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SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
The proceeds will be devoted to the Fund 
 for the Restoration of St. Paul's Cathedral. 
 
THE 
 
 NATIONAL THANKSGIVING 
 
 PREACHED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 1. DEATH AND LIFE December 10, 1871 
 
 2. THE TRUMPET OF PATMOS December 17, 1871 
 
 3. THE DAY OF THANKSGIVING March 3, 1872 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D. 
 
 DEAN OF WESTMINSTER 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1872 
 
LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 
 SOLD BY ORHEP 
 OF THE CO.MMitTEE 
 
5 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 IT has been thought desirable to leave 
 on record some of the more permanent 
 thoughts connected with the successive 
 stages of the remarkable crisis through 
 which our country has passed during the 
 last three months. Many other discourses 
 may have expressed more directly the 
 individual feelings of the preacher. In 
 a large, mixed congregation, like that as- 
 sembled in Westminster Abbey, it seemed 
 more fitting to speak of the general topics 
 which would remain after the immediate 
 occasion had passed, but which from this 
 occasion derived a force that could not 
 otherwise have been attained. A discourse 
 like that delivered by the Bishop of St. 
 
 729 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 David's on ' Christian Loyalty ' * is an 
 example of this use of the events of the 
 time. It is hoped that these sermons 
 may, under other aspects, recall, at least in 
 some degree, the serious reflections which, 
 if the nation is true to itself, ought not to 
 perish with the moment. 
 
 * Christian Loyalty. A Sermon preached at St. Peter's, 
 Carmarthen, on Sunday, January 21, 1872, by Connop 
 Thirl wall, D.D., Bishop of St. David's. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. DEATH AND LIFE 
 
 II. THE TRUMPET OF PATMOS ... 19 
 
 III. THE DAY OF THANKSGIVING . . 41 
 
I. 
 DEATH AND LIFE. 
 
PREACHED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 
 DECEMBER 10, 1871. 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 PHIL. i. 21. 
 1 To live is Christ, and to die is gain. 1 
 
 ON a day like this when there is one topic in 
 every household, one question on every lip it 
 is impossible to stand in this place and not 
 endeavour to give some expression to that of 
 which every heart is full. By a natural Chris- 
 tian instinct, the whole nation is gathered into 
 one focus. We all press, as it were, round one 
 darkened chamber, we all feel that with the 
 mourning family, mother, wife, brothers, sisters, 
 who are there assembled, we are indeed one. 
 The thrill of their fears or hopes passes through 
 and through the differences of rank and station ; 
 we feel that, whilst they represent the whole 
 people, they also represent and are that which 
 each family, and each member of each family, 
 is separately. In the fierce battle between Lite 
 
 B 2 
 
4 DEATH AND LIFE. [Serm. I. 
 
 and Death, for the issues of which we are all 
 looking with such eager expectation, we see the 
 likeness of what will befall every individual 
 soul amongst us ; and the reflection which this 
 struggle, with all its manifold uncertainties, sug- 
 gests, concerns us all alike. 
 
 I have thought, therefore, that it is best to fix 
 our minds for a few moments on what that 
 struggle involves to ask what are the true 
 lessons of Life and of Death ; to ask why it is 
 that, whether as men, or citizens, or Christians, 
 we desire with such prolonged earnestness that 
 Life, and not Death, may be the issue of this 
 mortal agony. 
 
 In doing so, let us be guided by the words 
 of St. Paul. He is writing to his best-beloved 
 converts. He opens his heart more fully to 
 them than to any others. He admits them, as 
 though they were his own brothers and friends, 
 to his innermost chamber. He discloses to 
 them his doubts, his anxieties, his weaknesses. 
 He describes to them the danger in which he 
 is danger, we know not whether of natural 
 
Phil. i. 21.] DEATH AND LIFE. 5 
 
 sickness or of a violent end. He looks on 
 Death and he looks on Life, and he knows not 
 which to choose ; he sees the good of each. At 
 last he decides that what might have seemed 
 the best for him is not really the best ; that 
 what might have seemed the worst for him is 
 not really the worst. He tells us, in short, 
 what are the reasons for desiring Death ; but 
 he tells us still more strongly what are the 
 reasons for desiring Life. 
 
 It may seem almost cold thus to balance and 
 weigh the searchings of the heart at such mo- 
 ments. Yet it was not coldness in the Apostle ; 
 it was the depth of tenderness. It is not cold- 
 ness in us ; it is the only channel into which we 
 can profitably turn our thoughts on such an 
 occasion, and make it yield its proper lesson. 
 
 I have, before this, in quite another connec- 
 tion, used these words of the Apostle. I know 
 not how to do better than to use them again to- 
 day, sharpened and pointed as they are by the 
 feelings of the moment, even to ' the dividing 
 1 asunder of soul and spirit, and discerning even 
 
6 DEATH AND LIFE. [serm. I. 
 
 ' the thoughts and intents ' of our innermost 
 hearts. 
 
 To die is gain. Who is there that has not 
 from time to time felt this, as he looks at the 
 sufferings of this mortal life ; as he thinks of 
 the wearing nights and days of sickness, of the 
 restlessness, the sinking, the pain, the despair, 
 the distress of the watchers, the prolonged 
 agony of the bystanders ; as he looks at the 
 miseries of this sinful world the disappoint- 
 ments of brilliant hopes, the sore temptations 
 to evil, the multiplied chances of failure ? Who, 
 as he thus thinks of himself or of others, has 
 not been moved to say, from time to time, 
 ' Oh that I had the wings of a dove, that I 
 * might flee far away and be at rest ! ' It is the 
 feeling beautifully expressed by the greatest of 
 our poets, when he says : 
 
 Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, 
 
 As, to behold desert, a beggar born, 
 And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, 
 
 And purest faith unhappily forsworn, 
 And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, 
 And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, 
 
 And art made tongue-tied by authority, 
 
Phil. i. 21.] DEATH AND LIFE. 7 
 
 And folly, doctor like, controlling skill, 
 
 And simple truth, miscall'd simplicity, 
 And captive Good attending Captain 111 : 
 Tired with all these, from these would I be gone. 
 
 So wrote Shakspeare in his famous sonnet, 
 and so felt even the great Apostle when, 
 amidst the desertion of friends, and the hard 
 struggle of truth against falsehood and good 
 against evil, he desired to be at rest and be 
 with his Master beyond the grave, which, he 
 says, ' would be far better.' 
 
