We should exceedingly like to hear Mr. A. Bronson Alcott’s opinion as touching the faithfulness of the foregoing. ••• There is a fearful lesson conveyed in the annexed communication from a metropolitan physician, who assures us that it is in all respects an accurate statement of an occurrence to which he was an eye-witness: ‘Duty impels me, Mr. Editor, to lay before you one of the little incidents which my situation as a medical man has brought to my notice. There is no class of men who are led with keener perceptions to investigate human nature than enlightened practising physicians. They have a hold upon the affections and confidence of every class of society; and for this reason they should feel it incumbent upon themselves to act the part of moral as well as physical agents. For myself, I think it would be well if medical men were so far constituted missionaries, as to make it a duty to point a moral whenever it would be likely to be well received. I am aware that attempts of this sort with many persons would be vain or injudicious, and sometimes nauseate perhaps, like the accompanying drugs; but eventually it might prove salutary to the soul; and although cursed for good advice, is it not in the end a blessing? But to my story: I was called a short time since to a youth about twenty years of age: he had been only a few months in the city, and I had occasionally seen him, but had little acquaintance with him, being much his senior. When I entered, one of his fits of raving, occasioned by fever, was just coming on. I approached and took his hand: ‘What do you want?’ said he; ‘you look so mild and yet so penetrating. I have not got any.’ ‘Any what?’ said I. ‘Any money,’ he replied; ‘the drawer was locked, and I could not get any without being seen; so go away!’ ‘I came to cure you, not to take your money,’ I replied. ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘did I not take some from you? Look! look! There they come! sixpences, shillings! See! see! how they tumble from the wall! Look! there is a piece of gold! See! look! there they keep coming! I never took all this!—at first I only took enough to get a cigar with, now and then. See! the room is filling! I shall suffocate!’ ‘What does this mean, young man?’ said I; ‘be calm.’ ‘Did they not tell you to come and feel my pulse and see if there was not a sixpence in it?’ ‘No, no; I came to make you better.’ ‘Better? better? BETTER? Here, hide these; don’t let my friends know of them; they were stolen! I cannot look at them now. Ha! ha! ha!—I cannot!’ I was induced to remain until the frenzy of the fever had passed off, and found the young man had intervals of reason. He was now in deep despondency. I inquired his name. He had dropped it, he said; he could not debase it. ‘Debase it?’ said I. ‘Yes!’ he answered, with a groan like a howl. The next day the young man sent for me again. He appeared much altered; said that he did not wish to live; that he had ‘a gnawing at his soul.’ I remarked that he was very young to be tired of life; that if he had been guilty of any crime he should desire to live to expiate it. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘the stain will always last!’ I told him, not so; that if he heartily repented and turned to the right source for consolation, it would be vouchsafed him. ‘I feel that I cannot live,’ he replied, ‘and my friends will be better satisfied to know that I am repentant in my last moments, and that I am gone, than they would be to think of me as a vagabond, let loose upon society: they will at least feel that I shall ‘cease from troubling.’ I have not the excuse that many delinquents have pleaded, early initiation into vice. My childhood was passed with pious relatives, who labored to instil religious principles into my mind; but I ‘would none of their reproof.’ My friends not being wealthy, I was left at a proper age to my own resources. I found a situation where my talents were appreciated by my employer, and perhaps too highly estimated by myself. I had a brother who was ten years my senior, whom I loved and esteemed—may Heaven keep him in blessed ignorance of my fate!—but I thought less highly of his intellect when I saw him excited by some sublime hymn, which angels might listen to, than I did of my own, when I turned from the devotions of the Sabbath to join my idle companions. In the situation I held, I might have gained respectability; but my besetting sin betrayed me so often, that the kind indulgence of a good master could no longer conceal my crimes. I now see that the sting inflicted by vice must and will remain! We may repent, we may be forgiven; but the mind will not part with its bitter recollections!’ I was here called away for a few moments, and when I returned, the unhappy young man was in the land of spirits! I learned that he was engaged to a highly amiable young lady, who relinquished him, and shortly afterward died of a broken heart. Her sad fate threw him into a brain-fever, and as you perceive, decided his likewise. Incidents like these I am aware have often been narrated; yet if the tragedy which I have depicted should be blessed to the use of any young man abandoned to temptation and addicted to small crimes, and lead him to reflection, it will be a gratification to feel that my feeble effort, with Heaven’s help, has proved ‘a word in season.’’ ••• There are inequalities of merit in the ‘Dirge’ of ‘D. D.’ of Hartford, though the spirit of the verse is tender and touching. We annex a few stanzas, in illustration of our encomium:
Thrust him in his narrow bed,
Heap the cold earth on his head,
But be sure no tear ye shed—
Not a tear for him!
Bitter toil was his from birth,
Dearly bought his homely mirth,
While his master was of earth—
Now he’s of the sky.
Death knocked at his door at night,