that test the quality of men. Every day we are led to the stream-side to
show what we are, whether eager in the Divine enterprise of faith or
slack and self-considering. Take any company of men and women who claim
to be on the side of Christ, engaged and bound in all seriousness to His
service. But how many have it clearly before them that they must not
entangle themselves more than is absolutely needful with bodily and
sensuous cravings, that they must not lie down to drink from the stream
of pleasure and amusement? We show our spiritual state by the way in
which we spend our leisure, our Saturday afternoons, our Sabbaths. We
show whether we are fit for God's business by our use of the flowing
stream of literature, which to some is an opiate, to others a pure and
strengthening draught. The question simply is whether we are so engaged
with God's plan for our life, in comprehending it, fulfilling it, that
we have no time to dawdle and no disposition for the merely casual and
trifling. Are we in the responsible use of our powers occupied as that
Athenian was in the service of his country of whom it is recorded:
"There was in the whole city but one street in which Pericles was ever
seen, the street which led to the market-place and the council-house.
During the whole period of his administration he never dined at the
table of a friend"? Let no one say there is not time in a world like
this for social intercourse, for literary and scientific pursuits or the
practice of the arts. The plan of God for men means life in all possible
fulness and entrance into every field in which power can be gained. His
will for us is that we should give to the world as Christ gave in free
and uplifting ministry, and as a man can only give what he has first
made his own the Christian is called to self-culture as full as the
other duties of life will permit. He cannot explore too much, he cannot
be too well versed in the thoughts and doings of men and the revelations
of nature, for all he learns is to find high use. But the aim of
personal enlargement and efficiency must never be forgotten, that aim
which alone makes the self of value and gives it real life--the service
and glory of God. Only in view of this aim is culture worth anything.
And when in the providence of God there comes a call which requires us
to pass with resolute step beyond every stream at which the mind and
taste are stimulated that we may throw ourselves into the hard fight
against evil there is to be no hesitation. Everything must yield now.
The comparatively small handful who press on with concentrated purpose,
making God's call and His work first and all else even their own needs
a secondary affair--to these will be the honour and the joy of victory.
We live in a time when people are piling up object after object that
needs attention and entering into engagement after engagement that comes
between them and the supreme duty of existence. They form so many
acquaintances that every spare hour goes in visiting and receiving
visits: yet the end of life is not talk. They are members of so many
societies that they scarcely get at the work for which the societies
exist: yet the end of life is not organizing. They see so many books,
hear so much news and criticism that truth escapes them altogether: yet
the end of life is to know and do the Truth. Civilization defeats its
own use when it keeps us drinking so long at this and the other spring
that we forget the battle. We mean to fight, we mean to do our part, but
night falls while we are still occupied on the way. Yet our Master is
one who restricted the earthly life to its simplest elements because
only so could spiritual energy move freely to its mark.
In the incidents we have been reviewing voluntary churches may find
hints at least towards the justification of their principle. The idea of
a national church is on more than one side intelligible and valid.
Christianity stands related to the whole body of the people, bountiful
even to those who scorn its laws, pleading on their behalf with God,
keeping an open door and sending forth a perpetual call of love to the
weak, the erring, the depraved. The ideal of a national church is to
represent this universal office and realize this inclusiveness of the
Christian religion; and the charm is great. On the other hand a
voluntary church is the recognition of the fact that while Christ stands
related to all men it is those only who engage at expense to themselves
in the labour of the gospel who can be called believers, and that these
properly constitute the church. The Hebrew people under the theocracy
may represent the one ideal; Gideon's sifting of his army points to the
other; neither, it must be frankly confessed, has ever been realized.
Large numbers may join with some intelligence in worship and avail
themselves of the sacraments who have no sense of obligation as members
of the kingdom and are scarcely touched by the teaching of Christianity
as to sin and salvation. A separated community again, depending on an
enthusiasm which too often fails, rarely if ever accomplishes its hope.
