A Basket of Summer Fruit
“And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit.” — 2.
A STOUT -CHESTED, swarthy-limbed, brave-hearted man was called out to rebuke Israel. His name was Amos. He had been brought up amidst sheep and cattle, and, in addition to his occupation of herdsman, he had the business of gathering sycamore fruit — a very difficult business, because if the fruit were not properly ripened, and just before its maturing it were not punctured with the teeth of an iron comb, then the fruit would be bitter, and thoroughly unpalatable. Having always lived in the country, when Amos comes to write or to speak, his allusions are rural — full of threshing-floors, and sheaf-laden carts, and grasshoppers, and mowings, and orchards, and vineyards, and, in my text, “a basket of summer fruit.” Just what kind of fruit this was I do not know, whether sycamore fruit or pomegranates or figs; but I do know that God meant for Israel, and means to-night for us, the truth that spiritual blessing, like summer fruit, must be used immediately, or it will perish.
Last week I saw farmers out on Long Island gathering their winter apples; and if these apples are carefully put away, they will last until next spring. You know there are pears which are better two or three months after they are taken from the orchard than at the time they drop. And there were clusters of grapes yesterday that went in from the arbor that will next Christmas or Thankss-ivinsrday hang above the banquet. But my text compares our opportunities of repentance and return to more perishable products. Ay, it sets before you in graphic vision a basket o? summer fruit.
Many of you remember a few years ago when the peach crop suddenly ripened, and all the rail trains and steamers coming to our city were laden with the delicious product. The fruit was dead ripe, and not able to wait until the glutted markets were cleared, and so there were hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of the fruit thrown into the streets and into the rivers, or carted back again to enrich the soil. O the perishable nature of summer fruit! It is so much like our spiritual blessings, which must be used immediatelj’’, or never used at all. To-night, instead of having you wander around as through the stalls of an agricultural fair, I would have you, with profound and agitated feelings of soul, look upon this text as depicting your last chance for heaven as it is ail-suggestively set forth. “Behold, a basket of summer fruit.”
Was this statement of the text the blundering comparison of a man not used to literary composition? Do 3”ou think the analogy will hold out? Is there any similarity between the Gospel and summer fruit? Oh yes. They both, in the first place mean health. God every summer doctors the ailments of the world by the orchards and groves. The failing of the orchards is a license to all kinds of diseases, and plenty of fruit ordinarily means improved sanitary condition. So this Gospel means health. It makes a man mighty for work and strong for contest. It cures spiritual ailments. It helps the soul that is decrepit, bound on in the road to heaven. It is juvenescence.
It is convalescence. It kindles the eye with brilliant anticipations. It thrills the soul with glories to come. It is not a weak sentimentality. It helped Paul to stand unblanched on the deck of the foundering corn-ship, and it helped Luther to nail his defiant “theses” against the door of the electoral college, the thumping of his hammer echoing through all the ages. It has helped ten thousand souls to spring through flood and fire to glories immortal. Oh, it is a swarthy Gospel! Mighty in itself, it makes men mighty. It gives one overmastering power in the day of trouble. The Church cries out to Christ, in the Canticles, “Comfort me with apples;” and so to-night I shake down upon you a whole orchard of fruit, while I read that the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, brotherly kindness, charity. Gather it up from the ground — large, round, luscious. Take it home with you — “a basket of summer fruit.”
I notice that the analogy, also, is found in the fact that summer fruit is pleasant to the eye and the taste. So the Gospel, when a man rightly sees it and tastes it, is very pleasant. Whether summer fruit be piled up in the orchard, or on the barn floor, or on the platter of the table, the commingling of green and gold and red and brown in the cheek of the fruit is very fascinating. You know that some artists deal chiefly with pictures of fruit; and while Correggio delights to sketch physical beauty, and Turner drops the sea-foam on the canvas, and Cuyp drives up his cattle at evening-tide, and Eosa Bonheur catches by the halter the rearing steeds at the “Horse Fair,” and Edwin Landseer whistles up the dogs, there are many of our modern painters who are putting all their power on fruit pieces; and I do not wonder at it. There is a beauty in
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fruit indescribable. So it is with the Gospel of Christ. It charms the young and the old, the well and the sick, the wise and the ignorant. It has the glitter of the wave, the aroma of flowers, the fascination of music. It is the luxury of the ages. Religion is not an abbess — is not a cenobite. “Iler ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.”
In June, 1815, there was a very noble party gathered in a house in St. James’s Square, London. The prince regent was present, and the occasion was made fascinating by music and banqueting and by jewels. While a quadrille was being formed, suddenly all the people rushed to the windows. What is the matter? Henry Percy had arrived with the news that Waterloo had been fought, and that England had won the day. The dance was abandoned; the party dispersed; lords, ladies, and musicians rushed into the street, and in fifteen minutes from the first announcement of the good news the house was emptied of all its guests. O ye who are seated at the banquet of
‘this world, or whirling in its gayeties and frivolities, if to-night you could hear the sweet strains of the Gospel trumpet announcing Christ’s victory over sin and death and hell, you would rush forth, glad in the eternal deliverance! The Waterloo against sin has been fought, and our Commander-in-chief hath won the day. O the joys of this salvation! I do not care what metaphor, what comparison you have; bring it to me that I may use it. Amos shall bring one simile, Isaiah another, David another, John another. Beautiful with pardon. Beautiful with
peace. Beautiful with anticipations. I spread out the
heaped-up, large, round, luscious “basket of summer fruit.”
