2. Our real salvation, the things which refresh and put heart iuto us, are the simplicities of the gospel — the cup of cold water.
1 J. H. Jowett, in TJic Examiner, April 27, 1905.
ST. MATTHEW x. 42 24T
Charles Kingsley was a scientist, but he was a poet also in every fibre of his soul ; and it is only a scientist who is a poet that can expound his own science. Charles Kingsley showed how the great volcanoes have been God's most glorious workers. Every harvest in the fruitful plains of Europe is due to the beneficent work of the volcanoes ages ago ; every grain of the rich soil was melted out of the solid granite. It is a romantic story, a perfect fairy tale, an enchantment, if you know how to read it, if you have the imagination to picture the whole process to yourself. But the embarrassed farmer with a hundred calls upon him, who finds it hard work to provide for his children, has little heart to think of those things ; he only wonders what the next harvest is going to be. So the great mysteries of theology — they ought to be studied. Depend upon it that to give up thinking is to impoverish the gospel. But those matters are not our real salvation. There come times when those things are not bread, but stones — a highly flavoured and elaborately cooked feast, but we cannot eat it. You have laid out the table grandly. Like Ahasuerus at his banquet, you have set out " vessels of gold " and poured " royal wine " into them ; but I am thirsty, and the fever is in my blood still ; I crave for " a cup of cold water." " God is love " ; " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son " ; " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved " ; " Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out " ; " Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners"; "Where I am, there shall ye be also"; "I go to prepare a place for you" — that is the "cup of cold water " ; I drink deep of it ; it quenches my thirst ; I am young again ; despair is gone ; I am master of life ; nothing can quail me. It is the " cup of cold water " that we need.
Tf I have heard that during the battle of Fredericksburg there was a little patch of ground which was occupied in turn by the contending forces. It was covered with the dead and the dying ; and all through the afternoon of a weary day the cry was heard, " Water, water ! " A Southern soldier begged of his captain to be allowed to answer those piteous cries, but met with the refusal, " No ; it would be certain death." He persisted, however, saying, " Above the roar of artillery and the crack of the muskets 1 hear those cries for water : let me go ! " He set out with a bucket of water and a tin cup; for awhile the bullets sang around him, but he seemed to bear a charmed life. Then, as the Federals beyond ST. matt. — 16
242 THE MINISTRY OF SMALL THINGS
the field perceived his purpose, the firing gradually ceased ; and for an hour and a half there was an armistice, while the soldier in grey, in full sight of both armies, went about on his errand of mercy. Verily, that was the truce of God !
And this was the kindness of our Lord. He came from heaven to bring the cup of cold water to dying men. Ah, that was the greatest kindness that ever was known. It was the most sublime heroism too. But the firing did not cease when He came to us with the water from the well beside the gate at Bethlehem ; His mercy toward us cost Him His life. What shall we render unto the Lord for His loving kindness ? x
II.
Small Services.
1. There cannot seemingly be a more trivial service than a cup of cold water given to the passing traveller. So we think in this land, where springs of water and rivers abound, and where a cup of cold water can be so easily obtained. If, however, we go to the desert, as the weary traveller passes along it under the burning rays of an Eastern sun, how precious to him is the cup of cold water to allay his thirst ! There have been seasons of famine when a loaf of bread was of more value than gold, and when he who brought it was the messenger of life to those who were starving with hunger and staring death in the face. It may seem a very trifling thing to pay a visit to the house of a poor disciple and leave there with him some small token of Christian kindness ; yet the visit and the act may have been light and comfort to him in the hour of despondency and distress. The widow on our northern Highland coast who lost her only son in a storm because there was no light to guide his frail bark to the natural inlet of safety by the shore might seem to do a very slight thing when every evening thereafter at sundown she put her little lighted oil- lamp in the end window of her humble abode to burn till dawn of the morning ; yet the trifling act, as some might reckon it, was the safety of many of the island fishermen in nights of storm. Could we bring before our eye all the results of the acts that in themselves seem but slight and insignificant, but which love to