Theodore P. Wilson

“ The Friday on which the appointment between Foster and Levi Sharples was to be kept at Cricketty Hall, was one of those dismal April days which make you forget that there is any prospect of a coming summer in the chilly misery of the present. Cold showers and raw breezes made the passers through the streets of Crossbourne fold themselves together, and expose as little surface as was possible to the inclemency of the weather; so that when James Barnes and Thomas Bradly left the station by the early and mid-day trains, there were but few idlers about to notice their departure. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Coming in, in better spirits perhaps than usual, intending to have a cheerful tea and a cozy chat after it, he would find everything in a state of disturbance, especially his young wife’s temper, with plenty of steam everywhere except from the spout of the tea-pot. Indeed, poor Kate was one of those domestic paradoxes in her own person and house which are specially trying to one who cares for home comfort: and who is there who does not care for it? She would be always cleaning, yet never clean; always smartening things up, and yet never keeping them tidy. ”

“ Remember those precious words of the psalm: ‘Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him!’” Jane dried her tears, and held out her arms to her brother, who drew her tenderly to his heart, and again bade her take comfort. “And now,” he said, “I must go to poor Jim.”
“Well, Thomas,” said Barnes, on the return of his friend, “I hope there’s nothing very bad come of my losing the bag?” ”

“ William and his wife wouldn’t have been made happy and rejoicing believers. And indeed, though I can’t explain all now, neither, as far as we can tell, would Jim Barnes have been what he now is, with his missus like a new pin, nor would poor Ned Taylor have died a humble penitent. All these precious fruits have growed and ripened out of the loss of my dear sister’s Bible. And she herself—well, it’s been a sore trial, but it’s yielded already the peaceable fruit of righteousness. She’s lost nothing in the end but a little dross, and her sorrow has helped to bring joy to many. ”

“ One or two things for which she had real taste and ability thoroughly mastered would have been a far greater source of delight to her husband, and of satisfaction to herself, than the mere handful of unripe fruit which she had gathered from a dozen different branches of the tree of knowledge, and in the collecting of which she had, in a measure, impaired the elasticity of her mind and her bodily strength, and found no time for making herself mistress of a thousand little undemonstrative acquirements which tend to keep a steady light of joy and peace burning daily and hourly in the home. ”

“ Those houses of a humbler stamp on either side of it had doors which opened at once from the street into the parlour or living-room; but to Foster’s dwelling there was a small entrance-hall, terminating in an archway, beyond which were a large parlour, a kitchen, and a staircase leading to the upper rooms.
There was an air of ambition about everything, as though the premises, like their occupiers, were aiming to be something above their station, while at the same time a manifest absence of cleanliness and neatness only presented a sort of satirical contrast to the surrounding grandeur. ”

“ We want a real person such as ourselves, and yet infinitely above ourselves; and such an one we have in the Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour—one who is like us as man, yet infinitely above us as God—one who can smile on us, because he is human, and can watch over us, guide us, and bear with us, because he is divine.
“Be sure of this, dear friends,—and I am speaking to you now as persons of intelligence, who can thoughtfully weigh what I say,—science can never be true science, knowledge can never be real knowledge which sets aside the God who is the fountain of all truth and every kind of truth. ”

“ The evening after this little happy tea-party, Thomas Bradly called in at William Foster’s. He found the young man and his wife studying the Bible together; but there was a look of trouble and anxiety on the husband’s face which made him fear that there was something amiss. He was well aware that his former foe but now firm friend was but a weak and ignorant disciple; and he expected, therefore, that he would find it anything but smooth sailing at first in his Christian course. Still, what a marvellous change, to see one so lately a sceptic and a scoffer now humbly studying the Word of Life! ”

“ 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 ”

“ But then, if you are not religious, well and good too, no one should meddle with you, and it would be very uncharitable, and in very bad taste, to quarrel with you about your creed or views. Religion, in fact, is becoming with many a matter of pure indifference—a matter of taste; you may do well with it, and you may do as well, or nearly as well, without it.
“Hence it has come to pass that there are to be found men of science and learning who never trouble themselves about religion at all. ”

“ The marvel, indeed, to Foster and his friends was how ignorance, bigotry, priestcraft, and tyranny could venture to hold up their heads in Crossbourne after his club had continued its meeting regularly for the last two years.
Perhaps they might have been a little less surprised could one of them have taken down an old volume of Dr South’s sermons from the vicar’s library shelves, and have read these words to his fellows: “Men are infidels, not because they have sharper wits, but because they have corrupter wills; not because they reason better, but because they live worse.” ”

