Temperance > Autobiography and personal recollections of John B. Gough

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN B. GOUGH.
every door of admission into the society of my fellow-
men, the words, “No hope,” seemed to be inscribed.
Despair was my companion, and perpetual degradation
appeared to be my allotted doom. I was intensely
wretched, and this dreadful state of things was of my own
bringing about. I had no one but myself to blame for
the sufferings I endured; and when I thought of what I
might have been, these inflictions were awful beyond con¬
ception. Lower in the scale of mental and moral degra¬
dation I could not well sink. Despised by all, I despised
and hated in my turn; and doggedly flung back to the
world the contempt and scorn which it so profusely heaped
on my head.
Such was my pitiable state at this period,—a state ap¬
parently beyond the hope of redemption. But a change
was about to take place,—a circumstance which eventually
turned the whole current of my life into a new and
unhoped for channel.
Here let me pause: Reader, this has been a sad and
awful revelation; my cheeks have burned with shame, as
I have written; and I have been strongly tempted to
j tone down, or draw a veil over portions of this narrative,
[ but I have told the truth, plain and unvarnished. As I
look back to 1842,—twenty-seven years ago,—it seems
almost a hideous dream; I can hardly realize my identity
with the staggering, hopeless victim of the terrible vice
of intemperance; but the sears remain to testify the reality;
Byes, scars and marks never to be eradicated; never to be
removed in this life. Saved I may be so as by fire, yet
the scar of fire is on me; the nails may be drawn, but the
marks are there. Do I not bear about with me the remem¬
brance of these days ? yes, always. I never rise to speak
but I think of it; the more I mingle with the wise, the
pure, the true,—the higher my aspirations,—the more