Dr. John Clifford puts into the following verse the vanity and failure of all assaults on the Bible:
Last eve I paused beside a blacksmith's
door,
And heard the anvil sing the vesper
chime;
Then, looking in, I saw upon the floor
Old hammers, worn with beating years of
time.
"How many anvils have you had," said I,
"To wear and batter all those hammers
so?"
"Just one," he said; then, with a twinkling
eye,
"The anvil wears the hammers out, you
know."
And so, I thought, the anvil of God's word
For ages skeptic blows have beat upon;
Yet, tho the noise of falling blows was heard,
The anvil is unharmed--the hammers gone.
