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 LI E> RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N IVLRSITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS
 
 From the Writer^ / 
 
 1 xN MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 HOLY WEEK AND EASTER 1884. 
 
 t 
 
 In ®t, ©omine, spcrabi : uon confuntrar in tctcrnum" 
 
 (Te Detim, verse 29). 
 
 [printed for private circulation.]
 
 From the Writer^ 
 
 IN MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 HOLY WEEK AND EASTER 1884. 
 
 t 
 
 In ^c, IBominc, spcrabi : non confuntrar in aetcrnum" 
 
 ( Te Deum, verse 29). 
 
 [printed for private circulation.]
 
 *'I Believe in the Communion of Saints." 
 
 " By Saints we understand all who welcome and appro- 
 priate, and shew forth, in whatever way, the gifts of the 
 Spirit." 
 
 It is through aspiration to the highest level of the 
 lives of the faithful departed, " quickened by the thoughtful 
 study of that which the Spirit wrought in them, that we 
 enter into fellowship with their true life. Weaknesses, 
 faults, errors, accidents of time and place, fall away. We 
 learn to look upon the love, the courage, the faith, the self- 
 sacrifice, the simplicity of truth which they embodied, and 
 so become invigorated by vital contact with the eternal 
 manifested through men." — Dr. Westcott, Regius Professor 
 of Divmii}\ Cambridge. 
 
 " To belong to a great family, to a great society, to a 
 great nation, is, if rightly viewed, a man's noblest birth- 
 right. He whose name is a memorial of past honours, and 
 whose earliest years are spent, as it were, in the light of 
 illustrious deeds : he who has learnt to feel that there is a 
 history in which he has a part, and who has rejoiced in the 
 triumphs of a people whose hopes and impulses he shares : 
 must from time to time be raised above all that is selfish
 
 and even personal ; he must become conscious of the 
 accumulated power with which he is endowed, and of the 
 social destiny to which he is called. Let the name be 
 that Name which is above every name : let the history be 
 written in every splendid achievement by which the King- 
 dom of God has been advanced : let the triumphs be 
 those by which faith through the ages subdues all things to 
 herself : let the fellowship be that of Saints and confessors ; 
 and then we shall understand, dimly it may be, but yet so 
 that effort will be kindled with fresh enthusiasm, what our 
 fathers meant when they handed down to us truths which 
 they had proved ; then we shall say, with livelier imagina- 
 tion and fuller heart, each in the prospect of our little work, 
 and with the sense of our peculiar trials, acknowledging 
 that that work is transfigured by a divine consecration, and 
 that those trials are conquered by a spiritual sympathy : ' I 
 believe in the Holy Catholic Church, I believe in the 
 Communion of Saints.' " — Westcott. 
 
 " The first and noblest use of the Imagination is, to 
 enable us to bring sensibly to our sight the things which 
 are recorded as belonging to our future state ; or as 
 invisibly surrounding us in this. It is given us that we 
 may imagine the cloud of witnesses in heaven and earth, 
 and see, as if they were now present, the souls of the 
 righteous waiting for us ; that we may conceive the great 
 army of the inhabitants of heaven, and discover among 
 them those whom we most desire to be with for ever." — 
 Ruskin {Modern Painters, iii.) 
 
 O.UC
 
 PREFACE 
 
 On the evening of Low Sunday (April 20th, 1884), I was 
 asked to allow the first of the following Sermons to be 
 privately printed. At the moment I thought of re-writing 
 it, but afterwards I determined not to do so, and for the 
 following reasons : — 
 
 On that Sunday, and before that congregation, it was 
 hard to preach at all, so hard that I had at one moment 
 determined to have no Sermon. But on the Sunday 
 morning I put together, only too hastily, some few words. 
 It was a comfort to myself to do so, and now I give them, 
 to the best of my belief, just as they were delivered in the 
 Chapel. 
 
 To have rewritten the Sermon would have made it not 
 the Sermon asked for, and thus it would have been deprived 
 of whatever interest it may possess to those who wished for 
 it. For defects of style, which are only too obvious in all 
 these Sermons (for, though for the sake of brevity I have 
 omitted some words, and changed others, in the first pages 
 of Sermon II., I have practically given them without 
 alteration), I make this apology: that a Sermon prepared 
 for immediate delivery, and subject to verbal alteration at
 
 the moment of preaching, is not meant to be an essay, and 
 will not bear the test of literary criticism. 
 
 I was also asked for the Sermon preached on May nth. 
 To this Sermon I have added a note at some length, 
 because the subject briefly alluded to in one passage is to 
 my own mind of vast and absorbing interest. In it, as in 
 other places, I have place din inverted commas passages 
 from other authors. 
 
 In the third Sermon I venture to reproduce a portion of 
 a Sermon preached last autumn, at Drumlanrig Castle, on 
 the Duke's Birthday, and again (in part) on May 4th, 1884, 
 when all the members of the family were absent from 
 Bowhill. I remember that, on November 25th, his Grace 
 seemed to be very much pleased with Hymns 280 and 290. 
 Hymn 280 had been sung in 1872, to another tune, but not 
 since that date ; Hymn 290 was quite new to us : and both 
 were prepared for November 25th with a special intention. 
 
 It will, I am sure, interest all those for whom these words 
 are intended, to be reminded that his Grace was in the 
 Chapel at Bowhill for the last time on the morning of the 
 Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 23rd, 1884. His Grace 
 told me not to be surprised if he left the Chapel before the 
 conclusion of the Service, and he accordingly went out 
 before the sermon, whilst the last verse of Hymn 284, " My 
 God, my Father," was being sung — the Hymn which, as we 
 know, had long been his favourite. 
 
 The Psalms in which he joined with us on that Sunday 
 were those used on the morning of the Funeral, April 23rd, 
 St. George the Martyr's Day. One may notice now with a 
 loving reverence how appropriate many verses of Psalm
 
 cxii. are to his character and his memory. It was afterwards 
 discovered that the places were found and marked in his 
 Prayer Book and Bible for the Psalms and Collect and 
 Lessons for the Evening Service ; but he who had for so 
 many years been to us all the bright example of earnest 
 and reverent attention in the Service of God, was not again 
 to be there in life. A very old friend of his Grace's said to 
 me lately, " What I remember most distinctly now about 
 the Services at Drumlanrig and Bowhill, is the Duke's clear 
 voice saying after the Gospel, ' Thanks be Thee, O God, 
 for this Thy glorious Gospel.' " It was evidently the 
 expression of his heart's conviction. 
 
 Another occasion when the Psalms seemed to be touch- 
 ingly appropriate, was at Evening Prayer on Tuesday in 
 Holy Week, April 8th, when our anxiety was increasing. 
 The words of Psalm xli. made one think of the support 
 given from above in time of need to one who had been a 
 benefactor to the Holy Church, and a succourer of the poor 
 and suffering members of Jesus Christ. " Blessed is he 
 that considereth the poor and needy ; the Lord shall deliver 
 him in the time of trouble. The Lord comfort him when 
 he lieth sick upon his bed." 
 
 I hope I may be pardoned if I offer one suggestion to 
 those who may read this Preface. Last Sunday, at St. 
 Paul's Cathedral, Dr. Liddon said that he had known a case 
 where a sufferer had been much helped all through sleep- 
 less nights by being able to recite from memory, and 
 meditate upon, the words of the Te Deum j and he 
 earnestly advised all of us to learn by heart passages of the 
 Psalms, especially Psalm li., which in illness might be used 
 to our great comfort as prayers. Some of us observed the
 
 8 /« 
 
 truth of this remark in the Duke's illness. When in weak- 
 ness, reading or much thought are alike impossible, and we 
 are least able to dwell upon unfamiliar subjects, the fre- 
 quent and daily use of the Psalms in past years of health 
 will be found to have stored the mind with holy ejaculations 
 which come without effort to our aid. 
 
 S. M. 
 
 Castle Hedingham, 
 Name of Jesus, August 'jth, 1884.
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 BowHiLL Chapel, Low Sunday^ April 20, 1884 
 
 Psalm xxiii. (Bible Version.) 
 
 " The Lord is my Shepherd ; I shall not want. He maketh me to 
 lie down in green pastures : He leadeth me beside the still waters. 
 He restoreth my soul : He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness 
 for His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the 
 shadow of death, I will fear no evil : for Thou art with me ; Thy rod 
 and Thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a Table before me in 
 the presence of mine enemies : Thou anointest my head with oil ; my 
 cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the 
 days of my life : and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." 
 
 This Psalm was appointed by St. Chrysostom for use in 
 the last office for the burial of the faithful departed who 
 sleep in Jesus ; and one may, I think, plainly see why such 
 words should have been chosen for use at such a time by 
 the Eastern Church. They are very full of comfort and 
 hope to us in the more ordinary trials of our lives ; still 
 more so to a devout Christian when the hours of this brief 
 life are drawing to a close ; but most of all are they 
 consolatory, and with a very special power, when God's 
 people think of the passing away from this earthly scene, 
 and the going to Paradise, of holy souls washed in the blood 
 of that Good Shepherd Who shed it for them. 
 
 " The Lord is my Shepherd." There is no title more 
 dear than that ! The Eastern shepherd goes before the 
 flock j there is no driving of the timid sheep ; the shepherd 
 leads, the sheep follow ; they know him and fear not ; 
 where he leads there it is good for them to go. And Jesus, 
 our Lord, gave Himself this title, " I am the Good 
 Shepherd." All that that name implies Jesus means
 
 10 
 
 Himself to be. He goes before the sheep ; He leads the 
 
 way, they follow. 
 
 (i.) He leads by the example of His own most holy life 
 as the Perfect Man. In love, in pity, in sympathy, in the 
 display of human affections, He goes before His people. He 
 shews them Himself; if we may so speak, He shews 
 Himself without reserve, except so far as reserve as to His 
 life is good for us. He lets us see Him tired out, weary by 
 the well, weeping at the grave, pitying the widowed mother 
 at her son's burial, broken down by agony in Gethsemane, 
 thirsting and overwhelmed with a sense of dereliction on 
 the Cross : truly the Brother of sorrowing and suffering 
 humanity. So He goes before us \ and as we try to follow 
 Him (too often with faltering steps) we are upheld by the 
 thought that He knows quite well, not only by Divine 
 knowledge but by His own experience, all that distresses us 
 in our path. It is blessed then for us, the flock and people 
 of His pasture, to realise what a true Shepherd He has 
 been by going before us in the sorrows of our lives ; it is 
 truly soothing and comforting to us to think of Him under 
 this most gracious title, " the Lord my Shepherd." 
 
 (ii.) And then He is the Good Shepherd beyond this 
 life. He goes before us into the other world, unseen yet so 
 near. His own most holy soul once passed through the 
 valley of the shadow of death. When on the Cross He 
 breathed out His Spirit into His Father's hands, it went to 
 Paradise, even as a humble Christian hopes, for that 
 Saviour's sake, his own may do. From that moment 
 Paradise was changed. The soul of Jesus entering into 
 the place of departed spirits hallowed it, and made it what 
 before it was not, a place where Christ had been, and where 
 in some mysterious way His presence is. " Paradise, it is 
 true, is not Heaven, but a halting-place at the foot of it " 
 {^Dr. Newman). Not until the Resurrection Day will there 
 be perfect consummation and bliss, for the body must 
 share with the soul in the glories which shall be revealed in 
 the new creation ; but Paradise is blessed, the holy abode 
 where the Good Shepherd cherishes that portion of His 
 flock which He has taken to His mercy. "He maketh them 
 to He down in green pastures." He has taken them from
 
 11 
 
 this rough world to peace. It is as if a shepherd wanted to 
 move his flock from the rude wilderness, with its dangerous 
 rocks and parched and arid places, and went before them to 
 show the way, looking back again and again, and calling 
 them by name to follow Him one by one to cool and 
 pleasant resting-places. There, in consciousness, in hope 
 and comfort, in the company of angels, the souls of the 
 righteous are in the hands of God, enshrouded by the holy 
 Presence of their Lord. So to pass from this world is, 
 since the going of Jesus' soul to Paradise, what it never 
 could have been before. He has led the way ; and His 
 sheep, though, as men encompassed with infirmities, they 
 tremble and hardly dare to go, yet, as Christians, as the 
 sheep of His hand, they know that they are only following 
 Him. Where He has gone it must be good to go. This 
 soothes their fear, this calms their trembling hope. They 
 seem to hear His kind voice, "Fear not, Jesus is with thee! 
 Thou hast trusted in the merits of My Cross ; thy soul has 
 been nourished by the food of immortality, My own Body 
 and Blood ; I will not leave thee nor forsake thee. Come 
 unto Me, weary soul." 
 
 It is well for us to think of Paradise if we will always 
 think of it as given to us by the Cross of Christ, made 
 what it is because Jesus died. Few devout Christians can 
 have lived for any long time in the world, but their best 
 treasures and best affections must be in another world ; 
 and God has so constituted us that our affections are meant 
 by Him to lead us from this world to that to which, before 
 many years are past, we all must go. 
 
 " Every sense is an avenue to the heart, and calculated 
 to convey to us the feeling remembrance of those who are 
 gone."* The sound of music, a passing word, the beauty of 
 some tree, a well-known scene, the sound of a bell, the opening 
 out of spring flowers, a picture set aside, a lost letter that 
 comes to view — all these will touch a chord, and fill the 
 mind with recollections which take the thoughts from this 
 to the unseen world. Calls they are, doubtless, from our 
 merciful Father ; whispers from the good angels that He 
 has stationed round us ; calls that would take us from the 
 * See Isaac Williams on the Passion.
 
 12 
 
 business or the pleasures of life, to reflect upon the issues 
 of life and death ; calls to more earnestness, calls to love 
 Jesus better. Let us welcome them, and thank God for 
 them, and try ourselves to live the life of reality and 
 humility, of true holiness and zeal for God and man, of 
 bravery and meekness ; that life which, as we in this house 
 have good cause to know, is the outcome of faith. If we 
 do the Lord will be indeed our Shepherd, and the time will 
 come for no more partings again. Amen. 
 
 *
 
 13 
 
 SERMON IL 
 
 BowHiLL Chapel, May ii, iJ 
 
 Hebrews xii. 22, 23. 
 
 *' Ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the City of the living 
 God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of 
 angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, vi'hich are 
 written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of 
 just men made perfect," 
 
 The writer of the Hebrews here develops the doctrme of 
 the Communion of Saints in language which cannot be 
 mistaken. He wishes to encourage Christians to an earnest 
 life of holiness, so he draws out a contrast between the 
 religious position of the Jews and that of Christians. There 
 was much to terrify them ; there is everything to encourage 
 us. Mount Sinai was the place indeed whence God promised 
 blessings to those who obeyed Him ; but still, it was the 
 mountain full of awe and dread, so that Moses said, " I 
 exceedingly fear and quake." In contrast with the circum- 
 stances of this first revelation of God's Will to His creatures, 
 is set the access of Christians to God, to angels, to the 
 Holy Church, to the souls of the Saints departed. No 
 words could more strongly express the marvellous closeness 
 of the Communion of Saints — the fellowship, that is, of those 
 in Christ to God and to each other. 
 
 First, observe that it is a present fact. It is not " ye will 
 come," but " ye ate come." And to what ? With whom is 
 this Communion or Fellowship ? 
 
 (i.) With God. " Truly," writes St. John, '' our fellowship 
 is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ." So 
 here, in the Hebrews, the all-important fact is that our
 
 14 
 
 fellowship is with the Infinite God. We "are come unto 
 Mount Sion," to Heaven itself, God's own abode, the place 
 where is His Throne, and where the Holy Trinity is 
 incessantly adored by the multitude of the heavenly host. 
 " God," it is stated in the Ephesians, "has made us to sit 
 together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus;" we are "fellow 
 citizens with the Saints, and of the household of God ; " we 
 are in a manner already in heaven, even now " come unto " 
 that holy of holies, Mount Sion, the City of the living God. 
 We are come thither ; and our communion, our fellowship 
 is first with the Holy One, God Almighty, the Father, the 
 Son, and the Holy Ghost. 
 
 (ii.) With men. For " if we walk in the light, as He is in 
 the light, we have fellowship one with another." Good 
 Christians then who " walk in the light," that is, those who, 
 mindful of their Baptism and of the new birth then bestowed 
 and then begun and carried on through life by grace, try to 
 walk worthy of their high calling in Christ Jesus, and with 
 whatever imperfections do fight the good fight of faith — 
 these, walking in the light of God's truth, have a true com- 
 munion or fellowship one with another. You see that we 
 are not isolated in Christian life ; it would be unspeakably 
 depressing if we were alone. No ! We are bound up with 
 one another by the bands of Christian unity, and the cords 
 of sympathy and love. By virtue of the life that circulates 
 through the whole body of which Christ is the Head, we, 
 each and all of us who are in earnest as Christians, may 
 have power and vigour which comes to us as members of the 
 body. The prayers of one member help the others. Each 
 separate petition, every longing aspiration of the heart, 
 meets with other prayers, and with them goes to form that 
 cloud of incense, which is the prayers of the Saints, con- 
 tinually presented on the golden Altar before the Throne 
 of God. By the share we possess in the prayers offered up 
 throughout Christendom, we are helped, comforted, raised 
 up to higher and better things, in ways we shall never know 
 until we pass beyond the veil. 
 
 Only two days ago I heard from Inverness of the Primus 
 of Scodand in his illness, that " there are most remarkable 
 signs of his being much supported by the prayers offered up
 
 15 
 
 in his behalf." Would that we thought more of the power 
 of intercessory prayer. " Pray for one another " is the 
 secret of strength in the Church's hfe. 
 
 Then again, who can doubt the very special fellowship we 
 have one with another in the Blessed Sacrament of the 
 Body and Blood of Christ ? " We, being many, are one 
 body in Christ, for we are all partakers of that One Bread." 
 Blessed, most helpful, most soothing words ! Men's sins, 
 and the pride of man's heart, have raised up barriers of 
 separation on earth in the One Body of Jesus Christ, but 
 by virtue of that One Bread of the Eucharist we are one. 
 Wherever the Holy Sacrament is rightly and duly celebrated, 
 there is the bond of true unbreakable fellowship. No matter 
 what man's opinion may be, we are in God's sight all par- 
 takers of that One Bread, and by It united. Here, in the 
 face of the divisions of Christendom, is encouragement and 
 solace. 
 
 Now, the writer of the Hebrews, after telling us that in a 
 manner we are even now living in heavenly places and in 
 the company of heavenly beings, gives in the twenty-third 
 verse the condition by which holy "fellowship one with 
 another " is ensured to us. " Ye are come to the general 
 assembly and Church of the firstborn which are written in 
 heaven." We have this fellowship, therefore, in the Holy 
 Church* on earth ; for by entering into the Church at 
 Baptism we are put in the most intimate union with that 
 vast multitude of those whose names are enrolled on the 
 list of the Members of Christ, who thus become the first- 
 born of the new creation in Christ, and to whom, if they 
 will persevere to the end. Heaven is assured. And this 
 mention of the Church Militant leads on by a natural 
 sequence of ideas to the thought of her trials, and of the 
 enemies from whom she seeks protection at the hands 
 of God, " the Judge of all men." 
 
 It is, however, to the last sentence of the twenty-third 
 verse that our attention is more closely attracted at this 
 time. "Ye are come to the spirits of just men made 
 perfect." " Made perfect.'' Here indeed there is no per- 
 
 * Wherever in Scripture the word here translated Church is used 
 of men, it always designates Saints on earth. — (See Alford in loco.)
 
 i6 
 
 fection. So long as there is one step more to take, who 
 can say, The goal is reached ? "I count not myself to 
 have apprehended." But a time comes when probation in 
 this life is over ; all is accomplished ; the race is run ; life 
 is perfected by death. With those who die in the Lord it 
 is that life in this world has been completed as God willed 
 it to be ; the creature has fulfilled its destiny. Sent into 
 this world as the creature of God, raised in Baptism to be a 
 child of God by adoption, man is placed in a state of sal- 
 vation. He begins to set forth on the first stages of that 
 road which leads to eternal life. Often faltering, often 
 misled, often, it may be, wandering off the right track of 
 that narrow way ; often sinning, often shrinking from the 
 Cross, yet recovering himself by the help of God ; in the 
 main keeping the goal in view, and taking up the Cross 
 again and again with renewed fervour, the true disciple of 
 Jesus perseveres to the end. Such is the history — who can 
 doubt it — of most of God's faithful servants who have lived 
 long in this world, and at length enter into Paradise. 
 Washed in the blood of the Lamb, clinging to the Cross, 
 the spirit returns to God Who gave it. Life here is ended. 
 The body rests in the grave, the soul is in the hands of 
 God ; all that the Cross of Christ could do for it in this 
 world is done, and the spirit (though it waits for its perfect 
 consummation and bliss at the general Resurrection) is yet 
 so far '' perfect." 
 
 * The prize, the prize secure ! 
 The wrestler nearly fell ; 
 Bare all he could endure, 
 
 And bare not always well : 
 But he may smile at troubles gone 
 Who puts the victor's garland on. 
 
 The exile is at home ! — 
 
 Oh, nights and days of tears ! 
 Oh, longings not to roam ! 
 
 Oh, sins and doubts and fears ! 
 What matters now grief's darkest day, 
 When God has wiped all tears away ? 
 
 " The spirits of just men made perfect " — we are come to 
 them. Oh ! blest Communion ; fellowship divine ! Truly 
 
 * From a Greek Hymn translated by Dr. Neale.
 
 17 
 
 bless.ed ; something (is it not ? ) that we love to dwell upon. 
 And when the thoughts turn to that real yet most 
 mysterious fellowship, the question arises in many a loving 
 and anxious heart — " What does it mean ? How, why, in 
 what manner, are faithful Christians on earth so closely 
 united with the faithful in Paradise that it can be said with 
 any exactness, ' Ye are come to them ? ' " 
 
 Let us try to find some answer to this question. 
 
 First, we have to realize this fact, that the Church of 
 Christ is both visible and invisible. '' It has a home in two 
 worlds. In both these homes Christ is the Head, and so 
 the children of God in both are united. Their union is not 
 dissolved, because some have already entered that glorious 
 and spotless Church of which this is the outer court." * 
 
 Or, to put it in another way. What is it but as if the 
 faithful members of Christ on earth were assembled in 
 the nave of some vast cathedral, and the faithful departed 
 were in the chancel, with a thin veil hung over the chancel 
 arch ? The same roof covers both ; the same Divine 
 Presence pervades both portions of the House of God : 
 one part, it is true, is raised higher than the other, and is, 
 as is fitting, full of more holy and solemn associations, 
 being in a special way the Sanctuary of God; but yet only 
 a veil and a few steps are between those two assemblies of 
 the children of One Almighty Father. 
 
 If, then, we realize that in Christ the whole family of 
 God in heaven and earth is one, we can see how it is that 
 we " are come to the spirits of just men made perfect." 
 Our Baptism is the cause of our "coming." Then we 
 begin to live in Christ, in that same Lord in Whom they 
 too live, and their oneness and ours in Christ make us one 
 together. And so no real separation occurs when in the 
 sight of men they seem to die ; there is indeed a local 
 separation, a physical and material severance, but really, 
 truly, and spiritually — and spiritual things are more real 
 than material things — we are with them and they with us 
 — parted, yet together in Christ. 
 
