Part 3
impressive Life, "by this time was well turned fifty, but he rose as early and was as soon at his desk as when he was still a new, enthusiastic,
and scrupulously methodical student at Cambridge." Summer and
winter Law rose to his devotions and his studies at five o'clock, not
because he had imperative sermons to prepare, but because, in his
own words, it is more reasonable to suppose a person up early
because he is a Christian than because he is a labourer or a tradesman
or a servant. I have a great deal of business to do, he would say. I have
a hardened heart to change; I have still the whole spirit of religion to
get. When Law at any time felt a temptation to relax his rule of early
devotion, he again reminded himself how fast he was becoming an old
man, and how far back his sanctification still was, till he flung himself
out of bed and began to make himself a new heart before the servants
had lighted their fires or the farmers had yoked their horses. Shame
on you, he said to himself, to lie folded up in a bed when you might be
pouring out your heart in prayer and in praise, and thus be preparing
yourself for a place among those blessed beings who rest not day and
night saying, Holy, Holy, Holy. "I have little to do this morning," said Mrs. Timorous. "But I am preparing for a journey," said Christiana. "I have now a price put into my hand to get gain, and I should be a fool of
the greatest size if I should have no heart to strike in with the
opportunity."
Another thing that completely threw out Christiana's idle visitor
and made her downright angry was the way she would finger and kiss
and read pieces out of the fragrant letter she held in her hand. You will
remember how Christiana came by that letter she was now so fond of.
"Here," said Secret, "is a letter I have brought thee from thy husband's King." So she took it and opened it, and it smelt after the manner of
the best perfume; also it was written in letters of gold. "I advise thee,"
said Secret, "that thou put this letter in thy bosom, that thou read
therein to thy children until you have all got it by root-of-heart." "His messenger was here," said Christiana to Mrs. Timorous, "and has
brought me a letter which invites me to come." And with that she
plucked out the letter and read to her out of it, and said: "What now
do you say to all that?" That, again, is so true to our own life. For there is nothing that more distastes and disrelishes many people among us
than just that we should name to them our favourite books, and read a
passage out of them, and ask them to say what they think of such wonderful words. Samuel Rutherford's Letters, for instance; a book
that smells to some nostrils with the same heavenly perfume as
Secret's own letter did. A book, moreover, that is written in the same
ink of gold. Ask at afternoon tea to-morrow, even in so-called Christian
homes, when any of the ladies round the table last read, and how
often they have read, Grace Abounding, The Saint's Rest, The Religious
Affections, Jeremy Taylor, Law, a Kempis, Fenelon, or such like, and
they will smile to one another and remark after you are gone on your
strange taste for old-fashioned and long-winded and introspective
books. "Julia has buried her husband and married her daughters, and
since that she spends her time in reading. She is always reading
foolish and unedifying books. She tells you every time she sees you
that she is almost at the end of the silliest book that ever she read in
her life. But the best of it is that it serves to dispose of a good deal of
her spare time. She tells you all romances are sad stuff, yet she is very
impatient till she can get all she can hear of. Histories of intrigue and
scandal are the books that Julia thinks are always too short. The truth
is, she lives upon folly and scandal and impertinence. These things are
the support of her dull hours. And yet she does not see that in all this
she is plainly telling you that she is in a miserable, disordered,
reprobate state of mind. Now, whether you read her books or no, you
perhaps think with her that it is a dull task to read only religious and
especially spiritual books. But when you have the spirit of true
religion, when you can think of God as your only happiness, when you
are not afraid of the joys of eternity, you will think it a dull task to read
any other books. When it is the care of your soul to be humble, holy,
pure, and heavenly-minded; when you know anything of the guilt and
misery of sin, or feel a real need of salvation, then you will find
religious and truly spiritual books to be the greatest feast and joy of
your mind and heart." Yes. And then we shall thank God every day we
live that He raised us up such helpers in our salvation as the gifted and
gracious authors we have been speaking of.
"The further I go the more danger I meet with," said old
Timorous, the father, to Christian, when Christian asked him on the
Hill Difficulty why he was running the wrong way. "I, too, was going to
the City of Zion," he said; "but the further on I go the more danger I 61
meet with." And, in saying that, the old runaway gave our persevering pilgrim something to think about for all his days. For, again and again,
and times without number, Christian would have gone back too if only
he had known where to go. Go on, therefore, he must. To go back to
him was simply impossible. Every day he lived he felt the bitter truth
of what that old apostate had so unwittingly said. But, with all that he
kept himself in his onward way till, dangers and difficulties, death and
hell and all, he came to the blessed end of it. And that same has been
the universal experience of all the true and out-and-out saints of God
in all time. If poor old Timorous had only known it, if he had only had
some one beside him to remind him of it, the very thing that so fatally
turned him back was the best proof possible that he was on the right
and the only right way; ay, and fast coming, poor old castaway, to the
very city he had at one time set out to seek. Now, it is only too likely
that there are some of my hearers at this with it to-night, that they are
on the point of giving up the life of faith, and hope, and love, and holy
living; because the deeper they carry that life into their own hearts
the more impossible they find it to live that life there. The more they
aim their hearts at God's law the more they despair of ever coming
within sight of it. My supremely miserable brother! if this is any
consolation to you, if you can take any crumb of consolation out of it,
let this be told you, that, as a matter of fact, all truly holy men have in
their heart of hearts had your very experience. That is no strange and
unheard-of thing which is passing within you. And, indeed, if you
could but believe it, that is one of the surest signs and seals of a true
and genuine child of God. Dante, one of the bravest, but hardest
bestead of God's saints, was, just like you, well-nigh giving up the
mountain altogether when his Greatheart, who was always at his side,
divining what was going on within him, said to him -
"Those scars
That when they pain thee most then kindliest heal."
"The more I do," complained one of Thomas Shepard's best
friends to him, "the worse I am." "The best saints are the most sensible of sin," wrote Samuel Rutherford. And, again he wrote, "Sin rages far more in the godly than ever it does in the ungodly." And you dare not
deny but that Samuel Rutherford was one of the holiest men that ever
lived, or that in saying all that he was speaking of himself. And
Newman: "Every one who tries to do God's will" - and that also is Newman himself - "will feel himself to be full of all imperfection and
sin; and the more he succeeds in regulating his heart, the more will he
discern its original bitterness and guilt."
As our own hymn has it:
"They who fain would serve Thee best
Are conscious most of wrong within."
