The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-12-17 00:00:00

MB. T. B. GOUGH'S LECTURE.

On last night, Mr. S. B. Gough delivered a lecture on
temperance in the Concert-hall, Lord Nelson-street. The
hall and galleries were densely thronged. Several gentle-
men were on the platform, among whom were Messrs. S.
Harrison, W. Blain, G. Hayworth, J. Hayworth, J. Cross-
field, T. Crossfield, Pierce, T. Gibson, jun.,
C. Wilson, F. Frith, H. Stuart; N. Brown, I. M'Clure,
Bowes ; Rev. Mr. Bishop, Rev. J. Ogden, and Rev.
I. Graham.
The chair was occupied by Join CROPPER, ESQ.
Mr. GOUGH, on being introduced by the chairman, was
enthusiastically applauded. He said that since he had had
the privilege of speaking to them on the subject of tempe-
rance some months past, he had been labouring almost con-
stantly in behalf of the same great enterprise ; and al-
though he had been sonietimes weary in the work, he was
not yet weary of it, and he felt more encouraged that night
than ever in his life to advocate the pure principles of total
abstinence from all that could intoxicate. His object in
speaking to the assembly before him, was that he might
be able to say something that might enlist their sympathies
on behalf of that great cause—that might remove the pre-
judices that existed in the minds of some in reference to the
great enterprise—that of temperance—then before them,
which was growing in importance, which was receiving,
and he had good reason to believe, would continue to receive
the involuntary respect of all who made themselves ac-
quainted with it. He knew that some people were in the
habit of sneering at the temperance enterprise ; that they
were in the habit of speaking of it in terms of ridicule and
contempt. But he defied any man of common sense to make
himself acquainted with the history of this reform, from
the first feeble barrier against the tide of liquid death till the
present moment, and despise:it ; to make himself acquainted
with the instrumentalities, feeble in themselves, but made
mighty by God's power, by which was scaled the strong
fortress of drunkenness and despise it ; to make himself
acquainted with the revolution in public sentiment in re-
ference to this matter, and despise it. The more he made
himself acquainted with it, the more it appeared before him
in its glory, its beauty,its grandeur,and its vastness,with the
seal of God's approbation stamped:broad and deep upon it.
(Applause). Never, until the great and awful day when all
secrets would be made clear, could we know the unutterable
woes created by drunkenness. Let him present that point
for a few minutes' consideratian,though he hardly knew how
to begin about it. He knew that some people had an idea
that when they spoke of the drunkard, they spoke of the low,
the miserable, and the debased—that they spoke
of those who were born in the bubbling pool of
degradation—that they spoke of those who had re-
ceived no education, least of all religious instruction—
that they spoke of those whose first words they heard were
words of blasphemy, and whose first utterance were in words
of cursing. But was it so ? He would illustrate this point
ashe once heard a man illustrate another point. " The reis,"
said he, "an inclined plain from the foot of the pit to the
threshhold of Heaven. There are millions of human beings
upon it. Just at the verge of the pit lies a poor sinning in-
dividual ready to topple into it, while at the top stands the
moralist in his righteousness, just about to cross the thresh-
hold, when suddenly he falls, and he who falls the farthest
falls the deepest." (Applause.) And thus it was that the
highest in rank and station fell also through drunkenness,
and were degraded and debased, as well as the lowliest, by
its abiding stain. There was no power like the power of
drunkenness to crush a man, and to bring him to the level
of the brute—nay, lower; for the intemperate man was
guilty of that which no brute beast was ever guilty of—vo-
luntaiily belittleing" himself, and stooping from the high
position in which his Maker had placed him. The power
of drunkenness spared neither :position nor circumstances,
when a man had once became a slave to the habit. It was,
then, to raise a barrier to this curse throughout
the land that they now struggled. Prevention was what
they sought—to build a barrier between the yet unpolluted
lip and the intoxicated cup, as well as to raise those already
steeped in the viscious degradation. (Applause.) No young
man present considered himself foolish enough to become a
drunkard. No man ever took the glass, and holding it up,
said : " I have good prospects before me. I have married a
wife whom I promised to cherish ; I have children whom I
love ; I have pride and ambition ; but I will make the lean
finger of scorn print burning characters on her brow. I
will leave my children a heritage of misery. I will blast
my reputation, and I will drink." There was not a drunkard
on God's earth who began with such intentions or such ex-
pectation. No, all fell by degrees—the first glass was the
first step to ruin. (Applause.) The lecturer then urged that no
advance in wages could benefit the drunkard, and continued :
If they took some of the men whom they now despised as
hardened, fiendish wretches, and stripped them of the
drinking mania, they were warm-hearted men like all the
rest. The higher the man the deeper was his fall into de-
gradation; and the faculties, which to others were blessings,
were to them the bitterest curse. Memory, which enabled
the drunkard to look back upon the past and the point
which he once occupied, the youthful aspirings, the early
hopes and affections this was, even in his moments of most
opperent gaiety, his heaviest curse. He might be seen in
noisy, ml illiod •-•i" apparent gaiety but if
the gin-palace,cu
they could trace him to his home, they would find that
these thoughts followed him there. The drunkard was like
an instrument out of tune, and they would find that not
even the lightest winds should touch the chords to pro-
duce the faintest sound, but by his side stood the
weird sister, memory, who was a skilful performer,
and moved the chords, and then he drank again to drive
away the thought which made him mad. There was enjoy-
ment of a certain kind at the first, but at the last it stung
ike a serpent, until his imagination drove hint wild. He
pictured to them the horrible state of a man in delerium tre-
mens, and reminded them that the chief horror which
attended him was the knowledge that the fearful objects
which seemed to surround him, were not real, but the crea-
tions of his own distracted imagination. De Quincey had
said that there was one thing in the world the greatest to ter-
rify or to console that was the human face. The sight of
a human face glaring in through the window at night would
terrify more than the face of a beast; but how much more
terrifying was it to him who knew that face was the
unreal creation of the drink which had destroyed his
brain. Men who had suffered this, would even
swear they would never drink to create it again • but such
was the power of appetite, that when health filled their
frames once more they would seek it again. This appetite
1 might well be called a master passion, and it was therefore
that he appealed to all that they might raise a war between
themselves and that passion. Would not any father rather
that his child should be stricken with palsy or burnt to death
than grow up a victim to this passion ? The lecturer
illustrated his subject by several instances where a moment's
temptation presented to a man struggling to escape from
drink, had led to a sudden and fearful death. There was
not a mother there who would not rather her son were taken
away by any affliction of Providence than to reel from the
world a drunkard into the grave he had made for himself.
He instanced cases where persons in the higher classes of
life had traced their destruction to the encouragement they
had received in childhood to drink their half-glass of wine in
the dining-room like a man, to the health of the gentlemen
there. He then proceeded to consider the philosophy of the
temperance enterprise, as a means of reforming the drunk-
ard and preserving the young and pure. Many persons had
been heard to argue against it, because they said it was put
in the place of the gospel and of religion, as a means of re-
forming and saving, But some men could not drink mode-
rately—as well might they attempt to blow up a powder
magazine moderately, as to give some men drink and tell
them to drink in moderation. (Applause). For these men
the lecturer showed that it was absolutely necessary a bond
should be offered to them, by which they could bind them-
selves against entering upon the habit, which when ac-
quired, the most strong-minded men bould hardly
break from. Drunkenness was not only a fearful
moral evil, but a physical one, and therefore
they came with a physical cure for its remedy. They
might as well say that the Humane Society in saving men from
death were putting their physical appliances in the place of the
gospel. They brought a physical means to effect a physical
end. A man made sober by physical means, which could do
it, was then able to comprehend the precepts of religion which
were lost upon him when drunk. They used physical instru-
mentality to preach the gospel. They must employ the physi-
cal instrumentality of language to preach the gospel to the
Chinese or the Indian, and the physical instrumentality of the
ship to reach him. To a man razing in fever they must bring
the human means of cooling appliances and medical aid before
they brought the minister of religion to preach to him of
Christ and the salvation of sinners. When death came to
him, he prayed God that it might find him in the harness
battling against that accursed evil. (Great applause.)

