THE LATE Mr. Robert Laidlaw, when on a visit to Melbourne, Australia, some years ago, offered a gospel tract to a streetcar conductor. The conductor refused it on the ground that the Bible was an obscene book and unfit to be read in the family. To this Mr. Laidlaw replied: “I have just returned from England by steamer. While on the voyage I observed that the captain had a small cabin under the bridge, in which he kept his charts. Had you been there you would have seen a chart of the voyage tacked on a board with dots in various parts. Why were these marks there?”
“They represented rocks, shoals, and islands,” was the reply.
“I suppose you know that these dots were placed on the chart that the ship might run against them?”
“They were nothing of the kind,” exclaimed the conductor rather sharply. “They were put there so that the ship captain might avoid them.”
“You are right,” said Mr. Laidlaw. “The Bible is God’s chart and throughout it there are marks showing the rocks, shoals, and quicksands on which mariners on the sea of life have been wrecked and stranded. God has recorded the sins of Noah, Lot, David and the others that we should commit them?”
“He did nothing of the kind,” said the conductor. “He tells of their misdeeds that we may steer clear of them. I see it all now,” he added. “I have an infidel staying with me who instilled these thoughts into my mind, and when I get home I’ll have it out with him.”
This was how the conductor got rid of his infidel views. It is indeed sad to see how God’s holy Word is being treated by some who call themselves “Christians” as well as by those who like to be called “agnostics” and “freethinkers.”
ML-01/20/1963