(IDteeton Sermons anfc rations.

 
 "BEHOLD! I BRING YOU GOOD TIDINGS OF GREAT JOY." S. Luke ii. 10. 
 
 3esus H onlg, 
 
 MISSION SERMONS 
 
 AND 
 
 ORATIONS 
 
 DELIVERED BY 
 
 FATHER IGNATIUS, O.S.B., 
 
 (REV. JOSEPH LEYCESTER LYNE), 
 
 iSbangelist fSottfe of t!je Cfjurcfj of (JBnglantJ, 
 
 AT WESTMINSTER TOWN HALL 
 
 EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, 
 BY 
 
 J. V. SMEDLEY, M.A., 
 
 Corpus Christi Coll., Camb. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 WILLIAM RIDGWAY, 
 
 169, PICCADILLY, W. 
 
 HAMILTON, ADAMS & CO., 
 23, PATERNOSTER Row, E.G. 
 
 MDCCCLXXXVI.
 
 \_The rights of reproduction and translation are reserved^
 
 TO 
 
 THE GLORY OF GOD 
 
 OF 
 
 LOUISA GENEVIEVE LYNE, 
 
 3EcbeU JHotfjer 
 
 THE REV. JOSEPH LEYCESTER LYNE 
 
 (FATHER IGNATIUS) 
 THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED, 
 
 27317
 
 Introduction. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 A very strong desire having been expressed by members 
 of the congregations who have attended the London Mission 
 services, held by Father Ignatius (the Rev. Joseph Ley- 
 cester Lyne), at the Westminster Town Hall, that some 
 of the sermons and orations, delivered by the Eev. Father 
 at these missions, should be published, it has become my 
 pleasing duty and privilege to carry out this desire. 
 
 And nothing could be more natural on the part of those 
 who have listened to this most earnest and eloquent of 
 mission preachers, than that they should wish to possess a 
 volume of these sermons, and to give to others, who 
 have been less fortunate than themselves, and have not 
 heard any of them delivered, the opportunity of reading 
 the Gospel message so simply proclaimed by this 
 evangelist monk. 
 
 But there is another excellent reason why this volume 
 should be published; and that is, because of the misconcep- 
 tion which still appears to exist, among both clergy and 
 laity, as to the doctrines taught by Father Ignatius. 
 
 Some Catholics complain that the good monk is too 
 protestant for them ; and, on the other hand, some Pro- 
 testants aver that he is too catholic even going so far as 
 to suggest that he is a " Jesuit in disguise "! The con-
 
 vi. Introduction. 
 
 sequence is that many, of both schools of religious 
 thought, deprive themselves of hearing him altogether. 
 
 The reasons, therefore, for publishing this volume are, 
 first, that the " Primitive Catholic Christianity," preached 
 by this evangelist monk, may be further spread ; and, 
 secondly, that religionists of all shades may know exactly 
 what Father Ignatius does preach, and what views he 
 holds upon ecclesiastical, and other, subjects. 
 
 It cannot well be gainsaid that, certainly within the 
 last three hundred years, no human being who, by the 
 laying-on of hands, has been admitted to the diaconate in 
 the Church of England, has been the subject of more mis- 
 representation and persecution than has the Rev. Joseph 
 Leycester Lyne. 
 
 Of course, at the period, 1860, when the young deacon 
 received his call from Grod to become a monk, e.g., a solitary, 
 the state of things in the Church of England, both as 
 regards outspoken doctrine and ritual, was very different 
 from what it is to-day ; but there can be no doubt 
 that at the outset of his monastic life " Brother Ignatius," 
 as he was then styled, was an out-and-out ritualist. 
 
 I have it, from his own truthful word of mouth, that, 
 at that period, he was, unconsciously, little else. " I loved 
 our Lord, though," he said, " all my life ; but did not 
 know, so did not trust His love to me." 
 
 Those were the days when even to preach in a surplice 
 was enough to stamp a priest or deacon as a "Romanist;"* 
 
 * We have recently been reminded of a striking instance of the 
 prejudice against the surplice, in the days to which I refer, by the 
 chroniclers of the persecution of the late Rev. W. T. E. Bennett, 
 when vicar of St. Barnabas, Pimlico. 
 
 Upon his discarding the academic M.A. black gown for the
 
 Introduction. -vii. 
 
 and when the very sight of a cross in wood, marble, or 
 brass, either inside or outside a church, would bring 
 about the ears of the offending incumbent or curate, an 
 avalanche of mobbism and cries of " No Popery," of which, 
 in the present day, we have but an occasional faint echo. 
 
 But in 1866 a complete change came over the young 
 monk. Disbelievers in, and scoffers at, sudden con- 
 version will doubtless be incredulous of the statement ; 
 yet it is nevertheless a fact, that on a certain evening 
 the very moment, as well as the place, are sacred fixtures 
 in his mind when walking on the sea-shore in the Isle 
 of Wight, the young deacon became suddenly " a con- 
 verged man." 
 
 Possibly the change in the mind, heart, and spirit of 
 the then much-talked-of, insulted, ridiculed and persecuted 
 even to violence young ritualist, had been the result 
 of years of struggle and unconscious preparation ; but the 
 fact remains that, from that moment, Joseph Leycester 
 Lyne entered upon a new spiritual existence. 
 
 " He was born again," as he would himself express it, 
 into the new life of a Christian. He was transformed 
 from a hot-headed, earnest ritualist monk into an 
 equally hot-headed and out-and-out in earnest evangelist 
 monk, with " Jesus only " as his watchword ; but behind 
 this, (in its proper place,) followed the same ritualism, the 
 same love of the beautiful to be offered to God in His 
 divinely appointed service the type and figure only of 
 
 ecclesiastical vestment, known as the surplice, that good Christian 
 man, the late Earl of Shaftesbury (then Lord Ashley) in the heat 
 of his feeling on the subject, made use of these memorable words : 
 " I would rather worship with Lydia on the banks of the river than 
 with a London enrpliced-priest in the temple of St. Barnabas !"
 
 viii. Introduction. 
 
 the living reality ; not the reality itself. To use his own 
 favourite now-a-day's expression, he had, all his life 
 previously, been putting " the cart fee/ore the horse !" 
 
 It might have been supposed that such a complete 
 metamorphosis in the spiritual life of the Rev. Joseph 
 Leycester Lyne such " a change of front," in fact would 
 have given him a respite from his persecutors ; but not 
 at all. Instead of his finding himself in smoother waters, 
 he now became confronted by two classes of "persecutors 
 and slanderers " instead of by one ! 
 
 Whilst Brother Ignatius, in conjunction with his friend, 
 the late Rev. James Purchas, had been aiding and support- 
 ing, if not leading, the then rising Ritualistic school in 
 the Church of England, many of that school, both clergy 
 and laity, had given him tacit encouragement ; while 
 others, who were in the advanced guard of the movement, 
 were among his most earnest and ardent supporters. 
 
 As an instance in point, in the year 1864, the late Rev. 
 Edward Stuart, the then vicar of St. Mary Magdalene's, 
 Munster Square, addressed a letter to the Bishop of 
 London, the late Dr. Jackson, in his own pleasant, caustic 
 style, heading it " Fair Play for Brother Ignatius ;" and 
 towards the end of this letter Mr. Stuart wrote : 
 
 " Brother Ignatius himself may be a ' clerical error,' perhaps ; 
 ' Pnnch ' says he is, and in snch a matter ' Punch ' is, of course, in- 
 fallible ; but I can assure your Lordship that, whatever error there 
 may be about Brother Ignatius, there is no mistake whatever as to 
 the warmth and heart and life, and actual success (if that is to be 
 taken into account), of the sermons and services held in his 
 monastery chapel." 
 
 The monastery was at that time at Norwich. 
 Brother Ignatius, because such a decided ritualist, had 
 always been the special, and favourite, target of the Low
 
 Introduction. ix. 
 
 Church party ; by whom, however, it was to have been 
 hoped that the evangelist monk, so soon as his earnest and 
 vigorous preaching of pure evangelical doctrines came into 
 force, would cease to be persecuted ; but instead of this, 
 as a rule, wherever the monk preached (and he was now 
 more often heard outside his monastery than before his 
 conversion) the rancour and uncharitableness of the ultra- 
 Protestant element showed itself even more and more 
 against him. 
 
 These good folk could not see beneath the surface ; and 
 the Monastic Habit* was a cause for rabid revilings from 
 even many excellent Protestants, whose prejudice against 
 " the monk" blinded their spiritual eyes, and rendered them 
 incapable of receiving the Gospel message from his lips. 
 
 On the other hand, directly the converted monk was 
 found to be preaching Christianity, pure and simple, and 
 not " Churchianity," as the first desideratum for sinful 
 men and women ; and to be telling the people that until 
 they had accepted Jesus Christ as their own personal, 
 atoning, all-sufficient Saviour, " their righteousnesses," 
 forms and ceremonials, were all " as filthy rags," (no 
 matter to what outward Church they might belong); the 
 High Church and Ritualistic party also turned their 
 backs upon him, denouncing him as a heretic, and 
 schismatic, and actually charging the good monk with 
 preaching against the Sacraments of the Church, and 
 with general disloyalty to her ! 
 
 History only repeats itself ; for were not Wesley and 
 "Whitefield, at the period of the great revival in the 
 Church of England, at their hands, when they preached 
 
 * It was from the hands of the late Rev. Dr. Pusey that Father 
 Ignatius received his first Habit.
 
 x. Introduction. 
 
 Jesus Christ, and "Jesus only," as the essence of the 
 Church's life, denounced in the same manner ? 
 
 Had but the Catholic Tractarians, who followed later 
 on, instead of giving the cold shoulder to the descendants 
 of the Evangelical revivalists, extended to them the right 
 hand of Christian fellowship, and so have united the 
 Catholic and Evangelical schools in the Mother Church 
 of England ; the painfully anti- Christian state of things 
 in our Church to-day, would not be matter of history ; 
 and the independent sect known as " Wesleyan " would 
 never have existed ! 
 
 This opposition to, and malicious persecution of, 
 Brother Ignatius, continued, in a greater or lesser 
 degree, for some years ; until, at length, the storm 
 would seem to have so well-nigh spent itself, and his per- 
 secution to have so far died out, (with only here and 
 there an unenviable exception) that when the Rev. 
 Father Ignatius, O.S.B., Evangelist Monk of Llanthony 
 Abbey, is, by the grace of God, permitted to leave his 
 Monastery in the Black Mountains of South Wales, to 
 preach the Gospel to the people, he is welcomed by vast 
 congregations, who assemble from all parts to hear him 
 and profit by his teaching. 
 
 As some people question the right of Father Ignatius, 
 the Benedictine Monk, because still a deacon, to the 
 appellation of " Fathei'," I would here observe that while 
 he was learning his Rule and Office, and none had taken 
 their vows "into his hands," he was styled "Brother" ; 
 but after two years of probation, with (as in the case of 
 St. Benedict,)* God's Providence for his novice Master; 
 
 * St. Benedict, Abbot and " Father," was never admitted to the 
 Priesthood.
 
 Introduction. xi. 
 
 when he had learnt his Rule and Office, founded the first 
 House, and others took their vows to him ; he, as the Rule 
 requires, assumed the title " Father." The Professed 
 are called "fathers," the Novices " brothers."* 
 
 Neither space nor intention will permit me to give more 
 than a very brief outline of the religious life of this 
 unique man unique, in that it would be difficult to point 
 to any cotemporary in the generation in which he has lived 
 who, in spite of his impulsiveness and other weaknesses 
 (of which he is himself only too conscious,) can be com- 
 pared with him for single-mindedness, devotion, and faith- 
 fulness to his calling ; steadfastness and loyalty of purpose 
 in the midst of disappointment, loneliness, and desertion ; 
 forgiveness of injury, persecution, and slander; and un- 
 swerving bravery in standing alone to his convictions ! 
 
 Nevertheless, it can in very truth be said, that Father 
 Ignatius has been, and by the clergy of his own Church 
 in particular, the most persecuted, maligned, slandered, 
 and misunderstood cleric in all England ! 
 
 To listen to some of the clergy of the Church of Eng- 
 land, even at the present day and I speak perhaps more 
 particularly now of our friends holding important cures 
 in High Church centres criticising and finding fault with 
 Father Ignatius, you would imagine that he had but just 
 arrived upon the scene, and not that he had been a most 
 prominent figure in the ecclesiastical world of the nine- 
 teenth century, for more than a quarter of it ! 
 
 And the criticisms are, to say the least, ungenerous ; 
 for these clergy seem to forget, while making them, that 
 they are maligning a man, who, some twenty-five years ago, 
 
 * See Rule of St. Benedict.
 
 xii. Introduction. 
 
 received torrents of persecution, (sometimes even in the 
 form of brickbats and rotten eggs,) for leading the way 
 to do, and for doing, that which these same reverend 
 gentlemen are now quietly permitted to do without 
 persecution! 
 
 The clergy of this same school are also wont to question 
 whether these Llanthony Missions are as fruitful as other 
 Missions held in their own churches, because no statistics 
 are published as to the number of persons, who, through 
 them, have been brought to Baptism, Confirmation, and 
 Communion. 
 
 Compelled, in many dioceses, where the churches are not 
 open to receive the monk to preach, to hold his services 
 in hired halls ; driven from font and altar to town-halls 
 and assembly-rooms, it would not have been surprising if 
 such statistical results were not forthcoming; but, notwith- 
 standing these impediments, those who have been 
 taught by him know well enough that A Record of the 
 results of his mission work is not wanting ! 
 
 And these criticisms have their inconsistent side also. 
 
 To require the statistics which these clergy demand 
 from the brother-missioner whom they barely counte- 
 nance, and who is ostracised by some of the bishops of 
 the Church to which he belongs, is surely not unlike 
 expecting a fisherman to fish without a landing-net, and 
 to find fault with him if he happen to let a single 
 salmon, trout, or even minnow drop back into the 
 stream ; or like expecting a shepherd, upon the moun- 
 tain-side, to pen his sheep without a fold ! 
 
 But even statistics such as are said not to exist, have 
 come to my hand. 
 
 Soon after I had first heard Father Ignatius preach,
 
 Introduction. xiii. 
 
 and had become aware of these criticisms, I addressed a 
 letter to a clergyman, the vicar of a well-known town 
 in North Wales, in whose parish, I was informed, more 
 than one of the Llanthony Missions had been held. 
 
 The vicar being an entire stranger to me, I naturally 
 apologised for my letter, pleading, by way of excuse, my 
 anxiety to know the truth, or otherwise, of what I had 
 heard. 
 
 I received reply in due course, from which the 
 following is an extract. The letter, from the Rev. E. 
 Rhys James, the Vicar of Llangollen, is dated January 
 24th, 1885. 
 
 " You wish me," he said, " to write the results of our mission here . 
 I can only say that God only knows the true amount of good done to 
 the thousands who flocked to hear Father Ignatius : but results 
 enough have already come, and are continually coming, to my 
 knowledge and to that of my fellow-workers in this parish, to enable 
 us to thank God for having sent him to hold his mission here. There 
 is a decided advance along the wholeline. Whole families have been 
 turned and notorious sinners saved. Our parochial Guild has been 
 trebled and new life put into all our Church workers. A family 
 from London happened to be staying here at the time, and all were 
 converted to Christ, and went back to town rejoicing that they had 
 ever visited our beautiful valley. Our communicants have not only 
 increased, but all the old ones have found a new treasure in the Vine- 
 yard peace, joy, security, rest in Jesus. We are better, happier, 
 and brighter Christians than before. * * * I regard our dear 
 Father Ignatius as an inspired medium, chosen of God above most, 
 if not all, others to draw souls to Jesus. * * * He seems to lead 
 the way himself and not to point to it. 
 
 " I can only say in conclusion, let any one who doubts his mission 
 work, go and hear him for a week and follow him through the whole 
 course of the octave, and then judge for himself, what he thinks of 
 him. He will find him to be truly a right reverend father in God 
 and what more can anyone wish P"
 
 xiv. Introduction. 
 
 I received like testimony from the rector of a large 
 parish in Birmingham. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be well that I should now state how it 
 has come to pass that I find myself, to-day, editing and 
 publishing this volume of sermons. 
 
 It was one of those circumstances we are too apt to 
 term " accidents," which first brought to me the acquaint- 
 ance of Father Ignatius; an acquaintance which soon 
 ripened into friendship. 
 
 I have often thanked God for an illness which, in the 
 autumn of 1884, took me into South Wales, there to 
 recruit my strength ; for whilst staying, first at Car- 
 marthen, and then at Tenby, I had the privilege of 
 attending the missions, which were being held, at those 
 places, by Father Ignatius. It was at the close of the 
 Tenby Mission that I became personally known to him. 
 
 To say that I was impressed by his preaching, would 
 but faintly describe what I desire to say. The first sermon 
 I heard at Carmarthen awoke me to the fact that till then I 
 had been living in a state of spiritual lethargy ; and during 
 the mission at Tenby, by God's grace, the Gospel message, 
 delivered in its simplicity, by this Evangelist monk, was 
 permitted to reach me, and to do that for me which four 
 decades of a superabundance of dogmatic teaching had 
 failed in doing. 
 
 From that moment I determined, God helping me, to 
 give to the Rev. Father Ignatius all the aid in my power 
 to extend his opportunities of holding these missions. 
 
 I would fain, under other circumstances, have omitted 
 further reference to myself, or to my work in this matter;
 
 Introduction. xv. 
 
 but that I feel it will be of interest to many to know the 
 steps I took to accomplish my object. 
 
 In December, 1884, I offered the services of Father 
 Ignatius to the Bishop of Bedford, as one of the missioners 
 in the then approaching West London Mission of 
 February, 1885 ; undertaking, on his behalf, that he would, 
 in all respects, conform to the usages of the church in 
 which he might be called upon to officiate, and wear the 
 surplice over the Habit of his Order. I, of course, did 
 this with the consent and approval of the Rev. Father. 
 
 The Bishop of Bedford kindly referred me to the Rev. 
 Canon Furse, one of the three Commissaries of the 
 Bishop of London for the West London Mission, who took 
 up the matter warmly. 
 
 It will be remembered that the late Bishop Jackson 
 had, some fifteen years before, inhibited Father Ignatius 
 from preaching in the churches of the diocese of London, 
 on the ground, (to quote his Lordship's own words) "that 
 the Church of England did not sanction Monastic Orders." 
 
 The good Bishop had apparently forgotten the long 
 roll of the holy monks of the early British Church ; that 
 half England was evangelized by the monks of Lindis- 
 farne ; and that, under the auspices of the British monks, 
 S. David, S. Gildas, and S. Cadoc, the waning faith in 
 Ireland was revived ! 
 
 Canon Furse, therefore, instead of plunging into the 
 subject at once with Bishop Jackson, and risking an off- 
 hand refusal, kindly wrote to the Bishop, asking his Lord- 
 ship to make an appointment to see him upon a matter of 
 importance connected with the coming West London 
 Mission. 
 
 But " man proposes and God disposes." Bishop Jackson
 
 xvi. Introduction. 
 
 named, for the interview, the morning of the Feast 
 of the Epiphany, January 6th, 1885 the day of his 
 death ! 
 
 I was then advised to address myself to the Dean and 
 Chapter of St. Paul's, by whom, in the interval between 
 the death of a Bishop of London and the appointment of 
 his successor, the business of the diocese is transacted ; 
 but after the sudden and lamented death of Bishop 
 Jackson I did not proceed further in the matter. 
 
 I was so very desirous, however, that Father Ignatius 
 should be heard again in London, that, having already, 
 through the kind suggestion of Canon Furse, been in 
 treaty for the Westminster Town Hall for the Rev. 
 Father's use should he have helped in the West London 
 Mission, I then obtained his consent to hold an eight 
 days' mission there, on his own account, later in the 
 spring; and accordingly in April May, 1885, the first 
 mission at Westminster was held. 
 
 The necessarily heavy expenses of a mission in London 
 had naturally weighed with Father Ignatius in his 
 consideration of my request ; but I was able to overcome 
 this difficulty, by raising a fund, among a few friends, to 
 discharge the expenses of printing, advertising, &c. ; and 
 a gentleman in the congregation kindly came forward and 
 paid for the hire of the Town Hall. 
 
 Thus, the first of the present half-yearly missions, at 
 Westminster, came to be held ; and I am truly thankful 
 for having been permitted, in ever so small a degree, to 
 assist in their establishment. Three Missions have now 
 been held there the second in October, 1885, and the third 
 in May, 1886 ; and if it had pleased God to have given to 
 Father Ignatius the physical strength to enable him to
 
 Introduction. xvii. 
 
 conduct it, the fourth mission would (D.Y.) have been 
 held, in the same place, during the present autumn. 
 
 Indeed, the fixture, for the mission, was made for 
 October 17th, though afterwards postponed to November 
 14th ; but in consequence of the continued weak state of 
 his health, the Rev. Father has been obliged to further 
 postpone it. If strength be given him, however, he is 
 hoping that he may still be able to hold a few services 
 in Westminster before Christmas. I ask the prayers of 
 all that the Rev. Father may soon be restored to health 
 and strength. 
 
 [It will be remembered by those who attended the 
 mission in May last, that it was with difficulty, owing to 
 the great physical exhaustion, from which he was suffering, 
 that Father Ignatius was able to conduct the mission that 
 he was in fact unable to deliver the two concluding 
 orations.] 
 
 After the mission of October, 1885, an Oration on " The 
 Church of England and Disestablishment " was delivered 
 by Father Ignatius, at Westminster Town Hall ; and it 
 so much pleased those who heard it, that, at the request of 
 many, the address was again given at St. James' Hall on 
 November 18th, 1885, when the great hall there was 
 crowded. 
 
 It was the eve of the elections, when " Disestablishment" 
 was the subject uppermost in the minds of all " the 
 Battle of the Churches," as the Marquis of Salisbury 
 aptly called it, was pending. 
 
 The Nonconformists, Supposing that the monk, who had 
 been so strangely persecuted by members of his own 
 Church, could only have something to say in favour of 
 the disestablishment of the Church of England, came in 
 
 6
 
 xviii. Introduction. 
 
 crowds to hear him denounce her ; but they were not long 
 in discovering their mistake, and finding that the ostracised 
 monk was, in truth, the staunchest defender pos- 
 sible of the old Mother Church ; and these same Non- 
 conformists, in spite of themselves, were very soon in 
 the van of the applause by which Father Ignatius' most 
 eloquent, loyal, and logical address was received; cheer- 
 ing him to the echo, when he appealed to members of 
 every dissenting sect, " as honest men, and as British 
 citizens," to rally round the old Church of England, 
 when attacked by the sacrilegious hands of infidel 
 revolutionists ! 
 
 As I had made part of my work to consist in having 
 the mission sermons and orations, delivered by the Rev. 
 Father Ignatius in London, taken down in shorthand, I 
 was able to have the Oration on " The Church of 
 England and Disestablishment "* at once published ; and 
 so great was the demand for it, that a second edition 
 was called for in less than a week the Church Defence 
 Institution alone ordering 500 copies for distribution. 
 
 And here I should like to give a typical instance of the 
 manner in which the Rev. Father is often misrepresented 
 by the press. 
 
 The Daily Chronicle, doubtless quite unintentionally, 
 in reporting the address on " Disestablishment," asserted 
 that Father Ignatius had told his hearers that " it did not 
 matter what outward church they joined if they belonged 
 to Christ." Now, what Father Ignatius did say and 
 it is that which he always teaches, was that until a 
 
 * " The Church of England and Disestablishment." An Oration 
 delivered by Father Ignatius. William Eidgway, 169, Piccadilly, 
 London, W. Second Edition. Price 6d., by post Gfcd.
 
 Introduction. xix. 
 
 man has become more than a nominal Christian, it 
 matters, naturally, but little to what outivard Church, or 
 society of Clmstians, he may belong. A vast difference ! 
 As a member of the divinely-appointed British branch 
 of the " Catholic and Apostolic Church," the monk had 
 impressed upon his hearers that evening, that when the 
 Gospel message had entered into the heart of a man, it 
 then became the duty of the believer to inquire if there 
 were still, on earth, a visible Church " which continued 
 in the Apostles' Doctrine, Fellowship, and Worship ;" 
 and then to join himself to that Church as the Institution 
 of Christ Himself. 
 
 At the close of the October Mission, 1885, it was the 
 unanimous desire of the congregation at Westminster, 
 that a petition should be presented to Dr. Temple, the 
 newly appointed Bishop of London, begging that his 
 Lordship would sanction the preaching of Father Ignatius 
 in the churches of his diocese ; and forthwith the follow- 
 ing petition was drawn up, and soon signed by many 
 thousands of people, both clerical and lay. 
 
 To THE EIGHT KEY. THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON, 
 
 We, the undersigned, humbly petition your Lordship, as the 
 
 Chief Pastor of this diocese, to sanction the preaching of the REV. 
 
 JOSEPH LEYCESTEE LYNE Father Ignatius in the churches of 
 
 London. 
 
 We make this Petition in consequence of the great spiritual 
 
 blessings which GOD is vouchsafing to his ministrations throughout 
 
 the country ; arid that we feel it a matter of great regret that our 
 
 National Church should not be reaping the advantages of such a 
 
 Ministry. 
 
 Your Petitioners learn with satisfaction that the Rev. J. L. Lyne
 
 xx. Introduction. 
 
 is himself perfectly willing to preach in the churches, and to wear 
 either surplice or black gown whichever may be customary over 
 the Habit of his Order. 
 
 LONDON, October 29th, 1885. 
 
 This petition was not, however, presented to the Bishop ; 
 for the reason that, on good authority, we were re- 
 minded that the inhibition of a bishop lapsed with his 
 death ; and further, that as the Rev. Joseph Leycester 
 Lyne had officiated in the diocese of Exeter, without hin- 
 drance from Dr. Temple, it was reasonable to suppose 
 that his Lordship would place no obstacle to his doing 
 so in the diocese of London. In other words, that there 
 was no need for a petition. 
 
 It was at this time that Canon Trench, the vicar of All 
 Saints', Netting Hill, placed his pulpit at the disposal of the 
 Rev. Father Ignatius, "if he would accept it, and help him 
 in his efforts to make his church the church of the people." 
 
 Canon Trench was then just about to try and trans- 
 form "All Saints','' with its old, exclusive pew-rent 
 system, into a "free and open church." 
 
 The offer was accepted; and on the evening of the 
 first Tuesday in Advent, December 1st, 1885, the monk 
 preached once again from a London pulpit after his in- 
 hibition of sixteen years ! 
 
 The usual teapot-tempest element was not wanting; 
 but I was personally grateful for it, as it was the means 
 of eliciting, from the Bishop of London, his Lordship's 
 mind and intention as to the preaching of Father Igna- 
 tius in the churches of his diocese. 
 
 Upon Canon Trench informing his churchwardens 
 that he had offered his pulpit to Father Ignatius, one 
 of them announced his intention of writing to the
 
 Introduction. xxi. 
 
 Bishop to ask his Lordship's instructions and advice 
 upon the matter ; at the same time notifying Canon 
 Trench that he should feel it his duty to prevent " Mr. 
 Lyne " from ascending the pulpit stairs unless he could 
 produce his licence from the Bishop ! 
 
 The following is a copy of his Lordship's reply to the 
 churchwarden : 
 
 FULHAM PALACE, S.YV. 
 
 Nov. 30th, 1885. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, There is no illegality in Mr. Lyne preaching in 
 All Saints' Church at the request of the incumbent, though, of 
 course, the Bishop could prohibit it. 
 
 Mr. Lyne has done and said a great many very silly and some 
 very wrong things. 
 
 But it hardly seems to me to be worth while to give him the 
 opportunity of calling himself a martyr and a victim of persecution. 
 People need not go and listen to him, and I do not think many of 
 those who do, will get much harm from so foolish a man. 
 
 I should look on it in a different light if he had been announced 
 as a preacher at one of the Sunday services. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 (Signed) F. LONDIN. 
 
 The Bishop's letter, although very clear and satisfac- 
 tory upon the question of the " no illegality " of " Mr. 
 Lyne's " preaching in the churches of the diocese of 
 London, in cases where the incumbents themselves 
 should make offer of their pulpits, might, it must be 
 confessed, have been kinder in its tone. 
 
 With the greatest respect for his Lordship, and for his 
 holy office, I know that I do but express the opinions of 
 many other people, as well as my own, when I say that it 
 was much to be regretted that Bishop Temple should have 
 allowed his evident annoyance at having been consulted 
 at all as to the preaching of the monk at " All Saint's,"
 
 xxii. Introduction. 
 
 to have shown itself in such unnecessarily severe, dis- 
 courteous, and uncalled-for remarks. 
 
 Not only did " people go and listen " to some of the 
 " silly thing's " which this " so foolish a man " preached 
 from the pulpit of "All Saints'," on the evening in 
 question ; but, I believe I am correct in saying that never 
 before had so large a congregation been found within 
 the walls of that church. 
 
 The subject of the sermon was " Waiting for the 
 Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ ; " and through the 
 kindness of Canon Trench it was printed in the " All 
 Saints' Parish Magazine-/'* and I subsequently had it 
 published in cheap form for general circulation. 
 
 There was a good deal of correspondence at the time, in 
 some of the Church and local papers, upon the Bishop's 
 letter ; and if space had allowed, I should like to have 
 quoted several of these letters. Particularly were the 
 writers puzzled at the distinction which Bishop Temple 
 made between Father Ignatius being announced to preach 
 on a week day and on a Sunday ! 
 
 I think it due to Canon Trench, however, to insert a 
 letter which he addressed to the " Bayswater Chronicle " 
 on the whole subject : 
 
 ALL SAINTS', NOTTING HILL, 
 
 Dec. 30th, 1885. 
 
 g IE AS a good deal has been said about Mr. Lyne being at All 
 Saints', I may perhaps be allowed to add a word. 
 
 It must be allowed that, in strictness, an incumbent should 
 
 * " Waiting for the Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ." An 
 Advent sermon, preached by Kev. Father Ignatius, at " All Saints'," 
 Netting Hill, on Tuesday evening, December 1st, 1885. William 
 Ridgway, 169, Piccadilly, London, W. Price 2d., by post, 2d.
 
 Introduction. xxiii. 
 
 always ask the Bishop, before he invites a clergyman from another 
 diocese to occupy his pulpit. 
 
 But there are many questions bishops had rather not ba asked, 
 and this was just one. 
 
 And our excellent wardens were quite within their right (and 
 duty, if they felt it so) in asking if there were any irregularity. 
 But there was none, and so no harm was done. 
 
 But ought Mr. Lyne to be invited to preach in church ? 
 
 I think so ; for I grudge him alike to the music-hall and the 
 monastery. No man should be judged too hardly by what he has 
 said or written who has not ? wrongly or foolishly, in a lifetime. 
 Tf so, who could stand ? 
 
 In the last eighteen years, I have, from time to time, heard 
 <; Father Ignatius " preach, both in and out of churches, and never 
 without being impressed. 
 
 The other night in our church an immense congregation heard 
 him gladly. The sermon will be published, and many will, no 
 doubt, be glad to read it. I have never heard him preach any other 
 doctrine ; and both the doctrine and the man in his earnestness 
 and simplicity in my judgment, are wanted in our pulpits. 
 
 But since to myself, as to most other clergy, the bishop's wish, if 
 expressed, is a command, in the cause of freedom I deprecate a too 
 free use of the right of reference to " the Ordinary." There is not 
 a church in which commissions and omissions many, could not most 
 easily be scheduled for reference. I certainly know one, in which, 
 if such reference were made, we should probably lose both our altar 
 lights and our prayer meetings, and possibly our Revised Bible. 
 
 But no one would wish it. And so of Mr. Lyne. No one need 
 hear him ; but if they do and often the better I think for them 
 nnd also for him for I grudge him to the monastery. 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 (Signed) W. R. TRENCH. 
 
 There caii be little doubt that Father Ignatius, during 
 his remarkable life, has said and done things which 
 would have been better left unsaid and undone. But, as 
 Canon Trench so truly asks in his letter : " Who has not ?"
 
 xxiv. Introduction. 
 
 It is very easy to criticise ; but, it seems to me that 
 it would be doing Father Ignatius better justice to give 
 prominence to the exceeding reality and sincerity of his 
 work, life, and character, than to search out his weak- 
 nesses and defects. 
 
 But adverse, and even unkind, criticism of a public 
 man when made openly is not in itself dishonourable. 
 It is the underhand, and anonymous, attempt to injure 
 the work of a good man (to which I regret to say Father 
 Ignatius is even now occasionally subjected), which 
 is alike despicable and dishonourable. 
 
 [I may mention here that having obtained the consent of 
 Father Ignatius to hold a mission at Cambridge, I went 
 up, early in the Lent Term, of the present year, for the 
 purpose of making the necessary arrangements; but on 
 finding that the Rev. W. Hay Aitken was already in the 
 field to hold a mission, at St. Mary's, during that Term, I 
 decided to give up the idea for the present.] 
 
 In the choice of the "Mission Sermons" and "Addresses 
 to Christians," contained in this volume, my object has 
 been to select those which, as a whole, will the most 
 fairly represent the Gospel teaching of Father Ignatius. 
 
 I have especially given the Address on " The Lord's 
 Mother," in view of the Rev. Father having been more 
 misrepresented concerning his reverence for the Blessed 
 Virgin Mary than on almost any other Scriptural 
 subject. 
 
 With regard to the "Orations," published with the ser- 
 mons, my aim also has been to make choice of those 
 which treat upon the leading ecclesiastical, and other, 
 subjects, on which Father Ignatius is known to hold very
 
 Introduction. xxv. 
 
 decided opinions, and about which he is so much mis- 
 represented and misunderstood. 
 
 The Orations are here offered in the same spirit in 
 which the Rev. Father is wont to deliver them. He 
 invariably prefaces these addresses by telling his hearers 
 that he does not desire them to accept his views, or his 
 readings, on these subjects, as infallible ; that he does but 
 offer, for their consideration, the results of his own in- 
 vestigations for what they are worth. He may, he tells 
 them, be wholly wrong and they wholly right ; he is simply 
 there to state the conclusions to which he has arrived ; 
 whilst they, on their part, have kindly come to hear him. 
 
 Father Ignatius' views on Monasticism and Monasteries, 
 it must be conceded, are natural enough in one who has 
 felt himself called to the life and vocation of a monk ; 
 and if, in his lectures on the subject, he be found to 
 indulge in no uncertain criticisms of those who destroyed 
 the monasteries of the Church of England, he may surely 
 well be excused. 
 
 What he has to say on this subject will be found in the 
 Oration : " Why were the Monasteries of the Church of 
 England destroyed?" 
 
 Father Ignatius is also, as is well known, often taken to 
 task by our ultra-Protestant brethren, for expressing his 
 very decided opinions upon the " Reformation ;" and in 
 such a manner that it really would appear as if the subject 
 were one about which discussion were not permissible. 
 
 But I should like to ask why a subject of so much 
 interest to all English Christians should not be openly 
 spoken of and discussed; and especially seeing that, 
 mirabile dictu ! there actually do exist professing members 
 of the Church of England, who still maintain that our
 
 xxvi. Introduction. 
 
 Church was founded by that wicked old Tudor King 
 Henry VIII. ! 
 
 The question is one which, fortunately, is contained in 
 an historical nut-shell. The Church of England is either 
 of divine or human origin. Either the Church of England 
 was founded in this land, in Apostolic times, or it was 
 brought into existence, in the sixteenth century, by Henry 
 Tudor ! 
 
 There happen to be some members of the Chixrch of 
 England (and among them the Monk of Llanthony) who, 
 because the Bible, tradition, and ecclesiastical history have 
 told them so, believe that what is known to-day as the 
 British Branch of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, 
 was planted in this land, in the Apostolic era, eighteen 
 hundred years ago ! ! 
 
 At the request of many, I have included, among the 
 " Orations," the address which Father Ignatius delivered 
 (by special request), at the close of the May Mission, 1885, 
 upon " The Apparitions at Llanthony ;" and I do so the 
 more readily, because I consider it to be only fair that he 
 .should be read on this subject notwithstanding that, in 
 these unbelieving nineteenth-century days, it is the 
 fashion to treat with levity and ridicule, anything and 
 everything which claims to touch upon the supernatural. 
 
 Having myself visited the spot where the alleged 
 manifestations took place ; and being convinced, as far as 
 one can be under the circumstances, that what has been 
 stated to have been seen by eight persons, at various times, 
 could not, from the configuration of the ground, and for 
 other sufficient reasons, have been caused by artificial means 
 (as has been suggested), I confess that I should be very 
 glad if the invitation, or challenge, which Father Ignatius
 
 Introduction. xxvii. 
 
 gives, to have the matter sifted, to the bottom, could be 
 accepted. 
 
 It will be seen in the oration on this subject, that the 
 Rev. Father invites the formation of a committee to in- 
 vestigate the evidence of the several witnesses ; and that 
 he naively expresses a preference that such committee, if 
 possible, should be composed of lawyers, who are also 
 atheists. The reason for this, I take it, being that such 
 a subject, at the hands of a combination of this kind, would 
 be more likely to be treated, if not with greater dispas- 
 sion, at any rate, with a very decided prejudice and 
 natural incredulity. 
 
 It is not to be expected that what the monk stands up 
 before his fellow-men, and states calmly and absolutely 
 to be a true account of what he, and seven othei-s, saw, 
 will be generally believed as the ordinary run of people 
 choose to ignore the possibility even, of miracles, in the 
 present day ! But believing Christians, who, of course, 
 must believe in the supernatural, cannot call in question 
 the illimitable power and will of Almighty God, to 
 vouchsafe to man any manifestation that He pleases ; 
 albeit that such manifestation may not altogether accord 
 with their finite preconceptions of what the Infinite 
 should, and would, do. 
 
 At the risk of the ridicule which possibly the suggestion 
 may provoke, it appears to me that to one who has lived 
 the life of devotion to his God which this good man has 
 done, and who has been persecuted, ridiculed and taunted 
 by the world for his " madness " for so doing it is not 
 altogether unnatural that his life of faith and suffering 
 should have received a special, supernatural recognition 
 from on High.
 
 xxviii. Introduction. 
 
 Readers of the story may do well to think twice before 
 they reject, as a fabrication, and therefore as a " blas- 
 phemous imposture," the united testimony of the several 
 witnesses who testify to having seen these apparitions in 
 the Monastery Church, and in the Abbot's meadow at 
 Llanthony, in August and September 1880. 
 
 Although the consideration of the monastic side of Father 
 Ignatius' life is altogether foreign to the object in view 
 in the publication of these sermons, I feel that these 
 introductory remarks of mine would be incomplete, did I 
 not refer to his attempt to revive the Monastic Order of 
 S. Benedict in the Church of England. 
 
 To human eyes, most certainly, the attempt made by 
 Father Ignatius, during a period of twenty-five years, to 
 restore monasticism in our Church, not only has not been 
 a success, but is, apparently, a dismal failure. 
 
 But who shall gauge the effects of the -first strivings of 
 this single-hearted, single-handed Christian soldier in his 
 career of following out, to the letter, that which, in spite 
 of all opposition, he believed, and believes, to be God's 
 will that he should do and suffer for His glory, for the 
 good of others, and the welfare of his Mother Church ! 
 
 Whether the life and work of Ignatius the Monk have, 
 in this respect, been really a failure or not, must be left to 
 the future to determine. " God's ways are not as man's 
 ways ;'' and already indications are not wanting that the 
 years of intercessory prayer, and the absolute dedication and 
 subjection, by Joseph Leycester Lyne, of his whole being to 
 the will and service of God, are beginning to show their 
 fruits in unmistakable evidences, in so many directions, 
 in England, of Christian men and women yearning, in
 
 Introduction. xxix. 
 
 various degrees, to live the life of the Cloister. We have 
 had this subject only very recently brought before us in the 
 columns of the Church Review and other religious papers. 
 
 With so many of our London churches comparatively 
 empty ; with the " labourers so few and the harvest so 
 great ;" with the bishops and minor clergy and laity 
 calling for help 011 every side, to try and cope with the 
 mass of sin and ignorance by which we are surrounded 
 I should here have felt it my duty to have humbly made 
 the strongest appeal possible to the chief Pastors of our 
 Church to utilize, in some regular and definite work, in 
 the Church of England, the great spiritual and mental 
 gifts, and the almost matchless power of Father Ignatius 
 as a Mission preacher, did I not know that the monk's 
 obligations to his mo'nastery, unfortunately, (beyond his 
 occasional mission preaching) render this impossible. 
 
 But there is a desire which, in common with so 
 very many English churchmen and churchwomen, I 
 would fain express ; and that is that the holy office of the 
 Priesthood should no longer be withheld from the Rev. 
 Joseph Leycester Lyne, deacon. 
 
 And I would here take the opportunity, in all respect 
 and reverence, to humbly pray His Grace the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, on behalf of thousands of petitioners, to 
 entertain this very natural and earnest prayer. 
 
 When we find not a few upon whom this holy office has 
 been conferred, devoting so much of their time, their 
 energies, their talents and their study to the enjoyment 
 of race-courses, theatres, and other essentially worldly 
 pursuits and amusements, it does seem hard and incon- 
 sistent that one, who was admitted to the diaconate 
 twenty-five years ago, should be denied the priesthood
 
 xxx. Introduction. 
 
 because lie has given up the world entirely and all its 
 pursuits because, in other words, he is a monk ! 
 
 I have, in my possession, a printed copy of a letter, 
 addressed, by Father Ignatius, to the late Bishop of 
 London in 1873, after Bishop Jackson had refused to 
 allow him to officiate in the churches of the diocese of 
 London, on the plea that he was a monk. 
 
 The question which headed the letter was : " May a 
 Monk serve God in the Church of England or not ? " And 
 what its writer had to say to his lordship is so apposite 
 to the question of the deacon's admission to priest's 
 orders, that I feel it right now to give the following 
 extracts from the letter : 
 
 " A Letter to the Bishop of London by Ignatius, the Deacon, and 
 Monk of the Order of S. Benedict. 
 
 "MY LOKD, 
 
 "As you have decided to give me a negative answer to 
 the question that heads this letter, I feel it to be due to the public 
 in general, to the Church of England, in which I was baptized, 
 confirmed, and ordained, and to my own congregations, in particular, 
 to address this letter to you. My object in doing so is this : to show 
 just cause and reason, from God's Word, from Church History, and 
 from the present necessities of the Church of England, why you 
 should rescind the inhibition, by which I am prevented from exer- 
 cising the Gospel Ministry in the churches of your diocese. . . . 
 
 " My Lord, I have a history, as well as any other clergyman in 
 London. There is no mystery whatever connected with my career, 
 or any part of it. I have testimonials as to my moral and religious 
 character to produce, which will enable you to trace me from the 
 present day, back to my early boyhood. 
 
 " If your Lordship, on perusing these letters, should declare that 
 your inhibition casts no imputation upon my character ; then, it 
 either does so upon my orthodoxy, or upon yourself, and you lay
 
 Introduction. xxxi. 
 
 yourself open to the charge of tyranny, and a misuse of your 
 Episcopal power, against a helpless and innocent person. 
 
 " I must, then, in the next place, enter upon the question of 
 orthodoxy. And here I grant, that if your Lordship simply goes 
 by hearsay, yon may condemn me as a Calvinist, because I have 
 very often been falsely accused of holding Calvin's theory of 
 Election. This, however, I beg utterly to repudiate. At the same 
 time, I believe and teach that ' no man can come unto Christ, except 
 the father which hath sent Him draw him.' 
 
 "Again, I have been accused by others of beirg a ' Papist.' This 
 accusation I can also easily disprove. Were I a ' Papist,' I could 
 have rny heart's desire accomplished at once, without any further 
 persecution or labour, viz., that of being a monk in a properly 
 ordered monastery. But I cannot accept the dogma of Papal 
 Infallibility or Supremacy either, I firmly accept and acknowledge 
 the Nicene Creed, as the Universal Church has received it, as the 
 only authorized test of orthodoxy, . . . and I acknowledge the 
 Infallibility of the Bible as the Word of God. . . . Your Lord- 
 ship has plenty of Clergymen in your diocese who do not do this, 
 and yet they continue unmolested in their ministry. I could name 
 the churches in your diocese where fundamental articles of the 
 Christian Religion are not held, but denied; the Clergymen of these 
 churches, your Lordship is bound, by your Consecration Oath, to 
 banish from our midst, as you do myself, who hold the whole truth 
 of the Church's Faith. Why do you not do so ? . . . 
 
 Thus, my Lord, I have now asserted my orthodoxy, and have 
 cleared my character, as a Clergyman of the Church of England, 
 from the implied imputation of heresy, which your Lordship's ban 
 has cast at me. 
 
 " To this your Lordship will probably reply, I do not impugn 
 your morality, or your orthodoxy ; nevertheless, I feel it best, under 
 the ' present circumstances ' of the Church, not to sanction an order 
 of preaching monks or friars. And yet, by tacit approval, an order 
 of preaching heretics, who deny the Infallibility of the Bible, an 
 order of drunken and adulterous Clergy are permitted, and are at 
 thin moment holding benefices, and preaching in the Church of 
 England. By implication, my Lord, you assert that 'monks' are
 
 xxxii. Introduction. 
 
 worse than infidels, drunkards, and adulterers. . . . 'S. 
 Chrysostom ' is a name that appears in the end of the Morning 
 and Evening Services of the Church of England. Who is this 
 S. Chrysostom ? A 'monk.' This S. Chrysostom calls 'Monkery* 
 ' The Divine Philosophy introduced by Christ ; ' further, he states 
 that the life of a monk is the ' life of angels upon earth ! ' ... 
 
 "Your Lordship has also, no donht, objected that Monasticism is 
 part and parcel of Popery. My Lord, S. Chrysostom was not a 
 Papist; the Monks of the early British Church, S. Aidan, S. 
 Columba, &c., were not Papists? ; the Monks of the Eastern 
 Churches were not Papists. Again, my Lord, the first founder of 
 the Church of Canterbury, the first Archbishop of the Church of 
 England, was a canonized Monk. I refer to S. Augustine, the 
 Benedictine Monk. It is the very same rule, that I follow, to which 
 S. Augustine owned allegiance : read it, my Lord, and then say why 
 the Holy Life which it prescribes should render it necessary for 
 you to inhibit one who lives by its sacred precepts. 
 
 " In an interview which your Lordship was condescending enough 
 to grant to me this year at London House, you gave as one of your 
 reasons for not allowing me to preach, that 'the Church of England 
 did not sanction Monastic orders.' Yon might just as well prevent 
 Clergy who were Freemasons from preaching, for the same reason, 
 and rightly too, for the Church of England has never authorized 
 Freemasonry. But, if you recollect, my Lord, I ventured to cor- 
 rect your Lordship when, by a lapsus linguae, you stated that the 
 English Church did not sanction Monastic orders. I showed yon 
 that she does, and had ever done so, in harmony with the teaching 
 of S. Chrysostom and the whole Church of Christ. That, in parti- 
 cular, she had formally authorized the Rule of St. Benedict for the 
 monasteries of England. You attempted to correct, or rather to 
 limit, my statement, by asserting, through another lapsus lingua, 
 that if she sanctioned monasteries before the Reformation, yet at 
 the Reformation she closed them. This strange forgetfulness of 
 history on your Lordship's part astonished me ! The Church of 
 England, at the so-called ' Reformation,' had none to close. The 
 Papal Legate "Wolsey sacrilegiously destroyed twenty monastic 
 houses, and the curse of God came upon him for it. Henry VIII.
 
 Introduction. xxxiii. 
 
 destroyed the rest, not because the Monks were so bad, but because 
 they were so good ; and because, while they stood in the way, his 
 lusts were opposed. . . . 
 
 " We have, then, ascertained thus much : That your Lordship 
 refuses to allow a lawfully ordained Clergyman of the Church of 
 England to exercise his office in your diocese, at the call of a large 
 congregation, not because there is the least stain upon his character, 
 moral or religious, but because he lives the life that is extolled as 
 the very highest, by the chief authorities quoted by the Church of 
 England. . . . 
 
 " The late Bishop of London's inhibition of me was caused by a 
 misunderstanding, and has been removed by him, since he (Dr. 
 Tait) became Archbishop of Canterbury. . . . 
 
 " Dissenters ask me why I do not throw off my allegiance to the 
 Church, as they have done, and stand upon my individual liberty. 
 My answer is simply this, I can only find true liberty within the 
 Church, and, suffer as I may, for my faithfulness to her, I neverthe- 
 less enjoy that which I could not find outside her pale, even the 
 ' answer of a good conscience towards God.' . . . 
 
 " I am, my Lord Bishop of London, 
 
 " Your faithful Servant and Fellow Citizen, 
 (Signed) " BROTHER IGNATIUS, O.S.B., MONK." 
 
 I have, in these Introductory remarks, desired and tried 
 to speak of Father Ignatius, his tenets and his work, with 
 as little partiality as possible ; and to give prominence 
 even to the various (though erroneous) opinions which I 
 am aware are held concerning him and his public teaching. 
 
 And there are two of the latter instances to which I 
 have yet to refer ; the one as to his holding and preaching 
 Calvinistic doctrine, and the other concerning his teaching 
 on the Blessed Sacrament. 
 
 The good Father, in his letter to the late Bishop Jack- 
 son, just quoted, has himself sufficiently repudiated the
 
 xxxiv. Introduction. 
 
 false accusation made against him, that he holds the doc- 
 trine of Calvin; hence I need say nothing further on this 
 subject. 
 
 I may frankly mention, however, that I have heard it 
 stated (oftener, it is true, by those whose prejudices have 
 not even permitted them to go and hear the monk preach, 
 than by those who have heard him) that, if his preaching 
 be not Calvinism, it is a mixture of Calvinism and 
 Romanism ! 
 
 As mountains are sometimes more easily to be moved 
 than prejudice, I have contented myself by replying to 
 such accusers : " Go and hear him." 
 
 But if the accusation be a true one, then was it equally 
 true of the great S. Augustine of Hippo, and happily is 
 true to-day of some of our best and most revered 
 preachers in the Church of England ; who, in common 
 with the Rev. Father Ignatius, hold, teach, and preach 
 to the people, the pure Evangelical faith, backed by 
 Catholic dogma ! 
 
 And to accuse the Rev. Father of preaching against 
 the Saci-aments is only another false accusation against 
 him. It is the abuse of the Sacraments against which 
 he preaches ; not against the Sacraments themselves. 
 No human being living, I venture to say, knows how 
 to and does honour, value, and revere the Blessed 
 Sacrament of the Altar more than the Rev. Father 
 himself; but against the conventionalism, the too 
 common practice of partaking of the Sacrament by 
 people, whose lives are at variance with the sacredness 
 of these Holy Mysteries the earnest, plain-spoken 
 Christian monk, preaches with all the power and spiritual 
 force which have been given him.
 
 Introduction. xxxv. 
 
 The teaching of Father Ignatius concerning the 
 Blessed Sacrament is plainly set forth in the sermons 
 now published. It is briefly this : that he would have 
 those only approach the Holy Table or Altar who have a 
 personal faith in Christ as a personal Saviour. 
 
 In concluding these, I fear, altogether too protracted 
 Introductory remarks, I feel impelled, from all that I know 
 of the Rev. Father Ignatius, and from what I have heard 
 from his lips, both publicly and privately, to express 
 my decided conviction that, of the many good qualities 
 and traits for which he will be remembered, in years to 
 come long after his acknowledged weaknesses shall 
 have been forgotten two very prominent characteristics 
 of this misrepresented and misunderstood Evangelist 
 Monk, will be, his wholesale denunciation of the unreal in 
 Religion, and his staunch loyalty to the Church of his 
 country to that Church, at whose hands he received 
 treatment little short of contumely. 
 
 The following words of loyalty and devotion to his 
 Mother Church with which Father Ignatius closed his 
 Oration on " The Church of England and Disestablish- 
 ment," will fittingly conclude the Introduction to this 
 volume of a few of his Sermons : 
 
 " Let us have the Gospel in the Church of England simply 
 preached and freely offered, and I am sure numbers of outsiders 
 will flock back again to the olden Church. Jesus Christ says to 
 each one of us : ' You shall be witnesses of Me ; ' and if our Church 
 of England be filled with living witnesses of Christ, as an Almighty 
 Saviour, He will take care of the Church of England, and we need 
 fear then no Disestablishment 6r Disendowment either. 
 
 " Our grand old National Church, which has braved the tempests 
 of 1800 years, will brave them still. Jesus is at her helm. Our 
 Mother Church, which has nursed, in her bosom, the Briton and the 
 Koman ; the Saxon and the Dane ; and the stately Norman too
 
 xxxvi. Introduction. 
 
 welding these contrarian races into the one Brotherhood of the 
 English nation ; She will still continue the Great Nursing Mother 
 for Eternity of the succeeding generations of the English. 
 
 She still exists, more fall of life and energy than ever, GOD'S 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED YEARS! 
 
 "An historical phenomenon, indeed, still casting her mighty 
 roots in British hearts as well as on British soil ! 
 
 " Uproot that Church, oh, lovers of Eevolution and Change, if ye 
 can and if ye dare ! A mighty Vengeance of Becompense will 
 overtake you. Truest Liberty will receive a shock to her founda- 
 tions. Our Throne and Constitution must soon pass away, if the 
 Church which created them should cease to be !" 
 
 If, by the publication of this volume, I may be permitted, 
 in any degree, to remove the scales of prejudice and error 
 from the mental eyes of any who may have done the Rev. 
 Joseph Leycester Lyne, deacon, the injustice to impugn 
 his loyalty to the Church of England, or to pronounce his 
 Scripture teaching as schismatic ; and if I may be further 
 allowed to cause it to dawn upon the detractors of Ignatius, 
 the Monk, that second to his Gospel preaching of " Jesus 
 only," his aim and desire is to induce and develop, 
 in the Church of England, a spirit of true Christian sym- 
 pathy a bond of Godly union between Catholics and 
 Evangelicals ; some, at least, of the objects I have had in 
 view will have been gained. 
 
 J. V. SMEDLEY. 
 
 Oxford and Cambridge Club, 
 Pall Mall, S.W. 
 
 October 6th, 1886.
 
 Editor's Preface. 
 
 EDITOR'S PREEACE. 
 
 I desire, in the first place, to take the opportunity of 
 thanking the few kind friends, who, during our West- 
 minster Missions, contributed to the little fund which 
 we raised for meeting the cost of the shorthand notes 
 of these Sermons and Orations ; and to whom we are, 
 therefore, primarily indebted for their publication. 
 
 As all are aware, who have ever had the privilege 
 of attending the Llanthony Missions, Father Ignatius 
 preaches entirely extempore without making any 
 notes even for his sermons. 
 
 Compared with printed matter, derived from MSS. 
 furnished by the preacher himself, the results of even 
 verbatim^ notes of extempore sermons must always fail 
 to do justice to the preacher. But I feel sure that 
 the readers of this volume will make every allowance 
 for such unavoidable defects, inherent to all addresses 
 prepared from shorthand notes. I must, however, 
 commend the stenographer for having, on the whole, 
 I think, very satisfactorily executed his task.
 
 xxxviii. Editor's Preface. 
 
 I have to apologise for the volume not appearing 
 quite so soon as it was originally promised ; but for 
 this delay I must ask forgiveness on the plea that 
 (except perhaps by those who have had a like experi- 
 ence) it would be difficult to realise the amount of hard 
 work and time that the preparation for press, and 
 revision, of the shorthand notes, has entailed upon me ; 
 but I need not say that I assign this reason for the 
 delay, in no spirit whatever of complaint; for "the 
 labour of love " has, throughout, been to me one of 
 exceeding pleasure and privilege. 
 
 I am glad and grateful to be able to state that, 
 although still suffering from great bodily weakness, 
 the Rev. Father has kindly given the final revision, to 
 all the proofs, which his weak state of health would 
 permit ; and though this has delayed the publication 
 of the volume a little longer, I am sure that all will 
 agree with me that it was worth waiting for. 
 
 My thanks are also due to my friend Miss E. C. 
 Phillips, author of " St. Aubyn's Laddie," "Peeps 
 into China," etc., for her kind assistance in supply- 
 ing the foot-note texts to the very many Scripture 
 quotations made by Father Ignatius in his sermons, 
 and for much valuable help rendered in other ways. 
 
 Although, as I have stated in my Introductory 
 remarks, I have endeavoured to select those sermons 
 which w.ould most fairly represent the Gospel
 
 Editor 1 s Preface. xxxix. 
 
 teaching of Father Ignatius, I have also tried to give, 
 in this first series, as many as possible of the Sermons 
 that -were delivered at the October Mission, 1885 
 the first course that I had consecutively taken down. 
 
 To the possible criticisms which may be made by 
 some, concerning a frequent repetition in these 
 sermons, I would remark that such repetition is un- 
 avoidable, inasmuch as every sermon, preached by 
 the Father, even when composing one of a course, is, 
 as regards the Gospel Message, which he comes to 
 deliver, complete in itself. It will even be seen that 
 in his Orations, also, Father Ignatius does not fail 
 prominently to introduce the Gospel Message. 
 
 Our book has assumed much larger proportions 
 than was originally proposed, the number of pages 
 being nearer five hundred than three hundred. 
 
 Feeling sure also that a portrait of Father Ignatius 
 would lend additional interest and value to the 
 volume, I have supplied it. 
 
 Those who have ordered copies of this work before 
 publication, so as to kindly assist in meeting its cost, 
 will be interested to know that as far as can at 
 present be seen such orders will have met nearly 
 one-half of the sum required. 
 
 I may say that no responsibility of any kind has 
 been incurred by the Rev. Father Ignatius ; but after 
 the cost of the volume has been discharged, by the
 
 xl. Editor's Preface. 
 
 ready sale which, please God, I trust it may have, I 
 look forward to the pleasure of having it in my power 
 to hand the profits to the Eev. Father to assist in 
 meeting the heavy expenses of holding his Missions 
 a thank-offering, in token of my own personal grati- 
 tude to, and loving reverence for, him. 
 
 I need scarcely remind even the most thoughtless 
 that one of a monk's privileges is to be absolutely 
 unendowed. 
 
 It is hoped that a quick sale of this book 
 may enable me shortly to reproduce these Sermons 
 and Orations in a cheaper form, in order that the 
 poor, as well as the rich, may have the privilege of 
 reading them. 
 
 Just before going to press, the characteristic lines^ 
 which will be found on the opposite page, were 
 received by me from Father Ignatius. 
 
 J. V. S.
 
 Editor's Preface. 
 
 t 
 
 onlg. 
 
 To THE READER, 
 
 The following pages, are, from a literary 
 point of view, entirely unworthy of perusal. 
 
 The critic will find ample room for his work. 
 
 Wholly extempore addresses read but poorly. The 
 tone, manner, and action of the speaker, may add 
 some interest to his words which, apart from these, 
 are worse than meagre and poor. 
 
 The ONLY merit of these discourses is that they are 
 full of the Bread of Life, " Jesus," as an egg is full of 
 meat ; and as Grod blesses the weak and foolish 
 things of this world to His Praise, He can bless even 
 this poor book to the Salvation and joy of many a 
 poor, tired, sinful soul. 
 
 IGNATIUS OF JESUS, O.S.B., 
 
 Monk. 
 
 LLANTHONY ABBEY, 
 
 ABERGAVENNY, 
 October, 1886.
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 125, line 3 from top, read " messengers " for 
 " millions." 
 
 Page 207, line 5 from bottom, read " ccenaculum " for 
 " canaculum."
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 glisswit Sermons. 
 
 I. PAGE. 
 
 JONAH'S MISSION TO NINEVEH 1 
 
 II. 
 
 JESUS CHRIST AND THE BRAZEN SERPENT 19 
 
 III. 
 JESUS CHRIST, THE LIVING BREAD .. 37 
 
 IV. 
 JESUS CHRIST, THE MERCHANTMAN 55 
 
 V. 
 JESUS CHRIST, THE KING'S SON 71 
 
 VI. 
 
 JESUS CHRIST, THE GOOD SHEPHERD 89 
 
 VII. 
 JESUS AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS 107 
 
 VIII. 
 
 JESUS CHRIST, THE SABBATH OF GOD 135 
 
 IX. 
 
 ON THE RESULTS OF THE MISSION ; OR, " THE GREAT PROMISE 
 
 FULFILLED" 155 
 
 X. 
 
 JESUS CHRIST AND THE ARK OF NOAH 173 
 
 XI. 
 JESUS AT BETHANY : SCENE AT THE END OF THE MISSION ... 199
 
 xliv. Contents. 
 
 to Christians. 
 
 XII. PAGE. 
 
 THE LORD'S DAY 219 
 
 XIII. 
 THE LORD'S CROSS 239 
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE LORD'S MOTHER 253 
 
 XV. 
 
 JEHOVAH-JIREH 273 
 
 (Orations. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 VALIDITY OF ORDERS AND SACRAMENTS IN THE CHURCH OF 
 
 ENGLAND 297 
 
 XVII. 
 
 THE PROTESTANT CHURCH : WHAT is IT ? 321 
 
 XVIII. 
 RITUALISM : THE GOOD IT HAS DONE, AND THE HARM IT HAS 
 
 DONE 339 
 
 XIX. 
 
 WHY WERE THE MONASTERIES OF ENGLAND DESTROYED ? ... 371 
 XX. 
 
 THE APPARITIONS AT LLANTHONY (by special request) 391 
 
 AND 
 INTRODUCTORY PRAYERS.
 
 I. 
 
 Jf0na|j's UJission: to flt 
 
 SPECIAL PRELIMINARY ADDRESS TO CHRISTIANS ON THE 
 MISSION. 
 
 Sunday Morning, October 18th, 1885.
 
 foitalr's tltisstmt to 
 
 Prayer before Sermon. 
 
 O God, we believe in Thee. We believe that Thou art just. 
 We believe that Thou hast revealed Thyself to us by the face 
 of Thine own Incarnate Son Jesus Christ, and we now find 
 that we are indeed as ignorant as little children. But we 
 come before Thee, at this time, to be taught of Thee ; for we 
 can never know anything about Thee unless Thou Thyself 
 wilt teach us. 
 
 Thou hast made our hearts to hunger after Thee, and Thou 
 hast made us to realise that there is a void within us which 
 nothing but Thou canst fill. Oh ! how our hearts adore Thee 
 because Thou hast not remained cold and silent towards us, 
 but hast sympathized with us, and hast given us Jesus to be 
 our Prophet and our Priest. 
 
 And Thou hast taught our hearts, by the power of the Holy 
 Ghost, to believe, and we believe Thy Word, and that it is a 
 living Word. We believe that it is an Almighty Word, a 
 satisfying Word ; we believe that it is a comfortable Word, 
 a peaceful Word; we believe that it is a loving Word, and we 
 believe also that it is the Word of an Almighty God. 
 
 Please look upon us, Father in the all-powerful Name 
 of Jesus Christ we plead before Thee and consecrate us
 
 Prayer before Sermon. 
 
 during this week with Thy Spirit's power. Thou hast 
 promised power to those that believe in Thee power to wipe 
 away the cobwebs of unbelief, of materialism and rationalism 
 from the hearts of men ; and may Thy power now come down 
 and so touch the hearts of men, and influence their lives, that 
 they may become bright, shining lights, for Thy Glory, in the 
 midst of " an evil and adulterous generation."* 
 
 O Father, make this a mighty " place of business " this 
 week, and let us all be good " business men," in earnest about 
 the tremendous work of eternity. Heavenly Father, help me 
 to realise that I am speaking to dying men, who have only a 
 few short moments to stop in this world, and the story of 
 whose work will be but as a dream, that is passed, when they 
 shall stand in the presence of their God and of infinite eternity. 
 
 Help me to help them to realise this reality, that they may 
 " make their calling and election sure."f I know the diffi- 
 culties that are in my way the difficulties of sin, of unbelief, 
 of the world, and of the power of evil spirits ; but Thou art 
 mightier than them all, and we believe that Thy Word is 
 Almighty like Thyself, and therefore with good courage we 
 will preach it. 
 
 Only do Thou anoint both preacher and people with Thy 
 Holy Spirit, that the blessed results promised in Thy Word 
 may come to pass in us, and that many may " go out with joy, 
 and be led forth with peace "J before the mission shall end. 
 
 O God, grant that many who may hear me this week may 
 have cause to bless the occasion when they entered into our 
 assembly ; grant that many may pass " from darkness to light, 
 and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive 
 in this place forgiveness of their sins, and inheritance among 
 them which are sanctified by faith." 
 
 Father, for Jesus Christ, His sake, hear our prayer. Amen. 
 
 * St. Matt. xii. 39. J Isaiah Iv. 12. 
 
 t 2 Peter i. 10. Acts xxvi. 18.
 
 Jonah's Mission to Nineveh. 
 
 11 JONAH'S MISSION TO NINEVEH." 
 
 SPECIAL PRELIMINARY ADDRESS TO CHRISTIANS ON THE 
 MISSION. 
 
 " Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the 
 preaching that I bid thee." Jonah iii. 2. 
 
 It strikes me, beloved brethren, that this exhort- 
 ation is very necessary to the ministers of God at the 
 present day, when we have so much of rationalism 
 and materialism to contend with, and when there are 
 very many among ourselves who think it best not 
 to preach the Gospel in its simplicity, but to try 
 to suit it to the age in which we live ; when the 
 Gospel, in its simplicity, is considered a kind of insult 
 to the intellect of man, which has now reached 
 such a pitch of refinement and progress. 
 
 And what is the consequence of this ? The con- 
 sequence is that God's Word, preached to suit the 
 day, falls flat and does but little of the good that it 
 might do ; and, with a vast amount of rhetoric and 
 oratory, with a vast amount of philosophic argument 
 and metaphysical reasoning added to it, it brings 
 but few results to the hearts and lives of men, whose 
 hearts are not reached and therefore whose lives are
 
 6 Preliminary Address to Christians. 
 
 not profited : for all the philosophy of the brain and 
 the mind cannot influence the heart and the life. 
 
 But when Christ is lifted up in the old-fashioned, 
 simple way in which the apostles and early saints 
 lifted Him up, then men are drawn to accept and to 
 profit by that wonderful love of which they are told ; 
 feeling it to be, at all events, something worth having, 
 if they can only obtain it. 
 
 So I would call attention to my text, and to the 
 story from which it is taken, because we have there 
 a very similar position, on the part of God's servant, 
 to that which God's people occupy at the present day. 
 
 Poor Jonah was flesh and blood, the same as you and 
 I are ; poor Jonah was a matter-of-fact sort of person, 
 judging from the little we learn of him ; but, when the 
 Spirit of God moved his heart and conscience to go 
 to Nineveh, he knew that he was commanded, by the 
 Lord, to convey a message. 
 
 And mark, my brethren : that message was a very 
 unpalatable message ; it was an unreasonable sort of 
 message to be delivered to the great city the greatest 
 city of the civilized world at the time. Jonah was to 
 tell the people of that mighty city that if they did not 
 repent and turn to the God of Israel, their city should 
 be overthrown in forty days ! On the face of it, this 
 would seem to be a most ridiculous thing to do, and 
 was most absurd from a humanist's point of view.
 
 Jonah' 's Mission to Nineveh. 
 
 Just consider for a moment what the position of 
 Jonah was ! He was a member of the despised tribe 
 of Israelites ; a people taken, as captives, into Assyria, 
 and whose name had become a by-word among the 
 nations ; and their peculiar opinions upon religion 
 were ridiculed by the philosophers of the world, by 
 the schools of the West, by the pantheists, with their 
 metaphysical subtleties, and by the Buddhists, with their 
 philosophical and peculiar casuistries ; for even if you 
 speak to the followers of Buddha at the present day, 
 you will find them very clever fellows indeed. 
 
 They are clever philosophers and well-read meta- 
 physicians ; and it was because the religion of the 
 Buddhist did not ask human nature to believe any 
 thing that it could not square, in the same way as a 
 Cambridge wrangler would square a mathematical 
 problem, that it flourished and numbers, at the present 
 day, 500 million followers. 
 
 Now look at the position of Jonah, who is sent with 
 an apparently ridiculous message from a ridiculed 
 God ! Belonging to a despised nation, he is, as far as 
 we know, totally unprepared, from an educational 
 point of view, to have any influence with this great 
 city the gigantic city of Nineveh, to walk through 
 which it took three days. 
 
 Imagine what that immense city was like ! It 
 stood upon the Tigris, and was crowded with the
 
 8 Preliminary Address to Christians. 
 
 merchandise, the wealth, and the power of the East ; 
 and we can well imagine the influence which Nineveh 
 had among the nations of the world ! Surely she sat 
 as a queen upon the bosom of the royal stream, on the 
 shores of which her palaces and quays were built : 
 yea, like the lordly stream which washed her quays, 
 she sat a queen among the nations. 
 
 And Jonah, a despised Israelite, is told to go to 
 that great city and not to preach what he pleases : 
 mark that ! but to preach what God tells him. 
 
 And the message which God told him to deliver was 
 only calculated to give offence and to make him 
 appear ridiculous in the eyes of the people of Nineveh; 
 and if they had had any lunatic asylums in those 
 days, probably the first impulse of the people would 
 have been to take him to one. For he is to tell them 
 that their great city of wealth, of power, philosophy, 
 and art, whose philosophical academies comprised the 
 learning of the world, will be overthrown in forty 
 days if they do not turn to the despised God of the 
 despised children of Israel. 
 
