s the better off.'"

"What a load of sin the saloonkeeper carries, the man that sells the
drunkard rum. If all the saloons could be closed--Uncle Tom, have you
given the subject, or this sin, or whatever you may term it, serious
study? The saloonkeeper may have it within his power to curtail, to
lessen the evil effects of drunkenness, but it's high time the fellow on
the other side of the bar came in for his share of the censure. Don't
you know that if every saloon in the land was closed, under existing
conditions, drunkenness and the increased consumption of whisky would go
on. Statistics bear this out."

"Well, what is your remedy for the evil, Alfred?"

"I have no remedy. I have a safeguard--high license, the sale of whisky
placed in the hands of reputable men."

"But, Alfred, there are no reputable men in the whisky business."

"Uncle Tom, you admitted a few moments ago you lived in a little world,
you did not know men. I am not entering upon a defense of the
saloonkeeper, but human nature, is human nature. Bad taste is bad taste.
It's bad taste for a minister of the gospel to make statements that can
be controverted so readily that his veracity is made questionable. If I
were a minister, I would inform myself, visit the saloons. I would go
into the Neil House, the Chittenden, the lowest dives in the city; not
as a sneak or a spy, but in my duty, my profession, my calling as a
preacher, as a man with the determination to do good unto my fellow
men. I would go as He, in whose footsteps preachers profess to follow,
did. I would shake hands with the business man, the bum. I'd pass them
my card or have someone introduce me. I'd invite them to visit my
church. I'd make them feel I was a friend, not an enemy. I would
endeavor to instill into their lives the truth. I'd preach that God is
love. I would make myself a welcome visitor everywhere I went. The
presence of a good man with a desire to do good has a beneficial effect
upon men in every walk of life, in church or saloon.

"Uncle Thomas, if the clergy do not realize it, they should. They are
widening a breach, a chasm between the people and the church, that will
be difficult to bridge over. They are positively bringing their calling
into disrepute. Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory but in
lowliness of mind, is a divine injunction they seem to have forgotten."

"Alfred, I am surprised at your arguments. I want to ask you: Did you
ever know an hones