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 CHRISTIANITY LEAVENING COMMON 
 LIFE AND CONVERSATION. 
 
 A SERMON, 
 
 HON. AND REV. W. H. LYTTELTON, A.M., 
 
 Rector of Ha^ley.IIonorary Canon of Worcester.aud Chaplain to Earl Speiiv;er 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 F. & J. RIVINGTON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM : H. C. LANGBRIDGE. 
 
 1852.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 When so many sermons are published, it requires some good 
 reason to justify the publishing of another. My reason for doing 
 so is, that I am deeply persuaded that the main truth I have 
 endeavoured to enforce — namely, the obvious and undeniable one, 
 that Christianity ought to be the leaven of all our common life 
 and opinions, is strangely forgotten and practically, though 
 often quite unconsciously, denied by many, and that that forget- 
 fulness is at the root of all the evils, under which nations 
 and society are, at this time, suffering. If true Christianity 
 did leaven all our education, all our science, all our politics, 
 we should be safe and blest of God. But meu have learnt 
 to think that religion and common life are separate from one 
 another, and that the object of our Blessed Lord's coming 
 and of God's Revelation was only to enable ua to become 
 holy, and like God in some respects — that is, with respect 
 to what they think are the only spiritual things ; but that 
 the common work and common thoughts and pursuits of this 
 life have nothing to do with God, and cannot have any heavenly 
 light upon them. But we are taught, on the contrary, in the 
 Bible, that when God had created this world at first, " He saw 
 everything that He had made, and behold it was very good." 
 And even now, though it is true that the world is fallen and under 
 a curse, yet St. Paul clearly tells us, " There is nothing unclean 
 of itself" — nothing that need be unclean, or that has not a good 
 use if we can find it out. God created everything ; Satan cannot 
 possibly create anything ; he can only pervert what was originally 
 good, even as he himself was not originally wicked, but an 
 archangel, created to dwell in God's presence for ever. All evil 
 is Satan's caricature of some Divine original. All things we see 
 might be glorious aud beautiful ; for they all originally came 
 from God, not from Satan, perfect and beautiful for their 
 purpose. And it is the ofiice, Chuist has told us, of the Blessed 
 Spirit, to make us see aud feel how this is the case with every-
 
 IV. 
 
 thing. For He is " to take all things that the Father and the 
 Son have," (that is, all things that ever were created,) " and 
 show them unto us" — make us see them in their true light as 
 God intended them to be. — (See John xvi., 13 — 15.) And in the 
 second Adam we are to regain all that in the first we lost — and 
 to " sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus." (£ph. ii. 5.) 
 By forgetting these fundamental truths men have learnt 
 contentedly to leave their common life unblest. Their opinions 
 and ways of thinking and feeling on common subjects are lighted 
 with no Heavenly light. Human life and the world, and its 
 marriages, births, deaths, politics, daily joys and sorrows, are 
 thought to have become, by a melancholy necessity, in their 
 very nature, low earthly things, which cannot be made beautiful 
 or heavenly, nor salted with any salt to keep them from cor- 
 ruption . Angels who live in Heaven may, they think, be like 
 God, and so may we, if we can become like angels, and separate 
 from the earth ; but so long as we are engaged in earthly cares 
 and thoughts we must be " of the earth earthy" — not made in 
 God's image at all. This is to forget that great truth taught 
 us at this season (Christmas ) — the truth namely, that the Son 
 OF God lived a common man's life, for the very purpose of show- 
 ing how the " fulness of the Godhead" may shine through the 
 whole of it, and make birth, and marriage, and death, and every- 
 thing, beautiful and heavenly — as God is willing always to 
 make them. 
 
 In the following Sermon I have endeavoured to point out a 
 test or means of self-examination, by the use of which we may 
 discover how far this has been the case with us, and how far 
 our habitual opinions and feelings are leavened with Christian 
 leaven. 
 
 I have endeavoured to express my meaning in language plain 
 enough for the simplest, and I hope the thoughts may, through 
 the blessing of God, be useful to all. 
 
 Haglexji December, \\)b\. 
 
 ^\ 
 
 « uiuc :
 
 SERMON. 
 
 Matthew xiii., 33. — '•' Another parable spake Hk 
 
 UNTO THEM : TuE KlNGDOM OF HeAVEN IS LIKE 
 UNTO leaven, which A WOMAN TOOK, AND HID IN 
 THREE MEASURES OF MEAL, TILL THE WHOLE WAS 
 LEAVENED." 
 
 The words " the Kingdom of Heaven" in this passage 
 may be taken to mean the Gospel and its power and 
 governing influence in men's hearts. Our Lord says 
 that this power is like " leaven," or, as we commonly, in 
 this country, call it, " barm," which a woman put into 
 meal till the whole was "leavened.'' For as leaven, 
 though hidden in one part of the meal, yet, by degrees, 
 leavens, not one part only, but the whole of it, so 
 true religion, or living faith in Christ, though hidden 
 in a man's heart, yet gradually transforms, not only 
 what is commonly called his directly "religious" cha- 
 racter, but his whole temper, words, thoughts, and 
 feelings. 
 
 Of this truth, the course of our Church services may 
 remind us. For while, from Advent to Trinity Sunday, 
 the Church speaks of the great points of faith, in the 
 Sundays alter Trinity, on the other hand, she speaks of 
 the fruits of faith — its eflects upon the whole life and 
 character, as seen in the example, and in the Divine 
 Parables and piecepts of our Lord and His Apostles. 
 From Advent to Trinity, we see passing before us, in 
 the Church services, as in a glorious procession, all those 
 great truths unveiled in the Bible about God and Man, 
 Life, Death, Time, and Eternity, which are and must bn 
 A -J.
 
 true for ever, whether we will believe them or not ; but 
 from Trinity to Advent we are to consider the eiFects 
 produced upon a man's life by really believine these 
 truths, and making that belief a living part of himself. 
 For he who, by fiiith, lives in all his common life, as in 
 the presence of these sublime and ^^onderful truths, can 
 no more be the same as other men, than the face of 
 Moses was like the face of other men, after he had been 
 with God upon the Mount. His face, it is said, then 
 " shone" with a Divine glory ; and so will a Christian's 
 life — his words and works, his spirit and tone of mind 
 — shine with something of a heavenly glory, if he has 
 indeed the presence of God's spirit in his soul, and faith 
 in God, as manifested in Christ, ruling his thoughts 
 and feelings. If a man " behold, as in a glass, the 
 glory of the Lord, he is changed into the same image 
 from glory to glory, even as hy the Spirit of the Lord.""* 
 Now, the point in this great truth, to which I wish now 
 to draw your especial attention, is this — that such faith 
 m God, through Christ, and by His Spirit, will not 
 only fill us with hopes of glory after death, and in the 
 next world, but will also shew us how this world was 
 made by God "very good," and how our present life may 
 be blest in all its parts. The great truths taught us 
 from Advent to Trinity Sunday are the heavenly leaven 
 committed by God to the Church, wherewith she may 
 leaven all our thoughts about this world as well as the 
 next ; and obedience to the practical precepts and the 
 Divine example of our Lord, of which we read from 
 Trinity Sunday to Advent, is the sign whereby we may 
 know whether that leaven has been received by us into 
 our hearts, and whether it is really working in our 
 common life, and making all our thoughts, opinions, 
 ways of thinking and feeling, savour of it. For if the 
 " Kinjrdom of Heaven" is within us it will leaven the 
 whole of our characters. Let us examine how this is 
 with us. 
 
