gestive of heaven,
The cup of cold water is generously given,
But a glass of good wine is an obsolete thing,
And will be till trade is once more in full swing!
I hint not hypocrisy; many are true,
They preach what they practise, they say--and they do,
And used from their boyhood to only cold water,
Enjoin nothing better on wife, son, and daughter;
But surely with some it is merely for thrift,
That they out off the wine, and with water make shift,
Although they profess the self-sacrifice made
As dread of intemperance makes them afraid.
And so, like a helmsman too quick with his tiller,
Eschewing Charybdis they steer upon Scylla,
To perish of utter intemperance--Yes!
The victims of water consumed to excess.

"To conclude: The first miracle, wonder Divine,
Wasn't wine changed to water, but water to wine,
That wine of the Kingdom, the water of life
Transmuted, with every new excellence rife,
The wine to make glad both body and soul,
To cheer up the sad, and make the sick whole.
And when the Redeemer was seen among men,
He drank with the sinners and publicans then,
Exemplar of Temperance, yea, to the sot,
In use of good wine, but abusing it not!
We dare not pretend to do better than He;
But follow the Master, as servants made free
To touch, taste, and handle, to use, not abuse,
All good to receive, but all ill to refuse!
It is thus the true Christian with temperance lives,
Giving God thanks for the wine that He gives."

I once heard Mr. Gough, the temperance lecturer: it was at the Brooklyn
Concert Hall in 1877. A handsome and eloquent man, his life is well
known, and that his domestic experiences have made him the good apostle
he is. I remember how well he turned off the argument against himself as
to the miracle of the marriage-feast in Cana of Galilee: "Yes,
certainly, drink as much wine made of water as you can." It was a witty
quip, but is no reply to that miracle of hospitality. _Apropos_,--I do
not know whether or not the following anecdote can be fathered on Mr.
Gough, but it is too good to be lost, especially as it bears upon the
fate of a poor old friend of mine in past days who was fatally a victim
to total abstinence. The story goes that a teetotal lecturer, in order
to give his audience ocular proof of the poisonous character of alcohol,
first magnifies the horrible denizens of sta