The Sword of Solomon,
By F.W. Boreham
Is there in print a more captivating story- a story more full of human interest and appeal- than the story of two mothers who appeared before Solomon at the city gate to dispute the maternity of a certain child? Each had borne a babe: each woman claimed to be the mother of the child that lived. ‘And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword unto the king. And the king said, Divide the living child in two and give half to the one and half to the other.’ One of the women entirely approved of this proposal; the other, with a pitiful cry, begged that the sword might be sheathed and the child committed to the care of her rival. Solomon recognised at once the true mother. ‘And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged, and they feared the king; for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to do judgment.’
I
Great was the wisdom of Solomon, for he demonstrated that day, more vividly and dramatically than it had ever been demonstrated before, the utter Futility of the Sword. ‘Bring me a sword!’ cried the king. And the sword was drawn from its scabbard and laid before the king in order that it might be made to appear ridiculous in the eyes of all the ages. For how could the sword have settled this dispute? Supposing it had done its deadly work and cut the child in two, how could that have proved to which of the two women it belonged? That is the pity of it. The sword is mighty in its power to produce bloodshed and heartbreak and world-wide misery, but it is utterly impotent as an instrument by which any argument may be established or any dispute settled. If the nation that is in the right wins the war, it has only won, by an appeal to the sword, what it should have been easy for it to have won by an appeal to reason; whilst if a nation that is in the wrong wins the war, it has only sown seeds of hatred and bitterness and malice which must inevitably produce a further harvest of strife and bloodshed. Never in the history of all the ages has the sword proved anything. It can no more settle a dispute between two empires than it could settle this dispute about the maternity of the living child. And all the world has admired the insight and sagacity of Solomon in demonstrating the poor sword’s utter futility as he demonstrated it at the city gate that day.
II
Great was the wisdom of Solomon, for he demonstrated that day, more vividly and dramatically than it had ever been demonstrated before, the obvious limits that beset the Law of Compromise. Compromise is one of the fundamental principles of human life and commerce; it is difficult to see how we could possibly manage without it. ‘All government,’ said Burke, ‘all government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act, is founded on compromise. We balance inconveniences; we give and take; we remit some rights that we may enjoy others.’ I have a house to sell; you wish to purchase a home. You consider my demands extravagant; I think your offer too modest. The only sensible course is for us to meet and talk it over. When we have thoroughly discussed it, I shall properly moderate my figure; you will make your proposal a little more generous; and thus we shall arrive at a satisfactory understanding.
But, as Solomon shows so clearly in his judgment at the city gate, there are definite limits to the operation of this beneficent law. His command: ‘Divide the baby between them!’ is an exposure of the impossibility of compromise in certain cases. There are circumstances in which the policy of give-and-take breaks down hopelessly. There are disputes that cannot be settled by an attempt to meet each other half way. In this particular case you must take the trouble to find out whether this woman or that woman is the mother of the child; a middle course is impossible.
In the big things of life- and a living baby is one of the biggest of all big things- compromise is invariably impossible. Faith finds it so. Faith can never make the incredible credible by tampering with the facts or splitting the difference. Matthew Arnold employs a capital illustration to prove this point. He cites the story of Cinderella’s fairy godmother who is said to have changed a common pumpkin into a golden chariot drawn by six cream ponies. Now here is the story: what are you going to do with it? At this juncture Faith discovers the Law of Compromise, so often useful, cannot help her. Let us try it.
‘It is very difficult,’ I say to myself, ‘to believe that Cinderella’s godmother changed this common pumpkin into a golden chariot drawn by six cream ponies. What probably happened is that she waved her magic wand over it and, hey presto, it became a hansom cab!‘
Have I made the story more credible by whittling it down? And, even if i go a step further and suggest that perhaps, after all, she merely turned the pumpkin into a wheelbarrow, I have not made it more acceptable to reason or to faith.
There are circumstances, like the circumstances that confronted Solomon that day at the city gate, in which compromise is out of the question. I must carefully weigh the evidence and decide for this course or for that course. I must examine this Cinderella story and accept it as a whole or reject it as a whole. There is a point beyond which the Law of Compromise cannot go. The intellect must face its responsibility bravely.
Take, for example, the biggest word in our vocabulary, the word GOD. There it stands; what can we do with it?
The Christian says: ‘I believe in God the Father Almighty.‘
The Atheist cries: ‘There is no God!‘
Between these two positions there is no half-way house. You cannot believe in God an No-God at the same time. Every half-hearted and insincere attempt to believe in God has led its victim, sooner or later, to behave as though there were no God. And every half-hearted and insincere attempt to believe in No-God has led its victim, sooner or later, to behave as though there were a God. Along these dark and dismal roads you find religious men acting like rogues and you find atheists falling upon their knees in terrified supplication. Any attempt to compromise on this august issue can only lead to hypocrisy of some sort. It is the supreme instance of those cases- cases of which the dispute about the baby is a representative- in which the compromise is impossible. I must decide for the one course or for the other; there is no splitting the difference; no meeting the situation half-way. I must make up my mind that God is; and live in the virtue of that fine faith as one who must at last stand face to face with his Maker; or I must decide frankly and finally that God is not; and live as one who has no fear of him.