 Now first, it is important to observe, that this 
 leaven is said here to be " hidden.'" Those who have 
 
 • II. Cor. iii., 18.
 
 most of it within them are, very often, not tho\ 
 speak most about it ; but very often those who 
 very little and make very few professions, but A-.ose 
 belief is seen in action, spirit, and temper. !Some 
 who come not near so often as they ought to Church, 
 and therein commit a sin, are yet much more truly under 
 the practical influence of faith than some of those 
 who do come constantly to Church, and are full of 
 much so-called religious talk. For all outward pro- 
 fessions and outward ceremonial acts, may quite easily 
 be seen in one whose whole life, words, and feelings, 
 are of a totally different complexion ; and may be only 
 like a patch of one kind of cloth on a garment whose 
 whole texture and substance is of a totally different 
 kind. But it is, my brethren, the texture and sub- 
 stance of the ivhole garment, not the patches that are 
 on it —it is the habitual state of our mind and life, not 
 the exceptional and occasional feelings in them — it is 
 the leaven that leavens and gives its savour to the whole 
 of our itaracter — it is this, depend upon it, which 
 really makes the difference in the sight of Goo. Our 
 whole life shews what we are, not any one part of it only ; 
 and, therefore, if a man is become a real Christian, 
 the Bible says " he is a new cleature," or more literally 
 " a new creation." "Old things are passed away, behold 
 all things are become new."* He sees everything in a 
 new light, and being " spiritual," judgesf of everything 
 on new principles, and weighs it, as with new balances. 
 Though Christianity, therefore, in one respect, is a 
 hidden leaven, yet in another it works visibly, that is, 
 in giving its character and tone to the whole outward 
 and inward life. Let us seriously consider, then, now, 
 in the sight of God, how far our faith is thus leavening 
 our whole character. In doing so, we shall find an 
 excellent and admirable guide in the Prayer Book, 
 which draws all its wisdom from the Word and Spirit 
 of God. 
 
 Now, the Prayer Book teaches, in a very forcible 
 and striking manner, that religion has to do with our 
 
 ♦ II. Cor. v., 17. + Cor. ii., 16.
 
 8 
 
 whole life. For it has religious services about all the 
 great events of life. If a child is born it gives us a Bap- 
 tismal Service, that is, a form of j)rayer and addresses, 
 setting forth a religious or Christian view of what has 
 happened ; if any are to be married, it gives us a 
 Marriage Service ; if they are sick, there is a Visitation 
 Service; if they die, there is a Burial Service; if they 
 grow up and are are about to enter upon life as grown 
 up men and women, there is the Confirmation Service ; 
 and whatever happens, our Church always comes in 
 with her solemn warning. " Remember there is a Chris- 
 tian view and w^ay of thinking and feeling about this, 
 as well as one that is unchristian and worldly ; take 
 care you take that which is Christian." Let us, then, 
 compare these services, and the spirit and way of think- 
 ing and feeling taught in them, with the way in which 
 we are commonly in the habit of thinking and feeling 
 on all these events. 
 
 I. First, consider the case of a child being born. 
 Is there much Christian leaven in the way we#ommonly 
 think and speak of tliis 1 When we come into Church, 
 and speak of a child there, we say that he is " a child of 
 God, a member of Christ, and an inheritor of the King- 
 dom of Heaven ;" and w#use that Sacrament which we 
 think we believe assures us that he is really so. Do 
 our common words seem to shew that we habitually 
 think of him so 1 Let us consider this. 
 
 Now, these words imply that children are called to 
 very high things — that it is possible they may become 
 ever such perfect and glorious beings — that God promises 
 them all beautiful, and pure, and holy, and Christian 
 qualities ; because God the Father loves them, Christ 
 died for them, to deliver them from all guilt, and the 
 Spirit of God, that is, the Spirit of all holiness and 
 goodness, will work in them. And if, for these reasons, 
 our hopes for them are great, so also our fears for them 
 must be great also ; for they may perish and be for 
 ever lost. Are such thoughts as these, then, the 
 leaven of our feelin<^s about children, not in Church 
 only, but in conmion life ? Is it not true that many 
 who thin A' themselves really Christians never have any
 
 very earnest hopes or fears about a child — never think 
 of an immortal life, and infinite, terrible .powers and 
 responsibilities, and glorious and Divine privileges con- 
 nected with it 1 They bring the child, perhaps, to be 
 baptised (or as this has got by many to be called, ^' to 
 be named,''* because men have forgotten that baptism 
 and all similar things are more than "matters of names 
 and words") — they bring it to the House of God to be 
 baptised ; but too often that action is totally discon- 
 nected with their life — is never remembered or made a 
 subject of prayer afterwards — has no effect at all upon 
 their way of thinking or of acting towards the child at 
 other times. Their religion is not the leaven of their 
 lives in this respect, but a thing entirely separate from 
 them, having no effect at all upon them. 
 
 Is such a religion worth anything in the sight of 
 God ? — a religion that gives no light of hope to a man's 
 heart, nor any guidance to his steps in common life — v 
 a religion of ceremonies and forms, with which the heart, 
 the hopes and fears, the earnest desires and real life of 
 the soul have nothino; to do 1 My brethren, these are 
 serious questions to ask ourselves, for we live in the 
 constant presence of One who sees our hearts, and who 
 will one day sit " as a refiner and purifier of silver," and 
 try us as silver is tried in the fire ; and will judge us, 
 not according to what we seemed to man, nor yet accord- 
 ing to the formal acts we went through in the House of 
 God, but according to what we really and habitually 
 were — according to the living principles that really 
 guided all our lives, — according to that which we really 
 made the light of our hearts in all the common scenes 
 of life. For remember God is Just as tndy 'pmsent tvith 
 lis in common life as He is in Church, and cares just as 
 much for the character of our every-day conversation as 
 He does for that of our prayers. And to suppose that 
 any words or thoughts can be of the very slightest avail 
 which we use only in Church, or only in our professions, 
 and which do not leaven our life, is one of the greatest 
 of the delusions of the spirit of falsehood. 
 
