The Sword and the Trowel
It was an old Pythagorean maxim, “Sepiam ne edito,” Never eat the cuttle-fish. The cuttle-fish has the power of emitting a black liquid which dyes the water and enables it to conceal itself. Have nothing to do with those who darken all around them, that they themselves may be unseen; honest men love light, and only the evil find darkness to be congenial. When an author is too obscure to be understood, leaiie him till he knows how to write j when a preacher is mystical, high-flown, sophistical, shun him, for it is most likely he labors to conceal some latent heresy; when a man’s policy is deep and artful, flee from him, for he means no good. No deceiver or double-tongued man must be admitted within the circle of your confidence. Remember the advice. Never eat a cnttle-fish. — C. H. Spurgeon.
THIS Record of “Combat with Sin and Labor for the Lord” has closed its seventeenth vohimc. TLihtccn years ao Mr. Spureon felt the necessity of ha’ing a channel of communication between himself and his many correspondents and the numerous friends who became interested in his work. But the magazine is more than a record of work done; it is an earnest advocate of every legitimate endeavor to win men to the Saviour, and in addition furnishes able expositions of Scripture. Mr. Spurgeon in a ver’ remarkable manner combines the Word and the Work: the Work with him ‘must be the outcome of the Word. We meet in this monthly magazine with stirring articles of great merit, with brief sermons deeply spiritual, with helpful lectures and suggestions to Christian workers, with notes on men and events worthy of study. L’nique in itself, this magazine is entirely free from sensational productions and sentimental reading. It is not an advocate of sect or party, and certainly not a cudgel for the Editor with which to beat out the brains of opponents. Its pages are laden with choice fruits; it is spiritual, solid, emotional, pathetic, and humorous. But the vein of humor carries in it the real and substantial, as the rough ore holds the precious metal. Interesting, instructive, profitable, we never meet with an empty paragraph or a wasted word in this journal. The ordinary reader is not puzzled by scholastic expressions unnecessarily introduced, nor diverted from facts by a bombastic style, which, like a wordy address before a jury, may lead twelve men in their befogged condition to hang an innocent man. But the scholar will also find food for thought and solid instruction within its pages. The readers of
“The Sword and the Trowel” are found among the ministers and members of all denofninations at home and in foreign lands.
The first number of the Eighteenth Volume lies upon our table. Its cover is familiar to our eyes, having scanned its pages for many years. The first article of this number, by the Editor himself, we commend to the timid and hopeless. Its title, “Unto the End,” suggests one secret of Mr. Spurgeon’s success. He encourages perseverance in every good and laudable work, and shows that many projects perish in their infancy through lack of this grace. “Perseverance in itself is admirable, but,” writes the Editor, “carried on to the last hour, it will be glorious. Happy and honored will he be who endures to the end.”
The second article, by Mr. Charlesworth, the head master of the Stockwell Orphanage, is a touching story of a mother seeking a lost daughter, and, thinking she had found her standing beneath a railway arch, touched her on the shoulder. A strange young woman faced the anxious mother, who exclaimed by way of apology, “Oh, I thought it was my daughter!” The words reached the tender spot in this poor crushed girl, who quickly responded, “I wish I had a mother to come after me!” The motherly instinct was called into play when thus accosted, and the grieved parent took this poor stranger child to her own home.
The third article, “Religion in the Eighteenth Century,” is based on Dr. John Stoughton’s book, and is worthy of perusal.
‘* Launching Out,” by Thomas Spurgeon, is a very enjoyable exposition of the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The following paragraph indicates the drift of the article: “He who learns to swim may keep one foot upon the bottom of the bath; but the precaution which insures his safety in the shallows, means destruction in the deep waters. He who wants to keep one foot on the bottom in mid ocean had better make up his mind to keep both there. In the matter of salvation it is either sink or swim. Have a single self-confidence and we sink; the waters are too deep for us to touch the bottom; trust in Jesus only, and we swim, upheld by His strong arm and loving hand.” In illustrating the gospel, Thomas Spurgeon has shown himself a worthy son of a worthy sire.
Next we have two hvmns, one for the New Year, and one “All Glory.” Then follows an article on the Jesuits. This class of ferrets with all their brood, who are always nosing around after game, are never spared by the sturd’ London preacher; the shavelings of Rome are his abomination. He abhors the thought of a sinning human being standing as mediator between the sinner and his God; and those who arrogate to themselves the office of interceding priests arc roughly handled by Mr. Spurgeon.
