DISTILLER. More enigmatical still.
CONSCIENCE. To what market do you mean to send that long row of casks?
and how many of them will it take, upon an average, to dig a drunkard's
grave?
DISTILLER. Ah, I understand you now. I was hoping that I had quieted you
on that score. But I perceive you have come upon the old errand. You
intend to read me another lecture upon the sixth commandment. But what
would you have me do?
CONSCIENCE. Put out these fires.
DISTILLER. Nay, but hear me. I entered into this business with your
approbation. The neighbors all encouraged me. My brethren in the church
said it would open a fine market for their rye, and corn, and cider; and
even my minister, happening to come along when we were raising, took a
little with us under the shade, and said he loved to see his people
industrious and enterprising.
CONSCIENCE. "The times of this ignorance God winked at--but now
commandeth all men everywhere to repent." In one part of your defence,
at least, you are incorrect. It was not my _voice_, but my _silence_, if
any thing, which gave consent; and I have always suspected there was
some foul play in the matter, and that I was kept quiet for the time by
certain deleterious opiates. Indeed, I distinctly recollect the morning
bitters and evening toddy, which you were accustomed to give me; and
though I thought but little of it then, I now see that it deadened all
my sensibilities. This, I am aware, is no excuse. I ought to have
resisted--I ought to have refused, and to have paralyzed the hand which
put the cup to my lips. And when you struck the first stroke on this
ground, I ought to have warned you off with the voice of seven thunders.
That I did not then speak out, and do my duty, will cause me extreme
regret and self-reproach to the latest hour of my life.
DISTILLER. But what, my dear Conscience, has made you all at once so
much wiser, not only than your former self, but than hundreds of
enlightened men in every community, whose piety was never doubted? I
myself know, and have heard of not a few good Christians, including even
deacons and elders, who still continue to manufacture ardent spirit, and
think, or seem to think it right.
CONSCIENCE. And think it right! Ask their consciences. I should like to
witness some of those interviews which take place in the night, and
which make Christian distillers--(what a solecism!)--so much more
irritable than they used to be. I know one of the brotherhood, at least,
whose conscience has been goading him these five years, and yet he
perseveres.
DISTILLER. But if I stop, what will the people do? Half the farmers in
town depend upon their rye and cider to pay their taxes, and even to
support the Gospel.
CONSCIENCE. So, then, you are pouring out these streams of liquid death
over the land, and burning up your own neighbors, to enable them to pay
their taxes and support religion! Why don't you set up a coffin factory,
to create a brisker demand for lumber, and so help the farmers to pay
their taxes; and then spread the smallpox among the people, that they
may die the faster, and thus increase your business, and give you a fair
profit? It will not do. I tell you, that I can give you no peace till
you put out these fires and destroy that worm.
DISTILLER. How can I? Here is all my living, especially since, as you
know, my eldest son fell into bad habits, in spite of all the good
advice I daily gave him, and squandered what might have afforded me a
comfortable independence.
CONSCIENCE. Suppose you were now in Brazil, and the owner of a large
establishment to fit out slave-traders with handcuffs for the coast of
Africa, and could not change your business without considerable
pecuniary sacrifice; would you make the sacrifice, or would you keep
your fires and hammers still going?
DISTILLER. Why do you ask such puzzling questions? You know I don't like
them at all, especially when my mind is occupied with other subjects.
Leave me, at least till I can compose myself, I beseech you.
CONSCIENCE. Nay, but hear me through. Is it right for you to go on
manufacturing fevers, dropsy, consumption, delirium tremens, and a host
of other frightful diseases, because your property happens to be vested
in a distillery? Is it consistent with the great law of love by which
you profess to be governed? Will it bear examination in a dying hour?
Shall I bid you look back upon it from the brink of eternity, that you
may from such recollections gather holy courage for your pending
conflict with the king of terrors? Will you bequeath this magazine of
wrath and perdition to your only son not already ruined, and go out of
the world rejoicing that you can leave the whole concern in the hands of
one who is so trustworthy and so dear?
[Here the Distiller leaves abruptly, without answering a word.]
SECOND INTERVIEW.
