“Then I will send for the minister.”
“Let me, while you remain, talk with you, we will have the parson afterward.”
Considerable time was spent by the captain in presenting his views of theology. They were crude and disjointed. He had been poorly instructed, and having led a life of great freedom he felt it much easier to deny the existence of any law, than to reconcile his conduct to the requirements of what was declared to be a divine law. “Nay,” said he, “truth, honesty, sincerity, sobriety, and all these virtues, are only the result of long experience, and men willing to enforce them as a sort of mercantile convenience have declared them to be a part of the requirements of a divine power. The very fact that they are found to be convenient to social and public life, proves that they are mere deductions from general experience, and not the requirements of God.”
“So then you think that a God who is the father as well as the creator of mankind, would not make the rules which He gave for man’s government subservient to man’s happiness?”
“Tell me, Amelia, does your happiness result from your obedience?”
“So far as I am obedient I am happy. It is my mortification to believe that my obedience is too often in the act, rather than in the will. It is easy for me to obey the command of my mother and to have her satisfied—but God who sees the heart, undoubtedly judges me closer, and knowing it, I lack the happiness which perfect obedience would insure.”
“Do you see the relation between the actor of a present life and his happiness or misery?”
“No, I do not. But I believe that such a relation does exist, and though I may not be able now to show that relation in others, yet I believe it becomes manifest at some period; certainly where they are not traceable in this world they become evident in the next.”
“That next world is a sort of safety-valve to those who argue on religious topics with men like me. But if you could show me the relations which exist between your conduct and your present situation, or the dependence of my situation upon my present conduct, I might believe that there was some law—and when there is a law there must be a law-giver.”
“Alas, captain, the discussion of causes and effects will not much benefit you at the present time, especially with such an one as I for an expounder. What you need is not argument, but reflection. Be assured of one thing, religion has had stronger antagonists than you, and they have been defeated, convinced, converted. But what you need—and captain you do need that—is to cease to argue in your own breast, and against what I perceive to be your own convictions—confess plainly now that you have made up your scepticism to meet certain circumstances of your own life, and that you are not prepared to admit of the connection of revealed religion and the terrible consequences of a neglect of its requirements.”