"But I ax your pardon, friends, for telling you all this.--`Go on,' do you say? Well, I'll go on just for a bit. So you see what a blessing the giving up the drink has been to me and my family. And, what's better still, it's left room for the gospel to enter. It couldn't get in when the strong drink blocked up the road. I'm not going to boast; I should get a tumble, I know, if I did that. It ain't no goodness of mine, I'm well aware of that. It's the Lord's doing, and his blessing on Thomas Bradly's kindness and care for a poor, wretched, ruined sinner like me. But here's the fact: we has the Bible out now every night in our house, and I reads some of the blessed book out loud, and then we all kneels us down and has a prayer; and we goes to church on Sundays, and it's like a little heaven below. Rather different that from what it used to be on the Sabbath-day, when I were singing and drinking with a lot of fellows, and it were all good fellowship one minute, and perhaps a kick into the street or a black eye the next. Ay, and there's many of the old lot as knows the change, and what the Lord's done for me, and they're very mad, some on 'em; but that don't matter, so long as they don't make a madman of me. "But just a word or two for you boys and girls of the Band of Hope afore I sit down.--Now, I've brought with me, by Mr Bradly's leave, something to show you." So saying, he beckoned to a young man, who handed him a small basket. He opened it, and produced a small jar with a brush in it. A half-suppressed murmur of merriment ran through the crowd. "Ah! You know what this is, I see," continued James Barnes. "'Tain't the first time as this has made its appearance in Cricketty Hall. Now, I'm not going to say anything ill-natured about it. As William Foster has said, `let by-gones be by-gones.' It's very good of him to say so, and I only mean to give you a word or two on the subject. This little jar has got tar in it, and tar's a very wholesome and useful thing in its proper place. Now, a few months ago them as shall be nameless meant to daub William all over with this, and feather him afterwards, because he wouldn't break his pledge. A cowardly lot they was to deal so with one man against a dozen of 'em; but that's neither here nor there. I only want you, boys and girls, to take example by William, and stick to your pledge through thick and thin. See how the Lord protected him, and how his worst enemy were caught in his own trap. He were just winding a cord round his own legs when he thought he'd got William's feet fast in the snare. Now, boys and girls, when you're tempted to break the pledge, just think of this jar of tar, and offer up a prayer to be kept firm. 'Twouldn't be a bad thing--specially if you're much in the way of temptation--just to get a jar like this of your own, and hang it up in the wash-house, and put some good fresh tar in it, and, just before you