“Comrades,” said Ned Sinton, as the party sat inside their tent, round the napkin on which breakfast was spread, “it is long since we have made any difference between Saturday and Sunday, and I think it would be good for us all if we were to begin now. Since quitting San Francisco, the necessity of pushing forward on our journey has prevented our doing so hitherto. How far we were right in regarding rapid travelling as being necessary, I won’t stop to inquire; but I think it would be well if we should do a little more than merely rest from work on the Sabbath. I propose that, besides doing this, we should read a chapter of the Bible together as a family, morning and evening on Sundays. What say you?”
There was a pause. It was evident that conflicting feelings were at work among the party.
“Perhaps you’re right,” said Maxton; “I confess that I have troubled myself very little about religion since I came out here, but my conscience has often reproached me for it.”
“Don’t you think, messmates,” said Captain Bunting, lighting his pipe, “that if it gets wind the whole colony will be laughin’ at us?”
“Sure they may laugh,” said Larry O’Neil, “an’ after that they may cry, av it’ll do them good. Wot’s the differ to us?”
“I don’t agree with you, Ned,” said Tom Collins, somewhat testily; “for my part I like to see men straightforward, all fair and above-board, as the captain would say. Hypocrisy is an abominable vice, whether it is well meaning or ill meaning, and I don’t see the use of pretending to be religious when we are not.”
“Tom,” replied Ned, in an earnest voice, “don’t talk lightly of serious things. I don’t pretend to be religious, but I do desire to be so: and I think it would be good for all of us to read a portion of God’s Word on His own day, both for the purpose of obeying and honouring Him, and of getting our minds filled, for a short time at least, with other thoughts than those of gold-hunting. In doing this there is no hypocrisy.”
“Well, well,” rejoined Tom, “I’ll not object if the rest are agreed.”
“Agreed,” was the unanimous reply. So Ned rose, and, opening his portmanteau, drew forth the little Bible that had been presented to him by old Mr Shirley on the day of his departure from home.
From that day forward, every Sabbath morning and evening, Ned Sinton read a portion of the Word of God to his companions, as long as they were together; and each of the party afterwards, at different times, confessed that, from the time the reading of the Bible was begun, he felt happier than he did before.