Without knowing it, Mrs. Timorous's runaway father was
speaking the same language as the chief of the saints. Only he said,
"Therefore I have turned back," whereas, first Christian, and then
Christiana his widow, said, "Yet I must venture!" And so say you. Say, I must and I will venture! Say it; clench your teeth and your hands and
say it. Say that you are determined to go on towards heaven where the
holy are - absolutely determined, though you are quite well aware that
you are carrying up with you the blackest, the wickedest, the most
corrupt, and the most abominable heart either out of hell or in it. Say
that, say all that, and still venture. Say all that and all the more
venture. Venture upon God of whom such reassuring things are said.
Venture upon the Son of God of whom His Father is represented as
saying such inviting things. Venture upon the cross.
Survey the wondrous cross and then make a bold venture upon it.
Think who that is who is bleeding to death upon the cross, and why?
Look at Him till you never afterwards can see anything else. Look at
God's Eternal, Divine, Well-pleasing Son with all the wages of sin dealt
out to Him, body and soul, on that tree to the uttermost farthing. And,
devil incarnate though you indeed are, yet, say, if that spectacle does
not satisfy you, and encourage you, and carry your cowardice captive.
Venture! I say, venture! And if you find at last that you have
ventured too far - if you have sinned and corrupted yourself beyond
redemption - then it will be some consolation and distinction to you in
hell that you had out-sinned the infinite grace of God, and had seen
the end of the unsearchable riches of Christ. Timid sinner, I but mock
thee, therefore venture! Fearful sinner, venture! Cowardly sinner,
venture. Venture thyself upon thy God, upon Christ thy Saviour, and
upon His cross. Venture all thy guilt and all thy corruption taken
together upon Christ hanging upon His cross, and make that
tremendous venture now!
MERCY
"Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." - Our Lord.
The first time that we see Mercy she is standing one sunshine
morning knocking along with another at Christiana's door. And all that
we afterwards hear of Mercy might be described as, A morning call
and all that came of it; or, How a godly matron led on a poor maid to
fall in love with her own salvation. John Bunyan, her biographer, in all
his devotion to Mercy, does not make it at all clear to us why such a
sweet and good girl as Mercy was could be on such intimate terms
with Mrs. Timorous and all her so questionable circle. Could it be that
Mercy's mother was one of that unhappy set? And had this dear little
woman-child been brought up so as to know no better than to figure
in their assemblies, and go out on their morning rounds with Mrs.
Light-mind and Mrs. Know-nothing? Or, was poor Mercy an orphan
with no one to watch over her, and had her sweet face, her handsome
figure, and her winning manners made her one of the attractions of
old Madam Wanton's midnight routs? However it came about, there
was Mercy out on a series of morning calls with a woman twice her
age, but a woman whose many years had taught her neither
womanliness nor wisdom. "If you come in God's name, come in," a
voice from the inside answered the knocking of Mrs. Timorous and
Mercy, her companion, at Christiana's door. In all their rounds that
morning the two women had not been met with another salutation
like that; and that strange salutation so disconcerted and so
confounded them that they did not know whether to lift the latch and
go in, or to run away and leave those to go in who could take their
delight in such outlandish language. "If you come in God's name, come
in." At this the women were stunned, for this kind of language they
used not to hear or to perceive to drop from the lips of Christiana. Yet
they came in; but, behold, they found the good woman preparing to be
gone from her house. The conversation that ensued was all carried on
by the two elder women. For it was often remarked about Mercy all
her after-days that her voice was ever soft, and low, and, especially,
seldom heard. But her ears were not idle. For all the time the debate
went on - because by this time the conversation had risen to be a
debate - Mercy was taking silent sides with Christiana and her distress
and her intended enterprise, till, when Mrs. Timorous reviled
Christiana and said, "Come away, Mercy, and leave her in her own hands," Mercy by that time was brought to a standstill. For, like a rose
among thorns, Mercy was thoughtful and wise and womanly far
beyond her years. So much so, that already she had made up her mind
to offer herself as a maidservant to help the widow with her work and
to see her so far on her way, and, indeed, though she kept that to
herself, to go all the way with her, if the way should prove open to her.
First, her heart yearned over Christiana; so she said within herself, If
my neighbour will needs be gone, I will go a little way with her to help
her. Secondly, her heart yearned over her own soul's salvation, for
what Christiana had said had taken some hold upon Mercy's mind.
Wherefore she said within herself, I will yet have more talk with this
Christiana, and if I find truth and life in what she shall say, myself with
all my heart shall also go with her. "Neighbour," spoke out Mercy to Mrs. Timorous,
"I did indeed come with you to see Christiana this morning, and
since she is, as you see, a-taking of her last farewell of her country, I
think to walk this sunshine morning a little way with her to help her
on the way." But she told her not of her second reason, but kept that to
herself. I would fain go on with Mercy's memoirs all night. But you will
take up that inviting thread for yourselves. And meantime I shall stop
here and gather up under two or three heads some of the more
memorable results and lessons of that sunshine-morning call.
Well, then, to begin with, there was something quite queen-like,
something absolutely commanding, about Christiana's look and
manner, as well as about all she said and did that morning. Mercy's
morning companion had all the advantages that dress and equipage
could give her; while Christiana stood in the middle of the floor in her
housewife's clothes, covered with dust and surrounded with all her
dismantled house; but, with all that, there was something about
Christiana that took Mercy's heart completely captive. All that
Christiana had by this time come through had blanched her cheek and
whitened her hair: but all that only the more commanded Mercy's
sensitive and noble soul. To be open to impressions of that kind is one
of the finest endowments of a finely endowed nature; and, all through,
the attentive reader of her history will be sure to remark and imitate
Mercy's exquisite and tenacious sensibility to all that is true and good,
upright and honourable and noble. And then, what a blessing it is to a girl of Mercy's mould to meet at opening womanhood with another
woman, be it a mother, a mistress, or a neighbour, whose character
then, and as life goes on, can supply the part of the supporting and
sheltering oak to the springing and clinging vine. Christiana being
now the new woman she was, as well as a woman of great natural
wisdom, dignity, and stability of character, the safety, the salvation of
poor motherless Mercy was as good as sure. Indeed, all Mercy's
subsequent history is only one long and growing tribute to the worth,
the constant love, and the sleepless solicitude of this true mother in
Israel.
Now, it was so, that, wholly unknown to all her companions,
young and old, in her own very remarkable words, Mercy had for a
long time been hungering with all her heart to meet with some
genuinely good people, - with some people, as she said herself, - "of
truth and of life." These are remarkable words to hear drop from the
lips of a young girl, and especially a girl of Mercy's environment. Now,
had there been anything hollow, had there been one atom of
insincerity or exaggeration about Christiana that morning, had she
talked too much, had all her actions not far more than borne out all
her words, had there not been in the broken-hearted woman a depth
of mind and a warmth of heart far beyond all her words, Mercy would
never have become a pilgrim. But the natural dignity of Christiana's
character; her capable, commanding, resolute ways; the reality, even
to agony, of her sorrow for her past life - all taken together with her
iron-fast determination to enter at once on a new life - all that carried
Mercy's heart completely captive. Mercy felt that there was a
solemnity, an awesomeness, and a mystery about her new friend's
experiences and memories that it was not for a child like herself to
attempt to intrude into. But, all the more because of that, a spell of
love and fear and reverence lay on Mercy's heart and mind all her
after-days from that so solemn and so eventful morning when she first
saw Christiana's haggard countenance and heard her remorseful cries.
