Exodus 34:1 And the LORD said to Moses, Hew you two tables of stone like to the first… Can you think of a course more merciful than this? "Bring two tables of stone just like the first, and I will write it over again; I, God, will write over again the very words that were on the first tables that thou brakest in pieces." There is no mercy like the mercy of the Lord; I never find any tenderness like His tenderness. You remember some years ago George Peabody gave half a million of money to the London poor; and I think some eighteen thousand people are sheltered in the houses that have sprung out of that splendid charity. I remember that when Peabody's charity had awakened England to a sense of his goodness, the Queen of England rose equal to the occasion, and she offered this plain American citizen some title, and he declined the honour. And then she, with a woman's delicacy of insight, and with more than queenly dignity, inquired if there was anything that Peabody would accept; and he said, Yes, there was, if the Queen would only write him a letter with her own hand; he was going to pay a last visit to his native land across the Atlantic, and he should like to take it to his birthplace, so that at any time, if bitterness should arise between these two nations, his countrymen could come and see that letter, and they would remember that England's Queen had written it to a plain American citizen. The Queen of England said she would write him a letter, and she would do more than that — she would sit for her portrait to be painted, and he should take that with the letter; and she put on the Marie Stuart cap which, I think, she had only worn, perhaps, twice since the death of the Prince Consort, and she sat day after day in her robes of state, and the painter painted one of the finest portraits of the Queen that has ever been executed. When it was finished she presented it to Mr. Peabody, and he took it, with the Queen's letter, away to his birthplace yonder. Now, suppose George Peabody, in some fit of forgetfulness, had torn the Queen's letter up, and flung it into the fire, and dashed the portrait down and broken it to fragments; and suppose that, after that, somebody had told her Majesty that George Peabody was penitent, do you think she would have written him the letter over again? do you think she would have sat again for another portrait to be painted, just like the first one? Who can tell? Yet our Father in heaven, if you have broken the tables of your covenant with Him, bring your broken heart back again to His feet, and He will renew the covenant. (T. Guttery.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest. |
    |