I stood in the depot at Richmond, burning up for whisky.
Had I been standing on red-hot embers my sufferings could not have been
more intense. I feel that I can almost hear some one say, "Why did you not
pray? just go and ask God to help you." I have been told to do that ten
thousand times by good-meaning men and women, who do not know how to pray
as I do, and never will until (which God forbid) they have suffered as I
have. I did pray, and beg, and plead for mercy and help, but the heavens
were solid brass and the earth hard iron, and God did not hear or heed my
prayers. Talk about having the appetite for stimulants removed by prayer!
That appetite is just as much the part of a man as his hand, heart, brain,
or any other part of his body. Every one of God's laws are unchangeable and
immutable. The day of miracles is over. When one of God's creatures
violates his laws, he must pay the penalty; and I think it would be far
better to educate the rising generation that there is no escape for them
from the consequences of their acts, than to preach them into the belief
that they may for years pursue a course of dissipation, violate every law
of their being, and then by prayer have the chains of habit stricken off
and be restored whole.

Then there is another class of individuals who have said to me, "When you
get into that condition, when you feel that you must have liquor, why don't
you just take a little in moderation?" Moderation! A drink of liquor is to
my appetite what a red-hot coal of fire is to a keg of dry powder. You can
just as easily shoot a ball from a cannon's mouth moderately, or fire off a
magazine slowly, as I can drink liquor moderately. When I take one drink,
if it is but a taste, I must have more, if I knew hell would burst out of
the earth and engulf me the next instant. I am either perfectly sober, with
no smell f of liquor about me, or I am very drunk. Some of those moderate
drinkers, who are increasing their moderation a little every day, and also
some pretended temperance people, who are always suspicious of others,
because they are sneaking, cowardly, sly, deceitful and treacherous
themselves, are constantly asking me if I do not drink a little all the
time. And then they say I use morphine and opium. There is nothing that has
made me more wretched, and done more to weaken and drag me down, than the
continued accusation of doing something that it is just as impossible for
me to do as it would be to li