Osborne laughed. "Why, speaking for myself," he answered, "I'm generally too busy figuring on where we're bound in this world to wonder much, if anything should happen, where I'd be bound in the next. I suppose it all depends on a man's temperament, and even that doesn't always work out the way you'd think. I know the last time we went down there was one of the crew, a quiet, rather gloomy old chap, with no nerves at all, just the kind of man you need in our business, who turned out, very much as you might have supposed, to be a firm believer in predestination. Now, going down didn't worry that fellow a bit. In fact, I'd have liked it better if he had worried a little more, I like to see the men just as anxious as I am to know that everything's in first-class shape. But his ideas were that if we were going to be drowned, we were going to be drowned, and that was all there was to it. Now, on the other hand, we had another chap who was the most reckless man in the whole bunch, really a regular dare-devil, afraid of nothing afloat or ashore. This fellow, also, as you might have supposed, so far from believing in predestination, didn't believe in anything at all--an out-and-out atheist. Result was that out of regard for his precious life he was tremendously in earnest to see we'd taken every possible precaution before we went under. Rather a curious result, I thought, and something of a blow at practical religion if we should advertise, 'Picked men wanted to ship on submarine _Anhinga_. Atheists given preference over all others.'"
There was a general laugh. "Poor old Religion," said Carrington reflectively; "she's had to take some pretty hard knocks lately. What with enemies without and factions within, I sometimes wonder what the future of the Church is really going to be."
Doctor Norton, the host of the evening, nodded assent. "I suppose the trouble really is," he said, "that there's such an endless field for speculation in such matters, and people's minds work so very diversely anyway, that no one ever really quite agrees with any one else about anything. Hence the rows."
Carrington shook his head in dissent. "That's going it a little too strong, Doctor," he objected. "I imagine most of us think along about the same lines on religious matters these days, don't we?"