Men and women
sitting here in comfortable pews"--this was said with a kind of
snarl--"may talk of Jephthah's rash vow. God be with them, what do
they know of the struggles of such a soul? It does not say so
directly in the Bible, but we are led to infer it, that Jephthah was
successful because of his vow. 'The Lord delivered them into his
hands.' He would not have done it if He had been displeased with the
'rash vow'" (another snarl). "He smote them from Aroer even till
thou come to Minnith. Ah, but what follows? The Omnipotent and
Omniscient might have ordered it, surely, that a slave might have met
Jephthah. Why, in His mercy, did He not do it? Who are we that we
should question what He did? But if we may not inquire too closely
into His designs, it is permitted us, my friends, when His reason
accords with ours, to try and show it. Jephthah had played for a
great stake. Ought the Almighty--let us speak it with reverence--to
have let him off with an ox, or even with a serf? I say that if we
are to conquer Ammon we must pay for it, and we ought to pay for it.
Yes, and perhaps God wanted the girl--who can tell? Jephthah comes
back in triumph.
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