LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 University of California. 
 
 Class 
 
Clje ^opes anD Decisions of tfte passion 
 
 OF OUR 
 
 MOST HOLY REDEEMER 
 
The Hopes and Decisions 
 OF THE Passion 
 
 OF OUR 
 
 ittosst l^olr Ketieemer 
 
 BY 
 
 W. J. KNOX LITTLE, M.A. 
 n 
 
 CANON RESIDENTIARY OF WORCESTER, AND VICAR 
 OF HOAR CROSS, STAFFORDSHIRE 
 
 RIVINGTONS 
 WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXVI 
 

 ^ 
 
 
3( Dedicate t|)i0 Uolume 
 
 CHARLES LINDLEY, VISCOUNT HALIFAX 
 
 AS A SLENDER TRIBUTE OF AFFECTION AND RESPECT 
 FOR ONE 
 
 WHO IS AS LOYAL AND CONSIDERATE IN PRIVATE FRIENDSHIP 
 
 AS HE IS FAITHFUL AND DEVOTED IN 
 
 THE SERVICE OF CHRIST 
 
 147225 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 Of the Sermons in this Volume, the first eight 
 were preached in barest outline in St. Paul's 
 Cathedral, in the Lent of 1884 and 1885. 
 
 They are published in a much extended form, 
 with alterations and additions freely made, as 
 the same subject presented itself to the mind 
 on other occasions. They appear now, in 
 accordance with requests received from many 
 quarters, and after a long delay occasioned by 
 want of time and temporary failure of health. 
 Like those which preceded them, they do not 
 attempt to deal with the whole subject, but 
 only with single aspects of the Passion. 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 The last Sermon was preached in substance 
 at the Nave Service in Worcester Cathedral, 
 in 1884, on the evening of Easter Day. 
 
 It is hoped that, slender and inadequate as 
 such treatment of so great a subject always 
 must be, it may help some more firmly to follow 
 the Great Example, and more truly to worship, 
 love, and trust in Him Who is Eternal God 
 and Perfect Man — the Saviour of us all. 
 
 The College, Worcester, 
 June 8, 1886. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 I. 
 
 %%t l^ope of iforg:ttiene00* 
 
 PAGE 
 
 '* The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which wa^ 
 
 lost." — St. Luke XIX. 10 1 
 
 II. 
 
 %liz ^ope of 3Ligi)t. 
 
 " At evening-time it shall be light." — Zech. xiv. 7 . . 20 
 
 III. 
 
 ^f)e l^ope of ^tvznst% 
 
 " 2n that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able 
 
 also to succour them that are tempted." — Heb. ii. 18 . 47 
 
 IV. 
 
 ^^t l&opc of (Blorp. 
 
 " The ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion 
 with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads : they 
 shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing 
 shall flee away." — Isa. xxxv. 10 74 
 
xii CONTENTS 
 
 V. 
 
 %\t 2Dect0ion on tje iflteti^ of tje ^ouU 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " / determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus 
 
 Christ, and Him crucified.'' — 1 Cor. ii. 2 . . . 106 
 
 VI. 
 
 ^Je 2Deci0ion on tje 21Ialue of t^e feouU 
 
 " For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the ivhole 
 
 world, and lose his oum soul?" — St. Mark viii. 36 . 130 
 
 VII. 
 
 ^Se 2Decfeion on tje 2Deliterance of 
 t^e »)ouL 
 
 " Gome unto ilfe."— St. Matt. xi. 28 156 
 
 VIII. 
 
 %^z 2Deci0ion on t^e }^tvMtvmtz of 
 t^t »>ouU 
 
 ''Abide in Me" — St. John xv. 4 178 
 
 IX. 
 
 31e0u0 anti tje Ee^urrection. 
 
 ''He preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection." — 
 
 Acts xvii. 18 203 
 
B RA 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 Cfte ^ope of jrorgitieness* 
 
 * The Son of Man is cofne to seek and to save that which was lost J 
 St. Luke xix. io. 
 
 WE cannot venture, my brothers, quite evidently, to 
 think of anything this week except the Sacred 
 Passion. And it is well, because the study of the 
 Passion, amidst innumerable lessons in detail, has 
 written on it in characters of unmistakable clearness 
 three broad teachings. 
 
 (1) First, it is true that our purblind or earthly 
 eyes may catch a glimmer of the love of Jesus 
 Christ. St. Paul was impressed by its gigantic 
 power in breaking down barriers and piercing through 
 obstructions, in distancing space, and defying time ; 
 and whilst it is possible that the language of empty 
 sentiment and a baneful habit of religious unreality 
 may have discredited in many minds the true power of 
 this glorious reality, it is good for us to stand in quiet 
 thought before its evident expression, and learn that it 
 is a truth. To know this as a fact, and not as a phrase, 
 is also to learn that we, even we — strange as it appears 
 
 A 
 
2 THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 — may in some measure give back what we have 
 received from our Master — love for love ; and to love 
 Jesus Christ is, we cannot doubt it, the strongest 
 and most lasting spring of a really manly, because of 
 a really Christian, life. 
 
 (2) And again here, above all, love " may abound in 
 knowledge ;" at the Cross it is that we learn to know 
 God, and not to rest in dreams and imaginations on 
 that subject, but " to hnow Him, is eternal life." 
 
 (3) And further, to the eye that is fixed eagerly and 
 devoutly on the Passion, there comes out in greater 
 distinctness the lines of relation between God and His 
 creature ; and truly to realise and act on that relation 
 is Eeligion. 
 
 We are constantly, nowadays, brought in contact 
 with the teachings of what is called Agnosticism. 
 This would appear to be a phase of irreligious thought, 
 springing either from spiritual laziness or spiritual 
 despair. It never can be the spring of a vigorous and 
 useful life. A force strong enough to face the trials of 
 Time can never be supplied by a negation. Now, the 
 difference between the Agnostic and the Christian is 
 this : the Agnostic declares God to be unknown and 
 unknowable ; the Christian says, " Yes ; unknown, 
 quite possibly; indeed to a soul enslaved by mortal 
 sin, quite certainly; but unknowable — emphatically 
 no." For God is or may be known — so teaches the 
 Christian Chiirch — in Christ, " In the face of Jesus 
 
THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS 3 
 
 Christ," to use an apostolic expression; in the face, 
 above all, of Christ Crucified, thzrey there is an un- 
 veiling of God. 
 
 It is surely, dear friends, most important that we 
 should know God's relation to ourselves. Take my 
 advice, then : with earnestness and calmness contem- 
 plate the Cross. 
 
 Now here, as we embark on a boundless ocean, we 
 must lay the lines of our course. 
 
 There are three virtues, called theological, because 
 they bind the soul to God ; all may be stimulated by 
 the study of Christ Crucified. I tie myself down to 
 one. Whatever else we need every one of us, certainly 
 we are in need of Hope ; Hope — to put it crudely — 
 in a world of time, to be better ; Hope in a world of 
 eternity, to be saved. Let us think here and now of 
 the Hopes of the Passion ; let us contemplate the con- 
 solation of the Cross. 
 
 Hope, indeed, in its natural form is as necessary as it 
 is beautiful. Without it, especially amidst a life of 
 sorrow, life would be ruined. In the deepest night of 
 trouble and disaster it anticipates the first streaks of 
 the morning, and even in presence of Death it can 
 share with Love the victory over the grave. It is 
 indeed the very spring of activity ; and to lose it is to 
 
4 THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 plunge into darkness, often into disaster. Some of the 
 deepest crimes in Florence at the time of the plague, in 
 Paris at the time of the Terror, came from a final 
 failure of Hope. If Faith gives to life its power of 
 endurance, if Love give its courage and its joy, it is 
 Hope — like " wingless victory " — that, abiding in the 
 soul in the day of trouble, gives a spring of energy 
 because it anticipates a better morning. 
 
 Much more is Divine Hope a power. 
 
 This is God's gift, supernatural and from the Divine 
 treasury, an attitude and force of soul by which man 
 awaits with confidence the attainment of the highest 
 destiny of the creature, and the means to that attain- 
 ment. This Hope is no vague imagining ; it rests upon 
 God's faithfulness, and is guaranteed by the unbounded 
 merits of the Passion. In the soul it may be carried 
 away by surrender to the temptations of presumption 
 or of despair, for it is not certainty — fhat is not ours 
 this side the grave — but, on the other hand, it is 
 protected in the soul by two gifts of the Spirit, like 
 warrior angels guarding a heavenly treasure — the gifts 
 of Ghostly Strength and Holy Fear. 
 
 Now there are at least four Hopes which spring from 
 the Passion, and every one of us, my brothers, in the 
 course of our mortal pilgrimage, need these as a 
 possession. The first is the Hope of the Forgiveness 
 of our Sins. 
 
THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS 5 
 
 11. 
 
 In every humau soul, dear friends, there is a sense 
 of great moral need ; sometimes dim or blunted, some- 
 times keen and clear-eyed, but there it is. We cannot, 
 in the deepest and saddest of all things, we cannot 
 depend upon ourselves. The deepest and saddest of 
 all things is human sin. However men close their 
 eyes, or avert their gaze, however much instances 
 may be quoted in which all sense of sin seems to 
 have vanished, still so great we are, so much in us 
 remains of the image of the Creator, so truly have 
 each of us within the "light that lighteneth every 
 man," that, whatsoever our degradation, we have not 
 fallen so low as not to know that we have fallen. 
 And so across the page of human history there broods 
 the shadow of " something wrong." 
 
 That " something wrong " is Sin. 
 
 We know strangely little about it, and yet of it 
 we know enough to see its seriousness. 
 
 It is not mere misfortune, for its commission carries, 
 as a consequence, the sense of guilt. It is not a stage 
 in progress, or a phase of moral advance, or of goodness 
 in an undeveloped state, for the further it develops the 
 more it is felt to part company with goodness, and 
 to carry with it the sense of wrong. It is not tempta- 
 tion, although temptation often leads to it ; nor mere 
 misery and wretchedness, though these follow fast on 
 
6 THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 its track. It is a condition of heart and will at 
 variance with the true law of man's being — at vari- 
 ance, that is, with the law of God. 
 
 We know that the human race was reduced into 
 this condition by a power external to itself; that sin 
 is not natural to it, not part of its essential being. 
 We know, by the law of Divine government by 
 which we are linked one to another in the human 
 family by a mysterious bond, that sin, which laid its 
 grip on the father of the race, has never since relaxed 
 it. We know, therefore, that deliverance also must 
 come from without, and yet, in so intimate, a matter, 
 from some power a very part of ourselves ; and out 
 of this tremendous dilemma we are delivered by the 
 Incarnation and the Passion. " We know that the Son 
 of God is come," and that " He was made sin for us 
 Who knew no sin." Thus much we know of the roots 
 of the evil, of the beginning and the treatment of the 
 disease ; thus much, and little more. When we become 
 conscious of all this, we awaken to a condition of our 
 race terrible in its gloom. Strange intimations come 
 to us of the meaning of all this from another world ; 
 and we become aware that we are the subjects of 
 Divine intervention and of mysterious transactions in 
 the sphere of Eternity. 
 
 So much for antecedent hints and histories of the 
 saddening fact. 
 
 Then we look around, and all is in the confusion 
 
THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS 7 
 
 of battle. The brightest day is darkened with cloud, 
 the fairest lives are subject to sorrow, the very texture 
 of life becomes woven in part out of the consequence 
 of sin; so that — so used are we to the calamity — we find 
 it difficult for imagination to picture an ordinary world 
 of work and duty in which to have our probation, 
 without, as part of its constituent forces and motives, 
 the element of sin. 
 
 We turn over the pages of History, and in one thing 
 we find sin rich ; it is rich in consequences ; no denying 
 its malign results, if the words " pain," and '' crime," 
 and " sorrow " have any meaning at all. 
 
 We turn to the Future. Here we are confronted 
 indeed by banks of storm-cloud, and pulled up short 
 by the chasm of the grave. Still there are flashes of 
 light, and voices strange and terrible, all deepening in 
 darker shadow the responsibility and destiny of man. 
 There are solemn announcements of coming judgment, 
 and pictures of the terrible consequences of persistent, 
 unrepented sin, couched in words of awful severity, 
 but unmistakably intended to convey to us with 
 energy the real dreadfulness of a choice made and 
 pursued in the interest of what is wrong. And then 
 we know no more. Foolish to dogmatise beyond 
 teachings so cloudy and so serious, best to acknowledge 
 ignorance when there it is. 
 
 Yes ; and best also to deal with what we do know 
 with clear and steady eye. 
 
8 THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 Now men are tempted to shirk the serious side of 
 life and the full meaning of the awful fact of sin; 
 and one, effect of the death of the Kedeemer is to 
 help them to think what they are about. Kealise the 
 death of the Son of God, and at once it breaks upon 
 you that there must be in it some terrible meaning; 
 realise that that tremendous sacrifice was necessitated 
 by sin — and sin, you see at once, must be of tremendous 
 consequence. 
 
 Men, indeed, have been conscious enough of sin 
 and simply passed it by. The ancient world did not — 
 could not — close its eyes to the overwhelming fact; 
 and so with an undertone of melancholy, never wholly 
 silenced, they smiled in the sunshine and laughed in the 
 laughter of life. What else was there to do ? They 
 could not console, what could they but ignore ? And 
 men in Christendom, half paganised in thought, have 
 tried to do the same. It will not do. The solemn beat of 
 the unseen Feet has been heard in the halls of History, 
 and their echo startles the sleepers ; a Face of un- 
 exampled nobleness and sorrow has risen in view 
 amid the gloom of the world, once seen never to be 
 forgotten. The Face of the Crucified is the revelation 
 of a mystery. Mankind is forced to face as a fact 
 the seriousness of sin. 
 
THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 III. 
 
 But there is a danger of dealing with broad and 
 general questions without bringing them home. Sin, 
 like Eeligion, is a personal matter. To be self-seeking, 
 to be the victim of a moral perverseness of Will, to take 
 our own destiny into our own hands, is to ham God. 
 To sin with easy-going indifference, and waken up, and 
 then fall back again ; to sin from careless submission to 
 custom ; to sin from pure neglect of exertion and high 
 principle — how common is this ! And then sinning 
 Uinds the soul to the facts of a higher life — to the great- 
 ness, the beauty, the nearness of another world ; it 
 'paralyses the soul in its energies of goodness and 
 responses to grace ; when not heartily expelled, it lurks 
 in the soul like a wild beast, and springs out in unex- 
 pected moments to do its work ; it hinds the soul in a 
 chain of evil habit, till the power of breaking its bands 
 is gone. 
 
 The moment of awakening comes, — sometimes in the 
 silent hours of night ; sometimes after the commission 
 of a more serious act than usual of victorious sin; 
 sometimes in a stray circumstance ; sometimes through 
 a voice from the pulpit ; sometimes in the time of 
 prayer ; sometimes by an open grave, when it is felt, 
 as some one says — felt with bitterness — that now only 
 to the mouldering dust can be paid the tribute which 
 
10 THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 was due to the beating heart. Perhaps — how awful ! — 
 if the heart be hardened by persistence, the awakening 
 only comes in fulness in the awful glare of the other 
 world. 
 
 None the less, it comes ; and then — then it is felt 
 in its fulness that be the theories of sin what they 
 may, sin is a matter awfully personal to every soul. 
 For the power and tyranny of sin are then only truly 
 known when a real battle with it has begun ; when 
 the soul sees the light upon the mountains, and begins 
 the struggling ascent towards the breaking of the day, 
 then — then, and not till then — does it know the sharp- 
 ness and steepness of the track. 
 
 And for any soul to waken up to facts, when it long 
 has lain in sin, is to realise the unutterable pathos of 
 the Scriptural sayings as to " the lost." 
 
 To feel myself among "the lost" is, indeed, to 
 awaken to a tragic situation. Pathetic, mysterious, 
 terrible is the fact that such there may be ; but most 
 soul-subduing the further recollection that / may be 
 among them. 
 
 To be " lost " ! Even here it is possible. It is to 
 have evil motives governing the conduct of life with in- 
 creasing persistency and power ; to forfeit self-respect ; 
 to open the door of the soul to the intrusion of all 
 possible form of wrong ; to incur dimness of conscience, 
 and forfeiture of serenity of heart ; to have a weakened 
 will, and an advancing failure of control over the 
 
THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS II 
 
 passions ; to sink into the shadow with an absence of 
 the sense of the beauty of goodness, and so a want of 
 perception, quick and clear, of all that stops its way ; 
 and then the sapping of the quiet strength which 
 " bears good fortune meekly, and suffers ill with con- 
 stancy, and through evil or through good upholds truth 
 always." To be " lost " is to miss the bearings of life's 
 journey, and lose hold of its higher blessings, with just 
 such light left in the Present to show how black and 
 evil it is contrasted with the Past. 
 
 Tremendous, indeed, are the forces at play on a 
 human spirit to bring it to this. But we do deal with 
 tremendous forces. That man knows little of life, little 
 of the crannies and caverns on the dark side of his own 
 spiritual being, who does not remember the sound of the 
 dreary surging of the waves within those caverns, and 
 does not at times fear lest the past may be a presage of 
 a future storm, a storm in which he may be numbered, 
 unless there be deliverance, numbered among "the 
 lost." The sound should strike the soul with piercing 
 solemnity. " The lost !" It is like the wail of the 
 winds on a night of tempest ; it is wrapped in sable, 
 like the gathering gloom on a morning of storm. 
 " The lost ! " It reminds of hopes shattered, purposes 
 broken, promises betrayed. "The lost!" It brings 
 visions of ruined homes and broken hearts, and 
 vanished, beautiful but unsubstantial dreams. 
 
 There have been times when the world itself seemed 
 
12 THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS. 
 
 to sail without compass and without the light of stars, 
 — such times as the years of the crumbling of the 
 imperial sway of Eome ; such times as those of 
 confusion and darkness in the tenth century ; such, 
 again, as those in which young France was found at 
 the close of the First Empire, with its deceiving lights, 
 its hollow show, its tinsel, its insincerity, its breaking 
 of moral ties and polluting of high affections — without 
 faith, without a future. Times like these have been in 
 souls, when all landmarks seem gone, when despondency 
 is sovereign, hiding hope of pardon, paralysing all 
 strength for struggle. 
 
 Are there any such among you ? Are there who still, 
 though straying, have not become victims of the 
 hardened heart, who still — to reverse St. Bernard's say- 
 ing — " may be pierced by compunction, or softened by 
 affection, or moved by prayers ; who do feel the force of 
 solemn warnings, and are not hardened by punishments ; 
 who are not ungrateful for benefits, not faithless to wise 
 counsels, not fierce under rebuke, or shameless in matters 
 of shame ; who still have some religious fear of spiritual 
 danger, still some human tenderness, still reverent 
 respect for the things of God, — who are not altogether 
 forgetful of the Past, nor neglectful of the Present, nor 
 improvident towards the Future." Are there such ? are 
 there such ? Eeckon ye yourselves among " the lost," 
 and yet with serious fear and a breaking heart at the 
 reckoning ? Well, here comes in the mystery of the 
 
THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS 13 
 
 Passion ; here is One before us Who never despaired of 
 humanity ; listen and look to the voice, to the face, of 
 the Crucified. Is the cry of the text not guaranteed in 
 its truth by the self-sacrificing anguish of the Vision ? 
 — " The Son of Man is come to'seek and to save that 
 which was lost." 
 
 IV. 
 
 And the first step in the "seeking" is watching, 
 and waiting, and calling the lost one, and then pene- 
 trating his heart ; and the first step in " saving " is 
 the granting, with power and tenderness, the forgive- 
 ness of sins. 
 
 And how God has watched and waited ! Has He 
 not guided you in wonderful ways ? Has He not 
 called when you would not listen, and then persisted 
 with an untiring, persevering love ? l^othing, nothing 
 is so wonderful, when we wake to think of it, as the 
 patience and persistence of God. 
 
 And then " to save " us, here is the evidence of His 
 offer of mercy reviving our hope. Forgiveness ! It 
 is like the cool breath of morning to the fevered brow. 
 It is like the touch of fresh and sparkling water to 
 the parched and thirsty tongue. Forgiveness ! It is 
 as a longed-for face after years of separation. For- 
 giveness ! It is the blessed gift of Jesus, raising us 
 from the dead. It is the result of His long and 
 
14 THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 fearful sorrow. Its price is the Precious Blood. 
 The power that can grant it has been earned in love 
 and suffering ; it is the special prerogative of the Son 
 of Man. 
 
 Eevive then, look up, drooping soul, half dazed with 
 memories that cannot be obliterated, and crippled by 
 sins which rule with iron sway. " Though your sins 
 be as scarlet, they may be as white as snow." Christ 
 has gained the power, guaranteed the truth, of what 
 you long for. Look up ; let hope revive within you. 
 You, even you, may be forgiven. 
 
 " Gained the power ! " 
 
 Power always commands admiration, or trust, or 
 fear. The secret sway that can be exercised over that 
 which ordinarily defies command — this, this is admir- 
 able. Science wields the sceptre that rules many 
 secrets of the natural world. The genius of Painting 
 draws life from colour ; the genius of Music holds the 
 secret of the charm of sound. The Crucified holds a 
 power in the Passion that none but He can wield or 
 think of wielding. He has achieved the avfo iroTafjutav 
 of the great tragic poet : He rolls back or He trans- 
 forms the Past. 
 
 The Past ! How inexorable ! how mysterious ! Man 
 stands, like the traveller on the deck of the hurrying 
 vessel, and before him stretches the illimitable waste 
 of waters into which he is plunging on ; around him 
 he has a yard or two for air and exercise in the narrow 
 
THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS 15 
 
 confines of the ship ; behind him, in increasing dis- 
 tances, seem to hurry away the traversed reaches of 
 the fast receding sea. 
 
 So we stand, soul, in the cramped and crowded 
 Present, and gaze behind and before. Before, the 
 Future is dim and misty, wrapped — according to our 
 mood and temper — sometimes in sun-lighted, sometimes 
 in tempestuous, clouds. " There, anyhow," we think, 
 ^^tliat is before us." If we are eager, impetuous, 
 hopeful, we look yearningly onward. We are men of 
 progress ; we are all for advancing ; we make for the 
 gates of the day. Here, just by us, is the Present. It 
 is narrow, but its narrowness makes it intense. If 
 enthusiasm carry us to the Future, the Present is so 
 full at once of needs and immediate offers, it has the 
 power to absorb. Yes ; it has a fatal power to plunge 
 the soul in the region of sensation. And some, without 
 shame or fear, in these days tell us that life is only 
 worth living in proportion as we can crowd sensations 
 of pleasure into each passing moment ere it flies. 
 
 Yet, indeed, for the soul, in its Present, in its 
 Future, how much depends upon the Past ! 
 
 That strange store of half-buried memories ; that 
 unrelenting prison-house of buried hopes ; that — above 
 all — that painstaking preserver, that accurate register 
 of sin — what is it to us ? 
 
 Sometimes we bury it carefully, after trying to slay 
 it Yes — and we are conscious of it — it is " buried, but 
 
1 6 THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 not dead." Sometimes we think of it, as of many who 
 have left us, with a hopeless, helpless despair. Some- 
 times, like the miser in the fine Christmas story, its 
 angel leads ns back, and we are broken with sorrow to 
 see it live again, now that all is changed. Sometimes, 
 unexpectedly, like the traveller who tops the crest of 
 the mountain, we are startled, looking back, to see a 
 vision we had forgotten. "Who is that," we say, 
 " wandering in those flowery meadows, gay as the day- 
 dawn ? Whose is that ringing laughter, whose that joy- 
 ous voice ? Can that be myself ?" It can, it is, soul, 
 in the mystery of thy Past. And now how changed ! 
 Where, where, is that old vigour ? where that joyous 
 innocence ? where that unflagging energy ? where that 
 quiet happy purpose ? where that boundless hope ? 
 Where indeed ? Look again : see that figure entering a 
 cloud behind you ; approaching, wilfully, a chasm. The 
 cloud enwraps it, the chasm has engulfed it ; it has 
 toiled on, with wounded hands and aching limbs. In 
 thy Past there has been sin. The first, that marred 
 thy innocence; the next, and then the next, spoiling 
 thy promise, hardening thy heart. Ah ! why is the 
 Present absorbing thee in what debases ? Why is the 
 Future at best so cloudy, and bounded only by the 
 grave? Because the Past is dogging thee like an 
 assassin, armed with thy sin. 
 
 poor soul! This, even this, may be changed. 
 Thou art lost if it is not; it may. One Power can 
 
THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS 17 
 
 roll back the river, one King sway thy destiny. Jesus 
 will not leave thee if thou wilt let Him stand by thee 
 in this paralysing trouble. Jesus Crucified can trans- 
 form the Past. 
 
 Gracious and Blessed One — strong, and, though 
 strong, yet tender — in Thee we hope, for Thy Passion 
 has sealed Thy promise "to seek and to save that 
 which was lost." 
 
 V. 
 
 One word, and I have done. From the grim line of 
 the coast of Calabria there stands out into the waters 
 of the Paro the sea-girt fortress of Silla. This was, a 
 century ago, the scene of a terrible disaster. Now the 
 fortress — castle and the cliff alike — lies quiet in the 
 sunlight, and the fiercest sounds which rouse it are the 
 sighing of the winds over its ruined battlements, and 
 at its base the solemn heaving of the sea; but then 
 it was shaken to its foundations by the repeated shocks 
 of an earthquake. The aged Prince, in view of the 
 calamity, had determined to await the end on his knees 
 before the Crucifix, in contemplation of the Passion. 
 He was over-persuaded by friends to change his pur- 
 pose and fly ; blocked roads and flying fragments of 
 Mhris made the flight a mere forward and backward 
 movement between his inland fortress and the sea. At 
 last, while the Chapel of the Crucifix remained unmo- 
 
1 8 THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 lested, the end came, to himself and his people, who 
 had fled seaward for safety, — in the waves. 
 
 There are moral earthquakes, my brothers, many 
 and terrible, which shake and imperil the soul. Settle 
 it in your minds that when the earthquakes of passion, 
 the earthquakes of temptation, the earthquakes of 
 distrust of God, of flagging purpose, abandoned resolu- 
 tion, of despondency, of despair — that when these are 
 shaking your soul you will try to remember that the 
 safest place is, not with the crowd, but before the 
 Crucifix ; that there remains to you the hope of the 
 penitent sinner, the Hope of the Forgiveness of Sin. 
 
 Your Past may be black ; take it in penitence to your 
 Saviour ; your Future may be cloudy, trust it to your 
 Lord. 
 
 " Lost % were you lost ? And did He stoop to save you, 
 
 Tender and true, and strong with sin to cope ? 
 
 Lost, you were lost, and by His blood He gave you 
 
 Life's deepest lesson, Death's sustaining Hope." 
 
 Your sin may be deeper, deadlier than you realise 
 in this life of twilight ; but you know, fainting soul, 
 that your Master understands your difficulties, knows 
 — for He entered the ranks of man — how easy is evil, 
 how hard it is to do right, and that as He in the con- 
 flict bore the strain of crucifixion, if you are but true to 
 yourself He will never betray. 
 
 It is one of the blessed mysteries of grace, that in 
 the forgiven soul the fair results of former graces- 
 
THE HOPE OF FORGIVENESS 19 
 
 (killed, for the time, by sin) are not obliterated but 
 revived. 
 
 " Fair scenes, kind words, good deeds, no power can sever 
 From those who find their pardon in God's love, 
 In things of beauty there are joys for ever 
 
 Found first on earth, then clasped in heaven above." 
 
 Turn, then — turn your hearts to the Highest. Let 
 the sunshine come after the rain. Forsake the sin, so 
 far as now you can, by sorrow and fair intention. Let 
 Him, let Kim find you Who came to seek " the lost." 
 
 Judas, remember, was not in condemnation because 
 he betrayed his Master, but because having betrayed 
 he would not turn again and trust the boundless pity 
 of Eternal Love. 
 
Cf)e ©ope of ILigf)t- 
 
 * Ai even'mg-time it shall he light.'' — Zech. Xiv. 7. 
 
 THE great gift, then, my brothers, which is guaran- 
 teed to us on Calvary is the Hope of the Forgive- 
 ness of Sin. The Passion of our most dear Eedeemer 
 possesses the unique and invaluable power — the power 
 of doing the undo-able ; the power of, in some measure, 
 unmaking the Past. His Death is that act, so strange, 
 so supernatural, which contains a force, made appli- 
 cable to each soul through penitence, of reversing the 
 most serious acts of life, of reversing those violations 
 of the laws of the Creator, of the laws of the soul's 
 true life, which, in their ultimate and awful conse- 
 quences, are so hard to measure — unless we learn them 
 from the tragedy of Calvary — those acts which are in- 
 corporated in ourselves by our consenting, and are, in 
 fact, our sins. Therefore it is (is it not?) that the 
 Passion of our Master contains a serious warning — 
 warning of the dreadfulness of sin, warning also against 
 the most selfish, heartrending form of human cowardice 
 
 — the cowardice of despair. The first "Hope of the 
 20 
 
THE HOPE OF LIGHT 21 
 
 Passion," the first "Consolation of the Cross," is the 
 Hope of Forgiveness, the hope of reversing the Past. 
 
 But we do not, you and I, possess only a Past ; we 
 possess, it is necessary to remember, also a Future ; and 
 for that Future — the immediate and the distant — other 
 hopes are needed by us all. 
 
 On one of these I dwell here and now. If for the 
 Past we need the Hope of Forgiveness, for the Future 
 we need to realise the promise of the Prophet : " at 
 evening-time there shall be lights The Prophet, in- 
 deed, is speaking of the final burst of vision, when this 
 sad world's most dark perplexities shall be cleared in 
 the glory of Christ's coming ; but this, after all, is but 
 a final act, the summing up of all before it. God works 
 by law. His goings forth are from everlasting. The 
 text contains a principle which is worked out in this 
 " Hope of the Passion." 
 
 And surely, my friends, this Hope is a necessity for 
 fallen and immortal man. 
 
 Whenever the first awakening comes, we are dimly 
 conscious that light is needed to see things as they are, 
 not merely as they seem. We find ourselves, in start- 
 ing, in a twilighted land. The " seeming " of all things 
 is around us and tipon us, settled down upon the heart 
 with the weight of a nightmare, so vivid, so solid, we 
 scarce can shake it off. 
 
 Nature is before us, with the vastness of her gigantic 
 distances, and the microscopic minuteness of her in- 
 
22 THE HOPE OF LIGHT 
 
 exhaustible treasure stores ; now awing us into silent 
 dread and wonder at the inexorable advance and 
 regulated march, so unaffected by ourselves, that we 
 seem less than nothing before this immense unvarying 
 certainty ; now consoling us (with the same dangerous 
 exaggeration on the other side) by a sense of her 
 solidity, and a temptation to believe Iter own are 
 resources on which to rely, the one thing certain which 
 really belongs to us, and all that is unseen the mere 
 product of an " unpractical " imagining ; now (possibly 
 with deeper danger) seeming thinner than shadow, 
 a mere trick of our dreaming, ready — at a touch of 
 really awakened consciousness — ready to vanish away. 
 Nature ! Dissected by science, decked out by poetry, 
 utilised aud vulgarised by mere low self-interest, — we 
 want light to see and read her message, and understand 
 how we stand related to her, and when we are misled. 
 
 We waken to society. We are in it, with its vast 
 complication of facts, its regulated march, as if by drill, 
 and yet the details of endless variety, its changeless cor- 
 porate existence, and yet the silent slipping out of life 
 after life in all its individual mystery. One by one they 
 go ; they were there just now that have vanished into 
 the silent land ; but stable and sure as ever is the vast 
 complex whole. It affects us, we breathe its air, we 
 bow to its maxims, we fall in with its organised work ; 
 and yet we are uneasy. The thing seems so strong, so 
 dominant, so unassailable, and yet we feel something i§ 
 
THE HOPE OF LIGHT 23 
 
 out of gear ; it is a seeming ; we rub our eyes, we can- 
 not see clearly — " the cry of Ajax is for light'' 
 
 We waken up to life. Here there is growth and 
 movement, — evident in ourselves, in others we know 
 most closely, world of passion, sensation, thought — a 
 joyous sense of motion, with sun and air and breath 
 of flowers, and hopes that dance and smile and beckon 
 on ; then struggle, disappointment, sorrow, — a sense of 
 sorrow, full of penetrating sadness, near us in others, 
 like a felt but unseen presence in a sleeper's room. 
 Stop to philosophise, it seems a purposeless maze ; act 
 merely on personal grounds, it brings a round of plain 
 and necessary daily duties, with not much apparent 
 usefulness, till the darkness deepens, and we confront 
 the grave. 
 
 What does it all mean ? This iron necessity, and yet 
 this individual freedom to do what we will ; this unre- 
 lenting massive whole, and yet the jostling inconsist- 
 encies of every detail ; this bright and cheery starting, 
 and then the journey, advancing — whither ? No aim, 
 no clue; but tears and aching feet, or settled, stern, 
 unreasoning resolve. What — what, we ask in impa- 
 tient, petulant anxiety — what is the significance of life % 
 
 And then we have been used to another world — a 
 very real one — of religious practice and religious 
 teaching, going on along with all this strong seeming 
 world, growing into a part of it, but always with a dif- 
 ference that jars. These prayers, repeated morning and 
 
24 THE HOPE OF LIGHT 
 
 night, and only half realised ; these Sunday actions of 
 mysterious Sacraments, of Psalm and Hymn and Collect, 
 with a strange awe hanging round them, and yet allowed 
 by us and many round us to be spoken of (if spoken 
 of at all) with condescending toleration or a half- 
 amused indifference ; until these strange practices, 
 unlike the outer solid scene, are made to match it, and 
 men neglect them, because they cannot bear the jar 
 against their ordinary selves, or try like fools to keep 
 them, emptying them of all solemn tendency of teach- 
 ing, or supernaturalism of restraint. TMs world of 
 mystery, too, is only made endurable by being brought 
 to the level of the commonplace and customary. And 
 yet the commonplace and customary have suffered 
 shocks. However much we have been wrapped in the 
 mantle of material work, or contented with the ways 
 of the world, there have been 
 
 " Falling from us vanishings, 
 Blank misgivings of the creature 
 Moving about in worlds not realised." 
 
 T suppose the most commonplace men have their 
 moments of exaltation. Strangely, sadly enough too, 
 what miglit exalt most, is often most lowering. The 
 mysteries of light and sound, of stony rocks and starry 
 heavens, migM speak of the Creator ; but the scientist 
 most often forgets the Great Inventor, and the labourer 
 in agriculture is usually little sensitive to the fair visions 
 of the spiritual world. Yet all have their moments of^ 
 
THE HOPE OF LIGHT 25 
 
 revelation. Else why the rapture of astonished awe that 
 wakens in a simple soul at the sight of the mountains, 
 or at the thunderous music of the sea ? Why the deep 
 sense of saddened happiness in a spectacle of real gran- 
 deur, contrasted with the mere level pleasure in the read- 
 ing of a pleasant book ? Why do pathetic songs form 
 the staple of the ballad poetry of the people, and not 
 only sailors love saddening poetry — they who have had 
 the training of the solemn sea, — but even the labourer, 
 tired with tillage, and the smith, weary from the 
 anvil, find solace in melancholy song? — why, but that 
 the roughest and least naturally spiritual have a half- 
 hidden consciousness of their true home being " a better 
 country," have a sense of the dignity and severity for 
 all of us, of Love and Death ? 
 
 But more. Moments of revelation have surely come 
 in every life. Flashes, sudden and swift, marking off 
 what is from what seems to be, at least leave memories. 
 There are days on the Swiss mountains, when the storm 
 has long been gathering, when rank after rank of 
 marching clouds have scaled the highest heavens, when 
 the sunlight grows to dimness, and there creeps on a 
 deep and solemn darkness, and peal on peal of thunder 
 follows the usual prelude of the large determined drops 
 of the rain. The storm sweeps down ; the traveller finds 
 himself enveloped in shrouds of darkness, and he scarce 
 dare move with hope to find a pathway, but for the 
 sudden brilliant flashes of vivid fire. There is plenty 
 
26 THE HOPE OF LIGHl 
 
 of danger, but in the sudden rapid light also there is 
 hope. 
 
 There are nights of tempest on the pitiless Atlantic, 
 when, from the dense and murky masses of the storm- 
 clouds, the flashes of the sudden lightning at least show 
 the situation, and put in evidence the anger of the 
 hurrying sea. 
 
 There are moments, alike of calm and storm, in the 
 human journey, when the darkness of custom or the 
 darkness of sorrow is illuminated by lights, which give 
 for a moment some true idea of the Future, and — what 
 is more — a power above all things needed to understand 
 the Past. 
 
 For we are self-deceivers, and a soul-subduing thought 
 about some of our most determined actions is our ignor- 
 ance of whence they are coming, and whither they tend. 
 Yes ; how ignorant we are, too often through long 
 reaches of darkness or of shadow, of the true bearing of 
 what we do ! It is then (is it not ?) a hope to cherish, 
 that " at evening-time it may be light." 
 
 Surely to each of us they have come, these momentary 
 flashes — vivid moments, meteors of Eternity — revealing 
 joy, revealing sorrow inexpressible, but always entering, 
 oh ! so seriously, into the responsibility of the soul. 
 Characters have been misunderstood, misjudged ; gloomy 
 silences have been guarded when kind words ought to 
 have been spoken ; silly random talk has carried sorrow 
 when what was needed was respectful silence ; letters 
 
THE HOPE OF LIGHT 27 
 
 have been posted that would have found a better rest- 
 ing-place in the fire; that wife has been cruel and 
 unforgiving and hard to the husband sorrowing for his 
 fault ; that husband has been selfish and brutal in midst 
 of the silent, self-denying tenderness of a loyal, unre- 
 proaching wife ; that lover misdoubting and unfaithful 
 in face of the loyalty and patience of the one who loved 
 him ; that father unreasonable with his son ; that son 
 inconsiderate and ungrateful in speech, paining his 
 father ; that lad at school reckless and thoughtless in 
 face of his master's warnings ; that schoolmaster sus- 
 picious and unfair towards the boy committed to his 
 charge. Ah ! the sorrows of that fair gift of Heaven — 
 Love — hurt in an evil world ! And tlun the awakening, 
 the bitter penitence, the racking remorse, heart-gnaw- 
 ing regret, and, worst of all, the consciousness of debt 
 owed to the living that can only now be paid to the 
 dead I These moments, some of unspeakable sorrow ; 
 others, through sorrow, the harbingers of joy — like 
 sunny mornings breaking amid rain — what are these 
 but flashes illumining the darkness of our self-deceiv- 
 ing, showing us things that are, as they are, not as they 
 seem? 
 
 And the same in the deeper things of Eternity. 
 Flashes illumine the darkness. Such a word spoken 
 in chance conversation ; such a text of Scripture read 
 — apparently at random ; such a passage in a book, 
 depicting a scene of fiction, and stimulating conscience 
 
28 THE HOPE OF LIGHT 
 
 by the likeness to ourselves; such a sudden thought, 
 like Francis Borgia's by the dead queen's body, in lonely 
 hour of waking in the still night ; such a visit to a place 
 once loved, long unseen — these have been used by the 
 "loving spirit" to remind us of the significance of life, 
 sometimes to change the whole course of the soul, and 
 show us " what we are and whence we came." They 
 may be only flashes, but they leave memories, and give 
 hope of a fuller revelation when " at evening-time it 
 shall be light." 
 
 The thing is, when light comes, use it. It may be 
 passing flashes ; it may be the first faint shaft of morn- 
 ing ; it may be evening brilliance at the close of day. 
 But cherish it. Set about it like men. Follow it, follow 
 the streak of dawn. Look up. The old life of custom 
 kept you in darkness ; you kept your noses to the 
 ground, selfish, self-interested — like dogs, only hunt- 
 ing out their game. Look up ; see life before you. At 
 least remember this. Eemember what you saw in 
 moments of illumination, and act on the remembrance, 
 though the vision be gone. Yes ; all may yet be well, 
 if only we have the strength and courage to use the 
 light. At least so far it is good if it startles us by hints 
 of our real place — " strangers and pilgrims," beginning to 
 learn the meaning of the language of our true home, 
 and " declaring," first fearfully then " plainly," that " we 
 seek a country " — " the land very far off." If so, it is 
 because we begin to feel that we are dependent, not on 
 
THE HOPE OF LIGHT 29 
 
 this SO seeming solid and compact " world," material or 
 mental, around us, but on One beyond, above ourselves 
 — on God. 
 
 II. 
 
 There are, among many, three forms of darkness 
 which more or less envelop us all. 
 
 1. First, there is the darkness of supposed knowledge, 
 when, in fact, we do not know. This is so dangerous, 
 because so deceiving. " If the light," said our Master, 
 " that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness ! " 
 This was the danger of the Pharisee ; this is his danger 
 still. And Pharisaism is only that pride which is one 
 of our inheritances from the Pall, raised — to use an 
 image from mathematics — raised to its highest power. 
 Hence it is, young man, that when you are young you 
 are trenchant and swift with decisions, when, in fact, 
 you are not fit to decide ; hence that lack of thought- 
 fulness, of self-restraint, of moderation in mind and 
 word, which alone can place you on the track of truth ; 
 hence those judgments, peremptory and severe, which 
 close the windows to the incoming of the light. You 
 have passed your day in this gloom, have you ? Well, 
 my brother fellow-sinner, get you to Calvary. What 
 inscription there is evident in blood ? " Them that are- 
 meek shall He guide in judgment : and such as are 
 gentle, them shall He learn His way." For you, for you. 
 
30 THE HOPE OF LIGHT 
 
 if startled at the darkness of your knowledge, you learn 
 this temper of the Cross — " at evening-time it shall be 
 light." 
 
 I suppose this is at the root of half the unbelief that 
 paralyses the moral vigour of the modern world, this 
 the power that translates "difficulty" unnecessarily 
 into " doubt." To have a conscientious " difficulty " is 
 one thing, to make a peremptory conclusion of " doubt " 
 from it is another. The one may be a trial, a discipline, 
 a sorrow ; the other is not improbably an act of pride, 
 a sin. Men will not wait for God ; all must be decided, 
 and at once. They are in the habit, especially in an age 
 that urges to perpetual action, of using, as they say, 
 " common sense," — that is, of acting only on a limited 
 experience on things which lie beyond that limit. They 
 think they have a right to know here and now, and so 
 assume they do know; and, so assuming, turn their 
 back on knowledge. Let them wait in humble patience ; 
 " at evening-time it shall be light." 
 
 2. Again, there is an " increasing " darkness from 
 the effects of mortal sin. 
 
 The immediate result of mortal sin is practical moral 
 and spiritual paralysis. If we do deliberately what we 
 know to be contrary to the law of God, this follows : 
 we become conscious of a loss of insight, conscious also 
 of a flagging of power. We 'know too well that an 
 opposing course is higher, truer ; but we have ceased to 
 feel that it is. The other world is distant ; this world 
 
THE HOPE OF LIGHT 31 
 
 is strong. The clearer lights of our immortal natures 
 are dragged down, and quenched in darkness. We are 
 walking, at the best, in shadow. We are certain now 
 to trip and stumble right and left. My brother, be 
 honest, is not this true ? Have you ever deliberately 
 done wrong without, at least for one moment, realising 
 the truth of the w^ords of a stern sad monitor within 
 you, that you are lowered by the doing, and, in conse- 
 quence, you cannot see ? 
 
 There are moments, there are hours, which you 
 scarcely like to remember, when such and such acts 
 were done, which you condemned in the doing. They 
 were illumined with the ghastly glow of burning pas- 
 sion, or tricked out in the gay livery of an evil world. 
 They came, they went, bringing their mad pleasure, and 
 saying soon in mockery " Good-bye." At the time, of 
 course, you did not grasp their full significance ; but 
 now you feel their awful influence, and are forced, at 
 least at times, to listen to their unresting reproach. 
 Thoughts were thought, acts were done, which well 
 you would like undone, unthought. It cannot be. We 
 admitted them with full consent; and they have 
 stamped their odious trade-mark on our character, and 
 stored their terrible histories in the cells of undying 
 recollection. That unmanly meanness, that disloyalty 
 to principle and promise, that selfish cruelty, that 
 degrading impurity, that hard calculating dishonesty, 
 that hypocritical pretence — they roll their round in our 
 
32 THE HOPE OF LIGHT 
 
 firmament, so to speak, like luminaries of gloom, throw- 
 ing out shafts of darkness, as the sun sends his shafts of 
 light. Is that your experience ? Then I have this to 
 say. Blessed are ye if ye are miserable in this con- 
 sciousness ; the " increasing " has not yet settled down 
 into the " outer " darkness. You know that it is dark- 
 ness in which you walk. Turn ; look there ! One 
 Power can rescue you from the presences of evil that 
 stalk through the gloom. Turn ; look there ! There 
 is a Light ! It is the pale figure of the Crucified. His 
 arms are outstretched for the loving embrace. He calls 
 you to look at real goodness, real blessing, clad in that 
 garb of sorrow. He Who loves you has died for you 
 and would guide you back. "The day is far spent;" 
 " at evening-time there may be light." Go to Him, and 
 the light grows stronger. Go, and He will give you 
 penitence ; penitent. He will wipe out that record, give 
 you pardon, give you peace ; pardoned, He will show 
 the true significance of life, the path of progress. Do 
 not hesitate, do not delay ; " Christ will give you light." 
 
 3. There may be those before me who are in 
 sincere struggle with deadly sin, who have sufficient 
 humility also to realise their fallibility, and yet who 
 are in danger of at least increasing the twilight in which 
 their spirits are walking when they miglit be walking 
 in the invigorating splendour of an advancing dawn. 
 
 There may be darkness for us, so it seems to me, 
 from our mental build, from the very structure and 
 
THE HOPE OF LIGHT 33 
 
 form of our minds. We gaze over an almost trackless 
 ocean of mysterious thought when we think of the 
 different temperaments, at starting, between mind and 
 mind. Those whose chief desire seems to be to find 
 fault with facts, and even blame their God, dwell on 
 this by way of evading their own responsibility. This 
 is always unfruitful, and often profane. Whatever the 
 ultimate explanation of the mystery of hereditary virtue 
 and hereditary fault, however puzzling the spectacle of 
 some souls to whom virtue is much less difficult than to 
 others, of many who appear hopelessly " handicapped" 
 in the race of life ; yet these four things we know, and 
 on these it is the part of wisdom, of truth, of reverence 
 — which, indeed, is a form of truth — faithfully to act. 
 First, to quarrel with facts, instead of facing, accepting, 
 wisely using, and so, when evil, defeating — is to play 
 the part of the wild bull of the prairie assaulting the 
 engine steaming at its fiercest speed — is, in fact, to 
 court the fate of a fool. Secondly, one first principle 
 needs to be firmly fixed in the mind, as a precursor 
 to all such discussion — God, by the very terms of 
 His Being, is Goodness. God will not forget the 
 inequality of opportunity ; the Judge of all the earth 
 shall do right. Thirdly, it is a law of God's government, 
 observable always, that we are bound together with 
 strange but real ties ; that we do and must aflfect each 
 other. Fourthly, that, say what we may of inherited 
 evil, or the danger of other influence, or the difficulty of 
 
 c 
 
34 THE HOPE OF LIGHT 
 
 virtue, we are, after all, not compelled to wrong-doing ; 
 we lime wills of our own ; we are free to choose. Ee- 
 membering this, yet still one source of darkness is often 
 our peculiar mental structure, revealing itself commonly 
 either in prejudices or in moods of mind. To beware, 
 then, of mere prejudice ; to form sound judgment from 
 earnest prayer and patient thought — this is as much a 
 duty as to resist a temptation to lie or steal. That this 
 is difficult who will deny ? Men there are who would 
 part with valuable property more cheerfully than with 
 an unreasoning prejudice ; and yet to cherish a habit of 
 prejudice is to delay, at least, the breaking of the dawn. 
 
 And, then, have you ever thought of that mystery of 
 mysteries — the moods of the human mind ? There is 
 nothing wrong, indeed, in the existence of the ups and 
 downs of feeling and sensation which more or less 
 mark us all. The clouds chase the clouds across the 
 mountains, and the sunlight, in varying degrees of 
 changeful brightness, careers across the sea. We can- 
 not always be at an unvarying level ; it is right, as it is 
 human, that some hours should be in brightness and 
 some in shadow ; but it is wrong when fhis department 
 of our being is withdrawn, — as if it were a no-man's- 
 land, — from the government of a self-controlling w^ill. 
 
 Moods of mind 1 who has not known them ? Just 
 then the light came so clear, we seemed to see all 
 mysteries and understand all truth ; we were able to 
 walk unflinchingly along the corridors of darkness, and 
 
THE HOPE OF LIGHT 35 
 
 wind our way through the labyrinth of despair. Then 
 there came a shadow across our spiritual heavens. It 
 grew to blackness. It was only a mood of mind. 
 Only ! Is not that enough if we are not prepared for 
 it ? — enough to daze, to trouble ? Enough it has been 
 before now to make reason reel, when men have 
 allowed it to close in upon them and darken the day. 
 Strange mysteries ! The power of the pencil, the cunning 
 of the chisel, the vigour of the brush, — these, in the 
 keeping of Genius, have dashed them on canvas or 
 imprisoned them in stone. Phidias, Angelico, Eaphael 
 have done it ; and in Literature, after the great dra- 
 matists, Browning above all. Genius may catch these 
 flitting figures, but not we common people. Neverthe- 
 less, we have to deal with them and govern them, or 
 they make us their slaves. 
 
 You had that bright afternoon, but now it has ended 
 in a gathering storm. You were in, oh ! such a sun- 
 light ! The clouds began to climb your heaven till they 
 covered it. The sunlight now you have almost forgotten 
 — for these are the clouds, not that water with cooling 
 rain-drops, but that come, and bring no rain. 
 
 Do you wish for light ? — for yourself ? for others ? 
 Do you desire to help a world that seems at times well- 
 nigh in wreckage, and fellow-creatures who, amidst 
 great realities, seem two-thirds asleep ? Would you be 
 earnest, yet genial ; real, yet considerate ; vigorous, yet 
 restrained ? Would you wish to be impressed with 
 
36 THE HOPE OF LIGHT 
 
 your own ignorance, yet not paralysed when you 
 ought to act ? 
 
 This you want, then : light, light from God. See to 
 it that you are guided by that lofty example of Him 
 Whom joy never intoxicated nor sorrow subdued, in 
 Whom sweetest thankfulness went hand in hand with 
 firm endurance of trial. Whose whole life was governed 
 by self-forgetting and lofty principle, and never for a 
 moment a victim to a mood of mind. 
 
 Ah ! swaying, tottering soul, be not dazzled by life's 
 glitter ; it will sink in shadow, be not afraid in dark- 
 ness, it too will melt with the morning ; nay, hold on 
 with firm principle and strong self-control — strong 
 because trustful — and for you, too, " at evening-time it 
 shall be light." 
 
 III. 
 
 " At evening-time it shall be light." 
 
 Yes ; it is a law of Divine government to those who 
 love God. 
 
 Life, after all, is a journey; and there must be hours 
 of shadow, and often hours of storm. Life is a train- 
 ing, a probation, and our Father is leading us on. 
 
 (1) Probably, sooner or later, to all of us, when really 
 trying by grace to love and serve God, there comes 
 disappointment. Can we complain ? This, this is part 
 of man's heritage of trouble ; but more — it is a part of 
 
THE HOPE OF LIGHT 37 
 
 the discipline by which he is trained for Eternity. We 
 are disappointed in our old hopes and dreams, dis- 
 appointed in others, disappointed at the chasm which 
 yawns, and more and more clearly, between the actual 
 and the ideal, disappointed also — and, above all things — 
 disappointed with ourselves. The world which seemed to 
 us, in the roseate glow of life's morning, a place so wide in 
 reach and bewitching in beauty, is at best a chequered 
 scene of struggle, at worst a very home of sin. Then 
 comes the strong temptation to self-satisfied cynicism, 
 to mere vjBpt^, to unfruitful, insolent scorn. Nothing 
 is gained for ourselves or others by merely denouncing 
 evil, instead of trying to fight it; by scorning and 
 upbraiding sinners, who can only be won by trust and 
 love. Lift up your hearts then, disappointed ones ! 
 True, the old dream is vanished, but a fairer though 
 sadder vision is before you ; the self-pleasing romance 
 has ended, but in earnest view of truth you will grow 
 strong. Do not murmur ; act and pray. Ah ! indeed, 
 if the glow of dawn be faded, yet " at evening-time it 
 shall be light." 
 
 (2) Then tliere is Sorrow, — that terrible mystery, 
 that well-attested fact. How you treat it is all-im- 
 portant, for it is one of God's most trusted messen- 
 gers. It comes often suddenly, and has in it the force 
 to revolutionise life, and to use with heart-piercing 
 precision the painful power of change. It comes robed 
 in mourning, swathed in the storm-cloud. It strikes 
 
38 THE HOPE OF LIGHl 
 
 the heart with blow on blow. You cannot explain it, 
 much less define ; but there it is. Some may sym- 
 pathise, others may pity ; but tMs, this is an intimate, 
 a personal matter, going deep into our being ; the soul 
 itself alone can quite understand. Try to stand on 
 your feet after the first staggering blow, and do not mis- 
 use this terrible talent. Some under sorrow grow 
 selfish, some discontented, some, alas ! even hard. 
 Brave heart, you must suffer ; but he brave, look up, 
 endure. Let the messenger Sorrow seize you ; do not 
 struggle and break away. Titian and Velasquez were 
 seized by their subjects, and, so impressed, they caught 
 and reproduced their meaning. Let sorrow say its say ; 
 have it out with it. It has a message from a better 
 country. Oh ! bitter message ! Oh ! sharp and terrible 
 story ! — and yet, and yet, if you will only wait, poor 
 soul, with courage and tenderness, " at evening-time it 
 shall be light." 
 
 And what a light ! No light so tender, so illuminat- 
 ing as that which shines on the faces of God's children 
 who from suffering have grown strong. These are 
 they who carry comfort ; these are they who preach 
 the most subduing gospel ; these are they who lighten 
 dark hearts, and clear away the mists of sin, and com- 
 fort in the gloom of desolation ; their faces are like the 
 faces of angels, for they waited, in trust and patience, 
 through their darkness for the light. 
 
 (3) And then there is Death. Around that there 
 
THE HOPE OF LIGHT 39 
 
 always appears the collecting of clouds. To some, 
 however, death is more terrible than to others. Yes ; 
 to some who love God. These need not fear. To Him 
 Who was Lord of life, was it not terrible ? " Exceed- 
 ing sorrowful " His soul was, in view of the last great 
 struggle. Bitter, terrible as that deathbed, and dismal 
 as His hour of dereliction, yet the human soul, still 
 trusting, bore it ; and then came the cry of resignation 
 and confidence, and at evening-time there was light. 
 Fear death ? Yes ; but not without trusting. Cling, 
 cling in faith to your Father, to your Kedeemer, and 
 " at evening-time there shall be light." 
 
 IV. 
 
 Christ, then, is the Light of the world, and the sum- 
 ming up, on the Cross of His constancy, gives to each of 
 us the hope that that light may be ours. For the Passion 
 of our Kedeemer, that most solemn of all scenes — the 
 deathbed of the Undying — comes home to us, if we fix 
 the eye of faith upon it, as a powerful illuminator. 
 
 First, because it is the highest manifestation of those 
 principles which ruled that life that has been " the Light 
 of the world." It— it, above all— has taught us this : 
 the folly of self-conceit ; the madness, in the mysteries 
 of life, of ''leaning on our own understanding;" the 
 duty of keeping wide awake to the possibility, the pro- 
 
40 THE HOPE OF LIGHT 
 
 bability, of fatal mistakes, unless we keep near God ; 
 the need of an unselfish and simple purpose, of some 
 deep sense within us of our proper place as creatures, 
 and some practical action thereon. The Passion reveals 
 this, that, however much we may choose to believe the 
 contrary, however quick our perceptions and powerful 
 our understandings, in darkness we shall live, in in- 
 creasing darkness we shall die, unless we learn 
 humility, self-sacrifice, and surrender to God's will. 
 
 Again, the Passion guarantees the promises of Christ. 
 How constantly He dwelt on human blindness, how 
 strongly He promised the gift of light, the reader of the 
 New Testament cannot fail to know. Blessed it is to 
 realise that He Who showed the path of life showed 
 it to the end. Surely He "Who for us went to that 
 extremity can never fail in any promise. And this we 
 need here and now. How often, amid the tumult and 
 the darkness of life — like the restless, aimless fugitive 
 amid the hot, falling ashes of Pompeii — how often the 
 Christian wanders, with hopeless sighing, half stunned 
 by the confident cannonading of conceited unbelief, and 
 will not watch the breaking of the clouds ! Look up, 
 faint heart ; any fool can catalogue difficulties ; look 
 up in pity for their folly, and see the stretching lines 
 of glory. He has promised, — and guaranteed His 
 promise by His Passion — " at evening-time there shall 
 be light." 
 
 And the Passion illuminates by its rich suggestive- 
 
THE HOPE OF LIGHT 41 
 
 ness. In fact, despite the material darkness at the 
 crucifixion, all about the Cross was light. Here was 
 thrown into telling contrast that constantly recurring 
 picture — appearance and reality. Here was an ajppar- 
 ent victory of Chief Priests, Scribes, and Sadducees — of 
 an outbreak of vilest passions and a conspiracy of crime, 
 — while in truth the world was witnessing the triumph 
 of a Suffering, henceforth to rule in great measure, and 
 always to affect the world. We too, when sick with 
 the apparent victory of bad or questionable principle, 
 may turn to the Cross, and recall the unchanging truth : 
 " Though hand join in hand, yet shall wickedness not 
 be unpunished." 
 
 Or are we tempted to be weary of serious effort, and "let 
 things drive" ? Do we imagine that to be indifferent 
 will save us trouble, will be more like " the way of the 
 world ;" will, in fact, do as well ? We turn to the fact 
 of Calvary. The apparent vanishes, the real stands out, 
 like white-peaked Carrara, against a sky of azure bril- 
 liance — stands out sharp and plain. Haphazard in life 
 is folly ; " as a man sows, so shall he also reap." 
 
 Are we drawn imperceptibly into the whirl of things ? 
 — doing duty it may be faithfully, fearlessly, but valu- 
 ing this life too much for its self-pleasing returns, 
 treating it as useful only for itself ? We turn to the 
 Passion, and the light of life and death on the face of 
 Jesus says clearly, " Seek eternal things." 
 
 Do we think to satisfy the soul with self-seeking ? 
 
42 THE HOPE OF LIGHT 
 
 That strong, stern self-surrender of the Cross warns — 
 that in time you may listen to its warning ! — 
 warns of the inevitable weariness, ennui, or tcedium 
 vitce — call it what you may — which at last has dogged 
 the steps of those who have lived for self, which at last 
 has murdered the peace of men who will not learn the 
 uses of this one life given to each — the value of this 
 vast, this short opportunity. 
 
 For, indeed, the Cross shows this : the vileness and 
 degradation of self-seeking, the nobility and fruitful- 
 ness of self-sacrifice. It reminds us that " we are 
 not our own, we are bought with a price ; " that we 
 are members of a body, and that our goodness or our 
 badness must affect, not ourselves alone, but others ; 
 that to ourselves indeed, first, and in immeasurable 
 degree, our character is of importance, but that also 
 it is, it must be, of power for others — power of evil 
 or of goodness. Hence is suggested the deep desire 
 of light to see the faults that gradually corrode the 
 soul, to see that we may slaughter, and to use the 
 experience — blessed or bitter — of successes or failures 
 in the Past, for advance and victory in the Future. 
 Blessed, blessed are ye, if so, in the silence of the 
 soul ye have been using the great bequest of His 
 sorrow ; for you, most surely, " at evening-time it shall 
 be light." 
 
THE HOPE OF LIGHT 
 
 43 
 
 Here, then, is the sum of it all. We are in sore 
 need of light. For, indeed, there is nothing much more 
 startling than the thought of the immense possibilities 
 of knowledge which lie beyond our actual, personal 
 possession, unless it be the boundless possibilities of 
 error which form part of our unassisted lot. 
 
 We are, or ought to be, in battle with a " World," 
 which puts eternity far off, which minimises the danger of 
 evil, and lowers the thought of God. In its atmosphere 
 flourish the sophistries with which impatient, proud, 
 unenlightened reason confuses and blurs the tremendous 
 mysteries of the Christian Faith ; from it comes the 
 temper that heaps up difficulties, and destroys the 
 patience and prayer through which alone they can be 
 solved. 
 
 We are, or ought to be, in battle with the Flesh, — no 
 overstrained or morbid contest with pure affections and 
 noble emotions, but real struggle with misdirected 
 desire. 
 
 We are, or ought to be, in struggle with Satan — that 
 (so to speak) incarnate representative of falsehood and 
 unlove. 
 
 These enemies are powers of darkness; and there 
 comes One among us to show us where we are, teach- 
 ing us the danger of light thoughts of Eternity, of 
 carelessness, of cynicism, of despair ; the danger of 
 
44 THE HOPE OF LIGHT 
 
 sneering at devotion, disregarding religion, and wor- 
 shipping self. There comes One among ns, pointing 
 — by His tenderness to the weak, by His home affec- 
 tions, by His sweetness to little children, by His kindness 
 to lost women — to the beauty of love and self-forgetting, 
 and forbearance and pity; pointing by His self-conquest 
 to the evil of unrestrained desire ; teaching men plainly 
 the need of self-sacrifice, the sacredness of duty, the 
 responsibility attaching to the power of the transmis- 
 sion of life. There comes One, leaving a life behind 
 Him, emphasised by the dignity of His death, Who 
 has illuminated the world with a type of character 
 towards which we may — we must — aspire. 
 
 He gives us light. Amid the varying currents of 
 self-seeking He brings into distinctness the great 
 thoughts which must never be forgotten : God, 
 Religion, Trial, Temptation, Advance of Character, 
 Responsibility, Grace in Time of Need, Judgment, 
 Eternity. Whatever else a;ppear of value, these are of 
 real and unspeakable importance when viewed in the 
 light of the Cross. 
 
 And this light is offered to all, — the newspaper boy, 
 the lost woman, the high-born peer, the hardworking 
 politician, the diligent merchant, the ambitious cabinet 
 minister, the toiling clergyman, the busy housemaid, the 
 light-hearted labouring lad, the ill-paid daily governess, 
 the anxious, overburdened mother, the young man 
 entering life, wayward, hopeful, thoughtless, and with 
 
THE HOPE OF LIGHT 45 
 
 no experience of sorrow — before all these stands the 
 Crucifix, stripping life of its accidents, displaying its 
 serious meaning, teaching the beauty of strength and 
 goodness, the value of solid religion, full of serious 
 warning, but a very beacon-light of hope. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Learn then, learn its lesson. Look for and follow 
 the light. 
 
 I have done. Tell me, ere we part ; tell me, father, 
 in this congregation, what do you look for with deepest 
 anxiety when your boy comes home to you from 
 college, from school ? Are you most anxious about his 
 place in his division, and his mastery of the special 
 subject of his study ? It is good, of course ; but it is 
 not all. I hope, I suppose, that, as a true man, your 
 deepest anxiety, your most earnest prayer, is for his 
 growth of character, his loyalty to truth and purity, 
 and duty, his advance in unselfishness, his maintenance 
 of unsoiled and ennobling affections, his faithfulness to 
 principle, his hatred of what is wrong. You hope 
 and pray, with trembling anxiety you watch and 
 notice, that your lad may have kept the ennobling love 
 of home in the midst of a debasing world, guarded a 
 pure and manly character amid the enticing temptations 
 of the flesh, and turned a deaf ear to the devil's 
 
46 THE HOPE OF LIGHT 
 
 seductions, which would lead him from uprightness 
 and honour and love. You hope, in a word, that he has 
 been kept true to goodness, true to God. This is right, 
 this is noble, this is the thought of a true man. 
 
 Now, act so about yourself. So God, your Father, is 
 yearning over you. let not Him have the heart- 
 ache that would crush you if you had an undutiful, an 
 ungrateful son ! 
 
 And you, young men, my brothers, look to it what 
 you are doing. Life is before you. Brave hearts, fear 
 not though darkness envelop you ; look up, look up to 
 the Cross. Go for forgiveness, if ye have sinned, to 
 your Eedeemer ; go for guidance to the principles of 
 the Passion. " Strangers and pilgrims," you may begin 
 to learn the language of your better country; if you 
 keep your eye fixed on the value of Eeligion ; if you 
 want to see your path, and so pray for guidance ; if you 
 maintain humility, and by grace keep yourselves pure, 
 — rays from the Cross will break through the darkness, 
 and He will " send out His light and His truth, that 
 they may lead you," and bring you to His holy hill, 
 and to His dwelling of peace. 
 
Cfte B)ope of ®trenfft&. 
 
 * In that Hs Himself hath suffered being tempted^ He is able also to 
 succour them that are tempted^ — Heb. ii. i8. 
 
 TTTE have seen, dear friends, that on this point there 
 » ' can be little room for controversy — that the 
 world of mankind, that we ourselves are, in great mea- 
 sure, plunged in darkness — darkness, too, we are 
 forced to confess, of our own creating — the darkness 
 that follows the pride of knowledge in those who do 
 not know; and the darkness that follows permitted 
 sin, which possesses the dire prerogative of clouding the 
 conscience and blunting the moral sense ; darkness also 
 springing in each soul from something difficult to 
 define, something individual and specially our own, 
 from that which is peculiar to our build of mind. 
 
 They who are tossed on the Atlantic in a night of 
 sounding storm ; they who wander on the unpitying 
 mountains when the mists have wrapped their death- 
 shrouds round the wanderer, and the eye can see no 
 guiding glimmer, though the ear can hear the angry 
 roar of the thunderous torrents and the piercing 
 
 47 
 
48 THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 
 
 screams of the tormented winds, — these, these wait not 
 so eagerly for the morning as the soul of the sinner, 
 wakened towards Eternity, watches the Mystery of the 
 most holy Passion, guarantee and evidence of the love 
 of God for His erring creatures, of the interest of the 
 Eedeemer in fallen man. 
 
 Looking, then, through the darkness, the soul sees a 
 hope of light. There is the light of a splendid example ; 
 there, too, the light of exact decision ; there the light, 
 also, of powers provided and principles bequeathed. 
 
 Christ in the Passion has given us light, — light by the 
 revelation of mysteries, light by the spirit in which He 
 did His work and bore His pain; but the Passion of our 
 Master — this is the point before us at this moment — 
 has, among many things, done one thing more. 
 
 There is yet another hope provided by the Passion, 
 of priceless value to us all. The third great consola- 
 tion of the Cross is this : the hope — to the man who is 
 in earnest — that he may have strength, strength for the 
 struggle, strength also to persevere to the end. 
 
 I. 
 
 My brethren, there can be no question of the truth 
 of this assertion, that life is a battle. We are engaged, 
 we Christians know it — most certainly we are engaged 
 — in an anxious, an almost continuous conflict. In this 
 
THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 
 
 49 
 
 often appearances deceive. However calm the ap- 
 parent scene before us, beneath the calm is struggle. 
 The peaks of the Apennines of Campania are firm and 
 calm against the unclouded azure, but beneath, is the 
 struggle of volcanic fire. The sea sleeps smooth in the 
 dreamy caves of Capri, but beneath, the currents travel 
 with contending speed. The social system of human 
 life works on with even, regulated motion ; but under- 
 neath what funds and forces of sorrow and misery, of 
 selfishness and self-denying, fierce upspringings of Life 
 and furious forces of attacking Death. Sometimes the 
 human face is restrained and placid, little revealing 
 the backward, forward sway of struggle — the scene of 
 dire defeat and splendid victory — the conflict in the 
 soul. Life is a battle. Ah! how the struggle leaves 
 its mark behind! — so scarred, so wounded the soul is, it 
 hardly recognises its former self. Is that deep thought- 
 ful face, that firm determined step, that sad yet steady 
 gaze, that smile so bright, and yet thrown out into dis- 
 tinctness by the hidden sadness behind it, as sunshine 
 blazing through a bank of cloud, — is that of the same 
 who, merry, joyous, light-hearted, careless, went dancing 
 on with smiles of sunny sweetness, and voice of music 
 like the morning birds — to whom no care, no sorrow, 
 no determined purpose even, seemed akin, whom we 
 knew long ago ? The same, only that strength and 
 sorrow have come in life's battle. 
 
 Look at that man, — busy, earthly, heartless ; smiling 
 
 D 
 
50 THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 
 
 contempt on deep feelings, cynical and scornful towards 
 religion, sharp for self-interest, hardened in the world's 
 ways. Is that the lad of years ago, so bright and 
 beautiful, with high hopes and warm affections, who 
 could love deeply and enjoy purely, and be generous 
 and brave ? Alas ! the same. Beaten in the soul's 
 battle, he is not a conqueror, but a slave. 
 
 Oh ! must souls perish ? Oh ! must young hearts of such 
 fair promise be so destroyed? Oh! must the sun of 
 life's fairest morning set always in a night of drizzling 
 gloom ? No, Christ of the Five Wounds ; no ! By Thy 
 power there may be victory in the fierce conflict of 
 the life of the soul. Life is a battle. Pause, my 
 brothers, pause and think. Certainly one of the most 
 important questions is: "Which side are you taking 
 in this unceasing struggle ?" And the next question 
 is : " How — having taken the side of Eight — how are 
 you going on?" 
 
 In view, then, of the struggle in which we must 
 play our part between good and evil, it is important, 
 I contend, for serious souls to face facts and subscribe 
 to a solemn decision, viz., that the last and greatest 
 calamity is not loss of health, nor loss of fortune, nor 
 loss of reputation, nor loss of friends ; not the fading of 
 cherished hopes, and the failure of long-loved inten- 
 tions ; not the low beating of once throbbing pulses, 
 nor the sadness of an ever-deepening loneliness, as 
 the human pilgrim stands aside, while the loved and 
 
THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 51 
 
 yearned-for pass beyond him in dim procession to the 
 grave ; but that the last calamity and greatest is volun- 
 tarily to enrol one's-self in the armies, or to glide in 
 gradually to the ranks of evil, of darkness, to serve as 
 a soldier under the banner of Death. Come to this 
 decision ; see and determine ; the worst misfortune is 
 to take the side of what is wrong. 
 
 And this also ; decide this with positive determina- 
 tion, that the best of all things is not to gain name or 
 fame or fortune ; not to win the love, even though 
 deserved, of those you love and prize and honour ; not 
 to make money, to succeed in enterprise, get on in 
 life — but the best of all things is to be unflinchingly 
 decided at all costs, God helping you, to take the side 
 of goodness, to do justly, and love mercy, and walk 
 humbly with your God. Have you done it, my 
 brother ? Are you doing it ? If not, by His mercy, do 
 it now. 
 
 Well, if so deciding, let us ask the question. What 
 then? 
 
 Well, first, we must face the possibility of many 
 failures ; and next and surely, invasions of trial ; and 
 lastly, if the right means we use, the certainty of 
 final success. Yes ; if you are determined to take the 
 side of right, and do your duty, through many mistakes 
 you will grow rich in accumulated experience. You 
 may have to look back, from time to time, at reaches of 
 life which fill you with astonishment at your folly, and 
 
52 THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 
 
 with shame at your cowardice ; still, abiding in the 
 main principles of truth and duty, still, using the means 
 for strength and struggle, one thing is certain — you will 
 suffer. No growth without struggle, no victory without 
 pain. 
 
 Brethren, it is an era in life when in interior deter- 
 mination the resolve of the will is offered to God : 
 " Very well ; I may suffer, but I will serve God, I will 
 do right." 
 
 Now, one step further. No great thing is won with- 
 out sacrifice ; least of all, the greatness of a noble 
 character. If life is a battle, if we are determined to 
 take the side of right, if therefore we must bear the 
 strain of sacrifice ; if in heart and desire we are ready 
 for this surrender, — again I ask. What then? Well, 
 then, one thing is needed beyond light, beyond forgive- 
 ness : the supreme need of the soul is Strength. 
 
 11. 
 
 Brethren, there is nothing gained either by shutting 
 our eyes to the difficulties, nor yet by exaggerating the 
 dangers, of the Christian life. What we really want is 
 the truth. It is all very well to look at the easy flow of 
 the commonplace, but the realities are stern. The Bay 
 of Baiae smiled in sunshine — warm, luxuriant, like the 
 garden of God. How easy and bright it looked in the 
 
THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 53 
 
 fair spring morning, with the mountains shading off into 
 every hue of violet velvet, with the air vibrating only 
 to the soft music of the murmuring sea. What did all 
 those sparkling villas, those gay shining galleys, really 
 mean'} The surrender of principle, the conquest of 
 cruelty, the triumph of sin. What did the old man 
 Paul, landing at Puteoli, lonely and a prisoner, out of 
 all sympathy with the smiling scene around him — what 
 did he represent ? Strength in struggle, toil, and labour, 
 and at last, after a life of love and courage, a consum- 
 mate victory. The Christian life has indeed interior 
 sunlight ; but right and duty mean sorrow, and often 
 great self-sacrifice ; and yet, and yet it is fair to 
 remember, Paul lived and died in joy, when I^ero first 
 suffered as a slave of self, and then cringed in terror 
 before a dishonoured death. All is not lost by being a 
 Christian, though much is sacrificed ; though much is 
 clung to by a worldling, all is not gained. But this we 
 need in order to face immediate struggle — strength, 
 brothers, strength. 
 
 III. 
 
 This, dear friends, is needed, for in the conflict be- 
 tween good and evil there are at least three trials for 
 the soul. 
 
 1. First there is the trial of suffering. 
 
 What is suffering ? To suffer is to feel in our inmost 
 
54 THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 
 
 being the sharp wounds of the mystery of pain ; to feel 
 it while yet it neither suspends consciousness nor de- 
 stroys life ; to feel it with its mystic power of reinforce- 
 ment from repetition of its blows, with its full play of 
 anguish derived from the force of memory, the power of 
 prevision, the consciousness of time. For pain is only 
 raised to the dignity, or, if you like, degraded to the 
 depth, of suffe7'ing in the creature who has time, 
 memory, foresight, uniting in storing up and preserving 
 in intensity of activity each blow which otherwise 
 would, as with the " beasts that perish," pass swiftly by. 
 
 What is suffering indeed % The state of a living 
 soul whose forces of mind and body combine to darken 
 the sun and drain to drought the refreshing clouds ; to 
 destroy the springs of happiness and efface the fair 
 visions of youth; to make earth a home of torment, 
 and draw a curtain, thick and impenetrable, across the 
 face of the heavens ; the state of a soul, blasted, like 
 the riven oak, by the fire of circumstance, yet intensely 
 conscious of its doom. Whatever the cause be, what- 
 ever the occasion, still in suffering, the soul — the human 
 soul — is at full strength of its powers of endurance, of 
 life, of misery, and of sorrow. 
 
 It may be the Nessus shirt ; it may be the finger at 
 Belshazzar's feast ; it may be disappointment, bitter, 
 unbroken, in another ; it may be an obscure result of 
 dreadful death; — the causes may be different, but a 
 suffering soul stands, individually alone, inward-driven, 
 
THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 55 
 
 with its forces strained to tension, and with this 
 certainty — either, broken, it will sink to lower levels, or 
 rise to new heights of spiritual being, if, suffering, it 
 has been strong. 
 
 Suffering ! Who can define it ? who explain ? 
 Explain the sense of peace in the presence of those in 
 whom our trust is secure; explain the magic of the 
 touch, the glance, of one we love ; explain the desola- 
 tion of parting; explain the anticipated joy, after 
 parting, of meeting once more. So may you define 
 the condition of a human heart in anguish ; so may 
 you explain the mystery of tears. 
 
 Suffering ! Brave men, for the bravest this is hard 
 to bear and use in ourselves ; harder when we know not 
 how to help in others. 
 
 Have you ever waited the night through to watch or 
 help, or hold and soothe, a dying child ? 
 
 Have you stood by your fellow-man in those strange 
 hours — reversing all life's promise — which precede the 
 end ? with the cold sweat on your own brow, watched 
 the unmeasured anguish ? Heard the slow ticking of 
 the clock, when each beat marked a world of misery ? 
 Knelt by the lifeless form at last, blessed God the 
 threshold of the grave at last was crossed, and won- 
 dered how a soul could so endure ? 
 
 Have you known the strength of real love ? the 
 sorrow of parting ? the bitterness of disappointment ? 
 the hopelessness of regret ? 
 
56 THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 
 
 Ah ! world of sorrow ! How many hearts are daily 
 breaking ! how many men toil on in patient silence, 
 for whom the brighter hope seems gone ! 
 
 Suffering you cannot measure nor define; but fhis 
 the Christian teacher knows : it is a trial, a means of 
 education, it may be a path — God Who knows and 
 loves may see it as the path — for the training of the 
 soul. What we want, then, in suffering, in sorrow, is 
 strength, — strength of mind, of will, of principle, to do 
 right in the day of darkness, and " having done all to 
 stand." 
 
 2. And then strength is needed, because we have 
 the trial, the fierce trial, of temptation. Here is indeed 
 a mystery. What do we know of it ? 
 
 (1) It is not from God, any more than sin and sorrow 
 are from Him, although He Who "out of darkness 
 bringeth light," out of temptation brings blessing to 
 those who endure. On this Scripture is distinct. 
 
 Time and opportunity for choice, God of course, has 
 given, must give, to His creatures, if they are to be truly 
 free, capable of moral and meritorious acts. Man is 
 therefore, of course, on his trial. Indeed, without it no 
 advance, no growth, no perfection ; and surely if we are 
 in this life for one thing, it is to grow by trial to the 
 fulness of Divine manhood, to " the measure of the 
 stature of the fulness of Christ." 
 
 But temptation is a distinct trial arising out of a 
 fallen state. Scripture and the Church, and — may we 
 
THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 57 
 
 not add? — spiritual experience, wisely noted, thought- 
 fully used — these are not silent as to the sources of 
 temptation. 
 
 My brothers, it is wise to recall them, if we are to 
 realise our need of strength. 
 
 (2) There is that awful personality, Satan, on whose 
 activity in tempting man Holy Scripture speaks so 
 plainly. 
 
 It is useless wasting time in asking why such a 
 being is permitted to exist ; we may go on to the in- 
 soluble question, why is evil allowed at all ; none can 
 answer, and to quarrel with facts is to drive one's head 
 against a wall. Evil is not a thing, it is a negation. 
 It is the attitude of a created will opposing the condi- 
 tions of goodness and the law of God, — a law, remember, 
 never arbitrary, but the expression of God's necessary 
 perfection. That there is one creature supremely op- 
 posed to Goodness we know — that is Satan. 
 
 Anterior to human history the great struggle began, 
 and the war waged when " Michael and his angels 
 fought with the dragon," that war between light 
 and darkness is continuing still. Satan is a being of 
 vast intelligence, of a power superhuman, and of a will 
 drenched in malice and bent on evil. He is about us 
 and near to us, in his own person, or in the persons of 
 his myrmidons ; and he is bent, so far forth as he can, 
 on our destruction. 
 
 He is not self-existent ; he has fallen from a high 
 
58 THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 
 
 estate by his own deliberate choice. Though powerful, 
 he is not all-powerful, much less invincible. He can 
 be conquered. He is a liar. His great work is to 
 deceive, to inspire with error, to misrepresent God. 
 He is at the root of heresies and false religions, and he 
 is of immense cleverness in creating and magnifying 
 difficulties in the truth. He is a murderer. Love — the 
 bond between man and man, between man and God — 
 he loves to dissolve. Hatred, malice, anger, evil-speak- 
 ing, covetousness, lust, pride, are dear to him ; and 
 the love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, 
 trustingness, meekness, self-restraint, which are the 
 fruits of God's Spirit, are his abhorrence. His intelli- 
 gence is enriched by a lengthened experience and acute 
 observation, and the means for our ruin he has planned 
 and studied with scientific accuracy. He seems to have 
 power over some portions of our nature more than 
 others, — to affect our moods, our imagination, our lower 
 appetites. The thought of this makes us humble, on 
 our guard, and trustful in God. 
 
 But certain it is that Satan can/orce no entry, nor 
 compel us to do wrong. He cannot directly affect our 
 understanding, nor move our will. His only hope is 
 temptation. He can try to seduce ; without our con- 
 sent, he can never prevail. 
 
 There is this further blessed thought : into the soul, 
 much less into the soul rich with Divine grace, he can 
 never himself penetrate. He can observe, speculate. 
 
THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 59 
 
 make ventures ; but his speculations as to the lie and 
 bent of souls are sometimes wrong. He is not omni- 
 scient nor infallible; and, however crafty he be in 
 enticing, he never can compel. 
 
 Christ and his Church — her mysteries, her Sacraments, 
 her supernatural endowments, her powerful weapons, 
 her prevailing forces of prayer — are still to him in great 
 measure hidden ; seducing souls to himself, he may — he 
 does — make them share his blindness. Hence so many 
 of the random, conceited, foolish things said of Eeligion, 
 for, indeed, "the natural man understandeth not the 
 things of the Spirit of God ; " and so in proportion as 
 you are true to your Master and " in Christ," you are 
 a puzzle and perplexity to Satan. How often has the 
 simplicity of a child checkmated the craft of the Evil 
 One! 
 
 Again, you ask, " But why was he permitted to 
 he at all ? Why, why is he permitted now to attack 
 souls ? '* 
 
 Here, at any rate, are suggestions which help to an 
 answer : — (1) Fully we do not know, and it is part of 
 our trial to wait in this, as in much else, in patience, 
 trusting our heavenly Father to have done the best for 
 us, and being sure that one day " we shall know even 
 as we are known." (2) The difficulty is no greater 
 than the difficulty of the existence of any bad and 
 powerful man, placed in a position of influence— a 
 Eobespierre, an Alexander Borgia, a Tiberius — able 
 
6o THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 
 
 and willing to injure his fellow-men. (3) All we can 
 say of the mystery of evil is — without the possibility of 
 fall, no free-will ; without free-will, no moral probation ; 
 without moral probation, no opportunity of virtue, of 
 merit, of goodness, of sanctity. The rest we leave with 
 God — and wait. 
 
 (3) We have, indeed, this foe, a source of temptation. 
 We are, however, surrounded by an atmosphere of evil, 
 as well as attacked by a person. There is a tradition 
 of thought and feeling, an intellectual and moral mode 
 of viewing all things, which has arisen out of the thou- 
 sand thoughts and plans of fallen man, darkened and 
 poisoned by the influence of Satan, which Scripture 
 calls "the world." Society — it has been wisely said 
 somewhere — is of course, of God's appointment, but 
 its manner of thought and feeling has been debased 
 and depraved. A temper, a habit of thought, a way of 
 looking at things, a fashion of dealing with things in 
 which God, the Soul, Eternity, are kept entirely out 
 of sight — this, this is "the world." It gets into our 
 hearts, but also it acts upon us from without ; it can 
 insinuate itself into all occupations and all subjects ; it 
 is like a corroding acid ; it can corrupt and destroy. Its 
 tendency is to lower the idea of God, to minimise the 
 danger of sin, to make us careless about religion, and 
 impatient of spiritual things. It fixes the eye on this 
 life. It is a very workshop for fashioning evil. It 
 ridicules enthusiasm. It persecutes goodness if it fails 
 
THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 6l 
 
 to seduce. It insinuates that it is the school of wisdom; 
 it poses as a pattern of prudence ; it preaches as the 
 apostle of common-sense. 
 
 Pause, my brother, pause. When hatred, malice, 
 untruth possess you, you know that the devil is at your 
 elbow. When you are inclined to forget God, to think 
 lightly of religion, to allow natural laziness to hinder 
 you in religious duty, and hold you back in sacraments 
 and prayer ; when you prefer a lower to a higher stand- 
 ard, and allow yourself to join in the laugh, the scoff, 
 the sneer at religious earnestness, — beware, beware! 
 You are falling victim to another enemy ; " the world " 
 is about. The world outside the limits of Christendom 
 is the very breath men breathe; hence the dense dark- 
 ness of false religions ; and it has even crept into and 
 corrupted souls in the Christian Church. We, we have 
 renounced it, but its influence on us is constant, with 
 Satan, the prince of it, applying it with assiduity and 
 craft. This is the second source of temptation. 
 
 (4) And then there are powers of darkness within 
 us — the forces of unregulated desire. The possession 
 of desire is not wrong. But desire unregulated and 
 turbulent becomes the " passion " of the " flesh." 
 
 It has been said with truth that theologians do not 
 need to teach " the Fall " as a doctrine ; it is evidently, 
 undeniably, a fact. There is a corruption of nature. 
 Vice is easy, virtue is difficult. A darkness has come 
 over the understanding, a wild warp in the affections, 
 
62 THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 
 
 and a vacillation and weakness in the will. Man 
 inclines to evil. Here, too, here is that " mind of the 
 flesh," whose works, as St. Paul says, are so "mani- 
 fest " and so terrible. This, too, is a source of tempta- 
 tion. 
 
 This, then, you know, child of God : you have 
 entered the battle of life, you have begun the race for 
 the prize ; you must be tempted. All men are, and 
 must be ; and no temptation will take you that is not 
 common to man. 
 
 It matters not what your work in life is — that is the 
 accident of your probation. Farm labourer or literary 
 man, quiet clergyman, or statesman on whom are 
 the eyes of the world, worker in a factory, or boy at 
 school, — your particular calling is your exercise-ground, 
 your opportunity of trial, your field of battle ; but not 
 the knowledge you acquire or the work you do is in 
 itself the important thing. The important thing is, 
 how your character is being formed, how virtues are 
 being strengthened and faults being conquered; how 
 you are getting nearer heaven or nearer hell— how, in 
 fact, you are bearing yourself in the battle, and meeting 
 the temptation which naust be yours. 
 
 Must be yours ! Yes ; the devil, with his powerful 
 auxiliaries, " the world " and " the flesh," will find 
 opportunities for temptation. In your books, in your 
 work, in your friends, in your associates, in your 
 occupations, in your amusements, in your religious 
 
THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 63 
 
 exercises, in your labour, in your rest ; ever and anon 
 will the trial come of your allegiance to truth and 
 duty, or your cowardly surrender to what is wrong. 
 Temptation must come. But — do not forget it — tempta- 
 tation is not sin. It is akin to sin, it may lead to sin ; 
 but, unless you consent to it of your own free choice, it 
 is not, nor need ever be, sin. 
 
 Further still, temptation, when by God's help it is 
 resisted, is still trial. 
 
 It is easy to hold false opinions, easy to doubt the 
 faith, easy to give way to lust, easy to take part in vile 
 conversation, easy to join a multitude to do evil, easy 
 to act on the code the world lays down, just as it is 
 easy to submit to the external demands of false religions 
 — like the religions of the Eastern world, — which ask 
 no exercise of living faith, and never touch the heart ; 
 but it requires strength and suffering to resist evil. 
 Viewed from the standpoint of your weak human 
 nature, it is hard to be a Christian. 
 
 Blessed thought — our Master has gone through the 
 struggle and knows the difficulty : " Having suffered 
 being tempted, He is able also to succour them that are 
 tempted." 
 
 Further yet, temptation may be the source of 
 unspeakable blessing. Eesistance to temptation 
 strengthens character ; it purifies the soul ; it makes 
 the power of God's grace a matter not of religious 
 doctrine, but of personal experience ; it enables us to 
 
64 THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 
 
 help others in danger ; it draws us nearer to God. Yes ; 
 and it places us within range of that Divine bene- 
 diction : " Blessed is the man that endureth temptation : 
 for when he is tried, the Lord shall give him the crown 
 of life, which He has prepared for them that love 
 Him." 
 
 Young man, my brother, I pause to ask. How are you 
 fighting your battle % Fought it must be if you are to 
 conquer, for your enemies are real. Do not trust 
 yourself. Bad companions, bad influences, the terrible 
 forces of our own corrupt hearts — these are enough to 
 throw us open to the fiercest temptation, unless we 
 keep near God. Solomon had immense intellectual 
 capacity — yes ; and a mind too, endowed with gifts of 
 Divine wisdom — but he fell through his affections, 
 tempted by uncontrolled desire. Judas had oppor- 
 tunities of unrivalled value in his daily intercourse with 
 Christ, but he submitted to the crafty seductions of a 
 mean and corrupting passion, and obeyed the voice of 
 " the world." Louis xv. rose from a bed of sickness, 
 given back to the prayers of a nation, hailed as the 
 " hien aim4" the well-beloved, but he surrendered to 
 the enticements of a sensual nature and a worldly court, 
 and went at last, execrated by an oppressed and ruined 
 people, to a miserable and unlamented grave. 
 
 And you and I, you and I — we, too, have to remem- 
 ber that in each of us is a brute that must be tamed 
 and kept in order, and possibilities of sin almost 
 
THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 65 
 
 fathomless, unless we use prayer and watcliing, unless 
 we cling close to our Master, unless we have strength 
 from above. 
 
 Ah ! my brothers, in the trial of temptation we need 
 strength, strength from God. 
 
 In the " trial of temptation" ! And yet we must not 
 forget how great a blessing temptation may become, 
 and that strength to meet it is needed, not merely to 
 avoid sin, but that it may have its perfect work. 
 Doubtless under some temptations we are sure of some 
 failure, but with prayer and watching we need "not 
 greatly fall;" and if there has been failure it is 
 possible, by a brave acknowledgment of fault, by that 
 sterling strength which enables us neither to attempt 
 to palliate nor attempt to hide, it is possible to gain 
 deeper humility, to form wiser and firmer resolutions, 
 and to watch with a more consistent perseverance for 
 the recurrence of trial. 
 
 It is our duty to avoid temptation if we can ; to 
 meet it humbly, fearlessly, prayerfully, if it cannot be 
 avoided ; and to determine and strive, if met it must 
 be, that before it we will not succumb. 
 
 For temptation resisted is indeed fhe means of train- 
 ing character. Principles pass from the region of the 
 ideal into the region of the actual, from forms of 
 thought into part of ourselves, when they have stood the 
 fire of unsuccessful temptation. The wild flowers of the 
 mountains have a tenderer tone and a more stalwart 
 
 E 
 
66 THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 
 
 strength after they have borne the unpitying blast and 
 rooted themselves in the unrelenting stone. Loyalty is 
 noble when it has stood the test of danger, and with- 
 stood the bribes of self-interest ; affection is of priceless 
 value when it has borne the strain of distance and of 
 time ; tenderness of heart and strength of character — 
 the fairest gifts of fallen man — are only perfect when 
 they have resisted these fierce daily temptations, so 
 powerful alas ! with frail humanity in pulling down 
 high things, in destroying the fairest flowers of human 
 goodness, in breaking the strongest purposes, and in 
 corrupting the purest heart. Temptation, if resisted, 
 is a blessed discipline, but oh ! how severe a trial ! 
 Ah ! how could one weep to think of lives once lovely 
 lowered and devastated by unconquered temptation, 
 how the heart aches to remember, if only it had been 
 resisted, what they might have been! Strength is 
 what is needed ; where shall it be sought for ? Turn 
 to the Passion ; see written in that face of unflinching 
 resolve and heart-piercing sorrow, "He will give 
 strength and power unto His people ; blessed be God." 
 
 I do not suppose there is a man among us who has 
 not been tempted ; nay, probably not one who has not, 
 in some measure, failed. This trial is universal; 
 it lurks in everything — in our books, our friends, our 
 pursuits, our business, our pleasures — and we must be 
 prepared for it to the end. 
 
 3. There is, however, another trial, of which we are 
 
THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 67 
 
 as totally inexperienced as we are, alas ! well experi- 
 enced in temptation. There is the trial of Death. 
 
 Of that we have had no experience, but that we 
 shall have is certain. The moment is coming, coming 
 steadily, when we shall begin to feel all that seemed 
 so real fining down to the attenuated consistency of a 
 dream ; when all that seemed so distant is becoming the 
 sternest of realities. No more crowds around us, no 
 more friends to support us, but we and God alone. 
 Death is the entrance to the eternal world ; it has much 
 about it sweet to the weary, and blessed to the 
 Christian ; but natural feeling and Holy Scripture com- 
 bine in representing it as very serious and very 
 dreadful. Somehow it dogs the steps of sin ; some- 
 how the Evil One gained " the power of death ; " 
 somehow, to displace his throne and wreck his sway, 
 the death of Christ was a necessity. To meet this, 
 too, dear friends, the bravest of us stands in need of 
 Strength. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Now, mark, the Passion helps us first as an example. 
 We learn, as we see that spectacle, that it is a law 
 which governs life, that crises are prepared for by 
 steady, persevering endurance ; that the concentrated 
 strength of well-borne trial will at last overwhelm evil, 
 and bear us to victory. 
 
68 THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 
 
 It was all very well for that strange silence of the 
 people to be maintained in Sicily, while Charles of 
 Valois governed with brutality, and showed no pity ; 
 while women were insulted and men were murdered, 
 with no hand raised to stay the tyrant. But when the 
 crisis came, the strength accumulated in long endurance 
 did its work, and the night of Santo Spirito, the tragedy 
 of the Sicilian Vespers, was the witness of the passionate 
 strength of a people strong to overthrow evil, gained 
 by enduring long. 
 
 The Passion strengthens us — it may be paradoxical, 
 it is true — by teaching that strength is a duty. Amid 
 the troubles of an overwrought age and a hurrying 
 civilisation which taxes men's self-control, I believe 
 that madness before now has been, at least, accelerated 
 by disregarding in the opening moments of severe 
 mental trial the duty to be strong. Not one of us has 
 a right to " let himself go," or even to listen obediently 
 to the whisper of evil, " It is too much trouble," or " To 
 try is no use." It is false ; believe it not. No trouble 
 is too much for right-doing ; it is always of use to " try 
 again." 
 
 It is a duty to be strong. Even when sin has had 
 some triumph over us, still within us there is a deep 
 and sure witness that if we will we can. Even in such 
 cases we can confess our sin, can try again, can start 
 afresh if we please ; if we please, God's grace will always 
 avail. Ah ! my brother, you may be weak — probably 
 
THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 69 
 
 you are — but look at the Crucifix on Calvary. Your 
 Saviour teaches you it is possible for you, and therefore 
 it is your duty, to be strong. 
 
 For the Passion gives us an immense encouragement ; 
 we are assured in it of the sympathy of Christ. All 
 things are easy if we are not treated with a hardness 
 which refuses to realise our real difficulties; but, 
 whilst taught to do our duty unflinchingly, are allowed 
 to know that the highest, the bravest, the most strong 
 and tender sympathises with the difficulties in our way. 
 Christ, Who knows our weakness and our treachery, 
 "loves us," feels with us, "better than He knows." 
 Having "suffered" Himself, being tempted, "He is able 
 also to succour them that are tempted." 
 
 And the Passion, standing out as the prelude to the 
 Eesurrection, gives us strength by providing a living 
 hope. Here is no mere subtlety of argument, or 
 strength of teaching ; but an act, objective, real, prac- 
 tical. He died in agony, strong to the end, and He 
 rose. As the Master, so the servant. We too, dying 
 with Him, with Him may share the victory. 
 
 And finally, the Passion, above all, has its great and 
 secret power. It is the source of grace. Without the 
 grace of God, nothing can be done ; but with it, any- 
 thing. How are the cruel made tender, the hardened 
 rendered human ? how are the lazy endued with in- 
 domitable energy, the ungoverned gifted with self-con- 
 trol? how are those. idio never felt for others made 
 
 'Z 
 
 MNrVERStTY 
 
70 THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 
 
 more considerate than a closest friend ? how do the 
 ill-tempered grow into sunny sweetness, and the rude 
 and boisterous become courteous and kind ? how has 
 the vacillating won determination, and the incon- 
 stant gained firm faithfulness ? Greatest of all forces, 
 mightiest of all powers, this has been placed at man's 
 disposal — this, God's grace, this, too, the product of the 
 Passion. 
 
 Oh ! then, my brothers, upward and onward ! Do 
 duty ; stand unshaken ; be strong. Death will come ; 
 practise strength by using God's grace ; you will be 
 ready. Suffering, in God's power, you will endure, and 
 in that which is even more terrible, more constant, and 
 maybe so blessed — in temptation — look to the Crucified; 
 use the grace He offers ; turn from temptation ; act, 
 though action be painful ; cry with faith and penitence, 
 and you will never cry in vain. 
 
 Eemember, then, in closing, this. 
 
 The first step to strength is to know our danger 
 and act accordingly. Believe at least in Socrates, if 
 you do not attend to Christ. An unexamined, an 
 unregulated life, we learn from him, is not worth 
 living. 
 
 It was a fierce night of storm and darkness as we 
 swept along the inhospitable coast of Africa, with 
 beyond us the wild forces of tempest, and by us a dark 
 lee-shore. The sudden squalls rushed down the gullies 
 in the mountains, and the threatening clouds in bewil- 
 
THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 71 
 
 dering blackness gathered thicker hour by hour in the 
 sky. Comparatively smooth slept the waters under 
 the headlands, and certainly in the open sea the storm 
 was strong. There was some temptation to hug the 
 more sheltered coast-land, though danger certainly was 
 there. Wisdom said. Push out into the open ; take the 
 consequences ; face the storm. 
 
 So with life. Be not a coward; fly temptation, which 
 is truest courage ; or face it, if so it must be ; but breast 
 the trouble, fight the battle ; do not by sin purchase a 
 dreamy peace. Be strong, my brother, be strong. 
 
 And here I close. 
 
 When in our more serious moments we Consider 
 calmly our life beyond the grave — its immeasurable 
 extent, if measured by our present conceptions of Time ; 
 its utterly unimagined wonders, its vast possibilities, 
 the way in which Scripture connects our condition then 
 with our action now, the terrible forces here meant to 
 retard our progress, the Divine mercy by which 
 hindrances may be made paths of advance and means 
 of achievement — then, indeed, we begin to realise how 
 important it is to keep before us the rml meaning of 
 our present probation, never to forget the true signifi- 
 cance of life, ever to bear in mind the intensity of our 
 weakness, the wisdom of humility, the need of strength, 
 and the love and helpfulness of God. that, un- 
 deceived by the lying voice of the Evil One, unsubdued 
 by the attractions of the world, unseduced by the en- 
 
72 THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ticements of wild desire, we may have grace to keep 
 alive within us the hope set before us, and "purify 
 ourselves, even as He is pure." 
 
 Ah ! yes ; in this strange world, where there is 
 so much to sadden and distress, how could we fare 
 forth on our changeful journey with hearts of 
 constancy and courage, but for the hope of light 
 and strength supernatural to guide and sustain ? 
 In a world beset with dangers, and full of tempta- 
 tions, well may we fear for ourselves ; and there- 
 fore much is our need of well-grounded hope. But 
 for others, how much more ! — for the young, the 
 innocent, the eager; for those who, with all the joy 
 and enthusiasm of youth, with all its overweening 
 self-confidence, all its impatience of restraint, all its 
 intolerance of reproof, all its blindness to the value of 
 the experience of older guides, are going forth to the 
 battle of life, and treading the rough way of tempta- 
 tion and struggle. Eor these would not our anxiety 
 — sufficiently severe — become anguish not to be borne, 
 were it not for the relief and power of prayer, for a 
 knowledge of the resources of grace, for the well- 
 founded hope which arises from the Passion of the 
 Lord, that light may be theirs in the moment of dark- 
 ness, and strength in the time of struggle ? Certain as 
 it is that the path of light is humility, so is it certain 
 that the way of strength is mistrust of self and con- 
 fidence in God. For ourselves, and more still for those — 
 
THE HOPE OF STRENGTH 73 
 
 the loved, the longed-for, those for whose life we would 
 gladly give our own, for whose salvation we almost 
 dare to be willing to be lost — for all, let us take 
 courage as we gaze on that love and sorrow — the wit- 
 nesses of tremendous moral vigour, the guarantees of 
 needed supplies of strength. "Lord Jesus," we cry, 
 with anguished longing and yet consoling trust, " Thou 
 Who knowest them to be set in the midst of so many 
 and great dangers, that by reason of the frailty of their 
 nature they cannot always stand upright, grant them 
 such strength and protection as may support them in 
 all dangers, and carry them through all temptations, 
 for the merits, by the power, of Thy Passion." 
 
€.tfz ©ope of (Slorg. 
 
 ' T/ie ransomed of the Lord shall return^ and come to Zion with songs ^ 
 and everlasting joy upon their heads : they shall obtain joy and 
 gladness^ and sorrow and sighing shall flee azvay.'' — IsA. XXXV. lO. 
 
 THIS, my brothers, this is, practically at least, a pro- 
 phecy of the final scene of the Passion. But it is 
 more ; and this its further aspect is of far deeper sig- 
 nificance to each one of us. It reminds us, by infer- 
 ence, what is the immediate fruit and consequence of 
 the sufferings of our Lord — a fruit that each one of us 
 may gather, a consequence which may be for us all. 
 
 I have reminded you on these solemn mornings that 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, whatever else He did for us, 
 bequeathed us a heritage of Hope. Let me venture to 
 assert again that it is scarcely possible that, without 
 Hope, any really noble life can be lived or lasting work 
 be done. I commend this to your patient thought : the 
 nobleness, the self-forgetfulness, the large-heart edness, 
 the lasting usefulness, of the life of any man will be 
 in proportion to his power, in his being of beings, to 
 throw himself forward into the future ; and to enable 
 
 74 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY 75 
 
 man to do this there is no power sufficient in this 
 depressing and engrossing world unless the Divine grace 
 of Hope. Well, then, we have need to remember this, 
 that for a Christian, in so far as he really believes in 
 Jesus Christ, there are one or two words or phrases 
 which find no place in the dictionary of life and duty ; 
 among them these — " despondency," " failure," " de- 
 feat," and " despair." If indeed, if indeed we are 
 striving to follow the Crucified, then ''Nil desperan- 
 dum " is the motto for life. 
 
 And now, having ventured to say so much as this, I 
 am bound, dear friends, to remind you that Hope is no 
 mere imagination, no echo of a baseless dream; that 
 true Hope, as a religious man conceives it, is a grace, 
 and rests not on our flimsy fancies of what ought to 
 be or might be, but upon the revealed and ascertained 
 promises of God. I am bound, therefore, to warn you, 
 that you must be true to these conditions; that you 
 must not be run away with by your fickle fancies ; that 
 you must plant your foot upon these facts and pro- 
 mises if you are to enjoy the blessedness of a stimulat- 
 ing Hope. Eecall, then, the results of our discussion. 
 
 (1) The great act of the Passion supplies us with 
 the Hope of Forgiveness. This, dear brother man, is 
 all-important. '* Though your sins be as scarlet," though 
 you have forgotten the dignity of your manhood and 
 the responsibility of your place in God's creation, I 
 beseech you — there is, indeed, nothing else for you to do 
 
76 THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
 — ^get to the bleeding feet of Jesus, act on the condi- 
 tions of His unfailing promise, let Hope send you to 
 His blessed tenderness — send you, sorrowful sinner, to 
 be forgiven. 
 
 (2) Then — for the Past is the region of sad memo- 
 ries, but the Future the land of bewildering uncer- 
 tainties — there is a Hope for the path which lies before 
 you, however dim in encroaching darkness, however 
 rough to your pilgrim feet — Hope of Strength needed 
 in weakness, and Light for the densest gloom ; and of 
 this again the sanction, the guarantee — sanction certain, 
 guarantee incontestable — is the Passion of the Lord. 
 So far well. Now, Christian, remember there is one 
 Hope more. 
 
 What do we desire when this failing life is drawing 
 to its end ? what when those solemn moments, our 
 last on earth, are being counted to their close ? There 
 we shall stand, like Dante on the Apennines, like 
 Angelo in his farewell gaze at Florence, with rapid 
 glance, with eye too eager in its terror and pity for the 
 relief of tears — there we shall stand, glancing swiftly 
 and sadly over a fading, a traversed Past. How dif- 
 ferent that ridge of retrospect from the peak of expec- 
 tation on which once we stood. Then there were hopes 
 in abundance, though not always heavenly ; and now, 
 now! Where are the entrancing fancies and unreal 
 fashions which once enslaved our imaginations and en- 
 thralled our hearts ? where the ambitions which stimu- 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY 77 
 
 lated to effort, fruitless because selfish? where the 
 passionate longings ? where the deep and tender affec- 
 tions ? where the high hopes for ourselves, for others, 
 doomed — ah me ! — to such pitiless failure ? where the 
 ideals, with voices sweeter than the sirens, and forms as 
 fair and clear-cut as the Lycian Apollo ? where the dear 
 faces once all sunlight ? where the good and kindly who 
 have fallen into the ranks of the departing, and passed 
 us, with no message left behind them, in dim proces- 
 sion to the grave ? where, too, where all our own 
 miserable inconsistencies, broken resolutions, shattered 
 purposes, unsteadied aims ? Ah ! in such a moment, 
 what sorrow, even to the forgiven, even to the soul 
 lighted and strengthened on life's journey ! Ah ! at 
 such a moment what remains ? The very last leaf of 
 this world's woods of spring and summer splendour 
 has been swept with unsparing vigour before the 
 winter blast ; the very highest hope has at least stag- 
 gered before the depth of the abyss, and felt the chilling 
 darkness of the grave. What remains, I ask, from all 
 this wreck of human promise, ending in so much 
 human pain? Turn your faces to the pale spectacle 
 of the Crucifix ; when all else is over, there remains 
 the " Hope of Glory." 
 
 My brothers, this heritage is ours also if we care to 
 claim it. 
 
 Yes ; it is ours in that last moment of earthly expe- 
 rience, when we stand trembling on the frontier line 
 
78 THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
 between two worlds — ours then in abundant blessing, 
 if only we will claim it now. 
 
 I. 
 
 Well, then, let us ask ourselves, not perhaps without 
 enthusiasm, but with all the force and restrainedness of 
 common-sense, what it is we mean by "Glory." Glory! 
 It is one of those great words which represents an only 
 half-defined and yet majestic idea. Certainly its mean- 
 ing will vary much according to the moral aim of 
 those whose lips translate it. It has its lower and its 
 loftier meanings. It represents an idea, sometimes 
 religious, in the highest sense ; sometimes drawn from 
 things innocent and beautiful in Time — still of Time, 
 though not untouched by Eternity ; sometimes distinctly 
 stained with the finger of sin. It may be vague, but 
 only with the vagueness of the mountain crags, dim 
 to the eye through the thin mist of approaching 
 winter sunset, but, from very dimness, grand. What 
 is glory? The fair morning speaks its meaning of 
 " glory " in its splendour of cloud-masses and accumula- 
 tion of colour ; the soft evening whispers her version of 
 it in the tender pencilling of the slate-grey clouds, not 
 untouched with graduated brilliance, from transparent 
 saffron up to burnished gold. The spring meadows 
 flash their "glory" in the changing enamel of grass 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY 79 
 
 and flowers. Glorious are the masses of the mountains, 
 and the depth of the ravines, glorious the roll of the 
 thunder, the blast of the storm-wind, the angry 
 clamour of the reverberating sea. Nature — strange 
 teacher of a world beyond her, above her — has her 
 moving methods of revealing the thought of glory. 
 
 And man ! Ah ! whatever he touches has too often 
 a stain. Too often with him his " glory " is found, not 
 in actual and indestructible greatness, but in the higher 
 consideration given him from something just less than 
 his essential self in the opinion of his fellow-men. 
 
 And God ! "With Him, ah ! ineffable and perfect is 
 that assembly of rays of goodness, greatness, tender- 
 ness, of strength and patience, and moral loveliness ; 
 that convergence of attributes into one perfect unity of 
 harmony and rest, which alone can be called the 
 highest " Glory." 
 
 To speak religiously, then, the " Hope of Glory " 
 must include those possible states of the creature 
 which are at least distance from the perfection of God. 
 It must include, at least, beauty, and blessedness, and 
 rest. 
 
 II. 
 
 But stay. Before we examine the meaning of such 
 an assertion, let us ask. How does the Passion of our 
 Master not indeed coni'pel us to realise the possible 
 greatness of our destiny, but give us the hope that it 
 
8o THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
 may be realised in the fulness of fact ? How does it 
 give us the hope that, instead of being very common- 
 place people, with sadly low aims, with miserable, un- 
 fruitful lives, playing in a pantomime, acting on a stage, 
 we may be real men, loving God and doing duty, con- 
 quering sin — it may be slowly, but surely — living well 
 in the Present, because having deep in the springs of 
 our will the serious thought of the Future, having a 
 strong purpose and a steady aim, and a sturdy convic- 
 tion of the truth of the things of this life and another ; 
 and when this itself needs something more, when the 
 present scene is fading from [us, when the autumn 
 leaves of other hopes are blown before the gale, how 
 does it give us the pledge of that which lasts — the 
 Hope of Glory ? 
 
 1. Now, first, Christianity, if even it has done 
 nothing else, has given mankind a Future. By that 
 fact the conditions of life are changed ; from that 
 fact we learn to think of ourselves as deathless spirits 
 born for immortality. 
 
 It is a soul-subduing thought, indeed, the possibility 
 of failure, the fierceness of the assaults of the enemy, 
 the weakness with which we yield. But still it remains 
 true that without possibility of failure can be no joy of 
 victory, and that strong grounds for hope of victory 
 are the most powerful stimulants, amid whatever 
 troubles, to a vigorous life. Man is a changed being 
 when he is brought practically in view of a Future. 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY 8i 
 
 There hangs in the Dresden Gallery a picture, by a 
 modern artist, not unworthy of careful attention, even 
 though beneath the same roof as the San Sisto 
 Madonna, — a picture of the souls, in Dante's vision, 
 who had crossed the waters, and were waiting to ascend 
 the mountain of purifying sorrow. In the foreground 
 is one striking figure, with a head like an Apollo, but 
 the golden hair, the sandy beard, the fair face and 
 open look, the heritage of the Saxon. All about him 
 in shape and sinew is the " spring " of vigorous man- 
 hood and the emphasis of real strength — a very man 
 the painter has painted him, fearless and strong. He is 
 looking upwards, and as he gazes into a dim future, 
 carrying with it the possibility of entire purification, 
 the blue Saxon eyes are filled to brimming with unshed 
 tears, and there is an eager, longing, wistful look towards 
 higher things, which spiritualises and purifies the whole 
 being, till the spectator is drawn, in gazing, into that 
 sympathy which is made of pity, and admiration, and 
 awe. 
 
 A parable of this life, dear friends, is in that picture. 
 To be a man indeed, to live in the Present with pre- 
 vailing power, to be outside the paralysing pressure of 
 despondency, or the corrupting force of merely cynical 
 resolve, to have the weakness and strength of St. Paul, 
 rather than the strength and weakness of Cato, every 
 child of man must be in possession of a Future. 
 
 Now think, how wonderful that we are able to form 
 
82 THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
 some notion of the characteristic real features of our 
 God! We can talk of " power," "knowledge," "mercy," 
 "justice," with a calm sense of something of their 
 beauty, but magnify these into the infinite dimensions 
 they reach in the Being of beings ; harmonise them, 
 even in faltering, insufficient thought, into the unity of 
 an unbeginning and unending life — then the brain 
 reels, and we begin to feel, like the Prophet, that our 
 place is in dust and ashes. 
 
 " In dust and ashes I" Yes ; but think, if He, instead of 
 me, takes that place ! And this He did at Calvary. Ah ! 
 what is the meaning of this soul-subduing story ? what 
 the force of this mystery of humiliation ? Surely, surely. 
 He could never have bent to that mysterious sorrow, 
 unless He meant to show man the true relative pro- 
 portions of Time and Eternity, the secret of self- 
 denial, the value of struggle — unless, unless He had 
 intended to imprint on man's mind the dignity of his 
 destiny, to insist on the fact of his Future. 
 
 My brothers, among other meanings of the Crucifixion 
 of the Eternal is this : remember the Lord died sooner 
 than betray our Future. Have you not, have you not, 
 then, in His unfathomed sorrow, a " Hope of Glory "? 
 
 2. But further. He reminds us and enables us, that 
 that Future, so to speak, may begin here and now. In 
 every Christian " baptized into His death," the life of 
 Heaven is begun in potency, may be begun in fact. 
 
 What ! you say with horror, Can you believe that 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY 83 
 
 every wretched creature you see within a radius of a 
 few miles of St. Paul's Cathedral, if only baptized, is 
 worthy of being called a child of God ? I answer by a 
 question, and then a statement. The question is this : 
 Do you or do you not believe, my brother, if you 
 should be tried by such a heart-rending and pathetic 
 trial, do you or do you not believe that your lad — 
 because he has not done his duty, because he has been 
 ungrateful for your goodness, and thoughtless of your 
 wishes, because the principles you taught him have 
 been trampled under foot in the madness of his folly 
 and his sin — do you or do you not believe that he has 
 ceased to be your child ? Of course, sane man, though 
 sorrowful, you do not. And likewise — here is my 
 statement — in you, soul, the first moving thought is 
 this — not that you " accepted Christ^' but that Christ 
 " accepted you^ 
 
 Blessed and terrible is that thought. Blessed that 
 you have been brought by the precious Blood under the 
 play of the " powers of the world to come," thab in you 
 is regenerating life, that if you fall and yet turn again, 
 it is to your Father you are turning ; terrible to think 
 you may fling from you the dignity of sonship and the 
 gift of God. But surely, surely, in a world so evil, it 
 is something to remind the miserable, the lonely, the 
 dejected, the forsaken, the degraded woman, the little 
 street lad, the tempted office-clerk, the young man 
 struggling for self-conquest, the young woman exposed 
 
84 THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
 to snares of Evil — something to remind them that 
 " baptized into Christ, they have put on Christ ; " that, 
 they may if they will turn back to Him, and abide in 
 Him ; they may if they will rise to the height of their 
 calling, and spring boldly forth against the assaults of 
 the enemy, supported and strengthened by " the Hope 
 of Glory." Yes ; Jesus won for us the grace to enter, 
 with new strength within us, into the family of the 
 Future. 
 
 3. "To enter!" Nay, more; more than that. The 
 mystery of our Master's suffering is a fount of power. 
 The Second Adam, the Eepresentative of the race here, 
 has merited abiding strength for His brethren in 
 struggle. From the power of the Passion comes the 
 strength to 'persevere. 
 
 To persevere ! Ah ! how many begin well, and end 
 badly ! how many when effort is needed fail ! how few 
 succeed ! and in spiritual matters how may the law of 
 failure be reversed and thwarted ! how may we " per- 
 severe to the end" ? 
 
 Brethren, certainly our experience, our ability, our 
 far-sightedness, our former good resolves, or even good 
 achievements — these cannot help us. Better men than 
 we have promised much, and belied their early promise. 
 Solomon, Judas, Demas — what a saddening shroud is 
 round their future ! Grace is not indefectible ; wills 
 are not forced, but free ; but still from the side of the 
 Crucified are blood and water — "means of grace;" 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY 85 
 
 from that comes the strength of strong sacraments, and 
 strong absolutions ; from that the force of hands and 
 souls outstretched in eager desire and yearning prayer ; 
 from that the illuminating spirit, making the Bible a 
 book of guidance and warning, severe, tender, helpful, 
 as none other in the world. Yes ; from Jesus Crucified 
 comes the power to persevere in the spirit of His 
 example, self-conquest, humility, penitential sorrow — in 
 the force of His intercession, all-prevailing through His 
 mysterious sacrifice, and in the grace won for those 
 who will to ask and use it, — in these our Master Cruci- 
 fied supplies our need. 
 
 let us rise on the wings of the lofty hope He has 
 left us to a life of penitence and truth and duty! 
 With power of beginning, of advancing, of persevering 
 to the end, guaranteed by His Passion, shall we not 
 cherish the ambition to be better, the desire to be like 
 Him, the " Hope of Glory" ? 
 
 Surely so we resolve ; and if so, then, brethren, we do 
 well to remember — not to depress us, but to subdue our 
 self-dependence — that, left to ourselves, we must fail. 
 
 Brethren, we do well to remember, to gladden our 
 hearts and stimulate our efforts, that clinging to Christ 
 — in prayer, in watching, in the use of Sacraments, 
 and the spirit of penitence, in hatred of evil, in love of 
 goodness, in the courage that does not shrink from toil, 
 and the noble spirit that will not endure final defeat, 
 with the eye fixed and the purpose set — we find in the 
 
86 THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
 Passion of Jesus — in its self-subdued, its tender love, 
 its mysterious funds of force — the grace we need to 
 help us in our trying temptations and depressing 
 failures — " the Hope of Glory." 
 
 TIL 
 
 Is there more to be said of this Future, of these 
 " powers of the world to come " which are placed at our 
 disposal, and on which we have, as Christians, entered, 
 and in which we may, if we will, as Christians, per- 
 severe ? 
 
 Their result, dear friends, is " glory." 
 
 It is true there have been representations of a future 
 life which tend rather to repel than to attract. It is 
 not wonderful that the minds of the uncultured, of the 
 hard-worked and weary, of those to whom this life has 
 little to offer but struggle and weariness and sorrow — 
 it is not wonderful that those whose earthly horizon is 
 bounded by leaden clouds of unrequiting labour should 
 fasten in religious moments on the brilliant visions of 
 the Eevelation, and give them an over-literal, and un- 
 spiritual, and too trenchant interpretation. And then 
 it is, of course, easy for the cynic to sneer at the enthu- 
 siast, easy to shrug the shoulder at a " sea of glass," a 
 " city of gold," and " gates of pearls." 
 
 Doubtless the faults of the ignorant and uncultured 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY 87 
 
 are easy to find. But still it remains, there is a mean- 
 ing ; still it is true, that, if you cannot define, the longing 
 spirit can in a measure realise ; still there may be a 
 vague sense, but a certain, " that all things are working 
 together for good to them that love God," and that 
 " eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it 
 entered into the heart of man to conceive the things 
 which God has prepared for them that love Him." There 
 is a meaning, there is a fact, represented by the " Hope 
 of Glory." 
 
 Else why is religious man, from the noblest to the 
 poorest, thrilled by the thought ? The Christian faith 
 has, indeed, two sides : severe condemnation to evil, 
 but also strong sympathy with human sorrow and 
 human aspiration ; stern, strong, gentle, tender it is, 
 but never maudlin, never ending in mere sentiment, 
 always seasoned with a manly spirit of reality; it 
 indulges in no melodrama when it talks of " the Hope 
 of Glory." 
 
 The idea of God could not, as it has done, haunt 
 humanity if there were no corresponding Person. The 
 idea of a deathless life could not have flashed in 
 ever-brightening and more rapid flashes upon the 
 human soul unless there were the splendid, the awful 
 reality. The idea of Glory cannot have cheered the sick, 
 consoled the dying, supported the sufferer, stimulated 
 the struggling, if it were nothing but a dreamy senti- 
 ment with no response in corresponding fact. 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
 IV. 
 
 And, indeed, there are two considerations which may 
 at once help us to love and cling to the Passion, and 
 which tend to bring this home. 
 
 First, Scripture, in teaching the Hope of Glory, falls in 
 with a yearning which belongs to our better moments, 
 and which is felt to be the property of man, as man. 
 In the efforts of self-conquest which mark a Christian's 
 life, is not one hope which he cherishes fhis 'i — that at 
 last the tone and temper which raises the commonest 
 things to a high and heavenly level may be the normal 
 temper of the soul ; that the vivid joy that once was ours, 
 when years were young and life was all aglow, that this 
 may be ours again, 
 
 " With added brightness, yet the same," 
 
 in things of heaven. What is this dream which haunts 
 the chamber of the human heart ? A dream there is of 
 happiness, with no besetting fear of disaster ; a dream of 
 rest, without the sting of selfish sloth; a dream of labour, 
 with all its bracing power unconditioned by exhausting 
 toil ; a dream of achievement, with only the sweetness, 
 and no remaining sadness of severe and trying struggle 
 a dream of beauty, with no touch of decay ; of love, 
 with its light of infinite delighting untouched by one 
 self-seeking thought, and with no freezing foreboding 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY 89 
 
 of change or death; of joy, with the innocence and 
 spring of childhood, and resting on the intellectual 
 strength of the tried and experienced man. Can these, 
 which pervade the best and purest hearts at the highest 
 moments of their best and purest enthusiasms, be only- 
 dreams ? Are they not rather voices of God within the 
 soul, articulated plainly in the language of His Revela- 
 tion by the strengthening, stimulating promises of a "new 
 heaven and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness;" 
 by the glorious heritage guaranteed to man by the Cross, 
 and its sequel the Resurrection — the "Hope of Glory"? 
 
 And, next, the same is plain, from a closer considera- 
 tion of man's constituent faculties. 
 
 (1) Man is a being of intelligence ; he is gifted with 
 powers for knowing, and those powers are rightly — then, 
 and then only rightly — used, in so far as he seeks and 
 knows the Truth. Man's intelligence has been wounded 
 by that perversion of his nature which is evident in a 
 fallen race. He is the victim of error. But error, like 
 sin, is not a thing in itself. Truth and goodness, these 
 are eternal facts ; error depends for its existence on the 
 activity of a perverted intellect, just as sin does on that 
 of a perverted will. Man, indeed, has within him lights 
 guiding him in the path of truth — conscience, the moral 
 sense, the intuitive perception of a God above and by 
 him; these unfold with teaching, and reflection, and 
 thought, and the varying exercises of life's disciplining 
 experience. Man, therefore, is responsible in large 
 
90 THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
 measure for what he knows or does not know. It is 
 possible for him to set his face towards deeper darkness, 
 or firmly to plant his feet on the track of the dawn. 
 But, at the best, how dark and uncertain the conclusions 
 of intelligence on the secrets of truth ! Christ, Who is 
 the Truth, has fought with the legions of error, borne 
 witness to the truth, even to the Cross, that man may- 
 know. Ah! restless human intellect, how sad and 
 wandering until thou dost grasp " the Eaith once de- 
 livered ; " and even when believing, still subject to how 
 many difficulties, how many dangers ! The hour is 
 coming, coming quickly — so says the Blood of the 
 Passion — when Faith is revealed, when the vision of 
 the soul is purified, when mists are rolled away, when 
 training is completed, when riddles are read and 
 mysteries made clear ; when the intellect, weary and 
 toiling, but purified by faith and strengthened by 
 struggle, shall gaze with the intensity of delight on the 
 unfolded universe, shall rest in the vision of the Truth. 
 No more possibility of error I Is not this a " Hope of 
 Glory"? 
 
 (2) But, intellectual as he is, man is, beyond this, a 
 moral being. He may fall short, he may succeed ; that 
 is his high and perilous privilege. In his hands has 
 been placed a weapon of quite appalling power, a 
 weapon by which he may, with proper use, hew his way 
 through all opposing forces, or which may be used for 
 self-destruction — he has been intrusted with free-will. 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
 91 
 
 And we cannot blind our eyes at once to its signifi- 
 cance and our responsibility. The Christian Faith has 
 placed before the eyes of the most worldly and the most 
 wilfully indifferent a lofty standard, a high, an almost 
 dazzling view, of the dignity and destiny of man. The 
 Divine love and sorrow of the Cross shows him his 
 worth, his danger, what may be his greatness. Man is 
 a moral being. He may well quail before the possi- 
 bilities of persistently perverted choice; but he sees 
 before him at once guiding example and proffered 
 power. There, that path of self-conquest, humility, 
 determination — that is the path for him to walk on ; 
 there, that best storehouse of grace — that is the supply 
 to draw from. He sees the possibility of goodness con- 
 quering in himself, becoming not only the bias, but the 
 pervading state of his whole being, as a moral being — 
 that hope of the achievement of goodness, that is his 
 " Hope of Glory." 
 
 (3) Man is a social being. " It is not good for man 
 to be alone." The society in which man lives has drawn 
 out his highest affections and his most degrading pas- 
 sions. This has been, in envy, in malice, in cruelty, in 
 tyranny, in covetousness, in sensuality, the arena for 
 the play of his vilest selfishness ; this, too, in philan- 
 thropy,in friendship, in the fair adjustment of capital and 
 labour, in interdependence between teacher and taught, 
 and wise advance in arts of government — above all, in 
 the deeper play of purified affection, in the elevating 
 
92 THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
 love of woman, and all the ennobling feelings springing 
 up and living in the thought of home, — this has been 
 the theatre of purest and most exalted self -forgetting. 
 Alas ! the brightest sunlight of our social being, this 
 also is traversed by clouds of sin. " An enemy hath done 
 this." Whence otherwise the misunderstandings which 
 separate good men, the irremovable suspicions between 
 class and class, the disappointed hopes which tend to 
 lead the soul from strength and vigour to the barren 
 fields of cynicism, to despondency, to the land of 
 " sorrow and sighing " ? — 
 
 " I once had thought that all the light of morning 
 This heart had found 
 Was but the shimmer of a glow adorning 
 The whole world round. 
 
 I once had thought that Death, like minor measures, 
 
 Enhanced Life's sweeter tune ; 
 That Hopes danced on, like spring's unfolding treasures. 
 
 From May to June. 
 
 I once had thought that all the chill December, 
 
 Its winds and snow, 
 Fled like the storm-driven clouds ; — All this, remember, 
 
 Was long ago." 
 
 So wails the soul, for, indeed, man's life as a social 
 being is subject to disappointment. Against this, in- 
 deed, he must struggle; this is not life's final word. 
 Man is subject to the unspeakable pangs of parting. 
 God has given man the high power of loving. To love 
 deeply and tenderly, with self conquered or forgotten 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY 93 
 
 in devotion to another soul, is one of the highest prero- 
 gatives of our human nature. Here, indeed, is the 
 delirium of delighting ; here alas ! also the passion of 
 our pain. Those we love, after all, are not yet given, 
 "they are but lent to us ; and again and again the grave 
 may close over the fair earthly form of some whom to 
 lose would be to lose the sense of sunlight and the 
 spring and energy of life. 
 
 Yes, but think ; a time is coming, soul, when dis- 
 appointments are impossible, and misunderstandings no 
 more ; when no moody temper can cloud the sunlight 
 of a real affection — to be repented of possibly all too 
 late ; when friendship cannot fail, nor friends forsake, 
 and when those who love can never feel the pang of 
 severance, but shall " meet to part no more." 
 
 Do not let us forget that grace is won for us in the 
 Passion to implant and strengthen, in our weak and 
 wilful natures, the tenderness, the strength, the humility, 
 the patience, the considerateness and self-forgetting 
 which here bind soul to soul ; and do not let us neglect 
 to use it. Do not let us forget that Maundy Thursday 
 has its recurring witness of the great ordinance, and the 
 "new commandment;" the sweet Sacrament to represent 
 before the Divine mind the one Sacrifice once offered, 
 " showing the Lord's death till He come ; " to give each 
 the Bread of Life which binds us to Him, incorporating 
 us in His life ; to bind us to each other also in a lesson 
 of Christian love. Do not, do not let us be self-excom- 
 
94 THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
 municated. Christian, sinful Christian, examine your- 
 self ; repent of your sin ; make your confession ; go, go, 
 absolved, to offer the " sacrifice of our ransom," and to 
 feed on the Heavenly Food. Do not neglect to do it ; 
 and, as you do, rejoice and be glad that " love is stronger 
 than death, and mightier than the grave ; " that your 
 best affections will not be disappointed ; that you and 
 those you love — the good, the beautiful, for whom you 
 have mourned, with whom you have trodden this life's 
 pilgrimage — shall come, shall come with singing, re- 
 deemed of the Lord, crowned with joy, to Zion, and 
 " sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Depressed, dis- 
 appointed, broken-hearted, but loving — is not this a 
 " Hope of Glory " ? 
 
 A " Hope of Glory" ! Toil, indeed, toil at the labour ; 
 advance, struggle on on the way ; forget not the need 
 of the present ; keep head clear, heart true, will deter- 
 mined for the claims of duty and work. Be no dreamer; 
 but also be no worldling. Plant the foot firmly on the 
 stones that pierce the bleeding feet ; toil on, and fear 
 not ; but look up, look up to the breaking of the day — 
 " the Hope of Glory." 
 
 V. 
 
 "The Hope of Glory!" How little we know or 
 dream of its meaning ! how far beyond all stretch of 
 imagination the state of souls, safe after " much tribu- 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY 95 
 
 lation," in the city of God ! And yet how certainly 
 it comes to our ears, with the music of a real, an inner 
 thrill of joy ! — like the sound of falling water on the 
 dreamy afternoon, like the sighing of the wind in 
 woods of spring-tide beauty, like the sobbing of the 
 waves on the patient gleaming sands, like songs from 
 a loved voice heard when the night is still — like all 
 images of peace, rest, and solace from trouble — the 
 "Hope of Glory!" 
 
 How, further, can we dissect and determine anything 
 so delicate, so real, yet so vanishing ? 
 
 Surely, surely, all that is possible and wise is to say 
 that it certainly includes those gifts we have named 
 to the human spirit ; it certainly therefore offers us the 
 enjoyment of perfect beauty. 
 
 (1) For Beauty is nothing less in any being than 
 harmony in the relation of its several parts. It is seen 
 in !N'ature, it is seen in human form, it is seen above 
 all in the mind and spirit — seen by the soul. The 
 Greeks were attracted, intoxicated, by the matchless 
 symmetry of the human body ; this the Christian could 
 not be indifferent to, but always felt towards it as the 
 symbol — the sad, pathetic, passing symbol, of a higher 
 loveliness. True beauty in the creature is in the soul — 
 the soul which thinks, and feels, and wills, but is some- 
 thing individual, and deeper than any of its acts; the soul 
 which, in grace in some measure, in glory in complete- 
 ness, harmonises the faculties of its being, dislocated, 
 
96 THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
 disturbed, alas ! by sin. Thus also the soul becomes 
 capable of realising with unbounded and yet undisturb- 
 ing emotion the " Uncreated Beauty," " the Being of 
 beings," — the Living God. To gather up all forms of 
 beauty which have ever penetrated our being, to have 
 them purified from every stain, to see all of them 
 reflecting eternal loveliness, leading up to the contem- 
 plation of Him Who is the Source and Ideal of all that 
 is really beautiful, and to rejoice in this, with the soul 
 no longer in possibility of sinning, but capable of a 
 vision given only to the pure in heart — this, this is to 
 realise " the Hope of Glory." 
 
 (2) " The Hope of Glory !" It includes Blessedness ; 
 or, — groping thus to grasp an idea so transcendent, — 
 we may see Blessedness is an aspect of Glory. " The 
 ransomed of the Lord shall come to Zion, joy and glad- 
 ness in their hearts, sorrow and sighing fleeing away." 
 There is the picture. Sorrow and sighing ! Young 
 men, some of you may possibly have not yet awakened 
 from the dream of early days to the grim realities of 
 the world you live in. Alas ! you are, I suppose, in 
 the throes of the awakening. If so, you begin to 
 realise the desperate poverty of the poorer ; the evil 
 passions bred of hopelessness ; the envy, the jealousy, 
 the unreasoning hate against the more prosperous : you 
 begin to realise the awful temptations of the miserable 
 and wretched ; the hell which earth is turned to for 
 weak women and helpless children by the ungoverned 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
 97 
 
 lusts of wicked men, the cold and cruel heartlessness 
 of the materialistic money-seeker, the dismal dark- 
 ness of those in whom faith in goodness and God has 
 failed. You begin to realise the awfulness of lost 
 opportunities; the pathetic sadness of souls too late 
 awakened to the wilfulness and folly with which they 
 have misused or flung from them the gift of influence ; 
 the dreary disappointment, the poignant anguish in- 
 volved in the parting of friends, the breaking of hearts, 
 the smothered cries of the lonely, the tears that scald 
 the cheek over the dust of an open grave, of which no 
 burning drop can touch the heart that beats no more. 
 sorrow-stricken, sin-laden world ! 
 
 " Too full of death the great world is, the halls full 
 of weepers." 
 
 It will end, it will end ; the cries of anguish will die 
 in the whisper of thanksgiving. " Sorrow and sighing 
 shall flee away." Pause on the thought ; you will be 
 tempted — yes, sorely, if you have a heart for love and 
 sorrow — to reel and fall in helpless despondency when 
 life brings home to you the vanishing of dreams. 
 
 Think again — 
 
 " I once had thought that all the light of morning 
 This heart had found 
 Was but the shimmer of a glow adorning 
 The whole world round." 
 
 So we said just now ; but I beg you to remember 
 these were voices of the soul ; the " once had thought " 
 
98 THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
 was not a false thought, though its complete fulfilment 
 is in glory. Listen and dream of it, clasp and cling to 
 it, write it in the heart when it is near to breaking, 
 whisper it from the lips, when words of ordinary 
 life are fading to a wail. It comes from the region of 
 the blessed ; it comes to the heavy-laden and downcast, 
 comes like the dreamy cadences of soothing music, 
 comes like the sway and swell of church bells across 
 the snow, comes with an accent of certainty to revive 
 courage and strength in the weary. "Sorrow and 
 sighing shall flee away." 
 
 Positive blessedness also. " Joy upon their heads." 
 Crowned ; yes, crowned with pure pleasures. Such is 
 the state of those in glory. The loftiest reason, once 
 baffled in this mysterious and disturbing world, now 
 satisfied in the causes and harmonies of things, satisfied 
 with God ; the affections of the higher spiritual being 
 finding in essential love a delight beyond all power of 
 change or hurting ; the sense of the beauty of good- 
 ness, and at last of its triumph — this, this is Glory. 
 
 (3) And I add— Best. 
 
 Certainly one root of sorrow to the soul on earth is 
 toil and struggle. 
 
 Little need to dwell on that. Labour, once a curse, 
 has become a blessing ; but the world is full of toil 
 which is fruitless ; full, too, of weariness, springing from 
 fruitless, hopeless toil. What masses of men are 
 working with no hope, no future, only the goad of sad 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY 99 
 
 necessity ! others too, for that " which profiteth not," 
 and can give no return. While we are in youth, and 
 health, and vigour, while income is easy, and friends 
 are plenty, it is possible to take sunny views of life ; 
 but they will not last. The only sunshine which lasts 
 streams from Eternity. Labour here, labour and sorrow ; 
 there is the Glory of Kest. 
 
 VI. 
 
 For man, remember — intelligent, moral, social man — 
 is a being of Eternity. Wrap himself he may in the folds 
 of sense and evil, still he cannot be satisfied in Time. 
 Therefore he thrills to the mystery of music, and is 
 touched by the sadness of song. Therefore in the 
 deepest depths of the commonplace he has flashes of 
 a higher life ; tlierefore, though half enslaved by 
 selfishness, he wakens to generosity ; however buried in 
 self-seeking, he has better moments, and voices reach 
 him from another world. Why else these "better 
 moments"? why else these clearer visions? why 
 else these touches of divine regret and more divine 
 desire ? why, why above all, does he, rough, self-seek- 
 ing, wayward, rise to the dignity of human love? 
 Man is a creature of Eternity; if he has left his 
 Zion, he may still return to it ; he is formed for a 
 better country. Ah ! see to it, that you do but cling 
 to the hope of your heritage. Man is born for glory. 
 
lOO THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
 For glory ! Yes ; and turning the heart and will in 
 repentance, and stretching the hand of faith for the 
 boundless merits, following the example, clinging to 
 the power, of the Passion, it shall be yours. "The 
 ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion 
 with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads : they 
 shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing 
 shall flee away." 
 
 " The ransomed of the Lord !" They are going forth 
 on a weary pilgrimage. They must be persistent yet 
 gentle, strong yet tender, with high ideal yet practical 
 action, self-respecting yet unselfish, of unswerving 
 loyalty to truth yet large in heart and rich in sym- 
 pathy, never scornful but rather reverent, with eager 
 and submissive thoughts towards God, with earnest 
 and trustful hearts towards man. 
 
 These are they who pass over deadly chasms, and 
 travel over piercing stones. Their feet are cut and 
 bleeding, and their hands are grimed with toil ; often in 
 their ears is the sound of the tempest, round them only 
 twilight, and before them the valley of the shadow; 
 sometimes lonely, sometimes fainting, often weary, half 
 tempted to fall in the journey ; still, still they have 
 learnt and they remember the teaching of Divine sorrow; 
 they are daring the ascent of the mountain ; they have 
 their feet on the track of the dawn. 
 
 The dawn it is coming ! The first streaks are above 
 them, the clouds are breaking, there is sound of sing- 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY 103 
 
 ing. See ; the shadows are sweeping before the shafts 
 of sunlight : " sorrow and sighing " are fleeing away. 
 
 Think, think — if you can think — what it will be 
 when temptation has no more power to seduce, or sin 
 to destroy; when the conscience has no voice of 
 reproaching, and remorse can no longer devour the 
 mind : tlien desire shall be spotless, and its satisfaction 
 all one with the highest judgments of our better 
 selves. 
 
 Think, think — when anxiety no more disturbs, and 
 care no more can gnaw, when the love of the heart is 
 supreme in sovereignty, and no more clouds return 
 after the rain — think of rest which is not slothful, of 
 calm which has all the energy of effort ; think — if ye 
 children of a restless world are capable of such high 
 imagining — think of the " glory " which lies before you, 
 "where the wicked cease from troubling, where the 
 weary are at rest." 
 
 It is coming, it is coming ; Lord, help us to approach 
 it with reverent spirits and longing hearts ! 
 
 blessed vision! The victory of goodness, the 
 reward of labour, the conquest of sin, the subdual of 
 self, the slaughter of Death the Destroyer, the triumph 
 of love ! This, this, brave heart, is coming. Look up, 
 look up. Go on and do your duty. Christ Crucified 
 is Christ Conquering ; there is a " Hope of Glory"! 
 
I02 THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
 VII. 
 
 "The ransomed of the Lord shall come to Zion, 
 and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." After all, 
 even the fine and exquisite touches of this ancient 
 prophet are crude and rough compared to the reality, 
 as the Norman arch, or even the pointed window, is at 
 best the blurred and material expression of un- 
 spoken instincts or great thoughts. After all, such 
 words as " penitent," " innocent," " martyr," " beauty," 
 " blessednesss," " rest," are rough but concentrated 
 statements of traits of human history, departments of 
 human delight or longing, and the struggles of human 
 souls. The vast results of human sorrows and human 
 feelings and human efforts are only hinted in the 
 faint facts of a passing life, and dimly indicated in the 
 symbolism of the prophetic seer. They leave behind 
 them vague hints, dim indications of a world of life, 
 too mysterious to be penetrated, too awfully real to be 
 ignored. What we do know, what we can fall back 
 upon, is the remembrance, the fruitful remembrance, 
 that here is unveiled for a moment the hint of a truth ; 
 and further, that that truth touches each of us with the 
 power of personal contact, and in its fulness one day 
 it shall be plain. We are only told enough to startle, 
 to arrest, to restrain us from evil, to guide us in con- 
 duct. Human life, human history, is a tremendous 
 mystery — sometimes clear in sunshine, sometimes dark 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY 103 
 
 in tragic clouds, but it IS, and its end shall be one day 
 plain. Here we have a revelation, with the beauty of a 
 dream, but with the dignity of a vision — for a dream, 
 though fair, is unreality ; a vision, though mysterious, 
 is a fact. In the hope of that vision we may live by 
 grace, striving against evil, struggling after goodness, 
 bearing misfortune, fulfilling duty, relying upon eternal 
 tenderness, resting on boundless pity ; and as we pass 
 through the valley of the shadow, even, even when the 
 clouds are thickest, sustaining our fainting hearts by the 
 certainty of the " city that hath foundations," by the 
 looking for the morning on the mountains, when the 
 real result of man's trial, of God's goodness — a new and 
 blessed life — endless, perfect, satisfying, is before us, 
 — when we come, ransomed, " with joy to Zion, and 
 sorrow and sighing shall flee away." 
 
 I have done. We live in an age — let us remember 
 it — when so keen is competition that commercial 
 morality — that is, personal integrity — is strained to 
 snapping ; when social intercourse is so easy that the 
 conditions of society are not always most consonant 
 with the claims of simplicity and truth ; when political 
 enterprise is so absorbing that loyalty to principle 
 is more than ever needed, and more than ever hard ; 
 when intellectual activity in every field of speculation 
 needs to be earnestly chastened because it is exception- 
 ally strong ; in an age when old things are passing 
 away, and all things are becoming new ; an age intoxi- 
 
I04 THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
 cated with progress, and yet still subject to sorrow; 
 above all, an age in which Christianity — that Faith 
 which has supported thousands — has enlightened 
 centuries, has drawn forth the most lavish affections, 
 the deepest enthusiasms, the most heroic self-conquests 
 of the best of our race — the Faith that supported 
 Stephen in his struggle, Paul in his toil and teaching, 
 Francis in his missionary labours, that won St. 
 Augustine from licentiousness to self-conquest, stayed 
 up Savonarola in his reforming enthusiasm, made 
 Louis IX. a Saint upon a throne, — that Faith which 
 illumines the grey twilight of many a laborious life in 
 our workshops with unearthly radiance, and comforts 
 thousands here in London, in penury, in wretched- 
 ness, in death, is said to be — sometimes in accents of 
 anguish, sometimes with thoughtless levity, sometimes 
 with unscrupulous cynicism — said to be on its trial, 
 or even — it is half in triumph imagined — tottering to 
 its fall. 
 
 How shall we bear ourselves in an age full of 
 blessing, rife with trial ? On us, on us, in a measure — 
 on each one of us — must depend the outcome, and the 
 character of the heritage which for others we leave 
 behind. 
 
 Well — for them, for ourselves — we do well to 
 remember, that some certainties know no change. For 
 each of us life is still short, is still a probation, is still 
 a prelude to another world. For each of us of not so 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY 105 
 
 much importance are the fleeting conditions of our 
 short span, as the outcome of those conditions, their 
 result in our final fixity of character. 
 
 Still, as formerly, a mystery, a witness, a warning — 
 above all (how blessed !) as a Vision of Eternal Hope is 
 displayed, in the fulness of its benediction and the 
 tragedy of its sorrow, the pale and splendid figure of 
 the Crucified ! 
 
 To us each is offered that vast fund of treasure, of 
 teaching, of strength, of pardon, of tenderness, which are 
 summed up and collected on the Cross. And on liow 
 we reject, or on liovj we accept it, depends our eternity. 
 
 Eternity ! Ah, the thrilling sound of it 1 At that 
 vision the trivial objects of passion and eagerness grow 
 faint and pale. Eternity ! at the thought of its splen- 
 dour to the lonely and weary one, who will clasp the 
 bleeding hand, and follow the leader in sorrow and 
 triumph, the heart dilates with rapture. Shall not the 
 voices of longing rise with prayer and praise ? 
 
 Crucified Jesus, Friend of sinners, Lord of 
 Life, Conqueror of the Grave — we praise Thee, we 
 bless Thee, we worship Thee, and we pray Thee, when 
 we have reached the end of our mortal conflict, by 
 Thy grace, by Thy mercy, by Thy merits, may we be 
 with Thee and be Thine. 
 
Cfte Decision on t\>t Btm of tfte ^oul. 
 
 * I determined not to know any thing among yoti, save Jesus Christy 
 and Him crucified.'' — i Cor. ii. 2. 
 
 WE are compelled, dear friends, we are compelled 
 by the teaching of the Church, to meditate this 
 week upon the Passion ; we have, I submit, no choice 
 of subject ; we must stand under the Cross of Christ. 
 
 And you will feel with me — will you not ?— that it 
 is not always easy to rise out of common life, to pass 
 from among the struggles of every day, to an exalted 
 height of spiritual contemplation; and therefore, as 
 with great delight and great desire I am permitted yet 
 once again, as now for many years, to speak to you of 
 our Master's sorrows, I can scarcely be wrong if I 
 invite you, here and now, to remember those antecedent 
 thoughts which help at least to lift our minds to the 
 platform of the Passion, and impress upon us the need 
 of the teachings of Christ Crucified. 
 
 Of all the multitudinous subjects which invite the 
 attention of man, there are two, without contradiction, 
 of imperious interest, though strange to say, in our 
 
 106 
 
THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 107 
 
 mortal struggle, the mass of mankind shun the pressure 
 of this truth. 
 
 I. 
 
 First, then, is the soul — that mysterious, central, 
 single principle which makes each man himself^ and 
 not another. It is this which is in possession of large 
 and mysterious powers. By thought the soul dives into 
 the depths of things, and soars to their most exalted 
 summits ; it is the interior language of the soul, and, 
 clothed and incorporated in word, it expresses the 
 soul in a world outside the single life. But the soul 
 is more than thought. By will man determines his 
 own acts, and therefore his own destiny ; no outward 
 forces can finally com'pel ; the soul by will reigns free 
 within its central citadel. Certainly outward influences 
 or forcible motives from within may tell upon it, but 
 in the last resort, the decision is with a Will which 
 possesses a sovereign freedom of its own. By desire 
 the soul stimulates the will to action ; when lofty and 
 purified, this is the raw material of that love, the 
 soul's loveliest adornment, whereby it is capable of 
 the greatness of sacrifice. But the soul is something 
 beyond Desire, or Will, or Thought — the central self 
 that wields or submits to them all. Yes, — man is con- 
 scious of himself; he is a force, a fire, a power enforc- 
 ing the efforts of thought, the longings of affection, 
 the decisions of will. Man is a single self, a living 
 
io8 THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 
 
 soul. Surely, surely, there can be few subjects so full 
 of overwhelming interest as the bare fact of the 
 separate individuality of the soul. This strikes us 
 always and everywhere. Like the solemn moan of the 
 ocean underneath the roll of waves, or tossing of the 
 spray, or flashing of the sunlight on the surface of the 
 sea ; so below the surface of a noisy, crowded, tumul- 
 tuous life is each single, responsible, indivisible, eternal, 
 lonely being — the individual soul. Each has its own 
 cares and troubles, its own shadows and gleams of 
 fancy and feeling, its own regrets and sadnesses, its 
 own aspirations, its own strong loves and incom- 
 municable sorrows, its own solemn gift of itself — G-od- 
 given — to be used for highest purpose, or to sink into 
 degradation and doom. 
 
 And then this soul is endowed with a sense of 
 Eternity. It has a haunting sense of another life. 
 Mysterious presences pass before it — sin, repentance, 
 self-distrust, — making, for it, life's source and sovereign, 
 some One above, beyond itself. It may, indeed, shrink 
 from the consequences, shrink from the full meaning 
 and call, and claim of Eeligion — many a soul does ; but 
 it cannot choose but acknowledge the power of the facts 
 of moral truth which, if followed to their ultimate end- 
 ing, point upward to that eternal world. The soul — 
 yes, in its waking moments it has this sense of Eternity. 
 Sometimes, indeed, it is not only vague but thin, with 
 no power or force to move the soul ; sometimes it is put 
 
THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 109 
 
 aside on grounds of reasoned argument ; but every here 
 and there it will spring up again in a moment, like an 
 unwelcome visitor, who will look in. Sometimes also, it 
 will possess and illumine the soul, undimmed by whole 
 armies of well-arrayed arguments in the brain. For 
 the soul has capacities, strong, mysterious, more funda- 
 mental than trained and regulated thoughts. It has 
 the capacity of piercing through the armour of 
 powerful argument, which yet it cannot slay in open 
 fight ; it can turn the flank of a conclusion, and grip a 
 conviction with a grasp firmer than death, stronger than 
 the grave. 
 
 Further, it is capable — I have said it — of Love. 
 There is a fund of that somewhere in every soul, if ever 
 it can be reached. It is alone, awfully, mysteriously 
 alone ; yet it can go forth, it does go forth, emptying 
 itself into other lives, losing itself in these. It can 
 love. And it feels instinctively that love demands a 
 person, and that love has in its texture a fibre of 
 Eternity. Love, from its nature, places no barriers, 
 admits no limits, recognises no frontier. For it Time 
 has no meaning — its very being demands, as a necessary 
 condition. Eternity. 
 
 And further : it is capable of, nay, by necessity is 
 bound to, jprogress. 
 
 Sometimes vividly conscious of an advance of some 
 sort, sometimes only half awake to it, but startled now 
 and again — like a thought-absorbed wanderer on the 
 
no THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 
 
 sea-beach, by his closeness to the cliffs, or his dangerous 
 nearness to the sobbing sea, — for better, for worse, it 
 is moving on. It has set out on a mysterious pilgrim- 
 age ; it is passing across the rugged mountain ridges of 
 life, passing — how pathetic the thought ! how subduing ! 
 — passing once, and no more. Behind it regions of 
 mystery ; before it a sufficiency of gloom. Sometimes 
 the path is in darkness, sometimes lighted up by a 
 flash of fire ; sometimes, like Dante's pilgrims in the 
 Purgatorio, freshened with the stimulating breezes of a 
 better hope ; sometimes, like Salvator's figures, thrown 
 out from gloomy backgrounds, treading the verge of 
 precipices of despair ; but always, more or less — your 
 experience will bear me out — saddened by uncertain- 
 ties, and beset with questions which rise to dimen- 
 sions of overwhelming difficulty. 
 
 For, again, the soul is face to face with perplexities. 
 Questions which run up into infinite consequences 
 demand, require, some practical answer, for the proper 
 conduct of the common affairs of Time. The soul is 
 living in two worlds : one placid, commonplace, tan- 
 gible, concerned with matters apparently of meagre 
 value ; another intimate, interior, ver}'' serious, with 
 its business to be transacted hour by hour, in choices 
 and acceptances and refusals to be made with peremp- 
 toriness side by side with — nay, even mixed inextricably 
 among — the common dealings of that outer world. Yes ; 
 pause. In the blaze of the drawing-room, in the noise 
 
THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL in 
 
 of the busy street, by the flickering light of the fireside 
 at home, on the raging sea, in the quiet evening walks, 
 in the work of the workshop, in the silence of the 
 wakeful night — the soul of each of us, amid whatever 
 outward demands, is transacting the persistent, the 
 pressing, the all-important business of its inner life. 
 For the life, the true life, of the soul depends not upon 
 the subject-matter before it, so much as on its manner 
 of handling it ; not so much on the " what " as on the 
 " howr If Angelico touches the St. John Baptist or 
 the Virgin Mother, the one is the severe and holy 
 ascetic, the other the pure, supernatural Saint ; under 
 Eaphael's brush, the St. John in the Tribune at Florence 
 is the wild, earnest boy of the desert, and the San Sisto 
 Madonna at Dresden is the Mother of God ; while 
 Leonardo throws a glamour of heathenism over one and 
 the other, so that, with all his power, his Madonna is 
 often a type of heathen womanhood ; and the Baptist of 
 the Louvre or the Palazzo Kosso in Genoa is a pagan 
 deity more than a forerunner of the Messiah and a 
 Christian Saint. So each soul-artist in like manner is 
 working on common subjects of daily life, and produces 
 pictures how strangely different ! 
 
 Further, midway, in its upward or downward course, 
 the soul is confronted once and again with a mysterious 
 Presence ; an awful shadow is thrown across its path. It 
 is alone, indeed ; yet not alone. There is an eye upon 
 it, piercing, persistent. It feels that no barrier is stout 
 
112 THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 
 
 enough to keep back this visitant, no shroud thick 
 enough to stay the shaft of this glance. Under the 
 lightning glance of this eye, though hidden from all 
 others, its inmost act is " naked and open." It is con- 
 scious of God. The Being of Beings is about. It 
 alternates in states of fear and hope, of joyful aspira- 
 tion and deep despondency, beneath the penetrating 
 power of that Life. And too well it knows that from 
 Him a voice must speak, if any certain answer is to 
 come to its perplexing problems. For these are too in- 
 timate, too intricate, too swift for statement, too change- 
 ful, too involved, too closely personal for any other 
 mind to take them in, or any voice to speak the 
 answer, except it be that voice, that mind. 
 
 It knows that from this fact every scientific proof 
 that he can answer, that he will answer, is beyond the 
 reach of possibility ; it walks alone, walks by its inner 
 light, " by faith and not by sight ;" proof, rough ordi- 
 nary froofy there cannot be. A sense creeps over it — 
 whence comes it ? why is it ? — a sense that 
 
 " Thou wilt not leave us in the dust, 
 
 Thou madest man, he knows not why. 
 He thinks he was not made to die, 
 And Thou hast made him, Thou art just " — 
 
 a sense that God does, God will, place Himself — 
 nay, that God has placed Himself — if only we will 
 look and see — at the disposal of the soul. How? 
 When ? Where ? If so, the condition must be unique. 
 
THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 113 
 
 mysterious. Has the Highest placed Himself in such 
 conditions? — such that His voice can be heard, such 
 that His judgment can be ascertained on these per- 
 plexing problems found everywhere, and so personally 
 practical, in this mortal life ? 
 
 Now here the Christian Faith comes in. Stay, 
 wandering soul; look up and listen. He has. Hear 
 the apostolic statement straight and plain. He Whom 
 thou listenest for has given answers to thy questions, 
 given them in His Own Person, and under conditions 
 startling yet necessary. 
 
 " I have determined," writes the Apostle, who had 
 read the secret — "I have determined," he cries, announc- 
 ing a well-weighed conclusion, rising to the crest of 
 conviction, to the summit of an unfaltering certainty 
 — " I have determined to know nothing among you, 
 save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." 
 
 Here is a practical aspect of that splendid life, of 
 that appalling death ; here are found answers to many 
 difficulties. Let us listen, let us listen this week, to 
 the " Decisions of the Passion." 
 
 II. 
 
 Stay. That it should be so is antecedently not im- 
 probable, for two reasons : 
 
 First, we have in evidence a pathetic fact : — 
 
 H 
 
114 THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 
 
 (1) The unspoken, ever-recurring yearnings of poor 
 humanity for higher things is enough to fill the heart 
 with tears. 
 
 Man sins and suffers, suffers and sins; but, until 
 indeed the heart is fatally hardened by long and per- 
 sistent submission to evil, man is no way satisfied. In 
 evil finally obeyed there is no satisfaction, but the 
 deadliness of death ; but in poor humanity there 
 are high visions and low achievements : " the will 
 present," the "how to do" not found. Then there 
 come moments of clearer revelation. How often in 
 life's journey we reach a sudden turn in the road: 
 before us unexpected reaches of trouble and sorrow ; 
 but behind us perplexing surprises, the retrospect of 
 life, so different from the actual pressing facts ; then 
 was a self-deceiving glamour, now a full clear view of 
 reality, and then the anguish of regret measuring the 
 force of aspiration ! Ah ! these high and blessed 
 moments of penitence and longing, seeing what we are, 
 and having a vision what we might be, — are they not 
 the proof of the dignity of our being, and of the danger 
 and difficulty besetting us unless we have a clear 
 standard and a determining rule ? 
 
 How great the number who can tell who go on 
 doggedly in life, meeting the facts of every day with 
 stern determination and an almost stoical despair, be- 
 cause in their heart of hearts what they think, and 
 choose, and do is so far beneath the longing of the 
 
THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 115 
 
 soul ; because they are tempted by the lying voice to 
 think, " It must be so," " It cannot be helped," and to 
 sink, with that longing still unsatisfied, into the life of 
 quiet self-seeking or degrading self-indulgence, when 
 they might have been true and stalwart, "quitting 
 them like men and being strong " ? 
 
 Yes, yes ; believe it : better the " high failure " than 
 " low successes ;" best a man's reach exceeding his 
 grasp, " or what's a heaven for ?" better the lofty aim, 
 the earnest effort, though often at best only half suc- 
 ceeding ; best anything of high unsatisfied longing than 
 mere weariness, tedium mice, ennui — call it what you 
 may — the portion of those who not only cannot all 
 succeed, but scarcely care to try. 
 
 Ah ! well, this is a world of unsatisfied longings — a 
 most pathetic fact — and we men need a man's voice, 
 strong in the strength of suffering and self-sacrifice, to 
 teU us clearly and decisively the path of duty, lest we 
 waste strength in aimless yearning when we are forced 
 to act. 
 
 (2) And if the yearnings of man are a pathetic fact, 
 God, entering the rank of humanity in the depth of 
 sorrow, this, this is a subduing vision. 
 
 These things are calculated to touch all men whose 
 hearts, though not upon their sleeves, are beating in 
 their breasts. 
 
 We are touched by strength. Perhaps it is our sense 
 of need ; perhaps it is instinctive joy at anything that 
 
Ii6 THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 
 
 bears even the faintest likeness to the power of God — 
 anyhow, there it is. 
 
 We are moved and startled when strength is joined 
 with sorrow, when the sorrow is deep, piercing, tre- 
 mendous, yet restrained, almost a match for the 
 strength that sustains it, and yet controls. For, indeed, 
 real lonely sorrow, with nothing hollow, nothing touch- 
 ing on the hoxury of woe, nothing blinding to duty, 
 nothing paralysing for work, nothing stimulating to 
 selfishness in it, is the property of strong souls. And 
 when strength finds one exercise, and sorrow stimulates 
 to one rugged path of conduct, when both unite in self- 
 sacrifice — this reaches the heart of humanity. 
 
 For, indeed, self-sacrifice implies the deepest, truest, 
 most sympathetic sorrow for others, and the highest 
 exercise of moral strength. Such was the Cross. And 
 we — poor pilgrims on the rough, chill uplands of life, 
 and deep in the depth of the " Valley of the Shadow " — 
 we with perplexing doubts, and commonplace cares, 
 and intimate unspoken sorrows — seeing that spectacle, 
 knowing our own longings, may listen for Decisions to 
 brace and console us, and surely shall not listen in 
 vain. 
 
 III. 
 
 So felt St. Paul. There is something terrible to us 
 common men in that high nobility of surrender and 
 
THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 117 
 
 devotion which marks St. Paul's character in his rela- 
 tion to Christ. True, in him it was exceptionally 
 grand. He had a noble work assigned to him in advanc- 
 ing the kingdom of Christ; but it required great noble- 
 ness, great grace, to fulfil it. In a true sense, in Chris- 
 tianity, as in other matters, things are to us what we 
 bring to them ; filled with splendour in fact they may 
 be, yet empty to us for want of responsive sympathy 
 and an answering heart. And so we see it in the full 
 reach of its sway in one of such intensity of earnest- 
 ness, and devoid of one grain of base motive or vulgar 
 ambition. But the truth of St. Paul's response to the 
 teachings of the Cross shows indeed his saintliness and 
 greatness, but shows also that those teachings, if men 
 will have them, may be had. 
 
 Again, remember, some men, even in ordinary life, 
 are only half alive unless their own acts bear fruit in 
 others ; 
 
 " Their wholeness is not rounded, 
 Save in the plastic souls of other men ; " 
 
 they find no truth truly absorbing unless they find its 
 effect in the world around them — once find that other 
 souls re-echo back their thoughts, then, and then only, 
 their thoughts to them themselves are living things. 
 That has its analogue in the Christian's faith; above 
 all, in a soul like that of St. Paul. Only in these it is 
 the life and thought and action of another — not the 
 reaction from another of their own thoughts on them — 
 
Ii8 THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 
 
 that gives life to themselves. They know all in Christ. 
 But though St. Paul is, I repeat, a high example, yet 
 he is an example for all who try, at however saddening 
 an interval, to read all things in Christ. 
 
 In Christ ! And, however known He be to those who 
 know Him most, what a world of mystery lies still un- 
 reached ! The expert diver finds the coral or the pearl ; 
 but he of all men knows what boundless treasures he 
 has never reached, stored safe among the secrets of the 
 sea. The wise astronomer measures the movements, 
 and divines or calculates the immeasurable distances of 
 the sparkling stars ; yet he of all men knows the best 
 what millions of unnumbered worlds the strongest tele- 
 scope has never touched. " The secrets of Nature," says 
 Pascal, " are concealed ; although she is ever acting, her 
 effects are not always unveiled ; Time, from age to age, 
 reveals them, and although always of perfect balance 
 in beauty, she is not always in balanced measure 
 known." 
 
 So Christ — known more and more to those who seek 
 to know Him — is in Himself a fund of infinite pos- 
 sibility of knowledge ; and no department of His 
 revelation is more rich in results to the inquirer, more 
 unfathomable also in its wealth of teaching, than the 
 Mystery of His Passion. On this mystery, on this, the 
 Apostle determined to fix the Christian's gaze : " I 
 have determined to know nothing among you, save 
 Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." 
 
THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 119 
 
 Further. One marvel of this mystery is this. It 
 above all gives us at least some glimpses into two most 
 important, two most immeasurable truths. Again I 
 quote Pascal. "Evil," he says, in some such words 
 as these, " is easy ; of it there is infinity ; Good is har- 
 monious ; it is one ; but there is Evil of a kind as hard 
 to detect as that which is called ^ Good ;' often, therefore, 
 for this reason, Evil of this sort passes off for Good. 
 An extraordinary grandeur of soul is needed to pene- 
 trate this, just as it is needed to reach the Good." 
 Christ Crucified supplies a key to unlock mysteries of 
 immeasurable Evil as well as to open the treasure- 
 house of unbounded Goodness. Hence the value of 
 verdicts on Good and Evil delivered from the Cross. 
 For as it is natural for the mind to believe, as it is 
 also natural for the will to love, so these will fasten 
 on false objects of belief and loving, if they are not 
 provided with the true ; let once the truest and the 
 loveliest be provided, then belief will minister to loving, 
 and love will stimulate belief. Now the fairest object 
 for love, therefore the teacher that entirely inspires 
 confidence, will be He Who is "chiefest among ten 
 thousand " in His self-sacrificing sorrow — the Crucified 
 Christ. 
 
 My brothers, when we see God entering upon the 
 conditions of our mortal struggle, strung to the highest 
 effort by love to ourselves, we, witnessing that most 
 mysterious transaction— God undertaking sacrifice for 
 
I20 THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 
 
 sin — do not, indeed, know the full reach of the mys- 
 terious necessity that demanded so awful an offering, 
 yet know enough to learn certain conclusions, to listen 
 to infallible judgments on points of perplexity, whose 
 solution is to us of infinite value, enough to learn much 
 of the infinite hideousness of evil, much also of the 
 majesty and loveliness of all that is good. 
 
 Ah ! here indeed we touch the reason why the truth 
 of things comes out with such symmetry of proportion 
 and such impressiveness of power in our Master's 
 Passion. It is not merely, I repeat, that decisions are 
 given, but that they are given under conditions which 
 incline us to receive them. Christ Crucified has sup- 
 plied a force of attraction to the human heart, which is 
 wanting in a Christ of Glory. 
 
 In a true sense here, then, we are obeying the severe 
 command : " Judge nothing before the time, until the 
 day of the Lord come." 
 
 The day of the Lord has come. In many ways, to 
 all of us, it has come again and again. In silent 
 whisper of conscience, by open graves, in sudden turns 
 of circumstance, in startling self - revelation, from 
 stray voices of men, from strangely-illuminated verses 
 of Scripture. These " days of the Lord " have entered 
 into our responsibility; in these we have heard the 
 voice of the discerning Spirit ; but their teachings have 
 been personal applications of broad, grave judgments 
 announced on a " day of the Lord " that is passed — 
 
THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 121 
 
 mysterious, sorrowful — to be ratified in a " day of the 
 Lord " yet future, terrible, and solemn. The " day of 
 the Lord," when He shall disclose the destiny of the 
 creature, lies before us, when Time ends in the last 
 assize ; but that will only ratify the judgments spoken 
 for guidance in the solemn " day of the Lord " on 
 Calvary. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Again, think how some one stray truth may Imr- 
 monise the apparent contradictions of this mysterious 
 life, which never can be explained this side the grave. 
 
 I explain. Turn to Nature. Sometimes the broad 
 bright wash of sunlight in a summer evening har- 
 monises in a way not easily defined the details of a 
 scene not otherwise, and one by one, to be admired. It 
 dreams, the tender light, upon the hillside ; it glows in 
 burnished gold or shimmer of silver upon the varying 
 textures of the leaves ; it dances diamond-like upon the 
 flowing waters ; it rests in the valleys, sleeps in the 
 hollows of the uplands, smiles in half-waking con- 
 sciousness from out the drowsy flowers. Somehow — 
 whether rugged rock, or rushing stream, or rounded 
 chalk-down, or flower-decked hedgerow — all, under the 
 magic of the evening glory, combine in one subduing 
 sentiment, and form in harmony one image of repose. 
 
 Or again, in autumn, when the days are darkening, 
 there comes a " broad and even-blowing wind," and bends 
 
122 THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 
 
 the corn-tops, sweeps with pathetic wail across the 
 marshes, rustles mysteriously among the reeds, sighs 
 sadly through the mellowing golden leaves ; each object 
 stands alone, itself, and nothing more ; but with that 
 varying influence of the wind, the whole is harmonised 
 to one suggestion ; and, as in summer comes the senti- 
 ment of peace, in autumn comes the sentiment of 
 sorrow. 
 
 Thus a motif in music, thus a tone, in painting, 
 throws apparently opposing details each into its place, 
 to form with each a whole of harmony. 
 
 So the Passion of the Lord. 
 
 The human mind stands dazed before the Mystery 
 of Life. 
 
 We waken up to the thought of God. The very 
 thought implies unutterable goodness, beauty incom- 
 parable, knowledge unmeasured, power without control. 
 All this is ratified by the depth and mystery, the rich- 
 ness and variety, of the natural world, the immensity 
 of scale in all that is, the perfection of finish in the 
 tiniest detail, and everything gifted with capacity to 
 be a source of helpfulness and beauty. 
 
 And then another side, side dark and terrible, full of 
 destruction, gloomy with death : the black shadow of 
 evil, with all its attendant ministry of suffering, anguish, 
 hopelessness, defiance, sin ; man's lot darkened with 
 storm ; the brutes that perish in sad, strange sympathy 
 with man ; the whole creation travailing together. 
 
THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 123 
 
 And yet the moving pathos of human life ; its 
 tender side, alas ! so often blasted. Man's splendid 
 capacity of brain and heart, capacity to know, and, 
 higher still, to love, to bear, to suffer, to forget himself, 
 and lose himself in passionate surrender to the love, the 
 need of others ; his power to think of God, his strange 
 and fitful yearning towards the highest, his ambition 
 for a better life, his choice of what is worse, his earnest 
 longing, wild remorse, the nobleness of his aspiration, 
 the greater nobleness of his repentance, his haunting 
 hopes, deceiving dreams, passionate affections, desolating 
 despair, his career of dreadful contradictions, so capable 
 of loftiest aim and lowest degradation, so full of wild 
 invigorating life, so ready at a moment for the chill 
 full stop that checks the chapter, in the pause and 
 silence of the grave. 
 
 And then the inexorable cruelty of law, — that chain 
 of cause and consequence which no entreaty seems to 
 break, no fiercest fire of love to soften — "As a man 
 sows so he reaps," seeming written into man's life and 
 Nature's workings in characters of vivid fire. Then 
 the obstinate, almost angry question, " Why, amidst 
 all this beauty, why this bitter misery of evil in the 
 world of a good God ? why, foreseeing evil, did God 
 permit free-will at all ? " and so on, the questions, 
 angrily, or fearfully, or scolfingly asked again and 
 again by man in his agony, — are these asked in vain ? 
 Not quite. 
 
124 THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 
 
 Answers enough of a sort — Pantheistic answers, re- 
 volting, foolish, mixing up good and evil, light and 
 darkness — flung back by common sense ; Manichean 
 answers of two Gods — good and evil — flung back by con- 
 science; answers of scepticism under various fashion- 
 able names — Pantheism, Agnosticism, and what not — 
 amounting to the senseless rebuff, " There is no an- 
 swer; for in fact, you — man — had better cease your 
 hope and fear ; be useful, sensible, take things as you 
 find them ; you and all yours are bounded by the 
 grave." 
 
 Man will never listen long to this insulting answer. 
 He knows himself a creature of Eternity. 
 
 Then there is the spectacle of Calvary, making clear 
 what can be cleared, showing where as yet it cannot 
 be, harmonising much that was difficult, by the Deci- 
 sions of the Passion. 
 
 Broadly and generally then, this is decided by the 
 Cross. Details, some details, dear friends, we will look 
 at another day. 
 
 Consider then. 
 
 No answer so grave and trenchant to any question as 
 an answer acted out No acting out so real and earnest 
 as one which is carried on to the utmost limit, the limit 
 of a painful death. 
 
 Grave, trenchant, thorough, then, without any of that 
 hoUowness and want of conviction that mars so much 
 in human teaching, is the answer of the Cross. 
 
THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 125 
 
 Its spirit and temper is self-devotion, and it implies 
 three things. 
 
 (1) That in this mystery of life, where sunlight is so 
 dashed with darkness, some things we need to know, 
 and ought to know, and may know. 
 
 (2) Some things we cannot yet fully understand or 
 use to fruitful purpose, and therefore must wait to 
 know till the training is completed for another life. 
 
 (3) That, having such assurance of His eager love for 
 us, and submission to our sad condition, we may trust 
 God absolutely that, however appearances may perplex 
 us, they are but appearances — the "Judge of all the 
 earth does riglit" and " all is well." 
 
 V. 
 
 Ah ! brethren, as we gaze with the eye of faith on 
 Christ Crucified, do we not see that this matter of 
 life, in which we are, is an earnest business? do we 
 not witness an example, showing that there is, there 
 must be, toil in spiritual life, severe self-discipline, and 
 watchful self-control ? do we not gather in more 
 deeply in our souls the danger of selfishness, the dignity 
 of self-denial? More, we are certain of God's large 
 allowances for frailty and weakness, for sorrow and 
 difficulty, for souls in mixed conditions — allowance 
 never maudlin or of shallow sentiment, or lowering 
 moral strength ; we are certain of a breast to lay our 
 
126 THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 
 
 aching heads upon, a heart to beat to our hearts' throb- 
 bing ; of sympathy in the Best and Highest with human 
 misery and human sorrow. The horizon is dark, we 
 cannot penetrate the shadow ; but we cry as we gaze 
 on that decisive proof that God is with us — ".Yea, 
 though I walk through the valley of the shadow of 
 death, I will fear no evil." " Fear none," He answers 
 to His people, " for I, the Dying, Living, am with 
 you." 
 
 In one word, what says the Passion ? 
 
 " You cannot know it all, my child : the mystery 
 of this strange life, why evil is permitted, why sorrow 
 has come. You cannot understand it all, and as yet it 
 seems not good for you to know. You can understand 
 that sin is hateful, and may be conquered ; abhor it, 
 fight it to the end ; and listen, look — I cannot tell you 
 all, for that were bad for you ; but this I can do, this, 
 too, I have done — I have taken My place with you, 
 tasted the whole of it, dashed straight against your sin, 
 and let it hurt Me ; plunged into your sorrow, borne 
 your griefs, been happy in your human love, been 
 wrung with your anguish. My child. My beloved, 
 is not My Cross decisive that you may trust Me, obey 
 Me, follow Me to the end ?" 
 
 " Lord, we will follow, fearing death's disaster, 
 Trembling at storms on life's unresting sea ; 
 teach us, guide us, loved and trusted Master ; 
 
 Through life, through death, we still will follow Thee." 
 
VNiVERS 
 
 K.C 
 
 or 
 
 THE DECISION 'd^^HE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 127 
 
 "Follow!" Yes; whom else can we follow? Ah! 
 my brothers, let us remember how much we need to fix 
 our eyes upon this aspect of the Passion. Amid the 
 vast perplexities, the bewildering problems, the strain- 
 ing situations to which we all are subject, let us re- 
 member that we have here a book of reference to guide 
 us, a code of laws to rule, comprehensive decisions and 
 decisive judgments. 
 
 The conditions of human life in the main do not 
 alter. We may be more reasonable in politics, keener 
 in scientific discovery, more earnest about education, 
 less unreal in social behaviour than our fathers before us ; 
 but we have not rolled back the curse of the Fall ; we 
 have discovered no secret for finally subduing human 
 passion, or cutting off its degrading consequences ; for 
 abolishing poverty, spreading contentment, insuring to 
 all a measure of happiness ; we have invented no pan- 
 acea against evil; unearthed no secret for abolishing 
 sickness, constructed no scheme for dethroning Death 
 and closing the gates of the grave. 
 
 My brother man, Civilisation, with its many gifts, is 
 of God's mercy, and for it let us all be thankful. We, 
 the children of an abundant Present, need look with no 
 sentimental longing back on the days that are gone; 
 but do not let us exaggerate our achievements in a 
 spirit of self-approving pride. Lives still are sinful; 
 hearts still are breaking ; still the mourner's tears are 
 flowing ; still terrible questions stand before sin-laden 
 
128 THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 
 
 man. We need, we need the love of Jesus. We need 
 the Decisions of the Cross. If it be true that Christ 
 Crucified, and He alone, explains some vexing problem, 
 let us earnestly and faithfully, as Christians before us, 
 clasp the bleeding feet. 
 
 I could not indeed invite you to lay such stress upon 
 the fact of our Master's sorrow, if you had the great 
 misfortune to have fallen into the Unitarian impiety 
 — looking to Jesus only as man. You might possibly 
 admire His courage, and sympathise with His sorrow, 
 possibly find ground for less exalted feeling, and in pity 
 pass Him by ; but you will never gauge and meditate 
 and learn and value the judgments spoken from the 
 Cross, unless you see in the depths of human sorrow the 
 presence of the Living God. 
 
 It is this, and this only, that changes what would 
 otherwise be an extravagance of imagination into an 
 act of serious wisdom. The death of a wise man may 
 teach you some lessons certainly, but not essential 
 ones; you cannot, without gravest loss, omit to learn 
 the lessons supplied by the death of Him Who was also 
 God. 
 
 This at least, here and now, dear young men, the Cross 
 helps us to remember. Life is a serious matter ; we 
 cannot, we dare not, afford to be indifferent to the suf- 
 fering and sorrow around us, or the sin that is in our- 
 selves. Plenty of brightness in this strange world of 
 chequered light and shadow ; but the shadows are so 
 
THE DECISION ON THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 129 
 
 deep, we cannot live for mere self-pleasing ; we cannot 
 be the children of levity — we must, we must be in 
 earnest, since Christ died. 
 
 Ah ! too often it seems to be a world of broken hearts 
 and wasted lives ; of hopeless effort and unavailing 
 tears. Therefore to whom can we turn but to Thee, 
 Who above all, having loved us, hast loved us to the 
 end? 
 
 " Jesus, sin-bound, deep in darkness, 
 Thee my only hope I see, 
 On Thy throne of expiation. 
 Sacrificed, my Lord, for me. 
 
 Jesus, souls once drowned in sorrow 
 — Flood no human force could stem — 
 
 Love Thee on Thy throne of pity, 
 Crucified, dear Lord, for them. 
 
 Jesus, in our hour of dying, 
 
 Hopeless else, on Thee we call, 
 Stretched upon Thy bed of suffering, 
 
 Dying there, dear Lord, for all. 
 
 Jesus, dark the path before us. 
 
 Living, dying, who can see ? 
 Guide us erring, help us helpless ; 
 
 Fly we still, dear Lord, to Thee." 
 
€i)t Decision on tf)e (Halue of tfje %o\il 
 
 * For ivhat shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, 
 and lose his ozun sotd ? ' — St. Mark viii. 36. 
 
 I HA YE tried to persuade you, my brothers, to stand 
 with me on the platform of the Passion, and thus 
 to rise above the ordinary level of our common life. I 
 have tried to persuade you to pause and listen to the 
 decisive judgments of the Crucified Christ. We have 
 seen (have we not ?), we have seen that, just as a 
 traveller in the mountain valleys of Switzerland, en- 
 wrapped by the rising gale, hears the rush and the 
 crash of the waters, feels the power of the increasing 
 storm, is frightened by the darkness, and longs for the 
 light ; so the soul — every soul among us — having to pass 
 through a pilgrimage of perplexing trial, is asking, if it 
 be only one flash of light from the face of the Crucified, 
 to see the path it should tread. We have remembered 
 already that to that desire of our souls the Cross is a 
 tribunal of decision, that the Cross is the chair of truth, 
 that the Cross is the final solution of certain cases of 
 
 130 
 
THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 131 
 
 conscience which had hitherto perplexed mankind. 
 We have felt that our business is to stand with listen- 
 ing ear, with earnest desire, and with honest heart, to 
 learn, as to the critical situations of our souls, to learn 
 the judgments of the Passion. 
 
 my brothers, would that we might remember that 
 those judgments are decisive, and that if we will listen 
 for them they shall be ours ! Come ; we have not 
 forgotten that each decision is impressive because the 
 soul is lonely, because Christ is God, because God 
 as teacher appears in the form of a human character ; 
 and then, then, because our Most Blessed Master gives 
 His decisive judgments, not in the robes of splendour, 
 but in the saddening robes of the grave. 
 
 What then ? " Can I," you ask, " can I — with my 
 eyes upon the Crucifix — can I get a decisive judgment 
 upon the first great question that fronts me in life ? " 
 My answer is, and my business, here and now, is to sup- 
 port that answer, — my answer is. You can. Now, first, 
 every one of us, by the conditions of his undying nature, 
 and amid the manifold situations of life, is brought 
 face to face with his own soul. No one who thinks for 
 a moment can question that fact. Sometimes it is in 
 sharp outline, like the Sierras of Spain, against the 
 crimson of the dying sky ; sometimes it is in dim and 
 restless vagueness of sketch, like the shadows that flit 
 before the traveller in an ocean-haunted cave; some- 
 times fitfully, like that mysterious figure in a striking 
 
132 THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 
 
 romance haunting the heroine — on the Capitol, in 
 the Catacombs, in the gloom and brightness of the 
 lighted church ; sometimes, sometimes, with persistent 
 finger, pointing to lines which have been written in 
 flame; sometimes, Cassandra-like, uttering words of 
 woe ; sometimes like the old man of Colonus, coming 
 with blind eyes and outstretched hands, proud yet 
 dependent, high-born yet praying pity ; sometimes by 
 your bedsides, sometimes in the streets, sometimes 
 in the struggle of temptation ; sometimes in the critical 
 moment for deciding solemn, anxious questions ; some- 
 times here, sometimes there, but ultimately and always 
 confronting us. Yes; you and I cannot escape that 
 destiny; we are brought face to face with our own 
 soul. 
 
 Now, my brothers, sooner or later we have to answer 
 a serious question — the question of the text. And the 
 answer, the judgment — the decisive answer, the decisive 
 judgment — I find on the Cross. 
 
 Let us face that question. 
 
 Let each one of us ask, What is the decisive award 
 of the Crucified on the relative value of myself and 
 my coveted possessions, when I stand face to face with 
 the thought of my soul ? 
 
THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 133 
 
 Now before us in this mortal life there are abund- 
 ant objects of desire. So rich is the store of possible 
 possessions, so various are human ambitions and tastes, 
 so keen too is the edge of appetite, that one chief im- 
 pulse of the soul is to fling itself forth in a feverish 
 effort to satisfy its lower longings, to gain its " world," 
 if it may be, its " whole world." Well, Scripture ever 
 treats " the world " and the spirit of worldliness as the 
 most subtle enemy of the soul. This is a fact, remem- 
 ber, of the deepest significance to us all. 
 
 Possible, quite possible, that the too common ambi- 
 tion to " gain the whole world " is supposed to be 
 limited to those who live a life on a large platform of 
 worldly opportunity for grasping the highest prizes of 
 the world. Nothing is further from the truth. For 
 " the whole world " to each soul may vary infinitely in 
 its actual subject-matter, but in its spirit and danger it 
 is ever the same. The worldly spirit is that which 
 practically treats life, its performances, and its prizes, 
 as bounded by the frontier of time. It is that which 
 treats all things with a limited prudence, whose watch- 
 ful eye never thinks of piercing beyond the gloom of 
 the grave. 
 
 It is au fait with business, it is at home in " society," 
 it understands the value of a remunerative moderation, 
 it hates enthusiasm ; it has an icy silence or a wise 
 
134 THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 
 
 rebuke for generous ventures ; it allows a standard of 
 conduct, but a low one; motives it cares little for, 
 immediate results are to it invaluable. It is a spirit of 
 almost infinite adaptability, applying with instinctive 
 capacity any instrument that comes to its hand to fur- 
 ther its own ends. It has an alchemy of its own, by 
 which it dissolves and changes, recombines, and then 
 wholly paralyses the power of highest things. It may 
 be detected by its treatment of certain infinite ideas. 
 The thought of God it practically ignores, or treats as 
 subject for decorative statement or rhetorical flourish, 
 or attenuates to the flimsy consistency of a dream ; the 
 thought of Duty, in its real and severe demand, it 
 secretly ridicules, and utterly hates, while it tolerates 
 for its own purposes the useful dignity of the name ; 
 the thought of Sin it refuses to dwell upon, or dresses 
 in gaudy garments, or trims into decorous proportion. 
 Expediency is its petted darling. Principle its detested 
 enemy. It is, however, simple in purpose and energetic 
 in persistence. It loves the Present, and all it can 
 give, and only restrains itself from full enjoyment 
 of it — like an epicure placing a bridle on appetite — 
 that it may enjoy it the more. It breathes freely only 
 in the atmosphere heated by furnace-blasts of energetic 
 evil impulses ; the free winds of Eternity chill it to 
 death. 
 
 And so it seeks immediate successes, and tests its 
 achievements by results. Thus it vaunts itself as 
 
THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 135 
 
 eminently practical, and yoses as the apostle of common 
 sense. 
 
 And here it is that the Divine Wisdom takes up its 
 challenge, and tries it by its own standard. 
 
 Granted that it has succeeded ; granted, in whatever 
 subject-matter, that the goal is gained; granted that 
 continents are conquered and peoples subdued by 
 astute diplomacy or torrents of blood ; granted that 
 pleasure is produced by sacrifice of principle, or wealth 
 by deftness of dishonesty, or position by cunning, 
 or a name by misused ability, or ease by selfish effort, 
 or power by pandering to popular sin, or a "whole 
 world," in fact, by the handiest means. A Voice from 
 Eternity demands to test it all by its favourite measure 
 — the ^practical result of it all, the common-sense view 
 of the situation, and insists on an answer to the ques- 
 tion, " What doth it profit ?" 
 
 For, pause and think. The spirit of Christ, after 
 all, is the really practical spirit. It remembers that 
 self-sacrifice is in the truest, the highest sense, self- 
 saving, according to our Master's saying, "He that 
 savetli his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life 
 for My sake, the same shall save it." 
 
 Now, in view of such a power and such a spirit, 
 what do we know to be true of the soul ? 
 
136 THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 
 
 II. 
 
 There is then, we are well aware of it, in each of us, 
 a central self. And so vast its power of abstraction 
 and analysis, that it can be conscious of itself, appraise 
 its own power, take an inventory of its possessions, just 
 as if it were judging another. 
 
 Thus it is subject, and knows that it is subject, to 
 changing moods. There are days in winter when the 
 wind rises to the dignity of a tempest, but without its 
 strength to sustain its unflagging fury. Now it is in 
 the full majesty of resistless storm, now sinks low in 
 the thickets, and pleads for pity, and moans like an 
 exhausted athlete. The sky is dark and terrible at one 
 moment, and the patient earth is lashed with the 
 sweeping scourges of the rain, the leafless branches 
 bend and tremble, and even the ivy, in its fearless 
 immutability of green, seems to cling closer to the lower 
 trunks, and to rustle in a restless trouble of pain ; even 
 the faded leaves in the hedgerows, and the stalks of 
 the grasses, brown and death-stricken, bend and mutter 
 in a sympathy of sorrow. Another hour, and the sky 
 is clear ; the clouds have swept into the distance, or 
 stand, pile on pile, guarding the horizon in crenellated 
 splendour, grand and gentle, like bastions of aerial 
 Alps j the woods are still, like an exhausted sufferer 
 after a night of pain ; the grasses glisten — each little 
 blade like a shaft of diamonds ; the sun is clear and 
 
THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 137 
 
 brilliant, and the winds are low. Nature is in her 
 moody state of storm and sunshine, not inapt image 
 of a human soul. 
 
 And yet the soul, though subject to such change of 
 ecstasy and sorrow, is conscious, is certain, that it 
 is indivisibly one. It shudders by the headstone in the 
 graveyard, remembering how the bodies of its best and 
 dearest are subject to the pitiless dissection of inevit- 
 able decay ; but it is not only sure, but intimately con- 
 scious that, though the same sad fate awaits its own 
 mortal tabernacle, it itself can never be divided, must 
 remain for ever one. 
 
 Again, think of the mystery and reality of thought. 
 Thoughts come and go, swift as the lightning, slender 
 as the figures in a dream: sometimes like welcome 
 friends after a dangerous journey ; sometimes like the 
 longed-for child, born in the throes of sorrow ; some- 
 times like the detested intruder, unlocked for and 
 unwelcome ; but there they are, — substantial represen- 
 tations of the outer or the inner world in some of its 
 kaleidoscopic combinations, shadowy like a fading 
 sunbeam, yet as real in fact and consequence as the 
 substance of the everlasting hills. These, from whence- 
 soever they come, the soul allows, disallows, and 
 judges, for, in spite of its intimate relationship with 
 them, it is above them and apart. 
 
 Think of feelings how overwhelming, how exalted, 
 or how debased, — like the swellings of the mountainous 
 
138 THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 
 
 billows, now lifting the life to meet the heavens, now 
 sinking it into the trough of the sea. Feelings of joy 
 and hope, of love and sorrow — each a handmaiden 
 short-lived and of subduing beauty — lay their wreath as 
 homage on the shrine of Truth. By these the soul is 
 affected, exalted, degraded, purified, refined. They come, 
 they go ; come — the fair ones — like gleams of sunshine, 
 like the hope of youth, like the promise of the year as 
 if with immortal beauty ; go like the vanishing shadow, 
 leaving behind only loneliness and tears. The soul 
 is affected by feelings ; but when they have passed it 
 must prepare itself to journey on across the vacant 
 plain, and to bear the common burdens, amidst the 
 dust and drudgery of the day. 
 
 Yes; the soul is something above and beyond its 
 moods, its thoughts, its feelings. It is not unaffected 
 by these ; but though they enter into its life, and join 
 in weaving the web of its responsibility, it is indivisi- 
 ble, sovereign, self-determining, and alone. 
 
 Therefore it is the subject of a tragic possibility — the 
 soul may be "lost." How full of terrible pathos is 
 such a thought ! And yet such a possibility is in- 
 separable from the prerogative of freedom and self- 
 determining choice. 
 
 III. 
 
 For the soul is subject to many external attractions. 
 In the youth of men and nations there is the desire for 
 
THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 139 
 
 physical prowess, in civilised communities and in later 
 individual life the longing for wealth, the longing for 
 knowledge, the wish for what is called "position." 
 These things are not to be undervalued ; they are God's 
 good gifts ; but an important question is, — for what 
 selfish ends do men seek them, and by what means are 
 they acquired ? Sought for often from the desire to be 
 held in estimation by others, and for the love of power 
 which such estimation brings with it ; is it not so ? 
 And if sought for from motives predominantly selfish, 
 then, then. Immortal, ask, and have an answer — What 
 price have I paid ? 
 
 There may be those among you who care nothing 
 about power. Well, my brother, do you care nothing 
 for pleasure ? Is there any man among us so great a 
 self-deceiver as to imagine this to be his attitude of 
 mind ? Pleasure ! the delight of the brain, the delight 
 of the affections, the mysterious thrill of that border- 
 land of nervous sensation lying between the body and 
 the soul — is it all evil? Assuredly not; but the 
 question is, — Of what character is the pleasure you 
 have sought for ? By what motive were you moved to 
 seek ; and again, what price did you pay ? 
 
 Is not the price of coveted prosperity often dishonesty 
 and untruth ? Is not the price of coveted pleasure 
 often a half-paralysed brain, lost health, and ruined 
 soul ? Ah ! many a pinched and anxious home is the 
 witness of a triumph of commercial dishonesty ; many 
 
I40 THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 
 
 a pale face seamed with passion, lined with care ; many 
 a ghastly spectacle of ruined womanhood flaunting 
 under the lights of London, are the witnesses of pleasure 
 purchased at a heavy cost. 
 
 Well, I ask — ^in the name of that one great Master 
 I ask you — stop, and think — in that quiet, earnest, husi- 
 ness-like way that belongs to Englishmen, face to face 
 with facts — What does it profit ? 
 
 Yes ; you can get power from money, from reputa- 
 tion — if you will give up, if you will give up honesty 
 and truth. Yes, young man, you will get pleasure of 
 a sort by drunkenness, by debauchery, by impurity — if 
 you give up your own high nature and your own per- 
 sonal life. But remember, like King Charles, in 
 the great romance of this century, starting from his 
 bed in the midnight, realising the footstep of Strafford, 
 as he comes in his ghostlike visitation to reprove his 
 treacherous friend, — you will spring up, yes, you will 
 spring up — not when I speak to you, not when you 
 stand in the crowd, not when your bad friends are 
 round you, not when your wild convulsing passions are 
 exciting you — but you will spring up, kindled soul, 
 trying to be a king, yet discrowned, unrobed by your 
 own disregarding of evil — and you will find a spectre 
 passing up the gallery of life, making his footfall felt 
 in the gallery of death ; and you will hear a cry — first, 
 like the rising of the winds of the Atlantic — low, mys- 
 terious, touching ; then like the gathering storm — loud, 
 
THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 141 
 
 tremendous, convulsive ; then like the wild tempest on 
 the sea of the future life, when the question conies 
 with unanswerable solemnity, What did it profit ? 
 Old merchant of London, if you have committed yourself 
 to dishonesty; dear young man, if you have allowed 
 yourself — God help you ! and am I too cruelly to con- 
 demn you ? — have allowed yourself to be the victim of 
 sensual desire ; what I ask from one and from the 
 other is, that you will fix your eyes upon that great 
 picture, that you will fasten your thought upon that 
 moving object, and that you will listen to the low 
 word, to the gathering wind, to the increasing storm, — 
 listen till you read in its awful crescendo the judgment 
 of the Passion. 
 
 Yes ; you have shattered your nerves ; you have 
 betrayed that friend ; you have ruined this man or that 
 woman ; you have joined hands with the spectre of 
 death. Hard ! Yes, it was hard ; but you have done 
 it. Look at the thing you have done; look at the 
 price you have paid. Mankind thinks well of you ; 
 the crowd applauds you ; the multitude join their 
 voices in your praise ; your friends are not ashamed of 
 you. They say, "We have done the like ourselves." 
 Surely there are plenty to help you to go on ? Yes, 
 plenty ; but across the darkness, across the storm, 
 through the noise of the music, among the footlights 
 on the stage, under the gas-lamps of the street, in the 
 whirl of the drawing-rooms of our wild London, in the 
 
142 THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 
 
 offices of our not too scrupulous commercial life, in the 
 columns of our newspapers, there comes a voice, which 
 it is my duty to re-echo from the pulpit — the voice 
 of the sense of purity, the sense of honesty ,^ the sense 
 of self-denial, the sense of truth — the voice of common- 
 sense. " Look at the thing acquired," it says, " admire 
 it, make the most of it — as a connoisseur after a pur- 
 chase does with his pictures or his china ; then reckon 
 up the account, pay the bill, consider how much you 
 have given for it, and ask — Christ gives you the 
 answer — What does it profit ?" 
 
 My brothers, that practical question must be pushed 
 to a severe, an unvarnished answer, because when you 
 translate such deeds into intelligible language, they 
 mean this — the loss of your soul. 
 
 IV. 
 
 What is it to be "lost"? terrible question, — 
 hard to face, hard to answer, impossible to banish 
 from the mind. The very phrase brings with it 
 thoughts and images which have haunted persistently 
 the human brain during man's short disastrous history. 
 The legends of Italian mountains, the weird tales of 
 German forests, nay, the legendary lore of every 
 people, sad whispered histories of workers on the 
 mountains, ghostly stories of the toilers of the sea, 
 
THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 143 
 
 high efforts of human genius, the poem of a sunny- 
 optimistic Goethe, the solemn words of an intense and 
 terrible Dante — all, all are filled with the disasters of 
 those of the human family whom we call in pathetic 
 sorrow " the lost." 
 
 To think of it is to land ourselves in insoluble 
 problems — sometimes, indeed, in a temper of impotent 
 rebellion of spirit, when we fail to remember the 
 limitation of our knowledge, or rather the depth of our 
 ignorance. This indeed we know, that the IsTew 
 Testament speaks words severe and terrible for wilful 
 sinners, as well as words of boundless pity for the sorrow- 
 laden and wretched; this we know, that all voices 
 from Eternity — above all, the voice of Christ — speak of 
 Sin as the disaster, and leave to the mind the im- 
 pression of its boundless consequence of horror; this 
 we know, that God is very terrible, very merciful, and 
 of awful justice ; this further, that each soul has free- 
 dom of choice, and therefore responsibility ; this also — 
 Ah tremendous thought ! — that persistently to abuse 
 that freedom and disown that responsibility is to be 
 " lost." 
 
 "Lose his own soul!" How heart-shaking is the 
 phrase ! No, we cannot measure its full significance ; 
 but none the less we have facts of experience before 
 us which illustrate all too truly its meaning. 
 
 There is such a thing as an almost silent, or worse, 
 a perverted, conscience, — a voice that should guide, 
 
144 THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 
 
 either speaking so low as scarcely to be heard, or in 
 trembling accents of uncertainty, or without a firm, un- 
 flinching, decided judgment for the truth, whispering, 
 indeed, in lower tones and with a hollow gasping voice — 
 like the gasping utterance of a dying man — that things 
 are not as they should be, however much the soul de- 
 ceive itself. There is such a thing as secret disapproval 
 by the soul of its own action, scarcely allowed at first 
 to betray itself, silenced and driven back with petulant 
 brutality when it creeps forth from its dim dwelling to 
 witness, yet thzre, and only biding its time. There is 
 such a thing as a soul possessed by this in fullest power, 
 that is, not only suffering from moral impoverishment, 
 ashamed, afraid, but not repentant, such a thing as the 
 loss, in fact, of self-respect. Ah woeful plight ! when, 
 unless a hand be stretched to help, or a voice speak loud 
 to awaken, the way is paved, the doors are open, for the 
 tempter's visit ; and, if he come then, my God ! almost 
 any sin ! There is such a thing as moral paralysis — 
 the will so broken by repeated acts of sin, that it has 
 no longer force to guide and govern, but is carried 
 captive — helpless, pitiable — by the passions. There is 
 such a thing as judgment clouded, no "wisdom that 
 Cometh from above," no sense of the right direction to 
 be taken under the guidance of truth and duty, and 
 then a " certain fearful looking for of judgment " — the 
 uneasy, restless tossing of a poor lost spirit chained to 
 a delirious dream. 
 
THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 145 
 
 Ah yes ! What is this, what is this but so far forth 
 the 'po&na damiii, the revolt from God, the departure 
 of His Presence Whom to know is Eternal Life ? what 
 is this but to be "lost"? 
 
 Doubtless much may have been gained in compensa- 
 tion. A slow result of infamy is not infrequently 
 some measure of success. Judas Iscariot acquired his 
 thirty pieces, Simon Magus the plaudits of the crowd, 
 poor Charles Stuart won immunity from immediate 
 destruction by betraying Strafford ; Tito gained his 
 place and rank in Florence by abandoning Baldassare, 
 his more than father. Men have been base enough to 
 ruin those to whom they owed the love of faithful sons, 
 for the sake of self-advancement, and have succeeded. 
 Yes ; but each at last has found his own Aceldama ; a 
 terrible voice from each breaks the eternal silence — a 
 voice of warning or of woe, in the language (pardon 
 it) of human prudence — "Was the game worth the 
 candle]" in the solemn words of Scripture — ponder 
 them—" What did it profit ?" 
 
 Listen, my brother ; listen, I entreat you, to that 
 question now. Do not evade it. Bring your religion 
 into the region of practical reality. Look facts in the 
 face; deal with them calmly, stubbornly. Tempted, 
 wavering, fallen, successful in what the world had to 
 offer you, make the most of your successes, but scruti- 
 nise the bargain with practical intelligence ; you have 
 gained much, but what was the price that you paid ? 
 
 K 
 
146 THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 
 
 IN'ay more, if you ham gained much, how long will 
 your acquisition stand? Translate the question from 
 the Past to the Future; from the talk of Time to 
 the language of Eternity. lost spirit, immortal 
 forgetting immortality, " what will it profit to gain the 
 whole world, and lose your own soul ?" 
 
 Stern voice, thank God, that will not be silenced ! 
 stern question, that will have an answer ! It wails in 
 many a wind ; it is written on many a face of a so-called 
 " successful man ;" it stands like a cruel inquisitor by 
 the rack, demanding its answer from the dying; it 
 speaks in accents of withering irony by the stately 
 bier of the dead. The drunkard, the adulterer, the 
 liar, the hypocrite, the thief — each who has gained his 
 " whole world," and moves about respectable and un- 
 detected, as yd — to these it cries in ghastly mockery 
 or in awful prophecy, " What has it profited, what will 
 it profit, to have gained the whole world, and lost your 
 own soul ?" 
 
 Ah ! my friends, it is asked and answered across 
 eighteen centuries, in accents of love, and strength, and 
 sorrow, from the Cross of Christ. Very solemn, very 
 terrible, very penetrating in its power to waken, to 
 revive, to subdue and soften, is the voice of Christ. 
 Turn to the Crucified. In that strange and suffering 
 vision you are thrown forward to your Future, and 
 back upon your Past. 
 
 " Upon your Past !" Pause, with sad heart and tear- 
 
THE DECISIOI^ ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 147 
 
 dimmed eyes, and look upon that picture. The sun is 
 up, the sky is blue on that fair summer morning ; the 
 soft green leaves sway gently to and fro, soothed by 
 the tender caresses of the wakening wind ; the air is 
 heavy laden with the breath of flowers ; the voices of 
 the birds are charged with summer ; the green blinds 
 of the old house bring quiet shadow in the growing 
 heat ; the low of cattle comes across the river from the 
 broad green meadows; the river itself flows on, still 
 and clear, reflecting many an image on its breast, — the 
 red roofs, the green trees, the grey cathedral towers. 
 What is wanting? what is gone? No more young 
 voices sound around the house ; no more the plash of 
 oars and ripple of the water on the boat- side tells of 
 strong arms and merry hearts. The same, yet not the 
 same ; a Present calling up a happy Past, only to make 
 us feel that it is gone. 
 
 So the soul on whom the clouds of sin had settled, 
 the soul that had wandered from its Father's house, 
 retraces its steps to the sunny home, the home of 
 innocence, finds it indeed still bright and beautiful — 
 but changed. 
 
 Terrible to think of the "lost soul;" tender the 
 thought of the soul preserved in innocence of its first 
 love of God; but remember, if the world has been 
 powerful, if temptation has been all too strong, yet 
 still there is a power of retracing evil paths — the way 
 of penitence. 
 
148 THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Ah ! not the same as unsullied innocence and the 
 spotless soul, but still most beautiful ! 
 
 The winter woods stand brown, and still, and leaf- 
 less, and front the winter dawn. Quiet and distant 
 show the long lines of living amber, and deeper crimson, 
 and glistening gold, against the slate-grey sheets of 
 peaceful clouds, which half conceal the stretching 
 silver of the upper sky. Slowly the sun is sinking, 
 and now behind the screening of the clouds he leaves 
 for long only the golden gashes in the cloudland to 
 show where he has been. The winds are sighing in the 
 leafless branches, the rooks are cawing solemnly across 
 the hills, the silver light is spreading in the higher 
 heavens, pure, cold, against the fainter blue ; only 
 through that cloud-rent, where the crimson is brighter, 
 there seems a glimpse of worlds of glorious distance, 
 for which to wait with patience, not untouched by 
 sorrow, like the patience of the wintry dawn. There 
 is no glow like the joyous brightness of the cloudless 
 summer ; but there is the autumn message — glimmer- 
 ing hope and quiet sorrow, and the calm light and 
 strength of patient waiting and unruffled resolve. 
 
 So have we seen the tender strength of penitence, 
 the evidence full of beauty and sorrow that " the lost 
 may be found." 
 
 Ah ! but also may not. It is this power of ruining 
 itself for things of small account which is the witness 
 at once of the soul's dignity and sorrow. 
 
THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 149 
 
 How tremendously impressive is the question of the 
 text when we think of this ! how decisive must be the 
 answer ! 
 
 For such a question as this gains its impressiveness 
 from the fact that it implies the immortality of man. 
 This is why it presses for an answer ; why the decision 
 must be peremptory and clear. Indeed, it is worth our 
 while to remember that just by such teachings our 
 Divine Master " brought life and immortality to light 
 by the gospel." Tor Christ's sayings to have an ade- 
 quate meaning — often, indeed, any meaning at all — 
 you must assume man's eternity. This life is not only 
 too short for the full development of the principles 
 He leaves in the soul, but some of these principles are 
 positively meaningless unless this world be merely 
 the vestibule of another. These principles are direc- 
 tions for the expenditure of time, the use of talents, 
 the order and arrangement of the simple and recur- 
 ring actions of life, always on the supposition that we 
 are immortal, capable of infinite advance and happiness, 
 capable accordingly of infinite misery. 
 
 Men will not deny the horror of a terrifying or of a 
 hardened conscience ; but if conscience be no herald of a 
 future judgment, no prophet of a future of sorrow which 
 the soul is preparing for itself, then such things would 
 
ISO THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 
 
 be not unnaturally treated, as strong natures treat an 
 over-strain of nerves, or a too sensitive capacity for feel- 
 ing petty sorrows, — they would treat it as a disease to 
 be cured ; loss of self-respect might be fairly looked 
 upon as the mere down-heartedness of a morbid tem- 
 perament — in fact, the loss of a soul as a dream, a folly, 
 a fiction of theology, where no soul is to lose ! 
 
 No, my brothers ; to ask such a question — unless 
 mere instance of mental craze — to ask such a question 
 and insist on a decisive answer, is to " bring life and im- 
 mortality to light ;" it is to assume and emphasise man's 
 immortality. This is why a verdict on the matter is 
 important, why the question is impressive, because we 
 are here, in the only true sense, in the region oi practical 
 wisdom. Men cannot but acknowledge that not to 
 forecast the future, and act as well as may be on the 
 forecast, is folly. Sensible men among you do not fail 
 to shape your conduct under the guidance of such a 
 principle ; but then how many are true to it only 
 within the limits of a bounded horizon ! The people of 
 Pompeii doubtless were practical and prudent enough, 
 acting on the data of life before them — acting on all 
 but one : Vesuvius, with its terrible possibilities of 
 volcanic attack, had not been taken into their reckon- 
 ing, and that made all the difference ! And the man 
 who acts with foresight and prudence in all the con- 
 cerns of daily life, omitting only one datum — the fact 
 of his immortality — may acquire much, may succeed 
 
THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 151 
 
 in many things ; but in the solemn muster-roll of the 
 wise and foolish of this world, I ask you, in the judg- 
 ment of sagacity, Where stands he ? 
 
 Yes, the solemn question assumes our immortality. 
 It reminds us that to neglect that fact throws us wrong 
 in our reckoning with the most common of daily duties. 
 This, this is the practical demand of the wisdom of 
 Eternity : " What doth it profit if a man gain the whole 
 world, and lose his own soul ? " 
 
 InTo doubt this " whole world" is a gain now, but fresh 
 from this hint of immortality we see that our question 
 has a future form : " What will it profit ?" 
 
 Now turn to the Cross. Forget for a moment the 
 sympathetic multitude and the preacher's voice : be 
 alone in Eternity, face to face with the dying Christ. 
 
 VI. 
 
 There are three characteristic facts in the Passion 
 which bring out the answer : — 
 
 (1) It is a spectacle of moral majesty. It means the 
 close of a life of unvarying truth and unflinching duty ; 
 it means its logical close and consequence amid the 
 forces of the world. To speak in daring human lan- 
 guage, bluntly — had Christ willed to be a pretender. He 
 need not have died. Christ's death is a witness that 
 faithfulness to truth and duty at any cost is demanded 
 of us all. 
 
152 THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 
 
 (2) And again it is a spectacle of supernatural mys- 
 tery. Certainly the Crucifixion seemed the end of a good 
 man's life through the envious phrenzy of a mob ; in fact 
 we know it was the fulfilment of a deed of boundless 
 self-sacrifice — the way, the only way, to save mankind. 
 
 (3) It is also a spectacle of individualising efficiency. 
 There is, there may be, an individual relationship 
 between that act and each soul. Each soul may thus, 
 stretching the hand of faith and repentance, appropriate 
 the prospered benefits and power of the Passion. 
 
 " There is no profit, there is unfathomable loss," say 
 the dying lips of the Crucified, " in gaining everything 
 the world can offer at the cost of that, so loved of God, 
 so planned for, so sorrowed over, of that which needed 
 the outcome of a boundless moral energy, and a super- 
 natural action so full of love, of severity, and of pity, 
 at the cost of that which can hold all the glories, not 
 of the world, but of Eternity — at the cost of your own 
 soul." 
 
 Young man, burn that decision deep into your heart, 
 and act upon it in the power of Christ. Will you then 
 barter that soul for the approbation of the creature, for 
 the applause of the crowd, for the pleasure of sin for a 
 season — that soul for which Christ died ? When your 
 passion is clamorous for a wicked satisfaction, when 
 you are tempted by your own corruption, or by evil 
 friends, say, with your eyes on the Crucifix, '* What will 
 it profit?" 
 
THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 153 
 
 Old man — with your heart grown hard in worldli- 
 ness, now secure in your reputation, your means, your 
 success — think, when the hour for leaving all has 
 sounded ; think, when your children are round your 
 bed, and your eyes are growing too dim to see them ; 
 think, when the mourning coaches stand ready for the 
 costly funeral ; think — with your eyes on the Crucifix 
 — think now what answer then must be given to the 
 pressing question, " What will it profit ?" 
 
 Clergyman — when you stand in the pulpit, and are 
 tempted by rhetorical exaggeration, by watering down 
 of truth, or by inconsiderate and unbalanced assertion of 
 it, to seek self, not God's glory and man's salvation — 
 fix your eyes on the Crucifix, and ask, in thought of 
 your final account with your Master, "What will it 
 
 profit r 
 
 Good lady — when you are tempted to sell your 
 daughter at the West End, for a fortune or a coronet, 
 to a man who has no love to offer her, and to be whose 
 life-companion is to be degraded and debased — fix 
 your eyes on the dying Christ, think of your child's 
 eternal future, and ask with trembling, " What will it 
 profit? " 
 
 Ah ! one and all, old and young, men and women, 
 — especially ye young men, who are in the first fires 
 of temptation, whose souls, too, with youth's freshness 
 and vigour, are still open to the forces of God's grace — 
 write deep in your hearts the decisive judgment of the 
 
154 THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Crucifix on the contrasted value of the world and the 
 soul. 
 
 Settle it in your minds — A will engraced to hold the 
 hand upon passion ; a heart watched faithfully in such 
 of its issues as can be known ; self-discipline, and then 
 self -conquest ; the habit of quiet indifference to the 
 sneer of the w^orldling ; the faithful restraint of a 
 rebellious body ; patient endurance, calm persevering ; 
 — these are conditions of a Christian life ; these the 
 guide-marks to a better country ; these the preparations 
 for that heavenly vision in which Christ Crucified is at 
 last Christ Crowned. 
 
 VTI. 
 
 Brethren, to abide by this decision, and to follow 
 the example of Him Who witnessed to it, is supremely 
 serious. N"ay, to say only tliat is to fall far below the 
 requirements of the case, for to do so is everything. 
 To value not place, name, property, health, pleasure, 
 advancement, for one moment, in comparison with duty 
 and goodness and truth, is to have a true sense of pro- 
 portion in life ; and to have this sense so enthroned as 
 a moral power in the will, and so habitually energetic 
 as readily to decide in the sudden consequences of action 
 — this, this is to live worthily of our undying destiny ; 
 this may be to suffer, but it is to be strong ; this is to 
 act with a truly practical view of a life so mysterious 
 as ours ; this at last is to be a centre of blessing, and 
 
THE DECISION ON THE VALUE OF THE SOUL 155 
 
 to " possess the soul," not only " in patience," but 
 finally in peace. 
 
 Ah me ! Every fierce peak of unrelenting ice, every 
 dismal stretch of inhospitable snow, every rolling billow 
 of the grim interminable stretches of the cruel sea, 
 every storm-vexed leaf of the autumn forest, every 
 wind-driven cloud above the winter woods, carries 
 no message of despondency, only shrouds and then 
 glorifies the morning on the heavenly mountains, to 
 those who have sternly refused the world's allure- 
 ments, in comparison with goodness, with God. And 
 this has been done, and can be done — tliat is at once 
 our warning and consolation, — by fixing in the mind 
 the principles of the Passion through the grace our 
 Master offers, purchased by His Blood. 
 
 Well, then, kingly soul, lift thine eyes — lift thine 
 eyes to things of eternity ! Endure all things, suffer all 
 things, but do not give in to an evil world. 
 
 And, if thou hast given in ; if, for all the glory there 
 might have been, there is in fact only unworthiness, 
 impurity, untruth ; if, if, at least, things with thee are 
 far enough from satisfactory, — get thee to the bleeding- 
 feet, make thy confession, ask for needed succour, form 
 a fresh resolve, kneel there till thou canst realise the 
 blessed revelation, "Behold the Lamb of God, that 
 taketh away the sins of the world ;" till thou canst cry, 
 in trust and sorrow and thanksgiving, " Lamb of God, 
 Thou hast taken away my sins, even mine." 
 
Cl)e I^ecision on tU Deliverance 
 of tbe ^oul. 
 
 'Come tmto Me.'— St. Matt. xi. 28. 
 
 C HEIST'S life, then, dear friends, summed up and 
 emphasised in the revealing yet unfathomable 
 sorrows of the Passion, furnishes us with judgments 
 decisive, final, and fruitful upon the situations of the 
 soul. 
 
 We are thrown, we have seen, into a world of con- 
 fusion, and sin, and sorrow ; we need deciding principles. 
 We are brought, further, in full view of our grave 
 responsibilities ; we are brought sooner or later face to 
 face with ourselves. And Christ — as man's Eepresenta- 
 tive — in the one case brings out our dire need, in the 
 Passion ; and in the other He, too, by His teaching, life, 
 and action of energetic struggle, with point given to 
 them by the anguish of the Cross, insists on the 
 worthlessness of all that surrounds ourselves, compared 
 with our own real Being — decides emphatically on the 
 immeasurable value of the soul. 
 
 You accept His verdict, my brother? you find it 
 
 156 
 
DECISION ON THE DELIVERANCE OF THE SOUL 157 
 
 true ? And therefore you say, " Yes, O Preacher ; I 
 worked for wealth, laid myself out for reputation, 
 sought satisfaction in worldly pleasure; went lower, 
 surrendered to the demon of desire, submitted to sugges- 
 tions of the meanest and most corrupting selfishness. 
 I have found it hollow ; Christ is right : I cannot live 
 only in the crowd, I cannot live only in the satisfaction 
 of a sensitive body or a self-seeking mind ; I am my- 
 self — a living soul; and with all this am restless, 
 unsatisfied. what doth it all profit ? The price is 
 too high ; I — my very self, with a sense of eternal des- 
 tiny — am being lost, am being lost ; these things are 
 worthless, mad, blind, abominable. I awaken from 
 this deceiving dream, and see my real, my forgotten 
 dignity. What then ? Is there a Christian answer to 
 the question. What shall I do V 
 
 I. 
 
 Yes, there is an answer, and it concerns us here and 
 now. To ask it is to remind us of another important 
 situation of the soul. It is not only face to face with 
 a perplexing life, nor with its very self; the soul is 
 also face to face with its sins. That is what you 
 mean, my brother. Your sin, thank God, at last 
 " has found you out ;" you are in full view of it, and 
 you cry, "What then? what is to be done ?" The 
 
158 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 Christian Eeligion has an answer. It was spoken by 
 Christ in His tender teaching, it is made absolute and 
 energetic by Christ in the all-embracing love of His 
 Passion. Listen, sinner, here is the answer of Jesus : 
 " Come unto Me." 
 
 Let us consider the situation. " Face to face with 
 sin." You have the outward evidence of this sad fact 
 before you every day. The moment you waken from 
 the dream of youth, everywhere you are eye to eye 
 with evil. 
 
 One morning the newspaper brings you letters on the 
 " unemployed," and before you rise images of want and 
 misery, and of the discontent which comes from both. 
 Another, you read that up the telegraph wires has 
 swept the news of a reconnaissance in Egypt — " casual- 
 ties insignificant, three privates killed ;" and before 
 you rises the picture of three saddened homes, and the 
 possibilities of many untold, unknown sorrows. You 
 read the announcement of a death. " Poor fellow !" you 
 say, and think how the happy father had that boy's 
 arm about his neck a year ago, you remember, and 
 now has been standing, desolated, by his grave. You 
 have met one lately, young in London life, whom one 
 year ago you remember with a face that spoke of frank 
 and generous goodness ; and now you are struck by the 
 Uas4 look of worldliness or worse, and know too well 
 that what was so beautiful has been half ruined by 
 listening to the voice of temptation, persuading him to 
 
DELIVERANCE OF THE SOUL 159 
 
 " see life " — that is, to sin recklessly and without 
 restraint. You remember, in your experience of early 
 days, that pretty little bright-eyed girl, image of inno- 
 cence, light-heartedness, and joy ; and you learn that 
 she is somewhere in the great city, ruined, hopeless, 
 helpless, swallowed in this insatiable monstrous London, 
 among " the lost." 
 
 Brave-hearted man, you cry out against the mys- 
 teries of evil, " Sin, sin, how terrible ! " and in better 
 moments resolve to do something to lighten this world's 
 load of suffering, resolve, anyhow, to do your best. 
 
 Yes, my Brothers, I can believe it; you will do 
 what you can. But stay. It is all very well to resolve 
 to take the right side in the struggle. Let us, however, 
 be practical. If my duty is to fight a foe, I must not 
 begin by declaring a truce with him. What I do will 
 be of force and value in proportion to what I am. If 
 my generous wrath is kindled against evil plain before 
 me, if I am at least to lessen evil in society, to 
 diminish suffering, and lighten or sanctify the sorrows 
 of my fellow-men, I must pause and think. Is the 
 Prophet crying, " Thou art the man " ? 
 
 " Charity," they say, " begins at home," though cer- 
 tainly it must not end there ; and likewise moral effort, 
 if elsewhere it is to be of value, must begin there too. 
 To help others will indeed help you, but never deceive 
 yourself into imagining you act wisely, or well, or as a 
 man and a Christian, if you are content to let evil have 
 
i6o THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 its way in yourself, while you wish to control it in 
 the lives of other men. Look, my friend, look at the 
 Crucified, and stand face to face with your own sin. 
 
 " With your own sin !" What is it ? What is it that 
 hinders the " peace of God in you " ? what in you con- 
 tradicts His nature, corrupts your principles, weakens 
 your truer self, places freezing arrest on your better 
 endeavours, chills the warmth of your purer affections, 
 destroys the fervour of your prayers ? what enervates 
 your spiritual energy towards God, making you lazy, 
 worldly, irreverent % what paralyses your moral efforts 
 towards man, making you ungenerous, ungrateful, 
 inconstant, selfish, unkind ? What is it that makes 
 you cruel and unfair to your own soul, holding it back 
 from following out its better purposes, ashamed of a 
 decided line in goodness, slow in advance, quick in 
 backsliding, ready to be tempted by the first godless 
 fool who passes by ? What is it ? Find it out, face 
 it, deal with it. Whatever it is, it is the serious matter 
 for you. Face your sin. "Ah!" again you say man- 
 fully, " I do and will ; but how, then, to deal with it ?" 
 Before I answer, again I hear that voice from Calvary, 
 " Come unto Me." 
 
 11. 
 
 But stay. There are several voices attractive, seduc- 
 tive, ready to answer. 
 
DELIVERANCE OF THE SOUL i6i 
 
 (1) First comes, especially now-a-days, the Apostle 
 of Culture. Kow Culture, in its wider, truer sense — 
 the cultivation, as far as may be, of all man's faculties 
 — is a noble thing. The Christian Church herself has 
 been the home of Culture, and to her some of the best 
 possessions of a cultivated civilisation are primarily 
 due. But by culture seem now-a-days often to be 
 meant a certain refinement and artificial training of 
 thought and fancy and taste and feeling about those 
 things which decorate human life, and give pleasure to 
 the sensitive side of man's nature. The apostle of 
 culture is for gaining more of the " healthy sensuous- 
 ness " of Greek life, and condemning as narrow and 
 revolting the " Eeligion of Sorrow." Well, one objec- 
 tion is, this is a religion that never can do for the 
 unlearned and the poor ; another, it is scarcely fit for 
 a world where sorrow is such an overwhelming fact ; 
 another, that when it affects a certain amount of Chris- 
 tianity, there is an evident absurdity in it, for it finds 
 no place for the Cross ; self-denial is its abhorrence ; 
 above all, the one supreme and awful fact — the fact 
 that overshadows life, the mystery of mysteries, with 
 which we all should be in battle — Sin, — it deals with it 
 in a way to discredit its teaching with earnest men. 
 Practically it says this, " Dress it up, throw it into strik- 
 ing situations, keep out of sight all that is revolting in 
 it ; give it false colour, a languid and attractive expres- 
 sion, brightness of eye and grace of movement ; give it 
 
 L 
 
1 62 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 the advantage of poetry and music ; bring man's highest 
 gifts, and prostitute them for its adornment, — then you 
 can enjoy its pleasures, and keep out of sight its pos- 
 sible disadvantages ; in fact, sin if you like — but sin 
 with taste and refinement, and then you will not find 
 life so bad." Well, the Cross is a decisive answer to 
 this : this has no real Christianity in it, at all events ; 
 here you may have a life of poetry and music plunged 
 at the same time in the most inveterate selfishness, 
 drenched in the fumes of a death-bringing but soothing 
 narcotic, plunged in mortal sin. 
 
 My brothers, away with it ! do not listen to such 
 teachings. These will never heal the wounded soul, or 
 bind up the broken heart. Better, a thousand times 
 better, the roughest of the rough ; better the sting of 
 painfulest treatment " that makes earth's smoothness 
 rough ;" better to be a very Philistine of the Philis- 
 tines ; better they who are at least stern in their ungod- 
 liness, not soft nor wilfully self-deceiving, not decked 
 out in sham garments of glory, not clothed in imitation 
 goodness, not wasting time on " taste " for the purpose 
 of forgetting they are living souls, — better to be 
 one of these than a soft, sentimental, seductive, highly 
 cultivated devil. Away with such apostles — apostles 
 of such culture ! These put " bitter for sweet, and sweet 
 for bitter," "darkness for light, and light for dark- 
 ness." i^postles of Culture, indeed ! apostles of Satan ! 
 
 There lies a city in the Volcian hills, half ruined 
 
DELIVERANCE OF THE SOUL 163 
 
 now, though once a place of human energy. It sleeps 
 and dreams in still and soothing and unearthly loveli- 
 ness; the silent streets form now a thoroughfare for 
 flowers ; the houses are crept in and out with mosses, 
 lichen, trailing plants, and rich and beautiful but poison- 
 sheltering leaves. The very churches have renounced 
 the offices of Christian worship, and weeds of rich 
 luxuriance and flowers of brightest colour make their 
 place of rest and beds for nurture there : around the 
 pillars of the doors they twine, deck out the ruined 
 windows, carpet the altar steps, and sleep upon the 
 sacred slabs. By day there is romance of summer sun- 
 shine, the brightness and weird seductive glamour of an 
 enchanted world ; by night — ah ! when the twilight 
 steals, and night comes sweeping over all in folds 
 of ever-deepening darkness, rest not there ; or if you 
 rest, you are beguiled within a poisoned chamber, and 
 soon will be a helpless victim to the deadly malaria of 
 the grave. Fit image this of those who use God's 
 fairest gifts for vilest uses. They preach of life, but 
 lure to ruin — emissaries of darkness, messengers of 
 death ! 
 
 Against the fitness of mere sentiment or false culture 
 to deal with sin, there is a decisive protest in the ear- 
 nestness and anguish of the Passion, an unfaltering 
 judgment from the Cross of Christ. 
 
 My brothers, never persuade yourselves you are not 
 sinners because you can deck yourselves in garments of 
 
1 64 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 " Culture ; " never allow yourselves to imagine that sin 
 set to music, or advancing with stately rhythm of poetry 
 is the less sin ; never dress up your sin ; to rebaptize is 
 to hide its true appearance, or forget its real name ; 
 never call lusts " sweet sentiments," or bad thoughts 
 " forms of intellectual development." Look your sin in 
 the face, and subject it to some harsher treatment, for 
 if you do not, you will have a sore heart at the last. 
 
 (2) Then there is another plan, the way of what 
 St. John calls repeatedly " the world." Simply put 
 your sin aside. If it does obtrude, shrug your shoulders, 
 and make allowance for it, as " what all men do," or 
 " the way of the world," — as if a multitude of votes 
 should make darkness like the day-dawn, as if the clatter 
 of a thousand voices made a musical chord. " Be not 
 over-particular," so runs this nostrum ; " be respect- 
 able, wise, serious, prudent, full of common sense ; don't 
 make too much of the gravity of sin ; don't dwell too 
 much upon it ; forget it if you can ; in any case conceal, 
 avoid being found out, and never make your confes- 
 sion." This is the way of that old tradition of god- 
 lessness, which gains strength from generations of evil 
 principles accepted, propagated, used. The secret mean- 
 ing is, " Take life as it is, and make the best of it you 
 can ; only never forget one rule — put God, the thought 
 of Him, the very name of Him if possible, out of all 
 your reckoning, in living in and dealing with the 
 world He made." Well, to this there is one objection. 
 
DELIVERANCE OF THE SOUL 165 
 
 It rests upon a falsehood, the falsehood that you can, 
 in the long-run, be happy without God. You cannot. 
 You may become hlasi ; you may grow "respectable," 
 philosophical, callous; you may swell the crowd of 
 unreality, of unbelief, of coldness, of unlove; but at 
 last, remember, of practical despair ! 
 
 For sin so treated has a power to sear the heart. 
 What once was bright and fresh and beautiful, in the 
 clutch of unresisted sin becomes blasted and outworn. 
 The free heart, the brave spirit, the generous soul — once 
 like the flowers in sweetness, and in brightness like the 
 dawn — all, all are over, and you have a soul in binding 
 slavery, the constant pressure of self-conscious evil, and 
 at last interior and degrading torment, in spite of all 
 your callousness, — an example of that last dreadful 
 power of conscience, to " make cowards of us all." 
 
 Yes, underneath such theories there lurks a hidden 
 falsehood. Men persuade themselves that ignoring sin 
 is dealing with it ; that, leave it, it will stand still ; man 
 imagines that he can go just so far as he pleases in 
 wrongdoing, and then can pause. Beware ! that there 
 should be such a permitted thought is itself an evidence 
 of the dangerous treachery of the human will. It is true 
 — thank God ! — that those who have gone wrong, waking 
 to earnestness, may by grace pull up in a downward 
 course of evil, though never without some, loss, and with 
 treatment of sin far other than this worldly plan — stiU 
 none the less, if you embark on a course of evil, simply 
 
 ^ or TMfc 
 
 li^HlYERSiTf ) 
 
1 66 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 ignoring the evil in it, confident that thus, and when 
 you please, you can master your sin, beware — Oh 
 beware lest you find too late that your sin has mastered 
 you! 
 
 (3) And now I come to my message. Here is my 
 method of dealing with your sin. It may be hard ; in 
 the end it will be blessed. 
 
 One voice says, " Dress it up, enjoy it in a disguise ; " 
 another says, "ignore, forget." There is yet another — 
 listen and act. It pierced the heart of Matthew, the 
 Jewish tax-collector, sitting and counting his ill-gotten 
 gain; it won the Magdalene in her fatal beauty from paths 
 of ruin to a sweet womanly sorrow ; it gave strength to 
 the martyr boy to face the lions ; it has given the young 
 courage against the fiercest artillery — the artillery of 
 derision ; given them the courage of faithfulness and 
 prayer ; men thoughtless, passionate, selfish, it has 
 turned to earnestness, restraint, and self-forgetting; 
 the indolent it has made active, the self-satisfied humble, 
 the cruel tender and kind ; it has come, clear as a 
 silver trumpet, or solemn as the sighing of the rising 
 wind, or soft and moving, like the words of one 
 we love laden with tears. It has always been lov- 
 ing, and always true ; it has spoken again and again in 
 persevering goodness, and to souls in all the varying 
 degrees of human sin and human wretchedness ; and 
 again, and again it has had the same strange magic in- 
 fiuence to make men sorry, and to make them strong, 
 
DELIVERANCE OF THE SOUL 167 
 
 — the voice of the greatest, tenderest, strongest Man, 
 sounding its matchless helpfulness across long ages — of 
 tenderest, strongest God, sounding its sure deliverance 
 in our very souls ; crying, in our extremity of forlorn- 
 ness, " sinner, face to face with that sad fact — your 
 own sin — lonely, downcast, guilty, weary, heavy- 
 laden, come, come unto Me." Listen, my brother ; listen 
 with the experience of your unsatisfying sin, listen with 
 your sense of the emptiness of other remedies, listen 
 with the earnest eagerness of your longing soul, listen 
 with the deep submission of your longing heart ; you 
 He speaks to ; you He yearns for ; do not turn from 
 Him ; Jesus calls you — " Come," He says, " come unto 
 Me." 
 
 True, His words may ere now have been quoted to 
 you in the spirit of religious tracts, or even canting 
 nonsense ; in a tone of empty sentiment, or forced and 
 unreal feeling ; but though this may — rightly enough — 
 have been meaningless to you, yet there is a meaning 
 in His Own loving summons, " Come, come unto Me." 
 
 " Come unto Me." Can we doubt the serious and 
 practical meaning of such an invitation ? Surely here 
 is no poetry, no language of mere metaphorical rhetoric, 
 no invitation to mental athletics, leaving character un- 
 touched, unchanged. No ; countersigned and empha- 
 sised as it is by the Blood of the Passion, it is a decisive 
 verdict that the one way for human life to find its rest 
 and perfection is to listen and " come." 
 
[68 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 III. 
 
 Again we ask, What does it mean ? Ask what does 
 the parent mean, who calls the undutiful child to aban- 
 don wrong and rebellion, and return to a heart that 
 aches for him with patient love. Ask what a strong 
 heart means when, after some cloud has swept between 
 it and a heart that was dearer than life to it, it has in 
 noble penitence begged forgiveness, and prayed the one 
 so loved with passionate longing to " come." There 
 is a movement of spirit to spirit, there is an approach of 
 the soul to its Saviour, which can only be invited by the 
 cry of Jesus, " Come unto Me." He means certainly 
 that submission of heart and will, that upspringing of 
 longing and desire towards His living person, which ex- 
 presses itself, which declares its activity of motion, in 
 longing for, loving, imitating ; nay, more than imitating 
 — growing into — those Divine lines of motive and feel- 
 ing, and act and habit, which constituted the subtle 
 traits of what we dare, with deep reverence, to call His 
 " character." 
 
 The soul " comes " to Jesus, to be taught, indeed, by 
 His teaching ; " comes " to Him, to be fed, indeed, on His 
 life ; " comes," indeed, to be pardoned by His boundless 
 pity ; " comes " to be guided in its perplexed and 
 darkened journey ; but the act of " coming " must be the 
 free act of the free will of the creature, using the assis- 
 tance offered by the grace of God ; the submission of 
 
DELIVERANCE OF THE SOUL 169 
 
 heart and thought and will to the tone and temper of 
 inner life and outer conduct sanctioned and exhibited 
 in the Saviour. 
 
 Yes, brethren, we come to Him by that bowing of 
 spirit — at once an act of worship and of effort to be like 
 Him — that bowing of spirit before His heavenly-minded - 
 ness which is due. The soul sees what, indeed, the unbe- 
 liever himself can scarcely deny — in that life a tone of 
 higher, purer, kind than has been ever seen on earth 
 before; humility so deep as to touch the heart, and yet no 
 want of direct, incisive, unbending strength; a mind full 
 of meditations on the highest things which can engage 
 man's attention, and yet, so to speak, endowed with con- 
 stant and practical common sense ; a moral sense so truly 
 balanced that condemnation of wickedness was severe 
 when needed ; yet never a lack of the tenderest human 
 pity. Here the soul wakens to see the constant, deep, 
 strong sense of another world, not vanishing in dreamy 
 sentiment, but thrown into practical working form, to 
 meet the demands of duty in the details of common life ; 
 and over all, a love all-controlling, all-subduing, all- 
 illuminating, self -forgetting, energetic, tender, strong, 
 harmonising a whole character into a type of universal 
 beauty and usefulness, good for all time. 
 
 Seeing this with the inner eye of the real self, the 
 human spirit wakens to some measure of love, fitful, 
 frail, alas ! and failing, but real — for " We needs must 
 love the highest when we see it ; " and in love it moves 
 
170 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 to Him in worship, iii devotion, in desire to submit 
 itself, its all, to Him. This, this is to " come." 
 
 Sometimes it is by the slow advance of a sweet, pure 
 spirit, gradually, gently, growing into the love of good- 
 ness, finding it in the 'personal tie of the " love of Jesus " 
 — the religious experience of innocent, duty-loving souls. 
 So St. John ; so many a child of God. Sometimes it is 
 by the swift revelation of that long-sought-for — at last 
 seen to be only, yet completely, in Him. So St. Paul ; 
 so other men (in their degree) of high moral purpose, 
 finding the living heart they need in Him. Sometimes 
 it is by sudden flashing on the spirit of the sinner of 
 his own degraded baseness, the folly of his madness, the 
 vileness of his evil, seen in "the Light of the World;" 
 and then the joy in sorrow of seeing in Him a Saviour 
 to lift him from his degradation and despair. So in St. 
 Peter; so in the Magdalene; so, my brother, in most of 
 us — wakened to hatred of sin. But, in each case, this 
 is certain. They who " come " find in Him " a real 
 Presence," an active life; spirit strikes Spirit, the 
 weak and lonely soul of the creature needs support 
 from the Being of beings Who made it ; it " comes," 
 and finds rest in Christ. Ah ! listen to, think of the 
 glorious, the needed, the blessed summons, " Come 
 unto Me." 
 
DELIVERANCE OP THE SOUL 171 
 
 IV. 
 
 This is, indeed, another way of saying, " Eeach fovUi 
 to Christ with faith." For faith is a fresh capacity in 
 the soul, a new power of spiritual vision ; it is its own 
 evidence ; just as in things of sense we say " seeing is 
 believing," it practically opens to a man wider land- 
 scapes than those of this life, and the awful realities of 
 another world. Above all, by it the soul sees and 
 " comes " to Christ ; and, let us remember, it has real 
 power just because it is no mere mental act ; it enlists 
 in its service heart and will quite as much as under- 
 standing; there is moral power in it; it affects, it 
 changes character ; and so it is that Scripture says " by 
 faith we are saved." But there is one attitude of a 
 " faithful " soul which is especially described as 
 " coming to Christ " in the case of a sinner just 
 wakened to the hideousness of sin. 
 
 My brothers, I repeat it : to " come to Jesus," you 
 are not required to perform mental athletics, or to force 
 your feelings, or to " believe that you are saved," and 
 thereby insure " safety." There is a miserable unreality 
 about this class of teaching, which has tended to 
 alienate all that is robust in human character from 
 Christianity, because they have been led to identify it 
 with such travesties of the Gospel of Christ. No ; but 
 " Sinner, come unto Me " at least means this : When 
 you see your God wrapped in the fair frail folds of 
 
172 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 your human nature, and over them thrown — in His 
 deep humility — the garments of the grave ; when you 
 see Him by some mysterious necessity — if indeed He is 
 to deliver humanity — nailed to a Cross of anguish, 
 bleeding, broken, scorned — at least, then, to "come" 
 must mean a joining hands with the moral temper, to 
 be readily and eagerly obedient to the spiritual temper 
 shown by Him upon the Cross ; and therefore, because 
 He was broken with anguish for evil, you, when you 
 are sorry — truly, sternly, heartily sorry — for sin — then, 
 then only, then certainly, " come to Christ." To come 
 to Jesus is to repent. 
 
 " Truly and sternly! " Yes, it is possible you may, 
 before now, have had a passing sentiment on the 
 subject — this will not do. I heard a little lad one 
 day go singing, through sun and shadow, in a Florence 
 street, " Death, how dreadful ! Eternity, how 
 strange ! " And putting my hand upon his head, I 
 asked him, " My son, what know you of Death and 
 Eternity ? what experience have you had of the sad and 
 strange ? " With a bright smile, the curly-headed little 
 fellow answered, " Only a little meditation, sir, the senti- 
 ment of the moment ; that is what people say." Yes ; 
 and in religion, dear friends, there may be the " senti- 
 ment of the moment," or the hollow echo of "what 
 people say ;" but real " coming " to our Master — seeing 
 He is a Master crucified — is no sentiment ; penitence 
 must be honest, real, stern, and deep. 
 
DELIVERANCE OF THE SOUL 173 
 
 For first it is a sorrow of heart and will — no mere 
 play of feeling, springing from a sense of contrast 
 between our sin and His perfect goodness, springing 
 from gratitude for His individual devotion to our 
 wellbeing, springing from a sense of the real beauty 
 of goodness, and the treachery of our betrayal, spring- 
 ing in fact from the love of God. 
 
 And in it there is at least implicitly the readiness to 
 confess our sins. Whether the Church's system has or 
 has not been always wisely used in this is nothing to 
 the point ; the abuse of any good thing is no argu- 
 ment against the wise use of it, and the restrained but 
 emphatic manner in which the Church of England, as 
 every part of the Christian Church, teaches the blessing 
 of Confession, is another instance of how true she 
 is to the Bible, and how true to fact. 
 
 Unconfessed sins, especially if of a serious character, 
 are not only subject to God's natural punishments, but 
 are also haunted always by the spectre of a great fear. 
 Further, if unconfessed, sin flourishes and is strong. 
 Sin — like some poisonous plants — grows luxuriant in 
 darkness ; real penitence implies a willingness to confess 
 our sins. It implies, further, a purpose fixed, with all 
 the will at our disposal, as regards the sins we know of, 
 to try to lead a different life. It does not pledge us to 
 immediate success in every particular ; certainly not — 
 but it does to the effort and readiness, in the strength of 
 Christ, to try. 
 
174 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 V. 
 
 Further, brethren, remember such " coming " to Christ 
 is the highest manliness. 
 
 One of the favourite ruses of the devil is to persuade 
 men that there is something " manly " and " independ- 
 ent " in habitual submission to the dictates of selfish- 
 ness, in calmly acquiescing in being " tied and bound 
 with the chain of our sins." Believe me, it is the strong 
 heart that can truly sorrow for its sin, the strong 
 heart that sets its purpose firmly to a new and more 
 earnest effort; a coward finds no difficulty in con- 
 cealing his iniquity, it needs the heart of a man to 
 help him to make his confession. When you told 
 that lie which lives in your memory, from fear of " what 
 people might say ; " when you surrendered to temptation, 
 to self-indulgence, impurity, vain-glory ; when you led 
 that other wrong by your example ; when you added 
 yet one more sin to that poor lost life by gratifying 
 your passion ; when you sneered at religion, or main- 
 tained the silence of shame about prayer or reverence in 
 the face of " fools " who scorned religious duty, saying 
 in their heart there was no God ; when in the excite- 
 ment of society or work, in the drawing-room, in the 
 office, at the dinner-table, you dared not traverse 
 statements to which your conscience gave the lie — then, 
 then indeed you played the coward. 
 
 But like Paul, strong to withstand evil, fearless of the 
 
DELIVERANCE OF THE SOUL 175 
 
 world, yet broken into tears at the thought of the men 
 and women he " sought and slew," at the thought of 
 the anguish and constancy in Stephen's dying eyes ; 
 like Augustine, calm and trustful with the Vandals at 
 the gates of Hippo, yet shedding bitter tears at the 
 thought of his own sin ; so you, when you conquer self ; 
 when you restrain ungovernable impetuosity ; when 
 you are not forgetful of the claims of others upon you, 
 and of the claims of God ; when you point your finger 
 with unflinching determination to the Past, and say, 
 " This one, that one, would have been better but for me ; 
 but for my act or my omission, this or that society, at 
 home, at school, at college, in life, would have been of 
 higher tone but for my submission to its dicta ; this 
 conscience of mine would have been cleaner, and the 
 mind easier, but for this or that unworthy choice ; " 
 and then, face to face with the highest goodness, realise 
 Christ's agony as a witness to God's view of sin and 
 its consequence, — fhen, when you turn in sincerity of 
 sorrow, and reality of confession, and firmness of en- 
 deavour for a better life — then indeed you are playing 
 the man. 
 
 Penitence is Manfulness because it is Truth. 
 
 Ah ! my brother, face your sin. If you do not get 
 rid of it, you are like the miserable prisoner chained 
 to a decaying corpse ; but if you do — Oh ! brighter than 
 the breaking of the morning which brings hope after a 
 night of crisis by a sad sick-bed ; sweeter than the first 
 
176 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 drops of rain in a sun-scorched thirsty land; more 
 blessed than the glory of the sunlight, giving hope of the 
 abating of the tempest after a night of ocean storm, is 
 the heart of a true, a penitent Christian, who has laid 
 his sins at the feet of Christ ! 
 
 " Labouring and heavy laden, 
 Wanting strength in time of need, 
 Fainting on the way from hunger, 
 Bread of Life, on Thee we feed." 
 
 Face your sin then, fight it. Be in earnest, be sorry, 
 give it up, play the man. Strive ; you will find it hard, 
 but there is help, and it is possible ; — the Passion 
 decides that you need assistance, that you — your own 
 self — are of incalculable value, that in Christ you will 
 find all blessing, if you seek Him in faith and 
 repentance. Blessed Master, give us grace to hear 
 and to obey Thy summons, " Come, sinner, come 
 unto Me." 
 
 My brother, point by point we have touched to- 
 gether some of those footprints, it may be of serious 
 warning, but certainly of unspeakable consolation, left 
 to us all by the Son of Man in His redemptive suf- 
 fering ; but we cannot, it may be hoped, pass from the 
 Passion week to the closer contemplation of that 
 greatest fact of human history, shrouded by the clouds 
 and illumined by the sunlight of the Holy Week and 
 Easter Day, without feeling always and everywhere 
 the lasting power of mysterious acts of Kedemption. 
 
DELIVERANCE OF THE SOUL 177 
 
 For, indeed, these acts bring God and His creatures 
 into close and blessed communion, give force to prayer 
 and strength to sacraments, slaughter Death the 
 Destroyer, and brighten the vision of eternal life. We 
 cannot surely enter upon such a season without seeing 
 always and everywhere some flash of those eternal 
 principles of Patience, Humility, Courage, Self-sacrifice, 
 which unite men to one another, and renew them in 
 the image of God. 
 
 And if it is so, can we turn from the thought of 
 that supreme love and sorrow, without some upspring- 
 ing of a lofty and legitimate ambition to rise nearer 
 to our splendid destiny, and ourselves to be better 
 men ? We cannot, it may be hoped, fail to have re- 
 kindled within us some fresh desire to help the labour- 
 ing souls of our fellow-sinners to a happier future by 
 a holier life. 
 
 And if so, we ought to remember with suitable 
 resolve that such desires and such ambitions need 
 never in any one of us be passing breezes of fleeting 
 emotion, need never be inoperative. We may — yes we 
 may — let us at once remember, lay aside " the sin that 
 doth so easily beset us," and by the power of the 
 Passion, and through the victory of the Precious 
 Blood, become what we are meant to be — each in his 
 measure — a servant of our Master, a representative of 
 His unspeakable goodness, forwarding, energetically 
 forwarding, the kingdom of Christ. 
 
 M 
 
178 DECISION ON THE DELIVERANCE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Oh ! what we may be, let us acknowledge we ought 
 to be ; what we ought to be, let us here and now deter- 
 mine by His grace we will be. 
 
 May He in His unabating strength and unchanging 
 tenderness deepen our penitence, reinforce our resolu- 
 tion, strengthen us in struggle, support us in sorrow, 
 be to us here a Pattern and a Saviour ; and hereafter, 
 when, after our little day of life, we are called to His 
 presence, our exceeding great reward. 
 
Cfte 2Decision on t&e Petseioerance 
 of tl)t ^oul 
 
 ' Adide in A/e.'—ST. John xv. 4. 
 
 THE Passion of Christ, my friends, is a summary, a 
 synopsis, of His severe, and tender and fruitful 
 teaching, and — in a fallen world — an appropriate close 
 to His matchless life. As Christ avowed principles, 
 and showed, as far as we could bear to see, the mys- 
 teries of our relation to God and the facts of another 
 world, so those principles He lived right out to their 
 uttermost consequence of self - sacrifice, and those 
 revelations He emphasised and countersigned by His 
 death. 
 
 Thus He has decided matters for us which require 
 deciding. The soul of man finds itself — so to speak — 
 in certain situations in which decisions are important. 
 It is, generally speaking, aware at least that it is in a 
 strange world, to the trials and temptations of which 
 it feels itself wholly inadequate; further, it is con- 
 scious of itself, and that it must work upon, and in- 
 fluence itself; then it is face to face with the mystery 
 
 179 
 
i8o THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 of sin, and that requires wise treatment ; and finally 
 here and now, we see it in one situation which it is 
 important to estimate, and in which Christ Crucified 
 has something to decide. 
 
 In those former situations decision is clear : — (1) 
 The soul needs God, and He is found in Christ ; above 
 all, in Christ Crucified. (2) The value of the soul 
 knows no measure but the greatness of Christ's sacri- 
 fice ; we may seek many things, but none must we 
 cling to if it costs us our soul. (3) Sin must be dealt 
 with, or it will be the soul's ruin ; and there is one 
 way of dealing with it, — and that is, by faith and 
 repentance, coming to Christ. 
 
 Now, a further step. The soul awakening to the 
 world, the soul facing itself, the soul facing its sin, 
 finds decisions for its duty in the Cross. Having come 
 to Christ in sincerity, the soul is face to face with the 
 fact of an onward journey, with the possibility of a 
 Christian course. " Is there," it asks, " is there a 
 decisive answer in the Passion on the possibility and 
 method of a holy life ?" Let us see. 
 
 Brethren, the earlier moments of sincere repentance 
 and conscious conversion are sad though sweet — I say 
 this broadly ; but not meaning, dear friends, to dog- 
 
PERSEVERANCE OF THE SOUL i8i 
 
 matise about " conversion " in any narrow sense. God 
 fulfils Himself in many ways in many souls. Do not 
 let us attempt to narrow Him down ; but this, with 
 reverence, we may say : whenever, slowly or suddenly, 
 or once or often, we turn to God with will and purpose, 
 whenever we realise the existence of a higher life, 
 when the darkness of this world is replaced by the 
 tender twilight of a better hope, or (to use another 
 figure) when the unhealthy artificial lights of this 
 world are outflared by the breaking of a pure and 
 heavenly dawn ; when a man begins to realise that he 
 does not live for these passing moments and these 
 vanishing dreams ; that, having done wrong, tliat may 
 be cancelled in Christ's Absolution, and he may yet do 
 right ; when he awakens up to something of his place, 
 his work, the resultant of all his acts and omissions in 
 his character ; when he begins to feel that final conse- 
 quences are accumulating there, not to be known or 
 measured in the office, in the drawing-room, in the 
 usual round of work, where custom and habit rule, but 
 only in fulness in an eternal world ; when he is won by 
 the beauty of goodness, and surrenders to the love of 
 God — then, then, face to face with Christ's work, flying 
 to his Saviour, he " rejoices in hope " — he has, yes he 
 has, at least a touch of heavenly joy. 
 
 After such times there conies many a change. 
 Heaven just now seemed open ; but now it is closed and 
 guarded with brazen doors ; now is felt the hard insist- 
 
i82 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 ance of the circumstances of ordinary life, the freezing 
 arrest placed on spiritual delight by the state of things 
 as they are, the " dash of cold water " on our glowing 
 hopes. It is well. You and I, my brother men, cannot 
 live simply in a first enthusiasm; it was, perhaps, a 
 great enthusiasm, that first spring of sorrow and truth, 
 that repentance, that confession. No, no ; Christianity 
 is worth more than to be gazed at as a glorious picture ; 
 if it is anything, it is a working principle. We saw our 
 sin, we heard Christ's decision, we acted accordingly ; 
 we repented, we came to Him ; and then, what then ? 
 
 Turn then to another decision. Face to face with 
 onward struggle, we ask, Crucified Master, Is there — 
 and, if so, what is — the hope and method of a holy life ? 
 
 II. 
 
 Now the crucifixion of Christ is a transaction in a 
 mysterious sphere ; we cannot grasp its full meaning, 
 as we cannot grasp the full force of such words as 
 " eternity," " infinity," " space." If the mind allows 
 itself to become conceited or mocking — as has often been 
 the case in unbelief — then it is easy to represent it in 
 grotesque and sacrilegious ways — to miss all its meaning, 
 and refuse its blessings ; for mockery is the child of 
 ignorance and vanity, and the mother of darkness ; and 
 reverence is the herald of light and of the morning. 
 
PERSEVERANCE OF THE SOUL 183 
 
 The Passion is a mysterious transaction, dealing with 
 facts of tremendous significance. We know enough to 
 know that the full meaning of these facts, which have 
 created the necessity for such a sacrifice, is something 
 far surpassing our present ken ; and that the know- 
 ledge of tMs alone should make us very serious, very 
 earnest, very watchful, very full of holy fear and 
 determined effort in all that touches human sin. Out 
 of such truth comes a further : namely this, Christ in 
 Himself, His life, His death. His whole being, as it is 
 now enriched with the power and experience of the 
 Passion — Christ is necessary for man. His acts and 
 sufferings are needed powers for our deliverance and 
 well-being ; we may have a close share in them. We 
 (mghty therefore, to fail in no effort or duty which 
 insures the receiving of that share ; the Passion, by all 
 its mysteries of hint and statement and reserve decides 
 this duty, and says as plainly in vigorous acts, as He 
 Himself said in earnest word : If you are to go on in the 
 Christian course, the method of a life-growing persever- 
 ing towards holiness is, " Abide in Me." 
 
 Now there are three thoughts which, at the thresh- 
 old of our subject, may help us on. 
 
 (1) The Christian life is a chequered scene of light 
 and shadow, a journey subject to startling and depress- 
 ing change. 
 
 There are days when the sunlight dreams down the 
 clefts of the Apennines in exhaustless wealth of be- 
 
1 84 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 wildering beauty. The most rugged peaks are rose- 
 tipped or purple or golden, according to the background 
 of light and colour against which the Great Artist had 
 set their place : the olives move, no longer now in 
 garments of grey mourning, but in the soft drapery of 
 summer, with a shimmer of silver and showers of dancing 
 light-drops, shaken, so it seems, from streams of liquid 
 radiance, in which they are bathing, by the passing 
 touches of the caressing wind ; the lizard basks in pant- 
 ing delight beneath the sun's rays, or darts across the 
 path like a sudden flash of variegated enamel and gold ; 
 the flowers dream in the sunlight, or sleep in the shadow 
 — the marigold and sweet narcissus, the wild rose and 
 cyclamen, the lily and the myrtle, the dark anemone and 
 golden broom — all deepen or lighten the bloom of their 
 beauty under the soothing of the shadow or the gilding 
 of the sun ; the ferns in sheltered crevices, massed in 
 plumes of moving softness, the foxglove peeping round 
 the rock, the graceful falling ivy, and the tender 
 wandering vine — all, all lend their touch of soberness 
 or smiling to complete the magic dream of a land of 
 summer ; the Campanili of the mountain churches peer 
 up above the rock and point to heaven, the cool spaces 
 within the frescoed naves, with mouldering columns, 
 antique mosaics, age-worn altars, invite to refreshing 
 shelter from the burning day ; the voices of the workers 
 that come up from the terrace of the vignas, or mingle 
 indistinctly on the breeze from the assembly in the 
 
PERSEVERANCE OF THE SOUL 185 
 
 village streets ; the goat bells that tell of human 
 labour, the church bells that call to thought and 
 prayer — and away above the gorges of the mountain, 
 the azure of the arching dome of heaven, and heyond 
 these the burnished opal of the stretch of level sea 
 — all combine, in man, in nature, to whisper the poet's 
 dream of brightness and peace. 
 
 Can we forget then that the night falls with deathly 
 chill? Can we forget that the wind comes carrying 
 clouds of darkness, the bearer of destructive storm ? Can 
 we forget that the frost will cut the flowers, and the 
 blight destroy the grapes before the vintage is due ? 
 Can we fail to remember that the nestling homes of 
 beauty and peace to the eye of the passing travellers 
 mean often human toil and human sorrow, grinding 
 poverty and corrupting sin ? It would be wrong not 
 to rejoice in the sunlight : still, life is earnest, we may 
 not forget the shadow. 
 
 The Christian life has its days of dawning glory, and 
 its nights of chill. Do not, do not be disheartened 
 because you, like others, must feel the chill and face 
 the darkness. Eepentant, converted, who have turned 
 with a will to your Master,- remember the Christian life, 
 though blessed, has its ups and downs, its sunlight 
 and shadow, its fair flowers and withered leaves, along 
 the path of its journey : all the more valuable is His 
 command to ahide in Him, all the more helpful when 
 the dark day comes. 
 
i86 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 (2) And again, there is nothing in this to astonish 
 or perplex. The experience of life has proved that 
 it is to be expected — the experience of the lives of 
 commonplace Christians, and the experience of the 
 saints. Still in our struggle — nay, by the very terms 
 of the struggle — we are " in the world." True, there are 
 times of high, calm thought, and better purposes, and 
 clearer vision; but there is an atmosphere of fashion 
 and custom, and thought and principle, which creates 
 difficulties and pooh-poohs enthusiasm, and paralyses 
 effort, and pulls us down. You will be warned against 
 religious enthusiasm, because sometimes it has been 
 hollow ; you will still have to hear God misrepre- 
 sented, because man, in his conceit, fancies that he 
 ought to be in a position to fathom all difficulties and 
 reconcile all apparent contradictions at a glance. You 
 will still be told that the really cleverest people do not 
 set much store by the Bible, or see much use in prayer. 
 You will still be urged to fall in with the " rank and 
 file" of decent-living people, who do not think any 
 too much of religion ; to " see life " — that is, in some 
 measure, to practise sin ; to take no trouble about church 
 and sacraments and prayer ; to be a " fool," if you like, 
 in the sense of Scripture, saying in your heart " there 
 is no God," but on no account to be a " fool," in the 
 sense of the mass around you, saying that you will not 
 take public opinion as the standard of truth. You will 
 find, in fact, that still there is " the world ;" and that 
 
PERSEVERANCE OF THE SOUL 187 
 
 — though as a Christian you must not flatter it, and 
 you must not fear — still that it is hard to avoid it, hard 
 to overcome ; that to do that requires stern determina- 
 nation and earnest effort; and then there comes the 
 cheering, bracing voice of your Master : " One way only 
 — one to persevere in your struggle — Abide in Me." 
 
 Ah ! the battle thickens. Just because you are 
 really striving, the enemy is striving tenfold more. 
 Now you are conscious of sudden and strange tempta- 
 tions, such as never came merely out of your own 
 heart ; temptations arising from subtle untruths of 
 character, to acts half hidden, and so, dangerous; of 
 selfish self-seekings, which chill and destroy the energy 
 of love ; to views of life practically incompatible with 
 the claims of Christ and the needs of the world, claims 
 and needs for your service. Now your eyes are wider 
 open to what evil is — no mere fashion or habit, but 
 the rebellion of the creature against goodness, and 
 evidently advanced by no mere chance combination of 
 favouring circumstances, but by the malice and activity 
 of a living and perverted Will. You are conscious 
 now that Satan is, and tempts you in right earnest; 
 "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit now 
 working in the children of disobedience " is no longer 
 a dream or a pretence ; he is withstanding you in your 
 struggle ; now you hear with thankfulness the decision 
 of the method of continued victory — " Abide in Me." 
 
 Ah ! beware of him — of Satan ; but obey Christ and 
 
i88 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 fear not. Beset you may be by bad thoughts, attracted 
 by seducing enticements, the subject of fierce tempta- 
 tions, even exposed to persecutions in modern life as real 
 but more veiled and subtle than once they were. Well, 
 be not astonished ; fight you must, and if in earnest, 
 and realising danger, listen again to the encouraging 
 summons, " Abide in Me." 
 
 And then you find how all evil around you is 
 reinforced, is aided by the treachery of your own 
 heart, the rebellion of your own flesh ; how tried you 
 are by varying and undisciplined temper, by fierce 
 and unregulated desire ; how you see before you a 
 vision of true manliness, of self-restraint, of truth and 
 simplicity, of earnest grasp of the sacredness of duty, 
 and the nobility of labour, and the serious and balanced 
 effort to put life to its true uses ; and how you feel 
 within you a power drawing you to falseness, baseness, 
 a counterfeit manliness which is unmanly ; how you 
 feel " the flesh." Ah ! this indeed must still be fought 
 in the Christian struggle, and with it come out all 
 sorts of perplexities, " mixed questions " of right and 
 wrong, hard to decide : " Is it consistent with Chris- 
 tian simplicity to do this act ?" — "Is it right to allow 
 this amusement ? " — " Can I wisely permit such a pur- 
 suit?" and so on. Well, brave soul, all this is to be 
 expected, and "ever the worst turns the best to the 
 brave," if you listen and obey the decision of the Cruci- 
 fied, " Abide in Me." 
 
PERSEVERANCE OF THE SOUL 189 
 
 (3) And this third thought must never be forgotten. 
 Two of the boldest calls and claims upon human alle- 
 giance ever made were these of Christ : " Come unto 
 Me ;" "Abide in Me." No other religious teacher ever 
 dared to use such language, and language less deter- 
 mined and decisive is useless for man. 
 
 Take the measure of that thought. Such daring 
 utterances as these are indeed the outcome of truly 
 human strength and penetrating human sympathy. It 
 is the strength of indeed a heroic manhood that daringly 
 confronts our encroaching danger. It is also the voice 
 of human sympathy, world-embracing. Those who have 
 dim perceptions and languid imaginations and cold 
 hearts neither realise nor feel with human struggle. 
 These are the voices of a true human heart, as the 
 Passion is an act of strong human courage. 
 
 But such cries would be an insult to our troubled 
 souls if only the cries of a man. However deep the 
 sympathy they betoken, their very decisiveness would 
 be but a measure of the madness of any mere man who 
 dared thus to speak. 
 
 These, my friends, these are the voices of God, 
 God wrapped in the nature of struggling humanity, 
 robed also in the garments of the grave, showing man 
 as much of the mystery as man's mind can bear, 
 penetrating Himself to the very depth, by actual per- 
 sonal contact, of man's extremest sorrow : He, Son of 
 Man, Son of God, He, with His awful unbegiuning life ; 
 
I90 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 limiting Himself to the trials and conditions of our 
 nature, He has a right, as none other, to lay down, as 
 the method of advance in holiness, this decision of His 
 life and Passion, " Abide in Me." 
 
 III. 
 
 And now you naturally inquire, my brother, " What, 
 in the name of common sense, what do you mean ?" 
 
 I answer— not exhaustively indeed, but without 
 hesitation, — this is meant. Broadly speaking, to abide 
 in Christ is this: to endeavour to maintain, and not 
 to impair, as far as our efforts go, the living union 
 with our Saviour, which is the gift of Christ to the 
 soul — in His Church on earth. To be a living member 
 of His Church, His Body, is to be in union with Him, 
 the Head; to maintain that living membership is to 
 " abide" in Him. 
 
 Yes ; but you say, " Answer more explicitly." Well, 
 to maintain that membership requires (1) that we follow 
 His example, and (2) that we obey His plain commands. 
 
 Now let us get nearer still : how is this to be really 
 done? 
 
 Well, (1) we abide in Christ by the guidance and 
 government of thought. Thought is more or less active 
 in us all. At times it seems to escape us, and flee 
 from us with lightning speed, but thought may and 
 
PERSEVERANCE OF THE SOUL 191 
 
 must be disciplined. It is possible to encourage a tone 
 of purified and elevated thought. In the region of 
 thought, isolated acts repeated create habit, and habits 
 cultivated constitute character. It is possible to grow 
 in habits of pure, just, high-toned thought ; of thoughts 
 of kindness and charity, of goodness and truth. Guard 
 your thoughts. And therefore, since books are only the 
 record of the thoughts of men who have thought before 
 you, be careful in your reading. Do not stain your 
 thought by touches of corruption, by reading bad books. 
 Guard your gaze. Guard yourself in conversation. You 
 must be in an evil world, you need not be 0/ it ; a high, 
 pure, noble tone of thought may be cultivated. Forget 
 not the wisdom of some devotional reading, of the Holy 
 Gospels, or the wise writings of the servants of God, to 
 lift your thoughts from things of earth to higher things. 
 In your dealings with life, with literature and art, and 
 social opportunities, and daily duty, with yourself in 
 lonely moments, remember — remember — the apostolic 
 injunction : " Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever 
 things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatso- 
 ever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, 
 whatsoever things are of good repute ; if there be any 
 virtue and if there be any praise, thinh on these things." 
 Here is a real interior duty and effort ; do it, at least 
 attempt it, and abide in Christ. 
 
 (2) And then, too, well may we abide in Him by dis- 
 ciplined efforts of Will. 
 
192 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 My brothers, of all things remember that wishing 
 is one thing, and willing quite another. Strength of 
 passion, too, is often and falsely taken for strength of 
 character. This depends upon a wisely guided and 
 determined will. Passion enslaves and sweeps a man 
 before it; will — exalted, disciplined will — conquers 
 passion, and frees a man. How much greater advance 
 in goodness and duty would be made by many a soul 
 if the feebleness of half-dreamy wishes towards good- 
 ness were changed into the vigour of a determined 
 will ! The law of Habit here, too, is powerful. The 
 habit grows of willing to do or leave undone ; and in 
 the great battle of good and evil, the habit of choosing 
 and determining in the right — right definitely and prac- 
 tically — may by grace be fostered, as well as the evil 
 and cowardly habit of giving in. Turn a deaf ear to the 
 clamour of self and passion ; brace your will in follow- 
 ing your Master ; at least let " to will be present with 
 you." " How to do " you may not " find " in yourself, 
 but you will be on the sure way to it. This, by fixing 
 your will in goodness, to will with reasonableness and 
 resolution on points of duty — this is to " abide in 
 Christ." 
 
 (3) " Abide in Me." Go into broader thoughts, yet 
 surely quite intelligible. Then there is in our Master's 
 life and death a temper, there breathes through His 
 whole character a spirit, which we, His people, may, if 
 we will, catch in our measure by constant contact with 
 
PERSEVERANCE OF THE SOUL 193 
 
 Christ. There indeed was earnestness beyond all words 
 in intensity, and with it a sweetness and gentleness 
 never austere. TherCy too, such hatred of evil as knew 
 no treaty with it, and yet such kindly and reassuring 
 love to sinners ; devotion and seriousness ; unswerv- 
 ing principle and regulated refusal to palter with duty 
 or truth; high and awful thoughts of another world; 
 and with these, comprehensive sympathy, perfect large- 
 heartedness, interest in all that seemed human, simpli- 
 city and practical dealing with the daily concerns of 
 life. The gentle courtesy, the largeness of thought, 
 the entire self -forgetting, the perfectly balanced senti- 
 ment, the unflinching fearlessness which at once won 
 the high-born and wealthy and rebuked their selfishness 
 and pettiness of aim. Then the sweet sympathy, the 
 humble forgetfulness of self, the high view of man as 
 man, the absence of pride in what most men are proud of 
 — celebrity, or learning, or culture ; the deep sense of 
 the dignity and greatness of what is human, and of the 
 goodness and moral elevation possible to all ; above all, 
 the sense at once of eternity and of the plainest duties 
 of common life; these both won and comforted, and 
 rebuked the discontented murmurings of the poor. 
 Such a character, in fact, as has not once in its perfect 
 round of goodness been seen in this world was evident 
 always in Christ. Ah ! by the patient struggle that 
 makes up the Christian's inner life, by striving earnestly, 
 faithfully, to catch something of His spirit and temper. 
 
194 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 some of His firmness and gentleness, truth and con- 
 siderateness, dutiful effort in common things, and hea- 
 venly-mindedness. His tenderness and His strength, — 
 thus, thus we may " abide in Him." 
 
 Brethren, in our onward struggle, do not forget there 
 will be times of conscious weakness ; then, then it is we 
 must set our Master before us, and try more than ever 
 to live in His spirit. If we do — it is the experience of 
 His servants — there soon follows a consciousness of 
 advance, of achievement, in a strength not our own ; it 
 is the blessed result of abiding in Christ. 
 
 Indeed, also, if you abide in Him, this too will grow 
 upon you — a belief in and love of goodness, and the 
 dying out of another temper — cjniicism — which is the 
 temper of the world. 
 
 (4) But this, further, is involved, and we must not 
 omit to notice it, in faithfulness to Christ's example : 
 loyalty to work and duty, and, if need be, a readiness 
 to suffer. Idleness is the mother of vice and cruelty, 
 of distorted views, of self-pity and worldly cynicism, 
 of tccdium vitco, enervating weariness, alternations of 
 sensuous excitement and deep despondency. Work, 
 God's appointed discipline for man, is a great correc- 
 tive ; and interior work, the work of thought and effort 
 for others, a work possible to those whom health or cir- 
 cumstances hinder from physical exertion ; these teach 
 patience, — that comprehensive expression for passive 
 virtue, the creation of the crucifix, the method by 
 
PERSEVERANCE OF THE SOUL 195 
 
 grace — for most of us in life, for all of us in dying — 
 to abide in Christ. 
 
 III. 
 
 I hasten on. To abide in Christ also means to obey 
 His commands, — His commands I mean as to actual 
 religious duty, as the means of contact with Him, 
 through which He makes Himself an inward gift. 
 
 (1) This we do by faithfulness in prayer. The work 
 of the Spirit of God is to keep us in union with Christ, 
 and the Holy Spirit is given " to them that ask Him." 
 Prayer is the voice of Hope ; it is an effort of under- 
 standing, will, affection, dealing with the highest things. 
 Prayer is also a power. Whatever else you do, or leave 
 undone, never neglect to pray. It is the intercourse of 
 the soul with God ; it is the willing entrance into the 
 most exalted society ; and just as when we associate 
 with cultivated minds they affect us by their charm, 
 and impress us by their contact, so the soul grows in 
 holy habits of Christ-like goodness by prayer. Prayer 
 also brings down grace ; grace is the partaking of the 
 Divine Nature ; by it we abide in Christ. 
 
 And if we "live more nearly as we pray" — that is, in 
 fact, what the Bible calls " praying without ceasing," — 
 we thus extend the temper and principle of prayer 
 through the homely duties of every day. Therefore, let 
 
196 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 US not williugiy allow ourselves to rise from our knees 
 in deep devotion and contact with God, and then hin- 
 der Christ's abiding presence in us by evil temper, 
 rough words, selfish and unloving thoughts towards our 
 fellow-men. 
 
 (2) And Sacraments are the channels of His abiding 
 Presence. In a thousand ways He comes to us ; but 
 these are appointed means, where there is no doubt 
 He is. 
 
 Terribly is the tone of life injured when we only half 
 believe our Master's words, when first we ask, " How 
 can water, how can bread and wine, convey grace, or 
 be the channel of His Presence ? " and then decide 
 they are more or less appropriate reminders of His 
 Presence, and nothing more. 
 
 Brethren, we have passed out of Judaism, out of the 
 region of shadow and symbol, into full Christian 
 privilege, into the land of fact. Christ is with us — His 
 Presence, human and divine, is real, not imaginary, in 
 His Own sweet Sacrament. Kepentant and faithful, 
 be devout communicants, that " under the form of bread 
 and wine " ye may receive and abide in Christ. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Ah ! it is when we see life with eyes wide open that 
 this decision becomes to us serious and strengthening. 
 
PERSEVERANCE OF THE SOUL 197 
 
 Once we saw but the outside of things, now the real 
 vision. Man, with vast capacities of intellect and 
 heart, with a possible dignity and greatness all his own, 
 is placed in conditions which are not to be forgotten, 
 for they cannot be overstepped, but within the limits of 
 his being and his opportunity, he is able for great things, 
 either good or evil. Then there is human society, as it 
 is in itself ; (allowing, generously and thankfully, for all 
 great improvements, for a higher tone in public duty 
 and private life, for a more rooted respect, on the whole, 
 for the rights of others ;) still, still there is evident to 
 us — if in earnest we enter the battle, — beneath, and 
 sometimes above the common front of society — a vast 
 serried mass of the forces of evil. We see lives im- 
 poverished by discontent and rebellion, instead of 
 enriched by effort ; narrowed by selfishness, instead of 
 enlarged by sacrifice ; poverty in its hopeless depression, 
 vice in enslaving tyranny, wealth in its debasing self- 
 ishness — a vast, dense mass of foes, implacable, terrible, 
 through which a Christian has to cleave his way, and 
 which it is his business and calling to diminish and 
 destroy. And then how we shudder when we dare to 
 look within! — these darkened hearts of ours, these 
 treacherous wills, these self-deceiving sophistries, these 
 moral weaknesses, this love of ease, love of self, readi- 
 ness to find excuses, wavering efforts towards good, 
 brisk eagerness for evil. human heart, canst thou 
 take courage ? Yes, yes ; the thought that we are not 
 
198 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 alone, that there is Another's strength at our disposal, 
 that if we use it we stand ; that it we may use, and 
 use to effect and victory. This makes ns serious, 
 but it consoles and strengthens. Listen, in view of 
 the battle before you, listen to the Eedeemer's com- 
 mand, countersigned by His tremendous sacrifice — 
 " Abide in Me ! " 
 
 V. 
 
 Brethren, the very effort implied in obeying the com- 
 mand gives us courage, and stimulates our determination. 
 There are two lines of truth constantly traceable in 
 Divine Eevelation : these seem parallel and never-meet- 
 ing ; somewhere they meet, as yet we know not where ; 
 and among these, who has not felt the force of the state- 
 ments of Scripture, that on the one hand all depends 
 on God, on the other hand, all depends upon ourselves. 
 " Be not weary in well-doing ; " " Quit you like men ; " 
 " Fight the good fight ; " " He that endureth unto the 
 end the same shall be saved," this we hear on the 
 one hand. And then, on the other hand, " Who is suffi- 
 cient for these things ? " " Who art thou, man, that 
 repliest against God ? " " Without Me you can do 
 nothing ; " and so on. And these seem most nearly to 
 meet and touch in the sayings of St. Paul : " I can do 
 all things through Christ, that strengtheneth me ; " and 
 " Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 
 for it is God that worketh in you." 
 
PERSEVERANCE OF THE SOUL 199 
 
 Now it may at times seem attractive to minds 
 of different type to grasp the one side or the 
 other. Men have tried to construct a "practical 
 Christianity" out of moral precept, with an entire 
 ignoring of Divine grace, — at first attractive, at last 
 hollow. What seemed all right shadows off into 
 darkness ; a morality without Him Who is the source 
 and strength of moral obligation soon becomes an un- 
 real phrase; and at best in such systems, if life is 
 guided away from graver social pitfalls, if the sins 
 against the second table are on the whole avoided, the 
 soul is left sterile of the fairer flowers of goodness, if 
 not exposed to an easy violation of every precept of 
 duty to God. 
 
 Or again, men are tempted to ignore the plainest 
 teaching of Scripture on the duty of human effort, throw- 
 ing all aside in some foolish and inapplicable phrase 
 about " works :" hence so much unhappy unreality, 
 phrases about " believing and being saved " with no cor- 
 responding fulfilment of duty, no corresponding efforts 
 to obedience, a system fostering forced feeling and 
 self -deceiving conceit, often attacking, and generally 
 neglecting, such plain revelations and commands as 
 those which touch the very Sacraments of the Church 
 of Christ. Brethren, there are none of these short 
 cuts to salvation. " Salvation " is the purifying, elevat- 
 ing, training, completing the whole human character by 
 a union with Christ. The heart of faith can trust, and 
 
200 THE DECISION ON THE 
 
 in its measure know, that God is all, yet it itself must 
 struggle ; that Christ alone is Conqueror, yet that with- 
 out its own earnest strife it cannot share the victory ; 
 that God saves us, " not indeed by ourselves, but not 
 without ourselves ;'* that by grace we can do all things, 
 that without grace we can do nothing ; that Christ has 
 done all things for us, but yet we must not relax our 
 efforts. And so it is true that there is something 
 generous in the human heart, to which the appeal of 
 the Passion comes not in vain; it is true that our 
 Master claims of us that we shall do our utmost as He, 
 so nobly, has done His ; true that He wakens in us the 
 higher desires and motives that move to effort. Yes, 
 yes, we are stimulated by this at once appeal and 
 decision of the Passion — " Abide in Me." 
 
