I can not write the history of his fall, for it was not made known even to his friends; only this, that the time came that he seemed hesitating whether he should continue a preacher, and finally he wholly abandoned the ministry.

His wife, who was a most estimable and Christian lady, was paralyzed with grief.

At length the shameful truth came out--he was a drunkard! A brother undertook to admonish him of the awful fate that awaited him in the future world, but this apostate and disgraced preacher turned fiercely around and said: "_don't talk to me of hell! I am in hell now_!" There was living in the neighborhood of the writer a Christian family--though not of the Disciples--who had a boy that they regarded as of great promise, and they did what they could to give him a good education.

After he had been for a while a school teacher, he became a lawyer, resident in Atchison, and finally became a politician.

He was talented, social, companionable and ambitious, and soon made himself a man of mark, and was petted and courted by the people, and was the idol of his father and mother.