n, some of them, at least, will be terminable
only, in their effects, with life itself?

My patient is _patiently_ wearing out her ills; and what she cannot wear
out, she is learning to endure. Her case cannot be reached with
medicine, at least with safety, and is only to be affected, so far as
affected at all, by yielding the most unflinching obedience to the laws
of God, physical and moral. She will not die of consumption; she will
live on; but how much progress she may be able to make towards the land
of life and health, is by no means certain. Her case is, at best, a
trying one, and must compel us, whenever we reflect on the subject, to
say, "Who hath woe, if not persons situated like this widow?"[J]

FOOTNOTES:

[I] She was not aware that king's evil, or scrofula, is oftentimes the
parent of consumption.

[J] Since this chapter was written, I have had the pleasure of learning
from a reliable source that the young woman above referred to is now
enjoying comparatively good health. She married a second time, a year or
two afterwards; and by following out the course prescribed, and with the
blessing of Heaven, she came at length to her present position of
usefulness and happiness.

CHAPTER LXXV.

THE PENALTY OF SELF-INDULGENCE.

The thought that a minister of the gospel can be gluttonous is so
painful that, after selecting as the caption to the present chapter, "A
gluttonous minister," I concluded to modify it. Perhaps, after all, it
might be as well in the end, to call things by their proper names.
However, we will proceed, as we have set out, for this once.

A minister about forty years of age came to me one day, deeply involved
in all the midnight horrors of dyspepsia.

On investigating his case, I found it one of the most trying I had ever
met with. It was not only trying in itself, in the particular form and
shape it assumed, but it had been rendered much more troublesome and
unmanageable by injudicious medical treatment.

My course was a plain one, and I proceeded cautiously to prescribe for
him--not medicine, for in my judgment he needed none, but simply a
return to the physical laws he had so long and so palpably violated.
These laws I endeavored briefly to recall to his attention. As he was an
intelligent man, I dealt with him in the most plain and direct manner.

Some two or three weeks afterward he called on me again, saying that he
was no better. I repeated my prescription, only more pa