THE PALM TREE HAS A COARSE, ROUGH EXTERIOR; BUT IT IS SOFT AT HEART
In spite of its symmetry, its wonderful beauty and its perennial
freshness, the palm tree has rather a harsh exterior. But being an
endogenous tree, its pithy interior makes it always soft at the center,
or heart.
In the realm of grace, we often find some of God's best saints with a
somewhat coarse-grained exterior. They may be uncouth, unlettered,
uncultured, and reared in the backwoods, but they can look up with Job
and say, "He maketh my heart soft."
While Christian education is to be prized, and culture to be much
esteemed, there are some who have not had these advantages, yet have
proved by actual experience that God's grace is free for all, and a
clean, soft heart can abide beneath a rough exterior.
Methinks Elijah, with his rough garments and shaggy hair, had underneath
his crude exterior one of the softest hearts of his time. John the
Baptist, with camel's hair clothing, leathern girdle, and locust pabulum
had a kind, soft heart within.
Sometimes God's people are much misunderstood because of their natural
uncouthness and blunt manners, when, if their hearts could be seen,
they would appear whiter than snow and softer than silk. Thank God, He
knows.
The beautiful blessing of "perfect love" has been often misunderstood.
Some seem to think it is a sort of lovey-dovey, sentimental something
that makes its possessor smile on everybody and everything no matter
what the moral quality may be. Perfect love sometimes assumes the rugged
type, and deals along drastic lines. It can weep with those who weep,
but when there is a very critical operation to perform, there may be no
place for tears just then, for tears would blind the eyes.
Elijah, whose heart was full of perfect love, came to a place where the
false prophets had to be exterminated, and he had grace and grit enough
to carry out the heaven-appointed program.
John the Baptist, whose experience Jesus Christ himself did not
question, could face the hypocritical church members and say, "O
generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to
come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance" (Matt. 3:7, 8).
No, perfect love deals death blows where death blows are needed. A mad
dog is running loose in the street. Children are playing on the opposite
corner. Some one rushes out with a bludgeon in his hand, and jeopardizes
his life, but he lays out the mad dog. Some sentimental on-looker asks,
"Was that love that prompted you to treat that dog thus?" He answers,
"Yes; love for those innocent children over on the corner."
A man is drowning. In vain he struggles and screams. He is about to
perish, when a stalwart specimen of humanity swims out and deals the
poor man a terrible blow in the proper place to stun him. He ceases to
struggle, and the expert life-saver swims ashore and lays his man at the
feet of rejoicing friends. Some one says, "Was that love that made you
strike that poor, helpless man?" He replies, "Yes; if I hadn't stunned
him, he would have drowned himself and me too."
A freight train was pulling into an Illinois town in the night. The crew
saw a building on fire and had reason to believe that a friend was
upstairs in a certain room. The train was stopped and two men rushed to
the scene of the fire. Up the stairs they mounted and never stopped to
knock at the chamber door, but rushed to the slumberer. There was no
time for ceremonies. They grabbed the man and dragged him down the
stairs most abruptly. They had scarcely reached the outside when the
stairway fell in, and had they been a minute later all would have been
lost. Imagine that rescued victim complaining of harsh treatment,
skinned shins and sprained ankles! Love made the rescuers adopt speedy
and most drastic measures and nothing else would have saved.
When the writer was a small boy in Iowa, a presiding elder of the M. E.
church lived in his town. He was an exceedingly corpulent man, weighing
something over three hundred fifty pounds. One day he was taken very
sick and a physician prescribed for him, leaving the medicine in the
form of powders for him to take. The great, big preacher looked at the
small powders and then at his bigness, and said to himself: "I am so
large I think I would better take two of them." He accordingly took a
double dose and soon discovered that they were putting him to sleep. His
family and friends saw the awful mistake he had made, and determined to
use desperate measures to keep him awake, or they well knew they would
soon have a dead presiding elder on their hands. Accordingly, love went
to work. They walked him about, switched him, and punished him in any
way their quickened ingenuity could invent. In vain he begged them to
let him alone and sleep, but they threshed him and punished him till
they wore off the effect of the opiate and saved his life. Would any one
question the promptings of love that led those people to give their
presiding elder such a beating? I trow not.
