The Worthington advance., 1879-05-01
"One evening"" says Mr. COUGH 81 aet

"One evening"" says Mr.. Cough. q act
out to build temple. I @hsd never
built temple before. AT, the outset I
ran up . scaffolding, and then proceed-s
cd, step by step, to the erection of the
building from the foundation up, until At
last the copestone was securely in ih
place, and the standard of moral triumnh
vas bravely foating from / flaestaff Of
frn resolve. Meantime there Was the
scaffolding still standing of other parts Of
my ideal architecture, my mind Wa On
that scaftolding. But one word. and the
whole frail but obscuring structure fell,
It was brought down with a crash bv A
reference to the power of prayer"
What all this would mean from the
lips of common man the reader can see
at q glance. What it means from Mr..
Coughs lips no one can possibly imagine
Who has not heard him speak. Mr..
Cough thinks the great lack Of orators
generally is earnestness. Traditions sur-
vive, and render the preacher of to-day
mere repetition of some model approved
in other years. but unsuited to times so
vital as their own, when earnestness and
force in every brauch-be it oratorv. art.
literature, or science-are imperatively
demanded.
"lf man were to come into this room
to tell me the house was on fire." says
M. Cough, the fash of his eye showing
that we are to have taste OF his quality.
'he would not stand with his hands be-
fore him like this Laughing imitation of
a stiff and awkward manner, very preach
er-like) and say in q mealy voice: sMr.
Cough, I beg leave to inform you that a
:con6agration has broken forth with con-
siderable fury be ow.' He would rush in
dramatic dash) and cry out: Jack,
here. get out of this; the house IS on
firev" In building temples Mr.. tough
may be obliged to proceed with some
caution; but in setting 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 cdidce of himself with al
cohol, 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 conaagra,ion ever seen since Nero
fiddled while Rome famed.
This passionate defamation Is not
summed up with that cons,,mmated 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 bought 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
tie flesh Of his palms is no unusual ex-
pertinent in the heat of his oratory.
With 10 highly wrought 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 insanelv
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 ghastly arc incompre-
nensible crimes which only d drrnken men
are guilty of. "The Anglo Saxon," says
Mr.. Cough, "is not brutal hearted crea.
ture. The Anglo-Saxon is tender
hearted man, who, in his normal condi-
tion, especially loves bis children-plans
for them, tolls for them, pinches himself
to provide life insurance for them; lies
awake at night, ponderiug how he can
advance their position in life. But wha
does the drunken Anglo-Saxon do? He
puts his baby on the fire and roasts it;
he ties his unoffending lame boy to the
bed post and whips him with strap till
the blood comes; he takes the blanket off
the shivering bod5~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 eff,rts 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
AAeSSS Va IuAAhAAk AuCl4CduS ulC lUOuC1S
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 a class eff 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 difused 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 beneficent in
fuence 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. Mr.. Cough has himself Sc
cured over 200 900 signatures to the
pledge, and this part of his work became
at last so engrossing that he hss been
obliged to relegate it to the various COM
mittees.
The bit Of blue sky amid the dark
driven clouds Of Great Britain Is 80 tiny,
the inches of blue ribbon 90 few in COM
parison with the yards of the Grape of
woe and misery with which drink ell
shrouds it's victims, that even the most
cheerful philosopher must have moments
of despair. Yet with 80 warm IN enthu-
sisst as John B. Cough these moments
are few, "What though" he ioyously ex-