Religious society was not quite so corrupt in the principal towns of the
Hanley circuit, where I was next stationed, as at Liverpool and Chester,
yet there was a fearful amount of respectable intemperance there. There
was no end to the feasting. And as I, though so young, was very popular,
I was always expected to be present. The luxuries in which I indulged
brought on indigestion. Indigestion, and close study, and hard work in
the pulpit, brought on a most wearisome languor and depression. To help
me, one rich friend sent me a bottle of Sherry wine. Another sent me
Elderberry wine. These made me worse. It was well this mistaken kindness
did not ruin me. But I was preserved, thank God, both from death and
drunkenness.
For two years more I was in the midst of these awful temptations to
intemperance, and a witness to their deadly effects on several of my
brethren. I felt that I was in danger. And I saw that the church was
suffering. I looked round for a remedy.
Just then there came rumors of a temperance society, and of attempts at
a temperance reformation. One of our young preachers had joined this
new society, and had labelled his whisky and brandy _medicine_. He left
his beer, and porter, and wine, unlabelled, and drank them as freely as
before.
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