"Surely, madam, you must be beside yourself. I have nothing to do with your husband."
"Nothing to do with him!" the woman exclaimed, in an excited tone. "Would to heaven that it were so! Before you opened your accursed gin palace, he was a sober man, and the best and kindest of husbands—but, enticed by you, your advertisement and display of fancy drinks, he was tempted within the charmed circle of your bar-room. From that moment began his downfall; and now he is lost to self-control—lost to feeling—lost to humanity!"
As the woman said this, she burst into tears, and then turned and walked slowly away.
"To that painful illustration of the truth of what I have said," the minister remarked, as the two stood once more alone, "I have nothing to add. May the lesson sink deep into your heart. Between you and that woman's husband existed a regular business transaction. Did it result in a mutual benefit? Answer that question to your own conscience."
How the tavern-keeper answered it, we know not. But if he received no benefit from the double lesson, we trust that others may; and in the hope that the practical truth we have endeavoured briefly to illustrate, will fall somewhere upon good ground, we cast it forth for the benefit of our fellow-men.
THE TOUCHING REPROOF.
"HERE, Jane," said a father to his little girl not over eleven years of age, "go over to the shop and buy me a pint of brandy."
At the same time he handed her a quarter of a dollar. The child took the money and the bottle, and as she did so, looked her father in the face with an earnest, sad expression. But he did not seem to observe it, although he perceived it, and felt it; for he understood its meaning. The little girl lingered, as if reluctant, from some reason, to go on her errand.
"Did you hear what I said?" the father asked, angrily, and with a frowning brow, as he observed this.
Jane glided from the room and went over to the shop, hiding, as she passed through the street, the bottle under her apron. There she obtained the liquor, and returned with it in a few minutes. As she reached the bottle to her father, she looked at him again with the same sad, earnest look, which he observed. It annoyed and angered him.