DISTILLER. (Seeing Conscience approach, and beginning to tremble.) What,
so soon and so early at your post again? I did hope for a short respite.
CONSCIENCE. O, I am distressed--I cannot hold my peace. I am pained at
my very heart.
DISTILLER. Do be composed, I beseech you, and hear what I have to say.
Since our last interview I have resolved to sell out, and I expect the
purchaser on in a very few days.
CONSCIENCE. What will _he_ do with the establishment when he gets it?
DISTILLER. You must ask him, and not me. But whatever he may do with it,
_I_ shall be clear.
CONSCIENCE. I wish I could be sure of that; but let us see. Though you
will not make poison by the hundred barrels any longer yourself, you
will sell this laboratory of death to another man, for the same horrid
purpose. You will not, with your own hands, go on forging daggers for
maniacs to use upon themselves and their friends, provided you can get
some one to take your business at a fair price. You will no longer drag
the car of Juggernaut over the bodies of prostrate devotees, if you can
_sell out the privilege to good advantage_!
DISTILLER. Was ever any man's conscience so captious before? You seem
determined not to be satisfied with any thing. But beware; by pushing
matters in this way you will produce a violent "reaction." Even
professors of religion will not bear it. For myself, I wish to treat you
with all possible respect; but forbearance itself must have its limits.
CONSCIENCE. Possibly you may be able to hold me in check a little
longer; but I am all the while gathering strength for an onset which you
cannot withstand; and if you cannot bear these kind remonstrances now,
how will you grapple with "the worm that never dies?"
DISTILLER. Enough, enough. I will obey your voice. But why so pale and
deathlike?
CONSCIENCE. O, I am sick, I am almost suffocated. These tartarean fumes,
these dreadful forebodings, these heart-rending sights, and above all,
my horrid dreams, I cannot endure them. There comes our nearest
neighbor, stealing across the lots, with his jug and half bushel of rye.
What is his errand, and where is his hungry, shivering family? And see
there too, that tattered, half-starved boy, just entering the yard with
a bottle--who sent him here at this early hour? All these barrels--where
are the wretched beings who are to consume this liquid fire, and to be
consumed by it?
DISTILLER. Spare me, spare me, I beseech you. By going on at this rate a
little longer you will make me as nervous as yourself.
CONSCIENCE. But I cannot close this interview till I have related one of
the dreams to which I just alluded. It was only last night that I
suffered in this way, more than tongue can tell. The whole terrific
vision is written in letters of fire upon the tablet of my memory; and I
feel it all the while burning deeper and deeper.
I thought I stood by a great river of melted lava, and while I was
wondering from what mountain or vast abyss it came, suddenly the field
of my vision was extended to the distance of several hundred miles, and
I perceived that, instead of springing from a single source, this
rolling torrent of fire was fed by numerous tributary streams, and these
again by smaller rivulets. And what do you think I heard and beheld, as
I stood petrified with astonishment and horror? There were hundreds of
poor wretches struggling and just sinking in the merciless flood. As I
contemplated the scene still more attentively, the confused noise of
boisterous and profane merriment, mingled with loud shrieks of despair,
saluted my ears. The hair of my head stood up--and looking this way and
that way, I beheld crowds of men, women, and children, thronging down to
the very margin of the river--some eagerly bowing down to slake their
thirst with the consuming liquid, and others convulsively striving to
hold them back. Some I saw actually pushing their neighbors headlong
from the treacherous bank, and others encouraging them to plunge in, by
holding up the fiery temptation to their view. To insure a sufficient
depth of the river, so that destruction might be made doubly sure, I saw
a great number of men, and some whom I knew to be members of the church,
laboriously turning their respective contributions of the glowing and
hissing liquid into the main channel. This was more than I could bear. I
was in perfect torture. But when I expostulated with those who were
nearest to the place where I stood, they coolly answered, _This is the
way in which we get our living!_
But what shocked me more than all the rest, and curdled every drop of
blood in my veins, was the sight which I had of this very distillery
pouring out its tributary stream of fire! And O, it distracts, it
maddens me to think of it. There you yourself stood feeding the torrent
which had already swallowed up some of your own family, and threatened
every moment to sweep you away! This last circumstance brought me from
the bed, by one convulsive bound, into the middle of the room; and I
awoke in an agony which I verily believe I could not have sustained for
another moment.
