The Wedding Ring Part 16

PERDITION BOUGHT FOR A SIXPENCE.

The Philistines jeered and laughed and shouted at Samson. Oh, they wanted him to make sport for them, and he made sport for them! How bright and gay was the scene for a little while! After awhile the giant puts one hand against this pillar, and the other hand against this pillar, and bows himself, and three thousand merry-makers are mashed like grapes in a wine-press. Sin rapturous at the start, awful at the last.

That one Edenic transgression did not seem to be much, but it struck a blow which to this day makes the earth stagger like an ox under a butcher's bludgeon. To find out the consequences of that one sin, you would have to compel the world to throw open all its prison doors and display the crime, and throw open all its hospitals and display the disease, and throw open all the insane asylums and show the wretchedness, and open all the sepulchres and show the dead, and open all the doors of the lost world and show the d.a.m.ned. That one Edenic transgression stretched chords of misery across the heart of the world and struck them with dolorous wailing, and it has seated the plagues upon the air and the shipwrecks upon the tempest, and fastened like a leech famine to the heart of the sick and dying nations. Beautiful at the start, horrible at the last. Oh, how many have experienced it!

And there are those who are

VOTARIES OF PLEASURE.

Let me warn you, my brother. Your pleasure boat is far from sh.o.r.e, and your summer day is ending roughly, for the winds and the waves are loud voiced, and the overcoming clouds are all awrithe and agleam with terror. You are past the "Narrows," and almost outside the "Hook," and if the Atlantic take thee, frail mortal, thou shalt never get to sh.o.r.e again. Put back, row swiftly, swifter, swifter! Jesus from the sh.o.r.e casteth a rope. Clasp it quickly, now or never. Oh, are there not some of you who are freighting all your loves and joys and hopes upon a vessel which shall never reach the port of heaven? Thou nearest the breakers, one heave upon the rock. Oh, what an awful crash was that!

Another lunge may crush thee beneath the spars or grind thy bones to powder amid the torn timbers. Overboard for your life, overboard!

Trust not that loose plank nor attempt the move, but quickly clasp the feet of Jesus walking on the watery pavement, shouting until He hear thee, "Lord, save me, or I perish." Sin beautiful at the start--oh, how sad, how distressful at the last! The ground over which it leads you is hollow. The fruit it offers to your taste is poison. The promise it makes to you is a lie. Over that unG.o.dly banquet the keen sword of G.o.d's judgment hangs, and there are ominous handwritings on the wall.

HIDEOUS ATTRACTIVENESS.

Observe also in this subject how repelling sin is when appended to great attractiveness. Since Eve's death there has been no such perfection of womanhood. You could not suggest an attractiveness to the body or suggest any refinement to the manner. You could add no gracefulness to the gait, no l.u.s.tre to the eye, no sweetness to the voice. A perfect G.o.d made her a perfect woman to be the companion of a perfect man in a perfect home, and her entire nature vibrated in accord with the beauty and song of Paradise. But she rebelled against G.o.d's government, and with the same hand with which she plucked the fruit she launched upon the world the crimes, the wars, the tumults, that have set the universe a-wailing,

A TERRIBLE OFFSET

to all her attractiveness. We are not surprised when we find men and women naturally vulgar going into transgression. We expect that people who live in the ditch shall have the manners of the ditch; but how shocking when we find sin appended to superior education and to the refinements of social life. The accomplishments of Mary Queen of Scots make her patronage of Darnley, the profligate, the more appalling. The genius of Catharine II., of Russia, only sets forth in more powerful contrast her unappeasable ambition. The translations from the Greek and the Latin by Elizabeth, and her wonderful qualifications for a queen, made the more disgusting her capriciousness of affection and her hotness of temper. The greatness of Byron's mind made the more alarming Byron's sensuality.

Let no one who hears me this day think that refinement of manner or exquisiteness of taste or superiority of education can in any wise apologize for ill-temper, for an oppressive spirit, for unkindness, for any kind of sin. Disobedience G.o.dward and transgression manward can give no excuse. Accomplishment heaven high is no apology for vice h.e.l.l deep.

My subject also impresses me with the regal

INFLUENCE OF WOMAN.

When I see Eve with this powerful influence over Adam and over the generations that have followed, it suggests to me the great power all women have for good or for evil. I have no sympathy, nor have you, with the hollow flatteries showered upon woman from the platform and the stage. They mean nothing, they are accepted as nothing. Woman's n.o.bility consists in the exercise of a Christian influence, and when I see this powerful influence of Eve upon her husband and upon the whole human race, I make up my mind that the frail arm of woman can strike a blow which will resound through all eternity down among the dungeons, or up among the thrones.

