ndeed, notwithstanding all my
caution, I was hurried into the pedagogic chair quite too soon.

But it is time for me to inform my readers what were the probable causes
of my sickness; for I have already said, more than once, that to be able
to do this is a matter of very great importance, both as it concerns
ourselves and others; and it is a thing which can be done, at least to a
considerable extent, whenever parents and teachers shall be wise enough
to put their children and pupils upon the right track. I am well
acquainted with a minister of the gospel, now nearly sixty years of age,
who says he never had any thing ail him in his whole lifetime of which
he could not trace out the cause.

For some months before my sickness I had been curtailing my hours of
sleep. I had resolved to retire at eleven and rise at four. But it had
often happened that instead of retiring at exactly eleven and rising
exactly at four, I had not gone to bed till nearly twelve, and had risen
as early as half-past three. So that instead of sleeping five full
hours, as had been my original intention, I had often slept but about
four.

How far this abridgment of my sleep had fallen in with other causes of
debility, and thus prepared the way for severe, active disease, I cannot
say. I was at this time tasking my energies very severely, for I was not
only pursuing my professional studies with a good deal of earnestness,
but at the same time, as has been already intimated, teaching a large
and somewhat unmanageable district school. If ever a good supply of
sleep is needful, whatever the quantum required may really be, I am sure
it is in such circumstances.

But then it should be remembered, in abatement of all this, that the
symptoms of disease, in all the three cases which I have alluded to, as
occurring in the family with which I was connected, were very much
alike; whereas neither the mother nor the child had suffered, prior to
the sickness, for want of sleep. Must we not, therefore, look for some
other cause? Or if it is to be admitted that sleeplessness is
exceedingly debilitating in its tendencies, must there not have been in
addition some exciting cause still more striking? We will see.

During the latter part of the autumn which preceded our sickness, the
water of the well from which we were drinking daily had a very
unpleasant odor, and a fellow student and myself often spoke of it. As
it appeared to give offence, however, we gradually l