227. Rubies Surpassed

Rubies Surpassed

Pro_8:11 : ’93Wisdom is better than rubies.’94

You have all seen the precious stone commonly called the ruby. It is of deep red color. The Bible makes much of it. It glowed in the first row of the high priest’92s breast plate. Under another name it stood in the wall of heaven. Jeremiah compares the ruddy cheek of the Nazarites to the ruby. Ezekiel points it out in the robes of the king of Tyre. Four times does Solomon use it as a symbol by which to extol wisdom, or religion, always setting its value as better than rubies.

The world does not agree as to how the precious stones were formed. The ancients thought that amber was made of drops of perspiration of the goddess Ge. The thunderstone was supposed to have dropped from a storm-cloud. The emerald was said to have been made of the firefly. The lapis lazuli was thought to have been born of the cry of an Indian giant. And modern mineralogists say that the precious stones were made of gases and liquids. To me the ruby seems like a spark from the anvil of the setting sun.

The home of the genuine ruby is Burmah, and sixty miles from its capital, where lives and reigns the ruler, called, ’93Lord of the Rubies.’94 Under a careful governmental guard are these valuable mines of ruby kept. Rarely has any foreigner visited them. When a ruby of large value was discovered it was brought forth with elaborate ceremony, a procession was formed, and with all bannered pomp, military guard and princely attendants, the gem was brought to the king’92s palace.

Of great value is the ruby, much more so than diamond, as lapidaries and jewelers will tell you. An expert on this subject writes: ’93A ruby of perfect color weighing five carats is worth at the present day ten times as much as a diamond of equal weight.’94 It was a disaster when Charles the Bold lost the ruby he was wearing at the Battle of Grandson. It was a great affluence when Rudolph the Second of Austria inherited a ruby from his sister, the Queen Dowager. It was thought to have had much to do with the victory of Henry the Fifth, as he wore it into the Battle of Agincourt. It is the pride of the Russian court to own the largest ruby of all the world, presented by Gustavus the Third to the Russian Empress. Wondrous ruby! It has electric characteristics, and there are lightnings compressed in its double six-sided prisms. What shall I call it? It is frozen fire! It is petrified blood! In all the world there is only one thing more valuable, and my text makes the comparison: ’93Wisdom is better than rubies.’94

But it is impossible to compare two things together unless there are some points of similarity as well as of difference. I am glad there is nothing lacking here. The ruby is more beautiful in the night and under the lamplight than by day. It is preferred for evening adornment. How the rubies glow, and burn, and flash as the lights lift the darkness! Catherine of Aragon had on her finger a ruby that fairly lanterned the night. Sir John Mandeville, the celebrated traveler of four hundred years ago, said that the Emperor of China had a ruby that made the night as bright as the day. The probability is that Solomon under some of the lamps that illumined his cedar palace by night, noticed the peculiar glow of the ruby as it appeared in the hilt of a sword, or hung in some fold of the upholstery, or beautified the lip of some chalice, while he was thinking at the same time of the excellency of our holy religion as chiefly seen in the night of trouble, and he cries out, ’93Wisdom is better than rubies.’94

Oh, yes, it is a good thing to have religion while the sun of prosperity rides high and everything is brilliant in fortune, in health, in worldly favor. Yet you can at such time hardly tell how much of it is natural exuberance and how much of it is the grace of God. But let the sun set, and the shadows avalanche the plain, and the thick darkness of sickness or poverty or persecution or mental exhaustion fill the soul and fill the house and fill the world; then you sit down by the lamp of God’92s Word and under its light the consolations of the Gospel come out; the peace of God which passeth all understanding appears. You never fully appreciated their power until in the deep night of trouble the Divine Lamp revealed their exquisiteness. Pearls and amethysts for the day, but rubies for the night. Travelers tell us that in the Arctic regions there are nights six months long, but you and I have known people whose night lasted for twelve months, and they needed especial comfort for such prolongation.

