IV

IPECACUANHA

IN his scathing criticism of Bertrand Barere, Macaulay tells us that the subject of his strictures was a man who employed ‘phrases in which orators of his class delight, and which, on all men who have the smallest insight into politics, produce an effect very similar to that of ipecacuanha.’ I am afraid that, if the expressive condemnation which the historian thus sheeted home upon the world of politics were to be aimed in the direction of the Christian Church, she could not, without some equivocation, resist the dread impeachment. There is a classical Scripture example of the same phenomenon. Thousands of years ago a tortured soul sat patiently listening to the painful platitudes of his would-be comforters. They endeavoured to propound to him the significance of the afflictions by which he was overwhelmed. And when the last echo of the philosophy of Eliphaz had trembled away into silence, poor Job found himself impressed with nothing so much as with its utter insipidity. And it was then that he sighed out his immortal question: ‘Is there any taste in the white of an egg?’ The discourse to which he had listened had ‘produced an effect very similar to that of ipecacuanha.’

But that was in the days when the world was very young and men knew very little. Yet the same thing happens every day. Sir J. R. Seeley says, in Ecce Homo, that the sin which Christ most vigorously denounced is the sin to which the modern Church is most prone the sin of insipidity. The pious commonplaces with which we glibly attempt to solace the suffering are often pathetically tasteless. The man whose darling hopes have ‘been cruelly shattered is told, with a serene smile and an upward glance, that ‘it might have been worse.’

The man whose heart is bleeding, and worse than broken, is reminded that ‘these things cannot be helped.’ We indolently surmise that ‘it is all for the best.’ Tennyson tells us of the pallid consolations which were offered him in that awful hour when the man with whom his soul was knit was snatched away to a premature grave:

One writes that ‘Other friends remain,’
That ‘loss is common to the race’;
And common is the commonplace,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain.

That loss is common does not make
My own less bitter, rather more;
Too common! Never morning wore
To evening but some heart did break.

In other words, the poet asked: Is there any taste in the white of an egg? The comfort was insipid, tasteless; it produced an effect very similar to that of ipecacuanha!

Now, quite obviously, here is an evil thing and a bitter. We have no right to play with crushed spirits and breaking hearts. ‘A man in distress,’ says John Foster, ‘has peculiarly a right not to be trifled with by the application of unadapted expedients; since insufficient consolations but mock him, and deceptive consolations betray him.’ I re- member very vividly a circumstance of my childhood. It was my first introduction to the problem of human loss, and it profoundly affected me. I chanced to be standing, on a sunny afternoon, by the gates of the local infirmary. It was visiting day. As I watched the relatives arriving I was struck with the appearance of a big, brawny man from the country. He made no secret of his excitement. He had evidently counted the hours, and had spruced himself up like a village bridegroom for the occasion. He approached the porter: ‘I’ve come to see my wife, Martha Jennings,’ he said. The porter consulted a book, and then, with what seemed to be brutal abruptness, replied: ‘Martha Jennings is dead!’ I saw the bronzed face blanch; I saw the strong man stagger. I watched him as he clung to the iron palings for support, and bowed himself in a passion of weeping. And then, as I stood there, good-natured people, pitying, essayed to comfort him. They rang the changes on the commonplaces. ‘Other friends remain!’ ‘Loss is common to the race!’ But it was of no use: ‘All vacant chaff well meant for grain.’ It produced an effect very similar to that of ipecacuanha! I have never entered the chamber of death in all the years of my ministry without recalling the tragedy I witnessed that Sunday afternoon.

Now, in the cases before us, what was wrong? This was wrong. In all these platitudes that were tossed to Tennyson and to my friend at the hospital yesterday, and to Job the day before, four vital aspects of suffering were overlooked.

1. Our commonplaces of comfort are insipid because they ignored the illuminative aspect of anguish. We forget the flood of light that streams from the Cross and that has transfigured tears for ever. Such frigid philosophy as that which we have quoted can be found in Marcus Aurelius, in Plato, and in all the stoical philosophers. And in them it is pardonable, even admirable. But from those who live in the light, better things are hoped. Christ has come! And from His disciples the weeping sons of sorrow expect, not the stone that would have been flung them by the Platonic school-master, but the bread and wine of the kingdom of heaven.

2. The insipidity of our consolations often arises from the fact that we ignore the purgatorial aspect of pain. As though the torments of his body were not enough, Eliphaz tortured the soul of Job by telling him that purity and pain were incompatible, and that his suffering was the result of his sin. ‘Who ever suffered being innocent?’ he stupidly asks. It is the philosophy of the pessimist. It relates all suffering to a black, black past as penal. But the theology of the optimist relates all suffering to a bright, bright future as purgatorial. Poor Eliphaz did not know, but we ought not to forget that a lamb which was ever the emblem of innocence has become also the symbol of suffering. If the doctrine of Eliphaz were sound, the sufferer can only grin and bear it. But it is not sound. And therefore the New Testament selects, as its word for suffering, the great word ‘tribulation,’ which reminds us of the ‘tribulum,’ the threshing-machine whose work is not to punish the wheat, but to sift it. The fires of God are never to devour, but ever to refine. It was because Eliphaz failed to remind Job of this that his hearers found the sermon so tedious. It made him cry, as with Hamlet:

O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable!
It produced an effect very similar to that of
ipecacuanha!

3. The insipidity is always manifest when the sacrificial aspect of suffering is ignored. There is a sense in which every sob is a sacrament. The sign of the Cross is stamped on all human anguish. You suffer for my good, and I bear sorrow for yours. Dickens unfolds this wonderful secret in David Copperfield. Mrs. Gummidge is the most self-centred, ill-content, cross-grained woman in Yarmouth. Then comes the angel of sorrow. All those around her are plunged in the shadow of a terrible calamity. And, in ministering to them, the whole life and character of Mrs. Gummidge was transfigured. David stood in amazement before the strange and beautiful transformation.

If none were sick and none were sad,
What service could we render?
I think if we were always glad,
We scarcely could be tender.

Did our beloved never need
Our patient ministration,
Earth would grow cold, and miss, indeed,
Its sweetest consolation.

If sorrow never claimed our heart,
And every wish were granted,
Patience would die, and hope depart
Life would be disenchanted.

4. And the insipidity of our consolations often arises from their neglect of the positive or possessive aspect of human loss. Whatever has been swept away in the terrible cataclysm, the best always remains. In Lord Beaconsfield’ s great novel he tells how Coningsby, in bemoaning the loss of his fortune, is suddenly reminded that he still possesses his limbs. In The Scapegoat Hall Caine tells how Israel left his little blind and deaf and dumb daughter Naomi, and wandered through the wilderness of this world. And he saw a slave-girl sold in the market-place, and he thanked God that his Naomi was free. And he heard the girl curse her father, and he thanked God for the deep love of poor little Naomi. And he saw a poor little girl that was a lunatic, and he thanked God that Naomi had her reason clear. And then the great deprivations of Naomi seemed swallowed up in the treasures that she still possessed.

As Mrs. Browning sings:

All are not taken; there are left behind
Living Beloveds, tender looks to bring,
And make the daylight still a happy thing,
And tender voices to make soft the wind.

That is a great sentence of two words that the Mohammedan always engraves on the tombstones of his departed: God remains! Let us but cast these four ingredients into the chalice of comfort that we are preparing for the quivering lips of our weeping friends, and, so far from it producing an effect that shall resemble ipecacuanha, it shall seem to them as bracing and invigorating as the new wine of the kingdom of heaven.

F. W. Boreham