Of course, I am not speaking of representative women--of Eve, who ruined the race by one fruit-picking; of Jael, who drove a spike through the head of Sisera the warrior; of Esther, who overcame royalty; of Abigail, who stopped a host by her own beautiful prowess; of Mary, who nursed the world's Saviour; of Grandmother Lois, immortalized in her grandson Timothy; of Charlotte Corday, who drove the dagger through the heart of the a.s.sa.s.sin of her lover, or of Marie Antoinette, who by one look from the balcony of her castle quieted a mob, her own scaffold the throne of forgiveness and womanly courage. I speak not of these extraordinary persons, but of those who, unambitious for political power, as

WIVES AND MOTHERS

and sisters and daughters, attend to the thousand sweet offices of home.

When at last we come to calculate the forces that decided the destiny of nations, it will be found that the mightiest and grandest influence came from home, where the wife cheered up despondency and fatigue and sorrow by her own sympathy, and the mother trained her child for heaven, starting the little feet on the path to the celestial city; and the sisters by their gentleness refined the manners of the brother; and the daughters were diligent in their kindness to the aged, throwing wreaths of blessing on the road that leads father and mother down the steep of years. Need I go into history to find you ill.u.s.trations? Ah no; in your own memory there was at least one such!

When I come to speak of womanly influence, my mind always wanders off to

ONE MODEL,

the aged one who, twenty years ago, we put away for the resurrection.

About eighty years ago, and just before their marriage day, my father and mother stood up in the old meeting-house at Somerville, New Jersey, and took upon them the vows of the Christian. Through a long life of vicissitude she lived harmlessly and usefully, and came to her end in peace. No child of want ever came to her door and was turned empty away. No one in sorrow came to her but was comforted. No one asked her the way to be saved but she pointed him to the cross. When the angel of life came to a neighbor's dwelling she was there to rejoice at the incarnation. When the angel of death came to a neighbor's dwelling she was there to robe the departed for the burial.

We had often heard her, when leading family prayers in the absence of my father, say, "O Lord, I ask not for my children wealth or honor, but I do ask that they all may be the subjects of thy comforting grace?" Her eleven children brought into the kingdom of G.o.d, she had but one more wish, and that was that she might see her long-absent missionary son; and when the ship from China anch.o.r.ed in New York harbor, and the long-absent one pa.s.sed over the threshold of his paternal home, she said: "Now, Lord, lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." The prayer was soon answered.

It was an autumnal day very much like this when we gathered from afar and found only the house from which the soul had fled forever. She looked very natural, the hands very much as when they were employed in kindness for her children. Whatever else we forget, we never forget the look of mother's hands. As we stood there by the casket, we could not help but say: "Don't she look beautiful?" It was a cloudless day when, with heavy hearts, we carried her out to the last resting-place.

The withered leaves crumbled under hoof and wheel as we pa.s.sed, and the sun shone on the Raritan River until it looked like fire; but more calm and beautiful and radiant was the setting sun of that aged pilgrim's life. No more toil, no more tears, no more sickness, no more death. Dear mother! Beautiful mother!

"Sweet is the slumber beneath the sod, While the pure spirit rests with G.o.d."

I need not go back and show you Zen.o.bia or Semiramis or Isabella as wonders of womanly excellence or greatness, when I in this moment point to your own picture gallery of memory, and show you the one face that you remember so well, and arouse all your holy reminiscences, and start you in new consecration to G.o.d by the p.r.o.nunciation of that tender, beautiful, glorious word, "Mother! mother!"

SISTERLY INFLUENCE.

"And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him."--EXODUS 2:4.

Princess Thermutis, daughter of Pharaoh, looking out through the lattice of her bathing-house, on the banks of the Nile, saw a curious boat on the river. It had neither oar nor helm, and they would have been useless anyhow. There was only one pa.s.senger, and that a baby boy. But the Mayflower that brought the Pilgrim Fathers to America carried not so precious a load. The boat was made of the broad leaves of papyrus tightened together by bitumen. Boats were sometimes made of that material, as we learn from Pliny, and Herodotus, and Theophrastus.

MIRIAM'S VIGIL.

