The Rechabites.
A curious interest attaches to these singular people, whose relation to the settled life of the Jews may be compared to that of the gipsies in modern Europe. They were nomads in the midst of cities, preserving the habits of the desert among all the scenes of civilization. But they were in some respects strikingly superior to their more civilized neighbours—a people whose simplicity and abstemiousness was a living rebuke to the debased luxury of the times. Three leading characteristics of the Rechabites are worthy of special note.
I. THEIR NOMADIC HABITS. It is refreshing to meet these quiet, simple people after wearying ourselves with sickening sights of the vice and hyprocrisy of the court and city life of Jerusalem. We are inclined to think too much of external civilization. Making allowance for exaggerations and eccentricities, we may find some much needed lessons in the protest of Mr. Ruskin against the industrial ideal of the age. Inventions, commerce, wealth,—these are but means to an end. What is the use of the working of wonderful machinery if the outcome is poor and profitless? Many a man's business is a Frankenstein which becomes a tyrant to him. By others the science and resources of the age are only used as ministers to selfish pleasures. Thus the men and women may be none the better for all the advance that is made in the material appliances of the most complex civilization. Yet the personal condition of these men and women, and not that of the machinery of life, is the one matter of final importance. The quieter, simpler life of the Rechabites had many points which it would be instructive for us to consider. It was out of all the rush and worry of town life. It was calm and comparatively free from care. With few wants, the Rechabites had few anxieties. Are we so much better off than they in this respect? Then, as a wandering life, it was a reminder of the truth, so often forgotten to our serious harm, that all men who live a life higher than the earthly must be pilgrims and strangers here, and must "seek" a better country, that is, a "heavenly." The man of the world is rooted to the earth; and is there not a danger lest many of us should be so absorbed in the busy pursuits of the world as to neglect greater interests, or so satisfied with earthly possessions as to forget that this is not our rest?
II. THEIR ABSTEMIOUSNESS. These Rechabites were the prototypes of the modern teetotalers. They were no ascetics. They made no pretence to the peculiar holiness of the "self-imposed worship" of "dealing hardly with the body" (Colossians 2:23). On the contrary, they were probably a cheerful and unpretentious people, finding more human happiness in a simple abstemious life than the citizens of Jerusalem could ever discover in the unwholesome luxuries of a corrupt civilization. They teach a lesson which our age greatly needs. We may differ as to the necessity or desirability of total abstinence from wine and such things. But all of us should feel the terrible danger that comes from the enervating influence of luxury. In the present day we see little of "plain living and high thinking." Life is both eager and materialistic. It would be well if we could deny ourselves more, that there should be less grossness about our habits, dragging us down from the calm heights of spirituality.
III. THEIR CHANGELESSNESS. The Rechabites are like the Arabs of the desert who were contemporaries of the Pharaohs, and who live now just as they lived in the days of Abraham. Where shall we find such staunch conservatives? Now, of course, we Western Christians believe in a principle of progress, and rightly set ourselves to realize it. But in the pursuit we may lose something that the Rechabites retained. Mere change is not progress, and a restless love of change endangers the fruitfulness of measures which take time to ripen. On the other hand, there is a true loyalty to the past, a just fidelity to our forefathers. At all events, it is grand to see a people independent of passing fashions, bold to resist the spirit of the age when they think that wrong for them, and firm in their own convictions and determinations. Such conduct is bracing to witness; unhappily it is not common.