“But ye don’t start in the mornin’ with hungry little faces a hauntin’ ye—­ye don’t take the dry crusts to the field for yer own dinner, an’ leave the meat an’ butter at home for the wife an’ young ‘uns.  An’ ye go home without bein’ afeard to see a half-fed wife draggin’ herself aroun’ among a lot of puny young ’uns that don’t know what’s the matter with ’em.  Jesus Christ hissef broke down when it come to the cross, deac’n, an’ poor human bein’s sometimes reaches a pint where they can’t stan’ no more, an’ when its wife an’ children that brings it on, it gits a man awful.”

“The gentleman is right, I have no doubt,” said the Chairman, “so far as a limited class is concerned, but of course no such line of argument applies to the majority of cases.  There are plenty of well-fed, healthy, and lazy young men hanging about the tavern in this very village.”

“I know it,” said Joe Digg, “an’ I want to talk about them too.  I don’t wan’t to take up all the time of this meetin’, but you’ll all ’low I know more ‘bout that tavern than any body else does.  Ther’ is lots of young men a hanging aroun’ it, an’ why—­’cos it’s made pleasant for ’em, an’ it’s the only place in town that is.  I’ve been a faithful attendant at that tavern for nigh onto twenty year, an’ I never knowed a hanger-on there that had a comfortable home of his own.  Some of them that don’t hev to go to bed hungry hev scoldin’ or squabblin’ parents, an’ they can’t go a visitin’ an’ hear fine music, an’ see nice things of every sort to take their minds off, as some young men in this meetin’ house can.  But the tavern is allus comfortable, an’ ther’s generally somebody to sing a song and tell a joke, an’ they commence goin’ ther’ more fur a pleasant time than for a drink, at fust.  Ther’s lots of likely boys goin’ there that I wish to God ‘d stay away, an’ I’ve often felt like tellin’ ’em so, but what’s the use?  Where are they to go to?”

“They ort to flee from even the appearance of evil,” said Deacon Towser.

“But where be they to flee to, Deac’n?” persisted Joe Digg; “would you like ’em to come a visitin’ to your house?”

“They can come to the church meetings,” replied the Deacon; “there’s two in the week, besides Sundays, an’ some of ’em’s precious seasons—­all of ’em’s an improvement on the wicked tavern.”

“’Ligion don’t taste no better’n whiskey, tell you get used to it,” said the drunkard, horrifying all the orthodox people at Backley, “an’ taint made half so invitin’.  ‘Taint long ago I heerd ye tellin’ another deacon that the church-members ort to be ’shamed of ’emselves, ’cos sca’cely any of ’em come to the week-evenin’ meetin’s, so ye can’t blame the boys at the tavern.”

“Does the gentleman mean to convey the idea that all drunkards become so from justifying causes?” asked the lecturer.

“No, sir,” replied Joe Digg, “but I do mean to say that after you leave out them that takes liquor to help ’em do a full day’s work, an’ them that commence drinkin’ ‘cos they re at the tavern, an’ ain’t got no where’s else to go, you’ve made a mighty big hole in the crowd of drinkin’-men—­bigger’n temperance meetins’ ever begin to make yit”