REESE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. \ 
 
 I 
 Received APRB4.18?fS jg^ ^ l 
 
 ^ccessioyis No jO y oJ^ I . Class No. . 
 
THE LIGHT THAT LIGHTETH 
 EVERY MAN 
 
THE LIGHT 
 
 THAT 
 
 LIGHTETH EYEKY MAN 
 
 SEKMONS 
 
 By ALEXANDEK KUSSELL, B.D. 
 n 
 
 LATE DEAN OF ADELAIDE 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 THE VERY REV. E. H. PLUMPTRE, D.D. 
 
 DEAN OF WELLS, ETC. 
 
 ILontfon 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 1889 
 
 All rights reserved 
 

 5ffM 
 
TO 
 
 5E{je Cijurclj in ^ugttalta, 
 
 IN WHICH 
 
 ALEXANDER RUSSELL LABOURED FOR SO MANY YEARS 
 
 WITH UNSTINTED ARDOUR AND UNFAILING 
 
 LOVINGKINDNESS, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATEb 
 
tTNlVERSITY 
 
 INTEODUCTION 
 
 The writer of the sermons in this volume belonged to 
 the class of men who come to the end of their pilgrim- 
 age without any very adequate recognition. In early 
 life they give promise of power and of the distinction 
 won by power, which their later years do not fulfil as 
 their friends then hoped. School and college comrades 
 expect great things of them, but the great things do 
 not come. They have gifts which win the approval, a 
 character which wins the confidence and friendship of 
 men of name and fame, and yet the world knows little 
 of them, and its prizes of wealth or popularity are 
 won by men of far inferior ability, not seldom by men 
 of far inferior character. So it is, as it has been from 
 of old. " The race is not to the swift, nor the battle 
 to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet 
 riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men 
 of skill." "Time and chance" still traverse men's 
 hopes and calculations for themselves and others, and 
 what men have called the " irony of destiny " watches 
 the bursting of the bubbles of a transient reputation. 
 
 I have said thus much at starting, because I appre- 
 hend that many of those into whose hands this volume 
 falls will then hear for the first time of Dean Eussell's 
 name, and may ask not unnaturally who and what 
 
Introduction 
 
 manner of man he was that a volume of sermons by 
 him should be published after his death. For that 
 reason I purpose giving, by way of apologia, (1) a 
 short memoir of the man and of his work, and (2) an 
 equally brief account of the relation in which he stood 
 to the questions which the Church of Christ has, in 
 this our day, to face, and to the parties and schools of 
 thought which look on those questions from widely 
 different stand-points. And here, if I mistake not, 
 there is an advantage in posthumous publication. 
 Either the reverence which gathers round old age, or, 
 as in Dean Eussell's case, the sympathy called out by 
 a death of startling suddenness, has, for the moment, 
 widened, as well as deepened, the range of his influence. 
 Men who mourn that they shall never see that face again 
 nor hear that voice, would fain preserve some memorials 
 of bygone years. They "gather up the fragments 
 that remain, that nothing be lost." Demand, as in the 
 present instance, creates supply. I am not without 
 hope that the supply, though it be, as I have said, but 
 as of the fragments of the bread of life, of which it 
 was given to the man to be a distributer, may, in its 
 turn, give rise to a demand. I remember, not without 
 some measure of hope, that the fame of Frederick 
 Kobertson rests mainly on the posthumous publication 
 of his sermons. 
 
 Alexander Eussell Eussell was born in 1825. He 
 was the son of the Eev. John Eussell, M.A., who was 
 minister of the Established Church of Scotland, and had 
 charge of the parish of Muthill, Perthshire. The intel- 
 lectual calibre of his father is sufficiently indicated by 
 the fact that he was appointed to succeed Dr. Chalmers 
 at Glasgow, but died before he could enter on his office. 
 
Introduction ix 
 
 Of other members of the family I have not been able 
 to learn anything. On his father's death the boy 
 passed into the care of relatives at Edinburgh, and after 
 four years at Messrs. Fulton and Knight's English 
 School, passed on to the High School, and remained 
 there for five years. His guardians designed him for a 
 commercial life, and he was sent, with that view, first 
 to an office at Glasgow and afterwards to one at Liver- 
 pool. The experience thus gained was not without its 
 fruit in his later ministerial work, and his familiarity 
 in a merchant's office with "the pleasures, trials, and 
 difficulties of a young man's life " (I quote his own 
 words) gave him the power of saying a word in season 
 to many souls who were exposed to like temptations 
 and strufy<:,dinf]j with like difficulties. 
 
 In 1844, however, a change came over the young 
 man's life. The death of a brother, to whom he was 
 much attached, had given him a greater depth and 
 earnestness of character, and these, in their turn, 
 ripened into the sense of a vocation, and he determined 
 to devote himself to the work of the Christian ministry. 
 But the question presented itself. Of what ministry, 
 and in what Church ? And this led naturally to many 
 searchings of heart. The wave of wider thought 
 which was passing over the Scotch churches, and the 
 influence of which was represented, in various ways, 
 by Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, Eobert Story of 
 Roseneath, Macleod Campbell, Norman Macleod, and 
 Edward Irving, and which has found later representa- 
 tives in Dr. Tulloch, Dr. Caird, and Dr. Eobertson 
 Smith, was not without its effect on Alexander Eussell. 
 He came to the conclusion that he could not accept 
 the doctrinal standards (the Westminster Confession, 
 
IntrodMction 
 
 the Longer and Shorter Catechisms) of the Presbyterian 
 Church. For a time he was attracted by the Baptist 
 community in England, and entered their college at 
 Stepney in 1845. Here, however, he stayed for one 
 year only. A plan which at one time was in con- 
 templation, of studying at Heidelberg, was also aban- 
 doned, and " wider reading and thought," to use his 
 own words once more, attracted him to the broader 
 and more comprehensive system of the Church of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Before entering the ministry of that Church he 
 wished to enlarge his mind and deepen the foundations 
 of his knowledge by fuller studies than those of his 
 school life, and he entered the University of Edin- 
 burgh. Professors like Sir W. Hamilton in moral 
 and metaphysical philosophy, Pillans in Latin, Dun- 
 bar in Greek, and Spalding in rhetoric, could not fail 
 to enrich and enlarge his mind, and through his pro- 
 ficiency in the first of these studies he obtained the 
 second prize in a competition, in which the first was 
 gained by T. S. Baynes, afterwards Professor of Logic 
 at St. Andrews and at Edinburgh, and editor of the 
 ninth edition of the ETicydopcedia Britannica. Circum- 
 stances, with which I am unacquainted, led to his 
 leaving Edinburgh without graduating, and the same 
 result followed on a two years' course of study at 
 Trinity College, Dublin. 
 
 Mr. Eussell had now attained the age of twenty- 
 five, and the last six years of his life had, as we have 
 seen, been devoted to the studies which were to fit 
 him for his future work, at a time which with 
 many men is given, not to preparation, but to the 
 work itself, and in which the mind possesses, in a 
 
fUNIVER 
 Introduction \Cauforni^ 
 
 larger measure than either before or after, the power 
 of appropriating and assimilating knowledge. But he 
 was still, though riper in thought and culture and 
 experience than most candidates for orders, without a 
 degree, and that, as the rules of English bishops for 
 the most part then stood, was a somewhat serious 
 obstacle. Fortunately it was overcome by the inter- 
 vention of Lord Glenelg, who recommended him to the 
 notice of the late Bishop Sumner of Winchester, and 
 he was ordained deacon by that prelate in 1850 and 
 priest in 1851. His first curacy was at Emsworth, 
 in the parish of Warblington, Hants.^ After the 
 normal two years of ministry there, he passed to that 
 of Holy Trinity, Tunbridge Wells, in 1852,^ and thence 
 in 1853 to that of Herstmonceaux in Sussex. 
 
 It is probable, though I do not know the circum- 
 stances of the case, that during his ministry at Tun- 
 bridge Wells Mr. Eussell's work and character had 
 attracted the notice of Julius Charles Hare, Archdeacon 
 of Lewes (Tunbridge Wells being within the arch- 
 deaconry) and Eector of Herstmonceaux. Here lie re- 
 mained till after the archdeacon's death, on 21st 
 January 1855, and short as the time was, the two years 
 that he spent at Herstmonceaux were, I can scarcely 
 
 ^ The kindness of the Rev. H. W. Sheppard of Emsworth enables 
 me to add a few particulars. He tells me that Mr. Eussell came to 
 him with strong recommendations from Sir William R. Hamilton and 
 Dr. Carson of Trinity College, Dublin, and that he was the first 
 literate that Bishop Sumner ever ordained. '* I always found him," 
 he adds, "a thoroughly true and honest fellow- worker, and one who 
 never spared himself. . . . Often, in writing about his Adelaide ex- 
 perience, he would allude very kindly to what he would call his 
 Emsworth training, to which, he said, he owed much." 
 
 2 The incumbent of Holy Trinity at the time was the Rev. J. N. Pear- 
 son, author of a Life of Archbishop Leighton and editor of his works. 
 
xii Introduction 
 
 doubt, the most important of his life. In Julius Charles 
 Hare, whose name yet lives among us, he found one 
 of the masters of Israel, stored with a knowledge far 
 wider than his own, and yet one with whom he could 
 entirely sympathise. No one of that generation — with 
 the exception, perhaps, of Dr. Pusey, as he had been 
 in his earlier days — had learnt to appreciate so fully the 
 work of the thinkers and theologians of Germany, and 
 to vindicate some, at least, of them against the sweep- 
 ing condemnation of men like Hugh James Eose. 
 In Hare's Guesses at TriUh, and Victory of Faith, and 
 Mission of the Comforter, not to speak of many Sermons 
 and Charges, Russell found what he had sought for in 
 vain in the Presbyterian divines of Scotland, or the 
 Baptists of Stepney, or the Paley side of orthodoxy, or 
 the Evangelical or Catholic revival. He found in the 
 rectory of Herstmonceaux, as others at that time found, 
 almost and altogether the ideal pattern of an English 
 clergyman's home, welcoming, with a singular felicity 
 of large -heartedn ess, men of different schools of 
 thought, of the highest and most varied culture. In 
 liim, if I mistake not. Hare would find one who, 
 thougli with less brilliancy of genius, reminded him of 
 Sterling, one whom he could rescue, as he had failed to 
 rescue Sterling, from the sinister influences that had 
 clouded the closing years of the former pupil's life. 
 
 Ihit the crowning influence for good which Russell 
 found at Herstmonceaux was the presence of her who, 
 from her marriage in November 1844 to Julius Hare's 
 death in 1855, had been its blessing and its joy. In 
 Jane Esther Hare, sister of Frederick Maurice, there 
 was one whom he could reverence and love, one who 
 impressed her own intense personality, then in the 
 
Introduction 
 
 brightness of her wedded life, as afterwards in the ten 
 years of her widowhood, on all who had eyes to see and 
 hearts to understand. Fresh as I am from my labours 
 on the Life, of Km, I find in the ties of friendship 
 and reverence which were formed between the two, a 
 parallelism with those through which Margaret, Lady 
 Maynard, lives associated in our memories with the 
 saintly bishop. In after years, down to the close of her 
 life in 1864, she was his constant correspondent. Seven 
 of the letters in the volume published after her death 
 under the title of Words of Hope and Comfort, were 
 written to him in 1861-63, some touching, with a 
 marvellous power to soothe, on the loss of two of his 
 children, some on the troubles and difficulties of the 
 " isolated position " which he was called to encounter in 
 his dealings with the clergy of his colonial home, some 
 on the inner troubles and misgivings which he had laid 
 before her, as with the freedom of the confessional. 
 Almost the last words she wrote to him were, " Take 
 courage, dear brother, for God is with you of a truth." ^ 
 I may add at this stage that it was at Herstmon- 
 ceaux that I, having married Esther Hare's sister, first 
 became acquainted with Alexander Eussell, and learnt 
 to honour him. I look back on the correspondence 
 which followed between us, after he went to Australia, 
 with the feeling that the profit of it was greater on 
 my side than on his, but I have kept no copies of my 
 letters to him, and but few of his, and those which 
 
 ^ The following passage from Dean Russell's Some Words in Memory 
 of Frederick Denison Maurice (1872) will show how he felt in this 
 matter : ** This last (Mrs. Julius Hare), during the ten years of her re- 
 sidence in Herstmonceaux rectory, was an angel of mercy and sympathy 
 in every home in that parish, from the highest to the lowest ; and the 
 story of her widowhood was sacred and beautiful." 
 
xiv Introduction 
 
 I have deal for the most part with private matters, 
 which would have little or no interest for the general 
 reader. 
 
 The year 1853 was, however, fateful and fruitful 
 as the beginning of a friendship with one of higher 
 name and fame, and of greater power to draw to him- 
 self the hearts of those with whom he came in contact. 
 That year was memorable for the controversy between 
 Mr. Maurice and Dr. Jelf on the question of what we 
 have learnt to call the " wider hope," which, after drag- 
 ging its slow length through the sTimmer months, ended 
 in November in the expulsion of the former from his 
 two professorships (Ecclesiastical History in the Theo- 
 logical Department, and Modern History and English 
 Literature in the Department of General Literature and 
 Science) at King's College, London.-^ Shortly after the 
 decision of the Council of the College was made known, 
 and the matter became one of the topics of the day, a 
 letter appeared in the Guardian, with the initials 0. P., 
 strongly attacking, with singular force and ability, the 
 action of the Council, and vindicating for Mr. Maurice's 
 teaching a place within the limits of the comprehen- 
 siveness of the Church of England. It was memor- 
 able for a phrase which told effectively at the time, 
 and which, I venture to think, is not unlikely to live, 
 as descriptive of the decrees of other corporate or non- 
 corporate bodies than the Council of King's College. 
 Looking to the various elements that were represented 
 on that body, he described the decision, in which they 
 were nearly unanimous (Mr. Gladstone, Sir Benjamin 
 Brodie, Judge Pattison, and Mr. Greene, well known 
 
 ^ I content myself with referring to Colonel Maurice's Life of his 
 father for the history of this business (vol. ii. chap, v.) 
 
/;/ troduction xv 
 
 as a disciple of S. T. Coleridge, dissenting at the time, 
 and Bishop Lonsdale, Dean Milman, and the Eev. J. 
 S. Anderson recording their dissent afterwards),^ — as 
 the " synthesis of their several sectarianisms." 
 
 Colonel Maurice states ^ that the letter in question 
 was written " by a man who had never seen or spoken 
 to " his father. This statement has been traversed by 
 a reviewer in the South Australian Register on the 
 ground that Mr. Eussell's position as curate at Herst- 
 monceaux must have brought him into personal con- 
 tact with Mr. Maurice. He adds, however, writing 
 after Dean Eussell's death, that in a review of the Life 
 which appeared in an Adelaide journal, and which was 
 believed to have been written by the Dean, no attempt 
 was made to set the biographer right ; and he explains 
 the absence of any such attempt on the theory that 
 the writer " modestly forbore in any way to advance 
 his claim to a position of which he was very proud — 
 that of defender of liis beloved master." 
 
 I am not able, as I write, to decide the question 
 thus raised. It is obvious that the mere fact that Mr. 
 Eussell was curate at Herstmonceaux at the time of the 
 Ejng's College affair, is not, in itself, a proof that he 
 had seen or spoken to Mr. Maurice ; as far as I re- 
 member, Mr. Maurice did not visit Herstmonceaux in 
 the summer of 1853. I do not remember in what 
 month Mr. Eussell went there, but I was staying at 
 the rectory myself in the August and September of 
 that year, and, to the best of my belief, Mr. Eussell 
 was not there then. I may perhaps be able to write 
 more definitely on this subject before I end my present 
 
 ^ Colonel Maurice's Life, vol. ii. chap. v. 
 - Life, vol. ii. p. 111. 
 
Introduction 
 
 task, I will content myself, in the meantime, with 
 saying that, on the data now before me, it is a tenable 
 theory that it was the letter to the Guardian which 
 led Archdeacon Hare to offer Mr. Eussell the curacy 
 of Herstmonceaux.^ 
 
 Anyhow the acquaintance, from whatever time it 
 started, soon ripened into an enduring friendship, and 
 Dean Eussell takes a high place among those disciples 
 of the prophet-master who served to widen and per- 
 petuate the influence of his teaching. With what feel- 
 ings he himself looked back on that friendship, we shall 
 see in what he wrote at a later stage in bis life.^ As 
 it was, the time for personal intercourse at the period 
 of which I am now speaking was very limited. In 
 1854 Dr. Augustus Short, Bishop of Adelaide, was in 
 England, and offered Mr. Eussell the curacy of the 
 Cathedral Church in that city, the erection of which 
 was then contemplated.^ The friendly relations which 
 existed throughout between him and Dean Eussell are 
 a sufficient proof both of his personal regard and of 
 the sympathy — I will not go so far as to say " agree- 
 
 ^ The present Rector of Herstmonceaux, the Rev. R. L. Wild, in- 
 forms me that the earliest entry in the parish registers in which Mr. 
 Russell's name appears is dated 3d November 1853. As far as it goes, 
 this confirms the conclusion which I had before been led to think 
 probable. 
 
 2 In the Few Words, already quoted, Dean Russell speaks of Mr. 
 Maurice as ''the very best, purest, most generous, most loving, most 
 modest, most manly and chivalrous, and, to sum up all in one 
 word, most Christ-like, of all the men I have ever known on earth " 
 (p. 6). 
 
 ^ Dr. Short, I may add, was cousin to Thomas Vowler Short, Bishop 
 of Sodor and Man (1841) and afterwards of St. Asaph (1846), and re- 
 presented the same school of Liberal Evangelical Churchmanship. He 
 was appointed to the see of Adelaide in 1847, and held it till within a 
 year of his death in 1882. 
 
Introduction xvii 
 
 ment " — with which he looked on his convictions.^ 
 The work was hindered by the discovery that the 
 Governor, who had officially given a site for the cathe- 
 dral, had exceeded his power, and Mr. Eussell, when 
 he landed at Adelaide, in August 1854, had, accord- 
 ingly, to take other duty, and accepted the incumbency 
 of St. Andrew's, Walkerville. Six months later, in 
 February 1855, he was appointed to the parish of St. 
 John's, Adelaide, where he gained the affection of the 
 great body of his people, and with their co-operation 
 brought about the subdivision of the parish, which 
 was inconveniently large. In 1860 the first portion 
 of St. Paul's Church was opened, and Mr. Eussell 
 entered on new duties as Eector of the parish attached 
 to it, having been appointed meanwhile in 1857 to 
 the offices of Canon and Eural Dean. The Christmas 
 of 1858 was saddened by the death of his son, and a 
 singularly touching poem,^ written twenty years later, 
 when the yet greater sorrow of his wife's death, after 
 a long and painful illness, again on the self-same day, 
 cast the shadow of death over his home, records how 
 he had watched the boy's " upward gaze " 
 
 '' Unearthly, eager, glorified," 
 
 the " rapt, adoring look " which spoke of " a deeper, 
 strauger lore " than he had learnt from any human 
 teacher. 
 
 The several stages of preferment which I have had 
 to record sufficiently show the measure of confidence 
 which Mr. Eussell received from his bishop, and the 
 
 ^ He had published a volume of sermons in 1833, and Bampton 
 Lectures in 1846. 
 
 2 The Seeker, p. 176. ^.^-^ ^^ . ,^ ;r-^ 
 
 ("UNIVERSITY 
 
xviii Introduction 
 
 erection of church, parsonage, and schools indicates a 
 like confidence on the part of the great body of his 
 lay parishioners. It was to be expected, however, that 
 one who shared Mr. Maurice's convictions would be 
 exposed to something of the same suspicion and dis- 
 trust that often dogged the steps of Mr. Maurice him- 
 self. In this respect the disciple was not above his 
 master, and a letter from Mrs. Hare, dated 19th 
 November 1861, shows that he had written to her, 
 as keenly feeling his " isolated position among the 
 clergy." Her answer, then, as always, gave him the 
 counsel which he needed. She bade him take courage ; 
 to answer slanders and suspicions by his life's work 
 rather than by words ; to guard against the " moral 
 paralysis, benumbing the spirit " and its best energies, 
 into which the depressing sense of being " despised and 
 rejected by the very men" to whom he would "so 
 gladly draw near and claim their fellowship " might 
 naturally pass.^ 
 
 So the years passed on, and I have neither the 
 means nor the space to follow them in detail. In 
 1864 he lost the friend and counsellor whose words I 
 have just quoted, but her place was in part supplied 
 by her twin-sister, Mrs. Powell, who continued to 
 correspond with him till her death in 1877. In 1869 
 he was able to take some months' holiday in England. 
 This brought him into closer association with the 
 Master whom he loved to honour. Mr. Maurice, who 
 had been elected to the Professorship of Casuistry, 
 Moral Theology, and Moral Philosophy at Cambridge 
 in October 1866, continued to hold the incumbency 
 of St. Peter's, Vere Street, till ill health compelled him 
 ^ Words of Hope and Comfort. 
 
Introduction 
 
 to resign it in November 1869. It was necessary in the 
 spring and summer of that year to find a coadjutor for 
 Vere Street, and he placed Mr. Eussell there. His own 
 attachment to his disciple, and the impression which the 
 latter made on the congregation of St. Peter's, led him to 
 propose that this arrangement should be permanent. 
 Tempting as this proposal was, however, Mr. Eussell felt 
 constrained to decline it. " The ties that bound him to 
 Australia were too strong," and he recognised in those 
 ties a calling which he could not rightly disobey. 
 
 The rightness of that decision was seen by the new 
 work and the new marks of confidence which awaited 
 him on his return to Adelaide in 1869. Bishop 
 Short appointed him to the deanery of the Cathedral 
 Church. In 1870 he was chosen as a delegate from the 
 church of that diocese to the General Synod of Aus- 
 tralia, held under the Bishop of Sydney as Metropolitan. 
 The years which followed were marked by wider op- 
 portunities of influence, and by a fuller field for the 
 employment of his manifold and varied energies. 
 His outspokenness and independence, his absolute 
 freedom from partisanship, his refusal to utter the shib- 
 boleths of sectarianism, exposed him, as it has exposed 
 others, to a collision now with this party, now with 
 that, sometimes to the attacks of a combination of the 
 two extremes. His efforts to raise the ritual of his 
 church to a higher standard of liturgical complete- 
 ness, his readiness to hear the confessions of those who 
 came to him for comfort and counsel, exposed him to 
 the suspicions of clergy of the Evangelical school. 
 High Churchmen, on their side, felt as if he was bor- 
 rowing the attractive externals of their system, while 
 he refused to accept their dogmas as to apostolical 
 
XX Introduction 
 
 succession and the eucharistic Presence. Both natur- 
 ally looked with distrust on one whom they regarded, 
 ignorant at once of the relation of the two men to one 
 another, and of Dean Eussell's relations to them both, 
 as "a disciple at once of Maurice and of Stanley." 
 The opposition wliich he thus had to encounter did 
 not, however, interfere with the appreciation which 
 was, in part at least, the reward of his labours. " The 
 common people heard him gladly," and even his an- 
 tagonists recognised that the man was manly, and 
 therefore lovable. " The Dean of history," as a South 
 Australian journal (the aS'. A. Register) put it after his 
 death, " was hated while he was praised : Dean Eussell 
 was loved, even if his counsel was disregarded." And 
 " he did not confine his interest to matters ecclesiastical. 
 He was identified with most of the charitable and liter- 
 ary institutions of Adelaide, and up to his death took 
 a prominent part in anything which had for its object 
 the improvement of the social and moral condition of 
 the people." Among other institutions with which he 
 thus connected himself, one was the Philomathic 
 Society, in which, says the Register, " many of our 
 legislators were trained " — it being apparently a debat- 
 ing society — " for a wider area." Towards the close of 
 his life he was one of the Vice-presidents of the 
 Shakespeare Society, and a week before his death he 
 read, at one of its meetings, the part of Adam in As 
 Yoih Like It. To those who remembered that reading 
 a few days later, the last words of that part must 
 have seemed, taken in a higher sense than that of the 
 drama, strangely prophetic. 
 
 " Yet fortune cannot recompense me better 
 Than to die well and not my master's debtor.' 
 
IntrodMction xxi 
 
 The call to give an account of his stewardship had 
 not come to the wicked and slothful servant who hid 
 his Lord's money in the earth, but to one whom the 
 Master, not " austere " and " hard," but generous and 
 loving, would receive with the " Well done " spoken to 
 the good and faithful servant who had so used his 
 opportunities that the five or the two talents com- 
 mitted to him had gained other two or other five, 
 and who could therefore enter, even in his lifetime, 
 into the "joy," as into the sorrows and sufferings, of 
 his Lord. 
 
 The years, as they passed, brought with them fresh 
 openings for wider work. In 1878 Dean Eussell was 
 appointed vicar-general of the diocese. When Bishop 
 Short resigned in 1881, he held the responsible 
 office of administrator of the diocese, and on Bishop 
 Kennion's arrival at Adelaide presented him with a 
 full and able report on all matters connected with it, 
 for which the new bishop, at the first meeting of his 
 synod, tendered his heartiest acknowledgments. A 
 like recognition of his " distinguished services," both as 
 a writer and a worker, was given by the late Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury in 1878, when he bestowed on 
 him the Lambeth degree of Bachelor of Divinity. 
 
 I have felt that this is not the place in which to 
 say much of the joys or the sorrows of Dean Eussell's 
 home life. There were, as I have said, the trials of 
 the deaths of children. In the year 1878, on St. 
 Stephen's Day, the anniversary of the death of their 
 firstborn twenty years before, his wife died, after a long 
 and specially distressing illness. For what he then 
 felt I will content myself with referring to lines in 
 The Seeker, which bear the heading of "Two Martyrs' 
 
 c 
 
xxii Introduction 
 
 Feast Days," and are quoted later on. At first it 
 seemed as if the shadow of death would hang over him 
 for the remainder of his days. As it was, some better 
 thing was in store for him, and in 1882 he found one 
 who was willing to share the burdens of his life, and 
 who strove to the utmost of her power to lighten them. 
 The time has not come to speak her praise. I will 
 only say that every letter I received from him, both 
 before and after that second marriage, was full of pro- 
 foundest, humblest thankfulness that God had given 
 him the blessing of the abiding companionship of such 
 a comforter and helpmate. 
 
 At last the end came. An annual festival and 
 concert was to take place in the town hall of Adelaide 
 in connexion with St. Paul's Church on 20th May 
 1886. The room was crowded, and there was a slight 
 disturbance among some of the boys in the gallery. 
 The Dean went up to that quarter to stop it, and was 
 about, after he had done so, to descend the flight of 
 steps, when he lost his footing and fell down. His 
 head struck against one of the stone steps, and he was 
 taken up unconscious. He groaned, but never spoke 
 again. The concert was, of course, at once stopped. 
 Within half an hour after he had been carried to his 
 home the whisper ran, passing from lip to lip, through 
 the streets of Adelaide, " The Dean is dead ! " 
 
 I have neither the space nor the wish to dwell on 
 the details of what followed. The funeral on Saturday, 
 2 2d May, attended by thousands of men, women, and 
 children of all classes and conditions, from the governor 
 and the bishop downward, of every variety of opinion ; 
 the short address at the grave, at which the bishop 
 declared that he saw in his departed brother one who 
 
Introduction xxiii 
 
 " had taught as he had learned from the Lord Jesus 
 Christ"; the hymn, "Lead, kindly Light," now rapidly 
 winning its way to the position of being the burial 
 hymn of the English Church ; the early communion in 
 St. Paul's Church, with wliich the next day opened; 
 the sermon preached by the bishop in that church on 
 the same Sunday, and by ministers of different com- 
 munities in their several churches and chapels ; the 
 articles in the newspapers of South Australia, full, 
 hearty, and glowing in their enthusiastic recognition 
 of what the Dean had done, and yet more of what he 
 had heen, for the people of Adelaide, — these I am com- 
 pelled to pass over with utmost speed. There is, in 
 such cases, inevitably a certain monotony of praise. 
 Preachers and journalists alike speak of unfailing sym- 
 pathy, of clearness in counsel, of single-hearted honesty, 
 of complete unselfishness, of a life strong in the power 
 of love, of freedom from the narrowness of sectarianism 
 and the bitterness of party, freedom also from the con- 
 sciousness of superiority which shows itself in sneers 
 or damns with its faint praises. The one defect which 
 any one notes in him was a certain want of organising 
 power. But out of the many words that were spoken 
 at that time I must select two, because they seem to 
 me to show that of all Maurice's disciples in England 
 or elsewhere he was, perhaps, the one who was most 
 like the master, who understood him best because he 
 was most like-minded with him. The first of my two 
 extracts is from the sermon of the Bishop of Adelaide, 
 Dr. Kennion, on the Sunday after the funeral. He 
 quotes as the best description of Dean Eussell the 
 words in which the Dean himself had painted the por- 
 trait of Frederick Maurice : — 
 
Introdiution 
 
 "In his kindly eye 
 Tiie light was like a message from on high : 
 He was so noble that ingratitude 
 But woke in him some tender pitying mood ; 
 The crowd's vain babble passed him idly by. 
 A prophet he, 'a voice,' like John, 'a cry,' 
 That to the sad world in its orphanhood 
 Told of a Father. In his brilliant youth 
 He sought, and not in vain, to feel his way 
 Through all the maze of thought. In seer and sage 
 He saw but divers seekers gone astray, 
 Yet catching glimpses of the central truth, 
 The Word's eternal witness, day by day." 
 
 The other is from an article in the South Australian 
 Register, a journal to which he himself had often been 
 a contributor : — - 
 
 "With Alexander Russell, Dean of Adelaide, has passed 
 away a man who has exercised a marked influence in the colony. 
 No one was more widely known or respected by all classes of 
 men. His opinions were pronounced at times to, be vague and 
 theoretical, but none the less people were always anxious to 
 hear what he had to s*ay. They were sure at least of one thing 
 — that he would say out what he had to say openly and honestly. 
 He was anything but a diplomatist, and deceit of any kind was 
 not in his nature. Too often he wore his 'heart upon his 
 sleeve,' and ' daws pecked ' at it. The unpopular side of a 
 question had charms for him simply because it was unpopular. 
 It was nothing new to him to find himself in a minority of one, 
 but he always had the satisfaction of knowing that his protest 
 was respected, if his advice was unheeded. No man could say 
 of ' the Dean,' as everybody called him, that he had deserted 
 a friend in his trouble, or had done an underhand action. He 
 was open and aboveboard in everything, neither fearing unpopu- 
 larity nor working for his own ends. In this lay the secret of 
 his power over the minds and hearts of men. ... To him 
 nothing was unclean. All persons, of whatever grade of belief 
 or unbelief, found in him a friend and counsellor. He would 
 speak on any platform, if only he thought that he might do 
 good to some, and he would listen to the tales of doubts and 
 
Introduction xxv 
 
 difficulties which any man poured into his ear. Nor would he 
 merely listen with the orthodox patience of the divine who has 
 for answer only a formula. He would set himself to work to 
 solve the doubts presented to him, or make clearer the right 
 way, just as if that was the only work he had in life, and the 
 man before him the only claimant on his time." 
 
 Most of those who knew Maurice personally, or 
 have read, with any attention, his son's Life of him, 
 will admit I think that wellnigh every word of this 
 portraiture, without even the usual qualifying formula 
 of mutatis mutandis, is applicable to him. 
 
 It remains that I should say a few words as to 
 Dean Eussell's work as an author. I will not attempt 
 to follow the succession of sermons, addresses, lectures, 
 which appeared from time to time during the years in 
 which he worked at Adelaide, and will limit what I 
 have to say, to volumes. 
 
 Before Dean Kussell left England he published in 
 1854 sermons, under the title of The Light that lighteth 
 every Man, dedicated to those to whom he had ministered 
 at Emsworth, at Tunbridge Wells, and at Herstmon- 
 ceaux. The title indicated with sufficient clearness the 
 dominant character of the book. The preface, though 
 Mr. Maurice's name was not mentioned in it, was per- 
 meated with the leading thoughts that were the basis 
 of his teaching. I give a few brief extracts by way 
 of evidence : — 
 
 "Controversial, irritating debate, on things on and round 
 about religion, and on the details of Church order, are as un- 
 suitable to the pulpit, except in very special instances, as they 
 are hateful to those who, like the Psalmist, are oppressed by 
 the mysteries of their own nature, and are chiefly intent on 
 being so led by God's teaching and discipline that they shall 
 never err from His way. 
 
xxvi Introduction 
 
 "It has often happened that religion has been taught, not as 
 a recognition of an actual relation subsisting between God and 
 man, and of the duties incumbent on us in that relation, but 
 rather as a scheme for the deliverance of man from an amount 
 of present and future suffering, which, in the natural course of 
 things, seemed all but inevitable, and for the attainment of that 
 personal happiness which is one of our most predominant 
 desires. On this view of the matter, the Gospel is held to 
 mean the glad tidings of deliverance from wrath and punish- 
 ment, and the bestowal of a felicity which is never to end. . . . 
 As a message of salvation we have been taught to deliver 
 it. . . . But then it must be seen that salvation means the 
 deliverance of man not merely from destruction, but from tJmt 
 which is destroying him. . . . And for this purpose the Son of 
 God has been manifested. He is the life of men ; fleeing from 
 Whom they flee from life, and slide back into the fathomless 
 gulf of death. He is the light of men ; recoiling from Whom 
 they wander away into the realm of darkness. In the grand 
 tidings of the Gospel, therefore. He stands foremost. Not 
 dogmas about the mode of justification, or the chronology of 
 the various steps in the spiritual change (which, after all, is 
 rather an analytic view of the work than of the work itself), 
 but CHRIST, the living and eternal Saviour, must form the 
 chief topic of the preacher's ministry." 
 
 In 1881 Dean Eussell made his appearance as an 
 author in a different region, and published The Seeker, 
 and other Poems. The preface tells us that up to 
 December 1879 lie had not only never published, but 
 had never even written, anything in verse, that all the 
 poems in the volume were written between that date 
 and the close of 1880, that he had till then been 
 " restrained by his high estimate of what poetry should 
 be from attempting anything of the kind." He pleads, 
 in his defence, that he had found in writing his verses 
 what Keble, in his Prcelectiones, had spoken of as the 
 Vis Medica of poetic art : 
 
 " Poetry," so Keble wrote, " is the natural rehef of minds 
 
Introduction xxvii 
 
 overpowered by some engrossing idea, ... or strong emotion, 
 or imaginative regret, which, from some cause or another, they 
 are kept from indulging. Khythm and metrical form regulate 
 and restrain, while they express, those strong and deep emotions 
 which need relief, but cannot endure publicity. They are, at 
 once, a vent for eager feelings and a veil to draw over them." 
 
 By a coincidence which, for nie at least, is not 
 without interest, Dean Eussell quotes the same pas- 
 sage which I have applied in my Life of Km (vol. ii. 
 p. 231) to the poetry of the saintly bishop. It lies 
 almost in the nature of the case, in each instance, that 
 the poetry of one who begins to write at so late an 
 age (in the Dean's case at that of fifty-four) will be 
 wanting in the finish of artistic touch that grows out 
 of early and long-continued practice. It lies, also, in 
 the nature of the case, that the poetry will have the 
 one great, indispensable merit — the merit that covers 
 a multitude of sins — of genuineness. The poems so 
 written will be essentially autobiographical, and, there- 
 fore, will be a treasure-trove for the biographer. 
 
 The limits of my space do not allow me to give 
 many quotations from The ISeeker, but one or two pas- 
 sages will show how the writer looked back on the 
 great sorrow through which he had passed, and forward 
 into the region behind the veil, into which the one he 
 had loved and mourned over had passed. 
 
 " No mark of pain, no touch of care. 
 Woman belovM, now is there. 
 The marble calmness of the brow 
 We look upon with reverence now. 
 The closM eyes, as if in sleep. 
 Shall never more their night-watch keep ; 
 The worn and weary limbs at rest ; 
 The hands laid meek upon the breast, 
 No rise and fall of troubled breath. 
 
xxviii Introduction 
 
 " We shall not call thee harsh, Death, 
 Whose touch has wrought that deep repose ; 
 The kindest thou, of all our foes. 
 We cannot choose but shrink from thee, 
 Thine is so strange a form to see ; 
 And yet how tender is the veil 
 Thou drawest here. Though deadly pale 
 The cheek that lately fever flushed. 
 The sounds of sadness all are hushed ; 
 The eyes are closed — 'tis better so : 
 Not now with hectic light they glow ; 
 And here, the lines of pain erased, 
 The sweetness of the smiles that graced 
 The face in life, steals once again 
 Over the lips : as after rain 
 Melteth the shadow from Earth's face, 
 And holy light draws on apace, 
 So thou hast come, a messenger 
 Of what is only love, to her. 
 Dumbly thou gavest her release, 
 And here hast set thy kiss of peace." 
 
 To those who can read between the lines, their 
 own knowledge of the hidden sorrows of Dean Eussell's 
 life, the bitterness which the heart knows for itself and 
 not another, these verses will come with all the fulness 
 of their meaning. To those who only see in them 
 what any hnsband might write of any wife, they will, 
 at all events, speak of loving and reverent hope, with 
 which all can sympathise. I will venture on quoting 
 a few lines from the "In Memoriam" poem, which forms 
 an introduction to the volume. The point of the pas- 
 sage, and indeed of the whole poem, lies in its taking 
 a wider range than that of the personal sorrow of 
 which it was the ripened outcome, and which was all 
 but exclusively dominant in the poem from which I 
 have just quoted. The thoughts of the writer had 
 
Introduction xxix 
 
 passed on to other faces " loved long since and lost 
 awhile," and had asked himself whether they yet stood 
 in any relation to him, and if so, in what. And this 
 is -his answer: — 
 
 " Was it but dreaming when there came 
 
 Pure thought that was not there before, 
 And some lov'd presence seem'd to shame 
 
 My sin, and bade my spirit soar % 
 At least I know a perfect sight 
 
 They now have gained, and ears to hear — 
 Would have me share in their delight ; 
 
 And to my thought they reappear. 
 Not in their former mortal grace 
 
 Do they their coming now reveal : 
 The glory that is on their face 
 
 Is such, we cannot choose but kneel — 
 But not to them : it is not theirs. 
 
 They lead us but to His dear feet, 
 Who stands above the sapphire stairs, 
 
 And waits His absent ones to greet." 
 
 It is not, I think, over-bold to say that I find in 
 these extracts the very tone and feeling, perhaps with 
 the added charm of their being more intensely personal, 
 and springing from more abysmal depths, that I find 
 in Keble and in Ken. 
 
 The poem of " The Seeker," which gives its title to 
 the volume, is again eminently autobiographical, and 
 that under a twofold aspect. It is, obviously, hardly 
 more than a blank verse report of what had passed be- 
 tween Dean Eussell and some inquirer, perplexed witli 
 the special questions of our time, and still more with 
 the problems which have vexed the souls of the thinkers 
 of all times ; and it shows the frankness and sympathy 
 with which he met such difficulties, his unwillingness 
 to play simply the part of an advocate holding a brief 
 
XXX Introduction 
 
 for Christianity, his feeling that the right course in 
 such a case is to rouse the latent faith of the inquirer 
 by holding out the work and character of the Christ 
 as worthy of all reverence and love, and therefore of 
 the acceptance of His claim to be the ultimate revela- 
 tion of the Father. It shows not less clearly that he 
 had himself thus wrestled with doubt or with denial, 
 and had found the stay and support of his own faith 
 in that reverence and acceptance. 
 
 I regret to say that I have failed in my efforts to 
 obtain a copy of Dean Eussell's second volume of 
 poems, the Voices of Doubt. The title indicates that it 
 probably dealt more fully with the problems of which 
 I have spoken even than The Seeker did, and the pas- 
 sage descriptive of Mr. Maurice's character, quoted 
 above, indicates to whom he felt himself most largely 
 indebted for his power to face those problems. The 
 table of contents shows that its subjects were largely 
 drawn from the Gospel history. The volume, as it 
 happened, attracted the special interest of one of the 
 most eloquent and thoughtful writers of our time, 
 Bishop Moorhouse, then of Melbourne, now of Man- 
 chester, to whom apparently proofs of some of the 
 poems had been sent, and I am able, with his per- 
 mission, to give the following extract of a letter which 
 he wrote at the time {1st December 1884) to Dean 
 Eussell : — 
 
 "I have read your beautiful lines with deep interest and 
 sympathy. Voices of Doubt seems to me to touch the root of 
 our intellectual troubles, and to suggest thoughts which ought 
 to comfort and strengthen the staggering soul. The fragment 
 of ' Judas Iscariot ' which you have sent me expresses more 
 tenderly than I could hope to do it, my own faith in the 
 mystery of the future. That love is stronger than hate, that 
 
Introduction xxxi 
 
 Grod will conquer evil, that somehow or somewhere He will 
 win back the alien will — that I believe ; and it must do good 
 to state it so fully and reverently as you have done. . . . — Yours 
 very sincerely, J. Melbourne." 
 
 In the short account of Dean Eussell, published after 
 his death, to which I have been largely indebted through- 
 out this Memoir, I find what is given as the last poem 
 he ever wrote, and both for this reason, and on account 
 of its own intrinsic interest, it may well come at the 
 close of this account of his brief career as a poet. 
 
 " Yea, are there some who reached the door too late 
 To whom the portals are as stern as fate % 
 Do cherubim with sword of flame still scare 
 The sinful from the hope of dwelling there % 
 Must those poor ghosts, for ever wandering, 
 On one unceasing round the changes ring — 
 The bliss that was and is no more to be, 
 This cruel stony blank eternity ? 
 No kin, no home, no garden now to till, 
 No human love the empty heart to fill. 
 No lower form of good, to cheat the pain 
 Of withered hopes and aspirations vain ! 
 No rest of conscience, and no healing balm ; 
 Though ages pass, no interval of calm, 
 But fiercely burns insatiable desire, 
 And vengeance feeds the everlasting fire ! 
 Is this the sorry ending of the tale 
 That swept like music down the lowly vale, 
 Where sad-eyed men consumed the bitter years 
 In servile tasks, contending with their fears % 
 Is this the gladsome gospel of His grace 
 Who seemed to clasp the world in His embrace % 
 We turn in horror from this clang of doom 
 To Him whose love had surely larger room. 
 He reigns ; His purpose never shall be foiled — 
 To cleanse the universe by evil soiled. 
 All enemies of His shall be destroyed : 
 No word of His returns unto him void. 
 
Introduction 
 
 The victory is His ; and who are they, 
 
 Those foes whose evil power shall pass away % 
 
 Man is the hapless victim, but the foes 
 
 The triumph of redemption overthrows 
 
 Are beasts of prey that prowl around his fold. 
 
 Death lords it much, intrenched in his stronghold, 
 
 He fain would keep his captives — Death must die ! 
 
 And 8in shall not eternally defy 
 
 The Master-power of all the universe — 
 
 That purest of the world's deliverers 
 
 Who would not turn one footstep from the right : 
 
 All sin must perish from before His sight. 
 
 The Tempter, too, must yield — the rebel will 
 
 Whose subtlety was worsted on the Hill 
 
 Of Evil Counsel — he must yield his place, 
 
 Or seek salvation by the way of grace. 
 
 And Pain, that like a sleuth hound follows us — 
 
 More keen of scent, more fierce, more ravenous — 
 
 And strikes his cruel fangs into the heart, 
 
 This foe the Lord of Love will bid depart. 
 
 And all the cries of suffering will cease 
 
 When he shall reign, the acknowledged Prince of Peace. 
 
 If none shall ever enter Paradise 
 
 Except with new and wholly cleansed eyes. 
 
 What words of grace, what blessed ministries, 
 
 May chasten and prepare those souls for bliss 
 
 That sometime pined without, we cannot know — 
 
 What angel messages may come and go — 
 
 What new revealings of forgotten truth 
 
 May bring again the purest dreams of youth. 
 
 Until the gold of purified desire 
 
 Alone remains from the refiner's fire. 
 
 All this is hidden in the future, but 
 
 The door the Lord has opened none can shut. 
 
 He lived for man ; for man, as man. He died : 
 
 He claims all souls, and will not be denied.'' 
 
 So I close my brief account of one who seems to 
 me a fairly representative instance of the influence for 
 good exercised by Frederick Maurice over the nobler 
 
Introduction xxxiii 
 
 spirits of our time. I am struck, in doing so, with 
 the singular parallelism presented by the life of another 
 of his disciples, the Eev. Alexander J. Eoss, formerly 
 Eector of St. Philip's, Stepney, a Memoir of whom has 
 just been published by his widow. He too was trained, 
 like Dean Eussell, in the Established Church of Scot- 
 land and was the son of a Scotch minister. He 
 attended the High School of Edinburgh under the 
 same master, though six years earlier than the Dean. 
 Like him, he studied at the University of Edinburgh 
 under Sir WilHam Hamilton and the other professors 
 mentioned above. He was led by his zeal against 
 Erastianism to follow Chalmers and the other leaders 
 of the "Disruption" of the Church of Scotland in 
 1843. He was ordained to the ministry of the Free 
 Church at Langholm in 1844, but passed from that 
 position to the charge of a Free Church chapel at 
 Brighton. Here his thoughts widened. He came 
 under the teaching first of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, 
 and Macleod Campbell, of Eow, and then of Hare and 
 Maurice. Of these Hare welcomed him — at the time 
 when his new convictions had drawn on him the re- 
 proach of heresy, and led to his deposition — -with a 
 generous sympathy. With Maurice he was soon allied 
 by closer ties through his marriage with his niece, 
 a daughter of John Sterling. Mutatis mutandis^ the 
 resemblance continued to the end of each life. Each 
 combined a laborious devotion to his pastoral duties 
 with varied literary work, and a deep interest in the 
 physical improvement and general elevation of the 
 poor. Each proclaimed the " wider hope " with even 
 less reserve and reticence than the master whom they 
 both agreed in owning as its " prophet." Both saw 
 
 ("UNIVERSITY 
 
xxxiv Introduction 
 
 their work rewarded by the love and reverence of 
 those to whom they ministered. Both were followed 
 to the grave by men and women of all sorts and con- 
 ditions, who mourned for each as for a friend and 
 brother. 
 
 It will be admitted, if I mistake not, that the 
 resemblance which I have thus traced is sufficiently 
 striking. Those who read the biography of the one 
 will do well, I think, to compare it with that of the 
 other. 
 
 E. H. P. 
 
 Deanery, Wells, Somerset, 
 hth December 1888. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. An Advent Sekmon 1 
 
 II. The Closing Week of Advent . . .12 
 
 III. Christmas Day . . . . . .19 
 
 IV. New Year's Eve Address . . . .27 
 V. Epiphanies of God .... . 34 
 
 VI. Conversion of St. Paul . . . .41 
 
 VII. Sexagesima — "The Mystery of Sin" . . 50 
 VIII. Sexagesima — "The Mystery of Evil" . 68 
 
 IX. First Sunday in Lent — "The Temptation 
 
 OP OUR Lord" ...... 66 
 
 X. Second Sunday in Lent — "The Temptation 
 
 OF OUR Lord" 73 
 
 XL Palm Sunday . . . . . .82 
 
 XIL Good Friday — "The Seven Words from 
 
 THE Cross " 90 
 
 XIII. Easter Day 107 
 
 XIV. Third Sunday after Easter . . .115 
 XV. Second Sunday after Easter — "Following 
 
 IN THE Footsteps of Christ" , . . 122 
 XVL Sunday after Ascension . . . .130 
 
 XVII. Whitsunday 138 
 
 XVIII. Trinity Sunday . . . . . .149 
 
 XIX. The Parable of the Great Supper . . 159 
 
xxxvi Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XX. Peace and War 167 
 
 XXI. Rehoboam and the Parting of the 
 
 Kingdom 176 
 
 XXII. Jehu the Scourge of God . . .184 
 
 XXIII. The Herdman Prophet . . . .192 
 
 XXIV. God All in All . . ' . . .200 
 XXV. Holy Communion 208 
 
 XXVI. The Labourers in the Vineyard . . 214 
 
 XXVII. The Cry of the Sisters of Bethany . 225 
 
 XXVIII. The Lord Looking on Peter . . . 232 
 
 XXIX. Sonship in the Family of God . .240 
 
 XXX. The Life Hid with Christ . . .248 
 
 XXXI. LONGSUFPERING AND GENTLENESS . . 256 
 
 XXXII. Christian Gentleness . . . .266 
 
 XXXIII. The Principle and Rule of our 
 
 Offerings to God . . . .275 
 
 XXXIV. A Hard Saying . . . . .284 
 XXXV. Christ's Invitation . . . .293 
 
 XXXVI. The Girls' Friendly Society . .301 
 
 XXXVII. The Body the Temple of the Holy 
 
 Ghost 309 
 
 XXXVIII. All Saints' Day . . . . .318 
 XXXIX. The Last Sunday before Advent . .324 
 
^ OF THE ^ 
 
 UNIVER 
 
 California 
 
 I 
 
 AN ADVENT SEEMON 
 
 "Rejoice in the Lord alway : and again I say, Rejoice." 
 
 Philippians iv. 4. 
 
 Among the unexpected uses made by Apostolic writers 
 of the belief that " the Lord is at hand " is that made 
 by St. Paul in this exhortation. We are not surprised 
 when he founds on it the duty of sober living and 
 serious watchfulness of spirit, but it does surprise us 
 to find him taking occasion from it to inculcate the main- 
 tenance of what we may call a spiritual hilarity. 
 
 In one sense, indeed, we can understand how the 
 thought of the Lord being at hand would create a deep 
 joyfulness of spirit, since the seeing Him, the being 
 with Him, is the secret desire of every one who truly 
 loves his Lord. We can understand, too, what a help 
 it might be, in bearing up against the wrongful judg- 
 ments of men, to remember that the Judge who is at 
 the gate would set right all this wrong ; and yet once 
 more, that sorrow loses something of its crushing force 
 when viewed as part of a system of earthly discipline, 
 whose end — when the Lord shall come — will clearly 
 appear in the sanctification of the earthly nature and 
 the preparation of the soul for glad entrance into infinite 
 joy. But more than even this is suggested. It is 
 
 '^ B 
 
2 The Light that light eth every Man i 
 
 not merely that we are to make the best of that 
 in life which is worst; but that here and now, amid 
 all that is barren and all that is positively painful, 
 the Christian who believes in an unseen Lord has dis- 
 covered the secret of a deeper joy than the blind, un- 
 believing soul can even faintly understand. 
 
 -The force of this exhortation is greatly increased 
 when we consider the situation of the men who spoke 
 as if they were above all things glad at heart. Theirs, 
 at least, could be no rose-coloured estimate of life de- 
 rived from an experience exceptionally free from out- 
 ward unhappiness. 
 
 To say nothing of the spiritual strife they must 
 have undergone, the uprooting of old convictions, the 
 rude shock given to many of the most cherished feel- 
 ings and associations of their earlier life, their outward 
 circumstances were far from enviable. Every day 
 brought its hardships and its risks, and many a dream 
 of the night must have been troubled by visions of fear 
 and suffering. There were none of the encouragements 
 of earthly renown to sustain them, but what other men 
 counted gain they accounted loss, — yea, all prized and 
 sought-for things were counted loss for the excellency 
 of the knowledge of God in Christ. Nor could they 
 always reckon on what to the loving nature so sweetens 
 that which is bitter, — the gentle words and the help- 
 ful sympathy of kindred and friends. Often the 
 Gospel came as a sword, cutting asunder the dearest 
 ties, making division between those of the same house- 
 hold. In their deeper study of things human and 
 Divine they were regarded with pity or wonder by the 
 more enlightened, as visionary or eccentric, and in their 
 most inspired meditations were denied all community 
 
An Advent Se^mion 
 
 of thought with the finer and more cultivated minds 
 around them. Always, too, in the background were 
 the grim terrors of the law, which might at any moment 
 doom them to a fate from which the firmest nerves 
 might shrink appalled. And yet amid all this, how 
 brave and manful is their bearing, how jubilant the 
 character of many of their exhortations ! The spirit in 
 them rises far above the level of stoical calm. It is 
 instinct with the inspiration of Christian gladness. 
 They joy and rejoice together. They speak to one 
 another words of comfort and strength ; they exhort 
 one another to rejoice evermore. They are linked in 
 eternal bonds to Him whose heart is the home not only 
 of perfect love but of perfect joy, and this conviction 
 pervades their nature and their life, inspiring and trans- 
 forming it. This superiority to depression which they 
 had gained was a great and difficult feat, possible only 
 to men who by a strong faith had learnt to look not on 
 things seen but on things unseen, not on the phenomenal 
 life of sense but on the divine life beneath and beyond 
 it. This was the victory they had obtained, delivering 
 from the empire of carnal fears ; this it was that gave 
 to them their brave hearts, their strong wills, their deep 
 affection. 
 
 Yet a superficial observer might say that the 
 achievement is not so wonderful after all ; that it is 
 easy to rejoice if one can only forget the existence of 
 what is painful; and that experience has shown that 
 to turn aside from gloomy images and dwell on those 
 alone that are cheerful is the constant tendency of 
 characters lacking in depth and earnestness. Such a 
 hilarity of temper may indeed be maintained when 
 health is unbroken; when prosperity is unchecked; when 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
4 The Light that light eth every Man i 
 
 hope still whispers its flatteries, and the cares that 
 corrode joy are still in the distance ; when as yet the 
 conscience has not been wrung by the sense of shameful 
 sin, when the stream of life has not been poisoned by 
 disappointment; when the affections have not been lacer- 
 ated or the yearning sympathy of the heart thrown back 
 upon itself; when the mind has hardly yet awakened 
 to grapple with the truth of things, nor faith been 
 clouded by doubt ; and when the terrors of the world 
 to come have not yet been felt as a real power. 
 
 It is not, however, in the absence but in the 
 presence of these things that the Apostolic writers are 
 able to maintain this high rejoicing strain. The joy 
 they inculcate arises neither from a superficial view of 
 the sorrow that invades our life, nor from a cowardly 
 indisposition to look on any but the bright side of 
 things. It is not a blind joy built on the basis of 
 forgetfulness of whatever could trouble gladness, but 
 has the clear sight of a faith on whose view of eternal 
 things not all the intervening images of mortal terror 
 and distress can throw darkness or doubt. The man 
 who believes is not only delivered from the temptation 
 to seek his chief good in transitory forms of pleasure, 
 but is freed also from that illusion of the senses which 
 would confer a sort of eternity on sorrow. He sees, 
 on the contrary, that the earthly sorrows do all in their 
 turn give occasion for the revelation of a Divine 
 joy, reaching far deeper down into the depths of man's 
 nature. He sees God in Creation, in Providence, in 
 every part of His wondrous course of discipline in 
 human souls, revealing Himself in all His power of 
 building up new and fairer joys out of what seemed to 
 be the wreck of an earthly happiness. And we sorely 
 
An Advent Se^^nion 
 
 need this power of rejoicing, which grows out of a 
 heavenly faith, because sense has so little power of 
 creating it. 
 
 •Look, for example, and see what power sense has to 
 make us rejoice there. Some power it has, but have 
 you ever estimated the extent and measure of it, so as 
 to see where that power fails us ? 
 
 There is much in external nature that is persuasive 
 to peace, much that ministers to enjoyment, but yet it 
 would be a one-sided view of Creation that could see 
 there nothing of a very different character. Eeason- 
 ings on natural theology, successful up to a certain 
 jjoint in showing evidences of benevolent design, yet 
 fail in satisfying those who require to have explained 
 to them the dark and terrible things in nature. The 
 argument which would establish happiness as the pre- 
 vailing character of Creation does not state the whole 
 of the truth. "We feel that it is not an untrue, but a 
 partial and unbalanced picture which paints this as " a 
 happy world after all," which dwells with admiration 
 and praise on the evidence afforded, in the structure 
 and life of God's creatures, of their capacity for ex- 
 quisite and varied enjoyment. We listen, not without 
 sympathy, to such a description as that of Paley in his 
 Natural Theology. He tells us to listen : " The air is 
 filled with the music of a thousand choristers ; Creation's 
 evening hymn, sung by many voices and in many notes, 
 goes up to the ear of God ; and while the lark supplies 
 music from the singing heavens, nature holds in- 
 cessant revels below. And happy insects by sparkling 
 streams or the sedgy borders of the placid lake, keep 
 up their many merry dances till God puts out the lights, 
 and, satiated with enjoyments, they retire to rest, 
 
6 The Light that light eth every Man i 
 
 wrapped about in the curtains of the night." This is 
 true as far as it goes. Sense tells us thus much con- 
 cerning Creation, and much more of the same nature. 
 But does it tell us of nothing else ? Do we not, in the 
 wild solitudes of nature, hear the stillness of the night 
 broken by the cries of savage beasts prowling after 
 their prey ? Does not the exquisite structure through 
 which the creatures of Grod are rendered capable of 
 such happiness also entail on them in due proportion 
 a susceptibility to pain ? Is there not in this Creation, 
 which on the face of it is so peaceful and so fair, agon- 
 ising death as well as buoyant and exulting life ? What 
 agonies of fear beset the life of creatures hunted and 
 preyed on by others, and what torments they endure 
 in the struggle for existence. 
 
 If the story of the various anguish of the highly- 
 organised creatures of a single generation could be 
 written down in a book, if we could see there traced 
 in clear outlines the terrible, as well as the picturesque 
 and beautiful, features of their lot, and, as it were, wit- 
 ness the groans and sufferings amid which their wasting 
 life has worn itself away or been violently destroyed, 
 that would surely be a book which none could read with- 
 out painful emotion. The same tale is told by the very 
 rocks which are the sepulchres of past generations. 
 
 There, on the stones themselves, are stamped the 
 dying contortions which speak to us, as plainly as a 
 book, of cruel sufferings in death. 
 
 All the brightness and beauty of life cannot obliter- 
 ate the impression produced by visible facts like these. 
 We see in them the impotence of mere sense to sustain 
 the joy within us in the presence of the more terrible 
 revelations of nature. 
 
All Advent Sermo7i 
 
 But the Bible, which addresses itself not to the 
 sense but to the spirit, brings a message of joy, the 
 more precious because the need for it is so great. 
 
 . It satisfies us because it does not ignore the darker 
 and more anomalous things. It brings out into clear 
 relief the fact that this is not only a fair and beautiful 
 Creation musical with Divine harmonies, but declares 
 at the same time with inimitable candour and tender- 
 ness, that " the whole creation groaneth and travaileth 
 in pain together until now." This, however, it connects 
 with the sorrow of the Son of God Himself, and in His 
 lordship over death and pain gives us an assurance of 
 deep meanings of love in that which is so painful. 
 
 It connects the cross of humanity with His Cross — 
 an awful yet a Divine fellowship — and in His victory 
 gives us a pledge that the reign of pain and death is a 
 transitory reign, and that out of them are to be de- 
 veloped superior joys and glories which, without them, 
 could not have been. If we cannot as yet understand, 
 we have here room for faith to rest on, and the assur- 
 ance that by and by we shall understand. 
 
 The creature was made unwillingly " subject unto 
 vanity," but was subjected to it "in hope," because, 
 " the creature itself also shall be delivered from the 
 bondage of corruption." We see in the more perplex- 
 ing facts of earthly life things inscrutable to us, which 
 yet are shaping themselves onward to a glorious end. 
 
 The Gospel is to us a message of joy, because it tells 
 us of a Eedemption, not only of man in his immor- 
 tality, but even of Creation from its dumb, speechless 
 sorrow. 
 
 If man be the masterpiece of Creation, it is to be 
 expected that there shall be some kind of accord be- 
 
8 The Light that lighteth every Man i 
 
 tween his history and that of the world in which he 
 dwells ; and so there is even now, for the groans of 
 Creation are in harmony with the groans of man in his 
 humiliation. Both are alike, meanwhile, subject to 
 death. To sense, death seems the conqueror and pain 
 that which cannot be destroyed. But to faith all is 
 different. The heart leaps with joy to discover that 
 death is not to have a perpetual reign. The kingdom 
 into which elements of disorder are allowed to stray, 
 and in which misrule is, for a time, allowed to contest 
 the supremacy with Almighty Love, is to go through a 
 long eventful history, to discover at last that love is 
 mightier than all. 
 
 The powers that exalt themselves against it will be 
 broken into fragments, and the kingdom " delivered 
 over to God, even the Father." Even now we have 
 the earnest of this, for Christ has made us heirs with 
 Himself in the glories of that kingdom of joy whose 
 empire is at last to be undisputed. He who believes 
 has already become a joint-heir with Christ in the pro- 
 mised glory of the universe. The man who lives by 
 sense can only rejoice when he escapes by momentary 
 forgetfulness from the pressure of the intolerable agony 
 around him ; but the man who lives by faith can re- 
 joice in the Lord as a Eedeemer from all loss, as the 
 bringer-in of an everlasting joy. But for this we 
 could not bear to think of the sufferings of God's 
 creatures, we could find no clue to guide us through 
 the labyrinth of speculation in the mysteries of our 
 own being. But now we see that we may well leave 
 these speculations alone for ever, that God Aasa solu- 
 tion for the problem that so perplexes us. He is 
 calling us to ascend by a Divine and perfect way which 
 
I An Advent Sermon 9 
 
 One in His own nature hath trodden, to a higher level, 
 from which alone we can view these things aright. 
 
 He is stamping deep on the conscience of mankind 
 a -conviction of the deadly character of sin, and the 
 heavenly joy there is in doing the will of God and 
 patiently expecting its fulfilment. He is kindling in 
 us an expectation, and through that expectation an 
 elation of heart in which there is already a foretaste of 
 the triumph of love. Now that Christ has brought life 
 and immortality to light, we can look upon what is 
 meanwhile confused and dark, and see that all is not 
 confusion, and all is not darkness. 
 
 Into the midst of this sphere there have come 
 tidings from the realm of light which are full of joy. 
 The kindled imagination, leaping over the intervening 
 ages, sees, rising out of the ruins of the present world, 
 a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness ; a world which St. John likened to a 
 great temple whose gates stand ever open, whose every 
 word and work is an act of devotion; when the servants 
 of God shall see His face, and the clouds which sur- 
 round His throne shall have vanished for ever away. 
 The cries of the former suffering have given place to 
 the acclamation of the present praise. The love which 
 has waited long at last is satisfied ; there is no more 
 curse, nothing to mar the harmony of a rejoicing 
 universe. The faint heart, the faltering will, the mis- 
 giving intellect, have found a new-born strength and 
 faith ; in that new scene they have risen to confess 
 with rapture no tongue can tell that the Lord God 
 omnipotent reigneth. 
 
 At this sublime conclusion I might well close my 
 discourse. But in some of your hearts there is a cry 
 
lo The Light that lighteth every Man i 
 
 to which I cannot but listen. You say " The Lord 
 God omnipotent reigneth " ; but is His reign supreme 
 and universal? Have not priests taught us to believe 
 that there is a vast realm of the lost who are to suffer 
 through endless ages, and yet in all their suffering are 
 able to contradict His will, and in their unsubdued 
 wills maintain an everlasting defiance of evil against 
 the omnipotent ? 
 
 If this teaching were true, it would be impossible 
 to obey this precept of the Apostle. In the face of 
 such a statement of facts, we should be utter egotists 
 if we could rejoice ; for to benevolent souls what 
 avails the happiness of a certain number, if the rest 
 are consigned to endless and hopeless wickedness and 
 misery ? But Holy Scripture has not said this. On 
 the contrary, from the first page to the last, it as- 
 serts the omnipotence of Divine love. That love, if 
 omnipotent, must at last overbear all the malignity 
 and wickedness of hostile wills. So St. John in 
 his vision has described it as a lake of fire, into 
 which hell itself wiU be cast and utterly consumed. 
 Great suffering there will be to the wicked so long as 
 they are wicked, but it will not, it cannot be ever- 
 lasting, for that would be to assert a greater potency 
 in the wicked will of the Creature than in the good 
 will of the Creator. It would be to deny what St. 
 Paul has expressly said, that Christ " will bring back 
 the kingdom to God, even the Father." That kingdom 
 is not brought back if there is an alien realm in which 
 wills are unsubdued to Him. Therefore, resting in 
 the sure promise of Scripture, you may dismiss your 
 dark misgiving. Ah, what glory, what joy, and what 
 strength of patience to wait and trust, in the thought 
 
I An Advent Sermon 1 1 
 
 that when the long struggle between good and evil 
 has ended, even once lost souls will unite in the 
 acclamation of the restored universe that "the Lord 
 Grod omnipotent reigneth ! " What meaning this gives 
 to the beautiful words of your anthem : " They shall 
 hunger no more, neither thirst any more " ; you may 
 well dwell on them and repeat them. All the vague 
 hunger and thirst of created souls will be satisfied at 
 last. All futile, deceiving aimings at bliss abandoned, 
 the whole universe of God will be at rest, for the in- 
 dividual wills of all creatures will be in harmony with 
 that Divine love which is the KSupreme Power over 
 the whole Creation. If I had no such hope with which 
 to cheer you, I could not say — as I do say with no mis- 
 giving heart — " Eejoice in the Lord alway : and again I 
 say, Eejoice." Eejoice in the present comfort and 
 in expectation of the fulfilment of the larger hope. 
 
