Part 16 (2/2)
DISTILLER. Good morning, Mr. Conscience; though I know you to be one of the earliest risers, especially of late, I hardly expected to meet you here at day-dawn.
CONSCIENCE. I am none too early, it seems, to find you at your vocation.
But how are you going to dispose of this great black building?
DISTILLER. Why, I do not understand you.
CONSCIENCE. What are you doing with these boiling craters, and that hideous worm there?
DISTILLER. Pray explain yourself.
CONSCIENCE. Whose grain is that? and what is bread called in the Bible?
DISTILLER. More enigmatical still.
CONSCIENCE. To what market do you mean to send that long row of casks?
and how many of them will it take, upon an average, to dig a drunkard's grave?
DISTILLER. Ah, I understand you now. I was hoping that I had quieted you on that score. But I perceive you have come upon the old errand. You intend to read me another lecture upon the sixth commandment. But what would you have me do?
CONSCIENCE. Put out these fires.
DISTILLER. Nay, but hear me. I entered into this business with your approbation. The neighbors all encouraged me. My brethren in the church said it would open a fine market for their rye, and corn, and cider; and even my minister, happening to come along when we were raising, took a little with us under the shade, and said he loved to see his people industrious and enterprising.
CONSCIENCE. ”The times of this ignorance G.o.d winked at--but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.” In one part of your defence, at least, you are incorrect. It was not my _voice_, but my _silence_, if any thing, which gave consent; and I have always suspected there was some foul play in the matter, and that I was kept quiet for the time by certain deleterious opiates. Indeed, I distinctly recollect the morning bitters and evening toddy, which you were accustomed to give me; and though I thought but little of it then, I now see that it deadened all my sensibilities. This, I am aware, is no excuse. I ought to have resisted--I ought to have refused, and to have paralyzed the hand which put the cup to my lips. And when you struck the first stroke on this ground, I ought to have warned you off with the voice of seven thunders.
That I did not then speak out, and do my duty, will cause me extreme regret and self-reproach to the latest hour of my life.
DISTILLER. But what, my dear Conscience, has made you all at once so much wiser, not only than your former self, but than hundreds of enlightened men in every community, whose piety was never doubted? I myself know, and have heard of not a few good Christians, including even deacons and elders, who still continue to manufacture ardent spirit, and think, or seem to think it right.
CONSCIENCE. And think it right! Ask their consciences. I should like to witness some of those interviews which take place in the night, and which make Christian distillers--(what a solecism!)--so much more irritable than they used to be. I know one of the brotherhood, at least, whose conscience has been goading him these five years, and yet he perseveres.
DISTILLER. But if I stop, what will the people do? Half the farmers in town depend upon their rye and cider to pay their taxes, and even to support the Gospel.
CONSCIENCE. So, then, you are pouring out these streams of liquid death over the land, and burning up your own neighbors, to enable them to pay their taxes and support religion! Why don't you set up a coffin factory, to create a brisker demand for lumber, and so help the farmers to pay their taxes; and then spread the smallpox among the people, that they may die the faster, and thus increase your business, and give you a fair profit? It will not do. I tell you, that I can give you no peace till you put out these fires and destroy that worm.
DISTILLER. How can I? Here is all my living, especially since, as you know, my eldest son fell into bad habits, in spite of all the good advice I daily gave him, and squandered what might have afforded me a comfortable independence.
CONSCIENCE. Suppose you were now in Brazil, and the owner of a large establishment to fit out slave-traders with handcuffs for the coast of Africa, and could not change your business without considerable pecuniary sacrifice; would you make the sacrifice, or would you keep your fires and hammers still going?
DISTILLER. Why do you ask such puzzling questions? You know I don't like them at all, especially when my mind is occupied with other subjects.
Leave me, at least till I can compose myself, I beseech you.
CONSCIENCE. Nay, but hear me through. Is it right for you to go on manufacturing fevers, dropsy, consumption, delirium tremens, and a host of other frightful diseases, because your property happens to be vested in a distillery? Is it consistent with the great law of love by which you profess to be governed? Will it bear examination in a dying hour?
Shall I bid you look back upon it from the brink of eternity, that you may from such recollections gather holy courage for your pending conflict with the king of terrors? Will you bequeath this magazine of wrath and perdition to your only son not already ruined, and go out of the world rejoicing that you can leave the whole concern in the hands of one who is so trustworthy and so dear?
[Here the Distiller leaves abruptly, without answering a word.]
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