ing the power of God’s grace, and impairs the influence of the church. Ours is not a sectarian movement. It never has been made so ; it is a Christian enterprise. I remember 514 MY EXPERIENCE IN CINCINNATI. when we were about to hold a series of twenty-eight meetings *sr in Cincinnati. Mr. Barnum was there at that time with Jenny Lind. She had sung in some of the places of worship, and it was not thought improper. She was a lady, and a Chris¬ tian. They paid pretty high prices for the use of churches, and these were generally granted, — I do not say for that reason. The Wesley chapel was the largest building in the city (I have seen more than five thousand children in it at one time), and Mr. Barnum proposed to give five thousand dollars for it for five nights. A meeting of the trustees was held, and some of them said: “We are in debt, and should really like the money, and Miss Lind has sung in churches at other places.” One of the trustees said: “Do you know that the temperance friends are about to apply for it to hold twelve meetings, and they are to be here at the same time that Mr. Barnum wishes to have the place for Jenny Lind?” “Then that settles the matter at once,” said the trustees, “Mr. Barnum cannot have it; we will open the place for the temperance friends, and sweep and light and garnish it, and let them have it free.” And we did have it free, and the trustees gave up the five thousand dollars for the concerts. Was any injury done to the cause of religion there? No; we held those twenty-eight meetings in the city, twelve of them at Wesley chapel. One was a prayer meeting, and I never was at such a prayer meeting before or since. There were more than a thousand persons present. An Episcopal clergyman sat in the pulpit as president, and I remember Dr. Beecher, Mrs. Stowe’s father, asked me to say a few words. I spoke for just ten minutes, and when I went down from the pulpit he grasped my hand. I saw tears running down his cheeks as he said: “God Almighty bless you.” There were ministers of all denominations there. There was a large meeting of Methodist ministers elsewhere, and only FAITH AND WORK. 515 two or three of them could come, but they sent letters of sympathy with the movement. Did that, think you, injure the cause of religion ? There was once a great State temperance convention held in Worcester, Massachusetts, and it happened to be appointed on two days when the convention of Congregational minis¬ ters of New England met at Lowell. In the midst of their deliberations it was announced that a deputation from the Congregational convention had come to offer sympathy with them in their work. The whole convention rose to receive them. The venerable Dr. Hitchcock, President of Amherst College, was spokesman. Two doctors of divinity came with him, carrying with them the full sympathy and hearty prayers of the convention held a hundred miles distant. Did that injure the cause of religion? Let the religious men in this country identify themselves with this movement, and they would soon sift out every particle of infidelity from it. I believe this enterprise is to be. successful, because it is God’s work and not man’s. He uses human instruments as he sees fit. The temperance cause must be borne upon the shoulders of God’s people and God’s ministers, as was the ark of old, or it never will go forward. Think what a glorious reformer Nehemiah was. You remember when he heard of the children of Israel being in distress, he desired to help them, and, in his beautiful, sub¬ lime, and touching autobiography, he does not tell us, u So I went in to ask the king’s permission ; ” no, “ I prayed in my heart, and said unto the king; ” and that is the way he worked. He prayed while he worked. When they came out against him, he did not say: u So we set a watch and kept them off.” No, but he said: “We made our prayer unto God and set a watch.” There it was again ; working and 516 FIGHTING A PRAIRIE FIRE. praying, neglecting neither the work nor the prayer, but working and praying, with weapons of war in one hand and implements of labor in the other. Let us work and pray, and watch in faith that the day of victory may speedily dawn. Faith in what? All our instrumentalities are very feeble in themselves. I remember reading of a missionary party who were crossing a prairie to reach their destination. Often in September, before the State was fully settled, fearful fires occurred on the prairies, and it was almost impossible to escape. When a part}^ discovered a fire, they saved them¬ selves by pulling up the grass in a circle, and setting it on fire around them, and that carried the flames away and they were thus saved. One of the party in question cried out, “ Look! Look ! The prairie is on fire! ” There was a ruddy glare in the sky, and the flames were approaching rapidly. The cry arose, “The prairie is on fire! We are lost, we are lost. The flames travel twenty miles an hour. We shall be burned and nothing will be left of us but blackened corpses or charred bones.” The wife clung to her husband, the mother to her child, and they stood in mute despair. An old trapper said, “We must fight fire with fire. Let every man, woman, and child work. Pull up the grass in a circle; larger yet, larger yet! Work for your lives ! Already I feel the first flush of heat. Now bring the matches.” There were but two. They took one and struck it. It failed. They had but one left, only one match, a feeble instrumentality. They felt that it was the last earthly hope. The missionary, baring his brow and holding that feeble agent in his fingers, said, “ God help us for His own name’s sake. Help us. If it be thy will, help us.” And they all said, as their hearts prompted, “Amen.” They kneeled, praying, the fire within half an hour of them. They prayed, THE EFFICACY OF FAITH. 517 they believed, they struck the match, it caught fire, the grass was ignited. Away it went from them in a circle, and the little band escaped. Brethren, we are fighting fire with fire. “look! look! the prairie is on fire!” Our instruments are as feeble as that single match. When we put forth our agencies, let us say, “God help us;” and by and by we shall be standing in the circle while the fire rages harmlessly around us; we and those who may be saved by our instrumentality. May God grant it, for His own name’s sake. CHAPTER XXVI. THE GREAT CONFLICT IN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND — THE DESTROYER’S MARCH — PERSONAL WORK AND EXPERIENCES. The Temperance Cause in England — Mr. Spurgeon’s Opinion — Alarming Increase of Dram-sliops — London — Different Classes of Society — Grave Apprehensions for the Future — The Tide of Evil — Drinking Among Women— Fighting the Demon of Intemperance — My Labors in Eng¬ land— The Hardest Work of Thirty Years — Powerful Champions — Hoxton Hall — Its Former Vile Reputation — Touching Scenes — Imi¬ tating Jerry McAuley’s Mission — Work Among the Ragged and Wretched — Rational Enjoyment for the Homeless — Edinburgh — A Total Abstinence Club-room — A Drunken Teetotaler — Seeking Safety — Testimony of Eminent Physicians — A Remarkable Incident — Recollec¬ tions of the Past — A Leaf from My Own Experience — An Awful Struggle — Rev. C. H. Spurgeon — How I Became Acquainted with Him — Mrs. Spurgeon — A Noble Woman — Disobeying the Doctor — Mr. Spurgeon’s Substitute for Beer. OMPARING the temperance cause in Great Britain with what it was twenty-five years ago, I found an immense in¬ crease of drunkenness among a certain class. I do not mean to say that this is true of all the working classes, but a certain portion of what are called the lower orders of society in England are more besotted and brutalized by drunkenness than they were twenty-five years ago. Mr. Spurgeon said to me, u There is a certain class of working¬ men in this country that is becoming stolid, soaked, and bru¬ talized by drunkenness.” And this fact has roused the community from one end of the kingdom to the other, to do 51S INCREASE OF DRINKING AMONG WOMEN. 519 something against this terrible curse of Great Britain. But it is perfectly frightful to witness the number of places where drink is sold. I never saw anything to be compared with it on this side of the water. There is one thing, how¬ ever, that should be remembered, and that is, London has a population of four millions — larger than all New England, and the area of England itself is not much larger than the State of Maine; so that what exists of evil is seen, as it were, at a glance. Then there are two classes, or two worlds; one lives out-doors, and the other in-doors. All the degrada¬ tion, sin, poverty, and wretchedness of a certain class is exposed to view, and, seeing it at a glance, it appears all the more terrible to us. Samuel Morley, a member of Parliament, said at a meet¬ ing of mine, “ I have grave apprehension for the future of this country unless something is done to stem this terrible tide of evil.” This increase is among a certain portion of the working classes of England, and I will not dilate further upon them. When we come to the middling classes, — the bone and sinew of any nation, physically, intellectually, morally, and spiritually, — we find an immense improvement. There is very much less drinking, except, I am sorry to say, among a certain class of women. There it is increasing quietly, but surely. I never heard, I am sure, of so much drinking among women; and when I speak of women, I mean a respectable class of women. This increase of drunk¬ enness among them is owing to the “grocer’s license,” which is a license permitting grocers to sell liquor on the premises, and in small quantities, to be taken away. But an immense amount of work is done in England in promoting temperance. It is glorious to go there and engage in such work. When I saw the evil, and the energy dis¬ played by the various organizations at work to remove it, I 520 INFLUENTIAL CO-WORKERS. should have been ashamed to come back to America had I not been willing to throw myself into this conflict and work as I never worked in my life before; for at this time I did the hardest work of thirty years. The Church of England Tem¬ perance Society now numbers fourteen thousand clergymen of the Church of England. “We have one of the first theolo¬ gians,” some one said, “in Christendom,” — such a man as Dr. Lightfoot, the Bishop of Durham. The Dean of Durham presided at a meeting of mine held in Newcastle, and he made the most wonderful speech I think I ever heard. He said, “ I want Mr. Gough to tell the American people that the Bishop of Durham goes up and down this great diocese preaching total abstinence with the gospel.” The Bishop of Bedford said, “I am going to my diocese in Whitechapel, and I go there as a total abstainer.” It is a new diocese, and he has just been appointed bishop. Canon Duckworth, who went with his Royal Highness to India, was exceedingly cor¬ dial to me, and was good enough to say at the meeting in Westminster Gardens that he adopted the principle of total abstinence from hearing me speak twenty years before. Not only in the Church of England, but in all the Non¬ conformist bodies, ministers of the gospel are preaching on temperance. I speak of the Church of England because it is so extraordinarily marked. Westminster Abbey, for in¬ stance, is open once or twice every year for a temperance ser¬ mon, and Dean Stanley granted the use of it with all his heart. I could speak of other classes of people, members of Parliament and other influential men, who are exerting a good influence in behalf of our movement. And those men who are not fully in sympathy with the movement are speaking of it respectfully and helping it along by their influence, and we should be very glad to get their example as well. One evening, in London, I accompanied my friend, Dr. THE HOXTON HALL MISSION. 521 William M. Taylor, to a meeting in Hoxton Hall. Mr. Noble, the leader of the meeting, said, “ We will now sing a hymn.” The hymn was,— “ The mistakes of my life have been many, The sins of my heart have been more, But with eyes streaming with tears 1 am knocking at mercy’s door.” Many of the audience were ragged and many of them were very poor, and the sight of them — numbering between twelve and fifteen hundred — was not particularly encouraging. Yet those meetings have been kept up regularly night after night without intermission, and three times on Sunday, until nearly six hundred successive meetings have been held for these poor creatures in Hoxton Hall. This is a new branch of work, and rich men aid it. Hoxton Hall was a horrible place, so bad that its license was taken away. When Mr. Noble was in this country he went down to see Jerry McAuley’s Mission, and while there he said, U I will go back and start such a mission as this in London.” Jerry McAuley’s Mission is the father, we might say, of the great mission work in Hoxton Hall. The night Dr. Taylor was there with me, Mr. Noble said, “ Let us sing our favorite hymn, — ‘ When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince of Glory died,’ ” and they sang it with a will; and during the two minutes of silent prayer that followed you could hear their breathing. The leader said, “ When you have got a pair of boots and a good suit of clothes on, join this and that church; we only want the ragged and wretched.” They have received over twelve thousand pledges in that hall. The lease of it ran out, and the question was asked, u What will it cost to renew the lease? ” “ We want three thousand pounds,” was the reply, and the money was furnished. 522 A DRUNKEN TEETOTALER. In Edinburgh there is a total abstinence club-room, and so there is in many other places. The rooms are lighted and comfortably heated, and furnished with tables, newspapers, pictures, dominoes, chess, checkers, and perhaps a baga¬ telle board, and here men spend their evenings. You say, “ Men ought to spend their evenings at home.” There are many young men in New York who have only a cold garret to go to, and that is no place to sit all alone, or with a com¬ panion that is not congenial. They want places where they can enjoy themselves in good, “don’t put me out, i’m a tee- rational recreation. I be- TOTALER, lieve our rich men could spend their money to good advantage in providing such places for the encouragement and help of young men. A drunken man came into this club-room in Edinburgh. He was so drunk that he could hardly stand. Some one said, “ Do you know what place this is ? ” “ Yes, it is a teetotal club-room.” “ But you are drunk.” “ I know I am drunk; I am a drunk teetotaler. Did you never see a drunk teetotaler before ? Here is one ; I am drunk.” “You had better go out of here.” “ No, no, don’t put me out; I ’m • a teetotaler, here is my pledge ” [taking it out of his pocket]. CATCHING THE PEOPLE WITH GUILE. 523 “ I signed the pledge an hour ago, and, so help me God, I have n’t drank a drop since. I have come in here for safety.” His poor brain was bewildered with drink, and he wanted a place of safety. Where did he go ? Why, to a teetotal club- room, where there was warmth, and light, and comfort, and kind friends to help him, and that man is now one of the most active members of the Total Abstinence Society. There is one point I suppose I ought to touch upon, and that is the medical question. That branch of the subject is receiving great attention in England, and it is encouraging to see such men as Sir Henry Thompson, Sir William Gull, and last, but not least, Dr. Richardson, working in the temperance cause ; and, if you remember, these men came in gradually. When Dr. Richardson delivered his first lecture he made a a special arrangement that it should not be under total absti¬ nence agency or patronage. Those in charge of the lectures had to catch the people with guile, and they were called the Cantor Lectures. They became so popular, and Dr. Richard¬ son pursued his investigations so closely, that he has come out a thorough total abstainer. I know there are doctors who take the other side, and it is a great controversy; but we like controversy, we like battle. It was grand to fight there, be¬ cause we felt we had something to fight for. We were not beating the air ; we were not fighting sympathy, which is in¬ tangible and so heavy a burden that it presses one down to the ground. I would rather have strong opposition, and there we had it. I told them I was not a medical man or a physi¬ ologist, and therefore I was glad to see men attend to that portion of our work who understood it. There are some who .oppose the temperance movement, and the most absurd things have been written and published with regard to the use of alcohol. I think it is Dr. Moxon — I am not quite sure — who says there cannot be such a thing as 32 524 SUFFERING- FOR A PRINCIPLE. reforming a drunkard. I hope Dr. Moxon will go to heaven, and when he gets there he will find men who have fought their appetite and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Total abstinence has been to them a means of grace. This doctor says : “ A splendid fellow, a teetotaler, came to me for professional treatment. I advised him to take stimulants; he refused. I told him he was a fanatic, and he died. I will never forgive the teetotalers for the loss of that noble man.” What rubbish for a medical man to utter and publish! Sir William Gull says : “ A splendid- looking fellow came under my care, a brewer’s drayman. I did my best to save him, but he died. His body swelled to such an extent that I punctured it; the gas came out, and I had several lights burning on that man’s body.” * It would be just as consistent to say, “ I will never forgive the brewers for the death of that noble man,” as for another to say he would not forgive teetotalers for the death of “ that noble man.” Fanatic! If total abstinence is to be a principle, if I hate the drink, am I not bound by my principle to suffer pain, even if I know the drink will relieve me from it ? I can trust to God to relieve me in his own good way. To those men who would reform, we say, “ You should be willing to suffer for a principle.” Take a man that has been a drunkard for ten or twenty years, saturated with drink. He puts his name on the temperance pledge to-night. You say it will be a good thing for him if he only keeps it. There is the point. Than man can keep the pledge very well until the next morning, but when the next morning comes, what then ? The suffering! He is weak,—physically, intellectually, morally, and spiritually weak ; he cannot hold his hands steady; he has no power over his nerves f he is suffering from the horrible shivers and the terrible sensations of delirium tremens. * This incident is taken from Sir William Gull’s testimony before the com¬ mittee of the House of Lords, and is told in full on page 196. MY OWN EXPERIENCE. 