He knew that nothin' but God's grace wuz strong enough to reach down and haul 'em up agin to level ground.
A few men are so strong-footed they can grip on and stay 'round the top for some time, and I presoom this minister, bein' a good-natered man would been glad to had 'em all hung on there, but he must have knowed they wouldn't and couldn't.

He'd seen 'em leggo thousands and thousands every year, he knowed what made 'em fall.

And he might jest as well made a prayer and sung a hymn over a murderer's knife, because he wanted it to cut bread but knowed it would and did murder, as to done this.
For no matter what he wanted he knowed intemperance is evil and only evil.

And pattin' a pizen viper and callin' it "angel" and singin' the Doxology over it hain't goin' to change its nater, its nater is to sting, and its bite is death.
And the God they dasted to invoke said of the drink the place wuz made to sell, "It biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder," and the end thereof is death.
I don't know what that good man could be thinkin' on to dast.

But then as long as our Government opholds it, I spoze he thought he might.
But I wish I'd been there to told him how it wuz goin' to look to me and Josiah and the world, and what slurs wuz goin' to be cast onto the sacred cause of religion by it.
I couldn't tell him what harm it wuz goin' to do; no, eternity is none too soon to count that up.