"Brother Jodderel." The members looked resignedly into each other's eyes; Mr. Stott turned to the table of Hebrew weights and measures in his Bible, and tried to lose himself in them; Broker Whilcher began slyly ciphering on a card, doubtless to solve some problem of the market; Mr. Alleman buried himself in a school report from some other town; Mr. Hopper re-read to himself the paper on "The True Location of the Holy Sepulchre;" and Mr. Buffle dropped into gentle slumber. "I want to say," said Mr. Jodderel, "that you can't rightly know how to be meek until you know what's to be required of you in the earth which the meek are to inherit, and you can't know that without knowing where and what that earth is. Now, it _can't_ mean this earth, for if the meek inherited it, it would be stolen away from them precious quickly. What happens to a meek man when somebody hits him without knocking the meekness out of him?--he gets hit again. What happens to him if somebody tries to swindle him out of his property, and he don't show that he won't endure imposition?--he'll be cheated out of every cent. So the meekness that _we_ think about is evidently not the thing for the earth that's to be inherited, and the question is, what is? And that brings us back to the question, What sort of a land are we going to inherit? It----" "If it is to be the abode of the finally saved and redeemed," said Mr. Radley, "I really don't see that meekness can be enjoined upon its inhabitants, unless we are all mistaken about the nature of the change that will take place after death. Our mental condition will be determined for us, and we can't do better on this earth than act according to what seems the highest order of goodness. I should really like to ask the gentleman if the next world is all that we are to think of while we remain in this one, and whether we are not to guide ourselves somewhat by the rights of other people as well as by our own desires?" "This earth is not our abiding place," quoted Mr. Prymm; "we have a home not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." "Certainly," said Mr. Jodderel; "that's correct; it _is_ in the heavens--in the sky--the air above us, in which are suspended all the planetary bodies, one of which----" "The gentleman has lost sight of my question," said Mr. Radley. "So will everybody else," remarked Captain Maile. "If you press that question, you'll ruin the interest of this meeting. We didn't come here to learn what we ought to do; we're here to study out what's to be done for us." "Not a bit of it," said Mr. Buffle, who has slowly awakened from his nap. "_I'm_ not, any way. I'm as fond as any one else of getting anything; but I've already been blessed with more than I deserve, and I want to know what God's will concerning me is on earth as well as in heaven." "Always providing it don't cost you anything," said Captain Maile.