a shock hard to bear. Yet the person so obsessed is more to be pitied than blamed. Ordinarily, the human heart would be kind and loving. Obsessed with this INFLUENCE. it becomes a foe instead of a friend. CHAPTER IX. THE INFLUENCE CAUSING SELF-ACCUSATION. Seventh on the list of INFLUENCES, classified in olden days, was the troop of "demons who drove men to despair" by entering into the heart and infusing therein a false spirit of self-accusation, self-depreciation, self-centered hopelessness, remorse for real or fancied mistakes and grovelling failure. While few are entirely free from this INFLUENCE, a great many do not feel its power to the verge of despair, and are able, in their own strength, to disregard it for a season. But to some, this DIABOLIS INFLUENCE, as we may call it, is so real and oppressive that they feel they will be driven to suicide, if relief does not come. No one, who has not felt it, can understand the real pain of the so-called "blues." This INFLUENCE may, as yet, only have a slight hold on you, and you may only have a slight attack of despondency. Its usual way is to visit but gently at first, gradually increasing in violence, bringing on at last hysterical fits of accelerating intensity. When oppressed by this INFLUENCE, the world seems black, your best beloved seems disloyal and you seem to be sinking down into the depths of woe. Then it leaves you for a while, but soon returns, often seeming to return exactly with the moon's phases-thus, if it is a full moon when the "blues" take you, look out for the next full moon. And at whatever phase of the moon you are attacked, look out for the same thing at the same phase of the moon. Scientists have tried to discover why this INFLUENCE should seem to be affected by the moon, and have failed to establish any scientific connection between despondency and the moon. They say that the fact that the phases of the moon were important in ancient witchcraft, and the fact that the moon seems even to make dogs howl, must remain forever unexplained. However that may be, and whether or not the INFLUENCES of despondency even know that there is a moon, the fact remains, as anyone can observe for himself, by keeping a diary of other people's "blues," that they often return, however slightly, with the exact regularity of the moon. This INFLUENCE is a reality of such threatening aspect, that the proudest and strongest may well fear it. An enemy who does not storm the citadel from without, is the more to be feared. An insidious, sneaking enemy, who enters the very heart of you, and pretends to be you, with the lie that it is you, you accusing yourself this INFLUENCE cannot be thrown out or cast down by your own strength. It turns your mind inward upon habits or weaknesses or undeveloped spots, and broods upon them, accusing you of human weaknesses as though they were the grossest of crimes. Black as the hell-cat it is, it assumes the 99 |