 VI. 
 
 Let us be up, then, and earnest. We are in a battle ; 
 if we fight not we shall be lost. The battle may be 
 serious, the world may sneer, the devil may tempt, our 
 treacherous hearts may betray— but Christ has died! 
 
 Take courage, then, you who have turned to Christ. 
 You cannot be a saint, because you are repentant, all 
 at once, this afternoon or to-morrow morning ; but you 
 can by grace persevere. 
 
 Abide in Christ by the patience that gives you 
 
PERSEVERANCE OF THE SOUL 201 
 
 possession of your soul ; by the gentleness through 
 which we "learn His way;" by the courage through 
 which, though falling, you " rise again ;" by the strength 
 which foretells God's comfort to the heart. Abide in 
 Christ by humility to which He " gives grace," by the 
 mercy to which is the promise of mercy from God, 
 by faithful prayer, by devout reception of Sacraments, 
 and, let me add, in crude but expressive language — by 
 " trying again." Ah ! forget not this : God will scarcely 
 blame because by the frailty of your nature you " cannot 
 always stand upright," but God — let me say it with 
 reverence — has a right to be angry with you, if you 
 will not cling to your Saviour, if you will not try 
 again. 
 
 I have done. Your time and mine will not have 
 been wasted if I shall have persuaded you to remem- 
 ber, that of all questions which may engage our at- 
 tention, not the least interesting are those that touch 
 Eternity ; that of all achievements worth desiring is the 
 advance of the soul in the science of goodness ; that of 
 all struggles worth engaging in is the struggle against 
 evil in every shape and form ; that of all ambitions 
 worth encouraging is the ambition ourselves to be better, 
 and to serve in making better the sad world which is 
 the scene of our probation ; that above all persons to 
 be loved is One to be adored and loved and trusted 
 supremely, and that is our crucified Master, Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
202 DECISION ON THE PERSE VERANCE OF THE SO UL 
 
 Blessed Master ! He is for all a power of persever- 
 ance, "mighty to save." A few more years, a few 
 more earnest efforts, a few more lieart-piercing separa- 
 tions, a few more prayers, a few more tears, and they 
 who have listened and obeyed the Decisions of the 
 Passion will find that by His merits and mercy there is 
 perfect fruition of perfect goodness, and a " rest that 
 remaineth for the people of God." 
 
3lesus anD tht Eesutrection. 
 
 '■ He preached tmto them Jesus and the resurrection^ — Acts xvil. i8. 
 
 HEEE was the subject, shortly stated, of St. Paul's 
 sermon, when he was alone at Athens ; and here 
 for every Christian, and for all time, is the entrancing 
 topic of Easter Day. On this day of days the heart 
 leaps in joy and welcome to our risen Lord. The 
 Christian in Holy Week, like St. John at the cross or 
 the Magdalene at the sepulchre, lingers in love and 
 longing round the crucified Kedeemer, — the Cross 
 means so much to him, so much more than he can 
 ever fully fathom, of teaching and revelation, of warn- 
 ing and hope, that he hardly cares to leave it ; but the 
 Cross itself with all its blessings takes — he knows full 
 well — its wealth of meaning from the news of Easter ; 
 and just in proportion as he has plunged into the 
 unmeasured sorrow, in that proportion he welcomes 
 the news of this glad morning, placing before him, 
 in the pregnant phrase of Scripture, "Jesus and the 
 Eesurrection." What in part — for the subject is in- 
 
204 ^£S[/S AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 exhaustible — what in part, at least, was involved in 
 the Athenian sermon of St. Paul ? 
 
 I. 
 
 Before that question is answered, we may glance at 
 the answer to another, because it applies so directly 
 to ourselves: What were some of the motives that 
 may well have moved the great missionary Apostle to 
 preach as he did ? 
 
 (1) Well, first, he of all men must have felt the 
 great capacities of the race whose heart and conscience 
 he tried to reach. He stood that day in what was, 
 without question, the intellectual capital of the world. 
 The men whom he addressed were the inheritors of 
 the best gifts of civilisation and culture which had been 
 given to man. True, then Greece was in her decline ; 
 but the audience before St. Paul were the children — 
 if the inferior children — of mighty fathers, and the 
 heirs and guardians of their splendid achievements. 
 Theirs was the race in which poetry and philosophy, 
 the highest powers of art and the greatest efforts of 
 thought and culture and imagination, had reached the 
 loftiest level yet known to man. Memories of great 
 success in art and original creation ran side by side 
 with memories of noble efforts in government and war, 
 dashed, indeed, by hideous blots of wickedness, but 
 conspicuous among men. 
 
JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 205 
 
 From their restless intellects came the wisest specu- 
 lations on truth and life ; from their rich imaginations 
 the most powerful poetry ; from their independent 
 spirits the fairest dreams of liberty ; from their deft 
 hands the most perfect expressions of artistic beauty. 
 It was to them that the world owed the successful 
 efforts that hurled back the tides of barbaric invasion ; 
 to them was due the plastic tongue, framed to ex- 
 press the most delicate shades of human feeling and 
 the most subtle speculations of human thought, and 
 which itself was the appointed vehicle by which the 
 fulness of God's final revelation was conveyed to man. 
 
 And this was but a symbol of the unmeasured 
 capacity of man for entering into the highest things ; for 
 certainly then, and then only, can a religious teacher 
 really throw himself with hope and heart into his work, 
 when he feels himself touched and illuminated by the 
 thought of man's immense capacity for a progress so far- 
 reaching that it knows no limits but the undreamed-of 
 advance of Eternity. 
 
 (2) And the Apostle must have felt that the capaci- 
 ties of his hearers, however great, were not greater than 
 the need they had for what he had to tell. 
 
 Standing alone in that city of unrivalled beauty and 
 undying memories, the soul of the Christian preacher 
 was stirred within him at a scene of heart-piercing 
 idolatry. Beneath the outer spectacle of restless move- 
 ment, unsatisfying speculation, luxurious pleasure- 
 
2o6 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 seeking, aimless toil, the eye of the Apostle detected 
 almost unhindered forces of evil and a miserable 
 scene of deepening corruption. No brilliance of outer 
 effect could conceal from him the saddening realities, 
 pride and envy, laziness and selfishness, cruelty refined 
 and inhuman, lust unbridled and degrading — man, 
 miserable man, with all his wealth of mental capability, 
 and the accumulated results of a high civilisation, the 
 mere sport and plaything and willing slave of the 
 "principalities and powers," the organised and ener- 
 getic forces of an army of evil arrayed in apparently 
 resistless hatred against his highest hopes. 
 
 (3) And if the Apostle felt this, another motive 
 worked within him. He, too, had been a slave, bound 
 in darkness and in the shadow of death ; he, too, had 
 been wasting his power on what profited not, and 
 needing sorely a deliverer — and a deliverer had come. 
 In the vision on the Damascus road he had seen the 
 face of the Son of Man, seen the beauty and glory of 
 incarnate goodness, seen and loved, and been delivered ; 
 he " owed " it to others, that they should know and share 
 that blessedness ; he owed it to his beloved Master that 
 he should do His work and advance His kingdom ; he 
 was goaded by the charities of a spirit of service, and 
 stung into activity by the force of a great devotion. 
 The men before him were capable of the highest things, 
 were in need, sore need, to be delivered and saved. 
 One only could do it. One only could save and satisfy, 
 
JESUS AND THE RESUJ^RECTION 207 
 
 could arouse and lift them. " He preached unto them 
 Jesus and the Kesurrection." 
 
 Brethren, this is worth remembering on Easter Day : 
 human hearts and souls have capacities beyond mere 
 earthly toiling ; we too are creatures of Eternity, and 
 hope for glory. We also are buried too often in sin 
 and darkness, slaves of Evil, slaves of ourselves ; we 
 too need deliverance. None can save us but One, and 
 He can save ; can free us from sin, can rescue us from 
 Death the Destroyer, can open to us a new life on 
 earth of thought and feeling and effort, can bid us look 
 in hope and rejoicing beyond the gates of the grave. 
 Never, never for us is not needed the thrilling story 
 of Easter Day — " Jesus and the Kesurrection." 
 
 II. 
 
 " He preached unto them Jesus and the Eesurrec- 
 tion." There were two divisions in the apostolic 
 sermon. In fact, it was one subject, but it is evident 
 that the preacher was emphatic in his division, because 
 his less intelligent or less earnest hearers went 
 away with the startling misconception that "the 
 Eesurrection " was one of their many phantoms of 
 Divinity, a separate God. 
 
 In reality, the emphasis laid on the two arms of 
 the discourse was to bring out — as it did to the " men 
 of good- will " — the essential truth, without which the 
 preaching of Jesus would have been " in vain." 
 
208 yESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 What, then, was involved in the "preaching of 
 Jesus"? 
 
 To preach a person is strange and startling, hut it 
 is, in fact, the crucial difference between Christianity 
 and all the false religions that have been in compe- 
 tition with it for the allegiance of men. To preach 
 Christianity is to preach a Person and a Life. 
 
 Let us look at it swiftly in detail : — 
 
 (1) To preach Jesus is to preach the story of a 
 strange and simple career. 
 
 A child is born under extraordinary circumstances, 
 and in a remote corner of the world. Of his early 
 days little is known but some scattered incidents — some 
 relating to matters close to his birth-time, some to his 
 early boyhood. He lives in extreme obscurity in an 
 insignificant village, apparently busied in his foster- 
 father's trade, surrounded by not wholly sympathetic 
 relations, with the exception of his mother, who notes 
 and ponders over striking peculiarities, apparently 
 unthought of by the rest. In early manhood, after 
 some thirty years, he emerges from obscurity, is singled 
 out by a popular missionary and ascetic as the Messiah 
 foretold in Jewish prophecy, undergoes severe tempta- 
 tions, and begins a course of teaching, marked by signs 
 and wonders of mercy and goodness, which attract the 
 notice of his country, and which lasts over some three 
 years. 
 
 He attaches to himself some devoted adherents, 
 
JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 209 
 
 touclies and wins the hearts of the simple people, 
 reforms in an astonishing manner some worldly and 
 some abandoned characters, excites by his fearless 
 denunciation of their sins the implacable hatred of 
 people in place and authority, and is by their machina- 
 tions brought to a cruel and degrading death. 
 
 With all this, he founds a society, which since has 
 altered the history of the civilised world ; and by 
 some of the best, and thousands of unknown men, 
 he is looked upon as the one hope of humanity, and 
 is loved at this distance of time with a passionate 
 affection, which affects perpetually the course of every 
 department of activity in the strongest races of the 
 world. Such, in scanty outline, is the story of Jesus. 
 
 (2) That life was marked by extraordinary teaching. 
 It dealt with the relation of man to God. On this it 
 threw fresh light, brought out into distinctness all that 
 had been before half lost in shadow, gave soul and 
 meaning to long records of revelation, infused reality 
 into what had seemed mere form, or had been treated 
 as commonplace and customary — above all, made two 
 things emphatically clear : the love of God, and the 
 dreadfulness in itself, and in its consequences, of 
 human sin. This teaching lifted a veil from the eter- 
 nal world, showed man much of his dignity and his 
 destiny, showed him this life as of real value, because 
 a state of probation, because the arena for deciding his 
 place in another, because, in fact, having its true mean- 
 
 
 
2IO JESUS AND THE /RESURRECTION 
 
 ing only then to be grasped when viewed in relation 
 to Eternity. 
 
 He taught, therefore, the dignity and seriousness of 
 life in all its conditions, the value of each soul, the 
 brotherhood of man, the beauty and value of service 
 to one another, and the law which fulfils all God's com- 
 mandments — the law of Love — and as guide in all, 
 fulfilment of all that ever had been revealed, the 
 one power by which the chasm between Creator and 
 creature could be bridged, — he pointed unflinchingly to 
 Himself. 
 
 (3) And his teaching was illustrated by his life, and 
 emphasised for all men by his example. He was meek 
 and gentle beyond all words to picture, yet energetic 
 and severe in his denunciation of evil; homely and 
 kind to common people, attractive and sympathetic 
 to young men, winning to little children, able and 
 tender in reclaiming covetous and weak men, and lost 
 and abandoned women; not proud in neglecting the 
 lowly, neither subservient nor neglectful to the rich 
 and great ; fearless in condemning popular corruption ; 
 courageous in affronting bad public opinion ; never 
 courting danger, and never — when duty demanded — 
 shunning it, and leaving behind an impression of 
 the loftiest aim and the sublimest virtue wedded to 
 a scrupulous regard for minutest duties in practical 
 common life. 
 
 (4) And his place and work he boldly proclaimed 
 
JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 211 
 
 as eternal. He asserted the unbeginning and un- 
 ending character of his mission and his nature, his 
 unchanging oneness with his Father, his power, as head 
 of the human family, to win for it its restoration to 
 goodness from evil ; claimed to send the Spirit of Life 
 into the souls of men ; required for himself entire 
 devotion, and nothing short of worship ; gave himself 
 out as having power to destroy death and deliver 
 from its terrors ; placed himself before men as perfect 
 man and yet eternal God, the Saviour, the Eedeemer, 
 the friend, the shepherd, the truth, the way, the life, 
 the inward gift needed — sorely needed — by fallen and 
 ruined creatures, and finally the judge, to whom, in his 
 human character, was committed the throne of judg- 
 ment and the final decision on the eternal place of every 
 human soul. And this he said he would ratify and 
 prove before the minds of all who would open their 
 eyes to see, by himself dying, and by rising from the 
 dead. 
 
 III. 
 
 And all this would have had little more significance 
 than the charm of a beautiful dream, but for something 
 more — and that something was the fulfilment of his 
 final promise, the fact of his resurrection. A great 
 memory is indeed, for a time, a great heritage ; but it, 
 if only a memory, has limits to its influence. Men 
 
212 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 strangely forget ; the best and wisest must be prepared 
 to be forgotten. So swift, so inexorably cruel is Time, 
 like an advancing tide it soon obliterates the sharpest 
 footprints, when only laid on the sea-beach of a mortal 
 life. The leaves which make a glory of the forest linger 
 on in russet and gold in the bare and chilly groves of 
 autumn ; fly fewer and less beautiful before the winds 
 of winter, and scarcely leave a vestige in the coming 
 spring. No good work is wholly lost ; but mere human 
 effort is at best but partially powerful, and increasingly 
 fades, when once its energetic worker has submitted to 
 the fate that waits for all of us, and passes into the 
 chambers of the grave. 
 
 If that splendid life, that wonderful work, that un- 
 rivalled example, that powerful teaching, that Person, 
 unlike all others ever known or dreamed of, was to 
 live, not only as it has lived, in the heart's passionate 
 affections for generation after generation of men ; but 
 to prevail in reversing the lines of human ruin, and 
 have power to change and glorify a fallen race — then, 
 then it must be true to its awful promise ; it must be 
 instinct with an unending life ; it must conquer death, 
 and assert itself undying. Christ has kept His promise, 
 " Christ is risen" — that is the joy of Easter ; the 
 Eisen Jesus, He is the Saviour of His people. " He 
 preached unto them Jesus and the Resurrectiony 
 
JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 213 
 
 IV. 
 
 And, indeed, how natural to the human soul, in the 
 highest meaning of natural desire, is this thought of 
 Eesurrection. The heart shudders at the hint of 
 annihilation ; it is settled and firm in its belief in life. 
 However awful the dread teachings as to the things of 
 this age — closing in acceptance and success on the one 
 hand, in failure and punishment on the other ; however 
 unsearchable the depth of mystery in the dim strange 
 future down which in moments of thought and wonder 
 we peer, and peer in vain ; however tremendous the 
 idea of an individual never-ending life ; however be- 
 wildering the experience of the startling intermixture of 
 good and evil in every society, in every character ; how- 
 ever humbling the knowledge of our own perpetual 
 liability to error, of our own only partial and fitful 
 awakening, in our better moments, to real fact; how- 
 ever saddening our sense of the severity of effort we have 
 needed for any success, however trifling ; of our own 
 hidden burthens — hidden often from ourselves— of sin 
 and shame, of failure and defeat ; however bewildering 
 our ignorance of that awful future before us ; however 
 arrested we are in headlong speculation by definite 
 statement, severe and searching, followed by dim allu- 
 sions, raising our hopes, then flitting by us like a dream 
 — however, in fact, life does appear — must appear — a 
 very serious, at times an awful, business — still the 
 
214 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 heart persists in a sense of life, and rises to the thought 
 of Eesurrection. The night is endurable, because we 
 hope for a morning ; the bud is attractive, because it 
 foretells the flower ; the autumn day is sad, but not 
 all depressing, because spring still will live again ; 
 sleep is moving and pathetic, not full of despondency, 
 because it tells of waking ; the child is full of interest, 
 because he is the " father of the man." Death is 
 something more than heart-breaking and disastrous, 
 because death itself whispers of the life of Eesurrec- 
 tion. 
 
 " Whispers !" Yes ; for long and long had men's 
 hearts heard that whisper. They lived, indeed, in a 
 twilight land ; they could not read the facts of life 
 in light as we can. At times so dark the dream, so 
 thick the veil, the frail hope dwindled down to veriest 
 shadow ; their immortal nature refused to accept 
 mortality, and yet there was for them no certainty that 
 life would triumph. Many a truth came home to 
 them at times, in heart, and brain, and conscience, truth 
 — let us remember, as always is with any truth, — the 
 gift of God. The obstinately upward-looking eye, the 
 sense of boundless capacity of growth, the too plain 
 evidence of the beauty of justice, and yet its wide 
 defeat in this low world, the indestructible sense of the 
 lonely self, the individual, responsible, indivisible soul 
 — these truths were forcing themselves fitfully on man, 
 and with them the sense of his immortality ; but to 
 
JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 215 
 
 bring the whole thing " to light by the Gospel " — for 
 this Jesus must keep His promise ; this, this was the 
 work and office of Jesus Christ. 
 
 He shadowed out the glorious truth, indeed, in a 
 thousand ways. The teachings He gave, in their beauty, 
 in their terrible severity, in the length they went, and 
 in the mysterious pauses they made, shrouding and 
 concealing, as well as bringing into light, many things 
 desired by man, — all, all pointed to a life beyond the 
 grave. Further, the pri7iciples He laid down and lived, 
 principles severe yet beautiful, leading not only to the 
 enthronement of goodness, but to the need for aiming 
 at absolute perfection — these also implied a life beyond 
 this life of sense and failure, so inadequate to their full 
 effect. But man needed more, and Christ gave it. 
 
 Man needed, and Christ did not deny him, the evi- 
 dence, the comfort, the support of an unequivocal fact. 
 Jesus rose from the dead on that first Easter Day. Men 
 have been tempted to declare that if indeed the Eesur- 
 rection was to be, then it would have been a public event 
 of indisputable certainty ; and then they have gone on 
 to declare that because it took place in a corner of the 
 world, and before one or two, and these a comparative 
 few, and not on the Palatine, or before the eyes of the 
 assembled thousands of Eoman greatness, that there- 
 fore it was not. Men with the spirit of Voltaire have 
 mocked at Christianity on such grounds as these ; but 
 mockery is the child of ignorance and vanity ; and 
 
2i6 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 there is no vanity so keen as the vanity of our know- 
 ledge, no ignorance so deep as not to know the depth 
 of our ignorance. 
 
 V. 
 
 But besides this, for a loving heart and submissive 
 will, there is ample evidence of the Eesurrection. 
 Men forget, when they talk of " indisputable evidence " 
 in matters of religion, that in view of our state of 
 probation, in view of our blinding self-conceit, in view 
 of the warp of evil in us, in view of the corruption of 
 our hearts, the seducing power of our passions, the dis- 
 honesties and treacheries of our wills, such evidence is 
 not to be had ; and besides that, to talk of demonstra- 
 tion in things of Eternity is, by the nature of the case, 
 to demand the impossible, as faith implies a venture, 
 and man ceases to be a moral being if his acceptance 
 of truth be forced. 
 
 Jesus Christ rose from the dead. He was seen first 
 by one, then by another, then by companies of a few, 
 then by five hundred at once ; with closed doors, and 
 room secured against physical intrusion. He made 
 Himself present to sight and touch, revealing the 
 beauty and mystery of a " spiritual body," showing at 
 once the objective reality of another world. His Own 
 permanent power of help and blessing. His Own as- 
 serted and assured lordship over the grave. 
 
JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 217 
 
 " Jesus and the Eesurrection." Yes ; this rising 
 crowned and completed that life of blessing. The 
 Eisen Jesus henceforth was the object of apostolic 
 teaching ; it was the refrain sounding throughout the 
 apostoKc proclamation of the Gospel. The bare 
 thought of a beautiful human life, leaving a thin 
 though fragrant example, and simply vanishing like 
 all good men in the grave, would have been to the 
 Apostle insupportable. He boldly stakes the truth of 
 Christianity on the fact of Easter Day. Without that, 
 he feels that the whole thing is an empty dream and 
 useless delusion, missing its pith and core, its nerve and 
 fibre, its invigorating energy and supporting strength. 
 He cannot " preach Jesus," unless it is " Jesus and the 
 Eesurrection." 
 
 VI. 
 
 To this St. Paul owed, and knew that he owed, an 
 elevation of his whole being. There was an elevation 
 of conscience, which made it not only what it 
 probably was always in him, strong, but also sensi- 
 tive, and, above all, clean. To this also an elevation 
 of will, which placed him poles asunder from the 
 weakness of obstinacy, but a master in the strength 
 of firmness ; and hence came at once the deepening of 
 his already vast gift of sympathy and a lofty growth 
 of moral courage. 
 
2i8 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 But, further, there was an elevation of spiritual 
 insight. He had won that clear and penetrating glance 
 of the soul, by which a man sees the value, the in- 
 calculable value and splendour, of spiritual things. 
 " We look " — was his own description of the habitual 
 gaze of the sincere Christian ; " the scope of our vision 
 is not the things seen, which are temporal, but 
 the things not seen, which are eternal." Hence, 
 therefore, his power, hence all power, to see the fron- 
 tier at which the really sensible and wise dicta of the 
 human mind on truths and duties shade into the 
 foolish and wicked decisions of a " world " which 
 limits its maxims and judgments to the treatment of 
 things, with God left out of the reckoning. Hence 
 also his quick and sensitive touch, by which he felt the 
 greatness of the dignity and destiny of man, by which 
 he loved and honoured what was truly human, while 
 in the literal sense abhorring what was — however 
 specious in its beauty — the mere offshoot or product of 
 human sin. Hence, further, his complete impervious- 
 ness to persecution. It had power, indeed, to hurt, but 
 never to harm him ; it might try and worry him ; it could 
 never enervate — as a matter of fact, it only strength- 
 ened. Hence, finally, his ever-increasing capacity for 
 sacrifice, that noble science of a rich and fertilising 
 life, full of pain, dark with apparent disaster, but ever 
 making clearer the rugged path — and ever lending 
 strength to tread it — which leads to final victory. 
 
JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 219 
 
 Why ? Do you ask why ? Because there is but one 
 power which, if genuine and vigorous, can brace human 
 life, can turn darkness into light, can make the weak in 
 the long-run strong, can banish fear, and give balance 
 to the capacities of the soul — and that power — need I 
 say it ? — is love — love, not for a blessed memory, how- 
 ever blessed, but love for a living, an honoured, and a 
 faithful Friend. To Him his living Master was an 
 ever-present source of heroic goodness ; he had grasped 
 with passionate love and constancy "Jesus and the 
 Kesurrection." 
 
 VII. 
 
 Brethren, on this day of worship, the day conse- 
 crated indeed to self-forgetting praise of Christ, let us 
 — but only that the better we may worship — let us 
 turn for a moment towards ourselves. 
 
 What is my Lord in this aspect of His being, what is 
 " Jesus and the Eesurrection," to me ? 
 
 (1) Well, first, dear friends, here we have a sure 
 foothold to which we may cling in a world of chance 
 and change. How circumstances are changing around 
 us it is a mere truism to say. Not faster do the shadows 
 chase the sun, and the sun the shadows, over the 
 breezy moorland on an April day, than prosperity and 
 adversity, success and disappointment, health and sick- 
 ness, delight and sorrow, pursue each other with sweep- 
 
220 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 iiig swiftness across the area of our mortal life ; and 
 not only do outward things bear in upon us a sense 
 of instability, but we ourselves are all too conscious of 
 perpetual change. Moods of mind, like successive 
 groups of kaleidoscopic colour, come tossing over the 
 soul ; how and why and Vhence they come at times we 
 can hardly guess, much less explain — but there they are, 
 and with them life itself seems changing. The sunlight 
 melts away, and leaves a sudden dripping gloom ; and 
 the air that bore the scent of spring flowers seems redolent 
 with a message of decay. We stand apart, and view 
 ourselves with mute dismay : once so eager, vigorous, 
 ready, active, fearless, self-restraining, strong ; and now 
 — dire disappointment of our high expectations ! — is 
 this possible, this change ? True, we may by no means 
 be victims to changing tempers ; we may stand aside, and 
 hold our own in spite of them — this indeed is the duty 
 of moral principle, but — obey or neglect them — still, in 
 their bewildering uncertainties, there they are. 
 
 And then come interior trials of change — deep-seated, 
 piercing — doubts and difficulties, hesitations and startling 
 discoveries in our own spiritual being, big with dis- 
 turbance and fear. Hence temptation ; " Change upon 
 change," we say ; " can I be sure of anything ? So 
 certain was I of this, and now I am only certain of my 
 own uncertainties ; where now do I stand ? " And then 
 deep changes in the nearest things of life : death of 
 strong hopes, death of long-cherished schemes, death of 
 
JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 221 
 
 old affections, death — in its literal sense of agonising 
 painfulness — of those we love. It is then, then, that 
 the child of God finds rest in Eevelation. " I will never 
 leave thee nor forsake thee," for " I am He that liveth 
 and was dead ; " then, amidst the shrouds of darkness, 
 we cling to the " strong Son of God," " the Lord of 
 Life." In times when depressing sense of change is 
 upon us we may have, my friends, foothold sure and 
 firm by our faith in " Jesus and the Kesurrection." 
 
 (2) And again, here we may find a moral example, 
 and something more — a moral influence and ideal. 
 
 We all are creatures of influence ; in some measure we 
 wield it, in some measure also we feel and submit to 
 its touch. Some more, some less, are its disciples or 
 victims, but certainly it is an outcome of the law of 
 Solidarity in the human family that we do influence 
 one another. And every life also has some ideal ; con- 
 sciously or unconsciously we are making for some 
 object which determines our direction and our course. 
 For the Christian both are supplied by the Living Jesus 
 in His ever-present fellowship. Here, indeed, is an 
 ideal image of goodness, a picture ever near to correct 
 our own low aims and pitiful mistakes, a model of 
 how the soul must advance, through toil and sorrow, and 
 self-crucifixion and death of old desires and purposes, 
 to the pure clear atmosphere of a risen life. Here too 
 is a moral influence. On every soul that will endure it 
 there passes as from friend to friend the mysterious 
 
222 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 influence of that risen life, — the same as ever in its 
 power of principle, loyalty to duty, allegiance to truth, 
 sense of the importance of the present, constant, loving, 
 serious contact with the Unseen — the same, but 
 crowned with the glory of asserted life and victory over 
 the grave. 
 
 (3) And here, too, we may find a spiritual power. 
 Not more certain are we of the calamity of change — of 
 our yearning for a high ideal, of our longing for some 
 moral influence — than we are of our pitiful weakness, 
 and our need of a sustaining force. That there is such 
 a power is at once the experience of Christians and the 
 assurance of the Word of God. Great powers, indeed, 
 are needed to discover the laws of thought, or the laws 
 of a material universe — great powers to utilise both for 
 the improvement of invention and the service of man's 
 material life. Great indeed are the powers exerted by 
 a Bacon, a Galileo, a Newton, a Watt — but power im- 
 measurably greater is needed, and of that the guarantee 
 and source is the Eisen Jesus. 
 
 What power is equal to the task of bending and 
 reforming the stricken and corrupted human will? 
 what can grapple with the obstinacy and hardness 
 of human hearts shut against goodness and truth? 
 None indeed here can force, for then man would cease 
 to be a moral being ; but there is a power by which 
 the hardest may be softened, the weakest strengthened, 
 the worst reformed. There is the power of grace ; and 
 
JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 223 
 
 it is the Eisen Jesus, the Head and Kepresentative of 
 our humanity, Who indeed is He Who has won and He 
 Who stores for us the blessing — the rich and unspeak- 
 able blessing — of the grace of God. 
 
 weary soul, finding it hard to bear thy burden ; 
 repentant soul, finding the weight of thy load of sin ; 
 loving soul, sorrowing for the failure and suffering 
 of others — take courage ; take courage. God's grace is 
 a power, if sought, to be used with confidence, — given, 
 given to those who earnestly desire it — God's grace, 
 which will melt the hard and console the weary, and 
 bring back the wandering ; this, this is thy possession 
 in the person of the living Christ. 
 
 (4) And here, too, we have the assurance of a glo- 
 rious Presence and a living Friend, — One, too. Who 
 calls out the highest feelings of the soul of any of us 
 — reverence and love. We bow before Him, the Holy, 
 the Blessed, recognising real greatness in that lowly 
 life which is yet the conqueror of the grave. Ah ! 
 if our love is guarded by reverence, our reverence is 
 illuminated by love; for here is not only the awful 
 presence of the Conqueror, here also is the dear and 
 consoling tenderness of the Friend. 
 
 For indeed it is with a sense of trust and dependence, 
 wakened only by a powerful friend, that the soul flies 
 to the living Jesus. Did He represent Himself while 
 on earth as the "Light of the world"? He is the same 
 now, with the added glory of His risen life. Did He 
 
224 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 teach us to think of Him as "the Good Shepherd," 
 loving His creatures indeed, but with no merely wide 
 and general philanthropy, rather with an individual 
 tenderness, knowing and loving us one by one, leading 
 us in danger, guiding us in perplexity ? The resurrec- 
 tion life assures us of the permanence of that character, 
 with a love beautiful, inextinguishable, and near to us 
 all. Did He on earth tend the sick and sustain the 
 sorrow-laden ? Did His boundless pity stretch where 
 man's tenderness could give no help or comfort ? Did 
 He feel for all trials in all situations ? The Eesurrec- 
 tion assures us that He is the same now, living, and 
 once dead, and living the same for evermore. 
 
 Brethren, in moments of suffering and sorrow; in 
 those moments, all too common, when the poor human 
 spirit feels itself standing alone, what it needs is the 
 assurance of sympathy, more even than the assurance 
 of help. How often and often in the lonely chamber, on 
 the unsheltered moorland, in the dim-lighted church, or 
 out on the open sea ; how often and often, in all degrees 
 and kinds of unspoken trouble, has the weary, anxious 
 working man, the half-fed little child, grown almost 
 patient through suffering, the old woman, worn out 
 with a toiling life, the lady of fashion, more worn with 
 a life of unsatisfying idleness or corrupting vanity, the 
 father in anxiety for his boy, the sailor dreaming of 
 friends at home, the dying lad, with earth and life 
 growing momentarily dimmer, and death gripping tighter 
 
JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 225 
 
 with his cruel grasp ; how often — oh, how often ! — in 
 the dreary night, or the oppressive day, have souls 
 too laden with the burden of life found the one sweet 
 solace in a cry of penitence, of longing, of trouble, to 
 the heart of the loving, living Christ ! 
 
 Let us — oh let us remember it ! — Christ is alive and 
 near us ; and if we cry to Him in faith and longing, 
 indeed we shall not cry in vain. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 To-day, then, is a day of joy. Boundless and exqui- 
 site, indeed, was the joy of the Crucified on that first 
 Easter Day. There was the brightness of morning after 
 the darkness of the grave ; the sense of freedom after 
 the oppression of sin's clutch in the Agony and the 
 Dereliction ; the full delight of victory over death and 
 him who had the power of it — not for His Own sake, 
 but for the sake of us whom He does not disdain to 
 call His brethren. 
 
 Dear Lord ! Let us in faith and thankfulness enter 
 into His joy, for indeed He is in this, as in all things, 
 our Kepresentative, and our own. In union with Him, 
 death's terrors cannot hurt us ; life, and immortality, 
 and hope are ours from " Jesus and the Eesurrection." 
 
226 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 IX. 
 
 There is much in religion tinged with pain, much also 
 lying in the deepest shadow ; but some things are so 
 clear that we can grasp them, some also of unblemished 
 joy. This is one. " Christ is risen." Eising, He has 
 conquered death, and we may in faith be glad with 
 Him, for in Him we may be " more than conquerors,' 
 and He lives to help us to victory. 
 
 In this age, more than any other, perhaps, since 
 the crash of the Eoman Empire, there are many 
 grounds of despondency. Social problems gain in- 
 creased perplexity ; old landmarks are lost ; the scorner 
 in mockery, the philosopher with stoical calm, the 
 bewildered and faithless in despair, are prepared to 
 abandon the one Faith which has bettered man, and 
 been worthy of the intimations within him and with- 
 out him of his greatness and his fall. The young, the 
 weak, the struggling, who with pure heart and simple 
 purpose desire to use the great gift of life for worthy 
 ends — want, above all, to rise more and more in their 
 love of goodness, and hope of its victory ; and before 
 them stands on Easter Day the reassuring fact — the 
 Eesurrection — as the crown of self-devoted struggle ; 
 before them stands Jesus, living, loving. Who was dead. 
 
 Cling, brothers, cling to the hope set before you 
 Live on the model of His rising, live by the strength it 
 gives, live with your heart and lips hailing the Con- 
 
JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION 227 
 
 queror by Whose abiding presence you may conquer 
 too. Hail Him as your Master, hail Him as your 
 Kedeemer, hail Him with the heart's devotion your 
 unfailing Hope, your unflagging Friend. 
 
 Hail ! for Thee the years unnumbered 
 Bring their gifts of deepening joy; 
 
 Life that in the grave once slumbered 
 Now no foeman can destroy. 
 
 Hail ! for once in Bethlehem's manger 
 
 Thou hadst lain a helpless Child, 
 Lonely, 'midst Thine Own a stranger, 
 
 Scorned, rejected, and reviled. 
 
 Hail ! for once in Crucifixion, 
 
 Body bent in death's sad doom. 
 Cramped in pain's severe restriction. 
 
 Soul passed portals of the tomb ; 
 
 Passed beneath them, swept above them, 
 Conqu'ror, Death before Thee fled ; 
 
 Now souls live, for Thou hast loved them ; 
 Hail ! great Life, that once wast dead. 
 
 Ave, Caesar ! moaned the dying, 
 Doomed by him they hailed to die ; 
 
 Ave, Christ ! the souls low lying 
 To a King Who saves them cry. 
 
 Easter morning breaks in glory ; 
 
 Hope for man need never fail. 
 Cry, true hearts who read this storj^ 
 
 Living Jesus, hail ! all hail ! 
 
 I, riinr' "^Jtuai,^ 
 
 orrnt 
 
PRINTED BY T. AND A, CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY, 
 AT THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
 
2i Selection 
 
 from tf)e 
 
 IRecent ip^ublications 
 
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 Materloo place, pall /iDall 
 Xon^on 
 
rivington's select list. 
 
 Mozley's Parochial and Occasional 
 Sermons. 
 
 Crown Zvo. -js. 6d. 
 
 Sermons, Parochial and Occasional. 
 By J. B. Mozley, D.D., 
 
 Late Canon of Christ Church, and Reguis Professor of Divinity in the 
 University of Oxford. 
 
 Contents. 
 The Right Eye and the Right Hand — Temptation treated as 
 Opportunity — The Influences of Habit on Devotion — 
 Thought for the Morrow — The Relief of Utterance— Seeking 
 a Sign — David Numbering the People — The Heroism of 
 Faith — Proverbs — The Teaching of Events — Growing Worse 
 — Our Lord the Sacrifice for Sin— The Parable of the Sower 
 — The Religious Enjoyment of Nature — The Threefold Office 
 of the Holy Spirit — Wisdom and Folly Tested by Experience 
 — Moses, a Leader — The Unjust Steward — Sowing to the 
 Spirit— True Religion, a Manifestation— S. Paul's Exaltation 
 of Labour — Jeremiah's Witness against Idolatry — Isaiah's 
 Estimate of Worldly Greatness— The Shortness of Life— The 
 Endless State of Being — The Witness of the Apostles— Life 
 a Probation— Christian Mysteries, the Common Heritage— 
 Our Lord's Hour— Fear — The Educating Power of Strong 
 Impressions — The Secret Justice of Temporal Providence- 
 Jacob as a Prince Prevailing with God. 
 
 Mozley's Essays. 
 
 Two Vols. Zvo. 2\s. 
 
 Essays, Historical and Theological. 
 By J. B. Mozley, D.D., 
 
 Late Canon of Christ Church, and Regius Professor of Divinity in the 
 University of Oxford. 
 
 CTontents. 
 
 Volume I. — Introduction and Memoir of the Author — Lord Straf- 
 ford — Archbishop Laud — Carlyle's Cromwell — Luther. 
 
 Volume II. — Dr. Arnold — Blanco White— Dr. Pusey's Sermon — 
 The Book of Job— Maurice's Theological Essays — Indian 
 Conversion— The Argument of Design — The Principle of 
 Causation considered in Opposition to Atheistic Theories— 
 In Memoriam — The Author's Articles and Works. 
 
 CjKaterloo Jplace, JLonOon. 
 
4 RIVINGTON^S SELECT LIST 
 
 Practical Reflections on the Gospels. 
 
 Second Ediiion. Crown Svo. 4s. 6d. 
 
 Practical Reflections on every Verse of the Holy 
 Gospels. 
 
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 With a Preface by H. P. Liddon, D.D., 
 
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 " We cannot speak too highly of own daily life and conversation. For 
 
 this useful volume. It is a work of the sick and infirm, for such as are un- 
 
 liltle pretence and of great merit. . . . able to read the Gospels with fixed pur- 
 
 Rather the reflections serve to deepen pose for any length of time, or for busy 
 
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 Gospels will have awakened in niedi- ed ; while to the preacher, the school 
 
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 purpose of such readers of the Bible as Holy Scripture in their family devo- 
 
 wish to be assisted in drawing infer- tions, it will prove to be of no incon- 
 
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 Liddon's Elements of Religion. 
 
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 Some Elements of Religion. Lent Lectures. 
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 Mozley on the Old Testament. 
 
 Secojid Edition. Svo. los. 6d. 
 
 Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, and their Relation 
 TO Old Testament Faith. Lectures delivered to 
 Graduates of the University of Oxford. 
 
 By J. B. Mozley, D.D., 
 
 Late Canon of Christ Chitrch, and Resists Professor of Divinity in the 
 University of Oxford. 
 
 Contents. 
 Abraham— Sacrifice of Isaac— Human Sacrifices— Exterminating 
 Wars — Visitations of the sins of Faihers upon Children — Jael 
 — Connection of Jael's Act with the Morality of her Age — 
 Law of Retaliation — Retaliation Law of Goel — The End the 
 Test of a Progressive Revelation — The Manichaeans and the 
 Jewish Fathers. 
 
 CCIatcrloo J^Iace, 3(Loniion 
 
OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Aids to the Inner Life. 
 
 22ffio, cloth limp, td. each ; or cloth extra, is. each. 
 These Five Volumes, cloth extra, may be had in a Box, price 74. 
 
 Aids to the Inner Life. 
 Edited by the Rev. W. H. Hutchings, M.A., 
 
 Sub'Warden of the Hotise of Mercy, Cletuer. 
 
 These books form a Series of works provided for the use 
 of members of the English Church. The process of adapta- 
 tion is not left to the reader, but has been undertaken with 
 the view of bringing every expression, as far as possible, into 
 harmony with the Book of Common Prayer and Anglican 
 Divinity. 
 
 OF THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. In Four Books. 
 By Thomas a Kempis. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. Thoughts in Verse for the 
 Sundays and Holy Days throughout the Year. 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE DEVOUT LIFE. From 
 the French of S. FRANCIS DE Sales, Bishop and 
 Prince of Geneva. 
 
 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SOUL. From the 
 French of Jean Nicolas Grou. 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL COMBAT. Together with the Supple- 
 ment and the Path of Paradise. By Laurence Scu- 
 
 POLI. 
 
 "We heartily wish success to this convenient for common use. The 
 important series, and trust it may com- price at which the volumes are pro- 
 mand an extensive sale. We are much duced is marvellously low. It may be 
 struck, not only by the excellent hoped that a large circulation will 
 manner in which the design has been secure from loss those who have under- 
 carried out in the Translations them- taken this scheme for diffusing far and 
 selves, but also by the way in which wide such valuable means of advancing 
 Messrs. Rivington have done their anddeepening, after so high a standard, 
 part. The type and size of the volumes the spiritual life." — Literary Church- 
 are precisely what will be found most 77ia)i. 
 
 Lyra Apostolica. 
 
 New and Revised Editio?t, with red borders, r^tno. zs. 6d. 
 
 Lyra Apostolica. [Poems by J. W. Bowden, R. H. 
 Froude, J. Keble, J. H. Newman, R. J. Wilberforce, 
 and I. Williams ; and a New Preface by Cardinal 
 Newman.] 
 
 ©Waterloo place, ILonDon. 
 
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 Goulburn's Collects of the Day. 
 
 Second Edition. Two Vols. Cro%vn Svo. i6s. 
 
 The Collects of the Day : an Exposition, Critical, and 
 Devotional, of the Collects appointedat the Communion. 
 With Preliminary Essays on their Structure, Sources, 
 and General Character, and Appendices containing 
 Expositions of the Discarded Collects of the First 
 Prayer Book of 1549, and of the Collects of Morning and 
 Evening Prayer. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulbxirn, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 
 CTontents. 
 
 Volume I. Book I. Introductory.— On the Excellences of the 
 Collects — On the Origin of the word Collect — On the Structure 
 of a Collect, as illustrated by the Collect in the Burial Service — 
 Of the Sources of the Collects: Of the Sacramentary of Leo, of 
 the Sacramentary of Gelasius, of Gregory the Great and his 
 Sacramentary, of the Use of Sarum, and of St. Osmund its 
 Compiler — On the Collects of Archbishop Cranmer — Of the 
 Restoration Collects, and of John Cosin, Prince-Bishop of 
 Durham — Of the Collects, as representing the Genius of the 
 English Church. Book II. Part I. The Constant Collect. 
 Part II. Collects varying with the Ecclesiastical Season — 
 Advent to Whitsunday. 
 
 Volume II. Book II. contd. — Trinity Sunday to All Saints' Day. 
 Book III. On t/ie Collects after the Offertory. Appendix A. 
 Collects in the First Reformed Prayer Book of 1549 "^hich 
 •were suppressed in 1552 — The Collect for the First Communion 
 on Christmas Day — The Collect for St. Mary Magdalene's Day 
 (July 22). Appendix B. Exposition of the Collects of Morn- 
 ing and Evening Prayer — The Second at Morning Prayer, for 
 Peace — The Third at Morning Prayer, for Grace — The Second 
 at Evening Prayer, for Peace — The Third at Evening Prayer, 
 for aid against all Perils. 
 
 The Volumes may be had separately, Zs. each. 
 
 Blunt's Key to the Bible. 
 
 New Edition. SniallZvo. is. 6d. 
 
 A Key ro the Knowledge and Use of the Holy Bible. 
 
 By tlie Bev. Jolin Henry Blunt, M.A., F.S.A., 
 
 Editor of the " Dictionary of Theolosy" etc. etc. 
 
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OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS, 
 
 Blunt's History of the Reformation. 
 
 Fourth Edition. Zvo. i6j. 
 
 The Reformation of the Church of England ; its 
 History, Principles, and Results, a.d. 1514-1547. 
 
 By the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A., F.S.A., 
 
 Editor of the " Annotated Book of Common Prayer," etc. etc. 
 
 Blunt's Theological Dictionary. 
 
 Second Editio7t. Imperial %vo. 42s.; or in hal f -morocco, S'^s.dd. 
 
 Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology. 
 By Various Writers. 
 
 Edited by the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A., F.S. A., 
 
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 Imperial Zvo. 36J. ; or in half-morocco, i,Zs. 
 
 Dictionary of Sects, Heresies, Ecclesiastical 
 Parties, and Schools of Religious Thought. 
 By Various Writers. 
 
 Edited by the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M. A., F.S.A., 
 
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 " Annotated Book ofConivion Prayer," etc. etc. 
 
 Blunt's Key to the Prayer Book. 
 
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 By the Rev. Jolin Henry Blunt, M.A., F.S.A., 
 
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 Blunts Di recto rium Pastorale. 
 
