Too Bad to Be Flogged.

A STRANGE scene in a strange land. Late in the year 1852, a patrol of British troops is on the way up to Basutoland. A man of one of the regiments on this service is tried by court-martial and sentenced to be flogged. He is an utterly useless, worthless fellow, as well as a great scamp. No good as a soldier or comrade, always in scrapes, when most wanted never to be depended upon; and now here he is under sentence of corporal punishment. No one pitied him — “Serve him right” was the judgment of all.
The “punishment parade” is formed up, the “triangles” are rigged, the drummers are ready, and so are the “cats.” The Drum Major is prepared to count the lashes, the medical Officer present to see the prisoner is fit, or otherwise, to undergo the sentence, attention is called, the three sides of a square formed, the Adjutant, at the Colonel’s command, reads the proceedings of the court-martial, the finding, and sentence, which latter includes the “fifty lashes on the bare back.” All is in order, every one present expecting the word for the prisoner to strip, when the commanding Officer’s voice is heard. Often before, and after, too, had it sounded forth to his devoted men: now to rush into the “bush,” now to lie down to escape the Kaffir assegais and rebel “Totties,” (Hottentots) bullets, while he remained on his horse, exposed, unmoved by the storm around him; but this time it is a strange utterance, for he was a strict disciplinarian. Addressing the prisoner, he sternly cutters the sentence, “If I could find but one good point in you I would flog you. Join your company, sir, and redeem your character!”
I don’t know who was most astonished, the culprit or the rest of the regiment; however, so it was.
Parade dismissed, triangles unrigged, drummers saved their direful work, and S—, with a whole skin, pardoned and released, returns to his duty.
As to the latter part of Colonel E—’s remark I must leave, but was it not a curious finale to that scene, my reader? “If I could find but one good point in you I would release you?” No, quite the reverse. The culprit was so bad, so good for nothing, that it was hopeless to search for one—but one — redeeming quality.
Ah! my reader, do you know a ditto to that soldier? I do, if you do not, I will not say it is YOU; may God and His Holy Spirit lead you to say it for and of yourself. I can and do say it of myself, for if your conscience has been reached, and the arrow of conviction hurled into your inmost soul by that blessed Person, you would not say, “Is it I?” but, “it is I, I, I.”
Yes, that is learning what the “dust” and the “dunghill” are (1 Sam. 2:88He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he hath set the world upon them. (1 Samuel 2:8)), and YOU in the one, and upon the other. To remain there? Never! for what is done with those who know and own it? HE, HE “raiseth up” the one, and “lifteth up” the other, “to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory.”
Who but the Holy God Himself could link “dust” and “dunghill” with “princes” and “throne of glory?” But He has, and thus in the Book of the Revelation (chap. 5.) we see the “Lamb that was slain” on the throne, after having been into the dust of death — there is the link — the precious unbreakable link. Yes, “If could find but one good point in you I would flog you,” but there was not one.
Of course in this case righteousness was not met, substitution not effected, because no one volunteered to take the punishment in the culprit’s place, but our God. has acted, does act, righteously, for it is “grace reigning through righteousness” (Rom. 5:2121That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:21)). A. Substitute was provided; the One Who said, “If therefore ye seek Me, let these go their way” (John 18:88Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he: if therefore ye seek me, let these go their way: (John 18:8)), and afterwards uttered that bitter cry, “My God, my God, why Nast Thou forsaken Me,” has borne the penalty due to you and to me, my friend, and now God can be “the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Rom. 3:2626To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. (Romans 3:26)), because He has been “just.”
If you look into one of the types, God’s dealings with the leper, it is on that principle of not finding one good thing in the poor suspected creature, that the priest, God’s man in that day, after continual examination, deferring week after week the sentence, for God is never in a hurry, when not a pin’s point of sound flesh is to be discovered on the leper, then the priest has to pronounce him “clean.” Read Leviticus 13:12, 1312And if a leprosy break out abroad in the skin, and the leprosy cover all the skin of him that hath the plague from his head even to his foot, wheresoever the priest looketh; 13Then the priest shall consider: and, behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague: it is all turned white: he is clean. (Leviticus 13:12‑13).
We get plenty about the ceremony to be gone through, after being pronounced clean, in the next chapter — the two sparrows (margin), one killed, part of the blood put on its fellow and let go in the “open field,” no hedges, or great trees, or buildings, for it to perch upon, but up, up, up to the Holy God, that He may see the resurrection bird (in type), with that which betokened death upon its little feathers; the other part on the leper, seven times sprinkled, and “clean” repeated; then comes washing of water, and shaving off the hair, even to eyebrows — old things given up — then some of the blood of the trespass offering put upon right ear, right toe, the cleansed one now set apart by blood; next the oil, put upon the blood, not oil first and blood after, no, blood first then the oil — death of Christ entered into and believed in first, then the unction, sealing, indwelling, sanctification, of the Holy Spirit. Rehabilitation takes place, and the poor outcast is received back into the camp; delivered from that terrible place outside the camp, type of “outer darkness,” with the “weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth,” now he joins “his company” and seeks to “redeem his character,” living as a new creature should live. But all this was after cleansing, after consecration, after clearing from the consequences of his horrible disease, and because of it, NOT to procure it. “This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works” (Titus 3:88This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men. (Titus 3:8)).
Well, my dear reader, have you put your hand on mouth, and mouth in dust, and said, “Unclean, unclean,” like the poor leper. Have you said, “Amen,” to “there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God?” Have you “not one good point?” “Vile,” “undone,” “sinful,” is that your character, owned before God under a solemn sense of its truth for you? Then step at once into the next clause and rejoice, “Justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood.” Step boldly, He invites you. S. V. H.