h great moderation. But the
greatest drinkers we have among us, are usually the first to speak of
their own moderation.

The sequel of the story may easily be guessed. Hezekiah became a
miserable creature, and ere he reached the age of fifty came to a most
miserable end,--the drunkard's death, by the drunkard's mania. Mr. J.
having inherited a strong constitution passed on to sixty-three, when,
like a mighty tree with decayed trunk, a slight wind crushed him to the
dust.

His family, most of them, still survive; but they are daughters, and
have not inherited the vices of their father, so much as his diseases.
They have, at least, inherited the disease which drinking is so apt to
entail on the next generation,--I mean scrofula. Several of Mr. J.'s
elder daughters are already dead; and the younger ones--for he had a
very large family--are feeble, and always will be so; and their children
are still more feeble. Thus "earthward," and not heavenward, "all
things" in the family of the drunkard have a tendency.

How painful the reflection that I did not labor with this family, not
only in season, as I certainly did, but also out of season, and try to
save it! I had influence with them. My honest plainness at my first
visit, above described, did not prevent them from calling on me again
for counsel; though at first I had feared such a result. I was often in
the family, but not so often as I might have been; nor was I so bold as
I ought to have been. Shall I be able to render up my account of the
intercourse I had with them, in the great day, with joy, or must it be
with grief and shame?

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

MY FIRST AMPUTATION.

It is easy in imagination, to be wise, especially at a distance. How
many a surgical operation have I performed _on paper_; or still oftener,
and with more assurance, in my own brain. The difficulties are much
fewer than in the reality.

A fine young man came to me, one day, with a crushed thumb. He had been
at work on a wool-carding machine, and through the most inexcusable
carelessness had suffered his thumb to be drawn in. On a careful
examination, I found the wound to be very severe, and, as I believed,
requiring amputation.

But what could I do? I had no surgical instruments. Young medical men,
in plain country places, are hardly expected to purchase these
conveniences, except perhaps a lancet and the needful instruments for
extracting teeth. I had, however, a keen penknife in my p