It aims at exhibiting an active and daring faith, the militancy, the
urgency of the gospel, and in this mission what is counted success may
be a hindrance and a snare. Numbers grow, wealth is acquired, but the
intensity of belief is less than it was and the sacrifices still
required are not freely made. Nevertheless is it not plain that a
society which would represent the imperative claim of Christ to the
undivided faith and loyalty of His followers must found upon a personal
sense of obligation and personal eagerness? Is it not plain that a
society which would represent the purity, the unearthliness, the rigour,
we may even say, of Christ's doctrine, His life of renunciation and His
cross must show a separateness from the careless world and move
distinctly in advance of popular religious sentiment? Israel was God's
people, yet when a leader went forth to a work of deliverance he had to
sift out the few keen and devoted spirits. In truth every reformation
implies a winnowing, and he does little as a teacher or a guide who does
not make division among men.
XIII.
"_MIDIAN'S EVIL DAY._"
JUDGES vii. 8-viii. 21.
There is now with Gideon a select band of three hundred ready for a
night attack on the Midianites. The leader has been guided to a singular
and striking plan of action. It is however as he well knows a daring
thing to begin assault upon the immense camp of Midian with so small a
band, even though reserves of nearly ten thousand wait to join in the
struggle; and we can easily see that the temper and spirit of the enemy
were important considerations on the eve of so hazardous a battle. If
the Midianites, Amalekites and Children of the East formed a united
army, if they were prepared to resist, if they had posted sentinels on
every side and were bold in prospect of the fight, it was necessary for
Gideon to be well aware of the facts. On the other hand if there were
symptoms of division in the tents of the enemy, if there were no
adequate preparations, and especially if the spirit of doubt or fear had
begun to show itself, these would be indications that Jehovah was
preparing victory for the Hebrews.
Gideon is led to inquire for himself into the condition of the
Midianitish host. To learn that already his name kindles terror in the
ranks of the enemy will dispel his lingering anxiety. "Jehovah said
unto him ... Go thou with Purah thy servant down to the camp; and thou
shalt hear what they say; and afterward shall thine hands be
strengthened." The principle is that for those who are on God's side it
is always best to know fully the nature of the opposition. The temper of
the enemies of religion, those irregular troops of infidelity and
unrighteousness with whom we have to contend, is an element of great
importance in shaping the course of our Christian warfare. We hear of
organised vice, of combinations great and resolute against which we have
to do battle. Language is used which implies that the condition of the
churches of Christ contrasts pitiably with the activity and agreement of
those who follow the black banners of evil. A vague terror possesses
many that in the conflict with vice they must face immense resources and
a powerful confederacy. The far-stretching encampment of the Midianites
is to all appearance organised for defence at every point, and while the
servants of God are resolved to attack they are oppressed by the
vastness of the enterprise. Impiety, sensuality, injustice may seem to
be in close alliance with each other, on the best understanding,
fortified by superhuman craft and malice, with their gods in their midst
to help them. But let us go down to the host and listen, the state of
things may be other than we have thought.
Under cover of the night which made Midian seem more awful the Hebrew
chief and his servant left the outpost on the slope of Gilboa and crept
from shadow to shadow across the space which separated them from the
enemy, vaguely seeking what quickly came. Lying in breathless silence
behind some bush or wall the Hebrews heard one relating a dream to his
fellow. "I dreamed," he said, "and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled
into the camp of Midian and came unto a tent and smote it that it fell,
and overturned it that it lay along." The thoughts of the day are
reproduced in the visions of the night. Evidently this man has had his
mind directed to the likelihood of attack, the possibility of defeat. It
is well known that the Hebrews are gathering to try the issue of battle.
They are indeed like a barley cake such as poor Arabs bake among
ashes--a defeated famished people whose life has been almost drained
away. But tidings have come of their return to Jehovah and traditions of
His marvellous power are current among the desert tribes. A confused
sense of all this has shaped the dream in which the tent of the chief
appears prostrate and despoiled. Gideon and Purah listen intently, and
what they hear further is even more unexpected and reassuring. The dream
is interpreted: "This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son
of Joash, a man of Israel; for into his hand God hath delivered Midian
and all the host." He who reads the dream knows more than the other. He
has the name of the Hebrew captain. He has heard of the Divine messenger
who called Gideon to his task and assured him of victory. As for the
apparent strength of the host of Midian, he has no confidence in it for
he has felt the tremor that passes through the great camp. So, lying
concealed, Gideon hears from his enemies themselves as from God the
promise of victory, and full of worshipping joy hastens back to prepare
for an immediate attack.
Now in every combination of godless men there is a like feeling of
insecurity, a like presage of disaster. Those who are in revolt against
justice, truth and the religion of God have nothing on which to rest,
no enduring bond of union. What do they conceive as the issue of their
attempts and schemes? Have they anything in view that can give heart and
courage; an end worth toil and hazard? It is impossible, for their
efforts are all in the region of the false where the seeming realities
are but shadows that perpetually change. Let it be allowed that to a
certain extent common interests draw together men of no principle so
that they can co-operate for a time. Yet each individual is secretly
bent on his own pleasure or profit and there is nothing that can unite
them constantly. One selfish and unjust person may be depended upon to
conceive a lively antipathy to every other selfish and unjust person.
Midian and Amalek have their differences with one another, and each has
its own rival chiefs, rival families, full of the bitterest jealousy
which at any moment may burst into flame. The whole combination is weak
from the beginning, a mere horde of clashing desires incapable of
harmony, incapable of a sustaining hope.
In the course of our Lord's brief ministry the insecurity of those who
opposed Him was often shown. The chief priests and scribes and lawyers
whispered to each other the fears and anxieties He aroused. In the
Sanhedrin the discussion about Him comes to the point, "What do we? For
this man doeth many signs. If we let Him thus alone, all men will
believe on Him: and the Romans will come and take away both our peace
and our nation." The Pharisees say among themselves, "Perceive ye how ye
prevail nothing? Behold the world is gone after Him." And what was the
reason, what was the cause of this weakness? Intense devotion to the law
and the institutions of religion animated those Israelites yet sufficed
not to bind them together. Rival schools and claims honeycombed the
whole social and ecclesiastical fabric. The pride of religious ancestry
and a keenly cherished ambition could not maintain peace or hope; they
were of no use against the calm authority of the Nazarene. Judaism was
full of the bitterness of falsehood. The seeds of despair were in the
minds of those who accused Christ, and the terrible harvest was reaped
within a generation.
Passing from this supreme evidence that the wrong can never be the
strong, look at those ignorant and unhappy persons who combine against
the laws of society. Their suspicions of each other are proverbial, and
ever with them is the feeling that sooner or later they will be
overtaken by the law. They dream of that and tell each other their
dreams. The game of crime is played against well-known odds. Those who
carry it on are aware that their haunts will be discovered, their gang
broken up. A bribe will tempt one of their number and the rest will have
to go their way to the cell or the gallows. Yet with the presage of
defeat wrought into the very constitution of the mind and with
innumerable proofs that it is no delusion, there are always those
amongst us who attempt what even in this world is so hazardous and in
the larger sweep of moral economy is impossible. In selfishness, in
oppression and injustice, in every kind of sensuality men adventure as
if they could ensure their safety and defy the day of reckoning.
Gideon is now well persuaded that the fear of disaster is not for
Israel. He returns to the camp and forthwith prepares to strike. It
seems to him now the easiest thing possible to throw into confusion that
great encampment of Midian. One bold device rapidly executed will set
in operation the suspicions and fears of the different desert tribes and
they will melt away in defeat. The stratagem has already shaped itself.
The three hundred are provided with the earthenware jars or pitchers in
which their simple food has been carried. They soon procure firebrands
and from among the ten thousand in the camp enough rams' horns are
collected to supply one to each of the attacking party. Then three bands
are formed of equal strength and ordered to advance from different sides
upon the enemy, holding themselves ready at a given signal to break the
pitchers, flash the torches in the air and make as much noise as they
can with their rude mountain horns. The scheme is simple, quaint,
ingenious. It reveals skill in making use of the most ordinary materials
which is of the very essence of generalship. The harsh cornets
especially filling the valley with barbaric tumult are well adapted to
create terror and confusion. We hear nothing of ordinary weapons, but it
must not be supposed that the three hundred were unarmed.
It was not long after midnight, the middle watch had been newly set,
when the three companies reached their stations. The orders had been
well seized and all went precisely as Gideon had conceived. With crash
and tumult and flare of torches there came the battle-shout--"Sword of
Jehovah and of Gideon." The Israelites had no need to press forward;
they stood every man in his place, while fear and suspicion did the
work. The host ran and cried and fled. To and fro among the tents,
seeing now on this side now on that the menacing flames, turning from
the battle-cry here to be met in an opposite quarter by the wild
dissonance of the horns, the surprised army was thrown into utter
confusion. Every one thought of treachery and turned his sword against
his fellow. Escape was the common impulse, and the flight of the
disorganized host took a south-easterly direction by the road that led
to the Jordan valley and across it to the Hauran and the desert. It was
a complete rout and the Hebrews had only to follow up their advantage.
Those who had not shared the attack joined in the pursuit. Every village
that the flying Midianites passed sent out its men, brave enough now
that the arm of the tyrant was broken. Down to the ghor of Jordan the
terror-stricken Arabs fled and along the bank for many a mile, harassed
in the difficult ground by the Hebrews who know every yard of it. At the
fords there is dreadful work. Those who cross at the highest point near
Succoth are not the main body, but the two chiefs Zebah and Zalmunna are
among them and Gideon takes them in hand. Away to the south Ephraim has
its opportunity and gains a victory where the road along the valley of
Jordan diverges to Beth-barah. For days and nights the retreat goes on
till the strange swift triumph of Israel is assured.
1. There is in this narrative a lesson as to equipment for the battle of
life and the service of God somewhat like that which we found in the
story of Shamgar, yet with points of difference. We are reminded here of
what may be done without wealth, without the material apparatus that is
often counted necessary. The modern habit is to make much of tools and
outfit. The study and applications of science have brought in a fashion
of demanding everything possible in the way of furniture, means,
implements. Everywhere this fashion prevails, in the struggle of
commerce and manufacture, in literature and art, in teaching and
household economy, worst of all in church life and work. Michael Angelo
wrought the frescoes of the Sistine chapel with the ochres he dug with
his own hands from the garden of the Vatican. Mr. Darwin's great
experiments were conducted with the rudest and cheapest furniture,
anything a country house could supply. But in the common view it is on
perfect tools and material almost everything depends; and we seem in the
way of being absolutely mastered by them. What, for example, is the
ecclesiasticism which covers an increasing area of religious life? And
what is the parish or congregation fully organized in the modern sense?
Must we not call them elaborate machinery expected to produce spiritual
life? There must be an extensive building with every convenience for
making worship agreeable; there must be guilds and guild rooms,
societies and committees, each with an array of officials; there must be
due assignment of observances to fit days and seasons; there must be
architecture, music and much else. The ardent soul desiring to serve God
and man has to find a place in conjunction with all this and order his
work so that it may appear well in a report. To some these things may
appear ludicrous, but they are too significant of the drift from that
simplicity and personal energy in which the Church of Christ began. We
seem to have forgotten that the great strokes have been made by men who
like Gideon delayed not for elaborate preparation nor went back on rule
and precedent, but took the firebrands, pitchers and horns that could be
got together on a hill-side. The great thing both in the secular and in
the spiritual region is that men should go straight at the work which
has to be done and do it with sagacity, intelligence and fervour of
their own.
