Fifteen Years in Hell

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Fifteen Years in Hell

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fifteen Years in Hell, by Luther Benson This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
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 stage and am greeted with applause--My fright--I throw off my father's old coat and stand forth--Begin to speak, and soon warm to my subject--I make a lecture tour--Four hundred and seventy lectures in Indiana--Attitude of