Temperance > Autobiography and personal recollections of John B. Gough

WORK AMONG THE CHILDREN.
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lias debased and dragged down the loftiest and noblest
minds, I cannot feel so,—I thank God I cannot feel so.”
And then I went on for more than an hour and a half,
with no hesitation even for a word. When T sat down,
Deacon Grant said, “Don’t you ever frighten me so
again.”
That audience had no conception of my real suffering.
Had not my wife so judiciously cheered and encouraged
me, I think I should not have appeared that night. I
was very pale and thin at this time, and many were the
jokes on my personal appearance. One writer said I
looked as if a tolerable gust of wind would blow me to
any required point of the compass. My hair was very
dark, and I suppose I did look rather cadaverous.
One night at a crowded meeting in Dr. Cone’s church,
Elizabeth Street, New York, I was insinuating myself as
quietly as I could through the mass of people who were
standing in the aisles, when I came to a big, broad-
shouldered man, who would not move an inch, but on the
contrary seemed inclined to “close up.” “ Will you please
let me pass?” “No,” he replied very gruffly, “I sha’u’t.”
“I should like to get by you, sir,” I said, as mildly as I
could. “I have no doubt you would” (very sternly). “But
my name is Gough, and I have to lecture to-night.” I
thought that would be a clincher; but I might as well
have tried to move an elephant with a feather. The man
looked bigger and taller than ever, as he said, “Now,
young man, you can’t come that game on me; I have let
two or three Mr. Goughs go by me already.” I said,
“You please let me pass, and the exercises will at once com¬
mence.” Turning half round, and looking down at me, he
replied: “You don’t believe I’m such a fool as to suppose
that such a muff of a fellow as you could bring all these
people together? Why, you look so weak, that I don’t