"We are not, of course, absolutely compelled to any thing. My meaning is this: In order to meet the wants of those who are liable to call on us at almost any hour, we prepare largely. Then, to meet these varying and often very fastidious tastes, we must have a large variety of food, and it must be highly seasoned. And then, if it happens that our company is not as large as is expected, we have an extra quantity remaining, and I am tempted to aid in eating it up, the highly seasoned food among the rest."
"And you think, do you, that this highly seasoned food is the cause of your dyspepsia?"
"Undoubtedly it is."
"And do you expect to be cured of a disease which is produced by certain definable causes, like this, and yet be permitted to go on in the same way you have long gone? Do you suppose I have any power to grant you an immunity from the evil effects of high living while that high living is persisted in? Can you get rid of an effect till you first remove the cause?"
"Why, no, sir, not exactly. Such an expectation would be very unreasonable. But is there no medicine I can take that will partially restore me? Perhaps, at my age, entire restoration from such a hydra disease as dyspepsia is hardly to be expected; but can you not patch me up in part?"
"What! and suffer you to go on sinning?"
"Why, yes, to some small extent. It is very hard, nay, it seems to me almost impossible, to break away from the routine of my family, at least as long as Mrs. Y. is fully determined to prepare for company according to the prevailing customs. I could submit to a different arrangement if she were ready for it."
"I wish I could encourage you to pursue this compromising course of conduct. But it is not so. You must change your habits entirely, or you must continue to suffer. For if it were possible to patch you up, for a short time, while your present habits are continued, it would not be as well for you in the end: It would only add another head and horn, perhaps several others, to the monster that annoys you. No, sir; you must change your habits or give up the contest. There is no use in attempting to do any thing, in such a case as yours, with medicine."
"Well, then, if it must be so, it must. I will try once more, and see what I can do."
He left me with a downcast look, and, I suspected, with a heavy heart. At all events, my own heart was heavy, and seemed almost ready to bleed. Here was a father in our ministerial Israel,—one to whom multitudes looked up for the bread of spiritual life,—who was a perfect slave to his appetites; or, at least, to the conventionalisms of modern house-keeping. He groaned daily and hourly under bodily disease the most aggravated and severe. His eyes were red and swelled; the sides of his nose enlarged and inflamed, till he had the appearance of being about half a sot. He knew all about it, and yet refused to take the first step in the way of reformation.