076. Massacre of the Innocents

Massacre of the Innocents

Jdg_11:36 : ’93My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth.’94

Jephthah was a freebooter. Early turned out from a home where he ought to have been cared for, he consorted with rough men, and went forth to earn his living as best he could. In those times it was considered right for a man to go out on independent military expeditions. Jephthah was a good man according to the light of his dark age, but through a wandering and a predatory life he became reckless and precipitate. The grace of God changes a man’92s heart, but never reverses his natural temperament. The Israelites wanted the Ammonites driven out of their country, so they sent a delegation to Jephthah, asking him to become commander-in-chief of all the forces. He might have said, ’93You drove me out when you had no use for me, and now you are in trouble you want me back;’94 but he did not say that. He takes command of the army, sends messengers to the Ammonites to tell them to vacate the country, and, getting no favorable response, marshals his troops for battle.

Before going out to the war Jephthah makes a very solemn vow, that if the Lord will give him the victory, then, on his return home, whatsoever first comes out of his doorway he will offer in sacrifice as a burnt-offering. The battle opens. It was no skirmishing on the edge of danger, no unlimbering of batteries two miles away, but the hurling of men on the point of swords and spears until the ground could no more drink the blood, and the horses reared to leap over the pile of bodies of the slain. In those old times, opposing forces would fight until their swords were broken, and then each one would throttle his man until they both fell, teeth to teeth, grip to grip, death-stare to death-stare, until the plain was one tumbled mass of corpses from which the last trace of manhood had been dashed out.

Jephthah wins the day. Twenty cities lay captured at his feet. Sound the victory all through the mountains of Gilead. Let the trumpeters call up the survivors. Homeward to your wives and children. Homeward with your glittering treasures. Homeward to have the applause of an admiring nation. Build triumphal arches. Swing out flags all over Mizpeh. Open all your doors to receive the captured treasures. Through every hall spread the banquet. Pile up the viands. Fill high the tankards. The nation is redeemed, the invaders are routed, and the national honor is vindicated.

Huzza for Jephthah, the conqueror! Jephthah, seated on a prancing steed, advances amid the acclaiming multitudes, but his eye is not on the excited populace. Remembering that he had made a solemn vow that, returning from victorious battle, whatsoever first came out of the doorway of his home, that should be sacrificed as a burnt-offering, he has his anxious look upon the door. I wonder what spotless lamb, what brace of doves will be thrown upon the fire of the burnt-offering.

Oh, horrors! Paleness of death blanches his cheek. Despair seizes his heart. His daughter, his only child, rushes out the doorway to throw herself in her father’92s arms and shower upon him more kisses than there were wounds on his breast or dents on his shield. All the triumphal splendor vanishes. Hold-ing back his child from his heaving breast, and pushing the locks back from the fair brow, and looking into the eyes of inextinguishable affection, with choked utterance he says, ’93Would God I lay stark on the bloody plain. My daughter, my only child, joy of my home, life of my life, thou art the sacrifice!’94

The whole matter was explained to her. This was no whining, hollow-hearted girl into whose eyes the father looked. All the glory of sword and shield vanished in the presence of the valor of that girl. There may have been a tremor of the lip, as a rose-leaf trembles in the sough of the south wind; there may have been the starting of a tear like a rain-drop shook from the anther of a water-lily; but with a self-sacrifice that man may not reach, and only woman’92s heart can compass, she surrenders herself to fire and to death. She cries out in the words of my text, ’93My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do unto me whatsoever hath proceeded from thy mouth.’94

She bows to the knife, and the blood, which so often at the father’92s voice had rushed to the crimson cheek, smokes in the fires of the burnt-offering. No one can tell us her name. There is no need that we know her name. The garlands that Mizpeh twisted for Jephthah the warrior have gone into the dust; but all ages are twisting this girl’92s chaplet. It is well that her name came not to us, for no one can wear it. They may take the name of Deborah, or Abigail, or Miriam, but no one in all the ages shall have the title of this daughter of sacrifice.

Of course this offering was not pleasing to the Lord; especially as God had made provision for just such a contingency. He could redeem his daughter for thirty shekels of silver (see Lev_27:4); but before you hurl your denunciations at Jephthah’92s cruelty, remember that in olden times, when vows were made, men thought they must execute them, perform them, whether they were wicked or good. There were two wrong things about Jephthah’92s vow. First, he ought never to have made it. Next, having made it, it were better broken than kept. But do not take on pretentious airs and say, ’93I could not have done as Jephthah did.’94 If, in former days, you had been standing on the banks of the Ganges, and you had been born in India, you might have thrown your children to the crocodiles. It is not because we are naturally any better, but because we have more Gospel light.