 So, too, we for ourselves, and for those that 
 we love, and for those whose lives are fraught 
 with so many chances of fatal shipwreck, may 
 well long for that day when we and they shall 
 have shuffled off this mortal coil ; when we shall 
 have done with the anxious trials, the paltry 
 quarrels, the baffled hopes, the grinding toil of 
 the great Babylon of this harassing world ; 
 when we shall have escaped from the burden 
 and heat of the day, from the roar and tumult 
 of the swollen torrent of life, to be with those 
 beloved departed, 
 
 Who in the mountain grots of Eden lie, 
 And hear the fourfold river as it murmurs by. 
 
8 DEATH AND LIFE. [Serm. I. 
 
 In this sense Death is, and must be, a gain to 
 all. And it is by reflecting on this clear gain 
 that the mind bows itself to the Supreme Will, 
 and the heart nerves itself to the terrible 
 thought of the last dread summons from all 
 that we see and love in this earthly scene. It is 
 for this that, in the language of our Visitation 
 Service, we commit the soul with such assured 
 confidence into the hands of its faithful Creator 
 and most merciful Saviour. 
 
 But the Apostle tells us that after all there 
 is something yet greater than the gain and rest 
 of Death, and that is the struggle and victory 
 of Life. Death was gain to him, but Life was 
 something more. * To live is CHRIST.' Death 
 in one sense is the gate of Life eternal ; 
 but Life this mortal life is the only true 
 gate of a happy and peaceful death. It is 
 in Life in the wear and tear of Life that 
 those graces must be wrought and fashioned 
 which perfect the soul, immortal over Death. 
 ' Reckon yourselves/ says the Apostle, ' to be 
 * dead to sin' But there is something much 
 
Phil. i. 21.] DEATH AND LIFE. 9 
 
 more than this, ' Reckon yourselves to be alive 
 ' to God through Christ.' He preaches with all 
 his heart and soul, not the worthlessness, but 
 the infinite preciousness of Life. 
 
 Those lines from our great poet, which I 
 quoted just now, describing his weariness of 
 the world, close with the one thought which 
 reconciled him to remaining : 
 
 Tired with all these, from these would I be gone, 
 Save that, to die, I leave my love alone. 
 
 That, doubtless, is one chief thought that 
 makes earthly life dear to us the thought 
 that it contains those whom our departure 
 would leave desolate and alone. But in fact 
 this sense of human love is a likeness, like all 
 pure earthly affections, of a feeling far higher. 
 When the heathen, when the unbeliever have 
 often sought escape from the troubles of life by 
 self-destruction, they have done so to escape 
 from that which to them had no sacred value. 
 But the Christian, the believer in God and in 
 Christ, has, or ought to have, the abiding con- 
 sciousness that in Life there are not only (it may 
 
io DEATH AND LIFE. [Serm. I. 
 
 be) the dearest objects of his earthly affection, 
 but that there is the very work, the very presence 
 of Christ. It is one of the points of coincidence 
 between true Christianity and true civilisation. 
 As mankind advances in civilisation, human 
 life becomes more sacred, more precious ; as 
 mankind advances in Christianity, the human 
 soul, which is but another word for human life, 
 becomes more precious, more sacred also. By 
 leaving our work here before the time, we should 
 leave His work undone. By turning our backs 
 in self-will or impatience on this mortal scene, 
 we should be turning our backs on Him who is 
 in those very sufferings and struggles most surely 
 to be found. 
 
 Every kindness done to others in our daily 
 walk, every attempt to make others happy, every 
 prejudice overcome, every truth more clearly 
 perceived, every difficulty subdued, every sin 
 left behind, every temptation trampled under 
 foot, every step forward in the cause of 
 good, is a step nearer to the life of Christ, 
 through which only death can be really a 
 
Phil. i. 21.] DEATH AND LIFE. n 
 
 gain to us. Death may be great, but Life 
 is greater still. Death may be a state to be 
 desired for ourselves, rejoiced in for others, 
 but Life is the state in which Christ makes 
 Himself known to us, and through which 
 we must make ourselves known to Him. He 
 sanctified and glorified every stage of it. He 
 was a little child, and showed us how good it 
 was to be obedient to our parents how dear to 
 a mother a child could be how He never 
 forgot her, but even on the cross thought of 
 what would soothe and comfort her. He grew 
 up to boyhood he showed us how to learn, 
 both by hearing and asking questions how 
 early He could be busied in doing His 
 Father's work. He showed us in full man- 
 hood how, in the midst of the world, and of 
 constant pressing duties many coming and 
 going in feasting and in company, no less 
 than in serious moments, He still was the same 
 Divine Master and Friend. He showed us in 
 the desolation and solitude of Gethsemane and 
 Calvary, when He seemed to be left, unsupported, 
 
12 DEATH AND LIFE. [Serm. I. 
 
 to Himself, that He was yet not alone, because 
 the Father was with Him. This is the way 
 in which this poor human life may become a 
 Divine life, may become a life of Christ. 
 
 Therefore, when we apply these words and 
 thoughts to ourselves, what is it but to dwell not 
 on the misuse, but on the use of our existence ? 
 Think how much yet remains to be done in the 
 thirty, twenty yes, even in the ten years, or 
 perhaps in the one year, perhaps even in the 
 one day, that yet may remain to us. Despise 
 it not, neglect it not ; cherish, enlarge, improve 
 this vast, this inestimable gift, whilst it is 
 granted to us with its endless opportunities, 
 with its boundless capacities, with its glorious 
 hopes, with its indispensable calls, with its im- 
 mense results, with its rare chances of repent- 
 ance, of improvement, even for the humblest 
 and weakest among us. 
 
