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And the Bible! How strangely and dully they talked, and what people! That nasty Jacob and Esau business, those horrid Israelites, the Unfaithful Steward; the Judge who let himself be pestered into action; those poor unfortunate swine that were made to rush violently down the steep place into the sea; Ananias and Sapphira. No not a nice book at all.
The terrible words, as if audible to the mind, now direct us to him who pronounced his doom, and the singly-raised finger of the Apostle marks him the judge; yet not of himself, for neither his attitude, air, nor expression has any thing in unison with the impetuous Peter, he is now the simple, passive, yet awful instrument of the Almighty: while another on the right, with equal calmness, though with more severity, by his elevated arm, as beckoning to judgment, anticipates the fate of the entering Sapphira.
She teached me 'bout 'Scuffle little chillens and forbid 'em not, and 'bout 'Ananias telled Sapphira he done it with his little hatchet, and 'bout 'Lijah jumped over the moon in a automobile: I know everything what's in the Bible. Miss Cecilia sure is a crackerjack; she's 'bout the stylishest Sunday-School teacher they is."
This parable, so descriptive of the mixed constitution of the church of Christ, from the primitive times down to the present age, is strikingly exemplified in the history of Ananias and Sapphira.
They trifle with Him; and while they sing hymns about His gentleness and sweetness, they do things which grieve and shock Him; forgetting the awful warning which He, at the very outset of the Christian Church, gave against such taking of liberties with God the Holy Ghost: how Ananias and Sapphira thought that the Holy Spirit was One whom they might honour with their lips, and more, with their outward actions, but who did not require truth in the inward parts, and did not care for their telling a slight falsehood that they might appear more generous than they really were in the eyes of men; and how the answer of the Holy Spirit of God was that He struck them both dead there and then for a warning to all such triflers, till the end of time.
One can fancy the awed silence that fell on the congregation, and the restrained, mournful movement that ran through it when Sapphira entered. Why the two had not come in company can only be conjectured. Perhaps the husband had gone straight to the Apostles after completing the sale, and had left the wife to follow at her convenience.
"His blood poured out like a river," went on the landlady, still drawing from the rich stores of her imagination, "and the doctor was struck dumb with astonishment at seein' the Nigagerer which burst from 'im but I'm not so full-blooded myself." Fitzgerald again stifled a laugh, and wondered that Mrs. Sampson was not afraid of being treated as were Ananias and Sapphira.
And surely if the stick-gatherer, that did but alienate a little of God's time; and Ananias and Sapphira, that withheld but some part of their estate: and if Belshazzar for abusing the consecrated vessels of the temple, were so grievously punished; how much more will God punish those that alienate themselves from the service of that God to whom they have sworn to be obedient?
"The forlorn and hopeless condition of the prisoner at this bar, appeals pathetically to that compassion which we are taught to believe coexists with justice, even in the omnipotent God we worship; yet in the face of incontrovertible facts elicited from reliable witnesses, of coincidences which no theory of accident can explain, can we stifle convictions, solely because she pleads 'not guilty'? Pertinent, indeed, was the ringing cry of that ancient prosecutor: 'Most illustrious Caesar! if denial of guilt be sufficient defence, who would ever be convicted? You have been assured that inferences drawn from probable facts eclipse the stupendous falsehood of Ananias and Sapphira!
Ananias and Sapphira tried it when they kept back part of the price of the land they sold. Men try it every day. They have got it into their heads that God can be mocked. Because they can deceive their pastor, and their employer, and their friends, they think they can deceive God.
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