to leave my chamber. Digestion is so imperfect that the food
passes unchanged, three or four hours after it has been taken into the
stomach. I am oppressed with phlegm, the presence of which causes pain;
and the expectoration, exhaustion. This is a brief history of my
miseries. Each day brings with it an increase of all my woes. Nor do I
believe that any human creature ever suffered more. Without a special
interposition of Divine Providence, I cannot support so painful an
existence.'

Another thus writes; 'Were I not restrained by _sentiments_ of
_religion_,[16] I should ere this have put an end to my existence;
which is the more insupportable as it is caused by myself.'

'I cannot walk two hundred paces,' says another 'without resting
myself; my feebleness is extreme; I have constant pains in every part
of the body, but particularly in the shoulders and chest. My appetite
is good, but this is a misfortune, since what I eat causes pains in my
stomach, and is vomited up. If I read a page or two, my eyes are filled
with tears and become painful:--I often sigh involuntarily.'

A fourth says; 'I rest badly at night, and am much troubled with
dreams. The lower part of my back is weak, my eyes are often painful,
and my eyelids swelled and red. I have an almost constant cold; and an
oppression at the stomach. In short, I had rather be laid in the silent
tomb, and encounter that dreadful uncertainty, _hereafter_, than remain
in my present unhappy and degraded situation.'

The reader should remember that the persons whose miseries are here
described, were generally sufferers from _hypochondria_. They had not
advanced to the still more horrid stages of palsy, apoplexy, epilepsy,
idiotism, St. Vitus's dance, blindness, or insanity. But they had gone
so far, that another step in the same path, might have rendered a
return impossible.

The reader will spare me the pain of presenting, in detail, any more of
these horrid cases. I write for YOUNG MEN, the strength--the bone,
muscle, sinew, and nerve--of our beloved country. I write for those
who,--though some of them may have erred--are glad to be advised, and
if they deem the advice good, are anxious to follow it. I write, too,
in vain, if it be not for young men who will resolve on reformation,
when they believe that their present and future happiness is at stake.
And, lastly, I have not read correctly the pages in the book of human
nature if I do not write for those who can, w