067. A Wedding Present

A Wedding Present

Jos_15:19 : ’93Thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs and the nether springs.’94

The city of Debir was the Boston of antiquity’97a great place for brain and books. Caleb wanted it, and he offered his daughter Achsah as a prize to any one who would capture that city. It was a strange thing for Caleb to do; and yet the man that could take the city would have, at any rate, two elements of manhood’97bravery and patriotism. Besides, I do not think that Caleb was as foolish in offering his daughter to the conqueror of Debir, as thousands in this day who seek alliances for their children with those who have large means, without any reference to moral or mental acquirements. Of two evils, I would rather measure manly worth by the length of the sword than by the length of the pocket-book. In one case there is sure to be one good element of character; in the other there may be none at all. With Caleb’92s daughter as a prize to fight for, General Othniel rode into the battle. The gates of Debir were thundered into the dust, and the city of books lay at the feet of the conquerors. The work done, Othniel comes back to claim his bride. Having conquered the city, it is no great job for him to conquer the girl’92s heart; for, however faint-hearted a woman herself may be, she always loves courage in a man. I never saw an exception to that. The wedding festivity having gone by, Othniel and Achsah are about to go to their new home. However loudly the cymbals may clash and the laughter ring, parents are always sad when a fondly-cherished daughter goes off to stay; and Achsah, the daughter of Caleb, knows that now is the time to get almost anything she wants of her father. It seems that Caleb, the good old man, had given as a wedding present to his daughter a piece of land that was mountainous, and sloping southward toward the deserts of Arabia, swept with some very hot winds. It was called ’93a south land.’94 But Achsah wants an addition of property; she wants a piece of land that is well watered and fertile. Now it is no wonder that Caleb, standing amidst the bridal party, his eyes so full of tears because she was going away that he could hardly see her at all, gives her more than she asks. She said to him, ’93Thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs, and the nether springs.’94

The fact is, that as Caleb, the father, gave Achsah, the daughter, a south land, so God gives to us his world. I am very thankful he has given it to us. But I am like Achsah in the fact that I am not satisfied with the portion. Trees and flowers and grass and blue skies are very well in their places; but he who has nothing but this world for a portion has no portion at all. It is a mountainous land, sloping off toward the desert of sorrow, swept by fiery siroccos; it is ’93a south land,’94 a poor portion for any man that tries to put his trust in it. What has been your experience? What has been the experience of every man, of every woman that has tried this world for a portion? Queen Elizabeth, amidst the surroundings of pomp, is unhappy because the painter sketches too minutely the wrinkles on her face, and she indignantly cries out, ’93You must strike off my likeness without any shadows!’94 Hogarth, at the very height of his artistic triumph, is stung almost to death with chagrin because the painting he had dedicated to the king does not seem to be acceptable; for George II cries out, ’93Who is this Hogarth? Take his trumpery out of my presence.’94 Brinsley Sheridan thrilled the earth with his eloquence, but had for his last words, ’93I am absolutely undone.’94 Walter Scott, fumbling around the inkstand, trying to write, says to his daughter, ’93Oh, take me back to my room; there is no rest for Sir Walter but in the grave!’94 Stephen Girard, the wealthiest man in his day, or, at any rate, only second in wealth, says, ’93I live the life of a galley-slave; when I arise in the morning my one effort is to work so hard that I can sleep when it gets to be night.’94 Charles Lamb, applauded of all the world, in the very midst of his literary triumph, says, ’93Do you remember, Bridget, when we used to laugh from the shilling gallery at the play? There are now no good plays to laugh at from the boxes.’94 But why go so far as that? I need to go no farther than your street to find an illustration of what I am saying.

