Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1879-05-01

,s4z9.s0 One evening, = M. Goueh. 81 sss
out to build 9 temple. I had -nevel
built Aafemples before. 3 at the outset ]
ran up . scaffoldmg, and then proceed
ed, step by step, to- the erection of til.
building from the foundation up, until a,
last the copestone was securely in; i'd
place, and the standard Of moral triumph
was brnvely Heating, from flagstaff Of
firm resolves Meantime there was. thu
scafolding still standing of other parts Of
7 my ideal architecture, my mind was or
that scatolding. i Buteone word, and the
yMhole frail but .obscuring structure fell
It was brought down with a crash b. 9
reference to the power Of prayer
L. What all this would mean from the
lips Of o common man the reader can see
at glance. What it means from Mr..
Coughs lips no one can possibly imagine
who has not1hesrd him speak. Mr..
Cough thinks the great lack of, Orators
generally is earnestness. Traditions sur
vive, and render the preacher Of to-day q
mere repetition of some model approved
in other years, but unsuited to times 60
vital as their own, when earnestness and
force in every brauch-be it oratory, art,
literature, or, science-are imperatively
demanded.
"lf man were to come into this room
to tell me the house was on fire." saws
Mr.. Cough, the fash of his eye showing
that we are to have ataste of his quality,
che would not stand with bis hands be-
fore him like this <Ilaughing imitation of
q stiff and awk ward manner, very preach
er-like( and say in a mesly voice: Mr..
Cough, / beg leave to inform you that q
confagration has broken forth with con.
siderable fury be.ow.H He would rush in
dramatic dash) and cry out: Jack,
here, get out. of this; the house is on
fret" In building temples Mr.. Cough
may be obliged, to proceed with some
caution; but in setting q house on fire he
never had an equal. In his library or on
the platform, his house on fire-whether
1t be the moral house of the drunkard
consuming the edifice of himself with al
coho), or the actual house which the be-
sotted husband has fred in his idiotic
stupor, and in which his innocent wife
and babes are burnt to death, is the most
robust confagra:ion ever seen since Nero
fddled while Rome famed. ~.:.'
This passionate defamation is not
summed up with that contaminated art
which enables Mile. Rachel to weep
binding tears about nothing whatever.
Every word spoken by Cough he feels
Once, in speaking on temperance in
America, he b1oug int his hand down up
on the sharp corner Of a marble topped
table. making an ugly wound, which he
did not notice until after the lecture was
concluded, when he nearly tainted with
the pain. To drive his finger, nails in
tee flesh of his palms is no unusual ex-
pertinent in the heat of his oratory.
With 10 highly wrought a nature, it is
easy to understand what brought him to
such madness and rapid abasement
in his drinking days: One glass of
whisky and water made him insanely
drunk. Mr.. Coughs plan of reform is
simple. He merely wants to persuade
every man and woman on earth. to let
spirits alone. If man does not drink,
he cannot get drunk; if he does not get
drunk, he can never fall into the COM
mission Of those CHASTITY ard incompre-
hensible crimes which only drunken men
are guilty of. 1.-THE Anglo Saxon" says
Mr.. Cough, "is not a brutal-hearted crea.
turo. The Anglo-Saxon is tender.
hearted man, who, in his normal condi-
ton, especially loves his children-plans
for them, tolls for them, pinches himself
to provide a life insurance for them; lies
awake at night, bordering how he can
advance their position in life. But wha
does the drunken. Anglo-Saxon do7 He
puts his baby on the fire and roasts it;
he ties his unoffending lame boy to the
bedpost and whips him with strap till
the blood comes; he takes the blanket off
the shivering body of his dying wife,
whom he dearly loves, and goes. and
pawns it for few pence to get glass of
gin"
The comparative freedom of the United
States from the curse of drink must be in
large measure attributed to the active,
persistent, untiring efforts of John B.
Cough. Cough himself says that Ameri-
can teetotalism is due to the energetic
temperance work that has been going on
there for nearly sixty years. The great
mass of thinking Americans are models
of sobriety. Nothing in England sur
prises Americans more than to see women
and girls entering public houses with
their jugs and bottles. This is never done
in America even by the Irish and
Germans, who mostly consume, the first
the whisky, the latter the lager beer
which is drunk there. An effort has been
made by some statisticians to show that
the Introduction of that light and cheap
beverage, lager beer, has had its share in
expeling the more poisonous, kinds of
drink from the United States; but this
Mr.. Cough does not believe. he asserts
that class of diseases. never known in
America, has been Introduced there
among men who are lager beer drinkers.
A man can drink ten times as much lager
beer as he can water: the liquid is quick.
ly diffused and thus various organs are
put to an undue and unnatural strain
which speedily eliminates in weakness
and disease. The temperance wave which
swept over the Irish, at the coming of
Father Mathew, Mr. Cough believe to
have produced far less of bene6cent in
f1uence than was expected Of it, at least
among the Irish in America. Nor does
he think that any permanent effect can
be made upon a large body Of people
who kneel together and make VOW by
wholesale. 9 Mr.. Cough has himself Sc
cured over 400 900 signatures to the
| pledge; and this part Of his work became
at last so engrossing; that he has been
obliged to relegate; it to the various com
mittees: '''. " -
The bit of blue sky amid the dark
| driven clouds Of Great Britain is so tiny,
the inches of blue ribbon 40 few in COM
parison with the yards of the Grape Of
woe and misery with which drink en-
shrouds it's victims, that even the most
cheerful philosopher: must have moments
Of despair. Yet with SO warm an enthu-
siast as John B; Cough these moments
are few, "What though ," he joyously Ok
claims, .'there be q thousand million
pounds invested in the drink business in
England Once touch the,right cord and
the English nation will spring up and
sacrifice that amount of money, and many
times more # need be, for the sake Of