I riz right up, and grasped holt of his arm, and says in stern, avengin' tones,—
“Josiah Allen, will you go right against God's commands, and put the cup to your neighbor's lips, for your own gain? Do you expect, if you do, that you can escape Heaven's avengin' wrath?”
“They hain't my neighbors: I never neighbored with 'em.”
Says I sternly, “If you commit this sin, you will be held accountable; and it seems to me as if you can never be forgiven.”
“Dumb it all, Samantha, if everybody else does so, where will I get my votes?”
“Go without 'em, Josiah Allen; go down to poverty, or the tomb, but never commit this sin. 'Cursed is he that putteth the cup to his neighbor's lips.'”
“They hain't my neighbors, and it probable hain't no cup that they will drink out of: they will drink out of gobblers” (sometimes when Josiah gets excited, he calls goblets, gobblers). But I wus too wrought up and by the side of myself to notice it.
Says I, “To think a human bein', to say nothin' of a perfessor, would go to work deliberate to get a man into a state that is jest as likely as not to end in a murder, or any crime, for gain to himself.” Says I, “Think of the different crimes you commit by that one act, Josiah Allen. You make a man a fool, and in that way put yourself down on a level with disease, deformity, and hereditary sin. You steal his reason away. You are a thief of the deepest dye; for you steal then, from the man you have stole from—steal the first rights of his manhood, his honor, his patriotism, his duty to God and man. You are a thief of the Government—thief of God, and right.