Pick me out ten successful worldlings’97and you know what I mean by thoroughly successful worldlings’97pick me out ten successful worldlings, and you cannot find more than one that looks happy. Care drags him to business; care drags him back. Take your stand at two o’92clock at the corner of the streets and see the anxious physiognomies. Your high officials, your bankers, your insurance men, your importers, your wholesalers, and your retailers, as a class’97as a class, are they happy? No. Care dogs their steps; and, making no appeal to God for help or comfort, many of them are tossed everywhither. How has it been with you, my hearer? Are you more contented in the house of fourteen rooms than you were in the two rooms you had in a house when you started? Have you not had more care and worriment since you won that fifty thousand dollars than you did before? Some of the poorest men I have ever known have been those of great fortune. A man of small means may be put in great business straits, but the ghastliest of all embarrassments is that of the man who has large estates. The men who commit suicide because of monetary losses are those who cannot bear the burden any more, because they have only fifty thousand dollars left.

On Bowling Green, New York, there is a house where Talleyrand used to go. He was a favored man. All the world knew him, and he had wealth almost unlimited; yet at the close of his life he says, ’93Behold, eighty-three years have passed without any practical result, save fatigue of body and fatigue of mind, great discouragement for the future, and great disgust for the past.’94 Oh, my friends, this is a ’93south land,’94 and it slopes off toward deserts of sorrows; and the prayer which Achsah made to her father Caleb we make this day to our Father God: ’93Thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs, and the nether springs.’94

Blessed be God! we have more advantages given us than we can really appreciate. We have spiritual blessings offered us in this world which I shall call the nether springs, and glories in the world to come which I shall call the upper springs.

Where shall I find words enough threaded with light to set forth the pleasure of religion? David, unable to describe it in words, played it on a harp. Mrs. Hemans, not finding enough power in prose, sings that praise in a canto. Christopher Wren, unable to describe it in language, sprung it into the arches of St. Paul’92s. John Bunyan, unable to present it in ordinary phraseology, takes all the fascination of allegory. Handel, with ordinary music unable to reach the height of the theme, rouses it up in an oratorio. Oh, there is no life on earth so happy as a really Christian life! I do not mean a sham Christian life, but a real Christian life. Where there is a thorn, there is a whole garland of roses. Where there is one groan, there are three doxologies. Where there is one day of cloud, there is a whole season of sunshine. Take the humblest Christian man that you know’97angels of God canopy him with their white wings; the lightnings of heaven are his armed allies; the Lord is his Shepherd, picking out for him green pastures by still waters; if he walks forth, heaven is his body-guard; if he lie down to sleep, ladders of light, angel-blossoming, are let into his dreams; if he be thirsty, the potentates of heaven are his cupbearers; if he sit down to food, his plain table blooms into the King’92s banquet. Men say, ’93Look at that odd fellow with the worn-out coat;’94 the angels of God cry, ’93Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates, and let him come in!’94 Fastidious people cry, ’93Get off my front steps!’94 the door-keepers of heaven cry, ’93Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom!’94 When he comes to die, though he may be carried out in a pine box to the potter’92s field, to that potter’92s field the chariots of Christ will come down, and the cavalcade will crowd all the boulevards of heaven.

I bless Christ for the present satisfaction of religion. It makes a man all right with reference to the past; it makes a man all right with reference to the future. Oh, these nether springs of comfort! They are perennial. The foundation of God standeth sure having this seal, ’93The Lord knoweth them that are his.’94 ’93The mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord, who hath mercy upon thee.’94 Oh, cluster of diamonds set in burnished gold! Oh, nether springs of comfort bursting through all the valleys of trial and tribulation! When you see, you of the world, what satisfaction there is on earth in religion, do you not thirst after it as the daughter of Caleb thirsted after the water-springs? It is no stagnant pond, scummed over with malaria, but springs of water leaping from the Rock of Ages! Take up one cup of that spring-water, and across the top of the chalice will float the delicate shadows of the heavenly wall, the yellow of jasper, the green of emerald, the blue of sardonyx, the fire of jacinth.

