True to his Colours Part 23

He sat down again amidst the profoundest silence, and then all joined heartily in the hymn beginning,--

"Holy Bible, book divine, Precious treasure, thou art mine."

The vicar then called upon James Barnes to speak.

"Well, I don't know," began Jim, starting up, and plunging headlong into his address; "I don't feel at all fit to stand up in such a company as this, and yet I've got summat to say, and it's a good deal to the point too, I think. At our last public temperance meeting, the first I'd the pleasure of speaking at, we had a noisy set of fellows trying to put me down, and now we're all as quiet as lambs.

"Well, William Foster's just been giving you his experience about the Bible, and I can say amen to all he's been a-saying; I mean this, that the good book's been doing for him and me just what he says. It's been and made a changed man of him, there's no doubt about that. He's been a kind friend to me, and he's been a kind friend to many as has often had nothing but hard words for him. I like to see a man live up to what he professes.

"Perhaps you'll say, 'Jim, why don't you set us an example?' Well, I'm trying, and I hopes to do better by-and-by. But there's no mistake about William. He aren't like a chap I heard talk of the other day. A friend of mine were very much taken up with him.--'Eh! You should hear him talk,' he says. 'You never heard a man talk like him; he'd talk a parrot dumb, he would.'--'Very likely,' says I; 'but does he practise what he preaches?'--'Why, they reckon not,' says my friend. Now that sort don't suit me; and it oughtn't to suit any of us, I'm sure. We temperance people aren't like that.

"Ah! It's a fine thing is this temperance, if you only get hold of it by the Bible end. See what it's been and done for me and mine. Look at my wife Polly there, sitting on that big stone--(Nay, Polly, 'tain't no use your shaking your head and winking; I _must_ have it out)--just look at her: you wouldn't believe as she's the same woman if you'd only seen her at our old house a year ago. I can scarce believe myself as she's the same sometimes. I has to make her stand at the other end of the room now and then to get a long view of her, to be sure she's the same.

She's like a new pin now, bright and clean, with the head fixed on in the right place.

"Ah! You may laugh, friends, but it's nothing but the plain truth.

There's a deal of difference in pins. You just take up a new one, as shines all over like silver, and it'll stand hard work, and it's just as if it were all of a piece--that's like my wife now. 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.

"And then there's the children. Why, they used to have scarce a whole suit of clothes between 'em, and that were made of nearly as many odd pieces and patches as there's days in the year. And as for boots, why, when they'd got to go anywheres, one on 'em, on an errand, and wanted to look a bit respectable, he were forced to put on the only pair of boots as had got any soles to 'em, and that pair belonged to the middlemost, but they fitted the eldest middlin' well, as they let in plenty of air at the toes. And what's the case now? Why, on a Sat.u.r.day night you can see a whole row of boots standing two and two by the cupboard door, and they shines so bright with blacking, the cat's fit to wear herself out by setting up her back and spitting at her own likeness in 'em. It's the gospel and temperance as has done this.

"But that ain't all. I've knowed two of our lads fight over a dirty crust as they'd picked out of the gutter, for their mother hadn't got nothing for them to eat,--how could she, poor thing, when the money had all gone down my throat? It's very different now. We've good bread and b.u.t.ter too on our table every day, with an onion or two, or a red herring to give it a relish, and now and then a rasher of bacon, or a bit of fresh meat; and before so very long I've good hopes as we shall have a pig of our own. Eh! Won't that be jolly for the children? I told 'em I thought of getting one soon. Says our little Tom, 'Daddy, how do they make the pig into bacon?' 'They rub it with salt,' says I.

Next day, at dinner-time, I watched him put by a little salt into a small bag, and next day too, and so on for a week. So at last I says, 'What's that for, Tommy?' 'Daddy,' says he, 'I'm keeping it for the new pig. Eh! Won't I rub it into him, and make bacon of him, as soon as he comes?'

