There are differences immensely important in other respects between men, differences of culture, of talent, of opportunity; differences of outward life : some living respectable, decent, cleanly lives, full of many virtues and many graces ; some, perhaps, having done many a thing that, if it did not bring them within the grip of criminal law, at least sets them outside the decent, respectable classes of society. But, whatever may be the superficial differences, down below there is identity ; and beneath all varieties of garb and vesture, and all diversities of culture, intelligence, profession, and all differences of degrees of civilisation and of rank and position, wise man and fool, cultured man and savage, saint and criminal, loftiest and lowliest, all are alike in this, that they have sinned.
IT " Gone Astray ! " Two little words spoken in a moment, but how humbling to man's pride !
There are men of great intellectual grasp and culture. They have swept the heavens with telescopes, and searched them out. They have explored and mastered the secrets of the earth. To them science and art have laid bare their treasures. We admire and honour them. We do well; for their discoveries confer immense benefits upon the human race. But God looks down upon every one of them by nature, and says, " Gone Astray ! " There are men of great wealth. Broad acres own them as lord, their rent-roll is reckoned by hundreds of thousands of pounds. In addition to this, they are philanthropic and kind. It is joy to them to succour the fatherless, and to care for the widow. With open hand they delight to help forward any scheme which pro- mises to lighten the sufferings of their fellow-men. We love these men. We do well to do so. But God looks down upon
^ A. Maclaren.
328 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
every one of them by nature, and says, " Gone Astray ! " There are men of the strictest integrity and the highest morality. All their business transactions are conducted with honour ; and in all their private relationships they are scrupulously upright. Everybody respects and trusts them ; yet God looks down upon them all by nature and says, " Gone Astray ! "
If we scan
The wide or narrow circle of our friends And weigh their worth, we find, alas ! that all, Even in the glance of charity, possess Some spot; and if we haply mark ourselves. We are not perfect ! E'en humanity, Like the spoilt picture of some master-mind, Hath much it may admire, but prominent The fault obtrudes ! And as when Lucifer Poured the dark drop at Eden's foxmtain-head, He poisoned every stream ; e'en so when Eve The cup of disobedience tasted there, She gave to all her children naughtiness.^
(2) The verse says first, "all we"; but immediately after- wards it says also, "every one." Each son and daughter of Adam has strayed far away from the fold of the Good Shepherd, and no one is able to find his own way back again. The wilder- ness of sin is so large that the erring flock gets scattered and separated into innumerable bypaths. Every child of Adam has his own peculiar form of sinfulness. One man hates his brother man ; another has not in his heart the love of God. One man's sins are sins of the flesh ; another man's are sins of the spirit. The besetting sin of one heart is pride — a high flying sin ; while the sin of another is vanity — a creeping thing. Here we find the vice of drunkenness, and there the love of money. The sins of Esau were of a different class from those of his brother Jacob. The faults of John the Apostle were not the same as those of Simon Peter.
If John Bunyan, in The Pilgrims Progress, illustrates admirably this truth that " we have turned every one to his own way." He does so in the very names which he gives to worldly men and false pilgrims. There are " Obstinate and Pliable," " Simple, Sloth, and Presumption," " Formalist and Hypocrisy," " Timorous and Mistrust," " Talkative," " Ignorance," " Vain-Confidence," and many
' Ebenezer Palmer.
ISAIAH 329
others. Some are guilty of " secret faults," and others of " pre- sumptuous sins." The sins of one are black, those of a second are scarlet, and those of a third are red like crimson. Each turns to " his own way." ^
If You have heard Handel's " Messiah." I never realised how beautiful this figure was until I heard the music of this particular part, " All we like sheep have gone astray." If you listen to the music you see the sheep beginning to go astray, and then as the notes are sung out you see one go this way and another that way, and another yonder way. Even in wandering they do not keep together, and that marvellous musician has expressed it in music — one note seems to show which way this sheep goes, and another that sheep, and another that. There is a process of scattering vividly depicted in the whole music.^
2. Like sheep.
1. Spurgeon has well said that the sheep is a creature ex- ceedingly quick-witted upon the one matter of going astray. If there be but one gap in the hedge, the sheep will find it out. If there be but one possibility out of five hundred that by any means the flock shall wander, one of the flock will be certain to discover that possibility, and all its companions will avail them- selves of it. So is it with man. He is quick of understanding for evil things. God made man upright, but he hath sought out many inventions, the inventions being all to destroy his own uprightness, and to do despite to the law of God. But that very creature who is so quick-witted to wander is the least likely of all animals to return. The ox knoweth its owner, and the ass knows its master's crib ; even the swine that will wander by day will return to the trough at night, and the dog will scent out his master over many a league ; but not so the sheep. Sharp as it is to discover opportunities for going astray, it seems to be bereft of all wit or will to come back to the fold. And such is man — wise to do evil, but foolish towards that which is good. With a hundred eyes, like Argus, he searches out opportunities for sinning ; but, like Bartimeus, he is stone blind as to repentance and return to God.