powerless.  Still if they would then seek a physician’s advice and resolutely cease using the poison in any form, they would regain their physical and mental tone within a comparatively brief time.  I am glad to believe that some do stop at this period and escape.  Their sufferings for a time must be severe, and yet they are nothing compared with the tortures awaiting them if they do not abstain.  The majority, however, temporize and attempt a gradual reformation.  There is not a ray of hope or the faintest prospect of cure for those who at this stage adopt half-way measures.  They soon learn that they cannot maintain the moderation which they have resolved upon.  A healthful man of good habits may be said to be at par.  One indulgence in opium lifts him far above par, but in the inevitable reaction he sinks below it, and wronged nature will not rally at once; therefore she is hastened and spurred by the stimulant, and the man rises above par again, yet not quite so high as before, and he sinks lower in the reaction.  With this process often repeated the system soon begins to lose its elasticity; the man sinks lower and more heavily every time; the amount of the drug that once produced a delightful exhilaration soon scarcely brings him up to par, and he must steadily strengthen the fatal leverage until at last even a deadly dose cannot lift him into any condition like his old exhilaration or serenity.

There are a vast number of men and women who ought never to take stimulants at all.  They had better die than to begin to use them habitually, and even to touch them is hazardous.  There is slumbering in their natures a predisposition toward their excessive use which a slight indulgence may kindle into a consuming, clamorous desire.  Opium had apparently found something peculiarly congenial in Mr. Jocelyn’s temperament and constitution, and at first it had rewarded him with experiences more delightful than most of its votaries enjoy.  But it is not very long content to remain a servant, and in many instances very speedily becomes the most terrible of masters.  He had already reached such an advanced stage of dependence upon it that its withdrawal would now leave him weak, helpless, and almost distracted for a time.  It would probably cost him his situation; his weakness would be revealed to his family and to the world, and the knowledge of it might prevent his obtaining employment elsewhere; therefore he felt that he must hide the vice and fight it to its death in absolute secrecy.  Under the terrible necromancy of his sin the wife from whom he had scarcely concealed a thought in preceding years was the one whom he most feared.  As yet the habit was a sin, because he had the power to overcome it if he would simply resolve to do right regardless of the consequences; and these would be slight indeed compared with the results of further indulgence.  He had better lose his situation a hundred times; he had better see his family faint from hunger for