The Convicted Woman

“And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, they say unto Him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest ThouP This they said, tempting Him, that they might have to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the ground, as though He heard them not. So when they continued asking Him, He lifted up Himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up Himself, and saw none but the woman, He said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” — JouN viii. 3 — 11.

In such an act did the power, the love, or the wisdom predominate? As well ask which colour predominates in the rainbow: they are all blent into one arch of beauty.

Would we see Jesus in His most fascinating charms? Then we must look at Him as He stands face to face with a notorious sinner. That face of His never lightens into such a glory as when it looks upon the darkness of penitent guilt.

This incident suggests four lessons : —

I. Iv IS POSSIBLE TO TAKE AN INTEREST IN SOCIAL CRIME MERELY FOR THE PURPOSES OF RELIGIOUS PARTISANSHIP.

Did these scribes and Pharisees care one tittle for the spirituality and sanctity of the law? When they found this poor unhappy creature, did their hearts bleed with pity, or their eyes dissolve in tenderness, or did they say with the sorrow of a great disappointment, Alas! our poor sister has been overmatched by the enemy of man, and we must save her from the pit on whose brink she lies! Not a word of it! Nota tear stained their eyes — not a pang of pity quivered in their steel breasts — their humanity was eaten up by their pompous and zealous bigotry. They looked at her through the ’ medium of the stern law, on the one hand, and on the other regarded her as a practical puzzle for the revolutionary Teacher. They took an interest in criminals, indeed, but their interest was a stroke in business, a defence of policy, a blow at progress. I allude to this department of the story with special emphasis, in order to denounce a most pretentious and rotten philanthropy. There are men who find their meat and their drink in criminal statistics.

They are most industrious in collecting facts — in visiting gaols, hospitals, workhouses, and penitentiaries — in cross-examining prisoners, paupers, and refugees — with what intent? What is the meaning of all this industry? I judge no man; but I do urge that. it is perfectly possible to do all this, to earn the reputation of a great philanthropist, and yet all the while to be using all the facts merely for the purpose of entangling and frustrating the representatives of a wider and diviner creed. These scribes and Pharisees acted as though they were glad of having found a rare example of crime, which they could use as a test of Messiah’s morality. It was an opportunity not to be lost. It was a trap which must be skilfully set. It was an occasion which might lead on to victory. Now, it is worth while inquiring whether our interest in criminals and crime is really the expression of a piteous and yearning philanthropy, or whether we encourage it merely for the purpose of maintaining and illustrating some favourite theory? Are we naturalists, going forth to the mountains and dales for the purpose of collecting a museum of curiosities? Are we a kind of geologic moralists, digging into deep strata that we may find unusual specimens? Are we sportsmen who delight in capturing game, that we may nail to the hall door the memorials of our triumphs? Or do we, like the Blessed Philanthropist, our Lord and Saviour, go forth “to seek and to save the lost,” to lift up the downcast, and turn the wanderer into the right way? Let us guard against a lifeless and tearless philanthropy; let us dread the day when we can look on crime with eyes which glisten only because our favourite hypothesis is maintained; let us remember that it is one thing to be the policemen of the church, bringing in poor prisoners for judgment, and another to be like Him who wept and bled that prisoners might be free. Philanthropy may degenerate into mere formality. Men may be driven to any lengths in defending a sectarian idea. An anatomist may slash the dissecting knife through the heart of his own father for the purpose of establishing some favourite physiological dogma.

IJ. THE HIGHEST QUALIFICATION FOR SOCIAL
JUDGMENT IS PERSONAL INNOCENCE.

“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

Jesus does not abrogate the law, — He does not set himself in opposition to Moses: the scribes and Pharisees desired to antagonize Moses and Jesus, but the answer which they received withered up their purposes, and gave their thoughts a turn which they regarded with supreme aversion. He shows, however, that the law is to be administered by clean hands; that the thunders of the law are to be articulated by pure lips; that the stone of judgment is to be flung with the pity of holiness, and not with the wantonness of revenge.

I value this counsel for two reasons : —

First. It gives full scope to the faculty of conscience. Jesus did not accuse these men; they accused themselves. He might have arraigned them one by one, and passed judgment on each, but He abbreviates the process by making each man judge himself He did not say, “There is not a sinless man among you,’ but He asked the sinless man. to step forward and cast the first stone at his erring sister. Conscience takes the candle into the inmost recesses of our being. Conscience holds up a mirror to the leprous soul. Conscience shows us the cracks in our porcelain respectability, and the specks upon our boasted morality. This dread agent of God in the human soul showed that the main difference between the accused and the accusers was that her sin was found out, and theirs was not; the sun had got hold of her iniquity, while theirs lay rotting in the darkness. They wished to pass for respectable men — decent members of society — pillars in the temple of rectitude; but when conscience, commis- ‘sioned by divine authority, began to rifle their history, they fled from the sanctuary without daring to fling the stone of retribution.

Second. It reveals God’s view of human society. “The Lord seeth not as man seeth.” Man saw these scribes and Pharisees in eager haste to honour the law, to brand crime, to maintain righteousness; but God saw the under-lurking villany, and marked every spring of poison which bubbled in the depraved heart, and bade them look at themselves before looking at and despising others. God sees the hidden chamber of, imagery. His eye alights on the interior view, and it is by that view that all His judgments are regulated. Stripping society of its pompous garniture — laying off its gilded trinketry — He pours the sunlight into the caverns of the heart, and shows how the reptiles of iniquity are fattening there. God does not see us as we see each other in the church, in this holy hour; His eye is looking at the very core and spring of being.

