That night the rector’s sleep was very troubled.
It was about a week later that he was again near the “Oldfield Arms,” when a spruce-looking man—his wine-merchant’s agent—came out of the inn door, and walked up the street. Two men were standing with their backs to the rector just outside the yard. He was about to pass on; when he heard one say,—
“What a sight of wine some of them parsons drink! Yon fine gent couldn’t afford all them gold chains and pins if it warn’t for the parsons.”
“Ay,” said the other, “it’s the parsons as knows good wine from bad. I heerd yon chap say only this morning: ‘Our very best customers is the clergy.’”
“Well,” rejoined the other, “I shouldn’t mind if they’d only leave us poor fellows alone, and let us get drunk when we’ve a mind. But it do seem a little hard that they may get drunk on their wine, but we mustn’t get drunk on our beer.”
“Oh, but you know, Bill,” said the other, “this here’s the difference. When they get drunk, it’s genteel drunk, and there’s no sin in that; but when we poor fellows get drunk, it’s wulgar drunk, and that’s awful wicked.”
Bernard Oliphant was deeply pained; he shrank within himself.
“It’s a cruel libel and a coarse slander,” he muttered, and hastened on his way. “Am I answerable,” he asked himself, “for the abuse which others may make of what I take moderately and innocently? Absurd! And yet it’s a pity, a grievous pity, that it should be possible for such poor ignorant creatures to speak thus of any of our holy calling, and so to justify themselves in sin.”
Yes, he felt it to be so, and it preyed upon his mind more and more. He mentioned what he had heard to his wife.
“Dear Bernard,” she replied, “I have thought a great deal lately on this subject, especially since you told me about your speaking to those men when you were interrupted by the drayman. I have prayed that you and I might be directed aright; and we shall be. But do not let us be hasty. It does seem as though we were being called on to give up, for the sake of others, what does us personally no harm. But perhaps we may be wrong in this view. A great many excellent Christians, and ministers too, are moderate drinkers, and never exceed; and we must not be carried away by a mistaken enthusiasm to brand their use of fermented drinks as sinful because such frightful evils are daily resulting from immoderate drinking. We must think and pray, and our path will be made plain; and we must be prepared to walk in it, cost what it may.”