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SOME ASPECTS/ y^pp ^ 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL 
 
 SERMONS 
 
 REV. L. CAMPBELL, M.A., LL.D. 
 
 J'rofessor of Greek in the University 0/ St. Andrews 
 
 LONDON 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1877 
 
[All rights reserved] 
 
 OXFORD: 
 
 BY E. PICKARD HALL, M.A., AND J. H. STACV, 
 PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 
 TO MY WIFE, 
 
 t^r antes |litt CumpIieH, 
 
 WITHOUT WHOSE HELP 
 
 NEITHER THIS NOR OTHER EFFORTS 
 
 WOULD HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE TO ME. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Tins volume is not a contribution to theology. 
 It consists of sermons, preached at various 
 times, and under different circumstances, during 
 the last fifteen years. They had for the most 
 part a very simple aim, viz.. that combined 
 exhortation and encouragement, which was 
 known among the early Christians as TrapdK\)](Ti<^ : 
 and I have consented to their publication in 
 the ' trembling hope ' that some persons besides 
 those for whom they were first meant, may 
 derive comfort from them in the present time 
 of transition. 
 
 I have made no attempt to work these short 
 discourses into a connected whole. They are 
 printed as they were preached, with a few 
 unimportant omissions and the removal of some 
 of the faults of language, which it is to be 
 feared are still too numerous. In a few instances, 
 where for divers reasons it seemed desirable, 
 I have inserted the date of composition. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The reader who is troubled by certain in- 
 equahties of style, is requested to bear in mind 
 that the sermons were not originally intended 
 for the same congregation. Some of them 
 belong to the period of the writer's brief 
 ministry in the Church of England, as the 
 Vicar of Milford, in Hampshire; one was written 
 for delivery at a Presbyterian service in a 
 Scottish country school ; and the address with 
 which the volume closes was first given at a 
 Sunday-evening meeting in the chief School- 
 room of Clifton College. As to the greater 
 number, which were written at St. Andrews, 
 those who know something of the benign 
 influences existing in the old Cathedral city 
 will readily understand that while some were 
 designed for the Episcopalian congregation 
 there, others were originally preached in the 
 College Church, or in the Town Churches 
 of St. Andrew and St. Mary. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 The Duty of Outspokenness on Religious 
 Questions. 2 Cor. iii. 12, 13. 
 
 Religious Moderation, i Kings xix. ir-13, 
 
 A Pure Intention. Acts xxiv. 16. . . 
 
 Feeling and Action. Acts xx. 35. . . 
 
 Order and Freedom, i Cor. xii. 25-27. 
 
 6. The True Ambition. John v. 44. 
 
 7. The Broken Life. 2 Cor. iv. 8, 9. 
 
 Things Great and Small. 2 Kings v. 13. . 
 
 Human Limitation and Divine Breadth 
 Ps. cxix. 96. .... 
 
 Life and Peace. Eph. iv. 3. 
 
 Pleasure and Duty. Eccl, xi. 9. 
 
 True Manliness, i Cor. xvi. 13. 
 
 The Fruit of Labour. Phil. i. 21-24 
 
 109 
 123 
 134 
 148 
 162 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 14. Christ and Christian Graces. Luke xvii. 22 
 
 I Cor. xiii. 13. 
 
 15. ON Prayer. Matt. vi. 8 
 
 16. The Righteousness of Christ. Matt, v, 20. 
 
 17. Redeeming the Time. Eph. v. 15-17. 
 
 18. Destroying and Fulfilling. Matt, x, 34 
 
 Matt. V. 17; John xviii, 37. 
 
 175 
 187 
 204 
 223 
 
 [9. The Moral Element in Greek Culture 
 considered in Relation to Christianity. 
 An Address to Students 253 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 39, line i8, for from read for. 
 „ 87, „ II, for life read the life. 
 „ 269, „ 10, for a conscious read an unconscious. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 14. Christ and Christian Graces. Luke xvii. 22 
 
 I Cor. xiii. 13. 
 
 15. On Prayer. Matt. vi. 8 
 
 16. The Righteousness of Christ. Matt. v. 20. 
 
 17. Redeeming the Time. Eph. v. 15-17. 
 
 18. Destroying and Fulfilling. Matt, x, 34 
 
 Matt. V. 17; John xviii. 37. 
 
 175 
 187 
 204 
 223 
 
 236 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 THE DUTY OF OUTSPOKENNESS ON RELIGIOUS 
 QUESTIONS. 
 
 1870, 
 
 ' Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness 
 of speech : and not as INloses, which put a vail over his face, that 
 the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that 
 which is abolished.' — 2 CoR. iii. 12, 13. 
 
 True Religion is very simple and very deep. As 
 simple as this statement, ' God is good ; ' as deep as 
 life and death, or anything which we can imagine 
 that is deeper still. 
 
 But it has ever been hard for men to receive 
 religion in all its simplicity and in all its depth. 
 They want something they can touch and handle, 
 something to fill the imagination, something with 
 many colours to attract the eye, with various melo- 
 dies to content the ear, something to move their 
 feelings through their senses. They cannot live in 
 the pure serenity of perfect light ; they get tired of 
 the monotonous sound of goodness and mercy, right- 
 eousness and truth. They must have a form as well 
 as a substance, a letter as well as a spirit ; they 
 B 
 
THE DUTY OF OUTSPOKENNESS 
 
 receive religion, as St. Paul would say, according to 
 the flesh. 
 
 And human teachers have ever been ready to 
 adapt themselves to this craving, and have put their 
 teaching into a shape in which they thought it most 
 likely to be received ; so that even when, as in the 
 story of Moses, their own countenance really shone 
 with the light of God, they have put a veil between 
 themselves and the people. And such is the gross- 
 ness of the mind and apprehension of man that, after 
 a time, the veil comes to be worshipped more than 
 the glory which it partly hides, the earthly vessel 
 is more thought of than the heavenly treasure. Then 
 if some one comes and says to men, This vessel 
 which contains your treasure, this lamp which carries 
 the enlightening oil, is earthly and of the earth, and 
 were it broken, the heavenly fire would only shine 
 more brightly; — if some one tries to draw away 
 the veil; — do you think they will believe him or 
 listen to him } Will they not at once cry out upon 
 him for an irreligious and godless man, who would 
 deprive them of the comfort of their religion ? 
 
 And yet it is sometimes the part of the Christian 
 minister and teacher, in following the example of 
 Christ and of St. Paul, to ' use great plainness of 
 speech : ' to tell the people, not what they most wish 
 or expect to hear, not what is most in accordance 
 
ON RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 
 
 with their previous ideas and prejudices, but what 
 he himself thinks and knows, what he has found 
 in his own experience to be of lasting value, or, in 
 Scriptural language, the truth which he believes that 
 he has heard of God. 
 
 St. Paul made the greatest effort that was ever 
 made by any one, excepting only Christ, to bring 
 men to receive a spiritual religion. He strove to 
 show to the Jew that God in Christ was the Father 
 of all men, and not of the Jew only ; that righteous- 
 ness meant not the mere outward performance of 
 certain acts, but a right attitude of the heart towards 
 God ; he strove to ' make the Gentiles see that 
 ' God who made the world and all things therein, 
 dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither 
 is worshipped with men's hands, as though He needed 
 anything, seeing He giveth to all life and breath and 
 all things,' that He hath made of one blood all the 
 nations of men, and that He hath appointed a day 
 in which to judge the world in righteousness by 
 one whom He hath ordained. And we read in this 
 Epistle to the Corinthians that this teaching of 
 St. Paul was 'to the Jews a stumblingblock and to 
 the Greeks foolishness.' Now, why was this ? 
 
 Let us try to imagine how they must have felt in 
 
 listening to him. Let us imagine the Jew being 
 
 told that the Law of Moses was abolished and done 
 
 away, that the blood of bulls and goats could not 
 
 B 2 
 
THE DUTY OF OUTSPOKENNESS 
 
 take away sin ; that the Passover, the commemora- 
 tion of the great dehverance that had first made 
 the Jews a nation, was only a type and a shadow 
 which was vanishing ; that the peculiar people must 
 no longer think that Jehovah had any special 
 regard for them, but must learn to embrace the 
 ■ Gentiles, who for half their lives had been polluting 
 themselves with abominations of idols ? Was this, 
 the Jewish objector might say, was this, indeed, to 
 stand upon the ancient paths and to restore the 
 desolations of many generations ? Was it not rather 
 to remove the landmarks, to tear up the foundations, 
 to plough over the ruined city, nay, to desert the 
 ancient people who were called by the name of Je- 
 hovah, and to be joined to the corruptions of those 
 who were not a people, but were common and un- 
 clean ? Is it wonderful that this should be a stum- 
 blingblock to the Jews ? that those who clung to the 
 old narrow traditions failed to take in all the new 
 and larger hope? that they could not suffer the 
 Hope of Israel to be diluted into the Hope of Man ? 
 or that he who seemed to rob them of their heart's 
 treasure was thought by them no better than an 
 infidel ? Is it wonderful that they called by the 
 name of heresy that way after which he worshipped 
 the God of his fathers, or that they cried out, when 
 he proclaimed his message, ' Away with such a fellow 
 from the earth, for it is not fit that he should live?' 
 
ON RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 
 
 Is it not rather wonderful that so many, imperfectly 
 indeed, and with continual danger of relapsing into 
 Judaism, were found to believe the Gospel ? 
 
 Such then was the nature of the offence which the 
 teaching of St. Paul gave to the Jew. Let us now 
 turn and ask what impression it was likely to pro- 
 duce upon the Gentiles. I think I hear one of them 
 crying, 'What will this babbler say? And are we 
 not to worship the sun going forth as a giant to run 
 his course, nor the moon walking in brightness, nor 
 the earth, great bounteous mother of all things that 
 live, nor the glorious heaven that smiles on us with 
 pure radiance in the daytime and gazes on us with 
 a thousand eyes at night? These are no gods, for- 
 sooth, nor may we worship that in which the glory 
 of the world is centred, the beauteous form of man, 
 in action so express and admirable, in thought and 
 reason so like a god — this image glorified by art, 
 and deified to be the token and symbol to us of 
 Nature's infinite powers. The Diana of the Ephe- 
 sians, the Jupiter of Lystra or of Athens, these are 
 to be nothing to us. Those are no gods, you tell 
 us, that are made with hands. The philosopher 
 may perhaps agree with you so far, but what is to 
 become of the poor and ignorant multitude ? Would 
 you take from them their only stay, the only con- 
 solation which they have amid the miseries of their 
 feeble life, and offer them instead an unseen God, 
 
THE DUTY OF OUTSPOKENNESS 
 
 to be comprehended only with the mind ! Take heed 
 that you are not destroying what you cannot restore.' 
 It needed not the sordid interests of the guild of 
 image-makers, of those of like occupation with De- 
 metrius, including those other craftsmen who dealt 
 in oracles and sacrifices, to give to these objections 
 an overwhelming strength. The wonder is not that 
 St. Paul appeared an atheist to Demetrius as he 
 had appeared an infidel to Sosthenes, nor that he 
 seemed to the Athenians to be a setter forth of 
 strange gods, as if Jesus were one more to be added 
 to their gods many and lords many, and the Resur- 
 rection a sort of goddess, like the goddess of victory. 
 It is not wonderful that not many mighty, not many 
 learned, not many noble were called from among the 
 Gentiles into the early Church. It is rather wonder- 
 ful that so many should have been found to flock 
 into it, though the wonder is abated when we 
 consider the divine strength of Christianity and the 
 decrepitude of the old religions. 
 
 Now St. Paul was not the first nor the last who in 
 teaching a spiritual religion, in trying to open a way 
 between the soul of man and the Spirit of God, has 
 won for himself amongst the people of his own time 
 the name of a godless and irreligious man. 
 
 Even Moses, in warning the Jews against idolatry, 
 in giving them the name of Jehovah (the Eternal 
 Being, merciful and gracious, forgiving iniquity, &c.), 
 
ON RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 
 
 in teaching them to respect the stranger and the 
 fatherless, was already seeking to take away some 
 folds of the thick veil which was upon their heart. 
 But with what result? Did they at once believe in an 
 Unseen God, or accept the law of mercy and truth 
 as an essential part of their religion ? Did they not, 
 when Moses himself was withdrawn from them for 
 a time into spiritual communion with Jehovah, turn 
 away from their true prophet and lawgiver, and say 
 unto Aaron the priest, ' Make us gods to go before 
 us, for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the 
 land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.' 
 
 Then many ages afterwards, when the idea or 
 rather the formality of sacrifice had settled down like 
 a mouldy and clammy fur upon the hearts of the 
 people, and the land was notwithstanding defiled 
 with innocent blood, the voice of Isaiah is heard pro- 
 claiming in the name of God, ' Your new moons and 
 your appointed feasts my soul hateth, they are a 
 trouble unto me, I am weary to bear them. Bring 
 no more vain oblations. Cease to do evil, learn to 
 do well : seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge 
 the fatherless, plead for the widow.' 
 
 And Ezekiel is heard to cry, 'The son shall not 
 bear the iniquity of his father. The soul that 
 sinneth, it shall die.' But Isaiah fell a victim to 
 the idolatrous fanaticism of his countrymen, and of 
 
THE DUTY OF OUTSPOKENNESS 
 
 Ezekiel the people said, 'Doth he not speak parables?' 
 And so all the Hebrew Prophets, one by one, bore 
 witness equally against the formalism and idolatry of 
 the people, and were rejected equally, and that in 
 the name of religion, by the professed worshippers of 
 Jehovah and of Baalim. So that our Saviour could 
 say to His own countrymen^ ' Ye build the tombs of 
 the prophets and your fathers killed them,' and to 
 Jerusalem, ' Thou that killest the prophets and 
 stonest them that are sent unto thee.' And Stephen 
 to his accusers, 'Which of the prophets have not 
 your fathers persecuted ? ' 
 
 And what of Christ Himself? Was He not put to 
 death for blasphemy : because he had said, ' Destroy 
 this temple and in three days I will raise it up,' and 
 because He told the Chief Priests that ' The hour was 
 coming when the Son of Man should sit on the right 
 hand of Power?' His enemies affected to believe that 
 He had actually threatened to destroy the temple. 
 His disciples after the resurrection understood Him 
 to have been speaking of the temple of His body. 
 But the more we dwell on those divine words the 
 wider seems to be their meaning. For the body of 
 Christ, as St. Paul says, is the Communion of be- 
 lievers everywhere, and Christ seems to say to us in 
 these words — Let outward forms and ceremonies 
 perish, as they will, let institutions and their modes 
 
ON RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 
 
 of government be altered or abolished, let human 
 doctrines shift and decay, still the principle of religion 
 is indestructible in the heart of man, the Kingdom 
 of Heaven within us is Eternal, the Spirit of Worship 
 is there imperishable. Fear not but God will give it 
 a body as it shall please Him. And the fulness of 
 this spirit and of this power is in the mind of Christ, 
 who raises up anew continually the temple that is 
 made without hands. 
 
 I will cite one more example from the history 
 of our own country. Have you ever tried to think 
 of what happened in this very city and within this 
 church at the Reformation ? Did it ever strike you 
 how the minds of many good and pious persons must 
 have been shocked, when they were told by the 
 Reformers that the sacrifice of the mass was no 
 sacrifice at all, that there was no virtue in priestly 
 absolution, that to confess their sins to a priest was 
 unnecessary, useless, and wrong? How must they 
 have felt when the crucifixes, before which they had 
 worshipped with streaming eyes, were thrown down 
 and broken, when the beautiful shrines and altars, 
 where, as they believed, the body of Christ had been 
 daily offered for their sins, were demolished, and the 
 carved work thereof, in St. Andrews and elsewhere, 
 was broken to pieces with axes and hammers? Is 
 it surprising that the Reformers were called infidels 
 and heretics, or that many persons besides the priests 
 
THE DUTY OF OUTSPOKENNESS 
 
 and monks were incensed at them? Why there are 
 some good people in England to this day, though I am 
 glad to say not many, who look upon Scotland as a 
 sort of heathen country, and why? Not because of 
 the national vices, or the growth of irreligion in large 
 towns, not because you have drunkards in your streets, 
 and innocent lives are perishing without any regard- 
 ing them — but because you have no altars in your 
 churches, because your ministers are not ordained by 
 bishops, and because you think of the Holy Com- 
 munion only as a joint commemoration of the death 
 of Christ. Read the letters which are appearing daily 
 in the newspapers from Roman Catholics about the 
 Italian occupation of Rome, and you will understand 
 something of the feeling of those old times. By the 
 efforts and by the blood of the Reformers, a veil was 
 taken away from the hearts of this people, and in some 
 ways we now see more clearly. There is little fear 
 that the people of Scotland at least will ever again 
 be led blindfold by any priesthood, or will be again 
 tempted to exaggerate the mystery of the sacraments. 
 The great truth of the Eternal Faithfulness of God 
 as the ground of our faith in Him ('I am the Lord, 
 I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not 
 consumed,') which has ever been the corner-stone 
 of Scottish Theology, has sunk deep down into the 
 hearts of the people, and only needs to be applied, 
 both in theory and practice, in order to its shining 
 
ON RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 
 
 forth more brightly than before. And there are many- 
 ways in which we seem to have been led almost 
 unconsciously, to throw off some fetters by which 
 our fathers were still held. I will try to make my 
 meaning clearer by an illustration. A few evenings 
 since we were many of us gazing with delight at a 
 beautiful appearance in the heavens. The time has 
 been when such an appearance would have been 
 looked upon with superstitious fear, as if God Him- 
 self were holding forth a signal to the world. It 
 would have been supposed to be a direct token and 
 forewarning of evil to come. It would have been 
 said that the heavens, as troubled with man's act, 
 threaten his bloody stage : that the heavens them- 
 selves blaze forth the fall of princes ^. Now is it a 
 loss or a gain to us that we have ceased to regard 
 the matter in this way ? Do we the less believe in 
 God, in one who rules amongst the children of men, 
 because we have been taught that there is a world 
 of nature, into which human passions do not enter. 
 
 ^ Casca. When these prodigies 
 
 Do so conjointly meet, let not men say 
 'These are their causes, they are natural:' 
 For I believe they are portentous things 
 Unto the climate that they point upon. 
 
 Cicero. Indeed, it is a strange— disposed time 
 But men may construe things after their fashion, 
 Clean from the purpose of the things themselves. 
 
THE DUTY OF OUTSPOKENNESS 
 
 which goes on its way unruffled and undisturbed 
 by the sinfulness or heroism of mankind ? Do we 
 the less believe in a righteous judgment of God, be- 
 cause we see clearly that He judges men and nations 
 through their own actions, and that the lessons of 
 history are to be read apart from the truths of 
 physical science ? The warning of the Hebrew 
 preacher still remains as true as the day it was 
 spoken : ' If thou seest oppression and strife in a 
 city, mai-vel not at the matter, for He that is higher 
 than the highest regardeth, and there be higher 
 than they.' 
 
 We need not fear, then, or be discouraged, if it 
 should be found that in some matters either of 
 doctrine or of custom and tradition, there is still a 
 veil upon the people's heart which clouds for them 
 the perfect vision of the righteousness and goodness, 
 the justice and mercy, of Almighty God : nor should 
 the Christian teacher, who thinks he sees it is so, 
 shrink from trying to remove the veil : if he may 
 hope thereby to bring the minds of his countrymen 
 nearer to a pure and spiritual religion. Least of 
 all is he to be deterred by the imputation of impiety, 
 or of infidelity and atheism, which has been shared 
 by all religious teachers who have had anything to tell 
 mankind, including Christ Himself. But there is not 
 time at present to pursue this subject further, and 
 I will therefore conclude with a few practical precepts. 
 
ON RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 13 
 
 And they shall be as far as possible in the words 
 of Christ. 
 
 1. Remember always that the kingdom of heaven 
 is within you. You have many things to help you 
 in becoming better : — the reading of the Bible, the 
 preaching of the gospel, prayers and psalms, the 
 common round of duties, the intercourse of Christian 
 friends, the experience of life. But unless you do 
 become better, the kingdom of heaven is not come 
 to you ; it has only come near to you, it has not 
 touched you nor entered in. The kingdom of heaven 
 is not in preaching or hearing, or in Sabbath keeping, 
 or in any outward act, but in righteousness, and 
 peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit of God. And the 
 only outward proof by which you can know that you 
 have the kingdom of God within, and apart from this 
 proof you cannot know it, is, that you are ceasing 
 to do evil, that you are learning to do well. 
 
 2. The second precept is — Remember how Christ 
 said, there is no commandment greater than these 
 two. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
 heart, and soul, and strength ; and, Thou shalt love 
 thy neighbour as thyself. Remember also, that to 
 love God is to do His will : and what doth the Lord 
 require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, 
 and to walk humbly with thy God ? And if you 
 ask of Christ, Who is my neighbour ? He answers you 
 in the parable of the Good Samaritan ; Not he that 
 
THE DUTY OF OUTSPOKENNESS 
 
 is nearest to you in kindred and family, or in being 
 of the same nation or of the same Church, or body of 
 Christian men, but he that is nearest to you in this 
 one way, that you have the power and opportunity 
 of doing him any good, or of preventing any evil from 
 befalling him. The poorer, the weaker, the more 
 in need of help, the more of a stranger and an alien, 
 or even of an enemy, that he may happen to be, 
 the more Christ tells you to regard him as your 
 neighbour, if only you have the power of helping him. 
 If ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more 
 than others ? That is. If you help a man because he 
 is of your own country, or of your own kindred, or 
 because he is of your side in politics, whether politics 
 of the Church, or politics of the State, or politics of 
 the burgh, that is only what it is natural to expect. 
 But if you help him just because he is a human 
 being, and in need of some help which you are able 
 to give, then Christ will say to you, ' Inasmuch as 
 ye did it imto one of the least of these^ ye did it 
 unto me.' 
 
 3. The third precept is, ' Forbid not those that 
 follow not with you.' If you have strong feelings 
 or convictions about a matter of Church government, 
 or the form of a service, or about Church music or 
 some other detail of arrangement that happens to 
 be the question of the hour — you do right of course 
 in following your convictions. But these are not 
 
ON RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 
 
 the greater matters of the Gospel any more than 
 the tithes of mint and anise and cummin were the 
 greater matters of the Law. The great matter is 
 the becoming Hke to Christ ; and whoever in any- 
 body of Christians, or belonging to no body of 
 Christians at all, is most like to Christ in living 
 according to justice, mercy, and truth, in loving and 
 obeying God and doing good to men, that man is 
 most of a Christian. The true worshippers are those 
 that worship the Father, not in Jerusalem or Mount 
 Gerizim, not in a kirk or a school-house, or on a 
 hill-side, in the old Kirk or the new, with an altar or 
 without, with printed prayers or prayers made out of 
 the minister's head^ through old traditions or in the 
 light of new ideas, but — in spirit and in truth. 
 
 4. Lastly, ' Have faith in God.' Be thankful to 
 Him for the past, accept what He is giving in the 
 present, and trust Him for the time to come. Do 
 not think that He has been deceiving you, or de- 
 ceiving the world, because you have to unlearn some 
 things which you once received as true. All learn- 
 ing must be step by step, and all new truth requires 
 some veil of ignorance or of imperfect knowledge 
 to be taken away. The word Revelation means 
 the removal of the veil. And if some knowledge 
 which God has vouchsafed of His own ways, or 
 some higher and purer view of His nature than 
 
l6 THE DUTY OF OUTSPOKENNESS 
 
 those of old time had conceived, compels us to re- 
 linquish some cherished doctrine or tradition, we 
 may find that this is only another illustration of the 
 words, When the heart shall turn to the Lord, the 
 veil shall be taken away. We may find that in accept- 
 ing God's own teachings we have been drawing nearer 
 to Himself, and when that which once seemed sub- 
 stance, but is now a lifeless husk, is fallen away, we 
 may become aware for the first time of the power 
 and glory of the spiritual life within. And the 
 righteousness and goodness of Almighty God, which 
 we at one time received as an unintelligible mystery, 
 may to our newly awakened faith have all the cer- 
 tainty and clearness of intuitive knowledge. 
 
 But still the unveiling of Divine truth to human 
 apprehensions must be a gradual process, and is not 
 to be completed in this life, and the same St. Paul who 
 says ' That we all, beholding with open face the glory 
 of the Lord, are transformed into the same image, 
 from glory to glory,' had already said to this same 
 Corinthian Church, ' Now we see through a glass 
 darkly, but then face to face ; now I know in part, 
 but then shall I know even as I also am known.' We 
 must be contented with that measure of knowledge 
 and certainty which God has really given us. And 
 if the light which He has vouchsafed to us in the 
 life and teaching of Christ, and in the lives and 
 thoughts of righteous and godly men, is not enough 
 
ON RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 1 7 
 
 to lead us into the ways of holiness and peace, then 
 neither should we be persuaded to lead better lives 
 and to love truth and goodness, even if the heavens 
 were opened, and we saw the Son of Man sitting 
 on the rjcrht hand of God. 
 
SERMON II, 
 
 RELIGIOUS MODERATION. 
 
 * And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the 
 Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong 
 wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before 
 the Lord ; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind 
 an earthquake ; but the Lord was not in the earthquake : and 
 after the earthquake a fire ; but the Lord was not in the fire : 
 and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah 
 heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, 
 and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there 
 came a voice unto him, and said. What doest thou here, Elijah?' 
 — I Kings xix. it, 12, 13. 
 
 In listening once to the Pentecostal sermon of an 
 eloquent preacher, I was surprised to find him bent 
 on identifying spiritual life with the vividness of 
 religious impressions. Multitudes flocking together 
 and moved by the voice of one, as the trees of the 
 wood are moved by the wind : excitement, such as 
 that which drew men to the Crusades, or to the foun- 
 dation of religious orders in a former age : feelings 
 at once intense and widely spread, making crowds 
 
RELIGIOUS MODERATION. I 9 
 
 magnetic, and galvanising nations into sudden enthu- 
 siasm — such appeared to be the goal of his desire. 
 
 The passage which I have read to you from the 
 story of Elijah came then into my mind, and there 
 also rose before me the image of One, who in this 
 was most unlike Elijah, that He did not strive nor 
 cry, nor cause His voice to be heard in the streets, 
 not breaking the bruised reed, not quenching the 
 smoking flax : — of One whose voice never heretofore 
 prevailed so widely, even over those who still despise 
 and reject Him, as it prevails to-day. 
 
 It seemed to me that in such an ideal as that 
 which I then heard propounded, the most important 
 element of the Divine working, if one may say it 
 reverently, is left out of view. For to measure the 
 action of the Spirit of God by the intensity of im- 
 pressions, is to disregard what is of far higher value, 
 the unaltering power of goodness, the indefeasible 
 strength of justice, the resistlessness of wisdom, the 
 might of truth. 
 
 In judging of the things of the Spirit, no less 
 than in other matters, the common mind is prone 
 to be swayed by signs and marvels that immediately 
 strike the senses or the imagination, but have little 
 or no significance for the reason. 
 
 And there is one inconvenience attending this habit 
 of gauging spiritual forces by excitement, that is 
 especially worth thinking of; I mean its extreme 
 C 2 
 
RELIGIOUS MODERATION. 
 
 uncertainty. If that which moves mankind must neces- 
 sarily be important in the same degree in which it 
 moves them, then (if we look beyond the narrow 
 circle of Christian conventionality) how strange and 
 various are the influences in which we must acknow- 
 ledge phases of the eternal truth ! I do not speak 
 of such far-sweeping movements as Mohammedan- 
 ism, but in the compass of the literature of the 
 Anglo-Saxon tongue in our own time, how many 
 proofs there are of the wisdom of the command 
 to prove all things, and hold fast the good ! Are 
 there not those who through their spoken or written 
 words have an eager following on both sides of the 
 Atlantic, and that amongst ingenuous and untainted 
 minds — who, when their utterances are closely exa- 
 mined, are found to be the upholders of a thinly- 
 veiled animalism — who, through a reaction from some 
 inconvenience of the immediate present, would lead 
 us to break from our inheritance in the past, to cast 
 overboard the slowly-accumulated work of ages, to. 
 unite an unhealthy self-consciousness with the un- 
 abated grossness of the imaginary primeval man, and 
 to begin again, if we could, with the state of primitive 
 lawlessness, ' ere human statute purged the gentle 
 weal ; ' who would ' take away degree, untune that 
 string,' that we might see, forsooth, whether ' discord 
 followed ' or no ? 
 
 If judged only by the test of sincere enthusiasm, 
 
RELIGIOUS MODERATION. 21 
 
 whether in themselves or their followers, such ' voices 
 of the time ' are scarcely less potent than that of 
 the evangelical revivalist. It may therefore be not 
 amiss to dwell for a season upon another side of 
 things, which just because it is less obvious, and 
 perhaps also because it has less in common with 
 the genius of oratory, is apt on certain occasions to 
 be ignored. 
 
 Let us be sure to give full value to religious feeling. 
 No principle of action can have any power, unless 
 it has sunk deeply into the heart. However much 
 we may value 'dry light,' we know that its motive 
 force is as nothing until it is plunged in the atmo- 
 sphere of human experience, of hunger and fulness, 
 of desires and fears, of affection and aversion. But 
 the question before us is not that between head- 
 knowledge and heart-experience ; it is rather the 
 contrast which arises, in comparing amongst them- 
 selves those influences which affect the whole man, 
 between what is strong and what is lasting, what 
 is vehement and what is deep, what is immediately 
 operative and what is far-reaching in its results. And 
 the resulting lesson is the same that was taught to 
 Elijah, a lesson of faith and patience, of endurance 
 and hope ; that what is now spoken to the ear in 
 closets will one day be proclaimed upon the house- 
 tops, and that whatever grains of truth and good 
 have already become the possession of a few, will 
 
22 RELIGIOUS MODERATION. 
 
 one day be enjoyed without wonder and without 
 mistrust as a part of the growing inheritance of 
 humanity. 
 
 * The seed, 
 The little seed they laughed at in the dark, 
 Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk 
 Of spanless girth, that lays on every side 
 A thousand arms and reaches to the sun. 
 
 A night of Summer from the heat, a breadth 
 Of Autumn, dropping fruits of power, and rolled 
 With music in the growing breeze of Time.' 
 
 A lesson of faith and patience, but not of in- 
 dolent ' quietism ;' not of careless ''laissez-faire'^ not of 
 selfish 'non-intervention.' Did the still small voice 
 tell Elijah to withhold his message, to refrain from 
 action ? Nay, but to speak although misunderstood, 
 to act for the generation that should come after 
 him — to anoint Hazael king over Syria, to anoint 
 Elisha prophet in his room. Though he were a 
 voice in the desert, yet should his words not fall to 
 the ground ; though he alone remained a prophet of 
 the Lord, yet the word of the Lord which he had 
 spoken should stand firm. 
 
 The truth implied in this, like all religious truths, 
 is a comprehensive one, and has many analogies in 
 the narrower spheres of human experience. In 
 these the universal truth may be seen reflected, as 
 in a mirror. 
 
RELIGIOUS MODERATION. 23 
 
 Who writes the history of a pohtical revolution? 
 Not he who depicts the scenes of agony and carnage 
 accompanying the national convulsion — not he who 
 describes, however vividly, the characters of the chief 
 agents in the days of terror — but rather he who 
 traces the slow-paced movements of the national 
 mind, the rising sentiments of aspiration or of resent- 
 ment, that, having found utterance through some 
 deep spirit, had sunk into the heart of a whole 
 people ; and as the snow is gathered flake by flake, 
 amassed by frosts or driven by the storm, until the 
 avalanche is awakened by some morning sun, so 
 
 ' Thought by thought was piled, till some great truth 
 Was loosened, and the nations echoed round.' 
 
 Where do we look for the origin of other social 
 changes that are less violent and more obviously 
 beneficial .'' To the agitation of the years preceding 
 legislation, to the meetings of mobs, the eloquence 
 of local orators, the contention at polling-booths 
 through the length and breadth of the land .^ Or 
 again, to the panting noise of the first engine on the 
 Liverpool and Manchester line, sending a thrill of 
 wonder through an assembled crowd, and dealing 
 death to some one who in the rashness of inexperi- 
 ence crossed its path ? Not so — but in the one case 
 to the quiet study of a plain Scotch Professor, and 
 in the other to the unpretending workshop of a 
 Glasgow mechanician. 
 
24 RELIGIOUS MODERATION. 
 
 What gives their undying value to the best works 
 of poetry and art ? Is it the storm of passion which 
 rent the bosoms of their creators asunder, the 
 earthquake of fear and misery which engulfed their 
 lives in ruin, or the fire of remorse which scathed 
 while it purified them? Not any or all of these, 
 but a 'still small voice' of intuitive sympathy which 
 speaks to all men in that solitude where they are 
 least alone — 
 
 ' They haunt the stillness of the breast, 
 Imaginations calm and fair, 
 The memory, like a cloudless air. 
 The conscience, as a sea, at rest.' 
 
 Even so it is with those deeper voices which speak 
 to us as religious beings, dependent on Him who is 
 all-wise, all-just, all-kind. 
 
 They were first uttered it may be amidst the 
 echoes of some great catastrophe, or the premonitory 
 mutterings of some upheaval still to come : they may 
 have vainly chidden the tempest anS rebuked the 
 violence of fire ; or they may have been spoken 
 in weakness and fear and in much trembling, with 
 stammering lips and an uncertain tongue ; but their 
 whispered sound still reaches all who have an ear 
 to hear, when the noise that heralded their advent 
 is no more, and the elemental strife that drowned 
 them for a while is still. 
 
 The true word once spoken never dies : the 
 
RELIGIOUS MODERATION. 25 
 
 righteous life once lived cannot lose its power. Or 
 if through human frailty some seeds of truth and 
 goodness sown in former time have been irrecover- 
 ably lost, yet we trust that the same will come forth 
 again from the infinite store. Could we but appre- 
 hend fully what is already set within our ken, we 
 should have light enough to guide us to the compre- 
 hension of more and more. 
 
 Let us take one or two examples from the New 
 Testament. There were two of our Lord's Apostles, 
 amongst those admitted to the closest intimacy with 
 Himself, whom, because of their vehemence, not 
 without a touch of gentle irony, He named the Sons 
 of Thunder; who, if He had permitted them, would 
 have called down fire from heaven to consume some 
 churlish villagers, even as Elias did. What remains 
 to us of their reputed writings? The Apocalypse, 
 in which the promises speak far more clearly to our 
 hearts than the woes ; the Gospel and Epistles of 
 St. John, of which the substance is that God is Love ; 
 whose deep spiritual import is far more felt in the 
 story of the woman of Samaria, or in the promise of 
 the Comforter, than in the denunciations of a world 
 that licth in wickedness, to which it is hard for us to 
 give an intelligible or practical meaning. And the 
 Epistle of St. James, where once more the denuncia- 
 tions have become strange and inapplicable, while 
 the exhortations to impartial kindness and to a 
 
26 RELIGIOUS MODERATION. 
 
 faith that worketh by love, the praises of the wisdom 
 that Cometh from above and of that true rehgion 
 which is undefiled before our Heavenly Father, can 
 never lose their force. 
 
 Or look for a moment at St. Paul. Many questions 
 that were of burning significance to him have little 
 meaning for us ; the oppositions of our age are not 
 the same with which he so heroically strove. But the 
 noble spirit which guided him in the strife, the divine 
 ideas of a redeemed humanity, of a union of all man- 
 kind in Christ, of an inward and spiritual law under 
 which order and freedom should be inseparable — 
 these are only now beginning to be apprehended even 
 by theologians ; the empire of their influence is still 
 to be. Many winds of doctrine have blown around 
 them — many clouds and storms of controversy have 
 wrapt them from the sight of men : but only when 
 these have passed will they themselves be seen in 
 their simple majesty, and recognised as an eternal 
 possession, not by the Churches only, but by 
 mankind. 
 
 And if we think of the life and teaching of Christ 
 Himself, may we not reverently say, that as the 
 highest summits are most conspicuous from afar off, 
 so after we have traversed almost nineteen centuries, 
 the supreme loftiness of His life and teaching is be- 
 coming apparent as it was never before.^ Not in the 
 wars and persecutions that men have waged for His 
 
RELIGIOUS MODERATION. 27 
 
 name's sake, not in the grandeur of ceremonial ; not 
 
 in eloquence, nor in learning, nor in splendour of 
 intellectual power, do we behold the image of Him 
 whose }'oke we desire to bear ; but in a spirit that 
 searches all things, yea, the deep things of God, and 
 yet is meek and lowly in heart ; in the simple love 
 of truth wherever it is found, in faithful disinterested 
 effort for the good of men, in moral fearlessness, in 
 unquenchable patience and hope. Seeing as we do 
 that the Gospel which He taught has been so widely 
 acknowledged amongst men — seeing its fruits every- 
 where around us — we may have confidence that it 
 will prevail more and more, and also that much of 
 what men now disbelieve and esteem lightly will sink 
 into their hearts hereafter. 
 
 If we acknowledge and act up to all which we see 
 clearly to be right and true, we may be sure that even 
 through our imperfect means, the word of God shall 
 have course and be glorified : the imperfection, the 
 untruth, will pass ; the truth, whatever it be, will 
 remain. 
 
 Thoughts like these are not a ground for sloth, 
 but for activity, whether we are preparing for the 
 work of life or are in the midst of it, at whatever 
 stage we find ourselves in our life-pilgrimage. 
 
 To be borne on the deeper tide that flows through 
 the ages, and not on surface currents that shift 
 
28 RELIGIOUS MODERATION. 
 
 as the wind veers — to have a root in the past, to 
 reach an arm into the future, as becomes a creature 
 who has a better market for his time than amongst 
 the excitements of the passing hour — to have a hold 
 of the great wheel that is going up the hill, and 
 not of some careering whirligig which will turn 
 aside no man knows whither — that aim is worth all 
 prayer and aspiration until we have found it ; and if 
 we are confident that, through God's goodness to us, 
 we have found it in part, this faith may well inspire 
 us to unremitting endeavour, to a work of righteous- 
 ness having the assurance of peace, a work not less 
 strenuously wrought, because accompanied with the 
 quietness which is the best sign of strength, and with 
 the cheerfulness of those whose reward is with them, 
 though their work is evermore before them. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 A PURE INTENTION. 
 
 ' And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a 
 conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men.' — • 
 Acts xxiv. i6. 
 
 These words were wrung from the Apostle in 
 the supreme crisis of his hfe. By the men of his 
 own nation, to whom he was ardently devoted, he 
 had been accused to the Gentiles, whom he sought 
 to win to Christ and God, of having been unfaithful 
 to Jehovah, and of profaning the worship of His 
 people. Then he made this avowal of his central 
 belief and hope. ' I confess unto thee, that after 
 the way which they call heresy, so worship I the 
 God of my fathers, believing all things which are 
 written in the law and the prophets : and have hope 
 toward God, which they themselves also allow, that 
 there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the 
 just and unjust.' And the same emotional impulse, 
 revealing as it were the inmost core of his individual 
 
30 A PURE INTENTION. 
 
 life, bore him onward to this further utterance, which 
 came if possible from a still more hidden depth, — 
 ' Herein do I exercise myself, to have always a con- 
 science void of offence toward God, and toward men.' 
 Observe how close and natural is the sequence here. 
 First, the frank admission of difference — 'after the 
 way which they call heresy.' He will have no false 
 lights, no softening of the truth, no dissembling of 
 discrepancies, no shrinking from the coldness of nega- 
 tion. But then how quickly follows the positive and 
 warm assertion of his faith, which is all the stronger 
 because shaken free from conventional supports, and 
 which, however little they may acknowledge it, he 
 knows to be at one with the deeper mind of his 
 countrymen — ' so worship I the God of my fathers.' 
 Further, how inseparable from this faith in God, 
 is that hope toward God, which he also shares with 
 the higher spirits amongst his people, the hope of a 
 future life, of a resurrection and judgment. And 
 then, once more, how closely interwoven with this 
 belief in a God of righteousness, with this looking 
 for a final judgment, with this hope of a world beyond 
 the grave, is the deep consistent purpose which he 
 here acknowledges, this inmost effort of his nature, 
 this permanent motive, this conscious training of the 
 spirit for an eternal prize, for endless participation 
 in the lasting triumph of good ! 
 
 Of those who have begun life with high aims 
 
A PURE INTENTION. 
 
 and aspirations, there must be many who in the 
 course of years have at some time or other been 
 driven to such a vindication of themselves as that 
 in which St. Paul takes refuge, and they are happy 
 if they have found the stronghold unimpaired. One, 
 it may be, is accused of blasphemy or atheism, when 
 in himself he knows that he is seeking after a purer 
 and more living communion with the God of right- 
 eousness and truth. Another has to bear the sus- 
 picion of being unfaithful to his people and country, 
 or to the Church of his fathers, when he knows that 
 he is honestly striving for their highest good. Or 
 he has fallen under some imputation which is heavier 
 still. In some complication of circumstances he may 
 have acted from pure motives, but without regard to 
 personal consequences. Appearances may be against 
 him. He may lose valued confidence. He may fall 
 under the frown of good men. But his heart rises 
 still more boldly in his self-defence, with the '■de- 
 mand'' of a good conscience, that in spite of errors 
 of heart and head, of even culpable blindness, of 
 that most tragic of all misfortunes, that well-meant 
 efforts should seem to be the occasion of harm, 
 there shall still be awarded to him the recognition 
 that he did not willingly offend ; that under all 
 surface weakness and infirmity there has been ever 
 present the main intention of his life, the irre- 
 pressible effort of the unquenchable though ever- 
 
32 A PURE INTENTION. 
 
 struggling will, to make the most of opportunity, 
 feeling, power, of the life itself, in seeking to do 
 the will of God and to promote the blessedness of 
 his fellow- men. 
 
