“I do.”
“And in original sin; and infant damnation; and how hell is paved with children's skulls?”
“I do. To what, however, does this move?”
“And the love of gold to be the root of evil?” I went on, disregarding the question thrust at me; “and that it would be easier to pass a camel through the needle's eye than a rich man into heaven?”
“Sir, I insist on hearing the purpose of your surprising curiosity.”
“Why, then, it should all be huddled into this. Your Westfall, rich and sinful, by what you say may be presumed to dwell in multiplied peril of immortal shipwreck. And since such be your craft, and the trade you pick up bread by, would it not come more seemly for yourself, and be for this Westfall an effort more of grace, were you, instead of storming the General with pleas for a Governorship which might prove but a worm to gnaw him, to employ your self in bringing about the eternal safe advantage of his soul?”
The Reverend Doctor withdrew, his dander much on furious end, and shortly thereafter the tail of my eye caught a picture of him, as—heads close together—he conferred whisperingly with the Reverend Campbell in a corner of the longroom of the Indian Queen.
Since I could not think well, I was careful to think nothing at all of these reverend office seekers. In that latter I dropped into error; they were worthy serious respect. I should have borne it more upon my memory how easy comes destruction, and that he who is incapable of building one brick upon another may yet tear down the most stubborn best masonry of man. I should have kept before me those powers for ill which arm the meanest, and not have forgotten how the veriest vermin of a rat might gnaw the canvas of a Rubens.
Remembering those ignoble ones that evening, I foolishly burst into disparagement of the clergy as a class. The General was smart for defence.
“Humbug!” quoth the General. “Because you have seen the inside of two, you would have it you know them all. It were as wise if you declared Washington to be a traitor for that Arnold would have sold West Point. Every tub, even a pulpit tub, must stand upon its own bottom.”