“Well then I agree with him. I am sure he must be quite a nice boy. And I wish you would just leave people alone with their Bibles. It was good enough for their fathers, why not good enough for them?”
“Well, my dear, I have two reasons, as you very well know. The first is that if I leave the people alone my conscience won’t leave me alone. And the second is that if I leave the people alone they will soon be leaving the church alone.”
“Well, go on with your story. Tell me about the boy.”
“As I said, I began welcoming him most cordially to the service, and that sort of thing, and he opened out on me. First shot, ‘You don’t believe the Bible!’ he said. ‘What?’ I said. ‘You don’t believe the Bible. You don’t believe it is God’s inspired word. Do you?’
“Well, I was flabbergasted. I said, ‘Yes, of course I do.’ ‘But you said a lot of it wasn’t true. How do you know the true parts from the untrue?’ At this he pulls out his Bible—it looked well worn from use—opens it at the very first chapter and said, with a long finger pointing to the first verse—by the way, he has beautiful hands—‘You don’t believe that first verse: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” You don’t believe about Adam and Eve. You don’t believe about Noah and Joseph and Moses and Pharaoh’s daughter and Goliath.’
“My dear, I tell you I was completely knocked off my pins. He was so deadly in earnest. His keen blue eyes were blazing into mine with the light of battle in them. He was full of vital energy and he looked ready to leap at me. Great Scot! I couldn’t help thinking what a halfback he’d make, how those long, sinewy hands would grip and hold. And when he said to me, ‘Are those things true or not?’ I had the feeling that if I said they were not true he would get me by the throat. You know it is rather awkward to answer a question like that offhand, to give, in fact, your whole theory of Biblical criticism in a sentence. I confess I stood gaping at him. He was so fiercely intense. He turned over to the New Testament. ‘How about this?’ he said, putting his finger down on the second chapter of Matthew. ‘How about Jesus? How much of that is true, how much is false?’ And when he came to that the boy’s lips trembled. My dear, my heart went out to him when he said, ‘What about Jesus?’”
“What did you say?” inquired his wife, her eyes shining at him. “He must be a dear boy.”
“I frankly tell you I funked the whole question. I said, ‘Come and see me and we will talk it over.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t think I will.’”
“Good for him!” cried his wife. “And it serves you right, Jack. Then what happened?”
“Well, I got him to promise to come back tonight. I said to him, ‘You are not treating me fairly, you are not playing the game. Give me a chance to put my whole case to you.’ That seemed to stagger him a bit. He said, ‘Yes, that is fair. I will come tonight.’ It was the music, however, that got him.”