"But I ax your pardon, friends, for telling you all this.--'Go on,' do you say? Well, I'll go on just for a bit. So you see what a blessing the giving up the drink has been to me and my family. And, what's better still, it's left room for the gospel to enter. It couldn't get in when the strong drink blocked up the road. I'm not going to boast; I should get a tumble, I know, if I did that. It ain't no goodness of mine, I'm well aware of that. It's the Lord's doing, and his blessing on Thomas Bradly's kindness and care for a poor, wretched, ruined sinner like me. But here's the fact: we has the Bible out now every night in our house, and I reads some of the blessed book out loud, and then we all kneels us down and has a prayer; and we goes to church on Sundays, and it's like a little heaven below. Rather different that from what it used to be on the Sabbath-day, when I were singing and drinking with a lot of fellows, and it were all good fellowship one minute, and perhaps a kick into the street or a black eye the next. Ay, and there's many of the old lot as knows the change, and what the Lord's done for me, and they're very mad, some on 'em; but that don't matter, so long as they don't make a madman of me.

"But just a word or two for you boys and girls of the Band of Hope afore I sit down.--Now, I've brought with me, by Mr Bradly's leave, something to show you." So saying, he beckoned to a young man, who handed him a small basket. He opened it, and produced a small jar with a brush in it. A half-suppressed murmur of merriment ran through the crowd. "Ah!

You know what this is, I see," continued James Barnes. "'Tain't the first time as this has made its appearance in Cricketty Hall. Now, I'm not going to say anything ill-natured about it. As William Foster has said, 'let by-gones be by-gones.' It's very good of him to say so, and I only mean to give you a word or two on the subject. This little jar has got tar in it, and tar's a very wholesome and useful thing in its proper place. Now, a few months ago them as shall be nameless meant to daub William all over with this, and feather him afterwards, because he wouldn't break his pledge. A cowardly lot they was to deal so with one man against a dozen of 'em; but that's neither here nor there. I only want you, boys and girls, to take example by William, and stick to your pledge through thick and thin. See how the Lord protected him, and how his worst enemy were caught in his own trap. He were just winding a cord round his own legs when he thought he'd got William's feet fast in the snare. Now, boys and girls, when you're tempted to break the pledge, just think of this jar of tar, and offer up a prayer to be kept firm. 'Twouldn't be a bad thing--specially if you're much in the way of temptation--just to get a jar like this of your own, and hang it up in the wash-house, and put some good fresh tar in it, and, just before you go to your work of a morning, take a good long sniff at the tar--it's a fine healthy smell is tar--and maybe it'll be a help to you the whole day. There, I've done."

And he sat down as abruptly as he had risen, amid the hearty cheers and laughter of his hearers.

The vicar then introduced Dr Prosser, remarking that he was sure that those who had heard him lecture last April would be delighted to listen to his voice again. The doctor, who was vociferously cheered, stood forward and said:--

"I have the greatest pleasure in being with you, dear friends, to-day.

I have heard a great deal of what has been going on from your excellent vicar, and have now listened with the deepest interest to the characteristic speeches which have just been made. I shall be glad now to say a few words, and to add my testimony to the importance of certain truths which need enforcing in our day. Thomas Bradly is to follow me, and I feel sure that his homely eloquence and plain practical good sense will be a fit termination to this most truly interesting meeting.

"What I would now urge upon you all is this,--the unspeakable importance in these days of grasping realities instead of hunting shadows. I have been, I fear, till lately, more or less of a shadow-hunter myself. I used to sympathise with the cry,--

"'For names and creeds let senseless bigots fight-- He can't be wrong whose life is in the right.'

"But I don't think this now. We men of science are too apt to deal with abstractions, and to follow out favourite theories, till we are in danger of forgetting that we have hearts and souls as well as heads; that, as has been beautifully said, 'The heart has its arguments as well as the understanding;' and that, as G.o.d's Word tells us, 'The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.' I am more and more strongly persuaded of this every day. We are living in times of immense energy and surprising intellectual activity, but, at the same time, are surrounded with unrealities or half-realities. We want something to grasp that will never deceive us, never fly from us. Anything--like mere vague generalities will never satisfy beings const.i.tuted as you and I are; and thus it is that we cannot do without something real in our religion, something definite.

We want to come into real communion with a personal Being, whom we can consciously, though spiritually, approach, love, and reverence. 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 G.o.d--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 G.o.d who is the fountain of all truth and every kind of truth.

If we are to learn anything aright and thoroughly, we must learn it as believers in Him in whom 'we live, and move, and have our being,' who has given us all our faculties, and placed us in the midst of that universe all of whose laws are of his own imposing and maintaining.

Depend upon it, you cannot acquire any sound and useful knowledge aright, if you try and keep up an independence of that G.o.d who is the author and upholder of all things physical and spiritual. 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. In a word, as the whole universe belongs to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and was made by him what it is, if we would pursue any branch of knowledge, any science whatever, with the truest and fullest prospect of success, we must do it as Christians, as in dependence on Him 'in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.'

"This, I am well aware, is not the tendency of the age, which is rather to seek knowledge apart from G.o.d, and to treat science and religion as distant and cold acquaintances, instead of loving and inseparable friends.--But now I gladly give way to my old friend Thomas Bradly, who has, I know, something to tell us which will do us good, if we will only carry it away with us."

"Yes," said Bradly, slowly and thoughtfully, as he took the speaker's place, by the vicar's invitation, "it is true, dear friends, that I have something of moment to say to you. This has truly been a happy day to me so far. I rejoice in the presence of so many dear friends; and it is indeed kind of Dr Prosser to be at the trouble to come among us, and give us those words of weighty counsel which we have just heard. I have listened to the other speeches also with very great satisfaction. I think we're got on the right foundation, and we only wants to stick there.

"Well now, dear friends, I've got something to show you here. Look at this little book; it ain't got much outward show about it, but it's got the old-fashioned words of G.o.d's truth inside. It was my mother's Bible afore she were married, and a blessed book it were to her, and to her children too. I think I can see her now, sitting of a summer's evening, after the day's work were done, under an old apple tree, on a seat as my father had made for her. She would get us children round her, and be so happy with her little Bible, reading out its beautiful stories to us, and telling us of the love of Jesus. She always read the Bible to us with a smile, unless we'd any of us been doing anything wrong, and then she read to us what the Bible tells us about sin, and she looked grave indeed then.

"Well, when she died, the little book were left to our Jane--her mother wished it so--and Jane prized it more than gold, and used to mark her favourite verses with a line of red-ink under 'em; it were her way, and helped to bring the pa.s.sages she wished particularly to remember more quickly to her eye. But the Lord was ordering and overruling this marking for his own special purposes. Look at the book again; you can many of you see the red lines.

"Now, it's some years ago as me and mine was living a long way off from here. Jane were in service at a great house, and the butler and lady's- maid, who hated the truth and poor Jane, because she loved it and stood up for it, managed to take away her character in the eyes of her mistress; but the Lord has graciously opened her mistress's eyes at last, and that cloud is pa.s.sed away for ever. I only mention this just to bring in this little book. The butler, to vex poor Jane, had taken away her Bible from her before he took away her character; but what happened? Why, when she had left the place, he goes to his drawer and takes out the Bible when he were looking for summat else; for he'd quite forgot as he'd hid it there. He sees the red lines, and reads the verses over them, and they make him think, and he's brought to repentance.

"The little book's beginning to do great things. He wants to restore the book, and make amends to Jane, does the butler; but he's been such a rogue, he's obliged to take himself away into foreign parts somewhere.

But I don't doubt but what he'll come right in the end; the Word'll not let him alone till it's brought him to the foot of the cross. As he's on his way abroad, he leaves the Bible at the station here to be taken to our house; but it manages to get lost on the way, and turns up at last in the tap-room of a public-house. Now, just mark this. If the Bible had come straight to our house, it would have helped to clear Jane's character with her mistress, and no more; but there were other work for it to do. The publican's daughter gets hold of it, and sees the red lines. She sees the verses above 'em, and they p.r.i.c.ks her conscience. She don't like this, and she resolves to get rid of the book. Yes, yes; but the little book has taken good aim at her heart, and shot two or three arrows into it, and she can't get 'em out; it's been doing its work, or rather the Lord's work. So she takes it with her in the dark, and drops it into William Foster's house, of all places in Crossbourne.

"Just fancy any one leaving a Bible in that house ten months ago. But it came at the very nick of time. William's wife were in great trouble, and she'd tried a great many sticks to lean upon, but they'd all snapped like gla.s.s when she leaned her weight on 'em--she found nothing as'd ease the burden of an aching heart. It were just at the right time, then, as the little Bible fell into her room. She took it up, noticed the red lines, and some precious promises they was scored under, and by degrees she found peace.--Eh, but William must know nothing of this; how he would scoff if he found his wife reading the Bible!--But what's this?

William finds his missus quite a changed woman; she's twice the wife to him she was, and his home ain't like the same place. What's the secret of this change? He don't like to ask; but he watches, and he finds the worn old Bible hidden in the baby's cradle. He reads it secretly; he prays over it; the scales fall from his eyes; he becomes a changed man; he comes out boldly and n.o.bly for Christ; he and his wife rejoice together in the Lord.

"But the little homely book hadn't quite done its work yet. Foster one night asks me to help him in a little trouble which the words of the book had got him into. Strange that, isn't it? No, 'tain't strange; 'cos there's deep things, wonderful things, and terrible things in that blessed book; but then there's light too to help you past these deep pits, if you'll only use the Word as G.o.d's lamp. I takes up the Bible to help William to a bright text or two, and I sees my mother's name in the cover. Here was our long-lost Bible; its work so far were done, and now it's got back to its rightful owner. But after we'd got it back we'd some time to wait; but waiting-times are blessed times for true Christians. At last the full evidence, of which Jane's Bible were one little link, came up, and my dear sister's character were cleared of every spot and stain as had been cast upon it by her fellow-servants.

"Now, what I want you to notice, dear friends, is just this--how wonderfully the Lord has worked in this matter. If my dear sister had not suffered in the first instance from the tongue of the slanderer, that blessed book'd never have done all this good, as far as we can see.

The butler wouldn't have been convinced of sin; the publican's daughter wouldn't have been brought to repentance and praise; 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.

"Now, I ask you all to cling to the grand old book; to use it as a sword and a lamp,--a sword against your spiritual enemies, and a lamp to guide you to heaven. We've heard a good deal just now of the special dangers of our own times, how people are getting wise above what's written. Ah!

But 'the wisdom of this world is foolishness with G.o.d.' Dr Prosser's a man of science, and you've heard his experience. You see he finds he can't get on without the old-fashioned gospel. A religion without a regular creed's no use at all. He's found out as religion without a real human and divine Saviour's only moonshine; nay, it's no shine at all; it's just darkness, and nothing else. There's a striking verse in the prophet Jeremiah as just suits these days. It's this, and I'm reading it out of Jane's Bible. You'll find it in Jeremiah, the eighth chapter and the ninth verse: 'The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord; and what wisdom is in them?' Well, but do you cling to the old Bible-- there's nothing like it. There's many a showy life just now as looks well enough outside; but if you want a life as'll wear well you must fashion it by G.o.d's Word.

"Now, afore I sits down, I'm just a-going to tell you about d.i.c.k Trundle's house-warming.--d.i.c.k were one of them chaps as are always for making a bit of a show, and making it cost as little as possible. He were a hard-working man, and didn't spend much in drink, so he managed to get a little money together, and he puts up half-a-dozen houses. The end one were bigger than the rest, and had a bow-window to it.--Well, d.i.c.k were a bachelor, and had an old housekeeper to do for him. When his new houses were built, and he were just ready to go into his own, he resolves to have a house-warming, and he invites me and three other chaps to tea and supper with him. We'd some of us noticed as he'd been sending a lot of things to the house for days past.--When the right day was come, we goes to the front door, 'cos it looked more civil, and we knocks. d.i.c.k himself comes to the door, and says through the keyhole, 'I must ask you to go round, for the door sticks, and I can't open it.'

So we goes round.--There were a very handsome clock in the pa.s.sage, in a grand mahogany case. 'Seven o'clock!' says I, looking at it; 'surely we can't be so late.' 'Oh no,' says he, 'the clock stands. I got it dirt cheap, but there's something amiss with the works. But it's a capital clock, they tell me, entirely on a new principle.'--We was to have tea in the best parlour. 'Dear me,' says one of my mates, 'what a smell of gas!' 'Yes,' says d.i.c.k; 'ain't them beautiful gas-fittings? I got 'em second-hand for an old song, but I'm afraid they leak a bit.'--We should have been pretty comfortable at tea, only the window wouldn't shut properly, and there came in such a draught as set us all sneezing. 'I'm sorry,' says d.i.c.k, 'as you're inconvenienced by that draught; it's the builder's fault. Of course I took the lowest estimate for these houses, and the rascal's been and put me in green wood; but the carpenter shall set it all right to-morrow.'--But the worst of all was, the gas escaped so fast it had to be turned off at the meter. 'Ah!' says he, 'that won't matter for to-night, for I've bought a famous lamp, a new patent.

I got it very reasonable, because the man who wanted to part with it were giving up housekeeping and going abroad.' So we had the lamp in, and a splendid looking thing it were; but I thought I saw a crack in the middle, only I didn't like to say so. Well, all of a sudden, just in the middle of the supper, the lamp falls right in two among the dishes, and the oil all pours out over my neighbour's clothes. Such a scene there was! I tried to keep from laughing, but I couldn't stop, though I almost choked myself.--d.i.c.k, you may be sure, weren't best pleased. It were a bad job altogether; so we bade good-night as soon as it were civil to do so. But I shall never forget d.i.c.k Trundle's house-warming, nor the lesson it taught me.

"What we want, dear friends, is, not what's new, cheap, and showy, but what's solid, and substantial, and thoroughly well made. Will it _wear_ well? That's the question after all. d.i.c.k's fine things was just got up for show; they'd no wear in 'em--they was cheap and worthless. Now there's a deal of religion going in our day as is like d.i.c.k Trundle's house and purchases; it's quite new, it makes a great show, it looks very fine, till you come to search a little closer into it. But it ain't according to the old Bible make: it don't get beyond the head; it can't satisfy the heart. What we want is a religion that's real--just the religion of the gospel, as puts Jesus Christ and his work first and foremost. If you haven't got that, you've got nothing as you can depend on it'll fail you when you most want it. It may be called very wide, and very intelligent, and very enlightened, but it won't act in the day of trouble, and when the conscience gets uneasy.

"Well, now, we've got a happy company here to-night; we're many of us total abstainers on principle and most of us, I hope, Bible Christians on principle, after the old fashion; for, if we haven't Christ and his Word for our foundation, we haven't got that as'll stand the test. No, friends, take the word of Tommy Tracks--and you've got what'll confirm what I say all round you in this meeting to-night--the life as is begun, continued, and ended in the fear of G.o.d, and with the Bible for its guide, and Jesus for its example, is the life that's just what you and I were meant to live by the G.o.d who made us and redeemed us, and it's plainly and unmistakably the life that _wears_ best."