John Lemley

“ One of the Hindoo sacred books says: “It is unlawful for any man to take a jewelless woman,” whose eyes are like the weeping cavi-flower; being deprived of her beloved husband, she is like a body deprived of the spirit. She may have only been a betrothed infant or a child of a few years. It makes no difference. The Shasters teach that if a widow burns herself alive on the funeral pile of her husband, even though he had killed a Brahmin, that most heinous of deeds, she expiates the crime. For long centuries widows have been a literal burnt offering for the redemption of husbands. ”

“ In the presence of such dangers it is a comfort to know “the Lord reigneth.” But, alas! how many would banish God from their hearts! The clouds are the commissary trains of the nations; who would have them without their driver? Men want God on the throne, but not in their hearts. They would have Him watch the worlds, the clouds, the seasons, but not their actions. As if God was not a discerner of the very thoughts and intents of the heart.
And then this poor widow loved much. And in God’s sight no offering of love is too small. ”

“ We may never do great things, but, through grace, we can all be faithful. We may pass from the stage of action, but the splendid deeds wrought in faith will remain, shedding their influence across the bosom of a sinful world, like so many beacon lights guiding a guilty race back to a Father’s love, and the world’s final redemption.
We now come to Hannah, the last woman in White Raiment under the Theocracy. The mother of the great and good Samuel will ever stand in history as among the purest of women. It often happens that the mother is lost sight of in the fame of her son. ”

“ To the Philippians, “Doing nothing through faction or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind, each counting others better than himself. Have the mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, and humbled Himself.” And to the Colossians, “Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving each other, even as the Lord forgave you.” ”

“ A pitcher with which I carry water. Use it in watering the thirsty camels of Eliezer, and thou shalt be an heir in the house of Abraham? What is that in thine hand, Miriam? Only a timbrel. Use it in leading the women of Israel in the song of triumph over Pharaoh’s hosts. What is that in thine hand, Rahab? Only a scarlet thread. Bind it in the window, and thou shalt save thyself and household. What is that in thine hand, poor widow? Only two mites. Give them to God, and behold, the fame of your riches fills the world. What hast thou, weeping woman? An alabaster box of ointment. Give it to God. ”

“ But when the flowers are blooming, and the cup is brimming, and the heart beats high with earthly love and joy and hope, then it is so sweet, it is so wise, it is so rare, to pour all at His blessed feet, as Mary poured her ointment on His head, and some day to receive it back amid the bloom and peals of yonder land, where they that have forsaken friends and treasures, fond affections and brightest prospects for His dear sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall have the still richer joy of knowing that they have learned His spirit and understood His love. ”

“ Isaiah, looking adown the ages to the coming of Christ’s Kingdom, likened it to waters breaking out in the wilderness and streams in the desert. For centuries there was no voice of prophet in Israel or revelation from God to His chosen people, when suddenly the long silence was broken. It was in the days of Herod the Great, when sin and misery had reached their climax, and when the yearning for Messiah’s appearance was more intensely felt than ever. ”

“ In Simeon and Anna we see incarnate types of the expectation of salvation under the Old Testament, as in the child Jesus the salvation itself is manifested. At the extreme limits of life, they stand in striking contrast to the infant Saviour, exemplifying the Old Covenant decaying and waxing old before the New, which is to grow and remain. Old age grows youthful, both in Simeon and Anna, at the sight of the Saviour; while the youthful Mary grows inwardly older and riper, as Simeon lifts up before her eyes the veil hanging upon the future. ”

“ He holds not only the whole, but the single parts; He looks not only into the palace of kings, but into the cottages of poverty. The need and misery of a poor widow are not too insignificant for Him; He observes her sighs and tears, and her silent, desolate cottage is for Him a place worthy of the revelation of His glory and goodness.
Matchless widow of Sarepta! As long as the name of Elijah lives, with its imperishable renown, so long shall thine be found side by side with it in the unfading annals of the church of God! ”

“ Who alone, of all earth’s great teachers, wept with and over woman’s broken heart; who alone pitied woman taken in sin; who alone stood up in defence of woman against cruel criticism; who alone placed in contrast a poor penitent woman over against a well-washed, and we had almost said, “white-washed,” Pharisee; who, on the way to the cross, had words of comfort for womanhood, in the ever-memorable exclamation, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me!” ”

