THE DOCTRINE OF INSURANCE.
Conversation upon the lesson of the previous Sunday was not confined to
the quartette that met at the village post-office. Most of the members
of the club went to the city on Monday morning on the little steamer
_Oak-leaf_. The radicals among them were eager for a renewal of the
fray, and the orthodox were not at all averse to displaying their
defensive abilities. Indeed, President Lottson stood at the wharf,
newspaper in hand, for the express purpose of encountering Broker
Whilcher, and provoking him to make an attack. The broker finally
appeared, accompanied by his wife and children; but the presence of
non-combatants did not discourage the Soldier of the Cross, who had been
too long in the insurance business to be willing to lose any chance of
strengthening his own protection against risk in another world. Broker
Whilcher met him boldly; he sent his _impedimenta_ promptly to the
rear--to wit, the ladies' saloon--and prepared for the combat which he
knew was approaching.
"I suppose you think you whipped us yesterday," said President Lottson,
by way of opening shot.
"It was too clear a case to depend upon supposition only," said the
broker; "but if you've any doubts on the subject I've no objections to
helping defeat you again."
"Seriously, Whilcher," said the president, leading his antagonist to a
_tête-à-tête_, "do you realize what comes of all this nonsense? You
profess to be a free-thinker, so I won't ask you to meet me on my own
ground, which is that the new dispensation furnishes a substitute for
the old; I'll only ask you to look at the matter from your own
rationalistic point of view. A man must live up to his beliefs, if he
_is_ a man."
"True enough," replied the broker. "I wish your parson would admit the
same, and preach accordingly. I wouldn't be cheated quite so often by
his parishioners."
"Business is business," said the president. "You don't ever let any of
the theories of your new-fashioned philosophy stand in the way of your
making a good trade, do you?"
"No, I can't say that I do," replied the broker.
"And yet," said Mr. Lottson, "you believe in the theory of the reign of
law--a law which cannot be broken without danger of severe penalty. Now
whether Christ was God or only man, you've got to obey the law under
penalty of punishment, unless there is some other way of satisfying it.
Therefore, why not accept a belief that leaves you as free to believe in
the law, to admire its wisdom and beauty, as you are now? Putting the
thing in a business light, you change no beliefs--you simply take on a
new one."
"I'll profess to believe nothing but what I understand," declared the
broker.
"You believe in geography, don't you?" asked the president, "and in
history, astronomy, chemistry, zoölogy--all the sciences, in fact? You
swear by Darwin, yet you certainly don't pretend to understand all that
he writes about."
"I accept his conclusions, because I believe in his wisdom and honesty,"
said the broker. "Of course I don't profess to be able to follow him
through his scientific experiments."
"Exactly," said the president. "And you believe that Christ and the
apostles were honest, don't you?"
"Yes--as honest as _human_ beings ever are," said the broker.
"That means as honest as Darwin and Spencer, then," said Mr. Lottson.
"Then why not believe them as well as your scientific teachers?"
"Because----" said Mr. Whilcher, and hesitated.
"Because other people _do_," continued Lottson, "and it wouldn't seem
scholarly to accept that which was taught and accepted by men whose
demonstrations were not made by the assistance of material things. If
you stick to your ideas, men will hold you to them. You can't live up to
them in your business; you'll lose money if you try it, and you'll be
called a fool for your pains. Why don't you be consistent? There's no
consistency between morals and business excepting through the medium of
the Christian belief. Believe what you choose so long as you believe in
a First Cause, be one of us, accept the promises that were made to
provide for your condition as well as that of every other man that finds
a constant disagreement between life and law. Then you'll at least have
done what is the business duty of every man--you'll have provided
against the dangers which you don't fear, and yet daren't defy for fear
they may exist."
"That's a cold-blooded way of putting it, any way," remarked the
broker, after a moment or two of thought, which was apparently amusing.
"I don't deny it," said the president, "but reason is always
cold-blooded. You don't pretend that in your darling scientific hobbies
it's anything else, do you? You free-thinkers claim to monopolize
reason; but you can't help seeing that religion deals in it just as much
as science does, and that it leads men to the church as truly as it does
to the study. And I want it to lead you to us, as it is bound to do if
you're as fair as you pretend to be."
"You want me to be a religionist, do you?" asked Whilcher; "a shouting,
sentimental exhorter! What a fine reputation you want me to make--and
lose--among my friends!"
"I don't want you to do anything of the sort," said the president. "Did
you ever hear of _me_ shouting or exhorting?"
Mr. Whilcher laughed long and loud at the mere thought, as would any
other of the president's acquaintances have done. The president colored
a little and contemplated the matting of the cabin floor, but replied:
"It's nothing to my discredit, nor anything to laugh about. Because
excitable people get into the church, drawn there by appeals to their
emotional nature, it doesn't prove that noise and talk are necessary
results of religion. You don't find any nonsense of that kind in St.
Paul's Epistles, do you? _He_ was a man after my own heart--a fellow who
believed that the laborer was worthy of his hire, who kept himself
before the people, who talked solid sense, and explained how easy it was
for every man to take advantage of the sacrifice that was made for him.
You know the little company there is in the city that insures against
accidents? I don't believe you'd lend twenty-five cents on the dollar on
its stock--I'll sell you some of their certificates cheaper than that,
if you ever want any--but whenever you make a trip out of town I
understand you take out one of their policies."
"So I do," said the broker. "It costs very little, and it covers a good
deal, and may come handy in case of trouble."
"That's exactly the argument in favor of your joining the church," said
the president, "excepting that in the latter case a great deal more is
promised and the cost is nothing at all."
"Excepting church dues," said the broker, with a quizzical smile.
"Well," said the president, "that's true, but what do they amount to in
a question of risk?"
Broker Whilcher reflected profoundly for several moments, and at last
said:
"Lottson, I'm inclined to do it; if any one had ever talked solid sense
to me about religion I should have been in the Church before. Still, how
am I going to solemnly declare before a body of people that I believe
things which I really don't believe at all?"
"You must believe them before you declare any belief, and believe them
for the reason that you believe thousands of other things--because you
are told that they are true. You believe many a thing on the word of
worse men than those who wrote the Gospels and Epistles, for these men
showed no sign of being on the make, while your business informants do.
You are to believe them for lack of any definite information to the
contrary, and because there was no selfish object in the eye of any man
who gave the words upon which these beliefs are founded."
"I declare, I'll do it!" exclaimed the broker; "but say, Lottson, do you
get a commission on church members as you do on insurance risks? Because
if you do--halves!"
"Nonsense!" laughed the president. "You'll have to go before the
examining committee this week, for next Sunday is the first of the
month, and the regular day for the reception of new members."
"Examining committee!" exclaimed the broker. "Whew! I guess I'll change
my mind."
"Don't be afraid," said the president. "I'm a member of the committee,
myself, and when I take a candidate in hand, the others are pretty sure
to let him alone. I've been in business long enough to know how to treat
a man according to his style, I fancy."
The new candidate laughed heartily to himself, stared at the president
so intently that he embarrassed the latter; then he shook his head with
the air of a man to whom a new revelation had come, and he put a cigar
in his mouth and started forward for a contemplative smoke.
As for President Lottson, he quoted to himself, with intense
satisfaction, the passage:
"Whoso shall convert a sinner from the error of his ways shall save a
soul from death and cover a multitude of sins."
Then he searched the boat diligently for Captain Maile, and when he had
found him he told him the news with evident exultation, and the captain
replied:
"Another crooked stick reserved unto the final burning."
"See here, Maile," said Mr. Lottson, "this is nonsense, and you're the
last man who should be guilty of it. Your father and grandfather were
among the founders of the church in this section of country."
"That's true," said the captain, "and to save the family reputation from
disgrace, I've had to spend some of the money they left me in trying to
undo some of the mischief they did."
"Then you're a fool," said the president. "That may sound like plain
talk, but it's true; you should have learned, as your ancestors did,
that religion is one thing and business is another."
"Oh, I've learned it," said the captain, "and I've also learned that the
devil, if there is a devil, is the father of that precious notion, and
that it's worth millions to him. Do you suppose I think any more of men
because they belong to the church? Do you imagine I look over your
policies any less carefully than I do those of Bennett, who don't
believe in God, devil, or anybody else? Do you suppose I'll take
Whilcher's word a minute quicker when he gets into the church than I do
now? Not a bit of it. The church is the hope of the honest and the mask
of the rascally. How did you like the way the lesson went yesterday?"
"I liked the way it ended better than anything else," said the
president.
"I knew you would," said the captain; "and if they spring a
reconsideration on you next Sunday, _won't_ you be disgusted!"
Mr. Buffle had approached the couple as they conversed, and said:
"Gentlemen, what do you think of yesterday's exercises?"
"Both dissatisfied," promptly replied the captain. "Lottson don't like
the way they began, and I'm sorry that they ended when they did."
"I'm counting noses to see if we can't secure a reconsideration," said
Mr. Buffle. "I don't like the way in which the main question was dodged,
and I want to hear more of it."
