Dr. John Clifford puts into the following verse the vanity and failure
of all assaults on the Bible:
Last eve I paused beside a blacksmith’s door,
And heard the anvil sing the vesper chime;
Then, looking in, I saw upon the floor
Old hammers, worn with beating years of time.
“How many anvils have you had,” said I,
“To wear and batter all those hammers so?”
“Just one,” he said; then, with a twinkling eye,
“The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.”
And so, I thought, the anvil of God’s word
For ages skeptic blows have beat upon;
Yet, tho the noise of falling blows was heard,
The anvil is unharmed--the hammers gone.
(235)