I inquired, in the first place, concerning his exercise. This, he said, was taken very irregularly, chiefly in walking abroad on business, seldom or never in company. His mind, in all probability, was not directed, to any considerable extent, from its accustomed mill-horse track. His gait, too, when he walked, was staid and measured. It was never buoyant, lively, or playful. And as for amusement, he had none at all. His diet was still worse than his exercise. He had a large family, and resided in the midst of a dense population; and was so situated as to render his house, practically, a kind of ministerial thoroughfare. He probably entertained, at his hospitable table, more ministers, literary men, and students than any other three clergymen in the neighborhood. "Now," said he to me, "we have a good deal of table preparation to make, and Mrs. Y., who dearly loves to have things in pretty good order, sets a full table, with, a large variety. Well, this food must be eaten. It will never do for a minister who has a large family and lives on a moderate salary, to _waste_ any thing. And, besides, as I ought to tell you, we sometimes, if not always, have a very considerable amount of rich food on the table." "Do you mean to intimate that the bountiful provision you make for others renders it necessary for you to overeat? Or have your remarks a reference to a supposed necessity of eating rich food?" "We are not, of course, absolutely compelled to _any_ thing. My meaning is this: In order to meet the wants of those who are liable to call on us at almost any hour, _we prepare largely_. Then, to meet these varying and often very fastidious tastes, we must have _a large variety_ of food, and it must be _highly seasoned_. And then, if it happens that our company is not as large as is expected, we have an extra quantity remaining, and I am tempted to aid in eating it up, the highly seasoned food among the rest." "And you think, do you, that this highly seasoned food is the cause of your dyspepsia?" "Undoubtedly it is." "And do you expect to be cured of a disease which is produced by certain definable causes, like this, and yet be permitted to go on in the same way you have long gone? Do you suppose I have any power to grant you an immunity from the evil effects of high living while that high living is persisted in? Can you get rid of an effect till you first remove the cause?" "Why, no, sir, not exactly. Such an expectation would be very unreasonable. But is there no medicine I can take that will _partially_ restore me? Perhaps, at my age, entire restoration from such a hydra disease as dyspepsia is hardly to be expected; but can you not patch me up in part?" "What! and suffer you to go on sinning?"