I now fear nothing in the future, so far as health and disease are concerned, so much as excessive alimentation. To this evil--and it is a most serious and common one in this land of abundance and busy activity--I am much exposed, both from the keenness of my appetite, and the exceeding richness of the simple vegetables and fruits of which I partake. But, within a few years past, I seem to have gotten the victory, in a good measure, even in this respect. By eating only a few simple dishes at a time, and by measuring or weighing them with the eye--for I weigh them in no other way--I am usually able to confine myself to nearly the proper limits. This caution, and these efforts at self-government, are not needed because their neglect involves any immediate suffering; for, as I have already stated, there was never a period in my life before, when I was so completely independent--apparently so, I mean--of external circumstances. I can eat what I please, and as much or as little as I please. I can observe set hours, or be very irregular. I can use a pretty extensive variety at the same meal, and a still greater variety at different meals, or I can live perpetually on a single article--nay, on almost any thing which could be named in the animal or vegetable kingdom--and be perfectly contented and happy in the use of it. I could in short, eat, work, think, sleep, converse, or play almost all the while; or I could abstain from any or all of these, almost all the while. Let me be understood, however. I do not mean to say that either of these courses would be best for me, in the end; but only that I have so far attained to independence of external circumstances that, for a time, I believe I should be able to do or bear all I have mentioned. One thing more, in this connection, and I shall have finished my remarks. I sleep too little; but it is because I allow my mind to run over the world so much, and lay so many schemes for human improvement or for human happiness; and because I allow my sympathies to become so deeply enlisted in human suffering and human woe. I should be most healthy, in the end, by spending six hours or more in sleep; whereas I do not probably exceed four or five. I have indeed obtained a respite from the grave of twenty-three years, through a partial repentance and amendment of life, and the mercy of God; but did I obey all his laws as well as I do a part of them, I know of no reason why my life might not be lengthened, not merely fifteen years, as was Hezekiah's, or twenty-three merely, but forty or fifty. FOOTNOTES: [5] Dr. Knox has since removed to St. Louis, Missouri. [6] The reader will find another remarkable cure of epilepsy in a subsequent chapter of this volume. The case was that of Dr. Taylor, of England. [7] See pages 13 and 23.