“ Only such a God could lift on high so humble a maiden, and turn upon her the gaze of all the nations of the earth. But the God of Israel well might do it, for He is the Mighty One, and able to do great things, and His mercy is upon them that fear Him from generation to generation. In Israel’s deliverance from Egypt and in all their subsequent history, He had shown the strength of His arm. The wrecks of the nations that opposed Him strew the whole pathway of history. ”

“ The lowly life of humble sacrifice is the only life worth living.
The next view we have of this beautiful Bethany home the scene is all changed. The sunshine is all gone out and great clouds of sorrow and distress have rolled into the sky of its happiness. Prosperity has given place to the bitterest adversity, the brightness and gladness are banished, and the sisters are right down under the deepest, darkest shadow of sorrow that ever settled on their home. The well-beloved brother, Lazarus, is ill unto death, and Jesus is far away, and in the very midst of His Peræan ministry. ”

“ Tabitha, in her good works and alms-deeds, and in her garments that she made, is not a fashion-plate, but a model for every Christian woman. We may learn, in her life, the glorification of little things. She was not rich, at least we are not told that she was, and yet how she glorified her needle, until a whole city is moved to bitter weeping at her death. Her needle brought her unsought fame. Little acts are the elements of all true greatness. They test our disinterestedness. The heart comes all out in them. It matters not so much what we have, as to what use we put that which we have. ”

“ See how patiently Jesus talks with a lone woman by Jacob’s well, how tenderly he speaks to the woman who sobbed out her sorrow for her sins at His feet, how compassionately He says to the woman for whose blood her accusers had clamored, after He had silenced them, “Go, and sin no more.” And, to the credit of head and heart, be it said, woman has appreciated her Saviour, and in many ways shown her gratitude. Perhaps there is no more beautiful and touching incident in the life of our Lord than that recorded by Luke, where women “ministered unto Him of their substance.” ”

“ When at last we come to calculate the forces that decide the destiny of nations, it will be found that the mightiest and grandest influence came from home, where the wife cheered up despondency and fatigue and sorrow by her own sympathy, and the mother trained her child for heaven, starting the little feet on the path to the celestial city, and the sisters, by their gentleness, refined the manners of the brother, and the daughters were diligent in their kindness to the aged, throwing wreaths of blessing on the road that led father and mother down the steep of years. ”

“ It is hard for us to understand what a trial of her faith this harem life must have been to the pure-minded Sarah. How often her mind must have gone out over the stretches of desert wastes to her own land abounding with streams and fertility. And to be conscious that the charms of her person were the centre of attraction in the court of Egypt.
But all this time God’s eye was a witness to all that was passing. When we get to the end of self, He always comes to our rescue—our extremity is His opportunity. ”

“ To the husband who has such a woman to stand at the head of his home, nothing can measure her value. His heart rests safely in her integrity. He has no need to add to his wealth by spoils, for she will do him good and not evil all the days of his life. She is industrious. She not only works into comfort the wool and flax that are at hand; she seeks to add to her store from the outside world. She does not ask to be kept in idleness. She worketh willingly with her hands. Not content to be a consumer, she becomes a producer. ”

“ Eden full of trees, fruits of every kind, luscious and satisfying, but, excited by false and wicked statements in respect to the prohibition of the fruit of one tree, she straightway desires to taste for herself, and that curiosity blasted her and blasted all nations. And thousands in every generation, inspired by unhealthful inquisitiveness, have tried to look through the keyhole of God’s mysteries—mysteries that were barred and bolted from all human inspection—and they have wrenched their whole moral nature out of joint by trying to pluck fruit from branches beyond their reach. ”

“ Indeed, the condition of Hebrew women has always presented a marked contrast with heathen women, and for the reason, while the Bible seeks to elevate them, heathendom has sought to degrade them. Heathen oppression of womanhood rests upon the nations where the Bible is not known, like the mountain upon Typho’s heart. Buddhism presents no personal god. He is “eyeless, handless, never sad and never glad.” For sinning man there is no pity, for of all his hundreds of names there is no “Father.” Confucianism, with its backward gaze, teaches no sin, no Saviour, and only China for heaven. ”

“ The Jehovah, the Almighty God, the maker of worlds, the ruler of systems beyond human vision, whose perfect will is done in heaven by angels, who holdeth the dew of heaven, the rain in the clouds, the waters of the oceans in His hands, who gives and withholds the needed bread and water, He is our Father, and exercises a father’s care, so that the individual is not forgotten of Him. ”

