I spoke up then; I am a good coffee maker, everybody admits, and I couldn't bear to hear Ernest White talked aginst, and I sez: "I never hearn of a workman drinkin' so much coffee that he wuz a danger to his family and the community, or so carried away with it that he spent his hull wages on it. Such talk is foolish and only meant to blind the eyes of justice and common sense. Elder White's Mutual Help Club, as he calls it, for he makes these folks think they help him, and mebby they do, is doin' sights of good, sights of it. Young folks who wuz well started towards the drunkard's path have been turned right round by it, and they save their wages and look like different men since they have left the Poor Man's Club, as you call it, and patronize hisen." "And Elder White has showed," sez Arvilly, "by his example just what the Church of Christ could do if it wanted to, to save men from the evil of this present time and git 'em headed towards the Celestial City." "Oh!" sez Elder Wessel, "I would no more use the church dedicated to the Most High in the way you speak of than I would use the communion cup to pass water in." "If a man wuz dyin' of thirst, and that cup could be used to save him, don't you spoze the Lord would want it used for that, Elder Wessel?" sez Arvilly. "Oh, no! oh, no!" sez he: "give not that which is holy unto dogs; cast not your pearls before swine." "That is jest what I have been preachin' to you," sez Arvilly. "Give not that which is holy, the best nater, and goodness of boys and men to the dogs, the brutes that lay in wait for 'em in whiskey laws. The God in man is murdered every 'lection day by professors of religion and ministers." "Why--whyee," sez Elder Wessel, sinkin' back in his chair. "Yes," sez the dantless Arvilly, "I mean jest what I say; them that refuse to vote and help in the matter are jest as guilty as license voters; they are consentin' to the crucifixion of Christ in man. And the poor drunkards are not the only ones they help nail to the cross. The innocent life and happiness of wimmen and children these wicked laws lift up on the cross of agony, and their hearts' blood cries to heaven for judgment on them that might have helped 'em and would not. The Church of Christ is responsible for this crime," sez Arvilly, "for there is not an evil on earth that could stand before the combined strength of a united church." Sez Elder Wessel, gittin' back considerable dignity (her hash talk madded him awfully), sez he, "I simply see things in another light from what you do." "He that is not for me is against me," sez Arvilly. Sez the Elder in a dogmatic axent, real doggy it wuz, "I say again, the saloon is the Poor Man's Club." And I sez dreamily, "Talkin' of a club as a club, a club in the hands of a drunken man, strikin' at and destroyin' all the safety and happiness of a home, yes," sez I, "it is such a club."