Читать книгу True to his Colours - Theodore P. Wilson - Страница 10

If there was one man more than another whom William Foster the sceptic both disliked and feared, it was “Tommy Tracks.” Not that he would have owned to such a fear for a moment. He tried to persuade himself that he despised him; but there was that about Bradly’s life and character which he was forced to respect, and before which his spirit within him bowed and quailed spite of himself.

Thomas Bradly, though possessed of but a very moderate share of book-learning, was pretty well aware that it required no very deep line to reach the bottom of Foster’s acquirements; and so, while he preferred, as a rule, to avoid any open controversy with William, or any of his party, he never shrunk from a fair stand-up contest when he believed that his Master’s honour and the truth required it.

One evening, a few days after the mysterious appearance of the little Bible in his own house, Foster, as he was coming home from his work, encountered Bradly at the open door of the blacksmith’s forge with a bundle of tracts in his hand.

“Still trying to do us poor sinners good, I see,” sneered Foster.

“Yes, if you’ll let me,” said the other, offering a tract.

“None of your nonsensical rubbish for me,” was the angry reply, as the speaker turned away.

“I never carries either nonsense or rubbish,” rejoined Thomas. “My tracts are all of ’em good solid sense; they are taken out of God’s holy Word, or are agreeable to the same.”

“What! The Bible? What sensible man now believes in that Bible of yours? It’s a failure; it has been demonstrated to be a failure. All enlightened men, even many among your own Christians, are giving it up as a failure now,”—saying which in a tone of triumph, as he looked round on a little knot of working-men who were gathering about the smithy door, he seated himself on an upturned cart which was waiting to be repaired, and looked at his opponent for a reply.

Thomas Bradly, nothing daunted, sat him down very deliberately on a large smooth stone on the opposite side of the doorway, and remarked quietly, “As to the Bible’s being a failure, I suppose that depends very much on experience. I’ve got an eight-day clock in our house. I bought it for a very good one, and gave a very good price for it, just before I set up housekeeping. A young fellow calls the other day, when I happened to be in, and he wants me to buy a new-fashioned sort of clock of him. ‘Well, if I do,’ says I, ‘what’ll you allow me for my old clock, then, as part payment?’ So he goes over and looks at it, and turns up his nose at it, and says, ‘’Tain’t worth the trouble of taking away: you shall have one of the right sort cheap; that clumsy, old-fashioned thing’ll never do you no good.’—‘Well,’ says I, ‘that’s just as people find. That old clock has served me well, and kept the best of time these five and twenty years, and it don’t show any signs of being worse for wear yet. So I’ll stick to the old clock still, if you please, and take my time by it as I’ve been used to do.’ And the old-fashioned Bible’s just like my old clock. You tell me as it’s proved to be a failure. I tell you it isn’t a failure, for I’ve tried it, and proved it for more years than I’ve tried my clock, and it never yet failed me.”

“Perhaps not, Tommy,” said Foster; “that’s what you call your experience; but for all that, it has proved a failure generally.”

“How do you make out that, William? I can find you a score of families in Crossbourne as the Bible hasn’t failed, and their neighbours know it too.”

“Ah! Very likely; but what I mean is this: it has proved a failure when its power and truth have come to be tested in other parts of the world—that’s the general and almost universal experience, in fact.”

“Well, now, that’s strange,” replied Bradly, “to hear a man talk in that way in our days, when there’s scarce a language in the known world that the Bible hasn’t been turned into, so that all the wide world own it has been bringing light and peace into thousands of hearts and homes—there’s no contradicting that; and that’s a strange sort of failure—summat like old John Wrigley’s failure that folks were talking about; he failed by dying worth just half a million.”

“Well, but when we men of science and observation say that the Bible is a failure, we mean that it hasn’t accomplished what it should have done supposing it to be a revelation from the Supreme Being.”

“Ah, you are right there, William! I quite agree with you.”

“Do you hear him, mates?” cried Foster triumphantly. “He owns he’s beaten.”

“Not a bit of it,” cried Bradly. “What I grant you is this, and no more: the Bible hasn’t done all it should have done, and would have done. But why? Just because men wouldn’t let it: as our Saviour said when he was upon earth, ‘Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life.’ That’s man’s fault, not the Bible’s.”

“Ah, but if the Bible had really been a revelation from heaven, it ought to have converted all the world by this time, Tommy Tracks.”

“What! Whether men would or no? Nay; that’s making men mere machines, without any will of their own. If men hear the Bible, and still choose to walk in wicked ways, who’s to blame? Certainly not the Bible.”

“That won’t do, Tommy. What I mean is this: men of real science and knowledge declare that your Bible has proved to be a failure just because Christianity has not accomplished what the Bible professed that it would accomplish.”

“Indeed!” said the other quietly; “how so? I think, William, you’re shifting your ground a bit. But what has the Bible claimed for the Christian religion which Christianity has not accomplished?”

“Why, just look here, Tommy. There’s what you call the angels’ song, ‘Glory to God in the highest! And on earth peace, good-will towards men.’ That’s how it goes, I think. Now, Professor Tyndall, one of the greatest scientific men of the day, says that you’ve only to look at the wars that still go on between civilised nations to see that the angels’ song has not been fulfilled—that the gospel has failed to bring about universal peace. And so you see the Christian Bible has not accomplished what it professed to accomplish.”

“Stop a bit—softly!” said the other; “let’s take one thing at a time. Professor Tyndall may understand a great deal about science, but it don’t follow that he knows much about the Bible. But now I’ll make bold to take the very wars that have been going on in your time and mine, and call them up to give evidence just the other way. Mind you, I’m not saying a word in favour of wars. I only wish people would be content to fight with my weapons, and no others; and that’s just simply with the Bible itself—‘the sword of the Spirit,’ as the Scripture calls it. But now, you just listen to this letter from a newspaper correspondent in the war between the Prussians and the French. I cut it out, and here it is:—

“ ‘This afternoon I witnessed a very touching scene. A French soldier of the Thirty-third Line Regiment, belonging to the corps of General Frossard, had been made prisoner at the outposts. He is a native of Jouy-aux-Arches, where his wife and children now reside. On his way to Corny, where the head-quarters of the prince are now situated, he asked permission to be allowed to see his wife and children. Need I say that the request was immediately granted? The poor woman, half delirious with joy, asked to be allowed to accompany her husband at least to Corny. This was also acceded to. But then came the difficulty about the bairns. The woman was weak, and could not carry her baby, and at home there was no one to mind it. As for the little chap of five, he could toddle along by his father’s side. The difficulty was, however, overcome by a great big Pomeranian soldier, who volunteered to act as nurse. This man had been quartered close to the poor woman’s house; and the little ones knew him, for he had often played with them. When therefore, bidding the poor wife be of good cheer, he held out his big strong arms to the little infant, it came to him immediately, and nestling its tiny head upon his shoulders, seemed perfectly content. So did the Prussian soldier carry the Frenchman’s child. When I first saw the group, the wife was clasped in her husband’s embrace; the little boy clung to his father’s hand; while the Prussian soldier, with the baby in his arms, stalked along by their sides. Then the Frenchwoman told her husband how, when she had been ill and in want of food, the Prussian soldiers had shared their rations with her, had fetched wood and water, had lit the fire, and helped her in their own rough, kindly way; until at last those two men, who belonged to countries now arrayed against each other in bitterest hate—who perhaps a few days since fought the one against the other—embraced like brothers, while I, like a great big fool, stood by and cried like a baby. But I was not alone in my folly, if folly it be: several Prussian officers and soldiers followed my example, for we all had wives and children in far-off homes.’

“Now, I ask you all, friends, to give me an honest answer: could such a thing have happened if those countries, France and Prussia, hadn’t both of ’em been enjoying the light that comes from the Bible—as Christian nations by profession, at any rate—for long years past? You’ve only to look at wars between nations that know nothing of the Bible to get an answer to that.”

“You had him there, Tommy,” cried one of the auditory, considerably delighted at Foster’s evident discomfiture.

But the latter returned to the charge, saying, “All very fine, Tommy Tracks; but you haven’t fully answered my objection.”

“I know it,” was Bradly’s reply. “I understand that you deny that the Bible is a revelation from God because it has failed, (so you say) to do what it professes to do.”

“Just so.”

“Well, what does it profess to do?”

“Doesn’t it profess to convert all the world?”

“How soon?”

“Before the Second Advent, as you call it.”

“Show me, William, where it says so.”

So saying, Bradly handed a little Bible to his opponent, who took it very reluctantly; while those around, being much interested, and at the same time amused, exclaimed—

“Ay, to be sure! Show it him, William; show it him!”

“Not I,” said Foster, endeavouring to hide his annoyance and confusion by an assumption of scorn; “it’s not in my line to hunt for texts.”

“True,” said Thomas quietly; “if it had been, you wouldn’t have made such a blunder.—He can’t find it, friends, for it ain’t written so in the Bible. Before the Lord comes again he’ll gather out his own people from all nations. But that’s not at all the same as converting all the world; that’s not to be till after his coming again, according to the Bible. And this is just what’s happening now in different countries all over the world; exactly according to the teaching of the Bible, neither more nor less. So he hasn’t proved his point, friends; has he?”

“No, no!” was the universal cry.

But William Foster, though sorely angry, and conscious that his arrows had utterly failed of hitting their mark, was determined not to be driven ingloriously out of the field; his pride could not endure that. So, smothering his wrath, he turned again to Bradly and said—

“Here, give us one of your precious tracts, man.” The other immediately handed him one.

“Now see, mates,” continued Foster, “what I’ve got here—‘The Power of Prayer.’ See how it begins ‘Prayer moves the arm that moves the world.’ And you believe that, Tommy Tracks?”

“Yes,” was the reply; “I believe it; and more than that, I know it—I know that it’s true.”

“And how do you know it?”

“First and foremost, because the Bible says so; not those very words, indeed, but what means just the same: as, for instance, ‘The Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear.’ And, better still, I have it in our Saviour’s own words: ‘If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?’ ”

“Well, now, let me tell you, friend Bradly, that it’s all a delusion.”

