The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fifteen Years in Hell, by Luther Benson

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Fifteen Years in Hell

Author: Luther Benson

Release Date: August 30, 2004 [EBook #13332]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTEEN YEARS IN HELL ***

Produced by Ted Garvin, Christopher Lund and PG Distributed Proofreaders

FIFTEEN YEARS IN HELL.

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

BY LUTHER BENSON,

1885.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Early shadows--An unmerciful enemy--The miseries of the curse--Sorrow
and gloom--What alcohol robs man of--What it does--What it does not
do--Surrounding evils--Blighted homes--A Titan devil--The utterness of the
destroyer--A truthful narrative--"It stingeth like an adder."

CHAPTER II.

Birth, parentage and early education--Early childhood--Early events--Memory
of them vivid--Bitter desolation--An active but uneasy life--Breaking colts
for amusement--Amount of sleep--Temperament has much to do in the matter of
drink--The author to blame for his misspent life--Inheritances--The
excellences of my father and mother--The road to ruin not wilfully
trodden--The people's indifference to a great danger--My associates--What
became of them--The customs of twenty years ago--What might have been.

CHAPTER III.

The old log school house--My studies and discontent--My first drink of
liquor--The companion of my first debauch--One drink always fatal--A
horrible slavery--A horseback ride on Sunday--Raleigh--Return home--"Dead
drunk"--My parents' shame and sorrow--My own remorse--An unhappy and
silent breakfast--The anguish of my mother--Gradual recovery--Resolves
and promises--No pleasure in drinking--The system's final craving for
liquor--The hopelessness of the drunkard's condition--The resistless power
of appetite--Possible escape--The courage required--The three laws--Their
violation and man's atonement.

CHAPTER IV.

School days at Fairview--My first public outbreak--A schoolmate--Drive
to Falmouth--First drink at Falmouth--Disappointment--Drive to Smelser's
Mills--Hostetter's Bitters--The author's opinion of patent medicines,
bitters especially--Boasting--More liquor--Difficulty