Temperance > Autobiography and personal recollections of John B. Gough

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AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN B. GOUGH.
Three years and more had passed, when, at the close of
a lecture in a town some distance from where this oc¬
curred, a person told me that a man wished to see me.
I asked, “Who is it?’
He replied, “He is a mechanic; he has been living here
some time, and is an active member of our society. He
says if I tell you it’s ‘one of us,’ you’ll know.”
“Show him up.”
And a man clean, tidy, healthy, and respectable, grasped
my hand. I told him how glad I was to meet him,— that
I should not have known him,—and then said: “Have
you ever seen the gentleman who said ‘you’re one of us?”’
“No, sir; I’ve never seen him since. You see, I don’t
move in that class of people, and I left the town soon
after, and got work here; but I’ll never forget him, if I
never meet him till I meet him in heaven. I’ll tell
him then, how his good kind words helped me when I
needed help. Ah! Mr. Gough, you ought to see my wife,
— she’s a changed woman now; and she remembers him;
and when she teaches the children to say their prayers,
she weaves in little bits beautiful, that God would bless
him. She’s a knowing woman. Ah! well,good-bye, Mr.
Gough; wish ye a safe voyage home, and come back to us
again. Good-bye,—God bless ye!”
Oh! I thank the Master that I have been permitted to
know so many of such cases; to hear so many “God bless
ye’s” from those who have been helped to reform through
the agency of the glorious temperance movement. I love
to recall them, and I love to write them as encouragement
to others to help in a warfare, whose trophies are men and
women redeemed from the power of sin, evil habit, and
an awful curse.
On Friday, August 17th, we reached home, after an
absence of two years and fourteen days. Home, sweet