October-December
In a narrow street in London, England, in the quiet hours of the night, a man heard a baby crying near him. He looked around to find out where the weeping was coming from. He could not see anybody, but a strange bundle in the gutter near him attracted his attention. It contained a baby that had evidently been abandoned by an irresponsible mother. So he picked it up and took it to the nearest hospital, leaving it there. He felt sure that the nurses would take good care of the child. And they did. They called the boy Thomas, after the name of the hospital (St. Thomas Hospital), and, in choosing a second name, they decided to call him Bridges, because there were some bridges near the hospital.
They put Thomas Bridges to school, and he grew up to become a serious-minded, clever, worthy young man. When he finished studying at the university, he began to work as a successful doctor. He was a real physician, since he understood the relationship between body, mind, and soul; so he was able to help many people by telling them about the power of the Gospel.
One night Thomas went to attend a lecture presented by Charles Darwin, who spoke about the people that lived on the island of Tierra del Fuego, at the bottom end of South America. Darwin, who in those days was considered a great scientist, had been there in 1833 and had tried to civilize those natives, but all his efforts were in vain. He wrote about them: “The Fuegians are in a more miserable state of barbarism than I ever expected to have seen in any human being.” During his lecture, Darwin explained how filthy those savages were, how they merely subsisted under the most squalid living conditions, how inhuman and cruel they were, how they would kill their old people instead of looking after them, how promptly they would stab each other to death for no good reason, how they practiced cannibalism, and so forth. Lamenting the fact that he was unable to help them, he said:
“I would rather try to civilize the dogs in London streets than the people of Tierra del Fuego.”
After having heard Darwin’s lecture, Thomas made up his mind to go to Tierra del Fuego. What the great scientist was unable to achieve without the help of God, the medical missionary was convinced that he could accomplish by the help of God. His friends were unable to hold him back despite all their dissuasive arguments.
Upon his arrival there, Thomas built his own house and kept it clean. Around the house he had a tidy garden and grew his own vegetables. He washed and mended his own clothes and kept himself neat. And he was always careful to set the best example of true Christianity before the people. Gradually the natives realized that Thomas had something which they did not have—that his ways were so much superior to theirs. So they began to come to him and ask him to teach them and help them.
Thomas realized that the door had now been opened for him to evangelize the Fuegians. So, as he always showed himself willing to serve them, not only as a doctor but in many other ways, he presented to them the One who said:
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Mathew 11:28, 29).
“I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12).
Thirty-six years after his first visit, Darwin visited Tierra del Fuego for the second time. When he got there, he thought he must have landed in the wrong place. The houses were neat and surrounded with gardens, the people were clean and neatly dressed, and their behavior revealed a high degree of civilization and decency. “Surely,” Darwin said to himself, “this is not the place I visited in 1833.”
Darwin was about to board his ship and set sail when Thomas met him and assured him that he had come to the very same place where he had been thirty-six years before. The surprised scientist wished to know how such a fundamental change was possible—how those whom he had regarded as below the level of domestic animals could be totally transformed. The medical missionary explained to him: “It is only the power of God that can do a thing like this. You see, the coming of His Word brings light.” Thomas referred to the following scriptural verse:
“The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple” (Psalm 119:130).
Darwin changed his mind about the power of the Gospel and the work of the foreign missions.
He wrote:
“I certainly should have predicted that not all the missionaries in the world could have done what has been done [on Tierra del Fuego]. It is wonderful and it shames me, as I have always prophesied a failure. It is a grand success.”
When the scientist was convinced, by the evidence that he had seen with his own eyes, that the Gospel (not the theory of evolution, but the Gospel) is the only reformatory power that can work changes such as the ones he had witnessed on Tierra del Fuego, he wrote to the London Missionary Society:
“I shall feel proud if your committee shall think fit to elect me as honorary member of your society.”
And in his letter Darwin enclosed a donation for the gospel missions—twenty-five pounds, which was a lot of money at that time. Jesus said:
“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men” (Matthew 5:13).