101. The Bundle of Life

The Bundle of Life

1Sa_25:29 : ’93The soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God.’94

Beautiful Abigail, in her rhythmic plea for the rescue of her inebriate husband, who died within ten days, addresses David, the warrior, in the words of the text. She suggests that his life, physically and intellectually and spiritually, is a valuable package or bundle, divinely bound up and to be divinely protected.

That phrase, ’93bundle of life,’94 I heard many times in my father’92s family prayers. Family prayers, you know, have frequent repetitions, because day by day they acknowledge about the same blessings and deplore about the same frailties and sympathize with about the same misfortunes, and I do not know why those who lead at household devotions should seek variety of compositions. That familiar prayer becomes the household liturgy. I would not give one of my old father’92s prayers for fifty elocutionary supplications. Again and again, in the morning and evening prayer, I heard the request that we might all be bound up in the bundle of life, but I did not know, until a few days ago, that the phrase was a Bible phrase.

Now, the more I think of it the better I like it. Bundle of life! It is such a simple and unpretending, yet expressive comparison. There is nothing like grandiloquence in the Scriptures. While there are many sublime passages in Holy Writ, there are more passages homely and drawing illustrations from common observation and every-day life. In Christ’92s great sermons you hear a hen clucking her chickens together and see the photographs of hypocrites with a sad countenance and hear the grass of the field and the black crows, which our heavenly Father feeds, and the salt that is worthless and the precious stones flung under the feet of swine and the shifting sand that lets down the house with a great crash and hear the comparison of the text, the most unpoetical thing we can think of’97a bundle. Ordinarily it is something tossed about, something thrown under the table, something that suggests garrets, or something on the shoulder of a poor wayfarer. But there are bundles of great value, bundles put up with great caution, bundles, the loss of which means consternation and despair, and there have been bundles representing the worth of a kingdom.

During the last spell of cold weather there were bundles that attracted the attention and the plaudits of the high heavens, bundles of clothing on the way from comfortable homes to the door of the mission-room, and Christ stood in the snow-banks and said, as the bundles passed: ’93Naked, and ye clothed me. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’94 Those bundles are multiplying. Blessings on those who pack them. Blessings on those who distribute them. Blessings on those who receive them.

With what beautiful aptitude did Abigail, in my text, speak of the bundle of life! Oh, what a precious bundle is life! Bundle of memories, bundle of hopes, bundle of ambitions, bundle of destinies! Once in a while a man writes his autobiography, and it is of thrilling interest. The story of his birthplace, the story of his struggles, the story of his sufferings, the story of his triumphs! But if the autobiography of the most uneventful life were well written, it would make many chapters of adventure, of tragedy, of comedy, and there would not be an uninteresting step from cradle to grave. Bundle of memories are you! Boyhood memories’97with all its injustices from playmates, with all its games with ball and bat and kite and sled. Manhood memories, with all your struggles in starting’97obstacles, oppositions, accidents, misfortunes, losses, successes. Memories of the first marriage you ever saw solemnized; of the first grave you ever saw opened; of the first mighty wrong you ever suffered; of the first victory you ever gained! Memory of the hour when you were affianced; memory of the first advent in your home; memory of the roseate cheek faded and of the blue eyes closed in the last sleep; memory of anthem and of dirge; memory of great pain and of slow convalescence; memory of times when all things were against you; memory of prosperities that came in like the full tide of the sea; memories of a lifetime! What a bundle! I lift that bundle today and unloose the cord that binds it, and for a moment you look in and see tears and smiles and laughter, and groans and noondays and midnights of experience; and then I tie again the bundle with heart-strings that have some time vibrated with joy and anon been thrummed by fingers of woe.

Bundle of hopes, and ambitions also, is almost every man and woman, especially at the starting. What gains he will harvest or what reputation he will achieve or what bliss he will reach or what love he will win. What makes a college commencement today so entrancing to all of us as we see the students receive their diplomas and take up the garlands thrown to their feet? They will be Faradays in science; they will be Tennysons in poesy; they will be Willard Parkers in surgery; they will be Alexander Hamiltons in national finance; they will be Horace Greeleys in editorial chair; they will be Websters in the Senate! Or she will be a Mary Lyon in educational realms; or a Frances Willard on reformatory platform; or a Helen Gould in military hospitals. Or she will make home-life radiant with helpfulness and self-sacrifice and magnificent womanhood! Oh, what a bundle of hopes and ambitions! It is a bundle of garlands and sceptres from which I would not take one sprig of mignonette nor extinguish one spark of brilliance. They who start life without bright hopes and inspiring ambitions, might as well not start at all, for every step will be a failure. Rather would I add to the bundle, and if I open it now, it will not be because I wish to take anything from it, but that I may put into it more coronets and hosannas.

