While lecturing at Frankford, Pennsylvania, February 18, 1886, he was stricken down with cerebral apoplexy and lapsed into unconsciousness, soon followed by death. He had just uttered the words “Young man, keep your record clean.”
WATER AND RUM.
The following apostrophe on Water and execration on Rum, by Mr. John B. Gough, was never published in full till after his death. He furnished it to a young friend many years ago, who promised not to publish it while he was on the lecture platform.
ATER! There is no poison in that cup; no fiendish spirit dwells beneath those crystal drops to lure you and me and all of us to ruin; no spectral shadows play upon its waveless surface; no widows’ groans or orphans’ tears rise to God from those placid fountains; misery, crime, wretchedness, woe, want, and rags come not within the hallowed precincts where cold water reigns supreme. Pure now as when it left its native heaven, giving vigor to our youth, strength to our manhood, and solace to our old age. Cold water is beautiful and bright and pure everywhere. In the moonlight fountains and the sunny rills; in the warbling brook and the giant river; in the deep tangled wildwood and the cataract’s spray; in the hand of beauty or on the lips of manhood—cold water is beautiful everywhere.
Rum! There is a poison in that cup. There is a serpent in that cup whose sting is madness and whose embrace is death. There dwells beneath that smiling surface a fiendish spirit which for centuries has been wandering over the earth, carrying on a war of desolation and destruction against mankind, blighting and mildewing the noblest affections of the heart, and corrupting with its foul breath the tide of human life and changing the glad, green earth into a lazar house. Gaze on it! But shudder as you gaze! Those sparkling drops are murder in disguise; so quiet now, yet widows’ groans and orphans’ tears and maniacs’ yells are in that cup. The worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched are in that cup.
Peace and hope and love and truth dwell not within that fiery circle where dwells that desolating monster which men call rum. Corrupt now as when it left its native hell, giving fire to the eye, madness to the brain, and ruin to the soul. Rum is vile and deadly and accursed everywhere. The poet would liken it in its fiery glow to the flames that flicker around the abode of the damned. The theologian would point you to the drunkard’s doom, while the historian would unfold the dark record of the past and point you to the fate of empires and kingdoms lured to ruin by the siren song of the tempter, and sleeping now in cold obscurity, the wrecks of what once were great, grand and glorious. Yes, rum is corrupt and vile and deadly, and accursed everywhere. Fit type and semblance of all earthly corruption!
Part II.
Base art thou yet, oh, Rum, as when the wise man warned us of thy power and bade us flee thy enchantment. Vile art thou yet as when thou first went forth on thy unholy mission—filling earth with desolation and madness, woe and anguish. Deadly art thou yet as when thy envenomed tooth first took fast hold on human hearts, and thy serpent tongue first drank up the warm life-blood of immortal souls. Accursed art thou yet as when the bones of thy first victim rotted in a damp grave, and its shriek echoed along the gloomy caverns of hell. Yes, thou infernal spirit of rum, through all past time hast thou been, as through all coming time thou shalt be, accursed everywhere.