"Not I," said Foster, endeavouring to hide his annoyance and confusion by an a.s.sumption 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d." 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 d.i.c.k 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 s.n.a.t.c.h at my razor. I caught his little hand afore he could get hold; and says I, "No, d.i.c.k, 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, d.i.c.k 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.
CHAPTER SIX.
THE VICAR OF CROSSBOURNE.
Of all the true friends of "Tommy Tracks" none valued and loved him more than the Reverend Ernest Maltby, vicar of Crossbourne. There is a peculiar attraction in such men to one another, which cements their friendship all the more strongly from the very dissimilarity of their social positions. For each feels dependent on the other, and that the other possesses gifts or powers of which he himself is dest.i.tute. The refined Christian scholar, while in perfect spiritual accord with the man of rougher mould and scanty learning, feels that his humbler brother is able to _get at_ his fellow-workmen for good, as being on the same level with them, in a way denied to himself. While, on the other hand, the man of inferior education and position is conscious that all real increase in knowledge is increase in power, and that his brother of higher-station and more extensive reading can grasp and deal effectually with topics of interest and importance, which could not be done justice to by his own less skilful and less intelligent handling. And thus, as each leans in a measure on the other, being in entire sympathy as they are on highest things, the force of their united action on the hearts and lives of others is powerful indeed. Such was the case in Crossbourne. The combined work of the vicar and Thomas Bradly, both for the salvation of souls and the rescue and reformation of the intemperate, was being felt by the enemies of the truth to be a work of power: they were therefore on the watch to hinder and mar that work by every means within their reach; for Satan will not lose any of his captives without setting his own agents on a most determined and vigorous resistance.
The vicar himself was just the fitting man for his position. Gently yet not luxuriously nurtured, and early trained in habits of self-denial and consideration for the feelings of others, he had entered the ministry, not only with a due sense of the solemnity of his responsibilities, and under a conviction that he was truly called to his profession by the inward voice of the Holy Spirit, but also with a loving self- forgetfulness, while he sought earnestly the truest welfare of all committed to his charge. And when he pa.s.sed, after some years"
experience in the ministerial Work, to the important post of vicar of Crossbourne, he had come to take a peculiar interest in the study of individual character, and to delight in gathering around him workers of various temperaments and habits of thought. Rugged enough were some of these in their general bearing and their way of expressing themselves; but he knew well, when he had broken through the outer surface, what a firm-grained material he had to work upon in the hearts of such, and how he would be sure to win from them, in due time, by force and consistency of character, respect and affection as abiding as they were sincere.
It was his happiness also to be united to a wife like-minded with himself in views and work. On one point alone they had differed, and that was as to the mental training of their only child, a daughter.
Clara Maltby was now eighteen. She had been brought up by the united teaching and example of both parents "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Naturally thoughtful and retiring, and fond of learning, she had mastered the lessons taught her in her earliest years with an ease which awoke in her mother"s heart an ambition that her child, when she grew old enough, should gain some intellectual distinction. And as Clara herself was never happier than when she had a book in her hand, all that her parents had to do was to choose for her such branches of study as she was best calculated to shine in. Nor did she disappoint her teachers, but threw herself into her lessons with an energy and interest which made it certain that she would rise to eminence among compet.i.tors for the prizes of learning proposed to her own s.e.x. And thus it was that what might have been a rational thirst after knowledge, and have led to the acquirement of stores of information which would have made their possessor an ornament to her home and to the society in which she moved, grew into an absorbing pa.s.sion.
She came at length to live in and for her studies. All her other pursuits and occupations were made to be subordinate to these, and were by degrees completely swallowed up by them. Not that she was unaware that there were duties which she ought to fulfil in her home and in her father"s parish, which could not be done justice to without shortening her hours of study. She saw this plainly enough, and deplored her neglect; but she had come to persuade herself that success in her intellectual pursuits was the special end at which she was to aim for the present; and she believed that her mother, at any rate, held the same view.
And yet her conscience was not at ease on the matter. Home and parish work which used to fall to her was either left undone or transferred to others. "Mother," she would say, "I am so sorry not to be of more use; I ought to help you, and to take my share of work in the parish; but then you know how it is--you see that I have no time." Once her cla.s.s in the Sunday-school had been her delight, and the object of many an anxious thought and earnest prayer, while each individual scholar had a place in her heart and her supplications. But by degrees the preparation for the Sunday lessons became irksome and too much for her already overworked brain. She must make the Sabbath a day of absolute rest from all mental exertion, except such as was involved in a due attendance on the services in the house of G.o.d, which her conscience would not allow her to absent from.
As for week-day work in the parish, such as taking her turn in visiting the girls" day-school, undertaking a district as visitor, looking up and tending the sick and the sorrowful in conjunction with her father and mother, the excuse of "no time" was pleaded here also; so that she who was once welcomed in every home in the parish, and carried peace by her loving words and looks to many a troubled and weary heart, was now becoming daily more and more a stranger to those who used to love and value her. Indeed, she seldom now stirred from home, except when s.n.a.t.c.hing for health"s sake a hasty walk, in which she would hurry from the vicarage and back again along roads where she was least likely to meet with interruption from the greetings of friends or neighbours.