 * " The First Ages of the Church," by Dr. Dollinger. 
 
 B
 
 i8 
 
 Secondly, remember that the faithful departed " live unto 
 God." Their condition, then, is one of life. With Jesus, 
 with God, in some mysterious way in His Hands, with the 
 holy souls of all who have died in the Lord, they live in 
 perfect consciousness. True, Scripture speaks of those 
 who *' sleep in Jesus : " but this is a term meant to signify 
 to us the simplicity (so to speak) of death itself, that death 
 has lost its sting, and is, on account of the death and 
 resurrection of Jesus, not annihilation of the body, nor 
 mysterious disappearance of the soul into space, but a kind 
 of gentle falHng asleep, to come to life again, body and 
 soul, at the great waking of the Last Day. That there 
 is perfect consciousness is plain from our Lord's own 
 declaration as to Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, and from 
 the fact that between our Saviour's death on the Cross and 
 the morning of Easter, His own holy Soul went to "preach 
 to the spirits in prison,""^ — to announce, as it would 
 seem, to the departed in the other world the good news 
 of His triumph on the Cross. 
 
 Yes ! there is consciousness, and from this consciousness 
 arises the assurance of heavenly recognition of saint by 
 saint " How blessed is the entrance into Paradise of the 
 faithful soul ! Borne by angelic hands, it passes through 
 the golden gates, and is with Christ. At first it sees only 
 Him in His beauty, and listens to His loved Voice. But 
 then it beholds the multitude of the redeemed, and enters 
 into their holy society. Father, mother, loved ones gone 
 before, faithful friends in the Lord — all who were known 
 and loved on this earth, and who have died in Jesus, are 
 there to welcome the soul. Who can describe the joy of 
 recognition ? Who can tell the rapture of that moment, 
 when the long separated meet again, joined in an union 
 never to be destroyed ? " {Body.) 
 
 And whilst consciousness, involving mutual recognition, 
 exists, so too does memory. "Son, remember!''^ were 
 Abraham's words to the sinful soul in the other world ; and 
 if with the lost, how much more with the blessed ! The 
 redeemed soul can now look back upon life as a whole. 
 Sins are remembered, and they intensify love and gratitude 
 * I Peter iii. 19.
 
 19 
 
 to God Who has pardoned them. The ills and pains of 
 life and of sickness are remembered, and with a great joy 
 now, when viewed as the "much tribulation," or the "light 
 affliction which is but for a moment," by which the soul has 
 been fitted for Paradise. Those left on earth are remem- 
 bered ; and most surely are we helped in our earthly strife 
 by the prayers of the holy dead for us. Under the altar 
 St. John saw the souls of the martyrs, and heard their 
 incessant prayer ; and " by this we may understand that the 
 prayers of the faithful dead are continually offered up for 
 their brethren in Christ who are here, and are still bearing 
 the burden and heat of the day " {Keble). 
 
 Such remembrance of us on earth can in no way interfere 
 with the bliss of Paradise, if we hold, as we should do, 
 that the faithful departed " only share Christ's knowledge of 
 the state of the Church on earth, so far as Christ is pleased 
 to impart it to them " {Dollinger). Be the limits what they 
 may, it is a knowledge, we may feel, " wide enough to sus- 
 tain their interest, and to win for us the great blessing of 
 their prayers " {Body) ; and thus, though in another and a 
 better world, as living members of Christ they "take their 
 part in the working out of the Will of God in the redemption 
 of souls " {Dollmger). 
 
 Lastly, whilst we consider the offices of the holy departed 
 towards ourselves, we are led to think of the exercise of 
 communion with them on our part. " Human nature will 
 not endure the thought that at the moment of death all 
 concern for those loved ones who are riven from us by 
 death, comes to an end" {Bishop Forbes). The heathen 
 symbolized their idea of death by a broken column, or an 
 inverted torch. Such emblems seemed meant to suggest 
 that henceforward the dead are nothing to us, or we to 
 them; the column of life snapped off, the lamp extinguished. 
 Alas ! that in Christian burial grounds such gloomy, 
 depressing memorials should exist. True Christian feeling 
 turns from them with abhorrence. Let the bodies of our 
 dead in Christ rest beneath the Cross of Jesus, the blessed 
 sign of our redemption, the token of belief in pardon for 
 the past and of reunion hereafter. Let the life on earth
 
 20 
 
 of a Christian, as it commenced at first with the Cross on 
 the brow, be finished beneath the Cross, and so be a work 
 begun, continued, and ended in Jesus Christ. 
 
 The Cross of Christ ! The Cross of Christ ! — it speaks 
 to us of never-broken union. Overshadowed by it, we, 
 sinners that we are, can yet dare to think of the blessed in 
 Paradise as one with us, and to beUeve that if we too are 
 glorying in the Cross, and trusting to it, we have a real 
 communion with all who have already won the victory 
 under that banner. 
 
 We exercise that communion in our private thoughts 
 and longings, and meditation, and in our Church Services. 
 Direct memorials of the holy departed are, it is true, for 
 reasons it would be out of place now to try to explain, 
 infrequent in our present Prayer Book ;'^ yet, besides the 
 commemoration of the faithful departed in the Communion 
 Office, and the pious observance of Saints' Days, and 
 especially of All Saints' Day — devout minds have found 
 much comfort in the knowledge that we never say the 
 Lord's Prayer without bearing in mind before God the 
 faithful departed. "Thy Kingdom come" is a prayer for 
 the coming of the end, when Christ shall be all in all ; and 
 so far as it affects the doctrine of the Communion of 
 Saints, we may take the words of the Burial Service as a 
 paraphrase of that clause in the Lord's Prayer, when we 
 pray God " shortly to accomplish the number of His elect, 
 and to hasten His kingdom; that we, with all those that 
 are departed in the true faith of His holy Name, may have 
 our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, 
 in His eternal and glorious kingdom." 
 
 Certainly it will be well for us, as members of the one 
 family of God, " to make it a matter of religious duty never 
 to forget the departed, never to let go of them ; to insist 
 that they are not really gone from us, and to resolve that 
 nothing shall set us farther apart, or widen the gap that 
 death has made " {Morgan Dix) ; to be, as a matter of 
 principle, as loyal, as faithful, as true, as loving towards our 
 
 * In the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. they were definite and 
 usual.
 
 21 
 
 beloved ones now, as we were while they were with us 
 Let the memory of those in Christ before us be a purifyin/ 
 motive in our actions ; let their names be uttered, not witl 
 gloom or sadness, but with a kind of holy joy and awed 
 reverence, for they live in a truer sense than we. " Let us 
 remember that it is we who are in the shadows and the 
 darkness, not they ; " let us cling to the belief of our com- 
 munion with them as a blessed aid, given us in the mercy 
 of God, to help us to be where they are now. 
 
 ii* 
 
 [Note. — The writer hopes that no expression in the two 
 preceding Sermons may be thought to contradict in any 
 way a belief in the probability of some process of gradual 
 improvement and fitting for heaven which may go on after 
 death. Mr. Keble, in his old age, meditating upon the 
 awful holiness of God, and of his own unworthiness to see 
 God, told a friend that he clung to a belief in such a 
 process as his best comfort. It may be supposed that 
 many humble-minded Christians are of the same mind.]
 
 22 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 [ The Sermon^ from which the following extract is given, was preached 
 at Drumlanrig Castle, Noveinher 25, 1883, and {with the 
 addition in brackets) on the Third Sunday after Easter, 1884, at 
 BOWHILL.] 
 
 Psalm cxix. 57. 
 *' Thou art my portion, O Lord." 
 
 " ' Thou art my 
 
 portion, O Lord!' It is blessed to say that from the 
 heart ; however weakly, however imperfectly, yet it is 
 blessed. Animated by the truth it expresses, saints have 
 lived, and martyrs have endured to the end. What that 
 Lord has been of old He is now to His people — ever 
 faithful, ever sure. As the children of time, we, whether 
 for good or evil, move onwards in perpetual change, but 
 above us is the unchanging God, the portion of each 
 redeemed soul. May He give to each of us ever to 
 look upwards and claim Him for our own ! 
 
 " ' Thou art my portion ! ' There is our refuge when the 
 storms of temptation sweep over us. There is our solace 
 when life's burdens press heavily. In that belief we can 
 find a strong consolation when we part from those we love. 
 In that assurance we may see in pain and sickness the 
 touches of a loving hand. At that solemn hour, when 
 human help must fail us, the life-long clinging to God as 
 our portion will stand us in good stead; we shall know 
 then why our Father bid us trust Him ; we shall feel then 
 what it is to have His rod and His staff to comfort 
 us "
 
 j»3 
 
 [Some of you may remember that these words were 
 preached at Drumlanrig on November 25, the Duke's last 
 birthday. I have purposely repeated them to-night. We 
 have known of late that God does not fail at the last to help 
 those who in life live unto Him. Last night I was looking 
 through a volume of Sermons, dedicated in 1818 to Duke 
 Charles, by Mr. Marriott. He was domestic Chaplain to 
 Duke Henry and Duke Charles. There is a passage in one 
 of his Sermons which bears on the subject before us. He is 
 speaking about the sadness of the way in which men 
 " shrink from opportunities of learning, what is no easy 
 lesson, how to die well. For scenes of infinitely less 
 importance they prepare themselves with much forethought, 
 but they venture upon that most awful scene, a deathbed, 
 without the slightest consideration ; as though, because all 
 men must die, all men could die well. Yet the still small 
 voice of conscience tells them that he who would die well 
 must live well ; and that he who would lean with confidence 
 on the Saviour then, must now take up his cross and deny 
 himself, and follow Him." 
 
 Perhaps, when quite a youth, the Duke heard that 
 Sermon ; at least we know that he so lived that, in the right 
 sense of the words, he was not afraid to die. He had made 
 God his portion all through life, and His rod and His staff 
 they comforted him. 
 
 I shall always remember what Sir W. Gull said to me on 
 the morning of Wednesday in Easter week. "It was very 
 impressive. I shall not forget last night. It was simply this, 
 * the end of that man is peace.' " * 
 
 I hope we shall all be stronger in our faith for such times 
 as we have passed through. They help one. And may we 
 so follow the good example set us by his Grace, of faith and 
 deep humility, that we, with him, and all those who are 
 departed in God's holy faith and fear, may have our perfect 
 consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in our 
 Father's eternal and glorious Kingdom. Amen.] 
 * Psalm xxxvii. 37, (Bible Version.)
 
 24 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note to Sermon II. 
 
 I HAVE long felt that the doctrine of the Communion of 
 Saints is imperfectly realized by many good Church people ; 
 and yet there is probably no Article of the Creed which so 
 closely touches the most tender feelings of us all, and very 
 specially so when, as we humbly hope, God has taken to 
 Himself souls beloved by us. I should be very thankful if 
 by this Note I might be permitted to draw the attention of 
 anyone to a closer investigation of the subject. Besides 
 the well-known Treatises on the Creeds, such as Bishop 
 Pearson's and Bishop Forbes', I have this year come across 
 two books which I venture to think might be of much 
 interest to others who have not read them : " After Death," 
 by Canon Luckock, Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of 
 Ely; and " The Historic Faith," by Professor Westcott, who 
 gives at the end of his work a chapter on the Communion 
 of Saints, of singular power and beauty. To these and 
 other standard authorities, and to Dr. Lee's " Christian 
 Doctrine of Prayer for the Departed," I am indebted 
 for many quotations in the following pages. Without 
 attempting to enter more fully than I have done in the 
 Sermon upon the Doctrine of the Communion of Saints, 
 I now pass on to the more immediate subject of this note, 
 namely, " Prayer for the Faithful Departed in Christ." 
 
 " If the whole body of Christians, both those in the flesh 
 and those out of the flesh, are but one family, then it seems 
 hard to believe that separation by death can interpose a 
 barrier to our intercession " {Luckock) \ and if prayer is, as
 
 25 
 
 we believe, the highest act of the noblest part of our being, 
 it would seem unnatural that we should be unable to 
 exercise it in connection with our deepest affections and 
 interests. 
 
 In support of what to my own mind is a " natural 
 instinct," we have the following facts : first, that whereas 
 the Jews were used to pray for the dead, our Saviour 
 nowhere condemns the practice ; secondly, that the most 
 ancient Christian monuments, as well as the earliest written 
 prayers of Christians, testify to the fact of prayers for the 
 departed being in common use in the first ages of 
 the Church ; thirdly, that the Holy Church throughout the 
 world has used them ; fourthly, that great teachers of 
 the English Church since the Reformation sanction such 
 prayers, which have been written and used by devout 
 laymen as well as clergy. 
 
 I must content myself with giving in this Note a few brief 
 statements, which may be suggestive of further reading and 
 thought. In Note II. will be found some specimens of 
 mscriptions bearing on this subject from the Catacombs 
 and our English Churchyards. 
 
 (i.) From the history of the Maccabees it is clear that 
 the custom of praying for the dead was known in the 
 Second Century before Christ (2 Mace. xii. 39). Josephus 
 testifies to the belief current in his day as to the value and 
 importance of prayer for the departed {Wars of [ews^ 
 chapter 91). 
 
 (ii.) Such prayers are frequently to be met with on the 
 tombs of Christians in the Catacombs, the most ancient of 
 Christian monuments, some three thousand of which are 
 earUer than a.d. 325. 
 
 (iii.) They are also to be found in the Primitive Liturgies, 
 which are the written prayers for the Celebration of the 
 Holy Communion used in the early Church. Here is a 
 passage from the Liturgy of St. James, which can be proved 
 to have been in use 1500 years ago : '* Remember, O Lord, 
 the God of the spirits of all flesh, those whom we have 
 remembered and those also whom we have not remem- 
 bered, from righteous Abel even unto this day. Do Thou 
 give them rest in the region of the living, in the bosom of
 
 26 
 
 our holy fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, where sorrow, 
 grief, and lamentation are banished away, where the Light 
 of Thy Countenance visits and shines continually. And 
 vouchsafe to bring them to Thy heavenly kingdom." 
 
 (iv.) That the Church in our country, from the time of 
 the introduction of Christianity, used such prayers, is 
 of course well known ; so I pass on to the divines " whose 
 names form a long and goodly array from the Reformation 
 to our own time " (Luckock). I prefer, as a rule, to quote 
 passages from the writings of Bishops. 
 
 Bishop Andrewes (died 1626). — "For prayers for the 
 dead there is little to be said against them ; it cannot be 
 denied but that they are ancient." " Lord, have pity on 
 living and dead." 
 
 Bishop Buckeridge (of Ely) thus ends a Sermon at the 
 Funeral of Bishop Andrewes, " God grant to him, and all 
 the faithful and saints departed, a joyful resurrection to 
 everlasting life and glory in Jesus Christ." 
 
 Bishop Cosin (161 8), writing on the prayer in our Burial 
 Service, "that we, with all those that are departed," &c., 
 says — "The Puritans think that here is prayer for the dead 
 allowed and practised by the Church of England, and so 
 think I ; but we are not both of one mind in censuring the 
 Church for so doing. They say it is superstitious ; I, for 
 my part, esteem it pious and Christian." 
 
 Bishop Gauden (of Worcester), a. d. 1662. — "It is our 
 bounden duty never to fail, so long as we are in this flesh, to 
 remember them, once with us, now in the spirit, and 
 awaiting the tender mercy of our Father in heaven, who 
 themselves wait for the consummation of their imperfect 
 joy. As the ancient Fathers, in the most purest tim.es of 
 our holy religion, were always wont to pray when the 
 oblation was made, so we do ask God on the like occasion, 
 and in common prayers, as we should also in private 
 prayer, to have mercy in His Great Day upon all Christian 
 souls." 
 
 Bishop Jeremy Taylor. — " We find by the history of the 
 Maccabees that the Jews did pray and make offerings for 
 the dead, which also appears by other testimonies, and by 
 their forms of prayer still extant which they used in the
 
 27 
 
 Captivity. Now it is very considerable that, given our 
 Blessed Saviour did reprove all the evil doctrines and 
 traditions of the Scribes and Pharisees, and did argue 
 concerning the dead and the Resurrection against the 
 Sadducees, yet He spake no word against this public 
 practice, but left it as He found it ; which He Who came 
 to declare to us all the Will of the Father would not have 
 done if it had not been innocent, pious, and full of charity" 
 (^Dissuasive, pt. i, ch. i). "We also have some ways to 
 express (our relation to the departed) and to bear a part 
 in this communion, by actions of intercourse with them, 
 and yet proper to our state ; such as are — preserving their 
 memories, privately and publicly keeping their memorials, 
 and desiring of God, with hearty and constant prayer, that 
 God would give them a joyful resurrection and a merciful 
 judgment ; for so St. Paul prayed in behalf of Onesiphorus, 
 that ' God would show him mercy in that day ;' that fearful 
 and yet much to be desired day, in which the most 
 righteous person hath need of much mercy and pity, and 
 shall find it " ( Works viii. 436). 
 
 Bishop Ken (1677) wrote and used a prayer for those 
 who were " in the flesh or sleeping in Christ." 
 
 Bishop Wilson (of Sodor and Man) " taught the practice 
 with much boldness of language." 
 
 Bishop Heber. — '' My own opinion is on the whole 
 favourable to this practice, which indeed is so natural and 
 comfortable, that this alone is a presumption that it is 
 neither unpleasing to the Almighty, nor unavailing with 
 Him." 
 
 Bishop Legge (of Oxford). — " I never pass through a 
 Churchyard, known to me or strange, in which I do not 
 breathe a prayer to Almighty God for His mercy upon the 
 spirits of those who rest there " {Address to Churchwardens^ 
 1818). 
 
 Bishop Wilberforce (187 1).— A remonstrance was sent to 
 him against the words on a gravestone — 
 
 *' Eternal rest give unto him, O Lord ; 
 And let light perpetual shine upon him." 
 
 The Bishop replied that " the Church of England has 
 nowhere disallowed the words."
 
 28 
 
 Samuel Johnson (a.d. 1759) composed and used the fol- 
 lowing prayer, which I copied from his Life by Boswell, in 
 the Library at Dalkeith : " And, O Lord, so far as it may 
 be lawful for me, I commend to Thy fatherly goodness, my 
 father, my mother, my brother, my wife; I beseech Thee to 
 look mercifully upon them, and grant them whatever may 
 most promote their present and eternal glory." 
 
 Lord Tennyson, in the *' Ode on the Death of the Duke 
 of Wellington," 1852, ends thus — 
 
 " And in the vast Cathedral leave him ; 
 God accept him, Christ receive him." 
 
 John Wesley " was mighty for prayers for the dead," and 
 justified the use of them on the authority of " the earliest 
 antiquity, and the Church of England." 
 
 In the Court of Arches in 1838, Sir Herbert Jenner, the 
 judge, decided a case in favour of the legality of prayers for 
 the dead, and stated, "If it had been the opinion of the 
 framers of the Articles and Canons of the Church that they 
 were opposed to the Scriptures, they would have expressly 
 declared their illegality." 
 
 I hope this Note may be accepted in the spirit in which 
 I write it. To myself it has long been a great comfort to 
 feel that the Church of England, by the voice of her Saints 
 and Doctors, allows her children to be in this practice at one 
 with the Holy Church in all ages. I trust it may be so to 
 others. 
 
 I believe with a learned writer, that " the fact is, we all 
 pray for the dead — at least all loving hearts do. When 
 our beloved pass away from us, we follow them with our 
 longing thoughts, we speculate on their condition in the 
 world unseen, we wish them well. And what is a wish but 
 an unexpressed prayer ? " Many of us, however, may long 
 to do more than this ; and to such the saying in one's 
 private devotions, and especially at the time of Holy 
 Communion, " May the souls of the faithful departed^ 
 especially .... rest in peace," is indeed a consola- 
 lation. Those who accustom themselves to do so '' will 
 find the pain of bereavement lessened, the bond of union
 
 29 
 
 between the Church on earth and the Church in Paradise 
 more tightly drawTi" {Liickock). For myself I can only hope, 
 that over my own grave, and upon the foot of the Cross of 
 Jesus my Saviour, may be written the prayer of St. Paul, 
 " The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the 
 Lord in that day ! " 
 
 Note II. 
 
 Inscriptions from the Catacombs at Rome. 
 
 The simplest form, and one that is very common, 
 
 is " In peace," and the name. 
 
 A.D. 250. " Eumenes lieth in peace." 
 
 A.D. 268. " Mayest thou live amongst the Saints in 
 
 peace." 
 
 A.D. 310. "Fetched by the angels ... in peace 
 
 committed to the grave." 
 
 " Victoria, mayest thou Hve in God." 
 
 " Peace be to Fortunata, my sweetest daughter," 
 
 " Hilaris, may you be refreshed in the peace of God." 
 
 " Mayest thou have eternal light in Christ." 
 
 Upon these, and similar epitaphs. Canon Luckock 
 observes, that they "exhibit ample proof that the early Chris- 
 tians believed not only that the faithful dead entered at once 
 into a state of rest'and peace, where ' no torment could touch 
 them,' but also that death interposed no barrier to the 
 prayers of those who survived." 
 
 I should like to give many instances of tombs in our 
 churchyards, from 1549 to the present time, inscribed with 
 prayers Ae the departed, and with simple words of hope and 
 love which take one back to the faith of the Catacombs, 
 but space will only allow of a few. Upon the tomb of 
 Bishop Barrow in St. Asaph Cathedral, dated 1680, is a 
 Latin inscription, of which the following is a translation : — 
 "The remains of Isaac, Bishop of St. Asaph, laid in the 
 hand of the Lord, in hope of a joyful resurrection through 
 the merits of Christ alone. O ye who enter into the house
 
 30 
 
 of the Lord, the house of prayer, pray for your fellow- 
 servant, that he may find mercy in the day of the Lord." 
 
 In Dunster Churchyard I copied, many years ago, an 
 inscription of the last century, which for simplicity it would 
 
 be hard to surpass : " Here rests the body of , whom 
 
 God hath taken to His mercy." 
 
 1 741. Stock Harward, Essex. — " Here lieth the body of 
 , to whom God grant rest. Amen." 
 
 I have been lately much struck by the beauty and brevity 
 of inscriptions on the crosses and gravestones in the Church- 
 yard at Chislehurst, such as — 
 
 *' ^ In peace. Here resteth ." 
 
 " >J< In peace. Emily, the beloved wife of , sud- 
 denly taken home. She lived here 47 years." 
 
 " i^ In peace. Here resteth all that could die of O. L. D. 
 Jesu, mercy." 
 
 " ifi Here rests in the love of Jesus all that could 
 die of ." 
 
 "»J<E. M. L., taken home December 29, 187 — . He 
 giveth His beloved sleep." 
 
 t 
 
 ^f)w are not To£{t lujom foe lobe m l^n'm foj^om \jot 
 (annot loit,** 
 
 {St Augustine.)
 
 ^x 
 
 ^%M 
 
 fi^. 
 
 4^f