Temperance > Autobiography and personal recollections of John B. Gough

138 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN B. GOUGH.
unprofitable; for where the mother sang to her girl, and
the father proudly gazed on his boy,—where husband and
wife “took sweet counsel together,” and sister and brother
formed the social ring,—scarcely a link of the shivered
chain is left to tell where happiness once had been.
Families become scattered whenever intemperance
plants his burning feet on the threshold; and that which
was once
“A little heaven below,”—
a sanctuary from the toil and turmoil of this working-
day world, becomes but a cage of unclean birds,—a very
pandemonium. Home! the magic of that word is dis-
pelled for ever, and they who dwelt under the family
roof-tree,—
“ Who grew in beauty side by side,
Who filled one house with glee,
From each are severed far and wide.
By stream and mount and sea.”
Oh ! has not woman reason to bless the temperance cause?
But to the procession; for as no record of it, except the
ephemeral reports of the newspapers, exists, I have been
i ml need to notice it here. I had witnessed many great
gatherings of various descriptions; but none ever affected
me as this did. I could scarcely speak, and to describe
my feelings would be impossible. Such a day I never in
my most sanguine dreams imagined would have dawned
on earth. On it came,—a dense, gaily adorned, moving
multitude, all in perfect order; every eye beaming with
gladness, and every lip wreathed with smiles. The Boston
Brigade Baud came first, pealing forth strains of tri¬
umphant music; the Washington Light Infantiy, clad in
the trappings of war, next marched to celebrate the peace-