Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/309

269 CHAMBERS, KNIGHT, A$D CASSELL. 26$ the Preston Temperance Advocate : "John Cassell, the Manchester carpenter, has been labouring with great success in the county of Norfolk. He is passing through Essex on his way to London. He carries his watchman's rattle an excellent accompaniment of temperance labours." A strange life that gaunt young prophet must have led ; trudging about from town to village, sounding an alarum ever as he went with his rattle, seeking by all means in his power to rivet a momentary attention, and then from barrel-head or tree-stump preaching in his broad Lancashire idiom a " New Crusade " not against such puny foes and nations as Turk or Saracen not of mere battles to be fought out by the exertion of so much or so little physical strength but of hideous vices to be con- quered vices that sat like skeletons beside half the hearths in England then and of noble mental vic- tories to be achieved. The women heard his rude eloquence, and tears rushed to their eyes, as they prayed that their brothers and sons might hearken and be convinced. The men paused on their way to the pot-house, and heard how homes now desolate might be made happy, how the weeping wife and the starving children might be rendered contented and cheerful, how their own sodden lives might be again cleansed and brightened ; then independence rose again from the hideous thrall that bound them, and many paused for ever. Even those who knew the proper use of alcohol listened with respectful attention to one who sought so earnestly to provide a safeguard for other men weaker than themselves. And thus Cassell trudged on, meeting often with scoffs and sneers, suffering much weariness and many priva- tions, but still hopeful, eager, and earnest In