"Preachers are like the rest of us," said Mr. Buffle; "they haven't time to study everything, and they have to take a good deal on the say-so of somebody else; a good many things they may be mistaken about, but they'd better have some idea on a subject than none at all; once get a notion into their heads and it'll roll around and make them pay attention to it once in a while. And that's just what we need, I think, and it's what brought this Bible class idea into my mind. Each of us will express our minds on whatever may be the subject of the day's lesson, and we'll learn how many ways there are of looking at it. No one of us may change his mind all at once, but if he gets out of his own rut for an hour in a week, he'll find it a little wider and no less safer when he drops into it again."
"And perhaps he may get it so wide that there'll be room enough in it for three or four, or half-a-dozen Christians to walk in it side by side, without kicking each other, or eyeing each other suspiciously," suggested Brother Radley, whose golden text always was, "It is good for brethren to dwell together in unity."
"That's it!" exclaimed Mr. Buffle, his eyes brightening suddenly. "That's it! But I don't intend to do all the talking, gentlemen. I suggest that such of us as like the idea sign our names to an agreement to meet every Sunday for the purpose specified, and that we immediately afterward proceed to elect a teacher."
"I don't wish to dampen any honest enthusiasm for Biblical research;" said Dr. Humbletop, a genial ex-minister; "but from some remarks which have been made it would seem as if doubt—perhaps honest, but doubt for all that—were to have more to do than faith with the motive of the proposed association. What we need—what I feel to need, at least, and what I believe is the case with all who are here present—is to be rooted and grounded in the faith which we profess. I would move, therefore, that if the class is to be informally organized in the manner proposed by Brother Buffle, that at least the creed of our church be appended to the document to which signatures are to be affixed."
"Mr. Chairman," exclaimed Mr. Alleman (Principal of the Valley Rest Academy, and suspected of certain fashionable heresies), "I object. In our congregation—here in this small gathering, in fact—is a large sprinkling of gentlemen who are not members of the church, and who do not accept our creed, though they enjoy worshiping with us: Brother Humbletop's resolution, if put into effect, would exclude from the proposed teachings the very class of men that we profess to believe are most in need of religious instruction. The churches are so rigid that a thinking man can scarcely gain admission to them without lying, actually or constructively: don't let us, in a class like that proposed, follow the example of the Pharisees, those very flowers of orthodoxy—and 'lay on men's shoulders burdens grievous to be borne.' If our religion is what we claim it is, let us open our gates wide enough to admit every one who is at all interested to study God's ways as made known through the scriptures."
"Don't trouble yourself," said Captain Maile, who was as dyspeptic in body as in mind, but was also a keen observer of human nature; "I don't see but saints need converting as badly as sinners do, and there's enough of them to keep you busy. We sinners can find a gathering place somewhere else—perhaps the sexton will think the furnace-room the proper place for us—and we'll take Christian hospitality and great-heartedness as our first subject for discussion."
"You won't do anything of the kind," exclaimed Squire Woodhouse, one of the old settlers who had joined himself to the Second Church to avoid being tormented about what some of the members of the First Church termed his rationalism. "You're going to meet with us, blow us up all you like, teach us anything you can, and make us better in any way you know how to. God Almighty's kingdom isn't any four-acre lot with a high stone wall and a whole string of warnings to trespassers; his kingdom takes in all out-doors; every man alive is his child, and got a right to come and go in his Father's house, even if he don't sit on the same style of chair or creep under the same kind of bedclothes that his brothers do. If he don't like the meat, or bread, or dessert that somebody else is eating, the table's so full of other good things that he can't go hungry unless he insists upon it. There isn't one of you but's got more religion and brains than any of the twelve apostles ever had; but none of them were ever turned out of the Bible class, though one of them, who was a thief, was man enough to stay away of his own accord, and voluntarily go to judgment."
"Churches wouldn't be near so full if all thieves followed Judas's example," was the ungracious remark with which Captain Maile received this handsome speech; a hearty laugh took the sting out of the captain's insinuation, however. Meanwhile Mr. Buffle had torn a leaf out of a hymn-book, scrawled a form of agreement thereupon, and passed it around for signatures. When the paper reached Dr. Humbletop, that gentleman said:
"Brethren, I sign this paper in the hope that we shall work together for the honor and glory of God; but I distinctly avow and reserve the right to withdraw at any time, should such time come, when my conscience forbids me any longer to attend."
Several others, among them Insurance President Lottson and Mr. Stott, the well-to-do builder, announced the same reservation, but no one entirely declined to sign. Then Mr. Buffle moved the election of a teacher, and the choice fell upon Deacon Bates, a man of unabused conscience, pure life, extreme orthodoxy, and an aimless curiosity (which he mistook for thought) about things Biblical and spiritual. Then Mr. Buffle arose and said: