1 Robert Lee. * A. Maclaren.
106 THE TEACHER'S GREAT TEXT
III.
The Fire.
1. The flame plays round both the buildings. What fire is it ? The text answers the question for us — " the day shall declare it." The Apostle does not think that he needs to say what day. His readers know well enough what day he means. To him and to them there is one day so conspicuous and so often in their thoughts, that there is no need to name it more particularly. The day is the day when Christ shall come. And the fire is but the symbol that always attends the Divine appearance in the Old and in the New Testament.
^ Many of us who live in London have at some time watched that awful but fascinating sight, the progress of a great fire ; we have marked how the devouring element masters first one and then another department of the building which is its victim ; but especially we have noted what it consumes and what it is forced to spare, the resistless force with which it sweeps through and shrivels up all slighter materials, and pauses only before the solid barriers of stone or iron, thus trying, before our eyes, the builder's work of what sort it is.1
I felt begin The Judgment-Day: to retrocede Was too late now. "In very deed," (I uttered to myself) " that Day ! " The intuition burned away All darkness from my spirit too : There stood I, found and fixed, I knew, Choosing the world. The choice was made; And naked and disguiseless stayed, And unevadable, the fact.2
2. But He who at the end will judge us once for all, is now and
always judging us ; and His perpetual presence as the Judge who
is constantly probing and sifting us is revealed by events and
circumstances which have on our souls the effect of fire — they
burn up what is frivolous and worthless, and they leave what is
solid unscathed. There are many events and situations which
act upon us as fire ; it will be enough to consider one or two of
them.
1 H. P. Liddon. 3 Browning, Easter -Day.
i CORINTHIANS in. 11-13 107
(1) There is the searching, testing power of a responsible and new position, of a situation forcing its occupant to make a critical choice, or to withstand a strong pressure. Such a new position discovers and burns up all that is weak in a man's faith or character. In quiet times there is nothing to extort the discovery ; but when a great effort of action or of resistance becomes necessary, it is soon seen what will and what will not stand the test. All that looks like a hold on solid principle, and is in reality only fancy, or sentiment, or speculation, is then seen to be unserviceable; and if a man's religious mind is composed mainly of such material, a catastrophe is inevitable.
^[ Take the Pope in Browning's The Ring and the Book. The aged man, on the verge of the grave, has the responsibility laid upon him of deciding the fate of Count Guido. He holds the balance between life and death.
In God's name ! Once more on this earth of God's, While twilight lasts and time wherein to work, I take His staff with my uncertain hand, And stay my six and fourscore years, my due Labour and sorrow, on His judgment-seat, And forthwith think, speak, act, in place of Him — The Pope for Christ. Once more appeal is made From man's assize to mine : I sit and see Another poor weak trembling human wretch Pushed by his fellows, who pretend the right, Up to the gulf which, where I gaze, begins From this world to the next — gives way and way, Just on the edge over the awful dark: With nothing to arrest him but my feet. • •••••*
And I am bound, the solitary judge, To weigh the worth, decide upon the plea, And either hold a hand out, or withdraw A foot and let the wretch drift to the fall. Ay, and while thus I dally, dare perchance Put fancies for a comfort 'twixt this calm And yonder passion that I have to bear, — As if reprieve were possible for both Prisoner and Pope — how easy were reprieve!
He weighs all the evidence, the reasons which might be urged in the name of mercy for flinching from the solemn decision.
io8 THE TEACHER'S GREAT TEXT
Quis pro Domino ? u Who is upon the Lord's side ? " asked the Count. I, who write —
And he signs the death-warrant.
For I may die this very night And how should I dare die, this man let live?
(2) Sometimes men surprise us, when placed in a difficult position, by the sudden exhibition of qualities for which no one before had given them credit; the apparently thoughtless show foresight, and the timid courage, and the selfish disinterestedness ; and the irresolute perseverance, of which there had been no evidence whatever. The quiet school-boy in an Italian village, whom his playmates name the "dumb ox," becomes, almost in spite of himself, the first of the scholars, one of the few greatest thinkers in the world. The officer who has been distinguished for nothing but a punctual regard to duty is suddenly placed in a position to show that he has almost the genius and courage sufficient to roll back the course of history, and to save a falling empire from ruin. The youth whose life has been passed amidst scenes of frivolity, or perhaps of licentiousness, hears one day an appeal to his conscience, his sense of duty, his sense of failure, and wakes from a dream of sensual lethargy to show the world that he has in him the making of a man, aye, the making of a saint.