ght or sold,
there could be no such thing as a _dry_ bargain; that at _churns_, and
wakes, and funerals, and marriages, and such like, they always pushed
round the bottle cheerily; that they held it churlish to refuse either
to give or take a treat; that at their evening tea-parties it was not
uncommon for six or eight gallons of spirituous liquor to be consumed by
a few neighbors, men and women, in a single night; that in every house
which their minister visited, the bottle was put to his mouth; and that
as the natural consequence of all this and far more, not only was the
crime of drunkenness, whether in minister or private layman, treated
with much false charity, and called by many soft names, but drunkenness
was spreading its ravages through many families, and bringing down many
heads in sorrow to the grave.

Jamie was indeed charitable, but he was unable to persuade himself that,
amid such universal drinking, all the objections to his Temperance
Society arose merely from ignorance, or prejudice, or conscience; and
therefore, when people were telling him, as they often did, that they
cared not a rush about spirituous liquor, "they could either drink it or
let it alone," he used sometimes to reply, "Oh, I know well enough that
you can drink it; what I want to know is, whether you can let it alone:"
and at other times he would tell them Dean Swift's story of the three
men who called for whiskey in a spirit-shop: I want a glass, said the
first, for I'm very hot; I want a glass, said the second, for I'm very
cold; let me have a glass, said the third, because I like it!

As Jamie's opponents were no match for him in argument, they tried the
plans usually resorted to when the wisdom and the spirit by which truth
speaks cannot be resisted. For a while they tried ridicule. That,
however, neither satisfied their own consciences nor frightened Jamie,
for Jamie could stand a laugh, what many a man can't do who has stood
grape-shot. Then they circulated reports about his having got drunk on
different occasions, and having been caught drinking in secret; and some
believed them, being of the same mind with the distiller, who asserted
it to be mere humbug that any man could live without whiskey, and that
wherever the croaking cold water society men did not drink in the
daytime, they made up for it by drinking at night. These evil reports,
however, fell dead after a little, and nobody was vile enough to take
them up again; and tho