RETAILER. I am extremely busy just now, in bringing up our ledger.
CONSCIENCE. Have you heard how N---- abused his family, and turned them all into the street the other night, after being supplied by you with whiskey?
RETAILER. He is a _brute_, and ought to be confined in a dungeon six months at least, upon bread and water.
CONSCIENCE. Was not S----, who hung himself lately, one of your steady customers? and where do you think his soul is now fixed for eternity? You sold him rum that evening, not ten minutes before you went to the prayer-meeting, and had his money in your pocket--for you would not trust him--when you led in the exercises. I heard you ask him once, why he did not attend meeting, and send his children to the Sabbath-school; and I shall never forget his answer. "Come, you talk like a minister; but, after all, we are about of one mind--at least in some things. Let me have my jug and be going."
RETAILER. I know he was an impudent, hardened wretch; and though his death was extremely shocking, I am glad to be rid of him.
CONSCIENCE. Are you ready to meet him at the bar of God, and to say to the Judge, "He was my neighbor--I saw him going down the broad way, and I did every thing that a Christian could do to save him?"
RETAILER. (Aside. O that I could stifle the upbraidings of this cruel monitor.) You keep me in constant torment. This everlasting cant about _rank poison, and liquid fire, and blood, and murder_, is too much for even a Christian to put up with. Why, if any body but Conscience were to make such insinuations and charges, he would be indictable as a foul slanderer, before a court of justice.
CONSCIENCE. Is it _slander_, or is it _because I tell you the truth_, that your temper is so deeply ruffled under my remonstrances? Suppose I were to hold my peace, while your hands are becoming more and more deeply crimsoned with this bloody traffic. What would you say to me, when you come to meet that poor boy who just went out, and his drunken father, and broken-hearted mother, at the bar of God? Would you thank your conscience for having let you alone while there was space left for repentance?
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.