I wish I could make you understand the joy religion is to some of us. It makes a man happy while he lives, and glad when he dies. With two feet upon a chair and bursting with dropsies, I heard an old man in the poorhouse cry out, ’93Bless the Lord, oh, my soul!’94 I looked around and said, ’93What has this man got to thank God for?’94 It makes the lame man leap as a hart, and the dumb sing. They say that the old Puritan religion is a juiceless and joyless religion; but I remember reading of Dr. Goodwin, the celebrated Puritan, who in his last moment said, ’93Is this dying? Why, my bow abides in strength! I am swallowed up in God!’94 ’93Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.’94 Oh, you who have been trying to satisfy yourselves with the ’93south land’94 of this world, do you not feel that you would, this morning, like to have access to the nether springs of spiritual comfort? Would you not like to have Jesus Christ bend over your cradle and bless your table and heal your wounds and strew flowers of consolation all up and down the graves of your dead?

’91Tis religion that can give

Sweetest pleasure while we live;

’91Tis religion can supply

Sweetest comfort when we die.

But I have something better to tell you, suggested by this text. It seems that old Father Caleb, on the wedding day of his daughter, wanted to make her just as happy as possible. Though Othniel was taking her away, and his heart was almost broken because she was going, yet he gives her a ’93south land;’94 not only that, but the nether springs; not only that, but the upper springs. O, God! my Father, I thank thee that thou hast given me a ’93south land’94 in this world; and the nether springs of spiritual comfort in this world; but, more than all, I thank thee for the upper springs in heaven.

It is very fortunate that we cannot see heaven until we get into it. O Christian man, if you could see what a place it is, we would never get you back again to the office or store or shop, and the duties you ought to perform would go neglected. I am glad I shall not see that world until I enter it. Suppose we were allowed to go on an excursion into that good land with the idea of returning. When we got there and heard the song and looked at their raptured faces and mingled in the supernal society, we would cry out, ’93Let us stay! We are coming here anyhow. Why take the trouble of going back again to that old world? We are here now; let us stay.’94 And it would take angelic violence to put us out of that world, if once we got there. But as people who cannot afford to pay for an entertainment sometimes come around it and look through the door ajar, or through the openings in the fence, so we come and look through the crevices into that good land which God has provided for us. We can just catch a glimpse of it. We come near enough to hear the rumbling of the eternal orchestra, though not near enough to know who blows the cornet or who fingers the harp. My soul spreads out both wings and claps them in triumph at the thought of those upper springs. One of them pours from beneath the throne; another breaks forth from beneath the altar of the temple; another at the door of ’93the house of many mansions.’94 Upper springs of gladness! upper springs of light! upper springs of love! It is no fancy of mine. ’93The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them to living fountains of water.’94 O, Saviour divine, roll in upon our souls one of those anticipated raptures! Pour around the roots of the parched tongue one drop of that liquid life! Toss before our vision those fountains of God, rainbowed with eternal victory. Hear it! They are never sick there, not so much as a headache or twinge rheumatic or thrust neuralgic. The inhabitants never says, ’93I am sick.’94 They are never tired there. Flight to farthest world is only the play of a holiday. They never sin there. It is as easy for them to be, holy as it is for us to sin. They never die there. You might go through all the outskirts of the great city and find not one place where the ground was broken for a grave. There is health in every cheek. There is spring in every foot. There is majesty on every brow. There is joy in every heart. There is hosanna on every lip. How they must pity us as they look over and look down and see us, and say, ’93Poor things, away down in that world!’94 And when some Christian is hurled into a fatal accident, they cry, ’93Good, he is coming!’94 And when we stand around the couch of some loved one whose strength is going away, and we shake our heads forebodingly, they cry, ’93I am glad he is worse; he has been down there long enough. There, he is dead! Come home! come home!’94 Oh, if we could only get our ideas about that future world untwisted, our thought of transfer from here to there would be as pleasant to us as it was to a little child that was dying. She said, ’93Papa, when will I go home?’94 And he said, ’93To-day, Florence.’94 ’93To-day? so soon? I am so glad!’94 I wish I could stimulate you with these thoughts, O Christian man, to the highest possible exhilaration. The day of your deliverance is coming, is coming rolling on with the shining wheels of the day, and the jet wheels of the night. Every thump of the heart is only a hammer-stroke striking off another chain of clay. Better scour the deck and coil the rope, for the harbor is only six miles away. Jesus will come down in the ’93Narrows’94 to meet you. ’93Now is your salvation nearer than when you believed.’94

