True to his Colours. Theodore P. Wilson
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