ments in legislation, none
of which has been so conclusive as to satisfy all students of the
subject that any later law is, on the whole, more usefully effective
than the original statutes of the Puritan colonies.[288:1]

In 1840 the temperance reformation received a sudden forward impulse
from an unexpected source. One evening a group of six notoriously hard
drinkers, coming together greatly impressed from a sermon of that noted
evangelist, Elder Jacob Knapp, pledged themselves by mutual vows to
total abstinence; and from this beginning went forward that
extraordinary agitation known as "the Washingtonian movement." Up to
this time the aim of the reformers had been mainly directed to the
prevention of drunkenness by a change in social customs and personal
habits. Now there was suddenly opened a door of hope to the almost
despair of the drunkard himself. The lately reformed drunkards of
Baltimore set themselves to the reforming of other drunkards, and these
took up the work in their turn, and reformation was extended in a
geometrical progression till it covered the country. Everywhere meetings
were held, to be addressed by reformed drunkards, and new recruits from
the gutter were pushed forward to tell their experience to the admiring
public, and sent out on speaking tours. The people were stirred up as
never before on the subject of temperance. There was something very
Christian-like in the method of this propagation, and hopeful souls
looked forward to a temperance millennium as at hand. But fatal faults
in the work soon discovered themselves. Among the new evangelists were
not a few men of true penitence and humility, like John Hawkins, and one
man at least of incomparable eloquence as well as Christian earnestness,
John B. Gough. But the public were not long in finding that merely to
have wallowed in vice and to be able to tell ludicrous or pathetic
stories from one's experience was not of itself sufficient qualification
for the work of a public instructor in morals. The temperance platform
became infested with swaggering autobiographers, whose glory was in
their shame, and whose general influence was distinctly demoralizing.
The sudden influx of the tide of enthusiasm was followed by a disastrous
ebb. It was the estimate of Mr. Gough that out of six hundred thousand
reformed drunkards not less than four hundred and fifty thousand had
relapsed into vice. The same observer, the splendor of whose eloquence
was well ma