 And even when the accusing voice is from within, 
 when the sins of a man's youth are lying heavy on 
 him, when he is reaping the harsh fruit of heedless 
 errors, when some mistake of judgment or the sway- 
 ing of some passionate mood has plunged him over- 
 head in bitterness and self-reproach ; if he is to 
 escape despair, if he is still to find in some part 
 of his soul a drop of patience, must not this be 
 the last anchorage of the vexed heart, that in the 
 midst of his very penitence and self-abasement he 
 finds that within him which has throughout been 
 pleading for the higher law, which, though tempo- 
 rarily overborne, has still the promise of more life, 
 and, with God's help, shall yet prevail ? 
 
 It has been said that good resolutions are apt to 
 have a bad name, that they are thought to imply 
 the absence of good actions. Similarly it may be 
 said that a good intention is apt to be undervalued, 
 because it is so often made the excuse of weakness 
 and error. But there is a true sense in which a pure 
 intention is the very salt of life, being in fact that 
 groundwork of an honest and good heart which our 
 Saviour postulates in the Parable of the Sower, the 
 
A PURE INTENTION. 
 
 33 
 
 higher purpose without which there could be no 
 growth at all. Because in youth performance is so 
 disproportioned to aspiration, because we have never 
 fully acted up to our ideal, because we have again 
 and again been lapsed in time and passion, and fallen 
 grievously below our highest aim ; is it therefore 
 nothing that in reviewing a course of ten, of twenty, 
 of thirty years, we should be able to feel that we 
 have on the whole been true to ourselves, to our 
 neighbours, and to our divine and eternal calling, 
 and that we are nearer than when we began to that 
 condition in which 
 
 ' The full-grown will, 
 
 Circled through all experiences, pure law, 
 
 Commeasures perfect freedom ' ? 
 
 I propose then to consider the value of a pure 
 intention in relation (i) to the individual life, (2) to 
 human brotherhood, (3) to faith in God, and (4) in 
 immortality. 
 
 I, It is something more than a prudential maxim : 
 
 ' To thine own self be true. 
 And it must follow, as the night the day. 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man.' 
 
 He who in early youth has striven to think 
 of life as a whole — who, amidst superficial dis- 
 tractions and waverings, has never wholly lost the 
 deeper longing after true strength and manhood — 
 who, when overwhelmed with temptations, has still 
 D 
 
34 A PURE INTENTION. 
 
 clung with the tenacity of one drowning to an up- 
 ward clue — whose inmost thought has been, How 
 shall I make the most of life? How shall I myself 
 become a fitting temple for the spirit of holiness 
 and truth ? How shall I earn my own respect in 
 the long run? He who so questions with himself 
 has a principle of life and growth in him that must 
 come to good. He may be long maturing. It some- 
 times happens that the richest natures are the latest 
 ripe. Living in a distracted age', some strain of 
 nobleness may often lead him to follow wandering 
 fires. When after a long period he looks back, he 
 may have to regret much waste, he may look wist- 
 fully at the blank places, where some impracticable 
 dream had vanished, where some blindness suffered 
 him to swerve into a hopeless quest: but if this central 
 purpose has increased, if he sees the same end more 
 clearly, if his will has gained in firmness and control, 
 if he finds himself more than ever determined to hold 
 fast by right, and more than ever driven to press on- 
 wards in the path of good ; then many errors that 
 at the time seemed irremediable, many starts and 
 blenches that once brought him nigh despair, will 
 appear in the retrospect like the dark rings in the 
 heart of oak, which preserve, indeed, the trace of 
 wintry seasons, but take but little from the soundness 
 of the tree. 
 
 And from that point onward — the firm and 
 
A rURE INTENTION. ^^ 
 
 temperate will once gained, once proved to be the 
 stronger in some conflict with the lower self — then 
 all that happens from without will only enrich the 
 life. Affections old and new, disappointments, trials, 
 uncertainties, losses, triumphs, all will be woven into 
 the strong and various web, without injuring the 
 harmony of the work. 
 
 2. But no life can be completed in isolation. The 
 heightening of self-consciousness is not always an 
 increase of strength, and is too apt to become morbid, 
 if not effeminate. We cannot step off our own shadow, 
 but there is a form of reflection in which this obvious 
 truth, viewed in a kind of second intention, becomes 
 a source of limitation and weakness. From being 
 too passive, men become the victims of a spurious 
 necessity. They dwell upon the truism that action 
 is conditioned by nature and circumstance, until all 
 action is felt to be impossible. 
 
 It is true that man cannot alienate his nature ; 
 but are volition and reason to be omitted in the 
 estimate of natural capabilities ? It is true that choice 
 is limited by circumstances, but it remains choice 
 still. — Now there is a remedy for this weak ten- 
 dency in the thought of our relation to others, 
 in the sense of brotherhood. We are not honest, if 
 we are not honest to our neighbour. Wc are not 
 sincere, if we harbour any insincerity in our dealings 
 with him. We cannot be true to ourselves and false 
 D 2 
 
3<5 . A PURE INTENTION. 
 
 to any man. We can form no purpose, we can make 
 no plan of life, which will not affect the happiness 
 and the lives of many others. There are those even 
 in these late days, who, after long brooding over 
 their own weakness and misery, have been suddenly 
 roused to a sense of emancipation and freedom 
 by some strong voice that has told them that 
 they are not alone — that they are partakers in the 
 dignity of a nature that can be only perfected 
 in communion — members of a world-wide fraternity, 
 who, through common impulses, common experiences, 
 common sorrows, are growing up into some higher 
 law. If this be a ' new gospel,' it has some striking 
 affinities to the old one. Only it may not be 
 superfluous to remark, that if these wider aspirations 
 are to be realized, if the high places in this great 
 brotherhood are to be won, it is not merely by some 
 magnetic sympathy or the influence of some personal 
 gift, but by the persistent following of some high 
 purpose clearly seen, and by the purification of 
 inclination and impulse through the deeper sense 
 of right and truth. Much indeed may be accom- 
 plished by the very intensity of pure Christian love. 
 And the very strength of human feeling may some- 
 times contain an enlightening and controlling power. 
 But in almost all feeling there is something that 
 requires correction and moderation, if it is not to 
 perish idly or to have a tragic end. For the moment 
 
A PURE INTENTION. 37 
 
 of feeling is seldom the moment of action, and how 
 sad is often the disproportion between the feeling 
 and the act ! But for him who has the firm intent 
 to live nobly and well, to be strong and faithful 
 and true, it may indeed have an inspiriting effect, 
 making life to be more than trebly worth living, when 
 the clouds are lifted from what seemed the narrow 
 horizon of his individual being, and he finds himself 
 marching on as one of ' an exceeding great army,' 
 who have one cause, one heart, one hope. 
 
 3. This fixity of purpose may not in every case 
 have been consciously grounded on belief in God. 
 But to have realized it in some measure may 
 be a great help to us in confirming that belief. 
 There are two moments in which the belief in 
 a Supreme Being is most felt by ordinary men : the 
 moment of extreme peril or temptation, and the 
 moment of moral triumph. When at some great 
 cost we have acted firmly according to our sense of 
 right, when at some critical point the accumulated 
 thought and will of years has been just strong enough 
 to bear some exceptional strain, and after months 
 of darkness and uncertainty the happy issue has at 
 length justified what seemed a doubtful act ; then 
 the cry of the soul to God, ' I thank Thee, O Father, 
 Lord of heaven and earth,' is no less unbidden and 
 no less real than that other cry, ' O wretched man 
 that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of 
 
38 A PURE INTENTION. 
 
 this death ? ' At such times the consciousness of the 
 victory of the higher principle in ourselves passes 
 readily into the consciousness of union with the 
 Divine Will, And as these moments leave their 
 impress, the sense of the growth of a purer life within 
 may become inseparable from the still higher sense 
 that we are living continually in the presence of the 
 Infinite and Eternal Good. 
 
 4. For, lastly, this deep consciousness of a true 
 purpose in fulfilling our course, may pass into the 
 felt assurance of participation in the life that cannot 
 die. It is not that we have been working for a 
 reward ; but the Vv^ork that is its own reward is found 
 to blossom with the hope of immortality. The spirit 
 that has realized itself, that has lived in and for 
 others, that has found rest in God, begins to find 
 it impossible to think itself away. It is not necessary 
 that we should dwell much on this. The thought 
 of duty, and of the claims of other men, the various 
 interests of life, the noble efforts of an honourable 
 career in working for ourselves and all for whom we 
 care, these may fill the heart in ordinary moods ; but 
 there are times when all this would seem an unreal 
 and cruel mockery if it were crossed with the suspicion 
 of death, and there are also times when he who has 
 striven consistently for the right and true finds the 
 sense of an immortal destiny borne in upon him to 
 his unspeakable comfort, ' without the will.' 
 
A PURE INTENTION. 39 
 
 ' Herein,' then, ' let us exercise ourselves,' while 
 we have time. The prize is worth the training, and 
 all who train for it may win. We may be conscious 
 of many failures, of much dangerous weakness ; we 
 may be burdened with the consequences of past 
 mistakes, of past sins. Let us not deceive ourselves, 
 but frankly acknowledge the point at which we stand. 
 Only let us be sure of this, that in so far as we 
 have striven heretofore to have a conscience void of 
 offence, in so far as we determine henceforth at 
 any cost to keep the higher way, we have in us 
 an earnest of the blessed life. 
 
 .... Words are indeed ' weak masters ' to affect 
 the springs of action. But by whatever means the 
 lesson of experience is applied, reflection awakened, 
 true purposes confirmed, it may be that something 
 is saved from the sad waste of human powers, some- 
 thing gained from the higher objects of endeavour, 
 some few grains added to the scale of good. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 FEELING AND ACTION. 
 
 ' I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought 
 to strengthen the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord 
 Jesus, How he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.' — 
 Acts xx. 35, 
 
 Christianity is the religion of action, and not 
 of mere feeling. If there be any Christians who 
 would rest their hopes on emotional experience, or 
 who make it their chief aim to cultivate a certain 
 frame of mind, they are falling far short of the ideal 
 that is set before them in the New Testament. Nor 
 can there be a greater misapprehension than to 
 suppose that the spirit of Christ has given sacredness 
 only to the passive virtues. The passive graces may 
 perhaps have been chiefly exemplified in some of the 
 mediaeval saints, though even these men, if we could 
 see them as they really were, would often prove to 
 be different from our traditional notions of them : 
 but it would be an error like those we read of in 
 savage tribes, to imagine that the mild and forgiving 
 
FEELING AND ACTION. 4I 
 
 aspect of the follower of Christ is inconsistent with 
 the most heroic firmness of resolve. 
 
 Still it is no less true that Christian action has a 
 basis of feeling. For Christian energy is the direct 
 outcome of Christian faith and love. It is just be- 
 cause that love is so strong, that it cannot remain in 
 the form of feeling, it cannot rest until it has gone 
 forth in act. And Christian love is so strong because 
 it is so pure, because it has risen out of the lower 
 atmosphere, in which affection is mingled with desire, 
 into that higher region where all desire is stifled ex- 
 cept the fervent desire for others' good, and where 
 the one ruling element is a beneficent will. 
 
 It would be a conception no less unworthy than 
 the former one, to suppose that the Christian heart 
 is cold, that its pulses are languid and feeble, because 
 forsooth it has dominated over selfish passions, and 
 has subordinated the lower to the higher law. 
 
 Nor does feeling cease to be human and personal 
 when it becomes Christian. There is, indeed, a diffi- 
 culty in touching upon this subject, for fear we 
 should blend earthly shadows with the heavenly 
 realities : and this was probably one reason why the 
 authors of the two last revisions of the English Bible 
 substituted ' charity,' a word taken from the Roman 
 Catholic version, for the simpler ' love,' which had 
 obtained in all the previous versions from Tyndale 
 downwards. But although the love of Christ is 
 
42 FEELING AND ACTION. 
 
 wholly separate from much that men call love, yet in 
 all human affection that deserves the name there is a 
 germ or promise of that which, in its ultimate purity, 
 when breathed on from on high, becomes the Christian 
 love of the brethren and of mankind. Feeling, at least, 
 gives the material out of which the Christian life has 
 to be woven ; and if the work has sometimes to be 
 done by repression and antagonism, there is still a 
 sort of kindred between the matter and the form. 
 
 The life of Christ is indeed so far removed in uni- 
 versal strength and purity from our ordinary life, that 
 we find it hard to realize that He who healed the 
 multitudes and scathed the Pharisees with His 
 rebuke, is the same who ate and drank with publicans 
 and sinners, who wept .at the grave of Lazarus, who, 
 having loved 'His own that were in the world, loved 
 them unto the end. 
 
 But the example of St. Paul, if less absolutely 
 perfect and divine, and in some ways less universally 
 applicable, is perhaps for that very reason more 
 readily comprehended by us, when we begin to look 
 into his Epistles for St. Paul himself, and not merely 
 for a dogmatic system. 
 
 In the passage before us we have a very touching 
 and clearly authentic link between the actual life of 
 the Apostle and the teaching of his Lord. And in 
 this parting speech to the Ephesian elders he has 
 preserved a saying, which gives the most simple and 
 
FEELING AND ACTION. 43 
 
 unforced expression to one of the deepest principles 
 of the Hfc of Christ ; of which, however, the nearest 
 equivalent in the Gospel records is the direct precept 
 given to the Apostles in their first mission : ' Freely 
 ye have received, freely give : ' — a saying which 
 strikes the key-note of all the highest feeling, which 
 rescues feeling from effeminacy by directing it into 
 the channel of active energy — a saying, no less appli- 
 cable to the parts than to the whole of life : ' It is 
 more blessed to give than to receive.' 
 
 It is a significant fact that these words of Christ 
 were recalled by the Apostle in the moment of part- 
 ing. Let us try to place ourselves in the position of 
 those who heard them. Or rather, let us look stead- 
 fastly both at him and them. 
 
 Like the Master whom he served, his face is set 
 to go towards Jerusalem, though, unlike his Master, 
 he knoweth not the things that will befall him there. 
 No power can withhold him, as once from going 
 forth into the strange Gentile lands, so now from 
 leaving them when they are filled with his friends, 
 from testifying to the Gospel of Christ at Jerusalem 
 and finally at Rome. No force can hinder him : 
 not hatred menacing in front, nor friendship calling 
 from behind. And yet we know something of the 
 tenderness of that spirit. Witness the letter written 
 long afterwards from his Roman prison to his early 
 converts at Philippi — thanking God for every remem- 
 
44 FEELING AND ACTION. 
 
 brance of them, having them in his heart, rejoicing 
 in the graces they display, willing even to live on in 
 pain, if it be more needful for them. If he felt thus 
 towards the Philippians after so many years, what 
 must he have felt in telling those amongst whom he 
 had gone in and out for a much longer time than he 
 ever spent at Philippi, that they all should see his 
 face no more ? Yet no less eagerly than if he were 
 regardless of them, he goes burning onward on his 
 fiery way — not fruitlessly, however, but still shedding 
 blessings on those whom he leaves. Rare union of 
 strength and sympathy, of zeal and gentleness — what 
 may it not accomplish where it is found? Do you 
 suppose that, if the Apostle had expounded with the 
 most heavenly clearness, with the most irrefragable 
 logic, the scheme of salvation, the doctrine of 
 righteousness by faith, or even the calling of the 
 Gentiles, but had lacked this gift, he would have 
 made converts and founded Churches, or have won 
 souls for Christ ? It is instructive to look sometimes 
 even on the greatest prophets from the human side — 
 not merely to acknowledge the human element in the 
 Bible (which does not necessarily mean the element 
 of imperfection), but to trace the working of those 
 experiences which seem analogous to our own, and 
 yet are raised and altered in their nature by their 
 inseparable union with the divine truths, to which 
 they helped to give free course in the world. 
 
FEELING AND ACTION. 45 
 
 We read of one, who had visions and revelations 
 of the Lord, who was determined to know nothing 
 but Christ crucified, whose spirit bore witness that 
 he and his brethren were the children of God. And, 
 when we look a little closer, it perhaps surprises us 
 to find such an one using the simple and familiar 
 language of the heart. ' We, brethren, being taken 
 from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, 
 endeavoured the more abundantly to see your face 
 with great desire.' 'We were comforted over you 
 in all our affliction and distress.' ' For now we live, 
 if ye stand fast.' ' We were ready to have given you 
 even our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.' 
 ' If I make you sorry, who then is he that maketh 
 me glad?' 'We seek not yours but you.' He who 
 wrote thus knew something of the joys and griefs, 
 the hopes and disappointments, of personal feeling. 
 But all is sublimated and enlarged by the great 
 central devotion to the Divine Saviour, while towards 
 the brethren his love seems to have no limit, but 
 to be almost equally individual and universal. 
 
 And now he gives to those who are hanging on 
 his words for the last time, who are ready to fall 
 about his neck, the secret of his own strong life, 
 which is able also to give strength to theirs. Whilst 
 hearing the gospel from his lips, overshadowed by 
 his influence, drinking in his spirit, it was impossible 
 for them to realize the fulness of this blessing. But 
 
46 FEELING AND ACTION. 
 
 now that he is to be withdrawn from them, and they 
 are to see his face no more, it may be hke a new 
 beginning to them of the Hfe from heaven, if the 
 current that has been day by day filHng their hearts 
 can but overflow in a strong and steady stream on 
 one another, on the Church, and on the world. 
 
 And this, brethren, is the type of a process that 
 is ever going on. For all of us there is a time 
 to receive, and a time to give, and we are happy if 
 we do not confound them. It is well for those who 
 have been blessed in receiving, if they recognise in 
 time the call to be blessed in giving, and are able 
 to ^believe that this is the greater blessing. 
 
 For there is a degree of selfishness in our individual 
 gladness and sorrow. It is in the very nature of strong 
 feeling to be exclusive of other interests while it 
 lasts. Who is not aware that there is a tinge of 
 selfishness even in the purest joy ? Can the children 
 of the bride-chamber weep with them that weep? 
 Do not the mourners seem to them as dead who 
 are burying their dead ? Can they rejoice with others 
 who rejoice, or have they room for any joy but 
 one? Can they acknowledge their equality with 
 other men, or believe that there is any happiness 
 like theirs ? Do they think that any others have 
 a right to deck themselves with flowers, or to bask 
 in the light that seems to be shining for them alone ? 
 
 And is not the mourner, in the hour of his 
 
FEELING AND ACTION. 47 
 
 mourning, still more self-absorbed ? What are all the 
 sorrows of the world to his? How shallow and 
 meaningless seem to him all the pursuits and interests 
 of other men ! 
 
 ' The tempest in his soul 
 
 Doth from his senses take all feeling else 
 
 Save what beats there.' 
 
 But then these joys and sorrows are the very- 
 woof and warp of life, and it is out of these that 
 all experience is woven. In the deepest natures they 
 have been the deepest, and those who are most 
 capable of them have in the long run the greatest 
 power of doing good — or harm. 
 
 And what a tangled and disordered web it often 
 seems ! If individual happiness (in one sense) were 
 the end, how unintelligible would the whole appear ! 
 
 One man has keen longings^ whose very utterance 
 echoes through the ages, and the great world pauses 
 breathlessly to read the ' legend of his heart ; ' but 
 when the flower is seized its bloom is shed, and he 
 is involved in a maze of error that lays him low and 
 stains his name. Another has stretched out his hands 
 in holiest aspiration for a coming hour, and it comes 
 not; or when it comes, through circumstances, or some 
 mood of nature, or that ' strong daughter of the voice 
 of God,' his arms are pinioned to his side. 
 
 What then? Is life to be a desert still? Must 
 human feelings always have this devastating force — 
 the land as the garden of Eden before them, and 
 
48 FEELING AND ACTION. 
 
 behind them a desolate wilderness? Must the bitter- 
 ness of cynicism still be the harsh heir of unreasoning 
 hope ? 
 
 The most destructive powers of nature have been 
 brought partially under the control of man. The 
 sublime challenge, which once expressed so finely 
 the impotence of the creature before his God, ' Canst 
 thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto 
 thee, Here we are ? ' is no longer unanswerable. 
 Man has unravelled the secret of the dark clouds, 
 and has turned their armoury into an engine of 
 beneficent labour. 
 
 But who shall tame the lightnings of the human 
 breast? Who shall turn their hidden fires, from being 
 a treasury of wasteful storms, into what they were 
 surely meant to be, an inexhaustible source of endless 
 blessing? 
 
 Some look to philosophy for this, others to art. 
 
 Moral philosophy tells us, and we do well to listen 
 to her, of the ' autonomy of the will.' And it is a 
 sad day for any of us when he loses faith in this, 
 when he suffers anything to overcloud and hide from 
 him either the supremacy of the moral law or the 
 reality of human freedom. That is to lose at once 
 the compass and the rudder of his course, and to 
 drift helplessly and hopelessly away. When we suffer 
 ourselves to think that our antecedents, or the nature 
 that is given to us at birth, some slumbering gemmule, 
 
fi::i:ling and action. 49 
 
 some irresistible influence, or some unaccountable 
 fatality of circumstances working together with these, 
 must necessarily rule our spirit's destiny, then our 
 foot is upon the verge of a steep decline. Never be 
 this forgotten : the power of choice is ours, at least 
 as surely as we have each a soul. 
 
 But human nature is complex, and human 
 characters are diverse, and the ideas of duty and 
 freedom, while they appeal to the practical reason, 
 have often little immediate power upon the heart. 
 They are too abstract, too remote from outward im- 
 pressions, to be sufficiently operative by themselves. 
 
 Still less can art supply the needful charm. 
 /Esthetic culture speaks to us of harmony and 
 proportion in all things, of good taste, of stillness 
 and repose, of the union of various elements in 
 forms of beauty. And such a voice as this may 
 calm and cheer the spirit for a while, — until passion 
 wakens in her might, and then you will seek in vain 
 to ' fetter strong madness with a silken thread, charm 
 ache w^ith air, and agony with words.' And it may 
 be found that the sweetness previously distilled from 
 imagination and fancy has only heaped up fuel fcr 
 the consuming fire. 
 
 We cannot dispense with any aid by which we may 
 
 hope to conquer in the battle with self: but I believe 
 
 that we are neglecting the most powerful of all, 
 
 when we do not listen to the voices that still reach 
 
 E 
 
FEELING AND ACTION. 
 
 US through the New Testament and seek to make 
 our own in practice the example of Christ and of His 
 greatest followers. I believe that if any one principle 
 will give peace and strength to the human heart by 
 which we live, and turn its powers and instincts from 
 being self-destructive into a universal blessing, it is 
 this, when received not as a mere sentiment but as an 
 abiding motive : ' It is more blessed to give than to 
 receive.' 
 
 It is hardly natural that we should learn this all at 
 once. For most of us it seems to be necessary that 
 we should receive — ay, and lose, too — before we can 
 know the blessedness of giving. And yet there are a 
 few natures, at once passionless and full of human 
 kindness, who seem carried by an inherent impulse to 
 be ever ministering to others, in little things if not in 
 great, who have been almost free from selfish pre- 
 occupations even from their youth. They have their 
 own peculiar blessing. But those who have felt and 
 suffered greatly are, when once they make the turn, 
 perhaps capable of a kind of service, which is not 
 otherwise to be attained. Such have often a strange 
 ^ power of ministration in them.' When the intensity 
 of individual joy and sorrow is in the past, it may 
 often be that the truest life is only to begin. Expe- 
 rience then supplies a measure of human possibilities, 
 and gives the power of entering into human delight 
 and pain. Those who have suffered are able to 
 
FEELING AND ACTION. 5T 
 
 succour others. He who has been tempted can 
 strengthen his brethren who are tempted. They 
 whose affections have been the deepest will, when 
 they open their eyes and look around them, be most 
 keenl}^ aliv^e to the various wants and claims of all 
 men. The more intense the background, the stronger 
 will be the lines in the front of the picture. 
 
 The most lasting happiness of all intercourse lies 
 in giving more than we receive. Then only can the 
 sympathy for which we crave be a source of strength 
 and not of weakness to us, when it is met on our part 
 with active energy, and when it is associated v/ith 
 vitalizing thought. Observe the effect of this in the 
 Apostle St. Paul. What can be stronger than the 
 affection to which he gives continual expression ? 
 How fearlessly it goes forth from him, even passing 
 into fondness sometimes. But then, how beneficently 
 active; how completely dominated and controlled by 
 the determination to bear witness to the truth, and 
 to maintain at any cost the freeness of the Gospel ; 
 how ready to relinquish all return, all satisfaction 
 except that of knowing that his converts are growing 
 up to the fulness of the stature of Christ. ' All things 
 are for your sakes.' ' For now we live, if ye stand 
 fast in the Lord.' 
 
 Within the range of our experience, the nearest 
 approach to that love of the brethren of which the 
 E 2 
 
53 FEELING AND ACTION. 
 
 Apostle speaks, is in the intercourse of Christian 
 friends. Let them hold fast the image that is set 
 before them. It cannot be realized by any warm effu- 
 sion of feeling, by any words of kindness, but only by 
 the active interchange of the highest gifts, and by the 
 common participation in efforts for the good of men. 
 For Christian love is in danger either of drooping or 
 of deteriorating, unless it is ever taking a wider range. 
 ' If ye salute your brethren only, what reward have 
 ye?' We shall lose nothing, but only gain, by turn- 
 ing away for a time from those of whom we may 
 hope to receive, and ' letting our light shine ' on those 
 who can but feebly reflect it back. Then, however 
 we may be sometimes haunted by ' the grief that 
 saps the mind,' our lives will be enlarged and blessed, 
 because they will become the receptacle and medium 
 of that highest blessing, which is increased the more 
 that it is shared. 
 
 The great mediaeval poet, in whom we still find the 
 best expression of many religious thoughts — for the 
 consecrated and harmonious utterance of our reformed 
 religion is a thing of the future — has given noble ex- 
 pression to this aspect of the Christian ideal. He sup- 
 poses himself to be thus addressed by his imaginary 
 guide : 
 
 ' " Because are thither pointed your desires, 
 
 Where by companionship each share is lessened, 
 Envy doth ply the bellows to your sighs. 
 
FEELING AND ACTION. ^;^ 
 
 But if the love of the supernal sphere 
 Should upwardly direct your aspiration, 
 There would not be that fear within your breast : 
 
 For there, as much the more as one saith Our, 
 So much the more of good each one possesses. 
 And more of charity in that cloister burns." 
 
 " I am more hungering to be satisfied," 
 I said, " than if I had before been silent. 
 And more of doubt within my mind I gather. 
 
 How can it be that boon distributed 
 The more possessors can more wealthy make 
 Therein, than if by few it were possessed ? " 
 
 And he to me : " Because thou fixest still 
 Thy mind entirely upon earthly things. 
 Thou pluckest darkness from the very light. 
 
 The goodness infinite and ineffable 
 
 Which is above there, runneth unto love, 
 As to a lucid body comes the sunbeam. 
 
 So much it gives itself as it finds ardour : 
 So that as far as charity extends. 
 O'er it increases the Eternal Valour. 
 
 And the more people thitherward aspire 
 
 More are there to love well, and more they love there, 
 And, as a mirror, one reflects the other." ' 
 
 Dijnte (.Longfellow's Translation). 
 
 In conclusion, let it be observed that the grace of 
 which we have been speaking can never flourish, if 
 it be separated from truth and right. Woe is unto 
 us, if, out of any personal respect, however near to 
 us, however sacred, we remove by a hair-breadth the 
 landmarks which are set by Eternal Justice, or dis- 
 semble our knowledge of any truth. Woe unto us, 
 if, out of any weakness, we ^'ive, where to give is to 
 
54 FEELING AND ACTION. 
 
 take away, if we allow any sympathy to cloud from 
 us and others the celestial light that shines within. 
 
 But doubly blessed, if, while holding fast by judg- 
 ment and justice, and daily winning more of truth, 
 we hold and win them not for ourselves alone. 
 
 St. Paul has said that of his triad of abiding graces, 
 faith, hope, and love, the greatest is love. There is 
 another triad in which some might venture to sum 
 up the principles of the blessed Life — Love, Right, 
 and Truth. We dare not say that any one of these 
 is greater than the other two ; but one thing may 
 be fearlessly affirmed, — that in their perfect realization 
 they are inseparable. 
 
SERMON V. 
 
 ORDER AND FREEDOM. 
 
 ' That there should be no schism in the body ; but that the 
 members should have the same care one for another. And 
 whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it ; or 
 one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. 
 Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.' — 
 I Cor. xii. 25-27. 
 
 To have believed in -Christ, is to beHeve in the 
 endless progress of mankind. To have seen Him 
 as He is, is to have seen the universal advent of the 
 kingdom of God. 
 
 In the gospel account of the transfiguration there 
 is a striking contrast^ which has been rendered visibly 
 in the great masterpiece of Italian art; between 
 the serene mountain height, where the Saviour of 
 mankind in unearthly radiance is holding converse 
 with the law-giver and the prophet, and the widely 
 different scene upon the plain, amongst the perverse 
 multitude. There His disciples, weak in faith, have 
 in vain sought to heal the demoniac, who is seen 
 
56 ORDER AND FREEDOM. 
 
 And there is a similar contrast, which is ever being 
 renewed, between the ideal image of a redeemed 
 humanity, which from time to time the holiest men 
 have seen — the image of a Church without spot or 
 blemish, of a new Jerusalem, of a city or common- 
 wealth of God — and the actual condition of the 
 world, or of a church, or congregation, or city, or 
 neighbourhood, as this is seen in the common daylight 
 of experience at a particular time. 
 
 Men are tempted to think that there is no relation 
 between yonder pattern in the heavens, and this 
 feeble and scattered flock — between that spiritual 
 communion, and this broken and divided intercourse 
 of sin-worn men. 
 
 And yet, wide as the gulf appears^ there is a way 
 between them, and the form that is seen ascending 
 heavenwards, and descending earthwards, is not that 
 of an angel, nor of any mere idea or imagining, but 
 of the Son of Man. 
 
 This contrast between the ideal and actual aspect 
 of the Christian Church appears very strikingly in 
 St. Paul's way of speaking to the congregation of 
 believers at Corinth. 
 
 In a city, which in the ancient sense could hardly 
 be called any more a city, where the corporate life 
 of proud free-born citizens had been succeeded by a 
 mixed multitude of natives, foreigners, and freedmen, 
 in the chief market of a conquered people ; a handful 
 
ORDER AND FREEDOM. 57 
 
 of Jews, and a somewhat greater number of so-called 
 Greeks, many of whom either were, or had been, 
 Roman slaves, — a medley of persons insignificant in 
 number and position, — had been drawn together by 
 the teaching of St. Paul, and had formed themselves 
 into a community, which to an outward obseiver 
 would appear to be half-way between a Jewish 
 s}'nagogue and a philosophical or rhetorical school. 
 This community was no sooner founded than it 
 appeared to split asunder into three or four different 
 sects ; and these, while bitterly contending with each 
 other on points of doctrine, yet for a while seemed 
 to agree in countenancing a moral offence which, in 
 the proverbially licentious city of Corinth, was an 
 unheard-of scandal. 
 
 To that little community, so outwardly feeble^ so 
 distracted, so clouded with shame, St. Paul writes in 
 language which might seem exaggerated if applied to 
 the most flourishing of religious orders or churches. 
 ' I thank my God for the grace of God which is 
 given you by Jesus Christ : that in every thing ye are 
 enriched by Him, in all utterance and in all knowledge, 
 so that ye come behind in no gift, waiting for the 
 coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also 
 confirm you to the end; that ye may be blameless in 
 the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.' 
 
 Yet these words are far from being unreal. They 
 come straight from the Apostle's inmost heart. They 
 
58 ORDER AND FREEDOM. 
 
 are inspired by the prophetic vision of hope and 
 love. 
 
 And of this ideal image which St. Paul sets before 
 his friends, as well to kindle and guide their aspira- 
 tions as to express his own, one prominent feature, 
 perhaps brought into prominence by the very feeling 
 that it was imperfectly realized, is the idea of 
 corporate unity. That 'as the body is one, and 
 hath many members, and all the members of that 
 one body, being many, are one body : so also is 
 Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into 
 one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether 
 we be bond or free ; and have all been made to drink 
 into one Spirit.' 
 
 This is probably the first complete utterance of 
 this great thought, which the Apostle had already 
 touched upon in writing to the Galatians—' There is 
 neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor 
 free : for ye are all one in Christ Jesus : ' and which 
 he expanded afterwards in counselling the Romans 
 to humility, and the Ephesians to truthfulness. It 
 is in his dealing with the Corinthian Church that 
 the Apostle of freedom becomes the Apostle of order ; 
 and he whose thought is ever most luminous when 
 his whole being is fused in some strong feeling, 
 developed for the first time in full proportions the 
 conception in which the ideas of freedom and 
 order are happily combined : ' that, as we have many 
 
ORDER AND FREEDOM. 59 
 
 members in one body, and all members have not the 
 same office^ so we, being many, are one body in 
 Christ, and every one members one of another.' 
 
 To this aspect of the Christian life I now proceed 
 to direct your attention. 
 
 And first, I will notice two kinds of objection to 
 which every application of this text to modern life 
 is liable. Secondly, I will try to guard against 
 misconceptions and false or spurious applications of 
 the truth which is here expressed. And thirdly, 
 I will endeavour to draw out the meaning in which 
 I believe that St. Paul's words are of lasting and 
 endless value. 
 
 I. The two kinds of objection may be thus briefly 
 stated. First, it may be said, the notion of a cor- 
 porate unity or common life is one which it is 
 impossible ever to realize. And, secondly, it may be 
 urged, even were it possible, it is undesirable in the 
 present stage of progress. 
 
 I. Is it not mockery, some one may ask, to speak 
 of harmony and order to a society such as ours, so 
 unequal in conditions, so jarring in interests, so 
 divided between the superficial and the narrow? Do 
 not the coarser natures predominate in any society 
 of men ? Are not the refined and thoughtful natures 
 isolated or overborne, if they are not even carried 
 away ? Arc not class demarcations permanent, while the 
 occasions which draw together those of different classes 
 
6o ORDER AND FREEDOM. 
 
 are accidental and temporary ? What influence can 
 hope to overcome the conventional limitations, so 
 trifling in themselves, but reinforced by the dead 
 weight of long association and habit ; these barriers 
 of empty air which tend continually to widen the 
 interval between man and man ? What hope is there 
 of bringing all men into one body, when even good 
 men fail to understand each other? Are not personal 
 antipathies mightier to separate, than any moral force 
 we know of is powerful to combine ; unless among 
 moral powers be reckoned the power of hatred, which 
 unites men for retaliation and oppression, or the 
 power of a common interest, which draws one class 
 together against another class, and is only a magnified 
 selfishness after all ? How can there be communion 
 and fellowship, while men think so much of their 
 rights and so little of their duties? As to taking 
 an interest in our neighbours, as to caring for the 
 things of others, what else are we doing every day ? 
 But what a shallow interest ! How little enlightened 
 by sympathy ! How feebly stimulated by love ! 
 How little guided by the sense of truth and good ! 
 How much determined by the mere necessity of 
 amusing a vacant mind ! And while we lament the 
 prevalence of vices that weaken character and make 
 ingenuous confidence impossible, is not the very 
 strength of individual character in many cases counter- 
 active to harmony? 
 
ORDER AND FREEDOiNf. 6l 
 
 Might not one, casting his eye over the complex 
 and various but sHght and flimsy texture of modern 
 hfe, be inchned to think that while the bands that 
 once held men together are being loosened, there 
 is no appearance of any more comprehensive bond, 
 which might reunite the scattered elements, and 
 give hope of the ultimate reconstruction of society ? 
 
 2. And here the second objector will press in, and 
 say that society is very well as it is, and that we 
 mistake our age in seeking for the chimera of spiritual 
 unity. Not unity, he will say, but individuality, is 
 the aim of Protestantism. Individual independence 
 is the ideal of the modern Briton ; you should recog- 
 nize and accept this tendency. Cease to swim against 
 the tide, and all will go well. The old bonds are 
 falling away, and it is time they should, for the 
 human spirit is outgrowing them, and the strong 
 man, becoming conscious of his strength, is breaking 
 them ' as a thread of tow is broken when it toucheth 
 the fire.' But leave nature to itself, and it will not 
 go so very far wrong. Men, after all, will learn 
 from experience, which is the only sure teacher. A 
 common life is no less a fiction than a corporate 
 conscience. Let each obey his individual reason : or, 
 in other words. Let every man do what is right in his 
 own eyes. 
 
 Now both these objections have an element of 
 truth in them, in so far as they are statements of fact. 
 
62 ORDER AND FREEDOM. 
 
 But the first, in dwelling on the distractions of the 
 present age, ignores the deeper tendencies which are 
 already working below the surface of society; and 
 the second, in pointing to the inefficacy of external 
 organizations, ignores the possibility of a higher than 
 the merely outward unity, an inward harmony in 
 which order is the result of freedom. It does not 
 follow, because men differ endlessly about traditions 
 or about new ideas, that there are no deep principles 
 of truth and life, to which even unconsciously they 
 are yielding allegiance in common : nor because of 
 the increasing claims of individual freedom does it 
 at all follow that the Spirit is to cease to strive with 
 men. If authority and positive rules of life are losing 
 something of their binding power, the voice of reason 
 should be more distinctly heard ; and the heart that 
 is emancipated from the control of force is to be 
 drawn by a yet stronger necessity, even by the cords 
 of love. 
 
 When human nature is regarded calmly with true 
 sympathy, much appears that was hidden from the 
 cynical or impatient or desponding eye ; or rather, 
 the same signs are differently interpreted. For ex- 
 ample, class interests are seen to arise in part from 
 the tendency of men to cling to those whom they best 
 know, and amongst whom they have been brought 
 up. Class resentments are observed to flow from the 
 disappointment of possibilities of kindliness between 
 
ORDER AND FREEDOM. 63 
 
 Inimaii beings who are artificially separated. Ccn- 
 soriousness springs from a genuine care for others, 
 though that care may be unenlightened and mis- 
 directed. Revenge has been called wild justice, and 
 the same is true of civic turbulence and rebellion. 
 Even human hatred, when rightly weighed, is often 
 found to be but a perverted love ; and the idlest 
 conventionalities of fashion bear continual witness to 
 the desire of unity. 
 
 And as to those sectarian differences in religion 
 which on many grounds we may justly deplore, what 
 is the simple fact ? Is it not that we have amongst 
 us so many hearths or homes of spiritual warmth and 
 light, round each of which the members cling together 
 with a sort of family affection, and which have ex- 
 tended to most of us, when we most needed it, a 
 fostering and protecting care? And is there not 
 amongst them all a growing consciousness of essential 
 truths held in common, of common aspirations as 
 well as common difficulties ; of a unity underlying 
 the diversity? When we consider these things, or 
 when we reflect on some contemporary act of heroism 
 and self-renunciation, reviving hopes for the future of 
 our race, and putting our selfish cares and bickerings 
 to shame, we shall cease to think either that the 
 belief in universal communion is a m.ere dream, or 
 that individualism is the last word of progress. And 
 at the same time our idea of communion, or of a 
 
64 ORDER AND FREEDOM. 
 
 corporate life, is already expanded and enlarged, so 
 as to make ample room for individual freedom. 
 
 11, This will appear more evidently when we look 
 for a moment at the second part of our subject — the 
 possible misapplications of St. Paul's image of the 
 ' many members in one body.' These arise chiefly 
 from men"s attempting to embody directly and 
 immediately their own conception of this ideal 
 communion, an attempt which is sure to issue in the 
 too formal and external apprehension of the ideal 
 itself 
 
 The longing of mankind to realize community of 
 life finds expression in some actual organization 
 which is the symbol to them of that perfection after 
 which they long. The ' State ' was such a symbol 
 to the ancient world, as the Catholic Church has 
 been to the modern, and as some dream of socialism 
 is to many in the present time. But after a while 
 it is found that there are elements of growing life 
 which are not taken up into the symbol : the 
 organization becomes a rigid framework, in which 
 vitality and growth are at an end ; and those who 
 had once seemed to rest harmoniously in the same 
 sphere together have become two nations struggling 
 for mastery, the one narrowing all thought and action 
 within the limits of the dead or dying form, the other 
 bursting forms asunder with the aimless strivings of 
 young and untried powers. Thus order is divorced 
 
ORDER AND FREEDOM. 6^ 
 
 from freedom, and freedom from order, and both are 
 crippled or destroyed. 
 
 So hard is it in faith and practice to keep fast hold 
 upon the simple truth, that the progress of a race 
 of moral beings is at once infinite in possibilities 
 and actually gradual and slow. The rule is sijnple^ 
 and yet most difficult to carry out in action, to keep 
 the eye steadily fixed on that perfection which is 
 our ultimate aim, and at the same time to mark 
 carefully the point at which we have arrived — for- 
 getting the things which are behind, to press forward 
 to the things before, towards the mark of the prize, 
 of our high calling — nevertheless, whereto we have 
 attained, to walk by the same rule, to mind the same 
 thing. 
 
 Ill, Thus by a natural transition we are brought 
 back to our main subject — the hope of the Christian, 
 as centering in the ultimate universality of com- 
 munion in all things good and true. 
 
 We believe that we and all conscious beings are 
 comprehended in one mighty spiritual order, and that 
 God is daily educating us, through joy and sorrow, 
 through blessedness and retribution, to know more 
 and more of our relations to other spirits and to 
 Himself, The more we learn of these in thought and 
 will, the larger becomes the sphere within which we 
 freely act, and the more orderly becomes the complex 
 movement of our lives. The orbit of our free activity 
 F 
 
66 ORDER AND FREEDOM. 
 
 is enlarged, and also wavers less from the plane of 
 universal good. In that far-off consummation, towards 
 which all are being drawn, we shall indeed be many- 
 members in one body, each full of life and ministering 
 to the life of others, not harming or hindering each 
 other any more, but each, in that true obedience which 
 is perfect freedom, ' according to the effectual working 
 in the measure of every part, making increase of the 
 body unto the edifying of itself in love.' 
 
 For without others we cannot be made perfect. 
 And it is from losing sight of this, that the aspiration 
 after holiness has often been so ineffectual. To many 
 who have sought the vision of the blessed life, 'the 
 chance of noble deeds has come and gone unchal- 
 lenged, while they followed wandering fires, lost in 
 the quagmire.' The true scope of Christian aspiration 
 is not individual salvation, or even individual sanctity, 
 not that a few may be crowned hereafter in a spiritual 
 city far away, but that ' all may come in the unity of 
 the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, 
 unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature 
 of the fulness of Christ.' 
 
 This consummation of the divine order is, however, 
 almost infinitely remote, and can only be grasped 
 at all by us in moments of exceptional illumination. 
 There are lesser unities to which we temporarily 
 belong, and which may be regarded as nurseries and 
 seed-grounds, in which the soul is being prepared for 
 
ORDER AND FREEDOM. 67 
 
 the citizenship above. 'We have a place in the eternal 
 order : ' that is a hard saying. ' We are members 
 of the great human brotherhood : ' the view is too 
 extensive to touch us vividly. But wc are members 
 of a nation, of a civic community, of a congregation, 
 of a profession, of a university : these are considera- 
 tions which come home to us at once, reminding us 
 of familiar duties and relationships, which are quite 
 definite, which lie very near to us, and are exemplifi- 
 cations of the higher truth that all men are members 
 one of another. There is such a thing as Christian 
 public spirit. For it may be said. If you do not 
 give your love and service to that community to 
 which you visibly belong, how can you be a loyal 
 member of the spiritual community? Or how can 
 those divine gifts of faith and hope and love be 
 exercised, or have any working, unless they have 
 their fulfilment in those human relationships and 
 in that daily intercourse in which you engage as the 
 member of a particular community ? 
 
 Here also there are many members and one body, 
 diversity of characters and gifts, not incapable of 
 together ' striking a harmony ; ' each having a sepa- 
 rate work and calling, yet each having a vital interest 
 in the life and in the work of all. 
 
 The mere act of bringing men together in a 
 society may sometimes be conducive to evil as well 
 as to good. But every society that is formed for 
 F 2 
 
68 ORDER AND FREEDOM, 
 
 a lawful object is most surely a great opportunity 
 of good, by intensifying the consciousness of human 
 fellowship and drawing out much natural kindness, 
 and also by giving a wider range to the practical 
 working of the great principles of justice, truth, 
 and love. 
 
 He who truly feels his membership in a community 
 whose objects are not inconsistent with the growth of 
 the kingdom of God, has his powers and sympathies 
 greatly quickened and aroused. Nothing that affects 
 the good of that community as a whole, or any good 
 of an individual that has any bearing on that final 
 good, can be a matter of indifference to him. And 
 by the good of a community I do not mean the 
 maintenance of traditional privileges, which may 
 sometimes hinder as well as advance the corporate 
 life ; nor yet the combined action of any separate 
 part. The good of a community is its most perfect 
 and uninterrupted energy in the accomplishment of 
 the end for which it exists. On that chief end every 
 true member of the community will steadfastly fix 
 his eye, and in the light of this he will first of all 
 do faithfully and intently his own proper work. The 
 efficiency of every part is the first requisite to the 
 efficiency of the whole. But then he will also regard 
 with real interest, in a liberal and ungrudging spirit, 
 the work and the success of others — like charity 
 rejoicing in the truth. That is a noble saying of 
 
ORDER AND FREEDOM. 69 
 
 Plato's — ' He that strivcth to excel, but grudgeth not 
 his neighbour's welfare, increaseth the city — vying with 
 all, but envying none.' Further, he will not rest while 
 there is hope of amending any evil or of advancing 
 any good. Not seeking favour from man, he may 
 often speak unwelcome truth, or disturb a com- 
 fortable repose. His aim is not to keep things 
 smooth, or to keep things quiet, but to bring things 
 right. 
 
 Lastly, he will honour above all else, even when 
 conflicting with the apparent interest of his society, 
 the great things of the law, righteousness, mercy, 
 and truth. For these are the universal bonds of all 
 society, without which all human association must 
 come to nought. These do not so much bind, as 
 draw mankind together by an irresistible force, that 
 is above all compulsion, in heartfelt unanimity and 
 active harmony. 
 
 And if, in the dust and stir of earthly strife, these 
 greater things become obscured, and we are tempted 
 to set a disproportionate value on inferior objects, 
 it is ours to clear our vision and to calm our will by 
 learning ever anew from Christ. We need not, like 
 some of old, to look for a pattern of the true life 
 in some distant heaven. The true life has been lived 
 on earth: and He who so lived has been taken 
 from the earth only that He may draw all men 
 unto Him. While we rest our lives on His, we 
 
70 ORDER AND FREEDOM. 
 
 feel a confidence not to be disturbed that God 
 wills the improvement of our race, and that His 
 thoughts towards all His creatures, notwithstanding 
 some appearances to the contrary, are thoughts of 
 peace. 
 
SERMON VI. 
 
 THE TRUE AMBITION. 
 
 ' How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, 
 and seek not the honour which cometh from God only ? ' — 
 John v. 44. 
 
 There are sayings of Christ, which we are all 
 ready enough to receive as we read them in the 
 Bible, but when we begin to think honestly and sin- 
 cerely of acting on them and framing our lives 
 according to them, the heart is found to murmur, 
 • These are hard sayings, who can hear them ? ' Nor 
 is it enough to say that times are altered since He 
 thus spoke, for the very force of these sayings lies 
 in the contrast which they present, not to the life 
 of our time only, but to the common life of men 
 in every time. They are certainly not more opposed 
 to the spirit of Christian society than they were to 
 that of the Pharisees, in whose presence many of 
 them were spoken. 
 
 Now there are two ways of regarding such words 
 of Christian prophecy, which I cannot but think 
 erroneous. The one mode is to explain them away : 
 
72 THE TRUE AMBITION. 
 
 to round off the corners, and smooth the character- 
 istic outhne, until they fit the habitual mould of our 
 ordinary thinking. Look, for instance, at the pre- 
 cept, ' Take no thought for the morrow.' It is easy 
 to show that ' thought ' here means carefulness - or 
 anxiety. And so far well. But if we go on to argue 
 that our Lord only meant to discourage that brood- 
 ing despondency which is not only destructive to 
 inward peace but also fatal to success in life, the 
 counsel of perfection is lowered into a mere pru- 
 dential maxim, consistent with any amount of world- 
 liness. Others again will push the same literal 
 method of interpretation to a different conclusion. 
 It might be well, say they, to be as the lilies that 
 neither toil nor spin, amongst a pastoral people and 
 in the serene Eastern clime : but how glaringly in- 
 consistent with that industrial order which experience 
 shows to be the will of God concerning us ! Thus 
 single utterances of Christ are misapprehended when 
 taken apart from the general spirit of His teaching. 
 But while the human understanding thus wanders 
 over the surface of the Divine words, simple Christian 
 hearts are drawing through them from the heart of 
 Christ the eternal lesson — at once to work and trust, 
 to cherish a calm, unclouded faith, while doing with 
 their might the work which is given them to do. 
 
 In the number of such hard sayings, at which 
 some are offended, while others soften them away, 
 
THE TRUE AMBITION. 73 
 
 the words of our text arc surely to be included. 
 For what it may be said, can be more innocent 
 than the desire to please? Could it not be shown 
 that this desire has a most necessary use? Why 
 else has it been implanted in the heart ? Do not 
 the best men receive genuine stimulus and support 
 from the recognition of their honest efforts, from 
 the sympathy and respect of those amongst whom 
 they live? How much do any of us suppose of 
 gentleness, of courtesy, of self-control, of all that 
 least displeases us in our lives, would have existed 
 in us at all, if we were now, and had always been, 
 absolutely indifferent to what others thought of us ? 
 And are there not naturally, in this and every country, 
 certain ' fountains of honour,' which have an undoubted 
 influence, so long as they remain pure, in fostering 
 the seeds of public and private virtue ? 
 
 Nature and experience alike warn us that these 
 are safeguards not to be despised. Because human 
 nature is frail, the frown of society will often repress 
 evils that would break out regardless of the All- 
 present eye. And because human nature is not 
 wholly bad, but even in the worst state retains much 
 of the capacity of seeing truth and right, human cus- 
 toms;, opinions, and traditions, even trivial conven- 
 tionalities, often come to us with some shadow of 
 a higher than human sanction. And human praise 
 may often partially re-echo a Divine blessing. 
 
74 THE TRUE AMBITION. 
 
 But he who would know anything of the freedom, 
 strength, and peace of true rehgion, must train his 
 ear to hsten for a tone beyond these voices ; he 
 must fix his gaze upon a higher and less wavering 
 standard. Whilst, consciously or unconsciously, we 
 are endeavouring in all we do merely to gain the 
 approbation or to avoid the censure of other men, 
 and while we base our lives on this foundation, we 
 can have no inward conviction that deserves the 
 name of faith, and Christ would tell us that we 
 cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 Do not our own hearts, if we consult them at some 
 calm moment, tell us the same thing ? Are we never 
 troubled by the need of some higher rule of life 
 than is afforded by the opinions and customs of any 
 society of men ? Can the soul be really satisfied 
 with a virtue that seeks reward, or with right action 
 that is not done purely for the sake of right ? 
 
 And if we look away from ourselves to any of 
 the bright examples that, having shone down envy, 
 are set on high to lighten the path of erring men, 
 what do we find .? That every great deed, every 
 act that has conferred on our race a permanent 
 blessing, has been done in contravention of dominant 
 opinions, in the face of dislike more or less continued, 
 of misconception and disapproval, and even of dis- 
 grace and scorn. And if any say that this may 
 be true of greater souls, but he has no ambition 
 
THE TRUE AMBITION. 75 
 
 to be before his age ; he may be answered that 
 the greatness or narrowness of the sphere of action 
 makes no difference to the principles of moral 
 and religious life, and there are occasions of trial 
 and difficulty in which the humblest Christian may 
 feel the need of being strengthened from on high. 
 
 Let us try to enter into these words of Christ : 
 first, with reference to the circumstances in which 
 they were spoken; and secondly, in their more general 
 meaning. We shall then be better able to make use 
 of this portion of our Lord's teaching for our guidance 
 and support in life. 
 
 I. The sin of the Pharisees who rejected Christ 
 was no superhuman or miraculous wickedness. The 
 gospel history would be less instructive to us than 
 it is, if it were thus w^iolly separated from the 
 rest of human things. With whatever meaning it 
 is said that it was our sin that crucified the Lord, 
 it was the sin of human beings like ourselves, a sin 
 of which our common nature is not incapable. Nor 
 did it arise from a simultaneous impulse of popular 
 fury, such as may sometimes rise from the depths, 
 not unaccompanied with a sort of wild justice, and 
 overspread a nation. His enemies were careful to 
 take Him in the absence of the multitude. It was 
 the mistaken fear of a popular movement that pre- 
 cipitated their act. They argued, not 'He is the 
 people's enemy,' but ' Have any of the rulers or of the 
 
7*5 THE TRUE AMBITION. 
 
 Pharisees believed in Him ? ' Their explanation of the 
 number of His disciples was, 'This people that knoweth 
 not the Law are cursed.' 
 
 When we look closely at the narrative we seem 
 to trace three chief motives to account for their 
 perversity. First, zeal for the Law ; secondly, policy; 
 thirdly, the fear of one another's opinion. 
 
 Fanaticism is perhaps responsible for more innocent 
 blood than any other single feeling. But pure 
 fanaticism, if we can imagine such a thing, i.e. mis- 
 taken zeal in a good and honest heart, can hardly 
 close the mind to the direct radiance of Divine truth 
 and love. St. Paul before his conversion was a 
 sincere fanatic, if ever there was one, persecuting 
 that way unto the death, binding and delivering 
 into prison both men and women. His zeal upbore 
 him through much cruelty and blinded him against 
 much light, but not against the vision of Christ 
 Himself. He could look on at the stoning of Stephen ; 
 he could not resist the words, ' Saul, Saul, why per- 
 secutest thou me ? ' 
 
 There was a second principle at work in the minds 
 of the chief priests and scribes, viz. political craft. 
 Who shall say how much in this was patriotism, 
 and how much the selfish wish to maintain the 
 supremacy of their own order? Class selfishness is 
 only one step removed from personal selfishness ; 
 for the individual becomes so identified with his 
 
THE TRUE AMBITION. 77 
 
 class, in which he is as it were magnified, that he 
 is affected by all which seems to be against this 
 single and narrow interest : and this subtle form of 
 egotism is even less suspected, and therefore more 
 powerful for harm. Such mixed associations of 
 patriotism, class interest, and selfish fear, find ex- 
 pression in the words of Caiaphas : ' If we let Him 
 thus alone, all men will believe on Him, and the 
 Romans will come and take away our place and 
 nation.' 
 
 But if we pass from the Jewish Sanhedrim as a 
 body to the individual members of it, do we not 
 find a third motive giving additional force to the 
 other two ? To take one instance for all, what made 
 Nicodemus come to Jesus by night ? What silenced 
 him, when he began to raise his voice in the cause 
 of common fairness and honesty, with the taunting 
 words 'Art thou also of Galilee?' What but the 
 respect of persons, the fear of man, the power of 
 opinion which has its stronghold in the common 
 need of sympathy — that bond of customs w^hether 
 good or bad, which keeps unswept the mountainous 
 dust of error, and cherishes the form of goodness 
 from which life has fled; till it corrupts the world ? 
 It was this last motive which our Lord rebuked in 
 the words, ' How can ye believe, who receive honour 
 one of another, but seek not the honour that cometh 
 from God only/ or, as the words might also be 
 
78 THE TRUE AMBITION. 
 
 rendered, ' from the one and only God.' Human 
 wishes and opinions are many, divers, transitory, 
 and full of change. But the mind of God is 
 unchangeable : the will of God is one. Hence the 
 steadfastness of the life that is based on the simple 
 determination to do that will, is contrasted with the 
 weakness and vacillation of the life whose only 
 foundation is on the shifting sands of human opinion. 
 
 It is a deep remark of some one's that the belief 
 in many gods made unity of life impossible for the 
 Gentile nations. Something like this is true of the 
 individual who seeks to frame his course by the 
 approbation of other men. He may be compared 
 to one who seeks to gain a footing over the heads 
 of a moving crowd. 
 
 n. Having so far considered our Lord's words in 
 connexion with the circumstances of the time, we 
 may now try to think of them in their universal 
 import. Nothing that we believe Him to have uttered 
 can be without significance for us, as we endeavour 
 to build our lives on His, and to breathe the spirit 
 of His teaching. 
 
 No one can doubt that the approbation and 
 sympathy of others is a great blessing — at some 
 stages in the growth of character, even indispensable. 
 For want of this many a spirit has pined in feeble- 
 ness that might have gradually been made strong. 
 Our Lord Himself in youth and early manhood grew 
 
 I 
 
THE TRUE AMBITION. 79 
 
 in favour with God and also with man. Until 
 principles are formed and ripened from within, we 
 need authority and the opinion of those we reverence, 
 as a sort of outward conscience to support our weak 
 strivings after goodness and wisdom. Yet even in 
 the earliest phase of moral life no human being 
 is absolutely dependent on external circumstances. 
 If the vegetable germ has the mysterious power 
 of receiving some elements of the air and moisture 
 which are ministered to it, and rejecting others ; 
 if mere animal instinct can for the most part discern 
 food from poison : shall the power of selecting moral 
 and mental nutriment be denied to the human spirit ? 
 The child knows that its father is wiser than itself 
 or its companions. It has a true feeling of the 
 difference between those voices of God in Eden, 
 which to obey is life, and those which would lead 
 it forth into some dark region of disobedience and 
 folly. 
 
 The youth is still largely dependent upon others, 
 the support on which he leans being, however, no 
 longer that of authority, but of example. This has 
 often been represented as if he were powerless in 
 the hands of his fellow^s, swayed to and fro by every 
 breath, taking the mould of vice as readily as wax 
 under the seal. But who, in youth, would have 
 accepted this account of his own state? Can we 
 not partly remember how, while conscious of much 
 
8o THE TRUE AMBITION. 
 
 weakness, we had a witness in our breast which 
 testified against the errors to which we yielded? 
 Did we not know full well the difference between 
 those • examples of strength and nobleness towards 
 which we were powerfully drawn from afar, and 
 the influence of companionship to which, for the 
 moment, we gave way ? And, amongst companions, 
 did we not feel the difference between those qualities 
 which we merely liked, and those deeper excellences 
 which we esteemed and loved ? 
 
 Even childhood and youth therefore are conscious 
 of a higher and a lower standard ; and, in so far as 
 they hold to the one and reject the other, in so far 
 as they do fearlessly, in spite of contrary influences, 
 that which they inwardly feel to be right for them 
 (though this ' right ' may be determined by human 
 authority or by an imperfect example) ; in so far 
 they are living by faith and not by sight, and show 
 that inclination to do their Father's will, in reward 
 for which they shall hereafter know of the doctrine 
 and be enabled to discern the very will of God. 
 
 But the man is to put away childish things : and 
 though this life of ours is, as we hope and believe, 
 only a childhood in comparison with the next, yet 
 in Christ we have set before us the measure of per- 
 fect manhood. The deep repose of His spirit was 
 not broken when the hosannas were hushed, and 
 the voices of hatred and condemnation had prevailed. 
 
THE TRUE AMBITION. 8t 
 
 When no tongue dared bless Him, He could calmly 
 say, ' I have overcome the world.' When deserted 
 and betrayed, He was not alone, because God was 
 with Him. And this was no arbitrary gift of supreme 
 grace, but a divine consciousness flowing out of His 
 divine life. ' My judgment is just because I seek 
 not mine own will, but the will of the Father which 
 sent me.' ' He that sent me is with me ; the Father 
 hath not left me alone, because I do always those 
 things that please Him.' 
 
 In this, as in all else, He is our example, and it 
 is a false humility that bids us be contented with 
 any meaner aim. It is indeed no light thing to 
 incur the coldness and disfavour of our brother men — 
 it is a penalty not to be braved for any lower cause 
 than righteousness and truth, for no temporary or 
 selfish end of caprice or passion, but only for that 
 life which is higher than all earthly good. The 
 approbation and sympathy of the better sort of men 
 has even a moral value. It is the counterpoise of mere 
 self-will, the seasoner of common intercourse, a whole- 
 some check on frailty. Yet the moment it is pursued 
 for its own sake, and admitted to the first place in 
 the heart, this desire of approbation becomes a source 
 of manifest infirmity and weakness. For conceive the 
 state of one whose life is built — not on the love of 
 goodness, the beauty of holiness, the sacredness of 
 truth — but on the fear of opinion, the avoidance of 
 G 
 
^2 THE TRUE AMBITION. 
 
 censure, the craving for reputation and distinction. 
 Such an one may be exempt from certain gross and 
 common evils ; but can he ever accompHsh any great 
 or lasting good ? And to the heart itself what 
 satisfaction is there, if with a fair outward seeming 
 there is no inward warmth or light, but a cold grey 
 monotony, in which the only shades are due to con- 
 trast, and not to the presence of the sun ? Is there 
 not a danger even of calling evil good, and good evil? 
 For can it be thought that all possibilities of goodness 
 are summed up in the social code of a single neigh- 
 bourhood, or of one class of a community of men : 
 or that all truth can be comprised in the currently 
 received opinions of an age and country, or the 
 traditions of a particular Church ? There can be no 
 real strength without the power of saying upon 
 occasion^ 'We ought to obey God rather than men,' 
 and of standing for a principle of truth or right 
 against the world. Suppose this power, instead of 
 being a rare gift, were common amongst us (and 
 surely all can, if they will, look up to God), it is 
 hardly too much to say that it would renew the face 
 of the world. What tenfold strength would be added 
 to the social bond, if each individual, while moving 
 cheerfully amongst his fellows, were at the same time 
 leaning on the central stay of righteousness and truth ! 
 What a flood of light would be poured upon the path 
 of life, if instead of trusting like the foolish virgins 
 
THE TRUE AMIUTIUX. 83 
 
 to his neighbour's lamp for oil, each had within 
 himself the single eye which makes the whole body 
 to be full of light. 
 
 There is a country, we will say, in some hidden 
 tract of Africa, or in one of the planets, or there was 
 in some pre-historic time, in which the citizens 
 sought not honour one of another, but each sought 
 solely for the honour which cometh from the only 
 God. They looked upwards, but not to the high 
 places of the earth : they considered each his 
 neighbour, not with suspicion, or envy, or with self- 
 interested kindness, but for his good to edification, 
 and to provoke one another to love and to good 
 works. And as their sole pre-occupation was the 
 desire of doing those things which pleased the all- 
 loving Father, the heart had full leisure to expand 
 in sympathy and loving-kindness towards every 
 human need. They were not like a shoal of fish 
 whose instinct or necessity is to keep the head 
 up-stream, but like the birds whose freedom of 
 movement is only equalled by their wide range of 
 vision. The rich men of that country could use 
 hospitality, without fearing lest liberality should be 
 mistaken for display : the less wealthy were not 
 tempted to shorten their means of usefulness by 
 spending for the sake of appearance and position. 
 While fully alive and open to human sympathy, 
 G 2 
 
84 THE TRUE AMBITION. 
 
 every person there was fully engaged, without the 
 fear or desire of human favour, in the service of God 
 and man. 
 
 To take the lowest ground, what a saving was 
 there here of human energy ! The time and thought 
 that is spent in other lands in the effort to rise, or 
 to win favour, was free to be given to the task of 
 ministering to the wants of all — kindness to those 
 who have need of kindness, society to the lonely, 
 food to the hungry, encouragement to the desponding, 
 strength to the feeble knees. And then how great 
 must have been the mutual confidence of different 
 ranks and classes, if such there were ! When all 
 were thinking how they could best show their good- 
 will to others, whether above them or below, they 
 could not have time to think whether others were 
 showing them enough of honour. They walked by 
 the rule of that to which they had attained : and if 
 on any point their thoughts were jarred by honest 
 differences, they could look patiently for the time 
 when God would reveal even this unto them. 
 
 The craving for a life of excitement was unknown, 
 for all found joy and satisfaction enough in the work 
 which they were best able to do for one another. 
 
 Detraction and calumny could not exist, where 
 there was no motive for pulling others back that men 
 might themselves seem to be going forward. 
 
 Nor was the path of life beset with doubt and 
 
THE TRUE AMBITION. 85 
 
 uncertainty, to anything like the same extent that 
 it is with us. For when the false cross-lights and 
 colourings which are brought in by the respect of 
 persons, and the desire for external honours, are 
 removed, it is wonderful how clear and simple many 
 practical questions of right and wrong are found to 
 appear, which now seem beset and clouded with 
 difficulty. 
 
 And those who had no silver or gold had 
 still much to give, viz, their willingness to labour 
 honestly for the common good. 
 
 Lastly, the temptations to untruthfulness which 
 infest most communities must have been absent there. 
 For when all felt that they were members one of 
 another, what motive could prevent any from speaking 
 truth with his neighbour ? 
 
 It may be that there is no such land, and that 
 the idea of such a city is still for us as for the wise 
 of old 'a pattern laid up in heaven.' 
 
 But there is no reason why that ideal should not 
 be more and more realized, if individual Christians 
 would set themselves to follow earnestly in the path 
 where Christ has led, to take up His yoke and learn 
 of Him. That path may at first seem lonely, but 
 the most loving heart shall find in it the pain of 
 isolation compensated with the richest blessing. He 
 who walks therein will not respond less to sympathy 
 
86 THE TRUE AMBITION. 
 
 because he is independent of human favour. In his 
 turn he will be enabled to strengthen others, and 
 to be a giver and not a receiver merely. That is 
 no mere Stoical self-dependence, although the dignity 
 of the Stoic life may well put many Christians to 
 shame. The spirit which is untouched by earthly 
 glory is the reverse of proud. He whose eye is fixed on 
 the one divine life, cannot but ever feel that he is an 
 unprofitable servant. He will be too much humbled 
 by the contemplation, to draw comparisons between 
 himself and others. Pride is really a sign of weakness 
 and dependence, of a spirit that after all receiveth 
 glory of men. 
 
 Nor is the Christian ever truly alone or isolated. 
 He may be accidentally separated in thought and 
 feehng from those amongst whom he lives, for whom 
 he labours, whom in the spirit of Christ he loves ; but 
 every Christian act, every conquest of self, every 
 sacrifice made in a high and noble cause, renews 
 and binds more closely the links which unite him to 
 the communion of the body of Christ. Do we not feel 
 sometimes, even in a human sense, nearer to those 
 who are far away than to some who are standing 
 within a few feet of us, conversing with us, looking 
 us in the face? Like to such a mingled sense of 
 isolation and communion is the higher experience of 
 the Christian, as he turns away from earthly praise 
 to rest in the love of Christ and God, and to receive 
 
THE TRUE AMBTTTOX. 87 
 
 in unsuspected retirement that heavenly food in the 
 strength of which he journeys onwards, over rough and 
 smooth places, through cloud and sunshine, towards 
 his Father's home. All innocent earthly satisfaction he 
 receives with a thankful and glad heart. But alike in 
 prosperity and adversity, the inner fountain of his life 
 overflows in cheerful energy and active love Such at 
 least is one aspect of the ideal of the Christian life, which 
 cannot be described, except in language which sounds 
 exaggerated and mystical. Yet, although the sources 
 of life are from above, it is not, as has been sometimes 
 represented, out of harmony with what is good upon 
 this earth — as if neglecting this world for another. 
 It is the fulfilment, not the opposite, of natural life, 
 rejoicing in the open day, embracing with willingness 
 all lower forms of good, and giving them an additional 
 blessing, but all the while keeping unbroken the 
 communion of the saints, and holding converse in 
 heavenly places with Christ. 
 
SERMON VII. 
 
 THE BROKEN LIFE. 
 
 ' We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed ; we are 
 perplexed, but not in despair ; persecuted, but not forsaken ; 
 cast donvn, but not destroyed.^ — 2 COR. iv. 8, 9. 
 
 The mystery of evil has many aspects. There is 
 one that is contained in that sad word, Waste. 
 The germs of Hfe that wither before they are sprung 
 up, the hves often so full of power and promise that 
 we see cut off in their prime, the gifted minds that 
 are sunk in unconsciousness or madness, the effect of 
 a single error or bosom sin in blighting souls that 
 seemed full of capability for good — these and other 
 instances of waste over which we have no direct 
 control, deserve our serious thought; not only because 
 they are to some degree preventible by combined and 
 enlightened effort, but because they remind us that 
 the world of our experience is only part of a larger 
 scheme, which is imperfectly comprehended by us, 
 extending as it does to all futurity and to another 
 state of being. But there is another consideration that 
 is still more practical, and that comes home to all 
 
THE BROKEN LIFE. 
 
 men individually. How much that was born with 
 each one of us must pass unused and undeveloped 
 into the grave ! Who is there who has begun to think, 
 and has passed the entrance on actual life, what man 
 of thirty, what woman of five and twenty, has not 
 already learned to relinquish much that had once 
 seemed possible? 
 
 The vision of life in early youth, for those who 
 think and feel, has a unity and completeness, ' as of 
 the body of heaven in his clearness.' Whether the 
 aim of aspiration be the triumph of a single power, 
 or the v^aricd exercise of many, there is a flawless 
 completeness in it. a rounded perfection, which those 
 who have travelled further cannot but envy, if they 
 retain enough of sympathy to perceive it. 
 
 It is not always that such aspirations are intrinsically 
 impossible. 
 
 The profession on which a young man has set 
 his heart may be really the one best suited to him, 
 and if he might enter on the preparation for it with 
 all the freshness of his untried energies and all the 
 bloom of his enthusiasm, his success might be morally 
 certain, and the natural growth of character assured. 
 But other wills have to be consulted beside his own ; 
 there are money difficulties which are thought to 
 be insurmountable ; or there is a fear of some loss 
 of caste, or of some problematical moral conse- 
 quences which are apprehended. And so the first 
 
90 THE BROKEN LIFE. 
 
 flush of hope and resolution is checked by an un- 
 timely frost, and the leading sapling is nipt. Will 
 the tree grow straight afterwards ? That is the 
 question. 
 
 Or the life of the affections has been in some way 
 warped or stunted. Some early disappointment, the 
 discovery of some unknown defect for which no one 
 living is to blame, some hardly avoidable error, some 
 too late awakening, makes us conscious of failure and 
 limitation here, where the longing for the infinite is 
 most insatiable. From this point onwards what is 
 the life to be ? Shall it wither as from the shock of 
 a deadly wound, or suffer partial paralysis, or turn to 
 bitterness and take some crooked form ; or shall it 
 recover the power of healthy growth, and though 
 maimed outwardly, acquire an increase of sap and 
 richness at the core? That is again the question. 
 And it may often be a question of the wrecking or 
 saving of a life. 
 
 These are marked instances of what we all find out 
 at some point in our course — that feeling and energy 
 have to be adapted to circumstance ; that while 
 desires and aims may be boundless, opportunity and 
 time and human power are limited ; that after all 
 false starts and mistaken efforts, we have still a work 
 to do, a place to fill, a line of action which experience 
 points to as our duty. 
 
 And it is here that the difference becomes apparent 
 
THE BROKEN LIFE. 9I 
 
 between the true and false resolution and enthusiasm. 
 We have attempted the impossible. The possible 
 remains. But does there remain in us the strength 
 and will to do it ? We have spent a part of life in 
 gaining our experience, and learning how to live ; but 
 have we also spent our strength for nought ? Let 
 us not believe it. While there is life there is the 
 power of will, and that is the power of working, or if 
 need be of suffering. Faith and hope may be shaken 
 for a time, but let them not depart from us altogether. 
 Disappointment will have a weakening effect for a 
 while, but it will only be for a while if we have any 
 strength in us. 
 
 The effect is various. The more speculative and 
 dreamy temper discovers that the world is out of 
 joint, and begins spinning theories of a new and 
 regenerate condition of society, in which every nature 
 shall grow without painful effort into the fulness of 
 its ideal form. The more practical lose sight of 
 their ideal altogether, and fall into a narrow dull 
 routine ; the cares of this world take the place of 
 young enthusiasm, and choke the rise of wider 
 thoughts and sympathies. The bolder nature be- 
 comes cynically embittered, the softer loses heart 
 and subsides in caution and timidity. 
 
 These are the subterfuges of weakness, and we 
 must arise and shake ourselves from these if we would 
 be spiritually healthy and strong. 
 
92 THE BROKEN LIFE. 
 
 Suppose, then, the discovery to have been made, 
 that of many plans, only the one that seemed the 
 least interesting can be pursued ; that of many powers 
 of which we have been conscious, only some of the 
 more ordinary can find their natural fulfilment ; that 
 of all to which our hearts once clung, all but some 
 poor fragment has been taken out of reach. Imagine 
 the ^ great soldier, struck down in middle life, and 
 doomed to drag out the rest of his time in feebleness 
 and inaction : the great statesman, incapacitated by 
 the loss of nervous power : the great artist, 
 
 ' Whose light is spent 
 Ere half his days in this dark world and wide, 
 And that "one talent," which is death to hide, 
 Lodged with him useless.' 
 
 These are but types of what all at some time have 
 felt — the fading light, the narrowing pathway, the 
 autumnal chill. 
 
 What then remains for us? If we are true to 
 ourselves, perhaps the most fruitful portion of our 
 lives. It is true that the desire granted is a tree of 
 life, that there are some kinds of growth which can only 
 come through the intensity or the continuance of joy. 
 But it is also true that still deeper sources of life and 
 growth are opened in times of sorrow and gloom, 
 for those who have recourse to them aright. Let us 
 return to Him, who by the finger of His Providence 
 
THE BROKEN LIFE. g^ 
 
 has shown us the limits of our appointed way. Let 
 us devote ourselves anew to do and suffer according to 
 His will, and we shall find springing by the strait and 
 narrow road many an unlooked-for blessing. Christ 
 said to His disciples, ' Ye shall have houses and bre- 
 thren and sisters and lands, with tribulations.' And 
 so it is ever said to those who give up their desires 
 willingly at the call of duty. They shall lose nothing, 
 but gain all. Their life shall have an inward com- 
 pleteness, though outwardly it may be 
 
 * Cabined, cribbed, contined, bound in.' 
 
 For there is no part of life to which there is not 
 applicable the spirit of the whole. 
 
 If love and truth, humility and deep contentment 
 be there, if the finite being is rooted in the infinite, 
 there will be enlargement even in the least hopeful lot. 
 The firmness of will that might have led armies may 
 be seen regulating the affairs of a little household ; 
 the wisdom that could have governed a kingdom 
 may be given with life-long diligence to a country 
 school; the tenderness and affection which have missed 
 their chosen object, or have been denied their natural 
 outlet, may be diffused in a sort of universal help- 
 fulness and benignity. The gifts that, with concurrent 
 circumstances, might have adorned the literature of a 
 nation, or made a lasting name in painting, or music, 
 or some other path of art, may be concentrated on 
 
94 THE BROKEN LIFE. 
 
 the training of one or two children, so laying up a 
 store of usefulness for the coming time. 
 
 The same energy which in some lives is seen 
 breaking forth victoriously in all the brilliance of 
 success, has wrought not less heroically in others, 
 7mdergro7uid as it were, unsuspected and unseen 
 except by very few, in a struggle with adverse fortune 
 or adverse health. Viewed 'under the form of eternity,' 
 the one life is no less complete and no less successful 
 than the other. Both pass into the hidden world 
 with equal gain. And He who sees not as man seeth, 
 before whom both sought to live, shall clothe both 
 spirits alike with the life which both felt to be so 
 imperfectly realized on earth. This hope may be 
 their encouragement now. 
 
 ' While I do my duty, 
 
 Struggling through the tide ; 
 Whisper Thou of beauty, 
 From the other side.' 
 
 If there be the fixed determination to do what the 
 hand findeth to do, even though it may seem poor 
 and mean, to do it trusting in the eternal strength 
 and wisdom of Him who ordereth all things according 
 to the good pleasure of His will, we need not fear 
 that any experience, any aspiration, any love, any 
 effort of our past lives will be utterly lost to us. 
 To act in the present is not necessarily to break with 
 the past. The past was not given us to mourn over, 
 
THE BROKEN LIFE. y5 
 
 any more than the future is given us merely to dream 
 over. That treasure-house of recollections, in which 
 the troublous has become peaceful, and all excitement 
 calm, in which sorrow wears a milder aspect, and 
 earthly joys are purified from the taint of earth, is 
 is still a part of us, still speaks to us, though not 
 loudly yet with many voices, for warning and con- 
 solation, for instruction and guidance. Experience 
 cautions us against impossible attempts. The memory 
 of affection gives a measure of the possibilities of 
 human kindness, and teaches one out of many ways 
 of turning 
 
 ' As the soul knows how 
 The earthly gift to an end divine.' 
 
 We learn to take up mangled matters at the best. 
 We perhaps find out a way of turning to account 
 even the accidents of life, and weaving them into the 
 fabric of our design. And we are happy if, when all 
 the bright haze has vanished, when all that once held 
 apart for us the promise of the golden hours has been 
 taken from our sight, when we have buried many 
 hopes and bidden farewell to much solid happiness, 
 we are still as eager to improve the remnant of our 
 life, to do good to those within our reach, to make 
 the most of all our powers in doing that which is 
 given us to do, as when we first took up our pilgrim 
 staff in all the exhilaration of youthful ardour ; as 
 
g6 THE BROKEN LIFE. 
 
 when we first saw the heavenly city from the 
 delectable mountains, and thought little enough of 
 the dark valley and of the weariness of the way. 
 
 Nor is experience, whether of success or failure, 
 ever profitable for ourselves alone. The narrowest 
 and most deserted life need not be lived wholly in 
 isolation. If failure and sorrow have left the heart 
 still fresh and sweet, as it will be if it have clung 
 to a divine support ; then, wherever there are human 
 beings, a way will be found of pouring the oil of 
 consolation and the wine of gladness into other lives. 
 The longer we live the more practical becomes our 
 Saviour's answer to the question, ' Who is my neigh- 
 bour ? ' If we have ever cared to know it, we need 
 not go far away to find those who may be the better 
 for us. Have we not seen lives fastened to one spot 
 of earth, that have scattered blessings far and wide .'' 
 It is the Spirit that quickeneth, not opportunity, or 
 wealth, or position, or any outward means. 
 
 There is so much that wants doing in the world, so 
 few hitherto who have been roused to do even what 
 they can. It is terrible to think that we may miss 
 doing the little that is laid to our hands. Let us not 
 waste time in vain regrets, or in vague dreams of what 
 experience has clearly shown to be impossible. But 
 let us gather up the fragments that remain. Though 
 sometimes we may be cast down, let us know that we 
 are not destroyed ; though we have sometimes fallen, 
 
THE BROKEN LIFE. 97 
 
 let US trust that we shall not be cast away, for the 
 Lord upholdcth us with His hand. 
 
 Let us pray for some of the spirit that was in 
 St. Paul, who, though conscious of being surrounded 
 with infirmities, still pressed onwards towards the 
 prize of his high calling, who — though in bodily 
 presence weak, and in speech contemptible, though 
 foiled and frustrated on every side, though his last 
 years were saddened by the falling away of many on 
 whom he had spent so lavishly of the deep wealth of 
 his affectionate heart — has left an impress on the 
 Church and on the world which in some ways is only 
 now beginning to tell, and who remains to all ages a 
 lasting monument of this truth, that a wandering and 
 broken life may through the overflowings of the 
 Divine Spirit be made a round and perfect whole, and 
 what may seem to many a sadly maimed and shaken 
 existence may be yet in the highest sense worth 
 living. 
 
SERMON yill. 
 
 THINGS GREAT AND SMALL. 
 1875. 
 
 ' And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, 
 My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, 
 wouldest thou not have done it ? how much rather, when he saith 
 to thee, Wash, and be clean ? ' — 2 Kings v. 13. 
 
 The history of Naaman, though it only fills one 
 chapter of the Bible, has much that makes it pecu- 
 liarly attractive. At this distance we may pass 
 lightly over his misfortune and think of his character, 
 which still lives before us in that page, so fiery and 
 generous, so proudly sensitive, and yet so responsive 
 to the voice of reason, till, as we dwell on this, we 
 feel a touching appropriateness in the blessing which 
 he receives, when his flesh comes again like the flesh 
 of a little child. And have we not also felt the im- 
 pressive contrast of worldly and spiritual grandeur, 
 of that which fills the imagination and that which 
 commands the soul, when the great captain comes 
 with his chariot and his horses and stands before 
 the door of a plain man's dwelling, and the prophet 
 
THINGS GREAT AND SMALL. 99 
 
 without moving from his seat sends forth his message 
 
 by another? 
 
 It was then that Naaman learnt a lesson which 
 many an ingenuous heart like his has learned 
 through suffering, which some pass through life with- 
 out learning, that the truest blessings, the truest 
 gifts, are often those which we are tempted to despise 
 as common. 
 
 It is a lesson which only experience can teach 
 to those who need it, and yet it is not in vain to 
 repeat it often in a time when it is much forgotten, 
 and when the marvellous, the exciting, the new and 
 striking, are taking the place of the wise and just 
 and true. 
 
 We are told that every scribe that is instructed 
 unto the kingdom of heaven is like a man that is 
 an householder, who bringeth out of his treasures 
 things new and old. Yes, but not all new things 
 nor all old things. He must reject and choose, or 
 else why should he have needed instruction ^ To 
 cling to old things as old things is easy enough for 
 those in whom such is the ruling tendency. To fly 
 forward to embrace novelties, that is easy too, for 
 those who have quick sympathies and a lively imagi- 
 nation. But to prove all things and hold fast the 
 good, to cull the flower of the present without 
 losing the fragrance of the past, to strike root 
 deeply and at the same time to expand into the 
 H 2 
 
THINGS GREAT AND SMALL. 
 
 liberal air, that is not easy, but it is the secret of 
 the higher life. 
 
 Amidst the ever-changing forms of human thought 
 and invention, there is something which lasts, some- 
 thing which deceives not, something which palls not 
 on the true appetite, but can comfort men when other 
 joys have left them scorched and sore. How are we 
 to know it ? How could we have known it before- 
 hand ? That may seem a hard question. But there 
 is a simple, practical answer to it. Look at a little 
 child. Or rather look at one of those who, their lives 
 through, have lived with the simplicity of children. 
 They have been willing to do what their hand found 
 to do, whether it were great or small, they have busied 
 themselves with the duty that was nearest, they have 
 known their calling ; and their life has been richer in 
 blessings than that of others, who once seemed to 
 be aiming higher. The honest and good heart, which 
 our Saviour praised, has been wiser than ' the dis- 
 puter of this world,' and has carried them safely 
 through trials and dangers in which spiritual strength 
 was strained to the uttermost. For true strength 
 is not theirs who are ever striving, but theirs who 
 know the highest when they see it, who have learnt 
 to reject the evil and choose the good, and who in 
 times of darkness can wait patiently, until the day 
 dawn, and the day-star arise upon their path. We 
 cannot all have the searching mind, that sifts the 
 
THINGS GREAT AND SMALL. 
 
 pretences of the age — the imperial reason, in whose 
 presence brilliant folly withers, and every high 
 imagination fades ; but we can all seek for that faithful 
 spirit, which is of great price — we can all try to lift our 
 hearts in the pure desire of truth and goodness — we 
 can yield to the promptings of reverence, to the calm- 
 ness of conviction — we can submit our souls in right- 
 eousness to the creating power, which is one with our 
 own higher nature, with all that has ever been of 
 high or holy amongst men, to the serene majesty 
 of truth and right, to the unquenchable glow and 
 radiance of Christian love. These are the great 
 things which outlast the w^orld, this is the v/ell of 
 water that springeth up to everlasting life — but this 
 in our ignorance and blindness, when dazzled by 
 false lights, we are sometimes tempted to despise, 
 and to ask impatiently, whether some thrilling voice 
 of yesterday, or some phantom echo of six hundred 
 years ago (or of two thousand years ago), some head- 
 strong novelty, some monkish or heathenish revival, 
 may not have more regenerating force than those 
 promptings of a pure morality, which have never 
 been quite silent in the heart since man was man. 
 Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus — 
 fountains of the new world or of the old, of America, 
 of France, of Germany, of Papal or of Pagan Rome, 
 of the far East or the far West, of some other planet 
 brought into mysterious converse with our own— are 
 
THINGS GREAT AND SMALL. 
 
 not these better than the waters of Israel? May 
 we not wash in them, and be dean? 
 
 This weak tendency has a lowering effect both on 
 faith and practice. 
 
 I. Suppose a case in which the decay of some old 
 belief has left a void, at a time perhaps when the 
 heart is otherwise sore. Then are not people apt to 
 yield to that which most excites and moves them, to 
 that which has some peculiar adaptation to their state, 
 to that which by rousing them from torpor seems to 
 give them the assurance of more life ? At such times 
 it is hardly possible for some natures to ask for evi- 
 dence of the new doctrine or the new passion which is 
 creeping into the room left empty by the old. Their 
 old belief was given up as false, and yet the new is 
 accepted by them rather as attractive than as true. 
 But if not true, it will not last or give them peace ; 
 and if inconsistent with right, it will lead to suffering. 
 And when the suffering is over, they will be happy, 
 if instead of looking round for some new excitement, 
 or listening what voice is loudest, they can fall back 
 on the few great simple truths which they learned 
 in their childhood and which experience has con- 
 firmed — which have a deeper meaning for men when 
 other stays have failed them, and when the things 
 that seemed greater because they were nearer have 
 shrunk to their true measure. 
 
THINGS GREAT AND SMALL. 103 
 
 We should be insensible and without the power of 
 growth, if wc remained wholly unaffected by the 
 influences which are swaying our generation. Nor 
 can any of these harm us greatly while we keep fast 
 hold of justice, mercy, and truth. Only let us not 
 confuse the aspects of religion with its essence, or 
 mistake a fragment for the whole. Let us not be so 
 absorbed in some passing controversy, as to lose the 
 proportion of our faith, nor let hope fail us because 
 we hear that some things which have been associated 
 with religion, are questioned or denied. 
 
 We and all creatures are not the less surrounded 
 and sustained by infinite goodness, wisdom, power, 
 because the manner of our creation and preservation 
 is made the subject of hypothetical inquiry. And 
 if the Christian faith has hitherto been bound up with 
 miracles, and the ancient miracles are now a stumbling- 
 block to the scientific mind, that is no reason why we 
 should cast about for contemporary miracles in evi- 
 dence of the immortality of the soul. Such evidence 
 is as needless as it is futile. For the being and 
 goodness of God, and the hope of life to come, are 
 not seen by us in the light of sense at all. They 
 are clearest to us, not when our feelings have been 
 excited (for then is there not something which makes 
 us distrust ourselves?) but in moments of calm reason, 
 when we are neither elated nor depressed, but can, 
 dwell with untroubled faith upon the life of Christ 
 
104 THINGS GREAT AND SMALL. 
 
 or of those like to Him. Then we ask ourselves, Can 
 such lives be without a supreme Author ? Can they 
 be mere illusion ? Are they like the flower that 
 blooms and falls ? Or are they not like the traveller 
 of the sky, that is visible to us for some brief period, 
 but when beyond our ken goes on tracing his vast 
 orbit through immeasurable time ? 
 
 Those who need a sensible assurance of their belief 
 may have recourse to symbolism, if they will. Only 
 let them not forget how infinitely greater than the 
 symbol is the thing signified, and let the faith which 
 leans on symbols still press beyond them to apprehend 
 the things unseen. Our robust Protestant faith, that 
 faith whichj rather than yield to superstition, allowed 
 this place to sink to a poor fishing village from a 
 cathedral city, ought not to require for its support 
 either the miracle of the mass or the meaner 
 miracles of so-called spirituaHsm. If we believe 
 that God exists, and that He is good, that is a 
 greater thing than any priesthood, however pure, 
 than any sacrament, however full of blessing. If 
 we believe that we are to live on hereafter in the 
 presence of God, that belief is more powerful than 
 any sermon — to remind us what manner of persons 
 we ought to be. And if we are not convinced by the 
 simple words of Christ himself, when He tells us 
 that we have a Father in heaven — then neither should 
 we be persuaded, though one should rise from the 
 
THINGS GREAT AND SMALL. 105 
 
 dead, much less by the common wonder-workers 
 either of the Church or of the world. If we cease 
 to rest with simple faith on the invisible God, no 
 visible authority will long give us strength or peace. 
 
 II. The Church herself would have more power for 
 good, if she more completely realized those words of 
 her divine Founder, ' Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and 
 do not the things that I say } '—if she taught more 
 boldly that practice rather than worship is the evi- 
 dence and test of faith. 
 
 If the whole power of this vast organization were 
 concentrated on this as the chief end, and not only 
 as one amongst several ; if the energies that are now 
 spent on party rivalries and outworn controversies 
 were drawn into one focus with the single aim of lifting 
 the life of man, of continuing the work of Christ in 
 relation to the circumstances of our age, might we not 
 hope for an increase of light and strength such as has 
 been hardly seen ? 
 
 As things are, the difficulty and the waste of life is 
 rather increased by the irregular, uncertain way in which 
 moral truths, those truths which are the light of all our 
 seeing, are conveyed to men. The good seed is sown 
 accidentally and by the way, together with much that 
 is unessential. Youth listens with a passing awe, but. 
 cannot distinguish before experience comes, between 
 the chaff and the crrain. Then comes the stranger 
 
lo6 THINGS GREAT AND SMALL. 
 
 sowing tares. Some new ideas are in the air, some 
 ' advanced ' doctrine of social regeneration, some 
 half-understood conception of individual liberty, or of 
 universal brotherhood, or of human happiness being 
 the test of good. The new half-truth, adorned with 
 all the colours of the time, competes with old impres- 
 sions, in which great realities are bound up with some 
 things that have become antiquated and others that 
 have been disproved. And if sympathy and personal 
 feeling, the enthusiasm and passion of youth, be on 
 one side, and truth half-stifled on the other side, what 
 is the end to be? 
 
 But the moral law is not a word merely, but an 
 eternal power. And if Man fails to teach or learn 
 it rightly, the error is corrected in the providence of 
 God. He imparts the truth to us through suffering. 
 Not that all suffering is directly occasioned by sin — 
 that is a crude doctrine, which the saints of the Old 
 Testament already learnt to renounce. But all trans- 
 gression of the merciful laws under which we live, 
 whether ignorant or wilful, brings suffering after it : 
 and it may be said that those are happiest to whom 
 the retribution comes most speedily. Thus we learn 
 where our faith has failed, and our hearts are deepened 
 to receive a fuller revelation of God's law. Nor does 
 He teach by suffering alone, but through the peace 
 which comes when we do rightly. 
 
 For the best men this is an endless progress, an 
 
THINGS GREAT AND SMALL. 107 
 
 education that is never complete. For when the 
 heart is fixed to obey God and to serve man, .then 
 those common, famihar lessons which we may have 
 once despised, acquire an infinite meaning. They are 
 the central truths of all, which give harmony and 
 meaning to everything else in life. To have learnt 
 them is to have found rest for the soul : and it 
 is a rest which binds and enables us to labour. 
 For as conscience becomes more enlightened and 
 more wakeful, the word that once seemed cold and 
 poor, that threatened to clip the wings of imagination 
 and to tame enthusiasm— that brief stern name of 
 duty— becomes enlarged so as to be commensurate 
 with perfect freedom. 
 
 We may still look up to heights inaccessible to 
 us, on which the great word Sacrifice is written clear. 
 They may at once inspire and humble us. But 
 for ourselves, for most of us, the watchword of life 
 must be the universal, the eternal law of peace, and 
 truth, and charity, the irrevocable, inviolable rule 
 of Christian Duty. 
 
 ' Stern Lawgiver, yet thou dost wear 
 The Godhead's most benignant grace, 
 Nor know we anything so fair 
 As is the smile upon thy face : 
 Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, 
 And fragrance in thy footing treads; 
 Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong: 
 And the most ancient heavens, through thee, 
 are fresh and strong. 
 
Io8 THINGS GREAT AND SMALL. 
 
 ' To 'humbler functions, awful Power, 
 I call thee : I myself commend 
 Unto thy guidance from this hour; 
 Oh! let my weakness have an end! 
 Give unto me, made lowly wise, 
 The spirit of self-sacrifice : 
 The confidence of reason give; 
 And in the light of truth, thy bondman 
 let me live!' 
 
SERMON IX. 
 
 HUMAN LIMITATION AND DIVINE BREADTH. 
 
 ' I have seen an' end of all perfection, but thy commandment 
 is exceeding broad.' — Psalm cxix. 96. 
 
 There are few words which to the common appre- 
 hension are so much alike, and yet convey sucli 
 different associations, as ' change ' and ' progress.' 
 The one so full of sadness, the other of hope. One 
 laden with mourning for the past, the other big with 
 promise for the future : the one all weariness, ' like 
 a spendthrift sigh,' bloodless and pale ; the other 
 instinct with life, and having the earnest of an im- 
 mortal vigour. ' But oh ! the heavy change ! ' is the 
 plaintive language of regret : ' Eternal process moving 
 on,' is the utterance of joyous aspiration. 
 
 And yet there is a close relation between these 
 opposites ; for that is but a shallow progress that is 
 oblivious of the past. Those who are most deeply 
 conscious of the changes in their lives and in the 
 world around them have the greatest share in the 
 promise of the coming time, as land that is ploughed 
 the deepest bears the richest harvest. There is no 
 
no HUMAN LIMITATION AND DIVINE BREADTH. 
 
 progress, then, without the consciousness of change. 
 But there is often enough change without progress. 
 Why is this? 
 
 Is it not because men fail to apprehend the lesson 
 which the Psalmist learnt from the changefulness of 
 life ? ' All things come to an end, but Thy command- 
 ment is exceeding broad ' — that is, in modern Chris- 
 tian language, ' Amidst all the limitations of nature 
 there is one law which has an infinite working : it is 
 the law of righteousness. And there is one form 
 of life which is exempted from the general condition 
 of decay : it is the life of holiness, truth, and love.' 
 Even the Psalmist's words imply, what Jesus and His 
 Apostles taught with far greater fulness, not only 
 that while man changes, God changes not, but that 
 man may rise out of change in boundless progress, 
 by active obedience to the commandment, that is, 
 by living and practical communion with the divine 
 will. 
 
 I purpose briefly to enforce and illustrate this 
 truth : First, with reference to the lives of individuals ; 
 Secondly, with reference to the life of communities 
 and Churches. 
 
 I. Life may be compared to a various web, in 
 which the bright woof is crossed with many sombre 
 threads ; and while the dark warp becomes closer 
 at the further end, the strength of the whole fabric 
 
HUMAN LIMITATION AND DIVINE BREADTH. Til 
 
 depends in part on the skill and care of the weaver, 
 who is the human soul. 
 
 There has been for most of those who hear me, 
 there still is for some, a time of simple, innocent 
 enjoyment, the comparatively unalloyed happiness 
 of early youth, like the mild sunshine of a cloudless 
 morning. There have been, there arc, times of a 
 gladness more intense, the consciousness of wakening 
 powers, the joys of friendship or affection, the noon- 
 tide of the heart. Well, we know that this must 
 pass, must become a memory. It is impossible that 
 the young should fully realize this, although the very 
 restlessness of youth has in itself the witness of 
 coming change. But if the voice of experience could 
 reach the yet inexperienced ear, it would plead most 
 earnestly, not with an austere intent to lessen the 
 sum of pleasures, but with the affectionate warning, 
 ' Rejoice, but yet remember the days of darkness, 
 for they shall be many.' In those days it will be 
 of small account whether some particular indulgence 
 was granted or denied ; but it will be of the greatest 
 moment that no remorse should mingle with the 
 recollections of earlier days. It will be a mighty 
 source of strength and peace, if, in looking back 
 hereafter on the brightness of these careless hours, 
 you can associate them with acts of truthfulness, 
 generosity, and purity, temptations avoided or over- 
 come, faults deliberately corrected, high resolves for 
 
112 HUMAN LIMITATION AND DIVINE BREADTH. 
 
 the future and noble impulses overflowing in the 
 intercourse of uncorrupted minds. The hours so 
 spent will be a lasting gain, for though of necessity- 
 transient in themselves, they will leave an unfading 
 impress on the heart. 
 
 But the days of darkness indeed are many. There 
 is little need to enumerate here the train of human 
 ills. Loss, disappointment, sickness, separation, the 
 death of friends, the infirmity of age, and our own 
 deaths, although there are cases possible in which 
 
 even nature would not reckon this an evil 
 
 We need not now dwell on these things, or attempt 
 to play in ' womanish words with that which is so 
 serious.' Each heart knows its own bitterness, with 
 which a stranger dares not meddle, even from afar. 
 Those who would seek relief in the overflow of 
 sympathetic feeling may find in the masterpieces of 
 tragedy and serious fiction the ideal picture of a 
 kindred sorrow. But we are gathered here to help 
 one another, if possible, with Christian counsel ; and 
 the question we have to face with regard to the 
 present subject is this : What is the practical reli- 
 gious lesson to be drawn from our experience of the 
 mutability of human things? What is added by 
 Christianity to the impressions of art or the reflec- 
 tions of philosophy on this well-worn theme ? Does 
 our religion merely point, like some others, to a com- 
 pensation in some vague hereafter, or is the heavenly 
 
HUMAN LIMITATION AND DIVINE BREADTH, II3 
 
 gain which it offers to bring out of earthly loss also 
 immediate and assured ? And is the present recom- 
 pense which it affords a mere soothing anodyne of 
 consolation, or the strength of a new motive, the 
 support of an abiding principle? 
 
 Mankind have tried various devices with a view to 
 obviating the great, dark, inevitable fact of human 
 change and loss. 
 
 There is the way of forgetfulness, which would hide 
 the darker side of things, as when flowers are planted 
 upon a grave. Time is a great healer ; and the rich, 
 they say, have many consolations. As Nature softens 
 the scarped quarry and the broken cliff into likeness 
 with the surrounding world, so Art throws her many- 
 coloured veil over the scars of life. The weary spirit 
 is steeped in visions of beauty. Society, amusement, 
 novelty, wear off the sense of past or coming loss, 
 and so it is imagined the wounded spirit will be 
 restored. Grief has its way, and tears their course, 
 and then the outward influences regain their wonted 
 hold. 
 
 Let no one speak lightly of the compensations 
 which God has provided, ' lest the spirit should fail 
 before Him, and the souls which He hath made;' 
 but let it be said at once, this ' flattering unction ' 
 has only a temporary power. The soul of man 
 cannot remain in unconsciousness. Life cannot 
 always be passed in mere alternation of transient 
 I 
 
114 HUMAN LIMITATION AND DIVINE BREADTH. 
 
 joys and sorrows, like the ever-recurring cycle of 
 winter and summer, or as light and shadow course 
 each other round the globe. The tree in December 
 may forget the spring, but it cannot be so with man. 
 He looks before and after, and his experience cannot 
 but give birth to reflection. There is that within 
 him which resists all superficial treatment, a question- 
 ing spirit that will break forth afresh through the 
 lava-crust of years, asking 'What am I, whence 
 came I, whither must I go?' 
 
 Philosophy takes up these questions, to which, 
 however, heathen philosophy failed to give the final 
 answer. She had ample power to prove what expe- 
 rience felt, that ' there is an end of all perfection,' 
 that ' all things come to an end,' but saw not all the 
 breadth of the divine purpose. She was privileged 
 to stand upon the verge, and look forth with hope 
 into the unseen ; but, practically, she could but 
 counsel acquiescence in the inevitable. She held 
 up a noble standard of virtue to those who had 
 strength to climb up the steep pathway, but had 
 not faith enough to proclaim the kingdom of heaven 
 to all men. 
 
 Christ clearly taught the blessedness of sorrow. 
 ' Blessed are they that mourn.' To endeavour to 
 explain these words will be at the same time to 
 express the Christian view of the transitoriness of all 
 things here. 
 
HUMAN LIMITATION AND DIVINE BREADTH. II5 
 
 1. Ill sorrow \vc are often best able to realize the 
 love and faithfulness of God. ' In the multitude of 
 the sorrows I had in my heart, Thy comforts have 
 refreshed my soul.' If at other times we have learned 
 to believe in His lovingkindness, the truth then comes 
 home to us most vividly when we are most in need 
 of it, and in the withdrawal of other objects the heart 
 leans unreservedly upon Him. However strange it 
 may appear to mere outward observers, the pious 
 spirit finds cause for the deepest and most unaffected 
 thankfulness in the midst of circumstances which 
 seem full of unmixed bitterness. And the simplest 
 account of this is, that God himself draws near to 
 those who know Him in their time of need. ' When 
 thou goest through the waters, I will be with thee, 
 and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.' 
 And thus faith is permanently strengthened. For 
 those who have found God present in the darkness, 
 will know Him in the return of light, and will fear 
 no evil, even when the last shadows fall, for He is 
 with them still. 
 
 2. The experience of sorrow gives a deeper and 
 more comprehensive view of the whole meaning and 
 purpose of our existence. The bright veil of daylight 
 is rent and torn away, and we look out on the open 
 heaven. It is as if hitherto we had seen life only 
 from one side, when suddenly the hidden and higher 
 portion is revealed to us. We have a new measure 
 
 I 2 
 
Il6 HUMAN LIMITATION AND DIVINE BREADTH. 
 
 given us of persons and of actions. The scales have 
 fallen from our eyes. We learn that we have been 
 created for nobler ends than mere enjoyment ; we 
 learn the value of a fixed aim in life. Many hollow 
 places in our past conduct are suddenly made known ; 
 we are humbled into a truer knowledge of ourselves. 
 There is a dry light in the saddened eye to discern 
 realities from shadows, the lasting from the transient, 
 good from evil. 
 
 3, The power of sympathy is also increased. The 
 deeper insight is accompanied by a wider range of 
 feeling. How much of the active beneficence of the 
 world, known and unknown, what numberless in- 
 stances of wise help and counsel, of the rare kindness 
 that saves and strengthens, have flowed from hidden 
 springs that have been opened by the mining force 
 of grief! So St. Paul is heard to say, '^ Blessed be 
 the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
 Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, 
 who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we 
 may be able to comfort them who are in any 
 trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are 
 comforted of God.' 
 
 4. Out of the ashes of sorrow there break forth 
 new fires of practical devotion. When in the wreck 
 of earthly hopes we have felt the blessedness of com- 
 munion with God, the true attitude of a Christian 
 spirit is expressed in the words, 'Whether we live, 
 
HUMAN LIMITATION AND DIVINE BREADTH. II 
 
 we live unto the Lord, or whether we die, we die 
 unto the Lord.' If He has still work for us in this 
 world (and there is no lack of work while there is 
 strength to do it), we will do it with our might : and 
 we shall only be spurred to greater effort by our in- 
 creasing sense of the shortness of our days here. Or 
 if any feel that their strength is spent, and that 
 they arc no longer to do much in this world ; with- 
 out yielding morbidly to such a feeling, which is 
 often illusory, they will be equally resigned to the 
 divine will. 
 
 5. For, lastly, suffering, change, and loss appear 
 generally to strengthen in reflective minds the hope 
 of immortality. It is one of the lessons of biography, 
 that the most thoughtful men of recent times, even 
 if they had at one time doubted, have cherished this 
 hope more strongly in their declining years. The 
 experience of God's unfailing goodness in all the 
 vicissitudes of this life gives a quiet confidence that 
 His purpose towards them is not yet all fulfilled, 
 and that He will still care for them beyond the 
 grave, 
 
 II. The life of a community has often been com- 
 pared to that of an individual. The resemblance is 
 necessarily imperfect. No community can have a 
 unity or continuity of life approaching that of per- 
 sonal consciousness. But the individual and the 
 
Il8 HUMAN LIMITATION AND DIVINE BREADTH. 
 
 community have at least this in common, that they 
 are ahke Hable to change. They have a past and 
 future, and also a present, which is different from 
 either past or future, while possessing the elements 
 of both. They have in them the certainty of altera- 
 tion, the possibilities of progress and decay. They 
 have also their crises of transition, when old things 
 are passing,, and the new things are not yet clearly 
 seen. What is the practical religious lesson for such 
 a time? How is the reality of progress to be se- 
 cured ? How shall men ensure that change shall 
 not be decay ? It may be answered briefly — By the 
 candid recognition of facts : by unabated faith in 
 God and His goodwill to men : and by labouring 
 honestly, according to the light that is given us, to 
 promote what seems to us to be the cause of truth 
 and goodness. 
 
 Let us take as an example the changes which are 
 evidently passing over religious communities in our 
 own time. How many earnest spirits of our day have 
 ' seen an end of all perfection ' in the Churches ! 
 What seemed at one time the embodiment of an 
 almost inspired wisdom, is now felt to be a burden hard 
 to bear, unsuited to the age, an artificial hindrance to 
 growth, and yet well-nigh impossible to modify. The 
 bonds which unite particular communities become 
 feebler, as the lines of demarcation between them 
 are softened away, and begin to have little meaning 
 
HUMAN LIMITATION AND DIVINE BREADTH. II 9 
 
 except with reference to histon-. There are some 
 who simply grieve over these things ; others, cHng- 
 ing to the past, and ignoring the deeper tendencies 
 of the present, seek to re-animate dead or dying 
 forms ; others take refuge in a stoical or epicurean 
 indifference, refusing to go back or forwards, and 
 resting in a sort of sceptical conservatism ; others 
 simply congratulate mankind on the spread of tolera- 
 tion and the decline of superstition. 
 
 But if we believe in God's good providence, if we 
 believe that He is educating us, and ordering all things 
 towards the promotion of some far-off good, we shall 
 see in these very changes an opportunity at least of 
 bringing men nearer to the day when the true worship 
 of the Father shall be neither in Jerusalem nor in this 
 mountain, neither in the altar nor in the absence of 
 an altar, but in spirit and in truth. Is it a hindrance 
 or a furtherance of Christian communion, when we of 
 the Episcopalian community in this country are able 
 to enter into the sorrows and the joys of our Presby- 
 terian fellow-countrymen, to own friendships with 
 them, or kindred, if so be, without feeling scruples 
 because they ' follow not with us,' without fearing 
 for their spiritual welfare on account of some infor- 
 mality in the administration of a sacrament, or some 
 flaw in the method of ordination : while both alike are 
 followers and worshippers of the same Lord, and if 
 religiously disposed may receive from the same 
 
I20 HUMAN LIMITATION AND DIVINE BREADTH. 
 
 Scriptures the good news of the abounding grace 
 of God ? Is it a hindrance or a help to practical 
 Christianity that the most significant discussions 
 of religious questions in late years have called 
 men's minds away from theological formulas and 
 ecclesiastical traditions, and have fixed them more 
 and more on the person and the words of Christ ? 
 And if in all the Churches there are springing up 
 similar difiiculties, similar questionings, and even 
 similar novelties of opinion, which begin to absorb 
 attention to the exclusion of the definitions of the 
 sects, is this a cause of despondency for those who 
 believe in a divine providence ? Is it not rather 
 cause of hope ? 
 
 The more we see of the limitation of human things, 
 the breadth and comprehensiveness of the divine 
 purpose becomes more clearly manifest. Human 
 systems come to an end, ' They have their day and 
 cease to be,' but 'Thy commandment is exceeding 
 broad.' All is overborne by the divine obligation 
 of the law of truth and love. 
 
 I will venture to say one word in conclusion in 
 application of these remarks to the community to 
 which we belong. The changes of which I have 
 spoken have still left a place for us. There are 
 many persons who from early association or deli- 
 berate choice find a comfort in the use of the English 
 liturgy, which they do not find in habitually listening 
 
HUMAN LIMITATION AND DIVINE BREADTH. 121 
 
 to extempore prayer. There are others who arc 
 jealous of what they think harsh doctrines of the 
 divine decrees. There are some also who inherit 
 from the past their attachment to the Scotch Epi- 
 scopal Church, and who cling to it for its historical 
 antecedents. Our Church will best fulfil her end, if 
 she provides a home in which the religious feelings of 
 these various persons may find healthy nutriment and 
 growth, and if by fostering a genuine and active piety 
 she conciliate the respect and sympathy of the mem- 
 bers of other religious communities in this country. 
 The age of proselytism is past : and we may freely 
 set before ourselves at once a less ambitious and a 
 nobler aim. If we are attached to our liturgy, let 
 us prove that ours is a reasonable service, not only 
 by decorum and reverence in the manner of conduct- 
 ing it, but by living in the spirit of our prayers. If 
 we hold ourselves to be free from certain narrownesses 
 or trammels of doctrine, let us show our liberality by 
 living in true Christian fellowship with our neighbours, 
 of whatever sect. If we are each of us seeking 
 earnestly to amend our lives, and to help others as 
 we can, and are looking in every time of need to Him 
 who giveth power to the faint, it is hardly possible 
 that we should meet Sunday after Sunday for the 
 worship of God without some mutual benefit. And 
 this blessing will be more abundant in proportion 
 as we are able to strip off what is unreal and con- 
 
122 HUMAN LIMITATION AND DIVINE BREADTH. 
 
 ventional in our religion, all that which cometh to 
 an end, and to base the fabric of our religious life 
 on that simple revelation of God which Christ has 
 given us, and on His new commandment, which is 
 exceeding broad. 
 
SERMON X. 
 
 LIFE AND PEACE. 
 
 ' Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of 
 peace.' — Eph. iv. 3. 
 
 The first intention of these words can never lose its 
 value. When they were written, the Christian Church 
 was as much threatened with diverging tendencies 
 as at any later time, — and these were all the more 
 dangerous to peace, because incipient factions were 
 struggling within the still undivided bosom of one 
 community. There were no outward lines of demarca^ 
 tion, but there was the continual tendency for persons 
 to start up and say, ' I am of Paul,' or ' I of Apollos,' 
 to follow some new leader, to be carried away by some 
 new idea, in forgetfulness of the common name by 
 which they were called, and of the one Spirit of 
 which they had drunk at baptism. 
 
 Hence the continual exhortations to peace in St. 
 Paul's epistles. And the peace he speaks of is no 
 mere barren conformity, nor the peace of indifference or 
 of compromise, but one which is inseparable from the 
 fulness of the Spirit. The unity of the Spirit is no mere 
 
124 LIFE AND PEACE. 
 
 esprit-de-corps, or combination of men like-minded for 
 a particular object; but the union of hearts which have 
 been transfigured by the power of love, not to mind 
 their own things, but every man another's wealth, 
 to live for one another and for mankind — as they 
 know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, 
 so to make all men partakers of that love, which is in 
 its nature expansive, and has power to go forth to all 
 men, because it comes forth immediately from that 
 supreme love, which is one with the highest righteous- 
 ness and with the highest truth. 
 
 In these latter days the living tendencies of former 
 ages have hardened into traditional differences, which 
 though difficult to break through outwardly, are to 
 a great extent felt to be no longer real ; while 
 it is hard to trace the tendencies which seem 
 now most living, to any one section of historical 
 Christendom, or even to say that they are distinct- 
 ively Christian at all. In such an age it is surely 
 well worth while for Christians to endeavour to find 
 in the common and universal elements of Christianity, 
 which are also the deepest elements, a unity of spirit 
 which may hold together men of divers opinions and 
 doctrines in the bond of peace — a spirit which by its 
 very fulness may overflow the barriers of strife and 
 meet in one fruitful vivifying stream. 
 
 But there is another application of the words which 
 may naturally occur to us in thinking of our modern 
 
LIFE AND PEACE. 1 25 
 
 life. Without breaking the analogy of scripture they 
 may be transferred from the community to the in- 
 dividual. Indeed, we must often take this degree of 
 liberty, if we are to bring the words of the New 
 Testament epistles into relation with our own ex- 
 perience at all. For the life of the first believers was 
 so essentially a corporate life, a life of Churches 
 rather than of individual men — that precepts given 
 by the Apostle to them in the aggregate, often need 
 to be translated into a slightly different language 
 before they can be appropriated by those who are 
 living in quite a different condition of society, whose 
 political and social relations seem to be made for 
 them, and for whom the great question is the state of 
 their own hearts and the guidance of their individual 
 lives. And though such a use of language may be meta- 
 phorical, yet in the present instance it has a very 
 real meaning. Is the man at peace with himself ; is 
 he one or many ? Are his days linked each to each 
 in mutual piety ? If all is smooth outwardly, is this 
 the peace of apathy, which is death, or the harmony 
 of diverse energies in higher life ? Questions such 
 as these may be suggested to each man's conscience 
 by the words, ' the unity of the Spirit in the bond 
 of peace,' if they are taken to express the ideal of 
 an individual life. 
 
 I. 'The Spirit bloweth where it Hsteth.' The 
 
T26 LIFE AND PEACE. 
 
 influences, which we recognize as coming to us from 
 above, and which mould our individual being, are 
 often presented to us partially, in fitful succession, 
 and in their first effect seem rather to disturb us than 
 to control. As when the wind strikes upon an -^olian 
 harp, from north, south, east, and west by turns, it 
 seems to be almost matter of accident which chord 
 is made to sound the loudest^, and it may well be 
 thought almost impossible that such rude means 
 should ever produce a harmony. Disproportions of 
 all sorts between the inner and the outer life, between 
 aspiration and performance, between inclination and 
 circumstance, between feeling and action, seem con- 
 tinually to break the promise to the hope, and to give 
 assurance of nothing but a jarred and divided being. 
 Perhaps the heart is full of some impossible dream, 
 when through some seeming fatality the man is sum- 
 moned away by an imperative duty ; perhaps he has 
 endeavoured to act on some generous impulse, and has 
 been foiled and frustrated, through some half-physical 
 weakness, of which he was before-hand profoundly 
 unconscious. The triumph of affection is scared by 
 the spectre of ambition; the path of ambition is crossed 
 by some compelling call on sympathy. There are 
 moments when there is a strain upon us in some one 
 direction, which we are only just able to bear, to be 
 followed perhaps by an equal tension at some opposite 
 point. In the young especially, the co-existence of 
 
LIFE AND PEACE. 1 27 
 
 diverse movements is often strongly marked, noble 
 aims and visions from afar off, existing side by side with 
 weak habits, uncontrolled appetites, and fitful passions. 
 And yet it is out of such struggling and discordant 
 eleriients that the growth towards the ideal life is to be 
 won. For in all human life and movement that is not 
 merely a sinking downwards, there is something which 
 without irreverence may be called a breathing of the 
 Spirit. And the Spirit must be there, striving with 
 human infirmity, before the first upward step can be 
 taken. It is not from the complacent, satisfied, un- 
 aspiring temper, that the unity of spirit is to be 
 wrought. There may be unity in such a life, but it is 
 not the unity of spirit ; there may be a sort of peace, 
 but it is the peace of apathy. That is not the peace 
 which reflects the image of the early Christian ideal. 
 
 II. But when we look back on the struggle after 
 it is over and the peace is won, we may see the 
 evidence of the working of something higher still, of 
 a unifying, harmonizing power, that was less apparent 
 to us at the time. And we cannot claim that power 
 to have been our own. ' When I said. My foot hath 
 slipped, Thy mercy, O Lord, held me up.' There 
 must ever be much that is mysterious to us in that 
 which is so much above us. But if we ask ourselves, 
 for our own future guidance, and that of others, what 
 consciousness it was that withheld us from this false 
 
!28 LIFE AND PEACE, 
 
 step, that impelled us on that mission that has 
 ended in blessing ; what aim we are to keep before us 
 if we would preserve that harmony which is true 
 strength — the answer is after all not very far off, 
 though it is, and must be, a very general answer : 
 ' Let them not depart from thine eyes, the great 
 things of the law, justice, mercy, and truth.' Jus- 
 tice : — inclination and opportunity were strong, but 
 there was the vision of great Justice, dimly seen 
 weighing in her eternal balance the joy of one or two 
 against the lasting good of all. Mercy : — the voice of 
 the world was threatening, the fear of opinion and of 
 consequences was pressing upon a timid nature ; but 
 there was a soul to be rescued, a life to be healed, 
 and the heart could not pause to calculate. Truth : — 
 there was every motive for dissembling an important 
 fact, but all personal considerations have been over- 
 borne at the strong bidding of the highest reason 
 and the highest love, and a man has set his face 
 like a flinty in the simple faith that no real harm 
 could come to him from the Truth. 
 
 And so time after time he may have gradually 
 attained some measure of the only peace that is worth 
 having, that peace and inward harmony, which has 
 been conquered in repeated conflicts with circum- 
 stances, and with the illusions of self. Such peace is 
 synonymous with inward strength, and with true rest; 
 not the rest of inactivity, but that which springs out 
 
LIFE AND PEACE. 1 29 
 
 of the consciousness of beneficent power. This is a 
 strength which knows its dependence upon a higher 
 strength, and which rejoices in the belief that it 
 may be privileged to strengthen others with the 
 might wherewith it has itself been strengthened 
 from above. 
 
 Ill, For the 'Divinity that shapes our ends' is no 
 blind destiny descending on us from without, and 
 compelling us we know not whither ; nor yet can we 
 admit that ' character is fate,' in the sense that 
 weakness predetermines men to ruin. There is a 
 Spirit witnessing with our spirits that we are the 
 children of God : a Spirit which we may at times 
 identify with our own better nature, but which at 
 other times we feel to be altogether above our indi- 
 vidual nature, and in a true sense to have come down 
 on us from on high, not only restraining us from 
 action, but also sometimes impelling us at critical 
 times ' to do things that are rightful, though obscure 
 to judge : ' a Spirit of love and truthfulness, which, 
 like a river of the water of life, ministers hope in dark 
 seasons, and suffers not our faith in man to fail : a 
 Spirit in which the love of man has cast out the fear 
 of man, which is far-reaching because it is very 
 strong and pure. 
 
 Resolve and analyse this as we may into the 
 countless antecedents of our individual being, we 
 K 
 
13° LIFE AND PEACE. 
 
 may yet be very sure that in so far as we have 
 realized ourselves in fellowship at all, so far as the 
 chaos of our personal activities has been balanced 
 and controlled for good, so far as we have attained 
 a just command over that in ourselves or our sur- 
 roundings which was once too strong for us, we have 
 been the recipients of a power which is not our 
 own, which is independent of any earthly origin, 
 above the conditions of time, coming forth from 
 the Eternal. 
 
 IV. And in this belief and consciousness the life 
 is at last girded with the bond of peace. It is not 
 that we are less ardent than heretofore, or that we 
 shrink wearily from the war with evil ; for we must 
 still be ever pressing on, the more so as our hearts 
 are filled with gratitude to Him who has set our 
 feet upon the rock. That precept is ever ringing in 
 our ears, ' Freely ye have received, freely give.' But 
 a load of oppressive darkness and uncertainty has 
 been removed. We feel as if we need never be 
 greatly troubled about anything, seeing that the 
 experience of the higher life has given us a kind 
 of possession of all things. Doubts that haunted us 
 have been dispelled, contradictions in ourselves and 
 others have been solved, and faith has been enlarged 
 by experience so as to reach into the unseen. Even 
 in this life, with all its bewilderments, distractions, 
 
LIFE AND PEACE. I3I 
 
 and sorrows, there are bright intervals in which we 
 seem to anticipate the time when there shall be 
 
 ' No fears to beat away, no strife to heal, 
 The past unsighed for, and the future sure.' 
 
 And though such moments may be few and rare, 
 and less accessible to some natures than to others, 
 let the young and aspiring soul be sure of this, that 
 they do not come by accident or the caprice of for- 
 tune. For those who aim at the highest things and 
 follow them, who are determined to close their minds 
 to no ray of truth, who mean always to be before all 
 else single-minded, pure, and upright — though clouds 
 may overtake them on their way, though a passionate 
 nature may seize a part of the truth for the whole 
 and follow diverse objects with alternate warmth, 
 though the web may seem at some points hopelessly 
 tangled, yet the end is morally certain. It is certain, 
 that is to say, for those who live long enough, for 
 those who have strength enough for the way. 
 
 And w^hat of others ? Surely the happiest expe- 
 rience is of little use to us if it does not enlarge our 
 faith. Am I better than my brother man who began 
 life with higher aims and fewer drawbacks, but was 
 cut off by some rash accident, or by over-work, or 
 inevitable sickness, ere he reached his prime ; or than 
 him whose errors, perhaps not essentially greater 
 than my own, have 'gone before to judgment,' and 
 K 2 
 
132 LIFE AND PEACE. 
 
 maimed his usefulness ; or than him who, foiled by- 
 some constitutional weakness, or some disappoint- 
 ment, or the mistake of another, has never been able 
 to bring his powers to bear, and has lived a wasted 
 life? There are brief lives, whose perfect intention 
 was surely greater than any lower performance ; 
 there are broken lives, which may still be seen, by 
 those who have an eye for such things, to be climbing 
 painfully upwards to the light ; there are unsuccessful 
 lives, whose very unworldliness may have made some 
 who knew them feel that they were too good to be 
 successful in this world. Much that is dubious and 
 suspected to us may have a value in the sight of 
 God ; and if His dealings with us have taught us to 
 believe in His goodness, we shall certainly not believe 
 in it for ourselves alone, nor shall we find it easy to 
 believe that all of it that is to be dispensed to 
 many of our brethren can be seen from this side 
 of the grave. 
 
 Such faith in possibilities is very far from being 
 a motive for relaxing effort. On the contrary, it is 
 the strongest motive to be always doing our utmost 
 on the side of good. No man who has seen the light 
 will willingly walk on in darkness. 
 
 And the vision is twofold. On the one hand, there 
 is a full and various life, ever welling up in partial 
 but vivid energies between the darkness and the light, 
 capable indeed of being turned to evil, but no less 
 
LIFE AND PEACE. I33 
 
 indispensable for the realization of good ; and on the 
 other hand, the one divine Spirit of wisdom, justice, 
 and universal love, giving to each of these partial 
 energies its true and lasting value, and drawing all 
 together into beneficent action for the good of all — 
 just as the great sun, from the wild torrent and from 
 the restless deep, from still lake and rolling river, 
 distils the universal blessing of the rain. He who 
 has seen that twofold vision will have the assurance 
 of life and peace. 
 
 Life without peace is weakness and chaos ; peace 
 without life is nothingness. It is when the two are 
 united, when self-control is not mere self-repression, 
 but the enlightened guidance of an ardent will, that 
 the individual has realized for himself, and will assist 
 his brethren in realizing individually, the ideal which 
 the Apostle set collectively before the early Church — 
 the unity of Spirit in the bond of peace. 
 
SERMON XI. 
 
 PLEASURE AND DUTY. 
 
 ' Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth ; and let thy heart 
 cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of 
 thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, 
 that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.' — 
 ECCLES. xi. 9. 
 
 In hearing these words we are apt to ask ourselves, 
 Was the Preacher in earnest, or did he speak ironi- 
 cally? For preaching is commonly regarded as an 
 enemy to joy, and its object is often supposed to be 
 to lay some restraint on natural liberty. And the 
 sad notes of the Hebrew Preacher are so deep in 
 their sadness, that we cannot at once realize the 
 possibility of his entering heartily into simple human 
 pleasures. We confound him with the modern cynic 
 who, in crying * All is vanity,' professes to have 
 reached the mortal coldness of the heart. We forget 
 that even cynicism may be sometimes the cloak of 
 a tender, shrinking spirit that has been wounded. 
 The proud misanthropist has been known to shed 
 tears over the faithfulness of some humble friend. 
 
PLEASURE AND DUTY. 
 
 *35 
 
 In this book of Ecclesiastes it is the sense occasion- 
 ally manifested of the brightness of human exist- 
 ence which makes the pervading feeHng of deso- 
 lation in it so extremely touching. And generally 
 it is the wide range of human experience which, with 
 all its inconsistencies, is fearlessly reflected in the 
 Bible, that makes this sacred volume so infinitely 
 more impressive and fruitful in effect than any other 
 religious writing in the world. 
 
 I do not think, therefore, that the Preacher here 
 means to say, ' However much a young man may 
 rejoice in youth, yet the days of his sorrow shall 
 be many ; let him walk in the ways of his heart and 
 in the sight of his eyes, ay, but he shall not escape 
 judgment.' I believe that it is a truer and more 
 gentle voice that meets us here. ' Let the young 
 rejoice in their youth, it is the gift of God ; let every 
 life have its bloom, for God hath made each thing 
 beautiful in His time ; let all make fair and full 
 use of the degree of liberty and freedom from care 
 which is given to them, only let young as well as 
 old have the judgment of God before their eyes. 
 " Fear God, and keep His commandments," that is 
 the conclusion of the whole matter. Childhood and 
 youth are vanity, i.e. they are nothing when they 
 are over, except in so far as they have been made to 
 contribute to the store of life something which will 
 last, some hallowed memory, some pure experience, 
 
136 PLEASURE AND DUTY. 
 
 some faithful act ; but " the word of the Lord abideth 
 for ever." Therefore, " Remember now thy Creator in 
 the days of thy youth," and do not lay up sorrows 
 for the years to come.' 
 
 Whatever may be thought of this interpretation, 
 the words may be fitly chosen to introduce the con- 
 sideration of a subject which no Christian teacher can 
 afford to pass unnoticed in the present day. ' What 
 does our religion say to us about pleasure ? ' The 
 Christianity of Augustine, of St. Francis d'Assisi, of 
 St. Bernard, when interrogated on this subject, gave 
 no uncertain sound. Perhaps Luther may have been 
 said to waver : on this and some other subjects his 
 heart used to contradict his head ; the voice is that 
 of freedom, while the hands are still those of ecclesi- 
 asticism. But if the first reformers relaxed somewhat 
 of the asceticism of the mediaeval Church, the old 
 hardness and severity were more than restored in 
 Puritanism, which, like the early monachism, in bear- 
 ing witness against the corruptions of the world tended 
 to strain human nature, and to impose a burden 
 which men could not and would not bear. Every 
 excess, however well-meant, brings its revenge after 
 it ; and the Nemesis of all this has long since come ; 
 although any excess of severity in early Christianity 
 had been more than justified by the enormities of the 
 later Roman empire. Traditional Christianity in the 
 present day hardly touches any problem of casuistry, 
 
PLEASURE AND DUTY. I37 
 
 hardly professes to be a guide in daily life. Attempts 
 are made here and there to revive discipline and the 
 direction of consciences, but the world heeds them 
 little ; and the sentence in our Prayer-book, in the 
 service for Ash-Wednesday, that 'the revival of 
 penance were much to be wished,' has remained a 
 dead letter, and so is likely to remain. The Church 
 contents herself for the most part with repeating her 
 formularies, which the ministers of pleasure are ready 
 to admit can do no harm, while the great Age goes 
 on its way. 
 
 'Yes, we arraign her, but she, 
 The weary Titan! with deaf 
 Ears, and labour-dimmed eyes, 
 Regarding neither to right 
 Nor left, goes passively by, 
 Staggering on to her goal : 
 Bearing on shoulders immense, 
 Atlantean, the load, 
 Well-nigh not to be borne, 
 Of the too vast orb of her fate.' 
 
 But an enemy is sowing tares while we sleep. The 
 effective preachers of asceticism may be easily num- 
 bered, and even some of the most effective of them 
 may be suspected of having a thought behind. There 
 are some at least who seem to draw vivid pictures of 
 the dangers of the world, and the evils of sinful plea- 
 sures, that by giving men bad consciences they may 
 drive them to the bosom of the Church. But mean- 
 
138 PLEASURE AND DUTY. 
 
 while another set of preachers are more effective, for 
 they evidently mean simply what they say. Time was 
 when men were content to take their pastime silently, 
 while the voice of the Church was thundering over- 
 head ; but now the Church is silent, and they take 
 courage and exhort each other. Human nature, let 
 loose from the long thraldom, has found a voice, and, 
 breathing the keen air of freedom, becomes defiant. 
 In the inebriation of the moment it does not see that 
 that outward tyrant whom it defies is a spectre of the 
 past, and that there is another servitude which it 
 cannot shake off — the inward and unseen fetter of the 
 eternal law. Were it not for this feature of our time, 
 the preacher of righteousness would perhaps do better 
 in leaving this subject alone, for it is in every way 
 difficult to touch it without doing harm. Spontaneity 
 is of the very essence of youthful joy, and to intro- 
 duce self-consciousness either way is like brushing off 
 the bloom. But when, instead of the beadle gruffly 
 telling them to leave their play and to move onwards, 
 the arch-priest of humanity is heard in dulcet tones 
 inciting his children to their delights — when utilitarian 
 philosophy has successfully inculcated the maxim 
 that pleasure is the end of life ; and before the young 
 man has well asked whether his own pleasure or that 
 of others is to be his rule, or still less has been able 
 to forecast the years and balance against the vivid 
 pleasures of the moment the solid happiness of a life- 
 
PLEASURE AND DUTY. 139 
 
 time, the sensuous artist, playing on the sensitive or- 
 ganization with a sort of opal spray, has rapt him into 
 Elysium and steeped him in forgetfulness of human 
 care — when this begins to be the prevailing tone, it is 
 time that other voices should be raised. The only 
 cure for the shallow superficial humanism lies in the 
 deeper humanism ; and of the deepest humanity, the 
 chief fountains are ever to be sought for in Christ. In 
 leaving tradition on one side, and going straightway 
 to the New Testament, we have the best hope of 
 finding elements of wisdom which are applicable to 
 our own and every age. Only, the New Testament, 
 like every book, should be read with discrimination. 
 And there is sometimes a fallacy latent under the 
 most sacred names. 
 
 Christendom has for eighteen centuries worshipped 
 the cross. It has been to men the symbol of 'the 
 greatest moral act ever done in the world/ and also 
 of the precept of the Redeemer : ' If any man will 
 come after me, let him take up his cross and follow 
 me.' But let us distinguish. Christ would lay no 
 greater burden on us than we can bear, though 
 He would have us remember we have each our 
 burden. He says, 'Take up your cross and follow 
 me,' but He also considers whereof we are made. 
 The leader of an army does not at every moment 
 send every soldier into the hottest of the fight. He 
 knows when his own hour is come, at which he is ready 
 
14° PLEASURE AND DUTY. 
 
 to lay down his life for a sufficient cause ; and when 
 his soldiers have been fully trained he will expect a 
 similar devotion from them, to be exhibited according 
 to their circumstances and according to their several 
 powers and aptitudes. The form of the action will 
 differ according to natures and circumstances ; the 
 spirit to be displayed ultimately will be the same 
 in all. So the ideal spirit, of which the cross is the 
 symbol, is the same for all Christians ; but the forms 
 of action in which it is displayed may be infinitely 
 diverse. Not martyrdom for all — that is quite clear ; 
 not utter self-sacrifice for all — certainly not at every 
 moment : but for all, sooner or later, the life for others, 
 the life of giving, the life of self-denying love. We 
 cannot look on Him who is our Leader, and indulge 
 in selfishness or cruelty. But there are simple human 
 pleasures which He does not reprove, though they 
 form no part of the heroic standard. 
 
 We can imagine that amongst another people, in a 
 different age, in a different position, the spirit of 
 Christ might have lived longer upon the earth, might 
 have entered into more varied experiences, might have 
 found more of peace and goodwill. But we cannot 
 imagine the spirit of Christ being at any moment dis- 
 obedient to the voice of God ; we cannot imagine Him 
 at any moment withholding any truth, or shrinking 
 from conferring any good on men. The lesson of His 
 life and teaching is perhaps most perfectly expressed 
 
PLEASURE AND DUTV. 14I 
 
 in those few words, ' It is more blessed to give than 
 to receive.' But even those words imply that, as 
 Ecclesiastes might have said, there is a time to 
 receive as well as a time to give ; and in idealizing 
 the example of Christ we need not lose sight of the 
 gentleness of His teaching. His hour came because 
 of the evil, and because His Father called Him to 
 fight and conquer the evil. But in those eight-and- 
 twenty years of which we have hardly any record, 
 in which He grew in favour with God and man, we 
 have no reason to think that there may not have 
 been moments in which He seemed at harmony with 
 the elements surrounding Him. And this is certain, 
 that He has nowhere condemned what is innocent 
 in the life of nature. No picture was ever more 
 untrue than the mediaeval image of Christ, the dread- 
 ful Judge, who needed the intercession of His mother 
 and the saints to make Him sympathize with human 
 infirmity. ' Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin 
 no more.' ' Her sins which are many are forgiven 
 her, for she loved much.' ' Zacchaeus, come down, 
 for this day I must abide at thine house.' ' I came 
 not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' 
 ' I will have mercy and not sacrifice.' That is not 
 the voice of the middle ages. 
 
 What then is the Christian application of the words, 
 ' Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth ' ? 
 
142 PLEASURE AND DUTY. 
 
 I. They may warn those who have the care of 
 youth not to lay too much upon the young. Sadden 
 not the hearts which God would not make sad. Let 
 there be at least one period of life on which the 
 memory may rest hereafter gladly, a fountain from 
 which the heart may perpetually renew its faith that 
 unalloyed happiness is not unattainable. At the same 
 time let them teach the young to remember judgment, 
 not so much by severe exactions and stern reproofs, 
 though these also may have their place in a wise 
 training, as by making the beauty of righteousness 
 and equity to shine forth in their own conduct, by 
 fairness, by knowledge, by love unfeigned, by pureness, 
 by truth, by heartily encouraging every good dis- 
 position, by providing healthy occupations and pursuits, 
 which may lay the foundation of a full life hereafter ; 
 and by making it abundantly manifest in their own 
 life and labour, that there are duties which are 
 imperative, and that there is abundance of work in 
 the world which is worth doing. 
 
 II. Let the young believe, what all experience 
 shows, that it is possible to rejoice in youth and 
 at the same time to remember judgment. That is 
 an utterly false and sickly teaching which would send 
 young people on a voyage of discovery in search of 
 pleasures, which tells them to live upon excitement. 
 That is the sure road to an age of melancholy and 
 regret, perhaps to an early grave. If he have not 
 
PLEASURE AND DUTY. 143 
 
 the springs of joy within him, he will nowhere find 
 happiness in things without, 
 
 ' If happiness have not her seat 
 
 And centre in the breast, 
 We may be wise or rich or great, 
 
 But never can be blest. 
 No treasures, no pleasures, 
 
 Can make us happy long; 
 The heart aye's the part aye 
 
 That makes us right or wrong.' 
 
 It is a more experienced voice which tells those 
 who are restless in the time of youth to seek for 
 work, to labour at some occupation, to find some 
 absorbing interest not of a selfish nature : then when 
 they lift up their eyes from their toil they will find 
 all nature full of brightness. Joy comes unbidden 
 to those who give themselves to duty. 
 
 For pleasure is not life, but the reflex and incidental 
 evidence to us of the life that is there. And the 
 fulness of life is not in sensation, but in action. 
 Thought may be prophetic of life, and feeling may be 
 the birth of it ; but action is the roof and crown, the 
 realization which brings after it the fulness of joy. 
 
 And while there are most certainly springs of 
 gladness, which may prove hereafter to be the means 
 of enriching life, let the heart which thinks it can 
 discern such blessings be very careful in the use of 
 them. Hbw much may depend on the strength or 
 weakness shown in this, the experienced alone can tell. 
 
144 PLEASURE AND DUTY. 
 
 III. Let the young rejoice in youth ; for it is the 
 beginning of all things, it has possibilities which may 
 well seem infinite. ' The time is endless,' said Goethe. 
 And certainly there is infinitely more of time in some 
 lives than in others, if we measure it by the amount 
 that is well employed. But in youth we were learn- 
 ing how to employ it, as we can never learn the same 
 lesson afterwards. We were acquiring a hold over our 
 own powers, which is to stand us in stead during a 
 long lifetime. The strain, the conflict, the dust and 
 strife, the heat and burden of the day, are to come 
 afterwards ; meanwhile the young are gathering 
 strength in abundant leisure, that in the evil day 
 they may be able to stand. Let us see that it 
 is strength that they are gathering and not 
 weakness, and then we will not grudge them the 
 brightness of moments which we can never know 
 again. For we cannot say ' The time is endless,' who 
 begin to see the limits of our appointed way. The 
 motto for us is rather ' The time is short,' in which 
 we have to accomplish even the little that is given 
 us to do, 
 
 IV. Let not the young be too ready to imagine 
 that they are able to stand alone, and to be a law 
 unto themselves. If the Preacher said (whether 
 seriously or not) ' Walk in the sight of thine eyes,' he 
 was right to add the warning afterwards, ' God will 
 bring thee into judgment' Youth is always apt 
 
I 
 
 PLEASURE AND DUTY. 145 
 
 enough to imagine that it has attained to inward 
 freedom, but never more so than in our day, when 
 ' individualism' has probably reached its furthest point. 
 Yet even as it is, there is a feeling of modesty and 
 of frank reliance on others, which is natural to youth, 
 if not quenched by adverse influences. Do not let 
 it be so quenched. Liberty is a good thing for all 
 who have any strength, but arrogance and petulance 
 are not signs of strength. It is one of the purest 
 sources of joy in youth that it has the power of leaning 
 upon an example, of looking up with reverence to 
 another. It has the belief in human g-oodness un- 
 impaired. It would be a sad thing if the disintegra- 
 tion of society were to proceed so far, that even this 
 feeling lost its freshness. That it may find its true 
 sphere and object, however, does not depend entirely 
 upon the young. 
 
 But if the young creature is determined to walk, 
 not by the experience of others, but in the ways of 
 its heart, and in the sight of its eyes, God will 
 soon bring it into judgment. Happily for us, we 
 have not to wait for a future and final day of judg- 
 ment for the proofs of our own folly. ' Happy are 
 those to whom Nemesis comes speedily.' Or rather, 
 happy are those who hear the first hoarse whisper, 
 and take the warning before the storm is come. 
 Sooner or later we all find ourselves in the presence 
 of eternal justice, and the moralizing is done for 
 L 
 
146 PLEASURE AND DUTY. 
 
 US, if we do it not for ourselves. But those are 
 happiest of all in whom the belief has gone before 
 the experience. 
 
 V. It would be wrong to forget that there are 
 some to whom youth is not a time of joy : to whom 
 their first severe trials come at a time when they 
 are least able to bear them, a time when to feel 
 sorrow is to think it impossible ever to smile again. 
 It would be mockery to teach them to rejoice, 
 perhaps even to speak to them of joy. But, in fact, 
 life is full of compensations ; and though the traces of 
 early sorrow may long remain, yet it may have opened 
 depths within them, which long afterwards may 
 become a source of truest blessing. 
 
 Lastly — not to conclude a subject which has been 
 hardly begun, but to end this sermon — let us not think 
 to offer that which is maimed, and call this a rea- 
 sonable service. Let us all try to make each part 
 of life beautiful in his time, living honestly as in the 
 day, striving after the incorruptible crown, and pressing 
 ever onwards; but not torturing ourselves or others 
 with an ideal of life which has owed its strength to 
 the violence of a twofold reaction, or with an idea of 
 the nature of God which daily experience proves to 
 be untrue, and which, from whencesoever it comes to 
 us, is not the image of the Father of whom Christ 
 told the world, the Father, who clothes the lilies of the 
 
PLEASURE AND DUTY. 147 
 
 field with beauty, who careth for the sparrow, who, 
 not in savage irony but in tender and forbearing 
 mercy, still maketh His sun to rise upon the evil 
 and the good, and sendeth rain upon the just and 
 
 unjust. 
 
 L 2 
 
SERMON XII. 
 
 TRUE MANLINESS. 
 
 ' Quit you like men, be strong.' — i CoR. xvi. 13. 
 
 Some of the most striking and memorable words 
 of the Apostle St. Paul are uttered with strange sud- 
 denness, amongst the salutations and particular mes- 
 sages, which in his affectionate care he used to pour 
 forth to individuals in the Church to which he had 
 been writing, ere he closed an epistle. Though he 
 was ever present with his absent converts in spirit, it 
 was like a fresh parting from them when, with his 
 heart enlarged towards them after dictating the 
 burning words of his letter, he sat down and added 
 his signature to the scroll or tablet waiting to be 
 dispatched by the hand of some mutual friend, before 
 he returned to his daily task of manual toil, or ad- 
 dressed himself to the spiritual wants of some other 
 community, near or far off, whose burden also lay 
 upon him. And as, in moments of parting, words 
 sometimes fly to the lips unbidden, in which are con- 
 centrated the thoughts and feelings of months or 
 
TRUE MANLINESS. 149 
 
 years ; so in these closing passages, as the Apostle 
 thinks over one by one the souls who most need his 
 counsel, his deepest aspirations and convictions spring 
 forth anew, and are summed up in a short precept or 
 ejaculation. So in finishing the letter to the Galatians 
 'with his own hand,' he writes, 'God forbid that I 
 should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus 
 
 Christ For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision 
 
 availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new 
 creature.' And in taking leave of his early converts 
 at Philippi, after special exhortations to Euodias and 
 Syntyehe and others, he gives utterance to some 
 detached precepts, including the compendious rule : 
 ' Whatsoever things are true, or noble, or just, or pure, 
 or lovely, or of good report, think on these things.' 
 
 With an abruptness still more remarkable, as show- 
 ing how vividly the thought of them was present to 
 the Apostle's mind, come the few brief commands of 
 which the text is one. Between the intimation that 
 Apollos could not come to them as yet, and the precept 
 to submit themselves to the household of Stephanas 
 their chief native teacher, — perhaps thinking of the 
 dependent craving of some of them for the immediate 
 presence of Apollos or of himself, St. Paul here ex- 
 claims, 'Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you 
 like men, be strong. ' 
 
 As in numberless other places of the Gospels and 
 Epistles, the language is borrowed from the Old 
 
150 TRUE MANLINESS. 
 
 Testament ; where similar words are addressed lite- 
 rally to men preparing for battle, or figuratively, as in 
 the Psalms, to the faithful in their distress, who are 
 encouraged to trust in God's defence against their 
 enemies. 
 
 But the enemy against whom the Corinthians are 
 told to stand fast and quit themselves like men, is the 
 spirit of party strife ; the strength or courage which 
 they are invited to exercise, is the firmness of an inward 
 determination against evil, not to be swayed by temp- 
 tation, nor beguiled from the simplicity of Christ. 
 
 The exhortation has reference to their special cir- 
 cumstances, in a Church beset by heathen and 
 Jewish enemies, and endangered by half-heathen and 
 half-Jewish members — in peril of being torn to pieces 
 by the emulation of opposing sects, or at another 
 moment of being polluted by the universal allowance 
 of some flagrant sin. 
 
 But just as the Apostle has here given a moral and 
 spiritual meaning to an expression of old Jewish 
 patriotism, so we may seek for a still wider applica- 
 tion of his words ; and, in a different state of the 
 Church and of the world, we may find a universal 
 Christian import in his stirring trumpet-call, ' Quit 
 you like men, be strong.' Of the Christian ideal 
 which is set before us as a rule of life, one element or 
 aspect, perhaps hardly made prominent enough in 
 religious teaching, is moral strength. And yet surely 
 
TRUE MANLINESS. 151 
 
 there is no part of holiness that has a more winning 
 power. Men may not at once desire humility or 
 meekness or charity, when they admire them ; but 
 there is no man at all conscious of his own weakness, 
 who would not wish to be made strong. Whoever 
 has felt that the courage and firmness and nobleness 
 and, in one word, the strength of the Christian 
 character, as delineated in the New Testament, are 
 quite above the level of ordinary human life, can 
 hardly help longing to be religious. The aspirations 
 awakened by other traits of Christ are more akin to 
 emotion, but none can be more practically operative 
 than this. ' If we talk of strength, lo, He is strong.' 
 To the Christian this is not a cause of discouragement, 
 but of hope. For God in Christ has taught us to 
 make His own perfection the aim of our endeavour, 
 and Christ himself is our support as we press on. 
 And the more we feel the infirmity of our own 
 nature, the more we shall seek to be strengthened by 
 His Spirit in the inner man, by looking to Him in 
 faith, and learning of Him. And so our weakness 
 will become our strength. For this is one of the 
 paradoxes of the religious life, in which so many 
 seeming opposites are harmonized. He who is dead 
 to the world is yet devoted to the world's good : he 
 who sets his face like a flint against all men for the 
 truth's sake, will yet become all things to all men that 
 he mav win some : the meekest of men is also the 
 
152 TRUE MANLINESS. 
 
 most courageous ; the most humble is the most con- 
 fident ; he is the last to assert himself and yet the last 
 to yield. And thus the image of Christian firmness 
 is to be sought, not in vehemence and daring im- 
 petuosity, nor in those qualities which most directly 
 impress mankind ; but is often found in one outwardly 
 feeble and encompassed with infirmities, who by 
 God's help has won the victory over self, and has a 
 clear eye for duty, and can by no means be turned 
 aside from the service of God and man. So various 
 and complex are the possibilities of human character, 
 that one who was amongst his contemporaries in 
 weakness and fear and in much trembling, whose 
 bodily presence was weak and his speech contemp- 
 tible, is the great example to after-ages of religious 
 heroism. 
 
 One great secret of all true power is singleness of 
 aim. It is so in every path of life. He is really 
 successful, amongst professional men, whose first 
 thought for years together has been the work of his 
 profession. If an army or a ship's crew performs, as 
 we sometimes say, miracles of endurance or bravery, 
 what is the cause ? Is it not that one thought has 
 reigned sole in the breast of every man, the thought 
 of honour, or better still, of duty ? The adventurous 
 traveller is supported through unheard-of dangers, 
 privations, and distresses, by the one thought of the 
 object of his long and perilous toil — whether this be to 
 
TRUE MANLINESS. 153 
 
 discover new lands, or to determine some point in 
 science, or to ameliorate the condition of savage 
 tribes. The same is true of every inventor and dis- 
 coverer. Sir Isaac Newton, when some one marvelled 
 at the great achievements of his genius, is said to have 
 replied that if he differed at all from other inquirers 
 it was in patience only. In other words, the single 
 object of his life was ever before him and constantly 
 preferred to all things else. 
 
 But there is a higher aim than that of any separate 
 calling or profession, although for most men not 
 irreconcileable with the round of ordinary duty. This 
 aim is single ; for goodness and truth are really one, 
 though the full scope and meaning of the high en- 
 deavour cannot be crushed into a phrase. It has a 
 religious aspect, 'To do Thy will, O God;' it has a 
 spiritual aspect, to do nothing against the truth, but 
 for the truth ; it has a moral aspect, to serve and bless 
 mankind. This was the aim for which Christ lived, 
 and for which He died. This is the true life, of 
 which the elements are perfectly united in Him. 
 This is the secret of His victorious strength, of His 
 unconquerable fearlessness, of His divine repose. To 
 do the will of His Father by making known that will ; 
 to withhold no smallest particle of the truth which He 
 had heard of God— the truth that God is love, the 
 will of God that men should in reality become the 
 children of God ; to extend to all men everywhere in 
 
154 TRUE MANLINESS. 
 
 His own person, by act and word, the lovingkindness 
 and righteousness of the Almighty Father : this, if we 
 may say it reverently, was the motive of His divine 
 life. For this He was in hunger and weariness, and 
 knew not where to lay His head ; for this He spent His 
 nights upon the mountain side, and went about with 
 the twelve preaching and healing everywhere ; for this 
 He bore with their ignorance and unbelief; for this He 
 drew upon Himself the hatred and envy of the ruling 
 class amongst His countrymen, and calmly faced 
 them even to death. Words cannot utter the depth 
 and beauty of that life ; but not less wondrous than 
 the depth and beauty is the Godlike strength which, 
 in poverty, and apparent failure, and desertion, and 
 betrayal, overcame the world — which the flattery of 
 affection, the soothing voice of friendship, and the 
 sophistry of designing enemies, were equally power- 
 less to hinder or to ensnare. 
 
 Let us now turn from this exalted pattern to the 
 ' low level ' of our common existence, and instance 
 some of the many ways in which we seem to need 
 some portion of the strength that was in Christ, of 
 the manfulness which St. Paul enjoins. We have 
 need of this in personal character, in society, in 
 religion. 
 
 First, in the individual life there is the weakness 
 of self-indulgence, the weakness of indolence, the 
 weakness of giving way to habit. There are the 
 
TRUE MANLINESS. 155 
 
 infirmities of vanity, and caprice, and levity, which 
 take so much from the grace and harmony of our 
 being. Had we only more continually before us even 
 an imperfect ideal of what man ought to be, should 
 we not many a time be up and doing, when, as it 
 is, we live a burden to the ground ? And would 
 not many a weak place in every life be healed ? 
 
 That patience is allied to strength we may be re- 
 minded by the striking verse of the Psalms, ' God 
 is a righteous judge, strong and patient, and God 
 is provoked every day.' But if we always remembered 
 that impatience is a sign of weakness, that forbear- 
 ance is an attribute of power, should we so often 
 yield to the illusion, which makes us think that we 
 are exerting strength, when we have lost that true 
 strength and firmness which is inseparable from calm ? 
 Another form of strength is a faithful spirit. Un- 
 faithfulness is the penalty of a weak and shallow 
 nature. The triumph of affection is not the blaze 
 of passion, but to be long tried and true. The evils 
 which beset us severally may, in short, for the most 
 part, be referred to the want of self-control. And 
 to be self-controlled is individually to be strong. 
 
 Are there not still more obvious weaknesses in 
 our social life ? Would it not almost seem at times 
 as if individuality was lost in the mere habit of 
 society? And if this were altogether a community 
 of human kindness, all were so far well : but does 
 
156 TRUE MANLINESS. 
 
 not the same fountain send forth sweet waters and 
 bitter? Are not tales, whether good or bad, apt to 
 be repeated and circulated with the same want of 
 thought ? Does the force of example depend alto- 
 gether upon its excellence, or that of a custom on its 
 reasonableness and propriety? Can it be said that 
 our social code has any much higher rule than that 
 of 'doing as others do;' unless, indeed, there be 
 sometimes a rule opposed to this, of ' doing as we 
 please ' ? But if each had before him as a sacred end 
 the good of all, the furtherance of truth and right — that 
 is, in Scripture language, the kingdom of God— how 
 much more life and meaning would be imparted to our 
 common daily intercourse, how many an evil tendency 
 that has sprung up unsuspected, while men slept, 
 would be swept away by the force of higher interests ! 
 
 Too often, as one writes, ' the greater part can only 
 detect the evil when it comes forth from them, nearly 
 as when any other might observe it.' But to look 
 around with thoughtful observation, not without cha- 
 rity, may help us in the more difficult task of looking 
 within. And it were often well for us if we had eyes 
 to see our failings, written as it were in large charac- 
 ters, in those blots upon the national life, about which 
 to a reasonable mind there can be no mistake. 
 
 Now amongst social infirmities there may be in- 
 stanced, as one of the most insidious, the tendency 
 to class prejudices. In proportion to the force of 
 
TRUE MANLINESS. 157 
 
 humanity in man is the feeling of universal brothcr- 
 hoodj the power of sympathizing with all conditions. 
 That we should ever encourage one another in valuing 
 or dispraising men, not according to their real worth, 
 but as they stand related to our class, to our profes- 
 sion, to our school or academy, to our set in society, 
 is surely a signal instance of weakness. That we 
 should be even involuntarily affected by such an in- 
 firmity is a misfortune. We are told by the father 
 of history that the Medes of the 5th century B. c, 
 even after the empire had departed from them, 
 'were accustomed to honour most of all men those 
 living nearest to themselves (their own selves only 
 excepted) ; and in the next degree those once re- 
 moved in place ; and so on in like manner, having 
 in least respect those who dwelt farthest off: be- 
 lieving,' he continues, ' that they themselves are by 
 far the best of all men, and that the rest lay claim 
 to goodness in the ratio aforesaid, and that those who 
 live most remote from them are the worst.' Are we 
 much more rational often in our judgments of men ? 
 
 There are times when all goes smoothly whether 
 we are strong or weak ; but there are other times 
 when it is of deep consequence what spirit we 
 are of In reverses of fortune, in bereavement, in the 
 sick chamber, in the face of death, we all need a 
 strength and a support that rests somewhere beyond 
 the storms of the world. Whether the effect of sorrow 
 
158 TRUE MANLINESS. 
 
 is to ennoble or to depress, to harden or to enlarge 
 the heart, whether in times of extreme trial we are 
 disgraced in our own eyes, or quit ourselves valiantly, 
 must greatly depend on the spirit in which we have 
 sought to live all along. It is true that latent strength 
 is often called forth by circumstances, that power is 
 given, as we say, where it is needed : but who can tell 
 in such cases what preparations of the heart have 
 gone before, what aspirations of past years, what 
 forgotten resolutions, are re-awakened in the presence 
 of the great opportunity or the crushing blow ? To 
 speak generally, the foundation of this strength is 
 laid in early life, when every temptation mastered 
 is a source of future power, when to have a fixed 
 purpose and to pursue it steadfastly, to sacrifice pre- 
 sent ease to coming good, nerves the whole man for 
 a still higher endeavour. And even if performance 
 come far short of resolve, let the young still place their 
 standard high. Let them not lose faith in the sun-clad 
 power of goodness, purity, and truth, nor cease to 
 follow these, because they find that action lags behind 
 the flight of purpose. There is also a peculiar strength 
 that should accompany old age. There are those 
 who, even in much bodily infirmity, never sink into 
 a mere routine of unconscious habit, whose eye, that 
 looks back calmly over a chequered course, and has 
 gathered wisdom from various fortunes, looks also 
 with kindly sagacious interest on the fortunes and 
 
TRUE MANLINESS. 159 
 
 the work of others. Such an one by a quiet word, 
 spoken, it may be, in a sick room, will sometimes 
 effect more than can be wrought by oratory. 
 
 And there are some who, in the even tenour of 
 the years between youth and age, when the time of 
 illusions is passed, and the career is fixed, and the 
 game of ambition is played out, instead of yielding 
 to vain regrets over losses and perhaps errors that 
 are irreparable, are seen to cling with unabating 
 energy to the sphere in which their lot is finally cast, 
 and to work nobly on, with no hope of earthly recom- 
 pense, at the humble duties which are still given them 
 to do. 
 
 In the last place it remains to notice one more 
 particular in which the injunction of the Apostle is to 
 be obeyed. If we are right in thinking that religion 
 is strength, what are we to think of weakness in 
 religion ? By what other name shall we characterize 
 some of the so-called religious impulses of our day ? 
 If sentimental effusion takes the place of strenuous 
 honest purpose ; if more is thought of modes of sym- 
 bolism or of sensible impression than of the rule of 
 life ; if beliefs which our forefathers solemnly rejected 
 are embraced by a superstitious fancy, without any 
 serious inquiry whether they be true, what becomes 
 of Christianity as the religion pre-eminently of right- 
 eousness and truth? He who has once become care- 
 less about what is true in matters of religion, however 
 
l6o TRUE MANLINESS. 
 
 trying may be the problem in our day, has yielded 
 up the citadel of his mind. He cannot tell what 
 strange delusion may take possession of him. 
 
 The question after all returns, 'Who is sufficient for 
 these things ? ' And we still answer with St. Paul, 
 ' Our sufficiency is of God.' He is not far from those 
 who diligently seek Him. We rest also on the 
 support of Christ, who, ' when we were without 
 strength,' gave Himself to raise mankind from sin 
 to holiness. 
 
 To believe firmly in the sacredness of truth and the 
 eternity of right — that is of itself a mighty anchor 
 of the soul : there have been noble spirits that have 
 manfully ridden out the storm on this alone. To 
 believe in the Eternal Father, who is infinitely right- 
 eous and true, whose all-embracing love is ever ready 
 to awaken the better self which He has implanted 
 in us and all men, who has provided for the com- 
 pletion hereafter of that work of righteousness which 
 He has partially revealed on earth — this is surely a 
 strong motive to live strenuously in the hope of being 
 made instruments of that work. And to believe in 
 Christ, the Christ of the Gospels, who has awakened 
 in man this deeper consciousness of God, who has 
 opened the way for him to a life of blessedness above 
 all that the human heart without Him had conceived, 
 whose image, as reflected for us in those simple re- 
 cords, far exceeds in beauty and sublimity the fond 
 
TRUE MANLINESS. l6l 
 
 imaginations of a later time, who communicates 
 to us that unchanging love which ministers com- 
 fort to the penitent, and hope to the despairing 
 soul — that is a stay to which all, however feeble 
 and weary, may boldly cling. ' He giveth power 
 to the faint, and to them that have no might He 
 increaseth strength.' 
 
SERMON XIII. 
 
 THE FRUIT OF LABOUR. 
 
 1869, 
 
 ' For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in 
 the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour : yet what I shall choose 
 I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to 
 depart, and to be with Christ ; which is far better. Nevertheless 
 to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.' — Philippians i. 
 21-24. 
 
 These familiar words are the expression of a mode 
 of feeling, which is above and beyond the range of 
 common human experience. They are the utterance 
 of an extraordinary person in an extraordinary time, 
 of St. Paul in the last stage of his career — an utterance 
 higher than any we could dare to make, perhaps also 
 somewhat different in kind. And yet they are full of 
 instruction to us and all men, and the lesson that they 
 teach is very simple and practical. 
 
 We should indeed gain comparatively little by 
 trying to appropriate the language of such passages 
 immediately to ourselves, and so to conjure into 
 transient life an imitative glow of feeling. Such 
 attempts may be not unnatural in some early phases 
 
THE FRUIT OF LABOUR. - 163 
 
 of religion, when to the newly awakened heart all 
 seems alike that bears the mark of piety, and every 
 flight seems possible to the aspiring soul. Many have 
 so received their first impressions of the truth. But 
 when persevered in, this crude and unenlightened use 
 of Scripture language has two defects. It is apt to 
 be associated with a mere effusion of feeling, which 
 may weaken instead of regulating the real springs of 
 action : and, however valuable it may have proved to 
 some, it has the effect of deadening the w'ords of 
 Scripture, and robbing them of their true life and 
 power for many others ; so that it is only by an effort 
 that we can dissociate them from their hackneyed use, 
 only by breaking through the petrifying crust of years 
 that we can approach the living fountain. It is 
 otherwise that we shall seek to profit by the exam- 
 ples that are set before us in the Bible, if we are 
 rational men. We shall feel the incongruity of 
 taking directly to ourselves the language of an 
 Apostle — we, who are not in cold, or nakedness, or 
 in bonds for the Gospel's sake, nor in hunger and 
 thirst, nor watchings, nor perils by land and sea, 
 nor burdened with the care of all the churches — 
 we who at most are striving, amidst a dangerous 
 excess of comforts, to do in a narrow spot of earth 
 some daily portion of that which it is our duty to 
 do. But for the very reason that we cannot adopt 
 his language, and only very imperfectly breathe his 
 M 2 
 
164 THE FRUIT OF LABOUR. 
 
 spirit, it is good for us to remember that such a 
 man as St. Paul once Hved and moved upon this 
 earth, where we also have to live and die. It is 
 good to remember that these words once came from 
 the fulness of a living heart, not uttered in a formal 
 prayer or sermon, when the man was expected to say 
 what should be elevating or impressive, but in the 
 unrestrained intercourse of friendship, in a letter 
 which breathes the warmth and tenderness of con- 
 fiding affection, and which was written by way of 
 acknowledgment for a timely gift. 
 
 On an occasion so apparently slight, he whose heart 
 was ever on his lips in holding communion with those 
 to whom he had taught the gospel, wrote, according 
 to a slightly different rendering : ' To me to live is 
 Christ, and to die is gain. But seeing that to live 
 on in the flesh is to me the fruit of labour, I know 
 not which to choose. For I am straitened between 
 the two, my desire being to depart and be with 
 Christ, for that is far better ; but to abide still in 
 the flesh is more needful for your sakes.'' 
 
 Such words can never lose their power. They 
 come down to us from a purer air ; yet the voice 
 is human, and is audible to all who feel. They 
 sum up the constant tenour of a life, which, like all 
 great lives, is able at once to shame us and to 
 inspire, and also to teach a lesson which may be 
 
THE FRUIT OF LABOUR. 165 
 
 applied to the most various conditions of human 
 existence. 
 
 I. Let us try to think of the fact which tht words 
 imply. There was once a man who, longing, as for 
 hid treasure, not for death but for the joy beyond, 
 yet chose to live — not for life's sake, for he knew that 
 more and fuller life awaited him — not for the comforts 
 of home, he was a solitary in bonds and amongst 
 enemies, and even with friends deserting him (' Thou 
 knowest that all they of Asia have turned away ') — 
 not for the enjoyment of riches, for he was dependent 
 and poor — not in the hope of supplanting others by 
 fair or crooked means, and ' getting on,' as we phrase 
 it, ' in society ; ' the freedmen of Caesar^s household 
 probably thought themselves princes as compared 
 with him — but simply that he might abound in 
 labours and in sufferings for the truth, and for those 
 weaker than himself, who still needed to be strength- 
 ened and supported by him. And whether in life 
 or death, his thoughts all centred for their sole 
 object in Christ, the source of this wondrous life, to 
 whom death would only bring him nearer. Think 
 of all this, and then think of the petty rivalries, the 
 mean pleasures, the waste of power, the frivolous talk, 
 the ungenerous feeling, the mean policy, the mere idle 
 vacancy, which beset our common life; and, however 
 little we may hope to pass at once from this to that, we 
 cannot but feel the weight of the rebuke. Can we 
 
l66 THE FRUIT OF LABOUR. 
 
 realize, have we ever sought to reahze, the certainty 
 of our own death ? How then shall we compare our 
 lives to his, who looked with open face beyond the 
 grave, desiring to depart, and yet for the sake of others 
 was content to live, 
 
 ' To absent him from felicity awhile, 
 And in this harsh world draw his breath with pain ' ? 
 
 Yet, on further reflection, it does not seem so 
 impossible that we, in an altered state both of the 
 Church and world, may receive something of the 
 spirit that was in Paul. His example may animate 
 rather than discourage us. We too, in our low degree, 
 may learn as Christians to look steadily in the face 
 of death : and we may learn more and more to live as 
 seeing Him who is invisible We shall learn both 
 these things just in proportion as we have also learnt 
 to live for others, and to work for them as in the 
 sight of God. Times and circumstances alter, the 
 characters of men are diverse ; but the elements of the 
 Christian life remain the same. Nor are we wholly 
 without patterns, even in these days, of Christian 
 virtue and nobleness, on which it is good for us to 
 dwell — not reaching, it may be, to the ideal height 
 or the heroic stature, but all the more affecting and 
 instructive because breathing the same air with us, 
 and though ofttimes compassed with infirmity, having 
 yet ' a glory portioned in the scale.' 
 
THE FRUIT OF LABOUR. 167 
 
 There must be many who, at some time or other 
 of their lives, have had the opportunity of watching 
 the motions of a character who seemed to be Hfted 
 above the earth, of one who was ready to give up 
 all worldly interests for a cause of truth or right, 
 who would make any sacrifice where there was hope 
 of doing good, or in whom affection for kindred 
 or friends had literally burned up every selfish con- 
 sideration. Amongst those whom it has been our 
 lot to reverence in this world, some may have had 
 more of intellectual insight, others more of practical 
 energy, they may have had more or less of natural 
 reserve, and more or less of fervour and enthu- 
 siasm ; but in the determination to do good as they 
 had opportunity, and at all costs to be faithful 
 and true, in the princely heart of innocence, in the 
 simplicity of noble and unselfish purpose, do we not 
 recognize in all a common type of spiritual strength, 
 in which they resemble the great and good of old ? 
 
 Or if some have been less fortunate, either from the 
 dearth of such high examples, or the want of an eye 
 to see them, let them turn to the biographies of good 
 men, and they will find abundant proof that in no age 
 has God left Himself without a witness to that pure 
 and undcfiled religion, whose elevating influence is ever 
 most felt when speaking through a life. P'ew things are 
 more refreshing, especially when w^e are tempted to 
 despair of the possibility of goodness in ourselves or in 
 
l68 THE FRUIT OF LABOUR. 
 
 the world around us, than to take up such a book, 
 for instance, as the Memoir of Richard Baxter, and 
 trace the increasing power of Christianity in an honest 
 heart. 
 
 It is true that men are often withheld from seeing 
 the goodness that is passing before their eyes. They 
 recognize the popular qualities ; but the popular 
 qualities are not the highest. We are apt to measure 
 the amount of love and labour which is spent in our 
 behalf by the degree of compliance to our own opinion 
 and feeling, with which the work of self-devotion is 
 accompanied. But when that which has opposed us 
 is taken out of the way, when the jar of earthly 
 interests can no longer ruffle the surface of the heart, 
 then every generous mind will see the good revealed, 
 and will acknowledge the excellence of that disin- 
 terested endeavour which is .emphatically ' not of this 
 world.' 
 
 II. We turn now to the general lesson which may 
 be drawn from the text ; to what in modern language 
 may be called the leading idea contained in it. 
 
 For every record of true greatness is profitable, not 
 only for reproof and correction, but also for doctrine 
 and instruction in righteousness. Christianity, for 
 instance, is not fully taught by merely pointing to the 
 man Christ Jesus, to His acts and sufferings. The 
 principles of that life may be as simple as they are 
 deep ; but as they are of lasting import, so they are 
 
THE FRUTT OF LABOUR. 1 69 
 
 capable of expression. And so, if we would learn all we 
 can from St. Paul, we must think of his words until we 
 find in them a universal truth, as applicable to our 
 times as to his. And the truth which may be 
 gathered from these words is something of this kind. 
 The Christian ideal of blessedness has two aspects, 
 which both meet in Christ : one inward and upward, 
 looking towards communion with God ; and one out- 
 ward and around, looking towards our brethren of 
 mankind, especially towards the weaker brethren — 
 those little ones for whom Christ died. 
 
 It is often asserted in the present day, and what 
 is often asserted is apt to be temporarily believed, 
 that Christianity tends only upwards : that it is the 
 effect of our religion to direct men's gaze into a distant 
 and unknown heaven, while the realities of life pass 
 by them unregarded : that Christians are absorbed in 
 ' theological and metaphysical controversies,' to the 
 neglect of social well-being : that the thought of the 
 invisible future has swallowed up the visible present, 
 and that we relinquish the substance of this life for the 
 shadow of another. We can only answer that in so 
 far as this has been so, we have been untrue to the spirit 
 of our own sacred books. There may be some sting 
 in the taunt, as directed against historical Christianity, 
 in which the intention of the Divine Founder has been 
 only partially realized. It is with mixed feelings that 
 we look back upon the asceticism of the Middle Ages, 
 
170 THE FRUIT OF LABOUR. 
 
 or on the Crusades, or again on the theology of the 
 seventeenth century, or even on the rehgious move- 
 ments of sixty years since. We must not refuse to 
 learn even from professed enemies, who show us where 
 in our spiritual warfare we are beating the air ; though 
 we may have to acknowledge that, could we but have 
 seen to read it, the lesson was already written for us 
 in the plainest terms. We may plead perhaps that no 
 lesson is learnt all at once, least of all a lesson so deep 
 and wide as the meaning of the life of Christ : and 
 that in the history of all ideas some vague aspiration 
 has ever preceded the final practical effect. But to 
 show that Christianity has a blessing for the life that 
 now is, as well as for the life to come, we need go no 
 further than the Epistles of St. Paul. In detail we 
 are not called upon to copy him, although in every 
 detail there is a sagacity, and moderation, and tact, 
 mingled with his enthusiasm, which give the example 
 of a worldly prudence wiser than the wisdom of this 
 world. But where has the general principle of ' living 
 for others ' ever been so nobly exemplified ? Where 
 shall we find such solicitous and tender care for the 
 true well-being of others here in time, as well as for 
 their ultimate perfection ? Or who can accuse St. 
 Paul of caring selfishly for his own salvation, as if 
 that were the goal of his endeavour, when, in his 
 eagerness to bring his own nation to the truth, he 
 expresses himself as willing to be accurst from Christ ; 
 
THE FRUIT OF LABOUR. 17I 
 
 when, knowing that to depart and be with Christ is 
 far better, he yet prayed that he might live to give 
 strength to struggHng churches ; when, with the end 
 in view, and the crown of glory certain in his eye, he 
 could not think of his own reward apart from his 
 brethren : ' A crown of glory which the Lord, the 
 righteous Judge, shall give me in that day, and not to 
 me only, but to all those that love His appearing^ 
 
 To act in the present, to live for others, to redeem 
 the time, to use all means for bettering the physical 
 and social, as well as the moral and spiritual condition 
 of mankind — these, it need hardly be said to a 
 Christian audience, are precepts in full accordance 
 with Christianity. But the thought of another life, 
 for which this is the seedtime and preparation, in 
 which some obstacles that check the flow of goodness 
 here will be removed, and whatever we have sown of 
 righteousness will bear fruit a thousandfold — this, 
 instead of being out of harmony with such duties, is 
 the greatest of all incentives to them. For if we lay 
 to heart the words, ' Inasmuch as ye did it unto the 
 least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me,' we 
 shall learn that life in Christ is not separable from life 
 in duty ; that if the soul is permitted to retire inwards 
 for communion with God, this is only in order that in 
 the strength of such food she may go forth to action 
 with greater power; that we cannot say 'Our Father,' 
 without adding ' Thy will be done in earth ; ' that 
 
172 THE FRUIT OF LABOUR. 
 
 every grace of God, like the seven loaves of the 
 miracle, is increased through being imparted ; and 
 that the hope of heaven cannot exist apart from the 
 hope that life on earth may be the ' fruit of labour.' 
 
 For our belief of immortality is dependent on our 
 belief in God ; and, as we are moral beings, our belief 
 in God grows strong or weak with our belief in the 
 supremacy of good. But if all souls are God's, who 
 will do with all that which is just and right, what 
 notion can we form of eternal life but that of par- 
 taking of the divine nature, through becoming conscious 
 instruments of His good and righteous will towards 
 men ? That is the good work which He begins in us 
 here, and which gives us confidence that He will per- 
 form it to the end : a work not of selfish isolation, but 
 of communion and fellowship with all — with those 
 likeminded with us, that we may have some inter- 
 change of grace — with those from whom we differ, 
 that we may find the points of agreement between us 
 more important than those in which we differ ; — 
 communion with those more advanced than we are, 
 that we may receive some gift ; and with those still 
 faltering at the entrance of the way, that we may 
 win the higher blessedness of strengthening them. 
 
 Will that communion and fellowship be less binding, 
 will the religious motive to labour for mankind be less 
 constraining, because we know that this life is not all, 
 'that all we see is but an endless work begun'? Surely 
 
THE FRUIT OF LAHOUR. 
 
 ^13 
 
 far otherwise. That men without such an inspiring 
 hope should be found to labour for mankind, is indeed 
 a strong proof of zeal — a zeal which one would think 
 must, even if unconsciously, have some higher end 
 than to raise man a little above the brutes. But how 
 much more earnestly ought those to labour, who have 
 been taught the infinite worth of every human spirit, 
 to whom every moment of time includes possibilities 
 of eternal value, and who, in working for others in the 
 cause of truth and right, believe that they are fellow- 
 workers with the Almighty ! 
 
 The widening of our earthly horizons in the later 
 ages, through the revelations of science, may naturally 
 for a moment rivet our gaze earthwards. But only 
 for a moment. Our second thought should be one 
 of thankfulness, that there has been given to us a 
 larger measure of that which we can never fully com- 
 prehend, the knowledge of the work which God 
 worketh from the beginning to the end : that there 
 have been given us richer means of usefulness, and 
 untold powers for good. 
 
 But as in our thankfulness we look upwards, do we 
 see a corresponding enlargement of the heavenly 
 horizons.? The answer is more doubtful. Some mists of 
 error have been dispelled ; some dark clouds that 
 rested even on the highest intellects of former days 
 have passed or are slowly passing away : but such 
 
174 THE FRUIT OF LABOUR. 
 
 negative gains, though doubtless blessed for the race, 
 will be of small effect for us, if we practically lose 
 hold of the central truth, that goodness is divine and 
 eternal. Let theology be purified as it may, no theory 
 can surpass the reality of the life of Christ ; no 
 enlightenment can be a substitute for that prophetic 
 fire, which Moses prayed that all the people might 
 receive, which Milton prematurely boasted that they 
 had received, which comes forth from the growing 
 consciousness of a present God, of His goodwill to 
 men, and of the powers of the life to come. 
 
 If our heart is fixed in the belief that God is 
 good and true, and if we cling to this against all 
 appearances and through all trials, and if we strive 
 continually to realize this belief in act, we shall not 
 be dismayed at the thought of our own death, nor 
 shall we be vexed with anxiety for those whom God 
 takes away from us to Himself. There are sadder 
 things than death in this world. But there is one 
 desire which the thought of death should quicken in 
 us all, and that is, that our life, while it lasts, may be 
 the fruit of labour. 
 
SERMON XIV. 
 
 CHRIST AND CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 CHRISTMAS DAY, 1870. 
 
 ' The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the 
 days of the Son of man,' — Luke xvii. 22. 
 
 ' And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three ; but the 
 greatest of these is charity.' — i CoR. xiii. 13. 
 
 Christianity may be regarded personally or 
 impersonally, as the following of Christ or as the 
 realization of a divine ideal. There are some who 
 find their chief support in thinking of the Saviour 
 himself, while some would dwell rather on the spirit 
 of His teaching. To the heart of many Christians 
 He is more than His words, and more than any 
 lesson to be drawn from His life. To the mind of 
 others the eternal truth which He revealed and the 
 principles of His divine life appear to have their full 
 value only when they are considered absolutely, and 
 as having a meaning which is independent of history. 
 Neither aspect is complete without the other. Mere 
 feeling may hold principles in solution, as it were, but 
 is imperfectly conscious of them, and is apt to lose 
 something either of clearness or of breadth, becoming 
 
176 CHRIST AND CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 either intense and narrow, or diffusive and vague ; and 
 the attempt of the intellect to separate ideas from 
 their origin, and to view them abstractedly in them- 
 selves, may^ if pursued exclusively, tend to weaken 
 character. 
 
 I propose, first, to speak of Jesus Christ as one 
 who has called us friends ; and secondly, of faith 
 and hope and love, as exemplified in Him, and as 
 first principles or essential elements of the Christian 
 life. 
 
 I. Jesus is our Friend, because He was the Friend 
 of all men ; because we feel that there were no limits 
 to His human and divine love. He whose compassion 
 went forth effectually to thousands in a single day; 
 He who sat down to eat with publicans and sinners 
 at the invitation of one of them whom He had called; 
 who accepted the humble penitent ; who, having once 
 loved any, loved them unto the end ; He who stretched 
 forth His hands to His disciples, and said, ' Behold 
 my mother and my brethren,' — has a heart that can 
 embrace all men. When we read of His giving Him- 
 self for men, we feel that though we have not seen 
 Him we have been the objects of His love, and that 
 we are receivers of the gifts which He died bestowing. 
 We cannot think ourselves excluded, unless we are 
 of those who keep back the truth or hinder the work 
 of goodness ; and in so far as any are or have been so, 
 the very fierceness of His rebuke, ' Woe unto you 
 
CHRIST AND CHRISTIAN GRACES. 1 77 
 
 that shut up the kingdom of heaven against men,' 
 may convince us alike of His love to souls, and of 
 our need of partaking in His spirit. 
 
 2. He is our Friend, because He convinces us of sin. 
 In straining our gaze backward through time, beyond 
 the ideal of the Reformers, beyond the ideal of the 
 mediaeval mystic, even beyond the ideal of the early 
 Church, and in trying to see Him as He really was 
 in Galilee and Jerusalem, the eye will sometimes 
 swim in mists of uncertainty. But we see enough 
 to know that the worship of eighteen centuries has 
 not been an error, and that all other lives are partial 
 when compared with His. Whatever may be our 
 own nature and circumstances, we cannot draw near 
 to that image of perfect purity, tenderness, and 
 strength, of absolute fearlessness in the assertion of 
 truth, of absolute devotedness to the eternal good 
 of men, without being made aware that in some way 
 we have fallen short of what God would have us to 
 be, of that which we ourselves desire to be. What 
 need of enumerating the blots which become manifest, 
 even in holy lives, when shorn of false hues through 
 this correcting glass ? Impatience, timidity, extrava- 
 gance, indolence, the prevalence of one idea, personal 
 respects, the blindness of affection, inconsiderate judg- 
 ment, limitations and narrowness of all kinds, the 
 faults of weakness, the faults of unchastcned strength ; 
 all these are continually showing that we have an 
 N 
 
178 CHRIST AND CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 imperfect hold of the will of God and of the good 
 of man. Christ ever held to both with a tenacity of 
 love which no power could ever in the least unfasten. 
 And therefore He at once rebukes and animates 
 us. All high examples do this in their degree ; 
 but in Jesus Christ the power of conviction and of 
 encouragement is inexhaustible. In any separate part 
 of life, as in an art which we are learning, or an 
 endeavour on which the future hangs, we are grateful 
 soon or late to one who only shows us our defects. 
 But he who shows us where we fail, and in the same act, 
 by example, or teaching, or sympathy, or some hidden 
 power, enables us to do better afterwards, is the one 
 who immediately and irresistibly wins our gratitude. 
 And this is what Christ does for us in the whole of life. 
 3. For, in the third place. He is our Friend because, 
 while He convinces us of sin. He gives to us the 
 power of faith in God. The fact that such a life 
 was lived upon the earth, makes easier for men till 
 the end of time the practical belief in One above 
 ' from whom all goodness flows,' And this faith be- 
 comes still clearer when we find that Jesus himself 
 referred the secret of His strength to His union with 
 One whom He called His Father in heaven. As we 
 draw nearer to Him with love, we ' believe in His 
 belief;' and it is a belief in which there is no offence. 
 Whatever intellectual difficulties may arise from facts 
 of experience or from peculiarities of mental history. 
 
CHRIST AND CHRISTIAN GRACES. 1 79 
 
 the God whom Christ revealed will ever be ac- 
 ceptable to the moral nature and to the heart of man. 
 The loving Father of all His children, who is kind 
 even to the unthankful and to the evil, who goes 
 forth to meet the penitent from afar off, and to 
 save men from their sins will give even His beloved 
 Son ; a God who judges by no arbitrary or traditional 
 standard, but by the law of love, and judges only that 
 He may save ; a God of perfect righteousness, whose 
 will is that all His creatures shall partake of His 
 righteousness and become holy, as He is holy — this 
 thought of our unseen Father, who will forgive our 
 debts as we forgive our debtors, can never cease to 
 win the spiritual affections of mankind. And when 
 this thought has become a practical principle, firmly 
 fixed within and going forth continually in action, 
 then the assurance of faith is realized. 
 
 4. Fourthly, Jesus is our Friend because He gives 
 us also the assurance of hope. In His life we have 
 the earnest of a regenerated humanity. If the love 
 of Christ has given us a light of faith which shines 
 upon our own individual path^ His Spirit also sheds 
 a light of hope upon the darkness of this world. On 
 first awakening from some ideal vision of perfection 
 and peace, which aspiration has painted on the 
 heaven of our inward sight, we may be startled by 
 the harsh realities that crowd in upon us, until we 
 remember Him who, foreseeing the end from the 
 N % 
 
l8o CHRIST AND CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 beginning, sent forth His twelve apostles on their 
 desperate mission, preached the coming of the king- 
 dom when He knew not where to lay His head, and, 
 in the parables of the grain of mustard seed and 
 of the leaven, calmly affirmed that the spread of 
 truth and righteousness would be slow and gradual, 
 but ultimately universal. 
 
 We cannot despair of the world of which He did 
 not despair ; we have gentler thoughts of that human 
 nature which He claimed as the Son of Man ; we 
 know that truth and right are the greatest powers 
 in the universe, and must prevail. 
 
 In a word, then, we have such a Friend, who has 
 loved us even before our birth with an all-embracing 
 love, a love purer and therefore stronger than that 
 of others. And His desire in dying was that we 
 should be saved from all that is base, and mean, and 
 unlovely, and untrue, and wrong, and that we should 
 rise and follow Him in the path of righteousness, 
 and become partakers of the blessed life. Is it any 
 reason for our frustrating that desire, for remaining 
 contented with a low and perverse condition of soul, 
 for being indifferent to all higher aims, that our 
 Friend is absent, and that, although we know what 
 great things He has done for us, we have never seen 
 Him ? Or rather, is it not when He is removed 
 from sight that the sayings of our Friend sink down 
 
CHRIST AND CHRISTIAN GRACES. l8l 
 
 into the heart, and we begin to recognize their essen- 
 tial value ? 
 
 This leads us to the second part of our subject. 
 For this personal ground of the obligation to Christian 
 obedience is not the only ground, though I have 
 dwelt long upon it, because it naturally commends 
 itself to so many. Jesus would have us listen to 
 His words, not merely because they are His, but 
 because they are true. If He were now on earth 
 He might recall many of us from speculations 
 about His person to the practical fulfilment of His 
 teaching, 'Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not 
 the things that I say?' If we would keep the feast 
 of His nativity as He would wish us to do, we 
 must keep it as the birthday of Christianity, and 
 of the kingdom of God and righteousness upon the 
 earth. We hold Him as divine, not only because 
 we have been taught so, but because in those 
 few broken years of His ministry He founded the 
 divine religion whose essential truth we believe to 
 be eternal, and whose universal acceptance, so far 
 as that essential truth is concerned, we regard as 
 only a question of time. The spirit of Christianity 
 is the meaning of the life of Christ ; and that meaning 
 is summed up in St. Paul's words : ' Now abideth 
 faith, hope, love, these three ; but the greatest of 
 these is love.' These are the permanent elements of 
 our religion, whose force is to remain, when tongues 
 
l8a CHRIST AND CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 have ceased, and prophecy fails, and human know- 
 ledge of things divine seems to be vanishing away. 
 
 Faith, not looking backwards, but forwards, over- 
 coming the present by realizing what is future and 
 unseen ; not scorning experience, but seeking ever 
 to learn the application of true principles through 
 the light of facts. A faith that has the courage of 
 its own convictions, because its vision is direct and 
 practical ; which sees clearly because it has a single 
 aim, which sees far because it soars so high. A calm 
 faith, which can afford to wait, because it is so certain 
 of the ultimate triumph of good ; an earnest faith, 
 which cannot rest inactive, but must work on perse- 
 veringly, though with little immediate result. A faith 
 not for ourselves alone, but for the world, and espe- 
 cially for all who have been brought within our 
 sphere ; trusting them to the Almighty purposes, but 
 ever roused anew to labour for them, as being fellow- 
 workers with God. Faith in God and in His good- 
 will towards men. Faith in that nature which was 
 made in the image of God. Faith in the victory of 
 justice, mercy, and truth. Faith in the power of 
 enlightened self-devotion to renew mankind. Such 
 is the abiding principle of Christian faith. 
 
 And Christian hope is like unto it, if it be not 
 rather the very bloom and exuberance of Christian 
 faith. Hope, not of any outward good, but of endless 
 
CHRIST AND CHRISTIAN GRACES. 183 
 
 progress in partaking of the life of God. Hope, not 
 of any special changes in one spot of earth, but of 
 the spiritual improvement of the race, to be effected 
 both from without and from within. A hope that 
 is not easily cast down, but, as guided by faith and 
 not by sight, is brightest in the darkest gloom, like 
 the hope which noble Frenchmen have been lately 
 cherishing, of the regeneration of their country. A 
 hope that by its inherent life bursts the bands of 
 fatalism, and cannot be held down with reflections 
 on the degeneracy of the age, or the inveteracy of 
 inherited defect, but can estimate the possibilities 
 of moral growth. 
 
 'It is an ever- fixed mark, 
 Which looks on tempests, but is never shaken ; 
 It is the star to every wandering bark. 
 Whose worth 's unknown, although his height be taken.' 
 
 Nor can this hope be satisfied with the conviction, 
 to which it still must cling, that in the after life that 
 is unknown to us, every soul of man will receive the 
 just and merciful award : — 
 
 * That good shall fall, 
 At last— far off— at last, to all.' 
 
 For such an anticipation of things beyond our reach, 
 although comforting, is all too consistent with feeble 
 and languid efforts for the actual good of men. And 
 Christian hope is active, full of energy; it is the 
 life of Christian work, that is, of all work that is 
 
184 CHRIST AND CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 worth the doing. The Christian hfe knows not 
 despair ; it possesses the soul in patience, it watches 
 unweariedly for the good of others. Like an east- 
 ward mountain summit, it is flushed with radiance 
 when all things far and near are still wrapt in night. 
 
 Faith is the strong stem of the tree, which puts forth 
 the leaves and blossoms of hope ; but love is the root, 
 which ministers life and sap to all other graces of the 
 soul. It is love that believeth all things ; it is love that 
 hopeth all things. This is the secret of the life which 
 Christian fancy delights to think of as beginning on 
 this day, in ' the light that shone when hope was 
 born.' And Christian love, too, is no mere sentiment, 
 but an active principle, working in the lives of Chris- 
 tians according to their measure, as it wrought with- 
 out measure in the life of Christ. It is not only 
 the communion of the brethren ; for Christ Himself 
 has said, and His words remain as a warning to His 
 followers, ' If ye salute your brethren only, what do 
 ye more than others ? ' Nor is it only the ' enthu- 
 siasm of humanity,' claiming brotherhood with all 
 that wear the form of man. It is this, and more than 
 this ; the intense desire, or rather the determination, 
 to extend the blessings of truth and goodness to all 
 that come within our reach. No blind passionate 
 longing, no weak craving for sympathy; but the 
 simple continued act of giving more than we receive. 
 
 I 
 
CHRIST AND CHRISTIAN GRACES. 185 
 
 This love is fearless and direct, because it is so 
 strong ; it has no reserves, no suspicion of being 
 misunderstood. It goes ever forth and ever onward, 
 withholding no good from any, freely extending help 
 according as there is opportunity and according as 
 there is any need. To apply a fine saying of an 
 Indian sage, ' It moves not only with but against the 
 wind.' Such is the love that ' seeketh not her own, 
 is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not 
 in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.' Other affec- 
 tions are limited, perhaps exclusive, in proportion 
 to their intensity : this extends more widely as it 
 becomes more vivid in central energy. 
 
 In conclusion, we may return once more to the 
 personal side of our religion. For the virtues of 
 which the Apostle speaks are no mere abstract names 
 to us ; we have seen them livingly exemplified in 
 those whose hands we have clasped in ours, whose 
 looks and tones and gestures we remember well. 
 
 The saintly one, who seemed to borrow an un- 
 earthly grace as the outward form decayed, who 
 spoke quite simply of an ever-strengthening trust 
 that was confirmed by sorrow, who, dwelling amongst 
 the lesser things of life and ever mindful of the least 
 of them, was in all this only striving with painful 
 effort to make life more beautiful— such an one shall 
 be the imacfe to us of the faith in things unseen. 
 
l86 CHRIST AND CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 Some strong heroic soul, earnest and blithe, that 
 having descried a world of good unrealized, went on 
 with quenchless ardour over rough and smooth, till 
 all around had caught the irresistible fire — shall still 
 cheer us onwards as with the voice of hope. 
 
 And some one, who in a few short years did the 
 work of many a lifetime, whose ever-joyous spirit 
 was most gladdened when he could help a friend, 
 whose loyalty to those once loved by him was only 
 exceeded by his free, spontaneous activity in labour- 
 ing for the general good — shall forbid us to confuse 
 or to degrade the type of manly Christian love. 
 
 Such there have been, and our eyes have seen them. 
 They rest from earthly labour : our work is before 
 us still. Let us likewise seek to be strong in faith, 
 patient through hope, and rooted in charity; that, 
 even amidst 'the waves of this troublesome world,' 
 we may be members with them of that unbroken 
 communion of the saints, one family in earth and 
 heaven, of which Christ is the Head and Lord ; while 
 all that is lovely and of good report, all that ministers 
 to the higher good of man, whether owning Him 
 or not, has a place in the fellowship of His kingdom. 
 
SERMON XV. 
 
 ON PRAYER. 
 
 1863. 
 
 * Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye 
 ask Him.' — Matt. vi. 8. 
 
 These words of Christ are introductory to the 
 example which He gave to His disciples of the 
 manner in which they ought to pray; and they afford 
 the reason of the precept, 'When ye pray, use not vain 
 repetitions,' or unmeaning phrases, 'as the heathen 
 do ; ' (with which may be compared the words of the 
 Hebrew preacher : ' Be not rash with thy mouth, and 
 let not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before 
 God : for He is in heaven and thou upon earth, there- 
 fore let thy words be few '). ' They think that they 
 shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not like 
 unto them ; for your Father knoweth what things ye 
 have need of, before ye ask Him.' 
 
 This is one of those sayings of our Lord, which not 
 only go directly to the heart of every man, but also by 
 their simple utterance convince the reason; such as are 
 these also from the same Sermon on the mount : ' He 
 
1 88 ON PRAYER. 
 
 maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the 
 good.' 'Where your treasure is, there will your heart 
 be also.' 'No man can serve two masters.' 'Which of 
 you by taking thought can add a cubit to his stature?' 
 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, 
 even so do unto them.' 
 
 God, who made all, knows and cares for all. The 
 very hairs of every head are numbered. He is 
 working all together for the final good of all. The 
 unconscious infant, the wild, thoughtless youth, the 
 ripening Christian, lie equally in the full sunshine of 
 His eye, and are borne and carried in the arms of His 
 goodness, which is over all His works, for He is kind 
 even to the unthankful and the evil. Still deeper 
 fountains of His love are opened to those who can 
 receive His love — to those who by patient continuance 
 in well-doing seek for glory, honour, and immortality — 
 to those who are labouring to strengthen others — to 
 those who speak the truth which they have heard 
 from Him. Once more. His love goes forth to the 
 repentant sinner, embracing him while yet a great way 
 off from his Father's home ; not contending against 
 him with great power, but putting strength in him, 
 else the spirit should fail before Him, and the soul 
 which He hath made. In all these ways the love of 
 God is shown anticipating our love, 'Not that we 
 loved Him, but that He first loved us;' His thought 
 
ON PRAYER. 1 89 
 
 anticipating our thought, 'For there is not a thought in 
 my heart, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.' 
 
 This consideration of the all-embracing love and 
 care of our heavenly Father is here applied by Jesus 
 Christ himself to modify the natural or first ideas of 
 men respecting prayer : 'When ye pray, ye shall not 
 be as the Pharisees are ; ' and, ' Use not vain re- 
 petitions, as the heathen do.' 
 
 The earliest prayers arose chiefly from two feelings 
 incident to human nature : the feeling of want and 
 dependence, and the feeling of sin. Like other deep 
 feelings, these were chiefly called forth by temporal 
 calamity, or on occasions of unusual danger, anxiety, 
 or difficulty: 'When He smote them, then they sought 
 Him. and turned them early, and enquired after God.' 
 At such times, though not knowing God, men felt 
 after Him, a power above them, of whom, in the dark- 
 ness of their ignorance, they dimly guessed. They 
 sought to avert His anger, to propitiate His special 
 favour, to obtain the removal of some distress, or the 
 success of some public or private enterprise. Such 
 were the first upliftings of the human heart to the 
 Almighty ; from whence may partly be understood 
 the strange phenomenon, that amongst many primitive 
 and savage peoples the Supreme Being is only known 
 or worshipped as the author of evil. Nor can we 
 doubt that these feeble and erring cries were heard 
 by God, nor that in the course of His providence 
 
190 ON PRAYER. 
 
 they became the source of higher blessings than those 
 for which the ' praying hands ' were (often vainly) 
 raised. For they contained the germ of those deep 
 cravings of the human spirit after the Divine, which 
 found full and final satisfaction in the revelation of 
 Christ, 
 
 The first and simplest prayer, then, is the expression 
 of spontaneous, natural desire, in the form of a request 
 to God. Men ask help from one who is mightier than 
 they are ; and in doing so they show their belief that 
 He is, and their trust, however dimly felt, that He is 
 the rewarder of those that seek Him. But there is a 
 question that must sooner or later rise, viz. What 
 desires are fit to be thus consecrated ? And the 
 answer must depend on men's conception of the 
 nature and will of Him to whom they pray. No 
 sane and reverent mind will consciously pray for that 
 which he knows it to be against God's nature 
 to grant. For example, no Christian who has been 
 taught to love his enemies can deliberately pray 
 to God, who as he has been told is love, for the 
 fulfilment of a malicious or revengeful wish. The 
 very thought of bringing such desires into His pre- 
 sence, is enough to rebuke the soul for having har- 
 boured them. Nor can one who has truly learnt that 
 God is no respecter of persons, pray consciously for a 
 blessing on himself which involves the diminution of 
 the happiness of others. Thus with every step in 
 
ON PRAYER. 19] 
 
 our knowledge of God, there is a corresponding eleva- 
 tion and enlargement of the spirit of prayer. We 
 know not what things to pray for as we ought, but 
 there is a Spirit which helpeth our infirmities ; and as 
 we enter into the communion of that Spirit, our 
 prayers become more acceptable, because more 
 spiritual. 
 
 I desire in all reverence, endeavouring to follow the 
 simple meaning of our Lord's own words, to set forth 
 in brief outline one or two reflections which may help 
 to clear a subject on which, from the silence often 
 held regarding it, there exists a good deal of confusion 
 of thought. 
 
 And first, considering prayer merely under the first 
 or natural form of a petition or request to God, 
 we are met at once by the limitation spoken of by the 
 Apostle St. John, ' We know that if we ask anything 
 according to His will, He heareth us.' So St, Paul 
 also, in speaking of the prevailing intercession of 
 the Spirit, says ^He maketh intercession for the saints 
 according to the will of God.'' And we have the 
 example of Christ himself, who in His extreme agony, 
 when praying to His Father that the cup of bitterness 
 might be taken from Him, adds, ' Nevertheless, not 
 my will, but Thine be done.' ' Thy will be done,' it 
 has been quaintly said, ' salveth all ; so that what- 
 soever happens, it is but what our daily prayers 
 desire.' Let us look also at a negative or opposite 
 
192 
 
 ON PRAYER. 
 
 example, which we may find amongst the narratives 
 of the Old Testament. The prayer of Elijah on two 
 occasions is referred to by St. James to show that 'the 
 effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth 
 much.' But there was another occasion on which his 
 prayer was not literally fulfilled ; for it was not the 
 prayer of faith, nor according to the will of God. Elijah 
 requested for himself that he might die ; and he said, ' It 
 is enough ; now, O Lord, take away my life ; for I am 
 not better than my fathers.' We know what followed : 
 the journey to Horeb; the vision in the cave; the lesson 
 taught him in that dreary lull of his tempestuous life — 
 that the Lord is not in the wind, the earthquake, nor 
 the fire, but in the still, small voice; then a new mission, 
 new hopes, new duties. Such an experience is by 
 no means unparalleled. Some, probably hundreds in 
 every generation, have prayed for death ; most often, 
 perhaps, some young and tender spirit, when over- 
 whelmed with the first real experience of the struggle 
 and perplexity of life. And God has shown them 
 that His will was not to grant their prayer : but He 
 has met them in their agony, and taught and 
 strengthened them, and led them in ways they 
 had not known. The soul thus taught must surely 
 feel that it was wrong and faithless to have prayed 
 so, and will henceforth be content to wait God's time, 
 and to put unceasing trust and confidence in His 
 support. This shows that the religious heart will 
 
ON PRAYER. 193 
 
 not make request to God, against what He has plainly 
 shown to be His will. 
 
 Now in this instance, and in the cases hitherto 
 supposed, the increased knowledge of the will of God 
 comes from personal experience, or from the study of 
 the words of Christ. But there is another source of 
 knowledge, which though more outward is not less 
 certain, in the experience of mankind at large, and 
 the ascertained facts of nature. The revelations of 
 history and science must be taken into account, if we 
 would learn what God is teaching us of His own will. 
 And we must seek to know this, if we desire to have 
 true reverence in our prayers. 
 
 Furthermore, when we think of prayer as a petition 
 addressed to God, there are some human associa- 
 tions to be avoided. It is only in a figure, for 
 example, that the Apostle speaks of our requests 
 being made known unto Him, who knoweth our ne- 
 cessities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking. 
 Nor can we suppose that the unchangeable and 
 righteous Judge of all the earth will be persuaded, 
 by the most lamentable cry, to do otherwise than as 
 He knoweth to be right, or to change that which 
 His loving wisdom orders, either in His earthly or 
 in His heavenly kingdom ; or that, like some human 
 monarch, the Universal Father will smile only on 
 those who do Him homage. 
 
 Thus we are led onwards to the reflection that 
 O 
 
194 ON PRAYER. 
 
 while request is almost though not quite always the 
 outward form of prayer, the inward essence of prayer 
 is aspiration tempered with submission, the act of at 
 once lifting up our hearts and resigning them to God's 
 holy will : and the end of prayer is not merely that 
 we may get the particular thing we ask for, but much 
 rather that we may be ourselves received into the 
 nearer presence of God. 
 
 The form of request expresses our consciousness 
 of want and of dependence, not any doubt that 
 He who is able, is also willing to supply our need^ 
 if He sees this to be good. But in bringing our 
 desires consciously into His presence, we are really 
 engaged in raising our souls to Him. And in this 
 very act, if done in spirit and in truth, our desires 
 are purified and made more conformable to His 
 will. And so the act of resignation follows closely 
 on that of aspiration. 
 
 Thus in learning to pray aright, in turning from 
 the form to the spirit, we pass through the earthly 
 things into the heavenly things, and our prayer 
 thereby becomes more real, because more spiritual. 
 This view of prayer may be illustrated from that 
 which is often spoken of as the correlative of prayer — 
 the divine promise, in the history of which there is 
 a similar growth or transition from the visible to the 
 eternal. Abraham, when he left his home, might 
 seem to be led by temporal promises which were 
 
 ^ 
 
ON TRAYER. 1 95 
 
 not adequately fulfilled. Many persons may re- 
 member a remarkable though melancholy discourse 
 on this very subject, entitled the Illusivencss of 
 Life. But was Abraham deceived, because he lived 
 in the land of promise as in a strange country ? 
 Not so, unless to receive gold for brass is a decep- 
 tion : for God himself became to Abraham his 
 shield, and his exceeding great reward. And so of 
 all that long mirage of temporal hopes which was 
 almost but not totally dispelled in the destruction 
 of Jerusalem. Shall we say that the nation was 
 deluded to whom they came? Surely not, if the 
 lesson taught to Elijah was worth learning: not unless 
 David and Isaiah lived in vain : not if the highest 
 aspirations of our nature are fulfilled in Him who 
 shall gather in one all the scattered children of God. 
 The Hope of Israel is not lost through being trans- 
 figured into the Hope of Man, 
 
 If prayer were simply a request for the immediate 
 and visible intervention of the Almighty arm, the 
 sphere of prayer would become narrowed as that of 
 human knowledge became enlarged. As Socrates 
 said, it would be irrational and impious to make 
 request to God about things which He has placed 
 in our own power. We cannot ask God to do for 
 us, what we know that He has given us the power 
 to do for ourselves ; nor can we reverently petition 
 of Him to suspend a law which we know, as clearly 
 o a 
 
[g6 ON PRAYER. 
 
 as we know anything, to be of His appointment. 
 But when prayer is regarded in the more spiritual 
 aspect, there is really nothing which affects our life 
 which may not, or indeed which ought not, to become 
 the subject or the occasion of our prayers. There 
 is not a breath of affection or emotion, not a throb 
 of pain, not one bright hope or shrinking fear, 
 except such as are self-condemned, which we may 
 not unbosom to our Father in the language of prayer ; 
 that so the outpourings of our heart may be either 
 corrected and purified, or confirmed by the glad 
 consciousness that they are in accordance with His 
 will. For there is no condition in reality so lonely 
 as that imagined by the poet : 
 
 ' So lonely 'twas, 
 That even God seemed hardly to be there/ 
 
 And to the mourner, the desolate, the anxious and 
 careworn soul, the precept of the Apostle to pray 
 unceasingly, opens a boundless treasure-house of 
 comfort, and of life, and strength. And this without 
 assuming, or even expecting, that any outward change 
 of circumstances will come to them as a direct answer 
 to their prayers. 
 
 In confirmation of the view that aspiration is the 
 essence^, and request only the outward form, of 
 prayer, we may adduce examples of prayer, in which 
 nothing is distinctly asked, and nothing is desired. 
 
ON PRAYER. 197 
 
 except the single blessing of union with God. 'O 
 God, Thou art my God, early will I seek Thee : 
 my soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh also longeth 
 after Thee, in a barren and dry land, where no 
 water is.' ' Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place 
 in all generations.' 'As the hart panteth after the 
 water-brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.' 
 ' Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.' No 
 one of these expressions can be strictly called a 
 request, and yet each of them is of the very essence 
 of prayer. 
 
 For prayer is the mysterious act of communion 
 between man and his Maker, which it were vain to 
 attempt to define accurately, but which in proportion 
 as it is real and deep must be in conscious accordance 
 with what is known of God. There are indeed im- 
 perfect stages of true feeling, which are not without 
 a blessing — upliftings of the partially enlightened 
 soul in passionate entreaty, or instinctive and unrea- 
 soning cries wrung from the more instructed spirit 
 in moments of overwhelming trial or depression, 
 when thought is impossible, and the only refuge from 
 distraction is found in prayer. And none of these 
 can be thought to pass unheeded by Him who 
 quenches not the smoking flax. Moreover, there are 
 many poor in knowledge who are rich in faith. But it 
 becomes those who have entered on the Christian 
 life to press forwards towards perfection, to seek to 
 
ON PRAYER. 
 
 have their desires moulded more and more in ac- 
 cordance with their Father's will, and to look upon 
 the strength and support which they receive in the 
 act of communion with Him, as an infinitely greater 
 blessing than any temporal good which He withholds 
 from them, or any immunity from appointed suffering. 
 Our comfort in religion would be greatly lessened, 
 if we did not think of God as being always absolutely 
 good and wise, and as thinking of us far more than 
 we can ever think of Him. The very ground of 
 prayer is cut away if we suppose that God is changed 
 by prayer. And if he who cometh to God must be- 
 lieve that He exists, he that prayeth to God must seek 
 to know Him as He truly is, and must desire above 
 all other things that knowledge of God, which is 
 life eternal. 
 
 There is another consideration which, although not 
 flowing directly from the text, can never be omitted 
 when we are speaking of prayer, and which is of more 
 immediate practical importance than any other — a 
 consideration which leads by a different path to the 
 same conclusions with the preceding. And it is 
 this : — that all true prayer is inseparable from 
 strenuous energetic action. 
 
 When, in following the model which our Lord has 
 given to us, we look upwards, as children to a father, 
 day by day for the supply of common wants ; when 
 we say with the Psalmist, ' Thou, Lord, only makest 
 
ON PRAYER. 
 
 199 
 
 me to dwell in safety ; ' when we regard every earthly 
 blessing, of which our cup is full, as coming to us 
 immediately from His hand — then we shall also 
 labour most diligently to provide for those of our 
 own house, and we shall observe most carefully all 
 those conditions which regulate health, and secure the 
 preservation of our lives. And this is no paradox : for 
 our prayer, our thankfulness, and our practical 
 obedience are rooted in the same spirit of trust in 
 God, who teaches us concerning Himself, not only 
 by the inward motions of the Spirit in man, but by 
 the outward facts of His providence in the world. 
 And still more, when we plead for the supply of those 
 deeper wants, of which the consciousness begins with 
 the feeling of sinfulness and infirmity, we find prayer 
 to be inseparable from earnest endeavour. It is 
 true indeed that even agonized prayer may long 
 precede the day of final victory and triumph. For 
 aspiration comes before performance. God is good 
 to us, even when we have destroyed ourselves. And 
 even while we are living thoughtlessly, He pre- 
 pares much within us that is called forth afterwards 
 into higher life : and when we have begun to seek 
 Him, it is marvellous how, from a brief and passing 
 moment of communion, from a broken and confused 
 and distracted cry. He begins to mould our spirits to 
 higher aims, and to temper them into gentler forms 
 than heretofore. Those broken cries were met by 
 
ON PRAYER. 
 
 a mightier power. But if we persevere, that power 
 will also overshadow us when we return to duty. The 
 new-creating hand of our Father will be still upon 
 us, and will be felt to encircle us more closely when 
 again we pray. There is no uncertainty here, for 
 this is not the question of some outward occurrence 
 which may or may not be turned to good ; but we are 
 close to the rock on which we build, and are drawing 
 ever nearer to the fountain of life. And the certainty 
 is a growing certainty. To the ripe Christian, whom 
 God has brought through many trials to the peace 
 which passeth understanding, this spirit becomes, in 
 the language of the well-known hymn, 
 
 ' His vital breath, his native air ; ' 
 
 like the thought of a beloved friend which never 
 leaves the heart, almost like the abiding conscious- 
 ness of his individual being. And there are times 
 and events which fall on younger spirits, 
 
 'Whose sudden frost is sudden gain.' 
 
 As this spirit grows, the connexion between prayer 
 and action, of which we have spoken, becomes more 
 and more closely woven. What was at first a general 
 aspiration towards the higher life, the desire to be 
 pure even as Christ is pure, becomes the ruling motive 
 in all the graver circumstances, and more and more 
 by degrees in all the circumstances of life. To pray 
 is to anticipate action : to act is to realize prayer. 
 
ON PRAYER. 
 
 And the habit becomes more fixed of lifting up the 
 heart, not at one brief moment, but whenever the 
 Christian is called either to act or suffer, for that 
 support of the everlasting arms, which ministers 
 strength and peace and comfort, which lifts him out 
 of himself and redoubles his energy, giving the pre- 
 sent assurance of a future recompense, in the face 
 of which all suffering is light and all labour a 
 blessing. 
 
 Further, whatever may be said of prevailing notions 
 respecting intercessory prayer, it is certain that in no 
 act of our religious life, and least of all in prayer, 
 ought our thoughts and wishes to be confined to the 
 narrow circle of our own wants, whether temporal or 
 spiritual. What a glorious inheritance might even a 
 single life become, how rich in great results, how 
 manifold in blessing, were each one repeatedly to 
 think over in the spirit of prayer, to bring consciously 
 before him in communion with the Almighty, all 
 those with whom he has to do— their peculiar 
 wants, their dangers, their opportunities, their weak- 
 nesses and how to remedy them, his own short- 
 comings in dealing with them in time past, his re- 
 solutions to make renewed efforts to help them in the 
 future. How would the idea of living for others, 
 which is now often ineffectual because so vague, be 
 in that case intensified and realized ! What increase 
 of wisdom should we not receive from Him who 
 
202 ON PRAYER. 
 
 giveth liberally to all, and upbraideth not any ! How 
 would sympathy, intuitive perception, instinctive tact, 
 and unwearied energy, be multiplied ! 
 
 Need it be added, finally, that thanksgiving is an 
 essential part of prayer; or that this element is espe- 
 cially characteristic of our religion, as the religion of 
 cheerfulness and hope? There is no difficulty here; or 
 rather the difficulty is of the heart, and not of the head. 
 If we believe that God is the author of our blessings, 
 our want of thankfulness to Him in thought and 
 action, in our lips and lives, can only be regarded 
 by us as a sin. 
 
 There is no fear of our believing too much in the 
 efficacy of prayer. We believe in it far too little. 
 We think far too httle of the importance of conse- 
 crating by the spirit of devotion the whole tenour of our 
 lives. But there is some fear that, by closing our eyes 
 to what God is teaching us of His own ways through 
 the history and experience of our race, we may retain 
 a lower conception of the nature of prayer than is 
 justified by what God has taught us of Himself; and 
 that we may take something from the reality of our 
 prayers by thus separating them from the daily current 
 of our thoughts, and from the principles that needs 
 must regulate most things in the ordinary current 
 of our lives. For if in our so-called secular thoughts 
 and actions God is regarded by us, as experience has 
 shown Him to be, as a God of Order, whose Providence 
 
ON PRAYER. 203 
 
 is one with Law, but in our prayers alone we retain 
 the carHer and less perfect notion of a God of caprice 
 and change — then, no less surely than the man whose 
 soul was limed with a bosom sin, 'when we would 
 pray and think, we think and pray to several objects.' 
 But if the spirit of true religion contained in the words 
 of Christ is allowed to have free course, it will be 
 found not to contradict, but rather to supplement and 
 enlarge, the lesson of experience and knowledge. In 
 this also Christ came not to destroy, but to fulfil. 
 
SERMON XVI. 
 
 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 
 
 ' Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of 
 the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven.' — Matt. v. 20. 
 
