“The door was shut.” The five were in, and then came the other five, to find the gate closed. Then they begin to
cry “Open to us!” but in vain. The door makes all the difference. If you enter, it is by the door; if you are shut out, it is the door that closes against you. “I am the door,” said Jesus, and it is yet true. “No man cometh to the Father but by Me.” Yes, Jesus is the True and Living way, and the only one. But if we are lost, it will be the aspect of Jesus which will slay our last hope. It is the wrath of the Lamb which is so dreadful. Have you ever thought of it, my brother, that Christ is to be Life or Death to thee? If he does not shut thee into heaven, He will shut thee out. Shall you ever be one of the group which cry, as their last prayer, “Lord! Lord! open to us!”
DO NOT BE ONE OF THOSE
WHO PRAY LIKE ABEL
AND
LIVE LIKE CAIN.
XXVII. “CAST A STONE AT HER!”
John viii. 7.
Cast a stone at whom? At a woman! Why not at a man?
There was a man, why not stone him?
Just so, but then the Scribes and Pharisees did not bring him. It is so easy to punish the woman, and yet it is not proved that she was worse than her paramour. But is it not the way of the world to make the woman bear all the shame and all the suffering? We say, “She is a fallen woman;” and yet we speak of a man who breaks the seventh commandment as one who is “sowing his wild oats!” Why is he not called a fallen man? If a woman falls, we put her outside our sympathies and our regard, and we may be right is so doing. But at the same time we don’t put the man outside. He can come into our drawing-rooms. He may dine at the same table with our daughters. If we saw them speak to the woman, we should cry out with loathing, “Come away from her!” but
we don’t cry out when they laugh at the jokes of a man who has fallen!
Why is this?
“Cast a stone at her!” Who shall stone her? “He that is without sin, let him be the first to pick up a stone.” Now, then, reader, why don’t you throw a stone? Nay, but I have no right, say you, I am not without sin. Is this to be the rule, none are to punish the fallen but those who have never tripped? Why, this would silence many who