She took his arm and murmured, "We are not strangers; we both feel interested in the church."
"We soon came," said the young man in telling me the story, "to a silver tea-set that was to be 'raffled off.' Would I take a chance? Of course I did. Then came a cake with a valuable ring concealed in it. Would I take a chance in that? Of course I did.
"So things glided on until I concluded if I took many more chances, my chances for getting home would be slim. So I refused to tempt fortune any further, until the little black-eyed scoundrel took me on a new tack. Leaning heavily on my arm, and resting her cheek on my shoulder, she said, 'Please take a chance for me.'
"It is needless to add that I took the chance, and kept on taking chances for the beautiful and unprincipled wretch that had me in tow, until I had not a dollar left. Yes, I was penniless, and then it began to dawn on me that she was working me for the success of the church. There I was, bankrupt in money and self-respect. I had been robbed—yes, robbed, for where is the difference between a pair of pistols and a pair of black eyes in a robbery? You part with your money because you can not help it.
"I know that Society looks with lenient eyes upon church-fairs, but it is my opinion that all robbers will take sentence, and when that little Chicago robber receives her sentence, she will take her place by the side of Jack Sheppard!"
You see he still believes in Judgments. He is learning by main force.
A very pious woman whose father was a missionary, now living in Hawaii, wrote not long ago that professional men flocking to the Islands will be disappointed unless they are friends of old families; and the old families are descendants of missionaries who went there in the early days and took lands and everything else from the natives.
There seems to be nothing like being a descendant from a missionary family. These people, equally pious and provident, thought it a good scheme to cheat the sinful savages out of all their worldly possessions, in order that they might be taught humility and holiness through the chastening influence of poverty. So they robbed the unregenerate to the glory of God.
Who says it doesn't pay to save the heathen? Think of the ignorance and superstition of the majority of the preachers of the present day.