MY DEAR A----: In the note in which you kindly acknowledge my former
communications you say that, whatever Christianity may be to me, you
cannot see it as I do; its excellences, as they appear to my mind,
do not impress you at all, and as long as they do not you cannot be
expected to accept it. I admit the conclusion: you cannot receive as
good and true what does not seem to be so. But does it follow that a
thing is not good and true because you do not see it? The question
still comes, Is the cause in the thing or in you?
You remember the Beethoven concert we once attended together in
B----? To you it was an occasion of exquisite enjoyment; to me it
was nothing. The difference was not in the music: it was in us. You
have a musical taste; I have not. I tried--not very sincerely,
perhaps--to persuade you that there was nothing beautiful in it; you
smiled, but attempted no argument. You were wise. You knew the music
was beautiful, for you had experienced it; you had felt its power.
If I chose to deny it because I had not felt it, so it must be; you
could only pity me.
Now, is it not possible that there may be something like this in
religion? May it not be a reality--a supreme reality--though you do
not see it or feel it? May I not know it to be real because I have
felt its power? And if there are thousands and tens of thousands as
intelligent men and women as the world has ever seen who are as ready
to testify that they have felt the power and experienced the reality
of the Christian religion as you are to testify that you have felt
the power and know the sweetness of music, are you wise to dismiss
its claims because _you_ have not felt the force of them? You must
see this. I leave it to your candor. Christianity may be true though
you have not felt its truth. A cloud of witnesses stand ready to
testify to you its truth from personal experience. They may not argue
with you: multitudes of them could not argue with you; but, after
all, they have a proof of the reality of their religion, of the
power of Christ to satisfy and bless men, which no arguments in the
world can shake. If all this were a new thing, or if the witnesses
were only ignorant and superstitious men, you might well enough
hesitate to receive the testimony; but when you reflect that it is
the accumulated testimony of nearly nineteen centuries, that it comes
from all countries and all classes, from the prince on the throne and
the beggar at his gate, from the philosopher in his study and the
sailor in the forecastle, from the statesman in the cabinet and the
ploughman in the furrow, I submit it cannot with wisdom or reason be
set aside. It is no answer to say that many great men and learned men
and ploughmen can be brought who have had no such experience and give
no such testimony. This is true, but it is one of the first laws of
evidence that no amount of merely negative testimony can overthrow
the explicit evidence of honest, intelligent, trustworthy witnesses.
Fifty men who did not see a murder could not set aside the clear
testimony of two who did see it. Few of the race have ever seen the
moons of Mars, or even of Jupiter; this does not disturb the witness
of the few who have: the satellites are there.
I have just been reading--not for the first time--Peter Harvey's
account of his visit, with Daniel Webster, to John Colby. You will
find it in Harvey's _Reminiscences of Webster_; and if you have not
read it, it is worth your reading. Colby had married Webster's oldest
sister when Webster was a mere boy. It was in some respects a strange
marriage. She was a godly, Christian woman, while Colby was a wild,
reckless, ungodly man--"the wickedest man in the neighborhood,"
Webster believed, "as far as swearing and impiety went." He seems to
have been the terror of Webster's boyhood. Singularly enough for New
England, though a man of strong natural powers, he never learned to
read till he was over eighty years of age. His wife died early, and
the families drifted apart. Webster had not seen Colby for over forty
years, but he heard that a great change had taken place with him, and
he visited him to judge for himself. I should mar the story of the
interview if I undertook to condense it. Let me give the essential
parts of it in Mr. Harvey's own words. Long as it is, I think you
would be sorry to have it shorter.
Webster and Harvey had driven to Andover, and were directed to Mr.