 11, Again, when young men are grown up to 
 something like man's age, and are about to begin life for
 
 10 
 
 themselves, how beautiful, but how unlike our common 
 way of thinking of them, is that taught in the Confirma- 
 tion Service, where we are taught to pray — not that 
 they may be rich, or strong, or great in earthly respects 
 — but that they may be filled with God's manifold and 
 glorious "gifts of grace, the spirit of counsel and 
 ghostly strength, the spirit of knowledge and true god- 
 liness, and the spirit of God's holy fear.''"' This is the 
 true way of looking at those who stand yet in the 
 glory of their youth — on the threshold of that great 
 "race that is set before us," the race for a heavenly 
 prize — for a place of glory among redeemed spirits. It 
 is a sight to make one pray ; and the object for which 
 we are to pray is — not that they may become laden with 
 gold and silver — nor yet that their life on earth may be 
 easy, and pleasant, and respectable to the worldly — but 
 that it may be a noble, because a Christian, life ; full of 
 all goodness, truth, justice, earnestness. Divine faith, 
 hope, and charity. Is this, then, the leaven of our 
 thoughts and feelings about young men and young 
 women ? or is it only a dead form utterly foreign to 
 all our common ways of thinking and acting ? If so, we 
 are "yet in our sins;" — still made in the likeness of fallen 
 Adam — in these respects ; not yet " renewed in know- 
 ledge after the image of Him who created us in righteous- 
 ness and true holiness."* 
 
 III. Thirdly, take the case of a marriage. The Mar- 
 riage Service — which I believe no one who reads, and 
 seriously considers what it says can help feeling, gives a 
 true view of what marriao-e ought to be — that service 
 represents marriage as a holy and sacred thing. It calls 
 it " holy* matrimony," signifying that, in the sight of 
 God and of all in whom the Spirit of God is, it is a 
 high and sacred state. It was instituted, it tells us, " in 
 the time of man's innocency." It is typical of "the 
 mystical union betwixt Christ and the Church." It is 
 the union of the strong and the weak — of one "made in 
 the image of God," with " a help meet for him,^'' because, 
 like him, in likeness to God; which may be one point 
 which makes it typical of the union of the Great Strong 
 
 • Col. iii. 10.
 
 11 
 
 One with weak mankind, who give themselves to Him 
 in holy love. And surely to every one who thinks 
 seriously the sight of a marriage is holy and beautiful 
 — The man and the woman both were orig-inally, as I 
 have said, " made in the image of God." They are not 
 merely animals living here below for a time, but im- 
 mortal spirits, '' children of God, members of Christ, and 
 inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven." They come "in 
 the sight of God and the congregation"' to give them- 
 selves one to another, as loving, devoted companions to 
 their life's end. In that solemn moment they think of all 
 that life is. Mention is made of its dangers, troubles, and 
 storms, as well as of its happiness and sunshine; and the 
 two take each other for companions, and mutually-sup- 
 porting, loving friends, and much more than friends — "for 
 richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to 
 cherish till death them do part, according to God's holy 
 ordinance, and thereto they plight each other their troth." 
 And then, after other becoming ceremonies, the Minister 
 of God pronounces them to be "man and wife, in the name 
 of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 
 All this, my brethren, we cannot help feeling to be holy, 
 reverent, and true. If there is any truth or trust- 
 worthiness in our nobler instincts — if man is more than 
 an animal, and life more than a foolish puppet-show — 
 if we have in us the thought of God, and the recollection 
 that we have souls that ever stand before Him — then, I 
 say, such thoughts and feelings must belong to the 
 entering upon that "holy estate which Christ adorned 
 and beautified with His presence, and first miracle which 
 He wrought in Cana of Galilee'' And the children 
 that are to be born are to be looked upon as gifts of the 
 great " Father of Spirits," " an heritage and gift that 
 cometh from the Lord," to be brought up in the fear 
 and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of His Holy 
 .Name. 
 
 And further, if all this is a true view of mar- 
 riage, then we see the beauty and truth of the words in 
 which our Church tells us that " it was ordained for the 
 mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought to 
 have of the other both in prosperity and adversity;"
 
 12 
 
 and of those, also, in which St. Peter reminds them that 
 they are so to live together that " their prayers he not 
 hindered,'' evidently meaning thereby to shew that they 
 are to have religious communion and fellowship — that 
 they are to pray together, and for one another, and to 
 have communion of spirit in prayer. The general spirit 
 and meaninoj of all this we cannot but feel to be riffht and 
 good. But now, if with our minds filled with such 
 high and blessed thoughts, we turn to listen to the 
 common talk of the great mass of Christians about 
 marriages that are to take place, would it not make St. 
 Paul, or any like him, almost weep to perceive the 
 greatness of the contrast ? So high is that heavenly 
 pattern ; so sadly earthly, poor, and low is the world's talk. 
 If any one, like Moses, came down from the Mount with 
 these thoughts on marriage in his mind, and then 
 heard the talk of God's baptised people, I think he would 
 be inclined, like Moses, to break the tables on which 
 they were written; for how should such men be fit 
 to hear of such truths ? Must not Christ, looking out 
 of heaven, still say too often of us — '•' faithless and 
 perverse generation, how long shall I be with you — how 
 long shall I suifer you."* 
 
 For what is marriage according to men's common 
 talk ? A marriage, according to the creed whjch men say 
 — not within the walls of the Church, but when speaking 
 " out of the abundance of their hearts" in the world — a 
 marriage, I say, is a kind of common-place arrange- 
 ment between two persons, in respect to which the 
 Jirst and uppermost thought, (naturally in such a 
 view of it,) relates to money ; the next, perhaps, 
 to family or rank, and the names given in the world, 
 which have nothing whatever to do with real worth 
 or excellence ; and the next, probably, to the suitable- 
 ness of their natural tempers to make one another 
 happy on earth ; and certainly the la^t of all the 
 thoughts is their suitableness to enjoy communion 
 of spirit in pursuing godly and Christian objects, and 
 in seeking the everlasting and spiritual blessings of 
 God. As to marriages, few seem even to have learnt that 
 
 * Matt. xvii. 17.
 
 13 
 
 simplest of all lessons, that it is not earthly riches but 
 real affection that can give any real happiness, even on 
 earth ; or of how infinitely " better is a dinner of herbs 
 where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.'^"^ 
 Even the commonest observation of life might teach us 
 that it is the state of the affections, not the food, or 
 the dress, or the honours of the world, that con- 
 stitutes that real happiness on which alone a man 
 can really live. Perhaps the chief use of sufficient 
 riches is to set us free from the necessity of thinking 
 about riches ; and, perhaps, the chief use of an estab- 
 lished rank in the world is to set us free from all 
 small thoughts and cares about rank. But if few seem 
 to know or feel even so much as I have now said, how 
 much fewer still are they who habitually think of mar- 
 riage in respect to God, or who see that the true and 
 only lasting and indestructible ground of happiness in 
 it is — not earthly wealth or honours — uor yet even 
 mere earthly affection, friendship, or mutual love of 
 each other — but rather the common love of God existing 
 in both ; community of feeling and purpose, not so 
 much in love of each other as in love and devotion to 
 God as the Creator, Sa^dour, Guide, and Sanctifier of 
 both — ever present in time and eternity — on whom 
 both can evermore rest — in whom both can be now and 
 for ever one. 
 