II 
 
 THE CLOSING WEEK OF ADVENT 
 
 "He hath given him authority to execute judgment, because he is 
 the Son of man." — St. John v. 27. 
 
 Advent is coincident with tlie beginning of the Chris- 
 tian Year, and naturally brings solemn thoughts both 
 of retrospect and anticipation. But besides this, there 
 is to most minds, in the very sound of Advent, a threaten- 
 ing character ; it comes as with a distant sound of 
 thunder, heavy with the presage of doom. All the ele- 
 ments of fear that have ever depressed the mind or 
 crushed the feeling of happiness, seem to commingle 
 in the anticipated scene of judgment. And as this 
 state of feeling is not fit for those who are sharers in 
 a Divine calling and an eternal hope, one thing which 
 I feel impelled to do is to point out to you that the 
 dread of judgment must be softened and subdued by 
 at least two significant facts. The first of these is, 
 that He by whom we are to be judged is the Son of 
 man, and in His vision of judgment we are led to see 
 how He scatters the fears of many humble souls, re- 
 serving the words of doom for those who in life have 
 taken part with the devil and his angels. They, in- 
 deed, are to go away into the fire that burneth eternally ; 
 the evil in them too must be cast out ; they must be 
 subjected to the consuming power of the Divine holi- 
 
The Closing Week of Advent 
 
 ness : that is the doom of the wicked, but even of that 
 doom we dare not say that it excludes hope. 
 
 For us, in our onlookings to judgment, we remember 
 -^and this subdues fear — that we have to do with the 
 Son of man ; with a Judge penetrated with the thoughts 
 of our humanity. 
 
 But when we try to form a conception of His judg- 
 ment, what have we to help us but our earthly experi- 
 ences ? Human analogies can be no guide to the pro- 
 cedure of a faultless righteousness. 
 
 The human judge is the instrument of the law, and 
 nothing more ; he cannot interpose his own clemency 
 to abate the rigour of the written law which he admin- 
 isters ; his sentence must go forth within the pre- 
 scribed lines, whatever may be the relentings of his 
 personal feeling. But the Divine Judge is Himself 
 the impersonation of the righteousness which He ad- 
 ministers ; His judicial cannot be separated from His 
 personal character. His nature has an infinite reserve 
 of freedom in dealing with complications of moral con- 
 duct which would baffle an earthly tribunal. 
 
 He is able to discern the real meaning of the past 
 and the possibilities of the future. Though the things 
 He judges are things done in the body, yet it is these 
 things in the effect they have produced on the char- 
 acter, in their relation not only to the past history, 
 but also to the remaining capacity of good in each man. 
 And He who appears as Son of man is also Son of 
 God. He represents the Fatherhood of God. His is 
 no alien tribunal, with no sympathy and no tenderness. 
 It is a fatherl}^ judgment-seat, and a father can take 
 into account a great deal more than the mere fact 
 of transgression. He can see and allow for all the 
 
 OF THE 
 
 TT "KT + TT- -f-i ..-. . 
 
14 The Light that lighteth every Man n 
 
 disadvantages of position, the bewildering influence on 
 the conscience of evil presenting itself in some aspect 
 of imagined good. He can distinguish the actuating 
 motive from the particular deed. He can allow for 
 the influence on the conduct of His children of evil 
 example, false advice, the transmitted tendencies of 
 habit, which may, from the first, have been a weight 
 and fetter on the will. He can judge, as man cannot 
 do, of possibilities of restoration, and take into account 
 all surrounding circumstances, even when a soul has 
 been betrayed from its rectitude. All this needs to 
 be borne in mind when we are scared by the message 
 of the judgment that is drawing nigh. But there is 
 more than even this in the way of abatement of terror. 
 We speak of the coming of the Last Day, and awful 
 pictures have been drawn of that day ; the trump of 
 God which is to awaken the dead ; the descending of 
 the Judge with His attendant angels ; the gathering of 
 all people, small and great, before Him ; the opening 
 of the books; the strict inquisition which none can 
 escape. The sublime imagery of the Eevelation is 
 treated as if it were not imagery at all, and everything 
 connected with the future judgment is materialised in 
 order to form an awful picture of the world's great 
 assize. Here, in this church, such a picture was, some 
 time since, drawn ; but as I listened, while I could not 
 but be profoundly affected by the great power and force 
 with which it besieged the imagination, I felt it to be 
 somewhat misleading. I know not that we are to take 
 each image used by great painters and poets as if it 
 were a detail of literal fact. The solemnity to the soul 
 is in that which lies behind the imagery. That vast 
 panorama which has been described, on which countless 
 
II The Closing Week of Advent 15 
 
 multitudes are to be marshalled, and yet each soul 
 singled out for sentence on one particular day of judg- 
 ment, is the application of human analogies to Divine 
 things ; but it is the Divine things of which we should 
 chiefly stand in awe. That, in a most true sense, to 
 each soul will come a last day ; that the earthly life 
 will prove to have been not only education but proba- 
 tion ; and that the things done in the body will form 
 the subject of a just inquisition ; this is the substance 
 of the Scripture revelation respecting a future judgment, 
 stripped of the imagery in which it has been clothed. 
 But the trump of the Archangel ; the opening of the 
 books ; the apparatus and pomp of the judgment-seat ; 
 this is but the labouring of the imagination to give form 
 and expression to spiritual solemnities which pass all 
 human understanding. 
 
 Seize fast hold of the substance. Fix deep in your 
 thoughts the truth that He who is your Judge repre- 
 sents the Fatherhood as well ; that between Him and 
 you there already exist the profoundest relations of 
 life and being ; that the whole object of your earthly 
 education has been to bring your spirit into true com- 
 munion with His ; and you will see that the judgment 
 to each man must mean, not the final irreversible 
 determination of what his fixed state is to be for ever 
 and ever, but rather the determination of what his 
 actual state is before God in that farther world, and 
 the kind of trial he is to undergo. 
 
 Then you will have a clearer revelation of what 
 holiness is and requires, a fuller discovery of sin as 
 the one separating thing between God and man, and 
 an entrance into a sphere where the necessities of the 
 mortal existence no lonji^er interfere with the education 
 
1 6 The Light that lighteth every Man n 
 
 of the immortal nature. Every man's sin will find 
 him out ; all will discover that sin is its own punish- 
 ment; and in many cases it will be like an unsealing 
 of eyes that long were blind, a letting out of im- 
 prisoned fountains of desire, through which the life 
 becomes altogether new. Through tribulation of the 
 spirit each soul that has sinned must enter into the 
 Kingdom of God. 
 
 There is in this view of the judgment to come that 
 which is quite sufficiently awful, but there is the 
 Eternal Sacrifice to plead ; there is the eternal purpose 
 of God, which no finite sin has power in the long-run 
 to defeat. But still we cry, Eepent, for the Kingdom 
 of Heaven is at hand. This is the only way to be 
 ready. The personal, practical appeal of the season 
 to each one of you is to the conscience and the life. 
 Think of the things in you that hinder communion 
 with the holy, and strive and pray to put them alto- 
 gether away. 
 
 But while we think of Advent as warning us of a 
 coming judgment, do not let us suppose that that is 
 the only judgment. Even now the prince of this 
 world is being judged. Even now there is seated on 
 the throne of the universe One who is no passion- 
 less spectator of the doings of men, — no stern official 
 calling on the recording angel to set down the records 
 of our misdeeds against the terrible day of retribution. 
 Even now He interferes in our common life. Its 
 whole machinery is. made up of incidents through 
 which He speaks to the soul, and there are many 
 Advent messages. The men of science say that all 
 natural things are according to law, and that in our 
 natural life there are no such things as Divine judg- 
 
II The Closing Week of Advent 17 
 
 ments. This is true in one sense, and yet I think it 
 is also true that through these things God judges us. 
 We to whom the things happen are more than mere 
 flesh and blood. Every startling thing, every sudden 
 failure of health and strength in ourselves, every great 
 and far-reaching calamity, is felt as if it were a message 
 to the soul. 
 
 That visitation of cholera the other day, which 
 startled every one who read of it, no doubt happened 
 as the result of natural causes. And yet those to 
 whom it came were spiritual beings ; it reached them 
 at a particular point in their spiritual history ; there 
 would be swift recollection of untruthfulness, dishonesty, 
 revengefulness, or impurity ; the pains of the stricken 
 would be not only pains of the body, but the sharp 
 and sudden pain of the roused conscience. And there 
 are many things in the world, as we see it, which re- 
 mind us that it has even now a righteous Judge. No 
 work conceived in unrighteousness can prosper, because 
 God in Providence cannot away with sin. The Judge 
 of all the earth is constantly dealing with us. We 
 cannot for a single day escape from that inquisition. 
 The changes and chances of common life are converted 
 into instruments for the purpose of turning us from evil 
 and reviving in us the love and the practice of good. 
 
 Each one of you is seen and known ; the peculiari- 
 ties of your character; the things that make you 
 different from other men ; so that things outwardly 
 the same have to different men strongly different 
 meanings. 
 
 Whether you think of it or not, God is judging 
 you. He is dealing with you through incidents and 
 experiences which do not of themselves suggest the 
 
 c 
 
1 8 The Light that light eth every Man n 
 
 thought of His Presence. But at the same time, re- 
 member that if He is present, seeing all, marking all, 
 blinded by none of the delusions by which we deceive 
 ourselves and others, yet He is not merely Judge, but 
 Helper. He is there to lift up those that fall, to 
 guide the steps of those who are really seeking for His 
 Kingdom. His sharpest rebukes are accompanied by 
 the tenderest pleadings. "Come now, and let us 
 reason together : though your sins be as scarlet, they 
 shall be as white as snow ; though they be red like 
 crimson, they shall be as wool." 
 
 It is this which makes the Advent message an 
 agent of conversion. It awakens conscience, but it 
 does so to revive hope, and to create in each soul a 
 more earnest pursuit of the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
Ill 
 
 CHEISTMAS DAY 
 
 "When the fulness of the time was come." — Galatians iv. 4. 
 
 These times and seasons are things which we cannot 
 afford to dispense with. All our life is measured, not 
 so much by mere duration as by the comparative char- 
 acter of its events. And we may be held excused if 
 we linger somewhat over those seasons which come to 
 us with some bright and cheering message. But all 
 joy of earth is apt to be superficial and evanescent 
 which is not closely connected with the eternal life, 
 and does not derive from it its power of kindling happi- 
 ness. And this is one reason why we make so much 
 of Christmas Day. Through these seasons, that are so 
 brief and that vanish so quickly away, we seem to 
 look, as through a glass, on the glory that is eternal. 
 
 Looked at in the light of the past, the Nativity of 
 Christ is the coming to the birth not only of a human 
 child, but of a great thought of God. It was when 
 the fulness of time was come that He sent forth His 
 Son, made of a woman, made under the law. 
 
 It is of this growth of a great purpose, up to the 
 point of its coming to the light, that I would especi- 
 ally speak on this Christmas morning. 
 
 1. And first, I invite you to observe that St. Paul 
 is not here speaking of time in general, but of the 
 
20 The Light that light eth every Man m 
 
 Time, that is to say, the connected, progress of human 
 history preparatory to the revelation of a world-wide 
 Kedemption. 
 
 Al] earlier stages of progress, because they were 
 what we call them — stages — were leading on to this as 
 their fulfilment. To this it was the unfaltering pur- 
 pose of the Divine wisdom to conduct even those 
 movements among men which seemed to have the least 
 visible connection witli it. 
 
 The rudimental condition of any kind of being has 
 little obvious resemblance to that being when fully de- 
 veloped ; but, by processes which lie out of sight, the 
 one leads on to the other. 
 
 " There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rough hew them how we may." 
 
 This is true of individual careers, and it is true of the 
 continuous life of mankind. 
 
 Observe, then, what is meant by St. Paul's contrast 
 between the condition of men held in bondage under 
 the rudiments of the world and what happened when 
 the fulness of time was really come. 
 
 («) Physico.lly the condition of mankind had been 
 rudimentary, for men were like children who can see 
 but portions or fragments of life ; who cannot realise it 
 as a whole, and have no adequate conception of the 
 proportions of things, whose relations to a common 
 centre of unity had not been discovered. Men were 
 so many mere sections of mankind, some separated by 
 their national genius or temperament, some by their 
 religious ideas, some by only such external causes as 
 climate and conditions of social existence. But St. 
 Paul hails it as a sign of the fulness of the time having 
 
Ill Christmas Day 21 
 
 come, that this partial, fragmentary view of the rela- 
 tions of manldnd has given way before the revelation 
 of a grander idea ; since " Now there is neither Jew nor 
 Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male 
 nor female. All are one in Christ Jesus" 
 
 These words, at the close of the third chapter, give 
 ns an insight into the working of the Apostle's mind 
 when he makes this singular contrast. 
 
 (h) But besides the physical contraction, partiality, 
 and one-sidedness of human life, it had previously 
 also been rudimentary in a moral and religious sense. 
 
 The relation of men to a spiritual world of truth 
 and goodness and love and beauty had hitherto been 
 very imperfectly apprehended. Many errors, intellec- 
 tual and moral, had entered into the popular belief. 
 Many dark superstitions had clouded the mind ; just as 
 we sometimes see in the life that is going on around 
 us, that the young are bewildered and amazed by the 
 pressure of questions too great for their, as yet, imma- 
 ture powers of thought. They make guesses at truth 
 which yet they feel is above their reach. And so in 
 the moral sphere of things in the old world, the wisdom 
 of the wisest often seemed little more than the snatch- 
 ing at some particular religious truth which, even 
 when seized upon, had as yet no visible relation to 
 God's whole purpose concerning man. 
 
 Then also it seemed as if St. Paul's words concern- 
 ing himself might have had an oblique reference to 
 mankind as a whole : " When I was a child I thought 
 as a child, I understood as a child." Among the 
 heathen there often seemed a flashing forth of some 
 higher life in the musings of their sages, while among 
 the Hebrews the far fuller revelation of God's mind in 
 
2 2 The Light that lighteth every Man m 
 
 reference to what is morally good, was often obscured 
 by the local colouring given to it in the course of its 
 transmission, sometimes, even, by human passion ming- 
 ling with it. 
 
 Thus, alike in a physical and a moral sense, there 
 has been a rudimental stage. But, as we have seen, 
 its very rudimental character contained within itself 
 the presage of a coming fulness of time. The partial 
 apprehensions of Divine truth are both a prophecy and a 
 pledge of a completer knowledge which they are seeking. 
 The very shadow cast upon our path causes us to lift 
 up our eyes in expectation of the form whose presence 
 it forecasts. And so it is that we see in the Son sent 
 forth from God, not only an Incarnation of God, but a 
 giving form and substance to all that was best in man's 
 previous anticipations of truth. In Him a God of 
 Love emerged from the darkness in which He had been 
 hidden, and the heart of mankind received strong assur- 
 ance that, at the root and centre of things, is One who 
 is Father of all. 
 
 2. Secondly, I have to remind you that this, which 
 was seeking the Hght in such fragmentary utterances 
 of thought, was also that with which Scripture prophecy 
 was charged. The prophets were heaving, as it were, 
 under the burden of a mighty expectation. Daniel 
 was a prophet who found the materials for his vision 
 of the future in the changeableness of human king- 
 doms, which yet he contemplated as a sign of the fact 
 that there is a kingdom of God in the midst of men 
 that is unchangeable. He said, " Blessed be the 
 name of God for ever and ever : wisdom and might 
 are His : and He changeth the times and seasons : He 
 removeth kings, and setteth up kings : He giveth wis- 
 
Christmas Day 23 
 
 dom to the wise, and knowledge to them that know 
 understanding : . . . He knoweth what is in the dark- 
 ness, and the light dwelleth with Him." And so the 
 prophet saw a light growing out of the darkness, and 
 a promise in future ages of a full revelation of all that 
 was then seen only imperfectly. 
 
 All the ancient world was full of these portents of 
 a glory which was to come down into the world in all 
 its national and personal life, and would never forsake it. 
 
 Haggai spoke of a " Desire of all nations " that should 
 come, yet bring convulsions among men, trying them 
 as by fire, penetrating like a sword of the Spirit into 
 the joints and marrow of the world, finding out in the 
 life of men all that was not fashioned after the mind 
 of God, and involving it in the general destruction 
 which must overtake every work of man not based on 
 an eternal ground. Yet the end was to be a glory 
 of the " latter house " greater than that of the former. 
 
 I think we must not interpret this only of the 
 material building of the Temple in Jerusalem, but of 
 the whole earth which God had made His glorious 
 Temple. For there, in the beautiful creations of 
 Nature, in the rejoicing life of innocent creatures, in 
 the penitent thoughts of sinful men, in the daily 
 oblations of thought and affection and will, a continual 
 sacrifice is being offered up to God's honour and 
 glory. 
 
 Amid all the convulsions of nations consequent on 
 the introduction of a holy and righteous Power into a 
 world where there was much evil and wrong ; amid all 
 the tribulations of men and peoples by which it is 
 appointed that they must enter into the Kingdom 
 which is Eighteousness and Truth, the glory of the 
 
24 The Light that lighteth every Man m 
 
 latter earth is to become greater by reason of those 
 very tribulations and the purification of life, of which 
 they are the instruments. 
 
 It is in this way that the fulness of the time is always 
 coming. The essential changeableness, transitoriness, 
 and evanescence of evil is being always made mani- 
 fest, and the victorious power of the Eedeemer is 
 being revealed more and more to the consciousness 
 of men. 
 
 Throughout the page of prophecy the connection of 
 this mighty change in the world's history with the 
 Child to be born in Bethlehem is made clear. A reign 
 of eternal glory, beginning in earthly humiliation, was 
 predicted with such particulars of time, place, and con- 
 dition as to enable us to identify Jesus of Nazareth 
 with the predicted Eedeemer and King. 
 
 There is only one thing more which there is time 
 to say. We have seen that there has been a growth, 
 through all the ages, of a Divine meaning towards an 
 eventual revelation. But what happens in the history 
 of men at large is no less clearly seen in the spiritual 
 history of each one. Baptized and regenerate as you 
 are, must you not confess that there has been, during 
 much of your life, no living consciousness of a Divine 
 Presence with you ? So it has been with multitudes 
 of men to whom God is always speaking. At last, in 
 the midst of them, the Christ was born. And in your 
 individual life be sure that it is to this that all your 
 various experiences are tending ; that in the fulness of 
 your time the Son of God may be revealed in you ; 
 that in the spiritual sense, after many dull languishings 
 and many agonies of feeling, the hour may come when 
 the Christ within your soul may be truly born, and 
 
Christmas Day 25 
 
 your heart be made to leap for joy at your discovery 
 of Him. When that time comes, you will be able to 
 trace in the past many things which were leading on 
 to- it. The influences around your childhood, the 
 friends among whom you have been thrown, all the 
 contest that has gone on within you between the love 
 of the lower and the greater and more lasting good ; 
 in all this you will see the preparatory stage in your 
 own career, where many various things were conspiring 
 to prepare you to see in Christ the Eedeemer of your 
 soul, the Lord of your whole life. In all my Christmas 
 well-wishing to you, dear brethren, believe that the 
 wish for this, on behalf of each one of you, is the deepest 
 and strongest of all. 
 
 In this all elements of happiness are included. 
 For though there may be many cares and many heart- 
 sorrows, yet here is the balm for every wound. The 
 discovery of Christ as yours will alone cause your 
 heart to expand with love towards all the brethren. 
 A large charity, a tender compassion, a spirit of for- 
 bearance and forgivingness, an eager desire for the 
 temporal and spiritual good of all your fellows, and a 
 deep humility as regards yourselves, these are the things 
 we look for in those in whom Christ has been born 
 and made manifest. 
 
 If to-day I wish you a happy Christmas, as I do 
 with all my heart, that wish does not mean merely 
 that you may have a joyous day, but that this day 
 that power of love to Christ and to all whom He 
 loves may so enter into you and possess you that the 
 coming year may be pervaded with its influence. 
 
 Through that love may you be saved from all yield- 
 ing to base temptation ; through it may you be inspired, 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
26 The Light that lighteth every Man m 
 
 in your relation to your fellows, with a spirit truly 
 Christlike. Besides all other things that touch the 
 mere surface of your lives, this is what I mean when, 
 in behalf of all your brethren, as their representative, 
 I wish you a Happy Christmas. 
 
lY 
 
 NEW YEAE'S EYE ADDEESS 
 
 It is now a good many years since we established this 
 practice of assembling together in the house of God 
 for the purpose of meditating on the close of the year 
 and asking God to give us His grace to keep us in the 
 new year on which we enter. 
 
 As I recall many solemn services in which, in quiet- 
 ness of spirit, we have sought to commune with our 
 own souls, I cannot but feel that it is well thus to 
 mark a critical point in time. 
 
 There is another well-known way of "seeing out 
 the Old Year " with accompaniments of mere convivial 
 mirth, which we feel to be incongruous with the 
 solemnity of the occasion, and we point this out as a 
 better way. 
 
 When John Wesley established his " Watch Night " 
 services, his mind was penetrated with ideas derived 
 from his old Church life. He knew that during many 
 generations it had been customary before any great 
 religious festival to observe the eve of it as a vigil, a 
 time of watching in prayer, that men might be prepared 
 by subdued thought for receiving once more any great 
 token of the Divine mercy. And we who have been 
 giving God thanks for preservation to this hour, do 
 account it a token of Divine mercy to be allowed to 
 
28 The Light that light eth every Man iv 
 
 enter on a new year with, unbroken powers of living 
 and thinking, feeling and acting. We should seek so 
 to look back on the past and forward to the future, 
 that when the morning comes it may find us in the 
 state of men seriously resolved to renew the holiest 
 vows of our earlier consecration ; to start afresh, as if 
 we, pilgrims of the night, were keeping in view the 
 object of our journey, and how our life is to be shaped 
 if all is not to end in mournful failure. 
 
 Some have objected to these late services as sensa- 
 tional, and they do turn natural feeling to a religious 
 purpose. But they do not make appeal to the senses 
 or the imagination; they do not make use of any 
 machinery of spiritual terror ; they do not dwell only 
 on death and judgment as a means of producing a 
 transitory awe; but they arrest men in the path at 
 that point in their history when all who are in their 
 right mind are of themselves disposed to stay their 
 steps and yield to serious thought. They make appeal 
 to that in us which is most reasonable, thoughtful, and 
 devout; and inasmuch as they do this, they are not 
 justly open to the reproach of being sensational. 
 
 We ask you, at this time, to recall the events of 
 the year just drawing to its close ; to think what it 
 has meant to you, in what state of mind and life it 
 leaves you ; what it has contained for you as bearing on 
 your temporal and eternal happiness. 
 
 There are two ways of looking on the progress of 
 time, the unbelieving and the believing way. 
 
 The unbeliever sees in his life a constant succession 
 of outer events, but he seems to stand in the midst of 
 them, isolated from them. In the things that happen 
 to him he sees no line of connection; the years, the 
 
IV New Years Eve Address 29 
 
 events are not linked together; his life slips through 
 his fingers he knows not how, and does not stop to 
 consider. 
 
 • But in the view of the believer, the outer events 
 derive their character, their meaning, their importance, 
 from the underlying mysteries of life and being. He 
 is in a wondrous school, undergoing a process of Divine 
 education. To a large extent he shapes his own life, 
 assisted by the light of reason and yielding to the 
 supremacy of conscience ; he strives to live wisely and 
 act rightly ; but he believes that a Divine Providence 
 is guiding him even when he is not thinking about it, 
 and that in much that happens to him he is constantly 
 dependent on the care of God. 
 
 Through another whole year, then, we have been 
 guided and kept. We are unable at this moment to 
 understand what cause of thankfulness we really have. 
 The eventfulness of a chance acquaintance formed or a 
 new occupation entered on; the effect left on our 
 minds of some particular book, or words spoken to us 
 at some peculiarly receptive instant ; this, on some 
 rare occasion, we have forced on us with power and 
 impressiveness ; but think of the inconceivable number 
 of such occurrences stretching through days, weeks, 
 months, throughout the year ; think that all the while 
 we have lived the life of spiritual beings acted on by 
 spiritual influences ; and although we cannot see into 
 the darkness even of the past, yet we know enough to 
 be moved to kneel down and give God thanks for all 
 His merciful care. Some who were here last year are 
 not here now. They have wandered far to distant 
 places ; pray God that the pure desires they felt here 
 last New Year's Eve may have taken permanent hold 
 
 (UNIVERSITY 
 
30 The Light that light eth every Man iv 
 
 on their character and life, and that the secret prayers 
 they uttered here may even now be in course of fulfil- 
 ment. Others have wandered farther still, — not to a 
 land where all things are forgotten, but to one where 
 they are hidden from our sight. The year proved to 
 them more deeply solemn than they could have fore- 
 seen. Do you try so to spend this quiet hour, that 
 you too may be ready for such a departure. If you 
 have had any adding to your happiness in this waning 
 year, connect it now with the Divine love that has 
 watched over you ; and if things that seemed to be 
 evil have happened to you, yet believe that in God's 
 hand even these may be made instruments of far higher 
 good. Ask that you may henceforth live your life 
 with less of thanklessness, with more habitual reference 
 to the Hand that is always over you. 
 
 In looking forward, more specially to the New Year, 
 there are many things that I should like to say to you, 
 but there is little time for saying them. Is it true 
 of all of you that you have attained to peace and joy 
 in believing ? Is it true of all of you that you have 
 turned, or are now seeking to turn, from old sins 
 which, so long as they are allowed and persevered in, 
 mxist bar your way to the Kingdom of Heaven ? 
 Think, at this moment, of what is beyond this life. 
 You remember what we were reading yesterday : " I 
 saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from 
 whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. . . . 
 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God ; 
 and the books were opened: and another book was 
 opened, which was the book of life : and the dead were 
 judged out of those things which were written in the 
 books, according to their works." 
 
IV New Year's Eve Address 31 
 
 Does not our heart sink within us when we read 
 words like these ? Think of this city, of the haunts 
 of wickedness that are in it, of the lost men and women 
 dragging each other down to destruction. Think of 
 the unrighteous practices, the want of truthfulness and 
 honesty, the unfairness, the crooked devices, the way 
 in which the law of God is defied. Think of the 
 terrible contradiction of Christian character by men 
 bearing the Christian name. If there are among us 
 such sinners against their own souls, that tremendous 
 scrutiny of the Judge is coming to them as to others. 
 I ought not to wish them absent from such an as- 
 sembly as this. Eather ought I to hope that some 
 may have been led to stray hither that, solemnly and 
 earnestly, I may strive with them for their soul's 
 salvation. Yes, I say, seek — if you have not sought 
 — the salvation of your soul. Let every aim, every 
 ambition in life, be subordinate to that. And when 
 I say — Seek your soul's salvation, what do I mean 
 by it ? Am I making an appeal to the deep-seated 
 selfishness in every heart, which would lead us by 
 all means to escape from some threatened misery? 
 No soul can ever be saved in that way. But I 
 ask each man to look down into the secret of his 
 own heart, and if he sees sin there, the clinging to 
 sin, attachment to some habit of sin as the bane 
 of his life, I beseech him to seek to be saved from 
 that. 
 
 The damnation of the soul is in the attachment to 
 sin itself. Does your conscience tell you of some evil 
 thing in yourself, so shameful in your own eyes that 
 you dare not speak of it to your fellow-man ? All 
 the while the pure eye of God has been on you, and 
 
32 The Light that lighteth every Man iv 
 
 against you your sin has been recorded ; and one day 
 the books will be opened. 
 
 The very season is a call to repentance. If evil 
 has clung to you for ever so long, you are besought, in 
 the name of God, to cast it away, to leave it behind 
 you in the year that has gone, to begin the new year 
 a new man. That which has been truly repented, that 
 which, believing in the power of Christ's Sacrifice, you 
 have sought to have forgiven, no longer exists — the 
 very memorial of it is gone ; living according to the 
 law of a new life, by that life you will be judged, and 
 by the power of that eternal Sacrifice you will be saved. 
 
 Eemember, it is not possible for you to occupy this 
 place, in the very midst of all that is seeking to save 
 you, without becoming daily worse, unless you are be- 
 coming daily better. Lately in a book I read these 
 words : " Judas could never have come to be the 
 wretch he was, if he had lived out his quiet, stupid 
 days among the men of Kerioth, and J^sus of Nazareth 
 had never crossed his path. Many an unbeliever is 
 being made more unbelieving by the faith of the house 
 he lives in. Many a narrow soul is not broadened but 
 narrowed, pinched into a more wretched selfishness by 
 the large thought and sweet charity that bathes it." 
 It must be so ; the very resistance to the good influ- 
 ence will harden the heart, and make the man who 
 hears and does not heed a worse man than if he had 
 never heard. 
 
 I could not have passed the season by without 
 some such appeal to the conscience. If there be here 
 any sinful, procrastinating soul, I would take hold of 
 him and not let him go, until he has seen that for him 
 the time of repentance, of yielding himself to God, is now. 
 
IV New Years Eve Address 33 
 
 But I turn to others who are seeking to follow 
 on after Christ. If your conscience, at this moment, 
 testifies anything against you, be thankful that you 
 have been driven to searching, inward thought. Make 
 your confession ; ask for more grace ; surround your- 
 self with all that can help and strengthen you ; good, 
 pure companionship, more earnest resort to the Holy 
 Communion, a more inward kind of preparation for it. 
 
 And now, my brothers and sisters in Christ, let us 
 knit closer than ever the ties of our natural and spirit- 
 ual relationship. May we realise more that we are 
 members one of another. May there pass through our 
 Church life a thrill of sympathy, as sharers in common 
 trials and heirs of a common redemption. May we 
 help one another to bear our burdens. May we grow 
 in the faith of our Lord Jesus, in diligence in all 
 works of mercy to which He calls us, in calmness and 
 serenity of hope as this mortal life hastens to its end, 
 never doubting that, when we need it most, the arms 
 of everlasting Love will be round us. 
 
 May this be a Happy New Year to you all. May 
 it witness our growth in all those graces which liken 
 this life to that which is to come, and prepare us for it. 
 
EPIPHANIES OF GOD 
 
 " The mystery which hath been hid . . . but now is made manifest. " 
 
 COLOSSIANS i. 26. 
 
 Last Sunday we were celebrating the Epiphany. That 
 which had been long concealed had now been made 
 manifest. A glory, as if God had been suspected, if 
 not known ; the consciousness of it had broken forth 
 from time to time in the far-glancing thought of legend 
 and song ; and the speculations of the wiser heathen 
 had almost grasped that truth of immortality which 
 the Gospel has brought to light. Already there was 
 an inward kind of Epiphany. The Eternal Word, 
 " the Light which lighteth every man," if as yet He was 
 not fully known, had made His presence felt in the 
 secret consciousness of men, and kept the world in 
 expectation. Men were desiring they knew not what, 
 and He was making ready to come to them to satisfy 
 their desire. There is something solemnising in the 
 thought of their subdued expectation through the dim 
 and distant past, and there is exhilaration in the 
 news that His star has been seen, that He has come, 
 that eyes weary with hope deferred may look upon 
 Him, and that they may pour forth at His feet all 
 the treasure of their secret love. From the land that 
 was " very far off " He has come, and the secret sense 
 
Epiphanies of God 
 
 of kindredness between Heaven and Earth has proved 
 to be no visionary fancy. 
 
 There have been many Epiphanies of God, in 
 Nfiture, and in History, and in Grace. When the 
 light first dispelled the darkness ; when the waters 
 were divided from the waters ; when the progress of 
 Creation showed that this is an orderly world, there 
 was evidence afforded of the presence — though unseen 
 — of a Mind caring for all things, adapting the out- 
 ward circumstance to the living need. And created 
 things, to the eyes that looked on them, had spiritual 
 meanings. They had their analogies and resemblances 
 to things unseen. They were symbols of forms of 
 spiritual beauty, and made nature itself a book of 
 instruction. The storm and the tempest and the 
 wonderful calm of nature became a kind of reflection 
 of moods of feeling that led the generations of men, as 
 they passed, to feel through the darkness, to realise 
 the spirit of nature. That was the Epiphany of Nature. 
 Many minds have felt and responded to its influence. 
 It was of such an Epiphany of God that St. Paul was 
 speaking when, looking back upon the men of the 
 former time, he said, "The invisible things of Him 
 from the creation of the world are clearly seen, even 
 His eternal power and Godhead, being understood by 
 the things that are made." Thus God in Nature 
 speaks to us. 
 
 The soul of him who reads in that book can never 
 cleave wholly to the dust. It seeks God and finds 
 Him, though the characters are faint and ill-defined. 
 These suggestions of a diviner kind of knowledge may 
 deepen the sense of his own insignificance, yet will 
 they stir in him some mood of devotion, as in him who 
 
36 The Light that light eth every Man v 
 
 cried, " When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy 
 fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast 
 ordained ; what is man, that Thou art mindful of him ? 
 or the son of man, that Thou visitest him ? " — and who 
 rose to the conception of man's true place on earth as 
 a vicegerency of God, and ended with this burst of 
 adoration, " Lord our Lord, how excellent is Thy 
 name in all the earth ! " But there is another world 
 besides the world of nature, — the world of human life. 
 There God has left Himself not without witnesses. 
 When man was made in the image of God, it was an 
 Epiphany. God so made man, so constituted his 
 spiritual being, that in all the movements of his secret 
 consciousness there should be some hint or sugorestion 
 of God. As, in the visible creation, the light of the 
 body is the eye, but for which its message to the soul 
 would be lost, so is it in the inward nature of man. 
 There is that — call it the verifying faculty or what 
 you will — through which truth can be discerned. To 
 know what is true, to search after hidden wisdom, is a 
 passion which in the higher order of men becomes all 
 absorbing. In the honour we put on justice, in our 
 impatience of falsehood, in our involuntary admiration 
 of goodness, in our very disdain of ourselves when we 
 have fallen below our standard of what is excellent, 
 we have proof that in our own inmost nature there is 
 an Epiphany of God. The restlessness of sin, the 
 sense of tumult and distress in the midst of passion- 
 ate emotion, the dreams, which never cease to captivate 
 the imagination, of a life beautiful in holiness even 
 when it seems to float away in a distant region beyond 
 our reach ; all this might convince us that from the 
 first God has conversed with our inmost thought. 
 
V Epiphanies of God 3 7 
 
 that He has stamped His image there. Wisdom, 
 justice, truth, mercy would have no meaning to us if 
 the shadow of the Infinite I^ature had not fallen on 
 our own. If we feel that life is worth living only in 
 so far as these things are in it and abound, it is but 
 another way of saying that the only full and satisfy- 
 ing life for a man is the life which is in God. And 
 still the stream of revelation flows, as, passing from 
 the contemplation of our own inward nature, we watch 
 the course of human history. We are made to see 
 that God has constituted mankind in a wonderful order. 
 In the strivings of men to ascertain and to realise their 
 own powers they are obeying an impulse which, it is 
 soon seen, has high moral ends. 
 
 Nations constitute themselves, and, like individuals, 
 can be distinguished from one another by their special 
 aims ; in proportion as they are great and noble, or 
 unworthy and degrading, they find that they have been 
 building themselves on a sure or on a sandy founda- 
 tion. In all orderly societies, as in individual lives, 
 you will see some possessed by the greed of gain, seek- 
 ing material advantages, and in course of time attaining 
 a most imposing outward prosperity. You will see the 
 growth of the arts of refinement, the highest intellectual 
 powers used in the interests of luxury to pamper sense 
 and multiply the machinery of enjoyment. You will 
 see, perhaps, much of glory, much of the pride of life 
 and the disposition to subordinate everything to the 
 demands of pleasure. But to every such nation there 
 wiU by and by come sickness of the heart. Satiety 
 falls on communities as well as on individuals. It is 
 discovered that something has been left out of the life 
 which could fill and satisfy it in its greatest need. 
 
38 The Light that light eth every Man v 
 
 The refinements, the luxuries which weaken the moral 
 nature, have led to a ranker growth of vice, and vice 
 but keeps the promise of pleasure to the ear to break 
 it to the hope. 
 
 There falls upon society a strange wretchedness 
 which no man can explain. But it is only one of the 
 many wondrous Epiphanies of God. It is His way of 
 teaching men in history that without Him they cannot 
 live. 
 
 And then there come the epochs of religious revival 
 and reform. Then, when men go forth into the midst 
 of the masses with a Gospel of Good, they find souls 
 that are already hungering to receive it. We who are 
 believers know whence this hunger comes. We know 
 Who it is that, beneath all the sin and all the degrada- 
 tion, has kept alive this desire, has filled the soul with 
 a sense of unintelligible pain which can only be appeased 
 when He reveals Himself. Then the way of righteous- 
 ness is once more pursued. Then men the most un- 
 likely, the most hopelessly estranged in character, as 
 you would say, are found coming with the rest ; saying 
 that they have seen His star, and that they want to 
 worship Him. 
 
 It is He that has been revealing Himself. He has 
 left them for awhile to live their own way, if they 
 can, and they have tried to do it and found it wretched- 
 ness. And now this is His voice of recall. He is 
 going to show them a more excellent way. 
 
 Finally, let us speak of the Incarnation; the 
 Epiphany to mankind. It is not uncommon to hear 
 men speak of it as, in the strict sense, a miracle. The 
 common definition of a miracle is " a thing done out 
 of the ordinary course of nature." But a thing may 
 
V Epiphanies of God 39 
 
 be out of the course of nature, as it is known by experi- 
 ence, and yet be in accordance with nature as it is 
 known to Omniscience. 
 
 ■ Our Lord was born of a woman, and yet He entered 
 into human life in a manner that was unique ; but 
 when we say unique, we are of course comparing it 
 only with things within our own experience. And 
 yet if there is one thing that is, and ever must remain, 
 a mystery, it is the coming and going of life. The 
 physiologist can trace its history up to a certain point, 
 and then he must stop. Its origin is a secret to him 
 as to us. 
 
 But now consider Nature, not in the narrow, scien- 
 tific meaning as a complete account of causes and effects 
 in things physical, but in the wider sense of that course 
 of operation which we can trace throughout the whole 
 of the past ; and though this is a new Epiphany — the 
 greatest, the most wonderful of all, the most stupendous 
 in meaning and in its influence on the world — yet you 
 cannot say that it is the first, the only one. 
 
 It is not an exceptional fact ; it is rather the com- 
 pletion of all that had gone before. It is the fulfil- 
 ment, the explanation of the various Epiphanies of 
 God in nature, in the soul of man, and in human 
 history. It has now entered the kingdom of grace. 
 It shows us how all the ages are bound together. It 
 reveals to us the Son of God whom the nations were 
 expecting; interprets to us confused feelings within 
 ourselves ; makes known to us that these were the 
 presentiments of heirs of the promise; that we are 
 citizens of a Divine city whose builder and maker is 
 God. This general expectation of the world the Jews 
 had shrivelled and contracted into the notion of a local 
 
40 The Light that light eth every Man v 
 
 Messiah; but they, too, were soon enlightened. The 
 Babel confusion of the nations was to end. Their 
 speech might still vary, but they were to learn one 
 language of faith and devotion. There is now to be 
 no knowing Christ after the flesh ; no raking among 
 the records of the past to establish a blood-relationship 
 between Christian Englishmen and ancient Israel. 
 
 For now " there is neither Greek nor Jew, circum- 
 cision nor uncircumcision. Barbarian, Scythian, bond 
 nor free : but Christ is all, and in all." 
 
 The old darkness is past, the era of unrealised hopes, 
 of narrow local interpretations, but as for the world — 
 
 The hopes that were dying have risen again, 
 First muttered in legend and saga and song, 
 Then spoken in promise, until among men 
 He Cometh, the King who had tarried so long. 
 
VI 
 CONVERSIO]^ OF ST. PAUL 
 
 " It pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called 
 me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me." — Galatians i. 15. 
 
 To-day the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul falls on 
 a Sunday. It is, therefore, the subject which forces 
 itself on our thoughts ; from which we cannot, if we 
 would, turn away. And it will be enlightening to our 
 view of our own character and stage of attainment in 
 the Christian life, if we are led to compare the experi- 
 ence of St. Paul with our own. 
 
 It will tend also to the encouragement of those who 
 have been struggling with their confused thoughts, to 
 have this fresh assurance borne to us, that God does 
 not leave us alone in our confusion, that to the darkened 
 spirit in all times there comes a crisis when the Creative 
 Spirit says, " Let there be light." 
 
 This is the one day in the Christian year when we 
 recall the name and character of St. Paul. 
 
 But there is a striking pecuKarity in the manner of 
 the memorial. On other days associated with other 
 saintly names our attention is fixed either on the entire 
 earthly career of the man, or on the glorious martyr- 
 dom in which it closed. But to-day it is not so much 
 the man whom we celebrate, as the wondrous interven- 
 
 TJNIVERSITT 
 
42 The Light that light eth every Man vi 
 
 tion of the grace of God which made everything so 
 different to him. 
 
 It is the Conversion of St. Paul. And we are not 
 to look upon that event, wonderful as it was in some 
 of its outward circumstances, as if it were a thing 
 unique or exceptional, an occurrence belonging to the 
 age of miracle which we dare not expect to be repeated. 
 For conversion is as much the need of every soul now 
 as it was then ; it is the crisis in the history of each 
 soul, which must occur in order to salvation. We 
 may not always be able to identify so clearly the very 
 time and the agency and the surrounding circumstances ; 
 but in every soul there must occur that great change 
 which is described as " passing from death unto life." 
 
 I. The first thought I would suggest to you, as the 
 ground of adoring gratitude, is that man's nature — and, 
 therefore, the nature of every man and woman here — 
 has a capacity of being converted. 
 
 However fallen we may be, we are not fallen so 
 low that every element of spiritual life is destroyed. 
 
 We were made in the image of God, and in the 
 very worst of men that image has not been so obliter- 
 ated that there is nothing left for Divine grace to work 
 upon. There is that which is capable of responding to 
 the touch of spiritual power. 
 
 If it were not for this, we should have no gospel 
 for mankind. The " death in trespasses and sins " of 
 which we speak is not a death absolute and complete, 
 from which there can be no resurrection. It is rather 
 like the deadly stupor which benumbs the faculties, 
 which bears the outward semblance of death, yet in 
 which — beneath that sleep — there are mysterious 
 capacities of life. The cry of the messenger of God to 
 
VI Conversion of St. Paul 43 
 
 such as these is, " Arise, thou that sleepest," and all 
 the agencies of Divine grace which Christ has given to 
 His Church are like the potent agencies of the healer's 
 skill, which restore the sick man to himself. 
 
 II. The second thought which has to be brought 
 no less clearly into view is, that all need conversion. 
 
 There is no escaping from the sad conviction of a 
 universal human fall. In characters the most innocent 
 and engaging, inward experience shows the presence of 
 sin working in the members ; a fatal propension towards 
 evil which in some hour of temptation may sweep away 
 everything before it. In many cases of those who 
 have fallen lowest, the terrible and startling thing is the 
 great chasm that seems to yawn between the innocence 
 of the past and the degradation of the present. But if 
 there had not been from the first the perilous propen- 
 sity, temptation could have wrought no such disastrous 
 change. Evil would have made as little impression as 
 the breath upon the bright surface of the gleaming steel. 
 
 Yes, when we speak of the pure and innocent, we 
 use only comparative terms. We describe the con- 
 dition of those on whom evil has as yet wrought none 
 of its worse disasters ; but we know that in the best 
 there is a warfare in the members, a conflict between 
 the affections, which naturally fasten with delight on 
 all things good and beautiful, and those other baser 
 affections which may be provoked into activity through 
 contact with the corrupt in thought and life. For 
 the sad thing is that not only has each a fallen nature, 
 but lives in a fallen world. To each soul we have 
 still to repeat the old words, " Except ye be converted, 
 and become as little children, ye cannot enter the king- 
 dom of heaven." 
 
44 The Light that lighteth every Man vi 
 
 You often hear people quote the language of the 
 Prayer-book about regeneration in baptism, as if it 
 superseded the necessity of conversion; but this is 
 because puritan theology has fallen into the error of 
 speaking of regeneration and conversion as if they were 
 the same thing. But they are not the same thing. 
 When the Gentile convert received the rite of washing 
 in the Church of Israel, he was said to be from that 
 moment re-born ; all the old godless life was left be- 
 hind him ; that was the birth-hour of a new existence 
 animated by a holy purpose. And so in the Christian 
 Church baptism was the beginning of the new life, 
 and was accompanied by spiritual power. It was the 
 entrance on the long conflict between the flesh and the 
 spirit, in which there was yet assurance of eventual 
 victory. But conversion is the completion of that 
 which was only then begun ; the crisis in which, after 
 many waverings of desire, the man yields himself up 
 to the holy Will that has all the while been constrain- 
 ing him; when, to the secret drawing of the Spirit, 
 the soul of the man responds in an act of voluntary 
 self-surrender. 
 
 By endless varieties of method the end is reached, 
 but no soul of man has ever passed into the eternal 
 blessedness without first striving in order to attain ; 
 without thus, in the exercise of his own free will, cast- 
 ing himself a sacrifice on the altar of God. 
 
 This was the history of the conversion of the great 
 Apostle. He, too, had a heart filled with love of all 
 that was good and beautiful. He had known what it 
 is to feel an intense adoration of a higher and holier 
 nature than his own. But in spite of this there had 
 been fierce internal warfare. He saw that the law of 
 
VI Co7iversion of St. Paul 45 
 
 God is holy, and the commandment holy, but yet, long 
 after the event, he confesses his condition to be that of 
 one carnal, sold under sin. He found a law that, when 
 he would do good, evil was present with him. He de- 
 lighted in the law of God after the inward man ; but 
 there was " another law" in his members, warring against 
 the law of his mind, and bringing his will into captivity. 
 Is this a description of a solitary individual experience ? 
 Is it not rather the history which would be given by 
 every earnest, intense nature of the inward struggle 
 which ended in his yielding himself up to God ? 
 
 You may say, if you like, that the conversion of St. 
 Paul was not conversion in the ordinary meaning of 
 the word ; that he was a good man before that day when 
 he was dazzled by the light on his way to Damascus. 
 And if you mean by a good man one whose heart is 
 set on righteousness, that is true. Life to him had 
 even then no meaning except as a service of God ; 
 but with this good purpose there mingled evil passions 
 of which he was himself quite unconscious. He knew 
 even then that the law of God is fulfilled in love, for 
 that was one of the commonplaces of the rabbis who 
 were his teachers. But hatred was in him stronger 
 than love. He deemed it a just and righteous in- 
 dignation, for the blasphemer is the natural enemy 
 of a servant of God ; and to hate the blasphemer, to 
 pursue him with a fierce and virulent animosity, 
 was part of his religion. To all the softer pleadings 
 of his own nature he turned a deaf ear ; in the name 
 of God he nursed and cherished all those revengeful 
 passions which, to a God of love, must be most hate- 
 ful. But he did not know what he was doing. He 
 was as one beside himself. He needed to be converted 
 
46 The Light that lighteth eve^y Man vi 
 
 from this evil nature. His way of pursuing righteous- 
 ness had failed to make him good ; he needed to be 
 taught a more excellent way. Yet we cannot doubt 
 that the perverted good in him was the thing that 
 pleaded most powerfully in his behalf, so that the 
 Lord whom he was offending had compassion on him. 
 
 So it is in every case. We may have wandered 
 far astray ; we may have made terrible mistakes ; but 
 if, in the midst of all these, we are seeking after the 
 right, God will not leave us to ourselves, He will come 
 to our help, He will visit us with a sense of our own 
 blindness ; and then, by some great revelation of mercy, 
 the scales will fall. 
 
 There are those who quote the example of this 
 Apostle as a case of sudden conversion. But in order 
 to be entitled to say of any conversion that it is sudden, 
 we ought to know all that has been going on in the 
 mind beforehand. 
 
 There was a fierce and distempered character in 
 every movement of Saul that indicated a mind ill at 
 ease with itself. As you see him spurring on at head- 
 long speed in that blazing Syrian sunshine at noontide, 
 it would almost seem as if the man were fleeing from 
 his own thoughts. Archdeacon Farrar has graphically 
 pictured the uneasy suggestions that may have troubled 
 an earnest mind like his. As to the faith of the 
 N'azarene, " Whether it was heresy or not, that it was 
 pure and ennobling he could not fail to acknowledge. 
 That face of Stephen which he had seen bathed in a 
 light from heaven until it became dimmed in blood, 
 must have haunted him then, as we know it did long 
 years afterwards." And then again, thinking of Jesus 
 Himself, " Who was this to whom His followers turned 
 
VI 
 
 Conversion of St. Paul 47 
 
 their last gaze and uttered their last prayer ? Who 
 was this Who, as they declared, had risen from the 
 dead, Whose body had certainly vanished from the rock- 
 hewn sepulchre in which it had been laid, Whom these 
 good Galileans, these men who would die rather than 
 lie, witnessed that they had seen? Had he, Saul, 
 been murdering the saints that were upon the earth, 
 and such as excelled in virtue ? Was Gamaliel right, 
 after all, in suggesting the possibility that in meddling 
 with these men they might haply be fighting against 
 God?" 
 
 When the voice from Heaven suddenly broke on 
 him on the way to Damascus, it may have been even 
 such as he had been half hoping, half dreading to hear. 
 It produced an effect on him which none of his com- 
 panions shared. He at once, in his " Who art thou. 
 Lord ? " recognised the appeal of a Person of the highest 
 heavenly dignity. And perhaps the answer — " I am 
 Jesus whom thou persecutest" — gave voice to what 
 had previously existed as a dark misgiving of his own 
 soul. Whether there be in any case a sudden conver- 
 sion must remain a mystery to us. But in every case 
 there must be some conjunction between the present 
 fact and the previous history of the man. What secret 
 misery there may have been, craving for consolation ; 
 what weariness of the man's own self ; what loathing 
 of the sin he could not forsake ; what fitful uplifting 
 of desire ; what predisposing causes in personal inter- 
 course or the outer circumstance of life ; these are 
 things which no observation of ours can trace. 
 
 But every experience in a human life is an instru- 
 ment in the hand of God ; all the things that happen 
 to us are somehow linked together ; and we may well 
 
48 The Light that light eth every Man vi 
 
 regard conversion not as a thing detached and singular, 
 but as the critical and turning-point in a long secret 
 history of the soul. 
 
 But — and here I again quote the words of Arch- 
 deacon !Farrar — "from that moment Saul was con- 
 verted. A change, total, utter, final, had passed 
 over him and transformed him. God had called him, 
 had revealed His Son in him. . . . The strength of 
 this conviction became the leading point in Paul's 
 future life." 
 
 We know what this conversion meant in the history 
 of the Church; in the rapid development and wide 
 diffusion of the faith of the Church. And this ought 
 surely to incline us to labour for the conversion of 
 other souls, not only for their own sake, and because 
 for them there is but one way of life, but also because 
 we can never venture to predict what may be wrought 
 for God by the renewed energy of even one human 
 soul. The world is converted, not by words spoken to 
 it, but by the living energies of men set on fire by a 
 new and holy inspiration. Surely it would strengthen, 
 surely it would encourage us, amid all our failures, to go 
 on trying to influence men to a hearty acceptance of the 
 grace of God in Christ, if we could follow them in thought 
 through every step of their future career ; if we could 
 see them pouring out their heart in prayer, striving, 
 with new-born zeal, in all good works, animating and 
 inspiring others. We should see homes beautified by 
 this new and holy influence ; companions leading one 
 another on; and all this ever- widening circle of influ- 
 ence traceable, it may be, to some one soul, from whom, 
 as from a centre, it all proceeded. To bring but one 
 soul to God is to infect society with a better spirit ; to 
 
VI Conversion of St. Paid 49 
 
 set in motion a living force which, acting on other 
 minds, may create a lineage of like-minded souls, re- 
 animating the feeble with their courage, and carrying 
 on the tradition of good until the Kingdom of God 
 shall come. 
 
VII 
 THE MYSTEEY OF SIN 
 
 No. 1 
 
 SEXAGESIMA 
 " By one man sin entered into the world." — Romans v. 12. 
 
 To-day we have a subject given to us to meditate on, 
 which is the one deep and awful perplexity to us, when 
 we attempt to form a theory of human life and its 
 meaning. If God had given us no revelation concern- 
 ing ourselves and concerning Him, we could not escape 
 from this perplexity. We are " beings of a large dis- 
 course, looking before and after " ; we have within us 
 an instinct of immortality which no reasonings of un- 
 belief from without and no misgivings from within 
 can destroy. We see in the world in which we live 
 so much of beauty, so much that at once stimulates 
 and satisfies our desire for an ideal and perfect good, 
 that we are already prepared for the revelation which 
 tells of Him who is the Source of all good, and which 
 assures us that by Him we were created for no evanes- 
 cent purpose, but as heirs of eternal life. Yet through 
 all the glory and the excellency of nature and life there 
 runs a strain of painful feeling. We see good not 
 always triumphant, but often contradicted. There has 
 entered into the world that strange phenomenon of 
 
VII The Mystery of Sin 5 1 
 
 Evil which in all races has penetrated to the very heart 
 of human society, and acts as a principle of disorder, 
 arresting progress, and, in its marvellous tenacity of 
 existence and its far-reaching mysterious influence, 
 almost imitating the omnipotence of God. We feel it 
 in our own nature, we see it everywhere ; all history 
 is full of it ; there is no scene so peaceful that it has 
 not been invaded by this hostile influence ; the deep- 
 est tragedies in the history of souls or of human homes 
 are tragedies of sin. We are hindered even from 
 understanding all the great and good things of which 
 human nature itself might be capable, because the 
 flowers of the fairest promise are blighted and withered 
 by the evil that mingles with our good. I say then, 
 that if we had no Bible, the existence of evil would 
 still be our greatest perplexity and our most painful 
 mystery. 
 
 But it is one of the credentials of truth in the 
 revelation we have received, that it slurs over nothing. 
 It does not ignore the things that trouble our faith. 
 It does not keep in the background the workings of 
 that evil power which plots against our happiness, or 
 emerges into the open field to enter into conflict with 
 God. The passage we have read deals with this very 
 thing. It tells us nothing of the entrance of sin into 
 the universe, for with the universe at large we are not 
 concerned ; but it tells us of sin's introduction into our 
 world, of its first contact with human nature. It is 
 the first and necessary chapter in the book which is to 
 contain the history of redemption. 
 
 This subject is so much and so constantly in all 
 our thoughts that we may seize the opportunity of 
 giving expression to the anxious questions of some, and 
 
52 The Light that lighteth every Man vn 
 
 answering them so far as we can. It is not possible 
 always to avoid the things that are hard to understand. 
 It is not possible in our common life ; and in our 
 hours of religious thought it would be strange if we 
 were to avoid the subjects which contribute a difficulty 
 to faith. During the whole of this Sunday, this then 
 is the subject which I invite you to ponder with me. 
 
 You will see that in the Book of Genesis the in- 
 troduction of sin into man's life is told in the form of 
 a story. No doctrinal account is there given of its 
 meaning, but we have a vivid picture of a scene in 
 which the first shadow was cast on the peaceful life of 
 Paradise. All had hitherto been calm, the light of a 
 celestial beauty is on the scene ; it is so suffused by 
 a sweet, deep happiness that the waking of a tempest, 
 or the entering in of the elements of pain, is the last 
 thing that could have been expected. But now a 
 sudden cloud throws everything into deep shadow ; 
 now for the first time we are told of the presence of a 
 Tempter, and then, in scenes that had been consecrated 
 to innocence, begins that warfare between the flesh and 
 the spirit which is to be carried on with such varying 
 fortunes until the consummation of earthly time. The 
 scene has changed and the characters have changed. 
 We see in the man and woman of Paradise beings 
 endowed with will, called to the first great trial of their 
 freedom and their moral strength. The happiness of 
 ignorance of evil is over; and that indeed could not 
 have been the permanent state of beings in God's 
 image ; for man has never entered into the perfection 
 of his proper happiness until he has recognised the 
 claims of duty, and addressed himself to its labours. 
 
 We will pass by the merely critical questions re- 
 
VII The Mystery of Sin 53 
 
 specting the story of the Fall. Literal history, or alle- 
 gory, or dramatic presentment — it does not concern us 
 to ask which ; what does concern us to observe is that 
 there is here a true account of man's relation to God 
 and to the Tempter ; to sin and to redemption. 
 
 In man's life we discover for the first time a dis- 
 turbing, disuniting element. "We see a new influence 
 disturbing the intercourse of the creature with the 
 Creator, and disuniting those meant to be at one. 
 
 We fasten our gaze first on the Tempter. We are told 
 that there in reality he appeared, but we are not told 
 whence he came nor how he came to be what he is. 
 He whispers suggestions of evil to Eve, but how they 
 first reached himself or whence they came — this belongs 
 to a remoter history. A revelation for man limits 
 itself to the consideration of evil, as a thing already 
 existing, in its first contact with the human soul. 
 We ask how it came there. Was it by design ? And 
 in that case is God the author of evil ? And can the 
 author of evil be Himself good ? Or was it by over- 
 sight ? By what accident, by what over-reaching 
 subtlety, or by what lapse of vigilance, could this evil 
 spirit find his way within the charmed circle where 
 the innocent creatures of God abode ? 
 
 We need not be afraid to listen to our thoughts, 
 for the earnest seeker after what is true holds in his 
 hand the clue which is to guide him through the maze 
 of thought. 
 
 One answer has been given in a form of error which 
 prevailed in ancient times, and, in the Manichsean doc- 
 trine, even sought to force its way into the Christian 
 Church. According to this opinion there were thought 
 to be two rival principles. Light and darkness, good 
 
54 The Light that lighteth every Man vn 
 
 and evil, neither of which was able to destroy the other ; 
 and there must have been. great attraction in this form 
 of doctrine when so fine a mind as St. Augustine's, 
 before his conversion, could rest in it. It was a way 
 of accounting for the moral contradictions we meet 
 with everywhere ; and there was the terrible tempta- 
 tion in this manner to reconcile the moral evil in a 
 man's own life with a Divine order of things. But it 
 was a form of doctrine that struck at the very being 
 of God. For the supposed rival ruling powers cannot 
 both be supreme. One must be stronger than the 
 other, and in that case there is no Supreme Lord and 
 Euler of the Universe. Or both must have their origin 
 in the will of One higher than either, and in that case 
 the Supreme God is the author of evil as well as good. 
 But if He is the author of evil He is not Himself 
 wholly good, and if not wholly good, then not God, — 
 no fit object of adoration to beings aiming at good. 
 
 Thus you see that this doctrine of two rival powers 
 leads directly to atheism ; and much of the practical 
 atheism of our day has its root in this unconscious 
 belief. For it has been truly said that " we practi- 
 cally affirm a second Evil Principle in the universe 
 when we acquiesce in the notion that evil in ourselves 
 or in others, in individuals or in societies, is invincible." 
 
 It is a true, living, pervading belief in One God, 
 Supreme, Omnipotent, stainless in holiness, that can 
 alone deliver us from the grasp of evil. Therefore 
 this answer to the question is impossible to those who 
 believe in God at all. There are others who try to 
 find their way out of the difficulty by denying the 
 positive character of sin. According to them it is not 
 essentially evil, but only a lower form of good. Human 
 
VII The Mystery of Sin 55 
 
 nature is always working its way from a less to a more 
 perfect moral .condition, and what men call sin is in 
 fact nature struggling with the limitations of its being. 
 Regarding it as imperfection rather than as opposition 
 to good, they look on the story of Eden as a fable : a 
 fall from purity is repugnant to all their notions about 
 human development ; from low and rudimental begin- 
 nings they see man working his way upward in the scale 
 of moral being ; just as organised being, as a whole, 
 ascends from the less to the more perfect types. But 
 the universal conscience of mankind rejects this view 
 as utterly insufficient. It leaves unaccounted for that 
 horror and dread which mingle with all our thoughts 
 of our own sin, and which the religions of the world 
 have sought to allay by so many portentous expedients. 
 The sense of shame within us when strong convictions 
 have seized on us is no mere discontent with our im- 
 perfect condition ; it is far too deep and universal, and 
 far too sensitive to pain, to be explained by any preju- 
 dice or by any tradition, however long established. 
 It belongs to the constitution of man as a spiritual 
 being, in whom the sense of departure from moral 
 purity awakens an anguish which no soothing of sense 
 can allay. It is the witness of the nature of man that 
 he has to do with a righteous God, in harmony with 
 whom stands his true life. If sin were anything else 
 than a rupture between God and man, the Incarnation, 
 as it has been revealed to us, would have been a 
 tragedy without a meaning, without a motive to justify 
 it, without a purpose to explain it. For if sin were 
 only an imperfection, humanity might safely have been 
 left to work out its slow way to a higher development, 
 to the state of freedom and sinlessness which is its 
 
56 The Light that lighteth every Man vn 
 
 proper goal. But the witness of the Incarnation is in 
 harmony with the inward witness of the soul. It is 
 intelligible if sin is a derangement of a perfect order, 
 a positive contradiction of an eternal righteousness, a 
 revolt from the restraints of a holy law. Through sin 
 has come such alienation of thought and feeling, such 
 mistrustfulness and fear, that all seemed hopeless but 
 for one thing, and that one thing the faithfulness of 
 the God who called us into being to His original 
 purpose in our creation. Thus the Atonement is the 
 rectifying of that which had become so utterly wrong. 
 The Kedeemer of men entered our humanity as the 
 Restorer, to restore man himself to his proper nature, 
 and to re-establish right relations between God and 
 man. Yet if sin had been only a lower form of good, 
 part of a natural development of humanity in an 
 ascending scale, then the Incarnation could have been 
 nothing but the interruption of a natural order. But 
 if, on the contrary, sin be — as we consider it — an in- 
 terruption of God's order, then the atonement of man 
 to God by a manifested Christ assumes the character 
 of the restoration to a lost harmony, as its name 
 implies — a reconciliation ; a bringing into one of those 
 between whom sin had introduced relations of discord. 
 Thus we see that error as to the nature of sin is 
 fundamental ; it affects our hold on the eternal truth 
 revealed for our salvation ; it tends to unsettle the 
 very foundations of our faith. 
 
 I know that I have not answered the questions 
 that have been proposed about the origin of sin. I 
 have done little more than consider the wrong and 
 insufficient answers that have been given by others, 
 and for a moment glanced onwards to the close of the 
 
VII The Mystery of Sift 57 
 
 history of Eedemption, as throwing light on the char- 
 acter of sin itself. But I propose to proceed with this 
 inquiry, evading nothing, giving you what explanation 
 can be given of so great a mystery. In the long con- 
 flict between good and evil the self-destructive char- 
 acter of sin is clearly apparent. There are signs of an 
 omnipotent and holy Presence which converts the 
 agencies of evil into means for the revelation of a high 
 and awful form of good. The Prince of this world is 
 being judged. There is working in the midst of men's 
 doings a force that is invincible, the evolution of an 
 eternal purpose which, through the convulsions of 
 society, is never disconcerted, which will not crush our 
 natural freedom, yet which must win all wills to a 
 free allegiance to the kingdom of righteousness. The 
 conflict has a Divine meaning and purpose, and in the 
 end it will appear that it was worth while to have 
 known the sorrows of temptation, if through them the 
 deadly character of sin has come to be better under- 
 stood. Better to have been sorely tried, if at last we 
 overcome, than merely to have been shielded by our 
 ignorance from the perils that surround us. Through 
 this trial, as by fire, humanity must go, that it may 
 learn to reject the evil and to choose the good. 
 
VIII 
 THE MYSTEEY OF EVIL 
 
 No. 2 
 
 " By one man sin entered into the world." — Romans v. 12. 
 
 This morning I was seeking to prepare the way for 
 what I have now to speak. 
 
 We have to contrast, without flinching, these two 
 things — first, the belief that God is good, and secondly, 
 that into the world He has created there has entered, 
 and is actively at work, a principle which contradicts 
 and defies goodness. 
 
 The doubt which has arisen in some minds is also 
 of two kinds. There is the disposition in some to 
 doubt the omniscience or the omnipotence of God, or 
 to doubt the Divine goodness. There is a disposition 
 to fall back on the suspicion that evil has entered on 
 the scene by reason of some oversight or accident which 
 either was not foreseen or could not have been prevented. 
 
 But if you could believe that it was not foreseen, 
 what becomes of the omniscience of God ? If you 
 believe that it could not be prevented, what be- 
 comes of His omnipotence ? And if you could be- 
 lieve that God Himself is the author of evil, what 
 becomes of His goodness ? 
 
