Sometimes
there were great disturbances at the meetings, sometimes he was pelted
with rubbish, at times he did not know where to turn for a night's
lodging. It was, on the whole, a fierce conflict; but John was nothing
daunted.
It is, of course, impossible to sum up the amount of a man's
influence. John Cassell scattered the seed of temperance liberally.
Here is a case showing how one of the grains took root, and grew up to
bear important fruit.
The Rev. Charles Garrett, the celebrated teetotal President of the
Wesleyan Conference, writing several years after John Cassell's death,
says:--
"I signed the pledge of total abstinence in 1840, after hearing a
lecture on the subject by the late John Cassell. I have therefore
tried it for more than thirty years. It has been a blessing to me, and
has made me a blessing to others."
How to cure the curse of drink, what to give in its place when the
pleasures of the glass were taken away--that was the problem which
many have tried to solve. None more successfully than John Cassell.
At a meeting in Exeter Hall he suddenly put a new view before his
audience. "I have it!" he exclaimed.
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