Bundle of faculties in every man and every woman! Power to think’97to think of the past and through all the future; to think upward and higher than the highest pinnacle of heaven, or to think downward until there is no lower abysm to fathom. Power to think right, power to think wrong, power to think forever; for, once having begun to think, there shall be no terminus for that exercise, and eternity itself shall have no power to bid it halt. Faculties of love’97filial love, conjugal love, paternal love, maternal love, love of country, love of God. Faculty of judgment, with scales so delicate and yet so mighty they can weigh arguments, weigh emotions, weigh worlds, weigh heaven and hell. Faculty of will, that can climb mountains or tunnel them, wade seas or bridge them, accepting eternal enthronement or choosing everlasting exile. Oh, what it is to be a man! Oh, what it is to be a woman! Sublime and infinite bundle of faculties! The thought of it staggers me, swamps me, stuns me, bewilders me, overwhelms me. What a bundle of life Abigail of my text saw in David, and which we ought to see in every human, yet immortal, being!

Know, also, that this bundle of life was put up with great care. Any merchant and almost any faithful householder will tell you how much depends on the way a bundle is bound. The cord or rope must be strong enough to hold; the knot must be well tied. You know not what rough hands may toss that bundle. If not properly put together, though it may leave your hands in good order and symmetrical, before it reaches its proper destination it may be loosened in fragments for the winds to scatter or the rail train to lose. This bundle of life is well put together’97the body, the mind, the soul. Who but the Omnipotent God could bind such a bundle? Anatomists, physiologists, physicists, logicians, metaphysicians, declare that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. That we are a bundle well put together I prove by the amount of journey we can endure without damage, by the amount of rough handling we can survive, by the fact that the vast majority of us go through life without the loss of an eye or the crippling of limb or the destruction of a single energy of body or faculty of mind. I subpoena for this trial that man in yonder pew seventy or eighty years of age, and ask him to testify that after all the storms and accidents and vicissitudes of a long life he still keeps his five senses; and though all the lighthouses as old as he is have been reconstructed or had new lanterns put in, he has under his forehead the same two lanterns with which God started him; and though the locomotives of sixty years ago were long ago sold for old iron, he has the original powers of locomotion in the limbs with which God started him; and though all the electric wires that carried messages twenty-five years ago have been torn down, his nerves bring messages from all parts of his body as well as when God strung them seventy-five years ago. Was there ever such a complete bundle put together as the human being? What a factory! What an engine! What a millrace! What a lighthouse! What a locomotive! What an electric battery! What a furnace! What a masterpiece of the Lord God Almighty! Or, to employ the anti-climax and use the figure of the text, what a bundle!

Know, also, that this bundle of life is properly directed. Many a bundle has missed its way and disappeared because the address has dropped, and no one can find by examination for what city or town or neighborhood it was intended. All great carrying companies have so many misdirected packages that they appoint day of vendue to dispose of them. All intelligent people know the importance of having a valuable package plainly directed, the name of the one to whom it is to go plainly written. Baggage-master and expressman ought to know at the first glance to whom to take it. This bundle of life that Abigail, in my text, speaks of is plainly addressed. By divine penmanship it is directed heavenward. However long may be the earthly distance it travels, its destination is the eternal city of God on high. Every mile it goes away from that direction, is by some human or infernal fraud practiced against it. There are those who put it on some other track, who misplace it in some wrong conveyance, who send it off or send it back by some diabolic miscarriage. The value of that bundle is so well known all up and down the universe that there are a million dishonest hands which are trying to detain or divert it or to forever stop its progress in the right direction. There are so many influences abroad to ruin your body, mind and soul, that my wonder is not that so many are destroyed for this world and the next, but that there are not more who go down irremediably.

