"Well, my uncle did tell me of a fellow like that once, and I thought I should like all my sailors to be like him. He was a jolly, good-natured chap, ready to spin a yarn to his mates, and they were willing to listen to the moral he always contrived to bring in. He was as brave as a lion, too, and yet as kind as a woman if any of the others were sick. But there ain't many like him, you know, Chandos."
"You might make another, Stewart; and a captain—you mean to be a captain, you know—and a captain of that pattern might do as much, or even more, good than a common sailor."
"Yes, but it's the beginning. I don't see that boys have anything to do with religion. What can they do?"
"Learn better—learn their lessons more thoroughly, so as to be better fitted to do their work in the world by-and-by. I suppose you'll admit that we shall be men by-and-by if we are spared?"
"Well, yes, of course; but then it's just that. Religion seems to be for those who don't live, to prepare them for death and all that, you know. If I was very ill and dying I should want to be religious, of course, but now—"
"That's quite a mistake, Stewart, to suppose that because you are likely to live many years this matter of serving God ought to be put off. I might ask you how you can be sure that you will live even six months longer, or that you may not be carried off by some sudden accident. But I don't like to think of religion as just something to sneak out of the world comfortably with. Religion is to fit us to live—to live well, to fill life full of joy and happiness. You stare, Stewart, but I can tell you the happiest people in the world to-day are those who serve God best."
"Then what makes them pull such long faces, and look so wretched, and talk about being miserable sinners?" I asked.
"Well, we are sinners, you know, Stewart, and one of the first things we have to learn in coming to God is just this very thing. It is because we have sinned that Christ died to put away our sins; but some people don't seem to believe in this thoroughly. They know they are sinners, and it makes them unhappy and they fancy they ought to go mourning over them all the days of their life."
"That's just my Aunt Phoebe, and mamma says she is very religious, and one of the best women that ever lived, which makes me say I hate good women, and all religious people into the bargain. But, Chandos, there are not many of your sort of religious people in the world."
"More than you think for. There are some of the fellows here in this school; I won't mention any names, but two of the best and jolliest in the cricket-field will be just such men, I believe."