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JOSEPH PARKER A WORD TO THE WEARY
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Joseph Parksb was bom at Hezham-on l^e, England, in 1830. He was a pro digious woiker, writer, and preacher. His 'The People's Bible,^ in twenty-dght large volumes, a popular commentary on the Scriptures, is his greatest work. To a naturally energetic personality he added great originality and resonreef idness. He gave much time to the prepaxittion of sermons, reading them aloud as he wrote in order to test their effect upon the ear. A strong personal quality pervaded all his preaching. ''If I have not seen Him my* self,'' he said, "I cannot preach Him." In lectures to students he gave much valuable advice gathered from the storehouse of his own varied experience. He gave particu lar attention to the use of the voice. "It is not enough," he said, 'that yon be heard; you must be effective as well as audible; you must lighten and thunder with the voice; it must rise and fall like a storm at times; now a whisper, now a trumpet, now the sound of many waters. There is an orator's voice, and there is a bellman's. The auctioneer talks; the ora tor speaks." Dr. Parker's sermons are published in numerous volumes. He died in 1902.
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1830― A WORD TO THE WEARY ^
The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should Tcnow how to speak a word in season to him that is weary, ―Isa_1:1-31., Isa_1:4.
THE power of speaking to the weary is nothing less than a divine gift. As we see the divinity in our gifts diall we be careful of them, thankful for them: every gift seems to enshrine the giver, God. But how extraordinary that this power of speaking to the weary should not be taught in the schools. It is not within the ability of man to teach other men how to speak to the weary-hearted, the wounded in spirit, the sore in the innermost feelings of the being. But can we lay down directions about this and oflEer suggestions T Probably so, but we do not touch the core of the matter. There is an infinite difference between the scholar and the genius. The scholar is made, the genius is inspired. Information can be imparted, but the true sense, the sense that feels and sees God, is a gift direct from heaven.
*From "The People's Bible," by Joseph Parker, published hj Funk & Wagnalls Company.
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It is a common notion that anybody can fling. Why can you sing? Why, because I have been taught. That is your mistake. You can sing mechanically, exactly, properly, with right time, right tune, but really and truly you can not sing. Here is a man with his music and with the words ; he sings every note, pronounces every word, goes through his les son, finishes his task, and nobody wants to hear him any more. Another man takes up the same music, the same words, and the same hearers exclaim, ''Oh, that he would go on for ever!*' How is that? ―^the words exactly the same, the notes identical ―how? Soul, fire, ever-burning, never consuming, making a bush like a planet. The great difficulty in all such cases is the difficulty of transferring to paper a proper or adequate conception of the power of the men who thus sway the hu man heart. There are some men whose biog raphies simply belie them, and yet every sen tence in the biography is true in the letter; but the biography is little else than a travesty and a caricature,, because the power was per sonal, it was in the face, in the voice, in the presence, in the gait, in the touch ―an incom municable power; the hem of the garment trembled under it, but no biographer could catch it in his scholarly ink.
Very few ministers can enter a sick cham ber with any probability of doing real and Tasting good. They can read the Bible, and
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they can pray, and yet, when they have gone, the room seems as if they had never been there. There is no sense of emptiness or deso lation. Other men, probably not so much gifted in some other directions, will enter the sick room, and there will be a light upon the wall, summer will gleam upon the window pane, and angels will rustle in the air, and it will be a scene of gladness and a vision of triumph. How is that? The Lord Qod hath given me the tongue of the learned that I might know how ―how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. The Lord Qod hath not only given me a word to say, but hath given me learning to teach me how to speak it. Place the emphasis upon the how, and then you develop aU the mystery, all the tender music, all the infinite capacity of manner.
We may say the right word in the wrong tone ; we may preach the gospel as if it were a curse. The common notion is that any body can go into the Sunday-school and te^ch the young. We sometimes think that it would be well if a great many persons left the Sunday-school all over the world. Teach the young ―would Qod I had that great gift, to break the bread for the children, and to be able to lure and captivate opening minds, and to enter into the spirit of the words ―.
"Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, To teach the young idea how to shoot. ' '
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It requires to be father and mother and sister and nurse and genius to speak to the young. They may hear you and not care for you: they may understand your words, and be r^ pelled by your spirit. You require the tongue of the learned to know how to speak, and tibiat tongue of the learned is not to be had at school, college, university ―it is not included in any curriculum of learning ―^it is a gift divine, breathing an afflatus, an inspiration ―the direct and d^tinct creation of God, as is the star, the sun. The speaker, then, is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the representative of the Father, the incarnate Deity ―^He it is who is charged with the subtle learning; He it is wbose lips tremble with the pathos of this ineffable music.
Tho the gift itself is divine, we must re member that it is to be exercised seasonably. The text is, **that I should know how to speak a word in season. ' ' There is a time for every thing.. It is not enough to speak the right word, it must be spoken at the right moment. Who can know when that is ! We can not be taught. We must feel it, see it hours beyond: nay, must know when to be silent for the whole twenty-four hours and to say, ** To-morrow, at such and such a time, we will drop that sentence upon the listening ear.'* *'The day after to-morrow, he will probably be in cir cumstances to admit of this communication being delivered with ^ympatky and effect.''
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How few persons know the right time ―^the right time in conversation. Some people are never heard in conversation tho they are talk ing all the time. They talk so unseasonably, they talk when other people are talking; they can not wait ; they do not know how to come in along the fine line of silence : they do not understand the German expression ''Now an angel has passed," and they do not quickly enough follow in his wake. Consequentiy, tho chattering much they are saying nothing ―tho their words be multitudinous, the impres sion they make is a blank.
I have a ripe seed in my hand. As an agri culturist I am going to sow it. Any laborer in the field can tell me that I should be acting foolishly in sowing it just now. Why? **It is out of season," the man says. ** There is a time for the doing of that action : I will tell you when the time returns ―do it then, and you may expect a profitable result of your labor."