You have noticed that if sumyner fruit is not taken immediately it soon fails. First, the speck; then a multiplication of defects; after a while a softening that is offensive; and then it is all flung out. So I have to tell you that all religious advantages, all Gospel opportunities, all religious privileges, while they are beautiful and attractive, perish right speedily if you do not take them. I suppose you have noticed how swiftly the days and the years go by. Every day seems to me like “a basket of summer fruit;” the morning sky is vermilion, the noonday is opaline, the evening cloud is fire-dyed. Every day has its cluster of blessings and its fruity branch of opportunities. But how soon they are gone! Where is 1873? 1870? 1860? 1850? Gone as thoroughly as the fruit which dropped from the trees and rotted last August. Every year may have its characteristic. In one, the war broke out; in another, the locusts made terrible ravages; in another, the yellow fever raged; but I care not what be the characteristics — they are all gone save one. Of the six thousand years of this world’s existence, only one is left. Ay, ten months of that are gone, or nearly gone, and the tongue in the clock of the months will soon strike twelve, and then this year will be as dead as all its predecessors. In your library, you put the historical volumes side by side, volume first, volume second, volume third, volume fourth; and the history of the past is made up of six thousand volumes, three hundred and sixty-five pages in each of the volumes, and in the last day, at one flash, you will read all of them. Time, how swiftly it goes! Gray hairs are here and there upon you, and some of you know it not. The “crow’s-foot” is walking nearer up toward the corner of the eye. You stoop more than you used to. You have been discussing as to the propriety of wearing glasses. You are going from the thirties into the forties, and from the forties into the fifties, and from the fifties into the sixties, and from the sixties into the seventies. The color is going out of the “basket of summer fruit.” The curcuho of trouble hath left the mark of its sting. The work of decay has begun, and the full basket of human life will soon be emptied into the trench of the grave. When I first became anxious about my soul, there was a soliloquy I read in Mr. Pike’s “Address to the Unsaved.” It was a soliloquy on this very subject. It represented a man dying; and, as he was dying, the clock struck. As the clock struck, the man was startled, and he cried out, “O Time! it is fit that thou shouldst strike thy murderer to the heart. How art thou gone forever! A month! Oh for a week! I ask not for a year, though an age were too short for the work I have to do. Remorse for the past throws my thoughts on the future. Worse dread of the future throws my thoughts on the past. I turn and turn, and find no ray. If thou didst feel one-half the mountain that is on my heart, thou wouldst struggle with the martyr for his stake, and bless Heaven for the flame: that is not an unquenchable fire. O thou blasphemed yet most indulgent Lord God! hell itself is a refuge, if it hide me from thy frown!”
Still further, I remark upon the 2’>eris]iable nature of all religious surroundings. You sometimes go into a religious association, and you say, “Isn’t this beautiful? How many ripe, religious experiences! Why’, it is like ‘a basket of summer fruit,’” But do you not know, my brother,’ that all these Christian associations fade away from the soul? Your Christian father and mother who have been holding beneficent influences over you, do you not realize they are going away from you? Do you not notice that they do not get over sickness as soon as they used to? Are you not aware of the fact that they do not get over a cold as quickly as once? The fact is that they have made more prayers for you than they will ever make again. They have passed the last mile-stone on the road home; and if you are going to get any benefit from that “basket of summer fruit,” get it now, or get it never. Some of you do not know what it is to stand and look down upon the still and rigid features of a Christian father or a Christian mother. I do. In five minutes you will think of all the unkind words you ever said to them. You may cover up the coffin with wreaths and crosses and crowns; but you can not make any thing attractive out of it. It is trouble, and nothing but trouble, for those who sit and sigh with the consciousness that those dear lips will never pray for you again, and those lips will never sympathize with you again. When you stoop down and kiss for the last time the wrinkled brow just before the lid is screwed on, you will think of what I tell you to-night. Oh, if father and mother be still alive with their Christian influences, cherish them while you may. Take their example. Be profited by their prayers. They are ripe for heaven, and can not stay. The “basket of summer fruit” will soon be gone.
So, also, it is, my friends, with all God’s offers of mercy and salvation. Are you to-night under the infatuation that those privileges are going to be continued? Oh no! Every opportunity of salvation seems to be restless until it gets away from us. Going away, the sermons; going away, the songs; going away, the strivings of God’s eternal Spirit. The fruits of immortal life, fair and luscious,
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are no sooner set before the soul than they disappear. The Theban legion consisted of six thousand six hundred and sixty -six men. Maximian decreed that that host should be decimated — that is, every- tenth man should be put to the sword. So it was done; but the soldiers did not submit to the kingly authority, and so another decimation took place, and the work went on until all of the six thousand six hundred and sixty-six men had perished. Now, I do not know how many people may be in this house to-night, but it is an army. It is going to be decimated. One out of every ten will soon be gone, and after that the work will go on; and again one out of every ten will be gone, and again the decimation will take place, until not a single person in this house to-night will be alive. Our bodies, some of them, will be in Greenwood, in Laurel Hill, in Mount Auburn, in Oaklands, in Grey Friars Church-yard, in the villnge cemetery; but your souls will be in one of two places, the names of which I need not mention, for they rush upon you this moment with thunderous articulation and emphasis.
Many have missed their chance. Now, there is no hiding that fact — they have missed their chance. They came in and looked at the “basket of summer fruit.” They admired the gracefulness of the wicker-work, the delicacy of the rind, the greenness of the leaves. They went off. They came back and admired again. But one day they came, and they found that all the glory had faded, and that the fruit had been thrown out. They came to a certain evening. They saw the sun set. They never saw the sun rise again. The pastor pronounced upon them the benediction. It was the last benediction they ever heard. They took their last step, missed their last chance. Fortunately for us, their voice is not strong enough to ring up until we can hear it, or it would make life on earth intolerable with the wailing. The wall is so thick that we hear not one word of their pang. Perished! Perished! They talk no more about there being time enough yet. They have no time. They worry no longer about the inconsistencies of Christians; they are looking after their own condition. They no more argue that there is no such a thing as a lost soul; they have felt the pang that comes from a fall ten thousand fathoms down. O skeptical man, go out and persuade them that there is no retribution for a soul that forgets God. Break open the gate; dash through the fire; leap the intervening cliff, and cry out to them, “There is no hell!” and ten thousand voices will answer back, “There is. See you not the gate? Feel you not the sorrow? We have been here five hundred 3’ears, and yet the woe has just begun. Go back and tell all you have seen. Tell them that we once were as they are, and that they, unless they repent, shall be as we are ourselves. We had the fruits of life set before us, fair as ‘a basket of summer fruit;’ but we would not take them, and we everlastingly died.”
My friends, the practical question is now. Will you miss your chance? The offer of salvation is now extended to us. It will not always be continued. The day of grace will be past. The probability is that there are some in this audience who will miss their opportunity. I put my hand on your pulse, and I find that the fever has begun. I look upon your brow, and I find the shadow of impending doom. I listen to your breath, and I find it is suggestive of the last gasp. Some of you will be lost! See! you are fiiUing now — down from heaven, from life, from peace —
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down, down. I remember reading bow Leonidas, with three hundred men, stood in the pass between (Eta and the sea, fighting back the Persian hosts. The Persian hosts came on. They trampled him down. Oh that God, to-night, would arm me, a poor weak man, with a supernatural courage to stand in the pass of this glorious Sabbath hour, and dispute with this army that I see before me the way to death. Halt! ye infatuated souls. I swing the two-edged sword both ways. Halt! Halt! Take not one step more on this downward path. Why will ye die, when there is no use in it? Are you so charmed with pain, and sin, and sorrow, and woe, that you will wade through the foaming billows of perdition to win them? Is there nothing in the sympathetic tears of friends, nothing in the sacrificial blood of the Son of God, nothing in the death-bed experiences of those whom you have loved, nothing in the crash of the judgment avalanche, to make you think?
I must tell you plainly that your idea that there is time enough yet is a delusion wild and terrific. If some of you knew how little time there is left to you. you would not wait until the close of this service. Your breath will stop before you are ready. Death will meet you before you have a cloak to keep out the chill, or a lantern to light the way, or a dragoman to speak out for you. You will be silenced, with ten thousand things to say; you will be speechless; and in the convulsions of this American continent, when the Alleghanies shall roll over into the Atlantic, and the Rocky Mountains shall roll over into the Pacific, amidst the rifts and crevices of disorganized nature, there will be no place where you can secrete yourself, though with blanched cheek, and flying hair, and uplifted hand, and outcrying voice, you say, “Rocks and mountains fall on me, and hide me from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of his wrath has come, and who, ivlio shall be able to stand?”
I can tell from the way the country sexton rings the bell when he is about to stop ringing it. When he begins to ring, the music comes softly out on the air; the bell fills all the air with music. He lays hold with strong pull; but after a while, when the horses have been tied, and the people have gathered, then there is some distance of time between the strokes of the bell. It gets slower and slower, for he has begun to toll, and after a while it stops. O sinner! how swiftly the invitations of the Gospel came to you! Call after call. Invitation after invitation. Floods of them. How merrily the bell did ring! But it seems as if, with some of you, God’s patience is exhausted; as if his mercy were almost gone. The bell rings more slowly to-night than it ever rang before, and as if about to stop. Ay, it seems to have come to the dying toll. Thrice more it will speak — perhaps only thrice. Toll! Toll! Toll!
It was to set forth this solemn truth, that religious advantages, while they last, are attractive, but very soon leave us, that God let down to Amos, the herdsman, in vision the beautiful but perishable basket of summer fruit.