254. A Supernal Garden
A Supernal Garden
Son_5:1 : ’93I am come into my garden.’94
The Bible is a great poem. We have in it faultless rhythm and bold imagery and startling antithesis and rapturous lyric and sweet pastoral and instructive narrative and devotional psalm; thoughts expressed in style more solemn than that of Montgomery, more bold than that of Milton, more terrible than that of Dante, more natural than that of Wordsworth, more impassioned than that of Pollok, more tender than that of Cowper, more weird than that of Spenser. This great poem brings all the gems of the earth into its coronet, and it weaves the flames of judgment into its garlands, and pours eternal harmonies in its rhythm. Everything this book touches it makes beautiful, from the plain stones of the summer threshing floor to the daughters of Nahor filling the trough for the camels; from the fish-pools of Heshbon up to the Psalmist praising God with diapason of storm and whirlwind, and Job’92s imagery of Orion, Arcturus, and the Pleiades.
My text leads us into a scene of summer redolence. The world has had a great many beautiful gardens. Charlemagne added to the glory of his reign by decreeing that they be established all through the realm’97deciding even the names of the flowers to be planted there. Henry IV, at Montpellier, established gardens of bewitching beauty and luxuriance, gathering into them Alpine, Pyrenean, and French plants. One of the sweetest spots on earth was the garden of Shenstone, the poet. His writings have made but little impression on the world; but his garden, ’93The Leasowes,’94 will be immortal. To the natural advantage of that place was brought the perfection of art. Arbor and terrace and slope and rustic temple and reservoir and urn and fountain here had their crowning. Oak and yew and hazel put forth their richest foliage. There was no life more diligent, no soul more ingenious than that of Shenstone, and all that diligence and genius he brought to the adornment of that one treasured spot. He gave three hundred pounds for it; he sold it for seventeen thousand. And yet I am to tell you today of a richer garden than any I have mentioned. It is the garden spoken of in my text, the garden of the Church, which belongs to Christ, for my text says so. He bought it, he planted it, he owns it, and he shall have it. Walter Scott in his outlay at Abbotsford ruined his fortune; and now, in the crimson flowers of those gardens, you can almost think or imagine that you see the blood of that old man’92s broken heart. The payment of the last one hundred thousand pounds sacrificed him. But I have to tell you that Christ’92s life and Christ’92s death were the outlay of this beautiful garden of the Church, of which my text speaks. Oh, how many sighs and tears and pangs and agonies! Tell me, ye women who saw him hang! Tell me, ye executioners who lifted him and let him down! Tell me, thou sun that didst hide; ye rocks that fell! ’93Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it.’94 If the garden of the Church belongs to Christ, certainly he has a right to walk in it. Come, then, O blessed Jesus, today; walk up and down these aisles, and pluck what thou wilt of sweetness for thyself!
The Church, in my text, is appropriately compared to a garden, because it is a place of choice flowers, of select fruits, and of thorough irrigation.
That would be a strange garden in which there were no flowers. If nowhere else they would be along the borders or at the gateway. The homeliest taste will dictate something, if it be only the old-fashioned hollyhock or dahlia or daffodil; but if there be larger means, then you will find the Mexican cactus and blazing azalea and clustering oleander. Well, now, Christ comes to his garden and he plants there some of the brightest spirits that ever flowered upon the world. Some of them are violets, inconspicuous, but sweet as heaven. You have to search and find them. You do not see them very often, perhaps, but you find where they have been by the brightened face of the invalid and the sprig of geranium on the stand and the new window-curtains keeping out the glow of the sunlight. They are, perhaps, more like the ranunculus, creeping sweetly along amid the thorns and briars of life, giving kiss for sting; and many a man who has had in his way some great black rock of trouble, has found that they have covered it all over with flowery jasmine running in and out amid the crevices. These flowers in Christ’92s garden are not, like the sunflower, gaudy in the light, but wherever darkness hovers over a soul that needs to be comforted, there they stand, night-blooming cereuses. But in Christ’92s garden there are plants that may be better compared to the Mexican cactus’97thorns without, loveliness within; men with sharp points of character. They wound almost every one that touches them. They are hard to handle. Men pronounce them nothing but thorns, but Christ loves them notwithstanding all their sharpnesses. Many a man has had a very hard ground to cultivate, and it has only been through severe trial he has raised even the smallest scrap of grace. A very-harsh minister was talking to a very placid elder, and the placid elder said to the harsh minister, ’93Doctor, I do wish you would control your temper.’94 ’93Ah,’94 said the minister to the elder, ’93I control more temper in five minutes than you do in five years.’94 It is harder for some men to do right than for other men to do right. The grace that would elevate you to the seventh heaven might not keep your brother from knocking a man down. I had a friend who came to me and said, ’93I dare not join the Church.’94 I said, ’93Why?’94 ’93Oh,’94 he said, ’93I have such a violent temper. Yesterday morning I was crossing very early at the Jersey City Ferry, and I saw a milkman pour a large quantity of water into the milk-can, and I said to him, ’91I think that will do,’92 and he insulted me, and I knocked him down. Do you think I ought to join the Church?’94 Nevertheless, that very same man, who was so harsh in his behavior, loved Christ, and could not speak of sacred things without tears of emotion and affection. Thorns without, sweetness within’97the best specimen of Mexican cactus I ever saw.
