Chapter VI: The Battle of the Book

For some time after Amer had gone through the experiences related in the last chapter, he felt the effects of his time in the cave of Spiritual Pride, and it was long before he regained the elasticity of spirit that was natural to him. He walked more cautiously and steadily, and kept a sharp look-out all round, lest the enemy should get the better of him, and in this way had many a victory, and was saved many a blow.

One day, when somewhat tired with his journey, he came across a woman leading a young girl by the hand.

A glance at the woman's face was enough to convince him that she had to do with the Radiant City, for her face was beautiful with a calm light upon it, which he knew could come from no other source.

Her name was Belthiah,* and the name of the girl Iddo.†

* Daughter of the Lord. † Loving.

"We are going the same way," she said, "and so long as our paths do not diverge, let us keep one another company."

Before long they came across the slow traveller again, still walking steadily and carefully towards the City.

"After all," said Amer to him, "I have been the one to lose time, for after leaving you I fell in with the worst foe that I have met yet, and was completely overcome."

The man looked up with sympathy expressed in every line of his face.

"What was his name?" he asked.

"Spiritual Pride," answered Amer, "and if it had not been for my King sending me help, I should still be a prisoner in his cave."

"Ah!" said the man, "I have had to meet that foe myself, and I know his ways. Poor lad!"

"Mother," said Iddo, "have we met that foe yet?"

"Very possibly, my child, and may not have recognised him. Possibly he might not have taken such pains to overcome us, as he has taken with these two brave servants of the King. But any day he may tempt us, and so we must keep our eyes on the Radiant City, where dwells our King."

"Madam," said Amer, "you do not look as if you had been much troubled on the way. What is the secret of your peace?"

The slow traveller looked uneasily about him.

"I feel the enemy is somewhere near," he said, warningly to Belthiah, "and he is listening for your answer."

The mother gave him a grateful look, but answered simply:

"We have had communion with our King, and He has given us peace."

"And," answered the girl, "we are shod, you know, with the shoes of peace. I lost mine one day, and had to turn back to find them."

"Besides," continued Belthiah, "we have so much to make us happy, so many promises to rest upon."

"And, do you know?" said the girl, looking up confidingly into Amer's face, "it is not quite certain that we shall ever have to cross the dark river, which I cannot help sometimes dreading. The King may come to meet us Himself, and take us up to the City."

"Yes," said her mother, "that is what helps to make us happy. We are looking for Him: and though we gather from the Guide Book that certain events must take place before He comes, they may happen very shortly."

"No, no Madam, there you make a mistake," said an irritable voice behind them, and on looking back they beheld a short, stout man, who had evidently been making a great effort to catch them up, and now stood before them wiping his brow, and much agitated. His voice did not sound like the voice of one travelling to the Radiant City, as it was rasping and irritable, but the King's Mark was on his forehead, and he had his Guide Book under his arm.

"I am always having to argue this point with people," he said, irritably, "there is no event that must happen before the King comes. But there I am, again," he added, ruefully, "always arguing, always disputing, and always irritable. I beg your pardon, Madam, but when I find people who do not see eye to eye with me in these matters, I seem to be unable to listen to them. My name is Chisleu, which means rashness. Alas! I am too rightly named."

"Sir," said the girl, concernedly, "your shoes have gone."

"Ah! that's like me!" he exclaimed, looking round to find his shoes just behind him, "always trying to set others right and going wrong myself. I lose my shoes, and then Temper comes and torments me. And yet I am devoted to my King;" and he gave a look towards the Radiant City, which proved to those around him that his heart was there.

"My good fellow," he said, turning to the slow traveller, "I should be greatly obliged to you if you would tell me how it is you are so successful against the enemy. I have been watching you for a long time as I walked behind you, and you never seem put out whatever happens to you, and I seldom see you even trip."

At the words a pained expression crossed the face of the traveller, and he looked around him carefully, as if expecting to find the enemy at his elbow; moreover, when the stranger praised him, he impulsively put his hands over his ears to prevent hearing. But now turning his eyes steadily towards the Radiant City he said:

"It is written in the Guide Book, 'My strength is made perfect in weakness.'"

Amer, remembering the rules inscribed on the walls of the cave of Spiritual Pride, noticed how the slow traveller resisted the temptation to speak of his own experience, and spoke instead of the King.

