Then come to the dear Bedeemer, He'll cleanse you from every stain;
By His wonderful love and mercy You shall surely rise again.1
3. When the clay has received its final shape from the potter's hands, it must be baked in the kiln, to keep it; and even then its discipline is not complete, for whatever colours are laid on must be rendered permanent by fire. It is said that what is to become gold in the finished article is a smudge of dark liquid before the fire is applied ; and that the first two or three applications of heat obliterate all trace of colour, which has to be again and again renewed. So in God's dealings with His people. The moulding Hand has no sooner finished its work than it plunges the clay into the fiery trial of pain or temptation. But let patience have her perfect work. Be still and know that He is God. Thou shalt be compensated when the Master counts thee fair and meet for His use.
Tf Canon Wilberforce told me that he had his likeness painted by the great artist Herkomer, who told him the following story : Herkomer was born in the Black Forest, his father a simple wood- chopper. When the artist rose to name and fame in London, and built his studio at Bushey, his first thought was to have the old man come and spend the rest of his years with him. He came, and was very fond of moulding clay. All day he made things out 1 R. S. MacArthur, Quick Truths in Quaint Texts, ii. 215.
JEREMIAH xviii. 4 91
of clay, but as the years passed he thought his hand would lose its cunning. He often went upstairs at night to his room with the sad heart of an old man who thinks his best days are gone by. Herkomer's quick eye of love detected this, and when his father was safe asleep his gifted son would come downstairs and take in hand the pieces of clay which his old father had left, with the evidences of defect and failure; and with his own wonderful touch he would make them as fair as they could be made by human hand. When the old man came down in the morning, and took up the work he had left all spoiled the night before, and held it up before the light, he would say, rubbing his hands : " I can do it as well as ever I did." Is not that just what God Almighty is going to do with you ? You are bearing the marks of failure just because you have been resisting Him and fighting Him. But, ah ! my Lord comes with those pierced hands, and says : " Will you not yield to Me ? Only yield, and I will make you again." l
4. There is a point when discipline ends, and God takes a man as he is, not for probation but for judgment. When, or where, that point is reached we dare not say of others, seeing we scarcely know it of ourselves. But always we must keep it in view as a dread possibility which may be nearer to us than we think. Now, if under any circumstances it is conceivable that final failure should be the result — what then of the Divine sovereignty ? Perhaps we are too sensitive in this connexion. God is great enough to fail. He has failed in the past; He is failing every day. He cannot escape the risk of failure so long as He has to deal with free intelligences in a state of probation. No passage in Scripture is so pathetic as that which records our Lord's final departure from the Temple courts. How often had He come there, as boy and man, to worship and to work. How often had He looked into the wistful faces of the men and women that thronged past Him, and thought of the weary hearts that lay behind, and would have gathered them, but they would not. Now, His work is done ; He will go His way and leave them to themselves. Slowly the sun sets; the evening lights linger on the Temple towers ; the solemn hush of twilight falls over the busy city, as He moves away into the deepening gloom, into the shadow of the cross. "I would, and ye would not." It was 1 F. B. Meyer, The Soul's Ascent, 29.
92 THE MARRED VESSEL
the greatest failure in history ; but we know what came of it. For it was Love that failed ; and Love's failures are Life's triumphs.
^f He who staggers striving after the ideal life, even though he fail, is not himself utterly lost to good and God ; that striving spirit is still an asset in the All- wise Eye. " It's of no use," say some after their early failures ; " I must dree my ain weird and play out the game as it has begun." But it is of use. Many a man of good standing to-day was braced by his failures when outward-bound ; many a man successfully " pulled himself together," and, like Jacob the errant, became, after his sifting discipline, a prince and power. Avert your ear from the demon- critic who would nip your better mind, and bind yourself by all the domestic and religious ties available to the things that save and make a man. Believe greatly, and life and God will answer to your faith and hope. Accept and openly wear the ring of discipleship that wards off temptation and keeps you safely heart- bound.1