Unscrupulous Policy

Jezebel said, “I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite” (1 Kings xxi. 7). So long as there is one little spark of conscience left, the way of wickedness is by so much difficult and distasteful. We must first drown the very last spark of moral consciousness, before we can begin to build with fire-bricks all the hell we have time to build. Ahab was not a man of great moral fame; still, he had a lingering conscience. There was something of the merchant in that king; he thought to proceed by way of equivalents. His proposition on the face of it was not unreasonable, and certainly, in the tone of it, it was not aggressive. Wherein, then, was it wrong? ‘That is the very thing we cannot drive into the heads of the people. We think that if an equivalent is proposed, and if the tone be gracious and courteous, there can be no possible wrong in any proposition that is made. Criticism will not go far enough down in its moral inquiries. If criticism went to the proper depth, it would find that there are some things for which there is no

equivalent. When we can drive our judgment off the mere process of details, and fix it upon eternal quantities and principles, we shall come to sound and enduring conclusions. Some things are not in the market. That is the one simple point that is forgotten. A man is not at liberty to sell himself. His rights do not extend to that wantonness of liberty, falsely so called. Blessed be heaven, there are some things we must not part with for mountains of gold, for Alps on Alps of diamonds. That is the security of society. Society must, of course, have a large market-place; society must do business, or it will die. Society is apt to think that it was made for bartering, and for tare and tret, and bills and parcels. Society finds enjoyment all the year round in the first four rules of arithmetic. That is quite legitimate. Without such activity we should stagnate in many departments of life. But we must not allow the market-place to elbow out the Church. The Church must always be making encroachments upon the market-place. There are some things then which are not in the market, which are not to be sold, which are not to be valued and appraised and realised in gold. What is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? The fool has paid too much for the bargain, and when he would handle his bargain he finds that his hands are cut off and he cannot take up the very inheritance for which he paid his manhood.

Ahab had a little conscience left; Jezebel, his wife, had none, and therefore she could move more easily. Vice has less difficulty than virtue. Vice has no law, no idea of equivalents, no conception of discipline, of righteousness. Vice can tell lies. So long as a man can tell lies, there is no need why he should not be fluent. It is truth that punctuates our speech with commas and semicolons and colons, and full stops so that we cannot go any further, though men are waiting for a continuation of our speech. Vice can stoop under any gateway, vice can squeeze through any hole; vice can look at you after a sufficiency of habitude, and tell you lies as if they were truths; nay, more, and bad as perdition, vice can persuade itself it is better than virtue. Nor is this always done rudely and vulgarly. There is a refinement of vice; there is a subtlety of iniquity, so that men can do things and plan and scheme things which I shall leave no trace upon them of violence, no evidence of turpitude; the movement shall be in silence, but with fatal effectiveness. Vice does succeed. Jezebel said to Ahab, “Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give thee for money: for Naboth is not alive, but dead.” Raise a monument to Vice; write its epitaph in classic speech: who can bring together words sonorous enough to memorialise the triumph of Vice in high places?

If we ended with the fifteenth verse of this chapter (1 Kings xxi.), we should say there is no Providence, there is no God; the righteous are worse off than the unrighteous; he who can tell lies and sell away his father’s inheritance has an easier time of it than the fool who obeys discipline and keeps commandments. Vice does get vineyards; vice has piles of money. Vice enjoys its Christmas reading, which is confined to the pass-book. Vice has its day. But there is a to-morrow, account for it as we may; we may be atheists if we please in this matter. There is an avenging, there is a retaliatory spirit in the air. Men hunger for things, get them, have them in their very hands, lift them to their very lips, and then they drop out of the fingers unappropriated, unenjoyed. Vice cannot permanently succeed; for then a crooked wall might be built to heaven, and the earth would take no notice of it. The earth casts out everything that is crooked that was intended to make an impression on society as being straight and right. Vice, therefore, cannot permanently succeed : — “And of Jezebel also spake the Lord, saying, The dogs [poor fools! knowing no better] shall eat Jezebel [the indigestible] by the wall of Jezreel.” I will make the wolf-dog so hungry that he will even eat Jezebel. The triumphing of the wicked is short. We have all experienced the operation of this law of retaliation. If we have not yet come fully upon it, we shall come fully upon it to-morrow. It is impossible for us to hold anything falsely and to hold it enduringly. The claim is reclaimed and restored. If it be not taken back in exact kind, it is taken back in some other way; it is taken back in health, in reason; it is taken back by the infliction of social suspicion, by the incoming and application of contemptuous distrust, by a sense of forsakenness and utter isolation, so that we have no company but our gold, and that soon becomes monotonous.

