Temperance > Autobiography and personal recollections of John B. Gough

90 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN B. GOUGH.
that T would break the chain which bound me; but I still
continued in the same course, breaking every promise
made to myself and others, and continuing an object of
scorn and contempt. I felt that very few, if any, pitied
me; and that any should love me was entirely out of the
question. Yet was I yearning intensely for sympathy;
for, as I have before stated, my affections were naturally
strong and deep; and often, as I lay in my solitary cham¬
ber, feeling how low I had sunk, and that no eye ever
dropped a tear of pity over my state, or would grow dim
if I were laid in the grave,—I have ardently wished that
I might never see the morning light.
Fancy, reader, what my agony must have been, when,
with the assurance that no drunkard could enter the king¬
dom of heaven, I was willing,—nay, anxious,—in order to
escape the tortures to which I was subjected in this life,
to risk the awful realities of the unseen world! My pun¬
ishment here was greater than I "could bear. I had made
a whip of scorpions, which perpetually lashed me. My
name was a by-word. No man seemed to care for my
soul. I was joined, like Israel of old, unto idols, and it
seemed as if the Lord had said respecting me: “Let him
alone!”
Before I conclude this portion of my history, let me
urge on every young man whose eye may glance over
these pages, to learn from my miserable state a lesson of
wisdom. Let him beware of the liquor that intoxicates.
Poets may sing of the Circean cup,—praise in glowing
terms the garlands which wreathe it; wit may lend its
brilliant aid to celebrate it, and even learning may invest
it with a charm;—but when the poet’s song shall have
died, and the garlands withered; when wit shall have
ceased to sparkle, and the lore of .ages be an unremem¬
bered thing,—the baneful effects of the intoxicating