Self is the flint and steel, and the idol is the spark;
The spark indeed may be quenched by water,
But how shall water quench the flint and steel ? ^
Take, for instance, temper. That is a common sin enough. There are thousands of households wrecked by the ungovernable irritability of an individual. He cannot restrain his tongue. The slightest provocation produces an explosion. Then follows a torrent of bitter, biting, sarcastic words, which fill the air like a cloud of poisoned arrows, and rankle in the wounded heart long after the careless archer has gone upon his way and for- gotten them. We may explain the phenomenon by euphemistic talk about a hasty nature, or the irritability of genius, or what we will ; but the real root of it lies in the unregenerate selfishness of the man's nature. Because passionate sarcasm is a momentary relief to his nervous irritation, he indulges in it. The essence of unselfishness is to realize what another feels, to interpret his needs, to share his thoughts by the revealing power of sympathy, to be able instinctively to understand what will woimd or grieve, and to exercise a severe self-repression in order to avoid it. But the angry man has no such realization of the nature of others, and cannot understand the havoc which his hasty words produce.
^ Caroline Emelia Stephen. ' Jalaluddin Rnmi.
3i6 THOU ART THE MAN
^ One of Bishop Moberly's daughters is said to have had the rare gift of a charm which was indefinable, and this "in spite of great fits of wrath, considered by herself to be merely 'righteous indignation,' which upset the house from time to time."i
11 January 18th. You will be surprised, knowing my old bad ways, to hear that I have not once, to the best of my memory, since February, been out of temper with the servants in my old fashion. Perhaps one reason of this is, that I am more indifferent about things now than I used to be when your comfort depended upon them, but still, I think that through God's grace I have, in measure, overcome that sin and habit of impatience which has always been such a cross to me.^
2. That is one lesson to learn from David's sin. Another is what may be called the accumulative way with sin. David looked, and the look was sin. And that one sin opened the way for many. To lust he added craft, to craft treason, to treason murder.
3. And a third lesson is the need of watchfulness. " Be sober, be vigilant." " Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world." If the Lord gives us to drink the cup of earthly success, earthly ease, wealth, position, power — if He gives it — let us not be afraid to take it. But let us "drink it always upon our knees, and always in His presence. Then it may mean for us the gift of a noble opportunity for Him. Otherwise we may find, in some easy, dreadful hour, that all our fancied moral strength is as dust in the wind before the blast of temptation, and that position, culture, intellect — nay, past spiritual experience itself — may only precipitate the un watchful spirit's fall into "the quag on the left hand."
0 soul! however sweet
The goal to which I hasten with swift feet — • If just within my grasp,
1 reach, and joy to clasp.
And find there one whose body I must make
A footstool for that sake. Though ever and for evermore denied,
Grant me to turn aside !
^ C. A. E. Moberly, Dulce Domum, 160.
" Sir John Field, Jottings from an Indian Journal, 104.
2 SAMUEL XII. 7 317
0 howsoever dear The love I long for, seek, and find anear —
So near, so dear, the bliss
Sweetest of all that is. If I must win by treachery or art,
Or wrong one other heart. Though it should bring me death, my soul, that day
Grant me to turn away !
That in the life so far And yet so near, I be without a scar Of wounds dealt others ; greet with lifted eyes
The p\ire of Paradise !
So I may never know The agony of tears I caused to flow ! ^
11.
Self-Deception.
1. The thing that strikes us most forcibly as we read Nathan's parable is the blindness and infatuation of the king to have missed the application of it. It seems an almost impossible state of self-deception which could let him flare out in indignant virtue against the supposed culprit, and never once dream that the case could apply to himself. Strange as the contradiction seems, it is common enough. When our passions and prejudices are not concerned, we can judge dispassionately; but in a case in which we are personally involved, we make the worse appear the better reason. We find means to justify it to ourselves in some fashion, and soothe our conscience to sleep. Till we come to the bar naked, without veils and excuses and palliations, as David was tricked into doing, we never do justice against ourselves.
^ It is really prodigious to see a man, before so remarkable for virtue and piety, going on deliberately from adultery to murder, with the same cool contrivance, and, from what appears, with as little disturbance, as a man would endeavour to prevent the ill consequences of a mistake he had made in any common matter. That total insensibility of mind with respect to those horrid crimes, after the commission of them, manifestly shows