our own derelictions."

"Well, I suppose not. It is said, the way Jerusalem was kept clean,
every man swept before his own door. And so you will not engage in the
business?"

"No John, no money I would earn would be the least inducement."

"How foolish," said John Anderson to himself as they parted. "There is a
young man who might succeed splendidly if he would only give up some of
his old fashioned notions, and launch out into life as if he had some
common sense. If business remains as it is, I think he will find out
before long that he has got to shut his eyes and swallow down a great
many things he don't like."

After the refusal of Paul Clifford, John soon found a young man of
facile conscience who was willing to join with him in a conspiracy of
sin against the peace, happiness and welfare of the community. And he
spared neither pains nor expense to make his saloon attractive to what
he called, "the young bloods of the city," and by these he meant young
men whose parents were wealthy, and whose sons had more leisure and
spending money than was good for them. He succeeded in fitting up a
magnificent palace of sin. Night after night till morning flashed the
orient, eager and anxious men sat over the gaming table watching the
turn of a card, or the throw of a dice. Sparkling champaign, or
ruby-tinted wine were served in beautiful and costly glasses. Rich
divans and easy chairs invited weary men to seek repose from unnatural
excitement. Occasionally women entered that saloon, but they were women
not as God had made them, but as sin had debased them. Women whose
costly jewels and magnificent robes were the livery of sin, the outside
garnishing of moral death; the flush upon whose cheek, was not the flush
of happiness, and the light in their eyes was not the sparkle of
innocent joy,--women whose laughter was sadder than their tears, and who
were dead while they lived. In that house were wine, and mirth, and
revelry, "but the dead were there," men dead to virtue, true honor and
rectitude, who walked the streets as other men, laughed, chatted,
bought, sold, exchanged and bartered, but whose souls were encased in
living tombs, bodies that were dead to righteousness but alive to sin.
Like a spider weaving its meshes around the unwary fly, John Anderson
wove his network of sin around the young men that entered his saloon.
Before they entered there, it was pleasant to see the supple vigor and
radiant health that were manif