242 35 2MB
English Pages [178] Year 1900
Bible Tragedies
GEORGE CLARKE PECRJ?
Cornell University Library
BV
BV4253 .P36 Bible tragedies.
3 1924 029 358 730
P3Co
olin
CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
BIBLE
TRAGEDIES By George Clarke Peck
CS
Uo
flDs /ftotber
The
original of this
book
is in
the Cornell University Library.
There are no known copyright
restrictions in
the United States on the use of the
text.
http://archive.org/details/cu31924029358730
PREFACE At
the suggestion of certain of
people
who
listened to these simple
my
Sun-
day evening sermons and thought them worthy of a wider congregation I have committed them to the types;
diffidently,
yet with the earnest hope of diminishing, at least
by one, the tragedies which
fill
a
Father's heart with sorrow and a beautiful
world with gloom.
CONTENTS PAGE
Introductory
Word
9
I.
The Tragedy
of the
II.
The Tragedy
of the Quails
31
III.
The Tragedy
of the Spoil
51
IV.
The Tragedy
of the
Forbidden Fruit.
. .
Unseen Hand
V. The Tragedy of an Ancient Gallows. VI.
The Tragedy
of a Charger
VII.
The Tragedy
of the Uninvested
VIII.
The Tragedy
of the Silver Pieces
11
73 .
.
93 113
Pound 133 153
INTRODUCTORY WORD A volume
of
genuine sermons from
the study and pulpit of a cultured, con-
and successful representative younger ministry may be hailed with pleasure by both publisher and reader. Such a volume is clearly in the little book herewith offered. In these "Bible Tragedies" the author has brought to his task a keen power of analysis and a wealth of illustrative material drawn from fresh and vital sources. These discourses abound in vivid and pointed lessons for practical living. They contain no hackneyed work. A significant fact is that they were not primarily prepared They were preached for publication. secrated,
of the
in the ordinary course of the author's
ministry to his Sunday evening audiences. The question, however, of the
Sunday evening congregation was no
Introductory
10
Word
problem under these sermons. The capacious house was always thronged, and several times well-nigh to the point of physical discomfort.
has been judged, and we think wisely, that it would be well to give these discourses, so highly appreciated by the local congregation, to the wider public hence this little volume. If these published utterances may speedily secure the larger hearing and produce the greater good which their message merits, then their publication must prove a contribution to the growing and imperishable structure of Christian thought. It
—
George
New
York, September
P. Mains.
i,
1900.
I
THE TRAGEDY OF THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT
Bible Tragedies THE TRAGEDY OF THE DEN FRUIT
FORBID-
" And when the woman saw that the tree was good and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the Gen. iii, 6. fruit thereof, and did eat." for food,
—
It
quite generally
is
assumed that
this
Hebrew record has lost its force modern men. With the widening
ancient for
areas of
human
research and the vast in-
crease of scientific knowledge, this story of temptation has been discredited. certain ranks
There
is
it
has passed into a
no surer way
In jest.
to raise a laugh
than by allusion to the Bible snake story.
Few
Christians, even, have better than
silence to offer in its defense,
who
should attempt
its
and the man
reinstatement in
The Tragedy
14
of
former prestige would be a sort of theologic freak.
Yet
am
I
impressed that
cient picture has a
historic interest
in moral
human it
cogency.
our
life in
It
as literal
Let
antediluvian fact.
ern
expositors
lost in
more than gained means more for
restless, active
mean
ever could
may have
it
has
it
age than
panorama of
be true, as mod-
it
the
that
affirm,
whole
Eden
story
Let
further appear that the story
not
it
is
original
brought soil in
with
an-
tremendous message
Whatever
for to-day.
this
poetry instead of prose.
with
Hebrew
them
from
the distant East.
we know
bards, their
Be
it
was but
native
granted
much about the origin of evil before as after we have read these verses. Be it also allowed freely that
as
that in the theologic sense there never
was a
"fall;" that
ord
is
vital
man
has always strug-
Even so, yet. With
gled upward.
this ancient recall its
and dogmatic bearing gone,
historicity it
still
re-
The Forbidden
15
Fruit
mains one of the most tremendous dramas of language.
We
miss the great value of such a
narrative tific
when we come
to
it
for scien-
Indeed, I do not believe
formulation.
any part of the Bible was given us such a purpose.
It
for
has never been abso-
lutely important, in the first place, that
we
should have clear statements of God's
cosmogonic methods. class Christians
Men
can be
first-
without knowing whether
The
they believe in creation or evolution.
path of the stars can never be so the
way
of righteousness.
vital as
Men
could
have gotten on vastly better with the Ptolemaic astronomy and the Julian
cal-
false ideals of life.
A
endar than with
university education does not carry with it,
necessarily,
purity of heart.
It
often been the case that the wisest
has
men
have been the most untrustworthy, and masters
of
the
world's
best
learning
have been servants of the basest passions.
So
it
was
vastly
more important
that
The Tragedy of
16
the book which came to help men heavenward should speak to sinful hearts than
address
itself to
er volumes
physics;
uninstructed brains. Oth-
would
other
astronomy and
treat of
messengers would come
The
with ornamental knowledge.
makes
its
appeal to
human
speaks of righteousness
Bible
conscience.
It
and truth and
duty.
But there
is
another reason for the sin-
The moral
gleness of Bible message. peal al.
is
ap-
always elemental and fundament-
You may
must not
do.
teach a
dog
You may
the things he
help
him
to a
rudimentary distinction between right and
wrong, but you never can explain to
him your thoughts. childhood
is
to the
The
first
appeal to
moral sense.
not hear of parents sitting
I
do
down with
Kant's Critique or Browning's poems to instruct a three-year-old.
It is far
more
feasible to convince a child there are cer-
tain things he
must not touch than to give
him an understanding of the chemistry
The Forbidden
He
of milk.
will get
17
Fruit
on very
nicely for
the next few years without any just appreciation of your business methods; he will not get
on
at all without discrim-
So his educabegins with commandments.
ination in the moral realm. tion
How
reasonable, then, that God's rev-
come on this wise. It is an open question even to-day whether we can form any true conception of things elation should
God can spell human alphabets. I
divine; whether
thoughts in
out his suspect
that
much
will
be rewritten within the next few dec-
ades.
of our so-called modern science
Still
more
difficult
must
it
have
been to induct those primitive Hebrews to ies
It
whom
the Bible came, into the myster-
and rationale of God's vast universe.
was
possible,
however, to instruct in
righteousness and faith.
They could
take
Long
ages before
men
in
moral
could
truth.
formulate
the
binomial
or understand the motion of a
theorem star,
they
could apprehend distinctions between the 2
The Tragedy
18
of
They were sensitive to ethical appeal. So the Bible came with picture and symbol and commandment. right
and wrong.
It left
a thousand
To
certain doors
key.
But
no
men how
did teach
pointed the
way
and enforced and image.
intellectual
its
This
me
old pictures.
It
moral truth with poetry is
my
conception of cer-
Old Testament, and of
to
New. come upon
I
do not get
sections in the
embarrass
to live.
and heaven,
to holiness
tain records of the
some
offered
it
things unsaid.
was no cosmogonic text-book.
It it
scientific
It
does not
these weird
my
science
from the first chapters of Genesis any more than I do from the meditations of Job or the Psalms of David. Newton and Huxley are for that. When I come here, I come for moral inspiration; for the word of human life for guideposts on ;
the
way
to heaven.
And
that
is
what
I
find.
—
Take the story of our text the "snake story," as some have sneeringly called it.
The Forbidden It is
not a
gin of
scientific
I
evil.
19
Fruit
statement of the ori-
have no idea that the
ser-
pent went upright until after this inter-
view with Eve.
According
to the larger
interpretation, the story is not literal at all.
To make
grandeur.
it literal
is
to destroy
It is the picturesque
of a tremendous moral truth. lesson for best
all
human Edens have been
the tragedy of temptation.
setting It
is
how
the ages; a hint of
its
a
the
despoiled;
And
as such,
a thousand times more truly than if it were historic record, it has burning suggestions for you and me. In the
first place,
environment tation.
is
I think
there
is
the truth that
not proof against temp-
we have
a general im-
pression that sin grows best in the hardships
and wildernesses of human
would
release
men from
life.
suffering
We
and put
them in modern Edens in order to make them good. We would surround them with a thousand fruits and flowers that they
may
never crave
the
"forbidden
The Tragedy of
20
And
fruit."
lesson that
it
this ancient picture is the
There
never can be done.
was every provision for happiness and peace, the privilege of
an Eden's wealth
to choose from, every incentive to truth
and probity that God could furnish; yet not
all
these sufficed to keep a foolish
woman from
desiring something
else.
A
thousand delights were not enough without the forbidden one.
has been so
It
The greatest sinners are often who have the least excuse to sin. Here is a young man provided with the
ever since. those
luxuries of
life.
He
has been brought up
to the granting of the merest
draws a generous
whim.
He
and has every
salary,
prospect an ambitious youth could ask. If
he were cramped for means,
if
he knew
not whence his next day's bread would
come, he might almost be expected to break the eighth commandment.
we
count
friends, the records
show
cause his path to affluence
him that
safe.
Dear
the worst
But be-
is
defaulters
sure
have sprung
The Forbidden from such a ous
honestly.
It is often the prosper-
class.
man who
21
Fruit
cannot wait to
man
It is the
make money
in a
commercial
Eden who gives his soul for the unlawful dollar. The other day I heard of a young
man who had The
just received promotion.
ladder was rested at his very
There was every inducement cial
honesty.
It
And
a lifetime.
was he
to
feet.
commer-
the opportunity of
is
to spend the next
fifteen years in prison instead of in that office,
How
simply because he could not wait. often
happens that the
it
man who
leaves his family to disgrace has least
excuse. live
There are women, doubtless, to
whom would
with
of God.
I
ly driven children.
require the grace
know men who have been from
their
You would
homes by
fair-
unfilial
not be surprised to
take up the paper some morning and read that they
were gone.
An
overgenerous
world would scarcely blame them. the
man who
turns
recreant
But
forsakes his fireside and to
earth's
most solemn
The Tragedy of
22
vows
is
man whom God
often the
most wonderfully
blessed.
The
wrecked
that have sometimes
has
tragedies
my
confi-
dence in men, have been the tragedies of
homes in which a queenly woman was queen and a baby's fingers ought beautiful
to
have held the most
You
recall the
Nathan
searching parable which
—the
told his king
man
rich
herds,
fickle heart.
story of the
with his plentiful flocks and
and the poor man with
his single
ewe lamb brought up in his own bosom "And there came a traveler unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the
man
was come unto him but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it." I do not wonder that under the imwayfaring
that
pulse of a hot resentment against such
infamy David flashed out the words which were
his
own condemnation. But
of the parable just now, not for cation to a certain sin,
but because
man and
it is
I
speak
its
appli-
to a certain
a parable for
all
men
The Forbidden and every kind of
by reason of rich
man
is
23
Fruit
No man
sin.
safe
is
The
his great blessings.
quite as apt to covet the poor
man's ewe lamb as the poor
man
to long
for the rich man's flocks and herds.
God had
ever expected to
make
folks
If
good
by surrounding them with good things, he
must have given
it
rience in Eden.
There
up after that expealways a tree
is
of knowledge in the Garden, and sell
their souls for that.
To
men may
be strong
with inward strengthening, to love purity
more than
possible
all
indulgence,
to
sanctify each present gift with thankful-
ness and prayer
—
this is the
only safe-
guard for any Eden.
But here
is
suggested another truth of
this old tragedy.
Eve was doomed
as
soon as she began to discuss the matter I believe heartily in the
with the serpent. veracity of
first
impressions, especially in
the moral realm.
It
may
not be fair to
few minutes'
judge a neighbor by a
first
chat, but I believe
ordinarily safe to
it is
The Tragedy
24
of
and repulsions
trust the first attractions
The
of our moral nature.
soul has na-
tively a sort of antipathy to evil, a
thing
As
it
God
has brought from
to earth,
animal
instinctively as the domestic
shrinks back from
some-
or shivers at the
fire,
scent of beasts of prey, the honest heart
Oftentimes a
turns from moral harm.
man's best argument against the
evil is
up to it. The woman's honor is
that he has to force himself surest safeguard of a
her
untutored loathing in the pres-
first
ence of certain men.
woman first
to disregard
I
have known a good
it,
to put aside her
suggestions and compunctions, to ac-
and the cold
cept the testimony of friends
evidence of reason; and finally to end her life in
last
the delirium of sorrow or with a
wild plunge in the dark.
The most important life is
volt
business of
to so keep the soul that
from
evil.
The man
or
it
human will re-
woman who
can carry into the active world the moral sensitiveness of childhood,
is
safe against
The Forbidden a thousand
foes.
Then
25
Fruit
trust the first pro-
The inwhich a man must make is perilous. The pleasure
nouncements of your conscience. dulgence for plea
special
that requires an
argument
is sin.
Good-
ness needs no vindication or excuse.
nature there
is
In
scarcely a poisonous plant
but bears an unpleasant taste or smell.
There
is
no malignant
commend The senses.
Fruits and
rose.
berries
themselves to the watch-
ful
thing that offends one's
taste or nose has the suggestion of danger.
The moral world
carefully constructed.
surely not less
is
On
the contrary,
the noxious flowers and harmful draughts are at
first
Only
offensive.
after they
have been defended and explained do they
become mal
delightful.
I
doubt
lad ever relished his
The
beer.
if
first
sick.
No
himself in a first
glass of
cigar is usually so un-
first
congenial an acquaintance as to
smoker
any nor-
honest
man
make
its
ever found
unholy situation but his
heart cried out against
it.
Only the hard-
The Tragedy
26
of
ened recreant finds pleasure in his This world was
God
ness.
has thrown countless barriers
wrong.
in the path of
Now,
sin.
built to foster righteous-
this
all
leads naturally
next point in the story.
You
to the
recall that
"when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant and a
to the eyes,
make one of,
tree to be desired to
wise, she took of the fruit there-
and did
sophistical
But that was
eat."
after her
argument with the
serpent.
is no record that she thought the was good until after she had been
There tree
caught in the It
toils
of a great temptation.
never occurred to her that the restric-
tions
were hard
had conceived
at all until
in her
an
evil spirit
own heart. And this
—
has been the process ever since
unholy tion.
desire,
No man
and then the
first
the
self-decep-
can live at utter variance
with his conscience; he convinces himself the
thing he wants to do
one could go through
this
is
right.
If
congregation
The Forbidden
27
Fruit
here tonight, and read the hearts as
God
can read them, he would find scarcely one willing to do the confessedly unrighteous thing.
do not believe in
I
total deprav-
ity nearly so earnestly as I believe in total
self-deception.
I
suppose that Nero con-
vinced himself that he was a sort public benefactor.
of
Charlemagne had a
wonderful "heart's-ease" when he could
campaigns by reference to that
justify his
blazing cross in the eastern sky. if
to
the Inquisitors ever lay
bemoan
terrible
that
it
awake nights
was, the more sure they were
God had
inspired
it.
The world has
condemned George
but to her
it
than
doubt
work: the more
their horrid
generally
less
I
Eliot's sin,
must have seemed something
evil.
Is there
a darling sin you love with
all
your heart? some one indulgence you often permit yourself?
and
lift
that
is
again?
Then
the sin for which
fine excuses.
How
some cup you let
me
lift
allege that
you have a dozen
innocent things be-
The Tragedy of
28
come when we greatly want
What
a
trifle
when we The more Eve
to be guilty of it!
want
do them
to
disobedience
is
thought about that tree the more sure she became she ought to taste it. And it has been so with her sons and daughters ever
drifts
er he
may
from
It
want
to
faith
think he
more
Just one I
The
Let us be careful.
since.
man
is
home
to
act in this old tragedy
mention: She gave to Adam. that she broke the
was not enough
commandment somebody
further a
and honor, the near-
herself
else to
—she
break
must
help
no
stress
I lay
it.
on the fact that the tempter was a woman. It
happened so
in this case.
not in the next.
In
But
might
the tempters are
fact,
more often men than women.
woman who
it
For every
man
to stumble
into error, I believe there are a
dozen men
who have
has caused a
caused
women
en are better, finer than
want
to emphasize
linquent helped to
is,
to offend.
we men.
