mighty instrumentalities have been put forth by such men who were in advance of their age, and were therefore persecuted. When men spoke about building railroads they were laughed at. "Railroads!" how in the name of common sense can you build a railroad? We are willing to believe anything in reason, but how can you build a railroad ?—how can you get up hill by a railroad? Why, some of these fanatical fellows talk of going at the rate of twenty miles an hour. At such a break-neck pace as that they would endanger the lives of all the passengers.” One gentleman in Boston said he would oppose the granting of a railway charter, because the parties wanted to go the whole distance, sixteen miles, in an hour. One gentleman in England, now an Earl, said, "They talk of bridging the Atlantic by steam. I will eat the boiler of the first steamboat that goes across the Atlantic." I came from Boston to Liverpool in one, but I have never heard that that gentleman ate the boiler. "Railroads!" said a scientific gentleman, "I would as leave trust myself on the back of a Congreve rocket." Captain Basil Hall once wrote a book, in which he said, "As a practical engineer I pronounce it to be impossible to build a railroad from Worcester to Albany over those mountains. These Yankees have got it down on paper, and they consider a thing done when they have it on paper; but as a practical engineer I pronounce it to be impossible." Now I rode over that very railway, rising 1783 feet in 23 miles, with that very book in my hand. Oh! people don't break their necks now. You will see in a railway the lawyer looking over his brief, the minister studying his next Sunday's sermon, a couple in a corner talking soft nonsense-nobody thinks of breaking necks now. Perhaps too you will see a couple of the most inveterate grumblers the world ever produced, men who battled to the very last against the granting of the charter. There they sit looking through plate-glass at the scenery: "We are a wonderful people, ain't we?" says one. "Yes, we are an astonishingly wonderful people; this is an age of progress, sir. Why, I remember it occupied us two weeks to perform a journey which now takes us twentyfour hours." Yes, it is 66 we now. Why? Because the work is done; because the matter is carried, and proved to be popular. Plenty of men oppose a thing till it becomes popular, then they will ride on a railway that others have made in spite of them, drawn by a locomotive other men have made, and sent on its track in spite of them and then have the impudence to say, "We have done it."

Our enterprise is in advance of the public sentiment, and those who carry it on are glorious iconoclasts, who are going to break down the drunken Dagon worshipped by their fathers. Count me over the chosen heroes of this earth, and I will show you men that stood alone—ay, alone, while those they toiled, and laboured, and agonized for, hurled at them contumely, scorn, and contempt. They stood alone; they looked into the future calmly and with faith; they saw the golden beam inclining to the side of perfect justice; and they fought on amidst the storm of persecution. In Great Britain they tell me when I go to see such a prison :-"There is a dungeon in which such a one was confined:" "Here, among the ruins of an old castle, we will show you where such a one had his ears cut off, and where another was murdered." Then they will show me monuments towering up to the heavens :-"There is a monument to such a one: there is a monument to another." And what do I find? That the one generation persecuted and howled at these men, crying, "Crucify them! crucify them!" and dancing round the blazing faggots that consumed them; and the next generation busied itself in gathering up the scattered ashes of the martyred heroes and depositing them in the golden urn of a nation's history. Oh, yes! the men that fight for a great enterprise are the men that bear the brunt of the battle, and "He who seeth in secret "seeth the desire of his children, their steady purpose, their firm self-denial-" will reward them openly," though they may die and see no sign of the triumphs of their enterprise.

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Our cause is a progressive one. I read the first constitution of the first temperance society formed in the State of New York in 1809; and one of the bye-laws stated, Any member of this association who shall be convicted of intoxication shall be fined a quarter of a dollar, except such act of intoxication shall take place on the 4th of July or any other regularly appointed military muster." laugh at that now; but it was a serious matter in those days: it was in advance of the public sentiment of the age. The very men that adopted that principle were persecuted: they were hooted and pelted through the streets, the doors of their houses were blackened, their cattle mutilated. The fire of persecution scorched some men so that they left the work. Others worked on, and God blessed them. Some are living to-day; and I should like to stand where they stand now and see the mighty enterprise as it rises before them. They worked hard. They lifted the first turf

