CENTURIES ago the ancient city of Samaria was once being besieged, and its inhabitants were in dire straits. Outside the walls there was the danger of death from the foe; inside, of death from starvation. One evening the king, Jehoram, was going the round of the ramparts when he was hailed by a woman who demanded justice. She had an appalling tale to tell. She and another mother—their ordinary instincts utterly changed by hunger—had made a mutual compact to kill their own little ones in turn in order to sustain their own life, and she herself had kept to the agreement. Her companion, however, now refused to do so. The king heard the story with mingled sorrow and anger—sorrow because of the sufferings of his people, and anger because of his mistaken idea that it was God who was primarily the cause of such suffering. Impulsively, after the fashion of some Orientals, he tore his robes asunder to show the stress of his feelings, and, in so doing, disclosed what he had hitherto kept hidden. He was wearing a garment of rough hair next to his skin and enduring this discomfort apparently in the hope of appeasing the Divine wrath, or of attracting the Divine mercy This act of self-inflicted suffering on his part is a bright spot in a life not specially noteworthy. It was a revelation to his people. They had not thought of him as sharing all their privation, and they saw that they had misjudged him. Though he might not be enduring the pangs of hunger as they were, yet he was suffering in another way and in the hope that it might benefit them. His suffering was the more sincere because it was not paraded in public.
1. This incident is a warning against a superficial judgment.
We need to be very careful in our estimate of others. This fact was once brought home to the writer by a personal experience. He was Principal of a Mission Boys’ School in India, and one of the lessons inculcated was that of cleanliness. One day, he publicly reproved a lad for the dirtiness of his clothing. and contrasted his garments with the clean clothes of his brother. Later, he learned that it was not the boy’s own fault. He was a stepson, and while his stepmother looked after her own children, she neglected him. Adelaide Proctor has devoted a short poem to the subject. The brusqueness or timidness which we criticize in others may be due to causes which should elicit sympathy and not sarcasm. It may be even so in regard to a moral lapse.
“The fall thou darest to despise—
May be the angel’s slackened hand
Has suffered it, that he may rise
And take a firmer, surer stand;
Or, trusting less to earthly things,
May henceforth learn to use his wings.”
2. That monarch has his counterpart today. There are men and women, who are figuratively wearing sackcloth next their skin, concealed from the knowledge of their fellows.
Sometimes the sackcloth is involuntary. There is a skeleton in the cupboard of a life which in many cases the owner did not place there. It may be something physical― a malignant disease which will cause premature and painful death, or a chronic weakness that is a perpetual handicap. During all the years of Lord Curzon’s Viceroyalty of India, he was more or less suffering pain. He had a weak spine and needed artificial support. Yet he often worked sixteen hours a day and the general public did not know of his debility. As old age creeps on, bodily powers and faculties begin to wane and the personal realization of this causes apprehension. Or it may be due to financial reasons, unremitting poverty, heavy liabilities. lessening income, the loss of a situation or the fear of bankruptcy. Or it may be a domestic trouble. Some years ago there were three prominent preachers in the Metropolis, vet the wife of one was not in full sympathy with her husband; the second had a prodigal son, and the wife of the third had the task of concealing from the outside world her husband’s propensity to drink.
Sometimes, however, as in this monarch’s case, it is voluntary. It is due to self-abnegation for another’s sake, the shouldering of a burden of heavy responsibility, because others are too indifferent or self-centered to undertake it, or it may consist in the sharing of the shame or the sorrow of others.
3. How can we best deal with such secret sorrows?
WE CAN CONCEAL THEM FROM MEN
Some folk are always harping on their troubles. There was an Indian Christian woman once in Agra who was known as “Weeping Mary.” If ever you met her she began to shed tears. She never seemed happy unless she was complaining. Such folk do not wear their sackcloth next the flesh but outside. Yet, as has been remarked, if there are to be no tears in heaven, why not practice trying to do without them here? Many a minor grievance, if kept in the background, would eventually cease to harass. The outward expression of it simply deepens its realization. Be like the man of whom W. J. Mathams wrote: ―
“He kept up his pluck as he passed along:
That was all.
He smothered a sigh and sang an old song:
That was all.
Though stricken himself in the terrible fight
He kept his wounds covered up out of sight,
But bandaged his brother’s with swift delight.
That was all.”
We need to be specially careful to conceal our self-denials. Jesus was the enemy of sham and the denouncer of hypocrisy, yet there was one kind of hypocrisy, if I may so call it, which He approved. “When thou fastest, anoint thy head that thou appear not unto men to fast.” Any act of piety, if paraded, loses its bloom.
WE CAN CONFIDE THEM TO GOD.
“Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee.” That was how St. Paul acted with regard to his “thorn in the flesh.” If he had been wont to talk about it to men, we might have known what it was. Indeed, if it had not been that he wanted to tell of God’s sustaining grace in connection with it we should not have known that he had this secret sorrow. His experience was akin to that of the psalmist who wrote: “Thou hast loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness.” The apostle came to regard his sackcloth as a festal robe. The thorn blossomed into a flower, for it brought him a fresh experience of Christ.
4. What about the secret sorrows which are due to sin?
There are skeletons in some men’s cupboards which they themselves have placed there, though they did not realize it at the time; skeletons due to some act of folly in the bygone years, or to some unhappy entanglement resulting from an unguarded hour of passion. Just as in Jehoram’s case, his secret which had been concealed from men’s eyes was suddenly revealed through an unexpected circumstance, so too may their experience be. “The Lord will bring to light the hidden things of darkness.”
Hawthorne’s book, “The Scarlet Letter,” is the story of a minister who had committed sin, but who, through cowardice, concealed it. Outwardly, he wore the garments of sanctity while his victim had to wear on her clothes a letter of the alphabet which was the brand of shame. But the guilty secret weighed so heavily upon him that at last he came before his people and showed them imprinted upon his flesh that same letter in scarlet which for years he had succeeded in hiding. The sin was revealed but the soul was saved. It may not be always necessary to reveal to men a secret sin of the past, but it never pays to attempt to hide it from God. “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Thus alone can we attain that pardon and purifying which will bring us peace.
J. I. H.
GOD of the shadows, lead me through the gloaming, Arch the long road with fretted vaults of green;
Send but a gleam to tell me I am homing.
Let not Thy face be seen.
Fold well Thy cloak of gentlest pity round me,
Keep Thy bright secrets till the morning break;
Why should I seek Thee, Lord, when Thou, hast found me;
And know’st the way I take?