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that he wishes to send to Europe or to any other country, his reflec- 

 tions will be very much the same. He knows that every vessel is 

 liable to be cast away, and lost. But the agent says, "Pay us so 

 much, and we will insure your vessel and cargo. If they are lost or 

 injured, except through your own carelessness, we will pay you for 

 them." And very few vessels now leave home without being fully 

 insured. 



So in life-insurance. The system has not yet become so general, 

 yet the principles are precisely similar. A person sees around him 

 a family wholly dependent upon him for support and maintenance. 

 Perhaps he has children too young to take care of themselves. He 

 desires above all to see them educated and brought up to be an honor 

 to their parents and friends. This he knows he is able to do from 

 the labor of his hands. As long as he lives he is pretty certain they 

 will not want a guide and protector. But life is uncertain ; he may 

 be cut off suddenly from among the living, his children become 

 fatherless, and his wife a widow. He has little property. Who 

 will then become the guardian of his family, the supporter of his 

 young children ? They may be distressed and in actual want of 

 the necessaries of life, and though we have the promise that the 

 righteous are never forsaken, yet no person would be justified for a 

 moment in sitting down and folding his arms imprudently upon the 

 strength of that promise ; for it presupposes that the righteous man 

 will be wise, and use all reasonable endeavors for the welfare and 

 support of those whom a kind Providence has placed under his care. 

 Well, the agent of a life-insurance company says to him, " Pay me 

 fifty dollars, and if during the next year you are removed from your 

 family by death, we will pay your wife and children three thousand 

 dollars in cash." Of course the premium varies according to the 

 age of the person being insured, and in proportion to the sum agreed 

 to be paid over to his heirs. It is true that money can never com- 

 pensate for the loss of a near and dear relative ; yet I trust I do not 

 need to tell you of the many comforts, necessaries, blessings even, 

 such a sum of money would bring to a family which had been de- 

 prived of its supporter, and having no property beside. My readers 

 may think it is a kind of lottery. So it is. But it is no more a lot- 

 tery than any other kind of insurance, nor has the system any of 



