Unfinished Rainbows, and Other Essays

by George Wood Anderson

The world is weary following the ways of men. Righteousness alone exalteth a nation. “Back to God!” is the war-cry. “There is none like that; give it me.”

XI.
Spiced Wine

In his Songs Solomon referred to a beautiful Oriental custom. The bride and bridegroom drank from the same cup, that they might show the assembled guests their willingness to henceforth share all the cups of life, whether sweet or bitter. To add to the joy of the wedding banquet the cup from which the wedded ones were to drink would be passed first to the others who were seated with them. As it passed from hand to hand each guest would drop into the ruby wine a gift of fragrant spice, expressing thus the earnest wish that every bitter cup of life might be brightened and sweetened with the spices of good friendship. From the first moment of wedded life their loved ones wished that they taste of nothing save joy and happiness. In his great poem Solomon somewhat alters the ancient custom and represents the bride performing this service of spicing the wine for the husband, as much as to say, “I would render unto thee only the sweetest, the purest, and the best that earth can hold.”

One of the greatest needs of to-day is a spirit of willingness to spice the sour wines which others are daily compelled to drink. There are few greater services to render both God and man than to proffer the cup of spiced wine.

The church as the Bride of Christ should offer to him no service that is not sweet and aromatic with the spices of sincerity and love. This is the only way the world will ever be taken for Jesus Christ. The church must offer something better, more pleasing, and more wholesome than the wines that this world has to offer. It is the tendency to give to God the drainings from life’s vintage. We often spend the week in pursuit of selfish pleasures, drinking the sweetest wines and giving them freely to our chosen companions, and then, in hours of worship, give to God the cheaper, sourer wines, making religious worship unwholesome, acrid, bitter, and nauseous.

Unless we do away with our acrimonious methods and make our services to God more aromatic and pleasant, the church is going to lose all hold upon her boys and girls. As a child’s growing body requires sugar, so his awakened spiritual powers need that which is sweetened with the spices of gladness and whole-heartedness.

This is the only way by which the church shall get and retain its grip on men of affairs. All week long these individuals have been tasting the acid and the bitterness of earthly struggle and competitive ambition. Sunday morning comes and they are tired, and nervous, and all worn out. What they need is a cup of spices, each bit of spice a gift of love. They need to have their minds taken away from the bitterness and acidity of life and given something that is fragrant and stimulating, something that will revive and strengthen them for future activity. This is the purpose of the church. It is to gather from all quarters of the earth all things that are good, wholesome, and attractive, and press them, as a gift of love, to the lips of every worshiper. It is to crowd each service with inspiring song, short helpful prayers, warm-worded greetings, and enthusiastic handshaking, until the silver chalice brims with gladness. Bring all your spices into the house of God and offer to Christ a pleasing gift. There is no telling how much good you can do. Look into the face of your Creator whenever you enter his temple and pray with an earnest heart: “O Lord, I would this day cause thee to drink spiced wine.”

This should not only be the attitude of the church toward its Lord, but it should certainly be the spirit with which it daily faces the world. As we confront each individual we should be able to say: “I would cause thee, my brother, my sister, to drink spiced wine.” We should go through life so prepared with the spices of good cheer that the moment we found one with a cup of bitterness we could remove all its disagreeableness before it is pressed to their parched lips. We should carry spices for their cups, and not pepper for the eyes, or salt with which to rub the sores of our enemies. Spices so sweeten the cup that men forget their hatred and find themselves glad that we are here.

Give them the spices of a good disposition. Our dispositions are not unalterable gifts thrust upon us at birth, but are largely a matter of cultivation. If we associate with that which is sour and crabbed, our dispositions will, of necessity, assume the same nature. If we live a life of goodness, we will most naturally have a sweet disposition. The difference between peaches and pickles is far more than a matter of spelling. Peaches are not pickles, because they absorb the sunlight and the sweetness of the soil, until even their tartness is delicious to the taste. Pickles are not peaches because they absorb only those things which suggest and harmonize with salt and vinegar. We never think of pickles without thinking about vinegar. Their difference is in the choice of elements used in building tissues. The same thing is true with us. We make our dispositions, and because we do, we should be lovers of the aromatic spices with which God has crowded the world. O that those who profess to love God would cease shaking pepper into others’ lives, and begin to put sweet spices of a good disposition into cups already too bitter with the gall of sorrow and disappointment.