“You’re at liberty, William, to tell me what you like; but I can tell you that it’s no such thing as a delusion, for I’ve proved it myself to be a blessed truth.”

“What! You mean to say that your own prayers have been answered?”

“I do mean to say so, William. There’s nothing like experience. I can tell you what I know myself. I’ve put the Lord to the proof over and over again, and he has never failed me. I’ve always had what I needed.”

“Hear him!” cried Foster, derisively. “Why, it isn’t a week ago that I heard him myself tell John Rowe that he’d like to build another cottage on the bit of land he bought last year, only he couldn’t afford it just at present. And now he says he has only to pray for a thing, and he can get whatever he likes.—Why didn’t you pray for the money to build the new cottage, Tommy?”

“Not so fast, William; a reasoning and scientific man like yourself ought to stick close to the truth. Now, I never said as I could get whatever I liked—though I might have said that too without being wrong; for when I’ve found out clearly what’s the Lord’s will, I can say with the old shepherd, ‘I can have what I please, because what pleases God pleases me.’ What I said was this: that I always got what I needed when I prayed for a thing.”

“Well, and where’s the difference?”

“A vast deal of difference, William. I never pray for any of this world’s good things without putting in, ‘if God sees it best for me to have it.’ And then I know that, if it is really good for me, I shall get it, and that’ll be what I need; and if he sees as I’m better without it, he’ll give me contentment and peace, and often something much better than what I asked for, and which I never expected, and that’ll be giving me in answer to prayer what I need.”

“Then it seems to me,” said the other, sneeringly, “that you may just as well let the prayer alone altogether, for you don’t really get what you would like, and you can’t be sure what it is you really want.”

“Nay, not so, William Foster; my Bible says, ‘Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.’ I just go and do this, and over and over again I’ve got the thing I naturally liked; and it’s only been now and then, when God knew I should be better without the thing I fancied, that he kept it back. But then I always got something better for me instead, and the peace of God with it.”

“And you call that getting answers to prayer from a heavenly Father?” said Foster derisively.

“I do,” was Bradly’s reply. “My heavenly Father deals with me in the same way as I used to deal with my children when they was little, and for the same reason—because he loves me, and knows better than I do what’s good for me. When our Dick were a little thing, only just able to walk, he comes one evening close up to the table while I was shaving, and makes a snatch at my razor. I caught his little hand afore he could get hold; and says I, ‘No, Dick, you mustn’t have that; you’ll hurt yourself with it.’ Not that there was any harm in the razor itself, but it would have been harm to him, though he didn’t know it then. Well, Dick was just ready to cry; but he looks at me, and sees a smile on my face, and toddles off into the garden; and an hour after I went and took him a great blunt knife as he couldn’t hurt himself with, and he was soon as happy as a king, rooting about in the cabbage-bed with it. I did it because I loved him; and he came to understand that, after a bit. And that’s the way our heavenly Father deals with all his loving and obedient children.”

There was a little murmur of approval when Bradly ceased, which was very distasteful to Foster, who began to move off, growling out that, “it was no use arguing with a man who was quite behind the age, and couldn’t appreciate nor understand the difficulties and conclusions of deeper thinkers.”

“Just one word more, friends, on this subject,” said Bradly, not noticing his opponent’s last disparaging remarks. “William said, a little while ago, as it’s all fancy on my part when I gave him my own experience about answers to prayer. Well, if it’s fancy, it’s a very pleasant fancy, and a very profitable fancy too; and I should like him to tell me what his learned scientific authors, that he brags so much about, has to give me instead of it, if I take their word for it as it’s all fancy, and give over praying. Now, suppose I’m told as there’s a man living over at Sunnyside as is able and willing to give me everything I want, if I only ask him. I go to his door, and knock; but he don’t let me see him. I say through the keyhole, ‘I want a loaf of bread.’ He opens the door just so far as to make room for his hand, and there’s a loaf of bread in it for me. I go to him again, and tell him through the door as I wants some medicine to cure one of my children as is sick. The hand is put out with medicine in it, and the medicine makes a cure. I go again, and say I want a letter of recommendation for my son to get a place as porter on the railway. There’s no hand put out this time; but I hear a voice say, ‘Come every day for a week.’ So I go every day, and knock; and the last day the hand’s put out, and it gives me a letter to a gentleman, who puts my son into a situation twice as good as the one I asked for him. Now, suppose I’d gone on in this way for years, always getting what I asked for, or something better instead, do you think any one would ever persuade me as it were only fancy after all; that the friend I called on so often wasn’t my friend at all, that he’d never heard or listened to a word I said, and had never given me anything in all my life? Now, that’s just how the matter stands. It’s no use talking to a man as knows what effectual prayer is, about the constancy of the laws of nature, and such like. He knows better; he has put the Lord of nature and all its laws to the proof, and so may you too. I’ll just leave with you one text out of the Scripture as’ll weigh down a warehouseful of your sceptical and philosophical books; and it’s this: ‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’ ”

Not a word more was spoken on either side, and the party broke up.