Though the mills of God grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small.
They ground Meroz to powder so small that nothing remains to mark the spot whereon it stood.
^ The curse meant something like that pronounced by Joshua upon the man who should rebuild Jericho — that he should lose all his children between the laying of the foundation and the setting- up of the gates. In one respect at least Deborah's malediction has not failed of its effect ; her song has made the very name of this township a byword for ever. Meroz, for the Jewish people and for all students of the Bible, is a word that can never be mentioned without calling up associations of ignoble and cowardly inactivity. Yet the real curse of Meroz is far deeper ; it consists
1 W. LI. WiUiams.
JUDGES V. 23 191
in the deterioration of character that comes to the man who ignores duty ; it consists in the pitiable retrospect of a life that ought to have been filled with goodness, but has presented to God and man " nothing but leaves " ; it consists in the self-condemna- tion and self-contempt which come in the hour when a man is forced to face his own soul and to know what he is ! ^
Men think it is an awful sight
To see a soul just set adrift On that drear voyage from whose night
The ominous shadows never lift; But 'tis more awful to behold
A helpless infant newly born, "Whose little hands unconscious hold
The keys of darkness and of morn.
Mine held them once; I flung away
Those keys that might have open set The golden sluices of the day,
But clutch the keys of darkness yet; I hear the reapers singing go
Into God's harvest: I, that might With them have chosen, here below
Grope shuddering at the gates of night.
0 glorious Youth, that once wast mine !
0 high Ideal ! all in vain Ye enter at this ruined shrine
Whence worship ne'er shall rise again; The bat and owl inhabit here.
The snake nests in the altar-stone, The sacred vessels moulder near.
The image of the God is gone.^
3. The curse of Meroz is the curse of uselessness; and the sources out of which it comes have already been named — cowardice and false humility and indolence. They are the stones piled upon the sepulchres of vigour and energy and work for God, whose crushing weight cannot be computed. Who shall roll away those stones ? Nothing can do it but the power of Christ. The man- hood that is touched by Him rises into life. When a man has understood the life and cross of Jesus, and really knows that he is redeemed and saved, his soul leaps up in love and wants to serve
1 J. H. Rushbrooke. « Lowell.
192 THE SIN OF MEROZ
its Saviour ; and then he is afraid of nobody ; and however little his own strength may be, he wants to give it all ; and the cords of his self-indulgence snap like cobwebs. Then he enters the new life of usefulness. And what a change it is ! To be working with God, however humbly ; to have part in that service which suns and stars, which angels and archangels, which strong and patient and holy men and women in all times have done ; to be, in some small corner of the field, stout and brave and at last triumphant in our fight with lust and cruelty and falsehood, with want or woe or ignorance, with unbelief and scorn, with any of the enemies of God ; to be distinctly on God's side, though the weight of the work we do may be utterly inappreciable, — what a change it is when a poor, selfish, cowardly, fastidious, idle, human creature comes to this ! Blessed is he that cometh to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. There is no curse for him. No wounds that he may receive while he is fighting on that side can harm him. To fight there is itself to conquer, even though the victory comes through pain and death, as it came to Him under whom we fight, the Captain of our Salvation, Jesus Christ.
Unconscious Loss.
DEUT.-ESTH. — 1 3
Literature.
Back (W. J.), in A Book of Lay Sermons, 247.
Campbell (R. J.), Sermons addressed to Individuals, 73.
Forbes (J. T.), God's Measure, 107.
Jenkinson (A.), A Modern Disciple, 137.
Maclaren (A.), The God of the Amen, 259.
Spurgeon (C. H.), New Park Street Puljnt, iv. (1858), No. 224.
Taylor (W. M.), The Limitations of Life, 219.
Vauglian (C. J.), Temple Sermons, 437.
Wilson (S. L.), Helpful Words for Daily Life, 302.
Worthington-Atkin (J.), The Paraklete, 33.
Christian World Pulpit, i. 299 (Carpenter) ; Ivii. 203 (Durran) ;
Ixv. 266 (Dawson) ; Ixx. 35 (Morrow) ; Ixxvi. 196 (Davis) ;
Ixxvii. 180 (MofFatt). Church of England Pulpit, lix. 38 (Hitchcock). Church Pulpit Year Book, vii. (1910) 194. Kesxoick Week, 1899, 37 (Thomas).
«94
/
Unconscious Loss
And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times, and shake myself. But he wist not that the Lord was departed from him. — Judg. xvi. 20.