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 jWercp for t\ft ^Fallen. 
 
 TWO SERMONS 
 
 IN AID OF THE 
 
 HOUSE OF MERCY, CLEWER, 
 
 REV. T. T. CARTER, M.A., 
 
 RECTOR OF CLEWER, BERKS. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED 
 
 ^n Appeal fov tijc Completion of tljc H^oim, 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 JOSEPH MASTERS, ALDERSGATE STREET, 
 
 AND NEW BOND STREET, 
 
 MDCCCLVI.
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY JOSEPH MASTERS AND CO., 
 
 ALDEEStcATE STREET.
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 2 Cor. V. 21. 
 
 " He hath made Him to be sin for us Who knew no 
 sin, that we might be made the righteousness of 
 God in Him." 
 
 That the Son of God, abiding still, as from ever- 
 lasting, in. His pure, unapproachable God- head, was 
 made Man, binding the two natures indissolubly to- 
 gether in His one Person, being as truly Man as He is 
 truly God, is the simplest view of the Incarnation. A 
 yet farther depth of the mystery is, that the created 
 nature which He assumed was sinful, though as He 
 took it. He cleansed it for Himself; and thus, Him- 
 self sinless, He became subject to the extremest pe- 
 nalties of sin. 
 
 The words of the text, — words which appal us, as 
 we utter them ; which, but for the seal of Revelation, 
 we could not have applied to Him, — '' He hath made 
 Him to be Sin," are generally understood to mean 
 that He became a sin-offering. But this interpretation 
 can by no means be intended to limit the application 
 of the words of Scripture to the sacrifice of His Death, 
 as if this could exhaust their deep meaning. His 
 whole earthly life was, in truth, a sin-offering. His 
 
 A 2
 
 submission to the presence, the shame, and the penal- 
 ties of sin, was a prolonged sacrifice, commencing from 
 the very hour when He " was made Flesh, and dwelt 
 among us." 
 
 Even before His Incarnation, the shadow^s of the 
 coming sacrifice had been cast forward upon Him, for 
 the stains upon a man's lineage fall upon himself. 
 Not merely did the nature, wdiich He took to cleanse it, 
 bear in it the accumulated impurities of ages, in an 
 ever-increasing deterioration after the first fall, but 
 even the chosen line, through which He came, bore 
 upon it aggravated stains of sin. When the first Evan- 
 gelist traces the lineage of the Messiah, he is carefiil 
 to note, — as facts important to recall, though but for 
 such a cause our better feelings ever seek to veil the 
 dishonour of our parentage, — the more than ordinary 
 stains of sin that marked some members of the chosen 
 family. Recording how "Juda begat Pharez and 
 Zara," he states specially that it was " of Thamar.'" 
 Recording how " Salmon begat Boaz," he adds, " of 
 Rahab,"- elsewhere known as " the harlot."^ And 
 mentioning one of the choicest names of the sacred 
 line, " David the king," he reminds us how he " be- 
 gat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias."* 
 
 And after His Birth, the necessities of the fallen 
 nature into which He had entered, pursued Him to 
 the end. The subjection in which He was held was 
 set forth in symbolical ordinances which He conde- 
 scended to receive in His owai Person. Thus on the 
 eighth day He was "circumcised, as though His Flesh 
 needed to be mortified. Thus, His Blessed Mother 
 was purified, as though she had contracted defilement 
 
 1 S. Matt. i. 3. 2 S. Matt. i. 5. 
 
 3 Heb. xi. 31. * S. Matt. i. G. 
 
 u.uc^
 
 from the bringing forth of the sinless One. Again, en- 
 tering on His ministry He was baptized, as though 
 He needed the mystical washing away of sin. 
 
 This truth, moreover, is still more wonderfully seen 
 in the personal experience of the power of sin, which 
 by some mysterious necessity He was constrained to 
 learn. For to this end He passed through the Forty 
 Days' Temptation, that by an actual consciousness 
 He might know the hatefulness and power of sin ; 
 being " in all points tempted like as we are.'" And 
 again, when He was bowed to the earth in Geth- 
 semane, and His convulsed frame gave forth the 
 Bloody Sweat, what must have been the burden of 
 sin, past, present, and to come, which penetrated His 
 inmost soul ! 
 
 So likewise when He mingled among mankind, 
 sharing all the vicissitudes and needs of our daily 
 life, His close fellowship with sin w^as so publicly 
 manifested, that to the Pharisees it appeared an un- 
 answerable condemnation of His claims, and became 
 their fatal stumblingblock. " Why eateth your Mas- 
 ter with pubhcans and sinners?^ The act of such 
 near intimacy with the unclean, such fellowship as the 
 sharing of a common meal betokened, and this as His 
 habitual practice, startled and perplexed the world. 
 How could the pure Deity be associated with a de- 
 filed humanity? How could One Who claimed no 
 lower place than co-equality with the Everlasting 
 Father, # choose as His companions the very outcasts 
 of the fallen? 
 
 On the other hand this same truth is manifested, 
 though with very opposite consequences, in the effects 
 produced upon the children of affliction, who were 
 1 Heb. iv. 15. ^ s. Matt. ix. 11.
 
 6 
 
 drawn to seek Him. When the excommunicated 
 leper — the special type of spiritual uncleanness — in 
 his solitary wanderings along the byways of Galilee, 
 felt the spring of hope, watching for the Deliverer to 
 cross even his path of sorrow, and pity him, how 
 notorious must have been the sympathy existing be- 
 tween Him and the lost sinner ! With what power 
 must the thrilling tidings have spread, when even 
 " the sinner from the city " could dare to creep out of 
 her dark haunts into the very chamber where He sat 
 at meat, and kiss His feet ! 
 