III
Great was the wisdom of Solomon, for he demonstrated that day, more vividly and dramatically than it had ever been demonstrated before, the fact that the biggest and best things in life must be taken as they stand; they cannot be halved or divided.
The universe consists of two sets of things; there are Quantities, and there are Entities; and, in the long run, life is dominated by entities.
A pound of butter is a quantity; you can divided into two parts without doing it the slightest harm. A ton of coal is a quantity; you can divided into two parts without injuring it in the least; a quart of milk is a quantity; you can divided into two parts without in any way hurting it. But there are things, like this baby at the city gate, that are not Quantities but Entities. You can only divide them by destroying them. Supposing that a dispute arises concerning this watch of mine. How are you going to divide it into two parts? Or this beautiful painting? Or this lovely song? Or this noble poem? Or this glorious rose? These things- and all the best things in life- are Entities; they are like the baby at the city gate; you can only divide them by destroying them.
Now all the most valuable and vital things in life follow that law; they are not Quantities but Entities. The Bible, for example. The Bible, like the baby, is an organic whole; each part belongs to every other part; it is one and indivisible.
Here is a man who claims airily: ‘I believe in the Ethical! Give me only those passages that make for righteousness, for morality, for honesty and integrity between man and man! Give me the Ten Commandments; give me the Sermon on the mount; give me the Golden Rule; give me all those priceless passages that tell a man to love his neighbor as himself, and to do to others as he would that they should do to him!’
And here is another man who exclaims just as airily: ‘Give me the Evangelical! Give me the Story of the Cross! Give me ‘God so loved the world!‘ Give me ‘Behold the Lamb of God!‘ Give me the glorious invitations and precious promises of the New Testament! Give me the gospel of the grace of God!’
Now here are two men trying to divide the Bible into two parts! It cannot be done. The Bible, like the baby, is an Entity; to divide it is to destroy it.
Let this man who is so insistent on the Ethical look into his own heart and review his own life! And, if he be as honest as his passion for honesty would lead us to suppose, he will recognize that he, with all his enthusiasm for the Ten Commandments, has nevertheless broken the Ten Commandments. He may have broken only on; and he may have broken that one only once. yet there stands the fact- the blank fact of personal guilt. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now how does this man, so jealous for the Ethical, propose to remove the stain from his righteous soul? And, when he comes to face that poignant and penetrating problem, he will find his heart turning wistfully toward the Evangelical. He will listen gratefully to the Story of the Cross; he will glad that God so loved the world that he gave his Son; he will kneel in contrition to the Lamb of God. For, with all his fervor for the Ethical, he is a sinful man; he needs a Savior; and he will delight in the music of the Evangelical. For the Evangelical and Ethical are one; you cannot divide them.
And let this man who is so insistent on the Evangelical ask himself a pertinent question. He is jealous for the gospel-the Story of the Cross, the good news that God so loved the world, and so on. But how does he propose to impress the hearts of worldly men with the glory of that divine evangel? Let him, in his home, in his business, in the dusty ways of daily traffic, live a life that is out of touch with the Ethical. Let him do violence to the Ten Commandments; let him ignore the Sermon on the Mount; let him outrage the Golden Rule; and then let him see to what extent men will respect his evangelical message. They will turn from it with loathing and contempt. But let him live a life that is in harmony with the ethical precepts of the divine Word; and all men will listen with wistful and eager attention to the evangelical message that he brings them. And so, like the man who is so insistent on the Ethical, this other man, who attaches such supreme importance to the Evangelical, discovers that these two hemispheres of truth are one and indivisible. You cannot separate the Ethical from the Evangelical, nor the Evangelical from the Ethical. The Bible is an entity; to divide it is to destroy it.
And so, for that matter, is the soul. Solomon had to take the baby as it was, and give it in its entirety to the one woman or to the other; and no man can travel far along the devious paths of human life without discovering that he must treat his soul- his very, very self -in exactly the same way. The man who attempts to divide his soul between God on the one hand and the world, the flesh and the devil on the other destroys his soul to all eternity in the process. He cannot serve God and Mammon.
IV
Great was the wisdom of Solomon, for he demonstrated that day, more vividly and dramatically than it had ever been demonstrated before, the utter unreliability of Mathematics on the higher planes of human experience.
There is a sense, I suppose, in which twice one are two; a sense in which two and two are four; a sense in which many other propositions of the kind are partly if not wholly true. It is difficult to see how merchants and accountants, and other excellent and well-meaning people, could go back to their desks and counting-houses if their faith in these arithmetical conclusions were seriously shaken.
