BV 4501 .D35 1884 
 Dale, R. W. 1829-1895. 
 Laws of Christ for Common 
 Life 
 
LAWS OF CHRIST 
 
 FOR 
 
 COMMON LIFE. 
 
 BY 
 
 R. W. DALE, LL.D., 
 
 BIRMINGHAM. 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 
 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 MDCCCLXXXIV. 
 
OS 
 
 Butler & Tanner, 
 The SeUvoo J Printing Works, 
 Frorae, and London. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 Most of the Papers collected in this Volume have 
 appeared in Good JVords, the Sunday Magazine, or the 
 Congregationalisi ; and they are republished by per- 
 mission of the Editors. 
 
 R. W. DALE. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 -^ -r, y 
 
 1. EvERY-DAY Business a Divine Calling 
 
 II. The Sacredness of Property , 
 
 III. The Christian Rule of Justice . 
 
 IV. The Forgiveness of Injuries 
 
 V. Temperance . , , , . 
 
 VI. Judging Others 
 
 VII. Courtesy and the Spirit of Service 
 
 VIII. Sympathy 
 
 IX. The Grace of Christ a Law of Conduct 
 
 '^ X. Anxiety about the Future 
 
 XI. Family Life 
 
 XII. Political and Municipal Duty . 
 
 XIII. The Moral Precepts of Christ generally 
 
 XIV. Christian Worldliness 
 XV. Sowing and Reaping .... 
 
 XVI. The Universal Sovereignty of Christ 
 
 XVII. On Obeying Christ .... 
 
 XVIII. An Ethical Revival .... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 17 
 41 
 
 57 
 77 
 93 
 107 
 123 
 141 
 157 
 173 
 187 
 205 
 217 
 239 
 255 
 
 273 
 
 289 
 
I. 
 
 E VERY-DAY BUSINESS A DIVINE CALLING. 
 
 IT used to be common to speak of a man's trade, 
 profession, or official employment, as his " call- 
 ing." But I think that the word, in this sense, has 
 almost dropped out of use, perhaps because it seems 
 inappropriate and unmeaning. Its Latin equivalent 
 has been rather more fortunate, and is still occasion- 
 ally used to describe the higher forms of intellectual 
 activity. It is sometimes said, for instance, of a 
 thoughtful, scholarly man who is not very successful 
 as a manufacturer, that he has missed his way, and 
 that his true " vocation " was literature. 
 
 It is only when we are speaking of the most sacred 
 or most heroic kinds of service, that we have the 
 courage to recognise a Divine " call " as giving a man 
 authority to undertake them. That a great religious 
 reformer should think of himself as divinely " called " 
 to deliver the Church from gross errors and super- 
 stitions, and lead it to a nobler righteousness, does 
 not surprise us. It does not surprise us that a 
 great patriot should believe himself " called " of God 
 to redress the wrongs of his country. And among 
 
 ^ B 
 
2 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 those who are impressed by the glorious and awful 
 issues of the ministry of the Church, it is still com- 
 mon to insist on the necessity of a Divine " call " to 
 the ministry. 
 
 It must add immeasurably to the dignity of a 
 man's life, it must give him a sense of great security, 
 if he seriously believes that his work has been given 
 him by Divine appointment — that it is really his 
 " calling." Take a conspicuous case — the case of the 
 Apostle Paul. He described himself as an " apostle 
 through the will of God," as " called to be an apostle." 
 This meant that he had not taken up the great work 
 of his life at his own impulse ; it had been laid upon 
 him by an authority which he could not resist. He 
 had, therefore, no occasion for restless and anxious 
 thought about his fitness for it. There was no reason 
 for him to ask whether his knowledge of the gospel of 
 Christ was sufficiently large and deep for so great a 
 task, whether his moral and religious earnestness was 
 sufficiently intense. He was vividly conscious of his 
 weakness and imperfections, and it was a perpetual 
 source of surprise to him that to such a man as him- 
 self the grace should have been given " to preach 
 unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." 
 But God knew him better than he knew himself, and 
 he was " called to be an apostle ; " he was an apostle 
 " through the will of God." 
 
 This relieved him from inquiries which would have 
 diminished the force and vehemence with which he 
 gave himself to his work. It was a motive for doing 
 
EVERY-DAY BUSINESS A DIVINE CALLING. 3 
 
 his best ; for a work to which a man knows that God 
 has appointed him, is likely to be done with courage, 
 persistency, and vigour. It also enabled him to rely 
 with perfect confidence on God's support. He was 
 sure that all Divine forces were on his side. 
 
 Paul knew that his work, his "calling" in the old- 
 fashioned sense of the word, came to him from God. 
 But no Christian man can live a satisfactory life 
 without a conviction of the same kind. This would 
 be a dreary and an ignoble world if only an apostle 
 could say that he was doing his work " through the 
 will of God," or if only a minister or a missionary 
 could say it. Mechanics, merchants, tradesmen, 
 manufacturers, clerks, doctors, lawyers, artists — if we 
 are to live a really Christian life, we must all be sure 
 that whatever work we are doing, it is God's will that 
 we should do it. 
 
 Do you ask how it is possible for what is called"! 
 secular work to be done in this way? Let me ask j^jj^ (X. 
 you another question — How is it possible, if you are 
 
 a Christian man, that you can do your secular work 
 at all, unless you believe that it is God's will that you * 1 ' ^ 
 should do it ? What right has any man to do any- 
 thing unless he has a clear and serious conviction 
 that God wants to have it done, and done by him .? 
 
 It is convenient, no doubt, to distinguish what is 
 commonly described as "secular" from what is 
 commonly described as ''religious." We all know 
 what the distinction means. But the distinction must 
 not be understood to imply that in religious work we 
 
4 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 are doing God's will, and that in secular work we are 
 not doing it. 
 
 God Himself has done, and is always doing, a great 
 deal of work that we must call secular; and this 
 throws considerable light on the laws which should 
 govern our own secular calling. He is the Creator 
 of all things. He made the earth, and He made it 
 broad enough for us to grow corn and grass on it, to 
 build cities on it, with town halls, courts of justice, 
 houses of parliament, schools, universities, literary- 
 institutes and galleries of art. It is impossible to use 
 it all for churches and chapels, or for any other " con- 
 secrated " purpose. God made a great part of the 
 world for common uses ; but since the world, every 
 acre, every square yard of it, belongs to Him, since 
 He is the only Freeholder, we have no right to build 
 anything on it that He does not want to have built. 
 
 He kindled the fires of the sun, and the sun gives 
 us light, not only on Sundays when we go to church, 
 but on common days, and we have no right to use 
 the sunlight for any purpose for which God does not 
 give it. God made the trees ; but He made too many 
 for the timber to be used only for buildings intended 
 for religious worship. What did He make the rest 
 for .? It is His timber. He never parts with His 
 property in it. When we buy it we do not buy it 
 from God ; we pay Him no money for it. All that 
 we do is to pay money to our fellow-men that we 
 may have the right to use it in God's service. 
 
 It is as secular a work to create a walnut-tree, and 
 
EVERY-DAY BUSINESS A DIVINE CALLING. 5 
 
 to provide soil and rain and warmth for its growth, as 
 it is to make a walnut-wood table for a drawing-room 
 out of it. It is as secular a work to create a cotton 
 plant as to spin the cotton and to weave it. It is as 
 secular a work to create iron, as to make the iron 
 into railway-girders, into plates for steam-ships, into 
 ploughs and harrows, nails, screws, and bedsteads. 
 It is as secular a work to create the sun to give light 
 in the daytime, as to make a lamp, or to build gas- 
 works, or to manufacture gas, to give light at night. 
 So that our secular work is just of the same kind as 
 a great part of God's work. Lay a firm hold of this 
 very obvious truth, and see how it affects every kind 
 of secular business. 
 
 God made our bodies, and they are " curiously and 
 wonderfully made." Whether they came suddenly 
 into existence in obedience to a Divine command, or 
 whether they were the last result of a long process 
 of evolution, does not affect the fact that " it was He 
 who made us, and not we ourselves." When God 
 orders it that a rose-tree should be fed by the earth 
 and the air, by the rain and the dew, and should be 
 caressed by the sunlight and the south wind, till at 
 last it crowns itself with a lovely flower — the flower 
 being gradually evolved from the structure of the 
 plant — that is to me quite as wonderful as if, by a 
 word, He suddenly called a flower out of nothing. 
 1 It is only the vulgar incapacity to recognise the 
 i mystery of familiar things which makes it less sur- 
 prising and less Divine. These bodies, I say, God 
 
6 LA IVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 made. The architecture of the skeleton, the weaving 
 of the tissues of the muscles, the distribution of the 
 blood so as to feed every fibre, the quickening power 
 of the lungs, the authority of the nerves which com- 
 mand motion, the sensitiveness of the nerves which 
 are the instruments of perception, the structure of the 
 eye and the faculty of vision, the structure of the 
 ear and the faculty of hearing, the taste, the smell, 
 the touch, the complex arrangements for articulate 
 speech, are noble triumphs of God's creative power. 
 
 But our bodies will perish unless they are fed. 
 Does God mean them to perish ? He surely means 
 them to be strong and healthy, and therefore He 
 means them to have food. And a man may therefore 
 say, " I am a farmer through the will of God, for I 
 grow the wheat by which the body which God made 
 is to be kept from starvation ; God has made the 
 seed, God has given wonderful qualities to the soil, 
 God has provided the rain and the heat which are 
 necessary for a harvest, God has arranged the order 
 of the seasons ; but all that God has done will come 
 to nothing unless I plough the ground and clean it, 
 and sow the seed, and send my reapers into the fields 
 when the harvest is ripe. God takes me into partner- 
 ship with Himself. He has done a great part of the 
 work, He leaves me to do the rest. I am the servant 
 of His infinite bounty. The ministers of the Church 
 teach men to pray, * Give us this day our daily 
 bread ;' through me God answers the prayer. I am a 
 farmer through the will of God." Another man takes 
 
EVERY-DAY BUSINESS A DIVINE CALLING. 7 
 
 up the work where the farmer leaves it ; grinds the 
 corn into flour, and so prepares it for the uses for 
 which God created it. He may say, ** I, too, am 
 doing work which God wants to have done, I am a 
 miller through the will of God." A third man takes 
 up the work where the miller leaves it, makes the 
 flour into bread — into just such bread as he thinks 
 God means to give His children in answer to their 
 prayer ; he puts nothing unwholesome into it ; he 
 bakes it carefully ; when he sells it he gives full 
 weight. And he may say, as he puts his dough into 
 his oven or draws it out, " I, too, am doing work 
 which God wants to have done ; I am a baker through 
 the will of God." 
 
 The body must be clothed as well as fed, so that 
 another man may say I am a cotton-spinner ; and 
 another, I am a cotton-weaver ; and another, I am a 
 cloth-weaver ; and another, I am a tailor ; and 
 another, I am a dressmaker ; and another, I am a 
 bootmaker, "through the will of God." In this 
 climate the body will perish if it is not sheltered 
 from rain and snow and cold ; so that a man may 
 say, I am a brick-maker, a quarryman, a bricklayer, 
 a stone-mason, a carpenter, a builder, " through the 
 will of God." The products of remote countries must 
 be brought to us across the sea, and men may there- 
 fore claim to be ship-builders, sailors, merchants, 
 "through the will of God." 
 
 The products of remote parts of our own country 
 must travel by road or canal, and the men who build 
 
8 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 locomotives, who make railways, the engine-drivers, 
 the guards, the railway clerks, and all the railway 
 officials, the men that build barges and the barge- 
 men, the men that construct canals and that watch 
 the locks, the carriers, and all the people they employ, 
 may say that they are doing their work " through 
 the will of God." And when all these have done 
 their appointed service, it is necessary that the goods 
 they have carried should be placed within reach of 
 all the parts of every large town, and that persons 
 should be engaged in distributing them ; drapers, 
 ironmongers, and retail tradesmen of every kind, 
 may therefore justly claim to be the agents and 
 ministers of the Divine bounty ; from their hands 
 men receive the finished articles of use and beauty 
 which have been produced by a great organized army 
 of the servants of God, out of materials which were 
 originally created by God's own power. 
 
 Further, it is clear that God did not intend us to 
 live alone. Human nature never reaches the height 
 of its strength and perfection except in cities and 
 nations. When great numbers of men are drawn 
 together civil and criminal legislation becomes neces- 
 sary ; the peace must be kept, property secured, 
 justice administered, liberty protected. And every 
 minister and representative of the law, from the 
 policeman to the judges and the Lord Chancellor, 
 from the soldier in the ranks to the Commander-in- 
 chief, may say that he is in his place and discharging 
 the duties of his office " through the will of God." 
 
E VERY-DAY BUSINESS A DIVINE CALLING. 9 
 
 Town councillors, members of parliament, ministers 
 of the Crown, solicitors, barristers, may say the 
 same. 
 
 God made the intellect of man as well as his body, 
 and the intellect is wasted if it is not trained in 
 schools and universities, if it is not quickened and 
 developed by literature, science, and art. And so one 
 man is a schoolmaster " through the will of God," and 
 another a university professor, and another a lecturer 
 on chemistry, and another an architect, and another 
 a painter, and another a poet.^ 
 
 If I think that my own work, as a minister of the x 
 Church, is the noblest and divinest, God forbid that I 
 should ever give any man engaged in any legitimate 
 occupation the impression that his work is not 
 also noble and Divine. We are all serving God 
 together. 
 
 It may be said that no farmer, builder, grocer, 
 merchant, lawyer ever received a supernatural call to 
 his especial occupation^ such as Paul received to his 
 apostleship ; and that in secular life, no man can be 
 sure that he is doing the precise work which God 
 meant him to do. But I suppose that the paths 
 which were open to the great majority of men in 
 their youth were few ; they had a narrow choice. 
 They used their best judgment, and took the line of 
 life which seemed to promise best. Perhaps in their 
 
 ^ To illustrate the diversity and nobleness of the special work 
 of women would require a separate paper. 
 
lo LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE, 
 
 deliberation and ultimate choice they had no thought 
 of the will of God. But now that they are committed 
 to a particular trade or profession — if their occupation 
 is a lawful one, if the work they are doing must be 
 done by somebody — they may fairly assume that they 
 ought to go on with it. The time has passed by for 
 making a change. They made choice of their occu- 
 pation by what they may call accident, and certainly 
 without any conscious intention to do the will of 
 God ; but some work they must do if they are to 
 serve God, and now there is no other work within 
 their reach. So that, whatever may have been 
 possible to them years ago, it is clear that it is God's 
 will that they should remain where they are. 
 
 The principle which should guide those young men 
 and women to whom a choice is still open is very 
 simple, though the application of it may often be very 
 perplexing. Among the legitimate occupations 
 which are accessible to them they ought to ask — in 
 which of them they can use most effectively the 
 powers which God has given them. Just now, indeed, 
 a young man or a young woman may be grateful for 
 any occupation offering the opportunity of serving 
 others and getting an honest living. But when there 
 X is a choice the first question should be, not " Where 
 can I earn most money with the least labour } " but 
 ''Where can I use my strength and faculty in the 
 best way for the honour of God and the welfare 
 of mankind .-* " The difference between those two 
 questions involves the whole difference between 
 
E VERY-DAY BUSINESS A DIVINE CALLING, w 
 
 serving God and serving Mammon — between eternal 
 life and eternal death. « 
 
 Take a strong case. A young man finds that he 
 has a rare gift for scientific observation and discovery ; 
 his education has been generous, and he has the 
 opportunity of living a life of research ; but he is 
 tempted to engage in business pursuits which offer 
 him the certain prospect of a great fortune. If he 
 yields to the temptation, it is clear that he makes the 
 ignobler choice — a choice in flagrant antagonism to 
 the laws of Christ. He was meant to be a prophet 
 and a seer ; he was divinely called to make more 
 fully known to men the ways and thoughts of God as 
 revealed in the material universe. Had he accepted 
 his true mission, he would have augmented the know- 
 ledge of the race and augmented its power. He 
 has taken a bribe from the devil to quench the light 
 which God had kindled ; he has chosen to serve 
 himself rather than to glorify God and to bless man- 
 kind. 
 
 But that question about the choice of a business or 
 profession is a large one, too large to be adequately 
 discussed in a few paragraphs. I pass on to consider 
 how the Christian conception of a man's secular 
 calling will affect conduct. 
 
 You, my reader, are a manufacturer, lawyer, doctor, 
 merchant, schoolmaster, clerk, carpenter, engineer, 
 *' through the will of God ; " then, of course, there 
 will be industry and integrity in the discharge of the 
 duties of your calling. Your work has come to you 
 
12 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 by Divine appointment ; you have to fill your place 
 in a Divine scheme. Everything will be done as in 
 the eye of God ; of the work which God has assigned 
 you, an account must, sooner or later, be given to 
 Him. These generalities are sufficiently clear : look 
 at what may be less obvious. 
 
 You are an employer of other men. The labour of 
 ten, twenty, a hundred, perhaps five hundred families, 
 is used and organized under your leadership. Their 
 fortunes are largely in your hands. As long as you 
 carry on your business successfully their strength 
 and skill will have sufficient occupation and they will 
 live in comfort. You are what Mr. Carlyle used to 
 call "a captain of industry." You are that — "through 
 the will of God." You have charge, within certain 
 limits, of the well-being of your people as well as of 
 your own ; and for this trust you must answer to 
 God from whom you received it. 
 
 The old and vulgar distinction between what are 
 called the professions and ordinary trades was that in 
 a profession a man has to place his duties to others 
 first and his own interests second, and that in a trade 
 he has a right to care only for his own interests and 
 may leave other men to look after themselves. That 
 was one reason why professions were regarded as 
 honourable and trades as sordid and mean. And if 
 the distinction were accepted, the scorn with which 
 people in trade were once regarded would be de- 
 served ; for their life would be utterly base and 
 ignoble. No intelligent Christian tradesman or 
 
E VERY-DAY BUSINESS A DIVINE CALLING, i^ 
 
 manufacturer who has grasped the true idea of the 
 law of Christ as it affects the secular order will 
 consent that his life should be governed by so in- 
 tolerable and unchristian a conception. The pro- 
 fessional theory is the Christian theory. 
 
 A physician has no right to think of the peril to 
 himself from going into a house where there is 
 infection ; the code of medical honour requires that 
 at all risks he should use his skill in the service of 
 those who send for him. A captain in the army has 
 no right to think of his own life first ; his men are in 
 his charge, and the code of military honour requires 
 that, at whatever risk to himself, he should hold them 
 together and provide for their safety. The captain 
 of a ship accepts the same lofty obligations. If when 
 his vessel is on fire he jumps into a boat and pulls 
 off, he incurs, and justly incurs, universal execration. 
 There are innumerable stories of the cool gallantry 
 with which sea-captains have stood on the deck in a 
 rough sea, while the flames were making terrible 
 headway, and have seen the women and children into 
 the boats first, then the rest of the passengers, then the 
 crew, and have saved themselves last of all, or, as has 
 often happened, have gone down with the burning 
 ship. That is required by the laws of professional 
 honour. 
 
 This high temper, shown in other forms, will inspire 
 a Christian man who believes that he is an employer 
 of labour " through the will of God." He, too, as I 
 have said, is a "captain," — a *' captain of industry." 
 
14 LAPVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 He will think of the safety of his people before his 
 own. He will acknowledge the universal law, that 
 authority is given for service, that honour is conferred 
 that we may defend and bless other men. He will 
 remember that he is a master for the sake of his men. 
 If he trades recklessly, if he consumes in luxurious 
 expenditure the capital on which his people depend 
 for employment, if he sinks it in wild speculations 
 which promise immense returns but may very 
 probably turn out disastrously ; if he gambles, that 
 is, with the money which political economists used to 
 call "the wages fund," and which he holds in trust for 
 men who look to their wages for bread ; or if he 
 neglects his business and works it badly so that it 
 slips out of his hands, and if as the result of his care- 
 lessness the business breaks down, it is not he alone 
 that suffers ; the men he employs are thrown out, and 
 anxiety, perhaps destitution, finds its way into all 
 their homes. Moral evils are likely to follow closely 
 on want of work and poverty. In our complex social 
 life the responsibility of caring for others, not in the 
 way of common charity and almsgiving, but in ways 
 far more difficult, rises as we rise in the social hier- 
 archy. All government is a form of service. 
 
 Those who are employed, if they are Christian men, 
 and rightly understand the laws of the kingdom of 
 heaven to which they belong, will show a correspond- 
 ing spirit. I use the same language to men and to 
 masters. You are a workman " through the will of 
 God ; " a servant "through the will of God." Your 
 
EVERY-DAY BUSINESS A DIVINE CALLING. \^ 
 
 employer ought to care for your interests, whether you 
 care for his or not ; you ought to care for his interests, 
 whether he cares for yours or not. A passionate, 
 reckless pursuit, on either side, of immediate personal 
 advantage is a clear violation of the laws of Christ : 
 "Love thy neighbour as thyself;" "Seek ye first 
 God's kingdom and His righteousness ; " " Whosoever 
 would save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall 
 lose his life for My sake shall find it." 
 
 If these laws were universally obeyed, how greatly 
 life would be sweetened ! We should really look on 
 all other men as brethren, and not merely call them 
 so. We should think of them as comrades in a great 
 army, fighting side by side under the high command 
 of God against want, ignorance, disorder, and sin. 
 This would create a mutual kindliness and a mutual 
 respect which would bind together in golden chains 
 all ranks and orders in the State. It would bring on 
 the glorious years for which saints have prayed and 
 toiled, and for which Christ died on the cross. It 
 would be the fulfilment of the prayer, " Thy will be 
 done on earth as it is done in heaven." So far as 
 any man accepts these laws and obeys them, his 
 secular calling becomes as truly a perpetual service 
 of God as the life of the angels who worship Him 
 day and night without ceasing. 
 
 (^e'- 
 
 ^ 
 
II. 
 
 THE SACREDNESS OF PROPERTY. 
 
 THE common phrase, " The Sacredness of Pro- / 
 perty," is a very noble and suggestive one. It 
 reminds us that questions affecting property are not 
 to be settled by custom, precedent, or the public 
 convenience, by private contract or by public legis- 
 lation, irrespective of Divine and eternal laws. If p^ 
 property is " sacred," God has something to do with 
 it. Perhaps many of those who are in the habit of 
 using the phrase in current political and social con- 
 troversies have hardly measured its meaning. J 
 
 What is meant by "the Sacredness of Property" 
 becomes clear when we read the four Gospels and 
 the Epistles of the New Testament. The Lord Jesus 
 Christ came to assert authority over the whole of 
 human life. His claims are not met by merely 
 reciting a Christian creed, and offering Christian 
 worship ; we must understand, accept, and obey His 
 laws for the direction of conduct. But property has 
 a very large place in human life ; it never had a 
 larger place than it has now. In civilized nations, 
 property has its most convenient representative in 
 money, and we are earning money, investing money, 
 
 17 C 
 
 [, 
 
1 8 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 spending money, or using the things which money 
 purchases, every day and all the day long. If Christ 
 had not given us laws about property, He would 
 have left a large part of our life free from His 
 control. 
 
 He has said so much on this subject, that it would 
 be difficult to compress even a summary of His 
 teaching within the narrow limits of a paper like this. 
 The doctrine of the apostles about property must 
 be dismissed altogether, although there are some 
 passages in the Epistles which express the Christian 
 idea with extraordinary intensity and vividness. 
 Perhaps the surest method of getting at the very heart 
 of the matter will be to concentrate our attention 
 on the two parables in which our Lord has developed 
 His thought about it most fuUyjjI mean the parable 
 of the Unjust Steward, and the parable of the Rich 
 Man and Lazarus, contained in the sixteenth chapter 
 of the Gospel of Luke. 
 
 The historical setting of these two parables is full 
 of interest and instruction. The three parables in 
 the previous chapter, the parable of the Lost Sheep, 
 of the Lost Piece of Silver, and of the Prodigal Son, 
 were all intended to justify our Lord's intercourse 
 with publicans and sinners. It was an offence to the 
 " Pharisees and Scribes " that Jesus of Nazareth, who 
 assumed the position of a religious reformer, should 
 have anything to do with the kind of people that 
 now followed Him in great crowds, religious outcasts, 
 women of bad character, men who had been excluded 
 
THE SACREDNESS OF PROPERTY. 19 
 
 from the synagogues for their vices, or for their 
 violation of what were regarded as important rehgious 
 commandments. These three parables were part of 
 our Lord's great polemic against the Pharisees ; and 
 in the second half of the parable of the Prodigal Son, 
 in which He represents the elder brother as sullenly- 
 complaining of the reception which had been given 
 to the younger man who had " wasted his substance 
 in riotous living," our Lord holds up the Pharisees to 
 execration and scorn. 
 
 He then turned to His disciples. The Pharisees 
 complained, that by associating with " publicans and 
 sinners " He was relaxing the obligations of religion 
 and morality; and He therefore declared that His 
 disciples were to strive for a nobler righteousness 
 than the Pharisees themselves were contented with. 
 It was true that He received sinners, but it was to 
 make them saints, saints of a diviner type than the 
 most religious of the men who were criticising Him. 
 This teaching is contained in two parables ; and both 
 these parables illustrate Christ's theory of property. 
 
 In the first, our Lord speaks of a steward — an 
 agent — who is accused of wasting his master's estate. 
 The proofs of his guilt are flagrant, and he is certain 
 to lose his position and his income. He calls 
 together the men who are in debt to his lord, and 
 tampers with their accounts, strikes off fifty per cent, 
 from the debt of one, twenty per cent, from the debt 
 of another, and by this piece of knavery he hopes to 
 make friends who will give him shelter, at least for 
 
 ^ 
 
20 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 a time, when he is turned out of his office. His 
 master discovered the fraud, but is represented as 
 having no remedy. The steward has been his agent, 
 and the steward's orders seem to have been valid. 
 And his master recognises the forethought of his 
 fraudulent servant ; the man was an unscrupulous 
 rogue, but he had had the art to look after his own 
 interests. " The sons of this world are for their own 
 generation wiser than the sons of light." Our Lord 
 Himself tells the disciples to learn a lesson from the 
 Unjust Steward. " Make to yourselves friends by 
 means of the mammon of unrighteousness ; that, when 
 it shall fail, they may receive you into the eternal 
 tabernacles." Of course it is not the dishonesty of 
 the steward that our Lord proposes as an example to 
 the disciples, but the forethought. And our Master, 
 to whom whatever property we possess belongs, will 
 not charge us with robbing Him, if we use it in 
 showing kindness to the poor, in relieving the sick, in 
 teaching the ignorant, in recovering the fallen, that 
 they may receive us at last " into the eternal taber- 
 nacles." What was a fresh fraud in the Unjust 
 Steward will be in ourselves fidelity to our trust. 
 
 It is not probable that Zaccheus was in the crowd 
 when this parable was spoken ; but he might have 
 heard of it ; and whether he heard of it or not, his 
 conduct was an excellent illustration of its meaning. 
 His wealth was got badly ; like the rest of his class, 
 he had used his power dishonestly and oppressively. 
 When he repented and resolved to serve Christ, what 
 
THE SACREDNESS OF PROPERTY. 21 
 
 was he to do with it ? He determined to make him- 
 self " friends of the mammon of unrighteousness " — 
 " Half of my goods I give to the poor ; and if I have 
 wrongfully exacted of any man I restore fourfold." 
 
 Christ calls wealth "the mammon of unrighteous- v 
 ness," because it has had so much to do with human 
 selfishness, dishonesty, and cruelty ; because it is 
 often so wickedly obtained and so wickedly used. 
 By-and-by, when all men become Christ's loyal 
 servants, and when His laws have real authority over 
 secular life, material wealth will receive a nobler 
 description ; and the " Sacredness of Property," 
 instead of being a phrase, will represent a most 
 Divine reality. 
 
 But the complete interpretation of the parable is 
 contained in these words : — " He that is faithful in 
 a very little is faithful also in much : and he that 
 is unrighteous in a very little is unrighteous also in 
 much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the 
 unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust 
 the true riches 1 And if ye have not been faithful in 
 that which is another's, who will give you that which 
 is your own } No servant can serve two masters : 
 for either he will hate the one, and love the other ; or 
 else he will hold to one, and despise the other. Ye 
 cannot serve God and mammon." 
 
 Our Lord contrasts material wealth with wealth of 
 another kind ; to be faithful in the use of material 
 wealth is to be faithful in the use of that which is of | 
 very little value ; but fidelity in the inferior trust is 
 
22 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 a test of fidelity in greater matters. He says further 
 that if we have not been faithful in using material 
 wealth, we shall not receive from God real and 
 enduring riches. Nor is this all : — material wealth 
 is not really our own ; we hold it for a time, but we 
 shall have to give it up. If we have not been faith- 
 ful in our use of what is not ours, we cannot expect 
 that God will give us an inheritance that will be truly 
 and for ever our own. 
 
 One great principle underlies these various repre- 
 sentations of property. Our wealth — whatever its 
 amount — is not ours but God's. The corn is His : — 
 it grows on His earth ; it is fed by His rain ; it is 
 ripened by His sun. The timber is His : — the forests 
 from which we get it were created by His power. 
 The iron and the coal are His : — He laid them up in 
 the mines long before our race appeared in the world. 
 All precious things, silver and gold, diamonds, gems 
 and pearls are His. Wealth is placed in our hands 
 to use it for God ; it is not our own ; we are 
 stewards ; and in our use of wealth we are required 
 to be faithful to Him to whom it belongs. This, I 
 say, is the root of Christ's thought. He begins by 
 stripping us of everything, by denying our ownership 
 in everything we possess. " The earth is the Lord's 
 _and the fulness thereof." 
 
 This is in harmony with the whole strain of the 
 teaching of the New Testament. Paul describes us 
 as the slaves of Christ. Not only does our property 
 belong to Him;^e ourselves belong to Him. We 
 
THE SACREDNESS OF PROPERTY. 23 
 
 are His, without qualification and without reserve. | 
 Our bodies belong to Him, with the muscles which 
 we use in physical labour ; and our minds belong to - 
 Him, with the knowledge, the keenness of judgment,' 
 the tenacity of purpose, with which we conduct our 
 business or discharge the duties of our profession.; 
 We are not our own ; we are the slaves of Christ. 
 
 If we prefer the more honourable title of " children," - 
 we obtain no firmer hold of material wealth. Yes, 
 we are children — children in our Father's house. But 
 the house is His, and all that is in it is His. He feeds 
 us and clothes us ; but the food and the clothing are 
 not ours but His . 
 
 It is the fundamental law of the kingdom of Christ, 
 that when we acknowledge Him as our Prince and 
 Saviour, we renounce our personal claim to all the 
 things we used to call ours — to our money, our time, 
 and our influence ; we part with our property in our- 
 selves, and this includes parting with our property in 
 everything. It is just as imperative now as it ever 
 was, that we should forsake all and follow Him. Do 
 you say that this is a stern and tyrannical law, and 
 that it makes life desolate and gloomy t No ; it 
 makes life free and blessed. It quenches passions 
 which often consume the strength of men and shorten 
 their days. If wealth is not ours, if it never can be, 
 if when we think of it as ours we are thieves at heart, 
 unjust stewards, making that our own which belongs 
 to God, why should there be any hot pursuit of it ? 
 It is pleasant to have the use of wealth for a time, 
 
 f 
 
24 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 just as it is pleasant to stay in comfortable and 
 luxurious quarters when we are travelling. But we 
 ourselves are none the richer because for a day or 
 two we are guests in a splendid hotel ; and if we are 
 travelling through a country which offers poor accom- 
 modation, and have to lodge for a few days or a few 
 weeks in rude cottages or village inns, where the 
 furniture is rough, and the walls are bare, and the 
 sheets are coarse, and the table scantily furnished, we 
 suffer only passing discomfort, we ourselves are no 
 poorer ; we shall soon be home again. And, perhaps, 
 the parable may be carried a little farther : — we may 
 be all the richer when we reach home at last, because 
 we have spent little and fared badly on our journey. 
 
 It is pleasant, no doubt, to have command of 
 money and of a great deal of money, but it is not 
 ours, any more than the rents of the Duke of Suther- 
 land or the Duke of Westminster belong to their 
 agents. We may prefer to have the position of a 
 steward who has the control and administration of 
 a great estate, to the position of a manager who 
 has the control and administration of a small busi- 
 ness ; the higher position brings with it an increase 
 in the sources of personal comfort, and of some things 
 which are much more valuable than the sources of 
 personal comfort. But in either position the wealth 
 which passes through our hands is not ours. 
 
 If it is our habit to take this view of wealth, 
 the disposition to get it unjustly or unfairly will be 
 
THE SACREDNESS OF PROPERTY. 25 
 
 checked. Other men are God's stewards as well as 
 ourselves. When we are trying to get by unfair 
 means what is in their hands, we are trying to get 
 possession of property which is not theirs, which 
 cannot become ours, but which is entrusted to them, 
 not to us. It is the case of one agent trying to 
 collect rents from an estate which is under the 
 management of another agent of the same master. 
 
 This habit of regarding wealth relieves us of care 
 as well as of a passion for money. We say that we 
 are children in our Father's house, but how few of 
 us have the spirit of children, the trustfulness, the 
 light-heartedness, the freedom from anxiety and from 
 fear of the future! I doubt whether the true "spirit of 
 adoption " will come from dwelling exclusively, either 
 on those large aspects of the Divine Fatherhood, 
 which are among the principal topics of modern 
 theology, or on those wonderful representations of. 
 the prerogatives of the sons of God in the apostolic 
 epistles, which were the favourite subjects of medi- 
 tation with the saints of former e^enerations. The 
 precepts of the Sermon on the Mount are a disci- 
 pline of the spirit of sonship ; in obeying the precepts 
 the Divine Fatherhood will be discovered by us, and 
 apart from obedience the discovery will be withheld. 
 " Lay not up for yourselves treasure upon earth. . . 
 Be not anxious for your life what ye shall eat, or 
 what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye 
 shall put on . . . Behold the birds of the heaven 
 . . . your heavenly Father feedeth them. Con- 
 
26 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 sider the lilies of the field . . . Solomon in all 
 his glory was not arrayed like one of these." If we 
 keep these commandments it will be possible for the 
 Spirit to bear witness " with our spirit that we are 
 the children of God, and if children, then heirs ; heirs 
 of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." 
 
 The root of very much of the restlessness of heart 
 by which we are perplexed, and which is not soothed 
 by the most gentle and gracious revelations of the 
 Divine love, is very obvious. We say that we are 
 
 -- children in our Father's house, but we insist on being 
 
 grown-up children, and we have private speculations 
 
 of our own in cotton and iron and corn, in railways 
 
 and ships. No wonder that we are vexed and 
 
 \ wearied with anxiety and care. Not until we be- 
 
 \ come children in spirit as well as in name, in practice 
 las well as in title, and cease to hold any property 
 \of our own, will the true temper and blessedness of 
 
 V feod's children become ours. When this renunciation 
 has become complete, we shall offer with quite a new 
 spirit and meaning the prayer which Christ taught 
 His disciples, " Our Father which art in heaven, 
 . . . Give us this day our daily bread." We 
 shall think of the bread as His, though we may have 
 worked for it ; just as the corn which a son has 
 helped his father to harvest is the father's, not his ; 
 just as the fruit which a child has picked for his 
 father is the father's, not his. But when ever^'thing 
 that once seemed ours passes out of our own pos- 
 session and becomes God's property, we cease to be 
 
THE SACREDNESS OF PROPERTY. 27 
 
 anxious about it, and we live a life of faith, a life of 
 continual and happy trust in the infinite love of our 
 Father in heaven. 
 
 Does this conception of the " Sacredness of Pro- 
 perty " impoverish us, and leave us with a sense of 
 miserable destitution ? On the contrary, if we accept 
 it frankly, we only part with our right to very poor 
 and narrow possessions in order to enjoy illimitable 
 wealth. We come to understand the great paradox 
 which is so unintelligible until it is fulfilled in our 
 own experience : " There is no man that hath left 
 house, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, or father, or 
 children, or lands, for My sake, and for the gospel's 
 sake, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this 
 time, kouseSy and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, 
 and children, and lands, with persecutions ; and in the 
 world to come eternal life." 
 
 I travel over the estate of a great proprietor ; the 
 land is covered with rich crops ; every now and then 
 I pass farm buildings well built and well kept ; 
 through the trees I see the castle in which the great 
 proprietor is living. Perhaps by his courtesy I am 
 permitted to go through the stately rooms, and I see 
 costly furniture, noble sculpture, beautiful pictures, 
 precious gems curiously worked, ivory, agate, mala- 
 chite, and jade. Shall I envy him } Why should I ? 
 The things are not his any more than they are mine. 
 They all belong to God. He is God's child and so 
 am I. He is there only for a time, like the man 
 who shows me over the house ; and perhaps the man 
 
28 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 will live there longer than his master. The duke has 
 the keeping of the pictures and the sculpture; I have 
 the delight of seeing them. He has the responsi- 
 bility of choosing and buying the ancient coins, the 
 gems and the pottery ; and perhaps he is sometimes 
 worried because he is deceived about their value ; I 
 have only to admire them. His estates, stretching 
 over two or three counties — perhaps they give him 
 a joy inferior to the joy they give to me ; perhaps 
 they enrich his life less than they enrich mine. He 
 receives the rents, but of all that the estate yields 
 the rents are the least worth having. I may hear a 
 song in his running streams that he never heard, and 
 see a grace in his woods that he never saw ; in my 
 memory, for years after I have seen it, the heather on 
 the hills may glow with a splendour of which he 
 never caught a transient glimpse ; and from the 
 heights which rise above his home my thoughts may 
 take wing to a heaven which he has never visited. 
 Why should I envy him ? Men call the estate his ; 
 but it is God's ; and if God who loves me as well as 
 He loves the duke, gives me a home for a few years 
 under the smoky skies of a great manufacturing 
 town, and sends the duke to a castle among the 
 hills, it must be all well ; and the fairest and most 
 precious part of the duke's estate may be mine more 
 truly than his. 
 
 It is necessary to lay a firm hold of this conception 
 of property, if we are to make any right use of what 
 our Lord says about the duty of charity and about 
 
THE SACREDNESS OF PROPERTY. 29 
 
 making to ourselves friends who will receive us into 
 " the eternal tabernacles." 
 
 Charitable gifts are too often spoiled by that spirit 
 of Pharisaism against which our Lord had to main- 
 tain so severe and incessant a polemic. Men have 
 become accustomed to regard their property as in 
 every sense their own. The Christian Church has 
 permitted this unchristian heresy — a heresy as grave 
 as any that was ever condemned by Council or 
 Synod — to remain uncorrected and unrebuked. In 
 appropriating a part of their property to the relief of 
 the poor, to the development of the intellectual life 
 of their country, and to other public ends, they have 
 supposed that they were exhibiting an illustrious 
 virtue and have plumed themselves on their magnifi- 
 cent generosity. But they were simply discharging 
 a duty, using the property as its true Owner intended, 
 showing fideHty to Him. It would be quite as 
 reasonable for the trustees of a great educational 
 endowment to claim credit for personal generosity 
 because they appropriate the revenue of the trust 
 to the maintenance of schools. The money is not 
 theirs ; they are bound to appropriate it according 
 to the terms of their charter. And according to our 
 Lord's conception of property, all property belongs 
 to God ; we are not owners but trustees. The pur- 
 poses to which it is appropriated are not rigidly 
 defined in any legal instrument ; nor can the obliga- 
 tions of the trust be enforced by an appeal to any 
 earthly court ; but for the Christian man " the law 
 
30 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 of liberty" is as real a law as the law of the land, 
 and it is defended by more awful sanctions. 
 
 We see the effect of our Lord's teaching, or of the 
 the spirit of His teaching, in the action of the Pente- 
 costal Church. I suppose that the members of that 
 Church had very imperfect conceptions of what we 
 call Christian Doctrine. They worshipped the Lord 
 Jesus ^Christ as their Prince and Saviour; and they 
 trusted in Him for the remission of sins, for access 
 into the kingdom of God, for the inspiration of the 
 Holy Spirit, and for the great gift of eternal life. 
 But their creed was probably a very short one. They 
 would have been very unsuccessful in defining the 
 doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of the Atone- 
 ment, the doctrine of the New Birth. Their moral 
 life, as a whole, was probably ruled by Jewish rather 
 than by Christian law. Most of them — perhaps all 
 of them — thought it necessary for men to submit 
 to circumcision and to honour all the institutions of 
 Judaism if they were to be saved. But either under 
 the control of Christ's teaching, or more probably at 
 the instinctive impulse of the new and wonderful life 
 which they had received from Him, they obeyed 
 some of Christ's laws which the Church of later ages 
 has forgotten. 
 
 They looked at property as Christ looked at it. 
 They believed in its " sacredness." They were all 
 God's children ; their property belonged to their 
 Father and they were ready to share it with all 
 that were in their Father's household : " Not one of 
 
THE SACREDNESS OF PROPERTY. 31 
 
 them said that ought of the things which he pos- 
 sessed was his own." There was no want among 
 them : " For as many as were possessors of lands 
 or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the 
 things that were sold and laid them at the apostles* 
 feet, and distribution was made unto each according 
 as any one had need." I do not believe that they 
 established a system of communism. No man on 
 submitting to baptism came under any engagement 
 to surrender his property to the Church. Every man 
 had a perfect right to retain as much of his property 
 as he thought fit ; if he chose he might retain it all. 
 Nor was there any law requiring men to bring their 
 weekly earnings and pay them into the Church 
 account. But Christian men who had property held 
 it with a light hand ; looked upon it as a trust ; and 
 since many of their brethren were in great need 
 they sold houses and lands to create a fund for 
 their support. 
 
 This sudden and startling illustration of the spirit^ 
 of the new Faith must have had an immense effect. 
 It was the visible sign that a new idea had come into 
 the world of the relations between men and God, ; 
 and between men themselves. It was a decisive 
 proof that a Divine order was emerging, which was 
 destined to transform the social condition of all 
 nations. It was the gospel of the kingdom taught 
 in picture-lessons, and the simplest mind could catch 
 its meaning. 
 
 The circumstances of the Church in those great 
 
32 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 days were, however, wholly exceptional. There were 
 large numbers of persons baptized on the Day of 
 Pentecost who had travelled from distant countries 
 to be present at the Jewish Festival, and who having 
 discovered that the Christ for whose coming their 
 fathers had been waiting so long had now come, 
 remained in Jerusalem to learn all that the apostles 
 could tell them about His Kingdom, about the new 
 truths He had taught, about the new laws which 
 were given to those who acknowledged His authority, 
 and about the new hopes which were to be their 
 solace and their strength. In the case of many of 
 them probably, the funds which would have been 
 sufficient for a shorter stay were exhausted long 
 before they had the heart to return home. Some of 
 the Christian men and women who lived in the city 
 and its neighbourhood may have lost their ordinary 
 employment by becoming disciples of the crucified 
 Jesus of Nazareth. Others may have been so excited 
 by the new revelation which had come to them that 
 they could not follow their trades. Nor were these 
 the only reasons which made a common fund neces- 
 sary. There was a most vivid sense of brotherhood 
 among those who had passed together into the 
 Kingdom of God ; they were not satisfied with 
 meeting together two or three times a week to talk 
 about the great deliverance which God had wrought 
 for His people, and to unite in worship and thanks- 
 giving ; they wanted to live together, and so they 
 had common tables in many houses in Jerusalem, 
 
THE SACREDNESS OF PROPERTY. 33 
 
 and for these provision was made at the common 
 cost. 
 
 There have been times when many kindly enthu- 
 siasts have imagined that the true remedy for the 
 physical miseries of mankind and for many of the 
 worst moral evils which menace the stability of 
 nations, is to be found in giving a complete organ- 
 ization to the spirit of the early Church, and making 
 it the legal order of society. The inequalities of 
 human condition are appalling — appalling in them- 
 selves, appalling in their effects on the intellectual, 
 the moral, and the religious life of men. I do not 
 wonder that great socialistic schemes should have 
 filled the imagination and kindled the enthusiasm of 
 many noble and generous souls. Such schemes have, 
 again and again during the last half-century, excited 
 the hopes of a social millennium among the working 
 people of the great cities of France. They have 
 nTore recently touched the imagination of the working 
 people of the great cities of Germany. In Russia 
 there exist the foundations on which a system of 
 Socialism might be built up, and many speculative 
 Russians have believed that in the village com- 
 munities of the empire they have the elements of a 
 social order, which would solve the perplexing 
 questions created by the physical sufferings and 
 social discontent of the poorer classes in all the 
 greater nations of Europe. Forty or fifty years ago 
 projects of the same kind attracted some attention 
 in England. 
 
 D 
 
34 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 Whether the time will ever come when it will be 
 safe on economical grounds to attempt a social 
 organization, founded on communistic principles ; 
 whether such an organization would be friendly to 
 industry, to personal independence, to originality of 
 character ; are questions into which it is unnecessary 
 to enter. Monasticism is the only form under which 
 a communistif scheme of life has achieved any con- 
 siderable and enduring success ; and as Monasticism 
 involves celibacy, its success has no value in relation 
 to our social troubles. A communistic social order 
 had a brief existence in the early history of some of 
 the American colonies. In Virginia the experiment 
 was tried under conditions which prevented the 
 possibility of success. In New Plymouth the con- 
 ditions were exceptionally favourable, but there, too, 
 the experiment was a failure. 
 
 The scheme of a community of goods requires a 
 height of virtue to which as yet no considerable 
 portion of the human race has ever attained. To 
 give it a chance of success men must have a noble 
 public spirit, must be free from personal ambition, 
 must be willing to do disagreeable work for the sake 
 of the work itself, and without the constraint of the 
 relentless law — if any man will not work neither shall 
 he eat. No cunningly contrived system of regula- 
 tions, no ingenious organization of the varying forms 
 of aptitude and faculty, will be of any avail unless 
 all men are both heroes and saints. A revolution 
 so immense as this in the social order, implies a 
 
THE SACREDNESS OF PROPERTY. 35 
 
 revolution equally immense in human nature ; nor 
 is it rational to suppose that this change in human 
 nature can be effected by any change in mere ex- 
 ternal institutions. If under our present social order 
 those virtues could be created and disciplined which 
 are necessary to the very existence of a communistic 
 system, whatever is unjust and unequal in our present 
 social life would soon disappear. The great problem 
 after all is not, How can we improve our institutions ? 
 but, How can we improve men ? 
 
 X 
 
 What concerns us in the present discussion is that 
 the Lord Jesus Christ never suggests that private \ 
 property should be abolished, but tells us to use it as 
 God's stewards. A great German defined the differ- 
 ence between Socialism and Christianity in a very 
 clever epigram : — " Socialism says, ' What is thine is 
 mine ' ; Christianity says, * What is mine is thine ' ; 7 
 the difference is infinite." But the epigram needs // 
 correction. Christianity really teaches us to say, f 
 " What seems thine is not thine ; what seems mine 
 is not mine ; whatever thou hast belongs to God, and I , 
 whatever I have belongs to God ; you and I must '^ 
 use what we have according to God's will." -__^_--^ 
 
 The "Sacredness of Property" determines what 
 uses of property are legitimate. God intends us, 
 first of all, to provide for our own wants and the 
 wants of our children and dependents. These wants 
 vary with the circumstances of men, with their . 
 training, with their occupation, with the functions 1 
 they have to discharge to society. Every man must 
 
36 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 form his own judgment as to what expenditure on 
 himself and on his own house God will approve. He 
 is God's servant, and may use his income in meeting 
 whatever expenses are legitimately incurred in doing 
 God's work. He may move from a modest house 
 into a mansion, with greenhouses, vineries, stables, 
 and a park, if his income is large enough to cover the 
 increased expenditure, and if he thinks that by the 
 change he will serve God more effectually. But to 
 , those who believe in the " Sacredness of Property," 
 it is clearly unlawful to incur a large increase of per- 
 sonal expenditure without the prospect of securing 
 any corresponding increase in the efficiency of their 
 service. Every man whose income will cover more 
 than the necessities of his own life and work, is also 
 required to use part of it, how much he must judge 
 for himself, in serving others. The form in which 
 this service is to be rendered must be determined by 
 a man's position, circumstances, and faculty. One 
 man may be specially " called " to shelter the home- 
 less, another to care for orphans, another to promote 
 scientific discovery, another to contribute to the deve- 
 lopment of art or of literature, another to strengthen 
 great movements for the social and political improve- 
 ment of mankind. All Christian men will desire to 
 have some share in relieving the common misfortunes 
 of human life, and in making known the gospel of 
 the Divine righteousness and love. The general law 
 is clear and definite : our money is God's money, and 
 we must spend it for nothing for which God does not 
 want it spent. 
 
THE SACREDNESS OF PROPERTY. Z7 
 
 And now I can imagine that some of my readers — 
 practical, sagacious, religious men — will be ready to 
 say that this theory of the " Sacredness of Property " 
 is extremely visionary — the kind of theory likely to 
 commend itself to an enthusiast unfamiliar with the 
 business and affairs of the world, but absurdly useless 
 for the guidance of conduct. That is exactly what 
 the Pharisees thought about our Lord when they 
 heard this theory of property from His lips. " The 
 Pharisees who were lovers of money heard all these 
 things ; and they scoffed at Him." 
 
 And how did He answer their scoffing } 
 
 It was against the spirit which leads us to regard 
 our property as our own — not God's — that the awful 
 parable of the rich man and Lazarus was directed. 
 The Pharisees scoffed at our Lord's " visionary " 
 account of property ; this parable is His reply. 
 The intense and natural curiosity of men about the 
 future life has led them to pass over the tremendous 
 moral and practical lessons of the parable in their 
 endeavour to discover what it reveals concerning the 
 fate of the impenitent. But what was it that our 
 Lord meant the parable to teach } 
 
 It is a parable about a rich man and a beggar. 
 The rich man is not said to have been a bad man, 
 in the current sense of the word. He was rich, 
 but he may have got his wealth honestly. He was 
 "clothed in purple and fine Hnen," but I suppose 
 that he paid for them. He fared " sumptuously 
 every day;" but for anything that is said in the 
 
3S LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 parable, he was neither a glutton nor a drunkard. 
 He was rich and he enjoyed his riches. That is 
 all. He thought that his wealth was his own, to 
 spend as he liked. It never occurred to him that 
 it all belonged to God. 
 
 Lazarus, the beggar, was laid at the rich man's 
 gate and was glad to get the broken meat which 
 came from the rich man's table. On the sufferings 
 and misery of Lazarus it is not necessary, for the 
 immediate purpose of this paper, to say anything. 
 He died and "was carried away by the angels into 
 Abraham's bosom "—to a place of honour at the 
 great festival of the blessed. 
 
 The rich man also died and was buried ; and after 
 we are told of the rich man's death and burial there 
 follow immediately these startling words : " And in 
 Hades he lifted up his eyes being in torment, and 
 seeth Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. 
 And he cried and said. Father Abraham, have mercy 
 on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip 
 of his finger in water, and cool my tongue ; for I 
 am in anguish in this flame." 
 
 Instead of discussing the questions which are 
 suggested by this account of the rich man's doom, 
 we shall do well to consider how he incurred it. 
 The doom was terrible, and, apparently, without 
 hope. There is no need to suppose that he was 
 condemned to material flames, any more than there 
 is need to suppose that Lazarus was literally reclin- 
 ing in Abraham's bosom. But whatever may be the 
 
THE SACREDNESS OF PROPERTY. 39 
 
 nature of the suffering represented by the "torment" 
 and the *' flame," Christ means us to understand 
 that the suffering is appaUing, intolerable ; and the 
 "great gulf" seems to suggest that there is no escape 
 from the fiery anguish to the happy seats of the 
 saints. 
 
 Does any man dare to suggest that this parable 
 is an illustration of the severity and mercilessness 
 of the Christian conception of God ? It is an illus- 
 tration of precisely the opposite of that. We see 
 here the indignation of Infinite Love at white heat. 
 The " rich man " thought that his property was his 
 own, and that he had a right to use it for the 
 purposes of self-indulgence. He clothed himself in 
 "purple and fine linen ;" he kept a sumptuous table. 
 He had no active, earnest pity for Lazarus who 
 was lying at his gate or for hundreds of others as 
 miserable as Lazarus. He never thought that since 
 his property belonged to God he was guilty of a 
 flagrant breach of trust in not using it for the relief 
 of those whose sufferings touched the Divine heart 
 and to whom he should have been the minister of 
 the Divine pity. To God this was intolerable. The 
 " flame " is the fiery displeasure which God feels at 
 his selfishness; and to soothe the anguish which 
 the consciousness of the Divine displeasure inflicts, 
 no saint or angel will dip his finger in water and 
 try to cross the tremendous gulf. 
 
 This awful menace needs nothing to heighten 
 its terror. It is just as truly a part of the revelation 
 
40 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 which Christ has made to our race, as the gentlest 
 words of His compassion for human sorrow, or the 
 largest assurances of His eagerness to forgive human 
 sin. It belongs, indeed, to the very substance of 
 the Christian gospel, or, at least, it is the deep 
 shadow cast by its intense and glorious splendour. 
 For the divinest element of the gospel is the de- 
 claration that Christ came to make His very life our 
 own. If His life has not become ours, His great 
 purpose has failed, and He has not saved us. 
 
 But in those who have received the life of Christ, 
 there will be 'the "mind" which is also in Him. 
 His estimate of riches, of earthly honour, of all the 
 pleasant things of this world, will be theirs. They 
 will call nothing their own ; they will hold every- 
 thing as a trust from God. 
 
 1 
 
 < 
 
 ("' 
 
III. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN RULE OF JUSTICE. 
 
 T3Y some ancient moralists Justice was made to 
 -L' include all human virtues ; the just man was 
 he who discharged all moral obligations. Even 
 piety was made a part of justice, and the impious 
 man was said to be unjust to the gods. A similar 
 use of the word is to be found in the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures. The just man of the Psalmists and Prophets 
 is the man who keeps all divine laws ; justice is 
 another name for righteousness, and includes all 
 kinds of moral and religious excellence. But it is 
 both common and convenient to give the word a 
 narrower application. When a man demands justice 
 he demands his " rights ;" and if we give him his 
 rights the claims of justice are exhausted. 
 
 In some cases the obligations of justice are per- 
 fectly plain and definite. A man has a " right," for 
 instance, to require that we should pay him in full 
 all the money we owe him ; we are, therefore, bound, 
 not merely to pay him when we are able, but to take 
 care that we are able to pay him. To indulge in 
 a style of living which touches the very margin of 
 our income is not only a violation of the obligations 
 
 4^ 
 
42 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 of prudence and self-interest, it is a violation of the 
 obligations of justice, even though through a happy 
 chance no unforeseen and inevitable expenditure 
 lands us in difficulties which prevent us from paying 
 our debts. We ought to leave a margin for mis- 
 fortunes. To put another man's money into a risky 
 ^ speculation is itself an act of dishonesty, even though 
 the venture may accidentally turn out well and we 
 may be able to pay him all that we owe him. To 
 be honest through a fortunate accident is not to 
 be honest at all. 
 
 A man has a right to insist that we should fulfil 
 the terms of a contract in the sense in which we 
 knew that he understood them, the sense in which 
 we intended or permitted him to understand them. 
 This holds true whether the contract is for goods 
 or for services. It affects master and workman, 
 manufacturer and merchant, tradesman and cus- 
 tomer. It is not enough that we fulfil the mere 
 letter of the engagement. We are bound to supply 
 the goods, or to render the services, or to pay the 
 money, which we knew the other party to the con- 
 tract expected when the contract was entered into. 
 To plead that we have done everything that the 
 law requires is nothing to the purpose. The man 
 who is honest only so far as the law compels him 
 to be honest is not an honest man. 
 
 These are simple cases. The " rights " on one 
 side are exactly defined by law or by contract, and 
 the obligations of justice on the other side are, there- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN RULE OF JUSTICE. 43 
 
 fore, equally definite. But there are many provinces 
 of life in which the " rights " are incapable of precise 
 definition, and in which, therefore, the obligations 
 of justice are less certain. To tell us to " be just " 
 is very often to afford very little practical guidance. 
 We meet the precept with the answer — "Yes. I 
 wish to be just ; but what does justice require ? " 
 It may be true, as moralists teach us, that the rules 
 of justice can " be laid down with a degree of ac- 
 curacy of which moral precepts do not, in any other 
 instance, admit " ; ^ but in practical life the instances 
 are innumerable in which it is almost as impossible 
 to define the claims of justice as it is to define the 
 claims of charity. 
 
 The most important relations of life involve ob- 
 ligations and " rights " which cannot be determined 
 either by public legislation or mutual agreement. 
 What, for example, are the " rights " of a wife } 
 What freedom can she claim on the grounds of mere 
 justice, in the choice of her friends, in the employ- 
 ment of her time, in the expenditure of money } 
 What is the extent, what are the limits, of the de- 
 mands she can make on the time of her husband, 
 on the sacrifice of his personal tastes, of his friend- 
 ships, of his amusements 1 Until the " rights " on 
 the side of the wife are determined, the obligations 
 of justice on the side of the husband are unknown. 
 They cannot be determined by law, all the claims 
 
 ^ Dugald Stewart's Outlines of Moral Philosophy^ p. 173. 
 
44 LA JVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 which can be enforced by law may be satisfied and 
 the wife may still suffer flagrant injury. Nor can 
 all the " rights " and " obligations " of husband and 
 wife be determined by mutual agreement. Marriage 
 is no doubt founded on voluntary contract, but the 
 conditions of the contract cannot be varied or relaxed 
 at the pleasure of the contracting parties. As soon 
 as a man and woman are married, duties and ob- 
 ligations arise from which neither of them can be 
 released in virtue of a private and preliminary agree- 
 ment between them. To use a convenient legal 
 term, the relations between husband and wife are 
 not relations of contract but of status^ and any 
 contract which professed to exempt either of them 
 from the obligations created by the status would be 
 immoral and void. Husband and wife have " rights " 
 which they cannot surrender ; they are under obli- 
 gations which no contract can cancel. 
 
 It may be said that the relations between husband 
 and wife involve mutual duties which cannot be 
 defined in terms of justice ; and that when either 
 of them begins to insist on " rights " the ideal beauty 
 of the relationship is lost. In a perfect marriage 
 there is a frank and unreserved surrender of the life 
 of each to the other. Love gives everything and 
 claims nothing ; and if anything were demanded and 
 conceded as a matter of justice, the charm of the 
 concession would be gone. All this is true. But 
 love is sometimes blind in other senses than that 
 in which the poets have said it. Genuine affection 
 
THE CHRISTIAN RULE 01 JUSTICE. 45 
 
 may, through ignorance, be guilty of grave injustice. 
 There may be an inordinate and unconscious egotism 
 and an iniquitous invasion of the " rights " of another 
 even where there is passionate devotion. In a per- > 
 feet marriage the wife will never think of her own ; 
 claims, but the husband will never forget them ; the 
 husband will never assert his own " rights," but the 
 wife will never encroach on them. Love will always 
 be eager to give very much more than can be de- 
 manded by justice ; but only an intelligent and 
 ethically cultivated love will prevent either husband 
 or wife from sometimes giving less. But to define 
 the " rights " which justice must recognise and which 
 love will desire to transcend is not always easy. 
 
 Or, take the relations between parent and child ; 
 how are we to measure their mutual claims ? What 
 are the " rights " of the parent } What are the 
 " rights " of the child t In this case, of course, there 
 can be no question of contract ; and when the legal 
 obligations on both sides have been met, some of 
 the gravest difficulties which have embittered the 
 relations of parents and children remain untouched. 
 Within what limits and up to what age has a parent 
 the " right " to exert any control over the religious 
 preferences of a child t Has a Catholic father the 
 "■ right " to forbid a boy of seventeen to attend Pro- 
 testant worship or read Protestant books } Has a 
 Protestant father the "right" to forbid a girl of twenty 
 to attend mass or to correspond with a Catholic 
 priest } Has the clever son of a prosperous mer- 
 
46 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 chant a " right " to a university education ? Can he 
 complain of injustice if he is sent from school into 
 the counting-house ? Has a rich man the " right " 
 to leave fifty thousand pounds to one son and only 
 twenty to another, and only ten to each of his 
 daughters ? Or is he under an obligation, as a 
 matter of justice, to give each of his children an 
 equal share of his property ? 
 
 Brothers and sisters have their rights as against 
 each other. So have friends. So have lovers. Old 
 servants have their " rights " which a just master will 
 not disregard. Generous masters have their " rights " 
 which just servants will be careful to remember and 
 to honour. But these " rights " are in many cases 
 extremely indefinite. It is not so easy as the moral- 
 ists have taught us to lay down the rules of justice 
 with any degree of accuracy. A man may honestly 
 desire to be just, but if he cannot exactly measure 
 t- the " rights " of others he will be unable to determine 
 when the obligations of justice are satisfied. 
 
 Christ has given us a rule which will save us from 
 many difficulties. " Whatsoever ye would that men 
 • should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them." 
 This is not a scientific definition of justice, but a 
 practical rule of conduct. It is to be taken with 
 those obvious qualifications which are always neces- 
 sary in applying rules of this kind. It is the Chris- 
 tian form of the ethical law — Be just. 
 
 It will secure justice ; it will generally secure 
 something more. For we are usually keen in dis- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN RULE OF JUSTICE. 47 
 
 covering our own rights, and sufficiently generous 
 in estimating them. Christ tells us to estimate the 
 rights of others as we estimate our own, and then 
 to govern our conduct, not by the claims which we 
 suppose that we have upon them, but by the claims 
 which they have upon us. In estimating our duties 
 to other men we are not merely to make due allow- 
 ance for the " personal equation ; " we are to give 
 them the benefit of it. I do not say that this rule 
 will enable us, without a great deal of patient 
 thought, to find a solution for the perplexing pro- 
 blems of life ; but in most cases it will enable us 
 to discover our duty at once, and in the rest will put 
 us in the way to discover it. 
 
 We like other men, not only to pay the money 
 they owe us, but to pay it punctually and without 
 being worried to pay it. If we put ourselves in the 
 place of a retail tradesman with a large number of 
 small outstanding accounts, we shall see at once 
 that carelessness and irregularity in paying small 
 debts may sometimes cause almost as much trouble 
 and anxiety as not paying them at all : " Whatso- 
 ever ye would that men should do unto you, even so 
 do ye also unto them." When we buy goods from 
 other men we wish them to give us goods of the 
 quality which they know we expect to receive, and 
 we like good measure and full weight. When we 
 engage their services we wish them to perform to the 
 very best of their ability whatever services they have 
 contracted to render. If they have charge of our 
 
48 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 property we wish them to avoid injuring it, and to 
 take as much care of it as if it were their own. In 
 all such matters Christ intends us to make what we 
 know would be our own claims on others the rule 
 of our conduct towards them. 
 
 The rule is admirably simple in relation to in- 
 terests and duties of another kind. When we are 
 ready to take up and to repeat a report to another 
 man's disadvantage, we should ask whether we 
 should like a similar report about ourselves to be 
 believed and repeated on similar evidence. When 
 we are on the point of condemning a man severely, 
 and forming a hostile estimate of his general spirit 
 and character, on the ground of words which we 
 ourselves have heard him speak, or on the ground of 
 some unworthy action which we know he has com- 
 mitted, we should ask whether we should think it 
 just for other men to form a summary judgment of 
 our own character for similar reasons, and without 
 taking into account our general conduct. We 
 should be equally prompt to challenge lighter cen- 
 sures. We call on a man — a friend — and he meets 
 us coldly and without sympathy ; we can see clearly 
 enough that he is glad when we leave him. But are 
 we to feel resentment and to say that his friendship 
 is fickle, and that he has no real kindness for us .'* 
 Does it never happen that people for whom we have 
 a genuine affection come to us when we are so 
 absorbed in speculations or inquiries which detach 
 us for the time from all the affairs and relationships 
 
THE CHRISTIAN RULE OF JUSTICE. 49 
 
 of our common life, or when we are so completely 
 mastered by anxieties about our own concerns or the 
 concerns of persons dependent on us, that we receive 
 them almost as if they were strangers — are unable to 
 find our way to them, speak to them as if we had 
 no interests in common, and dismiss them with a 
 sense of relief? We call on a stranger, and he 
 hurries us off with indecent haste. He is guilty of a 
 fault ; but are we to go about the world saying that 
 he is brutally discourteous ? Does it never happen 
 that strangers call on iis when our strength is almost 
 exhausted, and when what strength we have is 
 hardly equal to inevitable work ; when there are 
 letters to be written which there is hardly time to 
 write ; when practical questions of great difficulty 
 and of great importance to ourselves or other people 
 are pressing for settlement, and every moment we 
 can command for thinking about them is precious ? 
 And at such times have we not, in our weariness and 
 impatience, shown scant courtesy to people for whom 
 in more fortunate hours we should gladly have killed 
 the fatted calf? Do none of us speak rudely, and 
 even with irritation, to most innocent persons when 
 we have just heard that we have made a bad debt, or 
 after a sleepless night, through which we have been 
 tormented with neuralgia, or when we are fighting 
 hard with the miserable depression caused by a bad 
 liver? I am not excusing offences committed in 
 such circumstances ; I condemn them. But should 
 we think it fair for other people to form an adverse 
 
 E 
 
50 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 judgment of our general character on the ground of 
 these occasional transgressions ? If not, let us re- 
 member the words of Christ : " Whatsoever ye would 
 that men should do unto you, even so do ye also 
 unto them." Be just. 
 
 There is a very common mistake about the mean- 
 ing of the precept. It is sometimes taken as though 
 it required us to rule our conduct towards other men 
 by their wishes ; to do this would often be a folly 
 and a sin. It really requires us to rule our conduct 
 towards others by what our wishes would be if we 
 were in their place ; and this is a very different 
 matter. In other words, we are to make what we 
 see are their real interests our own. I have heard of 
 a foolish father who, when one of his girls was four- 
 teen or fifteen years old, gave her the choice of a 
 pony or of remaining another year or two at school. 
 The child naturally elected to have the pony, and 
 most children of her age would do the same. The 
 father's conduct was ruled by the child's wishes, and 
 he inflicted on her a grave injustice. From what I 
 remember of him I believe that he knew no better. 
 A sensible father will not always act according to the 
 wishes of his children, but will consider how those 
 wishes would be modified and corrected if the 
 children had a larger knowledge and a larger ex- 
 perience of human life. No wise man would wish 
 to enjoy temporary pleasure at the cost of lasting 
 injury. We are unjust to our children if we do not 
 give them the benefit of our wisdom as well as of 
 
THE CHRISTIAN RULE OF JUSTICE. 51, 
 
 our love. And we are unjust if we do not, in apply- 
 ing this rule of conduct, give to other men who may- 
 be excited by passion, by hope, or by fear, the benefit 
 of our calmer judgment ; and if we do not in all 
 cases guide our conduct towards them by what we 
 may be sure is our clearer perception of their true 
 interest, even when this requires us to act in direct 
 opposition to their most earnest wishes. 
 
 This rule may sometimes restrain us from acts of 
 mischievous good-nature ; it may sometimes even 
 nerve us to a stern severity. A man applies to me 
 for a testimonial, and I may have reason to believe 
 that if I give it him he will have a good chance of 
 securing an excellent appointment. He is in urgent 
 need of it, for he is in a great deal of trouble. There 
 is no harm in him, and I should be glad to help him.. 
 But I am doubtful, and more than doubtful, whether 
 he would discharge the duties of the position satis- 
 factorily. He says that if I were in his position and 
 he in mine I should plead hard for his recommenda- 
 tion. But I have to think not only of the man him- 
 self, but of the people 'to whom he wishes me to 
 recommend him. If I had to make the appointment 
 myself should I like them to recommend me a man 
 about whose fitness they were uncertain ? Should I 
 like them to tell me of his merits and not even to 
 hint at his disqualifications } Is it just even to the 
 applicant himself to give him the support he asks 
 for } If I were in his position should I — if I were a 
 wise and honest man — wish to be recommended to a 
 
52 LAH^S OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE, 
 
 post the duties of which I was unable to discharge ? 
 Apart altogether from the obligations of veracity, 
 this "golden rule" may require me to refuse to 
 support his application. The Christian law would 
 diminish the immorality of testimonials. 
 
 Or I may happen to detect a man in some criminal 
 act. I may discover that he is an old offender. All 
 the evidence may be in my hands, and by using it I 
 shall send him into penal servitude. The impulses of 
 compassion make me shrink from prosecuting him. 
 The man himself attempts to turn me aside by 
 appealing to the precept, " Whatsoever ye would that 
 men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto 
 them." If I were in his case and he in mine, should 
 I not passionately appeal for mercy } Yes ; but this 
 does not decide the question. This very law may 
 compel me to prosecute. I have to think not merely 
 of the individual man, but of those whom he will 
 wrong if his criminal course is not arrested. I have 
 to think of the community whose interests I happen 
 to be in a position to protect from unknown, unmea- 
 sured injury. While the man is at large and un- 
 punished I cannot tell who may receive harm. If 
 another man were in my place I should wish him to 
 prosecute ; and if I am to serve others as I wish 
 them to serve me I must send the criminal to gaol. 
 The claims of the innocent are stronger than the 
 claims of the guilty ; and even for the guilty man him- 
 self a prison, with all its hardening influences, may 
 be safer and better than freedom to repeat his crimes. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN RULE OF JUSTICE. 53 
 
 The "golden rule" is a guarantee of justice. 
 Justice without generosity is cold and unlovely, but 
 men who are conscious of being generous must not 
 suppose that for them the rule has no practical value. 
 I have known people who could be nobly generous, 
 not in money merely, but in things far more precious 
 — in affection, in sympathy, in appreciation of the 
 work and character of their friends, in the unsparing 
 devotion of time and thought and labour to the 
 service of those who attracted their interest, touched 
 their pity, commanded their confidence. And yet 
 they could be guilty of atrocious injustice. For the 
 most part men of this sort have an inordinate sense 
 of their own importance ; they carry themselves as 
 though they were born in the purple. There is a 
 certain regal manner in their admiration of the 
 powers and services and virtues of others. They 
 bestow their honours with a royal liberality and 
 grace. But it never seems to occur to them that 
 those to whom it is their delight to be generous have 
 any "rights" which mere justice obliges them to 
 acknowledge. They are Caesars in their way — not 
 constitutional sovereigns ; absolute monarchs under 
 no " obligations " to any man. Like Herod they will 
 swear to give half their kingdom to any one that 
 pleases them, and they will keep their oath ; but like 
 Ahab they will take Naboth's vineyard if they 
 happen to fancy it, and will take it without scruple : 
 no Jezebel is necessary to urge them to do it. To 
 make men of this kind sensible of the fatal defects in 
 
54 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 their moral life is a very difficult matter. They 
 think they are rich in works of supererogation, that 
 they have " merit " to spare for the commonalty of 
 mankind. They are the very Pharisees of morality ; 
 they do so much more than justice requires that it is 
 impossible to persuade them that they do less. They 
 regard themselves with unqualified moral compla- 
 cency. There is a delight, an exhilaration, in speak- 
 rng generous words and doing generous deeds to 
 which the man who is merely just is a stranger. 
 * When we have given a ten-pound note, which we can 
 hardly spare, to an old schoolfellow who has got into 
 trouble, our hearts are flooded with a certain noble 
 satisfaction. There is no such after-glow when we 
 have merely paid our baker's bill. It is much more 
 pleasant to be generous than to be just ; but it is 
 much more necessary to be just than to be generous. 
 
 The Christian Revelation is a discipline of justice 
 as well as of charity. Men become unjust through 
 their covetousness ; Christ has told us that the wealth 
 V which we call ours is not ours but God's, and has 
 ^ ''^ taught us to lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven. 
 Men are unjust through their ambition ; they trample 
 on the rights of others in their passionate desire for 
 rank and reputation ; Christ quenches the feverish 
 thirst for earthly fame by revealing to us the possi- 
 bility of winning the Divine honour. 
 
 Men are unjust under the pressure of anxiety 
 
 and misfortune ; in trying to save themselves from 
 
 sjU calamity and loss they are reckless of the wrongs 
 
THE CHRISTIAN RULE OF JUSTICE. 55 
 
 they inflict on others; Christ has made the surpris- 
 ing discovery that we can rely on God's sympathy, 
 defence, and help, through all the chances and changes 
 of this uncertain life, and has encouraged us to cast 
 all our care on Him. Men are often unjust because 
 they form the habit of supposing that if they respect 
 the rights and meet the claims which are protected 
 and enforced by law they have done all that in strict 
 justice can be required of them : Christ has warned 
 us that there is a judgment to come, and that when 
 this life is over we shall be judged by a law more 
 searching and more equitable, and sustained by more 
 terrible sanctions, than any that human tribunals can 
 administer. 
 
 Above all, Christ has revealed the august greatness 
 of every man — however obscure may be his earthly 
 position, and however helpless he may be to vindicate 
 his personal rights. We wrong men because we have 
 not sufficient reverence for them. This is the root 
 of all injustice. Brigands who will plunder a palace 
 will leave the unguarded treasures of a temple un- 
 touched ; their superstitious reverence for the gods 
 restrains them from sacrilege. Men who will treat 
 a peasant with reckless and insulting cruelty will 
 treat even a fallen prince with the most tender 
 courtesy. To those who really believe all that Christ 
 has revealed of the present relations of every man to 
 God and the infinite possibilities of righteousness, 
 wisdom, power and blessedness, which are the in- 
 heritance of every man in Christ, every man will be 
 
56 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 invested with an awful greatness which will make an 
 invasion of his rights an act of irreverence and pro- 
 fanity. Perfect justice is the fruit of a profound sense 
 of the greatness and sanctity of human nature. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. 
 
 SOME Christian people who are very zealous in 
 protesting against the possibility of moral per- 
 fection in this life are always greatly astonished if 
 a man, who professes loyalty to Christ, treats them 
 unjustly or ungenerously. They believe that as long 
 as we are in this world the most saintly men will at 
 times sin against God ; but when a man who attends 
 public worship every Sunday, who is a regular com- 
 municant, and subscribes largely to a missionary 
 society, sins against themselves, they conclude at 
 once that he is nothing better than a hypocrite. 
 That seems a very curious and almost unintelligible 
 state of mind ; so curious and so unintelligible as to 
 deserve consideration. 
 
 That a sincerely Christian man should sometimes 
 have hard and bitter thoughts of God — so these 
 persons think — is inevitable ; it is to be expected. 
 God knows the infirmity of human nature, and will 
 forgive the sin. But that a man with any real 
 religious earnestness, with any genuine sympathy 
 with the spirit of Christ, should have hard and bitter 
 thoughts of them, is quite inconceivable. That a man 
 
 57 
 
58 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 with real Christian faith in him should sometimes be 
 ungrateful to God for His infinite goodness does not 
 surprise them : in every one of lis there will always 
 remain something of what is commonly described 
 as our native sinfulness ; and God can see that, with 
 occasional ingratitude, there may be a fervent sense 
 of His love. But that a man should be ungrateful 
 to them^ is a proof of total depravity and unregen- 
 eracy. That a good man's love for God should 
 sometimes become cold they suppose is a matter of 
 course ; that he should sometimes find it hard to 
 speak to God is also a matter of course ; but that he 
 should vary in the warmth of his affection for them- 
 selves, and should sometimes be almost discourteous 
 to them, is what they cannot understand, and when 
 it happens they are indignant, and begin to doubt 
 whether there is any goodness in him. That a man 
 who has sincere loyalty to Christ should sometimes 
 be so swayed by self-interest, by vanity, by ambition, 
 or by sharp temptation, to sin of other kinds, that his 
 loyalty is for a time shaken and overcome, is among 
 the necessary incidents of mortal weakness and im- 
 perfection. The persons of whom I am thinking 
 believe that these occasional moral defects will hap- 
 pen to those who, through many years, have been 
 trying to do the will of God, as well as to those who 
 have only recently begun to live a religious life. 
 When any religious man tells them that to the best 
 of his knowledge the power of God is keeping him 
 from all such offences, they are incredulous ; they 
 
THE FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. 59 
 
 think that he is deceiving himself, that he is self- 
 righteous. I do not say that they are wrong ; but 
 what perplexes me is this — if a religious man who 
 makes no such profession is so swayed by self-interest 
 as to injure them^ if his ambition or his vanity leads 
 him to commit a wrong against them, if, in a moment 
 of irritation or when he happens to be in a sullen 
 or a cynical mood, he speaks to them harshly, con- 
 temptuously, or ungenerously, they wonder that he 
 should have the audacity to pretend to any religious 
 earnestness at all. 
 
 It is very curious, and, as I have said, it is not quite 
 intelligible. But I have not been sketching from 
 imagination. The picture might be described as a 
 *' portrait " ; but it is a portrait under which a great 
 many names might be written. It is no caricature. 
 There is no artistic merit in it, but it has the fidelity 
 of a photograph. Even those of us who have been 
 taught better may see in some of the features more 
 than a faint resemblance to our own. Many Christian 
 men have given a new turn to an old text. In their 
 own private " Revised Version " of the New Testa- 
 ment they read : " Whosoever speaketh a word or 
 committeth a wrong against God, it shall be forgiven 
 him ; but whosoever speaketh a word or committeth 
 a wrong against me^ it shall not be forgiven him ; — 
 certainly not in this world, even if it is forgiven in 
 the world to come." Christian perfection in a man's 
 direct relations to God is supposed to be beyond the 
 reach, in this life, even of those whose hearts have 
 
6o LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 been set upon it for many years. Christian per- 
 fection in a man's relations to his fellow-men is 
 supposed to be so easy that we have a right to 
 expect it of every man, woman, and child that pro- 
 fesses Christain faith. 
 
 Christ has taught us a different lesson. He has 
 not only insisted on the duty of forgiving the offences 
 of men in general, and warned us that if we forgive 
 not men their trespasses, neither will our Father 
 forgive our trespasses; He has insisted on the specific 
 duty of forgiving the offences of our Christian breth- 
 ren. He has warned us that our Christian " brother " 
 will sometimes show an unbrotherly spirit, say un- 
 brotherly words, commit unbrotherly acts. He has 
 given us very explicit directions as to what we are to 
 do when this happens ; and the spirit of these direc- 
 tions should determine our conduct, not only to any 
 Christian brother that has wronged us, but to every 
 man from whom, as we think, we have received an 
 injury. 
 
 If a man commits an offence against us — mis- 
 represents us, insults us, injures us in any way — what 
 are we to do ? 
 
 Brood over it ? This is what some Christian 
 people nearly always do. They will tell you months 
 afterwards, years afterwards, that they have never 
 said a word about it, either to the offender himself 
 or to any one else, for fear of making mischief. But 
 they have been brooding over it — I might say they 
 have been sulking over it — all the time. 
 
THE FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. 6i 
 
 It is wonderful what care some good people take 
 to get all the pain and suffering out of an offence 
 they can. A grain of sand blows into their eye, slips 
 under their eyelid, and they keep it there till the 
 whole eye is inflamed ; they rub it with their finger 
 till the torture becomes unbearable. They might 
 have brushed it away at once, and have done with it ; 
 but no ! The hasty, bitter word, the selfish act, of 
 which a relative, a friend, an acquaintance was guilty, 
 they lay up in their memory ; and they will not 
 forget it, whatever else they forget. About the many 
 kindly things he has done, and the many kindly 
 words he has said, they never think ; but the one 
 offence is always present to them. The good seed of 
 the kingdom may fall on the path, and be picked up 
 the next moment by a passing bird ; or it may fall 
 on rocky ground, spring up at once, and when the 
 sun gets hot be scorched and wither away ; or it may 
 fall among thorns, and its growth may be choked ; 
 but the unbrotherly word which they are told that 
 their brother has spoken, the unjust deed which they 
 suppose he has done, takes root. It may be a 
 very small matter, '' the least of all seeds ; " but they 
 give it plenty of soil, plenty of moisture, and the 
 warmth of excited feeling. It grows up and becomes 
 a great tree, and birds of evil omen lodge in the 
 branches of it. By-and-by, if it turns out that they 
 had been misinformed, and that the hard word had 
 never been uttered, the wrong deed never been done — 
 or if the offender expresses his sorrow for the offence. 
 
62 LAIVS Oh CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 and makes ample atonement for it — there is a great 
 deal of trouble in rooting up the unwholesome 
 growth, and for a long time afterwards there is an 
 ugly place in the ground from which it has been torn. 
 If a man injures you, do not brood over it. 
 
 Nor must you talk about it to everybody you meet. 
 It is bad enough that by a wrong word, a wrong act, 
 ill-feeling has been created between you and the 
 offender ; you make the matter worse if you create 
 similar ill-feeling between him and other people. 
 What is your motive for speaking about the injury } 
 Do you want to get your friends to take sides with 
 you against the offender } You ought to want to 
 make the offender himself take sides with you against 
 the offence. The more people know of the wrong, 
 and the stronger the feeling you create against the 
 wrong-doer, the harder you make it for him to 
 acknowledge his fault. The story will grow ; the 
 man's friends will resent the exaggerated account 
 of the offence, which will soon be current ; the man 
 himself will begin to complain of injustice ; and, 
 instead of repentance on his part, and the restoration 
 of kindly confidence between him and you, there will 
 be alienation between more hearts than you can 
 number. When any one comes to us with a story 
 against another, we ought, as a rule, to ask him 
 whether he has spoken to the man who committed 
 the wrong. If he has not, we are bound to tell him 
 that, in speaking about the matter to any one else 
 before speaking to the offender, he has broken the 
 
THE FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. 63 
 
 letter, and has probably violated the spirit of one of 
 Christ's precepts. 
 
 " If thy brother sin,, rebuke him ; " this is Christ's 
 law. Rebuke him, and do it face to face. Do not 
 send him an anonymous letter ; this would be 
 intolerably mean and base and cowardly. To write 
 a letter with your name to it would, no doubt, be 
 very much better ; but there is often — not always — a 
 touch of cowardice even in that ; and a letter is not 
 half so likely to be effective as a frank and direct 
 appeal. We are not, all of us, perfect masters of the 
 English language. It is a very difficult instrument 
 to handle. In a letter, no matter how careful we 
 may be in writing it, we are almost sure to say either 
 less or more than we mean. The letter has to be 
 read as weJl as written, and however admirably we 
 have written it, it may be read badly. Words take 
 their meaning from the temper of the man to whom 
 they are spoken. It is hardly possible to write to 
 a man who has injured us without conveying im- 
 pressions which we never intended to convey. We 
 cannot modify our complaint according to the 
 manner in which it is received. We cannot give 
 explanations which may be necessary to correct 
 misapprehension. Go and speak to the man who 
 has wronged you, and then there will be a chance of 
 getting the difficulty adjusted. 
 
 Of course, our Lord did not mean that for every 
 trifling offence we are to go and rebuke the offender. 
 There are innumerable cases in which a wise and 
 
 *y\/ 
 
64 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 generous man will clear his mind at once of the 
 momentary sense of injury — will forgive and forget 
 it. If we only hear that something untrue or unfair 
 has been said about us we shall generally be right 
 in concluding that the report is false. I find that 
 the safe thing is to believe all the kind things that 
 other men are reported to have said about me, and 
 hardly ever to believe the unkind things. This is a 
 pleasant rule as well as a safe one. Why should we 
 be ready to think that people are always speaking 
 against us } If we are conscious of not deserving to 
 have the hard words said about us which reach us 
 on currents of idle gossip, we ought to suppose it 
 very improbable that good men who really know us 
 were guilty of saying them. As for strangers, they 
 often speak, not against us, but against some dismal 
 siimilacnim of us — a mere phantasm created by 
 imagination and rumour — which they have mistaken 
 for us ; and though the mistake may have its in- 
 conveniences, there is no reason for being hot and 
 indignant about it. A quiet, honest man may 
 sometimes see in his newspaper at breakfast-time 
 that some scoundrel having real flesh and blood, of 
 the same name as himself, has been brought up 
 before the magistrates for burglary. He does not 
 fume, and fret, and get angry with the witnesses 
 because they say such hard things against the man 
 that happens to bear his name. He does not de- 
 nounce the magistrate for committing him. He 
 knows that the witnesses said nothing against himself. 
 
THE FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. 65 
 
 and that the magistrates have done him no wrong. 
 It was another man that was concerned in the affair, 
 not he. And some reports that reach us of what has 
 been said about us ought to be received with the 
 same equanimity. What was said did not refer to its^ 
 but to that shmtlacrum of us which I spoke about 
 just now, and which happens to bear our name. 
 
 As for the injuries which people who know us have 
 committed against us, half of them may be excused 
 at once. Unfair words are spoken in haste ; unkind 
 acts are done through mere awkwardness when there 
 is no real unkindness in the heart. One man is shy ; 
 another man is absent ; a third is slow of speech ; a 
 fourth is a little stupid ; a fifth has a quick, sharp 
 way with him that means nothing ; a sixth has a 
 very bad memory ; a seventh has very loose notions 
 about the meaning of words. Men of these various 
 descriptions say things which they ought not to say, 
 or omit to say things which they ought to say, or 
 they say things in a way in which they ought not to 
 say them ; but a very slight measure of intelligence 
 and of Christian charity will enable us to see that 
 they had no intention to wrong us. Nine out of ten 
 of the offences of which we might be disposed to 
 complain should be dismissed from our minds at 
 once, and should not cast even a passing shadow 
 upon the confidence and affection with which we 
 ought to regard the innocent offenders. They in- 
 tended no harm ; we should feel no resentment. 
 
 But when there is a wrong that we cannot dismiss 
 
 F 
 
66 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 in this way, we are to go to the wrong-doer and we 
 are to tell him his fault. In a well-known passage 
 our Lord says that, at least in the first instance, we 
 are to go to him alone, " If he hear thee thou hast 
 gained thy brother." It is with this gracious hope 
 that we are to go to the offender. To lose a brother 
 is an immeasurable loss ; to avert the calamity " go, 
 show him his fault between thee and him alone." 
 
 Just at this point we may discover, perhaps to our 
 astonishment and vexation, that we have very little 
 to say to him — that we have only to complain that 
 he has offended our vanity, our pride, our sense of 
 self-importance, our ambition ; or we may find that 
 all the trouble has arisen because his selfishness has 
 come into collision with ours ; or we may see that 
 our anger is out of all proportion to the magnitude 
 of the offence, and that while we might charge our 
 friend with doing a slight wrong, he might charge us 
 with feeling most extravagant and unjust resentment. 
 We shall then have no choice but to fight it out 
 alone with our ill-temper, our selfishness, our vanity, 
 our pride ; and we shall endeavour to turn the 
 indignation which we had felt against our brother 
 against our own folly and sin. 
 
 But if we still feel that we have reason to complain, 
 if we are sure that there is a real offence, and an 
 offence so grave that it must be acknowledged, and 
 acknowledged with regret, before there can be perfect 
 reconciliation to the offender, we shall go to him and 
 " rebuke " him. 
 
THE FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. 67 
 
 If the offender is our Christian " brother " we shall 
 remember it while we remonstrate with him ; we shall 
 remember that his offence against us cannot be half 
 so grave as the offences which both he and we have 
 committed against God, and for which, as we trust, 
 God has forgiven both of us for Christ's sake. We 
 shall take it for granted that he wants to do right — 
 that if he does not see his fault at once it may be 
 partly through our inability to make it plain to him — 
 that if he does not acknowledge it at once it may be 
 partly through some defect in our own spirit and 
 temper that makes it hard for him to humble himself. 
 We shall think less about our personal injury than 
 about the sin of which he has been guilty; and yet, 
 remembering our own sins, we shall not think — or 
 allow him to suppose that we think — that his solitary 
 offence has destroyed the proofs which he had given 
 of his loyalty to Christ. We shall speak frankly 
 and firmly, but gently, with a deep reverence for the 
 dignity that belongs to him as a son of God and an 
 heir of immortal righteousness and glory. We shall 
 not speak wildly at the impulse of personal resent- 
 ment, but with an earnest longing to preserve or to 
 restore the mutual trustfulness which ought to unite 
 those who belong to the household of faith. 
 
 But we shall not be indifferent to reconciliation, 
 though we may have reason to fear that the offender 
 is wholly insensible to the authority and love of God. 
 The Church has an exceptional sacredness, for it is 
 the visible revelation of an invisible and eternal king- 
 
68 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 dom ; but the secular order of society is also Divine. 
 We belong to both, and Christ is supreme in both. 
 In our ethical relations to those who do not share 
 our august faith and our infinite hopes, the law of 
 Christ and the spirit of Christ are, therefore, to be the 
 rule of our conduct. 
 
 There are special reasons, no doubt, why we should 
 spare no effort to live in mutual affection and good- 
 will with those who, like ourselves, are loyal to 
 Christ ; but there are special reasons of another kind 
 for being equally earnest in removing every cause of 
 alienation between ourselves and any relative, friend, 
 or neighbour who has no Christian faith. If such a 
 man has treated us unjustly, and we are able to bring 
 the injustice home to him, this may awaken his 
 conscience and lead to the great discovery of his sins 
 against God. His acknowledgment of the offence he 
 has committed against ourselves, and his sorrow for 
 it, may be the beginning of a graver confession and a 
 deeper penitence. When he sees that our brotherly 
 affection has made us anxious for reconciliation, and 
 that our moral resentment against the wrong he has 
 done us has no bitterness in it, and is something very 
 different from revenge, he may find in our imperfect 
 exemplification of the spirit of Christ something to 
 make more clear to him that blending of infinite 
 righteousness with infinite love which is revealed in 
 the Christian Gospel. 
 
 But suppose that we ourselves have been guilty of 
 
THE FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. 69 
 
 the offence, and our brother has come to " rebuke " us, 
 what is our duty ? 
 
 It is not a pleasant thing to be told that we have 
 committed an act of injustice ; but when we have 
 committed it, and the man we have wronged comes 
 to remonstrate with us, we ought to receive him 
 courteously. To treat him roughly is to add to the 
 original offence. We ought to have saved him the 
 pain of coming at all ; we ought to have made 
 voluntarily all the reparation in our power. 
 
 When a man comes to " rebuke " us for our fault, 
 we should consider the effort which he has made to 
 come ; we should take his coming as an expression 
 of his kindly feeling, of his anxiety that there should 
 be nothing to impair the cordiality of our relations 
 to each other, and of his confidence in our willingness 
 to acknowledge our fault if we have been guilty of 
 one. If he is a Christian brother, we should also 
 remember that he has come to us in obedience to the 
 law of Christ. All this will determine the spirit in 
 which we meet him. 
 
 Perhaps we may be able to remove at once the 
 sense of injury. We may be able to make it clear 
 that he is altogether mistaken ; that we never said 
 what he has heard we said, or that he has put a wrong 
 meaning on it ; that we never did the act of which he 
 complains, or that our reasons for doing it were very 
 different from those which he has attributed to us. If 
 there has been a real fault on our part we may think 
 that he has magnified the gravity of it ; but if we 
 
70 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 have given him real cause of offence we shall not 
 attack him for his exaggerated feeling, or for expres- 
 sions of censure which, as we may think, are far in 
 excess of the wrong. We shall remember, too, that 
 we are hardly fair judges in our own case ; and when 
 there has been a real offence we shall acknowledge 
 it without qualification, and offer to make all possible 
 reparation. 
 
 The confession of our fault should be made 
 seriously, and with genuine sorrow. There are some 
 men who are always ready to confess their shortcom- 
 ings at the first words of remonstrance. Indeed there 
 are men who confess their faults in the most amiable 
 manner when no one is bringing a charge against 
 them ; but, as Hazlitt says, they give the impression 
 that they believe that their own weaknesses are as 
 good as other men's virtues. Confessions of that kind, 
 when made in answer to a grave " rebuke," are insult- 
 ing and irritating. If there has been wrong, whether 
 the wrong was serious or trifling, the acknowledgment 
 should have some depth of feeling in it, and should 
 be the expression of genuine repentance. 
 
 It may sometimes happen that the person against 
 whom we have committed an offence is inferior to us 
 in culture or in social position. Perhaps he may be 
 a person who is in the habit of committing faults of 
 a worse kind than that with which he charges us. I 
 put aside the discussion of the extent to which differ- 
 ences in social position, in education, and in what 
 may be called moral standing, are to affect the mutual 
 
THE FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. -ji 
 
 relations of those who call each other Christian 
 brethren — simply saying that, to whatever extent 
 such differences are real, a man's superiority should 
 seldom be remembered by himself, and should never 
 be forgotten by others. But if you have wronged 
 your inferior you have forfeited your superiority until 
 the wrong is acknowledged and, if possible, atoned 
 for. It v/ill not do to say that the man against whom 
 the offence has been committed is so far beneath you 
 that he has no right to humiliate you by insisting on 
 the confession that you have treated him unjustly or 
 ungenerously ; the offence which you have committed 
 has, to some extent, changed your relative positions, 
 and the offence must be confessed before you can 
 regain the superiority which you have forfeited. If 
 your superior intellectual culture and superior moral 
 standing do not make your conscience more delicate 
 than his, and your sensibility to sin more keen, your 
 superiority is of a very doubtful kind. If your 
 superiority is real and gives you substantial power 
 you are only doing the greater mischief by refusing 
 to do the will of Christ. The man you have wronged 
 has obeyed Christ's law by coming to tell you of 
 your offence ; you are bound to obey Christ's law 
 by acknowledging that you have wronged him. 
 
 And now, to return to the duty of the man who has 
 received the injury, Christ's law is clear and definite : 
 — " If thy brother sin, rebuke him ; and if he repent, 
 forgive him. And if he sin against thee seven times 
 
72 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 in the day and seven times turn again to thee saying, 
 I repent ; thou shalt forgive him." 
 
 That does not mean merely that we are not to 
 retain any ill-feeling against him because of his offence. 
 It means that the offence is to be blotted out, is to 
 become as though it had never been. The old tides 
 of affection and confidence which had ebbed are to 
 rise again and to flow over the offence and cover it 
 out of sight. " Forgive him." God's forgiveness is to 
 be the type of ours. " As far as the east is from the 
 west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from 
 us." " Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be 
 as white as snow ; though they be red like crimson, 
 they shall be as wool." There is no genuine forgive- 
 ness while any estrangement or coldness remains. 
 
 The emphasis and urgency with which our Lord 
 Jesus Christ insisted on the duty of forgiveness are 
 remarkable. He recurred to it again and again. He 
 enforced it by the parable in which the ungracious 
 servant, who, after his lord had forgiven him ten 
 thousand talents, flung into prison his fellow-servant 
 that owed him a hundred pence, is represented as 
 being delivered to the " tormentors," until he has paid 
 all that was due. In the prayer which He gave to 
 His disciples He taught them to say, " Forgive us our 
 debts as we also have forgiven our debtors." He 
 added to the prayer the ominous words, " If ye for- 
 give not men their trespasses neither will your Father 
 forgive your trespasses." He knew the misery and 
 the sin which always come from an unforgiving spirit. 
 
THE FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. -j^ 
 
 He knew that the cherishing of resentment and a 
 sense of wrong would be the occasion of strife and 
 hatred among His followers, would break up the peace 
 of families, destroy the unity of Churches, impair the 
 earnestness and vigour of Christian work, quench the 
 joy of Christian worship. He knew how easily a just 
 anger, if it lasts too long, passes into revenge ; and 
 how soon the spirit of revenge sours a temper which 
 is naturally kindly, hardens the heart, perverts the 
 conscience, dries up the fountains of all the most 
 gracious affections of the Christian soul, extinguishes 
 the fires of Christian charity, and paralyses the 
 energies of Christian righteousness. The unforgiving 
 spirit is a root of bitterness from which there springs 
 a tree whose leaves are poisonous, and whose fruit, 
 carrying in it seeds of fresh evil, is death to all who 
 taste it. 
 
 He had a right when He was on earth to impose 
 this law of forgiveness on His followers ; for He had 
 descended from the glory of God, had endured many 
 great sorrows, and was on his way to greater sorrows 
 still, that our sins against Himself might be forgiven ; 
 and His work would be incomplete, it would be to 
 a great extent thwarted and spoiled, if His disciples 
 did not enter into His spirit and forgive those who 
 wronged them. He has a right to repeat the law now 
 that He is in heaven. For our sins against God have 
 been forgiven because Christ died for us ; and it is 
 impossible for us to resist His appeal when He tells 
 us to forgive our brethren. He has taken us by the 
 
74 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 hand again and again and led us into the presence of 
 God and asked God to forgive us. When He stands 
 by the side of our erring but penitent brother and 
 says to us, " Forgive him," our hearts must be harder 
 than rock, colder than an iceberg, to refuse to do it. 
 
 " If he repent, forgive him ; " but if he does not 
 repent, what then ? 
 
 The circumstances of the case may be such as to 
 compel us to insist on repentance before there can 
 be complete reconciliation. The offence may be so 
 grave that, unless the guilt of it is acknowledged, it 
 will be our duty to continue the expression of our 
 moral resentment. Christ has given a law which is 
 to regulate the action of the Church in relation to a 
 man who refuses to confess and forsake a sin ; he is 
 to lose the strength and the blessedness of Christian 
 fellowship. But if the offence is a thing of the past, 
 and if it is not of a kind to affect others as well as our- 
 selves, we shall often feel that, when we have done our 
 best and failed, Christ would have us go beyond the 
 letter of His precept, and forgive the offender, though 
 he does not repent. It may be that in a little time 
 his conscience will acquire greater sensitiveness, and 
 he will perceive the guilt which at present is not plain 
 to him. Some fresh manifestation of Divine goodness 
 or of human kindness may soften his heart as it has 
 never been softened before. He may become con- 
 scious, as he has never been conscious yet, of the 
 closeness and tenderness of the ties by which men 
 are bound to each other, and of the serious guilt 
 
THE FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. 75 
 
 which attaches to a temper or a habit by which 
 these ties are loosened. Then he will discover his 
 fault, and will confess it. 
 
 Meantime we may remember how many acts of sin 
 God has passed over and forgiven in us, which we did 
 not know were sins till long after they were com- 
 mitted, and long after they were forgiven. We may 
 consider how many sins we are probably committing 
 now which we are too dull to recognise as sinful, and 
 of which we do not repent, but which God mercifully 
 pardons. 
 
