Talk about Socialism with an old shopmate

by Anonymous

Now it grieved me that an old shopmate of mine should have tumbled into such a bog hole as Socialism; but thinks I, mayhap, after all, he has only been led out of the way by sharper fellows than himself, and doesn’t above half believe the juggling claptraps that are printed in his books; so I said to him, “Tom, look at me and answer me this question, Do you believe that there is a God?” Tom blinked, and shuffled, and stammered, and opened one of the books and read a bit about “nature,” and a “first cause,” and “a general principle,” and a “supreme power,” and “an external cause of all existence,” and an “all pervading cause of motion and change;” but I stopped him at once.

“Tom,” said I, “you may spare yourself the trouble of running over that long rigmarole; for I’m not to have dust flung in my eyes in that way. I do not want to know what your book says, but what you believe; so answer my question. A handful of good grain is better than a bushel of chaff, and a yes or a no can be understood by any body. Do you believe that there is a gracious and merciful God, that you are bound to fear and to love with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all your strength, to worship him, to give him thanks, to put your whole trust in him, to call upon him, to honour his holy name and his word, and to serve him truly all the days of your life?”

I saw that whether Tom said yes or no, it was all one, for he didn’t know which to say. It suited him better to read to me out of his books than it did to answer my questions; but I asked him another question. “Tom,” says I, “do you really believe that the Bible is a lie? You don’t doubt the history of England, the history of Rome, and the history of Greece, and these have never been kept with half the care, nor gone through a tenth part of the sifting that the Bible has. Do you really believe that the Bible is a lie?” Tom had not the boldness to say that he did; and I felt sure in my heart that he did not think it was. “Tom,” says I, “are you so far gone as to think that marriage is a foolish and wicked institution? I thought your sister was going to be married; is it all off, then, or is she to disgrace you and her family?”

This question twisted Tom as much as the last, and I saw that I was about as likely to get a badger out of his hole, as to get an answer from him. “Well,” says I, “Tom, I’ll say nothing about your sister, if its disagreeable, but ask you another question instead. Have you so little uprightness left in your deceived heart as to suppose that theft, adultery, blasphemy, and murder are no reproach to a man; and that any one may set up the trade of a robber on the highway, and justify himself by saying that he cannot help it, for ‘his character is formed for him by circumstances?’”

Tom was not at all staunch; he did not stick up like one that believes and has confidence in what he says. “Tom,” says I, “t’other day a loaded cart was standing in the road half way up Gravelly Hill, with the wheels scotched, when a mischievous lad knocked the stones from under the wheels, and away went the loaded cart, over his foot, rattling down the hill, clearing every thing before it. The young urchin was half frightened out of his wits; he set the cart off easily enough, but not the whole neighbourhood could stop it. Now I take it, Tom, that the young rapscallion played just the same game as the Socialists are playing, with this difference, that the wheel of the cart only went over his toes, whereas the mischief that the Socialists are setting on foot will in the long run, go over their own necks.”

Tom kept fumbling at his books, not knowing what to be at. He wanted somebody to back him. He believed his books just as much, and no more, than he would have believed any other tale of a tub, told him by a cleverer fellow than himself.

“Tom,” says I, “when a man once turns his back upon God, there is no folly and no sin that he may not be led to commit. You have gone a long way, and I’m sorry for it; but I hardly think you are gone as far as your famous books will take you. Speak up now like a man, and tell me, have you been fooled into the belief that there is no hereafter?—no hell, and no heaven?”

At this Tom looked like any thing but a conjurer. At length he said that if I would read more of his books I should understand them better than I did.

“Read your books, Tom!” says I, “I should just as soon think of taking a dose of arsenic. A pretty deal rather had I walk barefoot through Boxley Bog, and many a better man than me has been stuck fast there,—a pretty deal rather had I do that, than turn Socialist. If I wanted to be worse than I am, to deprive myself of all hope, and to plunge myself into despair, I couldn’t do a better thing than read your trumpery; but as it is, I will have nothing to do with it. Tom,” says I, “you are no fool in driving a bargain: you would not be persuaded to exchange a quartern loaf for a handful of sawdust. Now Socialism takes away from a Christian man the Bible that comforts him, the sabbath that is his delight, the God that he worships, the Saviour that died for him, and the heaven that he hopes for: tell me, then, Tom, what does it give him in return?”

If ever poor fellow was confounded, it was Tom Fletcher. Had he been sitting on a furze bush, he could hardly have been more fidgetty. He got out a few words, but they were very scarce and a long way apart; and as he could’nt well put ’em together, no wonder that I can’t.