Sometimes I think I should have been born in the 1800’s.  I like the clothes they wore; I like the manners they had; mostly, I like the way they talked.  From time to time I read Jane Austen just to get my fix.  When I was out west, Katie and I watched two seasons of “Downton Abbey” which was great fun and made us want to talk in high British accents.  However, there’s nothing quite like reading the language straight from the page and feeling those words roll off the tongue.  Maybe that’s why I was so moved this morning by the following commentary by Alexander MacLaren, a Scottish preacher from the 1850’s.  Read it slowly once or twice and let the truth of his words sink down deep.

“We often court the coming of the evil influence, and are willing to be fascinated and to turn our backs upon Jesus. Mysterious it is, for why should men cast away diamonds for paste? Mysterious it is, for we do not usually drop the substance to get the shadow. Mysterious it is, for man does not ordinarily empty his pockets of gold in order to fill them with gravel. Mysterious it is, for a thirsty man will not usually turn away from the full, bubbling, living fountain, to see if he can find any drops still remaining, green with scum, stagnant and odorous, at the bottom of some broken cistern. But all these follies are sanity as compared with the folly of which we are guilty, times without number, when, having known the sweetness of Jesus Christ, we turn away to the fascinations of the world.”

Mysterious it is, indeed…