 It is in wonderful accordance with all these circum- 
 stances, that S. Paul uses the words of the text, and 
 they combine to prove, what has been observed, that 
 these words imply, not merely that He came to atone 
 by suffering, but that by an intimate Presence He 
 entered into the very depths of the evil which He 
 came to destroy ; incapable of the least shadow of 
 impurity derived from it, but not incapable of the 
 closest association with it. 
 
 An irreversible law rules our race, that of ourselves 
 we cannot revive, when fallen. Once corrupted, 
 our nature has no power of self-restoration. Even 
 Almighty Power can lay hold of nothing within itself 
 to rescue it. The Creator can find in it no element of 
 regeneration. Its Source of Life is from without, and 
 the renewal of that life can only be from without also. 
 He Who first gave, can alone restore the lost gift. 
 Further, there is this difference between the original 
 and the restored gift ; that whereas God gave, as a 
 gift out of Himself, breathing it into our nostrils, the 
 breath of life, in the restoration of what was lost, it 
 is not any gift from Himself that sufficeth for our 
 need ; but Himself is the gift ; Himself becomes the
 
 new Life. " The Second Man is the Lord from 
 Heaven.'" It is not a new creation taking the place 
 of the old ; but the Creator Himself is the New 
 Creation. "In Him was Life, and the Life was 
 the Light of men ; and the Light shineth in darkness." 
 His own undying Life prevails over the death of ours. 
 The righteousness of our nature once lost is for ever 
 lost. It is not the old righteousness requickened ; but 
 " the Righteousness of God in Him " which takes its 
 place. Our corruption can pass away only before 
 His Presence, " Who knew no sin ;" and our restor- 
 ation can be accomplished only as that Presence re- 
 forms the corruptible into His own incorruption. The 
 fact of sin once entering into the nature, renders it 
 for ever incapable of again reviving and returning unto 
 God. He only Who could ''see no corruption," can 
 restore it by combining it with Himself. He only 
 Who " knew no sin," can quicken it afresh from the 
 dead, by the Divine Nature entering in and uniting 
 Itself in some deep mystery with the fallen nature. 
 Even as God entered into death, and ' was prostrate 
 under His enemy the hour He overwhelmed him, 
 the Conqueror chained and bleeding beneath the foe 
 He destroyed ;' so He entered into sin, complying with 
 all its penalties, clothing Himself with its garments, 
 enduring all its misery, and thus, even as He yielded 
 Himself, annihilated the power in whose grasp He 
 was bound, transforming into His own Image, as He 
 touched it at every point, the corruption which was 
 causing Him all His agony. It is no more, therefore, 
 " I that hve ; but " — Another had passed within him 
 and possessed him, and became his truer self, — " Christ 
 LiVETH IN ME : and the life which I now live in the 
 ^ 1 Cor. XV. 47.
 
 8 
 
 flesh, 1 live by the faith of the Son of God, Who 
 loved me, and gave Himself for me.'" 
 
 It was the consciousness of this, however dimly 
 perceived ; the consciousness that, with the myste- 
 rious Stranger Who had appeared in the Flesh, there 
 was sympathy with the inward groanings of every 
 sinner's lot, and power by an intimate communion to 
 heal the fountain-head of sin within, that drew around 
 Him the first company of penitents, which was to 
 increase as His Presence spread among all nations, 
 gathering to Himself everywhere all those whose 
 troubled hearts, " groaning and travailing with pain 
 together" under the "bondage of corruption," waited 
 "for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the 
 body." 
 
 In contemplating the change which passed over 
 human nature, as God entered within it, imparting to 
 it His own righteousness in Himself in the place of 
 its own sinfulness, the differences between one sin and 
 another fade away. In contrast with the outgoings 
 of His transcendent love they are inappreciable. As 
 we rise to contemplate the Son of God crossing the 
 gulph which separates the all-holy Godhead from sin- 
 ful humanity, degrees of sin in the creature so infi- 
 nitely blessed, are lost to the sight. Certainly the 
 hard distinctions which the conventionalities of society 
 have drawn, can have no place here. As there can 
 be no limit to the sympathy with which His sacred 
 Heart yearned towards the fallen, or to His power in 
 restoring them, there can be no ground for exclud- 
 ing from the range of our compassion, or the possi- 
 bilities of complete renovation, any even of the dead- 
 liest sins. 
 
 1 Gal. ii. 20.
 
 Yet such exclusion has been made in the case which 
 we are now specially considering ; for though fallen 
 woman has not sinned alone, how entirely in the 
 world's eye has the undivided burden of guilt fallen 
 upon her ! While the partners of her sin pass in and 
 out among ns, unnoticed, save by the sleepless Eye of 
 God ; on her has lain the blight of a hopeless excom- 
 munication. Even the Church has failed in its love 
 towards her. The ministerings of the Son of Man 
 have through us been straitened in her case. This is 
 said deliberately ; for though some Penitentiaries have 
 long since been established amongst us, it has not 
 been by the direct action of the Church, nor has the 
 love and self-devoted ness of the Gospel in their highest 
 forms animated the work. It is not meant to dis- 
 parage what has been done, whether within the 
 Church, though in a different spirit and on a diffe- 
 rent plan from what we should have desired, or even 
 without the Church, to stem the tide of impurity, yet 
 considering the general tone of feeling, the want of 
 sympathy and earnestness, and the inertness and bar- 
 renness of the Church itself, we must acknowledge 
 that a debt, as yet unredeemed, is owed towards the 
 many thousands, who, as beings already enveloped in 
 the darkness of a lower world, people your midnight 
 streets.* 
 
 And what renders this neglect the more inexcusable, 
 is that whilst our Lord's love in seeking to save the 
 lost, knew no respect of persons, in no instance has 
 His dealing with penitents been recorded with such 
 minuteness and fulness of detail, as in the case of 
 fallen woman. Whatever be the cause, — whether it 
 
 ^ The substance of this Sermon was preached in London, at 
 Christ Church, S. Pancras. 
 
