"The members will please speak as called upon," said the leader, whose watchful ear imagined it detected a personality in the immediate future of the Squire's address. Squire Woodhouse subsided after a soft whisper to his right-hand neighbor, which caused that gentleman to notice that President Lottson's face was flushing a little, and his lips touching each other more firmly than usual.
"It seems to me," said Mr. Radley, who was next called upon, "that the passage means just what it says. The kingdom of heaven means the place we all hope to get to some day, and the poor in spirit are the people who aren't touchy and don't put on airs Christ was a man of this kind himself, and he knew by experience what he was talking about."
"Then how did he come to call a lot of good church members vipers?" demanded Squire Woodhouse, before the leader could bring him to order.
"Because they were vipers," answered Mr. Radley. "Being poor in spirit—humble—doesn't need to keep anybody from telling the truth. It's your high-spirited chaps that do most of the lying in the world—they do in business circles anyway."
"Next," said Deacon Bates, and Captain Maile lifted up his voice.
"Judging by the notions most people have of the kingdom of heaven," said he, "I don't think anybody but poor-spirited people can ever want to go there."
Next in order came Mr. Jodderel, and, as he afterward told his wife, he breathed a small thank-offering to Heaven for preparing so perfect an occasion for the presentation of his own theological pet.
"I don't wonder," he said, "that my military friend turns up his nose at the home-made heaven of most people, but I want him to understand that it was no such place that the Lord was talking about. What did he mean when he said, 'Come, ye blessed of my Father, and inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world'? What sensible man imagines that the kingdom he spoke of meant any such place as Christians talk about, or even the place where the Lord himself is? It can't be the latter, for that wasn't prepared from the foundation of the world; it existed long before, and didn't need any preparation. If he prepared the kingdom from the foundation of the world, and made the sun, moon, and stars when he founded the world—a fact which I fully and implicitly believe because it is recorded in the inspired Word—the kingdom must be in some other sphere. And if, as astronomers say, and I have no reason to doubt, these spheres are worlds, a great deal like ours, we will have material bodies when we go to them."
"And poor spirits?" queried the insurance president.