Man of the world! will you not today make a choice between these two portions, between the ’93south land’94 of this world, which slopes to the desert, and this glorious land which thy Father offers thee, running with eternal water-courses? Why let your tongue be consumed of thirst when there are the nether springs and the upper springs: comfort here and glory hereafter? You and I need something better than this world can give us. The fact is that it cannot give us anything after a while. It is a changing world. Do you know that even the mountains on the back of a thousand streams are leaping into the valley. The Alleghanies are dying. The dews with crystalline mallet are hammering away the rocks. Frosts and showers and lightnings are sculpturing Mount Washington and the Catskills. Niagara every year is digging for itself a quicker plunge. The sea all around the earth on its shifting shores is making mighty changes in bar and bay and frith and promontory. Some of the old seacoasts are under water now. Off Nantucket, eight feet below low-water mark, are found now the stumps of trees, showing that the waves are conquering the land. Parts of Nova Scotia are sinking. Ships today sail over what, only a little while ago, was solid ground. Near the mouth of the St. Croix river is an island which, in the movements of the earth, is slowly but certainly rotating. All the face of the earth changing’97changing. In 1831, an island springs up in the Mediterranean sea. In 1866, another island comes up under the observation of the American consul as he looks off from the beach. The earth all the time changing, the columns of a temple near Bizoli show that the water has risen nine feet above the place it was when these columns were put down. Changing! Our Colorado river, once vaster than the Mississippi, flowing through the great American desert, which was then an Eden of luxuriance, has now dwindled to a small stream creeping down through a gorge. The earth itself, that was once vapor, afterward water’97nothing but water’97afterward molten rock, cooling off through the ages until plants might live, and animals might live, and men might live, changing all the while, now crumbling, now breaking off. The sun, burning down gradually in its socket. Changing! Changing! an intimation of the last great change to come over the world even infused into the mind of the heathen who has never seen the Bible. The Hindoos believe that Bramah, the creator, once made all things. He created the water, then moved over the water, out of it lifted the land, grew the plants and animals and men on it. Out of his eye went the sun. Out of his lips went the fire. Out of his ear went the air. Then Bramah laid down to sleep four thousand three hundred and twenty million years. After that, they say, he will wake up, and then the world will be destroyed, and he will make it over again, bringing up land, bringing up creatures upon it; then lying down again to sleep four thousand three hundred and twenty million years, then waking up and destroying the world again’97creation and demolition following each other, until after three hundred and twenty sleeps, each one of these slumbers four thousand three hundred and twenty million years long, Bramah will wake up and die, and the universe will die with him’97an intimation, though very faint, of the great change to come upon this physical earth spoken of in the Bible. But while Bramah may sleep, our God never slumbers nor sleeps; and the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth and all things that are therein shall be burned up.

’93Well,’94 says some one, ’93if that is so; if the world is going from one change to another, then what is the use of my toiling for its betterment?’94 That is the point on which I want to guard you. I do not want you to become misanthropic. It is a great and glorious world. If Christ could afford to spend thirty-three years on it for its redemption, then you can afford to toil and pray for the betterment of the nations, and for the bringing on of that glorious time when all people shall see the salvation of God. While, therefore, I want to guard you against misanthropic notions in respect to this subject I have presented, I want you to take this thought home with you: This world is a poor foundation to build on. It is a changing world, and it is a dying world. The shifting scenes and the changing sands are only emblems of all earthly expectation. Life is very much like this day through which we have passed. To many of us it is storm and darkness, then sunshine, storm and darkness, then afterward a little sunshine, now again darkness and storm. Oh, build not your hopes upon this un-certain world! Build on God. Confide in Jesus. Plan for an eternal residence at Christ’92s right hand. Then, come sickness or health, come joy or sorrow, come life or death, all is well, all is well.

In the name of the God of Caleb, and his daughter, Achsah, I this day offer you the ’93upper springs’94 of unfading and everlasting rapture.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage