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 Their AIM and SPIRIT. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 TWO SERMONS 
 
 Preached respectively , on tlie Vigil and the Festival of St. Peter ^ 
 
 1881, in connection with the Festival, a?id Opening of the 
 
 New Chapel, of the Salisbury Diocesan Theologiml 
 
 College : 
 
 The one, in the College Chapel, by 
 
 THE REV. R. C. MOBERLY, M.A., 
 
 ViCAK OF Great Budworth, Cheshire : 
 (Lately the Principal of Salisbury Theological College.) 
 
 The other, in the Cathedral, by 
 
 THE REV. E. S. TALBOT, M.A., 
 
 Warden of Keble College, Oxford. 
 
 With Prefatory Remarks by the Rev. E. B. Ottley. M.A., 
 Principal of the Salisbury Theological College. 
 
 -♦ 
 SALISBURY : 
 BENNETT BEOTHEES, PRINTERS, JOURNAL OFFICE 
 
 Price Sixpence.
 
 The publication of the two Sermons preached in con- 
 nection with the Festival of the Salisbury Theolosrical 
 College seems to call for some few remarks by way of 
 preface. Though primarily addressed to those espe- 
 cially interested in the training of candidates for Holy 
 Orders, it is belieyed that these sermons may be helpful 
 to many others. For the Christian clerg}', while in yery 
 truth they must be unworldly in a more exclusive sense 
 than their lay brethren, are pledged only to the his^hest 
 expression of a thought and life common to all Chris- 
 tians. The principles contended for, as essential in the 
 solemn work of the Priesthood and of preparation for 
 ordination, must find their realisation in some degree 
 in the Hfe of every loyal member of the great spiritual 
 Priesthood of the Christian Body. 
 
 Again, it is hoped that the ideas which are dwelt 
 upon in those sermons, indicating as they do, in some 
 measure, the key note of the life and work of a Theo- 
 logical College, may help, both to remove misappre- 
 hensions that are known to exist, and to illustrate the 
 great and increasing importance of such institutions in 
 the organisation of the Church of the present day. 
 *' Our unhappy dirisions" render, it would seem, in- 
 evitable the gradual secularisation of other educational 
 instruments. Meanwhile the higher education of the 
 masses demands -^dth a fresh urgency a well-educated 
 clergy : a clergy, not alone of general culture ; but, 
 above all, thoroughly and accurately trained in the 
 science of Sacred Theolog}*. However high be the esti- 
 mation, in which the old Universities are held, as 
 
 A
 
 laying the foundations of the highest education of the 
 country ; whatever value may be attached to the social 
 training, and the intellectual outfit, which they provide ; 
 it is acknowledged that their general atmosphere is not 
 one of unquestioned faith and religious sympathy, such 
 as that, for which every earnest candidate for the Church's 
 ministry must yearn. Even if a man should pass through 
 Oxford or Cambridge unbiassed by directly negative and 
 sceptical tides of thought, he cannot altogether escape 
 the infection of the indifterence and doubt of friends 
 around him. The strenuous effort that may thus be 
 needed to maintain his childhood's ardent faith may con- 
 ceivably, in some cases and under ordinary circum- 
 stances, be beneficial and invigorating ; but in presence 
 of the awful, the never equalled responsibility, of the 
 final and absolute adhesion to Christ implied in the 
 ordination vow% a man has a moral claim to rest for a 
 while within the shadow of the Church's Faith, to refresh 
 and gird himself, in full communion of sympathy with 
 others, who are prepared and resolved to make the same 
 great choice in life. Exceptions of course there maybe: 
 and here and there, a man's faith may be, undoubtedly, 
 not merely braced and strengthened, but quickened and 
 intensified, by the very strain which tests and tries it. 
 But such results cannot be represented as natural 
 and normal : and, in the case of the majority of 
 the undergraduates of our universities, the inevitable 
 result of the discordances of belief and of moral theoiy 
 must be to damp the ardour of their faith, and to dis- 
 sipate the vigour of their enthusiasm. Neither the 
 rarest, nor the least deplorable, phenomenon in the 
 ranks of our younger clergy, is the man, who has taken 
 Holy Orders as the matter-of-course sequel of his degree, 
 without any profounder impulse than a general desire to 
 be respectable and to do some good, and without having 
 confronted and grappled with the doubts and diffi- 
 
 \ J'
 
 cultic'S, that had been all along in the very air around 
 him, sapping the strong certitude of his Christian con- 
 victions. Such an one may have suifered, rather than 
 accepted, ordination in the hope, often, though not 
 always, delusive, that he might see his way of escape 
 from the phantoms of unbelief that had already over- 
 shadowed his soul. But distractions of work are no 
 certain and ultimate cure of such spiritual sicknesses. 
 His very conscience may rise up against him. He 
 feels he has committed himself to an uncertain, and 
 doubtful system. I forbear to depict the mental 
 struggle, the agonies of soul, that too often have 
 ensued under such conditions, or the wreck and ruin, 
 perchance of one, possibly of multitudes, to whom he 
 may feel constrained, though with terrible unwilling- 
 ness, to minister. 
 
