The Festival
Bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.” — LuKE xv. 23, 24.
No one acquainted with the subject will undervalue the light thrown on the Bible by recent research. But much as these latter days are Indebted to the topographer, the linguist, and the antiquary, when we return to the times of our fathers, it is gratifying to observe how seldom competent Intelligence and a reverential spirit have missed the sacred meaning. Were you taking, for example, any passage In the Gospels, it Is possible that some modern critic may have settled a jot or tittle which hung in doubt a hundred years ago, and modern explorers have elucidated facts in natural science and allusions to Eastern manners which were once obscure; but with such allowance, if from our modern interpreters you go back to Erasmus with his plain straightforward practicalness, or Calvin with his penetrating decisive insight, or Grotius with his rich scholarship and capacious intellect, you will be surprised to find how little that is “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for Instruction in righteousness,” was hid from predecessors as able as ourselves, as studious, and perhaps on the whole as free from prejudice.
Half-way between the Reformation and the present time lived Matthew Henry. In one of the last summers of Queen Anne, and when Addison was writing Spectators or Guardians, Henry was expounding the parable of the Prodigal Son ;* and we may quote, somewhat condensed, his remarks on this passage. Of course they are quaint and homely. The polished ease of Kensington had not penetrated to the meeting-house in Hackney, and we rather like the kindly humour which animates the trim precision of the Puritan, and gives it an effect like wit. Indeed, as in the kindred instances of Donne and Joseph Hall and Thomas Fuller, we own a relish for that sprightly wisdom which lightens as it indicates the labour of love; and for the devout sagacity of our expositor we can desire no more appropriate vehicle than his own sententious playfulness.
“He came home in rags, and his father not only clothed but adorned him. He said to the servants, who all attended their master. Bring forth the best robe. The worst old clothes in the house might have served, and had been good enough for him; but the father calls not for a coat, but for a robe, the garment of princes: the ’ first robe’ — so it may be read — the robe he wore before he ran
* Henry’s exposition of Luke was begun March 17 13, and finished on the loth of July. That day was the Friday on which Addison pubHshed the story of a French gentleman, which forms No. 104 of the Guardian. The reader need scarcely be reminded that the Guardian was a sort of parenthesis in the Spectator, which was resumed after the cessation of the former.
his ramble.* Bring hither that robe and put it on him; he shall be ashamed to wear it, and think it ill becomes him, who comes home in such a dirty pickle; but ‘put it on him, And ‘put a ring on his hand;’ a signet-ring, with the arms of the family, in token of his being owned as a branch of the family. Rich people wore rings, and his father hereby signified that, though he had spent one portion, yet upon his repentance he intended him another. He came home barefoot, his feet perhaps sore with travel, and therefore * put shoes on his
* This is the rendering of the Vulgate, making (srohri)) rnv -TrdorTiv = d^a!av, the “first” or “former” robe, the robe he used to wear. But as Alford justly says, “This would not be consistent with the former part of the parable, in which he was not turned out with any disgrace, but left as a son and of his own accord.” Here the remarks are excellent of Archbishop Trench, whose book, with Greswell’s, is for English readers the great repertory of “things new and old” on this and all the parables. After referring to Zech. iii. 4, he proceeds: “These words (‘Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee ‘) brought to bear on the passage before us, make it, I think, more probable that, by this bringing out of the best robe, and putting it upon him, is especially signified that act of God, which, considered on its negative side, is a release from condemnation, a causing of the sinner’s iniquity to pass from him, — on its positive side, is an imputation to him of the merits and righteousness of his Lord” (Isaiah lxi. 10. Trench On the Parables, eighth edition, p. 41 1). “The <sroly ‘ttmtt] denotes the righteousness of God, Rev. iii. 18; vii. 13; xix. 8. The ^axruX/ov, the signet-ring, denotes the seal of the Spirit, the testimony that a man belongs to God; the Wo^^^ara (Eph. vi. 15) denotes the power of walking in the way of God. The entertainment made ready points to the huTivov to which the ^aatXiia rov ©sou is often compared.” — Olshausen {Clark’s Library), vol. iii. 42.
feet,’ to make him easy. He would have thought it sufficient, and been very thankful, if his father had but taken notice of him, and bade him go to the kitchen and get his dinner with the servants; but God doth for those who return to their duty, and cast themselves upon his mercy, abundantly above what they are able to ask or think.. and the fatted calf can never be better bestowed.”