Every human being is assailed at the start. Within an hour of the time when this bundle of life is made up, the assault begins. First of all, there are the infantile disorders that threaten the body just launched upon earthly existence. Scarlet fevers and pneumonias and diphtherias and influenzas and the whole pack of epidemics surround the cradle and threaten its occupant; and infant Moses in the ark of bulrushes was not more imperiled by the monsters of the Nile than every cradle is imperiled by ailments all-devouring. In after years there are foes within and foes without. Evil appetite joined by outside allurements. Temptations that have utterly destroyed more people than now inhabit the earth. Gambling saloons and rummeries and places where dissoluteness reigns supreme, enough in number to go round and round and round the earth. Discouragements, jealousies, revenges, malevolences, disappointments, swindles, arsons, conflagrations, and cruelties which make the continued existence of the human race a wonderment. Was any valuable bundle ever so imperiled as this bundle of life? O look at the address, and get that bundle going in the right way! ’93Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and mind and strength.’94 Heaven with its twelve gates standing wide open with invitation. All the forces of the Godhead pledged for our heavenly arrival if we will do the right thing. All angeldom ready for our advance and guidance. All the lightnings of heaven so many drawn swords for our protection. What a pity, what an everlasting pity, if this bundle of life, so well bound and so plainly directed, does not come out at the right station, but becomes a lost bundle, cast out amid the rubbish of the universe!

Know, also, that a bundle may have in it more than one invaluable article. There may be in it a photograph of a loved one and a jewel for a coronet. It may contain an embroidered robe and a Dor’e9’92s illustrated Bible. A bundle may have two treasures. Abigail, in my text, recognized this when she said to David: ’93The soul of my lord is bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God,’94 and Abigail was right. We may be bound up with a loving and sympathetic God. We may be as near to him as ever were emerald and ruby united in one ring, as ever were two deeds in one package, as ever were two vases on the same shelf, as ever were two valuables in the same bundle. Together in time of sorrow. Together in time of joy. Together on earth. Together in heaven. Close companionship of God. Hear him: ’93I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. For the 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 that hath mercy on thee.’94 And when those Bible authors compared God’92s friendship to the mountains for height and firmness, they knew what they were writing about, for they well knew what mountains are. All those lands are mountainous. Mount Hermon, Mount Gilboa, Mount Gerizim, Mount Engedi, Mount Horeb, Mount Nebo, Mount Pisgah, Mount Olivet, Mount Zion, Mount Moriah, Mount Lebanon, Mount Sinai, Mount Golgotha. Yes, we have the divine promise that all these mountains shall weigh their anchorage of rock and move away from the earth before a loving and sympathetic God will move away from us if we love and trust him. If we could realize that according to my text we may be bound up with that God, how independent it would make us of things that now harass and annoy and discompose and torment us. Instead of a grasshopper being a burden, a world of care would be as light as a feather and tombstones would be marble stairs to the King’92s palace and all the giants of opposition we would smite down hip and thigh with great slaughter.

A God away up in the heavens is not much consolation to us when we get into life’92s struggle. It is a God close by, as near to us as any two articles of apparel were near to each other in that bundle that you sent the other day to that shivering home, through whose roof the snow sifted and through whose broken window-pane the night winds howled. It was sanctified irony and holy sarcasm that Elijah used when he told the idolaters of Baal to pray louder, saying that their god might be asleep or talking or on a journey or gone a-hunting; but our God is always wide awake and always hears and is always close by, and to him a whisper of prayer is as loud as an archangel’92s trumpet, and a child’92s ’93Now I lay me down to sleep’94 is as easily heard by him as the prayer of the great Scotchman amid the highlands when pursued by Lord Claverhouse’92s miscreants. The Covenanter said: ’93O Lord, cast the lap of thy cloak about these children of the covenant,’94 and a mountain fog instantly hid the pursued from their bloodthirsty pursuers. I proclaim him a God close by. When we are tempted to do wrong, when we have questions of livelihood too much for us, when we put our darlings away for the last sleep, when we are overwhelmed with physical distresses, when we are perplexed about what next to do, when we come into combat with the king of terrors, we want a God close by. How do you like the doctrine of the text: ’93Bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God?’94 Thank you, Abigail, kneeling there at the foot of the mountain, uttering consolation for all ages, while addressing David. No wonder that in after time he invited her to the palace and put her upon the throne of his heart as well as upon the throne of Judah.

Know, also, that this bundle of life will be gladly received when it comes to the door of the Mansion for which it was bound and plainly directed. With what alacrity and glee we await some package that has been foretold by letter; some holiday present; something that will enrich and ornament our home; some testimony of admiration and affection! With what a glow of expectation we untie the knot and take off the cord that holds it together in safety, and with what glad exclamation we unroll the covering, and see the gift or purchase in all its beauty of color and proportion. Well, what a day it will be when your precious bundle of life shall be opened in the ’93House of Many Mansions,’94 amid saintly and angelic and divine inspection! The bundle may be spotted with the marks of much exposure; it may bear inscription after inscription to tell through what ordeal it has passed; perhaps splashed of wave and scorched of flame, but all it has within undamaged of the journey. And with what shouts of joy the bundle of life will be greeted by all the voices of the heavenly home circle!

