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 God 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 t