Ecclesiastes 12:11 The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd. There is a Christian ministry wider than that to which men are consecrated through ecclesiastical offices. They also belong to the "great company of preachers," or teachers, who explore the heavens, or who decipher the records graven on rocks, or who analyze material forms, or who trace the evolutions of life, with those who delineate or embody the beautiful in art; all these are co-workers with "the apostles and prophets" in the service and worship of God the Father. Some of God's servants stand nearer to the altar than others, but the sacrifice and service of these in the outermost range are ever and everywhere acceptable to Him when offered or done "in an honest and true heart." And among these diverse gifts of God's Spirit, who divides to men "severally as He will," we may surely count the gift of the genius which has enriched the world with so many sweet and inspiring thoughts in the varied forms of literature. Charles Lamb has said, in his own quiet, quaint way, "I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in the course of the day besides my dinner. I want a form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, for a solved problem. Why have we none for books, those spiritual repasts — a grace before Milton, a grace before Shakespeare, a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading the 'Faery Queen'?" For literature, even in its lowlier forms, has been a ministry of comfort and help to millions. It has filled days in the lives of multitudes with solace or with sunshine which otherwise had been "dark and dreary." Many devout people have a horror, I know, of what they call works of "fiction": nor am I insensible of the demoralizing influence of the baser sort of such literature. But let us discriminate here, as we do in music and in painting and in poetry, nor condemn that which is wholesome with that which is vicious in books of amusement or recreation; for the greatest writers of so-called fiction have done good and blessed service often in the cause of morality and religion. There is more "pure gospel," in the substantial sense of that cant phrase, in the writings of Charles Dickens, for instance, than in seven-tenths of our prinked sermons. Think of the gentleness, the pathos, the Divine charity which pervade his books! while even the homely, the ludicrous and the seemingly profane are always friendly to virtue. What a power he has been in the regeneration of English manners! Then think of a similar service done by his great compeer in English letters; by him who lashed the follies and the vices of "Vanity Fair," doing a work which the pulpit was impotent or afraid to do in rebuking the fashionable extravagance and profligacy of the age; for literature could find audience in circles which were closed to homilies and Episcopal pastorals, insinuating truths which had been resented coming in dogmatic shape. And the results are marked in every sphere of English life, for it is not to an increase of ecclesiastical activity that the improved manners and morals of the English people are to be solely or chiefly traced. The influence of the press has become supreme; our greatest prophets speak through books. No man can estimate the debt which modern civilization owes to the men the weapon of whose warfare has been the pen. They have been ever forward to expose hypocrisy, to resist the tyranny of power, to plead the cause of the oppressed, and sometimes at a bitter cost. Of all powers merely human, poetry has been the most potent over the cultivated thought and feeling of the world. It holds more condensed wisdom, it speaks more directly to the primal affections, it incites the soul to grander aims, it is more nearly akin to the unction of the Divine Spirit than any other instrument or influence controlled by man. The art of making verses may be acquired, but the true poet is inspired, having deeper insight into men and things with finer faculties of interpretation: the teacher at whose feet all other men sit to catch the flow of harmonious wisdom. All gifts of genius are from heaven, but the brightest and the best is "the vision and the faculty Divine" of the poet. He is the teacher of teachers. The best thoughts of the cultivated world had birth in poetry. Every other species of intellectual power has been inspired by it. Religion, morals, government have all been penetrated and purified by it. Take one name and all it represents out of the literary annals of England, and what a void would be visible wherever the English tongue has gone! "Take the entire range of English literature," says the late Canon Wordsworth; "put together our best authors who have written upon subjects not professedly religious or theological, and we Shall not find, I believe, in them all united so much evidence of the Bible having been read and used as we have found in Shakespeare alone." Who can take his thoughts and reflections into the study or the closet without coming forth with deeper and diviner feelings in him — without a more awful estimate of life and its great issues? (J. H. Rylance, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd. |
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