 To rise above ourselves, to lose ourselves in 
 the thought of the work, great or small, that 
 God has placed before us to live in that life 
 which is indeed eternal, because it belongs both 
 
Phil. i. 21.] DEATH AND LIFE. 13 
 
 to this world and the next for the sake of 
 doing this the Apostle could consent to live, 
 could prefer life with all its sorrows to death 
 with all its gain. ' God is not a God of the 
 ' dead, but of the living.' Christ is not a dead 
 Christ, but a living Christ. 'The living, the 
 ' living, he shall praise Thee, he shall serve 
 * Thee.' The varied duties of common life the 
 daily round, the trivial task are the means by 
 which we carry on the true Apostolical succes- 
 sion of Christ's first servants. ' There may be 
 1 everywhere ' I quote the words of a devoted 
 Christian of another country 'there may be 
 ' everywhere a silent apostleship, a persuasive 
 ' and incessant sermon namely, the natural 
 'brightness of a profound and true content. 
 ' Never can the immortal hopes to which our de- 
 ' yotion renders its sacrifice be so well proclaimed 
 ' by our words, as by the radiant tranquillity of 
 ' that inward repose which comes up from the 
 ' heart to the countenance.' I find ' so said this 
 same saint-like person ' I find Death perfectly 
 ' desirable, but I find Life perfectly beautiful.' 
 
i 4 DEATH AND LIFE. [Serm. I. 
 
 And what is true of the life of individuals 
 is true also of the life of great communities. 
 There is, indeed, both of individuals and of 
 nations, a life which is not a life, empty, dead, bar- 
 ren, a mere existence, vanity of vanities. But the 
 collective life of thousands of English Christian 
 souls the life of the heart of a great people 
 life, not stagnation, life, not idleness is the very 
 element, the living element in which the spirit 
 of man lives and makes others live of which 
 the Spirit of Christ, which is Christ Himself, 
 is the life and the light. This is what is meant 
 by saying that the Church that is the Chris- 
 tian society, the living company of all good men, 
 the souls and hearts of Christian men and wo- 
 men forms ' the Body ' of Christ. We, whether 
 singly or collectively, are His representatives 
 we are (so the Bible repeatedly tells us) His 
 very self. In all that is best and purest in us, in 
 our duties, in our hopes, He lives. Because He 
 lives we live. Because we live He lives. It is 
 sometimes asked it was asked the other day by 
 an eloquent preacher in the great neighbouring 
 
Phil. i. 21.] DEATH AND LIFE. 15 
 
 Cathedral whether the Christ, the Historical 
 Person who lived eighteen hundred years ago, 
 is still alive amongst us. It is also sometimes 
 asked, in many forms, and with many forms 
 of reply, how and where Christ's presence is to 
 be found and felt. But the best answer to all 
 these questions is the answer of the Apostle, 
 ' To live is Christ.' It is so, as I have said, on 
 the smallest scale in our individual existence. It 
 is so on the largest scale. ' The Life of Chris- 
 ' tendom is the Life of Christ.' That is the proof, 
 the evidence, the direct continuation of the 
 life of Christ. It is through the multitudinous 
 mass of living human hearts, of human acts 
 and words of love and truth, that the CHRIST 
 of the first century becomes the CHRIST of the 
 nineteenth. Each successive age, each sepa- 
 rate nation, does His work on a larger and still 
 larger scale. The arts, the literature, the sciences, 
 the charities, the liberties, the laws, the wor- 
 ship of the commonwealths of Christian Europe 
 are all parts of the living body of CHRIST. 
 Their influence on us is part of His influence. 
 
1 6 DEATH AND LIFE. [Serm. I. 
 
 Their benefits to us are part of ' the innumerable 
 'benefits of His Cross and Passion.' To live 
 under the best influences of Christendom, to live 
 under the best influences of Christian England, 
 this for us, and this only, is the Apostle al- 
 lows us to say so is CHRIST Himself. 
 
 And now, O my brethren, if there be an indivi- 
 dual life to which much that I have already said 
 be applicable a life dear to hundreds of loving 
 friends, and to a most loving family a life which 
 in their service and affection finds its best in- 
 spirations and its best vitality a life which had 
 till now (humanly speaking) long years of useful- 
 ness and happiness before it ; then for the pre- 
 servation of that life, for the sake of him who now 
 lies on the dark confines of hope and fear, and 
 for the sake of those most near and dear to him, 
 we may and must earnestly pray and trust that 
 it may by God's blessing be preserved. And 
 when we add the further thought that this is a 
 life which may, if so be, influence to an untold 
 degree the national existence of which I just 
 now spoke a life which, if duly appreciated and 
 
Phil. i. 21.] DEATH AND LIFE. 17 
 
 fitly used, contains within it special opportuni- 
 ties of good such as no other existence in this 
 great community possesses a life which may, 
 if worthily employed, stimulate all that is noble 
 and beneficent, and discourage all that is low and 
 base and frivolous which, from its exceptional 
 position, will have the power of moderating the 
 extremes of party zeal, and of pursuing the 
 common weal of all with an energy not weak- 
 ened or divided by local or partial claims a life 
 which, if spared, may be the instrument for 
 making us more and more to be of one mind 
 and heart in all that is just and good, even as 
 at this moment the fear of losing it has brought 
 us all together with one heart and one soul. 
 Such a life is worth living, is worth praying for, 
 and for such a life, for such a Royal life which 
 is so dear now to those who watch its fluctu- 
 ations from hour to hour beside and around the 
 bed of sickness which may, with God's bless- 
 ing, be so precious for our children and our 
 children's children we pray that it may yet be 
 
1 8 DEATH AND LIFE. [Serm. I. 
 
 prolonged for the good of men and the glory 
 of God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who is 
 ' the Resurrection and the Life, in whom whosc- 
 * ever believeth, though he were dead yet shall, 
 
 ' he live.' 
 
II. 
 
 THE 
 
 TRUMPET OF PATMOS. 
 
PREACHED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 
 DECEMBER 17, 1871. 
 
SERMON IL 
 
 REV. i. 10. 
 
 ' I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard 
 behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet? 
 