My so churlish carriages to him! Now, such carriages between man
and wife had often pained and made ashamed Mercy's maidenly heart
beyond all expression. Till she had sometimes said to herself, blushing
with shame before herself as she said it, that if ever she was a wife -
may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth before I say one
churlish word to him who is my husband! And thus it was that nothing
that Christiana said that morning in the uprush of her remorse moved
Mercy more with pity and with love than just what Christiana beat her
breast about as concerning her lost husband. Mercy used to say that
she saw truth and life enough in one hour that morning to sober and
to solemnise and to warn her to set a watch on the door of her lips for
all her after-days.
Before Mrs. Timorous was well out of the door, Mercy had already
plucked off her gloves, and hung up her morning bonnet on a nail in
the wall, so much did her heart heave to help the cumbered widow
and her fatherless children. "If thou wilt, I will hire thee," said
Christiana, "and thou shalt go with me as my servant. Yet we will have
all things common betwixt thee and me; only, now thou art here, go
along with me." At this Mercy fell on Christiana's neck and kissed her
mother; for after that morning Christiana had always a daughter of
her own, and Mercy a mother. And you may be sure, with two such
women working with all their might, all things were soon ready for
their happy departure.
Mr. Kerr Bain invites his readers to compare John Bunyan's Mercy
at this point with William Law's Miranda. I shall not tarry to draw out
the full comparison here, but shall content myself with simply
repeating Mr. Bain's happy reference. Only, I shall not content myself
till all to whom my voice can reach, and who are able to enjoy only a
first-rate book, have Mr. Bain's book beside their Pilgrim's Progress.
That morning, then, on which Mrs. Timorous, having nothing to do at
home, set out with Mercy on a round of calls - that was Mercy's last
idle morning for all her days. For her mind was, ever after that, to be
always busying of herself in doing, for when she had nothing to do for
herself she would be making of hosen and garments for others, and
would bestow them upon those that had need. I will warrant her a
good housewife, quoth Mr. Brisk to himself. So much so that at any
place they stopped on the way, even for a day and a night to rest and
refresh themselves, Mercy would seek out all the poor and all the old
people, and ere ever she was aware what she was doing, already a
good report had spread abroad concerning the pilgrims and their
pilgrimage. At the same time, it must be told that poor Mercy's heart
was more heavy for the souls of the poor people than for their naked bodies and hungry bellies. So much was this so that when the
shepherds, Knowledge, Experience, Watchful, and Sincere, took her to
a place where she saw one Fool and one Want-wit washing of an
Ethiopian with intention to make him white, but the more they
washed him the blacker he was, Mercy blushed and felt guilty before
the shepherds, - she so took home to her charitable heart the bootless
work of Fool and Want-wit. Mercy put on the Salvationist bonnet at
her first outset to the Celestial City, and she never put it off till she
came to that land where there are no more poor to make hosen and
hats for, and no more Ethiopians to take to the fountain.
There are not a few young communicants here to-night, as well as
not a few who are afraid as yet to offer themselves for the Lord's table;
and, as it so falls out to-night, Mercy's case contains both an
encouragement and an example to all such. For never surely had a
young communicant less to go upon than Mercy had that best
morning of all her life. For she had nothing to go upon but a great
desire to help Christiana with her work; some desire for truth and for
life; and some first and feeble yearnings over her own soul; yearnings,
however, that she kept entirely to herself. That was all. She had no
remorses like those which had ploughed up Christiana's cheeks into
such channels of tears. She had no dark past out of which swarms of
hornets stung her guilty conscience. Nor on the other hand, had she
any such sweet dreams and inviting visions as those that were sent to
cheer and encourage the disconsolate widow. She will have her own
sweet dreams yet, that will make her laugh loud out in her sleep. But
that will be long after this, when she has discovered how hard her
heart is and how great God's grace is. "How shall I be ascertained," she put it to Christiana, "that I also shall be entertained? Had I but this
hope, from one that can tell, I would make no stick at all, but would go,
being helped by Him that can help, though the way was never so
tedious. Had I as good hope for a loving reception as you have, I think
no Slough of Despond would discourage me." "Well," said the other,
"you know your sore, and I know mine; and, good friend, we shall all
have enough evil before we come to our journey's end." And soon after
that, of all places on the upward way, Mercy's evil began at the Wicket
Gate. "I have a companion," said Christiana, "that stands without. One 68
that is much dejected in her mind, for that she comes, as she thinks, without sending for; whereas I was sent to by my husband's King." So
the porter opened the gate and looked out; but Mercy was fallen down
in a swoon, for she fainted and was afraid that the gate would not be
opened to her. "O sir," she said, "I am faint; there is scarce life left in me." But he answered her that one once said, "When my soul fainted
within me, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came in into Thee,
into Thy holy temple. Fear not, but stand up upon thy feet, and tell me
wherefore thou art come." "I am come, sir, into that for which I never was invited, as my friend Christiana was. Her invitation was from the
Lord, and mine was but from her. Wherefore, I fear that I presume."
Then said he to those that stood by, "Fetch something and give it to
Mercy to smell on, thereby to stay her fainting." So they fetched her a
bundle of myrrh, and a while after she revived. - Let young
communicants be content with Mercy's invitation. She started for the
City just because she liked to be beside a good woman who was
starting thither. She wished to help a good woman who was going
thither; and just a little desire began at first to awaken in her heart to
go to the city too. Till, having once set her face to go up, one thing after
another worked together to lead her up till she, too, had her life full of
those invitations and experiences and interests and occupations and
enjoyments that make Mercy's name so memorable, and her happy
case such an example and such an inspiration, to all God-fearing young
women especially.
John Bunyan must be held responsible for the strong dash of
romance that he so boldly throws into Mercy's memoirs. But I shall
postpone Mr. Brisk and his love-making and his answer to another
lecture. I shall not enter on Mercy's love matters here at all, but shall
leave them to be read at home by those who like to read romances.
