1888 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



263 



JljY^ELF WB fIY]\[EI6pBeR^. 



Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat and swal- 

 low a camel.— Matt. 23: 34. 



Y friends, my talk to-day will be prin- 

 cipally to Christian people, or, if you 

 choose, to church-meml)ers. I do 

 not mean by this that none but 

 church-members are to read this ; 

 for I hope to be able to be helpful, especially 

 to those who are not members of any church. 

 I wish especially to impress upon the minds 

 of professors of religion the importance of 

 being careful that they themselves are not 

 stumbling-blocks; that they do not, by 

 their daily deportment, drive away instead 

 of drawing all men to Christ. In the verse 

 before the one which I have chosen for our 

 text, Jesus severely denounces the Phari- 

 sees ; in fact, he calls them hypocrites, or 

 " actors," as the word means. He says, " Ye 

 pay tithes of mint and anise and cummin, 

 and have omitted the weightier matters of 

 the law, judgment, mercy, and faith." Now, 

 he does not say this matter about the mint, 

 anise, and cummin is wrong or out of place, 

 for he adds, " These ought ye to have done, 

 and not to leave the other undone." Then 

 follows our text, "• Ye blind guides which 

 strain at a gnat and swallow a camel," or, 

 as the New Version more clearly renders 

 the passage, "which strain out the gnat," 

 etc. Now, dear friends, 1 feel that I myself 

 am stepping on dangerous ground ; and 

 just at this moment I feel that I want to ask 

 your prayers that I may be wise, and tread 

 with care on this dangerous ground where 

 so many have been shipwrecked. I have 

 sometirnes thought that Satan has for ages 

 been so accustomed to having the run of 

 things in this line that he feels perfectly at 

 liome — so much so that we may start out to 

 rebuke these sins of inconsistency, and nine 

 times out of ten we fall into the same error 

 we were trying to correct in others. I mean, 

 particularly, selecting certain portions of the 

 Bible and giving them undue prominence 

 above other portions. I suppose one reason 

 why it is so easy and natural to do this is 

 that we instinctively avoid any passage in 

 the Bible that strikes directly on our own 

 besetting sins ; but we take up with great 

 zeal and energy some passage that hits our 

 neighbor and does not strike us at all. The 

 Pharisees, to whom Jesus was speaking, 

 found it very much easier to comply with 

 ordinances and external forms than to root 

 out the evil in their own hearts, and obey in 

 spirit as well as in letter. He tells them 

 further along, " Ye make clean the outside 

 of the cup and of the platter, ])ut within 

 they are full of extortion and excess." 

 Again he says, '^ Ye also outwardly appear 

 righteous unto men, but within ye are full 

 of hypocrisy and iniquity." 



Notverylong ago a temperance lecturer 

 asked the question, " If all the saloon-keep- 

 ers in Medina were to die to-night, would 

 the cause of temi)erau('e be enhanced V " I 

 do not know that anybody answered the 

 question, but I felt in my heart that it 

 would probably make little or no difference 

 with temperance. The speaker added, " The 



sad fact we have to face is, that there are 

 right now in your midst plenty of meu 

 mean enough to step right into the dead 

 men's shoes, and the saloons would probably 

 all go rightalong as before, as so on." Now, 

 then, this indicates that the trouble is not 

 with the men who run the saloons. Tlie 

 real root of the evil is the depravity of aver- 

 age humanity ; the low state of spirituality, 

 or the lack of Christ in the hearts of men. 

 Killing the saloon-keepers would do no 

 more good than pouring water on the stove- 

 pipe while you keep the fire burning in the 

 stove. If you want to get the stovepipe cool , 

 and keep it so, get down into the stove and 

 pour water on the glowing brands. We 

 have had proof of it here in Medina ; yes, I 

 may say, thank God, not only in Medina, but 

 in Ohio, our schools and churches have so 

 enlightened the people that the supply of in- 

 iquity that has been welling up constantly 

 to keep the saloons going, or to keep the 

 stovepipe hot, if you choose, has been 

 counteracted or cut off. The demand for 

 intoxicants has cooled off so that it is possible 

 to enforce our laws, in fact, we are sur- 

 prised at the feeble lesistance which was 

 made when we went about the business in a 

 sensible way. Well, fighting the saloon- 

 keepers alone is not what Jesus meant we 

 should do. Of course, these things need at- 

 tending to. Outside appearances are a 

 factor in the work. Ordinances and forms 

 are all right, but the work of the heart must 

 go along with them. The time was, perhaps, 

 when there were people who would claim 

 that bajjiizivg a man would fit him for 

 heaven without doing any thing else. No 

 doubt the fact that he was willing to submit 

 to baptism was a good indication; in fact, 

 we may rejoice to see a bad man get so far ; 

 but, rny friends, he would make a sad, sad 

 blunder if he thought that this alone was all 

 that was necessary. Now, in the same line 

 we see people going to great lengths and 

 extremes on some particular point of Bible 

 doctrine, ignoring every other point. Men 

 whose lives are bad and inconsistent — in 

 fact, sometimes where they are guilty of 

 breaking many of the commandments, will 

 be so vehement on the matter of intemper- 

 ance that they pain good people by pushing 

 it forward, in season and out of season. In 

 fact, 1 have thought many times that the 

 cause of temperance was greatly hindered 

 because of the inconsistent lives of such 

 individuals. We must take the Bible as a 

 whole, and God's commands as a whole ; and 

 he who deludes himself with the belief that 

 he can make the world believe that lie is a 

 Christiaii simply because he is vehement in 

 the advocacy of temperance as regards 

 liquor, and yet leaves these other matters 

 as they are, makes a grievous mistake. 



Since what I said in reply to Mrs. Chad- 

 dock in regard to baptism, many kind letters 

 have been sent in. Most of them are in 

 a kind spirit ; yet some of them, I can not 

 but feel, come under the condemnation of 

 the words of our text. May be 1 have been a 

 littleloosein my treatment of these subjects ; 

 liut if 1 have,l am glad that I have so many 

 good kind friends who are not only willing 

 but able to set me right. Among the many 



