Pearls and swine.
At the first blush of it this reads more like a motto of the scribes than a proverb from the large-hearted Christ. It is quite as important to see what it does not mean as to lay hold of its positive teaching, because we are all tempted to abuse it in order to excuse our narrowness and selfishness.
I. MISAPPRENSIONS OF THE PROVERB.
1. In neglect of the poor. This is the most gross and insulting abuse of the principle which can be thought of. No one would venture to express it in so many words when he was thus misdirecting it. Yet virtually such an application of it is very common. It is thought that any coarse fare will be good enough for the poor; not only coarse food and clothes, but coarse treatment, coarse methods of religion, coarse amusements, and the ministration of coarse men. To bring works of art and good music to "the lower classes" is thought to be wasteful. Refined people are not to spend themselves on the common people. This is Pharisaism without its religion—the pride of the cultivated Roman with the bitterness of the scornful Pharisee.
2. In contempt of the illiterate. The Gnostics reserved their choicest ideas for the inner circle of the initiated. Ignorant people might walk by faith; Gnostics had attained to knowledge. This is not the religion of Christ. He rejoices that God reveals his best truth to babes and sucklings.
3. In despair of the sinful. We are tempted to shrink from speaking of Christ to the very lowest people. It looks like a profanation to set the treasures of the gospel before them. They can hear the Law that condemns their sin; the beautiful thoughts of God's grace in Christ are too good for them. This, too, is unchristian. Christ brought his good tidings to all men, and the first to leap up and grasp it were the publicans, the sinners, and the harlots.
II. THE TRUE APPLICATION OF THE PROVERB. If these obvious uses of it are all contrary to the mind and method of Christ, how does he wish us to use it? Let us look at it on two sides—in regard to men and in regard to truth.
1. In regard to men. Who are the dogs and the swine? Not the poor and the illiterate; not only or always the abandoned and degraded.
2. In regard to truth.