There are others planted in Christ’92s garden who are always radiant, always impressive’97more like the roses of deep hue that we occasionally find called ’93giants of battle’94; the Martin Luthers, St. Pauls, Chrysostoms, Wickliffes, Latimers, and Samuel Rutherfords. What in other men is a spark, in them is a conflagration. When they sweat, they sweat great drops of blood. When they pray, their prayer takes fire. When they preach, it is a Pentecost. When they fight, it is a Thermopyl’e6. When they die, it is a martyrdom. You find a great many roses in the gardens, but only a few ’93giants of battle.’94 Men say, ’93Why don’92t you have more of them in the Church?’94 I say, ’93Why don’92t you have in the world more Humboldts and Wellingtons.’94 God gives to some ten talents, to others, one.
In this garden of the Church which Christ has planted I also find the snowdrops, beautiful, but cold-looking, seemingly another phase of winter. I mean those Christians who are precise in their tastes, unimpassioned, pure as snowdrops and as cold. They never shed any tears, they never get excited, they never say anything rashly, they never do anything precipitately. Their pulses never flutter, their nerves never twitch, their indignation never boils over. They live longer than most people, but their life is in a minor key. They never run up to ’93C’94 above the staff. In their music of life they have no staccato passages. Christ planted them in the Church, and they must be of some service or they would not be there; snowdrops’97always snowdrops.
But I have not told you of the most beautiful flower in all this garden spoken of in the text. If you see a century plant your emotions are started. You say, ’93Why, this flower has been a hundred years gathering up for one bloom, and it will be a hundred years more before other petals will come out.’94 But I have to tell you of a plant that was gathering up from all eternity, and that nineteen hundred years ago put forth its bloom never to wither. It is the passion-plant of the cross! Prophets foretold it; Bethlehem shepherds looked upon it in the bud; the rocks shook at its bursting; and the dead got up in their winding sheets to see its full bloom. It is a crimson flower’97blood at the roots, blood on the branches, blood on all the leaves. Its perfume is to fill all the nations. Its breath is heaven. Come, oh winds from the north and winds from the south and winds from the east and winds from the west and bear to all the earth the sweet-smelling savor of Christ, my Lord!
His worth if all the nations knew,
Sure the whole earth would love him too.
Again, the Church may be appropriately compared to a garden, because it is a place of fruits. That would be a strange garden which had in it no berries, no plums or peaches or apricots. The coarser fruits are planted in the orchard or they are set out on the sunny hillside; but the choicest fruits are kept in the garden. So in the world outside the Church, Christ has planted a great many beautiful things’97patience, charity, generosity, integrity; but he intends the choicest fruits to be in the garden, and if they are not there, then shame on the Church. Religion is not a mere flowering sentimentality. It is a practical, life-giving, healthful fruit’97not posies, but apples. ’93Oh,’94 says somebody, ’93I don’92t see what your garden of the Church has yielded.’94 Where did your asylums come from? and your hospitals? and your institutions of mercy? Christ planted every one of them; he planted them in his garden. When Christ gave sight to Bartimeus he laid the cornerstone of every blind asylum that has ever been built. When Christ soothed the demoniac of Galilee he laid the cornerstone of every lunatic asylum that has ever been established. When Christ said to the sick man, ’93Take up thy bed and walk,’94 he laid the cornerstone of every hospital the world has ever seen. When Christ said, ’93I was in prison and ye visited me,’94 he laid the cornerstone of every prison-reform association that has ever been organized. The Church of Christ is a glorious garden, and it is full of fruit. I know there is some poor fruit in it. I know there are some weeds that ought to be thrown over the fence. I know there are some crab-apple trees that ought to be cut down. I know there are some wild grapes that ought to be uprooted; but are you going to destroy the whole garden because of a little gnarled fruit? You will find worm-eaten leaves in Fontainebleau, and insects that sting in the fairy groves of the Champs-Elys’e9es. You do not