Sez I, “There ain’t no need to be such a vast army of poverty marching on to the almshouse and grave, if it wuzn’t for the dram-shop temptin’ poor human nater, and the greed of the world, and the cowardice and indifference of the Church of Christ. Enough money is squandered for stuff that degrades and destroys to feed and clothe all the hungry and naked children of the world.”
“Oh,” sez Miss Meechim, “I don’t believe all this talk and clamor about prohibition. My people all drank genteelly, and though of course it was drink that led to the agony and divorces of three of my sisters, and my father’s first downfall, yet I have always considered that moderate drinking was genteel. Our family physician always drank genteel, and our clergyman always kept it in his wine cellar, and if people would only exert self control and drink genteel, there would be no danger.”
“How duz Robert Strong feel about it?” sez I.
“Oh, he is a fanatic on the subject; he won’t employ 22 a man who drinks at all. He says that the city he is founding is a City of Justice, and it is not just for one member of a family to do anything to endanger the safety and happiness of the rest; so on that ground alone he wouldn’t brook any drinking in his model city. There are no very rich ones there, and absolutely no poor ones; he is completely obliterating the barriers that always have, and I believe always should exist between the rich and the poor. Sez I, ‘Robert, you are sacrilegiously setting aside the Saviour’s words, “the poor ye shall always have with you.”’
“And he said there was another verse that our Lord incorporated in his teachings and the whole of his life-work, that he was trying to carry out: ‘Do unto others as ye would have them to do unto you.’ He said that love and justice was the foundation and cap-stone of our Saviour’s life and work and he was trying in his weak way to carry them out in his own life and work. Robert talked well,” sez she, “and I must confess that to the outward eye his City of Justice is in a happy and flourishing condition, easy hours of work, happy faces of men, women and children as they work or play or study. It looks well, but as I always tell him, there is a weak spot in it somewhere.”
“What duz he say to that?” sez I, dretful interested in the story.
“Why, he says the only weak spot in it is his own incompetence and inability to carry out the Christ idea of love and justice as he wants to.”
“I wish I could see that City of Justice,” sez I dreamily, for my mind’s eye seemed to look up to Robert Strong in reverence and admiration. “Well,” sez she, “I must say that it is a beautiful place; it is founded on a natural terrace that rises up from a broad, beautiful, green plain, flashing rivers run through the valley, and back of it rises the mountains.”
“Like as the mountains are about Jerusalem,” sez I.
“Yes, a beautiful clear stream rushes down the mountain 23 side from the melting snow on top, but warmed by the southern sun, as it flows through the fertile land, it is warm and sweet as it reaches Robert’s place. And Robert says,” continued Miss Meechim, “that that is just how old prejudices and injustices will melt like the cold snow and flow in a healing stream through the world. He talks well, Robert does. And oh, what a help he has been to me with Dorothy!”