The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1891-05-14
THE PARSONS CORNER.
A. PARSON EDITOR,


A. PARsON EDITOR.
JOHN B. GoUGH.-The writer
has passed the home of the great
temperance apostle at Hillside,
near Worcester, Mass. many times.
1t was a fine house and beautiful
grounds, located in the country,
no village being near it. There is
little doubt that Mr.. Cough chose
this retired place for his home that
in the hours of his temptation to
drink which he had even in his
last days, he might be away from
all places where liquor was sold.
Mr.. Cough often expressed the
wish that he might Idle in the
harness" and he died almost on
the platform after one of the most
impressive lectures he had ever
delivered. His last words with
which he closed his lecture and his
life were, ~ Dung man keep your
record Clean"
THOSE AWFUL SCARs.-With
what bitter regret did he look back
on the years of his Incorporate
life. Never has q speaker i'm
pressed us more than Cough did
four years ago, when in his lecture
in Ripon, Wis.,, he stood with his
right arm above his head and said,
II would give this right arm to the
shoulder if could blot out those
seven awful years of my life"
He had reformed, but the scars of
his years in sin were there in his
flesh and spirit to the day of his
death.
THE STORY OF A HANDKER-
CII1EF.-At the funeral of Mr..
Cough, on the back of chair at
the head of his coffin, hung a little
handkerchief that has a story. He
told it as follows in Cooper Insti-
tute, n. Y. in 1870.
Il have in my house small
handkerchief, not worth three
cents to you, but you could not
buy it from me. A woman
brought it and said to my wife, I
am very poor; would give him
thousand pounds if | had it, but [
brought this. [ married with the
fairest and brightest prospects be-
fore me, but my husband took to
drinking and everything went.
The piano-forte my mother gave
ME and everything was sold, until,
at last, found myself in a miser
able room. My husband lay
drunk in the corner, and my child
that was lying on my knee was
restless; | sung,
The light OF other days has faded,o
and wet my handkerchief through
with my tears. My husband,'
said she to my wife, met yours.
He spoke few words and gave a
grasp of the hand, and now for six
years, my husband has been to me
all that a husband can be to wife,
and we are getting our household
goods together again. I have
brought your husband the very
handkerchief | wet through that
night with my tears, and | want
him when he is speaking, to re-
member that he has wiped away
those tears from me, [ trust in
God, forever These are the
trophies that make men glad"
But FEW EVER REFORM
Cough was one of the. many thou
sands that came out in the great
" ashngtonian movement, that
finally succeeded in keeping his
pledge: Drinking men say 81
can drink or | can let it alone"
but it is q very noticeable fact that
they keep right on drinking and
make no use of their boasted
strength. Put my boys up and
sell them On the auction block to
the slave drivers of Africa, let
them feel the lash and be driven
like beasts, rather than ever to be
bound by the merciIess letters of
a drunkard's appetite. Yet who
knows that they will escape if the
open doors to temptation line our
streets in ten years from now, as