 And what is the power that will be put to work to 
 overthrow the city of Nineveh ? Will it be that some 
 marvellous tide will sweep up the Tigris, from the 
 sea, and submerge, in the depths of its waters, the 
 city, its palaces, its temples, and its market-places ? 
 Or will it be that some unknown storm will sweep
 
 Jonah's Mission to Nineveh. 9 
 
 over the eastern plains, carrying all before it, and the 
 gigantic city shall pass away ? Or shall the earth 
 open her mouth and swallow it up ? V^liat shall be the 
 power and what the manner, what the catastrophe, 
 or what the cataclysm, by which this strange wonder, 
 the destruction of Nineveh, shall be accomplished ? 
 
 Thus may Jonah have reasoned and have tried to get 
 away from this, as I said (humanly speaking), absurd 
 mission, and he struggled with the Spirit of God ; but 
 It proved too strong for him, and he went to Nineveh. 
 
 And, dear brethren, what do you think must have 
 been Jonah's one single consolation ? He believed 
 that God had spoken to him, he believed that God 
 was Almighty, and that God's power would accompany 
 him on his journey I 
 
 He had learnt from his cradle upwards, at an Israel- 
 itish mother's knee, to believe that God had brought 
 his forefathers out of the land of Egypt, in spite of 
 the powers of Pharaoh and his hosts ; that God had 
 led His people triumphantly through the tide of the 
 Red Sea, swept by the mighty gales, fresh from the 
 sAveetness of God's own hand, on either side leaving a 
 firm dry passage in the deep; and how that, when 
 their foes had come down from the western hills, with 
 a mighty crash the waters had fallen back and over- 
 whelmed the enemies and the foemen of the Lord. 
 
 He knew how that God had watched over His
 
 io Preliminary Address to Christians. 
 
 people, amid all the intricacies of their wanderings 
 in the Arabian peninsula; how, that His strong 
 arm had supplied their wants in the desert, and had 
 guarded each one of the thousands of pilgrims towards 
 the land of promise ; he knew how when they thirsted 
 He had opened up waters for them from the rock, 
 and when they hungered had caused manna to fall 
 and quails to feed His people. 
 
 Jonah believed, too, that when Anialek had come 
 out against the children of Israel, with all his mighty 
 hosts, God had hearkened to His people's prayer, and 
 down from the Heavens had swept his Mighty Powers 
 upon the hosts of Amalek ; so that ere the sun had 
 sunk down in the west, Israel had won the victory by 
 the power of the Lord of Hosts. 
 
 All these stories he had learnt, and he believed that it 
 was the God who is " the same yesterday, and to-day, 
 and for ever "* who had now given him the message to 
 convey ; and although he shrank from the Mission to 
 Nineveh, this knowledge was his consolation. 
 
 And we can picture Jonah entering into Nineveh. 
 He, no doubt, went a long way into the city before he 
 summoned up courage to begin the delivery of his 
 message. He must ha,ve walked miles to get into the 
 centre of the city ; for " Nineveh was an exceeding 
 great city of three days' journey. "t 
 
 * Heb. xiii. 8. t Jonah iii. 3.
 
 Jonah's Mission to Nineveh. 
 
 Just suppose, now, that he began right away at 
 Shepherd's Bush, and imagine him, about three o'clock 
 in the afternoon, on the steps of the Royal Exchange ! 
 The hum and the bustle of human, commercial life is 
 going on all around ; the throbbing of the fevered 
 pulse of business is just at its highest pitch ; men 
 are hurrying backwards and forwards and to and fro, 
 when, all at once, the weird, strange-looking, foreign 
 prophet springs up, amid the crowd of wondering 
 men, and delivers his message : " YET FORTY DAYS, 
 AND [LONDON] SHALL BE OVERTHROWN !"* 
 
 How long do you suppose he would stop there, 
 on the steps of the Koyal Exchange ? He would be 
 told to " move on," no doubt. But would he be 
 "moved on " by the police ? No, brethren, he would 
 not! The police of Nineveh, in the past, were as 
 strong as the police of London are at present ; but all 
 their human force stood powerless before the mandate 
 of the Mighty Powers from another world ; and ere a 
 single hand could have reached the prophet, as the 
 forces of this world were crying " Move on !" deep 
 down in the hearts of the crowd the Powerful, Imperious 
 Command of God would have cried " STAND BACK ! " 
 
 And Nineveh stood back, and the despised Hebrew 
 went forth, with his mission, and proclaimed : " YET 
 
 FORTY DAYS, AND NlNEVEH SHALL BE OVERTHROWN."* 
 * Jonah iii. 4.
 
 1 2 Preliminary Address to Christians. 
 
 He did not water down the message ; he did not 
 attempt to suit it to this or that particular school of 
 thought, for he knew that it was the message of God, 
 and he trusted in the might of Him Who sent the Word. 
 
 And what was the consequence ? As the evening 
 shades were lengthening o'er the mighty city, as the 
 moonlight danced upon the waters of the Tigris, as 
 the calm of night stole over the towers and domes 
 of that eastern town, as the places of business were 
 closing and the quays (crowded with bales of mer- 
 chandise) were becoming deserted, the vespers of 
 Nineveh were heard, chanted with a moan of anguish 
 from the heart of a prostrate people. 
 
 For the story which Jonah had told had passed from 
 mouth LO mouth, that the King of Nineveh had come 
 down from his throne to fast and weep ; and each in- 
 quired of each if they had heard the strange tale with 
 which the foreign visitor was bewitching the people ; 
 and, from the greatest to the least, Nineveh heard 
 the Word of God and put on sackcloth and ashes ! 
 So the evil was turned away, and the message of love 
 won the victory, because it was the message of God. 
 
 Just as firmly as Jonah believed the message he 
 conveyed was Almighty, because it was the message 
 of God, so do we Christians, who profess the name of 
 Christ, believe in the Power of the Crucified, Divine 
 Eedeemer.
 
 Jonah' s Mission to Nineveh. 13 
 
 I speak not of those who are accounted wise by the 
 world, but of those Christians I speak who, as little 
 children, have come to Christ, Who Himself said that 
 His Word has been " hid from the wise and prudent 
 and revealed unto babes."* I speak of those Christians 
 who have had the courage to come to Christ, of those 
 Christians who believe in the Gospel message, that 
 Jesus Christ is God Almighty ; that Jesus Christ, the 
 Carpenter of Nazareth, shed His Blood to save the 
 world from an eternal hell. 
 
 But, you know, they say to-day that hell is not 
 eternal. But if hell be not eternal, then Heaven is 
 not eternal ; if there be no eternal hell, there is no 
 eternal Heaven. 
 
 I preach the simple, old-fashioned Gospel message, 
 and the Peace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord ; 
 and all the rubbish of sectarian controversy, and all 
 the differences of party and the wranglings of sects, 
 are set aside ; and I ask all Christians, whether they 
 be Catholic or Protestant, to rally around me at this 
 mission, and help me to hold up that Mighty Christ 
 as the Bread of God, which feeds and satisfies the hearts 
 and souls of sinful men. 
 
 And so this mission is just for one very simple object ; 
 and that is, to lift up Jesus Christ. 
 
 You see we have rather a small congregation this 
 
 * St. Matt. zi. 25.
 
 14 Preliminary Address to Christians. 
 
 morning, but I know that people will come, for they 
 always do as the mission goes on; and as we lift up 
 Christ He will draw men's hearts to Him. 
 
 Last spring, in this hall, we had Roman Catholics 
 converted not to Protestantism, for I should be very 
 sorry to see a Roman Catholic turn Protestant, very 
 sorry but converted to Christ. A Roman Catholic 
 told me, as I was going out of the hall, one day 
 and I shall never forget the look upon his face as he 
 spoke how he had learnt to trust Jesus, and how he 
 had found the Bread of God to feed his aching, hungry 
 soul. He was a Roman Catholic I am not, and I 
 never shall be. 
 
 But I have had Dissenters, too, take my hand and 
 speak in just the same way, knowing, at the time, that 
 I was nothing but the earthen vessel, the vile dust, 
 which the Almighty Power of God had chosen to use, 
 simply, perhaps, because I was despised and nothing, 
 knowing that He could make more use of me than of 
 those whom the world " delighteth to honour." 
 
 And so English Catholics and Protestants, Roman 
 Catholics and Dissenters, found the Divine joy and 
 gladness of a knowledge of Christ, even in this very 
 hall, last spring. 
 
 And now He is going to enter this place again. 
 And He is going to consecrate it by the visitation of 
 His Holy Spirit. He says : " Take no thought how
 
 Jonah's Mission to Nineveh. 15 
 
 or what ye shall speak : for it shall be given you "* 
 and I know it will be given to me and that, just as 
 Jonah's mission, in a large way, was successful, so 
 my mission, in its little way, will be successful, too ; and 
 I shall send many men and women back to their homes 
 and their neighbours and their struggles and their 
 trials, in this great modern Babylon, going forth as 
 " children of light and of the day ; "f and, where- 
 ever they move, their pathways shall be like radiant 
 tracks of glory from the light world of the Presence 
 of their God : yea, they shall be children of the light ; 
 and they shall not be ashamed to testify to the love 
 and power of Jesus, Who has filled their hearts to 
 overflowing. 
 
 No man, who does not himself believe, can realise 
 the wonderful gift that the saints of God possess. 
 Those who are saved can tell, generally speaking, 
 when a man is God's child and when he is a child of the 
 world. " He that is spiritual is judged of no man," J and 
 no man can judge him ; but he can judge if others are 
 God's children or not. Directly a man gets up to 
 speak I do not care whether it be in a Catholic 
 church or in a Protestant conventicle if he be endowed 
 with the Holy Ghost, all believers will be able to tell 
 that he is sent from God; for they will hear his voice 
 as that of the Good*Shepherd. 
 
 * St. Matt. x. 19. f 1 Thess. v. 5. J l Cor - 15 -
 
 1 6 Preliminary Address to Christians. 
 
 Do you know Christ, and that in Jesus is eternal 
 life ? This is the question I have to ask of you. Dear 
 Christian brethren, may you "take knowledge" of me 
 that I "have been with Jesus ;"* pray that I may say 
 and do nothing" contrary to His will, so that I may 
 draw people to His feet ; and that in this place, this 
 week, it may be said of many : " You are the people 
 of the living God." 
 
 And then, when the mission shall be at an end, we 
 shall find that many a rationalistic unbeliever, and 
 many a one, hitherto tied up and bound by the fetters 
 of unbelief and infidelity, shall have been set free, 
 and shall have passed " into the glorious liberty of 
 the children of God."t 
 
 This shall be the effort of the mission ; and this is 
 the only effort that we ask God to bless ; and on 
 Sunday morning next, if it please God that I shall be 
 here and I trust that I may be we shall see the 
 promise fulfilled : They " shall go out with joy, and 
 be led forth with peace."! 
 
 And our profession is not only a profession for the 
 future, for Christ loves you to-day ; and to those who 
 receive Him, in His fulness, as God's gift individually 
 to them, the promise is made to-day : They " shall 
 go out with joy, and be led forth with peace."| 
 
 * Acts iv. 13. t Romans viii. 21. J Isaiah Iv. 12.
 
 J-onatis Mission to Nineveh. 1 7 
 
 I see that among my congregation there are many 
 Catholics I can tell this by the way in which they 
 make the triumphant sign of the cross; but supposing 
 some of these should not be Christian Catholics, and 
 should never yet have entered into the peace of God, 
 by trusting Jesus as their very own Saviour, shall I 
 be doing them any harm if I send them back to the 
 midst of their religious observances, with hearts alive 
 with the love of One Who will illuminate their ritual, 
 and their worship, with a reality without which it is 
 but a dead form ? 
 
 Oh Protestant brother, without Jesus your Protes- 
 tantism is but an outward form, which I ask you to 
 put aside for a season, and to come and stand side by 
 side with me, and help me to proclaim the glad Gos- 
 pel tidings ! 
 
 So Christian Catholic, with your ornamental dis- 
 play, and Christian Protestant, with your unorna- 
 mental display, come and walk hand in hand together 
 to this work; and may God grant that our work here, 
 this week, may be totally unsectarian and to the glory 
 of Jesus ; and may the Lord bless very many, and 
 make them willing to help in the lifting up of a com- 
 mon Christ ! 
 
 Catholic, what is it that you set up upon your 
 altar ? It is the Image of the Crucifix. Protes-
 
 1 8 Prelim in a ry A d dress to Ch r is t ia n s . 
 
 tant brother, what Name do you profess by which to 
 win souls ? It is that of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Let us both join together to show a mocking world, 
 outside, what our Christ is. Let us show that our 
 religion is one of love ; and that, although our outward 
 forms are totally different, we can meet together to 
 exalt a common Christ ; and let us conspire to show 
 that Jesus lives to-day, that He lives and moves in 
 the hearts and minds of His own beloved people, and 
 speaks with their lips and looks through their eyes. 
 
 Hence, other men will "take knowledge" of us 
 that we " have been with Jesus ;"* and Jesus " is 
 alive for evermore." 
 
 And so, as we go forward on the blessed mission of 
 lifting up Christ, we shall be "laying up treasure" in 
 Heaven to place at His dear Feet " in that day when 
 He makes up His jewels."t 
 
 Acts iv. 13. t Mai. iii. 17.
 
 II. 
 Jesus Cljrisi aittt % graven Serpent 
 
 ^flisoton Jiexrmon. 
 
 Sunday Afternoon, October 18th, 1885.
 
 Cjrnst aitfr 
 
 Prayer before Sermon. 
 
 God, Almighty Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, bless the 
 people. Help them to listen to Thy Word. Bless me and 
 help me to speak with the power of Thy Holy Spirit so that 
 Jesus Christ may, not only be lifted up but may, be looked 
 upon and trusted, and received, and taken into the hearts of 
 many here present, as Thy free Gift to them this day ; so 
 that many who came in here, without Christ, may go out 
 under the influence of His power, and trusting in His promise, 
 " I am with you always."* 
 
 Let the power of the Holy Spirit be manifested in our 
 midst, and grant that many may "go out" (from this place) 
 "with joy, and be led forth with peace."f Grant this, 
 Heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, Thy Son our Lord. 
 Amen. 
 
 * St. Matt, xxviii. 20. f Isaiah Iv. 12.
 
 22 Mission Sorvion. 
 
 "JESUS CHRIST AND THE BRAZEN 
 SERPENT." 
 
 fHtggion Sermon. 
 
 " And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must 
 the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in 
 Him should not perish, but have eternal life." St. John iii. 
 14 and 15. 
 
 Does it not often strike very many of us, beloved 
 brethren, when we hear sermons preached, that many 
 of the preachers do not believe what they are preaching? 
 Does it not often strike us that a very large number 
 of those who profess to be Christians do not believe 
 the Bible any more than those who utterly and 
 entirely deny it ? We see, plainly and distinctly, 
 that of sermons that are preached there are far more 
 which have no effect upon men's hearts and lives 
 than of those which do have an effect upon them. 
 How do you account for this ? 
 
 People come and tell you they are disappointed, 
 and that Christianity and the Bible seem to have no 
 power over them. 
 
 What is the meaning of all this seeming failure on 
 the part of this preaching to the people at large ?
 
 es us Christ and the Brazen Serpent. 23 
 
 What is the meaning of it ? Do you not think, if 
 you look very quietly and calmly, and in a matter-of- 
 fact, practical way, into the matter, that it is this : 
 We have now, in our midst, a Christianity that is made 
 up of such an enormous amount of ritual and out- 
 ward formality and dogmatism, that the majority of 
 preachers to the people have lost sight of the original 
 Message of God to a dying world ? 
 
 When the Gospel was sent at first it was sent not 
 to organised Churches, for there were then none in 
 existence but it was sent just as a simple message to 
 a world which was lying in misery and sin. Men 
 were groping in darkness and endeavouring to find 
 something to satisfy the hungerings of their nature. 
 
 Human nature had tried to right itself; civilisation, 
 art and science had done their best, and they were only 
 failures nay, they were worse than failures, for they 
 made men wise; who became worse and worse, instead 
 of better and better. In fact man developed into a 
 mere intellectual animal. 
 
 Civilisation and enlightenment were utterly useless 
 so far as feeding the souls of men was concerned, and 
 utterly iiseless, too, to satisfy the cravings of man's 
 inner being. Then there came a Voice, with a 
 Message, and it was just the Message contained in the 
 words following our text : " God so loved the world, 
 that He gave His Only Begotten Son, that whoso-
 
 24 Mission Sermon. 
 
 ever believeth in Him should not perish, but have 
 everlasting life."* 
 
 The verj instant a man is willing to accept Christ, 
 with the hand of simple trust, by taking Him at His 
 own Word and thus coming to Him, that instant he is 
 accepted, for he has come to the Saviour who has 
 said : " Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast 
 out."t 
 
 It is so very simple. " God so loved the world " 
 that He gave His only begotten Son to die for it ; 
 and anyone who accepts Christ accepts God's rest 
 and enters into His peace. 
 
 But instead of this being preached, it is directly or 
 indirectly put on one side, or covered up with such an 
 enormous amount of externals I do not care whether 
 they be Protestant or Catholic there is such an 
 amount of system introduced into the preaching of 
 the Gospel, that the Message is not heard at all. 
 
 The strife of tongues and the wranglings of sects 
 drown the sound of God's Message of Peace and 
 Love ; and, instead of the quietude of His great calm, 
 there is war and strife, there is noise and distraction 
 and unrest. 
 
 In our text our blessed Lord tells His messengers 
 what they are to lift up. It is Jesus. And He tells 
 
 * St. John iii. 16. t St. John vi. 37.
 
 Jesus Christ and the Brazen Serpent. 25 
 
 them how He is to be lifted up " as Moses lifted up 
 the serpent in the wilderness."* 
 
 Moses lifted up the brazen serpent at God's com- 
 mand, that whosoever had been bitten by the fiery 
 serpents, and then gazed upon it, might live. No 
 matter how deep the poison might have been in his 
 veins, the promise was, that if he looked at that 
 serpent, he should live. It must have seemed a most 
 absurd piece of intelligence for intelligent men (such 
 as the Israelites and the Egyptians were at that time) 
 to receive. Egypt was the nursery of human science 
 and human philosophy, and the learning of the Egyp- 
 tians was nothing at which to sneer ; and to tell them 
 this seemingly absurd story ^ regarding the lifting up 
 of the brazen serpent, was only calculated to provoke 
 their laughter. 
 
 But God said to Moses : " Take the serpent of 
 brass, where the people can see it, and put the 
 serpent of brass on a pole, and anyone who gazes on 
 that serpent, if he be bitten, shall live." God set 
 Moses to lift up this piece of brass in the sight of all 
 the injured ones ; and we know that everyone who 
 looked at it lived. 
 
 God says now that there is to be no noise, no argu- 
 ment about His Message, no concessions to the demands 
 of human wisdom, no softening down of the Message ; 
 
 * St. John iii. 14.
 
 26 Mission Sermon. 
 
 but His preachers are to tell the people : " Here is a 
 Crucified Jew Who is the Creator of the universe, Who 
 is Almighty God, Who has taken our nature upon Him, 
 in order to know our needs and to pay our debts, that 
 we may have eternal life and pardon from sin ; and 
 His preachers are to proclaim that whosoever will look 
 up to the Cross of Christ, with a simple/trustful love 
 and accept His eternal love, righteousness, pardon, joy, 
 peace, and holiness are, directly they look, inheritors of 
 His Everlasting Life ; and He declares that "they shall 
 never perish, and no man shall pluck them out of His 
 hand."* 
 
 This is what we are to tell to the people. We know 
 that it is a thoroughly unphilosophical mode of teach- 
 ing them. It is the old, primitive Gospel Message, 
 which we are to preach at the present day. But the 
 nineteenth-century Christian takes all kinds of excep- 
 tions to this Gospel, by which the supernatural in the 
 Gospel becomes " smaller by degrees," and " beauti- 
 fully less," in the lives, and hearts, and minds of the 
 congregations of the present day. 
 
 And yet I have never known anyone look up to 
 Christ who has not gone away satisfied ; and whose life 
 has not been totally changed, because he knew that his 
 sins were blotted out and his debt was paid, and he 
 
 * St. John x. 28.
 
 Jesus Christ and the Brazen Serpent. 27 
 
 had " the witness of the Holy Spirit bearing witness 
 with his spirit, that he is the child of God."* 
 
 What is it that produces this wonderful change in 
 the hearts of men wherever Christ is lifted up ? It is 
 the power of God it can be no other. You can 
 explain that change on no other hypothesis. 
 
 And this is the simple promise that God has attached 
 to the preaching of His Holy Word : " It shall not 
 return unto Me void."f 
 
 NOAV, just for a moment, I will refer to the picture 
 which God depicts in the text. Doubtless it was a 
 usual custom of the Israelites, after their day's march, 
 in the desert waste, to gradually form their streets of 
 tents on the burning, sandy plain. As far as the eye 
 could reach there was nothing but a vast expanse of 
 burning sand, and as the sun sank in the west, and 
 the moon rose over the distant mountains, of the 
 Arabian peninsula, what a strange scene would be 
 presented to the eye ! 
 
 All at once a vast city, as far as the eye can reach, 
 springs up : it is a city of tents. The women, in the 
 tents, are preparing for the evening meal, the men 
 and children, in the streets of canvas, are talking over 
 the news of the camp, the difficulties of the way, which 
 difficulties must have been countless and gigantic in 
 the extreme ; for many a time, in their desert journey, 
 * Rom. viii. 16. t Isaiah Iv. 11.
 
 28 Mission Sermon, 
 
 the people must have hungered, and many a time 
 they must have thirsted and craved for water. There 
 was plenty about which to talk in those canvas streets. 
 
 And no doubt, when the people had done talking 
 of the difficulties and the wanderings of the way, 
 they would begin to recount tales of the luxuries of 
 the Nile banks, whence they came, and to tell of the 
 shadows that the vines and pomegranates in Egypt 
 threw upon the pathways, by the side of the delicious 
 streams of water the tributaries of the Nile. 
 
 In the desert waste the Israelites were a lonely 
 nation in the world ; and many of them may have 
 longed to get back to the security of the land that 
 they had left ; and then, no doubt, they thought that 
 they were foolish to go on such a reckless journey; and 
 they complained against God and against Moses, His 
 servant. 
 
 In the height of their rebellion the Lord sent a 
 strange plague into their midst ; whatever the animals 
 were we know not ; but they are described as being 
 " fiery serpents !" I shall not argue what they 
 were, for I take it that they were exactly what God 
 said they were. 
 
 Just as if anyone asked me whether I believed that a 
 fish swallowed Jonah, I should answer "of course I 
 do." I believe that God prepared a great fish to swallow 
 him; and I believe further that the God who prepared a
 
 Jesus Christ and the Brazen Serpent. 29 
 
 fish to swallow Jonah, could have prepared also a man 
 to swallow the fish had he chosen to do so. It is 
 perfectly easy to believe it all when once you admit 
 that G-od is Almighty. 
 
 Well, whatever those animals were they were de- 
 scribed, by the people who saw them, as "fiery 
 serpents." 
 
 I can just picture the first venomous reptile gliding 
 unseen and fixing itself upon the soft arm of some 
 little darling, playing outside a tent door. I can hear 
 the first wail of anguish that succeeded the first 
 poisonous bite, and I fancy that I see the mother 
 rushing out to ascertain what is the matter with her 
 darling. It is now changing colour, and she carries 
 it into the tent, while it begins to rave in its agony ; 
 and that cry is followed by a great moaning, and a 
 yet mightier moan, that sweeps over the people, going 
 up to the justly offended Father God. 
 
 And then the people, in their terror, flee to Moses. 
 
 What made them go to Moses ? Oh ! why did they 
 not cry to God themselves ? Because they felt, in their 
 hearts, a sense of sin and the need of someone to 
 plead their cause. 
 
 And just as the Children of Israel felt towards 
 Moses, so we feel towards Jesus Christ ! We want 
 intercession with God. 
 
 And when God told Moses to lift up the serpent He
 
 30 Mission Sermon. 
 
 sent down a power upon the people to enable them to 
 accept the invitation to look and live. There is in 
 God's Word a power which accompanies It and enables 
 men to take in the message and to believe it ; and, in 
 spite of unbelief and the arguments and philosophies, 
 the materialism and the rationalism of the day, the 
 Gospel of Jesus is winning souls just as it has done 
 through all ages ; and men are coming to believe the 
 truths of the Gospel, and to enter into the rest of the 
 saints, just the same to-day as their forefathers did 
 when they believed. 
 
 The Gospel has just the same power now that it 
 ever had, and it presents just the same phenomenon 
 as ever : a phenomenon produced by the same cause, 
 and one which challenges the investigation and the 
 analysis of a doubting world outside ; for the world 
 cannot produce what the Gospel produces a changed 
 heart and a changed life by any amount of philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 As St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians of old : " If 
 any man be in Christ, he is a new creature : old things 
 are passed away ; behold, all things are become 
 new."* 
 
 And, brothers and sisters, when once you accept the 
 Gift, you work with its mighty power, and you long to 
 give others what you have received yourself and to 
 * 2 Cor. v. 17.
 
 Jesus Christ and the Brazen Serpent. 31 
 
 help others to know that their sins are forgiven ; you 
 long to help them to know who God is that He is 
 the Father of all those who put their trust in Him. 
 
 My brothers and sisters, when once you possess Christ 
 then all the power of the powers of the world, all the 
 powers of sin cannot destroy and cannot overcome 
 you. The world has tried to destroy the Gospel 
 power for eighteen hundred years ; but, in spite of all 
 the opposition of the past, and the opposition of the 
 present day, the Gospel is doing its work in drawing 
 out a people for God. 
 
 The Gospel never professes to save the world. It 
 professes only to draw out a hungry crowd of filthy, 
 wretched, dying men ; to draw out a people for God. 
 And this is what it is doing at the present day. 
 
 ! what a number of letters we received last May, 
 all showing the results the blessed results of our 
 mission, held in this hall, in that month ; and all 
 proving too that God's Word is doing its work just 
 the same now as it ever did. 
 
 Let us determine to lift up Jesus " as Moses lifted 
 up the serpent in the wilderness,"* and then we 
 shall see the fulfilment attached to it ; and they who 
 gaze on Christ, and accept Him, as God's gift indi- 
 vidually to them, shall not perish. 
 
 Not one who looks with the eye of faith into the 
 * St. John iii. 14.
 
 32 Mission Sermon. 
 
 mighty Saviour's face and trusts Him, not one who 
 takes Christ as life eternal to his soul, not one who, by 
 the hand of faith, lays hold of the precious Blood of 
 Christ, as the atoning sacrifice of his soul, shall 
 perish, for Jesus says : " They shall be mine, in that 
 day when I make up my jewels."* And He also 
 says : " This is the Father's will which hath sent Me, 
 that of all which He hath given Me I should lose 
 nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day ;"f 
 and again He says : " All that the Father giveth Me 
 shall come to Me : and him that cometh to Me I will 
 in no wise cast out."J 
 
 We have only to proclaim Christ as the great High 
 Priest of the Church, of the redeemed, for sinners, 
 from all parts of the human family, to flock to gaze 
 upon Jesus, to be healed, and to go away rejoicing and 
 singing : 
 
 " I came to Jesus, and I drank, 
 Of that life-giving stream : 
 My thirst was quenched, my soul revived, 
 And now I live in Him." 
 
 My brethren, this is no beautiful dream of fancy ; 
 it is no poetic imagination ; it is a tremendous, prac- 
 tical reality to the soul ; it is God's Gift, eternal life in 
 Jesus Christ. And may God help and bless the work 
 upon which I have entered to-day. This week we 
 
 * Malachi iii. 17. t St. John vi. 39. J St. John vi. 37.
 
 Jesus Christ and the Brazen Serpent. 33 
 
 are going to carry on a purely unsectarian labour, and 
 to keep all Churches and sects out of sight. 
 
 Our one aim will be to lift up Christ. We have 
 too many in the Church who do not know Christ; 
 and unbelief and infidelity are undermining the Church. 
 
 So many of our Clergy, alas, do not hold up Christ 
 to unconverted worldlings as are so many of those 
 who crowd our churches at the present day. 
 
 If we do not want to see the Church of England 
 disestablished let us lift up Christ, for if the Church 
 does not lift up Christ of what use is she ? Let 
 us remember what Oar Lord said: "As Moses lifted 
 up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the 
 Son of Man be lifted up : that whosoever believeth 
 in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."* 
 
 There are plenty of Church people who will tell 
 you that, although you have come to Jesus, you still 
 might perish ; they say Christ has done His part and 
 left you to do your part. But it is not so. Christ is 
 the "Author and the Finisher," t "the Alpha and the 
 Omega " " of our faith,"t and He says : Whosoever 
 believeth in Him shall not perish but have eternal 
 life. And " this is life eternal, that they might know 
 
 There is a kind of similarity between our case and 
 that of the Children of Israel. Man is forced to con- 
 * St. John iii. 14, 15. f Heb. xii. 2. J St. John xvii. 3. 
 
 D
 
 34 Mission Sermon. 
 
 fess that this world cannot satisfy him that this 
 world is, to some extent, a kind of wilderness. And 
 the older we get, and the further we journey along 
 life's road, the more like a wilderness the world 
 seems ; and one we love and then another, falls away 
 until, as life prolongs its chapters, they all seem to 
 close in notes of minor ; so unlike the major strains 
 that we knew in the past, so sparkling and so bright. 
 And gradually, like the wind, they die away into a 
 whisper and fade into a murmur ; and then we hear 
 them no more as the hush of death steals over us. 
 
 No invention can satisfy, and no food can satisfy, 
 the cravings, stern and imperious, of the soul within 
 us : but Jesus Christ He satisfies those who accept 
 Him in His fulness. 
 
 Therefore, our desire, our one desire this week, 
 will be to lift up Jesus and to exalt Christ. 
 
 And, brethren, have not any of you been bitten, by 
 some serpent, the serpent of uncleanness or of dis- 
 honesty ? Have you not some secret habit or fault, 
 of which you would gladly get rid ? The poison is 
 flowing in your veins; but Christ says to those who 
 trust Him : " I have blotted but, as a thick cloud, thy 
 transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins."* "Their 
 iniquities will I remember no more."f 
 
 And the angel spirits take up the sound of that 
 * Isaiah xliv. 22. t Heb. viii. 12.
 
 Jesus Christ and the Brazen Serpent. 35 
 
 " No more ! " and the strains steal into the presence 
 of the King Himself. " I will remember no more ;" 
 and we go out in peace, for the gate of death has 
 become the gate of life ; and " death is swallowed 
 up in victory."* 
 
 So I know what I am about, and what I am going 
 to do, during our mission week ; all that I seek is 
 just to speak of Jesus. 
 
 I am a poor, earthen vessel, I am frail and fickle 
 and vile ; but may Jesus take me up and, through 
 me, pour out the light and the power and the riches 
 of Christ over the congregations gathered here ! 
 Thanks be to God for the opportunity of presenting 
 Christ to many hearts, He who is God's anodyne for 
 the wounded, and God's panacea for the sorrowing 
 heart. 
 
 * 1 Cor. xv. 54.
 
 III. 
 Jesus !rnst, the ^tbhtg 
 
 ^(Itsston Sermon. 
 
 Sunday Evening, October 18th, 1885.
 
 Jesus Christ, tin gibing | 
 
 Prayer before Sermon. 
 
 O Lord, Shepherd of the sheep, Who hast laid down Thy 
 life for Thy sheep, we bless Thee because Thou art keeping 
 Thy promise, at this time ; and Thou art in the midst of us as 
 Thou hast said : " Where two or three are gathered 
 together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them."* 
 
 And we believe that Thou art here as a Power to comfort, 
 and to save, to feed, and to clothe, the soul. O Lord Jesus, 
 when we know Thee and Thy Word, we are possessed of 
 "joy unspeakable and full of glory. "f 
 
 O God, may many this week partake of the Living Bread, 
 sent down from Heaven to feed a hungry, sinful, dying world ; 
 and grant that Thy Holy Spirit may anoint my understanding 
 and my heart, that Thou mayest be able to use them for Thy 
 glory and for Thy people's good. 
 
 O God, anoint Thy people also that they may hear Thy 
 Word and, after hearing, may lay hold of the Bread of Life, 
 and may they become satisfied with Thy goodness. Dear 
 Lord Jesus, send many empty ones away, from this place, 
 filled with Thy Goodness, possessed of Thee ; and may they 
 be able to say : " I am satisfied with Jesus." So shall their 
 lives be renewed with the gladness of Heaven ; so shall their 
 hearts rest in the peace of God ; and so with them shall " old 
 things have passed away ; and all things have become new."J 
 Amen. 
 
 * St. Matt, xviii. 20. t 1 Pet. i. 8. J 2 Cor. v. 17.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Living Bread. 39 
 
 11 JESUS CHRIST, THE LIVING BREAD." 
 ffii&sism Sermon. 
 
 " And Jesus said unto them, ' I am the Bread of Life : he that 
 cometh to Me shall never hunger ; and he that belie vet h on 
 Me shall never thirst.' " John vi. 35. 
 
 Now, you know, brethren, this is either true or not 
 true. Then let us take it for granted that it is true, 
 I wonder how many persons, in this place, have proved 
 the truth of it. Listen ! Jesus Christ says : " I am 
 the Bread of Life he that cometh to Me shall never 
 hunger ; and he that believeth on Me shall never 
 thirst."* 
 
 This is the test of whether a ma.n be a Christian or 
 not. A man who is satisfied with Christ is a 
 Christian ; he that is not so satisfied is not a Chris- 
 tian. "He that cometh to Me shall never hunger ; 
 he that believeth on Me shall never thirst,"* says 
 our Lord and Saviour. 
 
 Are you so satisfied that you do not hunger after 
 righteousness because Christ is your Righteousness ? 
 
 Are you so satisfied that Christ is the pardon of sin 
 * St. John vi. 35.
 
 4-O Mission Sermon. 
 
 to you, that you do not hunger after pardon of sin, 
 because you have it ? 
 
 Are you so satisfied that you do not want eternal 
 life because you have it ? Jesus Christ is your life, and 
 you are satisfied with Him and live. 
 
 Are you so satisfied that you do not want peace 
 because you have it ? He is your peace. 
 
 How many are there, in this congregation, who 
 have accepted Christ in His fulness, His love, His 
 salvation, His purity, His peace and His joy ? Very 
 few. There are very, very few, among the crowds of 
 professing Christian people, who are satisfied with 
 Jesus. They do not know what it is to come to Jesus 
 and lay hold of the tremendous realities, the practical 
 realities, of His love. In that love there is something 
 not only intensely real ; but glorious and all-satisfying 
 is the power of " the unsearchable riches of Christ," 
 outpoured over starving multitudes. 
 
 Our ideas of this life are formed from our every-day 
 experiences of it ; and I am now speaking to some who 
 have formed their ideas of life from a very long expe- 
 rience. Some are sixty and seventy years of age, and 
 have had perhaps a fair share of the good things of 
 this world. 
 
 They have tried the world, they have tried what the 
 world can give, they have tasted its pleasures, its 
 loves, its ambitions, its hopes, its aims ; and now their
 
 Jesus Christ, the Living Bread. 41 
 
 lives are nearly over. They have come to the shady 
 side of life's hill ; they have long since climbed to 
 the top, and are descending the other side, towards 
 the strange and mystic stream, which separates them 
 from the great beyond, whatever it may be. 
 
 And now, elder brethren, what is your experience 
 of life ? Tell me, have the cravings of your heart and 
 intellect and spirit have they been fed and satisfied 
 with the world ? 
 
 The world is full of charms of art, philosophy, 
 science, rhetoric, oratory and politics. All have their 
 pleasures and delights ; and then there is the intoxi- 
 cating cup of popular applause some seek to drink 
 of this perhaps some of you have drunk of it, and 
 have been popular men in your day. 
 
 I remember being at the bedside of a popular mem- 
 ber of Parliament when he was dying. He never thought 
 of popularity then as I, with the Bible in my hand, was 
 by his side. Oh! if I had related to him certain 
 memories of his past life, when some glad ovation 
 from his friends had greeted him, he would have 
 shaken his head with a sickening expression. What 
 did he want with the world's glories as life was ebbing 
 fast away? I held his hand in mine; faithful servants, 
 wife and children were gathered round his bed. My 
 lips were close to his ear, and I kept whispering to 
 him not of politics or popular applause, not of the
 
 42 Mission Sermon. 
 
 things of this world it was of the vast future that 
 he was about to face, and the tremendous realities of 
 Eternity that I whispered in his ear. 
 
 He was about to enter upon the great examination 
 which shall succeed the college term of life ; he was 
 about to enter into the Presence of the great Examiner, 
 who is to decide between those who are in His peace 
 and righteousness, and those who are not; and you 
 should have seen that man's face when I spoke words 
 like these in his ear : " My sheep shall never perish, 
 neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand."* 
 
 I listened to the gasping breathings of the dying 
 man ; and he was calm as I said : " And they shall 
 come with singing unto Zion ; and everlasting joy 
 shall be upon their head."t His spirit passed away 
 in peace. 
 
 Oh ! brethren, I need not dwell upon this illustration 
 to prove that Jesus Christ is the Bread that satisfies, 
 that satisfies in life, in death and in eternity. 
 
 There is no real life without Christ. Life without 
 Christ is indeed made up of inexplicable contradic- 
 tions, is most illogical ; life without Christ is an 
 enigma that is past solution. 
 
 Yes, brethren, I say a man without Christ is not 
 satisfied, for he has not laid hold of that Bread 
 which alone can satisfy all his desires. 
 
 * St. John x. 28. t Isaiah li. 11.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Living Bread. 43 
 
 Brothers, when Jesus says He is the Bread that 
 satisfieth there is a sublime reality in the declaration. 
 
 Human life is a magnificent thing ; and there is 
 something wonderful about its compound character. 
 The compound of the animal man is something very 
 mysterious, puzzling and beautiful to contemplate. Oh ! 
 the powers which exist within us, and kindle anew 
 in us, the powers that are brought into play in our 
 compound nature ! 
 
 I have felt powers within me that have startled me 
 at times powers only like babes in their cradles, that 
 seemed to tell me we are only here to be prepared for 
 the great and everlasting Home of our Father. Life, 
 human life, is a magnificent and absorbing series of 
 paradoxical contradictions. 
 
 If I want to look at human life in one of its dark 
 phases, I have only to go to Ratcliffe Highway, its 
 slums and its courts, between eleven and twelve at 
 night, as I used to do when one of the good Father 
 Lowder's Mission curates, at St. George's-in-the-East. 
 I have only then to go to the low dancing saloons, 
 or other haunts of misery and sin, and gaze upon the 
 poor, painted girl in the street, or watch her as she 
 dances in one of these halls of depravity and vice. 
 
 More than once have I taken such a child by the 
 hand, and have looked up in her face and said, " You 
 are not happy." And I have seen the tears moisten
 
 44 Mission Sermon. 
 
 in the girl's eye when I have spoken to her of 
 Jesus Christ. When the world has cast her off, like 
 the coward that it is, and civilized society has given 
 her the cold shoulder, then the Good Shepherd has 
 come and said to her : " Come unto Me, all ye that 
 labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
 rest !"* The poor child has then sobbed her way to 
 Jesus' Feet, and has lain down and trusted in Him ; 
 and has been raised up to a new and forgiven life. 
 
 I could give the experience of scores who have 
 realised the truth that Jesus lives and works to-day, 
 and is the Bread of Life, in the hearts and minds and 
 souls of men. 
 
 He is the Bread that satisfies. 
 
 Oh ! brethren, many of you know that I speak not 
 of a poetic dream; but of a magnificent, daily, practical 
 reality, when I speak of the power of The Resurrection 
 in your souls. 
 
 " I am that Bread of Life!"f Brethren, when Jesus 
 Christ enters into a man's life, He explains all diffi- 
 culties, He solves all enigmas. Where storm was, 
 when He enters, calm comes, and where darkness 
 was, there He brings light ; although you may truly 
 say: "I must be in the da,rk, in part, now, because 
 this life is the night of time, and the shades are 
 mantling in the valley. But when I reach the 
 journey's end, where the morn is bright upon the 
 * St. Matt. xi. 28. f St. John vi. 48.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Living Bread. 45 
 
 mountains, I shall see the wonderful love of God and 
 the wonderful wisdom of Jehovah, and I shall know 
 that Jesus Christ, in truth, is the Bread of Life that 
 has sustained me and fed me, through my earthly 
 pilgrimage of sorrow and pain." 
 
 There is a wonderful life in the intellect ; but, 
 brethren, what is science and what is philosophy doing 
 for man's intellect ? Is it giving man's intellect rest 
 and satisfaction and joy and peace ? 
 
 A great man, of the present day, has declared that 
 the more he knows the more he finds out how little he 
 does know. Therefore, there is not much rest in 
 scientific research. 
 
 Plenty of persons have entered with such avidity 
 into scientific studies that their brains have become 
 overbalanced ; for the intellect cannot do without 
 the food which the Creator has supplied for it. 
 
 When once we have taken Christ at His word, and 
 have received Him that instant we become illumi- 
 nated with a light that we had not before ; as we 
 realise the height and the depth of the love of 
 Christ. 
 
 Intellectually speaking Jesus Christ has been the 
 Bread of Life to numbers of philosophers the bread 
 of repose, the bread of rest, the bread of peace, the 
 bread of hope, and the bread of joy. 
 
 Men cease to be proud when once they have laid
 
 46 Mission Sermon. 
 
 hold of Christ, Who said : ' ( Thou hast hid these things 
 from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them 
 unto babes."* 
 
 "Oh!" the wise man says, "I am not a babe. I 
 consider myself a giant in intellect and philosophy." 
 
 But, brethren, I see men and women, who have 
 come to Christ, and have believed in Him, possessing, 
 in their daily lives, a peace and a joy that you do not 
 possess, and that you cannot apart from God. There- 
 fore, as they receive all this from trusting Him, and 
 this is exactly that for which you yearn, O weary, 
 wandering soul, will you not come to Jesus too ? 
 
 But you must come as we came. " Except ye be 
 converted, and become as little children, ye shall not 
 enter into the kingdom of Heaven."t Yes, you must 
 put off the wisdom oi this world, and bow at the foot 
 of the throne of eternal wisdom and truth. 
 
 Is it too great a condescension to bow, for a moment, 
 in prostrate obeisance do you think it is derogatory 
 to your dignity that you should bow before that God, 
 Who has said : " He that shall humble himself shall 
 be exalted?"} 
 
 It is as though a beggar, battling in the mire with 
 
 poverty, and only just beginning to learn the ABC 
 
 of civilization, were asked by the Queen to go and 
 
 take a present from her, and when told that he will 
 
 * St. Matt. xi. 25. f St. Matt, xviii. 3. J St. Matt, xxiii. 12.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Living Bread. 47 
 
 have to kneel to receive it, said, " Oh ! I am not going 
 to kneel to take it ! " Then he will not be forced to 
 i*eceive the present. 
 
 But it would surely not be a great act of condescen- 
 sion to kneel, for a minute, before the throne of a 
 loving monarch who wished to supply his needs. 
 
 Jesus said: "I am the Bread of Life: he that 
 cometh to Me shall never hunger." * Now I know a 
 great many would come to Christ only they are not 
 asked to do so. They are asked to go to Church and 
 to the Sacraments instead; they are asked to be 
 baptized, to go to Confirmation or to Confession all 
 sorts of things they are asked to do. But Sacraments 
 are utterly useless until mark that word until they 
 have come to Christ ; for the Holy Communion, and 
 other ordinances, cannot operate upon a man until he 
 has received Christ as his life. 
 
 Oh ! brethren, sometimes I cannot help thinking 
 that if, for a little while, all the churches in England 
 would give up everything but offering Christ to the 
 multitudes of starving souls in this woe-begone, sin- 
 darkened country, what a vast amount of saving good 
 might be done ! 
 
 If men be not first brought to Christ what a 
 mockery the Sacraments and other ordinances are ; 
 but how blessed and all-sustaining is that precious 
 * St. John vi. 35.
 
 48 Mission Sermon. 
 
 Sacramental " Bread " to those who do believe, and 
 have accepted Jesus as their own individual Saviour. 
 
 Is it not however a fact that we constantly see 
 troops of young men and women brought, in shoals, 
 to be confirmed by the bishop, whose hearts have 
 not been born again to holiness, who have not received 
 Christ, and who immediately after publicly confessing 
 Christ, and even receiving the Blessed Sacrament, go 
 out to the theatre and the ball-room, returning 
 deliberately to their old life of dissipation ? 
 
 Then let us lift up Christ that Saviour, for whom 
 the teeming thousands of London are yearning as 
 the Bread of Life, and He will bring to them peace. 
 
 I never met a man or woman, a boy or a girl, who 
 had received Christ, as God's Gift, who had not also 
 received peace through Christ Jesus our Lord. 
 
 And, so you see, this is not a matter of sect or party. 
 Catholics or Protestants, all who come to Christ all, 
 there is no distinction shall find Him to be the Bread 
 that satisfieth hungering souls. 
 
 What a glorious hope then, Christian people, in 
 this congregation, you and I have of the results of 
 this mission ! How we know Jesus Christ will feed 
 His flock in this place ; and that very many will be led 
 by the side of the green pastures of joy and pleasure, 
 and be made to lie down by the cool waters of rest 
 and gladness ; and join with us at the end of the
 
 Jesus Christ, the Living Bread. 49 
 
 mission in singing the Psalm : " The Lord is my 
 Shepherd; I shall not want."* " 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."t 
 
 Yes, Christ says : " I will never leave thee, nor 
 forsake thee !"J and we believe it ; and we believe that 
 He is with us, shining upon us in life illuminating our 
 pathway, lightening our burdens, alleviating our 
 troubles, our sorrows, and our cares ; supplying us with 
 strength to overcome sin, until, at last, we shall be 
 more than conquerors when we come to Zion with a 
 shout of joy ; and we shall be able to say, in truth : 
 " This is the victory that overcometh the world, even 
 our faith. " 
 
 " I am the Bread of Life."|j Perhaps some among 
 my poorer brethren find life a very dismal, dark 
 reality ; perhaps some among my poorer brethren have 
 to go home to a dingy garret, in some dark and dreary 
 street, where they have to toil night and day from 
 early morning until late at night to earn a few pence 
 to keep bodily life within them. 
 
 Oh! what a dreary home you have, my sister; how 
 sad and aimless seems your life. You have to work 
 to make a shirt that may be sold for three shillings 
 * Psalms xxiii. 1. J Heb. xiii. 5. 
 
 t Psalms xxiii. 4. 1 John v. 4. 
 
 || St. John vi. 35.
 
 50 Mission Sermon. 
 
 and sixpence, and you make it ; but you only get six- 
 pence for it whereas the man, who does not make it, 
 gets three shillings and sixpence ! And your fingers, 
 my dear sister, are sore. Your young eyes often have 
 no sight, because you strain your eyesight by the 
 farthing rushlight which you can scarcely afford to buy; 
 and, as you sit shivering, trembling, on your chair by 
 the fireless grate, but ill clad and fed, with the dry 
 hard crust of poverty, the thoughts of your old home 
 when you were a girl, in the country, come to you. 
 
 Thoughts of the golden days of your girlhood 
 steal into your brave heart, weak with much fasting, 
 and mantle like a halo of glory around y6ur imagina- 
 tion thoughts of the time when your mother was 
 alive and you had a loving mother's kiss at night ; 
 and again you pass, as in a dream, through the familiar 
 scenes of your childhood, and you hear the sound of 
 the village bells, and the ringing, joyous cadence of 
 the village children's voices, as you heard them when 
 you were a village girl at home ; and then all passes 
 away, and again you are amid your poverty and your toil. 
 
 But always there is just one star up there that throws 
 its bright light through the casement upon you upon 
 you who have not a friend in the whole, wide world ; 
 and the stars seem to talk to you and to say : " The 
 heavens declare the glory of God ; and the firma- 
 ment sheweth His handiwork."* 
 * Psalm xix. 1.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Living Bread. 5 1 
 
 The children of poverty talk to the stars. If they 
 are not astronomers they study the stars ; and I have 
 been told by them what comfort they receive from 
 those bright gems of the night-time. 
 
 But my sister, there is One beyond the stars Who 
 loves you ; Who has told you that if you will follow 
 Him you shall be one of the jewels for His eternal 
 Crown. He, my child, was once as poor as you are, 
 and "had not where to lay His head."* " He was rich, 
 yet for your sakes He became poor,"f and, last of all, 
 He died for you, and, with His nail-pierced hands, He 
 beckons you to Him, and He says : " Come unto Me. 
 all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give 
 you rest."! 
 
 I could tell you such tales of how Jesus Christ has 
 cheered the lonely heart, and made joyful the lonely, 
 sorrowing one ; how the poor, pinched faces of the 
 children of Poverty have been illuminated, as they 
 have passed to the Land where " there shall be no 
 more crying, neither shall there be any more pain." 
 
 A little while ago some one was telling me how he 
 had visited an old man in the workhouse, who, in the 
 heyday of his life, had had a happy home, a loving 
 wife and children. But gradually, one by one, they 
 all faded away from his side ; then his life grew sadder 
 
 * St. Matt. viii. 20. J St. Matt. xi. 28. 
 
 t 2 Cor. viii. 9. Rev. xxi. iv.
 
 52 Mission Sermon. 
 
 and more sad, as one light after another went out ; 
 and the poor man, finding himself alone and stricken 
 down with weakness and poverty, came and knocked 
 at the workhouse door. 
 
 He was an educated man ; he had had the comforts 
 of the world, but all had fled, when he went and 
 knocked at that workhouse door ! Tt was not very long 
 before he there became so weak that he could not 
 leave his bed, and when my friend went to see him 
 and said to him : " O my poor man," he exclaimed, 
 as he looked up, with a bright face, " Poor ! I am 
 not poor. I possess ' the unsearchable riches of 
 Christ/* that none can take from me. I am going 
 to a king's palace, where I shall find all those who 
 have gone before, treasured up and waiting for me." 
 
 Christ was the Bread of Life, Who fed him, and the 
 sorrows of his life were illuminated with the light of 
 the " Sun of Righteousness."! 
 
 Would you not be that man rather than the dying, 
 wealthy worldling, who goes out into eternity, robed 
 in the rags of his filthy sins ; and whose poor, lank, 
 lean, starved soul has never had one particle of living- 
 food from the fountain of Goodness ? 
 
 Worldly men, you know what I am saying is true ; 
 the world cannot satisfy the cravings of the hungry 
 soul ; the world cannot satisfy the imperious claims of 
 * Ephes. iii. 8. t Mai. iv. 2.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Living Bread. 53 
 
 the powers within ; the world cannot fill the aching 
 yearnings in the heart ; but Christ Jesus can and 
 Christ Jesus does. 
 
 " Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after 
 righteousness : for they shall be filled."* 
 
 They who already have fed upon the Bread of Life 
 know that I have not exaggerated the beauty and 
 the satisfaction and " the rest that remaineth to the 
 people of Gk)d."t 
 
 Oh ! then, in conclusion, I beseech all, who have not 
 yet come to Jesus, to come to that Saviour, Who is 
 waiting to receive you, and Who says : " Whosoever 
 will,"J let him come. 
 
 And coming is not a movement of the body ; it is 
 just simply a movement of the soul, looking up to 
 Christ, Who is present in our midst, and trusting in 
 His promise " I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." 
 
 And when you come to Him, you shall find in Him 
 all you can ever need righteousness, strength, salva- 
 tion and power, for He says : " He that cometh to Me 
 shall never hunger ; and he that believeth on Me shall 
 never thirst." j| 
 
 * St. Matt. v. 6. Joshua i. o. 
 
 t Heb. iv. 9. || St. John vi. 35. 
 
 1 Rev. xxii. 17.
 
 IV. 
 
 Christ, % 
 
 Monday Evening, October I9th, 1885.
 
 Jf*stts Cjmsi, fyt 
 
 Prayer before Sermon. 
 
 God, our Father, Who art all-loving and all-wise and 
 all-powerful, we believe Thy message of Love to a poor, 
 loveless, lowly, weeping, hungering, dying world ; and we, 
 who are Thy people, long to make that message of Love and 
 Power more truly known. And while we pray that Thy 
 message of Love may become a message of Power, we ask Thee, 
 Who hast promised that Thy message shall not return to Thee 
 void, to remember Thy promise to-night, and to let Thy love 
 and power go together into some heart that longeth for Thee, 
 and pineth for Thy rest and peace. 
 
 O Word of wisdom and Thou art the God of wisdom it is 
 from Thee alone that we draw the little sparks of wisdom 
 which we possess. O Thou fountain of light, Thou Father 
 of wisdom and truth, we pray Thee grant that, in our midst 
 to-night, Thy wisdom may be revealed, and that many souls 
 here present, clouded by the darkness of unbelief and sin, may 
 by the power of Thy love, be brought quietly and gently and 
 tenderly to the feet of the Good Shepherd, and may look up 
 into His face, and trust themselves to His tender, Almighty 
 care ; and go out of this place rejoicing in their freedom. 
 
 They will find in Him " a Friend that sticketh closer than 
 a brother,"* a Friend Who will never leave them in adversity, 
 a Friend Almighty in compassion and wisdom and love, 
 Who has said " Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast 
 out."f 
 
 Merchantman of wondrous toil, Who dost seek the 
 precious pearl until Thou findest it, and then dost pay for it 
 with the great price of Thy most Precious Blood, find some 
 of the pearls for Thy Crown, in this place, at this time, 
 to-night, for Thine Infinite Love and Mercy's sake. Amen. 
 
 * Prov. xviii. 24. f St. John. vi. 37.
 
 jfesus Christ , the Merchantman. 57 
 
 JESUS CHRIST THE MERCHANTMAN. 
 
 Sermon. 
 
 " The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchantman, seeking 
 goodly pearls : Who, when He had found one pearl of great 
 price, went and sold all that He had, and bought it." St. 
 Matthew xiii. 45 and 46. 
 
 I think I am right in saying that the very best 
 pearls are generally found in oyster-shells. 
 
 Oyster-shells certainly are very uncomely and un- 
 profitable things to look at, and one would not think 
 that hidden under such a rough exterior would be 
 found gems that are at once so costly and so beautiful. 
 
 Now, dear brethren, this thought seems to be 
 brought out wonderfully in the parable before us. It 
 is a short parable, but it is very terse and very trite ; 
 and what it does say is very encouraging to the 
 preacher of the Gospel. 
 
 When I am preaching, I often think that perhaps 
 amongst my hearers are some of the most desperate 
 characters in the place, and I am al\vays glad when it 
 is so, for these are the most likely to become the saints 
 of Jesus Christ ! At all events we know that no one
 
 58 Mission Sermon. 
 
 can be a Christian unless he be a sinner ; we know 
 that no one can be a disciple of Jesus Christ unless he 
 be a poor, lost soul ; for Jesus Christ said : " I came 
 not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."* 
 
 " The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that 
 which was lost."t 
 
 Therefore, I believe, that before a man can be saved 
 it must be proved that he is a sinner a lost sinner. 
 
 I was very much struck, some few weeks ago, when 
 we were holding a mission at Cardiff which is a very 
 bad town indeed, and where there are very low classes 
 of people who congregate around the docks and in the 
 slums I was very much struck by the policeman 
 telling a brother at the door of the hall, in which the 
 services were being held, that some of the vilest 
 characters in the place had been seen sitting quietly 
 at the mission; and they pointed out one "fellow," as 
 they called him, in particular, who had attended all 
 the services, and who now professed to be a 
 Christian. 
 
 Large numbers, who had never been seen in any 
 place of worship before, thronged the hall. So testi- 
 fied the police. And that " fellow," who had been 
 unspeakably bad, had been transubstantiated in a most 
 extraordinary way and, in an unaccountable manner, 
 (on any other hypothesis but the Gospel hypothesis) 
 * St. Mark ii. 17. t St. Luke xix. 10.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Merchantman. 59 
 
 lie had been transubstantiated from a great sinner to 
 one rejoicing in the knowledge of Jesus Christ ; and 
 was telling his knowledge of Christ to those outside, 
 who had been his companions in sin before. 
 
 Yes, brethren, it does seem such a wonderful 
 thought for Jesus Christ to liken Himself to a 
 merchantman seeking goodly pearls. You must not 
 form your idea of the Merchantman from the mer- 
 chants of London, for this is an Eastern figure of 
 speech. The merchants of London do not go them- 
 selves to distant countries to seek for what they 
 require in their trades ; but the Eastern merchants did. 
 The Eastern merchantman travelled himself through 
 desert wastes and wildernesses ; he went through 
 countless troubles, trials, dangers, necessities, and 
 wants ; he travelled, very often, in the face of most 
 alarming dangers, just like the merchants of whom we 
 read, to whom the children of Israel sold their younger 
 brother Joseph, who travelled through vast tracts of 
 desert. 
 
 We must picture to ourselves, then, a Persian or an 
 Arabian going up into Egypt ; we must fancy the 
 toils and the pains of the way, and then we shall arrive 
 at the thought which our Lord Jesus Christ wishes to 
 convey when He speaks of Himself as a merchantman 
 going forth, upon a lengthened journey, to some dis- 
 tant country, seeking for goodly pearls.
 
 60 Mission Sermon. 
 
 Sometimes, in His search, for these jewels, He will 
 have to go down into the depths of the lowest cess- 
 pools of human vice and human misery to find them. 
 Take just a few specimens. 
 
 How far would He have to go, in His wonderful 
 compassion, to reach the harlot of Magdala ? How 
 far would He have to persevere in His search for His 
 pearl in her case ? The sinful woman in the streets 
 of Magdala, surrounded by the wealth and the 
 vanity of sin, was one of the pearls of great price 
 belonging to Him, Who is infinite purity, infinite 
 holiness, infinite love ; yes, though the woman was 
 indwelt by seven devils, she was one of the pearls that 
 the " Father gave to Jesus ;"* she was one of His 
 sheep, whom He must redeem, seek, and find, and 
 save. ! let us respect the fallen ; for, under the 
 poor, external roughness of their sin, there may be a 
 pearl of great price which has been given, by God 
 the Father, to the Creator Incarnate of the Universe. 
 
 Yes, Mary Magdalene now is one of the flashing gems 
 in the crown of the King of Kings; and now, in dazzling 
 brightness, she gleams and glows in the regalia of 
 Heaven ; for the sinner is saved ; and the one " dead 
 in trespasses and sins "t is alive ; she that " was lost, 
 is found ! "J 
 
 Come again with me in fancy right away to Gadara, 
 * St. John x. 29. f Eph. ii. 1. J St. Luke xv. 24.
 
 Christ, the Merchantman. 61 
 
 cross the Galilean lake, in the fisherman's skiff, alight 
 on its easternmost side, climb the steep path up the 
 cliffs, and go in among the limestone tombs, just as 
 the moon is shedding her silvery beams upon their 
 whiteness, and see there, crouching, a maniac ! a 
 lunatic ! one who has been brought to his desperate 
 state by the sin of uncleanness. 
 
 There he is ; no chains can bind him, no fetters 
 can retain, or keep back, his hands from sin. He is 
 beset with a legion of unclean devils and is the terror 
 of the neighbourhood. Children and women flee from 
 him in alarm ! He lives among the tombs, and no 
 man can bind him. Yet, he is one of the pearls of the 
 King ! He is a pearl that the Father gave to Jesus 
 from all eternity ! He is one of the jewels that, in 
 purity and holiness, shall flash and flame, glitter and 
 gleam, and glow in resplendent brightness, in the 
 Crown of the King of Kings. 
 
 Who would have thought that Jesus, the Merchant- 
 man, would go out to that dismal Necropolis and, 
 from the shelter of its tombs, drag out into the bright 
 moonlight the " pearl of great price ?"* But that man 
 is the gift of God the Father to Jesus Christ His Son, 
 and Jesus Christ is the Merchantman " seeking (for) 
 goodly pearls. "f 
 
 He does not go into the streets of Decapolis ; He 
 does not go to the priests or the Levites, or to the 
 
 * St. Matt. xiii. 46. f St. Matt. xiii. 45.
 
 62 Mission Sermon. 
 
 schools of religion or morality to seek His pearls ; 
 but He goes to tlie vilest of the vile, He goes to the 
 least likely of them all. The Man of infinite purity 
 comes face to face with infinite impurity, and the 
 Man of infinite love comes face to face with the 
 demoniac of the mountains, the man who is possessed 
 of a legion of devils. 
 
 And ere evening be past, and the drear shadows of 
 night have taken the place of " the gloaming," a 
 strange scene is witnessed. The multitude come to 
 Jesus and see Him seated with the demoniac at His 
 feet, now " clothed, and in his right mind."* Yes, 
 there is Jesus, with the harlot of Magdala, on one side, 
 and the man possessed by devils on the other side, 
 and Mary kisses his feet, and washes them with her 
 tears; and then, with the golden tresses of her light- 
 some hair, she dries them, and Jesus is not ashamed 
 of her kiss because she is one of the pearls for His 
 Crown. 
 
 Or again come in fancy to the streets of Jerusalem 
 early in the morning of the first Good Friday. They 
 are swarming with teeming crowds from every nation 
 and every clime, for the rumour has gone forth that 
 the Nazarene prophet is condemned to die. 
 
 He is led forth to His doom before the gazing, 
 mocking crowds, with two others who are to be crucified 
 * St. Luke viii. 35.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Merchantman. 63 
 
 with Him. And these two companions are common 
 thieves and murderers in a rebellion ! 
 
 Oh ! look at the expression on those men's faces, as 
 they drag their crosses through the throngs in the 
 streets. We can picture the hang-dog look about 
 the criminals, a look which seems to say that they 
 have been hardened by a course of sin ; and now they 
 are going out to meet their rightful, and just, doom. 
 Yet one of those two men is one of the "pearls of great 
 price ;" one of those two men the Father gave to the 
 Son and, in a few hours, he will hear the cry " To- 
 day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise."* 
 
 And these are pictures, from the Gospel Story, which 
 we all believe to be the very Word of the living God. 
 
 Thus Jesus Christ sought His jewels amongst 
 harlots, and devil-possessed, and murderers, and 
 thieves ; and He is the same Jesus to-night ; and if 
 there be any here who are sinners of the deepest dye, 
 remember, that under the rough, external hideous- 
 ness of sin there may be hidden one of the pearls 
 of the Merchantman, the Heavenly Traveller ; and 
 Jesus Christ has sent me here to-night to seek for His 
 pearls and, in His Name, He bids me say to all 
 present all who have not yet come to Christ, all 
 who have not yet, with the simplicity of hungry men, 
 come to partake of the Bread, all who have not, with 
 
 * St. Luke xxiii. 43.
 
 64 Mission Sermon. 
 
 the simplicity of thirsty men come to drink of the 
 Fountain " whosoever will,"* let him come, " Him 
 that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out."f 
 
 Oh! the Heavenly Merchantman ! When He entered 
 upon His journey He was not sent forth, from His 
 Father's Home, an unwilling sacrifice ; but He came, a 
 willing Victim, He came as a Heavenly Merchantman, 
 to make the long journey here, to this little planet, 
 where a rebel race were dwelling, who had turned 
 their backs upon the light, the love and the wisdom 
 of their God, and who were lying " in darkness and 
 in the shadow of death. "J He descended from the 
 heavens, and the angels joined in the glad song : 
 " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, 
 to the men of good- will." 
 
 He comes ! He comes to seek, He comes to save, 
 that which is lost. Like a merchantman He sought 
 for goodly pearls during the thirty-three long years 
 of His earthly life of sorrow. He became " a Man of 
 Sorrows," || because we are children of sorrow; He 
 became "acquainted with grief," || because we are all 
 " born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward;"^" and 
 He must bear like us, suffer like us, feel temptation 
 as we do, be human, in all points, the same as we are 
 
 * Rev. xxii. 17. St. Luke ii. 14. 
 
 t St. John vi. 37. || Isaiah liii. 3. 
 
 J Psalms cyii. 10. f Job v. 7.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Merchantman. 65 
 
 human ; but without sin. He took upon Himself our 
 nature in order that He might be a tender, sympathiz- 
 ing friend to fallen humanity. He comes ! He comes 
 to seek ! He comes to save ! 
 
 And He comes to that which is lost for He comes 
 to seek. How long does He come ; how long does He 
 seek for that which is lost ? He tells us in another 
 parable how long" until He find it /"* He will 
 find the pearls that are purchased with His own Blood 
 He would not pay that great price, He would not 
 purchase them with that tremendous ransom which 
 He paid on the Cross, and lose one. He says, " All 
 that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me."f 
 
 So the heavenly Merchantman goes to seek His 
 pearls. And He never goes in vain. May I believe 
 nay, I must believe that there are some of His lost 
 pearls here to-night, for He has sent me to seek them 
 for Him, and to preach the Message of love and peace 
 and joy to sinners. The publicans and sinners of old 
 " were very attentive to hear him ;" J and so it is now. 
 
 He who feels the need of Jesus never hears the in- 
 vitation without a thrill of joy and a throb of gladness, 
 saying : "Will He receive me ? He is just what I want. 
 If I can lay claim to .Jesus as God's Gift to me, if He 
 be really what the Gospel says He is, He will satisfy 
 my soul. If I can plunge into the stream of His 
 * St. Luke xv. 4. f St. John vi. 37. J St. Luke xix. 48. 
 
 F
 
 66 Mission Sermon. 
 
 Blood I shall be washed ' whiter than snow/* and 
 stand accepted before God in Jesus. ' Blessed is the 
 the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.'f 
 
 " If I can only lay claim to Him, and realise the gift 
 of God to me, then shall I be able to stretch out the 
 hand of an aching, hungry soul, and grasp, with a 
 clutch of earnest desire, His blessed truth. And then, 
 when I have laid hold of Jesus, I shall sink down into 
 His dear arms, and listen to His Own Word, which is : 
 1 Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out ;'J 
 ' None shall pluck him out of My hand.' 
 
 "Let me take the heavenly Merchant at His word ; 
 let me lie like a pearl in His hand ; for, inasmuch as 
 He shed His Blood for me, He paid the debt of my 
 sins to the f uttermost farthing.' " 
 
 My brother, art thou a great sinner ? Jesus is a 
 great Saviour. Hast thou turned thy back upon Him ? 
 His great love is now entreating thee ; the exceeding 
 might of His compassion is touching thy heart ; and 
 the Holy Ghost has anointed me to speak and to tell 
 thee, who hearest, that He waiteth, He calleth for thee. 
 
 Do I see a tear in some one's eye ? To that one I 
 would say : " He careth for you." You may reply, " I 
 never knew anybody cared for me. No one has cared 
 for me since my mother died." 
 
 Or, is it that the companion of your manhood is now 
 * Ps. li. 7. t Rom. iv. 8. J St. John vi. 37. St. John x. 28.
 
 Jesus Christ^ the Merchantman. 67 
 
 a heap of dust in the lonely grave ; and the world, 
 which was so full of life and sunshine for you, is 
 changed, and sunshine plays around your earthly path 
 no more; you walk along the dull, dark road of 
 life ; and the thought that nobody cares for you makes 
 your life a bitter mockery and a sad and fleeting 
 dream. 
 
 " Nobody cares for me ! did I hear you say ? O yes, 
 Somebody does; and sweetly the companionship of 
 Christ reveals itself to the lonely soul. The Lord 
 Jesus Christ is indeed the greatest of all friends, for 
 He cares for all who " come unto Him." 
 
 " Can a woman forget her sucking child . . . . ? Yea, 
 they may forget, yet will I not forget thee."* 
 
 And so the love of Jesus gently wooes the sinner 
 and wins the sinner, who lets himself fall, almost un- 
 consciously at first, into the tender Merchant's mighty 
 arms, until he realises, in deed and in truth, the mean- 
 ing of the cry, "Into Thine hand I commend my 
 spirit ; Thou hast redeemed me."t And he lies, like a 
 pearl, in the heavenly Merchant's palm, and says ; 
 " My Beloved is mine, and I am His."J 
 
 The pearl of great price is found ! Oh ! realise the 
 great price that was paid for it. As the Apostle St. 
 Peter says : " Ye were not redeemed with corruptible 
 things; but with the precious Blood of Christ. " Or St. 
 
 * Isaiah xlix. 15. J Song of Solomon ii. 16. 
 
 t Ps. xxxi. 5. 1 Pet. i. 1819.
 
 68 Mission Sermon. 
 
 Paul to the Corinthians : " Ye are bought with a price : 
 therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit."* 
 
 And brethren, when the soul realises this, the result 
 is always the same. When once the soul realises that 
 Jesus Christ is enough to satisfy all its cravings, life 
 becomes utterly new to such a man; and with the 
 apostle he can say : " Old things are passed away ; 
 behold, all things are become new."t 
 
 I remember a poor girl who had led the " life of the 
 lost " for some time, attending our mission at Birming- 
 ham ; and she sent a letter to be read to the congre- 
 gation, in which she told how she had come to see how 
 Christ loved her ; and how the love of Christ had over- 
 come and satisfied her, and had led her to the deter- 
 mination to live for Christ, and to trust His promise; 
 and that this, now, was the one great ambition of her life. 
 And only a few months ago a letter came from 
 another girl, of the same class, in Manchester, who 
 two years before had been brought to Christ; and 
 she told in this letter how He had kept His promise to 
 her for the last two years, which time had been a new 
 life to her; and how good a Saviour she had found 
 Jesus Christ to be ! 
 
 He was, He is, the power that held her, that holds 
 us, up, that keeps us safe, that gladdens our hearts, 
 and satisfies hungry and thirsty souls. 
 
 * 1 Cor. vi. 20. t 2 Cor. v. 17.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Merchantman. 69 
 
 I know my words are very poor, and feeble and 
 faint, but there is a power, in the Message, for it is the 
 Word of God, and that promise must be true : " My 
 Word shall not return unto Me void."* 
 
 And I know that hearts now are opening to God, 
 as the heavenly Merchantman in the still, white 
 moonlight goes seeking for His pearls, who are lying 
 in the field of the world, and oh ! He shall soon 
 come to some weary heart in this congregation and 
 say : I have found my " pearl of great price ! "f 
 
 Dear brother or sister, will you surrender to 
 the heavenly Merchantman to-night ? Will you let 
 Him take you up and carry you in His arms, and look 
 up in His face, and trust Him just as you are, while 
 we sing : 
 
 " Just as I am, without one plea 
 
 But that Thy blood was shed for me, 
 And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee ; 
 ! Lamb of God, I come." 
 
 Brethren, I have no doubt, before this week is 
 over, that I shall know who are some of the pearls that 
 have fallen into the heavenly Merchantman's hand, 
 because letters are coming to me already; and 
 how happy I shall be to hear who are the pearls that 
 have been found to-night ! 
 
 Oh brother! oh sister! hesitate no longer ; but at 
 once drop into the Merchantman's clasp, for then you 
 * Tsaiah lv. 11. t St. Matth. xiii. 46.
 
 70 Mission Sermon. 
 
 can say : " I know that I am safe/' for He promises 
 to those who come unto Him that He will " never leave 
 them/' but will be with them always, and will make 
 their lives a totally different thing, in deed and truth, 
 from what they were before. You shall go on your 
 way rejoicing, knowing that He Whom you have 
 trusted is " Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to- 
 day, and for ever /'* " Who is able to keep that which 
 you have committed unto Him "f to-night. 
 
 No one shall be missing There, who lias come 
 through the rough and stormy way, through the sorrows 
 and persecutions, the harass of sin, the unbelief, the 
 tears of this short, dying life, with Christ at his side. 
 No one, who, amid the daily round of troubles, trials 
 and scandals, has had the sheltering arms of Christ 
 around him, sustaining, holding him up and bearing 
 his burden, shall be missing in the Homeland of 
 Heaven, " in the day when He makes up His jewels." 
 
 Then, when you look back upon your earthly pil- 
 grimage, and your once sin-stained existence, then 
 you shall understand the necessity for all the trials, 
 by the way ; for " then shall we know even as also we 
 are known," J as we stand in the full light of the 
 eternal day of the Presence of our God. Amen. 
 
 * Heb. xiii. 8. f 2 Tim. i. 12. J 1 Cor. xiii. 12.
 
 V. 
 
 C(mst, % Ring's j$xm. 
 
 Wednesday Evening, October 2lst, 1885.
 
 Jesus Cjjrtst, % Jlmcj's Smt. 
 
 Prayer 1 before Sermon. 
 
 O Almighty Father, Who hast sent a message to this world, 
 of sin and sorrow, by the lips of Thine Only Begotten Son, in 
 our flesh ; and Who hast not only given Him to bring the 
 message of peace and reconciliation, but hast given to all 
 such as believe in Him the free, full and perfect gift of 
 eternal Life, be in our midst to-night. We bless Thy Name 
 for the countless multitudes who have received Him and are 
 satisfied with Him ; we praise Thee for the joy and peace 
 that have inftowed their lives, and the cleansing power which 
 Thou hast poured upon their hearts. 
 
 But while we praise Thee for those that have received Thy 
 Word, we again entreat Thee on behalf of the vast masses of 
 our fellow-men who have not received Thy message of Love. 
 And grant also that many men, without Christ now, may, 
 before this service shall be over, receive Him as Thy gift 
 individually to them, and that they may go out rejoicing in 
 " the unsearchable riches of Christ."* 
 
 O God, look upon the sorrowful ones, look upon those 
 who are tired of the world and weary of its changes, its 
 wrongs, its cruelties, and its pains ; look upon those who 
 have already had their fill of the world' s cup of pleasure, and 
 have already tasted the bitterness of the dregs, and would 
 fain turn to another cup, even the cup of joy and the " cup of 
 salvation," that is filled by Thee. Grant that many such an 
 one may come to the marriage Feast that Thou makest for 
 
 * Eph. iii. 8.
 
 74 Mission Sermon. 
 
 Thy Son. Heavenly Father, make the Gospel marriage 
 Feast, that Thou makest for Thy Son, a reality for some here 
 present to-night ; make them not only to hear the invitation 
 but to accept it, and to-night to sit down at the grand banquet 
 which the Gospel provides for poor, tired, hungry, sinful men ; 
 and may they go out cleansed from sin by faith in the 
 Precious Blood. 
 
 May they feel that joy received from directly trusting in 
 Jesus, and may they be able to say : " I know Whom I have 
 believed."* O Heavenly Father, give to me words give 
 to me grace to utter the words endow me with Thy Holy 
 Spirit that I may proclaim Thy sweet invitation to captive, 
 sin-bound souls, in such a way that they may take 
 in with a hungry, grateful longing, Thy blessed Word. By 
 the power of Thy Holy Spirit sanctify their hearts with a 
 solemn sense of the presence of Jesus, and the calm of the 
 Holy Ghost, that they may be able to listen with the hush of 
 Heaven upon their souls. Hear and answer our petitions, 
 for the glory of the Name of Jesus ; and pour a blessing upon 
 our souls for the same Jesus' sake. Amen. 
 
 * 2 Tim. i. 12.
 
 Jesus Christ, the King's Son. 75 
 
 "JESUS CHRIST, THE KING'S SON." 
 
 ffliis&ion Sermon. 
 
 " The kingdom of Heaven is like unto a certain king, which made 
 a marriage for his son." St. Matth. xxii. 2. 
 
 What a wonderful picture our Lord gives us in this 
 parable of the marriage of the king's son. 
 
 I kept you waiting just now trying to find whether 
 it is in Hosea,* Amos, or Micah that we have a most 
 remarkable resemblance to this parable. The re- 
 semblance there is more than a mere similarity, for 
 there is a practical matter-of-fact illustration of the 
 teaching the prophet is told by God to go and marry 
 a harlot. God tells the prophet he is a type of Him- 
 self, and that the poor woman is a type of Israel, 
 which is a type of Christ's Church. 
 
 Oh ! the bride of the King's Son is a poor, lost, 
 depraved, filthy wretch that is the bride ! 
 
 The Scriptures tell us that Christ's Church is made 
 up of lost sinners; the Scripture describes the people 
 who make up Christ's Church as a mass of " wounds, 
 and bruises, and putrefying sores. "f Jesus Christ, 
 Himself, tells us that it is " the publicans and harlots 
 * Hosea iii. 1, 2, 3. f Isaiah i. 6.
 
 76 Mission Sermon. 
 
 that go into the kingdom of God,"* and that He is 
 "not come to call the righteous, but sinners to re- 
 pentance ;"t that it is the lost whom Jesus Christ came 
 to seek and to save, the lost. 
 
 You know, beloved brethren, what it is to see 
 the sneer of the worldlings over our " lost sisters," as 
 they call them. But they are the type of the Church. 
 Take one of our most degraded, woe-begone, sin- 
 stained sisters she is a type of Christ's Church. The 
 lowest, most abandoned outcast is Christ's bride she 
 is the bride that the King hath chosen for His Son. 
 
 The King says : " The kingdom of Heaven is like 
 unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his 
 Bon."J 
 
 The great King of Heaven, in His Almighty 
 Sovereignty, willed to create a race of mortals and 
 endow them with free will, so that, if they chose, they 
 could turn their backs upon Him and rebel against 
 the Master of the magnificent household of the uni- 
 verse ; they could go to the greatest depths of sin if 
 they chose, and they did choose ; and our hospitals, 
 our lunatic asylums, our battle-fields, our reforma- 
 tories, and our Magdalene hospitals, all show to what 
 human nature can sink. 
 
 Go to the back slums of the vilest parts of our 
 gigantic cesspools of humanity, called cities, and there 
 
 * St. Matt. xxi. 31. f St. Matt. ix. 13. J St. Matt. xxii. 2.
 
 Jesus Christ, the King's Son. 77 
 
 see human nature in the vilest garb in which it is 
 possible to behold it ! When I had the privilege of 
 living among the very lowest in St. George' s-in-the- 
 East, I saw there to what human nature could sink. 
 
 Talk about man progressing from the monkey ! I 
 think, when human nature is left to itself, it will pro- 
 gress downwards to a degradation that is unspeakable 
 and unimaginable. 
 
 It is all very well to set up an apotheosis of 
 humanity; it is all very well to talk of civilisation, 
 enlightenment, education, science, art and philo- 
 sophy ; but what can all these do to raise the masses 
 of the human family ? What have they done ? I say, 
 without fear of contradiction, that the pictures of de- 
 graded humanity, in this city,, which exist at our side 
 to-day, exceed in horror any that have existed in the 
 teeming pages of human memory, which we call history. 
 
 It is alt very well for people to sit after their dinners, 
 over their wine, and talk of politics, and the difficul- 
 ties of our social problems ; but they do not know of 
 what they are talking, unless they have taken their 
 stand in the midst of the rotting multitudes, that are 
 seething in this cauldron of agony and tears and dying 
 and woe, untouched by the power that would re- 
 generate them ; perhaps because others have been too 
 selfish to carry the magnificent panacea of God to them. 
 
 We have fed on Jesus ourselves; shall we not
 
 7 8 Alission Sermon. 
 
 therefore care also for the misery and woe of the 
 masses from amongst whom Jesus Christ is to pick 
 out His bride ? 
 
 Brethren, let me ask you to consider the tremen- 
 dously exaggerated picture that Jesus Christ 
 gives to us here. The King makes a marriage for 
 His Son but there cannot be a marriage without a 
 bride ; and the Word of God tells us who the bride is 
 the bride is the Church, and the Church is a magnifi- 
 cent international, cosmopolitan fraternity, drawn out 
 from every "kindred, and tongue, and people, and 
 nation,"* by the utterance of the Message of Love and 
 Power of our God, Who says: "Go and preach the 
 Gospel to every creature. "f 
 
 Then the power that accompanies the Word draws 
 people to Christ, and they find in Christ a fountain of 
 perfection, a fountain of refreshment, a healing balm 
 for the wounds of their souls and intellects yea, a balm 
 for the sores and pains of this sorrowf ul life. Yes, they 
 will find Jesus Christ, and His Cross, turn the bitter 
 waters of Marah into sweetness ; for, of God is right- 
 eousness, of God is wisdom and of God is the power 
 that can loose the chains of sin and enable the captive 
 to bound ' ' into the glorious liberty of the children 
 of God."J They will learn to enjoy anew atmosphere, 
 and to appreciate the truth of St. Paul's magnificent 
 declaration: " If any man be in Christ, he is a new 
 
 * Eev. v. 9. f St. Mark xvi. 15. J Rom. viii. 21.
 
 Jesus Christ, the King's Son. 79 
 
 creature : old things are passed away ; behold, all 
 things are become new."* 
 
 Brethren, the marriage of the King's Son is a 
 beautiful picture of mystery ; but it is also a beautiful 
 picture of fact. 
 
 It occurs to me that a great many religious teachers 
 make a great mistake, when proclaiming the Message of 
 God and this great mistake, made by so many 
 preachers, is that when they preach the Gospel, they 
 begin by dilating upon the hideousness of sin. It is 
 quite wrong utterly wrong we are not told to do that. 
 Supposing a physician comes to visit a patient, who is 
 in great agony, and begins by abusing the patient for 
 his suffering. That would be a pretty beginning, but 
 that is how many religious teachers set to work. 
 
 Brethren, I say we have no authority for that. 
 
 Then some religious teachers tell sinners what they 
 must give up. We are not told to do that. People who 
 come to our mission say: "You do not insist, as you 
 should, upon the giving up of sin, and the necessity 
 of sorrow for sin." I am not told to do that it is 
 quite a mistake to suppose that I am. I am not 
 told to go to the sinner and say: " You wicked wretch, 
 you must be sorry for your sins or Christ will not save 
 you." I am to tell him to come just as he is; I am 
 told to say " Jesus loves you ; and yearns for you, and 
 * 2 Cor. v. 17.
 
 80 Mission Sermon. 
 
 thirsts to save you, and if you will only let Him He 
 will keep you ( as the apple of His eye, and will hide 
 you under the shadow of His wings.' "* 
 
 The marriage feast is a joyful feast ; and it is 
 exactly that to which the Gospel invitation is asking 
 you to come. I am not told to ask the sinner to give 
 up his sin ; though when the sinner has accepted 
 Christ, there will not be any room in his heart for the 
 love of the world ; for when Jesus comes into the 
 heart the love of the world is driven out. And that 
 power comes in which helps the sinner to overcome the 
 world by Him "Who says : " My grace is sufficient."! 
 
 Therefore, you see, the invitation of the Gospel is an 
 invitation to a feast ; not to give up anything, 
 but an invitation to come and accept something. 
 
 God invites all, and says : " Whosoever will, 
 let him take the water of life freely." J "Ho, 
 every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." 
 "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, 
 and I will give you rest."|| 
 
 The message of the Gospel is : "I give you this 
 take it." And it is not only a feast to which you are 
 bidden, but a marriage feast, and the bride is the 
 Church. You remember the words St. Paul used to 
 his converts, which he had gathered out of heathen 
 
 * Dent, xxxii. 10 ; Ps. xvii. 8. f 2 Cor. xii. 9. 
 
 I Rev. xxii. 17. Isaiah Iv. 1. || St. Matth. xi. 28.
 
 Jesus Christ, the King's Son. 81 
 
 Rome and you know St. Paul went among heathen 
 nations that were civilised and were marvellously 
 polished and marvellously^enlightened, whose arts and 
 whose sciences had reached the highest pitch of per- 
 fection; therefore when I say "heathen" I do not wish 
 to convey a false impression, for St. Paul was preach- 
 ing to educated intellects. Out of the midst of the 
 learned nations of the past he was gathering out a 
 people for Christ and what does he tell them when 
 they have come to Christ ? He says : "For I am jealous 
 over you with godly jealousy : for I have espoused you 
 to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste 
 virgin to Christ."* What an extraordinary statement ! 
 We just heard that the bride of Christ was utterly 
 lost, that she was poor, lost and fallen. 
 
 Ah ! my brethren, when the lost and the fallen one 
 is brought to Christ, His blood washes her " whiter 
 thansnow."f Christ is the " Garment of Salvation,"* 
 His Holy Spirit consoles and sanctifies ; and then 
 the redeemed is joined to the Redeemer, as St. Paul 
 says : "He that is joined unto the Lord is one Spirit." 
 
 We are told that the Church is made up of 
 lost sinners ; but we are told also that Christ is an 
 individual, personal, ever-present Saviour. 
 
 My brethren, this is the Church of Christ j " the 
 Bride, the Lamb's wife;"*the Church which the Father 
 
 * 2 Cor. xi. 2. f Ps. li. 7. t Isaiah Ixi. 10. 1 Cor. vi. 17. 
 
 a
 
 82 Mission Sermon. 
 
 gave to Jesus is the Church which is called out by 
 the preaching of the Gospel. Some of you know, and 
 have realised most intensely, the reality of what I am 
 saying do not you know what it is to be married to 
 Jesus and joined to Him by the joints and bands 
 of the Holy Ghost ? You know what it is to be in 
 a loving Saviour's arms and to hear His voice, saying: 
 " No man shall pluck you out of His hand."t 
 
 Did not His promise make us partakers of His 
 Divine Nature ? Does not He say : " As many as 
 received Him, to them gave He power to become the 
 sons (and daughters) of God?"+ 
 
 Oh ! yes, many of us here know the reality of a heart 
 joined to the Lord, and " what God hath joined 
 together, let not man put asunder." He will 
 " keep us as the apple of the eye ; He will hide us 
 under the shadow of His wings." || And He says to 
 His bride, and to every individual soul that makes up 
 the Church : " He that toucheth you toucheth the 
 apple of His eye."f He gave Himself for you, for we 
 are told : " He loved the Church, and He gave Himself 
 for it ;"** and " He is the Head of the Church."ft 
 
 Yes, my brethren, it is His Church. He did not mean 
 the Protestant, or the Catholic Church ; but a body 
 
 * Rev. xxi. 9. t St. John x. 28. J St. John i. 12. 
 
 St. Matt. xix. 6. i| Ps. xvii. 8. f Zee. ii. 8. 
 
 ** Eph. v. 25. ft Eph. y. 23.
 
 Jestis Christ, the Kings Son. 83 
 
 made up of all those who have accepted Christ, as 
 God's gift to them. 
 
 The Church is made up of that company of saved 
 sheep of whom Jesus says : " I know My sheep, and 
 am known of Mine."* I would ask you, my. brethren, 
 individually, each one of you, are you joined to the 
 Lord, by the power of the Holy Ghost ? Have you 
 ever come to the Gospel Feast to which all are invited ? 
 " Go," says the Lord to His disciples " Go and 
 preach the good news to every creature."f You have 
 heard the invitation. Have you accepted it ? You 
 have had the Gift of God offered to you. Have you 
 received it? Is it yours? Can you say: I know 
 that " God has given to me eternal life, and this life is 
 in His Son."t St. John said : " He that hath the 
 Son hath life ; he that hath not the Son of God hath 
 not life." 
 
 " 0, come unto Me ! " He cries to the weary pilgrim 
 to-night, for " He is the same yesterday, and to-day, 
 and for ever : "|| " Come unto Me, all ye that labour 
 and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."^[ 
 
 Brethren, this is a weary world, and many are 
 tired and faint as life's journey goes on towards the 
 goal, and age begins to enfeeble our nerves and to 
 still our pulses ; and quiet, mystic death is stealthily 
 
 * St. John x. 14. t St. Mark xvi. 15. J 1 John v. 11. 
 1 John v. 12. || II eb. xiii. 8. [ St. Matt. xi. 28.
 
 84 Mission Sermon. 
 
 drawing nearer and more nigh, and then comes the 
 question : " Does not the world get weary and more 
 weary, to me who am so weary and heavy laden? 
 Am not I heavy laden with the burden of aches and 
 pains moral, physical and intellectual ? My body is 
 heir to countless diseases; my poor distressed intellect 
 longs to know all things; but the more it gets to 
 know, the more it knows how little it does know ; 
 also my heart, how it hungers for a something that 
 shall satisfy and give it rest ! 
 
 Then Jesus says : " Come unto Me, all ye that are 
 weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest."* 
 
 And we, who have come to Him, have found rest, 
 and know that we are of God. We know Jesus 
 Christ has saved us and is in us. He lives in us, and 
 we, in Him, are reconciled, and brought back to God ; 
 and Jesus lights up our hearts with the rays of the 
 Sun of Eighteousness ; and from the gate of death we 
 pass to the gate of life and come to the marriage 
 Feast of Heaven. 
 
 " We have washed (ourselves clean) in the Blood of 
 the Lamb,"t and are robed in the best robe from the 
 wardrobe of Heaven, the Righteousness of Christ. 
 
 So we have come to the Feast, and when we come to 
 the Feast the King says to each one of us : " You 
 may be the bride of My Son if you will." The love 
 
 * St. Matth. xi. 28. f Rev. vii. 14.
 
 Jesus Christ, the King's Son. 85 
 
 of Christ first wins our hearts and then the love of 
 Christ sustains us. So Christ, in His divinely human 
 sympathy, wins the souls of weary, hungry, restless, 
 sinful, dying men ; and the sheep, when they hear 
 the Gospel Call, come nocking into the fold. ' 
 
 Still is the Gospel quietly doing its work, amid 
 storms of rationalism, materialism, and unbelief. For 
 what is the Gospel's work ? It is to draw out a people 
 for the Lord of glory out, from the masses of sadness 
 and sorrow, a people of gladness and joy shall come 
 who shall be the sons and daughters of morning, the 
 salt of the earth and lights in the darkness of earth's 
 shades. 
 
 There is no one who is unsaved, at this moment, 
 who need remain so a moment longer, for the loving 
 message is : " Whosoever will,* let him come." Do you 
 feel your need ? Do you feel your lost estate ? Do 
 you feel that you are restless, and that sin is staining 
 you from head to foot, and in heart and mind and soul ? 
 Do you feel destitute of any righteousness which is 
 worthy of God ? All your needs are not forgotten by 
 Christ, Who says : " Come ; for all things are now 
 ready. "t The Eobe of Righteousness and the Peace 
 of God are ready for you. Only just look up to Jesus, 
 Who is present, in our midst, speaking in you, speak- 
 ing to you. 
 
 * Rev. xxii. 17. t St. Luke xiv. 17.
 
 86 Mission Sermon. 
 
 " In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead,"* 
 and of His fulness you may receive if you will only 
 lay hold on Jesus, Who now is proffered as God's Gift 
 to you ; and, in the words of the Holy Virgin Mary, 
 the Mother of Jesus, you may then sing : ( ' My soul 
 doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced 
 in God my Saviour."f 
 
 The marriage of the King's Son has taken place in 
 this hall to-night, for Christ has promised that " His 
 word shall not return to Him void, but it shall prosper 
 in the thing whereto he sent it."J And this is 
 whereto He sends it, to draw out poor, naked sinners, 
 and to clothe them with His Righteousness ; to draw 
 out sin-stained souls, and to wash them in that 
 Blood which makes them "whiter than snow." 
 Then the poor, lost soul, that only a moment before 
 was a mass of sin and corruption, is cleansed ; Christ 
 takes away the filthy garments from him and gives 
 him a change of raiment ; and the soul is filled with 
 the peace of Jesus Christ ; and he may go out with a 
 shout of joy and he shall sing: "I will greatly rejoice 
 in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God ; for 
 He hath clothed me with the garments of Salvation, 
 He hath covered me with the Robe of Righteousness." || 
 
 So, beloved, to-night the King's Son is present in 
 
 Col. ii. 9. f St. Luke i. 46, 47. J Isaiah Iv. 11. 
 
 Ps. li. 7. || Isaiah Ixi. 10.
 
 Jesus Christ, the King's Son. 87 
 
 this hall, and has found His bride in some poor, lost 
 sister, who may have travelled here from some of the 
 slums of London and now is trembling in our midst. 
 
 The world has cast her off and the world's sneer 
 is beaming its ironical gaze upon her ; and oh ! 
 the bitterness of the world's irony the world 
 destroyed her first and then the world casts her off. 
 But she is the bride of Jesus, Who says to her : " thy 
 sins are forgiven "* thee, " go, and sin no more."f 
 "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."J "When 
 thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee ; 
 they shall not overflow thee." 
 
 My brethren, this is, then, what it is to preach the 
 Gospel to proclaim the marriage of the King's Son ; 
 and God blesses the Word, and gives it power and 
 goes with it, and it prospers. I may see before 
 me now a young orphan girl who has to go all the 
 way back to Whitechapel after this service. There 
 she lives alone ; nobody cares for her, and she is hard 
 at work from morning until night ; but she can go 
 back to-night, to her little room, and say : " Some- 
 body cares for me. Somebody loves me even me." 
 
 And to-night there will be a light in that lonely 
 room, shining so brightly, above the poor rush- 
 light that flickers in the socket. Yes, brethren, it is 
 
 * St. Luke vii. 48. Heb. xiii. 5. 
 
 t St. John viii. 11. Isaiah xliii. 2.
 
 88 Mission Sermon. 
 
 a light that will never go out ; it is a light that 
 nothing will extinguish ; it is the light of liberty and 
 love that will shine upon her from the light-world of 
 the presence of God. 
 
 There is a Home eternal in the Heavens her 
 Beloved is keeping it for her and her for it. A place 
 has been prepared for her " I go to prepare a place 
 for you "* and she is now to be prepared for the 
 place until the King shall call her into the brightness 
 and the glory and the peace of the Homeland of 
 Heaven, when she " shall see Him as He is."f 
 
 St. John xiv. 2. f 1 John iii. 2
 
 VI. 
 
 Jesus Cbrist, % 
 
 Thursday Evening, October 22nd, 1885.
 
 Jisxts Cfmsf, 
 
 1'rayer before 
 
 O Lord Jesus Christ, Shepherd of the Flock of God, Who 
 hast sent a Message of Love and Peace and Salvation into the 
 world, and hast given such power to the Message that It must 
 " prosper in the thing whereto Thou sendest It "* even to 
 gather out the people whom the Father has given to Thee : 
 we pray Thee grant such power to the preaching of Thy 
 Word to-night, that many of the " lost sheep of the House of 
 Israel "f may be gathered in ! Grant such a shower of 
 blessing to this congregation that the power of Thy Holy 
 Spirit may, in very deed and truth, be felt upon us ; and, as 
 Thou hast, by Thine Apostle St. Paul, declared to us that 
 Thou choosest "the weak things of the world to confound the 
 strong,";}: behold one here who is weak and foolish ; and O Lord, 
 do Thou take me and use me, for Thy Glory, for the gathering 
 together of Thy people, and for the consolation of some here 
 present. 
 
 We do not speak to Thee as to a far-away God, but as One 
 Who is in our midst, even " the Son of Man," Who is " come 
 to seek and to save, to-night, that which is lost." And we 
 know that Thou art just "the same yesterday, and to-day, and 
 for ever."|| 
 
 Dear Lord Jesus, the Bishop and Shepherd of our 
 souls, be to-night amongst the lost ones here, as Thou wast 
 amongst the lost ones by the side of the Galilean sea, when 
 
 * Isaiah Iv. 11. f St. Matth. x. 6. xv. 24. J 1 Cor. i. 27. 
 St. Luke xix. 10. || Heb. xiii. 8.
 
 92 Mission Sermon. 
 
 the publicans and sinners crowded to hear Thee. Speak 
 with Thy Voice of love and pardon. Let the sheep hear the 
 Shepherd's voice and follow Him. 
 
 And now, Blessed Jesus, do Thou anoint my understanding, 
 anoint my lips and my heart, that I may be Thy instrument 
 and Thy witness amongst those here assembled. 
 
 To-night may Thy Name be lifted up; to-night "be Thou 
 exalted, Lord, in Thine Own Strength : so will we sing and 
 praise Thy Power."* Blessed Jesus, hear Thy people's prayer, 
 to the glory of Thy Name, for Thine Infinite Love and Mercy's 
 Sake. Amen. 
 
 * Ps. xsi. 13.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd. 93 
 
 "JESUS CHRIST, THE GOOD SHEPHERD/' 
 
 JHfsst'on Sermon. 
 
 " I am the Good Shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known 
 of Mine. As the Father knoweth Me, even so know I the 
 Father : and I lay down My Life for the sheep." St. John 
 x. 14, 15. 
 
 Brethren, although this is such a very common 
 subject and thought, yet it is a subject that is not in 
 the least comprehended by the majority of professing 
 Christians. They do not seem to think that our 
 Lord is a "Good Shepherd;" in fact they make 
 Him out to be a bad Shepherd, a very helpless 
 Shepherd, who loses ever so many of His sheep. 
 They make Him out to be a Shepherd who lets 
 ever so many of His sheep go to everlasting 
 damnation. Therefore they make Him out to be a 
 bad Shepherd. 
 
 But Z am not here to talk of Him as a bad 
 Shepherd, but to talk as one who knows that He is 
 "the Good Shepherd." 
 
 Some of our congregations come from hundreds of 
 miles away ; they are gathered, when we have a 
 mission, from all parts of England and there are 
 those here now who have come hundreds of miles to
 
 94 Mission Sermon. 
 
 this service and I would ask why have they come ? 
 why they have come such a long distance to 
 attend these services ? It is because they know 
 that I tell them of a " GOOD Shepherd " whom I 
 know and believe myself to be a " Good Shepherd " 
 and that not one of His sheep shall ever perish. 
 He says it Himself ; and anyone who says that one of 
 "the sheep of .Jesus" can perish, makes " God a liar." 
 
 I believe what He says; and if I had to stand alone 
 in the Church of England, I should, and shall, always 
 testify to the fact that Jesus is a Good Shepherd ; and 
 that when He says " My sheep shall never perish,"* 
 He means it, and will take care that not one of 
 them does perish. " Of them which Thou gavest Me 
 have I lost none."t 
 
 During the early part of the history of the Christian 
 Church the Christian religion was sometimes called 
 "the Religion of the Good Shepherd." That was 
 one of the names by which it went. 
 
 And if you go and look into the Catacombs at 
 Rome, you will find that one of the favourite sculp- 
 tures in those dens and caves of the earth, in the days 
 of persecution, was a figure of Jesus with a lamb in 
 His Arms as " The Good Shepherd." 
 
 " The Religion of the Good Shepherd ! " 
 
 The Colosseum would ring with the shouts of scoi-es 
 * St. John x. 28. t St. John xviii. 9.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd. 95 
 
 of thousands of men, women and children who stood 
 by gloatingly watching the sheep of the Good 
 Shepherd torn to pieces by wild beasts ; and little 
 boys and girls children of Jesus were given to the 
 lion and the tiger, and were killed amid the crash of 
 the triumphant shouts of delight from the heathen 
 crowds, that filled the seats of the Colosseum. 
 A little Saint Cyril, or Saint Pancras, held up 
 before an astonished world the dignity of the 
 Christian's life, and joyfully and triumphantly went 
 to the fire, the torture, the flame or the wild beast, 
 knowing that He in Whom he trusted, was a Good 
 Shepherd, and that not one of His sheep could perish. 
 
 The short process of dying was nothing, because 
 the eyes of the dying saw Him Who was invisible to 
 the persecutors of the martyrs, who remembered the 
 Promise of that God who was not ashamed to be called 
 their God; because " He had prepared for them a 
 City "* on High, far beyond this world of war and 
 strife, this world of grief and wrong ; far beyond this 
 world of hate and bitterness ; up there in the Home- 
 land of everlasting Peace and eternal Rest in the 
 New Jerusalem. 
 
 That is the Home of His sheep the sheep of the 
 Good Shepherd an abiding place within the Folds 
 upon the Mountains of Israel. 
 
 * Heb. xi. 16.
 
 96 Mission Sermon. 
 
 Brethren, the Church of Jesus, and each individual 
 member of that Church, has always known that Jesus 
 Christ is a Good Shepherd. 
 
 And now let us examine, for a short time, the 
 origin of Christ's title to the name of "Good 
 Shepherd." 
 
 I do not think any professing Christians would 
 deny the fact that Jesus Christ has a people. I do 
 not suppose that any persons, who profess at all to 
 know Christ, and to believe the Christian revelation, 
 would, even intellectually, deny that Christ has a 
 people in the world, and that He always has had. 
 
 Well, how did this people become God's people ? 
 " My sheep," he calls them in the parable before us. 
 What right has He to call them " My sheep"?* He 
 did not call the Scribes and Pharisees His sheep. He 
 said to them : " Ye believe not, because ye are not of 
 My sheep. "f So, you see, He claims some as His 
 sheep, and to others He says: " Ye are not of My 
 sheep." But what right has He to call His people 
 His "sheep"? He tells us, "My Father gave them 
 Me."% 
 
 It is as plain as A B C to the Christian,, taught of 
 God. There is no difficulty at all in understanding it. 
 There were two seeds from the first the seed of the 
 
 * St. John x. 14, 27. 
 t St. John x. 26. J St. John x. 29. 

 
 Jesus Christ, -the Good Shepherd. 97 
 
 Kingdom and the seed of the Evil One. "My sheep," 
 Christ calls His people, and He says " The Father 
 gave them to Me." 
 
 I do not know if the children of God here like being 
 called sheep. I do not think that a sillier animal could 
 have been selected by our Blessed Lord ; and sheep are 
 also very destructive. They are very, very injurious 
 to our crops of winter greens at Llanthony ; and we 
 are obliged to employ a man to mind our crops just 
 because the sheep are the very pests of our lives. 
 Therefore, when our Lord says we are His sheep, I 
 repeat that I do not think it is a very complimentary 
 expression, because it shows that His people are very 
 silly, very helpless, and mischievous, always getting 
 into pickles and difficulties, muddles and messes. We 
 often find sheep on the mountains smashed to pieces 
 through falling over dangerous precipices. 
 
 But, dear brothers and sisters, that is just what 
 God says we are like ! He says His people are per- 
 fectly helpless, very foolish, very mischievous, and 
 get into a great deal of trouble. I feel myself that I 
 was all that. I was foolish and ignorant until He, by 
 His Holy Spirit, taught me. I know that I was 
 utterly helpless, too ; and that often, before I knew 
 the Good Shepherd, I felt sure I must be damned. 
 
 But after I came to the Good Shepherd, I knew that 
 I could never be lost, because my Shepherd, Who is 
 
 H
 
 98 Mission Sermon. 
 
 Almighty, had told me so, and that 1 am " kept by 
 His Power."* 
 
 And then I was mischievous and even now I often 
 want my own will and my own way in the midst of 
 some horrible trial or persecution which I am called 
 upon to bear. Many of you know the dreadful 
 character I have from a dear relation : and some 
 people even say that I am not fit to preach on 
 account of it. You, dear souls, whom my heart is 
 yearning to save, do not know the weight of the afflic- 
 tion which God calls me to bear ; and how year after 
 year I have lived groaning in anguish both of mind 
 and body. 
 
 But I believe that I have needed this trial and 
 training. And you need your trials too. 
 
 My brethren, we all are very mischievous. We 
 give the Good Shepherd such pains. 
 
 And, worse than all, it was necessary that the Good 
 Shepherd should die for us. He had to lay down 
 His life for us. He had to go forth amid the perils 
 of the strife, alone and poor ; and then He died for 
 us on Good Friday morning, eighteen hundred years 
 ago. The Shepherd was slain, but the Flock liveth 
 for evermore. " I lay down My life for the sheep "f 
 said Christ. 
 
 And then He rose again with a Resurrection Life, 
 and that Resurrection Life of Jesus is the life which 
 * 1 Peter i. 5. f St. John x. 15.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd. 99 
 
 He gives to His sheep ; and every believer can say 
 " I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."* 
 
 Brethren, the work and duty of every true Evange- 
 list is to go out and gather in the sheep of Christ. 
 We want to go out amid the multitudes of men and 
 women who are steeped in unbelief and sin ; who are 
 under the influence of sin and of the powers of darkness 
 and of sorrow ; and to raise our voices and say : 
 " Whosoever will/'f let him come unto Me. " Him 
 that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out."J 
 As His ministers, we should be witnesses for Christ ; 
 and not those who are ordained ministers only, but 
 every believer in Jesus. 
 
 The G-ospel of Jesus is still calling a people out 
 from the world to feed on Him. Oh weary brother, 
 worn and tossed with the battle of this life, God's 
 Spirit is breathing upon you ; and NOW if you will 
 you may feel the hallowed influence of that Spirit ; 
 and when once you have felt it you seem to say : ' ' If 
 I could only kneel at that Shepherd's feet and trust 
 Him, as my Shepherd; if I could only do this, I 
 should rejoice." 
 
 Are there any here now who have never come to 
 
 Christ ? If there be, they can come now. What is it 
 
 that is making them wish to come ? It is the beautiful 
 
 influence of the Holy Spirit that makes Jesus' people 
 
 * Gal. ii. 20. f Rev. xxii. 17. J St. John vi. 37.
 
 ioo Mission Sermon. 
 
 yearn to know and to taste of His Love and Power. 
 This is ' c the day of (our) Salvation ; now is the accepted 
 time."* 
 
 It is the day of His Power when His Word is 
 calling out a " people " from a world " dead in tres- 
 passes and sins."f Come, therefore, " all ye who 
 labour and are heavy laden," J and "seek ye the Lord 
 while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is 
 near." " The Spirit and the Bride say, come ! "|| 
 
 Perhaps some of you may say : <( But how shall I 
 come ? " He tells you how " He that believeth on 
 Me."f 
 
 It is just trusting Him ; it is just taking Him at 
 His word ; it is just accepting Him as the Father's 
 gift to the soul. This is what it is to come. 
 
 Oh, how simple is that act of coming ! How simple 
 
 is that act by which the soul raises itself and takes 
 
 hold of Jesus ! And then, when once we have 
 
 accepted Him when once we have accepted Jesus as 
 
 God's gift to us then He holds us and keeps us and 
 
 declares that nothing " shall pluck us out of His 
 
 hand."** Then the sheep lies down upon the Bosom 
 
 of the Shepherd, " strong and tender ;" then the 
 
 sheep is at rest, for it hears the voice of the Shepherd 
 
 saying, " He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of 
 
 * 2 Cor. vi. 2. t Ephes. ii. 1. J St. Matth. xi. 28. 
 
 Isaiah Iv. 6. || Kev. xxii. 17. T St. John vi. 47. 
 
 ** St. John x. 28.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd. 101 
 
 His eye.* Jesus loves the Church for which He died; 
 and the Church is made up of all those who come to 
 Him, and whom the Father draws to His feet, by the 
 grace and inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 My brethren, God grant that everyone in this con- 
 gregation may to-night be at peace with God and 
 safe in the arms of the " Good Shepherd ! " He 
 knows who are thus safe in His arms ; though I 
 cannot tell. 
 
 But I know that the Spirit of the Lord is here in 
 this Westminster Town Hall to-night and I also know 
 that the work of the Lord must prosper when the 
 Word goeth out with power. 
 
 Whether it be the atheist, the materialist, or the 
 rationalist, all may come under the influence of that 
 Word ; and whether it be the most bigoted 
 rationalist, the vilest of all the company, who struggles 
 and rebels and would resist with his finite wisdom the 
 infinite wisdom of God, the moment he comes under 
 the power of the Holy Ghost he falls at the feet of 
 Jesus and says, " Here I am ! Lord, I believe ; help 
 Thou mine unbelief."t 
 
 My brethren, I could tell you such stories to show 
 that nothing is too hard for the Lord. But look at 
 the pictures furnished in the Gospel stories them- 
 selves. Look at that lost sheep, that man possessed 
 * Zee. ii. 8. f St. Mark ix. 24.
 
 102 Mission Sermon. 
 
 of a legion of unclean devils living among the tombs ! 
 He was drawn to the feet of Jesus, and was seen 
 there by the multitude, " clothed, and in his right 
 mind."* 
 
 Look at Mary Magdalene sitting at the feet of 
 Jesus, bathing them with her tears, and drying them 
 with the hair of her head ; and Jesus was not 
 ashamed of her ! Look at the lost sheep on the cross 
 the dying thief. What a glorious promise was 
 extended to him ! " To-day shalt thou be with Me in 
 Paradise."t 
 
 How speedy is the work of love ! 
 
 And see what a good hope we have when we preach 
 the Gospel" the secret things (that) belong to God"t 
 are revealed to us. He has revealed His Gospel to us so 
 that we may have the power of utterance of the Word 
 of Life ; that it may succeed and " prosper in the 
 thing whereto He sends it." My brethren, God 
 grant to each one of us this willing mind, that not one 
 of us shall ever be among the number of those who 
 have rejected Christ those of whom He says : " Ye 
 would not come to me."|| " Ye are not of my 
 sheep."f 
 
 And now, in conclusion, think of the security of the 
 soul, that to-night, in this congregation, has come to 
 
 * St. Mark v. 15. f St. Luke xxiii. 43. J Dent. xxix. 29. 
 Isaiah. Iv. 11. || St. John v. 40. \ St. John x. 26.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd. 103 
 
 Jesus. It is saved for ever. Saved for ever with an 
 everlasting redemption ; with an everlasting salva- 
 tion. Saved ! " By grace " I am told to sa.y to 
 the saved "by grace ye are saved."* Yes, dear 
 souls, lie down now in the Good Shepherd's Arms in 
 faith, and say to thyself " He loved me ; He gave 
 Himself for me;"t The "Good Shepherd gave His 
 Life for the sheep."J 
 
 Will you let Him take you ? He, Who says : " I 
 will never leave you nor forsake you " ? You may 
 say, I would, but my nature is so weak and fickle and 
 changeable ; and the powers of the world may pluck 
 me from His hand. But Christ says : " None 
 shall pluck thee out of My hand."|| You may say 
 again : My nature is so vile and the world, the flesh 
 and the devil may perchance win the victory. Christ 
 says : " My grace is sufficient for thee."^[ As thy 
 need is "As thy days, so shall thy strength be."** Is 
 it peace ? Is it peace ? Listen, " Thou wilt keep 
 him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on 
 Thee : because he trusteth in Thee."tt Trust Him 
 and believe, and thou shalt be saved. 
 
 Jesus Christ is the < k Good Shepherd," " He laid 
 down His life for the Sheep." J J " He calleth His Own 
 
 * Ephes. ii. 5. f Gal. ii. 20. + St. John x. 11. 
 
 Heb. xiii. 5. || St. John x. 28. f 2 Cor. xii. 9. 
 
 ** Deut. xxxiii. 25. ft Isaiah xxvi. 3. ft John x. 15.
 
 104 Mission Sermon. 
 
 sheep by name,"* and He will forget none " in that 
 day when He makes up His jewels. "f 
 
 Do you want anything more ? If you do, God has 
 no more to give. Jesus is all that God can give you, 
 and if you have accepted Him, God has supplied all 
 your need, and " will supply all your need in Christ 
 Jesus."! 
 
 And, beloved, some of you may be rebelling 
 because of the quiet and calm teaching of this even- 
 ing, and saying that it is all new to you. I am sorry 
 to say, and I am ashamed to say, it is no doubt new 
 to many. And yet you may go to a bookstall and buy 
 a copy of the Bible for fourpence ! What is the 
 Bible ? Shall I tell you ? It is the " Lamb's Book of 
 Life" on earth, and it is available to all at the present 
 day. 
 
 But there are numbers who come to me and say : 
 " I have never understood the Bible before I have 
 read it as a task, as a duty ; but I never before saw it 
 in the light in which I see it now ! " Ah ! directly 
 the soul is married to Jesus the soul bears her Hus- 
 band's name ; for this is the " new name whereby she 
 shall be called." || When she hears the Bridegroom's 
 voice His words are sweeter than honey to the taste. 
 And now I should like to ask the congregation 
 
 * John x. 3. f Mai. iii. 17. J Phil. iv. 19. 
 
 Rev. xxi. 27. i! Isaiah Ixii. 2.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd. 105 
 
 and to ask it very quietly if I have spoken any 
 skilful words to-night, or whether I have attempted 
 any human arguments, or the use of any logic or 
 philosophy ? No, we preach not " with enticing 
 words of man's wisdom, that your faith should not 
 stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of 
 God."* The wisdom of the world is foolishness, but 
 the simple Gospel of Jesus is sufficient for us ; and, 
 in spite of all the sectarianism, of all the rationalism, 
 of all the phases of nineteenth-century unbelief, it is 
 the same almighty Gospel and the same " Power 
 of God unto Salvation, to everyone that believeth."f 
 
 Some of you, no doubt, are Roman Catholics, and 
 some Anglo-Catholics, like myself ; some of you are 
 Methodists, some of you are Plymouth Brethren, and 
 some are Salvation Army people. But, whatever and 
 whoever you are, you know that what I have now 
 been saying has only to do with the nock of Jesus. 
 
 I never attempt at my Mission services to take 
 away a member of the Roman Catholic Church or the 
 Salvation Army to another form of outward belief. 
 What I do is just to try and bring weary, hungering 
 souls to the feet of the " Good Shepherd"; to enable 
 each one to look up in His face and say " The Lord 
 is my Shepherd, I shall not want;"J and to send 
 
 * 1 Cor. ii. 4, 5. f Rom. i. 16. J Psalm xxiii. 1.
 
 106 Mission Sermon. 
 
 them back to their worship full of Jesus and of His 
 wondrous Love. 
 
 "What I preach is that without Jesus no Church or 
 work is of the least avail, for it is in Him you shall 
 " have Peace "* in " Jesus Only." 
 
 And the love of our brethren is the great mark of 
 the children of God the great mark of those souls 
 that are saved. 
 
 Lord Jesus, Thou hast blessed Thine own Word, 
 and we praise Thee. 
 
 * St. John xvi. 33.
 
 VII. 
 
 f *sus at % C^rato of faints. 
 
 Friday Evening, May 21st, 1886.
 
 at <rafo 0f 
 
 Prayer before Sermon.- 
 
 O God, enthroned on the highest heights of the universe, 
 Who rulest, by the supreme power of Thy will, all the forces 
 of nature which Thou hast created and dost command ; Who 
 speakcst to the vast systems of the planets of space and they 
 obey Thee, in the law that Thou hast given them ; we bow down 
 before Thee as creatures of a day, shortly to turn to dust and 
 mingle with the soil of this our little, tiny planet that floats 
 in space ; and as we realise our nothingness we marvel 
 at the exceeding greatness of Thy loving kindness in caring 
 for us. Oh ! Thou hast made us with a free will, and our free 
 will is turned towards selfishness and sin, and this world 
 of ours is peopled with a multitude of rebels against Thee 
 and Thy laws. Care and sorrow strew our oceans with wrecks, 
 and our vast continents with tears ; and dying is the end of 
 us all. 
 
 Father, look, we pray Thee, with the eyes of Thy tender 
 compass-ion upon us here present, who have gathered out 
 from the crowd, that is restless and weary and hungry, to seek 
 after good things that may satisfy the wants and hungering of 
 the soul and intellect and mind that exist and work within us. 
 
 O Father, hast Thou spoken to this world, or hast Thou 
 maintained a solemn silence from the first ? Has man really 
 never heard the voice of His Father God ? Hast Thou never sent 
 a word of love, or healing, or instruction, or rest, or comfort, 
 or liberty to men ? Blessed be Thy Name ! We know that 
 Thou hast spoken, and that Thou hast uttered Thy voice and
 
 1 10 Prayer before Sermon. 
 
 revealed to us the thoughts Thou thinkest towards us, that 
 they are thoughts of peace. O Father, we who have heard 
 Thy message of love and pardon, of new life, of rest, of peace, 
 of satisfaction our hearts are fed and are full ; our souls are 
 alive in the gladness of the eternal liberty of the sons of God. 
 
 But there are many here who have not heard Thy 
 message, in whose hearts Thy Word hath never yet found an 
 echoing response. Wilt Thou grant that Thy Word may be so 
 spoken to-night that souls may enter into " the peace of God, 
 which passeth all understanding,"* and that Thy promise which 
 Thou didst make to the preaching of Thy Word, by Thy 
 prophet of old, may be fulfilled that many may go out "with 
 joy, and be led forth with peace. "f 
 
 And now, Heavenly Father, in the " Name which is above 
 every name,"^ in the Name of Thy Holy Child Jesus, we 
 beseech Thee hear our supplications, and grant a bountiful 
 answer to our prayer ; and He shall have all the glory while 
 the blessing falls upon us even to Him shall be the praise, 
 who with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, liveth and 
 reigneth, God for ever and ever. Amen. 
 
 * Phil. iv. 7. t Ifaiah liv. 12. J Phil. ii. 0.
 
 jfesus at tke Grave of Lazarus. \ 1 1 
 
 JESUS AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS. 
 
 Sermon. 
 
 Jesus cried with a loud voice, " Lazarus, come forth." 
 S. John xi. 43. 
 
 How many scenes from the Gospel history have 
 been passing before our mind's eye during the past 
 week ; and while the scenes of the Gospel have been 
 passing before us, how God's Holy Spirit has anointed 
 the scenes with power, and lit them up with a strange 
 and instructive fragrance to some of our hearts ! 
 
 How the stories have been coming to me everyday, 
 from some of the congregation, of the strange influence 
 that has been at work in people's minds and hearts 
 certainly not from anything I can have said, for my 
 words are nothing but the poor weak, tiny tones of a 
 dying man ; but with the tones a power has gone 
 forth which has been promised to the preaching of 
 God's Word ! 
 
 Now, before I come to deal with my subject may I 
 ask my kind, patient hearers a very simple question ? 
 What would be your opinion upon the point that I
 
 1 12 Mission Sermon. 
 
 am going to propose to you ? If we take it for 
 granted that there is a God, and that God has sent a 
 message to the world, what kind of a message do you 
 think it would be ? A simple message which every 
 one could take in young and old, small and great, 
 intellectual and those of humble intellect or a mes- 
 sage which would require a vast amount of human 
 philosophy and human exposition to accompany it ? 
 Which do you think the message of God, if He sent a 
 message to this world, would be ? Do you think, 
 beloved brethren, that I am expressing a very wild and 
 a very unreasonable thought when I say that I believe 
 God has sent a message to man just as he is sinful, 
 weak, sorrowful, tearful, restless, peaceless, hungry, 
 dying ? 
 
 Therefore, I believe that as God has sent a message 
 to man as he is, it is a message which will fill up all 
 the voids, which will feed all the hungerings, yearn- 
 ings, energisings of his wondrous compound nature ; 
 and I also believe that this message is not a philoso- 
 phical message, but it is a message so simple that a 
 little child is capable of taking it in, as well as the 
 greatest philosopher, and the loftiest thinker that any 
 age, or race, can produce. It is a message of God, 
 and it is a message that is perfect. It is a message 
 that can remedy all the ills to which man is subject ; 
 but this message is also filled with a power that is
 
 Jesus at the Grave of Lazarus. \ 13 
 
 quite unique. The message itself is unique because 
 it is divine, but its divinity is proved by the power 
 that accompanies it ; and God has promised that the 
 Word He has sent to man " shall not return unto Him 
 void ; it shall prosper in the thing whereto He sent it, 
 and it shall accomplish that which He pleases."* But 
 there is only one thing that the message will not do. 
 It will not force a man's free will. 
 
 If you ask me how it is that God came to make an 
 animal with a free will such as man is, I cannot tell 
 you. I do not know the object of all God's purposes. 
 I only know what He has chosen to reveal. I know 
 that God is sovereign in love, and sovereign in power; 
 and I know that, in spite of His sovereignty in love 
 and power, He has yet determined to create a free- 
 willed agent in man. 
 
 Our free will and God's sovereignty seem to be 
 opposed, the one to the other. Our free will and 
 God's love seem at times to clash. Why did He make 
 me with a free will when He foresaw that my free 
 will would lead me wrong ? Oh ! why did He not 
 make me like some of the magnificent automata that 
 spangle the sky at night, like some of those beauteous 
 worlds which follow in exquisite harmony of obedience 
 the law wherewith God, in nature, has governed 
 them ? Why did He make mo a sentient, intellectual, 
 * Ihaiah Iv. 11.
 
 i 14 Mission Sermon. 
 
 reasoning animal, with a free will to choose and to do 
 as I please ? 
 
 My brethren, is it God's will that the drunkards 
 should be at their cups in the countless public-houses 
 of this great metropolis ? Is it God's will that men 
 should go home in a state of intoxication, and knock 
 down their wives, and starve their little ones ? But 
 yet it is permitted. We are surrounded on all sides 
 by mysteries and seeming contradictions ; but in spite 
 of all these seeming contradictions there meets us face 
 to face this magnificent fact, that wherever the word of 
 God is accepted and believed, that word sets a man 
 right. It makes a man peaceful, it makes him restful, 
 it makes him happy ; it makes him powerful to 
 overcome sin, and makes him powerful to endure 
 the sorrows of earth ; so that the Apostle Paul 
 does not in the least exaggerate when he says : " If 
 any man be in Christ, he is a new creature ;"* and 
 the Apostle does not exaggerate either when he writes 
 to the Ephesians, and tells them that man by nature is 
 " dead in trespasses and sins"f before God! 
 
 He is utterly dead. He is dead as far as spiritual 
 and eternal things are concerned just like a body is 
 dead with regard to the senses. A dead body can 
 neither see, nor hear, nor speak, nor eat, nor drink, 
 nor breathe. This is exactly the condition of a man's 
 * 2 Cor. v. 17. t Ephes. ii. 1.
 
 Jesus at the Grave of Lazarus. 1 15 
 
 soul, of a sinner's soul with regard to eternal things ; 
 and if the unconverted man attempt to bring his 
 human reason to bear upon the revelation of God ; and 
 to argue out with God the mysteries that He has 
 chosen to reveal to us, we say at once it is an impos- 
 sibility. You are arguing from a finite platform about 
 things infinite. 
 
 The Apostle said of the preaching of the Cross, 
 I am going to " speak the wisdom of God in a 
 mystery."* He says : " This cannot be under- 
 stood except spiritually." He says : " The natural 
 man " (that is, the unconverted man) " receiveth not 
 the things of the Spirit of God : for they are foolish- 
 ness unto him : neither can he know them, because 
 they are to be spiritually discerned ;"f and you may 
 not argue concerning spiritual things by human 
 analysis. You must compare spiritual things with 
 spiritual, and that is the only way of dealing 
 thoroughly and logically with the things of God. 
 But he says that this word of God, which is " foolish- 
 ness to the natural man," is accompanied by a power 
 that opens the hearts and enables our minds to 
 receive it. 
 
 Will you excuse me, for a moment, for asking you 
 again, as thinking men, to consider the extraordinary 
 success of St. Paul's mission to Corinth ? 
 
 * 1 Cor. ii. 7. f 1 Cor. ii. 14.
 
 n 6 Mission Sermon. 
 
 We have often drawn a picture of the magnificent 
 philosophies of Greece, and of the religions of Greece, 
 assisted by all the magnificence of human art and 
 science. We have drawn pictures of Grecian civilisa- 
 tion, which had reached the very acme of beauty ; and 
 yet a despised Jew was going forth, among the Isles 
 of Greece, with an absurd tale that a Jewish Carpenter 
 had been crucified as a malefactor ; but that that Jewish 
 Carpenter was really and truly the mighty Creator of 
 the universe, and that He had really and truly shed 
 His blood to redeem all who would believe in Him ; and 
 that there was no redemption except through the blood 
 of this crucified Jewish Carpenter. And not only 
 that, but St. Paul had the courage to say : " I am 
 determined not to know anything among you but 
 Jesus Christ and Him crucified."* You must worship, 
 as your Creator, your God and your Redeemer, a cruci- 
 fied Jewish peasant, condemned to death by His own 
 countrymen. 
 
 I ask you, as a matter of common sense, if this be 
 an historical fact, what the power was that induced 
 the Greeks to form churches of believers in this cruci- 
 fied Carpenter ? Is the power a power that you can 
 explain by any human hypothesis ? Was the success 
 of the Apostles of Christ (and wherever they went, 
 and uttered this Gospel, they formed churches of 
 * 1 Cor. ii. 2.
 
 Jesus at the Grave of Lazarus. 1 17 
 
 believers), was it a power like any other power? Is 
 there any power like it ? Upon any but the Christian 
 hypothesis, how can you explain the success of such 
 a childish, absurd, improbable and ridiculous state- 
 ment as, from a human standpoint, the story of the 
 Gospel is ? 
 
 Why, God does everything as if He were deter- 
 mined to turn everything here upside down. He acts 
 exactly opposite to all man's preconceived ideas as to 
 what God ought to do ; and yet the Apostle Paul is 
 quite content to preach to the philosophic Greeks 
 and the martial Romans, "Jesus Christ and Him 
 crucified,"* and nothing else. And I say we have 
 proof sufficient of the power of this message, to a 
 dying world, when we see that it has called out, 
 from all generations, and in every place, wherever it 
 be faithfully preached, a people of every temperament, 
 every characteristic, every peculiarity, every idiosyn- 
 crasy and of every phase of unbelief; and that it can 
 enable them to take in, as the gift of God, this mighty 
 Christ in all His fulness to the soul. 
 
 And those men began to rejoice. They began to be 
 very glad to find their hearts resting on a mighty Rock, 
 their souls fed with a Food that satisfied them, and 
 set them free from all the bondage of sin. They found 
 themselves filled with a strange illumination of the 
 * 1 Cor. ii. 2.
 
 n8 Mission Sermon. 
 
 intellect and understanding, so that they were able to 
 comprehend, and take in, things that before had 
 seemed utterly foolish to them. 
 
 Such is the power that accompanies the preaching 
 of the Word of God ! 
 
 And now, having made these very long preliminary 
 remarks, I must be very brief in dealing with the 
 subject of " Jesus at the grave of Lazarus." 
 
 I daresay some of you have read Ernest Kenan's 
 account of the raising of Lazarus ; and I think, of all the 
 possible muddles into which an author can get, poor 
 Ernest Renan gets into one over that. You see what 
 an extraordinary contradiction there is in the way he 
 deals with the subject. This beautiful character, 
 which he confesses our Lord to be; this exquisite, 
 loving, gentle, pure, holy, noble Being, he says, must, 
 somehow or another, have lent Himself to a fraud on 
 the occasion. What an absolute contradiction of all 
 he has before said of our beloved Lord ! How utterly 
 contradictory to the character which Renan himself 
 draws of Christ ! But I grant you his work is only a 
 novel, not an historical tale at all ; for Ernest Renan's 
 Christ is not the Christ of the Bible, though he tries 
 to make out that it is. 
 
 He begins his tale with " Christ was born at 
 Nazareth," and he draws out a magnificent picture of 
 the character of Jesus of Nazareth ; after which he
 
 Jesus at the Grave of Lazarus. \ 19 
 
 asks us to believe that he acquiesced in the most 
 infamous fraud to make people think He was what 
 He was not. But I only just mention this in passing 
 to show you how horribly silly and unhistorical, though 
 beautiful, from a literary point of view, Kenan's book is. 
 
 I want to call you around the grave of Lazarus 
 to-night, and then I want to apply our subject to my 
 hearers ; and that same power which has been promised, 
 and that same power which always comes amongst us, 
 by the preaching of God's Word, shall rest upon the 
 assembly now, even though my words shall be poor 
 and incomplete. And that holy power shall just pave 
 the way for the entrance of the truth, into many a 
 heart that is longing to receive it, if only it could. 
 
 The Lord Jesus, then, has returned from a distant 
 part of the country about Jordan. He has climbed 
 the heights that lead from Jericho I dare say some 
 of you know the neighbourhood very well He has 
 reached the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives. 
 He has just come within sight of the dearly loved 
 village of Bethany. The Lord Jesus had had some 
 very social, happy times in the house of Lazarus. He 
 loved Mary Magdalene so much, and Martha her 
 sister ; and Mary Magdalene loved Jesus too, for He 
 had met her far away in the midst of a life of sin, and 
 His words of love and power had drawn her out of 
 her misery, and had wooed her back to her dear old
 
 120 Mission Sermon. 
 
 village home of Bethany. She was named after 
 Magdala, in Galilee, because her foul life had been 
 spent there ; but now she is Mary of Bethany again. 
 She is restored to her home, and Martha and Lazarus 
 have gladly received the sister, who was decoyed away 
 by the infamy of cruel, heartless deceit. 
 
 This little home of Bethany, therefore, is a home that 
 appeals to the hearts of Christians very much, because 
 Jesus has rested there, has had bodily refreshment 
 there ; His tired, aching head has been refreshed by 
 the soft breezes that blew through the little cottage 
 casement in the village, on the eastern slope of the 
 beautiful Olivet hill. 
 
 Bethany ! There is a charm about Bethany to a 
 Christian ear and a Christian heart, because it seems 
 as if Bethany were a kind of oasis in the life of the 
 Man of Sorrows ; for Jesus was not content only to 
 take our nature; He loved His people with such a 
 love that He " hath borne our griefs, and carried 
 our sorrows." * " He was despised and rejected of 
 men ; a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief ."t 
 
 Therefore, in the midst of the surrounding shadows 
 that fell upon Jesus, in His short pilgrimage, Bethany 
 was a little tender oasis in His desert journey. Martha 
 was attending on Jesus, for Martha loved Him and 
 tenderly waited on Him ; Mary loved Him with a great 
 * Isaiah liii. 4. t Isaiah liii. 3.
 
 Jesus at the Grave of Lazarus. 121 
 
 love and sat at His feet, and drank in the wondrous 
 power of His divine teaching ; and Lazarus loved Him 
 too. But now, He has come to Bethany when a great 
 cloud hovers over the home. 
 
 Perhaps some of us, at this moment, in the midst of 
 the glitter and the glare of the London season, know 
 homes upon which a great cloud of sorrow is resting. 
 Supposing we could get upon some high building in 
 London and we could, with a kind of spiritual vision, see 
 every home over which, at this moment, a cloud of bitter 
 grief is resting; would there not be hundreds and 
 thousands of weeping eyes, multitudes of aching, 
 sorrowful hearts ? Oh ! brethren, while I am speaking 
 to you I can just picture the great cry of human 
 sorrow that is going up from multitudes in this great 
 metropolis, which is indeed a cesspool of festering 
 humanity. 
 
 My dear brethren, when I think of Jesus at the 
 home of Bethany, when a great cloud of sorrow 
 rested over it, and I see the consequences of the visit 
 of Jesus to the sorrowful home, it reminds me of so 
 many sorrowful homes that I have seen Jesus visit, 
 and leave, Oh! such a bright sunshine of gladness, 
 such a happiness, such a peace, such a calm, such a 
 joy, behind Him ! Jesus satisfies, Jesus heals I was 
 going to say a thousand-fold more now than He used 
 to do ; but it is a sort of selfish gratitude that makes 
 me speak like that.
 
 122 Mission Sermon. 
 
 We now watch the Lord Jesus about to visit the 
 home He loved so much, when it is under a cloud of 
 sorrow. Mary is sitting in the house weeping, and 
 Martha has gone out to the garden to meet Jesus, 
 because she has "heard that Jesus was coming."* 
 And Jesus lingers outside in the distance. He does 
 not come up to them at once. He lingers, and then 
 Martha meets him ; and Jesus, with his heart so 
 full of intense compassion, begins to talk to Martha ; 
 and she says : ' ' Lord, if Thou hadst been here my 
 brother had not died."f 
 
 But the Lord Jesus had kept away on purpose to let 
 Lazarus die, so that Grod's greatness, and power, and 
 love might be more manifest. Martha speaks to her 
 much-loved Lord. He speaks to her in return. He 
 does not let her into the secret of what He intends to 
 do all at once. He tests her faith. He appeals to 
 her knowledge of God's revealed truth, and she says 
 she " knows that he shall rise again in the Resur- 
 rection at the last day."J Then Jesus calls for Mary, 
 and Martha goes to the house, and says : " The Master 
 is come, and calleth for Thee," and Mary goes quickly 
 to Him. 
 
 Many Jews from Jerusalem were there to mourn 
 with Martha and Mary ; and we can just picture to 
 
 * St. John xi. 20. t St. John xi. 21. J St. John xi. 24. 
 5 St. John xi. 28.
 
 jfesus at the Grave of Lazarus. 123 
 
 ourselves the gradual fall of the eastern eventide as 
 our Lord reaches Bethany. 
 
 There, in the distance, the moon is just beginning 
 to light up the Dead Sea. Right away, down in front 
 of you, you see the plains of Jericho ; then away to 
 the left would be Jericho itself. It is a wonderful 
 panorama that one catches standing on that eastern 
 slope of the Hill of Olives ; and on this slope was 
 the graveyard place, the sepulchre, of the dead. I 
 dare say you know of what kind these sepulchres 
 were; they were generally holes cut out in the side 
 of the rock, with a large stone covering the mouth ; 
 so that we may imagine to ourselves that the tomb of 
 Lazarus was a great cave in the side of the hill. 
 
 And when Jesus has seen the sisters and has 
 spoken to them for some time, He says : " Where 
 have ye laid him ? "* 
 
 And then the scene begins to deepen in interest, 
 and Jesus Christ is led by the sisters, followed by 
 crowds of Jews that have come to mourn. They all 
 go back to the grave, and as they have been speaking 
 the shadows of the evening have been lengthening ; 
 and it is dusk by the time our Lord reaches the grave. 
 
 A stone lay on the mouth of the tomb. Jesus 
 said: "Take ye away the stone."f Then Martha 
 answered : " Lord, by this time he stinketh : for 
 * St. John xi. 34. f St. John xi. 39.
 
 124 Mission Sermon. 
 
 he hath been dead four days."* Jesus saith unto 
 her, " ' Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest 
 believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God ? ' 
 Then they took away the stone. "t 
 
 Have you ever noticed that the three stories that 
 have been handed down to us of our Lord raising 
 people from the dead are all of degrees? One is 
 Jairus' daughter. She had only just died. The 
 other was the widow's son, being carried out to 
 burial ; and the last was Lazarus, who had been four 
 days dead and stank. 
 
 So now we have the scene very plainly before us. 
 Here is the tomb of Lazarus, which has the stone 
 moved away from it; and it stands out in the evening 
 light, for the western sun is now hidden over the hill, 
 leaving Bethany in shadow. Our Lord stands at the 
 great black mouth of the cave. I can picture the 
 figure of our Lord standing there, and the others in 
 the background, at that great, black, open cave. 
 
 There stands that strange Being who is in very 
 deed, in one sense, the centre of all human history, for 
 somehow or another, before Christ came, all religions 
 of all races pointed to Him. Even the heathen poets 
 sang of One Who should come down from Heaven, and 
 renew life, and take away the poison of the old 
 serpent, and make even the poisonous plants to lose 
 * St. John xi. 39. t St. John xi. 40, 41.
 
 Jesus at the Grave oj Lazarus. 125 
 
 their bane. All the great civilisations of the Bast 
 pointed westward to a coming Reformer; and we 
 know the mistake that was made by the millions from 
 China many centuries ago. They were told that the 
 further they went west the nearer they would get to 
 the light ; but these millions from. China stopped in 
 Hindostan, and thence they took back with them 
 the philosophy of Buddha. They stopped in Hin- 
 dostan instead of going to the utmost point of the 
 west, Palestine, which was the boundary washed by 
 the western seas. Palestine was the central point 
 between the Western and Eastern civilisations. 
 
 Well, then, I say, standing at the open tomb, of 
 Lazarus we see this Figure, the Figure of Him Who 
 seems to be the central point of human history; for 
 since Christ came, has there been a religion that has not 
 plagiarised His Gospel and adopted a great deal of it ? 
 
 Mahomet could not have flourished with his Koran 
 and his sword, if he had not mixed up a vast amount 
 of the Word of the living God with his teaching. 
 
 I want you to gaze on this wondrous Figure. He 
 is only a Jewish peasant to look at; but there is a 
 strange, mystic electricity, may I call it ? that goes 
 out from Him. It attracts to Him all the sorrowful, 
 all the diseased, all the most sinful ; and the most 
 pure and simple little children cling around Him. 
 The publicans and the harlots crowd to listen to Him,
 
 1 26 Mission Sermon. 
 
 and He says : " The publicans and harlots " that 
 believe in Him " shall go into the Kingdom of Heaven 
 before"* the self-righteous Pharisees that reject 
 Him. 
 
 There is a charm about Jesus that follows Him 
 wherever He goes. Even the leper cries out : " Lord, 
 if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean. "f 
 
 Who, besides Jesus, has ever dared to claim the 
 love of humanity to such an extent that he could say : 
 "He that loveth father or mother more than Me is 
 not worthy of Me " ?J Did Mahomet ever claim the 
 love of humanity in such a way as this ? Never. 
 
 But there is our Lord standing at the mouth of 
 the tomb ! I wonder what the Jews thought He was 
 going to do ; whether anybody knew what He was 
 going to do ! Here is the Prince of Life standing at 
 the Gate of Death. Here, too, is the Gate of Life 
 eternal, for Jesus says : " I am the way, the truth, and 
 the life ;" and He is standing at the grave where 
 His friend is rotting and stinking in the embrace of 
 death. 
 
 The spirit of Lazarus had some four days since 
 migrated into some strange, distant realm. But we can- 
 not talk about distance in eternity. Why, millions upon 
 millions of miles, in our little, tiny ideas, are worth a 
 
 * St. Watt. xxi. 31. t St. Matt. viii. 2. 
 
 J St. Matt. x. 37. St. John xiv. (5.
 
 Jesus at the Grave of Lazarus. 127 
 
 mere nothing in space, in eternity ! But where had 
 the spirit of Lazarus gone ? It had entered into 
 eternity and into infinity. But where how far off 
 from our little world ? What voice could make itself 
 heard to the distant spirit to the far-away one ? 
 
 There is a Voice that can make the whole universe 
 to give heed ; and so now we will watch and listen. 
 And brethren, you must remember, the works of 
 Jesus Christ were often done before vast crowds. Who 
 saw Crishna work his works ? Give me a certified 
 date, in early history, with well-certified proof, of the 
 incarnation of Vishnu. Where are the data, and the 
 early proofs, of the sayings and doings of Ramah and 
 Crishna ? My brethren, they have no dates and no 
 history. But I say that one of the most precious facts 
 respecting our religion is that our religion began 
 when history was at its greatest height of perfection. 
 Between Herodotus and Tacitus our religion began. 
 
 Jesus Christ is no unhistorical character. Jesus 
 Christ stood out in the bright blaze of the most 
 intense publicity. And so here, at the working of this 
 miracle, there were numbers around watching Him. 
 
 Even Renan does not deny the fact that these works 
 were performed publicly ; and he has the very greatest 
 difficulty in shuffling out of them. 
 
 Well, then, we see the Lord standing at the 
 open grave. Everyone's attention is turned towards
 
 128 Mission Sermon. 
 
 Him. We are told that the Jews crowded round 
 from Jerusalem in multitudes. " Take off the grave- 
 clothes." Does He say that? No. The body is 
 allowed to remain in the tomb "bound hand and 
 foot with grave-clothes ;"* and while these grave- 
 clothes bind him, and the dead body lies stinking 
 in the winding-sheet, all at once the Lord Jesus 
 raises His eyes to the evening sky. He raises His 
 eyes towards the new Jerusalem. He raises His 
 eyes, amidst the intense, aching hearts of the multitude, 
 and He says : " I knew, Father, that Thou hearest Me 
 always ;"f and then He lifts up His voice, and He 
 sends it like an echo far, far, far away how far 
 I cannot tell ; and He cries in the hearing of 
 the assembled multitude : " ' LAZARUS, COMB 
 FORTH ! ' And he that was dead came forth, bound 
 hand and foot with grave-clothes.":]: 
 
 And I see the rotten figure standing in the white 
 garments of the grave, in the great, black mouth of 
 the tomb, and Jesus face to face with his resuscitated 
 friend. But brethren, whence has the spirit been 
 recalled ? Oh ! from the distant fields of illimitable 
 space this spirit has returned, and has given to that 
 body new life ! The flush of health has taken the place 
 of decay. The sweetness of fresh life has taken the 
 place of the stinking of the tomb. Now then, you 
 * St. John xi. 44. t St. John xi. 42. J St. John xi. 43, 44.
 
 Jesus at the Grave of Lazarus. 129 
 
 may take away the grave-clothes. " Loose him, and 
 let him go."* 
 
 Oh ! that night in Bethany ! The awful hush of the 
 miracle rests on the hills. It travels with the Jews 
 right over Jerusalem, the city over the western hill. 
 Lazarus has been raised from the dead ! A spirit has 
 come back from the realms of infinity, from the mar- 
 vellous everywhere and there is a man raised from 
 the dead at Bethany ! 
 
 My brethren, which do you consider is the greatest 
 miracle this temporary resurrection of the body of 
 Lazarus, the revivifying of a few atoms of animal 
 matter, for a few more years ; or the resurrection of a 
 dead soul from the darkness of unbelief, and from 
 the bondage and tyranny of sin ? Which is the 
 greater phenomenon, the resurrection of a dead body to 
 mortal life, or of a dead soul to life eternal, pardoned, 
 cleansed, restored, satisfied, filled with peace, and 
 enlightened with a " sure and certain " knowledge of 
 an everlasting and eternal liberty, till the whole man 
 has become renewed ; his heart, will, and intellect 
 completely changed, enabling him to believe all those 
 things which he once ridiculed and maligned. 
 
 Some years ago in London, at one of my mission 
 services, an atheist, who had been lecturing that very 
 afternoon (as I was told afterwards) in one of the out- 
 
 * St. John xi. 44.
 
 130 Mission Sermon. 
 
 skirts of London, all at once confessed that what had 
 been said at our service about Jesus Christ was true ; 
 and he went to a dissenting Minister in his own neigh- 
 bourhood and asked to be prepared at once for baptism, 
 and admission into that Christian sect which he desired 
 to join ; and the dissenting Minister wrote a letter to 
 me to tell me that this man had been instantly 
 converted while I was speaking. 
 
 I was speaking of Jesus as the gift of God to a 
 suffering, dying, hungering world. I was giving 
 illustrations of how Jesus Christ was what we said He 
 was ; and then all at once this man's heart opened and 
 took the great Truth in. This man's intellect received 
 an objective light which became subjective to him ; 
 and he believed what Jesus was ; and he said, to the 
 person sitting next to him : " What that man has said 
 I am sure is true." 
 
 This is only one instance ; but all through the ages 
 of the Gospel, whenever Christ, in His fulness, is 
 offered to the hungry sinner, there are sinners who 
 come out and accept the gift. Shall you tell them, 
 " Jesus Christ won't save you as you are ; you must 
 go and get a little better ?" O no ! Did our Lord 
 Jesus Christ tell them to wash Lazarus as he was in 
 such a state in the tomb, and make Lazarus a little 
 more presentable ? No, it was just as he was that he 
 came forth ; and have we not countless proofs that it
 
 Jesus at the Grave of Lazarus. 131 
 
 is just the same with the sinner ? It is just as you are 
 that He wants you. "Whosoever will"* may come. 
 My brethren, do you wish to have this new life ? Do 
 you wish to have this enlightening of your under- 
 standing, this rest and peace ? Do you wish to know 
 that you have eternal life and that you can never 
 perish ; that your sins are all put away for ever ? You 
 can only know it by accepting Christ, in his fulness, 
 as God's gift to you now. 
 
 But how ? What do you mean by accepting Christ ? 
 You tell me to come to Jesus. What am I to do ? 
 Oh ! what a blessing it is that Jesus tells us how to 
 come. Just mark that 47th verse of the 6th chapter of 
 St. John, where our Lord, in very short, simple words, 
 tells us what it means. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
 he that believeth on Me hath hath everlasting life. 
 
 Just close your eyes now, forget all else about 
 you, only that Jesus Christ, the gift of God, is 
 at your side. He wants to be to you now pardon, 
 salvation, eternal life, peace. But He cannot do it 
 until you give one look up in His face that simply 
 trusts Him. Directly you give that look of simple 
 trust, and take Him at His word, then He is all yours, 
 for He says again : " He that believeth on the Son hath 
 everlasting life."t And is there not a soul here now 
 
 * Rev. xxii. 17. f St. John Sii. 36.
 
 132 ' Mission Sermon. 
 
 dead, to whom the voice of Jesus, in His own Word, 
 is going out, " Lazarus, come forth "? Oh ! the 
 Lazaruses that have written to me from this hall, 
 telling me how once they were living lives of filth and 
 sin and misery, and woe and restlessness and toil ; 
 and you should hear what they say of the new life ! 
 
 Some write and say of this Book (the Bible) that, 
 when once they have trusted Jesus, it seems to be an 
 open Book to them, and all the promises in this Book 
 come to them like a direct voice from the great, big 
 heart of their loving Father God, to whom Jesus has 
 brought them back as His reconciled children. Is 
 there, perhaps, a sinner here to-night as hardened as 
 he can be, living in the embrace of sin and death 
 or one, perhaps, who cannot believe the Word of the 
 Gospel, yet who wishes to do so, but his intellect will 
 not let him ? 
 
 A gentleman, now among "the cloud of witnesses,"* 
 said to me one 'evening after listening to my mission 
 sermon : " Oh, Father Ignatius, Jesus Christ has won 
 my heart to-day, but not my intellect ! I cannot 
 understand, or believe, the things in the Bible." Oh ! 
 what a joy it was to say to him : " Jesus Christ does 
 not say, Give Me your brains ; He says, ' Give Me 
 thine heart.'f Your heart has been able to take 
 Him in in His fulness, and your heart is at rest. 
 * Heb. xii. 1. + Prov. xxiii. 26.
 
 Jesus at the Grave of Lazarus. 133 
 
 Never mind your intellect. Give Jesus your heart, 
 and He will take care of your intellect for you. It is 
 'with the heart that man believeth unto righteous- 
 ness." '* I could then see tears streaming down his 
 eyes. 
 
 " The devil has the intellectual faith and trembles."t 
 It is with the heart that I have to come and throw 
 myself upon His promise ; and then, as the Apostle 
 says : " The eyes of your understanding shall be 
 enlightened." J 
 
 Jesus Christ changes men's hearts. He gives them 
 peace and rest. He does what all the theologies and 
 philosophies of earth have never been able to do. He 
 makes a man a new creature. He makes him a con- 
 tented creature, a happy, glad creature : for " if any 
 man be in Christ " Jesus " old things are passed 
 away ; behold, all things are become new." 
 
 Lazarus has come forth in this hall. I know that 
 here Lazarus has come forth ! I know that while I 
 have been speaking there is someone who has come 
 out of the miserable life of sin and worldliness, and 
 has taken in this beautiful Jesus as the gift of God to 
 him. Perhaps he will write to me before the week is 
 over and tell me : " I was the one that ' came forth ' 
 that night." 
 
 * Rom. x. 10. $ Ephes. i. 18. 
 
 t St. James ii. 19. 2 Cor. v. 17.
 
 134 Mission Sermon. 
 
 Oh ! my dear brother, it is such joy to be told by 
 those, upon whom the Word has fallen, " It was 
 I ' that came forth ; ' and I am now possessed of 
 " the unsearchable riches of Christ.' "* 
 
 I see a lady in the congregation this evening, who 
 could tell you of a change in the whole of her family, 
 husband, sons, and daughters, who have passed into a 
 new life all save one of a very large family. I 
 know she will forgive me for mentioning it in her 
 presence ; for she is so full of the joy of that precious 
 Saviour, Whom she has learnt to believe. 
 
 * Ephes. iii. 8
 
 VIII. 
 Jesus Cjprtst, % Sabbatlj of (Sob. 
 
 Saturday Evening, October 24th, 1885.
 
 Jesus Christ, tin ^ubbatlj of 
 
 Prayer before Sermon. 
 
 O ! Holy Spirit, help us to draw very near unto Jesus in 
 prayer at this time. Draw us close to Him, we, Thy people, 
 beseech Thee, God. Lord Jesus, we are on our knees at 
 Thy dear feet, to ask a blessing from Thee and to close another 
 week of our shortly passing life. 
 
 The week's work is done, and now our hearts are turned 
 towards the Lord's Day of rest. Thou art the Rest that 
 abideth, and we would come to Thee this Saturday night 
 to rest in Thy Presence ; and we would lie down to-night to 
 sleep resting in Thee, the Sabbath of our souls. 
 
 Oh ! hold out Thy loving hands to each one of us, and draw 
 us close to Thee, so that, when we lift up our hearts to Thee, 
 with perfect confidence and faith, we can say of Thee, Lord 
 Jesus, " Thou art ours and we are Thine." 
 
 And now speak to us, dearest Lord and Saviour ; tell our 
 hearts how much Thou lovest us ; tell our hearts how Thou 
 hast finished the work of our salvation, and make us to lie 
 down in Thy love. Let us rest in peace ;. yea, " keep us in 
 perfect peace, for our minds are stayed on Thee : because we 
 trust in Thee."* 
 
 And, Lord Jesus, it is very safe to trust Thee, and it is 
 very comfortable to trust Thee. Oh ! the comfort and the rest 
 of trusting Thee! 
 
 We bless Thee, O! precious Jesus, on behalf of everyone 
 * Isaiah xxvi. 3.
 
 138 Prayer before Sermon. 
 
 here present, who is able to rest in Thee as the Finisher and 
 Accomplisher of their salvation ; to rest in Thee as One Who 
 has finished the work, and paid the debt, and covered them 
 with Thine Own Eighteousness. We do praise Thee because 
 Thou hast revealed Thyself to us by Thy Holy Spirit ! 
 
 And let us, this Saturday night, speak of the calm of death 
 when the six days' work of life shall be ended, and we shall 
 put aside earth's garments for the grave ; let us, this Satur- 
 day night, speak of the calm and the rest of Paradise, and that 
 time when the work of life, and its strife and toil, shall be for 
 ever over; and when these bodiea of sin and pain, sweet 
 Saviour, shall be laid aside, and, in the beautiful rest of those 
 peaceful plains, with Thy Saints, we shall be abiding ; and 
 waiting for the coming of the morning, when our bodies shall 
 be raised with power, and we shall all be gathered together 
 in Thy Presence, in the Land of the Free. 
 
 O ! Lord, bless the words spoken at this time, and, if there 
 be any here present who are not Thy people, bring Thy rest 
 to those dear souls. And if now they have no calm, peaceful 
 Saturday night and happy Sunday, like Thy people have 
 but go on through the wearying torture of this cruel world, 
 and its restless, peaceless, unsatisfying strife, without Thee, 
 and without hope of participating in the joy of Thy Sabbath 
 let me speak words to draw some of those dear, tired ones 
 into the beautiful rest we enjoy. Let the Word be spoken 
 with such a power that tears may stream down many a tired 
 cheek for very gladness that they have found their Saviour 
 to-night their rest, their peace and their joy. 
 
 We know, dear Lord, we have not made these supplications 
 in vain, because Thou art " more willing to hear " than we to 
 receive. Lord, give us Thy Blessing ; give Thy Blessing to 
 the fallen and bring them into Thy Fold with joy, that there 
 may be but one Fold and one Shepherd, even Thou Thyself, 
 sweet, satisfying Jesus, our Saviour and our God. Amen.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Sabbath of God. 139 
 
 "JESUS CHRIST, THE SABBATH OF GOD." 
 
 " Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will 
 give you rest." St. Matt. xi. 28. 
 
 And so we have come to the end of our week's 
 Mission for Jesus, and we have come to the quiet of 
 our Saturday-night service. Most of us are gathered 
 here to-night to get some very real enjoyment out of 
 Jesus out of His Love, out of His Peace, out of His 
 Mercy, out of His Salvation, out of His Holiness, out 
 of His Rest. 
 
 He said Himself : " Come unto Me, all ye that 
 labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
 rest."* 
 
 Supposing we could collect together all the people 
 in London to-night who are weary supposing we 
 could Oh ! what a sight it would be ! What a 
 crowd of weary, tired, pained faces we should see, with 
 deep lines of sorrow on their brows ; and there would 
 be some desperate, half-starved-looking ones too. 
 
 And then supposing we could talk to them ! I 
 * St. Matt. xi. 28.
 
 140 Mission Sermon. 
 
 am sure that out of the four millions of this city 
 there are quite one million who are tired and weary ; 
 there are quite one million who know nothing what- 
 ever of hope, or rest, or peace. 
 
 Now, just picture to yourselves we can hardly 
 picture it to ourselves because we are so full of hope, 
 so full of joy and gladness ; we have such peace and 
 rest, in Jesus, that we cannot imagine what it is to be 
 without this blessedness (for some of us have, perhaps 
 for twenty years, enjoyed moral and spiritual rest, 
 and we can hardly realise what it is to be without it, 
 but let us try just to picture to ourselves) a poor, 
 tired man, who perhaps has attended, once during 
 the week, at some atheistic club, and has heard an 
 address delivered by some very clever rationalist or 
 materialist, who explains away all revealed religion 
 and leaves a man standing, as it were, in a dark 
 midnight road without any idea of God. 
 
 Such an one may be here. The world is restless 
 about him, the world is unsatisfying, the world is 
 cruel to him ; he feels as if he would like to go out 
 and murder and steal and slash and cut down every- 
 one who is better off than himself, because he hates the 
 world and everything in it. To him there is no God 
 and no beyond, and he says : "I will get all I can 
 here. There is no harm if I pick a man's pocket if I 
 am not discovered. I am morally starving and I feel
 
 Jesus Christ, the Sabbath of God. 141 
 
 desperate. I should like to blow the brains out of the 
 first rich man I meet ! " 
 
 So these horrid and terrific ideas revolve in his 
 restless, weary brain his manly form is bowed, and 
 his once strong muscles are now prematurely relaxing 
 in the fearful struggle for bread. Disappointed hopes 
 and domestic sorrows ; the hideous fear of being struck 
 down with illness and of being unable to feed his 
 children any more all the contingencies (the 
 hundreds and thousands of contingencies) of this 
 contradictory and paradoxical existence throng, and 
 throng, around him ; and his brain whirls as he faces 
 the darkness that is before him. Oh ! he is a weary 
 one indeed ! 
 
 To see such an one give a moral yawn on Saturday 
 night ! The hideous expression that comes over his 
 face ! It makes the Heart of Jesus Christ beat with 
 sorrow, for He loves that man with a tender love ; 
 and what would we not do, if we could, to get him to 
 taste of that joy and gladness, and that peace which 
 the poorest Christian possesses in the knowledge and 
 certainty of Christ. 
 
 Oh ! the weary ones of London ! And yet some of 
 them will be in the low dancing houses now, laughing 
 professionally. Do you know, the professional mirth - 
 provokers come to me sometimes, and under the paint 
 of their cheeks, under the forced, ghastly laugh, there
 
 142 Mission Sermon. 
 
 is such a substratum of agony and anguish that is 
 dreadful to contemplate. Weary, weary ones ! 
 
 How many of our poor, poor fallen sisters and 
 brothers there are who would give worlds to come 
 to Christ, and obtain what we have obtained ; and 
 who would come, too, if they had only someone to 
 show them the way and to lead them to Him ! But 
 supposing they steal into a church to-morrow morn- 
 ing, and hide behind a pillar and listen ; what will 
 they hear ? Perhaps some metaphysical thesis or 
 some casuistic philosophy the holding up of Jesus 
 Christ as a moral philosopher and they go away 
 unsatisfied. 
 
 Oh! the abominable iniquity of preachers who 
 speak of Christ as a mere moral Example who could 
 give the Bread that God sends to His people, but who, 
 instead, send hungry ones away with a stone ! 
 
 The preacher does not know Christ, and does not 
 want to know Him, and deliberately sets to work to 
 undermine the value of the Sacraments. I could name 
 clergymen in the Church of England who take away 
 from the people what Christ would give to them and 
 they are licensed by our bishops ! 
 
 My brothers, my brothers, when I think of the weary 
 ones, waiting for the calm of holiness, and the Rev. 
 Mr. This or That, with his black or his white gown 
 upon his back, watering down the Word of God in
 
 Jesus Christ, the Sabbath of God. 143 
 
 order to suit his congregation, in order to suit the 
 poor, dark unbelief of the age in which we live ! 
 
 He suits the nineteenth-century school of thought ; 
 but he does not think of the poor, tired, weary ones 
 who, on Saturday night, want to get something out of 
 God, and want to find Him Who says : " Come unto 
 Me, and I will give you rest."* I say, when I hear a 
 man offering to the people the stone of philosophy, 
 instead of the Bread of Life, it makes me sad indeed. 
 
 Dear brethren, are we not thankful to G-od for the 
 Salvation Army ? I hope all of us are. I really do 
 not know what thousands, in this great city, would do 
 if it were not for the Salvation Army doing the work 
 that the Church of England has left undone. It is all 
 very well to laugh and scoff at their peculiarities. 
 The Holy Ghost blesses their peculiarities, and by the 
 instrumentality of those peculiarities brings " the 
 Peace of God, which passeth all understanding,'^ into 
 the hearts and lives of the weary and heavy laden, 
 and makes those peculiarities the media for emptying 
 brothels and public-houses for washing many faces 
 with the water of charity and many hearts with the 
 Blood of Christ. 
 
 Oh, brethren, if the Roman Catholic Church in 
 London, and the Church of England in London, would 
 become one great Salvation Army what a mighty work 
 * St. Matt. xi. 28. f Phil- iv. 7.
 
 144 Mission Sermon. 
 
 might be done among the weary and heavy laden ! 
 Oh ! what a glorious Saturday night many of the 
 tired ones of London might then enjoy ! 
 
 If the churches and places of worship would only 
 give up something of mere outward formalism if the 
 Protestant would forget his protestantism, and the 
 Catholic his Catholicism, and agree to exalt that 
 common Christ, whom Catholic and Protestant alike 
 profess, what a harvest of redeemed souls there would 
 be ! Would to God there were such a happy Saturday 
 night in London for poor weary and heavy laden ones ! 
 Would to God all professing Christians would seek to 
 help forward the promotion of a universal Saturday 
 night revival and refreshment for the poor that are 
 weary and heavy laden, and whom Christ invites to 
 come to Him. 
 
 And now, here is another thought, " How shall they 
 preach except they be sent ?"* By the Bishop ? 
 Yes. The Bishop of Souls, through the Holy Ghost. 
 
 No one but the Holy Ghost can send a Messenger 
 of the Gospel to preach to a dying people all other 
 ordinations, in the world, cannot make, a preacher. 
 This can only be the work of the Holy Ghost. 
 They are " taught of God."f ' ' Ye have an unction 
 from the Holy One, and ye know all things "J about 
 Jesus, and can enjoy your Saturday night, and look 
 
 * Romans x. 15. f St. John vi. 45. + 1 St. John ii. 20.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Sabbath of God. 145 
 
 forward to the sweet rest oi! the Lord's Day. You are 
 the ordained ones you know what the love of Jesus is. 
 
 Brethren, this Saturday night meeting seems to 
 speak to me of such wonderful, wonderful visions, 
 and wonderful foretastes of the Saturday night to 
 which you and I are looking forward, when we shall 
 put off our work-a-day clothes for ever, and put on 
 the garments of the everlasting Lord's Day. 
 
 Christian people, one of the marks of the reality of 
 our profession, as Christians, is the love we shall 
 have for sinners, because Christ loved them, and 
 came to seek them, and sent us to seek them. We 
 are not to expect them to seek us we are to seek 
 them, and brethren, when we seek them, what a 
 wonderful assurance we have, in our hearts, that we 
 shall find them. 
 
 And we do find them whenever we go out in the 
 Master's Name ! 
 
 If any of you have an hour to spare, if any of you 
 are free on Saturday night, go and seek for one 
 sinner whom you may bring in to the calm of our 
 Saturday night, that at the end of his six days' work 
 he may live trusting in Christ's mighty grace to 
 enable him to begin a new life the life of the rest 
 day of salvation. 
 
 And you know it is not as if I were talking to you 
 the rubbish that materialists and philosophers talk. 
 
 L
 
 146 Mission Sermon. 
 
 What does that rubbish give to the poor aching, 
 hungering heart of man ? Nothing at all. 
 Brethren, I am talking of the only reality of which it 
 is worth talking the reality that has filled the hearts 
 and lives of men bringing pleasure, freedom, and 
 peace, and joy, and gladness to countless multitudes 
 wherever the Gospel has been proclaimed. 
 
 Oh, my brethren, Saturday night, Saturday night, to 
 us is a time of rest and quietness. We are very tired 
 with our week's work one of you, perhaps, has been 
 sitting all the week upon a high clerk's stool, scribbling 
 away, and when Saturday night comes you are thankful 
 enough to lay down your pen and rest. 
 
 There may be some poor clerk here who is working 
 his very life out to support a widowed mother perhaps 
 he does not get as much as thirty shillings a week, 
 and yet he tries to send half to his mother ; and he 
 shares a garret with a friend in poor circumstances, 
 and they burn a rushlight between them that they 
 may save something out of their poverty. 
 
 And oh ! when Saturday night comes the thoughts 
 of their church, of the delights of the House of 
 God, the delightful refreshment of the Lord's Table, 
 of the sweet words of Life they will hear from the 
 clergyman's lips, who is taught of God, brings joy to 
 them. They look forward to the very text, and after 
 Sunday they will go back to the counting-house
 
 Jesus Christ, the Sabbath of God. 147 
 
 refreshed, and thankful for the consolations of 
 Sunday. 
 
 Some there are who say it is right to have a game 
 of cricket on a Sunday ; but I cannot spare five 
 minutes of the Lord's Day for all that the devil can 
 offer me. I am a poor, tired man ; I want to enjoy the 
 rest and delight and peace of G-od, and to lay hold of 
 the love of Jesus. Catch me blaspheming the day 
 of Jesus, a day fifty times more holy than the Jewish 
 Sabbath, for the Jews kept the Sabbath because they 
 were under the law; I keep it because I am under 
 grace, and I will not rob one hour of it from Jesus. 
 
 Saturday night has great and holy charms because 
 the whole of the twelve hours of the Lord's Day are 
 before me. There are those who talk about the 
 enjoyment of Sunday afternoon, and hold it right to 
 go to the opera in the evening. Let the world do 
 what it likes with what it calls the Lord's Day ; but 
 we Christians cannot part with a single hour of it, for 
 we want the whole of our Sundays for Jesus and 
 ourselves. 
 
 Sunday is not to us a .day of bondage or formalism ; 
 but it is the day when we draw most of life's refresh- 
 ment from the well of salvation. Oh ! sweet Saturday 
 night ! Oh ! still sweeter Day of Jesus, our precious 
 Sunday Fountain of strength and refreshment after 
 the six days' toil of earth.
 
 148 Mission Sermon. 
 
 My dear brethren, these thoughts are intensely 
 real ; but they are not to be kept wrapped up in words. 
 If I have a large piece of bread and I see a hungry 
 man coming along, shall not I spare him some of it ? 
 And won't you spare something of Jesus to the 
 hungry souls around you ? When we light our altar 
 lights, at some great Feast, all the wicks of the 
 tapers are lit from one light ; but the light with 
 which we lit them does not go out. 
 
 You are to be God's altar taper in a world of dark- 
 ness ; you are to be the altar taper of the Holy 
 Ghost, to go and kindle beautiful lights in the hearts 
 of men, who are sitting in darkness and the shadow 
 of death. I do not care a scrap for ceremony and 
 ritualism, unless it spring from the heart ; but if 
 you can appreciate it Scripturally, and it is the mere 
 outcome of an inward reality; then don't I love 
 ritualism ! 
 
 Brethren, let us all be as tapers of the altar 
 for Jesus we are his " witnesses/'* in a dark world 
 we who are ' ( the salt of the earth,"t the " children 
 of light and the children of the day."J Oh ! then, let 
 us tell out, amid the calm of Saturday night, the joy of 
 Sunday, to them who have never tasted the sweetness 
 and the rest of those who know God in Jesus. 
 
 * Isaiah xliii. 10 ; xliv. 8 ; Acts i. 8 ; v. 32. + St. Matt. v. 13. 
 
 J 1 Thes. v. 5.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Sabbath of God. 149 
 
 Two more thoughts and I have done. What is this 
 rest that Jesus gives to all <f that come unto God by 
 Him?"* He says, "Come unto Me all ye that 
 labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
 rest."t What is this rest? From what does it 
 proceed ? It proceeds just from this. When any- 
 one comes to Jesus, and trusts Him, and takes Him 
 at His word, all the clouds of doubt and misery 
 pass away from before the sun, which then begins 
 to shine. 
 
 When we trust in Him all the toil of seeking for 
 salvation comes to an end. Directly we trust in 
 Jesus we know indeed the rest of a finished salvation; 
 we realise that He has finished the work, and we have 
 only to enter into the rest. 
 
 See how many tired, weary people there are in the 
 world who are continually trying to save their own 
 souls ! There is no Saturday night in their religion, 
 because they are always at work all the seven days 
 they are at work working to save their own souls, 
 and then not knowing if they are saved or not in 
 fact, feeling sure that they are not. 
 
 Oh, the rest of knowing "It is finished !' ? J The 
 quiet rest of Saturday night ; knowing, in calm con- 
 fidence, that " He has finished the work which the 
 
 * Heb. vii. 25. f St. Matt. xi. 28. J St. John xix. 30.
 
 150 Mission Sermon. 
 
 Father gave Him to do,"* which was to " save His 
 people from their sins."t 
 
 So that directly the soul trusts in Jesus it enters 
 into rest ; the rest, from working for salvation, is its 
 own. Oh ! then, with what joy and peace we can look 
 up in His face and say : " Thou art my Saviour." 
 
 And it is not an imperfect work ; it is a work alto- 
 gether perfect, for Christ is " the end of the law to 
 everyone that believeth."t He has paid my debt to 
 the "uttermost farthing. But it is rest in Jesus." 
 
 Oh ! sweet, sweet hour, when first the soul sinks into 
 " the rest that remaineth to the people of God," of 
 which St. Paul speaks when he says : " We which 
 have believed do enter into rest."|| 
 
 But, again remember that it is not a selfish, inert 
 rest. It is a rest of perpetual work. When we have 
 entered into the rest of His finished work we enter 
 upon the Lord's Day of real work. It is a work 
 of love, a restful work of joy, in serving Him Whom 
 we love, and Whom we serve. So, brethren, you see 
 that the rest that comes from trusting in Jesus is not 
 a lazy rest, no slothful quiescence ; but it is a mighty 
 going forward to win pearls for His Crown of bring- 
 ing crowds of weary ones to know Him, Who has 
 given to us joy and peace and hope and gladness. 
 
 * St. John xvii. 4. f St. Matt. i. 21. J Kom. x. 4. 
 Heb. iv. 9. II Heb. iv. 3.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Sabbath of God. 151 
 
 And so comes Sunday. Is Sunday a lazy day ? 
 Certainly not. Why, it is the most joyously active of 
 all the days of the week, for on Sunday we are to 
 work, not for ourselves, but for Him " who loved us 
 and gave Himself for us."* 
 
 This is the thought of rest that I wish to give you; 
 and this is the rest in Jesus ; the rest that strengthens 
 us ; the rest in the knowledge that He has finished 
 our salvation, has won for us a robe of perfect 
 righteousness, has shed His Blood, Which "cleanseth 
 us from all sin,"t and has given to us the grace of 
 the Holy Spirit, which shall " supply our every need," J 
 no matter what it shall be. " Be careful for nothing'^ 
 " He careth for you,"|| and "of His fulness have 
 all we received;"^ and you have all your needs 
 supplied in Christ Jesus. 
 
 And " this is the rest, and this is the refreshing !"** 
 To-day I had a letter from a dear, young " lost " 
 sister, and it was such a happy, sweet letter. She 
 has entered into the rest and the refreshing of sin 
 forgiven. And I could tell you so many stories of 
 girls like this now numbered amongst the saints who 
 have entered into the rest of sin forgiven ; because 
 Jesus says when He has saved us from sin He gives 
 
 * Gal. ii. 20. || 1 Pet. v. 7. 
 
 t 1 John i. 7. IT St. John i. 16. 
 
 t Phil. iv. 19. ** Isaiah xxviii. 12. 
 
 Phil. iv. 6.
 
 152 Mission Sermon. 
 
 us power to overcome it yea, "to be more than 
 
 conquerors."* 
 
 So now, come, enter into the rest ; you are certain 
 
 to find it. You need not trouble about the result ; 
 
 " you shall be more than conquerors."* We know in 
 
 Whom we trust, and to Whom we cry, and Who '' giveth 
 
 us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ."f 
 And just as we put off our work-a-day clothes, so 
 
 shall we very soon have to lay aside these bodies of 
 ours, and they shall be put into their coffins. And 
 then our " works will follow " J us ; and those " which 
 sow sparingly shall reap also sparingly ; and those 
 which sow bountifully shall reap also bountifully. " 
 Each sacrifice of ours will be remembered, not one 
 will be lost, not even c< the cup of cold water "|| taken 
 from the fountain, and carried to the weary one, shall 
 be unrecorded ; and they will stand you in good 
 stead "in that day." Oh ! soon we have to put off our 
 week-day clothes ; but when " the earthly house of 
 this tabernacle shall be dissolved, we have an house 
 not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens. "^f 
 
 Are you, dear brethren, ready for this Saturday 
 night ; are you ready to put off the earthly house of 
 this tabernacle ? Can you look up into the face of 
 Jesus and say ? " Yea, though I walk through the 
 
 * Rom. viii. 37. f 1 Cor. xv. 57. J Rev. xiv. 13 
 2 Cor. ix. G. || St. Mark ix. 41. f 2 Cor. v. 1.
 
 Jesus Christ, the Sabbath of God. 153 
 
 valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil : for 
 Thou, (0 Lord), art with me."* 
 
 Shall we all be glad when that Saturday night 
 comes, when life's week of work is over, when Satur- 
 day night is coming gently upon us; and our hearts, 
 which have never ceased to beat since the day of our 
 birth, shall beat no more ; when our throbbing brains 
 shall be at rest and we shall (on that Saturday night) 
 put off our earthly bodies ? 
 
 Oh ! then, when all the things of earth are 
 passing away, and everything around us seems but 
 mist and shadow, and dream ; and the eyes of our 
 spirit are opening to those eternal realities, which 
 are not seen but are eternal ; and when those 
 who are around our beds are watching our laboured 
 breath, as we climb the last hill, at eleven o'clock on 
 Saturday night, and the solemnity of the hush of the 
 death-bed is ours, and Saturday night has come, 
 then, oh ! then brethren, what shall you and what 
 shall I do ? There will be no time then for making our 
 peace with God. It will be no time then to seek for 
 salvation. It will not be the day of salvation then ; 
 it will be the day of judgment and of death. " Now 
 is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation !"f 
 
 If Jesus be a Stranger to you now, He will be a 
 Stranger to you then. If He be a Friend to you now, 
 * Ps. xxiii. 4. t 2 Cor. vi. 2
 
 154 Mission Sermon. 
 
 He will be a Friend to you then a Friend Who will 
 carry you right through the Jordan water, and land 
 you safe on the shore of the Promised Land, where 
 you may enter into the beautiful gardens of the eternal 
 Sunday the sweet Lord's Day of a joyful Sabbath. 
 
 Brothers and sisters, God is making me an 
 instrument for giving you a happy Saturday night 
 when that day comes. Will you have a happy Satur- 
 day night ? Oh ! yes, if you will look into the face of 
 Christ and trust Him as your Saviour, Who died for 
 you ; and Who, by His Blood, has put away your sin 
 and paid your debt to the " uttermost farthing;" and 
 Who says to those who trust Him : " I will never leave 
 thee nor forsake thee."* 
 
 And then we shall all meet on Sunday morning at 
 the grand High Mass of Heaven ; when the angels 
 swing the censers of gold, and the Light is beaming 
 in brilliancy from the Throne of God. There where 
 there is " no need of a candle "t and where the choirs 
 of the Redeemed, as they sweep through the temple, 
 sing their changeless antiphon : ' ' Unto Him that 
 loved us, and washed us from our sins in His Own 
 Blood, to Him be glory and dominion for ever and 
 ever. Amen."i 
 
 Heb. xiii. 5. f Rev. xxii. 5. J Rev. i. 5, 6.
 
 IX. 
 
 % Results of % glis shit, 
 
 " &{M (feat promise 
 
 fission ^ernton. 
 
 Sunday Morning, October 25th, 1885.
 
 % Results of % 
 
 0r 
 Cb feat Promis* 
 
 Prayer before Sermon. 
 
 Lord, Jesus Christ, we have been gathering in this place 
 for many days, in Thy Name, and Thy Word has been spoken 
 in this place day after day. There are souls here who, before 
 this mission began, knew Thee not and were restless without 
 Thee, but now have been washed in Thy Precious Blood. 
 We do know and believe that such is the case we know it 
 of some and we believe it of others ; and we bless Thee 
 because Thou art faithful. 
 
 And although Thou dost promise things that, to the world, 
 are impossible, Thou dost accomplish them ; and Thou sendest 
 forth enlightened souls as Thy witnesses of the results of Thy 
 Power, unto a restless, sinful world. And, O Lord, their 
 hearts are blessing Thee, and we glorify Thy Holy Name with 
 gladness and thanksgiving. 
 
 We now beseech Thee, bless us this morning ; and if there 
 be any here who have not been attending our services, and 
 who come this morning amongst us as strangers, not 
 knowing what has been going on this week, and therefore not 
 understanding a great deal of what is said, grant that some 
 gift may be in store for them. 
 
 O loving, loving Shepherd, if there be any of Thy lost 
 sheep here, bring them to Thee that there may be one Fold 
 and One Shepherd; make them to feel the need and the value 
 of Thee and Thy great Salvation, and everlasting Life. 
 Blessed Lord Jesus, glorify Thy Name through the preaching 
 of Thy Word, for Thine Infinite Love and Mercy's sake. 
 Amen.
 
 158 The Results of the Mission, or 
 
 THE KESULTS OF THE MISSION, OR 
 "THE GREAT PROMISE FULFILLED." 
 
 fission germo. 
 
 " For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace." 
 Isaiah Iv. 12. 
 
 Now, as people are so accustomed to hear texts of 
 Scripture read without attempting to take notice of 
 their meaning, I will read the text again. " For ye 
 shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace." 
 
 Here is a distinct Promise, which is alleged to have 
 been made by God in His Own Word. Here is a 
 distinct promise that, if His Word be preached, this 
 shall be the result the hearers shall go out with joy, 
 and be led forth with peace. 
 
 Now, then, brethren, if God's Word has been 
 preached this week, this must be the result, or else the 
 gospel story is a lie. If this Word be not fulfilled 
 there must be one of three reasons for its non-fulfil- 
 ment. If, of those who have been attending the 
 mission, none are now filled " with joy,"* if among 
 them, none ' ' have been led forth with peace,"* it is 
 * Isaiah Iv. 12.
 
 " The Great Promise Fulfilled." 159 
 
 either because I have not preached God's Word or, 
 if I have, that God has not kept His Promise, or that 
 there is no God to keep the Promise, and the whole 
 thing is a myth. 
 
 Brethren, we Christians not only believe, but 
 we know, that the Promise has been fulfilled. 
 And not only do we believe in our hearts, and 
 know it must be so, because we have the witness that 
 it has taken place in our own cases, but God always 
 gives proofs of the fulfilment of His Promise ; and if 
 you were to see the pile of letters that I have received, 
 in consequence of what has been going on in this 
 hall during the week, some of you would lift up your 
 hands in amazement. 
 
 We believe that people " go out with joy, and are 
 led forth with peace "* whenever the Word is 
 preached. 
 
 You know St. Peter, one of the first teachers of the 
 Christian religion, and one of the first preachers of the 
 Gospel, says : " Believing, ye rejoice with joy un- 
 speakable and full of glory. "t The first believers had 
 no more to believe than you and I ; they were only 
 asked to believe the same Message as I have been 
 proclaiming ; and the results of the Gospel preaching 
 in the first century were not one jot different from the 
 results of Gospel preaching in the nineteenth. 
 * Isaiah Iv. 12. f 1 Peter i. 8.
 
 160 The Results of the Mission, or 
 
 And if you say how is it that we do not see more of 
 these results in our churches and chapels, we must 
 give as answer that the Word of God is not preached 
 in its simplicity and in its entirety it is either 
 preached with a number of additions to it, or it is only 
 preached in part and not in whole. 
 
 Some time ago one of the members of our Order 
 went to hear a very noted preacher of the day, and, 
 when he came back, I asked him what he had heard ; 
 had he heard the Gospel preached ? He said, "About 
 as much Gospel as would lie on a fourpenny-bit." 
 
 It is not fair when God sends a Message to the 
 world, that is enough to satisfy all the .poor, needy, 
 hungry, aching hearts that hear the Word I say it 
 is a shame to give them a little only, and that little 
 so covered up with a quantity of rubbish, called philo- 
 sophy, casuistry, and metaphysical nonsense, that the 
 Gospel itself does not do them any good in fact, 
 they hardly get any Gospel at all. 
 
 This is the reason why the promised results do not 
 follow the preaching. Preachers do not preach the 
 Word of God in its simplicity ! 
 
 There are numbers of churches, in London, where 
 people are gathered together and worship an imaginary 
 being in whom there is no sensible kind of authority 
 for believing at all. I recollect I am only mentioning 
 the names of public men, just the same as my name
 
 " The Great Promise Fulfilled." 161 
 
 may be mentioned that once I was passing the place 
 where Mr. Voysey was announced to preach, and I 
 made as though I were going in. But before going 
 in I said to the man at the door, " Who are they 
 worshipping in there ? " The man said, " God, of 
 course." I answered, " Is it the God of the Bible ?" 
 The young man's face looked a little long as he 
 answered, " I cannot say that." " Then,'' I replied, 
 " if it be a little private god of Mr. Voysey's I am 
 not going to worship that ;" and I went elsewhere to 
 worship Him Who is a matter-of-fact, historical 
 Reality, and Who has made Himself known in the 
 Incarnation of His Own Son. 
 
 This is the God Who has been preached for 
 eighteen hundred years ; and, in spite of the world's 
 opposition, has gathered out a people whenever His 
 Message has been preached, by a force for which the 
 world cannot account. The God Who not only says 
 but does That is the God Whom we worship ; That 
 is the God Whom we preach. And the results have 
 been manifest. 
 
 I should like to read to you the letter to which 
 I referred last night, written by, what the world 
 would call, one of our " fallen sisters." What a mighty 
 work it is, and what a mighty power that has 
 washed her from her sin, and made her lay hold of 
 Christ, with such rejoicing that her whole being is 
 
 M
 
 162 The Results of the Mission, or 
 
 changed ! And now she longs for opportunities to 
 testify to the great things that God has done for, and 
 in, her. And then numbers of others have written to 
 tell of the satisfaction and the peace, that have come 
 into their lives. Everything is like bright sunshine ; 
 it is a light, which they never knew before, that illumi- 
 nates them ; there is a Something that has filled up the 
 aching void of years, and they have gone " out with 
 joy." The Promise of the text has been fulfilled. 
 They have been led forth in peace. 
 
 And, brethren, it is a joy that satisfies the wants of 
 man and his compound nature. Man is a compound 
 animal a tremendously compound animal and the 
 more a man, with common sense, examines himself, 
 the more he will discover what a wonderful com- 
 bination of appetites and desires exists within him. 
 
 The unbeliever tells us that our higher appetites 
 and desires are all rubbish ; and that it is within the 
 power of human nature to satisfy all its wants. And 
 when we say there is such a thing as perfect holiness 
 to be found, and perfect satisfaction, he tells us it is 
 all a nonsensical dream in fact, many of the mate- 
 rialists would have us believe that we are worse off 
 than the dogs and cats at our feet. I cannot under- 
 stand such a position as that. The materialist says 
 there is no hereafter ; no God ; and that our nobler 
 appetites and our spiritual cravings, which are more
 
 " The Great Promise Fulfilled." 163 
 
 tremendously real than is our bodily hunger, are all 
 folly. 
 
 I say the man is a fool who can say that these 
 strong, imperious yearnings are not realities. But 
 what, in the past, said such mighty minds as 
 Zoroaster, Plato, and Virgil ? Look at the magnifi- 
 cent energisings of Plato, his hungering after God; see 
 how the fire of truth flashed from his heart, and threw 
 into his words such might, that he won a hearing from 
 the highest, till Plato's name became the rallying 
 point for the noblest minds. Why ? Because he 
 pointed out that all were in sin, and he told how he 
 had realised the reality of One Who knows no sin. 
 Plato was waiting for Jesus. 
 
 Consider, too, how a Virgil could sing of the Golden 
 Age, which the Gospel should bring to men (Virgil, 
 Eclogue iv.), 40 years before our Saviour's birth. 
 Also Suetonius, in his life of Vespasian, tells of the 
 world's expectancy of the great ruler from the East. 
 
 One prophet calls Jesus the " Desire of all 
 Nations ;' ; * for all the noblest and best of mankind 
 desired a knowledge of Christ, an atonement with 
 God, a putting away of that sin, which is the tyranny 
 and bondage of man. 
 
 And then Jesus Christ came and said : " I am the 
 Living Bread which came down from Heaven "t 
 * Hag. ii. 7. t St. John vi. 51.
 
 164 The Results of the Mission, or 
 
 " Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest ; "* and from that 
 day forward there have been multitudes drawn out 
 from the hungry crowds and fed; numbers have 
 been washed in the Blood of Jesus. As Cowper's 
 hymn says : 
 
 " There is a Fountain filled with blood, 
 
 Drawn from Emmanuel's veins, 
 And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, 
 Lose all their guilty stains." 
 
 That is just what we believe and, although the 
 world has laughed at us for eighteen hundred years ; 
 yet numbers to day " go out with joy and are 
 led forth with peace."t We are at peace with God 
 because faith in Christ has put away our sin, and 
 brought us sinless to God, and we can look up into 
 the Face of God and say " Abba Father." J Jesus 
 tells us to pray and to say " Our Father, Which art 
 in Heaven." 
 
 This magnificent faith carries us through all trials 
 and sorrows and storms of life ; and, then, in the 
 calm and gladness, that the world cannot touch, 
 we confess : this is " the peace of God which 
 passeth all understanding." || Oh ! when we possess 
 
 * St. Matth. xi. 28. t Isaiah Iv. 12. J Romans viii. 15. 
 St. Matth. vi. 9. |l Phil. iv. 7.
 
 " The Great Promise Fulfilled." 165 
 
 Jesus " we go out with joy." We do not want any- 
 thing else because Jesus Christ quite satisfies 
 those that accept Him, with simple trust and simple 
 love. 
 
 But then the Promise is not only, " we shall go out 
 with joy;"* it is also that "we shall be led forth with 
 peace."* "They shall be led" yes, as "My sheep." 
 A.nd He leads His sheep, for He says : " I am the 
 Good Shepherd, and know My sheep ;"f and He goes 
 before them and leads them forth. 
 
 One of the letters which I am very happy to possess 
 is from a poor young girl, who says : " Tell the con- 
 gregation that since the mission I attended two years 
 ago, when I accepted Christ as my Saviour, He has 
 made me sensible of His Presence, at my side, and I 
 have been kept from sin by His power ; and not only 
 that, but I find a joy in trying to glorify Him every 
 day. Tell the people," she says, "they have been two 
 years of happy experience." 
 
 We are sure that it is no human power which thus 
 delivers these poor children from the horrible sin, 
 in which for years they have persevered, and sets 
 them free " into the glorious liberty of the children 
 of God.": 
 
 But we have more men converted at our services 
 
 * Isaiah Iv. 12. f St. John x. 14. Rom. viii. 21.
 
 1 66 The Results of the Mission, or 
 
 than women ! Some few Sundays ago we had a con- 
 gregation of five hundred, and not more than twenty 
 of this number were women ; and the police told us that 
 some of the worst men in the town were attending 
 our services. Some of these had passed through the 
 change of which we have been speaking. There is a 
 power and a force that takes hold of us, and leads us 
 about just like a shepherd leads his sheep : ' ' He goeth 
 before them :"* and the G-ood Shepherd says : " I 
 will never leave them nor forsake them."f And He 
 keeps His Promise ! 
 
 I am talking of a real, practical, daily experience, 
 which draws numbers of the human family out of the 
 darkness of their sin-stained lives. I am talking of 
 that which is as great a reality to-day, in the midst 
 of us, as it was when it was first preached by Paul to 
 the Greek philosophers, or by Peter in Asia. 
 
 Christian brethren, and especially you who have 
 been converted to Christ this week ; you are held up 
 by One Who says, " He will never leave you," and 
 that "no man shall pluck you out of His Hand.":}: 
 And hear the Promise, all you that have come to Him, 
 you " are kept by the power of Grod." 
 
 And now I must speak to you, not only of those 
 privileges, and the fulfilment of the simple Promise, 
 
 * St. John x. 4. t Joshua i. 5 ; Heb. xiii. 5. J St. John x. 28. 
 1 Peter i. 5.
 
 "The Great Promise Fulfilled." 167 
 
 but I must speak too of some of the difficulties with 
 which you are going to meet ; and it is very necessary 
 that I should do so. 
 
 Directly a man is converted to Christ the world will 
 make him feel that he is converted and no mistake ; 
 directly a man becomes a Christian the world is up in 
 arms against him. 
 
 Perhaps the world will come to you in the person of 
 your own children, perhaps it will come in the person 
 of your own father or mother ; directly you have 
 received the love of Christ, and the peace of God, you 
 become a man who is in the world but has ceased to 
 be of it. Jesus Christ says : " Ye have not chosen Me, 
 but I have chosen you,"* and He says : " Ye are not 
 of the world, but I have chosen you out of the 
 world."t 
 
 What a beautiful word that is used by the prophet 
 Micah ! He says : the children of God shall be " as a 
 "dew."t Let me tell you an instance of what I mean. 
 A young man came to one of my mission services. 
 He thought it rare sport to hear a monk preach, and 
 see what kind of a fellow a monk was ; but it was not 
 the monk who met him, it was the power of the Holy 
 Ghost that met him ; and, face to face with Jesus 
 Christ, he heard the Voice of God plead with his heart 
 
 * St. John xv. 16. t St. John xv. 19. J Micah v. 7.
 
 1 68 The Results of the Mission, or 
 
 Will you " come to Me that you may have life ;"* 
 "whosoever will/' let him come. He told Jesus, "Lord, 
 I will come." 
 
 Then, when he went home he had his family to face 
 a family of father and mother, and eleven brothers 
 and sisters. Well, all sat down to the evening supper, 
 the Sunday evening meal; but he could not sit 
 still until he had told them that he had found peace 
 in Jesus ; and he said : " I want to tell you I have 
 found Jesus to-night, and His Blood has washed all 
 my sins away, and I can never be lost ; and," he said, 
 " I am not going to rest until everyone of you have 
 obtained what I have obtained." 
 
 A year after I went to the same place, to hold a 
 mission, and as I was leaving the hall a lady came to 
 me and said : " Oh ! Reverend Father, would you 
 mind coming to our house ? It is close by." 
 
 There was an earnestness in her voice that touched 
 me very much, but I said : " I am sorry it is against 
 our rule to pay visits, or to go to any house except 
 that in which we are staying; but will you let me 
 ask why you are so anxious for me to come ?" Tears 
 came into her eyes, and she said, " The last time you 
 were here my second boy came to your mission service, 
 and he found Jesus Christ, and has been the means of 
 
 * St. John v. 40.
 
 " The Great Promise fulfilled." 169 
 
 bringing Christ to everyone in the family except the 
 eldest son ; and now we are a happy, contented family, 
 with this exception, and he is utterly wretched and 
 miserable ; and we do not believe he will ever have 
 peace until he accepts Christ as we have done." 
 
 Oh ! then, the Promise is fulfilled. Some of you 
 have very stormy lives to live, some of you have very 
 uncertain lives to live, some of you have the seeds of 
 some mortal disease in you, and it is only a matter of 
 time how long you will live ; some of you have some 
 terrible domestic woes, some daughter perhaps whose 
 name now can never be mentioned in the family circle ; 
 some children, perhaps, cast like wrecks upon the 
 stormy sea of London life ; maybe, some of you are 
 bending under the load of some terrible affliction ; and 
 now I would solemnly ask you in the Name of One 
 Who has carried me for nineteen years through 
 troubles and persecutions, riots and storms, poverty 
 and want, of every description (He has carried me and 
 He has carried all His people) I ask you, will you 
 just do what we have done, accept Christ, in His ful- 
 ness, as God's Gift to you ? 
 
 If you say : " I would if I could intellectually," I 
 say I do not care one rap about your intellect ; it never 
 fills your life with peace, it never brings calm and rest 
 to the soul, and God never asked a man to believe with 
 his intellect. " But," you say, " I am an intellectual
 
 170 The Results of the Mission, or 
 
 animal, and I cannot accept what I cannot under- 
 stand." That is not true ; you accept a great many 
 things you do not understand in fact the things that 
 infidels have to believe are a great deal harder than 
 those we have to believe. It must be very hard to 
 believe that we, human beings, came from nothing, 
 with our intellects, our passions, our hopes, our mag- 
 nificent moral, as well as physical, powers to believe 
 all came from nothing, because they say we came 
 from a protoplasm ; but how that protoplasm came 
 into existence they do not know. I say the unbeliever 
 has far harder things to believe than we Christians. 
 
 And not only that, but I sa^ and here is an appeal 
 to common sense that the Gospel brings into play 
 certain forces which operate always in the same way ; 
 and yet we are told this is all nonsense, a myth, and a 
 dream. I say if this be a dream it brings into play 
 forces that produce moral and physical results, which 
 nothing else could produce ; and if there be no reality 
 in it then there is no reality in anything. 
 
 Other realities cannot produce what this so-called 
 unreality does, and you cannot show me any force in 
 existence which can evolve the results that the Gospel 
 has evolved in this place this week. Therefore, 
 if I cannot intellectually receive the Gospel, common 
 sense must tell me that it is of God to exercise this 
 unique power.
 
 " The Great Promise Fulfilled." 1 7 1 
 
 Common sense tells me that wherever there is a 
 phenomenon there is a cause, and if the phenomenon 
 be great the cause must be equally great ; and if a 
 man say that the Gospel is not a reality, I say he is a 
 dolt and a fool, because common sense shows us, by 
 practical results, that it is the most tremendous, 
 magnificent reality that ever visited this life of storm 
 and tears and pain and dying. 
 
 Jesus says : " I will give you rest. 3 '* " In Me you 
 shall have peace,"t says Jesus. " I will feed you." 
 " I will clothe you ;" and He does all He promises. 
 
 Do not forget that you will have troubles and 
 persecutions to bear. People will misrepresent you 
 directly you tell them that you are saved and 
 that you can never be lost. They will tell you 
 it is great presumption, they will call you self- 
 righteous, and say that you set yourself up as being 
 better than other people ; but this is just what you 
 are not doing; and you can tell them that you 
 came to Christ as a poor, lost sinner, and put 
 yourself in the dust at His feet, and that He set 
 you up and placed you among " the princes of His 
 people."* 
 
 And remember, also, brethren, the responsibility 
 
 * St. Matt. xi. 28. f St. John xvi. 33. J Psalm cxiii. 8.
 
 i 72 The Results of the Mission. 
 
 that is yours as witnesses, for Christ. Jesus Christ 
 says: "Ye shall be witnesses unto Me."* Now, then, 
 brethren, " go out with joy,"f go on " from strength 
 to strength ;" J and " you shall be led forth with 
 peace" "the peace of God, which passeth all 
 understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds 
 through Christ Jesus. " 
 
 * Acts i. 8. J P 8 . Ixxxiv. 7. 
 
 t Isaiah Iv. 12. Phil. iv. 7.
 
 X. 
 
 <ist atrtr &rh of 
 
 Sunday Afternoon, May 3rd, 1885.
 
 Jtsus Christ, anb % Qr\\ of 
 
 Prayer before Sermon. 
 
 0, Jesus Christ the Ark of God, the Ark of Safety we 
 bless Thee for all here present who are safe within Thee 
 " Men in Christ ! " * Amen. 
 
 * 2 Cor. v. 17.
 
 176 Mission Sermon. 
 
 "JESUS CHRIST AND THE ARK OF NOAH." 
 
 " And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away ; so 
 shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. Then shall two 
 be in the field ; the one shall be taken and the other left. Two 
 women shall be grinding at the mill ; the one shall be taken and 
 the other left." St. Matt. xxiv. 39, 40, 41. 
 
 Has it ever struck you, my hearers, I wonder, how 
 extraordinary it is that a very common mistake is 
 made about the ark ? People speak of the Church as 
 being the ark. Now, you know, there is no sense in 
 such a saying as that. The Church is in the ark. 
 The Church consists of the people who have taken 
 refuge in the ark. You might just as well call Noah 
 and his sons and their wives the ark as call the 
 Church the ark. 
 
 The Church is a company of faithful people who 
 have made their escape and have got into the ark ; 
 and the ark of Christ's Church is Jesus Christ. 
 He is the Ark. The whole force of the figure is 
 lost unless you take it in this way. The Church 
 cannot be the ark. The Church is made up of a 
 number of poor sinners, and they cannot make
 
 Jesus Christ and the Ark of Noah. 177 
 
 the ark. God has made an ark for them, and all 
 those that are Christ's Church get into this Ark, 
 which is Christ Himself. 
 
 And so we find through the whole of the New 
 Testament that expression used which is so familiar to 
 the believer in Christ. St. Paul calls himself " a new 
 man in Christ;"* and our Lord Jesus Christ speaks of 
 His people as being in Him. It is ' ' Ye in Me ;"t and 
 then He says we dwell in Him. I repeat, Christ is 
 the Ark, and His people are the Church ; therefore 
 Christ is the Ark of His Church. 
 
 And, brethren, it is necessary that we should be very 
 clear and very simple in our teaching to men now-a- 
 days ; for they are in such a great hurry that you can 
 only get them to listen for a little while. It is there- 
 fore so much the best plan to shelve all the differences, 
 and all the superstructures, and just first bring them 
 on to the Rock of Ages, which is Christ Himself. 
 
 Our subject this afternoon, then, is " Jesus Christ 
 and the Ark of Noah." I was thinking, as I drove 
 through the streets just now to this hall drove as a 
 matter of absolute necessity or else I should not have 
 thought of driving on Sunday, because a horse has as 
 much right to rest as I have I was thinking, as I saw 
 streams of human life flooding the great streets, how 
 sad it is to know that there is an Ark large enough to 
 
 * 2 Cor. v. 17. t St. John xiv. 20. 
 
 N
 
 178 Mission Sermon. 
 
 hold them all, but yet that so very few of them turn to 
 the door and enter in ! 
 
 In the old time God's mercy framed an ark, and He 
 framed it, larger much larger than it was necessary 
 to frame it. There were only eight persons who 
 availed themselves of the loving invitation of God ! 
 The others all made game of it ; laughed at and 
 ridiculed it " until the flood came and took them all 
 away."* 
 
 I am not now going to argue about the flood, 
 whether it was local or universal. I believe it was 
 universal, because I believe exactly the literal teach- 
 ing of Holy Scripture ; and therefore, as a Christian, 
 I see no room for argument about the matter. I am 
 perfectly convinced on the subject. God has con- 
 vinced me of the truth of the Bible, by its power 
 upon the hearts and wills and lives and minds of 
 men. 
 
 The Bible can turn the vilest sinner inside out in a 
 moment. It brings new life, new desires, new hopes, 
 new appetites, new tastes to him ; and I simply say 
 that this Book could not do all that unless it were 
 divine ; and therefore I do not want to argue about 
 it. There is plenty in the Bible which I do not under- 
 stand, and which I have to accept with simple, child- 
 like faith, as Christ says: "Thou hast hid these 
 * St. Matt. xxiv. 39.
 
 Jesus Christ and the Ark of Noah. 1 79 
 
 things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed 
 them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed 
 good in Thy sight."* 
 
 It can also be argued that upon the tops of the very 
 highest mountains traces of the sea, such as shells, 
 have been found ; so that even from worldly teach- 
 ings we have very great reason to believe that the 
 waters passed over the highest hills. But that has 
 nothing to do with our subject. 
 
 We have a very earthly and a very matter-of-fact 
 description of the state of things before the flood. Men 
 and women were then the same as they are now ; with 
 the same hopes, difficulties and interests. "As the 
 days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of 
 Man be. For as in the days that were before the flood 
 they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in 
 marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark ; 
 and knew not until the flood came, and took them all 
 away."t So that when Christ comes, those who have 
 believed the strange story of God's mercy, in having 
 provided a Eefuge for humanity, against the coming 
 sea of holy justice and wrath and judgment, they will 
 be safe in Christ. 
 
 Now you know that, during all this mission week, 
 we have been very clear in our preaching. We have 
 tried, all we possibly could, not to mystify men's mincls. 
 * St. Matt. xi. 25, 26. f St. Matt. rxiv. 37, 38, 39.
 
 180 Mission Sermon. 
 
 If you remember, during the week, one of the chief 
 thoughts has been this : that there are only two reli- 
 gions in the world, God's religion and the world's 
 religion. The world's religion is a religion that 
 works to save itself. God's religion is that which 
 offers salvation as God's free gift, and which hides in 
 Christ, as a refuge, him who flees to Christ as the One 
 Who satisfies all those who come to Him. 
 
 We flee to Christ for His righteousness to cover us, 
 for His blood to cleanse us ; for " His grace to abound 
 within us/'* and for Him " to strengthen us with all 
 might by His Spirit,"t according to His glorious power. 
 We flee to Him as our atonement ; through Whom we 
 may find God's justice satisfied, and our debt to His 
 Majesty paid " to the uttermost farthing." We flee to 
 Christ, and in Him we find God's panacea for all the 
 ills and aches and cravings of our being. Jesus 
 Christ satisfies all who accept Him, and the weary and 
 the heavy laden, and the sinner and the lonely, and 
 the restless and the sad, and the sorrowful and the 
 desolate they all find a rest and a repose at His 
 feet, Who says : " Come to me, I will give you rest."J 
 
 So, then, those who come to Christ are sensible of 
 
 intense satisfaction and rest ; of a mighty protection. 
 
 Jesus Christ is a mighty barrier between me and the 
 
 wrath of God. Jesus Christ is to me the satisfaction 
 
 * 2 Cor. ix. 8. f Ephes. iii. 16. J St. Matt. xi. 28.
 
 Jesus Christ and the Ark of Noah. 181 
 
 for my sin. Jesus Christ is to me the cleansing of my 
 sin. Jesus Christ is to me, as I said just now, all that 
 I need ; and, therefore, in the cleft of this Rock of 
 Ages I have found refuge, security, peace, content- 
 ment, righteousness, salvation and repose. I am a a 
 new man in Christ "* simply by accepting Christ as 
 God's gift to me. 
 
 That is the message. " God so loved the world, 
 that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever 
 believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting 
 life."t This simple faith is the only way that God has 
 appointed for us to lay hold of the Gift He offers to 
 the world ; and if I have accepted Christ, God then 
 accepts me ; as St. Paul says, God accepts me " in the 
 Beloved."} 
 
 Now, brethren, you remember in the story of old, 
 how men ridiculed and sneered at Noah as he pro- 
 claimed the coming flood. They sneered at him from 
 day to day, and from month to month, and year to year; 
 and the scientific men of the day, no doubt, regarded 
 with ridicule the denunciations and prophetic warn- 
 ings of Noah's sermons; for he was " a preacher of 
 righteousness," says the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Every now and then would the echo of the hammer 
 and the workman's tool ring across the plain. The 
 
 * 2 Cor. v. 17. f St. John iii. 16. 
 
 J Ephes. i. 6. 2 Peter ii. 5.
 
 1 82 Mission Sermon. 
 
 people looked from the villages and towns, upon the 
 hills, and saw the rising ark, in its immense size, 
 building on the plain. Still there were the voices of 
 gaiety, laughing at the idea of such a gigantic vessel 
 being built so far away from the sea. But although 
 every species of ridicule and scorn was thrown at Noah 
 and his ark, although he was doubtless proclaimed a 
 madman, a lunatic, an enthusiastic bigot and a fool, 
 he went steadily on, until at last the ark was com- 
 pletely finished. 
 
 There was echo then of hammer sounds no more ; 
 and many doubtless tried to stifle the premonitions 
 and forewarnings that there might be some truth in 
 Noah's story after all. Noah was a " preacher of 
 righteousness,"* remember, God's witness in the 
 midst of a godless, faithless, noisy world. But, for all 
 that, they all went on their way sneering and ridicul- 
 ing Noah and his ark "until the flood came."f 
 
 Just picture the evening before the flood. The ark 
 is quite finished. The door of the ark is wide open. 
 It is capable of containing thousands, but its mighty 
 chambers will not be wanted. There will only be 
 eight persons who will there take refuge. 
 
 Now, think of the evening before the flood. Think 
 of the hushful rest in the air, of the strange, slaty light 
 in the evening sky. Think of the peculiar sound that 
 * 2 Peter ii. 5. f St. Matt. xxir. 39.
 
 J-esus Christ and the Ark of Noah. 183 
 
 there must have been in the lowing of the herds in the 
 meadows; the strange bleating of the sheep. The 
 noises of the song of the birds must have been more 
 like a twittering of terror. All nature seemed as if it 
 were on the verge of some mighty cataclysm, some- 
 thing like that which they tell us precedes an 
 earthquake. 
 
 My brethren, the eve of the flood must have 
 had something tremendously dreadful and weird 
 about it ! The rivers became encased in a black, 
 thickening mantle of cloud ; a strange movement 
 passed over the sea, restlessness filled the air, a crash 
 of wind followed then utter stillness again just 
 such as we have experienced ourselves at sea, before 
 some terrible storm comes on. 
 
 Then all the scientists of the day, I expect, were 
 trying to comfort the timid ones by explaining these 
 omens away. They could easily be accounted for. 
 Calculations and arguments were forthcoming to show 
 what occasioned it all. But somehow the hearts of the 
 people could not be comforted. There was a terrible 
 dread. 
 
 All at once, amongst them, gigantic drops of 
 rain began to fall ; these were followed by more, and 
 still more, until at last there seemed almost to be a 
 quiver in the air, and a quiver in the earth ; then 
 whole sheets of water fell ; and the streamlets and
 
 184 Mission Sermon. 
 
 the cascades in the hills, instead of leaping downwards 
 with gentle spray-splashing showers, began to come 
 tumbling down in tremendous volumes of water. The 
 streamlets turned to streams, the rivulets to rivers, 
 the rivers to rolling floods ; and at last all the plains 
 were covered with water. And as the day went 
 by and the next day a day of terror and alarm 
 cottages on the plains were surrounded with water, 
 and men were beginning to take refuge in the high- 
 lands and on the hills. 
 
 Still down, with crash on crash, came the streams of 
 waters from the clouds ; and the torrents from the 
 mountains were terrific in their might and their noise ; 
 and the falling rivers, from the hills, leapt with a 
 fearful roar into the majestic mass of water that was 
 spreading on every hand ; the plains were vast sheets 
 of storm-tossed spray and water. 
 
 Then, my brother, all the scientific explanations 
 went for nothing. Nobody listened to the scientific 
 explainer now. They climbed to greater heights as 
 they saw the water coming up the mountain sides in 
 the tremendous convulsion of nature thus working its 
 tempestuous way. 
 
 And now, see the agony depicted in the young 
 mother as she holds her little darling to her breast, and 
 looks down with a sob of anguish at the ark reposing 
 majestically upon the waters of God's holy wrath. She
 
 Jesus Christ and the Ark of Noah. 185 
 
 pictures to herself the wives of the sons of Noah safe 
 in the ark; she remembers how but a few days before 
 she saw them enter amid the sneers and jeers of the 
 throng ; AND THEN the door was shut by ANOTHER HAND, 
 and the bolt was drawn OUTSIDE by a mighty power ! 
 
 " The Lord shut him in /"* 
 
 Brethren, Jesus Christ is God's Ark to-day. Jesus 
 Christ, as God's Ark, has been sailing through the 
 waters of the ages, gathering out His Church amid the 
 scoffing, sneering world. He has been gathering out 
 a people of peace, as the angels sang when Christ was 
 born : " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 
 peace to men of good will " f only to them. But 
 "whosoever will " J whosoever will let him come, and 
 those that come are the " men of good will." " Ho, 
 everyone that thirsteth come ! " "Come unto Me, all 
 ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give 
 you rest ! " || " Him that cometh to Me I will in 
 no wise cast out."l " He is able to save them to the 
 uttermost that come unto God by Him."** Come ! 
 Come ! " the Spirit and the Bride say come l"ft The 
 Ark of Christ's Church is gliding on the waters still; 
 still sailing on the flood surface of this changing, 
 restless world. 
 
 Weary men, tired men, men whose nobler life is 
 
 * Gen. vii. 16. f St. Luke ii. 14. J Rev. xxii. 17. 
 
 Isaiah Iv. 1. || St. Matt. xi. 28. H St. John vi. 37 
 
 ** Heb. vii. 25. ft Rev. xxii. 17.
 
 1 86 Mission Sermon. 
 
 not satisfied, the undercurrent of whose existence is 
 storm-tossed and hungry and restless, there is food 
 for you in Jesus Christ. He can satisfy your whole 
 being. He can saturate your peaceless souls with 
 peace. He can give to your restless minds the great 
 calm of G-od, " the peace of G-od that passeth all 
 understanding."* 
 
 During the past week, in this hall, men have been 
 getting into the peace, into the Ark of God ; and men 
 have been realising what it is to have Jesus Christ 
 for their bulwark. Oh, brother ! it is no mere beautiful 
 poesy of an imaginative mind ; it is no mere pretty 
 picture of a poet's song ; it is no mere fancy of an 
 excited brain ; it is the most stupendous reality that 
 G-od's love could produce for the relief of weeping, 
 dying mortals. 
 
 See the results in the hearts and lives of those 
 who have believed. See the drunkard reformed 
 from his cups ; see the impure man who loves 
 purity now, and lives in the constant enjoyment of 
 the presence of Jesus Christ, Who says to him : 
 " I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." t See 
 the mourner whose tears are dried by that love of 
 Jesus which is the consolation of God. Oh, see the 
 man of sorrow, see the man of sin, see the man of 
 pleasure, see the man of business, see the man of 
 excitement, see any man, I care not in what position, 
 * Phil. iv. 7 f Heb. xiii. 5.
 
 Jesus Christ and the Ark of Noah. 187 
 
 of what temperament, of what peculiar characteristic 
 he may be, Jesus Christ is God's Anodyne for each 
 and all; and those who have received Him have 
 entered into rest, as the Apostle says : " We which 
 have believed do enter into rest."* 
 
 Brother, this Ark of Jesus is open now, this after- 
 noon. You can go on rejecting Christ ; you can go 
 .on explaining Christianity away, or if you do not con- 
 descend to do that, you can go on ridiculing Chris- 
 tianity as a myth ; but remember, my brother, that it 
 is a very mighty myth. It works more stupendous 
 changes in men's lives and hearts and wills than any- 
 thing else. All your Acts of Parliament put together 
 cannot change a man's heart, and you know it. By 
 Act of Parliament you could wash the bodies of all the 
 poor, filthy ones in the East End in water ; but you 
 could not wash their hearts, and this is what Jesus 
 Christ does do. Whoever accepts Jesus Christ " is a 
 new creature ; old things are passed away ; all things 
 are become new."f Thou shalt " wash me and I 
 shall be whiter than snow."! 
 
 Yes, brother ! when a man is in Christ he is alto- 
 gether renewed; he is created over again. He receives 
 a new understanding, a new life. He is born of God, 
 of the incorruptible seed of God ; and so Jesus Christ 
 says: "Because I live, ye shall live also." " The 
 * Heb. iv. 3. f 2 Cor. v. 17. J Psalm li. 7. St. John xiv. 19.
 
 i88 Mission Sermon. 
 
 man in Christ" is a changed man, a newly created man. 
 " The man in Christ " is a divine man as the Apostle 
 Peter says in his second Epistle : There " are given 
 unto us exceeding great and precious promises that 
 by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature ;"* 
 and as St. John says : " As many as received Him, to 
 them gave He power to become the sons of God."f 
 
 Oh ! brother, for this we believe God created us. 
 He has only put us in this world for a few passing 
 days school days to prepare us for the great eternity, 
 which stretches out through the everlasting years, in 
 the infinite domains of the Kingdom of God. This 
 life is only the infancy of our existence. We are 
 placed here to be nursed and trained for the great 
 eternity. 
 
 The one object of life is to get into the Ark and 
 find in the Ark salvation the divine nature received ; 
 so that the old nature that is in us, which is so sinful, 
 so weak, so wretched, so painful, so sorrow-stricken 
 and sin-stricken, may be overcome ; and that we may 
 have the victory, and, as St. Paul writes, be " more 
 than conquerors through Him that loved us."* 
 
 This, my brothers and sisters, is what you look at 
 
 when you see the happiness and the reality of the 
 
 change which has taken place in the converted 
 
 Christian man. You may laugh and argue as much 
 
 * 2 Peter i. 4. f St. John i. 12. J Rom. viii. 37.
 
 Jesus Christ and the Ark of Noah. 189 
 
 as you like; but this is a phenomenon that must be 
 accounted for. 
 
 Now, can you show me such a thing as a changed 
 heart by any other process or power than that of the- 
 G-ospel ? You may force a man, against his will, for a 
 few days or weeks to keep pretty decent. You may 
 have your chains and shackles of the law brought to 
 bear on him ; but let him loose and he is just the same 
 man. 
 
 But bring him to Christ the great Reformer ; bring- 
 him to Christ the great Healer ; bring him to Christ 
 the great Saviour ; the Shepherd of our race, our 
 Elder Brother and our Friend, and what does Jesus 
 do with the man ? He takes him to Himself, He takes* 
 him INTO Himself, He gives to him new forces with 
 which to work, He gives to him a new vitality in which 
 to live. 
 
 And so it is that Jesus Christ proves Himself to 
 be risen from the dead, for He lives, He reigns in 
 the hearts of all who have accepted Him in His fulness. 
 
 My brothers and sisters in humanity but not in 
 Christ, before you go out of this assembly you may be 
 men and women in Christ. Art thou in Christ, as 
 thou sittest there ? It is Christ or no you are or you 
 are not. If you are not you may be, and you may be this 
 moment, this very instant ; for the only way to be a 
 man in Christ is to accept Christ, in His fulness
 
 190 Mission Sermon. 
 
 as God's gift to you now ; " he that believeth on Him 
 HATH everlasting life."* 
 
 That is it, and there is no other way of salvation. 
 You must accept it as a gift or not at all. Salvation is 
 not to be purchased. It is not wages for good works. 
 You can do nothing which God will accept until you are 
 saved. The only step between you and death is that 
 one step taking God at His word, accepting Christ 
 as the Gift of God ; and directly you accept that Gift 
 you are in the Ark which is Christ ; you are a " man 
 in Christ ; " or, as St. Jude puts it, " preserved in 
 Christ."t And then, remember, when once you are 
 in Christ, God's power keeps you in Christ ; for as 
 Noah did not shut himself into the ark, but the Lord 
 shut him in, so it is with us when once we are in Christ. 
 We are "kept (there) by the power of God,"J says 
 St. Peter. We are " preserved in Christ," f as says 
 St. Jude. We are, as the Psalmist says, "kept as the 
 apple of God's eye ; hidden under the shadow of His 
 wings." My brother, Christ is waiting to be to you 
 what He is to me ; He is waiting to be to you what 
 He is to every believer in this congregation. 
 
 Now I should very much like, (if the Lord Jesus has 
 any disciples here, which I believe He has) I should 
 like them to confirm the truth of what I am saying 
 before those who cannot receive Him. Will my 
 
 * St. John iii. 36. f St. Jude i. 1. 
 
 J 1 Pet. i. 5. Psalm xvii. 8.
 
 Jesus Christ and the Ark of Noah. 191 
 
 brothers and sisters in Christ, who know that they are 
 in Christ, will they rise up ? Thanks be to God, more 
 than half the congregation thanks be to God living 
 witnesses for Jesus ! Thank you, brethren, for rising 
 up. 
 
 Oh ! what a strength that rising up has given to 
 my heart and soul and brain in speaking for the 
 Master ! I am not standing alone like poor Noah was. 
 You see I am surrounded by my brothers and sisters 
 who know God as I know Him. Then, my dearest 
 friends, you, who are not in the Ark yet, will you do 
 what we have done ? Will you get into the Ark in 
 the same way as we have got into it, for there is no 
 other way of getting in but that ? " Whosoever will"* 
 let him come. And Jesus says, " Him that cometh I 
 will in no wise cast out."t 
 
 Sin need not keep you away. Oh no ! That is the 
 very thing to draw you to Him. The more sinful I 
 am, the more I want to come to Him to cleanse 
 me. The more I realise my weakness, the more I 
 want to come to Him for strength. And, brethren, 
 " now is the accepted time." J We are only invited to 
 come " until the flood " comes. Then all those who have 
 rejected the gift of God will be swept away. And, 
 as we have the picture in our text, " so shall also the 
 coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in 
 * Rev. xxii. 17. t St. John vi. 37. J 2 Cor. vi. 2.
 
 192 Mission Sermon. 
 
 the field, the one shall be taken, and the other 
 left."* 
 
 Now I will just comment upon these words and 
 conclude. We who have risen up have done so, not 
 for mere form's sake, but to testify to the fact that we 
 are in Christ, and " that the Spirit of God beareth 
 witness with our spirit, that we are the children of 
 God."t As the Apostle John says : " He that 
 believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in 
 himself.":}: 
 
 Well, then, the Spirit of God witnesseth with our 
 spirits ; and upon that witness we rose up. We that 
 are Christ's, when Christ comes, " shall be caught up 
 to meet Him in the air." St. Paul, in the Thessa- 
 lonians, gives us exactly the programme of the taking 
 up of the Church. The world is to be going on its 
 way, just as it is to-day, when all at once " the dead 
 in Christ rise." || No one sees them rise ; but from 
 the gigantic necropolis of the great city, from the 
 little tiny hamlet churchyard, hedged among the 
 trees, the dead in Christ rise. 
 
 No one sees, no one hears, them ; but ' ' the dead in 
 Christ shall rise first," and " we which are alive and 
 remain shall not prevent " that is, not go before 
 "them."1[ 
 
 * St. Matt. xxiv. 39 40. f Rom. viii. 16. 1 John v. 10. 
 1 Thes. iv. 17. || 1. Thes. iv. 16. f 1 Thes. iv. 16, 15.
 
 Jesus Christ and the Ark of Noah. 193 
 
 When Christ comes, at the conclusion of the 
 Christian dispensation ; when He conies to take the 
 Church out of the tribulation which is coming upon 
 the nations, He will come in the air, and " the dead in 
 Christ "* shall rise first. " Then we which are alive 
 and remain shall follow them, and be caught up 
 together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord 
 in the air."f Jesus says : " One shall be taken and 
 the other left ; two men shall be in the field ; the one 
 shall be taken and the other left. Two women shall 
 be grinding at the mill ; the one shall be taken and 
 the other left."! 
 
 This is the Christian's hope; this is what all 
 Christian people are waiting for, " looking for that 
 blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great 
 G-od and our Saviour Jesus Christ." 
 
 But he cannot come until the last of the people that 
 the Father gave Him has been gathered in. Directly 
 the Gospel has gathered in the last then shall He come 
 to take "His elect from the four winds." || Jesus 
 says : " Where the body is there shall the eagles be 
 gathered together,"^ and Jesus is the body and the 
 saints are the eagles. 
 
 My brothers and sisters, directly we have taken our 
 places, by faith, in the company of G-od's family of the 
 
 * 1 Thes. iv. 16. f 1 Thes. iv. 17. J St. Matt. xxir. 40. 
 
 Titus ii. 13. || St. Matt. xxir. 31. f St. Matt. xxiv. 28. 
 

 
 194 'Mission Sermon. 
 
 saved, then our attitude with regard to Christ is waiting 
 for His coming. As far as we are concerned personally 
 we know it cannot be long, because death is so near to 
 all of us. In one hundred years' time every one of us 
 will have been called face to face with God. But when 
 we speak collectively of the Church, the Church's 
 attitude has always been " waiting for the coming of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ."* This is our attitude now, 
 and, my brethren, would to God that this afternoon's 
 discourse might be the means of making you realise 
 this. It is a very simple thing being saved, as simple 
 as it well can be. 
 
 Salvation is a gift sent from, and offered by, God 
 to an aching, bleeding, dying race of pain-stricken 
 mortals. The Gospel is a message of peace, a 
 message that all may understand ; so there is nothing 
 difficult about it. It is Jesus Christ, in His fulness, 
 offered now to you, His righteousness, His love, His 
 peace, His salvation ; God's gift to you now, and NOW 
 you can take hold of it with childlike faith. The un- 
 learned and the ignorant may take it in before the 
 wise and the prudent. 
 
 And, brethren, never mind this learned doctor or 
 
 that learned doctor, this theologian or that theologian. 
 
 We have had too much theology. There is no true 
 
 theological teacher but the Holy Ghost; and unless 
 
 * l Cor. i. 7
 
 Jesus Christ and the Ark of Noah. 195 
 
 the Holy Spirit takes of the things of Jesus and shows 
 them unto me, I cannot have peace. I know Bishop 
 Butler's Analogy, and Bishop Pearson on the Creed, 
 Dr. Harold Browne on the Thirty-nine Articles, 
 and all the rigmarole of theological education; but 
 this has nothing whatever to do with salvation. 
 
 I never knew anything of Christ when I was passing 
 through my theological course. I hope my tutors did, 
 but they did not communicate it to me ! 
 
 I could sooner learn from the old, experienced, 
 though illiterate, Christian peasant of the country 
 village. He knew that Jesus had come as God's gift to 
 him, and the power of the Holy Ghost had convinced 
 him that he was a poor, lost sinner, and that Christ 
 could save him if he would only trust Him. I would 
 like to learn my theology at that old man's feet. That 
 is the theology that gives the peace which comes from 
 God; of which the Apostle St. John speaks: "You 
 have no need that any man teach you," ' ' the same 
 anointing teacheth you of all things."* You have " an 
 unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things."t 
 
 My brother, 'that is it. This was what St. Paul 
 referred to when he said " I know " what ? 
 Astronomy? How many planets there are in our 
 solar system ? Oh no not'any rubbish of that sort 
 these things do not feed my soul ; they do not give me 
 * 1 John ii. 27. 1 1 John ii. 20.
 
 196 Mission Sermon. 
 
 rest and peace. "I know whom I have believed" 
 says St. Paul, " and am persuaded that He is able to 
 keep that which I have committed unto Him against 
 that day."* He also says : ' ' We which have believed 
 do enter into rest."t 
 
 This is the knowledge for which the Church teaches 
 us to pray in the prayer of St. Chrysostom : " Grant 
 to us in this world knowledge of Thy Truth." It is 
 only the Holy Spirit Who can give us this ; and the 
 Holy Spirit is inviting you now. He says : " Whoso- 
 ever will,"J let him come. Come, then, and you also 
 will be able to say : " I know Whom I have believed, 
 and am persuaded that He " will " keep that which I 
 have committed to Him against that day."* " I will 
 fear no evil ; for Thou art with me." 
 
 Jesus has said : " I will never leave thee nor for- 
 sake Thee." || "I am with you always, "f and I 
 believe it, and I 'know it is true, and He has satisfied 
 my heart and my brain and my mind, fulfilling St. 
 Paul's words to the Corinthians " Christ is made 
 unto us " (that believe) "wisdom, and righteousness, 
 and sanctification, and redemption."** 
 
 Oh ! then, brother, do come and be safe in the Ark. 
 There is no reason why any of you should not be so. 
 
 * 2 Tim. i. 12. f Heb. iv. 3. J Bev. xxii. 17. 
 
 Psalm xxiii. 4. || Heb. xiii. 5. ^ St. Matt, xxviii. 20. 
 * 1 Cor. i. 30.
 
 Jesus Christ and the Ark of Noah. 197 
 
 Only come. You have set before you the open door 
 of the Ark. I have come to you as a " preacher of 
 righteousness," not by works, but that " which is of 
 God by faith."* I have set before you this open door, 
 and " whosoever will" t come, let him come. Jesus 
 invites you Come. The Holy Spirit invites you 
 Come." The Church of Jesus, in this world, invites 
 you Come. Will you come ? Oh ! " how shall you 
 escape if you neglect so great Salvation ?"J 
 
 Rom. iii. 22. f Rev. xxii. 17.
 
 XI. 
 
 at gtt(jraitg : j&ctnt at % <rrtr 0f 
 glissmit. 
 
 Sunday Evening, October 25^, 1885.
 
 at Iktbaitg : j&am ai <nfr oi 
 
 Prayer before Sermon. 
 
 Almighty God and Father, Who, by Thine Apostle Paul 
 hast told us that Thou " choosest the weak things of the world 
 to confound the strong,"* the wise, and the prudent; wilt 
 Thou, for Jesus Christ's sake, take me and come with strength 
 to my body and to my spirit, that I may speak Thy Word with 
 Power. Bless everyone here with the outpouring of Thy 
 Holy Spirit, that all here may be able to listen with 
 attentive minds ; and bless me, for the people's sake, and 
 grant me power for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 Amen. 
 
 * 1 Cor. i. 27.
 
 2O2 Jesus at Bethany : 
 
 JESUS AT BETHANY : SCENE AT THE 
 END OF THE MISSION. 
 
 fHtssion Sermon. 
 
 Then Jesus six days before the Passover came to Bethany, where 
 Lazarus was which had been dead, whom He raised from the dead. 
 
 There they made Him a supper ; and Martha served : but 
 Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with Him. 
 
 Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, 
 and anointed the feet of Jesns, and wiped His feet with her hair : 
 and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. St. 
 John xii. 1, 2, 3. 
 
 What a wonderful supper party this was, brethren, 
 which took place at the close of our blessed Lord's 
 Mission here to earth ! But it is not half such a strange 
 company as the companies we gather together at the 
 close of missions like this. 
 
 Let us just look, for a few moments, at the story 
 in the Gospel for I am talking as a Christian, who 
 believes in the truth of the Gospel, and therefore I am 
 not going to apologise for the miracles referred to in 
 the text. Let us just picture this supper party at 
 Bethany. 
 
 Our Lord's earthly Mission is nearly at an end it
 
 Scene at the End of the Mission. 203 
 
 is to be finished in five days' time, from this supper 
 here referred to. 
 
 Five days after this supper He is to be crucified ; 
 and the world is going to end its rejection of Him 
 by the tragedy of Calvary. 
 
 The enthusiasm call it the fanaticism if you 
 like of Jesus Christ is very shortly to bring Him to 
 the Cross. He has opposed the world in its religious 
 ideas, in its moral ideas, in its philosophical ideas, 
 in its political ideas to all the ideas of the world, He 
 has run exactly counter. He has taught with amazing 
 simplicity ; but with a simplicity which possessed a 
 unique power ; such a power, in fact, that it silenced 
 all who came to Him; " Nor durst they ask Him any 
 more questions"* after they had received his answers. 
 
 Therefore, while He repelled the self-righteous and 
 the self-satisfied, He drew around Him all the needy, 
 sorrowful, heavy-laden, and despairing ones. 
 
 Very well then, this supper was the last social meet- 
 ing of Jesus Christ, with His earthly friends, before 
 the tremendous finale to His earthly history. 
 
 This supper party is a very typical scene. You will 
 see what I mean in a moment. It is in Simon's house 
 at Bethany, who is supposed to have been the uncle 
 of Lazarus. Martha and Mary are present, and Martha 
 is busily engaged in domestic offices. 
 * St. Matt. xxii. 46.
 
 204 Jesus at Bethany : 
 
 Mary is at the feet of Jesus, behind Him. Once, 
 on another occasion, she was behind Him, at His feet, 
 in another Simon's house Simon the Pharisee at 
 Capernaum. 
 
 Lazarus is lying on one of the couches at the table. 
 You all know how, in the east, the guests lie resting 
 on couches at table, whilst the servants minister to 
 them between the tables. 
 
 Lazarus is lying at the table. What a weird 
 thought ! the man who has been in the grave whose 
 body was turning to corruption is at the table, eating 
 and drinking before the guests. 
 
 I dare say some of you have seen Ernest Eenan's 
 attempt to explain away this resurrection. He says 
 that no doubt something wonderful did happen ; but 
 he does not believe that anything of the sort recorded 
 in the Gospels occurred. But how he arrived at the 
 conclusion that something wonderful happened, from 
 any other basis but that of the Gospel history, I cannot 
 imagine, for there is no other historical record of the 
 fact ; and if we do not take the Gospel narrative as 
 correct, we must condemn it as a myth. 
 
 The Gospel tells us that Lazarus had been dead 
 had been stinking in the grave; but he is now 
 alive at the table. Mary is at the feet of Jesus, 
 anointing them with ointment, and wiping them with 
 her hair.
 
 Scene at the End of the Mission. 205 
 
 Mary is a type of Christ's moral power; Lazarus a 
 type of Christ's physical power. 
 
 If you ask me which I consider is the greatest 
 miracle, which the greatest phenomenon of the two 
 resurrections that of Mary Magdelene, from her 
 moral death, or the resurrection of the mortal body 
 of Lazarus from material death I say, without any 
 hesitation, I consider that Christ's miracle of the heal- 
 ing of Mary Magdalene far exceeds in grandeur and 
 magnificence the mere restoration of the material body 
 of Lazarus. 
 
 My brethren, I may as well say, in passing, that the 
 attempts, of the present day, to present to the world 
 a Jesus Christ from Whose history the supernatural 
 is entirely eliminated is a most extraordinary feat ; 
 and I do not think that any one, with common sense, 
 can accept, as an historical character, a Christ Who is 
 not the Christ of the Gospels. 
 
 There are no other historical documents in existence 
 respecting Him than the four Gospels. They were 
 public writings of the time, and these four Gospels 
 were deliberately and systematically denounced by 
 the Koman Government, who chased these books 
 from town to town and from city to city, to destroy 
 them; and one of the means taken to suppress the 
 reading of the Scriptures was that the Roman Govern- 
 ment made it a capital offence to possess the Scriptures;
 
 206 Jesus at Bethany : 
 
 and any Christian who refused to give them up was 
 put to death. 
 
 We Christians, brethren, who have the light of the 
 Holy Spirit illuminating our hearts have no difficulty 
 whatever in rejoicingly and implicitly accepting the 
 picture that I now bring before you, as a simple, 
 historical truth : Mary Magdalene, the harlot of 
 Magdala, out of whom Christ ' ( had cast seven 
 devils,"* Mary Magdalene, the fashionable woman 
 of sin among the teeming population of the western 
 shores of the lake of Galilee ; the admired and 
 the courted in the ranks of the Eoman society, 
 in the district at that time; Mary Magdalene, 
 with all her sins and all her beauty, utterly, thoroughly, 
 and radically changed by the teaching of Jesus 
 Christ ! 
 
 I dare say some of you have seen Rossetti's picture 
 of Mary seeking Jesus at Simon the Pharisee's house. 
 Through an open casement Jesus is to be seen, and 
 Mary Magdalene, in the street, is surrounded by her 
 lovers. Her hair is trimmed with flowers ; one young 
 fellow has his hand upon her arm, and another stands 
 beside her, and the gossips are seen standing watch- 
 ing, with the greatest curiosity, to see what will 
 happen whether the chains of sin and sinful, earthly 
 love will prevail ; or whether there is a power that 
 * St. Mark xvi. 9.
 
 Scene at the End of the Mission. 207 
 
 will accomplish her deliverance from the life of sin. 
 In Mary's eyes there is a far-away look, she does not 
 seem to feel the clutch of the young man upon her 
 arm, she does not seem to heed the earnest entreaties 
 of the young fellow on her right ; she seems to look 
 right away, just as though she were seeing on through 
 the spanless infinity of the everlasting years ; just as 
 though she were hearing the voice, in her soul, which 
 was raising her from the death of sin in time, to lift 
 her into a life of infinite righteousness in eternity. 
 Her gaze seems to go right on, and up through the 
 ether of our planet, to the mystic kingdom of the 
 Eternal, and again she hears Jesus Christ preaching 
 on the quiet summer evenings, by the Galilean 
 lake. 
 
 We know what the result was. She did enter the 
 house, and we know that in spite of all the parapher- 
 nalia of Jewish ecclesiasticism which surrounded the 
 Pharisee, in spite of the scoffs through which she was 
 sure she would have to pass, in that just man's house, 
 without hoping to meet with a word of sympathy, she 
 made her way, with amazing courage, and startling 
 impertinence, into the very canaculum of the Pharisee's 
 house. 
 
 Then, oh ! how her eye glanced round the room, 
 until she caught sight of that Face, Whose eyes had 
 beamed upon her with such a mystic majesty ; Whose
 
 208 Jesus at Bethany : 
 
 lips had uttered sounds which had taken her out of 
 herself, out of death and sin, and had lifted her into 
 the joyful gladness of undying hope. Then, we know, 
 how Jesus was not ashamed of her gaze ; He did not 
 shrink from the sinful woman's touch, as she bathed 
 His feet with her tears and wiped them with her 
 hair. 
 
 And Jesus Christ is not ashamed of His lost sheep to- 
 day ! He came to seek them out ; and, therefore, He 
 has given to His Gospel Message the self-same power 
 that it possessed when it was spoken in the ringing 
 words of Divinity Incarnate, on the Syrian lake-side. 
 
 Yes, there was a mighty resurrection from the death 
 of sin, and from the taint of a sinful world, in Mary 
 Magdalene's story Mary Magdalene " out of whom 
 He had cast seven devils."* 
 
 So, brethren, it seems to me, that Mary Magdalene's 
 resurrection is certainly the nobler, grander, and 
 more sublime picture and proof of Christ's infinite 
 power upon which to gaze, than the resurrection of 
 Lazarus. 
 
 The close of Christ's Mission presents to us then a 
 very strange gathering. Simon the leper ; Martha 
 the busy, loving, devoted disciple ; Mary Magdalene, 
 whom Christ had raised from the darkness of earthly 
 corruption ; and Lazarus, whose body had stunk in the 
 * St. Mark xvi. 9.
 
 Scene at the End of the Mission. 209 
 
 grave cf death ; Lazarus, whose spirit had fled away 
 through infinite fields of space Lazarus, whose spirit 
 had gone into the regions and realms of infinite 
 mystery ; but who never dared to utter a word of 
 what his spirit had seen and heard in the mystic land ; 
 for there was a hush mantling over the soul of Lazarus, 
 and he could not tell what he had seen. 
 
 Like St. Paul he had heard things " which it is not 
 lawful for men to utter ; "* and there he is as a 
 picture showing Christ's power over matter; while 
 Mary shows Christ's power over spirit. Yes, Mary 
 Magdalene is reformed as the Apostle says : "If any 
 man be in Christ, he is a new creature ; old things 
 are passed away; behold all things are become new."f 
 
 Supposing, brethren, you were to see in the height 
 of fashion and sin, and youthful beauty, one of the 
 most sinful denizens of the fashionable world, with all 
 her enamel, paint and smiles, and giddy laughter; 
 supposing you were to see her in the midst of sin and 
 guilty pleasure, and a week hence you were to find 
 her in sober mourning weeds of penitence, utterly 
 transformed, from within, and preaching the Crusade 
 of love and purity, in the Name of Jesus Christ, Who 
 had won her from sin to holiness, from Satan to God ; 
 what would you say had produced such amazing, 
 startling results ? 
 
 * 2 Cor. xii. 4. f 2 Cor. v. 17.
 
 210 Jesus at Bethany .- 
 
 And again, if you watched that woman, year after 
 year, climbing to greater heights of holiness, 
 drawing numbers from sin and causing them to 
 receive the self-same power that she had received, so 
 that they should be able to realise the reality of what 
 they professed, what would you say was the cause of 
 this radical and sudden change ? Some, no doubt, 
 would say it was a delusion and caused by excitement. 
 
 But what was it that had been at work in Mary 
 Magdalene ? What was the power, what was the 
 moral force, that had brought about this gigantic 
 change ? 
 
 And, remember, Mary Magdalene is only a type of 
 a whole race of sinners who, from that hour to now, 
 have been drawn out by Jesus Christ's love and the 
 Gospel of His Cross. 
 
 And yet this Gospel which did, and which does, 
 such moral wonders, which produces such startling 
 moral phenomena, that there is nothing like it this 
 Gospel has been she) ved even from our schools ! 
 
 One young woman, who has been attending our 
 services, has the misfortune of being in a board 
 school, where infidelity and atheism surround her ; 
 and she came and told me that she was just on the 
 point of beginning a life of sin in London, when the 
 power of the Gospel entered her heart, and Jesus 
 Christ took her under His care. I asked her last
 
 Scene at the End of the Mission. 2 1 1 
 
 night, " Is Jesus Christ really holding you up, and do 
 you realise His power at your side ? " and, with a 
 smile of gladness, the girl said : " Yes indeed." 
 
 I could tell you of many other instances to show you 
 that the story of Mary Magdalene is no exaggerated 
 picture upon which you are called to gaze. The 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ is reproducing works of 
 love, holiness, power and grace every day, in spite of 
 the sneers of nineteenth-century enlightenment. Jesus 
 Christ is doing for men and women what all our Acts 
 of Parliament, and all our rationalistic doctrines and 
 philosophies, cannot do. Jesus Christ is renewing, 
 and is changing lives ; Jesus Christ is transforming 
 souls and bringing them into harmony with His holy 
 Will, and that of the eternal Father God. 
 
 Jesus Christ is going on doing precisely what He 
 did when He was here on earth ; is doing precisely the 
 same thing, by the power of His Own Word, in the 
 mouths of His ministers. 
 
 It does seem to me a terrible piece of cruelty, from 
 a social point of view, that Christianity should be 
 treated in the cool fashion that it has been treated by 
 our politicians and statesmen. They must give a sop 
 to the tone of unbelief in the nineteenth century, by 
 giving religion a blow here and a blow there. Our 
 politicians are under the thumb of popular opinion 
 the god that is set up in our midst.
 
 2 T 2 Jesus at Bethany : 
 
 But popular opinion is not always infallible ; it is 
 not an opinion that brings calm and rest and joy and 
 gladness to the weary, tired hearts of men. 
 
 I dare say if popular opinion were consulted upon 
 a great many points, it would be very tender with 
 vice of the worst description, vice that is really eating 
 into the very core of humanity's existence. Popular 
 opinion would deal very tenderly with fashionable 
 vices, and with that .scepticism and unbelief which 
 exists in every stage of society. 
 
 But Christianity is still God's hallowed anodyne 
 for weary souls ; and the Voice of Jesus is the love- 
 note of God to poor, friendless, weary, lonely souls. 
 
 Oh! those who carry Christ's Message see the 
 results. No matter whether it be in the garret of the 
 poor starving sempstress or in the palace of the noble 
 and the wealthy wherever the Gospel finds its way 
 it brings peace and love and satisfaction and new life. 
 And, you know, it is no beautiful dream about which 
 I am talking. " As many as received Him," St. John 
 says, " to them gave He power to become the sons of 
 God."* Simple faith in Christ lifts a man up, and 
 makes him a sharer in Divine nature ; and he 
 proves his conversion by his new life. 
 
 We ask our unbelieving friends to examine this 
 renewed life, and to explain the marvellous change 
 
 * St. John i. 12.
 
 Scene at the End of the Mission. 213 
 
 that takes place in the minds and in the wills, in 
 the hearts and in the lives, of the successors of Mary 
 Magdalene. 
 
 Jesus Christ ' ' did not come to call the righteous but 
 sinners to repentance;" * and I ask you to look at the 
 picture which the G-ospel gives us of Jesus and His 
 outstretched arms. I ask you to look on that dying 
 Saviour's Blood and to listen to His words : " I came 
 to seek and to save that which was lost." t " There is 
 joy in the presence of the angels of G-od over one 
 sinner that repenteth."J 
 
 And so the result of a mission now is just the same 
 kind of thing as we see at this supper at Bethany. 
 How many are restored to home and to society at 
 a Grospel mission ; how many are arrested just upon 
 the threshold of a life of sin ; how many are drawn 
 out of the cesspools of the world's iniquity andbrought 
 into " the peace of God which passeth all under- 
 standing !" 
 
 How many parents, at missions like this, get back 
 their children a whole family of eleven were con- 
 verted at one of our services ! 
 
 Yes, the results of these missions are the bringing 
 back of wanderers home, bringing back daughters to 
 
 * St. Matt. ix. 13 ; St. Mark ii. 17 ; St. Luke v. 32. 
 t St. Luke xix. 10. J St. Luke xv. 10. Phil. iv. 7.
 
 2 1 4 Jesus at Bethany : 
 
 their mothers' arms; restoring sons that are breaking 
 their widowed mothers' hearts. 
 
 Where Jesus Christ is preached this is the result 
 that follows the utterance of His mighty Word. 
 
 My brethren, this is the Word of Life. There is 
 nothing but love in the Gospel. We are not to tell 
 people to :>ive up their sins. Christ did not say to 
 the publicans that gathered around Him : " You 
 infamous wretches, you ought to be ashamed of your- 
 selves." No, He told them there was "joy in the 
 presence of the angels of God over one sinner that 
 repented," * He told of the great love of the Father 
 God ; how He gave His Son to become Incarnate, to 
 seek and to save. He told how He came to be a 
 Shepherd to the lost sheep ; and He showed how long 
 He would seek for the lost " until He find it."t 
 He will never give up the search until He shall find 
 His sheep. 
 
 There have been spiritual resurrections in our midst 
 this week ; the light of the Holy Ghost has revealed 
 Jesus Christ to the souls of many. 
 
 If you say to me : " You ask me to give up my sin," 
 I answer : No, I do not. All I ask of you is to receive 
 Christ and to trust in Jesus. Directly you trust in 
 Him His love fills you, and you will not care for sin ; 
 you will not wish for the things of this world. Ask 
 * St. Luke xv. 10. f St. Luke xv. 4.
 
 Scene at the End of the Mission. 2 1 5 
 
 the man, whose heart is now renewed, and whose 
 feet are securely planted upon the Rock of Ages, if 
 he would like to go back to the gaming table and 
 other pleasures of this world. He will tell you, 
 " Certainly not ! " 
 
 And I am sure the Lord Jesus never asked you to 
 give up anything that is worth having, or that would 
 do you good. 
 
 I wonder how many of you will reject the Message 
 to-night. Of course there will be some, and they will 
 make all sorts of excuses. But those excuses will not 
 do in the end ; you won't be satisfied with them your- 
 selves in the end. At all events, whatever excuses 
 you make you cannot deny that you reject something 
 that has a most marvellous power for restoring the 
 hearts and lives of men. And so, brethren, at the 
 " End of the Mission " this is what we have to offer to 
 you the love of Christ. Literally, this is to-night a 
 moral supper party, and the Gospel table is spread in 
 this hall, at this moment ; and numbers have sat down 
 and partaken, and have risen up to newness of life ; 
 and they will go out from this place new creatures. 
 
 God grant that everyone gathered in this place to- 
 night may sit, at last, at " the marriage supper of the 
 Lamb,"* in that Glad Land, " where the wicked cease 
 from troubling and the weary be at rest."t In that 
 * Rev. xix. 9. t Job. iii. 17.
 
 216 Address to Christians. 
 
 happy time, in that day, when the weary shall have 
 rest, when the toils of life and the weary strife of 
 earth shall be over, God grant that not one of you 
 may be missing. If you shall be missing, if you shall 
 fail to hear the Word of Jesus " Come, ye blessed ! "* 
 it will be your own fault you will have rejected the 
 offer of life. 
 
 God grant that everyone of you may meet me in 
 the glory land of Heaven and say : " Here I am, I 
 have been gathered out from the captivity of restless- 
 ness and tears and sin, and I am among the redeemed 
 ones the children of God. You may meet me, 
 perhaps, in the golden streets of Jerusalem, when 
 some magnificent procession is sweeping up to the 
 mighty temple where " the Lamb that was slain " f is 
 adored for ever and ever ; and, perchance, you may 
 touch me on the shoulder, in the throng, and say : 
 " You told me of Jesus ; I accepted Him, and He has 
 brought me here." 
 
 And then the refrain of the heavenly anthem shall 
 swing backwards and forwards, in the courts of gold, 
 rejoicing with Him Who shall be singing : " I have 
 found My sheep which were lost rejoice ! rejoice ! ! 
 rejoice ! ! ! I have found my sheep." J I have gathered 
 them out from the filth and misery and tribulation of 
 earth and sin ; from the homes of poverty and woe, 
 * St. Matt. xxv. 34. f Rev. v. 12. J St. Luke xv. 6.
 
 The Lord's Day. 2 1 7 
 
 " out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and 
 nation."* These are my sheep, and ' ' of them that the 
 Father gave to me have I lost none."t Rejoice, rejoice, 
 rejoice. And oh ! oh ! ! oh ! ! ! as the decachordic 
 strains die away they shall be echoed by the white- 
 robed choirs, in a song of wondrous sweetness ; but 
 that song shall not be half so sweet as the one you 
 and I shall be chanting when the angels' notes of 
 welcome are hushed and the Church is singing : We 
 have come " out of great tribulation, and have washed 
 our robes, and made them white in the Blood of the 
 Lamb."! " Blessing, and honour, and glory, and 
 power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and 
 unto the Lamb for ever and ever." 
 
 * Rev. v. 9. f St. John xviii. 9. J Rev. vii. 14. Rev. v. 13.
 
 XII. 
 
 Jin Jl&dress fo @$rtsttans. 
 
 Tuesday Afternoon, October 20th, 1885.
 
 Prew/er. 
 
 Lord Jesus 'Christ, we are gathered, at this time, in Thy 
 presence, as Thy believing people, and we desire to sit at Thy 
 feet and to be taught of Thee. Thou seest our hearts, 
 each one of us, and Thou knowest how we long to hear Thy 
 voice because Thy voice is sweet and soothing to our souls, in 
 the midst of life's terrible pilgrimage, through a world of sin 
 and unbelief, of sorrow and pain. 
 
 Oh Shepherd, speak to Thy sheep ; Oh Master, speak to 
 Thy servants ; Oh Saviour, speak to Thy redeened. Oh Thou, 
 our righteousness, speak to our inmost hearts. Build us up at 
 this time in Thee. Cover us with the shadow of Thy wings ; 
 let us nestle among Thy feathers and be safe, and let Thy 
 faithfulness be our shield ; let Thy truth be the buckler to 
 buckle it on. 
 
 And also, let us realise, at this time, how glorious it is for 
 the Lord's people to dwell in the quietness of the Lord's 
 Day. Make us to realise indeed that it is the Lord's Day. Make 
 us to realise the brightness of the Lord's Day, the quietness, 
 the light, the privileges thereof, for we are not of the dark- 
 ness, but of the light, for a true light hath shone on us, and 
 " the Sun of Righteousness has arisen " * for us who dwell 
 under His wings. Oh, then, dear Lord Jesus, speak to Thy 
 people in such wise that they may go forth from this place so 
 fitted and comforted, instructed and clothed, that they may 
 be stronger in Thy strength, to resist sin, the world, and the 
 devil, and to continue " Thy faithful soldiers and servants 
 unto their lives' end." Grant this, O Jesus, Who hast 
 redeemed us with Thy most precious Blood, for Thine 
 unending love and mercy's sake. Amen. 
 
 Malachi iv. 2.
 
 222 Address to Christians. 
 
 THE LORD'S DAY. 
 to 
 
 " And in that day thou shalt Bay, O Lord, I will praise Thee : 
 though Thou wast angry with me, Thine anger is turned away, and 
 thou comfortedst me." Isaiah xii. 1. 
 
 I wonder how many of us here have ever said 
 " Praise the Lord ! " to anybody. I wonder how many 
 of us care whether people do " Praise the Lord ! " I 
 wonder how many of us have really said, with our 
 whole hearts, " Praise the Lord ! " 
 
 We are told further on in this chapter : " In that 
 day shall ye say, Praise the Lord, call upon His 
 name, declare His doings among the people, make 
 mention that His name is exalted. Sing unto the 
 Lord, for He hath done excellent things : this is 
 known in all the earth. Cry out and shout"* " Oh 
 no, don't do that, don't do that, don't be like the 
 Salvation Army people and make a noise about it." 
 
 But we just will make a noise about it, and I should 
 be glad if I could get all of you to go down Ratcliif 
 * Isaiah xii. 4, 5, 6.
 
 The Lord' s Day. 223 
 
 Highway, in a procession, singing and shouting 
 " Praise the Lord ! " It would be a good thing 
 indeed if we knew a little more about the shouting : 
 " Cry out and shout." 
 
 Some people cannot shout. They do not want to 
 shout ; they have nothing about which to make a 
 noise. But here it explains itself. " Cry out and 
 shout." But who is to cry out and shout ? " Thou 
 inhabitant of Zion."* 
 
 It is only these who have anything for which to 
 shout. It is only the "inhabitants of Zion" who have 
 cause to raise a loud shout. And why ! let us see 
 why ! There is no doubt about the reason. 
 
 If we are once inhabitants of Zion we have a reason 
 for shouting. " Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant 
 of Zion ; for great is the Holy one of Israel in the 
 midst of Thee."* 
 
 When Jesus is in your heart, when His Blood has 
 washed your soul, when His righteousness has clothed 
 you ; when He is your life and your salvation, when 
 He is your strength, you will not be able to keep 
 quiet ; you will be so enthusiastic, so indiscriminate 
 in your zeal, that you will not care about what 
 people think. " I cannot help shouting, and they 
 know for what reason I am shouting." 
 
 I want, this afternoon, to speak on the first words 
 * Isaiah xii. 6.
 
 224 Address to Christians. 
 
 of this chapter. " In that day." I want to talk to 
 my brothers and sisters in Christ about "that day." 
 There are a great many people who talk about Christ's 
 salvation, and the knowledge of Christ, and the peace 
 of Christ, as if it were a thing that was to come. They 
 say we cannot expect peace here. We never can be 
 sure of being saved here. It is a thing to which we 
 are to look forward. 
 
 I should think that a person who has his doubts as 
 to whether he will spend eternity in heaven or hell, 
 cannot be very happy. He is toiling among the 
 shadows of night. He cannot see what's what, and 
 he does not know anything for certain. There is a 
 gloom and a shadow hanging over his very existence. 
 It is just like a man on a strange road. He knows 
 nothing precisely as to his whereabouts. He does 
 not know what is the danger before him ; he cannot 
 see the pitfall here or the barrier there. He is all in 
 the midst of darkness. It is night. 
 
 But I am talking now to people who are in Christ 
 and for whom "the dayspring from on high hath 
 visited"* the earth. I am talking to those now who are 
 able to say, " through the tender mercy of our God."* 
 " We are the children of light, and the children of 
 the day : we are not of the night, nor of darkness."f 
 St. Paul says that those who have believed, who have 
 * St. Luke i. 78. f 1 Thess. v. 5.
 
 The Lord's Day. 225 
 
 accepted Christ; those who know Him, as their 
 Saviour those who have come to Him they have 
 been turned from darkness to light ; and they have 
 received forgiveness of sins. They are sanctified. 
 They are not in the darkness but in the light. They 
 are " children of light and of the day."* 
 
 Now "the day" "that day" the day of the Lord; 
 the Lord's day. There was a time when God's dis- 
 pensations, with regard to man, were like the evening 
 twilight. You know the patriarchal and prophetic dis- 
 pensations. They tended, like the shadows of the pre- 
 ceding evening and night, towards the brightness of 
 the morning star, and they all pointed to the day. 
 Now the day alluded to, in our text, is the day of the 
 Gospel dispensation; the day when "the Sun of 
 Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings," f 
 the day of which the Apostle says : " Now is the day 
 of salvation." J Salvation ! 
 
 I repeat that people who are in the dark say that 
 salvation is a thing to which they are to look forward. 
 They say salvation is a thing for which we are to pray, 
 and seek, at some future time. They talk as if sal- 
 vation were a thing that we were to obtain at the 
 judgment day. 
 
 The Apostle tells us now " to make our calling and 
 election sure." May I very lovingly put the question 
 * 1 Thess. v. 5. f Mai. iv. 2. J Cor. vi. 2. 2 Pet. i. 10. 
 
 Q
 
 226 Address to Christians. 
 
 you, each one of you, and am I, quite sure 
 that we are in this Gospel day ? 
 
 I suppose we all belong to a visible Church. I 
 suppose I am speaking here to people who are very 
 good Roman Catholics or very pious English Catholics, 
 or very devoted orthodox Protestants. I am doubtless 
 also speaking to some very zealous, strict Dis- 
 senters. May I ask one and all, the Roman 
 Catholic, the English Catholic, the Low Churchman, 
 the Dissenter, may I ask each one have you realised 
 that Christ has come to you and given Himself to you, 
 and that you have accepted Him, as God's covenant 
 for you in the Gospel ? If so, the knowledge that 
 Christ really has arisen for you, "with healing in His 
 wings ; "* the knowledge of His great care for you, His 
 promises made to you; His presents bestowed upon 
 you this knowledge gives to your life a brightness, 
 and a certainty and an absolute peace, that enables 
 you to say, you are " in the day." You are safe as 
 safe can be. There are no shadows now to hide 
 from you the salvation of God. 
 
 You are able to say that "you know that you have 
 eternal life."t You can say this because you see 
 Christ by the illuminating power of the Holy Ghost. 
 You are able to say that Christ is your own, in- 
 dividual salvation, and, that you shall see the King. 
 * Hal. ir. 2. t John v. 13.
 
 The Lord's Day. 227 
 
 You are able to say that you see in Christ your 
 perfect protection from sin ; yes, you see in Christ 
 your " robe of righteousness."* You see in Christ 
 " grace sufficient to help in time of need ;"t and you 
 are able to say, " In the Lord have I righteousness 
 and strength." 
 
 If you are able to say all this, oh ! is it not the most 
 manifest spreading out of the Day of God on your 
 soul ? What can crush out the brightness of this Sun 
 that never sets when once He is risen ? What can 
 crush out the brightness of that Day ? Nothing and 
 you take the words of my text and say, " Lord, I will 
 praise Thee." 
 
 Jesus Christ has turned away God's righteous anger 
 from me. Jesus Christ has reconciled me to God, 
 and washed me whiter than snowj and has given me 
 grace " to help me in every time of need."|| " Thine 
 anger is turned away, and Thou comfortedst me." 
 You are safe in the "everlasting arms "If of that Shep- 
 herd, out of which { ' no man shall pluck you." Yours 
 are the blessed " promises of Christ, which are all 
 yea and amen ;"** with you is His very presence. " I 
 will never leave thee."tt " I am with thee always. "JJ 
 
 " Thine anger is turned away and Thou comfortedst 
 
 * Isai. Ixi. 10. f Heb. iv. 16. J Ps. li.7. 
 
 Isai. xii. 1. || Heb. iv. 16. f Deut. xxxiii. 27. 
 
 ** 2 Cor. i. 20. ft Heb. xiii. 5. JJ St. Math, xxviii. 20.
 
 228 Address to Christians. 
 
 me."* Oh ! the blessing of God's Incarnate love, so 
 strong, so tender, and so kind ! " I can lay me down 
 and take my rest, for He maketh me dwell in 
 safety."t There shall 110 evil happen to me, " neither 
 shall any plague come nigh my dwelling," J for it is in 
 the cleft of the rock I have hid myself in the " Rock 
 of Ages." "Rock of Ages cleft for me" I have 
 hid myself in Thee. 
 
 " In that day thou shalt say, Oh Lord, I will praise 
 Thee ; though Thou wast angry with me, Thine anger 
 is turned away, and Thou comfortedst me."* Satan 
 and sin rise up against me ; Satan reminds me of my 
 infirmity and weakness, and then a voice at my side 
 assures me : " Whiter than snow." " The Blood of 
 Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin."|| 
 
 Oh ! when I remember the days that, in agony of 
 mind and terror of conscience, I looked forward to a 
 righteous judgment to come, and when my conscience 
 told me that God was just, and I deserved an everlast- 
 ing hell for being a rebel against so good a God ; it 
 was in the shadow of night, and under the conviction 
 of sin, that I was yearning for the " Dayspring " to 
 arise, that I might see the goodness and loving kind- 
 ness of God for me. And He wiped away every single 
 spot upon my soul. " O Lamb of God, I come;" but 
 
 * Isaiah xii. 1. f Ps. iv. 8. J Ps. xci. 10. 
 Psalm li. 7. |! 1 John i. 7.
 
 The Lord's Day. 229 
 
 to the feet of Jesus I can only come by the power 
 of God's Holy Spirit convincing me of my sin and 
 of Christ's love. 
 
 And I say I was convinced. Oh ! then " the day- 
 spring from on high"* rested on my soul, and I 
 entered into the day of God, and day took the 
 place of the dark, stormy night of pain, and I could 
 look up to Him with joy because I was reconciled to 
 Him. 
 
 And He led me forth right up to the Father's 
 throne ; and I was accepted in the blessed Son. 
 Peace, like a river, streamed into my soul then. The 
 Blood of the Son has cleansed me, and the love 
 of God, in Christ, has received me, and I am com- 
 forted with "the peace of God" "the God of all 
 comfort." f 
 
 It is the Lord's Day for me now ; and the Lord's 
 Day has no sunset, the Lord's Day has no ending. 
 It is one perennial day of everlasting happiness begun 
 in time, never to be ended. " In that day thou shalt 
 say : Lord, I will praise Thee : though Thou wast 
 angry with me, Thine anger is turned away."J 
 
 t" I have blotted out thy transgressions ;" " Thy 
 tins and thy iniquities will I remember no more." || 
 " And Thou comfortedst me." " Comfort ye my 
 
 * St. Luke i. 78. f 2 Cor. i. 3. J Isaiah xii. 1. 
 
 S Isaiah xliv. 22. II Heb. viii. 12.
 
 230 Address to Christians. 
 
 people, saith your God."* " Now is the accepted time ; 
 now is the day of salvation."f Supposing there be 
 anyone here who has not entered into this day yet, 
 who is still in the night and shadow of formalism ; 
 supposing there should be anyone listening to me 
 here who has a church, but has no Saviour ! 
 
 Supposing there should be a person here who has 
 plenty of ceremonial, and plenty of church, who is a 
 very devoted member of his own church, but still he 
 does not belong to that Church of which it has been 
 said : " Upon this rock I will build My Church, and 
 the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."! Such 
 an one cannot make anything of what I am saying. 
 " This bright day that delights the souls and the 
 minds of the children of God, with the brightness of 
 its beauty and its light : to him it seems only like the 
 singing of a beautiful psalm ; and he will go on his 
 way and say that he has heard a fanatic who speaks 
 of a kind of Arcadian religion, a Utopian scheme of 
 religion, where everything has brightness, gleam, and 
 light. 
 
 Supposing such an one be here : I ask you, would 
 you like to come into this day of which I speak, 
 provided it be a reality ? You answer me : "Yes," 
 because you know, brother, that you are not satis- 
 fied with your religion your churchianity. You 
 * Isaiah xl. 1. f 2 Cor. ri. 2. J St. Matt. xvi. 18.
 
 The Lord's Day. 23 1 
 
 know that your Church does not satisfy you, and give 
 you peace. You know, many a time, when your 
 priest has turned round from the altar, at the end of the 
 Holy Communion Service, and has said : " The peace 
 of God which passeth all understanding, keep your 
 hearts and minds,' 5 * &c., you have not felt peace. You 
 know that you have not. 
 
 You exclaim, perhaps, " The peace of God keep my 
 heart and mind ! I don't know what it is to be at 
 peace. How can I be at peace while there is a 
 chance of an everlasting hell ? " 
 
 Yes, you are uncertain about your eternal salvation. 
 How, then, can you be at peace ? But Jesus says, 
 " Come unto Me, and I will give you rest."t Jesus 
 says, "In Me ye might have peace ;"J and the 
 Apostle to the Roman Church says, "Therefore being 
 justified by faith, we have peace with God." 
 
 How can you get into this day ? Jesus Christ is 
 the Morning Star. " I am the bright and morning 
 Star." || 
 
 Will you just look up into His face for a moment ? 
 He is in the midst of us now ; for He has said : 
 " Where two or three are gathered together in My 
 name I am in the midst of them."^[ He is in the 
 midst of us now. 
 
 * Phil. iv. 7. t St. Matt. xi. 28. J St. John xvi. 33. 
 Rom. v. 1. || Rev. xxii. 16. f St. Matt, xviii. 20.
 
 232 Address to Christians. 
 
 Will you close the eyes of your body and look up, 
 with the eyes of your soul, into the face of this 
 present Saviour, and then say : " Lord Jesus, may I 
 trust Thee ; will it be safe for me to trust Thee ? " 
 He says : "Trust ye in the Lord for ever." "Dear 
 Lord Jesus, may I trust Thee now ?" "Whosoever 
 will, let him come."* " Him that cometh to Me, I 
 will in no wise cast out."f "He that believeth on 
 Me not may have hath everlasting life."J 
 
 " Is it safe to take Thee at Thy word ? Won't it be 
 presumptuous for me to believe and trust in Thee ?" 
 " Oh ! soul, for whom I died, is it presumptuous to say 
 that you know that you have eternal life ?" 
 
 The instant you can speak to Jesus like this the 
 dayspring begins to dispel the clouds of night, which 
 give place at length to Jesus, " with healing in His 
 wings "|| for you, Who enables you to know that you 
 believe and have eternal life. 
 
 " He that hath the Son hath life." By the witness 
 of the Spirit you can thus lay hold of Jesus with all 
 your soul, and then it is the " Lord's Day" with you. 
 In your soul it is " the Lord's Day," and in your mind 
 it is " the Lord's Day ;" and you are out of the dark- 
 ness of the children of night. 
 
 I have revealed Thy light to them that "sit in dark- 
 
 * Rev. xxii. 17. t St. John vi. 37. J St. John iii. 36. 
 || Hal. iv. 2. 1 St. John v. 12.
 
 The Lord's Day. 233 
 
 ness."* "A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory 
 of Thy people Israel." t "Now lettest Thou Thy 
 servant depart in peace, according to Thy word : for 
 mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." J " My soul 
 doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced 
 in God my Saviour. " 
 
 In that day you shall say : " O Lord, I will praise 
 Thee : though Thou wast angry with me, Thine anger 
 is turned away, and thou comfortedst me." || 
 
 Perhaps, brethren, there is a soul here that is just 
 coming into the day. Listen to what the Holy Spirit 
 says to him. " As one whom his mother comf orteth, 
 so will I comfort you ; and ye shall be comforted in 
 Jerusalem," ^[ the Church of the Redeemed, the Holy 
 City of Eefuge ; the people purchased by the Precious 
 Blood, the people of whom Jesus says : " All that the 
 Father giveth Me shall come to Me ; and him that 
 cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out."** 
 
 " Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion : for 
 great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee."tt 
 In conclusion, you have expected me to speak about 
 Sunday. True. By the words " the Lord's Day " we 
 mean Sunday. We can call the day a Salvation 
 Sunday. But the Christian's life is a continual 
 Sunday. " There remaineth a sabbath-keeping for 
 
 * Psalm cvii. 10. f St. Luke ii. 32. } St. Luke ii. 29, 30. 
 $ St. Luke i. 46, 47. || Isaiah xii. 1. If Isaiah Ixvi. 13. 
 
 ** St. John vi. 38. ft Isaiah xii 6.
 
 234 Address to Christians. 
 
 the people of God."* The Christian's life is a sab- 
 bath life, but in what sense ? In this sense. God> 
 on the Sabbath, rested from His works. 
 
 What is the Gospel sabbath ? We who have entered 
 on the Lord's Day, rest from our works. But Christ's 
 people do not remain in their beds all Sunday, although 
 they stop their work. They have ceased from work, 
 but they rise earlier on the Sunday morning than ever ; 
 and if they were to meet a worldly friend out in the 
 street, he might say to them, " I thought you looked 
 on this as a day of rest." " Oh, yes," the answer 
 would be ; " but I am going to the Lord's work." 
 
 He ceases from his own work, and then the Lord 
 begins to work in Him. He ceases from all strivings to 
 buy salvation. Hehas done with that. " He ceases from 
 his own works, as God did from His,"t and then God 
 begins to work in him, " to do of his good pleasure," J 
 and the Christian's works are works from, not for, 
 salvation. They are works which spring from love, 
 out of gratitude. So many of our Catholic friends 
 misunderstand us here. They say we do not preach 
 "good works." 
 
 What we say is this. It does not matter to what 
 
 church you belong, or what you do, before you have 
 
 come to Christ and are saved. God tells the sinner, 
 
 you are a poor lost soul, and you can do nothing to 
 
 * Heb. iv. 9. f Heb.iv. 10. J Phil. ii. 13.
 
 The Lord's Day. 235 
 
 help yourself ; but I have provided in My Sou a full 
 salvation for you ; and' if you will accept it, by the 
 hand of a simple faith, it is yours. Have you 
 received it ? If you have, you will manifest it. 
 You will show forth His glory. You will strive to 
 do the works of the Spirit, and they will be done out 
 of love for Him who first loved us. 
 
 So the believer is in the Sabbath. He has done 
 with working for salvation. His works now are the 
 works of love and gratitude towards Him who loved 
 us.* 
 
 The Christian's life is a continual sabbath life. 
 Yet it is full of works that are done in a spirit of 
 loving gratitude and active rest. 
 
 But how shall we keep the literal Sunday ? Yery 
 determined attempts are now being made amongst us 
 to bring about a sort of continental observance of 
 the Lord's Day. You hear people say to boys : " If 
 you go to mass in the morning, you can have a game 
 at cricket in "the afternoon." I would say to these, I 
 am certainly " not under the law, but under grace,"t 
 and Christ is in my heart, and you will try in vain to 
 get me to give half an hour of Sunday to the devil ! 
 
 The Church, by unanimous consent, has given Sun- 
 day to Jesus. I would just as well commit any other 
 theft as play a game at cricket on Sunday. Why do 
 * St. John iii. 16. t Romans vi. 15.
 
 236 Address to Christians. 
 
 I keep Sunday holy ? Because I am afraid I shall go 
 to hell ? Oh, no. We Christians keep the Lord's 
 day holy, as the freewill offering of our hearts to 
 Jesus. 
 
 It is all our precious Saviour's Day. Every hour 
 belongs to Him ; and all His people praise Him every 
 hour of the Lord's Day, from very love of Him. 
 
 That is the spirit in which the believer keeps the 
 Lord's Day. They tell me I need not keep the after- 
 noon for God if I keep the morning for Him. It 
 would be no enjoyment for the believer to keep away 
 from the Lord's House on the Lord's Day. We 
 want to get nearer to Him. The six days of the 
 week are long enough, and when Sunday comes it 
 is " the Lord's Day," every hour of it ; and I would 
 not rob Him of half a minute of that day. 
 
 This is the view that the true Christian believer 
 takes of the Sabbath; and it is a very happy view. 
 
 When we go early in the morning to meet our Lord 
 in the mystic Feast of His dying love, we come home 
 with fresh oil poured into the lamp of the soul, and 
 then comes the solemn midday act of worship of the 
 King Who so loved, and loves, us. Oh ! the blessed- 
 ness of enjoying the Lord's Day with Jesus and for 
 Jesus. 
 
 And then, when we see the sun gradually getting 
 into the west, and Sunday evening shadows falling,
 
 The Lord's Day. 237 
 
 we regret to think that the Lord's Day is nearly over 
 Sunday is gone ! 
 
 A Sunday well spent with Jesus gives such strength 
 to the soul for the coming week ; and we may look 
 back with gladness on the Sundays of our lives that 
 have been like golden steps leading right up to the 
 Throne of God. 
 
 Oh ! prize your Sundays, Christian people ; treasure 
 up the holy hours : and we shall be " in the Spirit on 
 the Lord's Day";* and those who live the Lord's 
 Day best on earth are those that have entered into the 
 Lord's Day of salvation. 
 
 On Sunday let us leave the world in the distance ; 
 the roar of the storm is lulled, and we are in spirit 
 near the calm land, the other side of the sea ; where 
 the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are 
 at rest."t 
 
 jv. i. 10. f Job. iii. 17.
 
 XIII. 
 
 Cjxe Serb's Cr0ss. 
 
 |ln Jl66ress fo ^Brtsttcms.. 
 Friday Afternoon, October 23rd, 1885.
 
 's (toss. 
 
 Prayer before Sermon. 
 
 Oh ! Blessed Lord Jesus, Who didst feed us yesterday at 
 the Gospel Feast, and didst help Thy people to realise what 
 was the full provision that our Father's love had made for us 
 in the Gospel Feast ; we now come and gather round Thee to 
 be taught about Thy Cross. Thou hast taught us about Thy 
 people, Thou hast taught us about Thy supper ; and now we 
 would have Thee teach us more about Thy Cross at this time 
 than we have ever known before, if it be Thy Blessed Will. 
 
 Be mindful of Thy promise that, if we " take no thought 
 what we shall speak it shall be given us."* Oh! Shepherd of 
 the sheep, show us Thy face and Thy riches, and we shall be 
 glad; and Thy words will be, in very deed, sweet to our 
 taste, for Thy people live by every word that proceedeth out 
 of Thy mouth. 
 
 We know that Thou art in the midst of us, and that Thy 
 presence is hallowing our assembly. Oh! let us, each one, realise 
 that Thou art indeed here to teach, to comfort, to strengthen 
 and to guide Thy sheep in the way of everlasting life ; and 
 Oh ! Blessed Saviour Jesus ! make each separate one here 
 present to realise that Thou art here for him, as though there 
 were none here but Thee and himself Jesus and me. 
 
 And then, with eyes and hearts closed to all sights and 
 thoughts and sounds but Thy voice, let us, in the quiet of Thy 
 presence, sit in the school of the Holy Ghost and be taught 
 at Thy dear feet. 
 
 Our hearts cry out, " Speak Lord, for Thy servant heareth." 
 Glorify Thy Name by answering our supplications ; and then, 
 whilst Thou art glorified in us Thy people, we shall be blessed 
 in Thee our living hope, for Thy loving mercy and Thy 
 truth's sake. Amen. 
 
 * St. Matth. x. 19.
 
 242 Address to Christians. 
 
 THE LORD'S CROSS. 
 &n 3ltJtireg0 to Cfjrt'gtians. 
 
 " Save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." Gal. vi. 14. 
 
 Now, beloved brethren, it is very easy for us to 
 repeat over those words. Here we are quietly and 
 calmly sitting in this room, afraid of no disturbance, 
 afraid of no suffering for believing these words to be 
 true and right and real. But before I attempt to 
 uncover the Cross of Jesus, by the help of the Holy 
 Spirit, I want to ask you to look at St. Paul's position 
 when he spoke those words. 
 
 All St. Paul's troubles and persecutions arose from 
 his preaching Christ crucified and glorying in the 
 Cross and in nothing else. St. James, Bishop of 
 Jerusalem, did not care much for St. Paul ; and when 
 St. Paul came to Jerusalem, after begging money in 
 all the churches for the poor saints at Jerusalem, 
 although he came with all the offertories he had 
 collected, James never invited Paul to his house. 
 
 St. Paul had to stop somewhere else ; and he was 
 taken to see St. James one day, but there was a tre-
 
 The Lord's Cross. 243 
 
 mendous disturbance brewing in Jerusalem. The 
 Jewish Christians hated St. Paul. 
 
 If it had not been for the destruction of Jerusalem 
 the Church of Jerusalem would have been a hindrance 
 in Christendom, for they in Jerusalem wanted to mix 
 up a Jewish ceremonialism with Christianity. They 
 wanted to teach a sort of half-and-half Christianity. 
 Yes, believe in Jesus ; but go to the temple, offer 
 sacrifices, join in the Jewish ceremonies, and make it 
 a sine qua non that people should be circumcised ! 
 
 So taught a very strong and powerful school 
 among the Jewish Christians, and we know perfectly 
 well that St. Peter, although he knew it was wrong, 
 was very much inclined to side with them at Antioch ; 
 and although he was very good and sound on the 
 principles of the Gospel, until " certain came from 
 James,"* he then turned his coat his teaching for 
 fear of the Jewish element, working in the Church. 
 
 But St. Paul withstood all opposition. St. Peter 
 wanted to strain a point for popularity's sake. St. Paul 
 stuck to the one point, " I am determined not to 
 know anything among you save Jesus Christ and 
 Him crucified." t 
 
 Then followed riots in the temple (for they used to 
 fight in churches in those days as in ours), and on 
 one occasion there was a riot in the north-west corner 
 * Gal. ii. 12. f 1 Cor. ii. 2.
 
 244 Address to Christians. 
 
 of the temple near the fortress of Antonia, where the 
 Emperor of Kome used to keep his soldiers ; and 
 these soldiers had to go, in great numbers, and take 
 Paul by main force out of the hands of the Jews, 
 because they wanted to kill him ; and that because 
 St. Paul would know nothing but the Cross. You 
 know the meaning of the word nothing. " God forbid 
 that I should glory save in the Cross."* Nothing 
 else. In the Cross of Jesus Christ. 
 
 I just want, with the help of G-od's Holy Spirit, to 
 ask you to follow me in the question : What does 
 this Cross mean ? Perhaps some who are listening to 
 me do not approve of figurative interpretations of 
 Scripture ; but I must allude to one now the widow 
 woman picking up sticks. If the widow woman had 
 not gone to pick up those sticks she would never have 
 met the Lord's messenger; she would never have 
 had her vessels filled with oil. The English Church, 
 for many hundreds of years, has taken this act of the 
 widow woman as a typical act of faith in the Cross. 
 
 The Cross was made of two sticks ; and the doctrine 
 of the Cross is made up of two parts ; and both of 
 them are so full of insult to the pride of the heart 
 and the intellect that the doctrine of the Cross 
 will never be popular, and was never meant to be 
 popular. 
 
 * Gal. vi. 14.
 
 The Lord's Cross. 245 
 
 What is the doctrine of the Cross ? The first part 
 of the doctrine is that we must give up all idea of 
 human merit as having anything to do with salvation. 
 That is the first part of the doctrine of the Cross. It 
 is no good mincing matters ; and my hearers know 
 that I never do mince matters. 
 
 This must be taken hold of firmly, as the first part 
 of the doctrine of the Cross. If you go to Christ for 
 salvation, there must be a thorough putting aside of 
 all works of righteousness that you have done. As 
 St. Paul writes : " Not by works of righteousness 
 which we have done, but according to His mercy He 
 saved us."* There is no such thing as human merit 
 apart from Christ, and God will accept nothing what- 
 ever apart from Christ. 
 
 Come to Christ as a sinner, or not at all ; and our 
 Lord very emphatically puts this. He tells us clearly 
 that He did not come for the righteous but for 
 sinners. " The Son of Man is come to seek and to save 
 that which was lost."f Therefore until a man realises 
 that he is utterly lost, and is yearning to come to 
 Christ as a lost sinner; until the Holy Ghost convinces 
 him of sin, and he is in absolute need of Jesus until 
 the Holy Ghost convinces him that his very f( righte- 
 ousnesses are as filthy rags,"J there is no doctrine of 
 
 * Titus iii. 5. f St. Luke xix. 10. J Isaiah Ixiv. 6.
 
 246 Address to Christians. 
 
 the Cross in his heart, and there is no salvation by 
 the Cross in his soul. 
 
 This is the first part of the doctrine of the Cross, 
 aDd St. Paul used to affront people very much about it. 
 When he writes to the Roman Church he says : " Not 
 of works, but of Him that calleth."* Apart from 
 Christ the most moral sinner and the most immoral 
 sinner are alike before God. 
 
 Very often, when I am preaching this, people get 
 up and walk out. They will not be told : you cannot 
 do anything to save yourself ; you must go to Christ, 
 and Christ alone, for salvation; and that salvation 
 is a free gift. It is of faith and not of works. All 
 we have is of the free gift of G-od. 
 
 You know how fond I am of putting two chairs 
 on the platform side by side. I am going to do it 
 now. There are two chairs. There is the most 
 religious person in Westminster ; the most religious, 
 philanthropical Church professor. He would not do 
 any bad action for the whole world. And here is the 
 most immoral, licentious, wicked villain that London 
 can produce. St. Paul says to them : " You are both 
 sinners." Then this gentleman gets up and says : 
 " Oh, no. That is the most immoral person in the 
 world. You cannot class him with me." I say to him, 
 "Are you saved?" "No," he answers, "I cannot say 
 
 . * Rom. ix. 11.
 
 The Lord's Cross. 247 
 
 that I am ; but I hope to be saved." I then ask 
 the other, "What do you say, my friend?" "Oh! 
 I say that I am a poor lost sinner, and I know 
 it ; there is no one in the world worse than I am." 
 Then I say to that poor lost sinner : " You are 
 likely to enter into the Kingdom of God before that 
 man ; and, until that man will take in the truth, that 
 'there is no difference'* before God, because they 
 have both sinned, and his ' righteousnesses are as filthy 
 rags/f just the same as your immorality, he cannot be 
 saved." The two men are both sinners in God's sight. 
 
 This is the doctrine that brings the sinner very low 
 in the dust. Every one " that humbleth himself shall 
 be exalted; and he that exalteth himself shall be 
 abased."J A sinner comes to salvation, is washed in 
 the Blood of the Lamb ; the righteousness of Christ 
 clothes his soul, and the sanctification of the Holy 
 Ghost conforms him gradually to the likeness of his 
 Lord. He is greatly exalted. The self-righteous one 
 comes down to a great abasement. This is the first 
 part of the doctrine of the Cross. 
 
 What is the other part ? The first doctrine took 
 away from me my own righteousness; the next gives 
 me the righteousness which is of God, by faith. The 
 arms of the Cross hold out to me the righteousness 
 which is the righteousness of God a perfect righteous- 
 * Rom. iii. 22. f Isaiah Ixiv. 6. J St. Matt, xxiii. 12.
 
 248 Address to Christians. 
 
 ness, which enables the sinner to be holy before his 
 God. How can I be holy, in the holiness of God, un- 
 less God clothe me with that holiness by a free gift ? 
 
 The arms of the Cross hold it out to me ; it is a free 
 gift. " The righteousness of God, which is by faith,"* 
 The Cross holds out to me Jesus in His fulness, and 
 gives me " wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctifica- 
 tion, and redemption, "f This is the other doctrine of 
 the Cross. Put them together, and then you have the 
 whole truth that Paul preached, and for which Paul 
 suffered. 
 
 Brethren, the human heart rebels against the Cross, 
 because it is counter to itself. The holy doctrine of 
 the Cross takes away, and crushes, self and exalts 
 Christ ; those who are believers in Christ know that 
 they are justified through faith in Jesus ; but in no 
 other way. 
 
 So it is " not by works of righteousness, which we 
 have done, but according to His mercy He saved 
 us."J Now, who amongst our congregation, this 
 afternoon, can say my text from their hearts ? " God 
 forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 When the believer knows that the Blood of Christ 
 has cleansed him, washed him "whiter than snow;"|| 
 
 * Rom. iii. 22. + Titus iii. 5. 
 
 f 1 Cor. i. 30. Gal. vi. 14. || Psalm li. 7.
 
 The Lord's Cross. 249 
 
 when the believer, safe in the arms of Jesus, realises 
 that he is " justified freely " * from all sins, that God 
 has put away his iniquity, that he is one of those that 
 are " blessed, to whom the Lord will not impute sin;"t 
 whose " transgression is forgiven ;"J then the believer 
 rests in the finished work of the Cross then the 
 believer can trust Jesus. He has finished the work 
 for us, and as His work for us was perfect, so His work 
 in us will be perfect, until the day of the Lord : for 
 He will present every one of us perfect before God. 
 
 " Waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ : 
 Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may 
 be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 He has promised that we shall be blameless in the 
 day of His coming. The Cross is very precious to the 
 believer ; " to us which are saved it is the power of 
 God." || To us, who are invited to this believers' 
 meeting, this picture is indeed precious, because we 
 have found Him to be our individual, present salva- 
 tion, life, righteousness, grace, strength. 
 
 We believe that He cannot leave us because He 
 has said that He will " never leave us."T We be- 
 lieve that our Shepherd's hand is a strong and safe 
 one, and holds us ; and He says that " no man shall 
 pluck us out of His hand."** We believe He is 
 
 * Rom. iii. 24. f Rom. iv. 8. J Ps. xxxii. 1. 
 
 1 Cor. i. 7, 8. || 1 Cor i. 18. T Heb. xiii. 5. 
 
 ** St. John x. 28.
 
 250 Address to Christians. 
 
 Almighty. We are " kept by the power of God ;"* 
 and "being justified by faith, we have peace with 
 God ;"f and we can cry out, from our hearts, with the 
 blessed Apostle of the Gentiles : " God forbid that I 
 should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ.":}: 
 
 Dear brethren, do not let us be afraid of the true, 
 dear old message. Do not let us think that it cannot 
 take care of itself. Do not let us think that the nine- 
 teenth century will not stand it. None of the centuries 
 have ever stood it. They have always been against it. 
 It is a doctrine which the world will always reject ; but 
 nevertheless it is the doctrine that draws out the 
 people of God. It is God's fishing-net ; and it is a 
 net which never breaks, in which no bad fish can 
 ever be. It is not the fishing-net of the visible 
 church. It is the net of the Holy Cross, which gathers 
 in for God those of whom Jesus says : " I know my 
 sheep." 
 
 As I was coming through that door, the other day, 
 and passing on to that one, a gentleman sitting here 
 would not let me pass, and taking hold of my hand, 
 he said : " Oh, Reverend Father, I must speak to 
 you, and tell you how thoroughly I enjoy what you 
 say and endorse it ;" and I said, " I see you belong to 
 Christ, and therefore, as you realise my words, you 
 * 1 Peter i. 5. f Rom. v. 1. J Gal. vi. 14. St. John x. 14.
 
 The Lord 's Cross. 251 
 
 enjoy them." I thought at first that he belonged to 
 the Plymouth Brethren ; but it turned out that he was 
 an Evangelical Roman Catholic ; and he said to me 
 that many Protestants actually deny that there is any 
 such thing as an Evangelical Roman Catholic. " They 
 do not know," he said ; "and if they only knew the true 
 teaching of our Church they would see there is nothing 
 to prevent our saying with St. Paul : ' God forbid, 
 that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ.' "* Oh ! when the believer says, pointing 
 with extended finger "to the martyrdom of the 
 Cross " (that is the Death of Jesus, the Martyr of 
 Humanity), there is the beginning and ending of my 
 salvation, he has indeed received the power, the glory, 
 the salvation and the love of Jesus Christ Himself. 
 
 Catholic or Protestant, it does not matter half so 
 much about the external worship ; as long as you 
 worship God lovingly, and with a child-like faith, 
 you are both saved in Jesus. And I say, from my heart, 
 if the Roman Catholics set forth Jesus, in His fulness, 
 with a greater simplicity and love and reverence 
 than the Protestants, I hope they may be paramount ; 
 and if the Protestants do so more than the Roman 
 Catholics, I hope they will influence the children of 
 God. 
 
 Whatever we are let us see that we are under the 
 banner of the grace of God, by manifesting love to 
 * Gal. vi. 14.
 
 252 Address to Christians. 
 
 the brethren ; for ' ' by this shall all men know that ye 
 are My disciples, if ye have love one to another;"* and 
 you will be better able to go through the persecutions 
 and sufferings that God calls you to endure from an 
 unbelieving world. 
 
 When I find that I am allowed, by the Master, to 
 gather round me a company of believers in Jesus, 
 who are Roman Catholics, High Churchmen, Low 
 Churchmen, Dissenters, &c. (for we have such 
 strange unions at our missions) of all who call 
 Jesus Lord in sincerity and truth I say with the 
 blessed Apostle : " Gk>d forbid that I should glory, save 
 in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ ;"t for this " is 
 the Power of God unto Salvation to every one that 
 believeth."} 
 
 * St. John xiii. 35. t Gal. vi. 14. J Bora. i. 16.
 
 XIV. 
 
 Jin J\66rcss to g&risficms. 
 
 Saturday Afternoon, October 24th, 1885.
 
 f orb's glcr%r. 
 
 Prayer before Mention. 
 
 Lord Jesus, Thou art here now, in the midst of us yet 
 again, to bless us and to teach us; and we are gathered 
 around Thee, at this time, once more, as Thy believing people, 
 to whom Thou has made Thyself known, and who are known 
 of Thee, as Thy sheep, whom the Father has given Thee. We 
 have also the comfortable assurance that we belong to Thee 
 and that Thou dost, as the Father's gift, belong to us. 
 
 We wish now to enter into the quiet of Thy presence and 
 into the calm of the Holy Ghost. Oh ! blessed Lord, grant 
 that true words and wise words may be heard at this time ; 
 words that shall glorify Thee and give blessing to our own 
 souls. Open up to us the mystery of Thy Mother. Help us to 
 think aright concerning the tremendous mystery of Thy In- 
 carnation ; and if there be here present, in our midst, any of 
 Thine own dear people, who have been taught, through any 
 prejudice, to feel aught against her Who brought Thee into 
 the world, Oh ! wilt Thou grant that the presence of Her 
 Son, Thyself, may make their thoughts silent and still while 
 the Holy Ghost, Who overshadowed her, and made her Thy 
 Mother, shall interpret to us more of the mystery of that 
 wonderful love of God, that gave Thee to take our nature 
 from Her, in order that Thou mightest redeem Thy people and 
 bring them back, as reconciled children, to God. 
 
 And oh ! help me, Blessed Jesus, that no words of over-zeal 
 or over-love for Thy Mother may cause me to grieve the 
 hearts of any of those now before Thee. Let the words that 
 shall be given us to speak, and to hear, be indeed for Thy 
 glory be indeed well pleasing to Thee and for the profit of 
 Thy people here present. Grant, dear Lord Jesus, our 
 supplications, and favour us with Thy blessing, now and for 
 evermore. Amen.
 
 256 Address to Christians. 
 
 THE LORD'S MOTHER. 
 
 &n duress to" Christians. 
 
 " Mary, the mother of Jesus." Acts i. 14. 
 
 Well ! These few words go right into our hearts, 
 because we are the people of God. Let me say them 
 over again ; because there is such a wonderful charm 
 and such a wonderful power in them. " Mary, the 
 Mother of Jesus." What ! Do you believe, and do I 
 believe, that Jesus had a Mother ? Do you believe and 
 do I believe that Jesus has a mother now at this very 
 moment ? Do we believe that there is such a being 
 in existence, at this very moment, as the Mother of 
 Jesus ? It seems blasphemy, at first sight, to say 
 that Jesus had a Mother, and has a Mother. But we 
 do believe it, and, at this very moment, while our 
 blessed Lord Jesus is in our midst, and while we are 
 now enjoying a sense of His presence, we believe that 
 He has a Mother. 
 
 It is an awful thought, but it is a true thought. Our 
 blessed Lord and Saviour has a Mother; and if He 
 had not we should all be damned for ever. Why ?
 
 The Lord's Mother. 257 
 
 Because it is the Blood of the Lamb that has saved us, 
 and there is no pardon except through the human 
 blood of Jesus. If Jesus had no Mother He would 
 have no blood ! What an awful mystery is this ! 
 
 I am speaking to Christians only now. But I am 
 also speaking to men and women who, all, every one 
 of them, have mothers. The greyest-bearded man, 
 listening to me now, has a mother either here or in 
 the spirit world ; and most of us love our mothers ; 
 most of us love them with a love with which we have 
 never loved anyone else. 
 
 There is a peculiarity about the love for a mother 
 which there is in no other love. It is nothing like (if I 
 may use the words reverently) the selfish love of the 
 husband towards the wife. It is not the love which we 
 have for a friend, or for any other relation. The love 
 of a mother is something that seems to be one of the 
 initiatory mysteries of our existence. The very first 
 sensation of our hearts was love for our mothers. We 
 can almost recall the time when we could only just put 
 our arms round our mother's neck with tenderness, in 
 giving her the first kiss. 
 
 My mother ! There is no other relationship that 
 touches the heart like the one expressed by these two 
 words ! " My mother !" Of course I am not speak- 
 ing now to those who, unhappily, have had very bad, 
 wicked mothers. Though, even then, there is some-
 
 258 Address to Christians. 
 
 thing in the thought of "my mother 3 ' that would make 
 it agonising to think anything that was bad of her. 
 
 But now we are only thinking of the general run of 
 Christian mothers, and of the charm there is in the 
 words " my mother." 
 
 Do I not recollect, myself, how proud I used to be 
 of my mother ? I remember when a boy at school, 
 and the Apposition Day came round, when the boys 
 had to make speeches, and their parents used to come 
 to the school to hear them I remember when my 
 mother came into the room, how proud I was of her ; 
 and I used to like to point her out to the other boys. 
 I did not think there was anybody in the world like 
 my mother. 
 
 And I am sure that is what Jesus thinks about His 
 Mother, with His human heart ; for He is very Man 
 as well as very God. And Jesus knows one Being to 
 whom He can look up and say, before the angels, 
 before devils, before men, " My Mother ! " 
 
 There is to me, as a man, and as a Christian, a 
 charm that is unutterable in the thought ; " Mary, 
 the Mother of Jesus!"* Oh! to speak her name is, 
 to me, such a bringing of Jesus to my heart, as man 
 to man. If Mary be His Mother, I can realise that 
 Jesus is my Brother. 
 
 He has the flesh and blood and bones of man 
 *Actsi 14.
 
 The Lord's Mother. 259 
 
 though He be God of Heaven ! " He came down from 
 Heaven, and was Incarnate, by the Holy Ghost, of 
 the Virgin Mary, and was made man." 
 
 " Mary, the Mother of Jesus ! " 
 
 Why, if anyone pointed out to me the mother of a 
 very great statesman, or the mother of a very great 
 orator, or philanthropist, I should feel a kind of 
 reverence for the woman for her son's sake. Supposing, 
 when the Duke of Wellington came back from the 
 wars, during which he had sustained the honour of 
 the British Empire, and in which he had, a thousand 
 times, risked his life, for dear Old England ; supposing, 
 when he came back from the last of his wars, that the 
 first person whom he had met was his mother : do you 
 not think that the people would have said : " Look, 
 that is the mother of Wellington " ? And they would 
 at once have made way to let the mother pass to her 
 son's side. 
 
 But she was not half so much the mother of 
 Wellington as Mary was the Mother of Jesus. Mary 
 is the Mother of Jesus in a far deeper, intenser sense. 
 Jesus had no human father. Mary was the centre 
 connecting Jesus with humanity. When Jesus thinks 
 of Mary, there His thoughts must rest ; for Mary is 
 the beginning and the end of His humanity. 
 
 I cannot give utterance to one-millionth part of the 
 feelings, in my own heart, when I think of Mary, the
 
 260 Address to Christians. 
 
 Mother of Jesus ; and it does not seem to me to matter, 
 one single iota, what people say to me about this, for 
 I feel that I have Jesus on my side ; and that I have 
 the Father on my side, Who, from all eternity, elected 
 Mary to be the Mother mystic of His Son Incarnate ! 
 
 The words " Mary, the Mother of Jesus " have a 
 sound that makes me feel quite at home with God ; 
 because God, through Mary, became very Man. 
 
 Do you not all feel this ? Are there any listening 
 to me who think that I am exaggerating ? If so, let 
 me just refer them to one verse, in the 1st chapter of 
 St. Luke, and let me ask them to listen to these 
 words. They are in the 35th verse of St. Luke i. ; 
 and it is a verse the like of which there is not, 
 in all the Bible, for mystery tremendous for marvel 
 unutterable and ineffable. 
 
 " And the angel answered and said unto her, The 
 Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the Power of 
 the Highest shall overshadow thee ; therefore also 
 that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be 
 called the Son of God." 
 
 Nazareth was busy in the fields, for it was spring 
 time the corn was beginning to grow, the birds were 
 singing in the trees, and the farmers and the labourers 
 were hard at work preparing for the planting of the 
 earth all nature's toil was going on its way ; but, in 
 a little cottage, on the hill, there was a mystery of
 
 The Lord's Mother. 261 
 
 eternity being enacted between the Archangel of 
 Heaven and the lowly maiden Mary. 
 
 No eye but the eye of Mary saw the tremendous 
 glow of the gleaming light, when the Archangel came 
 to her and said : " Hail, thou that art highly 
 favoured/' * and told her that she was to be the Mother 
 of the Son of God. Then Mary asked him : " How 
 shall this be, seeing I know not a man ?"t And now 
 listen to the Angel's answer : ' ' The Holy Ghost shall 
 come upon thee, and the Power of the Highest (that 
 is of God the Father) shall overshadow thee : there- 
 fore also that Holy Thing Which shall be born of thee 
 shall be called the Son of God." J 
 
 My brethren, "the Holy Ghost shall come upon 
 thee :" that is the Third Person. The Power of the 
 Highest shall overshadow thee : " that is the First 
 Person. "The Holy One born of thee" is the Second 
 Person. There is the whole Trinity. 
 
 How awful, how blasphemous, if it be not true ! Is 
 it true ? Is it true that Mary became the Mother of 
 Jesus, by this tremendous and overwhelming revela- 
 tion of mystery and truth ? Is there, in existence, a 
 Being who was the Mother of God the Son by the 
 overshadowing of God the Father, and by the con- 
 ception of the Holy Ghost ? 
 
 It cannot be true ! It is an utter impossibility I 
 
 * St. Luke i. 28. t St. Luke i. 34. J St. Luke i. 35.
 
 262 Address to Christians. 
 
 It is the stumbling block in the way of Christianity ! 
 People who would believe in Christianity are turned 
 from believing through the mystery of the " Mother 
 of Jesus." Really, to take in the mystery of Christ's 
 Incarnation is to be wading in the depths of the 
 waters of mystery. 
 
 Oh ! brethren, need I urge any argument to con- 
 vince my present hearers that really and truly Mary 
 became the Mother of Jesus, the Son of God, by the 
 overshadowing of God the Father, and by the Holy 
 Ghost coming upon her ? No, because I know that 
 you all believe it quite as much as I do. Mary, the 
 Mother of Jesus, is a mystery ; but we do believe in 
 this mystery of the New Testament ; it is the founda- 
 tion of all the other mysteries of Christianity ; and 
 they would be nothing but for this. Of course the 
 outside world does not believe it ; and a great many 
 in the visible Church do not believe it either. 
 
 I was once travelling from Marseilles to Genoa, 
 when a gentleman, and fellow-traveller, on board the 
 steamer, entered into conversation with me; and a 
 question that he asked me was whether I believed in 
 the Virgin Mary. I said : " What do you mean ?" 
 He said : " Do you believe that Mary, while a virgin, 
 was the Mother of Jesus ?" I said : " Of course I 
 do ; I should not be a Christian if I did not." 
 " Well," he said, " I cannot."
 
 The Lord's Mother. 263 
 
 And he was a Eoman Catholic, and said his prayers 
 most devoutly; but he told me that he could not 
 believe in the Virgin Mary. He said it was per- 
 fectly impossible that she was the Mother of Jesus 
 by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 But if he did not believe in the miracle of the 
 Mother of Christ he could not believe in the Divinity 
 and in the Incarnation of Christ, nor in the Atone- 
 ment of the Cross ; for if the Blood that Jesus shed 
 on the Cross was not that of the Son of God, It could 
 not save us any more than any other blood. 
 
 Protestants would not seem to believe it by the 
 way they speak of her ; but they do, in their hearts, 
 believe it as much as we Catholics do. All Evan- 
 gelical Christians believe it as a revealed, divine 
 mystery, a most tremendous mystery, of God. 
 
 We cannot prove it by argument; no logic can 
 prove it; it cannot be proved by any other means 
 than the Holy Ghost convincing the heart of the 
 reality of this awful, and unutterable, mystery. 
 
 Of course if there be any individuals here who do 
 not believe this mystery, my words must seem most 
 blasphemous to them. 
 
 Can you feel how sweet it is to call Mary the 
 Mother of God ? I say I should not be a Christian 
 if I could not believe that she was. What ! God 
 have a Mother ! Certainly. And yet people, who
 
 264 Address to Christians. 
 
 call themselves Christians, scarcely acknowledge that 
 Mary is the Mother of God. 
 
 Mary is not the Mother of God in the way in which 
 my mother is my mother. She is not the mother of 
 the Godhead. Mary is the Mother of the humanity 
 of Him Who was God of a Divine Person who, 
 though He took human nature upon Him, was still 
 very God. And this is a mystery that all must 
 believe. 
 
 May I ask you, first of all, is it not tremendously 
 necessary, in these evil days of rationalism and 
 materialism, that we should be sound on this funda- 
 mental doctrine of our holy religion ? Is it not 
 necessary that we should know what we believe 
 on this point, and why we believe it ? Shall I, 
 because I am afraid of the ridicule of an unbelieving 
 world, say I do not believe that Christ is really God ; 
 and that Mary is only the Mother of a God-like 
 person ? Shall we say this ? No ; to settle the 
 matter, we give the title to "Mary, the Mother of 
 Jesus"* of "Mother of God." 
 
 And now, my brethren, consider how comfortable 
 it is to be very clear on this point ; because, when we 
 are clear on this doctrine of Christ's Mother, it brings 
 Jesus so very close to us. We see Him, and we 
 realise that He is our High Priest. If this mystery 
 * Acts i. 14.
 
 The Lord's Mother. 265 
 
 be not true, Christ is either not God or not man. 
 If Mary be not the Mother of God, Christ is not God ; 
 and if Mary be not God's Mother, God has never 
 taken our nature and never redeemed us. 
 
 Therefore we cling pertinaciously to the truth that 
 " God so loved us " that He came down from Heaven, 
 took our nature upon Him, and " bought His Church 
 with His Own Blood."* He so loved the Church 
 that He gave Himself for it. Oh ! my brothers and 
 sisters in Jesus, this truth brings home to me so 
 plainly that Jesus is the " Friend that sticketh closer 
 than a brother ."t Jesus is the true friend born for 
 adversity. It makes me to realise that I may cast all 
 my sorrows on Him, for once He bore our sorrows ; 
 once He was "in all points tempted like as we 
 are."j 
 
 How could He have been tempted like we are if 
 He had not become " very man ?" God could not be 
 tempted. Therefore He came down and was Incarnate, 
 and "was made man," that He might be able to "be 
 touched with the feeling of our infirmities." % 
 
 When you, yourselves, are nearly overcome with 
 grief, when tears stream down your cheeks, then comes 
 the thought to you that He suffered, that "Jesus 
 wept," that Jesus was weary ! Oh ! what calm it 
 
 * Acts xx. 28. t Heb. iv. 15. 
 
 t Prov. xviii. 24. St. John xi. 35.
 
 266 Address to Christians. 
 
 brings to the soul to know that He is able " to be 
 touched with the feeling of our infirmities," because 
 He "was in all points tempted like as we are."* It 
 makes life so different to go through it with Him on 
 our side. He once was like us, because He was " very- 
 man," " born of the Virgin Mary." 
 
 I have touched on the doctrine, at great length ; 
 and now I want you to ask yourselves the question : 
 " What can we think, knowing what we do of the 
 feelings of the best sons, among men, towards their 
 mothers, what can we think our Lord's feelings 
 towards His Mother are ? 
 
 My love for the Blessed Virgin is one of the chief 
 things for which I have been persecuted for twenty 
 years, and misrepresented, and for which I have had 
 to suffer a very great deal. I was about to preach a 
 mission in a church, where I should very much have 
 liked to have gone ; but, all at once, the clergyman 
 drew back because of my great love for the " Mother 
 of God." 
 
 There are plenty of people in the Church of 
 England who do not believe it right to love her ; and 
 if there be any such people here present, may I ask 
 them not to let their party spirit prevent their 
 listening patiently to what I say. Do they think 
 we can grieve our Lord by loving His Mother ? 
 * Heb. iv. 15.
 
 The Lord's Mother. 267 
 
 Instead of loving her too much, I feel that I cannot 
 love her enough. 
 
 The answer to my question would probably be : 
 "Look at our Eoman Catholic brethren, how they 
 exaggerate the honour due to the Mother of Jesus." 
 But there is no argument in that, for if we are 
 not to use a thing because of the abuse of it, there 
 would be an end to using the Bible itself. The 
 Blessed Virgin could not have been saved without 
 the merits of her Son ; and to make a goddess of her 
 would be heretical and ridiculous. I have "heard 
 of " Roman Catholics who do make a goddess of her ; 
 but I have never yet met one, myself, who did. 
 
 Brethren, I ask you quietly to put this question to 
 yourselves : is it pleasing to our Lord that His people's 
 hearts should dwell with love on the remembrance of 
 His Mother, or is it not ? If it be pleasing that His 
 people should love and reverence His mother, what a 
 sad thing it is to think that, in the majority of 
 the churches of our land, the Blessed Virgin may 
 scarcely be mentioned. If a clergyman happen, 
 from his pulpit, to eulogise our Lord's Mother, 
 people rise, stamp their feet, and walk out. But 
 they do not mind the mention of the devil. They 
 have not the least objection to hearing about Satan 
 himself. 
 
 Once I was catechising a little girl in school, and I
 
 268 Address to Christians. 
 
 asked her if she knew who our Lord's Mother was. 
 She said, " Please sir, she was Mary Magdalene, out 
 of whom He cast seven devils." That is the idea she 
 had of our Lord's Mother. It is no wonder. That child 
 had been taught how shocking it was to give 
 honour to the Virgin Mary ; and so it got into 
 her head that the Mother of our Lord was some 
 monster of iniquity. I only just mention this little 
 incident in passing. 
 
 The very name of the Virgin Mary is " like a red 
 flag to a bull" to some people; and as I have this week 
 chosen these subjects for our meditations viz., " The 
 Lord's People," "The Lord's Day," "The Lord's 
 Prayer," "The Lord's Supper," and "The Lord's 
 Cross," I determined that, on this Saturday, I would 
 speak words very clearly and emphatically about " our 
 Lord's Mother;" because if we do not hold right views 
 about her, the atonement of the Cross is invalidated ; 
 for if Jesus be not divine the Blood on Calvary would 
 be of no use. 
 
 I am here, therefore, to speak now of the Lord's 
 Mother ; but I do not speak dictatorially ; and I know 
 that you have quite as much right to your opinions as 
 I have to mine. 
 
 But the feeling that I have is, that the more we 
 revere the Blessed Virgin Mary the more we please 
 her Son.
 
 The Lord's Mother. 269 
 
 If you were to go to Margate Cemetery, at the end 
 of July, where my own darling mother's mortal remains 
 are lying, till Jesus comes and " the dead in Christ 
 rise first/' you would see her grave covered with 
 beautiful flowers. Pounds and pounds are lavished 
 on my mother's grave, and this by people who have 
 never seen her ; but they have a love for her for my 
 sake ; and they will spend money on her grave, for 
 my sake, out of gratitude for what I have done for 
 their souls. And for Jesus' sake we do honour to the 
 memory of the Mother of Jesus. 
 
 It is for Jesus Only that I love the Virgin Mary. 
 She would be no more than any other woman to me 
 if she were not His Mother. Therefore, all the glory 
 that I pay to Mary is for love of her Son ; and I am 
 sorry that anybody should think this wrong. 
 
 The next point is " praying to the Virgin." 
 
 You ask your wife to pray for you, and you teach 
 your child to pray for you, and in the same way I can 
 understand our asking the prayers of those who are 
 departed. I do not believe in asking the prayers of 
 dead saints; but I never heard of a dead saint ! I do 
 not believe in dead saints. I believe that Jesus lives ; 
 and because He lives they live also ; and that is the 
 reason why we ask their prayers. I believe that 
 they are "alive for evermore." 
 
 The Apostle Paul says of the departed, " We are
 
 270 Address to Christians. 
 
 compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses."* 
 While we are "running the race" they are the 
 witnesses looking on. So that when a person speaks 
 of " dead saints," and says that they cannot hear, he 
 has no authority for his assertions from the Word of 
 God. 
 
 So, my brethren, I not only believe that it is not 
 wrong, but that it is right, and very helpful, to ask the 
 prayers of my fellow-believers ; and you will have to 
 prove to me that the Blessed Virgin is not among the 
 Living " Cloud of Witnesses " before condemning me 
 for asking the prayers of her who is our Lord's 
 Mother. 
 
 Perhaps some of you do not believe with me ; but I 
 feel taught of God to ask her prayers ; and I do not 
 think that the faith with which I ask her prayers, 
 and with which I long to exalt our Lord's Mother, 
 grieves Him. 
 
 If you say : " where are we told in the Bible to 
 give all this honour to the Virgin Mary ? " I would 
 answer: "if Queen Victoria were to walk into this 
 room now, should I sit still and say : ' I am not 
 going to rise, I shall not get up, I am not told 
 anywhere to do so when I see the Queen ' ? " No. I 
 should rise instantly, as an Englishman, because I 
 believe the Queen is the Lord's Anointed over us, in 
 * Heb. xii. i.
 
 The Lord's Mother. 2 7 1 
 
 civil matters ; and I should wish to show her every 
 honour that I could. I should not require to be told 
 to rise ; and therefore all that I want to be told is 
 that Mary is the Mother of Jesus, and nothing else ; 
 and I must give her the honour that is her due. 
 
 There is the Mother of your Lord treat her as you 
 please ; but, for myself, I say that the more I love my 
 Lord and Saviour the more I shall reverence the 
 Mother, whom " all generations are to call blessed.* 
 
 On the Cross Jesus said to His best loved disciple 
 " Behold thy Mother ;"f and in these words He 
 speaks to me, " Behold thy Mother ;" and therefore I 
 say : " Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for me." 
 
 Do not let prejudice cause us to misunderstand a 
 simple thing like this. 
 
 If this belief should not commend itself to you per- 
 sonally, do not rush into the persecution of those who 
 do think that it does glorify our Lord; and let us 
 Catholics be very tender towards the tenets of our 
 Protestant brothers on the subject. Let us be joined 
 one to another in love ; and if the Holy Spirit teach 
 you that it does glorify God to pay reverence and 
 devotion to our Lord's Mother, pay the reverence ; if 
 you do not believe it right to do so, do not pay it, as 
 in that case it would be wrong. 
 
 But again I say, I believe it to be right ; and I have 
 * St. Luke i. 48. t St. John xix. 27.
 
 272 Address to Christians. 
 
 received very many blessings through the prayers of 
 my Saviour's Mother. Therefore do not condemn me. 
 And I ask you, before I conclude, does my love to 
 the Blessed Virgin hinder me from enjoying Christ 
 in His fulness ? Do I mix up the mystery of the 
 Virgin with the message of the Gospel to sinners ? 
 Certainly not; and I think that the more I love and 
 reverence the Lord's Mother, the more I realise what 
 her Son is, and the more I long -to proclaim what He 
 is to a world that is " dead in trespasses and sins."* 
 
 * Ephes. ii. 1.
 
 XV. 
 
 Jin Jl66ress fo 
 Wednesday Afternoon, May 19th, 1886.
 
 Prayer "before Sermon. 
 
 ! great and loving Father, Who hast seen to it for Thy 
 people, who hast been Jehovah the Provider in Jesus, and hast 
 not only Provided but hast provided abundantly for all our 
 needs in Him,We beseech Thee grant us to speak and to hear, 
 at this time, a word that shall enable us to set up a Jelwvah- 
 Jireh in a sense that some of us have never set up such a 
 memorial before. Let none go out from this place without 
 being able to set up, once and for all, such a JeJwvah-Jireh 
 that the rest of their lives, here below, may be lives of 
 simple rest and trust in the Lord. Unfold to us, by the 
 wisdom of the Holy Ghost, our most wonderful subject, and 
 make it so lovely in our eyes that our hearts and minds may 
 feast upon its loveliness, until we shall be so satisfied with 
 Jesus that we shall be able to "set to our seal" that He is 
 indeed the "Alpha and the Omega"* of His Church ; that He is 
 indeed " the author and finisher of our faith."f O ! dear Lord 
 Almighty, and glorious Father, we pray Thee glorify Thy 
 Holy Child Jesus, in our midst, on this occasion; and let our 
 subject unfold itself to our hearts, like a beautiful flower 
 beneath the genial dew and rain and sunshine of Thy love ; and 
 we ask this that each one of Thy people here present may be 
 profited, and fed, and comforted ; and that Thy Son Jesus 
 may be magnified, exalted, glorified and admired in every 
 heart here present. Grant this for His sake, Who liveth and 
 reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for 
 ever and ever. Amen. 
 
 * Rev. i. 8. t Heb. xii 2
 
 276 Address to Christians. 
 
 JEHOVAH-JIREH. 
 3tn autoss to Christians. 
 
 "Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah- Jireh." 
 Gen. xxii. 14. 
 
 Yesterday we were looking at Abraham's patient, 
 restful faith with regard to God's promise, that 
 Sarah should have a child. Yesterday we were look- 
 ing at the extraordinary faith of Abraham, who, at the 
 call of God, had come out from his own household 
 and family and country, and had followed the leading 
 of God's Spirit into a strange land; and how he 
 became perfectly convinced that God would fulfil His 
 promise in blessing all the nations of the earth, 
 through a child that Sarah should bring to him. 
 
 And we watched Abraham go down the hill of life ; 
 we watched the grey hairs mantling on Sarah's brow, 
 and we watched the wrinkles coming over her once 
 beautiful face j we saw the shrinking of her beautiful, 
 womanly form into the decrepitude of old age ; and 
 yet we saw that Abraham was quite strong in faith 
 that Sarah would have a child.
 
 Jehovah-Jireh. 277 
 
 And so, as we watched the family of Abraham, and 
 saw the son of the bondwoman received by all the 
 servants in Abraham's encampment as the heir of 
 Abraham, we saw how Ishmael was the admired of 
 the tribe, how full of youth and animation and strength 
 the boy seemed to grow ; and yet he was not the one. 
 
 It was from the haggard, wan, wrinkled, grey- 
 haired Sarah that the real boy was to come, through 
 whom G-od would bless the world, by drawing out, 
 from all the nations, that beautiful brotherhood of the 
 Christian Church, which should be a family of peace 
 in the midst of the nations of war; a family of rest 
 in the midst of the nations of toil ; which should be 
 a family of light in the midst of the world of dark- 
 ness ; a family of eternal life amidst the nations that 
 were dying and " sitting in darkness and the shadow 
 of death."* 
 
 And then we saw the strange amazement and the 
 marvellous wonder of Abraham's tribe, when it was 
 heard " Sarah has brought forth a child at last, and 
 little Isaac sleeps in Sarah's bosom, and Sarah's 
 withered breast is filled with the fruitfulness of 
 Heaven ; and she nurses little Isaac in order that he 
 may produce Mary, who shall nestle Jesus, the Son of 
 God, in her bosom." If there had been no fruitful- 
 ness in the aged Sarah there would have been no 
 * Psalm cvii. 10.
 
 278 Address to Christians. 
 
 fruitfulness in the Virgin Mary to produce that Child 
 through Whom salvation and righteousness have 
 flowed throughout all the nations. 
 
 And so we were constrained to admire exceedingly 
 the faith of Abraham, who "staggered not at the 
 promise of God through unbelief,"* on account of 
 Sarah's age. 
 
 And then we went on to consider how Isaac and 
 Ishmael differed. Ishmael was Abraham's son ; but 
 God did not promise Ishmael to Abraham; and 
 therefore he went for nothing. He was counted 
 for nothing ; and not only that, but he was " cast 
 out." He was cast out of Abraham's house. 
 Ishmael was a mistake. Isaac was the true child, 
 through whom the blessing was to come. 
 
 And so we made Abraham's household a symbol of 
 the visible Church. The visible Church contains the 
 " children of promise " ; but it also contains those who 
 shall be cast out : and we saw how very useless it was 
 to belong to the visible Church unless we "made 
 our calling and election sure "t by faith in Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Unless you and I know that we are the seed that 
 
 the Father has promised to Jesus, it is very little use 
 
 belonging to the visible Church. The visible Church 
 
 is quite as full of Ishmaels as it is of Isaacs ; but 
 
 * Romans iv. 20. f 2 Peter i. 10.
 
 Jehcroah-Jireh. 2 79 
 
 Ishmael shall be " cast out ;" for he is " the son of 
 the bondwoman." 
 
 When the time comes for the Isaacs to inherit the 
 glorious inheritance of light, then shall Ishmael be 
 cast out. It is only those who are chosen of God in 
 Christ ; it is only those who are given, by God, to 
 Jesus, who shall inherit the inheritance of Isaac. Ish- 
 mael shall be cast out. Ishmael shall grow more and 
 more strong and powerful ; Ishmael shall triumph over 
 Isaac ; but he shall be cast out at last. So the worldly 
 professing Church persecutes the spiritual Church. 
 The worldly Church is getting the upper hand. The 
 world's religion, Ishmael, is far more uppermost now 
 than Isaac and his seed ; but the time is coming when, 
 from the tent of Abraham shall Ishmael and the 
 bondwoman be cast right out into the deserts of 
 everlasting darkness ; out into the abyss of the flames 
 of the eternal world ; and Isaac only shall inherit the 
 promised land. 
 
 No wonder, then, the Apostle says to each one, 
 " make your calling and election sure."* He also says, 
 "for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth 
 anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." t 
 
 My brothers and sisters, you who come to these 
 meetings in the afternoons, I address you as the 
 " children of promise ; " I address you as those who have 
 * 2 Peter i. 10. t Gal. vi. 15.
 
 280 Address to Christians. 
 
 taken hold of the promise of God, and appropriated 
 it to your own souls. And I showed you yesterday 
 afternoon how that God's great Promise is Jesus 
 Christ. There are no promises of God except in 
 Christ, no promises of God out of Christ; just as 
 there is no righteousness out of Christ, no pardon out 
 of Christ ; just as it is said, " he that hath not the 
 Son of God hath not life,"* he that doth not possess 
 Christ hath nothing to do with the promises of God. 
 
 It is only those who are "born again "t who are 
 children of the Promise. Christ is God's great Promise, 
 in Whom all His other promises are summed up. 
 The promises of God are all in Christ ; they are all 
 hanging upon this one point, that we have accepted 
 Christ. No promise of God, in that Book, is made 
 to any except in Christ ; therefore, until we have 
 taken hold of the great Promise of God, which is 
 Christ, the promises of Christ are nothing to us ; for 
 they " are all in Him, yea, and in Him, Amen." J 
 
 I think now I have been very clear and very plain 
 about the " children of promise," although a clergy, 
 man here yesterday said he did not know what I was 
 driving at. It was because he was not accustomed to 
 our services ; but my own hearers know, oh ! they 
 know, with the heavenly inspiration, and divine 
 illumination, what I mean. They know what I mean, 
 * 1 John v.-12. f St. John iii. 2. J 2 Cor. i. 20.
 
 Jehwah-Jireh. 281 
 
 in very deed and truth, that it is " Jesus Only/' and 
 nothing but Jesus. They know that no one can be 
 a " child of promise " except a man in Christ ; and 
 therefore I did not expatiate very largely on the 
 fundamental truths which pave the way for the full 
 enjoyment of the subject. He, this clergyman, did 
 not know " what I was driving at." May God bring 
 him to the rest of the services, and he will soon find 
 out what we are driving at. 
 
 We have now another picture of Abraham, and it 
 is the picture of Abraham setting up an altar on 
 which to inscribe the words Jehovah-Jireh ; and will 
 you allow me to draw just a little picture of the place, 
 .because there is something so intensely interesting 
 and marvellous about it ? Abraham has come from 
 Hebron, to the mountain country of Judea, guided by 
 the Spirit of God, accompanied by his servants and 
 his son Isaac. 
 
 He is to go and worship upon the mountain that 
 God will point out to him. He is to worship in a most 
 horrible, revolting manner. The worship that 
 Abraham has to give to God is the most monstrous 
 and hideous, which it is possible for human nature 
 to gaze upon or contemplate. He is to kill, in cold 
 blood, the "Child of Promise" Isaac; he is to kill 
 him and burn him on a hill that God will show 
 him. 
 
 Dear people, we must not judge this horrible scene
 
 282 Address to Christians. 
 
 from our Christian point of view. If we judge this 
 scene from a Christian point of view it is monstrous 
 and abominable ; and we should hate the picture and 
 the idea that the picture conveys; but we must 
 remember that in Abraham's time human sacrifices 
 were very common in fact, among the Hindoos, if 
 it were not for the British Government putting them 
 down, by main force, there would be many human 
 sacrifices to this day. 
 
 It is the beautiful, softening influences of the Gospel 
 of Christ, which is the highest class in God's school, 
 from which we judge this scene. But you must put 
 aside your heavenly education ; and you must also 
 remember that people, in those days, were in the first 
 class not in the last; so that in Abraham's time they 
 were only beginning their education, and God had to 
 educate the human race up to Christ. 
 
 Abraham did not know so much of the mind and 
 will of God as Moses ; and Moses did not know so 
 much as the prophets ; and even the prophets them- 
 selves, in their magnificent enlargement upon the 
 evangelical idea, very often spoke things that they 
 did not understand. 
 
 And do you not remember how, when Daniel had 
 those splendid visions given to him, he turned round 
 to the angel, and said : " I do not know what they 
 mean." " No," said the angel, " nobody will know
 
 Jehovah-Jireh. 283 
 
 what they are until Christ comes."* And so it was 
 left for Jesus Christ to speak of the Book of the 
 prophet Daniel in this wise: "When ye therefore 
 shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of 
 by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, 
 (whoso readeth, let him understand) ."t 
 
 Alleluia ! It has come at last ; the Book is un- 
 closed ; the prophecy is made known ; we may under- 
 stand it ; and if we take Jesus Christ and St. Paul 
 together, the whole of the Book of Daniel is 
 explained. Now, "let him that readeth under- 
 stand. "J It was hidden at the time, till the end of 
 that age till the bursting forth of the Christian 
 dispensation. 
 
 So you must not judge Abraham, and the modes 
 by which God instructed and led him, by those ideas 
 with which God leads and instructs us now, in the 
 full blaze of the Gospel day. You must judge the 
 scene as a cotemporary. In Calcutta, perhaps some 
 of you know the temple of the goddess Kali. If it 
 were not for the British Government there would be 
 human sacrifices offered to that goddess, because her 
 devotees believe that a human sacrifice makes atone- 
 ment for the sins of men for two hundred years. 
 
 Was it not a human sacrifice that was rendered 
 
 * Daniel xii. 8, 9. f St. Matt. xxiv. 15 ; Daniel xii. 11. 
 
 J St. Matt. xxiv. 15.
 
 284 Address to Christians. 
 
 absolutely a sine qua non by the immaculate, spotless 
 purity of God when they nailed The Man to the Cross? 
 No other real man has ever existed from the 
 beginning of time but Jesus Christ. All others are 
 , only defiled, ruined creatures : Jesus Christ is The 
 Man. Did not Jesus Christ Himself say, when He 
 stood on the stairs of Pilate's palace, and the raving 
 multitudes were shrieking at Him in the streets did 
 not He say to them : " Behold The Man" ? He 
 was crowned with thorns then. Perhaps some of 
 the very spittle of the soldiery was trickling down 
 His sacred face. We have it in our English versions : 
 "And Pilate said, Behold the man;"* but in the 
 original it is, " Pilate brought forth Jesus, and He 
 said, ' Behold the Man.' " 
 
 So there is the final object of the whole ritual of 
 sacrifice fulfilled in the human offering of the Child 
 of Mary on the Cross. We must, therefore, be very 
 careful how we allow our Christian sentiments of 
 horror to burst forth as we contemplate Abraham 
 leading about his tender child, of only sixteen years, 
 over the mountains of Judah, first to cut his throat 
 and then to burn him as a victim of love to God. 
 
 When Abraham came so near to the hill that he 
 saw it afar off when he saw, right far away, in the 
 distance, the spot appointed for his sacrifice, he 
 * St. John xix. 5.
 
 Jehovah-Jireh. 285 
 
 said to the servants: "Abide ye here with the 
 ass ; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship."* 
 It might have been a journey of four hours. 
 Abraham has the fire, and Isaac carries the wood. 
 You can' almost see the form of the boy, with the 
 wood on his shoulders, as he walks along with his 
 father, who carries the fire. Isaac, holding the wood 
 upon his shoulders, with his hands outstretched to 
 hold it, seems to speak of that true Isaac, the Son of 
 the great Father, Who "so loved the world "f that 
 He sent His Son to die for us. 
 
 Isaac walks along bearing the wood and, poor old 
 Abraham ! his poor old anxious face, every now and 
 then, turns to look at his worshipped, idolised child. 
 He looks at young Isaac; he thinks to himself that the 
 promises of God are centered in this boy ; he is to be 
 the child from whose loins shall spring a nation that 
 shall produce the great Restorer of the human race ; 
 but now his God seems to forget the promise. He 
 looks at the boy and his lip quivers, his eyes moisten 
 with bitter tears; but still the grand, sacred old 
 father walks on, confident in the strength of that faith 
 which has made Abraham "the father of all them 
 that believe." J 
 
 The Lord has given him a spiritual posterity in the 
 Catholic Church of Jesus, the magnificence of which 
 * Genesis xxii. 5. f St. John iii. 16. % Rom. iv. 11.
 
 286 Address to Christians. 
 
 shall abide for ever, and go on extending and growing 
 in beauty and strength, until the spiritual Israel shall 
 be presented, as the bride, before the throne in Heaven, 
 " not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing."* 
 
 Oh, beautiful faith of Abraham ! Let us all bow 
 down and kiss his feet as he pauses on the road, for 
 we are sharers of his faith ; and we are participators 
 of the promise. 
 
 When he reaches the " place which God had told 
 him of,"t it is a hill standing somewhat by itself. In 
 after years the great Altar of the temple of Solomon 
 was built on the spot. 
 
 There, on the spot where Abraham built the altar 
 to sacrifice his son, God's providence built the Altar 
 upon which all the sacrifices were to be offered that 
 were to point to Jesus Christ, "the Lamb" that was to 
 " take away the sin of the world."! This spot, where 
 Abraham was to offer his son Isaac, became so dear 
 to God ! The passion in the heart of God seemed to 
 pour itself out on that spot. Abraham's faith was so 
 wonderfully dear to God that He has consecrated that 
 spot with a tremendous consecration. The shadow of 
 the Cross of Jesus fell on that spot, where Abraham's 
 love and faith to God were so great as to offer Him 
 his " well-beloved son." Oh ! the faith of Abraham 
 has given to me Jesus and His salvation ; and it is by 
 * Ephea. v. 27. f Gen. xxii. 9. t St. John i. 29.
 
 Jehovah-Jireh. 287 
 
 the faith of Abraham, on that mount, that you and I 
 are eternally redeemed. 
 
 Oh ! how God loved that spot, and G-od said in after 
 years, " I will not accept any sacrifice unless it be 
 offered on that spot. I will not accept a sacrifice any- 
 where else ; it must be on that spot where Abraham's 
 faith was tried. That is the only spot in the world 
 upon which I will accept a sacrifice." 
 
 Dear people, are we not drinking in the intense 
 sweetness of the dew of faith in God's sight ? Oh, 
 how a simple trust lays hold of God ! Abraham's 
 magnificent faith, the pertinacity of that faith, was 
 so great that it took God captive ; and Abraham is 
 called by a most blasphemous name if God had not 
 given it to him. He is called " the Friend of God."* 
 And those who trust in Jesus, with the faith that 
 Abraham trusted, these are God's friends, for He 
 says Himself, " I call you not servants : but I have 
 called you friends."t 
 
 So the " friend of God " comes to the spot. He 
 builds the altar of stones. He puts the wood on it ; 
 and little Isaac says : " My father : behold the fire 
 and the wood; bat where is the lamb for a burnt 
 offering?"! Abraham says to Isaac, " Jehovah- 
 Jireh." That is Abraham's answer. He said it 
 
 * St. James ii. 23. f St. John xv. 15. Gen. xxii. 7. 
 God will provide. Gen. xxii. 8.
 
 288 Instructions to Christians. 
 
 with a quivering lip, with a moistened eye, with a 
 trembling hand; but still he said it. "Jehovah- 
 Jireh." And the little boy bowed his head in trust- 
 ful, childlike faith, and followed at his father's side, 
 until they came to the spot " which God had told him 
 of."* Then, all at once, Abraham turned and looked 
 at the boy, and no doubt he kept on repeating in his 
 heart the words " Jehovah- Jireh " that is, the Lord 
 will provide. 
 
 " But there was no voice, nor any that answered."t 
 And then Abraham's faith is strong enough ; he 
 seizes Isaac by the throat, he flings him on the altar ; 
 he takes his murderous knife and raises the dagger 
 in the air, ready to plunge into the boy's breast and 
 then stay now thy hand, " lay not thine hand upon 
 the lad, for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing 
 thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from 
 Me."J The angel of the Lord then points to a 
 little "ram caught in a thicket, behind him, by his 
 horns." 
 
 Jesus Christ is God's Lamb. They put on His 
 head a crown of thorns, and He was caught a willing 
 victim because of Abraham's faith in offering his child. 
 And on the very spot "Jehovah- Jireh!" Abraham's 
 heart burst forth with a whole ocean of joy, and sent 
 
 * Gen. xxii. 9. f 1 Kings xviii. 26. J Gen. xxii. 12. 
 Gen. xxii. 13.
 
 Jehovah-Jireh. 289 
 
 forth streams of gladness and thanksgiving. Oh, 
 how good it was to leave the altar there and to write 
 on it " Jehovah- Jireh !" 'I He called the name of that 
 place " Jehovah-Jireh."* 
 
 Oh ! did Abraham know one-half the meaning of 
 the Jehovah-Jireh ? Did he know, when he wrote 
 those words, that they should only be fulfilled when 
 God gave Christ to be the life, righteousness, peace, 
 salvation of His people ? Did Abraham know 
 that God would provide such a righteousness as He 
 has provided for us ? Did Abraham know that God 
 would provide such a salvation as He has provided in 
 Christ? When Abraham said "theLordwillprovide,"t 
 did Abraham know how much, how gladly, how 
 beautifully, how fully, how eternally He would 
 provide for His people, the true children of Abraham 
 in Jesus ? 
 
 Oh ! when Abraham wrote " Jehovah-Jireh," " the 
 Lord will provide," did he know that the Lord would 
 provide an everlasting righteousness, a divine righ- 
 teousness for all believers ? Did he know that the- 
 heavens would be rent and God Himself, in His own 
 Incarnate Son, would come down to redeem and save, 
 and take out of the captivity of sin and the prison- 
 house of the world, a people amply provided for in all 
 grace, all strength, in all good works ; so that all those 
 * Gen. xxii. 14. f Gen. xxii. 8. 
 
 U
 
 290 Address to Christians. 
 
 who could say " Jehovah- Jireh " could say " the Lord 
 is my Shepherd, I shall not want ? "* 
 
 "Jehovah- Jireh !" The Lord has provided. 
 
 Dear people, is it not unutterably sweet to think 
 that we are able to say " Jehovah-Jireh ?" Don't I 
 remember when first I was able to write " Jehovah- 
 Jireh " upon a certain day in my life ! Do you think 
 after Abraham had put up that altar, and called it 
 " Jehovah-Jireh," that he ever forgot it in all his 
 after troubles, in all his countless difficulties, in all 
 his sorrows and tears ? Do you not think that 
 " Jehovah-Jireh " was, as it were, the mother of a 
 thousand lesser " Jehovah- Jirehs ? " 
 
 How many Jehovah-Jirehs have you put up since 
 you put up the great " Jehovah-Jireh " that you found 
 in Christ, God's provision for your eternal life ? All 
 our daily blessings, all our little passing deliverances, 
 all our consolations in times of earthly trials these 
 are only tiny shreds of the great " Jehovah-Jireh " that 
 you and I set up, when first we received Christ, in His 
 fulness, as God's gift to us. 
 
 Oh ! when I accepted Jesus as God's gift to me, and 
 I put up " Jehovah-Jireh," on that day and in that 
 place, the thought came to me, " shall He not in Christ 
 also freely give us all things ?"f 
 
 If He loved me enough to enable me to write up 
 * Psalm xxiii. 1. f Rom. viii. 32.
 
 Jeho-vah-Jireh. 291 
 
 " Jehovah-Jireh " as to my eternal needs, and ever- 
 lasting needs ; if, in Christ, I saw " Jehovah-Jireh " 
 for my everlasting wants ; if I saw in Christ 
 " Jehovah-Jireh " for my eternal inheritance among 
 the elect ; if in Christ I saw " Jehovah-Jireh " for my 
 eternal righteousness, for my eternal pardon, for my 
 lasting peace ; oh ! can I not trust Him, in days to 
 come, in the smaller necessities of time ? 
 
 If my everlasting necessities have been met, have 
 been completely answered in Christ; if I set up on the 
 Cross of Jesus the words in letters of flaming, fiery 
 love, "Jehovah-Jireh;" if, when I look at my crucifix, 
 I can read " Jehovah-Jireh " there, and know that 
 the Lord has provided on that Cross everlasting 
 salvation, everlasting righteousness, perfect pardon, 
 grace sufficient " to help in every time of need,"* 
 " an inheritance incorruptible that fadeth not away"f 
 if God has provided in Christ what He has, will He 
 not provide, in Christ, for me, for my daily wants, 
 my worldly necessities, my earthly needs ? Will He 
 not, in a Father's love, supply a gracious proof of 
 " Jehovah-Jireh " when I need it most ? Will He not 
 provide a hand to soothe my aching brow and 
 throbbing heart, when dark, cloudy days lower on 
 my heavenward way ? 
 
 When desolation and abandonments, when troubles 
 * Heb. iv. 16. 1 1 Peter i. 4.
 
 292 Address to Christians. 
 
 and disappointments, come, may I not contentedly 
 expect that each one will be a fresh opportunity for 
 me to set up another " Jehovah- Jireh " ? Oh ! there 
 shall nothing happen to those that are Christians but 
 which shall be a " Jehovah-Jireh " on each occasion ! 
 
 This is what our Lord means us to understand when 
 He teaches us to pray " Give us this day our daily 
 bread."* This is what He means when He tells His 
 children to ask of God to supply their needs for the 
 day, according to the necessities of the day not the 
 daily bread of the body that is a mere nothing, but 
 the daily bread of heaven, which is Jesus Himself, the 
 living " Bread which came down from heaven ."f For 
 it is in Christ, from Christ's eternal and Divine fulness 
 and all-sufficiency, that " Jehovah-Jireh " takes place ! 
 It is from Jesus and in Jesus that all our needs are 
 supplied ; and that we are enabled to say, under all 
 circumstances, and on all occasions, " Jehovah-Jireh ! " 
 Oh ! dearest brothers and sisters in the love and in 
 the life of Jesus, is not your life and mine a constant 
 setting up of " Jehovah- Jirehs ? " Can you not look 
 back to days of cloud and mist and doubt and fear, 
 when it seemed as if it were all over with you ? 
 
 Sometimes sin had seemed too strong for us, the 
 world's persecution and influence too mighty ; and we 
 were sinking in the strife, and were almost fallen to the 
 
 * St. Matt. vi. 11. St. Luke xi. 3. f St. John vi. 41.
 
 293 
 
 ground ; when, all at once, there came a mighty influx 
 of Divine consolation, and spiritual strength, and 
 spiritual illumination ; and we were sustained by the 
 fulness that comes forth from the heart of Jesus. 
 
 He delivers us. He comes to soothe, to pacify and 
 to save ; and you put up another ( ' Jehovah-Jireh " ! 
 
 Oh! the Christian's life is a continual repeti- 
 tion of " Jehovah- Jirehs." There is scarcely a 
 place in the Christian's house where he might not 
 put up a " Jehovah-Jireh " of some sort ! 
 
 And, beloved brethren in our precious Jesus, let me 
 ask you, shall we trust Him for the days that are left, 
 for the stormy times that we have yet to pass, for the 
 tempestuous waves that we have yet to brave ? Shall 
 we trust Him when all we love the most shall be 
 gradually taken out of our hand ? Shall we unclasp 
 the hands that grasp the dear one to our breast, and 
 shall we say: "Let Jesus have him or her if He 
 wishes ' Jehovah-Jireh' " ? 
 
 Only a few days ago a Christian mother and 
 father, whom I happened to meet, interested me very 
 much. They had a wonderful little boy of seven 
 years old ; and this little boy was so filled with the 
 Holy Ghost that he used to gloat over his Bible like 
 an ordinary child would gloat over a box of sweets ; 
 and when he found out a particular promise, he would 
 positively dance for joy, and hug his Bible in his
 
 294 Address to Christians. 
 
 arms. His mother told me how delicate lie was ; she 
 said she hoped he would live, but yet she said : " If 
 Jesus wants him let Him take him." 
 
 There had been so many " Jehovah- Jirehs " in her 
 Christian life that she knew there would be a very 
 beautiful " Jehovah- Jireh," if Jesus took the child. 
 Oh ! shall you and I trust Him, when He comes to 
 test and prove us ? God loves to try those He loves 
 the most, because it is through much temptation that 
 our faith is proved, and God is glorified. The Apostle 
 Peter says, our faith is very "precious"* to God; 
 and so is " the trial of our faith precious " t to Him. 
 
 Will you let Him, dear brethren Will you say, let 
 Him " do that which seemeth Him good;" J and will 
 you trust Him for the " Jehovah- Jir eh" ? Oh! do, 
 for you shall not trust in vain ! 
 
 May I give you a passage from David in the sixty- 
 third Psalm, which seems to bring out very sweetly 
 and very harmoniously, and very gently this beautiful 
 thought ? David says : " Because thou hast been 
 my help, therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will 
 I rejoice." 
 
 Because, in the days that are passed, my Jehovah- 
 Jirehs have studded my way, I will go forth and trust 
 in my Lord God, in the days that are coming, and in 
 
 * 2 Peter i. 1. f 1 Peter i. 7. 
 
 $ 2 Sam. x. 12. p sa lm Ixiii. 7.
 
 Jehovah-Jireh. 295 
 
 the love of Him " Who loved me and gave Himself for 
 me ;"* and I know that to the end of the journey 
 " Jehovah- Jirehs " shall be mine, until, in the land 
 where " the weary be at rest,"f and the weepers in 
 Jerusalem rejoice for ever, I shall set up my eternal 
 " Jehovah- Jireh " beside the Throne; and I shall cry 
 out with the hosts of the redeemed : He hath " done 
 all things well ; " He was faithful to the promise. 
 
 Oh! what " Jehovah- Jirehs " we shall have in 
 Heaven ! Oh ! what " Jehovah- Jirehs" we shall sing to 
 the angels ; and when we say our " Jehovah-Jireh " 
 psalms, the very angels will be ashamed of their chants 
 and anthems of praise, for our " Jehovah- Jirehs " shall 
 have a sweeter harmony for the ear of the most High, 
 than all the songs of the angels " Jehovah-Jireh !" 
 
 My brethren, perhaps next month, perhaps before 
 the season is out, you will want to look out for a 
 " Jehovah-Jireh." Remember, when everything seems 
 darkest, when your heart is all of a quiver, when your 
 whole outer man is trembling, as you stand on the 
 threshold of some great sorrow ; remember the days 
 of light and the loving-kindness in the past ; and trust 
 in Jesus and get ready to write, with the hand of your 
 soul "Jehovah- Jireh ;" and the deliverance is sure to 
 come to the " child of promise." 
 
 How many of us, lastly, will set up a "Jehovah-Jireh" 
 * Gal. ii. 20. t Job iii. 17.
 
 296 Address to Christians. 
 
 at the foot of our dying bed ? I have to die soon so 
 have you. Have any of us a natural fear of death; 
 have any of us here a physical horror of that strange 
 passage out of the body ? Oh, that will be the last 
 opportunity for setting up a Jehovah Jireh ! Won't 
 we set it up ? Oh! won't we, when tears are falling 
 quietly around us, and our eyes are closed to all that 
 is going on of weeping and grief ; won't we set up a 
 " Jehovah- Jireh," with that song of the heart, when 
 our lips are too faint to articulate the words : " Yea, 
 though I walk through the valley of the shadow of 
 death, I will fear no evil : for Thou art with me " ? * 
 Brethren, if there be anything for which I most 
 long for myself, it is that when I come to die I may 
 set up such a " Jehovah- Jireh " as shall glorify the 
 " God of Abraham," f and shall prove the faithfulness 
 of His loving-kindness to them that believe. 
 
 * Psalm xxiii. 4. f Exodus iii. 6.
 
 XVI. 
 
 ifjj ai <rtors att& Sarranunis in 
 Cjmrrfr o 
 
 Monday Afternoon, May 24*A, 1886.
 
 of <rb*rs aittr ^aaam^nts in 
 Cjmrrjr oi 
 
 Prayer before Oration. 
 
 O Almighty God, Who hast given to the disciples of 
 Jesus, a desire, in their inmost hearts, to glorify -Him, and 
 to show forth His praise, grant to us that words may be 
 spoken, at this time, which may glorify Thy blessed Son, and 
 be in harmony with His will, and in obedience to His word. 
 And let Thy blessing rest upon us, at this present time, 
 through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
 
 300 Oration. 
 
 THE VALIDITY OF ORDERS AND SACRA- 
 MENTS IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ration. 
 
 " And they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and 
 fellowship." Acts ii. 42. 
 
 I want this afternoon to speak very respectfully to 
 my hearers, and in a very undictatorial spirit. I only 
 want just to give my own reasons for believing that 
 the Church of England possesses real Orders and real 
 Sacraments ; and I hope that I shall say nothing 
 offensive, or disrespectful, to our Roman Catholic 
 brethren ; or words either which may wound the 
 hearts and feelings of Protestant Christians. 
 
 But I want my hearers, who have been following 
 me during the past week, in my mission here, to 
 understand why I think I am right in holding the 
 position that I do, and that I desire always to keep, 
 as a member of the Church of England. 
 
 Having made these remarks, by way of preface, I am 
 sure that my kind hearers will forgive me if I inadver- 
 tently, in the heat of extempore speaking, say anything 
 contrary to the feeling that I have just expressed.
 
 Validity of Anglican Orders. 301 
 
 It seems to me, then, that the Church of England is 
 in a most painfully peculiar position before the eyes of 
 all Christendom. 
 
 On the one side we are ignored almost entirely by 
 the Western Church, and also by the Eastern 
 Churches. They do not authoritatively, at any 
 rate, or corporately, acknowledge either that we 
 possess a valid Christian ministry, that we are " in 
 the fellowship of the Apostles,"* or that we possess 
 valid Sacraments. 
 
 Now, it is no use closing our eyes to this fact ; and 
 it is of no use making light of it ; because it is a terrible 
 and important fact, that neither Eastern Christendom 
 nor Western Christendom acknowledge our position 
 as a part of the visible Catholic Church of Christ. 
 
 And then, on the other side, consider those who are 
 zealous and earnest Protestants ; for here again our 
 position, in the Church of England, prevents us from 
 holding any intercommunion whatever with Pro- 
 testants. We are, by virtue of the assertion, in the 
 preface of our Ordinal, debarred from holding inter- 
 communion with any Protestant Church at all. We 
 are not allowed to admit to our altars any Presby- 
 terian, Lutheran, or Calvinistic clergy. We are 
 compelled to ignore utterly and entirely the ordina- 
 tion of ministers of all the Protestant Churches. 
 * Acts ii. 42
 
 302 Oration. 
 
 So, just see on the one hand the Catholic portion of 
 Christendom denies the validity of our Orders, denies 
 our credentials, and disputes the assertions that we 
 make as to our Catholic position ; while, on the other 
 hand, we, by our Catholic position, on the subject 
 of Sacraments and ministry, debar ourselves utterly 
 and entirely from communication with all Protestant 
 sects ; so that even our Protestant brethren ought to 
 take the matter up from their point of view. 
 
 We are therefore an isolated Church in the centre 
 of Christendom. 
 
 It seems to me to be a most painful, and a most sad, 
 pitiable, and discreditable position, which the Church 
 of England occupies. Can nothing be done to remedy 
 this state of affairs ? Surely the truth of our claims 
 ought to be investigated by lawful authority, as to 
 whether we are what we say we are, or whether we are 
 not. Would you and I rather that the matter were 
 not ventilated ; or do you not think that the time has 
 come when the matter should be authoritatively, and 
 in a Christian and bold spirit, investigated to the very 
 bottom ? It seems to me that this time has come. 
 
 Surely our present Archbishop of Canterbury has 
 some very grave interest in the question as to whether 
 he is an archbishop at all, and whether he rules over 
 any true, vital, living, historical, animated portion of 
 the one visible Church of Christ ! Surely it is a
 
 Validity of Anglican Orders. 303 
 
 question of which he cannot afford to make light, 
 when the whole of Christendom is separated from us, 
 and denies the validity of our claims ! 
 
 Surely also Bishop Ryle, and many of his school, 
 ought to take the matter up from their point of view. 
 Bishop Kyle would be compelled to accept a Koman 
 Catholic priest as a real minister of the Church 
 of England, if he made his submission to the 
 Church of England ; whereas, if the Presbyterian 
 clergyman of Blair Athol, in whose church he (Bishop 
 Ryle) himself officiated, desired for Christian com- 
 munion, he would have to treat his friend, the Pres- 
 byter of Blair Athol, as not ordained at all. This is 
 a very difficult position for Bishop Ryle and his school ; 
 and it seems to me, from both sides of the question, 
 Catholic and Protestant alike, that this subject ought 
 to be brought forward, very determinately, by men 
 of spirit, position, influence, and education. Do 
 you think, for a moment, that the question is so unim- 
 portant with regard to Christendom generally that 
 the authorities of the Church of Rome would refuse 
 to look into the matter ? 
 
 Our Roman Catholic brethren say that the thing 
 has been decided once and for all. I cannot see that 
 it has. I have never heard of such a thing as an 
 authoritative definition upon the subject. I know 
 speaking generally, that the Roman Catholics ignore
 
 304 Oration. 
 
 our Orders; but Dr. Lee has put into our hands a 
 book which all English churchmen ought to read. 
 He has put before us, in a popular form, facts which 
 make it certain, beyond a doubt, that there have been 
 considerable acknowledgments respecting our Orders 
 from men of authority in the Roman Church, who 
 were highly competent, by their learning and position, 
 to express an opinion on the subject ; and I should 
 like to say, before I go further, that I am much 
 indebted to Dr. Lee and his book for what I am going 
 to say in regard to this portion of my lecture. 
 
 There are very many tractates issued by the 
 Roman Catholics to disprove the assertions that are 
 made in favour of the validity of the ministry of the 
 Church of England ; one particularly by a Roman 
 Benedictine monk, Father Breme, full of very interest- 
 ing facts ; but still, at the same time, full of a very 
 great many assertions that are really valueless. 
 
 I should like to give you an instance of what I 
 mean. Dr. Lee gives us very clearly, in his book, 
 the letter of Bishop Bonner with respect to the rein- 
 statement of Bishop Scory to his office in the Church 
 of England, in the time of Queen Mary. Bishop 
 Scory had been ordained by the new Order, which our 
 Roman Catholic friends say is totally invalid, and in- 
 competent to confer Orders. 
 
 Dr. Lee gives us this letter; but Father Breme says
 
 Validity of Anglican Orders. 305 
 
 that there has been a misuso made of this letter that 
 Bishop Bonner was not authorised to reinstate Bishop 
 Scory, of Chichester, in his episcopate. He was only 
 permitted to reinstate him as a priest in the diocese of 
 London, to celebrate the divine services ; and that he 
 only called him bishop out of courtesy. I really think, 
 with all due deference to such a superior person as 
 Father Breme, that if we take into consideration the 
 circumstances under which Bishop Bonner wrote, 
 he would have been the very last person, for courtesy's 
 sake, to have told a lie of that sort ; for if Scory were 
 not absolutely a bishop of the Christian Church, it was, 
 under such circumstances, a lie to call him so. 
 
 I shall be able to give but a very imperfect lecture ; 
 for, owing to my state of health, and the very heavy 
 work of the mission, I am sorry to say I have not been 
 able to think over the subject half as much as I had 
 wished to have done. 
 
 But I want to place before you some objections for 
 your consideration ; and then to give you my very 
 simple, commonplace answers as a mere common-sense 
 Englishman. 
 
 Our Roman Catholic brethen, then, fix us entirely 
 upon the question of the consecration of the first, so- 
 called Protestant, Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew 
 Parker. He was the first archbishop of the new regime, 
 and our Roman Catholic brethren say that he was no 
 
 w
 
 306 Oration. 
 
 archbishop at all ; and that, as we derive our Orders 
 and Sacraments through him, they are entirely invalid, 
 for the following reason : who was it that consecrated 
 Matthew Parker Archbishop of Canterbury ? It was 
 William Barlow, Bishop-elect of Chichester ; but not 
 actual Bishop of Chichester. 
 
 Now, before I enter upon this subject, I would 
 remind you, with all due respect, that our Roman 
 Catholic brethren have not been very particular about 
 their methods of attacking us ; because, if you remem- 
 ber, for a very considerable time they used to urge 
 the " Nag's Head " story. They have given that up 
 now ; but it was used very determinately by men 
 whose names really would render them worthy of our 
 esteem in most matters ; but our Roman Catholic 
 brethren, on the other hand, have been so shamefully 
 treated, from our side, that it is really no wonder that 
 they have resorted to any amount of animosity to 
 retain their position, 
 
 We had brought them to such a pitch, and had 
 robbed and treated them in such a diabolical manner, 
 that it is no wonder they were full of very bitter 
 human feelings against those who had treated them 
 in this way. 
 
 But still, violence is not argument, and we must 
 take, cum grano salis, the very weightiest argument 
 used against us ; and it is a very important point if
 
 Validity of Anglican Orders. 307 
 
 they are able to prove that we are no Church and no 
 Catholics at all. 
 
 The first statement is, that Barlow was not con- 
 secrated, as we say he was, in the year 1536, in the 
 reign of Henry VIII., by the old English Catholic 
 ritual ; for, remember, Barlow was consecrated, as 
 bishop, at the time when no other ordinal but the 
 old English Sarum ordinal was used. 
 
 Before the Reformation there were no such things as 
 Roman Catholic books used in the Church of England 
 at all. The first ones were introduced in the reign of 
 Queen Mary. Barlow acted as bishop in the reign of 
 Henry VIII., who, no matter how bad a creature, how 
 great a tyrant, and how immoral a man, he was, was a 
 a great stickler for everything Catholic ; for Henry 
 VIII., so far as his conscience (if he had any) was con- 
 cerned, was an out-and-out Catholic; and he would 
 have taken pretty good care that nobody should have 
 acted as bishop without being properly consecrated. 
 
 Another argument used is that Barlow was no 
 bishop at all, because there was no record of his con- 
 secration. That is a fact. There is no record of it in 
 the Lambeth Register of Archbishop Cranmer ; but, 
 brethren, if there be any argument in that we shall 
 be able to show that other consecrations are not to be 
 found in the Lambeth Register. 
 
 Archbishop Cranmer' s register was kept in a very
 
 308 Oration. 
 
 slovenly manner ; and it is not in one whole, but con- 
 sists of several different parts sewn together; and 
 therefore there is nothing astonishing in the fact that 
 Bishop Barlow's consecration is not to be found. 
 
 There are other omissions, and among them is 
 Bishop Gardiner's. That cannot be found, and yet 
 we have had no question, from the Eoman side, of 
 Bishop G-ardiner's consecration, because he was one 
 opposed to the " reforming " party ! 
 
 So that I think the fact of Bishop Barlow's conse- 
 cration not being found in the Lambeth Register is 
 no evidence whatever to prove that he was not a 
 lawful bishop. It is ridiculous to suppose, for a 
 moment, that he would have been allowed to act as a 
 Catholic bishop unless he actually had been one ; for 
 Henry VIII., I repeat, would have been the very first 
 to have brought such a matter to book. 
 
 Then we find him acting in concert with other 
 Catholic bishops, and being styled by one of these 
 bishops, his " brother Bishop of St. David's." There- 
 fore, the Catholics would be themselves to blame for 
 acknowledging a bishop who had never been 
 consecrated ! 
 
 Then another argument is that Barlow was no 
 bishop at all because such very loose ideas, at that 
 time, were held about the necessity of consecration. 
 That is a most absurdly ridiculous statement. Who
 
 Validity of Anglican Orders. 309 
 
 held the loose ideas about the consecration of bishops ? 
 Who ? Certainly not the pope of the Reformation, 
 Henry VIII., for he held the most determined ideas 
 upon Catholic matters ; and do you mean to say that 
 Cranmer, who was such a pitiable tool of Henry VIII., 
 would have gone against the violent prejudices of 
 Henry VIII. in the matter ? 
 
 No matter how loose Cranmer's ideas were upon 
 the subject of the consecration of bishops, he would 
 not have dared to allow such a grave irregularity as 
 this. Cranmer did not mind chopping off other 
 people's heads, but he took precious good care that 
 he did not jeopardise his own ! 
 
 Then we are told that when Parker was consecrated, 
 Barlow only, of the four consecrators, used the words 
 of consecration. Now, I do not see how our Roman 
 Catholic brethren can make a point of this, because 
 they have not at present settled what is the formula 
 of episcopal consecration ; and if we come to consider 
 that many of the popes have settled that much of the 
 ritual is unnecessary to the validity of Orders, I think 
 that our Roman Catholic brethren are living in a glass 
 house themselves, in these minor points ; and before 
 they throw stones at the Church of England, they 
 should remember that we could throw stones at them 
 with great effect. 
 
 I do not know whether I am correct in saying that
 
 310 Oration. 
 
 it is only five hundred years since the Roman Church 
 had the word dicentes in the rubric. If so, according 
 to their own argument, the validity of the consecration 
 of the bishops, previous to that time, was questionable ! 
 
 But our Roman Catholic friends have not proved 
 that Barlow alone said the words of consecration ! It is 
 an open question whether the other bishops did not say 
 the words our records go to prove that they all did 
 but that is so unimportant that I need not deal with it. 
 
 Another argument used is, that the form of the 
 ordinal of Edward VI., which was used in the conse- 
 cration of Matthew Parker, was invalid. Now, here is 
 a very difficult question for them. What constitutes 
 the invalidity of the form of ordination ? 
 
 If the whole of Christendom were appealed to on 
 the subject, I cannot believe they would go further 
 than this. They would say : all that is necessary for 
 the validity of the consecration of a bishop is imposi- 
 tion of hands and prayer. Now, if they could prove 
 that there is no imposition of hands, or that there is 
 no prayer for the special purpose of the consecration 
 of bishops, in the ordinal of Edward VI., then, I say, 
 they have materially shaken our position ; but if the 
 whole of the service, and the whole of the prayers and 
 ceremonials, are proved to be for the express purpose 
 of consecrating a bishop ; and the bishops put their 
 hands on the one to be consecrated, saying: "Receive
 
 Validity of Anglican Orders. 31 1 
 
 the Holy Ghost," it is perfectly sufficient according to 
 the testimony of the universal visible Church of Christ. 
 
 Then, if the Roman Catholic brethren say that that 
 ordinal was invalid, without any further reason, we 
 must say: "very well, your popes were willing to 
 sanction it, for Popes Pius IV. and Paul IV. both 
 agreed to sanction the Prayer Book and the ordinal." 
 I think I am correct in saying this ; if I am not, can 
 anyone tell me ? 
 
 If Queen Elizabeth would only have accepted the 
 authority of the Bishop of Rome, he was prepared to 
 accept the Prayer Book in its then condition, which 
 included the ordinal ; so that our Roman Catholic 
 brethren must find fault with the popes of that day for 
 being willing to accept the ordinal. Either the Roman 
 Catholics of the present day or the popes of that day 
 are wrong ; both cannot be right. 
 
 Therefore, if the present Roman Catholics are cor- 
 rect in asserting the invalidity of the form of our ordi- 
 nal, the popes of that day were both wrong, and very 
 far from infallible, in their judgment on the matter. 
 
 Another argument that has been used is, that the 
 consecration of Archbishop Parker was challenged by 
 the Catholic party five years after the event took 
 place ; and as we follow the arguments of the Roman 
 Catholic party we cannot help acknowledging that it 
 was challenged. But then there was another Roman 
 Catholic party that did not challenge it ; and if we
 
 3 1 2 Oration. 
 
 follow Dr. Lee's work, which I feel we are very safe 
 in doing, some of the greatest Catholics of Europe 
 examined the subject and stated that Parker's Orders 
 were absolutely valid. I refer to the decision of the 
 great theological faculty of Paris in particular. 
 
 The last argument used is, that because the conse- 
 crating bishop did not deliver the chalice and patten, 
 the ceremony was invalid ; but that is too silly to talk 
 about. It is such a modern ceremony; and if our 
 priests are not consecrated, then the Roman Catholics 
 were not consecrated either, for hundreds of years. 
 That is, comparatively speaking, a modern ceremonial. 
 
 One question which has troubled a great many 
 Church people is this that baptism has been so 
 carelessly practised in the Church of England that 
 fears have been expressed, very often, whether some 
 of our bishops have even been baptized. Well, we 
 cannot deny this fact, unfortunately, that baptism, in 
 our churches, has been very carelessly administered, 
 and very often very imperfectly performed; and as 
 the Sacrament of baptism is the initiatory Sacrament 
 to all the other Sacraments, a man who is not baptized 
 cannot be a lawful bishop; and a young friend the 
 
 other day at " " came to me and said that he felt 
 
 that he must become a Roman Catholic because Arch- 
 bishop Tait had never been properly baptized. 
 
 Do you know, brethren, I may be very wrong here,
 
 Validity of Anglican Orders. 313 
 
 and I may be very much mistaken ; but in a question 
 of such solemn moment as this I am so exceedingly 
 comforted by my faith in our most loving God. I feel 
 most perfectly restful on the matter, because I feel 
 perfectly assured that the providence of our loving 
 Father would overrule a matter like this present one. 
 He knew that that young child was to be Archbishop 
 of a great Church the instrument through which the 
 fellowship of the Apostles would flow, for our part 
 of the visible Church ; and do you not believe that He 
 would, in His Fatherly love and providence, secure 
 the validity of the initiatory Sacrament ? In such a 
 case, if I could doubt God in this matter, I could 
 doubt Him in everything ; and I was so thankful, when 
 this young man put this before me, that I was able to 
 lift up my own heart to God, and his heart too ; and I 
 felt perfectly content in the matter. 
 
 But " what is sauce for the Church of England 
 goose is sauce for the Roman Catholic gander"; and 
 we find that such things as careless Roman baptisms, 
 in the Roman Church, are possible. 
 
 Why, as we see in Dr. Lee's book, the present 
 great learned divine Dollinger does not know whether 
 he has been baptized for certain ; and then he tells us 
 of a bishop of Spain who was baptized without the 
 formula being used at all ; and it was found out after 
 he had been made bishop !
 
 314 Oration. 
 
 So that I really think that a point like this is an 
 argument which would cut both ways ; and unhappily 
 there are in the Church of Rome, as well as in the 
 Church of England, priests who do not believe in 
 Christ. They are quite as broad in the Church of 
 Rome as in the Church of England; the only dif- 
 ference being that the exercise of Roman discipline 
 keeps them silent about their belief, whereas our 
 Broad Church school speaks out without any fear. 
 
 But what about the baptism performed by a man 
 who does not believe in the divinity of Christ in the 
 Church of Rome ? Do you think that his intention 
 would be to do what that Church, of which he is 
 priest, intends, when he does not believe the very 
 fundamental doctrine on which it rests ? 
 
 Therefore, I say, this argument would cut too far ; 
 it would cut both ways with equal force ; because the 
 validity of the Sacrament would be dependent on the 
 intentions of the priest, according to Roman doctrine- 
 
 Then another argument used is : the Church has 
 so often added to the ordination rites that it is not 
 safe to tamper with any of them. I am too stupid to 
 see the argument of that. 
 
 Our present ordination service is made use of as a 
 very powerful argument against our Orders. The 
 ordination services, which we now use, date from 
 1662 j and there have been several improvements
 
 Validity of Anglican Orders. 315 
 
 made in this service. Things that were omitted in 
 the ordinal of Edward VI. were added to the present 
 ordinal in 1662 ; and our Roman Catholic brethren 
 acknowledge that they were a great improvement ; but 
 that they came one hundred years too late. But the 
 improvements of 1662 were non-essential, just the 
 same as the improvements which the Roman Church 
 has been continually making are non-essential. 
 
 In our ordination services there is no difference in the 
 essential rites, in the laying on of hands, and prayer ; 
 and this is all that is necessary, by the consent of the 
 greatest teachers, and even popes of the Church of 
 Rome. 
 
 Then our Roman Catholic brethren say : " You 
 Church of England people try to make a great point 
 of the fact that in your reformed Prayer Books you 
 retained the word " priest ; " and as you retained the 
 word "priest" you say it shows that the Church of 
 England intended to continue the true priesthood to 
 which the reformers were opposed." But the reformers 
 used the term " priest" in a non-Catholic sense. 
 
 But we say this is not so ; and I think that the 
 whole of this question is settled by an appeal to the 
 preface in our ordinal. 
 
 What are the two things which the Church of 
 England, since the Reformation, has not allowed a 
 deacon to perform ? The very two things which consti-
 
 316 Oration. 
 
 tute the essence of the Christian priesthood, as acknow- 
 ledged by the Church of Rome, viz : the Consecration 
 of the Eucharist and the giving of Absolution. Those 
 are the two things that a deacon is not allowed to per- 
 form, as functions peculiar to the Priest. 
 
 Therefore, I say, the Church of England then uses 
 the word " priest " in its own, original sense, as the 
 Church of Rome herself uses the word. The Church 
 of England thus shows that she holds the word "priest" 
 to mean what the whole of Catholic Christendom holds 
 it to mean. 
 
 I shall conclude now by just a short reference to 
 the question of " jurisdiction." Many Roman Catholics 
 now say that we have a valid priesthood. They are 
 quite willing to acknowledge that. They are willing 
 to follow the opinions of those Roman Catholics of 
 last century, and the century before, who examined 
 into the question, and pronounced in favour of our 
 Orders; but they say: "although you have a valid 
 ministry, you have no jurisdiction." Why ? Because 
 the Bishop of Rome is the sole source of jurisdiction. 
 
 We know that when a man has been made a 
 bishop he has a special territorial locality allotted to 
 him, in which he is to exercise the office of a bishop. 
 
 He must not go into the diocese of another to 
 exercise it. This jurisdiction, say our Roman Catholic 
 brethren, can be allotted by the pope only.
 
 Validity of Anglican Orders. 317 
 
 If this be a fact our Roman Catholic friends 
 must blot out from their calendars the names of a 
 great many old Celtic saints. I want you to be very 
 attentive to this, because there is a large Roman 
 Catholic school which acknowledges the validity of our 
 Orders, but denies our jurisdiction. 
 
 If jurisdiction be from papal authority only, they 
 must expunge from their calendars all our old Celtic 
 saints ; for from whom did St. Aidan and St. Colman 
 receive their jurisdiction ? I should think they received 
 it (we know certainly they did not receive it from 
 the pope) from their abbot, who very likely was only 
 a layman the Right Rev. the Lord Abbot of lona 
 who arranged the matter between the Northumbrian 
 kings and themselves. He had bishops under him 
 as monks ; and he sent these bishops out to exercise 
 the episcopal function in Northern England, in 
 harmony with the express desire of the Northum- 
 brian kings ; so that these bishops received their 
 jurisdiction equally from the kings and their own 
 abbots by agreement. 
 
 May I ask also, from whom did our own mag- 
 nificent patron saint of Wales, St. David, receive 
 his jurisdiction ? From whom did our old British 
 bishops receive their jurisdiction ? We know perfectly 
 well that they repudiated with rather an ebullition 
 of temper, I must confess the authority of the Pope.
 
 318 Oration. 
 
 It was not their fault. It was St. Augustine's bump- 
 tiousness, if I might use such a word of so holy a 
 man, that caused them to utterly refuse any foreign 
 interference with their ancient Churches. 
 
 I think then that the question of jurisdiction can 
 be very easily settled, for there were bishops of the 
 ancient British Church, long before St. Augustine's 
 visit, who certainly never received the jurisdiction 
 from the Pope, and yet are accepted by the Roman 
 Church as canonised saints. I refer especially to St. 
 Dubricius, St. Cadoc, St. Illtud, St. Sampson, and 
 many more of the canonized British bishops. 
 
 We find that Pope Eleutherius never attempted to 
 exercise any papal supremacy over our island when he 
 sent missionaries here. There always was a very 
 strong, determined feeling in our land of holding 
 our national independence as a bond fide portion of 
 the one Apostolic Church of Christ. 
 
 I have spoken very lengthily, and perhaps to some 
 very uninterestingly ; but I have thrown out some of 
 the thoughts that seem to be very powerful in my 
 own mind on this subject ; and I think that if some of 
 our chief men of the present day, both Roman and 
 Anglican, could form a committee of investigation on 
 the subject, a very great work, for the glory of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, would be done ; for the painful 
 position in which the Church of England stands ought 
 to be regretted by all Protestants and Catholics alike.
 
 XVII. 
 ift ^rotestant Clmr^: M^at is Jt? 
 
 @rafion. 
 
 Tuesday Afternoon, October 27th, 1885.
 
 froiestent &$ttxfy : M^t is ft 
 
 Prayer before Oration. 
 
 Lord Jesus Christ, who seest and knowest the hearts of 
 all men, and especially the hearts of Thine own people, we 
 beseech Thee grant that our meeting together at this time, in 
 this place, may be for Thy glory ; and that the subject before 
 us may be so treated that Thy name may be glorified in 
 the hearts of everyone here present. Oh ! let us learn, more 
 and more, what Thou art, to each one who believes, and how 
 Thy Church is made up of all who put their trust in Thee. 
 
 Grant to us the help of Thy Holy Spirit, at this time, that 
 this meeting may not be in vain, as far as Thy glory, and our 
 own good, and our own spiritual education are concerned. 
 Grant our petitions, O Jesus Christ, the common Saviour of 
 all who believe, for Thine own precious Name's sake. Amen.
 
 322 Oration. 
 
 THE PROTESTANT CHURCH : WHAT IS IT ? 
 Oration. 
 
 " Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of 
 the Living God." St. Matth. xvi. 16. 
 
 Now, here we see a most wonderful confession of 
 Christ's Messiahship and of Christ's Divinity ! Here 
 we see, in the midst of public opinion to the contrary, 
 a very distinct and clear declaration of that wonderful 
 Incarnation of Christ, about which men knew nothing. 
 
 Peter declares Christ to be the Son of the Living 
 God, and " The Christ." Our Lord then says to Peter, 
 " Thou art Peter " (i.e. rocky) ; and on this rock of 
 which thou art now a part, by thy confession of Me, 
 "The Rock of Ages "I will build. I Christ only 
 will build on this " Rock of Ages " ; of which the 
 Apostle St. Paul, in another place, taught of God, 
 says " That Rock was Christ."* 
 
 But think how Peter had received the knowledge 
 to confess Jesus to be God Almighty and " the 
 Christ." He here confesses Christ to be that very 
 * 1 Cor. x. 4.
 
 The Protestant Church : What is It ? 323 
 
 Eock of which the Psalmists and Prophets sang. He 
 declares Christ, in spite of all the contrary public 
 opinions of the day, to be " The Rock of Ages," even 
 the Living God ; and then, when he declares this faith, 
 our Lord tells him whence he obtained it. It was 
 not from flesh and blood f rom any human teacher ; it 
 was not through any human means. He received his 
 knowledge straight from the teaching of the Holy 
 Ghost. " Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto 
 thee."* 
 
 And it is just the same now. Flesh and blood 
 cannot reveal Christ to the sinner. It must be the 
 distinct revelation of the Holy Ghost, teaching and 
 convincing the heart of the individual man. So it is 
 on this Rock, which Peter, by the inspiration of the 
 Holy Ghost, confessed Christ to be ; it is on this 
 Rock that Christ will build. He is the Architect. 
 No one can build Christ's Church but Christ 
 Himself; He calls it "My Church."-^ He says that 
 " against this Church," which He will build on 
 Himself, " the gates of hell shall not prevail." And 
 the gates are a figurative expression for "the powers;" 
 the powers of hell shall not prevail against Christ's 
 Church. 
 
 Therefore Christ's Church is an indestructible 
 Church. It is a Church not one part of which, by 
 * St. Matt xvi. 17 f St. Matt. xvi. 18.
 
 324 Oration. 
 
 any possibility, can be lost. If one single part of 
 Christ's Church can perish, the gates of hell have 
 prevailed against it. Therefore the Church which 
 He has built on "the Kock," the Church which 
 Christ Himself builds on Himself, stone by stone as 
 St. Peter tells us in his 1st Epistle, " Lively stones 
 are built up a spiritual house "* cannot be prevailed 
 against by the gates of hell. This is the mark of 
 Christ's Church. 
 
 And now, having taken this short view of the 
 Church of Christ, as to Who is its Builder, how it 
 is built, wherewith it is built, and what promise the 
 Builder has made with regard to it, we will proceed 
 to the subject of our address this afternoon. 
 
 Those who have been attending our mission during 
 the past week will be fairly saturated with one idea, 
 and so saturated with this one idea that none of them 
 will misrepresent what I have taught. Some people, 
 however, who do not follow us, go away with very 
 false and incorrect impressions, and they mis- 
 represent us (though not intentionally, I am sure) 
 for the simple reason that they will not give us a 
 full and fair hearing. Now you, who have followed 
 me during the whole of the past week, will be filled 
 with this idea, that it is no use whatever belonging to 
 any visible Church UNTIL we believe in Christ. 
 * 1 Peter ii. 5.
 
 The Protestant Church : What is It? 325 
 
 Unless a man has come to Christ, unless a man 
 has a personal trust in Christ, as his personal 
 Saviour, it is of no use his belonging to any visible 
 Church ; and the question of Church is, therefore, an 
 after question. 
 
 When a man has sought Christ, and by a saving, 
 living faith has received Christ in His fulness, as 
 God's gift to him, then is the time for him to look 
 about to see to which Church he should belong. 
 
 And, having settled that first matter, we yesterday 
 considered the position of the Church of Borne in the 
 nineteenth century. This afternoon we are going to 
 consider " The Protestant Church, and What is it ?" 
 You see I ask the question, " What is it ?" 
 
 In no part of our Prayer Book is the word 
 " Protestant " used, and we have no right to apply 
 that term to the Church of England. 
 
 I am here this afternoon, not to speak of the 
 Church of Rome we spoke of that yesterday ; and 
 I am not here to speak of the Church of England, 
 but of the " Protestant Church." And I repeat that, 
 in the first place, you will see, by our notice, that I 
 ask the question, " What is it ?" 
 
 I confess to myself that this is a very difficult 
 question to answer. We shall not have time for 
 much argument ; but I should very much like some 
 kind Christian Protestant present to give me the
 
 326 Oration. 
 
 fixed definition of "the Protestant Church." What 
 is the Protestant Church ? 
 
 If you will allow me to answer it, I should say, as a 
 matter of history and fact, knowing as I do the 
 original use of the term " Protestant," that a Pro- 
 testant is simply a member of the German Lutheran 
 Church ; and that all other Churches, which call them- 
 selves Protestant, are not Protestant in an historical 
 sense; because we know, perfectly well, that it was 
 Luther, and those who followed him, in his part of 
 what was called " the Reformation," who first adopted 
 and applied the word " Protestant." 
 
 Therefore, to answer the question at once, it seems 
 to me we must say that the German Lutheran Church 
 is the Protestant Church. 
 
 But then this is simply answering the question 
 from an historical point of view ; it is not entirely 
 correct, for we know that the word has been extended 
 beyond its proper limits. We know very well that 
 there are very many bodies of Christians in London 
 who would call themselves Protestants, but who would 
 deny that they were Lutherans. I do not think they 
 would wish for the term if they realised the teaching, 
 on Sacraments for instance, which is one of the 
 chief peculiarities of Lutherans. 
 
 Therefore, all such are entirely separate from the 
 term Protestant in its historical meaning.
 
 The Protestant Church : What is It ? 327 
 
 The word "Protestant" is not merely used in a 
 technical sense either j but it is also used in a popular 
 smse. And I think that the word Protestant means, 
 ii a popular sense, all those who have protested 
 against the Catholic Church ; including the whole of 
 th>se communities who protest against the general 
 Church of Christendom, for that is the meaning of 
 the word Catholic. 
 
 ]t is not only against the Church of Rome that the 
 woid " Protestant " is used, for Protestants also 
 cle&rly protest against, what they call, the corruptions 
 of tie Greek Church and of the Russian Church. To 
 shov you that it does not mean only those who protest 
 against Popery, you know perfectly well that these 
 same people would not apply the term " Protestant " 
 to ihe Greek Church. And both the Greek and 
 Russian Churches protest most emphatically against 
 the Pope ! 
 
 S) we find that the word Protestant does not mean 
 all who protest against the Church of Rome. Pro- 
 testants would consider it an indignity to be classed 
 with the Russian, the Abyssinian, and the Ar- 
 menian Churches ; yet all these Churches protest 
 against the Pope. 
 
 It seems to me, therefore, that the correct definition 
 of the term Protestant is a person who protests 
 against the general Church of Christendom.
 
 328 Oration. 
 
 Protestants are a body of persons who have joined, 
 in some shape or form, with the great helpers of th. 
 revolution, against the general Church. 
 
 I have been accustomed, during the last ten days, 
 to so much politeness and charity and patience fron 
 my hearers, that I feel I shall be heard with the sane 
 patience and kindness this afternoon ; and I w?sh 
 to say, in passing, that I do not set up my opinims 
 as infallible any more than you would set up yoirs; 
 but I am only just giving you my own, when I slall 
 leave you to judge of them according to your cwn 
 light and conscience. You may be quite right on 
 this point, and I may be quite wrong; but I am tery 
 anxious for my general congregations to know my 
 opinions on such points. 
 
 We see, then, that the Protestant Church, histori- 
 cally, is simply the Lutheran Church of Germany; 
 but we put aside the historical idea of the W3rd, 
 because it is not conterminous with the use that is 
 now made of it, when Protestants are supposed to 
 consist of all those who have separated from the 
 doctrine and from the discipline of the general Church 
 of Christendom. 
 
 To make this idea still more clear, I would ask this 
 question : would Protestants feel themselves any more 
 at home in the worship of the Russian or Greek 
 Churches than with the Eoman Catholics ? They
 
 The Protestant Church: What is It? 329 
 
 would not find nearly as much satisfaction in wor- 
 shipping in those Churches as they would in the 
 Eoman Catholic Church ; for they would find much in 
 the Roman Catholic service that is in their own service. 
 They would, in point of fact, be more at home in the 
 Eoman Catholic than in the Greek Church. 
 
 Take, then, the word " Protestant " to mean all those 
 who protest against the general doctrine, the general 
 government, and the general worship of general 
 Christendom ; and I shall show you to-night that the 
 Church of England has never done this. And tjiat is 
 why the Church of England always uses the term 
 ". Catholic " in her creeds ; and the Greek Church, in 
 her services, also uses the word " Catholic." 
 
 I like that old English honesty of the farmer, who, 
 when he repeated the creed and came to the words 
 " I believe in the Catholic Church," instead of saying 
 these words, used to stamp his foot and say, " I believe 
 in the Protestant Church ;" and when his friends asked 
 him how he could do that in church, answered that 
 we called ourselves Protestants out of church, and he 
 wasn't going to call himself anything else in church ! 
 He did not believe that he was a Catholic, and he 
 wasn't going to say that he was ! Of course it was an 
 uneducated man who spoke in that way ; but at the 
 same time there is a great deal of plain English com- 
 mon sense in his behaviour. That man had been
 
 330 Oration. 
 
 taught to believe he was a Protestant, and he was 
 determined to use the term always. 
 
 The Protestant Church, then, I have defined to be 
 made up of all those who reject the worship, the 
 doctrine, and the government of general Christendom. 
 Now this Church (I call it " Church" at present for the 
 sake of convenience, but I shall show you that I grad- 
 ually dissolve the word into its real sense before I end,) 
 you will all agree is " the Church of the Reformation" 
 
 And here I meet with a very great difficulty. When 
 we speak of reforming, we generally speak of some- 
 thing that comes about from within. Supposing I 
 talk of reforming my household, I do not mean that 
 I am going to leave it and set up another ; and yet this 
 is what was done at, what was called, the " Reforma- 
 tion. " The reformers did not stop in the Church and 
 reform her, by waiting upon God, and trusting to His 
 promise ; but all kinds of different persons broke 
 away from the old Church ; and they all broke away in 
 different directions! 
 
 They none of them agreed among themselves why 
 they separated from the Church. If Calvin and 
 Luther had, in a patient, Christian spirit, stayed in the 
 old Ship, and by faith and patience, resting on the 
 promise of God, had tried to touch the errors that 
 were in the Church with the magic wand of Christ's 
 love, we should not have had the disgraceful exhibi-
 
 The Protestant Church : What is It ? 33 1 
 
 tion of heathenish cruelty, that we find practised by 
 the people who broke away from the old Church under 
 the pretence of " Reformation." We should not have 
 had Luther abusing Calvin with the horrible epithets 
 he does. We should not have had the vulgar insults 
 that the reformers flung at one another, had the 
 spirit of Jesus been regulating their hearts. 
 
 We all know that many of Christ's own believing 
 people also fell in with the movement ; and they fell 
 in with the movement from the purest motives. Many 
 a Christian, yearning for greater nearness to God, 
 tortured by the doctrines of error, yearned for better 
 things ; but he very soon found out that it was out of 
 the frying pan into the fire that he was leaping. 
 
 If I am asked, however, to examine into the lives of 
 most of these persons, who first broke away from the 
 old Church, I should say that it seems to me that the 
 spirit of the love of Jesus had left their hearts. 
 
 God forbid that I should say a word to hurt any of 
 the Lord's people among the Protestants of to-day ; 
 but I may say this, that I am perfectly convinced that 
 they would no more agree with the practices of the 
 reformers than I should myself. 
 
 When we think of the horrible treatment that the 
 people of the new doctrine inflicted on those who still 
 conscientiously held to. the old how they used fire 
 and faggot to put a stop to liberty of conscience we
 
 332 Oration. 
 
 shall see that all the stories that have been told of 
 Catholics have been more than equalled by the 
 Protestants ; and I feel, in my own heart, that the 
 period of the Reformation is a period that must pain 
 the hearts of all true believers in the Gospel of love 
 and peace, whether they be Catholic or Protestant. 
 Catholics and the Protestants ought to form together 
 a protest against the conduct, under the cloak of 
 religion, that was so rife, on both sides, in the 
 sixteenth century. 
 
 I touched on the fact of there being scandals in the 
 Catholic Church. Brethren, no Catholic, possessed of 
 the commonest of common sense, would deny that 
 there were scandals; but then this new Church that 
 was formed was as bad or even worse. Just look at 
 the writings of the reformers themselves, and the 
 terrible wholesale murderings which the teaching of 
 the reformers produced ! We must not be prejudiced 
 on one side more than on the other, if we wish to 
 view the subject with Christian fairness. 
 
 Too long have we, in England, been accustomed to 
 believe that all the wickedness, and all the fire and 
 killing, were on the Catholic side ; and that the 
 Protestants were all men of God, doing God's work, 
 in God's own way. 
 
 Now, we know, from history, that it was nothing of 
 the sort ; and we have even more opportunities to
 
 The Protestant Church : What is It? 333 
 
 ascertain the facts connected with the Protestant 
 Reformation now than we had fifty years ago ; and 
 although we know that there were scandals in the 
 Catholic Church, before we have a right to use the 
 word " reformation " we should be able to prove that 
 we have in Christ's way, and by Christ's methods, 
 tried to bring- about a cleansing of abuse in the 
 Church in which we are placed by God's Providence. 
 
 That would be a " Reformation " in very deed and 
 truth ; but to go and separate entirely, and set up a 
 new Institution, with new scandals, seems to me very 
 incompatible with the term " reformation." 
 
 We are very often told that in the forming of the 
 Protestant Church there was a great deal of murderous 
 cruelty on the part of Catholics ; and we have all sorts 
 of instances of Catholic cruelty brought before us ; but 
 do you remember this word of Jesus : " Woe to that 
 man by whom the offence cometh ?"* 
 
 What was it that provoked the Catholics ? What 
 was it that stirred them up to such determination 
 for revenge? Look into the cause well; and when you 
 find that the creed of 1,000 years was being made 
 an occasion for capital punishment ; when you find 
 that any man professing to be a Catholic was killed 
 in the most barbarous manner, e.g., witness the 
 drawings and quarterings at Tyburn Gate ; when 
 * St. Matt, xviii. 7.
 
 334 Oration. 
 
 Protestants would insult Catholics during theirworship, 
 rifle their tombs, rob their altars, as the Huguenots 
 did in France and Belgium j and could take human 
 beings and torture them, as the Calvin ists of Holland 
 did the Catholic martyrs of Gorcum ; can you not 
 imagine how human nature was human nature, 
 and how the Catholics, when they got the upper hand, 
 were glad to revenge themselves on the spoliators and 
 persecutors of their own Church ? 
 
 We must look at both sides of the question ; and if 
 we do, I will tell you what will be the consequence ; 
 we shall break down the horrible barrier that 
 separates Catholics from Protestants. 
 
 That for which we long is to bring sinners to 
 acknowledge Jesus as their personal Saviour, to 
 bring them to God ; next, to bring all believers in 
 Jesus together ; and if we could only be fair, on both 
 sides, I am sure that the bitter strife that has been 
 waging between Catholics and Protestants would 
 terminate. 
 
 Both parties must confess that wrong has been 
 done on both sides. 
 
 I fear I have occupied too much time upon this 
 part of my subject ; but I must just refer, in passing, 
 to the strange inconsistencies and extremes in which 
 the Protestants of what is called "the Eeformation" 
 period indulged. I would remind you of the Pro-
 
 The Protestant Church : What is It? 335 
 
 testants of Holland. Some of these good people took 
 it into their heads that it was wrong to wear any clothes 
 at all ; and respectable old ladies took to walking 
 about with nothing more on than a pair of spectacles, 
 or perhaps an umbrella. This is very ludicrous, but it 
 is true. One Protestant party went into one extreme, 
 another into another; till they became a perfect 
 Babel in every respect. If each party had gone in 
 for liberty of conscience, it would have been all right; 
 but they did not, as a matter of history, do so. I 
 think it is Mr. Blunt who says, in his " History of the 
 Reformation," that none of the reformers had the 
 least idea of granting liberty of conscience to their 
 opponents ; and they proved it by the way in which 
 they killed those who did not agree with them. 
 . They had all separated from the old Pope, and 
 they all wanted to be their own popes. This is what 
 it was. Calvin wanted to be pope, and acted like a 
 pope at Geneva. He utterly rejected the teaching of 
 Luther in very many points, and spoke in very harsh 
 language of him. Luther, on the other hand, did the 
 same; for he was determined to be pope himself. 
 Everyone thought himself right, and everyone else 
 wrong ; and all this was brought about by, what was 
 called, the work of God ; and styled the " Glorious 
 Reformation.' 1 ' 
 
 There is another point. When once you break
 
 336 Oration. 
 
 away from constituted authority it takes a long time 
 to put any other authority in its place. When once you 
 open the flood-gates of rebellion, either ecclesiastically 
 or politically, it is a very difficult thing to say where 
 the rebellion will stop. The reformers broke away 
 from the regular uniform jurisdiction of bishops ; so 
 they lost the regular order ; and therefore no minister 
 had any right to administer the Sacrament. I say 
 that when they broke away from the old established, 
 authorised ministry of the Church, and set up new 
 forms of church government, they had no authority 
 whatever for what they did, except from the vox 
 populi, which is liable to as many changes as the 
 weather. 
 
 There is one thing to be taken into consideration, 
 which is, that wherever the reformers went they did not 
 think anything of walking into a Catholic's house, and 
 taking his things and furniture, and settling them- 
 selves in it. Now if a man were to walk into my house, 
 turn it inside out, throw the furniture out of the 
 windows, and then say to me : " I have reformed 
 you ; " I should say that that was very cool impudence. 
 The Protestants drove the Catholics out of their 
 own houses and churches ; and if this were all right 
 and correct in the Protestants, it would be all right 
 and correct in the Catholics. But the Catholics 
 ought not to have retaliated. They forgot our Lord's
 
 The Protestant Church : What is It? 337 
 
 words : " If any man will take thy coat let him have 
 thy cloke also "* ; and perhaps some of us might 
 have forgotten them too ! 
 
 They should have stood by calmly and not have said 
 a word, but they retaliated when they had the power ; 
 and so Jesus was dishonoured and forgotten. 
 
 It is after going through the consideration of all 
 these facts (and that they are facts you can ascertain 
 for yourselves) that the question, "The Protestant 
 Church, what is it ? " becomes so very difficult to 
 answer and define. I do not think there is a single 
 sect in Christendom that does not call itself by the 
 name of Protestant, in the general sense of the 
 word. 
 
 I asked a Christian just now how he would define a 
 Protestant ; and he said : " All those who confess 
 Christ, and know Him as a personal Saviour." That 
 is a very novel definition of the term "Protestant"; 
 but the definition will not do. 
 
 If you look at the Protestant Churches of France, 
 Switzerland, or Germany, you will find that rational- 
 ism is the most decided tendency of them all ; so I 
 do not think that the word "Protestant," from a 
 Christian point of view, is one which I should like to 
 apply to any of my own Christian brethren. I think 
 if they would give up the word " Protestant," and 
 * St. Matt. v. 40.
 
 338 Oration. 
 
 adopt that of " Christian " instead, it would be a 
 great deal better. 
 
 May it please our Lord to grant that I have not 
 said a word to hurt the feelings of any Protestants 
 here present. I have far more enjoyment of spiritual 
 communion with a converted Christian Protestant 
 than with a dozen unconverted, unchristian Catholics. 
 
 Jesus is more to me than the ridicule of the world, 
 and Jesus is more to a Christian Protestant than 
 the outward form of Protestantism. 
 
 Jesus, and " Jesus only," is the common Saviour ; 
 and we must all belong to His Church, which He built 
 on Himself, and " against which the gates of hell 
 can never prevail"; and of the members of which 
 He says : "No man shall pluck you out of my hand."* 
 
 " The Protestant Church! What is it ? " is a ques- 
 tion, then, that it is impossible to answer, even from 
 the Protestant side itself ; and I am sure I do not 
 know what it is, nor would I take upon myself, the 
 difficult not to say impossible task of answering the 
 question or attempting to define the indefinable 
 Myth! 
 
 There is really, as a matter of PACT no such 
 thing as "The Protestant Church " ! 
 
 * St. John x. 28.
 
 XVIII. 
 
 ism : Cjxe (000 it jms 0n.e, anb 
 tt as 0nje. 
 
 Wednesday Evening, October 28th, 1885.
 
 |litalism, % 
 it 
 
 Prayer before Oration, 
 
 Grant, Blessed Lord, we pray Thee, that the words to be 
 spoken, at this time, may glorify Thee and benefit Thy people, 
 here present, and may help to increase, and not diminish, 
 Thy love in our hearts, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.
 
 34 2 Ritualism : the Good it has Done / 
 
 KITUALISM: THE GOOD IT HAS DONE; 
 AND THE HARM IT HAS DONE. 
 
 ration. 
 
 " Let all things be done decently and in order." 1 Cor. xiv. 40. 
 
 In the more literal rendering, from the Greek, this 
 passage reads, " Let all things be done according to 
 a good scheme, and according to order or arrange- 
 ment." 
 
 St. Paul had been dealing, in the chapter from 
 which the passage is taken, with the public worship 
 of the Christian Church ; and we, who know the 
 circumstances of the early Church, may feel quite 
 sure that it would have been utterly impossible, at 
 that early period of the new Christian religion, to 
 have made any settled arrangements in details 
 respecting Christian worship. I say "in details" 
 because we know that the early Christians worshipped 
 in such a hurry, and under such circumstances of 
 terror, danger, and alarm, as to render it impossible 
 for them to conduct their worship " according to a 
 good scheme," and according to prescribed arrange- 
 ments.
 
 And the Harm it has Done. 343 
 
 The subject of this address is " Ritualism : the 
 good it has done ; and the harm it has done " and 
 this is a subject which has caused a vast amount of 
 scandal. In one way or another, Ritualism has, from 
 outsiders, brought a great deal of ridicule upon 
 Christianity in general. 
 
 Many of you will remember that, when the revival 
 of ritual began in the Church of England, the 
 smallest trifles were made a reason for great riots, 
 disturbances, and manifestations of violence. Many 
 of us can remember the surplice riots at Exeter ; but 
 now, even our dissenting brethren, in some cases, 
 preach in surplices. I think I am correct in saying 
 that at Mr. Newman Hall's magnificent high-church- 
 looking place of worship, the preacher wears a surplice. 
 
 Certain points of ritual which, at the commence- 
 ment of the revival of ritual in the Church of 
 England, were made the cause of considerable 
 rancour and hatred, are now taken as a matter of 
 course. People do make a fuss so often, not only 
 about nothing at all, but about things which, in a few 
 years, they get to like very much indeed themselves. 
 
 Now, I want to treat my subject in a matter-of-fact, 
 and, therefore, in a fair and honest way. But may I 
 ask one question before I proceed ? It is : " Can we 
 do without ritual of some sort or another ? " 
 
 The universal answer, of all thoughtful Christian
 
 344 Ritualism : the Good it has Done ; 
 
 men, to this question will be, " Certainly not." Every 
 single class of professing Christian worshippers has 
 a ritual of its own. 
 
 I remember the ritual to which I was accustomed 
 when I was a child, and certainly I cannot say that it 
 was very edifying. 
 
 If we take Eitualism in the sense in which I wish to 
 apply it and I would ask your kind consideration of 
 the question as I bring it before you it does seem to 
 me that, as far as man is concerned, Eitualism is an 
 appeal to the mind and the sense, in public worship, 
 through the medium of the eye. Whether Ritualism 
 be beneficial, or the opposite, is an open question. 
 
 On God's part, and with reference to Him whom we 
 worship, it does seem to me that Ritualism is offering 
 the best natural gifts to the Creator in the solemn 
 worship of His Church. I know that some people 
 would discard art altogether from the worship of God, 
 as being distracting to the mind rather than helpful. 
 All I would say to those who feel that an artistic 
 ritual is distracting to their minds, is, " Let them not 
 use it ;" but let them not condemn others, who feel 
 persuaded, by practical, and almost daily, experience, 
 that it is an assistance to them ; for we are not all 
 constituted alike ; our temperaments, characters, and 
 idiosyncracies are totally different. Therefore we 
 should make allowances for one another.
 
 And the Harm it has Done. 345 
 
 I think, on a subject such as the one we are now 
 considering, we should first ascertain, as a matter of 
 fact, what is generally understood by "Ritualism," 
 seeing that every one uses, in worship, ritual of some 
 kind or other. When I was a child how I used to 
 wonder what was the meaning of certain acts of 
 Protestant ritual that I used to see ! 
 
 A Roman Catholic, when he goes into church, takes 
 the holy water, signs himself with the cross, makes his 
 reverence to the altar, kneels, and takes his seat ; and 
 although this seems to many of our Protestant friends 
 a sort of mummery, because they do not view it, and 
 appreciate it, from the same standpoint as does the 
 Catholic, they (the Protestants) have also their 
 ceremonials. 
 
 I remember, when I was young, that the Protestant 
 gentlemen all had their very decided ritual upon 
 entering church, and the ladies had theirs also. They 
 generally doubled themselves up upon their seats, in 
 their high-backed pews : but numbers of the gentle- 
 men had a peculiar piece of ritual which consisted of 
 standing up and looking into their hats. Do you 
 know, really and truly, when I was a child I was so 
 puzzled to know what it all meant ! I really thought 
 it meant something, but what I did not know. 
 
 I could draw other pictures of Protestant ritual to 
 which I was accustomed ; but of course this is all a
 
 346 Ritualism: the Good it has Done; 
 
 matter of taste to a great extent, and I should be very 
 sorry to tell a gentleman that he has not a right to 
 double himself up, or look into his hat ; but I do not 
 see why he should object to my kind of ritual when I 
 enter church ; for we both follow our own tastes ; and 
 perhaps, if we were to examine the case, we should 
 find more conscientiousness in the Ritualist's, than 
 in the Protestant's, case ; because I do not think there 
 is any conscientious motive in practising the very 
 peculiar ritual to which I have just alluded. 
 
 Have you not often been at really devoutly attended 
 Protestant meetings ? I have, very often ; and I have 
 found that, while nearly all agree to kneel down at 
 private meetings, they do not kneel in public ; and I 
 have often wondered why our Protestant Christian 
 brethren have such an objection to kneeling ; and 
 why we so seldom see, in "a low church," people really 
 on their knees ! They have a way of sitting and 
 bending over ; and this, recollect, is an act of ritual ! 
 
 But I cannot say that I enjoy such kinds of ritual. 
 
 For instance, you may see one devout old gentleman 
 turn his back upon everybody, and face the wall ; and 
 you will see a perhaps equally devout old lady facing 
 in another direction. You will see one looking in 
 one way, a second in another, and still another 
 sitting with his back to the rest ; all in different 
 positions and attitudes, and all equally devout.
 
 And the Harm it has Done. 347 
 
 That ritual, to my mind, is something very ludicrous. 
 
 All this, however, is a matter of feeling, taste, and 
 opinion ; though, as far as I am concerned, I must say 
 that I do not think the ritual arrangements of our 
 Protestant friends are always as solemn and edifying 
 as they might be. 
 
 You see, then, that it is a fact that all of us, to a 
 certain extent, practise some form of ritual in our 
 attitude, and in our mode of worship ; that ritualism, 
 in some shape or other, cannot be dispensed with; 
 and that it is universally practised in a greater or 
 lesser degree. 
 
 But now we have to ask another question : " is an 
 ornate ritual, such as we associate with the word 
 1 Ritualism/ in harmony with the mind of God ; and 
 is it in accordance with God's revealed will ?" If 
 such ritual be not in harmony with God's Word ; if it 
 be not in accordance with His Holy Will, as revealed 
 to us, no matter how I may admire it, I should think 
 that I was wrong in practising it. 
 
 What answer can we make to the following question? 
 Has Almighty God ever revealed His Mind as to the 
 manner in which His public worship should be con- 
 ducted ? Has God ever prescribed definitely the mode 
 and method of Divine Worship among His people ? 
 
 We know that He certainly did so for the Jewish 
 Church, by the mouth of Moses, His prophet; and
 
 348 Ritualism : the Good it has Done / 
 
 we know that the Mosaic Church was symbolical, and 
 very minute in detail so much so that the very colours 
 of the embroidery on the curtains in the Temple were 
 prescribed by the Holy G-host Himself ; and we are 
 told that the Holy Spirit enabled the workmen to 
 carry out the embroidery which G-od had commanded. 
 
 We cannot, therefore, call this trivial ; we cannot 
 call this childish ; for G-od Himself expressed His 
 mind and will in the matter.* 
 
 Now our Protestant brethren may say that that 
 was a prescription for worship in the Old Testament 
 religion, when everything was shadowy and emble- 
 matical ; but that it was done away with in Christ. 
 But when they say all this was done away with in 
 Christ, it does seem to me that they are begging the 
 question, unless they can give chapter and verse in 
 the New Testament for the statement. 
 
 I do not see any authority in the Scriptures that a 
 beautiful and ornate offering to God was done away 
 with in Christ. But then they may say : " oh ! but 
 God said, ' God is a Spirit : and they that worship 
 Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.' "f 
 But that has nothing to do with the question, for the 
 religious Jews worshipped God "in spirit and in truth." 
 
 So now the question comes as to the authority 
 and practice of an ornate ritual. 
 
 * Exodus xxxvi. 1, 2, 3, 4. f John iv. 24.
 
 And the Harm it has Done. 349 
 
 Do we find any definite, rubrical arrangements in 
 the New Testament, as in the Old ? We do not. 
 But then, we must remember, that the circumstances 
 surrounding the early Christian Church were totally 
 different from those that surrounded the Jewish ; 
 and it would have been utterly impossible humanly 
 speaking for the early Christians to carry out any 
 fixed code. 
 
 The early Christians had to flee from town to town, 
 and their worship was often broken in upon by the 
 presence of persecutors, who would discover them, 
 at their night services, in caves of the earth. For 
 some time the Church of Christ practised no par- 
 ticular order of ritual in their worship. At the 
 beginning there was no settlement for Christians ; 
 nor were there any churches for them wherein to 
 worship. In those early days we do not read of a 
 single fixed place of worship being built I believe 
 we have no testimony of such ; and the Christians 
 met in all kinds of places, by river-sides, in caves of 
 the earth, in upper rooms ; they met secretly at 
 midnight assemblies ; and we read of St. Paul 
 preaching till midnight and administering after- 
 midnight Sacrament.* 
 
 But, it may be asked, after the Christian Church 
 became settled, and was able to act out St. Paul's 
 * Acts xx. 7, 11.
 
 350 Ritualism : the Good it has Done; 
 
 instructions, as stated in the text, how did they act 
 out those instructions ? Have we, in our possession, 
 at the present day, copies of any liturgies of the 
 ancient Churches of God to give us an idea whether 
 their services were "ritualistic," in the modern 
 acceptance of the term, or not ? 
 
 As a matter of fact, we have very ancient liturgies 
 in our possession : we have the liturgies of the 
 Egyptian Church, the liturgy of St. Mark, the 
 liturgy of St. James, and we have also the liturgies 
 of St. Chrysostom and St. Basil, showing the method 
 upon which they acted in carrying out St. Paul's 
 instructions : " Let all things be done decently and 
 in order."* 
 
 At the first commencement, and during the sub- 
 sequent development, of Christian worship, a high 
 ritual, and ornate symbolism, were used by Christians 
 in their worship of God ; and it does seem to me that 
 we find a really more ornate symbolism then being 
 used, than is used now in the worship of our blessed 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 
 Then, what about English Church ritualism ? I 
 suppose most of my hearers know that the English 
 Church never used the Roman Catholic ritual ; I sup- 
 pose my hearers also know that, from time imme- 
 morial, the English Church had her own national 
 .* 1 Cor. xiv. 40.
 
 And the Harm it has Done. 351 
 
 service, peculiarities, and ritualistic arrangements ; 
 and if you compare the old ritual of the English 
 Church with that of the Roman Catholic Church (I 
 do not wish to offend any one, but I do say, without 
 fear of contradiction, if you compare the two), you 
 will find that the ritual of the old English Church was, 
 if possible, far more stately and ornate than were the 
 ceremonials of the Church of Rome ! 
 
 This ritualism was put in form by St. Osmund, of 
 Salisbury, and received the sanction of nearly the 
 whole Church of the British Islands; so that the 
 Sarum Ritual became the authority of the British 
 Church as far as Aberdeen in the north, and St. 
 David's in the west. 
 
 When I was at Dunkeld in Scotland, I found out 
 that the Sarum Ritual of the Church of Britain was 
 used there ; I also found, two years ago, at St. David's 
 in Wales, proof of the adoption, even there, of the 
 Sarum Ritual. 
 
 The ritual of the English Church was always 
 peculiar to herself; and if the liturgical scholars 
 of the day applied to any foreign Church for 
 assistance, they went to the Gullican Church and 
 not to the Roman because there always existed 
 bonds of unity between the Grallican and the Anglican 
 Churches from earliest times. 
 
 It would take more time than I could afford
 
 352 Ritualism : the Good it has Done / 
 
 to give you the intricate history of, and enter 
 into details respecting, English ritual ; but, as a 
 matter of fact, the British, Saxon, and Norman 
 elements in English ritual were consolidated into one 
 form by St. Osmund in the twelfth century. 
 
 But there came, in the sixteenth century, a great 
 change in the matter of " Ritualism." Remember, it 
 is distinctly British ritual of which we are speaking. 
 
 In the time of the Tudors we see the ritual of the 
 Church of England receiving a tremendous blow; 
 when the Sarum and other books of British Church 
 authority were, as far as they possibly could be, 
 collected and destroyed. 
 
 When Edward VI.'s short reign terminated, and 
 Queen Mary came to the throne, she desired to restore 
 the old British ritual ; but the books had been nearly 
 all destroyed ! The magnificent manuscripts and the 
 vast libraries, where the learning and researches of 
 our British forefathers had been stored with the 
 industry and perseverance of generations, were sent 
 in cartloads to be burnt, or in shiploads to be used as 
 waste paper in foreign lands. Our libraries, ecclesi- 
 astical works, rare and wonderful manuscripts, ritual 
 books, and copies of the Scriptures, which had been 
 collected together in the various monastic libraries, 
 were brought forth and destroyed ; and in Queen 
 Mary's reign it was impossible, under the circum-
 
 And the Harm it has Done. 353 
 
 stances, to have an English rite practised as it had 
 been practised before. 
 
 Then the first introduction of the Roman Breviary 
 and Missal into the English Church took place ; and 
 that only lasted a few years, and its introduction was 
 brought about by the universal destruction of the 
 Church of England service books. 
 
 In Queen Elizabeth's reign matters changed again. 
 " Good Queen Bess " we are accustomed to call her, 
 although the more we look into that lady's character 
 the more ground we find for supposing her to have 
 been savage and very cruel; and if we call Mary 
 " Bloody Queen Mary," I think we should call Eliza- 
 beth ' ' Bloody Queen Elizabeth ;" for if we must use 
 hard names we ought to be equal and fair in the 
 distribution of the nomenclature. We find that 
 Queen Mary was called "bloody," because her 
 council spurred her on, against her will to a great 
 extent, to kill nearly five hundred Protestants ; 
 while Queen Elizabeth goes scot-free, although 
 she caused the death of more than five hundred 
 Catholics, and positively had them chopped up, 
 and drawn and quartered ! I think that treat- 
 ment was equally as cruel as burning; and I am 
 equally indignant that either course should have been 
 taken. 
 
 I do not think I can say that I admire Queen
 
 354 Ritualism : the Good it has Done ; 
 
 Elizabeth ; because, not only was she cruel, but I 
 think she was not quite as honest as she might have 
 been. She was a Catholic out and out at heart, and 
 only for political motives enforced Protestantism on 
 our Church. 
 
 She was determined to sweep away the Catholic 
 ritual from the parish churches, but she used to have 
 it in her own chapels ; and when the bishops came to 
 her and said, "how can you expect the people to 
 give up their ritual if you retain yours ? " Queen 
 Elizabeth's answer to them was "to mind their 
 own business; for she intended to do just as she 
 pleased." And she retained her candlesticks, censers, 
 and whatever ritual she chose. She had political 
 motives for trying to extinguish all Catholic feeling 
 in the hearts of her subjects. 
 
 But I am not here to give a lecture upon the reign 
 of Queen Elizabeth, or I should be able to draw out 
 facts to prove the truth of what I am saying. 
 
 It was simply for political reasons that Queen 
 Elizabeth supported Protestantism, in the Church of 
 England ; and I should like to advise those, who 
 may wish to study the question, to read Mr. 
 Hubert Burke's work, " Portraits of the Tudor 
 Dynasty." 
 
 Then, we have seen that ritual, in the reign of 
 Queen Elizabeth, received a still further blow; and
 
 And the Harm it has Done. 355 
 
 we know how the tremendous religious cataclysm of 
 the sixteenth century culminated in the political 
 and religious catastrophe of the seventeenth. We 
 know how Henry VIII. ruled with despotism and 
 tyranny; and how he handed on an inheritance to 
 his successors, which culminated in the martyrdom 
 of Charles I. ; who seems to have been the one 
 upon whose head alighted the last woe of the 
 tyranny the fearful tyranny inaugurated by Henry 
 Tudor. 
 
 And if we compare the private life and disposition 
 of Charles Stuart with that of Henry Tudor, who in- 
 augurated that strange novelty of autocracy in British 
 Government, we shall see that the innocent suffered 
 for the guilty. It has always been so ; and so long 
 as wrong reigns, in this world of woe, these things 
 will be. 
 
 In the Stuarts' time not only was ritual swept 
 away, but even the use of the Prayer Book was 
 forbidden, and a heavy penalty was attached to the 
 infringement of the law in this respect. 
 
 With the head of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 the head of the King of England fell with the 
 dethronement of the Church came the dethronement 
 of the State ; and Crown, Church and State fell for 
 a time together. Afterwards, when the new state of 
 things was successful, for a few years, we know
 
 356 Ritualism : the Good it has Done ; 
 
 how the tyranny of the Puritans proved even more 
 vexatious than that of the king. 
 
 The Puritans determined to force their pecu- 
 liarities upon an unwilling nation ; so that I say the 
 tyranny of the Puritans became more overbearing 
 still than the tyranny of the Tudors, because it 
 was of a kind, very, very deep and far-reaching 
 reaching even to the private life of British 
 citizens. 
 
 Just imagine the Puritan body becoming dominant, 
 with their severe ideas upon religion; and deter- 
 mining to thrust, nolens volens, their views upon 
 the whole nation ! 
 
 So England suffered under another tyranny at the 
 time of the Commonwealth, which prepared the 
 English nation for another tremendous revolution of 
 feeling ; and we soon find the people of London 
 with bonfires blazing, with fountains of wine flowing, 
 and with bells ringing, welcoming Charles II. back 
 to the throne of his fathers. 
 
 Then, after the Restoration, the ritual of the 
 Church of England became very, very dilapidated 
 indeed ; until, in the Hanoverian era, we find the 
 Lion and the Unicorn taking the place of the 
 Cross in the churches the Cross of Christ had 
 quite disappeared, and the arms of England had 
 taken its place; as if to represent that the Church
 
 And the Harm it has Done. 357 
 
 was a Church formed by the State, and was under 
 the State, which we showed, in the address* last 
 night, was not the case. 
 
 We can well understand that the worship of the 
 Lion and the Unicorn, surmounting the motto 
 " Georgius Rex," was not very spiritual j taken 
 together with the extraordinary dilapidations in 
 ecclesiastical life if I may use such an expression ; 
 for we find many a parish priest hurrying his surplice 
 over his shooting-jacket to conduct the weekly ser- 
 vice, and many of the churches, meanwhile, in which 
 it was conducted, damp, mildewed, miserable, and 
 wretched ; while the service itself was gone through 
 in the most slovenly manner. 
 
 There are, in fact, ample grounds to justify us in 
 the conclusion that English Church ritual, at this 
 time, reached its very, very lowest ebb ; and that 
 this utter extinction of religious decency, in outward 
 formalities, had a corresponding effect upon the 
 spirituality of the people. We know quite well what 
 a fearful spiritual gloom lay over our dear old 
 National Church during the Georgian era. 
 
 Last night I referred to the action of the Countess 
 of Huntingdon in attempting to put a stop to the 
 scandals in Lambeth Palace ; and I think we, at the 
 present day, owe a great debt of gratitude to the 
 
 * Oration on " Church of England and Disestablishment."
 
 358 Ritualism: the Good it has Done ; 
 
 movement -which the Countess of Huntingdon set on 
 foot. They called her, in that day, a madwoman ; but 
 numbers flocked to aid her in bringing about a purer 
 preaching of the simple message of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Therefore this Countess was one of the first to 
 inaugurate the early reformation in the Church of 
 England. 
 
 Wesley and Whitefield then sprang up, at God's 
 command. " The Lord gave the word : great was 
 the company of the preachers."* The realities and 
 fundamental doctrines of the true old Christian faith 
 began once more to shed their beneficent light 
 abroad ; and crowds flocked, with eager, willing ears 
 to hear a Whitefield or a Wesley tell that Jesus 
 Christ was God's Own Son, and their Saviour. These 
 men the Church of England persecuted, in the per- 
 sons of her bishops. 
 
 The Church made a great mistake then, but has 
 learnt her error since ; and has received with open 
 arms, at last, what is called the Evangelical move- 
 ment. 
 
 The Evangelical movement was the commencement 
 of the real Reformation which we are now enjoying. 
 Yes ; it did not begin by inducing people to go to 
 Sacraments, in giving more frequent administrations ; 
 but it began by offering a personal Saviour to each indi- 
 * Psalm Ixviii. 11 ; Pr. Bk. v.
 
 And the Harm it has Done. 359 
 
 vidual sinner ; and that is the right way in which a 
 spiritual reformation should begin. 
 
 The child has to be born before it can take milk of 
 its mother; and the restoration and revival in the 
 Church began with a revival of Evangelical and spiri- 
 tual life; and it was the correct beginning ; and it is 
 because the Ritualistic movement and, to a very 
 great extent, the Tractarian before it, did not more 
 thoroughly endorse the Evangelical movement that 
 they were not more successful. 
 
 Wesley and Whitefield were the forerunners of 
 Newman and Pusey ; and they were the forerunners 
 of those who promote modern Ritualism. When the 
 Tractarian movement arose, between fifty and sixty 
 years ago, the Evangelical movement was, by a very 
 great many of the promoters of the Tractarian move- 
 ment, ignored or regarded as an opposition ; but if 
 they had endorsed the Evangelical movement, and 
 had brought the revival of the Sacraments into the 
 Evangelical movement, the two would have made a 
 beautiful, living, and satisfactory whole. 
 
 What is the use of the Sacraments to a people who 
 have not received the Spiritual life that the Evan- 
 gelical movement brought ? To give the Evangelical 
 movement a " slap in the face," as so many of the 
 Tractarians did, seems as though they were cutting 
 the throat of their own movement by doing it. It
 
 360 Ritualism : the Good it has Done / 
 
 does seem to me and I speak from practical, Christian 
 experience that, unless I have first obtained the 
 blessings of the Evangelical movement, the Tractarian 
 movement will be to me a curse instead of a blessing. 
 I do not believe in Sacraments unless the person 
 who participates in them has a personal belief in a 
 personal Saviour. 
 
 A great many of the Evangelicals, seeing the 
 attitude which the Tractarians assumed, rose up in 
 opposition to their movement ; and thus the two 
 movements, instead of coalescing, and working 
 together, as two parts of a great whole, became 
 antagonistic. 
 
 Hence the strife and bitterness, and the needless 
 expenditure of strength upon questions of party 
 differences ! 
 
 I do not suppose that anyone who knew Dr. Pusey 
 could love him, or reverence his memory, more than I 
 do myself. Of Dr. Pusey the world knew very little, 
 because his life of holiness was such a hidden life. 
 Very few knew him more privately or more intimately 
 than I had the privilege of knowing him ; and, 
 before my own conversion to the Evangelical faith, I 
 had many a warning and many a reproof from the 
 reverend Doctor for the bitterness with which I 
 spoke against Dissenters. Dr. Pusey was not a 
 Ritualist.
 
 And the Harm it has Done. 361 
 
 What do I see in him ? A venerable old gentle- 
 man, in a tailed-coat, dressed like an ordinary 
 Englishman, only very untidy in fact, so untidy 
 that I used often to think I should like to brush 
 him up a little. I say this with all reverential 
 respect. 
 
 But to call Dr. Pusey a Ritualist is nearly enough 
 to make anybody, who knew him, laugh. I am sure 
 he never put on a cassock ; and I remember so well, 
 when I was staying with him at Christchurch, his 
 going to officiate at morning prayer, in the Cathedral. 
 He came in at the last minute, picked up a dirty old 
 surplice and a bundle of old crape brown from age 
 hurried on the surplice, put the crape round his neck, 
 and walked off to the Cathedral. This may shock 
 some people, who regard Dr. Pusey as very punc- 
 tilious in the matter of vestments ; but they must 
 remember that the Tractarian was quite distinct 
 from the Ritualistic movement ; in fact it was a 
 very unritualistic movement ; the Ritualistic move- 
 ment grew out of the Tractarian movement, which 
 restored the Sacraments to their former position, by 
 having constant celebrations, by exalting the dignity 
 of Holy Baptism, restoring the churches, and giving 
 greater beauty to the outward form of Christian 
 worship. 
 
 When, then, I look at the revival of Ritualism, I
 
 362 Ritualism : the Good it has Done ; 
 
 think it did this good : it restored our churches, 
 throughout the length and breadth of the land those 
 old shrines and sanctuaries which our forefathers, in 
 their piety, had caused to be built, in their massive 
 grandeur, and which were going to decay, or had 
 been partially restored and greatly disfigured. We 
 know the history of the term " Churchwardens' 
 restorations !" 
 
 The second good that it did was to restore the out- 
 ward beauty of Christian worship slovenliness and 
 irreverence in conducting service in the churches 
 were done away with by degrees. 
 
 The next good that the Ritualistic movement did 
 was to make our English Church outwardly more like 
 the rest of Christendom than it was before. 
 
 I do not think, myself, that an Englishman should 
 think it right to regard Christianity as a religion 
 simply for the English. I think our insularity causes 
 us to be a little narrow upon these matters ; but I do 
 think that, within the last fifty years, the Church of 
 England, which, previous to that time, was totally 
 unlike the rest of Christendom, in its outward worship, 
 has been made more and more like the rest of 
 Christendom, by Ritualism ; and that is a good thing. 
 Next, I think that Ritualism is to the converted 
 Christian mark the stress I lay on the word " con- 
 verted " an outward expression of Gospel truth.
 
 And the Harm it has Done. 363 
 
 I see in the Ritualism of the Christian Church. 
 "JESUS ONLY/' in every part : "Jesus only/' as 
 " the author and finisher of our faith "* by which His 
 Saints " are perfected" ;t ari( i I feel that in the ritual 
 of the Church I ani giving a simpJe and outward 
 expression of my Evangelical faith. 
 
 But, on the other hand, what is the use of an out- 
 ward expression of a thing which you do not inwardly 
 possess ? If people practice ritual without possessing 
 the inward life, without having the Evangelical faith, 
 Ritualism is a dangerous unreality to their souls. 
 
 Lastly, Ritualism has done good by bringing whole 
 multitudes into the Churches who, otherwise, would 
 never have gone into them at all ; and if the preach- 
 ing of the Gospel, in its simplicity, had followed 
 up the ritual, I feel that a vast amount of spiritual 
 good would have resulted from it. 
 
 Then, what do we find were the several faults of the 
 movement ? The first fault seems to me to have been 
 that the Ritualistic movement, to a very great extent, 
 has been devoid of simple, Evangelical teaching ; and 
 not only has it been devoid of such teaching, but 
 there has been a distinct and determined resolution, 
 on the part of some of its promoters, to set their faces, 
 at the beginning, against Gospel preaching. They 
 left out the idea of a good sermon, and you would 
 * Hcb. xii. 2. t Heb. x. 14.
 
 364 Ritualism : the Good it has Done / 
 
 hear them mumble through, a short sermon of ten 
 minutes' duration, much in the same way as they also 
 mumbled through the Lessons. That was a very sad 
 mistake, and it has done a great deal of harm ; and 
 has prejudiced a great many Christians against Ritu- 
 alism, who would not otherwise have been prejudiced 
 against it. 
 
 The next harm that Ritualism has done, is that it 
 has attracted to our churches whole crowds of world- 
 lings, and unconverted men and women, without 
 converting them ; leaving them just as they were, 
 while outwardly professing to belong to the Catholic 
 Church. They do not wish their enjoyment, and 
 fellowship with the world, to be interfered with by 
 their being in the Church ; but we know that Jesus 
 Christ says : " Ye are not of the world I have chosen 
 you out."* 
 
 Therefore I say that Ritualism has given comfort 
 to worldly men and women, but has not attempted 
 to draw them from the world, its fashions, its 
 follies, and its pleasures ; but has attempted to 
 make these things harmonise with the Christian 
 religion. We might just as well try to make oil 
 and water mix. 
 
 The Ritualistic movement, I consider, has been 
 very much hindered by the worldly element that has 
 * St. John xv. 19
 
 And the Harm it has Done. 365 
 
 obtruded itself into it. I know numbers and numbers 
 of devout Christian people who point to the results of 
 Kitualism in the persons of worldly men and women, 
 who make outward professions, but who are not 
 believers in Christ. " Look," they will say, " at 
 that ritualistic young man ; he will tell you he is 
 a Catholic ; and yet while he is partaking of the 
 Sacrament one day, he is frequenting the haunts of 
 fashionable dissipation the next." 
 
 So, brethren, this worldly element has been a 
 detracting element in the movement. 
 
 And then, I repeat, it does seem to me that the 
 leaders of the Ritualistic movement did wrong in 
 repudiating the work of the great Evangelical leaders, 
 Whitefield and Wesley. If Ritualism had only been 
 the outward manifestation of the truths which the first 
 reformers Wesley and Whitefield taught, I believe 
 the movement would have been productive of much 
 greater results. 
 
 It does seem to me that instead of making the 
 G-ospel, in its simplicity and fulness, the basis of the 
 movement, they led people to believe that salvation is 
 a matter of sacramental and ritualistic machinery 
 that you are in fact to be saved by machinery ; as if 
 the Sacraments could be of use to a man who has not 
 really a personal faith. Ritualism is driving people 
 to the Holy Communion whom it ought to have driven
 
 366 Ritualism: the Good it has Done ; 
 
 away from it, beginning at the wrong end with the 
 individual sinner's heart and soul and life. 
 
 Probably you will wonder why I, who speak in 
 such strong language, am such a Ritualist myself in 
 fact the Ritualists say I have gone too far for them ; 
 "but I say if it be right if their practices be right 
 we had better do the whole thing at once, and have 
 done with it, and not be for ever torturing congrega- 
 tions with little additions and introductions month 
 after month. Those very things for which my 
 ritualistic friends have persecuted and abused me 
 they are now doing themselves : I have had the 
 kicks and they have had the coppers ! 
 
 The point I want to make next is this : that, while 
 knowing and profiting by the mistakes that have been 
 made by so many individual actors in the move- 
 ment, we have yet repelled numbers of really Christian 
 souls who need not have been repelled. 
 
 I can tell of cases of Dissenters, and Low Church- 
 men, who have travelled hundreds of miles on pil- 
 grimage to our monastery, to join in our worship. I 
 remember at the last pilgrimage but one, how someone 
 came and told me that a Dissenting family had arrived 
 from Manchester, and wished to see me. I am nearly 
 .always overcome with work ; but this was such a 
 pressing invitation that I felt compelled to see the 
 father of this family ; and I told him that I was aston-
 
 And the Harm it has Done. 367 
 
 ished they should have come to join in our " popery." 
 " Oh ! " said the gentleman, " you put it in such a 
 totally different light ; and although we are a Dis- 
 senting family we can thank God for all we have seen 
 and heard at your services." 
 
 Again I would ask : " do not you think that 
 we have positively, in the Ritualistic movement, 
 really encouraged worldliness in the Church of 
 Christ ? " I have heard men eay, " I do not approve 
 of the cant of the Methodists ; I do not think it is 
 necessary to separate from the pleasures of the world." 
 Then I have asked : " what do you mean by the 
 pomps and vanities you renounced at your baptism 
 and confirmation ? " There do not seem to be any 
 pomps, as far as they are concerned ; for they do not 
 renounce any of them. I remember asking a lady, a 
 little time ago, how she could reconcile going to balls 
 and theatres with constant Sacrament receiving. 
 I said : " did not you renounce the pomps and 
 vanities of the world at your baptism; and do not 
 you confirm that renunciation each time you partake 
 of the Sacrament ?" " Oh !" she replied, " I do not 
 consider these things are pomps ! " " Then," I said, 
 " what are the pomps ? For if they do not mean 
 participating in every kind of worldly pleasure, I know 
 of no other definition of the word." 
 
 If we are Christian Ritualists, and want to bring
 
 368 Ritualism: the Good it has Done ; 
 
 God's blessing into the movement, let us cast out the 
 world entirely from the midst of it ; and let us realise 
 the word of the Apostle that " our conversation is in 
 Heaven."* Let us not be ashamed of the word 
 " Jesus," the name of Jesus, the love of Jesus, and 
 the salvation of Jesus ! If we be Christians shall we 
 be ashamed of confessing Christ at all times ? 
 
 Let us get rid of worldliness from our movement 
 then we shall be doing more good to advance the 
 cause of Ritualism than we can have any idea of. In 
 many cases Eitualism has reduced religion to nothing 
 but a mere outward form. 
 
 I have heard a young Ritualist speak in this way : 
 " I must go and see Father So-and-so. I have such a 
 cartload of sins to get rid of before I shall be able to 
 enjoy myself again with a comfortable conscience ! " 
 Imagine such a thing as that ! They seem to me to 
 put the priest and the Sacraments entirely in the 
 place of Christ. 
 
 We shall not remedy the matter by hiding these 
 facts, or by covering them up. Rather let us drag 
 them to the light, and ask ourselves this question : 
 " What is the good of an outward form of religion, 
 and all the machinery of an outward ritual, unless we 
 have the reality in our worship; by which we shall 
 be able to die as well as live ?" 
 
 * Philippians iii. 20.
 
 And the Harm it has Done. 369 
 
 One more liarm the Ritualistic movement has done : 
 it has conspired to desecrate the Lord's Day yes, 
 positively conspired to desecrate the Lord's Day. 
 Many Catholics of the Church of England are quite 
 ready to have the Lord's Day secularised. 
 
 As a Christian, I cannot understand how this can 
 be. We certainly know that the Sunday is not a legal 
 sabbath, but is a freewill offering, consecrated to our 
 precious Lord Jesus. The afternoon of Sunday belongs 
 to Him as much as the morning ; and if I love to 
 worship in the morning I should just as jealously 
 desire to consecrate the afternoon to the service of God. 
 
 I have six days for the world, and one day for 
 God that is our free-will offering : and I would not 
 take one single hour away. Sunday cannot be kept 
 too jealously by Christians, especially considering 
 the moral atmosphere of the nineteenth century. 
 
 I know that one of the excuses made by Borne 
 of our Ritualistic brethren is, that they want to be 
 a little more like the Roman Catholics in this matter. 
 
 Here I say they make a mistake, for the religious 
 Roman Catholic does not approve of the desecration 
 of Sunday ; and there is, at this present day, a regu- 
 lar Roman Catholic Society formed in France for the 
 hallowing of the Christian sabbath. 
 
 In conclusion, I would point you to the remedy for 
 the faults of Ritualism. 
 
 AA
 
 37 Ritualism : the Good it has Done. 
 
 It does seem to me, that the remedy is just simply 
 this, and nothing else but this the lifting up of Jesus 
 Christ, in His fulness, in our churches ; because, " I, 
 if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me/'* says 
 Jesus ; and when once a man is drawn to Christ be 
 he Methodist or Ritualist, High Church or Low 
 Church there comes into his life a light, into his 
 heart a power, into his conscience a cleansing, 
 which enables him to live close to God. 
 
 The one remedy is "Jesus only ; " and if the present 
 Ritualistic movement only will take up, and bring 
 prominently forward, the love of Christ and the 
 simple teaching of His word, we shall be able to view 
 it under a wholly different aspect ; for all the bitter- 
 ness of party spirit will then pass away ; and as we 
 are inspired to lift Christ up we shall "love one 
 another as Christ also has loved us."f 
 
 St. John xii. 32. f St. John XT. 12 ; xiii. 34 ; Ephes. v. 2.
 
 XIX. 
 
 torn % gfcmasimts of 
 
 ^ration. 
 
 Tuesday Afternoon, May 25th, 1886.
 
 torn tl* gtoroastmes 0f 
 
 Prayer before Oration. 
 
 Grant, dear Lord Jesus, that the words which we shall 
 hear and speak may be for Thy glory. Bless us, Lord, 
 with the realisation of Thy Presence, and be with us, for Thy 
 dear Name's sake. Amen.
 
 374 Why were the Monasteries of 
 
 WHY WERE THE MONASTERIES OF 
 ENGLAND DESTROYED ? 
 
 ^ration. 
 
 " Jesus said : Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or 
 sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for 
 My Name's sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit 
 everlasting life." St. Matt. xix. 29. 
 
 These words, whether rightly or wrongly under- 
 stood, have been the means of the formation of count- 
 less Monastic communities in the Christian Church. 
 The venerable Bede quotes these words in treating 
 of this subject; and they are used as one of the 
 Monastic lessons on the festival of St. Benedict. 
 
 I am very sorry to say that it pleases God that most 
 of my strength has gone ; I cannot give you half 
 the lecture that I should have liked to have given, 
 because I am sitting here thoroughly done up 
 from overwork. But may I ask you, before I 
 begin my address, to picture to yourselves the mag- 
 nificence of the venerable ruins which stud our 
 country ? May I ask you to contemplate, just for a
 
 England Destroyed? 375 
 
 moment, the grandeur, the magnificence of design, 
 the gigantic efforts of art, which have combined 
 to make these stupendous abbeys and priories, 
 throughout our land, the wonder of every succeeding 
 generation ? 
 
 What could have been the splendid force that pro- 
 duced such unutterably magnificent designs for 
 religion's sake ? You have an instance of what they 
 were in their splendour in the church close by, St. 
 Peter's of Westminster. Hundreds upon hundreds of 
 buildings, equal to that in beauty, are now the utter 
 desolation of ruin. 
 
 Instead of the magnificent buildings, resounding 
 with the perpetual praise of God night and day, for 
 which purpose they were built instead of the mag- 
 nificent chapter-houses, in which the interests of the 
 poor, and often of the kingdom, were discussed, by 
 hearts and voices consecrated to Jesus ; instead of the 
 magnificent crypts, the libraries, which countless ages 
 of Christian intellect and Christian enthusiasm had 
 collected; instead of the marvellous hospices and 
 houses of learning and charity, which then existed 
 in connection with the monasteries, for the alleviation 
 of every kind of human suffering ; instead of all this 
 splendour of Christian charity, learning and intellect, 
 what have we now ? 
 
 Why were these splendid monasteries, a Christian
 
 376 Why were the Monasteries of 
 
 nation's provision for the poor ; the houses of the bene- 
 volent and the learned ; why were they destroyed ? 
 This is the subject of our lecture this afternoon. 
 
 First of all, we should ascertain the meaning of 
 the word monk. A monk means a man who has made 
 himself "a solitary;" a man who has separated 
 himself from his fellow-men. 
 
 Man is, we all know, a gregarious animal. Humanity, 
 generally speaking, is necessarily so, because God 
 provided that it should propagate itself, and that it 
 should increase. 
 
 But there were always, in the midst of this gregarious 
 humanity, a few human beings who lived a life of 
 separation from the crowd. A monk, therefore, means 
 a man who lives alone a Christian monk is one who 
 does this for Jesus' sake. The Christian monk is a 
 man who has left the world, and all that the world 
 holds dear, for the sake of Him Who said : " Every 
 one that hath forsaken father or mother, for my 
 sake, shall receive an hundred fold."* 
 
 We are often reminded that Monasticism is peculiar 
 to the Roman Catholic Church ; but this is a great 
 piece of ignorance, for all the Churches of Christendom 
 have possessed their monastic institutions. The 
 Church of Britain had her Monasteries on a very large 
 scale ; and it was the Monks of the British Church 
 * St. Matt. xix. 29.
 
 England Destroyed ? 377 
 
 who, in the first instance, repudiated the attempt of 
 the Roman Church to assert supremacy over the 
 British Church. Therefore, the idea that Monasticism 
 is peculiar to Romanism is utterly false and unhistorical. 
 
 People often say to me : " how can you be a monk 
 in the Church of England ? " "I do not think you 
 know anything about it," is my reply ; and, as a matter 
 of fact, people do not think about these subjects, or 
 give themselves the trouble to inquire into them. 
 
 I suppose you know that every Church, either in 
 connection with Rome or not, had her Monasteries ; 
 therefore the Church of Britain was not peculiar from 
 the rest of Christendom in her possession of monastic 
 institutions. 
 
 Remember that Christian Monasticism arises from 
 the invitation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that 
 the monks were those people who loved Him with 
 sufficient love to be led by the spirit of God, to 
 dedicate themselves to the Lord, by a vow to lead a 
 solitary life in His service. 
 
 And now I come to our question : " Why were the 
 Monasteries of the Church of England destroyed ? " 
 
 Are we not taught that they were destroyed on ac- 
 count of the vices of the monks and nuns ? 
 
 As a boy, I remember, when I passed a ruined 
 church, I admired its magnificence and the wonderful 
 power, the wonderful force of intellect, of art and
 
 378 Why were the Monasteries of 
 
 devotion, which my common sense told me had 
 produced such splendid proofs of ancient piety ; but 
 I then thought that they had become so bad the 
 homes of vice and of rioting, in fact, instead of 
 the houses of piety ; and that therefore the Church 
 of England, to quote the words of good old Bishop 
 Jackson of London, " closed her Monasteries on 
 account of the vices that were prevalent in them." 
 
 I remember, so well, an interview that I had with 
 Bishop Jackson once at his house in St. James's 
 Square, after several persons had petitioned him to 
 allow me to preach in his diocese ; but he had not 
 granted the request. 
 
 I asked his Lordship : " Why will you not allow me 
 to accept the invitation to preach in the churches of 
 your diocese ? " He answered : " I am not prepared to 
 sanction an order of preaching friars." " But, my 
 Lord," I said, " I have nothing to do with preaching 
 friars. A friar is a totally different thing from a 
 monk. I assert that I am a monk by the call of 
 God." 
 
 The dear bishop knew no more the difference 
 between a friar and a monk than this brass knob does. 
 
 I then said : " you will not allow me to preach, 
 because you are not prepared to allow what does not 
 exist. There are no preaching friars in the Church 
 of England ; and I do not want to be a preaching friar.' 1
 
 England Destroyed? 379 
 
 Then lie said to me : " remember, Mr. Lyne, the 
 Church of England, at the Reformation, closed the 
 Monasteries because she found it necessary to do so." 
 
 I replied : " My Lord, I never heard that before, and 
 I think you are very much mistaken. The Church of 
 England never closed a single monastery at the 
 Reformation. Henry VIII. smashed them all to 
 pieces, and robbed them of their properties. The 
 Church of England never closed one monastery ; and 
 the clergy and the people rose up in support of the 
 monasteries when Henry VIII., by his hired mer- 
 cenaries, smashed them to atoms, and gave their 
 magnificent properties to the rascals and disgraceful 
 characters whom he, by his own vices, had collected 
 around his throne." Words to this effect were my 
 rejoinder. 
 
 The bishop then said : " I see it is of no use talking 
 to you." 
 
 But now let us be calm, and it is very necessary 
 that I should be calm over this subject ; for I feel so 
 very deeply upon it. 
 
 " Why were the Monasteries of the Church of Eng- 
 land destroyed ? " We are told that they were 
 destroyed because Heury VIII., through his Vicar- 
 General, Thomas Cromwell, authorised a general visi- 
 tation to the Monasteries of the Church of England, 
 to ascertain their moral and religious condition. He
 
 380 Why were the Monasteries of 
 
 chose, through this Vicar-General, Thomas Cromwell, 
 for the general visitors of the monasteries, such 
 men as Rice, London, and Leyton. These men 
 visited the monasteries and reported that they were 
 in a most desperate, immoral condition, and also that 
 the nunneries were in the same horrible state. 
 
 But, brethren, it is a most extraordinary fact that 
 Henry VIII. had himself only just written to the 
 Pope of Home to say in what an excellent condition 
 the Monasteries of the Church of England were, and 
 especially the Friaries ; at the same time praising the 
 moral and religious condition of the monks and nuns. 
 
 And again, when Henry VIII. wanted to destroy 
 the lesser Monasteries, he publicly stated, before the 
 House of Commons, that as for the great Monasteries 
 of the realm, " religion was right well kept up and 
 observed in them." So, by his letter to the Pope 
 Leo X. I think it was and by his own confession, 
 before the Commons of the country, the greater Monas- 
 teries maintained the discipline and piety of their 
 profession. 
 
 This was the general acknowledgment of the man 
 who destroyed them. I should like you to examine 
 into the characters of these men London, Rice, 
 Lee, and Leyton who were the King's visitors 
 to the monasteries. They were men of the most in- 
 famous character, who were chosen, for this reason,
 
 Englan d Destroyed ? 381 
 
 by Thomas Cromwell, who gave them their instruc- 
 tions : " The king needs the monies of the Monas- 
 teries." 
 
 The king had spent all the accumulated wealth of 
 his father, Henry VII. He was in a great state for 
 want of money; and also the monks were the men 
 who were courageous enough to reproach the king 
 for his vices; and to refuse to accept the king's 
 supreme headship over the Church of England. They 
 also determinately rejected the legality of the divorce 
 of the king from his lawful wife Queen Catharine. 
 
 Therefore, on account of the monks not being 
 willing to assist Henry VIII. in the indulgence of his 
 vices, and also seeing that the monks possessed one- 
 seventh of the soil of England, for the benefit of the 
 poor of England, Henry VIII. desired the destruction 
 of the monasteries ; and in order to pave the way for 
 this, and make it more easy, he resolved to manufac- 
 ture lies, of the most horrible and monstrous descrip- 
 tion, against the characters of the monks and nuns. 
 
 When the reports about the condition of the 
 Monasteries had been published, by means of these 
 visitors, the king was in hopes that the people of 
 England would become more agreeable to his desires 
 of appropriating the monks' property. 
 
 But did the people of England of that day believe 
 the stories of the king's visitors respecting the
 
 382 Why were the Monasteries of 
 
 monasteries ? Not a bit of it. Do you not think that 
 the people of England, of that day, were in a better 
 position to judge the monks than people of succeeding 
 
 Remember, the people of England, of that day, were 
 the fathers and the mothers, and the uncles and the 
 cousins, and the sisters of the men that formed the 
 Monastic communities of England. In those days the 
 boys and girls of the rising generation were the 
 pupils of the monks and nuns, and lived with the 
 monks and nuns, and saw their daily life. Did the 
 people of England accept the reports of Henry YIII.'s 
 visitors to the monasteries ? You know, as well as I 
 do, that it is a matter of history that they utterly 
 repudiated them ; and not only repudiated them ; but 
 rose in thousands, all over the country, to protect the 
 monks and nuns against the forces of Henry VIII., 
 when he was determined to destroy the monasteries 
 and appropriate their possessions. 
 
 Brethren, it is a very extraordinary thing that 
 Henry VIII. was obliged to use hired, foreign mer- 
 cenaries to destroy the monasteries. They were not 
 British soldiers who overthrew those sacred homes of 
 religion and piety. They were hired mercenaries of 
 the vilest description from Switzerland and Austria, 
 and Italy ; men who sold themselves to the different
 
 England Destroyed? 383 
 
 monarchs of the day for the express purpose of 
 carrying out their wills. 
 
 So Henry VIII., by foreign, brute force, and in 
 spite of the will of the people, robbed the Church of 
 England of her monasteries. He tried to get an Act 
 of Parliament passed in order to permit the disso- 
 lution, as it was called a very euphonistic term of 
 the monasteries. 
 
 When this Act of Parliament was put before the 
 British Legislature, how was it received ? Unani- 
 mously the House of Commons rejected it. What 
 was the result ? The King, when he heard of it, 
 strutted up and down the gallery of the House, and 
 said : ' ' Gentlemen, I hear you refuse to pass my Bill. 
 If you do not pass my Bill I'll have some of your 
 heads." That was the way in which the King secured 
 the passing of the Act of Parliament. 
 
 I do not flinch from the closest examination into 
 the question. 
 
 I do not deny that there were scandals in the 
 monasteries. Of course there were. But was that 
 any excuse for dissolution ? If it be an excuse for 
 dissolution, there are scandals in houses here in 
 London ; but I think it would be an extraordinary 
 piece of injustice that, because of these scandals, these 
 houses should be " dissolved," and smashed to atoms, 
 and their inmates robbed of their possessions.
 
 384 Why were the Monasteries of 
 
 Professor Maitland, in his preface to the " History 
 of the Dark Ages," as they were called the Middle 
 Ages asserts : " Whatever the monks and nuns 
 were in themselves, they were at all times, and in all 
 places, much better than the other people." That is 
 the testimony of a Protestant historian, who has 
 given his mind energetically, and honestly, to a strict 
 investigation of the subject. 
 
 So you see then why the Monasteries of the Church 
 of England were destroyed. It was to gratify the lusts 
 and the greed of an autocratic tyrant, who tore the 
 Magna Charta of British liberty to shreds, and 
 trampled it under his feet. My brethren, I ask you, 
 if you are sufficiently interested in the subject, to 
 look at Mr. Hubert Burke's accumulated testimony 
 respecting the destruction of the Monasteries ? 
 
 Take, for instance, the history of the Charterhouse 
 in London. Read his essay on that one subject, and 
 you will see that no charge is brought against the 
 monks whatever, except that they refused to accept 
 Henry VIII. as the head in spiritual, as well as 
 temporal, matters of the Church of England ; and also 
 because they refused to accept the legitimate queen- 
 ship of Anne Boleyn, when the king's lawful queen 
 was alive. 
 
 These monks were dragged from their Monastery, 
 kept in a state of filth and misery and torture, in the
 
 England Destroyed ? 385 
 
 chains of Newgate ; they were then dragged through 
 the streets of London, on hurdles, to Tyburn Gate, 
 amidst the grief of the weeping multitude ; and the 
 most holy and saintly men that English citizenship 
 has produced were, then and there, disembowelled 
 alive, drawn, quartered and burnt before the agonised 
 crowd who beheld the horrible butchery and martyr- 
 dom of these holy men. 
 
 That is only one instance of the way in which the 
 monasteries were " dissolved." 
 
 I have not the least hesitation in saying that, 
 although it must be granted there were scandals and 
 there always will be scandals in every institution 
 which is made up of human beings the Monasteries 
 were the abodes of holy, learned, self-denying, useful 
 men. 
 
 Look at our own English clergy. They are, as a rule, 
 a highly educated, moral set of English gentlemen ; 
 but there are some of whom we are not proud ; these, 
 however, are exceptions to the rule. And supposing I 
 were to take one of these exceptions and show it as a 
 picture of the English clergy, and send it all over the 
 world, what a monstrous injustice, what a piece of 
 moral torture and persecution and dishonesty would 
 not that be ! So, to take a story or two of the monks 
 and nuns, and to give them as pictures of what they 
 were generally, would be a very extraordinary mis-
 
 386 Why were the Monasteries of 
 
 representation, which the people of England, at that 
 time, rose to refute in toto. 
 
 All I desire to say to you, in conclusion, is this : 
 Seeing that the monks and nuns of the Church of 
 England were the friends of science, agriculture, art, 
 charity, and of religion ; seeing that under the regime 
 of the monks and nuns of the Church of England 
 no charity by Act of Parliament, no poor's rates, no 
 workhouses, were needed ; seeing that the monks and 
 nuns of the Church of England were, in very deed and 
 truth, a sufficient supply for the wants of the poor ; 
 do you not think it would be a very grand thing for 
 our Church, and for our country, in the present day, 
 if, with all our secular restorations, we could attempt 
 the restoration of the Monasteries and Convents of 
 the dear old Church of England ? 
 
 If the Church of England will not produce a 
 Monastic restoration the Church of Rome will. 
 
 I have tried, for twenty-five years, to give to the 
 Church of England a Monastery, and as far as the 
 attempt has gone, I do not hesitate to say, it has 
 utterly failed. You may say it is my fault. I know 
 that there are a great many faults inherent in my 
 peculiar character which are against the success of the 
 work. No one knows them so well as I know them ; 
 but Almighty God put it into my heart to be the first 
 to come out and dedicate myself to this work.
 
 England Destroyed ? 387 
 
 If some of our persecutors and critics would come 
 forward and take my place, I would very thankfully 
 retire into my own cell, and become an ordinary monk. 
 I know my utter incapability for the leadership of so 
 great a work ; but God has called me to begin this 
 work, just the same as He called St. Benedict, and put 
 it into his heart, to begin his work. 
 
 I think that in this nineteenth century, Monasticism 
 is more needed than ever it was, as an antidote to 
 the sham religion and the restless spirit of the age. 
 It is more than ever needed as a practical proof of 
 Christian religious reality. 
 
 I repeat, brethren, that I should be happy to lay 
 down the position I have held, by force of circum- 
 stances, for the last twenty-five years, if any of those 
 who can sympathize with my incompetency for the 
 work, will come forward and take my place, after under- 
 going a year's training. And if there be any one here 
 present who will undertake to do this, with my whole 
 heart will I thank God for calling out one who is 
 willing, in this age of rationalism and unbelief, to 
 come forward and give up all for Christ ; and give 
 a practical proof that the love of God is strong 
 enough to draw out, from the people, a few a very 
 few, who are willing, for His sake, to live a life 
 for " Jesus only," and the benefit of their fellow
 
 388 Why were the Monasteries of 
 
 I think I have said quite enough in order to help 
 you, by a few data, to approach the subject of 
 "Why the Church of England's Monasteries were 
 destroyed;" and may I, in conclusion, again recom- 
 mend to you those works of Mr. Hubert Burke on this 
 subject ? His works are valuable because they give 
 such very voluminous, contemporaneous evidences. 
 
 "Burke's Historical Sketches of the Tudor Dynasty." 
 Will you make a note of that, because, if you will 
 read that book, you will there see that the whole 
 subject is brought very plainly and very voluminously, 
 before the reader. 
 
 Brethren, may I ask you just to petition our blessed 
 Lord to give me strength of will and body for my 
 lecture to-night? It was almost impossible that I 
 should come this afternoon to this service, and yet He 
 has brought me here. I shall not have strength to 
 sit, as the begging Monk, for the support of our only 
 Monastery at the door, and I shall have to ask a very 
 dear friend to take my place ; but when I am out 
 of sight, will you remember that my work is very 
 hard and very single-handed ; and that I am entirely 
 dependent, for the support of the work, on the offer- 
 ings that those, to whom God allows me to be a 
 blessing, may give to help me in my very uphill, 
 difficult, isolated position ? 
 
 I thank you so much for your most courteous
 
 England Destroyed ? 389 
 
 hearing, because I know I have said a great many 
 things that must seem new to some of you ; and I 
 would not, for all the world, say a word to hurt the 
 feelings of my dear, kind hearers ; for I thank God 
 for the intense sympathy that He has given me in the 
 hearts of my London congregations during the last two 
 years. If He give me health and strength I hope to 
 make this hall a centre for mission work twice a year, 
 whilst He shall spare me. 
 
 Dear Lord Jesus, grant, I pray Thee, that the words that 
 have been spoken, at this time, may not dishonour Thy 
 precious Name ; for Thy Name is above every name in our 
 hearts; and if any word I have spoken be not for Thy glory, 
 oh ! let it be forgotten. Do Thou, if our work be the work of 
 self-will, root it out of my heart, I beseech Thee ; but if it be 
 for Thy glory, if it be for the honour of Thy Name, and the 
 salvation of souls, oh, raise us up friends to help us in our 
 single-handed battle ! 
 
 HYMN OF THE BENEDICTINE MONKS OF 
 St. iHatg anfc St. Bunstan'a abbeg of SLlantfjong. 
 
 We come, we come, the children of Salvation, 
 The mystic spouses of our wondrous King ; 
 
 For all the nations of the earth we're pleading, 
 For Holy Church our solemn praises bring. 
 
 Amid the silence of our lonely mountains, 
 Living for " Jesus only " and alone ; 
 
 We come, we come, in joyous adoration, 
 
 And pour our homage at His Altar Throne.
 
 390 Benedictine Hymn. 
 
 Oh ! grand and princely is our glorious calling, 
 The Grates of Glory open at our word, 
 
 And pour their treasures o'er the weeping nations, 
 Befreshing showers from JESUS Christ, our Lord. 
 
 thought, most high ! all dedicate to Heaven, 
 
 Earth's loves and treasures trampled ' neath our feet 
 
 We spend our lives at Zion's Golden Portals, 
 Within the shadows of the Mercy Seat. 
 
 We bear the stamp of God's Predestination, 
 
 The coronal of His electing love ; 
 For " Day and Night " we raise our cry before Him, 
 
 He will " avenge " us throned in might above. 
 
 And wherefore cry we thus in full assurance, 
 Our lives all full of priceless golden days, 
 
 Of which but " one is better than a thousand," 
 Lit as they are by God's own peerless rays, 
 
 It is because we live for things we see not, 
 Things all eternal lasting as our Lord, 
 
 Which fade not change not cannot disappoint us, 
 Secured and promised by His Royal Word. 
 
 Ah ! children of a dying world ! we see you 
 Straying to darkness, weeping as you go ; 
 
 For you we pray for you His merits plead we, 
 Ye must be saved from the dread ageless woe. 
 
 Like Moses on the mountain top we bless you, 
 A Host we bring, O peoples, to your aid ; 
 
 Our praise like Mary's ointment shall refresh you, 
 By Christ we are your greatest helpmates made. 
 
 For this we raise our songs and intercessions, 
 Our praises from our Boiling Planet fling ; 
 
 They glad the ear of our Triune JEHOVAH, 
 Are precious in the presence of the King. 
 
 Then praise we mightily the GOD of Glory, 
 O raise to JESUS, sweetest, loftiest songs, 
 Also to Thee, O Loving Patient Spirit, 
 
 To Thee a universe of Praise belongs. Amen. 
 (IGNATIUS, O.S.B.) 
 
 MONK.
 
 XX 
 
 tes at f latttjwtty. 
 
 Tuesday Evening, May 5th, 1885.
 
 Prayer "before the Oration. 
 
 O Jesus Christ, we have only a very few hours to stay 
 here in this little, short, changing life ; and Thou hast left us 
 here for this little while to prepare for the great eternal 
 Home-land. Grant us to hear words, at this time, that shall 
 glorify Thy Name and help men to realize something of the 
 sublimity, of the reality of the supernatural; and of the 
 eternal life behind the thin veil that now hides it from our 
 human ken. 
 
 Thou art able to use the very poor instrument of human 
 words by anointing them with Thy Holy Spirit's power, 
 and so bringing them home with a mighty force, which is 
 divine, to our hearts first, and then to the intellects of those 
 who are willing to be enlightened and comforted and 
 instructed. 
 
 Thou knowest the different classes, the different schools of 
 thought, the different tempers, the peculiar characteristics of 
 all those who make up this assembly. Thou knowest those 
 who would believe if they could ; Thou knowest those who 
 have given up all hope of ever believing in Thyself, or in the 
 supernatural of any kind. But, O Lord Jesus, Thou art 
 drawing so many men, such as those, to Thyself; and Thou 
 givest us, Thy people, to see the transformation, the wondrous 
 change that comes to them. 
 
 Grant that the word spoken to-night may only be Thy 
 truth, and may be words of soberness as well as faith ; words 
 of power that shall carry peace and rest and light into the 
 hearts of peaceless, restless, darkened souls. 
 
 Lord Jesus, Thou canst, and Thou dost, satisfy those who 
 receive Thee; and wilt Thou use the strange story of Thy 
 mercy to us, in such a way to-night, that it may be a weapon 
 in the hand of Thy love for assisting doubters into the fold 
 of the faithful sons of God ! 
 
 Lord Jesus, let this meeting glorify Thee, and let it be a 
 blessing to us who are gathered here. We ask it for Thy 
 Name's sake. Amen.
 
 394 Oration. 
 
 THE APPAEITIONS AT LLANTHONY. 
 
 ration. 
 
 " Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a 
 cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which 
 doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is 
 set before us." Heb. xii. 1. 
 
 I wish to give the congregation a text of Scripture 
 as a preface to the address to-night, because it may 
 give a key-note, at all events, to the thoughts of those 
 present who believe in Christianity and in the Bible. 
 
 The text which I ask you to accept, as the sub- 
 stratum for the address, is the first verse of the 12th 
 chapter of the Epistle of S. Paul to the Hebrews. 
 
 You will recollect that in the chapter before, refer- 
 ence has been made to several departed saints, and 
 chapter xii. begins with these words : " Wherefore 
 seeing we also are compassed about with so great a 
 cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight." 
 
 This text applies to the departed saints. The 
 Apostle speaks of them as a cloud of witnesses round 
 about us. He is using the simile of a race. 
 
 We, here, are still in the race ; and the saints 
 departed within the veil are round about us as a
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 395 
 
 cloud of witnesses ; therefore let us lay aside the weight 
 that besets us especially our besetting sins because 
 the saints are looking on like witnesses on a race- 
 course or in a theatre. 
 
 Now, first of all, I want to appeal to those in this 
 room who are Christians. 
 
 To Christians, who believe in the Bible, there will 
 be no difficulty whatever in accepting the narra- 
 tion I have to give respecting the Apparitions which 
 God has granted to us at the Monastery, among the 
 Black Mountains of Wales. Christians cannot, on 
 any hypothesis whatever, reject the visions, unless 
 they believe them to be deliberate inventions of a 
 company of impostors. But I shall not dwell on this 
 just now, as I shall have to bring this thought forward 
 more prominently when I appeal to rationalists. 
 
 Christians, you believe, do you not, as much as I 
 do, that the Bible is the infallible, inspired Word of 
 God ? And this Book is full of the supernatural from 
 beginning to end. From the very first chapter of 
 Genesis to the last chapter of the Revelation which 
 is a Book of visions there is nothing but one con- 
 tinuity of narrative regarding visions, miracles and 
 apparitions. Therefore to you, Christians, who accept 
 the Scriptures, as the Church has handed them to us, 
 faith in apparitions and miracles, and the super- 
 natural in general, is a necessary part of your Christi-
 
 396 Oration. 
 
 anity. You do not doubt the possibility of apparitions 
 and miracles ; and you cannot quote the Scriptures to 
 prove that miracles and apparitions should cease at 
 any time in the Christian Church. 
 
 I wish, in speaking on this subject, to be careful of, 
 and kind to, the feelings of others ; still I must speak 
 plainly. At all events I wish to speak very solemnly; 
 and not to create a smile on any one's face. I hope 
 that our Lord will make me mindful of the solemn 
 position in which I stand to-night. 
 
 Yes, I am standing here in a very solemn position 
 indeed ; and what I am saying is either a narrative 
 for God's glory, or an imposture for God's dishonour ; 
 because I have been standing forth, for twenty years 
 and more, before the world, as a preacher of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 Now, Christian people, let me ask any one of you 
 I shall make a pause after this question to give any 
 Christian an opportunity of answering " Can you give 
 me one single text in Holy Scripture to prove that 
 miracles and visions are to cease with the Apostles ? " 
 It is a very hackneyed argument, against the testimony 
 for miracles and visions in these days, that those 
 things ceased with the Apostles ! That is the 
 common answer we receive from Christian people. 
 
 Now I should be very glad to have my ignorance 
 on this point instructed ; and I ask any one of you to
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 397 
 
 give me a single passage from God's "Word to prove 
 that miracles and apparitions were to cease with the 
 Apostles. I pause for an answer from any Protestant 
 or any Catholic Christian. (A pause, and no answer.) 
 Then I shall conclude that there is no Christian here 
 present who has a text ready to disprove the state- 
 ment which I am making, that there is no period in the 
 history of Christ's Church in which the supernatural 
 is to cease. 
 
 Jesus Christ has left a supernatural legacy to 
 believers. He has said, "these signs shall follow" 
 not Apostles, but " them that believe ; in My name 
 shall they cast out devils ; they shall speak with new 
 tongues ; they shall take up serpents ; and if they 
 drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them ; they 
 shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."* 
 Jesus also said of believers : " Verily, verily, I say 
 unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do 
 shall he do also ; and greater works than these shall 
 he do ; because I go unto My Father."f 
 
 Therefore, brethren, I say Christ's promise is to 
 believers, and is not limited to any particular time or 
 circumstances ; it is a general promise, made generally 
 to the people of God. 
 
 Therefore, brethren, when there is no exercise of 
 the supernatural in the visible Church of Christendom 
 * St. Mark xvi. 1718. f St. John xiv. 12.
 
 398 Oration. 
 
 it is owing to the lack of faith; when we hear of 
 miracles among the Jesuits, or any other body of 
 faithful Christians in the Church of Rome, or any 
 other Church ; when we hear of miracles amongst 
 dissenting, Evangelical congregations (and I could 
 refer you to a house now opened by a Protestant 
 minister in London for healing by faith) ; when we 
 hear, in all directions, of the supernatural being 
 manifested, we need not wonder, for we are living in 
 a day which demands supernatural manifestations 
 more than any other epoch in the Christian Church. 
 
 There never was a day that seemed to demand a 
 voice from Heaven like the day in which we live ; in 
 which every species of attack is being made upon 
 Christianity as a Divine Revelation ; when every 
 imaginable taunt is being flung from the little, puny 
 chamber of man's wisdom ; which man, in his pride, 
 wants to apotheosize ; when every sneer is being flung 
 at the thorn-crowned Head of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Brethren, if ever there were a day when you 
 Christians have a right to look for the supernatural, 
 it is to-day. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the Christian world is quivering 
 with the supernatural in every direction ; as a matter 
 of fact the supernatural is cropping up on all sides ; 
 but people have not the courage to come forward and 
 tell of the things that they see and hear. Only this
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 399 
 
 week have I received a letter begging me to say some- 
 thing to-night about a supernatural event which has 
 recently happened in London ; and I would gladly do 
 so, were it not that I am bound in honour to be silent 
 on the subject. Since I have been in London I have 
 also received letters testifying to the supernatural in 
 the experience of sensible, sober-minded Christians ; 
 and I find the same wherever I go. I repeat then, 
 brethren, that there is not a word in the Scriptures to 
 give any authority for the statement that the miracu- 
 lous was to cease with the Apostles. 
 
 You cannot read the lives of such men as John 
 Wesley, Ignatius Loyola, and the like, without, from 
 time to time, finding the supernatural cropping up. 
 John Wesley testifies to it in his life ; and so do the 
 saints of the different parts of the Catholic Church in 
 their lives ; and so do many Protestant saints of 
 various denominations. 
 
 Although I may seem by some to take a unique 
 position I am not actually doing so ; for I might 
 have this platform crowded with Catholic and Pro- 
 testant Christians, who could bear testimony, from 
 their own experience, of the supernatural both auri- 
 cular and oracular. So that I do not feel alone 
 on this platform. I know I am not alone in reality, 
 for there are spirits all around me now, and no 
 Christian can deny that we are thus compassed about.
 
 400 Oration. 
 
 I had been a witness to the supernatural, on other 
 occasions, before the Llanthony visions. They have 
 only been a climax ; and there has been a hush since 
 they appeared. God has granted us nothing further. 
 It may be His will that we shall have no further mani- 
 festations ; and no more are needed ; but this is in His 
 own Divine knowledge, and at His Divine disposal. 
 
 Christian people, is not the supernatural far more 
 precious to you than this earthly life below ? Do you 
 feel at home in the crowded streets of the City, or in 
 the Exchange, or on the busy quays ? Do you feel 
 at home in the market places and the places of 
 pleasure on earth ? No, these are all passing dreams 
 to you ; the supernatural world is your home. Year 
 by year your darlings pass from you one by one 
 through the filmy veil that hides the tremendous 
 realities of the eternal world from our gaze. First, 
 the last kiss of a darling wife, and she passes within 
 the veil; and when she has passed you hear the 
 voice you loved often come to you, even to your bodily 
 ears. 
 
 Only yesterday some one said to me of a darling 
 friend, " Oh, she has often spoken to me since she 
 has been gone." Then an almost idolized child is 
 taken from you, and, with a sweet bright face, just 
 before death, the child has said : " Mother, I see the 
 beautiful angels. I see them plainly ; don't you see
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 401 
 
 that angel ?" And after she has spoken the words 
 of the vision, which her dying eyes beheld, she 
 has fallen asleep in the arms of the Mystic Shepherd 
 the Incarnate Son of God Almighty. 
 
 Then come the Christmas times. Christmas, when 
 we are lonely and old, has no earthly music for our 
 hearts ; all the music of Christmas for us now is 
 within the veil, where our darlings are gathered 
 by the Shepherd's tender care. We put the empty 
 chairs around the Christmas board and around the 
 Christmas fire ; and we think of those who are 
 gone before into the real world of the immortal 
 the changeless life of liberty. And thus we realize, 
 the longer we live, the unreality of the shifting scenes 
 of this life of dreams ; and the mighty reality, the 
 stupendous beauty, and the calm rest of that super- 
 natural life beyond the little stream that we name 
 death. 
 
 Oh, Christian people, our text is a very precious 
 one. Our dear ones, within the veil, are round 
 about us like a " great cloud of witnesses ;" oh, so 
 near much nearer than we often think. When we 
 go to our places of worship, we declare it to be 
 one of the articles of our Creed, that we "believe 
 in the Communion of Saints." It is a peaceful 
 faith, it is a joyful faith, it is a faith that seems 
 
 cc
 
 4O2 Oration. 
 
 like a delicate, tender hand to brush away our falling 
 tears. 
 
 He keeps my dear ones for rne against the coming 
 of the dawn, when, in the Home-land, we shall be 
 united to part no more. 
 
 Oh, the supernatural ! Oh, the life beyond this 
 short, fleeting, dream of time ! That is the REALITY. 
 This is the shadow ; that is the substance. 
 
 And, brethren, sometimes we ache in heart, and 
 mourn in spirit, because we are surrounded by 
 a crowd of men, with hearts of stone. They 
 say : " no, we are on a par with the brutes ; 
 our wives and children, our loved ones, are 
 nothing ; we shall never see them again ; they 
 have ceased to exist. This life although we may 
 be dead to-morrow this life, although there is 
 nothing certain in it but death this life is the only 
 reality " ! 
 
 To me, it seems a puzzle, how such men can drag 
 on their wretched existence ; for they can have 
 nothing for which to live. There would seem to be 
 for them no object in life. Oh ! if Jesus Christ were 
 to be taken from me, it would take away the sun from 
 the sky ; it would take away from me the spring and 
 the summer-time, and the fruits, and the flowers, and 
 the songs of birds ; every thing would fall flat and 
 dead, if the source of all beauty and joy were gone.
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 403 
 
 When once you have tasted what Jesus is, you cannot 
 do without Him. 
 
 But they cannot take Him away; they can never 
 touch the faith, that the Holy Ghost has stamped 
 upon my soul, that, in Jesus, I am an immortal 
 son of God ; that I live in the Resurrection life of 
 Him who lived and died and rose again for me, 
 and Who says to me : " Because I live, ye shall live 
 also."* 
 
 Oh ! blessed life of the eternal years, hidden 
 behind the veil ! I wonder, oh, I wonder, and I 
 marvel exceeding sore, that I see no more visions of 
 thy beauty : that the light within the veil flashes not 
 oftener on my earthly sight ; that faces look not 
 through the cloud to cheer me, and voices speak not 
 to call me on ; for " they compass us about as a cloud 
 of witnesses !"f 
 
 Christian people, listen to the story of the Llanthony 
 Apparitions, for they are testified to by credible, 
 truthful, honest witnesses ! 
 
 I have now spoken to Christians. I have reminded 
 them of the state of the present day in which our 
 lot is cast ; and I have said that if ever the super- 
 natural might be looked for, by Christ's disciples, 
 it is at the present time. 
 
 And now, rationalists, I want to say a word very 
 * St. John xiv. 19. f Hebrews xii. 1.
 
 404 Oration. 
 
 respectfully to you; and, believe me, I do not say 
 "respectfully" with cant or hypocrisy. We are 
 living in a day, when it is the common sentiment of 
 the human race, that men have a right to speak 
 plainly what they believe, without fear of bodily 
 violence. The days of bodily violence, even for 
 myself, seem to have passed by. I have not 
 been beaten for my opinions since 1879; and 
 I may say this, that I have received the greatest 
 courtesy, on all hands, from freethinkers and 
 rationalists. Therefore, in speaking to them I feel 
 that I am addressing men who are willing to exercise 
 their common sense upon the subject on which I 
 speak, just as they would investigate any natural 
 story as to its truth or untruth. I only want 
 rationalists to treat the story I am going to tell them 
 to-night in the same way in which a case would be 
 investigated in a Court of Justice. 
 
 I am very anxious that the story I have to tell 
 should be ventilated and examined; and when I have 
 told it, I should like to refer you to a friend who will 
 receive the names of any gentlemen who may be 
 desirous of seriously investigating the matter. I 
 should prefer the investigators to be rationalists, and, 
 if possible, also lawyers. I do not want Christians to 
 have anything to do with it; because they must 
 accept the testimony, unless they say that I am
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 405 
 
 telling deliberate untruths. There is no occasion for 
 Christians to investigate the reality of the super- 
 natural ; but there is great reason for rationalists to 
 do so. 
 
 The several persons who saw the visions although 
 now scattered and not, in any way, under my 
 influence, can be questioned as to what they saw. 
 
 I shall be glad, therefore, to hear from any bond 
 fide rationalists, (indeed I would prefer atheists 
 those who do not believe in God or in a future) who 
 will form a committee to investigate the story of these 
 Apparitions at Llanthony. I should not, of course, 
 think of exposing myself to an enormous amount of 
 correspondence, which I should be utterly unable to 
 carry on ; therefore it would have to be done upon 
 the lines I suggest. I should expect to receive the 
 names and addresses, of those proposing to act on 
 such a committee, as a proof of bona fides a reasonable 
 sine qua non, I think, on my part. 
 
 At the close of the lecture, if any persons present 
 would like to put questions to me I shall be happy to 
 answer them. 
 
 The best thing for me to do now will be to relate the 
 story of the Apparitions, and then conclude by say- 
 ing what it seems to me to be worth. I say " seems," 
 because it is impossible for me to tell you how much 
 it is worth. It maybe, in God's merciful Providence,
 
 406 Oration. 
 
 that we shall know more about what we have seen 
 than we know at present. 
 
 First of all, I would remind my hearers generally, 
 that the two points for which I have been, to such an 
 extent, ostracised by my fellow-churchmen, have been 
 these : the worship that we give to our Lord in the 
 Blessed Sacrament, and the amount of veneration 
 that we give to our Lord in His Mother. 
 
 Certainly, for nearly twenty years, we have suffered, 
 as far as worldly prospects are concerned, on account 
 of those two particulars. Churchmen, who would 
 have liked to have helped us, have said : " no, you 
 go to such extremes with regard to the doctrine of 
 the Holy Eucharist, and the honour you pay to the 
 Blessed Virgin, that we cannot conscientiously help 
 you." Others have said : " we cannot judiciously 
 help you ; it would injure our work " ! 
 
 We, on the other hand, have never thought about 
 judiciousness or expediency ; and therefore it is that 
 we have the reputation of being very injudicious and 
 of doing things that are very inexpedient, and 
 "foolish" and "wrong." 
 
 In the year 1880 we were going on in our own 
 practical matter-of-fact way at the Monastery, with 
 every hour of the day carved out because there we 
 have to be our own servants ; to be occupied with the
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony, 407 
 
 minute details of daily, domestic service ; to attend to 
 a vast correspondence all in addition, of course, to 
 the religious services held in our own church by night 
 and by day. 
 
 Besides the services, we each have an hour's watch 
 of intercession in the Monastery church, before the 
 Altar, for the conversion of sinners and the praise of 
 God. I mention this in passing, to show that we have, 
 and had then, no time for morbid sentimentality, 
 hazy imaginations, and unreal wanderings of mind. 
 We are thoroughly employed, and, generally speak- 
 ing, every one is in a good state of health in the 
 Monastery except myself. I have always been deli- 
 cate ; and the work that I have undertaken has 
 entailed upon me a fearful strain, God only knowing 
 all that I have had to pass through. 
 
 On Monday, the 30th of August, 1880, which was 
 a very fine late summer's morning, a brother (Brother 
 Dunstan) went, as usual, at nine o'clock, into the church 
 to take his watch before the Blessed Sacrament. It 
 has been said, to account for what follows, that we 
 were all in a state of " receptivity." That is a very 
 fine word, but there is no sense in it with regard to 
 us ; for our receptivity, at the time, was a receptivity 
 for an amount of extra work. Monday is always 
 an extra busy day with us ; and this brother, if he had 
 allowed his thoughts to wander at his watch instead
 
 408 Oration. 
 
 of their wandering to visions and miracles they 
 would probably have wandered to the extra amount 
 of house work which he would have to do. 
 
 Dear friends, I am anxious not to say anything to 
 create a smile;* but I want to be plain, and to help you 
 to see the faultiness of some of the arguments which 
 have been used against what I am saying. We were 
 not in any state of receptivity at all ; we were in a 
 state of great hurry and business. 
 
 Well, this brother went into his watch at nine 
 o'clock, and he was kneeling about twenty feet from 
 the Altar. At the south side of the Altar there is a 
 large window, which was not then filled with stained 
 glass, and consequently a bright light shone upon 
 the Altar. The church is divided with a screen, and 
 only into the outer part of the church, are secular 
 people, from the outer world, allowed to come. 
 
 The brother, who left the watch, had no communi- 
 cation with the sister who next came in to take her 
 watch. She (Sister Janet) had been a schoolmistress 
 in the neighbourhood for many years, and was now 
 an associate of our Order. 
 
 The brother had been half an hour at his watch, (I 
 
 may mention that this gentleman's sister is now in 
 
 the congregation ; she will give his name, and I am 
 
 sure he will be willing to answer any questions of 
 
 * Some persons present smiled at this point.
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 409 
 
 investigation that may be put to him) when he 
 raised his eyes and saw, in front of the Tabernacle, 
 a kind of blue mist playing. As he looked at the 
 mist he thought that his eyes must be affected, and 
 he rubbed them, thinking it was an illusion; but 
 as he still looked, the mist thickened and densified, 
 until he saw the monstrance, or silver vessel which 
 contained the Host, within the Tabernacle, glimmer- 
 ing in the mist, outside the massive door of the 
 Tabernacle, which was locked. This door is of iron, 
 nearly an inch thick. The key was in my cell, which 
 I had not left that morning, because I had been very 
 unwell, and had had a good deal of writing to do. 
 
 The mist gradually cleared away; and then the 
 sacred vessel, containing the Host, was plain before 
 the brother's eyes ; and the sunlight, from the window, 
 flashed upon it. He saw this for half an hour, and 
 on leaving his watch, still looked back upon the Vision, 
 as he went out. 
 
 Sister Janet then came in to take her watch ; and 
 knelt down, as usual, at the screen in the outer 
 church. When she looked at the Altar she saw the 
 same appearance ; but she did not dream of its being 
 supernatural she imagined only that the Blessed 
 Sacrament was exposed for some reason or other; 
 but she was much astonished to find that the Host 
 was exposed without the usual signs of reverence and
 
 410 Oration. 
 
 devotion, which we always render when we have our 
 three expositions in the year. 
 
 We only have the Host exposed three times a year, 
 and they are very solemn occasions ; and we pay our 
 Lord a great deal of honour during those days. On 
 this occasion there was no light burning ; there were 
 no flowers ; and the sister was consequently much as- 
 tonished, knowing how particular we are in these 
 matters of detail and reverence. Directly her watch 
 was over at 11 o'clock, she went to the Monastery 
 porch, rang the bell, and asked to see the brother 
 who had taken the watch before her. When he came 
 to the grating, she said : " why has the Reverend 
 Father left the Blessed Sacrament out ? " 
 
 I may tell you that Brother Dunstan was a very 
 matter-of-fact gentleman ; he was brought up a 
 Presbyterian, and was not at all inclined to believe in 
 miracles or in the supernatural ; in fact, the very 
 opposite ; and having felt convinced we should say that 
 what he had seen was imagination, and laugh at him, if 
 he told us about it, he had determined not to mention 
 the matter at all. But when the sister came to the 
 porch and asked : " why has the Reverend Father left 
 the Blessed Sacrament out ?" and when she explained 
 precisely what she had seen, and Brother Dunstan 
 knew that the Tabernacle had not been opened, he at 
 once came to my cell to tell me what had happened.
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 41 1 
 
 I suggested that we should go to the church, for 
 it was time for the mid-day office. When we went 
 in the Apparition had disappeared. I said the 
 brother and the sister had better say nothing about it. 
 
 I lay particular stress upon this, because people 
 have said that the Vision which the boys saw in the 
 evening was in consequence of what they had heard 
 of the miracle in the morning. The boys knew 
 nothing about it whatever. 
 
 In the evening, after Vespers, the choir-boys were 
 in the meadow playing, as they do at recreation time, 
 and were having a very noisy game. The children 
 were very strong and healthy from the mountain air, 
 and from their good, plain food. They were not 
 withered, shrunk, imaginative, namby-pamby boys, 
 fancying all kinds of nonsense, as has been sug- 
 gested. I will give any one who likes, the name and 
 address of the chief boy, so that those who care to 
 investigate the matter may be able to ascertain for 
 themselves what he saw. He is now employed in 
 business. 
 
 All at once the noise of the game was stopped; and, 
 in a very short time, one of the boys came running up 
 to my cell, soon followed by others, saying : " Father, 
 we have seen such a beautiful spirit in the meadow." 
 That was the first thing they said. I did not pay 
 much attention to it. I was still busy writing. It
 
 412 
 
 Oration. 
 
 was then a quarter past eight in the evening. When, 
 however, all the other boys came and told me the 
 same story I was verv much astonished. 
 
 The eldest boy, who was fifteen years old, said he 
 was certain that what they had seen was the blessed 
 Virgin Mary quite certain. He said that first of 
 all, as he was waiting for his turn to run in the game, 
 he was looking towards an old ruined hut, where 
 there had been a farm-house ; and he saw a bright 
 light over the hedge, and the figure of a woman, 
 with hands upraised, as if in blessing, and with a 
 veil over her face, coming to him. He stood still 
 and was much astonished and alarmed. The figure 
 came almost at right angles to him, and then 
 she passed close enough even for him to see the 
 material of the garments that she wore. The figure 
 passed off at right angles, and stood in a bright light 
 in a bush about fifty feet from the boy. The bush 
 was all illumined with phosphorescent light. The 
 figure passed through the bush ; and the light was 
 there for some little time after the form had disap- 
 peared. The rest of the boys saw, and described, the 
 same appearance. 
 
 They had run out through the gate, so that they 
 might go down the road to see more of this wonderful 
 figure ; but had seen nothing more. 
 
 After this I was determined to find out what it was
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 413 
 
 if we could. There was a young clerk, from a railway 
 station, staying at the Monastery, who witnessed the 
 boys' excitement on the subject. 
 
 I had all the boys in the church, where I spoke 
 solemnly to them, separately, and heard what they 
 had to say. I told them what an unlikely story it 
 was, and that no one would believe them ; and I asked 
 them what could have put it into their heads to think 
 of such a thing. 
 
 But they still maintained that what they said was 
 true. 
 
 We watched Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and 
 Friday evenings after that. 
 
 A friend of mine from London, a lawyer, was 
 staying in the neighbourhood, and I told him exactly 
 what the boys had said. I asked him to interrogate 
 them. He did so, very kindly, and I saw him after- 
 wards ; when he said : " of course, I cannot say what 
 they have seen ; but I am certain that the boys quite 
 believe that they are telling the truth ; and I have 
 no doubt of their truthfulness." 
 
 Unfortunately I had to leave Llanthony on the 
 Saturday, being under a promise to take the duty 
 for a clergyman in the diocese of Exeter, where we 
 had a convent at that time. He was going for a 
 holiday for two Sundays ; and he had entrusted his 
 parish to me. I was therefore obliged to go, much
 
 414 Oration. 
 
 against my wish; but I left strict orders that the 
 brothers and the boys should watch every night, 
 at the same time, about eight o'clock ; and then 
 write to me, telling of any experience they might 
 have. 
 
 On Saturday night, September 4th, the boys were 
 out playing as usual when, all at once, the same bush 
 became illuminated with a very bright light. One 
 boy called out : " The bush is all on fire again ! " 
 
 For some little time they watched the light; then 
 they ran to the Monastery to call out an elder 
 brother. 
 
 In the meantime a junior brother had come out, 
 had knelt down in the meadow before the illuminated 
 bush, and had begun to say prayers and hymns. 
 The boys were indignant because he was saying 
 collects and hymns that had no relation to what they 
 considered the vision to be, and they said : " do not 
 say those prayers, but say a ' Hail, Mary ' ; for we 
 are certain it was the Blessed Virgin. If we do our 
 Lord will perhaps let the vision appear again." 
 
 While they were thus discussing, the senior brother 
 came up, and he agreed that they should begin to 
 sing " Ave Maria." That instant the figure flashed 
 again, in a cloud of light, in the same place, where 
 the first boy had seen it on the Monday. 
 
 As they sang, the figure in the light sent out rays
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 415 
 
 of light, sometimes appearing behind and sometimes 
 in front of the hedge, and sometimes coming straight 
 towards the illuminated bush. When they said the 
 words in the "Hail, Mary" " Blessed is the fruit of 
 thy womb, Jesus," they saw a second figure as of a 
 Man, with only a cloth round His loins, appearing in 
 the light, with His hands stretched out. 
 
 The boy, who first saw the vision, declared that he 
 saw a Cross behind the hands, and saw the face 
 distinctly ; whereas the brothers said there was a 
 mist over the face, and they could not discern any 
 features. The face of the female figure was veiled as 
 the boys had seen it on the Monday. 
 
 After this they watched, and on several occasions 
 saw this same figure. The senior boy saw the figure 
 on eight separate occasions. 
 
 As soon as my duty in Devonshire was over I was 
 only too glad to get home ; and when I returned to 
 the Monastery, on the 14th of September, which was 
 Tuesday night, we watched, but saw nothing. 
 
 On the 15th of September, between eight and a 
 quarter past eight, we watched again. It was a 
 very close, muggy evening. There was a heavy 
 Scotch mist descending, and the mountains were 
 looking very dull, and the sky leaden. It was so 
 damp that we did not go into the meadow ; but 
 Sister Janet, who was not allowed to come to the
 
 416 Oration. 
 
 Monastery door, where we were standing, went into 
 the meadow. 
 
 We were in the Monastery porch. The boys were 
 standing on the front step ; I was standing on the 
 top step ; one "brother was at my left ; and another 
 brother on my right. Two farmers were behind in 
 the back of the porch ; and a gentleman visitor an 
 undergraduate of Keble College, Oxford, now in Holy 
 Orders was a little behind me to the right. 
 
 I suggested that we should sing three " Hail, 
 Marys " in honour of each person of the Blessed 
 Trinity. We began a " Hail, Mary " in honour of 
 G-od the Father. Between the "Hail Marys" we, 
 all of us, expressed our amazement at some very 
 curious flashings of light which we saw in all directions 
 in the meadow, like the outlines of figures. That 
 was the impression I had. These outlines of light 
 flashed here and there in all directions. 
 
 I then said : " Let us sing a ' Hail Mary ' in honour 
 of the Blessed Virgin herself;" and we began to 
 chant the fourth " Hail Mary." 
 
 Directly we began to do so I saw a great circle of 
 light flash out over the whole heavens, taking in the 
 mountains, the trees, the ruined house, the en- 
 closure, the monastery, the gates, and everything ; 
 the light flashed upon our feet, upon the steps, and 
 upon the buildings ; and from that one great circle of
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 417 
 
 light, small circles bulged out, and, in the centre of 
 the circles, stood a gigantic figure of a human being, 
 with hands uplifted, standing sideways. 
 
 In the distance this gigantic figure appeared to be 
 about sixty feet in height j but as it descended it took 
 the ordinary size of a human being. At the moment 
 it struck me that a dark appearance over the head of 
 the figure was hair, not a veil ; but I am convinced, 
 from comparing notes with the others, and also from 
 other reasons, that it was a veil which I saw over the 
 head. 
 
 I saw distinctly the outlines of the features against 
 the bright light, and also the exact form of the 
 drapery from the sleeves of the upraised arms, as 
 clearly and as plainly as it is possible for me to 
 express. 
 
 It was all stamped with a most marvellous kind of 
 reality upon my mind. But marvellous and glorious 
 as the vision had been, staggered and astonished 
 as I (who am naturally so impulsive, excitable, 
 and demonstrative,) was at the time, I happily 
 determined to say nothing of what I had seen to those 
 about me ; but to ascertain what they had seen in 
 order that I might receive confirmation from them ! 
 
 So after the vision had passed, I turned to the 
 brother on my left and said : " did you see any- 
 thing?" 
 
 DD
 
 41 8 Orations. 
 
 " Yes, indeed I did, Keverend Father," he 
 replied. 
 
 " Now, tell me," I said, " exactly what you saw." 
 He told me exactly what he had seen, and his testi- 
 mony was precisely confirmatory of what I myself had 
 witnessed. The brother in front of me also declared 
 that he saw exactly what the other brother had 
 described. 
 
 A few minutes afterwards Sister Janet came in 
 from the meadow, and walking up towards the gate, 
 lifted up her hands, as if she wished to attract our 
 notice and to speak. I went to her and said : " what 
 is the matter ?" 
 
 " Oh ! Reverend Father/" she replied, " I have 
 seen the most glorious vision of any yet." 
 
 I told her to be quiet, and to tell me exactly what 
 she had seen. 
 
 She described precisely, without a word being said 
 by us, what she had witnessed ; and it was exactly 
 what had been seen by us. 
 
 From that time no further visions appeared. 
 
 After seeing the vision, this was the thought 
 that came to me. If I had seen it myself only, I 
 should have felt that God had granted this vision to 
 me individually, for some merciful purpose of His own ; 
 but that it would not have been of much use to others, 
 because people would naturally have said : " Father
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 419 
 
 Ignatius is enthusiastic, is of a very imaginative turn 
 of mind, and it was all just the force of imagination." 
 But when three other people, at the same time, saw 
 precisely the same thing that I had seen, it became 
 clear that their imaginations could not have been 
 affected in exactly the same manner, and at the same 
 moment. Therefore I felt convinced that our Lord 
 had given to us these Apparitions for several reasons ; 
 and amongst them I believed that He had given them 
 for the good of the Church of England, and for the 
 comfort of those in the outer world. 
 
 I knew what an enormous storm of abuse, ridicule, 
 and persecution would thereby be brought upon us; 
 nevertheless, I determined to give a public testimony to 
 the Apparition of the Blessed Sacrament, and to the 
 Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 
 
 As I expected, directly we gave our testimony, a 
 torrent of storm, abuse, and ridicule poured upon us. 
 Many of our friends deserted us, and did not care to 
 have anything more to do with us ; and, as far as 
 pecuniary help, for our services and charities, was 
 concerned, (which totally depend upon voluntary 
 offerings) we lost a great deal. 
 
 In the midst of all this storm we had a letter from 
 a man, not many miles off, who was a cripple, and he 
 said he believed he might be healed through this 
 vision ; and asked me if I would send him some leaves
 
 420 Orations. 
 
 from the bush where the Apparition had so many 
 times appeared. I wrote to him and said : "certainly 
 not until God had given me a token that He meant 
 miracles to be worked in that way." 
 
 A few days afterwards, on the Festival of St. 
 Matthew, the 21st of September (the last of the 
 visions having been on the 15th), I sent to each 
 of our nuns at Slapton, in Devonshire as memorials 
 of G-od's wonders amongst us, pieces of a wild 
 rhubarb leaf, which had stood up dark against the 
 dazzling garments of the Apparition, as it appeared 
 in the bush. 
 
 Now, among our nuns was one middle-aged lady, 
 who had been a cripple thirty-eight years. She had 
 suffered from abscesses in the hip-joint, and from a 
 contracted knee ; and she had never been able to 
 raise her limb without lifting it, with her hand or 
 other foot ; indeed she had had intense suffering ever 
 since she was a child. Her knee was so contracted 
 that she had not been able to put her foot to the 
 ground for thirty-eight years. 
 
 On the morning of the day when this leaf arrived 
 the sisters' meditation, at the eight o'clock service in 
 the chapel, had been, " According to your faith be it 
 unto you."* Those words had a very curious effect 
 upon the nun. 
 
 * St. Matt. ix. 29.
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 42 1 
 
 I should tell you that this lady had been born and 
 bred a Dissenter among the Moravians; and her 
 brother is now a Dissenting minister. She had always 
 had a prejudice against our extreme devotion to the 
 Mother of our Lord ; and though she wore a rosary, 
 out of obedience to my wishes, she never, with her 
 whole heart, had practised devotion to the Mother of 
 our Lord as we do. I say this to show that she was 
 rather prejudiced against paying honour to the Mother 
 of Jesus. 
 
 But all through the day these words seemed to 
 haunt her, "according to your faith be it unto you; " 
 until at last she said, " yes, Lord, I know that ; but I 
 have no faith." She meant that she had not faith in 
 the leaf, because, in her own mind, she had been 
 thinking of applying it to her wounds. When 
 she went to her cell after Compline, she was suffering 
 more than usual; for on the Feast of St. Ignatius, the 
 31st July, some fresh abscesses had appeared, and 
 some pieces of bone had passed through them. 
 
 On Tuesday, September 21st, 1880, just seven days 
 after the last Apparition had been seen, she was 
 quivering from head to foot with pain. She was going 
 to lie down but she never could lie down without 
 lifting her diseased limb with the other foot on to the 
 bed when something told her to use the leaf, which 
 she had put, wrapped up in an envelope, in her pocket.
 
 422 Orations. 
 
 She took the leaf out. She took the rosary and said 
 ten " Hail, Marys ; " and, at the end of the " Hail, 
 Marys ! " she took the piece of leaf, and laid it upon 
 these painful abscesses. The very instant the piece 
 of withered leaf was laid upon the abscesses they closed 
 up and the discharge ceased; her knee was loosened 
 at the joint, her foot was on the ground, and she was 
 cured instantaneously. 
 
 She said that, at the time, she was inclined to 
 scream for joy and gratitude, and to rush to the other 
 nuns ; but she knew that disobedience to the Rule 
 would not glorify Him Who had done this for her ; 
 therefore she said : " I quieted myself, for obedience 
 sake, and made up my mind that I would lie down 
 until the morning." 
 
 When she was going to raise her limb upon the 
 bed, as usual, she found there was no need for it ; 
 because she could put that limb up as well as the 
 other, which for thirty-eight years she had not been 
 able to do. 
 
 The next morning she told, and showed, the Rev. 
 Mother, and her sister nuns, the miraculous wonder of 
 God's infinite goodness towards her ; and the news 
 quickly spread in the village. 
 
 The vicar of the parish came to the convent, and 
 the village people rang the village bells, for they were 
 very fond of the nuns ; and, in a day or two, there was
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 423 
 
 a service of thanksgiving in the Priory chapel, for 
 the miracle that God had wrought. There was 
 also an account, in the local paper, of what had taken 
 place. 
 
 I knew then that God had given me a sign, and so 
 when letters came to me, by every post, asking me for 
 these leaves we never refused them. There have 
 been plenty of other healings following this one ; but 
 people are so peculiar and sensitive, that, even when 
 they receive a blessing, they do not like to let it be 
 known, and have their names published. 
 
 I am sorry to say that several people have bound 
 me down in honour to say nothing of their blessed 
 experiences ; but with some this has not been the 
 case. Only in the spring of 1885, a young man 
 travelled some miles to my missionary service at 
 Torquay, to show me a miracle that had been wrought 
 upon his limb, which had been pronounced incurable by 
 the doctor. For fifteen months he had had a great 
 running sore, which was really sapping away his 
 strength. He had had three doctors ; and one of them 
 had said that it would be many years before he was 
 well; while another predicted that he never would be 
 well again. 
 
 " I have come/' he said, " to show you what has 
 taken place. I had sent for a leaf, and I tied it 
 on the wound. I want you to see it ; for now it
 
 424 Orations. 
 
 is as dry as the palm of my hand, and I am quite 
 well." 
 
 The young man asked me to come into the waiting 
 room, by the Mission Hall, that I might see his 
 healed limb, and return thanks to God publicly for 
 it. He offered [to give his name and address to 
 anybody. 
 
 But this young man is one of very few who are glad 
 to come forward, and give publicity to the fact that 
 God's hand is not shortened, in supernatural work 
 and acts of healing love.* 
 
 Now, brethren, I have told you the story ; and it 
 
 * The same young man, a few days ago, wrote to Father Ignatius 
 the following note : 
 
 "NEWTON ABBOT, DEVON, 
 
 " Sept. 28th, 1886. 
 "REVEREND AND DEAR FATHER, 
 
 " It is now nearly two years since I wrote and begged for a 
 Leaf from the Holy Bush, for my poor leg ; and which, by God's 
 mercy, was healed. I am most thankful to say it is still well and 
 healed, but when I say ' thankful ' I am afraid I am not half so 
 thankful as I ought to be. 
 
 " Will you ask those of the Community to remember to thank 
 Almighty God for His goodness towards me ? 
 
 " Pardon the liberty I have taken in writing you. Hoping you 
 are restored to health, 
 
 " I remain yours truly, 
 
 " R. F. H . 
 
 " I write this simply to let you know that it was not simply healed 
 for a few weeks or so." 
 
 (Name and address were given in full.)
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 425 
 
 seems to me that there are only two hypotheses 
 respecting it. The one is that what I have said is 
 absolutely true, and the more investigation there is 
 about it the better, because it would substantiate the 
 truth ; the other is that we have all conspired delibe- 
 rately to palm off a most blasphemous imposture, in 
 the name of the Grod of Truth, upon the people 
 whom we want to delude. 
 
 The hackneyed explanation that it is all imagina- 
 tion that it is the result of excitability of tempera- 
 ment, is manifestly absurd ; because there were four 
 persons, of different temperaments, who were all 
 witnesses of the last Vision. Eight altogether had 
 seen the Blessed Virgin, three men, one woman, and 
 four healthy boys. 
 
 And now let me tell you, in conclusion, what I 
 feel to be very much the meaning, and the value, 
 of the Apparitions. First of all they are invaluable 
 to the intellect of Christian people as showing the 
 truth and the reality of that faith which they 
 profess in the supernatural. There is an enormous 
 amount of value indeed to those who already believe 
 in Christ, in having their faith confirmed. Then I 
 think they are of great value to the Church of 
 England, because there has been so much of the 
 supernatural in other parts of the Church ; and the
 
 426 Orations. 
 
 Church of England has been without the least sign 
 of it for so long a period. 
 
 The fact of God's granting this to the Church of 
 England proves to my conscience, and to my heart, 
 and to my understanding, that our Sacraments are 
 valid, and that the Blessed Mother of Jesus would 
 visit us as much as she would visit those in other 
 parts of the Christian Church. 
 
 But there is so much bigotry of party and sect, that 
 when the Vision was first promulgated, we had an 
 enthusiastic letter from a Protestant lady in Hastings, 
 saying that she believed in apparitions in these days, 
 and that she believed there would be signs in the 
 heavens ; adding : " I am so sympathetic with 
 you; please send me full particulars." We sent 
 particulars ; and we gave reasons why we were con- 
 vinced that it was the Blessed Virgin Mary who had 
 appeared. 
 
 But when she heard that we were convinced of 
 that, she wrote a " furious " letter and told us 
 that " as we said it was the Virgin Mary she was 
 convinced it was the devil who had sent the vision 
 and not God ! 
 
 Brethren, this was very sad and sickening to our 
 hearts. 
 
 At the same time I had a letter from a Roman 
 Catholic in Ireland, who said she quite believed that
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 427 
 
 we had seen the Apparition, "but," she added, "as 
 you are not Roman Catholics I believe, instead of its 
 having been a heavenly vision, it was satanic ! " 
 
 There again was party spirit. At all events, the 
 wonders of mercy that have resulted from the Visions 
 prove that they were of God ; and that God's favour 
 in the supernatural, is being restored to the Church 
 of England, if only there be faith to receive it. 
 
 Last of all, it has been a great comfort to us per- 
 sonally, because it seems to have confirmed us on the 
 two points upon which we have had most to suffer. 
 
 When I gave this address at Brighton, where the 
 crippled nun had once kept a lady's school, for many 
 years, a gentleman rose up in the congregation, and 
 said that he had been her man of business for a long 
 time, and that he could testify that this lady had 
 been a cripple for many years. Then there were 
 pupils of hers, and tradespeople, and friends, all of 
 whom knew that my statements about her were true. 
 And this gentleman further said : " I have had a 
 letter from the lady to say that she was suddenly 
 and instantaneously healed, and I know she would 
 not tell me a falsehood." 
 
 Now, if any rationalist would like to ask a question 
 I shall be very glad to answer it. I am sure that, 
 if he will put his question courteously, he will be
 
 428 Orations. 
 
 treated with, the greatest courtesy by myself and by 
 the audience.* 
 
 To sum up then : 
 
 A solemn, public testimony has now been given, to 
 most startling, supernatural phenomena in a Church 
 of England Monastery, in the midst of this unbe- 
 lieving, materialistic age. 
 
 By these phenomena the mysteries of Christianity 
 have been solemnly confirmed ; and the Word of God 
 has received one more " So be it." 
 
 The Church of England has been supernaturally 
 recognised as a true portion of the Catholic Church ; 
 and her Sacraments acknowledged by a miracle. 
 
 The Monastic revival, long persecuted because of 
 the two especial points above alluded to, viz. : the 
 Restoration of the Reserved Sacrament, and the Cultus 
 of the Mother of our Lord, have now received a 
 sanction from on High, by these marvellous manifes- 
 tations. 
 
 Christians, who receive our testimony, must rejoice 
 our common Faith has been confirmed by God's 
 Infinite Mercy. 
 
 English Churchmen have received from God a 
 special approval, for their ancient Church, in spite of 
 her sadly isolated position. 
 
 * No question whatever was asked.
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 429 
 
 We, at Llanthony, ought faithfully to hold on to 
 the end, firmly believing that God has mercifully 
 vouchsafed to bless our work there, and to accept it 
 as pleasing to Himself. 
 
 Oh, if we could echo forth a thousand Alleluias of 
 thanksgiving, it would be little indeed for so mighty 
 a boon as a Vision from the everlasting Glory, in 
 the midst of the daring unbelief, and the denial of the 
 Immortality of Man in this woe-full age in which our 
 lot is cast ! 
 
 Lift we now with thankful'voices 
 Hearts all filled with love and praise, 
 Light the tapers ! wave the banners, 
 Sweetest clouds of incense raise. 
 Deck the Shrine of our Great Mother 
 For this wondrous Day of Days. 
 
 All around was soul-felt darkness, 
 Satan ruled in earth and air, 
 For the things of days eternal 
 Men had almost ceased to care. 
 To deny all Revelation, 
 Multitudes begin to dare. 
 
 In the darkness of the valley 
 As the ancient prophet saith, 
 See the nations round us lying 
 'Mid the very shades of death. 
 From the peoples long resisting 
 Vanishes the Spirit's Breath.
 
 430 Orations. 
 
 Now indeed a night of sadness 
 
 Mantles o'er the souls of men, 
 
 How they long for some sweet vision 
 
 To enlighten earth agen. 
 
 And that GOD His Word would strengthen, 
 
 With but one more loud Amen. 
 
 Shout aloud ! raise songs of gladness, 
 For our GOD hath heard our prayer, 
 And upon the still " Black Mountains," 
 God hath flashed His Glory there. 
 MARY comes from Heaven in Beauty, 
 Fills with light the evening air. 
 
 'Mid Llanthony's silent Valleys, 
 O'er the meadows cool and green, 
 MARY comes in robes of silver, 
 Haloed as the Angels' Queen. 
 Eaising up Her hands in blessing, 
 Thus GOD willed Her to be seen. 
 
 So the Monks and Convent Children 
 Gazed upon the Queen of Light, 
 Mother of the Glorious Day-spring, 
 Mother of the Morning Bright, 
 There all unbelief dispelling, 
 Chasing far the shades of night. 
 
 Praise our GOD ! the silent Heavens, 
 Pour forth Glory once again, 
 And before the eyes of mortals, 
 Show that Christ as GOD doth reign 
 On the Throne of endless ages, 
 Who by death our Life did gain.
 
 The Apparitions at Llanthony. 431 
 
 Mother MARY o'er the shadows 
 Of our dark and stormy day, 
 While men's restless rebel Nature 
 Strews with wreck life's troubled way. 
 Thou hast come as Star of Ocean, 
 Lit the darkness with Thy Ray. 
 
 Bay of Peace ! O Eay of Gladness, 
 Joyous praise we humbly pour, 
 For Thy Gladness 'mid our Sadness, 
 Shining now the Mountains o'er. 
 And for this Thy Apparition, 
 MAE.Y ! we Thy Son adore. 
 
 Glory give we to the Father, 
 Glory to the Virgin's SON, 
 Glory to Her Spouse the SPIKIT, 
 While eternal years shall run. 
 Equal love, and equal glory, 
 To the Glorious Three in One. 
 
 AMEN. 
 
 And now Lord Jesus, Precious Saviour, bless the 
 words, in this book, to all who read them, for Thine 
 own Glory sake. Let every eye, that scans these 
 poor pages scan at last and for ever some of the 
 glory of the Beatific Vision of Thy Face, King of 
 Beauty and Lord of Might. Amen.
 
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 JJcsus nig. 
 
 AN ORATION 
 
 Delivered at Westminster Town Hall, on Tuesday Evening 
 October 27^, 1885, on 
 
 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 DISESTABLISHMENT. 
 
 FATHER IGNATIUS, O.S.B., 
 
 (REV. JOSEPH LEYCESTEE LYNE). 
 
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 Price Sixpence, by post Sevenpence. 
 
 The Church Review, when referring to this Oration, in its issue of 
 Nov. 27, 1885, said as follows : 
 
 " We are glad to see that the oration which Father Ignatius delivered on Oct. 27, at the 
 Town Hall, Westminster, on The Church of England and Ditetfablithment, and whicli he gave 
 again in substance last Wednesday week at St. James's Hall, has been published in 
 pamphlet form (W. Ridgway, 169, Piccadilly). Father Ignatius' oratorical power is a good 
 wine that needs no bush ; but if ever the property of the Church should be in danger again, 
 the most effectual way of appealing to the popular mind to arouse feeling against such 
 robbery would be to send him to stump the country. His oration of course loses much of 
 its charm when reduced to the prose of print ; but such a passage as the following, wherein 
 he indignantly repudiates the doctrine that the Church receives her present pay from the 
 State, when delivered with all the grace of rhetoric of which he is so consummate a master, 
 must have carried away his hearers' hearts and heads : " Supposing I were to go with a 
 strong body of roughs to a gentleman's house, break open his door, push his children out 
 of the window, break open his money-boxes, and take away say 30,000 from him and 
 supposing I were to say to that man, ' I will pay you back 2,000 of the 30,000 every year, 
 and you must kindly consider I am supporting you ' ! I do not think that would be at all 
 able or fair. Do you ? 
 
 "And now, dear people, supposing this robber comes back every year, and he pays 
 2,000 out of the 30,000 of which the ill-used man robbed him of years ago. Time goes on, 
 somebody else comes and sets up a little house close by him, and as years go on another 
 does so, until at last a dozen little houses are set up around him, and when the time comes 
 for the gentleman to receive his 2,000, the other twelve little householders cry out for a 
 part. I am perfectly confident that, if any of those twelve gentlemen were properly taught 
 about the manner in which the other one had been treated, they would not only not ask for 
 any of his money but would decline to take it if it were offered to them. Therefore I am 
 quite sure that if our Nonconforming brethren were properly instructed as to the historical 
 facts of the case, they would not condescend to touch any of the Church's money." 
 Church Rtvitic, November 27th.