Colby's house. "The door was open.... Sitting in the middle of the
room was a striking figure who proved to be John Colby. He sat facing
the door, in a very comfortably furnished farmhouse room, with a
little table--or what perhaps would be called a light-stand--before
him. Upon it was a large, old-fashioned Scott's Family Bible in very
large print, and, of course, a heavy volume. It lay open, and he
had evidently been reading it attentively. As we entered he took off
his spectacles and laid them upon the page of the book, and looked
up at us as we approached, Mr. Webster in front. He was a man, I
should think, over six feet in height, and he retained in a wonderful
degree his erect and manly form, although he was eighty-five or six
years old. His frame was that of a once powerful, athletic man. His
head was covered with very heavy, thick, bushy hair, and it was as
white as wool, which added very much to the picturesqueness of his
appearance. As I looked in at the door I thought I never saw a more
striking figure. He straightened himself up, but said nothing till
just as we appeared at the door, when he greeted us with--
"'Walk in, gentlemen.'
"Mr. Webster's first salutation was--
"'This is Mr. Colby--Mr. John Colby--is it not?'
"'That is my name, sir,' was the reply.
"'I suppose you don't know me?' said Mr. Webster.
"'No, sir, I don't know you; and I should like to know how you know
me.'
"'I have seen you before, Mr. Colby,' replied Mr. Webster.
"'Seen me before!' said he; 'pray, when and where?'
"'Have you no recollection of me?' asked Mr. Webster.
"'No, sir, not the slightest;' and he looked by Mr. Webster toward
me, as if trying to remember if he had seen me.
"Mr. Webster remarked,
"'I think you never saw this gentleman before, but you have seen me.'
"Colby put the question again,
"'When and where?'
"'You married my oldest sister,' replied Mr. Webster, calling her by
name.
"'I married your oldest sister!' exclaimed Colby. 'Who are you?'
"'I am "little Dan,"' was the reply.
"It certainly would be impossible to describe the expression of
wonder, astonishment and half incredulity that came over Colby's face.
"'_You_ Daniel Webster!' said he; and he started to rise from his
chair. As he did so he stammered out some words of surprise. 'Is it
possible that this is the little black lad that used to ride the
horse to water? Well, I cannot realize it!'
"Mr. Webster approached him. They embraced each other, and both wept.
"'Is it possible,' said Mr. Colby, when the embarrassment of the
first shock of recognition was past, 'that you have come up here
to see me? Is this Daniel? Why! why!' said he, 'I cannot believe
my senses. Now, sit down. I am glad--oh, I am so glad to see you,
Daniel. I never expected to see you again. I don't know what to
say. I am so glad that my life has been spared that I might see
you. Why, Daniel, I read about you and hear about you in all ways.
Sometimes some members of the family come and tell us about you, and
the newspapers tell us a great deal about you, too. Your name seems
to be constantly in the newspapers. They say that you are a great
man--that you are a famous man--and you can't tell how delighted I
am when I hear such things. But, Daniel, the time is short; you will
not stay here long: I want to ask you one important question. You
may be a _great_ man: are you a _good_ man? Are you a Christian man?
Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? That is the only question that is
worth asking or answering? Are you a Christian? You know, Daniel,
what I have been: I have been one of the wickedest of men. Your poor
sister, who is now in heaven, knows that. But the Spirit of Christ
and of almighty God has come down and plucked me as a brand from the
everlasting burning. I am here now, a monument to his grace. Oh,
Daniel, I would not give what is contained within the covers of
this book for all the honors that have been conferred upon men from
the creation of the world until now. For what good would it do? It
is all nothing, and less than nothing, if you are not a Christian,
if you are not repentant. If you do not love the Lord Jesus Christ
in sincerity and truth, all your worldly honors will sink to utter
nothingness. Are you a Christian? Do you love Christ? You have not
answered me.'
"All this was said in the most earnest and even vehement manner.
"'John Colby,' replied Mr. Webster, 'you have asked me a very
important question, and one which should not be answered lightly. I
intend to give you an answer, and one that is truthful, or I will
not give you any. I hope that I am a Christian. I profess to be a
Christian. But, while I say that, I wish to add--and I say it with
shame and confusion of face--that I am not such a Christian as I wish
I were. I have lived in the world, surrounded by its honors and its
temptations, and I am afraid, John Colby, that I am not so good a
Christian as I ought to be. I am afraid I have not your faith and
your hopes; but still I hope and trust that I am a Christian, and
that the same grace which has converted you and made you an heir of
salvation will do the same for me. I trust it, and I also trust, John
Colby--and it will not be long before our summons will come--that we
shall meet in a better world, and meet those who have gone before us
whom we knew, and who trusted in that same divine free grace. It will
not be long. You cannot tell, John Colby, how much delight it gave me
to hear of your conversion. The hearing of that is what has led me
here to-day. I came here to see with my own eyes and hear with my own
ears the story from a man that I know and remember so well. What a
wicked man you used to be!'
