son is in earnest. He don't seem to try very hard to
quit drinking himself. He doesn't keep the right sort of company," and so
on. This was the language of men who never drank. I have had drinking men
by the score come to me with tears in their eyes, and beg to know if there
was any escape from the curse. Since taking the lecture field I have paid
out in actual money over a thousand dollars to aid men and families in
trouble caused by the use of liquor. I have the first one yet to turn away
when I had anything to give. I have more than once robbed myself to aid
others. Oftentimes my labor and money have been thrown away, but I have the
satisfaction of knowing that I did my duty. In some cases, thank heaven! I
have cause to know that my efforts were not in rain.

For ten months from the time I quit drinking and began to lecture, I
averaged one lecture a day. I lived on the work and its excitement, making
it take, as far as possible, the place of alcohol. I learned too late that
this was the very worst thing I could have done. I was all the time
expending the very strength I so much needed for the restoration of my
shattered system. For ten months, lacking two days, I fought my appetite
for whisky day and night. I waged a continued, never-ceasing, never-ending
battle, with what earnestness and desire to conquer the God to whom I so
fervently prayed all that time alone knows, and he alone knows the agony of
my conflicts. I dreamed that I was wildly drunk night after night, and I
would rise from my bed in the morning more weary than when, tired and worn
out from overwork, I sought rest. The horror of such dreams can be known
only to those who have experienced them. The shock to my nervous system
from a sudden and complete cessation of the use of all stimulating drinks
was of itself a fearful thing to encounter. I was often so nervous that,
for nights at a time, I got little or no sleep. The least noise would cause
me to tremble with fear. I suffered all the while more than any can ever
know, save those who have gone through the same hell. The manners and
actions often induced by my sufferings and an abiding sense of my
afflictions not infrequently militated against me. It has often been said:
"He acts very strangely--must have been drinking." Again: "I believe he
uses opium." These assertions may have been honestly made, but they were
none the less utterly false. If people could only know just how much the
drunkard suffers; h