Thou Art The Man

"HOW can you reconcile it to your conscience to continue in your present business, Mr. Muddler?" asked a venerable clergyman of a tavern-keeper, as the two walked home from the funeral of a young man who had died suddenly.

"I find no difficulty on that score," replied the tavern-keeper, in a confident tone: "My business is as necessary to the public as that of any other man."

"That branch of it, which regards the comfort and accommodation of travellers, I will grant to be necessary. But there is another portion of it which, you must pardon me for saying, is not only uncalled for by the real wants of the community, but highly detrimental to health and good morals."

"And pray, Mr. Mildman, to what portion of my business do you allude?"

"I allude to that part of it which embraces the sale of intoxicating drinks."

"Indeed! the very best part of my business. But, certainly, you do not pretend to say that I am to be held accountable for the unavoidable excesses which sometimes grow out of the use of liquors as a beverage?"

"I certainly must say, that, in my opinions a very large share of the responsibility rests upon your shoulders. You not only make it a business to sell liquors, but you use every device in your power to induce men to come and drink them. You invent new compounds with new and attractive names, in order to induce the indifferent or the lovers of variety, to frequent your bar-room. In this way, you too often draw the weak into an excess of self-indulgence, that ends, alas! in drunkenness and final ruin of body and soul. You are not only responsible for all this, Mr. Muddler, but you bear the weight of a fearful responsibility!"

"I cannot see the subject in that light, Mr. Mildman," the tavern-keeper said, rather gravely. "Mine is an honest and honourable calling, and it is my duty to my family and to society, to follow it with diligence and a spirit of enterprise."

"May I ask you a plain question, Mr. Muddler?"

"Oh yes, certainly! as many as you please."

"Can that calling be an honest and honourable one which takes sustenance from the community, and gives back nothing in return?"

"I do not know that I understand the nature of your question, Mr. Mildman."

"Consider then society as a man in a larger form, as it really is. In this great body, as in the lesser body of man, there are various functions of use and a reciprocity between the whole. Each function receives a portion of life from the others, and gives back its own proper share for the good of the whole. The hand does not act for itself alone--receiving strength and selfishly appropriating it without returning its quota of good to the general system. And so of the heart, and lungs, and every other organ in the