always successful orator Ill-pause. On difficult
occasions he came himself on the scene and Ill-pause
with him. On such difficult occasions as in the
Garden of Eden; as when Noah was told to make haste
and build an ark; as also when Abraham was told to
make haste and leave his father’s house; when
Jacob was bid remember and pay the vow he had made
when his trouble was upon him; as also when Joseph
had to flee for what was better than life; and on that
memorable occasion when David sent Joab out against
Rabbah, but David tarried still at Jerusalem.
On all these essential, first-class, and difficult
occasions the old serpent brought up Ill-pause.
As also when our Lord was in the wilderness; when
He set His face to go up to Jerusalem; when He saw
certain Greeks among them that came up to the passover;
as also again and again in the Garden. As also
on crucial occasions in your own life. As when
you had been told not to eat, not to touch, and not
even to look at the forbidden fruit, then Ill-pause,
the devil’s orator, came to you and said that
it was a tree to be desired. And, you shall not
surely die. As also when you were moved to terror
and to tears under a Sabbath, or under a sermon, or
at some death-bed, or on your own sick-bed—Ill-pause
got you to put off till a more convenient season your
admitted need of repentance and reformation and peace
with God. On such difficult occasions as these
the devil took Ill-pause to help him with you, and
the result, from the devil’s point of view, has
justified his confidence in his orator. When
Ill-pause gets his new honours paid him in hell; when
there is a new joy in hell over another sinner that
has not yet repented, your name will be heard sounding
among the infernal cheers. Just think of your
baptismal name and your pet name at home giving them
joy to-night at their supper in hell! And yet
one would not at first sight think that such triumphs
and such toasts, such medals, and clasps, and garters
were to be won on earth or in hell just by saying such
simple-sounding and such commonplace things as those
are for which Ill-pause receives his decorations.
‘Take time,’ he says. ‘Yes,’
he admits, ’but there is no such hurry; to-morrow
will do; next year will do; after you are old will
do quite as well. The darkness shall cover you,
and your sin will not find you out. Christ died
for sin, and it is a faithful saying that His blood
will cleanse you later on from all this sin.’
Everyday and well-known words, indeed, but a true orator
is seen in nothing more than in this, that he can
take up what everybody knows and says, and put it
so as to carry everybody captive. One of Quintilian’s
own orators has said that a great speaker only gives
back to his hearers in flood what they have already
given to him in vapour.