 But we who read the Bible with a free and rever- 
 
VIII The Mystery of Evil 59 
 
 ent mind are not shut up to any one of these con- 
 clusions. 
 
 You will remember that I did not ask how evil 
 came to be at the first, but how it came to find a 
 place in this world of ours. But if we can get any 
 light on this question, as it affects mankind, it will 
 go far to explain the deeper mystery of sin in the 
 universe. 
 
 It is very easy to ask why man was permitted to 
 fall ; but that is not the first question. 
 
 The first question is, why he should have been ex- 
 posed to temptation. You know man might have been 
 tempted and yet not have fallen ; but to be tempted is 
 itself to be beset by evil solicitations. Now try, on 
 the other hand, to imagine, if you can, what human 
 nature would have been without temptation. Could 
 there have been any real or adequate conception of 
 what goodness is ? any love of it for its own sake ? any 
 voluntary and conscious and deliberate acceptance of it 
 as the true law of life ? If you think it would have 
 been better for man to be exempted from temptation, 
 what you really mean is, that it would have been better 
 for him to be something else than man. The life of 
 an exotic plant in a greenhouse is intelligible ; it lives 
 its life shut within a safe inclosure and shielded from 
 all dangerous influences. And the life of an animal 
 is intelligible. It has instincts for the preservation of 
 its being, and nothing more. It has no moral sense. 
 The conscience which discriminates between things as 
 right and wrong is no part of its constitution. It 
 can fulfil all the ends of its being without a single 
 moment of holy rapture or agonising remorse. 
 
 But that is not the nature which has been given 
 
6o The Light that lighteth every Man vm 
 
 to man. He has a moral nature, and this nature 
 demands a sphere for the exercise of its faculties. 
 
 Now, can you imagine such a nature as this having 
 free play without something to put it to the test ? 
 There might be a kind of instinctive obedience, but no 
 moral obedience worthy of the name; no conscious 
 recognition of the law to which it yields as holy and 
 just and good. 
 
 Whatever, then, may be the difficulties involved in 
 the presence of evil within the sphere of man's life, 
 they are involved in the very fact of our creation in the 
 image of God. 
 
 It would have been possible to keep human nature 
 in ignorance of evil, in a state of innocence ; but could 
 he ever in that way have been fitted to render effective 
 service to a righteous God ? Could there have been 
 any action of the conscience, any development of the 
 higher qualities which were inherent in man from the 
 first? 
 
 Innocence is a beautiful thing, but not the most 
 beautiful. It is absence of contamination through 
 absence of the knowledge that leads to it ; but whether 
 is best, the innocence of a child or the goodness of a 
 good man ? Which has the greater power for good ? 
 Which, according to the estimate of moral capacity, is 
 the higher and more admirable state ? 
 
 You are to remember too, that while an Infinite 
 Being sees things as a whole, we, whose nature is finite 
 and derived, can only gain our knowledge of things by 
 experience. Now what is that experience which can 
 give reality to our original power of knowing and de- 
 lighting in what is good ? Can you even imagine such 
 an experience without at least the presence of tempta- 
 
VIII The Mystery of Evil 6i 
 
 tion? We have an original power of distinguishing 
 objects as extended in space, by their forms and out- 
 lines ; and yet we never acquire any actual knowledge 
 of extended objects until experience has brought this 
 faculty into exercise. 
 
 And in the same way our original capacity of good- 
 ness needs to act through the means afforded us of 
 discriminating between good and evil. Without this 
 the higher nature could not have come into play. If 
 man is really made in the image of God, then the dis- 
 pleasure with which God regards sin, and the delight 
 with which He regards goodness, must be imaged in 
 man's nature ; but how could there be this dread or 
 this delight if no personal knowledge were given him 
 of sin as a thing assailing his own purity and drawing 
 out his power of resistance ? 
 
 You must feel that the essence of goodness in any 
 character is the approval of what is excellent ; but in 
 every such act of approval the mind pronounces judg- 
 ment on the character of things. 
 
 Now, all such acts of judgment involve comparison, 
 and this comparison must be between things that are 
 opposed to each other. 
 
 In the approval of good there must be disapproval 
 of something else which contradicts and is repugnant 
 to it. But it is not only goodness as it stands related 
 to knowledge, but as it stands related to affection and 
 desire, that we have to think of 
 
 The knowledge of good to which we attain is not 
 cold, impartial, passionless ; there must be a going out 
 of the heart to embrace it and cling to it, as something 
 from which we cannot part. Yet our affections are 
 free ; in all such action of the capacity of love there is 
 
62 The Light that light eth every Man vm 
 
 a necessary conflict with influences which would draw 
 us one way and another. In the exercise of our 
 freedom we determine what is worthy of our love, and 
 there is a character of passion in our choice of good 
 whose very intensity depends on the struggle through 
 which we have passed. It is in the very atmosphere 
 of conflict that the soul puts forth its own powers and 
 realises its hidden strength. 
 
 Thus, in the story of the temptation of man, we find 
 the Tempter and deceiver uttering for an evil purpose 
 what is in itself a truth : " God doth know that in the 
 day ye eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and ye 
 shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." To know 
 things as right and wrong is a sign of moral progress. 
 To have no perception of the difference between right 
 and wrong is to remain in a condition incapable of evil 
 indeed, but also incapable of good. 
 
 It is, however, one thing to be tempted by evil and 
 cast it aside, and another thing to be tempted and fall. 
 In the very presence of temptation the ignorance of 
 evil has passed away, but in the yielding to it, evil 
 claims us as its own. And therefore the question has 
 been asked (how often and how sadly, and with how 
 much secret mistrust of God !) why man was suffered 
 to fall. The will was free to reject the temptation and 
 cast it aside ; why was it that sin was permitted to , 
 overpower the will ? It might have been prevented if 
 the will had been sufficiently strengthened: why, it 
 has been asked, was this additional strength withheld ? 
 In other words, why did God suffer man to fall ? In 
 the first place it may be answered that man had in his 
 nature elements of moral power adequate to the act of 
 resistance. And in all cases of temptation there are 
 
VIII The Mystery of Evil 63 
 
 instinctive feelings which might set the tempted on 
 their guard. There is a shrinking apprehension, there 
 is a struggle between desire and repugnance, and the 
 repugnance with which our moral sense regards an evil 
 thing, in spite of all that seems to attract us toward it, 
 is a proof that to us it is an alien thing. It is repug- 
 nant to us because it is alien to that Nature in whose 
 image we were created ; it is something proposed for 
 our acceptance which, at the very moment, we feel to 
 be alien to our own proper nature, and every sinner, 
 looking back on any fall of his, knows in his own heart 
 and conscience that there was a moment in which he 
 could have refused the temptation. If he fell, it was 
 not because he had not the power to resist, but because, 
 in the perverted exercise of his free will, he chose the 
 evil rather than the good. 
 
 But, you ask, would it not have been the part of 
 a Being of infinite benevolence to interfere to beat back 
 the temptation assailing man's purity? Should not 
 God have intervened to prevent man from falling ? 
 But, supposing He had done so, what would have been 
 the result? He would have deprived man's will of its 
 freedom, and in that case there could have been no 
 obedience to a Divine law, for obedience must be free. 
 The goodness which resisted the sin would then have 
 been not man's, but God's. The fall would have been as 
 real, though the consequences might have been different. 
 
 Here was a creature invested in the hour of his 
 birth with the capacity of free will, and you are sup- 
 posing God to interfere with His own work by destroy- 
 ing that freedom, even if for man's own good. Would 
 there not in this have been conspicuous failure in the 
 original purpose of the creation of man as a free, moral 
 
64 The Light that lighteth every Man vm 
 
 being ? It is a voluntary and not a mechanical 
 righteousness that God requires of human beings ; and 
 this voluntary righteousness would have been as com- 
 pletely destroyed had God compelled man, even for his 
 own good, as it was destroyed by the act of sin in 
 which he lost his innocence once for all. 
 
 The whole mystery of evil is inextricably involved 
 in the gift of a free will. Not only in man, but in the 
 other beings who have fallen, it is true that the will 
 was really free ; there must always have been a possi- 
 bility of its exercising its freedom not in accordance 
 with, but in contradiction of, the will of God. But if 
 sin originated in a perverted exercise of free will on 
 the part of creatures, God is not the author of evil. 
 It did not enter into the ends contemplated in creation, 
 though it must always have been one of the terrible 
 possibilities of existence. And if it had its origin in 
 created wills, it can have no inherent immortality. It 
 cannot last for ever. The right to sustain itself in an 
 eternal energy of life could only come from the fiat of 
 the Eternal Himself. 
 
 But though God will not restrain the freedom He 
 has conferred, even by preventing sin from coming into 
 existence. He is able, through the sufferings it inflicts, 
 to show men its real nature ; to make sin itself an in- 
 strument enlightening to the souls of His creatures ; 
 and in the end to justify His own ways. 
 
 If the tornado and the tempest, though terrible to 
 behold, are subject to a creative law, and do their part 
 in the order of nature, even the most formidable mani- 
 festations of evil are compelled to own a Will greater 
 than themselves, which as surely to them as to the 
 tides of the ocean, says, "Thus far shall ye come, and 
 
viii The Mystery of Evil 65 
 
 no farther." The faihire of sin in any of its forms to 
 satisfy, and the retribution which follows so surely in 
 the track of the evildoer, are proofs to the conscience 
 of the world that not sin, but holiness, is the law of our 
 proper being. The very things contrived against. the 
 kingdom of righteousness are often, in their own despite, 
 made to advance it. And meanwhile there is an in- 
 creasing number of men and women passionately devoted 
 to good, to whom sin is the one deadly thing from 
 which they recoil ; and one generation hands on to 
 another the prayer and the expectation that the king- 
 dom of Satan may be overthrown. 
 
 But the true character of evil and the methods of 
 the Divine working are best understood when, as to- 
 day, we set in contrast the story of the Fall and the 
 story of the Eedemption. 
 
 That was but a lowly state out of which man fell 
 at the first, but it is a glorious exaltation to which he 
 will attain through fellowship with Christ. Into the 
 midst of the world, humbled, broken in heart, and lost 
 to hope, God has entered in the person of His Son. 
 A special glory attaches to Him as the tempted yet 
 victorious Man, the new Head of our race, the strong, 
 unconquerable leader of all the hosts of good. By 
 Him the works of the devil are being destroyed. He 
 came to reclaim to their true obedience the affections 
 and the wills of men ; to re-establish human righteous- 
 ness on a sure foundation ; to reanimate dying hopes, 
 and give a higher aim to human aspirations ; and 
 through the tribulations of the spiritual nature, through 
 the agonies of temptation and shame and spiritual sorrow, 
 to lead us on to discover that in God is our true life, 
 and that in His service alone is perfect freedom. 
 
 F 
 
IX 
 THE TEMPTATION OF QUE LOED 
 
 No. 1 
 
 FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT 
 
 *' If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made 
 bread." — St. Matthew iv. 3. 
 
 It would seem as if this year, in the course of Divine 
 providence, circumstances were favourable to the 
 growth of serious reflection. There is that, in our 
 present situation, which tends to keep the spirit low. 
 There is a pause in political excitement. There is a 
 check to our public prosperity. Some of the ordinary 
 channels of industry are choked up. The burdens of 
 the State are still left pressing heavily on the poorer 
 classes. Despite a fair harvest, there has not come 
 that revival of trade for which so many were eagerly 
 looking. The energy which is prepared to break out in 
 so many directions is still restrained. The pride of life 
 is subdued. Accept all this, I beseech you, as another 
 call to you to enter into the spirit of this season. 
 Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. 
 
 The forty days of Lent are a memorial to us of 
 the forty days and nights during which our Lord fasted 
 in the wilderness. Here, as elsewhere, the Church 
 would trace His footsteps. This scene of the tempta- 
 
IX The Temptation of our Lord 67 
 
 tion is in truth the beginning of His Cross-bearing. 
 We see in it all the elements of suffering that reached 
 their highest expression in His Passion. There was 
 bodily privation and painfulness, in His case aggra- 
 vated by the sympathy of a mind, all whose powers 
 of memory, imagination, and sensibility are turned 
 against the sufferer. There was loneliness, there was 
 desolation, there was a wintry tempest of dreary feel- 
 ing which never ceased to pursue Him until on the 
 Cross was heard the bitter cry of One "forsaken." 
 There was the spiritual suffering of a nature highly 
 strung, sensitive beyond all our conceptions of human 
 sensitiveness to the slightest touch of evil. There 
 was the capacity of feeling, with a sickening faint- 
 ness of spirit, the moral repulsiveness of sin, yet 
 compelled to endure it in closest contact. In the 
 temptation, as in the agony, there are depths no 
 man can explore. But besides this, which belonged 
 to our Lord peculiarly, we remember that even then 
 He suffered as our Head. That which happened to 
 the Kedeemer of men happened to Him, not apart from 
 them, but in common with them, and as representative 
 of them. There is here a parable of the temptation 
 of all humanity. In these very forms of impure 
 suggestion it is that the evil in the world draws nigh 
 to each human spirit ; and the pain of heart of the 
 Sinless One has its counterpart in our sorrows of con- 
 trition. Because our nature is redeemed, we are not 
 to conclude that there will spring up no roots of bitter- 
 ness to trouble us ; but all we suffer in the contest 
 with sin we can still connect with our Lord's sorrow 
 in His temptation. Even there we are following in 
 the steps of His most blessed life. The acute pain of 
 
68 The Light that light eth every Man ix 
 
 conscience which the Christian can feel is something 
 which has grown out of his keener sensitiveness to 
 good. Ours is no longer a lonely conflict ; One is 
 looking on us to whom it is no strange thing. We 
 are cheered and strengthened by the thought that the 
 Captain of our Salvation was made perfect amid such 
 sufferings as these. Here, in His temptation, we learn 
 what are the ways in which we may expect to be 
 tempted, and how it is that the baptismal vow sets 
 before us as the sources of our danger the world and 
 the flesh and the devil. 
 
 When, therefore, we read that the Tempter said to 
 Jesus, " If thou be the Son of God, command that 
 these stones be made bread," we are not to see in this 
 merely a unique, exceptional, and miraculous experience. 
 Though Christ's miraculous powers were appealed to, 
 yet it is the imperious demands of the senses on which 
 our attention must be fixed. There is that in the 
 suggestion which is typical. Each one of our Lord's 
 miracles proclaims, as it were, a law of His kingdom ; 
 and this abstinence from miracle is equally significant. 
 There is here a law governing all future temptations of 
 men ; the chief forms of temptation and the true modes 
 of resistance are delineated for our help when our time 
 of trial comes. It may have appeared to some of you 
 that there can be no true parallel between this tempta- 
 tion to turn the stones into bread and any part of our 
 own experience. But observe that the suffering which 
 the temptation proposed to remove was a bodily 
 suffering, and there are times when we are tempted 
 by some urgent want of the bodily nature. Extend 
 the thought, not to some one detail of the personal 
 life, but to the struggle with material things generally. 
 
IX The Temptation of our Lord 69 
 
 In the labour for subsistence and the toil for wealth 
 there may come some crisis when a desirable object 
 is almost within our reach, if only the scruples of con- 
 science did not stand in the way. There is some 
 urgently-desired or even greatly-needed thing which 
 we are tempted to snatch at by means which we can- 
 not justify to ourselves as right. In the unprincipled 
 acquisition of gain you see a soul yielding to the 
 Tempter. 
 
 Without taking any wider view, you see that there 
 are here represented to us the cravings of the senses, 
 which are in themselves not impure, but which we are 
 forbidden to gratify, except within the limits of what 
 is reasonable and lawful. The restrictions of the moral 
 law are to us that will of God beydnd which the 
 Saviour would not go. They are restraints put upon 
 us forbidding us to seek bodily gratification otherwise 
 than as God wills. Here then is one source of danger. 
 Amid the cravings of the senses there will often be 
 the disposition to break away from that godly abstin- 
 ence, that conscientious self-control, wherein alone the 
 flesh can be subdued to the spirit. It is no disparage- 
 ment of purity to say that there may be these sugges- 
 tions, coming from the sensual side of our nature ; it 
 is not the absence of the temptation that proves the 
 nature to be holy, but the presence of a godly wiU, 
 resolved in the strength of God to hold no terms with 
 the rebelling flesh. Yet we know how often the 
 thought has come, Why were there given to me these 
 various capacities of pleasure ? Why are there spread 
 around me, in the domain of the senses, these various 
 provocations to enjoyment of even the lower and 
 coarser order, if the enjoyment is after all to be re- 
 
70 The Light that light eth every Man ix 
 
 fused ? As the Lord was tempted to use His miracu- 
 lous power for the needs of His own body, the cases 
 are not few in which men have been tempted to em- 
 ploy their finest powers of mind, as it were, in turning 
 stones into bread. Sometimes you see a popular 
 leader feigning an enthusiasm foreign to his nature, 
 and, by a perverted ingenuity, turning a popular neces- 
 sity to some selfish purpose of his own. And some- 
 times you will see men of a still higher order using 
 the wondrous creative power of the imagination, not 
 for the purpose of lifting the soul into a higher region 
 of thought, but for constructing from the things of 
 sense the materials of a base, almost brutal enjoyment. 
 When genius thus becomes the pander to vice, the 
 Tempter has triumphed. 
 
 When the golden promise of youth begins to " fade 
 into the light of common day," there descends on many 
 a man, who thought he had escaped from the empire 
 of old sins, the cravings of former, and, as he had 
 thought, extinguished desires ; habit, with slow and 
 sure encroachment, discovers to him his essential 
 weakness ; and he finds that there remains for him 
 that stern conflict with a baser self within him, 
 wherein he is to prove himself a man. Holy Apostles 
 and saints have known this trial ; their writings lay 
 bare their hearts to us. They show us that purity — 
 as God counts purity — is not the unacquaintance with 
 vain longings for forbidden things, but the clear recog- 
 nition by the tempted will that not in these things 
 does a man live. He who enters into the meaning of 
 our Lord's words, " My meat is to do the will of my 
 Father in heaven," is rewarded for every sacrifice. 
 The sweetest and purest things in life — transfigured 
 
IX The Temptation of otir Lord 71 
 
 desires, purified affections, commiinity of life with all 
 the good — come as blessed compensation to those who 
 have suffered in the grievous contest with a nature 
 clinging ever to the earth. In the act of mortifying 
 himself the man lives. Eemember that it is here, 
 above all, at the outposts, that the danger is greatest 
 and the temptations most severe. It is not merely 
 the open and shameful forms of sin that assail us ; 
 from them we are fenced round by all that is decorous 
 in the usages of society. But habits of indulgence 
 may encroach on us which no existing code of respect- 
 ability condemns, amid which the valour of Christian 
 resolution is lost and the manhood in us is weakened. 
 While occasional fasting is good as a discipline, yet it 
 is so only as one of many means to an end. It is 
 only a help to the attainment of godly abstinence — 
 such habitual subjection to the lightest touch of the 
 Spirit of God on the soul that we shall readily obey 
 all godly motions " in righteousness and true holiness." 
 The heathen morality relied on the self-sufi&cing force 
 of human nature and the inexorable resolution of the 
 human will. But we have discovered that there is no 
 such inexorable resolution; that we have no " power of 
 ourselves to help ourselves ; " that in our moments of 
 greatest self-confidence we are nearest to our fall ; and 
 that it is the love of God only that can subdue the 
 wild tumult of feeling within us. It is to that love 
 and its holy constraint that we would even now yield 
 ourselves. Then sin will become increasingly repul- 
 sive to us. Then the recoil from temptation will be 
 instantaneous. But the purity is of God ; it can only 
 shield those who commit themselves wholly to it. 
 And there is hope for all. " Blessed," said St. James, 
 
72 The Light that light eth every Man ix 
 
 " is the man that endureth temptation : for when he is 
 tried, he shall receive the crown of life promised to 
 them that love Him." Yes; not blessed is he that 
 escapes, but he that endures, temptation. We may 
 ask to be delivered from it, yet when it comes it will 
 be not as a curse but as a blessing. It comes to make 
 known to us our own capacity for evil, to awaken in 
 us the sighing of a more fervent desire, and to lead us 
 into truer fellowship with our tempted and victorious 
 Lord. In the very act of enduring temptation, the 
 crown of life is received ; yes, the very crown and con- 
 summation of life ; the fruition of that more exquisite 
 joy which comes through danger encountered, evil 
 steadfastly resisted, and the sense of power vindicating 
 itself in the midst of weakness. 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF OUK LOKD 
 
 No. 2 
 
 Last Sunday morning we were able to consider the 
 first only of the three temptations which beset our 
 Lord. And the fact that the first was addressed to 
 the senses gives the whole scene still more the char- 
 acter of a prophecy of the trials to the spiritual nature 
 which enter into the life of every man. Evil approaches 
 us first at a time when the powers of thought and the 
 capacities of the will for resistance are alike immature, 
 and hence the will is at first assailed. In every excess 
 of natural appetite, in every vibration of the nerves in 
 moments of weakness or excitement, the body becomes 
 a source of danger to the soul; and in our Lord's 
 victory in this first trial of His will He was the more 
 identifying Himself with each one of His human 
 brothers. By the help He gives, it happens that even 
 these, the lower, coarser temptations of a nature tend- 
 ing to the dust, are in many cases mercifully overcome. 
 Habits are formed consistent with the law of purity 
 meant to be supreme ; and even those who were for a 
 time dragged down into the mire are raised up again, 
 and their feet set upon a rock, so that, looking back 
 on that former period of their lives, it is not only with 
 
 ^ OF THE *^ 
 
 •XT 
 
74 l^he Light that light eth every Man x 
 
 a sense of personal disgrace and offended dignity, in 
 which there may be much of pride, but with a new 
 sense of the beauty of holiness and the moral deformity 
 of sin. And yet it will sometimes happen that a man 
 who has been delivered from one evil habit which has 
 been his chief temptation, grows to think of it as the 
 only thing he has much need to be afraid of; that, 
 having overcome that one thing, he has obtained the 
 victory once for all. He does not know the mysteri- 
 ous possibilities of evil in his own nature ; he does 
 not know how the Tempter, defeated at one point, can 
 find new instruments of temptation amid the serious 
 interests of his maturer life. If there are the tempta- 
 tions of the youth, there are also the temptations of 
 the man. In youth no distinct conception of the 
 meaning of life lias been formed, and the danger lies 
 in the pleasure-seeking temper to which so many 
 things minister. But though this may pass away, the 
 man wiU find in his maturer life that there are tempta- 
 tions of the mind as dangerous as those that en- 
 snared his senses. The Temptation of our Lord con- 
 nects itself with the later as with the earlier experi- 
 ence : this we see clearly as we proceed. It is not 
 the outer, accidental features of the scene on which I 
 wish to dwell; and therefore I do not stop to ask in 
 what way the Tempter could take our Lord to " an 
 exceeding high mountain" and show Him "all the 
 kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them." The 
 essential thing is that there, spreading out before Him 
 a scene of singular material attraction, Satan said, 
 " All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall 
 down and worship me." 
 
 We are so intent in this mysterious study, in under- 
 
X The Temptahon of our Lord 75 
 
 standing the state of mind of the Tempted, that we 
 pass by with too slight consideration the designs of 
 the Tempter. Yet in each successive attempt of his 
 there is an involuntary recognition of our Lord's true 
 majesty. On the part of our Lord there is already a 
 premonition of His active power as the destroyer of 
 all the works of the devil, whether in the form of 
 physical or moral evil. But no less does the attitude 
 of the evil spirit himself seem like an anticipation of 
 the cry of the possessed, " What have we to do with 
 thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth ? art thou come to 
 destroy us ? I know thee, who thou art, the Holy 
 One of God." 
 
 He who was trying to maintain an undisputed sway 
 amid the doings of men and nations, had discovered 
 in Christ a new-born power which threatened his 
 dominion. He saw, living and acting on the earth, a 
 power of God which seemed likely to absorb and assimi- 
 late to itself, in iioiy ti^ion, all powers -and -passions 
 of men which he had been able to pervert. And since 
 the ground seemed slipping from beneath his feet, it 
 would be something gained if he could in any way 
 identify himself with this growing power, if he could 
 make it appear, by falsehood and by guile, that the 
 power was still his. 
 
 Now, if we turn to Him, the Tempted, who was thus 
 beset, we have to try to understand how the temptation 
 could be to Him so sore a trial. 
 
 We have to keep in view, from first to last, the 
 reality of His human consciousness, that He had the 
 same powers of thought as other men, and that through 
 the methods of human thought the Divine nature re- 
 vealed itself. A soul like His could not but groan 
 
76 The Light that light eth every Man x 
 
 over the bondage of mankind under the thrall of evil ; 
 and already the thoughts and aims of the Deliverer were 
 moving within Him. 
 
 The deadly hostility of the wicked power seemed at 
 that moment suspended ; the foe of good approached 
 with a proposal which seemed almost like the arrange- 
 ment of the terms of surrender. Satan proposed to 
 abandon his malevolent activity in the midst of the 
 affairs of men. The sovereignty of the Son of God 
 might be His without dispute, if only He would render 
 to the Tempter one brief act of homage. One brief con- 
 cession was asked in exchange for the withdrawal of 
 an awful internecine warfare which might last as long 
 as the world lasted. 
 
 If the end could ever justify the means, it might 
 have seemed to justify them here. The tumultuous 
 emotions of human nature, ranged on the side of good, 
 are yet liable to be swayed in a wrong direction 
 through the very confidence man feels in the goodness 
 of his cause. In such a state of mind, if some quick 
 and easy method of reaching the good end should pre- 
 sent itself, it requires strong principles and a very 
 alert and watchful attitude of conscience to resist the 
 temptation. And here we see our Lord — in that very 
 tempest of good emotion, beset by the temptation to 
 cease depending on the slow and patient methods of 
 accomplishment indicated by the will of the Father — 
 solicited by a subtle and evil Power to seize by a 
 sudden and rash impulse on the realisation of His 
 most treasured visions for the good of man. But the 
 healthy action of a nature strengthened by continual 
 communion with heaven casts aside the temptation at 
 once. Christ falls back on the slow-seeming, Divine, 
 
X The Temptation of our Lord 7 7 
 
 invincible methods of attaining eternal purposes. Not 
 at even such a price will He purchase peace. He re- 
 pulses the assault with one word, " It is written, Thou 
 shalt worship the • Lord thy God, and him only shalt 
 thou serve." 
 
 Let us turn now to our own life and ask ourselves 
 when and where we have been tempted even as our 
 Master. Is the scene on which we have been looking 
 outside the sphere in which men are tried ? Does it 
 not remind us of things within our own experience ? 
 Like temptations have come to religious men by the 
 suggested thought that each new ministry to self-love 
 in the shape of popular applause, at whatever cost of 
 principle, is a new power gathered for the advancement 
 of what is in itself good. 
 
 They have come in the lives of men of business by 
 the thought that if only the end aimed at be good, 
 there may, in pursuit of it, be some departure from good 
 in the means that are used. 
 
 They have come in the lives of men burdened with 
 the cares of State in the idea that the morality which 
 belongs to common life would there be out of place. 
 
 But no ! the lesson to men who substitute good 
 emotion for right principle is, " Thou shalt worship the 
 Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." 
 
 Not only must the ends at which you aim be good, 
 but the methods must be stamped with the same char- 
 acter. In all the energetic action of our manhood we 
 are warned against the temptation to use unrighteous 
 instruments for the attainment even of righteous ends. 
 
 It is not enough, then, that the fever of the youthful 
 pleasure-seeking nature has been allayed ; not enough 
 that the man's life has become serious and earnest ; 
 
78 The Light that lighteth every Man x 
 
 but in even the midst of all that is earnest and serious 
 the approach of evil must be feared. There is no 
 possibility in manhood, any more than in youth, of 
 putting off the attitude of watchfulness and the armour 
 of resistance. Still the cry comes to us — 
 
 " Christian, seek not yet repose, 
 Hear thy guardian angel say, 
 Thou art in the midst of foes, 
 
 Watch and pray ! " 
 
 And now we come to the last and most subtle tempta- 
 tion of all, here following the order of St. Luke. "He 
 brought Him to Jerusalem, and set Him on a pinnacle 
 of the temple, and said unto Him, If thou be the Son 
 of God, cast thyself down from hence : for it is written, 
 He shall give his angels charge concerning thee." 
 
 Well had the Tempter read the spiritual nature of 
 Him whose rectitude he assailed. 
 
 He saw in Him One strained by a lofty purpose to 
 acts of utter self-devotion. He saw in Him also One 
 in whom the word and will of God was the supreme 
 principle of action. And he dared to approach Him 
 in the very centre and citadel of His spirit's life. He 
 resolved to propose to Him an act of self-devotion which 
 might vindicate the superior character of His faith. 
 
 That height or pinnacle of the temple overlooked a 
 dark and gloomy ravine, even to look into whose depths 
 might scare the senses of the bravest. " Cast thyseK 
 down I " And the appeal to the spirit of sacrifice in 
 Him was reinforced by an appeal to His faith. Did 
 He believe it to be true that the ministry of angels had 
 been promised ? 
 
 Imagine the scene. Nay, may we not picture to 
 ourselves the way in which this temptation might have 
 
X The Temptation of our Lo7^d 79 
 
 been presented so as apparently to promise advance- 
 ment in spiritual power and authority ? Imagine the 
 Son of God casting Himself down from a height, only 
 to look from which made the brain reel. His falling 
 form seems for an instant doomed to destruction, to a 
 death accompanied by every association of horror, when 
 lo ! the swift angels of God speed to His rescue, and 
 He is saved. Think how, after such an unexampled 
 experience, the fame of the wondrous deed would 
 spread throughout the land, and souls accessible to 
 miracle and witchery of all sorts, though not to the 
 moral witness of Christ's mission, would at once fall 
 prostrate at His feet. 
 
 By such subtle suggestion might the yielding be 
 made to wear the appearance of hastening the coming 
 of the promised kingdom. But in our Lord's answer 
 we see a deeper faith than mere reliance on any par- 
 ticular text of Scripture. " It is written, Thou shalt 
 not tempt the Lord thy God." No : thou shalt not 
 tempt, thou shalt not try, thou shalt not put to the 
 proof, the infinite power of God. Thou, the creature, 
 shalt not presume, in the exercise of thy self-will, to 
 set in motion the great machinery of God's preserving 
 power, in order to rescue thee from a situation in 
 which He has not placed thee, but into which thou hast 
 thrust thyself. Thou shalt not — thou, in thy puny, 
 limited being — dare in thine own behalf to invoke the 
 Lord of heaven and earth to work a miracle where no 
 real reason for a miracle exists. The laws of God in 
 nature are expressions of His will, no less than the 
 written words of Holy Scripture ; and he is as guilty 
 of irreverence who sets at naught the one as he who 
 disregards the other. 
 
8o The Light that lighteth every Man x 
 
 If we ask how fhis temptation connects itself with 
 ordinary human experience, surely the answer is easy. 
 Does not the history of the Christian Church tell us of 
 not a few who, weary of their daily struggle with sin 
 in the busy activities of the world, have sought some 
 safe retreat in which they might give themselves wholly 
 to the spiritual life ? And does not the same history 
 tell us over and over again, how in their retreat they 
 were assailed by the very temptation which was in 
 vain addressed to Jesus ? The thirst for religious fame, 
 the glories of sainthood, have then taken the place of 
 the old contest for mastery in the world, and to such 
 temptations the man who is mystic and recluse has 
 often weakly yielded. Simon Stylites on his pillar, 
 gaining a spurious reputation by the parade of his 
 suffering, is no true follower of his Lord. Eather is he 
 one who is rendering that homage to the evil power 
 which our Lord refused. 
 
 And in our modern life, if ever we should find 
 ourselves tempted to seek distinction by doing things 
 unusual and out-of-the-way, which challenge public 
 observation, then we are, whether we know it or not, 
 following an inspiration which is not from heaven 
 but from hell. The man who seems to have forsaken 
 and almost forgotten the world in order to employ 
 himself in work for the Church of Christ, finds him- 
 self ere long solicited by the old temptations, and may 
 easily slide into a way of doing Christ's work which 
 shows that the Tempter is close at hand. So we 
 learn to understand that this story of the temptation 
 is not a mere unique history unlike every other ; but 
 that as our Lord was tempted, so we may expect to 
 be. But He who conquered them is our Helper if 
 
X The Temptation of our Lord 8i 
 
 we turn to Him now. He learned obedience by the 
 things He suffered, and if we, like Him, desire that 
 above all things the will of God may be done, this 
 •pure desire of the heart will be rewarded by the needed 
 spiritual power. 
 
XI 
 PALM SUNDAY 
 
 "When he was come near, he beheld the city and wept over it." 
 
 St. Luke xix. 41. 
 
 Some of you may remember that I have on other occa- 
 sions expressed the difficulty I have felt as to the best 
 way of dealing with the teaching of Palm Sunday. 
 There are some incongruities in the scene. It is the 
 story of the triumphal entry of the King, but there is 
 throughout a sense of sad unconsciousness in the chief 
 actors of the kind of kingdom He was founding and 
 the throne He was to occupy. We, who know the 
 end from the beginning, have His own words burnt in 
 on the soul as if by fire — " I, if I be lifted up, . . . 
 will draw all men unto me." Even in the midst of the 
 triumph we remember that close at hand are those 
 other scenes in which all elements of human suffering 
 and religious awe are combined. We cannot treat this 
 day as a religious festival like other festivals ; a day 
 in which the emotion of joy supersedes every other ; 
 for on its brightness falls the mysterious shadow of the 
 coming woe. And to-day we will contemplate the 
 scene chiefly in connection with the things that were 
 to follow. 
 
 The triumph of the Lord's entry into the Holy 
 City was in itself complete. Had He been like an 
 
Palm Stmday Z'^ 
 
 ordinary pretender to worldly power, you would say 
 that at that moment He had reached the height of his 
 ambition. The honours freely accorded to Him by a 
 rejoicing people were as kingly honours. No other 
 name than His was borne on the breeze. All the 
 piety, all the religious fervour of the people, seemed 
 fused into the one sentiment of devotion to His person. 
 If His ambition had been merely that of the popular 
 leader, He would have been suffused with the one un- 
 controllable emotion of the gratified sense of power. 
 But suddenly, strangely, over that bright scene there 
 sweeps a wave of pathetic feeling ; and it is the pathos 
 over which we would pause to understand its meaning. 
 If the triumph was the growth to full development 
 of causes that had been long secretly working, can 
 we not also trace a connection between the pathos of 
 that hour and much that had gone before ? "When he 
 was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it." 
 
 We pause to observe the human characler of the 
 emotion. On another occasion it was said that Jesus 
 wept. In Him overcharged emotion sought relief, as 
 it has so often done in every human life, in tears that 
 could not be restrained. It is remarkable that never 
 in the whole course of the Gospel history are we told 
 of any occasion in which the equally human impulse 
 to laughter revealed itself Among the other questions 
 that Sir Thomas Browne, the good physician who wrote 
 the Religio Medici, has asked, is this — "Did Jesus 
 ever smile ? " We may believe indeed that when the 
 little children were brought to Him He would smile 
 upon them with the gentle, loving smile of a pure 
 nature. We may believe that in the case of times of 
 relaxation, when the disciples were resting, when they 
 
84 The Light that lighteth every Man xi 
 
 were talking with one another, there would be the sug- 
 gestion of things that were amusing as well as serious. 
 But it is not with that side of our life that we so much 
 feel the need of sympathy. It is not wonderful that 
 the mirth, the hilarity that may have entered into His 
 human intercourse, has been left unrecorded. Into our 
 happiness He might enter as fellow with us in all 
 things, but our happiness w^e can bear for ourselves. 
 The form of happiness which breaks forth in mirth is 
 not the deepest kind. There is, indeed, a profound, 
 mysterious joy which cannot be expressed in laughter, 
 which touches strangely the deeper chords of feeling, 
 and sometimes even draws forth tears, though they are 
 of a very different kind from the tears of sorrow. If 
 there is sometimes almost more than we can bear in 
 this tension of feeling as well as the other, we feel the 
 need of casting ourselves on an infinite Love which 
 can comprehend that in us which we ourselves cannot 
 comprehend. 
 
 But of our Lord it is recorded that He " bare our 
 infirmities." That which makes our life a burden to 
 us, that which presses heavily on our happiness, which 
 dims the light in the eye and depresses natural energy, 
 this He accepted as His portion. If, above all things. 
 He is known as " the man of sorrows," it was not be- 
 cause the sorrowful is in itself a holier state than is 
 that of unclouded happiness, but because, as an actual 
 fact, the sorrowful enters so largely into all human life. 
 It is in bearing this burden of ours that He is most 
 distinctly and undeniably man. All forms of human 
 suffering became, as it were, a part of His own person- 
 ality. The light of the body is the eye ; to see it 
 quenched and all the beauty of the world blotted out 
 
XI 
 
 Palm Sunday 85 
 
 smote on His heart with a personal pain. To see those 
 sightless eyes lifted up to a heaven they could not see 
 was an appeal to His compassion which found an in- 
 stant response in His soul, and called into exercise 
 His restorative power. He could not encounter the 
 deaf without throwing wide the gate of hearing through 
 which there stream the harmonies of music. The dis- 
 tempered cries of the possessed, through all their un- 
 consciousness, seemed like an inarticulate prayer — 
 " Lighten our darkness, Lord, and preserve us from 
 the peril and danger of this night of the soul." When 
 He stood by the side of the fever-stricken, the wasted 
 countenance in its sickly paUor became part of Him- 
 self, something that belonged to Him, that invaded the 
 retreat of His own happiness. It was so always ; like 
 a man heart-broken. He made His own the experience 
 of the broken in heart. He looked down from no in- 
 accessible height of superiority; rather His sensitive 
 nature felt more keenly than the sufferers themselves 
 their affliction, and was saddened by its mysterious 
 connection with the sin that has blasted all that was 
 fair and innocent. In the depth of His human con- 
 sciousness He felt and was oppressed by the sorrow that 
 for a time may lurk out of sight, but at length, like a 
 terrible apparition, arises and changes everything. It 
 had descended to Him as a tradition of the past, for 
 He had no earthly past, but, fresh from the scenes of 
 His bliss. He gathered round Himself the sad garment 
 of human woe. If sometimes the pathos of His feel- 
 ing melted in tears, there were others when the grief 
 lay too deep for that natural relief, when He knew the 
 dull aching of an agony that must suffer alone, uncom- 
 prehended by other men, unrelieved by the anodyne 
 
86 The Light that lighteth eveiy Man xi 
 
 of consolation. So He became the High Priest of our 
 humanity; with crying and tears He learned how hard 
 it is for human nature to render obedience to a perfect 
 will ; He became the Mediator of that new covenant 
 through which not only the articulate but the inarticu- 
 late pain of the world can know the touch of invisible 
 healing. 
 
 It is of this feature in His mission that we are to- 
 day again reminded ; not of His superiority to us, but 
 of His oneness with us, and this as part of the story 
 of a triumph which assures us that one day the tears 
 will be wiped for ever away. 
 
 Through Him we have learnt that there may be a 
 Divine meaning even in sorrow ; that not only may it 
 be an instrument of chastening to the individual char- 
 acter, but that it may open up avenues of sympathy 
 through which life grows into a more tender and touch- 
 ing kind of beauty, like the softer lights that fall upon 
 the landscape after rain and storm. If we have caught 
 His Spirit, we learn to look on the trials of our fellows, 
 even the common earthly trials that touch the natural 
 life, not as apart from us, but as belonging to ourselves. 
 We wince at the pain of others, our life is embittered by 
 it, we are not satisfied till we have done our utmost to put 
 it away. And so vital is the union which still subsists be- 
 tween Christ and all the sorrowful that there, He teaches 
 us, is our truest opportunity of ministry to Him. Ah, 
 could we but have soothed, could we but have succoured 
 Him, could we, by some tender word of human love in 
 some sad hour of His, have made His trial less hard 
 to bear ! But this. He tells us, we can do even now. 
 So long as there are sorrowful hearts within our reach, 
 this gracious ministry to the Saviour Himself is possible 
 
XI 
 
 Palm Sztnday Sy 
 
 to us. Whatever lightenings of joy there may be in 
 our life, whatever sweetenings of love, whatever bub- 
 bling forth of innocent gladness in hilarity, yet the 
 liker a Christian becomes to his Master the more will 
 he too become a man of sorrows, so closely will the 
 sufferings of the world besiege his heart and move his 
 pity. 
 
 But we must glance at the immediate occasion of 
 this wave of pathetic feeling, this ever memorable cry of 
 lamentation. It was over Jerusalem, the goodly city on 
 which Divine love had expended so many agencies of 
 good. The end was coming. The men of Jerusalem 
 were drifting on to their destruction. The horrors of 
 that siege of which they were so unconscious He 
 foresaw, and it was now too late to avert it. Had 
 they known the things that belonged to their peace, 
 had they been wilKng to enter that purer kingdom of 
 the spirit which would have cast out their carnal pas- 
 sions, all might have been well. But now the things 
 that might have saved them were hid from their eyes. 
 How often in the history of the world have we heard 
 the despairing cry — Too late 1 too late ! We are re- 
 minded as we read that though there are human sorrows 
 that may be healed, there are others that are irrepar- 
 able. Swiftly the Jewish nation was being borne down 
 the steep decline which could only end in the abyss of 
 destruction. In one sense, indeed, even that evil was 
 not irreparable. Through a baptism of blood the true 
 Israel was to pass to its regeneration ; but from the 
 temporal consequences, the throes of a nation in mortal 
 agony, the desolation, the dispersion, the dissolution of 
 the national life, nothing could now deliver them. 
 And with such tears of sorrow, if we were in our right 
 
88 The Light that light eth every Man xi 
 
 mind, we should even now look upon fallen lives and 
 blasted reputations. We remember the time when the 
 dark corner had not been turned, when the men's real 
 life and their language were in harmony with one 
 another, when nothing — as it appeared — could have 
 induced them to forsake the plain path of Christian 
 uprightness; but there came some time of laxity of 
 principle and slumbering of the moral sense, or some 
 strong temptation to which they yielded ; and it is 
 the sad peculiarity of such sin that the first act cannot 
 be the last, that by a mournful descending scale they 
 fall lower and lower ; they are obliged to conceal what 
 they have done, and the life that was once full of all 
 good things cannot help falling into hypocrisy, and is 
 driven from one false act to another. When self- 
 respect is gone all is lost. To the men themselves, 
 indeed, all is not irreparable. The hour when the 
 cloke of concealment is dragged away is for them the 
 first hope of salvation. They may yet, through the 
 way of repentance, regain their peace of conscience and 
 recover the esteem of their fellows ; but before that 
 hour can come there must be the pangs of remorse, 
 the feeling of deep degradation, the sense of suffering 
 that must ever be most keen in the souls that have 
 been most enlightened. There is that which, as far as 
 this world is concerned, must be irreparable — a shadow 
 on the life which no consolations can remove. Not in 
 anger, not in contempt, but with a sorrow like that of 
 the Saviour Himself, it becomes us to think of those 
 with whom we share the perilous propensity to evil. 
 And meanwhile, amid the moving recollections of our 
 Lord's Cross and Passion, let us gain strength to cling 
 more closely to the good which we have learnt from 
 
Palm Sunday 89 
 
 Him ; to think even now of the things which belong 
 to our peace ; to lay hold — and at once — of the means 
 of salvation ; salvation not merely from a future hell 
 .but from the moral evil which is around us and within 
 us. For if we give it harbour it will lay waste all in 
 us that once was good ; but the attraction of the Cross 
 is on us, and will draw us onward if we yield our 
 hearts to its sway. The love of Christ constraineth 
 us ; the love that purifies, that likens us to the object 
 of it, and when it is paramount the suggestions or 
 solicitations of evil lose their power. 
 
XII 
 
 GOOD FEIDAY 
 
 the seven woeds from the cross 
 " Father, forgive them ; for they know not what 
 
 THEY DO." 
 
 We who have followed the Lord through this week 
 are able to represent to our imagination the awful scene 
 when He was fastened to the Cross. Already in the 
 agony in the garden He had been sorely tried. Then 
 came the night arrest ; the trial before the Sanhedrin, 
 before Pilate, before Herod, before Pilate again; the 
 prolonged examination; the relentless fury of His 
 accusers ; the mocking and the scourging. No wonder 
 that He fainted under the weight of the Cross. We 
 think that now His foes had Him in their grasp they 
 might have felt some pity. But there was none. The 
 few who loved Him were away ; the pious worshippers 
 from a distance were scared by the wild humours of 
 the mob of Jerusalem ; the last effort to save Him had 
 failed. " Not this man, but Barabbas ! Crucify him, 
 Crucify him ! " These were the sounds that filled the 
 air. And now had come the dreadful moment when 
 they nailed Him to the Cross. Eelentless hands drove 
 home the cruel spikes of iron through the sensitive 
 hands and. feet ; and then it was that, in uttermost 
 
XII 
 
 Good Friday 9 1 
 
 agony, tliere broke from Him a loud cry. Was it 
 malediction or reproach ? Was it the outburst of an 
 overstrained nature against ingratitude and hardness 
 of heart ? Ah no ! in that soul of His resentment 
 could not harbour. He cried aloud, " Father, forgive 
 them ; for they know not what they do." The wretch 
 who betrayed Him, the men who accused Him, the 
 witnesses who came to vilify Him, the executioners of 
 the law who tortured Him, even the heartless, jeering 
 bystanders who mocked and taunted Him, and the 
 sordid rulers who lent themselves to destroy Him — 
 all were included. " Father, forgive them ! " How 
 in that hour did He vivify and confirm His own teach- 
 ing in answer to the question — How often shall a 
 man sin against me and I forgive him ? " I say not 
 unto thee, until seven times, but until seventy times 
 seven." Can we want more convincing proof than this 
 that Jesus will save to the uttermost ? Beyond the 
 pale of His forgiveness is no sin, however black, if a 
 man can find grace to repent of it ; and here He even 
 anticipates the repentance that has not yet come. 
 How many of those who afterwards looked on Him 
 whom they had pierced with a mourning which no 
 penitential language was able to express, would turn 
 back to this moment, would seize again upon these 
 words of His prayer and find in them restoration of 
 hope ? And oh, how many are there of the sinners of 
 this day of whom it may be said that they know not 
 what they do ! Some mist of passion is in their eyes 
 so that they do not see clearly. They can look back 
 on a time when they dallied with evil which came to 
 them under some imaginary form of good, and almost 
 before they knew it they had lost their innocence. 
 
92 The Light that light eth every Man xn 
 
 And now, bewildered, bound by the chains of habit, 
 they can hardly remember how and when the first link 
 in that chain was formed. But they have to do with 
 a God of perfect equity and infinite compassion, whose 
 wisdom sees their whole life clearly. However their 
 own conscience may accuse them, God is greater than 
 their heart, and knoweth all things. To every living 
 sinner these words of Jesus, which reveal the secret 
 heart of God, come like a new and larger publication 
 of the Gospel. It is never too late for any man to 
 turn from his evil. He who prayed on the Cross will 
 intercede for them — Father, forgive them ; for they 
 knew not what they did in the past ; they know not 
 what they do in the present. Only, with this prayer 
 of the Saviour, the heart of the conscience-condemned 
 man must conspire. If only he can say — Yea, Lord, 
 I have sinned grievously ; I am vile in my own eyes ; 
 I have no power of myself ; but do Thou forgive me 
 in the greatness of Thy compassion ; clear away the 
 blindness from my eyes ; set free my bound and en- 
 feebled will. Then will there be joy in the presence 
 of the angels of God ; then once more will the dying 
 prayer of the Saviour be fulfilled. 
 
 " To-day shalt thou be with me in Paeadise." 
 
 * ' The hours wore on : but what are hours to him 
 Who measures not by time but pain, whose pangs 
 Are like the figures on some dial-plate 
 On which the shadow lingers long, as though 
 It never meant to pass ; for he who suffers 
 Has lost his count of all but present pain." 
 
 By the time at which we are here assembled, gaz- 
 ing, as it were, on the Cross, three hours, according to 
 
Good Friday 93 
 
 the ordinary human reckoning, had passed away. 
 There are movements in the crowd, but, fixed in his 
 agony, each of the three sufferers is writhing on his 
 several cross. 
 
 At last the silence is broken. One of the two male- 
 factors breaks forth in bitter cursing ; but for the other, 
 not in vain, as regards his soul, has there been exhibited 
 the beauty of goodness in Jesus. His life is drifting 
 away ; the unseen world is drawing very near, and all 
 the past reveals itself in its true character. So often 
 it happens, that in the shadow of death illusions pass 
 away ; the pleasant sins become hateful, the hard heart 
 is softened, the soul feels about in the dark for some 
 gracious omnipotent helper. And as he observes that 
 One guiltless fellow -sufferer, the man in the grip of 
 death feels — oh, if it could be with me even as it is with 
 Him ! He sees Him unsubdued in soul, love triumph- 
 ant over hatred, the feeble and failing breath only used 
 to invoke forgiveness for all. Who can tell how that 
 comprehensive prayer of Jesus may have kindled hope 
 in one dark soul in the midst of that gloom ! Who is 
 this that cries out to the Father as if the Father and 
 the Son were even there and then united in a wondrous 
 intimacy of being — " Father, forgive " ? If there were 
 forgiveness for all, might there not be forgiveness even 
 for one who had now, of a sudden, grown so weary of 
 all his sinning ? One at least in all that multitude did 
 homage to the King whom they were crucifying. 
 
 It was a strange way of entering into a kingdom, 
 but by some mystic process this soul acknowledged the 
 royalty of the Divine sufferer. " Lord, remember me 
 when thou comest into thy kingdom." That was all 
 that remained for him to hope for, to ask for. And 
 
 -^esE^UBR,,-J^ 
 
94 The Light that lighteth every Man xn 
 
 there was an answer, no mere soothing palliative to 
 present distress, but strong, confident, definite in pro- 
 mise ; the answer of One who knew whither He was 
 going, and was sovereign disposer of all souls of men. 
 "To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." Not 
 yet was He to ascend to the fulness of the glory of 
 heaven ; He was going to enter Paradise, where were 
 souls still growing in the spiritual life of which Heaven 
 is the final consummation. To this one sinner, on 
 whom there w^as at this moment perhaps the dread of 
 that awful Gehenna, with its mysterious horror, which 
 survives in the faith of the worst, He declared : " thou 
 shalt be with me," and — " in Paradise." The word signi- 
 fies a garden, and is suggestive of peace and rest, of 
 safety, of shelter from the crowding ills of this life. 
 It is there that the liberated soul is to grow to its full 
 stature. And here was one hanging over the brink of 
 eternity, to whom the promise was given that he should 
 enter it. The common belief of the popular religion is 
 that the soul at death passes at once to heaven or to 
 hell, to perfect bliss or hopeless woe ; but our Lord does 
 not speak of Heaven — He speaks of " Paradise." Al- 
 ready He had taught the disciples that it was not His 
 Father's will that one of His little ones should perish ; 
 and here was one answering to that description, in 
 whom there were but the beginnings of spiritual growth. 
 And if it be true that to know God and His Son 
 Jesus Christ is eternal life, here was one who had really 
 already passed within the sphere of the eternal. When 
 his spirit had passed from the body, it would be to find 
 himself in a school where all the uncompleted lessons of 
 life would be learned, where much belonging to the 
 past would have to be unlearned. All who find their 
 
XII Good Friday 95 
 
 way within the Paradise of God are not alike in progress 
 and in spiritual power ; there are many mansions in 
 the Father's House ; but the compulsive influence of 
 goodness is on all. 
 
 St. Peter has told us how Christ preached the Gospel 
 even to the dead — to those who had died in their ignor- 
 ance ; who had missed the most excellent of all know- 
 ledge. And here, even on the Cross, the words of the 
 dying Saviour point onward to a state in which, for all 
 souls, there will be growth and progress. Here was 
 one more soul given to Him, and of all such He had 
 said, " Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast 
 given me, be with me where I am." 
 
 " Woman, behold thy son ! . . . Behold thy mother ! " 
 
 So, amid the solemnities of the hour of sacrifice, the 
 pure and perfect humanity in Jesus revealed itself. 
 There are in this dying scene, as in all others, the 
 mystery and the awe of the supernatural, relieved by 
 outbursts of the most human and natural feeling. Each 
 deathbed is a repetition in both characters of an ex- 
 perience in which the Head and Eepresentative of all 
 men disclosed to view the various elements that enter 
 into human death. At that moment there were sorrow- 
 ful eyes fixed with a fearful fascination on the quiver- 
 ing, suffering frame, and this helplessness of sorrowful 
 sympathy has often been repeated. 
 
 But every one who dies is the object of a yet more 
 mysterious interest; for there is a soul there that can- 
 not die, yet will soon be gone ; and there is the wistful 
 gaze into the Unseen, the anxious thought of what will 
 be its state there, and what the manner of its life. 
 
96 The Light- that lighteth every Man xn 
 
 These two things, the one that appeals to natural affec- 
 tion, the other so oppressive in its spiritual awe, might 
 well absorb the whole mind of him who is dying. Yet 
 how often have we seen such a one at that supreme 
 moment, in some pathetic movement of feeling, drawing 
 close to his heart those who have been bound up with 
 him in the bundle of life. The kindredness between 
 him and them cannot easily be surrendered. The love 
 which had shielded them in life will soon be so help- 
 less, but for that very reason seeks to project itself into 
 the future. That " being of a large discourse, looking 
 before and after," is still a kind of Providence that will 
 not cease its care while life lasts. Then came into 
 view the long hidden yearnings of the heart ; the lifting 
 of the eye on this one and that ; the tender wishes ; the 
 anxious, and, it may be, the wise forecast ; the careful 
 provisions by which love would still fulfil its office 
 when hand and voice are still ; the advice concerning 
 one and the other that will be remembered as the most 
 sacred of legacies. Who that has taken part in such 
 scenes can ever forget them ? So true and so tender 
 does the humanity of Jesus show even on the Cross — 
 so like humanity as we have known it in the best of 
 men, that we never lose the sense of brotherhood. And 
 still there is a beating of that heart of love ; for Jesus 
 lives most truly in human life through all the ages. 
 All Christendom has treasured the image of the sad 
 Mother pierced with many sorrows, at once the most 
 blessed and the saddest of women. So many have re- 
 sponded to the words — 
 
 * * Who, on Christ's dear Mother gazing, 
 Pierced by anguish so amazing, 
 Born of woman, would not weep ? 
 
Good Friday 97 
 
 " Who, on Christ's dear Mother thinking, 
 Such a cup of sorrow drinking, 
 Would not share her sorrows deep ? " 
 
 .He shared them ; in His own agony He had thought 
 for her. He, the only " Son who never did amiss, Who 
 never shamed His mother's kiss," has glorified the re- 
 lation of mother and son. Even He had owed much 
 to her, more than to all others. He had lain upon her 
 breast ; she had drawn out the childlike nature ; He 
 had been subject to her ; how much the world owes 
 to her we can never know. Filial from the first. He 
 was filial to the last. In proportion to the greatness 
 of her calling and the depth of her love, the awe and 
 the gladness and the splendour of the hope with which 
 she had watched and waited, would be the desolation 
 and the anguish. Who would comfort her ? Who 
 was there with a nature sufficiently sensitive to enter 
 into the strange peculiarity of her grief, and sufficiently 
 strong to be a support to her ? With His thoughts of 
 the mother were mingled anxieties for the kinsm.an 
 and the friend. He, too, the most loving of disciples 
 and the best beloved, would need some object on which 
 to expend the riches of that large and tender nature — 
 an object able, by its constant silent pleading, to quell 
 the fierceness of natural resentment. And where could 
 he find it so surely as in her ? We see in this bequest 
 to each a recognition of the claims of natural kindred ; 
 for they were near of kin. And we see the selecting 
 care which provided for each the one work in life 
 which would extract from the wound of bereavement 
 its intolerable pain. 
 
 " Behold thy mother ! " How has the love of God 
 expressed itself in this one beautiful gift of motherly 
 
 H 
 
98 The Light that lighteth every Man xn 
 
 love ! How much do the strongest owe to it of soften- 
 ing, purifying influence ! And they who, from the 
 earliest hour to which their memory can travel back, 
 have never known a mother's love — to the very end 
 of life they will feel and know that they have missed 
 something that might have helped to make them better 
 men. 
 
 It is not wonderful if we linger over this scene. 
 The sad mother was near the Cross ; the beloved 
 disciple was there ; when they left it, it was as mother 
 and son, to dwell together in the same home. Do we 
 remember sad partings ? Parents looking with thoughts 
 unspeakable while the child life ebbs away; or sons 
 and daughters gathered round a father's or a mother's 
 bed to listen to the last words or catch the last con- 
 scious look of recognition. Tliere will come a time of 
 reunion. Again it will be said, " Mother, behold thy 
 son ! Son, behold thy mother ! " Do you wonder how 
 they will know each other when all is so changed ? 
 Ah, they will know with the vision of a quickened 
 spiritual insight. So long ago, and now they are one 
 again. But the tears are gone, and the light of joy is 
 on the brow. 
 
 "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" 
 
 If a little while ago we saw our Lord sharing in 
 this common life of ours, through which there passes 
 the uniting bond of kindred, it is far otherwise that we 
 see Him now. His Spirit is treading some mysterious 
 pathway where all is dark. The surging crowd is 
 round Him, but a thick and heavy curtain has shut 
 out the living world. He is alone as regards man, but 
 
XII 
 
 Good Friday 99 
 
 that is not tlie worst ; there is a deeper loneliness than 
 that. What is this strange and awful transition of 
 spiritual dread in which the soul has lost its footing ? 
 Among the profoundly moving things of the Crucifixion 
 there is none so awful as that cry of amazement and 
 sorrow, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken 
 me ? " And yet this brings Him nearest to us at those 
 times when we need Him most. We could face death 
 with unshaken courage if natural fears were all we had 
 to contend with. But there are mysteries in death as 
 in life. Those pictures, familiar in religious literature, 
 which describe the death-bed scene as one of rapturous 
 expectation we often feel to be untrue to nature. We 
 have seen in the case, not of the worst, but of the best, 
 the descent upon the soul of a deep, unintelligible 
 gloom. And there are times when in our own antici- 
 pations we have asked ourselves, "What if at that 
 moment we should lose our hold on the truth which 
 has been in life the support of the soul ? What if we 
 should feel in that absolute loneliness of the spirit that 
 there is beneath us only the unfathomable gulf of 
 death ? " Set it not down as failure of faith, for there 
 could be no failure of faith in Him ; but as in times 
 of utter feebleness the hand can no longer grasp the 
 things that are nearest, so it has happened then. If 
 we should see in the case of any one who is drifting 
 away from life a strange sadness of the spirit, let us 
 not doubt that then as well as in moments of brightest 
 and happiest realisation, the arms of the Everlasting Love 
 are round that soul. Let us not count it strange if 
 then and there we see a servant of Christ called to 
 "^11 up that also of his afflictions which remaineth 
 behind." Already in His agony we had seen our Lord 
 
lOO The Light that lighteth every Man xn 
 
 entering into the bitterness of an experience common 
 to all mankind. It is true that the fear of death holds 
 us in bondage, and it was He who said, " My soul is 
 exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." It is true that 
 we shrink from dying, and it was He who said, " If it 
 be possible, let this cup pass from me." But all the 
 more surely, by going with us through every step of 
 mortal experience, He has gained power to uphold our 
 faltering steps, and has taught us that trust in God 
 which will bring us safely through every danger. 
 
 Observe, as another sign of Christ's true manhood, 
 that in this cry of deep depression He was not using 
 words of His own. They are the words of the twenty- 
 second psalm, that wonderful psalm in which the detailed 
 descriptions of some past suffering are so prophetic 
 that we are tempted to think of them as prophetic 
 only. But He, in His manhood, supported His soul 
 by the same methods as we who need the aid of holy 
 words and the encouragement to faith which is derived 
 from recollection of acts of mercy and deliverance in 
 the past. That unknown sufferer of a former age, in 
 the extremity of his anguish, had cried out as if he felt 
 himself forsaken by God ; and yet the end comforted 
 all his fears. At the last came his cry of praise, 
 " He hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of 
 the afflicted ; neither hath he hid his face from him ; 
 but when he cried unto him, he heard." Have we 
 not proof of the same history in the record of the 
 Crucifixion itself? The cloud passed; the sense of 
 Divine support was restored ; He was able to say, 
 " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." And 
 seldom, indeed, has it happened that light and -peace 
 and calm trustfulness have not in the end come to 
 
XII 
 
 Good Friday loi 
 
 those of His servants who, in their dying experience, 
 had seemed to be sinking in deep waters. We may 
 expect to experience for ourselves this loneliness. 
 J]ach soul must track its way through that obscurity 
 without a single human companion. Yet death can 
 never be so lonely to the servant as it was to the 
 Master. He that liveth Who was dead has explored all 
 those secrets, and His fellowship will then be a Divine 
 reality. If in the furnace there appeared, beside the 
 faithful three, One whose form was like unto the Son of 
 God, so will He who has won His knowledge of all the 
 secrets of our manhood not fail us then. We can say, 
 with a stronger faith than even him of old, "Yea, 
 though I walk through the valley of the shadow of 
 death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me." 
 
 " Oh, let me feel Thee near me." All the prayer 
 of life will at last be summed up in that, 
 
 "I THIKST." 
 
 In the next of the sayings from the Cross, our Lord 
 descends from that high region of spiritual conflict in 
 which we have contemplated Him. " After this, Jesus, 
 knowing that all things were now accomplished, that 
 the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst." This 
 was He who had said, " Blessed are they which do 
 hunger and thirst after righteousness : for they shall 
 be filled." This was He who had opened a fountain 
 for the cleansing of all the sins of humanity. This 
 was He who said to the woman of Samaria, "Who- 
 soever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall 
 never thirst ; but the water that I shall give him shall 
 be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting 
 
I02 The Light that lighteth eveiy Man xu 
 
 life." His meat was to do the will of God ; He had 
 seemed at certain moments of high spiritual elation to 
 be lifted up above the common wants of humanity. But, 
 as if to deliver us from the suspicion that the human 
 nature He took to Himself w^as another nature than 
 ours, we are again and again reminded that He bore 
 our infirmities ; that He knew our nature at its worst 
 as well as its best. We may have seen some fellow- 
 man in one of the more exalted moods in which the 
 mind dominates the body, under the inspiration of some 
 glorious thought, commanding the reverence of those 
 who see and hear, so that one can hardly think of him 
 in any lower mood ; and yet at another time is he seen, 
 no less than his fellows, preyed upon by the common 
 vulgar wants of the body, haggard for want of sleep, 
 agonised by intense pain. Caesar in his fever cries for 
 water like a sick girl. And this, which belongs to our 
 mortality, our Eedeemer did not shrink from making 
 His own. He would not drink the wine mingled with 
 myrrh, which would have dulled the sense. He put 
 from Him — 
 
 " The slumbrous potion bland, and would not drink. 
 Not sullen, nor in scorn like haughty man 
 With suicidal hand 
 Putting his solace by, " 
 
 but as One who, with unaverted eye, would meet all 
 the storm — 
 
 " He would feel all that He might pity all ; 
 And rather would He wrestle with strong pain 
 
 Than overcloud His soul 
 
 So clear in agony ; 
 Or lose one glimpse of Heaven before the time." 
 
 But the natural suffering of thirst He would appease 
 
Good Friday 103 
 
 by the natural means appointed by Him who, in creat- 
 ing the thirst, created also the means of satisfying it. 
 In this cry of His, " I thirst," He takes His place even 
 now by the side of many a sufferer, not only at those 
 times when the soul is feeling for a present God, but 
 at those times when the body is imperious in its de- 
 mands for relief. In the light of this recollection, the 
 simplest act of bathing the fevered brow or moistening 
 the parched lips with cooling drink assumes a sacred 
 character. If he who gives a cup of cold water to a 
 disciple in the name of a disciple shall receive a dis- 
 ciple's reward, what shall we say of those who, regard- 
 ing the sick man or woman as a suffering member of 
 Christ's body, draws near to minister comfort or soothing. 
 How has every detail of nursing skill in our homes or 
 in hospital wards gathered dignity from the recollection 
 that amid such sufferings as these our Lord completed 
 His sacrifice ! The weariness, the throbbing pulse, the 
 burning fever, the raging thirst ; these, no less than the 
 more refined sufferings of the spiritual nature, were 
 elements in the sufferings of the Cross. Into the 
 fellowship of His sufferings, in the lower as well as the 
 higher things, all must at some time and in some measure 
 enter ; but His fellowship in the common things digni- 
 fies, ennobles, transfigures them. He has left a legacy 
 of love, of sympathy, by which the world is to the end 
 of time enriched. 
 
 " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." 
 
