‘I’ve His Word for it. Every time I open the Book it speaks to me—so plain, that at first it frightened me. Then I felt a great joy and a light filling me. And everything in the world is different to what it was.’
‘Aye,’ replied his uncle, ‘that sounds the real thing. What has He called you to do?’
‘To go out and preach, Uncle. And He’s told me I’m to go to college.’
‘How has He told you that?’ inquired Phineas, sceptical again.
‘I asked Him to show me what I was to do, where I was to go; I opened the Book and put my finger on the page; and there—college was the very word!’
‘You tell me that you found the word “college” in the Bible?’ inquired his uncle incredulously.
‘It was found for me,’ said Jonathan: ‘Hilkiah the priest, and Achbor, and Shaphan, went unto Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum; and she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college; and they communed with her.’
So, by the mouth of his nephew, Phineas stood corrected in his knowledge of the Scriptures. But he did not quite yield yet. ‘Fetch me the Book, Jonathan,’ he said.
‘No, Uncle,’ replied his nephew, ‘the Lord is calling to me now, not to you. This is my affair.’
And so saying he opened the Book, drew out the marker, and set his finger upon the page. Then he brought it across to his uncle. ‘You read it, Uncle,’ he said; and his uncle read: ‘Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.’