Temperance Hymn Book and Minstrel: A Collection of Hymns, Songs and Odes for Temperance Meetings and Festivals by MARSH, John - 1841

New-York: American Temperance Union, 1841. First Edition. 12mo (14.5cm.); publisher's cloth-back printed card wrappers; 108pp. Wrappers rather worn, small chip at spine foot, textblock partly detached from spine, textblock quite soiled, else Good and sound. Hymn book by the temperance reformer John Marsh (1788-1868), whose own first experiences of intoxication took place as a young child while drinking "flip" to keep warm during the frigid days in the Connecticut meeting house ("Well do I remember...crying in meeting from the cold...and holding on to my chair after drinking the FLIP till my head became steady" (cf. DAB 12, p. 300). Swept up in the temperance movement that was beginning to gain popularity at the turn of the 19th century, Marsh accepted the post of secretary of the newly-founded Connecticut Temperance Society in 1829. By the mid-1830s Marsh was named editor of the national press of the American Temperance Union and it was while acting in this capacity that the present work was compiled.