 A 3
 
 10 
 
 were because fallen woman was doomed to bear the un- 
 mitigated scorn of the world, — or that her sin, involv- 
 ing the ruin both of body and soul, is most completely 
 at variance with the righteousness of the Spirit which 
 He came to infuse into our nature, — or that the viola- 
 tion of the sanctity of marriage — the " great mys- 
 tery,"^ given in the days of man's innocence, symbol- 
 izing the Incarnation, and the mystical union which is 
 betwixt Christ and His Church, — is so fatal a sacri- 
 lege, and spreads the widest misery throughout the 
 human family, destroying its holiest natural ties, — • 
 and therefore that this sin, because of its exceeding 
 deadliness, needed a special assurance of pardon, and 
 became the fittest instance of the inexhaustible powers 
 of the Atonement, — whatever the cause be, we have 
 certainly no such records of His healing and consoling 
 love, as He manifested towards these lost ones of His 
 Fold. 
 
 For, let us trace briefly the wonderful details we 
 possess of His personal intercourse with such mem- 
 bers of this lost class as were, through His grace, 
 drawn to Him. First, He shields the penitent from 
 the scorn which has ever dogged her path, rebuking 
 the world around that would have heaped upon her 
 head the extreme malediction of the Law : " He that 
 is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone 
 at her."^ Then He breathes into her soul the peace of 
 His heahng absolution. " Neither do I condemn thee." 
 And then He acknowledges in her the reality of a will 
 and a power (His own merciful gifts,) to overcome all 
 remaining passions, — " Go, and sin no more." 
 
 Again, dealing with another, one of a darker con- 
 
 1 Eph. V. 32. See the First Exhortation in the Marriage Service. 
 ^ S. John viii. 7.
 
 11 
 
 science, He first seeks to stir her soul to confession and 
 a sense of guilt, awakening her to the comprehension of 
 the extent of her sin. " Jesus saith to her. Go, call thy 
 husband and come hither. The woman answered and 
 said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou 
 hast well said, I have no husband. For thou hast had 
 five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy 
 husband ; in that sayest thou truly.'" Then varying 
 His appeal, as His words were lost upon her, and 
 still long-suffering towards one as yet incapable, as it 
 seemed, of being aroused to a sense of sin. He seeks 
 another entrance into her soul, opening before her, 
 in allusion to a question she herself had raised, the 
 view of a pure, deep bliss, in communion with the 
 Eternal Father through the Spirit, now within reach 
 of her, and of all the children of her people. "Jesus 
 saith unto her. Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh 
 when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at 
 Jerusalem, worship the Father the true wor- 
 shippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in 
 truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him." 
 Again, in a third and yet different case, one whose 
 soul had been deeply stirred, and whose sore anguish 
 had issued in an entire devotion, how touchingly 
 tender and encouraging are His words as He disclosed 
 to the world the great gift of love which He had shed 
 upon her. " And He turned unto the woman and 
 said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman ? I entered 
 into thine house, thou gavest Me no water for My feet, 
 but she hath washed My feet with tears, and wiped 
 them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest Me no 
 kiss, but this woman, since the time I came in, hath 
 not ceased to kiss My feet. My head with oil thou 
 1 S. John iv. 18.
 
 12 
 
 didst not anoint, but this woman hath anointed My 
 feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, her 
 sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much, 
 hut to whom httle is forgiven^ the same loveth Httle.'" 
 
 It is in the convictions which such passages of the 
 Word of God inspire, that the House of Mercy has been 
 formed. And this work has grown far beyond our own 
 borders ; for within this vast city it has been taken up 
 by many kindred hearts. And where more fitly should 
 such help be given than here ? For who can think 
 without shuddering of the revelations of wickedness 
 which are here spread out beneath the eye of Heaven, 
 side by side with all that art, or wealth, or power of 
 intellect can produce ; horrible profligacies separated 
 by but a thin partition from all that is most beautiful 
 and illustrious in the world ! No sooner does evening 
 close upon her streets, than one can scarcely venture 
 forth without meeting almost at every turn what 
 must sadden his inmost heart : no watchful parent but 
 must feel anxiety for his child whom necessity may 
 call forth from home amidst such danger. 
 
 Is there not here a call for very earnest efforts ? For 
 of these many thousands of lost ones wandering in the 
 midst of us, none can be saved without some means, 
 such as we seek to offer. Between them and hope, 
 whether for this world or the next, there is a gi'eat 
 gulf fixed, across which no eff'ort of their own can ever 
 enable them to pass. They can find " no place for re- 
 pentance," though they seek it " carefully, with tears," 
 except through the mercy of others. They are the 
 very children of despair. 
 
 And yet the cause of their fall may have been a train 
 of circumstances in which their blame was less than 
 1 S. Luke vii, 44 — 47.
 
 13 
 
 that of others. They may have been the innocent 
 victims before they became the tempters. Not one of 
 them, perhaps, but would have shrunk back from what 
 they now are, could they have seen the end of their 
 early faults ; many, perhaps, would have never fallen, 
 had the voice of warning come in time, — had the care 
 of a true home, or of the Church, been around them 
 in timely season. And that there are many who, 
 whatever be the entanglements around them now, 
 would arise and bless us for such mercy, as in the 
 days when the first graces of the Gospel opened on the 
 world, is evident by the many applications made, 
 which by no existing means can be met. 
 
 When the Son of God, " Who knew no sin," to 
 Whose pure Humanity its presence must have been 
 a perpetual agony, passed through the cities and 
 highways of Judsea and Galilee, and His eyes rested 
 on the forms of sin that moved around Him, how did 
 His sacred Heart yearn, and how great was the self- 
 sacrifice through which He sought to overcome the 
 malignity of the evil, and to draw its victims " out of 
 darkness into His marvellous light, and from the 
 power of Satan unto God !" He has now passed 
 within the veil, and is hidden ; but His Presence is 
 among us, and His Image lives in our hearts and we 
 are His ; and we are to be, as He was, in this world. 
 
 He still speaks through us, and His Hand is stretched 
 out through our ministerings to save and to heal. 
 The travail of His soul is to be satisfied in the toil and 
 love of His Church, which must still ever bear " the 
 marks of the Lord Jesus." Should we not then look 
 around us with His Eyes of pure compassion, and fol- 
 lowing Him at however great a distance, still in His 
 Spirit of self-devotedness, seek to deliver, and if need
 
 14 
 
 be, " compel to come in," those whom His voice is 
 calling, even now, " in the streets and lanes of the 
 city," and in the " highways and hedges" of om' land ? 
 Let it then be our earnest prayer that our hearts 
 may be enlarged, and the gift of the love of Christ 
 be stirred within us, that in the spirit and power of 
 His love we may accomplish what He hath given us 
 to do, and seek by His grace to gather in these lost 
 ones, whose misery, degradation, and shame perpetually 
 cry out to us for mercy, that we may work together 
 with Him, their Redeemer, for their deliverance, that 
 so with Him we may rejoice in the final gathering of 
 all whom He will save in His day; to Whom with the 
 Father and the Holy Ghost, &c.
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 S. John xix. 25. 
 
 "Now THERE STOOD BY THE CROSS OF JeSUS HiS MOTHER, 
 
 AND His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, 
 AND Mary Magdalene." 
 
 The text mentions three persons who, at the latter 
 period of the Crucifixion, stood near the Cross. The 
 following verse speaks of a fourth, — " When Jesus 
 therefore saw His mother, and the disciple standing 
 by, whom He loved." Four there were in all, who 
 saw His last pang, and watched His dying look ; the 
 blessed Virgin Mother, Mary her sister, Mary Magda- 
 lene, and S. John the beloved Apostle. Though 
 brought thus closely together, they were persons very 
 different one from another, in character, in prepara- 
 tions of heart, and in manner of Hfe. 
 
 In the Mother of our Lord we see the image of 
 Virgin purity. She was one who from infancy had 
 grown in a retired home, in a sweet humility, in gen- 
 tleness, in submission, in innocence, so far as was ever 
 given to a child of Eve, (One only excepted) blessed 
 among women, honoured of Angels, and highly 
 favoured of God. She was the pattern of all those 
 who, in their several degrees, nurtured in Christian 
 homes, and shielded from the impurities of the world,
 
 16 
 
 have never fallen away from their first grace, ever 
 drawing nearer to the perfect vision of God. 
 
 S. John is the image of faithful love. He was one 
 who had grown up in the world, in common labour, 
 amidst the ordinary trials of life, in a fisher's calling, 
 and from that world, and all its gains, and all its 
 pleasures, had turned at the first call to follow the 
 Lord, and in following Him, had learnt to rule his 
 life and quiet his too passionate soul, as he gazed with 
 a still, deep love on the Countenance of his Master, 
 and from His bosom whereon he lay, drank in the 
 streams of light and love, through which he became 
 ever purer, more gentle, more divine. He is the fore- 
 runner of all those who in the midst of the world are 
 yet weaned from it more and more, as the call of God 
 comes upon them, and follow His will, as their eyes 
 are opened to see, and by degrees are absorbed in the 
 pervading consciousness of His most blissful love. 
 
 We pass over the third, Mary, the Virgin Mother's 
 sister, scarcely known to us except by name. There 
 is yet a fourth, standing by the Cross, near as the 
 others, Mary Magdalene. She had been known in 
 early life by a far different course from that of her com- 
 panions, by a notoriety which has clung to her name 
 through all ages. She is known as " the sinner from 
 the city ;" so unclean that seven devils had entered 
 into her. But she had learnt to loathe her sin, and 
 had knelt at the feet of Jesus, washing them with her 
 tears, and wiping them w'ith the hairs of her head, 
 once the snares of accursed love, but now offered to 
 Him Who in mercy had drawn her to Himself, to 
 love Him only. She had heard Him pronounce her 
 forgiveness, and from that hour had cleaved to Him 
 as the life and joy of her soul, and followed, minister-
 
 17 
 
 ing to Him of her substance. She is the pattern of 
 all those who, having fallen and become dead in tres- 
 passes and sins, have heard in the depth of their souls 
 the voice of God calling them, and have torn them- 
 selves from all the entanglements in which they were 
 bound, and sought a perfect cleansing through His re- 
 deeming love in following His holy ways, giving them- 
 selves, and all they have, to Him. 
 
 These three stood near the Cross, types of that in- 
 numerable company to be gathered in from all corners 
 of the earth to meet before the Throne. One all 
 purity, who had borne Him in her womb. One all 
 love, who had lain on His breast at supper. One all 
 sorrow, who had pierced Him with her sins. And all 
 together now in Him gathered into one fellowship. 
 The Cross has alike drawn hearts so different, and 
 alike cleansed all. Even the sins which had been as 
 scarlet have been made white as snow. The sinner 
 in her penitence is cleansed, and in her cleansing stands 
 beside the purest of her sisters. " The pure in heart 
 shall see God," as is given to none other; but none 
 of the virtues of the Cross and Passion of the Son of 
 God are withheld from the penitent. 
 
 Often indeed there is given to these last an earnest- 
 ness of grace which seems beyond that of all others. All 
 the three Marys carried the sacred Body to the tomb, 
 but when the Virgin returned to the city, and all was 
 silent, and hope was gone, the Penitent remained 
 watching. " There was Mary Magdalene and the 
 other Mary sitting over against the sepulchre."* All 
 the three again went to the tomb early in the morning 
 when the Sabbath was past, carrying sweet spices to 
 anoint Him ; but when the others had retired in de- 
 1 S. Matt, xxvii. 61.
 
 18 
 
 spair of finding Him, the Magdalene alone remained, 
 in tears, still seeking Him. 
 