How did all this incident arise? Out of what may seem a very natural desire. We have to be very careful of these natural desires, or they will overpower us. Every natural desire should be under the rule of conscience, or it will become a despotism, and we shall be overwhelmed by that which is primarily intended to be right and useful. The sweetest wine makes the sourest vinegar. Ahab would have the vineyard that he might make “a garden of herbs,” and he would have it because it was near unto his house. There is always something more that we want. Until we get that plus quantity we are not quite happy. So long as there is one man in our way, in the way of our ambition, we cannot really enjoy the very riches we have, The million is useless because there is one odd sovereign more that we might have. It is recorded that when Alexander was master of the world he was filled with distress. On what account, do you suppose? Because he could not get ivy to grow in his gardens at Babylon. It is always that lacking quantity that stings us. Alexander, thou hast acres of garden ground. He says, “I know it; but I want ivy, such as I have seen in other countries, wherewith to festoon these walls and trees, and until I can get ivy, all the acres of garden-land are comparatively barren and worthless to me.” You want your neighbour’s business; then you will be happy. That is the mistake you make, because there is a neighbour on the other side; and when you have taken from him his little business, there is a neighbour behind you and another in front of you. Who art thou to swallow up little struggling faithful lives without caring what becomes of the fatherly inheritances of other men? You cannot replace some things. Ahab would have replaced the vineyard of Naboth with “a better vineyard,” but then his fathers had never seen that better vineyard; it lacked the music, the joy, the brightness of association. There is wizardry in reminiscence. History should not be lost upon us. The relic which your forefathers handled should be kept not so much for its own sake, — the value of it in pounds may be small, — but because it connects you with an honoured and almost immemorial history. This is the basis, and this the explanation of the true conservatism. A country ought not to dig up its own roots easily. When, however, it is proved that the roots bring forth nothing but mischief, then it should set wpon them with implements of iron, tear them up, and make a bonfire of them in the face of the sun. Understand that there is an historical trusteeship of property. Understand that there is a hereditary succession, associated not only with market prices, but with moral disposition and responsibility. The money which you hold was earned by honest hands; you must not therefore use it for dishonest purposes. The money that was earned was earned in connection with the love of certain great principles; you have no right to prostitute it. It is yours legally, and the law cannot deprive you of it; but you ought not to be able to deprive yourself of it. It came through certain succession of character, principle, policy, and until you have proved these to be wrong, you should regard the money as your father’s vineyard. This matter of money must be more broadly interpreted. All little definitions must be abolished. The child is yours. Yes; but it is also ours. Every child belongs to the sum total of man, called Society. The money is yours. Yes; but before you can prostitute it, you must strip it of every holy reminiscence, of every patriotic impulse and inspiration.

You must deplete it of every divine element, then go out and spend it on the devil’s counter. Naboth was right. He did not want a larger vineyard. Blessed are they who consider the territorial inheritance to which they have a right better than the inheritance which is larger in acreage, but which is unblessed with moral and spiritual association. Beware of every success that has not behind it conscience and honour and justice. Every ill-gotten sovereign is a bad coin, though it be stamped with the heads of twenty queens; it may be written all over with the legend of the state, it is bad. Every little that a righteous man hath is a pile. The one loaf of honesty is more than the thousand loaves of felony. You cannot make the good man unhappy. It is a poor seat on which he sits, plain wood, but it is an honest chair: the velvet of dishonesty shall become fire. You cannot despoil the goodness that will not despoil itself. The water is wine if you drink it with a grateful heart. Do not let much desire more, in any sense that is selfish, ambitious, hurtful. On the other hand, let us pray that every man who can use ten more vineyards for the good of others may have them. The money of the world must be stored somewhere; I would rather it were in the hands of benevolence than in the hands of malevolence, I would rather the good man were rich than the bad man. When a man is really good, he is always richer than his gold; the manhood is in excess of the property. ‘A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.” A man does not even possess the things in any sense that gives them value until he possesses himself in Christ, realises that he was meant to be a citizen of heaven. Beware of unscrupulous policy. He that says, ‘I must have it,’ may be tempted to outreach the law of virtue and honesty. The old - maxim of Horace, “Have it: if possible, honestly; if not, by whatever method, have it,” is not Christian literature. It is not written in the New Testament. It is written somewhere and signed

by Jezebel.

eT eee OSS te ge Te es ee ee ee ga, Se re

i ’ ae wT ae
.