Life Insurance by Oliver Optic

"Got his life insured! Then he will certainly die! " exclaimed Mrs. Jones, the mother of a family of three children, to her intimate friend Mrs. Brown, also rejoicing in the maternity of a promising brood of little ones. "For my part, I would no more let my husband get his life insured than I would let him cut his head off. He will certainly die."

"That is the lot of all mortals, Mrs. Jones, and I presume my husband does not consider himself exempt from the common lot," replied Mrs. Brown.

"You know what I mean; he will die before his time comes."

"His time will have come when he dies."

"How captious you are!"

"I do not understand you. The good book says that ‘no man knoweth the day nor the hour."

"But I never knew any man to get his life insured without dying very soon after."

"Do you mean to say that getting a life insured is likely to hasten the end of the assured? " asked Mrs. Brown, with a pleasant smile at the superstition of her friend.

"Well, no, not exactly that; only it is a bad sign."

"Pshaw! Do you think your husband's barn is any more likely to be burned down because he has taken the precaution to have it insured?"

"But that is not like getting one's life insured; it really seems to me just like trifling with serious things."

"How absurd!"

"But it does. Only think of attempting to thwart the will of God. Insuring a life!"

"You take the wrong view of it."

"Our minister takes the same view of it," returned Mrs. Jones, with triumphant assurance.

"He does not understand the subject then."

"Our minister don't?"

"I am sure he does not."

Mrs. Jones permitted a sneer to play upon her lips, as she paused in her sewing, and gazed at her friend.

"You don't mean to say that you know more than the Rev. Mr. Schism, a regularly educated minister of the gospel, in good and regular standing? " continued she, scarcely able to restrain her indignation within a reasonable limit.