My
hideous procession of the damned is always there to importune me; I
gathered the dolorous recruits who form the procession when I was
dwelling in strange, darkened ways, and I know that only the magnetism
of the human soul could ever have saved one of them. If anybody fancies
that Gothenburg systems, or lectures, or little tiresome tracts, or
sloppy yarns about "Joe Tomkins's Temperance Turkey," or effusive
harangues by half-educated buffoons, will ever do any good, he must run
along the ranks of my procession with me, and I reckon he may learn
something. The comic personages who deal with the subject are cruelly
useless; the very notion of making jokes in presence of such a mighty
living Terror seems desolating to the mind; I could not joke over the
pest of drink, for I had as lief dance a hornpipe to the blare of the
last Trumpet.
I said you must have men who _know_, if you care to rescue any tempted
creature. You must also have men who address the individual and get fast
hold of his imagination; abstractions must be completely left alone, and
your workers must know so much of the minute details of the horror
against which they are fighting that each one who comes under their
influence shall feel as if the story of his life were known and his soul
laid bare.
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