'Take heed what ye hear.' - Our Lord in Mark.
writing about the Civil War. 'But we were all very much mistaken,'
sardonically adds Carlyle. Yes; and you will be very much mistaken too
if you enter on the war with sin in your soul, in your senses and in
your members, with powder and shot for one engagement only. When
you enlist here, lay well to heart that it is for life. There is no discharge
in this war. There are no ornamental old pensioners here. It is a
warfare for eternal life, and nothing will end it but the end of your evil
days on earth.
Chapter 3 - EAR-GATE
'Take heed what ye hear.' - Our Lord in Mark.
'Take heed how you hear.' - Our Lord in Luke.
This famous town of Mansoul had five gates, in at which to come,
out at which to go, and these were made likewise answerable to the
walls - to wit, impregnable, and such as could never be opened nor
forced but by the will and leave of those within. 'The names of the
gates were these, Ear-gate, Eye-gate,' and so on. Dr. George Wilson,
who was once Professor of Technology in our University, took this
suggestive passage out of the Holy War and made it the text of his
famous lecture in the Philosophical Institution, and then he printed
the passage on the flyleaf of his delightful book The Five Gateways of
Knowledge. That is a book to read sometime, but this evening is to be
spent with the master.
For, after all, no one can write at once so beautifully, so quaintly,
so suggestively, and so evangelically as John Bunyan. 'The Lord
Willbewill,' says John Bunyan, 'took special care that the gates should
be secured with double guards, double bolts, and double locks and
bars; and that Ear-gate especially might the better be looked to, for
that was the gate in at which the King's forces sought most to enter.
The Lord Willbewill therefore made old Mr. Prejudice, an angry and
ill-conditioned fellow, captain of the ward at that gate, and put under
his power sixty men, called Deafmen; men advantageous for that
service, forasmuch as they mattered no words of the captain nor of
the soldiers. And first the King's officers made their force more
formidable against Ear-gate: for they knew that unless they could
penetrate that no good could be done upon the town. This done, they
put the rest of their men in their places; after which they gave out the
word, which was, Ye must be born again! And so the battle began.
Now, they in the town had planted upon the tower over Ear-gate two
great guns, the one called High-mind and the other Heady. Unto these
two guns they trusted much; they were cast in the castle by Diabolus's
iron-founder, whose name was Mr. Puff-up, and mischievous pieces
they were. They in the camp also did stoutly, for they saw that unless
they could open Ear-gate it would be in vain to batter the wall.' And so
on, through many allegorical, and, if sometimes somewhat laboured,
yet always eloquent, pungent, and heart-exposing pages.
With these for our text let us now take a rapid glance at what
some of the more Bunyan-like passages in the prophets and the
psalms say about the ear; how it is kept and how it is lost; how it is
used and how it is abused.
The Psalmist uses a very striking expression in the 94th Psalm
when he is calling for justice, and is teaching God's providence over
men. 'He that planted the ear,' the Psalmist exclaims, 'shall he not
hear?' And, considering his church and his day, that is not a bad
remark of Cardinal Bellarmine on that psalm, - 'the Psalmist's word
planted,' says that able churchman, 'implies design, in that the ear was
not spontaneously evolved by an act of vital force, but was
independently created by God for a certain object, just as a tree, not of
indigenous growth, is of set purpose planted in some new place by the
hand of man.' The same thing is said in Genesis, you remember, about
the Garden of Eden, - the Lord planted it and put the man and the
woman, whose ears he had just planted also, into the garden to dress
it and keep it. How they dressed the garden and kept it, and how they
held the gate of their ear against him who squatted down before it
with his innuendoes and his lies, we all know to our as yet unrepaired,
though not always irreparable, cost.
One would almost think that the scornful apostle had the Garden
of Eden in his eye when he speaks so bitterly to Timothy of a class of
people who are cursed with 'itching ears.' Eve's ears itched
unappeasably for the devil's promised secret; and we have all
inherited our first mother's miserable curiosity. How eager, how
restless, how importunate, we all are to hear that new thing that does
not at all concern us; or only concerns us to our loss and our shame.
And the more forbidden that secret is to us, and the more full of
inward evil to us - insane sinners that we are - the more determined
we are to get at it. Let any forbidden secret be in the keeping of some
one within earshot of us and we will give him no rest till he has shared
the evil thing with us. Let any specially evil page be published in a
newspaper, and we will take good care that that day's paper is not
thrown into the waste-basket; we will hide it away, like a dog with a
stolen bone, till we are able to dig it up and chew it dry in secret. The
devil has no need to blockade or besiege the gate of our ear if he has
any of his good things to offer us. The gate that can only be opened
from within will open at once of itself if he or any of his newsmongers but squat down for a moment before it. Shame on us, and on all of us,
for our itching ears.
