been sitting quietly in a chair, started up,
exclaiming as he did so--

"Merciful heaven! I never dreamed of this! Whose sons are safe?"

"No man's," was the answer of the gentleman in whose office we were
sitting--"No man's--while there are such open doors to ruin as you may
find at the 'Sickle and Sheaf.' Did not you vote the anti-temperance
ticket at the last election?"

"I did," was the answer; "and from principle."

"On what were your principles based?" was inquired.

"On the broad foundations of civil liberty."

"The liberty to do good or evil, just as the individual may choose?"

"I would not like to say that. There are certain evils against which
there can be no legislation that would not do harm. No civil power in
this country has the right to say what a citizen shall eat or drink."

"But may not the people, in any community, pass laws, through their
delegated law-makers, restraining evil-minded persons from injuring the
common good?"

"Oh, certainly--certainly."

"And are you prepared to affirm, that a drinking-shop, where young men
are corrupted, aye, destroyed, body and soul--does not work an injury
to the common good?"

"Ah! but there must be houses of public entertainment."

"No one denies this. But can that be a really Christian community which
provides for the moral debasement of strangers, at the same time that
it entertains them? Is it necessary that, in giving rest and
entertainment to the traveler, we also lead him into temptation?"

"Yes--but--but--it is going too far to legislate on what we are to eat
and drink. It is opening too wide a door for fanatical oppression. We
must inculcate temperance as a right principle. We must teach our
children the evils of intemperance, and send them out into the world as
practical teachers of order, virtue and sobriety. If we do this, the
reform becomes radical, and in a few years there will be no bar-rooms,
for none will crave the fiery poison."

"Of little value, my friend, will be, in far too many cases, your
precepts, if temptation invites our sons at almost every step of their
way through life. Thousands have fallen, and thousands are now
tottering, soon to fall. Your sons are not safe; nor are mine. We
cannot tell the day nor the hour when they may weakly yield to the
solicitation of some companion, and enter the wide open door of ruin.
And are we wise and good citizens to commission men to do the evil work
of enticement--to encourage them