Only, since we have seen so much of Mercy as a maiden, one longs to
see how she turned out as a wife. I can only imagine how Mercy
turned out as a wife; but there is a picture of a Scottish Covenanting
girl as a married wife which always rises up before my mind when I
think of Mercy's matronly days. That picture might hang in Bunyan's
own peculiar gallery, so beautiful is the drawing, and so warm and so
eloquent the colouring. Take, then, this portrait of one of the
daughters of the Scottish Covenant. "She was a woman of great worth,
whom I therefore passionately loved and inwardly honoured. A stately, beautiful, and comely personage; truly pious and fearing the Lord. Of
an evenly temper, patient in our common tribulations and under her
personal distresses. A woman of bright natural parts, and of an
uncommon stock of prudence; of a quick and lively apprehension in
things she applied herself to, and of great presence of mind in
surprising incidents. Sagacious and acute in discerning the qualities of
persons, and therefore not easily imposed upon. [See Mr. Brisk's
interviews with Mercy.] Modest and grave in her deportment, but
naturally cheerful; wise and affable in conversation, also having a
good faculty at speaking and expressing herself with assurance. Being
a pattern of frugality and wise management in household affairs, all
such were therefore entirely committed to her; well fitted for and
careful of the virtuous education of her children; remarkably useful in
the countryside, both in the Merse and in the Forest, through her skill
in physic and surgery, which in many instances a peculiar blessing
appeared to be commanded upon from heaven. And, finally, a crown to
me in my public station and pulpit appearances. During the time we
have lived together we have passed through a sea of trouble, as yet not
seeing the shore but afar off."
"The words of King Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught
him. What, my son? and what, the son of my womb? and what, the son
of my vows? Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far
above rubies. Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband
also, and he praiseth her. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a
woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised."
MR. BRISK
"Be ye not unequally yoked." - Paul.
There were some severe precisians in John Bunyan's day who
took the objection to the author of the Pilgrim's Progress that he
sometimes laughed too loud.
"One may (I think) say, both he laughs and cries,
May well be guessed at by his watery eyes.
Some things are of that nature as to make
One's fancy chuckle while his heart doth ake.
When Jacob saw his Rachel with the sheep,
At the same time he did both laugh and weep."
And even Dr. Cheever, in his excellent lectures on the Pilgrim's
Progress, confesses that though the Second Part never ceases for a
moment to tell the serious story of the Pilgrimage, at the same time, it
sometimes becomes so merry as almost to pass over into absolute
comedy. "There is one passage," says Cheever, "which for exquisite humour, quiet satire, and naturalness in the development of character
is scarcely surpassed in the language. It is the account of the courtship
between Mr. Brisk and Mercy which took place at the House
Beautiful."
Now, the insertion of such an episode as that of Mr. Brisk into
such a book as the Pilgrim's Progress is only yet another proof of the
health, the strength, and the truth to nature of John Bunyan's mind.
His was eminently an honest, straightforward, manly, English
understanding. A smaller man would not have ventured on Mr. Brisk
in such a book as the Pilgrim's Progress. But there is no affectation,
there is no prudery, there is no superiority to nature in John Bunyan.
He knew quite well that of the thousands of men and women who
were reading his Pilgrim there was no subject, not even religion itself,
that was taking up half so much of their thoughts as just love-making
and marriage. And, like the wise man and the true teacher he was, he
here points out to all his readers how well true religion and the fullest
satisfaction of the warmest and the most universal of human
affections can be both harmonised and made mutually helpful. In
Bunyan's day love was too much left to the playwrights, just as in our
day it is too much left to the poets and the novelists. And thus it is that in too many instances affection and passion have taken full possession
of the hearts and the lives of our young people before any moral or
religious lesson on these all-important subjects has been given to
them: any lesson such as John Bunyan so winningly and so beautifully
gives here. "This incident," says Thomas Scott, "is very properly introduced, and it is replete with instruction."
Now, Mr. Brisk, to begin with, was, so we are told, a young man of
some breeding, - that is to say, he was a young man of some social
position, some education, and of a certain good manner, at least on the
surface. In David Scott's Illustrations Mr. Brisk stands before us a
handsome and well-dressed young man of the period, with his well-
belted doublet, his voluminous ruffles, his heavily-studded cuffs, his
small cane, his divided hair, and his delicate hand, - altogether
answering excellently to his name, were it not for the dashed look of
surprise with which he gets his answer, and, with what jauntiness he
can at the moment command, takes his departure. "Mr. Brisk was a
man of some breeding," says Bunyan, "and that pretended to religion; but a man that stuck very close to the world." That Mr. Brisk made any
pretence to religion at any other time and in any other place is not
said; only that he put on that pretence with his best clothes when he
came once or twice or more to Mercy and offered love to her at the
House Beautiful. The man with the least religion at other times, even
the man with no pretence to religion at other times at all, will pretend
to some religion when he is in love with a young woman of Mercy's
mind. And yet it would not be fair to say that it is all pretence even in
such a man at such a time. Grant that a man is really in love; then,
since all love is of the nature of religion, for the time, the true lover is
really on the borders of a truly religious life. It may with perfect truth
be said of all men when they first fall in love that they are, for the time,
not very far away from the kingdom of heaven. For all love is good, so
far as it goes. God is Love; and all love, in the long-run, has a touch of
the divine nature in it. And for once, if never again, every man who is
deeply in love has a far-off glimpse of the beauty of holiness, and a far-
off taste of that ineffable sweetness of which the satisfied saints of
God sing so ecstatically. But, in too many instances, a young man's love
having been kindled only by the creature, and, never rising from her to
his and her Creator, as a rule, it sooner or later burns low and at last burns out, and leaves nothing but embers and ashes in his once so
ardent heart. Mr. Brisk's love-making might have ended in his
becoming a pilgrim but for this fatal flaw in his heart, that even in his
love-making he stuck so fast to the world. It is almost incredible: you
may well refuse to believe it - that any young man in love, and
especially a young gentleman of Mr. Brisk's breeding, would approach
his mistress with the question how much she could earn a day. As Mr.
Brisk looks at Mercy's lap so full of hats and hosen and says it, I can
see his natty cane beginning to lengthen itself out in his soft-skinned
hand and to send out teeth like a muck-rake. Give Mr. Brisk another
thirty years or so and he will be an ancient churl, raking to himself the
sticks and the straws and the dust of the earth, neither looking up to
nor regarding the celestial crown that is still offered to him in
exchange for his instrument.
"Now, Mercy was of a fair countenance, and, therefore, all the
more alluring." But her fair countenance was really no temptation to
her. "Sit still, my daughter," said Naomi to Ruth in the Old Testament.
