Mr. Gear smiled.

“There is not a man in your shop, Mr. Gear, that would not be made a better workman, husband, father, citizen, for studying that life and those teachings one hour a week.”

“It is true,” said he.

“You organized a Shakspeare club last winter to keep them from Joe Poole’s,” said I.  “Was it a good thing?”

“Worked capitally,” said Mr. Gear.

“Won’t you join me in organizing a Bible club for Sunday afternoons this winter for the same purpose?”

“There is so little in common between us,” said he; and he looked me through and through with his sharp black eyes.  What a lawyer he would have made; what a cross examination he could conduct.

“You believe in the literal inspiration of the New Testament Scripture.  I believe it is a book half legend half history.  You believe in the miracles.  I believe they are mythical addition of a later date.  You believe that Jesus Christ was conceived of the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary.  I believe his birth was as natural as his death was cruel and untimely.  You believe that—­he was divine.  I believe he was a man of like passions as we ourselves are,—­a Son of God only as every noble spirit is a spark struck off from the heavenly Original.  You believe that he bears our sins upon a tree.  I believe that every soul must bear its own burdens.  What is there in common between us?  What good could it do to you or to me to take Sunday afternoon for a weekly tournament, with the young men from the shop for arbitrators?”

“None,” said I calmly.

“What would you have then?” said he.

“When you organized that Shakspeare club last winter,” said I, “did you occupy your time in discussions of the text?  Did you compare manuscripts?  Did you investigate the canonicity of Shakspeare’s various plays?  Did you ransack the past to know the value of the latest theory that there never was a Will.  Shakspeare save as a nom de plume for Lord Bacon?  Did you inquire into the origin of his several plots, and study to know how much of his work was really his own and how much was borrowed from foreign sources.  Or did you leave that all to the critics, and take the Shakspeare of today, and gather what instruction you might therefrom?”

Mr. Gear nodded his head slowly, and thoughtfully, as if he partially perceived the meaning of my answer.  But he made no other response.

“There is much in common between us, Mr. Gear,” I continued earnestly, “though much, very much that is not.  We can find plenty of subject for fruitless debate no doubt.  Can we find none for agreement and mutual helpfulness?  Jesus of Nazareth you honor as first among men.  You revere His noble life, His sublime death, His incomparable teachings.  So do I. That noble life we can read together, Mr. Gear, and together we may emulate His example without a fruitless debate whether it be divine or no.  Those incomparable teachings we can study together, that together we may catch the spirit that dictated them, without a theological controversy as to their authority.  And even that sublime death I should hope we might contemplate together, without contention, though in the suffering Christ you see only a martyr, and I behold my Saviour and my God.”