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 hat waiting which to one is the sweet rest in Abraham's bosom 
 other is torment. He has shown us that that rest and tormen 
 ' upon and spring out of the lives on earth. Let us be wis( 
 es. We are now living our lives on earth. They are lives o 
 e of Christ, or lives of neglect of Him ; and as they are one o 
 ther so shall we one day pass with joy or with dread into th< 
 nee of the Lord of the dead.
 
 IV 
 
 'Sliulm'sitifs' fission to Central Africa. 
 
 SERMON BY THE REV. CANON KING 
 
 PREACHED AT THE CONSECRATION OF 
 
 BISHOP SMYTHIES, 
 
 Jn ^t. ^mVi, 6Tatj^etiral, 
 
 ST. ANDREW'S DAY, (NOV. 30,) 1883, 
 
 TO WHICH IS PREFIXED 
 
 A LETTER FROM THE BISHOP. 
 
 Office of tj^e ittis^ion : 
 14, DELAHAY STREET, WESTMINSTER, S.W. 
 
 PRICE TWOPENCE. 
 
 ^■ 
 
 1^
 
 WESTMINSTER: , 
 
 PRINTED BY T. BRETTELL AND CO. 5I, RUPERT STREET, 
 HAYMARKET, W.
 
 A LETTER FROM THE BISHOP. 
 
 My Dear Friends, 
 
 A few words of gratitude are due 
 from me to all those who have given me such a 
 cordial welcome, and shewn me such great kind- 
 ness on my appointment to the Bishopric of the 
 Central African Mission. When the post was 
 offered me w^ith all its solemn responsibilities, I 
 certainly felt but little qualified for it, and the 
 very kindness that I have received makes me fear 
 the more lest I should sadly disappoint those who 
 have shewn such confidence in me. If I succeed 
 at all in the difficult work which lies before me, 
 I am quite sure it will be because of the many 
 prayers which are offered for the Mission, and 
 because it pleases God sometimes to shew His 
 power by calling and using for His glory, those 
 who would otherwise be but little fitted for the 
 position in which He places them. From what I 
 have seen in different parts of the country, I 
 think there is a widespread interest in the work 
 to which I am going, and I have a good hope 
 that there will not be wanting men with a true
 
 vocation to a Missionary life to volunteer for it. 
 But I would remind all our kind friends in 
 England that good work is effected gradually, 
 and I would ask them to resist that eagerness for 
 apparent results, which too often besets the friends 
 of Missions. We have to do our best, some to 
 work and pray, others to pray for those who are 
 working, to look constantly to the Holy Spirit to 
 give us wisdom in each step we take, and then to 
 leave the results to God. Everything certainly 
 looks hopeful in the Mission Field itself, and there 
 seems no reason to diminish the operations of the 
 Mission in any direction. In the nature of things 
 the development of its v/ork will be chiefly in the 
 direction of the mainland, but I think experience 
 has shewn us that very great care must be taken 
 in the selection of sites, for the establishment of 
 Christian communities. On the other hand when 
 any tribe which may be reasonably supposed to 
 be able to protect its teachers, shews a sincere 
 desire for a Missionar}^ it would seem to be our 
 duty to comply with the request as soon as 
 possible. But in each particular case a Bishop 
 to whom Missionary work is new, must depend 
 very much on the experience of those who have 
 already done good service in the Mission Field. 
 It will be a great advantage to me to have the 
 example of my predecessors to help me, and 
 the record of their work ; indeed, unless Bishop 
 Steere had accomplished his great undertaking, 
 of compiling a Swahili grammar, and translating 
 the New Testament and Prayer Book into that 
 
 ^^^\ 

 
 language, I should have felt even more hesitation 
 in attempting to follow him. I need hardly I 
 think urge the claims of the Mission upon your 
 liberality — this only I would say, when I am in 
 Africa and unable to plead the cause of the 
 Mission at home, I would ask all who take an 
 interest in our work, to be ever on the watch for 
 fitting men, so that a regular supply may be kept 
 up, and the natural development of the work 
 may not be retarded for want of Missionaries. I 
 think I may promise to those who come, a warm 
 welcome and an affectionate appreciation of their 
 labours on the part of the Bishop and all those 
 who are already working in Central Africa. 
 
 Your very faithful Servant in our Lord, 
 
 CHARLES ALAN, 
 
 Bisliop of the Central African Mission.
 
 SERMON BY THE REV. CANON KING. 
 
 " Sir, we would see Jesus." — S. John xii. 21. 
 
 These words occur in close connection with the 
 history of the Saint whose festival we are cele- 
 hrating to-day, and they represent to us a striking 
 feature of that Apostle's life. He more than once 
 was the chosen means of bringing men to Jesus. 
 It was Andrew, we are told, who first found his 
 own brother Simon, and " saith unto him. We 
 have found the Messias, which is, being inter- 
 preted, the Christ," and he brought him to Jesus, 
 thus leaving to all who would follow in his steps 
 an example of especial comfort. It shows us that 
 we may bring to Christ those who will be greater 
 than ourselves. For as the great Apostle of the 
 (lentiles was introduced into the Apostolic band 
 by the lesser S. Barnabas, so the great Apostle of 
 the Circumcision, S. Peter, is first brought to 
 Jesus by the lesser S. Andrew, leaving us the 
 comforting hope that we may work with Him, 
 and bring to Him those greater than ourselves. 
 It was S. Andrew, again, who brought the lad 
 to Jesus with five barley loaves and two small 
 fishes, thus enabling another to do what he could 
 not do himself ; and, once more, towards the 
 close of our Lord's earthly ministry, when certain 
 (ireeks, come up to worship at the feast, came to 
 Philip and desired him, saying, " Sir, we would
 
 see Jesus," Philip cometh and telleth Andrew, and 
 Andrew and Philip tell Jesus. It was a great 
 occasion in very close connection with, and in a 
 solemn relation to, the cause of our gathering here 
 to-day. For the Greeks who desired to see Jesus, 
 whom Andrew with Philip introduced, though not 
 utter heathen yet practically represent the spread- 
 ing of the Gospel to the Gentile world. 
 
 It was felt — if I may say so with reverence — to 
 be a great occasion by our Blessed Lord Himself. 
 He was greatly disturbed. " The hour," He 
 said, " is come. Now is my soul troubled ; 
 and what shall I say ? Father, save me from this 
 hour, yet for this cause x:ame I unto this hour. 
 Father, glorify Thy Name. Verily, verily, I say 
 unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the 
 ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it 
 bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life 
 shall lose it, but he that hateth his life in this 
 world shall keep it unto life eternal." What was it 
 that stirred the soul of Jesus so deeply in the 
 coming of the Greeks whom Andrew and Philip 
 brought, but that He saw in them the coming 
 in of the Gentile world ? And He knew that 
 Passion and Resurrection were the conditions 
 upon which alone that world could be won. 
 Passion and Resurrection for Himself first, then a 
 long and noble line of martyrs following in His 
 steps, continuing His work, like corns of wheat 
 falling into the soil, and then bringing forth much 
 fruit. The blood of the martyrs, was to be 
 the seed of the Church. He knew how many
 
 8 
 
 noble lives must be offered up before the fulness 
 of the Gentiles' should come in. He knew it as 
 being Very God ; He felt it as being Perfect Man. 
 He knew the heart of humanity throughout the 
 world was yearning to see Him. He knew the 
 words, so simple in themselves, '"Sir, we would see 
 Jesus," expressed the deepest wish in every soul, 
 in every age, to have closer communion with Him, 
 for He had made of one blood all nations of men. 
 He knew the heart of man was made to love 
 Him, and that it would find no real rest, except 
 through Himself in God. But He knew at what a 
 price this rest must be obtained — Passion and 
 Resurrection — and His soul was troubled. 
 
 Bishop Steere in his sermon in June last year, 
 speaking with that simplicity and spiritual insight 
 which we recognise afterwards in those who have 
 spoken to us near the time of iheir own departure, 
 is recorded to have said, '* If we would see what 
 it is that the Mission is asking for, and what it is 
 that is being done by it, we should see something 
 strangely like the life of Christ Himself on earth." 
 I believe the scene in the life of Christ which 
 the words of my text represent, would tell us 
 most truly what the Mission in Central Africa is 
 asking for in these simple words, " Sir, we would 
 see Jesus." The heathen tribes of Africa do not, 
 indeed, know the Sacred Name ; they have never 
 heard the story of His love; but it is an error, it is 
 an injustice to them, and a wrong to the Universal 
 Fatherhood of God, to argue from their want of 
 defiriite conceptions and precise expressions of
 
 the truth that they have no capacity for it, no 
 longing for it at all. We English people have still 
 no word of our own for conscience any more than 
 they may have ; but we know what we mean by the 
 foreign word which expresses our more perfected 
 moral conceptions ; and they have imperfect con- 
 ceptions of right and wrong, of good and bad, 
 which are capable of becoming clearer, and which 
 are, in reality, nothing else than longings for Jesus. 
 We must recognise the presence of God with them. 
 God made them and has never wholly left them. 
 " The Father worketh hitherto and I work." 
 Jesus is the conscious or unconscious centre and 
 desire of all humanity. All do not know Him, 
 or know that He knows them. To masses 
 of mankind He would now still have to say, " Have 
 I been so long a time with you, and yet hast 
 thou not known me Philip?" The longing for 
 truth, for holiness, the longing for happiness, 
 which constitute the great desires of man, exist in 
 germ wherever man is found, and the satisfaction 
 of these longings is one and the same — Jesus, the 
 Incarnate God. He is the Truth, the Lord our 
 Righteousness. He is our Peace. It may require 
 years or generations of culture to perfect, even 
 according to our standard of perfection, the un- 
 civilised nations of the world, but the capacity is in 
 them, even though now unapparent, and we have 
 the means for its development. We have the 
 means. Yes, here lies our responsibility. They, 
 we are told, are eager for the Gospel. But where 
 are the messengers of peace ? One of the results of
 
 10 
 
 a comparison of the various systems of religion has 
 been to make the need of a Revelation more evi- 
 dent. The language which the Apostle uses to 
 describe the heathen state, describes it more 
 exactly than we have been tempted to think. We 
 had known something of the heathen world from 
 a few of the most enlightened of the most cultured 
 nations. Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, 
 Seneca, represented to us the West. Fragments 
 of the Vudas, the Rules of the Buddhist, the 
 Analects of Confucius, the Institutes of Menu, 
 attracted us, and kindled our admiration and 
 sympathy for the East. And it seemed hard to 
 deal fairly with such writings and the writings 
 of S. Paul. But a more perfect acquaintance with 
 heathen literature, and a more practical appre- 
 hension of its powerlessness, and of the consequent 
 chasm which exists in non-Christian countries, 
 between the theory and the practice, has brought us 
 back again to see that the language of the Apostles 
 and of our Lord is the language of fact and not of 
 prejudice. The Prince of the Power of the air 
 holds a real dominion in heathen lands, in a 
 manner which he cannot hold in Christendom. 
 The land of the heathen is a land of darkness ; 
 their eyes need opening to see even the full beauty 
 of man. The area of the social virtues was really 
 piteously narrow. Greek could care for none but 
 Greeks, and only for a small section of themselves. 
 They were walking in darkness, even as regards 
 their fellow men. They saw men as trees walking. 
 They did not know the one brotherhood of man,
 
 II 
 
 and the reason the Apostle gives, when he says 
 that they were practically without God in the 
 world. It is a fearful picture, and one which 
 Christian people, reading the Oriental and Greek 
 books in this Christian land, have been inclined to 
 disbelieve, or at least to put aside, and fear to 
 realise. The Apostle describes the condition of 
 the Gentile world as he knew it practically to be. 
 The characteristics of their mind, he says, are 
 really vanity and emptiness. Their understanding 
 is darkened by an abiding darkness ; through 
 darkness they are alienated from the light which 
 God gives. There is in them a deep-seated 
 abiding ignorance. The characteristics of their 
 heart are callousness, hardness, without desire 
 of good. They are past feeling and give them- 
 selves up in wantonness to work uncleanness of 
 every kind, he calls them practically %<wpl9 %/3^crToO 
 adeoL, without Christ, and therefore without God 
 in the world. This is a terrible picture, but it is 
 no worse than that our Blessed Lord Himself 
 addressed to the great Apostle of the Gentiles as 
 the reason for his missionary labours. He was to 
 go to the Gentile world to open their eyes, to 
 turn them from darkness to light, from the power 
 of Satan unto God. 
 
 It has become increasingly clear during the last 
 five and twenty years, that only one nation can be 
 said to have made the worship of the One Personal 
 God, their unchanged national religion ; but the 
 Jewish Theocracy was based on a Revelation, 
 that of Mahommed is drawn from it.
 
 12 
 
 In the wisdom of God the world by wisdom 
 knew not God. Man has not been able without 
 the help of Revelation to discern and hold fast, 
 and hand on to his fellow man the two central 
 truths upon which man's greatness depends, his 
 own individual eternal personality, and the exis- 
 tence of the One Eternal Personal God. We see 
 man on the face of the earth as in a fine house 
 which once had been inhabited, from which the 
 light had been withdrawn, feeling after a half- 
 realised personality if haply he might find Him. 
 Has then the work of the last quarter of a century 
 left us no results ? Have we made no progress 
 towards the truth, and in the truth towards God 
 and one another ? Surely yes ! The increased 
 knowledge of the Religions of the world, has 
 taught us that God is still striving with man, that 
 where man is there God is in a peculiar manner 
 and degree. God is a Spirit, and man feels there 
 is a Spirit, though the feeling may be one of fear 
 and, as we call it, of superstition, but we recognise 
 it as God's work. We have learned to approach 
 the heathen world with a greater reverence and 
 tenderness and love. We see in them a capacity 
 for receiving the truth, but without help they 
 cannot discern it. Their capacity to possess it, 
 and inability to procure it, and our ability to give 
 it makes the call for missionary labour more clear 
 and urgent than before. True, the heathen world 
 possesses in some places, and in some individuals, 
 more moral and religious wealth than we thought, 
 but when it is all reckoned, we know now that it
 
 13 
 
 is not enough to pay the debt. We seem to see 
 more clearly what our work is. God has not ceased 
 to strive with man : there is life in humanity still, 
 but it seems to lie along the roadside of life, like 
 the traveller on his way from Jerusalem, robbed, 
 wounded, fallen, half dead, unable to rise, waiting 
 for the good Samaritan to come and give his gifts 
 and impart his strength. There is a knowledge ol 
 right and wrong, though not used exactly as we 
 should use it. This power to distinguish between 
 right and wrong, this moral sense, this conscience, 
 speaks not as of itself, but as bringing us to the 
 judgment of another, it is in us, yet not wholly of 
 us: it speaks of another — of God. Conscience in 
 fallen man is not independent, but needs the help 
 of Revelation to make its mission clear. It is 
 feeling after something which it cannot find, it is 
 longing for more than it has, and its yearning 
 really means, " Sir, we would see Jesus." It 
 needs help from above to make clear what it is 
 sure must be, the knowledge of the Personal God. 
 The conscience cannot reach its full and intended 
 power without the aid of Revelation. We cannot 
 accept God's Revelation without accepting Christ, 
 and Christianity is the religion which God has 
 revealed to satisfy the needs of man, but Chris- 
 tianity is coupled with a Divine Society. 
 Historically, Christianity implies the Church with 
 its Faith once delivered ; its unbroken. Divinely 
 appointed Ministry; its life-giving Sacraments; 
 its variously adapted discipline. This, then, is 
 our answer to the unconscious cry of the Gentile
 
 H 
 
 world, ''Sir, we would see Jesus?" "Kiss the 
 Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the 
 right way." Do not think that ye can live without 
 Him ; do not think to stand on the right way of 
 a mere morality, and live a life in obedience to 
 the moral law, without the knowledge of the law- 
 giver. '' Kiss the Son," accept Revelation. Do 
 not think that you can retain the true sense of 
 God's justice and mercy and reject the Atonement. 
 Do not think you can retain Theism and reject the 
 Cross of Christ. '' Kiss the Son, lest He be angry." 
 Do not think to retain Christianity and reject the 
 fulness of the faith once delivered to the saints, its 
 creeds, its ministry, its Sacraments. " Kiss the 
 Son." Put away the prejudice of controversy, 
 and the arbitrary solution of an uninstructed 
 conscience. See the universality of the need, and 
 the catholicity of the reply. Christianity is for all 
 classes, rich and poor; in it there is neither bond 
 nor free. Christianity is for all, for both sexes ; 
 in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female. 
 Christianity is for all races ; in it there is neither 
 circumcision nor uncircumcision, Greek nor 
 Barbarian. Christianity is for all time : Jesus is 
 the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. It is not 
 that in this way we wish to bind humanity with a 
 new bondage, but in truth to secure its freedom, 
 just as the laws of human government do not bind 
 the people for whom they are made in order to 
 checkthemfrom theirenjoymentof greaterfreedom, 
 but rather to secure for the nation those highest 
 aspirations for right living, of which individuals
 
 15 
 
 are capable, but cannot always as individuals 
 enforce. Civil laws do not destroy, but preserve 
 liberty. So the creeds and laws of the Church 
 Catholic do not fetter the freedom of the individual 
 spiritual life, but are the support and protection 
 of individual souls, protecting them even, in their 
 weaker moments, against themselves, and enabling 
 them finally to attain to the full liberty of the 
 sons of God. It is for such reasons as these, 
 believing that the real yearning of humanity is 
 not simply for wealth, or knowledge, or power, 
 nay, nor all the varied and true treasures expressed 
 by the one word, Civilization, but for God ; and — 
 believing that God's will is to reconcile men back 
 unto Himself through Christ, and that Christ's 
 will is to be proclaimed through His Church, and 
 to be found in it — it is for such reasons as these 
 that we are thankful to Almighty God to day that 
 He has not left the cry of the souls in Africa 
 without an answer, but has raised up you, my 
 brother, whom in some small degree, perhaps, in 
 years past I was privileged to help, but to whom 
 I now speak as one soon to be raised far above 
 myself, as the successor of the Apostles, and be 
 sent with the onl}' message which will satisfy the 
 hearts of men, and to tell them the truth as it is 
 in Jesus. 
 
 It is, indeed, to me a proof of one of the lessons 
 we should learn from the life of the Saint of 
 to-day — we may bring to Christ those who will be 
 greater than ourselves. For if the learning and 
 the extension of knowledge during the last twenty-
 
 i6 
 
 five years have shown the need of the message 
 of Revelation to enable man to know himself, his 
 brother, and his God, so, also, I believe the result 
 of recent criticism leaves the fact increasingly 
 beyond doubt that those high and awful statements 
 touching the necessity and divine dignity of the 
 Episcopate which have been preserved to us in 
 the Epistles of Ignatius, are true statements of 
 the teaching of the age, and of the man whose 
 name they bear. It has been well, perhaps, that 
 we have been allowed a moment of pardonable 
 suspense for the preparation of our spiritual sight 
 before the evidences for these Epistles is more 
 forcibly brought home to us, for the light which 
 they throw upon the position of a Bishop in 
 the Church of Christ is bright and dazzling 
 indeed. What do they say ? " Flee divisions as 
 the beginning of evils. See that ye follow your 
 Bishop, as Jesus Christ the Father; and the Pres- 
 bytery, as the Apostles ; reverence the Deacons as 
 the command of God. Let no one do anything 
 which belongs to the Church separately from the 
 Bishop. Let that Eucharist be looked upon as 
 well established which is either offered by the 
 Bishop, or by one to whom the Bishop hath given 
 his consent. Wheresoever the Bishop shall 
 appear there let the people also be, as where 
 Jesus Christ is, for there is the Catholic Church. 
 It is not lawful separately from the Bishop either 
 to Baptise or to celebrate the Holy Communion." 
 The truth has been preserved for us, but who is 
 sufficient for these things ? No one, indeed in his
 
 17 
 
 own strength, but we have good hope my brother, 
 
 that God, Who we believe has led you here 
 
 to-day, has also prepared you, and will support 
 
 you in the great burden which He lays upon you. 
 
 We have evidence which gives us hope. A 
 
 son of that universit}' which gave Mackenzie to 
 
 sow the first seeds in this mission field and then 
 
 to consecrate the land by his grave ; we pray that 
 
 his spirit may rest upon you. Admitted to the 
 
 ministry by the hands of one to whom I believe 
 
 the Church of England owes a debt that this 
 
 world will never know — ordained by Bishop 
 
 Wilberforce, we pray that the spirit which moved 
 
 his heart, and the heart of his great father before 
 
 him, to burst the bonds of slavery and set the sons 
 
 of Africa free, may also guide and empower you 
 
 to free them from the still more terrible slavery of 
 
 sin and to give them the glorious liberty of the 
 
 Gospel of Christ. And sincethese earlier prophecies, 
 
 which accompany, as it were, your earlier training 
 
 and admission into the ministry we have evidence 
 
 of God's presence with you. The ability and 
 
 assuidity with which you presided over a parish 
 
 of more than 20,000 souls ; the faithfulness and 
 
 wisdom with which you declared to them the 
 
 whole counsel of God ; the patience, tenderness, 
 
 and courage with which as a Priest of God you 
 
 laboured to set free and teach individual souls; 
 
 the respect, gratitude and love which clergy 
 
 and laity, rich and poor, have long felt for you, 
 
 and recently, on more than one occasion, made 
 
 known ; the simplicity and self-forgetting trustful-
 
 i8 
 
 ness with which you have given yourself to this 
 new service, to serve your Lord, not knowing, not 
 questioning what the future of your life or death 
 may be ; all this, and more, gives us good ground 
 for hoping that you will go to your new and 
 harder work supported by the prayers of many 
 hearts, and encouraged by the evidence God has 
 already given you of His presence with you and 
 His love. And if it seem to you, as more or less 
 it must, that you are leaving the centre of the 
 civilised world to go and work in a far-off country, 
 which at present has relatively little influence on 
 the great body of mankind, let me remind you that 
 the whole world is but the one field of God. He, the 
 Lord of the harvest, can gather the seed from 
 one quarter and sow it where He will. Place 
 and time are not to Him. Those who work with 
 Him work everywhere ; the fruit of their labour 
 can spring up where He wills. What does not 
 European Christianity owe to Africa ? Who can 
 tell the fulness of harvest reaped in Europe, which 
 S. Augustine sowed in Hippo ? What does not 
 the renewed life in the Church of England in 
 these last fifty 3ears, owe to the writings of 
 Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, besides Augustine 
 whom we almost feel to be our own. It is a 
 thousand years or more since these lived, and 
 worked, and died ; but verily there is a light sown 
 for the righteous, and in the darkness, if He will. 
 He can cause it to spring forth. So may it be 
 with you, my brother. Continue as you have 
 begun, to live and teach the faith in all its fulness,
 
 19 
 
 and you will thus best answer the unconscious 
 yearnings in the hearts of those to whom now 
 you go. Whatever may be the immediate result 
 of your Episcopate, if only it be faithful to Him, it 
 cannot be without its fruit. It may be that your 
 words and acts, and the lives of those whom you 
 will gather round you will be the means of preser- 
 ving in the old faith those who will be living here 
 in England, at a period as far remote in the future 
 as separates us now from the lives and writings of 
 S. Augustine and S. i\thanasius in the past ; or, 
 to make the analogy still more correct, that as 
 we in England, after a thousand years and more, 
 have been supported in the faith by the lives and 
 writings of another people, Sons of Africa, so the 
 same truth brought back by you to Africa now, 
 may through a native Church, a thousand years 
 to come, hand on the faith to other nations besides 
 their own, and thus — (who can tell?) — the Church 
 in Africa become the fountain out of which the 
 waters of salvation may be drawn to refresh 
 thirsting souls of a converted India and of a 
 China at last won to the obedience of the Cross 
 of Christ. We will not grudge you, my brother, 
 great as the grief will be of many souls at your 
 departure ; we will not regret you in the far-off 
 land to which you go — knowing that He for 
 Whom, and with Whom, and in Whom, you go 
 forth to labour will in no wise let you lose 
 your reward.
 
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