temperate father.

From this distinguished opium eater, and from his family, I learned two
things: First, that Solomon was right when he spoke of the certainty of
punishment, even though long deferred. Secondly, the certainty of the
visitation, so to call it, of human transgression upon subsequent
generations no less than on the individual transgressor. The fourth
generation from the patriarch of ninety-seven was puny and
feeble--exceedingly so; the fifth and sixth not only puny and feeble,
but absolutely sickly, not to say dwarfish.

Did I say I learned these important truths from this source? Not at all.
I mean only, that I received from it a new confirmation of what I had
fully believed long before, and concerning which, till compelled, most
men--even some thinking men--appear to me not a little sceptical. They
seem to think it reflects dishonor on our Maker. How this is, we shall
perhaps see more fully in another place. Let it suffice, for the
present, to say that the fact itself is fully established, whatever may
be the deductions or its consequences.

CHAPTER LIII.

COFFEE, AND THE LAME KNEE.

Mr. W. was a distinguished minister of the gospel, and teacher of
females. He could not at this time have been much less than seventy
years of age. He was originally a man of iron constitution and of great
mental activity.

Of late it had been observed by some of the members of his family, that
his mind had seasons of great inactivity, and it was even suspected he
had, either in his sleep or at some other time, suffered from a slight
attack of paralysis. His face seemed a little distorted, and one of the
angles of his mouth a little depressed. There appeared to be a slight
change even of his speech. It was recollected, too, that he inherited a
tendency of this kind.

Along with other difficulties was a lame knee. This he called
rheumatism; but was it so? People are very fond of having a name for
every thing; and yet names very often mislead. Prof. Ives, of the
Medical College in Connecticut, was wont to say to his students,
"Diseases, young gentlemen, are not creatures to whom we can give
particular names, or assign particular marks of distinction. They are
merely _modes of action_." My friend's over solicitude for a name to his
complaint was therefore no new thing.

I explained the matter as well as I could, very cautiously. I told him
it was of little consequence about the name of his disease, provided we