In traveling to town I often pass along a line of railway that runs for some distance just on a level with the roofs of the houses. Many and various are the views which are presented to the eye in rapid succession.
At times we run along the back of a long line of houses which face into a street parallel with the railroad. Every variety of domestic life is revealed to our gaze, and often every variety of dirt and disorder. The most amazing contrasts, however, are seen when we cut across a number of streets running at right angles to the railway. At one moment we are looking down into a quiet deserted street, that looks very neat and tidy. In the windows of the houses white blinds are drawn half-way down, while on the ground floor a basket of flowers, or a plant in a glass case, fills up the remaining space. The door steps are beautifully white, the brass knobs well polished. Everything looks very orderly to the eye. But in a moment the scene changes. And what a change! No vestige of tidiness or cleanliness seems to be left. Crowds of small back yards, covered with broken bricks and other rubbish, encumbered with unsightly outbuildings, and generally clothes drying.
On every side are heaps of rubbish, broken palings, rotting timber, and other lumber, while here and there matters are made still worse by some trade being carried on to an old tumble down shed or workshop. Surely we have suddenly got into another district. A scene like this cannot have any connection with the street we have just passed with its air of quiet respectability. Such would be our thoughts if our eyes did not assure us that these were but the backs of the very houses which faced the street. What, then, is the reason for such a contrast? Simply that the one is intended to be seen, the latter is not. Those who built them did not know, or if they knew, did not care to think, that a railway would pass over the ground, and, from crowded trains, thousands of eyes would peer behind the scenes and judge of the inhabitants far more by the back yard than the front door.
What a lesson lies here for us? We all have front doors, kept smart and clean. None can be quieter, more upright, and more devout than many of us when man’s eye is upon us. The part of our lives that is intended to be seen is very good, and leaves but little to be desired, it may be. But do we really think, have we ever fully grasped the fact, that the All Seeing Eye, which is silently judging our lives far above us all, sees the backs of our lives as clearly as the front, and judges us far more by the state of the back yard than the front door? Once we really grasp the fact, “Thou God seest me,” how worse than foolish does it seem to have any difference between the two.
Of course if we are content to live for human approval, we may get it. For man can only walk along the street and see the clean doorsteps and the flowers; but if we are living before God, all such external show is worse than useless. He must have reality. Perhaps these lines may be read by some who have been seeking to keep up a fair religious appearance, while all the time they are going on with secret, sinful, or ungodly lives. We have heard of servants who have not been ashamed to listen devoutly to family prayers, and very shortly afterward appropriate what was not their own, heedless of God’s all-seeing eye. We have also heard of young men who were not ashamed to deceive their Christian parents and relatives while indulging in secret and ungodly pleasures; of girls who would return from a meeting with every appearance of interest, only to rush off to the hidden novel, where the real interest lay all the time; of business men, most regular in their various subscriptions, but often very shady and shaky in their business transactions; of Sunday-school teachers, who were anything but examples to their class when they thought themselves off duty; of office girls and clerks, most regular in their attendance at the Bible class or prayer meeting, and yet very unsteady after hours when under no restraining eye.
These are a few of the forms of “back yards” that are almost as common as the literal ones we have spoken of.
All such living is vain and sinful. Let us make up our mind whom we will serve, for we cannot serve two masters, or God and Mammon. Let us cease to spend all our care in polishing up the front of the house, and quietly review the hidden part of our lives. Such hypocrisy as we have described, is strangely like the whited sepulcher of old, all fair without, within full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. “We are,” says the apostle, “made manifest to God.” He did not wait for the coming judgment seat which will reveal in its true light every hidden transaction of our lives, but he saw that the back view of his life was the same as the front.
Dear reader, it may be, if you are honest, that you will have to take a lower place in the circle of your religious friends, but let it at least be your true place, and seek to raise it, not by attending to the front door, but to that part which is not seen by man, thus “perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:11Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. (2 Corinthians 7:1)). “All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:1313Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. (Hebrews 4:13)).