I have been greatly shocked lately in reading of two inquests on women who have died, evidently from taking too large a dose of some drug or other to which they have accustomed themselves in order to obtain sleep or freedom from some pain or other. May I entreat my readers never to listen to the suggestion of the evil spirit who tempts you to injure your moral character or your poor weak body by taking morphia, opium, laudanum, or any drug unless ordered by your doctor, who most certainly will stop it when your ailment is better, nay, cured. I was talking to Dr. Wreford about these cases, and then I told him something that happened to myself thirty-eight years ago. He at once said, “You must write that for the ‘Message,’ for taking drugs is a most insidious sin, and many now are undermining their lives in consequence, and may be their souls. I replied, “I don’t like writing about myself.” “But you may do good if you do it, and it is right to think of others and not of self.” “True,” I again replied, “I will think about it.” So now here is what I told him.
I had said it must be Satan who gets people to take drugs. When I was utterly worn out with grief for my darling sister, who died in 1881, striving to bear my loss patiently, although tears were my meat, as it were, day and night, I, one morning, went to a drawer where there was a bottle of laudanum secreted. I took it up and distinctly heard in a loud voice, “Drink it, and your grief will stop.” “No, Satan,” I replied, “I won’t drink it.” So I opened the bottle at once and threw the laudanum away. The devil vanished, and has never renewed his effort to make me take drugs. Dear reader, may the gracious Lord Jesus, by His Spirit, deliver every one of us if a similar temptation should assault.
Emily P. Leakey