 Such cases, were they very rare, would suffice to 
 justify the existence of a Theological College. Their 
 frequency demonstrates its necessity. Perhaps the 
 chief use of Theological Colleges is in providing men 
 with an opportunity of testing and deepening their own 
 convictions. The quiet and seclusion, once perhaps to be 
 found at Oxford and Cambridge ; the regularity of life ; 
 the community of aim and interests, of faith and life, 
 silently known and recognised, as it can rarely be ; the 
 frequent services and sacraments ; the aids to earnest 
 study — these are the boons which a Theological College 
 may super-add to the advantages of an University 
 education. Few, who have enjoyed them, underesti- 
 mate their value. Many have sad reason to regret that 
 they never experienced them. 
 
 It will be observed that the primary function of the 
 Theological College is thus conceived to be, not the 
 independent training of those who, from one cause or 
 another, are without the advantages of a University 
 career ; but the addition of a special training over and 
 
 a2
 
 above a general education. The main province of the 
 Theological College is to supplement the education 
 given at the Universities, not to be a substitute for it : 
 to teach Theology, especially in its pastoral bearings, 
 not Latin and Greek and Logic : to give a distinctive 
 and particular bent to a man's education in view of 
 the requirements of his profession. The lawyer, the 
 soldier, the medical man are specially trained for their 
 work. What should exclude the clerical profession from 
 the need of an analogous preparation ? 
 
 But undoubtedly, there are many persons who for 
 various reasons are without an University degree, whose 
 admission to Holy Orders is on every account to be 
 encouraged. Lack of pecuniary means, failure of 
 health, family difficulties, and other causes deprive 
 many excellent men of the opportunity of an Univer- 
 sity career, or withdraw them from it prematurely! 
 Others again — and they are increasingly numerous — 
 are educated with the best success either privately, or 
 in modern schools and colleges. The higher educa- 
 tion of the country is no longer restricted to the 
 Universities, and it may be questioned whether it 
 would be well — even were it conceivably possible — 
 that the Clergy should be recruited exclusively from 
 them. But the Theological College, if it be advan- 
 tageous to the University man, is all but indispensable 
 in the case of other candidates for ordination. How 
 else can security be found for moral character, and 
 intellectual and spiritual capacity ? In ordinary cases, 
 might not a residence of at least two years at some 
 Theological College be desirable, as a condition, under 
 which alone a non-graduate might offer himself to the 
 Bishop for ordination ? There is no small danger, 
 resulting in some measure from the multiplication of 
 Theological Colleges, of men obtaining admission to 
 the ranks of the clergy prematurely, unless those who
 
 have the control of such institutions maintain a strict 
 standard with regard to the residence of students. 
 
 The indebtedness of the Church of England to 
 Theological Colleges is already great. They have con- 
 tributed not a little to the efficiency of her clergy. 
 Few will hesitate to admit that their work is not 
 less but more needed now than heretofore. It is not 
 too much to say that almost every religious body in this 
 country, wdth any pretensions to careful organisation, is 
 more scrupulous in the training and the testing of can- 
 didates for its ministry than is the Church of England 
 generally. Meanwhile, however, a scientifically trained 
 clergy is imperatively called for by the religious con- 
 ditions of our country ; a body, of course, of true, 
 English-hearted men ; not less large minded, because 
 they believe intensely; none the less human, because 
 they are God's Ministers. The on-look to the future 
 work of the Church, though not without encourage- 
 ments, is sufficiently anxious. On the one hand, 150 
 or 200 sects — Biblical Christians, professedly, most of 
 them — bite and devour one another, with vehemence 
 proportioned to the earnestness of their con\dctions. 
 On the other, unbelieving Secularism, battening upon 
 schism, and too often sanctioning immorality, gains 
 some ground among the people. To meet and grapple 
 with these evils the shattered ranks of religious Eng- 
 lishmen are unable with any degree of success. And 
 the ultimate remedy for our deplorable state of discord 
 and division can be found only in stricter and faith- 
 fuller obedience to the One Truth that renders " free 
 indeed." A strong, clear, positive Theology, true to 
 historic Christianity, is essential to the re-union of 
 English Christendom. And Theology must be studied 
 under favourable conditions — of inward and spiritual 
 quietness, and self-discipline, and absence of distracting 
 bias, always and indispensabl}^ ; and of outward peace
 
 and freedom from the discordant clamour of the world, 
 where circumstances allow. Moreover the absolute 
 Christian principle that the * pure in heart' enjoy the 
 vision of God makes it incumbent upon us to touch the 
 hem of Divine Truth with humility and reverence ; and 
 with hands, so far as may be, by God's grace cleansed 
 from sin, and hearts prepared as for a sacrament. These 
 considerations serve to define the scope and function of 
 a Theological College ; and the sermons which follow 
 are their best emphasis and illustration. 
 
 E. B. 0. 
 
 Theological College, Salisbury, 
 Autumn, 18S1.
 
 THE STERNNESS OF HOLY 
 ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Acts iy. 24 — 31. 
 
 " and whex they heaed that, they lifted up theie aoice 
 to god with oxe accokd, axd said, loed, thou aet god, 
 which hasr made heaten, and eaeth, and the sea, and 
 all that in them is : who by the mouth of thy servant 
 dayid hast said, why did the heathen eage, and the 
 people imagine yain things? the kings of the earth 
 stood up, and the eulers weee gathered together 
 against the loed, and against his christ. foe of a 
 teuth against thy holy child jescs, whom thou hast 
 anointed, both heeod, and pontius pilate, with the 
 gentiles, and the people of iseael, weee gathered 
 together, for to do whatsoeyee thy hand and thy 
 counsel determined before to be done. and now, lord, 
 behold their theeatenings : and grant unto thy seb- 
 yants, that with all boldness they may speak thy woed, 
 by stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs 
 and wondkes may be done by the name of thy holy 
 child jesus. and when they had peayed, the place was 
 shaken wheee they weee assembled together ; and 
 they weee all filled with the holy ghost. and they 
 spake the woed of god with boldness." 
 
 I HAVE read you a most stirring word of liistorv : true, 
 without shadow of exaggeration ; and pregnant with 
 results heyond all imagining. 
 
 Our own life too is no play, but a reality. The pre- 
 sent doing is real ; and it shall be more real still in its 
 future outgrowth. For the blossom, the fruit, are no 
 merely consequential results ; but are the highest un- 
 folding and completeness of the realities of the seed 
 sown.
 
 8 
 
 Gathered as we are to-night for no j^urpose of fancy, 
 but in the course of a work of most stirring life, let us 
 think together of one or two chief characteristics of this 
 primitive gathering of Christian men ; think of them, 
 that by thought and desire, breathed in prayer, we may 
 win them to be characteristics of our own gathering. 
 
 Think, first, of their enthusiasm. A\Tiat a strong 
 spirit is here of eager confidence ! AYhat a force it 
 gives to the men, not certainly of their own creating, 
 not (as we should say) ' like themselves ;' but what 
 impetuous force, what a current of strong and purpose- 
 ful spirit is here ! Why is this ? It is, for one thing, 
 that these men have no doubt. A doubtful company is 
 a divided company. A doubtful man is a man of two 
 minds. And a man of two minds has neither founda- 
 tion nor force : ''avrjp ^iipv^^oQ aKaTCLGTaroq. ' But there 
 is no doubt here. That which they mean, they mean. 
 They are absolutely sure of that on which they depend. 
 Each man is in spirit one : and one spirit is in all. 
 These are Christian men ; and their faith in Christ is 
 sure. Their faith is real. Christ is real. The work 
 of Christ in their own life's work is real. The power of 
 Christ, breathing in and round them, is real. Is not 
 the very Spirit of Christ in men who are Christian ? 
 They are sure, then. Theirs is no timid on-look, 
 hesitating, prudent, indefinite, unrelying. They are 
 sure both of what they mean, and of the living meaning 
 in what they do. They are sure, they are confident, 
 they are united, they are enthusiastic. 
 
 Notice, secondly, what an enthusiasm of action this 
 is. It is not the flashing imagination of the poet.
 