 THE new Calendar of Lessons, which has been 
 followed for some months in this church, intro- 
 duces for the first time in the Services of this 
 Sunday portions from the Book of the Revela- 
 tion of St. John. The history of the reception 
 of that book in the Church is curious and 
 instructive. For the first three centuries it was 
 not regularly received amongst the Canonical 
 Books of Scripture, and even after it was re- 
 ceived even at the time of the Reformation 
 very few lessons were selected from it to be read 
 in public. The reasons for this are obvious. The 
 Book is in fact exceedingly obscure and it has 
 been made even more obscure by the fancies 
 of interpreters. It was also in ancient times 
 
22 THE TRUMPET OF PATHOS. [Serm. II. 
 
 looked upon askance, because it was the favourite 
 text-book of those who were then thought here- 
 tics, and in modern times because it has been 
 the favourite text-book of angry polemics and 
 fanciful diviners of the future the source 
 whence have been drawn weapons of offence 
 against theological adversaries, or imaginary 
 pictures of the history of modern Europe. But 
 in spite of these objections, it has, by the force 
 of its sublime poetic form and its high moral 
 tone, held its ground, and the true instinct of 
 Christendom has been shown in the fact, that 
 without the sanction of Councils and against 
 the opinion of great prelates, this mysterious 
 book has gradually forced its way into the Canon 
 of Scripture, and now at last, after having been 
 almost excluded from the public service of the 
 English Church, it has been appointed to be read 
 during the last month in the year, when its 
 lessons naturally fall in with the season of Ad- 
 vent. Some chapters are still omitted, as fit 
 rather for the solitary student than for the 
 mixed congregation. But there is enough given 
 
Rev. I 10.] THE TRUMPET OF PATMOS. 23 
 
 to express the general tenor of the book, and it 
 is of this general tenor that I propose to speak, 
 and of this with its special application to our- 
 selves. 
 
 The Prophet (for as such we must regard the 
 author of this sacred book) was on the solitary 
 island of Patmos, withdrawn from earthly things, 
 like Moses on Sinai, or Elijah on Carniel. Round 
 about him was the bright JEgean Sea, with its 
 hundred isles and the neighbouring mountains 
 of Asia Minor, within whose circle lay the fami- 
 liar Seven Churches to which his epistles and 
 addresses were sent.* And it was on the Lord's 
 day. He was wrapt in the stillness and devo- 
 tion of the day, already even in that early time 
 set apart for the contemplation of heavenly 
 things. Such was the external framework of 
 the prophecy. It was in this solitude, in this 
 solemn scene, from this lonely peak of specula- 
 tion, that there was unrolled before the eye of 
 his spirit that vision of the future which is 
 called the 'Apocalypse,' that is the ' Revela- 
 
 * See Appendix to Sermons in the East, pp. 225-231. 
 
24 THE TRUMPET OF PATMOS, [Serm. II. 
 
 tion,' the ' Unveiling ' of the will and purpose 
 of Providence. 
 
 Amidst all that is obscure and difficult, there 
 are two main features of this Revelation which 
 may be easily described and easily understood. 
 The first is that, as in all the prophetic visions of 
 the Bible, the outward imagery is taken from the 
 objects and circumstances immediately at hand 
 and around. Not only do the bright sky, the 
 wide sea, the lofty mountains, the grotesque 
 rocks, the sandy beach, of Patmos and the ad- 
 jacent islands enter into the picture, but the 
 whole tissue of the visions themselves is drawn 
 from the events with which the atmosphere of 
 that portentous time was charged. It was the 
 period which witnessed the fulfilment of those 
 signs in earth and heaven which are set forth 
 in the Gospel records brought before us at this 
 season. The long peace which had prevailed 
 throughout the world down to the death of the 
 Emperor Nero had just been broken up. It 
 was the epoch which the Roman historian de- 
 scribes as ' teeming with disasters, terrible in 
 
Rev. i. 10.] THE TRUMPET OF PATMOS. 25 
 
 ' war, rent with faction, savage even in peace. 
 From the Northern Ocean to the ./Egean coasts, 
 all was in confusion and alarm wars and 
 rumours of wars, earthquakes, volcanoes, armies 
 marching and countermarching, the fall of 
 Jerusalem, the burning of Rome, the overthrow 
 of the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, the 
 barbarians hanging on the frontier, dynasty 
 after dynasty succeeding each other on the 
 imperial throne, ' the powers of heaven shaken, 
 ' men's hearts failing them for fear of those 
 ' things that were coming on the earth/ This 
 was the horizon on which the Prophet looked 
 out, and it was the thought of these calamities 
 which presented to him the imagery of those 
 prophecies which have themselves continued the 
 like imagery for all such convulsions in every 
 age. The 'thunderings and lightnings and 
 'earthquakes/ 'the trumpets of war' and 'the 
 'vials of wrath/ the overthrow of the Imperial 
 city on her seven hills, the bottomless pit, and 
 Death on his pale horse, all these are the signs 
 which he read in the lowering heavens and the 
 
26 THE TRUMPET OF PATHOS. [Serm. II. 
 
 distracted earth of his own times. And on the 
 other hand, the martyrs under the throne, the 
 white-robed army of saints, the new Jerusalem 
 coming down as a bride adorned for her hus- 
 band, were suggested by the thought of the 
 little band of Christians already spreading 
 through the Empire, already becoming the 
 centres of light and life and truth amidst a 
 corrupt, decaying, and dissolving world ; strug- 
 gling against their fanatical persecutors in the 
 Jewish Church, and their heathen persecutors 
 in the Roman Empire, yet still holding their 
 own, and containing within themselves the 
 pledge of the future of civilisation and of 
 Christianity. It is needless, it is futile to seek 
 in these chapters for the detailed history of our 
 own recent times. They have no relation to 
 modern events; they belong, as far as their 
 letter is concerned, to the States and the 
 Churches which formed the horizon, far or near, 
 of the Seer on the rock of Patmos, in the first 
 century of the Christian era not to the States 
 and Churches of Italy, France, Germany, or 
 
Rev. i. 10.] THE TRUMPET OF PATHOS. 27 
 
 England, in the sixteenth, or eighteenth, , or 
 nineteenth, or twentieth centuries, as some in 
 all succeeding generations have vainly tried to 
 find them. 
 
 There is much in them that we shall never 
 understand they are riddles of which the key 
 is lost ; ' the times and the seasons that the 
 'Father has put in His own power/ and 'which 
 ' are not known to the Angels of God, nor even 
 4 to the Son of Man/ are not likely to be dis- 
 covered by any process of interpretation, how- 
 ever ingenious, from this sacred book, which, as 
 regards these outward things, was addressed to 
 the generation not of some future age, but of 
 that which its author was specially sent to 
 waken and to warn. 
 