525 Now here is this man in his weakness, longing for drink as he never longed for anything upon earth or in heaven. Here comes the temptation. Now that man knows that if he takes a glass of brandy it will set him up, he knows that he will THE PAST. obtain relief if he takes it. Would you advise him to take it if it would relieve him of that suffering ? All the pangs of neuralgia, rheumatism, and cramps that I ever felt are nothing to what I suffered the last Tuesday night of October, 1842, when I stood face to face with the giant that held me by one 526 MR. AND MRS. SPURGEON. finger for years. Ought a man to violate his principle for a little touch of neuralgia ? Let us stand by the principle of total abstinence, and laugh to scorn those who say that it is good for us to take intoxicating liquor as a medicine. A man belonging to the Hoxton Hall Blue-ribbon Army, who had been a drunkard, was taken ill, and the doctor said, “Total abstinence won’t suit you, you must take a little ale.” “ How much, doctor? ” “You must take half a pint of stout with your dinner, and half a pint of beer before you go to bed.” “Is that all?” inquired the man. “Yes,” said the doctor. “Well, doctor,” said he, “ if I take half a pint of stout for my dinner, four quarts won’t satisfy me, and I shall drink until I am mad.” He replied, “ Then you had better not take it at all.” I hold with a great many good men in England, that intoxicating liquor is not necessary even as a medicine ; in some cases the doctors have done the cause of temperance harm. There was another pleasant circumstance connected with my stay in England, and that was the acquaintance which I made with Mr. Spurgeon. I had never met him ; for, although I had spoken in his tabernacle three times, I had never seen him. Twice he was away at Mentone, suffering from his sad disease, rheumatic gout, and on another occasion he was called away, and could not be at the meeting. I met his brother, and said, “I am determined to see your brother Charles, and I will see him.” Mr. Spurgeon very kindly wrote, “ You wish to see me not more than I wish to see you.” I went to his house, and he captured me. I fell in love with him at first sight, and I believe my wife fell in love with his wife. He is a wonderful man, and his wife is a remarkable woman. In “ Sunlight and Shadow ” I have given in detail an account of a visit to his orphanages. I wish to say here that Mr. Spurgeon is a thorough total A BRAVE LITTLE WOMAN. 527 abstainer. His wife, too, is a pronounced total abstainer. She has not been out of her house, except when taken out in a chair, for twelve years. She has some internal disease that is exceedingly painful, so that about one day in three she is confined to her bed, and can see no one. Mr. Spurgeon said to me: u My wife is a brave little woman. She said to me, when she was taking wine and ale by the doctor’s prescription, eight years ago, ‘ Charles, did you ever know of a lady becom¬ ing a drunkard?’ ‘Yes, my dear.’ ‘Did you ever hear of a lady in my position becoming a drunkard?’ ‘Yes, my dear, I have.’ Then she said, ‘ You will never hear that of me, for I will never touch another drop.’ ‘ But, my dear, you must; the doctor will oblige you to do it.’ ‘No, the doctor will not oblige me to do it, for I will never taste it; it shall never pass my lips again.’ From that time till this, in all her sufferings and spasms, she has never used intoxicating liquor.” Mr. Spurgeon says that she is very slowly getting a little better. He said to me that a certain physician prescribed for her, and said that she must learn to be an opium-eater if she would be relieved from her pain. “ That doctor,” said Mr. Spurgeon, “has been dead for several years, and my wife is living yet.” I wish to say that Mr. Spurgeon has not been a total ab¬ stainer for a great length of time. He said to me: “ My constitution is such that I need, and must have, bitter. I am very fond of bitter beer; I enjoyed it and drank it freely. But now I have substituted something that is bitter without a particle of intoxicating spirit in it, and that I use.” He asked me to taste it, and I did. It was very bitter, but there was no alcohol in it. CHAPTER XXVII. POWER OF WOMAN S INFLUENCE — SOCIAL CUSTOMS THAT LEAD TO RUIN — MEMORABLE INCIDENTS IN MY CAREER. Woman’s Power and Influence — A True Incident — How Joe Was Induced to Sign the Pledge — One Year Afterwards — A Romantic Story — An Intemperate Lover — A Romance from Real Life — A Telling Crusade Against a Dram-shop — A Well-Planned Campaign — An Astonished Rumseller— “ Worse Than it Was Yesterday” — Deciding Who Was the Head of the House — A Memorable Incident in My Career — Twenty Years After — Young Girls Who Drink — The Downward Path — A Lover Tempted by His Affianced — The Shaft of Ridicule — The Fall — Tempter and Tempted — Found Dead — Social Customs That Lead to Ruin — Unwelcome Guests — Incidents of My Work in Cincinnati — A Shower of One Hundred and Forty-three Autograph Albums — Writing the Pledge in Each One — What Followed — A Flood of Eight Hun¬ dred Albums— Story of the Colored Preacher — Jumping Through a Wall. HAVE a strong belief in the rights of woman, though I may not be what in the or dinary phrase is styled u s woman’s rights man.” In the Bible account of her creation, which will forever be unap¬ proachable in its simple, yet exalted, beauty, we find that the beasts were made out of the ground, man was formed of the dust, but woman was U builded” (as the margin has it) afterwards and of different material. She was to be a “helpmeet” for man, his equal, and the recipient of his heart, mind, and affections; and at her creation she was “ brought ” to her husband. Adam was no savage at his creation. He had the tastes, the knowledge, 52S A MIGHTY POWER FOR GOOD OR EVIL. 529 and occupations of what we call a high state of civilization, and woman was brought to him, his equal companion. He did not buy her, she was no slave, but equal, a help “not good” to be without. Adam’s first employment was horti¬ culture. His first son was a farmer, his second a shepherd, and Cain built a city — none of which are the doings of sav¬ ages. The fifth in descent from Cain had a wonderful family in several respects; in forms of tent life, in the care of cattle, making musical instruments, in work in metals; and woman was the companion in all this. She was made with a more delicate organization and capacity, but of equal import¬ ance and equal responsibility. Adam and Eve were both called to account for disobedience; though the punishment was equally severe, it was different in kind. If our day had been the day of creation, woman would not .have been required to fight Indians, to train with the militia, to run with the fire-engine, to climb the building-ladder, or work the ship in storms. But who shall say that woman’s work in connection with the facts of our life is not equal to man’s work ? What is she doing for the Indians? Could her work in the com¬ mon cause have been spared in our late war? Now what does this necessarily imply? Why, equal responsibility, of course, and there is no power that can be exercised by man, stronger or more important than her influence. The wife has an influence to exert, and it is a most astound¬ ing thing to me that so many ladies look askance at the sub¬ ject of temperance. What is there undignified in doing away with a miserable, paltry custom? It is time-honored and old-fashioned, certainly. What mighty power a woman has for good or for evil; a word of sympathy from her lips goes a great way. Many and many a man has been saved by waking to the consciousness that some tender-hearted, pure woman felt some sympathy for him and some interest in him, 530 HOW JOE WAS SAVED. though he was debased and degraded. I remember a circum¬ stance that occurred after one of my lectures in a small town, while the people were signing the pledge. Several ladies had been watching the proceedings with considerable interest, and one of them said to me, u Mr. Gough, I wish you would go out to the door and get Joe to sign the pledge.” I did not know Joe from Jehoshaphat, but I went outside, and there, leaning against the post was a poor, miserable-looking fellow that I thought must be Joe. So I said, — “ How do you do, Joe ? ” “ The boys have been pelting me with stones.” “ They don’t pelt you with stones when you are sober, do they ? ” “No, I don’t know as they do.” “Joe,” I said, “you are serving a hard master. I have served him myself. You are receiving his wages, and I will tell you that you would be much better off if you were to do his work without any wages at all, for his wages are worse than his work; but you need not serve him any longer; do as I and hundreds of others have done, become a sober man, and then the boys won’t pelt you. Come and sign the pledge.” “ I have not got a friend in the world.” “I know what that is, Joe; for five years of my life I was in that condition; but if you sign rhe pledge, there are hundreds of honest men and women who will be friends to you. Some of the ladies inside sent me to you and asked me to come out and get you to sign.” “Did they, though?” “ Yes, they did.” “ Did they, really ? ” ' “Yes,” I said; “come along, and you’ll see.” He went with me, and we offered him the pledge, and he A MARKED CHANGE FOR THE BETTER. 531 tried to sign it, but his fingers went in every direction; lie positively could not hold the pen. I wrote his name, and he made a mark, and I held his hand while he did it. Several hands with a lady before in ONE year afterwards. his life, and he went out of the hall a better man than he came in. A year afterwards I met Joe in the street. It was the fashion then to wear a blue coat with brass buttons, and he had one on. His hat was neatly brushed, his trousers were strapped neatly down 532 POWER OF WOMAN’S SYMPATHY. over boots more highly polished than mine generally are ; he looked quite the gentleman, and had a lady on his arm. I said to him :— “Why, Joe, is that you?” “Yes,” said lie, “that’s me.” “You’re getting on finely, Joe, aren’t you? How do you do ? ” “ Yes,” said he, “ I am getting along pretty well.” “You’ve stuck to your pledge, haven’t you?” “Yes,” said he, “and the ladies have stuck to me ever since.” He is now a useful and honorable member of society, and the cause of his reformation was the feeling that somebody cared for him, and that somebody a woman. There are }U)ung men entering the vortex to-day, and some of you ladies have power to stop them. You have power to throw an influence round them that will save them. You have power to do it in a very great degree by sympathy. What is not a woman’s sympathy worth ? A word of sympa¬ thy from a woman’s lips has many a time melted a hard heart. I remember reading of an incident that occurred many years ago in reference to a man who afterward made himself famous as a historian and statesman. Though he was a very intem¬ perate man, he loved a lady, and she acknowledged that she loved him; “ but,” said she, “ until you will pledge me your # honor, as a gentleman, that you will never again touch intoxi¬ cating liquor, my hand cannot be yours.” He went away, and was very angry, for he wished to have no such rule imposed upon him. But he loved her, and back again he went, and received the same answer. He went away again, and again returned, but with the same result. He pleaded, and she weepingly refused; and so it went on. One day, in the vicinity of the city where he lived (and when I visited that ONLY A WOMAN’S HANDKERCHIEF. 533 city I was shown the place), the lady was passing, and saw some one lying beside the road. Curiosity induced her to look; and there she saw the man who had knelt at her feet, the man who had. asked her to become his bride; there he lay, the hot sun blistering his forehead as he lay stupefied, stultified with the drink. She pitied him, felt sorrow for him, but what could she do ? She took her handkerchief and spread it gently over his face, that the sun’s rays might not burn him, and went away. Afterwards he came to himself, and staggered to a dram-shop near at hand, unconsciously putting the handkerchief in. his pocket. He was a man of wealth, but guardians were placed over him, and his property was put under some restrictions; yet he could always get drunk. On arriving at the dram-shop he said, “ Give me some brandy; ” and brandy was put before him. He put his hand in his pocket-—the handkerchief was there. He looked at it, and said, “ Holloa! what’s this ? a handkerchief?” He spread it out, and in the corner he saw her name. Turning to the barkeeper he exclaimed, “Here’s your brandy, sir. Brandy! no more of it, not a drop; Oh my God! not another drop; never! never! never!” He went to the lady, and, upon his knees, swore before God that he would never drink again. She gave her hand to him and they were wedded. He afterwards rose to eminence, and lie never tasted intoxicating liquor again. This was all achieved * by her firmness, decision, and sympathy. Oh you have power ? ladies, by a word of sympathy and kindness, to do much. There are many ladies whose friends and whose relatives, perhaps, may be in danger. You can exert a powerful influ¬ ence over them if you will. We need a strong spirit of determination, and women generally have that; and when they set out to do a thing they almost always accomplish it, if it is possible. In a cer- 534 A BAND OF DETERMINED INVADERS. tain town in Massachusetts every dram-shop but one had been broken up, and the ladies determined that that one should exist no longer. About one hundred and fifty of them joined together and formed themselves into committees of twelve. They went to the liquor-seller’s shop, and one talked ten min¬ utes, and another twenty, and an¬ other half an hour, and so on, and all twelve gave him a thor¬ ough-going tem¬ perance speech. When they were gone, the poor fellow looked very serious. Said he, “That’s about the tough- est morning’s Avork I’ve had for some time; I don’t under¬ stand it. But, however, they ’ll find they can’t move me, you know.” The next day a second committee came in; each one talked to him, and when all were gone the poor fellow said, “ That’s worse than it was yesterday; they’re coming thicker and faster; but I’m standing on my rights, they can’t move me.” The next day a third committee came ; he saw they were all different ladies, and he said, “Hold on a minute; how many are there of you?” “Why, there are twelve you’re coming again, are you?” FAITH IN WOMAN’S INFLUENCE. 535 of us. We are the third committee ; there are twelve com¬ mittees, and when we have all visited you, we ’ll begin again.” “Hold on. If a man is to die, let him die in peace. You’re coming again, are you? Well if you’ll give it up, I will.” And he broke up his establishment. Now I do not mention this to show particularly that the ladies have strong conver¬ sational powers largely developed, but that they have perse¬ verance. We want them to engage in this movement. I believe if the ladies of this country should declare, u I will neither drink nor present intoxicating liquor as a beverage from this time forth,” the drinking customs would fall into dis¬ repute in six months. I tell you it is the women who can regulate and control the social customs of the coun¬ try. It is of no use for some young men to say: “ I don’t care what the women think; ” you do, you do; you can¬ not help it. It is unnatural for man not to care for what women think. I know it is very fashionable sometimes to speak contemptuously of woman. I never heard a man speak contemptuously of a woman without thinking that he never had a good mother, or a good sister, or a good wife; for I defy any man that ever kneeled at his mother’s side and felt her soft, warm hand resting on his head, and who can remember the little prayer his mother taught him, to speak contemptuously of woman. I have strong faith in woman’s influence. “ O woman, lovely woman, Nature made thee to temper man; We had been brutes without ye; Angels are painted fair to look like you; There’s in you all we believe of heaven, Eternal joy and everlasting love.” That may be a little extravagant, but woman’s influence is almost unbounded. A gentleman told the following story 536 A MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE. at one of my meetings in Scotland. A husband said to his wife, “Now, wife, you know I am the head of the house.” “Well,” said she, “you can be the head if you wish; I am the neck.” “ Yes,” said he, “you shall be the neck.” “But don’t you know,” said she, “ the neck turns the head ? ” And yet, with all my respect for womankind, I say the women are culpable, and are responsible for much of the evil of drunkenness. Let me give you a fact. Many years ago I was living in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and I started to hear the Germanias render Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, in Boston, one Saturday evening. As I came to the place where the omnibuses met (we had no street-cars then), I heard the sound of merriment and laughter, and, as I am very fond of fun, I thought I would see what was going on. I found a group of young men, and in the centre was a young girl, seventeen years of age, as I learned afterward. She was very drunk. The young men were pushing her about in the rudest manner. One would push her one way, and another the other. T said : “ Do you call it sport to push that help¬ less girl about like that?” Somebody said, “That’s Gough.” I said, “Yes, that is my name.” They allowed me to approach the girl, who was swaying to and fro, — she could not stand still, — and was crying bitterly, uttering that wail pitiful to hear from an animal, but far more pitiful to hear from a woman. I said, “Where do you live?” It was some time before she could or would answer me. She was so drunk she stammered badly. At last, by patience, I ascer¬ tained the name of the street and number of the house where she lived. Then I said to her, “Now, if you will trust me, if you will take my arm, I will see you safely home.” She put her hands to her white face, and looked at me, and then grasped my arm as a drowning man would catch at a plank. I walked with her a mile and a e-t- lJ ♦—< « rj* ® D - © P ^ £. re $ ^ < i—i p a®” 3 c 5 r+ Q, Bp|3 £.*§ -3 " 'H ^ srS* S. p *-b: p ■a j • a> 3 »oo 8 <5-3 3 ® n = jq ’O' ® -! S3 “I s»-~3 SOff o p _2 73 “ £« P re 3 ►tj'-'J or 2L <-s ~-cb CT -° -~ crq 5" r*JQ g« P c ggs O-P P a" ?s2 1 ~®.-s ® crcr 3 P. re p ^ - § SC --S £» § s ®OS=t 3 ~®B g'rtO p O P £L 3 M C 2 01 * J§ H ® p • s Ed f ►d SJ Ed OQ o n Ed 3 Ed 5* o SJ ► w t- 1 Ed t—i O HH « Ed 3 2 & W o-. -O .„, ;c O C“„ *5 re p. p s st ^o O P j! 01 3 [> S q£ g „ c—. Ed 2ss Ed 7 > pr QfQ -S^ . 03 O* , "S gf O re g 3 »-J £;. © J'r-i " , p C 'M c*- l> 1 C 3 © © tr *1 to 5 oq &H CS o P ST «■ re 3 3 " , p'^ si A GOOD-NATURED OLD IDIOT. 539 half. It was hard work, but at length we reached the house, and I rang the bell. The servant came to the door; I told her who I was, and said : “ I found this young lady in the streets, and she says that she lives here.” 44 Oh, my good gracious! ” said the servant, and pulled the girl into the house, and shut the door. As I went to the concert, I said to myself, u People like to talk, especially about teetotalers. I have been seen walk¬ ing through the streets to-night with a drunken woman, arm in arm, and they will talk about it. Well, let them talk; I can talk, too. I have a meeting to-morrow night; Mr. Grant is to preside, and at the close of my lecture I will tell the whole affair; ” and so I did. At the close of the meeting a lady and gentleman pushed up to me, holding out their hands. “God bless you!” “For what?” “For bringing our daughter home last night.” “What, your daughter?” “Yes, poor child,” said the mother, “she is lying ill in bed, And we have left her to come to you and say, ‘ God bless you.’ Oh, if you had left her with those young men, what would have become of our child? — or if the policeman had taken her to the station-house, she would never have lifted her head again. She was not to blame. There was a wedding at her aunt’s last week. Not being very well, I thought she had better not go to the ceremony. But yesterday was a clear, cold day, and I said, 4 You had better call on your aunt. You can return in the omnibus by nightfall.’ She went, and when she reached the house she said, 4 T am feel¬ ing very cold;’ and her aunt [one of those hospitable, good- natured old idiots that we sometimes meet] said, 4 1 will give you something to warm you, my dear,’ and she gave her a glass of hot whiskey punch. My daughter had never tasted liquor before. We are teetotalers, and never have a drop of the cursed thing in the house, and she did not know 540 TWENTY YEARS AFTER. what it was. She drank it, and began to feel badly, and said, 4 Aunt, I must go home.’ 4 Well, my dear,’ said her aunt, 4 you must take a piece of the wedding cake to your mamma, and you must drink a glass of the wine we had at the wedding;’ and she poured out a glass, and the child drank it. When she came out and had reached the corner of the street, she became bewildered; she did not know what the matter was. After that she had no recollection of any¬ thing, but a dim, indefinite, confused idea of something, she knew not what, till she found herself in bed with her mother bending over her.” Twenty years after that, a lady came to me in Music Hall, Boston, and said: 44 1 am a wife and mother, and a member of a Christian church, and I am that girl you helped home when drunk.” You may say, 44 That is a bad precedent.” Bah, bah! for your precedents. There are some men and women who, for fear of establishing a precedent, cannot lift a poor human soul from perdition. They want a precedent. Perish precedents! If I see a woman in trouble, and I can consistently help her out of that trouble, I never ask who she is, or how she fell into the trouble, until I have helped her out. That is my plan, and it should be yours. Help them out first, and talk to them afterwards of their wrong-doings. And when that girl, or rather that Christian wife and mother, held my hand in hers, I thanked God that I had helped a drunken girl home. 44 Oh,” you say, 44 you ought to be very careful, especially in large cities, you ought to be very careful about what you do.” Here is a human being in trouble, and you must be “very careful” how you help her out. Suppose you see a man drowning. He cries out for help. You do not ask, 44 Are you a Christian ? What religious denomination do you belong to? What class of society do you move in?” DRINKING AMONG WOMEN. 541 You do not hesitate to help him. And I tell you this, if he was the greatest burglar that ever lived, you would help him out first and put him in jail afterward. Help him out! It is our business to help men and women out of their diffi¬ culties ; and it is our business to do what we can to prevent others from falling into trouble. What do you think of a woman whose husband beats her, and who, when a good teetotaler says to her, “Exert your influence and get your husband to sign the pledge,” exclaims, “Well, Dr. Mudge, I should like to see my husband get on in the world, but I should not exactly like him to sign the pledge, for I must have my pint of beer, and if he did not drink it he would not let me have it.” What do you think of such a woman? I think the beer must have stultified her better feelings. I was very much shocked in England and Scotland to see young girls entering a public-house and drinking in public places with young men. What can they expect such conduct to lead to ? Does such a young girl think what the result will be of sitting there with that young man who tells her he loves her, and yet will ask her to drink a glass of liquor with him? Does such a man love you? Oh, if that woman would say, “If you offer me that, I have an idea of the estimation in which you hold me.” I rejoice that drinking among women is not so common here as in Great Britain, but the custom is growing upon us. I find that those who give intoxicating liquor do not, as a rule, sympathize with those that suffer from it. A gentle¬ man in the city of Troy told me of a young lawyer who was a notorious drunkard. He signed the temperance pledge, went away and practised law in the West, and came back with considerable property. He had been engaged to a young lady who professed to love him, but the marriage had been postponed on account of his drinking habits. He came 33 542 THE POWER OF RIDICULE. back sober and a party was given in honor of the event. The young lady and the belle of the evening made up their minds that they would get him to drink some wine. They coaxed him, and vexed him, and provoked him, and began to ridicule him. There are some persons you cannot move by argument or by reason — you cannot lead them, you cannot drive them, you cannot coax them; but they have a soft place, as every man has somewhere, and the shaft of ridicule will often touch it. It was the case with this young man; he could not resist ridicule. In desperation he took the proffered glass of wine, and drank it. He was not sober for ten days. The cashier of the bank kept him in his own house and did everything he could to cheer him up, for he was almost broken-hearted, feeling that his prospects were ruined. He got him up and dressed him; and, freed somewhat from the influence of the debauch, he went to the lady’s house to call and was rejected contemptuously, and the door was shut in his face* In ten days from that time he was found in an open field dead, having drank himself to death. Now I say that that lady either had no right to give him drink, or she had no right to spurn him when he fell by her own act. A man has no right to put temptation in the way of his brother; but if he tempts him, and his brother falls, he is bound to put his arm round him and help him up again. Young women, don’t wait to testify against these drinking customs till } r ou have been crushed by them. Testify against them now and resolve, “ I will never again touch the wine, I will never again present it.” I know some persons will say, “ But shall I dictate to my guest what he is to take when he comes to see me?” ^ es, to be sure. There is not a guest on the face of the earth, that would be so bold, — so bad, indeed, — as to declare to you that you must give him whatever QUESTIONABLE MANNERS. 543 he sees fit to demand. Suppose you invite a guest to your house. You cover your table with everything that is requi¬ site ; and after your guest has eaten his dinner, he takes out of his pocket a huge black pipe and a roll of tobacco called nigger-head, which he begins to cut, quietly observing that there can be no objection to his enjoying himself, as he is in the habit of smoking after dinner at home. Would you suffer your dining¬ room to be polluted in this manner ? No. You would start to your feet, and, addressing your visitor, would say, “How dare you, or any man, take it upon your¬ self to defile my home because you defile your own ? ” No man has a right ( to demand that you unwelcome guest. produce wine on your table solely for his gratification. If you are afraid of losing your guest because you do not place wine before him, the sooner he dines somewhere else the better. I have a home in the country. In summer time we have strawberries, rich and luscious, and when my friends come out to visit me, I always supply them. But if any one should come to my house and say, “ To tell }mu the truth, I came not to see you, not to hold conversation with you, but to eat your strawberries,” I would say to him, “ The sooner you go about your business, th6 better; you had better seek 544 INTERESTING INCIDENTS. strawberries somewhere else.” And I would have my fair friends and others adopt the same course when a person ac¬ cepts an invitation not for the sake of their society, but for the sake of the wine. Young ladies, I would ask you to put your names to the total abstinence pledge; or if you will not do that, agree that you will not offer intoxicating liquors to others, and consider yourselves as no longer required to furnish them for your guests. When I was in the city of Cincinnati several interesting events took place there, and one of them I will relate. I went to the female college to speak to the ladies, and one of them said to me, “ Mr. Gough, will you write in my album?” U I don’t know what to write,” said I. “Write the pledge,” said she. I agreed to do that if she would sign her name to it, and she said she would, requesting me to put my name under hers, which I did. Others came with the same request, and there I sat writing until my arm and wrist ached. I wrote the temperance pledge that afternoon in one hundred and forty-three albums, to each of which a young lady’s name was attached; and while I was in Cincinnati I wrote it in the albums of nearly eight hundred young ladies. Such, in fact, was the demand for albums that they were sought for in every quarter. One bookseller told me that he had not sold albums before for a year, but that week he had sold forty dollars’ worth and had been obliged to send to New York for another supply. Old albums which had been thrown into corners were brought out. Some queer old musty ones, which had belonged to their mothers, and which had been stowed away for years, were brought to me that I might write the pledge in them, to which in every instance was attached the lady’s name, mine being added as a witness. The boys also took it up. They procured little account* TELL-TALE STRAWS. 545 books, and I think I wrote a thousand pledges in account- books, belonging to boys and girls. Good work was brought about by means of those albums. Sometimes albums are put upon the drawing-room table. Now, suppose I am a young man, and that I go into a young lady’s house, as young men will do, who have business among the young ladies. Well, I am shown into the drawing-room and asked to wait a few moments. The young lady may have her hair in papers, or there may be a few alterations in her dress to attend to. I am, likely, a lover of pictures, and I look at the engravings. Hav¬ ing looked at them, I next look at the books. I take up an album. Now, I will see how matters stand, and what sonnets are addressed to my Dulcinea’s eye¬ brows. I turn the leaves over, and by and by I come to — I read — “We will not use intoxicating liquors” — hum “or provide them foi otheis signed Elizabeth.” — hum — signed “Elizabeth — ” I should understand the matter at once; not a word is nec¬ essary, she is a total abstainer. And if I have any sincere regard for that young lady, shall I dare ask her after that to take a glass of wine? If I am a young man of honor (and I would advise the young ladies to have nothing to do with any except such), I would no more ask her to take a glass of wine than I would think of addressing to her insult- 546 “I WOULD LIKE TO CATCH THEM.” ing language which would bring the burning and indignant blush to her cheek. Another way in which good was done by those albums was in the young ladies asking the young gentle¬ men to write their autographs in them. Of course they would say “Yes,” and then ask where they should write. The ladies were sure to turn over the pages till they came to the pledge, and then say, “ Give me your signature here.” “ Do you mean here ? ” “ Certainly,” is the reply. Some would, and some would not; but, to show you what may be done in this way, one bright-eyed young lady in Cincinnati told me that she had obtained the names of sixteen young men. She said, “ I don’t believe I could have induced them to do this unless I had urged them ; and now they tell me that some of these young men are breaking it.” She was a beautiful girl, and, as she said this, she drew herself up, her eyes flashed fire, and she proudly said, “ I would like to catch them. If a young man who had signed the pledge in my album broke it, I would never speak to him again.” And as I looked at her, I thought any young man would be sufficiently punished if he saw her eyes flashing scorn upon him. There is no young man who can bear the scorn of woman, however much he may affect to despise it. And, young ladies, let your eyes flash scorn on an unmanly deed committed by any young man in your presence, and you will make him heartily ashamed. Adopt right principles and bring your influence to bear upon the young men of your acquaintance. Women can educate not only the child at the mother’s knee, but they can also educate young men and bring them to occupy positions in society to which they would never attain without that education. A lady once said to me that when gentlemen were together they talked about matters that required some thought and knowledge to understand,— their conversation A NEGRO PREACHER’S FAITH. 547 was often profitable; but, when they come into the society of ladies, or when ladies are introduced to them, they drop, in many cases, all common-sense conversation and descend to miserable, paltry, contemptible twaddle, as if that was the only conversation fit for women. Whose fault is that? It is the fault of the ladies themselves in a very great degree. • Let these men understand that, to please you, they must cultivate, not their mustaches, not their whiskers, not that which tends merely to personal appearance, not a mere knowl¬ edge of dress; but they must cultivate the mind and intellect which God has given them; and until they do that, remain as you are, and let them know that they are not fit associates for you. Depend upon it, that if you follow this course you will lead young men to cultivate the mind, to take care of the intellect, and you will hear no more gossiping, miserable twaddle indulged in your presence. Ladies, mil you help us? You can, by your sympathy; you say you cannot do much; but do what you can. A colored preacher, who was inculcating the duty of obe¬ dience, said that if God’s Word told him to jump through a wall ten feet high and two feet thick, he would not turn the book upside down for another reading, or reason about the im¬ possibility of the matter, but would go out and do it, because jumping at the wall was his work ; jumping through it, God’s. So you do your duty, let what may hinder. The Bible en¬ courages you in the spirit of self-denial. We have much to battle against, but we must not anchor to the past. Ours is a day of progress, a day when truth is bursting through the rubbish of ages, and making itself glorious. Men are everywhere beginning to recognize each other as brethren; wherever a wrong is perpetrated, the cry of indignation and sympathy rises from millions of voices. Therefore, do all you can and trust God for the results. 1 CHAPTER XXVIII. RANDOM THOUGHTS — STORIES AND SKETCHES FROM BOTH SIDES OF LIFE — GLEANINGS OF A LEISURE HOUR. Religion in Everyday Life — Silent Influence — The Sentry of Pompeii — Faithful Unto Death — Origin of the Term “Teetotal”—Dickey Turner — Death Before Bondage — Trading in Human Lives — The Auction-block — A Strong Man’s Agony—Clinging to Respectability — The Traveller and His Gold — Seeking Shelter — The Pioneer’s Hut — An Hour of Fear and Trembling— “It’s Time to Go to Bed” —A Re¬ markable Incident — Anecdote of a Poor Negro — “ Come, Cato, Get Up”—A Thrilling Incident — A Disabled Steamer — Drifting Toward the Shore — Power of Christian Example — A Ship in Distress — The Alarm Gun — Launching the Lifeboat — “I Will Go ; Who Will Follow Me ” — Pulling for Life — Saved at Last — The Moderate Drinker — The Negro and His Potato Patch — A Disastrous Invasion — Old Tom’s Pigs—“Daddy Moses”—Imparting Strength to Others. ANY of us are too much in the habit of looking at the duties of a Christian as con¬ fined to mere religious ordi¬ nances, and forget, or lose sight of, the fact that man is a social being, and that his religion does not render him less so. In the Bible, duties, commendations, promises constantly refer to the so- cial life, walking with God and be¬ fore God, as having to live with and before men in all the necessary associations of life, family relations, business relations, the social compact, in which the Christian is not to be a mere cipher, but to bring into society a new element, a power, leaven, salt. “ Ye are the salt of the earth.” As Christian men, we are bound to make our religion 54S FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 549 tlie active, governing principle of life, carrying it with us in the workshop, in the daily employment, in the social circle, in our politics, wherever we are called in the providence of God to move or act, being “ diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” I remember hearing that, on the Lake of Geneva, a bell was placed on the surface of the lake, close to the water’s edge, for some experiment; and at every stroke of the bell there was a ripple and a vibration on the other side of the lake. Just so it is with you. There is a moral electricity connecting heart with heart, as the electric wire connects island with island. You cannot make a motion without exerting an influence. It is not the noisiest of us, nor those who are the most prominent, who exert the most influence; there have been silent, quiet influences that have told more than all the force and power that could be put forth. There are young men among my readers who can exert a mighty in¬ fluence. It is not only an influence that will tell now, but will tell long after you are in your graves. Herculaneum and Pompeii were in their glory many cen¬ turies ago, when suddenly a heap of fire and ashes came down and buried them. The people were busy at their various occupations, — some were indulging in pleasure, some count¬ ing their gold, — but one stood as a sentry; and, though the rain of ashes came down, he stood at his post. Centuries after, with the rest, his remains were exhumed, and found in his tomb of ashes, still standing on guard, to show another race that there was constancy of purpose and firmness in duty even in Pompeii. __ ORIGIN OF THE TERM u TEETOTAL.” I saw an article in “ Notes and Queries ” on the origin of the term “teetotal,” in which that publication, usuall} r so 550 ORIGIN OF THE WORD TEETOTAL. correct, falls into the blunder, first, of spelling the word tea - total, and then stating that the name was given to the society because the members were confined to tea as a beverage. At a meeting in Preston, at which Joseph Livesey presided, who is now living, a man named Dickey Turner said, “Mr. Chairman, I finds as how the lads gets drunk on ale and cider, and we can’t keep ’ em sober unless we have the pledge total; yes, Mr. Chairman, tee-tee-total.” “Well done, Dick¬ ey,” said Mr. Livesey, “we will have it teetotal;” and the first Total Abstinence Society was thus formed. It is on this principle of total abstinence that we base our whole ope¬ rations. Liberty is every man’s inalienable right; every true man desires freedom. History seems to be but a record of mighty struggles of the oppressed against the oppressor. Who would be a slave, to struggle and toil for another, to be held in bondage to another, wholly subject to the will of another, with no freedom of action, — person and service controlled by another? We pity the abject beings reduced to slavery, in the power of an owner. How the flood of sympathy pours forth for the down-trodden and oppressed. How many bat¬ tles have been fought for freedom ! How many a wild spirit that could not be tamed into subjection has burst the shackles, and met death rather than bondage. Ah, yes, physical slavery is an awful thing. The Children of Israel were slaves in Egypt and in Babylon, but there was a difference, — in Egypt they were sold, in Babylon they had sold themselves. A man may be bought and sold in the market and yet be a freer man than he who sells him. I once saw a man — a slave — sold under peculiar circumstances. A trader wanted to buy him, but a benevolent man in the vicinity A LIFE OF BONDAGE. 