"I like free-thinkers well enough, and freedom of thought. I would not that any one should be bound down to the slavery of creed or dogma. Nor do I believe that any one poor, weak piece of human clay has a right to dictate the road to immortality, or sit in judgment on a fellow being. But he who wrecks a comforting belief or destroys a solacing faith, ruins that which he cannot replace. He takes away a happiness and offers nothing in return. It is a despicable act. A man had better let the creed or faith of his neighbor alone."
Horton had no aims, no ambitions, no aspirations. His was a harmless, purposeless life. An inoffensive vagabond who first excited your contempt, and then won your pity. His mother had been left a widow, in poverty, when he was a babe, and with her needle, supported herself and child. All his mother's hopes were centered in him; all his childish love in her. She struggled hard to give him a fair education, and the happiest moment of her life was when her boy entered a theological seminary. Up to that time Horton had been a more than usually bright and promising boy. Whatever he did was done "for mother's sake," and all his air-castles were occupied by her. While he was at the seminary she died, and he never recovered from the blow. A dull, dead apathy to all about him was succeeded by a mild cynicism and a sad rebellion against the justice of Providence; which latter caused his speedy expulsion from the theological school, about which he cared nothing, however.
"Why could not my mother have been left to me?" he would say. "Had not sorrows, toils and trials enough been heaped upon her dear head, but that just as I was becoming a value and a consolation to her she must be taken from me and I from her?"
When told that "the Lord chasteneth those he loveth," he would bitterly exclaim:
"Then I want nothing to do with such a God! It is man's God. Created by himself, and like himself, a thing of fury and vengeance! No, no, no. Him who lights the stars in the sky, and in whose hand this world is a mite so small that his Almighty eye alone can see it, is not the base, slaughter-thirsty creation poor, weak mortals attempt to depict in words that flavor of the dust of earth and thoughts that cannot go beyond the grave!"
It was probably a lack of discretion on his part, and a pernicious habit of speaking out his thoughts, that brought Horton into disrepute with respectable people when he chanced to stop among them. For men and women do not like to have people—especially poor and dependent people—set up in the thinking business for themselves, while so much labor and money has been expended to have their thinking done for them; it looks presumptuous and ungrateful.
The Evangelist had an old silver watch that had belonged to his father. It had been the family time piece of the little home formed by his adored mother and himself, and through all the vicissitudes of his rambling life he had managed to retain it. It was the connecting link between himself and a past respectability.
Ben had taken a great liking to the fellow, and often spoke to him seriously about reforming his vagabond career, and becoming a decent member of society. But Horton's sophistry was too much for him.
"Drones are not the worst inhabitants of this great hive, called the world," he would say laughingly. "Drones are consumers, and the more consumers and fewer producers, the better times are. This country was never so busy at work as when it had a million of non-productive men in the field, to take care of. As a vagabond, I support others by compelling others to support me."
Ben's words evidently at times had some effect on him, however, and set him to doing much quiet thinking.