 But, secondly, there is an eternal truth wrapt 
 up in these sublime visions in their spirit, and 
 not in their letter; in their general principles, 
 not in their details. On that great Lord's day 
 St. John was not in the flesh, not in the time or 
 space of any particular scene or spot on earth, 
 but ' in the Spirit.' And * in the Spirit/ under 
 
28 THE TRUMPET OF PATHOS. [Serm. II. 
 
 these outward forms, he described how through 
 struggles, through miseries and confusions of 
 every kind, the cause of goodness and truth, the 
 spiritual man (so to speak) of the whole hu- 
 man race advances towards perfection. From 
 that solitary rock he saw the shaking of em- 
 pires, the ruin of nations, the persecution of the 
 saints, the blood of the martyrs ; yet he felt 
 persuaded, and in his bright and beaming words 
 of hope and triumph, he has stamped on the 
 mind of Christendom his persuasion, that purity 
 and truth would come out victorious at last. 
 It is at times a hard doctrine to receive. It 
 seems at times as if the advance of civilisa- 
 tion, of religion, of goodness were so irregular 
 that we almost despair of the ultimate pur- 
 poses of Providence of the final perfection of 
 humanity. Yet the Seer of Patmos did not de- 
 spair, nor was troubled beyond measure ; and 
 so, neither should our hearts fail. 
 
 In the voice of the trumpet that spoke behind 
 him, however varied its tones, he recognised, and 
 we should recognise, the voice of God. Even 
 
Rev. i. 10.] THE TRUMPET OF PATMOS. 29 
 
 when, as then, the progress of humanity 
 seemed to be thrown back, and ancient super- 
 stitions seemed to be regaining their hold, he 
 clung, and we may still cling, to the hope that 
 good will be wrought out of evil ; even when we 
 look on the grievous crimes and follies which 
 have brought about the fall of nations, we may 
 speak of them, as even in that hour of judg- 
 ment St. John himself spoke of them, with a 
 feeling of human sympathy for the wreck of 
 imperial greatness and worldwide splendour. 
 
 These, then, are the two main features of the 
 Apocalypse. First, the interest, which the 
 public events of our own time are intended' 
 to awaken in the hearts of Christians. Se- 
 condly, the moral and spiritual effect which 
 such an interest is intended to produce. 
 
 Other signs, other striking events, have oc- 
 curred in the earlier part of this year on which 
 I have before dwelt,* as like to those greater 
 
 * I refer to sermons preached in the earlier part of 
 1871, during the troubles of France and the conflagration 
 of Paris. 
 
3 o THE TRUMPET OF PATHOS. [Serm. II. 
 
 convulsions of which the Revelation speaks. 
 But it seems to me that we shall be also follow- 
 ing out the spirit of this sacred book, if we fix 
 our attention on the one public event, close at 
 hand, which has recently filled our minds ; if we 
 concentrate our thoughts on that one single 
 trumpet-call, and ask what permanent good 
 we may learn from it. 
 
 We were all of us engaged in our several 
 pursuits ; most of us as much withdrawn from 
 any of the concerns which were going on out- 
 side of our own immediate circles as St. John 
 was removed from all thoughts of the great 
 Roman Empire in his seclusion in the isle of 
 Patmos. Suddenly, like him, we everyone of 
 us were roused from these separate indivi- 
 dual cares ; everyone, however high or however 
 humble, in the midst of our several distractions 
 and occupations, as though we heard the voice 
 of a trumpet talking with us. It came not 
 from falling thrones, or blood-stained battle- 
 fields, or burning cities, but from a single sick 
 chamber in a secluded English county. At 
 
Rev. i. 10.] THE TRUMPET OF PATHOS. 31 
 
 each successive reverberation of that thrilling 
 voice, as it was repeated from city to city in 
 countless messages, it hushed the strife of angry 
 disputants, it silenced the eager gathering, it 
 broke up the festive banquet, it rang on from 
 shore to shore through the vast range of the 
 whole empire ; the whole nation of Englishmen 
 became on a sudden possessed with one thought 
 and one desire. Even the remote subjects of 
 our dominion, of other races and other creeds, 
 joined in one united prayer for one single youth- 
 ful life, that it might be sustained in its fierce 
 struggle with death. And now that the tones of 
 that trumpet are changed from mourning into 
 joy, from despair into hope, not the less are its 
 vibrations felt in every household and in every 
 heart. 
 
 My brethren, there is not yet such absolute 
 confidence as that we can indulge in assured 
 thanksgiving for the answer to our hopes ; 
 and it is not till that day arrives that w r e can 
 look forward, as we then ought to look forward, 
 with solemn and serious thoughts to the fresh 
 
32 THE TRUMPET OF PATMOS. [Serm. II. 
 
 duties which the gracious mercy of God will 
 then, if so be, impose both on him who is spared, 
 and on us who have so earnestly trusted that he 
 might be spared. 
 
 But we may, even now, before the recollec- 
 tion of our strain of eager expectation and 
 anxiety has faded away, ask ourselves what 
 this voice was intended to teach us ; we may 
 seek to give the reasons to ourselves and to 
 other nations why our hearts have thus burned 
 within us why, by the mortal struggle of a 
 single existence, our souls were so deeply 
 stirred. 
 
 There were many feelings which this unex- 
 pected trumpet-call awakened in us, that made 
 it like a voice from a better world. 
 
 Let me speak of a few of these. I confine 
 myself to those which apply to all of us 
 alike. 
 
 The first lesson of such a summons is that it 
 called us out of ourselves. Nothing is so nar- 
 rowing, contracting, hardening, as always to be 
 moving in the same groove, with no thought 
 
Rev. i. 10.] THE TRUMPET OF PATHOS. 33 
 
 beyond what we immediately see and hear close 
 around us. Any shock which breaks this even 
 course, anything which makes us think of 
 other joys and sorrows besides our own, is of 
 itself chastening, sanctifying, edifying. We 
 are, or ought to be, the better for having had 
 our souls filled with the thought of others, 
 whom many of us never saw, with hopes and 
 fears which went far beyond the small span 
 of our own lives into the distant future. 
 
