Temperance > Autobiography and personal recollections of John B. Gough

104
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
B. GOUGH.
•who saw me might say, as was said of Dante, when he
passed through the streets of Florence: “There’s the man
that has been in hell.”
CHAPTER IX.
FIRST SPEECH IN A PULPIT.
A great change now took place in my condition for the
better, and it appeared likely enough that the anticipa¬
tions of my friend, Mr. Stratton, who induced me to sign
the pledge, as to my becoming once more a respectable
man, were about to be realized. For a long period of late,
I had ceased to take any care with respect to my personal
appearance (for the intemperate man is seldom neat), but
I now began to feel a little more pride on this head, and
endeavoured to make my scanty wardrobe appear to the
best advantage. I also applied myself more diligently to
business, and became enabled to purchase a few articles
which I had long needed; and so I began to assume a
more respectable appearance.
I now regularly attended the temperance meetings, held
at this time in the town-hall every Monday evening. On
my first attendance, the president of the meeting, Mr.
Edwin Eaton, saw me and said: “The young man who
signed the temperance pledge last Monday night is in the
hall; we shall be glad to know how he feels to-night, and
how he is getting on.”
1 immediately arose and said: “ I am getting on very
well, and feel a good deal better than I did a week ago.”
That was my second temperance speech; the first was
when I signed the pledge. At every weekly meeting I
was invited to speak, and I began to enlarge on the expe-