 The suffering was nearly ended now. The passing 
 cloud upon His soul was gone. He had got back the 
 sense of Fatherhood. No God-forsaken, God-deserted 
 
I04 The Light that lighteth every Man xn 
 
 soul speaks in these last words. The faith that spoke 
 in His last discourses and prayers was luminous and 
 clear. " I go," He had said, " to prepare a place for 
 you." He knew whither He was going. It was a de- 
 parture, a setting forth on a journey with a definite 
 bourne. In His prayer He had said, " Now I am 
 no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I 
 come to thee." The assurance of His time of strength 
 sustained Him in the last extremity of mortal weak- 
 ness — " I and my Father are one." He was not alone. 
 His human spirit would cast itself on the eternal sup- 
 port of a Father's love. And thus He has emboldened 
 His disciples to die. They cannot see what is beneath 
 death ; but they know that the Lord of life is all- 
 powerful in the realm of the unseen ; they know that 
 they are knit to Him in the intimacy of sonship ; 
 Christ has discovered to them in God the Father of 
 their spirits ; and in the last solemnities of life the 
 everlasting arms are round them. Whatever of precise 
 and particular knowledge may be wanting, this is sure. 
 We could not have found our way to His presence, 
 but Jesus has opened up the way. If the message 
 should be brought — " The Master is come, and calleth 
 for thee," we need not fear what that message may 
 mean. He holds each one by the hand, and will not 
 let us go. 
 
 "It is finished." 
 
 There remained but one thing more to say before 
 the spirit passed, but that one thing set the seal on 
 all the rest — " It is finished." The long procession of 
 the purposes of God through the ages of the past, the 
 shadows cast upon the path of the world, keeping men 
 
XII 
 
 Good Friday i o 5 
 
 expectant of the mystery to be revealed ; the types 
 and shadows of the Law ; the reachings forth of in- 
 spired thought through prophets and psalmists ; even 
 the unconscious movements of heathendom seeking for 
 a universal King — these had all found a meaning. 
 The Redeemer had come, and the redemption was 
 completed. The stages of the earthly history of the 
 Incarnate Son of God Himself had each been leading 
 onward to this : the miraculous birth, the boyhood, 
 the manhood, the baptism, the temptation, the glorious 
 ministry, miracle and parable, the transfiguration, the 
 Last Supper. The earthly communings of love and 
 the bitterness of human hatred had reached the utmost 
 compass of their powers. His enemies, in striking at 
 His life, had enabled His spirit to expand into its 
 proper sphere. The long, various, lingering suffering 
 was over. 
 
 '* Yes, all was done, — 
 The long, long agony, the biting words 
 Of those for whom He freely shed His blood. 
 The ill requital of His mighty love, 
 The sorrow and the shame, the tears of blood, 
 The heart's oppression and the inward grief — 
 It all was over : — nevermore should He 
 Tread the dark pathway of that suffering — 
 The thing His Father willed at last was done." 
 
 One last sigh, and He Whose limbs were affixed to the 
 Cross had entered the Paradise of God. 
 
 We see in His enemies that revulsion of feeling 
 murder brings when there remains nothing on which 
 hatred can wreak its vengeance. We see the sudden 
 awe which fell on even the soldiers watching there. 
 We see the people that came together to see that sight 
 — beholding the things that were done, beating their 
 
io6 The Light that lighteth every Man xn 
 
 breasts, going home with unutterable thoughts, and all 
 His friends and the women that had followed Him 
 from Galilee standing afar off. We see the disciples, 
 after their panic, gathering together, broken in spirit, 
 hopeless of everything. But we look upon the scene 
 knowing what they did not know, of the Resurrection 
 that was at hand. We close all with these words : 
 " Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay 
 down his life for his friends." 
 
XIII 
 EASTER DAY 
 
 "Now is Christ risen from the dead." — 1 Corinthians xv. 20, 
 
 How shall we treat the message of to-day ? First of 
 all, we hail the day as the Church's great festival of 
 joy. To say that Jesus Christ is risen is to establish 
 the hope of immortality for man on a sure foundation. 
 For the idea of immortality connected with it is not 
 merely the continuance of the life which we know, but 
 the ascent of man to a height of life which leaves our 
 limited conception of existence far behind. There is 
 no truth that can be compared with that for gladness. 
 To the early disciples it was the resurrection of faith 
 and hope. They had been utterly overwhelmed. They 
 had been left stunned and helpless after a time of 
 extreme and exquisite pain. Clinging still to their 
 old love for their Master, they knew not what to be- 
 lieve concerning Him. Their minds were infested with 
 gloomy images. It might be said that life was over 
 for them. They had built all their hopes on Him, and 
 now He was dead. What was left to them ? Nothing 
 but memories. They had no leader, no head. They 
 had hoped this was He who should have redeemed 
 Israel, but He had not redeemed it. He could not 
 even save His own life. The beauty and sweetness of 
 the past could do nothing but mark with a sharper 
 
io8 The Light that lighteth every Man xm 
 
 and more cruel contrast the hopelessness and helpless- 
 ness of the miserable present. Think then what the 
 resurrection of Christ meant to them. It was the 
 restoration of faith. It was the justification of their 
 former response to His call and devotion to His service. 
 It was the reappearance of the Light of the world after 
 it had seemed to go out in total darkness. This was 
 the festival of the Church that came first — first in order 
 of time, first in doctrinal import. On the truth it pro- 
 claimed everything else rested. It was the one thing 
 which powerfully declared Jesus to be the Son of God. 
 A dead Christ was the mockery of everything ; it was 
 shame and confusion of face to every follower of His. 
 But a risen Christ was the confutation of their despair, 
 the revelation of a glory greater than had entered into 
 their most brightly coloured visions of the future. The 
 Cross itself, from being a sign of shame became the 
 symbol of victory. His enemies had thought to slay 
 Him, but lo ! in the very act, they had set Him on 
 His throne. The wonder and joy of this day were, 
 to the early disciples, unspeakable. And we, as we 
 see them meeting together, with that exalted look on 
 their faces, enter with them into their joy. To us, as 
 to them, Easter is the queen of seasons. The Nativity 
 itself would lose its value if there were no Easter, for 
 then the proof would be lacking that the Child born in 
 Bethlehem was the Son of God. The light had been 
 streaming above the hiUs, but this was the true rising on 
 the consciousness of the world of the knowledge that 
 it has a Lord, a Eedeemer. But it is not only sympathy 
 with the early Church in its gladness that finds expres- 
 sion in this festival — it is the joy of the whole earth. 
 Eor what is the master-sorrow of the world ? What 
 
Easter Day 1 09 
 
 is that which takes the brightness out of the most 
 pleasurable things ? It is that there rests on all the 
 shadow of death. This is the conclusion to which 
 men are travelling, however sweet the scenes through 
 which they pass, however grand the enterprises in 
 which they engage. Masterful and strong, death 
 conquers them at last. If it be the end of all indeed ; 
 if beyond the grave* there is no life for man, then it 
 is hardly worth our while to go through so much only 
 to perish irretrievably at last. What is the worth 
 of love if it have no permanence ? What is the 
 reward for effort, what the compensation for suffer- 
 ing, what the atonement for all that makes life hard 
 to bear? 
 
 But if, on the contrary, this is the beginning, not 
 the end ; if the life of earth is but the first feeble essay 
 at living ; if it is the life fettered and restrained by 
 material conditions, and the escape from them is the 
 entrance into our proper life : then patience has some 
 meaning and hope some justification. We can bear 
 much if there awaits us a better life than this ; but 
 what shall give us assurance of it? There is much 
 that falls short of assurance. The revolt of the heart 
 from the necessity of death may signify to us that to 
 the soul death is against nature ; there are intimations 
 of immortal being within us to which we do well to 
 give heed. But what, I say, shall give us assurance 
 of it ? So many that we have known have died, and 
 not one of them has ever returned. We see so clearly 
 the all-conquering character of death ; it is with a dim 
 and speculative and often doubtful vision that we see 
 the reality of anything beyond it. But if one has 
 actually risen, the hope of immortality has become a 
 
I lo The Light that lighteth every Man xm 
 
 faith. It is in the Eesurrection of Jesus that we are 
 assured of the reality of a life deeper than death. 
 
 We approach the confines of existence, and see a 
 great chasm yawning between the living and the dead. 
 But here is One who has stood on both sides of the 
 chasm. The only One ! On this side the life that 
 we know seems to be almost swallowed up of death. 
 Our fathers, where are they ? The prophets, where 
 are they ? And at its best, when life is at its fullest 
 and strongest, we drag the chains of our mortality. 
 We would not live for ever as we are living now ; 
 never to escape from the pressure of this weariness, 
 never to get free from the sin which spoils everything 
 in life. Who would desire it ? We often echo the 
 cry, " Who shall deliver us from the body of this 
 death ? " But it has ceased to be a cry of despair. 
 If we have learnt to believe in One Who died and 
 rose again, then we have found a deliverer. He did 
 not see corruption, and we have discovered that it was 
 not possible He should see it, for He was the Holy 
 One of God. He died for all ; He rose for all ; in Him 
 humanity is risen. The one thing that makes the 
 future life certain to us is the Eesurrection of Jesus. 
 He is stronger than death for Himself, and He is 
 stronger for us, who are members of Him. 
 
 The greatest of all days, then, is that which assures 
 us that the master-sorrow of the world is assuaged. 
 But is there one of you who feels inclined to say to 
 me, " Not so fast ! Is it so certain that there can be 
 no doubt about it ? Even if I am satisfied that Jesus 
 rose again, how does this give me assurance that / 
 shall rise again ?" Perhaps you say, "The very thing 
 you have told me is the thing that makes me misgive 
 
Easter Day 1 1 1 
 
 myself. Because He was the Holy One of God, you 
 say that His flesh could not see corruption ; if it could 
 not it is the more easy to believe that He rose again. 
 But I know that when I die my flesh will see corrup- 
 tion. I know that the various elements of which my 
 body is composed will be resolved into the earth and 
 the air, that they will pass into different forms of liv- 
 ing being, so that all identity must be lost. The 
 resurrection of such a body is a very different thing 
 from the resurrection of One that has been in some 
 marvellous way saved from this process of dissolution 
 and transmutation. How does the reality of the one 
 give me assurance of the reality of the other ? " 
 
 Well, I, in my turn, will ask you if it does not 
 strike you that, if Jesus rose from the dead, we can 
 trust Him to know the secrets of the unseen which are 
 hidden from us ? And we know that He told His 
 disciples in the most express language that He would 
 bring them to be with Him in that glorious life to 
 which He passed when He left this world. I do not 
 understand the manner in which the resurrection from 
 the dead is to be accomplished ; but I understand 
 enough about it to know that it cannot be by bringing 
 together again the elements of that body that went 
 into the grave, for they are mortal ; they are subject 
 to a continual process of efflux and change of form ; 
 the very law of their existence is change and decay ; 
 and it is not a mortal, but an immortal life of which 
 we have the promise. Flesh and blood cannot enter 
 into the kingdom of God, and I do not expect nor desire 
 that this same flesh and blood, with its waste and its 
 capacity of pain, will be given to me again. The man 
 who has suffered says — " I don't want to have all that 
 
1 1 2 The Light that lighteth every Man xm 
 
 suffering over again!" But, though the particles of 
 matter are dissolved, the energy which lay at the root 
 of their action is the immortal principle which can never 
 be destroyed. It seems to me, as it seemed to St. Paul, 
 that it is the part of a fool to say of the dead, " With 
 what body shall they come ?" As if we must needs 
 know that to be sure of the continuity of existence. I 
 thank him for reminding me of the fertility of resource, 
 the exhaustless variety of form and substance in crea- 
 tion as we see it ; of each body he declared, "God giveth 
 it a body as it hath pleased him." That was enough 
 for St. Paul, and it is enough for me. Where my soul 
 came from when I was born I know not, but I find it 
 here, bearing the stamp of the Divine image, and clothed 
 in a material integument which is adapted to the 
 material conditions of the world in which I am living ; 
 and He who gave me this body is able to give me 
 another. I can imagine how different its organs must 
 be where there is no decay, no waste of natural power, 
 no dying, and no need of birth to replace the dead; 
 but that each soul will be clothed again is no less the 
 prognostic of reason than the affirmation of Christian 
 faith. Science teaches us that the form of life for the 
 living creature is determined by its environment, and 
 what if the environment be itself immortal ? This 
 bestowal of a new immortal clothing on the immortal 
 spirit is what we mean when we speak of the resurrec- 
 tion of the dead. We know that when our Lord 
 ascended into the heavens He must have left behind 
 Him, as a disused garment, that of mortality which 
 He still wore when He disappeared from the sight of 
 His disciples ; for that flesh and blood of ours cannot 
 enter Heaven. But that the Body in which He reveals 
 
Easter Day 113 
 
 Himself to the consciousness of the redeemed is a 
 glorious Body we have His fixed assurance, and it is 
 after that Divine pattern of a humanity, immortal in 
 power and purity, that we have been taught to expect 
 that our own will be fashioned. This is St. Paul's con- 
 ception of the resurrection life. It is the Eisen Saviour 
 who will change this body of our humiliation, that it 
 may be fashioned like to His own glorious body. 
 Therefore, while we render honour to the remains of 
 the dead, to that body of flesh and blood which stood to 
 us as the sign of so much that was sacred and dear, it 
 is only as we would to the last deal tenderly and rever- 
 ently with that which belonged to the beloved. When 
 we catch up the Saviour's words, "Thy brother shall 
 rise again," we remember it is " thy brother," the man 
 himself, not that which belonged to him for a little while 
 but was not his real self, but the man recognisable for 
 the same human personality but arrayed in a nobler 
 vesture. 
 
 From that immortal nature the one thing will be 
 extracted which was here the source of all our misery. 
 The sin that haunted us, that mingled with our thoughts, 
 that spoiled our companionships, that polluted the pure 
 stream of affection, that gave such double-mindedness 
 to even the upward movements of the spirit — that will 
 be left behind ; for the virus of disease which, in the 
 dying life of earth, was the blight of our life physical, 
 intellectual, moral, has in it no immortality. They 
 who are sharers in the pure risen life of Christ have 
 undergone a Divine process of healing. Into that life 
 which is His no impure thoughts can enter. And the 
 highest conception of the life we are now living is as a 
 preparation for that. Therefore let us keep the feast 
 
 I 
 
1 14 The Light that lighteth every Man xm 
 
 as men preparing for a greater Easter, " not with the 
 leaven of malice and wickedness ; but with the un- 
 leavened bread of sincerity and truth." 
 
 In all our earthly celebrations there do indeed 
 mingle incongruous elements. We who keep this feast 
 are dying men who must go through the gateway of 
 the grave, yet through that solemn entrance are pass- 
 ing to the life eternal. At this feast of ours, as in the 
 ancient Passover, there are bitter herbs ; there is the 
 sense of humiliation, there are the pangs of conscience ; 
 solemn and even terrible things oppress our thoughts. 
 But we keep it as those into whose life there has 
 entered a better hope, who are seeking to live in the 
 light of a great expectation. 
 
 There is the joy of faith ; the meaning of the paschal 
 lamb has been fulfilled ; we take the wine-cup of a 
 greater thanksgiving; the Passover has become a 
 Eucharist. Erom afar, pure eyes are looking on us 
 with the light of heaven in their eyes ; they tell one 
 another that we are coming. 
 
 The life that is in God is claiming us, and they 
 know so much more than we ; all that is mystery to 
 us is open to their gaze. But even to us the veil has 
 been partially lifted. He who stands behind it is 
 He who has been seen and known. It is He who has 
 said, " All things are delivered unto me of my Father " ; 
 and yet once more, " I will that they also whom Thou 
 hast given me be with Me where I am." This is our 
 hope. This is our confidence. Neither life nor death, 
 nor things present, nor things to come, nor any other 
 creature born in time, nor any terror of the dim eternity, 
 can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ 
 Jesus our Lord. 
 
XIV 
 THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EASTER 
 
 " I am the good shepherd." — St. John x. 11. 
 
 Among all the pictures of Christianity there is none on 
 which art has lingered with a more tender fondness 
 than that of the Good Shepherd. 
 
 That is the picture on which we would fasten our 
 thoughts to-day. In the catacombs the early Christians 
 sought to preserve it, a silent witness of the sympathy, 
 the tenderness, the watchful care of Him who gave His 
 life for the sheep, and is still adored by the Church as 
 " the Shepherd and Bishop " of our souls. In times of per- 
 secution, they who were like sheep among wolves might 
 well clasp close to their hearts this beautiful thought. 
 And to us there is no image more familiar than that of 
 the Good Shepherd bearing a lamb upon His shoulders 
 recalling His own words, " What man of you, having 
 an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave 
 the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that 
 which is lost, until he find it ? " The thought mingles 
 with our own words of confession, " We have erred and 
 strayed from thy ways like lost sheep." 
 
 If, with this sense upon us that we have strayed, 
 we are here in the mind of those seeking to be reclaimed, 
 it is restoration of hope to remember that He also is 
 always seeking, and will not rest until He find us. It 
 
1 1 6 The Light that light eth every Man xiv 
 
 is not, therefore, only a thought beautiful to the ima- 
 gination that we would present to you, but a truth 
 which enters into the tissue of our thought and vitally 
 affects our personal life. It is a truth which is not 
 abstract, but concrete. 
 
 It has been incarnated in the person of Him who was 
 not only greater than all former teachers, but lives for 
 ever before our faith in a character that is unchangeable. 
 
 Yet we must remember that it was in His teaching 
 that this image, which is so dear to the heart even now, 
 took form and grew. This aspect of teacher is not 
 indeed the highest which He can claim, for had His 
 perfect sacrifice not fulfilled it we should not have 
 known its regenerating power. But it is an essential 
 feature of His manhood that He was both learner and 
 teacher. He fed His soul with all natural and Divine 
 knowledge. The things He taught did not come, or 
 did not come only, by way of miraculous inspiration. 
 His mind grew ; He increased in wisdom ; thoughts 
 that were dim grew by deep reflection into luminous 
 clearness. Otherwise He would not have been man. 
 Not in outward aspect only, not in bodily growth and 
 the habits of His natural life alone, but in mind. He 
 was very man. He gave forth the things which He 
 had learned. 
 
 All learning is indeed revelation, for the things our 
 minds converse with would have no power to teach us 
 any spiritual truth, if words and things were not em- 
 blems or symbols of something greater than themselves. 
 To man the way of learning is appointed if to him 
 the truth is to be unveiled. And if by natural develop- 
 ment the human wisdom of Jesus grew, so also His 
 capacity to be a teacher. He had to do with human 
 
XIV Third Sunday after Easter 117 
 
 minds, and He sought them by human methods of 
 approach. The truth which had become clear to His 
 consciousness had to dawn slowly on theirs, to be 
 attained by stages of growth, to be suggested first by 
 simplicities in their natural life, through which they 
 might rise to the conception of higher things in the 
 kingdom of God. He sought them through nature and 
 their common life. 
 
 The fields and the woods, the highway and the 
 street, the meadows strewed with flowers, the market- 
 place and the desert solitude, were all part of the appar- 
 atus of His school. Now it was the sower and the seed, 
 now the labourers in the vineyard, now the fisherman 
 and his net, and now again the shepherd on the plain, 
 that supplied Him with His text. The shepherd calling 
 to his flock, the sheepfold and the gate, the porter on 
 his guard, the high, close fence, the precautions against 
 the spoiler, are all there before Him ; but as He looks 
 the common details are woven into a parable through 
 which Divine love and care are made manifest to men. 
 
 We realise the whole scene ; the landscape is fresh 
 and vivid as when the words were spoken, but it is a 
 landscape which has suddenly become instinct with 
 religious meaning. It is like a tranquil face that has 
 been lighted up with ennobling thought. Through 
 nature that which is beyond nature reaches the spiritual 
 mind. We are reminded of what a Swiss writer (Pro- 
 fessor Amiel) has said, " Behind the beauty which is 
 superficial, gladsome, radiant, and palpable, the finer 
 sense discerns another order of beauty; veiled, secret, 
 mysterious, akin to moral beauty." He to whom this 
 was unveiled was calling others to tread with Him the 
 higher walks of contemplation. 
 
1 1 8 The Light that light eth every Man xrv 
 
 In all our Lord's most familiar illustrations we are 
 often reminded that He who is discharging the office 
 of the Teacher had filled His mind with another kind 
 of lore. 
 
 As a boy He had sat at the feet of the rabbis. The 
 things of His Father, the prophetic teachings of the 
 past, the aspects in which God and His doings had been 
 presented to the mind of Israel — over all this He had 
 pored. In these things was the explanation of the 
 meaning of human life, with its dimness of vision and 
 yet its unconquerable hope, its sense of sin and its sigh- 
 ing for deliverance. Old prophecy had consecrated 
 this image of the Shepherd. Now it was God, unseen 
 yet watchful, keeping guard over His flock. And now 
 it was Messiah, the Divine representative, the Anointed 
 One, who should come into the midst of men, scaring 
 with His presence the false shepherds who cared not 
 for the flock but the fleece, or the wolves in sheep's 
 clothing who were seeking to rend and to destroy. 
 The one w^as represented in that day by the priests 
 and rulers, so false to their trust ; the other by the 
 tyrants pretending to be leaders, who, seeking their own 
 ends, were heedless of the misery they inflicted. How 
 well He reckoned the notorious seekers after power, 
 with how high a spirit He confronted them, how sharply 
 He marked the contrast between them and Himself, 
 appears in His words, " All that ever came before me 
 were thieves and robbers : but the sheep did not hear 
 them. I am the door : by me if any man enter in, he 
 shall go in and out, and find pasture." The mind of 
 Israel had long been familiar with the thought of the 
 shepherd care of God. Who that heard Christ's words 
 could fail to recall those of the Psalmist ; " He maketh 
 
XIV Third Sunday after Easter 119 
 
 me to lie down in green pastures : he leadeth me beside 
 the still waters." In every word there spoke the calm 
 consciousness of power, of absolute freedom from earthly- 
 motive. One only passion consumed Him ; love for the 
 souls of men ; a love that was to dare all and suffer all, 
 yet surely win its end. But if in this parable or alle- 
 gory of the Good Shepherd there was a contrast drawn 
 between our Lord and the false pretenders whose aim 
 was earthly power, there was another contrast between 
 Him and the false spiritual guides. Here also we see 
 how His mind was charged with the thought and the 
 language of old prophecy. Ezekiel had burst forth in- 
 dignantly, " Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do 
 feed themselves ! Should not the shepherds feed the 
 flocks ? " In effect his indictment was repeated, " The 
 diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye 
 healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up 
 that which was broken, neither have ye brought again 
 that which was driven away, neither have ye sought 
 that which was lost " (Ezek. xxxiv.) 
 
 When the publicans and sinners drew near to hear 
 Him, when the weary came to Him for rest, when the 
 broken in heart, the lost in reputation, found in Him 
 renewal of hope and restoration to the fellowship of the 
 good, the great ecclesiastics cried out against Him as 
 one whom some depraved taste led to consort with the 
 vile. But which was acting more in the spirit of their 
 revered prophets ? He might have answered them out 
 of their own Scriptures : "As a shepherd seeketh out 
 his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that 
 are scattered ; so will I seek out my sheep, and will 
 deliver them." But there appears to be a still closer 
 parallel in the writings of the prophet Zechariah (Zech. 
 
I20 T lie Light that lighteth every Man xiv 
 
 xi.) There the Messiah is represented as coining Hke 
 a good shepherd to the rescue of the people wasted and 
 despoiled ; He works and receives His wages, but appar- 
 ently in vain ; the sheep are left to the evil shepherds. 
 He had saved but a few out of the whole flock. And 
 is not this an accurate forecast of the story of the 
 Gospel ? Of all the people, He had gathered to Him- 
 self but a little flock. The evil shepherds, the priests 
 and rulers, were triumphant ; the end was darkening 
 on ; what was left to Him but to die ? 
 
 But here is the crowning vindication of His claim : 
 " I am the good shepherd : the good shepherd giveth 
 his life for the sheep. . . . The hireling fleeth, because 
 he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am 
 the good shepherd. ... As the Father knoweth me, 
 even so know I the Father : and I lay down my life 
 for the sheep." 
 
 This was the joy that was set before Him. Strange 
 joy ! It has been called the glorious madness of sacri- 
 fice. But beneath the sacrificial prospect there is a 
 tone of mystic exultation. God is wonderful in work- 
 ing. He makes the wrath of the wicked to praise Him. 
 No weapons that they can frame against Him will 
 prosper. Through loss, through suffering, He is advanc- 
 ing to His triumph. The Cross they are preparing is 
 to become His throne, from which He is to rule all 
 nations. Other sheep He has which are not of that 
 fold ; they too will kindle at His voice. It finds them 
 in their secret heart ; it draws forth the sublime en- 
 thusiasm compared with which the love of glory is a 
 vulgar emotion. From land to land the cry is carried 
 farther abroad; the many flocks are to be gathered into 
 one fold. In the procession of the ages the little flock 
 
XIV Thwd Sttnday aftei^- Easter 1 2 1 
 
 has grown into a great multitude which no man can 
 number. What a new spiritual beauty has entered 
 into human life ! What calm certainty is in the declar- 
 ation, " I know my sheep, and am known of mine." 
 Yes, He knows them, — no fluent demonstrations are 
 needed, no loud professions, no lip-loyalty. The poor 
 in spirit are His : theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 
 The meek are His : they shall inherit the earth. The 
 pure in heart are His : they shall see God. The merci- 
 ful, the peace-makers, they that do hunger and. thirst 
 after righteousness : by these things can the followers 
 of Christ be known. Eloquence, worldly respect, reli- 
 gious reputation, honours, dignities, these are not so 
 much as mentioned ; but the faith that works by love, 
 the patience that endures, the gentleness that disarms, 
 the charity, the mercy, the purity of feeling which He 
 has caused to grow within the bosom of the Church ; 
 these are the true signs that we are His. This it is to 
 own Him as the Good Shepherd, this it is to hear His 
 voice. 
 
 Of the humanity which He regenerated it is true 
 that He has given it life, yea, that He has given it 
 more abundantly. The enemies of good may still cry, 
 " Crucify ! Crucify !" The Gospel may be mocked, re- 
 viled; the world, amazed, may ask, "Why, what evil hath 
 it done ? " But we are not fit to follow unless we are 
 willing to endure. 
 
 Note. — This sermon and the next enduing were preached 
 hy the Dean on the last Sunday of his life. 
 
XY 
 SECOND SUNDAY AFTEE EASTEE 
 
 FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHRIST 
 
 ** Leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps." 
 
 1 Peter ii. 21. 
 
 We have recently had Christ set forth to us in His 
 character of sacrifice ; Christ in His death and Christ 
 in His rising again as the visible assurance of the 
 completion and acceptance of His sacrifice. But to- 
 day the Church speaks to us of Him especially as our 
 example. The former teachings give us hope in the 
 hour of death and in the day of judgment ; but this is 
 intended to affect the character of our present life. 
 To-day, therefore, we shape our prayers into a form 
 which expresses our desire, both for life and death. 
 
 As men troubled on account of acknowledged and 
 remembered sin, we ask "that we may thankfully receive 
 that His inestimable benefit." But also as men who 
 may have years of life on earth still before us, and are 
 encompassed with the claims of duty, we pray that we 
 may " daily endeavour ourselves to follow the blessed 
 steps of His most holy life." It is on this side of 
 Christian doctrine that even unbelievers are constrained 
 to acknowledge that ours is a goodly aim. I do not 
 refer to the interested advocates of unbelief, who trade 
 
XV Following in the Footsteps of Christ 123 
 
 on the ignorance of their fellows and have no reverence 
 for God or man, whose strength lies in their appeal to 
 a gross animalism, but to the more sad and serious 
 unbelief of the day, of which such a man as John 
 Stuart Mill may be taken as an example. There is 
 that in Christianity which won his reverence. He 
 said that the received religion of Christians might lose 
 much with the advancing strides of science and under 
 the keen-eyed glance of criticism, but that there is one 
 thing it can never lose, and that is the character of 
 Jesus Christ Himself. He held it to be so unique, so 
 closely approaching absolute perfection, that any man 
 desiring to live as nearly as possible the life which is 
 high and pure and noble and true could adopt no 
 better rule than that of seeking to live a life as near 
 as he could to that of Jesus Christ. And another of 
 those who have rejected much of revelation has been 
 constrained to make the same admission.^ He admits 
 that Jesus had a gospel to mankind which was full of 
 gladness. He says, " If any one chooses to assert that 
 Jesus never existed at all, and that the image presented 
 to us in the Gospels was a pure creation of the 
 Christian community — a contention which I hold to be 
 nothing short of an absurdity — even that leaves this 
 great fact untouched, that in the New Testament a 
 conception of man's calling is expressed, worked out, 
 and applied ... so new, so pure, so exalted, so true, 
 that a moral re-birth of humanity dates from the time 
 when it came into the world, and mankind has no 
 hope of redemption unless it yields itself up to these 
 glorious conceptions and moves forward in the direction 
 of the Gospel." This is the admission of one who 
 
 1 Modern Review, October 1883. 
 
124 The Light that lighteth every Man xv 
 
 sets aside all that is miraculous, all that is supernatural. 
 To Jesus, he says that humanity owes its " re-birth " 
 and mankind its hope of redemption. If he can see 
 this, looking only from the outside, much more we who 
 do believe in Jesus as the risen Son of God. 
 
 The thing that most amazes the unbeliever and 
 most strengthens him in his unbelief is, not that so 
 many of us make Christ our example, but that so many 
 of those who profess to believe in Him take so little 
 pains to fashion their own lives after the pattern of 
 His. But the one thought which will govern the con- 
 duct and mould the character of His real followers is 
 the thought of His own great promise — " The life that 
 I live ye shall live also." 
 
 The new life for the world may be said to have 
 sprung out of His grave. When He ceased to be visible 
 among men He transferred to the souls of His servants 
 here that impulse of holiness which animated Him. 
 By the gift of His Holy Spirit He fills our nature with 
 the renovating influence by which we shall be able to 
 go on living His life. It is not an angelic, a celestial 
 life, lifted above the mean troubles and cares of common 
 existence; it is a human life, from which nothing 
 essential to human nature is subtracted, but yet glori- 
 fied and ennobled by a new moral purity. It is not 
 a life for cloistered retreats, or for times of worship 
 only, but one which may be lived as His was, wherever 
 duty calls us, in companionship or alone ; and whatever 
 may be the varieties of human circumstance, there can 
 be none in which there may not be some revelation of 
 the fact that the one strong, all-powerful influence 
 constraining us is that which He gives. 
 
 To-day, then, we recognise the following Christ as 
 
x\^ Following in the Footsteps of Christ 125 
 
 the great, supreme work of each and every day ; not as 
 superseding the immediate work of getting our living, 
 but as including that and everything else within it. 
 
 But there is present to the consciousness the know- 
 ledge that there are other alien influences drawing us 
 aside from this, and that to follow Christ with perfect 
 heart is no easy thing. It is a thing so great, so com- 
 plicated in its requirements, so demanding the tributary 
 action of every faculty, and at the same time so hin- 
 dered by opposing influences, that it will demand a 
 constant " endeavour." And if we think it too pre- 
 sumptuous to say for ourselves that we are even now 
 living Christ's life, at least we can tell whether we are 
 endeavouring. The failure of one day must not dis- 
 hearten us nor prevent us from renewing the endeavour 
 when the next day comes. 
 
 Yet the thought of becoming like Christ is so great a 
 thought that, though there is inspiration in it, there is 
 often hopelessness too, when we think of the immeasur- 
 able distance between our largest attainment and that 
 true and beautiful and perfect life. But never are we 
 to cease following Him; the one presiding purpose in 
 each disciple's life is to be maintained. Never to give 
 up hoping, never to cease endeavouring — this is what 
 He demands of each one of us. 
 
 The devout traveller in the Holy Land looks with 
 awe on the very scenes on which our Lord's eyes once 
 rested ; all the familiar objects, — the Lake, the Mount 
 of Olives, Bethany, Calvary, — the places whose names 
 are so well known and so deeply sacred. As the 
 reverent Christian treads over again the way of the 
 Cross, he seems to be on holy ground ; to his imagina- 
 tion the wastes of Palestine are again peopled, and 
 
126 The Light that lighteth every Man xv 
 
 the scenes now so still seem to throng with holy 
 memories. 
 
 But what is all this, which belongs to the outward 
 and visible, compared with the sense of holy reverence 
 with which the Christian now, in all regions of the 
 earth, can feel that he is most truly treading in the 
 footsteps of his Divine Master ; feeling that Christ in 
 His manhood sanctified all and glorified all ; that in 
 the joy and the pain of human life, in the struggle 
 with himself and the labours of active goodness on 
 behalf of others, in the effort to keep himself pure and 
 loving, and to renounce self-will, he is, in a far truer 
 and diviner sense, following in the blessed steps of the 
 Most Holy life. We lose His track when we conceive 
 of life as merely something to be enjoyed ; we lose it 
 when we yield to the passions of the hour ; but when 
 we triumph over self and collect our powers to pursue 
 the way of life eternal; when, in His spirit, we live 
 not for ourselves only but for others ; then we once 
 more gain the lost track of the blessed Saviour. 
 
 For He went about doing good ; He lived not to be 
 ministered to, but to minister. All life to Him was a 
 being spent for others, until the long labour of years 
 was crowned by the final sacrifice. 
 
 If you would live your life after Christ's example 
 you must engage in some of those works of His king- 
 dom by which wandering souls are to be gathered in, or 
 those who are weak in the faith are to be strengthened. 
 Every member of the Church is to be a worker for 
 Christ — not in any out-of-the-way ministry, but when- 
 ever opportunity serves. Eemember that St. Andrew 
 began by bringing his own brother to Jesus. What- 
 ever the way, you must be making the doing good one 
 
XV Following in the Footsteps of Christ 127 
 
 great purpose in your life, for those who are not doing 
 this are not walking in the steps of His most holy life. 
 
 If you have lost the sense of Christ's presence, you 
 will recover it by seeking Him, and, when you have 
 sought earnestly, by engaging in those things which 
 are the works of His kingdom. Have there not been 
 times in our life when we have lost the happy sense 
 of that Presence with us from day to day ? It occurs 
 to me here to tell you of what happened to a young 
 man, years ago. He had lost his mother, and he wore 
 on his finger a ring that had been hers. He had en- 
 tangled himself in some web of evil association, and 
 one day, with some trouble of conscience, he was 
 setting forth to a scene full of danger to the soul, 
 when he touched his mother's ring. He looked down 
 on it, and he was smitten with a strange remorse. 
 There came back with painful vividness looks and 
 words that he had thought he never could forget. He 
 was like one unmanned, but rather it was a better 
 manhood that had returned to him. And then he fell 
 upon his knees, but what passed between his soul and 
 God is too sacred to be recorded ; but we may be sure 
 of this, that he asked to be saved from his evil self. 
 And the result was that he began his life over again 
 from that hour. The sweetness and purity of the early 
 love had been to him nothing less than salvation. 
 And for you, has there been no love stronger and 
 deeper than even trial ? Is there no voice crying to 
 you even now, " Come unto me, take my yoke upon 
 you and learn of me " ? 
 
 So, besides the claims of those who are around you, 
 there is the culture of your own soul. You must 
 follow Christ by trying not only to do what He did, 
 
128 The Light that light eth every Man xv 
 
 but to he what He was. Though you cannot be sinless 
 as He was, you can at least make the work of striving 
 against sin the business of your life. You can lift up 
 your soul in true desire to the God of all grace, as He 
 did, and through the same communion with the Father, 
 learn to find in doing His will your great delight. When 
 you are disappointed and your patience is tried, you 
 are then to beware of too much self-pity. To be dis- 
 appointed and to have His patience tried, to be de- 
 frauded of sympathy and support by those from whom 
 He had the best right to expect it was a constant 
 experience of our Master's. In His service you are to 
 take the bitter with the sweet. If you are a Christian 
 you will have to ask, "What has my Christian faith 
 done for me ? Has it made me more strict in dealing 
 with myself, more patient and reasonable in my rela- 
 tions to others ? Am I less self-willed, less fretful, 
 less resentful?" These are the footprints of the Saviour 
 for which we are to look. It is through following Him 
 in the inward course by feeling and affection, and in 
 the outward way of active service, that your prayer of 
 to-day is to be fulfilled. 
 
 Here, then, you have had presented to you the true 
 idea of life when lived at its best. Will you be con- 
 tent with less than the best ? You see opening out 
 before you possibilities in your life which will not only 
 call out all that is highest in yourselves, but will 
 translate you into sympathy with the noblest, most 
 beautiful characters of which history has preserved the 
 record. Will you see this within your reach and not 
 make haste to grasp it ? In spite of your own con- 
 sciousness of feeble powers and affections clinging to 
 the dust, you believe, do you not, that you have on 
 
XV Following in the Footsteps of Christ 1 29 
 
 your side in all your good desires the co-operating 
 Spirit of God ? In other words, that the only Being 
 Who is absolutely omnipotent and perfectly good, is 
 able and willing to help you. And, believing in Him 
 as good, you must believe that He would never have 
 engaged you in an impossible task. He would not 
 mock you with a mere dream of a kind of goodness 
 which is for man hopeless and unattainable. Then 
 with all this that is inspiring to help you, consider with 
 yourselves what is now the scope of your activity. 
 What are the things in your life that interest you 
 most ? That kindle the most ardent hope, that engage 
 the most energy in their pursuit? Are they things 
 which afford any indication of your becoming more 
 like Jesus Christ as His life has been recorded? 
 Think of His absolute selflessness ; of His superiority 
 to the cravings of bodily desire ; of the self-abnegation 
 with which He put aside the suggestions of pride, 
 the delusions of merely earthly glory. Can you say 
 that you are heart free from those passions which are 
 so bewildering ? You win, it may be, scanty success 
 in the conflict with self, are hardly able to trace the 
 signs of progress in the Divine life. Yet resolve thg-t 
 if failure comes, it shall be failure in the midst of 
 strenuous effort. Look onward and upward. Think 
 of Christ on His Cross, of Christ now ascended to His 
 glory. Eemember that your calling, above everything 
 else, is to be a servant and follower of His. From this 
 day frame your life anew after that perfect pattern. 
 And He who sees your " daily endeavour " will assist 
 you with His grace. 
 
XVI 
 SUNDAY AFTEE ASCENSION 
 
 ** He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all 
 heavens, that he might fulfil all things." — Ephesians iv. 10. 
 
 On the day of Ascension it was as though a Divine 
 voice were saying, " Lift up your heads, O ye gates ; 
 and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors ; and the King 
 of glory shall come in." It is a triumphal scene in 
 which the angels of Heaven have their part. But we 
 to whom the message comes are standing on the earth. 
 Like the disciples, we are, as it were, stedfastly gazing 
 into Heaven, but with eyes that have gained greater 
 enlightenment than theirs. The form of the Saviour, 
 once visible, has disappeared from sight ; but we gaze 
 with minds less confused, instructed not only by the 
 later history, but by the teachings of inspired Apostles, 
 and more directly each one for himself by the Holy 
 Spirit, the Comforter, who brings all things to our 
 remembrance, harmonising and reducing to order all 
 the elements of faith. 
 
 The fact of the Ascension, the meaning of it, its 
 relation to the past, the present, and the future, stand 
 out with luminous distinctness before the consciousness 
 of the Church. To-day our office is to gather into one 
 view the revelation of which it is the consummation. 
 What we are gazing on is not the wonderful translation 
 
XVI Sunday after Ascension 1 3 1 
 
 of a man so that he should not see death. He had 
 seen death. He had experienced the pain of dying. 
 What it is for a soul to part from the body He had 
 knpwD. What of physical distress, what of spiritual 
 fear belongs to dying, He had felt. He had parted 
 from earth, He had entered the world of spirits. 
 What must happen to all men had happened to Him ; 
 He had lain down with man in the grave ; the soul 
 had departed — cut off from all earthly ties — to make 
 experience of that which is after death. But what 
 had happened to no other man was this — that He had 
 returned. If He went into Hades that He might bear 
 to the spirits there the Gospel of His love. He returned 
 to earth with the same purpose of assuring His scared 
 disciples that it was a Gospel to which they must cling, 
 that in refusing to save Himself from the pain of dying. 
 He had won salvation for all men. 
 
 Unexpected, unannounced, when faith was failing 
 within them, and desire had suffered collapse. He ap- 
 peared among them, that they might know Him in His 
 eternal being, a Saviour who could never now be lost 
 to them. This is what the weeks after Easter have 
 told us. It is a risen Christ that we see, yet a Christ 
 who is preparing to depart. We see what the disciples 
 could not see, for they were perhaps still hoping that 
 His fitful appearances might give place to the constancy 
 of the former fellowship. 
 
 But the end came when they looked not for it. 
 
 " The holy converse that had made 
 Upon the slope of Olivet 
 Its own retreat within the shade," 
 
 still lingered about the place, and there it was that in 
 the act of blessing He left them, to be seen no more 
 
132 The Light that light eth every Man xvi 
 
 on earth. The man Jesus whom they had known and 
 loved so much after the flesh had now assumed His 
 proper sovereignty over their faith. 
 
 The time of departure had come, but there was no 
 sadness and no humiliation. In every other departure 
 from the world there is much of sadness, for it is 
 approached by the pathway of suffering. The last look 
 may be of features contracted by pain, or with that 
 awful cloud of unconsciousness which is like a curtain 
 let down between one soul and another. But here all 
 this was past and done with. The last recollections 
 of pain were those of the Cross, and those had been 
 obliterated by the later recollections of His glorious 
 resurrection. No darkness fell on that glory to the 
 very last. ' No cloud, no mist of unconsciousness, 
 descended on Him at the final farewell. His eyes 
 beamed on them with unabated clearness of vision ; 
 close to His heart He took them, and when He passed 
 out of their sight His lips still seemed parted in the 
 act of blessing. The only sadness was in the hearts 
 of those to whom, without Him, the world seemed to 
 have become strangely empty. But as to Himself, 
 when they thought of Him as they saw Him last, it 
 would be with that look of radiant and celestial joy. 
 And if in this departure there was no sadness, so also 
 there was no humiliation. In other departures from 
 this world there is a sense of extinguished life. The 
 man who dies is like one who has been compelled to 
 yield to a remorseless enemy. The body from which 
 the life has departed is like one bruised and vanquished 
 by repeated blows. Though Christian faith enables us 
 to regard death as Kberation and enlargement of life, 
 yet in the scene of dissolution there is to sense and 
 
XVI Sunday after Ascension 133 
 
 imagination much that is humbling. The mortal 
 strength is broken, the mortal fabric crumbling and 
 hasting to decay. But in our Lord's departure there 
 was nothing to assail even the senses with this morti- 
 fying thought of collapse and defeat. It was the 
 triumphant conclusion of His victory over human in- 
 firmity. The eagerness of yearning affection might 
 retire baffled from the attempt to pursue Him to the 
 centre of the eternal blessedness, but faith exulted in 
 the finished work of the ascended Lord. It is a scene 
 of unclouded brightness, the one farewell with which 
 there mingle no strains of human sadness. 
 
 His going, as His coming, had both angelic and 
 human witnesses ; for Heaven and earth had their 
 common share in the glorious history. This is He 
 who first descended, who came from Heaven to earth, 
 who made our manhood His, yet had His proper and 
 eternal being as the Son of God. He came into the 
 world, and that by voluntary choice ; He came from 
 the bosom of the Father in fulfilment of the Father's 
 will, and He left the world when that for which He 
 came had been accomplished. In His Ascension He 
 tells us that life is stronger than death, that the love 
 of God is mightier than all that exalts itself against 
 Him. The darkness that brooded over the heart and 
 conscience of mankind is gone, for the light now 
 shineth. We now discern the full meaning of those 
 words of St. John, " In him was life : and the life 
 was the light of men." 
 
 To what in the past shall we compare the Ascension 
 of Christ ? In the dim antiquity of antediluvian times 
 we read of Enoch that " he walked with God : and he 
 was not ; for God took him." A brief record of an 
 
134 'The Light that light eth every Man xvi 
 
 eminently saintly life, of one who beneath the ever- 
 changeful scene of life sought for that which is true, 
 abiding, unchangeable ; who sought, by what means 
 we know not, to recover the perfection of that converse 
 with God which sin had broken ; and to him was 
 granted at the close of life a singular calm and peace- 
 fulness, as of one waiting for the revelation of God. 
 But, though the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 says that by faith he was translated that he should not 
 see death, I do not know that we can understand that 
 he did not die, only that to him death was so trans- 
 figured that it lost its bitterness. There could not but 
 be parting between soul and body, and that is death ; 
 but yet the soul might be so panting for deliverance 
 that the parting became a translation. But this trans- 
 lation stands out as something exceptional, and leaves 
 nothing behind it but a saintly memory. It conferred 
 on the race no lasting benefit ; it could not be said of 
 Enoch that, in his translation, he " led captivity captive, 
 and obtained gifts for men." 
 
 Or shall we compare the Ascension with the trans- 
 lation of the prophet Elijah ? That is recorded with 
 all the splendid circumstance which tells on the ima- 
 gination — the chariot of fire, the horses of fire, the 
 whirlwind by which he went up into heaven. It is a 
 fiery ascension, fit close to a fiery career. "Not in 
 vain," it has been said, " had he been upon the holy 
 mount and seen the Lord pass by ; not in vain had the 
 earthquake rent the rocks at his feet, and the sky been 
 changed into a sheet of living flame ; the tempest and 
 the fire seem in a manner to have passed into his 
 being, and the whole man was becoming almost ele- 
 mental as he was about to enter into the presence of 
 
Sunday after Ascension 
 
 his God." But in spite of all of majesty that surrounds 
 him you feel that Elijah is not the lord of the elements, 
 but a man in the midst of them. He does not ascend 
 by any power inherent in himself ; he is caught up ; 
 he is borne away from the tumult of life; you never 
 lose the sense of his being the mortal instrument of a 
 power that is not his own. In the Ascension of Christ 
 this feeling is completely absent. There is no external 
 machinery, no chariot of fire ; there are no angels sent 
 to bear Him on their wings ; He ascends by power of 
 life inherent in Himself. It is the departure of One 
 to whom nature itself is subject. 
 
 No ; there is nothing in history that can be likened 
 to this. Yet in the ceremonial of the old law there is 
 one thing which is almost like a prophecy of this. 
 Once, and once only, in the course of the year the 
 high priest entered the holy of holies, during the rest 
 of the year concealed, even from his eyes, by the veil. 
 He entered that he might approach the mercy-seat, 
 there with sprinkling of blood to make atonement for 
 his own sins and the sins of the people. And ever, in 
 the midst of our holiest things, we are made to re- 
 member that there is a holier than this, to which 
 mortal worshippers cannot penetrate. The veil of 
 sense hangs between us and the unsearchable glory. 
 But He who was our fellow-man has passed within the 
 veil. There, at the true Mercy-Seat, there is the con- 
 tinual presentment of the Sacrifice wrought in time, 
 which has no past, which remains for ever a living 
 witness of the redeeming love of God in Christ. The 
 blessing with which He left the world is the assurance 
 that His love for man dwells eternally with Him in 
 -Heaven ; that it can never be weakened by age, that 
 
136 The Light that lighteth every Man xvi 
 
 it is ever fresh and strong as His own changeless being. 
 It rests on us no less than on those His first disciples, 
 for we are of those other sheep of whom He said that 
 them also He must bring. For us, as for them of old 
 time, He has opened a pathway of access to the Father 
 whom He came to reveal ; so that to us Heaven is no 
 strange distant region. In heart and mind we can 
 thither ascend, and with Him continually dwell ; and 
 though this is true of those lives only which have been 
 renewed and sanctified, yet the renewing, sanctifying 
 influences are all around us. "We are not to conceive 
 of this as the lofty eminence of the privileged and 
 saintly few, but as setting forth to us the true character 
 of Christian life for us all. The message of to-day 
 comes to tell us to make such a living use of all earthly 
 means of communion that we shall feel Christ, though 
 ascended and hidden from our sight, yet very near 
 us in spirit, and that all communion of Christians 
 with each other is but the pulsing of His love in the 
 great heart of the world. He ascended that He might 
 fulfil all things — His own design in the creation 
 of man, the presentiments and growing desires of 
 humanity, the dispensation of grace in former genera- 
 tions, and the meaning of all things He had done and 
 suffered. 
 
 In the light of His Ascension we see His work 
 of Eedemption in the whole compass of its mean- 
 ing — therefore we say, "Thou that takest away 
 the sins of the world, receive our prayer ; Thou that 
 sittest on the right hand of the Father, have mercy 
 on us." 
 
 The gates of Heaven have opened to receive Him 
 back again, and we, with all angels and all our fellow- 
 
XVI Sunday after Ascension 1 37 
 
 men, take up the cry of adoration, " Thou art the King 
 of glory, Christ. Thou art the everlasting Son of 
 the Father. When Thou tookest upon Thee to deliver 
 man, . . . Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven 
 to all believers." 
 
XVII 
 WHITSUNDAY 
 
 "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, 
 that he may abide with you for ever ; even the Spirit of truth." 
 — St. John xiv. 16, 17. 
 
 We have once more traversed the whole round of the 
 Gospel incidents. The Incarnation, with all of humility 
 and all of glory that entered into it, has passed in 
 solemn procession before us. From the Mount of 
 Ascension He who had brought God visibly into the 
 midst of our life passed away from the earth, never to 
 be seen again by mortal eyes. But before He went 
 He sustained the hearts of His disciples with one great 
 promise. 
 
 He had gathered to His heart of love the souls of 
 men, and all that He thus treasured He bore with Him 
 into that unseen Presence which is to us an impene- 
 trable mystery. The solicitude He had felt, the all- 
 embracing sympathy, the guardian care He carried 
 with Him, and there not less than here would His be 
 an active and unwearied love. Not only in the fare- 
 well of His disciples to Him but in His farewell to 
 them there was much of pathetic meaning. He was 
 leaving them in a world where all the strength of evil 
 would assail their feebleness ; where, though they might 
 seek Him, they would never be able to find Him ; 
 
XVII WhitsMuday 1 39 
 
 hardly able to understand the meaning of a life on 
 which there had fallen so terrible a blank. He might 
 still encompass them with spiritual power, and yet 
 there would be that in their new experience which 
 would make it a sad and solemn crisis in their history. 
 In being cast adrift from that in which the soul has 
 hitherto depended for guidance to see and strength to 
 act there is always peril, and there could not fail to be 
 sorrow. But He made them understand tliat he would 
 continue to take care of them. Help would be sent 
 to them, the mighty power of God would still work on 
 their behalf, and of all that strengthened them and 
 gladdened them He would still be the source. 
 
 "/ will pray the Father, and he shall give you 
 another Comforter." What are all the intercessory 
 prayers of saints to the eternal prayer of Christ \ The 
 purest and the best of men can but sigh out of the 
 depths of a great desire, and the very urgency of their 
 prayer is but an acknowledgment of their own help- 
 lessness. But Christ's prayer is the expression of the 
 eternal Will respecting them for whom He prays. 
 There is no thought of the Son for man which is not 
 the thought of the Father. There is no dissonance of 
 feeling, no discordance of desire, no conflict of will. 
 The promise that Christ will pray is the assurance that 
 the thing He asks for will be given. It is the utter- 
 ance of that which is in the heart of God. The union 
 between God and man, of which the presence on earth 
 of the Incarnate Son was the sign, is to be sealed and 
 completed by the communion of the Holy Spirit. The 
 eternal procession of the Holy Spirit from the depths 
 of the Divine nature is the mystery of faith which we 
 celebrate in this festival of Whitsunday. 
 
140 The Light that light eth every Man xvii 
 
 The ancient Pentecost was now to acquire a pre- 
 viously unsuspected meaning. In its very origin it 
 had marked the nearer approach of God to the life of 
 man. It was the memorial of the giving of the law 
 on Sinai, the communication to man of that pure 
 morality in observing which the human draws nearer 
 to the Divine righteousness ; and from the very first it 
 had been a witness to Israel of the presence in the 
 midst of them of holy and sanctifying influences. It 
 was also the yearly feast of thanksgiving for the har- 
 vest, in which was recognised a new sanctity put upon 
 man's ordinary toil ; and even in this there was uncon- 
 sciously prefigured a more wondrous thing than itself, 
 the corn of wheat which had fallen into the ground 
 already beginning to bring forth much fruit in the 
 ingathering of a multitude of souls. It is our peculiar 
 blessing that we are able, through all the ages of the 
 past, to trace an unbroken continuity of Church life, so 
 that we can travel back in thought to the days of 
 ancient Israel and feel that the Whitsuntide of to-day 
 is but the expansion of the Pentecost of old, and the 
 clearer exposition to our minds of the spiritual meaning 
 that even then lay under the external form. 
 
 There came at last a Pentecost when all who were 
 assembled to keep the feast were made conscious of a 
 strange moving of all hearts, a bursting forth of an 
 inward fire which made the whole nature aglow with 
 sacred emotion and lifted them up to a rapture of faith 
 unknown before. Like a torrent that could not be 
 restrained, the stream of inspiration swept away the 
 influences that hindered men from believing, broke 
 through even the ordinary barriers of human speech, 
 and men slow of tongue became eloquent as they dis- 
 
Wh it Sunday 141 
 
 coursed of the wonderful works of God. It was a day 
 much to be remembered by the strangers who had 
 come to Jerusalem and found there a Gospel they had 
 not been seeking, and by the disciples who now began 
 io understand what was the promise of the Father for 
 which they had been waiting in hushed expectation. 
 
 Since that day Pentecost has often been repeated. 
 Many a time in darker ages, when superstition had almost 
 trampled out the pure truth of the Gospel, there came 
 into the midst of the Church such a renewal of Pente- 
 costal gifts, such a heaving and moving of life, such an 
 intense assertion of the spirit of purity, and such 
 development of saintly excellence, that men saw that 
 to them also " the promise of the Father " was being 
 fulfilled. 
 
 In the history of the Church of England itself it 
 happened, by a strange coincidence, that it was upon 
 Whitsunday 1549 that the Book of Common Prayer 
 was first used in the English tongue, the language 
 understood of the people. Every man then heard in 
 the tongue in which he was born the glorious things 
 of the Kingdom of God. The veil that had been on 
 them was taken away, and they were made to understand 
 that " where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 
 
 The words of our Lord which I have chosen for my 
 text bring before us the great subject of the procession 
 of the Holy Ghost ; first, in its relation to the nature 
 and being of God, and secondly, in its relation to the 
 life of the Church. 
 
 I. In its relation to the being of God the doctrine 
 of the Church is set forth in the Nicene Creed, which 
 we constantly recite in this form : " I believe in the 
 Holy Ghost, The Lord and Giver of life, Who proceedeth 
 
142 The Light that light eth every Man xvii 
 
 from the Father and the Son, Who with the Father 
 and the Son together is worshipped and glorified." 
 But some of you may not be aware that in the Nicene 
 Creed, as it was adopted at the great Council of Nicsea, 
 the words " and the Son " were not contained. The 
 Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father was the truth 
 which the whole Catholic Church at that time received ; 
 and in this form the Creed is still retained by the 
 Eastern Church. The interpolation of the words " and 
 the Son " was due to the great State authority wielded 
 by the Emperor Charlemagne, through whom this addi- 
 tion was forced on the whole Western Church. At 
 the Eeformation the Church of England, rejecting all 
 later additions, reverted to the doctrinal statements of 
 the primitive Church before the time of Eoman cor- 
 ruption, and in consistency should have rejected this 
 addition. But it remains in the Prayer-book unaltered, 
 as containing a truth when properly explained. Its pres- 
 ence there is at this moment the one great bar to per- 
 fect intercommunion between the English and the Greek 
 Churches ; which alike seek to tread in the old paths 
 and hold the same doctrine on this great article in the 
 Creed. Only a few years ago there was a most inter- 
 esting conference at Bonn, when there were gathered 
 together divines of the Orthodox Greek, the Old 
 Catholic, the Anglican, and American Churches, at 
 which it was manifest that, in spite of difference of 
 form, there was a true agreement of doctrine. It has 
 always been held as the leading point of Catholic faith 
 that the Father is the fountain and source of Deity : 
 the Son is of the Father : the Holy Ghost is of the 
 Father : and in strictness of language, in this sense it 
 can only be rightly said that the Holy Ghost proceedeth 
 
XVII Whitsunday 143 
 
 from the Father. But it is no less true and no less 
 universally acknowledged, that the mission of the Holy- 
 Ghost, within the sphere of time, is of the Father and 
 the Son. Both parts of this doctrine rest upon the 
 words of Christ Himself, " I will pray the Father, and 
 he shall give you another Comforter." The unity of 
 will between Father and Son is here perfect, but no 
 less distinct is the acknowledgment that the Father is 
 the source and cause. " The Comforter, which is the 
 Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name," 
 expresses the same truth. And yet once more the 
 mission of the Comforter by the Father and the Son is 
 thus expressed, " When the Comforter is come, whom 
 I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit 
 of truth, which proceedeth from the Father." He is 
 sent by the Father and the Son, and yet in the Divine 
 Nature itself He "proceedeth from the Father." It 
 can be no matter of surprise that the Christian Church, 
 when dealing with a truth of such exceeding mystery, 
 should show extreme anxiety to keep as close as 
 possible to the very words of Christ, and to err neither 
 by over-statement nor omission. 
 
 II. We come now to the ofi&ce of the Holy Spirit 
 in relation to the Church. He is to be not merely a 
 Comforter but " another Comforter." 
 
 The word is liable to be misunderstood. We use 
 the word comfort as identical with consolation, but He 
 is not merely our consoler in sorrow. We have to 
 revert to the older sense of comforter, that of 
 strengthener, helper; one who aids the feebleness of 
 our thought and the languor of our desire, and lends a 
 victorious energy to the will. This Christ had done 
 within the earthly sphere of His ministry ; but that 
 
144 T^^^ Light that light eth every Man xvn 
 
 sphere as yet comprehended very few. Through them, 
 indeed, all were eventually to be brought within His 
 Kingdom, but it is not the less true that He was, in 
 fact, before His Ascension, the Comforter of but a few. 
 But here is one whose office is to enter into communion 
 with the secret thought of all men, to prepare minds 
 for the reception of the Gospel, to create a profound 
 sense of need, to intermingle with the deepest spiritual 
 life, to make new affections, overpower repugnance, 
 touch secret springs of feeling, and make the new life 
 of Christ a reality in the universal experience of 
 mankind. 
 
 Wherever the Gospel was published abroad, it was 
 accompanied with this spiritual power, which won for 
 it an entrance, and subdued the mutiny of the carnal 
 nature. And we may believe that there is a mission 
 of the Holy Ghost to all souls of men, whether as yet 
 they have received the Gospel or not. If Christ is 
 indeed the Word of God in every soul, the true Light 
 which lighteth every man, then to His constant witness 
 in the very inward constitution of man we may trace 
 all surviving perceptions of truth, all instincts of 
 justice, generosity, and tenderness, all recognition of 
 moral goodness in any form. 
 
 This witness of the Son of God in every soul 
 obtains fresh illumination, and sustains an unfading 
 vitality, through the operation of a Spirit of grace, 
 identifying itself with the good in man, and rendering 
 all indulgence in evil a pain and distress to him. 
 
 The doctrine which we set forth to-day stands in 
 startling contrast to the cold materialism of the age, 
 which reduces all apparently spiritual movements in 
 man to mere phenomena of matter. It not only 
 
XVII Whits7inday 145 
 
 witnesses of God as living and acting in the midst of 
 men, but claims a spiritual being for every man. 
 Spirit cannot act but upon spirit ; there is that in the 
 nature of man which is answerable to the action on it 
 of the Spirit of God. 
 
 But even in the life of the soul we are surrounded 
 by illusions of the senses ; the very instinct of self- 
 preservation for the animal nature in us calls into 
 active play the bodily appetites which in their cravings 
 war against the spiritual life ; our very power of 
 thought is clouded by the presence in us of influences 
 coming from the world of sense in which we dwell ; 
 and for beings so heavily weighted by the very cloth- 
 ing and integuments of being, the pursuit of eternal 
 life would be but a forlorn hope if there were no 
 Divine help constantly within our reach. The upward 
 aspiration would be continually checked by the low 
 desire ; the instinct of the immortal nature would sus- 
 tain itself with difficulty amid many discouragements, 
 and the fitful gleams from a higher sphere would only 
 cast a momentary light on a scene over which the 
 deepening darkness of the night seems always tramp- 
 ling out the day. But He whose fiat sent us forth on 
 the mysterious enterprise of life has not left us to 
 struggle alone amid the darkness. For light to see, 
 for hope in despair, for sustenance of strength, for in- 
 spiration of energy. He sent to us first His blessed Son, 
 that we might know Him for our Father, and now 
 another Comforter, whose ministry pursues us through 
 all the windings of our thought ; whose presence is a 
 rebuke to evil, an illumination of ignorance, the nourish- 
 ment of power. 
 
 Through His ministry Christ became more to the 
 L 
 
146 The Light that lighteth every Man xvn 
 
 disciples than He had ever been while He was yet with 
 them. He brought things to their remembrance ; He 
 poured light on dark places of their former recollec- 
 tion ; He communicated to them an exulting joy and 
 an ardour of zeal which cast even on those who beheld 
 them "the crimson glare of its own passionate en- 
 thusiasm " ; so that not only in their personal life, but 
 in the service of their Master, the whole scene was 
 changed. 
 
 Through our belief in the Holy Spirit we are pre- 
 vented from regarding the incarnate work of Christ on 
 earth as merely a glorious and isolated incident, a mira- 
 culous and transitory interruption of the general stream 
 of human progress. Through the operation of the 
 Comforter we see the Incarnation extending itself 
 through all human history, discovering to man his true 
 ideal, exalting him to fellowship with God, and giving 
 a character of sublimity not only to the greater transac- 
 tions of the world, but to the humblest characters and 
 the meanest cares. 
 
 The pure love, the holy joy, the heavenly peace, 
 the great-mindedness, the gentleness, the faith, the 
 meekness, the self-restraint — these are the fruits of His 
 continued ministry ; and in all this the Divine, the 
 perfect life of the One Son of God, " Who never did 
 amiss," is drawing into closer intimacy with itself those 
 multitudes of human souls, for every one of whom 
 He has prepared a place in His Father's House. The 
 comfort, strength, and fire of love that radiated from 
 the living Christ are present now in the sacraments, 
 the sacred ordinances of the Church, the means of 
 grace, as w^e call them, through which we realise the 
 reality of our communion with heaven. 
 
XVII Whitsunday 147 
 
 You may slirivel into a dogma, if you will, your 
 belief in God the Holy Ghost ; you may deal with it 
 as a test of orthodoxy and a ground of anathema ; and 
 in so far as you do this you will not touch the general 
 conscience of mankind. But in itself it is a living 
 truth for all tempted men, for all who realise the 
 terrible character of the struggle with evil, and who, 
 knowing the frailty of their own nature, feel the need 
 of a Holy Spirit in all things to direct and rule their 
 hearts. Hope to endeavour and strength to overcome 
 grow strong in proportion as this is felt to be a real 
 fact in our human and Christian life. Not superseding 
 the natural action of the human faculties, not relieving 
 us of the painful methods of search which are part of 
 the Divine education of man, able in His great strength 
 to behold without dismay even the rise of forms of 
 error which are but misguided aimings at the truth, 
 He yet in the hour of error's triumph creates again the 
 sense of want, and through the very wanderings of the 
 intellect and the discovered illusions of the reason, re- 
 stores the world from its error and leads it back to 
 the truth. 
 
 The whole history of the Church has shown this. 
 Superstition has its day. Unbelief has its day. In 
 this generation and in that all seemed lost. But, 
 immortal in its strength, faith has risen again. The 
 spiritual necessity in man is deep and strong ; and the 
 Spirit of Truth, communing with all his confusions of 
 thought and feeling, lights again and again the lamp 
 of belief. When the night is darkest, the day is near 
 at hand. The signs of the times in which we live 
 may be ominous; the very foundations of our faith 
 may seem in danger of becoming unsettled ; but " be 
 
148 The Light that lighteth every Man xvn 
 
 strong and of a good courage " ; the Comforter is to abide 
 with us for ever ; the Divine Wisdom is not discon- 
 certed ; in the end the horizon of faith will be enlarged. 
 Let no man raise the cry of " the Church in danger " ; 
 God is in the midst of her, she " shall not be moved." 
 
XVIII 
 TEINITY SUNDAY 
 
 " Canst thou by searching find out God ? Canst thou find out the 
 Almighty unto perfection ? " — Job xi. 7. 
 
