"Why, yes, to some small extent. It is very hard, nay, it seems to me almost impossible, to break away from the routine of my family, at least as long as Mrs. Y. is fully determined to prepare for company according to the prevailing customs. I could submit to a different arrangement if she were ready for it." "I wish I could encourage you to pursue this compromising course of conduct. But it is not so. You must change your habits entirely, or you must continue to suffer. For if it were possible to patch you up, for a short time, while your present habits are continued, it would not be as well for you in the end: It would only add another head and horn, perhaps several others, to the monster that annoys you. No, sir; you must change your habits or give up the contest. There is no use in attempting to do any thing, in such a case as yours, with medicine." "Well, then, if it must be so, it must. I will try once more, and see what I can do." He left me with a downcast look, and, I suspected, with a heavy heart. At all events, my own heart was heavy, and seemed almost ready to bleed. Here was a father in our ministerial Israel,--one to whom multitudes looked up for the bread of spiritual life,--who was a perfect slave to his appetites; or, at least, to the conventionalisms of modern house-keeping. He groaned daily and hourly under bodily disease the most aggravated and severe. His eyes were red and swelled; the sides of his nose enlarged and inflamed, till he had the appearance of being about half a sot. He knew all about it, and yet refused to take the first step in the way of reformation. I saw him, by accident, once more, and would have spoken with him freely; but he seemed to shun every thing beyond a merely passing compliment. I saw how it was with him; and the reflections which arose in my mind gave me the most intense pain. Two or three weeks afterward, while in an intimate and confidential conversation with two of his very familiar friends, I ventured to predict his fall, with nearly as much particularity as if the events which were predicted had already taken place. I was asked how I dared to say such things, even in secret, of so good a man and such a father in the American Church. So I gave them, by way of reply, the principal facts in the case, as detailed above. Not many years passed ere this very minister was tried for a crime much more high-handed than gluttony, though sometimes the sequel to it; and not only tried, but silenced. The results of the trial were as shocking to most people as they were unexpected. Every one said: "How can it be?"