“In the place where the tree falleth, there it shall
be.”—ECCLES. xi. 3.
There are few passages in the word of God which are more constantly
misapplied than this. It is systematically wrested to the establishment
of doctrines with which it has nothing whatever to do. The popular
interpretation of the text treats it as equivalent to the assertion,
that the condition of the human soul through its long eternity is
settled absolutely and irrevocably by death. We believe that nine out of
ten, of those who hold this doctrine would quote this passage if they
were suddenly asked to sustain their belief out of the word of God. With
the truth of the doctrine in question we are not dealing in the present
discourse; there are passages in the word of God which bear on it with
most unquestionable cogency. But this is not one of them. Our present
purpose is to show what it _does_ mean, and that its reference is to a
subject which is well-nigh as far removed from that on which it is
supposed to bear as the poles.
We approach a dread, an awful subject, when we contemplate the condition
of those who pass into the unseen world impenitent and faithless; who
despise finally, as far as we can trace, the riches of the mercy and the
love of God. It is a subject which is occupying the most earnest and
solemn thoughts of some of the wisest of our Christian thinkers, and on
which a large freedom of judgment will have to be conceded within the
visible pale of the Christian Church. It is easy to state the doctrine
of universalism, and to offer it as a solution of the dark difficulties
with which the subject is surrounded. But it is not easy to get the
doctrine of universalism out of the Bible; nay, it is not possible,
without grievous violence to some of its plainest and most awful
statements: nor, on the other hand, is it easy to harmonize it with any
intelligent conceptions of the moral freedom and responsibility of every
child of the human race. Others seek refuge, for it is as a refuge that
they appear to cling to it, in the theory of annihilation—that is, the
annihilation on a vast scale of that which God made to be His
masterpiece, which He constituted in His own image, and into which He
infused by inspiration the breath of His own life. More grievous
violence must be done to the plain language of Scripture by the
advocates of this theory than by those of the former; and it seems to us
still harder to find for it a place in any intelligent and harmonious
conception of the scheme on which God made the worlds.
Were it possible for us to hold it, it would seem to unfold a terrible
vision of the issue of the great experiment of creation. The free beings
whom God made to be the glory of His universe, drooping down in throngs,
after a life struggle full of anguish and despair, into the darkness of
the everlasting night! One would be tempted to ask passionately in that
case, Why was not the dire experiment of liberty ended in the hour of
the first transgression? why was not the free universe, parent of such
wrongs and miseries, strangled in its birth?
Nor may we dare to hide from ourselves and others, in these days, the
dread considerations involved in the doctrine which the Church has drawn
from explicit statements in the word of God. Eternal punishment; eternal
suffering in the universe; moans rising up ever in the ear of heaven;
the cries of souls in anguish piercing the serenity of the heavenly
rest. Eternal evil too. Evil never more to die out of the worlds on
which the dew of the primal benediction lay, and which flashed back the
smile of Him who looked upon them and saw that “_they were very good_.”
The curse rioting, sin reigning unto death, in some region of the
universe sustained and ruled by the Divine hand; never to be expelled
from the creation, never to be drawn under the merciful reign of God. We
are too prone to hide the awful reality which is behind this language,
by vague notions of the judgment as the final banishing of evil from the
sight of God and of the blessed. Nothing that is can be banished from
the sight of God; nothing that exists—we will not say lives, life is a
sacred word—can exist from moment to moment without the interposition
of the Divine hand. Ever present before the great Father must be the
anguish and the moans of the souls in torment; ever to His eye there
must be this dark counterfoil to the joy and glory of the redeemed. And
yet the question forces itself upon us: What else can the plain
statements of the Scriptures mean; nay, what else can in the essential
nature of things befall a free spirit that chooses to exercise its
freedom in sin? We may well feel with a wise one of old, “Such
knowledge is too wonderful for us: it is as high as heaven, what
can we do? it is as deep as hell, what can we know?”