 0, may God grant that such thoughts, so beautifully 
 taught in that Marriage Service which God has set up 
 as a standing witness of what marriage ought to be — a 
 standing protest against Satan's mockeries and the 
 world's heartless follies about it — may more leaven our 
 thoughts and feelings about all marriages, and deliver 
 us from ail blasphemies of thought and deed against 
 what is indeed, in the sight of God and of all who are 
 taught of God, " a holy thing." 
 
 IV. Further, take the case of a death, and the way in 
 which the Prayer Book would lead us to think and feel 
 about this. 
 
 Few, I suppose, can read the Burial Service without 
 feeling that what it says is true and beautifiil. It gives 
 
 * Prov. XV. 17.
 
 14 
 
 a view of death which we all feel to be the true and 
 right and Christian view. Is this, then, the view we 
 commonly take of it when we think or speak of a death, 
 not in Church or on Sundays, but in our common life ? 
 Are our common thoughts and feelings upon such events 
 of the same, or of a quite different character and spirit 
 from our Church thoughts ? The way to ascertain how 
 this is with men in general is to consider — if a man 
 dies, do most men, on hearing of it, speak of the death 
 at all in the spirit and tone of that beautiful and 
 Christian service 1 
 
 Now, I do not mean by this that we ought, neces- 
 sarily, immediately to speak of God and Providence, 
 and of those most sacred and solemn subjects of which 
 the Burial Service which we read in the House of God 
 directly speaks. To do so always would be very 
 dangerous, because there is such a thing — and all men 
 who are really in earnest, and know themselves and 
 God, feel that there is — as taking God's name and 
 other holy names in vain, — speaking of Him in 
 what is called a canting, that is, an insincere, un- 
 real way, in words that come from the lips and 
 not from the heart, that are unnatural and forced, 
 and therefore hypocritical. And moreover our Saviour 
 warns us against " casting pearls before swine, or that 
 which is holy to the dogs" — that is, against speaking of 
 holy things to men whose state of mind will only lead 
 them to blaspheme against them, or "turn again and rend 
 you."* Subjects of which it may be always safe and right 
 to speak in Church, or wherever men are, so to say, 
 in a Church state of mind,t i.e., in a serious and reverent 
 state of mind, may be very unsuitable at other times 
 
 • Matt. VII., 6. 
 + This appears to be the meaning of our Saviour's words in 
 Matthew xii.j 5 — 6: He says, that just as work might be done even on 
 'he Sabbath, in the Temjile, because God's special presence there made 
 all things holy, so when He — " God manifest in the flesh" — was present 
 inywhere, any work might also be done, even on the Sabbath-day. And 
 so, surely, we may also say, thai when He is, as truly, though only 
 spiritually, present to our souls, all work becomes holy — as holy as if it 
 were done in God's temple, and bel'oie the Shechinah. For the true
 
 15 
 
 and places. For these reasons, a truly religious man 
 is, I believe, generally speaking, rather slow to use sacred 
 words, for fear he should use them hypocritically, or 
 on occasions and in a state of mind, in himself or others, 
 which would make it profane to use them. In this, too, 
 therefore, true religion is often a hidden leaven. 
 
 But the question is, is it a leaven at all ? Has true 
 Christian faith any effect at all upon the way in which, in 
 common life, men feel and speak about a death 1 Is their 
 tone and manner of feeling and speaking on such subjects 
 at all different from what it would be if there was no 
 such thing as revealed truth at all, if Christ had never 
 died for sin, and never brought " life and immortality" 
 and hell and judgment, " to light through the Gospel ?" 
 I fear, my brethren, with respect to most men, we must 
 say that religion does not affect their talk or manner of 
 feeling about it at all. When any one dies, and we go 
 about the world and hear the world's talk on what has 
 happened, what do we hear commonly said? Some 
 such sayings as these :— " What did he die worth ?" 
 — meaning by this expression, " how much money had 
 he ?" For a man's " wortK'' among men is often reck- 
 oned by the amount of money he has ; as if there was 
 nothing better or nobler, or more worth thinking of 
 and loving in a man, than what he has, not what he is. 
 So they talk, and are inclined first of all to think, about 
 his riches. " What becomes of his property ?" " Who 
 is his heir f All these are questions that might very 
 naturally be asked in their proper place and time ; but 
 surely it is strange that in a Christian they should be 
 t\iQ first thoughts and uppermost enquiries. 
 
 Sbechinah — that eternal thing " not made with hands," of which the cloud 
 of glory in the " tabernacle which was made with hands," and which 
 therefore belonged only to one time and place, was the type — is the Spirit 
 of God, present in God's living temple, a regenerate Christian heart 
 "Wliere that Blessed Spirit is, there is liberty" — "all things become 
 pure." But where He is not present in the heart, even though it be 
 in the Church, no work, even there, can be holy — " To them that are 
 defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure ; but even their mind and con- 
 science is defiled." — II. Cor. iii., 17. — Titus i. 16.
 
 16 
 
 Or again, with a feeling in which certainly there is 
 a great mixture of good, we say of the dead, "Poor 
 man," pitying him. Often we are not so ready to pity 
 his family and those he left behind him, as to pity the 
 dead himself. Certainly, in one way, it is not only 
 natural but right to pity the dead, even those who are 
 saved, that is, in respect to the actual dying. ^ For 
 death is intended to be awful — it is " the wages of sin" 
 — it would never have come upon man, at least in its 
 present form, if it had not been for sin ; and, therefore, 
 Elijah and Enoch, whom God saw to be in a rare degree 
 holy, were altogether spared death. Death, then, is 
 the shadow cast by God's wrath upon sin, the passage 
 through it is called "the Valley of the Shadow of 
 Death," meaning that it is dark and somewhat terrible. 
 But after death the saved are in Paradise. Therefore, 
 when we think of those whom we have loved, and 
 who, we have reason confidently to hope, are saved, it 
 surely ought to be unnatural to us to speak of them now, 
 or for a moment to think of them, except as blessed. If 
 we do so, it must be from a great want of reality and 
 vividness in our faith. Yet it is very commonly done. 
 So that these two feelinors seem to be those most com- 
 
 o 
 
 monly connected with the dead in men''s minds, pity for 
 them, and thought about their riches. 
 
 Now, with this contrast the Burial Service — which 
 we all acknowledge to be true as well as beautiful, 
 only it is often so unreal, so unpractical, and so seldom 
 present to our minds. That says — "/ heard a voice 
 from Heaven, saying unto me, Write, From henceforth 
 Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: even so 
 saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labours /" and, 
 as the Bible adds — " Their works do follow them.^'f 
 
 * Another, perhaps, more probable origin of the use of the expression 
 
 " poor," with respect to the dead, is a certain natural tenderness of feeling 
 
 towards thera. When our relation to the dead was not close enough to 
 
 justify expressions of actual affection for them, we yet are driven to seek 
 
 some other word expressing at least tenderness. In this way, such a 
 
 phrase is, no doubt, harmless or good — a preservative against harshness 
 
 and coldness. 
 
 f Rev. xiv., 13.
 
