THE BEST POSSESSION.
What is the best possession a human life can have? Judging from the
efforts made to secure wealth, fame, and power, the answer would seem to
be that they--wealth, fame, and power--are the best possessions any one
can have. Observant and thoughtful people know, however, that such
possessions do not necessarily nor ordinarily make their owners happy.
They therefore argue that there must be better possessions than these.
So they say, eloquence is perhaps the best possession, or knowledge is,
or ability to do great deeds or express great thoughts is. But the
wisest book that has ever been written says that something not yet
mentioned is the best possession, and says that that something makes
life the happiest, and even makes it the holiest. That something, in the
language of the Bible, is _love_. The man that in his heart has love,
true, pure, lasting love, has the best possession that can be secured.
It is for this reason that Jonathan is such an inspiring character. The
story of his life, hastily viewed, seems almost incidental, but
scholarly examination of it shows that its light and gladness are in
marked contrast to the darkness and sorrow in the careers of Saul and
David. The story of Jonathan's life has probably done more to suggest
and arouse the unselfish devotion of man to man, than any story, apart
from that of the Christ, that has ever been told. If we wish to find one
who really had the best possible possession, Jonathan is that one, a man
whose heart was bright, whose deeds were noble, and whose death was
glorious.
Jonathan was a physical hero. He had both muscular strength and
muscular skill. The way he could throw a spear and shoot an arrow made
him famous. He had rare courage. Assisted only by his armor-bearer he
once made an attack upon a whole garrison at Michmash, slaying twenty
men within a few rods and putting an entire army to flight. He had great
self-control. Found fault with by his father because in an hour of
weariness he had tasted honey--in ignorance of his father's wish to the
contrary--he opened his breast to receive the death penalty vowed by the
father, and stood unmoved until the soldiers cried to Saul that the deed
of blood must not be done. He was no weakling. Rather he was a mighty
man, able to command military forces and call out their enthusiasm. Men
rallied about him for hazardous undertakings, saying, "Do all that is in
thy heart; behold, I am with thee according to thy heart." In the field
or in the court he was equally acceptable. His father, the king, had
implicit confidence in him, and took him into all his counsels. In the
language of poetry, he was "swifter than an eagle, he was stronger than
a lion." Israel might well look forward to the day when this stalwart,
inspiring, wise son should succeed his father and be their king. His
name, in time of battle, would be a terror to their foes.
But better than Jonathan's strong arm and clear intellect and winsome
personality was his loving heart. He never had read Paul's description
of love as given in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, nor had
he read Henry Drummond's exposition of love as "The Greatest Thing in
the World," nor had he ever seen the devoted character of Christ, nor
known any of the beautiful examples of love created by the Gospel. He
was living in a selfish age--an age of strife and tumult and blood--and
still his whole being seemed pervaded by that love which is "unselfish
devotion to the highest interests of others." Such love was his joyous
and abiding possession.
The first time we have an opportunity of reading his inmost heart is
when David, having slain Goliath, stands before Saul, holding Goliath's
head in his hand. Here we see the _generosity_ of love. It was an hour
when every eye was turned from Jonathan and centered upon an unknown
stripling who had carried off the honors of the day by a startling and
brilliant deed. Hitherto Jonathan had been the national hero; now he was
to be set aside, and David was everywhere to come into the foreground.
How should all this transfer of honor affect Jonathan? Should it sour
him, making him look askance on this new competitor for the public
recognition, and influencing him to send back David to his father's
flocks, away from further opportunity for martial deeds? Any such method
would be what is called "natural." Men usually try to get rid of
competitors. They do this in business and in games. Opera singers often
keep back, if they can, the voice that once heard will supersede their
own voice in popular favor. We do not like to have another outshine us.
Praise is sweet. People hate to lose it. Plaudits transferred to another
leave a painful vacancy in the ordinary soul. We crave favor, and when
that favor passes from us to rest upon another we are severely tried.
Many a man has thought himself kindly dispositioned until he found that
some one else was obtaining the recognition previously so secure to him,
and then to his own surprise he has found himself grudging the other
that recognition. How much of the unhappiness of human life comes from
the fact that persons do not speak to us or of us as they do of others!
How apprehensively many people protect their place--social, political,
or commercial--lest another shall in any wise encroach upon it! Jonathan
might easily have recognized that, so far as his interests were
concerned, it was far better that David should be dismissed to the sheep
pastures than allowed to stay near the court.
But in spite of what Jonathan recognized, Jonathan's heart warmed to
David. By the time he had heard the story of David's home and family,
the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved
him as his own soul. The interests of David became his interests. He
wished David to succeed. Praises of David sounded sweet in his hearing.
He showed such wish to have David stay right there, at the heart of the
nation's capital, where people could see him and honor him, and where
David could have new opportunity for public service, that Saul would not
let David go back to the distant and quiet pastures. Jonathan even made
a covenant with David, promising to be his friend and helper. To show
the sincerity of that covenant, or rather in the expression of that
covenant, Jonathan took off his robe and his garments, even to his sword
and to his bow and to his girdle--stripped himself of them--and gave
them to David. Jonathan wished David to be ready for possible
opportunities of military success, and therefore he armed him with his
own chosen and well-tried weapons.
So their friendship began. It was a friendship that was all "give" on
one side and all "take" on the other. There never was a clearer
illustration of what love is than the relation between Jonathan and
David. It is always said that "Jonathan loved David," but no emphasis is
placed on David's love for Jonathan. David appreciated Jonathan, but
Jonathan loved David, and loving him, unceasingly aided him. "I call
that man my friend," a noble poet declared, "for whom I can do some
favor." Love exists only where costly kindnesses are conferred upon
another.
Turner, England's honored painter, exemplified love when he was on a
committee on hanging pictures for exhibition in London and a picture
came from an unknown artist after the walls were full. "This picture is
worthy; it must be hung," he said. "Impossible; the walls are full now,"
others asserted. Quietly saying "I will arrange it," Turner took down
one of his own pictures and hung the new picture in its place.
The second scene of Jonathan's devotion to David reveals the
_protection_ of love. David's life was in danger. Saul, jealous of
David's popularity, desired to be rid of David. He even wished to kill
him. He let his servants know his wish. David was encompassed by peril.
What would Jonathan do now? When others were turning against him, would
he also turn against him? The current was all setting one way. Any
kindness to David would now be in direct opposition to a ruler's will
and to the sentiment of the court. Interest in another often becomes
luke-warm under such circumstances. "There is no use of resisting the
tide of events," people say. They therefore leave the man that is down
to himself and to his fate. How lovers fall away in the hour of disgrace
and danger! How difficult it becomes to speak favorably of a man when
every other is condemning him! In periods of excitement when the motives
of men are called into question and innuendo is in the air, how
reluctant we are to avow our confidence and try to still the cries of
opposition.
But what was the effect of this situation on Jonathan? His heart warmed
all the more to the imperiled man whose one crime was that he was a
deliverer to Israel. Jonathan delighted much in David. Jonathan revealed
to David Saul's purpose to kill him. Jonathan provided for David's
immediate safety and took means to anticipate his future safety. Then he
went to the king and _plead_ for David. That was a splendid piece of
work. It was much as John Knox plead with Mary, Queen of Scots, for
Scotland. She did not wish to hear Knox's words. She was bitter against
Scotland and Scotland's religion. He risked much in venturing into her
presence and interceding. But he loved Scotland and Scotland's religion.
He would rather die than have Scotland suffer, and so he braved Mary's
tears and entreaties and commands, and he spoke for Scotland. Love is a
very expensive thing; it often summons us to surrender our personal
ease, and surrender, too, our closest comradeships. It may cost us
obloquy, it may cost us loss of standing with king and court, it may
cost us the disdain of the world, but cost what it might, Jonathan plead
for David's safety, and temporarily secured his wish.
Later the love of Jonathan was to be subjected to a more subtle and
more difficult test. It was to be called upon for _self-effacement_.
Saul's misdemeanors and incompetences had so weighed on Saul's mind that
Saul actually hated the David whose conduct was always irreproachable;
Saul's mind, too, at times had lost its balance, and he had done the
insane acts of a madman toward David. Saul, now half-sane and
half-insane, was irrevocably determined to kill David. He learned that
Samuel had quietly anointed David as king, and that David in due time
would succeed to the throne! Saul's heart was aflame with
bitterness--the bitterness that is born of chagrin and envy. David knew
of that bitterness, and knew that Saul's persistent enmity left but a
"step between him and death." Then it was that Jonathan ventured to
interview his father and see whether his father's hatred could not in
some way be appeased and David's safety be secured.
But with the first revelation of Jonathan's interest in David came an
outburst from Saul that showed the utter implacability of Saul's rage.
Saul even tried to inflame Jonathan's temper, charging him with
perversity and rebellion, and with acting undutifully; and then, when he
hoped that Jonathan was excited, he introduced the thought, "This David,
if you let him live, will seize the throne which is yours as my son and
heir! Will you suffer David to live and take your throne?" It was an
appeal to Jonathan's envy, and that appeal touched on the most delicate
ambition of Jonathan's heart. What a fearful thing envy is! History is
full of its unfortunate work. It hurts him who cherishes it as well as
him against whom it rages. Cambyses killed his brother Smerdis because
he could draw a stronger bow than himself or his party. Dionysius the
tyrant, out of envy, punished Philoxenius the musician because he could
sing, and Plato the philosopher because he could dispute, better than
himself. "Envy is the very reverse of charity; it is the supreme source
of pain, as charity is the supreme source of pleasure. The poets
imagined that envy dwelt in a dark cave; being pale and lean, looking
asquint, abounding with gall, her teeth black, never rejoicing but in
the misfortune of others, ever unquiet and anxious, and continually
tormenting herself."
When such an appeal to envy as that subtly made by Saul to Jonathan
comes to most human hearts they are conquered by it. Few, very few, men
hail the rise of the sun that pales their own star. But Jonathan could
not be overpowered by this appeal, however wilily the king drove it
home. He stood true to David, though by so doing he imperiled his own
life. For with his quick perception of Jonathan's fixed adherence to
David, Saul hurled his javelin at his own son's breast and would have
slain him on the spot.
In the days that followed this stormy interview, when the king's wrath
against David was still at white heat, and when one turn of Jonathan's
hand could have ended all possible rivalry between himself and David for
the throne, Jonathan sought David, said gladly to him, "Thou shalt be
king in Israel, and I shall be next unto thee," and saying this, made a
new covenant of love that should bind themselves and their descendants
to all generations!
I know not what others may think, but as for me, nothing in this world
is sweeter, stronger, nobler, than an unselfish friendship. We have used
and misused the word "love" so often that we have dragged it down from
its high meaning. We have flippantly passed it over our lips when by
"love" we meant mere interest, or sympathy, or fondness, or even a
mental or a physical passion. We have belittled it and even smirched it
in the mire. But next to the word "God" it is the greatest word of human
life, and is associated with God as no other word is. The man that can
and will prove a generous, unselfish, devoted friend is the highest type
of man. The man that can cherish a sweet, uplifting love that is beyond
the reach of envy, and that will lay down every treasure but itself for
another, is the noblest specimen of manhood that can be produced. More
and more it becomes clear that genuine devotion to the highest interests
of others is the solution of the world's social problems. Love makes its
owner happy. It is a giver and a sustainer of joy. There is no
bitterness in its root and no acid in its fruit. By nature it is the
sweet, the healthy, the sane. The absence of love always means the
presence of the selfish, or of the vain, or of the proud, or of the
self-seeking, or of the cruel. Envy is a thorn in the soul. Love is
content and cheer, a radiant flower whose perfume is refreshingly
fragrant.
"For life, with all it yields of joy or woe,
And hope or fear,
Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love--
How love might be, hath been, indeed, and is."
To the very end of his days Jonathan stood true to David. He
accomplished what might seem to many an impossible task, but what by his
accomplishment of it is shown to be possible. He was true to two persons
whose interests were opposite, proving a friend to each. He loved his
father. He knew his father's weaknesses. They tried him seriously. When
his father threw the spear at his head, and maligned his mother, and
charged him with ingratitude, his whole being was stirred; he went out
from his father's presence "angry." But that anger was merely a
temporary emotion. He soon realized his duty to his father. He returned,
placed himself at his father's hand, continued to be his adherent,
counselor, and helper, went with him as one of his lieutenants to the
battle on Gilboa, and fought beside him until he fell dead at Saul's
side!
There is nothing weak in this character of Jonathan. Let him who can
reproduce it. Christ said of John the Baptist, "There hath not been born
of women a greater than he," because John, free from envy, was so full
of love that he rejoiced to see Christ come into a recognition that
absolutely displaced John. By these words of Christ John is made to loom
up as no other character of his day. Jonathan was John's prototype--a
massive man, a man of momentum, a man of absolute fearlessness, whose
virtues were crowned by his generous, protecting, self-effacing love. No
wonder that when word reached David that Jonathan had been slain in
fierce battle his heart poured out the greatest elegy of history--an
elegy that has been sung and resung for thousands of years--"How are the
mighty fallen! I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan; very
pleasant hast thou been unto me. Thy love to me was wonderful, passing
the love of women. How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war
perished!" Noticeable it is that the supreme elegy of the Old Testament
is on the man who had a heart of unselfish devotion, Jonathan; and that
the one elegy of the New Testament pronounced by Christ, is likewise on
the man who had a heart of unselfish devotion, John the Baptist. The
greatest possession any one can have is a loving heart--a heart that
generously recognizes worth in another and tries to make place for that
worth; a heart that guards another's interests, even though such
guarding costs intercession; a heart that gladly surrenders its own
advantage that another may advance to the place which might be its own.
No one can tell another how and when the heart of love should show
itself. All that can be told is this: "Let any one be pervaded by love
as Jonathan was, and in that one's home, in that one's business, and in
that one's pleasures God will provide him occasion upon occasion for
living that love." The love that a man gives away is the only love his
heart can retain. The man that has such a heart of love has the
sweetest, happiest, gladdest possession that can be obtained on earth or
in heaven. All the money in the world leaves a man poor if his heart is
bitter. All the poverty that can come to a man finds him rich if his
heart is glad and strong. Love is the only possession that a man can
carry with him to heaven and always keep with him in heaven. He lives
for eternity who lives for love.
"The one great purpose of creation--love,
The sole necessity of earth and heaven."
USING ARIGHT OUR BEST HOURS.