 As God, for Christ's sake, forgives us offences 
 which as yet cause us no humiliation and pain, and 
 which we do not specifically ask Him to forgive, so, 
 for Christ's sake, we shall frankly and heartily forgive 
 our fellow-men those offences against ourselves in 
 which they are conscious of violating no duty, and 
 for which, therefore, it is impossible that as yet 
 they should feel any sorrow. By our very forgive- 
 ness we may at least lead them to repentance. 
 
V. 
 
 TEMPERANCE} 
 
 " / therefore so n€n, not as uncertainly : so fight T, not as one that 
 beateth the air : but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection : 
 lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should 
 be a castaway.'" — I CORINTHIANS ix. 26, 27. 
 
 THERE are very many grounds on which we can 
 ask men to promote the temperance reforma- 
 tion. There are economical grounds ; for whatever 
 opinions we may hold about the legitimacy of the 
 moderate use of alcoholic liquors, it is certain that in 
 this country they are used so immoderately as to lead 
 to an enormous waste of national wealth. I suppose 
 that the English people of all ranks are the most 
 extravagant people in Europe ; and those golden 
 years of commercial prosperity which we enjoyed not 
 long ago, but which are not likely to return, encour- 
 aged an enormous increase in the expensiveness of our 
 modes of living. If the nation is to be safe from ruin 
 we must learn to be more moderate in our expendi- 
 ture, and though there is great wastefulness in other 
 
 ^ A Sermon preached in connection with the Temperance 
 Union, in Carrs' Lane Chapel, Birmingham. 
 
 77 
 
78 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 directions, one of the most obvious ways of arresting 
 the exhaustion of the national wealth is to diminish 
 the amount of drinking. Another strong reason for 
 promoting the temperance reformation is the physical 
 siiffermg which, our present drinking customs entail on 
 vast masses of the people. There are thousands of 
 families in Birmingham that would find it hard to live 
 in comfort if they never drank at all. On the wages 
 which they earn, it would be very difficult for them 
 to pay sufficient rent to live in a reasonably good 
 house, very difficult for them to buy decent clothing, 
 to get wholesome food, very difficult for them to pay 
 for coal and gas, very difficult for them to pay for 
 medicine, and to meet many other of the inevitable 
 expenses of living. But if, when a man earns three 
 or four-and-twenty shillings a week, six or seven 
 shillings go in beer, if when he earns eighteen shillings 
 a week, four or five go in beer, then quite apart from 
 the loss of time, loss of health, and loss of wages 
 resulting from occasional fits of drunkenness, it is a 
 sheer impossibility that he and his wife and children 
 should be able to procure the barest physical comforts. 
 If not a penny were spent in drink, if the man never 
 lost a day's work through being drunk, he and his 
 wife and children would lead a hard life, but his 
 drinking makes their life a life of physical misery. 
 And we may ask you to support the temperance 
 reformation on moral grounds. Drunkenness is a 
 debasing, disgusting, horrible vice, and it is the root 
 of other vices as horrible as itself It sometimes 
 
TEMPERANCE. 79 
 
 turns kindly, good tempered men into fiends ; it is 
 the occasion of a large proportion of the crimes of 
 violence which still disgrace our country. When the 
 drink is in them, men are guilty of many vices and 
 of many cruelties from which they would recoil when 
 sober ; and even when the fit of drunkenness is past, 
 it leaves many men in a state of irritability and ill- 
 temper which makes them a terror to those about 
 them. Drunkenness is a gross vice. It destroys the 
 material comfort of large numbers of our people. It 
 leads to an enormous waste of our national resources. 
 On all these grounds the temperance reformation 
 claims our support. But these are grounds on which 
 we can rest our arguments and appeals elsewhere. 
 In this place we can advance to grounds of another 
 kind. Drunkenness is a gross vice ; it is also a terri- 
 ble sin — a sin which the eternal God sternly con- 
 demns ; a sin which provokes His anger, and which 
 he has threatened to punish with other and more 
 awful penalties than those which it brings upon men 
 in this world. Drunkenness destroys the material 
 comforts of men : it does what is worse than that ; it 
 destroys their rest of heart in God, it strips them of 
 the honours which belong to the children of God ; 
 sooner or later it will bring upon them the tortures 
 of a terrible moral anguish. Drunkenness is a 
 waste of our material resources ; it is also a waste 
 of something infinitely more precious. For the 
 drunkard the infinite love of Christ is wasted, His 
 teaching is wasted, His example is wasted, His 
 
8o LAJVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 death is wasted. For the drunkard the promises of 
 eternal Hfe and blessedness are wasted. He wastes 
 not merely his earthly comfort ; he sacrifices for his 
 drink an immortality of glory. These are reasons for 
 promoting the temperance reformation, which should 
 have immense force with those of us who believe in 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 But when we consider the vice of drunkenness 
 under these aspects, when we consider it in relation 
 to God, in relation to Christian righteousness, in 
 relation to immortality, there are questions raised 
 which are of serious practical interest to those who 
 have never been guilty of drunkenness, and who 
 believe that they are not likely to be guilty of it — 
 questions which are, indeed, of grave importance to 
 those who, by total abstinence, have placed them- 
 selves out of the reach of this particular vice. It is 
 not necessary to be a drunkard in order to be guilty 
 of physical sins which imperil our eternal salvation. 
 In the text Paul speaks of the discipline of the body 
 as a necessary part of the Christian life, necessary if 
 he himself is not to miss the great prize for which he 
 is contending. He speaks of the body as though it 
 were his foe. He is plainly regarding it as the seat 
 and stronghold of evil passions and evil tendencies 
 which he must master or else be eternally ruined. In 
 a vigorous metaphor he describes himself as a pugilist 
 in the Grecian games, and he is fighting with his own 
 body. He says that he fights like a man who under- 
 stands the art ; he does not hit out wildly as one that 
 
TEMPERANCE. 
 
 strikes the air, he plants his blows where they will 
 tell. The words " I keep my body under," are far 
 less picturesque than the words which Paul employs. 
 What he says is, " I deliver my blows straight in 
 the face, under the eyes," or, to use our own English 
 equivalent, " I beat it black and blue." 
 
 Paul, after his manner, says one thing at a time. 
 Taken by itself this vigorous and passionate way of 
 describing his fight with the body might justify the 
 extremities of asceticism. If our body is our foe, to 
 be punished and crushed, then it might seem our duty 
 to deny it all pleasures, to deny it warmth, and rest, 
 and pleasant food, and pleasant drinks, and every- 
 thing else for which it craves. It might seem our 
 duty to torture it with a hair shirt, to scourge it with 
 whips, and to reduce it to emaciation by fasting. But 
 that is quite contrary to Paul's teaching elsewhere. 
 He vehemently condemns asceticism, condemns it as a 
 very formidable foe to the Christian faith. He teaches 
 that every creature of God is good, if it be received 
 with thanksgiving ; and the whole teaching of the New 
 Testament concerning the body is inconsistent with 
 this gloomy severity. The body, we are told through- 
 out the New Testament, is not an element of human 
 imperfection ; it is necessary to the integrity of 
 man's nature. It was created not by the devil but by 
 Christ, and it is a wonderful creation. It is also true 
 that Christ created all the pleasant things which 
 delight the eye, the ear, the taste, the touch. He 
 made us capable of physical enjoyment, and He 
 
 G 
 
82 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 provided the means of physical enjoyment. Physical 
 enjoyment, therefore, cannot be sinful. 
 
 Flesh and blood, I say, according to the teaching 
 of the New Testament, are necessary to the fulness 
 and perfection of man's nature in this world. But the 
 intellect is nobler than the flesh ; the affections and 
 the conscience are nobler than the intellect ; and the 
 height of man's dignity is never reached until his 
 intellect, heart, and conscience are transfigured by the 
 love and righteousness of God. In this hierarchy of 
 life, in these ordered gradations of faculty and power, 
 it is essential that the noblest should have the noblest 
 place and the most vigorous authority, and that the 
 inferior ranks should be kept in their inferior position. 
 When the lower, though necessary parts, of man's 
 nature become insubordinate, when they usurp an 
 importance which is not theirs, they must be sup- 
 pressed, lashed back again to their proper place. The 
 flesh, with its strong and restless cravings for satisfac- 
 tion, is very apt to refuse sovereignty to the intellect 
 and to the conscience and to the law of God. Then 
 it becomes necessary to fight it, and to fight it relent- 
 lessly until it is subdued. In its right place it is 
 admirable ; its pleasures are legitimate ; it contributes 
 to the strength and beauty of our whole life. It is 
 only when it rebels against loftier authorities, when it 
 interferes with the diviner aims of life, that it becomes 
 our foe. Paul recognises this fact even in this place. 
 " I fight my body and bring it into subjection." 
 What he says is, that he made his body his slave 
 
TEMPERANCE. 83 
 
 He fought it, and made it his servant instead of his 
 master. When slaves revolted, their masters fought 
 them ; but slaves were a large part of their masters' 
 wealth — the masters injured themselves when they 
 injured their slaves. It might be necessary to wound 
 them, to maim them, to punish them, in order to keep 
 them in subordination,but it was the master's interest 
 that his slaves should be healthy and strong. 
 
 But the trouble is, that with large numbers of men, 
 the body is the master not the servant. To feed it 
 well, to clothe it well, to give it all possible luxuries 
 is their great business in life. They care more for 
 physical health and physical enjoyment than for 
 literature, or for art, or for morality, or for God. 
 Everything is made to give way to the body ; the 
 slave is made the prince ; the regal powers of the 
 intellect are compelled to do perpetual service ; the 
 authority of conscience and the voice of God Himself 
 are disregarded. There are forms of this physical 
 insubordination which are not flagrant enough to call 
 down the moral condemnation of society while society 
 is governed by its present low moral ideals, but which, 
 nevertheless, imperil the eternal salvation of men. 
 Physical habits, in which men indulge without any 
 self-reproach, make the fibre of their nature coarse, 
 and gradually deaden all their loftier activities. Men 
 are guilty of physical indolence, of physical uncleanli- 
 ners, of excessive sensuous indulgence of many kinds. 
 They eat too much or eat unwisely, they drink too 
 much, though they never get drunk. And in all these 
 
84 LA IVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 ways the flesh gradually masters the spirit. You can 
 see the process going on ; men become heavy, dull, 
 and slow ; they sink into sluggish stupidity. What- 
 ever brightness and clearness of intellect they once 
 had are gradually lost. Their will becomes irresolute. 
 Their temper becomes moody, irritable, passionate, 
 or melancholy. Peace and joy pass out of their life 
 altogether. Their spiritual affections become lan- 
 guid, hope has no radiance in it, faith no vigour, love 
 no fervour. They have not kept their body under ; 
 it is their master, not their slave, and so the light in 
 which they once " lived is clouded ; year by year it 
 becomes more and more dim ; the dimness deepens 
 into darkness, and unless they repent the darkness 
 will deepen into eternal night. 
 
 Paul's principle is, that whatever physical habits 
 interfere with the clearness, the elasticity, the vigour 
 of our intellectual, moral, and spiritual life, must be 
 given up. We must fight the body, and make it our 
 slave. Now, as I have said, it it is not drink alone 
 which works this mischief. You may be a total 
 abstainer, and yet be guilty of physical vices which 
 will separate you from Christ and end in eternal 
 destruction. 
 
 But drink is one of the commonest causes of men's 
 ruin. For that reason it is wise and necessary to 
 engage in this exceptional crusade against it. Those 
 who originated the Total Abstinence Movement, and 
 those who have sustained it, have rendered an im- 
 mense service to the country. They have rescued 
 
TEMPERANCE. 85 
 
 innumerable men and women who had sunk into the 
 vice of drunkenness ; they have saved a still larger 
 number of men and women who might have sunk into 
 it. They have given comfort, honour, and peace to 
 innumerable homes, which, but for them, and for their 
 work, would have been scenes of misery and of shame. 
 It is a lawful and honourable work for those who 
 themselves are not imperilled, to share the burdens of 
 their brethren who are exposed to fierce temptation 
 and so fulfil the law of Christ. Yes, your work is a 
 noble one, one which has achieved already a great 
 redemption for large masses of your fellow-country- 
 men, and it may achieve a greater redemption still. 
 
 But the very enormity of the evils which you are 
 trying to lessen, the very efficiency of the means by 
 which you are trying to lessen them, should make 
 you careful not to imperil your movement by unwise 
 and reckless advocacy. It is clear, I think, that the 
 advocates of total abstinence are now in position 
 to carry with them an immense and overwhelming 
 mass of popular sentiment, if they do not, by their 
 own rashness and want of wisdom, betray the cause 
 which is committed to their trust. There have been 
 from time to time, during the last twenty years, 
 occasional indications of a resentment and reaction 
 against the movement which might even now lead to 
 disastrous results, and it is for the advocates of total 
 abstinence to save their cause from this peril. 
 
 Do not forget what I reminded you of just now, 
 that a man may be a total abstainer and yet not make 
 
86 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 his body his slave. Do not lead men to imagine that 
 if they abstain they fulfil all the law and the prophets. 
 You have in the East, wherever Mahomedanism pre- 
 vails, whole races of total abstainers, and yet these 
 very races are guilty of gross sensuality. Do not be 
 betrayed into the folly of speaking of all drinking as 
 though it were sinful ; place your movement on its 
 right foundation, vindicate it upon the eternal prin- 
 ciples of morality and of the Christian faith. The 
 principles on which Christian temperance rests is that 
 a man should keep his body in such a condition as 
 to make it the effective servant and comrade of his 
 nobler life. Excessive drinking clouds the brain, 
 dulls the conscience, takes all the force and fire out of 
 the religious affections, and if continued in, will at last 
 quench them altogether. Drinking which does not 
 make a man drunk may work the same evil. You 
 may be drinking a great deal too much and ruining 
 yourselves body and soul, yet never be in danger of 
 falling into the hands of the police, and having to pay 
 5^-. and costs. If a man drinks so as to impair his 
 higher life, he commits a sin, whether he gets drunk 
 or not. But it does not follow that because it is a sin 
 to drink so as to impair the higher life, therefore it is 
 a sin to drink at all. Drinking too much is a vice, 
 (because it lessens a man's power for serving God and 
 ^ jhis race. If a man's drinking does not lessen his 
 ipower for that service, his drinking is not a vice. If 
 a man's drinking increases his power for that service, 
 his drinking is a duty instead of a vice. It is our 
 
TEMPERANCE. 87 
 
 duty to keep our body in such a condition, whether 
 by drinking or not drinking, that it shall be the 
 vigorous comrade of the higher life, not its master. 
 While a man does this he fulfils the law of temper- 
 ance, the only law authoritative for all men. 
 
 But you say you cannot draw the line at which 
 excess begins between one glass and a dozen. Of 
 course you cannot ; and you cannot draw the line at 
 which excess begins between one mutton chop and a 
 dozen ; but are you to say that because a man would 
 be guilty of a disgusting vice if he ate a dozen chops 
 at a sitting, he is to be looked upon with suspicion 
 because he takes one.-* Should that style of argu- 
 ment be followed, then all rational men, all the 
 advocates of a noble and lofty morality, all who are 
 intelligently loyal to Christ, will be bound to offer 
 the total abstinence movement a serious and energetic 
 opposition. This immoral superstition, which some- 
 times shows itself in connection with the temperance 
 reformation, is almost the only serious peril to which 
 it is now exposed. And let none of you yield to 
 that plausible lie of the devil, which has done more 
 mischief to Christendom, probably, than any other, 
 that because this impression may be useful though it 
 is false, it should not be condemned, should even be 
 propagated. A lie can never serve God or man, — 
 never ; and when once any men, no matter how good 
 and noble their cause may be, take into their service 
 that which is ethically and religiously false, they 
 prepare the way for disaster and for ruin. Your true 
 
88 LA TVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 line of argument is clear, plain, and straight. The 
 enormous evils of drunkenness demand a sharp and 
 stringent remedy ; to save the drunkard it is indis- 
 pensable that he should be prevailed upon never to 
 touch the drink which has cursed him. It is an 
 honourable thing for those who themselves could 
 drink in moderation, to abstain in order to give 
 moral support to those who cannot ; and further, 
 this abstinence is for most men, in all probability, 
 physically safe, and for many men physically advan- 
 tageous. The remarkable growth of medical opinion 
 during the last few years in favour of total abstinence 
 adds immensely to the strength of your position. 
 
 But there are some of you who, like myself, do not 
 recognise the obligation personally to abstain. You 
 have the impression that you keep your body under 
 by drinking a little, rather than by drinking nothing ; 
 that you work more effectively while you drink in 
 moderation than when you abstain altogether, that 
 your brain is clearer, your will firmer, your whole life 
 more vigorous. Your body, so you think, is a more 
 useful slave, a more effective comrade for the 
 moderate use of these drinks. You ought to wish 
 it were not so, and that you could place yourselves 
 frankly and completely by the side of those who are 
 in the advanced line in this movement. But you. too, 
 care for the rescue of the nation from intemperance, 
 and it is for you to rejoice heartily in the zeal, in the 
 earnestness, in the success of those who can wisely 
 practise a severer rule. It is for you to strengthen in 
 
TEMPERANCE. 89 
 
 their fidelity to their purpose all who have resolved, 
 whether for their own sake or for the sake of other 
 men, to abstain altogether. I know of few sins of 
 carelessness which may lead to worse and more 
 appalling results than the sin of those who, by 
 mockery or entreaty, induce abstainers to drink. 
 You may see the result of your reckless folly some 
 day in men sunk through you into brutality, ruined 
 themselves and the cause of ruin in others. Even 
 if you cannot abstain, you can discourage what are 
 described as the drinking customs of society. There 
 are people on whom you can call at no hour of the 
 day, and I suppose at no hour of the night, without 
 being asked and urged to take what is vaguely called 
 " something." There is one consideration which may 
 perhaps lead some of you to give up that folly. In 
 the slang of the day, it is ** bad form." You do not 
 find that practice maintained in houses above a 
 certain social level. It has gone out. Those who 
 cherish and prolong old-fashioned customs may con- 
 tinue it still, but it has ceased to be what so many of 
 you are anxious always to observe, it has ceased to 
 be the "proper" thing, and perhaps that considera- 
 tion may reach some who cannot be reached by 
 considerations of a graver kind. There are many 
 people, unhappily, who are so miserably superficial 
 and morally frivolous, that all noble laws of conduct 
 fail to touch them, but a reason of that kind may 
 perhaps reach some of them. 
 
 But there are other ways in which you can help 
 
90 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 this reformation. I have a strong conviction that 
 although you can never make a nation virtuous by 
 Act of Parliament, you can do a great deal by 
 legislation to diminish some kinds of vice. Those 
 who speak of the inefficacy of Acts of Parliament to 
 diminish vice are strangely inconsistent ; for I wonder 
 what they would say if they were told that no Acts 
 of Parliament could diminish the vice of theft, and 
 that our laws against theft should, therefore, be 
 abandoned. You know very well that laws against 
 theft, though they do not make men honest, do 
 prevent a great many men from thieving. A man is 
 not an honest man simply because he is not a thief. 
 There is many a man who is intensely dishonest who 
 is prevented from thieving by the law and its penal- 
 ties ; and there are many men who have no strength 
 of self-control, who in the Christian sense are not 
 " sober " men, but who would be saved from the vice 
 of drunkenness if the law discouraged seriously and 
 sternly the creation of those temptations to drunken- 
 ness which it now permits to exist in nearly every 
 street in this town. I do not believe that in the 
 present temper of the public mind, and with our 
 present social habits, it is possible to close all public- 
 houses in a great town like this ; and if it is not 
 possible it is not very much use asking whether it is 
 desirable or not. But it would be quite possible to 
 diminish the number of these houses, to place them 
 under severer regulations, and to carry out severely 
 the regulations that do exist. And it is also possible 
 
TEMPERANCE. 91 
 
 to multiply such counter and rival attractions as 
 those which have been created in this town, in 
 Liverpool, in Bristol, and in other parts of the 
 country, and which are already telling, and telling 
 powerfully, upon the drinking customs of the com- 
 munities where they exist. The establishment of the 
 cocoa and coffee houses here, and in other parts of 
 the country, has proved to be one of the most 
 powerful aids to temperance reform. It is for those 
 who desire to see the nation completely rescued from 
 drunkenness to join in this movement, which is an 
 attempt to unite all who care for this great object. 
 This Union does not pledge its members to absti- 
 nence. It asks them to abstain themselves if they 
 can abstain without injury to their work, and to 
 encourage other people to abstain ; it endeavours 
 to confirm in abstinence those who are abstaining 
 already ; it tries to promote the passing of laws 
 limiting and repressing provocations to drunkenness, 
 and to strengthen all social movements which are 
 likely to increase the general temperance of the 
 community. 
 
VI. 
 
 JUDGING OTHERS. 
 
 HOW is it that we are so quick in discovering, and 
 so stern in condemning, a slight fault in another 
 man, and are unconscious that we ourselves are guilty 
 of a greater fault — and, perhaps, a greater fault of the 
 same kind ? About the fact there can be no doubt. 
 Conscience in some men seems to consist chiefly in a N 
 keen eye for other men's sins. They cannot have 
 much time for self-examination, for they are nearly 
 always occupied in the close scrutiny of the character 
 and conduct of their neighbours. They expend so 
 much moral indignation on the sins of others that 
 they can have very little left for their own. 
 
 But "why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy 
 brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in '^" 
 thine own eye .-* " There is surely nothing very diffi- 
 cult, there is certainly nothing impossible, in the law 
 which that question suggests. But if it were obeyed, 
 what a mass of uncharitableness and evil-speaking 
 would at once disappear ! The keen, cruel east-wind 
 which is always blowing in some families, in some 
 sections of society, in some Churches, making it hard 
 for the gentlest to keep a gentle temper, and destroy- 
 
 93 
 
94 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 ing the fair blossoms of sympathy and trustfulness, 
 would cease to blow, and life would become beautiful 
 as an orchard under a warm sun, and kindly breezes 
 from the south. 
 
 This question of Christ's suggests that as soon as 
 we think we see a fault in another, and before we 
 condemn him, we should ask ourselves whether we 
 are guilty of the same fault. And we should not take 
 it for granted that we are innocent because it has 
 never occurred to us that we are guilty. We may see 
 the " mote " — a very small fault — in our brother's eye, 
 and not know that there is a " beam " big enough to 
 support the roof of a house in our own eye. It seems 
 strange, but nothing is more common. 
 
 People have complained to me that some of their 
 brothers and sisters were intensely selfish in the ar- 
 rangement of business affairs, in which all the mem- 
 bers of the family had a common interest ; and the 
 people who complained were showing a reckless dis- 
 regard of every one's claims but their own. Some of 
 the most intolerant men I have known were vehement 
 in their denunciations of intolerance. I have heard 
 men uncharitable in their denunciations of uncharita- 
 bleness. Sometimes the fault appears in a most 
 amusing form. The complainants are self-convicted. 
 Out of their own mouths they are condemned. For 
 instance, some years ago I used occasionally to hear 
 that my congregation was very unsocial ; that people 
 came and went, and no one showed them any at- 
 tention ; and the censure was sometimes sustained 
 
JUDGING OTHERS. 95 
 
 by what appeared to the complainant unanswerable 
 proof. " I have attended this church," they have 
 said, " five years, ten years," — and in one instance a 
 man said to me, " I have attended thirteen years and 
 no one ever spoke to me." Whether the censure was 
 really just concerning the congregation generally is 
 an open question. I think that for the most part we 
 were no worse than similar congregations in which 
 there are always very many strangers, and in which 
 the regular attendants are drawn from remote parts 
 of a large town. But so far as the persons who made 
 the complaint were concerned the censure was clearly 
 well founded. They proved their own case, and no 
 reply was possible. They had been members of the 
 congregation for many years and nobody had ever 
 spoken to them ; of course that meant that through 
 all those years they had spoken to nobody. Perhaps 
 it was because they were reserved, or shy, or modest ; 
 but whatever may have been the reason, there was 
 clearly a " beam " in their own eye, though there 
 might have been a " mote," and something larger 
 than a mote, in their brother's eye. 
 
 There is something amusing when a man makes a 
 complaint which recoils so plainly upon himself, but 
 the instances are innumerable in which precisely the 
 same thing happens, though in forms less flagrant 
 and grotesque. I have noticed that the sins to which 
 men are specially sensitive in others are precisely the 
 sins to which they are themselves most inclined ; so 
 that there is a certain measure oi primd-facie evidence 
 
96 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 that we are guilty of the faults which we are quick to 
 discover in other people. 
 
 Of course this is only a broad general statement, 
 which must be taken with many qualifications ; it is 
 specially true, however, in reference to those imper- 
 fections of character which give us personal annoy- 
 ance. If any one is constantly irritated by what he 
 supposes to be the conceit of most of his friends and 
 acquaintances, it is quite certain that he is conceited 
 himself. A really modest man is seldom struck with 
 the vanity of other people. Vanity and conceit are 
 offences against our good opinion of ourselves, and 
 the more modest we are, the less likely are we to be 
 wounded. Modest people are rather disposed to feel 
 an innocent admiration of a man who is perfectly 
 satisfied with himself and his doings. They think he 
 knows more about himself than they can know, and 
 they take it for granted that he has adequate reasons 
 for his self-complacency. They wish they had similar 
 reasons for being satisfied with themselves. Perhaps 
 they may see that the man actually possesses the 
 cleverness and the brilliance on which he plumes him- 
 self, and it seems quite natural to them that any one 
 possessing such powers should be pleasantly conscious 
 of them. Since they know that they are destitute 
 of shining qualities, his conceit — to which they give 
 another name — does not annoy them. If they gradu- 
 ally discover that the man over-rates himself, has an 
 exaggerated estimate of his capacity and achieve- 
 ments, they are not angry but sorry — sorry because 
 
JUDGING OTHERS. 97 
 
 they think that his mistake is likely to bring him into 
 trouble, and sorry because the brilliance they admired 
 has faded. Yes, it is the vain man who is quickest 
 to discover vanity in others. If I think myself the 
 cleverest or the most important person in the room, 
 and want other people to think so too, I am annoyed 
 by the conceit of any one who thinks his own claims 
 greater than mine. If I have a humble opinion of 
 myself, it gives me no pain that other people agree 
 with me, and think themselves wiser, abler, and more 
 accomplished than I am. 
 
 And so, if any one complains that most people are 
 selfish, unsympathetic, absorbed in their own pur- 
 suits, their own happiness, and their own sorrow, the 
 chances are ten to one that the complainant is con- 
 spicuous for the very, faults which he condemns. His 
 thoughts are so concentrated on his own concerns that 
 he is impatient because other people think of their 
 concerns and not his. He is unable to enter into their 
 grief or their joy ; when he is wretched he is amazed 
 and indignant that any one can be happy ; when he 
 is happy he thinks it intolerable that other people 
 should be so oppressed with their own sorrows as not 
 to make merry with him in his gladness. He has so 
 high an estimate of the importance of his own work 
 that he thinks other men ought to spend a large part 
 of their time in watching and admiring it, and he 
 wonders at the selfishness which keeps them close at 
 their own occupations when they ought to be showing 
 their sympathy with his. This absorption in every- 
 
 H 
 
98 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 thing that relates to himself is the explanation of the 
 universal indifference of which he complains. To 
 secure sympathy we must give as well as take. The 
 country that exports nothing will have no imports ; 
 but if it infers that all the rest of the world is in 
 wretched poverty, with no mines, and no timber, and 
 no glorious harvests, the inference will be a false one. 
 'j^ As soon as a man finds that he is beginning to think 
 that all human hearts are cold let him suspect him- 
 self When an iceberg floats away from the frozen 
 fields which lie near the pole it cools the waters into 
 which it drifts ; the very Gulf Stream sinks in tem- 
 perature as soon as the mountain of ice touches it. 
 
 In a crowd it is the man that pushes hardest who 
 thinks that everybody is pushing him ; it is the man 
 who is resolved to make his way to the front who 
 complains that every one wants to get in front of him. 
 If people speak to you roughly, take warning ; the 
 probability is that you speak roughly to them. 
 
 It is not safe, however, to infer that you are gentle 
 because other people speak to you gently. I remem- 
 ber reading many years ago an essay on the advan- 
 tages of having a bad temper, and my observation 
 strongly confirms the principal point made by the 
 writer. If a man's temper is bad enough^ his wife, his 
 children, his friends, the people who have to work 
 with him in business or in public life, will always be 
 on their guard against provoking it. They will keep 
 everything out of his way that is likely to irritate him. 
 They will anticipate his wishes, yield to his whims, 
 
JUDGING OTHERS. 99 
 
 and humour his prejudices. They will take care 
 never to say a hasty word in his presence, just as 
 people take care not to throw lighted matches about 
 in a shed where cartridges are being loaded. So that 
 while it is tolerably certain that we treat other people 
 roughly if other people treat us roughly, it is not 
 certain that we are exemplary in our gentleness and 
 courtesy if other people treat us gently and court- 
 eously. It may be that we are so touchy and 
 irritable that they are obliged to exercise unusual 
 forbearance and self-control for the sake of averting 
 perpetual storms. 
 
 If our faults sometimes discipline the people about 
 us to exceptional virtue, sometimes they have the 
 precisely opposite effect ; and in the defects of which 
 we complain in others, we may recognise a moral 
 reaction against much graver defects in ourselves. If 
 a man is always condemning his neighbours and ac- 
 quaintances for their coldness and reserve, if he says 
 that they keep him at a distance and show him no 
 friendliness, it is very probable that he himself is ex- 
 tremely officious and forward. If he thinks they are 
 cautious, unenterprising, and destitute of enthusiasm, 
 we should not accept his account of them until we 
 have had time to discover whether he himself is ex- 
 ceptionally rash and reckless. If he condemns them 
 as wanting in moral vigour, and as always ready to 
 make excuses for people who have done wrong, we 
 should wait to learn whether he is harsh in his judg- 
 ments and unmerciful. 
 
100 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 The Mote and the Beam — the illustrations of the 
 proverb are endless. Young people especially ought 
 to remember it. There are no critics of human char- 
 acter half so severe as those whose own character is as 
 yet unformed ; none who denounce human imperfec- 
 tions with such an air of infallibility as those whose 
 inexperience of life disqualifies them for forming any 
 true conception of the infinite varieties of human tem- 
 perament and the infinite varieties of temptation by 
 which human virtue is tried. To young people life 
 seems extremely simple. As soon as they hear a 
 stranger speak, they know everything about him. A 
 sentence is a complete and final revelation. A single 
 action is sufficient to glorify a man, or to condemn him 
 to perpetual infamy. They seem to think it possible 
 to judge character as corn-merchants judge a sack of 
 wheat, by looking at a sample which they can take 
 in their hand, or as tailors judge a piece of cloth, by 
 examining a pattern three inches square. They will 
 find by-and-by that most men are not of the same 
 quality all through, and that they are not all of a 
 piece. Human character is very complex. In most 
 of us the base and the noble, the selfish and the 
 generous, the courageous and the cowardly, earth and 
 heaven, are strangely mixed. Even when a man's 
 life is over, the whole story told, the complete evi- 
 dence put in, it is sometimes hard to give a verdict. 
 But young people are prepared to acquit a man or to 
 hang him as soon as they see him in the dock. 
 
 Still more remarkable is the confidence of some 
 
JUDGING OTHERS. loi 
 
 men who are no longer young, in their ability to 
 correct other men's faults. This is a task from 
 which wise men shrink. The image which our Lord 
 uses to illustrate its delicacy and difficulty is exqui- 
 sitely felicitous : " How wilt thou say to thy brother, 
 Let me cast out the mote out of thine eye, and lo ! 
 the beam is in thine own eye .'* " Trying to correct a 
 friend's fault is like trying to remove a piece of gravel 
 or of straw from his eye. Your friend must be very 
 patient and must have a great deal of self-control to 
 submit to the operation, for even if you have a keen 
 eye and a firm, delicate hand, you will be almost 
 certain to inflict irritation and distress while you are 
 trying to help him. If you have a " beam " in your own 
 eye and cannot see very well, or if your hand is rough 
 and clumsy, you will force the " mote " in deeper, in- 
 stead of removing it, increase your friend's torture, 
 and perhaps injure his eye instead of relieving it. 
 
 The difficulty is that in most cases we cannot make 
 men believe that there is any " mote " that needs 
 removing. We think that we see it, but they persis- 
 tently deny that it is there. If we insist on trying to 
 remove it we hurt them so much that they get angry; 
 our good offices produce inflammation and make 
 matters worse. 
 
 I have sometimes tried to persuade men that they 
 had a " mote " in their eye, and I confess that I have 
 very rarely succeeded. Now and then you may be 
 able to persuade a man who makes no profession of 
 religion that he has done some wrong thing or has 
 
102 LA TVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 said something that is indefensible ; but if I may- 
 judge from my own experience, it is very hard to 
 persuade a man who is really a Christian that he 
 has committed any moral fault. Sin, in general, he 
 is always ready to acknowledge ; but he will not 
 admit a specific moral offence. The reason does not 
 seem far to seek. When a man is conscious that his 
 general purpose is to do the will of God, when he is 
 honestly endeavouring to avoid sin, he is very apt to 
 take it for granted that, in the region of common 
 morality, he cannot have failed seriously. He re- 
 treats upon his habitual integrity. He is sure that in 
 the main he means right, and this seems to him to 
 be a sufficient proof that in any particular case he 
 cannot have been in the wrong. His motives are so 
 good that he resents the suggestion that any part of 
 his conduct can deserve blame. 
 
 The gift of removing motes from other men's eyes 
 seems to me as rare as that combination of qualities 
 which makes a surgeon a skilful operator. And con- 
 sidering how beautiful and noble a gift it is, I wonder 
 that some people who suppose that they possess it 
 should always exercise it in a way which prevents 
 the persons whom they mean to benefit from knowing 
 even the names of their benefactors. From my own 
 experience of their work, however, I am not sure that 
 they are as skilful as they must imagine themselves 
 to be. Every man that has to do with public affairs 
 will probably agree with me that of the innumerable 
 remonstrances which he receives from anonymous 
 
JUDGING OTHERS. 103 
 
 correspondents, there are hardly any that show any 
 keen penetration, any accurate knowledge, any high 
 moral qualities ; in most of them the stupidity and 
 the ignorance are about equal. 
 
 When attempts of this kind are made to remove 
 the " mote " or the " beam " from the eyes of men 
 accustomed to the rough criticism of public life, they 
 do no harm. They afford a moment's amusement ; 
 they confirm the purpose to strike harder at the 
 errors and the sins which are defended by such 
 ignoble and timorous protectors, and then they are 
 thrown into the waste-paper basket and are forgotten. 
 But when similar attempts are made to correct the 
 alleged faults of private persons, they are as cruel as 
 they are cowardly. Anonymous letters of rebuke, 
 signed " Your brother in Christ," " Your faithful but 
 unknown friend," " A Fellow-Christian," " One who 
 prays for you," "One who trusts that God will forgive 
 and sanctify you," — such letters, I say, when written, 
 not to men like myself, accustomed to fighting, but 
 to private persons, are so dastardly, so base, so cruel, 
 that the writers of them, if they could be discovered^ 
 deserve to be held up to public scorn, and to be 
 branded with public infamy. Their unctuous, rancid 
 words about their Christian affection for the person 
 to whom they are writing, about their desire that 
 he may be more holy and may live nearer to God, 
 and about their constant prayers that the letter 
 may be useful, their lying assurances that they write 
 anonymously lest they should give unnecessary pain, 
 
104 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 when they know that their only reason for writing 
 anonymously is that they have not the courage to 
 sign their names, aggravate the offence. Such per- 
 sons may have discovered a "mote" in their brother's 
 eye, but they show that they have a " beam " in their 
 own eye, big enough to support — not merely the roof 
 of a house — but the roof of a gaol. Unhappily they 
 often inflict great suffering and sometimes serious 
 moral injury upon the victims of their Christian 
 fidelity. When what seems to a man to be his 
 conscience tells him to do evil that good may come — 
 and a cowardly act is always evil — he may be quite 
 sure that he is being led by the devil rather than by 
 the Spirit of God. 
 
 I cannot understand why people write anonymous 
 letters. If they are ashamed of what they write, 
 why do they write it ? If they are not, why do they 
 write anonymously ? I can imagine only one reason. 
 A man may say — If I signed my name to this letter 
 of rebuke, the man who receives it would be wounded ; 
 I should like to give him a hint, but I do not want to 
 inflict on him any unnecessary suffering ; if I write 
 anonymously, he will feel sure that the letter must 
 have come from some weak, cowardly, disreputable 
 person for whose opinion he will care nothing ; the 
 moral end will be secured, but his scorn for the 
 anonymous writer will prevent him from feeling any 
 pain. 
 
 As I have said, this casting out of the " mote " 
 that is in our brother's eye is always a difficult 
 
JUDGING OTHERS. 105 
 
 business, and yet it must sometimes be attempted. 
 When we attempt it we should take special care that 
 our treatment of our brother's faults does not make 
 it harder for him to forsake them. If we can do 
 nothing to remove the " mote," let us at least do 
 nothing to force it in. The secret of right conduct 
 in this matter, as in so many other things, lies in a 
 genuine charity — a charity that shall make us far 
 more desirous that our brother should set himself 
 right than that we should be successful in showing 
 him to be in the wrong — a charity that shall prevent 
 us from assuming an air of superiority over the man 
 whose faults we are trying to amend, and which shall 
 make us feel that for the faults of our brother we 
 ourselves are, perhaps, partly responsible. For we 
 are all members one of another. The moral defects 
 which pain us in our brethren may, perhaps, have 
 been occasioned by grave defects in ourselves ; and 
 in condemning others we should always remember 
 that if we ourselves had been nobler, more upright, 
 more generous, they, perhaps, might have sinned less 
 flagrantly. 
 
VII. 
 
 COURTESY AND THE SPIRIT OF SERVICE. 
 
 A GREAT evangelist with his soul on fire for the 
 restoration of the human race to God is rarely 
 able to care for anything except the central elements 
 of the religious life. He is in an agony of earnestness 
 to prevail on men to repent of sin, to appeal to the 
 Divine mercy, to surrender themselves to the au- 
 thority of the Divine will. To nearly everything 
 else he is indifferent. About many moral questions 
 of serious importance he will say little. He thinks 
 that nearly everything must come right in time if men 
 discover their own guilt and the righteousness and 
 love of God. About what may be described as the 
 minor moralities — courtesy, for example — he would 
 think it an intolerable waste of time to speak at all. 
 
 It would be foolish to find fault with such a man 
 as this. Every one must do his own work. And 
 there is a large measure of truth in the view which is 
 natural to a fervent revivalist. The supreme thing is 
 to induce men to break with sin, to realize the infinite 
 and eternal world by which they are environed, to 
 accept the will of God as the law of life. As long 
 
 as this is not done, nothing is done. When this is 
 
 107 
 
;io8 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 accomplished a man has in him the root of all per- 
 fection. 
 
 But when the crisis is over there are many ques- 
 tions to ask, and a great deal of hard work to be got 
 through. How, and to what extent, does the Divine 
 law differ from the laws of morality which are sus- 
 tained by the common opinions of the society to 
 which we belong ? Are there any personal habits 
 of ours that society approves or does not condemn, 
 which God requires us to give up? Is there anything 
 in our temper and spirit that society easily forgives 
 but which must be changed if we are to win God's 
 approbation ? When we have discovered a Divine 
 law, how are we to be disciplined to obedience.'' 
 There may be less of excitement in the quiet en- 
 f^ deavour to learn what God's idea of life really is, 
 and in the effort to fulfil it, than there was in the 
 great struggle which determined whether we would 
 acknowledge His authority and submit to it ; but the 
 struggle comes to nothing unless after it is over we 
 give our strength to learning God's law and keeping it. 
 I have sometimes seen, in the neighbourhood of 
 great towns, streets of houses, half-built or less than 
 half-built, which were begun by some enterprising capi- 
 talist who was unable to go on with them. In some 
 cases there were the foundations and nothing more. 
 It was no doubt a great thing to get the foundations 
 well laid, and this is what is done when a man con- 
 fesses from his heart the authority and love of Christ ; 
 but a foundation is not a house. In some cases the 
 
COURTESY AND THE SPIRIT OF SERVICE. 109 
 
 walls were up and the roof on ; but the mere shell was 
 left, with no window-frames in the ghastly-looking 
 windows, no flooring laid on the joists, no doors hung 
 on the door-posts, no plaster on the walls, and of 
 course no paper and no paint. Very like rows of 
 half-finished Christians ! The foundations of character 
 are sound, the walls are strong, the roof is safe ; 
 but how much there is to be done before they will be 
 perfect in Christ ! 
 
 Now it is the tendency perhaps of most Christian 
 men that are intensely in earnest in these times, 
 but especially of those who are the children and heirs 
 of the Evangelical Revival, to be continually laying 
 foundations, and to forget that conversion to God and 
 faith in Christ are the beginning, not the end, of the 
 Christian life. We think it a great matter if in addi- 
 tion to laying the foundations we can build up the 
 walls of solid, necessary virtues, and get a roof on 
 them to keep the character of a man from being 
 ruined by wind and frost and rain ; but the details 
 of conduct are left uncared for. We are honest 
 stone-masons and bricklayers, but for finer work we 
 have not much taste and not much faculty. While 
 there is so much to be done in order to rescue large 
 masses of men from an utterly irreligious life, this 
 seems natural, perhaps praiseworthy, certainly in- 
 evitable. When men really care for any one great 
 object they generally care very little for anything else. 
 
 But Christ cared for everything worth caring for. 
 George Whitefield, I think, would never have dreamt 
 
no LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 of preaching about courtesy and good manners; Christ 
 did preach about them. It reminds one of the in- 
 finite calmness and comprehensiveness of the Divine 
 thought. The same mind that guides the stars in 
 their vast and awful circuits, moulded the frail blos- 
 som of the wild flower, and gave it its tint and its 
 perfume. Christ, who was about to die for all the 
 sin of all the world, was troubled when He saw the 
 guests at a dinner eager for the most honourable 
 seats. It offended His idea of the modesty and 
 kindliness which ought to characterize social inter- 
 course, and He condemned the fault in a parable. 
 
 It may be regarded as a very slight fault, a fault 
 which does not affect the solid qualities of a man, a 
 fault which it lies beyond the province of a Christian 
 preacher or moralist to condemn, and which in our 
 days may be left for correction to the essayist whose 
 special business it is to discuss small questions of social 
 ethics and to use the weapons of a kindly raillery 
 to correct the lighter follies and infirmities of men. 
 But though the fault itself may be corrected by a laugh 
 just as blossoms may be nipped by a keen east wind, 
 the spirit and temper out of which the fault comes 
 will not be changed ; nor will even the sharp pruning 
 knife of a cynical moralist make the real inward life 
 any better, though it may cut away some of the 
 more ludicrous and contemptible outgrowths of it. 
 
 Christ appeals to a great principle, asserts a universal 
 law, lays the axe to the root of the evil tree, tells 
 men to change their inward spirit and so to change 
 
COURTESY AND THE SPIRIT OF SERVICE, iii 
 
 their outward manners. He goes at once to the heart. 
 This ungracious and unmannerly contention for the 
 most honourable seats was bad in itself; it was still 
 worse as a sign of the habitual vanity and self-asser- 
 tion of the men who were guilty of it. For Christ 
 treats the discourtesy which occasioned His rebuke 
 as only one of the manifestations of a spirit which 
 is constantly leading to envy and bitterness in 
 families, alienation among friends^ distrust, jealousy, 
 and conflict among those who ought to be working 
 heartily together in the service of mankind and for 
 the glory of God. The chief seat, the most honour- 
 able position, the most conspicuous place — this is 
 what many men are always seeking, seeking un- 
 scrupulously, no matter what pain they inflict on 
 their allies, no matter what injury they may do to 
 a cause which they profess to love. 
 
 A man is not honoured as he should be in a 
 Church — I have heard of such cases, though they are 
 less common than might have been expected — and 
 he becomes the centre and leader of a party of dis- 
 content. A man is not elected to the management of 
 a religious or benevolent organization with whose aims 
 and methods he has the heartiest sympathy, and he 
 shows his annoyance by fierce and angry attacks on 
 its oflicials and its policy ; he is perfectly sincere in 
 his criticisms, and it does not occur to him to ask how 
 it was that he did not discover that the institution 
 was badly managed before he had received personal 
 mortification. In a town council a man thinks that 
 
112 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 his services and capacity have given him a claim to 
 the chairmanship of a committee ; some one else is 
 appointed whose claims, as he thinks, are inferior to 
 his own, and then he goes off the committee alto- 
 gether, or refuses to work, and makes the work which 
 other men are doing as troublesome as he can. This 
 miserable spirit shows itself in a hundred ways. Un- 
 less some people can have the chief seat at the feast, 
 the wine is turned into vinegar and every pleasant 
 dish into ashes ; they are wretched themselves, and 
 they do their best to spoil the joy of every one else. 
 
 When a man is conscious of resentment at a real 
 or imaginary slight, when he is annoyed because 
 other men receive honour, place, and praise which he 
 thinks due to himself, when he feels disposed to leave 
 the ranks in a sulk because he is not promoted to 
 command, he should consider how contemptible the 
 same spirit would seem to him if shown by any one 
 else ; he should lay to heart the unwelcome dis- 
 covery that in work which he had regarded with some 
 complacency as an evidence of religious zeal or public 
 spirit, his motives have been very mixed ; and above 
 all, he should remember that Christ found the root of 
 this vanity in a fatal defect lying deep in the spiritual 
 life : " Every one that exalteth himself shall be 
 humbled ; and he that humbleth himself shall be 
 exalted : " *' The kings of the Gentiles have lordship 
 over them ; but he which is the greater among you, 
 let him become as the younger ; and he that is chief, 
 as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he 
 
COURTESY AND THE SPIRIT OF SERVICE. 113 
 
 that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth ? is not he 
 that sitteth at meat ? but I am in the midst of you 
 as he that serveth." " The Son of man came not to 
 be ministered unto, but to minister." 
 
 A man may legitimately desire a position which 
 brings honour with it, but only for the sake of the 
 service which the position would enable him to render 
 to an institution he cares for — to his town, his country, 
 or his church. When he tries to get it for the sake 
 of the honour, he is scheming for the chief seat at the 
 feast, and comes under our Lord's condemnation. 
 The test of character and spirit lies here — Do we 
 want to serve or to rule t To give or to get .'* Are 
 we thinking of glory or thinking of work ? 
 
 The law of Christ is a law of service : to the man 
 who is penetrated with the spirit of Christ, the 
 humblest place is the highest place if it is the place 
 in which he can do most for God and for man, and 
 the obscurest duties are the most honourable, if, by 
 discharging them, he can contribute most effectively 
 to the triumph of the Divine love over the miseries 
 and sins of mankind. To serve men for Christ's sake, 
 in Christ's name, as His representative, though the 
 service wins no praise, though it is met with coldness, 
 ingratitude, calumny, by those to whom it is rendered 
 — this is the true Christian life. 
 
 This law, if it were universally obeyed, would 
 soon change the whole order of human affairs ; 
 the golden years would begin ; the sorrows, the 
 conflicts, and the bitterness of the troubled centuries 
 
 I 
 
 A* 
 
114 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 would pass away, and would be remembered as an 
 evil dream. 
 
 If in every house of business in England, every one 
 from the head of the firm to the youngest porter was 
 simply eager to serve ; if this were the only rivalry, 
 who could serve the firm most ; if all the partners 
 had this spirit, if the managers, the travellers, the 
 clerks, the foremen, the workmen had it, we should 
 soon have a kind of commercial prosperity which we 
 have never dreamt of; and, what is infinitely more 
 important, our places of business would not only be 
 free from present vexations and cares, but would be 
 a school for the great employments of the blessed life 
 beyond the grave. The law is worth very little if it 
 does not rule us in business as well as in the Church ; 
 for business covers the greater part of human life, 
 -occupying six days out of seven, and until Christ's 
 authority is obeyed in common things we are in 
 active revolt against Him. We pray that God's will 
 jTiay be done on earth as it is in heaven : on earthy 
 this must mean in the affairs of earth, during the 
 hours spent in counting-houses and workshops as 
 well as during hours spent in religious worship and 
 religious work ; and Christ has taught us that it is 
 God's will that we should be eager to serve. 
 
 If in every public institution, in the management of 
 hospitals, in the conduct of municipal and political 
 business, every man wanted to serve and cared no- 
 thing for the credit of the service, was as willing to 
 do work of which the public never hears as to do 
 
COURTESY AND THE SPIRIT OF SERVICE. 115 
 
 work which attracts universal praise, far more work 
 would be done, work that is done now would be 
 better done, and the greater part of the friction 
 which now impedes work and worries those who 
 have to do it would disappear. 
 
 I am bound, indeed, to say, after having had the 
 opportunity of watching the public life of a great 
 town for many years, and watching very much of it, 
 not from without but from within, that I have seen 
 an immense deal of work done in this spirit. In the 
 conduct of philanthropic and educational institutions, 
 in municipal and political life, the amount of loyal 
 and laborious service which has been silently ren- 
 dered by men whose names are almost unknown to 
 the town, and who have got nothing for their work 
 except the satisfaction of doing it, has been to me a 
 perpetual source of satisfaction and delight. But 
 here, and, I suppose, everywhere else, the ideal is still 
 remote. 
 
 The law may look hard, — to work for men without 
 reward, without gratitude, without honour, — flesh and 
 blood cannot endure it. But the severity of the law 
 has a charm for men of a generous and noble nature ; 
 and there is something in men who can hardly be 
 called generous or noble that is reached by the con- 
 tagion of a lofty example. Every man that serves 
 the public with an enthusiasm of unselfishness will 
 call many into the service whose work will be largely 
 unselfish. 
 
 But with most of us it seems as if the law could 
 
ii6 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 not assert its authority over more than one or two 
 departments of hfe. In these it is a relief to rise to 
 moral heights lying far above the level of our common 
 hours ; but to remain at this elevation always is too 
 severe a strain. Religious men are sometimes charged 
 with observing " days, and months, and years ; " and 
 they are told — with perfect truth — that a religion 
 which is good only for Sundays is worthless. But 
 there are men that do not profess to be religious, 
 who in morals seem open to a similar charge and a 
 similar condemnation. 
 
 In business some men are hard as a flint, in public 
 work singularly unselfish. In making money some 
 men are a byword for their rapacity and unscru- 
 pulousness ; they care not whom they crush ; they 
 drive the hardest bargains ; they assert their rights 
 relentlessly, and to the farthest limits of the letter of 
 the law ; they are mean, tricky, parsimonious. But 
 the money which they get in these miserable ways 
 they give away by handfuls ; they found charitable 
 institutions, and make themselves famous by the 
 splendour of their munificence. 
 
 The morals of such people are very like the 
 religion which shows itself on Sunday and not in the 
 week. I have not much inclination to glorify the 
 intermittent unselfishness, the occasional generosity, 
 by which the baser qualities of their lives are re- 
 lieved. Happily there are men of another sort, who 
 are unselfish in their business as well as in the 
 service of the town and the country, generous within 
 
COURTESY AND THE SPIRIT OF SERVICE. 117 
 
 the four walls of their counting-houses as well as 
 when they are in the public eye. 
 
 The real secret of all perfection is to live with V 
 God. It is wonderful what calmness and equability 
 this gives to life, what a sense of tranquillity in the 
 midst of outward storm, what freedom from worry, 
 from the fever of ambition, from the mortifications of 
 vanity. If we can please Him it is enough. What 
 are other voices, speaking blame or praise, compared 
 with His ? 
 
 And when the dignities and hopes of the Christian 
 life are vividly present to the heart and exert their 
 legitimate influence over the imagination — for the 
 imagination should be made the fast ally of the will 
 of God — the most brilliant and enduring of earthly 
 triumphs become very dim. We have access to God, 
 are akin to Him, are His children, and if children, 
 then heirs ; heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ of 
 eternal righteousness, and wisdom, and blessedness, 
 and glory ; what is the highest earthly rank, the 
 rank which is far beyond the reach of the common- 
 alty of men — what is fame, though of the noblest sort, 
 reaching to distant lands and resounding through 
 many generations — what are these, compared with 
 the great position and great inheritance of those who 
 are in Christ } 
 
 A further correction of the spirit of personal am- 
 bition, and of that evil temper which makes us 
 impatient and ill at ease when others receive dis- 
 tinctions which we covet for ourselves, will come 
 
Ii8 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 from the spirit of charity. A genuine love for other 
 men will make us eager to do them honour. They 
 are not our rivals ; they are our allies, our brethren. 
 Their claims will take precedence of our own. We 
 shall not merely yield to other men, without resent- 
 ment, places of honour and distinction ; we shall 
 promote their elevation ; in honour we shall prefer 
 one another. A fierce struggle to win reputation, or 
 even to win positions of authority and influence, in 
 which, as we think, we might be able to serve others 
 as well as ourselves, is as inconsistent with the law 
 of Christ as a fierce struggle for material wealth. 
 Covetousness takes many forms ; and an apostle tells 
 us that the covetous man is an idolater. 
 
 " The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, 
 but to minister," and if we are " in Christ," we, too, 
 shall find it " more blessed to give than to receive." 
 . We misconceive the true genius of the Christian 
 revelation if we suppose that it allows us to make it 
 our chief business to care for our own interests — even 
 for our own salvation. We trust Christ to save us, 
 and this leaves us free to live for the welfare and 
 salvation of other men. 
 
 The re-assertion of this truth is the enduring glory 
 of the Protestant Reformation. Devout souls had 
 been sorely exercised in making sure of their own 
 escape from perdition. They were never sure that 
 their sins were remitted. Even if mortal sin was 
 forgiven, they had to dread the fierce anger of pur- 
 gatorial fires. They gave themselves to fasting and 
 
COURTESY AND THE SPIRIT OF SERVICE. 119 
 
 prayer ; they retreated to monasteries and deserts to 
 escape from the touch of the evils which imperilled 
 their eternal salvation. Some, many indeed, chose 
 a nobler way ; but the solitary life was felt by tens 
 of thousands and hundreds of thousands to be the 
 safest. Luther taught men that for their own salva- 
 tion they might trust to the infinite mercy of Christ, 
 and that it was the will of Christ that those whom 
 He was saving should ally themselves with Him in 
 saving and serving other men. . This is the true 
 Evangelical Faith. The spirit of Christ is a spirit of 
 Service. 
 
 And the spirit of Service is akin to the spirit 
 of Courtesy. It is true, no doubt, that grace and 
 gentleness of manner may come from early education 
 and from social discipline, and is no sure evidence 
 of a kindly heart. A man is largely made by 
 the society in which he has lived. He speaks Eng- 
 lish because he has lived in England ; he speaks 
 good English because the people he has lived with 
 spoke good English ; he catches the accent of the 
 county in which he was born, and the Northumbrian 
 will speak with a burr to the end of his days. And 
 so we catch the manners of the people about us : 
 if they are courteous we shall be courteous ; if they 
 are rough, violent, reckless, we are likely to be the 
 same ; and even when our spirit has become kindly 
 our manners may remain for a time very much what 
 they were before. 
 
 "For a time," but only for a time. The inward 
 
I20 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 spirit will make its power felt in the outward bear- 
 ing. The Charity which suffereth long and is kind, 
 envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 
 doth not behave itself unseemly, is not provoked, 
 taketh not account of evil, beareth all things, be- 
 lieveth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all 
 things, will soften the harshness of the voice and 
 change the expression of the countenance ; it will 
 make self-assertion, which is the root of discourtesy, 
 give place to consideration for the happiness and 
 comfort of others. The conventional forms of cour- 
 tesy may never be acquired ; these vary in different 
 countries ; they vary in the same country in different 
 ages ; they vary in the same country and the same 
 age in different classes of society ; but the man 
 who has a gentle and unselfish spirit has the essen- 
 tial qualities of a gentleman. 
 
 To " honour all men " is a Christian law ; and even 
 apart from positive precept it should be impossible for 
 a Christian man to treat others with disrespect. He 
 should be the most kindly and courteous of men. 
 To him all the people with whom he is living, his 
 neighbours, the men and women whom he meets 
 accidentally, while travelling in his own country or in 
 foreign lands, are touched and transfigured by the 
 light of an infinite and eternal world. They are not 
 merely masters, servants, tradesmen, labourers, mer- 
 chants, physicians ; they have in them the wonderful 
 capacity of receiving the life of God and winning 
 glory, honour, and immortality. They may live in a 
 
COURTESY AND THE SPIRIT OF SERVICE. 121 
 
 mean house, but at last they may have their home in 
 the palaces of heaven ; they may be poorly clothed, 
 but some day we may see them in shining raiment 
 walking the streets of gold ; they may work at a 
 mean trade, but they may have a most honourable 
 place in the eternal city of God. To-day they may 
 be serving 21s ; to-morrow — who knows? — they may 
 be among the princes of heaven, and we among the 
 commonalty of the saved. 
 
 Courtesy is itself a form of service. By gentleness 
 of manner, by an unobtrusive sympathy, by thought- 
 fulness for others in little things, we may smooth the 
 roughnesses of life for those with whom we live, 
 soothe their vexations, and contribute more to their 
 real happiness than by great and signal acts of 
 generosity. On the other hand a harsh, careless word 
 may inflict a worse wound than a blow, and the dis- 
 comfort created by habitual indifference to the con- 
 venience, tastes, opinions, and prejudices of those 
 about us may be harder to bear than positive physical 
 pain. Discourtesy occasions not merely suffering, 
 but sin ; and Christian courtesy is a " means of 
 grace " to all who have the happiness to receive it. 
 
VIII. 
 
 SYMPATHY. 
 
 SYMPATHY, it may be said, is an accident of 
 temperament, and cannot be raised to the rank 
 of a duty. There are people who cannot help being 
 distressed by the troubles of their relatives, their 
 friends, their neighbours, and even by the troubles of 
 strangers ; and everybody's happiness makes them, 
 for a time at least, the happier. They are saddened 
 by the sight of a funeral, though they may not know 
 the dead man's name, and they feel a thrill of sym- 
 pathetic delight whenever they see a line of wedding 
 carriages. On the other hand, there are people who 
 are naturally cold, they cannot help it ; by no energy 
 of moral effort can they " rejoice with them that 
 rejoice " or "weep with them that weep." Sympathy 
 cannot be commanded by volition, and, therefore, it 
 cannot be made a matter of moral obligation. 
 
 But the same objection might be urged with almost 
 equal force against the obligation of many other 
 duties. There is no doubt a felicity of natural con- 
 stitution which makes it easy to practise many 
 virtues ; and there are some men who are born with 
 
 a constitution which makes many virtues very diffi- 
 
 123 
 
124 LAM^S OF CNR/ST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 cult. Immense as is the province of Free Will, it 
 almost seems as if the foundations of character were 
 laid for us by other hands than our own. 
 
 The moral life is largely affected by the fineness of 
 the texture of brain and nerve, by the vigour of the 
 pulse, by the soundness of the lungs, by the action of 
 many most obscure physical forces. All this is true, 
 and yet we cannot treat Morals as merely a branch of 
 Physiology. 
 
 A man may be so made that it is very hard for 
 him to overcome sluggishness. He may find his 
 happiness in a tranquillity which approaches sleep, as 
 others find theirs in cHmbing mountains, in hunting, 
 in shooting, or in the vigorous activity of the intel- 
 lect. His ideal Heaven is the Nirvana of Buddhism. 
 But except in rare cases, here and there. Indolence 
 is not a physical infirmity but a vice. Intemperance 
 in eating, in drinking, or in other forms of sensual 
 indulgence, may be largely the result of hereditary 
 tendencies. But Temperance is a duty, and the cases 
 are very rare in which it is right or safe to regard 
 Intemperance as nothing more than a disease. 
 
 It may be answered that these illustrations are 
 hardly to the point. A man may force himself to his 
 work however much he dislikes it ; and a man may 
 abstain from actual physical excess however much he 
 may desire it. But Sympathy is not to be com- 
 pelled. 
 
 Granted. Take one or two other cases. Some 
 children are naturally docile and affectionate ; others 
 
SYMPATHY. 125 
 
 seem naturally sullen, ungracious, and wayward ; but 
 to be obedient and loving are among the duties of 
 children ; and disobedience, wilfulness, and a want of 
 affection for parents and for brothers and sisters are 
 very grave faults. Some men have a natural disposi- 
 tion so soft and kindly that to live with them is like 
 living under southern skies ; others have a temper — 
 they seem to have been born with it — which is worse 
 than a perpetual east wind. The kindliness of the 
 one man is not created by volition ; and volition can- 
 not dispel the gloom, the discontent, the impatience 
 of the other. And yet good temper is not a mere 
 fortunate accident like robust strength or personal 
 beauty, it is a virtue ; and a bad temper is not a mere 
 calamity like a club-foot or a hare-lip, it is a vice. 
 And so, while some men, because of their natural 
 temperament, find it easier than others to " rejoice 
 with them that rejoice, and weep with them that 
 weep," Sympathy has its place among the great moral 
 virtues. 
 
 I say that Sympathy has its place among the great 
 moral virtues. There is nothing about it in the Ten 
 Commandments, but in the Christian code it stands 
 side by side with justice, truthfulness, temperance, 
 industry, and all other moral duties. It is not merely 
 a gracious ornament of character. It is as essential a 
 part of the Christian life as prayer and worship, or 
 as faith in the existence of God, in judgment to come, 
 in the divinity of Christ, and in His death for the sins 
 of the world. It is necessary to insist on this point. 
 
126 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 Sympathy is a plain, commonplace, universal duty, 
 not a " counsel of perfection." It is our duty to tell 
 the truth to every man ; all systems of morality 
 insist on it ; but Christian morality insists that it is 
 our duty to rejoice with every man in his joy. It is 
 our duty to be honest to every man ; the obligations 
 of honesty were enforced by " the scribes and the 
 Pharisees ; " but Christ said, " except your righteous- 
 ness shall exceed that of the scribes and the Phari- 
 sees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven." Christian morality requires us not only to 
 be honest to every man, but to feel sorrow for him in 
 all his sorrow. 
 
 The obligation must not be so qualified and limited 
 as to be practically suppressed. There are people 
 with whom it is very easy to sympathise in their 
 gladness and their grief. But it is our duty to be 
 honest and to tell the truth to all kinds of people, and 
 the obligations of Sympathy are equally general. It 
 would not do to say : " I tell the truth to people I 
 like and tell lies to other men," or, " I am honest to 
 my friends and cheat strangers ; " nor will it do to say, 
 " I sympathise with people I care for, and to the 
 sorrow and happiness of the rest of the world I am 
 indifferent." The law is a universal one : " Rejoice 
 with them that rejoice, and weep with them that 
 weep." 
 
 This duty does not rest merely on the authority of 
 the apostle Paul, who has stated it with such perfect 
 felicity in his Epistle to the Romans. If critical 
 
SYMPATHY. 127 
 
 editors of the New Testament declared that the 
 fifteenth verse of the twelfth chapter of that Epistle 
 must be omitted, the obligations of Sympathy would 
 not be at all impaired. The moral duties of the 
 Christian life do not appear or vanish with the 
 " readings " which critical editors sanction or reject. 
 They have foundations which are not disturbed by 
 the accidental errors of copyists. They are not rooted 
 in " texts," but in the very substance of the revelation 
 of Christ. 
 
 This particular precept is only one application of 
 the great commandment, " Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
 bour as thyself." To sympathise with others in their 
 misery and their joy is to obey the great central law 
 of Christian conduct : " Have this mind in you, which 
 was also in Christ Jesus. . . . Not looking each 
 of you to his own things, but each of you also to the 
 things of others." If we perfectly fulfil these obliga- 
 tions, we shall rejoice in the health, the strength, the 
 honour, the success of other men as heartily as in our 
 own, and we shall be grieved by whatever grieves 
 them. The Christian duty of sympathy arises from 
 the discovery which has come to us through Christ of 
 the intimacy of our relations to all mankind. An 
 isolated, selfish life is impossible to us. All men are 
 dear to the heart of God, and therefore they must be 
 dear to us. We and they have one Father in heaven ; 
 we and they are brothers. If we have a brotherly 
 spirit, we shall ** rejoice with them that rejoice, and 
 weep with them that weep." 
 
128 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 There is one reason for obeying this law which 
 deserves serious consideration. We owe sympathy 
 to other men because it is one of the principal and 
 most effective m^eans of contributing to their moral 
 perfection ; and because, by withholding it, we inflict 
 upon them grave moral injury. We cannot all be 
 preachers, missionaries, visitors of the poor, or public 
 philanthropists, and when we see the immense amount 
 of moral evil that is in the world, we may be very 
 unhappy because we can do so little to diminish it. 
 And the moral evil which troubles a fine nature is 
 not merely the profligacy, or the brutality, or the 
 flagrant dishonesty which removes men from decent 
 and reputable society. There is moral evil of another 
 kind, with which all of us are frequently in close 
 contact. In men and women who have many admir- 
 able qualities, who are truthful, upright, and tem- 
 perate, who discharge with exemplary fidelity many 
 private and many public duties, there are grave de- 
 fects of temper and spirit. They are hard, wilful, 
 impatient ; they are guilty of reckless self-assertion ; 
 they are suspicious, contemptuous, ungenerous ; they 
 remind one of noble trees that require warmth and 
 sunshine, but which have been discouraged by gloomy 
 skies, and chilled, tormented by cold harsh winds. 
 If they had only had kindly influences about them, 
 their growth would have been lovely and beauti- 
 ful. Some of us may not be able to do much to 
 recover those who are morally lost, but we may all 
 do something to lessen the hardness and to add to 
 
SYMPATHY. 129 
 
 the moral grace of those with whom we live. Genuine 
 human sympathy is a moral benefit to a man ; when 
 the sympathy has a Christian quality and is the result 
 of our union with Christ, it is a channel of Divine grace. 
 
 Sympathise with a man in his prosperity and you "^ 
 will do very much to protect him from the moral 
 perils to which his prosperity exposes him. A man 
 gets rich and he sees that people regard him with 
 envy. They think that he has had better fortune 
 than he deserves. He has not worked harder than 
 they have worked ; he is no cleverer than they are ; 
 and they say that his success is the result of accident, 
 and is no credit to him. Or, worse still, they make 
 his success a ground for depreciating his character. 
 They hint that he has been grasping ; that he has 
 gone very near the bounds of honest trading, and 
 they are not quite sure that he has always kept within 
 them. If all his business transactions had been quite 
 legitimate, they think that he would not have got 
 rich so 'rapidly. 
 
 Now if you know that a man is carrying on his 
 business on dishonourable principles — if he lies ; if 
 he is tyrannical ; if he takes an unfair advantage of 
 people who happen to come into his power ; then, 
 whether he is getting richer or poorer, you are bound 
 to refuse him your moral approval. He should be 
 no friend of yours ; you have no right to speak well 
 of him, whether he is in danger of bankruptcy, or 
 whether he has made his way to great wealth. But 
 if you begin to have hard thoughts of him when he 
 
 K 
 
ISO LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 has achieved great success ; if he feels that you, an 
 old friend, have no honest delight in his prosperity, 
 you are not only unjust to him, you may do him 
 serious moral harm. If you are cold to him because 
 he has become richer than you are, he will be cold to 
 you because you are poorer than he is. If you think 
 of his wealth with discontent, he will think of it with 
 exaggerated complacency. If you regard his success, 
 which is a great matter to him, with indifference, do 
 not be surprised if he regards, with similar indiffer- 
 ence, your troubles and losses which are great matters 
 to you. 
 
 There is always danger that when a man gets rich 
 he will cease to have a brotherly heart towards other 
 men ; it is the duty of his old friends to do what they 
 can to save him from that danger — not by preaching 
 to him, unless they are very sure that they can preach 
 well— but by rejoicing with him in his riches. Some 
 good people have it on their conscience to say " faith- 
 ful things " — a euphemism for " disagreeable things " 
 — to any young relative or acquaintance of theirs that 
 becomes very prosperous. They think themselves 
 bound to warn him against the pride, ostentation, 
 extravagance, social ambition and neglect of religious 
 duty into which he is likely to be betrayed. Well, if 
 they begin by rejoicing with him in his wealth, and 
 rejoicing very heartily, they may do him some good ; 
 but if they have no genuine delight in his good 
 fortune, they are certain to do harm. Let his old 
 friends keep a brotherly spirit towards him and it will 
 
SYMPATHY. 131 
 
 be easier for him to keep a brotherly spirit towards 
 them ; and their sympathy will help to keep him 
 modest and generous. 
 
 The same law holds in relation to success of other 
 kinds. A man by his ability, his public zeal, and 
 perhaps by favouring circumstances, rises rapidly 
 to a position of influence and honour — too rapidly, 
 perhaps, for his moral safety. If other men rejoice 
 with him in his success he may be kept right ; but 
 depreciate his power — say that his rise is owing to 
 chance rather than merit — and you will provoke him 
 to self-assertion. Envy him and you will make him 
 contemptuous. Sneer at his infirmities, which might 
 have passed without notice in the shade, but which 
 become very apparent in the sunlight, and he will 
 form the habit of regarding with scorn the men who 
 are so mean and so shallow that they cannot recognise 
 great qualities and great services because they are 
 associated with some defects. Be jealous of him and 
 he will be domineering. Be selfishly indifferent to his 
 triumph and he will selfishly enjoy it. 
 
 But write him a hearty letter when he is appointed 
 to a distinguished position — grasp his hand with warm 
 congratulation when he has made an able speech 
 or shown in some adm.inistrative work conspicuous 
 ability — if he is praised by those whose praise is an 
 exceptional distinction let him know that his delight is 
 not greater than yours, and you will keep his temper 
 sweet, and will prevent him from being inflated by his 
 success. His honours will seem less exclusively his 
 
132 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 own if you make him feel that they have increased 
 your happiness ; it will seem as if you shared them 
 with him, as if they were yours as well as his, and 
 you will do your part to save him from vanity and 
 conceit. 
 
 When trouble comes upon men your sympathy 
 may lessen the bitterness of their grief, and may pre- 
 vent them from yielding to a hard resentment against 
 God and against the whole order of the world. It is 
 in loneliness that the heart becomes wild and savage, 
 and breaks out into revolt against heaven and earth. 
 We keep our moral sanity by contact with the 
 healthy moral life of other men. 
 
 You may not be able to say a word to lessen the 
 magnitude of your friend's trouble. The more you 
 think of it the more terrible it may seem. Not an 
 alleviating circumstance may be discoverable. No 
 matter ; let the broken heart feel that you share the 
 sorrow, and this will give some relief. 
 
 There is a mystery in the power of sympathy that 
 seems related to one of the central mysteries of the 
 universe. By sympathy we can lessen the bitterness 
 of other men's sorrows ; by sympathy we can even 
 lessen the shame and anguish of other men's sins. 
 In some way — we cannot tell how — we can bear their 
 griefs, and even bear their guilt. He who is the Son 
 of Man as well as the Son of God, Christ Jesus, the 
 Brother of us all, has illustrated that law in the most 
 tragic and sublime form ; the sorrows and the sins of 
 the race came upon Him. 
 
SYMPATHY. 133 
 
 The great thing is to feel sympathy ; but it is also 
 a duty to let people know that you feel it. Never 
 imagine that it will make no difference to them 
 whether they know it or not. Give them credit for 
 being brotherly. Take it for granted that they care 
 for you as you care for them. Do not say, they will 
 not miss me at the wedding, or the funeral, or the 
 house-warming. If you take your heart with you, be 
 sure that you will add to the joy of the festival or 
 lessen the gloom of the grief 
 
 You do not know how slight an expression of sym- 
 pathy is a source of strength and relief Go to your 
 friend in his trouble, even if you can say nothing ; 
 write to him, if you can only tell him that you share 
 his suffering. Ingenious attempts to explain to him 
 that he is probably exaggerating the greatness of the 
 calamity which has fallen upon him, and overlooking 
 considerations which might lessen his distress, will 
 probably produce resentment. He will feel that he 
 knows more about it than you do, and that you are 
 presumptuous, impertinent, sacrilegious, in your at- 
 tempts to measure the exact limits of his trouble, and 
 to determine what ought to be the limits of his grief. 
 What he wants is not your ingenious philosophy, but 
 just a touch of your heart. 
 
 Soon after I became a minister, and while I was 
 still a very young man, a great loss fell on a family in 
 my congregation. The husband died a year or two 
 after marriage. I went to see the widow. Her 
 anguish was of that silent, self-restrained sort which 
 
134 LA IVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 it is always most terrible to witness. There were no 
 tears ; there was no cry of complaint ; not a word 
 about the bright life which had been so suddenly 
 darkened ; not a word about the present agony or 
 about the gloom and desolation of the years to come. 
 Her grief was dumb. I was oppressed by it ; I could 
 say nothing. The sorrow seemed beyond the reach 
 of comfort; and after sitting for a few minutes I 
 rose in some agitation and went away without say- 
 ing a word. After I had left the house, and when 
 I had recovered self-possession, I felt humiliated and 
 distressed that I had not spoken ; I thought that 
 perhaps it would have been better not to have gone 
 at all. I do not feel so now. Sometimes the only 
 consolation we can offer our friends is to let them 
 know that we feel that their sorrow is too great for 
 any consolation of ours. 
 
 Some people have what may be called the gift 
 of sympathy, and a charming gift it is. Easily, 
 naturally, without effort, they respond to all the 
 changing circumstances and moods of those about 
 them. They have tears for the sorrows of their 
 friends and a flood of sunlight for their joys. They 
 pass at once into the life of every one with whom 
 they care to come into contact. They actually feel 
 the grief or the joy that is present to their imagina- 
 tion. But for the high authority of M. Diderot, I 
 should have supposed that this is the temperament 
 that makes a man a great actor. 
 
 The gift is a lovely one. But, to use the old 
 
SYMPATHY. 135 
 
 phrase, it is necessary to distinguish between the 
 "gift " and the "grace." There is a certain luxurious 
 enjoyment in receiving into one's own life the bright- 
 ness and the shadows that come from the joys and 
 sorrows of other men. The response, so prompt, so 
 gracious, to every appeal from without, may have no 
 moral element in it. The sympathy with misfortune 
 may be followed by no serious endeavour to lessen 
 it ; the sympathy with joy may be soon over, and may 
 be followed in an hour by a sarcasm or a sneer. The 
 sympathetic temperament is not always associated 
 with a genuine devotion to the interests of other 
 men. 
 
 If it is a duty to give sympathy, it is also a duty to 
 receive it. The sullen or contemptuous rejection of 
 it is a vice, and is a sign of the same unbrotherly 
 spirit as the refusal to give it. It is the sign that a 
 man has declined to accept his true relations to the 
 race, and that he is isolated and absorbed in his own 
 happiness or misery. By rejecting sympathy we do 
 harm to the person who offers it, for we check the 
 growth of a form of human perfection. It is a sin to 
 discourage a man who wants to be truthful ; it is also 
 a sin to discourage a man who wants to show that he 
 shares our trouble or our gladness. If we have any 
 depth of nature we shall not be repelled because 
 the form in which the sympathy is expressed may 
 happen to be rough and ungracious, or even artificial. 
 We ought to recognise the water of life even when it 
 is broufjht us in the commonest of earthen vessels. 
 
136 LAWS OF CNR/ST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 By rejecting it we wrong others, wiser and nobler 
 than ourselves, to whom the man may be afraid to 
 offer it, because we have refused to receive it. And 
 we wrong ourselves, for we confirm our unbrotherly 
 selfishness. 
 
 How are we to create a sympathetic spirit, if we 
 are conscious that our natural temperament is un- 
 sympathetic ? The question would be difficult to 
 answer if the sympathetic spirit had really to be 
 created. But it has only to be developed. It is in 
 our heart somewhere, and would show itself if it had 
 a fair chance. Perhaps our circumstances have been 
 unfriendly to its natural growth, and we have never 
 tried to cultivate it. It is curious to contrast the 
 care and industry with which men cultivate their 
 intellect, with their carelessness in the cultivation of 
 moral perfection. No one supposes that intellectual 
 vigour and keenness, and delicacy of discrimination, 
 will come of themselves, and without discipline and 
 painstaking ; but many men seem to suppose that 
 the corresponding qualities of the moral life may be 
 left to take their chance. We insist that our sons 
 and daughters shall follow many studies, not for the 
 mere sake of acquiring knowledge, but for the sake 
 of their disciplinary power. Very much of this 
 knowledge is lost in a very few years after they have 
 left school or college, but the studies have answered 
 their purpose — the intellect has been awakened ; it 
 has been *' broken in ; " it has been made capable 
 of persistent industry ; its native force has been 
 
SYMPATHY. 137 
 
 increased ; its powers have been harmoniously de- 
 veloped. Even in mature manhood and womanhood 
 we may find it necessary to continue some of our 
 disciplinary studies to prevent our intellectual life 
 from degenerating. But no such wise and con- 
 siderate care is given to the cultivation of the moral 
 life, and yet men are troubled by their moral imper- 
 fections. 
 
 It may, I think, be assumed that, with rare excep- 
 tions, no man's environment has been favourable to 
 the natural growth of all the virtues that should 
 illustrate the Christian character. In some cases, the 
 influences of a man's home, and school, and early 
 friendships have been friendly to watchfulness, 
 courage, industry and the more robust qualities of 
 the moral life ; in others, to gentleness, kindliness, 
 patience, and courtesy. But I imagine that most of 
 us discover, when we reach manhood or womanhood, 
 that the soil in which we have been planted, and the 
 climate which has been about us from our childhood, 
 have been unfavourable to some very necessary 
 virtues, and that these need careful cultivation. We 
 should be thankful for whatever good qualities have 
 come to us apart from our own choice and effort, and 
 should do our best to develop the rest. 
 
 The power of sympathy may be cultivated. We 
 may, by a definite effort of will, overcome the miser- 
 able tendency to think only of ourselves and our 
 own affairs. We may put ourselves in the way of 
 being troubled by other men's sorrows and gladdened 
 
138 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 by their joys. When we hear of a reverse of fortune 
 which has come upon a friend, we may dwell upon it, 
 and make it vivid and real to ourselves. We may 
 think of all the details of the calamity; of the months 
 of anxiety during which it has been anticipated ; of 
 the sleepless nights which our friend spent as the 
 catastrophe came nearer ; of the changes it has made 
 in his whole position, and in all his prospects of 
 the future ; of what it must be for him to leave his 
 pleasant home ; to part with his pictures and books ; 
 to look at his garden for the last time ; to feel that in 
 future he will not be able to travel or to indulge in 
 any of the recreations which have become almost 
 necessary to his health and vigour ; of his distress at 
 having to take his girls from a school which is now 
 much too expensive for his means, and at having to 
 tell his boys that they must give up the hope of 
 going to the university ; of the anguish with which 
 he anticipates what may come to them when he is 
 dead, if he is unable to recover something of the 
 wealth that he has lost ; of the bitterness with 
 which he thinks of the errors of judgment which 
 may, perhaps, have led to the calamity — the rashness 
 of some unfortunate speculation — the facility with 
 which he granted large credits to men whom he 
 ought never to have trusted. It is only by a 
 
 r deliberate effort to measure the magnitude of a great 
 ^'^ ! trouble, and to realize some of the innumerable ele- 
 
 \ ments of misery in it, that some of us can ever come 
 to feel adequate sympathy with it. And a similar 
 
SYMPATHY. 139 
 
 effort is necessary to sympathise perfectly with any 
 great happiness. 
 
 But self-discipline is not enough. The want of 
 sympathy should be confessed as a sin, and we 
 should pray God to pardon it and to give us grace to 
 overcome it. Above all, we should remember that in 
 Christ all perfection is possible to us. His life is our 
 life; we are branches of the great Vine; and what- 
 ever grace or beauty appeared in His character may 
 appear in our own. If we abide in Him we may 
 come to have that sensitiveness to suffering which 
 moved Him to compassion when He saw the blind, 
 and the lame, and the leprous, and which made Him 
 weep at the grave of Lazarus, though He was about 
 to raise Lazarus from the dead ; and we may come 
 to have that sympathy with the common joys of men 
 which prompted Him to change the water into wine 
 at Cana of Galilee. The imitation of Christ is not 
 impossible to any of us, for in the power of His 
 Spirit all His perfections may become ours ; and 
 His deep and perfect sympathy with all the vicis- 
 situdes of human sadness and joy was among the 
 fairest and noblest of His perfections. 
 
IX. 
 
 THE GRACE OF CHRIST A LAW OF CONDUCT. 
 
 THERE is nothing so contagious as a great ex- 
 ample. Christian morals have their root and 
 inspiration in Christ Himself rather than in His 
 isolated precepts. In every age men have been 
 caught in the mighty currents of His infinite love 
 for the human race, and have been swept away from 
 the narrow interests of their personal life into the 
 ocean of a boundless charity. The words of Tiburzio 
 to Luria in Robert Browning's noble poem — words 
 in which the Pisan general describes the worth to 
 a nation of a man of heroic goodness — illustrate 
 the philosophy of Christian morals : — 
 
 " A people is but the attempt of many 
 To rise to the completer life of one ; 
 And those who live as models for the mass 
 Are singly of more value than they all. 
 Such man are you, and such a time is this. 
 That your sole fate concerns a nation more 
 Than its apparent welfare." 
 
 For eighteen hundred years the Christian Church 
 
 has found its unity, its vigour, all its hope and all 
 
 its glory, in " the attempt of many to rise to the 
 
 141 
 
142 LA JVS OF CNR/ST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 completer life," of Him who revealed at once the 
 righteousness and love of God, and the true ideal of 
 human perfection. 
 
 Men need not wonder that we care so much for the 
 great truth that Christ was the eternal Son of God, 
 who at the impulse of an infinite love descended fronj 
 Divine heights to the infirmities and sorrows and 
 temptations of the common life of mankind. There 
 are great religious reasons which invest this truth 
 with infinite importance ; but it also lies at the 
 foundation of Christian morals. Let the descent of 
 Christ from His eternal throne for our sakes be 
 denied, doubted, forgotten, and the world loses the 
 springs of a moral inspiration which renders possible 
 the most generous forms of goodness. For what we 
 all need is, not merely a clear knowledge of duty, 
 but that vigour of moral purpose, that intensity of 
 moral enthusiasm which will not merely enable us 
 to master temptations to indolence and selfishness, 
 but which will raise us to lofty moral levels where 
 these temptations will not be able to assault us. 
 
 The story of one man's heroism makes a thousand 
 heroes. The story of the Grace of Christ who, 
 though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, 
 that we through His poverty might become rich, has 
 filled the heart of Christendom with floods of com- 
 passion for human want and pain and misery. It has 
 built thousands of hospitals for the sick, thousands 
 of asylums for the aged, for orphans, for those who 
 have been suffering from every description of mis- 
 
THE GRACE OF CHRIST A LAW OF CONDUCT. 143 
 
 fortune and desolation. It has constrained millions 
 of unknown men and women who were poor them- 
 selves to become still poorer, in order to relieve the 
 greater wretchedness of others. If ever I lose heart 
 when I think of the magnitude of the claims of the 
 friendless, the desolate, the oppressed, on the help 
 and service of those who are happier than themselves 
 — if I begin to fear that men will be too selfish to 
 discharge obligations so immense, and demanding 
 such enormous self-sacrifice — my courage returns 
 when I think of Christ. I know that the story of 
 His grace will continue to inspire the hearts of men 
 through future centuries, as it has inspired them in 
 centuries gone by. I see that, notwithstanding the 
 intellectual confusions by which we are environed, it 
 is exerting a greater power on the moral life of the 
 race at the present moment than it has ever exerted 
 before. I believe that the will of God which received 
 so noble an expression in the incarnation, the miracles, 
 the sufferings, and the death of Christ will at last be 
 done on earth even as it is done in heaven. 
 
 The Grace of Christ is to be a law of Christian 
 conduct. Grace transcends love. For in loving 
 others we may be only meeting their claims upon 
 us ; and Grace passes beyond all claims. It does 
 more than fulfil the law. It accepts sacrifices which 
 the law could not impose ; it confers benefits which 
 the law could not award. 
 
 Paul, after his manner, made the Grace of Christ 
 a reason for Christian generosity. The Christians in 
 
144 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 Jerusalem and its neighbourhood were suffering from 
 great poverty ; and he asked the Churches in remote 
 heathen cities to contribute towards their rehef. 
 Although the Jewish Christians had not shown a 
 brotherly spirit to himself or to those whom he had 
 converted from heathenism, he might have obtained 
 help for them by appealing to the common human 
 sympathies of his Gentile converts. The sense of 
 Christian brotherhood, affectionate veneration for the 
 Church of Jerusalem, many of the members of which 
 had been the personal friends of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, might have strengthened natural pity for 
 human suffering, and led the converts to the Christian 
 faith at Corinth and elsewhere to respond to his ap- 
 peal. But to give fire and energy to their generosity, 
 he reminded them of the most glorious and sublime 
 manifestation of the Divine love for the human race. 
 Christ was rich and for our sakes became poor. The 
 infinite Grace revealed in the incarnation is to be re- 
 vealed in Christian conduct. The mind that was in 
 Christ is to be in us ; and therefore the Christians at 
 Corinth were to send money to relieve their Christian 
 brethren in Jerusalem and Judaea. They were to 
 suffer loss that they might serve others. 
 
 We have better wealth — all of us — than money ; 
 and the voluntary poverty of Christ for our sakes is 
 to have far more important effects on character and 
 conduct than the creation of a disposition to give 
 money for the relief of poverty and suffering. There 
 is a selfishness of a more subtle kind than that which 
 
THE GRACE OF CHRIST A LAW OF CONDUCT 145 
 
 makes us keep a tight hand on our silver and gold. 
 The giving of money may be the discipline of a 
 loftier kind of generosity ; but in some cases it seems 
 to be made a substitute for the nobler service. It 
 was not mere money that Christ gave when He be- 
 came poor to enrich the human race ; and if the 
 power of His example and of His spirit rests upon us 
 we shall give, and give freely, what we value infi- 
 nitely more than money. It is a law of the Christian 
 life that we should impoverish ourselves in many 
 ways to enrich other men. 
 
 What, then, is our wealth — the wealth we care for ^ 
 most } 
 
 There are some to whom the refined and gracious j 
 habits of a cultivated life are far more precious than 
 gold. They were fortunate in being born of intelli- 
 gent and gentle parents. They received an education 
 which not only informed and disciplined their mind, 
 but which preserved and confirmed the traditions 
 of their home. They are offended and pained by 
 coarseness of nature and roughness of speech, as the 
 ear of a musician is offended and pained by a voice 
 out of tune, or the eye of a painter by bad drawing 
 and harsh contrasts of colour. The delicacy, purity, 
 and refinement of nature which came to them by the 
 felicity of their birth and early training are not to 
 be bought with money, and are not always trans- 
 mitted with inherited wealth. Rich men may pur- 
 chase luxury and splendour, and may fill their houses 
 with the beautiful creations of art ; but that nameless 
 
 L 
 
146 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 indefinable grace of which I am speaking is not sold 
 in any market, and those who possess it are conscious 
 of its absence in the vulgar rich as well as in the 
 vulgar poor. It is a distinction which, if they could, 
 they would not sell for all " the wealth of Ormuzd 
 or of Ind." How are they to make the Grace of 
 Christ a law of conduct ? 
 
 I have known educated and refined Christian 
 women who have made friends, not merely of the 
 gentle poor, but of those who had been born in 
 rough homes, who had been always surrounded by 
 rough people, and who, not by their fault but by 
 their misfortune, were rough themselves. It would 
 have been much pleasanter to these Christian women 
 to spend all their leisure with people of another kind. 
 To men and women of a refined nature, living in re- 
 fined homes, the wealth of life consists largely in the 
 advantage and happiness of congenial society. There 
 is a loss of enjoyment, and of something more than 
 enjoyment, in intimate association with persons 
 whose minds have never been cultivated, whose 
 moral tastes are coarse, whose manners are ungentle. 
 And it is one of the most beautiful and effective ways 
 of imitating Christ to accept this voluntary poverty 
 for His sake, to part with the wealth which we most 
 value for the sake of enriching those who are wholly 
 destitute of it. 
 
 It seems to be thought that rough uncultivated men 
 and women, if only they want to do good, are likely 
 to be of more service than the refined and educated 
 
THE GRACE OF CHRIST A LAW OF CONDUCT I47 
 
 to people who are coarse and ignorant Thank God, 
 it is possible for everybody that really cares for 
 others to do them good ; and it is wonderful how 
 much good may be done by those whose knowledge 
 is very small, whose powers are very limited, and 
 whose education has been altogether neglected. But 
 those who have been more fortunate have within 
 their reach an exceptional kind of service. Let me 
 illustrate what I mean. 
 
 Societies have been formed in several parts of 
 England for diffusing a delight in beauty among 
 those whose lives are environed by unlovely condi- 
 tions. They give concerts of good music in the 
 poorer parts of great towns ; they cover with pleasant 
 decoration the bare and hideous walls of school- 
 rooms, and mission-rooms, and private houses ; they 
 send bright flowers for people living in close and 
 gloomy courts to put on their window-sills. The 
 Kyrle Societies seem to me to be doing a very kindly 
 service. But the noblest works of art are not in 
 marble or on canvas ; the loveliest music is not heard 
 at concerts or the Opera ; and there is something 
 fairer than any flower that ever blossomed under 
 southern skies. In a cultivated, refined and gracious % 
 man or woman there is a charm, a spell, a beauty of j 
 a diviner order. Take the brightness, the music, the * 
 perfume of your gentle and delicate life into the 
 homes of people who are coarse in their habits, and 
 whose words are rude ; sit down with them as a 
 brother or a sister ; talk to them, remembering that 
 
148 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 they, too, are God's children, that perhaps they are 
 trying to do His will as far as they know it, and that 
 at last He may receive them home with words of 
 welcome and joy. To them your life is a song, let 
 them listen to it ; a poem, let them read it ; a picture, 
 let them see its form and colour ; a flower, for a little 
 time let the brightness and the sweetness of it be 
 theirs. Make your visit to them as charming as pos- 
 sible. Let me ask the ladies who may read these 
 ^ pages not to put on their plainest and shabbiest 
 dresses when they go into their " districts." If the 
 weather is fine wear a pretty dress, a dainty bonnet, 
 and gloves of which you would not be ashamed when 
 you visit your friends. If you must wear out dresses 
 which are[a little dingy, let them be worn when at the 
 houses of rich people, who see bright, pretty things 
 every day. Be courteous to the poor, and make your 
 visit delightful to them. 
 
 It is not always pleasant work. You will have to 
 breathe an ungenial atmosphere ; and as the plants 
 when transferred from your gardens and green-houses 
 to the narrow street and the close court, where the 
 air is foul with smoke, are conscious that their very 
 life is touched, so you with your delicate ways will be 
 conscious of a certain pain and loss. But how are 
 these brothers and sisters of ours to be led to higher 
 levels of life except by service of this kind } And 
 the service will lead you into a deeper knowledge of 
 the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. A morning 
 spent among the poor and the miserable will some- 
 
THE GRACE OF CHRIST A LAW OF CONDUCT 149 
 
 times teach you more about Christ than many 
 mornings spent in church — will give you a clearer, 
 closer vision of His love for us, and will enable you 
 to trust in His love with a firmer and happier con- 
 fidence. 
 
 There is another way in which many of us may 
 fulfil the law of Christ. Whether we are rich or poor, 
 cultivated or uncultivated, our pleasant friends are 
 among our most precious wealth, I mean the friends 
 who exhilarate us, increase our courage, reinforce our 
 strength when we are tired of life, and soothe and 
 quiet us when we are restless and agitated. Most of 
 us know people of a different sort ; people who, not 
 intentionally, but under the influence of some evil 
 fate, always remember the things which it would be 
 pleasant to forget, and always speak of the things 
 about which we wish they would be silent ; people 
 who have a talent for misery — who are miserable 
 themselves and make other people miserable ; who 
 when the sun is rising and filling the east with the 
 fresh pure light of the dawn look westwards, where 
 the heavy clouds of night are still hanging in funereal 
 gloom, and who when the west is burning with the 
 gorgeous splendours of sunset look eastwards where 
 the grey twilight is ascending like the shadowy ghost 
 of the departed day. They always walk on the 
 shady side of the street. Their life is an arctic winter 
 without even an arctic summer, for when they have 
 had six months of darkness at the north pole, instead 
 of taking the six months of pale sunlight which fol- 
 
ISO LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 low, they escape to the south pole to get another six 
 months of darkness there. 
 
 People of this kind are to be found among those 
 who have wealth as well as among those who have 
 none ; wherever they are found they are really the 
 most destitute and miserable of mankind. But per- 
 haps the destitute and miserable rich are the more 
 pitiable. They have luxurious dinners, but their 
 intellect and heart are starved ; they have company 
 at their table, but they are without friends ; they 
 have music about them, but no music in their hearts ; 
 pictures on their walls, but no forms of beauty in 
 their fancy, no golden splendour, no romance, no 
 mystery, no grace. 
 
 They are in want of something that it is harder to 
 give them than money, of something that is more 
 scarce even in the worst times, of something that we 
 are more reluctant to part with. We must carry our 
 own light and fire into their darkness and cold. 
 There must be a real impoverishment of ourselves if 
 we are to enrich them. We must lose part of our 
 own vital force if we are to endure, even for a little 
 while, the chill and the gloom in which they are 
 always living ; we must burn up some of the fuel 
 which might keep ourselves warm to give them 
 warmth ; we must be fretted by their fretfulness, 
 and depressed by their depression. There is a con- 
 scious loss of life when we are in contact with them. 
 Virtue goes out of us at their touch. To be with 
 them for an hour lowers our intellectual and moral 
 
THE GRACE OF CHRIST A LAW OF CONDUCT. 151 
 
 temperature. But to submit to this loss in order to 
 cheer and to animate them, is to accept the grace of 
 Christ as a law of conduct. 
 
 We must impoverish ourselves in other ways if we 
 are to imitate our Lord. To some people — and the 
 number increases every year — delight in intellectual 
 pursuits, in science, in art, in literature, is one of the 
 most precious of all kinds of wealth. An additional 
 five per cent, on their investments gives some men 
 less happiness than the effort to master some new 
 department of science ; a diamond necklace gives 
 some women less happiness than a new and noble 
 poem. I sometimes wonder whether intellectual 
 covetousness will be as unfriendly to zeal in the 
 public service and in the work which, by way of dis- 
 tinction, we call religious, as covetousness of a baser 
 sort. " How hardly shall they that have riches enter 
 into the kingdom of God ! " Covetousness of all 
 kinds is idolatry. Some men who have to pay a 
 very light income-tax are in just as much danger 
 from their " riches " as men who have to return their 
 income in five figures. Even those of us who are far 
 enough from having anything that can be described 
 as intellectual wealth are not safe. 
 
 I should like to illustrate this danger ; but in a 
 kindly notice of a volume which I published a year 
 or two ago, the writer complained that my illustra- 
 tions were " provincial." The complaint was a just 
 one. Human life, as I know it, is the life of Birming- 
 ham manufacturers, merchants, and tradesmen, and 
 
152 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 of Birmingham working-people who work in iron, 
 and brass, and tin, who make pens, and guns, and 
 jewellery, hardware of all sorts, and beautiful things 
 in silver and gold. When I think of human life I 
 think of it in the forms which it assumes among the 
 people with whom I have lived for more than thirty 
 years. I think of the troubles and temptations which 
 come to them in their trade, and of their keen in- 
 terest in public affairs. And if I am to illustrate the 
 dangers of intellectual covetousness I cannot illustrate 
 them from the life of literary or fashionable people 
 in London, or from the life of ladies and gentlemen 
 living in pleasant country houses. I must take the 
 material which lies under my hand. Mutato nomine^ 
 de te fabula narratur. 
 
 For a man who has a keen delight in literature, 
 and who can snatch only an hour or two now and 
 then for reading, it is not a pleasant thing on a 
 winter's evening, when he happens to be at leisure, 
 and when he might have two or three hours of per- 
 fect happiness with a poet, with an historian, with 
 some master of philosophy, or with some charming 
 essayist — it is not, I say, a pleasant thing for him to 
 leave his warm room and his books, and to walk a 
 mile or two through the damp and cold, to be present 
 at a meeting of the " eight hundred," or to speak for 
 a municipal candidate in a noisy Ward meeting, or to 
 attend a Ward committee. It is not a pleasant thing 
 for such a man to give a couple of hours to a hospital 
 meeting in the morning, or two or three hours to a 
 
THE GRACE OF CHRIST A LAIV OF CONDUCT. 153 
 
 meeting of the School Board in the afternoon, know- 
 ing that after dinner he will be obliged to work off 
 the business letters of the day, instead of being free 
 to read some delightful book on the history of Art 
 For a Sunday-school teacher to give up an evening 
 every week for the preparation of his lessons instead 
 of attending a class in some science in which he is 
 interested, for the conductor of a Band of Hope to 
 make a similar sacrifice, requires a real and vigorous 
 moral effort. 
 
 In the case of hundreds and thousands of us, in 
 every part of the country, one public claim after 
 another interferes with intellectual cultivation. We 
 miss the opportunity of adding to our knowledge ; 
 we lose what we once knew. We are humbled when 
 we are with men and women who have not been 
 called to the service which we have endeavoured to 
 render to others, or who have declined it, and who 
 have been able to accumulate an intellectual wealth 
 which is in vivid contrast to our own poverty. 
 Perhaps we think that our native powers were not 
 inferior to theirs, that we had an equal passion for 
 intellectual achievement, and are capable of an equal 
 industry. If it happens that they assume airs of 
 superiority, it is hardly possible for us not to resent 
 the assumption, although in our better moments we 
 are conscious that their superiority is indisputable, 
 and that their intellectual resources are really larger 
 and more varied than our own. But that is a noble X 
 poverty which comes upon men as the result of the ' 
 
154 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 free and voluntary service which they have rendered 
 to the ignorant, the suffering, and the wretched — to 
 their town, to their country, and to the Christian 
 Church. It involves no disgrace. The poverty is 
 real ; there is folly in the refusal to recognise it ; but 
 it is a poverty which brings us into closer fellowship 
 with Christ, who, though He was rich, yet for our 
 sakes became poor, that we, through His poverty, 
 might become rich. 
 
 I do not mean that young men and women should 
 let the golden years of youth slip by without a 
 serious attempt to carry on the studies which were 
 only begun at school, and to acquire some knowledge 
 of the glorious literature which is the noble inheri- 
 tance of all Englishmen. For the sake of doing 
 more effective work in future years, as well as for 
 the sake of their own intellectual cultivation, they 
 ought to avail themselves of those means of in- 
 tellectual improvement which are within their reach. 
 But there is a point — every one must determine it 
 for himself — at which the claims of our own intellect 
 must give place to the claims of human want and 
 misery. We must consent to be intellectually im- 
 poverished ourselves for the sake of increasing the 
 wealth of other men. 
 
 The law extends to a still higher province of 
 human life. It requires us to sacrifice religious 
 advantages for the sake of others. There may be 
 a certain selfishness in the hunger for religious know- 
 ledge and religious enjoyment, as well as in the 
 
THE GRACE OF CHRIST A LAW OF CONDUCT. 155 
 
 cultivation of the intellect, in the pursuit of social 
 pleasures, and in dealing with money. Whatever 
 may be said about the worthlessness of sermons, 
 and the dulness of public worship, there are large 
 numbers of people who listen to preaching with 
 keen interest, and to whom the sermons and worship 
 of Sunday are the strength and joy of life. But 
 their true place on Sunday may not always be at 
 church, but at the bedside of a parent, a child, a 
 friend, a man that works with them in the same ware- 
 house, or a neighbour living in the same street. If 
 they make the grace of Christ the law of conduct 
 they may have to watch by the sick when they would 
 like to be worshipping God. Or, perhaps, their true 
 place is with some aged person, weary of the mono- 
 tony of living week after week in the same room, 
 and weary of almost unbroken solitude ; or, perhaps, 
 with husbands, brothers, wives, of whom they can 
 see little during the week, who will not come with 
 them to worship, whose affection they are losing and 
 whose happiness they are marring, while enriching 
 their own religious life. Every one must judge for 
 himself. 
 
 Or perhaps they could give more to others by 
 mission work, or school work, on Sunday evenings 
 than they could gain for themselves by listening to 
 sermons and joining in prayer and song. The work 
 involves a real loss to those who engage in it — a loss 
 of religious knowledge and of the religious refresh- 
 ment which would make life easier and brighter. 
 
156 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 But if the sacrifice is made under the inspiration of 
 a desire to serve others, it is a part of that imitation 
 of Christ which is the law of the Christian Hfe. 
 
 Of the more heroic forms in which the law is illus- 
 trated — of the courage and self-devotion of those who, 
 at the impulse of love for Christ and mankind, leave 
 home and country and friends, the refinements and 
 the intellectual excitements of civilized life, the noble 
 virtues and the sacred purity of Christian society, in 
 order to live among heathen and barbarous people, I 
 will say nothing. They have heard a divine voice ; 
 they know the secret of the voluntary poverty of Christ 
 as I cannot know it. But to the imitation of Christ 
 all Christian people are called ; and in all human 
 conditions it is possible to translate into conduct the 
 law of Christian perfection. It is not merely in the 
 virtues of His human life — this is the point of my 
 paper — that Christ is our example. According to 
 the measures of our strength we are to imitate the 
 infinite grace which, for our sake, brought Him from 
 heights of divine majesty to the weakness, the 
 poverty, and the suffering which had become the 
 inheritance of the human race. In His incarnation 
 He has given us an example that we should walk 
 in His steps. 
 
X. 
 
 ANXIETY ABOUT THE FUTURE. 
 
 IT is a common complaint that the morals of those 
 who profess to be governed by the laws of Christ 
 are not exceptionally noble and generous, and that 
 the differences between the Church and the world 
 are, for the most part, merely technical and artificial. 
 The charge is often grossly exaggerated, but there is 
 too much truth in it. 
 
 One reason is to be found in the want of Christian 
 orthodoxy among those who profess to be orthodox 
 Christians. Between right thinking and right prac- 
 tice, Christian faith and Christian conduct, there are 
 the closest and most vital relations. Now it is one 
 of the chief elements of Christian orthodoxy to 
 recognise the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ 
 over every province of human life. We profess to 
 concede His claims. We say that all heresy has its 
 roots in revolt against His authority. And yet we 
 tamper with His plainest words. We pass some of 
 them over as being inapplicable to the conditions of 
 modern life. We assume that they may be dis- 
 regarded without guilt. 
 
 157 
 
158 LAM^S OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 " Be not anxious for the morrow : for the morrow 
 shall be anxious for itself" These words are just as 
 authoritative for all Christians as the Ten Com- 
 mandments were for the Jews. The Jews were not 
 to work on the Sabbath ; we are not to be " anxious, 
 saying, what shall we eat ? or, what shall we drink ? 
 or, wherewithal shall we be clothed ? " But I sup- 
 pose that many excellent Christians think that what- 
 ever the words may have meant eighteen hundred 
 years ago, they mean very little or nothing now. 
 
 There are some great laws which we know are 
 authoritative. We must not lie. We must not 
 steal. We must not get drunk. We must not per- 
 mit ourselves to be mastered by revengeful passion. 
 We should be tortured with self-reproach if we com- 
 mitted any of these oftences. If a man we knew 
 was guilty of lying, theft, drunkenness, malignity, we 
 should regard his profession of religious earnestness 
 as hypocritical. He might, indeed, lie once, under 
 the stress of strong temptation ; or he might get 
 drunk once, in an hour of excitement and thought- 
 lessness, without wrecking our confidence in him ; 
 but if the offence was repeated we should lose all 
 faith in his religious sincerity. 
 
 We do not apply the same rule to transgressions 
 of many of Christ's precepts. Men go on breaking 
 them all their lives ; and though we may be sorry for 
 them, it does not occur to us that their disobedience 
 is inconsistent with their Christian integrity. We 
 break them ourselves, break them constantly, and 
 
ANXIETY ABOUT THE FUTURE. 159 
 
 yet never ask whether this revolt against Christ's 
 authority is consistent with Christian Faith. 
 
 I have on my shelves two folio volumes contain- 
 ing a collection of English ecclesiastical laws. The 
 editor, Bishop Gibson, has printed in black-letter 
 the laws which are no longer in force ; which have 
 been repealed, or which have become obsolete. It 
 would be convenient, it would be very instructive, if 
 some competent editor were to prepare an edition 
 of the New Testament on the same principle ; dis- 
 tinguishing between those laws which are regarded 
 by the Church as still in force, and those which are 
 regarded as obsolescent, or silently repealed by 
 change of circumstances or lapse of time. I am 
 afraid that he would have to print in black-letter 
 very many of Christ's precepts ; this among the 
 number : " Be not anxious for the morrow." 
 
 And yet it is a very practical precept and a very 
 reasonable one. It is a precept which if we received 
 it heartily into our moral code and tried to keep it, 
 would add very much to our effective strength and 
 lift from our shoulders some of the burdens by which 
 we are crushed. 
 
 For a great part, perhaps the greater part, of the , 
 misery of the human race comes, not from the actual 
 presence of trouble, but from the dread of it. Very 
 often our fears enormously exaggerate the real evils 
 by which we are threatened : very often we are 
 haunted by fears which are altogether imaginary. 
 Apart from the distress which is occasioned by the 
 
i6o LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 apprehension of definite troubles, strength is worn, 
 peace destroyed, happiness ruined, by vague anxi- 
 eties about possible sorrows. The lives of men are 
 shortened, not so much by hard work as by inces- 
 sant and unnecessary worry. 
 
 No class of the community appears to be exempt 
 from this curse. Even the kind of anxiety which our 
 Lord was specially condemning — anxiety about the 
 means of living — extends through all ranks and 
 follows men through all changes of condition. A 
 working-man thinks that with an increase of five 
 or ten shillings a week in his wages he would be 
 released from all care ; the increase comes, and he 
 is anxious still. His income is doubled, and he is 
 sometimes more anxious than ever. Men look at 
 people whose resources are much larger than their 
 own, and envy them ; but talk to those who seem 
 fortunate and prosperous, and sometimes you will 
 find that they are just as restless about the future 
 as the men that envy them. The more they have 
 the more they can lose. As their property extends 
 it is in danger at more numerous points. Many 
 rich men seem to be as constantly haunted by care 
 as the poor. 
 
 It has always been so. Two thousand years ago 
 men dreaded poverty, sickness, bereavement, loss 
 of honour, loss of power, just as they dread these 
 calamities to-day. The moralists of antiquity at- 
 tempted to discover a remedy for the universal evil. 
 Some of them thought that the remedy was to be 
 
ANXIETY ABOUT THE FUTURE. i6r 
 
 found in a frank and courageous acceptance of the 
 obvious fact that the future is beyond our power, 
 and that true wisdom, therefore, lies in enjoying 
 the present. We may lose our property to-morrow, 
 but it is ours to-day ; we may have to suffer pain 
 to-morrow, but we are at ease to-day ; our children 
 may be struck for death to-morrow, but to-day their 
 eyes are bright, and their laughter musical, and the 
 sunshine of our lives is unclouded. The wise man 
 will seize the day as it passes, enjoy its pleasures, 
 and wait for the troubles of the future till they come. 
 Stoicism struck a loftier note. Epictetus and Marcus 
 Aurelius told men that the things which are not 
 in our own power are neither good nor evil. Poverty 
 and wealth are the mere accidents of life : if a man 
 becomes poor he himself is no worse ; if he becomes 
 rich he himself is no better ; and it is the same with 
 pain and ease, honour and shame. What a man 
 should care for is that which is really a part of his 
 own life and under his own control. It is always in 
 our power to be just, courageous, temperate. Virtue 
 is not the sport of Fortune. Whoever is virtuous 
 secures the substantial good of life : all else the wise 
 man regards with indifference. 
 
 That is a noble doctrine. It contains much more 
 than half the truth. When the evils of life are re- 
 mote it fills the heart with enthusiasm ; v/e think 
 that it will enable us to meet and to bear the worst 
 sorrows ; but when troubles are actually upon us we 
 exclaim, " This is a hard saying ; who can hear it t " 
 
 M 
 
1-62 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 Christ was no Stoic. He never told His disciples 
 that their inheritance in the eternal glories of the 
 Divine kingdom should make them insensible to 
 common troubles. He never said that the common 
 sufferings of the race are not real evils. His feet 
 were always on the solid earth, and His teach- 
 ing, even when it seems most ideal, has its roots in 
 the realities of human life. He had become flesh, 
 and He was in immediate contact with the rudest, 
 coarsest, most homely facts of common experience. 
 He knew that thirst is a real pain, even though a 
 man has the vision of God and the hope of an 
 immortality of blessedness. He knew that it is a 
 bad thing to be starved, whatever consolation a 
 starving man may find in the Divine love. He knew 
 that frost and snow and the cruel east wind, if we are 
 unprotected against them by warm clothing, are real 
 evils to the saint as well as to the sinner. 
 
 Christ does not say that the wise man should be 
 
 •^ insensible to hunger, thirst, and want of shelter 
 
 against rain and cold ; that we should regard it as 
 
 a matter of indifference whether we have anything 
 
 L to eat, drink, and to put on. He says the precise 
 
 opposite of this. He says that God knows that we 
 
 \ have need of all these things. Nothing could be more 
 
 Iremote from a visionary and impossible Stoicism. 
 
 He confirms and sanctions by an appeal to the 
 
 authority of the eternal God the cravings of hunger 
 
 and thirst, and the demands of the sensitive body 
 
 for protection and warmth. He to whom the pains 
 
ANXIETY ABOUT THE FUTURE. 163 
 
 and pleasures of our mortal life must seem so tran- 
 sient and so brief, knows that we need the supplies 
 of our physical wants. 
 
 It would have been fanaticism if our Lord had 
 said that His disciples were to give up working, and 
 to depend for food and clothing on the providence 
 of God ; but He did not say that. The birds of the 
 air do not sow or reap or gather into barns ; but 
 Christ does not tell us that we are to follow their 
 example and to leave our fields unploughed, or to 
 let the wheat rot on the ground in harvest time, 
 relying on God to feed us with bread from heaven. 
 The lilies of the Syrian fields are clothed with a 
 beauty beyond that of the robes of kings ; but there 
 is not a word to intimate that the followers of Christ 
 are to leave their looms idle, and to expect angels 
 to bring them garments of celestial tissue and shining 
 with celestial splendour. 
 
 What Christ does say is that to make riches our 
 master and to spend life in getting the means of 
 living is inconsistent with living for God ; that to 
 be absorbed in anxiety about food and clothing is 
 to forget that there is a Providence which feeds the 
 birds and makes the flowers beautiful, and that we 
 are of much greater worth in God's sight than they 
 are ; that this anxiety is useless, for though we can 
 do a great deal by work, we can do nothing by 
 worry ; that the Gentiles — the heathen — may be 
 anxious about what they are to eat and to drink, 
 and about wherewithal they are to be clothed ; 
 
i64 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 but that we who know that we have a Father in 
 heaven should be free from sordid care, and should 
 set our hearts upon God's kingdom and the right- 
 eousness of God ; that we may be sure that we shall 
 receive from God all necessary things ; that the 
 anxiety of to-day will not lighten the burden of 
 to-morrow, and that every day brings with it its 
 full share of trouble and danger ; the evil of to-day 
 is sufficient for to-day. 
 
 I have spoken of these words as if they were a 
 law : it would be more just to describe them as a 
 gospel — Christ's Gospel for those who are worried 
 with incessant cares about the common necessities of 
 life — Christ's Gospel for those whose strength is worn 
 and whose hearts are wearied by any great anxiety 
 about the future. His Gospel would be incomplete 
 if it contained no message for those who are suffering 
 from these great evils. For Christ claims authority 
 over the whole of human life, and it is one of the 
 initial assumptions of the Christian Faith that His 
 grace extends beyond the limits of His law. There 
 is no precept of Christ's that is not heralded by a 
 promise ; every revelation of human duty rests upon 
 a still larger revelation of Divine love. The com- 
 mandments which God has given us through Him are 
 "exceeding broad ;" the grace is broader still. 
 
 It is a melancholy consideration that after the 
 Gospel has been in the world for more than eighteen 
 hundred years a large part of it remains unknown. 
 Men think that Christ has much to say about the 
 
ANXIETY ABOUT THE FUTURE. 165 
 
 next world, but that He has very little to say about 
 this. The Gospel, so they feel, is foreign to the 
 interests which are nearest to us and most urgent ; 
 it relates to unseen and eternal worlds. There is no 
 great need to think of it till the joys and duties of 
 this life are exhausted and the supreme mystery of 
 Death is at hand. 
 
 And yet Christ — shall I say } — took a great deal of 
 trouble to give a wholly different impression of His 
 mission. It is very natural for us to think that 
 religion concerns Eternity and not Time ; that the 
 Infinite God can care nothing about our poverty, 
 hunger, pain ; and that He must care everything 
 about our thoughts of Himself, our worship, our 
 loyalty, obedience, and trust. But a great part of 
 Christ's brief ministry was spent in healing disease, 
 in giving sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, 
 speech to the dumb ; and these miracles are a 
 revelation to every age. If we learnt the Gospel at 
 first hand the impression that Christ has nothing to 
 do with our common human experiences would be 
 impossible. 
 
 The precept forbidding anxiety about to-morrow is 
 one of the ways in which Christ reveals the Father- 
 hood of God. He tells us that we are to live as 
 children ; that God cares for us ; that we can 
 perfectly trust the love, the wisdom, the power of our 
 Father in heaven. Look at a child and see the 
 difference between its life and the life of its parents. 
 It needs food and clothing and a home; but the 
 
1 66 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 planning and scheming and labour to provide for the 
 child's wants belong to its father and mother. A 
 child is suffering from illness ; it shrinks from pain ; 
 but the father and mother have anxieties about the 
 illness of which the child knows nothing. They 
 watch the changing symptoms ; they endeavour to 
 follow the directions of the doctor ; there is fore- 
 thought in the evening about what will be wanted in 
 the night ; there is consideration about what must be 
 done for the child when health begins to return. And 
 Christ tells us that we are to live as children. We 
 may have to suffer ; we are obliged to work ; but the 
 anxiety is to be left to God. "Be not anxious, saying, 
 What shall we eat 1 or, What shall we drink } or, 
 Wherewithal shall we be clothed 1 . . . For your 
 heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all 
 these things. But seek ye first His kingdom, and 
 His righteousness; and all these things shall be added 
 unto you." 
 
 This is not only a part of the Christian Gospel ; it 
 is a very important part. It is not enough to believe 
 that we have sinned against God, and that Christ 
 came into the world that our sins might be forgiven 
 and that we might have eternal life and eternal 
 righteousness. Do we also believe that God knows 
 that we have need of food and clothing, a roof to 
 shelter us from rain and storm, and a hundred other 
 things that contribute to physical health and vigour } 
 Do we believe that we may trust in God for these 
 things as well as for the knowledge of Himself, peace 
 
ANXIETY ABOUT THE FUTURE. 167 
 
 of heart, wisdom, courage, and strength to keep His 
 commandments ? Or do we think that our physical 
 wants are beneath God's notice and that He regards 
 them with indifference ? If so, we believe only part 
 of the Gospel ; and the part we believe will be largely 
 deprived of its power by our rejection of the rest. 
 
 For, however unimportant we may suppose our 
 physical wants must appear to God, they are very 
 important to us. If we begin by thinking that they 
 lie below the reach of God's providence we shall be 
 very anxious about them ourselves. " The care of the 
 world " will choke the seed sown by the Son of Man, 
 and the Divine word will be unfruitful. I suppose 
 that many people are " lost," in the awful sense in 
 which the word is used by the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 because they have never come to believe the Gospel 
 which underlies our Lord's precepts against anxiety 
 about to-morrow. 
 
 Christ's teaching carries with it the assurance that 
 in some way or another God will provide that the 
 common blessings of this life shall reach us, unless 
 there is some good reason why they should not. 
 
 " Unless " : but does not this spoil all .? If we had 
 an unqualified assurance that God would give us 
 them, this would be a gospel indeed ; but to be told 
 that there may be a good reason why He should not 
 give them is to throw us back on the common-places 
 of an optimistic philosophy. For my part, I am not 
 an optimist. This is not the best of all possible 
 worlds. If all men were just, truthful, temperate, 
 
1 68 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 kindly, industrious, provident, it would be a very 
 much better world. It is not God alone that has had 
 the shaping of the conditions of human life and the 
 history of mankind. He has called us into fellowship 
 or partnership with Himself, and our share of the 
 work has been done very badly. Whenever we pray 
 that God's will may be done on earth as it is done 
 in heaven, we imply that at present His will is in 
 many ways obstructed and defeated. 
 
 But Christ has taught us that God is our Father, 
 and we rob the name of its meaning if we 
 suppose that God regards our perils with an in- 
 effectual alarm and our miseries with an impotent 
 pity. Kings are related to their subjects through 
 general laws ; the relations of fathers to their children 
 are direct, personal, individual. It is mere mockery 
 to tell us that our Father knows that we have need of 
 food and drink and clothing if He is so fettered by 
 what we describe as the general laws of His adminis- 
 tration that He is unable to supply them. His know- 
 ledge that we need them gives no comfort, inspires 
 no trust, relieves no anxiety. The most useless of 
 our friends has the same knowledge. Christ means 
 us to believe that God will help us. 
 
 "Unless there is some good reason" why He should 
 not. He may sometimes see good reason for per- 
 mitting us to suffer from other men's sins and follies 
 or from our own. He may sometimes see good 
 reason for permitting us to suffer harm from acci- 
 dental causes or from storms, or floods, or earth- 
 
ANXIETY ABOUT THE FUTURE. 169 
 
 quakes, fierce heat, or malignant winds. But wlien , 
 He does, it should be an infinite relief to be assured 
 that He not only knows our trouble but would have 
 averted it had it not been, on the whole, better that 
 we should sufi"er than that we should be delivered 
 from suffering. 
 
 It may be thought that Christ's revelation of God's 
 interest in our physical wants, though a source of 
 comfort, has no close relation to morals. But His 
 words take the form of a precept, not of a promise : 
 " Be not anxious for your life . . . nor yet for 
 your body ... Be not anxious, saying, What 
 shall we eat ? or, What shall we drink .^ . . . Be 
 not anxious for the morrow." Trust in God is a 
 large element of Christian perfection. Nor is this 
 all. Christ enables us to keep some of His com- 
 mandments by giving us another commandment to 
 keep. If we were not eager and anxious about 
 food, drink, clothing, we should be placed beyond the 
 reach of many fatal temptations. It is this eager- 
 ness that makes us irritable, mean, hard, ungenerous. 
 It is this anxiety which exposes us to temptations 
 which assault our moral integrity and which some- 
 times end in moral disaster and ruin. Christ saves 
 men from lying, selfishness, dishonesty, by telling 
 them to cast their care on God. We break this 
 commandment and, therefore, we break many others. 
 
 In modern Christian thought there are two ten- 
 dencies which are wholly irreconcilable ; sooner or 
 later one of them must be mastered by the other. 
 
170 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 As yet it may seem hard to prophesy which will be 
 victorious. 
 
 On the one hand it is thought incredible that God 
 should interfere to shelter us from physical harm and 
 to supply our physical wants. Excellent Christian 
 people shrink from asking God for any blessings that 
 will lessen the gloom or add to the brightness of their 
 earthly life. ' Health and strength are determined 
 ' by general laws ; they are to be secured by temper- 
 ' ance, by exercise, by breathing pure air, by attention 
 *to all that science has discovered concerning the causes 
 ' of disease. Success in business — this is not a matter 
 
 * which a Christian man has a right to pray for ; it 
 'depends partly on skill, capital, and industry ; partly 
 ' on circumstances which are beyond our own control, 
 *and with which God will not interfere. We may 
 
 * rely upon God's defence and guidance in the higher 
 ' regions of life ; but in its inferior provinces we are 
 
 * left to do our best without any Divine assistance ; 
 
 * in these we are in contact with general laws and can 
 ' find no trace of a living, personal God.' 
 
 On the other hand, it is one of the deepest con- 
 victions of our times that unless religious faith is 
 good for a great deal in common life, it is good for 
 nothing. We are told to find God — not in creeds 
 merely, or in sacred books, or in sacraments, or in 
 prayers, or in the miracles of remote ages, or in visions 
 of glory beyond death, but in the counting-house, 
 the manufactory, and the consulting-room, in the 
 laboratory, and in Parliament, wherever human hands 
 
ANXIETY ABOUT THE FUTURE. 171 
 
 are working, wherever human hearts are suffering : a 
 faith that does not fill this world with God as well 
 as worlds unseen is unreal and worthless. 
 
 But if we are to recognise the authority of the 
 Personal God in our common life, we must also 
 recognise His care. Wherever God is present to 
 rule He is also present to help. If we never speak ^ 
 to God about our business, our business will soon 
 cease to be a Divine vocation and a Divine service. I 
 Whatever lies beyond the reach of prayer, lies beyond 
 the boundaries of religious duty. We have to make 
 our choice between these' conflicting tendencies. To 
 give religious faith its true place in common life, we 
 must accept all Christ's teaching, and not a part of 
 it merely ; and we must learn all that He meant 
 concerning God's relations to the transient sorrows 
 and joys of this world when He said, " Be not 
 anxious, saying, What shall we eat t or. What shall we 
 drink t or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed ? . . . 
 For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need 
 of all these things." 
 
XL 
 
 FAMILY LIFE.'' 
 
 ABOUT the infancy and childhood of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ the writers of the four Gospels are 
 almost silent. 
 
 For a long time this reticence of the four evangel- 
 ists controlled the thought and spirit of the Christian 
 Church. Our Lord's sacrifice for the sin of the 
 world, His victory over death, were the central and 
 most absorbing objects of early Christian devotion. 
 Of the festival of Christmas we find no trace till 
 about three hundred years after the Crucifixion. The 
 festivals of the early Church were the Lord's Supper, 
 which commemorated His death as a sacrifice for sin, 
 and the First day of the week, which commemorated 
 His Resurrection. 
 
 How soon painters began to delight in those repre- 
 sentations of the Virgin and Child and of the Holy 
 Family, which are now to be found in such endless 
 numbers on the walls of all the picture galleries of 
 Europe, I do not know. Perhaps they were sug- 
 gested by the tendency which ultimately led to the 
 
 ^ This paper was written for Christmas Day. 
 
 ^73 
 
174 I^AIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 enthronement of the mother of our Lord in a dignity 
 which she would have repelled with dismay and 
 abhorrence ; they have certainly encouraged and 
 strengthened the idolatrous homage with which she 
 has been regarded for many centuries. In the child- 
 hood of our Lord, Mary was His protector, defender, 
 and ruler. To her belonged authority, and to Him 
 submission. I suspect that artists have done as 
 much as theologians to teach millions of men that 
 her dignity is permanent, and that the surest method 
 of securing the grace of Christ is to appeal to the 
 tenderness of His mother. 
 
 In another way art has misled the imagination of 
 the Church, and by misleading its imagination has 
 inflicted the gravest injury on its spiritual life. The 
 kind of affection with which we regard a child is not 
 the kind of affection which we should cherish for 
 Him who is the Prince of the human race, the Judge 
 of men, and who, even during the years of His 
 humiliation, gave laws which have authority for all 
 mankind and promises which are the solace and the 
 support both of penitents and saints. The four 
 ^ evangelists — even those of them who tell the story 
 of His birth — are careful not to place Him vividly 
 before us until He has reached the maturity of His 
 strength and is armed with the power which stilled 
 the storm and raised the dead. 
 
 And yet it is true that He was once a child, and 
 was subject to the authority of Joseph and Mary. It 
 is also true that even after He reached manhood He 
 
FAMILY LIFE. 175 
 
 continued to walk for some years in the quiet paths 
 of life. The moral perfections of God were trans- 
 lated into those unostentatious virtues which con- 
 stitute the dignity and the happiness of a human 
 home. Within the narrow limits of the Family the 
 Lord Jesus Christ revealed the glory of the Divine 
 righteousness and the Divine love. 
 
 What was large enough for Christ during thirty 
 years of His earthly history must surely be large 
 enough for most of us. There are men and women 
 who resent the mean and poor conditions under 
 which they have to do the will of God, and who 
 dream of what they might achieve if they had 
 ampler space for their activities. They have not 
 room enough — so they think — to be very good. 
 They have it in their hearts to show a regal com- 
 passion to the miserable, and heroic chivalry and 
 courage in the vindication of the oppressed. But 
 for regal virtues they think that regal resources are 
 necessary ; and they suppose that heroic circum- 
 stances are necessary for the manifestation of the 
 heroic spirit. It may be well for them to remember 
 on Christmas Day, that for thirty years Christ lived 
 a divinely perfect life within the walls of a peasant's 
 home, and that in the trade of a carpenter and in 
 His relations to His friends and neighbours in an 
 obscure town among the hills of Galilee, He was 
 able to show a glorious fidelity to the eternal laws 
 of righteousness. 
 
 For all of us our life at home must constitute a 
 
176 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 great part of that life in which, by patient continu- 
 ance in well-doing, we have to seek for glory, honour, 
 and immortality ; for many of us it practically con- 
 stitutes the whole. There are millions of women 
 millions of girls, to say nothing of little children, 
 who have no life worth speaking of beyond the 
 boundaries of the family. Whatever fidelity to God, 
 whatever love for Christ, whatever justice, whatever 
 kindness, generosity and gentleness they are to illus- 
 trate in their spirit and conduct, must be illustrated 
 there. And even men who have their business and 
 their profession to follow during the greater part of 
 the day find occasion in their home-life for forms of 
 well-doing and ill-doing that are not possible else- 
 where. I like a broad and rich life for myself — full 
 of varied interests ; and I should like to see the lives 
 of most men, and of most women too, animated by 
 the inspiration, and refreshed by the free air, of acti- 
 vities and interests outside their own home. But no 
 shining achievements elsewhere can palliate the guilt 
 of coldness, injustice, ill-temper in the family ; and 
 the noblest public virtues have their roots in the 
 gentleness, the industry, the self-sacrifice, and the 
 truthfulness, of which only those who are nearest to 
 us have any knowledge. 
 
 And so on Christmas morning it will be well to 
 ask ourselves whether the obscure duties which lie 
 nearest to us — duties with which for thirty years 
 Christ was perfectly content — are being faithfully 
 discharged. Are there none at home to whom we 
 
FAMILY LIFE. 177 
 
 could be more just — in whom we could repose a 
 more generous confidence — whom we could cherish 
 with a warmer affection — who claim from us a more 
 patient forbearance ? If we are parents, is our 
 authority exercised at once with firmness and con- 
 sideration ? If children, do we yield a frank and 
 cheerful obedience? Whatever we are, do we find 
 at home occasions for showing that sympathy with 
 sorrow and with joy, which heightens the happiness 
 of the happy and almost charms away the grief of 
 the sad ? What are the burdens which our strength 
 might enable those nearest to us to bear more easily ? 
 What are the anxieties which our thoughtfulness and 
 care might diminish ? 
 
 It is almost inevitable that I should quote the well- 
 known verses of Keble : — 
 
 " We need not bid for cloistered cell 
 Our neighbour and our work farewell ; 
 Nor strive to wind ourselves too high 
 For mortal man beneath the sky. 
 
 " The trivial round, the common task, 
 Will furnish all we ought to ask : 
 Room to deny ourselves, a road 
 To bring us daily nearer God." 
 
 The verses are excellent in their way, and, as I 
 have said, it was almost inevitable that I should quote 
 them. But in their soft music there is, perhaps, a 
 false note ; perhaps, indeed, there are two false notes. 
 
 For Keble suggests that we need not go to the clois- 
 ter, because home affords all that the cloister can give. 
 
 N 
 
178 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 But home affords 7nore — immeasurably more — than 
 the cloister can give : the opportunities for a more 
 varied virtue, for a richer and fuller perfection. And 
 the second false note is the natural sequence of the 
 first. Home is sufficient for us, Keble says, because 
 it will furnish " room to dejiy ourselves." No doubt. 
 But I should be very sorry for the people that I live 
 with to discharge their home duties in the spirit of 
 martyrs. God preserve us all from wives, husbands, 
 )C children, brothers, and sisters, who go about the 
 house with an air of celestial resignation ! There are 
 homes in which I think I have caught a glimpse of 
 people of that kind. They perform every duty with 
 a faultless exactness, an exactness precise enough 
 to irritate a saint. They submit with exemplary 
 patience to every inconvenience, and are rather 
 grateful than otherwise for the disappointments and 
 vexations which sometimes disturb the smooth cur- 
 rents of life in the happiest families. But they regard 
 the claims of others as affording opportunities for 
 acts of self-denial which take the place of the hair- 
 shirt and the fasting a nd the scourge of the monastic 
 life, a penance to be endured for the discipline of 
 their perfection. 
 
 The lines rest on a poor, mean, un-Christian con- 
 ception of self-denial, which I cannot stay to discuss. 
 They also set the home-life in a false key. Self-denial ! 
 This is not what we ought to think of in connection 
 with wife or husband, parent or child, brother or 
 sister ; but the joy of affectionate and hearty service 
 
FAMILY LIFE. 179 
 
 for others. It is no self-denial for a man to wear an 
 old coat a little longer that his wife may have a new 
 dress, or for a mother to go on wearing an old 
 bonnet that one of her children may have a new 
 pair of boots. Where there is the kind of love which 
 ought to bind all hearts together in a home, the 
 happiness of life comes from giving our own pleasant 
 things to those who are dear to us. 
 
 I like Miss Waring's tone better than Keble's : — 
 
 " I ask thee for a thoughtful love, ^ 
 
 Through constant watching wise, 
 
 To meet the glad with joyful smiles, 
 And wipe the weeping eyes ; 
 
 A heart at leisure from itself, 
 To sooth and sympathise. 
 
 " Wherever in the world I am, 
 
 In whatsoe'er estate, 
 I have a fellowship with hearts 
 
 To keep and cultivate ; 
 A work of lowly love to do 
 
 For Him on whom I wait. 
 
 " I ask Thee for the daily strength, 
 To none that ask denied ; 
 A mind to blend with outward life, 
 
 While keeping at Thy side ; 
 Content to fill a little space. 
 If Thou be glorified." 
 
 But even in these beautiful lines there is the 
 absence of that healthy unconsciousness which is 
 the strength and charm of goodness. The absence is 
 natural ; for the writer spent many years in a sick- 
 room, and it was in broken health and while enduring 
 
i8o LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 suffering that she wrote the hymns which have 
 contributed some of the sweetest and gentlest ele- 
 ments to the religious life of our times. On the 
 whole I think that I like best the manly simplicity 
 of Wordsworth's lines : — 
 
 " God for His service needeth not proud work of human skill : 
 They please Him best who labour most to do in peace His 
 
 will ; 
 So let us strive to live, and to our spirits will be given 
 Such wings as when our Saviour calls shall bear us up to 
 Heaven." 
 
 And it is in the discharge of the quiet duties of 
 the family, in the unostentatious charities and the 
 unromantic heroisms of the home, in the trifling ser- 
 vices, rendered almost without thought, and received 
 almost without recognition, that most of us have to 
 do the will of God. 
 
 In the course of twelve months it is very possible 
 that even in homes where every heart is loyal to 
 righteousness and to God, the relations of one or 
 another member of the family to the rest may have 
 become so uneasy, that the ideal life has been almost 
 lost. Negligences too slight to be named, too slight 
 to be distinctly remembered, may have gradually 
 created a sense of discomfort. In some cases there 
 have been grave faults which have created great un- 
 happiness. On Christmas Day, which is as much a 
 festival of the Family as a festival of the Church, 
 estrangements which have separated hearts that cling 
 together notwithstanding estrangement should cease, 
 
FAMILY LIFE. i8i , 
 
 and the ties which unite them should be drawn closer 
 and firmer. It is the day of all the year for children 
 to forget — if their parents have worried and vexed 
 them ; for parents to forget — if their children have 
 been undutiful and ungrateful ; for brothers and 
 sisters to brush away the jealousies and resentments 
 which have troubled their mutual confidence, and 
 lessened or rather repressed their mutual affection ; 
 for husbands and wives to renew the romance of their 
 courtship. There may be faults to forgive ; of course i^ 
 there are ; but you will never come to an agreement 
 if you try to estimate how much wrong there has 
 been on one side and how much on the other. The 
 heart is a bad accountant ; it was never yet able to 
 draw up a balance-sheet that any impartial auditor 
 would sign. Let by-gones be by-gones ; kiss and 
 have done with them. 
 
 I wonder whether it would be of the slightest use 
 to say anything to those of my readers who are not 
 yet detached from the homes into which they were 
 born, but who are beginning to think that it would be 
 pleasant to have homes of their own. I do not know 
 whether more young people fall in love with each 
 other — or think they do — at parties and balls in 
 winter, or on the lawn-tennis ground and at picnics 
 in summer ; both seasons are severely fatal. The 
 destiny of not a few of my younger readers will 
 probably be decided within the next few weeks. 
 
 With an honourable girl — with an honourable man 
 — an engagement carries with it something more 
 
1 82 LAIVS OF CHRISl FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 than a few sunny months of courtship. After court- 
 ship comes marriage. After marriage comes the 
 home. To describe the reasons which to some young 
 people seem quite sufficient to justify them, first in 
 flirting, and then in getting " engaged," would answer 
 no good purpose. The reasons are too trivial, too flag- 
 rantly absurd, to bear putting into words, and I have 
 no pleasure in mocking at human folly, especially 
 when the folly is likely to lead to years of misery 
 and shame. 
 
 But — putting aside the indirect manner in which 
 writers address their readers — let me speak frankly 
 to you as a friend to a friend. Let me ask you to 
 consider what you must have in your future husband, 
 in your future wife, to make it even tolerable to spend 
 twenty or thirty or forty years together. I will not 
 insist on the elements which are necessary to the 
 romantic perfection of married life ; for most of us 
 are commonplace people and a life of romance is 
 beyond our reach. There are some very common- 
 place things you ought to make sure of. 
 
 Good sound health is one thing ; there are twenty 
 grave reasons for insisting on it. Next to this I 
 should put perfect truthfulness ; the man who will lie 
 to other people will lie to his wife ; the girl who will 
 lie to other people will lie to her husband. Next 
 to truthfulness — temperance, industry, and courage. 
 Then, fortitude ; that is the power to bear pain and 
 trouble without whining. Then, unselfishness ; for 
 the selfish man, the selfish girl, though drawn out 
 
FAMILY LIFE, 
 
 of selfishness in the early weeks of courtship, will 
 settle back into it again when the wear and worry of 
 life come on ; some one has said, it is not so hard to 
 get out of one's self — the difficulty is to keep out. 
 Then you should look for sufficient good sense to 
 save you from the misery of having to live with a 
 fool. If you are loyal to Christ you will know with- 
 out my telling you, that your life can never be 
 blended into perfect unity with another, unless there 
 is loyalty to Christ in the other life as well as in 
 your own. 
 
 But loyalty to Christ does not imply the posses- 
 sion of all that is necessary for a happy and honour- 
 able marriage. A man may have a genuine faith in 
 Christ and yet have very little sense, and so may 
 a woman. There may be genuine faith and yet a 
 constitutional indolence or cowardice, or irritability, 
 or sullenness, or waywardness. When a man or a 
 woman has religious faith these grave tendencies to 
 moral evil will be resisted, but they are not always 
 perfectly mastered, and they may make married life 
 very miserable. 
 
 I said just now that most of us are commonplace 
 people, and that a life of romance is out of our reach ; 
 but I believe in " falling in love." The imagination 
 should be kindled and the heart touched ; there 
 should be enthusiasm and even romance in the 
 happy months that precede marriage, and something 
 of the enthusiasm and romance should remain to the 
 very end of life, or else the home is wanting in its 
 
1 84 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 perfect happiness and grace. The wonderful charm 
 which makes the wife more to the husband than all 
 other women, and the husband more to the wife than 
 all other men ; this is necessary to a true marriage. 
 But take my word for it, those plain, solid virtues of 
 which I have spoken are indispensable to the security 
 and happiness of a home ; and it is a home that you 
 are drifting to when you are drifting into love. 
 
 You would not like to live with a liar, with a thief, 
 with a drunkard, for twenty years ; or with an indo- 
 lent person, or a coward, or a fool ; with such a 
 comrade you could not build up a noble and beauti- 
 ful, or even a tolerable, home. And remember that 
 men and women may have the roots of some of these 
 vices in them and yet be extremely agreeable and 
 good-looking, dress well and say very pretty and 
 charming things. With some of these miserable 
 vices there may be a warm heart, generous impulses, 
 real kindliness. But where these vices exist — where 
 the elements of them exist— you cannot make sure of 
 honour, of happiness, of peace, of the continuance of 
 mutual affection, or of mutual trust. In the absence 
 of plain, solid virtues in the man or the woman you 
 marry, you are building your home on the sand, not 
 on the rock, and when the winds rise and the waters 
 are out, it will go badly with you. 
 
 If you ask me what is to become of the men and 
 the women who do not possess these very plain 
 excellences, I can only say that it would be a very 
 happy thing if no one consented to marry them. 
 
FAMILY LIFE. 185 
 
 Their vices will spoil and ruin, not their own lives 
 merely, not merely the lives of those they marry, but 
 the lives of their children too. The miserable inheri- 
 tance of their imperfections will be transmitted to 
 coming generations. If it were only possible to keep 
 all these people single, those who will be living thirty 
 years hence would be living in a very different world 
 from this. 
 
 Anyhow it is the duty as it is the interest of all 
 young people to take care that their home, if they 
 have one, shall be as nearly like what God meant a 
 human home to be as it can be made. The making 
 of a home is the greatest work that most of them will 
 ever be able to do. In preparing to make it they 
 have the supreme opportunity for showing that they 
 care more for the righteousness and will of God than 
 for all the world besides. 
 
 Let us look back again at the home into which 
 Christ was born. Joseph and Mary had charge of 
 the infancy and childhood of Him who was to be the 
 Saviour of the world. The sublimity of the trust fills 
 us with awe. But those of us who have children to 
 care for have also received a trust which should 
 sometimes make us tremble. Their future character, 
 their spirit, their faith, their aims in life, the laws 
 which they will regard as highest and most august, 
 depend largely upon us. With us they begin that 
 history which, if they are true to the Divine idea of 
 life, will be consummated in the power and blessed- 
 ness of immortality. It depends largely upon us 
 
■\ 
 
 186 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 whether they will be true to it or not. The home, 
 for most men, is more than the school and the 
 university. Our vices will poison the air which the 
 young child has to breathe ; our virtues will make it 
 wholesome and sweet. It is by what we are — not by 
 what we try to appear to be — that the destiny of 
 our children will be determined. Genuine affection, 
 firm trust, mutual respect, honour, and forbearance 
 between the father and the mother ; their equity, 
 kindliness, and sympathy in the treatment of their 
 children ; their personal virtues and their religious 
 faith — these will create a Christian home. In a 
 Christian home Christ dwells ; and those who live 
 with Him in childhood are not likely to revolt 
 against Him when the years of childhood are over. 
 The life which begins with Christ is likely to be 
 spent with Christ and to end in the glory of those 
 unseen mansions, of which every Christian home is 
 a symbol and prophecy. 
 
XIL 
 
 POLITICAL AND MUNICIPAL DUTY. 
 
 \ )C T'HEN the Son of God became flesh, He re- 
 ^ ^ vealed the sacredness of human life ; its 
 sacredness, not merely in its direct relations to God, 
 but in its relations to that natural order and social 
 environment by which it is disciplined and developed, 
 and in which it exercises its affections and virtues. 
 In translating us into the kingdom of heaven, He 
 does not separate children from parents, husbands 
 from wives. He takes up the Family into the diviner 
 order, and so consecrates it. He does the same for 
 industry and commerce, for literature, and science, 
 and art. Christ does not pronounce them common 
 and unclean ; He makes them His own and trans- 
 figures them, by declaring that in all these pursuits 
 men are to do the will of God. Nor does He call 
 us out of that social and political order which is 
 necessary, not only to the prosperity, but to the ex- 
 istence of nations. On the contrary He affirms the 
 sacredness of civil authority, and enforces civil duties 
 with new and Divine sanctions. As there is no con- 
 flict between the Divine Kingdom and the Family, 
 
 neither is there any conflict between the Divine 
 
 187 
 
i88 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 Kingdom and the State. Christ does not suppress 
 the Family, but purifies and ennobles it. Christ does 
 not suppress the State, but inspires political life with 
 a more generous temper, and directs it to higher 
 ends ; He makes loyalty the religious duty of sub- 
 jects, and under penalty of the Divine displeasure 
 requires rulers to be just. 
 
 Unhappily this conception of His work has never 
 yet been firmly grasped by Christendom. In the 
 corrupt ages of the Church, men thought that the 
 Family was not Divine enough for the perfect life ; 
 there are many Christian people who are still of the 
 opinion that political activity is inconsistent with 
 saintliness. 
 
 There are the clearest indications in the New 
 Testament that the distrust and antagonism which 
 have so long existed between the Church and civil 
 society began early. The apostles had to insist with 
 great energy on the duty of submission to secular 
 governments ; and this is an indication that many 
 of the early converts to the Christian faith were dis- 
 posed to think badly of kings and magistrates, and 
 to dispute their authority. It was not easy, indeed, 
 for Christian men and women in apostolic times to 
 believe that " the powers which be are ordained of 
 ^ God," and to regard civil government as part of the 
 Divine order of the world. Idolatry met the Christian 
 man in all public places. Heathen gods received the 
 homage of the State. The Roman Emperor was the 
 high-priest of Paganism. Why should the sons of 
 
POLITICAL AND MUNICIPAL DUTY. 189 
 
 God, the heirs of immortal glory, acknowledge the 
 authority of rulers who were in revolt against the 
 Divine authority ; who sometimes persecuted those 
 who were trying to obey the Divine law ? And were 
 not all Christians citizens of a Divine Commonwealth ? 
 Had they not their own laws ? Was not Christ 
 Himself their King ? Were they not looking forward 
 to the great day when they would stand at His 
 judgment-seat? Were not earthly kingdoms to be 
 broken up and brought under His authority ? Was 
 not this immense revolution the great hope of the 
 Church ? Were not .the golden days of universal 
 righteousness and peace delayed while the existing 
 order of political and civil society remained un- 
 shaken ? What claim had secular rulers, secular 
 laws, secular institutions on their allegiance and 
 respect ? 
 
 The alienation of Christian people from the secular 
 order was increased by their Church organizations. 
 They belonged not only to an invisible kingdom, 
 under the rule of a Prince who reigned at the right 
 hand of God, but to visible societies having regularly 
 appointed rulers, who administered, in concurrence 
 with the commonalty of the faithful, the laws of 
 Christ. It was considered an offence for a Christian 
 man to appeal to heathen judges, for the settlement 
 of any differences between himself and a Christian 
 brother. Jewish communities in heathen cities had 
 acquired the right to appoint magistrates of their 
 own, and within certain limits to govern themselves 
 
I90 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 by their own laws ; Christian Churches endeavoured 
 to maintain this tradition of civil autonomy. They 
 tried to have nothing to do with heathen tribunals. 
 What necessity was there for two governments and 
 two systems of law ? How could they obey two 
 masters ? 
 
 The presence of Jews in most Christian Churches 
 during the first century embittered antagonism to 
 the empire. It was the custom of the apostles to 
 begin their evangelistic work in the synagogue ; in 
 many Churches converts from Judaism constituted 
 the majority of the membership. The old vision of 
 an earthly Messiah, with armies and fleets to assert 
 His power, had vanished, or was vanishing, but the 
 Jewish hatred and scorn for Gentile rulers, which had 
 been intensified by the glories and disasters of many 
 centuries, by the supreme hope, renewed through age 
 after age, of the future splendour of the Jewish race, 
 and by the consciousness of possessing already a 
 sublimer faith and a nobler morality than any of 
 the heathen nations, — this hatred and this scorn re- 
 mained. The Churches were infected by the fierce, 
 reckless, revolutionary spirit which was hereditary 
 among the Jewish people. 
 
 Peter, therefore, affirms with great strength the 
 dtity of obeying the secular authorities, ** Be subject 
 to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake," — as 
 part of the obedience you owe to Christy — " whether it 
 is to the King, as supreme, or unto governors, as sent 
 by him for vengeance on evil-doers and for praise 
 
POLITICAL AND MUNICIPAL DUTY. 191 
 
 to them who do well. For so is the will of God, that 
 by well-doing ye should put to silence the ignorance 
 of foolish men" — who in some cases were not silent ^ 
 and had reasons for saying that Christians were bad 
 citizens — " as free, and not using your freedom for 
 a cloak of wickedness, but as bond-servants of God. 
 Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. 
 Honour the King." 
 
 Paul tells Titus to put Christian people " in mind 
 to be in subjection to rulers, to authorities, to be 
 obedient, to be ready unto every good work," — to 
 every form of service to the State, which the laws and 
 the magistrates required. 
 
 In his Epistle to the Romans, Paul developes 
 more fully the Christian conception of the secular 
 organization of society. The Church is not the 
 only institution that has the Divine sanction : 
 the State is also Divine. Caesar, the provincial 
 governors, the city magistrates, all " the powers that 
 be," are "ordained of God." Church rulers derive 
 their authority from heaven : so do political rulers. 
 They, too, are " ministers of God's service." Chris- 
 tian men are therefore to submit to them, not only 
 in order to avoid civil penalties, but " for conscience' 
 sake," for " he that resisteth the power withstandeth 
 the ordinance of God." 
 
 Christ had anticipated all these apostolic precepts 
 in His reply to the malignant question of the Phari- 
 sees and Herodians, — " Is it lawful for us to give 
 tribute unto Caesar or not } " "He perceived their 
 
192 LA TVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 craftiness, and said unto them, Show me a penny. 
 Whose image and superscription hath it ? and they 
 said Caesar's. And He said unto them, Then render 
 unto Csesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God 
 the things that are God's." 
 
 It is often assumed that the Christian faith is the 
 natural ally and support of oppressive governments, 
 is unfriendly to a generous patriotism, and ex- 
 tinguishes the love of freedom. But it appears that 
 in the earliest times it was associated with a revolu- 
 tionary spirit, and regarded political authority with 
 resentment. Even in those centuries during which 
 the priesthood and the papacy struggled, and for 
 a time successfully, to appropriate to themselves 
 the powers of civil rulers, the original temper of 
 the Church survived. Ecclesiastical ambition was 
 not without its nobler elements. It attempted, in the 
 name of God, to limit the absolute authority of the 
 State. It asserted that there are regions of human 
 thought and activity over which the State has no 
 sovereignty, and that there are institutions, such as 
 the Family, which are rooted in Divine laws that the 
 State cannot repeal. It was an attempt to resist the 
 encroachments of civil governments on provinces of 
 human life which are beyond its authority. The 
 fault, the crime, lay in the profane attempt to estab- 
 lish the usurpation of the priest in the place of 
 the usurpation of the crown. There was another 
 fault and another crime. The Church, in asserting 
 its own supremacy, impaired the independent au- 
 
POLITICAL AND MUNICIPAL DUTY, 193 
 
 thority of the State, and virtually impeached its 
 sacredness as an institution not less truly Divine than 
 itself. The Christian theory, as laid down by Christ 
 Himself, and illustrated by the apostles, is, I think, 
 very clear. There are provinces of human life in 
 which the authority of secular governments is sus- 
 tained by the will of God. Parliaments, town 
 councils, judges, magistrates, have their place in the 
 Divine order. The Christian man is not released^ 
 from the obligations of citizenship : to him these 
 obligations are strengthened by new sanctions, and 
 for the manner in which he discharges them he 
 will have to give account at the judgment-seat of 
 God. 
 
 " Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." 
 The precept was suggested by a question about 
 tribute. In its original reference it enforced the 
 duty of paying taxes. Paul describes the levying 
 and collection of taxes as a divinely appointed func- 
 tion of the civil magistrate. This throws quite a new 
 h'ght upon " Committee of Supply," upon the Budget, 
 upon the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 upon Income-tax Commissioners and Custom-house 
 officers, upon the unwelcome documents which we 
 receive from the overseers of the poor and the col- 
 lectors of rates and taxes. We are to pay " tribute " 
 because civil rulers are "ministers of God's service, 
 attending continually upon this very thing." The tax 
 may be excessive, unfairly levied, unwisely or unjustly 
 spent \ if so, the civil rulers are doir^ their work 
 
 O 
 
194 LA TVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 badly, and will have to account to God for their 
 injustice or their folly. We may try to set them 
 right ; in a country with a free constitution, and 
 where private citizens have a large responsibility for 
 the acts of the government, this is a duty. In ex- 
 treme cases — when, for instance, a tax is levied by 
 an arbitrary exercise of power, and in violation of 
 the recognised rights of the nation, or when a govern- 
 ment is so corrupt and tyrannical that the primary 
 objects for which the State exists are not secured — 
 there remains the power, perhaps the duty, of re- 
 sistance and revolt. But a wise nation will suffer 
 much before it resorts to measures of violence, and 
 good men will be slow to come to the conclusion that 
 the powers which are " ordained of God " have lost 
 the Divine sanction. 
 
 There are some people — honest enough in all their 
 private affairs — who seem to think that a tax or a 
 rate is a claim to be evaded. Paul makes tax-paying 
 a religious duty; "the demand note " of the collector 
 is backed by the Divine authority, and countersigned 
 by the Divine hand. What happened when Ananias 
 ^ and Sapphira made a false return to the apostles, 
 who were " ministers of God " representing the 
 Church, we know. It ought to warn us against 
 making false returns to the Income-tax Commis- 
 sioners, who, according to Paul, and according to the 
 whole Christian conception of secular society, are 
 " ministers of God " representing the State. The tax 
 may be vexatious, it may be unequal, but while it 
 
POLITICAL AND MUNICIPAL DUTY. 195 
 
 lasts we ought to return every farthing of our income 
 " for conscience' sake." 
 
 The same obh'gation holds in relation to all other 
 public payments. The Custom-house officer is one of 
 the " ministers of God," and to evade lawful " duties " 
 is to evade a Divine claim. 
 
 On the other hand, Christian men in Parliament, 
 overseers, members of town councils and of local 
 boards should remember whose servants they are, 
 and should levy taxes and rates justly, and expend 
 them wisely and fairly as the representatives of the 
 authority of God. 
 
 But we have not discharged the duty of rendering 
 to Caesar the things which are Caesar's when we have 
 paid rates and taxes. In many countries the State 
 requires all men of adult age to serve for a definite 
 number of years in the army ; in addition to con- 
 tributing money to pay for the defence of the country 
 they have to defend it themselves. We have no 
 military conscription in England, but our constitu- 
 tion requires that very large numbers of men should 
 give a considerable portion of their time to certain 
 national and municipal duties ; if they refuse to do it 
 the whole system of government breaks down. As 
 long as justice is administered by an unpaid magis- 
 tracy men must consent to spend dismal hours on the 
 bench. As long as our local affairs are under the 
 control of local authorities elected by the ratepayers 
 men must consent to serve on town councils, to be 
 members of watch committees, markets and fairs 
 
196 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 committees, finance committees, gas committees, 
 water committees, and the rest ; and they must con- 
 sent to accept the mayorality. Other men must be 
 wilHng to serve on school boards, and others to act 
 as overseers and guardians of the poor. Men who 
 discharge these duties pay a voluntary tax levied on 
 personal service. It is a tax which must be paid by 
 some one, and every man has to determine his own 
 share. 
 
 As long as we are governed by two Chambers, a 
 member of the House of Lords has no more right to 
 neglect his legislative duties than a policeman to go 
 off his beat before his time, or a bricklayer who is 
 paid for ten hours' work, to work five hours and sleep 
 or smoke the other five. It is true that most of the 
 men who have to serve in the Upper House inherit 
 their responsibilities by birth, and were never asked 
 whether they would bear the burden of legislation or 
 not. But this does not relieve them from their re- 
 sponsibility. Many of the gravest duties of every 
 man are duties which came to him in the same way ; 
 a man's duties to his parents and to his brothers 
 and sisters are just as binding as if he had under- 
 taken them voluntarily. Nor is it enough for an 
 hereditary legislator to discharge his duties as well 
 as he is able ; he should try to make himself able to 
 discharge them well. 
 
 In the House of Commons a man sits by his own 
 consent, and the obligation to discharge the trust he 
 has received from his constituents is too plain to be 
 
POLITICAL AND MUNICIPAL DUTY. 197 
 
 ignored. A man who uses his position in that House 
 to promote his private interests instead of the in- 
 terests of the nation, is guilty of a flagrant moral 
 offence ; he is as guilty as a solicitor who uses for 
 his own purposes the money he has received to invest 
 for a client. But men may also be guilty of neglect- 
 ing duty who refuse to enter the House. It is plain 
 that the State has claims on the services of those 
 who are able to serve it most efficiently. Where 
 there is political knowledge, political sagacity, the 
 power of commanding public confidence, leisure to 
 discharge Parliamentary duties, there is some reason 
 to think that a man is in possession of " the things 
 that are Caesar's ; " it is possible that in refusing to 
 stand for the House of Commons he is defrauding his 
 country, defrauding it as really as if he had returned 
 his income at two thousand a year, when he ought to 
 have returned it at ten. This is a question for a 
 man's judgment and conscience, not for his personal 
 tastes and preferences. It would hardly do for a 
 man to refuse to pay his debts, and to plead in self- 
 defence that paying debts was extremely distasteful 
 to him, and that he found it more agreeable to his 
 personal inclinations to spend his money in other 
 ways. 
 
 Civil authority — this is the main point I want to y 
 assert — is a Divine institution. The man who holds 
 municipal or political office is a " minister of God." 
 One man may, therefore, have just as real a Divine 
 vocation to become a town councillor or a Member of 
 
)] 
 
 198 LA TVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 Parliament as another to become a missionary to the 
 heathen. In either case it is at a man's peril that he 
 is " disobedient to the heavenly vision." The Divine 
 right of kings was a base corruption of a most noble 
 truth; so was the fanatical dream about "the reign of 
 the saints." We shall never approach the Christian 
 ideal of civil society, until all who hold municipal, 
 I judicial, and political offices, recognise the social and 
 political order of the nation as a Divine institution, 
 and discharge their official duties as ministers of 
 God. 
 
 But in this country the responsibilities of govern- 
 ment are shared by the people. The great outlines 
 of national legislation and policy are laid down, not 
 in Parliament, not in the Cabinet, but at the polling- 
 booths. It is the electors who make war or maintain 
 peace, who repeal old laws and pass new ones, who 
 interfere, justly or unjustly, between landlords and 
 tenants, masters and servants, parents and children. 
 Those who abstain from voting, determine the na- 
 tional policy as truly as those who vote. The respon- 
 sibility of the Parliamentary franchise cannot be 
 evaded. 
 
 I sometimes think that municipalities can do more 
 for the people than Parliament. Their powers will 
 probably be enlarged ; but under the powers which 
 they possess already they can greatly diminish the 
 amount of sickness in the community, and can pro- 
 long human life. They can prevent — they have pre- 
 vented — tens of thousands of wives from becoming 
 
POLITICAL AND MUNICIPAL DUTY. 199 
 
 widows, tens of thousands of children from becoming 
 orphans. They can do very much to improve those 
 miserable homes which are fatal not only to health, 
 but to decency and morality. They can give to the 
 poor the enjoyment of pleasant parks and gardens, 
 and the intellectual cultivation and refinement of 
 public libraries and galleries of art. They can redress 
 in many ways the inequalities of human conditions. 
 The gracious words of Christ, " Inasmuch as ye did / t^ 
 it unto one of these My brethren, even these least, ye 
 did it unto Me," will be addressed not only to those 
 who with their own hands fed the hungry, and 
 clothed the naked, and cared for the sick, but to 
 those who supported a municipal policy which les- 
 sened the miseries of the wretched, and added bright- 
 ness to the lives of the desolate. And the terrible 
 rebuke, " Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these 
 least, ye did it not unto Me," will condemn the 
 selfishness of those who refused to make municipal 
 government the instrument of a policy of justice and . 
 humanity. 
 
 If, years ago, the Christian people of the metropolis 
 had insisted on having an effective system of munici- 
 pal government, and had worked its powers vigor- 
 ously, the *' Bitter Cry of Outcast London " need 
 never have been heard. Now that the cry has come 
 to them the churches will never be able to remedy ^ 
 the evil apart from the action of municipal authorities. 
 Medicine, and not the gospel only, is necessary to ' 
 cure the sick. Municipal action, and not the gospel 
 
200 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 only, is necessary to improve the homes of the 
 poor. 
 
 In some countries the local authorities correspond- 
 ing to our mayor and town council, are appointed by 
 the Crown. The duty of appointment is a difficult 
 one ; the central government can never have all the 
 knowledge necessary to appoint wisely. With us the 
 duty of appointment is thrown upon the ratepayers, 
 and the duty carries with it grave responsibilities. 
 
 The municipal as well as the political franchise is a 
 trust ; both are to be used, not for private but for 
 public purposes. If in appointing an ambassador to 
 Paris, St. Petersburg, or, Berlin, the Prime Minister 
 and the Foreign Secretary were influenced by im- 
 proper motives ; if they appointed a man, not because 
 they thought that on the whole he was the best man 
 available for the post, but because he was an old 
 friend ; or if they recalled one ambassador and sent 
 out another on the ground of personal pique, and 
 to gratify personal resentment ; or if a man obtained 
 the appointment by giving splendid entertainments to 
 his political patrons or friends ; it would be a public 
 scandal. If he obtained it by a bribe — by a bribe 
 given in any form — by a heavy subscription, for in- 
 stance, to the election fund of the Carlton or the 
 Reform Club — it would be a public crime. 
 
 But the samje moral laws that govern the exercise 
 of political patronage, govern the exercise of the 
 franchise. If in a municipal or a political contest, 
 you vote for a man for no other reason than that he 
 
POLITICAL AND MUNICIPAL DUTY. 201 
 
 is a friend or a neighbour, and it would not be 
 pleasant to disoblige him ; or because the rival 
 candidate passed you in the street without speaking 
 to you, or omitted to invite you to a dinner-party, or 
 forgot to tell his wife that your daughters were to be 
 asked to a dance — this is a clear violation of public 
 duty. If you vote for a man for no other reason than 
 that he has subscribed to a hospital, or a school, or 
 a church, in which you happen to be interested, or 
 because he sustained your application for some public 
 office ; if you refuse to vote for him because he told 
 the manager of the bank of which he happens to be 
 a director, to decline to increase your " over-draw," or 
 because he gives you no orders for coals or meat — 
 this is positive corruption. 
 
 According to the Divine order civil authority is 
 necessary to the existence of civil society. Civil 
 rulers are "ministers of God." But they are not 
 designated to their office by a voice from heaven. In 
 this country the sovereign and the peers inherit their 
 position by birth ; the rest have to be selected, 
 directly or indirectly, by those who possess the fran- 
 chise. It is surely a part of God's service to deter- 
 mine who shall be God's " ministers," and for the 
 manner in which we discharge this service we are 
 responsible to God. Not to vote is to act the part of 
 the unfaithful servant who hid his talent in the earth 
 and made no use of it. To vote corruptly is felony ; 
 it is to appropriate to our own purposes what we have 
 received as trustees for the town or the nation. 
 
202 LA IVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 Those who are in the habit of speaking of pohtical 
 life as though it were unfriendly to all the pursuits 
 and interests of the kingdom of Christ, and who 
 therefore decline to discharge their political duties, are 
 strangely inconsistent. If a municipality proposes to 
 open libraries or museums on a Sunday, many ex- 
 cellent Christian people become greatly excited and 
 strain all their influence to prevent what they regard 
 as a desecration of the weekly day of rest ; but they 
 do not seem to believe that members of a town 
 council have to get the will of God done on Monday 
 and Tuesday as well as on Sunday, and that Christian 
 ratepayers ought to elect the men who will do it. If 
 a parliamentary oath is to be abolished, these devout 
 persons sign petitions and make speeches against the 
 abolition : for a professed atheist to get into Parlia- 
 ment seems to them a terrible scandal in a Christian 
 country ; but many of these same persons regard 
 the actual business of Parliament as so remote from 
 the province of religious duty as to make it a very 
 "worldly " thing for a Christian man to interest him- 
 self in politics ; if this is a true account of political 
 life, then all the members of the House of Commons 
 ought to be atheists. I pronounce no judgment in 
 this place on either of these measures. It may be 
 the duty of Christian men to insist that municipalities 
 shall refuse to open libraries, museums, art galleries, 
 on Sunday ; it may be their duty to insist that 
 Parliament shall refuse to permit a man known to be 
 an atheist to take the oath. But it is rather odd and 
 
POLITICAL AND MUNICIPAL DUTY. 203 
 
 not quite intelligible that those who regard politics as 
 the special province of the prince of this world, and 
 who ordinarily shun all contact with political life for 
 fear of losing their spirituality of mind, should now 
 and then become zealous politicians in order to pro- 
 tect the interests of the Christian faith, and to main- 
 tain the honour of God. If political forces are so 
 incurably evil, one would suppose that the defence of 
 the kingdom of heaven would be the last purpose for 
 which Christian men would be willing to use them. 
 They pray for kings and magistrates ; but if politics 
 are so fatal to Christian fidelity, kings and magis- 
 trates are past praying for. They enjoy — apparently 
 without any qualms of conscience — all the advantages 
 of municipal and national institutions ; but if muni- 
 cipal and political activity is ruinous to the souls of 
 all who engage in it, Christian men ought to decline 
 the personal advantages which are bought at so fear- 
 ful a price. 
 
 Paul has taught us a nobler and profounder theory 
 of politics. " The powers that be are ordained of 
 God," for the maintenance of public order, for the 
 protection of life, of property, and of personal free- 
 dom. Civil rulers are " ministers of God," and their 
 service is necessary to secure the great ends of civil 
 society, the diffusion of material comfort, the accu- 
 mulation of material wealth, the cultivation of the 
 intellectual life of the race, the transmission from 
 generation to generation of the discoveries of science 
 and the triumphs of art. Apart from civil society 
 
204 LA IVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 some of the noblest and most generous virtues could 
 never be developed. Through the Municipality and 
 the State, as well as through the Family and the 
 Church, the infinite righteousness and goodness and 
 mercy of God have provided for the discipline of 
 human perfection. The true duty of the Christian 
 / man is, not to forsake municipal and political life 
 because it is corrupt, but to carry into municipal and 
 political activity the law and the spirit of Christ ; to 
 resolve to do his part to secure for his fellow-towns- 
 men and his fellow-countrymen all those blessings 
 which a municipality and a nation, justly, wisely, 
 and efficiently governed, can secure for them ; that 
 so " the powers " which are " ordained of God " may 
 , fulfil the purpose for which He ordained them, and 
 the Divine will be done by civil rulers on earth as it is 
 done by angels and the spirits of the just in heaven. 
 
XIII. 
 THE MORAL PRECEPTS OF CHRIST GENERALLY. 
 
 IN our Lord's ethical teaching, He recognised the 
 worth and the authority of the ethical know- 
 ledge which men already possessed. It was not 
 necessary that He should speak to Jews as though 
 they did not regard the Ten Commandments as 
 Divine laws for the regulation of human life. He 
 assumed that their conscience had been developed 
 and instructed by a long succession of great religious 
 and moral teachers. He built on the foundations of 
 Moses and the prophets. 
 
 About some moral virtues He said little or nothing. 
 His objects were practical — not speculative. He did 
 not care, merely for the sake of giving theoretical 
 completeness to His ethical system, to re-assert obli- 
 gations which were universally acknowledged. He 
 did not begin at the beginning. He began with men 
 where He found them ; and led them on to diviner 
 ideals of righteousness. The Jews knew already that 
 murder was a crime, and that whoever killed a man 
 had to submit to trial, and either justify the act or 
 suffer for it. But Christ taught that there is a tri- 
 bunal at which men must give account of their 
 
 205 
 
2o6 LA IVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 words as well as their actions ; that words of severe 
 moral condemnation and words of scorn may have 
 the same moral quality as deeds of violence ; and 
 that even anger may be criminal, though it may find 
 expression neither in act nor speech. They knew 
 that gross acts of sensuality were immoral : but 
 Christ taught them that sensual thoughts and sensual 
 impulses, voluntarily indulged, are, in the Divine 
 judgment, akin to sensual acts, and that God con- 
 demns those who commit adultery in their heart. 
 They knew that it was a grave moral offence to 
 swear a false oath : but Christ taught them that 
 they ought to be so truthful in their common speech 
 as to render oaths unnecessary. They knew that 
 they were under obligations to be just : Christ trans- 
 figured the law of justice, and said, "Whatsoever ye 
 would that men should do unto you, do ye also unto 
 them." 
 
 The ethical method of Christ was the ethical 
 method of the apostles. It was not necessary that 
 they should speak to heathen men as if they knew 
 nothing of the principles of morality. Among the 
 Greeks and the Romans, justice, temperance, forti- 
 tude, and prudence were honoured as the elements of 
 a noble life, and the virtues of private citizens were 
 regarded as necessary to the strength and safety of 
 the community. Their moral life had been de- 
 veloped by the family and the state, by common 
 sorrows and common joys, by industry, by commerce, 
 by war, by the conflicts of political parties, by civil 
 
MORAL PRECEPTS OF CHRIST GENERALLY. 207 
 
 and criminal legislation. Even the most barbarous 
 races had some knowledge of moral duty. Paul 
 made his appeal to the conscience of heathen men, 
 and speaks of " the law written in their hearts." 
 John, after being surrounded for many years by the 
 licentious immorality of Asia Minor, believed in " the 
 light which lighteth every man." 
 
 We are not, therefore, to be surprised if there are 
 some considerable virtues which are not inculcated in 
 the New Testament by any explicit precepts. The 
 Christian revelation takes its place in the great his- 
 toric developmeat of the religious and moral life of 
 man. The Eternal Word who was made flesh and 
 dwelt among us had not been silent during the ages 
 which preceded the Incarnation ; nor had the Divine 
 voice been heard only among the Jewish people. 
 The natural conscience of man had received illumi- 
 nation from Christ, and, among the nobler races, had 
 discovered the great outlines of human duty. As 
 Christ built upon the foundations of Moses and the 
 prophets, He also built upon whatever was true and 
 just in the common morality of mankind. He did 
 not disparage the illumination which the natural con- 
 science had received from Himself What He had 
 taught men with sufficient clearness before He became 
 man, it was unnecessary that He should teach them 
 again. 
 
 And in the permanent appeal of Christ to the 
 human race — in His appeal to ourselves — He does 
 not speak to us as if He were a stranger, needing 
 
2o8 LA IVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 credentials to command our confidence. He takes 
 it for granted that we shall know His voice. He 
 assumes that we are already His disciples, and that 
 whatever light we have has come from Him, "the 
 light of the world." What we have already learnt 
 from Him should prepare us for His further teaching. 
 He relies on the conscience of man to recognise His 
 authority. 
 
 And yet there are many of His precepts which are 
 very remote from the moral principles by which 
 most men suppose that human life ought to be 
 governed. There are passages in the Sermon on 
 the Mount which naturally suggest the objection 
 that, as a moral teacher, the Lord Jesus Christ is too 
 unpractical to be trusted ; and I confess that I am 
 astonished by the unmeasured admiration which is 
 often expressed for our Lord's ethical teaching by 
 persons who reject the supernatural contents of the 
 Christian revelation in which that teaching is rooted. 
 For Christ demands an impossible perfection. 
 
 No doubt many of His precepts were intentionally 
 expressed in a startling form — a form intended to 
 make it quite clear that they were not meant to be 
 mere rules of conduct. For the most part they are 
 j directly addressed to the conscience and the heart 
 rather than to the will. Christ claims authority over 
 us, and apart from unreserved obedience to Him 
 there can be no true Christian morality ; but His 
 specific commandments are meant to quicken and 
 to enlighten the moral sense, and to ennoble our 
 
MORAL PRECEPTS OF CHRIST GENERALLY. 209 
 
 conceptions of moral duty, rather than to give us 
 definite directions to guide our actions. He has 
 made it impossible for us to treat them as the Jewish 
 rabbis treated the commandments of the Old Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 Take a few illustrations. "Give to him that asketh 
 thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn I 
 not thou away ; " the command to love our neigh- 
 bours as ourselves quite prevents us from regarding 
 this precept as a definite rule of action, for we could 
 not do some men greater harm than by giving them 
 what they asked for and lending them what they 
 wanted to borrow. " Whosoever smiteth thee on thy 
 right cheek, turn to him the other also ; " to do this 
 literally would be to irritate an angry man to fury, and 
 we are sure that Christ did not mean us to offer provo- 
 cation to fresh violence. " Lay not up for yourselves 
 treasures on earth ; " if this were meant to be literally 
 obeyed it would forbid the farmer to store his harvest 
 in the autumn for the coming winter, and would 
 require him to give his wheat to the cattle or leave 
 it on the ground instead of carrying it to his barns. 
 
 But even when we have distinguished between the 
 picturesque forms of our Lord's precepts and their 
 inner reality and meaning, we have not escaped from 
 the difficulty. Men do not speak their real thoughts ; 
 if they did, they would say that many of Christ's 
 commandments are, in their spirit and substance, 
 fantastic and impossible. They do not become easier 
 to obey, but very much harder, when, instead of 
 
 P 
 
J 
 
 2IO LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 taking them as they stand and treating them as 
 rules of conduct, we treat them as the expression 
 of principles which are to be a law to the inward 
 life. 
 
 " Whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn 
 to him the other also." If this were meant to be 
 taken literally it would impose an extremely light 
 duty. For in decent civilized society men very sel- 
 dom smite us either on the right cheek or the left, so 
 that the duty of turning the other would not come 
 often ; and if any one happened to smite us on one 
 cheek, to turn the other as an act of obedience to 
 Christ would require very little effort. But never to 
 feel personal resentment against those who recklessly 
 misrepresent us, who slander us, who insult us ; and 
 even when duty requires us to take measures to 
 resist or to redress an injury, to be as free from the 
 spirit of revenge as a judge on the bench when he 
 sentences a thief to be imprisoned or a murderer to 
 be hung ; to be righteously indignant at wrong-doing, 
 but not to suffer the sense of the wrong done to our- 
 selves to exaggerate the guilt of the wrong-doer, or to 
 make us desire for our personal satisfaction that he 
 should suffer for his offence — this is a much more 
 difficult matter, and this is what Christ requires. 
 
 Or, if we supposed that when Christ said, " Lay 
 not up for yourselves treasures on earth," He meant 
 that we are not to be thrifty and save money, nine 
 men out of ten would find it delightfully simple 
 to reach the height of perfection. Not to save 
 
MORAL PRECEPTS OF CHRIST GENERALLY. 211 
 
 money ! nothing can be easier ; with most of us 
 the difficulty lies all the other way. Christ's pre- 
 cept is harder than it looks. It requires an emanci- 
 pation of the heart from the love of wealth ; a perfect 
 trust in the Divine care. It requires us to have ^ 
 thoughts about what constitutes wealth quite different 
 from the thoughts of those who have not passed into 
 the Kingdom of Heaven. This is a duty which is -> 
 quite beyond our strength ; and very many reasons 
 may be alleged to prove that it is not a duty at all. 
 
 When we begin to take Christ's moral teaching\ 
 seriously, we shall sometimes find ourselves on the I 
 point of saying that it is " in the air ; " that it has | 
 no solid foundations, and is out of all real relations ^ 
 to human life. Men have actually said this. They 
 have contended that to take the precepts of Christ 
 literally and as they stand would break up the order 
 of human society, would destroy some of the com- 
 mon virtues which are the security of human institu- 
 tions, would make property worthless, would render 
 the progress of civilization impossible. If, on the 
 other hand, these precepts are taken in their real 
 sense, they Imply the necessity of a still greater 
 change in the whole moral life of mankind. The 
 substance of our Lord's moral teaching is so startling 
 that men regard it not unnaturally as too highly 
 strained ; very beautiful as an ideal, but not the 
 kind of teaching which can be accepted as a real 
 law of life ; it is too romantic ; it is not sufficiently 
 homely ; it asks for too much. 
 
212 LAWS OF C hi: 1ST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 We may not put thoughts like these into words, 
 but I am greatly mistaken if such thoughts are not 
 actually present in many minds. We may be afraid 
 to think them, and yet they influence us. And so 
 instead of giving the laws of Christ any real authority 
 we silently put them aside, and accept in their place 
 the current moral maxims of our country and our 
 age. J Instead, for instance, of forgiving our brother 
 though he sin against us seven times a day, instead 
 of trying to do this in any sense that can be put 
 upon the precept which requires it, we stand upon 
 what we call our personal dignity, which the common 
 opinion of society permits and even requires us to 
 maintain. Instead of forgiving the man who has 
 offended us, we think it enough if we keep out of 
 his way and say nothing against him ; we suppose 
 that we have been very magnanimous if we have 
 " looked over " an offence two or three times — 
 though " looking over " an offence is not quite the 
 same as forgiving it ; and we think that we are quite 
 at liberty to have nothing to do with the offender if 
 he offends again. 
 
 We think it impossible that our Lord could have 
 really meant what He said ; or if He meant it, we 
 say vaguely that precepts of this kind about for- 
 giving a man seven times a day, turning the left 
 cheek to be smitten when we have been smitten on 
 the right, and loving our enemies, are precepts which 
 it will be impossible to obey till the golden days of 
 the millennium have begun. But this is an irrational 
 
MORAL PRECEPTS OF CHRIST GENERALLY. 213 
 
 evasioni If the Christian Church ever reaches ideal 
 perfection, all these precepts will become obsolete. 
 The millennium, if it is ever to come to the Church 
 on earth, will be precisely the age in which it will 
 be impossible to obey them. When the whole earth 
 is filled with the glory of God, and the whole race 
 penetrated by the spirit of Christ, there will be none 
 to smite us on the right cheek, and Christian meek- 
 ness will have no occasion to turn the left cheek to 
 the smiter ; all offences will cease, and for Christian 
 charity to forgive an offender seven times will there- 
 fore be impossible ; we shall be unable to love our 
 enemies, for there will be no enemies left in the 
 world to love. 
 
 In our better moments we are able to see tfiSt 
 Christ has, after all, revealed the perfect life. If we 
 could only obey His laws it would be well with us. 
 His commandments transcend the common maxims 
 of morality, but in transcending fulfil them. It may, \ 
 perhaps, be necessary to impose oaths on men to 
 make their testimony in courts of justice truthful; but | 
 the ideal law requires an habitual truthfulness which j 
 would render oaths unnecessary. The time may 
 not have come for breaking up our war ships, closing 
 our arsenals, disbanding our armies, but the temper 
 which Christ inculcates when He says " Resist not 
 evil " would lessen the occasions of national quarrels, 
 and when difficulties arise would make a peaceful 
 solution easy. If we kept a check on our anger we 
 should never be guilty of acts of violence. If we 
 
214 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 felt the stain of sensual thoughts like a wound, we 
 should never be guilty of acts of sensuality. It may 
 be true that an eager passion for wealth has been 
 one of the chief springs of industry, and has con- 
 tributed to the development of the material pros- 
 perity of the race. But it is also true that the race 
 has become rich as the result of scientific discoveries 
 which were made by men who cared nothing for 
 riches ; and that it was only because these men did 
 not lay up treasures on earth for themselves that 
 they were able to increase the wealth of others. Nor 
 would the world become poorer if manufacturers, 
 merchants, tradesmen, and working people regarded 
 their secular occupations not simply as a means for 
 earning bread and making money for themselves, 
 but as the service which they are appointed by God 
 to render to mankind. Under the new motive, if 
 they had the spirit of Christ, they would work as 
 hard as under the old ; and the new motive would 
 save them from many practical mistakes, and from 
 many immoralities which at present lessen the effi- 
 ciency of their industry. 
 
 But the question returns, Is Christian morality 
 possible ? In the Gospel of Luke, the precept re- 
 quiring us to forgive our penitent brother, no matter 
 how often he offends us, is followed immediately by 
 the words, " And the apostles said unto the Lord, 
 Increase our faith." It is not certain that the prayer 
 was the answer which the apostles gave to the pre- 
 cept ; but there are many of the precepts of Christ 
 
MORAL PRECEPTS OF CHRIST GENERALLY. 215 
 
 which naturally suggest the prayer. For if we think ^/ 
 that the laws of Christ require a perfection which it 
 is useless to attempt to reach, our faith in Christ is 
 defective : we reject Him as the Lord of life and 
 conduct, though we may think that we receive Him 
 as the sacrifice for our sin, and our Saviour from 
 eternal destruction. But where there is a real faith ^ 
 in Christ, there will be faith in His commandments 
 as well as in His promises ; in what He has said 
 about human morality, as well as in what He has 
 said about Divine grace. A man may believe in the 
 Nicene Creed and in the creed attributed to Athana- 
 sius, or in the Confession of Augsburg, or the Con- 
 fession of the Westminster divines; but if he does 
 not believe in the Sermon on the Mount — believe in 
 it seriously as containing the laws which must govern 
 his own life — he has denied the faith, and is in revolt 
 against Christ. 
 
 The doctrines and the ethics of the Christian 
 revelation are really inseparable. Christian morals 
 are rooted in the central mystery of our relation to 
 God in Christ, and God's relation to us in Him ; 
 and we must believe in some of the characteristic 
 doctrines of Christ before we can discover the pos- 
 sibility of obeying His commandments. The im- 
 mense demands of the Sermon on the Mount are 
 explained by what our Lord said to Nicodemus 
 about the new birth, by what He said to the woman 
 of Samaria about the living water, by what He said 
 in the synagogue at Capernaum about the Bread of 
 
2i6 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 Life, by what He said to tlie elect disciples about 
 the Vine and the branches. The diviner life which 
 Christ gives must find its expression in a diviner 
 morality than is possible to man before that life 
 comes to him. While we are " apart " from Christ, 
 4 the commandments require a perfection beyond our 
 strength ; but when He abides in us and we abide 
 in Him we can keep the laws of Christ, because the 
 life of Christ has become ours. His laws are pro- 
 mises ; His ethics are doctrines. If He calls us to 
 a righteousness which we cannot achieve unless we 
 receive the life of God, He means us to ask Him for 
 that life with a sure confidence that the prayer will 
 be answered. If He has given us an ideal of per- 
 fection which seems to belong to a nobler world than 
 this, He means us to believe that He has founded 
 the Kingdom of Heaven among men ; and that even 
 while we are still environed by "things seen and 
 temporal," we may live in God and God in us. 
 
XIV. 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORLDLINESS. 
 
 THE title of this paper is a paradox. Between 
 Christianity and ** Worldliness " there is perpet- 
 ual conflict ; they can make no terms ; even a tem- 
 porary truce is impossible. The ideal Christian life 
 is a life in God — a life under the absolute control of 
 the laws of an invisible, eternal, and Divine kingdom. 
 But there are two wholly different conceptions of 
 the relations between the kingdom of God into which, 
 if we are in Christ, we have already passed, and the 
 interests, pleasures, and pursuits of the earthly life. 
 According to one conception, our environment in this 
 present world ought to have no attraction or charm 
 when once we have seen the face of God and have 
 learnt that we are to inherit immortal righteousness, 
 wisdom, and glory. The light should fade which once 
 shone on the mountains and the sea. Flowers should 
 lose their grace ; winds and running streams and 
 the rustling leaves their music ; stars their lustre. 
 Delight in literature and in art should become lan- 
 guid. The passion for scientific discovery should be 
 quenched. Interest in the political affairs of nations 
 
 should be suppressed. All pleasures except those 
 
 217 
 
2i8 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 which flow direct from the springs of eternal joy should 
 cease to afford even transient satisfaction. The right 
 temper to cultivate in relation to all that once seemed 
 fairest, purest, noblest in this present life, is a temper 
 of indifference or even of discontent. This concep- 
 tion of the true place of the world in Christian 
 thought is sanctioned by great traditions, by many 
 manuals for the conduct of the Christian life ; and 
 there are certain morbid moods of religious feeling in 
 which it appears to be the necessary result of a real 
 and habitual faith in God and in Immortality. 
 
 But " for everything there is a season." At present, 
 and until our mortal years are spent, our place is 
 among these visible and transitory things. We are 
 here " by the will of God." Our feet are in the dust, 
 though our eyes may be made glad by the shining 
 heavens. We are surrounded by an infinite and 
 eternal universe ; our relations to it are real, inti- 
 mate, and enduring ; the springs of our life and 
 strength are there ; and yet we cannot dissolve our 
 relations to another and inferior order. And accord- 
 ing to the Christian faith this inferior order is also 
 Divine. The fires of the sun are to burn themselves 
 out and we shall see them sink and disappear, buti 
 God kindled them. This wonderful world — with its 
 beauty and its terror — its green pastures and still \ 
 waters — its deserts and its stormy seas, its luxuri- 
 ant and fertile plains, its wide wastes of snow and 
 ice — is to pass away ; but God made it. It was He 
 who created what Paul describes as " our outward 
 
CHRISTIAN WORLDLINESS. 219 
 
 man," which is "decaying," as well as "our inward 
 man," which is "renewed day by day;" and all our 
 physical necessities, instincts, and sensibilities on 
 the one hand, with the boundless provision for their 
 gratification on the other, are the expressions of the 
 Divine thought, and the effect of Divine volitions. 
 The loftier powers and finer capacities which find 
 their exercise and their satisfaction in the dis- 
 covery of truth, and in the vision or creation of all 
 forms of beauty, also came from Him. " Discontent " 
 with conditions of life which God has appointed can 
 hardly be the legitimate and necessary result of the 
 supreme revelation of God's righteousness and love. 
 "Indifference" to the pleasant things which are the 
 gifts of the Divine goodness can hardly be the right 
 temper for those to cherish who have been " made 
 partakers of the Divine nature." What God thought 
 worth giving should be received gratefully and 
 heartily enjoyed. 
 
 The revolution of thought concerning this present 
 life produced by an intelligent and devout acceptance 
 of the Christian revelation corresponds to that which 
 was produced by the discovery of the true theory of 
 the physical universe. The earth has ceased to be 
 the centre round which suns and stars revolve, but 
 it retains its place among the hosts of God. Its 
 relative magnitude has been reduced, but the actual 
 height of its mountains, and the actual breadth of 
 its continents and oceans have not been diminished. 
 And although we are environed by immensity, and 
 
220 LA IVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 know that many of the stars which shine in its awful 
 depths are burning suns, — each one of them, perhaps 
 the centre of vast and undiscovered worlds, — the earth 
 is still our home, and the laws which govern the 
 most august of the principalities and powers among 
 the luminaries of heaven are the laws which govern 
 the motions of this inferior orb. J To the Christian \ 
 1 man this life is not an outlying waste, forsaken of^ 
 \ God and unblessed ; it is one of the provinces of 
 •the Divine kingdom ; the most trivial of our occupa- 
 tions, the most transient of our joys and sorrows 
 ought to find their place in the Divine order. It 
 Amust be possible for us, with a clear vision of eternity 
 and of the great glory of God, to stand in friendly 
 and kindly relations to this present world. This is 
 what I mean by " Christian Worldliness." 
 
 M. Renan's account of the Galilean ministry of our 
 Lord is an idyl, a romance ; but there are elements 
 of truth in it which had disappeared from the tra- 
 ditional conception of our Lord's earthly life. The 
 four Gospels give us the impression that Jesus of 
 Nazareth had a great personal charm which was felt 
 by all sorts of people. I think that they also give 
 us the impression that, at least in the earlier years 
 of His ministry, this charm was partly derived from 
 His buoyancy of spirit, His animation. His innocent 
 delight in pleasant things, in trees and flowers and 
 birds, in the ripening corn, in the fresh air of the 
 hills, and in the shining waters of the lake. The 
 charm was increased by His frank and alert interest 
 
 y/ 
 
CHRISTIAN WORLDLINESS. 221 
 
 in the common affairs of common people, in their 
 sowing and reaping, in their building and fishing, 
 as well as in what we should call their "religious 
 life." No one that wanted a wedding to pass off 
 cheerfully would have invited John the Baptist ; our 
 Lord was a welcome guest. Sometimes He went 
 into mountain solitudes to pray, and His home was 
 always with God; even in the early months of His 
 ministry the shadow of His final sorrows seems to 
 have fallen on Him ; but He did not remain on 
 remote heights, apart from the ordinary interests of 
 men ; nor did the premonitions which came to Him 
 of His supreme agony prevent Him from sympa- 
 thising deeply with the common troubles of man- 
 kind or from rejoicing in their gladness. There is 
 a kind of spiritual detachment which, even when 
 a man is surrounded by crowds, separates him as 
 completely from the interests of the rest of the race 
 as though he were surrounded by thick monastic 
 walls through which no sound of the stormy winds 
 and restless waves of the outside world could pene- 
 trate ; but this seclusion is not illustrated and en- 
 forced by the example of Christ, and it is plainly 
 condemned by the genial, generous, cordial spirit of 
 His teaching. 
 
 It may be alleged that in all ages noble and 
 devout men have come to regard the' world with 
 dissatisfaction and discontent, and that this tem- 
 per is formally sanctioned, not by a few scattered 
 texts in Holy Scripture, but by a whole Book ; the 
 
222 LA JFS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 twelve chapters of the Book of Ecclesiastes being 
 successive variations on one theme — "Vanity of 
 vanities, all is vanity." 
 
 But is it quite clear that the Book of Ecclesiastes 
 contains the Christian theory of human life ? Does 
 it illustrate the spirit with which a Christian man 
 ^ould regard the pleasant things of this world ? 
 AVhoever the writer may have been, and whether 
 or not he has given us the record of his own ex- 
 perience, the Book is to be read as containing the 
 confessions of a man whose life had been a mourn- 
 ful failure and disappointment. '- He had become 
 weary of everything — weary of knowledge, weary of 
 greatness, weary of wealth ; weary of his palaces, 
 his parks, his gardens, and his vineyards ; weary of 
 his men-singers and his women-singers ; weary of 
 observing the sorrows of men ; weary of observing 
 their joys. He was weary of the moral order of 
 the world, for he had seen folly set in great dig- 
 nity and the poor man's wisdom despised ; all things 
 came alike to all ; there was one event to the right- 
 eous and to the wicked, to the religious man that 
 offered sacrifice and to the irreligious man that 
 offered none ; " as is the good, so is the sinner ; and 
 he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath;" the 
 just man perished in his righteousness and the life 
 of the wicked man was prolonged. He was weary 
 of the earth itself, which lasted on while one genera- 
 tion came and another passed away ; he was weary 
 of the regularity of the rising and the setting of 
 
CHRISTIAN WORLDLINESS. 223 
 
 the sun, weary of the waywardness of the changing 
 winds, weary of the monotony of the rivers which 
 were always running into the sea. The dead, so he 
 thought, were better off than the Hving, for they had 
 done with Hfe ; it would have been better still if they 
 had never lived at all. "Vanity of vanities, all is 
 vanity." 
 
 This was how the world looked to the writer of 
 this Book ; whether this was how God meant it to 
 look to him is another question. This is how the 
 world looks to many of us in some moods. And if we 
 are to believe very much that appears in our current 
 literature, this bitter melancholy, this profound discon- 
 tent with all things in heaven above and on the earth 
 beneath, is becoming more common than it used to be. 
 This brilliant age of ours, like the real or imaginary 
 subject of the Book of Ecclesiastes, has made great 
 works, has built houses, has gathered silver and gold, 
 even the property of princes ; it has also given its 
 heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning 
 all that is done under heaven ; it has come to great 
 estate, and it has gotten wisdom above all the ages 
 that have been before it ; yea, has seen much of 
 wisdom and knowledge. And the end of it all seems 
 to be this — the question is asked, whether life is 
 worth living. The confessions of the ancient Jew 
 are being translated into our modern English speech. 
 There is less of poetic grace, of pathos, and of sad- 
 ness in the English translation than in the Jewish 
 original, but the substance is the same. 
 
224 LA IVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 Now, I do not wonder that men who have given 
 up the four Gospels come to believe in the Book of 
 Ecclesiastes. That is a just Nemesis. A man may 
 be sure that sooner or later the Bible will find him 
 somewhere. ' Let him refuse to believe what it tells 
 I him about God, and he will be startled at discovering 
 how much truth it will tell him about himself But 
 that this bitter and humiliating theory of human life 
 should have found its way into the Christian Church, 
 that this restless dissatisfaction with the world and all 
 that is in it — a dissatisfaction which was plainly the 
 penalty of self-indulgence and irreligion — should be 
 sought and cherished as though it were one of the 
 elements of Christian perfection, is almost unintel- 
 ligible. Some Christian people have made the aston- 
 ishing mistake of binding up the Book of Ecclesiastes 
 with the New Testament : they have put it some- 
 where between the four Gospels and the Revelation 
 of John — an impossible place. They treat it as 
 though it had been written by Paul in his last days 
 instead of by Solomon, or by some unknown writer 
 who wanted to represent the weariness and de- 
 spondency of a wasted life. We, too, are required 
 to write this melancholy epitaph over all our wisdom 
 strength, honour, and joy, over our libraries, over our 
 galleries of art, over the laboratories of science — 
 " All is vanity and vexation of spirit ; vanity of 
 vanities, all is vanity." And if we are not in the 
 mood to write it, it is half suspected that we are not 
 as devout as we should be. I deny altogether the 
 
CHRISTIAN WORLDLINESS. 225 
 
 legitimacy of this appeal to the Book of Ecclesiastes, 
 as though it contained the Christian theory of human 
 life : the book was not written by a great saint, but 
 by a great sinner. 
 
 But our false conception of the relations of the 
 Christian man to the world is not really derived from 
 this ancient Jewish book ; it is part of that miserable 
 inheritance which has descended to us from the 
 worst days of Christendom. It is quite time that 
 we Protestants got rid of the traditional Romish 
 saint — the saint that we see on the walls of every 
 picture-gallery in Europe, the saint that still haunts 
 the imagination of hundreds of thousands of devout 
 men who regard the Romish apostasy with horror. 
 Every one knows the kind of figure I mean — the 
 thin, pale face, the eyes red with tears or weary with 
 watching, the transparent hands, the wasted form. 
 That was the Roman Catholic saint, the saint of the 
 Middle Ages, the saint, too, of those early Christian 
 centuries, when the Christian faith was coloured by 
 the dark superstitions and philosophical speculations 
 of races that were just emerging from heathenism. 
 We have given up the theology of Rome ; we have 
 forgotten to revise the Romish conception of the 
 religious life. The Romish ideal of saintliness was 
 the creation of Romish theology ; all that was true 
 and noble in it — and there was much that was true 
 and noble in it — came from those eternal principles 
 of the Christian faith which were not altogether sup- 
 pressed or forgotten even in the darkest and most 
 
 Q 
 
226 . LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 evil times ; all that was artificial, ignoble, and un- 
 lovely came from those Romish errors which we 
 renounced at the Reformation. Between belief and 
 character, theory and conduct, theology and the 
 ideal of spiritual perfection, there is a vital con- 
 nection. It was the theology of Rome that de- 
 veloped the characteristic type of holiness in the 
 Roman Church, and now that we have parted with 
 the theology, we ought to have a different type of 
 sanctity. 
 
 But we are still mastered by the spell of the 
 ancient tradition. We can hardly think of a man 
 as a saint unless he is very quiet, placid, and sub- 
 dued ; if there is a touch of melancholy in him we 
 are better pleased. He must not be too strong ; he 
 must be a little pale ; and must not have too much 
 flesh on him. A man of another sort, with plenty 
 of muscle in his arms and plenty of colour in his 
 face ; with a ringing voice, a broad chest, sound lungs, 
 a vigorous pulse, and a firm step ; with a healthy 
 appetite and a good digestion ; with a cheerful satis- 
 faction in the pleasures of life, and a buoyancy of 
 spirit that rises above most of its troubles ; with 
 an elasticity of temper that refuses to be chained to 
 gloomy memories and to be vexed by common cares, 
 that prefers the glad open sunshine to the shadows 
 of solemn cloisters — such a man hardly satisfies us. 
 Without knowing exactly why, we find it hard to 
 think of a man like this as a saint. A keen delight 
 in common work and common pleasures seems to 
 
CHRISTIAN WORLDLINESS. 227 
 
 most of us inconsistent with the great life of Faith 
 and with unbroken communion with God. 
 
 The late Canon Mozley, who is better worth 
 reading when he is wrong than most other men / 
 are when they are right, has said some very sugges- 
 tive things on this subject in his essay on the late Dr. 
 Arnold, of Rugby, and they illustiate rather strikingly 
 the point on which I am insisting. He thinks that 
 in what he describes as Arnold's " vigorous, youthful, 
 eager, intense, lively, affectionate, hearty and power- 
 ful character,^' there was a certain deficiency ; that 
 there was not enough of sadness in it to touch our 
 deeper sympathies. He says that we are sorry when 
 our friends are unhappy, but that "we do not like 
 them less, but more — yes, more, for being so " — a 
 sentence which, I think, is not true without con- 
 siderable qualifications. For everything depends on 
 the cause and the quality of their unhappiness ; there 
 is a kind of discontent and fretfulness which repels 
 and is likely to quench affection. A wilful absorp- 
 tion in sad memories, an excessive anxiety about 
 personal interests, a refusal to be happy, make cor 
 diality of love and friendship almost impossible. 
 
 Canon Mozley goes on to say, " Arnold's character 
 is too luscious, too joyous, too luxuriant, too brimful. 
 . . . The colour is good, but the composition 
 is too rich. Head full, heart full, eyes beaming, 
 affections met, sunshine in the breast, all nature em- 
 bracing him — here is too much glow of earthly 
 mellowness, too much actual liquid in the light. The 
 
228 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 happy instinct is despotic in him ; he cannot help it, 
 but he is always happy, likes everything that he is 
 doing so prodigiously — the tail is wagging, the bird 
 whistles, the cricket chirps." This is a caricature,, 
 and there are lines in it which are not to be found 
 in the original. Arnold's strenuous energy, both in 
 work and play, was, perhaps, his most remarkable 
 quality, and the idea of energy is hardly suggested 
 by describing his character as " luscious " and "luxu- 
 riant." But though a caricature, the sketch is suffi- 
 ciently accurate to be recognised. I remember 
 reading Arnold's Life thirty years ago, and I hap- 
 pened to be reading at the same time the Life of 
 John Foster, which, in its way, was an equally in- 
 teresting and remarkable biography. I turned from 
 one book to the other, and the contrast between them 
 heightened the effect of each. To pass from the 
 secluded, cheerless, meditative life of Foster to the 
 life of Arnold was like passing from a close, ill- 
 ventilated, neglected room into which the sun never 
 shines, and where the song of a bird is never heard, 
 and the grace of a flower never seen, on to the hill- 
 side, with a fresh wind blowing, the sky full of 
 sunlight, and a view stretching over miles of glorious 
 country to the open sea. 
 
 Mozley thinks justly that Arnold was a repre- 
 sentative of high joyous Lutheranism rather than of 
 Catholicism. Not that Arnold was altogether a 
 Lutheran in theology, but he was a Lutheran in 
 temper and character ; and therefore he was not 
 
CHRISTIAN WORLDLINESS. 229 
 
 a saint of the true Catholic type. Mozley would 
 not admit that such a man, however good and ex- 
 cellent, can be a saint at all. The saint must be 
 less brilliant in colour ; sad, neutral tints must pre- 
 dominate ; there must be a great depth of shadow. 
 Mozley hit the mark exactly in this contrast be- 
 tween the ideal of Catholicism and the genuine 
 growth of Lutheranism. He preferred the Catholic. 
 Heart and soul, with the full concurrence of all that 
 I have learned from the New Testament about the 
 will of God, I prefer the Protestant. ^ 
 
 MThe principal cause of the difference between the 
 Lutheran or Protestant type of the religious life and 
 the Catholic, is to be found in that central truth 
 concerning the infinite love of God and the freedom ^y 
 of God's salvation, which Luther preached under 
 the name of Justification by Faith. It has been said 
 that Luther rediscovered God ; with God he redis- 
 covered the gospel. He came to men fresh from 
 the presence of Christ, whose mission it was, not to 
 call the righteous, but sinners to repentance, and 
 who is the propitiation for the sin of the world. He 
 declared that neither by fasting, nor .by painful self- 
 discipline, nor by protracted and successful struggle 
 with temptation, are men to obtain God's forgiveness 
 and to pass out of darkness into the clear light of 
 the Divine presence, but by Faith. Redemption is 
 God's free gift conferred on every man that consents 
 to receive it. 
 
