Sheaves of Grain

Genesis.37:7

Past Mending
“Any pots and pans to mend? Any pail or kettle?
Any job of any kind in anything of metal?”
So sang old Tim the tinker, in a voice both loud and shrill
As he hobbled through the village in the early morning chill.

And soon from every quarter, from the farmhouse and the cot,
Flock’d the housewives poor or well-to-do, with saucepan or with
pot,
Or some other ancient vessel more or less the worse for using;
And the tinker took them all, hitherto not one refusing;

Till there came an aged woman with a coffee-pot of tin,

Which could barely hold together, for the sides were battered in,
And the bottom was all bent, and the lid so bruised and broken,
That the tinker shook his wise old head before a word was spoke.

Then he held the worn-out vessel, and examined carefully.

“Past-mending, quite past mending, is this pot, Dame Dorothy!
Give it to fifty tinkers, ma’am, all of them striven’ men,
And they could’nt make that critter ever hold a drop again!”
 Past-mending! Quite past mending! Yes, somehow these words
recall
A thought which, if we choose, may prove message to us all -
A lesson which to every soul a needful one must be;
For which of us is perfect in his Christian charity?

How often we have spoken of some weak and erring brother,

Who has lived perchance for many years in one sin or another;
And we have said, “He cannot change, he is past mending quite!
He has come to love the evil – he will never choose the right.”

Yet who are we to limit the Eternal Love and Might,

When every living creature is so precious in His sight?
Oh, blessed be the Saviour, who Himself hath made a way,
That not one worn-out vessel ever need be cast away.

Ah, brother, erring sister, who despairest in thy guilt,

There are mercy and forgiveness, e’en for thee, if but thou wilt;
Battered and bruised and broken, well-nigh lost thou mayest be,
Yet the solemn words, “past mending,” have not yet been said of
thee.

For the lamp of life still burns, and the arm outstretch’d to save,
Is the arm of Him who died, and rose triumphant from the grave.
Then courage, heavy heart, and despair not, burden’d soul,

Know thou for thy great comfort, Jesus Christ can make thee whole.

Author
M. E. R.