Anderson, "I have only two boys. My oldest went West
several years ago, and never writes to us unless he wants something, and
as to Frank, if I would put the concern into his hands, he would drink
himself into the grave in less than a month. The whole fact is this, my
children are the curse of my life," and there was bitterness in the tone
of John Anderson[8] as he uttered these words of fearful sorrow.

"Well," said the doctor, "you must have rest and quiet or I will not
answer for the consequences."

"Rest and quiet!" said John Anderson to himself, "I don't see how I am
to get it, with such a wife as I have always worrying and bothering me
about something." "Mr. Anderson," said one of the servants, "Mrs.
Anderson says please come, as quick as possible into Mr. Frank's room."

"What's the matter now!"

"I don't know, but Mr. Frank's acting mightily queer; he thinks there
are snakes and lizards crawling over him."

"He's got the horrors, just what I expected. Tell me about rest and
quiet! I'll be there in a minute. Oh what's the matter? I feel strange,"
said Anderson falling back on the bed suddenly stricken with paralysis.
While in another room lay his younger son a victim to delirium tremens,
and dying in fearful agony. The curse that John Anderson had sent to
other homes had come back darkened with the shadow of death to brood
over his own habitation. His son is dying, but he has no word of hope to
cheer the parting spirit as it passed out into the eternity, for him the
darkness of the tomb, is not gilded with the glory of the resurrection.

The best medical skill has been summoned to the aid of John Anderson,
but neither art, nor skill can bind anew the broken threads of life. The
chamber in which he is confined is a marvel of decoration, light streams
into his home through panes of beautifully stained glass. Pillows of the
softest down are placed beneath his head, beautiful cushions lie at his
feet that will never take another step on the errands of sin, but no
appliances of wealth can give peace to his guilty conscience. He looks
back upon the past and the retrospect is a worse than wasted life; and
when the future looms up before him he shrinks back from the
contemplation, for the sins of the past throw their shadow over the
future. He has houses, money and land, but he is a pauper in his soul,
and a bankrupt in his character. In his eager selfish grasp for gold, he
has shriveled his intellect and hardened a