The Attache; or, Sam Slick in England, vol 1, page 109 by Thomas Chandler Haliburton
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the meanin' of that?'
"'Why,' sais I, 'that you support religion or let it alone, as you like; that you can take it up as a pedlar does his pack, carry it till you are tired, then lay it down, set on it, and let it support you."
"'Exactly,' sais he; 'it is voluntary on the hearer, and it's jist so with the minister, too; for his preachin' is voluntary also. He can preach or lot it alone, as he likes. It's voluntary all through. It's a bad rule that won't work both ways.'
"'Well,' says I, 'there is a good deal in that, too.' I said that just to lead him on.
"'A good deal!' sais he, 'why it's every thing. But I didn't rest on that alone; I propounded this maxim to myself. Every man, sais I, is bound to sarve his fellow citizens to his utmost. That's true; ain't it, Mr. Slick?'
"'Guess so,' sais I.
"'Well then, I asked myself this here question: Can I sarve my fellow citizens best by bein' minister to Peach settlement, 'tendin' on a little village of two thousand souls, and preachin' my throat sore, or bein' special minister to Saint Jimses, and sarvin' our great Republic and its thirteen millions? Why, no reasonable man can doubt; so I give up preachin'.'
"'Well,' sais I, 'Abednego, you are a Socdolager, that's a fact; you are a great man, and a great scholard. Now a great scholard, when he can't do a sum the way it's stated, jist states it so--he can do it. Now the right way to state that sum is arter this fashion: "Which is best, to endeavour to save the souls of two thousand people under my spiritual charge, or let them go to Old Nick and save a piece of wild land in Maine, get pay for an old steamer burnt to Canada, and uphold the slave trade for the interest of the States.'
"'That's specious, but not true,' said he; 'but it's a matter rather for my consideration than your'n,' and he looked as a feller does when he buttons his trowsers' pocket, as much as to say, you have no right to be a put