In our anxiety at last to reach heaven we are apt to lose sight of the glee of welcome that awaits us if we get in at all. We all have friends up there. They will somehow hear that we are coming. Such close and swift and constant communication is there between those uplands and these lowlands that we will not surprise them by sudden arrival. If loved ones on earth expect our coming visit and are at the depot with carriage to meet us, surely we will be met at the shining gate by old friends now sainted and kindred now glorified. If there were no angel of God to meet us and show us the palaces and guide us to our everlasting residence, these kindred would show us the way and point out the splendors and guide us to our celestial home, bowered and fountained and arched and illumined by a sun that never sets. Will it not be glorious, the going in and the sitting down, after all the moving about and upsettings of earthly experience. We will soon know all our neighbors, kingly, queenly, prophetic, apostolic, seraphic, archangelic. The precious bundle of life opened amid palaces and grand marches and acclamations. They will also be so glad we have got safely through. They saw us when we lost our way. They knew when we got off the right course. None of the fleet of ships that were overdue at New York harbor in the last great storm were greeted so heartily by friends, on the dock or the steam tugs that went out to meet them at Sandy Hook, as we will be greeted in the heavenly world, if by the pardoning and protecting grace of God we come to celestial wharfage. We shall have to tell them of the many wrecks that we have passed on the way across wild seas and amid Caribbean cyclones. It will be like our arrival some years ago from New Zealand at Sydney, Australia; people surprised that we got in at all, because we were two days late, and some of the ships expected had gone to the bottom, and we had passed derelicts and abandoned crafts all up and down that awful channel,’97our arrival in heaven all the more rapturously welcomed because of the doubt as to whether we would ever get there at all.

Once there, it will be found that the safety of that precious bundle of life was assured because it was bound up with the life of God in Jesus Christ. Heaven could not afford to have that bundle lost, because it had been said in regard to its transportation and safe arrival, ’93Kept by the power of God through faith unto complete salvation.’94 The veracity of the heavens is involved in its arrival. If God should fail to keep his promise to just one ransomed soul, the pillars of Jehovah’92s throne would fall and the foundation of the eternal city would crumble and infinite poverties would dash down all the chalices and close all the banqueting halls and the river of life would change its course, sweeping everything with desolation, and frost would blast all the gardens and immeasurable sickness slay the immortals and the new Jerusalem become an abandoned city, with no chariot wheel on the streets and no worshipers in the temple’97a dead Pompeii of the skies, a buried Herculaneum of the heavens. Lest any one should doubt, the God who cannot lie smites his omnipotent hand on the side of his throne, and takes affidavit, declaring, ’93As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth.’94 Oh! I cannot tell you how I feel about it, the thought is so glorious. Bound up with God. Bound up with infinite mercy. Bound up with infinite joy. Bound up with infinite purity. Bound up with infinite might. That thought is more beautiful and glorious than was the heroic Abigail, who at the foot of the crags uttered it’97’94Bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God!’94

Appreciate the value of that bundle. See that it is bound up with nothing mean, but with the unsullied and the immaculate. Not with a pebble of the shifting beach, but with the kohinoor of the palace; not with some fading regalia of earthly pomp, but with the robe washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb. Pray as you never prayed before, that by divine chirography written all over your nature, you may be properly addressed for a glorious destination. Turn not over a new leaf of the old book, but by the grace of God open an entirely new volume of experience, and put into practice the advice contained in the peculiar but beautiful rhythm of some author whose name I know not:

If you’92ve any task to do,

Let me whisper, friend, to you,

Do it.

If you’92ve anything to say,

True and needed, yea or nay,

Say it.

If you’92ve anything to love,

As a blessing from above,

Love it.

If you’92ve anything to give,

That another’92s joy may live,

Give it.

If some hollow creed you doubt,

Tho’92 the whole world hoot and shout,

Doubt it.

If you’92ve any debt to pay,

Rest you neither night nor day,

Pay it.

If you’92ve any joy to hold,

Near your heart, lest it grow cold,

Hold it.

If you’92ve any grief to meet,

At a loving Father’92s feet,

Meet it.

If you know what torch to light,

Guiding others in the night,

Light it.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage