Five Young Men Part 3

That very night, accompanied only by his armour-bearer, David stole under cover of the darkness into Saul's camp. He presently stood in the tent of the sleeping giant. Here was his enemy lying helpless at his feet! His armour-bearer, knowing the history of that enmity, whispered, "Let me smite him with one blow to the earth! I will not smite the second time." One blow in the dark would suffice to end that murderous career.

And it ought to be remembered that this was in a day when "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" was the law of the land. It was esteemed the law of G.o.d. The atmosphere was not one of forbearance--the popular heroes were men like Samson and Gideon, women like Deborah and Jael, who did not hesitate to strike down their foes.

"Let me smite him," came the whisper in the dark. "One blow will suffice."

But peace hath her victories no less than war. Mercy has its trophies no less than force. Here was a man who would not avenge himself--he would give place unto wrath knowing that vengeance belongs to G.o.d. He was ready to make the bold adventure of undertaking to overcome evil with good.

David would not strike his enemy even though that enemy had been in hot pursuit of him. "Destroy him not," he whispered to his companion-in-arms as he felt him clutching the sword which hung at his side. David's greatest victory was not over Goliath, the Philistine giant--it was over himself, over that spirit of revenge which might so easily have ruled his heart in that dark, hard hour.

He had in splendid measure the quality of mercy which the poet sings.

"The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; We do pray for mercy, And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy."

We are discovering those qualities which ent.i.tled this young man to be crowned as king.

Finally, he was a man of genuine piety. We read in one place that he was "a man after G.o.d's own heart." The statement has been a puzzle to many an honest mind. This man who in his later years dipped his hands in the blood of his foes and fell on one occasion into the grossest sin with an attractive woman, this fellow a man after G.o.d's own heart!

He was not an angel. As we go up and down through history we find men and not angels. We find men with mud on their boots, with blisters on their hands, and with scars on their souls. George Washington owned slaves. John Calvin burned Servetus at the stake. Peter the Apostle denied his Lord three times in a single night--he denied with an oath.

If you are looking for moral perfection you will have to look somewhere else than on this earth.

David was a man after G.o.d's own heart, not because he never did wrong, but because when he fell down he got up again. He got up again faced towards G.o.d and not away from Him, faced away from the evil which had thrown him down and not towards a further advance in wrong-doing. "The wise make of their moral failures ladders by which they climb towards Heaven. The foolish make of their moral failures graves wherein they bury all their highest hopes."

When Oscar Wilde was imprisoned in Reading gaol for his own wretched wrongdoing he wrote that strangely human doc.u.ment, "De Profundis." It was a message "out of the depths." In that book he used this striking sentence which I have never forgotten since the first time I read it, "The highest moment in a man's career may be the hour when he kneels in the dust and beats upon his breast and tells all the sins of his life."

"G.o.d be merciful to me, a sinner." "Have mercy upon me, O G.o.d.

Against Thee have I sinned. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin." This is all that any honest man can say in the presence of his Maker, and when he does say it honestly he is on his way to the divine favour.

David was a man of faith and of prayer; he was a man of deep, sweet feeling and of spiritual longing. In all his better moments when he was truly himself his heart hungered after righteousness and his soul was athirst for the living G.o.d. A man of that moral mood and build is much more after G.o.d's own heart, even though he may upon occasion be betrayed by the fervour of his nature into wrong-doing, than is the coldly correct man who has never felt enough of warm-hearted devotion to anything to raise the spiritual temperature a single degree.

I do not know how many of these Psalms came from the lips or the pen of David. No one knows--not many in all probability. But I know that these words represent experiences which were David's beyond a peradventure. "The Lord is my rock and my fortress, my deliverer and my saviour. In my distress I called upon Him and He heard me. He drew me out of many waters and He brought me forth into a large place.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

He came to the throne at the age of thirty, and he reigned over Israel for forty years. His name was handed down in human history as that of the greatest king that Israel ever had. He never could have done it but for the fact that he had in his heart faith and hope and love towards G.o.d and towards his fellow men. He was a man of deep and genuine piety.

When William IV of England pa.s.sed away there was a young girl of sixteen named Victoria who was spending the night in Kensington Palace.

Word was suddenly brought to her that the King was dead and that she was Queen of England. She immediately fell upon her knees imploring divine help and guidance in the discharge of the high duties which had been thrust upon her. May it not be that this was one secret of her beneficent reign which lasted for more than sixty years? The rulers who begin the ascent of their thrones upon their knees rise high because their eyes are upon that Great White Throne which is the final seat of all authority and of all blessing.

Here then were the leading traits in that young man who became king!

In his early life when he was nothing but a shepherd boy he showed fidelity in the ordinary duties of every-day life. He showed courage and high resolve in the presence of danger. He had a fine capacity for joyous and enduring friendship with his brother men. He was great-hearted and magnanimous to his foes, even when he had them utterly in his power. He was a man of simple, genuine faith in the living G.o.d.

Whether you are living in Palestine or in Connecticut, in the tenth century before Christ or in the twentieth century after, are not these the qualities which are sure to be crowned? Are not these the traits which make any man kingly in his bearing and in the whole content of his inner life?

Set your hearts upon those traits and make them your own! Fight the good fight! Keep your faith! Finish your course with honour and you will find at the end of it laid up for you a crown of righteousness, which G.o.d gives to every man who serves Him aright.

IV

The Young Man Who Was Born to the Purple

"In the year that King Uzziah died"--it was more than a date, it was an experience! The king had been a wise and good ruler. He had served his country well for fifty-two long years. He showed an interest in the welfare of his people--"He loved husbandry and dug wells for them in the desert." He caused vineyards to be planted on the slopes of Carmel and he increased the herds of cattle which grazed in the lowlands. He fortified his capital by building towers at the valley gate and at the turning of the wall in Jerusalem.

His reign was beneficent, but now he was dead, and this warm-hearted young patriot felt that his heart was overwhelmed. He and his fellow citizens must now plan for the future of their county without the guidance and inspiration of this great king.

But "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord." There came something more than a personal experience of disappointment. There came the emergence of a new and higher form of faith. This young man saw the earthly majesty of this wise and good king go down in utter defeat. In some strange way the king contracted leprosy. During all the closing years of his reign he suffered from the crawling inroads of that loathsome disease. By the stern requirements of the Jewish law he was banished from his own capital. He was compelled to live outside the city and to reign by deputy. He finally died a lingering and horrible death.

And in that dread hour the young man saw the heavenly majesty of the King of kings resplendent and enduring. "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord, high and lifted up, sitting upon His throne and His glory filled the temple." The spirit of hero-worship was pa.s.sing over into religious faith.

Let me study with you the effect of this crisis in the life of his nation upon this young man who was born to the purple. He possessed all those advantages which go with wealth, social position, and education. We have here no rough man of the hills like Elijah, the Tishbite, rudely dressed and rude in speech. We have here no man with the smell of the fields in his garments like Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa.

Isaiah belonged to the fortunate cla.s.s. He lived on Fifth Avenue. He had an a.s.sured social position which gave him ready access to the court and to the presence of the king. He was familiar with the customs and the costumes of fashionable society, as we find in that chapter where he openly rebukes the showy extravagance of the idle rich. He was well educated--he had that literary skill which comes only to those who are well trained. In all the Old Testament you will find nothing finer than the sweep and finish of some of this young prophet's public utterances. He was one to whom five talents had been given where other men were struggling along with one apiece. He therefore owed to society what might be called the debt of privilege. It is a fixed charge upon the lives of those who sit above the salt. It has a right to insist upon full payment. "To whom much is given, of him will much be required."

It is for every man to ask himself: "How much do I eat up in my generous mode of life? How much in food and dress, in housing and furnishing, in motor cars and yachts, in travel and in recreation? How much do I consume in those provisions which I make for a wider culture through books, pictures, music and the like?" What is your average intake of this world's good things? That measure of consumption will indicate the measure of your responsibility. If you are born to the purple and fare sumptuously in all these ways then the world has a right to demand that you shall render back in corresponding measure that useful service which is your plain duty.

In that effective cartoon which Jesus drew of the Rich Man and Lazarus, it was the unpaid debt of privilege which brought about the loss of a soul. Jesus showed the two men in this world, one of them living in a palace, clothed with purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day; the other in rags dying at the Rich Man's gate, hungry and full of sores. Then Jesus showed the two men in the next world, Lazarus the beggar now in Abraham's bosom, and the son of good fortune enduring torment.

