home > books by FWB > 1918, The Silver Shadow > THE MINISTER’S WIFE

THE MINISTER’S WIFE

She was the minister’s wife, and she might have been the happiest woman in Asia. As you drive along the pretty old road that winds its tortuous way among the fragrant fields and fruitful orchards that glorify the rich and lovely valley of the Lycus, and as you come suddenly upon the ancient town that seems to be hiding shyly behind the groves of tall poplar-trees, you cannot help thinking of her — of all that was and all that might have been. Very few women ever had such a prospect of happiness and usefulness as had she. And yet, fortunately, very few women have made such sad shipwreck of a minister’s heart and a minister’s home and a minister’s work as did she.

The letter of the Risen Lord to His church at Thyatira is never read in manses at family worship. The minister likes to read it by himself; and the minister’s wife likes to read it on her knees when the house is quiet. Those of us whose feeble struggles towards goodness are shamed out of countenance by the finer piety and deeper devotion of our wives, and whose puny attempts at Christian service are often inspired and always seconded by those whose lives are wedded to our own, like to read that terrible record in the Book of Revelation in our lonely moments. And then we give humble and hearty thanks to the Divine Author of that terrible letter that upon us has never been laid the cruel cross that, every day of his life, the minister at Thyatira had to carry. And, when the minister is away at a meeting, and baby is in bed, the minister’s wife likes to sit by the fireside and read all by herself that sad, sad letter to the angel of the church at Thyatira. And then, with moistened eyes and a lump in her throat, she kneels by the great arm-chair in which she has been resting and prays. ‘O Lord,’ she cries, ‘forbid that Thou shouldst ever have to say to my husband about me such words as Thou didst write to the minister at Thyatira about his wife in the days of long ago!’

Jezebel, of course, was not her real name. Her Lord speaks angrily of her as ‘that Jezebel’ much as we speak of a man as ‘that Judas.’ Anybody who knows the story of Judas understands the opprobrious epithet. And anybody who has read the story of Ahab’s queen can interpret for himself the letter to the minister at Thyatira. For, in the days of Elijah the Prophet, Jezebel came into the dull life of the children of Israel like a dazzling burst of sunshine. Indeed, she was a worshipper of the sunshine; her priests were the priests of the Sun. Into the drab commonplace of Jewish experience she brought a riot of colour, a rhythm of movement, a festival of song. Beautiful herself, she cast the glamour of her beauty over everything about her. Ahab’s court became a new place; Ahab’s palace became a dream of splendour; Ahab’s people felt the intoxication of a novel and delicious experience. The art, the music, and the religion that she brought with her from the halls of her fathers fascinated the senses of a people unaccustomed to such loveliness. She swept the nation off its feet. She carried the hearts of the people captive. And, before they had realized what had happened, they had forgotten the stern simplicities of their old faith and forsaken the severe austerities of their old life, and were, with one accord, dancing to Jezebel’s music and bowing themselves before Jezebel’s gods.

It is only by keeping all this in mind that any man can understand the letter to the minister at Thyatira. What Jezebel was to the children of Israel, this minister’s wife was to the church at Thyatira. She came into the minister’s home like a burst of brightness. She was all beauty, all vivacity, as lovable as she was fair. She took the hearts of the members of the church at Thyatira by storm. She brought into the church a new atmosphere, a new temper, a new social life. All the activities of the church revolved around her. She was the centre of everything. Her charm and sweetness were felt by everybody. The minister noticed the difference, and scarcely knew what to make of it. It seemed to him that the spiritual life of the church was decaying as the social life of the church was advancing. There was more gaiety, but there was less piety. The thing worried him. And yet, how could he complain? His wife was so beautiful, and he secretly rejoiced that everybody loved her.

And so he let things drift on and on and on, in his easy way, until one day it seemed as though a thunderstorm broke suddenly upon him. He received a letter from his Lord, written by the hand of John. ‘I know thy labour, and thy charity, and thy ministry, and thy faith, and all thy works,’ it said, ‘but nevertheless I have something against thee because thou sufferest thy wife, that Jezebel, to teach and to seduce My servants.’ The hour in which he read that letter was the darkest, heaviest, most terrible hour that that poor minister had ever known. It was to him the Day of Judgement. The blow fell, not on the minister’s wife, but on the minister. And rightly so. ‘Thy wife, that Jezebel,’ the Lord exclaimed. For all the mischief that Jezebel wrought in the days of Elijah the Prophet, Ahab was responsible. If Jezebel was wicked, Ahab was weak. Ahab was to blame. And so was the minister at Thyatira. ‘Thou sufferest her,’ declared the Lord of the Churches. The minister thought of his beautiful wife, of his offended Lord, of his ruined church; and he bowed himself down, and he wept

III

It is a great thing to be a woman, and especially a beautiful woman. Why, this very church, the church at Thyatira, was reared by the fidelity of one woman and ruined by the folly of another. Women, and especially charming women, do pretty much what they like with us. It was so ordained. God sprinkled so much beauty about His world that by the ministry of beautiful things He might make us all beautiful. When God makes a woman charming, He means her to charm : when God makes a woman attractive, He means her to attract. But woe be to that woman who charms us away from goodness! Woe be to that woman who allures us from the love of God!

