CHAPTER V. FAMILIAR SOUNDS.
The members of the club spent a whole week in trying to recover from the bad effects of Mr. Alleman's peculiar and untimely harangue, and even then they did not succeed.
"We were getting into such an unusual, such a heavenly state of mind," explained Mr. Hopper, "and the Lord knows that heavenly states of mind are scarce enough anywhere under the best of circumstances. We were forgetting all the tricks, the games that had been come upon us in the discussion of other points on which the brethren had made up their minds, and picked out their trees to hide behind; and we were having just the happy, quiet, sympathetic time which a man knows how to appreciate when he's knocked about the world for a little while, when all of a sudden Alleman must come in, and spring some of his peculiar notions upon us. I don't see why the Lord lets such men torment the world about religious affairs. They're good enough in every other way."
Other members of the class wondered also; and when, on the following Sunday, Deacon Bates asked if any one else had any remarks to make on the late lesson, nobody answered. So the leader read:
"'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.' Judge Cottaway"—the Deacon had skillfully inveigled the Judge into a front seat before the discussion began, so as to have a strong and respectable opening—"we would be glad to learn your views of this passage."
"I take it to mean," answered the Judge, "that meekness is a virtue so highly esteemed by the Almighty, that he offers, as an incentive to its cultivation, the most highly valued of earthly inducements. Meekness seems to be the antithesis, the exact opposite of strife, and so much of strife is so causeless and harmful, yet so attractive to the ordinary mind, that those who indulge in it are by this passage warned by implication. Meekness is not a virtue of such greatness as poverty of spirit, as may be inferred from the smaller reward promised to those who practice it, and——"
"I want to correct the gentleman right there," exclaimed Mr. Jodderel. "What earth are they to inherit? This earth? Why, everybody laughs at that notion. A man's got to fight awfully hard to get anything in this world, and harder yet to keep whatever he gets. The path of meekness leads but to the poor-house. The earth alluded to evidently means the new earth, which, in the Revelation, John beheld, in connection with the new heaven. That new earth appeared after the destruction of the old one; and for what could it have appeared but to be populated by the redeemed spirits from this? That was the kingdom of heaven, and the text before us evidently refers to it. 'The meek shall inherit the earth;' the apostles, to whom this passage was spoken, needed no more definite expression about the matter, of which the Master doubtless had spoken many times with them. The whole passage seems to me an exact repetition of the one before it, just to give emphasis to the first."
"I wonder if that's exactly straight?" remarked Squire Woodhouse, more with the air of a man in a soliloquy than one asking a question. "If there is a way of inheriting the earth, or even a little piece of it, I'd like to know all about it; but if its only the next world that the passage refers to——"
"If it refers only to the next world, you're not in such a hurry to understand it," interrupted Captain Maile.