We look back to those few plain men with whom lay the new life of the
world, going forth with the strong certain word of a belief for which
they could die, a truth by which the dead could be revived. Their
equipment was of the soul. Of outward means and material advantages they
were, one may say, destitute. Our methods are very different. No doubt
in these days there is a work of defence which requires the finest
weapons and most careful preparation. Yet even here no weight of
polished armour is so good for David's use as the familiar sling and
stone. And in the general task of the church, teaching, guiding, setting
forth the Gospel of Christ, whatever keeps soul from honest and hearty
touch with soul is bad. We want above all things men who have sanctified
common-sense, mother-wit, courage and frank simplicity, men who can find
their own means and gain their own victories. The churches that do not
breed such are doomed.
2. We have been reading a story of panic and defeat, and we may be
advised to find in it a hint of the fate that is to overtake
Christianity when modern criticism has finally ordered its companies and
provided them with terrifying horns and torches. Or certain Christians
may feel that the illustration fits the state of alarm in which they are
obliged to live. Is not the church like that encampment in the valley,
exposed to the most terrible and startling attacks on all sides, and in
peril constantly of being routed by unforeseen audacities, here of
Ingersoll, Bakunin, Bebel, there of Huxley or Renan? Not seldom still,
though after many a false alarm, the cry is raised, "The church, the
faith--in danger!"
Once for all--the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is never in danger,
though enemies buzz on every side like furious hornets. A confederation
of men, a human organization may be in deadly peril and may know that
the harsh tumult around it means annihilation. But no institution is
identical with the Catholic Church, much less with the kingdom of God.
Christians need not dread the honest criticism which has a right to
speak, nor even the malice, envy, which have no right yet dare to utter
themselves. Whether it be sheer atheism or scientific dogma or political
change or criticism of the Bible that makes the religious world tremble
and cry out for fear, in every case panic is unchristian and unworthy.
For one thing, do we not frame numerous thoughts and opinions of our own
and devise many forms of service which in the course of time we come to
regard as having a sacredness equal to the doctrine and ordinances of
Christ? And do we not frequently fall into the error of thinking that
the symbols, traditions, outward forms of a Christian society are
essential and as much to be contended for as the substance of the
gospel? Criticism of these is dreaded as criticism of Christ, decay of
them is regarded, often quite wrongly, as decay of the work of God on
earth. We forget that forms, as such, are on perpetual trial, and we
forget also that no revolution or seeming disaster can touch the facts
on which Christianity rests. The Divine gospel is eternal. Indeed,
assailants of the right sort are needed, and even those of the bad sort
have their use. The encampment of the unseeing and unthinking, of the
self-loving and arrogant needs to be startled; and he is no emissary of
Satan who honestly leads an attack where men lie in false peace, though
he may be for his own part but a rude fighter. The panic indeed
sometimes takes a singular and pathetic form. The unexpected enemy
breaks in on the camp with blare of ignorant rebuke and noisy
demonstration of strength and authority. Him the church hails as a new
apostle, at his feet she takes her place with a strange unprofitable
humility: and this is the worst kind of disaster. Better far a serious
battle than such submission.
3. Without pursuing this suggestion we pass to another raised by the
conduct of the men of Ephraim. They obeyed the call of Gideon when he
hastily summoned them to take the lower fords of Jordan within their own
territory and prevent the escape of the Midianites. To them it fell to
gain a great victory, and especially to slay two subordinate chiefs,
Oreb and Zeeb, the Crow and the Wolf. But afterwards they complained
that they had not been called at first when the commander was gathering
his army. We are informed that they chode with him sharply on this
score, and it was only by his soft answer which implied a little
flattery that they were appeased. "What have I now in comparison with
you? Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the
vintage of Abiezer?"
The men of Ephraim were not called at first along with Manasseh,
Zebulun, Asher and Naphtali. True. But why? Was not Gideon aware of
their selfish indifference? Did he not read their character? Did he not
perceive that they would have sullenly refused to be led by a man of
Manasseh, the youngest son of Joash of Abiezer? Only too well did the
young chief know with whom he had to deal. There had been fighting
already between Israel and the Midianites. Did Ephraim help then? Nay:
but secure in her mountains that tribe sullenly and selfishly held
aloof. And now the complaint is made when Gideon, once unknown, is a
victorious hero, the deliverer of the Hebrew nation.