Blanco [turning on him] Done like you!  What do you mean?  Drink like you, eh?  Well, Ive done some of that lately.  I see things.

Elder Daniels.  Too late, Blanco:  too late. [Convulsively] Oh, why didnt you drink as I used to?  Why didnt you drink as I was led to by the Lord for my good, until the time came for me to give it up?  It was drink that saved my character when I was a young man; and it was the want of it that spoiled yours.  Tell me this.  Did I ever get drunk when I was working?

Blanco.  No; but then you never worked when you had money enough to get drunk.

Elder Daniels.  That just shews the wisdom of Providence and the Lord’s mercy.  God fulfils himself in many ways:  ways we little think of when we try to set up our own shortsighted laws against his Word.  When does the Devil catch hold of a man?  Not when he’s working and not when he’s drunk; but when he’s idle and sober.  Our own natures tell us to drink when we have nothing else to do.  Look at you and me!  When we’d both earned a pocketful of money, what did we do?  Went on the spree, naturally.  But I was humble minded.  I did as the rest did.  I gave my money in at the drink-shop; and I said, “Fire me out when I have drunk it all up.”  Did you ever see me sober while it lasted?

Blanco.  No; and you looked so disgusting that I wonder it didn’t set me against drink for the rest of my life.

Elder Daniels.  That was your spiritual pride, Blanco.  You never reflected that when I was drunk I was in a state of innocence.  Temptations and bad company and evil thoughts passed by me like the summer wind as you might say:  I was too drunk to notice them.  When the money was gone, and they fired me out, I was fired out like gold out of the furnace, with my character unspoiled and unspotted; and when I went back to work, the work kept me steady.  Can you say as much, Blanco?  Did your holidays leave your character unspoiled?  Oh, no, no.  It was theatres:  it was gambling:  it was evil company, it was reading in vain romances:  it was women, Blanco, women:  it was wrong thoughts and gnawing discontent.  It ended in your becoming a rambler and a gambler:  it is going to end this evening on the gallows tree.  Oh, what a lesson against spiritual pride!  Oh, what a—­[Blanco throws his hat at him].

Blanco.  Stow it, Boozy.  Sling it.  Cut it.  Cheese it.  Shut up.  “Shake not the dying sinner’s hand.”

Elder Daniels.  Aye:  there you go, with your scraps of lustful poetry.  But you cant deny what I tell you.  Why, do you think I would put my soul in peril by selling drink if I thought it did no good, as them silly temperance reformers make out, flying in the face of the natural tastes implanted in us all for a good purpose?  Not if I was to starve for it to-morrow.  But I know better.  I tell you, Blanco, what keeps America to-day the purest of the nations is that when she’s not working she’s too drunk to hear the voice of the tempter.