The Random Thoughts of Henry Holloway
One of the newspapers recently carried the news that in a certain area of England the local council had done away with bins. It seems that householders were provided with strong paper bags into which their rubbish could be put. These bags were hung on a metal frame and the men who came along to collect them were dressed in white coats.
As if that were not enough, another paper carried the news that a chimney sweep had been appointed in Manchester by the National Coal Board. The unusual thing about this man is that ‘unlike the traditional black-faced sweep, he works in clean white overalls and carries his equipment in a shining white can with gold lettering.’
Two men went to do some work in a factory, once when they came out at the call of the buzzer announcing the dinner hour, one was clean and the other was dirty. They glanced at each other in revealing light outside the dark place where they had been working and at once, the clean man went to wash himself while the dirty man went as he was to the canteen for his meal. The explanation, of course, is quite simple. The clean man looked at his companion and thinking he must have been dirty too went to wash himself. The dirty man, looking at his clean companion, judged that he himself must be clean and had no need to wash.
It was a silly thing to do. The obvious thing for each man to do was to look at himself in the mirror and he would have known how he looked. But then, we often do just such silly things in life. There are far too many people today who judge themselves by the standards of their neighbours. Sometimes when we parsons get into a discussion with somebody about conduct, we get the answer, ‘I’m as good as John Smith.’ Which just means that a man is ordering his life according to the other fellow. That might be all right if John Smith is a very good man; but more often than not John Smith hasn’t a very high standard of life either. In fact, he might be saying, ‘I’m as good as somebody else.’
If you are going to judge a painting, there are certain standards of art by which you judge it. If you are going to judge a piece of furniture there are certain standards of workmanship by which you judge it. And it you are going to make any judgment on life there are certain standards by which you judge that. No man’s life can be judged by the standard of his neighbour. There is only one standard by which you can judge a man’s life and by which a man can judge himself. A man has got to measure his life by the Master of all life.
The Bible helps us here. It holds a mirror up to life so that we can see clearly whether we are living the right kind of life or not. There was once a mining camp where for a long time the men had no mirror. Sometimes they helped each other to be tidy but generally they had become careless about their appearance. One day a new arrival came and he had a mirror. Everybody started to use it and a new look came over everything.
One of the prayers of the Psalmist is a very good one for us to use every day, ‘Search me 0 God and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me.’ If we discover that life isn’t what it ought to be, then we can pray another prayer ‘Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.’
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