But in order to give a more explicit account of the nature and progress of this afflictive dispensation, I must revert to the period of its commencement, which was that of my existence; from which, and during infancy and childhood, I was so extremely sickly, that my parents had no hope of my attaining mature years; and though blessed, from my sixth year, with a degree of strength that enabled me occasionally to attend school, and afterwards to engage in active employment, yet my slender constitution was frequently assailed by disease, from my birth to my nineteenth year. Shortly after this period, I was seized with a more serious and alarming illness, than any with which I had hitherto been exercised, and in the progress of which my life was for many weeks despaired of. But after my being reduced to the brink of the grave, and enduring excruciating pain and excessive weakness for more than three months, it yielded to superior medical skill; and I so far recovered strength as to walk a few steps and frequently to ride abroad, though not without a great increase of pain, an almost maddening agony of the brain, and a total deprivation of sleep for three or four nights and days successively.
From this time a complication of the most painful and debilitating chronic diseases ensued, and have continued to prey upon my frail system during the subsequent period of my life,—from which no permanent relief could be obtained, either through medicine or the most judicious regimen,—natural sleep having been withheld to an almost, if not altogether unparalleled degree, from the first serious illness throughout the twelve subsequent years. This unnatural deprivation has caused the greatest debility, and an agonizing painfulness and susceptibility of the whole system, which I think can neither be described nor conceived. After the expiration of a little more than three years from the above mention-