 9 
 
 sympathetic, subtle, contemplative, and yet full, all the 
 while, of rest ; but is grim with the force of its eager- 
 ness to do and to bear. It is stern, it is fierce, in the 
 vividness of its practical life, — in its resolute translation 
 of faith into practice. 
 
 This translation of vivid faith into resolute action, 
 this consecration of every force of body and mind to the 
 one overmastering belief and desire, — does it ever fail to 
 sweep obstacles before it with a strength of current that 
 seems irresistible, that strikes wonder as well as awe 
 into every generation of men whose eyes behold it ? 
 Even though the animating spirit be diverse (more or 
 less widely) from the Spirit of Truth : who doess not 
 recognise at least the strength of a hearty fanaticism ? 
 ^Vhy were Cromwell's regiments so irresistible ? Why 
 did early Methodism sweep, like a flood, through the 
 length and breadth of England ? 
 
 There is an enthusiasm of words and ideas. It is 
 sympathetic, it is artistic, it is full of delicacy. And 
 there is an enthusiasm which is fiercely practical ; 
 which is keen, which is mighty, to endure, and to dare, 
 and to do. The one lives much, and very delicately, in 
 the memories of the past ; the other lives for the pre- 
 sent and the future, and lives sternly. The one is a 
 natural strength of the fresh young time of nations, or 
 ages, or faiths ; the other is at once a beauty, and a 
 danger, of systems which are venerable and refined. 
 
 When a nation, when a system, has in man's history 
 and feeling grown fully mature ; when its institutions 
 have become venerable, its memories traditional, its sen- 
 sibilities refined ; how easy is it to put the imaginary
 
 10 
 
 for the real enthusiasm : the enthusiasm of sympa- 
 thetic feeling and idea for that which is strong faith in 
 resolute action ! How easy it is to decorate and re- 
 decorate, to gild and to carve, the beautiful structures 
 which we have inherited ; and because we decorate, or 
 because we appreciate, to take to our souls the credit of 
 the structures themselves ! 
 
 We in this place, in our Close, our Cloisters, our 
 Cathedral, have an inheritance of beauty literally price- 
 less. Think of it — its faultless beauty, its store of 
 hallowed memories. And what is it, but the very 
 choice blossom of seeds far off obscurely sown ? Never, 
 certainly, to the eyes of any of those to whose prayer or 
 faith or work we owe it, half so beautiful, half so 
 mystical, as it is to ours. And the visible beauty of this 
 place, though a beautiful symbol, still is a symbol 
 merely, of the manifold other and yet more priceless 
 beauties which we inherit, as late-born in this Church 
 of Christ in England. 
 
 Brethren, what am I saying ? What is the thought 
 I would set before you this night ? 
 
 I have tried to carry you to the picture of a company 
 of Christian men, gathered together in superhuman 
 strength, in the early days of an enterprise, which, in 
 its lowest aspect, was gigantic. I have hinted at a risk 
 which may attend our own religious enthusiasms, in 
 this favoured land where everything belonging to re- 
 ligion is venerable. I have been anxious that we should 
 feel ourselves this night to be in the early stage of an 
 enterprise as diflicult and as holy as it is noble. The 
 world is not ended ; nor tlie struggle of it. The battle
 
 11 
 
 with sin and the de\dl has still to be fought, as it had 
 to be fought then. The men who were assembled 
 together praying in that place which their strong faith 
 shook, knew neither the greatness of the efforts before 
 them, nor the greatness of their results. Only their 
 whole resolute faith was bent forward to the work, — for- 
 ward, as to a work which lay before them. Think of their 
 faith, their resoluteness, their prayer. Think of its 
 simplicity, and of its strength. No self-laudation in 
 that ; no self-consciousness, no satisfactory review of 
 beautiful memories, no compliment, no resting from 
 effort. And no magnificent imagination of beautiful 
 results by-and-by to glory in. Only a stern, strong 
 faith ; a resolute united praj^er ; a compact marching 
 forward, to dare and to do all. " And they were all 
 filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the Word of 
 God with boldness." 
 
 This College, I know well, is not too young to have 
 memories of its own which are beautiful. Neither 
 within the College itself, nor in its surroundings, nor 
 in its memories, would I have anyone insensible to this 
 fact of beauty. Nay its beauty of circumstance is to 
 be, I firmly believe, one of the very precious factors of 
 its life and discipline. And this Chapel is (I know it) 
 as a crown of beauty to the College building. And this 
 day is (I know it) as a day of consecration of its 
 finished beauty. 
 
 And yet, the reality of this College and Chapel lies — 
 in its future. The real character of this day is not 
 an ending but a beginning. And oh ! may it be a 
 beginning indeed, not of ease or triumph or any self-
 
 12 
 
 conscious beauty, but of effort, of resoluteness, of battle, 
 of ultimate conquest, such as must tax, and overtax, all 
 strength that is human. Forgive me if I am even 
 jealous this day of all words of compliment, looking 
 far rather to the greatness and dignity of the future 
 task, than to the satisfaction of what is past. If there 
 be severity in beginnings, it is not unmeet. Nay, if 
 there even be sacrifice, if there even be tears, — are 
 they not all hallowed, by express word? " They that 
 sow in tears shall reap in joy." 
 
 The struggle that is still before the Church and its 
 ministers ; the task of due preparation of ministers for 
 that struggle ; what reality of most earnest beginnings, 
 what simplicity, what fervour, what strength, both of 
 faith and of prayer, do these need ? 
 
 Bear with me, then, brethren, if (suddenly called to 
 speak to you this evening) I have been led, in no spirit 
 (I believe) of timidity or doubt, but in craving for 
 realities of strength and in dread of unreality, to plead, 
 even strangely, for severity — hopeful severity, indeed, 
 confident severity, aye even joyful severity, yet severity 
 — rather than simply jubilance ; rather for the hymns 
 of soldiers in the camp, who prepare for battle on the 
 morrow, than for the triumph-music of the '' Te 
 Deum."
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE IN RELATION 
 TO CHRISTIAN ACTIVITY. 
 
 ACTS IT. 20. 
 
 " WE CANNOT BUT SPEAK THE THINGS WHICH WE HAVE SEEN 
 
 AND HEAED." 
 
 The words may be taken to represent the impulse and 
 the secret of all genuine teaching. We must speak 
 that we do know : we must feel, if we are to make 
 others feel. How eagerly we all listen to an eye -wit- 
 ness's account ! how readily he communicates to us the 
 feelings which he himself experienced at the moment of 
 the action ! Of such sort, we may venture to say, was 
 the claim of the Divine Teacher — " We speak that we 
 do know, and testify that we have seen." And the 
 preachers who first made the world feel the power of the 
 Gospel were those who had ''companied together all the 
 time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among" them ; 
 and who as eye-witnesses of His majesty could speak of 
 '' that which they had seen with their eyes and their 
 hands had handled of the Word of Life." The law is 
 one with which we must comply, if we are to impart to 
 others that which has been given to us. How then do 
 the things of Christian Faith become to us Hhe things 
 which we have seen and heard ' ? It is a question which 
 touches directly us the clergy ; as directly and with even 
 more concentration of interest those who are just pre- 
 paring to enter on the clerical vocation ; but most truly 
 also it touches all Christian people, inasmuch as for
 
 14 
 
 each it is of the very essence of the Christian life to give 
 as well as to receive, to thrive by watering others. 
 
 Let us dwell therefore a little upon it. The realiza- 
 tion of what we believe comes, we should all say, in 
 two main ways : by inward concentration upon it, and 
 by outward exercise of it : by contemplation, and by 
 action. First — by action. We cannot fully prepare for 
 action except by acting : there is no armour so good, 
 but we must needs prove it and learn its use : in the 
 stress of our strife with sin, in the midst of our own 
 efforts to minister to the perplexities or needs or sins of 
 others we realise, as we had not before, and could not 
 otherwise, the power, aye and the meaning of our Faith. 
 It is thus that every minister of Christ will bear witness 
 that he knows not whether his ministry has helped his 
 own inward life more, or his own inward life his 
 ministry. Certainly he will also witness that the best 
 of what he ministers, he has learnt in ministering. And 
 I suppose that the law, '' He giveth grace unto the 
 humble," is never more surely and beautifully proved 
 than by the priest to whom God gives the grace to keep 
 through all his teaching an ear attentive and a heart 
 ready to be taught : to catch the words of God which 
 come to him through the patient, and the simple, and 
 the poor. 
 
 But yet in the nature of the case it cannot be thus, 
 as a rule, that our apprehension of truth begins. There 
 must be in us something upon which experience can 
 act : instincts which it can elicit : perceptions which it 
 can quicken : truths which it can illustrate : convictions 
 which it can confirm or modify or enlarge. There is 
 
 f
 
 15 
 
 indeed no prescribing the ways in which wisdom enters ; 
 and sometimes it is by an instance that a principle is 
 first revealed or a truth is first learnt through a 
 character : or the Divineness of Love is realized 
 through a human affection : while always the inward 
 and outward teaching interlace and interact. Yet the 
 natural order, as we say, is that the inward realization 
 should come first. "Whosoever hath to him shall be 
 given." 
 
 And for this inward realization there must be time, 
 and quietness, and care. We must learn what we are 
 afterwards to use : we must assimilate what we are then 
 to administer. Contemplation is essential to action. 
 The thing is obvious, it needs no proof, and yet it is a 
 truth which the facts and habits of our busy age, and the 
 theories which those habits generate for their own jus- 
 tification, tend continually to disparage and oppose. Is 
 there, it is asked, time for this standing aloof to think 
 and meditate ? The world's needs are too pressing ; 
 the strife is too sore ; we cannot spare a man ; we 
 cannot polish our weapons : we must take them as they 
 come to our hand. And the thought of our Lord's own 
 words may come up to reinforce this : how He blamed 
 the wrapping up of the talent, and to the laying out of 
 it gave, not only praise, but promise of its multiplica- 
 tion. And then reason is called upon to justify what 
 necessity is thought to dictate, and we talk sagaciously 
 of the danger of being self-absorbed and morbid ; of 
 reactions after times of thought and aspiration ; of the 
 healthiness of a life in which action and contemplation 
 blend : or going even further, we remind ourselves that
 
 16 
 
 Love is higher than knowledge, and that service is the 
 exercise of Love, and therefore we persuade ourselves 
 that service is better than contemplation. 
 
 And so if we ask those who are clergy to stipulate 
 with themselves, either in the order of their year or in 
 the time-table of their day, for times of special devotion 
 or study ; if we ask those who are approaching the 
 Holy Ministry to draw aside for a while from the 
 acti\ities of work and charity for reading and medita- 
 tion and prayer, to speak with God and listen for His 
 Voice, if we remind the laj^man that in the bustle of 
 the world's course he cannot realize the solemn awe 
 and beauty of the things that are not seen, and beg 
 him now and then to withdraw himself, either alone 
 among the things of nature, or with others in Retreats 
 of prayer and thought, we are met at once by disincli- 
 nations of temperament and habit, and by half-truths 
 made into objections. 
 
 How shall we justify ourselves ? In this way at 
 least for one ; let us recal the limited capacity of our 
 natures. Every way we learn it more and more as we 
 go on through life. We crave for infinity of knowledge, 
 and we find that we can only learn a little of a few of 
 its departments ; we feel that we could love bound- 
 lessly, yet the sympathy of which we practically dispose 
 is cribbed and confined by other thoughts and interests 
 which compete with it for space within us ; we long for 
 harmony and unity of truth, and we have to recognize 
 that for us the highest truth often lies in a seeming 
 contradiction of two truths. 
 
 But it is only another detail of the same fact that we
 
 17 
 
 have to learn by degrees, and to enter separately and 
 successively into, the most various feelings. It is the 
 dream of pride, or shallowness, or sloth, that we can be 
 and feel and see at once all that is given even to us to 
 be and feel and see. Each side of life, each kind of 
 feeling, each interest of knowledge and sympathy, in 
 proportion as we really entertain it, fills, as we say, our 
 hearts, occupies us with a certain disproportion. The 
 recollection that it is so is a most blessed help against 
 the snare of pride, as we dwell on our skill or zeal for the 
 subject of the moment. But through the change of 
 moods and thoughts there runs, or should run, a unity — 
 the unity of our own character, the unity of God's grace, 
 the unity of our own recollectedness. And through such 
 one-sided experience and disproportionate -sdsions we are 
 being schooled in spiritual perspective; and growing 
 towards such inward w^holeness, blent of many living 
 parts, as may be permitted to us here. May we ven- 
 ture, brethren, to point out that to this, as to a most 
 inevitable condition of human life, our Divine Lord 
 condescended. To Him we might have thought — 
 nay in some sense we may be sure — Truth was ever 
 visible entire and in all its unity ; and the perspectives 
 of Di\ine Truth and of Human Life presented them- 
 selves continually aright. And yet who will deny that 
 it was His will to experience with us, and for us, 
 difi'erent exjyeriences (as we call them) severally and 
 successively, and allow them in turn to absorb and 
 occupy His Soul : the joy of the Transfiguration and 
 the anguish of Gethsemane ; the confidence of the 
 " I know that Thou hearest me always," and the
 
 18 
 
 desolation of the great Forsaking on the Cross ; the 
 indignant denunciation of the Pharisees, and the tears 
 shed over the city which they led? Are not these as 
 truly changes and sequences of feeling in the Di^-ine 
 Life as any that are in ours — ' yet without sin ;' without 
 loss of self-mastery, and an underlying unity of life ; 
 and if we know that He "grew" and that He 
 " learned," may we not be sure that each of these 
 enriched His Divine Humanity, with the added power 
 which only an intense and concentrated emotion can 
 give ? 
 
 And so I would ask, is not this insistance that we 
 must always be active, that there are dangers in all self- 
 tending, simply one more mistake added to the many 
 that are made by trying to overpass the conditions of 
 our present life : by trying to be as God when we are 
 but men ; by trying prematurely to blend what must 
 first be learnt and realized in detail and in parts ? 
 
 Is it not truer and better to acknowledge that we are 
 not yet fitted for the life in which action and contem- 
 plation blend ; that we must work indeed towards it, as 
 we acknowledge when we say. " Laborare est Orare :" 
 or " They also serve who only stand and wait;" but that 
 the penetration of life with prayer and the sense of 
 God's presence, and the abiding consciousness in the 
 world of truths and standards which are ' ' not of the 
 world" can only come by the help of times and seasons 
 when those thoughts are allowed to possess us, and 
 action is suspended that they may do so ? 
 
 Brethren, you will need perhaps to justify to your- 
 selves and to others in some such wav as this the life of
 
 19 
 
 a place like the College for which we pray to-day. You 
 will need sometimes even to justify the assumption that 
 there is need of special study and learning before the 
 Ministry is undertaken. But where this is admitted 
 you may still have to justify the other assumption, that 
 after the education of the boy and youth, and before his 
 ministry, a time is needed when in devotion, and thought, 
 and self-scrutiny, he should prepare himself for his work. 
 I do not mean by this, as you know very well, a time of 
 absorption in spiritual reveries and day dreams. I do 
 mean indeed the fixing of the inward eye upon Him 
 whom we believe and upon the things which He has 
 shown to us about Himself, with an eager efi'ort really 
 to see them; but I mean also the active work of the 
 reason comparing and combining them and working out 
 their results ; I mean also that severer part of the de- 
 votional life when the Truths and the Laws of God are 
 allowed to search out our souls and past lives, and make 
 known to us our sins ; and I mean the training of our- 
 selves in those practical habits of devotion, through 
 which we seek and obtain the "daily bread'" of our life 
 in Christ. 
 
 For these things (you will urge) the life of a Theo- 
 logical College holds out to many men an opportunity of 
 inestimable value : and you will not shrink from sa^-ing 
 that for many at least it is better in a place like this, 
 and under the shadow of this great Cathedi-al, with 
 its associations of quietness and solemn devotion, than 
 amid the many calls and opportunities of immediate 
 action which the presence of a large town supplies. 
 For men differ, and if some need to be roused to
 
 20 
 
 spiritual reality and quickened with the fire of charity 
 by the sight of human life in its crowded masses with 
 their bitter miseries and their rampant sins, for others 
 it is better that for a time they should be saved from 
 the distractions of outward things and allowed to centre 
 themselves upon the Truth, and upon its relation to 
 them and to their brethren. 
 
 But in such defence of a Theological College like 
 this, you will maintain a principle of which it is only 
 one special application : the principle that the inward 
 part of our spiritual life is an integral part of it, and 
 must be recognized and provided for as such. 
 
 Evidently if it is so necessary to tend it before Ordi- 
 nation it is necessary also in the strain or the monotony 
 of the practical work of the ordained : evidently if it 
 is so necessary for the clerical life, this is a matter in 
 which the clerical and the lay life diifer not in kind but 
 in degree. The lay people, men or women, have their 
 ministries of which devotion must be the spring : they 
 have their dangers of absorption in earthly things : 
 they need their opportunities of self- recollection. How 
 many parents would manage their home better, if from 
 time to time going aside for a day or two they were to 
 try in prayer and thought to review its difficulties and 
 needs, the characters for example of their children, and 
 the way in which they are handling them, or to realise 
 afresh some principle or precept of Christian life, that 
 they may carry back a clearer or more specific influence 
 of it into their daily lives. How many new beginnings 
 in life would be better made, and new stages in it better 
 entered, if first there was a pause, to look for God's
 
 21 
 
 will and to conceive and dedicate a purpose of executing 
 it. How much of the vague restlessness or uneasiness 
 of many would disappear if there were a time or times 
 in the twenty-four hours when they gathered up and 
 possessed their souls, and for a moment in God's 
 solemn presence faced the duties or the temptations 
 and dangers which we spend our time so often in 
 trying to hlink and to forget. How many little faults 
 are removed, how many little opportunities of service, 
 and of charity are discerned by those who spare time 
 habitually to cast a quiet glance upon some feature of 
 the Divine Ideal, as it is seen in the words or the 
 example of the Master, or reflected in the lives of His 
 servants. 
 
 Do not be afraid, then, to contend for this principle, 
 to assert it, modestly and with no spiritual Pharisaism, 
 but firmly and unyieldingly. It is one of the matters in 
 which, if the Church is true and strong, she will be 
 justified by the voice of human nature ; by something 
 of a paradox men will recognise at once that she has a 
 supernatural thing for which she cries '' room" in the 
 midst of the crowd of worldly things ; and also that she 
 is defending what, on merely natural grounds, they 
 ought to defend ; for science and art and poetry and 
 philosophy agree that the work which has power in the 
 world is fed by the hours of solitary and concentrated 
 thought. And, conversely, these, if the Church neglects 
 her part, will taunt her that she has sounded less 
 deeply, and declared less truly than themselves, the 
 seriousness of human life and work. They will say, 
 with terrible justice, that with all her opportunities she
 
 22 
 
 has failed to warn the modern world of its weakness, 
 and to minister to its want — the weakness and the want 
 of a generation which is too busy for pause, and by 
 losing concentration loses depth. 
 
 Yes ; we must maintain the value of that part of 
 religious life of which I have been speaking this 
 morning, not less, but more, carefully because it is 
 against many of the prevailing tendencies of the time. 
 That it is so, and is on that account comroonly depre- 
 ciated, is in truth the proof of the degree to which we 
 need it. Now, as always, " we praise the virtues we're 
 inclined to, and damn the vices we've no mind to." 
 Our continual praise of activity may warn us that our 
 danofer is of another kind : our keen detection of the 
 mischiefs of religious inwardness may suggest that we 
 need have no special fear of making a mistake in that 
 direction ourselves. 
 
 And yet are the busy activity of our time, and the 
 absorbing and fiercely serious nature of its practical 
 problems to be put down all as loss ; all as hostile con- 
 centration to our true spiritual life, and to be met by 
 the antidotes of retirement and devotion ? Or may it be 
 given to our generation, if we see our true call, to draw 
 action and contemplation nearer together? In spite of 
 all that needs to be done, all that cries for help, we 
 claim time for retirement, for silence, for meditation 
 and prayer. Yes ; in spite of it, but not in forgetful- 
 ness of it. We go aside from them for a little space ; 
 but it is not to forsake the world, our brethren's world ; 
 it is for their sake, and that we may minister to them 
 the better. As we meditate and pray, those great needs,
 
 •23 
 
 and great sufferings, and terrible enigmas of the \yorld 
 outside our doors, haunt us like presences moulding 
 and colouring our thoughts. And under that influence 
 may not our religious thinking, if it is perhaps less 
 deep and certainly less systematic than that of former 
 times, become nevertheless more real, our perception of 
 the central purpose of God's redeeming work more 
 keen '? may we not appreciate more deeply the revela- 
 tion in Jesus Chi'ist of God's love and man's sin, of 
 the curse and the blessing of sorrow ? Already perhaps 
 there are signs that this is so ; that the thought of 
 faithful men in the present day is like the thought of a 
 serious and solemn crisis, of those who in all their 
 thinking have upon them the sense of a great respon- 
 sibiUty ; who earnestly desire to have bread, and not a 
 stone, to ofi'er, in Christ's name, to a world's hunger ; 
 and to prove once more against new doubts, and among 
 new cii'cumstances, that in the Gospel of the Incarna- 
 tion are hid the treasures of wisdom, and love, and 
 healing which the world needs. 
 
 Alone \^-ith God in solemn silence : and yet quick 
 with human sympathy for the surging human life 
 around us ; each of the two great loves, the love of 
 God and the love of man, quickening thus our sensi- 
 bility for the other ; may this be the quality of our 
 inward lives, of our secret devotion ! and in particular 
 may God give to the life and thought of your Theo- 
 logical College something of this twofold and blended 
 cfrace !
 
 SALISBURY : 
 BKNNETT BROTHERS, PRINTERS, 
 JOURNAL OFFICE.

 
 
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