Hospitality
2Ki_4:8 : ’93And it fell on a day, that Elisha passed to Shunem, where was a great woman.’94
The hotel of our time had no counterpart in any entertainment of olden time. The vast majority of travelers must be entertained at private abode. Here comes Elisha, a servant of the Lord, on a divine mission, and he must find shelter. A balcony overlooking the valley of Esdraelon is offered him, in a private house, and it is especially furnished for his occupancy’97a chair to sit on, a table from which to eat, a candlestick by which to read, and a bed on which to slumber, the whole establishment belonging to a great and good woman.
Her husband, it seems, was a godly man, but he was entirely overshadowed by his wife’92s excellences; just as now you sometimes find in a household the wife the centre of dignity and influence and power, not by any arrogance or presumption, but by superior intellect and force of moral nature wielding domestic affairs, and at the same time supervising all financial and business affairs. The wife’92s hand on the shuttle, on the banking-house, on the worldly business. You see hundreds of men who are successful only because there is a reason at home why they are successful. If a man marry a good, honest, capable soul, he makes his fortune. If he marry a fool, the Lord help him! The wife may be the silent partner in the firm, there may be only masculine voices down on Exchange, but there oftentimes comes from the home circle a potential and elevating influence.
This woman of my text was the superior of her husband. He, as far as I can understand, was what we often see in our day, a man of large fortune and only a modicum of brain, intensely quiet, sitting a long while in the same place without moving hand or foot’97if you say ’93yes,’94 responding ’93yes’94’97if you say ’93no,’94 responding ’93no’94’97inane, eyes half shut, mouth wide open, maintaining his position in society only because he has a large patrimony. But his wife, my text says, was a great woman.
Her name has not come down to us. She belonged to that collection of people who need no name to distinguish them. What would title of duchess or princess or queen’97what would escutcheon or gleaming diadem be to this woman of my text, who by her intelligence and her behavior challenges the admiration of all ages? Long after the brilliant women of the court of Louis XV have been forgotten, and the brilliant women of the court of Spain have been forgotten, and the brilliant women who sat on the throne of Russia have been forgotten, some grandfather will put on his spectacles, and holding the book the other side the light, read to his grandchildren the story of this great woman of Shunem, who was so kind and courteous and Christian to the good prophet Elisha. Yes, she was a great woman.
In the first place, she was great in her hospitalities. Uncivilized and barbarous nations honor this virtue. Jupiter had the surname of the Hospitable, and he was said especially to avenge the wrongs of strangers. Homer extolled it in his verse. The Arabs are punctilious on this subject, and among some of their tribes it is not until the ninth day of tarrying that the occupant has a right to ask his guest: ’93Who, and whence art thou?’94 If this virtue is so honored even among barbarians, how ought it to be honored among those of us who believe in the Bible, which commands us to use hospitality one toward another without grudging.
Of course, I do not mean under this cover to give any idea that I approve of that vagrant class who go around from place to place ranging their whole lifetime, perhaps under the auspices of some benevolent or philanthropic society, quartering themselves on Christian families, with a great pile of trunks in the hall and carpet bag portentous of tarrying. There is many a country parsonage that looks out week by week upon the ominous arrival of wagon with creaking wheel and lank horse and dilapidated driver, come under the auspices of some charitable institution to spend a few weeks and canvass the neighborhood. Let no such religious tramps take advantage of this beautiful virtue of Christian hospitality.
Not so much the sumptuousness of your diet and the regality of your abode will impress the friend or the stranger that steps across your threshold, as the warmth of your greeting, the informality of your reception, the reiteration by grasp and by look and by a thousand attentions, insignificant attentions, of your earnestness of welcome. There will be high appreciation of your welcome, though you have nothing but the brazen candlestick and the plain chair to offer Elisha when he comes to Shunem.