Then I will change the character and be a nurse, and I will attend to my patient (per haps I will over attend to him ―some patients are killed by over nursing), and I will give the patient this medicine ―*it is the right medi cine. So it is, but you are going to give it at the wrong time, and if you give the medi cine at the wrong time, tho itself be right, the hour being wrong you will bring suffering upon the patient, and you yourself will be in
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volved in pains and penalties. Thus we touch that very subtle and sensitive line in human life, the line of reiSned discrimination. You may say **I am sure I told him.*' You are rights―you did tell him and he did not hear you. You may reply, **I am perfectly confi dent I delivered the message, ―^I preached the exact words of the gospel." So you did, but you never got the hearing heart, your man ner was so unsympathetic, so ungentle, so cruel (not meant to be ―^unconsciously so) , that the man never understood it to be a gospel. You spoilt the music in the delivery, in the giving of the message. The Lord Qod giveth the tongue of the learned, that he to whom it is given may know how to speak ―^how to speak the right word ―^how to speak the right word at the right point of time. You want divine teaching in all things, in speech not least.
This is a curious word to find in the Bible. Does the Bible care about weary people? We have next to no sympathy with them. If a man be weary, we give him notice to quit : if he ask us to what place he can retire, we tell him that it is his business not ours. Now the tenderness of this Book is one of the most telling, convincing arguments on behalf of its inspiration, and its divine authority. This Book means to help us, wants to help us, it says, '*I will try to help you, never hinder you : I will wait for you, I will soften the wind into a whisper, I will order the thunder to be
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silent, I will quiet the raging sea ; I will wait upon you at home, in solitude, at midnight, anywhere ―^fix the place, the time, yourself, and when your heart most needs me I will be most to your heart. ' ' Any book found in den, in gutter, that wants to do this, should be re ceived with respect. The purpose is good: if it fail, it fails in a noble object.
Everywhere in this Book of God we find a supreme wish to help man. When we most need help the words are sweeter than the honeycomb. When other books are dumb, this Book speaks most sweetly. It is like a star, it shines in the darkness, it waits the going down of the superficial sun of our tran sient prosperity, and then it breaks upon us as the shadows thicken. This is the real great ness of God: he will not break the bruised reed. Because the reed is bruised, therefore the rude man says he may break it. His argu ment in brief is this : * * If the reed were strong, I should not touch it, but seeing that it is bruised what harm can there be in completing the wound under which it is already suffering? I will even snap it and throw the sundered parts away." That is the reasoning of the rude man ―^that is the vulgar view of the case. The idea of the healing is the idea of a creator. He who creates also heals. Herein we see God's estimate of human nature: if He cared only for the great, the splendid, the magnifi cent, the robust, and the everlasting, then
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He would indeed be too like ourselves. The greatness of Otod and the estimate which He places upon human nature are most seen in all these ministrations in reference to the weak and the weary and the young and the feeble and the sad. Made originally in the image of Gk)d, man is dear to his Maker, tho ever so broken. Oh, poor prodigal soul with the divinity nearly broken out of thee, smashed, bleeding, crushed, all but in hell ―while there is a sd^adow of thee outside perdi tion. He would heal thee and save thee. Thou art a ruin, but a grand one, ―^the majestic ruin of a majestic edifice, for knowest thou not that thou wast the temple of Gk>d?
When we are weary, even in weariness, Gtod sees the possibility of greatness that may yet take place and be developed and supervene in immortality. How do we talk! Thus: *' The survival of the fittest." It is amazing with what patience and magnanimity and majestic disregard of circumstances we allow people to die off. When we hear that thousands have perished, we write this epitaph on their white slate tombstones: **The survival of the fittest required the decay of the weakest and the poorest.'* We pick off the fruit which we think will not come to perfection. The gar dener lays his finger and thumb upon the tree, and he says, **This will not come to much** ―he wrenches the poor unpromising piece of fruit off the twig and throws it down as use
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less. In our march we leave the sick and wounded behind. That is the great little, the majestic insignificant, the human contradic tion. We go in for things that are fittest, strongest, most promising, healthy, self-com plete, and therein we think we are wise. God says, **Npt a lamb must be left out ―^bring it up: not a sick man must be omitted: not a poor publican sobbing his *Qrod be merciful to me a sinner' must be omitted &om the great host. Bring them all in, sick, weary, wounded, feeble, young, illiterate, poor, in significant, without name, fame, station, force ―all in : gather up the fragments that noth ing be lost." Let us go to that Shepherd ―He will spare us and love us. When our poor strength gives out, He will not set His cruel heel upon us and kill us, He will gather us in His arms and make the whole flock stand still till He has saved the weakest one.
Did we but know the name for our pain we should call it Sin. What do we need, then, but Christ the Son of Qod, the Heart of Gk)d, the Love of Qodt He will in very deed give us rest. He will not add to the great weight which bows down our poor strength. He will give us grace, and in His power all our faint ness shcJl be thought of no more. Some of us know how dark it is when the full shadow of our sin falls upon our life, and how all the help of earth and time and man does but mock the pain it can not reach. Let no man
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say that Christ will not go so low down as to find one so base and vile as he. Christ is call ing for thee ; I heard His sweet voice lift itself up in the wild wind and ask whither thou hadst fled, that He might save thee from death and bring thee home. There is no wrath in His face or voice, no sword is swung by His hand as if in cruel joy, saying, **Now at last I have My chance with you. " His eyes gleam with love : His voice melts in pity : His words are gospels, every one. Let Him but see thee sad for sin, full of grief because of the wrong thou hast done, and He will raise thee out of the deep pit and set thy feet upon the rock.
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