Sore difficulties beset us in working out a clear and harmonious theory
of the judgment and its issues. But blessed be God that we can rest in
the belief that all will be, in ways that we see not, so wisely and
righteously ordered by the Judge of all the earth, as to satisfy the
yearning heart, not of the great Father only, but of the Redeemer of
humanity, and to fill the universe with praise. Here as elsewhere, when
we are bewildered and perplexed by thoughts too high for us and which
reach too far, we find a sure refuge and rest in faith. We believe God
in Christ, and we can leave our future and the future of humanity in His
hand. Meanwhile, our work, our duty is clear: “_Now then we are
ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you
in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God._” “_This is the work of God,
that ye believe on him whom he hath sent._” “_Other foundation can no
man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ._” “_Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved._”
But this is beside the scope of the present discourse. I have to
consider what these words, so strangely misapplied, do mean, and to draw
from them those most pregnant lessons concerning the conduct of life
which they are intended to afford. “_Cast thy bread upon the waters: for
thou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to
eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth. If the
clouds be full of ram, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the
tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the
tree falleth, there it shall be. He that observeth the wind shall not
sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. As thou knowest
not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb
of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who
maketh all. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not
thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or
that, or whether they both shall be alike good._”
I. The key to the passage, the broad idea which underlies the whole, is
in the first verse. In the sixth verse the writer repeats the thought
under a varied form, and it is evident that it rules the whole. Let us
ask ourselves what it means. It is a fair question whether we have here
a reference to a popular proverb descriptive of the most useless and
apparently hopeless work, “casting bread upon the waters;” or whether
there is a reference to Egyptian husbandry, which might seem just as
futile a method, did not experience prove that a harvest of splendid
abundance is the well-nigh certain result. I do not think that it is
needful to settle the rival claims of the two interpretations,[B]
inasmuch as the essential point of the author’s meaning is involved in
both. In either case you have a husbandry of faith; and in either case
you have a grand image of all noble spiritual work. All husbandry is of
faith to an extent which we little realize, but most especially this
husbandry. The seed-corn scattered from the hand vanishes from sight,
the very bed in which it is hidden lies buried, and an uncongenial,
impenetrable element spreads its barrier between the sower and the seed,
which he must leave in the hands of God. The farmer who has ploughed his
field and settled his seed in the furrows feels less shut out from it;
he sees at least where it lies, he can test its condition, he can trace
the first green bloom on the brown surface of his fields, which is the
prophecy and the pledge of harvest. But seed cast into the waters! where
is it? who can trace it? what can withhold the waters from rotting it,
and burying the promise of the seed and the hope of the husbandman in
their depths? And the seed dropped into the furrows of the human
seed-field, the heart that has been broken up by the deep ploughshare of
God’s discipline, and over which a fertilizing flood of quickening
influences has passed,—where lies it? What glance can follow it? What
hand can touch it? What eye can foresee, what brain can forecast, its
destiny? There is a dread likeness here, to the eye of the
understanding, between this perilous husbandry and spiritual labour;
man’s knowledge is so limited, man’s hand is so powerless, the seed
passes so far out of his ken, and lies buried in such deep depths
within.
