There are any number of difficulties and bumps along the roads of this
world, and yet there are plenty of easy-going people who never prepare
for them. They take all such things as they come. Some are buoyant, some
fearless.
[Illustration: You may die any minute!]
But within the last hundred years, large companies have been organized
to go after these people, and catch them alone somewhere and give them a
good thorough fright. These companies hire men who are experts at that
sort of thing; men who make it their life-work to find fearless persons
and scare them.
But no matter how ambitious and active these experts may be, they cannot
catch every one personally. It would take too much time. So they write
gloomy advertisements which are designed to scare people in general.
These advertisements are a characteristic feature of our civilization.
Man goes down-town, whistling, sunny morning. Happens to pick up a
magazine. Immediately he gets hit in the eye with a harrowing picture.
Sometimes it is one that reminds him he may die any minute, and depicts
his widow and children limping around in the streets, hunting crusts. Or
it may be a picture of his house burning up, or his motor upsetting. Or
an illness, and there he is lying flat and weak on his bed.
* * * * *
[Illustration: Ah!--Her husband didn't insure]
After he has seen a good many of such pictures, he grows quiet. Stops
whistling. He learns how to worry, and he worries off and on till it
hurts. Then, to get some relief, he makes a contract with one of those
companies, which provides him with what we call insurance, for an annual
tribute.
I hope no one will think I am disparaging insurance, which is a useful
arrangement. It enables many of us to pool our risks and be protected
from hardship. And the best companies nowadays handle the thing very
well. They scare a person as little as possible. They just gently
depress him. They inflict just enough mental torture to get him to put
in his money. It is only when he is stubborn about it that they give him
the cold chills.
Every century has some such institution. The Inquisition was worse.
Like insurance, it had high ideals, but peculiar methods.
Insurance men, however, are steadily improving their methods. Instead of
always reminding you how awful it is not to insure, they sometimes print
brighter pictures, which show how happy you will feel if you do. For
instance, a picture of a postman bringing a check to your widow. Your
widow is thanking the postman, her face full of joy. Sometimes the old
president of the company is shown in the upper left corner, writing out
the check personally, as soon as he hears of your death. Or maybe they
leave out the president and put in your infant son, for good measure.
He is playing in his innocent way with his dead father's cane, and the
widow, with a speculative eye on him, is thoughtfully murmuring, "As
soon as he is old enough I must insure my little boy too."
* * * * *
In the days before it was possible to insure, there was even more gloom.
Light-hearted people may have worried less, but the rest worried more.
They could save enough money for the future if it was sufficiently
distant, but not for a serious disaster that might come too soon. This
darkened their outlook. They had no one to trust in but God.
There has always been a great deal of talk about trusting in God, but
human beings incline to be moderate and cautious in trying it. As a rule
no one does it unless he has to.
Not even the clergymen.
A few years ago a fund was formed, in the Episcopal Church, to pay aged
ministers pensions, so they would never be destitute. This brought the
greatest happiness to many of them who were approaching decrepitude.
Letters came in from ministers who had worried in silence for years,
with no one to trust but the Deity, whose plans might be strange. They
described how they had wept with relief, when this fund was established.
Printed copies of these letters were mailed to all the good Christians
who had contributed, to show them how much true joy and happiness their
money had brought, and how thankful the clergy were to have something
solid to trust, like a pension.
When a pastor with a pension is in the pulpit, looking around at his
flock, suppose he sees that some of them are needy and have no pensions
coming? If imaginative enough, he will sympathize with their poor
fearful hearts, and advise them as wisely as possible. But there's not
much to say. The only course for such folk is to try to trust God, who
is mighty, and meantime be frugal and save every cent that they can.
Some day, he prays, we all shall have pensions.
* * * * *
And suppose a man isn't religious, what had he better trust? His money,
or his own native mettle?