le to my mind,
rather than believe what I am compelled to believe with regard to the
murderous tendency on soul and body of our murderous modern cookery. Is
it not true--the old adage, that while "God," in his mercy, "sends us
meats, the Devil," in his malignity, "sends us cooks?"

This unnatural cookery,--this mingling medicine with viands naturally
healthful, and torturing the compounds thus formed into sources of
irritation, has more to do with that sensuality which has come upon us
like a flood,--much of it in new forms,--than many are aware. And I am
much mistaken if modern societies for moral reform, popularly so called,
might not thank the over-refined cookery of a gross and highly
stimulating diet, for that necessity which impels to their own field of
labor.

One thing more might have been mentioned in its proper place--the
tendency of high living to eruptions on the skin. These, in their
various forms of pimple, carbuncle, boil, etc., are becoming quite the
order of the day. Mr. Y.'s family had a full share of them, especially
those of them who were scrofulous. I have already mentioned the
appearance of Mr. Y.'s face, and have alluded to the change which took
place after his fall. But I should have spoken of the eruptions on his
face, which, at times, were such as almost made him ashamed to enter the
pulpit.

You will see, from the tenor of these remarks, that I have laid the
guilt, in this sad affair, just where I believe it ought to rest. I have
not sought to exculpate one individual or party, at the expense of
another equally guilty, but rather to do justice to all.

Only one thing remains, which is to confess my _own_ guilt. Have I not
great reason to fear that my advice was not sufficiently pointed and
thorough? I might have gone to Mr. Y. and told him the truth, the whole
truth. What if it had given offence? Would not the prospect of doing
good, rather than of giving offence, have been worth something? In any
event, I do regret most deeply my unfaithfulness, even though it arose
from delicacy and diffidence, for that very delicacy and diffidence were
far enough from being grounded on the love of God. They were grounded
much more on the love of human approbation. No man was ever more free
from it than our Saviour. Ought I not to have used the same plainness
that he would have used? Had I rebuked Mrs. Y. as kindly and as
faithfully as he rebuked Martha at Bethany, how much, for ought I can
ever know, m