has been true to the eternal law of righteousness, it has been a vessel made to honour. Those who see in history, not the chaos in which brute forces are blindly working from confusion to confusion, but the unfolding of a righteous order, can see in part how resistance, unfaithfulness, sensuality, have marred the work,-how Powers that were as the first of nations have had written on them, as it seemed, the sentence passed of old on Amalek, that their latter end should be that they should perish for ever. Spain, in her decrepitude and decay; France, in her alternations of despotism and anarchy; Rome, in the insanity of her claims to dominate over the reason and conscience of mankind-these are instances, to which we cannot close our eyes, of vessels marred in the potter's hands. The great drama on the opening scenes of which we are now gazing with alternations of hope and fear, the collapse and ruin of a nation that has used its power for tyranny and wrong, what is it but the breaking of the potter's vessel? Doubtless, plain and clear as the lesson is, it is not well to dwell upon it in the spirit of national pride or Pharisaic exultation. Each such example of the judgment of the Heavens bids us not to be high-minded, but to fear. We need to remember, as of old, that the doom which seems so far from us may be close at hand, even at our doors, that that which seems ready to fall on this nation or on that, Turk or Christian, Asiatic or European, is not irreversible. "At what time soever," now as in the prophet's days, "a nation shall turn and repent," and struggle over the stepping-stones of its dead self to higher things, there is the beginning of hope. The Potter may return and mould and fashion it, it may be to lowlier service, perhaps even to outward dishonour, but yet, if cleansed from its iniquity, it shall be meet for the Master's use. I have spoken so far of the bearing of the parable on God's dealings with nations and with Churches. That is obviously what was prominent in the thoughts both of prophet and apostle in their interpretation. But we need not shrink from accepting it as it bears upon the individual life of every child of man, and it is obviously that aspect of its teaching which has weighed most heavily upon the minds of men, and often, it would seem, made sad the hearts of the righteous whom God has not made sad. Does it leave room there also for individual freedom and responsibility? Did the inspired teachers think of it as leading men to repentance and faith and hope, or as stifling every energy under the burden of an inevitable doom? The words in which St. Paul speaks of it might be enough to suggest the true answer to that question. To him even that phase of the parable which seems the darkest and most terrible does but present to man's reverential wonder an instance of the forbearance of God enduring with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. Men, that is, individual men, in the exercise of their fatal gift of freedom, had resisted and thwarted the generous purpose which would have moulded them into chosen instruments-" vessels of election," to use the Scripture phrase-for working out his gracious purpose for them and, through them, for men their brothers. They were fitting themselves for the destruction, the casting away, the breaking of the potter's vessel, which was the necessary issue of that persistent antagonism. But for them too the patience of God was great. For many a long year He had endured with a patience compared with which all human patience is as an irritable harshness. The Potter would fain return and mould and re-mould till the vessel is fit for some use, high or humble, in the great house of which He is the Supreme Head. By the discipline of life, by warnings and reproofs, by failures and disappointments, by prosperity and success, by sickness and by health, by varying work and everfresh opportunities, He is educating men and leading them to know and to do his will. Who does not feel in his calmer and clearer moments that this is the true account of the past chances and changes. of his life? True, there is a point at which all such questionings. reach their limit. The words, "Hath not the potter power over the clay?"-power to determine the form of the vessel into which it is to be fashioned and the uses, honourable or, as men count them, dishonourable, to which they are to be applied-retain their force. Why a man is born into the world in this country or in that, one the heir of the culture and the creed of European Christendom and another in the dim twilight of barbaric heathenism;-why oneman is in no peril of death, but is lusty and strong, and another goes softly all his days in the bitterness of his soul;-why one child is the light and joy of a happy home, and another grows up as the wastrel Arab of the streets;-why some are endowed with, the gifts of knowledge and the far-reaching intellect which stretches before and after, and others are ignorant of the glorious I gains of time;-why some inherit the dangers of riches and others those of poverty ;-these are questions which we cannot answer. The secret of that infinite diversity lies behind the veil which no man has as yet lifted. We can but answer in words which are but a development of the thoughts which the parable of the Potter and the Clay suggests, " In a great house there are vessels not only of silver and gold, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honour and some to dishonour." Some seem to have no higher calling than to be tillers of the soil, delvers in the mine, toilers at the oar. "Their lot is to maintain the state of the world, and all their desire is in the work of their craft. Without these cannot a city be inhabited ;" but "they shall not be sought for in public counsel, nor sit high in the congregation." Others take their place among the wise of heart, the rulers of men, leaving behind them a name and fame which the world will not willingly let die. In the language of another parable, to one is given five pounds, to another two, and to another one-to each according to his several ability. But the thought that sustains us beneath the burden of these weary questions is that the Judge of all the earth shall assuredly do right. Men's opportunities are the measure of their responsibilities. "To whom men have committed much of him will they ask the more." The bitter murmur and passionate complaint are checked by the old words, "Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?" The poorest and the humblest may find comfort in the thought that if his work be done faithfully and truly, if he sees in the gifts which he has received, and the outward circumstances of his life, and the work to which they lead him, but the tokens of the purpose of the great Designer, he, too, yielding himself as clay to the hands of the potter, may become in the least honoured work, a vessel of election. What is required in such a vessel when formed or fashioned is, above all, that it should be clean and whole, free 12 Tim. ii. 20. 2 Ecclus. xxxvii. 32, 33. The chapter which thus draws the broad line of demarcation between the toilers and the thinkers of the world contains a graphic description of the labour now before us, which it may be well to quote: So doth the potter sitting at his work, and turning the wheel about with his feet, who is always carefully set at his work, and maketh all his work by number. He fashioneth the clay with his arm, and boweth down his strength before his feet; he applieth himself to lead it over; and he is diligent to make clean the furnace." 66 I from the taint that defiles, from the flaws that mar the completeness of form or the efficiency of use. The last lesson of the parable is found in the words, full of hope, if also full of warning. If a man cleanse himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work." The seeming poverty of material, or uncomeliness of form, or lowliness of use, is no real dishonour. The vessel of the potter's clay, thus fashioned and thus cleansed, is precious as the golden chalice, rich with gems, and consecrated for service in the temple of the great King. The work of each soul of man is to seek this consecration, to flee the youthful lusts, the low ambitions, the inner baseness, which desecrate and debase. Our comfort is, that in so striving, we are fellow-workers with the great Work-Master. Our prayer to Him may well be that He will not despise what his own hands have made. I know not in what better or nobler words that prayer can clothe itself than those in which a poet of our own time has summed up the teaching of the parable of the Potter and the Clay : "So take and use Thy work, What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim. Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same." 2 E. H. PLUMPTRF. 2 Tim ii. 21. 2 Robert Browning, "Rabbi Ben-Ezra." |