Verse 17
A Pathetic Incident
THIS is one of the pathetic incidents in personal history, without which, indeed, personal history would be a monotonous and dreary record. We owe quite as much to the rainy days in life as to the days of sunshine; the sunshine and the rain must, indeed, co-operate, in order to make our life produce its richest beauty and its most satisfying fruit. We have seen David on the mountain, and have watched him in the valley, and have noted that in all places and under all circumstances he is a profoundly religious man. The religious instinct or sensibility expresses itself in innumerable ways. Even in this cry for water from the well of Bethlehem there is a touch of religious supplication. In all such sighing and yearning we find the beginnings of true prayer. Even where men deny formal prayer, and repudiate the thought of holding intercourse with heaven, we find in the expression of daily desire and want the foundation of all prayer. Whatever softens life blesses it. The battle, the business, the wrangling, the controversy, the continued attrition and conflict of life, how these soon roughen human nature and develop its worst forms and aspects! Hence the necessity and the graciousness of the ministry of affliction and loss. When man reaches any point at which he is conscious of a deep necessity he begins to be a better man, if indeed he turn not off into the darkest regions of despair. Whatever the necessity may be, it is fraught with religious interest, if so be the want be deep enough really to excite the solicitude of the heart. Many men can say, "It was good for me that I was afflicted," good in every sense; not only because of the supreme benefits accruing from it, but because of many minor advantages and blessings almost too minute to be named or to be traced, but all exercising a subtle influence upon the chastening and beautifying of disposition and character. Some men can date the beginning of their wealth from the day of their losses: up to that day they had been operating upon a false arithmetical basis: they had been calling that something which was really nothing, and had been confusing and misrepresenting values to their own imagination; but the great shock came, the man reeled under the intelligence that all he had was taken away from him, and he was once more cast upon his resources; the proud man bent his head; the man who had made up his mind to retire and enjoy luxurious repose was stung by the thought that he had once more to put out his arms to battle and to service, and undergo all the trial and discipline of his first experiences. These things being taken in a right spirit, a new bravery sprang up in the heart, a new tenderness subdued the disposition, a new motive animated and ennobled the whole life. Some of us planted our first flowers upon the grave of our greatest losses: up to that time we had taken no interest in the flowers or in birds, in things beautiful and musical; but no sooner was the grave dug and covered up, than we began to think what could be done with it in order to crown it with love and tenderness. The garden indeed was small enough in extent, but how rich in suggestion, in possibility; how loaded with all the treasures of compassion and sympathy and love! In a thousand various ways God thus nurtures our life, leads us out of ourselves, and trains us at least to grope after him if haply we may find him.
In this instance David seems to be under the fascination of the past and the distant. There are times in life when our childhood comes up with new meaning and new appeal. We long for the old homestead, for the mountains that girdled us round in early life, for the friends who heard our first speech and answered our first desires; we want to leave the far country and go home again, and forgetting all the burden of the past, start life with all that is richest in its experience. Any water would have quenched David's thirst, but there are times when mere necessaries are not enough; we must have the subtle touch, the mysterious association, the romantic impulse, all the poetry of life. Had this been a mere question of a burning thirst, then any pool would have quenched it, but this was a thirst within a thirst, a thirst with a difference, a desire that had in it more than mere necessity. So it is in our spiritual life: we cannot be satisfied with great conceptions, brilliant thoughts, miracles of genius, words employed by the tongue of the master; we need a tone, a look, a touch, a peculiar and distinctive something which belongs to the very root and core of life, being charged with a poetry and a force all its own. Any great book would do to read in the time of intellectual vitality: but when the heart is athirst for a specific kind of knowledge, when it cries out for the living God, then it wants a water brook which flows in a particular course, then it can only be satisfied by a Book which carries within it the evidence of its own inspiration and authority. It is foolish to deny the place of sentiment in human life; it is common indeed to describe this or that desire as merely sentimental: but what would life be without sentiment, feeling, poetic impulse, that noble ardour not kindled by human forces? All hand-shaking is not the same; there is a kiss which a mother only can give; there is a blessing which only a father can bestow; there is a fellowship which can only be begun and sustained by love most eloquent when most mute. Into all these experiences the heart must grow little by little, day by day, understanding them not merely through an intellectual process but by a way quite its own. There will come a time when those who are now neglectful of Christian ordinances may wish to return to the spiritual enjoyments of early years; for a long time they have been in a far country, speculating, conjecturing, debating, fabricating spiritual refuges of their own, drinking at every fountain, and passing through all the tumultuous experience of daily religious change: by-and-by there will come a weariness over the spirit, an ardent longing for something that is far off, a simple childlike desire for first places, first impulses, first affections; in that hour the power of the spirit will be revealed, and the proudest intellects will be brought to say that after all the kingdom of heaven is to be received in a child-spirit; it is not to be taken by force of genius, by the arms of scholarship, or intellectual prowess, but is to be received into a docile and loving heart. We might imagine that any man could help us in certain hours of need, just as any water might have quenched David's physical thirst. But this is not so. We want the friend who knows us, and the friend whom we ourselves know. The sick man is not content in all cases with seeing a stranger, however Christian and devoted that stranger may be, however gifted in conversation or in prayer; the sufferer wants to see the pastor to whose prayers he has listened, and under whose appeals he has responded to the grace of God; he feels that he knows his pastor; he knows the voice, the touch, and confidence has been established between the one and the other: the man cries out for water of the well of Bethlehem that is at the gate, and none other will satisfy his raging thirst.
