The other turned away with a scornful laugh and a gibe; but the arrow had hit its mark. But, indeed, what Thomas Bradly said was true.

Broken hearts and dislocated families had been set to rights in that room. There would appointments be kept by wretched used-up sots, who would never have been persuaded to ask for Bradly at the ordinary door of entrance; and there on his knees, with the poor conscience-stricken penitent bowed beside him, would Thomas pour out his simple but fervent supplications to Him who never "broke a bruised reed, nor quenched the smoking flax." And mothers, too, the slaves of the drink-fiend, had found in that room liberty from their chains. Here, too, would the vicar preside over meetings of the Temperance and Band of Hope Committees.

The room was snugly fitted up with a long deal table, as clean as constant scrubbing could make it, and boasted of a dozen windsor-chairs and two long benches. There were two cupboards also, one on each side of a small but brightly burnished grate. In one of these, pledge-books, cards for members, and temperance tracts and books were kept; in the other was a stock of Bibles, New Testaments, prayer-books, hymn-books, and general tracts. A few well-chosen coloured Scripture prints and 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 G.o.dliness,'"--"Nay, I don't," was his reply. "I read it another way: 'Cleanliness is a part of G.o.dliness.' 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.dly 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.d, which pa.s.seth 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 gla.s.s 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 G.o.d'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 and looks at it, and turns up his nose at it, and says, ''Tain't worth the trouble of taking away: you shall have one of the right sort cheap; that clumsy, old- fashioned thing'll never do you no good.'--'Well,' says I, 'that's just as people find. That old clock has served me well, and kept the best of 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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!"