070. A Summer-House Tragedy

A Summer-House Tragedy

Jdg_3:15 : ’93But when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised them up a deliverer, Ehud the son of Gera, a Benjamite, a man left-handed: and by him the children of Israel sent a present unto Eglon, the king of Moab.’94

Ehud was a ruler in Israel. He was left-handed, and, what was peculiar about the tribe of Benjamin, to which he belonged, there were in it seven hundred left-handed men; and yet, so expert had they all become in the use of the left hand, that the Bible says they could sling stones at a hair’92s-breadth, and not miss. Well, there was a king by the name of Eglon, who was an oppressor of Israel. He imposed upon them a most outrageous tax. Ehud, had a divine commission to destroy that oppressor. He came, pretending that he was going to pay the tax, and asked to see King Eglon. He was told he was in the summer-house, the place to which the king retired when it was too hot to sit in the palace. This summer-house was a place surrounded by flowers and trees and springing fountains and warbling birds. Ehud entered the summer-house and said to King Eglon that he had a secret errand with him. Immediately all the attendants were waved out of the royal presence. King Eglon rises to receive the messenger. Ehud, the left-handed man, puts his left hand to his right side, pulls out a dagger, and thrusts Eglon through until the haft went in after the blade. Eglon falls. Ehud comes forth to blow the trumpet of liberty amidst the mountains of Ephraim; and a great host is marshaled and proud Moab submits to the conqueror, and Israel is free. So, O Lord, let thine enemies perish! So, O Lord, let thy friends triumph!

I learn first, from this subject, the power of left-handed men. There are some men who, by physical organization, have as much strength in their left hand as in their right hand; but there is something in the writing of this text which implies that Ehud had some defect in his right hand which compelled him to use his left. Oh, the power of left-handed men! Genius is often self-observant, careful of itself, not given to much toil, burning incense to its own aggrandizement; while many a man, with no natural endowments, actually defective in physical and mental organization, has an earnestness for the right, a patient industry, an all-consuming perseverance, which achieve marvels for the kingdom of Christ. Though left-handed, as Ehud, they can strike down a sin as great and imperial as Eglon.

I have seen men of wealth gathering about them all their treasures, sniffing at the cause of a world lying in wickedness, roughly ordering Lazarus off their doorstep, sending their dogs, not to lick his sores, but to hound him off their premises; catching all the pure rain of God’92s blessing into the stagnant, ropy, frog-inhabited pool of their own selfishness’97right-handed men, worse than useless’97while many a man with large heart and little purse, has, out of his limited means, made poverty leap for joy, and started an influence that overspans the grave, and will swing ’91round and ’91round the throne of God, world without end.

It is high time that you left-handed men, who have been longing for this gift, and that eloquence, and the other man’92s wealth, should take your left hand out of your pockets. Who made all these railroads? Who set up all these cities? Who started all these churches, and schools and asylums? Who has done the tugging and running and pulling? Men of no wonderful endowments, thousands of them acknowledging themselves to be left-handed, and yet they were earnest, and yet they were determined, and yet they were triumphant.

But I do not suppose that Ehud, the first time he took a sling in his left hand, could throw a stone at a hair’92s breadth, and not miss. I suppose it was practise that gave him the wonderful dexterity. Go forth to your spheres of duty, and be not discouraged if, in your first attempts, you miss the mark. Ehud missed it. Take another stone, put it carefully into the sling, swing it around your head, take better aim, and the next time you will strike the center. The first time a mason rings his trowel upon the brick, he does not expect to put up a perfect wall. The first time a carpenter sends the plane over a board, or drives a bit through a beam, he does not expect to make a perfect execution. The first time a boy attempts a rhyme, he does not expect to chime a ’93Lalla Rookh,’94 or a ’93Lady of the Lake.’94 Do not be surprised if, in your first efforts at doing good, you are not very largely successful. Understand that usefulness is an art, a science, a trade. There was an oculist performing a very difficult operation on the human eye. A young doctor stood by and said, ’93How easily you do that; it does not seem to cause you any trouble at all.’94 ’93Ah,’94 said the old oculist, ’93it is very easy now, but I spoiled a hatful of eyes to learn that.’94 Be not surprised if it takes some practise before we can help men to moral eyesight, and bring them to a vision of the Cross. Left-handed men, to the work! Take the Gospel for a sling, and faith and repentance for the smooth stone from the brook; take sure aim, God direct the weapon, and great Goliaths will tumble before you.

