human
Nothing strait-laced about Mr. Elliott, remarked the other.
gpt
I like him for that. He doesn't think because he's a clergyman that he must always wear a solemn face and act as if he were conducting a funeral service. Just hear him laugh! It makes you feel good. You can get near to such a man. All the young people in his congregation like him because he doesn't expect them to come up to his official level, but is ever ready to come down to them and enter into their feelings and tastes.
human
He likes a good glass of wine,
gpt
Of course he does. Have you any objection?
human
Shall I tell you what came into my thought just now?
gpt
Yes.
human
What St. Paul said about eating meat.
gpt
Oh!
human
How does that apply to Mr. Elliott?
gpt
There are more than one or two young men in the group that surrounds him who need a better example than he is now setting. They need repression in the matter of wine-drinking, not encouragement--a good example of abstinence in their minister, and not enticement to drink through his exhibition of liberty. Do you think that I, church member though I am not, could stand as Mr. Elliott is now standing, glass in hand, gayly talking to young Ellis Whitford, who rarely goes to a party without--poor weak young man!--drinking too much, and so leading him on in the way of destruction instead of seeking in eager haste to draw him back? No sir! It is no light thing, as I regard it, to put a stumbling-block in another's way or to lead the weak or unwary into temptation.
human
Perhaps you are right about it, was the answer,