DISTILLER. I will feed the torrent no longer. The fires of my distillery
shall be put out. From this day, from this hour, I renounce the
manufacture of ardent spirit for ever.
DIALOGUE II.
WHOLESALE DEALER'S COUNTING-ROOM.
CONSCIENCE. (Looking over the ledger with a serious air.) What is that
last invoice from the West Indies?
RUM-DEALER. Only a few casks of fourth proof, for particular customers.
CONSCIENCE. And that domestic poison, via New Orleans; and on the next
page, that large consignment, via Erie Canal?
DEALER. O, nothing but two small lots of prime whiskey, such as we have
been selling these twenty years. But why these chiding inquiries? They
disquiet me exceedingly. And to tell you the plain truth, I am more than
half offended at this morbid inquisitiveness.
CONSCIENCE. Ah, I am afraid, as I have often told you, that this is a
bad business; and the more I think of it, the more it troubles me.
DEALER. Why so? You are always preaching up industry as a Christian
virtue, and my word for it, were I to neglect my business, and saunter
about the hotels and steamboat wharves, as some do, you would fall into
convulsions, as if I had committed the unpardonable sin.
CONSCIENCE. Such pettish quibbling is utterly unworthy of your good
sense and ordinary candor. You know, as well as I do, the great
difference between industry in some safe and honest calling, and driving
a business which carries poverty and ruin to thousands of families.
DEALER. _Honest_ industry! This is more cruel still. You have known me
too long to throw out such insinuations; and besides, it is notorious,
that some of the first merchants in our city are engaged, far more
extensively, in the same traffic.
CONSCIENCE. Be it so. "To their own Master they stand or fall." But if
fair dealing consists in "doing as we would be done by," how can a man
of your established mercantile and Christian reputation sustain himself,
if he continues to deal in an article which he knows to be more
destructive than all the plagues of Egypt?
DEALER. Do you intend, then, to make me answerable for all the mischief
that is done by ardent spirit, in the whole state and nation? What I
sell is a mere drop of the bucket, compared with the consumption of a
single county. Where is the proof that the little which my respectable
customers carry into the country, with their other groceries, ever does
any harm? How do you know that it helps to make such a frightful host of
drunkards and vagabonds? And if it did, whose fault would it be? I never
gave nor sold a glass of whiskey to a tippler in my life. Let those who
will drink to excess, and make brutes of themselves, answer for it.
CONSCIENCE. Yes, certainly _they_ must answer for it; but will that
excuse those who furnish the poison? Did you never hear of abettors and
accessaries, as well as principals in crime? When Judas, in all the
agony of remorse and despair, threw down the thirty pieces of silver
before the chief priests and elders, exclaiming, _I have sinned, in that
I have betrayed the innocent blood_--they coolly answered, _What is that
to us? See thou to that._ And was it therefore nothing to them? Had
they no hand in that cruel tragedy? Was it nothing to Pilate--nothing to
Herod--nothing to the multitude who were consenting to the crucifixion
of the Son of God--because they did not drive the nails and thrust the
spear?
O, when I think of what you are doing to destroy the bodies and souls of
men, I cannot rest. It terrifies me at all hours of the night. Often and
often, when I am just losing myself in sleep, I am startled by the most
frightful groans and unearthly imprecations, coming out of these
hogsheads. And then, those long processions of rough-made coffins and
beggared families, which I dream of, from nightfall till daybreak, they
keep me all the while in a cold sweat, and I can no longer endure them.
DEALER. Neither can I. Something must be done. You have been out of your
head more than half the time for this six months. I have tried all the
ordinary remedies upon you without the least effect. Indeed, every new
remedy seems only to aggravate the disease. O, what would not I give for
the discovery of some anodyne which would lay these horrible phantasms.
The case would be infinitely less trying, if I could sometimes persuade
you, for a night or two, to let me occupy a different apartment from
yourself; for when your spasms come on, one might as well try to sleep
with embers in his bosom, as where you are.