The feast which now took place — to use the words of one whose genial wisdom has uttered many things in the spirit and power of Matthew Henry — denotes “the joy of a forgiving God over a forgiven man, and the joy of a forgiven man in a forgiving God.” ‘” The one is a gracious revelation, the other is a blessed experience, and each reacts upon the other. To a forth-going affectionate nature it is a joy to be trusted; to a benevolent nature it is a joy to diffuse happiness; to a holy nature it is a joy to create righteousness and arrest evil; and in the case of every soul that is saved such is the joy of God. And whilst over the son who was dead but who now lives again. He lavishes the riches of His grace, responsive to heaven’s happiness there is often shed through the believing soul a joy unspeakable, a peace which passeth understanding.
There can be no greater blessedness than his who
apprehends the love of God. Mr. Charles of Bala, the
founder of adult schools in Wales, and the originator of
the Bible Society, was only eighteen when he heard the
* Arnot On the Parables p. 440.
sermon which first disclosed to him the way of life and imparted to his bright and beneficent career the initial impulse. “Ever since that happy day,” he says, “I have lived in a new heaven and a new earth. The change which a blind man, who receives his sight, experiences, does not exceed the change which at that time I experienced in my mind. It was then that I was first convinced of the sin of unbelief, or of entertaining narrow, contracted, and hard thoughts of the Almighty. I had such a view of Christ as our High Priest, of his love, compassion, power, and all-sufficiency, as filled my soul with astonishment; with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” No doubt there are natures not emotional, and there are others who live in a foggy atmosphere and seldom enjoy a feast of sunshine. Even those to whom, as converts suddenly awakened or prodigals remarkably restored, the transition is most striking, cannot count on a life-time of rapture. From the very Mount of Transfiguration, although it was ‘’good to be there,” it was needful to descend; and although the younger son had never in his existence known an evening like this, the music and dancing could not last for ever. Within they were “merry,” but already murmurs were heard outside; and even although there had been no disagreeable inmate to propitiate, the morrow would bring homely duties and grave realities, nor could every day conclude with a fatted calf
There are few, even among Christians, to whom the whole of life is festival. Still it is a great advantage, if you have a marked and memorable time in your spiritual history: a day of decision, a day when first you owned the claims of Christ, or gave yourself to God: a book, a sermon, a communion, an interview when your heart burned: some happy hour, which has now become a holy memory. Fain would we hope that the perusal of these pages may be made to some reader such a landmark; or should they fall into the hands of any one who is trying to begin the Christian life, may the Holy Spirit speak through them the word in season!
One of the most earnest men whom we have ever known was the late Mr. James of Birmingham. With a frequent feeling that he had not long to live, his sermons were always practical and often solemnly urgent, and when thrown into the society of others he was usually trying to do good. He was greatly honoured. Commencing his ministry with forty communicants, and a congregation of two hundred hearers, he ended with nearly a thousand church-members, and an audience of twice that number. Of his Anxious Inquirer half-a-million of copies have been circulated, and the instances cannot be counted of those whom it has led to the Saviour. On the last Sabbath of his life he preached that gospel which it had been the delight of half-a-century to proclaim, and on the Friday following he wrote to Mr. Birrell, forwarding some recollections of Knill the missionary. “During the last week I had a considerable accession of disease, and am now quite laid aside, so that I look upon it as the beginning of the end. I think it probable that with these few notes on dear Knill’s life and labours, I shall lay down my pen, which has written much; would God it had written better! But while I say this, I am not without hope — yea, I may add conviction — that it has written usefully. In some humble degree, I have aimed at usefulness both in my preaching and writing, and God has, to an amount which utterly astonishes and almost overwhelms me, given me what I sought. It seems a daring and almost presumptuous expression, but with a proper qualification it is a true one — that usefulness is within the reach of us all. The man who intensely desires to be useful, and takes the proper means, will be useful. God will not withhold His grace from such desires and such labours. O my brother, how delightful is it, notwithstanding the humbling and sorrowful consciousness of defects and sins, to look back upon a life spent for Christ. I thank a sovereign God, I am not without some degree of this.” Next morning he was absent from the body, and death had set his seal on the testimony that the man is sure to be useful who has the intense desire, and who takes the proper means.
Usefulness is your desire. God has been very kind to you. You have not only received a free forgiveness, but the spirit of adoption. With the ring on your finger reminding you of your Father’s love, you would like to be engaged in your Father s business; and with the shoes on your feet, protecting from injury and making rough places smooth, you can go wherever God gives an errand. What that errand may be, if you wait on the Lord His word and providence will in due time indicate. For men of zeal and energy there is continual need in the Christian ministry; and with openings unprecedented since the apostolic age, for a cheerful warm-hearted worker there is no field like foreign missions. Even within the limits of many a secular vocation there is ample scope for Christian philanthropy. If a merchant, you may befriend a lad of good promise, and find for him a safe and appropriate opening. If a physician, you may not only save precious lives and mitigate a vast amount of human misery, but, treading in the footsteps of the Great Physician, by the word in season you may heal diseases sorer and more disastrous than any which afflict the body. Law itself may do homage to the gospel, and taking up the cause of the oppressed, or mediating betwixt litigious neighbours, you will find, “Blessed is he that considereth the poor;” “Blessed are the peace-makers.” If honestly earned, even gold may be so consecrated as never to become filthy lucre; and as it simmers on the cottage hob or sings in the kettle of the lonely sempstress — as it strikes the thankful key in the widow’s heart, or comes out in the festive chorus of the Ragged School, “Oh, that will be joyful, joyful, joyful!” you will be regaled with better music than if you had bought a season ticket at the opera.
Amongst the trees of the wood there is a vast variety: the sturdy oak, the flexile willow; the solid maple, the graceful ash; the terraced cedar with cones uprising through each grassy-looking lawn of tender leafery, the larch, in lieu of bells, hanging its scarlet blossoms from every pointed arch of its green pagoda; the stiff stout holly disdainful of the breeze, the fidgety aspen all in a flutter at the faintest sigh; the spacious chestnut enclasping the glebe in its bountiful branches, the strict solemn cypress with every appressed twiglet pointing straight up to heaven. As with the form, so with the bark or the timber: the ebony sinking like stone, the cork on the crest of the billow; the elder so soft and spongy, the box in its firm structure retentive of the finest engraving; the homely deal, the thyineveneer emulating the spots of the panther or the plumes of the peacock: — beautiful some, but useful all, and not to be interchanged with advantage. An ashen bow would be no better than a yew-tree lance; you do not choose the fir for the prince’s table; and even England’s oak would make a sorry mast for “some great ammiral.”
Through all God’s kingdoms we trace the like variety, and still we find It when we rise to the minds of men. There Is endless diversity In their nature, and for every form and style abundant use; and it Is best when they are not transposed. Melancthon would have made a poor substitute for Luther; but the absence of Melancthon would have left it a poorer Reformation. Great as was the invention of the Sunday school, it was not revealed to Bishop Butler, but was reserved for Robert Raikes; and yet if the former had not written the Analogy, it may be doubted if the latter could have supplied the desideratum. And although Jeremy Taylor and John Bunyan had each a fine fancy, the world is now agreed that if they had changed places, they could have made it no better: we are quite content with the Pilgrim of the one, and the Golden Grove of the other.
Sanguine and non-sympathetic natures insist that everyone, if he likes, may do the things which they not only do, but do so easily. To a man like Lord Thurlow, coarse and contemptuous of mankind, it must have been a simple amazement when his kinsman Cowper resigned the clerkship of the Lords, because he had not courage to read aloud minutes and petitions; but, although the brazen chancellor was a stranger to all trepidation, and it would have cost him no effort to read his own rhymes to the peers of Parnassus, it may be questioned if, even to secure the Great Seal, he could have written the “Task” or “John Gilpin.” And, although nothing can be more true than that talents increase by trading, it is also true that their right investment — the sort of trade best suited to each merchantman — is indicated by the natural turn or faculty; and we shall serve God and our generation best by turning to account the gift which He Himself has given. You who are fond of children, as most frank true natures are, give yourself to teaching;
and you who have a fervid forceful spirit, and find that spirit stirred by the state of our godless multitude, go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in. And you who cannot arrest or keep the children’s ear, and to whom aught like preaching would be useless martyrdom, seek out some other ministry: consecrate the business talent, and in the savings bank or provident fund, in the committee or council of the church, “rule with diligence.” Or go forth and visit. The tired watcher in the sick-room release for a few hours of needful slumber. Take to the bed-rid child some plaything, to the destitute family some comfort. And whether you offer the brief prayer, or read the words of Jesus to the invalid, “show mercy with cheerfulness:” try to do it as if you came and went in Christ’s own company, and then, long after you have left, the consolation will remain.