A few pages of the magazine are devoted to a very touching story entitled, “lock and his Mithcr.” We were not satisfied to dip into it here and there, but read it through even in the midst of pressing engagements. We regretted not having a second handkerchief at hand, for every line touched our emotions and made the tears to flow. We only wish that in our preaching we could relate this story with all the pathos and Scotch accent with which Jock “told about his “mither.”
As we turn over a few pages more we light upon “Journal Jottings and the Hop-picker’s Mission,” by John lUirnham, the TabernacL wmgelist. The hop-pickers are a depraved class, widely neglected except when such men as Mr. Spurgeon’s evangelist go forth to tell them of Jesus and His love. And these beloved missionaries are always rewarded in having conversions among this debased class, whose subsequent chaste and temperate lives prove the realitv of their conversion.
Next come ten pages of book-notices, followed by “Personal Notes” of the College, the colporteurs’ work, and the Orphanage; of Mr. Spurgeon’s movements from month to month, and interesting anecdotes of the results of his sermons coming from various parts of the wide world. Each number of the magazine devotes a few pages to the acknowledgment of money and goods sent by subscribers and friends for the various branches of work carried on.
We here append Mr. Spurgeon’s preface to the seventeenth volume, which summarizes the work accomplished and indicates the usefulness of the magazine, besides his unwearied and conscientious labors as editor, with a few of those pungent, crisp articles, showing that consummate wit for which the writer has become a universal favorite.
Kind Readers, — Throughout another year you have sustained the magazine; and as very many of you have expressed your satisfaction, and few, if any, have favored me with a complaint, I feel encouraged to believe that you have been pleased with my monthly issues. It was once observed in my hearing by a friend who wished to account for my fulfilment of numerous duties, that as for the magazine, it was a merely nominal thing to be the editor, for few editors ever saw their magazines till they were in print. However this may be as a rule, it does not contain a spark of truth in my case, for I have personally superintended every page, and I do not think a single line of the magazine has passed through the press without having been read by me. Whether I succeed or not, I certainly do not delegate my task to others. If I had more leisure I am sure I could do better, and it is with unfeigned satisfaction that I find my subscribers contented with what I can procure for them.
“The Sword and Trowel” has been the happy means of uniting in gracious service a band of gracious givers and workers, who now for these seventeen years have joined to aid the institutions which, though they locally surround the Tabernacle, are really the offspring of a congregation which is found scattered throughout all lands. By means* of this warm-hearted brotherhood the Pastors’ College has been sustained from year to year, until some six hundred ministers have been educated in it, the most of whom are still faithfully preaching the old-fashioned gospel in which they have been trained. In connection with this enterprise three brethren have been supported as evangelists, and their itinerant labors have been signally successful. Testimonies that churches have been aroused and sinners converted by their means, have been plentifully sent in, and these pages have been increased in interest thereby. Hundreds of thousands have heard the gospel through this instrumentality.
The Stockwell Orphanage originated through an article in this magazine, and from time to time its support has been mainly supplied by its readers. During the past year the houses for the girls’ side have been completed and partly furnished; and at the present time the first detachment of little ones has entered into occupation. More remains to be done by way of furniture for other houses, and the further contracts for the infirmary, baths, and outbuildings have to be met; but it is a great comfort to have seen the project so far in progress, and to feel assured that all that is yet required will be forthcoming in its season. The bazaar which is so soon to be held will, we hope, secure the amount needed to bring the enterprise up to the next stage, and then we may lay our plan for the final outlay on the chapel of the Orphanage, and a few other necessaries. All that has been done has been accomplished without personal solicitation, or the allotment of votes, or the dissemination of heart-rending appeals: it has sufficed to lay the case before the Lord in pra)’er, and then to mention it to His people in plain and earnest terms, and the funds have come in with marvellous regularity, the larger amounts having been timed to meet the hour of need as exactly as if the whole went by clockwork. The hand of the Lord is in this thing, and to Him be glory. That this institution has brought honor to God is plain enough, for many a time those who would have abused our ministry have admitted that a good work has been wrought, and have had no heart to revile. There is a something about orphan work which wins the s’mpath’ of the most careless, and none can tell till the last great day how many have been by this means led to think well of the gospel, and next to hear it and experience its power.
The Colportage Association has held on its most useful course. It has been sustained with difficulty, for somehow it does not chime in with the tastes and views of large donors, but its influence for good is second to no existing agency. Where there are not enough dissenters to support a minister, or where ministers are unable to cover large and scattered districts, the colporteur makes his way with his pack, and speaks a word for Jesus at every door, either by personal conversation or by leaving a tract. Besides this, he preaches by the roadside or in village chapels, gets up temperance meetings, visits the sick, and above all sells good books. This society, and several other useful works, report themselves in these pages, and enlist good friends thereby.
Mrs. Spurgeon’s Book Fund quietly pursues its beneficent course. It is putting sound theology just now upon the shelves of many a poor curate and ill-paid minister, and this it does so largely that it would be a miracle of a strange sort if it did not greatly affect the ministry of the day. That the sermons distributed and the “Treasury of David” furnish material for preachers is saying very little: that they have evangelized the tone of many has been confessed in numerous instances, and is true of far more.
Brethren and sisters, you have aided me so far in a benevolent enterprise of no small dimensions, and I hope I have in no degree lost your loving confidence. Continue, then, to bear me up in your prayers, and to sustain me by your contributions. More can be done, and more should be done. Every living work is capable of growth; every work which has God’s blessing upon it is under necessity to advance. Our watchword still is forward. Possibly we cry forward more often than pleases those who lag behind. Some time ago I asked for men and means to send evangelists to India; one man only offered, and that one man was sent. Up till now I have had sufficient money, and I believe that when more men offer I shall have larger funds; but here is room for prayerful uplooking to the Lord. Brethren, pray for us. I would fain live to the utmost of my own life, and I would draw out from all my brethren more and more for God’s glory by the propagation of the gospel, the alleviation of suffering, and the arousing of the Church. Thanks to all helpers, and a thousand blessings.
We notice in an American newspaper a letter signed ‘* The Hornless Deacon.” There is no accounting for our Transatlantic cousins, but what can the good man mean by such a title? A hornless buffalo or a hornless cow we could understand, but what is the reason for applying that adjective to a deacon? We have been lying back in our most serious armchair, and have been revolving in our meditative soul the various senses which can be drawn out of this expression, or imputed to it; but we cannot make head or tail of it, and without a head there may well be no horns. The owner of the signature is evidently a deacon, and therefore he must be fully aware that deacons do not possess horns and hoofs. Some pastors, when hardly driven, have thought they did, but this was a clerical error. We believe that all evil reports about deacons arise from nightmare, and are slanderous and absurd; but still they do arise, and therefore this good deacon may have felt it necessary in his own case to assert that he had no horns, and was not related to any individual whose head is thus adorned. Had not deacons been a much-abused order of men the foul insinuation as to horns would never have cropped up, and none of the race would have found it needful to claim to be hornless. Our own opinion is that when deacons have horns it will generally be found that the minister has a tail. There is six of one and half-a-dozen of the other in most cases of disagreement between the two classes of church-officers.
We would earnestly hope, however, that our friend “The Hornless Deacon” had no thought of the Evil One, but simply meant to say that he was not a fighting man. but was of necessity peaceful because he had no provision in his nature for making an attack.
A horn is an offensi’e weapon, and a hornless deacon is one who cannot give offence, resent an injury, or inflict a wound. What a splendid acquisition to a quarrelsome church! He would be sure to rule well, and reduce chaos to order by the mere force of Christian patience. Few men believe in the power of non-resistance, but our faith in it is unbounded: he who can yield will conquer, and he who will suffer most for the sake of love will wield the greatest power if he will but bide his time. The longest horns that were ever borne aloft will )’et be broken by the submission of “the hornless.” To be utterly unable to give offence to anybody would be a sublime incapacity, most useful in these ticklish days, when nine people out often are ready to take offence where none is intended. We hope “The Hornless Deacon” is not such a gentle, inoffensive body that he would let people forget quarter-day and their subscriptions, or would allow the minister to draw twice the amount of his salary. This would be carrying a virtue to an extreme, and would be a grave fault, especially in the latter case. We are bound to add that we have never met with such a want of principle as would be implied in this instance: the former error is far more common. The kind, gentle, but earnest deacon is invaluable. He is as an angel in the church, and does more than angel’s service. Excellent man! We cannot say, “May his horn be exalted!” for he has none; but we trust that the place where it ought to be will never ache through the ingratitude of those whom he serves.
