The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 2 — Section 108

Vers. 17-20.-The pity and the purpose of Christ and his Church: a missionary se:nrwn. With what different eyes do we look out on to the world, and how varied a spectacle it presents, according to our views, our spirits, our aims! To the geo"rapher :rnd discoverer it appears in one aspect, to the statesman and the historian in a~other. The artist sees it in one light, tbe man of science in a different one. The sportsman and pleasure-hunter has his view of it, the trader has his, etc. But from the standpoint of the sanctuary, and so far as our minds are filled with God's truth and our hearts with the love of Christ, we shall look at the vast, outlying human world with very different eyes. We shall see before us- L A POOR AND NEEDY WORLD A THIRST FOB THE TBU'l'H AND LOVE OF Go D. 1. we think of those multitudes of our race, beneath every sky, of every hue, of every clime and tongue, who are utterly dissatisfied with their life, their creed, or their character; the many millions who are the victims of human oppression, of intolerable tyranny, or of heartless cruelty (social or domestic), or abject slavery; those who are the heirs ef grinding poverty, seeking for the bare sufficiency or the comfort or the success which they never gain, which perpetually eludes them; those who are vain seelce1·s after happiness, the voice of whose life is tbis, "Who will show us any good?" whose experience is one long sad heart-ache; those who are unsuccesiful inquirers after God, after truth and righteousness, who say, not in sarcasm, but in sadness," What is truth?" "Oh that we knew where we might find him 1" "' What shall we do that we may inherit eternal life?" and to whom no answer comes from the deep void, who have to go groping on in the darkness. These are the poor and needy, seeking water and there is none, "whose tongue faileth for thirst." 2. We include in our view that other multitude who lack tbe water of life, but who are not conscious of their need. Did it enfe.ible the argument for emancipation that so many of the slaves, before their liberty was given them, were content to wear their bonds and to he deprived of the rights of manhood, the claims of womanhood? Or did it not, on t)ie other hand, immeasurably strengthen the case of the emancipators and the cause of the slave? And does it relieve the situation that millions of Chinese are content to live tbe sordid, selfish, godless lives they are living, and to die the hopeless deaths they are dying? Does it make less pitiful and pathetic the fac;t that millions of our fellow-subjects in India are content to bow down before images their own hands have carved, and to worship gods and goddesses to honour whom is to be dishonoured and degraded in and by the very act of devotion? Surely this fact only multiplies the reasons for regret and for sympathy. The very muteness of the appeal is the most eloquent plea on thefr behalf. 11. THE PITY AND THE PURPOSE OF CHRIST ON ITS BEHALF. " When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, . . . I the Lord will hear them, , •• I will not mi. XLI, 1-29.J THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. 111