Life insurance is a great thing. I would not be without it. My health
is greatly improved since I got my new policy. Formerly I used to have
a seal-brown taste in my mouth when I arose in the morning, but that
has entirely disappeared. I am more hopeful and happy, and my hair
is getting thicker on top. I would not try to keep house without life
insurance. Last September I was caught in one of the most destructive
cyclones that ever visited a republican form of government. A great deal
of property was destroyed and many lives were lost, but I was spared.
People who had no insurance were mowed down on every hand, but aside
from a broken leg I was entirely unharm.
I look upon life insurance as a great comfort, not only to the
beneficiary, but to the insured, who very rarely lives to realize
anything pecuniarily from his venture. Twice I have almost raised my
wife to affluence and cast a gloom over the community in which I lived,
but something happened to the physician for a few days so that he could
not attend me, and I recovered. For nearly two years I was under the
doctor's care. He had his finger on my pulse or in my pocket all the
time. He was a young western physician, who attended me on Tuesdays and
Fridays. The rest of the week he devoted his medical skill to horses
that were mentally broken down. He said he attended me largely for my
society. I felt flattered to know that he enjoyed my society after
he had been thrown among horses all the week that had much greater
advantages than I.
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My wife at first objected seriously to an insurance on my life, and said
she would never, never touch a dollar of the money if I were to die, but
after I had been sick nearly two years, and my disposition had suffered
a good deal, she said that I need not delay the obsequies on that
account.. But the life insurance slipped through my fingers somehow, and
I recovered.
In these' days of dynamite and roller rinks, and the gory meat-ax of a
new administration, we ought to make some provision for the future.