True to his Colours. Theodore P. Wilson
illuminated texts adorned the walls; and everything in Bradly’s house was in the most perfect order. You would not find a chair awry, nor books lying loose about, nor so much as a crumpled bit of paper thrown on the floor of his “Surgery,” nor indeed anywhere about the premises.
When a neighbour once said to him, “I see, Tommy Tracks, you hold with the saying, ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness,’ ”—“Nay, I don’t,” was his reply. “I read it another way: ‘Cleanliness is a part of godliness.’ I can’t understand a dirty or disorderly Christian—leastways, it’s very dishonouring to the Master; for dirt and untidiness and confusion are types and pictures of sin. A true Christian ought to be clean and tidy outside as well as in. Christ’s servants should look always cleaner and neater than any one else; for aren’t we told to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things? And don’t dirtiness and untidiness in Christians bring a reproach on religion? And then, if things are out of their place—all sixes and sevens—why, it’s just setting a trap for your feet. You’ll stumble, and lose your temper and your time, and fuss the life out of other people too, if things aren’t in their proper places, and you can’t lay hold of a thing just when you want it. It’s waste of precious time and precious peace, and them’s what Christians can’t afford to lose. Why, Jenny Bates, poor soul, used to lose her temper, and she’d scarce find it afore she lost it again, and just because she never had anything in decent order. And yet she were a godly woman; but her light kept dancing about, instead of shining steadily, as it ought to have done, just because she never knew where to put her hand on anything she wanted, and everything was in her way and in her husband’s way, except what they was looking for at the time. It’s a fine thing when you can stick by the rule, ‘A place for everything, and everything in its place.’ ”
But now it is not to be supposed for a moment that a man like Thomas Bradly could escape without a great deal of persecution in such a place as Crossbourne. All sorts of hard names were heaped upon him by those who were most rebuked by a life so manifestly in contrast to their own. Many gnashed upon him with their teeth, and would have laid violent hands on him had they dared. Sundry little spiteful tricks also were played off upon him. Thus, one morning he found that the word “Surgery” had been obliterated from his private door, and the word “Tomfoolery” painted under it. He let this pass for a while unnoticed and unremedied, and then restored the original word; and as his friends and the police were on the watch, the outrage was not repeated. All open scoffs and insults he took very quietly, sometimes just remarking, when any one called him “canting hypocrite,” or the like, that “he was very thankful to say that it wasn’t true.”
But besides this, he had an excellent way of his own in dealing with annoyances and persecutions, which turned them to the best account. At the back of a shelf, in one of the cupboards in his “Surgery,” he kept a small box, on the lid of which he had written the word “Pills.” When some word or act of special unkindness or bitterness had been his lot, he would scrupulously avoid all mention of it to his wife or children on his return home, but would retire into his “Surgery,” write on a small piece of paper the particulars of the act or insult, with the name of the doer or utterer, and put it into the box. Then, at the end of each month, he would lock himself into his room, take out the box, read over the papers, which were occasionally pretty numerous, and spread them out in prayer, like Hezekiah, before the Lord, asking him that these hard words and deeds might prove as medicine to his soul to keep him humble and watchful, and begging, at the same time, for the conversion and happiness of his persecutors. After this he would throw the papers into the fire, and come out to his family all smiles and cheerfulness, as though something specially pleasant and gratifying had just been happening to him—as indeed it had; for having cast his care on his Saviour, he had been getting a full measure of “the peace of God, which passeth understanding, to keep his heart and mind through Christ Jesus.”
Nor would his nearest and dearest have ever known of this original way of dealing with his troubles, had not his wife accidentally come upon the “pill-box” one day, when he had sent her to replace a book in the cupboard for him. Well acquainted as she was with most of his oddities, she was utterly at a loss to comprehend the box and its contents. On opening the lid, she thought at first that the box contained veritable medicine; but seeing, on closer inspection, that there was nothing inside but little pieces of paper neatly rolled up, her curiosity was, not unnaturally, excited, and she unfolded half-a-dozen of them. What could they mean? There was writing on each strip, and it was in her husband’s hand. She read as follows: “Sneaking scoundrel. John Thompson”—“Jim Taylor set his dog at me”—“Hypocritical humbug; you take your glass on the sly. George Walters!”—and so on.
She returned the papers to the box, and in the evening asked her husband, when they were alone, what it all meant. “Oh! So you’ve found me out, Mary,” he said, laughing. “Well, it means just this: I never bring any of these troubles indoors to you and the children; you’ve got quite enough of your own. So I keep them for the Lord to deal with; and when I’ve got a month’s stock, I just read them over. It’s as good as a medicine to see what people say of me. And then I throw ’em all into the fire, and they’re gone from me for ever; and when I’ve added a word of prayer for them as has done me the wrong, I come away with my heart as light as a feather.”
It need hardly be said that Mrs. Bradly was more than satisfied with this solution of the puzzle.
Chapter Five.
A Discussion.
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