"Ah!" sighed the stranger, "you are right. It is because I forget the promises of my King and His Book that I fail; thank you, Sir. But look, what is that crowd I see before me? If some poor fellow is being belaboured by the enemy I must be off to help," and he began running, and would even then have forgotten his shoes, if Iddo had not cried after him,

"Your shoes, your shoes."

"What a warm heart that man has!" said Belthiah, "full of feeling for others and of humility."

"But how cross he was," said Iddo, "not as a soldier of the Great King ought to be."

"Hush, child!" whispered her mother, "the enemy is near. I hear his whisper in your voice. The King tells us not to judge."

When the travellers had reached the crowd they saw a strange sight. A large number of pilgrims with the King's Mark upon them were standing around a man who was talking in a loud voice. In his hand he held the Guide Book, and as he spoke he tore out first one page and then another, throwing them behind him.

"It is not by any means authentic," he was saying, "and certain parts which you have taken for truth are nothing more or less than allegory and fable, while other apparent prophecies were not written by the people you 'suppose, but by men long after the events had happened, so are not prophecies at all."

"Mother, mother," cried Iddo, looking up with tears in her eyes, "do you hear what the man is saying about our Guide Book?"

But before her mother had time to answer, a loud voice rang out, which Iddo recognised at once as that of Chisleu, the stranger with whom they had just been talking.

"That's a lie," he cried, "no one need believe it. The book is true from beginning to end."

Then there arose an uproar.

"Let the preacher alone," cried one, "he says he has studied the question, and moreover confesses that he himself is journeying to the Radiant City. Let him speak. If he has anything to teach us let him do it."

"But it is false," cried Chisleu, "don't listen to him. He's a wolf in sheep's clothing."

"Take the intruder away," shouted some of the bystanders, "we wish to hear what the preacher has to say. It may be true or it may be false, but we wish to hear him."

"Come away, dear," said her mother to Iddo, "it won't do us any good to listen."

"But," said Iddo, "what did he mean? No one ever doubts, surely, the truth of the Guide Book? If it is not true, how shall we ever find our way to the Radiant City, or indeed how do we know that there is a Radiant City to find?" she added, sobbing.

"My child," said the mother, "it is a sad fact that now-a-days there are people who are tearing the Guide Book to pieces. They do not realize what mischief they are doing, and hope that people's faith will grow stronger rather than weaker through their criticism, instead of which the enemy is watching at all such gatherings at which we have been, and is doing his utmost to sow seeds of doubt in people's minds. But I think these very attacks on the Book go to prove its authorship. The enemy cannot leave it alone, as he knows that so long as we have the Guide Book, and love and believe in it, we will follow it and it will lead us to the Radiant City. I have never found the Word to fail me, and it has been the guide of millions of travellers who have now reached Home. Some, indeed, when just crossing the River, have actually seen the King, so that those who have gone as far as they were allowed with them into the dark valley, have been filled with joy, and their faith has been strengthened. The Guide Book is true from beginning to end: that good man was right in what he said, although I could have wished that he had spoken in a more sober manner, and with less heat. But he cannot argue. His heart is better than his head."

"Oh mother, he frightened me," said Iddo, wiping away her tears, "and I saw many people were laughing at him. Is he really journeying to the Radiant City? He is so different from Amer and that good man who has been walking with us."

"He loves the King, my child," said the mother, "and it is his very love that makes him speak when perhaps it would be wiser to be silent. But the King can alter all that is not right in him, and as for me I would rather have the heart on fire than the brain."

"Where is Amer?" suddenly asked Iddo.

Amer had stayed behind to listen, and now was seen coming towards them with his eyes bent in deep thought on the ground, his girdle was hanging loosely about him. They walked together somewhat silently, and only discovered after some time that the slow traveller was by now far ahead of them. Evidently he had not waited to hear the words of the speaker in the crowd, but had walked steadily on, and it was some time before they caught him up. When at last they did so, Amer asked him if he had heard what had been said by the orator.

"When I found what he was speaking about," said the traveller quietly, "I moved on. I made up my mind before I set out on my journey that the Guide Book was the message of the King of the Radiant City, and if it is His Book there can be no fabrication or fable in it."

They had not gone far on the road before they came upon a man sitting bey the wayside with his head hidden in his hands and groaning.

"Friend," said Belthiah, "what is your trouble?"

But he did not look up, a groan was the only answer.

"He has just encountered the enemy," said the slow traveller.

"See how wounded he is," said Amer, "and yet his mind is more wounded than his body, he scarcely notices the hurt."

