THE TEMPERANCE REFORM AND MY CO-WORKERS As stated in the first chapter of this book, I became a teetotaler when I was a child, and I also stated that the first public address I ever delivered was in behalf of temperance.

When I made my first visit to Edinburgh in 1842 I learned that 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.