“ Ned Taylor’s misspent life came to an end a few weeks after his confession to Thomas Bradly of his connection with the awful death of Joe Wright. His internal injuries could not be healed; and, after many days and nights of terrible suffering, meekly and patiently borne, he passed away from a world on which he had left no other mark but the scar of a wasted life. Alas that beings to whom God has given faculties, by the right use of which they might glorify him on the earth, should pass away from it, as thousands do, to be remembered only as a warning and a shame! ”

“ At the Cross we must learn the only way of peace for our souls; and, in dependence on the grace and wisdom of Him who is in every sense the Light of the world, we must seek to make real advance in every field of knowledge, content to know and feel our own ignorance, and thankful to gain light in all our investigations from Him who can at the same time baffle the searchings of the wisest, and unfold to the humble yet patient and persevering inquirer treasures of knowledge and wisdom otherwise unattained and unattainable. ”

“ There’s nothing like studying the book itself—asking God, of course, to give one the guidance of his Holy Spirit. The more I read, the more I find verses that just as exactly fit into my own experience as if they had been penned especially in reference to the history, circumstances, character, and wants of William Foster; and no doubt they were, for that’s a most wonderful thing about the Bible, and shows that it is God’s book,—I mean that it as much suits each individual man’s case as if it had been originally written for that man only. ”

“ But you get hold of an old yaller crooked pin, with point bent down to scratch you, and when you try to make use of it, the head’s in the wrong place, it’s got slipped down, and the thick end of the pin runs into your finger, and makes you holler out—that’s like what my wife was. But she’s not a bit like that now; she’s like the new pin, bless her; and it’s been Tommy Tracks—I begs his pardon—it’s been Mr Thomas Bradly, and the Bible, and the temperance pledge as has been and gone and done it all. ”

“ I know it, I know it, Jane; and yet remember the promise, ‘He will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.’ Nay, cheer up, darling! ‘the Lord does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.’ He’ll never let his people be vexed a moment longer than’s good for them. I feel certain now as the bag’ll be found sooner or later. ”

“ Just at the outskirts of the town an open carriage joined the long line: there were in it Mrs Maltby and her daughter, who had returned from the seaside a few days before, and Jane Bradly, who was not yet equal to much exertion.
On, on they marched, bright and happy, conscious that their cause was a good one, and that their enjoyment would not be marred by any excesses. ”

“ And in the midst of all this chaos, on one side of the grate, which was one-third full of expiring ashes, and two-thirds full of dust, sat James Barnes in his railway porter’s dress and cap, looking exceedingly crestfallen and unhappy.
“Good evening, Jim,” said Thomas Bradly, making his way to the fire-place, and taking a seat opposite to Barnes; “I was sorry to hear bad news.”
“Yes, bad indeed, Thomas—you’ve heard it, I see. Yes, they’ve given me the sack; and what’s to be done now, I’m sure I don’t know. Some people’s born to luck; ’tain’t my case.” ”

“ 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? ”

“ This is so very dangerous a feature of our times, because there is at the same time a very widely spread respect for religion. Coarse abuse and reviling of religion and religious people are frowned upon now by all persons of education and refinement as vulgar and illiberal. But yet, with this respect for religion and its followers, there seems to be growing up a conviction or impression that people can be good, and happy, and profitable in their day without any religion at all. If you are religious, well and good, no one should meddle with you ”

“ Yet he was too profound a thinker to adopt that popular scepticism which is either the refuge of those who, consciously or unconsciously, use it as a screen, though it proves but a semi-transparent one at the best, to shut out the light of a coming judgment, or the halting-place of thinkers who stop short of the only source of true and infallible wisdom—the revealed mind of God. ”

“ If you want thoroughly to appreciate a good tea, be in the habit of drinking nothing stronger, take a moderate walk on a bright, blowy summer’s afternoon, have a scramble with a lot of little children till all your breath is gone for the time being, and then sit down, if you are privileged to have the opportunity, in the open-air, to such a meal as was spread before the temperance holiday-makers of Crossbourne. ”

“ If we’re to have a religion without doctrines and without a revelation, or if we’re only to pick out just as much from the Bible as suits our fancies and our prejudices, we shall be just following our nose. ”