—not like the old age of the year—for the fruit of this, at the best, is hips and haws, and holly-berries.
But can the command ever apply to a life of which the world, and the flesh, and the devil have had the harvest? Will God accept the mere gleanings?
“Autumn departs—from busy fields no more
Come rural sounds, our kindred banks to cheer;
Blent with the stream, and gale that wafts it o’er,
No more the distant reaper’s mirth we hear.
The last blithe shout hath died upon the ear,
And harvest-home hath hushed the clanging wain:
On the waste hill no forms of life appear,
Save where, sad laggard of the Autumnal train,
Some age-struck wanderer gleans few ears of scattered grain.”
Thus, when the world’s shouts and glee have passed by him, may we sometimes see the sad late seeker of God occupied. Sometimes, not often; for be it well laid to heart that God’s enemies seldom leave any gleanings on their fields, but are busy with careful rake to collect even life’s last days. Not often; for settled habits are hardest to overcome; and when the character and tastes are formed, there will seldom remain even the hearty wish to alter. Not often, then, but sometimes, in later life the worldling, or the devil’s labourer, turns back with wrung hands and tears—smitten and pricked to the heart by some sharp voice from God—and wanders over the bare, desolate fields in life’s chill and fog, and shakes the dreary boughs;—if perhaps there may be a little handful of corn, or an overlooked grape, or any fruit, that yet may be tremblingly offered to the Master of the Harvest, when He comes to take account with His labourers.
And now the question is, Is this late labour, labour in vain?
“Will God indeed with fragments bear,
Snatched late from the decaying year?
Or can the Saviour’s blood endear
The dregs of a polluted life?”
He will: it can. If the heart be truly turned to Him at last, it will not be turned to Him in vain. Many of my readers will recall a beautiful allegory of servants trading for their lord, and how one, late caused to tremble and to turn, brought at the reckoning-day salt tears and rough sackcloth, that changed as he bore them into rich stuff and jewels. Aye, a broken and a contrite heart, if real, at no time in life will He despise. Better give the harvest than only the gleanings, but better these than nothing.
It is a base truth that men often only desert the world when the world deserts them. But, I have seen it observed, there is something very touching in the fact that men thus find that they must turn to God at last, after all, without Him, has disappointed, and that if they truly turn, so gracious is He, that He will deign to accept the world’s leavings. The story of the lost sheep, of the piece of money, but chiefly of the prodigal son, assure us of the truth of this. When he had spent all, it was,—all his rich patrimony of young powers, feelings, hopes, and after he had even gone after swine’s husks,—after he had spent all, the Father accepted the empty casket! When the seed-time, and the ripening-time, and the harvest-time had passed, the bare November fields and stripped boughs were accepted, because over them had gathered the mournful mist of true repentance, and because they were thickly strung with abundance of sorrowful tears!
Oh, wonderful love, not of earth, but divine!—God deigns to prize what earth has thrown away! Therefore let those who seem even settled on their lees, fixed in the ways of the world or of sin, let them tremble exceedingly, but let them not despair. If they will, they yet may. Let them cry to the Helper, let them retrace the path with tears, gleaning as they go a scattered rare grain here and there,—redeeming the time, although the evil days have come. There is One for whose perfect merits the harvest of the saint and the handful of the sinner shall alike find acceptance; and though ’tis best to “sin not,” nevertheless, “if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”
Let none presume, however; for the gleaning commonly goes the same way that the harvest has gone. And it were base indeed, designedly, to set apart only life’s leavings for God’s share. Oh, rather let those who can give life’s whole broad year to God!