Light, purer light, the light of G.o.d"s truth, had indeed shone into her heart, but that light was suffering a gradual and deepening eclipse through the shadow cast by the idol of intellectual ambition, which had usurped for a while the place where once her Saviour reigned supreme.
And the poor body was suffering, for the overstrained mind was sapping the vigour of all its powers. And then there came a resort to that remedy, the stimulant which spurs up the flagging energies to extraordinary and spasmodic exertion, only to leave the poor deluded victim more prostrate and exhausted than ever.
The vicar had never been satisfied with his daughter"s course. Life, in his view, was too short and eternity too near to justify any one in pursuing even the most innocent and laudable object in such a manner as to unfit the soul for keeping steadily in view its highest interests, and to engross the mind and life so entirely as to shut all the doors of loving and Christian usefulness. While acknowledging the value of storing, cultivating, and enlarging the mind, he became daily more and more convinced that such mental improvement was becoming a special snare to the young and enthusiastic; beguiling them into the neglect of manifest duty, and into a refined and subtle self-worship, which, in the case of those who had set out on the narrow way, was changing the substance for a shadow, and destroying that peace which none can truly feel who rob their Saviour of the consecration of all that they have and are to his glory.
But deeply as he deplored the change in his daughter"s habits, and her withdrawal from first one good work and then another, he had not fully realised how it had come about, and the mischief it was doing to the body, mind, and soul of the child he loved so dearly. It was only gradually that she had relinquished first one useful occupation, and then another; and circ.u.mstances seemed at the time to make such withdrawal necessary.
Then, too, his wife"s reluctance to see that, after all, she had mistaken the path on which she should have encouraged her daughter to travel, had led her to make as light as possible of the evil effects, which were only too plain to others not so nearly interested in her child"s well-being. She could not bear to think that, after all, Clara"s pursuit of intellectual distinction was physically, morally, and spiritually a huge mistake, and that she was purchasing success at the cost of health and peace. "There was nothing seriously amiss with her,"
she would tell her husband, when he expressed his misgivings and fears; "she only wanted a little change; that would set her up: there was no real cause for anxiety. It would never do for Clara to be behind the rest of the girls of her age in intellectual attainments: it would be doing her injustice, for she was so manifestly calculated to shine; and if G.o.d had given her the abilities and the tastes, surely they ought to be cultivated. She could return by-and-by to her work in the Sunday- school and the parish. And then, how much better it was that she should be acquiring really solid and useful knowledge, which would be always valuable to her, than be spending her energies on any of the worldly or frivolous pursuits which were entangling and spoiling so many well- disposed girls in our day."
Alas! The poor mother, whose own heart and conscience were not really satisfied with these reasonings, had forgotten, or failed to see, that the same devotion to study which kept her daughter out of the ensnaring ways of worldliness and frivolity, equally kept her from treading that path of shining usefulness along which all must walk who would fulfil the great purpose for which G.o.d has put us into this land of probation and preparation for our eternal home.
Thomas Bradly saw plainly how matters were, and when the vicar hinted at his difficulties connected with his daughter"s pursuits, as they were talking together over Sunday-school and parochial work, spoke out his mind plainly and faithfully.
"Well, Thomas," said Mr Maltby, "you see a little how I am situated.
My dear child is, I trust and believe, a true Christian; but I am free to confess that I am sadly disappointed at the turn which things have taken about her studies."
"I can well believe it, sir," was Bradly"s reply, "and I feel for you with all my heart. And I"m disappointed myself about Miss Clara, and so"s scores more in the parish. The Sunday-school ain"t the same as it was--no, nor the parish neither, now that she don"t come among us as she used to do. But there"s a twist somewheres in people"s views about the education of young ladies in our day. "Tain"t so much in my way, sir, it"s true, as it is in yours, to notice these things; but sometimes them as is standing a little way off gets a better view of how things really are than them as is quite close by."
"Quite so, Thomas," said the other. "Tell me, then, candidly what you think about this matter."
"I"ll do so, sir, as I know you"ll not misunderstand me; and you know that I love you and yours with all my heart. Well, sir, it seems to me as they"re beginning at the wrong place altogether, in filling young ladies" heads, as they do, with all sorts and sizes of knowledge."
"How do you mean, Thomas?"
"Just this way, sir. I were in Sheffield for a day or two last June, and as I were a-staring in at one of the cutlers" shops, I caught sight of a strange-looking article stuck upon a stand right in the middle of the window. It were all blades and points, like the porcupine as I used to read about at the national school when I were a boy. It was evidently meant for a knife; but who would ever think of buying such a thing as that, except merely as a curiosity? There must have been some fifty or sixty blades, and these were all sorts of shapes and sizes, just, I suppose, to show the skill of the workman as contrived to fasten such a lot of them together; but they would have been no earthly use to a man as wanted a real working article. Now, as far as I can see and hear, the young ladies in these days is being got up something like one of "em fancy knives. It seems to be the great wish of these young ladies" parents or friends to put into their heads a lot of learning of all sorts--so many languages, so many sciences, so many accomplishments, as they calls "em, as thick as they can stand together. And what"s the end of it all? Why, folks wonder at "em, no doubt, and say a great many fine things to "em and about "em; but they"re not turned out a real serviceable article, either for their homes or for the great Master"s work as he"d have them to do it."