tear down and destroy the whole garden because there are a few specimens of gnarled fruit. I admit there are men and women in the Church who ought not to be there; but let us be just as frank and admit the fact that there are hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of glorious Christian men and women’97holy, blessed, useful, consecrated, and triumphant. There is no grander collection in all the earth than the collection of Christians. There are Christian men in this house whose religion is not a matter of psalm-singing and church-going. To-morrow morning that religion will keep them just as consistent and consecrated in their worldly occupation, as it ever kept them at the communion-table. There are women here today of a higher type of character than Mary of Bethany. They not only sit at the feet of Christ, but they go out into the kitchen to help Martha in her work, that she may sit there too. There is a woman who has a drunken husband, who has exhibited more faith and patience and courage than Ridley in the fire. He was consumed in twenty minutes. Hers has been a twenty years’92 martyrdom. Yonder is a man who has been fifteen years on his back, unable to feed himself, yet calm and peaceful as though he lay on one of the green banks of heaven, watching the oarsmen dip their paddles in the crystal river! Why, it seems to me this moment as if St. Paul threw to us a pomologist’92s catalogue of the fruits growing in this great garden of Christ’97love, joy, peace, patience, charity, brotherly kindness, gentleness, mercy; glorious fruit, enough to fill all the baskets of earth and heaven.
I have not told you of the better tree in this garden and of the better fruit. It was planted just outside Jerusalem a good while ago. When that tree was planted, it was so split and bruised and barked, men said nothing would ever grow upon it, but no sooner had that tree been planted than it budded and blossomed and fruited, and the soldiers’92 spears were only the clubs that struck down that fruit, and it fell into the lap of the nations, and men began to pick it up and eat it, and they found in it an antidote to all thirst, to all poison, to all sin, to all death; the smallest cluster larger than the famous one of Eshcol, which two men carried on a staff between them. If the one apple in Eden killed the race, this one cluster of mercy shall restore.
Again, the Church in my text is appropriately called a garden, because it is thoroughly irrigated. No garden could prosper long without plenty of water. I have seen a garden in the midst of a desert, yet blooming and luxuriant. All around was dearth and barrenness; but there were pipes, aqueducts, reaching from this garden up to the mountains, and through those aqueducts the water came streaming down and tossing up into beautiful fountains, until every root and leaf and flower were saturated That is like the Church. The Church is a garden in the midst of a great desert of sin and suffering; but it is well irrigated, for ’93our eyes are unto the hills from whence cometh our help.’94 From the mountains of God’92s strength there flow down rivers of gladness. ’93There is a river the stream whereof shall make glad the city of our God.’94 Preaching the Gospel is one of the aqueducts. The Bible is another. Baptism and the Lord’92s Supper are aqueducts. Water to slake the thirst, water to wash the unclean, water tossed high up in the light of the sun of righteousness; showing us the rainbow around the throne. Oh, was there ever a garden so thoroughly irrigated? You know that the beauty of Versailles and Chatsworth depends very much upon the great supply of water. I came to the latter place, Chatsworth, one day when strangers are not to be admitted; but by an inducement which always seemed as potent with an Englishman as an American, I got in, and then the gardener went far up above the stairs of stone and turned on the water. I saw it gleaming on the dry pavement, coming down from step to step until it came so near I could hear the musical rush, and all over the high, broad stairs it came foaming, flashing, roaring down, until sunlight and wave in gleesome wrestle tumbled at my feet. So it is with the Church of God. Everything comes from above; pardon from above, joy from above, adoption from above, sanctification from above.
Would that now God would turn on the waters of salvation, that they might flow down through his heritage, and that this day we might each find our places to be ’93Elims’94 with twelve wells of water and threescore and ten palm trees.
Hark! I hear the latch of the garden gate, and I look to see who is coming. I hear the voice of Christ. ’93I am come into my garden.’94 I say: ’93Come in, O Jesus! we have been waiting for thee; walk all through the paths. Look at the flowers; look at the fruit; pluck that which thou wilt for thyself.’94 Jesus comes into the garden and up to that old man, and touches him, and says: ’93Almost home, father; not many more aches for thee; I will never leave thee; take courage a little longer and I will steady thy tottering steps and I will soothe thy troubles and give thee rest. Courage, old man.’94 Then Christ goes up another garden path, and he comes to a soul in trouble and says: ’93Peace! all is well. I have seen thy tears. I have heard thy prayer. The sun shall not smite thee by day nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; he will preserve thy soul. Courage, O troubled spirit!’94
Then I see Jesus going up another garden path, and I see great excitement among the leaves, and I hasten up that garden path to see what Jesus is doing there, and lo! He is breaking off flowers, sharp and clean from the stem, and I say: ’93Stop, Jesus, do not kill those beautiful flowers.’94 He turns to me and says: ’93I have come into my garden to gather lilies, and I mean to take these up to a higher terrace, for the garden around my palace, and there I will plant them; and in better soil and in better air they shall put forth brighter leaves and sweeter redolence, and no frost shall touch them forever.’94 And I looked up into his face, and said: ’93Well, it is thy garden, and thou hast a right to do what thou wilt with it. Thy will be done!’94’97the hardest prayer a man ever made.
It has seemed as if Jesus Christ took the best; from many of your households the best one is gone. You know that she was too good for this world; she was the gentlest in her ways, the deepest in her affections; and when at last the sickness came you had no faith in medicines. You knew that the hour of parting had come, and when, through the rich grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, you surrendered that treasure, you said: ’93Lord Jesus, take it’97it is the best we have; take it. Thou art worthy!’94 The others in the household may have been of grosser mold. She was of the finest.
The heaven of your little ones will not be fairly begun until you get there. All the kindnesses shown them by immortals will not make them forget you. There they are, the radiant throngs that went out from your homes. I throw a kiss to the sweet darlings. They are all well now in the palace. The crippled child has a sound foot now. A little lame child says: ’93Ma, will I be lame in heaven?’94 ’93No, my darling, you won’92t be lame in heaven.’94 A little sick child says: ’93Ma, will I be sick in heaven?’94 ’93No, my dear, you won’92t be sick in heaven.’94 A little blind child says: ’93Ma, will I be blind in heaven?’94 ’93No, my dear, you won’92t be blind in heaven.’94 They are all well there.
I notice that the fine gardens sometimes have high fences around them, and I cannot get in. It is so with a king’92s garden. The only glimpse you ever get of such a garden is when the king rides out in his splendid carriage. It is not so with this garden, this king’92s garden. I throw wide open the gate and tell you all to come in. No monopoly in religion. Whosoever will, may. Choose now between a desert and a garden. Many of you have tried the garden of this world’92s delight. You have found it has been a chagrin. So it was with Theodore Hook. He made all the world laugh. He makes us laugh now when we read his poems; but he could not make his own heart laugh. While in the midst of his festivities he confronted a looking-glass, and he saw himself, and said: ’93There, that is true. I look just as I am, done up in body, mind, and purse.’94 So it was of Shenstone, of whose garden I told you at the beginning of my sermon. He sat down amid those bowers and said: ’93I have lost my road to happiness. I am angry and envious and frantic and despise everything around me just as it becomes a madman to do.’94
O ye weary souls! come into Christ’92s garden today and pluck a little heartsease. Christ is the only rest and the only pardon for a perturbed spirit. Do you not think your chance has almost come? You men and women who have been waiting year after year for some good opportunity in which to accept Christ, but have postponed it, five, ten, twenty, thirty years’97do you not feel as if now your hour of deliverance and pardon and salvation had come? O man, what grudge hast thou against thy poor soul that thou wilt not let it be saved?
Some years ago a vessel struck on the rocks. They had only one lifeboat. In that lifeboat the passengers and crew were getting ashore. The vessel had foundered, and was sinking deeper and deeper, and that one boat could not take the passengers very swiftly. A little girl stood on the deck waiting for her turn to get into the boat. The boat came and went, came and went, but her turn did not seem to come. After a while she could wait no longer, and she leaped on the taffrail and then sprang into the sea, crying to the boatman: ’93Save me next! Save me next!’94 Oh, how many have gone ashore into God’92s mercy, and yet you are clinging to the, wreck of sin! Others have accepted the pardon of Christ, but you are in peril. Why not, this moment, make a rush for your immortal rescue, crying until Jesus shall hear you, and heaven and earth ring with the cry: ’93Save me next! Save me next.’94 Now is the day of salvation! Now! Now!
This Sabbath is the last for some of you. It is about to sail away forever. Her bell tolls. The planks thunder back in the gangway. She shoves off. She floats out toward the great ocean of eternity. Wave farewell to your last chance for heaven. ’93Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings, and ye would not? Behold your house is left unto you desolate.’94 Invited to revel in a garden you die in a desert. May God Almighty, before it is too late, break that infatuation.
Autor: T. De Witt Talmage