 Secondly, it touched a chord which vibrates 
 even in the least responsive hearts. It appealed 
 to our sense of the sanctity, the preciousness 
 of family ties ; it drew us round one family 
 hearth. In every condition of life a natural 
 instinct prompted an instantaneous sympathy 
 with and for the sufferer and those who were 
 watching around him, because in every house- 
 hold the same scene might at any moment 
 be enacted. It made us feel, according to the 
 trite saying, that royal persons are of the 
 same flesh and blood with us ; but it also 
 D 
 
34 THE TRUMPET OF PATHOS. [Serm. II. 
 
 made us feel which is no less important 
 that we are of the same flesh and blood with 
 them. That strain of suspense, that sorrow, 
 that joy which we all of us have felt, was a 
 testimony to the true nobleness and greatness 
 of home affections. Let us, as we think over 
 this week, thank God that He has planted these 
 instincts within us. Let no one be ashamed 
 to own, let everyone be eager to cherish, these 
 pure and sacred feelings, which a whole nation 
 has been proud to exhibit, and which are in 
 fact the foundation of all true national and 
 all true Christian life. 
 
 Thirdly, it has brought before us how, 
 amidst all our dissensions and .party strifes, 
 we are still Englishmen Englishmen, first 
 and foremost, whatever we may be besides. 
 This is not the first time that the like 
 penetrating sympathy with a single member 
 of the royal house, has knit together the hearts 
 of all. So it was, as our fathers have told us, 
 when the Princess Charlotte was snatched 
 away in a moment of time with her infant 
 
Rev. i. 10.] THE TRUMPET OF PATMOS. 35 
 
 child. So it was on that sad day which, 
 on its tenth anniversary in this past week, 
 filled every mind with dark forebodings, when 
 the illustrious Prince, whose loss is still felt 
 -throughout the Empire, was called away in 
 the midst of his beneficent career. So it has 
 been in that alternation of grief and hope 
 which has wavered round the sick bed of the 
 Heir of the remote future. This it is which 
 gives to the Family that represents the whole 
 people so rare, so singular an interest. It 
 brings before us in a living, present shape the 
 fact that above and beyond all sects and parties 
 there is such a thing as an inextinguishable 
 feeling towards our common country, a sacred 
 bond in the thought that one familiar name 
 calls up all our patriotic emotions, a charm 
 which gilds the wear and tear of politics with 
 a personal devotion, such as no mere abstrac- 
 tion could enkindle. I have often before and 
 elsewhere dwelt on the sacredness of a Chris- 
 tian State, on the paramount supremacy of 
 
 D 2 
 
3 6 2 HE TRUMPET OF PATMOS. [Serm. n. 
 
 the English Crown and the English Law. It 
 is impossible to imagine a more striking tribute 
 than that which has been just rendered to this 
 sometimes forgotten and disparaged truth, by 
 the spontaneous outburst of every class and 
 of every party. There are nations, and there 
 have been times in which the devotion to the 
 reigning family has been a thing separate and 
 apart from the love of country. There have 
 been times and places, where the love of 
 country has existed with no loyal feeling to 
 the reigning family. Let us thank God that 
 in England it is not so. Loyalty with us is the 
 personal, romantic side of Patriotism. Patriotism 
 with us is the Christian, philosophic side of 
 Loyalty. Long may the two flourish together, 
 each supporting and sustaining the other. 
 
 And, finally, this universal movement has 
 shown what in the last resort Englishmen have 
 always shown that we are (I say it not in any 
 spirit of boastfulness or ostentation) a Godfearing 
 and religious people. What was the natural ex- 
 pression of our hopes and fears our sympathy 
 
Rev. i. 10.] THE TRUMPET OF PATHOS. 37 
 
 and the anxious expectation ? It was the united 
 sacred language of prayer to the Supreme 
 Ruler and Father of the Universe. Not only 
 in the churches in which, as here, day after day, 
 the names of the Sovereign and her children are 
 habitually mentioned, and where, in silent medi- 
 tation, each of those names has through the 
 whole of this long suspense been commended to 
 God, not only in the solemn prayer which on 
 last Sunday was offered up with one consent in 
 every proud cathedral and humble village 
 church which owns the Queen's authority, but in 
 every church and chapel of every sect, however 
 far removed from our mode of worship or doc- 
 trine ; in temples of other faiths in regions far 
 away ; in journals at home, however cynical and 
 worldly ; in assemblies however secular, the same 
 awful Name was invoked, the same devout 
 wish was expressed, the same sacred petition 
 breathed, differing in words, but in substance 
 the same. This is indeed a true Christian com- 
 munion ; this is to keep the unity of the spirit 
 in the bond of peace. We need not penetrate 
 
38 THE TRUMPET OF PA TM OS. [Serm. II. 
 
 into the inscrutable secrets of Providence we 
 need not perplex ourselves with precise ques- 
 tions on the mode in which Prayer is an- 
 swered. It is enough for us to know and 
 feel that it is the most natural, the most 
 powerful,, the most elevated expression of our 
 thoughts and wishes in all great emergen- 
 cies. It is enough to know that in the most 
 severe of all trials, the most sustaining and com- 
 forting thought is the fixed belief that we are in 
 the hands of an All-wise, All-merciful Father. 
 To Him we turned in anxious suspense, to Him 
 we turn again with grateful thanks. Into His 
 Hands we commended the spirit of the sufferer, 
 hovering between life and death, to be strength- 
 ened, purified, and, if it might so be, restored to 
 us. Into those same Hands of infinite compas- 
 sion we commend once more that same youthful 
 spirit, returning, as we trust, from the gates of 
 the grave to a higher, better, grander life than 
 ever before. 
 
 May we be strengthened by the voice of the 
 heavenly Trumpet to fulfil more faithfully, more 
 
Rev. i. 10.] THE TRUMPET OF PATMOS. 39 
 
 loyally, more courageously our duty towards him; 
 may he be strengthened by that same voice, as 
 from another world, to fulfil more actively, more 
 steadfastly, more zealously his duty towards us. 
 ' Unto God's gracious mercy and protection we 
 ' commit him. The Lord bless him and keep 
 ' him. The Lord make His face to shine upon 
 ' him, and be gracious unto him.' 
 
III. 
 
 THE 
 
 DAY OF THANKSGIVING. 
 
PREACHED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 
 MARCH 3, 1872. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 PSALM cxxii. i. 
 
 1 1 was glad when they said unto me, We will go into 
 the house of the Lord.' 
 
