tory, if they
were in the _present tense_. But if it was wrong to sell five hundred
casks last year, how can it be right to sell two hundred this year, and
one hundred next? If it is criminal to poison forty men at one time, how
can it be innocent to poison twenty at another? If you may not throw a
hundred firebrands into the city, how will you prove that you may throw
one?

DEALER. Very true, very true--but let us wave this point for the
present. It affects me very strangely.

CONSCIENCE. How long, then, will it take to dry up this fountain of
death?

DEALER. Don't call it so, I beseech you; but I intend to be entirely out
of the business in two or three years, at farthest.

CONSCIENCE. Two or three years! Can you, then, after all that has passed
between us, persist two or three years longer in a contraband traffic? I
verily thought, that when we had that long conference two or three
months ago, you resolved to close the concern at once; and that, when we
parted, I had as good as your promise, that you would. Surely, you
cannot so soon have forgotten it.

DEALER. No, I remember that interview but too well; for I was never so
unhappy in my life. I did almost resolve, and more than half promise,
as you say. But after I had time to get a little composed, I thought you
had pushed matters rather too far; and that I could convince you of it,
at a proper time. I see, however, that the attempt would be fruitless.
But as I am anxious for a compromise, let me ask whether, if I give away
all the profits of this branch of my business to the Bible Society, and
other religious institutions, till I can close it up, you will not be
satisfied?

CONSCIENCE. Let me see. Five hundred dollars, or one hundred dollars,
earned to promote the cause of religion by selling poison! By killing
husbands, and fathers, and brothers, and torturing poor women and
children! It smells of blood--and can God possibly accept of such an
offering?

DEALER. So then, it seems, I must stop the sale at once, or entirely
forfeit what little charity you have left.

CONSCIENCE. You must. Delay is death--death to the consumer at least;
and how can you flatter yourself that it will not prove your own eternal
death? My convictions are decisive, and be assured, I deal thus plainly
because I love you, and cannot bear to become your everlasting
tormentor.

DIALOGUE III.

AT THE RETAILER'S STAND.

CONSCIENCE. Do you know that little half-starved, bare-foo