It is a great day in a young girl’s life when she discovers that she is courted, sought after, worshipped; and that men find a pleasure in sacrificing themselves to gratify her whims and fancies. In the cool of the evening of that never-to-be-forgotten day, let that young girl, her fair face flushed and her lovely eyes sparkling with the wonder of the discovery that she has that day made, draw aside from the world and read, all by herself, three tremendous stories. Let her read the story of Jezebel from the Old Testament; let her read the letter to the minister at Thyatira from the New Testament; and then let her read the story of Guinevere.

Poor Guinevere! I should not care to number among my friends a man who could read Guinevere’s bitter and heart-broken lament with a steady voice and with dry eyes. When Arthur proudly introduced his lovely Queen to the brave knights of his Round Table, she was so radiantly fair, so exquisitely beautiful, that every heart stood still at sight of her bewitching comeliness. She appeared in Arthur’s court like a white rose on a knight’s breast. And she meant to make herself the very heart and centre of all the chivalries and courtesies of Arthur’s reign. No man could look into the face of Guinevere without feeling that her presence made it easier to be good. Poor Guinevere! Who would have dreamed that day that the ruin of Arthur’s court and the shipwreck of Arthur’s hopes would have been compassed by such fair hands as hers? We have all wept, at some time or other, over Tennyson’s pages. Guinevere’s exceeding great and bitter cry has touched us all to tears. Arthur has gone; the knights have been disbanded; chivalry? in ruins. The pale queen rises in her anguish and remorse.

Then she stretch’d out her arms and cried aloud,
‘Oh, Arthur!’ there her voice brake suddenly,
Then — as a stream that, spouting from a cliff
Fails in mid-air, but gathering at the base
Remakes itself, and flashes down the vale-
Went on in passionate utterance :

The days will grow to weeks, the weeks to months,
The months will add themselves and make the years,
The years will roll into the centuries,
And mine will ever be a name of scorn.’

And, later on:

. . . Ah, my God,
What might I not have made of Thy fair world,
Had I but loved Thy highest creature here?
It was my duty to have loved the highest!

Poor Jezebel!

Poor minister’s wife at Thyatira!

Poor Guinevere!

Let, I say, every young girl to whom has come the consciousness of her own captivating charms read these stories, and then let her kneel and pray that there may never come to her such a day as came to these.

The brevity of these biblical records is very tantalizing. I wish I knew a little more of this lady at Thyatira. I wish I had been her minister in those early days when she made the great confession. It is a lovely thing, at any time, to see a fair young girl, on the very threshold of her womanhood, take her life in her hands and lay it at the Saviour’s feet. It must have been a specially beautiful spectacle in those old Roman days. I wish that I could have seen this girl as she came to her minister and sought admission to the holy fellowship of the Christian Church. I should like to have seen her on the day of her baptism. It was a great day when, with tears of joy and gratitude, she renounced the world and confessed herself her Lord’s. I wish I had been sitting near her at her first Communion. I should like to have seen the awe, the emotion, the adoring wonder that illumined her fair young face as she gazed for the first time upon the holy mysteries. ‘Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you!’ ‘This is My blood that is shed for you.’ ‘For me! for me!’ whispered she to herself, as she tremblingly raised the sacred emblems to her lips.

‘For me! for me!’

And I should have loved to have been with her on her wedding-day. With what lofty aspirations and high resolves did she become a minister’s bride! What rainbow-tinted visions fired her young soul as she thought of sharing his home, his life, his labours! Who would have dreamed that day, that wedding-day, that later on the bridegroom would receive such a letter as that which we find embalmed in the sacred records? Who would have dreamed that one day the Lord of all the Churches would liken that minister to the weak and vacillating Ahab, and would liken that fair young wife of his to the beautiful but wicked Jezebel?

If only the bridegroom could have foreseen that!

If only the bride could have foreseen that!

But they did not foresee it. It cast no shadow over the joyousness of their wedding-day. But let all other ministerial bridegrooms, and all other ministers’ brides, remember that the dark, dark story of that ministerial wedding of the olden time is written for their learning, that they through patience and comfort of the Scriptures may have hope.

The minister’s home is hushed and silent. People enter and leave on tiptoe. The minister’s wife is very ill. ‘I will cast her into a bed of sickness,’ said the Lord of all the Churches. And again I find the record extremely tantalizing. What happened during that long illness in which the minister’s wife went down into the valley of the shadow of death? As she came face to face with the eternal world, did a new gravity settle upon her spirit? Did she return to the sweetness and simplicity of her girlish faith? I like to think that when at last the minister at Thyatira, with inexpressible thankfulness, led his frail but convalescent wife back to the church after her long and terrible sickness, her face, like the face of Moses on his return from the mount, shone with a radiance that, in the old days, it had never known. Her eyes, like those of Mary, were ‘homes of silent prayer.’ And in all their spiritual struggles and secret perplexities the women of Thyatira knew of no one to whom they could resort with such confidence and with such comfort as to the minister’s wife; whilst the wives of the ministers at Sardis and at Pergamos, and at all the other churches, regarded her reverently and affectionately as the mother of them all.

-F.W. Boreham