 And as there are depths of earnestness and love de- 
 veloped in the souls of those who in the bitterness of 
 their remorse have known the mercies of Christ, so 
 are there gifts of consolation, unrevealed to others, 
 reserved for them alone. Our Lord showed Himself 
 alive first to the Magdalene, next to S. Peter, both 
 fallen, both penitents. The first entrance into Para- 
 dise, the passage thither even by His side, was the 
 blessing of a Penitent. The first sound of His voice, 
 when He had risen from the dead, and the promise 
 that, when He had ascended. He should be touched 
 with a closer touch than was ever known before, was 
 the unspeakable joy of the Magdalene. 
 
 And if to all who have fallen, and after their long 
 wanderings would return, there is mercy, and through 
 that mercy a perfect cleansing, and the vision of God, 
 can we suppose that the one class of penitents who 
 are more especially represented by the Magdalene, 
 shall fail to find their place beneath the Cross. If 
 the Eternal did not scorn, though the leper scorned, 
 the sinner from the city, but gave His feet to be 
 kissed, and blessed her love, for " she loved much," 
 can we think that now in the fulness of His perfected 
 atonement, He will reject any one who comes forth 
 from her hiding place of shame in the city or the vil- 
 lage, to find rest in Him ? If when many, even 
 leaders and teachers of the people, had condemned 
 the sinner taken in the very act, He nevertheless 
 shielded her from scorn and death, and would give her 
 her season of grace in peace, can we doubt that His 
 will now must be, that every one, however defiled, 
 should have a refuge and a home, and hope of restora-
 
 19 
 
 tion to the favour of God and man ? We believe 
 then that the will of God is clear, that such penitents 
 should not be driven back into the depths of the dark 
 waters, but rather should be sought out, if haply the 
 strivings of the Spirit may draw one or another unto 
 Him Who still waiteth to be gracious. 
 
 There are moreover special reasons why such sinners 
 have a very touching claim on our pity and our aid. 
 Does it not move you to think that the sinful woman 
 has to bear a burden from which man the partner of 
 , her guilt is free ? He returns from his sin and no 
 outward change has passed over him. In the eye of 
 the world he is as though he had sinned not. How 
 different are the consequences to her. She must for- 
 feit home and becomes the outcast. She loses the 
 hope of ever again eating the bread of honesty. A 
 gulph opens before her, which no remorse, no toil, no 
 restitution can ever enable her to cross. From very 
 necessity she sins on ; from the very cravings of 
 hunger, though she loathe it, must still return to it, 
 must die in it, if death overtake her. No door opens 
 to receive her as a servant ; no trade admits her as a 
 sharer of its toil. There is no despair on earth like 
 that which comes over the soul of the fallen woman, 
 when sin has become an abomination to her, and yet 
 her perpetual uncleanness is the only source of her 
 daily bread. Her hell is begun ; within her shame, 
 tribulation, and terror ; without her scorn, and dark- 
 ness and a laughter in which devils may well be 
 thought to join. 
 
 Or if the darkness be unfelt, and the inward horror 
 be as yet unrevealed to the soul, yet even still more is 
 to be mourned that spiritual death which tends ever 
 onward, though unconsciously, yet rapidly and surely, 
 to its own place and final doom.
 
 20 
 
 It should moreover move us to think, that all this 
 misery may have arisen from causes to which the poor 
 alone are subject. For their children suffer, in a 
 manner unknown to others, from exposure, from too 
 close contact in cottages with insufficient space to 
 separate the sexes, and preserve the veil even of com- 
 mon decency ; from too great familiarity in the times 
 of labour, in the field where all ages and both sexes 
 mingle without restraint, or the workroom with its 
 close and long continued evil communications, during 
 the many hours when no mother's eye is near to check 
 the first breach of female honour, or mark the first 
 unholy look; or in the walk homewards, unguarded, 
 amidst the contaminations of the idlers of the hamlet, 
 or along the crowded street. 
 
 Or it may be from unkindness at home, wdiere pas- 
 sions are so uncontrolled, or from want of discipline 
 and restraint, so difficult to preserve among the poor 
 in their unceasing round of daily toil, or from a fond 
 parent's weakness, or a sinful parent's neglect, or mere 
 blameless lack of prudence, the consequences of all 
 which tell with such intensely aggravated force in the 
 unguarded state of a labourer's home. 
 
 Or again from destitution, the burden of distress 
 depressing all the moral energies of the soul, and 
 breaking down the barriers of the grace of chastity, 
 or the helplessness of the orphan and motherless, 
 in the special difficulties which poverty must bring. 
 
 How quickly in such scenes, and amid such snares 
 as these, will the early faults of wilfulness, or vanity, or 
 secret passion hurry the young beyond the line of 
 female safety, and then in an unwary hour, the weak 
 compliance with some dazzling promise or heartless 
 lie, in ignorance or heedlessness of what must follow, 
 seals her destiny, and suddenly she awakes to feel that
 
 21 
 
 she is the scorn of all, and must shun the light of day, 
 and go and dwell where the darkest horrors ply their 
 trade. All unconsciously perhaps there begins a course 
 in which are gradually revealed the realities of a lot as 
 horribleas imagination could picture among the damned. 
 It has been the continual sight of such misery close by 
 our own homes, and in the sphere of my pastoral care, 
 that has led us to form a retreat where penitents com- 
 ing forth fi'om those depths of debasement may share, 
 if it be possible, the merits and virtues of the all-suffi- 
 cient Sacrifice of the Cross, which is our only hope, 
 and is surely their' s also. There is a haunt within my 
 parish, such as alas ! is not uncommonly found in the 
 suburbs of our towns, whither, as to a sink of shame 
 flow in from all the villages around, and from the 
 great city, the outcasts of many a saddened home. 
 They stray away from the scenes of their childhood, 
 and are lost amidst the crowd w^hich wanders through 
 our lanes and courts. My frequent walk is among 
 sights of degraded womanhood, which, God grant, may 
 never darken the hearth of any one of you. A few 
 years ago God stirred in the hearts of some who dwelt 
 in the spot referred to, a desire to flee from their sins, 
 and at the same time He awakened in one of His ser- 
 vants who lived hard by a longing to save the sinner. 
 There was a lady who received into her own home 
 those penitents ; within three days, six ; within a month 
 fifteen. Thus arose the House of Mercy, within 
 sight of the abode of vice ; that " where sin abounded, 
 there grace should much more abound." From that 
 hour to this present, it has grown upon this founda- 
 tion. There was no design, no theory, nothing of our 
 own mind. Enlarging, the work has taken a settled 
 form in the same spirit.
 