Now I make very practical use of this question when I tell you that the sacrifice of Jephthah’92s daughter was a type of the physical, mental, and spiritual sacrifice of ten thousand children in this day. There are parents all unwittingly bringing to bear upon their children a class of influences which will as certainly ruin them as knife and torch destroyed Jephthah’92s daughter. While I speak, the whole nation, without emotion and without shame, looks upon the stupendous sacrifice.

In the first place, I remark that much of the system of education in our day is a system of sacrifice. When children spend six or seven hours in school, and then must spend two or three hours in preparation for school the next day, will you tell me how much time they will have for sunshine and fresh air, and the obtaining of that exuberance which is necessary for the duties of coming life? No one can feel more thankful than I do for the advancement of common-school education. The printing of books appropriate for schools, the multiplication of philosophical apparatus, the establishment of normal schools, which provide for our children teachers of largest calibre, are themes on which every philanthopist ought to be congratulated. But this herding of great multitudes of children in ill-ventilated school-rooms, and poorly equipped halls of instruction is making many of the places of knowledge in this country a huge holocaust. Politics in many of the cities gets into educational affairs, and while the two political parties are scrabbling for the honors, Jephthah’92s daughter perishes. It is so much so that there are many schools in the country to-day which are preparing tens of thousands of invalid men and women for the future; so, that, in many places, by the time the child’92s education is finished the child is finished! In many places, in many cities of the country, there are large appropriations for everything else, and cheerful appropriations; but as soon as the appropriation is to be made for the educational or moral interest of a city, we are struck through with an economy that is well nigh the death of us.

In connection with this I mention what I might call the cramming system of the common schools and many of the academies; children of delicate brain compelled to tasks that might appal a mature intellect; children going down to school with a strap of books half as high as themselves. The fact is, in some of the cities parents do not allow their children to graduate, for the simple reason, they say, ’93We cannot afford to allow our children’92s health to be destroyed in order that they may gather the honors of an institution.’94 Tens of thousands of children educated into imbecility; so that, connected with many such literary establishments there ought to be asylums for the wrecked. It is push, and crowd, and cram, and stuff, and jam, until the child’92s intellect is bewildered, and the memory ruined and the health is gone. There are children who once were full of romping and laughter, and had cheeks crimson with health, who are now turned out in the afternoon pale-faced, irritated, asthmatic, old before their time. It is one of the saddest sights on earth, an old-mannish boy, or an old-womanish girl.

Girls ten years of age studying algebra! Boys twelve years of age racking their brain over trigonometry! Children unacquainted with their mother tongue crying over their Latin, French, and German lessons! All the vivacity of their nature beaten out of them by the heavy beetle of a Greek lexicon! And you doctor them for this, and you give them a little medicine for that, and you wonder what is the matter with them. I will tell you what is the matter with them. They are finishing their education!

In my parish in Philadelphia, a little child was so pushed at school that she was thrown into a fever, and in her dying delirium, all night long, she was trying to recite the multiplication table. In my boyhood I remember that in our class at school there was one lad who knew more than all of us put together. If we were fast in our arithmetic, he extricated us. When we stood up for the spelling class, he was almost always the head of the class. Visitors came to his father’92s house, and he was always brought in as a prodigy. At eighteen years of age he was an idiot. He lived ten years an idiot, and died an idiot, not knowing his right hand from his left, or day from night. The parents and the teachers made him an idiot.

You may flatter your pride by forcing your child to know more than any other children, but you are making a sacrifice of that child, if by the additions to its intelligence you are making a subtraction from its future. The child will go away from such maltreatment with no exuberance to fight the battle of life. Such children may get along very well while you take care of them, but when you are old or dead, alas! for them, if through the wrong system of education which you adopted they have no swarthiness or force of character to take care of themselves. Be careful how you make the child’92s head ache or its heart flutter. I hear a great deal about black men’92s rights, and Chinamen’92s rights, and Indians’92 rights, and women’92s rights. Would God that somebody would rise to plead for children’92s rights. The Carthagenians used to sacrifice their children by putting them into the arms of an idol which thrust forth its hand. The child was put into the arms of the idol, and no sooner touched the arms than it dropped into the fire. But it was the art of the mothers to keep the children smiling and laughing until the moment they died. There may be a fascination and a hilarity about the styles of education of which I am speaking; but it is only laughter at the moment of sacrifice. Would God there were only one Jephthah’92s daughter.

Again: there are many parents who are sacrificing their children with wrong systems of discipline’97too great rigor or too great leniency. There are children in families who rule the household. The high chair in which the infant sits is a throne and the rattle is the sceptre and the other children make up the parliament where father and mother have no vote! Such children come up to be miscreants. There is no chance in this world for a child that has never learned to mind. Such people become the botheration of the Church of God and the pest of the world. Children that do not learn to obey human authority are unwilling to learn to obey divine authority. Children will not respect parents whose authority they do not respect. Who are these young men that swagger through the street, with their thumbs in their vest, talking about their father as ’93the old man,’94 ’93the governor,’94 ’93the squire,’94 ’93the old chap,’94 or their mother as ’93the old woman?’94 They are those who in youth, in childhood, never learned to respect authority. Eli having heard that his sons had died in their wickedness, fell over backward, and broke his neck and died. Well he might. What is life to a father whose sons are debauched? The dust of the valley is pleasant to his taste, and the driving rains that drip through the roof of the sepulchre are sweeter than the wines of Heshbon.

There must be harmony between the father’92s government and the mother’92s government. The father will be tempted to too great rigor. The mother will be tempted to too great leniency. Her tenderness will overcome her. Her voice is a little softer, her hand seems better fitted to pull out a thorn and soothe a pang. Children wanting anything from the mother, cry for it. They hope to dissolve her will with tears. But the mother must not interfere, must not coax off, must not beg for the child when the hour comes for the assertion of a parental supremacy and the subjugation of a child’92s temper. There comes in the history of every child an hour when it is tested whether the parents shall rule or the child shall rule. That is the crucial hour. If the child triumphs in that hour, then he will some day make you crouch. It is a horrible scene. I have witnessed it: a mother come to old age, shivering with terror in the presence of a son who cursed her gray hairs, and mocked her wrinkled face, and begrudged her the crust she munched with her toothless gums:

How Sharper Than a Serpent’92s Tooth It Is,

To Have a Thankless Child.

But, on the other hand, too great rigor must be avoided. It is a sad thing when domestic government becomes cold military despotism. Trappers on the prairie fight fire with fire, but you cannot successfully fight your child’92s bad temper with your own bad temper. We must not be too minute in our inspection. We cannot expect our children to be perfect. We must not see everything. Since we have two or three faults of our own, we ought not to be too rough when we discover that our children have as many. If tradition be true, when we were children we were not all little Samuels, and our parents were not fearful lest they could not raise us because of our premature goodness. You cannot scold or pound your children into nobility of character. The bloom of a child’92s heart can never be seen under a cold drizzle. Above all, avoid fretting and scolding in the household. Better than ten years of fretting at your children is one good, round, old-fashioned application of the slipper! That minister of the Gospel of whom we read in the newspapers that he whipped his child to death because he would not say his prayers will never come to canonization. The arithmetics cannot calculate how many thousands of children have been ruined forever either through too great rigor or too great leniency. The heavens and the earth are filled with the groan of the sacrificed. In this important matter seek divine direction, O father, O mother. Some one asked the mother of Lord Chief Justice Mansfield if she was not proud to have three such eminent sons, and all of them so good. ’93No,’94 she said, ’93it is nothing to be proud of, but something for which to be very grateful.’94

Again: there are many who are sacrificing their children to a spirit of worldliness. Some one asked a mother whose children had turned out very well, what was the secret by which she prepared them for usefulness and for the Christian life, and she said, ’93This was the secret: When, in the morning, I washed my children, I prayed that they might be washed in the fountain of a Saviour’92s mercy. When I put on their garments, I prayed that they might be arrayed in the robe of a Saviour’92s righteousness. When I gave them food, I prayed that they might be fed with manna from heaven. When I started them on the road to school, I prayed that their path might be as the shining light, brighter and brighter to the perfect day. When I put them to sleep, I prayed that they might be enfolded in the Saviour’92s arms.’94 ’93Oh,’94 you say, ’93that was very old-fashioned.’94 It was quite old-fashioned. But do you suppose that a child under such nurture as that ever turned out bad?