 17 
 
 They are gone to give account of their works ; their works, 
 therefore, or in other words, what they were, or did, not 
 what they had, is the main thing to think of. For it is 
 the only thing they have carried with them where they 
 are gone ; it is the only thing that ever seriously mattered 
 in the sight of God, and of all in whom God's Spirit is. 
 Now, my brethren, have we heard that "voice from 
 heaven ?" Have we really believed that it is a " voice 
 from heaven," and therefore true, as God is true, the 
 most certain of all certain things? Is this blessed truth, 
 the light of our souls, always and everywhere, or only 
 in Church and at sacred hours ? If so, surely it must, 
 sound in our hearts, whenever we hear or think of a 
 death ; and then I do not say we shall always quote it 
 directly, but it will have an effect upon our words. 
 It will be as leaven leavening all our thoughts and 
 feelings about death. And if it does not do so ~ if it 
 has no effect upon our common way of thinking and 
 speaking, what does this shew, but that, in respect to 
 this subject, our faith is a dead faith — a faith of times 
 and places — a faith that we can put on sometimes like 
 a dress, but which, like a dress, too, does not manifest, 
 but hides our real selves — a faith that is no living part 
 of our selves, and which, therefore, cannot be of any 
 avail in the sight of Him who " searcheth the heart and 
 trieth the reins." 
 
 It would be easy to carry on this kind of reflec- 
 tion through all the events of daily life ; to compare 
 our habitual way of thinking of sickness with that 
 taught in the Service for the Visitation of the Sick ; 
 our common view of ordination with the Ordination 
 Service ; of coronation with the Coronation Service ; 
 of kingdoms, nations, kings, magistrates, politics, and 
 what they ought to be, with our prayers in the Litan}'! 
 and elsewhere; and to show by this means how often, 
 not faith and love of God, and of man in God and for 
 God, but unbelief, worldliness, heartlessness, and selfish- 
 ness, are the leaven leavening all our thoughts. 
 
 And leaving particular instances, let us fuither ask 
 ourselves how far the central truths uuveiled in the 
 Bible altogether are the leaven of our habitual feelings. 
 
 B 2
 
 18 
 
 Could any one perceive, from seeing us in our daily- 
 lives, that we had within us the real belief in an uni- 
 versal judgment, in which " God will judge the world in 
 righteousness" — of an eternal heaven and hell, towards 
 one of which the course of time is ever bringing us and 
 all men nearer — of our Lord, who was the Son of God, 
 "God manifest in the flesh," having died upon the Cross 
 for sin — of the eternal and ever- blessed Spirit being at 
 work in us, and in men round us, whom we must, 
 therefore, be always resisting or obeying. Are these 
 thoughts at all the leaven of our daily lives, feelings, 
 and opinions 1 Do they give at all the tone to our way 
 of thinking of life and death, of what we are, what we 
 shall be, what God is 1 If it is so, our life will show 
 it.* Or, again, do we really look upon Christ as the 
 
 NOTE ON MIRTH. 
 
 * At first sight, when we think of the great awfulness of some of the 
 chief eternal truths unveiled in the Bihle, such as those I have mentioned 
 in the text, it might seem that if any one lived by faith as in their constant 
 presence, they must burn out of him all lighter thoughts and feelings, and 
 make him, during all his life on earth, an entirely grave and generally 
 sorrowful man. And it seems that some of the greatest and best men, 
 such as Bishop Butler, Pascal, and others, have been so. And it is true 
 that our Blessed Lord Himself was " a man of sorrows and acquainted 
 with grief," and that we never read of His laughing and only once of 
 His " rejoicing in spirit," but often of His sorrow, and once of His weeping. 
 Is it true, then, that a true Christian ought never to be merry? I think 
 certainly not. I think— as has often been said by Christian writers— we 
 may lawfully be merry. One of the chief ways in which we are to find out 
 whether anything is right or wrong, is by enquiring what good men feel 
 about it. And whatever the instinctive feeling of all good men pro- 
 nounces to be harmless, I am sure must be so really, and will be found 
 not to be condemned by that Book which is inspired by the same Spirit 
 tfiat inspires and guides ihem so far as they are good, if only that book is 
 rightly interpreted ; for on those practical points which conscience settles, 
 our Lord tells us, we arc to know true and false teachers by their fruits — 
 by their lives. If a man's life and feelings are good, we are to believe 
 that, on practical points, his judgement also will, generally speaking, 
 be guided by the same Spirit of God, which we see guides his life. Now 
 some of the best of all Christians have been merry and have not felt it to 
 be wrong. We may therefore, I think, be sure it is lawful. What then is 
 the reaioa it is so? How can raerrintss or mirth be reconciled with the
 
 19 
 
 " King of Glory ?" Do our common lives and opinions 
 shew that we really believe and feel that infinitely the 
 
 habitual belief of such awful truths as those of Revelation ? Perhaps it is 
 partly because, though as Christians we see more deeply and terribly than 
 others the nature and extent of man's fall, yet we see also far more the 
 greatness and power of God's goodness in Christ. God has told us, 
 and we have received it, that " where sin abounded, grace hath much 
 more abounded." Good will in the end prevail and triumph, and so we 
 may, in God's strength, defy the power of evil, yea and laugh and sing in 
 spite of it. And in all the singing of birds, and the sparkling of fountains, 
 and the beauty of wild flowers blossoming over the earth, and in the 
 joy that these give to all living creatures, in all these, we need not fear to 
 say confidently, that the Heavenly Father is 'graciously inviting us to 
 rejoice. And if we will not rejoice it is to be feared that we are sullen and 
 will not venture to trust Him. Every child does trust Him and is merry, 
 and so may and ought we to be, for He has told ns that " of such" as 
 little children " is the Kingdom of Heaven," and nothing is more uni. 
 versally characteristic of them than mirth. God is spreading out a feast 
 to which, in His mercy, He invites all creatures and makes beautiful 
 music whereat we are to rejoice. And though our Lord tells us that 
 they that begin by laughing will end in mourning, yet He says that they 
 that begin by mourning shall end in laughing ; we shall have a right to 
 laugh and be merry, when we have first mourned, as is signified 
 by that ancient custom in our Church of having a vigil or fast 
 before a feast. (See Luke vi- 21 and compare Matt. xi. 17) We are to 
 mourn when we think of om'selves and our sins, but we need not always 
 be thinking of ourselves— Christ has delivered us from ourselves and from 
 the burthen of our sins — and, therefore, oftenest we may go utterly out of 
 ourselves and rejoice in Goo ; and then we may laugh and sing. A 
 Christian is to rejoice evermore, and not only to " weep with them that 
 weep," but also " to rejoice with them that rejoice" in innocent gladness, 
 with children and men of childlike purity, and the fowls of the air, and all 
 the happy creatures Gon has made. (See many excellent remarks on tliis 
 by Archdeacon Hare in the " Guesses at Truth," first series 3rd. edition, 
 pp. 339 — 360., from which I have borrowed some of these reflections.) 
 