All of the books of the Bible attempt in some way the assuagement of misfortune. Of the one hundred and fifty Biblical Psalms at least ninety allude to trouble. There are sighings in every wind and tears in every brook and pangs in every heart. It was originally proposed to call the President’92s residence at Washington ’93The Palace,’94 or ’93The Executive Mansion,’94 but after it was destroyed in the war of 1814 and rebuilt, it was painted white to cover up the marks of the smoke and fire that had blackened the stone walls. Hence it was called ’93The White House.’94 Most of the things now white with attractiveness were once black with disaster. What the world most needs is the consolatory, and here it comes, our holy religion, with both hands full of anodynes and sedatives and balsams, as in Daniel’92s time to stop mouths leonine; as in Shadrach’92s time to cool blast furnaces; as in Ezekiel’92s time to console captivity; as in St. John’92s time to unroll an apocalypse over rocky desolations. Hear its soothing voice as it declares: ’93Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning;’94 ’93The mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my loving kindness shall not depart from you;’94 ’93Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth;’94 ’93They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them to living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.’94

The most wholesome thing on earth is trouble, if met in Christian spirit. To make Paul what he was it took shipwreck, and whipping on the bare back, and penitentiary, and pursuit of wild mobs, and the sword of decapitation. To make David what he was it took all that Ahithophel and Saul and Absalom and Goliath and all the Philistine hosts could do against him. It took Robert Chambers’92s malformation of feet to make him the literary conqueror. It was bereavement that brought William Haworth of Wesley’92s time from wickedness to an evangelism that won many thousands for heaven. The world would never have known what heroic stuff Ridley was made of had not the fires been kindled around his feet, and, not liking their slow work, he cried, ’93I cannot burn; let the fire come to me; I cannot burn.’94 Thank God that there are gems that unfold their best glories under the lamplight! Thank God for the ruby!

Moreover, I am sure that Solomon was right in saying that religion, or wisdom, is better than rubies, from the fact that a thing is worth what it will fetch. Religion will fetch solid happiness, and the ruby will not. In all your observation did you ever find a person thoroughly felicitated by an encrustment of jewels. As you know more of yourself than any one else, are you happier now with worldly adornments and successes than before you won them? Does the picture that cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars on your wall bring you as much satisfaction as the engraving that at the expense of five dollars was hung upon the wall when you first began to keep house? Do all the cutlery and rare plate that glitter on your extension dining-table, surrounded by flattering guests, contain more of real bliss than the plain ware of your first table, at which sat only two? Does a wardrobe crowded with costly attire give you more satisfaction than your first clothes closet, with its four or five pegs? Did not the plain ring set on the third finger of your left hand on the day of your betrothal give more gladness than the ruby that is now enthroned on the third finger of your right hand? If in this journey of life we have learned anything, we have learned that this world neither with its emoluments nor gains can satisfy the soul.

Why, here come as many witnesses as I wish to call to the stand to testify that before high heaven and the world, in companionship with Jesus Christ and a good hope of heaven, they feel a joy that all the resources of their vocabulary fail to express. Sometimes it evidences itself in ejaculations of hosanna; sometimes in doxology; sometimes in tears. A converted native of India in a letter said: ’93How I long for my bed, not that I may sleep; I lie awake often and long but to hold sweet communion with my God.’94 If so mighty is worldly joy that Julius the Second hearing his armies were triumphant, expired; and if Talva hearing that the Roman Senate had decreed him an honor, expired; and if Dionysius and Sophocles overcome of joy, expired; and if a shipwrecked purser, waiting on the coast of Guinea in want and starvation, at the sight of a vessel bringing relief, fell dead from shock of delight’97is it any surprise to you that the joys of pardon and heaven rolling over the soul should sometimes be almost too much for the Christian to endure and live? An aged aunt said to me, ’93DeWitt, three times I have fainted dead away under too great Christian joy. It was in all three cases at the holy communion.’94 An eminent Christian man while in prayer said, ’93Stop, Lord, I cannot bear any more of this gladness; it is too much for mortal. Withhold! Withhold!’94 We have heard of poor workmen or workwomen getting a letter suddenly telling them that a fortune had been left them, and how they were almost beside themselves with glee, taking the first ship to claim the estate. But, oh, what it is to wake up out of the stupor of a sinful life and through pardoning grace find that all our earthly existence will be divinely managed for our best welfare, and that then all heaven will roll in upon the soul. Compared with that a spring morning is stupid, and an August sunset is inane, and an aurora has no pillared splendor, and a diamond has no flash, and a pearl no light, and a beryl no aquamarine, and a ruby no ruddiness. My gracious Lord! My glorious God! My precious Christ! Roll over on us a few billows of that rapture. And now I ask you as fair-minded men and women, accustomed to make comparisons, is not such a joy as that worth more than anything one can have in a jeweled casket? Was not Solomon right when he said, ’93Wisdom is better than rubies?’94

There is also something in the deep carmine of the ruby that suggests the sacrifice on which our whole system of religion depends. While the emerald suggests the meadows, and the sapphire the skies, and the opal the sea, the ruby suggests the blood of sacrifice. The most emphatic and startling of all colors hath the ruby. Solomon, the author of my text, knew all about the sacrifice of lamb and dove on the altars of the temple, and he knew the meaning of sacrificial blood, and what other precious stone could he so well use to symbolize it as the ruby? Red, intensely red, red as the blood of the greatest martyr of all time’97Jesus of the centuries! Drive the story of the crucifixion out of the Bible and the doctrine of the atonement out of our religion, and there would be nothing of Christianity left for our worship or our admiration. Why should it be hard to adopt the Bible theory that our redemption was purchased by blood? What great bridge ever sprung its arches; what temple ever reared its towers; what nation ever achieved its independence; what mighty good was ever done without sacrifice of life? The great wonder of the world, the bridge that unites Brooklyn and New York, cost the life of the first architect. Ask the shipyards of Glasgow and New York how many carpenters went down under accidents before the steamer was launched; ask the three great transcontinental railroads how many in their construction were buried under crumbling embankments, or crushed under timbers, or destroyed by the powder-blast. Tabulate the statistics of how many mothers have been martyrs to the cradle of sick children. Tell us how many men sacrificed nerve and muscle and brain and life in the effort to support their households. Tell me how many men in England, in France, in Germany, in Italy, in the United States have died for their country. Vicarious suffering is as old as the world, but the most thrilling, the most startling, the most stupendous sacrifice of all time and eternity was on a bluff back of Jerusalem, when one Being took upon himself the sins, the agonies, the perdition of a great multitude that no man can number, between twelve o’92clock of a darkened noon and three o’92clock in the afternoon, purchasing the ransom of a ruined world. Dive in all the seas; explore all the mines; crowbar all the mountains, view all the crowned jewels of all the emperors, and find me any gem that can so overwhelmingly symbolize that martyrdom as the ruby.

Mark you, there are many gems that are somewhat like the ruby. So is the cornelian; so is the garnet; so is the spinel; so is the balas; so are the gems brought from among the gravels of Ceylon and New South Wales; but there is only one genuine ruby, and that comes from the mines of Burmah. And there is only one Christ, and he comes from heaven. One Redeemer, one Ransom, one Son of God; only ’93one Name given under heaven among men by which we can be saved.’94 Ten thousand times ten thousand beautiful imitations of that ruby, but only one ruby. Christ had no descendant. Christ had no counterpart. In the lifted-up grandeur and glory and love and sympathy of his character he is the Incomparable, the Infinite One! ’93The Only Wise God, our Saviour.’94 Let all hearts, all homes, all times, all eternities bow low before him! Let his banner be lifted in all our souls.

In olden times, Scotland was disturbed by freebooters and pirates. To rid the seas and ports of these desperadoes, the hero, William Wallace, fitted out a merchant vessel, but filled it with armed men, and put out to sea. The pirates with their flag inscribed of a death’92s-head, thinking they would get an easy prize, bore down upon the Scottish merchantman, when the armed men of Wallace boarded the craft of the pirates and put them in chains, and then sailed for port under the Scotch flag flying. And so our souls assailed of sin and death and hell through Christ are rescued, and the black flag of sin is torn down and the striped flag of the Cross is hoisted. Blessed be God for any sign, for any signal, for any precious stone that brings to mind the price paid for such a rescue!

I like the coral, for it seems the solidified foam of breakers; and I like the jasper, for it gathers seventeen colors into its bosom; and I like the jet, for it compresses the shadows of many midnights; and I like the chrysolite, for its waves of color which seem on fire. But this morning nothing so impresses me as the ruby, for it depicts, it typifies, it suggests, ’93the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanseth from all sin;’94 ’93Without the shedding of blood there is no remission.’94 Yea, Solomon was right when he said, ’93Wisdom is better than rubies.’94

