The Walls of St. Antipas Fall at the Third Blast
On that dreaded morning a few weeks later, when the young minister faced a thronged St. Antipas at eleven o'clock service, his wife looked up at him from Aunt Bell's side in a pew well forward—the pew of Cyrus Browett—looked up at him in trembling, loving wonder. Then a little tender half-smile of perfect faith went dreaming along her just-parted lips. Let the many prototypes of Dives in St. Antipas—she could see the relentless profile of their chief at her right—be offended by his rugged speech: he should find atoning comfort in her new love. Like Luther, he must stand there to say out the soul of him, and she was prostrate before his brave greatness.
When, at last, he came to read the biting verses of the parable, her heart beat as if it would be out to him, her face paled and hardened with the strain of his ordeal.
"And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom; the rich man also died and was buried.
"And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom.
"And he cried and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.'
"But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and thou art tormented.'"
The sermon began. Unflinchingly the preacher pointed out that Dives, apparently, lay in hell for no other reason than that he had been a rich man; no sin was imputed to him; not even unbelief; he had not only transgressed no law, but was doubtless a respectable, God-fearing man of irreproachable morals—sent to hell for his wealth.
And Lazarus appeared to have won heaven merely by reason of his poverty. No virtue, no active good conduct, was accredited to him.
Reading with the eye of common understanding, Jesus taught that the rich merited eternal torment by reason of their riches, and the poor merited eternal life by reason of their poverty, a belief that one might hear declared even to-day. Nor was this view attested solely by this parable. Jesus railed constantly at those in high places, at the rich and at lawyers, and the chief priests and elders and those in authority—declaring that he had been sent, not to them, but to the poor who needed a physician.
But was there not a seeming inconsistency here in the teachings of the Master? If the poor achieved heaven automatically by their mere poverty, why were they still needing a physician? Under that view, why were not the rich those who needed a physician—according to the literal words of Jesus?
Up to the close of this passage the orator's manner had been one of glacial severity—of a sternness apparently checked by rare self-control from breaking into a denunciation of the modern Dives. Then all was changed. His face softened and lighted; the broad shoulders seemed to relax from their uncompromising squareness; he stood more easily upon his feet; he glowed with a certain encouraging companionableness.