May
every man and woman who sees this allow their hearts to go out in an
earnest prayer that I may succeed in this one thing. It is now too late for
me to reach the bright promises of other years. It is now too late for me
to regain all that has been lost, but this I would do, and it will make me
feel at the last that I have not lived altogether to be a remorse and shame
to those who are bound to me by ties which can not be broken. God may
answer your prayers if not mine, so that from the throne of heavenly grace
may come the peace and rest for which my weary soul has sought so long in
vain.
When I drank after my mother's death, many persons took occasion, on
learning of it, to censure me in unsparing terms. It was even said that I
did not love my mother in life, that I had no respect for her memory in
death, and that I was a heartless wretch. These persons had no knowledge of
the power of my appetite. They did not know that the passion for liquor,
once developed or firmly established, is stronger in its unholy energy than
the love of the heart--of my heart, at least--for mother, father, brother,
or sister.
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