 To ears that have been attuned to the sounds of 
 ordinary Hfe, the tone of prophecy even from the 
 lips of Christ comes with somewhat of harshness. 
 Imperfectly apprehending the evils which called forth 
 the utterance, the mind cannot wholly realize the 
 truth and righteousness of that which is uttered. If 
 our modern sensibilities are thus jarred by the woes 
 which our Lord denounced against the teachers of 
 his country and generation, it is right that we should 
 remember (i) not to dwell too much upon the form 
 of words ; these naturally have something in them 
 specially applicable to the time and adapted to the 
 minds of the time : (3) that in the severest of all 
 denunciations there is a tone of pitying expostula- 
 tion — recalling the lament over Jerusalem, ' If thou 
 hadst known;' — ' Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, 
 how shall ye escape the damnation of hell ? ' The 
 
 A 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 205 
 
 wish for their escape is even stronger than the almost 
 despair. True moral and spiritual indignation is the 
 outcome of love, and is proportioned to the intensity 
 of love. What depth of sorrowing affection is there 
 not contained in the calm words, ' It were better for 
 him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, 
 and he were drowned in the depths of the sea ' ? 
 Bearing this in mind, we shall be free to fix our 
 attention on the lasting import of our Lord's pro- 
 phecy — the irreconcileable opposition between the 
 spirit of Christ and the spirit of hypocrisy and 
 fanaticism ; the spirit which binds heavy burdens 
 grievous to be borne, and touches them not ; which 
 devours widows' houses, while for a show making long 
 prayers ; which takes away the key of knowledge ; 
 which tithes mint, anise, and cummin, while neglecting 
 justice and mercy ; which builds the sepulchres of the 
 righteous, while filling up the measure of the iniquity 
 of those who killed them. 
 
 But we should lose something of the historical, and 
 therefore of the real significance of the contrast of 
 Christianity and Pharisaism, were we to dwell ex- 
 clusively on such passages as these. We know from 
 Scripture that individuals amongst the Pharisees were 
 very far from being mere hypocrites. Nicodemus 
 was a Pharisee, and one of the Sanhedrim ; so was 
 Gamaliel, the human teacher of St. Paul. These, 
 both in different ways, without avowing their belief 
 
206 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 
 
 in Christ (there is no reason for supposing that Gama- 
 liel was a believer), acted in a manner which is 
 certainly not recorded for condemnation. We cannot 
 suppose them to be included in the sweeping net of 
 the anathemas pronounced upon their class. And 
 deep students of Eastern literature tell us of facts 
 which show that these were no mere isolated excep- 
 tions, facts which to many Christians may come with 
 surprise. 
 
 During the four hundred years and upwards, from 
 about 200 B.C. to 300 A.D,, during which the scribes 
 were the leaders of the Jewish race, sitting, as our 
 Saviour truly said, in the seat of Moses, and succeed- 
 ing to the influence exercised by the schools of the 
 prophets, there were many wise and good men amongst 
 them — men who have left sayings worthy to have found 
 a place in the Book of Wisdom, or the Proverbs of 
 Solomon, and breathing a pure and exalted morality, 
 occasionally even something of a prophetic spirit. 
 For their race and country m.any of them were con- 
 tent to die. Nor was their zeal for the law a mere 
 ignorant inculcation of outworn ceremonial precepts. 
 They at least endeavoured to give a higher meaning 
 to these precepts while they enforced them. And 
 some were forward to proclaim, in the spirit of the 
 prophets, that a blameless life was of more worth 
 than all outward observances. Speculation and 
 reflection had not been stationary between the time 
 
TPIE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 207 
 
 of Malachi and that of Christ. Those who have had 
 the curiosity to read the English translation of the 
 Apocrypha are well aware that the ' hope full of 
 immortality' is ascribed to the just with far greater 
 clearness in its pages than in the Old Testament. 
 And he who said, ' Do not unto another what thou 
 wouldest not have another do unto. thee. This is the 
 whole law,' was surely not far from the kingdom. 
 To suppose such a man (who, it is said, lived in the 
 generation before our Lord) to be included in the 
 denunciations of the Pharisees, would be a mistake 
 of the same order as to imagine that Socrates and 
 Plato were consciously included by St. Paul in his 
 universal description of the evils of the heathen world 
 in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. 
 ' Not to retaliate ; ' to ' labour without hope of earthly 
 reward ; ' ' to esteem charity before knowledge ; ' ' to 
 be of those who make for peace : ' these and many 
 other such counsels of perfection have something in 
 them almost of a Christian sound. 
 
 Almost, and yet not quite. For, first of all, their 
 tone, like that of all morality except the Christian, 
 is negative ; whereas Christianity is wholly positive : 
 and this is really the difference between the finite 
 and infinite. What a difference, for example, between 
 saying with Hillcl or Confucius, ' Do not unto another 
 what thou wouldest not have another do unto thee,' 
 and saying, ' Whatsoever ye would that men should 
 
308 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 
 
 do to you, even so do ye unto them ;' between saying, 
 ' Do no harm even to enemies,' as Plato said, and 
 saying, ' Love your enemies ; ' between ' It is better to 
 suffer wrong than to do wrong,' though that was a noble 
 paradox of Socrates, and ' Bless them that curse you, 
 do good to them that hate you and persecute you.' 
 
 Secondly, and this is the point to which I would 
 chiefly invite attention, we cannot but mark the 
 fact that Pharisaism did not, any more than Greek 
 philosophy, redeem the world : its tendency was 
 rather on the whole a retrograde tendency. It 
 had, comparatively speaking, no leavening power. 
 Individual teachers might strive with much effect to 
 bring the ancient code into harmony with the wants 
 of a reflective and cultivated age. Within certain 
 schools, a lofty esoteric teaching might prevail ; nay, 
 some even, yearning after the true consolation of 
 Israel, might by their pure and charitable lives and 
 their wise precepts put real new wine into the old 
 bottles : just as the more hopeless attempt was after- 
 wards made by well-meaning heathens to reanimate 
 the dying form of pagan worship into a fit tabernacle 
 for a spiritual service. Many a zealous and ' angelic 
 doctor ' may have honestly sought, by instructing his 
 hearers out of the law, to be a guide to the blind, 
 a light to those in darkness, an instructor of the 
 foolish, a teacher of babes, having the form of know- 
 ledge and of the truth in the law. But for the pulling 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 209 
 
 down of the strongholds of evil, another method was 
 needed, that of Christ. Such teachers did not sweep 
 away the mountainous dust of error for truth to over- 
 peer ; they did but Httle to melt the pride and fana- 
 ticism of the soul. The breach between man and 
 man, between Jew and Gentile, between bond and 
 free, between Pharisee and publican, could not be 
 healed even slightly with words, however mildly 
 spoken : to hedge about the Law by however en- 
 lightened an interpretation, after the Law had become 
 a burden to the conscience, was not the way to heal 
 the breach between man and God. Think of that 
 miracle of the world, the growth of early Christianity, 
 of the Christianity of the New Testament, the Chris- 
 tianity of Christ in Galilee, of St. Paul in the cities 
 of the Roman world : and you will feel the force of 
 our Lord's saying that His hearers could not be 
 His true followers, or receive the gifts which He 
 brought to earth from His Father in heaven, unless 
 their righteousness exceeded the righteousness of the 
 Scribe and Pharisee, even if we esteem that righteous- 
 ness at the highest rate which history warrants. 
 
 As we dwell upon this contrast in the light of facts, 
 the truth comes home to us with new force that 
 Christianity is more than a theological doctrine, more 
 even than a moral and spiritual doctrine. Christianity 
 is a life. The essence of Christianity, the ground of 
 the mighty power which it has wielded, is not to be 
 P 
 
2IO THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 
 
 sought in isolated sayings of Christ (though these do 
 contain something of the secret), not in the golden 
 rule, not in the Lord's Prayer — the wisdom and 
 piety of mankind had approached, though they had 
 not attained to the perfection of these — but rather 
 in the life of Christ, and in the inexhaustible energy 
 of devoted service which that life communicated to 
 His Apostles. In the knowledge of that life we have 
 a treasure which was not possessed by the older 
 world : and although many a good Jew or heathen 
 might put Christian men to shame, yet there is a 
 sense in which every one who struggles, however 
 imperfectly, to make the ideal of that life his own, 
 is greater than they. In Christ we believe that life 
 to be absolutely good. In His followers it is partially 
 and feebly realized, yet ever growing : a life which is 
 more than the things on which it feeds, which rises 
 above current maxims, and is too strong in its free- 
 dom to be overawed by authority from the past or 
 deceived by the cant of the present : a life intensely 
 individual and personal, yet not resting wholly on any 
 influence save the truth of God. 
 
 Let us dwell for a little while on the nature of this 
 life, (i) as it is seen in Christ himself, (2) as we may 
 hope to make it our own. 
 
 I. The meaning of the life of Christ can never be 
 drawn out in words. Its greatness is 'beyond the 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 
 
 reaches of our minds ' in two ways : both from the 
 frag-mentariness of the record, and the divine fuhiess 
 of even that which is recorded. Still, though we may- 
 perceive them faintly, and represent them still more 
 imperfectly, the lines are clear. The simplicity of 
 the main outlines is no less remarkable than their 
 majesty. For each age, for each individual in pro- 
 portion to his spiritual grasp, that life has a peculiar 
 lesson ; but it also touches immediately the hearts of 
 all men. 
 
 It was, before all things, at once a life for man and 
 a life in God. He was ever with the Father and 
 the Father Avith Him, yet He ever went forth in love 
 intense and universal for all mankind. These two 
 aspects of the life, the inward and the outward, are 
 inseparable. The depth and universality of His love 
 to men is measured by the completeness of His com- 
 munion with God. That very communion was for 
 the sake of men : ' For their sakes I sanctify myself, 
 that they also might be sanctified through the truth.' 
 But the very entireness of this dependence on His 
 Father, and of this communication of divine love, 
 rendered Him and the lesson which He taught 
 absolutely free from the influences of the surrounding 
 world. From this cause He taught the people ' with 
 authority, and not as the scribes.' What was true in 
 their teaching He might accept and use as the vehicle 
 of the higher teaching, that flowed from His own 
 P % 
 
212 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 
 
 spirit. He set up no reaction against tradition or 
 authority^ as such ; but He accepted nothing on the 
 authority of man. For the outpouring of His love 
 was guided by divine truth and righteousness. 
 Truth and love are in their perfection ' indeed in- 
 separable : and so also are love and right. For that 
 is not true love that hides or blenches from the 
 truth, nor that which swerves from justice for a 
 partial favour. Three principles then arise immedi- 
 ately from the contemplation of the Gospel record — 
 Love, Truth, and Right. 
 
 I. Can we imagine any condition of humanity from 
 which the Love of Christ would have shrunk back ; 
 any chamber of human misery too dark for Him to 
 enter with consoling strength ; any joy so bright that 
 His presence would not make it brighter ; any touch 
 of sorrow too fine for Him to share ; any fog of 
 ignorance too dense for His sympathy to penetrate ? 
 Is it so very wonderful if, at the very rising of this 
 better Sun, the poor misused demoniac was seen 
 sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right 
 mind ; if the outcast leper's flesh. came back to him, 
 as the flesh of a little child? Or can we wonder 
 if, when many a maimed life had been restored, 
 and many a frozen current had been made to flow, 
 the rumour should have spread abroad that the lame 
 man was leaping as a hart and the tongue of the 
 dumb was singing } 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 2 13 
 
 2, Or can wc imagine any cause for which Christ 
 would have ' softened the eye of Truth ' ? Was not 
 this the very temptation which He once and for all 
 overcame in the desert? Was it not this that roused 
 the enmity of His countrymen? 'Ye seek to kill me, a 
 man that have told you the truth which I have heard 
 of God.' ' Because I tell }'ou the truth ye will not 
 believe me.' It was to bear witness to the truth, 
 the truth of the all-embracing fulness of the divine 
 love, that He laid down His life upon the cross. 
 For this was He born, and for this cause came He 
 into the world. 
 
 3. The Righteousness of Christ is simply the inter- 
 penetration and harmony of this Truth and Love, This 
 righteousness appeals to no human code, yet is the 
 reverse of arbitrary, and finds an echo in every heart. 
 It is nothing else than mercy and truth encountering 
 in the sphere of action. ' Whosoever is without sin 
 among you, let him first cast a stone.' ' Forbid 
 him not, for there is no man who can do a miracle 
 in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.' ' Her 
 sins which are many are forgiven her, for she loved 
 much.' ' Take heed that ye offend not one of these 
 little ones. For their angels do always behold the 
 face of my Father who is in heaven.' Such are some 
 of the utterances of the righteousness of Christ. 
 
 Now ideas of justice and mercy, and even of truth, 
 have stirred the minds of men in all ae^es in a fitful 
 
214 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 
 
 and partial way. But never till Christ came were 
 they embodied in a perfect life. In Him they are 
 not ideas, but divine realities, or rather the varying 
 aspects, separable only in thought, of one and the 
 same absolute goodness. This is more than all 
 earthly systems, forms, precepts, traditions, laws. 
 There is a spirit here which has power to pass 
 through the thickest crust of dying and decaying 
 life, and to open a way directly to the light of heaven. 
 Are we not sure that if Christ were to come again 
 on earth, to any country or race of men, to any age 
 of the world, His presence would have the same 
 power of raising up the meek, of abashing the inso- 
 lent, of relieving the oppressed, of convincing seared 
 hearts of their sin? Would He not equally now as 
 then unravel the web of sophistry with simple truth, 
 and throw off as from an armour of proof eterne 
 the darts of envy and of flattery ? Would He have 
 yielded to conventional hypocrisies, to the trammels 
 of caste, to any blinding influence either of poverty 
 or of power? Would His sympathies have been con- 
 fined to one nation or to one quarter of the globe ? 
 And though it were presumptuous to use the name 
 of Christ in connection with modern controversies 
 of opinion, yet we may well believe that, in our more 
 complex as well as in that simpler age. He would 
 still raise the standard of an ideal perfection over 
 against the dominant forms of thought and life, 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 215 
 
 whether these repose on an imaginary continuity 
 with the past or on prevaiHng ideas and maxims. 
 He would still invite His followers to rest not wholly 
 on example, authority, or tradition, nor yet wholly 
 on any fancy or impulse of the hour, but on those 
 eternal principles of truth and right, of which His life 
 is the great pattern, as our own hearts teach us to 
 apply them to the circumstances amongst which we 
 move. That may not always be an easy task : the 
 greater therefore is our need of musing on the Gospel 
 record till we seem to touch the very heart and 
 spirit of His life. Let us be sure that that spirit 
 would be the same, though every fact and circum- 
 stance recorded had been different, however hard 
 it may be to imagine such a thing. We may there- 
 fore generalize these words of Christ, and think we 
 hear Him say, ' Except the spirit in which you live, 
 your principle of conduct, the ideal which animates 
 you, be higher than the spirit of your age, of your 
 country, of your class, of your party, of your social 
 circle, you have individually no hold upon the Chris- 
 tian life. In so far as you fail of this, in so far you 
 fail of being my follower. Yea, many shall come 
 from the east and from the west — many to whom 
 Christian schools would fain deny the name of Chris- 
 tian, the outcasts of the churches, perhaps even self- 
 exiled from the Christian pale — and shall sit down 
 in the kingdom of heaven ; while the children of the 
 
Zl6 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 
 
 kingdom shall stand in the twilight or in the outer 
 gloom.' The name of Christian will not help us any 
 more than the name of Jew ; nor does that Christi- 
 anity which has its being inwardly consist in the 
 mere preservation of a deposited tradition. The life 
 is more than the elements of former life : religion 
 must be a principle of growth, or it ceases to be 
 a vital power. The Reformation is a beacon to 
 remind us that Christian as well as Jewish tradition 
 may become a noxious burden. Nor is the name 
 of Reformed or Protestant any charm against this 
 tendency. The lava crust may again harden, for- 
 getting the latent fires. 
 
 There is another and a more comforting aspect of 
 the same thought. He who said that the cup of 
 cold water given to the disciple should not lose its 
 reward, would not reject the feeblest effort made, 
 whether consciously or unconsciously, in the true 
 service of God and man. In so far as any, amidst 
 whatever weakness, have done out of a pure heart 
 and from simple love, not what was expected of 
 them, not what they had learnt of others, not what 
 custom or opinion dictated, but what they saw and 
 felt to be right and good ; they have partaken in that 
 same measure of the spirit of Christ. And if they 
 have done this in simplicity and meekness, in the face 
 of suffering, dislike, and scorn ; in that same measure 
 they have known the fellowship of Christ's sufferings. 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 21 7 
 
 II. In endeavouring to apply this subject practi- 
 cally we are met by three objections, which I pro- 
 pose to deal with in conclusion. 
 
 I. It will be said, Does not such preaching tend 
 to spiritual pride ? Is not this a new Pharisaism of 
 separation from men in general ? How is this con- 
 sistent with Christian humility? — There is all the 
 difference in the world between aiming at perfection, 
 and thinking we have attained to or approached it. 
 What more humbling than the contemplation of a 
 perfect model ? What so humble as adoring love ? 
 The youth who suddenly exclaimed, on seeing a per- 
 fect work, ' And I, too, am a painter,' would at that 
 moment have been ready to learn from any one who 
 could teach him any detail of the art. Perfection 
 inspires and kindles, but also subdues. 
 
 The Christian glories, but not in himself. He 
 glories in that divine grace and truth which he has 
 seen in Christ, and in which he is invited to share. 
 That call and vision will not let him rest ; forgetting 
 what is behind, he can think only of the things before. 
 When he has done all in his little sphere, he knows 
 that he is an unprofitable servant of his Lord. But 
 he too often feels how miserable and poor he is ; 
 how full of failure, weakness, and error; nay, that 
 the evil he has done is far greater than the good' 
 which he can ever hope to do. At such times he 
 leans humbly upon Christ, feeling that though he has 
 
21 8 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 
 
 destroyed himself, yet he has a hope of endless re- 
 newal there. But will he therefore exalt himself above 
 other men, who seem to stand strong and firm apart 
 from the faith on which he builds ; who, either from 
 circumstances or from peculiarity of nature, are not 
 consciously partakers of his hope? No, the feeling 
 of his own weakness, and the perfection of the object 
 of his worship, combine to teach him to respect what- 
 soever he sees anywhere around him that is pure, 
 honest, lovely, or of good report. He will not pitch 
 his ambition lower than the aim which his Master 
 has set. ' If ye salute your brethren only, what do 
 ye more than others ? Be ye perfect, even as your 
 Father in heaven is perfect.' But as the spur of this 
 ambition is the cure of all stagnancy and limitation, 
 so it is especially the cure of self-complacency and 
 pride. 
 
 There is another reason why the Christian is 
 humble : because of the reverence which he learns 
 from his Master for all which bears the human form. 
 Love tells us of possibilities in others of which a cold 
 heart would not dream. St. Paul's charity, for ex- 
 ample, saw his converts not only as they were, but 
 as they might become. And was it not his love also, 
 and his reverence for human nature, which led him 
 to become all things to all men, that he might by 
 all means win some.? It is pride which keeps up 
 the barriers between man and man. When charity 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 219 
 
 has thrown these down, and overflowed them, there 
 is no more room for pride. 
 
 2. Another objection comes from a different quarter. 
 Some will tell us that the ideal which we arc setting 
 up is after all partial and one-sided ; that Christianity- 
 only fosters the passive virtues, such as humility, 
 purity, forgiveness of injuries, patience under provo- 
 cation, and the like ; and has thus only fostered a 
 weak and puling type of humanity. It needs to be 
 supplemented, they will say, from the annals of 
 human heroism. Whence do we derive our notions 
 of courage, patriotism, and other active virtues ? Is 
 it not rather from ancient and secular history, than 
 from our religion.? And yet an ideal which fails 
 to include these cannot be so perfect as you say. 
 Others will point us to the monuments of Christian 
 bigotry, and will ask, Is this the religion which you 
 say rejoices in the truth ? Did not the idea of truth 
 at first come to men from ancient Greece ? Has it 
 not been quickened into an irrepressible life by the 
 revelations of modern science? 
 
 Now this whole class of objections appears to me 
 to rise from a very natural confusion between the 
 Christianity of the New Testament and the Chris- 
 tianity of the sects ; that is, between the gradual 
 development of our religion in the history of the 
 world, and the religion as it lay at first in unsoiled 
 purity in the mind and heart of its Founder. Great 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 
 
 as Christianity has been, the religion of Christ is 
 greater. And surely it is not a chimerical hope that 
 Christianity may become more and more imbued 
 with the spirit of Christ. However this may prove, 
 there is no form of goodness which that spirit 
 will not be found to sanction and to inspire. And 
 true Christianity will be wherever that spirit works 
 and dwells. To say this is not to deny that the world 
 could ill spare any of her greatest and best sons, or 
 afford to forget the lesson which any sage or hero 
 has left behind him. Nor is it to deny that fgr 
 several virtues we have to thank several climes and 
 peoples. To speak of the life of Christ as virtuous, 
 would be a misuse of language ; because it would be 
 applying praise to that which is above praise. But 
 there is no human virtue which the love, the truth, 
 the righteousness of Christ will not inspire and draw 
 out into a nobler form. Christianity is a religion for 
 the weak, not because Christ is weak, but because 
 He is so strong, because ' to them that are weak He 
 increaseth strength.' Do we seek for courage, for 
 dignity, for fiery indignation, for wisdom not to be 
 entangled by guile, for a firm bearing in denouncing 
 wrong, for strength to act alone, for love of country, 
 for fortitude in bearing pain, for tenderness, for hope- 
 fulness, for constancy in friendship, for unshrinking 
 devotion to a noble cause, for universality of sym- 
 pathies ; and shall we be told by men who have read 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 221 
 
 the Gospels that these things are not in Christ ? Or 
 do we seek support in maintaining some truth which 
 has not yet found acceptance in the world, or con- 
 firmation in the faith that all true knowledge is 
 from God ; and is it not something to remember 
 Him who said, in the face of Jewish prejudice, ' My 
 Father workoth hitherto and I work,' who witnessed 
 before Pontius Pilate a good confession for the truth ? 
 3. Lastly, some will say. The ideal of the Christian 
 life is noble and beautiful, but impossible to realize. 
 Each is so bound in by circumstances in his little 
 sphere, that it is mockery to tell him to rise beyond 
 it ; and it is more comforting to rest in the assurance 
 of the well-known hymn, — ■ 
 
 ' The daily round, the common task, 
 Will furnish all \vc need to ask.' 
 
 True, every life must be relative to its circumstances. 
 The life of Christ himself was not out of harmony 
 with the conditions of His earthly being. But the 
 spirit of a life need not be determined by its surround- 
 ing atmosphere. And there is no position of life, even 
 in a Christian country, where the tendency to do 
 as others do, to fall mechanically into the ways and 
 maxims of our class or neighbourhood, is not a temp- 
 tation to be resisted ; in which the consistent deter- 
 mination to be guided always by the love of God 
 and man would not effect a marvellous revolution. 
 Nor are there any circumstances, however mean, 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 
 
 where there are not opportunities for doing something 
 to raise men out of a mere unconscious routine, and 
 to draw out what is best in them by active sympathy. 
 Those best acquainted with the annals of the poor 
 could tell us of lives, under more unfavourable cir- 
 cumstances than any of ours, more fruitful, and more 
 rich in blessing, than many a ministry. He that 
 is faithful in few things is faithful also in much. The 
 tradesman who rises above the common practices 
 of trade in a small town, would be incorruptible if 
 trusted with the commissariat of a great army. Those 
 who help to preserve harmony in some obscure circle 
 of society, might equally help to purify a court. The 
 labourer who, under the pressure and distress of 
 poverty, and in the midst of vice and squalor, has 
 brought up his family in honesty, industry, and purity, 
 has done as much as if with proportionate advantages 
 he had raised the morality of a whole kingdom. 
 
 Let each, wherein he is called, therein abide zvith 
 Christ: not seeking to change the outward circum- 
 stances of his life, nor straining after originality or eccen- 
 tricity; yet ever pressing forwards and seeking to rise 
 above his own past self, and above the level of custom, 
 education, and habit, and also to raise others ; follow- 
 ing the example of our Master Christ, who came to 
 seek and to save the lost, and freely laid down His 
 life that He might take it again ; who was lifted from 
 the earth that He mieht draw all men unto Him. 
 
SERMON XVII. 
 
 REDEEMING THE TIME. 
 1871. 
 
 * See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. 
 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye 
 not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.' — 
 Ephes. v. 15—17. 
 
 Times of agitation and anxiety, whether in our 
 pubHc or private hfe, seem to throw a new light on 
 the page of Scripture. For what is Scripture but the 
 record of times many and various when the human 
 heart was deeply moved, and with its longings, its 
 regrets, and fears, was with more than usual earnest- 
 ness feeling after God ? Hence it comes that, when 
 the depths of human nature are broken up afresh, and 
 the floods of ungodliness make us afraid, and we 
 desire to speak but know not what to say, we turn 
 with renewed interest to the Old and New Testa- 
 ments ; to find there deep calling unto deep ; a more 
 intense experience, giving new powers of thought 
 and feeling to our own ; a faith in the One Eternal 
 Being, at once animating and reproving our weaker 
 faith ; to find in the New Testament especially a 
 
224 REDEEMING THE TIME. ^ 
 
 light of guidance for the troubled spirit, which may 
 be a lamp to our feet in the perplexity of the darkest 
 day. The words of holy men of old glow with fresh 
 meaning for us, as if they had been written yesterday. 
 For have not we too in modern Europe had our 
 searchings of heart ? Have not we too heard the cry 
 of innocent blood ? Have not we too seen to be 
 made of a city an heap, and the palace of strangers to 
 be no city ? And even in a period of comparative 
 tranquillity and outward peace, we ought to think 
 more seriously than we do of the lessons of experi- 
 ence that have been taught mankind within our own 
 memory. For what are wars and rumours of wars, 
 what are the outbreaks of political and social crime, 
 what are the revelations of wide-spread human misery, 
 but voices out of the eternal, appealing to the higher 
 and nobler self in every one of us, and demanding 
 from us whatever service our nature, training, 
 and opportunities have made us most capable of 
 rendering ? 
 
 I do not much care as a rule for refining upon 
 the mere words of the Bible. But there is perhaps 
 something to be learnt by it in the present instance. 
 
 The words of the text in the English Version have 
 become proverbial, ' Redeeming the time ; ' but the 
 words of the original, although they would hardly 
 bear to be differently translated, are even more ex- 
 pressive. ' Buying up the opportunity,' i. e. ' Not 
 
REDEEMING THE TIM] 
 
 missing anything of what the passing moment has to 
 give' And if the call is significant, so also is the 
 reason of the call, ' because the days are evil.' To 
 some men the feeling that they have fallen on evil 
 days has an enervating and paralysing effect. They 
 spend their time in enquiring why the former days 
 were better than these, or torment themselves and 
 others with timorous apprehensions concerning the 
 future. Not so reasoned, not so acted, the leaders of 
 the early Christian congregation. Although ' the 
 days closed around them and the years,' although 
 they thought that the world in which they lived was 
 doomed to destruction coming suddenly in an instant, 
 yet this made to them only more imperative the duty 
 of proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of 
 heaven, of using this world as not abusing it, of living 
 to the glory of God. And although they looked 
 for the sudden appearing of the Son of man coming 
 in the clouds of heaven, and hoped while yet alive 
 to be caught up with Him into glory, they were not 
 selfishly absorbed in that expectancy (those who w^ere 
 so are sternly rebuked by St. Paul), but only sought 
 the more earnestly to bring all men to the knowledge 
 of the truth. Their life was dominated by the spirit 
 and example of Christ, who had looked forth calmly 
 over the long vista of the coming ages, sorrowing indeed 
 for the present, but providing by His own life and 
 teaching an inexhaustible inspiration for the future, 
 O 
 
226 REDEEMING THE TIME. 
 
 and confidently anticipating the final triumph of His 
 Father's truth and love. 
 
 And if the same spirit is amongst us still, making 
 those who partake of it in any measure to be as He 
 was in the world, it will be like a sharp goad within 
 them, ever driving them onward to ' redeem the time.' 
 The love of country, the love of kindred, the nobler 
 ambition, the delight of spontaneous energy, will all 
 be quickened and revivified by this higher motive 
 power, that will give new meaning to all. And this 
 motive will itself be greatly intensified by the con- 
 sideration that the opportunities which are now before 
 us may ere long have passed away for ever. The 
 opportunity certainly will not be the same ten years 
 hence as it is to-day : but more than this, if we neglect 
 the present, the evils we contend with may have be- 
 come too strong for any remedy. In this sense the 
 words of the New Testament, that ' now is the ac- 
 cepted time,' that 'the time is short,' or 'urgent,' 
 have a special applicability to the days in which 
 we live. 
 
 There are not wanting signs which cast a shade of 
 uneasiness on the wisest hearts ; there are unmistake- 
 able changes — silent revolutions they are sometimes 
 called — which rouse mingled feelings of regret and 
 hope ; and there are ideal aspirations having promise 
 of endless blessing, but which like new wine are apt to 
 
REDEEMING THE TIME. 227 
 
 kindle madness in precipitate minds. In the midst 
 of this uncertain light the Christian will try to ' walk 
 circumspectly, not as foolish but as wise; ' endeavouring 
 to understand the will of his Lord ; endeavouring to 
 learn how he may best help to realize the presence 
 of Christ on earth ; so living apart from society that 
 he may sei-ve men better ; so becoming all things to 
 all men that he may promote what is best for all ; so 
 labouring that his work may not all be lost in the 
 days that are to be. 
 
 When we hear or read of the sad increase of 
 poverty that has grown side by side with the accu- 
 mulation of wealth, of the dangerous effects of 
 ignorance and discontent, of the brutality of some 
 classes and the vacant self-indulgence of others 
 amongst our fellow-countrymen, our first thought is 
 apt to be. What can we do ? We have not the 
 knowledge to find out a cure for social maladies ; 
 we have not power to give effect even to what we 
 know. We have no firm hold either on the present 
 or the future. The political and moral forces of our 
 age are too many for us and too strong. Feeling our 
 ignorance and blindness, we are sometimes tempted 
 to relax all effort and to drift with the tide. And it is 
 true that as individuals severally we can do very 
 little. But that is the reason why we should all to- 
 gether resolve to be up and doing, to awake and 
 Hve. The truly wise and courageous spirit knows 
 Q2 
 
238 REDEEMING THE TIME. 
 
 how to turn the cries of panic and alarm into a source 
 
 of encouragement and strength. 
 
 ' 'Tis true that we are in great danger : 
 The greater therefore should our courage be.' 
 
 The man who so reasoned knew how to find ' the 
 soul of goodness in things evil' And it is time that 
 those who have the blessings of education and en- 
 lightenment within their reach should consider, not 
 the danger to themselves and their own class, 
 although this may be also an element in the ques- 
 tion, but the dangers to the future of mankind which 
 are inherent in the present and past condition of 
 society: not with selfish and unreasoning panic fears, 
 as men of old, when they saw the waters of the 
 flood rising, built dams and dykes to keep it out ; 
 but with an active faith in the power of truth and 
 righteousness, as of the sun in his strength, even yet 
 to renew the face of the earth. 
 
 Here are, it may be, five hundred persons ; not a 
 great number ; insignificant when compared with the 
 population of one of our great towns^ a mere drop in 
 the ocean when compared with the population of the 
 smallest country in Europe. And yet if not one such 
 company but several in each of our great centres of 
 industry were strongly united in the determination 
 to redeem this time, to buy up the present opportu- 
 nity, to recover something from the shallowness and 
 frivolity, the selfishness and meanness, the hurtful 
 
REDEEMING THE TIME. 229 
 
 extravagance, the indifference and coldness of our 
 day — a great change might be produced in a few 
 years. And it would be hard to exaggerate the 
 importance of the occasion, or to estimate the con- 
 sequences that may flow from the spirit shown by 
 educated persons in a critical time. Christianity 
 was in its first origin the religion of the poor and 
 the oppressed. Could it become not in name only 
 but in deed the religion of the rich, of those whose 
 opportunities are so great, whose material resources 
 are so vast, as those of the wealthier classes in the 
 present day, what might not be effected by Chris- 
 tianity, not as a mere religious sentiment but as a 
 principle of action ; a principle not opposed to reason, 
 but inviting help from all the culture and enlighten- 
 ment of the world ! 
 
 Is it inconceivable that the dreary sense of va- 
 cancy which begins to oppress those who have 
 most leisure, may some day amount to a degree 
 of spiritual poverty that may again lead multitudes 
 to the kingdom of heaven ? Are there not signs that 
 it is so already ? Are there not many who are sighing 
 to do service to humanity, if they could only find a 
 way? There is a sense in which it is still true that 
 it is hard for the rich to enter into the kingdom. 
 But not until they have so entered in can the king- 
 doms of the world become the kingdoms of Christ 
 and God. 
 
230 REDEEMING THE TIME. 
 
 Whether the renewal is to come from the richer 
 or the poorer classes, or from various parts at once, 
 it is sure to arise in some way from a sense of need. 
 And a true feeling of the evils of our age, which are 
 really those of every age, not conceived in any 
 alarmist spirit, but on a calm estimate of all that 
 is dark in the present and dim and uncertain in the 
 future, may be to all of us a constant spur rousing 
 us ever anew to redeem the time. For the first 
 step on this upward path is that each one of us for 
 himself should be resolved to make the most of life. 
 If every one of five hundred persons were fully and 
 practically convinced of this, the effect would be far 
 greater than the proportion of that number to the 
 whole. One will that is guided by a noble and con- 
 sistent purpose is a match for many that are dissi- 
 pated by idleness or sunk in sloth. And the call 
 is or should be loudest to those whose opportunities 
 are the greatest, who are richest in the most valuable 
 of possessions, the possession of time : I mean those 
 who are still young. You know not to what duties, to 
 what sacrifices, to what great efforts you may be called 
 hereafter ; but you have each one of you a career before 
 you. It may be long or short, bright, dark, or chequered, 
 who can tell ? In that career you have of course a 
 personal interest. But it is well for you to remember, 
 for it is an inspiring thought, that that personal 
 interest is not all. On your learning all you can, 
 
REDEEMING THE TIME. 23 1 
 
 on your growth in every sort of activity and energy, 
 on the development amongst you of a healthy public 
 spirit and an elevated moral tone, on your keeping 
 yourselves pure from evil, a great deal more depends 
 than what is commonly called your success in life. 
 It is right that you should have this aim before you, 
 for it is on personal motives that higher motives are 
 built up, and it is nobler to think even of one's own 
 future than to be lost in momentary pleasures ; but 
 you must also remember that even in your earthly 
 vocation a higher calling than this is yours. The 
 world has need of you, your brethren of mankind have 
 need of you, and God would have you minister to 
 their need : not that you should gain and spend and 
 live as burdens to the ground ; not that you should 
 dream away the time in sentiment, whether earthly 
 or spiritual ; not that you should gratify a poor ambi- 
 tion to make a name, and stir about you where you 
 live a little dust of praise : but that you and such as 
 you are should be a strength and not a weakness to 
 this people in the hour that is coming on ; that what- 
 ever may be the work in which you are called to 
 serve God and man, it may be done faithfully and 
 wisely, without personal respects, without narrow 
 prejudices, with unsparing effort, with large sympathy; 
 that it may be guided by the noblest aims, as being 
 done by those who are not unwise, but understanding 
 what the will of the Lord is, who know the good and 
 
232 REDEEMING THE TIME. 
 
 welcome it from afar off, who know the evil in its 
 beginnings and not only when it blossoms out in sin. 
 
 For, in the next place, as the Apostle warns us, in 
 order to redeem the time, to buy up the opportunity, 
 we must seek to understand the problem of our age : 
 in other words, we must ask what our Lord would 
 have us now to do as Christians. 
 
 The problem of the first age of Christendom was to 
 gather out of all nations a peculiar people, to shield 
 the young congregation from the corruptions of 
 heathenism, as well as to emancipate them from 
 Jewish superstition. Hence the frequent call to the 
 first Christians to come out and be separate from 
 the world. The duty of our own age is in some 
 respects the opposite of this, not to separate but to 
 draw men together : to diffuse the treasure that was 
 saved to us in the ark of the early Church : to bring 
 all the rays of goodness and truth that shine upon us 
 from the past, or from distant lands, into one focus ; to 
 harmonize them through a liberal application of the 
 spirit of Christ ; and to make them to be seen and 
 known of all men : that so those mighty powers and 
 instincts of humanity, that would else act blindly 
 and destructively, may be drawn forth by the mag- 
 netic charm of goodness and truth to act gently and 
 beneficently for mankind ; just as the same force 
 which cleaves the oak asunder, and shatters towers, 
 and deals instantaneous death, has been applied to 
 
REDEEMING THE TIME. 233 
 
 bind east and west together, and to be the messenger 
 of human utihtics over the globe. The study of 
 inanimate nature has done this for us ; and it is only 
 when, by the candid study of the social and political 
 forces of humanity in our own time, wc have learnt to 
 render them the instruments of love and righteous- 
 ness, and not of hatred and immeasurable revenge, 
 that we can be truly said to be not unwise, but under- 
 standing what the will of the Lord is. It was after 
 all a sort of accident that the first Christians had to 
 separate themselves from the heathen world, from the 
 other Jewish sects, from the early heretics. The essen- 
 tial aim of Christianity was always much rather to 
 combine, to pull down walls of partition, to make 
 both one— both the mystical monotheistic spirit that 
 soared above the world to seek for God in an unseen 
 heaven, and the spirit that went forth responsively 
 towards the broken lights of His mirrored glory, as 
 the invisible things of Him were made clearly seen in 
 Nature. And we cannot err in thinking that God is 
 calling us in this present age to diffuse as widely as 
 possible every element of good ; to draw class and 
 class together, or rather to draw together man and 
 man : not by the sudden and violent abolition of pri- 
 vilege ; not by despising what is good in itself, because 
 it happens to have been associated with the preroga- 
 tives of a few; but by turning the pride of the few 
 into the blessing of the many; by laying unreservedly 
 
234 REDEEMING THE TIME. 
 
 open all that can instruct or elevate mankind ; by 
 giving all a common interest in every inheritance of 
 the past ; by partaking without unworthy shrinking 
 in every honest aspiration for the future. 
 
 We know that the future is, as the past has been, 
 in the hands of God, who is working all together for a 
 purpose that is full of blessing. He has given us 
 much knowledge and many resources that were denied 
 to former times. And yet we cannot feel that we are 
 better than our fathers, or that we have any right 
 to expect to be exempt from those violent drawbacks, 
 those sudden shocks, in which, as history teaches us, 
 the accumulated penalties of former errors are often 
 brought on one generation. Let us then make full 
 use of the opportunity, and eagerly buy up the golden 
 hours while they last, (^ayopaCofxevoi tov Kaipuv, in the 
 deeply grounded hope and faith that even this age 
 may be made a means of blessing to the coming 
 ages ; but should we be disappointed of that hope, 
 that we may at least be faithful soldiers of the 
 Lord of men, and may be conscious of His eternal 
 blessing. 
 
 For, lastly, the Christian aim and motive is not 
 bounded by the horizon of time : and although it is 
 false to say of us that we are neglecting this world for 
 another, it is true that in our use of this world w^e 
 are striving to gather a more lasting treasure. And 
 we believe that every true endeavour on the side of 
 
REDEEMING THE TIME. 235 
 
 good, every right word and noble act, though it may- 
 fail of earthly continuance, though it may find no 
 acceptance amongst men, has yet a place amongst 
 the eternal things, and is of enduring value in the 
 sight of God. 
 
SERMON XVIII. 
 
 DESTROYING AND FULFILLING. 
 
 ' Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I came 
 not to send peace, but a sword.' — Matt. x. 34. 
 
 ' Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the 
 prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.'— Matt. 
 
 V. 17, 
 
 ' To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into 
 the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.' — John 
 xviii. 37, 
 
 There are several modes of handling the Scrip- 
 tures which for centuries had great fascination for 
 ingenious minds, but may now be said almost to 
 have passed away. One of these was the attempt 
 to produce what was called a harmony of the 
 Gospels : that is, so to arrange and bring to- 
 gether the statements of the different Evangelists, 
 identifying what can be shown to be identical, ex- 
 plaining apparent discrepancies, distinguishing what 
 though similar is not the same, as while maintaining 
 
DESTROYING AND FULFILLING. 237 
 
 the infallibility of each narrator, to present the con- 
 tents of all four in one full, continuous, and harmonious 
 narrative. Little has been heard of such attempts of 
 late. I am not aware that any considerable author 
 now living sets before himself the problem exactly 
 in this way. Many good religious people now-a-days 
 have never seen a ' Diatessaron,' as such a work is 
 technically called. 
 
 The fact is that these very studies,, and others 
 kindred to them, have disproved the assumption on 
 which such attempts were based. They have helped 
 to show us the true nature of the book we are 
 studying, which renders such a forced harmony im- 
 possible. The Gospels are fragmentary records, con- 
 taining divers branches of one or perhaps of two 
 streams of early tradition. The order they follow 
 is often not the order of time, and different Evan- 
 gelists have arranged even the same materials on a 
 different plan. 
 
 But while such an external unity is unattainable, 
 and if attained would be barren of any spiritual result, 
 there is a deeper harmony, not of the Gospels only 
 but of the whole New Testament, and in a certain 
 sense also of the whole Bible, which in these days 
 well deserves our earnest search — the harmony, not of 
 detail, but of spirit. 
 
 In seeking for this also we shall encounter difficulties 
 and objections, which must not be merely set aside. 
 
23^ DESTROYING AND FULFILLING. 
 
 and which may remind us that the harmony for 
 which we look is not simple unison, but the concord 
 of many different tones. The idea of a growth or 
 progress in the revelation of the Old Testament, 
 and of a further progress from the Old Testament 
 to the New, an idea already implied in Christ's own 
 teaching, has been the solution of much perplexity, 
 and has made the Bible more instructive to us 
 because more living. But this does not help us when 
 we are considering the words of Christ himself, as 
 they are reported in the New Testament. We have 
 then to bear in mind that what we see is only the 
 reflex image, and that the same light, however 
 clearly reflected, will be seen differently in surfaces 
 that have a slightly different form. Still, whatever 
 variety, or even divergence, a minute historical criti- 
 cism may bring out in the records of our Lord's 
 ministry, this does not affect our reasonable conviction 
 that His spirit dominates the whole ; and hence, in 
 comparing diff'erent words of Christ, and endeavouring 
 to draw from them one comprehensive and consistent 
 lesson, we are not entering on an irrational inquiry, 
 if only there be nothing irrational in our method of 
 pursuing it. 
 
