refused to take the first step
in the way of reformation.

I saw him, by accident, once more, and would have spoken with him
freely; but he seemed to shun every thing beyond a merely passing
compliment. I saw how it was with him; and the reflections which arose
in my mind gave me the most intense pain.

Two or three weeks afterward, while in an intimate and confidential
conversation with two of his very familiar friends, I ventured to
predict his fall, with nearly as much particularity as if the events
which were predicted had already taken place. I was asked how I dared to
say such things, even in secret, of so good a man and such a father in
the American Church. So I gave them, by way of reply, the principal
facts in the case, as detailed above.

Not many years passed ere this very minister was tried for a crime much
more high-handed than gluttony, though sometimes the sequel to it; and
not only tried, but silenced. The results of the trial were as shocking
to most people as they were unexpected. Every one said: "How can it be?"

Mr. Y. became a farmer, and is still so. But he is cured of his
dyspepsia. Compelled, as I have reason to believe he is, to practise the
most rigid economy, having very little temptation to unlawful
indulgence, and having an abundance of healthful exercise in the open
air, he has every appearance, externally, of a reformed man. His old
friends would, I think, hardly know him. His skin is as clear, and his
eyes and nose as physiologically correct in their appearance, as yours
or mine. True, he is an old man, but he is not a gluttonous old man. He
is a fallen man, but a healthy, and, I hope, a penitent one. He has
experienced a species of first resurrection, and has, I trust, the hope
of a better one still.

Now, had this man believed, in the first place, that the fault of his
dyspepsia was not wholly chargeable on Mrs. Y., but also on
himself,--had he clearly seen that he loved high living, and would not
relinquish it,--he might have been reformed without a dreadful and
scathing ordeal, and without disgracing the cause of his Divine Master,
But alas! "the woman that thou gavest to be with me," as he said, was in
fault; and so he did not reform himself.

That his wife was in fault, most deeply, I do not deny. She knew her
husband's weakness, and yet continued to place before him those
temptations which she well knew were too strong for him. How she could
do this, and persist in doing it,