with mud, his face bruised, bleeding, and altogether presenting one of the most pitiable spectacles I ever saw. We laid him upon a sofa, washed his bruises, and waited for him to become sober. I soon discovered that my miserable patient was the Rev. James Moreton. Mr. Arnott had found him in the street, staggering bleeding along, and surrounded by a mob of boys. Arnott called a cab and put him in, and he immediately sunk down insensible. Of course we could learn nothing respecting the circumstances that led to this degradation. He awoke next morning to shame, remorse and horror, of which no one can form any adequate conception, unless he has passed through a similar experience. I went early into his room. He was ill at ease in my pres. ence, and asked me for pen, ink and paper. The next evening a servant that I had sent to attend him brought me the following letter:

"MY DEAR SIR :-The circumstances which have made me your guest fill me with unutterable shame. But before you condemn me entirely, allow me to speak to you as a friend, as a brother; and let me entreat you to consider that you too are a man-a fellow worm- -that you may be tempted and fall-and how would you wish a brother to act toward you if you were now as I am. Look at me, my friend, for such you have shown yourself to be, by giving me shelter from a world that points a dagger at my every pore. You see me weak as an infant, morally and physically-fallen, oh, how low! from as proud an eminence as you occupy to-day. Let me tell you a little of my history: a little it must be, though it seem much, for no one's life was ever wholly revealed. Could I speak of myself alone, I would speak fully and freely, but my life is interwoven with other lives, and their shame and sorrow, though mine to a sad degree, is not mine to reveal. But to you I can speak more freely; than to another, for your studies as a physician have long since made you aware that the quality of our life, and that of our ancestors, is indicated always by our diseases. When once nature's vast manual of sign language can be read, hypocrisy will be as vain as impossible. Then the sinner who keeps within the routine of custom will no longer point his finger at his fellow saying, Stand thou by for I am holier than thou.' Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin,' will be

6

the hand-writing on the wall,' against every creature, and parents will learn that their diseases may be their children's crimes. I do not say this, my dear sir, to justify myself. I am broken and destroyed. My standing-place in the world is gone forever. Ruined and lost, I will speak a few words of truth and hide myself, that men may forget me, and then they will not point the finger of scorn at me. 1 was born of diseased parents. The world had disappointed them, and worse yet they had wholly disappointed each other. My mother lived many years, before and after my birth, under the influence of wine and opium. She took them as medicines, and the Church and the world pitied, rather than blamed, one who was considered a pattern of piety. But the blessed fountain of my life was poisoned, and I drank in with my mother's milk the serpent that has stung, and crushed and destroyed me. Oh, my mother! fair, and beautiful, and loving wast thou to me, and I feel that I am tearing the veil of the tomb and desecrating thy sacred dust-but not profanely do I this. Mothers must hear these things. You, my dear Doctor, must warn them, as you so well can, and if one life of suffering such as mine is prevented, angels must rejoice. The precepts of piety which I received from my mother sunk deep into my heart. An ambition was aroused in me to do good, and I resolved to educate myself for the ministry, at whatever cost or sacrifice. It is written in the very constitution of things, that perseverance shall be forever a kind of limited omnipotence. Though my parents were poor, and could afford me very little assistance, I succeeded in obtaining a classical education, ordination, and a devoted people. I married. I must drop the veil of eternal silence over this portion of my life. Suffice it to say, that weakness, and sadness, and trial, resulted in a confirmed state of ill-health, for which my physican recommended stimulants. I knew, from some excesses in my early life, that so sure as I took his prescription great evil would be the result, but I was too weak to resist the cravings of my diseased system. I took the prescribed remedies. For a time I strove to flatter myself that I was better, but I was followed continually by an internal conviction that no new fire was added to my being. I had but kindled a strange fire which should ultimately consume me. I soon found that I could produce a marked

effect in my pulpit efforts by the use of stimulants. I loved fame, and I now came to love it more than life, and I was reckless as to the expense to my health. I cared not if I threw away a year's health in the preparation of one sermon, so that it produced the impression that I wished. I drank in praise with greediness. I sought every form of mental, moral, and material stimulus. If I could have distilled the air, and breathed only pure oxygen, I would gladly have done it, such was my mania for power. Strange as it may seem, I was satisfied with homage, or nearly so. But my home, my every-day life, the miserable Monday that I could not blot from the week! Oh, my dear sir, I turn from the contemplation of my life with indescribable loathing! I am happier to-day than when thus deceiving my people and the world as to my real character. Oh, the moral incubus of a lie upon the conscience, daily lived! It clutches the vitals with fingers of fire, and any open reality is better than the life that we feign, and the exposure that we fear. Time like a wounded snake dragged its slow length along.' I hated myself for seeming what I was not, for 1 had become, in no very long time, a drunkard. And yet I stood before my people as one to be revered and imitated. My constitution must have been originally very strong, for I sustained myself and performed my pastoral duties during four seemingly interminable years. That Fourth of July oration which introduced me to you, my dear sir, was the last weight in the balance against me. I sunk in the illness from which your kind care rescued me. I now saw that I could neither labor, nor blind my friends as formerly. I determined to travel, for the ostensible purpose of recovering my health, but really because I saw no way to turn. I realized the truth of the poet's words:

'Each way I fly is hell,

And in the lowest depths a lower deep,
Still threatening to devour me,
Opens wide.'