 The truth which is to-day announced to the Church is 
 the Catholic truth of the Holy Trinity. I caU it 
 Catholic because the undivided Church of the early 
 centuries of the Christian era, in the four great councils 
 which declared the faith of the Church, promulgated 
 the truth of God the Father, God the Son, and God 
 the Holy Ghost, as the sum of the Scripture revelation 
 respecting the Divine nature. This truth was pro- 
 claimed not as the result of human investigation, but 
 as the substance of a Divine revelation. The Church 
 believed that God had spoken to man, and that this 
 was what He had made known concerning Himself. 
 In opposition to this there are not a few at this day 
 who assert that God has never spoken to man ; that 
 the Scriptures are human, not Divine; that they are 
 the utterances merely of man's mind, with all its im- 
 possible hopes, its mocking desires, its aiming at a 
 glory which does not belong to it ; that any sure 
 evidence of the very being of God Himself is lacking, 
 and that from the transcendent nature of the truth in 
 question, it is impossible that the necessary evidence 
 of it can ever be supplied. The words of Scripture 
 
150 The Light that lighteth every Man xvm 
 
 are caught up and repeated as the expression of the 
 world's incredulity and despair, " Canst thou by search- 
 ing find out God ? Canst tliou find out the Almighty 
 unto perfection ? " 
 
 But if these words proclaim the fact that man can 
 never, by any eagerness of search, lay bare for himself 
 the secret of the Divine nature, there is another thing 
 that they proclaim no less certainly. And that is that 
 the one thing from which man has never desisted is 
 the search for God ; and this fact is at least as sisnifi- 
 cant as the other. Bishop Ewing represents man as 
 asking : " What art Thou that inhabitest eternity and 
 speakest not, whose magazines are full, whose treasures 
 are vast, but who hast no name over their portal, none 
 that we may know Thee by ? . . . What is our hope ? 
 ... Is our hope in Thee ? in what Thou art ? And what 
 then is that ? " And he thus gives the answer : " Our 
 hope is that, as we are able to ask these questions, and 
 are able to be anxious for their answers, there are 
 answers, and answers which, when found, will satisfy, 
 yea, satisfy completely and eternally, the poor, anxious, 
 and pathetic inquiry which we make. For it cannot be 
 that we are better or greater than that from which the 
 power of such questioning comes ; and the questioning 
 comes from the depths from which we ourselves come." 
 Let us then, while we recognise the fruitlessness of 
 man's search by his own faculties to find out God, yet 
 dwell on the universality of the search and the insati- 
 able character of the desire. That compels us to 
 supplement the despairing with the believing cry, " 
 God, Thou hast searched us and known us." If it be 
 God's search for us that evokes this answering desire, 
 we may believe that whether we can find Him out or 
 
XVI ri Trinity Sunday 151 
 
 not, He is seeking us, and will not rest until He has 
 discovered Himself to us. 
 
 Are there any among us who are half inclined to 
 look upon the belief in God as little more than a fond 
 imagination ? Is it not at least singular — a fact that 
 in itself calls for explanation — that this thought or im- 
 agination of God should be so widespread ? Men who 
 speak languages strange to one another, who have never 
 had any interchange of thought, have had this thought. 
 
 They had it in ancient Egypt and in ancient Greece, 
 they have it in modern China and India, in America 
 and Africa ; the rudest races have had some shadow or 
 suggestion of it, and the most highly civilised have 
 given it the foremost place in their institutions ; there 
 is no speech nor language where it is not found. 
 Whence came this thought ? How did it find secure 
 lodgment in the inmost soul of all races of men ? If 
 it be an imagination only, its universality is at least 
 a phenomenon so remarkable that it is impossible to 
 dismiss it from view as if it had no meaning. 
 
 Is not an imagination like this, which has seized fast 
 hold of the human mind, springing out of the very 
 depths of human nature, to be regarded as an imagina- 
 tion which must have somewhere a reality answering 
 to it ? The scientific methodists and precisions of the 
 present day do not admit the reality of any existence 
 which cannot take shape or form and be subjected to 
 examination. A universal imagination is to them a 
 universal nothing. 
 
 They have no idea of dim suggestions — "fallings 
 from us, vanishings, blank misgivings — moving about 
 in worlds not realised." But to the student of human 
 nature these are as much realities needing to be accounted 
 
152 The Light that lighteth every Man xvm 
 
 for as the physical forces and agents of the universe. 
 This imagination or thought of God is so deeply rooted 
 in human nature that it has troubled with its ghostly 
 presence even those who had persuaded themselves 
 that they had cast it utterly away. 
 
 Here, then, is a fact which cannot be left out of 
 account as of no importance. We — and not only we 
 but all men — have the idea of God. We did not get 
 it from the Bible ; it was an idea fixed and rooted in 
 human nature before men had the Bible. Indeed it 
 must have been so, for otherwise the Bible would have 
 been useless. It speaks to man of God ; but this name 
 would have had no meaning unless there had been in 
 man a conception of God to make it intelligible. 
 
 If you speak to men of sensible objects, of things 
 as having colour, shape, sound, hardness or softness, 
 sweetness or bitterness, you know that these things are 
 intelligible because men have the senses of sight and 
 hearing, and truth and taste. They are able to under- 
 stand them because they are endowed with faculties 
 through which such ideas can reach their minds. 
 " There is light because there is an eye, and an eye be- 
 cause there is light; there is an ear and there are 
 sounds to fill it ; there is an apt and pliant hand, and 
 there is a material world for it to mould and fashion." 
 Through the senses, from the various world of nature, 
 there stream upon the mind a multitude of objects, each 
 of which has its distinctive character ; but these would 
 have been useless for all purposes of instruction and 
 delight had not the mind been so fashioned as to be 
 able to perceive the objects of sense. So also it is of 
 the idea of God. It came you cannot tell how. All 
 you can say is, that there it verily is in every man. 
 
XVIII Trinity Sunday 153 
 
 The mind of man stands related not only to the material 
 universe around it but to a Divine nature above it, and 
 in many mysterious ways this relation makes itself 
 felt. God may be unknown in His absoluteness, for 
 no finite nature can rise to apprehension of the abso- 
 lute. But He is known in His being as a presence we 
 cannot escape from. This very unlimitedness of His 
 being is what helps to deepen the awe in man's nature ; 
 but there would be no room for this awe if the reality 
 of His being did not lie beneath it as a settled con- 
 viction. 
 
 In the absence of belief, truth and falsehood may 
 often strangely commingle. When men begin to shape 
 into definite form their thoughts of God, the human 
 and the earthly in their nature may intervene to ob- 
 scure their view ; some of their own carnality and evil, 
 their lust or their fierceness of temper they may trans- 
 fer to that image of God which they seek to erect as 
 an object of worship. But underneath is the ineradic- 
 able conviction that God is, and that with Him they 
 have themselves to do. Whether with their will or 
 against it, the invisible invades and powerfully affects 
 their lives. 
 
 In the midst of all the arguments of unbelief, I say 
 then that — setting aside all of dogma that enters into 
 the Christian revelation — you are, first of all, bound to 
 look this fact in the face ; that the idea of God is as 
 universal as the human race itself ; that when other 
 resources fail for swaying the wills of men, this is the 
 one all-potent influence to which even the rulers of this 
 world have had recourse ; and that the overwhelming 
 power it has been able to exert over all other things 
 influential on human conduct is what the unbeliever 
 
 (UNIVERSITT 
 V ^., OF _ y 
 
154 ^^^ Light that light eth every Man xvm 
 
 has to explain. He may inveigh as he will against 
 priestcraft ; he may denounce priests and religious men 
 as the great foes of human progress ; but his very com- 
 plaint contains within it the admission of the fact that 
 religion is the mightiest power of all. Why the tricks 
 and delusions of mere priestcraft have power is the 
 question to which right reason demands an answer. 
 It cannot be from the falsehood in them ; it must be 
 from the strength of the religious element in man 
 which they have sought to utilise for their own pur- 
 poses. If there were not rooted in man's nature the 
 idea of God, and if this were not the mightiest power 
 of all, it is not in reliction that the cheats and deceivers 
 of mankind would seek for the means of establishing 
 their hold. 
 
 Yet, when all is said, the mystery of the Divine 
 being is no less certain than its reality. Men feel 
 themselves beset behind and before by a glorious and 
 awful Presence ; all nature is full of suggestions of God ; 
 and in the more solemn depths of human thought are 
 felt the movements of a Spirit wondrous, incompre- 
 hensible. 
 
 The voice of conscience, the outlook into the dim 
 future, the immortal thirst of the soul daunted by 
 fear and oppressed by the sense of self-condemnation, 
 the cry of the spirit of man for a love which shall em- 
 brace his life as a whole, and for a holiness which shall 
 satisfy all its capacity of desire — these belong to the 
 experience of human nature, and yet there is no power 
 in human nature to read the riddle of its own life or 
 to find^out God to perfection. So much and so far 
 God has revealed Himself to our secret thought as to 
 make us feel that without Him we cannot live. 
 
xviir Trinity Sttnday 155 
 
 It is in this helplessness that the revelation of God 
 through writers and prophets has come to us ; and this 
 revelation not only makes God known in the reality of 
 His being and in His relation to us, but explains to us 
 the meaning of our own being and the universe in which 
 we dwell. Where science falters, its utterance is clear. 
 Science surveys creation, but knows nothing of its origin. 
 It questions for us the laws of all natural operation, 
 and abolishes much of mystery ; but the central mystery 
 remains. Life is the phenomenon which it cannot 
 explain. The operation of will ; whatever lies beyond 
 the mechanism of nature, is outside its sphere. But 
 God has revealed Himself, and the vast chasm which 
 divides the uncreated from the created has been spanned 
 by the revelation. The missing knowledge of which 
 we were in such sore need has been supplied. 
 
 The problem of the relation of God to the human 
 consciousness has been solved. There is revealed a 
 Personal God, whose image, stamped upon our nature, 
 has prepared us to know Him. In the history of the 
 world the revelation is progressive. Messages come 
 from God to man ; there are foreshadowings of a mani- 
 festation of His Presence in such sort that we can 
 behold His glory. The mysterious person, the Angel 
 of Jehovah, who assumes to Himself the authority of 
 Jehovah, and speaks in His Name, draws near to men 
 in their actual life, guides them, warns them. 
 
 Under the symbol of light and fire in the burning 
 bush the " I am that I am " makes Himself known. 
 The Wisdom of God, through which He has wrought 
 in creation and history, is invested with personal attri- 
 butes. The Word of God, coming into the midst of 
 men through the prophets, illuminates their life with 
 
156 The Light that light eth every Man xvm 
 
 a pure morality. One nation is chosen to receive and 
 republish the law, and, by its ceremonial, to keep alive 
 the hope of a Eedeemer. The promised Messiah of 
 Israel is invested with characters which show Him to 
 be the hope of the world, the desire of all nations, the 
 universal King. At last the fulness of time comes : 
 God speaks to man by His Son, and now is known 
 not only as God but as Father. The revelation of the 
 Son of God in our manhood is also the revelation of 
 the Eternal Word, the active principle of creation. 
 He who was born to be our Saviour is He who, through 
 the eternity of Being, has been the revealer of God in 
 creation, — the creative, energetic utterance of the secret 
 purposes of God, — His revealer to human conscious- 
 ness, the Light in every man which has preserved him 
 from utter darkness. It is He too, who, when His 
 earthly work is done, resumes His place of glory at 
 the right hand of the Father, and leaves on earth, as 
 the Divine Witness and Guide, the other Comforter, 
 the Holy Spirit of promise, the author of grace in the 
 human soul. 
 
 The love of God, which has wrought eternally, is 
 now made manifest; the redeeming grace of Christ 
 is now known and believed in, and the human life is 
 united to the Divine through the communion of the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 By these progressive stages of revelation, the mys- 
 tery of the Holy Trinity has been made known to 
 the Church. The meaning of the mystic three-fold 
 utterance of the Divine Name in the ages that are 
 past, unknown to those who had yielded to some 
 uncontrollable impulse without understanding it, 
 is now rendered clear to us who survey that past in 
 
Trinity Sunduy 157 
 
 the light of the wondrous things that have come to 
 pass. 
 
 The " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty " of 
 the Old Testament is now expanded into the Christian 
 doxology — " Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and 
 to the Holy Ghost." A glorious revelation, indeed, of 
 a love which was before all things, which in all things 
 has been uttering itself; a love strong and self-sus- 
 tained, which yet needs for its own fulfilment the 
 answering love of the creature ; the love of the Infinite 
 Maker and Fashioner of the beauty of the universe ; 
 the love of the forgiving Father, healing all wounds of 
 the sorrowful soul, binding up the broken-hearted, re- 
 deeming, saving, bringing safely home those who had 
 wandered far, — the sanctifying Love which transforms 
 to the likeness of itself the thoughts, affections, and 
 wills of those who yield themselves to its power. 
 
 This is what man by searching could not discover 
 for himself. We celebrate that grace to-day. With 
 the whole Church we take up the words of the Apostle 
 and say, " O the depths of the riches both of the wis- 
 dom and knowledge of God ! ... Of him, and 
 through him, and to him, are all things : to whom be 
 glory for ever." 
 
 We can see clearly what the saints of old saw 
 dimly ; and still in the Heavens beyond there await us 
 new revelations of mystery. Here we look upon things 
 which with our mortal eyes can be seen but in part ; 
 but there the faculties of knowledge will themselves 
 be enlarged ; the sense of pain, the straining of sight 
 will be gone. The living creatures that serve God 
 there are " full of eyes within " ; the whole nature is 
 penetrated with the light of truth ; no sluggishness of 
 
158 The Light that light eth every Man xvm 
 
 nature, no warring members, no conflict between a 
 higher and a lower self shall intervene to hinder 
 adoration. But the unresting song, not only of all 
 creatures but of all faculties in them, will still be — 
 " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, 
 and is, and is to come." 
 
XIX 
 
 THE PAEABLE OF THE GEEAT SUPPEE 
 
 St. Luke xiv. 1-24. 
 
 In an age of much disparagement of revealed truth 
 these parables of the Lord have a singular impressive- 
 ness. The sceptical construction of the Gospel facts 
 is that we have in Jesus a man of peasant origin, of 
 singular purity of character, but possessing no claim to 
 the character the Church has assigned to Him of One 
 truly and properly Divine. 
 
 Yet this Man, without any of the higher culture of 
 His age, speaks to us in language which strikes home 
 to our own familiar life with as Divine a meaning as it 
 did in the days when He spoke to men. He emerged 
 from no great school of learning; He sought none of 
 the aids which in that day made men illustrious ; yet 
 He spoke words which still thrill as we hear them. 
 There were writings of that age of which some still 
 survive. The philosophers, the men of letters, left 
 behind them remains which are models of literary 
 skill, and have a certain influence on modern educa- 
 tion. But we look on them as no more than interest- 
 ing relics of an order of things that has passed away. 
 They illustrate to us the life of ancient times ; they 
 exhibit the conflict between the superstition and the 
 enlightenment of the age ; but, except as literary monu- 
 
i6o The Light that light eth every Man xix 
 
 ments, they have hardly any influence on modern life. 
 We read them with curious interest, and often with 
 admiration, but with the feeling that the condition of 
 society and the modes of thinking to which they ad- 
 dressed themselves are different from our own. 
 
 It is far otherwise with the words of Jesus that 
 have been preserved for us. They are as fresh in 
 interest and as humanly affecting as in the day when 
 they were spoken. The circumstances with which they 
 deal, the temptations, the characters which they depict, 
 might be our own. Take your stand at any corner of 
 the streets of Adelaide, or go away into the country 
 and acquaint yourself with the actual life of any of 
 our area towns, and what do you there find to be the 
 chief staple of the current talk? What are there the 
 engrossing interests that make men indifferent to the 
 spiritual life ? Are they not essentially the same ? 
 One is busy buying stock, another is occupied with his 
 merchandise, another is absorbed in the disputes and 
 controversies of his own neighbourhood, another has 
 his farm or the concerns of his family ; but in one way 
 or another the claims of God upon the soul are jostled 
 aside, or treated as merely secondary to the main busi- 
 ness of each man's life ; so that this parable does not 
 speak to us of unfamiliar things. It is in this won- 
 drous human insight, this sagacity of wisdom which 
 adapts the teaching to every race and age, that we are 
 impressed with a sense of the greatness of the Teacher. 
 He needed not that any should tell Him of man, for 
 He " knew what was in man." 
 
 I dwell upon this because I would have you see 
 that this Gospel story of the Great Supper derives its 
 highest interest from what it tells us, not of the guests, 
 
XIX The Parable of the Great Sttpper i6i 
 
 but of the Giver of the feast. The occasion of our 
 Lord's speaking was an actual feast given at the house 
 of one of the chief Pharisees, — one of those ostentatious 
 displays which are sometimes misnamed hospitality. He 
 was bidden there in treacherous abuse of the rites of 
 hospitality. They sought to entrap Him into some 
 unguarded word or action, or by personal attentions 
 and blandishments to lead Him to compromise His 
 principles. 
 
 But there He was, the guest of one of the chief 
 Pharisees, and it is well for us that we are allowed to 
 see our blessed Lord in the midst of society, and in 
 the midst of a society that could not be congenial to 
 Him. No part of His teaching comes closer home to 
 us than that which touches on our social intercourse. 
 
 While the true idea of society is the promotion of 
 the spirit of friendship, fellowship, and natural kind- 
 ness, and the abatement by its refinement of the in- 
 fluences that coarsen character, it is constantly being 
 perverted from this better purpose. There it is, as we 
 know too well from our own experience, that simplicity 
 of character is frequently endangered. Some of our 
 dangers are represented to us here. In the Pharisee's 
 house there was on the part of some a vulgar striving 
 to attract personal attention, to push their way into 
 the chief places, to assert themselves as entitled to be 
 considered the most distinguished guests ; and on this 
 blot of their social life the Lord at once laid His hand. 
 The idea of society should bring into active play 
 thoughtfulness for others ; this was an abuse of it for 
 the purpose of honouring themselves. 
 
 In whatsoever spirit men read the New Testament ; 
 whether they believe and adore, or only read as critics 
 
 M 
 
1 62 The Light that light eth every Man xix 
 
 and outside observers, they cannot fail to notice in our 
 Lord's comments on tlie men and scenes around Him 
 a keenness of observation, a sagacity in the discern- 
 ment of motives, and a personal dignity that never fail. 
 There is nothing of sarcasm, nothing of the spirit which 
 would turn into' jest and scorn the follies and infirmi- 
 ties of men and make them matters of merriment ; but 
 what was ignoble in conduct was a distress and an 
 offence to Him. No peculiarity on the part of the 
 people He met escapes that searching eye. He marks 
 what is wrong in society and in individual in order to 
 enlighten their conscience and restore them to a right 
 conception of their relations to one another. 
 
 So .it is that in the midst of all our pushing and 
 striving for social pre-eminence, we are made to feel 
 as if the eye of our Master were on us in grave reproof. 
 The follower of Christ is to show by his willingness to take 
 a lower place that he is seeking to retain his simplicity 
 of character, to illustrate the profession of Christianity 
 not only by moral purity and goodness in the other 
 forms prescribed to us by the moral law, but by self- 
 forgetfulness, remembering that the meek are they who 
 "shall inherit the earth." It is not only that humility 
 is the characteristic temper of those who would follow 
 Him Who was " lowly in heart," but that in the Chris- 
 tian character is even now to be reflected somewhat of 
 that personal dignity which distinguished Him Who was 
 always Himself wherever He was. Who compelled respect 
 from those who would have withheld it, and left on 
 every mind an impression of true nobility of feeling. 
 
 We are not permitted to withdraw ourselves from 
 our fellow-men, but in all the interminglings of society 
 we are to remember that, there as elsewhere, we are 
 
xrx The Parable of the Great Sttpper i6 
 
 to be in the spirit not merely of receivers but of givers ; 
 and in giving and receiving alike, there is a kindness, 
 a graciousness, a disposition to contribute to the happi- 
 ness of others, that is to be predominant. 
 
 If in all places this teaching is needful ; if in the 
 complicated relations of human life, with its gradations 
 of rank and station, there is temptation to forget the 
 obligation of the baptismal vow to "renounce" the mere 
 " pomps and vanities " of life, I think this teaching is 
 especially needful here, where no man can be said to 
 have any determinate rank ; where men by their own 
 merit are often passing from the station in which they 
 were born, and entitled to claim equality with those 
 who were formerly their superiors. This is a severe 
 test of character. In other societies every man's place 
 is fixed, but the very indeterminate character of our 
 mutual relations tends to factitious distinctions which 
 gratify our vainer propensities. The narrower the 
 circle, the more unaccustomed the distinctions are, 
 the stronger is the tendency to make more of them 
 than is good for ourselves or than is consistent with 
 either manliness or simplicity. Therefore we are 
 entitled to call upon all men who aim to be Christians 
 — especially on Churchmen whose churchmanship 
 means the highest ideal of Christian life — to set an 
 example in this respect. Each man should feel that 
 in society, as elsewhere, the very character of the 
 Christian life is intrusted to him as a sacred charge. 
 If religious men show themselves worldly, self- 
 seeking, eager to hang on to every shred of outward 
 distinction, then their worldliness will be more despic- 
 able from the flagrant contradiction between what they 
 are and what they profess to be. It will infest with 
 
164 The Light that lighteth every Maji xix 
 
 its evil influence all ranks and classes of men, and 
 deepen in the mind of the scoffing observer the con- 
 viction that high-sounding professions are but the 
 cloke of unreality. 
 
 Our Lord showed His intentness on the purification 
 of society in yet another exhortation. Then said He 
 to them that bade Him — " When thou makest a dinner 
 or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, 
 neither thy kinsmen nor thy rich neighbours ; lest they 
 also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee ; 
 ... for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection 
 of the just." 
 
 In these brief teachings of great truths there is no 
 space for making distinctions or for guarding against 
 extremes in the application of principles. 
 
 It could not have been Christ's design to deny even 
 to His kinsmen and friends the tokens of homely kind- 
 ness which He extended to the stranger and the poor. 
 It could not be said that in the mere possession of 
 wealth there was anything to set aside men who 
 possessed it from their right to share in the offices of 
 social charity. But there was here a clear discrimina- 
 tion of hospitality in its essential meaning from things 
 that might easily be confounded with it. It may be 
 that those who have the means cannot escape the 
 necessity of bidding to their feasts those who will bid 
 them again ; but this is no more than the interchange 
 of social civility. Our Lord expressly teaclies that 
 hospitality has a higher meaning than this ; that it 
 means receiving the stranger as a brother man ; and, 
 above all, that it means the treating as guests — that is 
 the admission to the inmost privileges of the home life 
 — of those whose claim consists in their peculiar help- 
 
XIX The Parable of the Great Stipper 165 
 
 lessness ; whose condition as maimed, halt, or blind, or 
 as lonely and friendless, makes appeal to unselfish 
 human love and nothing more. 
 
 • This teaching the Church has treasured, and it is 
 the glory of Christianity, among the religions of the 
 world, that in its various institutions of charity and 
 mercy it has sought to care for those who, in receiving 
 hospitable entertainment, can give nothing in return. 
 Even before institutions could be established, think how 
 many detached acts of household kindness there must 
 have been ; in how many — and these often obscure 
 — places of the earth, dwellers in humble homes sought 
 to deal with all that is wretched in poverty and loath- 
 some in disease ; how, during periods of time when 
 society was unsettled, this Christlike spirit in the re- 
 ligious houses held its ground against all the fierceness 
 and rudeness and brutality of the times. 
 
 Then you will see, not by any means the whole, but 
 at least part of the outcome of the speech of Jesus on 
 that day when He was a guest in the house of the 
 Pharisee. It has for us a more penetrating meaning 
 than it had even for those who heard it ; for the brother- 
 hood of man is now established in right of their common 
 membership of His Body. 
 
 We know how the heart of the Church has been 
 stirred of late by the bitter cry from East London, how 
 the sympathy of love has called to its aid the noblest 
 gifts of wisdom to devise some effectual relief for that 
 misery and degradation. And among ourselves of late, 
 some of our fellow-citizens have been obeying the same 
 Divine impulse. 
 
 The distress that has almost suddenly come upon 
 us ; the existence among us of so many unemployed, 
 
1 66 The Light that lighteth every Man xix 
 
 and the restraint upon the ordinary avenues of industry 
 by which honest men may gain their bread ; all this is 
 felt not as a thing belonging to a particular class. We 
 instinctively feel that at such a time the luxurious 
 feasts of the rich would be a reproach to us unless the 
 cry of want were satisfied. There has been that purer 
 hospitality which Christ has taught us, and there have 
 not been wanting evidences of a kindness and a charity 
 which could only, through great self-denial, come to 
 the help of others. 
 
 Still the hearts of men are touched by the words of 
 the Lord, still do they minister to others as they would 
 minister to Him. 
 
 We cannot wonder if one who sat at meat with 
 Him and heard Him speak exclaimed, " Blessed is he 
 that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God." 
 
 There was in the exclamation a longing for a state 
 of society which could be truly described as a kingdom 
 of God. And if in one sense this kingdom has already 
 come, yet it needs to come more completely and effec- 
 tually. It is hindered by the vainglory which has a 
 lurking-place somewhere even in the purest natures ; 
 but if we do sincerely wish for it, then we shall strive 
 with our own selfishness ; in the midst of society we 
 shall live with the thought ever present that the Master 
 sees us ; we shall seek to follow Him in His own spirit. 
 In all these teachings of His He is speaking to us. 
 He is calling us aside from our vain speculations and 
 our curious inquiries and our overmuch carefulness 
 about this life. He is saying to us of all the false glare 
 of glory that dazzles men's eyes, or the transitory excite- 
 ment that bewilders them, " What is that to thee ? 
 Follow thou me." 
 
XX 
 PEACE AND WAR 
 
 "There is a'time of war, and a time of peace." — Ecclesiastes iii. 8. 
 
 During the past week it happened that these words 
 fell in the course of our daily reading. At a time 
 when we have been hearing mutterings as if the peace 
 of the world were again in danger of being disturbed, 
 it was natural that the eye should rest upon them 
 musingly. We are told that during the last half cen- 
 tury more men have perished through the campaigns 
 of war than in almost any period of the same length 
 known to history; and the striking thing is, that it 
 is also the time of the fullest development of Christi- 
 anity. 
 
 If Christ's religion is a religion of peace, how is it 
 that, as the ages roll on, the wars are conducted on a 
 greater, scale, and that the engines and muniments of 
 war are only more fearful in the ingenuity of their 
 destructive power ? Is this to be the history of the 
 world to the end of time ? Is the coming of Christ to 
 make no difference ? Is there to be no arbitrament 
 but the sword ? Is civilisation itself to be made an 
 instrument in the hands of armed power ? And how 
 does Christian doctrine direct us to deal with this 
 question of war? If war be in itself anti-Christian, 
 no Christian should bear arms ; no Christian nation 
 
i68 The Light that light eth every Man xx 
 
 should apply its resources to the maintenance of army 
 or navy. You must take one position or the other. 
 It will not do to admit war to be anti-Christian, yet 
 justify its maintenance on the ground of inevitable 
 necessity. 
 
 The sacrifices and martyrdoms which have helped 
 to secure for us our liberties ought to witness to us 
 that no plea of necessity can avail to justify that which 
 enlightened conscience condemns. Nothing can be more 
 deadly in its influence on national character than any 
 faltering between principles and expediency. If I 
 justify war, it is because I believe that its principle 
 is right. Just as a man must be willing to run risks 
 and make sacrifices rather than refuse the call of duty, 
 so a nation must sometimes be willing to encounter 
 even the horrors of war rather than sacrifice sacred 
 things that are committed to its keeping. Not for 
 greed, not for glory, not for dynastic ends, not in resent- 
 ment and revenge, must a Christian nation plunge into 
 war; and yet there may be situations when to evade 
 it would be faithlessness to God and dishonour to man. 
 It is incumbent on us to make up our minds clearly 
 about what we do think on this question, not to have 
 one set of sentiments for the times when we pray, and 
 another for those times when we are called to action ; 
 not to be double-dealing even with ourselves, — so falling 
 into hideous practical hypocrisy. If you believe the 
 Bible to be in any true sense a revelation of the will 
 of God, even if you believe it to be a progressive revela- 
 tion, you are bound to turn to it for guidance when 
 you think of this subject. And you cannot read the 
 history contained in the Bible without seeing that a great 
 part of it is a story of wars ; some of them of a bloody 
 
Peace and War 169 
 
 and exterminating character. The writers of the Bible 
 have no suspicion of blasphemy when they speak of 
 the "Lord of Hosts"; when they invoke Him as the God 
 of battles. With these writers the courage, the skill, 
 the dexterity of the warrior, the quick eye, the strong 
 arm, the organising mind, the capacity of leadership 
 and command are gifts of God. 
 
 According to the Psalmist, it is God who teaches 
 the "hands to war" and the "fingers to fight"; by a bold 
 image Jehovah himself is represented in the 110th 
 psalm as sitting in the war chariot with the vicegerent 
 king. He is no passionless, unconcerned spectator of 
 the warrings among men ; it is He who spreads con- 
 fusion in the ranks of the heathen and hurls into ruin 
 the invading host. That is the language of the Old 
 Testament; and when you look at the history, although 
 the very name of the land "of promise" suggests so much 
 of peacefulness and rest, yet by what human instru- 
 ment was the promise fulfilled ? By the instrument 
 of war. The crowd of servile, effete, down-trodden 
 slaves who followed Moses from Egypt, were utterly 
 unfit for the work that lay before them. During forty 
 years an army of hardy, well-trained, well-disciplined 
 soldiers had to be prepared in the wilderness life for 
 the rough work that awaited Israel. The land to which 
 they were going was peopled with races whose presence 
 was pollution, in whose hands it was no land flowing 
 with milk and honey ; its capacities all run to waste ; 
 and through battle after battle they were driven out or 
 reduced to bondage. The law and the administration 
 of Moses itself needed the instrument of war to give it 
 a permanent place in the history of the world. 
 
 Subtract from the history of the Old Testament the 
 
I 70 The Light that lighteth every Man xx 
 
 wars of Israel, and think what would have been the 
 course of events. There would not have been less of 
 savagery, but infinitely more. War would still have 
 raged, the constant feuds of tribes and nations would 
 still have shed the blood of men; but there would 
 have been no establishment of a Divine order. Wicked- 
 ness had to be repressed by force ; impurity swept 
 away by the besom of war ; to have refrained would 
 but have been to give over the world to the tyranny 
 of the evil power. If war be in itself a thing essen- 
 tially evil, how did it come to pass that it was used 
 and sanctioned in the service of a righteous God ? 
 
 But all this, you say, belongs to the Old Testament. 
 Christ taught His disciples a different lesson. What 
 different lesson did He teach ? He said that His ser- 
 vants were not to fight for the establishment of the 
 kingdom of the truth ; and in so saying He set his 
 censure for ever on religious wars. The Gospel is to 
 make its way by its own innate power. No holy 
 leagues, no romantic crusades against the infidel are to 
 be undertaken in the name of Christ. What religious 
 war has ever prospered ? From the first of the 
 crusades disaster has ever come from them. God in 
 history has enforced the words of Christ — His kingdom 
 is not of this world. Not by force, not by armed con- 
 federacies is it to be established. By a kind of hyper- 
 bole the Christian was told that if he was smitten on 
 one cheek, he was to turn the other also. But this 
 was a direction to individuals in their relation to in- 
 dividuals. They were not to resist, they were not to 
 retaliate, they were willingly to suffer wrong; and the 
 more closely you follow this rule, the better Christian 
 you will be. 
 
Peace and War 1 7 r 
 
 Wars, however, have relation not to the individual 
 but to society. Armies are the world's police. "Where 
 in the New Testament do you find that the magistracy 
 .of nations is dissolved ? The rulers of a country are 
 ordained of God for the protection of society. They 
 have to repress crime, and crime cannot be repressed 
 without the agency of force. Brutality, cruelty, foul 
 offences against social order are to be forcibly restrained. 
 Even the liberty of the individual must be sometimes 
 sacrificed when war comes between authority and re- 
 bellion. And as it belongs to the magistracy of the 
 nation by force to repress crime within the nation 
 itself, so it belongs to it by force of arms to restrain 
 the lawlessness of other nations in the invasion of its 
 soil, the pillage of its property, in the overthrow of its 
 freedom, or the attempt to arrest its progress on the 
 path of civilisation. That war which we can justify 
 to God is one in which the magistracy are protecting 
 the interests committed to their care, and preserving 
 the moral order of the world. When, too, you speak 
 of the teaching of Christ, you must not forget that, 
 according to His teaching, though human life be a 
 thing sacred and precious, yet there are things more 
 precious even than that. " He that will save his life 
 shall lose it." There are situations when this maxim 
 of His has come homo to the missionary, the soldier, 
 the servant of science in contest with some natural 
 danger. If the thing he has to do is the thing to 
 which he has been called, he is to do it at all hazards. 
 The thought of losing his life is not to be suffered to 
 come in his way. Like the doctor or the pastor by 
 the fever-stricken bed, he feels that he is there by 
 God's will, and that his life is in God's hand. The 
 
172 The Light that lighteth every Man xx 
 
 same principle applies to all. A man who loves his 
 country should be willing to die for it, if the terrible 
 necessity should come. That is as much Christ's 
 teaching as the other. He is the Prince of Peace, but 
 this peace will come, not by leaving the world to 
 anarchy and ruin, but by the firm restraint of evil and 
 the growth of brotherhood among men. It is well 
 that we should remember the horrors and miseries of 
 war. It is not merely the wild confusion of the battle- 
 field, the rush of sudden death into the ranks of living 
 men, the mangled bodies of the slain, the cruel suffer- 
 ing of the wounded, the hideous and sickening scene 
 when the fight is done and shot and shell have done 
 their worst. But besides all this there is the arrest 
 of progress, the rolling back of the nation's history, the 
 paralysis of trade, the burdens thrust upon the industri- 
 ous population, the slow healing of the nation's wounds: 
 for in a time of war it may be truly said that the 
 whole head of the nation "is sick" and the whole heart 
 "faint." Therefore the humane statesman will contem- 
 plate war only as the most terrible necessity ; he will 
 be slow to thrust heavy burdens on the people ; he 
 will turn a deaf ear to the outcry merely of pride and 
 boastfulness ; but if he would have a good conscience 
 he will be ready for war. He will remember that 
 "there is a time of peace, and a time of war," and that 
 when the time comes it must find him ready ; in the 
 one case to foster the country's natural progress, in 
 the other so to use the remedy of war that it shall be 
 short, sharp, and effectual. And we must not forget 
 that, terrible as the means may be, not seldom by 
 means of war has the heart of the nation been purified. 
 In times of sensual sloth and soft indulgence the call 
 
XX Peace and War 173 
 
 to arms lias roused the better nature of idle pleasure- 
 seekers. From the ball-room, from the gaming-table, 
 from the betting -ring they have gone to find them- 
 selves face to face with the grimmest realities of exist- 
 ence. Soldiers of the higher sort have been there to 
 teach them reverence and kindle a nobler spirit. In 
 the sacrifice of self, in the long march, the privations 
 patiently endured, the gallant exploit, the sense of new 
 responsibility, the better nature has indicated itself. 
 And at home fathers and brothers, wives and sisters 
 are making sacrifices too, while fashionable folly and 
 frivolity are shamed in the presence of a public danger 
 which has stirred the heart of the nation. The chasten- 
 ing touch of sorrow, the movements of a generous 
 sympathy, the holy duty of caring for the wounded 
 and the sick — these refine and purify ; and for the 
 horrors of war these are great compensations. What- 
 ever wars may be questionable, no question can arise 
 about the military apparatus of defence. Therefore 
 when our rulers call upon the young men to learn the 
 use of arms, that they may — if need be — become our 
 defenders, who among them will be so tame-spirited as 
 to refuse ? If, as we hope, the necessity of going into 
 action may never arise, yet for themselves the discipline 
 will be good. The observance of rule, the recognition 
 of the claims of duty, the practice in habits of obedience, 
 the self-government and newly developed skill, will of 
 themselves contribute to the building up a manly 
 character. And without forsaking the pursuits of 
 peace they may acquire that of the soldier's character 
 which is its chief title to admiration. A great writer, 
 speaking of the three hundred at Thermopylae, has said : 
 " The inscription, these three hundred died in obedience to 
 
174 The Light that lighteth every Man xx 
 
 the law, expresses briefly and grandly the true concep- 
 tion of the warrior's life. They go because the law 
 commands them to go ; they stand and fall at the 
 bidding of the law; they are witnesses for law against 
 the brute force of numbers. All discipline is included 
 in that comprehensive phrase, all the personal valour 
 which we sometimes foolishly set in contrast to discip- 
 line. . . . Obedience to law is the soldier's character- 
 istic. Losing it he loses all. Wliile he preserves it 
 we must reverence him even when we reverence least 
 the cause for which he suffers, the rulers who have 
 exposed him to suffer. But when, as in the case of 
 those Spartans, subjection to law is inseparably com- 
 bined with the defence of the law against those who 
 have put a tyrant will in the place of it, there the 
 sentiment of admiration has no drawback." 
 
 It is in some such spirit that, in a sister colony, 
 Australian volunteers have answered the call that 
 seemed to come to them. They wish to take their 
 stand as " witnesses for order against the brute force 
 of numbers." The gallant Gordon has spoken more 
 powerfully to his country in his death than in his life. 
 He vainly sought to engage our rulers in the war of 
 civilisation on which he had entered. It was contrary 
 to all the later foreign policy of England, though not 
 to that of the England of Sydney and Drake and Crom- 
 well. In a utilitarian age one man broke loose from 
 all convention, and — seeing in England the instrument 
 fitted by the hand of God for coercing the lawlessness 
 of the Soudan — he called to the rulers of our country, 
 and called in vain. The one cause dear to them was 
 his life, but he had a greater cause in hand, which he 
 has consecrated by his death ; and now the most power- 
 
Peace and War 175 
 
 fill statesman in English history will find that even he 
 is powerless against the national sentiment. The one 
 imperative duty in the midst of that anarchy is to 
 crush the mutiny of wrong ; and, though it be at the 
 cost of precious lives, England will not suffer that work 
 to be left undone. Once more by the thunder of war 
 the air must be cleared ; and if the honoured name of 
 Gordon be but one more added to the martyrs of civil- 
 isation, yet he will not have died, as he did not live, 
 in vain. He lives at this moment as a power on earth, 
 able to sway the policy of a great nation, and to direct 
 it to a righteous end. 
 
XXI 
 
 EEHOBOAM AND THE PAETINa OF 
 THE KINGDOM 
 
 ' ' He said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces : for thus saith the Lord, 
 the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the 
 hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee. " 
 
 1 Kings xi. 31. 
 
 Happily for us the lessons which are read ia the course 
 of the Christian year take us over the whole scene of 
 Scripture history. But the Old Testament lessons are 
 dealt with as if they had little bearing on our own 
 life, and could afford us little practical instruction. 
 
 Now I am going to occupy your attention to-day 
 with the first lesson, and if you ask me how you are 
 to connect such a narrative with anything likely to 
 happen to you, I have my answer ready. Whatever 
 you may do in the week, you will at least read the 
 newspapers, and therein not merely the little gossip of 
 your own neighbourhood, but what they have to tell 
 you about the world at large. And if you would 
 rightly read the story of political movements even now 
 going on, you must bring with you the believing 
 temper you derive from those sacred histories where 
 God Himself is revealed as governing men and turning 
 to high and holy ends even those transactions to which 
 in themselves no title of sacred character seems to 
 
XXI The Parting of the Kingdom ij^j 
 
 belong. Our subject is the revolt of the ten tribes 
 and the rending of the kingdom ; of which the Prophet 
 said, speaking in the name of God — "This thing is 
 from Me." No history could better illustrate the fact 
 that in the life of nations there are moral laws at work, 
 showing us that there is a Divine Will supreme over 
 all, which leaves man's will free, yet in that freedom 
 vindicates its own existence and its own character. 
 
 In trying to understand the state of things in Pales- 
 tine at that time, bear in mind that Ephraim repre- 
 sented more or less the ten tribes, and that when David 
 became king it was there that his influence was weakest. 
 The old discontent survived, and in the beginnins: of 
 Eehoboam's reign he showed a desire to conciliate a 
 somewhat disaffected part of the country by going to 
 be crowned in Shechem, its chief city. If, when our 
 own Queen began to reign, there had been in Scotland 
 any remains of the old Jacobite feeling, we can fancy 
 how that feeling would have been soothed by her 
 spending so much time there, and winning to herself 
 the loyalty that was bestowed on the former race of 
 kings. This helps us to see the wisdom of Eehoboam's 
 act, which must have involved some sacrifice of feeling, 
 for the grandeur of the Temple and the splendour of 
 its ceremonial must have been full of attraction to one 
 as yet new to his royalty. But a mere act of courtli- 
 ness was not enough. Eehoboam had scarcely begun 
 his reign when he was called on to redress evils he 
 had not caused. Now was seen the unsubstantial 
 character of the glory of Solomon's later reign. His 
 fortified cities, his splendid public works, his brilliant 
 foreign wars, were only one side of the shield ; now 
 Eehoboam was called to look on the other. The people 
 
1 78 The Light that lighteth eve^y Man xxi 
 
 were groaning under burdens and exactions that tliey 
 felt intolerable. Solomon himself was thought too 
 great and powerful for them to contend with, but his 
 son on his accession was met by an urgent appeal to 
 undertake a thorough-going reform. They prayed him 
 to make lighter the grievous service and heavy yoke 
 his father had put upon them, and declared that in 
 that event they would serve him. Nothing could be 
 more vivid than the narrative, and the situation is 
 made intelligible to us by more than one crisis in our 
 own national history. There are the old men who 
 " stood before Solomon," the wise counsellors who could 
 see gathering dangers, like those who in the days of 
 our own Elizabeth guided her amid the shoals of a 
 most difficult navigation. And there were the young 
 men, companions of the young prince in his pleasures, 
 flushed with the pride of their position, arrogant towards 
 those beneath them, their capacity of sympathy and 
 pity dulled by self-indulgence. We can remember 
 more than one Prince of Wales in past times with such 
 a group of evil counsellors and flatterers around him, 
 and can see how history repeats itself. 
 
 Eehoboam took the foolish advice of the arrogant 
 advisers, and then the cry was raised — " To your tents, 
 Israel." In an instant the magnificent dominion of 
 Solomon was in the dust. The great sovereignty which 
 had overawed Egypt and Assyria, which ransacked dis- 
 tant regions for all that could embellish its dignity or 
 add to its renown, had shrunk into the petty kingdom of 
 Judah. At first Eehoboam thought to wrest by force 
 what he could not win by loyalty ; but the voice of the 
 prophet checked him, he was told he must not fight against 
 his brethren ; that this thing was " from the Lord." 
 
XXI The Parting of the Kingdom 179 
 
 It is often in times of humiliation that the con- 
 science is touched, and it may have been that a sense 
 of the moral weakness of his cause withdrew from him 
 the energy needful to defend it. But if we would 
 understand the meaning of the prophet's language we 
 must go farther back. It sounds like a consecration 
 of rebellion, but it had a deeper meaning than that. 
 This rebellion was only the outcome of forces that had 
 been pressing on to this end. The degradation of the 
 kingdom had begun, while to the outer eye its glory 
 was still at its brightest. It was a righteous God 
 whom David served. Whatever faults he had, what- 
 ever passionate and tempestuous elements there were in 
 his character, yet under his rule the kingdom continued 
 to be a witness to God in His holiness. But what had 
 been the moral character of Solomon's reign ? He had 
 not only established something like a pantheon, includ- 
 ing alien deities, but he had done so without reference 
 to the purity or impurity of the worship he had intro- 
 duced. He had violated the condition in which alone 
 he could claim the inheritance of the promises made to 
 the fathers. Eehoboam was himself the son of an 
 Ammonitess, and when he began to reign, the glariug, 
 undeniable fact met him face to face, that the people, 
 under the rule of his family, had forsaken God ; had 
 worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, 
 Chemosh the god of the Moabites, Milcom the god of 
 the Ammonites. The mere recital of these names con- 
 veys to us little idea of the pollution of morals, the 
 departure from purity to which the king had lent him- 
 self. Ashtoreth, Astarte, was the female deity of the 
 worship of Baal, to which belonged the licentious rites 
 of the groves. Of the character of the worship of 
 
i8o The Light that lighteth every Man xxi 
 
 Chemosh we know little, except what may be inferred 
 from the moral habits of the Moabites themselves. 
 Milcom was another name for Moloch, the flame-deity, 
 whose worshippers sought to propitiate him with 
 human sacrifices. The God of Israel could be served 
 by nothing but pure worship ; even the multitude of 
 sacrifices was an offence to Him, unless the worshippers 
 sought him with a pure heart ; obedience was above 
 all sacrifice. But the foreign idolatry was the conse- 
 cration of lust and of cruelty. Its influence on the 
 king himself had been too apparent in the remorseless- 
 ness, the disregard of the claims of human liberty with 
 which his splendid public works had been carried out. 
 Jeroboam had been placed in charge of the forced 
 labour by which Solomon built the fortified cities ; he 
 was the instrument of tyranny and oppression. But a 
 higher mission awaited him. The oppression had 
 lasted too long ; the offence to decency, the sins against 
 public and private virtue were too rank and gross to be 
 longer endured. And the revolt was said to be " from 
 the Lord," because the time of retribution, of national 
 judgment, had come. As sin makes for itself the in- 
 struments of its own punishment, so in this case the 
 instrument was found in one, an overseer of the great 
 works, possessed of the qualities of force and courage 
 and mastery. No approval of the character of Jero- 
 boam is implied in his choice for the work of overthrow 
 and of cleansing ; but history by good and evil men 
 alike is made to work out the purposes of God. The 
 ambition of Jeroboam, the infatuation of. Eehoboam, 
 and the state of national feeling, were the conspiring 
 influences through which the judgment of God was 
 •declared. It is not in the region of miracle, but of 
 
XXI The Parting of the Kingdom 1 8 1 
 
 law, that we are chiefly to look for the signs of the 
 presence among men of a righteous God. He teaches 
 us that the most brilliant and apparently successful 
 career of evil ends in disaster and ruin ; that righteous- 
 ness is the strongest power in the world, with which 
 in the end the victory must be. It may well startle us 
 to see that the very men who have been the agents of 
 power wrongly used, become the executioners of pun- 
 ishment. If they are themselves wicked, God lends 
 no sanction to their wickedness ; their time, too, will 
 come unless they turn to Him with all their heart. 
 " The wrath of man," it has been well said, " has 
 praised God, and will praise Him. Sin and Death and 
 Hell must do Him continual homage now, and will be 
 led as His victims and grace His triumph when His glory 
 is fully revealed. But neither now nor then will they 
 ever blend with His works, or be shown to have their 
 origin in Him, or be known as anything but the con- 
 tradiction of His nature." Thus it is that, through 
 those who are the very offshoot and outcome of wicked- 
 ness on a great scale, ruin at length overtakes it; 
 and nations and individuals alike are taught that 
 their sin will surely find them out. If in our own 
 day we think that there has been an extraordinary 
 resurrection of evil, let us see in all this the working 
 of the same principle. One generation enters into the 
 inheritance of another, and it is sometimes a baleful 
 inheritance. We are too dim of sight to be able to 
 trace all the moral causes of things; but whether we 
 turn to Eussia, or Ireland, or Egypt, we may be very 
 sure that the terrible things which have scared us are 
 the results of evil things in the past. If the innocent 
 are suffering, they suffer for the guilt of others. Irre- 
 
1 82 The Light that light eth every Man xxi 
 
 sponsible exercise of power, want of sympathy with 
 others, the destruction of the moral character of a 
 nation by indulgence in all that can pamper the senses 
 or inflame the pride of life; out of these must ever 
 spring results fearful to witness. There comes some 
 popular tempest in which there is the strangest com- 
 mingling of right impulse with wrong and frenzied 
 action, and as happens in all times of madness — the 
 bursting forth of new forms of evil scares and terrifies 
 the beholder. But this we know that evil cannot 
 triumph in the end ; its reign will be brief ; through 
 throes and sufferings the new life of the nation that is 
 struggling into the light will be revealed. This is our 
 hope for Ireland, the island of the saints. Those saints 
 who in old days blessed her, the spirit of whose devo- 
 tion has not, even now, ceased to pulsate in her heart, 
 had evil spirits to contend with, evil thoughts within 
 themselves, evil influences around them, and so is it 
 now. But if we believe in God, we must believe that 
 in the end it will be well with Ireland, if — if our rule 
 be just. We may use force to repress crime, but the 
 triumph we look for is the triumph of righteousness, 
 not of force. Seeking that, always that, only that, 
 our rulers may cast themselves fearlessly on the pro- 
 tection of the Eternal ; and their trust in Him will not 
 be confounded. Let us not meanwhile be confounded 
 at the scene which meanwhile presents itself to our 
 view. The words of Christ come home to us — 
 " Through much tribulation ye must enter into the 
 kingdom of God." In a world of warring principles it 
 cannot be without suffering, that even nations are en- 
 abled at last to enter into that kingdom which is 
 righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. 
 
XXI The Parting of the Kingdom 183 
 
 The sufferings are not vainly endured ; the baptism of 
 blood is a baptism of regeneration. It may be that, 
 long after we have slept our last sleep, the men who 
 come after us, looking back upon the troubles which 
 are at this moment such distress to the heart, will be 
 constrained to confess that this thing too was " from 
 the Lord." 
 
XXII 
 JEHU THE SCOUKGE OF GOD 
 
 "And the Lord said unto Jehu, Because thou hast done well in exe- 
 cuting that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto the 
 house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart, thy 
 children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel." 
 
 2 Kings x. 30. 
 
 In the story of Jehu's revolt there are things shocking 
 to the moral sense of the Christian reader. And these 
 are assuredly not the days in which we can afford to 
 evade the moral difficulties of Scripture. The words 
 which I have read as my text sum up the historical 
 judgment of that age ; but it was an age of imperfect 
 enlightenment, and we who read are in possession of 
 a purer, higher law. If we would understand what 
 we read, we must recall the personal history of Jehu. 
 A man of impetuous and dangerous character, he first 
 appears in the position of captain of the host of Israel, 
 — a great warrior undoubtedly, a man of intense and 
 fiery nature, the favourite hero of the army. We are 
 told nothing of his growing ambition, but the history 
 of other countries in ancient and modern times when 
 the army had become the great power in the State 
 renders it easy to understand the kind of influence he 
 was acquiring, and the daring purpose to which all was 
 being subordinated. He held the power in his own 
 hands, and when the fit moment came the head of 
 
XXII Jehu the Scourge of God 185 
 
 the army became the head of the State. From being 
 captain of the host of Israel we find Jehu, in a series 
 of rapidly executed exploits, placing himself on the 
 throne. Such a course of events has been so often 
 repeated in other times and among other peoples that 
 the mere narrative would occasion little surprise if 
 the narrative were all. But it is the spirit in which 
 the story is told that seems to confound all moral 
 judgments. It startles us to find a prophet interven- 
 ing to single out this bold, bad man and, apparently, to 
 send him forth with the Divine sanction on all he did. 
 And the historian seems to stamp with the Divine 
 approval one who showed himself utterly regardless of 
 human life, cruel and relentless — one can scarcely tell 
 whether in fanaticism or in vengeance or with a villain- 
 ous kind of prudence. It startles us to be told con- 
 cerning such crimes as Jehu's, that he had " done well," 
 that he had executed that which was "right in the 
 sight of the Lord." What is very clear to any honest- 
 minded reader is, that the approval here expressed is 
 not really in harmony with the morality of either the 
 Old or the New Testament. A life holy in thought 
 and deed is that which can alone consist with what is 
 right in the sight of God. And what I do very un- 
 equivocally insist on is, that we certainly are not called 
 on to approve the conduct of Jehu. The doctrine that 
 conduct in itself hateful is to be approved because done 
 in the name of a good cause ; — this doctrine we cannot 
 for a moment receive ; because if God could approve 
 of evil He would abdicate the throne of the universe : 
 He would cease to be the object of human veneration. 
 That the Judge of all the earth must " do right "; that 
 God is love ; that with Him there is no variableness 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
1 86 The Light that lighteth every Man xxn 
 
 nor shadow of turning; no yielding to pressure of 
 circumstance ; no swerving aside from eternal, unalter- 
 able principles of righteousness : these are the first 
 principles of religion to us who believe in God. 
 
 Let us look at the things we are told about Jehu. 
 All the house of Ahab, all the officers of his court, all 
 the priests and worshippers of Baal, forty-two of the 
 sons and relatives of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and 
 all that remained to Ahab in Samaria, were ruthlessly 
 destroyed, while a peculiar ferocity of detail accom- 
 panied some of these wholesale executions. Every 
 step of his progress was marked in blood. Yet it is 
 sometimes well for a country to have passed through 
 even such a baptism of blood as that. The French 
 Eevolution and the American war have taught us this. 
 "What was well done of Jehu was that he was the 
 instrument of sweeping away an evil order of things. 
 He did effectually a work which it required no good- 
 ness in the man to perform. But he replaced it by 
 no better order, and failed where failure is most igno- 
 minious. We have to distinguish then between the 
 essential facts of history and the commentary of the 
 man who records it. He indeed introduces his admir- 
 ing view of the events with " The Lord said to Jehu," 
 but the manner of speech is what needs explaining. 
 Neither to the soul nor to the ear did such a voice go 
 forth. But God speaks in history. The consequences 
 of our actions reveal their real worth. And since 
 Jehu's house was preserved to the fourth generation, 
 it may be said that God in providence told him that 
 on a temporal estimate of things he had indeed done 
 well. But it is from the New Testament that we 
 get light to understand the nature and extent of the 
 
XXII Jehu the Scourge of God 187 
 
 approval. In the parable of the Unjust Steward his 
 lord is represented as commending him for a series of 
 actions each one of which was unprincipled. Why did 
 he commend ? Because " he had done wisely " ; that 
 is because, as in Jehu's case, on his own principle he 
 had done well. But there is implied condemnation in 
 our Lord's commentary — " I say unto you that the 
 children of this world are in their generation wiser 
 than the children of light." Bo Jehu did well for 
 himself and had his reward, such as it was. A child 
 of the world, he gained his worldly ends ; God in his- 
 tory spake thus much of approval to him ; but as 
 regards eternal things nothing is said but this, that he 
 " took no heed to walk in the way of the Lord God of 
 Israel with all his heart." This is the final judgment 
 on him even of the history, and yet, as this refers 
 rather to the twenty-eight years that followed than to 
 his conduct in the revolt, even the silence of Scripture 
 in reference to those crimes affects us painfully. But 
 the silence of Scripture in one place is supplemented 
 by clear utterance in another ; and what is wanting to 
 a true view of the Divine estimate of Jehu is supplied 
 by what is said of Hazael. In the days of Elijah these 
 two were mentioned together as the future kings of 
 Israel and Syria. Both were afterwards covered with 
 infamy by their crimes ; but we shall see that their 
 recognition by the inspired sagacity of Elijah, as the 
 coming men of that age, implies no moral approval of 
 either of them. They were fit instruments of the 
 awful work to which the necessities of the times were 
 urging some daring characters. We are led to regard 
 them both as men without conscience, their dark 
 characters and desperate designs the very offspring of 
 
1 88 The Light that lighteth every Man xxii 
 
 the times in which they lived. Yet not for this were 
 they held guiltless of these crimes ; for when the 
 prophet foretold to Hazael his elevation to the throne 
 of Syria, he wept at the wickedness he foresaw Hazael 
 would commit. In this prediction and weeping of the 
 prophet we see that there might be recognition of a 
 man as fit scourge for the wickedness of the times, 
 together with a deep disapproval of his character. 
 We have there the story of one whose career was 
 closely linked with that of Jehu ; whose doings were 
 foreknown, as the coming of a tempest might be ; who 
 was at once the result and scourge of wickedness, and 
 in reference to whom the prophet's tears were more 
 eloquent than any spoken malediction. 
 
 The pity of it is that in both men there were pos- 
 sibilities of good ; they were not all evil ; through the 
 dark cloud of selfish passion there gleamed a dim 
 recognition of a higher service to which they might 
 have consecrated their powers, and a noble ideal of life 
 which was impossible to them only through the force 
 and fervour of their sordid passions. 
 
 There is in Jehu's case another noticeable feature — 
 a strain of fanatical religious feeling running through 
 all he did. He tried himself to believe, and to per- 
 suade others to believe, that the work he had under- 
 taken was one marked out for him by God. It had 
 been declared to Ahab that in the very scene of his 
 wrong to Naboth the Jezreelite should Jezebel and 
 one of Ahab's house perish ; and Jehu sought to secure 
 heaven for an ally by constituting himself not only 
 man's but God's avenger. It is ill for a man when 
 the phantasy seizes him that he is a kind of sword of 
 justice — that a mission has been given him so raised 
 
XXII Jehu the Scourge of God 189 
 
 above the ordinary requirements of human conduct 
 that evil comes to be his good. He had enough reli- 
 gion to make his cruelties utterly remorseless, enough 
 'to blind his conscience, but not enough to give him 
 the mastery over his passions. There are those in our 
 own day who, in this respect, at least, are Kke him ; 
 who have enough religion to argue and debate, but not 
 enough to make them pure ; enough to persecute and 
 denounce, but not enough to teach them reverence for 
 truth or forbearance with their brethren. On such as 
 these no benediction of God rests ; they are not among 
 " the children of light," their whole strain of feeling is 
 out of harmony with the spirit of the kingdom of 
 Christ. 
 
 For the deliberate judgment of Scripture on the 
 men or the events of a period, we look rather to the 
 prophetic writings, in which the moral feeling of the 
 nation is expressed, than to the mere narratives. And 
 in Hosea (i. 4) we read, " Yet a little while, and 
 I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of 
 Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house 
 of Israel." Here then we see that the crimes Jehu 
 committed, fulfilling the great law of retribution which 
 vindicates the existence of a righteous Judge, in the 
 end created the means of their own punishment. The 
 retribution came in the days of Jeroboam II, third of 
 the line of Jehu. Then the glory of that line seemed 
 to have reached its highest point. This king had con- 
 quered the whole country between Mount Hermon and 
 the Dead Sea ; he had reconquered Damascus, which 
 had been lost to Judah ever since the time of Solomon. 
 He was a warlike prince, like the first Jeroboam. Yet 
 both his house and his kingdom fell with him. "The 
 
IQO The Light that lighteth every Man xxn 
 
 history of that kingdom afterwards is little more than 
 the murder of one family by another " (Pusey). 
 
 Thus was at last illustrated the true character of 
 Jehu's doings, and the world was thereby taught that 
 crime brings forth crime ; that great deeds conceived 
 in the spirit of wickedness are in the end punished 
 after the same manner. 
 
 As we read the story, it seems as if a word of 
 warning were spoken to our public men. Whatever 
 the motives and feelings with which we engage in 
 public affairs, with which we identify ourselves with 
 movements aiming at the prosperity of the country in 
 which we live, though the accomplishment of these 
 ends may be well, yet let each man remember that the 
 great thing for himself is to keep his own spirit pure. 
 Among successful colonists are not a few who have 
 done well for themselves and for their country as re- 
 gards material interests ; yet, what if it be recorded of 
 them as of that other, that they " took no heed to walk 
 in the law of the Lord"; that they did not seriously 
 strive against sin in themselves or others ? Think of 
 this when you are surrounded by excitement, when, 
 amid the agitations of society, you are in danger of 
 forgetting that you stand in a living and personal 
 relationship to Him who gave you your place in the 
 world, and ask yourselves how the question stands as 
 regards the life you are really living before God. 
 
 I think there is a warning, too, for some of our 
 zealous Churchmen. Is there not danger of our substi- 
 tuting what we call churchmanship, which is no more 
 than attachment to a party, for godliness ; a zeal for the 
 Church as a visible institution for true devotion in our 
 personal life ? The man whose strange history we have 
 
XXII Jehu the Scourge of God 191 
 
 been recalling was, in his day, a very zealous Church- 
 man, nay, a reformer, a restorer of the national religion 
 from foreign corruptions ; but he was a very bad man. 
 Have we not known some very zealous for the Church, 
 but not zealous to crucify their own flesh, with its 
 affections and lusts; zealous Churchmen in this, that 
 they very much dislike or despise Dissenters, while 
 their own baptismal vow appeals to them in vain. 
 Eemember that if our churchmanship do not make us 
 better Christians, pure in heart, watchful over ourselves, 
 set on doing the works of God's kingdom, it is a daily 
 witness to us of what we ought to be but are not ; 
 and every time when in these hours of prayer its holy 
 strains of devotion fall on the ear and touch the heart, 
 I can liken it to nothing but the look which our Lord 
 cast on His fallen disciple, which made him go out and 
 weep bitterly. 
 
 Finally, there is warning here for all who are en- 
 gaged in any religious work. With how many religious 
 activities have there mingled unworthy feelings, pitiful 
 jealousies, paltry, vainglorious ambitions, and all the 
 vulgarities that spring from the intrusion within the 
 circle of our holy things of the spirit of self-seeking ? 
 These things will produce their evil fruit. In ourselves 
 they will cause a gradual adulteration of religious life, 
 in others they will produce what we most dread — the 
 tendency to disbelieve in every form of godly earnest- 
 ness, and to regard all we are doing as but the many 
 hollow and deceptive respectabilities of the world. 
 
XXIII 
 THE HERDMAN PROPHET 
 
 '* Then answered Araos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither 
 was I a prophet's son ; but I was an herdnian, and a gatherer of 
 sycomore fruit : and the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and 
 the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel." 
 
 Amos vii. 14, 15. 
 
 There is no part of the Bible less known to the bulk 
 of our congregations, or at least, less known in their 
 real significance, than these books of the Minor Pro- 
 phets, as they are called. The prophecies themselves 
 are often obscure, or have to do with times in the local 
 history which are intricate and perplexing, so that to 
 the ordinary reader nothing is clear but their constant 
 reproach of a growing idolatry and their foreshadowing 
 of national doom. But the book of Amos is not 
 obscure ; the man himself has a distinct individuality ; 
 there is a precision in his reference to the sins he 
 denounces, and the clearest connection can be traced 
 between them and their punishment, so that all 
 difficulty is removed in following the course of his 
 thought. 
 
 The way in which he speaks of himself as " no pro- 
 phet " is not mock modesty but genuine humility. 
 
 We have to distinguish between two things which 
 were equally conspicuous in the prophetic office as it 
 was exercised in that day. The one all-essential thing 
 
XXIII The Herdman Prophet 193 
 
 was the Divine impulse, wanting which no man could 
 speak in the name of the Lord. 
 
 The other thing was the human method of prepara- 
 tion by which men were fitted for the high and strange 
 duty of guiding the conscience of the nation. 
 
 We know that there were " schools of the prophets " 
 in which young men were trained. What the nature 
 of this training was we do not know, but we may be 
 sure that it would comprehend careful instruction in 
 the Divine law ; that history, as it illustrated the con- 
 flict between true religion and idolatry, would largely 
 enter into it ; and that all gifts of utterance would be 
 so cultivated as to produce force and facility of speech. 
 This training Amos had not received, and for want of 
 it he held no place among the acknowledged and author- 
 ised prophets of the time. But he had the other and 
 higher qualification. A Divine impulse so strong as to 
 lift him above all disadvantages of natural position had 
 come on him, so that he was unable to resist it. It 
 led him away from his home in Judah into the heart 
 of the kingdom of Israel ; and there it proved such a 
 disturbing force that his presence became a distress and 
 a difficulty even to the king on his throne. There is 
 something marvellous and unique in the story. 
 
 He had no acquired learning, his position was of 
 the humblest, his occupation had nothing in it to supply 
 the want of due preparation. He was a mere shepherd 
 and a gatherer or cultivator of the fruit of the syca- 
 more, of which a modern traveller has said, " Only the 
 very poorest at this day gather sycamore fruit or use 
 it." He was a herdman of Tekoa, a district about six 
 miles south of Bethlehem, or twelve from Jerusalem ; 
 the permanent hush or squatting district of Palestine. 
 
 
 
194 The Light that lighteth every Man xxm 
 
 St. Jerome said of it, " Because no grain at all is 
 grown on this dry soil, it is all full of shepherds, that 
 they may make amends for the barrenness of the land 
 by the multitude of flocks." 
 
 We who live in Australia know how many tracts 
 of country there are in our own land precisely answer- 
 ing to this description. We know that some of the 
 later troubles of the country have arisen because men 
 would persist in trying to make grain grow on land un- 
 suited for it ; and that there are places which now and 
 always must be occupied by herdmen and shepherds, 
 because it is too poor for cultivation. 
 
 There life is seen in its rudest simplicity. There 
 is little in the routine of existence to educate the higher 
 powers. If our bushmen are, some of them, cultivated 
 and intelligent, it is because they have carried with 
 them the education and intelligence they had gained 
 elsewhere. But Amos was a bushman who had grown 
 up among the herds, and had know^n no life beyond 
 them. Strange that to such a man the Word of the 
 Lord should come ! Had his soul been possessed by 
 deeply religious feelings and convictions, and himself 
 impelled to speak to the men around him in the rude 
 language they would understand, this would have im- 
 plied no more than has often happened. But the call 
 that came to him was different from this. It drove 
 him away from his home — from Tekoa, where his work 
 lay, from Judah, his own land, into the neighbouring 
 kingdom of Israel. 
 
