Temperance > Autobiography and personal recollections of John B. Gough

PLACES OF INTEREST.
in reference to this question. At the table of one gentle¬
man, who gave a dinner-party on the occasion of enter¬
taining us, there were wine and ale in abundance. All
drank freely, but Mrs. Gough and I. On our way to the
lecture I said to him : “I fear you may be offended with
me to-night, and judge that I violate the laws of hospi¬
tality, in what I shall say, for I intend to speak freely of
the custom honoured to-day at your table.” He said,
laughingly: “ Oh! no; I shall not be offended; I am
anxious to hear what you have to say; and do not spare
me at all.” After the lecture we returned to his house,
and, as was the custom, supper was spread with wine and
ale, as at dinner. The host, playing with the glass he had
just emptied, said: “Mr. Gough, you have an autograph
book, I believe, in which your friends occasionally write
words of encouragement to you in your work. 1 should
be pleased to write something there.” The book was
brought, and he wrote: “My dear Mr. Gough, my children
will yet bless the day in which they met the man who so
nobly denounced the customs that are filling our beloved
land with woe,” and signed it. A clergyman, who drank
with the others at supper, said: “I will write a few words,
if you will permit me,”—and he wrote: “May God bless
you, my beloved brother, and give you strength to hew in
pieces the Agag of drunkenness.”
I was sometimes placed in an embarrassing position.
One gentleman who entertained us at his house, invited a
large party to dinner. When the cloth was being removed,
he said: “Gentlemen, I—1 hardly know how to explain,
but I—you—that is—hem !— well, you will get no wine.
I ordered the butler to decant no wine to-day, as a com¬
pliment to our guest, Mr. Gough.” All looked at me, and
some rather discontentedly. I was a little confused and
mortified, feeling that they might be vexed or angry; so