CHAPTER VIII. AFTERMATH.
The closing of that session of the Scripture Club, in which the nature and reward of righteousness was discussed, did not end the consideration of the subject. Mr. Radley himself determined that, at the next meeting, some one should move the rescinding of his own resolution to allow but one Sunday to a verse of Scripture; and several other members, among them Squire Woodhouse, Mr. Buffle, and Mr. Alleman, determined to put the resolution to death at the first opportunity. In the mean time, no member of the class, who went to and from the city on the little steamer Oak-leaf, nor any one who had occasion to visit the local post-office, was allowed to forget the subject, which, not for the first time, caused such widely differing theories to be offered.
"You didn't have an opportunity to express your opinions last Sunday?" said Squire Woodhouse to Mr. Alleman, at the post-office on Monday evening, while the latter awaited the opening of the mail, and the former lay in wait for some one upon whom to expend his pent-up energies.
"No," replied the teacher; "and I doubt whether the expression of them would have done any good. Men are always willing enough to be observers of a quarrel; but to take part in one generally passes for a sign of bad breeding, and the care that men have for the results of their bringing up is, under such circumstances, admirable beyond expression."
"Oh, you're not exactly fair, I think," said the Squire. "Every member of that class thinks the case of faith vs. works is his own; he must be interested in one side or the other, for he believes eternity depends upon it."
"I don't see why any one should have such an idea," said Mr. Alleman. "It doesn't make the slightest difference which side they take, if they really believe as they claim to do."
"Goodness!" exclaimed the Squire. "Why, are you going over to the defense of faith against works? You, who have always been preaching up good works as the whole end of life? I'm afraid I've been in too much of a hurry, for I've been drifting over to your side very, very fast during the past two or three weeks."
"I've not changed my principles in the least," replied Mr. Alleman. "Either belief includes the other, if a man is really sincere in the belief itself."
"Well," said the Squire, with humility, "you scholarly fellows can do sums in your heads at a rate that no common man's ciphering can equal. I thought I'd heard a great deal on this subject, both before I experienced a change and after, but I never could see that there could be any agreement between the two. One set of men say that faith is everything; another say that works are the thing; both sets make faces when they pass each other on Sunday on their way to their separate churches, and, if I read the religious papers correctly, it's the subject of the greatest religious fighting in the world."