 There the evil leaven introduced by the first Jero- 
 boam was still working. The religion which had pro- 
 fessed to be that of Jehovah was assuming year by 
 year a more openly idolatrous character. 
 
XXIII The Herdmaii Prophet 195 
 
 The second Jeroboam was now on the throne, and 
 seemed to be pursuing a career of high prosperity. 
 There was no grinding poverty ; there were all the 
 appliances of wealth and luxury. The very prevailing 
 sins were those which belong to times when men, grow- 
 ing rich and increased in goods, live as if the splendour 
 and glory of life were all they need to live for. In the 
 midst of the court with its idolatrous ritual, its carnival 
 of pleasure, its pride and sumptuousness of life, there 
 suddenly appeared the strange, uncouth figure of this 
 rude herdman from Judah. Such as Elijah was to 
 Ahab in his wild exterior and the tempestuous force 
 of his denunciation of evil, was Amos in the court of 
 Jeroboam. He was the fourth prince of the house of 
 Jehu, and it might have seemed as if Jehu's truculent 
 career had on it the stamp of the Divine blessing, such 
 was as yet the apparent external prosperity, such its 
 unbroken strength and abundance of material blessings. 
 The historian who recorded Jehu's crimes wrote under 
 the bewildering influence of his apparent success. But 
 it is to the prophets that we turn for the true explana- 
 tion of the moral mystery of a bad man's success. 
 
 So Amos, undeceived by the outward glitter of life, 
 prophesied to Jeroboam II the doom that was coming 
 on him ; as if the thought in his heart had been that 
 " though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind 
 exceeding small." He said, "Jeroboam shall die by 
 the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive 
 out of their own land." 
 
 His words caused uneasiness, not merely from super- 
 stitious dread, but because they stirred in those who 
 heard them misgivings of conscience, and it is " con- 
 science doth make cowards of us all." 
 
196 The Light that lighteth every Man xxm 
 
 The prophet was like the skeleton at the feast, his 
 disturbed hearers would fain have denounced him as 
 Ahab did Elijah, whom he described as "he that 
 troubleth Israel," and at last there broke from the 
 priest Amaziah a cry of displeasure and dismay which 
 was itself a witness of the power wielded by the peasant 
 intruder. He said, " thou seer, go, flee thee away 
 into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy 
 there : but prophesy not again any more at Bethel : for 
 it is the king's chapel, and it is the king's court." The 
 priest had to live to find out that kings have no sanctu- 
 ary, that in the very height and splendour of their 
 power there may appear the writing on the wall to 
 tell them that they have been weighed in the balances 
 and found wanting. 
 
 Have we not in other pages than these met with 
 such a story as that of Amos ? He had no education 
 of the conventional kind, but God had been educating 
 him in a method of His own. 
 
 The thoughts he revolved in his soul while he was 
 with his flock were the thoughts of a man who com- 
 muned with Heaven, and saw beneath all the illusions 
 of human life that righteousness is the only invincible 
 power. If judged by the mere import of his mind on 
 those whom he assailed, by his mastery over their 
 consciences and his power to awaken their fears, there 
 was among the prophets none greater than the herd- 
 man Amos. He represents to us that more irregular 
 ministry of which we have seen examples in all 
 ages of the Church ; which rests on no visible autho- 
 rity, which claims a hearing in right of the Divine 
 impulse and illumination of which it is the visible 
 outcome. 
 
xxiii The Herdmaii Prophet 197 
 
 It is not in that far distant time alone, but in the 
 Middle Ages and even in this modern age, that we have 
 been startled by words of power proceeding from some 
 ofie, trained in no school of the prophets, in whose 
 presence the sinner has trembled ; and though we can- 
 not easily fit in such irregular ministries to any ecclesi- 
 astical scheme, yet we feel that to deny the presence 
 with them of a real Divine power would be almost to 
 blaspheme the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Amos also represents to us the true prophet in con- 
 trast to the conventional speaker of smooth things. 
 Have we in this day a prophetic office to discharge ? 
 Are there evil things to be denounced ? Is there a 
 cause of righteousness to be maintained ? How shall 
 we discharge that office ? It were easy indeed to fasten 
 upon things which public opinion has condemned, to 
 expend moral indignation on the more degraded and 
 degrading forms of wickedness prevailing among us. 
 If to prophesy were but to echo the judgments of the 
 respectability of the age, the prophet might have a 
 comfortable time of it. But he must sometimes set 
 himself against respectability itself, he may be called 
 upon to deal, not with the poor sinner who has no de- 
 fence to make, but with the sin that wears a cloke of 
 rehgion ; he may have to show by the outspokenness 
 of his language that there is for him no king's sanctu- 
 ary so sacred that he dare not invade it ; that between 
 the sinner in high places and the sinner in low places 
 he is to make no difference ; that, everywhere and 
 always, what the Lord calls him to say, that and that 
 only will he speak. That is the test of the true pro- 
 phet. He cannot be always true and at the same time 
 always popular. 
 
[qS The Light that lighteth every Man xxm 
 
 There will be times when the state of mind of men 
 around him will be like that which found speech in 
 the words, " thou seer, go, flee thee away." But he 
 must stand his gi'ound. He must commit himself to 
 One who judgeth righteously. 
 
 Whatever else our schools of the prophets may fail 
 in, may they never fail in nourishing this spirit. 
 
 One thing is certain, that if the authorised teachers 
 of the nation forget their duty, if they are content to 
 sink to the dead level of a mean practice and a soulless 
 religion, always speaking with bated breath lest they 
 should offend some one, other men will arise with pro- 
 testing voice to speak out the true words of God. 
 Some man who has with difficulty kept silence will at 
 last be borne forward on the strong wave of an irre- 
 sistible energy to stir the hearts of the people ; his 
 mission and apology like that of him who said, " I held 
 my tongue, and spake nothing ; I kept silence, yea, even 
 from good words ; but it was pain and grief to me. My 
 heart was hot within me, and while I was thus musing 
 the fire kindled : and at the last I spake with my 
 tongue." 
 
 In the midst of unbelief, of cold devotion, of shallow- 
 hearted religion, we believe that God is conversing with 
 the heart of the world, and that the stream of inspira- 
 tion is mightier than all which opposes it. We may 
 try to embank it by our earthly methods, to confine it 
 within narrow channels, but it will break the banks 
 and sweep like an inundation over the mind of humanity. 
 And though it appear at length to subside, it has not 
 been in vain. The lands have been refreshed ; new 
 flowers and fruits of goodness have sprung from the 
 soil ; and so the hope is sustained that even the wilder- 
 
XXIII The Herdman Prophet 199 
 
 ness shall be reclaimed, transformed. " And as the 
 earth bringeth forth her bud and as the garden causeth 
 the things that are sown in it to bring forth, so the 
 Lord will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth 
 before all the nations." 
 
XXIV 
 GOD ALL m ALL 
 
 ' ' For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 
 that he would gi-ant you, according to the riches of his glory, to 
 be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man ; that 
 Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith ; that ye, being rooted 
 and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints 
 what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height ; and to 
 know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." 
 
 Ephesians iii. 14-19. 
 
 I TURN to a noble passage of a noble writer, for the 
 thoughts passing between him and a portion of his 
 flock are such as we may well try to revive. 
 
 " I bow my knees unto the Father ... of whom 
 the whole family in heaven and earth is named." So 
 you have been accustomed to read, but the Eevised 
 Version keeps still more closely to the thought when it 
 says, not " the whole family," but " every family." It is 
 not of men in the mass that St. Paul speaks, as when 
 we speak of mankind, but even of each separate 
 division of the human race ; the different nationalities, 
 languages, and kindreds into which men have been appar- 
 ently separated. But even when we understand this, 
 the closest English rendering misses somewhat of force ; 
 for there is here a connection between the word 
 " father " and the word " family " which no one listen- 
 ing to the language in which St. Paul wrote could fail 
 
XXIV God All in All 201 
 
 to perceive. The word " father " is irarepa, and the 
 word " family, " is irarpcd — the pater of whom every 
 pafria is named. The play upon words helps the con- 
 nection of thought. Think how great a truth is this 
 which stands so prominently out in all the apostolic 
 teachings ; that the relation in which God stands to us 
 is that of father, and that the existence of this as the 
 fundamental relation between God and man has been 
 discovered through the relation of His Son. In the 
 prophetic writings there are yearnings of the heart, 
 reachings forth of thought which testify to us of the 
 depth and the universality of the desire ; but men 
 truly discovered that they have a Father in Heaven 
 only when at last He spoke to them by a Son. 
 
 Even now the thought is so great and high that we 
 need to reassure ourselves with the strong words of 
 apostolic teaching. In spite of the orphan feeling in 
 all hearts which seeks in the unseen God to find the 
 unknown Father, there is much to cause our hearts 
 misgivings lest this prove no more than a dream. 
 Sometimes when we have listened to the astronomer 
 who sweeps the skies with his telescope and tells us 
 what he has seen there, as we have become familiar 
 with the orderly movement of stars and planets, as we 
 have traced with him the wider, more eccentric sweep 
 of the cometary bodies, the imagination reels at the 
 attempt to conceive the magnitude of creation ; the 
 earth itself shrinks into utter insignificance. While 
 yet under that spell of the imagination, to expect the 
 Creator of all those worlds to hear the voice of but 
 one poor mortal; to expect Him to distinguish the 
 various circumstances and wants of the dwellers in 
 this one obscure part of His creation does, for the 
 
202 The Light that lighteth every Man xxiv 
 
 moment, seem to us as if it must be the mere phantasy 
 of faith. But because reason might become confused 
 amid the magnitudes that bewilder the imagination, 
 therefore God has revealed Himself, and that by His 
 Son. It is not we that have dreamt this dream, it is 
 He that has made it known to us. For whatever 
 purpose this world has been chosen for the revelation 
 of the supreme mystery of redeeming love, the recorded 
 history is one of those immutable things of which we 
 are more absolutely certain than we are of the things 
 that daunt our faith. What is great and what is little 
 we do not know, we judge of everything by a relative 
 standard ; but what is morally significant we under- 
 stand ; and the moral significance of the Incarnation 
 is such that we know the earthly history must in some 
 marvellous way affect the whole universe of God. 
 
 St. Paul at last understands the dispensation of 
 the fulness of the times as a summing up in Christ 
 the things in Heaven and the things in earth. And if 
 even beyond the earth, still more in every family of 
 men in the earth, this is now the salient fact — that its 
 very existence as a family witnesses of its Divine 
 Fatherhood. 
 
 When we come to St. Paul's prayer we must bear 
 in mind the entreaty with which he began, that his 
 converts should not lose heart. So now he prays for 
 them that the Father who has revealed Himself would 
 grant them, according to the riches of His glory — that 
 is to say, according to the wealth and fulness of His 
 own perfections — to be strengthened in the man within 
 them by His Spirit. There is significance in the ex- 
 pression, "the man within." That which constitutes 
 us men is that within we bear the image of God ; 
 
XXIV God All in All 203 
 
 there is a kindredness of nature ; man is meant to be 
 the mirror of God's perfection. It is this inner man, 
 weakened by the pressure of solicitations from with- 
 out, that needs to be strengthened. How can it be 
 but by the communication to it, through the Spirit, of 
 some vivid sense of this kindredness ? The idea of 
 paternity runs through the whole. St. Paul prays 
 that the Father may make His Fatherhood felt in the 
 inner nature of the child. So the man within, re- 
 plenished with Divine power, will rise above the 
 influences of the life without, whether of sadness or of 
 sin. With such inspiration of hope we come to you. 
 
 You see what St. Paul insisted on was that their 
 life, and above all the common life they had in Christ, 
 had been rooted and grounded in love. What was 
 true to them is true to you. If we can be sure of 
 that, we can bear everything else. The pain that may 
 come does not spring from that root, but because this 
 is the ground of our life, we get strength to bear it 
 till it has done its work. Then pain ceases to be 
 torture. There is never absent the sense of Divine 
 tenderness soothing us. When things are at their 
 worst, the arms of everlasting love are around us. 
 Christ could bear His Cross knowing this, and through 
 that which was possible to Him, it has become possible 
 to us. 
 
 We know now what the Apostle meant when he 
 spoke of never losing heart within the sphere of tribu- 
 lations. He does not say there will be none such, but 
 he does say that they are not of the root. That is 
 love, and its wondrous depth is what makes the 
 sufferer strong. Convinced of this, he prays for them 
 that with all saints they may be strong to apprehend 
 
204 The Light that light eth every Man xxiv 
 
 what is the breadth and length and depth and height. 
 "With all saints," those who are even now going through 
 this process of Divine education, and those who have 
 entered within the veil, where all things are seen more 
 clearly. They and we alike learn by the same 
 methods. 
 
 With all the saints we seek power to apprehend 
 the breadth and length and height and depth, but of 
 what ? St. Paul does not say ; he does not even finish 
 the sentence ; but he is speaking of the love of God, — 
 that we may know it in its relation to every part of 
 human experience ; in its height, which scales the 
 heavens and surrounds us with the glory that is there ; 
 in its depth, which sounds the great deeps of human 
 woe and shares it in a wondrous fellowship ; in its 
 breadth, which comprehends all races and all needs of 
 men, all orders and tribes of higher beings, to w^hom 
 the Lord is the common centre of existence and object 
 of eager desire. It is in proportion as our nature is 
 suffused with this sense of the love of God, compre- 
 hending our whole life, and touching with its glory 
 every object on which the eye can rest, like the golden 
 sunlight on the distant hills ; in proportion as we are 
 filled and satisfied with this sense of Divine love, — 
 not only as the root of all, but by wondrous methods 
 revealing itself through the various lessons of life, that 
 the strength of God will enter into us. Yet it is with 
 a mournful confession of mortal impotence of know- 
 ledge and desire that the prayer of the Apostle proceeds, 
 "And to know the knowledge - surpassing love of 
 Christ." What an expression ! But if by his own 
 confession it surpasses knowledge, how can we know 
 it ? How shall we reconcile this contradiction ? We 
 
XXIV God All in All 205 
 
 may learn the apprehension of Divine things through 
 comparison with the human. How do we get to know 
 the human love which blesses and sweetens our life ? 
 Not by analysing it, not by reducing it to the dimen- 
 sions of logical propositions, but by growing into it, 
 by the constant experience of it, by the unconscious 
 growth of the relations which confirm it, and the sym- 
 pathetic temperament of feeling which is the witness 
 of its reality. We do not know even human love in 
 all its possibilities ; but we know it, and the know- 
 ledge blesses our life and makes everything easier to 
 us. How much we can bear, — difficulties in the path 
 of duty, the pressure of care, the unkindness and the 
 contradictions of men, — if there be only within our 
 reach even a human love so rich and plenteous that it 
 can embrace every part of our life with its sympathy. 
 It is the same thing with our knowledge of the love 
 of Christ. If we speculate on it, if we try to form a 
 conception of it which shall include everything that 
 belongs to it, the limitation of our powers of knowing 
 stands in the way. Not only here, but in every region 
 of being, the finite nature must be always learning 
 something more of the love of the infinite nature. 
 
 But we partially grow into the knowledge of it as 
 a thing real and true, through our experience of it ; 
 and it is this experimental knowledge which can be 
 attained, as contrasted with the speculative which 
 never can be, that St. Paul was seeking for his brethren. 
 They will know it best who draw closest to Christ, 
 who carry to Him every temptation, every sin, to whom 
 communion with Him expresses their highest concep- 
 tion of what is blessed and satisfying to the heart. 
 May you so know Him — so runs the prayer — that ye 
 
2o6 The Light that lighteth every Man xxiv 
 
 may be filled with all the fulness of God. And if 
 here you are beset with the sense of contradiction, 
 since your nature is limited in knowledge and bounded 
 in desire, and to be filled with that infinite fulness is 
 beyond your natural capacity ; yet remember that in 
 the knowledge of Christ all is ultimately contained. 
 In Him dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily. 
 And at the least there is one sense in which these 
 words may be fulfilled within the compass of our being 
 — a sense in which all our life long they must be 
 partially unfulfilled. For in the holiest of men it 
 cannot be said that God is all. Their nature has other 
 and alien inmates. There is the restlessness of intel- 
 lect, there is the working of concupiscence, there are 
 the feelings engendered by conflict, there is self-loye 
 disputing with God even His supremacy in our nature. 
 But behind the veil there is suggested to us a purer, 
 more perfect life than this, when the short-sighted 
 passions and interests of this passing scene will have 
 lost their attraction, when the cleansed eyes of the 
 soul will look back with wondering surprise alike on 
 the things that elated and the things that depressed it ; 
 when the life that is in God will seem that which alone 
 is admirable and desirable ; the immature life with its 
 childish affections and its childish resentments will be 
 past and done with ; and God will be all in all. It 
 is in the light of this anticipation that we read these 
 words of St. Paul. Then indeed the fever of life will 
 be over ; the love that sought to find God in the 
 things of earth will at last be satisfied. Oh, may we 
 seek even now to breathe that purer atmosphere of 
 the better world which, amid all excitements, will dif- 
 fuse around us a great calm ! Not only in your indi- 
 
XXIV God All in All 207 
 
 vidual but in your common life in the Church, ask 
 yourselves if you are at this moment seeking to find 
 God in all things. If this be so indeed, remember 
 that God is love, and that all our doings without love 
 are nothing worth. The fairest outward progress, the 
 mpst promising signs of prosperity in the things that 
 strike the eye, are but a mockery of life if that be 
 wanting. This is the note that I would strike. May 
 we who are here banded together learn, not doctrinally, 
 not speculatively, but experimentally and practically, 
 that Divine knowledge which will help us to forgive, 
 which will teach us to be patient, which will draw 
 Christian hearts together in an affection strong and 
 fervent, self- forgetful, self-sacrificing. Let the past 
 suffice for all that has been at variance with it. Let 
 us start from to-day with this supreme wish in our 
 hearts ; and not leave this church without asking God 
 to deepen this desire, to give it constancy, and by His 
 grace to bring it to perfection. 
 
XXV 
 
 HOLY COMMUNION 
 
 ** And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this pass- 
 over with you before I suffer." — St. Luke xxii. 15. 
 
 To help us to draw near to God Christ became incar- 
 nate. It may be doubted whether anything less than 
 His entrance into our nature could have dissipated the 
 doubts and fears of man. But now we know God 
 because we have looked on the face of Him who came 
 to show God to us. It is thus we have found our 
 way to the Father. But it is noticeable that our Lord 
 was not content to be merely a teacher. His teach- 
 ings have, it is true, taken such hold on the heart of 
 the world that there is nothing that can be compared 
 to them for power ; yet, pure and inspiring as they 
 are, it was what He did that gave them their force 
 and efficacy. He suffered even to the last extreme of 
 dying, and He rose again to prove that He had not 
 suffered in vain ; and it is in their connection with 
 this supreme act of sacrifice that the things He taught 
 assume their infinite interest. And He was not con- 
 tent to rest on the power of these impressive memories. 
 Before He left the world He instituted in His Church 
 rites which became the characteristic institutions of 
 His kingdom ; and on the Church He charges the 
 maintenance of those rites as its first duty. He sent 
 
XXV Holy Communion 209 
 
 forth His ministers to preach a Gospel full of glory, 
 but they were not to be preachers only. Wherever 
 they went they were to bear with them the sacra- 
 rtients in which the Gospel was both contained and 
 visibly expressed. They were to be more than preachers 
 even of glad tidings to the world ; they were priests 
 of a ritual. And this is the high character in which 
 the ministers of God still are called on to fulfil their 
 ministry. They share in the general priesthood of the 
 congregation who, by Christ's election, are all alike 
 charged, as their highest duty, with the celebration of 
 the Christian rites. The priesthood of the clergy, in 
 so far as it differs from that of the laity, is ministerial 
 and representative ; but it belongs to pastor and layman 
 alike to continue the celebration of the love of God in 
 the Christian sacraments. Speech may be poor and 
 inadequate ; language may imperfectly express thought; 
 thought itself may be dim and confused, and vainly 
 aim at articulate expression. But the visible rites 
 of the Gospel are always eloquent. They preach to 
 eye and ear, and through them to the soul ; they recall 
 the sacred memory of things that are never to be suf- 
 fered to perish out of the thoughts of men ; they furnish 
 a resting-place for faith ; they are the avenues through 
 which the grace of Christ reaches the soul, suffused 
 with the glory of that holiness from which they ema- 
 nate. Chief among the Christian rites is the sacrament 
 of the Body and Blood of Christ. What the Passover 
 was to the Israelite this is to the Christian, and more. 
 Like that, it has its retrospective character, as the 
 witness of an accomplished deliverance. Like that, 
 it has its prospective character, as an image and fore- 
 shadowing of a more perfect communion which will 
 
 P 
 
2IO The Light that lighteth every Man xxv 
 
 not need visible symbols to translate its meaning to 
 the soul. It appeals to the heart with all the pathos 
 of the scene in which it was instituted by the Eedeemer 
 — with the shadow of the last agony already on His 
 spirit — when He said, " With desire I have desired to 
 eat this passover with you before I suffer." It appeases 
 the pain of conscience which the sinful soul must often 
 feel, by the strong assurance it gives of the complete- 
 ness and perfection of the sacrifice. 
 
 It restores to faith, looking through the darkness, 
 the consciousness of Christ's presence in the very midst 
 of each assembly and in the inner consciousness of each 
 believing soul. It is not the memorial of a dead 
 Christ, but a pledge of His living presence, and the 
 means whereby we realise it. Here and now He comes 
 into the midst of us, not as a mere passing apparition 
 to look upon us, and then leave us wondering ; but He 
 comes with power, and communicates that which leaves 
 us different men, stronger than before He came. He 
 dispenses His very self to us ; He comes to us at the 
 moment when the spirit feels its insufficiency for its 
 own needs and is weary of the contest with its own 
 sinfulness, and reinforces us with His own holy life. 
 He tells us not to grieve because we have never looked 
 upon Him as the disciples did who companied with 
 Him from first to last. They gladdened at His pre- 
 sence ; they kindled at His smile ; they drew from the 
 very tones of His voice influences which lifted them 
 to a higher level of being : but to us He says, " This 
 is my body ; " this which tells you of a love fulfilling 
 itself in death, this in which you share in the life that 
 is for evermore. The reality of His presence in this 
 sacrament is the truth to which the Catholic Church 
 
XXV Holy Communion 2 1 1 
 
 has always clung. And it is not too much to say that 
 when He comes into the midst of us here, He comes 
 with all His attendant train. Our eyes are holden 
 that we cannot see ; yet here we have communion with 
 all who are alive in Him. They whom we call dead 
 live with Him, in the splendour of a fuller life than 
 ours ; and in right of our common membership, we 
 enter into that life and share it. The death upon the 
 Cross, which was the crowning victory of grace, has set 
 Him on a throne before which all Heaven bows in 
 adoration ; and here earth and Heaven meet together. 
 With angels and archangels, and all the company of 
 Heaven, we mingle our own lowly adoration. We are 
 encompassed by the spirits of the blessed, to whom in 
 heart we are never nearer than when we thus feed on 
 Christ by faith with thanksgiving. The life which is 
 hid with Christ in God comes into the midst of our 
 own troubled life and sheds upon us its influences of 
 peace. This sacrament comes to us to verify the things 
 of which we speak to one another, to vindicate to us 
 the reality of our communion with all the holy; to 
 witness to us tliat they also have had robes washed 
 white that once were stained with sin ; and so connects 
 the finished sacrifice with its glorious consummation in 
 the redemption of the sinful. Here things Divine and 
 human meet and are reconciled ; and reunion is assured 
 of all who have sinned and sorrowed and suffered on 
 earth. It is no wonder that a rite so sacred, so closely 
 connected with all that to the Christian is most dear, 
 should in the early Church have become the very centre 
 of all life and worship. We cannot tell with what 
 mystic meaning our Lord spoke the words — "With 
 desire I have desired to eat this passover with you " — 
 
212 The Light that lighteth every Man xxv 
 
 but of one thing we are sure, that His desire then and 
 always was not for Himself only, but for the fulfilment 
 of that with which His soul had travailed. It was not 
 in the passing sorrow of that hour that His soul was 
 so absorbed that He could not look beyond it to the 
 coming ages during which men would still need the 
 support of His presence. After the consternation of 
 the scenes of the Cross, the time would have been too 
 late for instituting a rite which should be through all 
 time a meeting-place between His disciples and their 
 Lord. Now, when the old things were passing away, 
 He chose that existing rite which witnessed of God's 
 love to one nation, to convert it to the greater purpose 
 of witnessing to His redeeming mercy to all nations. 
 To us a pledge of His love — to Him a sign of the con- 
 stancy of His purpose and its eventual reward — the 
 Church reverently accepted it, His last, greatest insti- 
 tution. When the brethren met on the first day of 
 the week, it was to celebrate this. A meeting of 
 Christians on that day of resurrection, and yet no cele- 
 bration of the Lord's Supper, was a thing unknown to 
 the Church of primitive times. It was their sign of 
 loyalty and bond of brotherhood. Their liturgies were 
 liturgies of communion ; the distinctive feature in 
 Christian worship was its eucharistic character. When 
 churches at last arose, it was evident from their very 
 structure that this was the leading rite of religion. 
 Can it be said that in this we are following in their 
 steps ? Is there in you this earnestness of desire and 
 this solemnity of feeling ? How is it that to so many 
 the thought of a week in which there has been for 
 them no communion, brings with it no sense of priva- 
 tion, no painful consciousness of duty neglected or 
 
XXV Holy Communion 213 
 
 privilege foregone ? It has been the claim of the Church 
 of England to stand in the old paths, to follow the rule 
 of the primitive Church, but how can some of you pre- 
 telid that you are standing in the old paths ? What 
 can the reference to primitive practice do but sharply 
 point the contrast between Christian life as it was once 
 and what calls itself Christian life as it is now ? In 
 proportion as the tone of Church of England devotion 
 is high, you as members of that Church stand self- 
 condemned. I am not speaking to all, but I am speak- 
 ing to many, and I do not hesitate to say of them 
 that they are utterly wrong. Sunday might be such a 
 different day to you, if you would seek to sanctify all 
 by taking your places in the solemn stillness of the 
 early hour, from week to week, with those who kneel at 
 the holy table of the Lord. It would constrain you 
 to quietness of spirit. It would restore you from all 
 the disordering influence of late excitement of feeling. 
 In your meditations your thoughts would travel on to 
 that consummate experience of mortality, when the 
 great thing for each of us will be to know what is to 
 become of the soul after it has parted from the body. 
 Our hold on our bodily life is slight, but if we can be- 
 lieve Him who said " This is my body," if we can 
 hold fast our faith in Him who is supreme over all 
 things visible and invisible, then we can dismiss our 
 fears. It is preparation to live ; it is preparation to 
 die. In the light of this act in which we have been 
 engaged we see a future opening out before us in which 
 all must be well ; since we dwell in Christ and Christ 
 in us, we are one with Christ and Christ with us, and 
 death itself cannot dissolve that unity. 
 
XXVI 
 THE LABOUEERS IN THE VINEYARD 
 
 "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, 
 which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his 
 vineyard." — St. Matthew^ xx. 1. 
 
 Here we have combined the features of a parable of 
 nature and a parable of human life. You see the 
 vineyard as it appeared on many a sunny slope in that 
 pleasant land. The time of vintage has come; like 
 that of harvest, suggestive of joy. The heavy clusters 
 of ripe grapes are there, inviting the hand of man to 
 gather them. You see the profusion of the leafy cover- 
 ing — the festooned branches in all their natural grace- 
 fulness casting a welcome shade, while Nature, the true 
 artist, has set against the soft, deep green leaves the 
 rich colour of the purple clusters sheltering beneath 
 them. It is not wild but cultivated nature ; a poem 
 as well as picture — an idyl of life. Hard by is the 
 peaceful dwelling, and often amid the shadowed walks 
 the footsteps of the household fall, as they shelter from 
 the fierceness of an eastern sun, or commune together 
 at eventide. The picture set forth is of a vineyard, 
 and a vineyard in Palestine, in a climate like our own, 
 but where the vine branches are trained high overhead, 
 affording a securer shelter. It is a scene that is 
 humanly interesting. The household peace is invaded 
 
XXVI The Labourers in the Vineyard 215 
 
 by a crowd of busy workers. The time of gathering 
 is come, and the labourers are waiting to be hired. 
 The careful householder finds some ready at the earliest 
 hour of the working day, and these he engages at the 
 standard wages of a denarius, which in the English 
 Bible is called a penny, a day. But still more are 
 wanted, and at the third hour — nine in the morning — 
 he betakes himself to the market-place of the neigh- 
 bouring town when it is at the fullest, and again at 
 the sixth and at the ninth hour; and to each he pro- 
 mises the money's worth of his labour. It is a scene 
 drawn from human life, familiar and intelligible. Per- 
 haps, as you read, you think the payment i§ more like 
 the dole to the beggar than the proper wages of a day's 
 honest labour ; but you must remember the difference 
 in the coin, and that its value really consisted in what 
 it would buy. The denarius was the day's pay of a 
 Roman soldier of that time, and a later historian gives 
 us some idea of what it represented in certain cheap 
 and fertile regions by saying that the charge of a day's 
 entertainment at a country inn was but the twentieth 
 part of a denarius. The story, therefore, is of honest 
 labour equitably rewarded. But what place had it 
 here ? What suggested it ? To what purpose was all 
 this said ? St. Peter had just propounded the question, 
 " Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee ; 
 what shall we have therefore ? " and the conversation 
 that followed closed with the solemn words, " Many 
 that are first shall be last ; and the last shall be first." 
 This illuminates the parable. Gracious and engaging 
 is the aspect in which God is here presented to us ; 
 as the master of a house, with a household under him. 
 AVe think of this when we say on Good Friday, " Be- 
 
2i6 The Light that lighteth every Man xxvi 
 
 hold this Thy family." Watchful and unwearied is His 
 care. The householder went out early in the morning. 
 The whole working day of man in all his generations 
 is set before us. None are to be idle, none to be profit- 
 lessly employed. For each He has work to do, and 
 for each there is a promised reward. We read the 
 meaning of the parable in history. 
 
 Very early in the day men are called by some ex- 
 press invitation of God to do a work which is at once 
 His and theirs. So in the story of the patriarchs we 
 find Him sending men forth. They leave the place 
 where they were tarrying ; they go where He sends 
 them. Perhaps they think of the work they have to 
 do as exclusively their own ; they are working for pay ; 
 they are seeking to increase their worldly goods ; but 
 they are, in spite of themselves, being made to do a 
 higher work than that. They are being made God's 
 witnesses. His instruments for the publication of a 
 clearer moral law. His heralds of a kingdom of righteous- 
 ness. And later kings and prophets were called, and 
 later still Apostles and Evangelists. Not in seclusion 
 did He find them, but in the market-place, in the con- 
 course of men. He called them from their listlessness, 
 from a life that had no definite purpose, and He made 
 them labourers in His vineyard. Not to all did He 
 give the same work. Some had to till ; some had to 
 prune ; some had to gather in the ripe fruit ; some had 
 the work of orderly arrangement; the place of some 
 He appointed in His wine-press of suffering ; but all 
 was part of a scheme of various work for the good of 
 the Divine household. 
 
 It is indeed a strange thing, which no amount of 
 thinking can take away the strangeness of, that some 
 
XXVI The Labourers in the Vineyard 2 1 7 
 
 men should have had a call so much earlier and so 
 much clearer than others. God spoke to them, and 
 they heard His voice, and went and did His will ; 
 but others would have done it too if He had only 
 spoken to them. Why did He not speak ? Why had 
 they not an equal opportunity ? This is a question 
 which we often find ourselves asking, but there is no 
 answer to it. But, whatever be His manner of calling, 
 this at least is clear — that there is no inequality in the 
 ultimate manner of dealing with them. And you 
 must remember that God has other purposes in calling 
 this man or that, than the good of the particular man 
 concerned. All human life is woven into one web ; and 
 to some His calling came late that, through their receiv- 
 ing it at last, they who had received it earlier might 
 unlearn some false belief which, with the truth, had 
 entered into their minds. And if some seem at a 
 terrible disadvantage as compared with others, yet 
 remember how God is represented to us. He is a 
 householder. He will deal with equal love and perfect 
 equity with all. He is not merely a trader thinking 
 of his gains ; He is a householder, able to distribute 
 to those who live and labour in the house or field that 
 which is just. And justice takes into account all dis- 
 abilities under which they have lain. But the pathetic 
 part of the story comes near the close. "About the 
 eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing 
 idle, and saith unto them. Why stand ye here all the 
 day idle ? " Now, if this were a real incident, we should 
 say. If that man went out at the eleventh hour, it was 
 not of his household stuff that he could have been 
 thinking. It would have little availed him, as regards 
 that, to have sent these men to do some fragment of 
 
2 1 8 The Light that lighteth eve^y Man xxvi 
 
 the last hour's work in the day. It must have been 
 for the men themselves. It is not solicitude for the 
 vintage, but for the labourers, that speaks in his ques- 
 tion. They answer him, " Because no man hath hired 
 us." Observe that they are not described as sitting 
 or lounging in heedless ease ; they are standing in the 
 attitude of men waiting to be employed ; watching, 
 perhaps with a hungry eagerness, those who approach, 
 or by this time sinking back wearily in the sickness 
 of heart of the long-deferred hope. For the employ- 
 ment has not come. We see in this a most pathetic 
 side reference to the neglect of their fellows which 
 was manifest in the men of that day who ought to 
 have borne to them a Divine message. Here were 
 human faculties unemployed ; here was an expectation 
 that had not been satisfied ; and it was the eleventh 
 hour. The spiritual leaders of the time were not 
 caring for the souls of men ; they were caring only for 
 themselves. It was, though they knew it not, the 
 eleventh hour of the working day ; and yet the attitude 
 of many around them who had in them the capacity 
 of useful service of God, was that of men silently im- 
 plying, " No man hath hired us, no man is here to 
 show us what our vocation is." Those who should 
 have been the guides and leaders had passed on in 
 heartless indifference. 
 
 And may there not be among our people now this 
 very same hunger of the heart ? Are we trying to satisfy 
 it ? Are we seeking to pass, in the power of a search- 
 ing sympathy, into the inmost heart of men, to give to 
 their vague, inarticulate aspirations the right direction, 
 that they too may become workers for God ? We re- 
 flect, too, that besides the reference to a then existing 
 
XXVI The Labourers in the Vineyard 2 1 9 
 
 condition of things, there was a prophetic reference to 
 the future of the Gospel kingdom. The call of Christ 
 came, and came successfully to many who had but a 
 'brief season of service left to them on earth ; yet a 
 place was given them in His kingdom. They were 
 not allowed to fancy that for them it was too late. 
 They were sent into His vineyard, to do what work 
 they could ere the sun set on all their earthly labours ; 
 and what was right assuredly they, like the rest, would 
 receive. And now, while you are able to hear the call 
 of the Gospel, you are forbidden to imagine that for 
 you it can be too late. Idlers you may have been in 
 the market-place through the swiftly-fleeting hours of 
 your life's working day ; but if even now you are will- 
 ing to obey your Master's bidding, to give yourselves 
 to His service, to do what work you can, be it little or 
 much, you too will be included among those on whom 
 He will bestow an eternal reward. You may bewail 
 your lost opportunities ; you may grieve to think that 
 you have had no part in the gracious activities on which 
 others have bestowed their fresh affections and their 
 ripest powers ; you may feel what you have lost in the 
 fellowship of Christian labour ; but if ever so late you 
 seek to work in His vineyard, the end will be blessed. 
 And here I may remind you of another truth that goes 
 beyond this parable. The real working day of the 
 Christian, like his education for the higher service, 
 stretches far beyond the earthly scene ; when the 
 earthly day is done, the heavenly has but begun to 
 dawn ; there the true reward is the being accepted in 
 the character of a labourer for God ; and, as we are 
 ourselves taught, he who has been here faithful over a 
 few things will, in the wider sphere of work provided for 
 
2 20 The Light that lighteth every Man xxvi 
 
 him in the eternal world, be called to be faithful over 
 many things. What he has set himself to do in the 
 earthly vineyard is but the introduction to grander 
 labours in a scene where the immortal nature has other 
 instruments — where there is no third, no sixth, and no 
 eleventh hour, for there they measure not by hours, nor 
 yet by days and years ; there is no fruitless effort, and 
 no haunting sense of a night near at hand which may 
 involve all in darkness. There one work expands into 
 another with new stimulation of joy. There is no re- 
 action from overspent emotion, no yielding of the over- 
 driven powers to the claims of a body which cares for 
 none of these things ; but the soul will at last be free 
 to serve God, delivered from the weight of its earthly 
 bonds. In that garden of the Lord, the breath of 
 Divine love will ripen to their true perfection all the 
 fruits of righteousness, and the hands that tend them 
 will have lost the sense of mortal weariness. 
 
 And now we pass on to the last part of the parable. 
 If we have been right in our understanding what is 
 the reward of the Christian, we see that there could 
 be to those who had laboured no dividing or apportion- 
 ing of their reward. And yet have we not listened 
 with a certain amount of secret sympathy to the com- 
 plaint, " These last have wrought but one hour, and 
 thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne 
 the burden and heat of the day"? If you confine your 
 view to the mere framework of the parable, if you com- 
 pare the mid-day labour under the fierce heat of the 
 sun, such as we know it at our time of vintage, and 
 that of the last hour when the sun is sinking low, when 
 the glare is gone and the shadows are lengthening, and 
 some breath of evening air begins to breathe from the 
 
XXVI The Labourers in the Vineyard 221 
 
 heights around us, such a thought of complaint seems 
 inevitable. But the natural incidents, though such as 
 were within the range of reality, are not selected for 
 their probability as facts, but are framed and grouped to- 
 gether for a spiritual purpose. St. Peter had spoken the 
 secret thought of his brethren, with all its latent selfish- 
 ness, when he said, " What shall we have therefore ? " 
 " What is to be our superior reward ? " And this was 
 our Lord's answer : " Not reward as the selfish heart 
 understands reward ; not greater satisfaction to pride 
 or self love ; not the realisation of luxurious personal 
 dreams of glory ; but greater and farther opportunity 
 of service." Eminence in a Divine service is not 
 counted by length or number of labours, nor even by 
 material sacrifices, but by the finer, nobler, more self- 
 forgetful character of the love that inspires them. In 
 so far as these acts of yours have been the outgrowth 
 of this love, they will have their reward — they will be 
 rewarded in a way satisfying to a nature which has 
 overcome self But not all that are first now will be 
 first at last. With what solemn meaning these words 
 must have been afterwards recalled, when it was re- 
 membered that then, very near the person of the Lord 
 as one of those who had forsaken all to follow Him, 
 stood one who lived to do that deed which has branded 
 his name with eternal infamy — Judas the traitor. Such 
 words were like the application to His chosen disciples 
 of His warning to the Jews, " Think not to say within 
 yourselves, We have Abraham to our father : for I say 
 unto you, God is able of these stones to raise up children 
 unto Abraham." Think not, because you were the first 
 to obey My call, and because you have borne the burden 
 and heat of the day, that you will receive more than 
 
2 22 The Light that light eth every Man xxvi 
 
 the others ; but remember there are first that shall be 
 last. He who, whensoever he may be called, loves 
 and labours to the end, he it is who will have the 
 reward. In one sense it will be in every case the 
 same ; it will be the admission to the heavenly king- 
 dom, whither the earthly works do follow the saints of 
 God. But in another sense, not touched on here, it 
 will not be the same ; for other parables teach us that 
 the greater love will promote the soul to the higher 
 service. But, if in no spirit of murmuring, yet it is with 
 a kind of wonder that we, my brothers, think of this 
 equal gift to all. As we have been reading of the 
 sufferings of our fathers in some former day of perse- 
 cution ; of the sore tests to which their faith was put, 
 and of the brightness with which that faith glowed in 
 those terrible scenes ; we have said to ourselves that 
 surely they bore the burden and heat of the day. Or 
 we have recalled the grander enterprises of Christian 
 zeal which led men, in the love of their Lord, away 
 from home, and from all the delights, intellectual and 
 moral, of life spent among their peers, to pursue a course 
 of obscure, unrewarded toil, in order that they might 
 win souls to Christ. And we have compared with 
 this our easy, comfortable existence ; the mediocrity, 
 the poverty of our own religious life, the dulness of 
 our affection, and the tameness of our zeal. We have 
 asked whether it can be possible that we shall be at 
 the last even as those others ; that we shall be counted 
 worthy of their reward. And here seems to be given 
 the answer, " If you have been called in any way to 
 labour in God's vineyard, and have not said Him nay, 
 to those who yield themselves to Him He gives all 
 that He has promised to the best." Do not peer too 
 
XXVI The Labourers in the Vineyard 223 
 
 curiously into the future. We know not what we shall 
 be, but what we do know may suffice to keep us 
 patient. We know that when He shall appear we 
 shall be like Him, for we shall see Him — not merely 
 as reflected in the mirror of our human thought — but 
 as He is ; and the seeing will be itself transformation 
 of nature. 
 
 And in the present be content with this, that in 
 and through our earthly work He communicates to us 
 the knowledge of Himself, and that to know Him is 
 life eternal. Do not read into His gracious words 
 your own limited meaning. Does there seem something 
 arbitrary, unsympathetic, disregardful of the rights and 
 claims of others in the question, " Shall I not do what 
 I will with mine own " ? That is because you have 
 missed its meaning. That which you have taken to mean 
 merely the assertion of the absoluteness of a power 
 that owns none higher than itself is, on the contrary, 
 the assertion of a freedom and fulness of Divine mercy 
 which we find it hard to follow. " May I not dispense 
 the rich reward of My love to those on whom I have 
 set my love ? Is it a wrong to thee that I share it 
 with those others even as with thee ? They are en- 
 riched, and thou art no poorer." It is thus that He 
 reproaches the still half-converted nature for its nar- 
 rowness, its partiality, its jealous murmurings. It is 
 thus He makes us see and know that in His family 
 none is elder and none is younger ; that in the death 
 of self and riper growth of love is the only way of 
 closer nearness to Him, and that what He gives us for 
 our labour is not wages, but free and absolute grace, 
 the gift to all alike through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 Meanwhile ours is a Divine husbandry ; we are care- 
 
2 24 The Light that lighteth every Man xxvi 
 
 takers for God, we are fellow- workers with God ; is 
 there not in this inspiration which will enable us to 
 bear the burden and heat of the day, if under that 
 burden and that heat the work must needs be done ? 
 And if there be among us those who have come late, 
 and cannot hope to labour long or share with others 
 in the nobler self-denials, yet there is inspiration, too, 
 in the thought that the true service of the immortal 
 nature has at last been found, and that the farewell to 
 earth will not be farewell to it, but the entrance on 
 work which the earthly vineyard faintly foreshadowed. 
 
 " Look on through troubled years and few 
 Unto that land where all is true, 
 Through whose translucent air shall rise — 
 After this earthly toil and prayer — 
 Scenes exquisitely pure and fair ; 
 Excelling in their glad surprise 
 All mortal dreams of Paradise. 
 Infinite Love your soul shall greet 
 When there you cast you at His feet." 
 
XXVII 
 
 THE CEY OF THE SISTEES OF BETHANY 
 
 " Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell 
 dovra at his feet, saying unto him. Lord, if thou hadst been here, 
 my brother had not died." — St. John xi. 32. 
 
 With what a wonderful freshuess all these scenes of 
 Bethany come back to us. This story of the Gospel 
 deals with scenes that are too familiar to us all, and 
 as we read of those whose tears have so long been 
 dried, griefs of our own, more recent or more remote, 
 inevitably rise before the mind. We think of the 
 language these sisters used to Jesus, how natural it 
 was, how exactly it expresses feelings which at some 
 moment have in us striven with resignation. And 
 yet you will understand that it is with hesitation that 
 I approach this subject to-day, lest it should be too 
 trying to those among us whose bereavement is so 
 recent and their grief still fresh. But there is con- 
 solation here, there is strength, there are suggestions of 
 thought that may uplift the soul. Observe how the 
 Lord dealt with those He loved. First in the season 
 when He was absent from them, and then in the hour 
 of their actual bereavement. 
 
 You know how dear that family was to Him. Not 
 only as all that is beautiful in human character 
 appeals to the heart of God, and must have appealed 
 
 Q 
 
2 26 The Light that light eth every Man xxvn 
 
 to Him as God Manifest, but also dear to Him as a 
 Man. He had contracted a peculiar intimacy with 
 them ; their home was often His resting-place. We 
 see there the kindly Martha, showing her affection in 
 much serving, impatient with her sister because she 
 thought she neglected the offices of a genial hospitality. 
 We see there, too, the pensive and spiritual Mary 
 sitting at Jesus' feet, earnestly drinking in the words 
 that fell from His lips. We seem to hear the gentle 
 but serious rebuke addressed to the one, and the 
 language almost of benediction in which He com- 
 mended the other who. He said, "hath chosen the 
 good part, which shall not be taken away from her." 
 This is the beautiful picture presented to us by St. 
 Luke, and, by the time of which St. John is here 
 speaking, the cords of mutual love between Him and 
 them seem to have been drawn closer still. But so it 
 happened, as it so often does happen, that when their 
 time of fear and sorrow came. He who would have been 
 their chief stay was absent from them. He was not 
 so far away, indeed, that He might not easily have come 
 to them, for but one day's journey lay between them. 
 To Him therefore they sent with their touching, brief, yet 
 most eloquent message, " Behold, he whom thou lovest 
 is sick." In the presence of death, or even the appre- 
 hension of it, what a sense of helplessness falls on us. 
 In their restlessness of mind they sought for the pre- 
 sence of Him, the very sight of whom brought life 
 and gladness. The message did not say the words, 
 but it meant, " By all Thy love for our brother, we be- 
 seech Thee, make haste to come." Did it seem a 
 mockery when the answer was brought, " This sickness 
 is not unto death " ? So many things seem a mockery 
 
XXVII The Cry of the Sisters of Bethany 227 
 
 to us at such a time. It reached him on the very day 
 when their brother died. And now the desire of their 
 hearts — "Would God He were here" — was changed 
 into the ineffectual lamentation, "Would God that He 
 had come." We are taught that the painful things 
 that happen to us come not because God doth not 
 know or doth not consider, but because He has some 
 greater, more awful discovery of His love to make to 
 us. Has He, perhaps, been discovering to us what we 
 did not fully know before, that in us there is always 
 an utter need of Him ? The cry for Him never came 
 with this peculiar urgency till the hour of trial searched 
 us in the depths of the heart. The feeling that He is 
 the very ground of our life ; that all is wrong and all 
 is miserable if He is absent from us ; that we have no 
 sure Helper but Him in life's darkest hours ; — has He 
 been leading us through the great pain of desolation 
 and bereavement to such discoveries as these ? Has 
 He been withdrawing from our sight (though not from 
 their true eternal relation to us) those whom we love, 
 and given them a place in His Eternal Kingdom, that, 
 our affections following them thither, we might be led 
 into a more living communion with unseen realities, 
 and our contracted human affections expand to the true 
 scope of our and their immortality ? Those desolate 
 sisters found that the apparently mocking message 
 had a meaning after all, and a very blessed one. It 
 is as if we had here repeated to us the exhortation of 
 the Psalmist, " Tarry thou the Lord's leisure ; be strong 
 and he will comfort thy heart." 
 
 In the end their Master gave no light proof of His 
 love, for in returning to them He was venturing into 
 such danger to His own life that St. Thomas said. 
 
2 28 The Light that light eth every Man xxvn 
 
 " Let us also go, that we may die with him." When 
 He came, Martha, true to her ardent character, rushed 
 forth to meet Him with the exclamation, almost the 
 reproach, " Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother 
 had not died " ! But when Mary came separately, 
 this was the one absorbing thought, the thing that 
 perplexed the love and faith of both. 
 
 1. Observe what encouragement there is to those who 
 feel that in some great affliction they cannot choose but 
 mourn. There was no reproof of this natural burst of 
 regret. On the contrary, when He entered the com- 
 pany of the mourners, He also "was troubled and 
 groaned in spirit," and still further " Jesus wept." This 
 sensibility of His is the consecration of those pure 
 human tears which fall upon the grave. There must 
 be in the presence of death an intensity of pain, and 
 in the hour of bereavement a sense of laceration, not 
 to feel which is no proof of an eminently Christian 
 state of mind. As far as I have been able to observe 
 the character of men, it has seemed that the riper the 
 spiritual character the more sensitive it seems to be- 
 come, at once to natural pain and heavenly consolation. 
 
 I think of what the holy St. Bernard said after the 
 death of his brother Gerard. Those around him, re- 
 buking his passionate outburst of regret, strove to seal 
 up the fountain of his grief with such hard sayings as 
 these, that " it was the decree of the Almighty, the 
 penalty of sin, the rod of the Terrible, the will of the 
 Lord." He restrained himself, but confessed, " I have 
 not had over my feelings the same control as over my 
 tears, and now I own I am beaten, and my inward 
 suffering must find a way out." Yes, and I think of a 
 greater than St. Bernard, of whom, as He stood by the 
 
xxvii The Cry of the Sisters of Bethany 229 
 
 grave, the bystanders said, " Behold how he loved 
 him ! " And I remember that the great Apostle who 
 has discoursed such wonderful words of comfort, did 
 not tell us that we are not to sorrow, but only " not as 
 those who have no hope." 
 
 2. Again, we notice how tenderly our Lord dealt 
 with the unbelief that grows out of a temporary and 
 morbid state of feeling. He heard it said, " Could not 
 this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have 
 caused that even this man should not have died ? " 
 And under the reproach of Martha and Mary there 
 lurked the thought, " Didst not Thou love him then, 
 Master, after all ? Why didst Thou tarry ? Because 
 Thou didst not come, lo, he is dead." There was a tone 
 of doubt, and it was not the first time or the last that 
 there has been the same misgiving. Why did He 
 suffer this to happen ? Why is there sin ? Why is 
 there pain ? Why is there death ? How is this to be 
 reconciled with love ? Have you never heard people 
 asking such questions as these ? Have you never asked 
 them yourselves ? But He is His own interpreter, and 
 He will make all things plain at last to those who 
 follow Him through the shadows to the region of light. 
 The doubts of Bethany were put to shame by a revela- 
 tion of grace which far outran their feeble expectations. 
 
 3. But more striking than the flitting of this cloud 
 of passing doubt over their minds is the faith of the 
 sisters in Jesus Himself. If He had been with them 
 they were sure all would have been well, and now that 
 He is with them again they find a revival of their old 
 trust. Whatsoever of help was to be found anywhere, 
 they were sure was to be found in Him. It was the 
 one thing of which they were sure. And this is still 
 
230 The Light that lighteth every Man xxvn 
 
 the joy of faith in a Personal Saviour, who can be 
 touched with the feeling of our infirmities, who has so 
 changed everything that death becomes a sleeping in 
 Jesus. We now know that death has not parted the 
 dead from Him, but united them in a diviner and more 
 perfect union. The evening of their days may have 
 come sooner than we were dreaming of; their sun has 
 gone down while it is yet day. While we are going 
 through the world, busy with our daily tasks and bear- 
 ing our accustomed burdens, the much carefulness of 
 this life still surrounding and enclosing us, they are 
 safely laid to rest. Amid all our natural pain, our 
 trust in the Saviour who liveth and was dead is con- 
 solation and strength to us. Death has done his worst, 
 he will trouble them no more. The Good Shepherd has 
 said, " They shall never perish, neither shall any pluck 
 them out of my hand." 
 
 Is there nothing in this of comfort to those who 
 believe in Jesus ? They may weep for their dead, for 
 Jesus wept. But they may not doubt His love in 
 suffering them to die ; they may not doubt that for 
 them the transition is blest. 
 
 Still may we treasure that of them which is dear. 
 
 " We make them a hidden, quiet room 
 Far in the depth of our spirit's gloom : 
 Thither, thither, wrung with woe, 
 In yearning love we often go : 
 There, there, do the loved abide. 
 Shadowy, silent, sanctified ! " 
 
 But they in their true life are with the Lord. 
 
 " It is they who lament for us who are 
 From the eternal life so far." 
 
XXVII The Cry of the Sisters of Bethany 231 
 
 And therefore we will take up the language of faith 
 and hope, and say — 
 
 " If this be so, we shall look no more 
 At the night of the former gloom : 
 We shall not stay and make sad delay 
 At the dark and awful tomb, 
 But rather take to our mourning hearts 
 The balm and blessing this trust imparts — 
 What the Scripture saith in the ear of Faith 
 Of the excellent joys that crown the head 
 Of every one of the faithful dead. " 
 
 During this last week one other young member of 
 our flock has been called away from an innocent life 
 purely lived in faith and duty, trying to be a good 
 young mother to the motherless children in her home. 
 She was one of those who at the last confirmation 
 yielded herself up to be Christ's servant. 
 
 We like to think of these things now ; it seems as 
 if the words of the prayer offered for her were still 
 falling on the ear with a new and yet more solemn 
 meaning, " Until she come to thine everlasting king- 
 dom." Do you, who were her companions then, think 
 with deep seriousness of this which lies at the end of 
 all. Be always found with your loins girt and your 
 lamps burning, and like unto those who wait for the 
 coming of their Lord. 
 
XXYIII 
 THE LOED LOOKING ON PETEE 
 
 (on a day of mid-day communion) 
 
 St. Luke xxii. 55-62. 
 
 We have once more heard the miserable story of St. 
 Peter's denial of his Master. We may look upon it 
 to-day in its relation to our own position here, at this 
 time when we are invited to renew our affiance to 
 Christ. It is a salutary warning against over-confidence. 
 If a man so strong and so earnest as St. Peter could 
 fall, who is there that may not fall ? We are defended 
 by the customs of society, by the previous course of our 
 own education and training, by the associations of friend- 
 ship and fellowship ; and it might appear to us that 
 our position as Christ's servants is now so settled, so 
 established, that we can hardly imagine such a possi- 
 bility as that of ceasing to be Christian. But our 
 certainty concerning ourselves cannot be greater than 
 his. He had not merely followed the lead of others, 
 but had himself been a leader. His outspoken zeal 
 heartened the weaker courage of others. By a kind 
 of instinct, when any difficulty or trouble arose, these 
 others waited to hear what he would say ; and his 
 convictions were so strong, there was such a complete 
 absence of doubt or misoivinc^ in him, that he was 
 
XXVIII The Lord looking on Peter 233 
 
 never slow to speak. It was he who, when some dis- 
 ciples were falling away, made his outspoken confession 
 in Jesus as Christ the Son of the Living God. When 
 his Master, foreseeing a time of fear and defection, 
 warned him with the rest, he declared, without a 
 moment's hesitation, " Though all shall deny thee, yet 
 will I never deny thee." " I am ready to go with 
 thee, to prison, and to death." And the thing that 
 gives us pause when we feel inclined to make strong 
 declarations as to our own resolution of steadfastness 
 is, that he thoroughly meant what he said. There 
 was no insincerity, no pretence of a devotion he did 
 not feel; all the truth, all the eager affection, all the 
 fidelity of his nature, found utterance in that fervent 
 declaration. And he very soon after showed that he 
 was in earnest, for when the band of officers came to 
 lay hands on Jesus, Peter's was the first hand raised 
 in His defence. He would fight for his Master, he 
 would die for Him if need arose, he would not confer 
 with flesh and blood, no thought of danger to himself 
 restrained his hand. And yet we have heard to-day 
 what happened so soon after. It is true that his love 
 was strong enough to lead him still to linger near his 
 Master ; he could not lightly leave to His fate One 
 whom he had followed so long and with such undivided 
 affection ; but there had fallen on him a strange be- 
 wilderment. His faith for the moment was gone. He 
 would not be questioned about his state of feeling. 
 He could not bear the prying eyes of the gossiping 
 groups of people there. He sought to protect himself 
 from their curiosity by false denial of the fact that he 
 was a follower of Jesus, and by strong asseverations to 
 confirm his falsehood. It is one of those things in the 
 
234 The Light that light eth every Man xxvm 
 
 Gospels that bear so clearly the stamp of truth and 
 reality. Here are records left to us by the immediate 
 followers of Jesus, and instead of toning down the 
 painful things, instead of veiling the things that were 
 in themselves indefensible, they tell the whole sad 
 story with all in it that is humiliating, because it is 
 needful to that perfect picture of Jesus which it was 
 their office to preserve. Besides what this story tells 
 us of St. Peter, as it were to enforce the lesson " Let 
 him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall," 
 it also brings clearly into view things about our Lord 
 Himself which the Church cannot afford to lose. For 
 here there is revealed to us, as bearing on the Divine 
 character of Jesus, His prophetic knowledge of what 
 was going to happen. The future, hidden from the 
 eyes of the rest, was clear in His sight. But there is 
 another thing revealed to us. Though our Lord saw 
 all so distinctly beforehand. He was already, even before 
 the fact, exercising a truly Divine clemency. He knew 
 that His servant would fall, but even then He would 
 not leave him to his fate, as one totally lost and out- 
 cast ; from that aberration of the heart He knew that 
 His servant would come back again ; and beforehand 
 He said to him, " When thou art converted, strengthen 
 thy brethren." And yet one other thing concerning 
 our Lord is brought into view by this sad incident ; 
 that it was in truth He that brought His servant back 
 by that one look that searched his soul and revived 
 his faith and melted the hard and stony mood into a 
 most sorrowful contrition of heart. Is it ever other- 
 wise with any of His servants ? Is there anything 
 else that can soften the hard and restore the erring ? 
 Perhaps while the denial of St. Peter has been so 
 
XXVIII The Lord looking on Peter 235 
 
 often recalled, as an illustration of the baseness of 
 conduct into which even noble-minded men can be 
 betrayed, we have not taken into account as we ought 
 the effect of the startling things that had happened. 
 I think we may trace a revulsion of feeling from that 
 moment when his Master forbade him to use the sword 
 in His defence. Nothing could have been more 
 astonishing to this zealous man than the command, 
 " Put up thy sword within its sheath, they that use 
 the sword shall perish by the sword." If he was not 
 to use the sword, what then was he to use ? Was it 
 all over with the kingdom they were so eagerly expect- 
 ing their Master to found ? Did this in fact mean 
 the abandonment of those great pretensions of Christ- 
 hood which had led them away from their boats and 
 their home and the even course of their industrious 
 life ? Had they been following a mere phantom of 
 the brain ? Was there to be no kingdom and no 
 Christ after all ? You must take into account all this, 
 which was so disordering to the man's mind, so calcu- 
 lated to relax the high strain of courage and devotion 
 that had lifted him above fear, above regard to his own 
 safety, until life had only one meaning left — to follow 
 Christ, to stand by His side, to dare all that a man 
 might dare in His defence. But if the leader would 
 not lead, if the very service he was ready to render 
 was refused, if the hand raised in His defence was 
 paralysed by that strange, disconcerting command that 
 doomed him to inaction, then we can understand the 
 sudden blindness that fell on the Apostle's soul. 
 Nothing was as it had seemed. Things the most stable 
 and true seemed to reel before his sight. Yet, amid 
 the blindness that fell on his faith, there is something 
 
236 The Light that lighteth every Man xxvm 
 
 pathetic in the instinct of affection, the dog-like attach- 
 ment that led him to linger near. If the Christ in 
 whom he had believed had ceased to be, if he had 
 shrunk into a mere helpless man, powerless in the 
 hands of his enemies, yet even for the remains of that 
 which had been he could not lose his tenderness. So 
 you see that if in his denial he proved himself miser- 
 ably weak, it was because he had lost the hold his 
 faith once had on the Christ. And what restored his 
 lost manhood was the restoration of his faith. At that 
 moment of extreme humiliation, when he must have 
 seemed mean indeed in his own eyes, then it was that 
 the Lord looked on him. That look was enough. It 
 swept away in an instant the impatient resentment, 
 the gloomy doubt, the despairing feeling that had made 
 him conclude everything to be lost. It was a look, 
 we may believe, of compassion, of appeal to that in 
 the soul which treasured a sacred past, of reproach the 
 more hard to bear because it was the reproach of love. 
 He went out to some secret place where no eye could 
 see him, and there he wept bitterly. 
 
 But can we read this story as if we stood on some 
 height of superiority from which we can view it with 
 an almost judicial calm ? Peter denied his Lord under 
 circumstances which make his denial stand out in the 
 view of all ages of Christianity with a startling distinct- 
 ness. We have never had the opportunity of denying 
 Him in such a way as to challenge the general observa- 
 tion of the world ; but yet, is it true that there has 
 been nothing in common between that shameful ex- 
 perience of his and our own ? Has there been nothing 
 in the secret history of the soul of one and another re- 
 sembling it, and enabling them to understand better 
 
xxviii The Lord looking on Peter 237 
 
 that grief of the spirit which shook the strong man's 
 nature and relieved itself in tears ? Have we never 
 been ashamed of Christ crucified ? Has there been in 
 our private history at no moment any shrinking from 
 being known to be a follower of His ? In the midst 
 of those who have upon their spirit no awe of God, 
 whose language and whose conduct are a disparage- 
 ment of a devoted Christian life, has there been no 
 cowardly silence, no desire to escape observation, no 
 want at that critical moment of a truly Christian 
 courage ? This very timidity may itself draw observa- 
 tion. The men who despise what is good want a more 
 express and avowed companionship. They detect, be- 
 neath the reserve of the timid Christian, some sign of 
 the fact that he is not one of themselves ; even they 
 would force him to show his colours. They taunt and 
 provoke him to greater openness of concert, like those 
 who said, " Surely thou also art one of them ; for thy 
 speech bewrayeth thee." Something in tone and manner 
 betrays a past companionship with Jesus. Have these 
 taunts never so scared the courage of any of you as to 
 drive you into something like apparent fellowship in 
 religious indifference or contempt ? In the workshop, 
 in the club-room, in the social gathering, in the gossip 
 of idle moments, in the political talk, has every Christian 
 among us been always willing to be known for what 
 he is — a man true to Christ, not sour, not pharisaic, 
 but yet steadfast and true, prepared to uphold his 
 principles ? Wherever the disposition exists to keep 
 in concealment our sense of what we owe to Him who 
 has redeemed us, it is far more shameful than denial 
 was in the case of St. Peter. For there has been 
 nothing to bewilder our mind or to darken our faith. 
 
238 The Light that light eth every Man xxyih 
 
 It is only that we are scared by the indifference to 
 what is good, or the scorn of it, manifested by those in 
 whose company we may happen to be. There is especi- 
 ally in the young a weak dread of being commented 
 on, criticised or ridiculed. It keeps them back from 
 confirmation, or after confirmation weakens them in 
 the course of life on which they have professed to enter. 
 It is this which often leads to deserted Communions, 
 and to a general lowering of the standard of conduct. 
 To-day in the sacrament, in the midst of our own 
 searching of heart, it will be as if the Lord looked on 
 us as He looked on Peter — a look of reproach to those 
 who turn away, a look of appeal to those who seek 
 Him. All remembered sin, all want of courage, wiU 
 then be placed in the strong light of what He has 
 borne for us ; but the sorrow of the conscience will be 
 soothed, for there at His Cross there is always forgive- 
 ness ; there is that baptism of love out of which we 
 shall rise stronger men, more devoted, more resolute, 
 seeing more vividly what manner of service ours ought 
 to be. 
 
 There is one other thing forced on our thoughts. 
 Sad as it is to think of the failure of any chief servant 
 of God in the time of trial, yet even this was part of 
 the preparation for the greater work that lay before 
 St. Peter. He was able to convert, to win back, those 
 who had forsaken their Master and fled ; not only be- 
 cause he was stronger than they, but because he had 
 shared in their weakness. Sometimes you seem to 
 think that the men who have to be your leaders in 
 things sacred should be almost perfect, but often it 
 happens that they gain power over other souls because 
 they have been so far from perfect, because they have 
 
XXVIII The Lord looking on Peter 239 
 
 themselves had such painful experience of the weak- 
 ness and the treachery of the heart. Their very errors 
 and their follies, the discovery in themselves of mean 
 states of feeling, have revealed something to them of 
 the secrets and the mystery of the soul ; and through 
 the sacred way of contrition they have gathered spiritual 
 strength. How often in times of self-accusation has 
 the mind, prostrated by inward suffering, been lifted out 
 of the dust by the new hopes that spring out of the 
 grave of sins or failures; there seems still a future 
 possible to them, better than the past. It is not to St. 
 Peter but to themselves that the Voice is saying, 
 " When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." 
 
XXIX 
 SONSHIP IN THE FAMILY OF GOD 
 
 " He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many 
 as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, 
 even to them that believe on his name." — St. John i. 11, 12. 
 
 If we had no knowledge of religious truth but this, 
 that we ourselves exist and that God is, the thing we 
 should desire most to know is the relation in w^hich we 
 stand to Him. "We could not have found this out for 
 ourselves, but He has discovered it to us, and it is of 
 this great and splendid discovery that I would speak 
 to you to-day. Our true position is that of sons in the 
 Family of God, and I shall take occasion to show you 
 that this is the relation in which we were always meant 
 to stand. St. John is here feeling his way to a great 
 truth, — that there is One to whose action may be traced 
 alike the wisest thoughts of sages and the dimmest 
 recognition of good in the midst of heathendom ; that 
 this world of man belongs to God, that He is the 
 Father of all. 
 
 The world was made by Him, and yet when Jesus 
 Christ came, such is the darkening influence of sin, 
 that " the world knew him not." 
 
 Yet none the less has He at all times been discharg- 
 ing the office of Son, leading men to the Father. In 
 converse with every soul, in witness to every conscience. 
 
XXIX Sonship in the Family of God 241 
 
 the Lord has been in the midst of men, a living person- 
 ality in contact with living minds. 
 
 And we are now taught that these were at no time 
 aKen. The universality, the persistence of the Word's 
 witness to the inner heart of men, is now explained by 
 the fact that all the while they were indeed " His own." 
 In the revelation that has been given us, all is in har- 
 mony. God said, " Let us make man in our image." 
 From the very first we are taught that men are God's 
 own, in a profounder meaning of the words than any 
 of the other creatures He has made. Despite our 
 degradation, even now man's nature is the likest to 
 God's, and the nearest by way of kindred, of any in 
 the whole realm of created things. You cannot look 
 at even the form of man, still less can you observe the 
 workings of his mind, without seeing the Divine Nature 
 imaged there. Among all creatures, man's is the only 
 eye that kindles with the light of thought, or gleams 
 with the softer radiance of love ; his is the only ear to 
 which the universe is vocal with spiritual meanings ; his 
 is the only countenance which in its changeful expres- 
 sion reveals the workings of a soul, or is capable of 
 bearing on it the stamp of moral nobleness. And 
 yet again, his mind, beyond all else in it that speaks 
 of intelligence, has for its distinguishing feature the 
 capacity of moral veneration and religious awe. His 
 is the only nature in which can exist the all-essential 
 and deeply-felt condition of highest happiness, in har- 
 mony with a righteous will ; and the deepest of all known 
 wretchedness, the sense of departure from moral purity. 
 He alone has a soul with which God has conversed, to 
 which He has communicated inspirations of holy desire, 
 or which possesses the capacity of knowing Him. The 
 
 K 
 
242 The Light that light eth every Man xxix 
 
 ruling passion strong in his decay is the desire and the 
 endeavour after God, and these reachings after the 
 Infinite teach us that in oneness with God stands man's 
 true life. His affections, his imagination, the mysteries 
 of feeling and the mysteries of thought within him, 
 reflect as in a mirror Divine forms of truth and beauty. 
 The Divine Nature, in which there is such an infinite 
 variety centering in a personal unity, is represented to 
 the earthly creation in that creature whose nature He 
 has made likest to His own. For even man is not one 
 thing but many. His inventiveness is like the imita- 
 tive effort of one kindred with a Creator; his thought 
 transcends the limits of the useful and convenient, and 
 the demands of immediate necessity ; his sensibility to 
 emotion is never kindled into its utmost life except 
 under the urgency of thoughts that are eternal ; he 
 never feels that the grandeur and the glory of his life 
 is reached except when he is translating into action the 
 burning thoughts that come from the throne of God. 
 Are not these, then, marks of true kindred ? Whether 
 with his will or against his will, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, man bears himself in the midst of creation as 
 a son of God. 
 
 And this is the mystery of the scene when Christ 
 came. Men did not know Him, and they did not 
 know themselves. But in contemplating this mystery 
 we are confronted with another awful truth. If by 
 men Christ was not received, it was because they alone 
 had the power, by reason of those very gifts He had 
 bestowed, to exercise a voluntary choice. It was the 
 very nearness of man to God, in those attributes which 
 likened him to God, that enabled him to deny and 
 contradict the purpose of Supreme Love, He who 
 
XXIX Sons hip in the Family of God 243 
 
 alone of all creatures has consciousness and will, was 
 able to break the harmony of nature. We look abroad 
 in Creation and see that in its unconsciousness it cannot 
 but act out His Will. The men of science have petri- 
 fied into laws of Nature what are the visible expres- 
 sions of that will ; but of all this our Lord said, " My 
 Father worketh hitherto, and I work." But a nature 
 possessed of free-will has the perilous power to break 
 all that orderliness of action. That which is the glory 
 of man has proved also to be his shame. He is free, 
 but the freedom to disobey is not " perfect freedom." 
 This will, which has so strangely abused its power, 
 needs to be redeemed ; and for this Christ came. The 
 redemption of the will is the restoration to sonship — 
 the return to the normal relation between God and 
 man. "As many as received him, to them gave he 
 power to become the sons of God, even to them that 
 believe on his name." Does this language perplex 
 you ? Do you ask whether we are to understand that 
 we are not contemplated by God as His children till 
 we have consciously believed ? Are we to believe the 
 deep enmity of our hearts when it suggests to us that 
 at any moment we are not His children and He is 
 not our Father ? Has any act of mutiny of ours, any 
 course of sin, however prolonged, won for us the power 
 or the right to alter God's own constitution of things ? 
 Children are made so by no act of free choice of theirs — 
 is the Family of God unlike every other family ? Can 
 we refuse to be what He has made us ? All this, 
 which is so perplexing, has been clearly explained to 
 us in the parable of the Prodigal Son. There you see 
 the wilful, self-indulging nature using its freedom to 
 go away from a Father's house, trying to be his own 
 
244 'r^^^ Light that lighteth every Man xxix 
 
 all-in-all, and failing utterly, because he cannot alter 
 the conditions of his own being. It is not his body 
 alone, but his soul, that finds itself to be in " a far 
 country." There he feels what he has never felt 
 before ; that he is not a citizen but a stranger and an 
 alien. The condition he has chosen is alien from that 
 which is properly his. And then comes the sense of 
 profound want. What can be more pathetically signi- 
 ficant than his coming to himself? The feverish 
 dream is over. His first repentant purpose is, "I 
 will arise and go to my father." If that language has 
 any meaning, he has never ceased to be a son, let him 
 fall never so low. The Fatherhood has never ceased to 
 exist for him, although he has not suffered it practi- 
 cally to affect his own conduct. But the moment the 
 sense of Fatherhood returns, then all is changed. At 
 first, indeed, he can hardly believe that he has not 
 sinned away his place of privilege, and thinks only of 
 getting back to the Home that is now dearer to him 
 than ever, hardly knowing what his place in it can be. 
 If he cannot be a son, he will be content to be one of 
 the hired servants — not .a slave, but a servant, using 
 his freedom to bind himself by a fresh tie of service 
 and affection. To be once more under the shadow of 
 the roof-tree ; in that one burning desire all his hope 
 in life is expressed. And yet all the old language 
 clings to him ; it is not merely to the Master of the 
 house but to the Father that he will go to make his 
 appeal. Of sonship he cannot divest himself, though 
 his place as an honoured son he may think he has 
 forfeited. But the parable corrects even this misgiving. 
 His first homeward purpose is met by a fatherly love 
 which outruns his own most eager desires ; while he 
 
XXIX Sonship in the Family of God 245 
 
 is yet in heart and mind a long way off, the Father 
 makes haste to meet him, and when he is restored, it 
 is- restoration, not discovery. It is not as one received 
 into a new place by a mere act of clemency ; but it is 
 as one who " was dead, and is alive again ; who was 
 lost, and is found." No one surely can doubt that this 
 parable was meant to teach us the truth about the 
 relation of even the sinful soul to God, to discover to 
 us that the impediments to reconciliation are those 
 deep within ourselves, and yet that never, from first 
 to last, has the relation which actually existed been 
 other than that of Father and Child. In spite of all 
 this, you are often told that none are children of God 
 but those who have been converted ; but which will 
 you believe, the confident assertion of a crude theology 
 or the express teaching of the Lord ? In His teaching, 
 as in the New Testament as a whole, we are made to 
 see in Love the very energy of the Divine Fatherhood, 
 seeking the redemption of the children. This it is of 
 which our Lord's discourses are fuU. In all that He is 
 Himself, He will have them know that He is showing 
 them the Father, — not a man more pitiful than God, 
 but the very expression of His pitifulness. This is 
 the central idea of the Gospel message. It is made 
 very abundantly clear that what has been called " the 
 original and root-relation in the light of which all 
 God's doings are to be understood," is His relation to 
 us as the Father of our spirits. 
 
 It is natural indeed that we should ask — If we 
 were sons before, why does St. John say that we gain 
 power to be sons by believing ? We gain it just as 
 we regain something that has been lost, — not lost in 
 fact, but lost to us from our own averted state of mind. 
 
246 The Light that lighteth every Man xxix 
 
 The darkness that hides God from His children is a 
 darkness rising out of the abyss of their own sinful 
 thought. When the Prodigal was trying to stay his 
 hunger with the husks that the swine did eat, what 
 sense had he, at that moment, of being a son ? What 
 he had been, what he might be, had faded out of his 
 sight. For all that then appeared, he might have been, 
 all his life long, a miserable swineherd struggling with 
 the brutes under his care for the coarse food on which 
 it was never meant that a man should live. He had 
 tried to descend to their level, but tried in vain. And 
 at this very time we are told that he is a son of One 
 who has always loved him, and the desire of whose 
 heart was for the wanderer's return. Here was one 
 who was indeed a son, yet had no sense of being one. 
 He needed the power to become a son once more, and 
 he gained it through the discovery of the father's for- 
 giving love. So it is that the baptized lose the sense 
 of sonship ; so it is that through repentance and faith 
 they regain it. Then they see that God is their Father 
 indeed, and the joy is redoubled because it brings such 
 blessed relief from the darkness and coldness that had 
 fallen on their spirits. Then they enter practically 
 into the life of sonship. That which was always true 
 has become true to them ; they have received a new 
 power through believing ; their faith is the victory that 
 overcomes not only the world but the feeling of hope- 
 lessness within themselves. If there be any here who 
 have been sad at heart, I would say to them — What- 
 ever your errors, your wanderings, the stains upon 
 your conscience ; whatever your struggles against the 
 Love that has been drawing you to itself; the reasons 
 there may have been in the past for fearing that son- 
 
XXIX Sonship in the Family of God 247 
 
 ship in God's house had gone from you once for all ; 
 yet this will be your happy experience if you too will 
 arise and go to your Father ; bringing with you the 
 same sense of ill desert, you will yet find that your 
 desert is not the measure of His Love, but that the 
 more you need forgiveness the more He glories in for- 
 giving. Your thoughts of life will then be changed. 
 New desires will be awakened, as the work your 
 Father gives you to do spreads forth into widening 
 spheres of duty. The filial spirit towards God will 
 also knit you more closely to your brethren ; and in 
 the various, everchanging scene of life you will recog- 
 nise the constant flow of events belonging to the family 
 life of God. It must be so, since all is the fulfilling 
 of a Father's will — a Father who Himself works with 
 manifold operation, and has taught His children to be 
 followers of Him. If one who thus gains power to 
 become a son of God finds that a change has passed 
 on his view of life, not less will be the change in his 
 anticipations of death. Beyond the loneliness of the 
 passage which leads him away from the dear com- 
 panionship on earth he will see a greater home await- 
 ing him. He will be sustained by the grand hope 
 and the glad expectation of the reality of all that has 
 been foreshadowed, and the former fears will have 
 passed away. The power to become a son of God con- 
 tains within it the promise of a blessed and eternal 
 inheritance. And all who here have been his fellows 
 will, one by one, pass onward to the great rejoicing 
 company, where all being one with Christ Jesus, all 
 will be truly one with each other. 
 
XXX 
 
 THE LIFE HID WITH CHRIST 
 
 " Your life is hid with Christ in God." — Colossians iii. 3. 
 
 It is on a very high level of thought that the mind of 
 St. Paul moves in this Epistle. He is speaking to the 
 men of Colosse of one who, in the common unbe- 
 lieving estimate of things, was no more than a dead 
 man. Whatever Christ had been, He was gone ; and 
 the new truth St. Paul was introducing to the con- 
 sciousness of the world notwithstanding, is that there 
 has been no severance between the life of Him who 
 has gone and that of men now living on the earth. 
 He is not like any other dead man ; He is One who 
 rose from the dead, and though He has since dis- 
 appeared from sight, His resurrection is that character- 
 istic thing which makes Him different from all other 
 men who have lived and died. It was not only a 
 physical but a moral resurrection ; the coming to life 
 again of all those holy principles of action and elements 
 of power which seemed for a moment to have been 
 overshadowed by the darkness of the grave. He is 
 now not dead but unchangeably living. And together 
 with this the Apostle insists on the indissoluble charac- 
 ter of the common life between Christ and His dis- 
 ciples. That w^hich has gone out of sight is the mere 
 
XXX The Life hid with Christ 249 
 
 form and semblance of the Man Christ Jesus ; the true 
 Christ is risen and ascended. And if there be this 
 indissoluble union, men now living on the earth have 
 risen with Him ; they are sharers in a mystic sense 
 which yet is consistent with the deepest reality, in that 
 higher life of His in the heavenly places. To the old 
 life which sought its Paradise on the earth, which made 
 this world the sum and substance of existence, they 
 have died ; they are now sharers with Him in the pure 
 and holy life which has only one supreme ambition, 
 the doing of the Heavenly Father's Will. " Your life," 
 it is said, " is hid with Christ in God." 
 
 By this backward glance we are able to account for 
 the peculiarity of language ; but remember, it is lan- 
 guage which contains the statement of a truth for us as 
 well as for the men of Colosse. You are not to dilute 
 it into metaphor. It was a metaphor when our Lord 
 said, " I am the vine ; ye are the branches." It was no 
 metaphor when He said, " The life that I live ye shall 
 live also." This is as if the writer had said — Do you 
 long to look upon the very lineaments of Christ ? Do 
 you complain that He is hidden from you, so that you 
 cannot see Him ? No, not from you ; He is hidden 
 from the unbelieving world, but not from you. The 
 man in each of us is not the creature of sense ; it is 
 not the percipient faculty through which we look out 
 on the moving scene ; it is the spirit which is capable 
 of spiritual relationships, which knows and feels, and 
 through the darkness can reach out, and by faith find 
 the true object of its proper love. Your true, highest 
 life is hid with Christ in God. 
 
 Who can venture to lay his finger on the first move- 
 ment of grace in a human soul ? Who can say at 
 
 / OF THE ^ \ 
 
 . v^jniversity) 
 
250 The Light that light eth every Man xxx 
 
 what moment the hidden life began to make itself 
 manifest ? In the history of our earlier years there 
 are mysteries of feeling which yet are among the most 
 real things in our experience. Those vanishing, fugi- 
 tive impressions of celestial beauty in the things of 
 God which every human childhood has known ; the 
 attraction which childhood finds in pictures of the in- 
 visible world ; the awe, the reverence, the sweet sim- 
 plicity of devotion ; to what shall we assign these things 
 if not to the workings of grace ? And what is this but 
 another word to express the life hid with Christ in God ? 
 And when you pass onward to that maturer stage in 
 which the growing powers are exposed to severer tempta- 
 tions, when the brightness of the young vision of God 
 is dimmed amid the strivings for objects that have to 
 do with the present, yet every religious spirit recalls 
 much of internal conflict. Even when the world of 
 sense overbore the claims of the Divine life, yet the 
 soul that yielded to temptation did so not without a 
 struggle, and not without an after-feeling of pain and 
 misery. And if, on the contrary, the temptation was 
 vanquished, and the soul held fast to its choice of good, 
 there was the consciousness of some assistant power 
 working with us, some constraint of a holy influence 
 to which we yielded. It is not Scripture alone, but 
 the testimony of our own experience, that convinces us 
 that to the workings of grace in the human soul we 
 owe everything that makes us strong for good. 
 
 Here then, within the range of actual human ex- 
 perience, we have had some intimation of the reality of 
 a hidden Divine life entering into the very centre of 
 our personal existence. But, though hidden, this Divine 
 life, which is the most powerful influence in the midst 
 
XXX The Life hid with Christ 251 
 
 of men, comes forth and makes itself known in the 
 midst of the things that are seen. 
 
 • Divine grace has an infinite variety of instruments. 
 It makes use of the natural things — the home affections, 
 the growth of the intellectual life, the collision of minds 
 with one another, the providential circumstances which 
 shape our lives, the interminglings of society, and the 
 whole framework of things which constitute the personal 
 history. 
 
 Thus we see that our life has two parts, an outward 
 and an inward, and that the one is as real as the other. 
 
 You have to take care lest that which is immortal, 
 which belongs to the true eternal history, should take 
 hurt from its contact with the other, whose objects are 
 limited, and whose influence on the imagination is be- 
 wildering. The outward solicits the senses, casts a 
 kind of enchantment of fancy over the limited ambitions 
 which will perish with the mortal life ; and yet to the 
 less thoughtful this part of their existence, for all practi- 
 cal purposes, makes up the whole of it. It is apt to 
 become sordid if the whole energy of the man is em- 
 ployed in seeking his self- advancement. It lacks 
 nobleness even if, disdaining the more self-seeking 
 theory of existence, it yet is mainly given to pleasure, 
 and if the claims of duty are not felt to be the most 
 compulsive influence. The things we can see, about 
 which the natural feelings play, even if there be no sin 
 in them, after all belong to the temporal, the changeful, 
 the things which are to perish with the using. There 
 is within man a more real life than that; I do not 
 mean merely in those whose character is expressly 
 Christian, but in every man. The hidden life besieges 
 many who are unconscious of it. The motives and 
 
252 The Light that light eth every Man xxx 
 
 principles of action which are out of sight, in so far as 
 they are high and noble, are the unconscious recognition 
 of a Glory which is Divine. The enthusiasm in any 
 great cause which sweeps away as trifling things the 
 suggestions of a self-regarding policy, is an instinctive 
 act of homage to good. The mightiest impulse on 
 conduct is that which comes from within. 
 
 I wish you to see, not only in texts of Scripture 
 but in yourselves and in the histories of other men, 
 the things which could have no explanation were not 
 this life hidden with God a reality. You know that 
 even now there are solemnities of feeling in you which 
 give a tremendous interest to the commonest things. 
 The soul which owes its existence to the creative touch 
 of God responds to the touch of His inspiration even 
 now. There are moments when there falls on us an 
 unspeakable awe, in the consciousness that the breath 
 of a Holy Spirit is breathing on us. 
 
 You have other evidence of the same thing in the 
 opposite direction. When you do not respond to the 
 touch of God, when you feel sin to be powerfully work- 
 ing in your members, this is accompanied by a profound 
 sense of misery ; and there are times of remorse and 
 bitterness of conscience which have power to blacken 
 all in life that is beautiful and bright. How is this ? 
 It is the secret confession of the soul that the life in 
 God is the only life fit for a man to live, that to turn 
 away from it is to go out into a region on which there 
 rests the sense of Divine condemnation. On the 
 other hand, the hope that moves our nature with the 
 most profound emotion is a celestial hope of being made 
 free from sin, and attaining to a fellowship with all the 
 good. To rise above the illusions of that pleasure 
 
XXX The Life hid with Christ 253 
 
 which is merely superficial, and to enter into the depth 
 and reality of this joy, is the aim of every soul that has 
 truly given itself to God. 
 
 The truth of which I have been speaking has an 
 awful, but it has also a consolatory, aspect. The things 
 we do pass away from our sight, from our very recol- 
 lection ; but they none of them perish. They with- 
 draw behind the veil ; but they are hidden with God. 
 They will meet us again. Those deeds of ours which 
 have not been the acting out, but the contradiction of 
 the Divine life, have not merely shrivelled into nothing- 
 ness ; they have taken their definite place among the 
 things treasured up in the records of God. They will 
 meet us again, and this is the thing which surrounds 
 with such awful solemnity the thought of a coming 
 judgment. But the holier feelings and activities, the 
 things we have forgotten, these too are hidden with God. 
 There is a fact of physical science which has its beautiful 
 analogy. We are told that every movement of the body 
 which involves a waste of substance or a loss of energy 
 is not lost, only transferred in space, so that in an 
 altered form it still exists elsewhere. Nothing in this 
 world ever dies. And so in like manner all those 
 energies of the spiritual nature in which we have been 
 seeking nearness to God, the seasons of penitential 
 humiliation, the sacred acts of afi&ance, the efforts to 
 save the lost, the ministries of a compassion Divine in 
 its origin and its tenderness ; these have passed away 
 from our sight but not from our life. They are hidden 
 with God. They are already building up for us the 
 fabric of the new life, and when all the mortal and all 
 the sinful in us have perished, our growth in the 
 Divine life here will determine our place, and fit us 
 
2 54 T^^^^ Light that lighteth every Man xxx 
 
 for that new and holy activity to which, because un- 
 disturbed by any warring influence, we give the blessed 
 name of Rest. 
 
 It may have happened to you to pass through some 
 season of extreme mental suffering, when pain touched 
 you to the quick, — pain of a kind which drove you in 
 upon yourself in a misery of feeling that no man 
 could share. It required all your manhood to keep a 
 brave front to the world and never suffer your hand 
 for an instant to relax its hold on the sense of duty. 
 This belongs to your hidden life, the life hidden from 
 man but not from God. He who with strong crying 
 and tears was heard in that He feared, gathers to His 
 heart all such unknown and unimagined sufferings of 
 His brethren. They are part of that baptism of blood 
 which is theirs in right of their perfect fellowship with 
 Him ; — through these things the fellowship becomes 
 more intimate and complete, and it is against this 
 background of suffering that there is set the everlast- 
 ing joy. 
 
 And there is yet one other part of our life — that 
 which constitutes so much of its sweetness — the human 
 affection, which is the earthly education in a properly 
 Divine love. The pure associations that glorify even 
 our earthly life, the intimacies of feeling through which 
 one nature passes into another, the communings of 
 souls seeking to tread the higher paths of meditation, 
 can you look back on these things with a keen regret 
 to think that they are over ? Ah, but they are not 
 over; they too are treasured up. From the earthly 
 Mounts of Transfiguration you will pass on to a com- 
 munion of souls so perfect and so pure as to satisfy all 
 your desire, but yet a communion for which the 
 
XXX The Life hid with Christ 255 
 
 earthly communings were the preparation. The human 
 love that sought you in life, that looked its sad and 
 longing farewell in the hour of death, — that too is 
 hidden with Christ in God, — has not lost its human 
 tenderness, is still waiting and expecting till the hour 
 shall come when those who were kindred in nature 
 shall be one indeed. The love that sought you is 
 hidden with God, and will not rest until it find you. 
 Here and now then, in your friendships, in your 
 domestic affections, so seek together the Divine life, so 
 share in the hope and the desire and the endeavour 
 after good, so interchange the higher thoughts and the 
 ethereal sympathies that belong to the eternal life, that 
 even the mortal affections may share in the immortal 
 hope. 
 
 And ask yourselves at this moment whether you 
 have in your own selves any true realisation of the 
 hidden life. Commune with your own heart. Eeach 
 out in thought and desire to the unseen Saviour. 
 Watch over your own conduct. See that neither the 
 lust of the eyes nor the pride of life betray you. Rise 
 above a formal, mechanical, outside religion. Carry 
 all your sorrows, all your disappointments, and even 
 your joyous things, to Him whose sympathy is sure. 
 Stand here as in the porch of a greater Temple, and 
 prepare your heart that you may be fit to enter it. 
 
XXXI 
 LONGSUFFERING AND GENTLENESS 
 
 " The fruit of the Spirit is . . . longsuffering, gentleness." 
 
 Galatians v. 22. 
 
 Sometimes we have to speak of the deep things of 
 religion for the confirmation of faith, or the answer of 
 those questions that will rise in minds earnestly seek- 
 ing for the truth. Because ours is a heavenly doctrine 
 and we are seeking to train men for a heavenly life, 
 we must often be occupied with such high discourse as 
 this. Our feet stand on the earth, but our eyes gaze 
 upward to the stars. Amid all that is lowly in our 
 lot the soul has its longings, which without such con- 
 verse with eternal things cannot be satisfied. The 
 heavenly things of which our Lord spoke to His dis- 
 ciples carried them far away from this troubled earth ; 
 He whose eye swept not the mere visible firmament 
 with all its glittering spheres, but the Heaven of 
 heavens which lies beyond it, bore them on the wings 
 of His discourse into the very midst of the saints and 
 angels and to the throne of God, and then descending 
 with them to earth again, made all things easier 
 through the thought of that higher life to which they 
 belonged. Ill would we repeat His message if we do 
 not speak often of the heavenly things of which He 
 spake ; if the mystery and the glory of His doctrine 
 
XXXI Longsuffering and Gentleness 257 
 
 are absent from our discourse ; if we fail to speak to 
 you as to spiritual men of the things which eye hath 
 not seen and ear hath not heard, and it hath not 
 entered into the heart of man to conceive. 
 
 But there are heavenly things to be sought here on 
 earth as well as in that grander scene which will open 
 on our view when for us the earthly things shall have 
 passed away. It is part of a heavenly doctrine that 
 it transforms the character of the earthly life, gives us 
 a new ideal of what it is meant that a man should be, 
 and discovers to us the fact that into our human life 
 a purifying spirit has entered. 
 
 To be men after the pattern of Christ is to convert 
 the earthly things to a heavenly character. He deals 
 with us as those who have been born anew in Him, 
 who are made actual partakers of the holy life which 
 is with Him in God. He tells us what this life for 
 human beings must be, and He gives us His Spirit to 
 produce in us all the fruits of goodness. 
 
 But these virtues and graces which the Gospel de- 
 lights to honour, the world does not at once perceive 
 to be good. When presented to men whose hearts 
 have not yet been touched with the love of God, they 
 have "no form nor comeliness, and when they see them, 
 there is no beauty that they should desire them." 
 Yet they are the manifest fruits of the regenerate life 
 — the life which is in God. If to you the manhood 
 of Christ seems beautiful and adorable, if to you it 
 seems that to become like Him would be to live your 
 manhood at its very best, — then do you consider well 
 what are those graces of character in which that like- 
 ness can be traced. 
 
 St. Paul here enumerates the things in which you 
 s 
 
258 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxi 
 
 can clearly see how the faith of Christ works in a man, 
 what changes it produces in his character, how it is 
 that men are led by the Spirit of God so as to be recog- 
 nisable for sons of God. 
 
 Now it is of two of these things only that I will 
 speak to-day — two states of mind and affection perhaps 
 more characteristically and distinctively breathing the 
 spirit of Christian doctrine than any others that could 
 be mentioned. 
 
 These are, " longsuffering and gentleness." It is 
 in the delineation of the finer dispositions of mind 
 in which Christian character is seen that perhaps we 
 miss most in the English translation. We get the 
 nearest corresponding word, but it is often either not 
 quite adequate in extent of meaning, or suggestive 
 of something not intended in the original word. 
 Great -mindedness, if we had such a word in com- 
 mon use, would be a nearly exact transcript of that 
 used by St. Paul, here translated "longsuffering." It 
 is a pity that we have not such a word, for you see 
 it includes longsuffering and something more. There 
 is undoubtedly included in it the willing endurance of 
 the evil of others, in spite of all provocation, but this 
 is only a part. Its more essential meaning is the 
 endurance by the mind itself of any violent tension of 
 feeling, as of anger or sorrow, without losing self-mastery. 
 It is the state of a mind which, awed by the great 
 example of suffering, has gathered to itself strength ; 
 which is on the watch against its own wild moods of 
 feeling; is strong and patient; does not suffer itself 
 easily to be carried away by the present emotion, how- 
 ever painful. It is only another illustration of what we 
 have so often said, that the man who has really taken 
 
XXXI Longsuffering and Gentleness 259 
 
 to his heart the teaching of Christ, and tries to act it 
 out, grows in true manliness of character. He is under 
 a high constraining discipline. There are impulses of 
 good to which he may yield when his soul is on fire 
 with the love of good, and a zeal in which there is no 
 selfishness ; but these impulses to strenuous action are 
 still under the control of a mind which sees clearly, 
 and a conscience which approves what he is doing. 
 But the impulses of fretfulness or complaint, the rash 
 outburst of wounded feeling, the anger against man or 
 the outcry against God at some time of inward suffer- 
 ing, — these he is to restrain in the exercise of a greatness 
 of spirit which he can only gain through leaning on the 
 strength of God, through the power He gives to those 
 who seek in Him their strength. And if Christian 
 life be, as it is meant to be, a growth, we expect to see 
 a growth in this. Let it be with us as with St. Paul — 
 " When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood 
 as a child, I thought as a child ; but when I became a 
 man, I put away childish things." 
 
 There is also included in this " longsuffering " the 
 patient endurance of evil and provocation. It is a 
 temper of mind which is eminently Godlike, for thus 
 has God borne through all the ages of human history 
 with that in man which is so offensive to His holy 
 Nature. 
 
 The enjoined practice of this virtue is described by 
 an old writer as but " the Divine ordering of a lively 
 and heavenly rule ; setting forth God himself as the 
 example of it; first as the Being who scattereth the dew 
 of His light over the just and the unjust equally. Who 
 suffereth the offices of the seasons, the service of the 
 elements, the tribute of the whole creation, to come 
 
26o The Light thai light eth every Man xxxr 
 
 alike to the worthy or the unworthy, bearing with 
 covetousness, with iniquity, with wantonness, with the 
 maliciousness which daily waxeth insolent." And 
 above all we see it in His infinite patience with the 
 despisers of His Gospel. 
 
 But lonsguffering does not imply indifference to the 
 moral character of actions. The Divine example itself 
 may serve to show us that it is the offspring of no 
 feeble or languid state of mind in reference to what 
 contradicts good. 
 
 There would be no virtue in endurance if there 
 were but little to endure. God has never failed 
 to distinguish most clearly between the evil and the 
 good. 
 
 By revelations, providences, judgments, and by that 
 eternal constitution of tilings which has made the way 
 of transgressors to be hard. He has taught the world to 
 stand in awe of His righteousness. So also, though 
 our Lord himself was the Saviour of sinners, though 
 He was especially the friend of those sinful who had 
 no high thoughts of themselves, yet we know how He 
 dealt with the high-handed sin of Pharisees and Scribes. 
 And so because we would be much enduring, after the 
 example of our blessed Master, we are not called on to 
 conceal our disapproval of what is wrong ; vice and 
 hypocrisy and cruelty and mean spitefulness of conduct, 
 and whatever is vile, we are to blast, as it were with 
 the breath of the Divine displeasure. Christian patience 
 is not that of insensibility or languid inditferentism, 
 but of a clear-sighted, long- enduring, much -hoping 
 love. In the story of St. John before his heart was 
 converted to love, you see where the real distinction 
 lies. Had he rebuked the Samaritans for any evil 
 
XXXI Lon^suffering and Gentleness 261 
 
 thing lie saw in them, there would have been no work- 
 ing of the un-Christlike temper; but when he began 
 to call down fire from Heaven to consume them, he 
 was admonished that he knew not what spirit he was 
 of ; that he did not understand the patience of God, 
 who had sent His Son not to destroy men's lives but 
 to save them. 
 
 I think then we should clearly understand that the 
 call to be longsuffering or much enduring requires of 
 us at least two things. 
 
 It demands of us first a tolerant and secondly a 
 forgiving spirit. And by a tolerant spirit, I do not 
 mean merely so in reference to differences of opinion. 
 That is a matter of course. We have none of us a 
 monopoly of the right to form a judgment on matters 
 of opinion ; and where there exists no right of toleration, 
 there can be no room for the exercise of tolerance. 
 But I mean the disposition to bear things in our fellow- 
 men which w^e do not like, even those which we ought 
 not to like, in spite of our just dislike, and in the hope 
 of amendment. We shall probably often need this 
 ourselves, for we do not know how often, without in- 
 tending it, there may be things in us, in our words 
 and actions, which jar on some inner feeling of our 
 neighbours, requiring them to bear with us. 
 
 God has borne not only with infirmity but with 
 much evil in men ; He knew our frame, and re- 
 membered that we are dust. He has been patient 
 with us, never losing sight of our redeemableness. 
 And we in our turn must not expect to see in our 
 fellow-men always the same strength and consistency 
 of goodness. Some are by nature of a feebler moral 
 fibre than others. The mysterious fact of transmitted 
 
262 The Light that light eth every Man xxxi 
 
 tendencies of character meets us face to face. Some 
 have had a wrong twist given to them in their early- 
 training. Some, missing the genial influences of a 
 happy home life, have been, as it were, starved in their 
 affections and stunted in their moral growth. Some 
 have had early and painful experience of injustice, 
 which has shaken their faith in human nature and 
 made them distrustful and suspicious of all men. 
 Some, brought up under a system of intimidation, have 
 lost rectitude of character in all the spontaneous move- 
 ments of the mind, through the habit of deceit by which 
 timidity seeks protection from brute force. Some, on 
 the other hand, pampered and indulged and never 
 taught the simplest lessons of self-mastery, have grown 
 insensibly into an egotism which drives away from 
 them the sympathy of their fellows. Some who have 
 had to wrestle with difficulties and attain knowledge 
 in the midst of those difficulties by sheer force and 
 persistency of character, in their exaggerated self-reli- 
 ance have become dogmatical and intolerant of differ- 
 ence. Others there are who, in some moment of 
 temptation, or entangled in some web of evil associa- 
 tion, have lost themselves, lost their own respect, their 
 good repute, their hope of better things. In all these 
 cases, you must remember, there was once the fresh 
 human soul, with all capacities of good as well, as evil ; 
 the child's soul, made in the image of God, and all 
 that has happened to it has not destroyed its identity. 
 You must look for that soul beneath all that is dis- 
 pleasing to you ; you must think with some degree of 
 pity and sympathy of the various things that have 
 been against its pure and happy growth ; you must 
 never give up the hope of better things. That is a 
 
XXXI Longsuffering and Gentleness 26 
 
 a 
 
 soul which Christ has redeemed. Time and the world 
 have made on it marks deeper than the wrinkles that 
 time writes on the brow ; but on your own soul too, 
 how much there is that needs to be changed to make 
 you truly lovable to the perfectly good, the beatified 
 souls whom you hope to join. Therefore be much- 
 enduring. Eeject no one altogether from your sympa- 
 thies or your good offices. No one is all evil, or 
 altogether unpleasant ; look for the good you can find 
 in the midst of what is less admirable, and live in 
 the hope of it. 
 
 Still more ought you to exercise longsuffering 
 towards those who you think have injured you or 
 been unkind to you. Our Lord taught His disciples 
 that there was to be no end to Christian forgiveness ; 
 and this makes it the more painful to see the bitter- 
 ness of spirit that sometimes grows up among those 
 who call themselves Christians. You hear a vindic- 
 tive spirit spoken of as a thing which a man cannot 
 help. People say, " It is his nature — ouce you give 
 him offence there is nothing to be done — he can't 
 help it ; he is a good hater." Can this ever be said of 
 a Christian ? It is not true. It is not the man him- 
 self ; it is some evil vindictive feeling that he is cling- 
 ing to, embracing, trying to make part of himself so 
 that nothing shall part them. If you were to use the 
 old language you would say. The devil is fighting for 
 his soul ; he is a sad, portentous object to behold. 
 But for him and all others like him the Church is in 
 prayer continually pleading, and within his own soul 
 is a voice which tells him that for him all must be 
 wrong and miserable until the spirit of malice and 
 uncharitableness is cast out. 
 
264 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxi 
 
 Have we then been longsuffering in our mastery 
 of our own moods of feeling, in our tolerant temper 
 towards that in others which is unpleasing, and in our 
 forgiveness of all our own real or imagined wrongs ? 
 A Christian hard and intolerant; a Christian vindictive 
 and unforgiving, is a contradiction in terms. To be 
 magnanimous is as clearly the demand of the Christian 
 law as it. is to be humble or to be chaste ; and the 
 occasion for its exercise is precisely when the effort 
 is most severe. These are the unseen martyrdoms of 
 the will, these the crucifixions of the evil nature within, 
 in which above all our Lord calls on us to remember 
 that we must serve under His banner. 
 
 So I turn to you to-day, my brothers, and bid you 
 beware of the encroachment on your nobler nature of 
 the small local discontents and animosities whicli tend 
 to impoverish the soul and weaken its higher life ; the 
 things which, when we come to die, will seem infinitely 
 mean and unworthy of your regard. God is Love, and 
 all in Christian life is vain which is not penetrated by 
 the spirit of love. Let your prayer, " Nearer, my God, 
 to Thee," express itself not only in words, but in the 
 earnest effort of your spirit to give to a love Divine 
 like His the supreme ascendency over your nature. 
 If others are harsh, let that make you more gentle ; 
 if others are unjust, defeat their injustice by a benign 
 tenderness towards them, and a calm perseverance in 
 the rectitude of your soul in the ways that are right ; 
 if others are unreasonable, let there be seen in you 
 always the sweet reasonableness of Jesus. And so you 
 will indeed illuminate with a light that comes from 
 Heaven the commonest scenes, the most familiar in- 
 cidents. You will give an ideal beauty and nobility 
 
XXXI Long suffering and Gentleness 265 
 
 of character to that which would otherwise tend to 
 become coarse and degrading. He who sees the heart 
 will recognise you for His children indeed, when He 
 sees you thus lighting manfully against the evil in 
 your nature. A Divine peace will enter into your 
 soul and possess it, and all men will take knowledge 
 of you that you have been with Jesus. 
 
XXXII 
 CHEISTIAN GENTLENESS 
 
 " The fruit of the Spirit is . . . gentleness." — Galatians v, 22. 
 
 Last Sunday we noted great-mindedness as one of the 
 distinctively Christian things. 
 
 Now we come to the companion word " gentleness." 
 This is the word which we find in the Authorised 
 Version ; in the Revised it is " kindness " ; but the one 
 word, like the other, is only an approximation to the 
 thought intended by the Apostle. Bishop Ellicott has 
 more accurately defined it as that " sweetness of dis- 
 position which finds its sphere and exercise in our 
 intercourse with one another." But we may retain 
 the word gentleness, provided we remember that we 
 are using it in this its older and its larger meaning — 
 the moral refinement of nature which Christ has taught 
 the world. 
 
 You are familiar with the way in which men are dis- 
 tinguished in different groups according to their leading 
 characteristics. You say that each is of a special type 
 or pattern, as if there were so many moulds according 
 to which character is cast. You speak of the vigorous 
 type, that in which what is strong and masterful throws 
 everything else into the shade. You associate with 
 such a character ideas of force, ruggedness, roughness, 
 
XXXII Christian Gentleness 267 
 
 resistance. And you mark off in striking contrast to 
 this the gentle type of character, as if there were some- 
 thing answering to the masculine and feminine elements 
 in human nature. Now this may be a distinction con- 
 venient enough for classification, when you are trying 
 to mark the leading characteristic of each group. But 
 when applied to the language of Christianity in the 
 recital of the Christian graces, it is a false distinction. 
 According to Christian teaching, gentleness is not so 
 much a natural characteristic of some as the glorious 
 achievement of those whose whole ideal of life has 
 been raised. It is not the feebler but the stronger 
 characters that are enabled thus to master all the feel- 
 ings and passions of their nature which conflict with 
 the supreme law of love. On the other hand, such is 
 the power of spiritual grace, that in the case of the 
 feebler, instead of merely refining the feebleness and 
 lending it beauty, it invigorates, communicating an in- 
 spiration of feeling which supplies the natural defect 
 of power. Between the idea of feebleness and the idea 
 of gentleness there is no natural relationship. On the 
 contrary, we may observe that a harsh and shrill tone 
 of feeling is not only consistent with weakness, but is 
 often the natural result of the painful attempt of such 
 a nature to transcend the limitations of its own powers. 
 In its highest perfection we know that gentleness was 
 found in Him who is the pattern Man, and in Him 
 arose not out of feebleness of nature, but out of the 
 wealth of his love and tenderness. 
 
 We shall find, I think, that this gentleness in 
 Christ had two aspects, one inward, the other outward 
 and express. 
 
 In its inward aspect it may be regarded as the 
 
268 The Light that light eth every Man xxxn 
 
 activity of the pure life within him, the life which is 
 of God. It is this inwardness which is the mainspring 
 of its power. 
 
 In its outward aspect, when brought to bear on men, 
 we find it associated with a wonderful considerateness 
 and tenderness for immature characters or partially- 
 averted states of mind. There is a writer of the present 
 day who has parted from much of Christian faith, but 
 out of the history of Hebrew religion and Christ has 
 extracted for himself two truths which he considers as 
 certain as any truths of history can be. These are, a 
 tendency, not oneself, which eternally works for right- 
 eousness ; and what he calls " the sweet reasonableness 
 of Jesus." While we regret much in his writings, this 
 expression, " the sweet reasonableness of Jesus," has a 
 singular felicity, and expresses more nearly than any 
 form of words one could put together what is reaUy 
 meant by the gentleness of Christ in its outward aspect. 
 
 But let us first observe it as an essential feature of 
 His own humanity. In Him goodness was seen as a 
 penetrating though secret power, needing no violent 
 demonstration, growing into life with the very growth 
 of His Being. Being what he was, there was not only 
 no disposition but no need for self-assertion ; as indeed 
 all self-assertion, even in behalf of what is good, in- 
 volves some loss of the unconsciousness which makes 
 goodness pure and beautiful. In Him its spontaneous- 
 ness was like that which Scripture has expressed under 
 the image of rain — " Speech which distils as the dew, 
 as the small rain upon the tender herb, as the showers 
 upon the grass " — or again, describes as " the life that 
 goeth forth," in its resistless force diffusing itself 
 everywhere ; without violence making itself felt. It 
 
XXXII Christian Gentleness 269 
 
 was such a character in Him that Isaiah foretold when 
 he said, " He shall not strive nor cry, neither shall 
 any man hear his voice in the streets." It was be- 
 cause the power of holiness in Him was so deep-seated, 
 so essentially a part of Himself, that it revealed itself 
 like the light ; silently, and as it were unexpectedly, 
 streaming on a world that looked not for it ; finding, 
 like the natural day, a world wrapt in slumber, and 
 waking it from its sleep, not visibly or with any start- 
 ling demonstration, but simply by the light He cast on 
 it. The deep source of the purity w^hich unfolded 
 itself as He lived and walked among men was the real 
 secret of the gentleness with which it was disclosed. 
 It came forth gently because its source lay so deep, 
 and it was the more penetrating because of its gentle- 
 ness. There was nothing startling in His approach : 
 He simply came among men as He was, a Being dif- 
 ferent from all those around him ; and by a strange 
 and quiet infection of the spiritual nature in them, 
 they were greatly moved. 
 
 The gentleness in Him was a sign not of weakness 
 but of His mighty power, and so it has happened that 
 the epithet "gentle," though never once applied to 
 Him in Scripture, has clung to Him as the most de- 
 scriptive of all. So we teach our children to think 
 of Him : by this epithet before they know Him for 
 what He is, we prepare their hearts to love Him. 
 (Jan you think of any other religious reformer, of any 
 prophet who set his mark permanently on the people 
 to whom he came — of any of the world's great men 
 who effected any great revolution in thought and life, 
 of whom the same thing can be said ? You think of 
 them as great and strong, as fired of some righteous 
 
270 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxn 
 
 purpose, as fervent against some crying wrong, as 
 wise in an age of ignorance, and able to break from 
 men's minds the bonds that enslaved their thought, 
 but of no one of them would you think as above all 
 things "gentle," — of no one of them would you say 
 that gentleness was the great characteristic of the sway 
 they exercised. In the Christian ages there may have 
 been some such, but if so, it was the power and spirit 
 of Christ's gentleness working in them. 
 
 And now let us look at this gentleness of His as it 
 expressed itself in His dealings with those to whom 
 He came. We recall the expression of " sweet reason- 
 ableness " as the distinctive feature of all His converse 
 with men. What strikes you most, besides His pene- 
 trating sympathy, is the patience, the considerateness, 
 the disposition to bear with immature characters, to 
 listen to the objections of even the prejudiced and 
 unreasonable, to teach men whatever portion of truth 
 they were able to bear. Even now there is to men 
 weary and worn a never- failing restfulness in His 
 most familiar words. It is as if He were still saying 
 to us, " Come and learn of me, for I am meek and 
 lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls." 
 When His disciples made grievous mistakes as to what 
 their Father willed them to do, how gently He re- 
 proached them, not confounding ignorance with wilful 
 wrong ; " Ye know not what spirit ye are of." How 
 fully He took into account their slowness of apprehen- 
 sion, and the shrinking of their hearts from what was 
 painful ; " I have many things to say to you, but ye 
 cannot bear them now." Even when dealing with 
 prejudiced adversaries who pursued Him with hatred, 
 He patiently reasoned, brought proofs from their own 
 
XXXII ChiHstian Gentleness 271 
 
 Scriptures that should have satisfied them, out of their 
 own mouth took the text of His spiritual discourse; 
 never failing in that sweet reasonableness which even 
 now commands the admiration of the unbeliever. 
 And I need not dwell on that attractive sweetness of 
 nature towards the worst sinners, which drew all the 
 publicans and sinners to hear Him. Would to God 
 that in these respects those who speak in His name 
 would become more like Him. Would to God that 
 the same method of trying to understand men's 
 thoughts, and the core of good in their errors which 
 makes them attractive, were always shown by those 
 who reason with the gainsay er. And would that the 
 same attitude of mind were observed towards the fallen. 
 Let me recall to you words spoken by Archdeacon 
 Manning while he was yet in the English Church. 
 He says, " There are, as it were, two minds, with two 
 arrays of feelings, which are awakened and excited 
 into act, just as the tone and bearing of those who 
 admouish us vary in character. Impatience, irritation, 
 self-defence, unfairness, resentment, self-approval, wil- 
 fulness are so marshalled together that they move all 
 at once, and oppose themselves in one array and front, 
 against a harsh look and a severe hand. And all 
 these are the most fatal hindrances to confession and 
 repentance. ... A sinner that is out of hope is lost. 
 Hope is the last thing left. If it be crushed the flax 
 is extinct. Through rough usage sinners fall into 
 despair, and through despair into reckless contradiction 
 of God's will, and thence into taking pleasure in evil, 
 and lastly into glorying in their shame. From this 
 there seems no rising again. Such are the effects of a 
 merciless severity, whether it arise from harshness in 
 
272 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxn 
 
 the reprover or from a rigid tone of morals and a mis- 
 taken jealousy for the glory of God." These are words 
 worthy to be remembered. If we are to save men, it 
 must be by exhibiting towards them the temper that 
 was in Christ. 
 
 Yet because we would not take a one-sided view 
 even of the character of Christ, therefore I listen to 
 those who urge that Christ on occasion had recourse 
 to irony, and that He sometimes broke forth into 
 invective. How far, you ask, are these consistent 
 with gentleness ? Just so far as they are irony and 
 anger like those of Christ. He never used irony to 
 wound any man's feelings. His was the innocent and 
 pure play of the intellect, a kind of appeal to men's 
 own sense of harmony and fitness against the iniquities 
 of their conduct, a way of discovering to them their 
 false reasoning, and leading them to suspect their own 
 conclusions. And the one only thing that drew forth His 
 anger was any attempt by precept or example to lead 
 men into evil, to confuse their conscience, to adulterate 
 their life. There was then in His displeasure an 
 emotion of anger ; His maledictions were prophecies of 
 warning, not movements of personal resentment. 
 Within this limit the Apostle's precept has still 
 authority, " Be ye angry and sin not." All this only 
 serves to show more clearly that gentleness is not to 
 be confounded with a feeble softness of emotion or ex- 
 pression. Gentleness of character is not inconsistent 
 with an even fervent indignation against evil, but its 
 very purity and freedom from malevolence gives to that 
 indignation, when it arises, a power of moral impressive- 
 ness which no other form of anger can command. 
 
 But what is here called gentleness is meant to signify 
 
XXXII Christian Gentleness 273 
 
 a goodness which, though ardent, is above all things 
 sweet and alluring, like a good man's character, which 
 is. itself a persuasive to virtue. 
 
 Even the vain world, which is least in sympathy 
 with the spirit of the Gospel, has assumed its garb and 
 adopted its phrases. What character is there to which 
 men are so emulous to justify their own title as the 
 character of a gentleman ? And although this is often 
 conventionally used of one who occupies a superior 
 place in society, yet the name sprang out of the idea 
 that the most perfect man, according to the Christian 
 thought of manhood, is as gentle as he is strong ; that 
 tenderness and refinement of feeling are of the very 
 essence of the character. The external polish of the 
 man of society is merely a dexterous imitation of the 
 properly Christian temper and bearing; and the courtesy 
 which is demanded of him is an unconscious tribute to 
 the power of Christianity. Some of you may associate 
 the name with the circle in which you move ; but we, 
 who have no rank in society, who are the friends, the 
 trusted advisers of people of every rank, know that 
 there is no circle in which this character may not in 
 its essence be found. 
 
 It is found in all in whom strength and tenderness 
 and delicacy of feeling are united ; and in vain are we 
 seeking to set forth the Christian life in its true motives 
 of action and its appropriate outward expression unless 
 we are doing something to raise all men to this standard. 
 
 If a romantic interest attaches to the tales of chivalry 
 of the Middle Ages, do not forget that the nineteenth 
 century has also its gentle knights, who are expected 
 to do their proper deeds of valour in a constant warfare 
 with all that is coarse and mean and selfish and degrad- 
 
 T 
 
2 74 The Light that light eth every Ma7i xxxn 
 
 ing. Such a character we shall recognise whenever we 
 see a steadfast self-control united to a high spirit and 
 generous temper ; self-respect illustrated by respect for 
 others, frankness towards man, and chivalrous gentleness 
 and reverence towards woman, unfeigned modesty of 
 mind, and an anxious shrinking from all that can 
 wound the feelings of the very weakest. Around such 
 a character will grow a grace of refinement which will 
 dignify the lowliest lot; and here and there, let us 
 hope, as formerly in the history of Christendom, some 
 particular family having more truly than others caught 
 the nobler spirit, and transmitted to successive genera- 
 tions its traditions of nobleness, will continue to kindle 
 in others a worthy emulation. The inheritance of 
 Christian ideas surely, my brothers, in this young 
 country, is the best part of our heritage. 
 
 With you, then, it rests, each in your place, to give 
 them form and expression — to strive in your own 
 persons to exhibit the Christian character, not only in 
 its unbending rectitude of purpose, but in its proper 
 attractiveness and grace. 
 
XXXIII 
 
 THE PRINCIPLE AND EULE OF OUE 
 OFFERINGS TO GOD 
 
 (preached at the opening of a church) 
 
 When a new church is opened, people understand that 
 they will then be especially moved to liberality in 
 giving. It is not indeed the only thing that needs to 
 be spoken about then. It is a time when the hearts of 
 men are opened, and when the very depths of religious 
 life in them can be stirred. But I see before me a 
 congregation who are entering on their united Church 
 life, and I am conscious of a feeling of unusual solici- 
 tude that all may be rightly begun, so that your doing 
 and giving alike may be Christian in character and 
 aim. The more Churchlike it is, the more Christian it 
 is sure to be ; for the Church is Christianity visible, 
 living, active. 
 
 How you should worship God, and how you are to 
 live so as to please God, were among the things of 
 which I was lately speaking to you ; and now I have 
 to point out to you how you should give for the service 
 of God. This too is part of your " reasonable service." 
 You who have been trained in devotion by the Prayer- 
 book know that " alms and oblations " are as essential 
 an element in worship as prayer itself. 
 
276 The Light that light eth every Man xxxm 
 
 I propose to consider this subject in its relation (1) 
 to Catholic doctrine ; (2) to the history and development 
 of the Church ; and (3) to the constant sacrifice of 
 worship which the Church is called to celebrate here 
 on earth, preparatory to the higher service of the 
 Heavenly Temple. 
 
 (1) First, we have to consider our offerings in relation 
 to Catholic doctrine ; that is, to the Christian Revelation 
 as a whole. In other words, we have to consider what 
 is the ethical principle on which this duty rests. 
 
 You are to remember, then, that in the whole scheme 
 of the revelation of God in Christ, Love is the supreme 
 motive power. This has been revealed to us as the 
 central principle of life in the Godhead itself, the spring 
 of activity which gives life and movement to the secret 
 Divine purposes. You see this in the course of creation ; 
 you see it in the providential government of the world ; 
 you see it in the administration of the Church and its 
 preservation amid all the heavings of human opinion ; 
 and you see it in the progress and development of the 
 spiritual life in each man. The history of God in 
 Nature and in the world of living men is the history 
 of One whose goings forth have been from Everlasting ; 
 that is to say, of One whose essential character it is 
 eternally to put Himself forth in some form of self- 
 expenditure. God %8 Love, and His is a constantly- 
 active love. We see it now in its unwearied energy 
 repairing all waste in the great fabric of the material 
 and spiritual universe ; and now bringing to the birth 
 in endless variety new forms of beauty and excellence. 
 
 Even the dumb kind of revelation of God which 
 has been given us in Creation, above all the power and 
 all the formative skill and all the plastic art, shows the 
 
XXXIII Our Offerings to God I'jy 
 
 moral character as its distinguishing feature. But the 
 Divine love is brought more conspicuously into view 
 in the Gospel, as taking to itself the pain, the sorrow 
 of the world, bearing it, enduring its power to inflict 
 suffering, and through Sacrifice redeeming the world 
 from its empire. All the incarnate acts of Jesus may 
 be contemplated, on the one side, as an imaging in 
 human life Him who is Eternal Love, and on the other 
 as preparatory acts of pity and tenderness leading on 
 to the consummate act of Sacrifice. 
 
 There you see, not merely awful Power stooping 
 from an infinite height to assuage sorrows surging far 
 beneath the throne of the Divine Majesty; but you see 
 God Incarnate, in the very midst of the travail of our 
 human life, by the Divine method of Sacrifice redeem- 
 ing the world from its evil. It is God expending the 
 wealth of His own nature for the sake of those who 
 with Him are bound up in the bundle of life. 
 
 This then is the basis of our whole scheme of life 
 and duty. It is an imitation, a reflection, of God. It 
 is a following of Christ, and following Him there most 
 clearly where we are expending self in the fulfilment 
 of His mind. It is a completing, a filHng up in the 
 flesh, of that which He has left behind ; not because 
 He could not have completed it, but because the com- 
 pleting it is the glorious mission He has conferred on 
 humanity. 
 
 These are the good works in which it was pre- 
 ordained that you should walk because you are Christ's 
 and Christ is God's. 
 
 It is here that we find the ethical principles on 
 which all duties of liberality and charity in the Church 
 of Christ really rest. Because our union with the Lord 
 
278 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxm 
 
 is not formal and mechanical but vital and internal, 
 therefore His spirit of love must be translated into our 
 personal and our Church life. The love of self must 
 be overcome in the lesser forms of Sacrifice as well as 
 in the greater ; the only limit being that we can never 
 be called on to sacrifice conscience, since the voice of 
 conscience is the voice of God. Then this spirit will 
 be shown in overcoming greediness and close-fistedness, 
 and the disposition to expend all we have upon our- 
 selves ; just as, if we should be called to it, we shall 
 prefer the happiness of others and the interest of truth 
 to our own happiness, and be willing to sacrifice personal 
 affection, honourable position, temporal prospects, and 
 in the last resort, life itself, for Christ's sake or man's 
 sake. 
 
 But the test of reality for each man in his more 
 romantic notions of high-souled duty will be in his 
 willingness to make the more commonplace sacrifices 
 that meet him in his own path. When the call to 
 liberality comes, it is as if Christ Himself were saying, 
 " Lovest thou me more than these ? more than thy own 
 comforts, more than thy luxurious habits, more than 
 thine own ease and all that can wrap the sense in de- 
 light ? Art thou willing to stint thyself, to mortify 
 thy self-love for the sake of Him who loved thee more 
 than these ? " 
 
 (2) Consider this subject in relation to the history 
 and development of the Church. 
 
 Here you will observe that, in the whole past of the 
 Church's history, there never has been any stereotyped 
 method of which we can say — That and that only is the 
 revealed method of giving for the needs of the Church. 
 A kind of sanctity has been attached to the giving of 
 
XXXIII Otir Offerings to God 279 
 
 tithes — that is, of regarding a tenth of all we have as 
 belonging to God's Service. That was the ancient pro- 
 vision for a Levitical order ; but on this three things are 
 to be observed. First, that this belonged to a theocracy 
 in which there was no clearly-traced distinction between 
 the temporal and the spiritual ; and this was as much 
 part of the civil as of the ecclesiastical administration : 
 Secondly, that the provision was one obviously adapted 
 to the then circumstances of the people ; and Thirdly, 
 that besides the prescribed tenth, there was hardly an 
 important event in life which did not afford to the 
 devout Israelite a new occasion for some gift or offer- 
 ing to the Lord. In the tithe we are not to see a hard 
 rule absolutely binding on men in all time, but only 
 a principle of giving, to be applied according to thi; 
 actual circumstances of each generation. 
 
 When we come to the early days of the infant 
 Church of the New Testament, we find that the rule of 
 giving a tenth was absolutely and at once superseded. 
 The poor had flocked into Christ's fold, and the new- 
 born, unworldly devotion to Him recognised them as 
 members of His Body. They seemed to hear the words 
 of the Good Samaritan, " Take care of him ; and when I 
 come again, I will repay thee." There was now no talk 
 of giving tenths. The greater need had evoked a larger 
 liberality. They had all things common. Those who had 
 lands sold them and laid the money at the Apostles' 
 feet. This was the adoption of a new social system 
 like that of the Communists, which would vest all 
 wealth in the community, to the destruction of personal 
 property. It was simply the spontaneous rising of 
 love in the Christian heart to meet a great necessity 
 by waiving all thought of self. But by the time of 
 
2 8o The Light that lighteth every Man xxxm 
 
 the Thessalonian and Corinthian Epistles this rule had 
 in its turn given place to another, better adapted to 
 trading communities. There we find that, without 
 setting aside the rights of personal property, St. Paul 
 moved the Grecian congregations to lay by them in 
 store, from week to week, their free-will offerings for 
 the necessities of tliose at a distance. 
 
 The rule of giving has thus been a variable rule ; 
 but it has always had one central principle, that we 
 are to give freely for love's sake ; that what we have 
 we are not to count our own, that in the Communion 
 of Saints all partiality is to give place to the recog- 
 nition of our common membership in One Lord. It is 
 all part of a life-long ministry to Him. 
 
 There is a significance too in the very name given 
 to your offerings. The English word " alms " is but a 
 shorter form of a Greek word which signified pity. 
 They w^ere meant to be the visible expression of 
 Christian love. This was at first love for man, but 
 it was for Christ's sake ; and to all offerings made 
 for His sake the name properly belongs. At first 
 they were wanted most for the poor, or those who 
 were devoted to the Ministry of the Gospel. Then 
 the time for building churches had not come. All 
 was preparatory. The living framework of the Church 
 was only in process of formation. In some upper 
 chamber, or unused lecture-room of some teacher of 
 heathen philosophy, or under the shade of trees by 
 the river's side, they had to perform the simple rites 
 of the Gospel. But when that stage in the history 
 had passed away, the records of Christian antiquity 
 tell us how lovingly Christ's servants applied the same 
 principle to the holy places which they raised for 
 
xxxiii Our Offerings to God 281 
 
 Christian worship ; how they sought the first models 
 for such buildings in no mean obscure forms, but in 
 the palaces of kings ; how in the richness of their 
 materials, and the beauty of their decorations, and the 
 grandeur of their service, they sought to give expression 
 to their deep-seated, devout conviction that in every 
 place the House of the Lord should be the goodliest 
 house of all ; how, though He be so great that the 
 Heaven of Heavens cannot contain Him, and though 
 He dwelleth not in houses made of wood and stone, 
 yet the house set apart for His worship should be itself 
 a symbol of His glory and His majesty. Here too 
 they sought a symbol of the adoring love of hearts 
 seeking to look through the things that are seen to 
 the things that are not seen, and through the honour 
 put upon the things that are made, to render honour 
 and glory to Him who made all things. 
 
 (3) This brings me to the last point — the relation 
 in which your offerings stand to the Church's constant 
 sacrifice of worship. You have been reminded that 
 Adoration is the first thing. You come hither to adore 
 God the Father. You come to celebrate the grace of 
 Christ. You come to take your feeble but willing 
 part, even though it be with clouded thought and 
 stammering tongue, with all saints and angels in cele- 
 brating that love of the Eedeemer which is stronger 
 than death. You come to offer the constant sacrifice 
 of praise and thanksgiving. You come to plead ever 
 anew the one Eternal Sacrifice in the Sacrament of the 
 Saviour's death. Much of your worship, because you 
 are men of unclean lips, must needs be penitential 
 confession, much must be mournful deprecation, much 
 must be entreaty plaintive in its tone ; but much must 
 
282 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxm 
 
 be festive celebration, because you are not merely 
 penitents but believers. Here, when you record your 
 vows, there must be, as in the Church of old, the votive 
 offerings ; and here the solemn, reverent, worshipful 
 giving of your alms, humbly presented to God, is the 
 consecration of your industry and the expression of 
 your love. In your gifts you will not deal with God 
 otherwise than you do with your dearest friends. 
 There you do not measure your giving by the bare rule 
 of utility. The things you give are sometimes signs 
 of your love and nothing more ; they can turn them 
 to no useful purpose, but they hang them round the 
 neck or wear them on the breast as tokens of something 
 that is dear to them and to you. You do not receive 
 your most honoured guests within bare walls, with 
 unlovely surroundings ; but you bring forth the best 
 that you have ; you make your chambers bright with 
 light and beautiful with flowers, as signs of the honour 
 you would put upon them. 
 
 Let no man despise these things, even in the House 
 of God. The things themselves are at the best poor 
 and perishable ; but here on earth they are the natural 
 expression of human feeling. And we are still dwellers 
 on the earth. We cannot afford to dispense with out- 
 ward signs, but we would so choose them that they 
 shall be fit accompaniments to a spiritual worship. 
 The love that would beautify the House of God is a 
 thing to be cherished ; it will not end there, it will 
 expand in works of mercy to those whom Christ has 
 commended to the Church's care. So do you battle 
 with and vanquish the spirit of selfishness in your- 
 selves by calling to your aid the power of a superior 
 affection to Him who held nothing back from you. 
 
Our Offerings to God 
 
 May His house, His service, His people be increasingly 
 dear to you. May your offerings here be willing and 
 abundant. And as it is here, so may it be with you 
 everywhere. Never forget that every day and in 
 every place, the call to you is to offer your very selves 
 a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto Him. 
 
XXXIV 
 A HAED SAYING 
 
 " They understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him." 
 
 St. Mark ix. 32. 
 
 Musing lately on the story of a now completed life, 
 I could not help thinking what a strange and sad thing 
 it is that the greatest benefactors the world has ever 
 seen are only understood and believed in after they are 
 dead. The purer their ambition, the nobler the work 
 to which they have devoted themselves, the higher 
 their elevation above all vulgar standards of conduct, 
 only the more completely do they seem to alienate 
 from them the men of their own day. It is the search- 
 ing trial, as of fire, to which all true devotion to prin- 
 ciple must be subjected. 
 
 There are not a few who make the ignobler choice. 
 He who is content to lay hold on present approval, 
 who is satisfied if each word and act is followed by 
 the ready applause of the men around him, will, if 
 he seek that applause, readily find it. He will find 
 it the more surely in so far as he is careful not to 
 travel beyond the limit of the existing sentiment ; in 
 so far as he echoes back to men with more power 
 than they possess, their own opinion, or condescends 
 to be the mouth -piece of the passions of the hour. 
 But it is a reward which in the moment of realisation 
 
xxxiv A Hard Saying 285 
 
 mocks all deeper sense of enjoyment within a man. 
 If, on the other hand, he be one who is so lifted 
 above himself by a pure enthusiasm for some great 
 cause, that for its sake he is willing to trample self 
 altogether under foot, he must be content to find his 
 reward not in the world around him, which with its 
 pageant is passing swiftly away, but in that deeper 
 inward joy that animates the confessor and sufferer for 
 a cause. In seeking his life, the one man loses it ; in 
 being content to lose it, the other finds life in its highest 
 power of inspiring the most celestial kind of joy. 
 
 Among all the lessons Christ taught us by His 
 lifelong, willing, unappreciated suffering, there is none 
 which it more becomes us to lay to heart than this. 
 He helps us to see life more clearly and to form the 
 right ideal of work undertaken in His Name. We look 
 upon His career with mingled impatience of the men 
 who were so insensible to what was passing before 
 their eyes, and an admiration of Himself that cannot 
 be spoken. We think what bliss and honour it would 
 have been to show Him any sympathy and lend Him 
 any strength; yet His own day did not understand 
 Him. Those who were nearest were just as far astray 
 as those who were more distant. Those of whose very 
 kith and kin He was, came and listened, and looked 
 on His wondrous works ; but so grievously did the 
 outcome of His teaching transcend their earthly thought, 
 that its effect even in their understanding was to close 
 their very faculty of vision. They could not see in 
 Him the Christ, because they had lost the power of 
 seeing any but their own vulgar conception of Christ- 
 hood. And it is not they only, but we. We are 
 hindered from recognising Christ in the truth men 
 
286 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxiv 
 
 speak, or in the unworldly lives of those of His servants 
 who most clearly utter Him to us ; sometimes through 
 the operation of deeply-rooted prejudice; sometimes 
 through a luxurious shrinking from what is painful ; 
 sometimes through a cool, unsympathetic temperament, 
 or a self-indulging scheme of life. Yet it may help 
 us to understand our own mistakes if we look on the 
 mistakes of those others. 
 
 (1) First, I observe, it was strange that our Lord 
 should not have been understood by at least the reli- 
 gious men of His day. Our souls are so possessed by 
 a sense of the greatness of His character, as we look 
 on it through the illuminating medium of eighteen cen- 
 turies of Christian history, that at first we feel inclined 
 to account for this by suspecting in their minds a sort 
 of churlish resentment against good. But this would 
 be to misapprehend the whole scene. It would not 
 be sufficient, nor if sufficient, a true explanation, to say 
 that His holiness thwarted wicked designs in them- 
 selves, or scorched by its brightness the foulness of 
 their life. For by whom was He misunderstood ? 
 Not only by the wilful evildoers on whom St. John 
 the Baptist poured his invective ; not only by the 
 superficial, the hypocrites and pretenders who neither 
 would enter Heaven themselves nor suffer others to 
 enter in ; but also by many who during long years had 
 been looking for the redemption of Israel. The single 
 case of Saul of Tarsus may serve to show that among 
 his adversaries may often have been numbered men of 
 pure spirit, whose souls were consumed with impatience 
 because the fulfilment of prophecy tarried so long ; 
 men who adored God with a profound admiration and 
 longed to welcome the Christ. But their enthusiasm 
 
XXXI V A Hard Saying 287 
 
 in behalf of the true Christ was expressed not only in 
 the fervour of an impatient hope, but also and not less 
 truly by an honest indignation at all that seemed to 
 contradict or turn into parody their dearest expecta- 
 tion. Trying to spell out the purposes of God in his- 
 tory after the mistaken method of some prophetic stu- 
 dents in our own day, not by waiting to see how God 
 in history would accomplish His own designs, but by 
 attaching beforehand an arbitrary meaning to every 
 spoken promise, they were sorely disappointed to see 
 that each utterance of our Lord was only a fresh dis- 
 paragement of their presumptuous commentaries. They 
 were not prepared for One whose battle lay with the 
 mysteries of wickedness in each heart, and who seemed 
 to postpone the triumph over enemies until He had 
 corrected wrong thiugs in those who vaunted them- 
 selves the friends of God. They showed very clearly 
 that there may be a failure to understand arising from 
 no lack of evidence, but from a foregone conclusion 
 with which the truth came into direct and visible 
 conflict. We can see their error ; but what has been 
 the fate of religious reformers in our own time ? We 
 have seen how it has fared with them as often as they 
 opposed themselves to the current opinion of their day ; 
 and instead of assailing the worldliness of worldly men, 
 have assailed with an awful kind of earnestness the 
 false things in the lives of religious people. There 
 have been prophets of our own day who have delivered 
 their message in the teeth of overwhelming majorities. 
 I remember one and another who came into the midst 
 of a religious world that had ceased to be truth-seeking, 
 but all the pedantry and spurious orthodoxy of the 
 time was against them. They stood their ground ; at 
 
288 The Light that light eth every Man xxxiv 
 
 last they got a hearing, and now their language is 
 gathering to itself a new popularity; but what was 
 the treatment vouchsafed to those who clung to truth 
 as dearer than all ? There rested on them a thick 
 and lowering cloud of suspicion ; their sayings were 
 but slowly understood, and the men themselves lived 
 and died under the shadow of religious disparage- 
 ment. I^ow that it is safe and popular, it is very 
 easy to catch up their words and to profit by their 
 sacrifices. 
 
 (2) But while the foregone conclusion darkens the 
 understanding of some, in others it is the shrinking 
 from what is painful. It was not of opposers but 
 disciples that it is here said, " They understood not 
 that saying." They heard His words with surprise and 
 consternation. If they had a meaning at all, it was 
 one from which they shrank. A suffering Master ! — 
 not only that which was selfish, but all that was 
 affectionate in their nature revolted from the thought. 
 They were afraid to ask for the explanation for fear of 
 the crushing answer. They would still fondle their 
 pleasant dreams, rather than have forced on them that 
 from which they recoiled. And dare we say that even 
 in religion the desire for pleasing sensations has never 
 helped to darken our understanding ? Must we not 
 admit that even in spiritual things there is a luxuri- 
 ousness of feeling which sometimes leads to shrinking 
 from the truth ? So there has been a disposition to 
 soften down the more solemn things of the Christian 
 revelation, — all that speaks to us of sin and the in- 
 evitable woe descending on the sinner, all that speaks 
 to us of answerableness to a judgment-seat ; and the 
 secret of our imperfect understanding is a passionate 
 
XXXIV A Hard Saying 289 
 
 dislike of the more disturbing kind of truths. We 
 would fain think this " a happy world after all " ; and 
 the wish is father to the thought. But to refuse to 
 think of the groans and sorrows of Creation will not 
 obliterate them ; and I know not how we can enter 
 into the meaning of the Cross of Christ unless we are 
 willing to see that suffering, whatever be its meaning, 
 has a real place and a real ministry of good in this 
 life of ours. 
 
 Contrast with this effeminate shrinking from look- 
 ing on the sadder side of life the general scope and 
 strain of the lessons taught by the great teachers of 
 Christianity. They saw with unclouded clearness of 
 vision that this mystery, of sorrow is an agent in the 
 development of the regenerate life. They looked, on the 
 one side, at the besetting evil and suffering, and pro- 
 nounced it not joyous but grievous; and then they 
 bravely set against it " the far more exceeding weight of 
 glory." Whatever our reluctance may be, we shall have 
 to learn the same lesson that the disciples were so slow 
 to learn, and after the same method as they. That was 
 a compulsive school which they had entered. They 
 could not bear even the first intimation of coming 
 sorrow. But, despite their fears, despite their clinging 
 to things bright and beautiful, the Cross came ; a time 
 of fear and searching of heart and sad bereavement 
 came; and in bitterness of heart they were made, whether 
 with their will or against their will, to learn that religion 
 means, not luxurious enjoyment of even the most ethereal 
 kind, but the conquest of self ; and that the royal road 
 along which they are to pursue their progress is the 
 very road which the bleeding feet of their Master have 
 trodden. So they were enabled to make discovery of 
 
290 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxiv 
 
 that profounder joy which has so little in common with 
 the soft sensations of pleasure that men sometimes 
 dignify with the name of happiness. From their in- 
 fantile cravings for they knew not what, from their 
 imaginative expectations of an unknown future, they 
 passed on to the reality of a joy on which is stamped 
 the sense of conquest after struggles worthily main- 
 tained. The earlier spirit of timid shrinking from pain 
 gave place to a manlier, nobler, more adventurous kind 
 of love which sent through every fibre of their being 
 the thrill of a more excellent gladness. 
 
 (3) But now I take these words in yet another, 
 and, for the time, a last application of them. As we 
 read them they sound like an echo of our own 
 thoughts when the sympathy of our fellow-men has 
 failed us. The particular temperament of each indi- 
 vidual is like an intrenchment thrown round his inner 
 mind, rendering difficult the freer intercourse of feeling. 
 We become unintelligible to one another because perfect 
 intelligence requires not only in each the power to 
 understand, but some key which shall unlock the 
 mysteries of feeling. And it is a hard thing for a man 
 when some one overpowering thought has taken posses- 
 sion of him, and he yet feels that if he were to speak 
 of it it would produce nothing but amazement. It 
 would be set down to some diseased fancy. Or he sees 
 some coming evil, the signs and portents of which are 
 full of meaning to him, but to no one else ; and the 
 certainty of failure to understand, on the part of his 
 nearest friends, compels him to imprison it within the 
 secrecy of his own thought. They could not go with 
 him, step by step, through the paths his mind has been 
 pursuing. If revealing words break from him, he 
 
XXXIV A Hard Saying . 291 
 
 seems to be speaking parables to them — they under- 
 stand not that saying. 
 
 . Especially has this happened to those who have 
 listened, as to a Divine Voice, to some call to grapple 
 with any great evil or misery. The man to whom the 
 call has come has gained some special insight into the 
 realities of the case. Other men see the same things, 
 but see them only in their general outline, while he has 
 been driven on, as by a force he could not resist, to 
 pursue the inquiry into every detail, and to subordin- 
 ate to the pursuit every interest and purpose of life. 
 It may be the cry of the slave that has reached 
 him ; or intemperance or impurity that is wasting the 
 very substance of the national life ; or a greedy avarice 
 that is risking the lives of our sailors at sea. The 
 things that other men see only on the outside he feels 
 called on to investigate in every detail of their particular 
 distress. His very life becomes bitter to him while 
 nothing is being done. There is on him the pre-occu- 
 pation of a gathering purpose, and he can find no relief 
 in the intercourse of friends ; for that which to him is 
 so real, they look on as a mania of his — a hallucina- 
 tion of the imagination growing out of over-intentness 
 on some one line of thought. They cannot understand 
 an earnestness which takes the pleasantness out of all 
 pleasant things because of some one pervading sorrow 
 that penetrates the whole of it. Their cardinal virtue 
 is moderation of feeling ; and, virtuous as they may be, 
 it may be questioned whether they hate even vice so 
 much as that troublesome kind of virtue which would drag 
 all men into the strong current of its own enthusiasm. 
 But it was this very unsettling influence that Christ 
 introduced into the midst of men. To bind Christianity 
 
292 The Light that light eth every Man xxxiv 
 
 with the bonds of convention has often been attempted, 
 and for a time with apparent success ; but there is in 
 it a vital force which, at the bidding of some urgent 
 duty, breaks away from all restraints, and must do the one 
 needful thing, though all the world refuse to understand. 
 This is the test of the Christlike spirit : to be able to 
 stand alone, to be true to our own convictions, to pur- 
 sue without wavering the course which conscience 
 urgently demands, and that in the absence of all sym- 
 pathy, in the absence of even comprehension ; — this is 
 the severest test to which faith can be exposed. But 
 to the followers of Christ it can never be so lonely as 
 it was to the Master ; for He at least sees and knows, 
 and His sympathy can never fail. 
 
 But you may as well make up your minds first as 
 last to this ; that your reward for what you do for Him 
 will not be an earthly reward, and this, the more like 
 your work is to His. 
 
 The world's test of worth in work is success, public 
 appreciation ; but it is not God's test. He does not say, 
 Because thou hast succeeded in a few things, I will make 
 thee ruler over many things, but, " Because thou hast 
 been faithful^ 
 
 Let our prayer be for this, that whether men under- 
 stand or fail to understand, we may be faithful. 
 
 The children of this world may adopt a worldly 
 standard and pursue a worldly reward ; they are in 
 their generation wiser than the children of light. But 
 your standard of conduct is to be different from theirs. 
 " The world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he 
 that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." 
 
XXXV 
 CHEIST'S INVITATION 
 
 "Come unto me all that travail and are heavy laden, and I will 
 refresh you."— St. Matthew xi. 28 (Prayer-book version). 
 
 There is a congruity between these words and the day 
 on which we are assembled. The Lord's Day, besides 
 all of sacred remembrance it brings to us, besides its 
 special witness of a Eisen Christ, is to us the Day of 
 Eest. It interrupts the traffic and the toil of common 
 days ; it imposes on the overtaxed energies of the 
 thinker and the worker a salutary pause ; it seems to 
 say to us, " It is but lost labour that ye haste to rise 
 up early and so late take rest, and eat the bread of 
 carefulness." It reminds us that in our nature there 
 is a profounder need, that there are times when the 
 one thing for us is to listen to Him who says, "Be 
 still and know that I am God." It is in the midst of 
 this pause, and as it were in harmony with it, that we 
 hear the voice of Jesus speaking to us words in which 
 even those who do not recognise Him as Saviour yet 
 hear the echo of a constant desire of their own hearts. 
 There is in life such a restlessness, so much of vain 
 aspiration, such a constant invasion of troubles that 
 oppress the heart and waste the powers, that he who 
 speaks of rest speaks of that to which all men are in- 
 clined to listen. And when we think of the Speaker 
 
294 ^^^ Light that light eth eve7^y Man xxxv 
 
 and the circumstances, there is something in the situa- 
 tion that is almost sublime. Those who judged by 
 the outer appearance might have mocked at the 
 grandeur of the reassuring words, as we might do if in 
 our streets one with the dress and bearing of a peasant 
 or an artisan were to gather round him a crowd and 
 say to them, " Come unto me." But none who heard 
 Him mocked. The ascendency of spiritual force sub- 
 dued to reverence those who expected least from one 
 in that mean attire, with that absence of all the 
 earthly accidents of dignity. No miracle that He did 
 was more wonderful than this. That He could stand 
 in the midst of men and say, "Come unto me, all ye that 
 are weary," and that instead of turning away in disdain 
 of the extravagant pretension. His hearers found them- 
 selves attracted, listening as they would have listened 
 to no rabbi ; subdued by the power of that Spirit in 
 Him which could overbear prejudice and overcome 
 resistance ; this is one of the things that can be 
 paralleled in no other history. We understand the 
 wonderful charm of His doctrine to the common people, 
 from its unlikeness to the technical discourse of the 
 rabbis, but if it had not had the ring of truth, in spite 
 of its desirableness it would have failed to attract. 
 
 But there was that in Jesus, not only in the things 
 He said, but in the Man He was, that besieged every 
 heart ; and the things He said were in harmony. He 
 had a Gospel which was not a message to a chosen 
 few set on some superior height of saintliness, but to 
 the general crowd of toiling, suffering men, weary with 
 the burden they had to bear. It was unlike their 
 actual life, and yet it seemed to have an answer to the 
 secret desire that ran through the whole of that life. 
 
XXXV Christ's Invitation 295 
 
 Just before this He had given thanks in language 
 that went to every heart, " I thank thee, Father, 
 that thou hast hid these things from the wise and 
 prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." If the 
 message He brought had been for the noble-minded, 
 the learned, the philosophical inquirer ; if it had had 
 nothing to do with the general stream of human life ; if 
 there had been no message in it to the simple-hearted 
 who knew their troubles, but did not know how to find 
 a way out of them ; if He had had nothing to say to 
 the poor, the sinful, the men struggling with the hard 
 conditions of their life — then there had been nothing 
 in the Gospel to cause the common people to hear it 
 gladly. And yet it was a perilous doctrine from the 
 greatness of its promise. Could He make good His 
 own words ? When the weary came to Him, could 
 He give them rest? All the weary, the wasted 
 in energy, the restless in mind, the men and women 
 who had come to the conclusion that life was too 
 hard for them, that it was not worth living, and had 
 ceased, in the midst of abounding impurity, to believe 
 in any ideal of good ? And every age finds itself ask- 
 ing the same thing. The conflict has lasted so long, 
 evil is so strong that it appears indestructible, faith 
 and expectation have been so sorely tried, and the 
 heart of the world has grown so weary with many dis- 
 appointments, that, on any new and terrible revelation 
 of the strange vitality of wickedness a wave of feeling 
 almost like despair seems to sweep over society. That 
 is the weariness which is hardest to overcome. We 
 too find ourselves asking, Can He make good His 
 words ? Or disposed like St. John the Baptist, from his 
 dungeon of gloomy thought, to send a message, asking, 
 
298 The Light that light eth every Man xxxv 
 
 our towns. He addressed Himself to workers grown 
 weary and hopeless, and also to the men who, for their 
 own part, had lost heart amid the formalities of a religion 
 that had lost its power. Among them were some who 
 were seeking to know God and enter into His life, 
 hindered at every step by traditions that had lost the 
 heart of their meaning, burdened by rules grievous to 
 be borne, and even deceiving the conscience. Yet 
 beneath all He discerned some real purpose of finding 
 and pursuing the way of righteousness, needing only 
 to be guided aright. And it is as if He had said — 
 Break loose from all your formal rules ; escape from 
 the thraldom of traditions which have become a bondage 
 only ; come unto Me, ye that have been labouring, 
 and labouring in vain, to find a way of righteousness : 
 Come, ye weary, hopeless, heart-stricken souls, and I 
 will give you rest. 
 
 And to those of a more worldly type of character, 
 who were content with their creature comforts, given 
 up to that indifference which grows out of a life 
 devoted to self-seeking, what a revelation the Lord's 
 words could bring of a more beautiful life, made 
 possible by only coming to Him ! What inspiration, 
 what transformation of character, what disenchantment 
 from worldly influences in the very sight of that holy, 
 loving, self-devoted life ! 
 
 Even in these he saw men in whom the spiritual 
 nature was not dead, but exhausted and overlaid by 
 the cares of this world ; and to the soul within each 
 one of them His love and His purity appealed. And 
 after, when His self-devotion was crowned in the 
 Sacrifice of the Cross, some whose souls had cleaved to 
 the dust were drawn on by a spiritual power which 
 
XXXV Christ's Invitation 297 
 
 The disappointment which falls on Christian society 
 at some time of apparent powerlessness to make head 
 against growing evils is often God's rebuke to man's 
 self-sufficiency. We rely upon our Acts of Parliament 
 and our administration of law, or on our philanthropic 
 associations, with all their vast machinery and their 
 particular plans ; and, in the multitude of details we so 
 lose ourselves that we almost forget that the love of 
 God is, after all, the one only thing that can act as a 
 motive force in regenerating the world or any part of 
 it. To this the words of our Lord would reclaim us. 
 As if He said, Go on doing the work committed to 
 you ; use what means you will, the best you can, the 
 wisest, the most carefully planned, the most patiently 
 pursued ; call to your side like-minded fellow- workers, — 
 but remember, I alone can refresh you, I alone can re- 
 animate you when you feel as if the life had gone out 
 of you. There is no power on earth that can compare 
 with the love of Jesus as an engine of moral reforma- 
 tion. Where that is wanting, no w^onder if the 
 workers soon grow weary. In the revival of that is 
 the assurance of refreshment of all the better sympa- 
 thies which change the aspect of human life. 
 
 Our Lord speaks to us in the same language in 
 which He spoke to those whom He had sent forth in 
 His Name. They were depressed by the unbelief of 
 the dwellers in those towns where His greatest works 
 had been done, as we are apt to be depressed by the 
 difficulties that meet us in an attempt to break 
 through the crust of indifference, to drag people out of 
 the stolid condition of mind which is so strange in 
 men professing to be followers of such a Saviour, or to 
 grapple with great sins which are invading the life o f 
 
 ■^%^^ 
 
 University 
 
298 The Light that light eth every Man xxw 
 
 our towns. He addressed Himself to workers grown 
 weary and hopeless, and also to the men who, for their 
 own part, had lost heart amid the formalities of a religion 
 that had lost its power. Among them were some who 
 were seeking to know God and enter into His hfe, 
 hindered at every step by traditions that had lost the 
 heart of their meaning, burdened by rules grievous to 
 be borne, and even deceiving the conscience. Yet 
 beneath all He discerned some real purpose of finding 
 and pursuing the way of righteousness, needing only 
 to be guided aright. And it is as if He had said — 
 Break loose from all your formal rules ; escape from 
 the thraldom of traditions which have become a bondage 
 only ; come unto Me, ye that have been labouring, 
 and labouring in vain, to find a way of righteousness : 
 Come, ye weary, hopeless, heart-stricken souls, and I 
 will give you rest. 
 
 And to those of a more worldly type of character, 
 who were content with their creature comforts, given 
 up to that indifference which grows out of a life 
 devoted to self-seeking, what a revelation the Lord's 
 words could bring of a more beautiful life, made 
 possible by only coming to Him ! What inspiration, 
 what transformation of character, what disenchantment 
 from worldly influences in the very sight of that holy, 
 loving, self-devoted life ! 
 
 Even in these he saw men in whom the spiritual 
 nature was not dead, but exhausted and overlaid by 
 the cares of this world ; and to the soul within each 
 one of them His love and His purity appealed. And 
 after, when His self-devotion was crowned in the 
 Sacrifice of the Cross, some whose souls had cleaved to 
 the dust were drawn on by a spiritual power which 
 
XXXV Christ's Invitation 299 
 
 made all things new. So does the love, the faith of 
 Jesus, refresh, restore the inward life that was ready- 
 to die. The soul that the world and its vanities have 
 wearied feels the impulse of a Divine and holy strength 
 when moved by the appeal of that saving, self-forget- 
 ful love, that perfect purity, that true translation into 
 human life of the eternal Love of God. 
 
 To you the same appeal has come ; but because you 
 have heard it so often has it become less real ? Or is 
 it that you have chosen in spirit to dwell apart, con- 
 versing with thoughts that are of the earth earthy ? 
 Is it that the luxurious selfishness of the common idea 
 of life has cast on you its deadening influence ? Are 
 you servants of Christ, and can you be so little 
 affected by what He has been and is for you ? Do 
 you remember some time when you prayed earnestly, 
 when you felt a personal delight and joy in the hopes 
 and promises of the Gospel ; and do you feel in your 
 heart and conscience that all this is changed, that the 
 light of Heaven that fell on your earlier path has 
 faded into common day ? But it can be revived. 
 " Come unto me," said Jesus, " and I will refresh you." 
 At that fountain of Divine grace you must seek for the 
 refreshment of faith and love which you need. For 
 the only rest we have any right to seek while we are 
 in the world is that which restores the power of feel- 
 ing and acting ; it is rest in order to gain power for 
 renewed activity ; and this rest is of such a nature 
 that the activity of life will be purified when it is 
 renewed. If you come to Him you will find it to be 
 no painful thing to take on you His yoke, for love 
 makes all sacrifices easy. Take His yoke and bear it 
 in the midst of daily temptation. Take it by carrying 
 
300 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxv 
 
 on the works he committed to His Church ; going on 
 perseveringly, not desisting at the first difficulty, or 
 when the first flush of novelty has passed away. 
 Take it by so bringing character into subjection to the 
 law of Christ that all men shall take knowledge of 
 you that you are true followers of His. Subdue 
 natural pride ; govern natural appetite ; be true 
 among the untrue ; temperate and pure in life, putting 
 all impurity to shame ; unworldly in aim ; single in 
 motive ; self-forgetful ; and if the yoke be heavy, 
 look to Him, and He will make it light. 
 
XXXVI 
 
 THE GIELS' FEIENDLY SOCIETY 
 
 You have to-night been gathered together in sisterly 
 companionship, reahsing that happy sense of union 
 which it is one aim of this Society to promote. And 
 in all your pleasure there has been this to give it zest, 
 that you are met as the children of a Heavenly Father 
 who loves you, through whose touch upon the heart it 
 is that the deeper springs of happiness are stirred 
 within you. 
 
 Now you have met together in this sacred place 
 to bring all your life and lay it before Him ; your 
 troubles greater and smaller, your joys and all the 
 things that interest you ; and to hear what He shall 
 say to you. Though He speaks to you by the voice 
 of mortal man, it is none the less His voice that is 
 sounding within each soul ; and between us who speak 
 and you who listen we trust there will be many re- 
 sponses. 
 
 It is as if at this moment the Spirit of God were 
 saying to each one of you, — " I have a message to thee, 
 even to thee ! " Take in this thought, that though you 
 are met in a congregation, yet the character of each is 
 understood ; the things that make life more difficult 
 for some than for others are known ; the history of 
 your earlier and later life has been pursued by a loving 
 
302 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxvi 
 
 watchfulness that has never slumbered ; and to that 
 wonderful nature of God each one stands out from all 
 the rest, the object of a personal and distinguishing 
 solicitude. 
 
 You will not easily forget the sense of this you 
 had at your First Communion, when you — separated 
 from the general crowd of worshippers — heard these 
 words said to you : " The Body of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and 
 soul unto everlasting life." Yet the selection of this 
 soul of yours for special tokens of the love of God 
 you have known and experienced as long as you can 
 remember anything. The people among whom you 
 were brought up, the school companions, the acquaint- 
 ances and friends of later days, the incidents which 
 led you hither and thither, the slight things on which 
 great consequences turned ; in all this you see the 
 providence of God, shaping your mind and character, 
 giving you a particular place and perhaps calling you 
 to a special kind of service. So to each one of you here 
 to-night I say, God loves thee, God cares for thee. He 
 has help and guidance for each one. 
 
 Yet you are to-night reminded with far more force 
 than usual that life for each one of you means not 
 merely caring for your own soul, but thinking of 
 others, caring for them, trying to help them with the 
 best of all help, — the powerful influence of personal 
 sympathy and example. You cannot do harm to your- 
 self without harming others ; you cannot be good 
 yourself without helping to make others good. No 
 man liveth to himself, no man dieth to himself; and 
 if no man, no woman either. We are all bound up 
 with one another in the bundle of life. 
 
XXXVI The GirU Friendly Society 303 
 
 Keep these two things before your minds ; first, — 
 that each soul is an object of the discriminating love 
 of God, with its own life to live, its own temptations 
 to encounter, and its own duties, suited to the in- 
 dividual character ; and secondly — that you have power 
 to lift one another up to a higher life ; that you are 
 not lonely, solitary souls, but united in the same 
 faith ; yourselves sustained and yourselves sustaining 
 others by the sense of fellowship. 
 
 All this would be true if I were speaking to any 
 company of my fellow-beings ; it is just as true of men 
 as it is of women. But it is to women that I am 
 called to speak to-night ; to the elder who are Associ- 
 ates, and to the younger who are Members of the 
 Girls' Friendly Society. It is a Christian Society ; it 
 is a Society in which all the Associates are Communi- 
 cants of the Church of England ; and this is a 
 guarantee of its having the highest of all aims ; but 
 it is a Society which has exclusively in view the 
 womanly character and position. 
 
 Does it not seem a fit occasion on which to remind 
 you of the high honour which Christianity from the 
 first has put upon women ? It was Christ who liberated 
 them in that eastern world from their subject, almost 
 servile, position. His doctrine asserted their independ- 
 ence and vindicated their dignity, giving them a definite 
 place and ministry as members of the Body of Christ. 
 Before this they had not been free to pursue the career 
 suited to their powers of body and mind. In the lower 
 order they had been the mere drudges of men, and in 
 the higher they were little more than the playthings 
 for hours of leisure, if they escaped the degradation of 
 being the slaves of sensuahty. They were not recognised 
 
304 The Light that light eth every Man xxxvi 
 
 as the helpmeet of man, except in some limited sphere 
 of life which gave no scope to the higher powers of 
 mind and character. But the Gospel asserted and main- 
 tained for women, as such, their position in society as 
 human beings with a vocation of their own. While it 
 surrounded married life with the purest influences, it 
 not only honoured the unmarried, but found for them 
 new opportunities for useful service of Christ and His 
 Church. 
 
 Much as there is that is surprising in the story of 
 the Gospels, nothing is more surprising than the pro- 
 minent place given to the women of the Gospel. 
 They were able without reproach to minister to our 
 Lord, to offer to Him many consolations and render 
 much active service ; they are associated with the most 
 sacred memories of His life. So it happened that an 
 ideal glory soon gathered round the whole company of 
 women to which they belonged. They were from that 
 time consecrated to a higher vocation. It might seem 
 as if men had an advantage over women in this, that 
 the Lord and Head of the whole Church was a man ; 
 and perhaps out of such a feeling as this grew the 
 wrong tendency to raise the Mother of Our Lord above 
 all other women, so that to her sacred heart women 
 could turn for that kind of sympathy which a woman 
 needs. But though the morbid cravings of human 
 nature might invent the idea of a womanly mediator 
 for women, you find no trace of this in the Gospel 
 itself. It arose out of a wrong notion of the humanity 
 in our Lord. His was not the humanity of manhood 
 as distinguished from womanhood, but it was a 
 humanity which comprehended all elements of human 
 character. And so it has been said of some men who 
 
XXXVI The Girls Friendly Society 305 
 
 were eminently Christlike, that beneath their force and 
 strength you could discern somewhat of the woman. 
 
 What is there most distinctive of the womanly 
 character ? The quickness of insight, the instinctive 
 perception of what another nature needs, the prompt 
 and instantaneous action of her own nature to relieve 
 it, a tact which is not that of policy or worldly wisdom 
 but of a fine and delicate organisation which can touch 
 all inward wounds with a healing sympathy, the 
 capacity of reaching the right course of action without 
 a laboured process of proof; the power of a nature 
 pure, ardent, right-minded, to remain true to itself, 
 and to triumph over the false and specious reasonings 
 of the tempter — this is what we see in woman at her 
 best. And this also, though obscured by other mas- 
 culine qualities, must also be in every man who would 
 wear his manhood as Christ wore it. This enables us 
 to understand the possibility of a Humanity in Christ 
 so much above the limited manhood in other men, 
 that in Him womanhood can find the sympathy for 
 which her nature craves. You need no " Queen of 
 Heaven " to interpret your wants ; to Him, in the per- 
 fection of His discerning love, you can open all your 
 heart. 
 
 This Society, to which so many of you belong, 
 lovingly treasures these truths. It is animated by the 
 Christian spirit ; the whole tendency of its influence 
 on those who belong to it is to bring them close to 
 the heart of Christ, or rather to lead them to cling 
 closer in heart to Him. 
 
 There might be an association of girls in friendship 
 in which there would be great good, in so far as 
 tastes and habits were pure ; but what gives us the 
 
 X 
 
3o6 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxvi 
 
 assurance that your association will be of this nature 
 is its Christian character. 
 
 Some who belong to it may as yet have characters 
 only partly formed ; but to belong to it at all they 
 must at least have an unstained character, and the 
 thing that induces them to belong to it is the desire to 
 be good, to get good for themselves, and, if they can, 
 to do good to those whose positions or circumstances 
 are like their own. 
 
 It is not for girls of any one class, it is for all 
 classes ; but it is especially desirable for those who 
 need the kindly encouragement and counsel of an older 
 friend of their own sex. Some have left the friends of 
 their youth far away across the world : how much 
 their mothers will bless those sister- women who in this 
 distant country have taken thought for their daughters 1 
 Others, living in their own homes, have the natural 
 love of companionship in which there is so much good, 
 and every mother who is careful in bringing up her 
 family will be thankful to know that they are seeking 
 and finding their companions in a Society eVen to 
 belong to which is a certificate of character. It fosters 
 no discontents, encourages no neglect of duty; but 
 every good member of the Society is made to feel that 
 all earthly service is to be rendered, not as men- 
 pleasers, but heartily as to the Lord. It does minister 
 innocent pleasures ; it does recognise in the young a 
 light-heartedness, a delight in all pleasurable and beau- 
 tiful things, without w^hich youth would be unnatural. 
 It discourages vain expenditure in dress, but encourages 
 orderliness and even gracefulness of attire, since St. 
 Paul has said — " I will that women adorn themselves 
 in modest apparel." 
 
xxxvi The Girls Friendly Society 307 
 
 To sum up all, the aims of the Society are to 
 preserve the womanly character in all that is essential 
 to it ; to identify itself with the love of good, and 
 strengthen it; to help these young girls, many of 
 whom are far from home, to live a natural, innocent, 
 kindly, Christian life. Is there any Christian here 
 who would not wish well to a Society such as this ? 
 
 And now a few concluding words to the Members 
 of this Society. Eemember that we expect much more 
 from you than that you keep yourselves free from re- 
 proach. We expect this at the least ; but in entering 
 the Society you have contracted a new responsibility. 
 It is not only your own character and good name, but the 
 character and good name of the Girls' Friendly Society 
 that are given into your keeping. We trust that you 
 will command the respect of others by showing that you 
 respect yourselves. Eemember that the special voca- 
 tion of you women is to keep society pure. That 
 above everything. All can contribute something 
 towards that. You cannot lower your own life with- 
 out dealing a blow at that reverence for women which 
 is one of the ennobling things in a man's life. But, 
 over and above this, let the love of Christ constrain 
 you to a more earnest and devoted kind of Christian 
 life. Let all hero-worship, all disposition to admire 
 and venerate what is excellent in human character, 
 conspire with this to lead you on in what is best. 
 These elder women, with more experience in the 
 world's ways than you have, with more knowledge of 
 Christian life and doctrine, are trying to take you by 
 the hand. Give them your hand confidingly, and let 
 them lead you on in that good way which leads to 
 everlasting life. Eemember how easily you may be 
 
3o8 The Light that lighteth evejy Man xxxvi 
 
 tempted into what is wrong, even sometimes through 
 feeHngs that are in themselves good. Let your prayer 
 be — " Search me, God, and try me, and see if there 
 be any wiqked way in me, and lead me in the way ever- 
 lasting." Come often to the Holy Communion, and be 
 diligent and searching in your self-examination. Do 
 not neglect the inner life of the soul with God. How- 
 ever busy your life, let there be times when you shall 
 commune with your heart and be still. Count no 
 pleasure complete without the blessing of God. 
 Humbly, earnestly commit yourselves to His helpful 
 grace. 
 
 And so, surrounded as you are here with the em- 
 blems of faith, with holy words of prayer and holy 
 songs of thanksgiving still sounding in your ears, and 
 with these good thoughts in your hearts, we bless you 
 out of the House of the Lord. We pray Him to bless 
 you and to make you a blessing to others. 
 
XXXVII 
 
 THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY 
 GHOST 
 
 ' ' What ? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy 
 Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your 
 own ? For ye are bought with a price : therefore glorify God in 
 your body." — 1 Corinthians vi. 19, 20. 
 
 In our Authorised Version there are added the words, 
 " and your spirit, which are God's." But as these words 
 do not appear in MSS. of the New Testament which 
 are of high authority, it is probable they did not form 
 part of the sacred text. Like one or two other addi- 
 tions which have crept in, they were probably in the 
 nature of a note made by a transcriber, with the view 
 of making the meaning more clear by expanding the 
 main thought ; afterwards being accidentally copied as 
 if they belonged to the text. 
 
 I shall, therefore, confine my attention to those 
 words which I have read. 
 
 The teaching of this chapter was drawn from St. 
 Paul by the existence of certain evils among the 
 Corinthians ; showing that as yet the force of habit 
 from their old heathen life had a powerful hold over 
 them. The Christian life among them was being de- 
 praved through their failing to see that Christ had 
 sanctified the whole nature of man, body as well as 
 
3IO The Light that lighteth every Man xxxvn 
 
 spirit. Through the body they had been led into sin, 
 though probably with very imperfect understanding of 
 the fact that it was sin. As in many of the mission 
 fields at the present day, even after men have become 
 Christian disciples, it is only by degrees that they 
 succeed in liberating themselves from the power of 
 old associations so as to make their conduct consist 
 with their professed rule of life, so it was with the 
 Corinthians. From the very fact that religion of all 
 sorts had been to them so much matter of intellectual 
 debate and controversy, the moral change demanded 
 by the Gospel was not all at once clearly understood. 
 
 Therefore it is * the Apostle's design to show how 
 interwoven is Christian morality with Christian doc- 
 trine ; how the consent to evil practice affecting the 
 bodily life was in fact a denial of Christ. 
 
 Thus in the fifteenth verse he exclaimed with surprise 
 and indignation, " Know ye not that your bodies are 
 the members of Christ ? Shall I then take the members 
 of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot ? 
 God forbid." The fact of Christian discipleship being a 
 real membership of Christ's body is one on which St. 
 Paul, in his Epistles to the Eomans, to the Corinth- 
 ians, and to the Ephesians, insisted with peculiar 
 urgency and frequency. I need hardly remind you 
 that it is founded on the express words of our Lord 
 Himself, in His parable of the Vine and the Branches, 
 and in His last prayer (in St. John xvii.), where He 
 speaks of the new life of His disciples as being one 
 with Himself in the most intimate and vital union, — 
 to quote His own words — "As thou. Father, art in 
 me, and I in thee." 
 
 So we now say that in entering Christ's Church 
 
XXXVII The Temple of the Holy Ghost 31 1 
 
 we become members of His mystical Body. This is 
 the teaching of the Prayer-book, and you see that it is 
 the repetition almost in so many words of what was 
 said by Christ and His Apostles. 
 
 Some people say that there is something so subtle 
 in such language that they can hardly grasp the 
 thought contained in it. They think it mystic, and by 
 mystic they mean that which is almost unreal. 
 
 But it is no objection to such language that it is 
 mystic, for it has to do with the existence of a spiritual 
 relationship, and spiritual relationship cannot be ap- 
 prehended by the senses. The very idea of God's 
 revealing Himself to us, of His entering into creation, 
 and, above all, of His entering into human nature, is 
 full of mystery. But you see that St. Paul regards 
 this mystical truth of our membership in Christ's 
 Body as eminently practical ; as the very foundation 
 of personal morality in Christian people. 
 
 It is this that makes sins of the body assume a 
 character so awfully sinful and repulsive, — that we 
 are not merely degrading ourselves, but desecrating 
 Christ's own Body. As this part of St. Paul's teach- 
 ing is founded on Christ's words, so also is his farther 
 teaching in the text. For we have to connect what 
 He said about the Vine and the branches with what 
 He afterwards said of Himself and the other Comforter 
 whom He would send. The Holy Spirit would be the 
 indwelling witness of Him in every one. 
 
 As the Shechinah, the glory of the Lord over the 
 mercy- seat in the Temple of old, so the indwelling 
 Spirit in man was the revelation of God's actual 
 presence in each human being ; the consecration of 
 each man to be, as it were, a holy temple ; so that 
 
3 1 2 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxvn 
 
 he could not defile himself without committing an act 
 of awful desecration. 
 
 The Apostle was confronting men in their moments 
 of unholy desire or act, with that awful and pure 
 Presence under whose very eye all their evil deeds 
 must needs be done. Therefore he said, " Know ye 
 not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost 
 which is in you, and ye are not your own ? " That is, 
 not your own property. 
 
 Let me here observe . that the word ** body " is not 
 here used of the merely animal nature of man as dis- 
 tinguished from the spiritual, but of the man himself 
 as dwelling in a material frame. And when the Holy 
 Spirit is spoken of as dwelling in a human body, it 
 must be by identifying Himself so with man's spiritual 
 nature as to claim the government of the whole man. 
 The body, as such, cannot sin ; but the spirit of man 
 has power to make the body the means of obeying its 
 sinful desires. 
 
 It is in relation to this fact that the Apostle 
 solemnly warns us that our bodies are not our own, 
 that they are not even the property of the human soul 
 which inhabits them ; that they have been bought 
 with a price. 
 
 One thing more needs to be said in the way of 
 explanation of the meaning. Sometimes the being 
 " bought with a price " is an expression used to 
 signify a ransom from bondage or from death. But 
 that is not the meaning here. The idea sought to be 
 expressed is that the body of man is purchased or 
 bought by God ; so that, as a purchased slave is bound 
 to obey, not his own will, but the will of his master, we 
 must be found in all things obeying the will of God. 
 
xxxYii The Temple of the Holy Ghost 313 
 
 The same thought appears in the Epistle to the 
 Komans, where those who have been converted are 
 described as having been once the slaves of sin, doing 
 sin's bidding, and receiving death for their wages ; but 
 now, freed from that servitude to enter on another and 
 more blessed ; — have, as it were, become slaves to God, 
 and " have their fruit unto holiness, and the end ever- 
 lasting life." 
 
 The Holy Spirit in claiming every man for His own 
 is fulfilling the true office of the Comforter, complet- 
 ing and carrying on by individual election the work of 
 Christ, who, when He became incarnate, became the 
 Head and Lord of every one in man's image. Purity 
 in body and soul has therefore become the only pos- 
 sible way of life for one who has received this double 
 consecration, whose nature has been set apart for holy 
 uses ; the aim and object of whose existence is now to 
 glorify God by setting forth in actual life the glory of 
 His holiness. 
 
 If, then, you are to glorify God in your body, you 
 will at least abstain from all the sins that defile it. 
 
 From your cliildhood you have been taught that 
 you are to keep it in soberness, temperance, chastity. 
 
 You especially who have been confirmed remember 
 how solemnly you promised that you would renounce 
 all the sinful lusts of the flesh. Eecall that time to 
 your thoughts, and ask if you have kept that promise 
 in the letter and in the spirit. Have you from that 
 hour to this been always sober, always temperate and 
 chaste ? Have you ever falsified your own plighted 
 word and dishonoured your Saviour by acts of fleshly 
 sin ? If any of you have done this great wickedness, 
 and sinned against God, then to-night the message has 
 
3 14 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxvn 
 
 come to you to bid you repent, to warn you at your 
 peril not to sin in that manner any more, to add this 
 one more bitter recollection to the many bitter recol- 
 lections of your life, if, in spite of this warning, you go 
 on doing what is so shamefully wrong. Try henceforth 
 to be what you were when, with an honest and true 
 heart, you made your vow. Ask God to forgive your 
 sin, ask for His grace to help you, that you be not 
 again overcome of evil. Eemember how terrible are 
 the words of Scripture, " He that defileth the temple 
 of God, him will God destroy." And remember, too, 
 how with Fatherly love He waits to receive you ; how, 
 if you tell Him all your faults and mourn over them, 
 He will, as it were, baptize you once more with the 
 spirit of purity. 
 
 I am afraid it is very needful to speak such words 
 of warning. I am afraid there is growing round us a 
 kind of feeling that there is a different law of morality 
 for men and for women. If a woman sins, she falls 
 from her place in society ; her shame is open and ex- 
 pressed. But if a man sins in the same way, it is 
 looked upon as a much more venial thing ; his com- 
 panions do not fall from him in displeasure until he 
 has repented ; he may sin and his sin may be known, 
 and yet no sense of severe condemnation rests upon 
 him. It is the office of the prophet to cry out against 
 all false morality. The Christian law makes no dis- 
 tinction between man and woman. Innocence in the 
 one is as essential as innocence in the other. The body 
 of the one just as much as the other is the temple of 
 God, and the man just as much as the woman, when he 
 sins against his body, is dishonoured and degraded. 
 He has profaned that which God has consecrated. 
 
XXXVII The Temple of the Holy Ghost 3 1 5 
 
 But this is only the negative side of the subject. 
 It is not enough to avoid desecration ; we are called 
 upon positively to glorify God in our body. See what 
 care God has lavished upon it ; how curiously and 
 wonderfully it is made ; how, in the form of the coun- 
 tenance and the glance of the eye, it has been adapted 
 for the expression of the thoughts and emotions that 
 stir the soul. See how all the world has been made 
 so as to shelter it, nourish it, and pour into it ever 
 new delights through the gateways of the senses. 
 How truly has the poet said — 
 
 * ' Man is one world 
 And hath another to attend on him." 
 
 The care of the body therefore by the man himself 
 is part of the will of God concerning him. It is not 
 to be enfeebled in its powers by intemperance. The 
 maintenance of the outward cleanliness is to be the 
 symbol of the inward purity ; habits of sloth and ener- 
 vating luxury are to be renounced. Its strength is to 
 be husbanded, and its freedom to fulfil the desires of 
 the soul to be preserved by wholesome exercise and by 
 innocent and healthful recreation. Eemember too the 
 office of the higher, intellectual nature, in giving a kind 
 of glorious life even to the bodily powers. The 
 strangeness of man's being consists in the union of 
 body and soul ; and it is through the wondrous net- 
 work of the nerves that the body becomes susceptible 
 to the touch of the spirit within him. 
 
 Let your mind converse with all that can inspire 
 it ; all that is elevating in thought ; all that is noble 
 and generous in the present and past life of the world ; 
 all that can kindle our reverence for God in creation : 
 
3i6 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxvn 
 
 all that can fill the mind with images of spiritual 
 beauty ; and through that marvellous nervous system, 
 the body will be quick to respond to the touch of the 
 soul within. Consecrate even bodily activity and 
 vigour to what is useful, and do not refuse the self- 
 denial which this may demand. Cultivate the love of 
 what is good, that so in the service of good your bodily 
 members may be constantly employed. 
 
 If, listening to some grand burst of oratory or 
 poetry, or hearing the spirit-stirring story of some 
 heroic action, the brain seems to glow and the heart 
 to beat with strong emotion, this shows you how, 
 even now, the very frame and garb of human nature 
 may undergo a kind of transfiguration ; how the har- 
 mony between the earthly and the immortal part of 
 man may be more surely established. And, through all, 
 remember that you are not your own, that this nature 
 of yours, susceptible as it is of such holy inspiration, ye 
 have of God ; that in God's image it was made, and that 
 to the doing of God's will it has been devoted. Con- 
 template it in its perfect ideal of grandeur and good- 
 ness in the One Man who lived without sin. So deal 
 with it that His life may become the pattern of yours. 
 
 Seek to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit, so that 
 your feet will be swift to run in the way of God's 
 commandments. Even in the prospect of decay and 
 dissolution try ever to believe that this is but the 
 needful stage preparatory to that great change which 
 is to bestow on you a glorious body, no longer wasted 
 by the fire of earthly passions. The God who made 
 this body of yours is in that decay but disposing anew 
 the materials of its structure, when that structure shall 
 have served its purpose, in order that the liberated 
 
XXXVII The Temple of the Holy Ghost 3 1 7 
 
 soul may take to itself the spiritual body, upon which 
 there can fall no touch of decay. The long labour to 
 glorify God in a body infected with much evil will at 
 last have an end, and God will render honour to His 
 work by clothing the soul anew with a glory not of 
 this earth. " For we know that if our earthly house 
 of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building 
 of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the 
 heavens." 
 
XXXVIII 
 ALL SAINTS' DAY 
 
 * ' 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." — Hebrews xii. 1. 
 
 This is a day of commemoration. It carries our 
 thoughts far away from the earth into the very centre 
 of heavenly blessedness. It brings home to us the 
 thought of man in his immortal being, and at the same 
 time it reminds us of the mortal life that has been 
 lived, of the earthly preparation, of the temptations 
 and sorrows that are past. They who are blessed 
 have borne the same burden as ourselves, but they 
 are now freed from it for ever. They have known 
 what it is to contend with difficulty, to suffer many 
 things incidental to the frame that is subject to decay, 
 and other sufferings of the spirit. But now that is 
 over, and we give God thanks concerning them. 
 Multitudes of these belonged to the ages of the past ; 
 their very names, their dwelling-place, the character of 
 their human experience are unknown. But, unknown 
 to history, they were not unknown to God, and the 
 Church gathers to her heart all alike; the unseen 
 martyrs and confessors as well as those whose names 
 are encircled with a glorious fame. It is a season 
 
XXXVIII AIL Saints Day 319 
 
 which reminds us that no man lives for himself, that 
 all lives in any sense lived for God are linked together, 
 as it were, in a golden chain ; that those finished lives 
 belonged not merely to those who lived them or to 
 those others who looked oh, but to us who, though 
 we never saw them, are comprehended with them in 
 the unity of the life which is in Christ. But there is 
 a deeper meaning in the celebration of All Saints' Day 
 than commemoration. Those whom we recall belong 
 not to the past but to the present. We stand in 
 definite relation to them and they to us. 
 
 Communion means more than commemoration, and 
 the whole Church is at this time saying, with a 
 peculiar emphasis of utterance, " I believe in the Com- 
 munion of Saints." I believe there is a common life 
 we can live together. Their purer aspirations have 
 the same object as our lowlier ones. Their adoring 
 love rests on the same Eedeemer. In so far as we 
 are seeking Him, we are drawing near to them. 
 
 The text I have chosen carries us in thought far 
 beyond the limits of personal recollection. " Seeing 
 we are compassed about with so great a cloud of wit- 
 nesses." The image before the mind of the writer 
 was familiar to those for whom he was writing. It 
 was taken from the public games which, in the absence 
 of active political life for the people, drew to themselves 
 all eyes, and furnished the arena in which the young 
 and the ardent were to win for themselves a name. 
 Imagine a vast amphitheatre. In the centre is the 
 arena on which there stand the competitors, who, after 
 long training, stripped of all superfluous clothing, are 
 standing ready to prove their superior courage, or skill, 
 or swiftness of foot. 
 
320 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxvin 
 
 All round them, tier above tier, rises a mass of 
 human beings who are looking on, comprising among 
 them the noblest and the fairest in the land. What- 
 ever honours are won in that arena will be blazoned 
 abroad through every circle of society ; the competitors 
 know they have to do their part in the presence of 
 those whose admiration is itself the real prize of 
 mastery in the contest.. 
 
 Every motive that can strongly stir ambition is 
 moving in their hearts ; if ever in their lives they are 
 to show themselves men, this is the moment. For 
 this supreme trial they have been long preparing ; for 
 this they have been living ; now is to come the 
 struggle which is to make or mar them. 
 
 That is the national framework of imagery which 
 the Christian writer uses as the groundwork of his 
 appeal to all that the Christian heart should hold dear. 
 
 But now consider what is that greater, more sublime 
 conception which through this imagery the writer is 
 presenting to our thought. Milton calls the heavenly 
 atmosphere, — 
 
 " Dark with excessive bright." 
 
 It is such a darkness that is suggested to us by the 
 expression, — " cloud of witnesses." 
 
 It is in a greater arena that St. Paul sees each 
 Christian soul engaged. Instead of the thousands of 
 merely curious, perhaps half-interested, observers, he 
 sees, looking on us in our contest with temptations, all 
 who have ever lived and fought the good fight of faith. 
 From the realms of Light they have gathered round 
 us : themselves escaped from the dust and toil, they 
 are looking on us with their immortal eyes, though the 
 veil of sense is on us and we cannot see them. 
 
XXXVIII All Saints Day 321 
 
 Every finished, faithful life is a witness against us 
 if we fail in our hour of trial. If at any moment a 
 sense of shame comes over us when our heart has failed 
 and the hand has fallen nerveless by our side, let it 
 deepen as we think of the pure eyes that may even at 
 that moment be regarding us. 
 
 St. Paul's appeal comes at the close of a long 
 retrospect, in which the roll of heroes of the old world 
 is partially unfolded. The righteous Abel and the 
 spiritual Enoch head the long procession. There are 
 patriarchs who, in a wild age, exhibited the personal 
 dignity of men whose steps were guided by a spiritual 
 faith. There are kings and lawgivers and prophets, — 
 men who, in the teeth of overwhelming majorities, 
 upheld the cause of righteousness. There are soldiers 
 and martyrs who never blenched in the presence of 
 death, — the heroes who through faith subdued king- 
 doms, wrought righteousness, stopped the mouths of 
 lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge 
 of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, 
 waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of 
 the aliens. There are the multitudes of unnamed 
 martyrs, men and women, of whom the world was not 
 worthy, but whose record is on high. And since this 
 glowing language was written, think how the roll of 
 confessors has lengthened. To the heroes of the elder 
 Church are now to be added Apostles and Evangelists, 
 the Christian Fathers with their crowd of faithful fol- 
 lowers, holy monks and nuns of the Middle Ages, 
 Reformers who came to purify religion : men like St. 
 Thomas k Kempis and St. Bernard, and Luther, 
 Melanchthon, and Wiclif — all the earthly controversies 
 forgotten — companions now. David, the sweet singer of 
 
 Y 
 
32 2 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxvm 
 
 old, and Herbert and Ken, the sweet singers of modern 
 times ; Baxter, who now understands better the true 
 meaning of the Saints' Everlasting Eest, and Dod- 
 dridge, who sought to trace the Eise and Progress of 
 Eeligion in the Soul — himself enlightened to know the 
 perfect truth ; the great missionaries St. Patrick and 
 St. Columba ; and Carey, Williams, Henry Martyn, 
 Selwyn, and Patteson : the men of ancient and 
 modern days brought together, seeing the meaning of 
 everything, and sharers in a perfect unity. Certainly 
 in the light of Christianity the appeal comes to us 
 with redoubled force, " Seeing we also are compassed 
 about with so great a cloud of witnesses." We have 
 been thinking of them in their blessedness, and have 
 sung — 
 
 ** Patriarch and holy Prophet who prepared the way of Christ, 
 King, Apostle, Saint, Confessor, Martyr, and Evangelist, 
 Saintly maiden, godly matron, widows who have watched to prayer. 
 Joined in holy concert, singing to the Lord of all, are there." 
 
 And now we have the still further, most impressive 
 thought that they are not merely withdrawn from the 
 strife, detached from the stream of human life, but 
 united with us in the closest intimacy of being ; that 
 to us it is given to fulfil the constant prayer of the 
 Church that their works may follow them. 
 
 We, as they, have to stand fast in the hour of 
 temptation ; we, as they, have to be constant in the 
 pursuit of life eternal ; and they are looking on to see 
 whether we are realising the solemnity of our position, 
 the greatness of our calling. 
 
 To us, as it were from the better world, comes the 
 question. Are you laying aside every weight, every- 
 thing that can hinder in you the growth of Christian 
 
XXXVIII All Saints Day 323 
 
 goodness ? Is there nothing keeping you back even 
 now ; no entanglement of human association ; no 
 bondage of personal habit ; no misplaced affection ; no 
 ambiguous pleasure ; no over-intentness in the meaner 
 things of life keeping you from reaching forth to the 
 higher ? 
 
 You know that there are things to be renounced 
 because they would hinder you : and you promised. 
 Are you keeping that promise ? 
 
 The vow that is on you is not only one of renuncia- 
 tion, — it is a vow of faith too ; practical faith, the 
 same faith that made our forerunners strong; and 
 you will need it if you would really persevere. 
 
 You are to run with patience the race that is set 
 before you ; — with ardour, with no feeble languor of 
 movement, but with all the strenuous energy you 
 bring to bear on those things which you most eagerly 
 desire. Also with patience, not easily daunted by 
 difficulty, nor yielding to the weariness which will be- 
 set you. 
 
 This is the way in which the thought of the cloud 
 of witnesses must come to our life, to put new heart 
 and energy into us, to make us ashamed of our apathy 
 and our sloth, to inspire us with a new impulse so 
 strong that before it all difficulties will fade away. 
 
XXXIX 
 THE LAST SUNDAY BEFOEE ADVENT 
 
 ' ' Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, in whose heart are thy 
 ways. "Who going through the vale of misery use it for a well, 
 and the pools are filled with water. They will go from strength 
 to strength, and unto the God of gods appeareth every one of them 
 in Sion."— Psalm Ixxxiv. 5-7 (Prayer-book version). 
 
 I HAVE been trying to think what I should say to you, 
 as the last Sunday before Advent comes round to us 
 once more. The message of the Church to us to-day 
 might seem sufficiently obvious ; but I reflect on the 
 long period of years that has elapsed since I delivered 
 it first to an Adelaide congregation. 
 
 It is the same message yet with some variation. 
 For the preacher is not the same and the people are 
 not the same. 
 
 Even though by a singular Providence the preacher 
 survives, during all these years life has been teaching 
 him its lessons, — some of them very hard ones, — and 
 he is hardly the same man as when that long series 
 of years began. And the people are not the same. 
 Even if some be left who were alive then, you hardly 
 recognise yourselves for the same people ; the hopes 
 that were bright have grown dim ; so the fears that 
 seemed to shadow your life have been taken out of the 
 way : the whole course of your history has been very 
 different from that which your imagination pictured. 
 
XXXIX The Last Sunday before Advent 325 
 
 Many have disappeared from the scene altogether ; 
 some from life ; some from this place and all its 
 interests. Looking upon you as I do to-day, I cannot 
 but be conscious of the fact that I am looking upon a 
 different group of human beings, and that I am looking 
 with different eyes. 
 
 Yet to you as to those others there remains one 
 thing in common : you have reached another stage in 
 life ; you are to-day compelled to include in your 
 retrospect that course of Christian seasons by which 
 in the Church each cycle of solemnities is marked off 
 from every other. 
 
 It is not merely the close of a year, but of the 
 Christian year, which has been filled full of Divine 
 thought and appeals to the spiritual life within you. 
 
 Even the close of the natural year is a time of 
 solemnity ; for whether with our will or against our 
 will, we are all the subjects of a Divine education. If 
 not consciously and with intention through the means 
 of grace, yet unconsciously through every experience 
 of life. 
 
 The Spirit of God strives with man, and it can be 
 no light thing for any of us to know that we have 
 been subject to such great and compulsive influences ; 
 to know moreover that their effect on those whom 
 they do not soften is to harden and render more in- 
 sensible. 
 
 Over and above all this you know that during 
 another year of your life you have been consciously 
 and deliberately placing yourselves in view of the 
 solemnities of eternity ; that the whole story of God's 
 redeeming love has been recounted to you ; and that, 
 whether for good or for evil, you have been here 
 
o 
 
 26 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxix 
 
 within the Church of God with the glory of the 
 Divine presence round you. If not for good, then for 
 evil. If there has been no quickening of the spiritual 
 life there must have been some dying out of the desire 
 for God which perishes under the fatal influence of 
 custom and familiarity. 
 
 What is the great subject which has occupied us 
 during these Sundays on which we have worshipped 
 together ? You would say it is religion. You come 
 here that you may learn what religion means, and 
 how you are to become religious men. And if there 
 be a way of being religious without becoming good, 
 you know it is not that way of which we have been 
 in search ; we want to know how to feel, and speak, 
 and act ; how, in one word, to live so as to please 
 God. No religion will satisfy us which falls short of 
 godliness — godlikeness. How far have you learned 
 this ? If this is a pertinent question at all times, it 
 is especially so now when we have all but completed 
 another of the yearly rounds of sacred service. For 
 what the Gospel says to us is applicable to spiritual 
 as well as to material things — " Gather up the frag- 
 ments, that nothing be lost." 
 
 Try to bring home to yourselves, vividly and 
 realisingly, what constitutes the essence of that religion 
 which you have been professing to learn. Suppose a 
 good father going to take his last farewell of children 
 whom he had been trying to train in the ways of God. 
 He has little more time to speak to them, and he 
 would wish his last words to be such as they would 
 remember. He knows that much of his religious life 
 and theirs has been made up of small details ; but at 
 that moment he wishes to think of the heart and 
 
XXXIX The Last Su7tday before Advent 327 
 
 meaning of it all. He wishes to pass by all the less 
 essential things, all the arguments and controversies 
 of the hour, that his soul and theirs may be in absolute 
 communion on that which is essential to the life hid 
 with Christ in God. 
 
 Just so before bidding a final farewell to this 
 Christian year through which we have been passing, I 
 would have you fix your minds on that which is the 
 sum and substance of religion. If you were asked 
 what is that sum and substance, you could find no 
 better answer than to say that all is comprehended in 
 love to God and love to man. Where this is, there is 
 everything ; wanting this our best deeds are nothing 
 worth. 
 
 Even before Christ came the pious -hearted had 
 learned to understand that this is the first and great 
 commandment — " To love the Lord thy God with all 
 thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy mind, and all 
 thy strength." 
 
 In spite of the many terrible things in the older 
 dispensation, God had made Himself known to His 
 people in deeds of mercy and deliverance, which re- 
 vealed His thoughts towards them. They had found 
 out that God loved them, and this knowledge overcame 
 their fears and banished their distrust. And if even 
 they had attained this knowledge, much more we to 
 whom He has made known His love in Eedemption. 
 This, then, is the substance of religion — the love of 
 God with all the heart and soul and mind. Can you 
 say you have reached this state of mind ? To believe 
 that there is a God is going a very little way in the 
 progress : that is merely an intellectual opinion. But 
 so to believe in God, so to turn to Him in heart, so to 
 
328 The Light that lighteth every Man xxxix 
 
 seek Him as the great end and object of all our most 
 earnest activity — this is what constitutes religion as a 
 practical thing. 
 
 What are the things that hinder men from loving 
 God? 
 
 No man hath seen Him, and this is a great hind- 
 rance. When you say that He is a Spirit, you can 
 hardly put before your mind what it is you mean. 
 There is to your mind such mystery in what is un- 
 seen ; and you have been accustomed to think of pure 
 spiritual existence as something you can hardly appre- 
 ciate. 
 
 Yet every man is a spiritual being, and, when you 
 think of it, you will see that what you love in any 
 being is not what you see but what you cannot see. 
 
 Even the human faces that become dear to you are 
 so because of the spiritual qualities of the persons whose 
 character they seem to reveal. If the face could 
 express no love, no pity, no generosity, no nobleness of 
 feeling,' it would lose its attraction ; and though you 
 may misread what it says to you and imagine things 
 that do not exist, yet it is the real or imagined 
 spiritual qualities that you love. And God has ex- 
 pressed Himself to you in Nature, in the image of 
 Himself within your own soul, and above all in the 
 person of Jesus Christ His Son, who has manifested 
 Him in His real character. You know Him not 
 merely as compassionate but as forgiving ; if your sins 
 rise up between you and Him as a barrier which seems 
 to keep you at a distance, you have learned in the 
 Gospel of His grace that He is far more ready to hear 
 than you to pray, and is wont to give more thaii you 
 either desire or deserve. It is through this sense of 
 
XXXIX The Last Sunday before Advent 329 
 
 His infinite forgiveness that the heart is touched and 
 softened, that the alien feeling is overcome, and by 
 faith you can see and delight in Him whom with your 
 eyes you cannot see. From the first moment of your 
 being it is His right, as it is His claim, to be loved ; 
 and it is in rendering this love that human nature 
 itself is fulfilled in its own highest meaning. 
 
 Therefore were we made in the image of God, that 
 in Him alone should we find satisfaction. 
 
 The Israelites of old went after other gods, and we 
 too have our idolatries ; but every idol is to be cast 
 down that contests with Him the supreme place in the 
 heart. 
 
 But it is one thing to say that God must be loved 
 above all creatures, and another thing to say that no 
 creature must be loved. The love of man is itself 
 contained in the love of God ; for His infinite nature 
 comprehends without superseding the particular affec- 
 tions He has given us. How shall we learn the love 
 of God except through the human means and instru- 
 ments He has given us for this express purpose ? The 
 life of the family, of friendship, of neighbourhood, of 
 society, is, as it were, the training-ground on which we 
 are to recruit and refresh our capacity for the greatest 
 love of all. 
 
 If religion has not hitherto meant this to you, it 
 must mean this if it is to be worthy of the name. 
 And if you do love God with an entire and whole- 
 hearted devotion, how will you reveal it ? You will 
 be eager to do His will ; in the performance of duty 
 you will not be satisfied with what man counts right, 
 unless you can feel it to be right in the secret hours of 
 your closer intercourse with God and with your own 
 
330 The Light that light eth eveiy Man xxxix 
 
 soul. You will not be satisfied with any pleasure 
 unless you can bring that too to Him and receive His 
 blessing on it : and this it is that must keep all your 
 pleasures pure. You will distrust all associations and 
 affections of your natural life which seem to unfit you 
 for converse with the Father in Heaven who loves you. 
 
 And if in all else your life is to image God, here, 
 especially in your intercourse with men, you are to 
 seek to exhibit that divine patience with even the evil 
 and the unthankful which He has taught you ; and 
 you are to be ready to warm with your sympathy those 
 who seem to be languishing for want of it. 
 
 And because our feeble affections need to be stirred 
 into greater activity by the power of a higher inspira- 
 tion, therefore it is that we make our prayer to our 
 Father to-day, to stir up the wills of His faithful 
 people, that they, in the inner life of feeling and in the 
 outer life of action, may plenteously bring forth good 
 works — works stamped with His own Spirit and ful- 
 filling His mind — that of Him they may be plenteously 
 rewarded. 
 
 FINIS 
 
 No sorrow there, no pangs of pain, 
 
 Nor crying out for rest ; 
 No beating heart, no throbbing brain, 
 
 Nor conscience sore opprest. 
 
 Soon, soon the works we left half done 
 To ripeness will be grown ; 
 
 The prize we longed for will be won. 
 The secret things be known. 
 
xxxix The Last Sunday before Advent 331 
 
 The souls that parted for awhile 
 
 Will meet in fair array ; 
 The evil passions that defile 
 
 Will all have passed away. 
 
 Through slow procession of the hours 
 
 No watcher waits for day ; 
 And no collapse of wasted powers 
 
 Forebodes the sure decay. 
 
 The seemingly exhausted fire 
 
 Of eager hearts is lit 
 With light of love and pure desire ; 
 
 No night shall fall on it. 
 
 No dull, monotonous repose 
 
 Rounds life as in a sleep : 
 The sentient soul awaking, knows 
 
 A joy more strangely deep. 
 
 The stupor of the sense is gone ; 
 
 The spirit boundeth free. 
 The heaven and earth it looks upon 
 
 Would God that we might see ! 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinhnrgh. 
 
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