And it was entirely Mercy's maidenly nature to sit still. Even before
she had come to her full womanhood under Christiana's motherly care
she would have been an example to Ruth. Long ago, while Mercy was
still a mere girl, when Mrs. Light-mind said something to her one day
that made her blush, Mercy at last looked up in real anger and said,
We women should be wooed; we were not made to woo. And thus it
was that all their time at the House Beautiful Mercy stayed close at
home and worked with her needle and thread just as if she had been
the plainest girl in all the town. "I might have had husbands afore
now," she said, with a cast of her head over the coat that lay on her lap,
"though I spake not of it to any. But they were such as did not like my
conditions, though never did any of them find fault with my person. So
they and I could not agree." Once Mercy's mouth was opened on the
subject of possible husbands it is a miracle that she did not go on in
confidence to name some of the husbands she might have had. Mercy
was too truthful and too honourable a maiden to have said even on
that subject what she did say if it had not been true. No doubt she
believed it true. And the belief so long as she mentioned no names, did
not break any man's bones and did not spoil any man's market. Don't
set up too prudishly and say that it is a pity that Mercy so far forgot herself as to make her little confidential boast. We would not have had
her without that little boast. Keep-at-home, sit-still, hats and hosen
and all - her little boast only proves Mercy to have been at heart a true
daughter of Eve after all.
There is an old-fashioned word that comes up again and again in
the account of Mr. Brisk's courtship, - a word that contains far more
interest and instruction for us than might on the surface appear. When
Mr. Brisk was rallied upon his ill-success with Mercy, he was wont to
say that undoubtedly Mistress Mercy was a very pretty lass, only she
was troubled with ill conditions. And then, when Mercy was confiding
to Prudence all about her possible husbands, she said that they were
all such as did not like her conditions. To which Prudence, keeping her
countenance, replied, that the men were but few in their day that
could abide the practice that was set forth by such conditions as those
of Mercy. Well, tossed out Mercy, if nobody will have me I will die a
maid, or my conditions shall be to me as a husband! As I came again
and again across that old seventeenth-century word "conditions," I
said to myself, I feel sure that Dr. Murray of the Oxford Scriptorium
will have noted this striking passage. And on turning up the Sixth Part
of the New English Dictionary, there, to be sure, was the old word
standing in this present setting. Five long, rich, closely packed
columns stood under the head of "Condition"; and amid a thousand
illustrations of its use, the text: "1684, Bunyan, Pilgr., ii. 84. He said that Mercy was a pretty lass, but troubled with ill conditions." Poor
illiterate John Bunyan stood in the centre of a group of learned and
famous men, composed of Chaucer, Wyclif, Skelton, Palsgrave, Raleigh,
Featly, Richard Steel, and Walter Scott - all agreeing in their use of our
word, and all supplying examples of its use in the best English books.
By Mercy's conditions, then, is just meant her cast of mind, her moral
nature, her temper and her temperament, her dispositions and her
inclinations, her habits of thought, habits of heart, habits of life, and so
on.
"Well," said Mercy proudly, "if nobody will have me, I will die a maid, or my conditions shall be to me as a husband. For I cannot
change my nature, and to have one that lies cross to me in this, - that I
purpose never to admit of as long as I live." By this time, though she is 74
still little more than a girl, Mercy had her habits formed, her character cast, and, more than all, her whole heart irrevocably set on her soul's
salvation. And everything - husband and children and all - must
condition themselves to that, else she will have none of them. She had
sought first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and she will
seek nothing, she will accept nothing - no, not even a husband - who
crosses her choice in that. She has chosen her life, and her husband
with it. Not the man as yet, but the whole manner of the man. The
conditions of the man, as she said about herself; else she will boldly
and bravely die a maid. And there are multitudes of married women
who, when they read this page about Mercy, will gnash their teeth at
the madness of their youth, and will wildly wish that they only were
maids again; and, then, like Mercy, they would take good care to make
for themselves husbands of their own conditions too - of their own
means, their own dispositions, inclinations, tastes, and pursuits. For,
according as our conditions to one another are or are not in our
marriages,
"They locally contain or heaven or hell;
There is no third place in them."
What untold good, then, may all our young women not get out of
the loving study of Mercy's sweet, steadfast, noble character! And
what untold misery may they not escape! From first to last - and we
are not yet come to her last - I most affectionately recommend Mercy
to the hearts and minds of all young women here. Single and married;
setting out on pilgrimage and steadfastly persevering in it; sitting still
till the husband with the right conditions comes, and then rising up
with her warm, well-kept heart to meet him - if any maiden here has
no mother, or no elder sister, or no wise and prudent friend like
Prudence or Christiana to take counsel of - and even if she has - let
Mercy be her meditation and her model through all her maidenly
days.
"Nay, then," said Mercy, "I will look no more on him, for I purpose never to have a clog to my soul." A pungent resolve for every husband
to read and to think to himself about, who has married a wife with a
soul. Let all husbands who have such wives halt here and ask
themselves with some imagination as to what may sometimes go on,
at communion times, say, in the souls of their wives. It is not every
wife, it is true, who has a soul to clog; but some of our wives have.
Well, now, let us ask ourselves: How do we stand related to their
souls? Do our wives, when examining the state of their souls since
they married us, have to say that at one time they had hoped to be
further on in the life of the soul than they yet are? And are they
compelled before God to admit that the marriage they have made, and
would make, has terribly hindered them? Would they have been better
women, would they have been living a better life, and doing far more
good in the world, if they had taken their maidenly ideals, like Mercy,
for a husband? Let us sometimes imagine ourselves into the secrets of
our wives' souls, and ask if they ever feel that they are unequally and
injuriously yoked in their deepest and best life. Do we ever see a tear
falling in secret, or hear a stolen sigh heaved, or stumble on them at a
stealthy prayer? A Roman lady on being asked why she sometimes let
a sob escape her and a tear fall, when she had such a gentleman of
breeding and rank and riches to her husband, touched her slipper
with her finger and said: "Is not that a well-made, a neat, and a costly
shoe? And yet you would not believe how it pinches and pains me
sometimes."
But some every whit as good women as Mercy was have
purposed as nobly and as firmly as Mercy did, and yet have wakened
up, when it was too late, to find that, with all their high ideals, and
with all their prudence, their husband is not in himself, and is not to
them, what they at one time felt sure he would be. Mercy had a sister
named Bountiful, who made that mistake and that dreadful discovery;
and what Mercy had seen of married life in her sister's house almost
absolutely turned her against marriage altogether. "The one thing
certain," says Thomas Mozley in his chapter on Ideal Wife and
Husband, "is that both wife and husband are different in the result
from the expectation. Age, illness, an increasing family, no family at all,
household cares, want of means, isolation, incompatible prejudices,
quarrels, social difficulties, and such like, all tell on married people,
and make them far other than they once promised to be." When that
awakening comes there is only one solace, and women take to that
supreme solace much more often than men. And that solace, as you all
know, is true, if too late, religion. And even where true religion has
already been, there is still a deeper and a more inward religion suited
to the new experiences and the new needs of life. And if both husband and wife in such a crisis truly betake themselves to Him who
gathereth the solitary into families, the result will be such a
remarriage of depth and tenderness, loyalty and mutual help, as their
early dreams never came within sight of. Not early love, not children,
not plenty of means, not all the best amenities of married life taken
together, will repair a marriage and keep a marriage in repair for one
moment like a living and an intense faith in God; a living and an
intense love to God; and then that faith in and love for one another
that spring out of God and out of His love alone.