551 wished to keep the negro with his wife and child, who stood trembling a few yards from the auction-block. I shall never forget the look of agony with which the slave gazed on the trader, and then the ray of hope that illumined his face as he looked on his friend. But presently the trader offered a price that shut out hope, and the negro’s friend turned on his heel and departed. Then the slave folded his arms; I saw the twitching of the fingers, the convulsive working of the throat, the white teeth brought on the lip as if he would press the blood from under them; I saw the eyelids swollen with unshed tears; I saw the veins stand out like whip¬ cords upon his brow, and the drops like beads upon his fore¬ head, and I pitied him. It was a strong man’s agony. But from his blood-shot eyes, as he looked at the group around him, there flashed a light that told of a wild, free spirit, — a soul that could not be enslaved; and then, black as he was, bought and sold as he was, he loomed up before me in the glorious attitude of a free man compared with the tobacco- chewing, whiskey-drinking, blaspheming slaves to evil pas¬ sions who were selling a brother into slavery. Oh, the slavery of the man who has lifted up his hands that the wreath might be twined around his wrists and the band i of flowers around his brow, and who finds these flowers twisted around rusty iron bands eating into his marrow and burning into his brain till his garland of honor has become a band of everlasting infamy, and he lifts his galled, shackled hands to heaven and cries, “ Who shall deliver me from this horrible bondage ? ” How pitiful to see men who have fallen from positions of respectability into the debasing habit of drink! Have you ever seen such a man, — clinging as with a death-grip to the last remnant of his respectability,—going through your BROKEN-DOWN RESPECTABILITY. 552 streets in a faded black coat well inked at the seams, but* toned up close to the chin to hide his soiled and ragged shirt, with, perhaps, an old rusty pair of gloves, and a couple of inches of wrist between the tops of the gloves and the cuffs of the once fashionable coat, the trousers positively shining with old age, the last penny that can be spared from the drink expended in blacking for the miserable boots, the hat so dilapidated, broken, and greasy, that he goes into mock mourning and hides it with crape, slinking miserably about, a wretched wreck? A gentleman said to me, as if it was a discouragement, “You are in a minority.” Pure and undefiled religion is in a minor¬ ity. It is the multitude that are swift to do evil, and it is the few that are righteous. Oh, I thank God for the belief I have that the righteous are the salt of the earth. A WRETCHED WRECK. The world expects consistency, and when it does not find it, to all the hatred and bitterness against the principle is added a contempt for the professor. A young man, an infidel, was travelling in the western part of the United States, with a very large sum of money upon him, which he was conveying from one town to another across a very deso¬ late district. He was in hopes of reaching a certain town before night, but darkness came on when he was five miles AN HO UK OF DREADFUL FOREBODING. 553 away. He saw a light, and went to a log-hut and asked if he could find shelter for the night. A woman came and said she guessed he could; that her old man was away, but that if he would put up his horse on the lee-side of the cabin he might come in. He came in, looked about him, was very suspicious, thought of his money. “ What a place to rob me in ! What a place to murder me, and nobody the wiser for A SUSriCIOUS PLACE TO PASS THE NIGHT. it!” And he sat there, very uneasy till the man of the house came in, a rough-looking woodsman, a pioneer or trapper. He gave the stranger a rough welcome, but looking, as these men will, furtively out of the corner of his eye, he seemed to take the measure of the young chap, and then talked with him and gave him something to eat. He ate in fear and trembling, kept his hand on his treasure, very nervous, very anxious, very tremulous. The man said to him, “ I will show you where you can sleep, sir.” The young man rose, timid and trembling; he 554 THE PIONEER’S BIBLE. did not like the looks of things. “What a place this is to murder a man in ! Oh, dear! My money and my life are in danger.” So he came and sat by the fire, and made up his mind that he would not go to bed that night. The man urged him to retire. “It’s time to go to bed.” “Ah,” thought the young man, “ time for you, but not for me.” He was going to sit up all night. “Very well,” young man,” said the woodsman, “ If you choose to sit here all night, I shall not, and you certainly will have no objection to my doing what I have been accustomed to do for many years, — reading a Psalm out of the best of books, AN UNEXPECTED PROCEEDING. and asking Gods blessing upon us.” That very moment, infidel that he was, his fears were gone; he went to bed, and never thought of his money. And he was so impressed with what he had seen that he wrote a letter to the newspapers, renouncing his infidelity, because of the power of Christian example upon him on that occasion. No amount of eloquence, talent, or profession will compensate for the want of a good example. Now, we will take, if you please, the Sabbath question. There are those who are in favor of upholding the sanctity of the Sabbath day. But some of these men, Christian men, too, seem to me to be preparing,—or you will, allow me. if “IT’S SUNDAY MO’NIN’, MASS A.” 555 you please, to illustrate what I mean by an anecdote of a negro, and we get some of our best illustrations from homely life. A negro was hired by a man who professed to be a Christian, as an assistant on his farm. This man was one of those who are always in favor of keeping the Sabbath, except when work of necessit} r demanded that there should be something done, and then he always quoted Scripture. But it was noticed that he “i don’t want to get L T i\” ing time he would always cut down a lot of grass on Saturday night, so that he could have an excuse for tossing the hay about in the morning, and shaking off the dew. So he called this negro on Sunda} r morning. “Come, Cato, get up.” “I don’t want to get up. Sunday mo’nin’, massa; always lay a-bed Sunday mo’nin’.” “But get up and get your breakfast.” “ Don’t want no breffus on Sunday mo’nin’, massa; rather lav a-bed than breffus.” 4/ 556 A CHRISTIAN HERO. 44 But you must get up and help us shake the dew off the grass.” 44 Don’t do no work on Sundays, massa ; I did n’t hire out to work Sundays.” 44 Oh, but this is a work of necessity.” 44 Don’t see dat, massa, at all; don’t see dat it’s a work of necessity.” 44 Well, but would you not pull your ox out of the pit on the Sabbath day?” 44 Oh, yes, massa, but not if I shoved him in on Saturday night.” Do you know I am very much afraid there is a good deal of this shoving in on Saturday night ? You speak out bravely against the running of Sunday trains for pleasure excursions; you oppose the general use of cars on the Sab¬ bath day, and yet you will use the same agency to go from one end of the city to the other, and even into the country, to hear a popular preacher. Now, is that consistent? Who, in trouble or in disaster, is the hero ? It is the Christian man, and there his example shines out with bright radiance. On the steamer 44 Atlantic,” plying between Nor¬ wich and New York, whilst tossed about that long night on the Sound, with the steam-chest exploded, and all in confu¬ sion, the rudder ropes burnt away, and the vessel drifting without a particle of sail or anything to help her, there were sceptical men, ungodly men, and men of business; wealthy men were there, and some of them were offering thousands and thousands of dollars to anyone who would save their lives; they gave no comfort to anyone. But there was one godly man, Dr. Armstrong, of the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, who worked with all his might as long as there was any hope. When at length death stared them THE SHIPWRECK. 557 in the face, and they felt that they must drive on the shore and the ship must go to pieces, Dr. Armstrong stood calm and quiet, not like a Stoic, but with the strong faith of the Christian. And they came to him for comfort; every eye was fixed on him; he was the example; they clung to him in that hour of danger; and when he said, “ Let us pray,” women sobbed and strong men bowed the m- selves, while the Christian hero, who had been first in working for safety while hope remained, lifted up his voice in prayer, a n d then, as a noble example of heroic faith and confi¬ dence, waited the dread result with the fortitude and quietness of a Christian. It is the Christian man that the infidel looks to in time of trouble or distress. He becomes the hero. Why ? By the power and force of his example. Let us suppose a shipwreck; a raging sea, a mighty hurri¬ cane ; the people in the village are full of alarm; they hear the gun that tells of distress; they go down to the beach; it is a terrible night; they see the blue lights that reveal the ship in distress, with men clinging to the masts and to the shrouds, and hear the cry of passengers upon the deck. 34 DEATH STAKED THEM IN THE FACE. 558 TEACHING A DRUNKARD HOW TO DRINK. They bring down the lifeboat, but the surf is so terrific that no one will venture out; one thinks of his wife and children, another of his old mother, another thinks of his brothers and sisters. There is the boat, there is the wreck ; no one dares to launch that boat, there is so much danger. Another gun, another blue light; there, there ! It is too much for them ; one young man steps forward and leaps into the boat. “ I will go, who will follow me ? ” At that moment there is a press forward, and every man is ready to take an oar. Who is the leader of those men? The volunteer. The volunteer, by the tacit consent of all, stands at the helm; he orders them to pull at the oars; his eye is fixed upon the wreck. He is the master of the expedition, and when the passengers are all safely brought ashore, he, the hero in that fearful strife with the elements, is the most modest man of the company. Just so with the Christian man; he is the hero in the struggle; he is the modest man when earthly rewards are to be showered upon those who have performed service for their fellow-men. You say you set a good example. Do you set a good example to the drunkard? Some persons say they do, because if the drunkard drinks just as they do he will never get drunk; he will be a moderate drinker. Now, we will take the drunkard, if you please. Here he is. “ Follow my example.” “Very well, sir.” “I take it twice a day.” “Very well, sir.” “I take it at noon, and I take it at my dinner at four or five o’clock.” “Very well, sir.” “Now follow my example.” “Yes, sir.” “You drink just when ] do, and only when I do.” “Yes, sir.” “Well, now, we come together at twelve to take the first glass, you and I.” “ Yes, sir.” “ Pour it out; I drink it; you drink it.” The DICK’S GARDEN AND TOM’S PIGS. 559 moderate drinker has drunk it, and this poor man has drunk it. They go away. You go to your business; you have no thoughts about the wine or drink, none at all. You attend to your business as usual. Four o’clock comes. You have been spending your time as usual. What has he been doing ? He has been getting nervous. He could not help it. He feels strange sensa¬ tions ; he cannot help them. Those sensations have grown into a longing ; he cannot help it. He has been thinking there never was such a long afternoon ; he has been looking at his watch, — if he has one ; he is irritable ; he is going to have a certain gratification when four o’clock comes. You quietly come to your glass. There stands the nervous man; he looks at his glass; his eyes gleam like those of a tiger that has once tasted blood and sees it again. You take your liquor, sip it quietly; he takes his, clutches it, looks at you, looks around wildly, drinks it at a draught, and before you are ready to go to bed he is drunk; he could not help it; to save his life he could not help it. Why? Because his system is diseased, and it is utterly impossible for that man to drink moderately. A negro named Dick had a piece of land in which he had planted yams and sweet potatoes. Another negro, named Tom, had a sow and nine pigs, and when Dick went to get his potatoes one night, after his hard day’s work, he found them all rooted np and the garden destroyed. He was in a terrible rage. He said: “Dere’s dat old Uncle Tom’s sow and de pickaninnies hab bin in my gar’n an’ eat up all my ’taters. Now I ’ll hab satisfaction. I ’ll make him pay de damage, dat’s what I’ll do.” Well, Moses was a Christian patriarch among his fellows in the settlement, and he said to Dick, — “ Dick, what’s de matter ? ” 560 CHRISTIANITY, PIGS, AND ’TATERS. “Matter? matter ’nuff. Dere’s old Tom’s sow and pigs has bin an’ root up all my ’taters, and now I’ll make old Tom pay de damage. I’ll seize on de pigs, I’ll seize on de sow, I ’ll seize eberyting, — I ’ll make him pay de damage.” “Well,” says Moses, “stop a minute, Dick; you know T o m’s an old man.” “Well, I know he is. Dat’s got nottin’ to do wid his pigs.” “Yes, but you know he’s not got a bit of ground, such as you have, and he ’pends on dat sow and dem pigs for his winter’s store.” “ Dat makes n o differ ence to me. What if he does? he ought to keep his pigs at home, not fat de old sow in my gar’n. I ’ll make him pay de damage, dat’s what I’ll do.” “ Dick, stop a minute. You perfess to be a Christian?” “Well, I ’specs I is a Christian, I ’specs I is. But what’s dat got to do wid my ’taters? I’ll make him pay de damage, dat’s what I’ll do.” “ Ah, but, Dick, you perfess to love de Lord Jesus ? ” “ Well, Moses, I hopes I does ; I hopes I does. But, daddy SELF-DENIAL. 561 Moses, dat’s nottin’ to do wid de pigs rootin’ up my ’taters. You know I must Lab satisfaction ; I must make him pay de damage, dat’s what I must do.” “ Now, Dick, I’m going to ask you one oder question, and den I’ll neber ask you anoder. Jess you answer dat, and den I ’ll neber ask you anoder. Hab you eber paid de Lord Jesus Christ all de damage dat you hab done to him?” “ No, I don’t tink I hab. Pay Him, Daddy Moses ! why, if I lib as long as Medusla, work ebery day, and not be sick once, I ’ll neber be able to pa}^ Him one stiver. I tell you what, Daddy Moses, I didn’t like to gib up all my yams and ’taters to old Tom for his sake, but for de Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, I can. Now you go and tell Uncle Tom dat if I get anoder gar’n an’ get ’taters in, he may let all de pigs run in as much as he pleases, and I’ll neber ask no damage.” That is the principle. And I appeal to Christian men, and ask them, for His sake, to be willing to make some sacrifice, to practise some self-denial in stooping to the weaknesses of those who are erring, knowing that you are not made a par¬ taker of their weaknesses, for the strongest man, morally speaking, that ever li ved has been the man who has imparted the most strength to his weaker brother. CHAPTER XXIX. ■MODERATION — THE CUP OF DEATH — THE HUMOROUS SIDE OF DRUNKENNESS — THE DARK SIDE. A Minister’s Dangerous Advice — Men Who “Can’t Stand It”—Story of the Church Member Who Went After a Load of Goods — Taking a “ Nip ” to Keep Out the Cold—Another “Nip” — A Ludicrous Tableau — Listening to an Account of a Surgical Operation — I Am Compelled to Leave the Room — An Actor’s Foolish Wish — Brainless Young Ladies — A Story for the Benefit of Young Women — An Unwilling Bride¬ groom— The Humorous Side of Drunkenness — Ludicrous Incidents — “Toodles” — “That’s the Way I Always Come Down Stairs” — Anecdote of Bishop Clarke — The Man Who Swallowed the Spool of Silk—“Wife! Wife! I’m All Unravelling”—A Good Story — An Exceedingly Comical Situation — The Dark Side — A Bridegrooir Sentenced to be Hanged — False Arguments. NE source of embarrassment I have in continuously speaking on the subject of temperance is that my range of argument is very limited. The physio¬ logical aspects of the move¬ ment are discussed by scien¬ tists, physiologists, and physicians; and the scriptural argument enforced by biblical scholars. I am neither a bibli¬ cal scholar nor a physiologist; there¬ fore I must take the question just as it is, and occupy the ground with regard to which there is no dispute, and in which little argument is needed. The disease; the cause; and the remedy. The disease, drunkenness ; the cause, drink ; the remedy, abstinence from drink; and that is so simple, it 562 DANGEROUS ADVICE. 563 needs no argument whatever to prove it. If we could only induce the people to adopt the principle of total absti¬ nence, the evils of drunkenness would be rolled back from the land forever. All that can be said on this subject must be very much like taking the same pieces of colored glass and the same beads in the same kaleidoscope, and shaking them up occasional^ to present a little different appearance with the same materials. A person once said to me: “Well, well, it’s all right for you to talk about drunkenness, but why don’t you talk about some other evil? Is intoxication the worst sin in the world? Is there no other evil in the world but drunkenness? ” Why, we battle this evil because drunkenness solidifies and crys- talizes and makes chronic every evil passion of depraved human nature. It is the promoter of all that is evil, vile, and abominable. A minister once said to his young men: “Temperance is a more manly virtue than total abstinence,” meaning, by temperance, moderation. This is a fallac}^ that is deceiving 3^oung men. A person once put the same idea before me in another way. He said: “I hate a drunkard. I think a drunkard is a beast.” “ Then,” I said, “ I hope you are a teetotaler.” “Ah, no, no; I hate your teetotalism as bad as I hate excess.” “Why?” “ Because excess is beastly, and teetotalism is cowardly.” “ I do not understand you.” “ I stand on the manly principle of moderation. I say to young men: 4 Now, follow my example. Use this article in moderation; use it as not abusing it. Exercise your self- denial, self-control, and self-government; and by the exercise of these qualities you develop your highest and noblest man- 564 WHAT IS EXCESS? hood.’ Don’t you see? Now, what do you develop by teetotalism? Nothing but a miserable spirit of cowardice. You say, 4 There is an article; run!’ I say, ‘There is an article ; meet it like a man, and exercise self-denial, self-con¬ trol, and self-government.’ Don’t you see that a man grows strong by resistance ? You make a man flabby ; I make him firm. Now I stand between the two extremes; teetotalism, which is cowardly, and excess, which is beastly, — upon the manly position of moderation, exercising my self-denial, self-control, and self-government, thereby developing my highest and noblest manhood.” 44 Yes, very nicely put,” I said. 44 What is excess? ” 44 Drinking too much.” 44 What is drinking too much? ” 44 Excess.” 44 1 know it is; but what I mean to ask you is a pretty plain question. Would six tumblers of whiskey-toddy in a day be excess for you ? ” 44 For me ? Six ? Well, no, not if I could stand it.” Now, according to that man’s theory, if a man drinks as much as he can hold, and 44 stands it,” that man is develop¬ ing his highest and noblest manhood, is he not? If he drinks two quarts of whiskey in a day and 44 stands it,” he is exer¬ cising self-denial, self-control, and self-government in the moderate use of drink; and if he drinks two glasses and does not 44 stand it,” but staggers under it, there is a frightful illustration of the utter want of self-denial, self-control, and self-government in the excessive use of intoxicating liquors. Now, what is excess? In the common understanding of that term, simply and solely the inability of a man to 44 stand it.” If he “stands it,” he is not drunk; if he does not 44 stand it,” he is. You cannot judge of a man’s excess by the quantity he drinks; it is by the effect of that quantity on the brain TWO NIPS TOO MITCH. 