 And our Lord never having laughed (if He never did so) is, as is well' 
 said in that book, no more an argument against its being innocent to do 
 so^ than His never having married is any argument against marriage. 
 Though He did not marry, yet He was present at a marriage feast and 
 blest it, and created there the wine that God has made " to make glad 
 the heart of man." And so though He may never have laughed, yet He 
 said that " little children" who are guided by pure instinct rather than 
 by any knowledge or precepts, and whose chief characteristic is innocent 
 mirth, were the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.
 
 20 
 
 most glorious being who ever appeared on earth was 
 He who was laid in a manger — who was " hanged upon 
 
 Bat what I mean in the text, is that our real opinions about all things, 
 and the great tendencies and guiding principles of our lives cannot but 
 be earnest, grave, and thoughtful if we have habitual belief in revealed 
 eternal truth. The groundwork of our hearts must be earnest, though the 
 surface may be ever so cheerful. In what direction are our thoughts 
 travelling? Whither does the road we have chosen point? What is the 
 light by which we aie guided in it ? If it is the right direction and the 
 right light, no matter how many flowers bloom by the side of it, the more 
 the better, they are Gods gracious and merciful gifts which we could not 
 reject without thanklessness. Only let us take care that our mirth be as 
 innocent as that of a child and stir as good feelings — be leavened with the 
 Christian leaven of kindness and purity ; then it will be a blessing to 
 ourselves and others. 
 
 I am glad, in this, to support myself with the great authority of 
 
 Wordsworth. In his beautiful poem " On the Longest Day," (in vol. 1 , 
 
 p. 41,) while drawing from the thought of the transitoriness of himian Ufe, 
 
 a lesson of sober-minded thoughtfulness and gravity, and saying to one 
 
 yet young, 
 
 " Let not flowers and boughs fruit-laden 
 Hide the knowledge of thy doom. 
 
 Now, even now, ere wrapped in slumber, 
 
 Fix thine eyes upon the sea, 
 That absorbs time, space, and number, 
 
 Look thou to eternity :" 
 
 yet he beautifully allows (as I believe God does) all natural playfulness, 
 
 saying 
 
 " Laura, sport as now thou sportest 
 
 On this platfonn light and free, 
 Take thy bliss while longest, shortest. 
 
 Are indifierent to thee. 
 Who would check the happy feeling 
 
 That inspires the linnet's song ? 
 Who xoould stop the swallow, wheeling 
 
 On her pinions sioift and strong ?" 
 
 Thus does this great and truly wise man pay a tribute to natural cheerful- 
 ness, and ascribe such natural joy to the bounty of Him who takes care 
 that the "hlies of the field" shall be beautiful, and the " fowls of the air" 
 free from anxious care. 
 
 So, also, in his poem on " The Kitten aud the Falling Leaves," (in 
 vol. 2, p. 69,) observing how such sights cheer the hearts of children, so 
 
 he says — 
 
 " That almost I could repine 
 That your transports are not mine, 
 That I do not wholly faie, 
 E ven as ye do, thoughtless pair !
 
 21 
 
 the tree" by the condemnation of the world and its great 
 men — who deliberately never shewed (though He might, 
 if He had pleased, have done so) any profound learning, 
 or any of what the world calls " cleverness," but simply 
 and only that which may be often seen in the poorest and 
 simplest, quite as much as in the most learned and culti- 
 vated — that is. Divine holiness, mercy, purity, magna- 
 nimity, faith, hope, charity 1 Are these the qualities we 
 
 — he continues showing how he thinks he may be as they, 
 
 And I will have my careless season 
 
 Spite of melancholy reason, 
 
 Will walk through lite in such a way 
 
 That, when time brings on decay, 
 
 Now and then I may possess 
 
 Hours of perfect gladsomeness — 
 
 Pleased by any random toy ; 
 
 By a kitten's busy joy, 
 
 Or an infant's laughing eye, 
 
 Sharing in the ecstacy ; 
 
 I would fare like that or this, 
 
 Find my wisdom in my bliss; 
 
 Keep the sprightly soul awake, 
 
 And have faculties to take, 
 
 Even from things by sorrow wrought. 
 
 Matter for a jocund thought, 
 
 Spite of care, and spite of grief, 
 
 To gambol with life's falhng leaf." 
 
 And in that wonderfully beautiful ode, called " Intimations of 
 Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood," vol. v , p. 339, 
 after speaking of the joy of all living creatures on a fine day, he continues 
 
 Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call 
 
 Ye to each other make ; I see 
 The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee ; 
 
 My heart is at your festival. 
 
 My head hath its coronal. 
 The fulness of your bliss, I feel — I feel it all — 
 
 evil day ! if I tvere sullen 
 While earth herself is adorning, 
 
 This sweet May-morning, 
 And the children are culling. 
 
 On every side, 
 Iji a thousand valleys far and wide. 
 Fresh flowers ; while the sun shines warm. 
 And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm : — 
 
 1 hear, I hear, with joy I hear ! 
 
 But this is totally different from making mirth and the like the main busi- 
 ness or great object of life, or the groundwork of our thoughts or purposes.
 
 22 
 
 lionour, love, and delight in more than all else 'i Is 
 He who showed forth these in their highest and most 
 heavenly perfection, indeed to us, the " King of Glory V* 
 If not, we are yet worldly ; we have not yet " been cruci- 
 fied unto the world, nor the world unto us;" our ideas of 
 glory are not God's, nor those of heaven and eternity, 
 but this low world's.* Thus, my brethren, does the 
 " troubled sea'' of our hearts often " cast up mire and 
 dirt" — foolish, unbelieving, contemptible, unchristian 
 thoughts and sayings.f 
 
 What, then, is the practical conclusion 1 Are we to 
 look through our services and see how they speak, and 
 then straightway try to speak like them? Would this 
 avail anything] No, my brethren, we might as well hang 
 the skins of dead grapes on thorns, or of dead figs on 
 thistles, and then say we had made a living vine and 
 fig-tree. The change must be within, in our whole 
 nature and habitual way of thinking and feeling. We 
 must not try to talk by new rules, but we must pray to 
 God to give us new hearts ; " thou blind Pharisee," 
 said the Lord, "cleanse first that which is within, 
 that the outside may be clean also."^! And whenever 
 the law convinces us of sin in our outward words and 
 works, it ought to make us fly to Him " who giveth to 
 all men liberally and upbraideth not," to give us, as He 
 alone can, new life. The Bible does not tell us merely 
 that a Christian lives by new rules, but it says that he 
 is " created anew unto good ivorks"^ God has given 
 him a new nature within, of which the natural fruits 
 are " all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just 
 works ;" and the words of a worldly minded man, 
 talking religiously, are no more like those of a real 
 Christian than the skins of dead grapes* hung upon a 
 thorn, as I have said, are like living grapes growing on 
 a living vine that God has made. The grapes were 
 beautiful when they were full of the sap and grew fresh 
 on the living vine ; but now, when there is but the 
 outside of them left and they aie hanging on a thorn, 
 
 * See note at the end. -f Isaiah, Ivii. 20. 
 i Matt, xxiii., 26. § Epb., ii. 10.
 
 23 
 
 with which they have no living connection, they are 
 worthless or worse than worthless. So are religious 
 words when spoken by the worldly, though they might 
 be ever so beautiful when spoken naturally. The 
 perversion of the best things is the worst of all perver- 
 sion — taking God's name in vain is worse than taking 
 any other name in vain. Above all things let us be 
 perfectly true, never saying one word that is not really 
 entirely natural to us, the true " abundance" or " over- 
 jflowing of our hearts." If our words shew that our 
 hearts are sinful and unbelieving, let us pray that God 
 may change our hearts and not our words merely.'^ Let 
 us try habitually to think, in a more Christian way, of 
 everything, and to have a more Christian tone of mind. 
 When we look out at the world let us be quite as ready 
 to pray as to talk, and often pray before we talk. Let 
 us not look at this great world, which an infinitely wise 
 and good God made, as if it were a foolish stage-play, or 
 at our fellow-creatures who, the Bible tells us, are 
 immortal spirits on their everlasting journey — our bre- 
 thren, flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone, whom we 
 are to love, and care for, and pity as our own selves — 
 as puppets on that stage, fit objects of foolish laughter 
 or heartless indifference ; but let us think of what God 
 intended all this to be, and pray to Him about it. Let 
 us often consider whether our opinions and views of all 
 things are like those taught in the Bible, and pray that 
 God may make them more so. 
 
 • This is the practical lesson to be learnt from our Lord's words in 
 Matt, xii., 36, where He says that we shall " give an account, at the day 
 of judgement, for every idle word," This does not, certainly, mean that 
 whenever we speak without careful forethought, we shall be condemned 
 for it; for it is not said that for every idle word we shall be condemned, 
 but only that we shall "give account for it," i.e., that it will be made one 
 of those things by means of which the great judge will make manifest to us, 
 and to all men, what was the nature and disposition of heart we had suf- 
 fered to grow up in us. Nothing shews this so clearly as our iinguarded 
 words — the true " abundance" or overflowing " of our hearts." And we 
 shall then be judged by what we are, quite as much as by what we voish 
 to be — by our nature, whether it is the " new nature in Christ," or the 
 old in Adam, quite as much as by oiu- principles and rules of conduct.
 
 24 
 
 0, how great would be the blessing if we did this 
 indeed ! Surely it would be no mere change in words, 
 but in deeds also. If, when we looked at men, we 
 remembered what the voice of God has said men were 
 intended to be, and what that same voice has said that 
 He is willing now to make them, surely it would grieve 
 us to see what they are — the thought would make us 
 work heartily and hopefully to make men what they 
 should be. 0, my brethren, how much we lose by 
 banishing the hope of all God's blessings beyond the 
 grave ! Yes, how much we lose by having in us the 
 hope of heaven after death, if it makes us content with 
 earthliness and sin here ! Surely, God is God here as 
 well as in the world of spirits ! Surely, Satan spoke 
 as *'a liar and the father of it," a "murderer" of souls, 
 as he was "from the beginning," when he said "the 
 kingdoms of the world and the glory of them" were his 
 by right. Since that time, at any rate, has not Another 
 said — " I saw Satan, as lightning fall from Heaven;" and 
 has He not " spoiled the strong man armed," bound him, 
 taken possession of his palace, and " divided," not 
 destroyed, " his goods ?"* But the practical force of all 
 these sayings is commonly totally taken away by the 
 delusion that they can only belong to another world 
 and a future time, not to the present. If we say — " The 
 kingdoms of the workF are to " become the kinodoms 
 of the Lord and of His CHRiST,"t men, with an "evil 
 heart of unbelief," answer — " Yes, but that means in 
 the Millennium, which cannot be now," If we say. — 
 " God has promised that the " Tabernacle of God is" to 
 be with " men, and He will dwell with them, and they 
 shall be His people, and He Himself shall be ^^^th them 
 and be their God," J they answer — " That is true ; but it 
 means in the new heaven and new earth, wherein is to 
 dwell righteousness,"§ but in this heaven and earth sin 
 is always to reign and God never to be. 0, miserable 
 perversion of God's life-giving words ! 0, wretched 
 unbelief, that makes it now, as in Nazareth of old, 
 impossible for Christ " to do many mighty works 
 
 • Jol)nTiii.,44.. Luke .\. 18., and xi, 21, 22. ■♦• Rev. xi., 15. 
 t Rev. xxi.S. § TI. Peter iii, 13.
 
 25 
 
 amongst us/'* not from any want of power or willing- 
 ness in Him, but from our want oi faith. Cannot God, 
 my brethren, save in this world as well as any other? Is 
 Satan too strong for Him here ? Cannot He overcome 
 him and triumph over him in man and in the world ? 
 Has He not once for all shown that He can 1 and is He 
 not willing to do so in every generation, and in every son 
 of man, as well as in that one generation and that one 
 great Son of Man 1 Are we not all to be like Him? 
 yea, one with Him by faith ? 
 
 And if there are glorious promises in God's eternal 
 word, let us remember that their fulfilment or non-fulfil- 
 ment depends upon our faith or unbelief. If we have 
 faith, ^' all things are possible to him that believethy'^'f and 
 God's eternal saying now and always, by which He 
 governs eternity and infinity, is " according to your 
 faith be it unto you." The blessings of the Millennium 
 might dawn upon us — the blessings of heaven might 
 begin in us, if only we had faith ; " Nevertheless when 
 the /Son of Alan cometh, shall He find faith in the 
 earth .?" — Luke xviii, 8. 
 
 Finally then, my brethren, let us remember that all 
 heavenly visions are intended to encourage us to work 
 out heavenly realities in our daily lives. Whenever we 
 look into heaven we are to pray " Thy will be done o?^ 
 earth" as it is there ; and if this is really our iwayer — 
 the deepest wish and longing of our hearts before God 
 (for nothing less is prayer), then surely it must be our 
 constant earnest endeavour also. We must "draw nisih 
 unto God" that " He may draw nigh unto us ;" we 
 must strive if we would hope God will help us, other- 
 wise we are but "tempting God." When Moses came 
 down from the mount, where God had shown him "a 
 pattern of heavenly things", he did not remain on 
 earth dreaunng of these heavenly things; no, nor yet 
 merely looking forward in hope to the trine when he 
 might see them again after death ; but he also imme- 
 diately began to try to build a tabernacle of earthly 
 materials, after that heavenly pattern, which should 
 represent to men these Divine eternal realities. When 
 
 * Mark vi., o, 6. + Mark ix, 23. 
 C
 
 26 
 
 St. Paul had been caught up into the third Heaven, 
 and' heard "things unutterable," he did not remain a 
 dreamer or a man of hope for the future only, but of 
 all the practical men that ever lived — of all those whom 
 God has enabled, not merely to speak of other glorious 
 worlds besides this, but also to show tliat this world 
 and its commonest things may be made heavenly — he 
 was the most practical and the most successful. How 
 truly has he in Christ's power built up in all nations a 
 temple of living men and Christian societies, fashioned 
 after that heavenly pattern ! And if any man now has 
 but his faith^ he can build up again that temple, so 
 ruined, as beautiful or more so than it ever was. 
 
