tance?

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 nobody can live up
to--always scenting poverty, murder, and suicide, in every glass 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 sel