so doing to be the means of others' salvation; my sole thought was self
and selfish ambition. Instead of talking at the Moody meeting, I took a
drink of liquor, soon got drunk, and so remained for days. When I came out
of the oblivion of that debauch, the agony experienced was terrible. All
the shames, all the burning regrets, all the stinging compunctions of
conscience I had known on coming out of such debauches before my conversion
were almost as joy compared with the misery which preyed upon my heart
then. I can not describe the hopeless feeling of remorse which came over
me. I lived and moved in a night of misery and no star was in its sky. In
the course of a few days I recovered physically so far as to be able to
lecture. I prayed in secret, long and often, for a return of that peace
which comes from God alone, but in vain. I was justly self-punished. At the
end of four or five weeks I fell again, and this time my degradation was
deeper than before. I would at times console myself with the thought that
my suffering had reached the limit of endurance, and at such times new and
still keener agonies would rise in my heart, like harpies, to tear me to
atoms.

It was at this time that I was committed to the Hospital for the Insane at
Indianapolis. The reader is aware of what took place on my arrival at
Indianapolis, after leaving the hospital. I felt somehow that it was my
last spree. I kept it up until nature could endure no more. I felt that my
stomach was burned up, and that my brain was scalded. I was crucified from
my head to the soles of my feet. I began to feel sure that this time I
would die, and, when dead, go to the hell which seemed to be open to
receive me. July twenty-first I left Indianapolis, and went to Fowler,
Indiana, at which place, for five days and nights, I suffered every mental
and physical pang that can afflict mortal man. Day and night I prayed God
to be merciful, but no relief came. The dark hopelessness in which I lay I
can not describe. I felt that I was undeserving of God's pardon or mercy. I
had wronged myself, and my friends more than myself; I had trampled upon
the love of Christ; I had loved myself amiss and lost myself. The Christian
people of Fowler prayed for me; they called a prayer-meeting especially for
me, to ask God to have mercy on and save me. On Wednesday night I went to
the regular prayer-meeting, and, with a breaking heart, begged, on
bended knee, that God would take compassio