"Poison, man! Why, who would want to poison you?"
"Anybody that would try to upset my faith in God, Jim. If anybody offered you a drink of prussic acid or laudanum, would you take it?"
"I should think not. I'd knock him down first."
"And yet, Jim, you would sit there and let him pour worse poison into your ears. Poison to kill the spiritual life that's in you; poison to destroy your soul and bring you not only to the death of the body, but to eternal death. I tell you, I'd just as soon drink a cup Of poison, as I would put myself in the way of taking in such soul-destroying stuff as that miserable blasphemer is trying to delude his fellow-men with."
"I've got his book," said Jim, "but I haven't read it yet. I thought I would go and hear him first."
"Don't, Jim, don't," pleaded Turner, earnestly. "It's poison all the same, whether printed or spoken, and if we take it in, the memory of it will stay with us, in spite of all we can do. Think what it would be in a time of trouble, where an earthly friend can't help us, if we had no Father in heaven to go to, no Saviour to feel for us and plead our cause! Oh, Jim, it is so precious to me to feel that when I go on my knees to pray, God is sure to hear and answer, too, in the way that will be best for me. And these atheist lecturers would take the comfort from us and give us nothing instead."
"I don't see what they have to give," said Jim, in a meditative sort of way, as if that thought had never struck him before.
"No, and there's the shame of it," said Turner. "It seems to me, that if there was nothing else bad about these lecturers, it is dreadfully cruel of them to go from place to place unsettling people's minds, taking away what is their great comfort, and giving them nothing in place of it. The simplest-minded, humblest Christian that just takes God at His word, and believes the promises which He tells us 'are all yea and amen in Christ Jesus,' is a happy man, in spite of poverty, trouble, hard work, sickness, or trial of any kind. He knows that all these things are only for a little while, and that far-away beyond the grave there is glory for him in the Father's house, and an 'inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, eternal in the heavens,' bought for him by the precious blood of Jesus."
John Turner's face glowed again as he spoke. He was thoroughly in earnest, and this earnestness produced an impression on his neighbour who had a respect for his fellow-workman, though he sometimes laughed at him as being over-religious. Still, where a man's religion shows itself in his conduct to others, in the very work he does, and the temper he displays to all around him even when purposely tried by his companions, he must, sooner or later, win their goodwill and esteem.
"Why, John, I think you are the very man to go with me to the lecture," said Jim. "You've no call to be afraid of losing your religion by listening to an atheist, such a preacher us you are. Why, I'm not afraid, and I couldn't hold forth like a parson as you've been doing."