Chapter Twenty Six.
The House of Mourning.
We have it on the highest authority that it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting. This fallen world does not readily believe that, but then the world is notoriously slow to believe the truth, and also rather apt to believe what is false. It was long before even the learned world could be got to believe that the world itself moves round the sun. Indeed it is more than probable that more than half the world does not believe that yet. On the other hand, much of it very likely believes still that the world is flat. A savage of the prairie would almost certainly entertain that fallacy, while a savage of the mountains would perhaps laugh him to scorn, yet neither would admit that it was a globe.
So, mankind is very unwilling to accept the truth that it is better to give than to receive, though such is certainly the case if there be truth in holy writ.
John Gunter had been much impressed, and not a little softened, by the recent catastrophe of the shipwreck and of his skipper’s death, but he had not yet been subdued to the point of believing that it would be better to spend an hour with widow Bright than to spend it in the public-house, even though his shipmate Joe Davidson did his best to persuade him of that truth.
“Come,” said Joe, as a last appeal, “come, John, what’ll our shipmates think of ’ee if you never go near the poor thing to offer her a word o’ comfort?”
“I can’t comfort nobody,” replied Gunter with a surly heave of his shoulder.
“Yes, you can,” said Joe, earnestly; “why, the very sight o’ you bein’ there, out o’ respect to David, would do her poor heart good.”