An amusing and instructive story is told of the childhood of the famed advocate of "woman's rights," Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Her father was a judge and an authority in law in the town in which they lived. One day while playing in his study she overheard a poor, distressed woman telling him the story of her plight. She had been the only child and heir of her father, a well-to-do farmer. On his death the property passed to her; and on her marriage this property, according to the law as then existing, became the possession of her husband. He had died, and the property in turn passed to her son. This son married, and his wife refused her mother-in-law a home with them. Turned out of the house, and without means, there was nothing before her but "over the hill to the poor-house." In all kindness the judge told the weeping woman that nothing could be done about the matter; according to law she could lay no claim whatever to the property, and there was no appeal. Though all had once been hers, she could not now lay claim to a single cent of the property. It seemed a hard and cruel law, and the poor woman left the office weeping more bitterly than before.
Leaving her story-book, the child went to her father, and asked, "Papa, why did you make that poor lady so sad?" "In reply," the story goes, "the father opened a great book upon his study table and pointed to the paragraph on property rights, which said that a married woman had no rights save those of her husband; that even her very clothing could be willed away by her husband as he saw fit."
The child heard all this with much wonder; and as she thought on what her father had read to her, wonder turned to indignation. She could hardly sleep for grief at the plight of the penniless woman, to whom the law of the land denied even a crust and a bed of all that had once been hers; and when all in the house were asleep she left her cot, and creeping softly down the stairway entered her father's study. There she found the object of her indignation, the sheepskin-covered volume of Blackstone containing the cruel law that had deprived her father's client of her property rights; she found the place, and with her little scissors cut the offending page entirely out. She then returned to her room and slept peacefully, supposing in her childish simplicity that she had removed for good and all the obnoxious statute.
We turn back in history almost twenty-five hundred years, and see a similar transaction. Jehoiakim, king of Judah, hears the word of the Lord as delivered by the prophet Jeremiah; he, too, is angry, indignation fills his heart, and he destroys the sheets on which the offensive words were written. But hear the story, told in the inimitable way of the old Hebrew Bible. It is found in the book of Jeremiah 36:20-25.
"And they went in to the king into the court, but they laid up the roll in the chamber of Elishama the scribe, and told all the words in the ears of the king. So the king sent Jehudi to fetch the roll; and he took it out of Elishama the scribe's chamber. And Jehudi read it in the ears of the king, and in the ears of all the princes which stood beside the king. Now the king sat in the winter-house in the ninth month (our December) ; and there was a fire on the hearth burning before him. And it came to pass, that when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth. Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the king, nor any of his servants that heard all these words. Nevertheless Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had made intercession to the king that he would not burn the roll:but he would not hear them."
Turning now to the times in which we live to-day, what do we see? A like folly is being committed by multitudes, who quarrel with the written Word of God, or rather, such parts as do not suit them. They presume to sit in judgment on the Word of the Almighty, and would treat it much as the child did with Blackstone, or the king with the roll on which was written the message of God to him and his people.
As for Blackstone, opinions differ as to the justice of the law as laid down by him on property rights; and the child's indignation is quite excusable, though her method of righting the supposed wrong provokes a smile. But when we have to do with the awful Word of the Eternal it is another matter, as the king of Judah learned to his sorrow."Therefore thus saith the Lord of Jehoiakim king of Judah; He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David:and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. And I will punish him and his seed and his servants for their iniquity; and I will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and upon the men of Judah, all the evil that I have pronounced against them." And then follows the ominous comment, "But they hearkened not" (Jer. 36:30,31).
"Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah; who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book rich Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire:and there were added besides unto them many like words." So endeth the chapter, but not the lesson.
It is this:Let men quarrel and complain as they will concerning what God has caused to be written in His roll, the Scriptures, they will learn to their sorrow in the end that "it was hard" for them "to kick against the pricks." His Word shall stand, all that He has recorded in His Book, the Bible, His threatenings, and His promises, His warnings of judgment to come, and His invitations of the gospel to save all who will flee for refuge to Christ, His Son and only Saviour of men.
But why do men refuse and fight against "the good Word of God," as it is called? (Heb. 6:5). His judgments may appear, and really are, severe. But they are not one whit more severe than the demerit of sin requires they should be. And why should He make them known if He be not love and not willing that any should perish? If He reveals from heaven His wrath against sin and ungodliness, it is in order that the sinner might take warning and repent before judgment falls. Reverting to the written message that drew forth the Jewish king's unreasoning malice, for what purpose was it sent him and his people?"It may be," the prophet said, "that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin …. It may be they will present their supplication before the Lord, and will return every one from his evil way:for great is the anger and the fury that the Lord hath pronounced against this people" (Jer. 36:3,7).God threatened that His erring people might repent and so permit Him to spare them. How much better would it have been for the king and his princes had they given heed to the threat of judgment and repented of their crimes, instead of seeking to destroy by mutilation and burning the innocent roll on which their doom was written. And for their wicked folly they only had many like words added to their condemnation.
Oh, if men to-day who are found fighting against God as revealed in His Word, would but see that it is in love He has written of judgment to come, the undying worm and "the fire that never shall be quenched." He will punish, as He has said; but He warns that He may yet save. He gave His own dear Son to die at Calvary. He "gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). He "is not willing that any should perish," He declares in the very same Scriptures men fight against. What folly, and what unreasonable and unreasoning wickedness!
Reader, do not play the part of either the child or the king. Men may burn, they may ridicule, they may banish from the public schools, the written Word of God. But some day their folly shall be manifest both to themselves and to the universe at large. Be as the very prophet from whose writings we have quoted, who says, "Thy words were found and I did eat them; and Thy Word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart" (Jer. 15:16). C. Knapp