‘Why, that my Bible told me that the heart was “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,” and that was enough for me.’ ‘Ah, you had him there,’ said the others. ‘Yes, I think I had,’ replied the chemist, with a grim smile of satisfaction. It is told of the Aristotelians, when Galileo offered to show them that the world moved round the sun, that they refused even to use his telescope, as they would not see what they could not find in Aristotle. These poor men would have done the same. Science offered them a telescope, but they preferred darkness, like the old bigoted Roman Catholics who persecuted Galileo. ‘You know my boy Tom,’ continued Mr. Robins. ‘He thinks he knows a lot more than his father, because I sent him to the grammar-school. He always is telling me he don’t see this, and he don’t see that. Now, according to my way of thinking, he has no right to talk so. It’s really sinful. He has got to believe. The Bible says, “Whoso believeth shall be saved.” I says to the lad, “If I had talked in that wicked way to my father, he would soon have beaten it all out of me, and I had a great mind to do the same with him.” I said as much to the minister. He begged I would “do nothing of the kind. The lad could not help his doubts.” He believed he was “sincere. Thomas was one of the Apostles, and had not he his doubts? Doubts,” said he, “often lead to faith.” Did you ever hear such a doctrine? I saw the Lord in a minute when I was converted, and I’ve never had a doubt since, blessed be His Holy Name!’ ‘You’re right, brother,’ said the senior deacon. ‘It is the devil who makes us doubt, and it is only by prayer you can defy him. You know— ‘“Satan trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees.” All that we have got to do is to believe what is in the Bible, and I do every blessed word of it, from the first chapter of Genesis to the last Book of Revelation. Don’t talk to me of carnal reason sitting in judgment on the Word of God. It makes me sick to hear such talk. It is downright wickedness. Human larnin’ will never save the soul. Scripture is plain, so that the wayfaring man, though a fool, may not err therein. The sooner we get an old experienced divine to come and preach to us the better. We shall have all the gay and giddy people at meetin’ if this young fellow preaches here much longer’—a sentiment which met with the hearty approval of all present. He continued: ‘It was only last night I asked him to come to supper, and he declined, “because,” he said, he had “promised to sup with” that new lawyer, who has come to our town, and who, I believe, never goes anywhere of a Sunday. “That ain’t right,” says I. “Why not?” says he. “Because,” says I, “the Church has nothing to do with the world. We are to be separate from sinners.” He said he did “not take that view of the case.” I said he “ought to,” and left him.’