 One important condition of such a method is that 
 nothing shall be explained away. For instance, if it 
 is said that Christ came indeed to send only peace on 
 earth, but that, because of the wickedness of men, 
 
DI'SIROVIXC AND FULFILLING. 239 
 
 when He laboured for peace they made them ready to 
 battle : that would be to soften away unwarrantably 
 the meaning of the first of the verses which we have 
 read. On the other hand, when an extreme thinker 
 of the second century, the so-called heretic Marcion, 
 contended that Christ had really said, 'Think not that 
 I am come to fulfil the law or the prophets ; I am not 
 • come to fulfil, but to destroy/ he was guilty of 
 a still more reprehensible perversion of the text of the 
 second verse. Each saying must be allowed to stand 
 forth in full individuality in all the original freshness 
 of colour and distinctness of outline : and then, if 
 there appear any difference or opposition, this will be 
 provocative of genuine thought, and may lead us to 
 the contemplation of some higher and wider principle, 
 in which the opposition is at once justified and done 
 away. 
 
 The two verses which we have taken from the first 
 Gospel certainly present the advent or coming of Jesus 
 Christ in two very different aspects. In the one, His 
 work is spoken of as disorganizing, separating, de- 
 stroying ; in the other, as reconstructing, reconciling, 
 fulfilling. In the one it is described as negative, in 
 the other as positive, in its effects. Yet both sayings 
 are recorded substantially by the same witness, and 
 both have, if we may venture to say so, strong internal 
 evidence of genuineness. 
 
 What then is the ground of the contrast? 
 
240 DESTROYING AND FULFILLING. 
 
 This may perhaps appear if we place both sayings 
 side by side, in the light of those deep and com- 
 prehensive words which are characteristically recorded 
 in the fourth Gospel, ' To this end was I born, and 
 for this cause came I into the world, that I might bear 
 Avitness unto the truth.' Taking this declaration for 
 our guide, we may be able to see that the ministry of 
 Christ, in bearing witness to the truth, could not 
 immediately bring peace on earth, but must for a 
 time bring division ; and yet that, in the end and 
 consummation, that same ministry could not be 
 opposed to any existing element of good, but must 
 draw all forth, and complete them, and make them 
 pure and fruitful. 
 
 I. Consider the relation in which Christ and His 
 followers were placed towards His contemporaries by 
 His coming to bear witness to the truth. 
 
 He did not court attention. He did not strive nor 
 cry, nor make His voice to be heard in the streets. 
 He simply taught, as He had opportunity, those who 
 felt their need of teaching, and healed those who had 
 need of healing, answered openly questions that were 
 asked in public, conversed in private with His chosen 
 friends, and when urged with unreal scruples exposed 
 their fallacy by a few wise trenchant words ; and yet 
 in three years the cross was ready for Him, and a few 
 years later the hour of persecution was ripe for the 
 infant Church. Does this seem strange? Then we 
 
DESTROYING AND FULFILLING. 241 
 
 have yet to learn, that while our Lord's teaching was 
 the gentlest, it was also the most searching, the most 
 uncompromising that has ever been heard on earth. 
 He knew no terms with evil or falsehood in any form. 
 The moment His words touched them, they were 
 stripped of their disguises and shown in manifest 
 deformity. The parable of the leaven is indeed an 
 apt description of the imperceptibly gradual progress 
 of the truth, in the course of ages and over the world ; 
 but the direct utterances of Christ are rather to be 
 compared to the two-edged sword, piercing even to 
 the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit. When 
 He quietly but openly persisted in healing on the 
 sabbath-day, when He sat down with the publican, 
 when He turned from the scribes to the multitude and 
 said ' Hear and understand,' He was rousing against 
 Himself the prejudices of His countrymen in all their 
 might, no less effectually than in His final denuncia- 
 tion of the ' blind Pharisee.' It is evident on the 
 mere surface of the history that He deliberately and 
 repeatedly, both in His words and actions, cut right 
 athwart many of the most cherished religious feelings 
 of His countrymen. 
 
 Now, were it not for the mere habit of reverential 
 acquiescence in all that our Saviour said and did, 
 some would here be ready to ask whether a milder 
 course would not have been possible. There were 
 excellent men amongst the Jewish doctors, men whose 
 R 
 
242 DESTROYING AND FULFILLING. 
 
 utterances deserved to be written in letters of gold, 
 who taught a pure morality, and adapted their inter- 
 pretation of the law and the prophets to the wants 
 of a reflective age. Might He not have quickened 
 and vitalized by His divine influence the teaching of 
 these purer schools ; and thus have adopted what was 
 good in the minds of His countrymen, while only 
 indirectly suppressing and ignoring the evil ? Could 
 He not thus have gently insinuated the high truths 
 which He came to teach mankind, and caused them 
 ultimately to prevail, without any need for the offence 
 to come, without the battle to the utterance, without 
 casting fire upon the earth, or accomplishing His 
 baptism of blood ? Not in this way did He reason 
 who came to save the world. He chose not to entrust 
 the new wine to the old bottles. He saw those whom 
 the refined doctrines of the schools could never reach, 
 ' how they fainted and were scattered abroad, as sheep 
 having no shepherd,' and He opened His mouth and 
 taught them ; He saw how custom lay on men like 
 frost, and He inspired them with truths that made 
 them free ; He saw the kingdom of heaven open, and 
 bade men enter in ; He healed the life that had been 
 maimed and distorted by the oppressions of the time ; 
 He said to the chief of sinners, 'Repent and be forgiven ;' 
 He knew the infinite love of His Father, and He 
 extended that love in speech and action to the outcast 
 and despised. Hence came the conflict unto death. 
 
DESTROYING AND FULFILLING. 243 
 
 in which the powers of fanaticism, and worldly craft, 
 and selfishness in high places seemed to crush out 
 the life of the Son of man, and were themselves for 
 ever crushed. Hence also His followers, who had 
 left home and friends and lands for His Gospel's sake, 
 were persecuted from city to city ; and five were in one 
 house divided, three against two, and two against 
 three. 
 
 II. In that hour the old things passed away, and 
 all things were becoming new. And yet it is no 
 less certain that He came not to destroy, but to fulfil 
 The force of these words has been greatly impaired 
 by a mechanical system of types and antitypes, with 
 which the fancy of interpreters has interlaced the Old 
 and New Testaments. But the real connection be- 
 tween them is of a deeper kind, which is expounded 
 in the Sermon on the Mount. The separate com- 
 mandments in the old law might all be deduced from 
 the one law of love : only they forbade, while love 
 inspires ; they prescribed actions, love is an inward 
 principle ; they were limited and subject to exception, 
 love is infinite, universal, and eternal. Hence, when 
 Christ proclaimed the absoluteness of the law or 
 spirit of love, He was not destroying the essence of 
 the Mosaic law. Much rather He gave free course 
 to the eternal thought of which that law had been 
 the local and temporary expression, so that the living 
 water that was for the healing of the nations, but had 
 R 3 
 
344 DESTROYING AND FULFILLING. 
 
 been artificially confined for the supposed benefit 
 of the chosen people, might well forth afresh and in- 
 exhaustibly, and be found enough for the supply of 
 the whole world. The commandment, ' Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbour,' was no new commandment, but 
 an old commandment, which they had heard from the 
 beginning. But this, ' Love your enemies, that ye 
 may be the children of your Father which is in 
 heaven, for He is kind to the unthankful and the 
 evil' : ' Be ye perfect, even as your Father is perfect,' — 
 this was a new commandment, with a new and un- 
 heard-of sanction, and yet one in which the old com- 
 mandment was only extended and ' fulfilled.' And 
 as Moses had proclaimed to Israel, ' The Lord, mer- 
 ciful and gracious, forgiving iniquity, transgression, 
 and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty : ' so 
 Christ more authoritatively and more perfectly re- 
 vealed to all mankind their Father in heaven, who 
 seeth in secret, whose kingdom is open to all that 
 come repenting of their sins, and hungering and thirst- 
 ing after righteousness. And as the prophets, when 
 the Mosaic law was already becoming a burden of un- 
 meaning ceremonies, had sought to rouse men with 
 many voices to a belief in the righteousness and 
 faithfulness of the Most High ; and declaring that 
 mercy was better than sacrifice, had cried aloud, 
 ' Cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek judgment, 
 relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for 
 
DESTROYIXG AND FULFILLING. 245 
 
 the widow,'— SO Jesus, when the same deadening crust 
 had still further hardened on the conscience of the 
 Jew, proclaimed with greater fulness and authority 
 the same everlasting lesson. ' Not he that saith 
 unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven, but he that doeth the -will of my Father who 
 is in heaven.' ' Not that which goeth into the mouth 
 defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the 
 mouth, from the heart, defileth a man.' ' The king- 
 dom of heaven is within you.' ' Many shall come from 
 the east and from the west, and shall sit down with 
 Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of 
 heaven.' In such sayings there lies the promise of 
 a kingdom of righteousness far greater^ because more 
 universal, than had been dreamt of by any Hebrew 
 I prophet. And yet in them the inmost spirit of the 
 
 j prophetic utterances is enlarged and fulfilled. 
 
 And now the teaching of Christ is to us an inherit- 
 ance from the past, as that of Moses and Isaiah was 
 to the contemporaries of Christ himself. "And we 
 have no one teacher who can be to us in the place of 
 Christ, no infallible interpreter of His mind and will. 
 Nor is our inheritance a simple one, nor is it an easy 
 task for us to appropriate His teaching as a rule 
 of life. The theologies of three great epochs come 
 between us and the precious relics of His instruction 
 which survived the first century of our era. The 
 
246 DESTROYING AND FULFILLING. 
 
 experience and modes of thought of a Western Euro- 
 pean people, industrial, progressive, practical ; the 
 history of so many ages, including the diverse phases 
 of historical Christianity; above all, the growth of 
 science, and the revolution it has caused in man's ideas 
 of the world he lives in and of his own origin and 
 destiny — all seem to unfit us for learning from Christ 
 with the simplicity of the early Church. And there- 
 fore, if there is a spirit now at work, not, as once 
 in Christ, with divine fulness in some one mind, but 
 with various excellences in many different minds, 
 yet essentially one with His, destined spiritually 
 to renew the face of the world, to make a new be- 
 ginning of the religious life, and to bring a time of 
 refreshing from the presence of God — that spirit 
 must at first, like His, send abroad on earth not 
 peace, but a sword : and for the same reason, 
 because it will be prompted wholly by the love of 
 truth. 
 
 For it is not always possible to enjoy the combined 
 blessings with which the Hebrew monarch comforted 
 himself in his decline, when he said, ' There shall be 
 peace and truth in my day.' It was not possible 
 for the generation to which Christ came. The voice 
 that cried, ' Peace on earth,^ was prophetic of the last 
 result : there was another prophecy that described the 
 nearer future, ' He is set for the fall and rising again 
 of many in Israel, and for a sign that shall be spoken 
 
DESTROYING AND FULFILLING. 247 
 
 against ; yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own 
 soul.' 
 
 It was not possible for the Reformation period. 
 How earnestly the warm heart of Luther often longed 
 for quiet, peaceful days; but he and the other re- 
 formers were urged onwards by the claims of truth 
 and by a spirit which they durst not resist, to pro- 
 voke the opposition of powerful enemies, and to live 
 in endless strife and contention. 
 
 And in the present age, the candid love of truth 
 has often brought, and will yet bring, not peace, but 
 rather division. There are no martyrs now-a-days, 
 and persecution has dwindled to a mockery of its 
 former self : but yet any one who sets himself simply 
 to know the truth and to proclaim what he knows, 
 is likely to give deep offence to many persons, and 
 if he is of a sensitive nature, to receive many a sharp 
 wound. There is nothing amongst us to compare to 
 the tribulation of the first Christians, or the fiery 
 trial through which the reformers passed : but honest 
 thought on religious subjects has in many ways given 
 rise to separation, misunderstanding, distrust, and 
 bitterness. This partly arises from the importance 
 which men justly attach to religion. Who will deny 
 that the earnest inquiry on matters connected with 
 theology, which has such an absorbing interest for 
 many of us, has introduced into society an element 
 of discord ; that difhcultics in family life, the cooHng 
 
24H DESTROYING AND FULFILLING. 
 
 or decay of friendships, even something of moral 
 injury to weak characters, may be indirectly traceable 
 to this cause ; or that there are peculiar drawbacks 
 which attend the teaching of religion in a time of 
 transition ? 
 
 Hence comes the frequent outcry against nega- 
 tive teaching ; a complaint indeed most natural on 
 the part of those whose positions are likely to be 
 denied. But quite apart from controversy, many 
 gentle, true-hearted people are found to say: Do not 
 destroy until you are able to build ; unless you can 
 give something, do not take away. 
 
 But to speak thus is to forget the necessarily partial 
 character of all human endeavours in the elaboration 
 of truth. In Christ alone there is perfect fulness and 
 proportion. We cannot hope that it will be given to 
 the same persons amongst us to clear the ground and 
 to crown the edifice. But when some have laboured, 
 there will "be others who will enter into their labours. 
 
 I will here say a word in defence of negative 
 theology : all will have many opportunities of hear- 
 ing what can be said against it. Unless we suppose 
 that there are no clouds of superstition, no mists of 
 error to obscure the beams of the sun of righteousness 
 and truth, we cannot hope that his rising on us will 
 be perfectly serene. There will be a struggle of the 
 light with the darkness before the light shines clearly 
 on our path. 
 
DESTROYING AND FULFILLING. 249 
 
 Therefore it is not enough to say in condemnation 
 of a teacher that his work is negative. It may be 
 partial and incomplete for that reason ; but if he is 
 earnest and sincere, he may still be doing in his 
 measure a good and necessary work. We have lately 
 sung in reference to the Advent of the Son of man : 
 
 ' He comes, the prisoners to release, 
 In Satan's bondage held ; 
 The gates of brass before Him burst, 
 The iron fetters yield.' 
 
 That is the description of a negative process. The 
 denial of purgatory, of the sacrifice of the mass, of 
 indulgences, of the possibility of ' buying corrupted 
 pardon of a man,' was a great part of the work of 
 the Reformation. 
 
 The form of negation or disproof has at least 
 this merit, that it arrests attention, it is unequi- 
 vocal, it is unmistakeable as far as it goes. The 
 mere suggestion of new ideas may reach the ear and 
 conscience of a few ; but the denial of old falsehoods 
 is more intelligible to the many. 
 
 But then all negation that is fruitful in result is 
 in effect the affirmation of a higher principle, and 
 that not because of novelty, but because of truth. 
 The breaking of the clod, the bursting of the sheath, 
 the shedding of the husk, these are but the outward 
 signs of growth and of the stirring of the mysterious 
 life within. And it may be that a higher intelligence, 
 
250 DESTROYING AND FULFILLING. 
 
 looking down upon the distractions of our age, might 
 see in them the signs of a larger growth, the begin- 
 nings of a nobler life for man. It may be that this 
 larger and nobler life shall be the fulfilment of Chris- 
 tianity, as Christianity is the fulfilment of the law ; 
 and that the religious teacher of the coming age, like 
 the instructed scribe in our Lord's parable, will bring 
 out of his treasure-house thoughts that are at once 
 new and old. 
 
 It may be that the alteration of some old beliefs 
 is one of many ways by which we are being 
 brought back to a simple faith in God ; by which 
 is meant not only the conviction that He is, and 
 that He is the re warder of those that seek Him, 
 but the trust in His perfect righteousness and 
 equity, in His faithfulness to all His creatures, in 
 His goodness being over all His works, in His wil- 
 lingness to impart of His own righteousness to all 
 conscious beings. This faith is no mere specula- 
 tive idea, but, where it exists in any strength, is the 
 most powerful of all principles of action, making the 
 love of God convertible with the love of man, and 
 turning the love of man into a life of self-devotion 
 for man's highest good. Now what is this but the 
 central principle of the New Testament, the Gospel 
 which Christ taught, the faith of Christ which St. Paul 
 found all-sufiicing ? It had to contend with Jewish 
 narrowness then ; it may still have to contend with 
 
DESTROYING AND FULFILLING. 
 
 theological and ecclesiastical narrowness of more re- 
 cent orioin. But as other doctrines and traditions are 
 thrown into the background, this first principle of all 
 theology, viz. that God is good, that He is light and 
 that in Him is no darkness at all ; this essence of our 
 Lord's teaching, * Be ye perfect, even as your Father 
 is perfect,' and also this, ' Inasmuch as ye have done it 
 unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have 
 done it unto me,' — will only be seen in clearer light, 
 and the assurance of this faith will gain indefinitely 
 in purity and strength. Then will be the great 
 triumph of Christianity; and it may prove that, as 
 has been said by one who has incurred no small 
 blame as a negative theologian, we may yet be only 
 at the commencement of the career of Christ as the 
 great Spiritual Conqueror, even in this world. 
 
 For, lastly, this faith wall act in harmony with 
 another great power, which also is from God, Avhich 
 has sometimes seemed, but only seemed, opposed 
 to faith, the power of knowledge. Then those great 
 words, ' I came to bear witness to the truth,' will 
 receive new force and meaning, the truths of experi- 
 ence being added to those of faith. When a pure 
 and simple faith has acknowledged freely that all 
 true science is from God, then science, which also has 
 (as Bacon said) the spirit of a little child, will again 
 receive the lesson of faith ; and the two combined, 
 faith giving the motive and science the means, faith 
 
252 DESTROYING AND FULFILLING. 
 
 with love and hope inspirhig and impelHng, science 
 enhghtening, guiding, and ministering, will make 
 a wider and more blessed conquest of humanity than 
 has yet been seen. Then truth shall flourish on the 
 earth, as righteousness hath looked down from heaven. 
 Then ' mind and soul, according well, will make one 
 music as before, but vaster.' Then every principle of 
 good and right which the world has ever known, will 
 have fulfilment, not in asserting their separate and 
 limited titles to acceptance, but through being united 
 with that, than which nothing higher can ever be 
 revealed, the law of Christian love. Then every 
 aspiration of 'the prophetic soul of the wide world 
 dreaming on things to come ' shall find satisfaction 
 in the fuller revelation of God. 
 
SERMON XIX. 
 
 THE MORAL ELEMENT IN GREEK CULTURE CON- 
 SIDERED IN RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 AN ADDRESS TO STUDENTS. 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 The ethics of the New Testament are necessarily 
 indefinite, not only because of the fragmentariness 
 of the record, but because the hfe recorded consisted 
 so largely in aspiration. Hence the often quoted 
 saying, that ' The Gospel lays down principles rather 
 than rules/ The great outlines stand forth unmis- 
 takeably and indelibly : love to God and man ; 
 giving more blessed than receiving; the inexhaustible 
 value of faith, hope, and charity. But the application 
 of these principles in the Epistles is necessarily partial 
 and tentative, having reference to the circumstances 
 of a few places and of a particular time. 
 
 This inevitable vagueness is more felt by us, now 
 that we have learnt to distinguish between traditional 
 Christianity and the religion of Christ. As dogmatic 
 theology relaxes its hold upon the mind, we become 
 
254 MORAL ELEMENT IN GREEK CULTURE. 
 
 aware of the continued need of some ideal support 
 for morality ; and while we seek for this first and 
 chiefly in the New Testament, we also feel afresh the 
 undying value of other pages, ' rich with the spoils of 
 time,' which have preserved for us a different type of 
 excellence, not reaching, perhaps, to the celestial 
 heights, but looking down upon us from the calm 
 summits of human things. 
 
 The religious atmosphere in which many of us grew 
 up was full of the exaggerations of medisevalism — 
 exaggerations of sin, of holiness, of asceticism, of 
 chivalry, of the terrors of another world. How 
 far these may be traced to Scandinavian or Teutonic 
 antecedents, we need not stop to enquire. But a true 
 antidote for them is to be found in the Greek spirit, of 
 which the essence was a moderation by no means 
 inconsistent with the most burning enthusiasm.. 
 
 This must at least be one chief tone in that ' bodi- 
 less harmony ' (koit/xo? rts dorajjuaro? Plato, Philcbiis) to 
 which we look for assistance in the regulation of human 
 life, if the past is anything to us, and physical science 
 is not our all in all. But it must be remembered that 
 the best ideas of any age and country are, as it were, 
 encased in limitations, which they must transcend, 
 if they are to be made available in another time and 
 place. The highest thoughts of the Greeks have 
 come to us from the most aristocratic section of a 
 society that was based on slavery. But already in Plato 
 
MORAL ELEMENT IN GREEK CULTURE. 255 
 
 the nobler elements of Greek thought had burst the 
 sheath of language, and the conceptions of nobleness, 
 and of liberality, have fortunately still a meaning for 
 us, though equality of rights has been asserted, and 
 slavery is doomed; just as the more modern notion 
 of 'courtesy' may, we hope^ retain something of sig- 
 nificance, even where the ' courts of princes, where 
 it first was named,' have never existed, or have been 
 swept away. 
 
 And this may be taken as a sample of the general 
 truth, that whatsoever things are good and true should 
 be fearlessly accepted and used, notwithstanding the 
 very different elements which may have clung to them 
 at the time and in the place of their birth. 
 
 Address. 
 
 On some Meeting Points betivecn Christianity and 
 Hellenic Culture. 
 
 In reading the Bible, or any great inspiring book, 
 an enthusiastic fancy is apt to exclaim, ' Oh, to 
 have lived in those days ; to have heard such 
 words from the lips of those who spoke them ; 
 to have witnessed these scenes ; perchance to have 
 acted in them ! ' But if such thoughts ever cross 
 our minds, there are second thoughts which tell 
 us that 'we know not what we ask.^ We see the 
 far-off light, and are caught by its radiance, and we 
 forget the barrenness and desolation from the midst 
 
256 MORAL ELEMENT IN GREEK CULTURE. 
 
 of which it shines. What we really covet are not the 
 circumstances, but the spirit and the power to cope 
 with them, which even when thus surrounded could 
 so act and speak. To live in the times of prophets 
 and apostles, we should have needed the strength 
 of a prophet or an apostle. A moment's reflection 
 shows us that, being what we are, we cannot wish to 
 have been with Elijah on Mount Carmel, or with 
 St. Paul at Ephesus or at C?esarea. 
 
 And even so it is when we meditate on that 
 Gentile world to which your thoughts are often 
 directed in this place. From thence also there 
 comes to us a light and a voice which we cannot 
 dispense with, whose value is indefeasible and inex- 
 haustible. But the light comes from a place of tombs, 
 and the voice is that of a sybil in her cave. No 
 rational man would restore the life of heathenism, if 
 he could ; and however much it were desired, it is 
 happily impossible. It had its brighter and its 
 darker side, and so has our modern life ; but we would 
 not exchange our miseries for theirs. What we do 
 desire is that we might enter into the fulness of our 
 inheritance, by making our own the thoughts, the 
 examples, the creations of former time, which are im- 
 perishable. Like all high thoughts, all noble ex- 
 amples, and all fair creations, these rose far above the 
 level of contemporary life, and stood out in contrast, 
 and often in sharp antagonism, from the age which 
 
MORAL ELEMENT IN GREEK CULTURE. 257 
 
 gave thcni birth. If we labour to understand and 
 represent to ourselves the details of that life, the 
 characteristic features of that early time, it is only 
 that we may more completely realize the grandeur 
 and significance of those rare thoughts, examples, 
 and imaginations. 
 
 When standing, as I did some months ago, on the 
 Acropolis at Athens, and letting the eye range from 
 the Areopagus in the foreground to the snowy ridge 
 of Cyllene ; or when feeling the flush of morning on 
 the bay of Salamis, as the first rays darted from 
 behind Pentelicus ; or again, in climbing the island 
 promontory, and surveying the shore of Attica from 
 Eleusis to PeircEus — could we desire, even while 
 enwrapt in the radiance of that magic light, that we 
 ourselves were following some priest of Apollo up the 
 ascent of the Propylsea ; or that the morning cloud 
 we saw resting in the hollow beneath Eleusis, were in 
 reality, as was once imagined, stirred up by the feet of 
 the Mystae, and that we ourselves were of them ? No 
 man can for a moment wish to exchange a wider for 
 a narrower horizon. Truly, if any age of the world 
 could tempt us to wander back into it, the age of 
 ^schylus and of Pericles would be that age. To 
 have fought at Marathon, or to have seen the comple- 
 tion of the Parthenon, is a more enviable lot than to 
 have been a courtier of King Solomon. But our own 
 lot is far more enviable than either, if we only knew 
 S 
 
258 MORAL ELEMENT IN GREEK CULTURE. 
 
 our advantages and how to use them. ' The heirs of 
 all the ages/ no generation has been so rich in oppor- 
 tunities. The wisdom and the spiritual glories, not of 
 one time and country only, whether of Solomon or 
 of Solon, but of many eras and of many climes, the 
 best" thoughts, the noblest aspirations, the holiest 
 counsels of the best, the holiest, the greatest human 
 souls, are ours, if we will open our minds and hearts 
 to them, not as dead tradition, but alive and potent 
 to inspire and guide. The book of nature is unrolled 
 for us more widely than ever before. And high above 
 all, endued with sovereign alchemy to detect and 
 purge the faults of human things, to reinforce what- 
 ever is pure and lovely and of good report, to take it 
 up into the heavenly places and to redouble its value, 
 we have the spirit of Christ ; if, through our imper- 
 fection, less intensely realized by us than by the first 
 Christians, yet perhaps seen more truly in its mani- 
 fold relations to other more partial and limited ex- 
 pressions of what is highest in man. 
 
 This brings me to the point to which I would 
 direct attention during the time allotted me, the rela- 
 tion of Christianity to so-called heathen wisdom. It 
 is a subject which we cannot overlook, if we desire, as 
 in this place we must desire, to reconcile the spirit of 
 culture with religious feeling. The two have some- 
 times been mischievously opposed ; at other times no 
 less mischievously confounded. Early Christianity 
 
MORAL ELEMENT IN GREEK CULTURE. 259 
 
 naturally shrank with horror from any contact with 
 paganism. It lay too near to the reality of the 
 Grc-Eco-Roman life to be able to separate between the 
 good and the evil, especially because the evil had 
 reached to such heights of abominable corruption, and 
 even much that had been good and beautiful had 
 become degraded so as to minister to the evil. Still 
 there were elements of truth and good in Gentile 
 thought;, which from their affinity to Christian doctrine 
 could not but blend with it, and indeed, even before 
 Christ, had already met and mingled at Alexandria 
 with Jewish tradition. Much that the example of 
 Christ condemned had already been condemned in 
 theory by Greek philosophers, who thus enforced 
 intellectually the deeper spiritual influence : the Un- 
 seen Eternal God of the Jews was the goal toward 
 which Greek thought had tended in its singular re- 
 action from polytheism ; the Christian hope of 
 resurrection bore a close relationship to the idea of 
 immortality. Thus, even when most vehemently op- 
 posed to all that was of pagan origin, when separated 
 by the deepest gulf from the heathen world, when 
 hatred of idols and daemons, and the sensuality which 
 accompanied them, had been most intensified by 
 persecution, exile, and poverty, the battle of the 
 Christian believers was already waged in part with 
 weapons taken from the armoury which the higher 
 mind of heathenism had itself provided. 
 S 2 
 
25o MORAL ELEMENT IN GREEK CULTURE. 
 
 Again, after many centuries in which Christianity 
 had been, at least nominally, the religion of Europe, 
 but in which Christian tradition, after leavening the 
 world, had been not a little darkened and corrupted, 
 the literature of antiquity reappeared as a new-found 
 treasure. The immediate effect of this was by no 
 means unmixed good. On the one hand, an heir- 
 loom priceless in itself was secured for transmission 
 to posterity, and an impulse was given to every form 
 of intellectual energy, which is still felt to vibrate 
 amidst the complex influences of to-day. But on the 
 other hand, in the reaction from mediaeval austerity, 
 the principle of humanism, ' Homo sum, nihil humani 
 a me alienum puto,' ' I am a man, and count nothing 
 human alien to me,' received too indiscriminate and 
 too superficial application, even to the partial oblitera- 
 tion of some chief outlines of the Christian ideal, 
 Christianity, having for a time missed something of 
 human gentleness, was now destined to lose some- 
 thing of religious purity. The touchstone which 
 should have discerned the true gold from the dross, 
 was either not there, or not carefully enough applied ; 
 and, to speak roughly, Christendom has since oscil- 
 lated between libertinism and Puritanism in various 
 forms. Perhaps the contrast between the higher and 
 the lower aspect of the Renaissance has nowhere 
 been more finely touched than in a romance of our 
 
MORAL ELEMENT IN GREEK CULTURE. 261 
 
 own day, the story of Romola, in which immediately 
 after the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, there 
 comes upon the scene a plausible Greekling, of 
 boundless versatility of talent, with great powers, 
 but all of them superficial, and without a heart. I 
 have often admired the artistic skill and the pro- 
 found meaning of that introduction, 
 
 A different, and in some respects a higher mission 
 than that of merely continuing either the Hebrew or 
 the classical tradition, seems to devolve upon our age. 
 The time seems to have come when we can in some 
 measure distinguish what is highest and noblest in 
 antiquity from that which is base or imperfect, that 
 which is kindred or supplementary to Christianity 
 from that which Christianity condemns. To speak 
 for a moment in Scripture language, we may hope so 
 to have learned Christ, that nothing in humanity can 
 be harmful to us : because if good or innocent, it will 
 mingle with the breathing of His spirit and be trans- 
 figured by it : if bad or mean, it will be judged and 
 rejected by Him, and trodden under our feet. And 
 the good which we so find may be of great value to 
 us, even though, when we look again at the docu- 
 ments of our religion, we fancy that it might have 
 been found there also from the first. 
 
 I know that there is another and, as some may 
 think, a larger way of regarding this whole subject, 
 according to which the antiquities of Greece and Rome 
 
2^2 MORAL ELEMENT IN GREEK CULTURE. 
 
 are regarded as a moment in the development of 
 human nature, and as one of many portions or samples 
 of human experience. From this anthropological 
 stand-point, Greek history is only more important than 
 Mexican or Peruvian history, in that it is more fully 
 recorded. This, however, is not the aspect of anti- 
 quity of which I am now speaking. What I desire 
 to urge is that we should prize and make our own, in 
 true conformity with the teaching of Christ, all that 
 is highest and noblest in the thoughts, the imagina- 
 tions, the active principles of some of the best and 
 wisest of our race. 
 
 Let us premise that there are three cardinal points 
 in which Greek wisdom comes far short of the 
 humblest Christian teaching ; namely, in its tolerance 
 of sensuality, of cruelty, and of pride. 
 
 I. The first of these failings is perhaps the most 
 conspicuous. Not that many ancients were not 
 deeply impressed with the dignity and grace of 
 purity. This could not be more finely felt by any 
 one, than it is by ^schylus in his tragedies. But 
 there was not one of their writers, however capable 
 of moral sublimity, who in his lighter moods could 
 not jest at things which, as we well know, are not 
 matters for jesting but for abhorrence : not because 
 we are better than they— very far from that— but 
 because of two things coming between us and them, 
 a good thing and an evil thing— the life of Christ, 
 
M;ORAUi;|StEMENT IN GREEK CULTURE. 263 
 
 seen first in the Gospels and since reflected in 
 the lives of many Christians, and — twenty centuries 
 of human misery. We know too well what have been 
 the fountains that have chiefly fed that misery, whence 
 flows the poison which the waters of Israel have not 
 yet purged away, to dwell with a light heart, as they 
 did, on the blots of that ancient life. And we have 
 seen the image of One who condemns them, not with 
 repulsive austerity, but through the beauty of holiness. 
 We may admire their gaiety and freshness of temper, 
 but we have felt too much to be either attracted or 
 injured by their levity. 
 
 2. And then, to pass from this, we have heard words 
 which make repulsive to us the cruelty and vindictive- 
 ness, which cling even to the most generous utterances 
 of the ancient world. Although such sayings as these 
 have not yet had their full efi"ect, 'Whosoever shall 
 offend one of these little ones ; ' ' Their angels do 
 always behold the face of my Father who is in 
 Heaven ; ' ' Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of 
 the least of these, 3^e have done it unto me ; ' yet they 
 have sunk deep into the heart of Christendom, and 
 have given rise to possibilities of feeling which the 
 noblest hearts of ancient Hellas could not have con- 
 ceived. And if the precept, ' Love your enemies,' has 
 not yet tamed the passions of men ; yet in this and 
 that other precept, ' Whatsoever ye would that men 
 should do to you, do ye even so to them.' a standard 
 
264 MORAL ELEMENT IN GREEK CULTURE. 
 
 has been lifted which has permanently raised the level 
 of our moral judgments, I cannot admit that even 
 the great precept, ' Do not to another what you would 
 not that another should do to you,' comes nearly to 
 the height of the Christian golden rule. The one is 
 negative and limited ; the other is positive and inex- 
 haustible. The one teaches me not to offend my 
 neighbour ; the other urges me to do everything I 
 possibly can to benefit him. It is interesting to note 
 where, in this respect, great minds in earlier times have 
 approached the Christian standard. But we must 
 acknowledge that they came far short of it. I may 
 just hint at the contrast that might be drawn between 
 the treatment of his sons by CEdipus in the ancient 
 poem of atonement, and the treatment of his enemies 
 by Prospero. 
 
 3. Again, the ancient ideal of virtue was hardly 
 separable from pride and contempt for others. 
 Christianity, by presenting a type of perfection 
 before which all feel their sinfulness, and also by 
 revealing the value of each individual soul before God, 
 has given a new meaning and importance to the 
 grace of humility. 
 
 But there are other lessons which Christian teaching 
 has not always supplied with equal clearness, and 
 which are brought home to us in the reading of Greek 
 literature. I will mention a few of these. 
 
 And it may sound strangely to you if I give the 
 
MORAL ELEMENT IN GREEK CULTURE. 265 
 
 first place to the love of home. We are apt to 
 think of this as an especially Christian virtue. But 
 the circumstances of the first Christians, in which a 
 man's foes were they of his own household, the ex- 
 aggerations of asceticism, and consequent misappli- 
 cation of the words, ' He that loveth father or mother 
 more than me, is unworthy of me,' have sometimes 
 been anything but favourable to domestic life. It is 
 true that Greek home life was not like ours. But 
 their defects in this respect make all the more striking 
 the lessons which are taught in their poetry. Where 
 else will you find such tremendous sanctions assigned 
 to domestic virtue, as understood by them ; where 
 else more fascinating pictures of the attachment of 
 children to a father, of brother to sister, and sister to 
 brother, of mother to child, aye even of wife to hus- 
 band ? One of the most obvious characteristics of 
 Greek poetry is the close juxtaposition of extreme ten- 
 derness and extreme vindictiveness. The tenderness 
 and the vindictiveness spring ofttimes from the same 
 root, the sanctity of the domestic hearth. I have not 
 time to quote examples, but I will refer to one, the 
 same on which Dr. Arnold used to dwell so often, 
 the last parting of the old Theban outcast from his 
 daughters, where he reminds them of the abundant 
 affection which had softened all the hardships they 
 had borne for him. 
 
 The instances of true tenderness, of exquisite pathos, 
 
266 MORAL ELEMENT IN GREEK CULTURE. 
 
 of faithful and pure feeling, from the lament of Briseis 
 over Hector downwards, cannot be numbered. If the 
 New Testament sets before us a divine ideal, which 
 satisfies our highest aspirations and corrects our 
 faults ; yet there are also deep veins of human 
 emotion, having a peculiar sacredness, which find a 
 clearer and fuller and more varied expression in what 
 has been called profane literature. And just as there 
 are moods, in which we find more comfort in some 
 parts of the Old Testament than in the New ; so 
 there are true and noble feelings of the heart, which 
 find a response in Greek poetry which does not 
 equally come to us from the Bible. 
 
 One of these feelings is the reverence for human 
 law, which was more reconcilable than we are apt to 
 suppose with the love of liberty and the hatred of 
 tyranny. It is in the same sentence, that Pericles 
 boasts of the freedom of private life at Athens, and in 
 which he says, ' We respect the authority of the 
 magistrate and of the laws, especially those of them 
 which are unwritten,, and are made for the defence of 
 the oppressed.' Christianity is of course in a still higher 
 sense the obedience to an unwritten law, to a spiritual 
 principle written on the tablet of the heart. But 
 coming from a country that "was doomed, and from 
 a nation that rejected it, the earliest Christianity could 
 not give that direct sanction to the love of country, 
 and to national piety, which lay so deep in the better 
 
MORAL ELEMENT IN' GREEK CULTURE. 267 
 
 spirits of Greece. The lament of St. Paul over his 
 countrymen, of Christ over Jerusalem, show that 
 this also was of the essence of the new religion. But 
 not till it had bound all nations into one could it be 
 clearly seen how profoundly in harmony with the 
 love of countr>^, as well as of kindred, was the worship 
 which in its first origin ' brought not peace, but a 
 sword.' To the best minds of Greece, the love of 
 civic order and tlie love of liberty were one. For by 
 liberty they meant nothing else but the continuance of 
 that order to which their hearts gave loyal and willing 
 obedience, because it came to them from their sires, 
 and was sanctioned by all that they esteemed as holy 
 in their land. 
 
 Let us name another characteristic of the best 
 Greek literature, in which I think that it contrasts 
 favourably with the literature of the nations which 
 have professed Christianity. This is, in one word, its 
 manliness. In modern countries, I know not for what 
 reason, the literary spirit has often been strangely 
 allied to softness and effeminacy. The best Greek 
 poetry is pre-eminently masculine. I do not speak of 
 the yEolian lyric poetry, or of the poetry of the 
 declining period, which has a special charm of its 
 own, but of the main stream of the earlier poetry. 
 In point of wholesomeness and strength, to leave 
 other qualities for the present out of view, what 
 modern poet, perhaps excepting Dante, can be com- 
 
268 MORAL ELEMENT IN GREEK CULTURE. 
 
 pared to Homer, or to yEschylus, or Pindar? We 
 are somewhat apt to be imposed upon by the form 
 of contrast, and especially perhaps by the contrast 
 between things spiritual and things secular. And 
 I cannot but think that there is something of logical 
 illusion in the opposition so often made between 
 Hebraism and Hellenism, as if these were two prin- 
 ciples mutually exclusive of each other. Else I 
 think we should have acknowledged more fully than 
 has yet been done/ the increasing moral purpose 
 running through Greek literature, and constituting a 
 revelation of righteousness, which if less imperious, is 
 hardly less persuasive than in the prophetic writings. 
 It is true that the ideas of justice and of vengeance 
 cling together, and are but slowly and imperfectly 
 separated. But is not this equally the case in the 
 Old Testament? And can we altogether spare the 
 sterner aspects of justice, which were more natural 
 to the ancient world ? But for a habit of language, 
 which on the whole it is wiser to observe, would 
 there be any impropriety in speaking of the pro- 
 gressive utterance of this idea as a revelation ? 
 
 First comes the hint of powers that chasten the 
 perjured after death, which strikes us by its isolated 
 solemnity in Homer ; then the Nemesis, though 
 darkened with envy, that so profoundly impressed 
 Herodotus as coming from God ; then the higher con- 
 ception of a supreme deity, combining righteousness, 
 
MORAL ELEMENT IN GREEK CULTURE. 269 
 
 wisdom, and faithfulness, with almighty strength, that 
 mingles like a tone of genuine Hebraic melody with 
 the clear Hellenic harmonies of yEschylus ; then the 
 crystalline empyrean, where the unwritten law of 
 piety and mercy is enthroned above the Muse of 
 Sophocles ; and lastly, the ideal righteous man of 
 Plato, who cannot harm even an enemy, but like the 
 divinity of whose nature he partakes, can only be 
 the cause of good. Whether we regard all this as a 
 conscious preparation for the Gospel, or as a lower 
 stage of revelation, or as a confirmation of revelation 
 through the law written on the Gentile heart and 
 mind, we cannot dispense with the instruction which 
 it still holds forth to us, at a time when ' victorious 
 analysis,' if I may borrow a happy phrase, is threat- 
 ening even the foundations of morality. 
 
 I have tried to dwell on some of the less obvious 
 aspects of the subtle and manifold influence of Greek 
 literature. That it ministers, as no sacred books can 
 do, to the intellectual virtues, and to these moral 
 virtues that are most allied to them, ' Self-reverence, 
 self-knowledge, self-control,' — that it gives us an ideal 
 of equal friendship almost unrivalled ; that it refines 
 aesthetic perceptions ; that without it the love of 
 knowledge and of truth is apt to pine and wither — 
 it hardly needs to say. What science, and ethical 
 reflection, and the fine arts owe to Greece is a 
 common theme. It can hardly be necessary to urge 
 
270 MORAL ELEMENT IN GREEK CULTURE. 
 
 that the study of Greek books should be carefully- 
 directed to ends which they are known to serve so 
 well. 
 
 But I may conclude with one general observation. 
 Except in its first sacred outgoings, our religion has 
 been always liable to the dangers of narrowness and 
 extravagance. In Greek literature we have a spirit of 
 moderation that is not inconsistent with the highest 
 aspiration and enthusiasm. That practical wisdom 
 which is skilful in the choice of means, that clear 
 insight without which the highest impulses are 
 doomed to frustration, that conscious study of human 
 nature so indispensable for all who would teach or 
 guide mankind — have all their most fruitful exemplars 
 in Greek culture. 
 
 The more comprehensively we learn to view the 
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 munion with those few great souls, who soar like 
 eagles above the clouds of time, and whose utterances, 
 to adapt a saying of Heraclitus, penetrate to far more 
 than a thousand years. 
 
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