A Brother's Keeper

1 If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?” — xxiv. 11, 12.

THE principle that God, our common Father, counts every man his brother’s keeper, pervades the Scriptures as an animating spirit, and is here, in vivid language, expressly affirmed and defined. From the beginning it was so. Nowhere can this truth be more distinctly seen than as it glances reflected from the black, hard heart of the first murderer. Cain’s sullen denial, when rightly read, is equivalent to a disciple’s positive confession; for that carnal mind was in violent enmity against God. In the lie that flashes back from that guilty conscience you may read the heavenly truth that touched and tormented it. As from the beginning, so it is also at the end: he who closed the record of Revelation in Patmos, in character by that time as well as doctrine a contrast to the murderer of Abel, embodies the principle in the last words of inspiration, and disappears in the very act of stretching out his hands to save a brother who is ready to perish: “Let him that heareth say, Come; and let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. xxii. 17). The prophets before Christ’s coming, and the apostles after it, all conspired to teach, by their lips and by their lives, that a* man liveth not to himself, and dieth not to himself. Ye who bear the Saviour’s name, and trust in his love, ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price. Ye have talents to lay out, and a work to accomplish — a Master to serve and a brother to save. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Whoso hath this world’s good, or the next world’s good, or both, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

I know not any point in the whole circumference of duty on which the human mind makes a more obstinate stand than here, against the authority of God. The determination to be his own master, and do what he liked with himself, seems to have been the very essence of the sin which constituted man’s fall, and still animates the fallen. “Who is lord over us 1” is the watch-word of the life-long battle between an evil conscience and a righteous Judge. Here the commandment is exceeding broad: like divine omniscience, it compasses the transgressor before and behind. It checks his advance, and cuts off his retreat. Although a man should actually maintain, in relation to every brother, the neutrality which he professes, it would avail him nothing. Under God as supreme ruler, and by his law, we owe every human being love; and if we fail to render it, we are cast into prison with other less reputable debtors. Nor will anything be received in payment but the genuine coin of the kingdom; it must be love with a living soul in it and a substantial body on it. If it be a material gift thrown to a needy brother, wanting the fellow-feeling of a sympathizing heart, it is a body without a soul — a carcase loathsome to the living; if it be a sentimental emotion resembling pity, unaccompanied by any corresponding deed, it is a soul without a body — an intangible spirit. A pure emotion must animate the act: a substantial act must clothe the pure emotion. The great Teacher has so constructed the parable of the talents that on this point none can miss its meaning. No actual injurer of Ins neighbour is introduced into the picture at all; the heaviest sentence which the Bible contains, or the lips of Jesus uttered, is left lying on the “unprofitable servant” — the man who failed to do good with the means at his disposal (Matt. xxv. 30). But Christ’s example prints this lesson in still larger letters than his preaching. By looking unto Jesus we may learn it better than by listening even to his own word. Where would we have been now, if he had satisfied himself with abstaining from inflicting injury on a fallen world 1 He did not let us alone in our extremity: as we desire to be like him we should not desert our brother in his need. Jesus bids us do good, and shows us the way. Listen to his teaching, and follow his steps.

The law which runs through the Scriptures on this point is laid down in these verses in copious, clear, and memorable terms. The distress of a neighbour, the indifference of a selfish man, the excuses which the guilty presents to his own questioning conscience, and the terrors which the Lord holds over his head, are marshalled all in order here, and made to pass before our eyes like a section of actual life.

First of all, what ails our brother, that he needs the compassion of a tender heart, and the help of a strong arm? He is “drawn unto death,” and “ready to be slain.” This is the very crisis which at once needs help and admits it. If the danger were more distant, he might not be sensible of his need; if it were nearer, he might be beyond the hope of recovery. He is so low that help is necessary; yet not so low that help now offered would be vain. He is “drawn unto death,” and therefore is an object of pity; but his life is yet in him, and therefore he is a subject of hope. Such, in general terms, is the work which lies to our hands in the world.

The death into which a neighbour is gliding may be the death of the body, or the death of the soul, or both together. The example of Christ and the precepts of Scripture concur in teaching us to acknowledge either danger, and render either aid. A deaf ear, a blind eye, a palsied arm, a breaking heart, Jesus instantly owned as claims on his compassion; but he was grieved when men went away with the healed body, feeling not the death and seeking not the life of the soul. We should go and do likewise. Count disease and poverty a valid claim for help, but count not the cure complete when these wants have been relieved.

Disciples now are certainly like their Lord in this department of his experience: they find the sense of temporal want and the urgency for temporal relief much more common and more keen, than grief for guilt or desire for pardon. We direct attention to the disease which draws the soul to death; that which draws the body down directs attention to itself. The man is not yet in the death that is final and hopeless. He is sliding gradually into it; something is drawing him down, and that something is within him. If that ailment be not cast out, perdition is sure. The sting of death is sin, and already that sting is planted deep in the soul. It has not yet reached its issue, but it is running its inevitable course. When a poisonous serpent plunges its sting into the flesh and blood of a man, the man lives yet a while: the body does not instantly become cold. The poison mingles with the blood, and so permeates the frame. The fever rises, tumultuously but steadfastly, like the tide. The serpent’s sting has taken hold of the life, and is drawing it surely to death. Like this uneasy interval is human life, until it is made new in Christ. The sting of the Old Serpent has gotten hold, and will not let go until it be taken out by a Stronger One. “Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.” If a gang of captured Africans, chained to each other, were in our sight driven from the interior to the shore for sale, there would not be a dry eye amongst us as the sad procession passed; these chains, and that death to which they draw the victims, are things seen and temporal. Captives more numerous, and more firmly bound, are drawn along our thoroughfares to a greater death; if we had spiritual perception to estimate the distress, our compassion would not be shut up within our own bosoms for lack of subjects to exercise it on.

Such are the objects and such their claim: how do those meet it who have themselves gotten help from God? The form of the warning indicates the point at which the defect is anticipated: “If thou forbear to deliver.” The Author of this word knows what is in man. The point of the sword goes to the joints and marrow: it does not assume that men, when they see a brother drawn unto death, will in mere wantonness give him a blow to hasten his fall. Such a deed of gratuitous wickedness may here and there be found; but it is an abnormal excrescence, and not the ordinary fruit which even fallen humanity bears. If the reproof had been aimed at that enormity, it would have missed the most of us; the arrow, pointed higher, comes more surely home. The charge is not that we strike a standing brother down, but that we fail to raise a fallen brother up. The law under which we live is the law of love; and whenever any doubt arises as to practical details, the Pattern is at hand to mould it on and test it by: “Love one another as I have loved you.” A Christian doing good should be like an artist working from a model, looking alternately from the rude material in his hands up to the perfect example which he imitates,, and down from that example to the rude material again.

The excuse, “We knew it not,” will not avail us in as far as we might have known. “Seek, and ye shall find,” applies to opportunities of saving them that are ready to perish, as well as to benefits which we may obtain for ourselves. Ignorance will not be reckoned for innocence, if He who pondereth the heart saw it selfishly keeping the disagreeable knowledge away. He that keepeth thy soul will ask one day what thou hast done for the keeping of others, and He will then render unto every man according to his works.

The conclusion of the whole matter may be expressed in these words of the apostle: “Let us not be weary in well-doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith” (Gal. vi. 9, 10). The two limits are, on this side “opportunity,” and on that side “all men.” Between these two lies the ample exercise-ground for a Christian, on which he is expected, like his Master, to go about doing good. Do more for the household of nature or of faith than you do for those who are distant from you or from God, — it is not sinful to respect these relations and permit them to influence the proportion of your efforts; but the heart’s compassion should acknowledge no limit to its flow short of the world’s boundary, and the helping hand no limit to its stretch except the opportunity and the power.

The destinies of men are so closely interwoven together, that every one of us has a direct interest in delivering those who are now drawn unto sin and death. If we forbear to help him who is falling now, he and his may drag down with themselves our children when we are no longer here to prevent the calamity. That poor wretch who is drawn, like the Gadarene swine, by possessing spirits down a steep place into the abyss, has a number of young children littering in the hovel which they call their home. These children are growing up a brood much more dangerous than savages: in them the forces of civilization are under the control of barbarism. They are an ingredient which, in proportion to its bulk, darkens and pollutes the society into which it is poured. My children must be poured into the same great tide of time, and I cannot keep them from indiscriminate contact with its varied impurities. Thus, by my love to my own children, God binds me to do my best for my neighbours; and the rod which is lifted up for punishment will strike me on the tenderest place, if I neglect this salvation work.

A few miles above Montreal, the two great convergent rivers of British America, the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa, meet. The St. Lawrence is a pure stream, of a peculiar, light-blue colour: the Ottawa is dark, as if it were tinged by moss in its way. After their meeting the two rivers run side by side a few miles, each occupying its own half of one broad bed; but gradually the boundary line disappears, and all the waters are mingled in one vast homogeneous flood. Although the life of the inhabitants below depended on preserving the pure cerulean hue of the St. Lawrence, it could not possibly be preserved: all the might of man cannot prevent the Ottawa from tinging the united waters with its own dark shade: unless the darkness can be discharged from its springs, that great affluent will effectually dye the main river in all its lower reaches. Behold the picture of the process by which the neglected children of our unsaved brother, meeting our own at a lower point in time’s rolling current, will blot out the distinction which is now maintained. Behold the rod lifted up in our sight to prevent the neglect now, or punish it hereafter! The dark cellars in which ignorant, vicious, godless parents, now pen their hapless brood, are the springs which feed a mighty river. Our little ones rise in cleaner spots, and in the meantime a solid bank separates the streams. But that turbid river lies within the same basin, and by the laws of nature must converge towards the central channel of society. It is an affluent; we must accept the fact, for we cannot change it. We dread that dark stream which, at a little distance, is flowing parallel with our own. Over the embankments, now not very lofty, we hear sometimes the ominous gurgle of its rapid flow. There is only one way of subduing that terrible enemy. If we cower timidly in our own hiding-place, the destruction which we thereby invite will quickly overtake us. In this warfare there is no armour for the back of the fugitive; safety lies in facing the danger. The evil which in its issue is a deluge, may in its origin be successfully neutralized. Below, you cannot keep the gathered volume out: above, you may do much to purify the rising spring.