WHY
WE DISAGREE
15th September, 1893
I will tell you a
little story. You have heard the eloquent speaker who has just finished
say, "Let us cease from abusing each other," and he was very
sorry that there should be always so much variance.
But I think I
should tell you a story which would illustrate the cause of this
variance. A frog lived in a
well.
It had lived there for a long time. It was born there and brought up
there, and yet was a little, small frog. Of course the evolutionists
were not there then to tell us whether the frog lost its eyes or not,
but, for our story's sake, we must take it for granted that it had its
eyes, and that it every day cleansed the water of all the worms and
bacilli that lived in it with an energy that would do credit to our
modern bacteriologists. In this way it went on and became a little sleek
and fat. Well, one day another frog that lived in the sea came and fell
into the well.
"Where are
you from?"
"I am from
the sea."
"The sea! How
big is that? Is it as big as my well?" and he took a leap from one
side of the well to the other.
"My
friend," said the frog of the sea, "how do you compare the sea
with your little well?”
Then the frog took
another leap and asked, "Is your sea so big?"
"What
nonsense you speak, to compare the sea with your well!"
"Well,
then," said the frog of the well, "nothing can be bigger than
my well; there can be nothing bigger than this; this fellow is a liar,
so turn him out."
That has been the
difficulty all the while.
I
am a Hindu. I am sitting in my own little well and thinking that the
whole world is my little well. The Christian sits in his little well and
thinks the whole world is his well. The Mohammedan sits in his little
well and thinks that is the whole world. I have to thank you of America
for the great attempt you are making to break down the barriers of this
little world of ours, and hope that, in the future, the Lord will help
you to accomplish your purpose.