 Let us never, then, be content to sit down here 
 in idleness, and hope only for the IJeaven that is to 
 be hereafter ; but let us gird ourselves, in God's 
 strength, to try to make a heginnitig of Heaven here — 
 to lift up earth into Heaven. Like Moses and like St. 
 Paul, we must be, each in his own place and calling, 
 missionaries from God to the world, claiming it and all 
 that is in it for God — regaining in the second Adam, 
 the Lord from Heaven, what in the first we lost — 
 " fellow workers with God,'* and therefore in the end 
 infallibly, so far as we have faith, prevailing. So may 
 this Heaven and earth become " a new Heaven and a 
 new earth, wherein shall dwell righteousness," — at the 
 sight of which new creation, as in the dawn of the old, 
 " the morning stars," and all that God has made, may 
 " sing together" in divine harmony, and we "and all the 
 sons of God" may " shout for joy." Only let not such 
 thoughts pass away like a vision of impossible thinjjs — 
 but be ever endeavouring to realise them in your 
 common life, in your own heart, in your family, in your 
 home, in your country, neighbourhood, aiid parish, so 
 that these may leaven the world round t*m and the 
 " generations that are yet unborn," and that " the people 
 that shall be born may praise the Lord."' 
 
 " Noiu to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly 
 above all that we ask or think, according to the power 
 that worketh in us, to Him be glory in the Church, by 
 Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end."" — 
 Amen.
 
 27 
 
 A PRAYER. 
 
 God deliver us, we pray Thee, from all low earthlj 
 thoughts, and reveal to us Thy glorious purpose in our 
 life. Help us ever to look upon our children as Thy 
 children called to heavenly privileges ; upon marriage as 
 a holy estate intended for Thy glory and the salvation 
 of souls ; upon death as the gate of glory ; upon all 
 our life here as blest by Thee. Lord God ! the 
 blessed Spirit, make that light above the brightness of 
 any earthly sun, the lisht of Thy Divine truth, to shine in 
 our sight over all things, and recall to us what their state 
 was when Thou didst first call them into being, and 
 when Thou didst see everything which Thou hadst made, 
 and behold it was very good. Suffer us not to be worldly 
 or low-minded, but illumine with the rays of Thy 
 heavenly wisdom, the darkness of our sinful hearts, 
 that we may see all things m Thee, and glorify Thee 
 in all, now and for evermore, through Him who lived 
 a man's life, and made it all heavenly and beautiful,Thine 
 Eternal Son our Saviour, who with Thee and the 
 Holy Spirit ever liveth one God world without end. 
 Amen. 
 
 Note to page 22. 
 What more disgraceful instance of unchristian honour — of men 
 honouring Barabbas instead of Christ — can he imagined than that now 
 Been in France, where by universal suffrage — the free votes of a whole 
 nation— a man is made chief and king, and presented as the object of 
 imiversal honour to mankind, whose profligacy is notorious, whose low 
 selfishness is manifest to all men, whose sole recommendation is the 
 possession of the bare name of another of the Idols of France — one who 
 was great chiefly as a " robber of nations," and the shameless use of brute 
 force in breaking all law and crushing all freedom? Where is the Christi- 
 anity of such a nation ? How must they have been trained in acknow- 
 ledging Christ as the King of Glory, and all other men as glorious only so 
 far as they are like Him ? Or again, what are we to think of the state of a 
 National Church, in which Bishops and leading statesmen, with high repu- 
 tations for Christian faith, are not ashamed publicly to recommend sub- 
 mission to such a man, in his acts of open defiance of law, robbery, and 
 gross tyranny, because by such acts he is willing to enforce respect to the 
 Church ? Surely never was a more gross instance of worshipping Satarv, 
 in order to give the kingdoms of the world and their tinsel glory to Christ. 
 Perhaps it may be said that, under the circumstances, it is the least bad 
 thing that can be done. If so, what can be more fearful than the condition 
 of a nation where this is the best thing that ean be done? The whole
 
 28 
 
 sociKy is become corrupt ; the light that is in it is become darkness ; the 
 leaven that leavens it is not the Divine leaven of the Gospel, but that of 
 worldliness, selfishness, sensuality, and wickedness; therefore all these 
 miseries — the necessary fruits of sin — come upon it. The Gospel is 
 called the light of the world, the salt that is to keep it from corruption, the 
 leaven that is to leaven all mans life, and how awfully does history and 
 the course of the Divine judgements show that it is so indeed ; for if in any 
 nation that light is put " under a bushel," or is not set on a sufficient 
 «' candlestick" so that all who come in may see it, then more and more do 
 we tee darkness of every kind covering it. And " if the light that is in it 
 be darkness," if what pretends to be Christianity is, for the most pait, some 
 frightfid per^-ersion of it, "how great is that daikness!" And if any 
 " body" or society of men is not salted with that salt, how visibly does it 
 decay and become utterly corrupt ! " If the salt have lost its savour" 
 — if the teachers and leaders of public opinion in any nation have become 
 worldly— " wherewith shall it be salted?" "It is thenceforth good for 
 nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men." He 
 must be blind who does not, by this time, perceive how entirely it is 
 one principle, and one only which " has the promise of the life that 
 now is, as well as of that which is to come" — namely, real and true 
 Christian faith — one God, one only who in th'e end rules this as well 
 as all other worlds — namely, God manifest in Christ. Where that 
 faith is not, everything sooner or later decays — " it carries within itself 
 the germs of its own dissolution." All spiritual food is useless or 
 poisonous that is not leavened with this; all light is darkness that is 
 not borrowed from and illumined with this. If we would make our 
 education worth anything at all — if we would have teachers who shall do 
 any good and not wide-spreading harm — if we would teach politics in any 
 way that shall not be poisonous — all must be leavened with this leaven of 
 real uncorrupted Christianity. It is not necessary only, or chiefly, that 
 the teachers should be men who profess Christianity as their declared 
 creed, nor yet that the doctrines of the Bible should be taught at times, 
 but the main point is, that true uncorrupted Christianity should be the 
 leaven, leavening the whole character of the teacher, and giving its savour 
 to the whole doctrine taught about everything. This is the sole and only 
 true remedy for all our ills: "this in" now — just as much as shall be 
 hereafter — "life eternal to know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ 
 whom Thou hast sent." Leaven a nation with this faith and it will come 
 soon to " glory, honour, and immortality;" take away this, or turn the faith 
 which ought to be " leaven, leavening the whole lump" — leavening all 
 politics, philosophy, and wisdom into a dead stone separate from all life 
 — and in the end it will come to sure destruction and shame — to " indig- 
 nation and wrath, tribulation, and anguish." If men will not believe this 
 by faith in Gou's word, they will be compelled sooner or later to 
 acknowledge it by the si,jht of God's judgements. 
 
 FBI.VTKD FOR H. C. LANUBRinCE, BIRMINGHAM.
 
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