Isaiah speaks of some men in his day whose ears were 'heavy'
and whose hearts were fat, and the Psalmist speaks of some men in
his day whose ears were 'stopped' up altogether. And there is not a
better thing in Bunyan at his very best than that surly old churl called
Prejudice, so ill-conditioned and so always on the edge of anger. By the
devil's plan of battle old Prejudice was appointed to be warder of Ear-
gate, and to enable him to keep that gate for his master he had sixty
deaf men put under him, men most advantageous for that post,
forasmuch as it mattered not to them what Emmanuel and His officers
said. There could be no manner of doubt who composed that
inimitable passage. There is all the truth and all the humour and all
the satire in Old Prejudice that our author has accustomed us to in his
best pieces. The common people always get the best literature along
with the best religion in John Bunyan. 'They are like the deaf adder
that stoppeth her ear, and which will not hearken to the voice of
charmers charming never so wisely,' says the Psalmist, speaking about
some bad men in his day. Now, I will not stand upon David's natural
history here, but his moral and religious meaning is evident enough.
David is not concerned about adders and their ears, he is wholly taken
up with us and our adder-like animosity against the truth. Against
what teacher, then; against what preacher; against what writer;
against what doctrine, reproof, correction, has your churlish prejudice
adder-like shut your ear? Against what truth, human or divine, have
you hitherto stopped up your ear like the Psalmist's serpent? To ask
that boldly, honestly, and in the sight of God, at yourself to-night,
would end in making you the lifelong friend of some preacher, some
teacher, some soul-saving truth you have up till to-night been
prejudiced against with the rooted prejudice and the sullen obstinacy
of sixty deaf men. O God, help us to lay aside all this adder-like
antipathy at men and things, both in public and in private life. Help us
to give all men and all causes a fair field and no favour, but the field
and the favour of an open and an honest mind, and a simple and a
sincere heart. He that hath ears, let him hear!
As we work our way through the various developments and
vicissitudes of the Holy War we shall find Ear-gate in it and in ourselves passing through many unexpected experiences; now held by
one side and now by another. And we find the same succession of
vicissitudes set forth in Holy Scripture. If you pay any attention to
what you read and hear, and then begin to ask yourselves fair in the
face as to your own prejudices, prepossessions, animosities, and
antipathies, - you will at once begin to reap your reward in having put
into your possession what the Scriptures so often call an 'inclined' ear.
That is to say, an ear not only unstopped, not only unloaded, but
actually prepared and predisposed to all manner of truth and
goodness. Around our city there are the remains, the still visible
tracks, of roads that at one time took the country people into our city,
but which are now stopped up and made wholly impassable. There is
no longer any road into Edinburgh that way. There are other roads
still open, but they are very roundabout, and at best very uphill. And
then there are other roads so smooth, and level, and broad, and well
kept, that they are full of all kinds of traffic; in the centre carts and
carriages crowd them, on the one side horses and their riders delight
to display themselves, and on the other side pedestrians and
perambulators enjoy the sun. And then there are still other roads with
such a sweet and gentle incline upon them that it is a positive pleasure
both to man and beast to set their foot upon them. And so it is with
the minds and the hearts of the men and the women who crowd these
roads. Just as the various roads are, so are the ears and the
understandings, the affections and the inclinations of those who walk
and ride and drive upon them. Some of those men's ears are
impassably stopped up by self-love, self-interest, party-spirit, anger,
envy, and ill-will, - impenetrably stopped up against all the men and
all the truths of earth and of heaven that would instruct, enlighten,
convict or correct them. Some men's minds, again, are not so much
shut up as they are crooked, and warped, and narrow, and full of
obstruction and opposition. Whereas here and there, sometimes on
horseback and sometimes on foot; sometimes a learned man walking
out of the city to take the air, and sometimes an unlettered
countryman coming into the city to make his market, will have his ear
hospitably open to every good man he meets, to every good book he
reads, to every good paper he buys at the street corner, and to every
good speech, and report, and letter, and article he reads in it. And how happy that man is, how happy his house is at home, and how happy he
makes all those he but smiles to on his afternoon walk, and in all his
walk along the roads of this life. Never see an I incline' on a railway or
on a driving or a walking road without saying on it before you leave it,
'I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined His ear unto me and
heard my cry. Because He hath inclined His ear unto me, therefore will
I call upon Him as long as I live. Incline not my heart to any evil thing,
to practise wicked works with them that work iniquity. Incline my
heart unto Thy testimonies, and not to covetousness. I have inclined
mine heart to perform Thy statutes alway, even unto the end.'
5. Shakespeare speaks in Richard the Second of 'the open ear of youth,'
and it is a beautiful truth in a beautiful passage. Young men, who are
still young men, keep your ears open to all truth and to all duty and to
all goodness, and shut your ears with an adder's determination
against all that which ruined Richard - flattering sounds, reports of
fashions, and lascivious metres. 'Our souls would only be gainers by
the perfection of our bodies were they wisely dealt with,' says