Feeling that we had not translated this signature satisfactorily, and not liking to give it up, we consulted a learned friend, who gave us the following elucidation of the mysterious title of ‘’ The Hornless Deacon.” We are not quite sure that we believe in it. He says that it is the minister’s place to carry the horn and blow it, and that “The Hornless Deacon” was evidently a non-preacher, one who minded his own business, and left his minister to blow the ram’s horn. We do not think any the better of him for this, for we like a man all the more if, like Stephen, he can both care for the widows and preach the gospel. It would be well for our country churches if more of the deacons would exercise their gifts, and keep the village stations supplied with sound doctrine. Our learned friend suggests that there may be in the term “hornless deacon” a covert allusion to the modesty of the individual who never blew his own trumpet, who in fact had not so much as a horn of his own to blow. This may be, and it may not be. We had excogitated that idea before, and did not feel very proud of it, but there may be something in it. Certainly we know of deacons who from year to year plod away at the pastor’s side, glad to perform services of iiny kind so long as God is glorified and the Church is prospered. Seldom are their names mentioned in public, and yet they are the mainstay of the Church, the regulators of her order, and the guardians of her interests. Some of them have held the fort in troublous times: thcv have seen a dozen pastors come and go, but they abide at their posts, faithful imder discouragement, hopeful under difficulty. They deserve great praise, and as they are “hornless” we would for once sound the horn for them.
This guess hardly satisfied us, and so our friend gave us another. We sometimes drink out of a horn; and a deacon, according to the apostle, is not to be “given to much wine.” Is it, therefore, claimed by our friend that if he erred at all he erred on the right side, for he had no horn at all, and was a pledged teetotaler? Very good, Mr. Deacon! The more of your brethren who will copy >’ou in this the better, so long as they do not make the water-jug the symbol of their lives, and pour cold water over ever)’thing and everlbod’, in season and out of season.
This interpretation we feel also to be a failure, and therefore we will try once more on our own account. Can it mean that the good deacon did not sound a trumpet before him, as the hypocrites do, when he was distributing his alms? Was he so quiet in his generosit)’ that not even a penny whistle or child’s horn proclaimed Jiis deed of liberalit)? Let him be blessed in secret if this was his true character; but surely the very taking of the name of “h(jrnless” is a little like blowing a horn. He who denies a fault claims a virtue; did you forget this, m’ unhorned friend?
The above expository” observations, so far as they come from our learned friend, are exceedingly clever, tolerably far-fetched, and in all respects worth)’ of his breadth of forehead; but they do not quite enable us to see through the expression, and we abandon it for the present with the consoling reflection that our Yankee brethren haxe a livacious st)’le of speech which needs one of themselves to interpret it.
The Berkshire prolerb says, “There be more ways of killing a cat than by choking of him with cream,” and surely some preachers appear to know that there are more ways of wearying a hearer than by surfeiting him with good, sound, creamy doctrine. Oh, for a sermon with something in it! Never mind the finicking with the cooking and the carving; do give us a cut of gospel truth! Alas! we too often get ‘* Grantham gruel, — nine grits and a gallon of water,” and we are expected to praise the stuff because the basin is of rare china. There is not enough in it to make soup for a grasshopper, and yet we are called upon to go into raptures because what there is of it is soundly evangelical.
At other times the teaching is rather queer and very muddy, and then they tell us that the parson gives us little doctrine because he is thinking it out and has not yet made up his mind. Verily, ‘’while the grass grows the steed starves,” and we should be far better off if the Lord would send us some of the old sort of experienced men of God, who knew what they did know, and fed our fathers with knowledge and understanding. Our modern collegians boast of being independent thinkers, and if that means that they are not to be depended on they are pretty near the mark. They pare down the gospel till, as the Yankees say, “it is shaved off finer than the small end of nothing.” It is time this nonsense was exploded. Lord Byron said, “A book ’s a book, although there ’s nothing in ‘t!” but country people do not say so of a sermon, and if they did, we are not all bumpkins, and cannot be quite so easily satisfied.
Now is the season for paragraphs in the newspapers concerning gooseberries which are twice as large as possible. The wonderful information fills up a corner and gratifies the lovers of the marvellous, besides illustrating a style of writing which is by no means rare even among religious people.
We have been surprised to hear of ‘’ a great work “in a place where many intelligent residents never heard of any “work” whatever. Accompanied by a plea for funds, we have seen narratives which have been written by excellent persons, in which the descriptive adjectives may have been accurate if judged by the standard of their writers, but were certainly inapplicable to the matter in hand from any ordinary person’s standpoint. We thought when we read the article that a whole neighborhood had been convulsed if not converted; but on inquiry of city missionaries and Bible-women we found that nothing particular had happened, — at least, nothing so special as to cause excessive transports to the most hopeful.
We wish certain brethren could be taught to speak within bounds. The common slang of the day talks of things as “awful,” “magnificent,” “splendid,” &c., and this seems to have been imported into religious reporting. It is mischievous, however, and tends to damage the best of causes. When Christian people find things overstated they lose confidence, and in the case of men of the world it is worse, for they use the exaggeration as material for jests. It is always better to be under the mark than over it when we are describing good works in which we have had a hand. We must not put into print those sanguine ideas of things which our hopeful minds create in our excited brains. The cause of truth can never be aided by a deviation from truth. We may win applause at a public meeting or excite admiration in individuals by highly colored descriptions; but the time comes for investigation, and when the coloring vanishes we are sure to be held in disrepute by those whom we deceived. The whole business of exaggeration is wrong, and must never be tolerated in ourselves or encouraged in others; even the suppression of discouraging facts is a doubtful piece of policy, and policy is always impolitic in Christian work.
Brethren who arc rather apt to puff, let us whisper in your ears, leave the monstrous gooseberries to the newspapers, and speak every man truth with his neighbor.
One would hardly have thought it worth an author’s while to compose a treatise upon “The Art of Tormenting”; yet such a book exists, and contains many ingenious instructions by which masters, husbands, wives, and friends may torture their servants, relatives, and acquaintances to an intolerable degree. To quote any of the writer’s suggestions in these pages would be useless, since none of our readers wish to learn the science of plaguing others. The ingenious writer, a lady, by the way, does not recommend the clumsy methods of Roman emperors and Popish inquisitors, by which it is possible to torment the bodies of men and allow the mind and spirit to remain at peace; but she deals with subtler arts, by which the mind can be lacerated beyond all cure while yet no wound is seen. To torture the heart and spirit of a man is far more cruel than to tear his flesh or break his bones. One sentiment in this amusing treatise struck us as singularly instructive to those who are the victims of malicious criticism; the author says: “Be very careful daily to observe whether your patient continues in good health, and is fat and well-hken; for if so, you may be almost certain that your whole labor is thrown away. As soon, therefore, as you perceive this to be the case, you must (to speak in the phrase of surgeons when they hack and hew a human body) immediately choose another subject All the pleasure of tormenting is lost as soon as your subject becomes insensible to your strokes.” We are almost reconciled to being corpulent as we read these lines. Herein is wisdom. Patience baffles malice: the malicious themselves confess their defeat; what can we do better than to offer the passive resistance which is seen to be so effective? Let us no longer gratify our enemies by taking notice of their cruel observations and venomous insinuations. If we are callous we at once defeat them: there can be no virtue in cultivating a sensitiveness which makes us vulnerable. The more we smart, the more they will scourge; but a back of leather laughs at the cat-o’-nine-tails. By doing our best at all times we shall be able to defy all the criticisms of on-lookers, who, doing nothing themselves, have all the more leisure to find fault with our honest endeavors. In all probability we shall never succeed in any one instance in pleasing all who call themselves our friends; and as to our enemies, they will never be gratified unless they see us guilty of gross folly; therefore our wisest course is to make sure of being right in the sight of God, and then to proceed in a straight line with firm tread, whether we offend or please. The desire to inflict pain is ingrained in some natures, and against these there is no defence except a manly insensibility. As chemists plunge a fabric in a solution of alum and thus enable it to defy the flames, so should we immerse ourselves into the consciousness of desiring to do right before God, and we shall be superior to the fires of slander. We are not able to abate the fury of Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace; but if we can walk in the midst of it unharmed, the result will be equally harmless and far more sublime.
Over against the art of tormenting let us set the philosophy of enduring; our bane and antidote are both before us.