Most beautiful is this grace of hospitality when shown in the house of God. I am thankful that I am pastor of a church where strangers are always welcome, and there is not a State of the Union in which I have not heard the affability of the ushers of this church complimented. But I have entered churches where there was no hospitality. A stranger would stand in the vestibule for a while and then make pilgrimage up the long aisle. No door opened to him until flushed and excited and embarrassed he started back again and coming to some half-filled pew, with apologetic air, entered it, while the occupants glared on him with a look which seemed to say: ’93Well, if I must, I must.’94 Away with such accursed indecency from the house of God. Let every church that would maintain large Christian influence in the community cultivate Sabbath by Sabbath this beautiful grace of Christian hospitality.
Again, this woman of my text was great in her kindness toward God’92s messenger. Elisha may have been a stranger in that household, but as she found out he had come on a divine mission, he was cordially welcomed. We have a great many books in our day about the hardships of ministers and the trials of Christian ministers. I wish somebody would write a book about the joys of a Christian minister, about the sympathies all around him, about the kindness, about the genial consideration of him. Does sorrow come to our home and is there a shadow on the cradle, there are hundreds of hands to help, and many who weary not through the long night watching, and hundreds of prayers going up that God would restore the sick. Is there a burning, brimming cup of calamity placed on the pastor’92s table, are there not many to help him drink of that cup and who will not be comforted because he is stricken? Oh, for somebody to write a book about the rewards of the Christian ministry’97about his surroundings of Christian sympathy.
This woman of the text was only a type of thousands of men and women who come down from mansion and from cot to do kindness to the Lord’92s servants. I could tell you of something that you might think a romance. A young man graduated from New Brunswick Theological Seminary was called to a village church. He had not the means to furnish the parsonage. After three or four weeks of preaching, a committee of the officers of the church waited on him and told him he looked tired and thought he had better take a vacation of a few days. The young pastor took it as an intimation that his work was done or not acceptable. He took the vacation and at the end of a few days came back, when an old elder said: ’93Here is the key of the parsonage. We have been cleaning up; you had better go up and look at it.’94 So the young pastor took the key, went up to the parsonage, opened the door, and lo! it was carpeted, and there was the hat-rack all ready for the canes and the umbrellas and the overcoats, and on the left hand of the hall was the parlor sofaed, chaired, pictured. He passed on to the other side the hall, and there was the study-table in the centre of the floor with stationery upon it, bookshelves built, long range of new volumes far beyond the reach of the means of the young pastor, many of these volumes.
The young pastor went upstairs, and all the sleeping apartments furnished; came downstairs and entered the pantry, and there were the spices and the coffees and the sugars and the groceries for a six months. He went down into the cellar and there was the coal for all the coming winter. He went into the dining-hall and there was the table already set’97the glass and the silverware. He went into the kitchen, and there were all the culinary implements and a great stove. The young pastor lifted one lid of the stove and he found the fuel all ready for ignition. Putting back the cover of the stove, he saw on another part of it a lucifer match, and all that young man had to do in starting to keep house was to strike the match. You tell me that is apochryphal. Oh, no; that was my own experience. Oh, the enlarged sympathies sometimes clustering around those who enter the Gospel ministry. I suppose the man of Shunem had to pay the bills, but it was the large-hearted Christian sympathies of the woman of Shunem that looked after the Lord’92s messenger.
Again, this woman of the text was great in her behavior under trouble. Her only son had died on her lap. A very bright light went out in that household. The sacred writer puts it very tersely when he says: ’93He sat on her knee until noon, and then died.’94 Yet the writer goes on to say that she exclaimed: ’93It is well!’94 Great in prosperity, this woman was great in trouble.
Where are the feet that have not been blistered on the hot sands of this great Sahara? Where are the shoulders that have not bent under the burden of grief? Where is the ship sailing over glassy sea that has not after a while been caught in a cyclone? Where is the garden of earthly comfort, but trouble hath hitched up its fiery and panting team and gone through it with burning ploughshares of disaster? Under the pelting of ages of suffering the great heart of the world has burst with woe. Navigators tell us about the rivers, and the Amazon and the Danube and the Mississippi have been explored, but who can tell the depth or the length of the great river of sorrow made up of tears and blood rolling through all lands and all ages, bearing the wreck of families and of communities and of empires’97foaming, writhing, boiling with the agonies of six thousand years. ‘c6tna and Cotopaxi and Vesuvius have been described, but who has ever sketched the volcano of suffering retching up from its depths the lava and the scoria, and pouring them down the sides to whelm the nations? Oh, if I could gather all the broken heart-strings into a harp I would play on it a dirge such as was never sounded.
Mythologists tell us of Gorgon and Centaur and Titan, and geologists tell us of extinct species of monster; but greater than Gorgon or Megatherium, and not belonging to the realm of fable, and not of an extinct species, a monster with iron jaws and a hundred iron hoofs has walked across the nations, and History and Poetry and Sculpture in their attempt to sketch it and describe it have seemed to sweat great drops of blood. But, thank God, there are those who can conquer as this woman of the text conquered, and say, ’93It is well! Though my property be gone, though my children be gone, though my home be broken up, though my health be sacrificed, it is well, it is well!’94 There is no storm on the sea, but Christ is ready to rise in the hinder part of the ship and hush it. There is no darkness, but the constellations of God’92s eternal love can illumine it, and though the winter comes out of the northern sky, you have sometimes seen that northern sky all ablaze with auroras which seem to say: ’93Come up this way; up this way are thrones of light and seas of sapphire and the splendor of an eternal heaven. Come this way.’94
We may, like the ships, by tempest be tossed
On perilous deeps, but cannot be lost;
Though Satan enrages the wind and the tide
The promise assures us, the Lord will provide.
I heard an echo of my text in a very dark hour when my father lay dying and the old country minister said to him: ’93Mr. Talmage, how do you feel now as you are about to pass the Jordan of death?’94 He replied’97and it was the last thing he ever said’97’94I feel well; I feel very well; all is well’94’97lifting his hand in a benediction, a speechless benediction which I pray God may go down through all the generations. ’93It is well!’94 Of course, it is well.
Again, this woman of my text was great in her application to domestic duties. Every picture is a home picture, whether she is entertaining an Elisha or whether she is giving careful attention to her sick boy or whether she is appealing for the restoration of her property’97every picture in her case is a home picture. Those are not disciples of this Shunammite woman, who, going out to attend to outside charities, neglect the duty at home’97the duty of wife, of mother, of daughter. No faithfulness in public benefaction can ever atone for domestic negligence. There has been many a mother who by indefatigable toil has reared a large family of children, equipping them for the duties of life with good manners and large intelligence and Christian principle, starting them out, who has done more for the world than many another woman whose name has sounded through wide communities.
I remember when Kossuth was in this country there were some ladies who got reputation, honorable reputation, by presenting him very gracefully with bouquets of flowers on public occasions; but what was all that compared with the work of the plain Hungarian mother who gave to truth and civilization and the cause of universal liberty a Kossuth? Yes, this woman of my text was great in her simplicity. When this prophet wanted to reward her for her hospitality by asking some preferment from the king, what did she say? She declined it. She said: ’93I dwell among my own people,’94 as much as to say: ’93I am satisfied with my lot; all I want is my family and my friends around me. I dwell among my own people.’94 What a rebuke to the strife for precedence in all ages.
