injury because his morality does not include judgment of knowledge as well as sentiment. He relies on his good intention and does not trouble to consider consequences. We often let him off lightly because he is such a good fellow, means so well and apologizes so profusely when he has failed. But he needs the stern reminder that he is responsible for finding out the likely consequences of his actions. The utilitarian school of ethics has done us great service in calling attention to the fact that the results of actions are as liable to moral judgment as the motives are. That will become clearer as we apply the principle to some modern situations.
Let me put in here the illustration that made the sermon. Mr. Thomas Holmes, Police Court missionary, in his Pictures and Problems from London Police Courts, tells the story.6 The lady had no ill intent. Indeed, Mr. Holmes says, “doubtless it was kindly meant.” We should not do anything like that, but consider some of the ways in which we are guilty.
Inclinations and obligations begin with a very simple thing, for it is in the simple things we oftenest fail. There is a letter to write, and engagement to keep, some work to be done. But we simply don’t feel inclined to fulfill our obligation. Suppose the engagement is to take our Sunday School class. Our neglect means the disorder of the school and maybe some scholar saying, “Well, teacher doesn’t care, why should I?” If that scholar is lost to the school, and lost to the kingdom, can the teacher elude responsibility?
Take another small, but not unimportant, matter: careless chatter. Our tongues are small members but they can light hell’s fires. Yet how careless we are in utterances we have not verified. In some of our practical jokes we only mean to amuse ourselves but often we are playing with fire. The care of the gossips and slanderers is more serious. He means no harm, only likes to be thought of as “in the know,” but he soils the fair name of another. There may be no willful malignity, but there is moral inattention. He who kindles the fire, must bear the blame. But we must go further and deeper and discuss—
LIGHTING FIRES WHICH CONSUME SOULS
We talk about the folly of playing with fire, but who lights the fires? Into your shop or office comes an innocent youth or maiden. They blush at some of the things they hear, but get accustomed to them if their purity is stained and their souls scorched with evil, who is to blame? And what of those who by their criticism, or by their inconsistencies, destroy the faith of another or lead him away from his church allegiance? Take the following as an authentic case. It is taken not from a temperance speech, but from an article in a daily paper.
A young man from over in one of the colonies was present at an English house party. He was asked to have a drink, he declined. But his host persisted and the young man yielded. That young colonial was just struggling back to sobriety and that one glass rekindled the old fire. Can you exonerate his host? Is it going too far to speak of the crimes of the careless? Is it a sufficient excuse to say that we meant no harm?
THE BIBLE HOLDS THE INCENDIARY RESPONSIBLE
We have to answer for our well-meaning but careless actions. In the old Law, the man who started the fire had to make reparation and pay for the damage done. You can do that when you are dealing with fields and corn stacks. You cannot when you are dealing with life and character. If a fire breaks out at my house, the insurance company can make good some of the damage, but some things can never be replaced. If a man’s reputation has been destroyed, if he has been robbed of his faith, if fires of passion have been started in his soul, what reparation can be made? What compensation is sufficient? I will not say there is no forgiveness. I believe there is forgiveness for every sin repented of. But you will find it hard to forgive yourself. “O God,” prayed a young man, “bury my influence with me.”
AN INADMISSIBLE PLEA
It is not enough to plead that it is our nature to be careless. Nature is but the raw material out of which character is shaped. It is useless to say that you can’t help being careless. You can and you must. To help you in your need the way of prayer is open. Go to the one you have wronged and make such reparations as are feasible. Go to God and seek His forgiveness. Claim the grace that pardons and purifies. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature. Instead of lighting the fires that destroy, you may, by the grace of God, kindle faith, hope, and love in the hearts of your fellows.
6. This book was published by Edward Arnold in about 1908.
“THE CHRISTMAS FAITH AND THE CHRISTMAS FEAST”—Exodus 24.11
(Preached once at Fentiman Road, Christmas 1936)
Exodus 24.11 “And they saw God, and did eat and drink.”
That strikes us as odd and incongruous. We expected to be told more of those who “beheld their God.” Instead, we are told that they set down to a feast. The two clauses of the text seem to clash. It would sound better if we read, “They saw God, and did fear, and tremble, and worship.” But what is written is written for our learning.
We need to remember that there was, and there is, a widespread belief that a vision of God was a harbinger of death. The seventy elders who with Moses ascended Mount Sinai, the mount of blackness and darkness, were terror stricken. They feared they would die. But “upon the nobles of the Children of Israel Jehovah laid not His hands.” God did not smite them. They did not die, they lived. The anticipation of the revelation filled them with dread, the realization made them rejoice. They saw God, and did eat and drink.
SERMONS AND SANDWICHES
Ought we to be nurtured at the interpretation of these two clauses? The faith and the feast stand close together in our own religious life. One of our most prolific evangelists (FWB, in The Luggage of Life) took part in a church anniversary.7 He tells that on the Sunday there were “special sermons, solemn praise, and stately anthems.” On the Monday, there were “sandwiches, cream puffs, and jam tarts.” And he raises the question, what is the philosophical connection between the sermons of yesterday and the sandwiches of today? What relation exists between singing and scones? What fellowship hath religion with revelry? There’s a pretty problem for you. You think it strange when you read the text and yet you do the same thing.
THE CHRISTMAS FAITH AND THE CHRISTMAS FEAST
Never do religion and revelry go together more than at the present season. Indeed, the text, as well as any I know, sums up a modern Christmas. “They saw God”—“veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the Incarnate Deity!”8 That is the Christmas vision of faith. You look onto the face of the Babe of Bethlehem and “behold your God.” Then away you go to the feasting and revelry, the good cheer and the good fellowship. You are called to “awake and salute the happy morn.” You pay your tribute to the Savior of the world who is come, and then you turn to the turkey and the plum pudding in the home decked with holly and mistletoe. The faith and the feast, the doctrine and the dinner, the carol and the carnival, stand side by side.
THERE IS NO CONDEMNATION
No word of condemnation was passed on these elders. And if a negative commendation in an obscure language is not sufficient, let us make a more general survey. What were the seasons of spiritual enlightenment and elevation among the Jews? Pentecost—Tabernacles—Passover—Dedication. Solemn, heart-rending, soul-stirring seasons these were. And they were called “feasts,” and were, in fact, occasions of family reunions of domestic and natural rejoicing.
Turn to the New Testament, to the life of the Master. There is a tradition that, though our Lord wept often, He was never seen to smile. I do not believe it. The Savior who watched children playing in the marketplace and took babies in his arms must often have smiled. The Man of Sorrows was unsurpassed with the mirth of gladness among his fellows. He wrought the first miracle and magnified His glory at a marriage feast. He went out to dine with