OUR PHARISAISM

A SERMON

PREACHED AT

ST. PAUL'S, KNIGHTSBRIDGE,

ASH-WEDNESDAY, 1868. <>,.N.e
[ FJMADAN )

THE EEY. E. B. PUSEY, D.D.
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF HEBREW, AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORE.

PUBLISHED BY BEQUEST.

SOLD BY JAMES PARKER & CO., OXFORD,
AND 377, STEAND, LONDON;
AND RIVINGTONS,
LONDON, OXFOBD, AND OAMBEIDGKE.
1868.

PLYMOUTH :
PRINTED AT THE PRINTING PRESS OF THE DEVONPORT SOCIETY.

ODE PHAEISAISM.

St. Luke xviii. 11.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God
I thank Thee that I am not as other men are.
There is, perhaps, scarce a character in Holy Scrip
ture which men more detest, than this Pharisee. I
suppose, much on the principle that we loathe the
ape, because he is so hideous a likeness of ourselves.
For, if we detested or despised him, as being in any
way our inferior, as having unamiahlenesses, which
we have not, we should have arrived at out-Pharisee-
ing the Pharisee, like him in all except the religious
side of his character, in that we do not thank God
that we are (as we think,) not like him.
And yet, for the nineteenth century, he is a very
respectable religionist. One might, if one dared fol
low one's own impulses, wish that we had more of
them. Any how, the wives of our people would he
safe ; for he was no adulterer. W e should have few
er of those commercial crises, which hring calamity
on so many innocent people, and shew the hollowness
of our national claim to honesty (Pharisees in this,
in all but his truthfulness) ; for he was " not unjust."
Our poor would he better off, and we should have
more shepherds in this vast wilderness of souls ; for

2 Our Pharisaism.
he paid tithes of all which he possessed : a double tithe,
you will recollect, one for God's Priests, the other for
the poor, and another tithe every third year for the
poor ; 4s. 8d. in the pound he any how gave to God,
nor, as our wont is, un derrating our property for the
poor's rate, but a good 4s. 8d. in the pound on the
average of the three years. Then, in the country,
the poor had the corners of his fields, and were pre
ferred to the pigs, as his gleaners. Then he was re
gular at synagogue-worship : he set a good example
(as I doubt not, he told himself), and the chief seats
which he chose, would not vie with our old-fashioned
Churches in London or our family -pews in the coun
try. He used too some sort of self-denial; for he
fasted twice in the week, going herein beyond what
the law required of him. He had a zeal towards
God, such as it was ; for he compassed sea and land
to make one proselyte. He liked religious conversa
tion : for he liked people to call him " Kabbi, Eabbi,"
that is, Teacher. One who would be like him must
any how "promote religious knowledge," as we speak.
They used impatient words against the ignorant poor,
when these preferred Jesus to them ; but they did, at
least, what they could to teach them, as far as they
knew themselves. Well ! we have almost a model
Christian of the nineteenth century ; very exact in
his religious duties, doing for the poor in his tem
poral wants what God's law commanded, providing
for religious instruction, leading a regular moral life,
strict in his dealings, not exacting, giving nearly one
fifth of his income to God. Why ! name such an one
on the Exchange a, or any other great resort of those
a Some observations, made since this sermon was delivered,

Our Pharisaism. 3
abounding in wealth, I fear that a good many would
think him mad. I remember when the chief plea
why a singular person should be formally pronounced
mad, incapable of managing his property, was that he
gave a good deal to God ; and those of us, who held
him to be right b, were thought almost beside our
selves, in a very dangerous proximity to madness.
I fear that if any one, in one of our public marts
of commerce, were to say, "As you would keep God's
law, you must give one tenth of your income, of
your gains to God," if people could not get rid of
the saying by counting him a mad-man, they would
think him a most inconvenient preacher. Well
then, I said rightly that, humanly speaking, we
might wish for a good many more such Pharisees
among us, to mend the condition of our poor ; and,
for the sake of the tone of our upper-class morality,
it would indeed be a godsend, if there were none
worse. He was well-satisfied with himself: he
did very many things which were good : he kept him
self from much which was bad : he could not have
done the good or avoided the evil without God's
grace. He had the light of the Mosaic law, and, al
though he had' lost all the teaching of its manifold
continual sacrifices, he acted up to the light at least of '
those precepts, which he selected out of it. Many Pha
risees were hypocrites, our Lord tells us. He does
occasion me to add that I did not imagine that I could be supposed
to be reflecting on any class of persons. I used the term only,
as a sort of proverb for wealth.
b As witnesses, cited to prove his sanity at a previous period.
It was some thirty years ago. He had neither wife, nor child,
or any one dependent upon him,
A 2

