young, gave
promise of shining brilliantly in the profession he had chosen. He was
the pride of a large and respectable family, who witnessed his growing
prospects with that satisfaction and delight which the prosperity of a
beloved son and brother cannot fail to impart. In the midst of these
circumstances the physician was one day called in haste to see him. He
had fallen into a fit. His manly form lay stretched upon the carpet,
while his features were distorted and purpled from the agony of the
convulsions. After some days, however, he recovered, without having
sustained any permanent injury. Being in company with his physician
alone, soon after, he said to him, "I suspect, sir, you do not know the
cause of my fit; and as I may have a return of it, when you will
probably be called, I think it proper that you should be made acquainted
with my habits of life." He then informed his physician, that for a
number of years previous he had been in the daily use of ardent spirit,
that the practice had grown upon him ever since he left college, and
that he was conscious it injured him. However, it was not known even to
his own family what quantity he used. His physician did not hesitate to
inform him of the extreme danger to his life in persisting in the use of
intoxicating drinks. He acknowledged his perfect conviction of the truth
of all that was said, and resolved to abandon his wicked course.

Not many weeks after, he was seized with another fit; but owing to the
absence of the family physician, he did not see him until some time
after he had come out of it. The physician, however, who attended,
informed him it was violent. After repeated assurances of his increasing
danger, and the remonstrances of friends, who had now begun to learn the
real cause of his fits, he renewed his promises and determination to
reform, and entered upon a course of total abstinence, which he
maintained for several months, and inspired many of his friends with
pleasing hopes of his entire reform and the reestablishment of his
health. But, alas, in an unguarded moment, he dared to taste again the
forbidden cup, and with this fled all his resolutions and restraints.
From that time he drank more openly and freely. His fits returned with
painful violence; friends remonstrated, entreated, pleaded, but all in
vain. He thus continued his course of intemperance, with intervals of
fits and sickness, about eight or ten months, and at length died
_drunk_ in