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 DiRECTORiUM Pastorale. The Principles and Practice 
 of Pastoral Work in the Church of England. 
 
 By the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A., P.S.A., 
 
 Editor o/the " Annotated Book of Common Prayer," etc. etc. 
 
 The Prayer Book in Latin. 
 
 With Rubrics in Red. Small 8vo. js. 6d. 
 
 Liber Precum Publicarum Ecclesi^e Anglicans. 
 
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 ^dis Christi apiid Oxon. Canonico, Historia Ecclesiasticce, Professore Regio, 
 et 
 
 Petro Goldsmith Medd, A.M., 
 
 Collegii Universitatis apud Oxon. Socio Seniore, 
 
 Latine redditus. Editio Tertia, cum Appendice. 
 
 [In hac Editione continentur Versiones Latinse — i. Libri Precum 
 Publicarum Ecclesiae Anglicanae ; 2. Liturgiae Primae Reformatae; 
 3. Liturgiae Scoticanse ; 4. Liturgiae Americanas. ] 
 
 The Book of Church Law. 
 
 Third Edition, revised. Crown 8vo. ys. 6d. 
 The Book of Church Law : being an Exposition of the 
 Legal Rights and Duties of the Parochial Clergy and 
 the Laity of the Church of England. 
 
 By the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A., F.S.A. 
 Revised by Walter G. P. Phillimore, D.C.L., 
 
 Barrister-at-Law, and Chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln. 
 
 CBatecloo }^{ace, 3Q^(iniion* 
 
OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Key to Church History (Ancient). 
 
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 A Key to the Knowledge of Church History 
 
 (Ancient). 
 
 Edited by the Rev. Jolin Henry Blunt, M. A., F.S.A., 
 
 Editor of the " Annotated Book ofCom?ntm Prayer," etc. etc. 
 
 Key to Church History (Modern). 
 
 New Edition. Sviall 8vo. is. 6d. 
 
 A Key to the Knowledge of Church History 
 (Modern). 
 
 Edited by the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A., F.S.A. 
 
 Editor of the " Annotated Book of Common Prayer," etc. etc. 
 
 Morris's Key to the Gospels. 
 
 New Edition. Small 8vo. is. 6d. 
 
 A Key to the Narrative of the Four Gospels. 
 By the Rev. John Pilkin^on Norris, D.D., 
 
 Archdeacon of Bristol, and Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Manchester. 
 
 N orris's Key to the Acts. 
 
 New Edition. Small 8vo. is. 6d. 
 
 A Key to the Narrative of the Acts of the Apostles. 
 By the Rev. John Pilkington Norris, D.D.. 
 
 Archdeacon of Bristol, and Examining Chaplain to the Bishop ofMatichesier 
 
 Morris's IVIanua! of Confirmation. 
 
 iZjho. is. 6d. 
 
 Easy Lessons addressed to Candidates for Con- 
 firmation. 
 
 By John Pilkington Norris, D.D 
 
 Archdeacon of Bristol, and Examining- Chaplain to the Bishop of Manchester. 
 
 SHaterloo ^lace, iLonnon. 
 
RIVINGTON S SELECT LIST 
 
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 With a Preface by C. J. Ellicott, D.D., 
 
 Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. 
 An Edition without the Red Rubrics. 2,'^vio. is. 
 
 Norris's Rudiments of Theology. 
 
 Second Edition, revised. Crown 8vo. js. 6d. 
 
 Rudiments of Theology. A First Book for Students. 
 By John Pilkin^on Norris, D.D., 
 
 Archdeacon of Bristol, and Examinittg Chaplain to the Bishop of Manchester. 
 
 (Contents. 
 
 Part I. Fundamental Doctrines: — The Doctrine of God's 
 Existence — The Doctrine of the Second Person of the Trinity 
 — The Doctrine of the Atonement — The Doctrine of the 
 Third Person of the Trinity— The Doctrine of the Church— 
 The Doctrine of the Sacraments. 
 
 Part II. The Soteriology of the Bible:— The Teaching of the 
 Old Testament — The Teaching of the Four Gospels — The 
 Teaching of St. Paul— The Teaching of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, of St. Peter and St. John — Soteriology of the Bible 
 (concluded). 
 
 Appendix, Illustrations of Part I. from the Early Fathers: — 
 On the Evidence of God's Existence — On the Divinity of 
 Christ — On the Doctrine of the Atonement — On the Pro- 
 cession of the Holy Spirit — On the Church — On the Doctrine 
 of the Eucharist — Greek and Latin Fathers quoted or referred 
 to in this volume, in their chronological order— Glossarial 
 Index. 
 
 Kay's The Psalms. 
 
 Third Edition. Zvo. 12s. 6d. 
 
 The Psalms. Translated from the Hebrew. With Notes, 
 chiefly Exegetical. 
 
 By William Kay, D.D., 
 
 Rector of Great Leighs, late Prittcipal of Bishop's College, Calcutta. 
 
 lEatcrloo Place, ilonuon. 
 
OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Newman's Selection from Sermons. 
 
 Crown Zvo. 55. 
 
 Selection, adapted to the Seasons of the Ecclesiastical 
 Year, from the "Parochial and Plain Sermons" of John 
 Henry Newman, B.D., sometime Vicar of S. Mary's, 
 Oxford. 
 
 Edited toy the Rev. W. J. Copeland, B.D., 
 
 Rector of Farnham, Essex. 
 
 CTontents. 
 
 Advent:— ^e\i-dtma\ the Test of Religious Earnestness— Divine 
 Calls — The Ventures of Faith — Watching. Christmas Day : 
 — Religious Joy. New year's Sunday :— The Lapse of Time. 
 Epiphany: — Remembrance of Past Mercies— Equanimity — 
 The Immortality of the Soul — Christian Manhood— Sincerity 
 and Hypocrisy— Christian Sympathy. Septnagesima: — 
 Present Blessings. Se.xagesii?ta : — Endurance the Christian's 
 Portion. Quinguagesinta ; — Love the One Thing Needful. 
 Lent: — The Individuality of the Soul — Life the Season of 
 Repentance — Bodily Suffering- Tears of Christ at the Grave 
 of Lazarus— Christ's Privations a Meditation for Christians 
 —The Cross of Christ the Measure of the World. Good 
 Friday: — The Crucifixion. Easter Z)ajv :— Keeping Fast 
 and Festival. Easter-Tide : — Witnesses of the Resurrection 
 —A Particular Providence as Revealed in the Gospel— Christ 
 Manifested in Remembrance — The Invisible World— Waiting 
 for Christ. Ascension: — Warfare the Condition of Victory. 
 Sunday after A scension : — Rising with Christ. Whitsunday: 
 — ^The Weapons of Saints. Trinity Sunday : — The Mysteri- 
 ousness of our Present Being. Sundays after Trinity: — 
 Holiness Necessary for Future Blessedness — The Religious 
 Use of Excited Feelings— The Self-wise Inquirer — Scripture 
 a Record of Human Sorrow — The Danger of Riches 
 — Obedience without Love as instanced in the Character of 
 Balaam— Moral Consequences of Single Sins — The Greatness 
 and Littleness of Human Life — Moral Effects of Communion 
 with God— The Thought of God the Stay of the Soul— The 
 Power of the Will— The Gospel Palaces— Religion a 
 Weariness to the Natural Man — The World our Enemy — The 
 Praise of Man — Religion Pleasant to the Religious — Mental 
 Prayer — Curiosity a Temptation to Sin — Miracles no Remedy 
 for Unbelief — Jeremiah : a Lesson for the Disappointed — The 
 Shepherd of our Souls — Doing Glory of God in Pursuits of 
 the World. 
 
 ©Waterloo place, JLonoon. 
 
Newman's Parochial Sermons. 
 
 New Edition. Eight Vols. Crown Zvo. s^. each. Sold 
 separately. 
 
 Parochial and Plain Sermons. 
 By John Henry Newman, B.D., 
 
 Formerly Vicar of St. Mary's, Oxford. 
 
 Edited by the Rev. W. J. Copeland, B.D., 
 
 Rector of Famham, Essex. 
 
 ffiontentg. 
 
 Vol. I.— Holiness necessary for Future Blessedness — The Immor- 
 tality of the Soul — Knowledge of God's Will without Obedience 
 — Secret Truths — Self-denial the Test of Religious Earnestness 
 — The Spiritual Mind — Sins of Ignorance and Weakness — 
 God's Commandments not Grievous — The Religious Use of 
 exalted Feelings — Profession without Practice — Profession 
 without Hypocrisy — Profession without Ostentation — Pro- 
 mising without Doing — Religious Emotion — Religious Faith 
 Rational — The Christian Mysteries — The Self-wise Inquirer 
 — Obedience the Remedy for Religious Perplexity — Times of 
 Private Prayer — Forms of Private Prayer — The Resurrection 
 of the Body — Witnesses of the Resurrection — Christian Reve- 
 rence — The Religion of the Day — Scripture a Record of 
 Human Sorrow — Christian Manhood. 
 
 Vol. II.— On the Church Festivals.— The World's Benefactors 
 {S. Andrew)— Faith, without Sight (S. Thomas}— The Incar- 
 nation {Christmas Day) — Martyrdom (S. Stepheti) — Love of 
 Relations and Friends {S. John)— The Mind of Little Children 
 {The Holy Innocents)— Ceremonies of the Church (The Cir- 
 cumcision) — The Glory of the Christian Church {The Epi- 
 phany) — S. Paul's Conversion viewed in Reference to his 
 Office (7"^^ Conversion ofS, Paul) — Secrecy and Suddenness 
 of Divine Visitations {The Purification) — Divine Decrees {S. 
 Matthias) — The Reverence due to the Blessed Virgin Mary 
 {The Annunciatioft) — Christ, a Quickening Spirit {The Re- 
 surrection) — Saving Knowledge {Monday in Easter Week) 
 — Self-contemplation {Tuesday in Easter Week) — Religious 
 Cowardice {S. Mark)— The Gospel Witnesses {S. Philip and 
 S. James)— "M-ysteries in 'R.^x^xon {The Ascension) — The In- 
 dwelling Spirit {Pentecost)— The Kingdom of the Saints 
 {Monday in Whitsun Week) — The Kingdom of the Saints 
 {Tuesday in Whitsun Week) — The Gospel, a Trust committed 
 to us {Holy Trinity) — Tolerance of Religious Error {S. Bar- 
 
 materloo place, 3LonBon» 
 
OF RECENT PUBLIC A TIONS, 
 
 Newman's Parochial Sermons — conti fined. 
 
 ndbas) — Rebuking Sin {Nativity of S. John Baptist') — The 
 Christian Ministry (S. Feter)— Human Responsibility (S. 
 James) — Guilelessness (S. Bart/io/omew)— The Danger of 
 Riches (S. Matt/ieiv)— The Powers of Nature (S. Michael 
 and all Angels) — The Danger of Accomphshments {S. Luke) 
 — Christian Zeal {S. Simon and S. Jtide) — Use of Saints' 
 'D-a.y?. {All Saints). 
 
 Vol. III. — Abraham and Lot — Wilfulness of Israel in rejecting 
 Samuel — Saul — Early Years of David — Jeroboam — Faith and 
 Obedience — Christian Repentance — Contracted Views in Re- 
 ligion — A Particular Providence as revealed in the Gospel — 
 Tears of Christ at the Grave of Lazarus — Bodily Suffering — 
 The Humiliation of the Eternal Son — Jewish Zeal a Pattern 
 to Christians — Submission to Church Authority — Contest 
 between Truth and Falsehood in the Church — The Church 
 Visible and Invisible — The Visible Church an Encouragement 
 to Faith — The Gift of the Spirit — Regenerating Baptism — 
 Infant Baptism — The Daily Service — The Good Part of Mary 
 — Religious Worship a Remedy for Excitements — Intercession 
 — The Intermediate State. 
 
 Vol. IV. — The Strictness of the Law of Christ — Obedience without 
 Love, as instanced in the Character of Balaam — Moral Conse- 
 quences of Single Sins — Acceptance of Religious Privileges 
 compulsory — Reliance on Religious Observances — The Indi- 
 viduality of the Soul — Chastisement amid Mercy — Peace and 
 Joy amid Chastisement— The State of Grace— The Visible 
 Church for the sake of the Elect — The Communion of Saints 
 — The Church a Home for the Lonely — The Invisible World 
 — The Greatnejts and Littleness of Human Life — Moral Effects 
 of Communion with God — Christ Hidden from the World — 
 Christ manifested in Remembrance — The Gainsa^ang of 
 Korah — The Mysteriousness of our Present Being — The Ven- 
 tures of Faith — Faith and Love — Watching — Keeping Fast 
 and Festival, 
 
 Vol. v.— The Church Seasons (Advent to Quinquagesima). 
 — Worship, a Preparation for Christ's Coming— Reverence, 
 a Belief in God's Presence — Unreal Words — Shrinking from 
 Christ's Coming {Advent) — Equanimity — Remembrance of 
 Past Mercies— The Mystery of Godliness— The State of Inno- 
 cence — Christian Sympathy {Christmas) — Righteousness not 
 of us, but in us— The Law of the Spirit— The New Works of 
 the Gospel— The State of Salvation — Transgressions and In- 
 firmities — Sins of Infirmity — Sincerity and Hypocrisy — The 
 
 ©aaterloo place, iLonOon. 
 
RIVINGTON^S SELECT LIST 
 
 Newman's Parochial Sermons — continued. 
 
 Testimony of Conscience {Epiphany) — Many called, few 
 chosen — Present Blessings {Septuagesimd) — Endurance, the 
 Christian's Portion — Affliction, a School of Comfort {Sexa- 
 g-esimaj—The Thought of God, the Stay of the Soul— Love, 
 the one thing needful — The Power of the Will {Quingua- 
 gesima). 
 
 Vol. VI.— The Church Seasons (Lent to Trinity).— Fasting, 
 a Source of Trial — Life, the Season of Repentance— Apostolic 
 Abstinence, a Pattern for Christians — Christ's Privations, a 
 Meditation for Christians — Christ the Son of God made Man 
 — The Incarnate Son, a Sufferer and Sacrifice — The Cross of 
 Christ the Measure of the World {Lent) — Difficulty of realiz- 
 ing Sacred Privileges — The Gospel Sign addressed to Faith — 
 The Spiritual Presence of Christ in the Church— The Eucha- 
 ristic Presence — Faith the Title for Justification — Judaism of 
 the Present Day — The Fellowship of the Apostles {Easier) 
 — Rising with Christ — Warfare the Condition of Victory — 
 Waiting for Christ — Subjection of the Reason and Feelings 
 to the Revealed Word {Ascension) — The Gospel Palaces — 
 The Visible Temple — Offerings for the Sanctuary— The 
 Weapons oi Saints {Whitsuntide) — Faith without Demonstra- 
 tion — The Mystery of the Holy Trinity — Peace in Believing 
 {Trinity). 
 
 Vol. VII.— The Lapse of Time— Religion, a Weariness to the 
 Natural Man — The World our Enemy — The Praise of Men — 
 Temporal Advantages — The Season of Epiphany — ^The Duty 
 of Self-denial— The Yoke of Christ— Moses the Type of Christ 
 — The Crucifixion — Attendance on Holy Communion — ^The 
 Gospel Feast — Love of Religion, a new Nature — Religion 
 pleasant to the Religious — Mental Prayer — Infant Baptism — 
 —The Unity of the Church— Steadfastness in the Old Paths. 
 
 Vol. VIII.— Reverence in Worship— Divine Calls— The Trial of 
 Saul— The Call of David— Curiosity a Temptation to Sin- 
 Miracles no Remedy for Unbelief — Josiah, a Pattern for the 
 Ignorant — Inward Witness to the Truth of the Gospel — Jere- 
 miah, a Lesson for the Disappointed — Endurance of the 
 World's Censure — Doing Glory to God in Pursuits of the 
 World — Vanity of Human Glory — Truth hidden when not 
 sought after — Obedience to God the Way to Faith in Christ 
 — Sudden Conversions — The Shepherd of our Souls — Reli- 
 gious Joy — Ignorance of Evil. 
 
 CUaterloo place, iLouoon. 
 
OF RECENT PUBLIC A TIONS. 15 
 
 Newman's Sermons on Subjects of the 
 
 Day. 
 
 New Edition. Crown Zvo. $$. 
 
 Sermons Bearing upon Subjects of the Day. 
 By John Henry Newman, B.D., 
 
 Sometime Fellow 0/ Oriel College, Oxford. 
 
 Edited by the Rev. W. J. Copeland, B.D., 
 
 Rector of Farnham, Essex. 
 
 Contents. 
 The Work of the Christian — Saintliness not forfeited by the Peni- 
 tent — Our Lord's Last Supper and His First — Dangers to the 
 Penitent — The Three Offices of Christ — Faith and Experience 
 —Faith and the World— The Church and the World— Indul- 
 gence in Religious Privileges — Connection between Personal 
 and Public Improvement — Christian Nobleness — Joshua, a 
 Type of Christ and His Followers— Elisha, a Type of Christ 
 and His Followers — The Christian Church a continuation of 
 the Jewish — The Principle of Continuity between the Jewish 
 and Christian Churches — ^The Christian Church an Imperial 
 Power — Sanctity the Token of the Christian Empire — Condi- 
 tion of the Members of the Christian Empire — The Apostolical 
 Christian — Wisdom and Innocence — Invisible Presence of 
 Christ — Outward and Inward Notes of the Church — Grounds 
 for Steadfastness in our Religious Profession — Elijah the 
 Prophet of the Latter Days — Feasting in Captivity — The 
 Parting of Friends. 
 
 Newman's Lectures on Justification. 
 
 New Edition. Crown Zvo. <,s. 
 
 Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification. 
 By John Henry Newman, B.D., 
 
 Sometime Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. 
 
 CTontmts. 
 Faith considered as the Instrument of Justification — Love considered 
 as the Formal Cause of Justification — Primary Sense of the 
 term Justification — Secondary Senses of the term Justification 
 — Misuse of the term Just or Righteous — On the Gift of 
 Righteousness — The Characteristics of the Gift of Righteous- 
 ness — Righteousness viewed as a Gift and as a Quality — 
 Righteousness the Fruit of our Lord's Resurrection — The 
 Office of Justifying Faith — The Nature of Justifying Faith — 
 Faith viewed relativelyto Rites and Works — On Preaching 
 the Gospel — Appendix. 
 
 ^EaterToo jpiacc, JLontion. 
 
rivington''s select list 
 
 Newman's University Sermons. 
 
 New Edition. Crown Zvo. ^s. 
 
 Fifteen Sermons preached before the University of 
 Oxford, between a.d. 1826 and 1843. 
 
 By John Henry Newman, B.D., 
 
 Sometivte Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. 
 
 Contents. 
 The Philosophical Temper first enjoined by the Gospel — ^The In- 
 fluence of Natural and Revealed Religion respectively — 
 Evangelical Sanctity the Perfection of Natural Virtue — The 
 Usurpations of Reason — Personal Influence, the means of 
 Propagating the Truth — Our Justice, as a Principle of Divine 
 Governance — Contest between Faith and Light — Human Re- 
 sponsibility, as Independent of Circumstances — Wilfulness the 
 Sin of Saul — Faith and Reason, contrasted as Habits of Mind 
 — The Nature of Faith in Relation to Reason — Love the 
 Safeguard of Faith against Superstition — Implicit and Explicit 
 Reason — Wisdom, as contrasted with Faith and with Bigotry 
 — The Theory of Developments in Religious Doctrine. 
 
 Mozley on the Miracles. 
 
 Fifth Edition. Crown Zvo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Eight Lectures on the Miracles : being the Hampton 
 Lectures for 1865. 
 
 By J. B. Mozley, D.D., 
 
 Laie Canon of Christ Churrh, an.-f Regius Prcfessor of Divinity in the 
 University ofOrfotd. 
 
 Mozley's University Sermons. 
 
 Third Editioji. Crown %vo. 7^. (>d. 
 
 Sermons preached before the University of Oxford, 
 AND ON Various Occasions. 
 
 By J. B. Mozley, D.D„ 
 
 Late Canon of Christ Church, and Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford. 
 
 CTonlcnls- 
 The Roman Council — ^The Pharisees — Eternal Life — The Reversal 
 of Human Judgment — War — Nature — The Work of the Spirit 
 on the Natural Man — The Atonement— Our Duty to Equals 
 —The Peaceful Temper— The Strength of Wishes— The Un- 
 spoken Judgment of Mankind — The True Test of Spiritual 
 Birth— Ascension Day— Gratitude — The Principle of Emula- 
 tion-Religion the First Choice— The Influence of Dogmatic 
 Teaching on Education, 
 
 ©Waterloo ptace, JLonUon. 
 
OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Percival's Helps for School Life. 
 
 Crown 8vo. js. 6d. 
 
 Some Helps for School Life. Sermons preached at 
 Clifton College, 1862-1879. 
 
 By the Rev. J. Percival, M.A., LL.D., 
 
 President of Trinity College, Oxford, and late Head Master of Clifton College. 
 
 dontentB. 
 Corporate Life — Our Attitude and Influence — Putting away 
 Childish Things— Manliness— Lenten Observance, or the 
 Need of Spiritual Discipline — Christ weeping over Jerusalem 
 —Christ bearing His Cross— Christ sacrificing Himself for 
 us — Why am I here? — My Father's Business — The Feeble 
 Character — Progressive Morality — Christian Enlightenment 
 — Parting Reminders — Companionship — Love worketh no 111 
 to his Neighbour — Public Worship — Sunday — Confirmation 
 — Advent — The Unaccomplished Work of Schools — What 
 House will ye build Me — School Memories — Farewell 
 Sermon. 
 
 The Prayer Book of Edward VI. 
 
 Small Zvo. 6s. 
 
 The First Book of Common Prayer of Edward VI., 
 AND THE Ordinal of 1549. Together with the Order 
 of the Communion, 1548. Reprinted entire. 
 
 Edited by the Rev. Henry Baskerville "Walton, M. A., 
 
 Late Fellow and Tutor of Merton College. 
 
 With Introduction by the Rev. Peter Goldsmith 
 Medd, M.A., 
 
 Rector of North Cerney, late Senior Fellow of University College, Oxford. 
 
 The Prayer Book Interleaved. 
 
 Tenth Edition. Stnall Zvo. qs. 6d. 
 
 The Prayer Book Interleaved. With Historical Illus- 
 trations and Explanatory Notes arranged parallel to the 
 Text. 
 
 By W. M. Campion, D.D., and W. J. Beamont, M.A. 
 
 With a Preface by the Lord Bishop of 
 
 Winchester. 
 
 SSIatedoo place, itoitoon. 
 
Goulburn on Everlasting Punishment. 
 
 Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s, 6d. 
 
 Everlasting Punishment. Lectures delivered at St. 
 James's Church, Piccadilly, on the six First Sundays 
 after Trinity in the year 1880. With Three Disserta- 
 tions on Kindred Topics. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 
 Contenta. 
 
 Everlasting Punishment not inconsistent with God's Justice— Ever- 
 lasting Punishment not inconsistent with God's Love — Ever- 
 lasting Punishment not inconsistent with God's purpose in 
 Creation — Lessons on the Story of the Crucified Malefactors 
 —Scriptural modifications of the difficulty. 
 
 Gou I burn's Study of Scripture. 
 
 Tetiih Edition, revised and enlarged. Small Svo. 6s. 6d. 
 
 An Introduction to the Devotional Study of the 
 Holy Scriptures : with a Prefatory Essay on their 
 Inspiration, and specimens of Meditations on various 
 passages of them. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 
 Goulburn's The Child Samuel. 
 
 Small Svo. 5s. 
 
 The Child Samuel. A Practical and Devotional Com- 
 mentary on the Birth and Childhood of the Prophet 
 Samuel, as recorded in i Sam. i., ii. 1-27, iii. Designed 
 as a Help to Meditation on the Holy Scriptures for 
 Children and Young Persons. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 
 GCIatcrloo place, JLonnon* 
 
OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 19 
 
 Goulburn's Gospel of the Childhood. 
 
 Second Edition. Square x6mo. $s. 
 
 The Gospel of the Childhood : a Practical and Devo- 
 tional Commentary on the Single Incident of our Blessed 
 Lord's Childhood (S. Luke ii. 41 to the end) ; designed 
 as a Help to Meditation on the Holy Scriptures, for 
 Children and Young Persons. 
 
 By Edward MesTrick Goulbiim, D.D., 
 
 Dean 0/ Norwich. 
 
 Goulburn's Holy Catholic Church. 
 
 Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d. 
 
 The Holy Catholic Church ; its Divine Ideal, Ministry, 
 and Institutions, A short Treatise. With a Catechism 
 on each Chapter, forming a Course of Methodical In- 
 struction on the subject. 
 
 By Edward MesTrick Goulbum, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 
 Contents. 
 
 What the Church is, and when and how it was founded — Duty of 
 the Church towards those who hold to the Apostles' doctrine, 
 in separation from the Apostles' fellowship — The Unity of the 
 Church and its Disruption — The Survey of Zion's towers, 
 bulwarks, and palaces — The Institution of the Ministry, and 
 its relation to the Church — The Holy Eucharist at its suc- 
 cessive Stages — On the Powers of the Church in Council — The 
 Church presenting, exhibiting, and defending the Truth — The 
 Church guiding into and illustrating the Truth — On the Prayer 
 Book as a Commentary on the Bible — Index. 
 
 Goulburn's Pursuit of Holiness. 
 
 Fourth Edition. Small 8vo, 5s. 
 
 The Pursuit of Holiness: a Sequel to "Thoughts on 
 Personal Religion," intended to carry the Reader some- 
 what farther onward in the Spiritual Life. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulbum, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 Also a Cheap Edition, y. 6d. 
 
 Waterloo place, ^Lonuott. 
 
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 Goulburn's Thoughts on Personal 
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 NeTv Edition. Small 8vo. 6s. 6d. 
 
 Thoughts on Personal Religion ; being a Treatise on 
 the Christian Life in its Two Chief Elements — Devotion 
 and Practice. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 
 Also a Cheap Edition, 35. 6d. 
 
 Presentation Edition, elegantly printed on toned Paper. 
 Two Vols. Small 8vo. los. 6d. 
 
 Goulburn on the Lord's Supper. 
 
 Sixth Edition. Small 2,vo. 6s. 
 
 A Commentary, Expository and Devotional, on the Order 
 of the Administration of the Lord's Supper, according 
 to the Use of the Church of England ; to which is added 
 an Appendix on Fasting Communion, Non-communicat- 
 ing Attendance, Auricular Confession, the Doctrine of 
 Sacrifice, and the Eucharistic Sacrifice. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Nomuich. 
 
 Also a Cheap Edition, uniform with " Thoughts on Personal 
 Religion," and " The Pursuit of Holiness." 3J. 6d. 
 
 Goulburn's Fannily Prayers. 
 
 New Edition. Large type. Crown Zvo. 3^. 6d. 
 
 Family Prayers. Compiled from various sources (chiefly 
 from Bishop Hamilton's Manual), and arranged on the 
 Liturgical Principle. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 
 Dean 0/ Norwich. 
 Also a Cheap Edition. i6mo. is. 
 
 mutttloo ]^Iace, itoniion. 
 
OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Luckock's After Death. 
 
 Third Edition. Crown Zvo. 6s. 
 
 After Death. An Examination of the Testimony of 
 Primitive Times respecting the State of the Faithful 
 Dead, and their Relationship to the Living. 
 
 By Herbert Mortimer Luckock, D.D., 
 
 Canon of Ely. 
 
 CTontentg. 
 PART I.— The Test of Catholicity— The Value of the Testimony of 
 the Primitive Fathers — The Intermediate State — Change in 
 the Intermediate State— Prayers for the Dead: Reasons for 
 Our Lord's Silence on the Subject— The Testimony of Holy 
 Scripture — The Testimony of the Catacombs — The Testimony 
 of the Early Fathers— The Testimony of the Primitive 
 Liturgies — Prayers for the Pardon of Sins of Infirmity, and 
 the Effacement of Sinful Stains— The Inefficacy of Prayer 
 for those who died in wilful unrepented Sin. 
 
 PART II. — Primitive Testimony to the Intercession of the Saints- 
 Primitive Testimony to the Invocation of the Saints — The 
 Trustworthiness of the Patristic Evidence for Invocation tested 
 — The Primitive Liturgies and the Roman Catacombs— Pa- 
 tristic Opinions on the extent of the Knowledge possessed by 
 the Saints— The Testimony of Holy Scripture upon the same 
 Subject — The Beatific Vision not yet attained by any of the 
 Saints — Conclusions drawn from the foregoing Testimony. 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTERS. — {a.) Is a fuller Recognition of the 
 Practice of Praying for the Dead desirable or not?— (3.) Is 
 it lawful or desirable to practise Invocation of Saints in any 
 form or not? — Table of Fathers, Councils, etc. — Passages of 
 Scriptures explained or quoted— General Index. 
 
 The Compendious Annotated Prayer 
 Book. 
 
 Crown 8vo. los. 6d. 
 
 The Compendious Edition of the Annotated Book 
 OF Common Prayer, forming a concisie Commentary 
 on the Devotional System of the Church of England. 
 
 Edited by the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M. A., F.S.A., 
 
 Editor of the " Dictionary of Sects and Heresies," etc. etc. 
 
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 Short Devotional Forms, for Morning, Night, and 
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 the Exigencies of a Busy Life. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulbum, D.D., 
 
 Dean o/Norvfich. 
 
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 Spiritual Letters to Men. By Archbishop FfeNELON. 
 
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 By the Author of "Life of S. Francis de Sales," 
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 Crown 2>vo. js. 6d. 
 
 The Life of Christ. 
 
 By S. Bonaventure. 
 
 Translated and Edited by the 
 Rev. W. H. Hutchings, 
 
 Sub-lVarden of the House of Mercy, Clewer. 
 
 " The whole volume is full of gems meditations, we can scarcely imagine 
 
 and rich veins of thought, and whether a more acceptable hook.."— Literary 
 
 as a companion to the preacher or to Churchman. 
 those who seek food for their daily 
 
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OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 23 
 
 Knox Little's Mystery of the Passion. 
 
 New Edition. Crown Zvo. 3*. dd. 
 
 The Mystery of the Passion of our Most Holy Re- 
 deemer. [Five Sermons delivered in S. Paul's Cathe- 
 dral in Passion Week, to which are added five others 
 on the same subject, preached in Holy Week and Easter- 
 tide 1881.] 
 
 By the Rev. W. J. Knox Little, M.A., 
 
 Canon of Worcester, and Rector of St. Alban's, Manchester. 
 
 Knox Little's Christian Life. 
 
 Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 35. 6d. 
 
 Characteristics AND Motives of the Christian Life. 
 Ten Sermons preached in Manchester Cathedral in Lent 
 and Advent 1877. 
 
 By the Rev. W. J. Knox Little, M.A., 
 
 Canon of Worcester, and Rector of St. Alban's, Manchester. 
 
 Contents. 
 Christian Work — Christian Advance — Christian Watching — Chris- 
 tian Battle — Christian Suffering — Christian Joy — For the 
 Love of Man — For the sake of Jesus — For the Glory of God 
 —The Claims of Christ. 
 
 Knox Little's Manchester Sernnons. 
 
 Second Edition. Crown Qvo. js. 6d. 
 
 Sermons preached for the most part in Manchester, 
 By the Rev. W. J. Knox Little, M.A., 
 
 Canon of Worcester, and Rector of St. Alban's, Manchester. 
 
 flTontents. 
 The Soul instructed by God — The Claim of God upon the Soul — 
 The Supernatural Powers of the Soul — The Soul in its Inner 
 Life — The Soul in the World and at the Judgment — The Law 
 of Preparation — The Principle uf Preparation — The Temper 
 of Preparation — The Energy of Preparation — The Soul's 
 Need and God's Nature — The Martyr of Jesus — The Secret 
 of Prophetic Power — The Law of Sacrifice — The Comfort of 
 God— The Symbolism of the Cross— The Beatitude of Mary, 
 the Mother of the Lord. 
 
 Wi^ttxUtx piace, Honoon* 
 
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 The Apocalypse. With Notes and Reflections. 
 
 By the Rev. Isaac "Williams, B.D., 
 
 Formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. 
 
 Williams on the Epistles and Gospels. 
 
 New Edition. Two Vols. Crown Zvo. ss. each. 
 Sold separately. 
 
 Sermons on the Epistles and Gospels for the Sun- 
 days AND Holy Days throughout the Year. 
 
 By the Rev. Isaac Williams, B.D., 
 
 Author of a " Devotional Commentary on the Gospel Narrative." 
 
 Williams's Female Scripture 
 Characters. 
 
 New Edition. Crown Zvo. ^s. 
 
 Female Characters of Holy Scripture. A Series of 
 Sermons. 
 
 By the Rev. Isaac Williams, B.D., 
 
 Formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. 
 
 Contents. 
 Eve -Sarah — Lot's Wife — Rebekah — Leah and Rachel — Miriam — 
 Rahab— Deborah— Ruth— Hannah— The Witch of Endor— 
 Bathsheba — Rizpah — The Queen of Sheba — The Widow of 
 Zarephath — Jezebel — The Shunammite — E sther — Elisabeth 
 — Anna — The Woman of Samaria — Joanna — The Woman with 
 the Issue of Blood— The Woman of Canaan — Martha — Mary 
 —Salome— The Wife of Pilate— Dorcas— The Blessed Virgin. 
 
 Williams's Old Testament Characters. 
 
 New Edition. Crown Zvo. %s. 
 
 The Characters of the Old Testament. A Series of 
 Sermons. 
 
 By the Rev. Isaac Williams, B.D., 
 
 Formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. 
 
 CKaterloo place, iLonlion. 
 
OF RECENT PUBLIC A TIONS. 
 
 Williams's Devotional Commentary. 
 
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 Sold sejiarately. 
 
 A Devotional Commentary on the Gospel Narrative. 
 By the Rev. Isaac Williams, B.D., 
 
 Formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. 
 
 Thoughts on the Study of the Holy Gospels. 
 
 A Harmony of the Four Evangelists. 
 
 Our Lord's Nativity. 
 
 Our Lord's Ministry (Second Year). 
 
 Our Lord's Ministry (Third Year). 
 
 The Holy Week. 
 
 Our Lord's Passion. 
 
 Our Lord's Resurrection. 
 
 Voices of Comfort. 
 
 Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. js. 6d. 
 
 Voices of Comfort. 
 Edited by the Rev. Thomas Vincent Fosbery, M.A. 
 
 Sometime Vicar of St. Giles's, Reading. 
 
 [This Volume of prose and poetry, original and selected, aims at 
 revealing the fountains of hope and joy which underlie the griefs 
 and sorrows of life. 
 
 It is so divided as to afford readings for a month. The keynote 
 of each day is given by the title prefixed to it, such as : "The Power 
 of the Cross of Christ, Day 6. Conflicts of the Soul, Day 17. The 
 Communion of Saints, Day 20. The Comforter, Day 22, The 
 Light of Hope, Day 25. The Coming of Christ, Day 28." Each 
 day begins with passages of Holy Scripture. These are followed 
 by articles in prose, which are succeeded by one or more short 
 prayers. After these are poems or passages of poetry, and then 
 very brief extracts in prose or verse close the section. The book is 
 meant to meet, not merely cases of bereavement or physical suffering, 
 but "to minister specially to the hidden troubles of the heart, as 
 they are silently weaving their dark threads into the web of the 
 seemingly brightest life. "] 
 
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 Body's Life of Temptation. 
 
 Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6a. 
 
 The Life of Temptation. A Course of Lectures 
 delivered in substance at St. Peter's, Eaton Square; 
 also at All Saints', Margaret Street. 
 
 By the Rev. George Body, B.A.. 
 
 Rector of Kirkby Misperton. 
 
 Contenta. 
 
 The Leading into Temptation — The Rationale of Temptation — 
 Why we are Tempted— Safety in Temptation — With Jesus 
 in Temptation— The End of Temptation. 
 
 Body's Life of Justification. 
 
 Fourth Edition. Crown Zvo. 4s. 6d. 
 
 The Life of Justification. A Series of Lectures 
 delivered in substance at All Saints', Margaret Street. 
 
 By tlie Rev. George Body, B.A., 
 
 Rector 0/ Kirkby Misperton. 
 
 Contents. 
 
 Justification the Want of Humility — Christ our Justification — Union 
 with Christ the Condition of Justification — Conversion and 
 Justification — The Life of Justification — The Progress and 
 End of Justification. 
 
 Hutchings's IVIystery of tlie Temptation. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. 
 
 The Mystery of the Temptation : a Coarse of Lectures. 
 
 By the Rev. W. H. Hatchings, M.A., 
 
 Sub-Warden of the House of Mercy, Clewer. 
 
 CTontents. 
 The Entrance into the Temptation- The Fast— The Personality of 
 Satan— The First Temptation— The Second Temptation— The 
 Third Temptation— The End of the Temptation. 
 
 WimiUo place, 3Q.oniion. 
 
OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 The Treasury of Devotion. 
 
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 Book of Common Prayer^ 35. td. 
 
 The Treasury of Devotion : a Manual of Prayers for 
 General and Daily Use. 
 
 Compiled by a Priest. 
 Edited by the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A., 
 Also an Edition in Large Type. Crown Zvo. s^r. 
 
 The Star of Childhood. 
 
 Third Edition. Royal x6mo. us. 6d. 
 
 The Star of Childhood : a First Book of Prayers and 
 Instruction for Children. 
 
 Compiled by a Priest. 
 
 Edited by the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A., 
 
 With Illustrations reduced from Engravings by Fra Angelico. 
 
 The Guide to Heaven. 
 
 New Edition. i8mo. is. 6d.; Cloth limp, is. 
 
 The Guide to Heaven : a Book of Prayers for every 
 Want. (For the Working Classes.) 
 
 Compiled by a Priest. 
 
 Edited by the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A., 
 
 An Edition in Large Type. Crown Zvo. is. 6d. ; Cloth limp, is. 
 
 Lear's For Days and Years. 
 
 Second Edition. i6mo. zs. 6d, 
 
 For Days and Years. A Book containing a Text, Short 
 Reading, and Hymn for every Day in the Church's 
 Year. 
 
 Selected by H. L. Sidney Lear. 
 
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 Warnings of the Holy Week, etc. : being a Course 
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 the Easter Festivals. 
 
 By the Rev. William Adams, M.A., 
 
 ■Author of " Sacred Allegories" eK. 
 
 Moberly's Plain Sermons. 
 
 Third Edition. Crown Zvo. 5 j. 
 
 Plain Sermons, preached at Brighstone. 
 By George Moberly, D.C.L., 
 
 Bishop of Salisbury. 
 
 Contents. 
 
 Except a man be born again— The Lord with the Doctors — The 
 Draw-Net — I will lay me down in peace — Ye have not so 
 learned Christ — Trinity Sunday — My Flesh is Meat indeed — 
 The Corn of Wheat dying and multiplied— The Seed Corn 
 springing to new Hfe — I am the Way, the Truth, and the 
 Life— The Ruler of the Sea— Stewards of the Mysteries of 
 God— Ephphatha — The Widow of Nain— Josiah's discovery 
 of the Law — The Invisible World : Angels — Prayers, espe- 
 cially Daily Prayers — They all with one consent began to 
 make excuse — Ascension Day — The Comforter — The Tokens 
 of the Spirit — Elijah's Warning, Fathers and Children — Thou 
 shalt see them no more for ever— Baskets full of fragments 
 — Harvest — The Marriage Supper of the Lamb — The Last 
 Judgment. 
 
 Moberly's Great Forty Days. 
 
 Fifth Edition. Crown Zvo. 5*. 
 
 The Sayings of the Great Forty Days, between the 
 Resurrection and Ascension, regarded as the Outlines of 
 the Kingdom of God. In Five Discourses. With an 
 Examination of Dr. Newman's Theory of Development. 
 
 By George Moberly, D.C.L., 
 
 Bishop of Salisbury, 
 
 (DKaterloo place, JLonDon, 
 
OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 29 
 
 Lear's Weariness. 
 
 Large Type. Small Zvo. 5^. 
 Weariness. A Book for the Languid and Lonely. 
 By H. L. Sydney Lear. 
 
 Author of" For Days and Years" " Christian Biographies," etc. etc. 
 
 Lear's Precious Stones. 
 
 Three Volumes. y.mo. is. each; or in Paper Covers, 6d. each. 
 
 Precious Stones, collected by H. L. Sidney Lear. 
 
 I. Pearls — Grace. 
 II. Rubies— Nature. 
 III. Diamonds— Art. 
 
 Also a Superior Edition, i6mo, tvith Red Borders, 2s. each. 
 
 Lear's Christian Biographies. 
 
 Eight Volumes. Crown Zvo. 35. 6d. ecu:h ; sold separately. 
 
 By H. L. Sidney Lear. 
 
 Madame Louise de France, Daughter of Louis XV., 
 known also as the Mother T^r^se de S. Augustin. 
 
 A Dominican Artist : a Sketch of the Life of the Rev. 
 P6re Besson, of the Order of S. Dominic. 
 
 Henri Perreyve. By A. Gratry. Translated by special 
 permission. With Portrait. 
 
 S. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Prince of Geneva. 
 
 The Revival of Priestly Life in the Seventeenth 
 Century in France. Charles de Condren— S. Phihp 
 Neri and Cardinal de Berulle — S. Vincent de Paul- 
 Saint Sulpice and Jean Jacques Olier. 
 
 A Christian Painter of the Nineteenth Century: 
 being the life of Hippolyte Flandrin. 
 
 BOSSUET and his CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 FfeNELON, Archbishop of Cambrai. 
 
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 Crake's Edwy the Fair. 
 
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 Edwy the Fair ; or, The First Chronicle of ^scen- 
 DUNE. A Tale of the Days of Saint Dunstan. 
 
 By the Rev. A. D. Crake, B.A,, 
 
 Author of the "History of the Church under the Roman Empire," etc. etc. 
 
 Crake's Alfgar the Dane. 
 
 Third Edition. Crown Svo. 35. 6d. 
 
 Alfgar the Dane ; or, The Second Chronicle of 
 
 /EscENDUNE. A Tale. 
 
 By the Rev. A. D. Crake, B.A., 
 
 Author of the " History of the Church under the Rom-an Empire," etc. etc. 
 
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 The Rival Heirs ; or, The Third Chronicle of 
 
 iEsCENDUNE. 
 
 By A. D. Crake, B.A., 
 
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 History of the Church under the Roman Empire, 
 A.D. 30-476. 
 
 By the Rev. A. D. Crake, B.A. 
 
 Lear's Here and There. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 55. 
 
 Here and There. Quaint Quotations. A Book of Wit. 
 Selected by H. L. Sidney Lear, 
 
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 SHaterloo Place, JLonnon. 
 
OF RECENT PUBLIC A TIONS. 
 
 LIddon's University Sermons (Second 
 Series). 
 
 Second Edition. Crown Zvo. 55. 
 
 Sermons Preached before the University of 
 Oxford. Second Series, 1868-1880. 
 By H. P. Liddon, D.D., 
 
 Canen^Residentiary of St, PauCs, and Ireland Professor. 
 
 (ZTontents. 
 
 Prejudice and Experience —Humility and Truth — Import of Faith 
 in a Creator — Worth of Faith in a Life to Come — Influences of 
 the Holy Spirit — Growth in the Apprehension of Truth — The 
 Life of Faith and the Athanasian Creed — Christ's Service and 
 Public Opinion — Christ in the Storm— Sacerdotalism — The 
 Prophecy of the Mapjnificat — The Fall of Jericho — The 
 Courage of Faith— The Curse of Meroz— The Gospel and the 
 Poor — Christ and Human Law — The Cure of Low Spirits. 
 
 Liddon's University Sermons (First 
 Series). 
 
 Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo. 5J. 
 
 Sermons preached before the Universiiy of Oxford. 
 
 (First Series, 1859—1868.) 
 By Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., D.C.L., 
 
 Canon-Residentiary of St. Paul's, and Ireland Professor. 
 
 Contents. 
 
 God and the Soul — The Law of Progress — The Honour of Humanity 
 — The Freedom of the Spirit — Immortality — Humility and 
 Action — The Conflict of Faith with undue Exaltation of In- 
 tellect — Lessons of the Holy Manger — The Divine Victim — 
 The Risen Life — Our Lord's Ascension, the Church's Gain — 
 Faith in a Holy Ghost — The Divine Indwelling a Motive to 
 Holiness. 
 
 Liddon's Bampton Lectures. 
 
 Ninth Edition^ revised. Crown Zvo. ^s. 
 
 The Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ : 
 being the Bampton Lectures for 1866. 
 
 By Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., D.C.L., 
 
 Canon-Residentiary of St. Paul's, and Ireland Professor. 
 
 CKaterloo place, Ronton* 
 
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 may be had Gratis and Post Free : — 
 
 Classified Catalogue of Books selected 
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 New Books and New Editions in course 
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