 22 
 
 It has been unbought love winning to Him Who is 
 Love, the fruits of His redemption, disentangUng the 
 thorns which had fastened around and torn the lost 
 sheep, smoothing the roughness of the way of the 
 cross, and rejoicing in their return w'ithin the fold. 
 
 In the recovery of the lost it has been marvellous to see 
 what affections have been drawn forth, what efforts after 
 self-control have been made, what restraints patiently 
 borne, what a change has come over the countenance, 
 stamping on the outward features the influences which 
 had been breathed over the inward life. A marvel 
 and a blessing it has been to watch how hearts so 
 withered, which had never believed that pure, disin- 
 terested love could exist in human breasts, have 
 melted at the touch of those who sought them in 
 Christ's compassion. 
 
 For as we have learnt from Christ the hope that 
 such sinners may be saved, so have we learnt the true 
 means by which the work is to be done. He taught 
 us by His own example the effectual way to reach such 
 sinners' hearts : it was by His self-sacrifice and love. 
 He stooped from heaven to reach them. He sat down 
 with them to share the sinners' meal. " As Jesus sat 
 at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sin- 
 ners came, and sat down with Him and His disciples."^ 
 He stooped down to still lower depths of shame and 
 suffering. He " being in the form of God, thought it 
 not robbery to be equal with God : but made Himself 
 of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a 
 servant, and was made in the likeness of man, and being 
 found in fashion as a man. He humbled Himself, and 
 became obedient to death, even the death of the 
 cross. "^ He gave up all for love of those whom He 
 1 S. Matt. ii. 10. ■ ~ Philip, ii. G— 8.
 
 23 
 
 sought to save, and mingled amongst them, and be- 
 came as one of them, and thus constrained them to 
 love Him. He the All-pure, yielded Himself to min- 
 gle with the impure ; He Whose Name is Love, gave 
 Himself for those whose hearts had become most basely 
 selfish, and thus both won them to Himself, and raised 
 them to the consciousness of a higher and purer life. 
 
 And this manifestly is an eternal law affecting the 
 salvation of souls. It is undeniably an example which 
 must reverently be borne in mind by all who would 
 win souls, and according to our measure, at however 
 vast a distance, be copied. And herein a great defect 
 in our old Penitentiaries is made evident ; for there 
 has been in them a lack of this self-sacrifice and per- 
 sonal love. The work has been too often done merely as 
 a hired service. They who serve in them are scarcely 
 in a position to represent to the penitent Christ's 
 love, nor to say, without risk of being gainsaid, " We 
 come to you in the love of God, and for your soul's 
 sake only." The penitent cannot so surely feel " for 
 love of me and for Christ, not for themselves, they 
 labour." There is not the direct appeal of love to 
 love. There is danger lest the great principle of the 
 first drawing of the soul be not put forth, and lest 
 the sinner rise not to the contemplation of the love of 
 Christ in Christ Himself: for they whom she sees, 
 as between God and her, bear in their ofiice and minis- 
 tering but a dimmed reflection of His Image in this 
 which is His special mode of winning hearts. 
 
 It is this w^hich distinguishes the House of Mercy 
 from our older Penitentiaries. If to live amongst such 
 fallen ones, labouring for them day and night, with 
 unbought love to save them from their sins, and from 
 themselves, in order to present them before the Throne 
 in the presence of all the holy angels, rejoicing over
 
 24 
 
 each one that repenteth, constitutes a claim on your 
 sympathy and aid ; such a ground of appeal may be 
 urged most undoubtedly in this case. 
 
 And must not such an appeal come with a very per- 
 sonal feeling to every one of us on one ground or 
 another. Such as have been brought up in pure and 
 joyous homes, where a holy modesty has ever found 
 the seclusion which it loved, where the young heart 
 has known no blighting, and its first fond affections 
 have been sanctified and sealed by a blessing from 
 above, and who owe they know not how much, to 
 safeguards cast around them, not of their own choosing, 
 but of His love Who orders all our lots in life, — such 
 may feel a pity for those who perhaps have fallen, be- 
 cause, as they grew up, they had no such watchful 
 shelter. 
 
 So likewise the parent who by God's infinite mercy 
 has been spared the bitterness of a daughter's fall, on 
 whose lineage no spot of infamy has ever come, may 
 compassionate those whose trials and difficulties they 
 never experienced, and who, had their lot been cast 
 in a more favoured sphere, would perhaps equally have 
 been spared such misery. 
 
 And again, some there may be whose consciences 
 are stirred with the remembrance of the sins of their 
 youth, who have upon their souls the same guilt as 
 those for whom I plead, but have escaped their utter 
 degradation; some one perhaps there may be, who even 
 has lured into the fatal snare one who but for him had 
 never known such infamy : — of such, surely we may 
 ask an act of restitution, for without restitution, where 
 it may be had, repentance is vain, and such an offering 
 may return in blessing, if not on the very partners of 
 their crime, yet on other members of that doomed
 
 25 
 
 class, for whom, so often much more simied against 
 than sinning, this one, and only means of restoration 
 now remains. 
 
