I desire here to make a statement in justice to myself. There are three
laws, the human, the natural and the divine. You may violate a human law,
and the judge, if he sees fit, may pardon your offense. If you violate the
divine law, God has prepared a way of escape, and promises pardon on
conditions within the reach of all, but for a violation of that which I
call natural law, there is no forgiveness. The penalty for every such
violation must be, and is, fully paid every time, and while natural laws
are as much a part of God's creation as the divine, he would no more set
aside a penalty for a violation of one of nature's laws than he would blot
out a part of his written word. Yet there are recuperative powers and
forces in nature that are wonderful, and there is a spiritual strength that
helps us to bear, and overcome, and endure every affliction. I was made a
new creature in Christ Jesus at Jeffersonville, Indiana, on the 21st of
last January, and had I then gone to work to recuperate and restore by all
natural means, my broken body, I am most certain that I never again would
have tasted liquor; but instead of using the means God had placed about me,
in the supreme ecstacy which comes to a redeemed, a new-born soul, I went
to work ten times more laboriously than ever, and soon completely exhausted
my bodily strength. My system was drained of every particle of its power to
resist the slightest attack of any kind whatsoever, much less to make a
successful struggle against my great enemy, and so, physically and mentally
exhausted when I was assailed by the black, foul fiend of alcohol, I fell,
and fell a second time. I resolved, yea, took an oath the most solemn, that
rather than again be overtaken by a disaster so dire, I would have myself
entombed within an asylum for the insane. Here at last, I was placed, and
here I intend to remain until nature shall restore to my body sufficient
strength to resist, with God's help, the next and every attack of my enemy.
As God is my witness, I had rather remain within these walls and listen to
the cries of the worst maniac here, from day to day, until the last hour of
my life--yes, and die and be buried here in the pauper's graveyard, than