Fifteen Years in Hell

Fifteen Years in Hell

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fifteen Years in Hell, by Luther
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Title: Fifteen Years in Hell
Author: Luther Benson
Release Date: August 30, 2004 [EBook #13332]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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FIFTEEN YEARS IN HELL.
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
BY LUTHER BENSON,

1885.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Early shadows--An unmerciful enemy--The miseries of the
curse--Sorrow and gloom--What alcohol robs man of--What it
does--What it does not do--Surrounding evils--Blighted homes--A
Titan devil--The utterness of the destroyer--A truthful narrative--"It
stingeth like an adder."
CHAPTER II.
Birth, parentage and early education--Early childhood--Early
events--Memory of them vivid--Bitter desolation--An active but uneasy
life--Breaking colts for amusement--Amount of sleep--Temperament
has much to do in the matter of drink--The author to blame for his
misspent life--Inheritances--The excellences of my father and
mother--The road to ruin not wilfully trodden--The people's
indifference to a great danger--My associates--What became of
them--The customs of twenty years ago--What might have been.
CHAPTER III.
The old log school house--My studies and discontent--My first drink of
liquor--The companion of my first debauch--One drink always fatal--A
horrible slavery--A horseback ride on Sunday--Raleigh--Return
home--"Dead drunk"--My parents' shame and sorrow--My own
remorse--An unhappy and silent breakfast--The anguish of my
mother--Gradual recovery--Resolves and promises--No pleasure in
drinking--The system's final craving for liquor--The hopelessness of the
drunkard's condition--The resistless power of appetite--Possible
escape--The courage required--The three laws--Their violation and
man's atonement.

CHAPTER IV.
School days at Fairview--My first public outbreak--A
schoolmate--Drive to Falmouth--First drink at
Falmouth--Disappointment--Drive to Smelser's Mills--Hostetter's
Bitters--The author's opinion of patent medicines, bitters
especially--Boasting--More liquor--Difficulty in lighting a cigar--A
hound that got in bad company--Oysters at Falmouth, and what befell
us while waiting for them--Drunken slumber--A hound in a
crib--Getting awake--The owner of the hound--Sobriety--The Vienna
jug--Another debauch--The exhibition--The end of the school
term--Starting to college at Cincinnati--My companions--The
destruction wrought by alcohol--Dr. Johnson's declaration concerning
the indulgence of this vice--A warning--A dangerous fallacy--Byron's
inspiration--Lord Brougham--Sheridan--Sue--Swinburne--Dr.
Carpenter's opinion--An erroneous idea--Temperance the best aid to
thought.
CHAPTER V.
Quit college--Shattered nerves--Summer and autumn
days--Improvement--Picnic parties--A fall--An untimely
storm--Crawford's beer and ale--Beer brawls--County fairs and their
influence on my life--My yoke of white oxen--The "red ribbon"--"One
McPhillipps"--How I got home and how I found myself in the
morning--My mother's agony--A day of teaching under
difficulties--Quiet again--Law studies at Connersville--"Out on a
spree"--What a spree means.
CHAPTER VI.
Law practice at Rushville--Bright prospects--The blight--From bad to
worse--My mother's death--My solemn promise to her--"Broken, oh,
God!"--Reflection--My remorse--The memory of my mother--A young
man's duty--Blessed are the pure in heart--The grave--Young man,
murder not your mother--Rum--A knife which is never red with blood,
but which has severed souls and stabbed thousands to death--The

desolation and death which are in alcohol.
CHAPTER VII.
Blank, black night--Afloat--From place to place--No
rest--Struggles--Giving way--One gallon of whisky in twenty-four
hours--Plowing corn--Husking corn--My object--All in vain--Old
before my time--A wild, oblivious journey--Delirium tremens--The
horrors of hell--The pains of the damned--Heavenly hosts--My
release--New tortures--Insane wanderings--In the woods--At Mr.
Hinchman's--Frozen feet--Drive to town in a buggy surrounded by
devils--Fears and sorrows--No rest.
CHAPTER VIII.
Wretchedness and degradation--Clothes, credit, and reputation all
lost--The prodigal's return to his father's house--Familiar scenes--The
beauty of nature--My lack of feeling--A wild horse--I ride him to
Raleigh and get drunk--A mixture of vile poison--My ride and fall--The
broken stirrups--My father's search--I get home once more--Depart the
same day on the wild horse--A week at Lewisville--Sick--Yearnings for
sympathy.
CHAPTER IX.
The ever-recurring spell--Writing in the sand--Hartford City--In the
Ditch--Extricated--Fairly started--A telegram--My brother's
death--Sober--A long night--Ride home--Palpitation of the
heart--Bluffton--The inevitable--Delirium again--No friends, money,
nor clothes--One hundred miles from home--I take a walk--Clinton
county--Engage to teach a school--The lobbies of hell--Arrested--Flight
to the country--Open school--A failure--Return home--The beginning
of a terrible experience--Two months of uninterrupted
drinking--Coatless, hatless, and, bootless--The "Blue Goose"--The
tremens--Inflammatory rheumatism--The torments of the
damned--Walking on crutches--Drive to Rushville--Another
drunk--Pawn my clothes--At Indianapolis--A cold bath--The

consequence--Teaching school--Satisfaction given--The kindness of
Daniel Baker and his wife--A paying practice at law.
CHAPTER X.
The "Baxter Law"--Its injustice--Appetite is not controlled by
legislation--Indictments--What they amount to--"Not guilty"--The
Indianapolis police--The Rushville grand jury--Start home
afoot--Fear--The coming head-light--A desire to end my miserable
existence--"Now is the time"--A struggle in which life wins--Flight
across the fields--Bathing in dew--Hiding from the officers--My
condition--Prayer--My unimaginable sufferings--Advised to
lecture--The time I began to lecture.
CHAPTER XI.
My first lecture--A cold and disagreeable evening--A fair
audience--My success--Lecture at Fairview--The people turn out en
masse--At Rushville--Dread of appearing before the
audience--Hesitation--I go on the