Transcript from original newspaper article: -

A PASSAGE FROM GOUGH

We had the pleasure of listening to Mr. Gough’s masterly address, delivered in the city of Albany, on the 24th of October 1855. He concluded with this beautiful and inspiring passage. Let every worker read it, and go the work anew: - “Of those who began this work, some are living to-day; and I should like to stand now and see the mighty enterprise as it rises before them. They worked hard. They lifted the first turf – prepared the bed in which to lay the corner stone. They laid in amid persecution and storm. They worked under the surface and men almost forgot that they were busy hard laying the solid foundation far down beneath. By-and-by the got the foundation above the surface, and there commenced another storm of persecution. Now you see the superstructure, pillar after pillar, tower after tower, column after column, with the capitals emblazoned – “Love, truth, sympathy, and good will to all men.” Old men gaze upon it as it grows up before them. They will not live to see it completed; but they see in faith the crowning copestone set upon it. Meek eyed women weep as it grows in beauty; children strew the pathway of the workmen with flowers. We do not see its beauty yet – we do not see the magnificence of the superstructure yet – because it is in course of erection. Scaffolding, ropes, ladders, workmen ascending and descending, mar the beauty of the building; but by-and-by, when the hosts who have laboured shall come up over a thousand battle-fields waving with bright grain, never again to be crushed in the distilled – through vineyards, under trellised vines with grapes hanging in all their purpled glory, never again to be pressed into that which can debase and degrade mankind: when they shall come through orchards, under trees hanging thick with golden pulpy fruit, never to be turned into that which can injure and debase – which they shall come up to the last distillery and destroy to the last stream of liquid death and dry it up, to the last weeping wife and wipe her tears gently away, the last little child and lift him up to stand where God meant that mankind should stand; to the last drunkard and nerve him to burst the burning fetters, and make a glorious accompaniment to the song of freedom by the clanking of his broken chains – then, ah! they will the cope-stone be set upon it, the scaffolding will fall with a crash, and the building will start in its wondrous beauty before an astonished world.”

Glasgow Christian News