"Dear Charlotte! dear child!" again soliloquized Mr. Ellison.
Mr. Carey did not think the apprehension silly; but, in his opinion, the danger of worldliness lay the other way. He thought the worldliness lay in a man's spending all his income, leaving wife and children to be maintained by their neighbors, in case of accidents which may happen any day to any body, and which do happen to a certain proportion of people, within an assigned time, as regularly as death happens to all. Charlotte had nothing to say against life insurance, because every man knows that he shall die; and there is no speculation in the case. But she was extremely surprised to hear that there is an equal certainty, though of a narrower extent, about fire, and other accidents; that it is a fact that, out of so many householders, such and such a number will have their houses burned down.
"Is it indeed so?" asked Joanna.
"It is indeed so. Moreover, out of so much property, such and such an amount will perish by fire. Every householder being bound in with this state of things for his share of the risk, he owes it equally to others and to himself to secure the compensation, in case of accident. Does he not?"
"How to others?"
"Because he should contribute his share to the subscription, if you like to call it so, by which the sufferer from fire, whoever he be, is to be compensated. Thus, you see, Charlotte, that which seems to you an act of worldliness is a neighborly act, as well as a prudent one."
When reminded, Charlotte admitted that she had herself said so about the Cow Club at B——. She had told many people how the cottagers at B——, were now saved from all danger of ruin by the loss of a cow—a loss fatal to so many cottagers elsewhere. The farmers at B——, who could ill afford to lose from nine pounds to fifteen pounds at a stroke by the death of a cow, had joined with the cottagers in setting up a Cow Life-insurance. The club employed a skillful cow-doctor. The members paid in a small portion of the weekly profits of their milk-selling; and had the comfort of knowing that, whenever their cow died, they would be supplied with another, or with a part of the value of one, according to the length of time, or the yearly amount they had paid. Charlotte admitted that she had been delighted with the scheme, but now asserted that she was much more pleased about the Quakers and their ship.
"Ha! Quakers?" said Mr. Ellison.
Yes; those Quakers, now, were the sort of people whom Charlotte admired. So unworldly! so trusting! There was a rich India ship, belonging to some Quakers, lately wrecked in the Channel, very near her port. The whole cargo was lost. It had been a total loss to the owners, because their principles would not allow them to insure—to put themselves out of the hands of Providence, and speculate in "the stormy winds fulfilling his word." That had been their statement; and was there not something very beautiful in it? Charlotte looked at her father for an answer.
"Tell me, first, my dear," he replied, "whether you admire Tasker, the shoemaker, for refusing to have his children vaccinated, saying that it was taking them out of the hands of the Lord?"