"Religious insanity," so-called, may justly be attributed to this cause in a great proportion of cases. The individual is conscience-smitten in view of his horrid sins, and a view of his terrible condition--ruined for both worlds, he fears--goads him to despair, and his weakened intellect fails; reason is dethroned, and he becomes a hopeless lunatic. His friends, knowing nothing of the real cause of his mysterious confessions of terrible sin, think him over-conscientious, and lay the blame of his insanity upon religion, when it is solely the result of his vicious habits, of which they are ignorant. In other cases, the victim falls into a profound melancholy from which nothing can divert him. He never laughs, does not even smile. He becomes more and more reserved and taciturn, and perhaps ends the scene by committing suicide. This crime is not at all uncommon with those who have gone the whole length of the road of evil. They find their manhood gone, the vice in which they have so long delighted is no longer possible, and, in desperation, they put an end to the miserable life which nature might lengthen out a few months if not thus violently superseded. If the practice is continued uninterruptedly from boyhood to manhood, imbecility and idiocy are the results. Demented individuals are met in no small numbers inside of hospitals and asylums, and outside as well, who owe to this vice their awful condition. Plenty of half-witted men whom one meets in the every-day walks of life have destroyed the better half of their understanding by this wretched practice. A Victim's Mental Condition Pictured.--The mental condition of a victim of this vice cannot be better described than is done in the following paragraphs by one himself a victim, though few of these unfortunate individuals would be able to produce so accurate and critical a portrait of themselves as is here drawn by M. Rousseau, as quoted by Mr. Acton:-- "One might say that my heart and my mind do not belong to the same person. My feelings, quicker than lightning, fill my soul; but instead of illuminating, they burn and dazzle me. I feel everything. I see nothing. I am excited, but stupid; I cannot think except in cold blood. The wonderful thing is that I have sound enough tact, penetration, even _finesse_, if people will wait for me. I make excellent impromptus at leisure; but at the moment I have nothing ready to say or do. I should converse brilliantly by post, as they say the Spaniards play at chess. When I read of a Duke of Savoy who turned back after starting on his journey to say, 'In your teeth! you Paris shop-keeper!' I said, 'That is like me!'"