565 and nervous system. There are some men who can drink moderately, and there are some who cannot. There are some men who can “stand it,” and there are some men who cannot; and we condemn the latter because they are not able to “stand it.” A man whom I knew joined the church by profession of faith. Knowing his antecedents, I asked him to sign the pledge, and he said, “Well, Mr. Gough, I would in a minute if I were not a Christian.” I said, “ Why should that hinder you?” “Because I need no pledges. I am restrained and governed by the grace of God. I have come out from my young companions. I was converted in the last revival, and I want to show them that without any pledges or temper¬ ance societies, or mere human agency, the grace of God is able to keep me.” A very good idea as far as it meets the case, but the grace of God does not prevent physical effects from physical causes. If I have any grace in my heart, it prompts me to pray, “Lead me not into temptation;” and if, for the trial of my faith and patience, he sees fit that I shall be tempted, there is a promise that I shall not be tempted more than I am able to bear, and that in every temptation there shall be a way of escape. But if I think I have so much grace that I can vol¬ untarily walk into temptation, and trust to that grace to save me from falling, I shut myself out of the pale of that prom¬ ise, and render it exceedingly doubtful if I have any grace at all. To return to the case in hand. This man kept a store in a small village. One drizzly November afternoon he drove a one-horse wagon seven miles, for a load of goods. When he arrived at his destination he took a glass of brandy-and-water, to keep out the cold, — medicinally. When he had loaded his wagon he took another drink, in view of the drizzly ride 566 A SORRY PLIGHT. back. Arrived at the square in the village, he descended from his wagon, backed himself against the thills, and there he stood. Some one came up to him, and said, “Why, what’s the matter with you?” Rubbing his head, till his hat fell off into the road, he said, “I — don’t-—know.” Another coming up, said, “ But I do, though ; you ’re drunk.” And so he was, — a church-member babbling, maudlin, silly, staggering drunk; right in the square of the village. Now there were a num¬ ber of young men who did not like that revival, and this was what some people call “nuts” for them. “A member of the church! oh, oh ! Why, that’s one of the new converts. He spoke the other night at the prayer- meeting. Set ’im up ! Oh, oh! ” Now here was a church disgraced through an individual m embe r. What did the church do? They disciplined him. The} r dealt with him. They were obliged to deal with him. And the dealing with him so broke his heart, that he gave up his business and worked on a farm for about eighteen months. Never did I know a man so completely broken down as he was, by the disgrace of that church discipline in this small village. Now for what did the church discipline him ? They disciplined him solely because he could not stand two glasses of brandy and water. If he had stood it, they would not have touched him. If he •t'WT “ I— DON’T — KNOW.” MEN WHO “CAN’T STAND IT.'’ 567 had drank twenty glasses and stood it, they would not have dealt with him. They disciplined him for what he could not help. He could help drinking, but he could not help the effect after he lmd drank , and they disciplined him for that. I knew men in that church who drank two glasses every day of their lives, and I should like to see the church under¬ take to deal with them. Would not there be a row? “Any¬ body see me the worse for drink ? I should like them to say so. I challenge them to say so. I should like to see the church discipline me!” Now the church does not touch these men, because they can “ stand it ” ; but the poor fellow who cannot stand it is disciplined. Many a man has been sentenced to prison for drunkenness by a judge who drank more liquor than he did. Many a church-member has been disciplined for drunkenness who drank less in quantity than those who condemned him. You may consider me radical. I like to be radical, because “radical” means “going to the root of things; ” and I hold this (I am not judging for your churches), that that church had no right to discipline that man for drunkenness if they did not discipline the other church-members for drinking. The drinking the man can help, the effect he cannot help. But, after all, the moderate drinker despises and holds in contempt the man who cannot drink moderately. You do not like the term “ cannot.” I do not say, who cannot let it alone altogether, for every man who is not utterly broken in will by his dissipation, can abstain; but some cannot drink moderately. You say one man can do what another can. Stop, my friend, let me illustrate the contrary. A gentleman once informed me that he took great interest in surgical ope¬ rations, and that to witness an amputation or a dissection was a positive enjoyment. Very well, let him take his enjoyment. Ask me to witness a surgical operation. I cannot do it. At 568 AN ACTOR’S. FOOLISH WISH. the first sight of the instruments, the glittering steel of the knife, I should feel agitated; at the first incision, I should grow faint; at the sight of blood, I should drop. I remem¬ ber once, in the dining-room of Professor Miller of Edinburgh, after the ladies had retired, the conversation among the gen¬ tlemen turned on the profession of surgery, and the Professor began a description of a very difficult operation he had performed, when I said, “ Doctor, please excuse me, but I must leave the room;” and I did. Now will you despise me, and hold me in contempt, and call me weak-minded, because I could not listen to his story? The mind, the will, the intellect, had nothing to do with it. Call it a physical infirmity, if you will; for that I am not to blame, though it may be, in one sense, a misfortune. Again, I say, it is impossible for some men to drink in moderation. Is that a man’s fault? Why not stop after the first glass? I give you the following fact. A gentleman belonging to the theatrical profession said to me: “Mr. Gough, I would give ten thousand dollars if I could drink. You don’t know what I would give if I was a splendid drinker.” I said, “I don’t understand you.” He replied, “ Now there is Colonel So-and-So [naming him] ; he will drink a glass of wine with one, and a glass of wine with another, and take a bottle or a bottle and a half of wine at the dinner-table, and there is no perceptible difference in him; I meet him next morning as fresh as a daisy, just as if he had come out of a bath. Now if I take one glass of sherry with my fish, I want another.” I said, “ Why don’t you stop at the one glass?” “Ah, there’s the rub. That one glass has gone to my head, that is, touched my brain ; slightly, to be sure, but enough to weaken my will. I never go to a dinner-party but with a determination that I will drink but one glass. I say to my wife, 4 1 will onl} r take one MEN WITHOUT CONSCIENCE. 569 glass;’ but she says, ‘My dear, I know better.’ And she says truly, because that one glass, when it has touched my brain, has weakened the power of my will; it has warped my judgment; it has affected my self-control; it has stimulated my perception, while it has destroyed its accuracy. I take another glass, and another; and I am going to the Devil.” I said, “Why don’t you break it off altogether?’ “Ah,” he said, “I have not moral courage enough to say to my friends, 4 1 cannot drink moderately.’ Gentlemen will say to me, 4 1 never saw “Master Walter” better performed, and your good lady’s 44 Julia ” was perfection last night. Take a bottle of wine with us.’ These are my patrons, and I cannot turn upon them and say, 4 No,’ and reject every offer of friendship. I have not courage to tell them I cannot drink; there I am weak, so I say to them, 4 1 will just take one glass,’ and there it is, and I am going to my ruin.” Now these are the men, nervously organized, who cannot drink moderately. Therefore total abstinence is their only safe¬ guard. They must adopt it. But one reason why we find it difficult to move the people is their indifference to the evils of drunkenness. Go with any of your city missionaries, and you will see scenes that will harrow your inmost soul and make your hair stand on end, but these things are hidden from the vast majority of the people. Simple intoxication is thought nothing of,— that is, getting drunk “once in a while,” 44 occasionally,” 44 just a little over the mark,” and the like. Did you ever hear a man say, 44 1 am not a thief; I know I steal occa¬ sionally, but I am not a thief; I am not a liar; I ’ll knock a man down who calls me a liar, for I tell a lie only once in a while”? Yet you may hear a man say, 44 1 am not a drunk¬ ard ; any man who calls me a drunkard insults me, yet I do get 4 tight,’ 4 three sheets in the wind,* 4 a brick in my hat,’ 570 SILLY YOUNG WOMEN. ‘mops and brooms’ occasionally, but I am not a drunkard.” Now if a man steals once, he is a thief; if he lies once he is a liar; but we do not consider that a man is a drunkard until he is drunk two thirds of his time. Habitual drunken¬ ness we consider something terrible ; occasional intoxication, nothing. Why, we laugh at it. We make sport of it. I once heard some young ladies talk in a railway train, — and you know young ladies often use the superlatives. One said; “ Oh, it was perfectly splendid. I never laughed so much in all my life. Oh, it was such fun. We were going out for a sleigh-ride and were to have a supper and dance at the hotel; and when we reached there, some of those young men went to the bar and began to cut up. 1 never saw such cuttings up. I laughed, well I never laughed so much in all my life; and the more they went to the bar, the more they cut up. And when we were all ready to dance, some of the young gentlemen were in such a state that they could not stand up with their partners, and I danced with a lady friend. Laugh! I thought I should have laughed until I died. And when we were all ready to start for home, some of the young men were in such a state that the landlord had put them to bed, and we came home without them. It was such fun. Ha, ha!” What! Young men so drunk that they could not be polite to ladies, and could not go home with them! And that is fun! fun! Let me say a word or two to the ladies, for their influence is ol great importance in temperance work. I do not pre¬ tend to say that I know the reason why the ladies do not wish to get rid of the drinking customs of society, but I will tell you a story that was told to me. A clergyman in this country was called upon to marry a couple, and the man was so very drunk that the clergyman said: “I will have nothing to do with you. You must come when you are sober. You A HARD CASE. 571 are miserably drunk and not in a fit state to be married.” He went home, and in about a week afterwards came again as drunk as ever, or a little worse. “Why,” said the clergy¬ man, “I told you before that I would not marry you in such a state as this. Go away with you, and come again when you are in a proper condition.” About a week after that, the clergy¬ man met the girl in the street and said to her, “Young woman, you should not bring that man in such a shock¬ ing state to be married.” “Lor’ sir,” said she, “he won’t come when he’s so- , ber!” I do not A' v pretend to say, AN UNWILLING BlilDEGKOOM. you kllOW, that that is the reason, but such a thing as that looks a little suspicious. Young men, I appeal to you; what is it for a man to get drunk? Come with me to the Yosemite Valley in California. Yonder stands that mighty rock, El Capitan, a mile away. It seems in this clear, dry atmosphere as if you might strike it with a stone. Approach it. Nearer yet. How it looms up before you! How it grows in majesty and grandeur! See yon shrub. . Shrub? That is a tree one hundred and 572 THE YOSEMITE VALLEY". fifty feet in height and four feet in diameter. Nearer yet; still nearer. See that dent in the face of the rock. Dent? I I It is a fissure seventy-five feet deep. Nearer, and yet still nearer. Now look up, up, till your eye rests on the summit, three thousand six hundred feet above you. Anchored in the valley beneath, seared and seamed with the storms of centuries, there it stands, two-thirds of a mile right up, a solid rock ! And as your lips quiver, your nerves thrill, your eyes fill with tears, amid the grandeur, beauty, and sublimity of the scene, you are awe-struck, and remember how frail you are. “The inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers.” Look to the right of you; see that wonderful South Dome; and there is the Cloud’s Rest rising six thousand feet from the valley beneath, over a mile, rugged and grand, sublime, inac¬ cessible. Turn again. There are the Three Brothers, four thousand two hundred feet in height; and there the Cathe¬ dral Rocks, three thousand eight hundred feet high ; there also stand the Sentinel Dome and Sentinel Rocks, mighty and magnificent, two thousand eight hundred feet high. Look yonder and see the great Yosemite Falls dashing over yon precipice, striking the rock at the depth of one thousand six hundred feet, then bounding four hundred feet further, and then down six hundred feet more, like showers of sky-rockets exploding as they fall. Hear them roar and dash. Stand within the spray, if you will, right in the very arc of the double rainbow as the water falls two thousand six hundred feet, half a mile down. How grand, how sublime, how mag¬ nificent ! And then you realize that the inhabitants of the earth are but “as the small dust of the balance.” And while you are absorbed, drinking in the beauty and awed by the sublimity, there comes to you this passage of Holy Writ: “ God created man in his own image, in the image of God MAN A LIVING SOUL. 573 created lie him.” “ He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” and made him (not gave him, but made him) “a living soul.” I, so small, so weak, so feeble, unable to climb fifty feet upon the face of this rock, — yet that is a dead rock, and I am a living soul. This shall decay; I shall live, for I am a man. I have a mind capable of understanding in some degree the greatness of the. Almighty; a reason able to worship him intelligently, and a heart enabling me to love him. I am a living man, having within me the fire of God, and a spark of immortality which will never go out. For me Christ, the Saviour of the world, died. I am worth more than all this magnificent materialism. I am A man. The elements are to melt with fervent heat. This world is to be removed. “ The Milky Way will shut its two arms and hush its dumb prayer forever,” but I shall live with a destiny before me as high as heaven and as vast as eternity. All the material universe, with its grandeur, its beauty, its magnifi¬ cence, is but the nursery for my infant soul, and the child is worth more than the nursery. I, a living, thinking, hoping, reasoning, believing man, am worth more than all God’s material universe. And there is not a horse in your stable, there is not an ox in the stall, there is not a snake that draws its slimy length through the long grass, there is not a reptile that you crush with your heel, and shudder as you crush it, but is better fulfilling the purposes of God in its creation than is a man when he—gets drunk. It is an awful degradation, and yet we laugh at drunken¬ ness!— at certain phases of it. We cannot help it. I do not blame people for laughing. Man is the only animal that can laugh, and he ought to enjoy the privilege, and I mean to. But you know, and I know, that we often laugh at some of the phases of drunkenness. The funniest farce is often 35 0 574 THE HUMOROUS SIDE OF DRUNKENNESS. that ill which the prominent character is drunk. How people have laughed at the actions of “ Toodles ! ” I never saw the play, but I bought the book to see what sort of a play it was. One who saw it said he laughed at the imitation of the | drunken man till his sides ached. I could fill page after page by relating the funniest of stories about the drink, but that which we laugh at is but one phase of an awful fact, a dreadful reality. To be sure we laugh. One poor fellow fell down a flight of thirty or forty stairs in Erie, Penn¬ sylvania, and when a man came to help him up, he said: “ Go away; I don’t want any help ; that ’sh the way I alius come down stairs.” The Bishop of Rhode Island h told me that once he saw a man whom he had known years before, very drunk by the side of the road. He went to him and said: “ My poor fellow, I am really sorry for you,” and went away. By and by he heard the man call, “ Bishop, Bishop! ” So he went back. “Now,” he said, “Bishop, if you are very sorry, and you say so, I will forgive you.” We laugh at such drolleries and at such vagaries as we do at the man who came home at four STRUCK BOTTOM. o’clock in the morning and said it was but one. “ But,” said his wife, “the clock has just struck four.” “I know better, for I heard it strike one —repeatedly ! ” We cannot help laughing, but we know all the while that we are looking at only one phase of a terrible evil. You CRIES FOR HELP. 575 have heard of the man who went into his house in the dark, and, being very thirsty, groped about for the water pitcher and found it. He lifted it to his mouth and began to drink very rapidly. One of his children had dropped a soft spool of silk into the pitcher, and in his hurry he swallowed it. He felt something very disagreeable and strange, and he became frightened, and dropped the pitcher. “ Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! ” He caught hold of the end cf the silk, and in great affright began to draw the thread from his mouth. “ Wife, wife,” he shouted, “ hurry up, hurry up, I'm all un¬ ravelling ! " I remember, when I was in Glasgow, hearing a man in the city hall tell a story which made me laugh till my sides ached. I was not laugh¬ ing at drunkenness, but at the ridiculous fea¬ tures of it. I cannot tell you the story as he did, but I will give you an idea of it. He said: — “ There was a man, a laird, who went with his man, Sandy, to pay rent to the Squire; and the two, or it may have been all three, became intoxicated. In the gray of the morning, the laird and Sandy were riding towards home on horseback, and very drunk. They had neglected the animals all night, so, when they came to a stream of water, the laird’s horse HURRY UP, I’m ALL UNRAVELLING.” 576 DECIDEDLY MUDDLED. very suddenly put down his head to drink, and the laird, being in a 4 limpsy ’ state, as we call it, slipped over the pommel of the saddle and the head of the horse, into the water. 4 Sandy, Sandy ! something has fallen off.’ 44 4 No, laird, there ’s naething fell off.’ 44 4 Sandy, I heard a splash.’ 44 Sandy dismounted and said : 4 It’s yoursel’ that’s in the water.’ 44 4 It canna be me, Sandy, for I’m here.’ 44 Sandy helped the laird on the horse, but unfortunately he was this time mounted the wrong side before. 44 4 Now, Sandy, gie me the bridle; gie me the bridle, Sandy.’ 44 4 Wait till I find the bridle. There is na any bridle, and there is na any place for a bridle,’ said Sandy. 44 4 Gie me the bridle, Sandy; I must hae one to steer the beast wi,’ exclaimed the laird. 44 4 Ah, laird,’ replied Sandy, 4 here’s a miracle. The horse’s head’s aff, an’ I canna find the place where it was, and there’s naething left but a long piece o’ his mane.’ 44 4 Gie me the mane then, Sandy. Woh, woh ! He is gang¬ in’ the wrong way, Sandy.’ ” And so the thing went on. I laughed till my sides ached. We laugh at such stories because they are ludicrous; but, I repeat, they illustrate only one phase of an awful fact. Do not say I make merry at drunkenness. A man in one of our Connecticut towns came home drunk. His little boy,, of three and a half to four years of age, ran forward to meet, his father. Had that father been sober the boy would have been nestling in his bosom; but Jie was drunk, and, seizing the little fellow by the shoulder, he lifted him right over his head and dashed him out of the second-story window, through sash, glass, and all; and on the pavement below they picked p o " CL OJ o •• “COVER IT UP, COVER IT UP.” 579 up the poor boy with both his thighs broken. That is another phase of the fact you laugh at, — that is, when a man is drunk he does not know what he is about, he has dethroned reason. And so, whether you laugh or cry at some of the follies of drunkenness, whether you hold your sides with merriment, or the marrow stands cold in your bones, remember that drunk¬ enness is blasting to everything that is noble. Young men, what an awful risk you run by intoxication ! Did you ever wake in the morning and wonder how you reached your bed? Did you ever lie in the morning, unable to think, for the life of you, what you did or said the night before? Down on your knees, down on your knees, and thank God that as you staggered forth, not knowing what you were doing, He did not leave you to do that which would cover your whole life with gloom, as with a garment, or plunge you into utter ruin. Why, what is it to get drunk? Here is one case that I knew, and many of my friends were at the wedding, — a grand wedding. Fifteen hundred dollars were paid for the flowers, sent expressly from New York for the occasion. The house had been enlarged for the dancing. A fast young man and a beautiful girl were united. It was a gorgeous wedding, very merry and jolly, plenty of wine; but the bridegroom became drunk, and, with his clenched fist, two hours after they had been married, he struck his bride in the mouth. “ Hush ! hush! ” was the earnest request of friends. “ Don’t say anything about it, don’t let it get abroad. Hush, hush! it is known only to those here. He was drunk, and did not know what he was doing. Cover it up, cover it up.” So they did. Six weeks afterward, on his wedding-trip, he was drunk again, and drew a pistol on his bride. She felt that her life was not safe, and went back to her father’s house. He went directly to Toronto, Canada, became drunk again,’killed a policeman, 580 DRUNKARDS AND FOOLS. was tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged in less than ninety days after his wedding. Friends interceded with the government, and he is now in Kingston peni¬ tentiary for life. Three drunks ! Three times intoxicated! Oh, young men, if God has spared you, and you have never been drunk in your lives, down on your knees, and, in the gratitude of your souls, declare that you will never again touch that which may dethrone reason. If I ask any young man who is in the habit of drinking, “Why do you drink?” it is probable his an¬ swer will be, in true Yankee style, “Why I should say, “Perhaps you “No fear of my becoming a drunkard. I’m not such a fool as to become a drunkard, sir?” As if all were fools, in the common acceptation of that term, who had so degraded themselves! I do not use the term fool in a moral or religious sense. All who commit wilful sin are fools. Are they all fools who become drunkards? Were all who became so during the last cen¬ tury, fools? There are men with minds so gigantic that they could “stand with one foot on the daisy while the other was lost among the dust of the stars,” and yet their minds have been crippled by strong drink; men who FOR LIFE. should I not drink?” If may become a drunkard.” FALSE ARGUMENTS. 581 might have showered great thoughts all round them, as the oak sheds a layer of golden leaves in autumn. Such men are more like drowsy bats, clinging to the dry limb of a dead tree, than like living souls. You say, “I have a mind of my own, and can leave off when I like,” — as if the poor wretch who has become a drunkard could not once say the same. You say, “I have more pride than to become a sot,”—as if the drunkard did not once have pride as well as you; as if he had not all the qualities necessary to constitute him a man, as well as you. All your arguments are false, young man, and you know it. In the temperance work we have great reason to thank God, and take courage. If this cause be of man, it will come to naught; if it be of God, you cannot overthrow it. We judge of the righteousness of our cause by the results, and these are: The restoration of many drunkards to society, vir¬ tue, and religion; the growing sentiment against social drink¬ ing, as a safeguard to the young; the increased opposition to the liquor traffic. Therefore we will take courage, and work on, leaving the final results in the hands of Him in whose hands are the hearts of all men; working, praying, hoping, and believing that, though we may not live to rejoice over the results, though we may see no green blade rising to bless our sight, we may in the better land welcome those who shall come laden with sheaves reaped upon the harvest-field we have been permitted to sow and pray over, but of which we have not been permitted to gather in the increase. CHAPTER XXX. THE REASON WHY — THE FIRST GLASS — RECOLLECTIONS OF MY FATHER — HUMOROUS STORIES. Our Standpoint — Opposition We Meet — An Obliging Blacksmith — My Respect for Other People’s Opinions — Power of Truth — What Makes Public Sentiment — Our Duty — A Funny Story as Told by Bishop Clark — A Disputed Question in Astronomy — A Laughable Incident — An Unnatural Appetite — The Struggle of a Lifetime — Why I Am Polite to Dogs — Giving the Curs a Wide Berth — My Dread of Hydro¬ phobia — What Rev. E. II. Chapin Said — Terrible Results of the First Glass — A Graphic Picture — Recollections of My Father — His Habit of Moderate Drinking — His Death at Ninety-four — Advice to Moderate Drinkers — An Infamous Example — The Man at the Top of the Church Spire — A Dangerous Position — ‘‘ O Sandy, I’m havin’ an Awfu’ Tumble ” —A Physician’s Story — Smoked to Death. HE whole range of argument in reference to the temper¬ ance question has been gone over again and again. I be¬ lieve all has been said on the subject that need be said, if those who hear would only act according to their convictions. It is a difficult matter to speak on the temperance question, because we do not stand on debatable ground. In every great enterprise it is neces¬ sary to lay down certain propositions, certain points upon which to base operations, and the difficulty has been to ob¬ tain the assent of the people to these necessary points. But there is no difficulty here in the temperance movement. To 5S2 A BLIGHTING CURSE. 583 the first proposition which we lay clown is yielded the con¬ scious, willing assent of every sane and reflecting mind among us; namely, that drunkenness is a great evil. Is there any need of argument on this point ? Were I to occupy five minutes in endeavoring to prove that drunkenness was a blasting, blighting, debasing curse, I should be insulting your common sense. Were I to attempt to prove our second point, that it is every man’s duty to do all he can to remove a common curse, every man’s privilege to remove all the evil he possibly can, I should only be mocking you. My state¬ ment, viz., that degraded manhood, blackened characters, broken hearts, and lost souls, towering like monuments to the very heavens, are the results of drunkenness, will be accepted by every thoughtful and candid person. If this, then, be the general conviction, that drunkenness is a curse and that it is every man’s duty to remove a curse, we have the consciences of the whole people at the start; but many are satisfied with their assent to our statements, and do nothing more than assent. I would not give a snap of my finger for a man’s smile, or a fig for his God-speed, or a copper for all his good wishes, unless he help me. I am not now en¬ deavoring to convince you,—you are already convinced; but what I hope to do, God helping me, is to say something that shall stir you to action. * The fact is, we have but very little tangible opposition to contend with. Sneering ridicule of our principles, con¬ temptuous allusions to our movement, we care nothing for. We say of them just what a big blacksmith said of his wife. He was about six feet tall and broad in proportion, and he had a vixen of a wife — a little bit of a thing—who used to flog him most unmercifully. Some one said to him, “Well, now, if I was as big a fellow as you, I would not stand that; I’d let that spiteful little wretch know her \ 584 AN ACCOMMODATING HUSBAND. place. I’d soon let her see that I would be master.” “ Oh,” said he, “ let her alone, let her alone ; she’s a poor little thing, and it gratifies her a good deal and don’t hurt me a bit.” So we say of men who sneer,—let them sneer until the lip grows rigid with the curl they put upon it, let them speak contemptuously of our movement, we do not mind it a particle; we be¬ lieve we have the best of the argument and that all the facts are on our side. Bold, open, manly op¬ position we meet but sel¬ dom. We have arguments occasionally, but some of them forcibly remind me of a celebrated divine who said: “ There is only one man in Germany who un¬ derstands my doctrine, and he don’t understand it.” I maintain that a man has a right to his own opinion. I would AN OBLIGING HUSBAND. give but little for the man who has not an opinion of his own, and far less for him who, when he has an opinion, lacks the courage to utter or defend it. If a man differs from me in opinion, I can still respect him. I can fight with a man with all my heart, and love him; I can “ shake hands with him and box him afterwards.” It does not de¬ stroy nor diminish my respect for him because he does not agree with me. Why, some very good men do not agree THE POWER OF TRUTH. 585 with me ; am I then to despise them ? If any man takes his ground in opposition to me, I can battle him with all the intellectual power God has given me, and hug him with all the physical power I possess, and feel that he is not the less a brother. But the man who has not the moral courage to declare the principles he has adopted, who will not state which side he is on, saying to one, “ I am with you,” and to another, “ I am with you,” sometimes one thing, sometimes another, — such a man I hold in supreme contempt. There are only two ways in which we can be opposed, — by falsehood and by truth. If a position is maintained by falsehood, what then? Why, we bring truth to oppose the falsehood. As John Milton has said: “ Let the truth and the falsehood grapple ; truth never was worsted in an encoun¬ ter with falsehood.” Let the truth be placed upon the scaffold with the halter about its neck, and falsehood be seated on the throne; let the truth be clothed in the rags of poverty, munching her dry crust, and falsehood be clad in rich apparel, feasting sumptuously; there would still be “ beautiful angels standing around the truth,” and within the “ dim shadows God himself keeps watch over his own.” Our cause is a good one; it is to be advanced and consolidated by the power of the truth; and when we unfurl and give to the breeze the banner of triumph, it is by the power of the truth. It is truth acting on the minds of the people that is manufac¬ turing that public sentiment which is gathering strength as it rolls through the valleys; and the mountains are preparing to take up and toss from summit to summit the glorious tidings, “ The land is free from the curse of drunkenness.” Now, believing in, and acting upon, the principle that it is our duty to do all that we can to remove an evil, and believ¬ ing that the use of intoxicating liquor as a beverage is not only needless, but hurtful to the social, civil, and religious 586 A DISPUTED QUESTION IN ASTRONOMY. interests of the community, and that, while its use as a bever¬ age is continued, the evils of drunkenness will never be destroyed, we agree that we will not use it as a beverage, nor traffic in it, nor provide it for others, and that we will dis¬ countenance its use throughout the community; thus, stand¬ ing in an attitude of antagonism to the use of the drink, whether at the sideboard of the wealthy, in the social circle, or in the dram-shop, we advocate, maintain, and defend the principle of total abstinence as a lawful principle, a sensible principle, and one which, if universally adopted, would roll back the tide of intemperance from this land forever. I have said that every man has a right to object, and we have a right to meet his objections if we do it in a spirit of courtesy. It is difficult to obtain the objections of indivi¬ duals to our position. I acknowledge that the man who is always contradicting you is a very disagreeable person, but, to my thinking, a more disagreeable person still is he who is always agreeing with you. I would rather live in a house with a man or woman who contradicted every word I said than with a man or woman who agreed with me in every¬ thing. Such persons are never able to come to any decision. They remind me of a story Bishop Clark of Rhode Island told me of two men coming home about two o’clock in the morning in a maudlin state of intoxication. As they stag¬ gered along, one said: “Don’t you think the sun is shining very brilliantly?” “Sun,” said the other, “that ishn’t the sun; that’sli the moon.” “No,” said the first, “ it’s the sun,” and so they discussed together until a little ill-temper began to manifest itself. Finally, they agreed to leave the matter to the first person they should meet. Soon after, a man came along, but unfortunately he was in the same condition as themselves. “ I say, old fellow, here’s a d’shpute, and we want you to shettle it, and be an umpire and AN AWFUL LEGACY. 587 ref’ree. Now, you jusht look where I’m pointing, and the question ish, ish that the sun, or ish it the moon ? ” After looking upward in a maudlin way for a few minutes, he said: “Ish it the sun, or ish it the moon? Well, genTmen, you must ’scuse me, I’m a stranger in this part of the country.” A gentleman said to me (for I must meet the objections that come before me), “Your n a m e, ‘temperance socie¬ ty,’ is a misnomer. It should be 4 total abstinence socie¬ ty ; ’ yours are tee¬ total societies, not temperance socie¬ ties.” Why, what is the definition of the word “ temper¬ ance ? ” It is a lawful gratifi- cation of a natu¬ ral appetite. Is the appetite for intoxicating liquors a natural one? No! No man ever came into the world with an appetite for intoxicating drinks, except in those cases (rare, thank God!) where the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, and a child comes into the world with an hereditary tendency to drink. The habit of using intoxicating liquors is an acquired one, just as the habit of using tobacco is. Did you ever hear of a child crying for a quid 588 A MINISTER’S EXPERIENCE. of tobacco or a pipe ? It does not want it. No man ever wanted liquor who had not used it; the want is created by the use, except, I say, in those fearful cases referred to. Once in a while I come across such, and I hold them up as a warning to those parents who may be sowing the seeds of an awful appetite in the systems of their children. A minister of the gospel wrote me a letter describing his suf¬ ferings from the craving of an hereditary appetite, and asked : “ Is there no hope for me on this side the grave ? ” And all I could do was to write him that the grandest sight on the face of the earth was a man wrestling with a hereditary tendency to evil; all good angels were with him, the Saviour of man¬ kind sympathized with him, and the victory would be certain if he only persevered; and the crown would be so much the more glorious for the terrible struggle of his lifetime. The appetite for strong drink is, with such rare exceptions, pro¬ duced by the use of the article which the man craves. But you say : “ All who drink do not become drunkards.” I know that; but a minority of those who drink become what we call drunkards. “ There is no necessity for a drinker of intoxicating liquors to become a drunkard.” I care not for the necessity; some of them will; by all past experience we know, they will. Fill a room with young men, and let each man as he passes out declare, U I will be a moderate drinker; I will exercise self-denial and control myself; I will drink in moderation, and never to excess; ” take pen, ink, and paper, and you can make about as correct a calculation of the proportion of those young men who will become drunkards, as life insurance companies can of the death-rate of the insured. Is it reasonable to encourage drinking on the ground that not all who drink are ruined ? A mad dog is tearing down the streets, foaming at the mouth and snap¬ ping his teeth. You say, “ Kill him ; ” I ask you why; you A TERRIBLE DISEASE. 589 tell me lie is mad. “What if he is mad? He is one of God’s good creatures, let him run.” “ Yes, but he will bite some¬ body.” “How do you know? He may bite nobody, and surely he cannot bite everybody; let him run.” No, you destroy the dog, because there is a risk. Some one may be bitten, and the dread of hydrophobia is so great that you kill the dog for absolute safety. Hydrophobia is an awful disease. I remember, when quite a boy, of reading a description of the death of a man by hydrophobia, and it made such an impression on my mind that I have ever given dogs a wide berth. I am very polite to a dog. I give him either side of the path, as he may choose, and if he lies directly in my way, I go round him rather than disturb him. I have more than once declined vis¬ iting a friend for fear of his dog, and I generally ask my host, “Have you a dog here?” If he tells me he has, I inquire, “ Does he bite ? ” And then I am on my guard and avoid coming in contact with the animal as much as possible. More than once a strange dog has come near me with a snarl, and I have said very softly, “ Dear old fellow,” when I would rather have shot the beast. If I should ever be bitten by a » dog, I should hardly be free from apprehension the xest of my days. The terror and dread of that horrible disease would worry me into a nervous fever. And yet, with my personal knowledge of drunkenness, with my experience with others, I would rather stand steady while you set upon me the maddest dog that ever ran in your streets, and I would permit him to tear the flesh from my limbs, rather, I say, than become that pitiful thing, a confirmed drunkard. Hydropho¬ bia is something awful to me; I know what the other thing is. I once heard Rev. E. H. Chapin say, in Tremont Temple, Boston, with his hand lifted, in his earnestness, “Would to God that the first drop of intoxicating liquor a man should 590 SOCIETY’S CURSE. take into his system would produce in him at once the result of years of drunkenness.” I thought that was a shocking utterance ; but when I comprehended his full meaning, I said, Amen. For if the awful penalty came with the first glass, if the pain of reaction came before the pleasure of the stimulus, no man would drink, no father would dare to give strong drink to his child, no mother would offer it to her babe. The drinking customs of the civilized world would come to an end in twenty-four hours. Now it is because some people can and do drink, that we appeal to every one. Is not drunkenness so to be dreaded that society should be willing and ready to make some sacrifice to remove the cause that is producing such disastrous results, by adopting the safe course of abstinence? No man ever intends to become a drunkard. No man ever took a glass in his hand, and apos¬ trophized it thus: “ Here I stand, in vigor and health, with fine physical development and high ambition. I have a mother who loves me tenderly, a wife and children who cling to me with loving affection. I am respectable and respected. My ambition is high, my hopes are bright. Now with this I will ruin my health; with this I will blast my prospects; with this I will stain my reputation; with this I will destroy my manliness; with this I will break my mother’s heart; with this I will bring disgrace on wife, children, and all who love me; with this I will burn out the last principle of vitality from a poor, half-putrefied carcass, and men shall sweep me away with the pitiful leavings of a dram-shop, and in after years shall speak of me with bated breath, for 4 the memory of the wicked shall rot.’ Now I will take my first step to just such a consummation by taking my first glass.” No man would be such a consummate fool. And yet men are doing these very things, doing them here, doing them every¬ where ; ay, bringing woe and horror and cursing into their CHRISTIAN MODERATE DRINKERS. 591 own souls and into tlieir own families, greater than the mind of man can conceive. To return to the statement that all who drink do not be¬ come drunkards. I acknowledge that there are some men who can drink moderately, — and there are others who cannot. We know there are respectable, moral, God-fearing, Christian, moderate drinkers. My father was a moderate drinker all his life. He drank his glass of ale every day at dinner, and every night at supper, when he could get it, and occasionally, as a rare treat, a glass of hot spirits-and-water, generally on the day when he received his pension, — once in three months, — that being a high day, and a long-looked-for occasion. My father never was known to be intoxicated, and he was a man who was very indignant at, and had no patience with, any man who, to use his own expression, drank more than was good for him. He was a Christian moderate drinker, and died aged, ninety-four years. A gentleman to whom I related the fact of my father’s moderation, said he thought that was an argument against my position, and an encouragement to drinkers. As much so as the man to whom I was introduced in Washington, who was eighty-eight years of age, who had had three bullets in his body since 1812, or nearly seventy years, was an encouragement to any young man to get three bullets in his body that he might live to be eighty-eight. Now while my father could be a moderate drinker, his son could no more be a moderate drinker than he could blow up a pow¬ der magazine moderately, or fire a gun off gradually, or do any other impossible thing. u Ah, then,” say you, “ you are a weak-minded man.” Very well, let it go at that; but if I am so weak-minded that I cannot drink in moderation, thank God I am strong enough to let it alone altogether. Let me say a few words to moderate drinkers, because they are the hardest cases to persuade we have to deal with. They 36 592 AN INFAMOUS EXAMPLE. have lost no reputation, they are not injured in health or property, their gloss of respectability is not dimmed, no ap¬ parent injury (I leave the internal injury to the physiologists), comes to them by the use of intoxicating liquor, and there¬ fore they say, “ Why should I sign your total abstainer’s pledge? I never drink enough to hurt me.” And if we get them to sign our pledge, or adopt our principle, they must do it in a large-hearted spirit of self-denying benevolence; must do it for the sake of others, — and that is the highest motive, in my opinion, that can move a man to do it. What I want to say to the moderate drinker is this: You make one great mistake in setting up your example as a good one ; and there is your mistake. Now I say to you, Drink, if you will, drink if you must, drink till you die; but do not dare to tell young men around you that you set them a good example by your drinking. What is a good example? It is an example that young men can follow in safety. You say, u If young men do as I do.” Ah ! if they do. I remember once seeing in a town in New York State a very beautiful spire of a new church, and just about ten feet from “the ball” a plank was pushed out, with ropes over the ends of it. The plank was let down, and the ropes were fastened inside of the window. There was a platform,— perhaps five or six feet from this little window, and one hun¬ dred and fifty feet above the roadway. I saw a man get out of that window and stand on that little platform. Could you do it ? He spoke to a man on the sidewalk. The man called up to him, and he stooped over the plank, with his hand upon his knee, and replied to the man upon the pavement. Now I know that if I had undertaken to stand on that plank, the very moment my foot touched it, and I saw the awful depth beneath, ah! I should have gone down more swiftly than the man who fell out of the eleventh-story window, and, passing a A FALL FROM AN ELEVENTH STORY WINDOW. 593 friend looking out of the fourth story, said, “ Oh, Sandy, I’m havin’ an awfu’ tumble.” There would have been no mind, no intellect, no genius, no will, no power on earth that could ' have saved me. I must have fallen; to have stood firm would have been to me physi¬ cally impossible. Now you might, perhaps, stand there; but suppose that in there, if you like, I have no objection. You may stand there from now till to-morrow morning, or, like Simon Stylites, on his pillar, for thirty years; but do not tell me you set me a good exam¬ ple.” You tell me, “ Why, I stand here per¬ fectly safe ; ” and you in¬ duce me to try and follow your example, and I fall. What then? Are not your hands stained with my blood ? Can you get away from that? “It must needs be that offences come, but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.” If you stand there safely yourself, and induce me to stand there, and I fall, what then? Why, you say I am “weak-headed.” Well, then, by God’s help I will keep off the plank ; that’s all. I tell you, so standing you tell me you set me a good exam¬ ple. I say to you, “Stand “oh, sandy, i’m havin’ an awfu’ tumble.” 594 FIGHTING A PLUG OF TOBACCO. sir, and I tell you, madam, that every one, from the begin¬ ning, who has become a drunkard, has become so by trying to be a moderate drinker. But you say, “ they are weak-minded.” It tells of more mind, more strength of will, more firmness of purpose, more decision of character, to break a bad habit than it does to acquire one. I knew a man who under¬ took to give up the use of tobacco. He put his hand in his pocket, took out his plug of tobacco, and threw it away, say¬ ing as he did so, “ That’s the end of it.” But it was the beginning of it. Oh, how he did want it! He would lick his lips, he would chew chamomile flow¬ ers, he would chew gentian, he would chew toothpicks, quills, anything to keep his jaws going; no use, he suffered intensely, nothing satisfying him. After enduring the craving for thirty-six or forty-eight hours, he made up his mind, “ Now it is of no use suffering for a bit of tobacco, I will go and get some.” So he purchased another plug, and put it in his pocket. “ Now,” he said, “ when I want it awfully, I’ll take some.” Well, he did want it awfully, and he said he believed that it was God’s good spirit that was striving with him as he held the tobacco in his hand. Look¬ ing at it, and smelling it, he said “ I love you, and I want you, but are you my master, or am I yours? That is the question I mean to settle. You are a weed , and I am a man. You are a thing , and I am a man. You black devil, I ’ll master you, if I die for it. It never shall be said of me again, ‘there is a man mastered by a thing.’ I love you, but I will fight you.” I WILL FIGHT YOU. ,, TO LOVERS OF THE WEED. 595 Every time he wanted it, he would take it out and talk to it. It was six or eight weeks before he could throw it away, and feel easy. But he said the glory of the victory repaid him for his struggle. We are told that it is harder to give up tobacco than it is to give up drink. It may be in certain cases. Here is a young man, for instance: “Charley, have a glass of ale?” for it; I ’ll take a man drinks once or twice cigars eight or day, he has the petite, and it for that man to give up the ci¬ gars and the tobacco than the drink. The love of tobacco is a very strong love; you know that. Ay, and J A TOUGH PATIENT. so do I. A phy¬ sician in Halifax told me that he had a patient who would use tobacco. u Tobacco is killing you,” he said to him. It made no difference ; he smoked his pipe still. At last a tobacco- cancer came upon his lip. “Now,” said the physician, “you are feeding that by your tobacco.” No use ; he would smoke. An operation was performed, and a painful one, and, said the physician, “ I told him I would call in next morning ; and, twenty-four hours after that operation, I found him propped up in bed, with his face bound up on one side, and a pipe in the i 596 AN UNFORTUNATE SMOKER. other side of his mouth.” Some years since I was acquainted with a young man, doing a fine business in one of our large cities, who smoked incessantly. He told me that he used from twenty to twenty-five cigars each day. He generally smoked one or two before breakfast, and often smoked after he went to bed. I told him, then, that he would kill himself. i He laughed, and said, “ I am a hard smoker, and I guess it is hurting me.” A short time since I inquired for him. The reply to the question was, “ Dead; smoked himself to death.” Now, it is “mighty hard,” as we say, to break off a habit of smoking, or of using tobacco; but when the appetite for drink lays hold of a man, what then ? Do you know what it is? Some do. The crying, burning, itching sense. As a man said to me, using a homely expression, “ I felt as if I had an irritating itch in my stomach, and could not get at it.” If these statements concerning this terrible appetite are true, is not total abstinence sensible and right? We believe it is; and we advocate it in the hope and faith that by and by the drinking customs will be banished from our dear country forever. CHAPTER XXXI. AGENTS OF THE DEVIL — HOW LIQUOR-SELLERS MAKE PAUPERS, FEED JAILS, AND INCITE CRIME. A Truthful Sign-board—Specimens of the Liquor-seller’s Work — A Remi¬ niscence of Other Days — A Pitiable Spectacle — Placing a Drunkard on Exhibition at a Fair — Fruit of the Dram-Shop — Protecting the Rum- seller— Fearful Responsibility—Remarkable Offer of P. T. Barnum — Stubborn Facts — Startling Figures — Sad Results — Haunts of Vice — Where Criminals and Paupers Come From — Hot-beds of Crime —A Sug¬ gestive Incident — Empty Jails — Terrible Scenes — Newgate Prison — A Pocket With a Hole in It — An Incident of London Life — Sunday Scene at the Seven Dials — Watching the Door of “ The Grapes ” — A Wretched Crowd — Disgraceful Scenes — A Terrible Threat Against My Life — Amusing Incident — Recalling My Dark Days — A Faithful Wife — “John, Don’t be Soft” — Incident of the Great Coal Strike — Howto Blot Out the Curse. IGOROUS opposition of the liquor-dealers to the temper¬ ance movement is natural, and to be expected, for we war against their pecuniary inter¬ ests ; and if you touch some men in the pocket, you touch them where they live. Were these men to exhibit at their places of busi¬ ness a truthful signboard, it would read: 44 Delirium tremens , fever, dis¬ ease, pauperism, crime, redness of eyes, wounds without cause, rags, wretchedness, despair, and death, FOR SALE HERE.” That would be a truthful sign, but it would injure their business more than all the temperance organizations in 597 598 AX HONEST ADVERTISEMENT. existence. The liquor-seller will not even set up in his bar¬ room a specimen of his work; he puts up blinds at the doors and screens at the windows to hide his work from the passers by; but the shoemaker and the tailor exhibit their work in their windows, and show what they have made out of the raw material. i The tailor, when he has finished a new coat, places it where it may be seen by the greatest number of customers; when the shoemaker has fin¬ ished a first-class pair of boots, he places them in his window, because the exhibi¬ tion tends to increase his trade. With the liquor-seller it is quite different. He is ashamed of his fin¬ ished work; with him the raw material is always worth more than the finished article. Were he to exhibit that, he would lose his trade. No wonder he is ashamed to exhibit his work. In the world’s great exhibitions you have seen finished articles of nearly every manufacture, from a tooth-pick to a locomotive, and the exhibitors were anxious to ex¬ plain the method of manufacture, or the texture of the BELERiumtiehe*? fever, disease," A TRUTHFUL SIGN. A SENSITIVE DARKEY. 611 “Now, Cuff, if we want to ’lustrate dis yer point, an’ bring it out ob de dark profundity in which it is evaporating itself, we shall liab to s’pose a case.” “Very well, s’pose away den.” “Now, s’pose you was down at Brigham’s saloon last night.” “ I war n’t dar.” “ But s’pose you was.” “Tell you, I war n’t dar.” “Well, you needn’t git mad about it, or else we -j tt> o n “B'B o £fcxg i;m Crf O P'S i CD ^(T9 gs ^B *—• CD ' ^ ^ rT ^ Oo°® r* p o'— a tfo s a? ”a> P » g* d p o' cc H K o CS tf >-s B CD PD 0D tr®S J P 03 o P* an O £?r 5 S' P^X9 P* r* a> CD <-*- ^ fXO O' CD co p-° o' w-i ® CD o a p c ^ . to- O' e+ r> c+(D |j » cc {► a § o «! p o e Jog | HHO ** ®pg fiO ►—> *S£* a>tg CD «_ JSC'O «< g p r+ 3 P tr £■ p, »L. CD ^ B.2 P- oq ~ - pi® E>3._, 2 e-*o O o {► B „ (i>i- p o o' S.’g p^ = o e B- £09 P* S'si a 09 a P • cr ® O^ I-" o S£B riM • « _.<5 tr+ H CD O pu CO CD z « < S.o2 3 EfS- •g b & e'SS t- 1 o g o o g td t> ft) i w o o K DEFENDERS OF THE LIQUOR-SELLERS. 625 or candy, to encourage them to come to their shop.” Looking in another direction, I saw the proprietor. There he was, with his coat off, dealing out the liquor, with three others, as busy as they could be. 44 That man,” said the gentleman who was with me, 44 is a trustee and office-holder in one of the prominent churches in our city.” Is there any trade on earth like it? Moral suasion here ? Moral suasion is a very good thing, but I believe the devil must sometimes be rooted out by main force, and then you will have a vacuum in which you can turn round with your moral-suasion lever. Now we do not believe in mob law, or any kind of persecution, and we are in favor of prevention and protection by prohibition; and we find that we cannot be protected without prohibition. The law is an honorable profession, and there are many men who are an honor to it. I wish to say nothing against the law. Some of the greatest and best men that ever lived practised law, but there is a set of miserable, dirty, pettifogging shysters, who would take a fee if every dollar of it was blistered with the widow’s tears, and that widow their own mother; who would take a fee if every shilling of it was crusted with blood. And these are the men who generally defend the liquor-seller, — they are men who will do anything for money. For instance: Here is a man brought up for selling liquor. You, as a witness, may swear that a certain man went into his saloon and bought brandy, and drank eight glasses, and you have it down in your note-book, 44 10.15, first glass; 10.30, second glass; 11, third glass.” You have the very time marked, and you can prove it by other witnesses. He was sober when he went in, and so drunk when he came out that you had to lift him into a cab and get him home. Will that prove that the man sold him liquor ? Oh, no-! Up jumps Mr. Lawyer to question the witness. 38 626 EARNING BLOOD MONEY. “ Gentlemen of the jury, I ask your particular attention while I propound a few questions to the witness. If I un¬ derstood you, sir, you have distinctly stated that this indi¬ vidual procured brandy at the shop of my respectable client? ” “Yes, sir, that is what I said.” “Now, sir, remember you are under oath; you have taken an oath, sir, to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. You * swear that this in¬ dividual procured brandy at the shop of my respectable client; now I ask you, sir, how do you know that it was brandy?” “ Why, he ask¬ ed for brandy.” */ “ Oh, ah! I have nothing to do with what he asked for. Gentlemen of the jury, mark the equivocation of this witness. I have nothing to do with what he asked for. How did you know it was brandy ? ” “Why, he asked—” “ Gentlemen, I have nothing to do with what he asked for. He might have asked for corrosive sublimate, but he might not have got it. Now, sir, I want you to remember that they can color water to present the precise appearance of brandy; did you smell it ? ” “ Why, I smelt a great deal of liquor.” A PETTIFOGGING SHYSTER. A COMMON FARCE. 627 u Ah! did you smell the identical article that you have so presumptuously stated to this respectable jury was brandy ? ” “ No, I did not smell it.” “ Did you taste it ? ” “ No, sir.” “Now then, remember, sir, you may be deceived. Re¬ member, sir, that toast and water sometimes looks very much like pale brandy; remember, sir, that it might not have been brandy, and you are under oath, sir, remember that. Now, taking all these things into consideration, sir, are you pre¬ pared before this respectable jury to say that that man drank brandy procured of my client?” “Well, no; I should not be willing to swear to that.” “ That will do, you need not say anything further.” The whole case is dismissed because it is not proved. And that is the farce enacted and re-enacted again and again in the name of law. Now we believe that only by sweeping this traffic away and prohibiting it entirely, shall we be successful; making the possession of articles and implements of the trade satisfactory evidence of its being carried on, and laying the burden of proof on the liquor- seller himself. We have borne long enough with it, until patience seems to cease being a virtue. I heard of an old man, a very patient old man, who was never known to express his opinion but once. He had a lot of hay, all made and ready to cart; the rain came and wet it; he said nothing, but made the hay over again. The rain came a second time and wet it; he drew down his face and made the hay over again. Finally he got it on the cart and thought he was perfectly safe; but, as he was going through a brook with it, one of the wheels came off and the hay fell into the water. He said nothing, but raked out as much of it as he could, and 628 AN EXCEEDINGLY PATIENT OLD MAN. then made the hay again. He put it on the cart a fourth time, and, the wind being very high, the barn-door came off and fell on top of the old man. Some one came to his assist¬ ance and picked him up, and when he recovered from his flattening process, he opened his mouth and spoke: “Well, I begin to think that under existing circumstances it is about time for me to ex¬ press myself.” And we have a feeling now, that under ex¬ isting circumstances it is about time for us to express our¬ selves ; and the pub¬ lic will express them¬ selves in a way not to be misunderstood. Moral suasion will not effect the object. I heard a young man in a railway carriage tell his own story while conversing on this subject. Said he: — EXHAUSTED PATIENCE. “ My father was a drunkard for years ; my mother was a strong-minded, energetic woman, and with the help of the boys she managed to keep the farm from debt and mortgage. When my father signed the pledge, what pleased her most, next to his having signed it, was that she could tell him there was not a debt or mortgage on the farm. He used to drive into the city, about eight miles distant, twice a week; and I recollect my mother saying to me, 4 1 wish you would try and A YOUNG MAN’S STORY. 