Daubing with Untempered Mortar.
By M. W. HOWARD
I REMEMBER that in early childhood, I often heard a quaint old minister use the expression with which I have headed this article. He would pray, “Let there be no daubing with untempered mortar,” and in his sermons would talk about “daubing with untempered mortar.” Albeit I am conscious now, that himself was not exempt from doing the very thing he so much deprecated; but it was the times of his ignorance, and, doubtless, God winked at it. However, the expression stands out clearly defined in my memory, without the least recollection of his manner of using it. But the knowledge which comes with maturer years fully develops to our understanding things that were to childish hearts, only mystical, incomprehensible words, and I doubt not but I now know just what the practical old man meant by “daubing with untempered mortar.” This significant quotation from one of the prophets, has come back to me with uncommon force, as I recall some new notes, which I have recently heard, of the peace and safety cry, which is now so surely lulling the churches to that fatal security that precedes the final doom! And the sad comment, “My people love to have it so,” applies as appropriately now as when it was first uttered to Israel. It is pleasant, if they be accepted as Scripture verities, to hear assertions which insure us cheering prospects for the future. But what saith the Scripture? Not, surely, what very recently I heard affirmed in a sermon from the text, “Watchman, what of the night?” The speaker exclaimed with enthusiasm, lifting up his hands, I suppose in imitation of the angel he personated, “that the angel of the revelator was lifting up his hand and swearing that the time of sin of ignorance and of error should be no longer!” And another as unqualifiedly affirmed that our Lord in teaching us to pray, “Thy kingdom come,” taught us to pray for the unity and prosperity of the church; for only as that was extended and established, could his kingdom come! But last, though not least in absurdity, was the speculation broached, admitting at the start, that it was only speculation, since, confessedly, there was no Scripture to sustain it. “When Christ ascended up from Bethany, he diffused—dissolved into that cloud which received him up out of sight.” Alas! Alas! that there should be so much “daubing with untempered mortar,” by accredited teachers in these days. Daubing till the true meaning of Scripture is lost in unwarrantable fables. Daubing, till the whole system is endangered or brought to a discount with the reflective, as well as with the unthinking. Let all give heed now, for life and death are at stake. Scripture is a pure stream flowing from the throne of God, and all should beware how they pervert it, making it reflect the fantastic images of a brain imagination. M. W. HOWARD.