How many there are who want to get great architecture, and homes furnished with all art, all painting, all statuary, who have not enough taste to distinguish between Gothic and Byzantine, and who could not tell a figure in plaster of Paris from Palmer’92s ’93White Captive,’94 and would not know a boy’92s penciling from Bierstadt’92s ’93Yosemite.’94 Men who buy large libraries by the square foot, buying these libraries when they have hardly enough education to pick out the day of the month in the almanac! How many there are striving to have things as well as their neighbors, or better than their neighbors, and in the struggle vast fortunes are expended and business firms thrown into bankruptcy, and men of reputed honesty rush into astounding forgeries. Of course, I say nothing against refinement or culture. Splendor of abode, sumptuousness of diet, lavishness in art, neatness in apparel’97there is nothing against them in the Bible. God does not want us to prefer mud hovel to English cottage or untanned skeepskin to French broadcloth or husks to pineapple or the clumsiness of a boor to the manners of a gentleman. God, who strung the beach with tinted shell and the grass of the field with the dews of the night, and hath exquisitely tinged morning cloud and robin redbreast, wants us to keep our eye open to all beautiful sights and our ear open to all beautiful cadences and our heart open to all elevating sentiments. But what I want to impress upon you, my hearers, is that you ought not to inventory the luxuries of life among the indispensables, and you ought not to deprecate this woman of the text, who, when offered kingly preferment, responded, ’93I dwell among my own people.’94
Yea, this woman of the text was great in her piety. Just read the chapter after you go home. Faith in God, and she was not ashamed to talk about it before idolaters. Ah, woman will never appreciate what she owes to Christianity until she knows and sees the degradation of her sex under Paganism and Mahommedanism. Her very birth considered a misfortune. Sold like cattle on the shambles. Above the shriek of the fire worshipers in India and above the rumbling of the juggernauts of other days, I hear the million-voiced groan of wronged, insulted, brokenhearted, downtrodden woman. Her tears have fallen in the Nile and Tigris and the La Plata and on the steppes of Tartary. She has been dishonored in Turkish garden and Persian palace and Spanish Alhambra. Her little ones have been sacrificed in the Indus and the Ganges. There is not a groan or a dungeon or an island or a mountain or a river or a lake or a sea but could tell a story of the outrages heaped upon her.
But, thanks to God, this glorious Christianity comes forth, and all the chains of this vassalage are snapped, and she rises up from ignominy to exalted sphere, and becomes the affectionate daughter, the gentle wife, the honored mother, the useful Christian. Oh, if Christianity has done so much for woman, surely woman will become its most ardent advocate and its sublimest exemplification.
When I come to speak of womanly influence, my mind always wanders off to one model’97the aged one, who, twenty-seven years ago, we put away for the resurrection. About eighty-seven years ago, and just before their marriage-day, my father and mother stood up in the old meeting-house at Somerville, New Jersey, and took upon them the vows of the Christian. Through a long life of vicissitude she lived harmlessly and usefully, and came to her end in peace. No child of want ever came to her door and was turned empty away. No one in sorrow came to her but was comforted. No one asked her the way to be saved, but she pointed him to the Cross. When the angel of life came to a neighbor’92s dwelling, she was there to rejoice at the starting of another immortal spirit. When the angel of death came to a neighbor’92s dwelling, she was there to robe the departed for burial. We had often heard her, when leading family prayers in the absence of my father, say, ’93O Lord, I ask not for my children wealth or honor, but I do ask that they all may be the subjects of thy converting grace.’94 Her eleven children brought into the kingdom of God, she had but one more wish, and that was that she might see her long-absent missionary son, and when the ship from China anchored in New York harbor, and the long-absent one passed over the threshold of his paternal home, she said, ’93Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.’94 The prayer was soon answered.
It was an autumnal day when we gathered from afar, and found only the house from which the soul had fled forever. She looked very natural, the hands very much as when they were employed with kindness for her children. Whatever else we forget, we never forget the look of mother’92s hands. As we stood there by the casket we could not help but say, ’93Doesn’92t she look beautiful?’94 It was a cloudless day when, with heavy hearts, we carried her out to the last restingplace. The withered leaves crumbled under hoof and wheel as we passed, and the sun shone on the Raritan river until it looked like fire. But more calm and beautiful and radiant was the setting sun of that aged pilgrim’92s life. No more toil, no more tears, no more sickness, no more death, dear mother! beautiful mother! ’93Sweet is the slumber beneath the sod while the pure spirit rests with God.’94 I need not go back and show you Zenobia, Semiramis or Isabella, or even the woman of the text, as wonders of womanly excellence or greatness, when this moment I point to your own picture gallery of memory, and show you the one face that you remember so well, and arouse all your holy reminiscences, and start you in new consecration to God, by the pronunciation of that tender, beautiful, glorious word, Mother! Mother!
Autor: T. De Witt Talmage