 THESE words, taken from the Psalms of the 
 2/th day of the month, which I have caused 
 to be again repeated here to-day, met the eyes 
 of thousands in the course of the past week, 
 inscribed over the western portico of St. Paul's 
 Cathedral. They fitly expressed the feeling 
 which swayed the heart of the whole metro- 
 polis. We were glad, we rejoiced, because our 
 Sovereign and her people had said, ' We will 
 go into the house of the Lord.' It was a 
 gladness which made itself felt even to the 
 distant extremities of our mighty Empire. It 
 was a gladness for the gracious gift, as if sent 
 direct from heaven, of a precious life which 
 we had earnestly sought. It was the gladness 
 
44 THE DAY OF [Serm. III. 
 
 of beholding the Sovereign whom we loved 
 once more trusting herself amongst us, and 
 receiving with radiant smiles, with unshaken 
 courage, the tokens of her people's loyalty. It 
 was the thankful gladness, we may say, for the 
 Thanksgiving itself, the grateful relief, that 
 a day so long expected with such eagerness, 
 we had well nigh said with such awe, as its 
 morning dawned with its mighty burden of 
 innumerable human souls, had come and gone 
 amidst such almost unclouded brightness, such 
 almost unbroken order and pure unstained 
 enjoyment. 
 
 But it was not mere gladness not mere 
 thanksgiving. When we felt that the centre 
 of all those myriad movements was not the 
 seat of commerce, or legislation, or pleasure, 
 but the consecrated house of the Lord when 
 we looked down on the multitudes covering 
 that vast area, or upwards to the multitudes 
 suspended in that soaring cupola when after 
 the long hours of waiting, there fell over all 
 those dense masses a stillness, as of an unseen 
 
Ps. cxxii. i.] THANKSGIVING. 45 
 
 Presence when, as the voice of praise and 
 prayer went up from thousands of lips and 
 thousands of hearts, the whole atmosphere 
 became, as it were, charged with worship we 
 felt assured that the ages of faith are not yet run 
 out, that Religion, in its widest and deepest sense, 
 still holds its sway over the hearts of English- 
 men, that it shall be, as far as human foresight 
 can reach, the crown and consummation and best 
 expression of our noblest and purest feelings. 
 And when further we remarked, how, under that 
 spacious dome were gathered (with the single 
 exception of one exclusive body), the representa- 
 tives of every Christian, nay, of every religious 
 community in England, how all of these felt 
 that, agreeing here or disagreeing there, they 
 yet on the whole could join in the utterances 
 of religious faith and hope as embodied in 
 the venerable forms of the National Church 
 it was a living proof that such united worship 
 within one common national sanctuary is not 
 an idle dream ; it was a sign that a National 
 Church, so bound up, heart and soul, life and 
 
 
46 THE DAY OF [Serm. III. 
 
 limb, with the Nation and the State, could alone 
 furnish such a common meeting-point of religion 
 and patriotism it was a pledge that as long as 
 the memory of that day remains, England will 
 not willingly consent to make over her noblest 
 historical and sacred edifices, her purest and 
 highest aspirations after God, to the keeping of 
 any single sect, or to the mere rivalry and con- 
 tention of private interests. 
 
 When further we thought how he who was the 
 central object of that vast gathering, was there 
 not merely as an ordinary worshipper, but as 
 one who had, by a marvellous recovery re- 
 turned from the very valley of the shadow of 
 death and that, by a singular coincidence, the 
 Primate's words of sober and simple counsel 
 were uttered by one who had himself been 
 recalled by a recovery not less wonderful to 
 health and activity amongst us a dying man, 
 speaking as to a dying man of the duties of the 
 living to which both had been alike brought back 
 when we remember how around that youthful 
 form life and death had battled, for long days and 
 
Ps. cxxii. i.] THANKSGIVING. 47 
 
 nights, like mortal combatants, in a strife of 
 which the whole English race were the awe- 
 struck spectators -when we glanced at the 
 mother, wife, brothers, sisters, and little children, 
 in whose anguish, and anxious expectation, and 
 returning happiness all the nation found the im- 
 personation of their own peculiar joys and sor- 
 rows then, again, we felt that it was not merely 
 a solemn service, a sacred act of adoration, 
 but a service, a worship, of the most living 
 reality because it rose from and gathered 
 round a living human being, with passions, hopes, 
 fears, duties, such as each one of us knows in 
 himself, needing the same strength from above, 
 struggling with the same terrible temptations, 
 wrought in the same English mould, inheritor 
 of the same individual destiny for weal or woe, 
 according to the deeds done in the body, 
 whether they be good or whether they be evil. 
 Other services might be more ornate, more 
 dramatic ; other appeals to the feelings more 
 exciting ; other forms of devotion more eager 
 to pry into the secrets of the eternal world, or 
 
48 THE DA Y OF [Serm. III. 
 
 explain the unrevealed mysteries of Provi- 
 dence. We were content with the simple ex- 
 pression of heartfelt gratitude, as of sons to 
 
 a Father, for a mercy received, and if that 
 
 * 
 
 natural expression rose to gigantic propor- 
 tions, it was only because the whole nation 
 was resolved to bear its part therein. 
 
 But yet more ; not only was this a solemn reli- 
 gious festival not only did it concern the welfare 
 of a human soul, which, whether of Prince or 
 peasant, is equally precious in the sight of the 
 Eternal God- but it was the response in every 
 English heart to the sense of the union, too 
 subtle for analysis, yet true and simple as 
 the primitive instincts of our race which 
 binds the people of England to their monarchy, 
 and the monarchy to the people. It is the 
 feeling of which the Psalms are so noble a 
 rendering, and which make them so fit an 
 exponent of our national hopes and fears. 
 ' There is the seat of judgment There are the 
 ' thrones of the house of David. For my brethren 
 ' and companions' sake, I will wish thee prosperity; 
 
Ps. cxxii. i.] THANKSGIVING. 49 
 
 ' yea, because of the House of the Lord our God, 
 ' I will seek to do thee good/ So spoke the 
 Psalmist in the inspired thanksgiving, from 
 which the text is taken. And so in a yet more 
 exalted strain, another Psalmist drew a picture 
 of what such a monarchy should be ' Give thy 
 'judgments, O God, to the king, and thy right- 
 ' eousness to the king's son. He shall judge thy 
 ' people with righteousness, and thy poor with 
 1 judgment. He shall deliver the needy when 
 ' he crieth, and the poor also, and him that hath 
 'no helper. In his days shall the righteous 
 ' flourish, and abundance of peace, so long as the 
 ' moon endureth.' 
 
