Charlotte could not think of poor little Mary Tasker, disfigured and half blind, and not wish that she had been vaccinated; and yet Tasker had acted in a resigned spirit.
"Well: exactly as much as you admire Tasker, I admire your Quakers. I honor their motive, but I am sorry for their mistake—sorry that they refuse one safeguard against worldliness."
"Worldliness, papa!"
Mr. Carey explained how the moral dangers of commercial pursuits are in proportion to their gambling character. Large gains and great hazards must be more engrossing to the mind, and more stimulating to the passions than small and secure profits. The great drawback upon commerce with very remote countries is, or was, its gambling character, from the variety and seriousness of the risks, and the largeness of the profits laid on to cover them. By means of insurance against sea risks and other dangers, the losses are spread over so large a number that they cease to be losses, and become a mere tax, such as men may willingly pay for security. When a man has so introduced moderation into his gains and his losses, as to detach himself from "the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches," he may listen with a quiet pulse (as far as his own affairs are concerned) to the wind roaring over the sea, and need not be "afraid of evil tidings." It was quite a new view to Charlotte that her Quakers had been gambling, in fact, when they should have been trading safely; but she could not deny that it was so. Nobody wished her to give them up, in regard to their spirit of faith and trust; but nobody could stand up for their prudence.
The most striking view to Charlotte was that there is nothing accidental in storms and tempests; and that it is only our ignorance which makes us call them so. The realm of Meteorology is, no doubt, governed by laws as invariable as that of Astronomy. We know this fact, though we, as yet, know little of these laws. Something more we know: and that is, the average of shipwrecks and conflagrations, in a certain condition of society; in the same way that we know the average of men that will die, out of a certain number, in a certain time: and it is this knowledge of the averages which justifies the resource of insurance in all the three cases. When Mr. Ellison at length comprehended that there were thousands of prudent men now paying their mite to compensate him for the loss of his new furniture, in case of its being burned, on the simple condition of his paying his mite also, he was so struck by their neighborly conduct, that he could scarcely express his sense of it. The ladies considered it impossible that he should feel so strongly, and be heedless about the condition on his own part. Mr. Carey shook his head.
Mr. Carey was right. The wedding-day came, and the insurance was not effected.—Joanna did not like to tease her betrothed about worldly affairs. If the subject was mentioned, and the train of thought revived, he went into an enthusiasm about the benevolent class of insurers: but he did not become one himself.
CHAPTER THE SECOND.
The wedding-day came and went. The young people were married and gone. Mr. Ellison's flock were assembled, almost entire, in the parish church, for the first and last time. In those days, dissenters could not marry in their own chapels, or any where but in church; and the present was an occasion when the clergyman of the parish appeared to great advantage, with his kind courtesy toward his dissenting neighbors. The whole affair was talked over from day to day, during the wedding-trip of the Ellisons, in the intervals of Charlotte's business in preparing their house for their return. Then began her sisterly relation toward the pastor beloved by so many. Her reverence for him, and her pride on Joanna's account, made her consider his dignity (in spite of himself) on all occasions; from the receiving him at his own door, on the evening of arrival, to the defending him in every trifle in which he vexed her orderly father. When Mr. Carey complained of his being found at breakfast unshaven, and wondered how he would like to see Joanna come down with her hair in papers, Charlotte contended that these things mattered less in a gentleman than a lady; and that it was from a meditative turn that he forgot to shave, even as Newton forgot to dine. If he fell over all his new furniture in turn, she declared it was because the affection of his friends had over-crowded his cottage with memorials of their love. If he was met half-way to the town without his hat, she looked with reverence in his face for a foretaste of his next Sunday's sermon. When it came out that Joanna had paid all the post boys and bills on the journey; that Joanna had to go with him to the tailor's, when he was to be measured for a new coat; that Joanna had to carve, because he did not know the wing of a fowl from the leg—But we will not dwell further on the foibles of a good man whose virtues were as uncommon in their degree, as his weaknesses, it may be hoped, in kind.
Full as the cottage was of pretty things, it was destined to be yet fuller in another year. Never was there a prettier little wardrobe of tiny caps and robes, and the like, than room must be found for, the next autumn, in preparation for that prettiest of all things—a baby. Half the ladies in the congregation brought their offerings of delicate work, in cambric and the softest of flannel, and most fantastical of pincushions and baskets. It was a delightful season to the whole family; and Joanna was so well and bright! And when the great day was over, there were such rallyings of Mr. and Mrs. Carey, on their being so early a grand-papa and grand-mamma; and it was so droll to see Mr. Ellison, who seemed never to have seen a baby, but in baptizing the little creatures, whom he had always hitherto regarded as young Christians, and never as little infants! Mr. Carey was rather ashamed of the extent of his ignorance, shown on the first sight of his child in its sleep, by its mother's side.
"Ha!" he exclaimed, "a baby!" in as much surprise as if it had been the last thing he expected to see.