In our day most boys start out with no idea higher than the all-encompassing dollar. They start in an age which boasts it can scratch the Lord’92s Prayer on a ten-cent piece, and the Ten Commandments on a ten-cent piece. Children are taught to reduce morals and religion, time and eternity, to vulgar fractions. It seems to be their chief attainment that ten cents make a dime, and ten dimes make a dollar. How to get money is only equaled by the other art, how to keep it. Tell me, ye who know, what chance there is for those who start out in life with such perverted sentiments? The money market resounds again and again with the downfall of such people. If I had a drop of blood on the tip of a pen, I would tell you by what awful tragedy many of the youth of this country are ruined.

Further on, thousands and tens of thousands of the daughters of America are sacrificed to worldliness. They are taught to be in sympathy with all the artificialities of society. They are inducted into all the hollowness of what is called fashionable life. They are taught to believe that history is dry, but that twenty-five cent stories of adventurous love are delicious. With capacity that might have rivaled a Florence Nightingale in heavenly ministries, or made the father’92s house glad with filial and sisterly demeanor, their life is a waste, their beauty a curse, their eternity a demolition.

In the siege of Charleston, during our civil war, a lieutenant of the army stood on the floor beside the daughter of the ex-Governor of the State of South Carolina. They were taking the vows of marriage. A bombshell struck the roof, dropped into the group, and nine were wounded and slain; among the wounded to death the bride. While the bridegroom knelt on the carpet trying to stanch the wounds, the bride demanded that the ceremony be completed, that she might take the vows before her departure; and when the minister said, ’93Wilt thou be faithful unto death?’94 with her dying lips she said, ’93I will,’94 and in two hours she had departed. That was the slaughter and the sacrifice of the body; but at thousands of marriage altars there are daughters slain for time and slain for eternity. It is not a marriage; it is a massacre.

Affianced to some one who is only waiting until his father dies, so he can get the property; then a little while they swing around in circles, brilliant circles; then the property is gone, and having no power to earn a livelihood, the twain sink into some corner of society, the husband an idler and sot, the wife a drudge, a slave and a sacrifice. Ah! spare your denunciations from Jephthah’92s head, and expend them all on this wholesale modern martyrdom.

I lift up my voice to-day against the sacrifice of children. I look out of my window on a Sabbath, and I see a group of children, unwashed, uncombed, unchristianized. Who cares for them? Who prays for them? Who utters to them one kind word? When the city missionary, passing along the park in New York, saw a ragged lad and heard him swearing, he said to him, ’93My son, stop swearing! You ought to go to the house of God to-day. You ought to be good; you ought to be a Christian.’94 The lad looked in his face and said, ’93Ah! it is easy for you to talk, well clothed as you are, and well fed; but we chaps hain’92t got no chance.’94

Who lifts them to the altar for baptism? Who goes forth to snatch them up from crime and death and woe? Who to-day will go forth and bring them into schools and churches? No. Heap them up, great piles of rags and wretchedness and filth. Put underneath them the fires of sacrifice, stir up the blaze, put on more fagots, and while we sit in the churches with folded arms and indifferent, crime and disease and death will go on with the agonizing sacrifice.

During the early French Revolution at Bourges there was a company of boys who used to train every day as young soldiers; and they carried a flag, and they had on the flag this inscription: ’93Tremble, tyrants, tremble; we are growing up.’94 Mightily suggestive! This generation is passing off, and a mightier generation is coming on. Will they be the foes of tyranny, the foes of sin, and the foes of death, or will they be the foes of God? They are coming up!

I congratulate all parents who are doing their best to keep their children away from the altar of sacrifice. Your prayers are going to be answered. Your children may wander away from God, but they will come back again. A voice comes from the throne to-day, encouraging you: ’93I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee.’94 And though when you lay your head in death there may be some wanderer of the family far away from God, and you may be twenty years in heaven before salvation shall come to his heart, he will be brought into the kingdom, and before the throne of God you will rejoice that you were faithful. Come at last, though so long postponed his coming. Come at last!

I congratulate all those who are toiling for the outcast and the wandering. Your work will soon be over, but the influence you are setting in motion will never stop. Long after you have been garnered for the skies, your prayers, your teachings, and your Christian influence will go on, and help to people heaven with bright inhabitants. Which would you rather see?’97which scene would you rather mingle in, in the last great day’97being able to say, ’93I added house to house, and land to land, and manufactory to manufactory; I owned half the city; whatever my eye saw I had, whatever I wanted I got;’94 or on that day to have Christ look you full in the face and say, ’93I was hungry, and ye fed me; I was naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick and in prison, and ye visited me; inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these my brethren, ye did it to me’94?

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Autor: T. De Witt Talmage