Part 18 (1/2)

AT THE RETAILER'S STAND.

CONSCIENCE. Do you know that little half-starved, bare-footed child, that you just sent home with two quarts of rank poison?

(Retailer hums a tune to himself, and affects not to hear the question.)

CONSCIENCE. I see by the paper of this morning, that the furniture of Mr. M---- is to be sold under the hammer to-morrow. Have I not often seen him in your taproom?

RETAILER. I am extremely busy just now, in bringing up our ledger.

CONSCIENCE. Have you heard how N---- abused his family, and turned them all into the street the other night, after being supplied by you with whiskey?

RETAILER. He is a _brute_, and ought to be confined in a dungeon six months at least, upon bread and water.

CONSCIENCE. Was not S----, who hung himself lately, one of your steady customers? and where do you think his soul is now fixed for eternity?

You sold him rum that evening, not ten minutes before you went to the prayer-meeting, and had his money in your pocket--for you would not trust him--when you led in the exercises. I heard you ask him once, why he did not attend meeting, and send his children to the Sabbath-school; and I shall never forget his answer. ”Come, you talk like a minister; but, after all, we are about of one mind--at least in some things. Let me have my jug and be going.”

RETAILER. I know he was an impudent, hardened wretch; and though his death was extremely shocking, I am glad to be rid of him.

CONSCIENCE. Are you ready to meet him at the bar of G.o.d, and to say to the Judge, ”He was my neighbor--I saw him going down the broad way, and I did every thing that a Christian could do to save him?”

RETAILER. (Aside. O that I could stifle the upbraidings of this cruel monitor.) You keep me in constant torment. This everlasting cant about _rank poison, and liquid fire, and blood, and murder_, is too much for even a Christian to put up with. Why, if any body but Conscience were to make such insinuations and charges, he would be indictable as a foul slanderer, before a court of justice.

CONSCIENCE. Is it _slander_, or is it _because I tell you the truth_, that your temper is so deeply ruffled under my remonstrances? Suppose I were to hold my peace, while your hands are becoming more and more deeply crimsoned with this b.l.o.o.d.y traffic. What would you say to me, when you come to meet that poor boy who just went out, and his drunken father, and broken-hearted mother, at the bar of G.o.d? Would you thank your conscience for having let you alone while there was s.p.a.ce left for repentance?

RETAILER. Ah, had honest trader ever _such_ a conscience to deal with before? Always just so uncompromising--always talking about the ”golden rule”--always insisting upon a moral standard which n.o.body can live up to--always scenting poverty, murder, and suicide, in every gla.s.s of whiskey, though it were a mile off. The truth is, you are not fit to live in this world at all. Acting in conformity with your more than puritanical rules, would starve any man and his family to death.

CONSCIENCE. Well, here comes another customer--see the carbuncles! Will you fill his bottle with wrath, to be poured out without mixture, by and by, upon your own head? Do you not know that his pious wife is extremely ill, and suffering for want of every comfort, in their miserable cabin?

RETAILER. No, Mr. E----, go home and take care of your family. I am determined to harbor no more drunkards here.

CONSCIENCE. You mean to make a distinction then, do you, between harboring those who are already ruined, and helping to destroy such as are now respectable members of society. You will not hereafter tolerate a single _drunkard_ on your premises; but--

RETAILER. Ah, I see what you are aiming at; and really, it is too much for any honest man, and still more for any Christian to bear. You know it is a long time since I have pretended to answer half your captious questions. There's no use in it. It only leads on to others still more impertinent and puzzling. If I am the hundredth part of that factor of Satan which you would make me, I ought to be dealt with, and cast out of the church at once; and why don't my good brethren see to it?

CONSCIENCE. That's a hard question, which they, perhaps, better know how to answer than I do.

RETAILER. But have you forgotten, my good Conscience, that in retailing spirit, I am under the immediate eye and sanction of the laws. Mine is no contraband traffic, as you very well know. I hold a license from the rulers and fathers of the state, and have paid my money for it into the public treasury. Why do they continue to grant and sell licenses, if it is wrong for me to sell rum?

CONSCIENCE. Another hard question, which I leave them to answer as best they can. It is said, however, that public bodies have no soul, and if they have no soul, it is difficult to see how they can have any conscience; and if not, what should hinder them from selling licenses?

But suppose the civil authorities should offer to sell you a license to keep a gambling-house, or a brothel, would you purchase such a license, and present it as a salvo to your conscience?

RETAILER. I tell you once more, there is no use in trying to answer your questions; for say what I will, you have the art of turning every thing against me. It was not always so, as you must very distinctly remember.

Formerly I could retail hogshead after hogshead of all kinds of spirits, and you slept as quietly as a child. But since you began to read these Reports and Tracts about drinking, and to attend Temperance meetings, I have scarcely had an hour's peace of my life. I feared that something like this would be the effect upon your nervous temperament, when you began; and you may recollect that I strongly objected to your troubling yourself with these new speculations. It now grieves me to think that I ever yielded to your importunity; and beware that you do not push me to extremities in this matter, for I have about come to the resolution that I will have no more of these mischievous pamphlets, either about my store or tavern; and that your temperance agents may declaim to the winds and walls, if they please.

CONSCIENCE. I am amazed at your blindness and obstinacy. It is now from three to five years since I began to speak--though in a kind of indistinct undertone at first--against this b.l.o.o.d.y traffic. I have reasoned, I have remonstrated, and latterly I have threatened and implored with increasing earnestness. At times you have listened, and been convinced that the course which you are pursuing, in this day of light, is infamous, and utterly inconsistent with a Christian profession; but before your convictions and resolutions have time to ripen into action, the love of _money_ regains its ascendency: and thus have you gone on _resolving, and relapsing, and re-resolving_--one hour at the preparatory lecture, and the next unloading whiskey at your door; one moment mourning over the prevalence of intemperance, and the next arranging your decanters to entice the simple; one day partaking of the cup of the Lord at his table, and the next offering the cup of devils to your neighbors; one day singing,

”All that I have, and all I am, I consecrate to Thee,”