"Kill every Hebrew boy when he is born," had been Pharaoh's order. To save her son, Jochebed, the mother of little Moses, had put him in that queer boat and launched him. His sister Miriam stood on the bank watching that craft with its precious burden. She was far enough off not to draw attention to the boat, but near enough to offer protection. There she stands on the bank, Miriam the poetess, Miriam the quick-witted, Miriam the faithful, though very human, for in after time she became so mad with that very brother for marrying a woman she did not like, that she made a great family row, and was struck with leprosy.

Miriam was a splendid sister, but had her faults like all the rest of us. How carefully she watched the boat containing her brother! A strong wind might upset it. The buffaloes often found there might in a sudden plunge of thirst sink it. Some ravenous water-fowl, might swoop, and pick his eyes out with iron beak. Some crocodile or hippopotamus crawling through the rushes might craunch the babe.

Miriam watched and watched until Princess Thermutis, a maiden on each side of her, holding palm leaves over her head to shelter her from the sun, came down and entered her bathing-house. When from the lattice she saw that boat she ordered it brought, and when the leaves were pulled back from the face of the child and the boy looked up he cried aloud, for he was hungry and frightened, and would not even let the princess take him. The infant would rather stay hungry than acknowledge any one of the court as mother.

AN ADROIT MAIDEN.

Now Miriam, the sister, incognito, no one suspecting her relation to the child, leaps from the bank and rushes down and offers to get a nurse to pacify the child. Consent is given, she brings Jochebed, the baby's mother, incognito, not sure of the court knowing that she was the mother, and when Jochebed arrived the child stopped crying, for its fright was calmed and its hunger appeased. You may admire Jochebed, the mother, and all the ages may admire Moses, but I clap my hands in applause at the behavior of Miriam, the faithful, brilliant, and strategic sister!

"Go home," someone might have said to Miriam. "Why risk yourself out there alone on the banks of the Nile, breathing the miasma and in danger of being attacked of wild beast or ruffian; go home!" No; Miriam, the sister, most lovingly watched and bravely defended Moses, the brother. Is he worthy her care and courage? Oh, yes; the sixty centuries of the world's history have never had so much involved in the arrival of any ship at any port as in the landing of that papyrus boat calked with bitumen. Its one pa.s.senger was to be a non-such in history. Lawyer, statesman, politician, legislator, organizer, conqueror, deliverer.

HEBREW LEGENDS.

He had such remarkable beauty in childhood that Josephus says, when he was carried along the road, people stopped to gaze at him, and workmen would leave their work to admire him. When the king playfully put his crown upon this boy, he threw it off indignantly, and put his foot on it. The king, fearing that this might be a sign that the child might yet take down his crown, applied another test. According to the Jewish legend, the king ordered two bowls to be put before the child, one containing rubies, and the other burning coals. And if he took the coals he was to live, and if he took the rubies he was to die. For some reason the child took one of the coals, and put it in his mouth, so that his life was spared, although it burned the tongue till he was indistinct of utterance ever after. Having come to manhood, he spread open the palms of his hands in prayer and the Red Sea parted to let two million five hundred thousand people escape. And he put the palms of his hands together in prayer and the Red Sea closed on a strangulated host.

UNIQUE BURIAL.

His life was unutterably grand, his burial must be on the same scale.

G.o.d would let neither man nor saint nor archangel have anything to do with weaving for him a shroud or digging for him a grave. The omnipotent G.o.d left His throne in heaven one day, and if the question was asked, "Whither is the King of the Universe going?" the answer was, "I am going down to bury Moses." And the Lord took this mightiest of men to the top of a hill, and the day was clear, and Moses ran his eye over the magnificent range of country. Here, the valley of Esdraelon, where the final battle of all nations is to be fought; and yonder, the mountains Hermon, and Lebanon, and Gerizim, and hills of Judea; and the village of Bethlehem there, and the city of Jericho yonder, and the vast stretch of landscape that almost took the old lawgiver's breath away as he looked at it.

And then, without a pang, as I learn from the statement that the eye of Moses was undimmed, and his natural force unabated, G.o.d touched the great lawgiver's eyes and they closed; and his lungs, and they ceased; and his heart, and it stopped; and commanded, saying: "To the skies, thou immortal spirit!" And then one divine hand was put against the back of Moses, and the other hand against the pulseless breast and G.o.d laid him softly down on Mount Nebo, and then the lawgiver lifted in the Almighty's arms, was carried to the opening of a cave and placed in crypt, and one stroke of the divine hand smoothed the features into an everlasting calm, and a rock was rolled to the door, and the only obsequies at which G.o.d did all the offices of priest, and undertaker, and grave-digger, and mourner were ended.

THE WORLD INDEBTED.