 For surely '* God is righteous in all His ways," and 
 " the judgments of the Lord are true." There can be 
 no inequalities in His dispensations, Who " is no re- 
 specter of persons." And though, for the most part, 
 on woman only fall with such instant speed the terrible 
 consequences of her guilt, there must be judgments in 
 store for those also who have shared the same guilt, — 
 a fellowship of retribution, as there has been a fellow- 
 ship of impurity, — judgments suspended awhile, that 
 other laws of His Providence may have their course, 
 but to be manifested in that day when God will " bring 
 to light the hidden things of darkness," and every 
 unrepented sin shall have its full recompense. " Some 
 men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judg- 
 ment, and some men they follow after. ''^ The sins of 
 youth may seem to have passed away — no trace left, save 
 upon the memory, — and since their days of evil, the 
 guilty may have drawn around them the circle of a happy 
 home, and in its happiness forget the misery which 
 has fallen upon those no more guilty than themselves. 
 But the impunities of social life can give no secu- 
 rity against Heaven's unerring retributions. Subse- 
 quent abstinence from evil is no atonement for former 
 guilt. The flight of years cannot put away sins ; if 
 unabsolved, uncleansed in the virtues of the atoning 
 Blood of the Lamb, they live on where sleep in awful 
 silence the final judgments of an offended God. Bles- 
 sed be His Name, those final judgments may be averted ; 
 but infinite mercy cannot lessen the demands of perfect 
 justice. God surely looks for restitution. Sins against 
 
 1 1 Tim. V. 2-1.
 
 26 
 
 Himself He freely remits, and herein we can offer 
 no amends to satisfy His justice. Sins towards our 
 fellow-creatures, He remits as freely ; but herein we 
 may often give, and where we can. He requires us to 
 give "restitution and satisfaction to the uttermost of 
 our power;" and to check the vice, and heal the 
 misery in which oneself may have borne a part, is 
 a meet offering, which will be accepted of God, not 
 as though it could win pardon, but as the late amends 
 of penitence, from one who did what he could. 
 
 Oh ! that we may all feel more deeply the dreadful- 
 ness of sin, and the nearness of our danger, and the 
 mercy of our escape, and the blessing of rekindled 
 hope, and the value of souls in His eye. Who will 
 have the house swept even for the one piece of silver, 
 from which the Image of its Lord is not yet wholly 
 erased, and Who even where it is altogether obliterated, 
 yearns to recreate afresh " after the same Image in 
 righteousness and true holiness ;" that Image in which 
 it is our hope to stand before Him at the Last Day ; 
 and that, in the grateful consciousness of His forgive- 
 ness and renewed love, we may run the way of His 
 commandments, and accomplish the good works which 
 He hath prepared for us to walk in, in love to others, 
 as we have been freely loved of Him ; that so, in that 
 day when He maketh up His jewels, He may own us 
 as among those in whom the purposes of His love have 
 been fulfilled, and the travails of His own Soul satis- 
 fied ; to Whom, with the Father and the Holy 
 Ghost, be now and ever all glory and thanksgiving, 
 &c., &c.
 
 AN APPEAL 
 
 HOUSE OF MERCY, CLEWER. 
 
 Lent, 185G. 
 To those who are interested in Church Penitentiaries and Sister- 
 hoods, this appeal is addressed. The House of Mercy for the re- 
 covery of fallen women has been established amidst many difficul- 
 ties, although largely prospered, and the greater portion of the 
 intended designs is finished ; but we urgently require help at this 
 present time, for we are pressed by the liabilities still remaining on 
 the new buildings, and by the need of completing what we have 
 begun. "VVe ask of those who are enabled and kindly disposed 
 to aid us, that they would aid us now by giving, or collecting 
 each the sum of ^10. If three hundred and fifty persons under- 
 take to give this aid, our work may before long be completed. 
 "We are encouraged to make this appeal from the blessing which 
 has hitherto rested on the House of Mercy, and which is marked 
 by the following facts in our past progress. 
 
 First, as to our financial state. We commenced this work 
 suddenly, without any preparation, in a house lent only for six 
 months, trusting to aid, from day to day. In laying the foun- 
 dations of every work of any magnitude, there is much of the 
 outlay which never appears above ground ; but the main of tlie 
 expenditure has been as follows : — Two houses were successively 
 occupied, after the first which was lent, and both these had to be 
 fitted for the purpose, at a considerable cost. A permanent site 
 was then purchased, being a freehold estate of fifteen acres, 
 at a cost of £2300. The grounds around the house have been 
 fenced, drained, and laid out for recreation ; dairy-farm stocked, &c. 
 Lastly, the New Buildings just completed have been raised at a
 
 28 
 
 cost of about £6500. This may seem a large outlay for the pur- 
 pose, but those who have examined the buildings and know our 
 requirements, have not thought that there has been any unneces- 
 sary expenditure. There has been running on, at the same time, 
 a current expenditure of maintaining a household of about thirty 
 persons, year after year, for upwards of six years. 
 
 Secondly, as to the vital point of the living agency for carry- 
 ing on the work. It was commenced by a single individual, 
 who, for six months and upwards, had no fellow-workers. For 
 the next year and a half, there was only the precarious help of 
 occasional visitors. Gradually a settled community has been 
 formed, which now consists of nine Sisters. They are constituted, 
 according to legally constructed statutes, and by Episcopal 
 sanction, into a corporate body, as a recognised instrument of 
 the work of the Church of God. They support themselves on 
 their own independent means, and carry on the entire manage- 
 ment and care of the House with only a few subordinate helpers 
 serving without wages. 
 
 Thirdly, as to the truth and permanence of the principles on 
 which the House has been founded. Its principles were, at the 
 commencement, known only in the appeals of the chief leader 
 of the movement. They have since made such way, that they 
 are now recognised and upheld by a Society which numbered, 
 in the spring of 1854, 400 members, including fifteen Bishops, 
 and whicli extends its operations throughout the entire sphere of 
 the Church of England. Five other Houses have since been 
 formed on the same principles, and are now cherished by this 
 Society. 
 
 Lastly, as to the great and momentous object for which these 
 efforts have been made — the success of our endeavours to recover 
 the lost sheep of Cheist's fold. The Clergymen and Sisters 
 alike who here entered upon this work were obliged to do so 
 without any previous experience whatever. The old precedents 
 scarcely applied to what was intended to be carried out in dutiful 
 observance of the Church's system and by a higher kind of service. 
 We have had to form our own views, learn minute details, and 
 test every rule by our own actual experience. The work has also 
 suffered greatly, up to this time, from the very inconvenient internal 
 arrangement of houses, which ordy with difiBculty were at all made 
 available for the purpose, and where there could be no classifica- 
 tion, or even temporary separation for testing the cases admitted. 
 We calculate, however, that out of eighty cases who have left after
 
 29 
 
 being for a longer or shorter period under our care, there are fifty- 
 doing well in the world, with a large proportion of whom inter- 
 course from time to time is kept up. We look on these as the 
 first-fruits of a large harvest of souls, over even one of whom 
 repenting there is joy among the angels of God. 
 
 "When it is considered that this progress has been made in the 
 course of six years and a half, we may well thank God and take 
 courage. We cannot but recognise His hand blessing the work ; 
 may we not venture, therefore, to ask for aid, to finish it. 
 
 Our immediate need is to clear ofi" the liabilities upon the 
 Buildings already completed and occupied ; and then to build the 
 remaining wing, which contains the Sisters' chief rooms, the de- 
 partment for Penitents of a higher grade, additional Probationaiy 
 rooms, the Chapel, and the Infirmary. £3500 will enable us, we 
 trust, to complete the work. 
 
 We are earnestly desirous to complete it without delay for 
 many reasons. The pressure for the admission of Penitents is so 
 great that we have constantly the pain of rejecting urgent cases. 
 One crying want especially, which has never anywhere as yet been 
 supplied, — a separate department for Penitents of a higher grade, 
 cannot be met till the remaining wing is built. The completion 
 of the Sisters' rooms is also very urgent, for at present they are 
 occupying rooms intended for the Penitents, and both their effi- 
 ciency is marred, and the privacy which they need, when not 
 actually employed, is unattainable for want of the rooms intended 
 for them. 
 
 We trust, then, for the love of souls, that this our appeal will 
 not be rejected ; and that in the same spirit in which the work is 
 being carried on, those who can help us will join with us in an 
 association of prayer and alms for a time, till the work be accom- 
 plished. 
 
 If the question should ever cross the mind, — is so large an 
 outlay, and so elaborately constructed a system, necessary for such 
 an object? — an answer is suggested in the words used by the 
 Lord Bishop of Oxford at the last meeting of the Church Peni- 
 tentiary Association in London : — 
 
 " It has been objected that more has been done for reclaiming a 
 few of the lost ones of Cheist than has been done for a great 
 number of the unfallen. This is the one recurring thought which 
 tends to weaken our efforts. It is, in one shape or another, the 
 taunt which has been thrown out against the Penitentiary move-
 
 30 
 
 meut, and it takes the form of an accusation that the promoters 
 of it are influenced by a spurious, sickly, and morbid benevolence. 
 No one who is engaged in this work has failed to suffer from the 
 paralysing influence of this suspicion ; and, therefore, it is well 
 that there should be settled in the minds of all what is the true 
 and thoroughly sufficient answer to the question. The simple 
 answer is that it is the will of God, marked upon the entire dis- 
 pensation, of which we are parts, that there should be the ne- 
 cessity of greater labour to bring back to the fold those who could 
 be saved, rather than to preserve those who, through the grace of 
 God, had not fallen. It is that which stands written, as with the 
 finger of God, in the history of man's redemption. Let those 
 who misgive their motives reflect upon what God, in His marvel- 
 lous tenderness, has done for man ; because what limit was there 
 to the power of God when man fell into sin ? and why might He 
 not then have called into existence countless worlds peopled with 
 unfallen creatures ? But, instead of this, the Eternal Son died 
 for us upon a cross, and went through the whole of that costly 
 apparatus by which man became rescued from his fall. Therefore, 
 those who hope to share hereafter in the beatitude of Christ 
 should not suffer such a thought to subdue them ; because, 
 stamped upon every thought of our own is the thought that to 
 raise the fallen and to save the sinner was sufficient to bring down 
 from heaven the co-eternal Son of God to hang upon the cross at 
 Calvary. Nothing so much tends to put matters in their true 
 light as to go straight to the great truth, that when they labour 
 to restore a few unfortunate beings from the unspeakable misery 
 in which sin has reduced them, they are but following the distinct 
 type of God's love for mankind in the redemption of man through 
 our Loud Jesus Christ." 
 
 N.B. Any who are kindly drawn to unite in making the effort 
 here urged will be thankfully supplied with any number of papers 
 they may require, to assist in forwarding this object, by applying 
 to the undersigned. 
 
 THOMAS T. CARTER. 
 Clewer Rectory, Windsor.
 
 By the same Author. 
 
 THE FIRST FIVE YEARS OF THE HOUSE OF MERCY. 
 
 Second Edition. Price Qd. 
 
 SISTERHOODS FOR THE CARE OF FEMALE 
 PENITENTS. 
 
 A Tract. Price M. 
 
 Also, 
 
 CHRIST THE HEALER. 
 S pennon 
 
 PREACHED BY THE 
 
 LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD, 
 
 At the opening of the New Buildings of the House of Mercy, Clevver, 
 Vigil of S. Andrew, Nov. 29, 1855. 
 
 Price \s.
 
 '''%f.^if'};?rfr,
 
 |PM|(HII'li|lll9;
 
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