LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS JIS. WON.

casionally he went to the theatre, a place he shunned
when his mother was alive. Step by step he went
along the downward road; not in a day, or a month,
or a year, did he become a sot.

He took comic parts on the stage, because he was
good in mimicry, and his companions were not of the
best. Sometimes, it is true, he worked at his trade,
for weeks abstaining from drink and other spendthrift
ways; then appetite, or the invitation of old friends,
beguiled and overpowered him. Once he went on a
fishing voyage, laying up considerable money, married
and made a pleasant home for his wife ; but presently
he went back to his old habits, and at the time when
she and her baby died, he was lying drunk and uncon-
scious in the house.

It is needless to say that often, in agony, did he lament
the taking ofafirst glass. Howeasily, but for that, could
he have become self-educated and honored; now at
last, ragged, and broken in body by delirium tremens, he
was walking the streets of Worcester, on that Sabbath
evening, absolutely homeless and hopeless. He was
thinking, utterly heartsick as it is possible for man to
be, of his ruined life, when a hand was laid on his
shoulder. He was startled. Nobody had spoken to
him in a friendly way for months.

“Mr. Gough, I believe?” said the stranger.

“That is my name,” he replied, and passed on.

“You have been drinking to-day,” said the kind
voice. “ Why do you not sign the pledge and protect
yourself?” And then the young man, whose name
was Joel Stratton, took his arm in a brotherly way,
and, as a brother might, asked if he would not like to
be a sober man, go to church once more, and have
friends once more..

John Gough answered sadly: “TI should like all
these things first-rate. Such a change cannot be-pos-
sible, however.”

“Tf you will but sign the pledge and follow my ad-
vice, I will warrant that it shall be so. I will intro-
duce you to good friends who will take a pleasure in
helping-you to keep good resolutions.”

After some pondering, he determined to make the
effort. He said:

“ Well, I will sign it.”

“When?”

“T cannot do so to-night, for I must have some
drink presently. But I certainly will to-morrow.”

That night he drank heavily, and all the next day
at his work the longing for drink remained unbear-
able. But when night came he said, “If it should be
the last act of my life, I will keep my promise, even
though I die in the attempt, for I believe that man
has placed confidence in me.” ,

At the temperance meeting, with almost palsied
hand, he wrote “John B. Gough” to a Total Absti-
nence pledge. After a sleepless night, he went to his
work. But the craving for his daily drink was as
fierce as ever. His whole body trembled, and his
brain seemed on fire. It was the height of torture,
of temptation. Finally, as night came on, he said, “I

273

cannot fight this through. I will not yield, but I shall
die.”

Just then a lawyer, Jesse Goodrich, came in.

“T saw you sign the pledge last night, Mr. Gough.
Come in and see me. Keep up a brave heart.
Good-by! God bless you.”

These words seemed sent from heaven. He re-
peated them over and over again on his way home.
The friendship, the kindliness, the sympathy, seemed
divine. For six days and nights, in a wretched gar-
ret, without one hour of healthy sleep, without one
mouthful of food, John Gough fought the dreadful
battle with appetite. Weak, famished, almost dying,
he crawled out into the sunlight; but he had con-
quered.

Hope, the ambitions of manhood, came back into
his desolate life. The ragged clothes were brushed,
and the weekly temperance meetings were regularly
attended. He soon spoke with such intense earnest-
ness, in his gratitude, and his desire to rescue others,
that he received invitations to go to neighboring
towns, which he accepted, waiting only to earn suit-
able clothes. He kept his pledge for five months,
and then, yielding to physical weakness, broke it.
Tremblingly penitent, almost despairing, he went to
Mr. Goodrich and others, telling them that he had dis-
graced them as well as himself, and that he must leave
Worcester forever. But they held on to him; they
would not let him go, and he re-signed the pledge.

Soon after this, he became a Christian, and now,
for nearly forty years, he has honored the name he
bears. “If the pledge had been offered to me when
Iwas a boy in Sunday-school, I should have been
spared those seven dreadful years,”’ I have heard Mr.
Gough say. He was now twenty-six. This year he
made three hundred and eighty-three addresses,
receiving about three dollars for each, and paying his
expenses out of it. With the «first money he could
possibly spare, he purchased Rollin’s Ancient History,
bent upon self education.

And now there came into his life noble Mary
Whitcomb, a teacher, with fine mind and true heart.
She has shared alike his poverty and his fame.
No life of Mr. Gough will ever be complete without
“ Mary ” written on every page.

For eleven years he spoke eloquently throughout
our country, winning thousands upon thousands of
signers to the pledge. This public life was by no
means an easy one. He was opposed by the liquor
interest, and not always aided by those who should have
been his friends. In no year did he receive, on an aver-
age, over twenty-five dollars a lecture, and, in his zeal
and sympathy, hundreds were given without charge.

He was now urged to visit England. Sensitive to
an unsuspected degree, never forgetting the stains on
his early manhood, he sought the advice of Doctor
Lyman Beecher.

“John, my son, don’t fear,’’ he said.
prayed for you.
go with you.”

“T have
Go, and the blessing of an old man