There is a mystery in all husbandry which it is manifestly the purpose
of God to keep clearly before the eye of the soul. He will not suffer us
to forget it. “_And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man
should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and
day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the
earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear,
after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought
forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is
come_” (Mark iv. 26–29). This is the daily miracle of nature, the
“sign” which is done daily before our eyes. There are those, and they
constitute a large and powerful school of thinkers in our day, who
refuse coldly to listen to any evidence as to the miracles of Scripture,
and who see this sign of an unseen energy at work around them and within
them each moment, but feel powerless even to inquire from what fountain
it springs. It is deeply unjust to brand the Positivist school of
philosophy as explicitly either materialistic or atheistic. They are by
no means blind to the fact that there is a hidden mystery in nature;
they see quite as clearly as we do its marvellous depths. There is
something quite as wonderful in their sight in the daily growth of the
corn and the assimilation of our daily bread, as in the feeding of five
thousand in the lonely wilderness by the word which came forth from the
mouth of the Saviour. But they say, this region is simply impenetrable
by the human intellect; in all its efforts at discovery it simply meets
with shadows projected under various conditions and at various angles by
itself. Our fair charge against them is, not that they are blind to the
fact of a mystery in nature, but that they dishonour the royal faculty
of the reason with which God has gifted them, by distrusting its ability
to deal with a vast class of phenomena—the manifestations of the
working of unseen powers with which God has surrounded them—which are
as definite and substantial as the physical facts out of which they
educe their laws. The world of spiritual experience and activity with
which mainly the Bible deals, claims from us, at any rate, observation,
thought, and deduction, as reverent as that which we joyfully devote to
the phenomena of nature; and we accept as eagerly the thoughts and
suggestions of seers who have insight into this world of mystery, as we
accept the teachings of science concerning things which are beyond our
sight. And if words come to us from this higher sphere, which harmonize
discordant elements and make the chaos of our spiritual consciousness
and experience a cosmos ruled by intelligence and love, we joyfully
accept the truth which sustains and explains the phenomena, and feel
that in proclaiming it we are “holding forth a word of life” to our
fellow-men. And the Scripture miracle is to us a flash of sunlight,
which illumines the darkness of the unknown: we see unveiled the Hand
which is working each moment these signs and wonders within and around
us; and, studying the nature, the mind, the heart, by which that Hand is
guided, we find rest in the assurance that the power whose awful
manifestation in nature might well appal and overwhelm us, is under the
absolute rule of One whose declaration of Himself is that He is Love. We
receive an emancipation from both the terrors and the idols of the
imagination, when we learn that the daily bread of our lives comes to us
from the hand of the Father, and is crowned with His benediction. The
poor believe it quite simply: they have a beautiful sense of dependence
on the Hand which feeds the birds and clothes the lilies. As a child
hangs on the mother’s breast, they hang daily as trustfully on the
bounty of the Lord. And they are more free from vain fancies herein than
the philosophers. It is the wise and the scribe who are in bondage to
idols: simple hearts, which have received the revelation of the
relations of the two worlds which the Bible offers, walk free in the
sunlight, and dwell quiet from the fear of evil.
“_Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many
days._”
The main point here then is, that in all husbandry there are two
elements—the intelligence and energy of the man, and the co-operation
of a secret force, the springs of which and the methods of which escape
him, but on which absolutely depend all his fruits. Neither without the
other can produce the harvest. Paul plants, Apollos waters; but God
giveth the increase: but neither without Paul’s planting does the
harvest spring. “_Behold, a sower went forth to sow._” The human sower
is, as far as we see, the indispensable fellow-worker with the Most
High God. But God, and not the human sower, has the absolute control of
the result.
Let us look at this more closely. To impress this upon us is the main
object of the writer in the text.
II. The writer of this book asks us to consider how much that has the
most important bearing on the results of our activity is hopelessly
beyond the control of our hand.
No doubt this is a truism: but it is the meaning and force of these
truisms which most easily escape us; custom is the blind of truth. No
matter what it may be to which we put our hands, we are dealing with
elements which only partially subject themselves to our control, or
rather reveal to us the secret by which they may be bent to our use.
Always there is a large variable element in the problem of our
activities; and on this variable element, which we have no means of
calculating, depends all that is most precious and vital in our results.
Husbandry here is the great witness for, and key to, higher things.
Certain bases are fixed and unalterable; else our work would be a pure
lottery. Much on which its fruits depend is variable; else our work
would be purely mechanical. God gives us a large measure of assurance,
that we may work bravely and put our hearts into our labour, as those
who have a right to hope that they will carry the sheaves of their
harvest home; but He crosses our toil with a zone of uncertainties, that
we may be faithful workmen, trusting and praying as well as working, and
may be kept in holy and blessed dependence on Him who can lift us above
all servile care for immediate results. Consider—
1. The awful force and inevitable certainty of the processes of Nature,
the unfailing “order of Nature” which furnishes forth the field of our
toils. That order God guarantees. The assurance is thus expressed:
“_While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat,
and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease_” (Gen. viii.
22). That word of promise which has nursed the trembling hope of man
into strong certainty—for he is as sure that the sun will rise on the
morrow as he is of his own existence—lies at the foundation of all his
steady activity as a workman in this lower world. The joyful outgoings
of the morning and evening, and the succession of the seasons, are given
to him as the constant elements in his husbandry. These are assured to
him by the voice that called them into being and the hand which sustains
their motions. God tells him that he may count absolutely on this order.
And what guarantee, when we come to think of it, have we of that order,
but such as a firm belief in an intelligent Ruler of the universe, who
sympathises with the hopes and blesses the toils of His children,
affords? Then further,—
2. There is the absolutely certain sequence of physical causes and
effects, or antecedents and consequents, which we call laws of nature,
which vary not one hair’s breadth from their ordained order in obedience
to the mandates of our will, but which, by observing and mastering the
principle of that order, we can use for the accomplishment of our ends.
These are our tools to work with. A thousand subtle laws are concerned
in every process of the husbandman’s toils. On a large scale and in the
long run the question of his success depends absolutely on his
comprehension and observance of those laws. The progress of man’s
knowledge of nature is really a progress in the mastery of the variable
element in the problem of his labour. A thousand accidents, which baffle
the ignorant and careless husbandman, obey the control of the
intelligent and strenuous. The order is rigid. There is an awful
sternness in its certainty; but it grows benign to him who has mastered
its secret. It obeys him as a servant, it helps him as a friend; and the
certainty with which he can calculate its action is one essential
element of its friendliness. If he could not weigh the materials and
measure the forces which are constantly around him, if he could not
count on their known relations and actions with the same calm certainty
with which he expects the sunrise to light him to his daily toils, his
life would be one of miserable dependence; he would live the serf of
nature, and not her king. It is the unalterable fixity of relations and
forces which God has given him the power to discover and to employ,
which constitutes the royalty of his rule over nature; if that be
destroyed or shaken, his crown rolls in the dust. The constancy of the
relations and forces of the universe, their impassibility to the force
which man’s will can bring to bear upon them, of which his husbandry
gives him full experience, is an essential element, perhaps we might say
_the_ essential element, in that higher culture which they offer to his
spirit; it is this which makes the life of even the workman something
higher than a lottery, and the toils of earth an education for the works
and the joys of heaven.
3. The writer of this book, while he sees this grand, calm, and constant
order very clearly, and appreciates its ministry to man, has a dark, sad
vision of the uncertainties which cross it—the strength and magnitude
of the variable element in nature and in life, which perplexes and
baffles the strenuous workman, keeps him constantly on the tenter-hooks
of anxiety, and not seldom rends his heart with anguish, and lays his
fairest and proudest achievements in ruins in the dust. A certain order
is there, all men can see it. Yes, men say,—and especially orientals,
in whose climate the destructive agencies often run riot; but there is a
dire disorder, and the disorder triumphs. Who knows the pathway of the
storms, the earthquakes, the lava floods, the drought, and the deluge?
