"Neither was guile found in His mouth."--1 Pet. ii. 22.
How rare, and all the more beautiful because of its rarity, is a purely
_guileless_ spirit! A crystalline medium through which the transparent
light of Heaven comes and goes; open, candid, just, honorable, sincere;
scorning every unfair dealing, every hollow pretension, every narrow
prejudice. Wherever such characters exist, they are like "apples of gold
in pictures of silver."
Such, in all the loveliness of sinless perfection, was the Son of God!
His guilelessness shining the more conspicuously amid the artful and
malignant subtlety alike of men and devils. Passing by manifold
instances in the course of His ministry, look at its manifestation as
the hour of His death approached. When, on the night of his
apprehension, He confronts the assassin band, in meek majesty He puts
the question, "Whom seek ye?" They say to Him, "Jesus of Nazareth." In
guileless innocence, He replies, "I am He!" "Art thou the King of the
Jews?" asks Pilate, a few hours after. An evasive answer might again
have purchased immunity from suffering and indignity, but once more the
lips which scorned the semblance of evasion reply, "Thou sayest!"
How He loved the same spirit in His people! "Behold," said He, of
Nathanael, "an Israelite indeed, in whom is _no guile_!" That upright
man had, we may suppose, been day after day kneeling in prayer under his
fig-tree, with an open and candid spirit--
"Musing on the law he taught,
And waiting for the Lord he loved."
See how the Saviour honored him; setting His own Divine seal on the
loveliness of this same spirit! Take one other example, when the
startling, saddening announcement is made to the disciples, "One of you
shall betray me;" they do not accuse one another; they attempt to throw
no suspicion on Judas; each in trembling apprehension suspects only his
own treacherous heart, "Lord, is it I?"
How much of a different "mind" is there abroad! In the school of the
world (this "_painted_ world"), how much is there of what is called
"policy," double-dealing!--accomplishing its ends by tortuous means;
outward, artificial polish, often only a cloak for baseness and
selfishness!--in the daily interchange of business, one seeking to
over-reach the other by wily arts; sacrificing principle for temporal
advantage. There is nothing so derogatory to religion as aught allied to
such a spirit among Christ's people--any such blot on the "living
epistles." "Ye are the light of the world." That world is a quick
observer. It is sharp to detect inconsistencies--slow to forget them.
The true Christian has been likened to an _anagram_--you ought to be
able to read him up and down, every way!
Be all reality, no counterfeit. Do not pass for current coin what is
base alloy. Let transparent honor and sincerity regulate all your
dealings; despise all meanness; avoid the sinister motive, the underhand
dealing; aim at that unswerving love of truth that would scorn to stoop
to base compliances and unworthy equivocations; live more under the
power of the purifying and ennobling influences of the gospel. Take its
golden rule as the matchless directory for the daily transactions of
life--"Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to
them."
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Twenty-seventh Day.