"I spent nearly two years in visiting different cities, and though decidedly and painfully ill, I produced a great effect in all places where I labored. I still used stimulants in as large quantities as I could and conceal the fact from those about me. A second attack of brain fever again brought me to the verge of the grave. After several weeks of intense suffering I

began slowly to recover. I had been so long thrown upon the care of the people where I fell ill, that I felt the necessity of laboring as soon as possible. Add to this, I had reason to think that they had not perfect confidence in me. Oh, the dagger of distrust, how it pierced through and through my heart! and I left my hospitable care-takers as soon as I was able to ride. My next field of labor was Washington, D. C. I recollect the painful effort with which I made myself ready to appear in the pulpit there for the first time. My eyes were weak, my face was glazed and red, and my whole appearance, with the exception of my hand, was revolting. I knew that fame and bread depended on my acceptance with the people. I knew that I must nerve myself to overcome all my difficulties, and not the least formidable was a threadbare wardrobe. I smoothed my hat carefully with a silk handkerchief; I sponged my coat with alcohol; I turned my cravat, and rejoiced in the decency of my boots, after they had been through the hands of a professional boot-black. I bathed my face and eyes for a long time, but the blood would not leave my face. I became so exhausted with the necessary exertion, that I fell half fainting upon my bed within fifteen minutes of the time that I must leave for the church. It seemed to me an impossibility for me to support myself through the preliminary exercises, to say nothing of the sermon. I was in an agony of despair, yet half fainting with weakness. I was amongst strangers at a hotel. I must preach, or how should I get bread for the present hour, or sustain my wife and children? I could not tell my horrible secret to any one. There was no balm in Gilead, and no physician there for ills like mine. In the misery of the moment I rose, seized a bottle of cologne, and drank a large draught of it. I was almost instantly exhilarated. I felt an unnatural strength. I walked without the least effort, when ten minutes before it had seemed impossible for me to lift my hand or take a step. 1 had selected one of my most impassioned sermons-one which I had written when I was so far intoxicated that I could not have spoken plainly. I entered the church. Soft music breathed around me-everything seemed radiant with reflected light. My intoxication lasted till the services were nearly over. I walked with trembling and unsteady steps to my hotel. My fortune was

made by this most desperate and successful effort. Calls and invitations poured in upon me. I was feted and flattered to the last degree for some four weeks; and I had good hopes that my fatal secret was not discovered. But I was morbidly sensitive to all impressions, and I at length felt, or fancied, that distrust had entered the minds of some of those with whom I met. I was ill, exhausted and depressed to the last degree that could allow the least exertion, and yet another Sabbath was approaching, and again I must appear before an audience that inspired me with a mortal terror. I dared not look any one in the face. I felt, like Cain, that every one who should see me would slay me. And yet I must go into the pulpit and speak to this people. I shuddered and shrunk from the work before me, but it must be done. I went into the pulpit again, trembling with weakness and fear, and the most indefinable dread of all things. I had drunk wine and brandy, and I had smoked till the atmosphere of my room was palpable. But all my efforts availed nothing I could not rouse myself-I sunk lower and lower every moment. A dying sickness came over me, and I never could tell how I reached the pulpit; but I found my self there, and read a hymn with which I was familiar, hardly seeing a word of it. I rose to pray-I could not begin, and had my salvation depended on my praying for it, I could not have done it. I repeated the Lord's Prayer, and read my sermon. The contrast between its burning words, and my calm feeble enunciation must have been startling. Strong men wept, and the whole audience was melted into one great heart. It was a triumph of which power might have been proud. Senators and men of mark' listened to me with absorbed attention; they hung breathlessly upon my words, and I am sure but one feeling prevailed when I closed—a feeling of sorrow that the sermon was ended. I know this to be true, for it came to me afterward from an authority that I could not doubt. When I left the desk several whom I thought had distrusted me, took me by the hand. Half blinded with weakness and pain I dragged myself to my hotel. How I could ascend the stairs was my only thought. My feet seemed to me to weigh tons. Fortunately I encountered a waiter, told him I was ill, and begged his assistance, and thus reached my room. I ordered some brandy as soon

as possible, and drank a large quantity in eager haste. My brain reeled-my life became a blank.

"When I recovered my senses I was in bed. A lady sat by my side weeping most bitterly. My memory was gone. I only knew the present. I asked the lady why she grieved, with a very earnest sympathy. At first she could not answer me, but after some time she said, whilst her tears fell fast, and her utterance was broken by many sobs, I grieve that every earthly hope and promise must be disappointed.' I pondered the answer, and on a sudden the conviction that she referred to me flashed across my mind. Slowly my recollection returned; I became conscious where I was, what I was; and I remembered the last act before I lost my consciousness. I looked up and said, 'O woman! last at the cross, and earliest at the tomb! I am not wholly forsaken. Tell me all, I beg you. Indeed I can bear it. reality must be better than the dread that has haunted my life so long.'