Personal innocence, then, is the highest qualification for social judgment. He is a daring or a wanton man who lightly assumes the functions of social magistracy. Where there is most holiness there is most pity. It was God’s own holiness that wept itself into mercy, — such mercy! — mercy that died and rose again that sinners might “sin no more.” When we are under the full dominion of that mercy we shall need but the faintest breeze of appeal to shake the tears of pity from our melting eyes.

III. READINESS TO ACCUSE ANOTHER IS NO
GUARANTEE OF PERSONAL RECTITUDE.

To have seen these men haling the poor woman and stating her crime so fully and emphatically, one might have concluded that they were themselves just. men, who lived daily in the fear and love of the Most High; and yet such conclusion would have been in utter antagonism to the melancholy reality of the case. We have all seen men who have gnashed their teeth with diabolic savageness through the quivering frame of a poor offender, and hung on to the swelling flesh with a pertinacity that would have done credit to the fiercest beast in the jungle, and these men all the while imagining that by dooming others to the hottest hell they were proving their own meetness for the highest heaven. Alas! though such men may turn their red eyes to heaven as if in prayer, they have not the spirit of Jesus, who forgiveth and receiveth the world’s worst sinners. The scribes and Pharisees were more ready to condemn than was Jesus Christ. The Saviour was not so intent upon helling men as they were. Eagerness to hurry men off to perdition is but a poor pledge of piety. Many men would avoid this poor unhappy woman, who are themselves no paragons of excellence. I know not of a more distressing sight than to see one poor sinner dealing harshly and furiously with another. Each sinner seems to think his own sin less heinous than that of his neighbour. There, is a man who brandies himself into stupidity every night, over his own fireside, and who renders himself disgusting to every member of his household, yet that man turns scornfully away from this poor woman! There, is another, who is “such a son of Belial that a man cannot speak to him;” from whom his own children flee in terror; who cultivates the lowest and meanest of all tyrannies, tyranny in his own family, — yet that man turns scornfully away from this poor woman! There, is a stingy, shrivelled, rotten soul, that can hardly afford himself bread, who begrudges his family every article of apparel, who accounts himself clever if he can cheat his tradesmen out of a shilling, who would grind and crush the bones of his workmen, and could see every one of them buried in a pauper’s grave, — yet that man turns scornfully away from this poor woman! There, is a proud, haughty, glass-eyed, cork-hearted man, who expects the poor to clear themselves off before his imperial march, who never wept over weakness, never shed a smile on the orphan’s lonely way, who talks to the poor of the parish laws, and points the breadless and homeless to the workhouse, — yet that man turns scornfully away from this poor woman! There, is a man who can spend hours in slander, who smacks his empoisoned lips like a debauchee, when he has words of dishonour to say about another, who can whisper defamation, who can hiss syllables of cruelty, — yet that man can present himself among the sons of God, and turn scornfully away from this poor woman! O sirs, it makes one’s heart sore and sad to mark how one child of guilt can eagerly brand another, and send him, amid frantic clapping of unclean hands, to the fellowship of devils.

IV. TRUE INTEREST IN SOCIAL CRIME IS BEST SHOWN BY SAVING THE CRIMINAL FROM DESPAIR.

“Go, and sin no more.” The good man never ignores the presence of sin. Jesus Christ, with all His gentleness and mercy, did not tell the woman that she was innocent, nor did He treat her as an innocent woman. Christ was ever forward to main-, tain the broad distinction between right and wrong. I believe that if we follow His example we shall frown upon sin in all its aspects and tendencies, and never cast the faintest smile upon its downward course. We must never treat the thief as though he were honest, or the liar as though he were truthful, or the proud as though he were humble, or the miser as though he were generous. We owe such distinctions to the dignity of virtue, and they must be maintained for ever. At the same time our lesson is this: Never cast the penitent sinner into despair. Jesus said, “Go, and sin no more;” take one more chance in life; turn over a page; begin again; treat this as a second birthday; go, and make the future better than the past. Thank God for such words of hope! The beams of mercy shoot far across the gloom of guilt; the voice of hope falls on the ear of the remotest wanderer! Christ here teaches us the true method of rescuing and restoring the criminal, — never cast him wnto despair. “Men might be better if we better deemed Of them. The worst way to improve the world Is to condemn it. Men may overget Delusion — not despair.”

If you can say one gentle word, or give one hopeful glance, to the prisoner who is brought before you, I call upon you in the name of God to do it. The blessing of him who is ready to perish will come upon you, and in a recovered life you may find your ultimate reward. Would not this poor woman for ever feel a kindling love to Him who spake this word of hope to her? Would she hesitate for a moment on whom to pour the benedictions of her glowing and expanding heart? The righteous Pharisees, the holy scribes, would have smitten her with death; but the divine Saviour spread a new page of life before her, and told her to begin again. A word of hope may strike a happy influence through an entire lifetime. Those of us who imagine that we have never sinned do not know the value of such a word; but those of us who have taken our sins into dark places, and wept over them, and then taken them to the Saviour’s cross, and heard His voice of mercy, know how the soul warms, and gladdens, and sings in reply to the word of liberty and love. “Deal gently with the erring one.” To-morrow thou mayest thyself eat of

’ the forbidden tree, and pine for some look of hope. The enemy may get a sudden advantage over thee, and if thou hast only scribes and Pharisees for friends, thine will be an unhappy lot. O pause, ere consigning a fellow-creature to the hell of despair! Arrest the harsh word which burns on thy tongue; consider thyself lest thou-also be tempted. ‘“With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” The voice of Jesus to every man is, “Go, and sin no more.” Christ came into the world that He might make an everlasting end of sin. He is the sinner’s only Saviour. “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” He not only bzds us “sin no more,” but He helps us to conquer every temptation. Not only does He urge us to rise to heaven, but He puts forth His hand, and gives us the very power which He bids us employ.