who knows and rules their times? The fairest homesteads are made
desolate in a moment; verdant beauty as of Eden vanishes, and blasting
and burning as of Sodom reigns in its room. There are malign powers in
the universe which seem to watch all beauty and increase, that they may
make it their prey. Do not men in all ages tremble as they rejoice in
prosperity? Do not the proverbs of all nations warn us that trouble in
such moments is near? There is a hand unseen which deals destruction to
our harvests and homesteads, in the moment when they smile on us most
gaily; and we are powerless to resist it; we can but sit like Job on the
dunghill of our ruined fortunes and bemoan ourselves, and it may be
curse the day which sent us forth to till such a treacherous seed-field
as this. The dearest things, the things which we love most tenderly, the
possession of which is our life, may be struck down in a moment, the
delight of our eyes laid low at a stroke; we may plead and pray, we may
wrestle with God in a frenzy of supplication: the hand which grasps our
treasure is pitiless; pass a few days, we shall be standing tearless and
defiant by the grave of our beloved. Pagans exclaim against their gods
as treacherous, and refuse them service. Catholics revenge themselves by
cashiering their saint. Nay, the same brutal instinct may be found in
Protestant England: I have heard of a farmer, whose harvest was all
ruined, sticking a rotten sheaf in the hedge and leaving it there, to
make, as he said, God Almighty ashamed. We shudder at the blasphemy; but
it is only a coarse expression of the anguish of the helpless in the
hand of a power which seems inexorable and merciless, which crosses
their most settled purposes, destroys ruthlessly their most precious
harvests, and murders all their brightest joys. “_If the clouds be full
of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree fall
toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree
falleth, there it shall be. He that observeth the wind shall not sow;
and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. As thou knowest not
what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of
her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who
maketh all. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not
thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or
that, or whether they both shall be alike good_” (ver. 3–6). There is a
power at work behind the veil which may at any moment cross our purpose
by some unexpected stroke, which gives to us no account of its methods,
and which allows no court of appeal from its decrees. The tree falls,
and who can foresee when it may fall? And when it falls, it cares not
what it crushes, and the wrecks of it strew our fairest fields, and bury
our golden harvests in the dust.
III. What then? There being this law of calamity at work, defying all
calculation and all defence, what is the true policy of life?
There are mainly two policies of life; the stoic and the Christian. The
Stoic says,—Everything is beyond my control, but myself. There is a
kingdom whose sceptre can never be wrested from my hand. _Things_ are
certain enemies of my peace. I will make myself independent of _things_.
I will reduce my relations with things outside me to a minimum. I am
surer of a crust than of a banquet; so I will train myself to care only
for a crust; a crust of food, a crust of wealth, a crust of friendship
will be enough for me. I will fold the cloak of my manhood around me,
and shake myself free of all dependence on fickle fortune and mortal
friends.
The Christian says,—Everything is beyond my control, but myself. So
far, he and the Stoic are at one. But he reflects that what is beyond
HIS control is not beyond all control. This law of calamity obeys the
rule of One who has given the most solemn and awful pledge that He loves
me as a friend and treats me as a child. He would not have me adopt the
demeanour and policy of an outcast in a storm, but of a child at home. I
will throw my nature open to the sunlight. I will make myself as rich as
possible in all good and beautiful possessions, and in troops of
friends. It is the will of Him who rules my life that I should be so; He
made me with all these affections and sympathies; He made me to feel
life a blessing. I will work and be glad, and live and love according to
His will; and trust, not my own hardness, but my Father’s mercy, to
spare me over-much pain, and to make life in some due measure a joy.
Here are the two policies. How does the text decide? “_Cast thy bread
upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days._” “_If the
clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the
tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the
tree falleth, there it shall be._” “_In the morning sow thy seed, and in
the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall
prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike
good._” The argument is, God who made you to toil, to till the ground,
and to till the more difficult and perilous seed-field of domestic,
social, and political life, made the world thus. Both your vocation as a
workman, and the field of your labour, with the conditions of that
labour, are ordained by Him. There must then be an essential harmony.
One wise and intelligent Being as the author of the whole system; and
this law of calamity is not at war with your vocation, but is also its
minister, and in deep and far-reaching ways is working with you to your
ends. It is not, according to the dark pagan theory, the work of a
malign spirit, strong enough to break in and make the homesteads and the
lives which God has made His charge, a wreck. “_I form the light and
create darkness; I make peace and create evil; I, the Lord, do all these
things._” It is all the work of one hand, and that a wise and loving
one. Work on, work bravely, work gaily; storms may sweep your fields and
shadows may darken your homes; but no calamity, inward or outward, is
unto death. The storm and blight of this year will swell the bulk of
next year’s harvests; and the deeper cares and sorrows of our spiritual
husbandry but load us with an increase which the years lay up in the
garners of eternity. Practically, the husbandman finds it to be so.
Making the fullest allowance for all the crosses, the storms, the
blights, the violence of Nature and of man, the balance is still amply
on the side of the faithful workman. Year by year man’s tillage
advances; the wilderness and the solitary place is made glad by his
toil, and the desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose. This means that
a wise and loving Hand holds all the disturbing forces under control,
and fixes their bounds where they instruct and stimulate, but never on
a grand scale scare and paralyse mankind. The losses and the crosses of
the croupier of the gaming table are borne with profound patience, for
there is a certain chance in his favour which must inevitably in the
long run fill his coffers with gain. How calmly, now joyously, should we
work on through our storms and sorrows, who have, not a margin of
security guaranteed by the theory of probabilities, but the certainty of
an abundant and glorious harvest, if we are faithful and patient,
guaranteed by the living God.
And do not pervert the teaching of the Scripture by narrowing its scope.
It does not say,—Work, for the work is good for you; results are
nothing. It says rather,—Work, for God is working with you, and results
are His care. The Lord does not say,—Take no thought for the morrow,
for these cares of food and clothes and health are sordid; despise them,
and think exclusively of higher things. Quite other, and infinitely more
wise and tender, is His teaching,—Do not be distracted by cares, “_for
your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things_,”
and how He furnishes those who trust Him let the birds and the lilies
declare. “_Cast thy bread upon the waters_,” for there is One watching
it who will bring it back after many days. “_They that sow in tears
shall reap in joy._” “_He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious
seed, shall doubtless_”—doubtless because the Lord of the harvest
assures it—“_come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with
him_.”
Three practical principles, which indicate the Christian policy of life,
I gather from the text:—
1. Do not be afraid of giving with bountiful hand lest your charity
should be wasted. Scatter your gifts freely: “_freely ye have received,
freely give_.” “_He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed_,”
blessed with the blessedness of Christ, and like Christ he shall gather
in rich harvests. Sow your gifts as the husbandman scatters the seed in
his furrows, leaving it with God to watch it, to bless its springing, to
ripen its fruit. Much of our charity, our effort to bless mankind, must
seem to be futile. The waters close on it, it vanishes from sight and
touch, it is rotting, we think, in the depths. No; I think that the
discovery of the unknown fruit of the patient efforts and the loving
sacrifices for men which on earth seemed to us to be wasted, will be one
of the purest and intensest joys of eternity.
2. Do not be afraid of working lest your toil should be fruitless. There
is no fruitless labour. Every hammer-stroke on the forge of duty welds
something which will outlast eternity. Work with a will then, with a
courage, an energy, a hope, to which Heaven lends its inspiration; and
believe that nothing is so sure in the universe as your harvest. This
seed of your toil may be stolen, that may be crushed, that may be
blighted when it is set for fruit; but the grand sum of your labour is
beyond the reach of the Harpies. God guards it, God quickens it, and God
and angels will rejoice with you when one day you bring your golden
harvest home.
3. Do not be afraid of loving because every love is a sure germ of pain.
Throw wide the doors of your heart to all comers in the name of the
Lord. The sorrows will spring, but the joys will overflow them. Count
yourself rich, as you are rich in love. Keen sorrow it must bring, but
with it superabounding joy. Ask God to hallow your loves, and to
consecrate your crosses, and the pain is purged of all its bitterness;
it is but the first throb of a great unspeakable joy, which will play
like sunlight around your life in the homes where the weary are for ever
at rest.