The Pulpit Commentary — Mark — Volume 1 — Section 271

Many have hereby been led into moral ruin. Salome degraded herself unspeakably by coming forward in this shameless dance. Forgetting all decency and decorum, she danced " in the midst," that is, in a circle of half-intoxicated admirers. 1. Her regal dignity was forgotten. With amazement the historian records that it was the "daughter of Herodias herself" (not "of the said Herodias ")-a princess of royal blood. Even social position and family repute may be fairly regarded as defences against sin. 2. Her maiden '11W<ksty was sa.crificed. In modern social life Christians should set themselves against all that seems to have the slightest tendency to this. 3. Her feminine tenderness was repudiated. The twenty-fifth. verse indica.tes that she eagerly shared her mother's hatred against John. But her womanly pity should have pleaded for the life of a helpless prisoner, and this God-given characteristic of her sex being trampled underfoot, made her crime the more revolting when she accepted the bleeding head of the murdered prophet. III. CONSIDER HERODlAS AS AN EXAMPLE OF UNSCRUPULOUS WICKEDNESS. She was to Herod what Jezebel was to Ahab, or what Lady Macbeth was to her husband. 1. Her t1ices were greed. Abandonecl licentiousness and maligna.nt cruelty. 2. Her influence was disastrous over both Herod and her own daughter Salome. She ruined herself and others too. For all such there will come a terrible awakening and retribution. " Who bath hardened himself against God, and prospered ?"-A. R. Ver. 31.-Recreative rest. The disciples had been teaching the pecpld, and meetino their objections; they had been curing the sick, and had seen effects startling even ~ themselves. Exultant over the work they had done, they were in some danger of forgetting its spiritual issues, and needed a reminder that it was more important to have one's name in the book of life than to have power to cast out devils. .Agitated, restless, and weary, they returned to their Lord, and he, understanding their deepest wants, bade them follow him into a quiet retreat, that they might rest a while. Each sabbath day should bring us also to Jesus, that he may lead us int-0 rest. L RECREATIVE REST IS RECOG!fIZED BY Goo AS A NECESSITY FOB MAN. We are so constituted that a constant strain on the same powers will either degrade or destroy them. The absence of physical rest would produce madness or death. But if we had only physical recrea.tion, if there were no provision for the cultivation of the mind and of the affections, if we knew nothing of the quietude of home and the rest of the Lord's day, we should soon become little better than the beasts which perish. This revelation shows that our" Father knoweth that we have need of these things." The Holy Book is not out of the sphere of our human necessities. It is wet with the tears of the sorrowful, and thumbed by the homy hands of the toiler, and through it the Son of man still cries, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The second chapter in the Book of Genesis speaks of rest as well as of work. One of the fundamental laws given on Sinai ordained that on six days we should work, but that on the seventh we should do no manner of work. Prophecy points on to a distant future, and declares " there remaineth e. rest for the people of God." There is, indeed, no true want which God has not met. If the feeblest of his creatures requires food of a certain kind, it is placed beside it from the first. The butterfly, for example, which we sometimes use as a type of carelessness, deposits her eggs by unerring instinct where the young caterpillars may find their proper food. And the God who giveth to each his food sees tha.t we want rest, and provides for it. When our day's work is done, and we are tired, weariness provides and fits for repose, and " the sleep of the labouring man is sweet." When we are in danger of becoming hard and worldly amid the cares of business, God places around us at home restful endear- ment!; and softening influences. And often on the sabbath day he says with effectual power, "Oh, rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him." II. RECBEATIVE BEST SHOULD HAVE A JUST RELATION TO EARNEST WORK. Every- thing of value has its own standard. .Art, for example, is of value in proportion to taste. Rest finds its value in proportion to work. 'l'he mere pleasure-seeker loses the very thing he seeks becaUBe he seeks it; for pleasure is the complement of effort, toil, and sacrifice. Rest is the shadow thrown by the substance work, and you reach the shadow when you have passed by the substance that throws it. Nothing is more pitiable than the sight of a blaae, self-indulgent epicure, who has never done any genuine work. oa. v1. 1-66.) THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. 269