Nabal, says the Bible, was a churl. When David sent his men to request
some provender, in return for services rendered, this ill-mannered
sheep-farmer broke out, "Who is David? There be many servants
now-a-days that break away every man from his master." It was a
singularly rude and ungracious reply, all things considered. But it is
not about Nabal's truculence I wish to speak. I want you to think about
that phrase he used, and the tone in which it was said. "Now-a-days."
The implication, of course, is that servants did not break away from
their masters in _his_ young days. Things were different in the times
_he_ could remember.
You will recognise this peculiar intonation of "Now-a-days" as something
fairly familiar. You hear it yet, quite often. Now-a-days the Church
has lost caste. Now-a-days the Bible is a neglected book. Now-a-days
faith is on the wane, and most people don't believe anything at all.
There are many such sentences, beginning with the word Now-a-days and
sounding like a chant on a minor key.
This pessimistic philosophy is difficult to fight, for it is
unsubstantial, and dissolves like mist whenever you come to close
quarters. But there are three queries I have noted in my Bible opposite
that "Now-a-days" of Nabal.
And the first is--What about the man himself? Judge his philosophy by
his actions. Nabal apparently believed that servants were getting
entirely out of hand, and he speaks as if he remembered something very
different in his own early days. Very good. What was he doing to
maintain the old standards? Nothing, less than nothing. His personal
manners and behaviour were such that servants would be very ready to
break away on that farm, I should think. Now, what business has Nabal
to go whining, in general terms, mark you, about servants now-a-days,
when he behaves like a boor to his own? For any declension which he may
see about him, he is himself largely responsible.
I think that it is a perfectly fair line of argument, and it disposes of
quite a number of pious "inexactitudes." When I hear a man talking
about the lost influence of the Church now-a-days, I am always tempted
to inquire what his own relation to it is, whether he is loyally
supporting it and working in its interests, for experience has taught me
that a very great deal of exaltation of the Church's past records, at
the expense of its position to-day, comes from men who are themselves
doing absolutely nothing to help it on its way. There are exceptions,
of course, but, as a rule, it is not the active workers in any worthy
cause who are lamenting its failure. The men who think the country is
going to the dogs are themselves to be found, for the most part, lolling
in the clubs. It is not the pledged and active member of Christ's
kingdom who thinks it is disappearing from the earth. And to those who
are fond of the Now-a-days type of complaint, I would suggest the
inquiry--What about yourself? Are you helping to keep up the old
standards as you say you remember them? Or is your influence also
tending to set this ball of the earth rolling in the very direction you
deplore, namely, down the hill?
The second query on Nabal's "Now-a-days" is--Can his memory be relied
upon? It is an instinct with us all to idealise the past, and gild it
in memory with all sorts of romance. We quietly drop all the shadows
from the picture as time goes on. Were ever summer days since so long
and fine and sunny as they were when we were boys? Never! We are all
agreed about that. Yet when we were boys, men who were then grey were
using exactly the same words about summer days years before! We are all
apt to praise the past just because it is the past, and because it has a
way of turning rosy as it recedes. The wise man recognises that, and
allows for it. The foolish man begins many sentences with "Now-a-days,"
and ends with a shake of the head and a sigh.
But there is something that does not forget nor gild the past with false
romance, and that is history. Turn back its pages a hundred years or
more; read such a book as H. G. Graham's "Social Life in Scotland in the
Eighteenth Century"; and you will soon discover what a fine word
Now-a-days really is.
As far as humanity and civilisation, brotherly charity, and true
religion are concerned, the man who in pessimistic mood contrasts
now-a-days with the good old times a hundred years ago, simply does not
know what he is talking about. Changes there have been, many and
radical, but change is not necessarily a sign either of declension or
decay.
I can partly understand a man without faith in God giving his vote for a
general falling off in human progress, but I cannot understand a man who
believes in God, and in the presence in the world of a living spirit of
Christ, being a pessimist. No one affirms, of course, that we are
progressing everywhere, and all the time. Set-backs here and there,
there are in human history just as in a successful campaign. But that,
on the whole, the world grows better, the Kingdom comes, and earth draws
nearer to Heaven, seems to me to be simply a corollary from the fact
that God reigns, and has blessed us with knowledge of Himself.
I grant you that the war is a disappointing revelation of how far
mankind still has to travel. But, as far as we are concerned, I am not
disposed to counsel undue humiliation and self-condemnation on account
of it. A people that for the sake of unseen eternal realities like
honour and righteousness will make the sacrifices which we are making,
can hardly be said to be degenerating, especially when we remember some
of the causes for which we have drawn the sword in years and generations
gone by. But even though the clock of progress be set back awhile--and
that does not seem so likely now as when the war began--it is simply not
possible that, in this world of God's, evil should ultimately vanquish
good, that the Spirit of Christ should finally be crushed by the forces
that oppose it. That can never be. As soon might the germs of disease
which the sun destroys turn round upon it and quench its blessed light.
The third query opposite Nabal's "Now-a-days" is--Does he truly discern
the present time? Does he know "now-a-days" even as well as he knows
the past? As a matter of fact, David was not just a servant who had
broken away from his master, and if Nabal had only lived a little longer
he would have seen how completely he had misread the signs of the times.
That is worth remembering when you are tempted to say, Now-a-days things
are out of joint. Maybe you don't clearly see these very days you are
disparaging. When Jesus preached in Nazareth, the village where He had
been brought up, the people said, Is not this the Carpenter? and in
their anger at His presumption, as they thought it, they wanted to make
away with Him. If they had only known!
It is not enough to recognise that we cannot see the future. We cannot
even see the present. Think what it would be like if we could see the
great men, the prophets, poets, reformers, leaders, who are at this
present moment in our nurseries and schools, or if we were able to
recognise in the--at present--small shoot of a cause, the great tree
into which in God's providence it is destined to grow!
Now-a-days; now-a-days! What a delusion it is for anybody to think he
knows "now-a-days" well enough to call it names! It is not with
observation that the Kingdom comes. God rings no bell when He has a new
and gracious purpose afoot in the world. And the thing for you and me
to do is to rest confidently in the faith that, in His own good way and
time, God is redeeming the world to Himself, and to do all that we can
to help Him, and to make our little corner of it a brighter and a better
place. But do not let us imagine that we can see all that is going on
about us. There is far, far more of God and of goodness in the world
than we suspect. The woods and hedges look very bleak and bare
to-day.[1] It is a dead and barren aspect that Nature wears now-a-days.
Yet _even now_ the sap is mounting quickly in every living stem, and
Spring is getting ready while we sleep.
[1] Written in February.
So, let us have the courage to believe--so is it with every worthy cause
of God and man.