Elliott?"
An assenting smile broke into Mr. Elliott's face, and he reached for
the glass which Mr. Ridley had just refused.
"Something very choice," said the host.
The clergyman tasted and sipped with the air of a connoisseur.
"Very choice indeed, sir," he replied. "But you always have good
wine."
Mrs. Ridley drew her hand in her husband's arm and leaned upon it.
"If it is to be had," returned the host, a little, proudly; "and I
generally know where to get it. A good glass of wine I count among
the blessings for which one may give thanks--wine, I mean, not
drugs."
"Exactly; wine that is pure hurts no one, unless, indeed, his
appetite has been vitiated through alcoholic indulgence, and even
then I have sometimes thought that the moderate use of strictly pure
wine would restore the normal taste and free a man from the tyranny
of an enslaving vice."
That sentence took quick hold upon the thought of Mr. Ridley. It
gave him a new idea, and he listened with keen interest to what
followed.
"You strike the keynote of a true temperance reformation, Mr.
Elliott," returned the host. "Give men pure wine instead of the vile
stuff that bears its name, and you will soon get rid of drunkenness.
I have always preached that doctrine."
"And I imagine you are about right," answered Mr. Elliott. "Wine is
one of God's gifts, and must be good. If men abuse it sometimes, it
is nothing more than they do with almost every blessing the Father
of all mercies bestows upon his children.
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