When Garibaldi was going out to battle, he told his troops what he wanted them to do, and after he had described his plan of action, they said, ’93General, what are you going to give us for all this?’94 ’93Well,’94 he replied, ’93I don’92t know what else you will get, but you will get hunger and cold and wounds and death. How do you like it?’94 His men stood before him for a little while in silence, and then they threw up their hands and cried, ’93We are the men! we are the men!’94 The Lord Jesus Christ calls you to his service. I do not promise you an easy time in this world. You may have persecutions and trials, and misrepresentations; but afterward there comes an eternal weight of glory, and you can bear the wounds and the bruises and the misrepresentations, if you can have the reward afterward. Have you not enough enthusiasm to cry out, ’93We are the men! We are the men!’94

I learn also from this subject danger of worldly elevation. This Eglon was what the world called a great man. There were hundreds of people who would have considered it the greatest honor of their life just to have him speak to them; yet, although he is so high up in worldly position, he is not beyond the reach of Ehud’92s dagger. I see a great many people trying to climb up in social position, having an idea that there is a safe place somewhere far above, not knowing that the mountain of fame has a top like Mont Blanc, covered with perpetual snow. We laugh at the children of Shinar for trying to build a tower that could reach to the heavens; but I think, if our eyesight were only good enough, we could see a Babel in many a dooryard. Oh, the struggle is fierce. It is store against store, house against house, street against street, nation against nation. The goal for which men are running is chairs and chandeliers and mirrors and houses and lands and presidential equipments. If they get what they anticipate, what have they? Men are not safe from calumny while they live, and, worse than that, they are not safe after they are dead; for I have seen swine root up graveyards. One day a man goes up into publicity, and the world does him honor, and people climb up into sycamore-trees to watch him as he passes, and, as he goes along on the shoulders of the people, there is a waving of hats and a wild huzza. To-morrow the same man is caught between the jaws of the printing-press and mangled and bruised, and the very same persons who applauded him before, cry, ’93Down with the traitor! down with him!’94 Belshazzar sits at the feast, the mighty men of Babylon sitting all around him. Wit sparkles like the wine, and the wine like the wit. Music rolls up among the chandeliers; the chandeliers flash down on the decanters. The breath of hanging gardens floats in on the night air; the voice of revelry floats out. Amidst wreaths and tapestry and folded banners, a finger writes: The march of a host is heard on the stairs. Laughter catches in the throat. A thousand hearts stop beating. The blow is struck. The blood on the floor is richer-hued than the wine on the table. The kingdom has departed. Belshazzar was no worse, perhaps, than hundreds of people in Babylon, but his position slew him. Oh, be content with just such a position as God has placed you in. It may not be said of us, ’93He was a great general’94 or ’93He was an honored chieftain’94 or ’93He was mighty in worldly attainments;’94 but this thing may be said of you and of me, ’93He was a good citizen, a faithful Christian, a friend of Jesus.’94 And that in the last day will be the highest of all eulogiums.

I learn further from this subject that death comes to the summer-house. Eglon did not expect to die in that fine place. Amidst all the flower-leaves that drifted like summer snow into the window; in the tinkle and dash of the fountains; in the sound of a thousand leaves flutting on one tree-branch; in the cool breeze that came up to shake feverish trouble out of the king’92s locks’97there was nothing that spake of death, but there he died! In the winter, when the snow is a shroud, and when the wind is a dirge, it is easy to think of our mortality; but when the weather is pleasant, and all our surroundings are agreeable, how difficult it is for us appreciate the truth that we are mortal! And yet my text teaches that death does sometimes come to the summer-house. He is blind, and cannot see the leaves. He is deaf, and cannot hear the fountains. If death would ask us for victims, we could point him to hundreds of people who would rejoice to have him come. Push back the door of that hovel. Look at that little child’97cold and sick and hungry. It has never heard the name of God but in blasphemy. Parents intoxicated, staggering around its straw bed. O Death, there is a mark for thee! Up with it into the light! Before those little feet stumble on life’92s pathway, give them rest. Here is an aged man. He has done his work. He has done it gloriously. The companions of his youth all gone, his children dead, he longs to be at rest, and wearily the days and the nights pass. He says, ’93Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.’94 O Death, there is a mark for thee! Take from him the staff, and give him the scepter! Up with him into the light, where eyes never grow dim, and the hair whitens not through the long years of eternity.

Ah! Death will not do that. Death turns back from the straw bed, and from the aged man ready for the skies, and comes to the summer-house. What doest thou here, thou bony, ghastly monster, amidst this waving grass, and under this sunlight sifting through the tree branches? Children are at play. How quickly their feet go, and their locks toss in the wind. Father and mother stand at the side of the room looking on, enjoying their glee. It does not seem possible that the wolf should ever break into that fold and carry off a lamb. Meanwhile the old archer stands looking through the thicket. He points his arrow at the brightest of the group’97he is a sure marksman’97the bow bends, the arrow speeds! Hush now. The quick feet have stopped, and the locks toss no more in the wind. Laughter has gone out of the hall. Death in the summer-house!

