Gideon’s Three Hundred

THE time once came when the children of Israel had urgent need to learn a lesson. Left without a leader after the passing away of Joshua, they so lapsed into evil ways that they at last found themselves fugitives in the land of Midian, hiding in dens and caves in the mountains for fear of the depredations of those around them. This they endured for seven miserable years; then, as had so often happened, in their dire extremity they “called upon the Lord,” and He sent them a deliverer.

When Gideon, at the divine command, left his father’s threshing field to become their leader, he was confronted with a somewhat unique situation, for he found that the thirty-two thousand unhappy, frightened fugitives so far exceeded the Midianites in number that they might easily at any time, but for their fears, have asserted their freedom. Even under their new leader, however, they were not to depend upon numerical supremacy for their ultimate release. The mere incident of numbers weighed not one whit in the balances of God; and that was the lesson which they had need to learn, lest in their newfound courage following Gideon’s appearance they should “vaunt themselves,” and say, “Mine own hand hath saved me.” And the way in which they were taught this lesson was indeed a strange one.

The decisive hour had arrived. On one side of the hill were the Midianites, and not far from them the camp of Israel, “beside the well of Harod;” but before the fighting was allowed to begin, those of the Israelites who were afraid were told to depart. Whereupon “there returned of the people twenty and two thousand.” The ten thousand remaining were then told to go to the water’s edge and drink. “And the Lord said unto Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink. And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, were three hundred men: but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water. And the Lord said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you.”

Viewed superficially, this whole proceeding seems strangely inconsequential at so critical a moment, but to the thoughtful Bible student it contains a deep and beautiful significance. It is readily seen that the real intent was to test each man’s fidelity, to discover how much interest he took in the work before him; to find out, in other words, not in what manner he would drink, but whether he cared to drink at all, with the enemy in plain sight and the battle imminent. Therefore we find that those who were chosen were those who would not stop long enough to kneel down beside the well and drink quietly and comfortably, but who, in their eagerness to hasten the attack, quickly dashed up the water with their hands and hurried on. No wonder the host of Midian fled! Gideon’s “three hundred” stands for that high quality of mental alertness which always wins. Not by the twenty-two thousand who were afraid, nor by the ten thousand who were indifferent, but by the three hundred who rushed on to meet the foe, were the Israelites delivered.

There is a subtle mesmerism in numbers to which the Christian Scientist has constant need to keep himself awake. Our wise Leader has even considered the matter of sufficient importance to make it the subject of a by-law, wherein she directs the members of The Mother Church to “turn away from personality and numbering the people” (Church Manual, Art. VIII, Sect. 28). One cannot afford to be lured into the belief that in numbers there is strength, nor into the opposite and equally erroneous belief that in lack of numbers there is weakness. One right thought has more activity, power, and impulsion than any number of wrong thoughts, no matter how often or how vehemently expressed. If every one in the world were to shout at the same moment, “The world is flat,” it would not make it flat. One single voice replying, “The world is round,” would have more power, because it has more truth than a whole world’s mistaken impotence.

The remembrance of this should surely inspire all of us with fresh courage, but especially those students of Christian Science who happen to be living in small places, where the workers comprise but a handful, and who sometimes perhaps give way to a sense of discouragement as they climb the narrow stairs, week after week, to the little room where their services are held. They think the cause of Christian Science is weak in that town because the Scientists themselves are so few. “What can you do,” the adversary whispers, “among so many?” The disciples once succumbed to the same suggestion. They brought to Jesus the five loaves and the two small fishes, and then, looking at the multitude waiting to be fed, one of them asked helplessly, “But what are they among so many?” Yet the multitude were fed, because the Master looked beyond the limitation of numbers into the realm of infinite possibilities.

The multitude today, those starving for the bread of Life, may be fed in like manner, if those faithful followers of the Christ in that little room up the narrow stairs will forget the loaves and the fishes to contemplate instead Love’s ever-present abundance. In the throng of long ago that had followed the Master out into the desert place, there must have been quite as much ignorance, intolerance, superstition, prejudice, antagonism, and opposition as seems to exist in the average small town of the present time, yet Jesus fed them all. If he had stopped to pity himself because he was “one,” and they were “five thousand,” would there have been twelve baskets of fragments remaining over and above all that had been eaten?

Some one has defined the need of the moment as “not more Christian Scientists, but better ones.” Then let us look up and rejoice. That little room where “two or three are gathered together,” may be the very chrysalis from which some radiant butterfly will one day rise to find its wings. Have not wonderful things grown from just such modest beginnings? Do we not all know of “an upper room” where a little company once gathered to sup and talk together, as friends will on the eve of a separation? It could not have been much to look at, from a material point of view, and those who met there were but twelve in number; yet there went forth from that memorable meeting, a message which has revolutionized the world.

With the worker in the large city, however, the mesmerism of numbers takes a radically different form. He has his beautiful church, his well-appointed reading-room, his convenient practitioner, and the respect if not the unqualified approval of the community in general. He is no longer the subject of persecution and ridicule, nor considered to be of unsound mind because he refuses to call a doctor when he is sick. In fact, everything seems to be going along so nicely that if he is not careful he is sometimes lulled into a pleasant state of self-satisfied apathy. In the small town the adversary whispers, “There are so few, how can you do anything?” In the large town he says, “There are so many, why need you do anything?” But it is the same adversary, and we need to recognize it in whatever outward garb it comes to us, for its purpose is ever to beguile us into the inaction which would tend to check the steady progress of our cause.

There is no simpler way to put a man to sleep, figuratively speaking, than to make him think that there is no particular reason for him to keep awake. Even the disciples once listened to this suggestion. It was in the garden of Gethsemane, and although Jesus had asked them to watch with him “one hour,” as soon as he had left them they were straightway overcome with slumber. Is it not possible that each man allowed himself to fall asleep partly because he was so sure that all the rest would keep awake? Yet it ended in all quietly sleeping at the very time that their help was most needed; for just a step away, in the purple shadows of the moonlit olive trees, their beloved Master was kneeling, in lonely agony, “his sweat … as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

Let us not be deceived by numbers. When the cause of Christian Science becomes in any locality what may be termed, for want of a better word, “popular,” and great crowds flock to its doors, it is not wise for the Christian Scientist to relax his vigilance. Popularity is often a crucial testing-time for churches as well as for individuals, and in our natural desire to see our church grow, let us not lose sight of the fact that much untried material hastily and over-zealously added to our church-membership does not always facilitate the orderly and dignified progress of the church body as a whole. The wise captain does not overload his ship.

The ship was overloaded once in the third century of the Christian era, when Constantine thought to increase the brilliancy of his reign by adding Christianity, like another jewel, to the imperial crown. The gay world of Rome accepted it, not because they loved it, but because an emperor had made it popular. We all know the result. Church and state became hopelessly intermingled, politics and personality crept in, and a little later the purity and simplicity of the Christ-message was lost, smothered in the superheated atmosphere of unthinking numbers. Its true animus, the healing power which ever characterized the earlier workers, was forgotten, until, centuries later, one woman lived close enough to God to find this “pearl of great price” and to restore its primitive luster. Did the mesmerism of numbers disturb our Leader, Mrs. Eddy? She never faltered, although the little town of Lynn, Massachusetts, once held the only student of Christian Science in all the world.

Should we not rejoice to remember these things, we in our handsome finished churches, and we in our little rooms up the narrow stairs? Gideon’s “three hundred” is here today, for it simply means a condition of thought expressed in fidelity, in love, in earnestness, in consecration, in steadfast devotion. It is quality rather than quantity. It is that for which Mrs. Eddy once sent out an imperative call, sweetly insistent as some silver trumpet-tone whose echoes still linger in hearts attuned to hear. These were her words as found in “Miscellaneous Writings” (p. 176): “Are we duly aware of our great opportunities and responsibilities? . . . Never was there a more solemn and imperious call than God makes to us all, right here, for fervent devotion and an absolute consecration to the greatest and holiest of all causes. The hour is come. The great battle of Armageddon is upon us. . . . What will you do about it? … Will you doff your lavender-kid zeal, and become real and consecrated warriors? Will you give yourselves wholly and irrevocably to the great work of establishing the truth, the gospel, and the Science which are necessary to the salvation of the world from error, sin, disease, and death? Answer at once and practically, and answer aright!” And Gideon’s “three hundred” answered.