p. 155 | RAP HIM AGAIN, SHARPLY

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 2, 1860

"RAP HIM AGAIN, SHARPLY."

It was near sunset when I found myself at no great distance from a cottage, which had attached to it a piece of waste ground, partly surrounded with a fence of high boards. While looking up at the many colored clouds in the direction where the sun was declining in the sky, my attention was arrested by the sound of repeated blows, which appeared to be struck on a soft substance. Blow followed blow in such a regular manner, that they reminded me of men threshing in a barn with a couple of flails, only the sound was much duller than that made by threshers.

All at once the blows ceased, and then I heard a man cry out, "Rap him again sharply, for he has a deal of dust in him yet." The moment I came to the end of the high fence, I saw a large carpet stretched on a rope between two poles, and two men beating it with all their might. The mystery was now made plain, and I no longer wondered at the words, "Rap him again sharply, for he has a deal of dust in him yet."

Now the thought may be considered a little fanciful, but it did occur to me that most of us have required, in our time, as hearty a drubbing as the carpet had received. "Yes," said I, "we all need to be tried, and chastised, and humbled, for we are proud, and selfish, and worldly-minded, we think much of earth, and little of heaven; much of ourselves, and little of our heavenly Father; and beating is not more necessary to a dusty carpet, than trial is to those whose hearts are cleaving to the dust.

Now considering the matter in this light, the wonder is not that we are beaten, but that we are not always being beaten. Not that we should have affliction, but that we should ever be free from affliction, for we bring it upon ourselves by our transgressions.

No earthly power can ward the coming blow, Sorrow and sin through life together go.

Truly we have all been dealt with very tenderly; what mercy is mingled with the seeming severity of the words of the Holy One, when speaking of his people: "If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail." Ps. lxxxix, 31-33.

As I returned from my pleasant walk, at the very moment that I re-passed the cottage and the high fence, the same voice which I heard before, cried out, "There! let us take him down now, for he looks all the better for his beating."

"Well," thought I, "the beaten carpet was not at all likely to be forgotten by me before, but now it is pretty sure to be retained in my memory. That it looks the better for being beaten, I have no doubt at all. My evening walk has not been in vain, for I have at least obtained a subject of reflection."

If we all more steadily believed that the rod is meant to purify us, or in other words, to get the dust out of us, we might then sit more quietly under the merciful corrections of our heavenly Father. How does this apply to you, my readers? Have you been beaten, and are you the better for it? Have any of you been visited with trouble, and can you say, "Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept thy word. . . . It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes." Ps. cxix, 67, 71.

Look up! look up! when troubles frown, That God may send a blessing down.

Hardly do I think that any of us reflect sufficiently on the value of our daily cares, which are, perhaps, after all, as necessary as our daily bread. When they draw us to our heavenly Father, we have indeed reason to be thankful for them. Sweet it is in the day of calamity, and the hour of trial, to be able to cast all our cares on Him who careth for us.

Sweet in the confidence of faith, To trust His firm decrees; Sweet to lie passive in his hands, And know no will but His.

Oh, the buffetings and beatings through which many of God's people have passed! Look over a small part of the "bill of fare," if I may so call it, of St. Paul's afflictions: "Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." Yet all these were blessed to him!

You must think over this subject, and see if you cannot turn it to more advantage than I have done. The words of holy writ are very encouraging: "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him; for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth."

Heb. xii, 5, 6. And again : "No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Heb. xii, 12.

This little adventure of the beaten carpet often occurs to my remembrance, and especially so, when any expected evil is overruled for good, or when my heart is humbled by any passing trouble. Again and again do the words appear to sound in my ears, at one time producing a smile, and at another an emotion of a much deeper kind: "Rap him again sharply, for he has a deal of dust in him yet," and "There! let us take him down now, for he looks all the better for his beating."