"That's true," said the captain, "and to save the family reputation from disgrace, I've had to spend some of the money they left me in trying to undo some of the mischief they did." "Then you're a fool," said the president. "That may sound like plain talk, but it's true; you should have learned, as your ancestors did, that religion is one thing and business is another." "Oh, I've learned it," said the captain, "and I've also learned that the devil, if there is a devil, is the father of that precious notion, and that it's worth millions to him. Do you suppose I think any more of men because they belong to the church? Do you imagine I look over your policies any less carefully than I do those of Bennett, who don't believe in God, devil, or anybody else? Do you suppose I'll take Whilcher's word a minute quicker when he gets into the church than I do now? Not a bit of it. The church is the hope of the honest and the mask of the rascally. How did you like the way the lesson went yesterday?" "I liked the way it ended better than anything else," said the president. "I knew you would," said the captain; "and if they spring a reconsideration on you next Sunday, _won't_ you be disgusted!" Mr. Buffle had approached the couple as they conversed, and said: "Gentlemen, what do you think of yesterday's exercises?" "Both dissatisfied," promptly replied the captain. "Lottson don't like the way they began, and I'm sorry that they ended when they did." "I'm counting noses to see if we can't secure a reconsideration," said Mr. Buffle. "I don't like the way in which the main question was dodged, and I want to hear more of it." "Then you'd better go over to the Unitarian Church," said President Lottson. "They'll talk morality to you there to your heart's content." "They will in our church, too," replied Mr. Buffle, "unless prevented by trickery. One would suppose that morality was something to be afraid of by the way people dodge talking about it." Mr. Lottson assumed a very high-toned air, and replied: "It isn't that morality is feared, but that when men fall to talking about it they forget that there is anything higher." "Perhaps it's because they never talk about it excepting at the beginning," said Mr. Buffle, "and they're anxious to begin at the bottom, as men have to do in business and everything else, if they really want to learn. I begin to think it's a subject about which there isn't much known. It's often seemed to me in churches that men are very much like the apprentices in my ship-yard; the first thing these boys want to do is to paint the names and designs on the paddle-boxes, though that's the very last thing we generally attend to. Not one in a hundred of them are ever anxious to know how keels are laid and hulls are shaped."