No sooner were the ship's damages in a fair way to be repaired than the
Professor resumed his sermon. He climbed into the cutter, which was
still full of the passengers' baggage, and sat down on the largest of
Virginia's boxes. This so alarmed Virginia that she incontinently
followed the Professor into the cutter, to keep an eye on her property;
but she did not forget to stop her ears with her fingers, that she
might not be guilty of listening to an unsurpliced minister.
The Professor took up the thread of his discourse just where he had
broken it off. Every circumstance favoured him. The calm sea was
sparkling under the gentlest breeze; all Nature seemed suffused with
gladness; and at two miles' distance was an enchanting island, green
with every kind of foliage, and glowing with the hues of a thousand
flowers. The Professor, having reminded his hearers of what nonsense
they now thought all the Christian teachings, went on to show them the
blessed results of this. Since the God that we once called all-holy is
a fable, that Humanity is all-holy must be a fact. Since we shall never
be sublime, and solemn, and unspeakably happy hereafter, it is evident
that we can be sublime, and solemn, and unspeakably happy here. 'This,'
said the Professor, 'is the new Gospel. It is founded on exact thought.
It is the Gospel of the kingdom of man; and had I only here a microscope
and a few chemicals, I could demonstrate its eternal truth to you. There
is no heaven to seek for; there is no hell to shun. We have nothing to
strive and live for except to be unspeakably happy.'
This eloquence was received with enthusiasm. The captain in particular,
who had a wife in every port he touched at, was overjoyed at hearing
that there was no hell; and he sent for all the crew, that they might
learn the good news likewise. But soon the general gladness was marred
by a sound of weeping. Three-fourths of the passengers, having had time
to reflect a little, began exclaiming that as a matter of fact they were
really completely miserable, and that for various reasons they could
never be anything else. 'My friends,' said the Professor, quite
undaunted, 'that is doubtless completely true. You are not happy now;
you probably never will be. But that, I can assure you, is of very
little moment. Only conform faithfully to the laws of matter, and your
children's children will be happy in the course of a few centuries; and
you will like that far, far better than being happy yourselves. Only
consider the matter in this light, and you yourselves will in an instant
become happy also; and whatever you say, and whatever you do, think only
of the effect it will have five hundred years afterwards.'
At these solemn words, the anxious faces grew calm. An awful sense of
the responsibility of each one of us, and the infinite consequences of
every human act, was filling the hearts of all; when by a faithful
conformity to the laws of matter, the boiler blew up, and the
_Australasian_ went down. In an instant the air was rent with yells and
cries; and all the Humanity that was on board the vessel was busy, as
the Professor expressed it, uniting itself with the infinite azure of
the past. Paul and Virginia, however, floated quietly away in the
cutter, together with the baggage and provisions.
Virginia was made almost senseless by the suddenness of the catastrophe;
and on seeing five sailors sink within three yards of her, she fainted
dead away. The Professor begged her not to take it so much to heart, as
these were the very men who had got the cutter in readiness; 'and they
are, therefore,' he said, 'still really alive in the fact of our happy
escape.' Virginia, however, being quite insensible, the Professor turned
to the last human being still to be seen above the waters, and shouted
to him not to be afraid of death, as there was certainly no hell, and
that his life, no matter how degraded and miserable, had been a glorious
mystery, full of infinite significance. The next moment the struggler
was snapped up by a shark. Our friends, meanwhile, borne by a current,
had been drifting rapidly towards the island. And the Professor,
spreading to the breeze Virginia's beautiful lace parasol, soon brought
the cutter to the shore on a beach of the softest sand.