who is tempted beware of trying to win a victory shut up in a room by
himself. The devil has him in a hand to hand fight, in such case, and
thereby increases several fold the probability of winning the battle.

"Dodd" tried to pray. He strove alone, as in an agony. He besought
the power that he had been told to invoke, to take from him the
horrible thirst that was gnawing within him. He wept, he pleaded, he
begged.

The gnawing kept on.

There was once one who prayed "If it be possible, let this cup pass
from me." It did not pass.

Then, indeed, the clouds did grow dark. "Dodd's" doubts left the
earth, and reached even to heaven. He not only doubted the men who had
led him to the promised relief; he doubted even the power of religious
experience to save a tempted man, and the reality of religion itself.

From this point it is but a step to the supreme doubt of all!

If only the boy had expected a storm, he might have weathered it. If,
in this hour of his trial, some faithful soul could have lived with
him, day and night, and never left him for an hour, till the storm was
over, he might have come through. Neither of these things happened,
however.

He struggled on for several days. He gave up finally. He came home
one night drunk, almost to the verge of insanity. There had been a
cyclone in the land of promised eternal sunshine. "Dodd" Weaver's bark