“ Isaac loved Esau. Jacob is represented to us as of a more delicate make-up and naturally appealed more to the mother heart. “Rebekah loved Jacob.” From merely a parental standpoint, both were wrong. Even though the characteristics of these boys were wide apart, the parents should have been united in their love, and impartially discharged their duties, and let God, in his own good time, make His selection. But here, as in the lives of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah delayed the blessing God designed they should have, and brought sorrow into their own lives. ”

“ When, in the presence of God, lowliness of heart has become, not a posture we assume for a time, but the very spirit of our life, it will manifest itself, as it did in Lydia, in all our bearing towards others. The lesson is one of deep import. The only humility really ours is not that which we assume in our devotions to God, but that which we carry with us in our ordinary conduct. The insignificances of the daily life are the importances of eternity, because they prove what spirit really possesses us. It is in our most unguarded moments we really show what we are. ”

“ Nothing is more common among those whose life is crowded with what is termed coarse and common toil, who are loaded down with many cares, and confined in what seem to them narrow bounds, to count others vastly more highly favored than themselves, and to regard themselves as out of range of all spiritual visions or special divine communications! Let her who is left to think such thoughts, or to place such estimate on her lot in life, remember that no eye of Scribe or Pharisee, of priest or king, saw or recognized the Son of God that day when Mary presented Jesus in the Temple. ”

“ The door once open, none of us can tell into what endless labyrinths of sorrow it will lead us. God wants a tried people, not only for their own sake but that they may be a blessing to others.
And now we come to a most beautiful scene in Sacred History. While, as a whole, the Bible gives the drama of human sin and divine redemption, yet it pauses in its wonderful revelations to let us look into the homes of the people who lived ages ago. ”

“ It was no easy matter to lay aside the flattering prospect of one day sitting on the throne of Egypt, to forever renounce the glory and glitter of an earthly court, and to identify himself with the slave people whose lives were made bitter in all manner of service. Surely, Jochebed must not only have been a loving mother, but a wise spiritual teacher to thus gain the surrender of all that was dear to her child of the earthly life, that he might gain the heavenly. ”

“ Rachel was driving her father’s sheep to the well in Haran when she won the heart of Jacob, the heir of promise; Miriam watched the little craft among the rushes of the Nile, before she led the women in triumphal song at the Red Sea; Ruth gleaned in the fields of Bethlehem to relieve her own and Naomi’s necessities, when she attracted the attention of Boaz; Esther lived a modest, retired life in the house of Mordecai, the porter at the royal palace, when she was called to be queen over the Persians. Poverty and homely toil are no hindrance to holy zeal in Christian service ”

“ It is one of the beautiful charms of the Christian life, that in nearly every congregation there is a Tabitha to be found who constitutes, as it were, the central point around which the love that exists in the society, collects. Every love is guided by her hand, and even when she utters no words, she successfully admonishes others.
Such a woman could not well be spared out of the Joppa church, and so, with the sunrising, the little congregation despatched two men, who hastened over the plain of Sharon to Lydda, with a message to Peter, saying, “Delay not to come to us!” ”

“ In the pictures which the Sacred Record opens to us of the domestic life of the patriarchal age, perhaps this is the most perfectly characteristic and beautiful idyl of a marriage, and how it was brought about. In its sweetness and sacred simplicity, it is a marvelous contrast to the wedding of our modern fashionable life. And surely, since God’s Book gives so much time and space to the domestic life of women, the daughters of modern Christianity ought to regard themselves and their affairs of the utmost importance. ”

“ Let us get the humanness as well as the divinity out of it. Look at those people, what are they doing? Sitting at the table. A lovely place for us men to sit. But Martha served. Do not miss that. She is doing what she did before,—getting supper ready. She is bustling about in her earnestness, but she has lost her grumbling. She gets through the entertainment with smiles from first to last. She is no less busy, but she is at rest in her mind. She is cumbered, but is not angry with Mary, and is not reflecting on Jesus Christ. She had learned something in the day of sorrow and darkness. ”

“ All Christians surely know by experience that events which seemed all darkness at first have ultimately brought them nearer to the light. The much-dreaded cloud has proved to be only a veil under which God hides His mighty power. His gracious query, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” has comforted us, and has turned what we thought to be a curse into a blessing. O, can we not trust Him in the darkness as well as in the light, knowing that He can bring calm out of storm, and that he often chooses the darkness and the cloud as a special medium by which to reveal himself? ”