"Ah yes!" moaned the man, "I am sore wounded. I have no strength even to look up, the enemy has overpowered me. I am in the lowest hell."

"Poor man," sighed Iddo gently, "how I wish I could help you."

"Lady," he said urgently to Belthiah, "take your sweet child away, I am no fit company for her; and you, young man, leave me too. I only ask this friend to stay a few minutes with me that I may tell him my trouble."

Slowly they obeyed his request, for none of them could endure the thought of leaving the poor man in such a plight.

"Friend," said the wounded man to the slow traveller, as he sat down beside him, "I have lost my Guide Book and I have lost my sword. In fact the enemy has taken my armour off piece by piece and hope is dead within me."

"When did the enemy attack you?" asked his companion.

"Ah! that is the sad part of the story. I found someone in distress on the road. The great enemy Doubt had him in his grip. His Guide Book had been torn to pieces by those who think they are helping others in taking out leaf after leaf of the volume and throwing it on one side. Forgetful of my own weakness and sin, I spent hours with him trying to combat the enemy by his side, but I forgot to be watchful myself. I thought I was too strong and too brave a soldier to be overcome, and forgot to cry to the King; and as I was talking I suddenly felt the enemy himself seize me, and before I knew where I was he had wrenched the Book and my sword from my hands, and had dealt me a blow which at first I thought was that of my death blow. Friend, hope and light and joy are passed for me. Despair has me in his grip, and rather than endure this misery, and doubt my King and my City, I mean to go by a short cut to the dark river."

Then the slow traveller stood up, looked towards the Radiant City, and prayed.

"Friend," he said, as he fastened his girdle about him more securely, "I will fight the enemy with you."

"Nay, nay," cried the other, "your fate will be the same as mine. I pray you not to hinder your journey in this way. I beseech you not to trouble about me. The enemy will overcome you as he has me. You are happy in your faith. You have your Guide Book next to your heart, and your sword in your hand. You believe in the Radiant City, and in your King. I will not be the one to throw you into the hands of the great enemy Doubt."

"Friend," said the traveller, while a radiant light from the City touched his helmet and illumined his face, "when my King calls me to fight, He will see that I get the victory, and I fight kneeling." And at that he knelt, and the enemy, who had been invisible, came towards him in all his strength, and hurled his battle axe at him, but the traveller parried the blow with the sword. So deadly was the fight that great drops broke out on the forehead of the combatants, as the darkness of night overshadowed them. For many hours they wrestled, and all the time the traveller never rose from his knees.

"Fight," he gasped at last to his companion, "fight, man, for there are more with us than against us, and I see the glimmering of dawn," and even as he spoke a faint light broke upon them, and rested on the traveller's shield, and by its light the wounded man saw that his own Guide Book, and the sword he had lost, were lying by his side within his reach. He stretched out his hands to grasp his sword, and as he did so invisible hands fastened on his armour, bit by bit, and he was strengthened for the fight. So skilfully did he now begin to use his sword that between the two, who both fought on their knees, the enemy gradually began to falter in his attacks, and was finally driven back.

"The King be praised," said the traveller, as he rose, pale and weary, and looked towards the Radiant City. The light of it was on his brow, and his shield and breastplate blazed brighter than they had ever done before, as he began to help the victorious soldier to his feet.

"The King be praised," echoed the other, "'which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.' 'If the Lord Himself had not been on our side . . . they had swallowed us up quick . . . But praised be the Lord; who hath not given us over for a prey unto their teeth.'"

"'Our soul is escaped, even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler,'" added his friend, "'the snare is broken, and we are delivered. Our help standeth in the Name of the Lord Who bath made Heaven and Earth.'"

Then the two men grasped hands.

"Friend," said the man, whose wounds had been healed, "tell me your name, as I shall ever hold it in loving remembrance and gratitude."

"My name is Heman,"* he answered, "and yours, my friend?"

"Joezer,"† he said, "alas! I am rash, and underrate the power of the enemy. I forgot the fact which you remembered, that this enemy always aims at the knees. If he can wound the knees he is much more certain of victory, but I saw you fought kneeling, and copied your example. Praised be the King for your help and friendship, Heman."

As his fellow traveller passed from him, Heman, looking towards the Radiant City, cried triumphantly,

"Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of Thy righteous judgments endureth for ever."

* Faithful. † Whose help is the Lord.