till retained its sway, in greater or less degree, and whenever he was
not awed by my presence, he would indulge himself in the use of things
which he knew were injurious to him, as well as in the excessive, not to
say gluttonous, use of such good things as were tolerated. He
occasionally confessed his impotence, and begged us to keep every thing
out of his way, even those remnants which were designed for the domestic
animals!

And yet, after all, strange to say, he absented himself very frequently,
as if to seek places of retirement, where he could indulge his
tyrannical appetite. I saw most clearly his danger, and spoke to him
concerning it. I appealed to his fears, to his hopes, to his conscience.
I reminded him of the love he bore to humanity, and the regard he had
for Divinity.

Once more, being partly recruited, he resumed his labors as a teacher.
This was doubtless a wrong measure, and yet I was not aware of the error
at the time, or I should not have encouraged the movement, or assisted
him as I did in procuring a situation. But I then thought he had been
punished so effectually for his transgressions, that he would at length
be wise. Besides he was exceedingly anxious to be at work, and to avoid
dependence, a desire in which his friends participated, and in regard to
which they were so unwise as to express their over anxiety in his
hearing.

Three months in the school-house found him worse than ever before. He
had attempted to board himself, to subsist on a very few ounces of
"Graham wafers" at each meal, and to be an hour in masticating it. As an
occasional compensation for this, however, a sort of _treating
resolution_, he allowed himself to pick up the crusts and other
fragments left about the school-house by his pupils, and when he had
collected quite a pile of these, to indulge his appetite with them, _ad
libitum_. Nor was this all. He erred in other particulars, perhaps in
many.

He came to my house a fourth time, but my situation was such that I
could not well receive him. He staid only a day or two, but his
residence with us was long enough to enable me to mark the progress of
his case, and to deplore what I feared must be the final issue. From me
he went to a friend in an adjoining State; not, however, till he had
alluded to certain errors of his recent life that he had not yet
devulged, even to his best friend. "Doctor," said he, "there are some
things that I have not yet told you about."

To m