264 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. 



grossly blasphemous, that I suddenly came down on him for 

 the children's sake. I can often quiet drunkards by being 

 calm a long time, and then exploding. Whereupon he sobered : 

 told me he had been a teetotaller for eight years, was a local 

 Methodist preacher near Glasgow, knew about the Alliance, 

 etc. Then he stood up and reached towards me, and began a 

 long sermon, well reasoned from the devil's antinomian stand- 

 point, and in good language, to the effect that he was one of 

 the vessels of wrath, was the creature of circumstances, etc. 

 When at last he stopped, I waited for the next station, and 

 then got into his compartment : told him that the circumstance 

 of which he was the creature was, that P. P. C, Deputation of 

 the U. K. A., etc., begged him to sign and keep the pledge. 

 He thought that a charming corollary from his sermon ; so I 

 wrote it in pencil, and he and his wife signed. She said he 

 had not been sober for six months. He then began to talk 

 quite soberly on the mercy and forbearance of the Lord. As 

 he was going to St. Austell, I told him of the revival, and he 

 said he would go to chapel that very night. Said he, before all 

 the people, ' If you had not spoken to me, I should have gone 

 and got drunk ! ' Seeing that drunkenness is a crime as well 

 as a sin, how openly men practise it and are lured to it ! 

 Fancy a man saying, ' I intend to commit a burglary to- 

 night'!" 



On his way back to Bristol, where he met his wife, he 

 lectured at Bridgwater : and at the request of our old friend, 

 Mr. F. J. Thompson, one of the staunchest champions of 

 moral reforms, he spoke in the new Guildhall on a subject 

 Mr. T. had selected : — " How to make the most of both 

 worlds." "Now I am no longer parson, an opening to preach 

 seems very solemn; and seeing the place quite full, and the 

 people very attentive, I went on for an hour and a half, getting 

 in as much sound practical religion as I could in the time. 

 The ministers present thanked me very much : so did the 

 people, who went away very quietly. F. Thompson was much 

 struck with the effect : and I was struck very tired with the 

 spiritual effort." 