 It was a wonderful gospel. Men listened to it with • 
 
230 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 the agitation of a great joy and with immeasurable 
 hope. Luther said to them : — You are troubled by 
 the consciousness of guilt ; you look back upon years 
 stained with sin ; you are sinful still ; your conscience 
 tortures you and refuses to give you peace ; you are 
 sure that God must regard your sin with a deeper 
 abhorrence than that with which you regard it your- 
 self, and you are right ; you look forward with terror 
 to the hour when you will appear before His judg- 
 ment seat. How are you to obtain forgiveness, and 
 with forgiveness deliverance from the pains of eternal 
 death } The Church tells you to confess to a priest, 
 to do penance, to fast, to pray, to mortify the flesh. 
 To make your salvation the surer, it encourages you 
 to shut yourself up in a cell, that through years 
 of unbroken solitude you may meditate on your 
 crimes, and with tears and groans implore the Divine 
 pardon ; it puts a scourge into your hands to chastise 
 your sinful body. You will be still safer if you wear 
 a hair shirt and a belt with iron points in it next your 
 skin. By physical discipline, by mental torture, and 
 by the devout use of the sacraments you may hope 
 to escape the eternal fires. This is the gospel of the 
 Church. But I, exclaimed Luther, have a nobler 
 gospel. Christ suffered for your sins ; God is ready 
 to forgive them. Away with all these miserable in- 
 ventions of superstition and slavish unbelief ! Listen 
 to the parable of the Prodigal Son. His father saw 
 him " while he was yet afar off," and " was moved 
 with compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and 
 
CHRISTIAN WORLDLINESS. 231 
 
 kissed him " ; forgave him at once and brought him 
 home. Was there a hair shirt for him, an iron girdle, ^ 
 a cruel scourge, long fasting ? That is not God's 
 way of receiving a penitent child. "Bring forth 
 quickly the best robe and put it on him, and put a 
 ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet;" kill the 
 fatted calf ; and fill the house with music and 
 dancing. 
 
 That is the Lutheran gospel, and you see the 
 joyousness of it. Catholicism keeps the penitent 
 in painful suspense. Having forfeited the complete 
 remission of sins granted him in baptism, he can 
 never be certain that he has recovered it. As long as 
 life lasts he is in trouble ; he must still be clearing 
 off old scores ; when this life is over he may have to 
 pass through fierce purgatorial fires. 
 
 But for the Lutheran, as soon as he saw the right- 
 eousness and power and infinite love of God which 
 were revealed in Christ, the guilt of past years 
 vanished and left the blue heaven without a cloud. 
 
 Nor was this all. Lutheranism was happy in the 
 present and confident about the future, as well as at 
 rest about the past. Its temper was a temper of un- 
 measured faith in God. It caught the triumphant 
 spirit of its favourite apostle, and said with him, 
 ** Being therefore justified by faith, let us have peace- 
 with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ ; through 
 whom also we have had our access by faith into this 
 grace wherein we stand " — have had it already ; and 
 " let us rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And '' 
 
232 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 not only so, but let us also rejoice in our tribula- 
 tions : knowing that tribulation worketh patience ; 
 and patience, probation ; and probation, hope ; and 
 hope putteth not to shame ; because the love of God 
 hath been shed abroad in our hearts through the 
 Holy Ghost which was given unto us," and we are 
 filled with the light of God's love for us as the 
 heavens on a summer morning are filled with the 
 glowing light of a cloudless sun. *' If God is for us, 
 who is against us ? He that spared not His own 
 Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He 
 not also with Him freely give us all things ? " This 
 was the Protestant spirit, a spirit of exulting thanks- 
 giving and of exulting hope. It was the antithesis of 
 the despondency which had prevailed in Christen- 
 dom for many centuries. It taught every man to 
 have unmeasured confidence in the Divine mercy for 
 the forgiveness of his past sins, and unmeasured 
 confidence in the Divine inspiration for the strength 
 he needed in the future to live devoutly and right- 
 eously. 
 
 The second element of confidence had -as great a 
 place as the first in the creation of a new type of 
 the religious life. For the ideal Catholic saint is the 
 I monk, and monasticism in its best times and its 
 highest moods sprang from a noble despair. The 
 world was so full of evil, that for a man who wanted 
 to live in God the only safety seemed to be in flight ; 
 to master it completely seemed impossible. Its 
 pleasures were very pleasant— so pleasant that the 
 
CHRISTIAN WORLDLINESS. 233 
 
 monk was afraid that while he was within their reach 
 he would be unable to resist their charm, and there- 
 fore he fled from them. It is always hard for a rich 
 man to enter the kingdom of heaven ; and the monk 
 thought it so hard that he stripped himself of every- 
 thing and accepted a voluntary poverty. Wife and 
 children — they may become our chief care and our 
 chief delight, and the monk, being afraid that if he 
 had wife and children to love, they might lessen the 
 passion of his love for God, took vows of perpetual 
 celibacy. Robust physical vigour and the physical 
 enjoyments of life sometimes refuse the control of 
 the Divine will, and therefore the monk wasted his 
 strength by fasting, watching, and prayer. It all 
 came from a vehement desire to please God per- 
 fectly, but the desire was not associated with a con- 
 fident faith in the power of God to enable us to 
 please Him perfectly in the common paths of men. 
 
 Protestantism, with its clear, strong, happy con- 
 sciousness of alliance with God, gave men courage to 
 face the world — to fight its evils instead of flying 
 from them. It believed in the great idea of the 
 noble prayer — " Thy will be done " — not in the 
 Church merely, not in the monastery merely — but 
 " Thy will be done on earth " — in the family, on the 
 farm, in the workshop, in the counting-house, in the 
 courts of kings, in parliaments, in the army, in 
 the painting-room, in the college, in the school — 
 " Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." The 
 world, with its complex social order, its intellectual 
 
234 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 activities, its material wealth, is not to be given over 
 to the devil : God made it, and Christian men have 
 to win it back to God again. 
 
 This element of Protestantism was, no doubt, 
 greatly invigorated by the influence of the Renais- 
 sance. Something of the old pagan delight in 
 physical strength and beauty was associated with the 
 fresh enthusiasm with which the intellect of Europe 
 recovered the immortal monuments of the genius of 
 Greece ; and to the Catholic conception of human 
 life the movement was fatal. Reconciliation was 
 impossible. But the healthier and nobler forces of 
 the Renaissance found their natural home and re- 
 ceived religious sanction in Protestantism ; and in 
 its turn the new learning contributed to the triumph 
 of the new faith. 
 
 Luther himself was a fine example of the spirit of 
 Lutheranism. He had a fiery and passionate hatred 
 of falsehood and of sin ; a dauntless courage in the 
 assertion of the claims of truth and righteousness. 
 He had a boundless faith and a boundless joy in God. 
 His joy was of a masculine kind, and made him 
 stronger for his work. His faith was of a masculine 
 kind, and relieved him from worrying doubts and 
 fears about his soul's affairs. He had his gloomy 
 times, his conflicts with principalities and powers in 
 dismal and solitary places ; but he had no morbid 
 dreams about the sanctity of misery, nor did he 
 suppose that the ever-blessed God finds any satis- 
 faction in the self-inflicted sufferings of His children. 
 
CHRISTIAN WORLDLINESS. 235 
 
 His massive face and robust form were the outward 
 and visible signs of the vigour and massiveness of his 
 moral and religious character. He was a man, and 
 did not try to be anything else : God made him a 
 man, what was he that he should quarrel with God's 
 work ? He had flesh and blood ; he could not help 
 it. He did not desire to help it. He ate heartily 
 and enjoyed seeing his friends at dinner. He 
 married a wife and loved her ; and he loved God 
 none the less. He liked music and songs as well as 
 psalms and sermons. He could laugh as well as 
 preach. He had a genial humour as well as deep 
 devoutness. He was a brave man, strong and reso- 
 lute, with abounding life of all kinds ; a saint of a 
 type with which, for many evil centuries, Christendom 
 had been unfamiliar. 
 
 Not yet do Protestants thoroughly understand the 
 immense revolution which Protestantism must ulti- 
 mately bring about in the whole sphere of the moral 
 and religious life of man. What is there, some 
 good men persist in asking — what is there to satisfy 
 the immortal soul, in music, in painting, in literature, 
 in travel, in the mystery and peace of lonely glens, 
 in the majesty of mountains, in the shining sea ? 
 That is all very true, but nothing to the purpose. I 
 might as well ask a poor ill-clothed wretch, shivering 
 in the snow, what there would be to satisfy his im- 
 mortal soul in a great-coat or a blazing fire. Or I 
 might ask the questioner himself, as he sat down to 
 breakfast, what there is to satisfy his immortal soul in 
 
236 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 coffee and broiled ham. We are not merely immortal 
 souls — at present. To relieve the physical necessities 
 of men is an act of Divine charity. The cup of cold 
 water will not do much for " the immortal soul," but 
 it will not miss the Divine reward. I decline to 
 follow the example of some over-refined commentators 
 who spiritualise the petition in which Christ taught 
 His disciples to ask for their daily bread. He who 
 wrought a miracle to satisfy the physical hunger of 
 men will not think that I am forgetting my " im- 
 mortal soul " if I offer the prayer in its plain sense. 
 But my physical wants are the poorest and meanest 
 of all the cravings of that wonderful nature which 
 God has given me. The intellect has higher neces- 
 sities. These, too, I may ask God to remember and 
 to satisfy. 
 
 It is mere ennui or a morbid form of the religious 
 life which induces a man to turn away with disgust 
 from the pleasant things of this world, inhere is a 
 worldliness which is Christian, and a distaste for the 
 world which is very un-Christian. "AVith a healthy 
 body and a healthy faith in God, eye and ear will 
 find a thousand delights. The morning light will be- 
 beautiful and the perfume of flowers and the songs ofV 
 birds. The verses of poets will have an infinite charm ; 
 and the voices of noble singers and the pictures of 
 great artists will be to us among the dear gifts of God 
 — dear for their own sakes and dear for the sake of 
 Him from whom they came. We shall value the 
 wisdom of ancient centuries, and shall watch with 
 
CHRISTIAN WORLDLINESS. 237 
 
 keen and sympathetic excitement the brilliant in- 
 tellectual achievements of our own times. We shall 
 be thankful if we are able to visit famous cities, and 
 the rivers and mountains of remote lands ; we shall 
 be still more thankful for the dearer joys of home. 
 The music of our children's voices will be sweet to us, 
 and the light in the eyes we love. 
 
 And yet we shall not be Pagans, finding our rest in 
 visible and transitory things. They will satisfy the 
 powers and capacities to which they are related, and 
 we shall not in a spirit of querulous discontent refuse 
 to enjoy the satisfactions they are intended to bring. 
 We shall take them for what they are, rejoicing in 
 them, being thankful for them, acknowledging them 
 as proofs of the Divine love and care. But over the 
 common earth will bend the Heaven of God. The 
 streams of earthly joy, beautiful in themselves, will 
 carry us onward to the ocean of eternal blessedness. 
 Sometimes there may be in us a certain discontent, a 
 momentary impatience for the more regal powers 
 and the diviner peace of the infinite future ; but this 
 will not be because we find no satisfaction in the 
 pleasant things of this world, but because having j/ 
 found the present life so lovely and so fair we are 
 filled with vague wonder and boundless hope by the 
 assurance that the next life is to be lovelier and 
 fairer still. The discontent will be checked and the 
 impatience repressed, for we shall remember that 
 already we dwell in God. 
 
 There are, no doubt, other aspects of human life, 
 
238 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 and the Christian faith has words for those that 
 mourn and that have a right to mourn, as well as for 
 those who ought to be happy. Sometimes our homes 
 are desolate, we are worn down with care, the brain 
 is too weary, the heart too troubled, to find any joy 
 in the delights of other years. It is not always 
 possible, even for those whose faith is strongest, to 
 " rejoice in tribulations." " Christian worldliness " is 
 inconsistent with the fanaticism which bids us be 
 indifferent to the calamities of life, as well as with 
 the fanaticism which bids us be indifferent to its 
 pleasures. The gospel does not require us to dull 
 our sensibility to transitory pain any more than it 
 requires us to dull our sensibility to transitory happi- 
 ness. It recognises the reality of the suffering, but 
 tells us that " our light affliction, which is for the 
 moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly 
 an eternal weight of glory." - For the miseries which 
 we make for ourselves there is little comfort to be 
 found in God ; for the miseries which we cannot 
 escape the Divine love affords infinite consolation.'/ 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SO WING AND REAPING. 
 
 IT is not safe to assume that "Whatsoever a man 
 soweth, that shall he also reap." Righteousness 
 and sin always yield their harvests ; the moral results of 
 all our actions — of the least as well as of the greatest 
 — are determined by definite and irresistible laws. 
 But as soon as we descend into the lower provinces 
 of human life the steadfastness of the Divine order 
 seems to fail us, and nothing is certain. There is a 
 great deal of sowing which is followed by no reaping. 
 The seed rots in the ground ; the young wheat is 
 blighted ; the harvest, just when it is touched by the 
 autumn sun, is destroyed by storms. 
 
 We can make sure of nothing except the supreme 
 ends of life, and this should be taken for granted in 
 all our plans and expectations. A young merchant 
 may resolve to build up a great fortune. He may- 
 have all the capital he needs and a perfect mastery 
 of his business : he may be honest, diligent, alert, 
 prudent. And after he has worked hard for twenty 
 years a great commercial catastrophe may ruin in a 
 month the results of all his industry and skill. Or a 
 young politician may resolve to win high political 
 
 239 
 
240 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 office. He may be animated — not by personal am- 
 bition — but by a genuine patriotism, and an unselfish 
 desire to render service to the State. Everything may 
 seem to be in his favour. He may have an ample 
 fortune and adequate intellectual power. He may 
 be laborious, fearless, and upright. Year by year his 
 knowledge of public affairs may become more varied 
 and more exact ; and year by year he may win 
 increasing popularity. But success is not certain. 
 Some physical infirmity, which was unsuspected in 
 early manhood, . may begin to show itself, just 
 as he is reaching the maturity of his strength ; 
 or some fatal defect of temper ; or in the vicissi- 
 tudes of public affairs a grave difference of opinion 
 emerges between himself and his party ; or he has 
 a serious illness from which he never quite recovers ; 
 or he meets with an accident, slight in itself, which 
 incapacitates him for the public service ; and as far 
 as the great object is concerned, on which he has 
 concentrated all his energy, he is baffled and de- 
 feated. 
 
 The same uncertainty menaces men in every 
 pursuit. A surgeon acquires a unique knowledge of 
 some special form of disease and a skill as an 
 operator which seems almost supernatural. For 
 fifteen or twenty years he has sacrificed everything 
 to his noble profession. He has been distrusted, and 
 has endured distrust with unflinching courage. He 
 has been thwarted by professional jealousy, and has 
 kept his temper sweet and generous. He has lived 
 
SOWING AND REAPING. 241 
 
 a hard and anxious life, but has never stooped to 
 mean and ignoble methods of improving his for- 
 tunes. At last his loyal devotion to science, and his 
 generous passion for the relief of suffering, seem on 
 the point of yielding a splendid harvest. His mag- 
 nificent skill is acknowledged. He has secured the 
 public confidence, which he always deserved. A 
 great position has been fairly won — a position which 
 gives him wealth, reputation, and, what he values 
 more than either, the opportunity of immense use- 
 fulness. And just then he happens to be in a railway 
 accident, or is thrown out of a Hansom, and he 
 receives a nervous shock which makes his hand 
 unsteady and his eye untrue. He has been sowing 
 for years, but he never reaps. 
 
 Human life has still sadder experiences than these. 
 You may try to get a harvest of affection from your 
 children and friends ; but your seed is sown on the 
 " way-side," and those whose love you most long for, 
 and try most earnestly to win, forget your kindest 
 words as soon as they are spoken, your kindest services 
 as soon as they are done. Or your seed is sown on 
 "rocky places;" there is a prompt and cordial re- 
 sponse to your affection, but there is no " deepness 
 of earth " — no capacity for strong and enduring love ; 
 the love is a passing impulse, and its strength is soon 
 spent. Or your seed is sown "among thorns;" the 
 cares of life or its pleasures so fill the heart and 
 mind that in the crowd of less gentle and less noble 
 interests you and your love are forgotten. All these 
 
 R 
 
242 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 things happen to God in His endeavours to win our 
 love and confidence ; they happen to us in our en- 
 deavours to win the love and confidence of others. 
 In those provinces of life which lie below the eternal 
 and the Divine we cannot be sure that " whatsoever 
 a man soweth, that shall he also reap." 
 
 There are times when we say bitter words about 
 the uncertainty and confusion of human affairs. We 
 turn cynical. What is the use of working hard if we 
 cannot make sure of the reward of our labour ? Why 
 practise self-denial if we are not certain that any- 
 thing will come of it } Why qualify ourselves for 
 positions which we may never fill ? What practical 
 wisdom is there in laying down plans of life which 
 cover many years, when we are at the mercy of 
 innumerable accidents which in a moment may 
 bring all our schemes to nothing ? Why should we 
 take trouble to serve others who, for anything we 
 know, will be ungrateful for all our love and service ? 
 
 But the disorder which God permits in the lower 
 provinces of human life is a part of that wise and 
 kindly severity by which He disciplines the race for 
 eternal righteousness and eternal joy. The confusion 
 and the uncertainty warn us against spending our 
 strength for objects which are below the true height 
 of our nature and destiny. The low levels of life are 
 swept by destructive floods, are smitten with fatal 
 blight ; they are unfenced and unprotected, and are 
 open to the incursions of marauding tribes. What 
 we sow there we are never certain of reaping. But 
 
SOWING AND REAPING. 243 
 
 the eternal fields are within our reach ; in these we 
 are sure of golden harvests. 
 
 God is the only Master who always gives His ser- 
 vants the wages they work for. Work for wealth ; it 
 may slip from your hands just when you think that 
 you have achieved the most splendid success. Disci- 
 pline yourself for professional eminence, and when 
 you are just reaching the height of your hopes you 
 may have a ruinous fall. Resolve to serve the State, 
 and after years of honest preparation the opportunity 
 of service may never come. Try to win the affection 
 of those dearest to your heart, and you may be cruelly 
 disappointed. But serve God, and you cannot fail. 
 Serve Him in your business, and every hour you spend 
 in your counting-house or in your works — whether 
 you make money or lose it — will increase your 
 treasure in Heaven. Serve God in your profession, 
 and whether you are successful or not in your pro- 
 fessional life, every year of labour will discipline you 
 for the higher activities on the other side of death. 
 In your schemes for serving the public, let it be your 
 supreme object to serve Him, and though you may 
 never be appointed to the obscurest administrative 
 office, and may never exert any appreciable influence 
 on the course of public affairs, you will make sure of 
 honourable distinctions and honourable functions in 
 the kingdom of God.. Serve your children and your 
 friends for the sake of serving Him, and though you 
 may win from them no affection and gratitude, you 
 will hear from the lips of Christ the surprising words : 
 
244 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 " Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these . . . 
 ye did it unto Me. Come, ye blessed of My Father, 
 inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foun- 
 dation of the world." 
 
 In a world like this, how is it that men who believe 
 in the living God, and whose thoughts wander through 
 eternity, can be indifferent to the glorious ages which 
 are their inheritance in Christ, and to the Will which 
 is their supreme law ? Even where emotion is 
 touched and imagination kindled by the solemnities 
 and grandeurs of God's invisible and eternal kingdom 
 conduct is often withdrawn from its control. A life 
 ^of faultless morality, as well as a life of degrading 
 vice, may be uninspired by reverence for God's eternal 
 righteousness and by gratitude for God's eternal love. 
 Deeds good in themselves may be done without 
 regard to Him who has the right to our perfect and 
 unreserved obedience. It may be only by accident 
 that they coincide with the Divine will. They 
 may be done to discharge claims arising out of the 
 transient relationships of this life, and to fulfil laws 
 which we should recognise as authoritative if we had 
 never caught sight of the throne of God and had 
 , no prevision of the world beyond death. There may 
 "^be practical Atheism where there is theoretical faith 
 in the Divine existence and authority. The dis- 
 appearance of God from the creed would have no 
 effect on life and character. But if there is nothing 
 of the eternal and the Divine in our earthly con- 
 duct, we are sowing no seed from which we have 
 
SOWING AND REAPING. 245 
 
 a right to expect a Divine and eternal harvest. The 
 connection between sowing and happy reaping is un- 
 certain and precarious, except for those who have 
 passed into the kingdom of God and who have 
 received the life of God, who have made the Divine 
 thought and purpose the law of all their actions and 
 the ground of all their hopes. 
 
 The harvest they are sowing to-day may not be 
 ready to-morrow or the day after, but " in due season " 
 they will reap if they faint not. I will not press the 
 words as far as to say that there is nothing to be 
 hoped for till the " season " comes for reaping that 
 eternal harvest which is absolutely certain. Many 
 Christian people can say with Oliver Cromwell, " I 
 have had plentiful wages beforehand, and I am sure 
 I shall never earn the least mite." 
 
 " How can they reckon up the grace 
 Each hour, each moment brings ? 
 How store Thy gifts ? how find a place 
 For all their precious things 1 
 
 '•' O boundless treasure, all unearned ! 
 O wages given for nought ! 
 Bestowed ere once their hearts have yearned, 
 Ere once their hands have wrought." ^ 
 
 But it may sustain the courage and constancy of 
 others to be reminded that the great harvest which 
 they are sowing is to be reaped in the sunlit fields of 
 immortality. There are good men to whom in this 
 
 1 T. H. Gill. 
 
246 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 world the calm and golden autumn never comes. 
 For them the tree of life does not yield its fruit every 
 month. They seem to labour in vain and to spend 
 their strength for nought. Their life is one prolonged 
 winter, or at best an ungenial spring. They have 
 hardly any sunshine, and instead of the kindly heat 
 of summer in which they might ripen to a beautiful 
 righteousness, they are exposed to keen and cruel 
 winds. One dreary season follows another ; there is 
 nothing to break the depressing monotony of the 
 cloudy, cheerless years. They plough the same fields 
 over and over again, and the soil is heavy and the 
 ploughing is hard work. They try to clean the 
 ground, but the roots of the weeds refuse to be torn 
 out, and after all their labour the stones seem to be 
 as thick as when they began. They sow good seed, 
 but sow in tears, and they wonder whether the 
 tender green will ever show itself above the bare 
 brown earth. 
 
 Let them not despair. The sure promise of God 
 will not be broken. The law of the eternal kingdom 
 will not fail. Let them not grow " weary in well- 
 doing." Let them not become impatient. Im- 
 patient ! why should they be .? Suppose that they 
 have to live a life of sixty or seventy years, plough- 
 ing and sowing, in dreary, dismal weather, with dark 
 days and cold nights — what are their labours com- 
 pared with the everlasting harvest ? Let one good 
 deed follow another ; let every brave triumph over 
 temptation give heart and courage for the conflict 
 
SOWING AND REAPING. 247 
 
 which follows it ; let the ascent of one mountain 
 height of moral and spiritual achievement be accepted 
 as little more than the discovery of a loftier height 
 beyond ; they have need of endurance, but the end 
 will crown all. In far-off worlds, in far-off ages, 
 among triumphant saints, in the presence of an 
 approving God, they will reap at last the golden har- 
 vest of their well-doing. 
 
 When we take sides with God, God takes sides 4 
 with us. Work done for God is never wasted. This 
 truth has very wide applications. With some qualifi- 
 cations it holds good in reference to other harvests 
 than those which are to be reaped in our own personal 
 righteousness and joy. Work of every kind that God 
 cares for is done in alliance with God's eternal 
 wisdom and strength. No doubt God Himself is 
 baffled by the waywardness, the folly, and the sin 
 of men. He sows seed in rocky hearts, in hearts 
 trodden hard by the passing feet of this world's 
 business and custom and pleasure, in hearts infested 
 with the thorns of care and of wealth ; and no harvest 
 comes. Our endeavours to do good to men are 
 certain to be hindered and defeated by the same 
 causes ; but it is a great thing to have God on our 
 side. 
 
 And whenever men work for the fulfilment of a 
 Divine law — even though they may not recognise it 
 as Divine, and may therefore miss the personal 
 rewards which would follow their service if they had 
 meant to serve God — it is wonderful how their un- 
 
248 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 conscious alliance with the Divine righteousness and 
 love augments their strength and contributes to their 
 success. I find in this a certain consolation for much 
 of the unfaithfulness of the Christian Church. Those 
 who mean to serve God neglect very much of the 
 work which God wants to have done, and their 
 neglected tasks are taken up by those who never 
 meant to serve Him. Fragments of God's thought 
 come to men who have no knowledge of God Him- 
 self Isolated precepts of His law constrain the 
 obedience of men who have never made His will the 
 i universal law of life. They sow the good seed not 
 knowing to whom it belongs ; not knowing for whom 
 they are working ; and the seed yields glorious 
 harvests. 
 
 This is specially true in the province of social and 
 political reform. We are most certain to succeed if 
 we are consciously endeavouring to get the Divine 
 will done on earth as it is done in heaven ; but those 
 who, without intending that this should be the result 
 of their labours, are working on the lines of the 
 Divine thought, achieve large success. 
 
 I am clear that the desponding tone in which some 
 men are in the habit of speaking of all schemes for 
 the improvement of the morality and the material 
 condition of the nation is altogether unjustifiable. 
 The law holds that, if we are not weary in well-doing, 
 we reap if we faint not. To tell us that all generous 
 effort is worthless, that things get no better, is to 
 quench the fires of a noble enthusiasm, to paralyse 
 
SOWING AND REAPING. 249 
 
 conscientious labour for the public good, and it is to 
 do dishonour to that beneficent alliance of the Divine 
 love with common philanthropy which has actually- 
 lessened the evils which were the curse of earlier 
 generations. 
 
 In due season we reap if we faint not. Read the 
 accounts of the flagrant injustice which disgraced the 
 administration of the law in this country two or three 
 centuries ago, and then say whether the patriots and 
 statesmen who resolved that the injustice should 
 cease have not been successful. Read the descrip- 
 tions of the prisons of England a hundred years ago, 
 and then say whether John Howard has not reaped 
 the harvest which he laboured for. Read the horrible 
 story of the tortures and agonies inflicted by the 
 slave-trade at the close of the last century and the 
 beginning of this, and then say whether it was for 
 nothing that Wilberforce and Clarkson appealed to 
 the humanity and justice of the English people to 
 put a stop to it for ever. 
 
 Within the memory of living men, what great and 
 happy changes have passed on the condition of the 
 large masses of people in the manufacturing districts 
 of the country ! Their condition is still bad enough. 
 During the last three winters many of them have 
 suffered severely. ^ Many are still sufl*ering from the 
 prolonged depression of trade. There are many 
 honest and industrious families whose permanent con- 
 
 1 Written in 1882. 
 
250 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 dition is terribly unsatisfactory, and who, in the best 
 times, are barely able to free themselves from the 
 burdens which they have incurred in times of stag- 
 nation and disaster. There is still a great deal of 
 roughness, coarseness, and violence among some 
 classes of our population, and among others a great 
 deal of selfishness, extravagance, ostentation, and 
 profligacy. 
 
 But the wide wastes of misery and despair have 
 been largely reclaimed. The appalling growth of 
 hereditary pauperism, which fifty years ago threat- 
 ened an early exhaustion of our national resources 
 and the destruction of all manly self-reliance and in- 
 dependence, has been checked. Periods of extreme 
 distress recur less frequently, and the area of suffer- 
 ing is narrowed. The turbulence and the savagery 
 of the early part of the century have almost dis- 
 appeared ; the mutual hatred which separated 
 different classes from each other, the fierce jealousy 
 with which a starving population regarded the 
 wealthy, the inhuman scorn and contempt, not un- 
 mixed with fear, with which the wealthy regarded 
 their miserable fellow-countrymen, have passed 
 away.* 
 
 On matters of detail I cannot speak with any great 
 confidence except for my own town. But what is 
 true there must be true elsewhere. The houses in 
 
 * For decisive proof of the improvement in the condition of 
 the people during the last fifty years, see the remarkable address 
 of Mr. Giffen to the Statistical Society in the autumn of 1883. 
 
SOWING AND REAPING. 251 
 
 which large numbers of the people are living now are 
 bad enough, and the shops in which large numbers of 
 them are working now are bad enough. But when I 
 compare the sanitary condition of the town to-day 
 with the disgraceful negligence of thirty or forty 
 years ago, which left whole districts to be the nests 
 of foul and destructive diseases ; when I compare the 
 abundant supplies of wholesome water which are now 
 generally within the reach of the people with the 
 filthy wells, with sewage filtering into them, which 
 were common in those times ; when I compare the 
 large, airy, light work-rooms in which thousands of 
 the people are now working, with the close, poison- 
 ous atmosphere in which their fathers and mothers 
 worked, and which I used to visit when my ministry 
 began, — I can never say that the reformers have 
 laboured in vain and spent their strength for 
 nought. 
 
 Read the preface which Charles Kingsley prefixes 
 to one of the later editions of "Alton Locke." He 
 says that very much that was contained in that vehe- 
 ment and noble appeal for justice and mercy to the 
 poor had become obsolete. The battle was largely 
 won. The worst evils against which he fought had 
 passed away. 
 
 It is hardly possible to run by railway through the 
 poorer districts of any of the great towns in the 
 kingdom without seeing the conspicuous monuments 
 and illustrations of the success of a still more recent 
 movement for the public welfare. Every Board 
 
252 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 School rising above the humbler roofs which shelter 
 our great working-class population should rebuke the 
 despondency and renew the courage of those who are 
 labouring for any Social Reform. About the merits 
 of the School Board system, and about its adminis- 
 tration, there are still divisions of opinion which I 
 need not discuss ; but those to whom the system is 
 most hateful may learn from it the lesson I am 
 anxious to enforce. Fourteen years ago more than 
 half the children in most of our great towns were in 
 no school at all. Many of the schools at which the 
 rest attended were worthless. Religious zeal, sus- 
 tained and guided by the State, had accomplished 
 great results ; but for half-a-century there had been 
 a demand for large measures of educational reform. 
 About the year 1866 or 1867 a few men, inspired 
 with a genuine zeal for popular education, combined 
 together, and, taking up the work of their predeces- 
 sors, they resolved to make a passionate assault on 
 the indifference and despair of the public mind. 
 They were men without any great public position, 
 and without the resources which are commonly 
 supposed to be necessary to produce any great and 
 immediate impression on national policy. They en- 
 countered fierce opposition, but they met it with a 
 light heart, seeing before them the harvest which 
 would come if they were not weary in well-doing. 
 And already there is hardly a child in the kingdom 
 for whom there is not a place in a fairly good school ; 
 and that compulsory law which, a little more than 
 
SOWING AND REAFING. 253 
 
 ten years ago, was denounced in every part of the 
 country as foreign to the temper and traditions of the 
 EngHsh people, and certain, if put in force, to 
 provoke popular resistance and tumult, is working 
 quietly and peacefully ; and, while inflicting some 
 hardships on individual families, is bringing the whole 
 of our children under civilizing and elevating in- 
 fluences. 
 
 It is in the highest work of all that there seems to 
 be the gravest reason for despondency. Many weary 
 centuries have gone by, and the vessel of the Church 
 is still in mid-ocean, labouring heavily and beaten 
 with storms. The happy shores for which she is 
 sailing seem as far off as ever. In the Christian 
 work which lies nearest to every one of us there is 
 very much to chasten the exultation of hope with 
 which, perhaps, most of us began it. To measure 
 the harvest which we have already reaped against 
 the zeal, and energy, and thoughtfulness, and solici- 
 tude with which we have laboured, is, indeed, a 
 perilous business. It may be that those of us who 
 have been least successful have no great occasion for 
 surprise. In work of this kind it is the quality, not 
 the amount, of work that tells. And if we have been 
 successful at all — successful, I mean, in winning the 
 trust of a few men for Christ, in persuading them to 
 accept His will as their highest law, in enriching 
 their knowledge of God, in ennobling their concep- 
 tion of Christian righteousness ; if we have been 
 successful, here and there, in finding some solitary 
 
254 LAIVS OF CNR/ST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 sheep that had been lost, and successful in keeping a 
 very little flock from going astray — the results of our 
 work are of infinite value. There is no proportion 
 between the worth of our labour and what, through 
 God's infinite goodness, we have been permitted to 
 accomplish. 
 
 And however bitter may be our disappointments, 
 we are in the presence of a Divine sorrow which 
 silences our complaints. He who laid aside His 
 eternal glory and died on the cross at the impulse of 
 His love for mankind and His love of righteousness, 
 has not forsaken the world which He died to save. 
 Our work is His rather than ours ; our successes are 
 His, and His are our defeats. " He that soweth the 
 good seed is the Son of man," and if no harvest 
 comes, or seems to come, we should think of His 
 grief rather than of our own. 
 
XVI. 
 
 THE UNIVERSAL SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST} 
 
 THERE are many parts of the book of Revelation 
 which I do not profess to understand. Here 
 and there, at times, the golden haze of symbolism 
 has seemed to melt away, or rather the visions have 
 seemed to take a firm and solid and enduring form ; 
 but there are many passages in the book which, to 
 me at least, are absolutely and altogether mysterious. 
 It does not follow, however, that even these passages 
 are without great and precious uses. It is not 
 necessary to reduce a Divine revelation to an exact 
 and logical form, in order to receive from it con- 
 solation and strength, and even guidance. Some of 
 the most glorious expressions of the Divine power 
 and goodness refuse to be subjected to any rigorous 
 interpretation. I have often sat among the hills of 
 Cumberland, and watched the sun go down in the 
 distant sea. I have seen the glow which comes with 
 the brief twilight on the Nile, when the whole heaven 
 
 1 A sermon on Rev. xix. 12 : " Upon His head were mmiy 
 crowns " (A. V.) ; preached in St. Paul's Presbyterian Church, 
 Westbourne Grove, Nov. 23rd, 1873. 
 
 255 
 
256 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 is filled with rose and violet, melting away into the 
 purest white, and then into depths of transparent 
 purple. I have listened to the solemn music of the 
 tide rolling in upon a lonely coast in the twilight, and 
 to the song of the lark in the English sky and over 
 the hills of Judea. I have been filled with awe by the 
 majestic forms of the Alps, and by the stern grandeur 
 of the granite cliffs of Sinai. If I were asked what 
 these things meant, I could not tell. If I were asked 
 to translate these sounds and visions into exact pro- 
 positions, to define their meaning, to give them a 
 logical and coherent form, I could not do it. But for 
 all that, they have given me larger conceptions of the 
 greatness and goodness of God. They have lifted 
 me, when I have been in a devout mood, beyond 
 themselves. Without understanding them, I find 
 them to be true revelations of the unseen and eternal ; 
 and through them, as through the majestic outer 
 courts of a vast temple, I pass into the inner 
 sanctuary ; the earthly music is silent ; the material 
 splendours are dissolved, and I find myself in the 
 presence of God. 
 
 And so there are visions in this book, in the 
 attempt to interpret which the understanding is per- 
 plexed, but which are full of inspiration and of power. 
 If I begin to ask questions, I find that the questions 
 receive no adequate answer. Have the visions a direct 
 reference to past conflicts between the truth and love 
 of God on the one hand and the falsehood and 
 miseries of mankind on the other } or do they point 
 
THE UNIVERSAL SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST. 257 
 
 to conflicts yet to come ? I do not know. Are they 
 fulfilled already ? If they are, will they be fulfilled 
 again ? I cannot tell. The adverse powers which 
 are cast alive into the lake of fire and brimstone — are 
 they systems of imperial tyranny, or are they systems 
 of commercial selfishness } Or are they cruel and 
 gloomy forms of heathenism, or are they corrup- 
 tions of the Christian faith ? Who can say t But 
 of this I am sure, that these stormy and gorgeous 
 visions reveal to me a Divine presence and energy 
 in conflict with all the worst evils which afflict our 
 race, Divine anger, sternly punishing and relentlessly 
 consuming all that is evil. Divine righteousness re- 
 dressing the injustice of human affairs. Divine mercy 
 -pitying our sorrows. Divine grace recovering mankind 
 from sin and restoring them to purity and to blessed- 
 ness; and so, in the midst of the confusion and tumult 
 and uncertainty of this world's condition, I am at rest, 
 for the victory at last will be on the side of goodness, 
 of justice, of truth. 
 
 I do not know the exact reference of the vision 
 recorded in this chapter ; I cannot tell whether it 
 refers to some great and critical conflict between the 
 power of Christ and everything that is hostile to Him 
 — the final struggle which will end in perfect and 
 everlasting victory, or whether it is a concentrated and 
 vivid representation of the prolonged struggle which 
 has been going on for eighteen centuries, is proceed- 
 ing still, and will not close until the whole earth is 
 subdued under the power of Christ. In any case, the 
 
 S 
 
258 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 vision should fill our hearts with joy and strength ; 
 it is a translation into terms which appeal to the 
 imagination, of the great promise, " Lo, I am with you 
 alway, even unto the end of the world ; " and I single 
 out a particular element in the vision, " On His head 
 are many crowns," and I find in it not only joy, but 
 suggestions for the guidance of the work of the 
 Church and for the right ordering of our individual 
 lives. ' 
 
 The image is not a familiar one. To us, perhaps, 
 it is not a very natural one. We are not accustomed 
 to imagine more than one crown on one head. But 
 when I was in Egypt lately I saw, again and again, 
 among the figures sculptured on the walls of ancient 
 temples, an illustration of this vision. Egypt is 
 separated into two great divisions, Upper and Lower 
 Egypt. The two districts were at times governed by 
 rival sovereigns, and the crowns they wore were very 
 distinct in form ; but, in the period of Egypt's greatest 
 glory, the whole country was united under the same 
 king ; and on the head of a great monarch like 
 Rameses the Second, or Rameses the Third, and on 
 the head of the chief gods, like Osiris, for instance, 
 you see the crowns both of the Upper and the Lower 
 country, symbolically declaring their sovereignty 
 over both. And when, in this vision, John saw many 
 crowns on the head of Christ, it was a symbolic 
 revelation of the extent and variety of the kingdoms 
 over which He rules. Kingdoms which had been 
 governed by conflicting monarchs ; races ruled by 
 
THE UNIVERSAL SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST. 259 
 
 different traditions ; provinces remote from each 
 other and dissimilar, are alike subject to His author- 
 ity, and are alike to enjoy the blessings of His 
 reign. Heaven and earth, angels and men, are in- 
 cluded under His glorious sovereignty ; He is not 
 only Lord and King, He is "King of kings, and 
 Lord of lords." In this vision He is represented as 
 moving forward to the subjugation of the empire over 
 which He has been enthroned, making war against 
 all the powers that are in revolt against His authority ; 
 and we might find in it great encouragement in the 
 enterprise to which the Church is committed, of 
 winning the whole world for Christ. That enterprise 
 is not ours so much as His ; and as, in the hour of 
 battle, armies are said to have sometimes seen in the 
 heavens the forms of supernatural warriors rushing 
 with them against the foe, so we, in our great crusade, 
 may look up and see the very form of Christ, Captain 
 and King, leading the hosts of the Church, against 
 His foes and ours. 
 
 But I propose to make a somewhat different 
 application of the vision this morning. Li times of 
 deep religious earnestness, many Christian people 
 are apt to forget the most obvious principles by which 
 their conduct ought to be governed ; and the very 
 intensity of their desire to serve Christ perfectly 
 causes them to overlook the actual service to which 
 He has appointed them. When we speak of Christ'^ 
 ultimate reign over all the world, we do not always 
 remember what this means. It surely means not 
 
26o LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 only that all men will confess His authority and 
 rejoice in His salvation ; but that, in all the various 
 provinces of human life, men will be governed by 
 His laws, and that, in all the forms of their activity 
 they will perpetually reveal their loyalty to Him and 
 their love. We may not only speak ol" the various 
 races of mankind as the kingdoms over which Christ 
 will reign, and the crowns of which are already on 
 His head ; we may also speak of the various depart- 
 ments of human life as constituting different king- 
 doms in which the authority of Christ must be 
 acknowledged and His laws obeyed. Christ is to rule 
 over our commercial life, over our literature, over our 
 home life, as well as over our spiritual life ; and it is 
 a legitimate use of the symbolism of this vision to 
 insist that the sovereignty of Him on whose head are 
 many crowns is to be recognised and honoured in all 
 these various regions of our activity. 
 
 The first impulse of some persons when they begin 
 to be in real earnest about serving Christ is to look 
 at a great part of their life with sorrow, and to feel 
 bitter regret that so much time should be, as they 
 think, alienated from Christ's service and from the 
 great ends of the religious life. The young clerk, 
 for instance, thinks of the hours which he has to spend 
 at the desk, and is troubled that he has not more 
 time, as he would say, to give to Christ. The 
 tradesman thinks of his shop, and is distressed that 
 this world's affairs should necessarily consume so 
 much of his thought and energy, and that he has so 
 
THE UNIVERSAL SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST. 261 
 
 little to give to God. Poor women, servants, labour- 
 ing men, think of the nine, or ten, or twelve hours 
 a day during which they are occupied in household 
 work, or in looking after their children, or in ex- 
 hausting physical labour — they look upon these hours 
 as a kind of desert, in which the fair fruits of the 
 religious life cannot flourish, or as a kind of profane 
 territory which cannot be consecrated to God. Now, 
 what I ask you to remember this morning is that on 
 the head of Christ are many crowns — that not only 
 all nations are His, but that all the occupations of 
 human life are His. He is King of all the world, and 
 therefore King of our homes, King of our trade, King 
 of our literature, King of every province of the life of 
 man. His kingdom is not shut in by narrow bounds ; 
 it extends over all space and overall time. He rules 
 not only within these walls, but within the walls of our 
 own homes, rules in the schoolroom, rules in the work- 
 shop, rules in the merchant's office, rules wherever 
 Christian men can go, and over whatever Christian men 
 can do. Every one of us that desires to serve Christ 
 can give Him not fragments of our life, an hour here 
 and an hour there, but the whole of life from first to 
 last. Whatever we do, whatever we say, whether we 
 buy or sell, whether we work with the brain or work 
 with the hand, in private and in public life, whatever 
 we do, we are to do it to the Lord. 
 
 Let me illustrate what I mean. Here is a young 
 man with a real genius for art, for painting, for music, 
 for poetry. He is suddenly arrested by the discovery 
 
262 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 of his sin, and of the appalling ruin to which he is 
 exposed as long as sin is unrepented of, unforsaken, 
 unforgiven. He finds rest at last in the revelation of 
 the infinite mercy of God to our race, through the 
 life and the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, and he 
 devotes himself to the service of God. Should he 
 give up his art ? God forbid ! Sometimes, no doubt, 
 a man has a call to separate himself altogether to 
 spiritual work ; but the faculty for that work does not 
 exist in all men, and to all men the call to that work 
 does not come. Is the artist to think of his art as 
 something alien and foreign to his religious life, and 
 of the time that he gives to it as so much time with- 
 drawn from the service of Christ } Why should he ? 
 Let him remember that on the head of Christ are 
 many crowns, and let him crown the Lord Jesus 
 King of his art, serve Him in the painting-room as 
 well as here, at his easel as well as on his knees ; 
 with his brush in beautiful lines and colours, as well 
 as in hymns and prayers. If you ask me how you 
 are to do this, the answer is very obvious. God has 
 given you, if you are a true artist, an eye to see 
 beauty and picturesqueness of form and of colour 
 where we cannot see them. Tell us on canvas about 
 the loveliness you have found in quiet glens, in the 
 forest, and by the sea ; let us know more about the 
 glory of the mountains which God has built, and of 
 the sky which He fills with so pure a blue, and over 
 which He draws the pomp of His curtains of cloud. 
 Be God's minister to us, interpreting the mysteries 
 
THE UNIVERSAL SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST. 263 
 
 and illustrating the beauty of the book of nature, as 
 I am God's minister, interpreting the mysteries and 
 illustrating the beauty of this other book, in which 
 we have recorded a revelation of another kind. Christ 
 made the world, and all that is in it. Through the 
 artist we are to discover, in the work of Christ, a 
 grace, a majesty, and a nobleness which otherwise 
 we should have never known. And the artist gives 
 to those of us who can seldom escape from towns, 
 something of the refreshment and joy which God 
 intended us to receive from direct communion with 
 His own works. Look at some of the pictures of my 
 late townsman, David Cox, and you almost feel the 
 fresh wind blowing on your face. Look at a Harvest 
 Field of Linnell's, and here, in London, in the chill of 
 November fogs or January frost, you feel the warm 
 August sun upon you, and are with the reapers 
 among the hills of Surrey. And there are touches of 
 humour, and of kindliness, in domestic scenes, which, 
 caught by the eye of the artist and transferred to the 
 canvas, help to sweeten care and to give cheerfulness 
 and brightness to the monotony of human life. The 
 true artist can give to a childless home the laughter 
 of children, and can make us in our strength look 
 with new tenderness on the sorrows of old age. Never 
 think of art as though it were a province of human 
 life lying outside the limits within which Christ reigns. 
 Remember that He is the King of art, and in your 
 artistic life render to Him loyal service. 
 
 And so I might speak of music, and illustrate the 
 
264 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFF. 
 
 same principle in relation to that. But most of us 
 have to spend our strength in regions less imaginative 
 and lovely than these — in trade, and in manufacture, 
 and in the occupations of domestic life. Let us be 
 thankful that over all of them Christ is King. Yes, 
 He is King of industry as well as art. Over our 
 industrial occupations He asserts His authority, and 
 in pursuing them we render Him service. Is it not 
 so } Take the trade of a builder. Is there any more 
 Christian occupation than to give shelter to the 
 homeless on a winter's night, when the hail, and the 
 snow, and the north wind are making the condition 
 of the homeless most desolate ? Well, but we should 
 all be homeless all the year round if there were none 
 to build houses for us. Christ has appointed those of 
 you who may happen to be carpenters and builders 
 to do that. See that you make the foundations 
 honest, and the walls strong, and the roof water- 
 tight, remembering that under whatever earthly 
 master you may seem to work, Christ is the real 
 Master whom you have first of all to please. Is there 
 any more Christian work than to clothe the naked ? 
 But we should all be naked but for cotton spinners, 
 and cloth weavers, and the people that trade in cotton 
 goods and cloth goods, and that prepare them for our 
 use. See that you make the material good and 
 strong, and, if your customers will let you, the form 
 graceful and beautiful. Is there any more Christian 
 work than to feed the hungry ? But we should all 
 starve but for the farmers that grow the corn, and the 
 
THE UNIVERSAL SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST 265 
 
 sailors that bring it to us from Canada and the Black 
 Sea, the merchants that carry on the trade, the 
 millers that grind the corn, and the bakers that make 
 it into bread. 
 
 I might go through all the trades which occupy 
 your ingenuity and task your strength, and show 
 that to a Christian man every legitimate occupation, 
 legitimately carried on, may be a service rendered 
 to man in Christ's name. He is the King of in- 
 dustry and of trade, and in all industry and trade 
 we ought to be serving Him. You may give a bed- 
 stead to a poor woman who cannot pay for it. That 
 is a Christian act. But people that can pay for bed- 
 steads want them just as much as those that cannot, 
 and it is a Christian act to make them for us too. 
 The payment is but a subordinate element in the 
 transaction, and is just as good Tor those who make 
 the payment as for those who receive it. You send 
 a present of fruit to a sick person who is very poor. 
 That is an act of Christian kindness. But if there 
 were no fruit shops, many of us who are not poor 
 would get no fruit, and it is Christ's will that you 
 should help us to get it who can pay as well as those 
 who cannot. If men of business would look at their 
 business in this light, and get it transfigured and 
 glorified by considering it in its relations to Christ, 
 the corrupting influences of trade would soon dis- 
 appear. They would not be less successful than those 
 who carry on their business from purely selfish 
 motives, and their business would become a positive 
 
266 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 means of grace. You need not give up trade, if it is 
 an honest one, to serve Christ. Serve Him in the 
 trade itself, and remember that in trade, as in every- 
 thing besides. He is King. 
 
