He was going to toss the whole Bible over because Balaam"s a.s.s couldn"t speak.
My friend said he stood it just as long as he could, and finally he said:
"Ah, man, you make an a.s.s, and I will make him speak."
The idea that the G.o.d who made the a.s.s couldn"t speak through his mouth! Did you ever hear such stuff? And yet this was one of your modern philosophers!
The Border Apple-Tree
If you want real peace and rest to your soul, keep separate from the world.
I remember when I was a boy in Northfield, right near the old red schoolhouse there was an apple-tree that bore the earliest apples of any tree in town. They had a law in that town that fruit on a tree overhanging the street belonged to the public, and any fruit on the other side of the fence belonged to the property-holders. Half that apple-tree was over in the street, and it got more old brooms and brickbats and handles than any other tree in town. We boys used to watch to see when an apple was getting red. I never got a ripe apple from that tree in my life, and I don"t believe any one else ever did.
You never went by that tree that you didn"t see a lot of broom-handles and clubs up there.
Now, take a lot of Christians who want to live right on the line, with one foot in the world and one foot in the church. They get more clubs than any one else. The world clubs them. They say, "I don"t believe in that man"s religion." And the church clubs them. They get clubs both sides. It is a good deal better to keep just as far from the line as you can if you want power.
Bad Company
A friend of mine said he had a beautiful canary bird; he thought it was the sweetest singer they had ever had. Spring came on, and he felt it was a pity to keep the poor bird in the house, so he put it under a tree right in front of his house. He said before he knew it a lot of these little English sparrows got under that tree (and you know they cannot sing any more than I can, and I don"t know one note from another), and went, "Chirp, chirp, chirp." Before he knew it, that little canary had lost all its sweet notes. It had got into bad company.
After he found out that he had made a mistake, he took the bird into the house, but it kept up that "Chirp, chirp, chirp." He bought another bird, but the canary nearly ruined it. He said that bird never got back its sweet notes.
Now, don"t you know lots of Christian people who had a fine testimony several years ago, but they have lost their witness, and all they do now is talk, talk, talk, talk? Why? Because they are out of communion with G.o.d, and have lost their witness.
"Hitch On" and "Cut Behind"
Some one tells of an incident that happened in a New England town the other day. All the boys were sleighing. A big sleigh--we call it a "pung" up there--was being driven through the streets by an old man who looked like Santa Claus. He was calling out to the small boys to hitch on, for a pung is like a "bus, it always holds one more.
There were already about twenty rollicking boys. .h.i.tched on, when one little fellow dropped off behind. He tried, but couldn"t catch up again, and pretty soon he began to look out for another chance for a ride. A man"s sleigh was standing near by, and the boy began to eye the man. When the man in the sleigh started off, the little fellow hitched on behind, and the man grabbed his whip and struck him directly in the eye. It looked as if the eye had been put out, but it wasn"t.
Now, that"s the way we go through this world. Some say, "Hitch on, hitch on"; others, "Cut behind, cut behind." The hitch-on people fill the churches, and the cut-behind ones empty them.
Known by Name
A friend of mine was in Syria, and he found a shepherd that kept up the old custom of naming his sheep. My friend said he wouldn"t believe that the sheep knew him when he called them by name. So he said to the shepherd:
"I wish you would just call one or two."
The shepherd said, "Carl."
The sheep stopped eating and looked up.
The shepherd called out, "Come here."
The sheep came, and stood looking up into his face.
He called another, and another, and there they stood looking up at the shepherd.
"How can you tell them apart?"
"Oh, there are no two alike. See, that sheep toes in a little; this sheep is a little bit squint-eyed; that sheep has a black spot on its nose."
My friend found that he knew every one of his sheep by their failings.
He didn"t have a perfect one in his flock.
I suppose that is the way the Lord knows you and me. There is a man that is covetous; he wants to grasp the whole world. He wants a shepherd to keep down that spirit. There is a woman down there who has an awful tongue; she keeps the whole neighborhood stirred up. There is a woman over there who is deceitful, terribly so. She needs the care of a shepherd to keep her from deceit, for she will ruin all her children; they will all turn out just like their mother. There is a father over there who wouldn"t swear for all the world before his children, but sometimes he gets provoked in his business and swears before he knows it. Doesn"t he need a shepherd"s care? I would like to know if there is a man or woman on earth who doesn"t need the care of a shepherd. Haven"t we all got failings? If you really want to know what your failings are, you can find some one who can point them out.
G.o.d would never have sent Christ into the world if we didn"t need His care. We are as weak and foolish as sheep.
The Right Time for Action
A man was always telling his servant that he was going to do a great thing for him. "I am going to remember you in my will."
Sambo got his expectations up very high. When the man came to die, it was found that all he had willed Sambo was to be buried in the family lot. That was the big thing, you know. Sambo said he wished he had given him ten dollars, and let the lot go.
If you want to show kindness to a person, show it to him while you are living. I heard a man say that he didn"t want people to throw bouquets to him after he was dead, and say, "There, smell them."
Now, this is the time for action. I have got so tired and sick of this splitting hairs over theology. Man, let us go out and get the fallen up. Lift them up toward G.o.d and heaven. We want a practical kind of Christianity.
Criticising the Sermon
Very often a man will hear a hundred good things in a sermon, but there may be one thing that strikes him as a little out of place, and he will go home and sit down at the table and talk right out before his children and magnify that one wrong thing, and not say a word about the hundred good things that were said. That is what people do who criticise.
A Reminiscence
I remember blaming my mother for sending me to church on the Sabbath.
On one occasion the preacher had to send some one into the gallery to wake me up. I thought it was hard to have to work in the field all the week, and then be obliged to go to church and hear a sermon I didn"t understand. I thought I wouldn"t go to church any more when I got away from home; but I had got so in the habit of going that I couldn"t stay away. After one or two Sabbaths, back again to the house of G.o.d I went. There I first found Christ, and I have often said since:
"Mother, I thank you for making me go to the house of G.o.d when I didn"t want to go."
Transplanting the Lily
"It is easy to go when the time comes. There are no ropes thrown out to pull us ash.o.r.e; there are no ladders let down to pull us up. Christ comes and takes us by the hand, and says:
""You have had enough of this. Come up higher!"
"Do you hurt a lily when you pluck it? Is there any rudeness when Jesus touches the cheek, and the red rose of health whitens into the lily of immortal purity and gladness?"--Talmage.
Election