"The tree
Sucks kindlier nurture from a soil enriched
By its own fallen leaves; and man is made,
In heart and spirit, from deciduous hopes
And things that seem to perish."
MR. SKILL
"The vine of Sodom." - Moses.
With infinite delicacy John Bunyan here tells us the sad story of
Matthew's sore sickness at the House Beautiful. The cause of the sore
sickness, its symptoms, its serious nature, and its complete cures are
all told with the utmost plainness; but, at the same time, with the most
exquisite delicacy. Bunyan calls the ancient physician who is
summoned in and who effects the cure, Mr. Skill, but you must believe
that Bunyan himself is Mr. Skill; and I question if this skilful writer
ever wrote a more skilful page than just this page that now lies open
before him who has the eyes to read it.
Matthew, it must always be remembered, was by this time a
young man. He was the eldest son of Christiana his mother, and for
some time now she had been a sorely burdened widow. Matthew's
father was no longer near his son to watch over him and to warn him
against the temptations and the dangers that wait on opening
manhood. And thus his mother, with all her other cares, had to be both
father and mother to her eldest son; and, with all her good sense and
all her long and close acquaintance with the world, she was too fond a
mother to suspect any evil of her eldest son. And thus it was that
Christiana had nearly lost her eldest son before her eyes were open to
the terrible dangers he had for a long time been running. For it was so,
that the upward way that this household without a head had to travel
lay through a land full of all kinds of dangers both to the bodies and to
the souls of such travellers as they were. And what well-nigh proved a
fatal danger to Matthew lay right in his way. It was Beelzebub's
orchard. Not that this young man's way lay through that orchard
exactly; yet, walled up as was that orchard with all its forbidden fruit,
that evil fruit would hang over the wall so that if any lusty youth
wished to taste it, he had only to reach up to the over-hanging
branches and plash down on himself some of the forbidden bunches.
Now, that was just what Matthew had done. Till we have him lying at
the House Beautiful, not only not able to enjoy the delights of the
House and of the season, but so pained in his bowels and so pulled
together with inward pains, that he sometimes cried out as if he were
being torn to pieces. At that moment Mr. Skill, the ancient physician,
entered the sick-room, when, having a little observed Matthew's
intense agony, with a certain mixture of goodness and severity he recited these professional verses over the trembling bed:
"O conscience, who can stand against thy power?
Endure thy gripes and agonies one hour?
Stone, gout, strappado, racks, whatever is
Dreadful to sense, are only toys to this -
No pleasures, riches, honours, friends can tell
How to give ease to this, 'tis like to hell."
And then, turning to the sick man's mother, who stood at the
bed's head wringing her hands, the ancient leech said to her: "This
boy of yours has been tampering with the forbidden fruit!" At which
the angry mother turned on the well-approved physician as if he had
caused all the trouble that he had come to cure. But the ancient man
knew both the son and the mother too, and therefore he addressed
her with some asperity: "I tell you both that strong measures must be
taken instantly, else he will die." When Mr. Skill had seen that the first purge was too weak, he made him one to the purpose; and it was
made, as he so learnedly said, ex carne et sanguine Christi. The pills
were to be taken three at a time, fasting, in half a quarter of a pint of
the tears of repentance. After some coaxing, such as mothers know
best how to use, Matthew took the medicine and was soon walking
about again with a staff, and was able to go from room to room of the
hospitable and happy house. Understandest thou what thou readest?
said Philip the deacon to Queen Candace's treasurer as he sat down
beside him in the chariot and opened up to him the fifty-third of the
prophet Isaiah. And, understandest thou what thou here readest in
Matthew and Mr. Skill?
Now, on this almost too closely veiled case I shall venture to
remark, in the first place, that multitudes of boys grow up into young
men, and go out of our most godly homes and into a whole world of
temptation without due warning being given them as to where they
are going. "I do marvel that none did warn him of it," said Mr. Skill, with some anger. What Matthew's father might have done in this
matter had he been still in this world when his son became a man in it
we can only guess. As it was, it never entered his mother's too fond
mind to take her fatherless boy by himself when she saw Beelzebub's orchard before him, and tell him what Solomon told his son, and to
point out to him the prophecy that King Lemuel's mother prophesied
to her son. Poor Matthew was a young man before his mother was
aware of it. And, poor woman, she only found that out when Mr. Skill
was in the sick-room and was looking at her with eyes that seemed to
say to her that she had murdered her child. She had loved too long to
look on her first-born as still a child. When he went at any time for a
season out of her sight, she had never followed him with her
knowledge of the world; she had never prevented him with an
awakened and an anxious imagination; till now she had got him home
with no rest in his bones because of his sin. And then she began to cry
too late, O naughty boy, and, O careless mother, what shall I do for my
son!
"That food, to wit, that fruit," said Mr. Skill, "is even the most hurtful of all. It is the fruit of Beelzebub's orchard." So it is.
There is no fruit that hurts at all like that fruit. How it hurts at the
time, we see in Matthew's sick-room; and how it hurts all a man's after
days we see in Jacob, and in Job, and in David, and in a thousand sin-
sick souls of whose psalms of remorse and repentance the world
cannot contain all the books that should be written. "And yet I marvel,"
said the indignant physician, "that none did warn him of it; many have
died thereof." Oh if I could but get the ears of all the sons of godly
fathers and mothers who are beginning to tamper with Beelzebub's
orchard-trees, I feel as if I could warn them to-night, and out of this
text, of what they are doing! I have known so many who have died
thereof. Oh if I could but save them in time from those gripes of
conscience that will pull them to pieces on the softest and the most
fragrant bed that shall ever be made for them on earth! It will be well
with them if they do not lie down torn to pieces on their bed in hell,
and curse the day they first plashed down into their youthful hands
the vine of Sodom. Both the way to hell and the way to heaven are full
of many kinds of hurtful fruits; but that species of fruit that poor
misguided Matthew plucked and ate after he had well passed the gate
that is at the head of the way is, by all men's testimony, by far the most
hurtful of all forbidden fruits.
