rk go
on, would be ashamed to sing the Doxology there. I don't believe you'd
ketch him at it, for he is so smart he would see in a minute how it
would look to praise God for such a place as that when he had said
plain:

"Cursed is he that putteth the cup to his neighbor's lips."

And Satan knowed jest as well as Josiah and I and the world did, that
saloons wuz made a purpose for this.

"And no drunkard hath eternal life." And that minister wuz ordained to
help people attain that life, not to help 'em lose it.

I don't see what he wuz thinkin' on. Of course, the top of the long
slippery descent to ruin is quite cheerful lookin', lit up with false
lights, hollow mirth, false hopes and dreams lurin' the victims on and
down. But he knowed how slippery it wuz, how impossible it wuz for
ordinary men to stand up when they got to slidin' down. He knew that
nothin' but God's grace wuz strong enough to reach down and haul 'em up
agin to level ground.

A few men are so strong-footed they can grip on and stay 'round the top
for some time, and I presoom this minister, bein' a good-natered man
would been glad to had 'em all hung on there, but he must have knowed
they wouldn't and couldn't. He'd seen 'em leggo thousands and thousands
every year, he knowed what made 'em fall. And he might jest as well made
a prayer and sung a hymn over a murderer's knife, because he wanted it
to cut bread but knowed it would and did murder, as to done this.

For no matter what he wanted he knowed intemperance is evil and only
evil. And pattin' a pizen viper and callin' it "angel" and singin' the
Doxology over it hain't goin' to change its nater, its nater is to
sting, and its bite is death.

And the God they dasted to invoke said of the drink the place wuz made
to sell, "It biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder," and the
end thereof is death.

I don't know what that good man could be thinkin' on to dast. But then
as long as our Government opholds it, I spoze he thought he might.

But I wish I'd been there to told him how it wuz goin' to look to me and
Josiah and the world, and what slurs wuz goin' to be cast onto the
sacred cause of religion by it.

I couldn't tell him what harm it wuz goin' to do; no, eternity is none
too soon to count that up. Awful waves of influence sweepin'
along--sweepin' along clear from to-day to the Day of Judgment; I can't
bear to think on't; I'm kinder sorry for him, and am glad enough it
hain't my Jo