Any

"She told me as gently, as kindly as possible, that I had been found intoxicated directly after the public worship, on Sunday, that I had attacked and wounded the waiter who discovered me, he having answered an insane ringing of my bell. I had thrown my empty brandy decanter at him, and made some other offensive demonstrations, and had then sunk in drunken apoplexy, from which, after three days' insensibility, I had just recovered. I heard all this in the still calm of despair. Nothing worse could come to me. I had nothing to fear, for death was a blessing too great for me to pray for.

Miss Thornton was one of those whose only blessing is to bless others. She had lived what the world calls a self-sacrificing life, because she had given her time and sympathy and money to the distressed. But she obeyed the law of her being, and any other life would have been indeed a sacrifice to her. She had come to me as soon as she heard of my exposure, and had assisted the physician in his efforts to relieve me of the poison of the alcohol. With a care and kindness that seemed superhuman to me, she watched over me and counseled me. I was utterly helpless. I had no money, no strength, no character. I had lost my all; and in the very hour when the

Christian kindness of the Church was most needed, I received-not a call from a Christian friend-not help or sympathy —but a letter from one of the Board of Trustees of the Church, simply informing me that after what had happened they could not again open the church to me.'

"I thought of my paternal home-of my mother. She would be heart-broken, but I must go to her. No one seemed to think me worth any attention now, but Miss Thornton. To the many I had been a sort of prodigy, to fill their inane life with wonder and praise; and now gossip and scandal took the place of these, and I, though the fruitful theme of conversation, might have sunk into hell without their lifting a hand, or raising a prayer for me. Forgive me, my dear sir, if I speak strongly. I have suffered too deeply to speak otherwise. But Miss Thornton was my guardian angel. She advised, directed and assisted me, and I clung to her as an infant to its mother. God gave her to my need. I left the city as soon as possible for the home of my mother, who resided in northern New York. It seemed impossible for me to travel in my extremely feeble condition, but it was a greater impossibility to remain where I was. I loathed and dreaded everything about me, and I was really conscious of only one wish, viz., to escape from Washington. I did not then realize that I might change the place and keep the pain.' When I parted from Miss Thornton, and received from her hands money to bear my expenses home, I was in a deep stupor; but the fountain of my tears was unsealed, and I wept. There was something like relief in being able to weep. I thought, Miss Thornton will not think me wholly lost, for I can yet weep.

"For a time after I entered the coach I remained in the state of stupor, then I was aroused by persons conversing respecting me. The voices were those of my friends at a distance-my wife's relatives-and, what may seem strange, I learned afterwards that they were really saying at this time the very words which I heard them say, though they were 200 miles distant. I listened to their revilings till I was maddened, for I supposed that all my fellow-passengers heard the I endured in silence as long as possible, and then started to call the driver, or jump out of the coach. In a moment I felt my throat grasped, and

same.

looking up I saw a frightful red eye glaring upon me from a bright green cheek. The man to whom this horrible cheek and eye belonged, was small, and dressed in snuff-colored clothes, and one of his feet was like the foot of an ox. I never once doubted its being a real bodily presence: I no more thought that it was a hallucination, or an optical illusion, than I now think it was real. I struggled to disengage the hand, but it was impossible-though when I was perfectly still the pressure was relaxed.. I knew that I was throttled by the Devil, and I strove to devise some way to get loose. Presently he began to talk to me. He taunted me with my holy office, and the lying life that I had led.

"Even the Devil,' said he, would have loathed such a life. You to profess to stand between man and his Maker, and teach the heavenward way, when the reeking steam from your poisoned body, and still more miserably poisoned spirit, rose up the very smoke from the bottomless pit; and your fellow-men must breathe the moral and material poison that surrounds you; and do not think that they can escape unscathed from its influence. Know, vile fool, if one being on the earth were exhaling moral and physical pollution, all beings near or remote must absorb their disease and sin.' I tried to speak, but he grasped my throat so firmly, that I could only breathe with the greatest difficulty, and he went on: You thought that it was enough to talk of heaven, and conceal your sin. But men are never saved by shams, and such a vile sham as you is fit only for ME,' and he pressed my throat till I fell forward in a fit. But I cannot tell the half of the horrors that beset me on this terrible journey. God only knows how I survived it. That fiery eye was always fixed on me, and my throat was never free for a moment, though at times there was somewhat less of the pressure. I cannot speak of my home. My mother is at rest now. saw me a blasted wretch. She knew that she had given me the appetite that had destroyed me—and she died.

She

"The stunning blow of my mother's death, the soothing influences of home, joined with the effect of a revival, kept me entirely abstinent from stimulants for a considerable time. At length I gained so much strength, that I began to think