“Pure wine is one thing and too much of what is called American wine quite another thing,” replied the doctor.  “Cheap wine for the people, as matters now stand, is only another name for diluted alcohol.  It is better than pure whisky, maybe, though the larger quantity that will naturally be taken must give the common dose of that article and work about the same effect in the end.”

“Then you are not in favor of giving the people cheap wines?” said the clergyman.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders again.

“I have been twice to Europe,” he replied, “and while there looked a little into the condition of the poorer classes in wine countries.  I had been told that there was scarcely any intemperance among them, but I did not find it so.  There, as here, the use of alcohol in any form, whether as beer, wine or whisky, produces the same result, varied in its effect upon the individual only by the peculiarity of temperament and national character of the people.  I’ll take another glass of that sherry; it’s the best I’ve tasted for a year.”

And Dr. Hillhouse held out his glass to be filled by the flattered host, Mr. Elliott doing the same, and physician and clergyman touched their brimming glasses and smiled and bowed “a good health.”  Before the hour for going home arrived both were freer of tongue and a little wilder in manner than when they came.

“The doctor is unusually brilliant to-night,” said one, with just a slight lifting of the eyebrow.

“And so is Mr. Elliott,” returned the person addressed, glancing at the clergyman, who, standing in the midst of a group of young men, glass in hand, was telling a story and laughing at his own witticisms.

“Nothing strait-laced about Mr. Elliott,” remarked the other.  “I like him for that.  He doesn’t think because he’s a clergyman that he must always wear a solemn face and act as if he were conducting a funeral service.  Just hear him laugh!  It makes you feel good.  You can get near to such a man.  All the young people in his congregation like him because he doesn’t expect them to come up to his official level, but is ever ready to come down to them and enter into their feelings and tastes.”

“He likes a good glass of wine,” said the first speaker.

“Of course he does.  Have you any objection?”

“Shall I tell you what came into my thought just now?”

“Yes.”

“What St. Paul said about eating meat.”

“Oh!”

“’If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.’  And again:  ’Take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling-block to them that are weak.’”

“How does that apply to Mr. Elliott?”