The whole scene in Matthew's sick-room reads, after all, less like
a skilful invention than a real occurrence. Inventive and realistic as John Bunyan is, there is surely something here that goes beyond even
his genius. After making all allowance for Bunyan's unparalleled
powers of creation and narration, I am inclined to think, the oftener I
read it, that, after all, we have not so much John Bunyan here as very
Nature herself. Yes; John Gifford surely was Mr. Skill. Sister Bosworth
surely was Matthew's mother. And Matthew himself was Sister
Bosworth's eldest son, while one John Bunyan, a travelling tinker, was
busy with his furnaces and his soldering-irons in Dame Bosworth's
kitchen. Young Bunyan, with all his blackguardism, had never plashed
down Beelzebub's orchard. He swears he never did, and we are bound
to believe him. But young Bosworth had been tampering with the
forbidden fruit, and Gifford saw at a glance what was wrong. John
Gifford was first an officer in the Royalist army, then a doctor in
Bedford, and now a Baptist Puritan pastor; and the young tinker
looked up to Gifford as the most wonderful man for learning in books
and in bodies and souls of men in all the world. And when Gifford
talked over young Bosworth's bed half to himself and half to them
about a medicine made ex carne et sanguine Christi, the future author
of the Pilgrim's Progress never forgot the phrase. At a glance Gifford
saw what was the whole matter with the sick man. And painful as the
truth was to the sick man's mother, and humiliating with a life-long
humiliation to the sick man himself, Gifford was not the man or the
minister to beat about the bush at such a solemn moment. "This boy
has been tampering with that which will kill him unless he gets it
taken off his conscience and out of his heart immediately." Now, this
same divination into our pastoral cases is by far and away the most
difficult part of a minister's work. It is easy and pleasant with a fluent
tongue to get through our pulpit work; but to descend the pulpit stairs
and deal with life, and with this and that sin in the lives of our people,
- that is another matter. "We must labour," says Richard Baxter in his Reformed Pastor, "to be acquainted with the state of all our people as
fully as we can; both to know the persons and their inclinations and
conversation; to know what sins they are most in danger of, what
duties they neglect, and what temptations they are most liable to. For,
if we know not their temperament or their disease, we are likely to
prove but unsuccessful physicians." But when we begin to reform our
pastorate to that pattern, we are soon compelled to set down such entries in our secret diary as that of Thomas Shepard of Harvard
University: "Sabbath, 5th April 1641. Nothing I do, nay, none under my
shadow prosper. I so want wisdom for my place, and to guide others."
Yes; for what wisdom is needed for the place of a minister like John
Gifford, John Bunyan, Richard Baxter, and Thomas Shepard! What
wisdom, what divine genius, to dive into and divine the secret history
of a soul from a twinge of conscience, even from a drop of the eye, a
tone of the voice, or a gesture of the hand or of the head! And yet, with
some natural taste for the holy work, with study, with experience, and
with life-long expert reading, even a plain minister with no genius, but
with some grace and truth, may come to great eminence in the
matters of the soul. And then, with what an interest, solemn and
awful, with what a sleepless interest such a pastor goes about among
his diseased, sin-torn, and scattered flock! All their souls are naked
and open under his divining eye. They need not to tell him where they
ail, and of what sickness they are nigh unto death. That food, he says,
with some sternness over their sick-bed, I warned you of it; I told you
with all plainness that many have died of eating that fruit! "We must
be ready," Baxter continues, "to give advice to those that come to us with cases of conscience. A minister is not only for public preaching,
but to be a known counsellor for his people's souls as the lawyer is for
their estates, and the physician is for their bodies. And because the
people are grown unacquainted with this office of the ministry, and
their own necessity and duty herein, it belongeth to us to acquaint
them herewith, and to press them publicly to come to us for advice
concerning their souls. We must not only be willing of the trouble, but
draw it upon ourselves by inviting them hereto. To this end it is very
necessary to be acquainted with practical cases and able to assist
them in trying their states. One word of seasonable and prudent
advice hath done that good that many sermons would not have done."
As he went on pounding and preparing his well-approved pill, the
(at the bottom of his heart) kind old leech talked encouragingly to the
mother and to her sick son, and said: "Come, come; after all, do not he
too much cast down. Had we lived in the days of the old medicine, I
would have been compounding a purge out of the blood of a goat, and
the ashes of an heifer, and the juice of hyssop. But I have a far better
medicine under my hands here. This moment I will make you a purge to the purpose." And then the learned man, half-doctor, half-divine,
chanted again the sacred incantation as he bent over his pestle and
mortar, saying: Ex carne et sanguine Christi! Those shrewd old eyes
soon saw that, in spite of all their defences and all their denials,
damage had been done to the conscience and the heart that nothing
would set right but a frank admission of the evil that had been done,
and a prompt submission to the regimen appointed and the medicine
prepared. And how often we ministers puddle and peddle with goat's
blood and heifer's ashes and hyssop juice when we should instantly
prescribe stern fasting and secret prayer and long spaces of
repentance, and then the body and the blood of Christ. How often our
people cheat us into healing their hurt slightly! How often they
succeed in putting us off, after we are called in, with their own
account of their cases, and set us out on a wild-goose chase! I myself
have more than once presented young men in their trouble with
apologetic books, University sermons, and watered-down
explanations of the Confession and the Catechism, when, had I known
all I came afterwards to know, I would have sent them Bunyan's Sighs
from Hell. I have sent soul-sick women also The Bruised Reed, and
The Mission of the Comforter with sympathising inscriptions, and
sweet scriptures written inside, when, had I had Mr. Skill's keen eyes
in my stupid head, I would have gone to them with the total
abstinence pledge in my one hand, and Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living
and Dying in my other. "No diet but that which is wholesome!" almost in anger answered the sick man's mother. "I tell you," the honest leech replied, in more anger, "this boy has been tampering with Beelzebub's
orchard. And many have died of it!"
It was while all the rest of the House Beautiful were supping on
lamb and wine, and while there was such music in the House that
made Mercy exclaim over it with wonder - it was at the smell of the
supper and at the sound of the psalmody that Matthew's gripes seized
upon him worse than ever. All the time the others sat late into the
night Matthew lay on the rack pulled to pieces. After William Law's
death at King's Cliffe, his executors found among his most secret
papers a prayer he had composed for his own alone use on a certain
communion day when he was self-debarred from the Lord's table. I do
not know for certain just what fruit the young non-juror had stolen out of Beelzebub's orchard before that communion season; but I can
see that he was in poor Matthew's exact experience that communion
night, - literally torn to pieces with agonies of conscience while all his
fellow-worshippers were at the table of the Lord. While the psalms
and hymns are being sung at the supper-table, lay your ear to Law's
closet door. "Whilst all Thy faithful servants are on this day offering to Thee the comfortable sacrifice of the body and the blood of Christ, and
feasting at that holy table which Thou hast ordained for the
refreshment, joy, and comfort of their souls, I, unhappy wretch, full of
guilt, am justly denied any share of these comforts that are common to
the Christian world. O my God, I am an unclean worm, a dead dog, a
stinking carcass, justly removed from that society of saints who this
day kneel about Thine altar. But, oh! suffer me to look toward Thy holy
Sanctuary; suffer my soul again to be in the place where Thine honour
dwelleth. Reject not the sacrifice of a broken heart, and do Thou be
with me in secret, though I am not fit to appear in Thy public worship.