"'Oh, Daniel,' exclaimed John Colby, 'you don't remember how wicked I
was, how ungrateful I was, how unthankful I was. I never thought of
God; I never cared for God; I was worse than a heathen. Living in a
Christian land with the light shining all around me and the blessings
of Sabbath teachings everywhere about me, I was worse than a heathen
until I was arrested by the grace of Christ and made to see my
sinfulness and to hear the voice of my Saviour. Now I am only waiting
to go home to him, and to meet your sainted sister, my poor wife. And
I wish, Daniel, that you might be a prayerful Christian; and I trust
you are. Daniel,' he added, with deep earnestness of voice, 'Will you
pray with me?'
"We knelt down, and Mr. Webster offered a most touching prayer. As
soon as he had pronounced the 'Amen,' Mr. Colby followed in a most
pathetic, stirring appeal to God. He prayed for the family, for me
and for everybody. Then we rose, and he seemed to feel a serene
happiness in having thus joined his spirit with that of Mr. Webster
in prayer....
"The brothers-in-law took an affectionate leave of each other, and
we left. Mr. Webster could hardly restrain his tears. When we got
into the wagon, he began to moralize:
"'I should like,' said he, 'to know what the enemies of religion
would say to John Colby's conversion. There was a man as unlikely,
humanly speaking, to become a Christian as any man I ever saw. He was
reckless, heedless, impious--never attended church, never experienced
the good influence of associating with religious people--and here he
has been living on in that reckless way until he has got to be an old
man, until a period of life when you naturally would not expect his
habits to change, and yet he has been brought into the condition in
which we have seen him to-day, a penitent, trusting, humble believer.
Whatever people may say,' added Mr. Webster, 'nothing can convince
me that anything short of the grace of almighty God could make such
a change as I with my own eyes have witnessed in the life of John
Colby.'"
Mr. Colby was eighty-four years old at the time of his conversion.
At that age he learned to read for the single purpose of reading the
Bible, and it was the only book he ever did read. He lived for three
years after this, and to the end gave the clearest evidences of a
change that to Mr. Webster's judicial mind could be explained only by
the supposition of a divine interposition; it was a divine reality.
The last intelligible words of the once terrible blasphemer were,
"Jesus! glory!"
Changing the details, the experience of John Colby has been the
experience of thousands upon thousands. And--I put it to you in all
candor--is it all a lie? Was Webster--one of the grandest intellects
of this or of any age--was he a fanatic or a fool to believe in the
reality of the religion that John Colby had experienced? Was he a
weakling to put his faith where John Colby had put his, and to trust
that when the summons of both should come--as it soon did come--they
might meet each other and those who had gone before them trusting in
the same divine, free grace?
You may criticise the Bible, you may criticise Christians, but, after
all, there is something in Christianity that cannot be explained
away as a superstition or a delusion; there is something that cannot
be dismissed by a scoff or with indifference. Somewhere and at some
time it will have the final word, and it will be heard. I commend
it to your honest and earnest judgment now. Try it; I ask no more.
Settle the great questions that press on every heart as the Bible
opens the way of settlement to you, and wait the issue. You can lose
nothing; you may gain everything. The fact is as remarkable as it
is familiar that no man in the last hour here--the hour, often, of
supernal light--ever wanted to take back or to change his faith in
the Man of Nazareth as the Son of God and the Saviour of men. When
the shadows are melting in the great realities, and the mysteries of
life are about to be finished and the verities of the future are to
be proved, no man has yet been found to mourn that in the face of all
difficulty and doubt and denial here he was a Christian. Can that, or
anything approaching it, be said of any form of atheism or infidelity
or unbelief?
As ever, yours,
C----.