in the savers
than in the slayers of men.

But all this is a digression. Let us return to the "Victoria." She is
now in eighty fathoms of water with her hundreds of dead. Poor fellows!
theirs was a sad fate; though not more so than the fate of miners
blasted or suffocated in explosive pits. We pity their dear
ones--mothers, sisters, wives, and children. Hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of hearts are aching on their account; mourning for the dead
who will never be buried under the sweet churchyard grass, though they
have the whole ocean for their tomb and the stars for its nightlamps.

On Sunday, of course, the sky-pilots, all over England, were busy at
"improving the occasion." They always make profit out of death and
disaster. "Prepare to meet thy God!" was the lesson which most of
them derived from this catastrophe. Of course the preachers are ready
_themselves_. Who can doubt it? But they are in no hurry to have it
tested. They do not want to meet their God until they are obliged to. It
is so much better to be a commercial traveller in God's service than to
take a situation in the house.

Some of the preachers dared to talk about "Providence"--the sweet little
cherub that sits up aloft, to keep watch o'er the life of poor Jack, and
lets him go to the bottom or furnish a dinner for sharks. Surely that
Providence is a rare old fraud. A cripple, a paralytic, a sleeper,
a dead man, could have done as much for the "Victoria" as Providence
managed to do. "Oh!" it is said, "but the drowned sailors are gone to
Heaven; Providence looked after them in that way." Indeed! Then why do
you lament over them? Still more, why do you congratulate the survivors?
According to your theory, they have missed a slice of good luck.

We have frequently remarked, and we now repeat, that religion is based
upon the bed-rock of _selfishness_; and nothing proves the truth of
this so clearly, and so convincingly, as the talk that people indulge in
about Providence. For instance, take this telegram, which is printed
in the newspapers as having been sent home to a gentleman in
England:--"Jack saved. Awful affair. Thank God!" This telegram was
written hastily, but it was sincere; the writer had no time to drop into
hypocrisy. "Jack saved" was his first thought; that is, Jack is still
on earth and out of heaven. "Awful affair" was his second thought; that
is, a lot of other poor devils are gone to heaven--anyhow, they are no
longer on earth. "Thank Go