look a little strangely and suspiciously at me;
ugly sayings reached my ears; the congregation began to thin. At last I
received a letter from a Christian man of my flock, telling me that
himself and many others were pained with the fear that I was beginning
to exceed the bounds of strict temperance: he urged total abstinence at
once; he was a total abstainer himself. I was startled--prostrated--
humbled to the very dust. I reflected on the quantity of intoxicants I
was now taking _daily_, and I shuddered. I thanked my friendly adviser
with tears, and promised to return to strict moderation. Total
abstinence I would not hear of; it was quite out of the question. I
could no more do without alcoholic stimulants then than I can do now."

He paused, and fixed a peculiar look on Mr Oliphant; who, however, did
not, or would not, understand it. So he went on:--

"I tried moderation; but it would not do. I prayed for strength to be
moderate; but I know _now_ that I never really desired what I prayed
for. It was too late to be moderate; my lust had got the bit between
its teeth, and I might as well have pulled at the wind. I went from bad
to worse. Desertion, disgrace, ruin, all followed. Everything has
gone--church, home, money, books, clothes--the drink has had them all,
and would have them again if they were mine at this moment. For some
years past I have been a roaming beggar, such as you found me when you
picked me up in the road."

He said all this with very little emotion; and then lay back, wearied
with his exertions in speaking.

"And have you any--" The rector did not know how to finish the sentence
which he had begun after a long pause.

"Have I any family? you would ask," said the other. "I had once. I had
a wife and little child; my only child--a little girl. Well, I suppose
she's better off. She pined and pined when there was next to nothing to
eat in the house; and they tell me--for I was not at home when she
died--that she said at the last, `I'm going to Jesus; they are not
hungry where he is.' Poor thing!"

"And your wife?" exclaimed Bernard, his blood running cold at the tone
of indifference in which this account was given.

"Oh, my wife? Ah, we did not see much of one another after our child's
death! I was often from home; and once, when I returned, I found that
she was gone: they had buried her in my absence. She died--so they
said--of a broken heart. Poor thing! it is not unlikel