Mr. Blackstone laughed, and the laugh sounded frightfully harsh in my ears.
"A man"—my husband went on, who was surprised that a clergyman should be so liberal—"a man who sells drink!—in whose house so many of your parishioners will to-morrow night get too drunk to be in church the next morning!"
"I wish having been drunk were what would keep them from being in church. Drunk or sober, it would be all the same. Few of them care to go. They are turning out better, however, than when first I came. As for the publican, who knows what chance of doing him a good turn it may put in my way?"
"You don't expect to persuade him to shut up shop?"
"No: he must persuade himself to that."
"What good, then, can you expect to do him?"
"Who knows? I say. You can't tell what good may or may not come out of it, any more than you can tell which of your efforts, or which of your helpers, may this night be the means of restoring your child."
"What do you expect the man to say about it?"
"I shall provide him with something to say. I don't want him to attribute it to some foolish charity. He might. In the New Testament, publicans are acknowledged to have hearts."
"Yes; but the word has a very different meaning in the New Testament."