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.