hat a temperance society of that city was
about to go over to Glasgow to greet the celebrated Father Theobald
Mathew, who was making his first visit to Scotland. I joined my
Edinburgh friends, and on arriving in Glasgow we found a multitude of
over fifty thousand people assembled on the green. In an open barouche,
drawn by four horses, stood a short, stout Irishman, with a handsome,
benevolent countenance, and attired in a long black coat with a silver
medal hanging upon his breast. After the procession, headed by his
carriage, had forced its way through the densely thronged street, it
halted in a small open square. Father Mathew dismounted, and began to
administer the pledge of abstinence to those who were willing to receive
it. They kneeled on the ground in platoons; the pledge was read aloud to
them; Father Mathew laid his hands upon them and pronounced a
benediction. From the necks of many a small medal attached to a cord was
suspended. In this rapid manner the pledge was administered to many
hundreds of persons within an hour, and fresh crowds continually came
forward.

When I was introduced to the good man as an American, he spoke a few
kind words and gave me an "apostolic kiss" upon my cheek. As I was about
to make the first public speech of my life, I suppose that I may regard
that act of the great Irish apostle as a sort of ordination to the
ministry of preaching the Gospel of total abstinence. The administration
of the pledge was followed by a grand meeting of welcome in the city
hall. Father Mathew spoke with modest simplicity and deep emotion,
attributing all his wonderful success to the direct blessings of God
upon his efforts to persuade his fellow-men to throw off the despotism
of the bottle. After delivering my maiden speech I hastened back to
Edinburgh with the deputation from "Auld Reekie," and I never saw Father
Mathew again. He was, unquestionably, the most remarkable temperance
reformer who has yet appeared. While a Catholic priest in Cork, a Quaker
friend, Mr. Martin, who met him in an almshouse, said to him, "Father
Theobald, why not give thyself to the work of saving men from the
drink?" Father Mathew immediately commenced his enterprise. It spread
over Ireland like wildfire. It is computed that no less than five
millions of people took the pledge of total abstinence from intoxicating
poisons by his influence. The revolution wrought in his day, in his own
time and country, was marvellous, and, to