629 persuade your father not to go any more. We don’t need the money he earns ; and, George, I am- afraid of temptations and old associates.’ 4 Oh,’ said I, 4 don’t think of it; father’s all right.’ Well, one evening we had a heavy load, and were going towards home. My father stopped at one of his old places of resort, and gave me the whip and reins, intending that I should remain outside. I hitched the horses, tied up the reins, and followed him in. As soon as the landlord saw my father he said, 4 1 am glad to see you: how do you do ? Upon my word you are a stranger. How long is it since the tem¬ perance whim got hold of you ? ’ 4 Oh, about two years,’ said my father. 4 Well,’ said the landlord, 4 you see we are getting on here very well,’ and they chatted together for some time. By and by he asked my father to take something to drink. * Oh, no,’ said he, 4 1 don’t drink now.’ 4 Oh ! but I have got some temperance bitters here,’ said the landlord; 4 same kind temperance men use, and they acknowledge that it is purify¬ ing to the blood, especially in warm weather. Just try a little.’ And he poured out a glass and offered it. I stepped up, and said, 4 Don’t, don’t give my father that.’ That gave the liquor seller just the opportunity he wanted, and he said, 4 Well, boys are n’t boys hardly now-a-days; they get to be men amazing early. If I had a boy like you, I think I should take him down a little. What do you think, Mr. Meyers ? Do you bring that boy along to take care of you ? Do you want a guardian ? ’ That stirred the old man’s pride, and he told me to go and look after the horses. He sat and drank till ten o’clock; and every time the landlord gave him drink, I said, 4 Don’t give it to him.’ At last my father arose — he was drunk. I got him into the wagon and drove towards home. My heart was very heavy and I thought of my mother, 4 Oh ! how will she feel about this ? ’ When we were about two miles from home, my (j£0 A MURDERER PROTECTED BY LAW. father said, ‘I will drive.’ ‘No, no,’ said I, ‘let me drive.’ He snatched the reins from me, fell from the wagon, and, before I could check the horses, the forward wheel had crushed his head in the road. I was till midnight getting his dead body on the wagon. My mother never smiled from that day to the day of her death. Four months after that, she died. Now,” said the young man, after he had finished the story, “ that man killed my father; he was my father’s murderer. I saw him in the city a few weeks ago, and do you suppose I could hold my tongue when I saw him? I said to him, ‘You infernal scoundrel, you villain, I will take you by the throat, I cannot keep my hands from you.’ What did he say? ‘You touch me, young man, you dare to lift your hand against me, and I will put you in the custody of the law in a minute.’ ” Ah yes, if he had laid his hand upon him, he would have been fined for an assault upon the murderer of his father and he would have had no redress. There is not a liquor- seller but can entice your brother, your father, your son, into his dram-shop to-night, and make him drunk in spite of your entreaties and your prayers, and then kick him out at mid¬ night, and you may find his dead body in the gutter. All you have to do is to take the dead body and bury it and say nothing about it; you have no redress, no protection. Now protection is what we want. And who are they who have worked hard for prohibition in our elections? Often the drunkards. During an election in a Vermont town, a man who was half drunk said to his friends, “ Here, give us a lift. I go for knocking the heads of the barrels in and for letting the liquor run in the street. If it was n’t for tempta¬ tions at every corner, I’d be a decent man. Come and help us. Hurrah for the liquor law! I expect I shall be too drunk to be here this afternoon, and I have come to help you now.” A WEAKNESS FOB BACON. 631 Who are they who are opposed to the prohibition law ? I know some of them, and I will tell you the reason of their opposition by relating an anecdote that was told me in the West. A man who had stolen some bacon went to a lawyer to defend him. The lawyer said he thought it was a bad case, and he would not take it. However, the man prevailed on the lawyer to get up a defence for him. In court, five wit¬ nesses swore that the man was the thief, and that some of the bacon was found in his possession. The lawyer could only say a few words about the man’s wife and family, but the prisoner THE JURYMEN — TEN OF WHOM ATE THE BACON. seemed perfectly easy. The jury at once returned a verdict of “ Not guilty.” “ Why,” said the lawyer aside to his client, “ how is this ? There must be something behind the scenes which I do not see.” “ Yes,” said the client, “ there is, and I don’t know as I mind telling you; ten of the jury had some of that bacon.” Now there are so many that have had some of the bacon, there are so many interests involved in the liquor business, that it is difficult to overturn it. We defend humanity against the wrong this use of property inflicts upon it, — some people seem to defend the rights of property against those of humanity. We are wag¬ ing war against an immense invested capital, I grant you; 632 PERSONAL LIBERTY. but invested in what ? Some men say they have a right tc engage in whatever business they choose, and do what thej please with their own. No, they have not. “Yes, but you are interfering with the liberty of the subject if you- prevent a man from investing his property as he may choose.” A man cannot always do what he pleases with his own. Sup¬ pose a man has a vacant lot in the city. He has the titles deeds, and the property is his own as far down as he can dig, and as high up as he can build. Suppose he has a cow, or a horse, they are his property, too; he owns them from head to hoofs; they are his. Well, suppose one of them should die in the middle of July; it is his property, dead or alive. Bui suppose he draws the carcass on to his vacant lot, and leave* it there. You say to him, “look here, my friend, this is a per feet nuisance.” “Mind your business ; it is my property, anc I have a right to put my property on my property.” “ No you have not.” “Why?” “Because it is injuring youi neighbors.” Interfering with the liberty of the subject! Suppose you have been in a place where the plague is raging. You pur¬ chase a perishable cargo, and invest in it everything you have, and all you can borrow, and you say, “If I can land it in fourteen days I shall make my fortune; if not, I am a ruined man.” The health officers come on board the ship, as you are nearing port, and put it under quarantine for thirty days. You say, “But everything I have is here, and I shall be a ru¬ ined man if I don’t discharge my cargo in fourteen days.” “Yours is a hard case, sir, but we cannot help it. Your cargo must remain here till the quarantine is up. We can¬ not permit you to land your cargo.” “ Then I am a ruined man; property and credit gone. I must land my cargo.” “ Look at yonder city; would you introduce a pestilence into it to save your property and credit? Shame on you A CORRUPT JUDGE. 633 for your selfishness.” You would not be allowed to bring in a bale of rags in which the plague may be lurking, bring¬ ing disease and death to thousands, no matter how much of your property may be invested in the merchandise. But here are smoking fires and simmering still and noisome vapors, manufacturing out of good, healthy, nourishing grain an instrumentality that tends to destroy human life, and to debase, degrade, and imbrute humanity itself, and we oppose them for the sake of humanity. We will be content with nothing short of entire prohibi¬ tion. What a farce this license system may become ! In a certain town I was asked if I would tell some circumstances if they would relate them and vouch for the truth of the state¬ ments. So I said to the people: — “ Some of you may be surprised to learn that licenses are universally granted in this town, when the people, by a ma¬ jority of five hundred, declared they would have no licenses. I can let you into the secret, and I will tell you a fact or two that occurred here. One of the judges was one day asked why he was in town. He replied (he was a Dutchman), 4 Oh, I comes to town to-tay on de tavern beesiness; de liquor. Ve gets a goot dinner, und ve gets plenty of trinks for noting, und it pays pretty veil.’ He then went into a shop and asked for some brandy-and-water. It was given to him, but he did not pay. ‘I am,’he said, ‘one of de judges,—you under¬ stands, — I don’t pay noting for liquor; ’ and then went out. A certain liquor-seller, speaking to the judge, after there had been a majority of five hundred against the liquor traffic, said, 4 What are you going to do ? ’ 4 Oh,’ said he, 4 1 do n’t know. I can’t give no advice at all.’ At last the liquor-sel¬ ler offered to bet with the judge that he could not give a license if it was applied for, and the bet was taken. Some time afterwards I saw the sheriff of the place, and I said, 634 SLAIN BY HIS OWN ACT. 4 You look pale.’ 4 Ah, yes,’ lie said, 4 1 shall never get over it. It is my duty to perform the part of executioner, and I had to hang a man. I offered two hundred dollars to any man who would do it, but could get nobody. It has broken me down, and I believe death has struck me.” It was a horrible case, too. A man had gone into the shop of the man who was selling under the license granted through the bet with the judge. The man went into the shop sober, but got drunk, and went out and murdered that very judge, and his wife, while they were in bed; for which the murderer was hung. Thus the man was murdered by the hand of another who ob¬ tained the fiery draught that nerved his arm to murder at the very house which he had licensed for a bribe. Some tell us that prohibition will be hard on the liquor- seller. Is not the liquor traffic hard upon thousands of poor women and children to-day? Is it not hard upon many who are sent out into the streets to beg, or for worse pur¬ poses ? You may suppose they lie; I do not believe that all of them do. I do not believe that the poor, pale-faced, gaunt girl did, that hung with both her hands upon my arm after I had looked at her with some degree of sympathy, OH, BUY ME A BIT OF BltEAD, FOB I AM HUNGKY.” THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC A CRIME. 635 and she begged me for something. “ Oh,” said she, “I don’t want money; buy me a bit of bread, a bit of bread, please, fori am hungry.” “Where do you live?” “Oh,” said she, “my father is a drunkard, and he beat me cruelly, and I am hungry.” She was a young girl, about sixteen years of age. You may tell me they lie; but I believed her, and helped her, and I will help such as she again. Oh, there is suffering pro¬ duced by the drink, — more than if all those engaged in the business should be turned out of that business to-day. We are against property for the sake of humanity, for the sake of the miserable, and the wretched, and the oppressed, and the down-trodden. We seek to remove temptations that are in the way of the weak, and we know of no other way to do it than by classing the liquor traffic among crimes, and you never can get a prohibitory law unless you make liquor selling a crime. What do you want with laws to restrain or control an honorable business, a business not wicked in it¬ self ? We maintain that the liquor business is a crime, a sin against humanity, a sin against the dealer himself, a sin against the people, a sin against the Commonwealth, a sin against the State, a sin against God. And we believe in pro¬ hibiting that which is evil. If it is prohibited, it must be done by effectual means. Some say, “ Use less stringent measures.” How can we have them? A gentleman told me that all attempts to regulate this traffic are persecutions of the liquor-seller. My doctrine is this: If it is right for a man to sell liquor, let him sell it and never trouble him; if it is wrong, prevent him from selling it and do not trouble him, but just quietly lift him out of his business. It is as if a man has a very bad tooth to be extracted and the dentist gives one turn with his instrument. “ Oh, dear! oh, dear! ” You have done him no good. He is very angry and knocks his fists together. Put him in the chair again, and give the 636 DIVIDING THE RECEIPTS. instrument another turn. “ Oh! ” Still you have done him no good; he spits blood dreadfully. The best plan is to set him in the chair again, give the tooth one turn, and it is out, and he is much better than before. That is just the way with regulating the business. It is like a man who went to get shaved. The barber gave one draw with the razor. Up the man jumped. “ Oh! ” said he. “ What’s the matter? ” “ It pulls.” “ Never mind,” said the barber, “ sit down again, my friend. If the handle of the razor don’t break, the beard is bound to come off.” If the handle of this mighty lever don’t break, the liquor-sellers are bound to come out, though it is very hard. We had at one time some liquor-sellers in jail. A bad place to put them, is it not? A bad place for their victims. Next to prohibition is a law that makes the liquor-seller responsible for the effects of his business. If a man goes to a dram-shop and gets drunk, and it can be proved that he dies through drink, that dram-seller is bound to support the bereaved wife and family, and if he cannot do it, he is sold out and made a pauper, and the money from the sale of his goods is given to the widow. Now that is fair. I heard of a gentleman once who had a great party invited and he had no fish. He told the steward he must have some fish, whatever price was paid. The steward came and said there was a man who had a fine turbot, but he would not let him have it unless he gave him a hundred lashes on his back. “ The man is a fool,” said the gentleman, “but we must have the fish. Bring it in.” The fish was brought, and the man, after fifty lashes had been given to him, cried out, “ Hold on a minute! I’ve got a partner in the business.” “ What, two such fools ? ” “Yes, your porter would not let me come in with this fish until I agreed to give him half what I gqt for it.” “Bring him in, then, and let him have it.” Now, you have a law A UNIVERSAL CRY. 637 that will put a drunkard in jail for drunkenness. Set the drunkard at work, sawing wood, or anything else ; put the liquor seller at the other end of the saw, and let them look one another in the face. We are told that public sentiment is not ripe for such a law. It is ripe for a discussion on the subject at any rate, and that the friends of the temperance enterprise are bound to give. And we will pour the truth into the ears of the people until they wake up. They are waking up. The cry is everywhere, Give us something to stop this terrible tide of desolation. When men ask for something, we know that they are moving one step in the right direction, for that something their common sense and sound judgment will tell them must be a something that will do the work thoroughly. I know it is said in reference to some of these laws that they are very stringent. To do the work, they must be stringent. Governor Briggs told me there was a liquor seller in a State where the prohibitory law was enacted, who said he would bet a hundred dollars that they could not break him up. They said they did not want to make any bet, but they would try; and he said he had two thousand dollars that he would spend upon the trial. Very well, they said; they would give him a chance to spend some of it. They let him go on steadily for some weeks. He sold liquor and laughed at them — he did not care anything about the law — he would sell as long as he liked. At last they brought him up to the mayor’s office, and they fined him ten dollars and costs upon the first com¬ plaint that was heard. He paid the money, and was going out quite impudently; but just as he reached the door an officer served a writ upon him and brought him back again. The next fine was twenty dollars and costs. He paid that, and was going out again. The officer then served another writ upon him, and brought him back again, and the third 638 A DISCOMFITED LIQUOR-DEALER. time it was twenty dollars and costs and three months in the common jail. “I will appeal from the decision of this court.” “Very well, sir; find two sureties in one hundred dollars each, that you will prosecute the appeal and not violate any provisions of the laws for the suppression of grog shops and tippling-houses while the appeal is pending, and we shall be prepared to try the other cases; an officer will attend you for the purpose of getting the required sureties.” “ Other cases! ” said the liquor seller, “ how many have you got, then?” “ We have got seventy-three.” “ Seventy-three ! gentlemen, did you say ? ” “Yes, there are seventy-three, sir.” u May I look at the complaints ? ” “If you please.” “Have you got the witnesses?” “ That room is full of witnesses.” “Well, gentlemen, if you will give up, I will.” “ That is all we want.” Our object is not persecution, we want to wrong no man; but we mean to surround ourselves with the wall of protection. If anybody can show us a better way than by the annihi¬ lation of the liquor business, we shall be very glad to receive his proposals. But do not hinder us. If you do not see fit to give your countenance and aid and co-operation, do not attempt to throw obstacles in our way. The day is dawning. I shall be in my grave and the green grass waving over it before victory is achieved. Is that any reason why we should not work? We are in God’s hands ; if we are right, we shall succeed; if we are wrong, our movement will come to naught. We believe we shall succeed. Let us have faith, let us trust. What is trust, but putting your foot upon the void and finding the FAITH IX OUR EXTERPRISE. 639 rock beneath? If we see no blade of grass to cheer our sight, let us sow, let us water, let us pray; coming genera¬ tions will reap the harvest, and we may, God helping us, stand upon the shores of a better land to welcome them as they come with the sheaves garnered upon the field that we have sown in tears when we were upon earth. We believe that our enterprise will be successful. And why? Not because we have organizations and instrumentali¬ ties simply. No, we must have faith, not in these, nor in our advocacy, for it is but breath; we must have faith in some¬ thing else. You go into a manufactory and there you see wheels, shafts, bands, and rollers, all ready to do a certain kind of work; the machinery is perfect, but motionless. Outside there is a large wheel revolving with mighty power. There is the motive power, there is the machinery, and there is the work to be accomplished, but nothing is done. What shall we do? Polish our machinery? No, no. Shall we adorn it with badges, banners, and flags, and show the people the beauty and perfection of our in¬ strumentality? No. Then what shall we do? Why, some person who understands the mill places a large band over the big wheel. Now everything is in motion. Why was not this machinery in motion before? Because it was not connected with the motive power. What is the motive power in this enterprise ? He who sitteth upon the circle of the earth, who “ telleth the number of the stars and calleth them all by their names,” who “ healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds.” If united to Him by a band of living faith, we shall work and leave the results with Him. FI x I s. ' Jfcv . . ' ' . ■ ■ V ■ ■ ' ' . • ■: ' I COLLEGE 01 642714 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. .a a* be kept for two weeks and may be enc ...>r the same period, unless reserved. * • \ 4 ' k ml/ •' Two cents a day is charged for each book kept overtime. 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