"Opened avenues of trade between them and Christian countries," resumed President Lottson, as if no interruption had occurred, "created a demand for the Bible and the school, discouraged war, extended the area of production, established representative governments in the place of irresponsible despotisms, brought from foreign lands, to study our institutions, men whose fathers and grandfathers were brutal savages, and hastened the coming of the day when at the name of Jesus every knee shall bend and every tongue confess him Lord? Business alone could never have done this; it required a special development of mind, and to those whom he had created for this purpose Jesus enounced this promise, which was the only one that in the nature of things could be made to them about earthly interests."
"I declare!" whispered Squire Woodhouse to Mr. Buffle, "Lottson did that splendidly. If it wasn't for the way he treated me about that barn I should say that Lottson ought to have gone into the ministry." At the same moment Deacon Bates called Mr. Prymm to the chair, took the floor himself, and said:
"There was a remark dropped by Mr. Lottson, and followed up in his excellent speech, which I am certain conceals a truth which is not clearly enough realized. If it was, a number of puzzling questions that have been before the class could have easily been answered. He said the passage should be taken in a spiritual sense. It certainly should. God is a Spirit; our own spirits are our only immortal parts; everything else in us and everything around us is transient and perishable. The meek should be meek in a spiritual way; they should not be puffed up with knowledge, or what they think to be such, but should in humility open their hearts to the influences of the Holy Spirit. Business has nothing to do with our eternal welfare; it is only one of the necessary but transient affairs of our perishable, material bodies; but the things unseen are eternal. If we would constantly keep this fact in our minds I am sure many of our present difficulties in studying the Scriptures would disappear. This earth is not our abiding place; our time here is but short; 'A thousand years are but as a day in His sight;' heaven is our final and eternal home, and it was to instruct us how to prepare our souls for the future state of existence that the prophets spoke and Jesus came to earth."
"According to that, it don't matter how we do business," said Squire Woodhouse; "every man can be just as sharp and underhanded as he pleases. Well, it's a comfortable belief, but I think you're mistaken, Deacon, about its being lost sight of; I think pretty much everybody lives up to it, as far as business goes."
"Dr. Fahrenglotz," remarked the leader, in evident confusion at the moral deduced from his theory.
"Although not attaching to the words that degree of authority that some do," said the Doctor, "their unselfish tendency and their moral beauty convince me that they have an important meaning. That they can apply to the common affairs of life I cannot believe, for the theory is contrary to reason and experience. They probably refer to some coming state of society when the application of true reason shall have raised men above their present physical and moral level, and enabled them to translate the mystic sayings of the worlds great seers."
"Then the passage doesn't command anything that's really essential to salvation?" asked young Mr. Waggett.
"Oh, no, certainly not," said Captain Maile. "Nothing does, or if it does, our business is to get around it somehow, and look at some other side of it."
The leader called upon Mr. Alleman, who said:
"The simple fact that this saying was given is sufficient excuse and command to follow it, no matter what it brings us or takes from us. As, however, the material bearing of the passage has attracted more attention to-day than the manifest desire of Christ, I wish to recall to notice the peculiar wording. Jesus does not say that the meek shall earn or acquire the earth, but that they shall inherit it. An inheritance is something that the child obtains from the parent through love and affection. The passage means: 'Be meek, not given to strife, not stirring up wrath, attending to your own affairs, not assuming to be better or more deserving than others;' and God, who owns the earth and all that is in it, who makes man his steward, who pulleth down one and setteth up another, who knows the uses of property better than we do, and who sooner or later puts it into proper hands, will give you the earth. Be meek, and trust to God for appreciation, even upon earth."