4 Our Pharisaism.
not. say so of him. We have only to take his character,
as our Lord gives it. What then was wanting to
him ? Was that loveless contempt of the Publican
the whole defect ? Again, our Lord does not say that
he was wrong as to what the Publican had been. He
did not know that he was a penitent. It was of the
grace of God, that he had not been, what the Pub
lican had been, (for it is of God's grace that we are
kept from any sin), and in his dry unloving way he
thanked God for it. He was right about him, as he
was about the poor sinner, whom he would not have
Jesus to allow to touch Him. He knew "who and
what manner of woman " she was : our Lord said
that "her sins were many."
It was not the one or the other grace which he
wanted to have deepened. It was not, as people
think of themselves, that he needed to he somewhat
humbler, that this or that censorious speech had better
have been unsaid, or was wrong. It was not merely
that vein of boastfulness, that he paraded, somewhat
ungracefully, any good which by nature or grace there
was in him. All these had their spring in one cen
tral underlying evil, which poisoned all. He had
missed and neglected that which was at the centre
of God's revelation by Moses, the knowledge of sin.
He had attended at their public worship, and thought
well of himself for doing it : he had seen the continual
offerings for sin ; perhaps he knew in a way that we
are all sinners : if he were among us, no doubt he
would say at least weekly, '.'we have erred and strayed
from Thy ways like lost sheep ; " for he too said in
David's words, "I have gone astray like a sheep which
was lost ; " and he would not have meant altogether to

Our Pharisaism. 5
have made such a confession in the name of others ;
though what he would have meant, it is difficult to
say. Perhaps he would have repeated them, as some
do the words, " the remembrance of them is grievous
unto us, the burden of them is intolerable," and think
them a strong way of speaking. Perhaps he thought
of what he himself would have been or might have
been, if God had not saved him, for which, as we
know, he thanked God. " God, I thank Thee, that I
am not as other men are." He would have been a re
spectable Heathen ; as a Socinian or a Deist, he would
have heen pointed out as a pattern of morality, to
show that we have no need of Jesus or a Eedeemer ;
he would have been a triumph for human nature, ig
norant as it is, that all good in it, in Judaism or Hea
thenism too, as well as in the Gospel, is of the grace
of God. But he was not a religious Jew : he had the
form of godliness without its power. He was deficient
not as to the branches, but as to the root and sap of
his religiousness. He had missed, through pride,
the whole teaching of the religion of Moses, by which
it fixed men's eyes and their faith upon the Eedeemer
Who was to come ; and, having missed it through his
own fault, he returned home from his exemplary
Sabbath- worship, unjustified ; the sins, to which he
had, through sin, blinded himself, so as not to ask for
forgiveness, unforgiven. Worse still. He returned
home, more out of favour with God than he came.
He came to worship : he gained, not the favour of God,
but His displeasure. Yet he had merits of his own.
Not without the grace of God, nor without some violence
upon corrupt nature, had he kept himself from gross
injury to his neighbour, as to his wife or property.

6 Our Pharisaism.
(Would God, one may say again from what one hears
of the world, we had more such Pharisees, or, at least
none worse than this Pharisee !) Not without God's
grace is any one kept from any sin, or does any, the
least good. Not without God's grace was he exact
in what he did of duty, or in keeping from what he
kept from of sin. But Satan, through this boastful
self-idolising, destroyed this idol, which at much
cost and pains he had made : he 'lost the grace and
the fruits of grace of which he boasted. He had some
good deeds : the publican came, loaded with his sins ;
he very probably had all the sins, from which the
Pharisee thanked God, that he had kept himself. Yet
the Pharisee, who was rich, went empty away, severed
from the grace of God, unjustified. He came, ex
alting himself to heaven ; he returned, thrust down
to hell. The Publican, bowed down by his manifold
sins to the verge of hell, returned a citizen of heaven.
What then was it, which turned this, in itself, real
gain to loss, and the real loss to gain ; which made
the Pharisee, with his real good deeds, a dwelling-place
of Satan, and the Publican, with his real evil deeds,
a fellow-citizen of angels, their peer, their joy ?
It much concerns us to know. For our Lord points
out this Pharisee-righteousness, as a righteousness,
with which we might be tempted to take up, with
which we might deem ourselves secure of heaven,
and, in this our security, might miss it. "I say unto
you, That except your righteousness shall exceed
the righteousness of the Scribes and Phariseees, ye
shall in no case enter into the kingdom of Heaven. c "
Now, in this, we need not doubt that our Lord is
e St. Matt. v. 20.

Our Pharisaism. 7
speaking, not of the whited sepulcres, the hypocrites
among the Pharisees, not of their worst, hut of their
best while they remained such. For our Lord had
been speaking of a real but partial obedience to the
law ; He goes on to speak of limitations, whereby
men made God's commandments easier to flesh and
blood. It is then a real righteousness in its degree,
of which He is speaking ; a real, strict righteousness,
such as St. Paul had, who " after the straitest sect of
his religion, lived a Pharisee ; " a righteousness, in
which men placed a hedge around the law, doing
something more than the letter of the law commanded,
and avoiding something more than the letter of the
law forbad ; a righteousness, such as Paul had, when
he lived " touching the righteousness which is in the
law, blameless4," which he once esteemed as " gain,"
but which, when he came to know Jesus, he ac
counted loss.
They were obviously two primal Christian graces,
which the Pharisee lacked, humility and love : his
lack of humility engendered his unlovingness. For
" true righteousness compassionates its fellow-sinner ;
false righteousness disdains him." But what is the
special source of the Pharisee's pride ? For, however
little we may know of ourselves, we know that pride is
the centre of every spiritual sin ; that not only envy,
jealousy, censoriousness, evil-speaking, soreness at
contempt from others, ambition, heresy, unbelief, mis
belief, unsubmissiveness, but even sins, which seem
most without our wills, in which we seem most pas
sive, anger and impatience, spring from pride.
The form of his pride was, what is mostly spoken
d Phil. iii. 6.

8 Our Pharisaism.
of with so little hlame; it is mostly so little offensive;
it sits so easily ; it is so good-natured, at least to its
equals ; it makes no special claims, except to remain
undisturbed ; it will allow to every one else (so that
it be not impinged upon) what it claims for itself; it
is so smooth, amiable, comfortable with itself, and
too indolent and self- occupied to discompose others,
unless trod upon.
The Pharisee's central failure was, what is the cen
tral failure of this day too, what this solemn season
was intended, among other sins, to remedy, self-
complacency. Only the self-complacency of the Pha
risee had a touch of religion in it ; he thanked God for
what he had not of evil, or had of good. The good
which he had not, and the evil which he had, were
out of his sight. True, his thanks to God were praise
of himself : he was on very good terms with God : he
gave to God what he thought God wanted of him.
God had made him what he was, and he thanked God
for it. What lacked he yet ? Why should he sus
pect that he lacked any thing ? Would God, (one
must think, again and again) that our Christian self-
complacency were half as religious ! Yet what want
ed he ? What want we if we are like him ? Alas, well
nigh every thing. For he returned, that which the
Publican came, a sinner unjustified. He acquit
ted himself ; he was condemned by his Saviour and
his Judge. He had no knowledge either of him
self or his God ; he had no love for his neighbour or
his God. Self was his centre and his god. It was
as if God existed for him, to do him good, to make
him such that he could make himself what he was,
not that he existed for God, to become like unto God.

Our Pharisaism. 9
This was and is the practical fruit of self-compla
cency. He, and we too often dwell on any good we
think we have ; worse still ; good, often, of nature,
rather than of grace (for grace is the most humbling
thing in the world). Such acts are easily repeated;
they cost us individually little (whatever they might
cost others, whose temptations are different), and,
give evidence of their valuelessness by their uncost ;
we tacitly lay good store by them ; we mirror ourselves
in them. And then, alas ! for all besides, the picture
which we thus form of ourselves, fills our canvass.
The mirror of our mind reflects to us what we present
to it ; and all which we purposely leave behind, that
great hideous humphack of unknown, unthought-of,
unenquired-for sin, grows, day by day, the more de
formed, makes us the more deformed in the sight of
God and His holy Angels, because, in our ignorance
of it, we are continually aggravating it. Some good
we must well-nigh all do. For nature, though "far
gone from original righteousness," is not yet wholly
corrupt. Some good we must do, because nature it
self requires it ; our peace of mind requires it ; we
must have at least something wherewith to cozen
ourselves ; some fig-leaves to hide us from ourselves ;
something we can look at and not loathe ourselves ;
something which may take our eyes off from our
selves. The remnants of Paradise or some unwasted
residue of Baptismal grace, serve our turn. Natu
ral kindliness (it may be the basis of much grace)
will supply a large fund ; natural activity is almost
inexhaustible ; it occupies so much room with its
seeming service ; it stands so well with our fellow-
men; it has always something new, wherewith to

10 Our Pharisaism.
occupy us and take our eyes off from that distressing
sight, our real selves. Then, what a mist will as
cend out of the round of daily duties, duties which,
if done exactly to God out of the grace of God for
the love of God, might gain large grace and bring
us nearer God, what a statue-like resemhlance they
bear to real good ; only lifeless, because not enlivened
by the life-giving Spirit of God. Sunday-service
will serve to make up the measure of the six days'
self-deceit. It is the natural atmosphere of Pharisa
ism. We have to look well to our week-day services
too. All, which might breathe on us gales from
heaven, may come charged with the perfumes of our
self-conceit. Alas for poor human nature, that it
can satisfy itself with mere barren negations. Yet
this was a characteristic of the Pharisee, ' ' God, I
thank Thee that I am not as other men are." Not
to do things dishonourable ; not to do things mean ;
to shrink from a falsehood as impairing self-respect,
what a dignity they give us in our own eyes !
Then to employ the poor in ministering to our lux
uries, or give a coin now and then to Lazarus, or
the annual guinea to a few religious or charitable
objects, every one praises our liberality — who can
deny then that we have, as our's, the Queen of vir
tues, the daughter of the great King, to present
us, as welcome denizens of the heavenly court ?
Or if we see the need of more positive love, there
are the domestic charities. We are eminently, peo
ple say, a domestic nation. We, at our best, idolize
one another ; we magnify our petty offices to one
another; we mirror ourselves in each other; we gratify
our own or each other's selfishness, and call it love.

Our Pharisaism. 11
What a petty round of costless nothings is, even in
some so-called religious tales, the ideal of Christian
excellence. It would seem as if self-sacrifice, if it
impinged on the smooth surface of domestic life, were
the only enemy we had to dread. A nation of Poly-
theists ! If any of us escape from falling down before
our national idol Mammon, then we have as many
idols, as we have individual good qualities ; we each
have our household gods, in which we worship our
selves. We boast ourselves of our national charities
or charitableness, monuments mostly of departed cha
rity, scarce held in being by our unsacrificing gifts.
Our charity forsooth ! Were an Angel, evil or good,
to go round these miles of human habitations, the
centre of our , legislation, the wrould-be focus of our
intelligence, the heart of our material prosperity, the
treasure-house of our wealth, thence to report to the
Judgment-seat of God, what we have done, what left
undone, could we without heart-sickening dread, ima
gine their report ? Could we boast then ? And yet it
is not an Angel's report, but our Judge Himself, Who
sees, one by one, the oppressing of each hireling in
his wages, to cheapen our luxuries ; the scanty wages,
which our selfish extravagance alone admits of, eked
out by the sins of the mothers, to sustain the child
ren who cry to them for bread and they have it not.
He, their God and their Father and our Judge, He
Who has promised to hear their cry, He, Whose Heart
of love listens to every throbbing of every human
heart, what if He asks us, what do ye more for these
My members, what do ye more for Me in them, than
if ye were indeed Scribes and Pharisees, than if I had
never died for you? If we counted, not the little

12 Our Pharisaism.
which we give, but the much which we retain for
our luxuries or comforts, while His members are a
hungered and by us unfed, naked and by us uncloth
ed, sick and by us unvisited, wherein could we say
that our righteousness exceeded the righteousness of
the Scribes and Pharisees ? And if not, wherein is
our hope of Heaven ?
Or turn we to another of our boasted virtues, "Any
how, we are a domestic people." You reproached us
just now, you may say to me, that we made an idol
of our domesticity. Any how, we are a moral people.
Of you who are here this day, it would be horrible
to doubt it. But are we then to be saved alone ?
But how is it, that we hear the echoes of those things,
which those in your society must, I suppose, have
witnessed? What are fathers, brothers, mothers
doing, what are all they in higher society doing, that
we can hear of an undress, as if we were still in
Paradise ; of the bareness of dress of savage life, un
redeemed by savage simplicity : of persons, as it were,
exposed to view as though the drawing-rooms of our
nobility were slave-markets ; in which the young, in
the full freshness of opening life, are set for sale to
the highest bidder, a coronet or a millionaire (no
matter of what character), and so it is thought fair
and right that the purchaser should see what he
buys, and make his choice amid the competing
wares ? [Are the eyes of our men to be more
modest than the persons of our women e ?]
There is worse behind. But I forbear, although
a Christian's spirit must burn within him to see
e Not preached. But men have complained of this unbecom-
ingness.

Oyr Pharisaism. 13
this great city wholly given to the idolatry of self,
and that none dare speak openly of what is openly
done. St. Paul says, "it is a shame to speak of
those things which are done of them in secret."
Alas ! among us he must have said, "it is a shame
to speak of those things which are done of them
openly." Shame hinds our speech ; but neither the
speech nor the acts of those, who used to furnish
our ideal of maidenliness and purity. Yet of this I
may speak, as notorious, that through this prevail
ing barbaric love of finery and pomp, our young men
betake themselves to relations, unhallowed by mar
riage, against the law of God, because they cannot
support the sinful extravagance, to be hallowed for
sooth by marriage. St. Paul says, "The married
woman careth for the things of the world, how she
may please her husband." The world, not- the hus
band, must be the end of these extravagances, of which
some dare not even tell their husbands. But where
then is the married love of such? What is this
gorgeous, selfish, pitiless array, but an earnest and
image of the robes of eternal flame ?
Such are not you. God forbid ! But well I re
member the time, when no rank, no brilliancy, no
station was allowed to compensate for moral purity.
A sinful woman saw her own sinfulness reflected to
her conscience by the aspect of the society which
God's Providence formed her to adorn. The mothers
of those days prized the, at least, unblameableness
of those, to whose houses they introduced their daugh
ters, more than their station. If mothers in these
days seek the fashionable houses of those, from
whom, if they were poor instead of wealthy, they

14 Our Pharisaispi.
would shrink, what do they but connive and abet
the damnation of those, once Christians in deed as
well as name ? What do they but cheer them on in
their way to Hell, and repeat to God Cain's impious
taunt, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
But any how, you will say, our Church-going is
right. We cannot be Pharisees to day. We are all
as Publicans together, to beat on our breasts, and cry,
" God be merciful to me, a sinner !" God grant it
may last ! But of all the Pharisaisms of the day,
our Church-going seems to me the masterpiece. How
so ? What does or ought our coming here to pro
fess ? What, but that prayer is the life of our lives,
that we live by every word that proceedeth out of
the mouth of God ; that the Sacrament of our Lord's
Body and Blood unites us to Him, that we long to
increase this Life-giving union with Him ? We
come, we return ; we have gained, we trust, for our
souls a treasure unutterable, that " Christ should
dwell in us, and we in Him, that we should be one
with Christ and He with us."
Do we believe what we say ? How then is our
belief not our condemnation ? Is union with God a
selfish thing ? Is it something to be appropriated
to ourselves ? Is the coal of fire, with which not Sera
phim, but the Lord and God of the Seraphim, has
approached to our lips, not to burn in our hearts ?
Is it nothing to us, that our brethren starve spiritual
ly, while we keep to ourselves the Bread of life, and
here or there only, in this wide-waste wilderness of
human souls, one is found to cry out, " Let him that
is athirst come and take of the water of life freely ?
Whither are these three millions of human beings

Our Pharisaism. 15
going f ? To the Judgment-seat of Christ. But what
afterwards ? I own I hope more for the degraded
poor than for the self-satisfied rich. At least, they
are not Pharisees. God grant that even in their
last hour, they may be as the Publican ! But what
do we to this end ? A certain number of missions
here and there, (and these sometimes persecuted) a
few Scripture-readers or Bible-women, are these our
worthy efforts to recover from Satan's jaws the
sheep of Christ, and show how we prize the Precious
Blood, by which we boast that we know, more than
others, that we have been redeemed? What but
this atmosphere of Pharisaism, with which we are
encompassed, this yellow fog, mingled of all the
faults of Pharisaism, Sadduceeism, Herodianism,
which chokes our breathing and obstructs our sight,
could make us take up with such a zealless, loveless,
lifeless worship of God, Who is Love, as this ?
" f It was calculated after a careful enquiry, by the statistical
Committee of the [Bp. of London's] fund, that, out of three mil
lion souls in the metropolis, one million were destitute of all known
means of Christian instruction and worship."
In the last four years nearly | has been added (partly by the Ec
clesiastical Commissioners) to the Clergy of London, 147, "out
of 1127. It is too low an estimate to say that there ought to be
nearly three times as many, 3000. The late Bishop of London
planned the erection of 50 Churches, besides those in Bethnal Green.
They did not provide for the increase of population in London dur
ing the period in which they were erected. The present Bishop
of London has wisely begun with " Mission Clergy." But " Mis
sions" amid populations of from 4000 to 12000, and those in some
places condensed heathen populations, what are they ? God
give the increase! " Many have answered nobly to our appeals,
but the multitude of those who have been deaf to them is far
greater." Bp. of London's Charge, p. 70.

16 Our Pharisaism.
What then is the remedy ? The root of the evil
is, ignorance of God and of ourselves, ignorance of
our relation to God, of His love towards us indivi
dually, and of His claims upon us as His creatures,
redeemed by the Blood of God. We cannot know
ourselves, unless we know God. How should we
know what is crooked, if we never measure it by an
unbending rule ? How should we understand our
darkness, if our eyes are never lifted up to, never
enlivened by the brightness of Divine light ? How
should we know our unholiness, if we never contem
plate His sinless purity ? How could we imagine
the foulness of our ingratitude, unless we gaze on His
ineffable Goodness which daily overstreams us with
its benefits ?
Be this, then, our task, this Lent; to unlearn
whatever Pharisaism cleaves to us, by contemplation
of our God, by knowledge of our relations to Him
and of our duty to Him, and by large-hearted love
to our fellow-sinners. We may be sure that we all
have more or less of the Pharisee clinging to us ; for
it presses in upon us through all the habits and ways
of our times, and if we are not conscious of some Pha
risaism, it is the Pharisaism itself which blinds us.
Every feeling of self-satisfaction, all dwelling upon
ourselves, our doings or our words, is Pharisaism. All
self-pleasing, all smoothness, all acceptance of others'
praise except as a token of their love, is Pharisaism.
Then only are we unlearning to be Pharisees, when
men's praise stings us with its own valuelessness, and
men's good opinion makes us dread to be hypocrites,
except that we cannot help it ; and every thing
around us or within us, the good or evil of others,

Our Pharisaism. 17
our own seeming good or real evil, our good, because
at best it might have been so much less poor, and we
might have been less ungrateful for it, our evil, be
cause it is so intolerable, should issue in that one
cry, " God be merciful to me, a sinner ! To the sinner
above the Publican, be Thou merciful as to the
Publican." I say, then are we beginning to unlearn
it. For, say it though we may from our hearts, we
have but a hazy shadowy gleam of light, with what
profound abasement of truth we ought to say it ; what
a hideous thing we mean, when we call ourselves
" sinners." St. Paul had no title for himself, but
" chief of sinners." What depth of meaning can
we give the word, that it should fit such as we are ?
Yet look up to your God ; think what it is, that
He, the Infinite, the All-Holy, the All-Perfect, should
in the tranquil self-sufficingness of His illimitable
bliss, have in all eternity loved thee, and purposed,
in time, to make thee the object of His Eternal love ;
that He, needing not aught out of Himself, vouch
safed to need thee ; that He in time created, redeem
ed, sanctified thee, to be a little likeness of His perfec
tions, an image, according to some especial grace, of
some special beauty in Himself. To this end were
the drawings of His grace, the loving severity, if so be,
of His chastisements, His abundant Sacraments, His
manifold calls and voices and speakings to thy soul
within and without ; and all this, with that individual
care and love, as if He existed but for Thee, remem
bering thee when thou forgattest Him, watching for
thy return, tender not to weary thee by His impor
tunities, yet sparing no solicitations which might
win Thee, submitting Himself to all thy rebuffs and
B

18 Our Pharisaism.
rudenesses and dismissals, yet knocking anon at the
door of thy heart, " My child ? wilt thou open to Me
now? fear Me not," all but constraining thee by the
might and attractiveness of His love, yet leaving
thee free, freely to accept Him, as thou wouldest
one on this earth, who offered thee His love ! Thou
wouldest love such an one on earth. Where then
has been our loyal affection, where our devotion,
where our self-forgetful gratitude, where our fealty,
where our burning passion, to requite freely that
self-emptying love, which, being contented with that
Co-equal Love which He Is, Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, would, in God the Son, become such as thou
thyself, lest He should lose thee ? Oh, if one had
never done one other sin, if one were full of all other
saint-like virtues, if self had not tinged and tainted
with its horrid defiling leprous touch any good in
us, if there was nothing but this horrible ingratitude,
could we abide ourselves, if He were only one of
us ? Since He is God, what can we utter with our
deepest agonised heart-cry but, " God be merciful to
me, a sinner ? "
Yet, thanks be to His love, He has left us those,
in whom to undo our ingratitude, in whom to feed
tend, clothe, shield from cold, from sickness, from
pining suffering, from untimely death, Himself, our
Lord, our God, our Judge — -His .poor.
And who could plead so persuasively to you, as
those who ask you this day through me ? Here is
nothing repulsive, no revolting sin-contracted habits,
no loathesomeness of misery; no dread that our gifts,
(jealous as we are of our own, while so careless as to
our God's good gifts), should be wasted. They, who

Our Pharisaism. 19
so ask you, are your fellow Christians, who, in this
life, have more of Christ's earthly lot than we ; for
they are destitute of all things, while we have abun
dance of all things. But they ask only for life at
your hands. They are husbands who implore you,
that their wives and children may not be deprived
untimely of their care; they are fathers, mothers,
who ask that their children may not be left father
less, motherless ; that their homes may not be reft of
their stay ; that their poor hearths may not be dark
ened of the sunbeam of a parent's love, or, amid the
aweful temptations of this sin-scourged city, may not
be deprived of a mother's watchful care. Fathers
say to you who are fathers, mothers, to you mothers :
" You can help us. As you would that God should
hear you in your trouble, hear me ; have mercy on
my child."
For it is just when the soul is hanging between
life and death, when, in God's providence, those
whom He has stricken, but has in a degree raised
up, will live, if they have food, good air, and tender
care, and, if not, will die, that you can help those
who minister to preserve their life. For the Foun
dress of this hospital, in her labours for the desolate
poor in the North-East of London, discovered how
many died, not through some severe disease, which
God allowed to rage among them, but when He had
abated it, and nothing was needed but man's chari
table care, they perished, because they had it not.
And so she conceived the plan of a convalescent Hos
pital, of which England then had but one ; and that,
not for the very poor. She has laboured, and others
have entered into her labours. Silently, unaided ex-
b 2

20 Our Pharisaism.
cept by one individual, without public appeal, she
and her Sisters have carried on their devoted work.
The conception, the gradual development, the matur
ing of the plan, the laborious attention to details, up
on which the solidity of any plan depends, were
wholly her's. May Jesus reward her ! One who
had seen her well-conceived self-sacrificing labours
during the Cholera, said of it ; " From what I saw
then, I expected something solidly good ; but this
surpasses my expectation." And this was a scientific
opinion. Now that the plan has stood the test of
time, now that above £10,000 has, with careful eco
nomy, been spent upon the work itself e, others are
asked to expand a work, which can be expanded more
effectively and less costlily than a new one could be
begun. In the Cholera year, the cure of 145 patients
from the North-East of London alone was completed
in that hospital. They can now receive between 30
and 40 at a time ; they ask to be enabled to minister,
according to the original plan of the Foundress, to
100 at once. I speak of what I know. I have wit
nessed the glad enjoyment of returning health among
those who had recently been prostrated by disease,
I have heard the gratitude poured out, after their re
turn, in their poor habitations in this city. I have
known of the impression made by the grace of God,
through the unobtruded devotions ; how God has,
through them, converted the soul, while He restored
the life of the body.
We have most of us been touched to the quick by
the severe illness of one whom we love. We have
looked on the wasted form of some loved child, when
e i. e. apart from the annual expenditure.

Our Pharisaism. 21
the fierceness of a disease was over, and the Physician
has said, " with watchful care, good food and (when it
can bear it), good air the child will live." How did
our heart bound with thankful joy, that God had given
us what we needed for them ! Or, we may have had
some sharp illness ourselves, and God may, through
all those helps with which He so abundantly sup
plies us, have given us new life and energy, new years,
new powers to serve Him. As God has done to you,
as you hope in the next trial-time God will do to you,
so do. Think, when one comes to gather your alms,
that it is not he whom you see, but that being, whom
you love most tenderly, and whom, through tender
care and nursing, God restored to you. Think that he
whom you love, asks you, " 0 shew mercy for my sake ;
for God gave me back to your love ; " think what it
would be, to dread, the next time God shall so visit
you; -"I was not merciful then; perhaps God will
not this time show me the mercy which I showed
not." Think, above all, of Him your Judge, Whom
in these you feed, Whom in these you tend, to Whom
in these you exercise His delegated prerogative of
giving life, and Who in His heavenly Courts will pro
claim, "See what they have done to Me ; see how they
have cared for Me ! " Be merciful after your power ;
and in that Dread Day, on which hangs eternity,
may you hear those words, " Come, ye blessed of My
Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from
the foundation of the world. For I was an hungred
and ye gave Me meat ; I was thirsty and ye gave Me
drink, I was sick, and ye had compassion upon Me."

RECENT REPORT OF ASCOT CONVALESCENT HOSPITAL.

The Hospital for convalescents and incurables, which was com
menced in 1851, chiefly for the benefit of the East End of London,
after lodging patients in Houses in various localities for some years,
was finally founded on its present premises, situated a mile and a half
from Ascot Station, in its own grounds, which consist of between
thirty and forty acres of land.
Those who are acquainted with the neighbourhood of Ascot will
know that the site is very bracing as well picturesque.
The Hospital is capable of receiving thirty to forty patients, with
unusually large cubic space to each patient, and there are houses
in the grounds which can be converted into smaller Hospitals.
During the outbreak of the cholera in 1866, one hundred and
forty five convalescent patients were received from the East End of
London alone.
A medical officer is appointed to the Hospital, and a chaplain,
licensed by the Bishop of the Diocese, attends to the spiritual wel
fare of the patients.
A certificate from the medical attendant as to the nature of the
disease, from which the patient is recovering or suffering, is essential
for admission.
The regulations for admission and copies of Subscribers' letters
are to be obtained from L. Watkins, Hon. Secretary, St. Saviour's,
Osnaburgh Street, N. W.
It is superfluous to add that, as in all the London Hospitals, so in
this, persons are admitted without any reference whatever to their
religious denominations.
But it may not be altogether superfluous to state, that the expenses
of the building and maintenance of this noble Institution, have been
defrayed from private resources. Now that the demand for Institu
tions of this kind is greatly increasing, the Committee feel it to be of
importance to make this appeal for assistance in enlarging the Hos
pital, so as to enable it to receive several hundred patients, according
to the original design of the Foundress.
Cheques and Post Office Orders may be made payable to the Trea
surer, E. H. Palmer, Esq., 11, King's Arms Yard, Moorgate Street,
E. C.
Donations and Subscriptions may also be remitted to Miss North-
cote, Ascot Hospital, Bracknell, Berks., or to J. Palmer, Hon. Se
cretary, Canon Hill, Maidenhead, or to L. Watkins, Hon. Secretary,
St. Saviour's, Osnaburgh Street, N. W.; or may be paid to the
account of the Hospital, at the Bank of Sir Samuel Scott, Bart.,
& Co., Cavendish Square, W. ; or the Bank of England, E. C.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 03720 6209