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Peck's Sunshine, a fiction by George W. Peck |
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The Infidel And His Silver Mine |
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_ It is announced in the papers that Colonel Ingersoll, the dollar a ticket infidel, has struck it rich in a silver mine, and is now worth a million dollars. Here is another evidence of the goodness of God. Ingersoll has treated God with the greatest contempt, called Him all the names he could think of, called Him a liar, a heartless wretch, and stood on a stump and dared God to knock a chip off his shoulder, and instead of God's letting him have one below the belt and knocking seven kinds of cold victuals out of him, God gives him a pointer on a silver mine, and the infidel rakes in a cool million, and laughs in his sleeve, while thousands of poor workers in the vineyard are depending for a livelihood on collections that pan out more gun wads and brass pants buttons to the ton of ore than they do silver. This may be all right, and we hope it is, and we don't want to give any advice on anybody else's business, but it would please Christians a good deal better to see that bold man taken by the slack of the pants and lifted into a poor house, while the silver he has had fall to him was distributed among the charitable societies, mission schools and churches, so a minister could get his salary and buy a new pair of trousers to replace those that he has worn the knees out of kneeling down on the rough floor to pray. It is mighty poor consolation to the ladies of a church society, to give sociables, ice creameries, strawberry festivals and all kinds of things to raise money to buy a carpet for a church or lecture room, and wash their own dishes, and then hear that some infidel who is around the country calling God a pirate and a horse thief, at a dollar a head, to full houses, has miraculously struck a million dollar silver mine. To the toiling minister who prays without ceasing, and eats codfish and buys clothes at a second hand store, it looks pretty rough to see Bob Inger-soll steered onto a million dollar silver mine. But it may be all right, and we presume it is. Maybe God has got the hook in Bob's mouth, and is letting him play around the way a fisherman does a black bass, and when he thinks he is running the whole business, and flops around and scares the other fish, it is possible Bob may be reeled in, and he will find himself on the bottom of the boat with a finger and thumb in his gills and a big boot on his paunch, and he will be compelled to disgorge the hook and the bait and all, and he will lay there and try to flop out of the boat, and wonder what kind of a game this is that is being played on him. Everything turns out right some time, and from what we have heard of God, off and on, we don't believe He is going to let no ordinary man, bald headed and apoplectic, carry off all the persimmons, and put his fingers to his nose and dare the ruler of the universe to tread on the tail of his coat. Bob Ingersoll has got the bulge on all the Christians now, and draws more water than anybody, but He who notes the sparrow's fall has no doubt got an eye on the fat rascal, and some day will close two or three fingers around Bob's throat, when his eyes will stick out so you can hang your hat on them, and he will blat like a calf and get down on his knees and say: "Please, Mr. God, don't choke so, and I will give it all back and go around and tell the boys that I am the almightiest liar that ever charged a dollar a head to listen to the escaping wind from a blown up bladder. O, good God, don't hurt so. My neck is all chafed." And then he will die, and God will continue business at the old stand. _ |
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