 And He is King of the province of public life, 
 too ; and in politics, whether imperial or local, 
 Christian men should still be serving and honouring 
 Him. I know that this is regarded by some ex- 
 cellent people as a province of life which is utterly 
 unreclaimable, given over to the devil, never to be 
 subdued to the sceptre of Christ, or regulated by 
 His laws ; but for myself, I should as soon think 
 of giving up a particular race of men, the Chinese, 
 or the people of New Guinea, for instance, as beyond 
 the reach of Christian grace. " On His head are 
 many crowns." He claims to rule over all races, 
 the lowest as well as the highest, and over all the 
 occupations and interests of humanity, politics among 
 the rest. I had a good little book sent me a little 
 while ago, by some simple-minded, devout person. 
 Indeed, good little books are often sent to me by 
 Christian people, who seem somehow to have a 
 kindly feeling for me, but who look with suspicion 
 and disapprobation on many things that I do ; and 
 sometimes they are kind enough to write me letters, 
 in which they express both their anxiety and their 
 good-will. And on this little book there were 
 written these very curious words — " There are no 
 politics in heaven : there is where your life should 
 be ; sad, sad, that it is otherwise." Now, that was 
 
THE UNIVERSAL SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST. 267 
 
 very kindly meant, but can you imagine anything 
 much more absurd ? You might as well write to 
 the chief physician of the Westminster Hospital, and 
 say to him, " There are no hospitals in heaven : there 
 is where your life should be ; sad, sad, that it is 
 otherwise." Or to the chairman of the London and 
 North- Western Railway Company, and say, " There 
 are no railways in heaven : there is where your life 
 should be ; sad, sad, that it is otherwise." I should 
 not wonder if the good Christian person who sent 
 me this admonition, sometimes gathers poor people 
 together, and gives them tea and good little books ; 
 and I might write to her and say, " There are no 
 tea-meetings and good little books in heaven : 
 there is where your life should be ; sad, sad, that 
 it is otherwise." No politics in heaven ! Well, I 
 suppose not ; but there are no agricultural labourers 
 there living on twelve shillings a week, whose 
 condition political action may perhaps ameliorate. 
 There are no hereditary paupers there, born to 
 live a life of weakness, and helplessness, and wretch- 
 edness, who by political action may perhaps be 
 raised into living a manly, honourable, and self- 
 reliant life. There are no gaols in heaven, to which 
 little children, born perhaps of criminal parents, are 
 sent for an offence committed in ignorance, and 
 where they are trained to a life of crime. In heaven 
 there are no unjust wars to be prevented, no cruel, 
 reckless ambition to be curbed by the will and 
 power of a free people. Politics un-Christian ! Why, 
 
258 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 the emancipation of the slaves in the West Indies 
 was a political act, and it was done mainly by 
 Christian people in direct obedience to the authority 
 of Him who, according to the old prophecy, was 
 to listen to the cry of the oppressed, and to break 
 in pieces the oppressor. The repeal of the Corn 
 Laws was a political act, and it was almost a 
 repetition of the miracle of Christ when He multi- 
 plied the loaves in the wilderness, because the people 
 were faint from want of bread. Christ is the King 
 of our political life, and in that, as in every other 
 province of our activity, we have to serve and to 
 honour Him. It was a miracle of mercy when He 
 laid His hand on those struck by fever, and cured 
 them ; and by going on to Boards of Works and 
 into Town Councils, and improving the drainage of 
 our great towns, and removing the causes of fever, 
 men are but following in Christ's footsteps. To 
 make men sober is a Christian work, and the work 
 may partly be done by resisting the combinations 
 of liquor sellers, who in some parts of England 
 are anxious to seize on every public office in order 
 that they may the better resist the movement for 
 diminishing facilities for drinking. To have your 
 own house governed honestly, and to have it kept 
 clean and wholesome, is a Christian duty ; and to 
 get your city honestly governed, and kept clean and 
 wholesome, is a Christian duty too. 
 
 There are no politics in heaven, but there are 
 many things on earth that are to pass away with 
 
THE UNIVERSAL SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST. 269 
 
 this world, through which men are prepared for 
 everlasting glory. There is no sorrow there, but it 
 is by the bitterness of earthly sorrow that we are 
 disciplined for heavenly joy. There is no suffering 
 there, but in relieving the distresses of the suffering 
 poor we are securing the approbation of Christ, who 
 will say to us, " Inasmuch as ye did it unto one 
 of the least of these My brethren, ye did it unto 
 Me." There is no trading there, but it is by resisting 
 the temptations of trade that we are strengthened 
 for the exercise of an immortal virtue. This world's 
 affairs are but the scaffolding of the great temple 
 which God is building, and which is to be filled at 
 last with His glory. If we remember, and act on the 
 remembrance, that art, trade, politics, all the depart- 
 ments of human life, are to be made subordinate to 
 God's great design, then these activities are not only 
 lawful, they are part of our Christian service ; the 
 scaffolding will some day disappear, but not till the 
 temple is complete. 
 
 And now, finally, passing by other provinces of 
 human life, over all which Christ claims to rule, 
 let me remind you that Christ is King of the 
 spiritual life of man. We admit this without hesi- 
 tation. We are so familiar with it that it seems 
 hardly to require thought. And yet much of the 
 weakness and much of the sorrow of Christian 
 people arise from forgetting it. He is King, I say, 
 of our spiritual life. This is the very palace in 
 which He reigns, the very sanctuary of the temple, 
 
270 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 all whose courts are consecrated to Him. He is 
 King, and to Him, therefore, we should offer per- 
 petual homage and worship. When we speak to 
 Him, we should speak not only of our trouble, of 
 our weakness, of our weariness ; we should remember 
 His greatness, and should rejoice in it. Why is it 
 that some people find no comfort and strength from 
 speaking to Christ } Because they do not apprehend 
 how great, how strong, how glorious He is. He is 
 only a human friend to them ; He is not a Divine 
 presence. He is one who sympathises as a brother 
 might ; He is not one who can help as God only 
 can. He is King, and we have to give Him rever- 
 ence as well as trust, homage as well as love. 
 
 He is King, and in the order and discipline of 
 our spiritual life we have to recognise His authority, 
 and to recognise only His. Even Christian people 
 often endeavour to regulate and to perfect their 
 spiritual nature by other laws than His, and this is 
 to forget His supreme and inviolable rights. If you 
 attempt to aid the development of religious senti- 
 ment by a merely sensuous worship, you forget 
 that in ordering your religious life you have to re- 
 cognise Christ's authority and Christ's only. If you 
 feel, as I believe multitudes of men feel in these 
 days, that the lives of some saintly men who were 
 severely ascetic have a greater spiritual charm than 
 the simple story of the Life of Christ given in the 
 Four Gospels, and present a nearer approach to 
 your idea of what true sanctity is ; and if you 
 
THE UNIVERSAL SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST 271 
 
 strive to conform yourselves to this artificial sanctity 
 instead of striving to live in the love of God and 
 in the love of man, and to go about eating and 
 drinking and doing good as Christ did, you are 
 unfaithful to Christ's authority in the region even 
 of your spiritual life. Look, too, at much of the 
 devotional writing which has been produced in our 
 times, and which has so fatal a fascination for 
 numbers of weak people. See how the hymns that 
 congregations are singing nowadays fondle Christ, 
 address Him in terms in which you would never 
 address even a man for whom you had any deep 
 reverence and any real respect. Why, people who 
 talk to Christ in that way forget that Christ is 
 King, that He is not to be fondled, but to be 
 reverenced, not to be spoken to in terms of en- 
 dearment of a kind that you would not use to your 
 equals, but in terms of homage, such as He has 
 a right to claim who is King of kings and Lord of 
 lords. 
 
 He is King — not merely the Example of holiness, 
 the Helper of infirmity, the Sacrifice for sins, our 
 Prophet, our Brother, our Friend — He is King. To 
 the spirit of man He speaks with authority ; He 
 claims its homage, He demands its obedience. He 
 requires the tribute of its choicest and noblest 
 treasure. All forms of earthly service and reverence 
 are but imperfect symbols of the service and rever- 
 ence which He claims from the soul of man. The 
 awe and devout fear with which we bow down before 
 
272 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 God are His ; for He is God manifest in the flesh. 
 The reverence of the conscience for the eternal law 
 of righteousness is His ; for in Him that law has a 
 personal life, and by Him its authority is sustained. 
 The homage which the heart should render to 
 supreme spiritual glory is His ; for His own life is 
 the Divine ideal of human perfection and He is the 
 eternal fountain of all that is morally beautiful and 
 noble on earth and in heaven. 
 
 Let us serve Him ; He has served us. In ourselves, 
 in our own character, there are provinces of His king- 
 dom in revolt against His authority ; and wherever 
 there is revolt against Christ, there is confusion, 
 misery, and shame. Let our lives, from their centre 
 to their furthermost limits, be subdued under His 
 power, and offer the homage of a happy loyalty to 
 His throne ; and then province after province, now full 
 of desolation, disorder, and misery, shall be fair as the 
 garden of God, and filled with the glory in which the 
 nations of the saved walk for ever above. He blesses 
 all those over whom He rules, and the measure of our 
 obedience to Him is the measure of the blessing 
 He confers ; nay, the blessing goes far beyond the 
 proportions of our obedience. Only let us yield Him 
 an honest though imperfect service, and in the great- 
 ness of His bounty our whole life shall be filled 
 with the glory of His beneficent reign. 
 
XVII. 
 
 ON OBEYING CHRIST. 
 
 WHAT is it to obey Christ? 
 The question appears to be an extremely 
 simple one ; but it is possible to suppose that we are 
 obeying Christ when we are really refusing Him any 
 effective authority over oiir moral life. 
 
 I. 
 
 There are, for example, many excellent people 
 who read the four Gospels in order to ennoble their 
 own conceptions of righteousness. They would say 
 frankly, if they were asked, and without any sus- 
 picion that they were not acknowledging the great 
 claims of Christ, "Conscience is our supreme au- 
 thority, but the life and teaching of Christ educate 
 conscience, make its vision keener, purify and exalt 
 its ideal of perfection. We keep the commandments 
 of Christ because we see for ourselves that they are 
 lofty and good." But this is not the same thing as 
 obeying Christ. 
 
 For what is the essence of obedience.^ Take a 
 
 273 X 
 
274 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE, 
 
 case. If a man over whom you have no authority 
 consults you about how a piece of work ought to be 
 done, you do not complain that he is disobedient if 
 he declines to follow your directions. If you do not 
 convince him that your way is the best, you say that 
 he is a dull man ; if you convince him and he does 
 the work in some other way which does not involve 
 so much trouble, you say that he is a lazy man or a 
 fool. There is no possibility either of obedience or 
 of disobedience where there is no authority. 
 
 But suppose one of your own workmen, one of 
 your own servants, asks you the same question, and 
 you answer it — the case is altogether different. He 
 may think that your way involves a waste of labour, 
 a waste of time, a waste of expense. He may not be 
 able to see that it is better than his own way ; but he 
 is not at liberty to refuse to follow your directions. 
 It would be more satisfactory if he saw that your 
 plan is better than his own ; but whether he sees it or 
 not he has to accept it. You are his master, and he 
 has no choice. 
 
 If I keep Christ's commandments only because I 
 have come to see for myself that they are wise and 
 good, I do not obey Him. If I recognise His au- 
 thority, I shall keep His commandments before I 
 recognise that they are either good or wise. 
 
 The conscience is instructed and developed by the 
 writings of the great moral teachers, and by the lives 
 of many good men ; but no ethical treatise, no saintly 
 biography, holds the same place in relation to the 
 
ON OBEYING CHRIST. 275 
 
 moral life as the four Gospels. Archdeacon Paley 
 may teach me in what sense a promise is to be kept, 
 and he may remind me of invaluable sedatives for 
 soothing and quieting anger. I may act upon his 
 teaching and be much the better for it ; but I do not 
 obey him, for he has no authority over me. He in- 
 structs my conscience, and I obey that. If we use 
 Christ's teaching and history simply to ennoble our 
 own conceptions of righteousness, and if these remain 
 the supreme authority, we are obeying conscience — 
 not Christ. 
 
 Half a century ago many unwise persons thought 
 that children ought always to ,be shown the reasons 
 for everything that they were required to do. This 
 pernicious theory has happily lost its , temporary 
 popularity. It is obvious that children who were 
 brought up under its influence could never be discip- 
 lined to obedience. But the inevitable conditions of 
 human life must have made it impossible to translate 
 the theory into practice. There are many things 
 that can hardly be explained to a baby in long 
 clothes. Even a child of six will not find it easy to 
 understand why it should be compelled to take offen- 
 sive medicine, or why any limit should be placed 
 upon its innocent pleasures in the vineries and straw- 
 berry beds. • It is doubtful whether even a boy of 
 nine or ten can be made to understand why he should 
 learn the multiplication table or the Latin declen- 
 sions. He has to do it first, and to discover the 
 reasons afterwards. 
 
276 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 — 
 
 The same principle holds in relation to morals. If 
 a child is not disciplined to truthfulness, industry, 
 kindness, before he can see for himself the obliga- 
 tions of any of these virtues, the chances are that 
 he will never see that lying, indolence, cruelty, are 
 hateful vices. Compel him to be industrious, and he 
 will discover for himself the obligations of industry ; 
 make it hard for him to lie, and he will discover for 
 himself the obligations of truthfulness ; use authority 
 to accustom him to kindness, and he will discover for 
 himself the wickedness of cruelty. In morals, prac- 
 tice comes before theory. 
 
 And so, if we obey Christ, His commandments will 
 soon shine in their own light. " He \kvdX follow eth Me 
 shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light 
 of life." It is not by mere meditation that we come 
 to see the real beauty and excellence of Christ's com- 
 mandments ; we must obey them before we see how 
 beautiful and noble they are. We must actually 
 follow Chf ist if we desire to have " the light of life ; " 
 if we decline to follow Him till the "light" comes, 
 we shall remain in darkness. 
 
 II. 
 
 To insist that no commandment that Christ has 
 given is binding till we ourselves are able to recog- 
 nise its obligations, is clearly and flagrantly incon- 
 sistent with the acknowledgment of His authority. 
 There are some who make a nearer approach to 
 
ON OBEYING CHRIST. 277 
 
 obeying Him than this, and yet do not obey. Most 
 men learn before they are thirty that conscience is 
 developed very slowly. To discover duties when the 
 time has gone by for discharging them is one of the 
 saddest and, I suppose, one of the commonest expe- 
 riences of human life. In early manhood we see that.: 
 if our moral sense had been clearer and stronger in, 
 boyhood we should have avoided many follies and 
 many sins. In middle life we look back with a sigh 
 upon early manhood. Knowledge has come to us 
 too late. Those who had the strongest claims upon 
 our love, and whom we did not love, have passed 
 away, and it is too late to atone for our coldness and 
 neglect. We were unjust without knowing it ; and 
 those who suffered from our injustice, though living, 
 are beyond our reach, and the harm we did them is 
 irreparable. Wide areas of duty were altogether dis- 
 regarded — disregarded, perhaps, through the very 
 eagerness with which we gave our heart and strength 
 to some of the great ends of life. And now we 
 cannot go back ; the years have gone by for ever in 
 which those desolate wastes might have been made 
 fertile and beautiful. 
 
 Happy are those who are born into households 
 enriched with the moral traditions of many genera- 
 tions of high and noble living ! A single generation 
 cannot learn for itself the great laws of life ; and it is 
 not enough, therefore, to be born of parents whose 
 hearts are loyal to duty and to God. The chances 
 are that much of their wisdom came too late to be of 
 
278 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 much service to their children. It is only the slowly 
 accumulated moral wealth transmitted by a long line 
 of honourable ancestry that can avail. The higher 
 forms of morality, like the higher forms of civiliza- 
 tion, are the fruit of centuries of labour and medita- 
 tion, of adventurous genius, of patient, unambitious, 
 inglorious toil. As the tradition passes from parent 
 to child the moral ideal becomes richer, loftier, more 
 complete ; every new generation is saved from some 
 great mistake committed by its predecessor, and 
 recognises from the first some duty which its prede- 
 cessor had to discover for itself. 
 
 Few of us are the heirs of this blessed inheritance. 
 In the moral order we belong to new families; we 
 have had to make our own way ; we have no 
 pedigree. Or some near ancestor wasted the family 
 estate ; what had been accumulated before him was 
 suddenly dissipated and lost, and his children were 
 brought to ruin. We begin life with only a rudi- 
 mentary knowledge of how we ought to live, and we 
 learn nothing early enough to put it into practice. 
 
 This experience leads many men to confess that 
 since Christ knows very much more about righteous- 
 ness than they know, it is a duty to trust His larger 
 knowledge and to follow His guidance, even when 
 He leads them into paths which they would not have 
 chosen for themselves. They accept His judgments 
 on all moral questions against their own. 
 
 Christ says, " Love your enemies," " Resist not him 
 that is evil." The duty is not self-evident. It is a 
 
ON OBEYING CHRIST. 279 
 
 man's natural impulse when he is struck to strike 
 back, and to strike as hard as he can. The hot 
 resentment is not only natural, it seems the kindling 
 fire of a manly virtue. But Christ condemns it, and 
 those who trust His judgment against their own try 
 to quench the passion and to discipline themselves to 
 the patient endurance of injury. 
 
 They also accept His judgment rather than their 
 own of the gravity of certain moral offences. They 
 can see for themselves that there is a want of gra- 
 ciousness and moral dignity in flinging about scorn- 
 ful, contemptuous, bitter words ; but if in a moment 
 of heat such words escape them, they think that the 
 words have, after all, not much harm in them. But 
 Christ says that they are very serious, and that by 
 uttering them a man may incur the gravest guilt 
 " It was said to them of old time. Thou shalt not kill; 
 and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the 
 judgment. But / say unto you, that every one who 
 is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the 
 judgment ; and whosoever shall say to his brother, 
 Raca, shall be in danger of the council ; and who- 
 soever shall say. Thou fool, shall be in danger of 
 the hell of fire." Those who have discovered how 
 slowly conscience developes may be led by this 
 discovery to trust Christ's moral estimates rather 
 than their own, and to watch more anxiously against 
 the heats of passion and against bitter and contemp- 
 tuous words. 
 
 This is a great advance on the position of those 
 
28o LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 who recognise no authority in Christ's precepts until 
 they can see for themselves the evil of what they for- 
 bid, the righteousness of what they command. It is a 
 great advance, but it is not enough. For this is 
 nothing more than faith in the larger moral wisdom 
 of Christ ; it is not a recognition of His moral 
 authority ; and where there is no recognition of 
 authority there can be no obedience. 
 
 A trust very similar to that which has been just 
 described — the same in kind — may be wisely reposed 
 in our fellow-men. It sometimes happens that a 
 young manufacturer, merchant, or professional man 
 finds himself in a position in which it is hard to 
 reconcile his personal interests with the claims of 
 others. He cannot measure these claims with any 
 accuracy; still less can he determine how he should 
 satisfy them. There are three or four courses open 
 to him : one of them he promptly dismisses as invol- 
 ving quite unnecessary sacrifice ; he is still perplexed 
 about the others. He consults an older man than 
 himself, a man of large experience, in whose judg- 
 ment he has perfect faith. His friend tells him that 
 he is bound to take the course which he has dis- 
 missed from his mind ; it is the hardest, but the only 
 right one. The young man cannot see why. The 
 line of conduct on which his friend insists is legiti- 
 mate, but he is not persuaded that it is obligatory. 
 Still his friend maintains that it is the only right 
 course; and. the young man says, "I cannot see it, 
 but I will trust your judgment rather than my own. 
 
ON OBEYING CHRIST. 281 
 
 If you are sure this is what I ought to do, I will do 
 it." That is a great proof of confide7ice^ but it is not 
 obedience. The younger man has faith in his friend's 
 perception of what is morally right in complicated 
 business questions, but if his friend asserted any 
 authority over him he would at once resent it. 
 
 Christ does not come to us asking only for our 
 confidence, as one who has a larger knowledge of 
 moral duty than we have ; He comes asserting au- 
 thority and insisting on obedience. I do not know 
 how to put it except by saying that He speaks to 
 us as an objective conscience — a conscience outside 
 of us — with an authority to which we are bound to 
 submit. 
 
 in. 
 
 There is a light that lighteth every man ; but it 
 reaches us dim, broken, obscured. It shines more 
 and more clearly as we are faithful to it, but even 
 when we have been faithful for years we are troubled 
 that the light is not steadier and stronger. That 
 light is a revelation from heaven. It is a Divine 
 word, translated very imperfectly into a human dialect 
 which, at the best, has no resources for expressing 
 acurately and fully the Divine meaning. Still it is 
 Divine. It is a revelation of the eternal law of right- 
 eousness; and God's will and the eternal law of right- 
 eousness are one. .Conscience touches God; God 
 touches conscience. Whatever obedience I owe to 
 the law which is revealed to conscience, I owe to 
 God. 
 
282 LAPVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 This moral supremacy, this identity with the eternal 
 law of righteousness, is the ultimate prerogative, the 
 incommunicable glory of Deity. That God is my 
 Creator imposes on me many obligations ; but if, 
 though He is my Creator, He were not my God, His 
 authority over me would not be unlimited. His 
 goodness — incessant and infinite — imposes on me 
 many obligations ; but if, though He is infinitely 
 good. He were not my God, I should be bound to be 
 grateful to Him, but not to obey Him : my own con- 
 science would still reveal the highest law, and this 
 would determine the measure of my duty to Him. 
 His power, in itself, gives Him absolutely no moral 
 rights over me. It is not because He can punish me 
 for not doing His will — it is not because He has 
 actually menaced me with punishment for not doing 
 His will — that I am bound to obey Him. The 
 menace of punishment does not create a crime ; if an 
 action is not already wrong it is a crime to punish it. 
 
 He is God ; and this means that He has an au- 
 thority over me, absolutely unique and absolutely 
 unlimited. Do you ask, " Why must a man obey 
 God } " You can never have heard the voice of God 
 if you ask that question. You may as well ask, 
 " Why must a man obey conscience } " I must obey 
 conscience because I ought ; there is nothing more 
 to be said. I must obey God because I ought ; there 
 is nothing more to be said." 
 
 And in Christ God comes to me and claims my 
 obedience. The ultimate prerogative, the incommu- 
 
ON OBEYING CHRIST. 283 
 
 nicable glory of God, is Christ's. He is the Eternal 
 Law of Righteousness incarnate. He does not 
 counsel ; He commands. When I discover who He 
 is, I have no choice but to obey Him. 
 
 IV. 
 
 This position is challenged. It is contended that 
 conscience must always retain its sovereignty, and 
 that even in Christ's presence conscience remains 
 supreme. In support of this contention it is alleged 
 that Christ Himself appeals to conscience to recognise 
 His claims. Miracles the most stupendous can never 
 compel religious faith or moral submission ; for 
 miracles, in themselves, are simply displays of power : 
 conscience must recognise the moral supremacy of 
 Christ before Christ can command either our religious 
 reverence or our moral submission. If conscience 
 has to form a judgment on the moral claims of 
 Christ as a whole, conscience must be competent to 
 form a judgment on the details of His teaching, on 
 His separate moral precepts ; and only as conscience 
 recognises their moral obligation do they become 
 obligatory. Conscience after all is supreme. 
 
 It is true that conscience must determine whether 
 or not the claims of Christ to moral authority are 
 valid ; but when conscience has once discovered that 
 He is the living, personal revelation of the eternal 
 law of righteousness, conscience has recognised its 
 Master and Lord. Henceforth conscience itself in- 
 sists that the commands of Christ must be obeyed. 
 
284 LA TVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 " But am I, in any particular, to obey Christ against 
 the dictates of my own conscience ? " Wait and see 
 whether the conflict arises. It may happen, indeed, 
 that some of Christ's precepts impose duties which 
 conscience has not discovered for itself, and does not 
 recognise as intrinsically obligatory even when they 
 are commanded. The explanation of this is to be 
 found in what has been already said of the slow 
 development of conscience. The jurisdiction of con- 
 science is august ; but conscience is not omniscient — 
 even in its actual decisions it is not infallible. Left to 
 itself, it often discovers duties only when it is too 
 late to discharge them. But Christ enables us to 
 anticipate experience. He does not command what 
 conscience condemns ; but in the early years of the 
 Christian life it is very commonly found that He 
 commands many duties which as yet conscience does 
 not enforce. 
 
 V. 
 
 These claims of Christ to personal authority over 
 the moral life provoke not only speculative criticism 
 but resentment. There are men of high integrity and 
 generous temperament to whom they are intolerable. 
 It is one thing to submit to an abstract law which 
 conscience discovers for itself — in this submission 
 there is no humiliation ; it is quite another thing to 
 submit to the government of a Person. 
 
 Nor is it because the submission is claimed by one 
 who has " been made flesh " that the claim is resisted. 
 There are/ it is to be feared, many persons who 
 
ON OBEYING CHRIST. 285 
 
 suppose that they beheve in God, but who refuse 
 Him all authority over conduct. They would vehe- 
 mently resent the charge of atheism, but they regard 
 God as nothing more than a metaphysical hypo- 
 thesis to account for the existence of the universe. 
 In support of this position they may appeal to the 
 Christian apologists of the eighteenth century, some 
 of whom seem to have learnt their theology from 
 Aristotle rather than from Christ ; but they are in 
 open conflict both with the Jewish and- the Christian 
 revelation. 
 
 The Book of Genesis begins, no doubt, with a 
 wonderful celebration of God as the Creator of the 
 heavens and the earth, of the sun, the moon, the 
 stars, and of all living things ; but it is impossible 
 that this can record the first revelation of God to the 
 human race. God first revealed Himself in His im- 
 mediate relations to living men, and when men began 
 to know Him for themselves He led them on to 
 the discovery that He whom they knew was -the 
 Creator of all things. Both in the New Testament 
 and in the Old, God's present and direct relations to 
 men take precedence of all questions concerning the 
 great First Cause. 
 
 But these relations are to many men intolerable. 
 While God is nothing more than the Origin of all 
 things the personal life is free ; as soon as He claims 
 authority the freedom seems lost. The claim is met 
 with angry resistance. It is thrust aside, out of 
 sight. To be ruled by a Law— this can be borne ; 
 
286 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 to be ruled by a Person is to be reduced to the con- 
 dition of a slave. 
 
 But those to whom the great discovery of God in 
 Christ has come, know that in His service there is 
 perfect freedom. The recognition of His personal 
 supremacy over life brings with it courage, elastic 
 vigour, high hope, and a sense of great security and 
 peace. VThe rule of Law — not of the personal God — 
 is the real tyranny. The law can command ; it can 
 do nothing more. It is inflexible, and to those who 
 are conscious of moral failure it is stern and implac- 
 able. It has no pity for our weakness, no tears for 
 our defeats, no compassion for our follies, no forgive- 
 ness for our sins. It does not share our hopes. It 
 does not rejoice in our triumphs. It leaves the awful 
 loneliness of the soul in the highest provinces of life 
 unrelieved. It can receive no confidences, show no 
 sympathy. ' It lays upon us heavy burdens, and gives 
 no strength to bear them. It raises questions which 
 perplex us and answers none of them.. When Christ 
 becomes the Lord of conduct everything is changed. 
 He stands by us in every conflict ; gives strength as 
 well as defines duty ; rejoices more than we re- 
 joice ourselves in our victories ; grieves more than 
 we grieve ourselves in our reverses. Henceforth we 
 are never alone, either in the unexciting and mono- 
 tonous duties of common days, or in those hours of 
 peril in which, but for His presence and support, our 
 hearts would fail and our strength faint. ^ 
 
 Christ becomes our comrade, faithful and generous ; 
 
ON OBEYING CHRIST. 287 
 
 but yet He is our Ruler and we are under the govern- 
 ment of a higher Will than our own. Close observers 
 may discover the wonderful difference that this makes 
 in the character of a man whose morality, in the 
 ordinary sense of the word, has undergone no change 
 as the result of his submission to Christ's authority. 
 The difference is hard to put into words, but it is as 
 if the man were always in the presence of one greater 
 than himself ; and this is the actual explanation of his 
 new temper and spirit. There is no servility in him, 
 but arrogance and wilfulness are now impossible. 
 There is a new dignity in his moral bearing, 
 but it is not a dignity which comes from self- 
 assertion ; it is a dignity that comes from his re- 
 lationship to the greatness of another. No such 
 results follow belief in a God who is nothing more 
 than a metaphysical hypothesis to account for the 
 origin of the universe. In men who have such a 
 belief it may be perfectly clear that their will has 
 never done homage to a higher will ; and that what- 
 ever discipline they may have received from educa- 
 tion and from the experience of life, the central forces 
 of their nature are unsubdued and untamed. They 
 have no relations to a nature higher than their own. 
 They have no God. 
 
 We have to obey God in Christ. But when the 
 real secret of the Christian revelation is mastered, the 
 obedience assumes a unique character. The Will by 
 which we are ruled is the will of another who is yet 
 not another. The fountains of our life are in Him. 
 
288 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 We are one with Him as the branch is one with the 
 vine. He is our higher self, our truer self. The Will 
 we obey is a force which acts, not from without, but 
 from within. It inspires as well as governs, impels 
 as well as commands. This wonderful relation to 
 Christ, and this alone, renders it possible to obey 
 Him. Not until we abide in Christ and Christ 
 abides in us are we able to keep His command- 
 ments. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 AN ETHICAL REVIVAL, 
 
 T~\URING the last hundred years we have had 
 -^-^ two great religious movements in England, 
 each of which may be fairly described as a religious 
 revival. The earlier movement, originated by Whit- 
 field and the Wesleys, rescued large masses of the 
 English people from practical atheism. It reached 
 the highest point of its power in the first quarter 
 of the present century, and about 1830 began to 
 decline. 
 
 In 1833 there were the first faint indications of 
 a religious movement of a very different character. 
 Scoffed at and despised in its earlier years, vehe- 
 mently and passionately denounced a few years later, 
 it continued to gather strength, until it began to 
 change the whole temper and faith of the English 
 Church. It has at last become, as some think, the 
 most energetic element in the religious life of the 
 nation. 
 
 Its influence has been felt beyond the limits of 
 the Establishment, and even among those religious 
 communities which are most hostile to its character- 
 istic theology. It is to this movement that must 
 
 289 u 
 
290 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 be largely ascribed the recent activity of all Chris- 
 tian denominations in erecting and beautifying their 
 church buildings. The money expended for these 
 purposes during the last thirty years has been enor- 
 mous. Ancient churches, which were falling into 
 decay, have been restored. " Meeting-houses," which 
 had satisfied the tastes of several generations of 
 devout worshippers, and which were perfectly sound 
 from foundation to roof, have disappeared, and have 
 been replaced with buildings having nave and chan- 
 cel, Gothic arches, tower or spire, and windows 
 blazing with angels and saints. New churches on 
 new sites have been erected, and their architecture 
 is a witness to the triumph of the ecclesiastical 
 movement which took its rise at Oxford and has 
 spread all over the land. Never, I imagine, has so 
 large an amount of money been devoted, within the 
 same time and within the same area, to church 
 building. And it has been devoted freely — not 
 forced from men by the authority of princes or by 
 the menaces of priests. 
 
 Although there is still a vast proportion of our 
 people that neglect public worship, it cannot be said 
 that the churches are desolate and neglected. In 
 cathedrals, which were once a desolation from one 
 year's end to another, there are now crowded con- 
 gregations. Wherever the Gospel is preached with 
 fervour and earnestness men throng to hear. And 
 the services of every religious denomination are 
 celebrated- with greater solemnity and dignity than 
 
AN ETHICAL REVIVAL. 291 
 
 formerly; the arrangements for worship are no longer 
 slovenly and careless. 
 
 Nor is this all. During the same period attempts 
 have been made, on a great scale, to evangelise 
 the country. Scripture-readers and city missionaries 
 go from house to house. In the destitute parts of 
 large towns mission-rooms are provided for the poor. 
 New energy has been devoted to Sunday-schoob. 
 From time to time men of exceptional power as 
 evangelists, both Churchmen and Nonconformists, 
 have preached, week after week and month after 
 month, to numerous congregations, and, apparently, 
 with remarkable effect. 
 
 ' What has come of it all } The results of the 
 evangelical revival of the last century have been 
 frequently discussed, and though I doubt whether we 
 have, even yet, formed a true and complete estimate 
 of the various elements of its weakness and power, 
 it is in the more recent movement that we have the 
 deeper practical interest. 
 
 Is there any analogy between the recent move- 
 ment and the great revival which took place under 
 Hezekiah, and of which we have the history in 
 2 Chronicles xxix.-xxxi. I Can we find in the story 
 of the Jewish people any warnings which may save 
 us from the possible failure of the revival which, 
 during the last fifty years, has stimulated the zeal 
 and the activity of English Christians ? At first 
 sight, the two religious movements seem to have 
 many points of reseniblance. 
 
292 LAWS OF CNR/ST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 Under the reign of Ahaz the Temple had been 
 profaned, and its gates closed. Altars to Syrian 
 gods were erected in every city of Judah, and even 
 in the streets of Jerusalem. All this was changed 
 at the accession of Hezekiah. As soon as he became 
 king, he began a great reformation. The Temple 
 was cleansed- and the service restored. The people 
 were invited to return to the God of their fathers, 
 and the invitation created universal delight. The 
 whole nation shared the earnestness of the king. At 
 a great religious festival, which was held soon after 
 he came to the throne, the priests were too few to 
 slay the offerings which were brought voluntarily to 
 the altars of Jehovah. " There was great joy in 
 Jerusalem " that the old times had come back again ; 
 "for since the time of Solomon, the son of David, 
 king of Israel, there was not the like in Jerusalem." 
 Hezekiah "wrought that which was good and right 
 and truth before the Lord his God. And in every 
 work that he began in the s^vice of the house of 
 God, and in the law, and in the commandments, 
 to seek his God, he did it with all his heart, and 
 prospered." 
 
 Nor does this seem to have been a mere spasmodic 
 movement. The revival went on for many years. 
 When the prophecy preserved in the first chapter 
 of Isaiah was delivered, its force was unspent. In 
 that prophecy there is no complaint that the Temple 
 was deserted, that the solemn festivals were neglected, 
 that sacrifices were offered reluctantly, that the people 
 had ceased to pray. 
 
AN ETHICAL REVIVAL. 293 
 
 So far, the parallel between the ancient and the 
 modern revival seems to be fairly close. Does the 
 parallel run farther ? 
 
 When Isaiah delivered this prophecy, the religious 
 activity of the nation was, I have said, unrelaxed. 
 But, in God's name, he speaks of it with fierce indig- 
 nation and scorn. The sacrifices which the people 
 offered with such fidelity — offered to the true God, 
 offered in obedience to the Divine law- — provoked 
 the Divine disgust. The people that crowded the 
 Temple are asked, " Who hath required this at your 
 hands, that ye should trample My courts ? " Your 
 monthly assemblies for worship, your Sabbath ser- 
 vices, " My soul hateth ; they are a trouble to Me ; 
 I am weary of bearing them. And when ye stretch 
 forth your hands I will hide Mine eyes from you : 
 yea, when ye make many prayers I will not hear." 
 
 These words are alarming. They ought to be 
 specially alarming to English Christians just now. 
 It appears that we may be very active in church 
 building ; may give our time and our strength and 
 our money ungrudgingly to the maintenance of the 
 institutions of Divine worship ; may have a deep 
 and hearty • delight in the public service of God ; 
 may even be. successful in our zealous endeavour to 
 prevail upon the great masses of the people to attend 
 church ; and that God may come to regard all that 
 we have done, not only with dissatisfaction, but with 
 abhorrence. What was begun well may end badly. 
 What is good as far. as it goes, may be a grievous 
 
294 LA TVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 offence to God because it does not go farther. What 
 had the Divine approval in its earlier days may at 
 last provoke the Divine anger. A religious revival 
 which appears to be a great success, may, after all, 
 be in God's sight a disastrous failure. 
 
 The Jewish revival under Hezekiah was wrecked 
 because it was not accompanied by a great reforma- 
 tion in morals. With all the religious zeal which the 
 king had created, the private and public life of the 
 people still continued terribly corrupt. How is it 
 with ourselves } Has the religious movement of the 
 last fifty years produced any considerable ethical 
 reform t The theological aspects of the movement, 
 which are ominous enough, may for the moment 
 be disregarded. 
 
 As far as I am able to form any judgment on 
 the question, there has been a positive improvement 
 in Christian morality during this period ; there has, 
 at least, been an improvement in some directions. 
 But I fear that the improvement has been only 
 partial. 
 
 A selfish absorption in tlieir own personal salvatton 
 cannot be charged indiscriminately on the Christian 
 men and women of our times. They devote them- 
 selves in large numbers to movements for the alle- 
 viation of the' distress and the instruction of the 
 ignorance by which they are surrounded. The 
 Christian Church recognises more clearly than in 
 the last generation its responsibilities to the poor 
 and the wretched. There are larger numbers of 
 
AN ETHICAL REVIVAL. 295 
 
 good men than there were fifty years ago who are 
 faithful to municipal and political duty. In some 
 other directions there are the signs of a moral 
 reformation. There is greater sobriety in the Church 
 than there was in the last century and in the be- 
 ginning of the present century, and drunkenness is 
 visited with sterner condemnation. 
 
 That the Sunday-schools and the " Missions " of 
 all Churches have done very much to rescue large 
 numbers of persons from a grossly vicious life is 
 certain. What has happened within my own ob- 
 servation in connection with the work of Mr. Moody, 
 and in connection with other evangelistic work of 
 which I have a personal knowledge, has happened 
 all over the country. Violent men and women have 
 become gentle and quiet, the profane have become 
 reverent and devout, and drunkards have become 
 sober. Wherever the Church has reached those who 
 were living in flagrant .vice, it has reformed them. 
 
 But it is possible that while there has been a 
 genuine reform among those who were guilty of gross 
 sins, and while on the part of Christian people 
 generally there may have been a new earnestness 
 in the discharge of some duties, the ethical revival 
 has not kept pace with the religious, and the greater 
 zeal for the building of churches and the celebration 
 of religious services may not have been accompanied 
 with any considerable and general improvement in 
 Christian character. When there is great religious 
 excitement there ought to be (i) an elevation of the 
 
296 LAIVS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 moral ideal of the Church ; and there ought to be 
 (2) a nearer approach to that ideal in the lives of 
 Christian men. Apart from these two results of a 
 religious revival, the excitement may soon disappear, 
 and may, in the long run, prove to be mischievous 
 rather than beneficial. The most earnest and zealous 
 evangelistic work — the most successful evangelistic 
 work — ought to be accompanied and followed by a 
 patient endeavour to discover more perfectly, and 
 to obey more faithfully the will of God in relation 
 to our common life. If we insist exclusively on 
 God's infinite mercy, and suppress the recognition 
 of His august authority, our " solemn assemblies " 
 will be an offence to Him that loveth righteousness 
 and hateth iniquity ; oitr worship will be an " abom- 
 ination" to Him ; when we "spread forth our hands" 
 in meetings for imploring the manifestation of the 
 power and mercy of the Holy Spirit, He will " hide " 
 His eyes from us, and when we " make many 
 prayers" He "will not hear;" Christ will refuse to 
 be a Saviour if He is not acknowledged as a Prince. 
 
 We are watching with anxiety the drift of con- 
 siderable numbers of men towards religious unbelief 
 — with anxiety, though with less alarm than we once 
 felt ; for, if I am not greatly mistaken, the faith of 
 the Church is firmer and its courage higher than 
 they were a few years ago. But though the alarm is 
 less, the anxiety remains. We see clearly that we are 
 involved in a grave struggle with unbelief — a struggle 
 less 'perilous than some of the conflicts through 
 
AN ETHICAL REVIVAL. • 297 
 
 which the Church passed triumphantly in past 
 times, but sufficiently serious to task all our strength. 
 We are also deeply concerned by the religious in- 
 difference of great masses of people who are un- 
 affected by speculative objections to the Christian 
 faith. We are entreating God to .give greater energy 
 and larger success to all the various forms of our 
 Christian work. Our only hope is in Him. If He 
 refuse to listen to our prayers, our position is des- 
 perate. 
 
 At such a time it is very necessary for us to 
 remember that we have no right to expect that God 
 will keep His promises unless we keep His command- 
 ments. The words of the prophet, " Wash you, 
 make you clean ; put away the evil of your doings 
 from before Mine eyes ; cease to do evil ; learn to do 
 well,"" were addressed, not to the irreligious, but to 
 those who were zealous in attending the services of 
 the Temple and in offering their sacrifices on the 
 altar of God. And the words which follow, " Come, 
 now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord : 
 though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white 
 as snow ; though they be red like crimson, they shall 
 be as wool," are not an assurance that God will for- 
 give the sins of men who have lived an irreligious life 
 if they become devout, but an assurance that He will 
 forgive the sins of those who have been earnest in 
 religious services, if they set themselves honestly to 
 the moral reformation of their own conduct. If they 
 *' put away the evil of Hieir doings," if they '' cease to 
 
298 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 do evil, learn to do well," God will have mercy upon 
 them. 
 
 The moral reformation which is necessary if we are 
 to make sure of the Divine mercy for ourselves, is 
 equally necessary if we are to produce any general 
 and deep and lasting impression oii the community. 
 No matter how noble may be the churches that we 
 build, no matter how solemn may be the religious 
 services which we celebrate, no matter how earnestly 
 we may preach the Gospel, no matter with what 
 fervour we may pray to God to grant us a great 
 religious revival, we shall fail utterly, if, in our ordi- 
 nary life we show no practical proof that in the king- 
 dom of heaven, to which we profess to belong, there 
 is a loftier type of character than in the world out- 
 side. 
 
 Men may fairly say to us : "You are requiring us 
 to acknowledge the authority of God — of the living 
 God. You tell us that He abhors evil and loves 
 righteousness, and that His 'commandment is ex- 
 ceeding broad,' and covers the whole extent of 
 human life. But where is the proof that you your- 
 selves are ruled by His authority ? What are the 
 laws which you keep and which we do not } What 
 nobler virtue does God require than is required by 
 the common opinion of Society.? You say you have 
 a revelation of His will concerning human life ; but 
 where is the trace in your business that God's laws 
 are better than the laws which we discover for our- 
 selves ? Where is the trace of it in your homes } 
 
AN ETHICAL REVIVAL. 299 
 
 where is the trace of it in your discharge of public 
 duty ? 
 
 "You working-men who profess to be Christians, — 
 do you work harder when the foreman is out of sight 
 than the men who do not profess to live in the eye of 
 God ? Are you more careful of your master's pro- 
 perty ? Are you less selfishly set on serving your 
 own interests ? 
 
 "You masters who profess to be Christians, — are 
 you less reckless than other men in speculation ? 
 Are you more careful to give to your customers 
 goods of the precise quality which you lead them to 
 expect? Are you more careful not to take advan- 
 tage of their ignorance ? Do you care less about 
 making a fortune rapidly, and more about carrying 
 on your business honestly ? Do you really bring all 
 your business transactions under the eye of God ? 
 Do you submit your ledger to Him, and your price- 
 list, and your bill-book, and your advertisements ? If 
 you do, has God's judgment on your transactions any 
 effect ? In your relations to your workmen are you 
 more just and more merciful than other men, re- 
 membering that you have a Master in heaven ? 
 
 "Of what use is it to tell us that zue ought to 
 acknowledge the authority of this God whom you 
 profess to obey, when it does not appear that His 
 authority makes any difference to you ? Show us by 
 practical proof that there is a Divine kingdom in the 
 world, governed by Divine laws, and that through 
 Christ you have found your way into it, and we 
 
300 LAWS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 shall begin to believe that this kingdom is real ; but 
 if you are just like other men, we shall conclude that 
 it is a dream." 
 
 They may say to us again : " Why do you ask us 
 to believe in a judgment to come ? Do you believe 
 in it yourselves ? Is there any proof that you are 
 restrained by it from sins which you would commit 
 if you did not believe in it ? Has it any greater 
 influence on yoit than the dread of public shame has 
 on tis, or than the authority of our own consciences ? 
 If the judgment to come will be all that you say it 
 will, you, who believe in it, ought to be constantly 
 under its control. 
 
 " And the future life of glory of which you Chris- 
 tians speak — what manner of persons ought you to 
 be, what manner of persons would you be, if you 
 thought that life was real ? Would it be possible for 
 you to be so ambitious of winning the poorest earthly 
 honours, if you believed that you had within your 
 reach crowns that will never lose their lustre, thrones 
 whose -foundations will never be shaken } If you 
 believed in the heaven which you sing about, would 
 you care so much for wealth, and pleasure, and social 
 consideration? Would you be as disturbed as the 
 rest of us by earthly troubles ? Do you believe in the 
 glory of heaven ? If you do, where is the proof of it ? 
 
 " And the supreme fact — the death of Christ as 
 the atonement for the sins of the world — if your faith 
 in this were real, you would be unselfish, filled with 
 universal charity, eager for every generous act of 
 
AN ETHICAL REVIVAL. c-oi 
 
 self-sacrifice. A love so great, manifested in a way 
 so august and awful — if you believed in it — would 
 reproduce in you, and in all who profess to have 
 received forgiveness through the death of Christ, its 
 own noble and wonderful perfection." 
 
 This kind of reasoning, though it may not be ex- 
 pressed, is being silently carried on in the minds of 
 many who reject the Christian revelation, or who 
 look upon it with indifference. There may be much 
 injustice in it and much uncharitableness. We may 
 know that the great facts in which we profess to 
 believe exert a real and powerful influence on our 
 practical life, and that we are different men from 
 what we should be if we did not believe in them. 
 But it remains true that the Church of Christ in our 
 time is menaced by the same kind of peril under 
 which the supremacy of the Church of Rome fell in 
 the sixteenth century. The Church of Rome, as it 
 has been well said, lost her doctrinal authority 
 because she had first of all lost her pre-eminence in 
 righteousness. 
 
 The religious revival we ought to long for, pray 
 for, and work for, is a revival that shall affect the 
 morals of the Church as well as its worship and 
 religious sentiment, and ennoble the w^iole life of 
 those who bear the Christian name. The power of 
 the Church depends quite as much on the steadfast 
 justice, the courageous truthfulness, the tender mercy 
 of Christian people, as on the soundness of their 
 creed and the fervour of their religious zeal. 
 
302 LA WS OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 I long to see the day when 'the faith of the Church 
 shall be so strong that the promises of God will be the 
 adequate consolation of all Christian people in their 
 earthly sorrows, and when the great hope of immortal 
 glory will fill their hearts with perpetual gladness and 
 their lips with a perpetual song ; when the Church 
 will be inspired with a more fervent love and thank- 
 fulness in the presence of the cross of Christ and 
 with a more passionate loyalty to His throne ; when 
 worship will cease to be a weariness, and when in 
 prayer all Christian men will approach God with 
 perfect confidence in His power and willingness to 
 answer them. But I also long to see the time when 
 the Church will discover in the teaching and example 
 of Christ the outlines of a far diviner morality ; when 
 the noblest natural ethics will look poor and dim 
 compared with the ideal of perfection for which the 
 Church will strive, and which, in the strength of the 
 Spirit of God, it will largely fulfil ; when the equity, 
 truthfulness, frankness, courage, industry, patience, 
 temperance, self-sacrifice, public spirit, gentleness, 
 charity of those who bear the Christian name, will be 
 a perpetual demonstration of the presence and the 
 power of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 A moral revival is as necessary as a revival of 
 faith and of the religious affections. It is not our 
 own salvation merely which is at stake, though our 
 personal peril ought to create alarm if, while profes- 
 sing to trust in the love of God, we are habitually 
 violating His law ; for our religious faith and fervour 
 
AN ETHICAL REVIVAL. 303 
 
 do not in any sense palliate our moral guilt, but 
 aggravate it. and, instead of averting ultimate con- 
 demnation, will only make it more terrible. But the 
 authority of the Christian faith is also at stake. If 
 Christian men are not actually controlled in their 
 common life by all that they profess to believe ; if 
 their worship has no effect upon their common work, 
 they are contributing more powerfully to the tem- 
 porary triumph of scepticism than the writers who 
 are most hostile to religious truth. The wonderful 
 story of the Incarnation, — it is we who are mak- 
 ing it incredible if we are not manifestly trying to 
 live a nobler life than those who deny it. The 
 authority of God, — it is we who are teaching men 
 that there is nothing in it, if we are not afraid to sin 
 against Him. The great promises of immortality, 
 — it is we who are persuading men that they are but 
 the dreams of an excited imagination, if they do not 
 make us almost indifferent to the transient successes 
 of this mortal life, if they do not enable us to bear 
 the hardships of poverty with a cheerful courage, and 
 if they do not cool the fierce passion for wealth. The 
 warnings of God, which threaten unrighteousness 
 with tribulation and wrath, indignation and anguish, 
 — it is we who encourage the world to regard them 
 without alarm, if, while they are on our lips, they do 
 not restrain us from sin. A Church full of the life of 
 God, loyal to the throne of God, eager, to do the will 
 of God, is certain to be a victorious Church. But a 
 Church in which the Divine commandments are 
 
304 LAM^S OF CHRIST FOR COMMON LIFE. 
 
 broken — no matter though its buildings are thronged 
 with excited worshippers ; no matter though there 
 may be magnificent generosity in the support of 
 religious institutions ; no matter though its prayers 
 may seem to be fervent ; no matter though its 
 preachers may be eloquent and impassioned ; no 
 matter though its creed may be defended by the 
 learning of scholars and the wit and genius of a 
 whole army of apologists — will do nothing to propa- 
 gate a real faith in the Gospel of Christ and to 
 rescue men from eternal destruction. Men will 
 refuse to listen to its message, and God will refuse to 
 listen to its prayer. 
 
 \ 
 
 ^K 
 
 
 Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London. 
 
Date 
 
 Due 
 
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