remens. The physicians of California
have sent a host of victims raving and gibbering in drunken frenzy or
idiocy down to death and hell! I have reason to believe that my friend
inherited a constitutional weakness at this point. As flame to tinder,
was the medicinal whisky to him. It grew upon him rapidly, and soon this
cloud overshadowed all his life. He struggled hard to break the
serpent-folds that were tightening around him; but the fire that had
been kindled seemed to be quenchless. An uncontrolled evil passion is
hellfire. He writhed in its burnings in an agony that could be
understood only by such as knew how almost morbidly sensitive was his
nature, and how vital was his conscience. I became a pastor in the town
where he lived, and renewed my association with him as far as I could.
But there was a constraint unlike the old times. When under the
influence of liquor, he would pass me in the streets with his head down,
a deeper flush mantling his cheek as he hurried by with unsteady step.
Sometimes I met him staggering homeward through a back street, hiding
from the gaze of men. He was at first shy of me when sober, but
gradually the constraint wore off, and he seemed disposed to draw nearer
to me, as in the old days. His struggle went on, days of drunkenness
following weeks of soberness, his haggard face after each debauch
wearing a look of unspeakable weariness and wretchedness. One of the
lawyers who had led him into the mazes of doubt--a man of large and
versatile gifts, whose lips were touched with a noble and persuasive
eloquence--sunk deeper and deeper into the black depths of drunkenness,
until the tragedy ended in a horror that lessened the gains of the
saloons for at least a few days. He was found dead in his bed one
morning in a pool of blood, his throat cut by his own guilty hand.

My friend had married a lovely girl, and the cottage in which they lived
was one of the coziest, and the garden in front was a little paradise of
neatness and beauty. Ah! I must drop a veil over a part of this true
tale. All along I have written under half protest, the image of a sad,
wistful face rising at times between my eyes and the sheet on which
these words are traced. They loved each other tenderly and deeply, and
both were conscious of the presence of the devil that was turning their
heaven into hell.

"Save him, Doctor, save him! He is the noblest of men, and the
tenderest, truest husband. He loves you, and he will