Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/54

50 for the rich; others so moan and dirty, that one must be low indeed to wallow therein. But the same thing is there in both,—rum, poison-drink. Many of these latter are kept by poor men, and the spider's web of the law now and then catches one of them, though latterly but seldom here. Sometimes they are kept, and, perhaps, generally owned, by rich men who drive through the net. I know how hard it is to see through a dollar, though misery stand behind it, if tho dollar be your own, and the misery belong to your brother. I fool pity for tho man who helps ruin his race, who scatters firebrands and death throughout society, scathing tho hoods of rich and poor, and old and young. I would speak charitably of such a one as of a fellow-sinner. How ho can excuse it to his own conscience is his affair, not mine. I speak only of the fact. For a poor man there may be some excuse; he has no other calling whereby to gain his bread; he would not see his own children beg, nor starve nor steal! To see his neighbour go to ruin and drag thither his children and wife, was not bo hard. But it is not tho shops of the poor men that do most harm! Had there been none but these, they had long ago been shut, and intemperance done with. It is not poor men that manufacture this poison ; nor they who import it, or sell by the wholesale. If there were no rich men in this trade there would soon be no poor ones! But how does the rich man reconcile it to his conscience? I cannot answer that.

It is difficult to find out the number of drink-shops in the city. The assessors say there are eight hundred and fifty; another authority makes the number twelve hundred. Let us suppose there are but one thousand. I think that much below the real number, for the assistant assessors found three hundred in a single ward! These shops are open morning and night. More is sold on Sunday, it is said, than on any other day in the week! While you are here to worship your Father, some of your brothers are making themselves as beasts; yes, lower. You shall probably see them at the doors of these shops as you go home; drunk in the streets this day! To my mind, the retailers are committing a great offence. I am no man's judge, and cannot condemn even them. There is One that judgeth. I cannot stand in the place of any man's con-