It is thus that by each following out his own line of things the world’s best work has been done; and in the free development and loving consecration of gifts, the Church has exhibited a diversity both useful and beautiful. It was thus that, wherever John Macdonald went in perambulating the Highlands, a wave of spiritual influence went with him; and it was thus that, like a Baptist and a beloved disciple combined, George Whitefield startled and melted all England. It Is thus that, in our own day, one Christian lady has sought out the prisoner, and another has softened and civilised the neglected navvy, and a third has mended “ragged homes,” and a fourth has invented the Bible and Domestic Mission, and a fifth has rallied to the task of nursing — so arduous, yet so angel-like — the refined and well-trained amongst her countrywomen. And it is thus that in an employment, however commonplace, and in a corner, however inconspicuous, if you take up the task which your hand finds to do, and throw into it the might which God gives, the result will be genuine, solid, enduring. Let each do his own work in his own way, and, as all good work is God’s, you will soon see it a more beautiful church and a better world.
To a few God gives a high calling. Like Gustavus Adolphus, when, at the close of three exhausting campaigns, he listened to the cry of the German Protestants, and began the contest which to him ended at Lutzen, to the Fatherland only ended as yesterday: “For me henceforward remains no rest, save the eternal:” they are summoned to a service, peculiar, protracted, exhausting — a service which conscience dare not decline, or from which, when fairly commenced, they can never break away. But more usually, instead of a single absorbing pursuit, the Christian’s calling includes a thousand details. We remember Dr. N. Murray, the famous “Kirwan” of America, mentioning that in his youth he met an old disciple, ninety-one years of age, and in taking leave the venerable pilgrim left with his young friend a charge which he had never forgotten: “Do all the good you can — to all the people you can — in all the ways you can — and as long as you can.” If that rule were carried out by each Christian, it would soon change the face of society. If you, who are the Christian member of the family, were setting a watch over your lips, and were in all things wise, gentle, obliging, self-denying, high-toned, few in the household could withstand the quiet persistent sermon; and if the Christian households of the land were as peaceful as they are pure — if the several inmates were fair-minded, kind-hearted, mutually helpful — if in the school, the market, the social gathering, the various members lived up to the level of their morning and evening worship — there would soon be poor chance for the infidel: apologetics might become an obsolete science: with such a church in every house, the synagogue of Satan would disappear from the land.
—The feast is ended. The fatted calf is consumed; the music and dancing have ceased; and although there abides a deep calm thankfulness, the mirth and excitement are over. There is no need, however, to tread the deserted hall, and grow sentimental because the ‘’ lights are fled,” and “the garlands dead.” You are home; you are in the Father’s house; and if you are a good son, now that it is morning you will be ready to set about the Father’s business. Without waiting for the word express, you will proceed as if it were actually spoken, ‘’ Son, go work this day in my vineyard.” It is from not remembering this that many a younger son is so wretched. You 16o THE FESTIVAL,
are idle; you are useless; with plenty of lip-homage, you have little filial affection; you have not that love to your Father which rouses to activity and self-denial; and, as if it were a mystery or a hardship, you complain that you no longer enjoy the happiness of your first home-coming. After the rich spiritual food you once enjoyed, the fare seems scanty and common. You come to the house of God, but find no feast of fat things, and it even seems as if on your Father’s face there were a displeased look — a very decided frown.
Would you know the reason? There is a divine delicacy in the ways of God. He does not clog His gospel with conditions, nor is the joy of forgiveness dashed by formal stipulations as to future conduct. He would have you be, not a hired servant, but a son — a son whose interest and honour are bound up with His own; and if you cannot hear the voice of the neglected vineyard crying to every idler, “Come, work!’’ He will not vex you by repeating too often, ‘’Son, go!” Nevertheless, knowing as you do the will of your Father, and merely saying, ‘’ I go, sir,” without ever stirring a step, can you wonder that He is grieved at His heart? can you wonder that your consolations are small? can you wonder if you feel a dulness and depression which you once thought it impossible that you could ever experience at home?