CONSCIENCE. Would it mend the matter at all, if, instead of sometimes
dreaming, I were to be always wide awake?
DEALER. Ah, there's the grand difficulty. For I find that when you do
wake up, you are more troublesome than ever. _Then_ you are always
harping upon my being a professor of religion, and bringing up some text
of Scripture, which might as well be let alone, and which you would not
ring in my ears, if you had any regard to my peace, or even your own.
More than fifty times, within a month, have you quoted, "_By their
fruits ye shall know them._" In fact, so uncharitable have you grown of
late, that from the drift of some of your admonitions, a stranger would
think me but little, if any, better than a murderer. And all because
some vagabond or other may possibly happen to shorten his days by
drinking a little of the identical spirit which passes through my hands.
CONSCIENCE. You do me bare justice when you say that I have often
reproved you, and more earnestly of late than I formerly did. But my
remonstrances have always been between you and me alone. If I have
charged you with the guilt of hurrying men to the grave and to hell, by
this vile traffic, it has not been upon the house-top. I cannot, it is
true, help knowing how it grieves your brethren, gratifies the enemies
of religion, and excites the scorn of drunkards themselves, to see your
wharf covered with the fiery element; but I speak only in your own ear.
To yourself I have wished to prove a faithful monitor, though I have sad
misgivings, at times, even with regard to that. You will bear me
witness, however, that I have sometimes trembled exceedingly, for fear
that I should be compelled, at last, to carry the matter up by
indictment to the tribunal of Eternal Justice.
To avoid this dreadful necessity, let me once more reason the case with
you in few words. You know perfectly well, that ardent spirit kills its
tens of thousands in the United States every year; and there is no more
room to doubt that many of these lives are destroyed by the very liquor
which you sell, than if you saw them staggering under it into the
drunkard's grave. How then can you possibly throw off bloodguiltiness,
with the light which you now enjoy? In faithfulness to your soul, and to
Him whose vicegerent I am, I cannot say less than this, especially if
you persist any longer in the horrible traffic?
DEALER. Pardon me, my dear Conscience, if, under the excitement of the
moment, I complained of your honest and continued importunity. Be
assured, there is no friend in the world, with whom I am so desirous of
maintaining a good understanding as with yourself. And for your relief
and satisfaction, I now give you my solemn pledge, that I will close up
this branch of my business as soon as possible. Indeed, I have commenced
the process already. My last consignments are less, by more than one
half, than were those of the preceding year; and I intend that, when
another year comes about, my books shall speak still more decidedly in
my favor.
CONSCIENCE. These resolutions would be perfectly satisfactory, if they
were in the _present tense_. But if it was wrong to sell five hundred
casks last year, how can it be right to sell two hundred this year, and
one hundred next? If it is criminal to poison forty men at one time, how
can it be innocent to poison twenty at another? If you may not throw a
hundred firebrands into the city, how will you prove that you may throw
one?
DEALER. Very true, very true--but let us wave this point for the
present. It affects me very strangely.
CONSCIENCE. How long, then, will it take to dry up this fountain of
death?
DEALER. Don't call it so, I beseech you; but I intend to be entirely out
of the business in two or three years, at farthest.
CONSCIENCE. Two or three years! Can you, then, after all that has passed
between us, persist two or three years longer in a contraband traffic? I
verily thought, that when we had that long conference two or three
months ago, you resolved to close the concern at once; and that, when we
parted, I had as good as your promise, that you would. Surely, you
cannot so soon have forgotten it.
DEALER. No, I remember that interview but too well; for I was never so
unhappy in my life. I did almost resolve, and more than half promise,
as you say. But after I had time to get a little composed, I thought you
had pushed matters rather too far; and that I could convince you of it,
at a proper time. I see, however, that the attempt would be fruitless.
But as I am anxious for a compromise, let me ask whether, if I give away
all the profits of this branch of my business to the Bible Society, and
other religious institutions, till I can close it up, you will not be
satisfied?
CONSCIENCE. Let me see. Five hundred dollars, or one hundred dollars,
earned to promote the cause of religion by selling poison! By killing
husbands, and fathers, and brothers, and torturing poor women and
children! It smells of blood--and can God possibly accept of such an
offering?