I hasten to say, therefore, that there is a plane-the plane of ledgers and cashbooks -on which these propositions are approximately sound. But, if you rise from that plane to a loftier one, you will lind at once that they are untenable. They simply will not work. Solomon proves it at the city gate. It may be true that half-a-sovereign and half-a-sovereign make a sovereign; it is obviously untrue that a half-a-baby and half-a-baby make a baby. Let the sword do its deadly work; let it cleave this baby into two parts; and half-a-baby plus half-a-baby will represent but the grim and gruesome mockery of a baby. Two halves of a baby make no baby at all.
On this higher plane of human sentiment and experience, the laws of Mathematics collapse completely. When, for example, a man distributes his wealth among his children, he gives to each a part; but when a woman distributes her love among her children, she gives it all to each. I do not believe that any man who has once fallen in love will ever be persuaded that one and one are only two. He looks at her, and he feels that one plus one would be a million. I do not believe that any happy couple into the sweet shelter of whose home a little child has come will ever be convinced that two and one are only three. Life has been enriched a thousandfold by the addition of that one little life to theirs. And I am certain that no pair from whose clinging and protecting arms their treasure has been snatched will find comfort in the assurance that one from three leaves two. In the great crises of life one’s faith in figures breaks down hopelessly.
Take the parable of the talents, for example. Here, if anywhere, there is employment for the statistician; here, if anywhere, he should be in his element. ‘The kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country who called his own servants and delivered unto them his goods.’ What happened? Ask our mathematician. The mathematician, believing in the ridiculous fallacy that two and two make four, gets to work adding things up. The good man delivered to‘ his servants five talents plus two talents plus one talent; that is to say, eight talents. On his return he received from them ten talents plus four talents plus one talent; that is to say fifteen talents. Whereupon the statistician beams with delight. How splendidly the three servants did! But it will never do. One and one and one do not make three. Five and two and one do not make eight. Ten and four and one do not make fifteen. These totals three and eight and fifteen, so dear to the heart of the man who believes in arithmetic, do not come into the story at all. The three men are never added together. Service and sloth can no more be added together than can coal and candles or John and Judas. The Church secretary, believing in arithmetic, can add me up with a lot of other people if he likes; but in the Day of Judgment the addition will all be exploded. I shall no longer be lost in the crowd. The three servants will answer each for himself- one and oneand one. For one and one will not make three in the calculations of the last day. Even now one pound one shilling and one penny do not count as three in any reasonable scale of reckoning.
V
Great was the wisdom of Solomon, for he demonstrated that day, more vividly and dramatically than it had ever been demonstrated before, the fact that, if you look beneath the surface of Hate, you will find a wonderful wealth of Love!
The crowd at the city gate looked at these two wrangling women, speaking with uplifted voices, gesticulating with excited movements, and flashing towards each other glances of bitterness and malice; and the crowd saw nothing but Hate. For the crowd looked only at the surface.
But Solomon, in his wisdom, looked beneath the surface, and, as a consequence, Solomon saw Love.
Solomon looked at the woman whose child was dead- the woman who was attempting to deprive the other of the babe of her bosom. And he saw at once that her agitation arose from an empty and desolate heart. Her child was dead; she felt she could not live without it; and, to soothe her throbbing breast she was trying to possess herself of the babe that was not hers. It was her stricken mother love that moved her to such intensity of feeling.
Solomon looked at the woman who was the actual mother of the child, and, in her distracted demeanor, he saw the terrified love of a mother who is threatened with the loss of her babe.
And so, in both cases, it was not Hate but Love… mother-love, the mightiest, sweetest, purest of all loves, but it took the wise eyes of Solomon to see it. Now, if we had equally wise eyes, we should all see love everywhere. It is the one respect in which we are all alike. Good men and bad men; old men and young men; rich men and poor men; men of every race and speech; we all love, and love to love, and love to be loved. I wonder why? And yet I do not wonder; for I know! It is because we were made in the image of God; and God is love. He loves, and loves to love, and loves to beloved. There lies the secret. That is why, when he makes his great appeal to men, he states it, not in the form of an argument or a theory or a proposition or a philosophy. He makes his supreme appeal to our hearts. He gives us his Son; he reveals to us his love; for, knowing us as he does, he knows that if that does not move us to contrition and devotion, nothing will.
There, then, stands the Cross with its eternal message of divine affection! God so loved the world that he gave his Son. He knows, as Solomon knew, that underneath all the malice and the greed and the hate and the sin, there is Love– the love of love- the love of loving- the love of being loved. And to that deeper self in each of us the Cross makes its deathless and eternal appeal.
Brilliantly written and brilliant thoughts, an excellent call to break though the calloused heart and to inspire. To God be the glory.
Solid stuff. I should read more of Boreham. God bless.