The Army attaches much importance to what may be called the after-care
of the cases, for the lack of which so many people who pass through
Homes and then return to ordinary life, break down, and become,
perhaps, worse than they were before. The seven devils of Scripture
are always ready to re-occupy the swept and garnished soul, especially
if they be the devils of drink.

Moreover, the experience of the Army is that relatives and friends are
extraordinarily thoughtless in this matter. Often enough they will, as
it were, thrust spirituous liquors down the throat of the
newly-reformed drunkard, or at the least will pass them before their
eyes and drink them in their presence as usual, with results that may
be imagined. One taste and in four cases out of six the thing is done.
The old longings awake again and must be satisfied.

For these reasons the highly-skilled Officers of the Salvation Army
hold that reclaimed inebriates should be safeguarded, watched, and, so
far as the circumstances may allow, kept under the influences that
have brought about their partial recovery. They say that they owe much
of their remarkable success in those cases to a strict observance of
such preventive methods for a period of three years. After that time
patients must stand upon their own feet. These remarks apply also to
the victims of the drug habit, who are even more difficult to deal
with than common drunkards.

At this Home I had a conversation with a fine young woman, an
ex-hospital nurse, who gave me a very interesting account of her
experiences of laudanum drinking. She said that in an illness she had
gone through while she was a nurse a doctor dosed her with laudanum to
deaden her pain and induce sleep. The upshot was that she could not