“At last I said, ‘Now, after all you have told me about oppressive governments, bad laws, taxation, and all that, you have not brought forward one thing that would for a moment stand in the way of your following any occupation you like, and becoming great in it, choosing any kind of home your industry and resources would enable you to command, reading what books you like, adopting what form of religious worship you like, sending your children to any school you like, and taking up with any friends you like; so that I cannot offer you much sympathy for the oppressions of which you are complaining. But there is something going on in this country that is oppressing you. I think, if you could prove there was anything in the present government which caused destruction of life and property to 10,000 persons every year, it would excite such indignation in the country that the government would hardly stand another week.’ “‘I should think not,’ one of them said. “‘And yet there is something going on amongst us that is destroying at least 60,000 precious souls and bodies every year; and I have often wondered that you men, who have such ability to detect and expose the faults of a government, which, after all, is not hurting you much, and which you cannot alter, should expend uselessly the power that might be successfully directed against the monster evil to which I am referring.’ “‘You mean the drink, I suppose, ma’am?’ “‘Yes. Now, here is an evil worth fighting against. If you directed all your efforts against _this_ tyrannical government, and were determined to get rid of it, you would be doing much more good for yourselves, and the country too, than any House of Commons will ever do, even supposing all the members of it were elected by ballot.’ “Then followed a kind of teetotal discussion. Amongst other arguments brought against teetotalism, the painter objected that ‘people who lived altogether upon food ate such a lot that they got heavy and stupid in their minds.’ I asked him if he knew that the preacher he had heard last Sunday was a water-drinker? “‘Dear me, no; I never could have thought it. What! he only drink water? Well, that’s a good un! I’d drink water, too, if I thought I could get such a headpiece as his out of it. I said to myself, on Sunday, when I was hearing him, “Now, you are a right sort of a man; if I could be like you, I shouldn’t get tired of being alive, as I do now sometimes.”’ “‘No, indeed; if you were like him, you would not get tired of living, nor be afraid of dying, either. Now, suppose you set up from this day to try to be like him. You know that his nature is no better than yours. God has made him what he is; and is ready to do everything for you that He has done for him.’