me for it led toward Raleigh, just north of which place
I contrived to get a pint or more of the poison called whisky. The doctor
from whom I got it had, of course, no idea that I was going to drink it,
especially all of it, but drink it I did, getting so completely under its
horrible influence that when I arrived at home I fell senseless against the
door. My father and mother heard me fall and came out and took me into the
house, and just as soon as the heat of the fire began to affect me, I sank
into a dead stupor; all consciousness was gone; all feeling was destroyed;
all intelligence was obliterated. I lay upon my bed that night wholly
oblivious to everything, knowing not, indeed, that such a creature as
myself ever existed. The morning came at last, and with it I opened my
eyes. Describe who can the thoughts which rushed through my distracted
brain. For a little while I knew not where I was or what I had done. My
head was throbbing, aching, bursting. I glanced about me and on either side
of my bed my father and mother knelt in prayer! Then did I remember what
had befallen me, and so keen was my remorse that I thought I would surely
die, and, in fact, I wanted to die. O, much loved parents--father on earth
and mother in heaven--how often since then have I felt anew the shame of
that terrible hour--how often have I seen your sacred faces, wet with the
tears of that trial, come before me, looking imploringly heavenward as if
beseeching for me the mercy of the infinite God!

That morning the family gathered about the breakfast table, but what a
shadow rested over all. A solemnity of silent sorrow was upon us. The peace
of yesterday had flown with my return home, and the dark misery of my soul
tinged with the shade of the grave's desolation the clouds which were
gathering in our sky. O, how often have I prayed that the time might be
given back, and that it might be in my power to resist the curse; but the
past is implacable as death, and I must bear the tortures that belong to
the memory of that most unhappy day. That day, and for many succeeding
ones, I read an anguish in the saintly face of my mother that I had never
seen there before. My father also bore about with him a look of deep
suffering which haunted me for years. For one day I suffered intensely both
mentally and physically, but being of a strong, vigorous, and healthy
constitution, I was almost completely restored by the following morning. Of
course I resolve