Lord, if Thou wilt Thou canst make me clean. Lord, speak but the
word, and Thy servant shall be healed." It is the fruit of Beelzebub's
orchard. Many have died thereof.
"Pray, sir, make me up twelve boxes of them; for if I can get these,
I will never take other physic." "These same pills," he replied, "are good also to prevent diseases as well as to cure when one is sick. But,
good woman, thou must take these pills no other way but as I have
prescribed; for if you do, they will do no good." I have taken one
illustration from William Law's life; I shall take another from that
world of such illustrations and so close. "O God, let me never see such
another day as this. Let the dreadful punishment of this day never be
out of my mind." And it never was. For, after that day in hell, Law never laid down his head on his pillow that he did not seem to remember
that dreadful day. William Law would have satisfied Dr. Skill for a
convalescent. For he never felt that he had any right to touch the body
and blood of Christ, either at communion times, or a thousand times
every day, till he had again got ready his heart of true repentance. My
brethren, self-destroyed out of Beelzebub's orchard, and all my
brethren, live a life henceforth of true repentance. Not out of the sins
of your youth only, but out of the best, the most watchful, and the most
blameless day you ever live, distil your half-pint of repentance every night before you sleep. For, as dear old Skill said, unless you do,
neither flesh nor blood of Christ, nor anything else, will do you any
genuine good.
THE SHEPHERD BOY
"He humbled Himself." - Paul.
"Now as they were going along and talking, they espied a boy
feeding his father's sheep. The boy was in very mean clothes, but of a
very fresh and well-favoured countenance, and as he sat by himself he
sang. Hark, said Mr. Greatheart, to what the shepherd boy saith. So
they hearkened and he said:
He that is down, needs fear no fall;
He that is low no pride:
He that is humble, ever shall
Have God to be his guide.
I am content with what I have,
Little be it or much:
And, Lord, contentment still I crave,
Because thou savest such.
Fulness to such a burden is
That go on pilgrimage:
Here little, and hereafter bliss,
Is best from age to age.
Then said their guide, Do you hear him? I will dare say that this
boy lives a merrier life and wears more of that herb called Heart's-
ease in his bosom than he that is clad in silk and velvet."
Now, notwithstanding all that, nobody knew better than John
Bunyan knew, that no shepherd boy that ever lived on the face of the
earth ever sang that song; only one Boy ever sang that song, and He
was not the son of a shepherd at all, but the son of a carpenter. And,
saying that leads me on to say this before I begin, that I look for a man
of John Bunyan's inventive and sanctified genius to arise some day,
and armed also to boot with all our latest and best New Testament
studies. When that sorely-needed man so arises he will take us back to
Nazareth where that carpenter's Boy was brought up, and he will let
us see Him with our own eyes being brought up. He will lead us into
Mary's house on Sabbath days, and into Joseph's workshop on week
days, and he will show us the child Jesus, not so much learning His
letters and then putting on His carpenter's clothes, as learning
obedience by the things that He every day suffered. That choice author will show us our Lord, both before He had discovered Himself to be
our Lord, as well as after He had made that great discovery, always
clothing Himself with humility as with a garment; taking up His yoke
of meekness and lowly-mindedness every day, and never for one
moment laying it down. When some writer with as holy an
imagination as that of John Bunyan, and with as sweet an English
style, and with a New Testament scholarship of the first order so
arises, and so addresses himself to the inward life of our Lord, what a
blessing to our children that writer will be! For he will make them see
and feel just what all that was in which our Lord's perfect humility
consisted, and how His perfect humility fulfilled itself in Him from day
to day; up through all His childhood days, school and synagogue days,
workshop and holy days, early manhood and mature manhood days;
till He was so meek in all His heart and so humble in all His mind that
all men were sent to Him to learn their meekness and their humility of
Him. I envy that gifted man the deep delight he will have in his work,
and the splendid reward he will have in the love and the debt of all
coming generations. Only, may he be really sent to us, and that soon!
Theodor Keim comes nearest a far-off glimpse of that eminent service
of any New Testament scholar I know.
Jeremy Taylor and Thomas Goodwin also, in their own time and
in their own way, had occasional inspirations toward this still-waiting
treatment of the master-subject of all learning and all genius - the
inward sanctification, the growth in grace, and then the self-discovery
of the incarnate Son of God. But, so let it please God, some
contemporary scholar will arise some day soon, combining in himself
Goodwin's incomparable Christology, and Taylor's incomparable
eloquence, and Keim's incomparably digested learning, with John
Bunyan's incomparable imagination and incomparable English style,
and the waiting work will be done, and theology for this life will take
on its copestone. In his absence, and till he comes, let us attempt a few
annotations to-night on this so-called shepherd boy's song in the
Valley of Humiliation.
"He that is down, needs fear no fall."
The whole scenery of the surrounding valley is set before us in
that single eloquent stanza. The sweet-voiced boy sits well off the
wayside as he sings his song to himself. He looks up to the hill-tops that hang over his valley, and every shining tooth of those many hill-tops has for him its own evil legend. He thinks he sees a little heap of
bleaching bones just under where that eagle hangs and wheels and
screams. Not one traveller through these perilous parts in a thousand
gets down those cruel rocks unhurt; and many travellers have been
irrecoverably lost among those deadly rocks, and have never received
Christian burial. All the shepherds' cottages and all the hostel supper-
tables for many miles round are full of terrible stories of the Hill
Difficulty and the Descent Dangerous. And thus it is that this shepherd
boy looks up with such fear at those sharp peaks and shining
precipices, and lifts his fresh and well-favoured countenance to
heaven and sings again: "He that is down, needs fear no fall." Down in his own esteem, that is. For this is a song of the heart rather than of
the highway. Down - safe, that is, from the steep and slippery places of
self-estimation, self-exaltation, self-satisfaction. Down - so as to be
delivered from all ambition and emulation and envy. Down, and safe,
thank God, from all pride, all high-mindedness, and all stout-
heartedness. Down from the hard and cruel hills, and buried deep out
of sight among those meadows where that herb grows which is called
Heart's-ease. Down, where the green pastures grow and the quiet
waters flow. No, indeed; he that is down into this sweet bottom needs
fear no fall. For there is nowhere here for a man to fall from. And, even