"Well, Bud, I want you to listen carefully while I ask two or three questions. Suppose you had been there before any of those men, and as one after another began to come in, each should tell of a fire there had been last night in the city. Suppose you knew that they were not acquainted with each other, and had not met until they reached the blacksmith's shop, and suppose they told the same story, without contradicting one another in any of the important particulars, what do you believe you would conclude about them? Would you think that they had told the truth or a made-up story?"
"I reckon it would be the truth, sir; cause how would they know how to make it up alike?"
"That is just the point," said the gratified minister. While he talked he had been watching Bud carefully, much in doubt as to whether he had mind enough to grasp the illustration, but so far it had evidently been grasped; now he must see if it could be applied.
"Listen! Did you know that thirty-six people told the story of the Bible, and that many of them not only never saw one another, but many of them died before others of them were born; and that they told the same story, without contradicting one another at all?"
"No, sir," said Bud, "I didn't know nothing about it. Is that so?" Extreme delight glowed in his honest eyes, and he clutched at his cap and made a movement toward the door. "I thank you, sir; I'll go back and tell him; it will be a stunner!"
Away went the newly awakened preacher of the Evidences of Christianity, and the minister went back to his Greek Testament with great satisfaction. Bud might not be able to convince the scoffer at the blacksmith's shop; Mr. Ramsey did not expect that he would; he knew that Satan had many skillful ways of using false weapons and making them flash like true steel. The thing which gave him pleasure was, that Bud had understood. He felt nearly certain that the boy's mind would not leave the question there; it would have to be investigated, and he, the minister, would have to get ready to help him.
"We ought to be careful to speak about all these things in such a way that uneducated people could follow us," he said.
And all that morning, while he worked over his sermon for the following Sabbath, he worked to secure simple words in which to clothe his thought; he sought illustrations to give it clearness; in short, he preached to Bud; almost unconsciously he brought the boy before his mind's eye, cap in hand—a symbol of the people whose thoughts rested for a moment on what you were saying, and then flitted away to something else—unless, indeed, the owners were caught during that moment. This particular minister had never before so fully realized this truth. He had never before labored so hard to catch the attention of the unskilled listener; nor had he ever become so intensely interested in any sermon as he did in that one. If he was to preach it for Bud, it must be very simple; and in making it very simple, his own heart took hold of it as a tremendous reality, instead of a thought out of a book.