God himself had used human instrumentality to effect his

purposes, and it was glorious to be the instrument in his bands
although, they themselves, might never perceive the result.
As an instrument to that end they gloried in the teetotal move-
movement; their motto was " Excelsior."—their hope in the
latter day dawning ; and their prayer—" God speed the right
cause." (Loud applause.) The hope of the infidel was, that
the Bible was not true ; the hope of the votary of pleasure was,
that God would not punish the sin ; but the christian alone could
die believing in every word of the Bible, with the firm faith in
the inflexible justice of God, yet with full hope ever in his
death. Men who scoffed at the temperance enterprise, endcav-
ouredto force upon themselves the belief that its doctrines were
inconsistent with the teachings of the Bible. The lecturer de-
tailed his own conversion to religion and to temperance ; as an
instance of the manner in which persons first endeavoured
to harden themselves against the words of
those who wished to lead them into the
right path of life ; and how at last he was only brought to
sign the temperance pledge, not through the high motives of
religion and the abhorrence of vice, but through the purely
selfish motive of improving his position, having good clothes,
saving money, and mingling with society. In this manner
he shewed how human means might be made subservient to
the task of preparing the mind for the reception of the lessons
of morality, mud the truths of religion. The conversation
which took place between him and the one who sought to

induce him to sign the temperance pledge, the lecturer gave
with a humourous power of language and expression which
elicited laughter and enthusiastic applause from the audience.
Would any man, he asked, have stopped him from signing
that pledge, because he was induced to do so through instru-
mentality, and because he did it through a selfish motive?
The lecturer having pointed his argument by a variety of