Soberness

“But Paul said, I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness.” — Acts xxvl 25.

LONG, long ago, a native Egyptian, whose cottage stood near one of the slave settlements, might have observed a family of the captive Hebrew race bringing a lamb to the house one night, and after mysteriously sprinkling the door-posts with its blood, assembling to eat it in a strange and inexplicable fashion, with their loins girt, and sandals on their feet, and each holding a staff in his hand, as if the poor bond brickmakers had any liberty to plan or execute a journey. The people are mad, thinks the Egyptian, as he quietly eyes from his own door their eccentric and unintelligible movements. Not so thought he at next morning’s dawn, as he bent over the bed on which his first-born lay a

Soberness. corpse, and heard in the distance the marching music of the emancipated Hebrews as they gathered to the rendezvous. No: those poor Hebrews were not mad when they sacrificed and ate their first passover: and he who thought them mad at night, observes and owns their wisdom in the morning.

The valley of the lower Jordan was a rich plain, studded with thriving cities, when Lot looked down upon it from the brow of the neighbouring hill, and chose it for his home. A lucky man was he. All his expectations were fulfilled. Soon he became a chief citizen of the chief city. His sons were rising men; and his daughters were introduced into the best society. His house was one of the most substantial in the city, and his agricultural wealth enabled him to maintain it on a scale of princely hospitality. One day three angels came to this prosperous man, on an errand from their Master. They advised him to abandon all, and flee with his family to the mountains. As he lingered, not absolutely refusing obedience, but unable to make up his mind to the costly sacrifice, they laid hold of his hand and hurried him away. Are not the angels mad to tear a prosperous and respectable man so rudely from so warm a berth; and is he not mad himself for consenting to go? When Lot paused, panting for breath, half way up the hill- side, and saw the smoke covering the doomed cities as with the pall of death, he well knew that the words which warned him away to a refuge in the rock were words of truth and soberness.

In a high latitude on the southern ocean, far from the track of the world’s commerce, a noble ship, well found and well manned, is spreading her sails to the breeze and bounding lightly through the waves, her rough exploring work completed, and her head turned homeward at last. All suddenly the whole ship’s company congregate astern; some hasty words are spoken; the nearest boats are lowered; with only a bit of bread for their next meal, and not a scrap of clothing except what they wore, they hurry over the ship’s sides, stow themselves away in the boats, and cut adrift on an unfrequented sea. The men are mad, are they not? No; for a smouldering fire deep in the ship’s hold beyond their reach, has wormed its way to the magazine, and it is but a reckoning of minutes to the time when the ship will be blown into a thousand fragments. The men are wise men. “Skin for skin; yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.” They have given away all that they had for their life; and they have made a good bargain, Had you been there, you would have applauded their counsel, and joined in their act.

A few years ago, in the United States of America, a young woman of taste and genius burst into sudden and great celebrity as a brilliant writer in the periodical literature of the day. After a youth of constant and oppressive struggle she found herself at length an object of admiration and envy throughout her native land. The world was all before her; the ball was at her foot. Fanny Forester’s troubles were over, and her fortune made. She has reached the throne at last, and may now sit as a queen in the highest circles of American society.

The fashionable world had no sooner recognised and accepted their favourite, than rumours began to spread, muffled at first, but anon breaking out in clear tones and distinct articulation, that their chosen heroine had consented to become the wife of Judson, now far advanced in life, and to plunge with him into the darkest heart of heathendom, there to burn her life-lamp down to the socket learning a barbarous language, taming a cruel race, and contending with a pestilential climate, — all that she might make known the love of J esus to an uncivilised and idolatrous nation.

Soberness.

To Burmah she went; did and bore her Saviour’s will there till life could hold out no longer; and then came home to die. “The woman is mad,” rang from end to end of America, echoing and re-echoing through the marts of trade and the salons of fashion, — “the woman is mad.” Herself caught the word and the thought, and like the liberated Hebrews in the wilderness, consecrated what she had borrowed from the Egyptians to the service of the Lord. She wrote and published an essay on “The Madness of the Missionary Enterprise,” in which she effectively turned the money-making and pleasure-loving world of her own people upside down. The missionary cleared herself and her cause, leaving the imputation of madness lying on the other side.

As long as there are persons in the world who seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and other persons living close at hand who seek that kingdom in the second place, and in subordination to the claims of gain or fashion, there must necessarily be a strongly-marked opposition of sentiment between the two classes. They cannot both be right. Wherever convictions are keenly felt, and the consequent conduct is distinctly outlined, both parties will observe the difference, and each will frame his own judgment regarding it. Where the principles and conduct of two persons are opposite in regard to the chief aim of life, each must necessarily think his neighbour in the wrong. If two are sleeping in one bed, and if one arise at midnight and flee to the fields from a conviction that the house is tottering to its fall, while the other though wide awake lies still in bed, the one who remains at ease within the house thinks his companion a fool for his pains. And he must think so. If he did not think so he could not lie still another moment. For him only two alternatives are possible; either he must think that the man who fled is a fool, or he must arise and flee too with all his might. As long as he lies there he cannot afford to admit a belief of his neighbour’s wisdom, for to admit that neighbour’s wisdom is to convict himself of suicidal madness. Accordingly, he holds fast by his creed that the other man is a fool; and the moment that creed fails him, he arises and flees too for his life.

Poor Festus could not think — could not speak otherwise to Paul, — unless, like the jailer of Philippi, he had on the instant become a Christian, and made profession of his faith. The subject was obviously the greatest; the case had been clearly stated; this story of a Divine Saviour, the just giving himself for the unjust, is either true or false. If it is true, Paul is right; but if Paul is right, Festus is wrong. Not being prepared to confess this, and yield to its consequences, he took the only other alternative that remained. Festus, knowing well that on this point, — the turning-point of an immortal for all eternity, — where two hold opposite opinions, there must be madness somewhere, determined to throw the imputation from himself. Festus said, “Thou art mad, Paul.” Paul replied, “I am not mad, Festus;” and the two men parted perhaps never to meet again on earth.

What then? Is it another case in which two men entertain different opinions, and in which each may safely hold his own? Alas! it cannot be. One of the two is mad, and in his madness throws himself away. Paul is sober; Festus is the fool.

To make perishing treasures the true centre to which the soul gravitates, and round which the life revolves, while the things that pertain to eternity are left to follow as they may in a secondary place, is abnormal and mischievous. The wrench is as fatal as would be the revolution in the material universe, if the sun, by external violence, were compelled to move round the earth, or the earth to move round the moon. In the practical question which every one must once in his life decide for himself, — the question whether he shall be his own master, or accept with all his heart and soul the gospel of salvation by Jesus Christ, — there are only two sides. One side is right and safe; the other side is wrong and ruinous. “0 send out thy light and thy truth; let them lead me.”

SIXTY years since, a certain attached domestic, presuming on the privilege that was frequently in those days tacitly accorded to his class, roundly reproved his master, a great Scottish proprietor, for the sin of profane swearing. Although no record remains of the argument, it is evident that John had taken a leaf out of the great apostle’s book, and besides speaking of righteousness and temperance, had given a broad hint about the “judgment to come;” for the laird, feeling that he had not a leg to stand on, cut the matter short by the remark, “It has pleased Providence to place our family in a superior position in this world, and I trust he 11 will do the same in the next.” This is a real case; but it is an extreme, and perhaps we may add, at least in our own day, a rare one. On the other side there are, not here and there one, but everywhere many, who wear coronets and pray. In this respect the lines of our generation have fallen in a pleasant place. For present privilege we should “thank God,” and for future prospects “take courage.” But between