WomWhat
I
merely, that one de-
make
another.
If there
The Forbidden is
any meaner
trait in
The
not named.
29
Fruit
human nature
it is
other day I chanced to
A
overhear a conversation in a train.
man and lad were sitting there together. The man, an infidel, apparently, was pouring his miserable creed into the oth-
wondering
er's
ears.
Not enough
iness!
no purity, no truth I can
the lad's!
own
my
life
feet
when
What
satanic bus-
that he should have
—he must take away
remember days
in
my
was struggling to keep from evil, and it would not have I
been half so hard except for some scoundrel
If a
who labored to make me go his way. man must have his liquor let him
play fool himself, but keep his hands off
him who alone.
is
If
earnestly striving to let
you
rejoice in things untrue,
unholy, in God's of
man
things
And just
name and
for the sake
leave others to think on
if
it
they can.
good
Play not the tempter
the tragedy itself?
There was
one issue to misuse of Eden, and that
was banishment.
Untruth means banish-
30
Tragedy of the Forbidden Fruit
ment; impiety means banishment; sensu-
means banishment. "The end of these things is death." The gates must clang
ality
behind the soul that abuses
There
is
no Eden
deserted
Eden sin.
is
great gifts.
either in this
the next for the disobedient
outrageous
its
world or
spirit.
the testimony to
Every
some
II
THE TRAGEDY OF THE QUAILS
II
THE TRAGEDY OF THE QUAILS "And ere
it
while the flesh was yet between their teeth,
was chewed,
against the people,
the wrath of the Lord was kindled and the Lord smote the people with
a very great plague. And he called the name of that place Kibroth-hattaavah because there they buried :
the people that lusted."
— Num.
xi,
33, 34.
It must have seemed a signal triumph for the complainers
when
to fall within the camp.
They had been
mightily against
protesting
camp
the quails began
fare.
the simple
Their palates whetted with
remembrances
of
Egyptian
leeks
and
melons, 'they had driven Moses almost to despair by their reproaches. better
They might
have worked themselves to death
in Pharaoh's brickyards than to
to death
on the short rations of the march.
But now
at length the
prayer had come.
As
if
answer to their dropping from
the sky, great flocks of quail
the
camp.
fell
round
For a moment the people
could scarcely believe their eyes. 3
starve
Then
'
The Tragedy
34
of
the melons and cucumbers of bondage
were forgotten, for every tent was a place of feasting and of praise.
But such If
the
is
only one side of the picture.
you were traveling in Arabia to-day Arab guide would show you unmis-
takable evidences of an ancient, pilgrim
Despite the thousands of inter-
camp.
vening years you could almost original
stone
On
still
Long
appointments.
mark
map
its
lines
of
the divisions of the land.
a conspicuous crest there yet stands
the familiar altar with
Here and
its
pyramidal
top.
there throughout the old inclos-
ure are the quaint hearthstones of a no-
madic people,
scarred by flame and
still
underlaid by charcoal beds. significant of still
all,
But most
outside the walls
be seen a multitude of graves
;
may
an an-
cient cemetery in which, according to the
guide, a vast
number of
pilgrims, dying of
mysterious plague, were buried. to
it
just
now
our Scripture
because of
story.
its
I refer
bearing on
The Quails According
to
biblical
35 archaeology,
Kibroth-hattaavah and the spot the Arab
guide points out are quite the same. That
Arabian
soil still
holds the sequel to the
story of the quail.
I
have walked amid
rows of unmarked soldier graves, and pondered the I
sacrifices represented there.
have gone through the "potter's
field"
and thought of the hungry mouths and hungrier hearts sealed away beneath
its
sods. Over in India to-day are vast meadows of bones of those who literally starved to death. But somehow that an-
burying place on Arabian
cient
where the guide to
me
still
points
it
hillside,
out,
seems
the saddest cemetery in the world
—the memorial of men who died not by denial, but
by excess of blessing; not
be-
cause the heavens seemed brass, but because they got the answer to their prayer.
One
of the world's great tragedies was
vividly enacted
when amid
the revelries
of plenty, at hearthstones where indul-
gence was unconfined, in the very eating
The Tragedy
36
of
of that toothsome flesh for which the
brews had
came plague and
cried,
He-
desola-
tion.
Indeed,
that
what impresses me
is
We
about this ancient record.
are not
particularly interested in Israel's misfor-
matter of comparative un-
It is a
tunes.
importance to us that a few thousand
Hebrews died of
more
We
plague.
might
find
historic bearing in the calamities of
Cyrus's army, or the terrible retreat from
Moscow.
But there
is
here a moral co-
gency which appeals to you and me. That ancient graveyard stands for the most pitiful
human life. Kibrothname for every age. Wher-
chapters of
hattaavah
is
a
ever a soul
is
given over to the indul-
gences of the flesh; wherever a nation straining only for treasures of sea
land; wherever there
is
creeping into the
Church of Jesus a lusting for the pots of the world,
is
and
this
ancient
flesh-
drama
bears.
The
surest
way
for
God
to spoil us
is
The Quails
37
Not poverty, but plenty, is the foe of human life. The kindest thing that Heaven can sometimes do is to deny our whims and refuse our to
answer
all
our prayers.
cries for ease.
I
do not believe
it is
ever
easy for an affectionate parent to deny
remember days when
I can
his child.
went
wishes
dearest
ungratified.
thought that shadow on
meant unwillingness like ten
boys,
to
my
my I
mother's face
bless
me; and,
thousand times ten thousand other
I
have gone out of a mother's
presence with a scowl.
have learned
I
some things since then, and one of them is the meaning of that shadow on my It registered the
mother's face.
saying "No." fuse
me
It
than
it
There were no
pain of
hurt her more to re-
hurt
me
to be refused.
sacrifices she
would not
have made, and joyously. Her veins would
have opened
if
that
her children good. well to let
me
have
could
have made
But she loved me too
my
way.
She knew
a lesson I had not learned as yet: that
The Tragedy of
38
the deepest sepulcher in which to bury
manhood, the surest grave of hope and promise,
gence
is
always the grave of indul-
—Kibroth-hattaavah.
Some years ago an only son lay The physicians gave no hope. The
light
And
then,
of a household was going
out.
sick.
with almost fierceness, the father clenched his
hands and
He
did not die!
"He
said,
shall not die!"
The prayer seemed an-r The wish was granted. The
swered.
son got well.
But
was the
his recovery
grave in which a whole family's peace '
has for years been buried. times easier would
go than
it
is
it
A
thousand
have been to
to keep
We
him
him now: he has
lived to break his father's heart.
roth-hattaavah
let
"Kib-
!"
have been praying for
victories of
the American arms in the Philippine Islands.
Countless mothers' prayers have
gone up into the ear of God for the boys on those distant shores. I confess that in the light of this old Scripture I
do not
The Quails
know how
—save
to pray
39
this.
If
in the Philippines for the light
bear and the brotherhood if
we are we can
we can
teach;
our armies are fighting for the domin-
ion of the truth and the enfranchisement
God can bless every gun, and cause the Sun of righteousness to be But if we as reflected in every bayonet. of man, I believe
a great nation are simply out for if
if it
we
the spirit of our will
day
spoil,
are merely lusting for dominion,
war
is
carnal, I believe
prove to have been the sorriest
in a
thousand years when Dewey en-
tered Manila Harbor.
Better that the
Spanish guns had blown our noble ships to atoms, better that there should
have
been no immortal dash up San Juan Hill, better that not a soldier
boy come home
in
safety, than that victorious steel should
dig the grave of our imperial lusting.
"Kibroth-hattaavah
Take one more ease
illustration, the
Church
The peril of the Church and plenty. The only weapon that
of Jesus Christ. is
!"
The Tragedy
40
of
can defeat the work of Jesus
is fleshliness.
No
by hardship.
Church was ever
"The blood
killed
of the martyrs" has always
Nero
been the "seed of the Church." could not as
fast
kill off
as
Waldenses
the converts to a Cross
The
they were converted.
were
strongest
when
the
sharpest swords of Europe were whetted
against them. is
If the
ever destroyed
speakable ruin.
Armenian Church
will not be the un-
it
Turk who accomplishes
The Church
that
of Jesus never stands
when it Christian. Our
so safe and so triumphant as
costs
the most to be a
peril
grows as our temporal
prosperities
in-
The
only
grave that can hold the Church of
God
Kibroth-hattaavah, the grave of
lust.
crease and ease
is
is
glorified.
When
Strange paradox indeed! tianity
shiper
meant had
self-denial;
to carry a
to protect the
when
Chris-
the wor-
shotgun in one hand
hymn book
in the other;
when pews were cushionless and
hard, and
sermons were measured by the hour, our
The Quails
41
fathers found
no
the Church.
But now that worldly wis-
dom
difficulty in building
up
we do when the
has so largely gotten in and
things on a commercial basis, bitterest truths are
sugared and the Gos-
pel doors flung wide,
we
are having con-
ventions throughout the country to consider the outlook for the Church.
we
friends,
are dying of what
Dear
we prayed
for.
We asked for wealth and social pres-
tige
and an uncrucified Christian
these
life,
and
very blessings have become our
curse.
It is
the old tragedy of Israel re-
written, the tragedy of the quails.
But
I
want
to spell out this truth in
its
ancient characters in order to increase
its
potency for you and me.
The
trag-
edy of the quail was the tragedy of bellion.
It
re-
might have been innocent
enough that the Hebrews cried out for There was no offhand reason why flesh. they should not be gratified.
Indeed, they
had quail once before without catastrophe.
But the children of
Israel
had not
The Tragedy of
42
been brought up out of Egypt to see what a good time the Lord could give them.
They had more
serious
business
than
merely to be amused, or to enjoy an extensive
menu on
Even when
the march.
they reached the land of milk and honey it
would not be enough that they should
eat
its
honey and drink
its
were being trained for future torchbearers spiritualizing.
for
the world;
And
it
was
They ages made
milk.
;
refined
vastly
by
more
important that they should learn the
les-
sons and accept the discipline of their long
pilgrimage than to feast on cucumbers
and melons every day. Only as they were braced by hardship and strengthened by the trial of their faith could they be qualified
for the accomplishment of their mis-
sion in the world.
There must always be
a Wilderness between our Egypts and
our Canaans.
No
soul just out of the
bondage of the law can be trusted with the freedom of the spirit. No man is anything at birth: he becomes by
disci-
The Quails and
pline
effort.
43
He grows
into the pos-
manhood
session of sinewy qualities of
as the oak takes on majesty
So that
by wrestling. that
and grace
the unkindest thing
Heaven could do would be
to shorten
the term of our obedience. I
knew a young man who caught
world's ear by his
first
He
appeal.
had struck the path
to fame,
found
His
a ready market for his wares.
the
feet
and a score
of hard-working, plodding friends were
They need not have been
envious.
vious at
all:
en-
one of them has struggled
up to wealth, another's name
is
in every-
body's mouth, a third has learned to
move
the world, while he
who
zling
and stumbling upon
all their eyes,
started
by daz-
a competence he never truly earned, lives
to-day on the grace and charity of his
The meanest
friends.
do for any qualify
him
lad,
for
thing that one can
the surest success,
the necessity of struggle.
gotten his
first
is
If
way
to dis-
to
remove
Turner had
painting into the
Academy
The Tragedy of
44
he never would have painted half so If Disraeli
had not been hissed down he
Parliament
would
probably
missed his greatest fame.
known
never
have fought that of
well.
If
reverses he
his
way
Grant had
could
hardly
to such a glory as
To
Appomattox.
in
have
abridge the Wil-
experiences of manhood is to make its Canaan worthless. The other day, according to the Herald,
derness
six thousand immigrants landed at our
doors, a veritable horde of present-day
Egyptians from the brickyards and taskmasters across the
sea.
are an economic treasure. is,
we
are trying to
I
suppose they
But the trouble
make them
citizens
of our great Canaan before the smell of
Egyptian garlic has
We give them
left their
garments.
the ballot before they have
the least idea what they are voting for.
Less and believe in peril of
until
less
must a thoughtful observer
manhood
our land.
suffrage.
No man
It is the
is fit
to vote
he has been under the discipline of
The Quails
45
our institutions for a term of years. sibly
Pos-
some of our immigrants might not
acquire a vote for several generations,
but the foundations of our republic would
We
be more safe. it,
The
beloved.
We
shall
American
shall
have to come to
wrong
signs are
to-day.
never be rid of the curse of politics until the
men who can
be led to the polls like cattle are disfranchised for a time.
Let them tarry at the
Sinai of our republic until they are its
be
Canaan.
fit
for
The Wilderness must never
left out.
Just so with the Christian
life.
We
make modern Church members too easily. We throw them upon their consciences before they have much idea what conscience means,
Church
who
is
well
with the result that the stocked
scarcely realize that
with members
Church member-
ship signifies anything definite at
need a fresh baptism of
all.
discipline.
We We
new laws for godly living. We need commandments in tables of stone. The
need
The Tragedy
46
of
prime business of the Christian pilgrimage
is
We
not to be amused but educated.
were not brought here to cry for the mel-
We
ons and cucumbers of Egypt. here
to
evoked.
have
We
by
need in the higher
shall
curricula of God. spiritualized
qualities
are here to be instructed in
wisdom we
that
immortal
the
are
We
denial.
are here to be
Then think of
not having time for God's errands because
Think of
of an engagement at whist!
being so weary with social functions as not to be able to meet
God
in his sanctu-
Think of forever complaining on
ary!
account of the flesh
we have
to give up!
Rather, to accept the real hardship of discipline, to refuse that
meat which
us for our mission,
the part of Chris-
tians
who have
is
unfits
seen the King.
But there are
in this old
tragedy two
was the tragedy of unbelief. The Hebrews refused to believe in a God who kept them other lessons I desire to mention.
on
short
rations.
As soon
It
as
they
The Quails grew
of the
tired
47
manna
simple
they
decided that Moses's Jehovah must be
Ah, they were not the only
a sham.
men who
lost
Over
trial.
in
their
England they have a say-
ing that " the atheist not get
many
is
man who
the
stood beside
men
God has
we wanted!
chor from
its
bed.
men, once the
I
have
some
the an-
lift
can find you business
pillars of the
have surrendered
I
in the stress of
great tempest and seen them
can-
How
the beer he wants."
all
of us are skeptical because
denied us the thing
God
time of
in
faith
all
who
Church,
their faith because
did not save their business from de-
struction.
I
know
just
what
stand over the wreckage of
and wonder how much God
it
means to
human hopes And.
cares.
dear friends, I say to you that he
who
gauges the goodness of the Lord by the melons that grow along the path
any day to become an
infidel.
is likely
It is
not
enough, with the psalmist, to "love the
Lord because he has heard your
suppli-
The Tragedy of
48 cation."
may
If
he
You must
turn to hate.
cause he
is
respond your love
fails to
love
him
be-
the implication of your entire
You must
better nature.
believe
him
be-
cause the world has no system or coher-
ence without him. " I cannot always trace the
My
onward course
ship must take
But looking backward, Its shining
;
behold afar
I
wake
Illumined with God's light of love, and so I
onward
go,
In perfect trust that he
The I
holds the helm
cannot always see the plan on which
He For
builds
The
And
my
life
sound of hammers, blow on blow,
oft the
Confuse
noise of
strife,
me till I quite forget And oversees,
he knows
that in all details, with his
My I
who
course must know.
life
know and understand
cannot always
The
good plan,
agrees.
Master's rule
;
cannot always do the tasks he gives In life's hard school But I am learning with his grace to solve
I
Them, one by
And when
I '
one,
cannot understand, to
Thy
will
be done.'
"
say,
The Quails
The
49
other day they were taking pic-
tures of the sun during eclipse.
A
thou-
sand astronomers were gazing through
And
their lenses.
know
they
vastly
more
about the sun than they ever could have
known
except that his face had been in friend, the
gloom
of your pilgrimage ought to have
made
shadow for a
time.
acquainted with him whose
you
better
face
seemed hidden, "As
Ah,
darkness shows us worlds of
We never saw by
light,
day."
I once noticed a piece of porcelain just
before
it
went
into the oven.
I could not
understand the dark green bands: they
seemed disfigurement.
came forth
gleaming gold.
and
—
me
But when the vase
at length those bands It
may
were
be so with you
that the apparent evidence of
the Designer's folly shall yet prove his perfect love.
And now
I
have spoken of the tragedy
of rebellion and of the tragedy of un-
There
belief.
4
is
time only for a few sen-
Tragedy of the Quails
50
tences on the other thought, the tragedy
of
self-indulgence. ruin.
ality is
towed
into
Not long ago
sensu-
there
was
Norfolk Harbor a curious-
was the iron shell of The timbers had been used to
looking craft.
a
The end of
ship.
It
feed the furnaces
:
masts, decks, furniture
had been burned up
in the storm.
hardly worth the trouble
it
She was
took to bring
I have seen men like that. They had burned out all the immortal furnishings of manhood to feed a hulk
her into port.
of flesh
;
they had sacrificed the eternal to
the transient, and at the end they had
nothing to show but a blackened and tered shell to steer into
Dear friends, it never is more than the ship!
blis-
God's harbor.
The cargo He who gathers
pays.
the flesh in the desert will miss the Canaan
beyond
Ill
THE TRAGEDY OF THE SPOIL
Ill
THE TRAGEDY OF THE
SPOIL
" Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but
turned their backs before were accursed neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you." Josh, vii, 12. their enemies, because they
:
—
This was the
first
intimation of the
reason for the disastrousness of the cam-
paign against Ai.
was never
less
tidings than
I
imagine that Joshua
prepared for unpleasant
when they brought him word
that the assault gloriously.
It
upon Ai had had seemed
failed in-
that,
after
dreary years of discipline and hardship, a
new
era had at last begun.
vance against
had issued
in
Canaanitish
The
first
ad-
strongholds
most unheard-of triumph:
without a blow the walls of Jericho had fallen
foes
flat, its
treasure
would dare
legions
to
spoil.
No
before
the
become a stand
whose mere blowing of a horn
was more
terrible
than ordinary warfare.
The Tragedy
54
So
it
of
was with every confidence of con-
quest
that
three
thousand
men
eager
city. NoThey were
marched up against the second body even dreamed of
defeat.
about Jehovah's business
:
victory seemed
as certain as to-morrow's sun.
You
can imagine, then, the consterna-
camp when
the thousands
tion
of the
came
reeling back in utter rout.
Some
of
you can remember when the telegraph ticked out the
news
that the Federals
been defeated at Bull Run.
It
had
had seemed
know deGod was in
that such legions could never feat.
The
righteousness of
their warfare,
cession
and the nightmare of
must speedily be
past.
se-
And when
the battle turned against them, a whole
North was struck with horror. such convulsion must have been
Some felt
in
camp when the campaigners came staggering home that day. Men knew not what to think. The commander threw himself before the ark Israel's
against Ai
in a passion of grief
and shame.
The Spoil But you notice
I
55
have not called
this
the "tragedy of arms," but the "tragedy of the spoil." It had a history
—
that
old tragedy before the gates of
Ai
grim
—and
which interprets the tragedy for you and me. There was it
the
is
history
somewhat beneath
the surface in which
We
the reason lay.
commonly must dig
about the roots to find the secret of the great tragedies of
knows how hard cessfully.
I
the trouble
am
lies
life.
it is
to
Every housewife
grow
a palm suc-
given to understand that
hidden at the root.
the inadequacy of
soil,
Not
nor the gases of
the house, nor yet the swift thermometric
changes, but a silent responsible
And
if
for
the
worm
at the root
yellowing
you pour upon
of
is
leaf.
die surrounding
upward come slender worm will a the secret of decay. Over in England not many years ago a famous bridge colearth a certain solution, coiling
toward the light
—
lapsed.
It
had echoed to the
footfalls
of countless pilgrims for patient years,
The Tragedy
56
of
but one day, without an instant's warning,
it
human
carried
down
to death a
hundred
For a time the calamity went unexplained; some blamed the tide and some the storm. Finally amid the souls.
wreckage they found a blemished casting, steel, and the mystery was Hidden away among the details of the superstructure it had waited a score
a defective
out.
of years to accomplish
its fatal
work.
Take the French Revolution as another example of what I mean. The proximate cause was undoubtedly the profligacy of Louis XVI, or some other near-by evil. But I notice that the best historians turn back the pages a hundred years to find the
true
Louis,
it
explanation.
was not
Poor,
foolish
his fault that the streets
of Paris ran blood.
Nor was
the cele-
brated extravagance of Marie Antoinette
more than the spark combustion.
The
to set the elements in
seeds of that fearful
tragedy of lust and blood were sown a century and
more before Louis
XVI
saw
The Spoil the
The crimes
day.
57
of
against his people ; the despotism of arin
XIV
Louis
Maz-
and such as he the tyranny of power ;
and greed
—these
led
up
and Reign of Terror.
to the guillotine
It takes
a century,
often, to ripen a political crime. I
know an eminent
come
politician
of successes he
and power.
is
who has
After a lifetime
to his Waterloo.
shorn of his prestige
Dispenser of bounties for a
score of years, he must himself seek bounty at the tle
hands of those whose favors, a
while ago, he would have spurned.
lit-
His
friends are giving various explanations.
They
are anathematizing the turn of the
wheel; political intrigue; the unbrotherliness of
men.
secret, quite.
ways
And
Consuming
self-destructive.
solely for himself soil
they have missed the selfishness is al-
The man who
lives
undermines the very
on which he stands.
And
tragedy of agony and tears
is
this fresh
really the
tragedy of selfishness turned back against itself.
You
recall that pathetic
poem
of
The Tragedy
58
Will
Carleton's,
Story."
the
of
"First
after a night
You remember how,
of fruitless searching
Settler's
through the storm,
he came back to find his girl wife dead
upon
his cabin floor.
of soul he
ways
And
in his
was honest as men He knew it was not the
honest.
storm that had beaten out her
was not spirit
agony
are not al-
life.
It
had torn her back of was The tragedy angry word he had hissed
the ugly thorns that
away.
these, in the
out the day before " I killed her with
So have
in a multitude of
explanation
and
reversals
man
tongue."
ways, the
if
we would
most
terrible
startling cataclysms of hu-
we must
life,
of
my
search for
it
in those
unheralded experiences where the vital
sown and where men make trades with conscience. Back of the proximate and apparent causes: hidden from seeds
are
common
view, but holding
its
fearful po-
tency for a thousand years, perhaps,
is
The Spoil
59
the real reason for the tragedy which
fills
a world with gloom.
Take the three thousand men who came staggering back from Ai. He reads
who
amiss
only reads here the changing
Those men of
fortune of war.
Israel
were
when they compassed
not less worthy than
Jericho a few brief days before.
There
was no obvious reason why they should not have sent the Canaanites flying before
them as they did
in fact send
days afterward.
The
And
for another triumph. ter of fact, there
why
was
them a few
signs seemed right yet, as
a mat-
a deep-lying reason
the legions had no warrant in look-
ing for victory that day.
A
vital
nerve
of Israel's strength had been destroyed.
A cankerworm hopes.
fresh
at the root of her best
Disobedience,
had entered. dah's
was
Under
disloyalty,
decay
a certain tent in Ju-
camp you might have found marks of a spade.
dug away the
And
if
carefully laid earth
would have brought to
the
you had you
light a curious dis-
The Tragedy of
60 play
—a
Babylonian garment and a
Under other circum-
of gleaming gold. stances the sight
might have been without
The
significance.
pile
tent might, conceivably,
have been piled high with spoils of war, without offense.
brew had the
flatly
But
in this case a
commandment
against taking spoil
for personal advantage, though a
was
still
sounding
He-
In the face of
disobeyed.
in his ears,
warning
Achan had
brought these treasures to his tent and buried them from view.
Eye no
But there
walls or earth can blind.
is
And
an so
long as unrighteous gain lay hidden there, so long as disobedience
was poisoning the
camp, though no soldier was party to the crime, those troops might
go up against
Ai ten times three thousand strong; they could have no guerdon but defeat. Here then was the meaning of the crushing dis-
appointment here the secret of the paral;
power here the reason the troops went out in vain the tragedy of the
ysis of
;
—
spoil.
The
From
61
Spoil
of which I learn several ob-
all
vious lessons.
And
the
that
first is
may do God's work without God's ing on
Those
it.
loyal as
men
bless-
were just as
soldiers
any that ever marched under
They had
raelitish banners.
vantage of Joshua's superior
all
Is-
the ad-
And
skill.
they were just as surely pushing forward the cause of righteousness in the subjugation of the land as at
they had no
any
later time.
more chance of
Yet
effecting the
overthrow of Ai that day than they had of breaking into heaven
out God's blessing;
:
they went withalone.
disqualified;
Proper motions do not render a work successful.
There
fuses
hardest
There
is
is
a subtle
elements
fire
into
which
success.
something the laborer needs to
glorify his
toil.
It is
not enough that he
put in his time and knock out his wages. I
have watched
men
toil
when
it
seemed
was an heroic quality in all their There is something the painter It needs to make his painting sublime. there
labor.
The Tragedy
62 is
and wield have seen dabblers who would
not enough to
a brush.
I
mix
of
the colors
not have become artists in a century or
Men
two.
There
is
a difference of talent.
call it
somewhat the servant of God
needs to immortalize his service.
It
is
not enough to say one's prayers and battle for
the right.
I
have seen Christians
whose devotion was storming of Ai
—
it
the
like
lacked the
fruitless fire
from
above.
And
so, I say,
there
spectacle in all the
is
no more
world than the spec-
tacle of uninspired toil, of labor
God's coronation, of blessing of the Lord.
pitiful
strife
You
without
without the
will recall that
grim old picture of the ancient time Sam:
son "wist not that the Lord was departed
from him."
I
think there
is
no such
moment in that wildly dramatic the moment in which Samson
dramatic life
as
awoke from
his fateful slumber on Deliand strode out against the foe as he had done so many times before lah's
knee,
The
—and
63
Spoil
found his matchless strength de-
The
parted.
Philistines
had not changed.
There was the same old score against
His was a holy
them.
forth to humiliation
He was
cause.
And
God's servant.
still
yet he went
and defeat because
he could not take with him the blessing
The nerve
of the Lord.
was
cut
when
God's blessing that
O, what a truth
!
men may do
lifted against ;
the evil and
that a soul
sacrifice
and
Heaven.
here
fall
may
be
back help-
may make some matchless not win the praise of
still
This
is
the most heroic things
without advantage; that hands
less
power Lord de-
his
all
God's work without
parted from him.
—
of
the Spirit of the
hard doctrine; and yet
is
knows its force. Take the matter of benefaction.
not one of us but
Our
age believes in a Gospel of coats and charitable dollars.
and more love.
stress
And
yet a
We
are laying more
upon the omnipotence of
man may
give
away
his
fortune and not have blessed the world
The Tragedy
64
when he
is
through.
the gold piece that
His face must be
is
of
God must go with to enrich the poor.
reflected in its bright
His touch must sanctify
surface.
some one's need.
Nothing
is
it
to
surer than
some of the world's great reformatory movements have been practically
that
wasted.
I believe that history will
pro-
nounce against some of the holiest campaigns God's children ever
waged not ;
be-
cause they were not righteous, nor yet
because the world could well do without
them, but because their movers failed to
bring alone, I
God
into the conflict.
They fought
and hence they fought
in vain.
have heard men preach whose deliver-
the equipment that earth
They had all can offer. They
were engaged
most wonderful
ances seemed set to music.
work
teaching
And
in
the
human hands can touch human hearts the way of life.
that
yet their ministries were "sweetness
They carried no citadels of sin. For they came to their work without that
wasted."
The Spoil spiritual
ify a
equipment which alone can qual-
man
to preach his Master's Gospel
—the insphering of the is
65
Spirit of God.
not enough to do good things.
not suffice to display the heroic
who
He who
strength of Heaven. task
without
comes back,
the
He
spirit.
does God's work must do
It
It will
it
in the
goes to his
endowment of God
at length, defeated.
But another truth
lies close to this
one.
Weakness nearly always hints at some It was time to search the camp for a Babylonish garment when the soldiers came homeward in dismay. There was a moral reason for the paraly-
hidden wrong.
sis
the soldiers
felt.
God
never with-
holds his hand except for the secret
He
will
sin.
bring every fine ambition to
its
coronation, as the sun ripens every flower in the
meadow,
at the root.
unless there be
I believe
it
is
know young men whose hearts by failure. The world has coldest 5
shoulder.
some
fault
so to-day.
I
are broken
turned
its
Every blossom they
The Tragedy of
66
pluck seems to turn to ashes in their hands. fare. as, if
we
They are waging a losing warGod does not seem to care. Wherewe could know the truth, I believe
should find beneath the surface of such
some hidden
lives
Young men,
spoil,
be honest
your best to win, or
!
is
some
secret sin.
Have you done there
some
secret
indulgence you love better than you love success ? is
God cannot guide
use the brain that
He
hol. is
the hand that
He
trembling from dissipation. is
muddled with
cannot bless the
No
is
hidden
camp. great
movement
was ever defeated by with
that
victories at
Ai while the "accursed thing" in the
alco-
manhood
There are no
not clean.
cannot
God can
like
foes without.
One
"chase a thousand, and two
put ten thousand to flight." of righteousness
long as there
temperance
is
The
cause
absolutely resistless so
no treachery
in the camp. But jealousy or greed or unsanctified amis
bition can defeat
it
every time.
One
of
The
67
Spoil
the most mournful disclosures of history
movements which ought to have been omnipotent, and might have
is
that of holy
been, but for the paralysis of sin.
A
certain pastor always begins his re-
vival campaigns
members
by getting
He
together.
hostile church
says
no
that
church can honestly claim God's blessing so long as there are
members
And
meet.
in
it
who
when they
will not speak to each other
so he spends lavish hours,
uses every tact and grace, to bring such hearts together.
not far wrong.
pastor
I believe that
God
is
is
never capricious.
But many a church has stood out before the world discredited, a colossal failure,
because of some festering self.
of
its
evil
within
it-
The foes of the church are "they own household." We can never
successfully
go up against the inhabitants
of Ai so long as part of the spoil of Jericho
is
hidden beneath our
that the church it
were
it
is
Not
tents.
—
for perfect people
might cease to exist.
if
"They
The Tragedy of
68 that be
whole have no need for a physi-
cian, but they that are sick."
We
can
amount of poor material be strong. But when a church
take in a vast
and
still
member ceases when he gives
to struggle for the right, his life to the hiding of
forbidden things, he becomes the drag to
hold a whole church down.
Defeat
ways argues the presence of an Achan
al-
in
the camp.
Now, one
of the hardest things about
power
this doctrine is the
single soul.
It
Achan could
it
seems terrible that one the
neutralize
life.
Up in
efforts
Yet such
three thousand loyal men.
human
vests in a
of is
Stamford a few years
ago there raged an epidemic of typhoid fever.
No
house seemed
safe.
stalked through every street.
The fever At last they
traced the infection to a single man.
man, a milkman, had been
washing
his cans in
That
in the habit of
water from a con-
taminated well, and everywhere his milk cans went they bore the seeds of pitiless
The Spoil disease.
69
One man wrought
all
In the famous "Alabama case"
England that did the
the ruin.
it
was not
And
firing.
yet as
a matter of history our claim was against
Here we are demanding indemnity from Turkey, not because the
all
England.
Sultan personally damaged us at
all,
nor
because his empire as such committed
wrong, but because a few of his subjects
were guilty of trespass against the law
And
of friendly nations. try
is
hurt.
under
obligation
Let an engineer
his
whole coun-
to
redeem the
fall
asleep at his
post and sacrifice a score of
Not
bears the burden ?
lives,
who
the untrustworthy
employee, but the company in whose employ he worked.
If
amuck of another
your coachman runs vehicle
or
maims
a
passer-by, you will be held responsible at
When
one director of a concern turns recreant, his associates are under This is penalty to make good his theft. law.
the law of
human
life.
penalties of living that a
It is
man
one of the
cannot "live
The Tragedy of
70
No man
unto himself." disqualifying
some one
can sin without
No man
else.
can
without inflicting hurt on countless
sin
immortal
making
No man
souls.
can sin without
harder for every son of
it
be worthy of his birthright.
men say their own
I
God
to
sometimes
hear
they will bear the burden
of
sins.
might be
so.
But
would to God it never can be. Think I
it
of that the next time you take
your own bosom.
Remember
hot temptation comes.
away
You
it
fire
into
when
the
cannot carry
the accursed thing and bury
your heart but some soldier
who
it
in
is fight-
ing the battle of his King, will find his
weapon
blunted.
It
responsibility to live. live
means tremendous
No man
is fit
to
except as he girds himself by truth
and prayer.
But thus far
I
have said nothing con-
cerning the consequences of Achan's sin to Achan.
The
soldiers fell before any-
one suspected him. also.
But
his turn
came
There came an hour when the
fin-
The Spoil
71
ger of fate seemed pointing toward his tent.
His
sin
had "found him out."
He
paid for the Babylonish garment with his Brothers, there
life.
Some day
sin.
price.
of
It
Wrong
is
a price on every
the transgressor pays that
seems indeed the very mockery that
men
lose at
things they jeopardized their
length the all
to gain.
IV
THE TRAGEDY OF THE UNSEEN
HAND
IV.
THE TRAGEDY OF THE UNSEEN
HAND " In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's
hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace
saw
the part of the
That was
hand
that wrote."
:
and the king
— Dan.
v, 5.
a weird interruption of an
indescribably magnificent occasion which
brought
Daniel
from obscurity again.
The king of Babylon had made a royal As if to set at rest unpleasant rufeast. mors by a fresh display of
kingliness, to
pledge in choicest wines defiance of foes,
all
Belshazzar had invited his thousand
princes to such a banquet as never had
Amid
been spread for them before.
glow of countless dreamy
lights,
the
to the
low, seductive music of the East, they
had
sat
down
wore on
together.
in increasing
And
so the night
wantonness
until
the very abandon of the feast
grew tame.
Some new extravagance must
be devised,
The Tragedy of
76
some crowning ging
zeal.
had
hit
that once ple,
At
upon
license, to stay their flag-
length the king himself it.
The
sacred
vessels
had been the glory of the tem-
those vessels that even a Nebuchad-
nezzar had held in reverent nied
to
profaning hands,
awe and let
de-
them be
brought to grace the bacchanalian
feast.
The words were scarcely uttered ere the sacrilege was done, and vessels, once consecrated by ten thousand Hebrew prayers, were bearing wine to drunken, sensual In draughts from holy goblets now,
lips.
they sang the praise of Babylon and
her deities.
grew
still.
all
Then suddenly the room The king had dropped his
cup and was staring in abject terror at the wall.
All eyes were turned.
An
un-
seen hand was writing there three dread-
The music
ful,
burning words.
the
overflowing flagons
drained
Some
;
flushed cheeks
terrible
were
left
grew ashen
doom was being
Such was the scene
ceased;
to
un-
white.
written.
which the long-
The Unseen Hand
77
was summoned after had done their best. A monarch beside himself with nameless horror, a court no longer courtly, a forgotten prophet
the king's interpreters
banquet hall turned stage for tragedy,
and the weird handwriting upon the wall
—such came
was the chaos to which Daniel It must have been a
that night.
melancholy errand.
I
can just imagine the
saddening thoughts with which the prophet
came.
the
the palace. evil
He
must have guessed what
summons meant
He
before he reached
had been watching the
ripening these
many
years.
He
had
seen the threatening clouds begin to mass themselves. for
If the princes
him before;
if
had only sent
they had taken him
into their solemn councils before
an army
they had only
was pounding at the gate him announce that righteousness which exalts a nation and establishes a soul, ;
if
let
he might have said a so much kinder thing than now was his to say. Now the very gentlest thing that
he could do was to
The Tragedy of
78
pronounce God's sentence upon a king-
dom.
Some
of you can recall the day
a famous, long-trusted,
New York
when bank
suspended payment. There was a tragedy outside
doors
the
whom
as
depositors
Men were
crowding round.
came
there
to
day meant commercial ruin;
that
widows whose meager
pittances
had been
But there was another trag-
swept away.
edy within the doors as the bank examiner laid bare a heartless
fraud.
Years, or
even months, before, he could have averted
doom.
He
might have spoken a different
word before
mad and made it
grown so rank. word drove fathers
the crime had
But now, though
his
children beggars, though
broke his heart to do the thing, he could
only come as Daniel came to Belshazzar's palace hall that fateful night, with a
word
of inexorable doom. It
seems to
me
that the saddest
moment
in the professional experience of a physi-
cian
must be when he stands beside a
The Unseen Hand sick
too
79
bed and knows that he was called
Days
late.
remedies
might have
wrought a need
Calamity
cure.
fect
there were in which his
not
per-
have
But now the only word that he
come.
can truthfully read from the tracing of
an unseen hand
human
is
language.
word
in
have sometimes
al-
the bleakest I
lowed myself to wonder what
mean the
utmost
the
inevitable
must
Notwithstanding
sentence.
decay
of
familiarity with records of
there
it
to a tender-hearted judge to pass
pity
by long
human shame,
must be times when the judge would
give a hand to save the prisoner at the bar.
The cringing manhood had been The gold still gleamed
magnificent once.
amid the incrusting the
sin.
word which he could had wrought
its
There was yet
And yet speak, now
making of a man.
the only that evil
horrid work, was the
word which meant banishment from men.
He
could not misread the handwriting
upon the
wall.
The Tragedy of
80
Some
such emotions must have striven
within the breast of this ancient prophet as he approached the palace that night.
Even with
the
fore his eyes he
dishonored vessels be-
would have kept back the No good if he could.
damning sentence
man
ever relishes the condemnation he
has to utter.
which
cipline
think ter's
if
Only
a fiend enjoys the dis-
brings, to another, pain.
I
we could have watched the Maswas driving the money
face as he
changers from the temple, or pronouncing woes against Bethsaida,
we
should
have a new conception of righteous anger. It
breaks a kind heart to say the condem-
natory thing.
To
tell
that king
what the
future held in store; to bring a message
human suffering; to pronounce the doom of the greatest city of the then
of
—with
world
all
the
agony and rapine such
—was enough
devastation meant
a good
man
live years in minutes.
make
But was unequivThose burning words were traced
the handwriting on the wall ocal.
to
The Unseen Hand by Hand
was
The
divine.
81
fate of
Babylon
sealed.
Now,
there
which
truths
are
stand
Scripture; the
first
—the
suggested
We
wrong.
prominent
certain
forth
in
this
old
of them I have already
evolution
of
human
ordinarily think of evolu-
tion as the beautiful process
ation becomes
more
perfect
by which
cre-
and manhood
up toward coronation.
Evolu-
tion stands for the dearest hopes
we have
struggles
for
human
But the
life.
fact is that evo-
aspect.
The
law which explains the growth of
saint-
lution has also a
downward
liness of heart accounts also for the criminal's
degeneracy.
Deadly nightshade has
normal maturity as truly as has the rose. The upas tree was once only an its
It is just as characteristic for evil
acorn.
to develop as for the good. lieve
that
I
do not be-
Belshazzar could have been
guilty of this
years earlier.
consummate
sacrilege a
There was a
out of which his worst crime grew. 6
few
terrible root
His
The Tragedy of
82
heart had become callous only by repeated
His
sinning.
seared only by holding
it
been
had
conscience
in the flame of
He was incapable of such an act as that which crowned his shame until evil had brought forth plen-
unholy passion.
his
tifully in
Moral disintegration
But the
conscience, the spirit,
There life
is
becomes a
departure from con-
first
scious rectitude.
a process.
ton
No man
life.
criminal in a
first
first
is
parleying with
indulgence of a wan-
holds the logic of the end.
nothing more
pitiful in
human
than men's confidence that they can
stop sinning
when they
get ready.
The
fact is that they are less likely or able to
stop with every added day.
Evil gains
mastery with every fresh indulgence. If
you were
to travel in
day you would scarcely
were
in the land of
many was
Martin Luther.
to-
you Ger-
the birthplace of the Reforma-
tion; to-day belief.
Germany
realize that
it
is
the forcing bed of un-
Germany was
the bestower of an
The Unseen Hand
83
almost priceless boon to-day she ;
away
is
taking
the world's most mighty hope.
By
almost imperceptible decline the Germans
have come is
to the place
a forgotten
where "Sabbath"
word and
religion a thing
But the process was
for wits to sneer at.
as sure as the law which holds the planets
There came
to their sockets in the sky.
a time
when poetry was made
a substitute
for worship; then philosophy; then art; until to-day the faith
the Teuton
Renan's
was
is
which immortalized
moribund or dead.
first
departure from the truth
in his writing of a beautiful life of
Jesus.
He was
obviously not far removed
from the moorings of the kingdom when he could make such wonderful tributes concerning Christ. delity
was
years, he
planted,
But the seed of
and when,
in
infi-
later
produced a drama so thoroughly
obscene that even French defense to offer for
it,
critics
had no
he simply brought
forth "the full corn in the ear."
If
one
could have seen Renan's heart while he
The Tragedy of
84
was writing the first book that won him fame, he would have beheld the certain promise of that other salacious volume which disgusted the reading world. This is
human
the stern truth of
man
can say where his
No
life.
compromise
first
will lead. I
do not mean that the tippler will nec-
essarily
end his days as a drunkard.
would not say
that a dishonest
boy was
sure to be brought to the bar in later for thieving.
penurious
It is
man
I
life
not safe to assure the
that he will die a miser.
These particular
results
variably follow, and
by no means
in-
we have weakened
a
good cause by overindulgence of the prophetic gift. vastly tial
more
The
truth I
catholic than
statement.
We
am
after
much
hear
to-day
A
about the "convertibility of disease." constitutional defect itself in
may
the same form.
not reproduce It
does not
fol-
low that because a father or mother insane the child
is
any such par-
may grow up
is
insane.
The Unseen Hand
When
85
may else. What is one generation may be ap-
the blood taint reappears
it
be paralysis or something deformity in
The
oplexy in the next.
inebriate's child
may not touch a drop of liquor, and yet may be cursed all his days by the evil spirit of rum. All we can say is that physical defect will bring forth blemish.
But
that
And
it
is
is
a tremendous thing to say.
has a bearing upon our theme.
not simply that the dishonest
man
It
lays
himself open to fresh temptations of dis-
—though
honesty
—but
that
by
that
were bad enough
his surrender to dishonesty
he opens the door to every form of
He who ter,
by so
wrong much unfits
does
apt to
not
commit some
know what
himself to resist any
He may
assault of evil.
certain offense, but
he
never repeat a
will be the
more
sort of folly.
transgression led the
to Belshazzar's sacrilege; but
I
do
way
something
some breaking down some compromise with
in the earlier days,
of moral tissue,
sin.
mat-
in a particular
The Tragedy of
86 conscience,
made him
a prey to the inroads
And, because he had
of that temptation.
weakened himself beforehand, when the evil
suggestion came, he
But another truth in our text is
:
fell.
lies close to this
the infatuation of
one
There
evil.
a sort of infinite pathos in the fact that
while Belshazzar was reveling in
posed
sup-
were already
security, the Persians
He
thundering at his gates.
ought
to
have been praying instead of boasting; leading his armies instead of carousing
But the picture would
with his court. fail to
be true to
human
history unless at
the climax of a career of wantonness the
king had thought himself secure from
harm.
It is part
of the tragedy of sin
that the delinquent rarely sees his peril.
Her
Evil always plays Delilah. are sweetest
when
caresses
the Philistines are most
near.
Some
of you have seen the painting,
"The Maid
of
the
—a
boatman
falls,
while in
Mist"
drifting surely toward the
The Unseen Hand
87
the rising spray of old Niagara a beauti-
wooing him
ful figure is
The
on.
picture
is
absolutely true to life: the siren song
is
always sweetest when the boatman
nearest to his doom.
a noteworthy
It is
during the progress of certain
fact that
diseases the sufferer thinks that he
ting well.
have gone into the
I
of a consumptive
when
patient look
up
into
my
about a speedy recovery. heard one say, "I
now;
if
is
get-
room
sick
the signs of dis-
solution were unmistakable,
I
is
and had the
face
and
talk
How often have
feel so
much
better
only this old cough would leave
me and my
come back, I should soon be out again." Poor soul, who does not know that the relief from pain is one of the
strength
symptoms of the end
The story.
criminal
records
tell
It
nearly always hap-
pens that a great offender
own
same
There are comparatively few suc-
cessful criminals.
his
the
carelessness.
is
caught by
Indeed, there would
hardly be a chance of taking him but for
The Tragedy
88
fidence,
ing him to point
we
is
a dramatic stand-
could almost scold him for
But, friends,
it is
folly.
not a matter of stupid-
We
or alertness.
are near a cogent
No wrongdoer
moral truth.
himself against his is in
the
From
jail.
foolish con-
track, some demeans of bring-
some uncovered
spised antagonist,
ity
Some
admitted lapse.
this
of
own
can defend
ineptitude.
It
the very nature of evil to blind the
transgressor's eyes.
He
can no more es-
cape the peril of overconfidence than he
can get loose from gravitation. The Book speaks of God's giving up the unbeliever
That
to "believe a lie."
of a false falsity
I
life
—
it
is
does not
the last stage
know
its
own
and shame.
noticed the other
case of a
Western
day the strange
child
whose vision
is
so defective that she sees everything upside
down.
inverted.
Trees, houses, friends are
There
is
no case just
the medical records say.
like
all it,
But there are
ten. thousand times ten thousand in the
The Unseen Hand moral realm.
men
common
thing for
downward with
the idea
Many
a young
It is the
to plunge
89
that they are ascending.
doom with the impression that he was on his way to heaven. fellow has gone to his
And
the
more
persistent the sin the
more
inverted the world, until like Belshazzar, the
king,
the sinner prepares his
own
grave. It is
an old military custom to lead a
traitor outside the
camp and compel him
to dig the grave into
pierced
body
which his own poor,
shall fall as
soon as his task
Every spadeful of earth removed means the approach of death, and yet he must dig on. There is just this done.
is
and that
difference between such a case
of Belshazzar at the feast:
Belshazzar
never saw the yawning earth or
he was digging.
He was
vessel to his lips
when
out
its
message on the
you need if
to look
knew
that
lifting a
golden
Hand
flashed
the
wall.
My
brother,
through the divine eyes
you would be sure what your own eyes
The Tragedy
90
You
behold.
ments of no
of
can trust the pronounce-
life
but the
life
of obedience
and prayer.
One important from
made
point remains to be
theme.
this old
words themselves:
It is
found
"weighed,
in the
wanting,
The great fault of Belshazzar, after all, was that he failed to do the work It was wrong in at which God set him. divided."
itself,
He
of course, to be sensual and impious.
could not afford to spend his sub-
stance in riotous living.
But the
chief
reason for his sentence was his incompetency
most wrong because God's agent. because of
Intemperance
God.
before
it
ence was most
him to be was most wrong
unfitted
Sensuality its
was
disqualification.
wrong because
it
Irrever-
deprived
him of the only power that could endow him for his task. He had left his work undone.
And
there
away the work from an workman. Belshazzar as well Solomon or Paul must be God's agent.
to do but to take
unfaithful as
remained nothing
The Unseen Hand
91
He
failed
and
at a different task, just as
under different circumstances
would have
had neglected
failed if he
build the temple,
Solomon
and Paul,
if
he had
to re-
fused to preach the Gospel. I
wish
might be graven on our
it
hearts that the all-important function of
a
man
to accomplish that part of the
is
Lord's business committed to his care.
The only is
in the declaration of
must be about
And
my
life
our Master, "I
Father's
business."
the perfect consummation of a life
will be the experience
to say, "I
temple
which
entitles also
have finished the work which
thou gavest particular
a
human
true conception of
me
to do."
work may be or
the
—
Whatever
the
the building of
building
of
a
soul,
the searching out of truth or the search-
ing of the secrets of the kingdom, the leading
of
a
reformatory
movement
or the leading of one troubled child to Jesus
—the work which God has given us
to do,
it
will
be our ample glory to have
Tragedy of the Unseen Hand
92
At
accomplished.
the anvil or the bench,
in the kitchen or the study,
on
thoroughfares or "in the
spirit's
the great thing
cell,"
Father's business."
is
to be
hard
life's
secret
"about the
And whatever else we though we drink from
— glory of a world—the handwriting on the may have
or do
golden cups and be surrounded by the
wall will burn out the joy of
life
if
it
reads concerning us those three, strong
words, "weighed, wanting, divided." I
fact,
have said nothing about one further
which
in itself
a whole sermon. it
now.
Our
topic
message.
He had message.
He
is
I
"the tragedy of the
hand that wrote"
—and
the
Hand itself. Hand from the
did not see the
to interpret the It is
so to-day.
tions are always partial.
Hand
can only suggest
Belshazzar saw only "the
unseen hand." part of the
might be the theme of
And
God's revela-
He
that spells out his
conceals the
truth.
It
is
enough for us that we have the truth he spells.
THE TRAGEDY OF AN ANCIENT
GALLOWS
THE TRAGEDY OF AN ANCIENT GALLOWS "So
they hanged
Haman on
prepared for Mordecai."
It
is
scarcely a
the gallows that he
—Esth.
had
vii, 10.
wonder
that
Haman's
He
head was turned by his successes.
is
a brilliant illustration of what fortune
sometimes does for one of her inconspic-
Some
uous children.
unchronicled
cir-
cumstance had brought him to the notice of the king, and, once in royal favor, he
had been astute enough
to
make himself
an indispensable factor at the court. Most careful student of his sovereign's
moods,
past master in the dubious fine art of
flat-
tery,
always
own
thoughts, he had so far ingratiated
first
to interpret the king's
himself, at length, that lives
were lekite
at his disposal.
From
and treasuries captive
Ama-
he had become the power behind the
throne.
And
if
he had adopted a more
honorable course he might have spent a
The Tragedy of
96 luxurious
life
and been buried in his mon-
mausoleum.
arch's
But prosperity did for
Haman what
it
has done for countless thousands before
and
It spoiled
since.
grew
to
fill
up
him
He
hopelessly.
His
his entire horizon.
vanity became a madness, so that when,
one day, a certain Hebrew
him
failed to salute
due and ancient form, he planned
in
the destruction of the entire people to
Now
which the offender belonged. "tide
on
.
.
which, taken at
.
to fortune"
man had
began
its
winds
favoring
the
Ha-
silently to ebb.
overreached himself at
had unwittingly rung down the
Even
the
flood, leads
He
last.
curtain.
which
still
seemed to play about him had a sting in their breath.
his foe.
quet
The world had turned
Did he accept a queen's ban-
invitation,
it
was
to
come
forth
Did he obey his was to be concrime. Did he throw
chagrined, humiliated.
monarch's bidding, fronted with his himself
in
terror
it
at
Esther's
feet,
it
An was
Ancient Gallows
97
have his attitude construed as
to
The
mortal insult to a woman. voice announced his
But there
doom
in
the story
have purposely omitted.
which, thus
far, I
Any
would have
gibbet
—a gallows.
one point
is
king's
sufficed to
make
Haman's career a tragedy. But was a notable peculiarity about the
the end of
there
particular gibbet
He
for his crime.
forfeit
Haman
on which
had
paid
built
it
himself the day before, in the privacy of his
the
own courtyard, for man he desperately
that the last thing he
the execution of I suspect
hated.
saw as he left home was the gallows
for the royal banquet
waiting for never
left
its
his
The image
prey.
mind
as the
that
memorable
evening passed was the image of Mordecai dangling, choking there.
by some
terrible reversal
from royal supper, with
And now
he went back
all its light
wine and splendor, to expiate his the very gibbet his
prepared. 1
own
sin
and
upon
guilty hands
had
The Tragedy of
98
All of which furnishes a most striking instance of
what men
There
an
is
call "poetic justice."
inevitable
satisfaction
in
watching sinners get their just deserts.
We
grow
so
weary of the heartless
tyr-
annies and unrequited violences of earth that,
whenever a particular outbreaking
sinner has to stand forth
and take the
medicine he has been forcing upon his fellows;
when an unholy
the penalty of
its
own
institution pays
extortionateness
and crime; when a nation reaps the whirl-
wind for wind,
persistent
its
we inwardly
rejoice.
citizens breathed easier
forfeited his fair that
life.
Millions of
when Buchanan
has always seemed
It
Herod and Charles the Ninth
—
should die in horror
been immortal. if
sowing of the
their
infamy had
Nobody would be
grieved
the whole parcel of rack-renters and
monopolists of the earth were swept into oblivion.
There came a day when France drove out her sturdiest sons, the Huguenots.
An She ought
to
Ancient Gallows
99
have known she was letting
the best blood out of her veins.
And
to-
when France is shriveling and moribund, when like a harlot among the naday,
tions,
prematurely old, she
her grave, she
is
law which brought
is
tottering to
merely illustrating the
Haman
to the gallows
himself had made.
You
remember the sentiments which passed from mouth to mouth while the Spanish war was waging. Everybody will
expected the Yankee boys
to
win
:
they
had the resources of America behind them. say.
But there was more than that to
And when the Spanish gunboats lay mud of Manila Bay, when a fleet of
in the
magnificent warships drove to ruin off
when a whole royal army turned homeward in humiliation and defeat, men
Santiago,
said that righteousness
had triumphed:
Spain had paid the price of misgovern-
ment and I
cruelty, in blood
and
tears.
So
suppose that few have read this ancient
record without being secretly gratified,
if
The Tragedy of
100
not openly rejoiced, that the curtain of
drama remained up long enough to show Haman swinging at the noose he had set for Mordecai the Jew. It is
the
one of the
finest pictures
of retribution in
history.
But
it
is
more than
vastly
that.
It
touches a basilar truth in God's great universe.
I
surfeit
many
have not brought the picture
of us, perhaps, might find our like-
ness in this ancient drama.
means just
to
you with scenes of vengeance. Not
man
that a
what he puts
But when
it
gets out of the world
when
into it;
it
stands
for the absolute equity of nature's proc-
when Haman and
esses;
come
illustrative of the
law according to
which the universe makes to
human
life
his gallows be-
all its
and human
responses
effort, there is
an untransferable message for you and me.
Retribution
is
only the hard edge of
a universal and blessed truth.
This not so
is
a wonderful universe
much
we
for the grandeur of
live in its
sun-
An sets
Ancient Gallows
and the multitude of
the perfect balance of
101
stars as for
its
the sen-
its forces,
sitiveness of the divine adjustment, the
responsiveness of part to part.
an
It is
indescribably harmonizing thing to be able to predicate of
human
measure ye mete, to
you again."
less
ent
it
"With what
effort,
be measured
shall
We do a great deal of wit-
scolding at the hardships of our preslife.
We
call
ourselves the victims of
an arch conspiracy, whereas the
fact
that in our suffering, ordinarily,
we
is
are
feeling the results of the very delicacy of
divine adjustment which allows for
all
harmony of life. God could hardly make one law to secure to us the results the
of probity and honor, and another to save us from the rebound of folly. cuts deeper than a case-knife
the keen edge value.
which gives
A
razor
by reason of
it
the greater
A piano out of tune always
sounds
worse than a banjo out of tune, just because of the supreme fineness of construction
which permits a sonata to be rendered
The Tragedy of
102
on
The
it.
was
universe
If
men
answer
built to
with harmonies.
every beautiful touch
get only discord from their labored
playing,
if
suffering
the air
is rife
and sorrow,
it
with sounds of only because
is
they have not yet learned the scales and
There was nothing
chordings of heaven.
cruel in the dispensation
out to
Haman.
Haman
to the gibbet
another, guarantees
flowers that let
I
he had erected for
all
the best fruits and
grow along
us spend a
which was meted
The law which brought
little
the path.
Then
time upon this law.
have no idea that Isaac Newton was
thinking of his third
Haman when
he formulated
law of motion, that action and
reaction are always equal to each other.
Yet
it
is
only a
scientific generalization
of the truth of the tragedy of
We
can hardly overestimate
Haman.
its
impor-
modern science. It has been an open window through which men have more clearly seen the matchless harmony tance to
of nature.
The
stars
were
all
on
"fool's
An
Ancient Gallows
103
errands" until
men grasped
Many
modern inventions would
of our
such a truth.
have been forever impossible without
it.
There are a few things of which the physicist
can be positively assured when he
goes into his laboratory, and the inventor
when he
sits
down
and one of them
before his drawing;
is this
truth that action
and reaction are forever equal. against
Nature
Every force works
answers every voice.
some other force. Pressure means Not a leaf moves but in some
resistance.
infinitely delicate
lion miles
tledown
measure the
away make answer not a thissummer meadow ;
floats across the
but a whole universe its
stars a bil-
errand; not a
is
sympathetic with
human hand
in violence or love but
is
God's world
lifted is in-
stantly aroused to repel the violence
That
to abet the" love.
verse
ery
we
was
had been
live in.
is
and
the sort of uni-
And Newton's
discov-
the discovery of a truth which in operation for ages
fect equipoise,
ness of nature.
—
the per-
the exquisite responsive-
The Tragedy of
104
What is it but this that makes of one man a farmer and another a poet and anHere we are living in the other a fool? same world, breathing the same ozone, played upon by the same forces, heirs to
common
a
grace,
and yet growing more
and more unlike with every added day. If
a
you send
summer
a half dozen children out into
field,
no two of them
back the same kind of trophy.
will bring
One
will
return with a curious stone, a second with a beautiful beetle, a third with a flower or
Each has found
a fern.
that which an-
swers to somewhat within himself. of which forever
is
a parable
getting
out
on
life.
Men
train
are
of nature the re-
sponses to what they are themselves.
two
All
No
companions ever saw the same
things as the train rushed on. travelers ever
came back
No two
to tell the
same
story about the Alps or vales of Switzerland.
Nature
in aspect
are the her.
is
as infinitely diversified
and as variant
in her voices as
men and women who approach
An In our
Ancient Gallows
105
High School Museum I noticed relics. They were
a collection of Indian
obviously a fine display.
me most
ested
that nearly all
But what
inter-
about them was the fact
had been gathered
outskirts of the city in
in the
which we
live.
They were not brought in from the but dug up at our very door. Thousands of feet must have traveled where they lay. Keen eyes had, doubtless, often scanned the ground for other plains,
And
objects.
so those ancient relics wait-
ed for the particular eye and practiced hand.
we
In this world
looking
for.
what we are
find
Earth yields the secrets for
which we persistently inquire.
remember reading somewhere of a
I
famous painter who said to his unartistic
as
friend: it
"When
you
the sun rises,
see
were a golden guinea coming up out
of the sea.
merable
God."
I look,
company
and behold an innuof
makes the
artist.
praising
angels,
It is this finer aesthetic
You and
sense which
I
go
in
and
The Tragedy of
106
out in the presence of beauties enough to
render us famous could
we
such beauty for the world.
but interpret
We
call
the
flower exquisite and the sunset sublime.
But the painter comes back from
his
view
of nature with soul so full that his gers
readily
which that fullness is
what
it
means
not made." terial,
finds the canvas.
This
that the poet is "born,
No amount
no length of
of poetic ma-
scholastic
training
The poetic instinct Wordsworth carries with him
produces the poet.
what a
his study of
God's world.
zas that immortalize his the answer nature
So out of
the
makes
And
name
is
to
the stan-
are simply
to his
same world the
tracts his creed.
own
gift.
skeptic ex-
He looks only
for a vast
heartless
machine which grinds out
dust and
human
no eye
fin-
become channels through
destinies alike.
He
star
has
for "footprints of the Creator," no
ear for the subtle "music of the spheres."
Hence every day he studies, he becomes more and more the doubter. Here, just
An
Ancient Gallows
107
as truly as in the harvest field or realm
of morals,
man
"whatsoever a
may hope
"seeketh"
soweth,
Only he that
that shall he also reap."
to "find;"
and no
door save that at which an immortal questioner knocks, will ever open.
But
this
same truth holds good of our
relationships each to the other. sians
must
sweet, he
That
is
live
the doctrine
among
good playmates.
to choose
the principle on which
when we
ourselves
we
select
from among the pure and the fact
the flowers."
you are trying to
in-
your children when you exhort
culcate in
them
The Per-
have a motto, "If one would be
is
that
That
is
are acting for
our intimates true.
And
yet
no amount of holy fellow-
ship will turn a
bad heart good.
It is
im-
man by merely inductcompany of saints. He will still get out of them the response to what he is. For a man to find evil in the possible to save a
ing him into the
world
is
world as
not so it is
much a
to himself.
discredit to the
And
for a soul to
The Tragedy
108
of
have come through years of
with
life
growing reverence and honor, proves only Judas and John had the
quality of soul.
same Master. to John.
He
He was
as
good
to Judas as
stood ready to fashion the
afterward betrayer on the same beautiful as
lines
the
beloved disciple.
All
the
grace which John incorporated was at the
And yet
disposal of Judas.
it
appears that
Judas came out of that fellowship so
little
bettered that he could be guilty of the
crime which has ing infamy.
name
to everlast-
man had
a chance to
left his
If ever
prove what holy fellowship can do, the
man who
carried
his
black
it
was
heart
through three years of intimacy with Jesus.
On
the other hand,
good woman
among terrible
to
give
I
have known a
herself
to
work
the slums, breathing every day the
miasm
of sin, witness to foulness
sufficient to corrupt a cityful of
men, and
come forth, at length, more pure and sweet and tender than before. This is
yet
An
What we
strong truth for you and me. get from others
is
largely their answer to
what we carry to them. be careless
we I
where we
are careful
hear
men
what we
men
her price.
such assertions is
We can afford to
live in proportion as are.
I
sometimes
sneer at the integrity of others.
have heard
has
109
Ancient Gallows
say that every
Do you
mean ?
what
Simply that there
man who
no light for the
woman
realize
is
morally
blinded; and that not even an angel of
God would be
safe
from
presence of such a man.
the
insult in
The world
mirror reflecting the features
we
"With what measure ye mete,
it
is
a
present. shall
be
measured to you again."
So
in the field of
commerce.
It is the
customary thing to emphasize the
influ-
man man does, upon himself. Every workman bears the mark of his trade. He who sits at a desk is nearly always uneven shouldered. You ence of what a
the
can distinguish the merchant from the doctor.
They say
the minister acquires
The Tragedy of
110
a certain bearing: one can read theology
But these are only symptoms
in his face.
Men
of a change within.
charge up their
deformities of spirit to the spirit of the age.
I
have found material to nail that
falsehood.
who came
have seen just enough men
I
out of the commercial furnace
without even the smell of garments, to convince
me
pends upon the kind of
upon
fire
their
much demanhood that that
goes into the furnace in the
first place.
Business need not dwarf and deform.
may of
It
be made to serve the higher purposes
life.
And now tions that I
there are
must
two other
briefly
The
make.
evangelists used to stand forth
applica-
old
and plead
with their hearers to give themselves to Jesus.
The
a Salvation
other night I paused to hear
Army
worker exhort
old familiar phrase.
of
the
inharmonious
Somehow sounds
and un-
conventional surroundings there irresistible
sweetness
about
in the
in spite
was an
the
plea:
An
Ancient Gallows
"Won't you give yourself
We
latter days.
upon
to Jesus ?"
much about
have not said so
have
111
laid
it
We
in these
more
stress
We have talked
the priority of God.
God could send salvation as he does But the fact remains the dew and rain. that no soul ever gets the full gift of God until after it has given God something. as
if
"wisdom and righteous-
Christ becomes
ness as
and
we
men
him
furnish
is full
the chance.
The world modern shine away
of skeptics because so few
ask the
Son of Man to The meadow
their
doubts.
seed
we bring
acle except to
and redemption"
sanctification
to
It
it.
upon our
ripens
the
performs no mir-
God brings we bring
gift.
maturity only the purposes
to him.
What
is
true throughout crea-
tion is true here also.
ure ye mete,
it
shall
"With what measbe measured to you
again."
So
it
must be
in the future.
obviously a great
know about
many
things
the life which
is
There are
we do to be.
not
No
Tragedy of an Ancient Gallows
112
description has ever given the hint of
we
shall be.
Golden
streets
what
and brim-
stone vats are only pictures, after
all.
But
concerning the future one feature stands out clear and strong. hell shall
What heaven
or
be to us, will depend upon the
men and women we are! Not God can put heaven into an unheav-
kind of
even
enly heart; not
heavenly
spirit
all
demons can keep
As we
out of heaven.
the
give
ourselves to the future, the future must
give
itself to us.
Even
there
be true that "whatsoever a that shall he also reap."
it
must
man
still
soweth,
VI
THE TRAGEDY OF A CHARGER
VI
THE TRAGEDY OF A CHARGER "And
he sent, and beheaded John in the prison. head was brought in a charger, and given to the damsel and she brought it to her mother." Matt,
And
his
—
:
xiv, 10, II.
In the prison
at
Machaerus one of the
most striking personages of Bible history
was paying the penalty for being an uncompromising
Eighteen,
voice.
long
months John had been wearing out life in
a felon's
cell.
From
his
secular view-
point he had been too intemperate in his zeal.
Clad in the rough raiment of the
hills,
a strange, weird figure that men,
once seeing, could not easily forget, he
had gone up and down
his native land
rebuking sin and summoning sinners to repentance.
By some
providential turn
he had gained admittance to the palace,
from being awed by novel sights and court decorum, he had even condemned the king's adultery and and
there,
so far
The Tragedy
116
of
This was too much for royal
shame.
good-nature to endure, and at the itation of a
woman,
was muffled
in a prison.
Of
solic-
the unterrified voice
the desolate days that followed
have no record save
that,
we
on one occasion,
the prisoner had succeeded in sending a
message to the One whose forerunner he
John had, evidently, ample meditate upon the unreadiness
had been. chance to
humankind
of
ness
and
for the
truth.
word
of righteous-
But one day there came
an unusual step in the passage leading to his cell.
For an
conquered
heavy
feet
spirit
instant, I fancy, the un-
nouncement of his freedom.
In an hour
he might be no longer prisoner. it
Those
leaped with joy.
might be bringing the an-
And
so
was The newcomer's errand was speedaccomplished. There was no need for !
ily
long farewells.
A
neck was bent
;
a keen
blade cut a streak of light through the
gloom; and a Nazarite head quivered on a charger, to be borne to Herod's queen.
A Such was
all
Charger
117
that the intrepid prophet
knew perhaps he did not even know
ever
;
the purpose his grizzled head
when
had
it
left his
on
had no time or care His work was done
his blade cut cleanly.
He knew
was enough bore orders
He
John that
for
It
that he
convicts.
from the king. to waste
when
body.
headsman
for the
would serve
It
his prison days
was enough were over.
nothing, probably, of the revelry
beyond the unresponsive
walls.
His
were spared the shameless scene
eyes
which hurried on
his
guessed the ripening of
knew
He never the plot. He only
doom.
that within a few, short minutes he
should be beyond the reach of execution-
and Herods. But for us
ers
to
mark
are traced out here.
has
its
history,
we know queen's ness, a
it is
permitted
the stages of the crime as they
and
the
revenge,
Every such crime
in this particular case
successive
chapters
—
a daughter's wanton-
monarch's cowardice.
It is
a tru-
ism of geometry that through any three
118
The Tragedy
given points
—not
circle
of
in a straight line
can be passed.
I
the three points, and I
—
have suggested have
myself
set
the task of passing through them,
if
pos-
sible, the circle of a helpful lesson.
First, then; a queen's revenge.
years since John had
first
was
It
rebuked Her-
od's incestuous relations with his broth-
Herod's wrath had evidently
er's wife.
cooled, but the
iron
woman
had entered her
lignancy of which perverted alone
is
The
never forgot.
soul, and,
with a ma-
womanhood
capable, she waited her revenge.
That the offender went part appeasement
to prison
—her
was only would
bitterness
never be satisfied until he paid a penalty
more dreadful
still.
John had committed
the unpardonable error of rebuking sin;
and
all
the rebound of conscience,
machinery of despotism, of
hell,
I is
all
the
were arrayed against him.
wonder
if
we
realize that
humanity
seldom more vehement than in
defense.
all
the ingenuity
There
is
one thing
we
its
own
can count
A
Charger
119
on: wickedness never surrenders so long as there to
a ditch to stand in or a
is
gun
Magnificent philippics have been
fire.
delivered in support of the greatest villainies the stars
have ever witnessed. Not
a national evil or a private sin but has
champions to plead offense so rank but to
its
some one can be found
man who
anathematize the
challenge
it.
You
Jesus approached a
mons, the
man
"Let us alone." That
is
dares to
once when
recall that
possessed of de-
evil spirits cried
changeless plea of
Not an
cause.
out stoutly,
the characteristic
evil.
What
the de-
moniac cried out against the Christ who
came
to heal
which
all
presence
him of
his disease,is the
untruth and foulness of
their
lift
exorcists:
word
in the
"Let
us
alone."
Take the case bellum days.
of slavery in the ante-
The arguments
means, exclusively on one
was met by appeal and traordinary.
To
were, by no
side.
Appeal
by
logic ex-
logic
hear the old Southern-
The Tragedy
120
of
ers defend their rights
you might have
imagined that
righteousness of
heaven and
all
the pitifulness of Jesus
all
were on their
the
side.
They drove
their nails
them with They were simply tremendous
with philosophy and clinched Scripture.
own
in their
defense.
And
the magnifi-
cent contest put up by a passionate South
and
led
on by such princely souls as Stone-
wall Jackson and Robert E. Lee,
is
an
everlasting witness to the strength with
which a great crime can meet It is within the
that a
memory
few heroic souls
New York
City.
the honesty of the cerity of such
men
assault.
of
all
present
set
out to purify
I believe
thoroughly in
movement and
the sin-
as Dr. Parkhurst.
Any
citizen who can live in the presence of such
festering sores as those exposed
by a mod-
and not be sometimes
stirred to
ern
city,
action,
must be
lethargic.
famous reform wave, tides
I
like the
believe that
strong ocean
which cleanse our shores, swept
from the great
quiet deeps
in
where pearls
A are born.
Charger
I believe
121
that the conscientious
sponsors for the effort were entitled to the thanks of
decent men.
all
But what
happened ?
No
turn the
than the disturbed and angry
reptiles
soil
sooner did the reformers
began to shoot out
their stings.
Defensive arguments grew up like mushrooms.
A
considerable portion of the
community, led on by the daily
press,
soon
hurried to the rescue of dive keepers and the scarlet
woman.
It
was amazing what
inalienable rights the corruptors to have.
abuse
seemed
They loaded Dr. Parkhurst with
until, at length, the
man who
started
out to bless a city was held up to view as public persecutor.
Take the temperance movement of our day. It has come to such a pass that no
man
can
lift
up
voice against the
his
American saloon but a score of objectors are
crying
"Shame!"
The
bartender
claims to have as unique a mission as the school-teacher; the canteen poses as the ally of the
Church.
One might
almost
The Tragedy
122
of
fancy that brewers were the founders and saviours and guardians of the republic, so
And then, to who ought to know better, conscientious folks who never "touch the unclean thing," women who forget what rum has cost to womanhotly do they repel assault.
cap
American
all,
citizens
hood, stand out against a sterner law.
Let
me
bring the truth
home. There less task
is
still
commonly no more
nearer grace-
than to go to a delinquent with
a message of
amendment.
I
know
that
sometimes the offender will turn and thank you. tiful
I shall
never forget the beau-
gratitude of some that I had tried
to help.
I
have been paid a thousand
times for solicitude and fears and prayers
by the affectionate look of a brother I had warned. But such reception is met infrequently.
I
have gone to a
man
with
a brother's warning and been treated like a pickpocket.
is
se-
when one tells his friend doing wrong. The sinner often
verer test than that he
Friendship knows no
A
Charger
123
counts his benefactor as a foe.
The Phar-
hated Jesus for every sermon he
isees
preached.
I
have
sometimes
that Judas's treachery
was
thought
the culmina-
tion of a reproof long rankling in his
Dear
heart.
story
;
friends,
it
is
same old
the
the strenuousness of evil in
defense.
He
its
own
that enters the strife against
unholiness must expect every missile perdition can suggest.
But
I
to the second chap-
our story; a daughter's wanton-
ter of
ness.
must hasten
We
have no means of determining
whether Herodias's daughter was a grown
woman
or a child.
The shame
conduct was the same in kind.
beauty that
God had
of her All the
given her,
all
grace
of form and comeliness of feature,
all
charm and power of womanhood, were turned to devilish use
when
she danced
Whatever her personal character may have been, she became a before the king.
minister to the lowest attributes of hu-
man
nature, at Herod's feast.
Men
have
The Tragedy
124
hope of heaven,
their
sold
of
Herod
as
pledged the half of his kingdom, under the
of
spell
such a power as Salome
wielded that day.
Sin
never so terrible as
is
when
it
mas-
querades in the light of a beautiful face or the grace of some personal charm. the crimes that will have to be
set
O,
down
to the account of lustrous eyes and melodious,
winsome
voices!
The nearer man-
hood or womanhood approaches to the divine ideal, the more fiendish becomes its power when that power Beauty which the Lord
What
is
is
is
once perverted.
not the handmaiden of
the servant of perdition.
a wonderful thing
painter's brush!
is
the master
There are pictures
be-
fore which no soul can pause without go-
more true and good. Angelo and Munkacsy were preachers in the noblest sense. But sometimes the artist's ing
away
brush
is
to be
dipped in poison, and, wherever
his canvas goes, their
birthright
it
helps
men
to forget
and turn to veritable
A
Charger
hounds. It matters not
125
how
critics praise
no canvas which makes
it
good
Take the mod-
is
truly beautiful.
ern novel.
harder to be
would rather read
I
certain
novels than certain sermons that I have heard.
They preach
forces of the age
works of
a truer Gospel and
Alongside the moral
a tenderer Christ.
we must mention certain But when the devil
fiction.
gets control of a writer's pen;
agination
becomes
diseased
when imwith
sin;
when the power of drama, the wealth of language, and the music of poetry are
brought to the glorification of depravity, the novel
becomes satanic agent, more
dangerous for
So would
I
all its
help you to learn the les-
A great gift is a perilous
son of Salome. thing until a
genius.
man
would be better
gets
to
it
consecrated.
have no royal
than to have one and not use
it.
It
talent
know how
to
Better not be able to carry a tune
than to use a
human
voice to render
harder for some pilgrim to be good.
it
Bet-
The Tragedy of
126
than to
ter be a perfect fright in feature let
I
human
beauty be the snare of
hearts.
would not insinuate that the tempter
usually a
woman.
What
other sex. this
:
that
when
a
The majority I
want
woman
to
is
emphasize
lowers her
she weakens the foundations of
all
is
in the is
ideal,
purity
we count her finer we have accorded her chivalry and honor, when she sins she makes the world grow poor. None but and
truth.
Because
than ourselves, because
a
woman
could have compassed John's
defeat; none so easily as feat the purpose for
woman
can de-
which the Messiah
came.
So we come
to the third chapter of
our story; a monarch's weakness. Herod
had evidently forgiven John his former stinging reproof. According to St. Mark's account, he found a certain
pleas-
ure in listening to John. There was some-
what about the prophet's to
that
challenge
admiration.
fearless spirit I
imagine
more than once the king had been
a
A
Charger
127
visitor in the Baptist's cell or
had sum-
moned the Nazarite to private interview. Mark tells us that Herod even went so far as to amend his ways in certain particulars out of deference to John. Then what a
cruel thing that the king should
be the signer of the death warrant.
man
A
with good intentions often; a friend
of the intrepid prophet
;
an unwilling par-
ticipant in so great a crime, he yet
the agent of a
what with
all
woman's
hate,
became
and did
her malice she never could
have done.
Ah, that make. less,
is
just the point I
want
to
Herodias was practically power-
without the word of Herod, to ac-
complish
her
fell
design.
have fumed and raved her
She might life out,
so
far as her unaided ability to injure John.
To
execute her plan she required the weak
compliance of a better
own.
Hence
spirit
the sending of
her disgraceful errand. plotter of mischief needs
than her
Salome on
So always the an agent nobler
The Tragedy
128 than
Lucretia
himself.
of
Borgia
could
never have wrought such havoc without the aid of priests and princes. the dying despair of
been the dupe of a
had recourse
man
The
than himself.
Wolsey
was had
It
that he
less conscientious
poisoner of Barnet
to the beneficent
machinery
of the post office to get his poison to his Evil has a certain helplessness
victim.
good men take it up. The sword wrong is always dull save when a true arm wields it. We should be comparuntil
of
atively safe in a lism, to
world so
full
were there no well-meaning
carry out
its
Slander it
Here itics
puerile until
is
is
A
lie
currency.
some good
the trouble with
The
upon the good less as
it
friend
up.
to-day.
will.
citizens
diabolic plots.
needs a clean mouth to give
takes
of diabo-
The
American
political boss
citizens
socialistic
who
pol-
depends
execute his
malcontent
is
harm-
a kitten until he can put his ideas
into nobler
minds than his own.
The
A
Charger
129
American saloon would be dead but for the Christian men and women who stand between
it
and
its
perdition.
I tell you,
we who know the most and have the we of the purer spirit and finer moral sense we who must be pressed it is
clearer vision;
;
into the service of the devil, tricked by
some hasty vow, before Herodias can hurt the Baptist. What Herodias and Salome, either separately or conjointly, could never bring to pass, was wrought
by yielding Herod.
Now there are three
suggested thoughts
we
that I desire to emphasize before this story.
One
a voice.
John had consented
If
is,
leave
the penalty of being
echo of other men's opinions,
to be the
if
he had
checked himself before rebuking a certain sin, he
od's dinner
might have reclined
and eaten
dainties
at off
Herthe
charger which bore his head to a dissolute queen.
Because he refused to trim
his sails to popular breezes
and
upon being an uncompromising
insisted
voice, he
The Tragedy of
130
lost his liberty
and then
his
The
life.
world never has any use for men
John the Baptist
Then
dead.
it
until
like
they are
after
often builds mausoleums
over them and makes pilgrimages to the
At
shrines that hold their dust.
ginning
it
the be-
We
has only curses and blows.
can be sure of having a very comfortable
we chime The man who
time in this world so long as
with prevalent
beliefs.
never interferes with anybody's sin
counted a good fellow.
But
let
is
ac-
him stand
out and declare against some public evil
and he
will scarcely live out half his days.
Ruskin grieved himself into premature old age because of the world's unreadiness to hear his message. Wendell Phillips and Canon Wilberforce could tell the hard-
ship of trying to
Wesley nearly
show mankind
its
duty.
lost his life for
preaching
the Gospel of purity and peace.
Latimer
went
to the stake for being out of
pathy with his age. price of telling
men
sym-
Stephen paid the the truth.
The gen-
A
Charger
131
Son of woman that ever touched our earth, was awarded a cross for showing tlest
men
the
Then from
way
to heaven.
there
a second lesson I learn
is
this old Scripture: the
feat of goodness.
apparent de-
was a gloomy day when they came to
It
for John's disciples
beg his poor, mutilated body.
It
a dire outlook for the kingdom its
fearless herald
was
seemed
now
that
Unless they
dead.
had ultimately found Jesus they must have gone into despair. Unrighteousness
had triumphed.
Lust would hold car-
nival, unchecked.
day.
It
So we often
needs no prophetic
feel to-
spirit
to
write, " Truth forever on the scaffold. Wrong forever on the throne."
That
is
It is
hard to believe
the frequent aspect of the world.
goodness when
meet
defeat.
unbelief
tomb.
I
its
in the conquest of
champions so often
do not wonder
when they put
his
at
Thomas'
Master
in a
Peter could hardly be blamed for
Tragedy of a Charger
132
deserting a Friend
with
strife
who went down
in the
evil.
But there
is
another truth
we must
never lose sight of for a moment. Goodness can afford to seem to die ; its
from
lost,
will
have
though
it
may have seemed
lost
There came a day when the
to him.
he rebuked found
met a
it
John's work was far
resurrection.
its
retribution.
fearful death.
last star
go
out.
sin
Herod
Herodias saw the
But the kingdom John
proclaimed has gone on gathering majesty ever since. is
ever
lost,
No
truth,
or can be.
no grace, no purity
God
gathers
it
as
the metal worker saves every scrap of gold.
And some day
the denials that
we
have practiced, the righteousness that we have exalted, the faithfulness that
we
have shown, will prove to be part of the living temple is
God."
"whose builder and maker
VII
THE TRAGEDY OF THE UNINVESTED POUND
VII
THE TRAGEDY OF THE UNINVESTED POUND " Take from him the pound." — Luke 24. xix,
Harsh words on
the lips of a gracious
character always startle us.
stroying gust from a
summer
Like a de-
an
sky, like
unpleasant exhalation from a rose, like a crash of discord in a Thomas' orchestra, is
the impatience of a gentle
The
spirit.
most tremendous exhibition of anger ever witnessed
was
I
in the bearing of the
He
kindest instructor I ever had.
not storm and rave.
An
did
eavesdropper at
the door would never have guessed that
a storm was sweeping through the class
room.
But the mild blue eye grew
black with passion;
the
strong,
fairly
tender
hand was clenched; and when he spoke, the quiet word was enough to wither the offender.
So
seemed with
all
utterly
that
incongruous
had gone
it
before, I
The Tragedy of
136 think
we almost
forgot the lesson of the
hour in sheer amazement at the anger.
What
son that had a beautiful mother
and loved her deeply, was not more awed at the occasional cloud
which passed over
her lovely face and obscured ness for a moment, than at
its
all
bright-
the right-
eous gusts and cyclones which shook the never got over
sterner parent
?
wilderment
such a look in
at
I
face until I learned that test
and measure of her
The Apocalypse the wicked's
wrath:
men
my
my
be-
mother's
was the pro-
it
love.
gives us a picture of
consternation at calling
the final
upon the rocks and
mountains to come and cover them as
from a sight too
—the
fearful to behold
"wrath of the Lamb," as it;
St.
John
calls
the paradox of anger; the passion of
a Heart that has always stood for love.
With some such
feelings I think
have read and pondered able of Jesus.
It
we
this familiar par-
seems almost incredible
that Jesus could put into the
mouth of the
The Uninvested Pound
137
disappointed nobleman the terrible sen-
We
tence of our text.
are accustomed
to think of Christ as speaking always the
gracious, musical word.
The
vision that
breaks in upon our disorder and discontent is a vision of everlasting patience.
We
Mary and remember with growing
love to hear Jesus talk to
to John.
We
gratefulness the beautiful things he said to the blind
wayward
man and
hearts
the leper.
grow
Our own
confident again in
the recollection of the tenderness with
which he treated
society's outcast,
woman which was
a sinner."
"the
Even Ju-
das and Pilate could not outrun his grace. It
seems as
if
those sensitive lips could
never become the threshold of an angry,
condemning word.
And
then,
when we
take up the scald-
ing things he said to the long-faced Pharisees; as
we
catch glimpses of his benig-
nant figure moving up and
raged temple
like
down
the out-
avenging Nemesis;
re-
reading this sentence pronounced against
The Tragedy of
138 the servant
who would
not use his pound,
our hearts grow bewildered for a moment. It
seems
comes
By and by
like contradiction.
this
sobering thought
:
If
"Take from him the pound,"
said,
Jesus
must
it
have been because such was the only thing left to say.
Depend upon it, he used the He was the least ar-
best word, always.
Teacher
bitrary
world
the
has
seen.
The
truths he uttered were written, not,
like
Luther's sacramental word, upon a
table,
but in the constitution of the world.
They would have been
the
same though
he had never walked the lanes and
fields
of Galilee.
The
theologians used to divide them-
selves into hostile
camps over the ques-
tion as to whether a thing is true because
God true.
says so, or he says I
word
because
it
is
do not think Jesus would have
hesitated a latter
it
moment
premise. that
to rest his case
He
brought
on the
men
the
was wrought up with the na-
ture of the case; forgiveness or condem-
The Uninvested Pound
The
nation.
139
earth would continue to re-
volve about the sun though the old as-
The
tronomy had never been changed.
geography of our planet would be the
same
The
after the
physiologists
for
maps of
were burned up.
it
lungs would need air even
human If
truth.
must,"
it
were dead.
life abides,
if all
Jesus'
because
it
the
word is
the
he said to Nicodemus, "You
was because not
all
good
spirits
could remove the necessity underlying. If
he told the lawyer, "This do and thou
shalt live,"
it
was because there was no
other conceivable If,
life."
manded that he
way
to "inherit eternal
on another occasion, he com-
the rich
young
had "and give
ruler to sell all
to the poor,"
it
was
because the young man's riches were a perfect insulator to grace divine.
So
as concerns this parable before us.
It is possible to stir
up considerable sym-
pathy with the unfaithful steward.
It
seems hard that the poor fellow should lose the only
pound that stood between
The Tragedy of
140
He had
him and beggary. pressed with
master's
his
manner; he made so esty it
evidently so
of the trading talent; he
little
fine a
when he rendered
was
so op-
austerity
of
show of mod-
his account, that
seems there ought to have been some
kinder word than that which robbed him
Ah, but he lived for the
of his pound.
crushing word he heard that day.
The
whole universe would indeed be out of joint if trust is
in
it
it
allowed a creature to keep the
God's universe
not use.
will
league to help the
pound earn other
ten,
and
the uninvested treasure.
most generous say.
He
it
was
well-invested to take
away
Jesus said the
possible for
him
to
announced, as bearing on this
case, a truth tire universe,
which runs through the en-
from the simplest cosmic
processes to the fitting up of souls for
heaven.
There
is
abused power to do Let It
but one thing for an
—
that
is,
me open this thought
to die.
for our lesson.
used to be one of the favorite argu-
The Uninvested Pound
141
ments for theism that God has so marvelously adjusted his creation as to please
our eyes with seeing and charm our ears with the melody of sound.
would go out in to
Theologians
to enjoy a sunset
and come
thank God for favoring them with
so spectacular a performance. listen to the bird
They would
song of the forest or
the subtler music of the trees and bless
hand which brought such melody
the
within the register of the
And now
modern
the
spoiled all that
by
human
ear.
scientists
have
insisting that the
world
was not made to fit the eye, but that the eye was developed so as to take in the beauties of the world; not that musical
sounds were invented to ravish ears, but, that, tient
evolution,
human
through long ages of pa-
God
fashioned
an
in-
strument so delicate as to find harmony in the twitter of a
song bird and the
breathing of the breezes I best.
am
among
frank to say, I like the
It increases
my
the trees.
new
creed
reverence for the
The Tragedy of
142 Creator.
turns every highway into a
It
But
temple.
I
mention
it
just
now
for the
purpose of emphasizing the teaching of
our parable. In
all
the wonderful
adjustments of
cosmic evolution Nature observes one un-
varying law.
She
economical ever.
is
withdraws the uninvested
silently
She atrophies the unused mem-
pound. ber.
She
She demands back the unapprecia-
what
means
ted talent.
This
fishes of the
Mammoth Cave
is
it
that the
have no
eyes.
Nature refused to make eyes for creatures that
would not use them.
It
is
conceivable that the progenitors of the present sightless fish were the
denizens
of
own
our
endowed
like
streams and
oceans.
But away from sunlight they had
no use
for eyes, and gradually the pow-
er of seeing failed until to-day they are
Nature revoked the
as blind as stone. gift that
was not put
Among
into service.
the nursery rhymes that some-
times run through
my
head
is
one about
The Uninvested Pound
143
the great auk which could neither walk
nor
fly.
Modern
serted the air
The
science tells us why.
auk became a famous swimmer.
He
and land for the water.
failed to use his
paddles, and so
de-
He
wings and legs except as
it
came
and legs both shriveled
to pass that until he
wings
was
prac-
By
divine
decree Nature declined to furnish
mem-
tically helpless
out of water.
bers that were perverted from their use.
There
is in
Africa a peculiar type of ape
which evolutionists have made famous
by reason of the
human.
his supposed kinship with I refer to the tailless ape.
Whatever be his theological importance, is no mystery about the way he came
there
to lose his
he
tail.
forsook
There came a time when
tree-climbing
for
walking.
Tails were no longer needed by apes that
no longer swung from
trees
;
consequently
Nature quietly withdrew the investment.
We have lost certain powers on the same wise. We cannot begin to see with the acuteness of the hawk. We lack the del-
The Tragedy
144
of
hearing of the dog. We well a score of things do are unable to the aborigine could do, simply because icate sense of
by reason of our enfranchisement from the necessity he knew, Nature has taken
away the unneeded special qualifications. The inert hand must wither. The unused foot grows helpless. The musician must Nature
practice every day. useless
But observe the truth rise
palsies the
member.
and
fall
of nations
The
in history.
mark
the move-
ment of God's purpose. Nothing on the page of history nation
is
is
more
clear than that a
invincible so long as she keeps
her special talent well invested.
When
the day comes in which she forgets her
mission and wraps her peculiar function in a napkin, she is
were magnificent work.
As Paul
doomed. The Hebrews in
their
says of them,
providential
"Unto them
were committed the oracles of God."
was
their business to teach the
peerless
lesson.
They were
It
world a intrusted
The Uninvested Pound with a matchless using
it
God
While they were
gift.
to enrich the world, they
When
unconquerable. special
145
endowment them off.
were
they buried their
in idolatry
and shame,
cast
Rome had
a unique field and appoint-
ment on God's
She was God's
calendar.
servant as truly as, though for a different
She had a work to do in preparing the world for the coming of the King. She was granted a special
purpose than,
Israel.
And
power, a peculiar genius.
the ex-
planation of her shameful downfall
God
is
that
refused to honor her longer with a
talent she
would not
use.
Statesmen are
prophesying the speedy dismemberment
and dissolution of China. pointing that way. terrible retribution
It
The
signs are
looks as
if
some
were overtaking her;
was grown when Greece and Rome were born, were near as
if
the nation that
her end.
If so
it
proves
—
if
the next few
years are to witness the total downfall of that vast empire 10
—
it
must be because she
The Tragedy of
146
has been recreant to some solemn trust
committed to
Ichabod
her.
ten until a steward is
In certain respects
is
never writ-
found untrue.
we Americans have
been accorded the rarest privileges within the gift of God. triotic
so
It is
no wonder the pa-
orator becomes excited
much
to say.
a beautiful
We
—there
is
have been granted
work among
We
the nations.
are the expounders of the truth of Jesus Christ.
We
are to incarnate his wonder-
to
We
Gospel in gracious living forms.
ful
are to be light and
men.
But our
warmth and bread
ability
must some day
become our shame unless we credly.
If
it
it
sa-
ever comes to pass, as some
grewsome prophets say eats
treat
it will,
that greed
up our brotherliness and sensuality
shuts out the vision of the King,
we
shall
need another Bulwer to write the "Last
Days of
the
issue depends
pound.
God
We
takes
The
American Republic."
upon our investment of our making history to-day.
are
away no
treasure that
is
put
The Uninvested Pound
He
to active use.
we
us so long as
will
147
have blessings for
continue to use his gift But, to withdraw the
to bless the world.
unprofitable power; to revoke the unap-
preciated trust; to ied talent that he is
demand back
may
give
it
the bur-
to another,
God's method everywhere.
Now
I
want
to bring this truth
still
Darwin that was passionately fond of poetry and music. God had given him an nearer home.
It is said of
in early life he
unusual love for the
Under
aesthetic.
or-
dinary circumstances he might have be-
come a poet or a musician. But he deliberately turned away from such things to a
life
latter
And
of devotion to science.
in his
days he used to confess with sadness
he had so far
lost his
former loves that
both music and poetry were distasteful to him. the
I
do not raise the question as to
wisdom of
thorized
to
more deeply
his choice.
say
that
he
No
one
would
blessed the world as
meters than as
man
of science.
is
au-
have
man
He
of
left
The Tragedy of
148
The point I make which we have been trac-
a monumental work. is this
:
the truth
ing through other realms, the hard truth of the unemployed pound, has tration here.
by
thetic taste
had
Darwin
its
illus-
forfeited his aes-
failure to cultivate
God
it.
to revoke the talent his gifted stew-
ard would not use.
And
this is the
tragedy whose repeti-
tion in the lives of countless children of
God,
is filling
rience of
men
neglected, pears.
It is
that
the
any
common
expe-
gift, persistently
grows poor and
An
unmelody
the world with
and weariness.
finally disap-
adult takes longer than a child
to learn a foreign tongue.
A
six-year-
old will be speaking French fluently before his senior has mastered the
The
grammar.
explanation is that the child puts out
his talent to speedy use, while the adult is
trying to
exhume
a talent that has been
buried for twenty years.
Let a
man grow
up without exercise of the faculty of son and, at
fifty,
rea-
you can no more convince
The Uninvested Pound
149
him by argument than you can move a house by blandishments.
memory and
lect his
man
neg-
Let him cultivate an unloving
blank. spirit
Let a
the past becomes a
and the capacity
to love will die.
Let him persistently shut his eyes to the
"whatsoever things are true
—and honest"
and he eventually becomes blind best beauties of to
do to
wrap I
forfeit
in a
it
have
human
life.
to the
All one need
an immortal power
is
to
napkin of disuse.
sometimes thought that the
most heart-breaking surprise the future can afford will be a sight of the unused
powers of ities
this present life, the possibil-
of doing and becoming, as in heed-
lessness their stewards buried them.
Only
he that loaned the pound can know the tragedy of failing to employ it. And I think
it
dition,
make a man's perstewards are making
will suffice to
when
other
their returns, to realize the
"might have
been" of manhood.
There are other criminals besides those
The Tragedy
ISO
of
and violence. The soul that negan opportunity or wastes a privilege
of blood lects
or buries a holy gift,
God, a criminal.
is,
He
in the sight of
has committed a
felony against himself and Heaven.
But of
all
is
true
other powers and faculties, as
have seen,
is still
more
possible, of the highest
true, if that
power of
soul's capacity of receiving is
What
this truth leads on.
God.
footfall of
:
the
Science
She makes a
doing wonderful things.
diaphragm so
all
we
were
sensitive as to register the
an insect and record music a
thousand miles away.
She can take a sun-
beam and, passing it through
a prism upon
a globe in which certain chemicals are
mixed, can make the sunbeam sing.
She
knows how to send up a wire and bring back news of the meteorological condiShe even names the tions in the clouds. composition of the stars. But an immortal
did.
spirit
The
has powers even more splenspirit
within a
icately adjusted that
it
man
is
so del^
can be conscious
The Uninvested Pound of the approach of
life.
The
recognize his
moves down the corridors
footstep as he
of
God and
151
soul can translate the "glory
shining in the face of Jesus Christ" into
marching psalms
for
days
active
"songs for the night season."
up
its
living wire of faith
and comes back
with a knowledge of the "will, as
done
in heaven."
and sends
It
It sets its
it
is
spectrum and
declares the glory of the land
beyond the
stars.
Think of not using such a power. Think of shutting the grandest windows and doors and endeavoring of trying to be a
full
to live.
Think
man, a complete
woman, without admitting him who holds the pattern of all character. Then think that what happens to every other faculty, unused, happens also to this immortal one.
Think of having
it
said concerning the
capacity of receiving God, fore the talent I hear
men
"Take
there-
had no
talent
from him."
talk as if they
for spiritual things.
There
is
a wave of
152 Tragedy of the Uninvested Pound
and
agnosticism
Men
shores.
they do not feel the
insist
They
need of God.
upon our
secularism
are shrugging their
shoulders at the mention of religious duty.
They
care less and less for churchly helps.
I think
facts
mean simply
must have wrapped
in a
but the If
They
this.
napkin and bur-
The
ied their highest power.
not the
man who had no man who refused to
skeptic
is
spiritual talent,
invest
it.
an arm becomes nerveless by hang-
ing at one's side,
if
the bandaged eye
loses ultimately the ability to see, else
own
they ought to be ashamed to
Such
it.
what
can happen to the hand that never
reaches out to take the Divine? the eye that never opens
to
behold his glory?
The more
delicate the power, the
carefully a
man must who
be some here
Soon or
late it
every unused
treat
There may
need this message.
must be said concerning
gift,
though
pacity for receiving God,
the pound."
it.
more
it
be the ca-
"Take from him
VIII
THE TRAGEDY OF THE SILVER PIECES
VIII
THE TRAGEDY OF THE SILVER PIECES "And he
cast
down
the pieces of silver in the temple,
and departed, and went and hanged himself."— Matt, xxvii, 5.
What
a scene
it
must have been as
Judas flung the infamous the rulers'
feet.
ceeded, perhaps intended.
From
silver pieces at
His treachery had sucmore fearfully than he the indescribably beau-
room he had
tiful
occasion in the upper
gone
forth, the night before, to
rulers.
I
meet the
fancy he had no difficulty in
finding them.
He was
evidently expected.
He had been commissioned to lay the train over which they might flash the murder-
ous spark of their hate.
And
he brought
news that everything was ready. In an hour or more they might arrest his the
Master
in the garden, whither,
disciples, it
he would be sure to go.
had come to
pass.
with the
And
Apprehended
so
in the
The Tragedy of
156
darkness of an unfrequented spot, betrayed by the tenderest symbol and expression of affection, laid hold of by hands
way to common
of hired ruffians, Jesus was on his the high priest's palace as
a
if
felon.
And have
Judas had the silver!
sifted the shining pieces
fingers as he
He
must
through his
watched his Master disapPerhaps he took
pearing in the gloom.
them out and mechanically counted them while he followed at a distance. later
he
light of
may have
A
little
held one up in the twi-
Caiaphas's hall and studied
with sadness.
Somehow
it
the familiar im-
age of Caesar seemed fading out, and its
the
in
place stood forth the beautiful face of
Man he had betrayed.
mockery of a
away
trial
Then, when the
was over and Jesus
led
to die, the betrayer could stand the
agony no longer.
The
stained with blood.
heavy as a millstone.
coins felt already
Each piece was
And
as
in remorseful
frenzy Judas fairly ran into the temple
and flung the money
at the rulers' feet.
The I
know
157
Silver Pieces
that I have already opened the
question as to the real character of Judas.
Was Was
he as black as John has painted him ? he the unmitigated scoundrel of the
Twelve? the wretch on three years' care
who
never
thought?
whom
a Saviour's
was wasted ? a reprobate one
entertained
Or was
he, as
the disciple of most exalted faith liever
honest
some have
said,
the be-
?
who, in supreme assurance of his
Master's kingship, was willing to put the
matter to a test? the friend
who
entered
into a seeming conspiracy with the rulers,
and took
their
murderous money into
his
hand, in order to expedite the establish-
ment of the Redeemer's kingdom
in the
a problem.
Ear-
earth?
I confess it is
nest Christians have championed the latter
view. ally,
The German
theologians, gener-
have contended that Judas was mis-
understood.
De Quincey
maintained that
was not in the sinister sense that his movements during Pas-
the betrayer
a traitor sion
;
Week were
intended, not to retard
The Tragedy of
158
No
but to advance, Christ's mission. a
less
churchman than Archbishop Whately
wrote
:
"The and
cariot
fellow-apostles
his
though they tions
difference between Judas Is-
was
that
had the same expecta-
all
and conjectures, he dared to
on
act
The reasoning was, of course, fallacious, but the reasoner was honest. An eminent member of the New York
his."
bar has thrown his forensic defense
of
With
Judas.
skill into
the
peculiar
the
adroitness of the legal profession; inter-
preting every circumstance in the light of a verdict to be
won; reading
into cer-
tain passages a kinder sense than that in
which they have commonly been viewed,
and reading out of other passages the
damaging testimony, he has put up such a case as would probably suffice to secure acquittal for his
any ordinary prisoner unless
name happened
glad
I
do not have
the evidence.
It is
to be Judas.
to pass
I
am
judgment upon
unnecessary for
me
to
be certified as to the working of the be-
The trayer
come
s heart.
to light
1S9
Silver Pieces
Unless some new records
we
need to leave the
shall
case just where the Bible leaves
it.
But whether or not Judas was the "son of perdition;" whether his reason was criminally
good or criminally
whether he took the
defective;
silver for his pay, or
merely to throw the conspirators as to his real intention, this
off
much
guard cer-
is
tain: he played the role of villain in the
darkest tragedy of
the ages, and he
all
held in his palm the price for which the
Son of God had been friend
!
sold out
his
Black heart or white, he has car-
ried for nineteen centuries the traitor.
by
name
His error was immortal.
of
And
the lessons of the silver pieces are sub-
no matter what our
stantially the same,
view of Judas.
The
first
lesson I
want
paltriness of the pay.
I
to notice
is,
can guess the
the in-
creasing horror with which the betrayer
viewed the
coins.
He
never thought
teen dollars could look so small.
fif-
We have
The Tragedy of
160
no record of his emotions as the pieces
were
first
silver
poured into his hand, but
the longer he stared at
them the meaner
they seemed to grow.
They
reward
his
They were
for all
terrible night's
ing back.
infidelity
He saw
three short years
Scenes kept com-
again the beautiful
through the
—and he looked
money
again.
Eyes as he
dipped in the sop with Jesus
—and
he
He
re-
stared at the coins in his hand.
word
all
had seen the Masat the
recalled the anguish of the
peated the last
at the
He remembered
the gracious things he
He
it
—and he looked
price in his hand.
do
shame.
he had to show for his
work.
Face as he had followed
ter
represented
and
that Jesus
had spo-
ken to him as he was leaving the upper
room the night before; a word of kindness, a word of unexampled pity, a word that
ought to have palsied his treacher-
ous feet in their track
—and he glared
the silver in his hand.
He
at
could hardly
believe himself capable of such unparal-
The
leled offense, but there
his
hand
161
Silver Pieces
were the coins
in
O, the remorse with which he
!
bore them to the temple, and the fury
with which he flung them on the pave-
ment
They were
!
The
the price of Jesus
"pleasures of sin" never seem so
pitifully
mean as when we hold them up manhood and womanhood
the
against
they have cost.
Indulgence
in its true light until
terms
we
is
The reward
its cost.
never seen
estimate in moral of dishonor
needs only to be computed against the thing betrayed.
This
the burden of Ecclesiastes. Sol-
is
omon was
He was
simply taking account of stock.
striking a balance at the close of
the business of a
whose footing
life.
is like
God
pity the
Solomon's
!
He
man had
been selling out for baubles the immortal furniture of the soul.
He
had been en-
gaged in bartering chastity, temperance, self-control for sensual indulgence.
lifetime; 11
He
pawning process for a and when he came to tally the
had kept up the
The Tragedy of
162 results,
heart,
when he realized when he counted
pieces for
his poverty of off
the paltry
which he had sold out God,
do not wonder he declared that
"all
I is
vanity."
History
us that Benedict Arnold
tells
had an opportunity traitor's lot.
I
am
to test the value of a
sure the price must
have appeared munificent to Arnold while he was completing arrangements for the
West
surrender of
Point.
He
had not
the faintest idea of impoverishing him-
Men
self.
are never guilty of such crimes
out of pure gratuity.
The reward must
always
though
be
in
sight,
it
be
no
better than the gratification of revenge.
Benedict Arnold fancied he was bettering himself
when he agreed with Andre upon
He would
a price.
and
rich
!
As
be lionized and feted
a matter of history he did
some thirty thousand dollars in money and a colonelcy in a British regireceive
ment.
But the
had sold out
silver pieces for
his country
which he
proved a
pitiful
The price indeed.
I
fancy him counting them
Wherever he went
off against his loss.
men
163
Silver Pieces
shunned him.
Talleyrand refused
And
to be introduced to the traitor.
after
a bitter life he died unloved, unmourned,
despised by two continents of men, hav-
ing learned the lesson of the silver pieces.
Everybody is familiar with the dirge Byron wrote as he neared the end of the journey "
My
days are in the yellow leaf
The flowers and fruits of love The worm, the canker, and the Are mine alone
The
fire
grief
!
on my bosom preys some volcanic isle
that
Is lone as
No
are gone
torch
is
;
kindled at
its
blaze
A funeral pile." That
is
the wail of a soul that had reached
the place where Judas
Byron thought
when he
stood
counted over the silver pieces.
No
for years that he
ing a good time.
He would
doubt
was hav-
have been
loath to exchange places with a "sobersides" or Puritan.
He had
gotten hold
The Tragedy
164
of the right end of
life,
of
seemed.
it
He
was enjoying the fruits and flowers along the way. He had apparently made an advantageous trade of scruple for enjoy-
But the
ment.
very
much
as
—too
contrary I
lines I
have quoted sound
he had discovered the
if
late
need not, however, speak of Solomon
or Arnold or Byron.
who have
I
know modern men
sold out business honor for an
extra dividend or a few thousand un-
worthy
dollars.
I
know husbands who
have closed out their interest in a beautiful
home and a
children's
wife's
affection
and
reverence for the sake of a
passing liaison.
I
know women who have womanhood
given up the best things in for a career of display
falsehood.
I
and
know young
forfeiting their
flattery
people
who
the path.
are
hope of being useful in
the world for a handful of glinting ver, for the
and
sil-
glamour of indulgence along
And
I say,
God
pity
them when
they wake to a realization of what they
The
Only Heaven knows the
have done! tragedies
165
Silver Pieces
have been enacted over
that
Judas "went out and
such discovery.
hanged himself"
in his despair.
Many
a
poor, distracted soul has gone out into
the dark rather than face the awful conse-
quences of his
at the is
that
erties life
is
a
soon enough.
We
travel
through
heedless of suggestion, defiant of con-
science,
reckless
some day few
sin.
way which seemeth right beginning." The trouble with us we fail to appraise our best prop-
"There
find
of
and
consequences;
ourselves staring at the
silver pieces in
—
our palm
the world's
pitiful
pay for our unfaithfulness or
son.
Friends,
we need
long forward look.
trea-
to cultivate the
We
must learn to
assay the coin the devil proposes to give.
We
must be able
to take in our
hand the
and jingle it in the ear of Heaven, and take one more look price of wantonness,
into the face of Jesus; that
we may
be
spared the agony which broke a Judas's heart and
filled
a world with sadness.
The Tragedy of
166
But
thought leads naturally to the
this
second moral old tragedy
I
from
to point
—
There
wrong.
want
the futility of trying to is
this
undo
hardly a sadder scene
in history than that of
Judas attempting
to stay the ruin himself
had started; to
money at It was the
that end, throwing the wretched
the feet of priests and elders.
natural thing to do. lainous as science
has
If
Judas was as
men have made him,
And
he
over thousands
of
was evidently not dead.
this
advantage
vil-
his con-
other betrayers of the Master, that he re-
fused to keep the proceeds of his crime.
But Judas's repentance came too tardily. The mischief had been done. His Master
was in the hands of his enemies at last. The malice of the rulers and the machinery of law would accomplish what remained to
complete the tragedy.
silver pieces, or
Not twenty
twenty thousand
pieces,
would buy back the tender Christ from maddened clutches. Judas might stand throwing coins upon the temple floor; he
The
Silver Pieces
167
might as well have poured water upon a rock as the means of diverting a comet
from
We
course.
its
That
the
is
way our world
is
built.
cannot undo the wrongs of which we
have been
guilty.
An
act once
committed
passes beyond a man's control.
comes
can never take of a
It
be-
his contribution to the world; he
good
it
complishing
its
And
evil that,
it
will
is
the glory
still
be ac-
gracious mission, though
the heart that gave child.
This
back.
deed, that
it is
birth, repudiate its
it
part of the diabolism of
"the evil that
men do
lives after
them," and will curse the world in spite of their tardy tears and protests.
man
action
ocean;
its
est shore.
pieces
is
is
Hu-
a pebble flung into the
result will be felt
The time
on the remot-
to return the silver
before they have done their work.
After the scene in the Garden they are helpless to affect the result.
Do you
find
temple scene?
your likeness in that vivid
There are men who would
The Tragedy of
168
give ten years of
to the
life
undoing of
What thoughts some former wrong. come back unbidden How we remember How things we would we might forget near no one there is when burn our cheeks !
!
and our hearts sink before the
to see,
audible, accusing voice
conscience
stirs.
!
Life
is hell
was only an angry
It
word, perhaps; but the world
men who
in-
when
is
full of
are broken-hearted because they
Will
cannot get back the unkind word.
Carleton touched a multitude of guilty hearts
when he wrote
in his quaint,
rough
style
" Boys
white-winged birds do that way when you're flying words. Thoughts unexpressed may sometimes fall back dead But God himself can't kill them when they're said
You
flying kites haul in their
;
can't
;
!
It
was only an unloving
cial
trick,
a commer-
act,
an unchaste indulgence,
ten,
twenty, years ago; but the years have failed to
man who
expunge the record. refused
to
give
a
And
thousand
times the price of an unforgotten to take
it
back,
the
would not be human.
sin,
The
169
Silver Pieces
Not long ago
the
tained an account of a
newspapers con-
man who had
a considerable portion of his
spent
life in false
Twenty years he had been wearing out his manhood in a cell, while the real culprit was rejoicing in the pos-
imprisonment.
session of prosperity
and freedom.
But
conscience lived; and at length the criminal
confessed, the doors were opened,
and the gaunt, grizzled inmate was
Had
to go.
made
the criminal
it
free
right?
Who would return the years ? Who could turn back the hands on the clock? talk about restitution. it
It is
Men
never made;
never can be made, except in the legal
Judas might carry back the
sense.
pieces I
;
the crime remained.
remember the instance of a man who
came one day, church. story.
away,
in great agony, to join the
With streaming
eyes he told his
His beautiful wife had her
dearest
wish
Throughout the years of life
silver
just passed ungratified.
their married
she had never ceased to plead with
The Tragedy of
170
him
She had used evwoman.
to be a Christian.
ery argument within the gift of
And
he,
sometimes snappishly and some-
times with an oath, had turned her pleadings aside.
And now
that she
was gone
he wanted to walk up the aisle which she
had so often traversed, to stand where she had stood, to kneel where she had knelt to partake of the
to
bread and the wine, and
acknowledge her Saviour as his Sav-
was a beautiful thing to It was the most beautiful thing that do. But it could not he could have done. take away the sting, for this is what he iour too!
It
"O,
sir,
said:
just long
I could
if
enough for her
thing, I could let her
have her back
to see
me
do
this
go without a mur-
mur."
Esau "found no though he sought It is the
carefully with tears."
staggering fact of
never can regain
The
it
place of repentance,
all it
life
that a soul
has forfeited.
other moral I want to point from
the silver pieces
is this
:
the heartless an-
The
swer to a heart-broken cruel
words the
das, as
171
Silver Pieces
They were
plea.
priests hissed out at Ju-
he came bringing back the money
for which he
had sold the
Christ.
He
might have expected kinder treatment.
He
had betrayed
their
Master to help on
his
murderous design.
And now
that
he craved one kindly word, one sympa-
had nothing but sneers
thetic look, they
and taunts
Has
it
ey.
aside.
The
ever been different?
place for a
who have
Like a sucked
to offer him.
orange they flung him
man
to
go
is
to
the
last
men
helped him spend his mon-
The most unyielding door
a desperate sinner ever knocks of the rascals
who have
treachery and crime.
Magdalens who
travel
is
at
profited
How many our
which
the door
streets
get better than a cuff or a curse
by his of the
would if
they
men to whom they womanhood? People talk about "honor among thieves." How often will a criminal jeopardize his own neck were
to turn to the
sold out their
Tragedy of the
172
Silver Pieces I tell you, the
to save that of his pal?
world has no served
its
pity for the souls that have
low purposes.
agents to the dogs
Judas tried
this door,
Alas
Evil flings it
!
and finding
he did not
no other heart
is
open, a
Such
might is
it
shut
know that, when man can go back
to the very Christ he has betrayed.
Judas
its
has used them.
"went out and hanged him-
in his face, self."
when
have
the Gospel of
found
God
Even
forgiveness!
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