Here is a father in mid-life; his coming home at night is the signal for mirth. The children rush to the door and there are books on the evening stand and the hours pass away on glad feet. There is nothing wanting in that home. Religion is there, and sacrifices on the altar morning and night. You look in that household and say, ’93I cannot think of anything happier. I do not really believe the world is so sad a place as some people describe it to be.’94 The scene changes. Father is sick. The doors must be kept shut. The death-watch chirps dolefully on the hearth. The children whisper and walk softly where once they romped. Passing to the house late at night, you see the quick glancing of lights from room to room. It is all over! Death in the summer-house!

Here is an aged mother’97aged, but not infirm. You think you will have the joy of caring for her wants a good while yet. As she goes from house to house, to children and grandchildren, her coming is a dropping of sunlight in the dwelling. Your children see her coming through the lane, and they cry, ’93Grandmother’92s come!’94 Care for you has marked up her face with many a deep wrinkle, and her back stoops with carrying your burdens. Some day she is very quiet. She says she is not sick, but something tells you, you will not much longer have a mother. She will sit with you no more at the table, nor at the hearth. Her soul goes out so gently you do not exactly know the moment of its going. Fold the hands that have done so many kindnesses for you right over the heart that has beat with love toward you since before you were born. Let the pilgrim rest. She is weary. Death in the summer-house!

Gather about us what we will of comfort and luxury, when the pale messenger comes he does not stop to look at the architecture of the house before he comes in; nor, entering, does he wait to examine the pictures we have gathered on the wall; or, bending over your pillow, he does not stop to see whether there is color in the cheek or gentleness in the eye or intelligence in the brow. But what of that? Must we stand forever mourning among the graves of our dead? No, no! The people in Bengal bring cages of birds to the graves of their dead and then they open the cages and the birds go singing heavenward. So I would bring to the graves of your dead all bright thoughts and congratulations and bid them sing of victory and redemption. I stamp on the bottom of the grave and it breaks through into the light and the glory of heaven. The ancients used to think that the straits entering the Red Sea were very dangerous places, and they supposed that every ship that went through those straits would be destroyed, and they were in the habit of putting on weeds of mourning for those who had gone on that voyage, as though they were actually dead. Do you know what they called those straits? They called them the ’93Gate of Tears.’94 I stand at the gate of tears through which many of your loved ones have gone, and I want to tell you that all are not shipwrecked that have gone through those straits into the great ocean stretching out beyond. The sound that comes from that other shore, on still nights when we are wrapped in prayer, makes me think that the departed are not dead. We are the dead’97we who toil; we who weep; we who sin’97we are the dead. How my heart aches for human sorrow! this sound of breaking hearts that I hear all about me! this last look of faces that never will brighten again! this last kiss of lips that never will speak again! this widowhood and orphanage! Oh, when will the day of sorrow be gone!

After the sharpest winter the spring dismounts from the shoulder of a southern gale and puts its warm hand upon the earth, and in its palm there comes the grass and there come the flowers and God reads over the poetry of bird and brook and bloom and pronounces it very good. What if every winter had not its spring and every night its day and every gloom its glow and every bitter now its sweet hereafter! If you have been on the sea, you know, as the ship passes in the night, there is a phosphorescent track left behind it; and as the waters roll up they toss with unimaginable splendor. Well, across this great ocean of human trouble Jesus walks. Oh, that in the phosphorescent track of his feet we might all follow and be illumined!

There was a gentleman in a rail-car who saw in that same car three passengers of very different circumstances. The first was a maniac. He was carefully guarded by his attendants; his mind, like a ship dismasted, was beating against a dark, desolate coast, from which no help could come. The train stopped, and the man was taken out into the asylum, to waste away, perhaps, through years of gloom. The second passenger was a culprit. The outraged law had seized on him. As the cars jolted the chains rattled. On his face were crime, depravity, and despair. The train halted and he was taken out to the penitentiary, to which he had been condemned. There was the third passenger, under far different circumstances. She was a bride. Every hour was gay as a marriage-bell. Life glittered and beckoned. Her companion was taking her to his father’92s house. The train halted. The old man was there to welcome her to her new home, and his white locks snowed down upon her as he sealed his word with a father’92s kiss. Quickly we fly toward eternity. We will soon be there. Some leave this life condemned culprits and they refuse a pardon. Oh, may it be with us, that, leaving this fleeting life for the next, we may find our Father ready to greet us to our new home with him forever. That will be a marriage banquet! Father’92s welcome! Father’92s bosom! Father’92s kiss! Heaven! Heaven!

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage