Lamentations 4:8

A Black Face

Their visage is blacker than a coal. Lamentations 4:8.

We all know what it is to have a black face. There are three kinds of black faces in the world. Some people have all three, a good many people have two, and most people have at least one.

1. The first kind of black face is the face that is black by nature, the face of people who were originally from Africa. The black person's color is just a darker shade of your brown. Your skin turns brown to protect the blood underneath it from the too strong rays of the sun. The brown pigment, as it is called, which is found in the skin catches the sun's rays, absorbs them, and prevents them from injuring the delicate blood-vessels under the skin. The sun at the tropics is blazing hot, so the natives of India and South Africa and the Pacific Islands are all shades of brown, from pale amber to such dark brown that it looks black.

2. The second kind of black face is the black face that we blacken at our work or our play. You boys all know what it is. So, as a rule, does the towel! It is a black that will come off with a diligent scrub. It is a good black too. It is the black of hard work. It is the black of the coal miner. It is a black that lets you know its owners have been doing their share of the great world's work.

3. The third kind of black face is the blackest face of all. It is the only one to be shunned, it is the only one to be ashamed of, and yet it is the kind most frequently seen. What sort of black face is that? Let me ask you a second question, and the answer to it may give you the answer to the first. What is the blackest sky in nature? Is it not the inky blue-black sky that goes with a thunderstorm? the sort of sky that is torn by flash after flash of jagged lightning? Well, the blackest face is the black scowling face that goes along with a storm of passion. We speak of “black looks,” and that describes them perfectly. It doesn't matter though your cheeks are like roses and your skin like milk, when a storm of passion is raging in your heart your face is as black as it possibly can be.

The pity of it is that you don't see yourself then as others see you. Mother often tells you to look in the mirror when you have a smudge on your cheek or a dirty mark on your chin. It would be an excellent thing if someone took you to the mirror and showed you yourself in a rage. You would stop raging with sheer astonishment. Could that be you? that hideous creature with twisted, swollen features and blazing eyes? Why, you looked stranger in your own familiar glass than you did in any of those odd “Going to” and “Coming from Lipton's” mirrors! And those bared teeth and that snarl! They reminded you of some savage beast going to bite! Quite right too. That snarl is just a relic of the wild beast in man. So are the scratching, and the kicking, and the biting, and a few more of the pleasant things that you feel inclined to do when you are in a proper rage.

Now the worst of this kind of black face is that the black won't wash off because it comes from the heart. The black face is just the black heart showing itself.

Then what are you to do about it? Well, you can get rid of the blackness in two ways. You can do something yourself to get rid of it, and you can ask God to help you to get rid of it. You can check that blackness when it first shows itself. Never let it grow into a big cloud. Disperse it when it appears. Blow it away, as the wind blows away the thunderclouds, with a laugh at yourself or a kind word to others. If you let it grow and accumulate, and if you pile angry feeling upon angry feeling you cannot expect anything but a storm. Take it in time, then, and check it when it is small.

And ask God to help you to get rid of the blackness. The wind of His spirit and the gentleness of His love will do more than even your own efforts to put an end to your storms of passion. Go to Him when you feel the fit of rage coming on. Fly to Him when you are tempted to speak the hot, angry words. He will never fail you. And in His presence the vengeful look and the hasty word will vanish for ever.