There is no hint that the Rich Man had gained a penny of his wealth wrongfully; no charge of lying or theft, of murder or adultery is laid at his door. He was d.a.m.ned not by the wicked things he had done, but for the lack of that generous and humane service which he had left undone. His sin was that of selfish indifference. The way to perdition is paved with moral neglect. The debt of privilege can no more be escaped than death or taxes. To whom much is given, of him will much be required. And a full sense of that responsibility was brought home to this well-endowed young man in the year the great king died.

The fortunate young man stood out in the open confessing his sense of moral need. There in the place of worship in that high and serious mood which followed upon the death of the king, he caught a fresh vision of G.o.d. "I saw the Lord high and lifted up, sitting upon His throne. I saw Him surrounded with the winged seraphs. And one of them cried to another, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts! The whole earth is full of His glory."

The very sight of the unstained purity of Him "unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid," brought this young man to his knees. He knelt in the dust and beat upon his breast and told the sins of his life. "Woe is me, I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

And mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."

The man who has no sense of sin has little sense of any sort. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves or else we lie. Where is the man who can stand up in the presence of those who know him and say, "Every deed that I have done was done in honour and integrity. Every word that has fallen from my lips has been spoken in truth and in kindliness. Every desire which I have harboured in my soul has been one upon which the eye of my Maker might rest with approval."

Can you say that? I am frank to confess that I cannot. I have done wrong. I feel my need of the divine mercy. I want forgiveness, cleansing and renewal. And every man who is honest enough to look himself in the face, without flinching, will be moved to make the same confession. It is up out of those moments of contrition when men are humbled and broken before G.o.d that the spiritual impulses come which are to beat back the forces of evil and make this earth at last as fair as the sky.

I care not what the man's outward station may be--he may live on the Avenue or he may live in the slums; he may be clothed in purple or he may be dressed in rags; he wear a Phi Beta Kappa key or he may be so untaught that he has to make his mark when he signs a mortgage--in any event here is a prayer which will fit his lips--it fits every pair of lips: "G.o.d be merciful to me, a sinner."

In that one brief sentence we have the four main terms of religious experience. "G.o.d," the object of religion, the ground of all finite existence, the basis of all our hope! "Me," the human soul, the subject of religion, the field where the work of religion is to be wrought out! "Sin," the obstacle to religion, the source of all our moral failure, the cause of our alienation from G.o.d! And "mercy," the agent of religion, the form of energy which accomplishes our recovery!

G.o.d be merciful to me, a sinner.

This young man of good fortune stood up in the temple in the presence of his fellows making his open confession of moral need. "Woe is me for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips."

In that very hour when this honest confession came from his lips his life was cleansed by the direct action of the divine spirit. He saw one of the winged seraphs flying towards him through the open s.p.a.ces of Heaven. The angel took a live coal from the altar and laid it upon the lips of this young man. He cried out as he did it, saying, "Thine iniquity is taken away. Thy sin is purged." Isaiah was no more a man of unclean lips--he could now speak with that Lord whose name is Holy as friend speaks with friend.

We have this profound moral experience dressed up in those grand, Oriental robes which were dear to the people of that region. But when you strip away the silk, the lace, and the feathers of Eastern imagery, and get down to the bare, warm truth, this is what you find--a man whose sense of moral lack had prompted that open confession, cleansed in that high hour by the direct action of the divine spirit upon his soul.

Here is that which is basic and fundamental in all religious life! I wonder if we have not been tempted in recent years to obscure this vital experience. We have held those two big words, "Heredity" and "Environment," so close to our eyes as to blind us, oftentimes, to the larger vision of that which is superhuman in earthly experience.

It is possible for the inner life of a man to be so wrought upon by the action of the spirit of G.o.d that the corrupt nature is cleansed, the weak nature is made strong, the selfish disposition is transformed into benign love.

It matters little how you go about it, if you go with sincere faith.

You may seek for that renewal through the regenerating influence of the Sacraments dear to the heart of the Romanist and the High Churchman.

If you find it there, it will be because Christ is within the Sacrament. You may seek for it in those profound emotional reactions which come at the Methodist mourners' bench. If you find it there, it will be because the spirit of Christ was operating through those feelings. You may find it as you make an about face, turning away from that which is evil and making Christian duty your supreme choice in the quiet of your own room. If you find it there, it will be because Christ was present in those movements of your inner life. The woman was healed in the Gospel story by touching the hem of Christ's garment because Christ was within that garment.