Only one thing remains, which is to confess my _own_ guilt. Have I not great reason to fear that my advice was not sufficiently pointed and thorough? I might have gone to Mr. Y. and told him the truth, the whole truth. What if it had given offence? Would not the prospect of doing good, rather than of giving offence, have been worth something? In any event, I do regret most deeply my unfaithfulness, even though it arose from delicacy and diffidence, for that very delicacy and diffidence were far enough from being grounded on the love of God. They were grounded much more on the love of human approbation. No man was ever more free from it than our Saviour. Ought I not to have used the same plainness that he would have used? Had I rebuked Mrs. Y. as kindly and as faithfully as he rebuked Martha at Bethany, how much, for ought I can ever know, might have been saved, not only to the cause of health and conjugal happiness, but also to that of piety. CHAPTER LXXVI. DR. BOLUS AND MORPHINE. A telegraphic communication was made to me one day, nearly as follows: "B. J. W. is very sick, and is not expected to live through the day. Please come on immediately." The distance was about one hundred and fifty miles, and the mode and means of conveyance neither very direct nor rapid for these latter times. It was more than probable that Mr. B. J. W. would be dead before I could reach the place. However, as he was a particular friend, and as there was some hope, I concluded to set out. Late in the evening,--or rather, in the night,--I arrived at the place, and found the young man still alive. He was, however, as it was easy to perceive, in a very critical condition. Glad to find him alive, but inclined to fall in with the general opinion that his case was a hopeless one, and withal greatly fatigued, I yielded to the demands of exhausted Nature, and slept a short time, when his physician arrived. Now I had been sent for, in part, as a special friend, and in part, as a medical counsellor. And yet there were difficulties. Dr. Bolus, the family physician, was just such a man--for reasons that might be given--as I dreaded to advise with, should my advice be needed. He was one who would be likely to think any important suggestion an impeachment of his own superior wisdom. Science, true science, is always modest, and does not fear any thing; because she loves, most of all things, _to be right_. But Dr. Bolus had not, as I think, enough of true science to make him feel or perceive the want of it. The ignorant are always self-confident in proportion to their ignorance.