DEALER. So then, it seems, I must stop the sale at once, or entirely
forfeit what little charity you have left.
CONSCIENCE. You must. Delay is death--death to the consumer at least;
and how can you flatter yourself that it will not prove your own eternal
death? My convictions are decisive, and be assured, I deal thus plainly
because I love you, and cannot bear to become your everlasting
tormentor.
DIALOGUE III.
AT THE RETAILER'S STAND.
CONSCIENCE. Do you know that little half-starved, bare-footed child,
that you just sent home with two quarts of rank poison?
(Retailer hums a tune to himself, and affects not to hear the question.)
CONSCIENCE. I see by the paper of this morning, that the furniture of
Mr. M---- is to be sold under the hammer to-morrow. Have I not often
seen him in your taproom?
RETAILER. I am extremely busy just now, in bringing up our ledger.
CONSCIENCE. Have you heard how N---- abused his family, and turned them
all into the street the other night, after being supplied by you with
whiskey?
RETAILER. He is a _brute_, and ought to be confined in a dungeon six
months at least, upon bread and water.
CONSCIENCE. Was not S----, who hung himself lately, one of your steady
customers? and where do you think his soul is now fixed for eternity?
You sold him rum that evening, not ten minutes before you went to the
prayer-meeting, and had his money in your pocket--for you would not
trust him--when you led in the exercises. I heard you ask him once, why
he did not attend meeting, and send his children to the Sabbath-school;
and I shall never forget his answer. "Come, you talk like a minister;
but, after all, we are about of one mind--at least in some things. Let
me have my jug and be going."
RETAILER. I know he was an impudent, hardened wretch; and though his
death was extremely shocking, I am glad to be rid of him.
CONSCIENCE. Are you ready to meet him at the bar of God, and to say to
the Judge, "He was my neighbor--I saw him going down the broad way, and
I did every thing that a Christian could do to save him?"
RETAILER. (Aside. O that I could stifle the upbraidings of this cruel
monitor.) You keep me in constant torment. This everlasting cant about
_rank poison, and liquid fire, and blood, and murder_, is too much for
even a Christian to put up with. Why, if any body but Conscience were to
make such insinuations and charges, he would be indictable as a foul
slanderer, before a court of justice.
CONSCIENCE. Is it _slander_, or is it _because I tell you the truth_,
that your temper is so deeply ruffled under my remonstrances? Suppose I
were to hold my peace, while your hands are becoming more and more
deeply crimsoned with this bloody traffic. What would you say to me,
when you come to meet that poor boy who just went out, and his drunken
father, and broken-hearted mother, at the bar of God? Would you thank
your conscience for having let you alone while there was space left for
repentance?
RETAILER. Ah, had honest trader ever _such_ a conscience to deal with
before? Always just so uncompromising--always talking about the "golden
rule"--always insisting upon a moral standard which nobody can live up
to--always scenting poverty, murder, and suicide, in every glass of
whiskey, though it were a mile off. The truth is, you are not fit to
live in this world at all. Acting in conformity with your more than
puritanical rules, would starve any man and his family to death.
CONSCIENCE. Well, here comes another customer--see the carbuncles! Will
you fill his bottle with wrath, to be poured out without mixture, by and
by, upon your own head? Do you not know that his pious wife is extremely
ill, and suffering for want of every comfort, in their miserable cabin?
RETAILER. No, Mr. E----, go home and take care of your family. I am
determined to harbor no more drunkards here.
CONSCIENCE. You mean to make a distinction then, do you, between
harboring those who are already ruined, and helping to destroy such as
are now respectable members of society. You will not hereafter tolerate
a single _drunkard_ on your premises; but--
RETAILER. Ah, I see what you are aiming at; and really, it is too much
for any honest man, and still more for any Christian to bear. You know
it is a long time since I have pretended to answer half your captious
questions. There's no use in it. It only leads on to others still more
impertinent and puzzling. If I am the hundredth part of that factor of
Satan which you would make me, I ought to be dealt with, and cast out
of the church at once; and why don't my good brethren see to it?
CONSCIENCE. That's a hard question, which they, perhaps, better know how
to answer than I do.