prepared the bed in which to lay the corner-stone. They laid it amid persecution and storm, They worked under the surface; and men almost forgot that there were busy hands laying the solid foundation far down beneath. Byand-by they got the foundation above the surface, and then commenced another storm of persecution. Now we see the superstructure-pillar after pillar, tower after tower, column after column, with the capitals emblazoned with 'Love, truth, sympathy, and good will to men. "Old men gaze upon it as it grows up before them. They will not live to see it completed, but they see in faith the crowning cope-stone set upon it. Meek-eyed women weep as it grows in beauty children strew the pathway of the workmen with flowers. We do not see its beauty yet-we do not see the magnificence of its superstructure yet-because it is in course of erection. Scaffolding, ropes, ladders, workmen ascending and descending, mar the beauty of the building; but by-and-by, when the hosts who have laboured shall come up over a thousand battle-fields waving with bright grain never again to be crushed in the distillery-through vineyards, under trellised vines with grapes hanging in all their purple glory never again to be pressed into that which can debase and degrade mankind-when they shall come through orchards, under trees hanging thick with golden, pulpy fruit never to be turned into that which can injure and debase-when they shall come up to the last distillery and destroy it, to the last stream of liquid death and dry it up, to the last weeping wife and wipe her tears gently away, to the last little child and lift him up to stand where God meant that man should stand, to the last drunkard and nerve him to burst the burning fetters and make a gloricus accompaniment to the song of freedom by the clanking of his broken chains-then, ah! then will the cope-stone be set upon it, the scaffolding will fall with a crash, and the building will start in its wondrous beauty before an astonished world. The last poor drunkard shall go into it and find a refuge there, loud shouts of rejoicing shall be heard, and there shall be joy in heaven, when the triumphs of a great enterprise shall usher in the day of the triumphs of the cross of Christ. I believe it, on my soul. I believe it. Will you help us? That is the question, We leave it with you. Good night.

AN ORATION BY JOHN B. GOUGH,

Delivered in the Music Hall, Store Street, on Wednesday, August 9th, 1854. JOHN DUNLOP, Esq, IN THE CHAIR.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN !-Many years before I expected to visit the land of my nativity, I had a book presented to me, the author of which is the chairman of this evening's meeting-a book that intensely interested me. It was on the Drinking Usages of Great Britain; and I thought, as I sat and listened to him just for the moment, that I might, if a layman may be allowed sometimes to take a text, take that as my text for this evening's address, or part of it, at any rate. The drinking usages of society! We who are engaged in the temperance enterprise are engaged in a war against those usages; we stand in an attitude of uncompromising hostility to them, because we believe they are doing more than any other instrumentality to perpetuate the evil of drunkenness. Our object is not only to cure, but to prevent. It is a greater work to prevent than it is to cure. It is a hard matter to save a drunkard. There are many, perhaps, in this assembly who know that when the appetite has once fastened upon a man's system, and becomes with him a master passion-it is a hard matter to save him. Every intemperate man is a diseased man; and the disease in his system is the appetite that cries through every nerve and sinew of his frame, like the leech, day and night, Give, give, give," and that appetite, in my opinion, is one that never can be entirely eradicated. In some men the appetite may lie dormant, in others it is always active. I believe you might as soon attempt to make a sieve hold water, or blow up a powder magazine moderately, or do any other impossible thing, as to make a man a moderate drinker who has become habitually intemperate. Let a man who has been habitually intemperate adopt the principle of total abstinence,-let him keep it inviolate for years, and then give him a dram if you dare; nine out of ten will have another in spite of you, and ninety-nine out of a hundred will want it with such a want that a sober man can hardly form any concep

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tion of. Men build their hopes of tripping up reformed drunkards on a knowledge of this fact. A man once said that he would raise more money than could be raised for a political campaign to any man who would get a glass of brandy and water into me, by fair means or foul. Why? Because he believed that if I ever had an appetite it was there yet, like the smouldering fire of a volcano, and that one dram would rouse it into fury, and drench me body and soul in the lava of drunkenness.

Some say that if a man signs the pledge and breaks it, there is a great moral influence broken down, and there is no wonder if he takes another step downwards. But, suppose a man should take drink into his system unknowingly! A gentleman in Glasgow once gave me the following in writing. A young man, a machinist, a splendid workman, but a notorious drunkard, was induced to put his name upon the pledge, and he kept that pledge for six years. He withstood all temptation,--the temptation at the corner of the street-the temptation in the social circle-the temptation among his friends-and what was worse than all, the temptation in his shop; for I do think that in this country, in many cases, the persecution of working men by working men is tenfold worse than the persecution of working men by masters. I do think that the tyrannous drinking customs of these shops are an abomination. There are known men in this country,-I have seen them and read their letters in the newspapers,who are now wandering about in quest of work; honest, sober, industrious men, who have been driven from shop to shop, because their fellow-workmen have made the shop too hot to hold them, in consequence of their refusal to bow down to the accursed drinking usages of these shops. That man withstood all these temptations. His only sister was married, and he went to the wedding. They knew that if they asked him to drink he would refuse,-that if they offered him whiskey he would spurn it with contempt; indeed, they were afraid to ask him, for he had a couple of strong fists, and he threatened to flog any man that would tempt him to drink. In the midst of their festivity, however, the tea was passed round, and some one, wickedly and fiendishly, with a coward spirit, put a quantity of whiskey in his tea. He drank it, and was not aware that there was spirit in it; he was not aware that there was in it an influence that would operate on his system as it did; but he never drew a sober breath after that. Three weeks from that day he was found among the rushes by the river,