ly moved, bowed his head and listened in silence. After a time he
said, hesitatingly:

"And Ould Michael has his weakness and he will be drinking Paddy
Dougan's bad whisky; but if he would only keep to the Company's good
whisky----"

"Man," interrupted the minister, simply, "don't you know it is the good
whisky that kills, for it is the good whisky that makes men love it."

McFarquhar gazed at him in amazement.

"The good whisky!"

"Ay," said the minister, firmly, "and indeed there is no good whisky for
drinking."

McFarquhar rose and from a small cupboard brought back a bottle of the
Hudson Bay Company's brand. "There," he said, pouring out a glass, "you
will not be saying there is no good whisky."

The minister lifted the glass and smelled it.

"Try it," said McFarquhar in triumph.

The minister put it to his lips.

"Ay," he said, "I know it well! It is the best, but it is also the
worst. For this men have lost their souls. There is no good whisky for
_drinking_, I'm saying."

"And what for, then?" asked McFarquhar faintly.

"Oh, it has its place as a medicine or a lotion."

"A lotion," gasped McFarquhar.

"Yes, in case of sprains--a sprained ankle, for instance."

"A lotion!" gasped McFarquhar; "and would you be using the good whisky
to wash your feet with?"

The minister smiled; but becoming immediately grave, he answered: "Mr.
McFarquhar, how long have you been in the habit of taking whisky?"

"Fifty years," said McFarquhar promptly.

"And how many times have you given the bottle to your friend?"

"Indeed, I cannot say," said McFarquhar; "but it has never hurt him
whatever."

"Wait a bit. Do you think that perhaps if Michael had never got the good
whisky from his good friends he might not now be where he is?"

McFarquhar was silent. The minister rose to go.

"Mr. McFarquhar, the Lord has a word for you" (McFarquhar rose and stood
as he always stood in church), "and it is this: 'We, then, that are
strong, ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please
ourselves.' It is not given to me to deliver Michael from the bondage of
death, but to you it is given, and of you He will demand, 'Where is
Abel, thy Brother?'"

The minister's last words rolled forth like words of doom.

"Man, it is terrible!" said McFarquhar to me as the minister disappeared
down the slope; but he never thought of rejecting the burden of
responsibility laid upon him. That he had helped Ould Michael down h