Did Jesus Christ love when He drove the money changers out of the temple
at the end of a whip? Did Daniel have love when he faced the wicked
Belshazzar and told him of his sins at the risk of his own life? Was
there love in Jeremiah's heart when he swore to the truth and changed
not, even if he did land in the dark, miry dungeon? Where was Joshua's
love when he put his foot on the necks of the Canaanitish kings? What
about Samuel and Agag? Look over the history of the Old and New
Testaments and note some of the rugged measures taken by God's prophets
and others, and see that it was not always of the easy-going,
soft-gloved, alligator-teared type.
In the far North, when it was an object to get the mail over those
bleak, barren plains, with the thermometer many degrees below zero, one
frightfully frigid morning the express driver was bundled up for his
long, cold ride in his sleigh. Just as he was about to start, a rather
scantily dressed woman came up with a baby in her arms, and told the
driver that she had just received news of her husband's death, and she
must go to him. He remonstrated with her and tried to show her that she
could never stand the cold trip; that she would certainly freeze on the
way. But his words were futile, for she climbed into the sleigh and was
determined to go to her husband. Finding that he could not prevail upon
her to desist, he tucked her in the bottom of the sleigh, piled the
straw around, placed the wraps about her and her baby and started on. As
they progressed, the cold grew more and more intense. The icy flakes
began to fill the air, and the wind was cutting its way through to the
very marrow. Finally, the driver saw the poor woman nodding, and
discovered the sleepy droop of her eyelids. He thought, "Oh, the poor
woman is freezing to death and what shall I do?" He hastily tried to
think of some way of saving her life, when suddenly he stopped the
sleigh, and quietly, without saying a word, took the baby from her arms
and lifted the freezing form of the woman into the road; then he took
the babe in his own arms and drove on. At first she staggered and
stumbled around and then seemed to come to herself and discovered that
the driver was actually running off with her baby. The chase then began
in good earnest. He managed to keep just far enough ahead to encourage
her in her desperate run. Finally, he saw the glow return to her cheek,
and knew that the warm blood was again coursing through her body, and
then he quietly let her in, placed the babe in her arms, snugly tucked
them in and drove on to their destination. At the journey's end she
said, "Oh, how I thank you for what you did! If you had not done that,
my baby would have been an orphan tonight." Rough treatment was that;
but it was prompted by love. Judging from the exterior appearance, it
surely looked rough and frightfully cruel; but a heart of kindness was
beneath it all.
A certain phrenologist was giving a public exhibition showing the
science of phrenology. A well-known citizen was on the platform having
his cranium and physiognomy examined, the result of which was being
communicated to the audience. The man had some very prominent bumps and
features which indicated a disposition far from pleasant, and the
examiner was telling it out to the congregation as one striking, ugly
point after another was discovered. As the phrenologist proceeded from
one statement to another, delineating the man's character, the
congregation first smiled, and then burst into laughter. The professor
was actually describing the man opposite to what he really was. They
knew the man, and it excited their risibilities to see the scientist so
far miss the mark. Of course it was embarrassing to him, but on
concluding his talk, the gentleman who had been examined asked if he
might say a word. He then told the people that the phrenologist had told
the truth and had given a very accurate description of his natural
disposition; that he had perfectly pictured out his former life; that
the reason why he was not that way now, was because of the grace of God
that had come into his life. Grace had made the change, but the old,
rough exterior was not worn off, and the phrenologist had judged from
the appearance.
Let us not judge by the external simply. Like the palm tree, one may be
crude and rough outside, but inside he may meet the loving approbation
of God.