The Son of My Friend - Page 2

silence, "how are we to decide this matter?"

"We must give a party, or decline invitations in future," I replied.

"Which shall it be?" His eyes looked steadily into mine. I saw that the thing troubled him.

"Turn it in your thought during the day, and we'll talk it over this evening," said I.

After tea my husband said, laying down the newspaper he had been reading and looking at me across the centre-table, "What about the party, Agnes?"

"We shall have to give it, I suppose." We must drop out of the fashionable circle in which I desired to remain; or do our part in it. I had thought it all over--looking at the dark side and at the bright side--and settled the question. I had my weaknesses as well as others. There was social eclat in a party, and I wanted my share.

"Wine, and brandy, and all?" said my husband.

"We cannot help ourselves. It is the custom of society; and society is responsible, not we."

"There is such a thing as individual responsibility," returned my husband. "As to social responsibility, it is an intangible thing; very well to talk about, but reached by no law, either of conscience or the statute-book. You and I, and every other living soul, must answer to God for what we do. No custom or law of society will save us from the consequences of our own acts. So far we stand alone."

"But if society bind us to a certain line of action, what are we to do? Ignore society?"

"If we must ignore society or conscience, what then?"

His calm eyes were on my face. "I'm afraid," said I, "that you are magnifying this thing into an undue importance."

He sighed heavily, and dropped his eyes away from mine. I watched his countenance, and saw the shadows of uneasy thought gathering about his lips and forehead.

"It is always best," he remarked, "to consider the probable consequences of what we intend doing. If we give this party, one thing is certain."

"What?"

"That boys and young men, some of them already in the ways that lead to drunkenness and ruin, will be enticed to drink. We will put temptation to their lips and smilingly invite them to taste its dangerous sweets. By our example we will make drinking respectable. If we serve wine and brandy to our guests, young and old, male and female, what do we less than any dram-seller in the town? Shall we condemn him, and ourselves be blameless? Do we call his trade a social evil of the direst character, and yet ply our guests with the same tempting stimulants that his wretched customers crowd his bar-room to obtain?"

I was borne down by the weight of what my husband said. I saw the evil that was involved in this social use of wines and liquors which he so strongly