"Then you'd better go over to the Unitarian Church," said President
Lottson. "They'll talk morality to you there to your heart's content."
"They will in our church, too," replied Mr. Buffle, "unless prevented by
trickery. One would suppose that morality was something to be afraid of
by the way people dodge talking about it."
Mr. Lottson assumed a very high-toned air, and replied:
"It isn't that morality is feared, but that when men fall to talking
about it they forget that there is anything higher."
"Perhaps it's because they never talk about it excepting at the
beginning," said Mr. Buffle, "and they're anxious to begin at the
bottom, as men have to do in business and everything else, if they
really want to learn. I begin to think it's a subject about which there
isn't much known. It's often seemed to me in churches that men are very
much like the apprentices in my ship-yard; the first thing these boys
want to do is to paint the names and designs on the paddle-boxes,
though that's the very last thing we generally attend to. Not one in a
hundred of them are ever anxious to know how keels are laid and hulls
are shaped."
"That's only business; isn't it, Lottson?" asked Captain Maile.
"Business and religion are two very different things, and a smart man
like you, Buffle, ought to know it, and not go about arranging for
Sunday exercises to torment men into thinking what they ought to do,
instead of letting them enjoy a day of holy rest and delight in the
contemplation of what they're going to get when they can't stay here any
longer to get for themselves."
Mr. Lottson turned abruptly away, and remarked to Mr. Prymm that Captain
Maile was the most hardened scoffer he had ever known. He also informed
Prymm of the movement in favor of a reconsideration of the lesson of the
previous Sunday.
"I shall oppose it," said Mr. Prymm with more than his ordinary
decision. "I entered the class with the hope of learning something of
God's will as revealed by the Scriptures; but if it is the desire of the
remaining members, or a majority of them, that we shall linger for weeks
over single verses, I shall find it more convenient and profitable to
devote the corresponding hour of every Sabbath to private study and
contemplation."
"I suppose," said President Lottson, noting the approach of Judge
Cottaway and Deacon Bates elbow to elbow, the latter looking very solemn
and the judge exceedingly bored, "I suppose it will be like Cottaway to
insinuate that the matter should be talked over and over again until
doomsday. It takes a lawyer to string a subject out until he doesn't
know the end of it when he sees it."
"Lawyers like the judge have some faculties which we might imitate with
profit," said Mr. Buffle. "They believe in listening to all the evidence
and determining accordingly. Evidence seems a something which the
members of this class are afraid of, and practice based upon it is
still more terrifying. Ah, good morning, judge--we want to have another
talk next Sunday on the subject of yesterday's lesson, and knowing your
experience in sifting evidence, we would be very grateful if you would
charge your conscience with the case, and become responsible for it."
"If the rule can be suspended, I shall be glad to throw upon it such
light as I can," said the judge.
"We were talking, gentlemen," said Deacon Bates, "upon the spiritual
significance of righteousness. I suggested, and the judge was pleased to
agree with me, that righteousness had a spiritual as well as a merely
moral significance."
"It certainly has," said President Lottson promptly, "and if for a while
we could divest ourselves of the materialistic notions which prevail as
badly in the Church as out of it, we would obtain some new light on this
subject which is so puzzling when considered only by the human mind. We
would realize that with the prince of this world Christ has nothing to
do; that while in the world we are under the dominion of the world."
"And that our real life does not begin until we are with God," said
Deacon Bates, by way of supplement. "This world is a place of
preparation for another, and it is what we are to do and be in that
blessed sphere that Christ came to teach us. The things of this world
are really the unreal--only the things which are unseen are eternal. How
much righteousness had the crucified thief who rebuked his fellow for
reviling Christ? Yet to him were spoken the words which every Christian
longs to hear, 'This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.' Belief in
Christ, longing for him and his glory, are what should occupy our
thoughts while on earth."
"And do it so closely that we shall have an opportunity to follow him.
Of course when a man believes in a presidential candidate, he believes
and does nothing else. He doesn't vote for him, act according to his
political theories, spend money for him, or any such nonsense. He merely
believes in him, and does or leaves undone everything else, feeling sure
that it's the candidate's business to make everything come right. That
isn't the way you gentlemen talked last campaign, though."
The deacon smiled pityingly. "There you go again," said he, "mixing the
temporal and the spiritual, though they're not the slightest bit alike."
"Certainly not," said Captain Maile; "so it's heretical to try to bring
heavenly influences to bear upon earthly things. You want people to
understand that God is not God of the living, but of the dead, though
that wasn't the way Christ said it when he was alive."
Each man put on a pugnacious face, and betook himself to his own
reflections, and these lasted until the boat touched her pier in the
city.