"I should be afraid!" sez he, and his voice fairly trembled with indignation, "I should be afraid to talk of the Church of Christ as you do!" "Let it behave itself then!" sez Arvilly, "be converted and come out on the Lord's side to the help of the weak aginst the mighty!" "The saloon," sez Elder Wessel dogmatically, "is the Poor Man's Club." He wuz all rousted up by her hash talk and come out plainer than he had come. "The rich man has his club, and the saloon is the Poor Man's Club. He has a right to go there for a little recreation." "Re-creation!" sez Arvilly. "If you think drinkin' pizen whiskey is re-creatin' a man, you're different from me." "And me, too," sez I. "If you call it re-creatin' to go to the Poor Man's Club sober and sane," sez Arvilly, "and stagger home at midnight crazy drunk, I say he hain't no right to re-create himself that way; he re-creates himself from a good man and worthy member of society into a fiend, a burden and terror to his family and community. Now Elder White's idee of re-creatin' men is different; he believes in takin' bad men and re-creatin' 'em into good ones, and I wish that every minister on earth would go and do likewise." "I know nothin' about Elder White," sez Elder Wessel hautily. "He's our minister in Loontown," sez Arvilly. "He has his church open every night in the week for re-creatin' in the right way." "I don't approve of that," sez Elder Wessel. "The church of the Most High is too sacred to use for such purposes." "A minister said that once to Elder White," sez Arvilly, "and he answered 'em with that warm meller smile of hisen, 'Where are my boys and girls more welcome and safe than at home, and this is their Father's house,'" sez he. "Using that holy place for recreation is very wrong," sez Elder Wessel. Sez Arvilly, "I told you that he used it to re-create anew to goodness and strength. He has music, good books, innocent games of all kinds, bright light, warmth, cheerful society, good lectures, and an atmosphere of good helpful influences surroundin' 'em, and he has sandwiches and coffee served in what wuz the pastor's study, and which he uses now, Heaven knows, to study the big problem how a minister of the Most High can do the most good to his people." "Coffee," sez Elder Wessel, "is all right in its place, but the common workman hankers after something stronger; he wants his beer or toddy, the glass that makes him forget his trouble for a time, and lifts him into another world." "Well, I spoze the opium eater and cocaine fiend hanker after the fool paradise these drugs take 'em into, but that's no sign that they ort to destroy themselves with 'em." "Coffee, too, is deleterious," sez Elder Wessel. "Some say that it is worse than whiskey."