When the men brought the water to David, "David would not drink of it, but poured it out to the Lord, and said, My God, forbid it me, that I should do this thing: shall I drink the blood of these men that have put their lives in jeopardy? for with the jeopardy of their lives they brought it. Therefore he would not drink it." Here again we come upon the line of instinct rather than upon the line of reason. David poured out the water as a libation or drink-offering; he turned it indeed into a sacrifice before the Lord. There was no appointment in the law by which this should be done. There are times when we transcend the written law, the formal statute, the prescribed order of worship and ceremony, and under the impulse of unselfish thankfulness we become our greater selves. Whatever our form of worship may be, scope should always be left for free and spontaneous oblation and sacrifice. Whilst we have order we must also have liberty. Man was not intended to be enclosed in a cage: he is so constituted that he can worship under circumstances that have not been anticipated by mechanical laws and ordinances. Why should not men cry out aloud and praise God with a resounding voice, even at the risk of violating cold order? Can the heart always keep itself within statutory bounds? Is there to be no enthusiasm in the service of God? Is there not an instinctive worship, a psalmody of the heart, an outburst of love? Jesus Christ never restrained the enthusiasm of worship. Enthusiasm indeed is but a proof of earnestness. When the children cried out and sang before him he did not rebuke them; he said indeed that if these held their peace the very stones would cry out. We suffer immensely and continually for want of enthusiasm in our religious life. We are too orderly; our dignity is oppressive; our regulation schemes often threaten to devitalise our worship. There is no sadder condition in all human existence than to be "past feeling." Cold worship is worthless; cold worship is indeed a contradiction in terms. Not that men can be always equally passionate or enthusiastic; it would be impossible perhaps to live every day at the same altitude of religious excitement; at the same time it is possible for the heart to be in such a condition as to respond to the least appeal, to go out lovingly and consentingly after those who call to worship on the high mountains, and who would call to their aid trumpet, and harp, and organ many-voiced and solemn. Let us be careful that we do not wreck ourselves by prudence miscalled, and perverted indeed. Who would talk of making love formal, orderly, and decorous? Who would set mechanical bounds to a child's enthusiasm on behalf of its parents? Who would bind down patriotism and forbid it to transgress certain limits of loyalty? If we do not so treat love, patriotism, friendship, neither should we so treat the religious instinct, the passion which surpasses and ennobles all other feeling.
Is any man conscious of unusual thirst, saying, "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul for thee, O God"? Satisfaction is offered in the Bible, in the sanctuary, in holy and tender Christian fellowship. Let the existence of the thirst be known. Do not be afraid to say I am thirsty, and would to God I could drink of the fountains of heaven. In making your religious necessities known you may awaken the enthusiasm of others. To-day the nations are complaining of thirst which they cannot altogether explain. Verily it is a thirst for the living God. We, who are Christians, must explain the nature of the thirst to those who are suffering from it They have drunk at well after well; they have, as it were, devoured river after river; and still their thirst burns unquenchably: they have tried intellectual excitement, penitential discipline, acquisition of knowledge, the enjoyment of pleasure, the pursuit of the world in all its forms and fashions, and yet the great cry pierces the air, We thirst, we thirst! Do we not know where the water flows which can quench that burning desire? Is it not for us to go forth and cry, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters"? The very thirst of the soul testifies to the greatness of human nature: were man less, he could be more easily satisfied; were man but an animal he could live in the pasture and be satisfied with his fodder: but oh that thirst which burns in the soul that inexpressible pain which troubles the heart that ever-crying necessity which continues day and night in youth and age! Its true interpretation is that man has lost God, and is calling out for him, often inarticulately, sometimes unintelligently, but always with a reality which attests the higher origin and solemn destiny of the soul.
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