“Ho, no! look at the hundreds of little graves! No, sir. If only those who were to blame had been stricken, I should think the Judgment wasn’t far off. Talk of God’s mercy in times of health! There’s no greater evidence of it than to see him, in these awful visitations, refusing still to discriminate between the innocent and the guilty! Richling, only Infinite Mercy joined to Infinite Power, with infinite command of the future, could so forbear!”
Richling could not answer. The Doctor unfolded the paper and began to read: “‘God, in his mysterious providence’—O sir!”
“O sir, what a foul, false charge! There’s nothing mysterious about it. We’ve trampled the book of Nature’s laws in the mire of our streets, and dragged her penalties down upon our heads! Why, Richling,”—he shifted his attitude, and laid the edge of one hand upon the paper that lay in the other, with the air of commencing a demonstration,—“you’re a Bible man, eh? Well, yes, I think you are; but I want you never to forget that the book of Nature has its commandments, too; and the man who sins against them is a sinner. There’s no dispensation of mercy in that Scripture to Jew or Gentile, though the God of Mercy wrote it with his own finger. A community has got to know those laws and keep them, or take the consequences—and take them here and now—on this globe—presently!”
“You mean, then,” said Richling, extending his hand for the return of the paper, “that those whose negligence filled the asylums should be the ones to subscribe.”
“Yes,” replied the Doctor, “yes!” drew back his hand with the paper still in it, turned to his desk, opened the list, and wrote. Richling’s eyes followed the pen; his heart came slowly up into his throat.
“Why, Doc—Doctor, that’s more than any one else has”—
“They have probably made some mistake,” said Dr. Sevier, rubbing the blotting-paper with his finger. “Richling, do you think it’s your mission to be a philanthropist?”
“Isn’t it everybody’s mission?” replied Richling.
“That’s not what I asked you.”