To bring out a contrast that will illustrate my text, I put before you two last earthly scenes. The one is in a room with rubies, but no religion; and the other in a room with religion, but no rubies. You enter the first room, when an affluent and worldly man is about to quit this life. There is a ruby on the mantel, possibly among the vases. There is a ruby in the headdress of the queenly wife. On the finger of the dying man there is a ruby. The presence of these rubies implies opulence of all kinds. The pictures on the walls are heirlooms, or the trophies of European travel. The curtains are from foreign looms. The rugs are from Damascus or Cairo. The rocking-chairs roll backward and forward on lullabies. The pillows are exquisitely embroidered. All the appointments of the room are a peroration to a successful commercial or professional life. But the man has no religion; never has had, and never professed to have. There is not a Bible or one religious book in the room. The departing man feels that his earthly career is ended, and nothing opens beyond. Where he will land stepping off from this life is a mystery, or whether he will land at all, for it may be annihilation. He has no prayer to offer, and he does not know how to pray. No hope of meeting again in another state of existence. He is through with this life, and is sure of no other. The ruby on the mantel and the ruby on the wasted finger of the departing one say nothing of the ransoming blood which they so mightily typify. Midnight of utter hopelessness drops on all the scene.

Another room of mortal exit. Religion and no rubies. She never had money enough to buy one of these exquisites. Sometimes she stopped at a jeweler’92s show-window and saw a row of them incarnadining the velvet. She had keen taste enough to appreciate those gems, but she never owned one of them. She was not jealous or unhappy because others had rubies while she had none. But she had a richer treasure, and that was the grace of God that had comforted her along the way amid bereavements and temptations and persecutions and sicknesses and privations and trials of all sorts. Now she is going out of life. The room is bright, not with pictures or statues, not with upholstery, not with any of the gems of mountain or of sea, but there is a strange and vivid glow in the room; not the light of chandelier or star or noonday sun, but something that outshines all of them. It must be the presence of supernaturals. From the appearance of her illumined face I think she must hear sweet voices. Yea, she does hear sweet voices’97voices of departed kindred; voices apostolic and prophetic, and evangelic, but all of them overpowered by the voice of Christ, saying, ’93Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom.’94 From her illumined face, I think she does hear rapturous music, now soft as solos, now thunderous as orchestras; now a saintly voice alone, now the hundred and forty and four thousand in concert. From her illumined face, I think she must breathe redolence. Yea, she does inhale aroma from off the gardens whose flowers never wither, and from the blossoms of orchards, every tree of which bears twelve manner of fruits. From her illumined face, I think she must see a glorious sight. Yes, she sees the wall that has jasper at the base, and amethyst at the top, and blood-red rubies between. Good-bye, sweet soul! Why should you longer stay! Your work all done; your burdens all carried; your tears all wept! Forward into the light! Up into the joy! Out into the grandeur. And after you have saluted Christ and your kindred search out him of the palaces of Lebanon cedar, and tell him that you have found to be gloriously true what thousands of years ago he asserted in this morning’92s text: ’93Wisdom is better than rubies.’94 In those burnished palaces of our God may we all meet. For I confess to you that my chief desire for heaven is not the radiance, or to take the suggestion of the text, not the rubescence of the scene. My one idea of heaven is the place to meet old friends, God our best Friend, and our earthly friends already transported. Ay! to meet the millions whom I have never seen, but to whom I have administered in the Gospel week by week through journalism on both sides of the sea, and throughout Christendom, and through many lands yet semi-barbaric. A gentleman tapped me on the shoulder summer before last on a street of Edinburgh, Scotland, and said, ’93I live in the Shetland Islands, North Scotland, and I read your sermons every Sabbath to an audience of neighbors, and my brother lives in Cape Town, South Africa, and he reads them every Sabbath to an audience of his neighbors.’94 And I here and now say to the forty millions of the earth to whose eyes these words will come, that one of my dearest anticipations is to meet them in heaven. Ah! that will be better than rubies. Coming up from different continents, from different hemispheres, from opposite sides of the earth to greet each other in holy love in the presence of the glorious Christ who made it possible for us to get there. Our sins all pardoned, our sorrows all banished, never to weep, never to part, never to die! I tell you that will be better than rubies. Others may have the crowns and the thrones and the sceptres; give us our old friends back again, Christ, ’93the friend who sticketh closer than a brother,’94 and all the kindred who have gone up from our bereft households, and all our friends whom we have never yet seen, and you may have all the rubies, for that will be ’93better than rubies.’94 Instead of the dying kiss when they looked so pale and wan and sick, it will be the kiss of welcome on lips jubilant with song; while standing on floors paved with what exquisiteness, under ceilings hung with what glory, bounded by walls facing us with what splendor, amid gladness rolling over us with what Doxology. Far better, infinitely better, everlastingly better than rubies.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage