NOTHING can be more proper than that men should have an opportunity of putting their principles to the test. Theories that look well on paper frequently break down under the strain of actual experience and real life. It may be noted that those men who find the most fault with the Bible, take the best of care to keep themselves under its shadow. They could very easily get away from its influence, and live in places where Bibles are unknown. They could go among savages; they could plunge into the heart of Africa: there are many places where the soil is fertile, the climate delightful, and the Bible unknown. Why do not these gentlemen pack up their goods, and start for some of those favored lands, which are free from the baleful influence of Holy Scripture? To be sure, their scalps might not be very safe, but that would be a small matter compared with the advantage of exemption from the influence of priest-craft, superstition and the Bible!
But these men seem in no haste to liberate themselves from the influence of Christianity; in fact, they rather like to marry pious wives, employ religious servants, and are sometimes relieved from great anxieties by the presence of the very Bible which they so roundly abuse.
The following incident, clipped from an American paper, furnishes an instance of the working of infidel principles, under the stress of actual experience.
“A Virginian banker, who was the chairman of a noted infidel club, was once traveling on horseback through Kentucky, having with him bank bills of great value. When he came to a lonely forest, where robberies and murders were said to be frequent, he was soon lost through taking a wrong road. The darkness of the night came quickly over him, and how to escape from the threatened danger he knew not. In his alarm, he suddenly espied in the distance a dim light, and urging his horse onward, he at length came to a wretched-looking cabin. He knocked, and the door was opened by a woman, who said that her husband was out hunting, but would shortly return, and she was sure he would cheerily give him shelter for the night. The gentleman tied up his horse, and entered the cabin, but with feelings that may be better imagined than described. Here he was, with a large sum of money, alone, and perhaps in the house of one of those robbers whose name was a terror to the country.
“In a short time the man of the house returned. He had on a deer-skin hunting-shirt, a bear-skin cap, seemed much fatigued, and in no talkative mood. All this boded the infidel no good. He felt in his pocket for his pistols, and placed them so as to be ready for instant use. The man asked the stranger to retire to bed; but he declined, saying that he would sit by the fire all night. The man urged, but the more he urged, the more the infidel was alarmed. His fears grew into a perfect agony. What was to be done?
“At length the backwoodsman rose, and reaching to a shelf, he took down an old book, and said—
“ ‘Well, stranger, if you won’t go to bed, I will; but it is my custom always to read a chapter of Holy Scripture before I go to bed.’
“What a change did these words produce! Alarm was at once removed from the skeptic’s mind. Though avowing himself an infidel, he had now confidence in the Bible. He felt safe. He felt that the man who kept an old Bible in the house, and read it, and bent his knees in prayer, was no robber or murderer! He listened to the simple prayer of the good man, at once dismissed all his fears, and lay down in that rude cabin, and slept as calmly as he did under his father’s roof. From that night he ceased to revile the good old Bible. He became a sincere Christian, and often related the story of his eventful journey as the best proof he could give of the folly of infidelity.”
Such a fact is worth several arguments. That infidel knew that he was secure in a cabin where the Holy Scriptures were revered, and where sincere prayer was offered to Almighty God. But suppose this backwoodsman, instead of taking down a Bible, had produced a pack of cards, a bottle of rum, and a lot of infidel and blasphemous books. Would such an exhibition have reassured this frightened skeptic? Suppose the evening had been devoted to the cheerful occupation of proving that Moses was mistaken when he declared that God said, “Thou shalt not steal,” and “Thou shalt not kill.” Would such a discussion have had a very strong tendency to quiet the apprehensions of this disturbed skeptic?
Let Christian men rejoice that they have a faith which is adapted to the necessities of practical life. Let those who lack such a faith leave the paths of darkness which they have trodden so long, and turn their feet into the testimonies of the Lord.