The climate of Florida agreed with me. My cough left me in a few weeks, my appetite became good, and I got heavier than I ever was before. I went there weighing 130 pounds, and increased to 148. In good health, my usual weight was 144 pounds, and it had been many years since I weighed that. I should have come home in this improved condition but for my own imprudence. I don't blame the country, Providence, nor anything else but myself. I was passionately fond of hunting, as I have ever been. I hunted a great deal, and frequently got overheated, and took cold; sometimes got my feet wet when in the woods. Thus I had several backsets. But still I was in that condition when the time came to return home. The day before we were to start, I concluded I must have one more hunt. It had rained the night before; the sand was damp; it was cloudy, quite warm, and a strong south wind was blowing. I would get warm in walking (the sand there is very slavish to walk in), and would sit down and let the wind cool me off. I should have had more discretion; but sometimes people act with very little sense about such things. Before I reached the house I felt acute inflammation of the mucus membrane, to the bottom of my lungs. In three hours fever set in, and I was completely prostrated. I remained there about three weeks, and the doctors urged my return as the only chance of recovery. They considered that very hazardous, on account of exposure to cold; but to stay there was less hopeful. I was taken to the boat, carried on board by two men, then carried off at Jacksonville to a hack, taken to a hotel, thence to the train. I secured a good berth in a sleeper, and got through without the least trouble. I improved, every mile of the way; but as soon as I got home I went down again, and was extremely low for some time. My dread of dying in Florida and having my wife return with my body, was such that I concentrated all my prayers to that one point. I prayed the Lord to enable me to get home, that I might die in the midst of my family. I felt and prayed that if He would enable me to reach home, He could have the rest all His own way, without any further petition. He enabled me to rally, gave a week of the best weather of the whole season, brought me home under the most favorable circumstances, and I never afterwards felt free to ask Him to restore me to health, and have never done it. It may be wrong, but I promised to let Him have the rest all His own way, and my prayers have ever since conformed to that idea.