H As Prebendary Carlile was going into the Church Army Head- quarters he saw six strong, rough-looking men gazing at tho building. He said, " What department are you going into ? " It was evident that the men did not like to say. So he said, " Where do you come from ? " They hesitated still more. Then one of them said, " From Pentonville." Six bruised reeds ! The State, with a machinery magnificently worked by devoted people, cannot help these reeds. Many of them start by breaking into a baker's shop for a loaf of bread. The unemployed are not all frauds. Listen to what the head of the Church Ai-my tells us : " I knelt beside a man in my own Chui'ch, at the communion-rail, a few Sundays ago. The man was a bruised reed. We prayed together as two poor sinners, and I turned to him after hearing his very fluent cries and said, " Don't go on like this. You only want to get a night's lodging out of me, don't you ? " He said, " I don't want a night's lodging. I wouldn't take it if you offered it me." I said, " Why do you come to-night and join with me at the altar ? " He said, " Last week my friend and I walked for three nights, and we tried for three days to get some one to give us some work. And it affected my friend so badly that he hung himself.
^ A. Smellie, In the Hour of Silence, p. 92.
ISAIAH 269
I thought perhaps I should have to hang myself next week, so I have come here to try to get right with God before I do it." ^
Whoso hath anguish is not dead in sin,
Whoso hath pangs of utterless desire.
Like as in smouldering flax which harbours fire, — Eed heat of conflagration may begin, Melt that hard heart, burn out the dross within,
Permeate with glory the new man entire,
Crown him with fire, mould for his hands a lyre Of fiery strings to sound with those who win. Anguish is anguish, yet potential bliss,
Pangs of desire are birth-throes of delight ;
Those citizens felt such who walk in white, And meet, but no more sunder, with a kiss ; Who fathom still-unfathomed mysteries.
And love, adore, rejoice, with all their might.-
IIL
His Gentleness with the dimly burning Lamp.
I. If we take the bruised reed as representing the last ravages of suffering and sin, we may take the smoking lamp as representing the first faint signs of goodness. Then this second metaphor will have as wide a sweep as the former. There is something in all men, something in their nature which corresponds to this dim flame that needs to be fostered in order to blaze brightly abroad. There is no man out of hell, says Maclaren, but has in him something that only needs to be brought to sovereign power in his life in order to make him a light in the world. You have consciences at the least ; you have convictions, you know you have, which, if you followed them out, would make Christians of you straight away. You have aspirations after good, desires, some of you, after purity and nobleness of living, which only need to be raised to the height and the dom- inance in your lives which they ought to possess, in order to revolutionise your whole course. There is a spark in every man which, fanned and cared for, will change him from darkness into light.
^ The Church Pulpit Year Book, 1910, p. 3. ' Christina G. Rossetti.
270 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
2. But the metaphor may be applied in a narrower way. It may be applied to those who have something of the Divine life in them, although it may be but a little spark. Our best example is the first disciples of our Lord and the way in which He dealt with them. Wherever there were the first faint stirrings of faith or love, He cherished and sheltered them with tender care. In His teaching He led them on little by little, line upon line, drawing them first to familiar converse with Himself; not upbraiding their slowness ; not severely rebuking their faults. When James and John would have brought fire from heaven. He said only, " Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." To Philip, when he blindly asked to see the Father, " Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip ? " And when He detected their ambitious contests which should be the greatest, " being in the house He asked them, What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way ? " Even at the last supper He said, " I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now " ; and to St. Thomas, after his vehement unbelief, " Keach hither thy finger, and behold My hands ; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side ; and be not faithless, but believing." And to St. Peter, in chastisement for his three open denials, He said thrice, as in a doubting, melancholy tenderness, " Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me?"