Bible Tragedies [1900 ed.]

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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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