 Such was the ideal of a just and beneficent 
 Monarchy more than two thousand years ago. 
 Such, to all who can feel or think, it still is, 
 amidst whatever mixture of personal and na- 
 tional infirmity, amidst whatever changes have 
 been wrought by differences of time and race 
 and country, in our modern existence. 
 
 Look for a moment at the serious philo- 
 sophic, Christian aspect of such a monarchy, as 
 F 
 
50 THE DA Y OF [Serm. III. 
 
 that which alone rendered possible the feelings 
 of the week that is past. It is the one name 
 and place amongst us which unites in almost 
 unbroken succession the whole range of our 
 island story, which is the common property of 
 the whole British people, we might almost say 
 of the whole Anglo-Saxon race. No other 
 existing throne in Europe reaches back to the 
 same antiquity, none other combines with such 
 an undivided charm the associations of the past, 
 the interests of the present. It is the one name 
 and place, which, being raised high above 
 all party struggles, all local jealousies, over 
 all causes and over all cases, ecclesiastical as 
 well as civil, is the supreme controlling spring 
 which binds together, in their widest sense, all 
 the forces of the State and all the forces of 
 the Church. It is the one name and place 
 which, being beyond the reach of personal 
 ambition, beyond the need of private gain, has 
 the inestimable chance, of guiding, moulding, 
 elevating, the tastes, the customs, the morals 
 of the whole community. It is the one institu- 
 
Ps. cxxii. i.] THANKSGIVING. 51 
 
 tion, which, by the very nature of its existence, 
 unites the abstract idea of country and of duty 
 with the personal endearments of family life, of 
 domestic love, of individual character. This is 
 the bright side of that ancient and august pos- 
 session, which has steadied the course of our 
 onward progress, and given us peace in the 
 midst of tumults, and freedom in the midst of 
 order. It is because of the greatness of x this 
 possession, that we so fervently pray and 
 hope that he who is its destined heir shall 
 be worthy of his noble inheritance. He knows, 
 and we know, that on him henceforth, as by a 
 new consecration and confirmation, devolves the 
 glorious task of devoting to his country's service 
 that life which is in a special sense no longer 
 his but ours, for which his country's prayers, his 
 country's thanksgivings have been so earnestly 
 offered. He knows, as few in like positions have 
 known, the mighty power for good which has, 
 within our own memory, been exercised in that 
 lofty sphere by one who, from early manhood 
 to his sudden and untimely end, wore ' the white 
 E 2 
 
52 THE DAY OF [Senn. III. 
 
 ' flower of a blameless life,' unscathed and un- 
 spotted even in that 'fierce light which beats 
 ' upon a throne/ He has learned by the experi- 
 ence of these eventful weeks, he has had borne 
 in upon him by thousands and tens of thousands 
 of voices, that ' of him to whom much has been 
 ' given, of him shall much be required.' Hardly 
 ever, in the long course of our history, has so 
 heart-stirring a prospect been opened, of be- 
 ginning life afresh, of taking the lead in all that 
 is true and holy, just and good, of finding in the 
 hundred calls of duty a hundred openings for 
 the best and purest enjoyment, of strengthening 
 the relaxed fibre (if so be) of English morals, of 
 raising and purifying the homes of the poor and 
 the tone of every grade of English society, of 
 becoming by the sheer force of a stainless and 
 guileless life a terror, not to good works, but to 
 the evil. 
 
 Over the tomb of a famous Prince, who lies 
 buried in this Abbey, and whose first entrance 
 on a new career of goodness and usefulness began, 
 from the moment when he stood by his father's 
 
Ps. cxxii. i.] THANKSGIVING. 53 
 
 deathbed within these precincts, there is carved 
 the flaming beacon or cresset light, which, says 
 the" ancient chronicler, 'he took for his badge, 
 ' showing thereby that as his virtues and good 
 ' parts had been formerly obscured, and lay as 
 ' a dead coal waiting light to kindle it, ... 
 ' notwithstanding he being now come to his 
 ' perfecter years and riper understanding, . . . 
 ' his virtues should now shine forth as the light 
 ' of a cresset, which is no ordinary light.' Such 
 a kindling of such a beacon light, which shall 
 reach as far as the fame of this Thanksgiving 
 has penetrated such may God grant to him 
 whom the nation hopes by its prayers to have 
 won back to itself for ever. * Give, O give thy 
 ' servant wisdom and knowledge, that he may 
 ' go out and come in before this people . . . that 
 ' is so great* ' The Lord preserve his going out 
 ' and his coming in, from this time forth for 
 ' evermore.' 
 
 But if this be what we expect from the 
 Throne, let us ask ourselves what the Monarchy, 
 what the Empire, what the world expects from 
 
54 THE DAY OF [Serm. III. 
 
 us. It is the glory of England that if the 
 welfare of the Prince is the welfare of the 
 people, not less is the well-being of the people 
 the only safeguard of the well-being of the 
 Prince. It is not with us, as in some Eastern 
 or despotic states, where the Royal House dwells 
 apart, withdrawn from all the surrounding in- 
 fluences of the country or the age in which their 
 lot is cast. The breath of public opinion, of 
 good or evil example, in our mixed and varied 
 society, rises upwards as much as it descends 
 downwards. 
 
 It is in our power, in the power of the people 
 of England, to drag down the Throne, even in 
 spite of itself, to the level, if so be, of our own 
 meanness, triviality, or self-indulgence, as it is, 
 thank God, also in our power, by the purity of 
 our homes, by the sincerity and the loftiness of 
 our purposes, to create the atmosphere in which 
 the Throne must become pure and lofty, because 
 it cannot help receiving the influences which 
 ascend to it from below and from around. We, 
 by raising up a constant succession of just, 
 
Ps. cxxii. i.] THANKSGIVING. 55 
 
 upright, loyal, single-minded citizens, of en- 
 lightened and energetic teachers, of far-seeing 
 and unselfish statesmen, form a body-guard 
 around the Royal House of England, even as the 
 statues and monuments of famous Englishmen 
 in this Abbey stand like a guard of honour 
 round the shrines which contain the dust of our 
 Princes and our Kings. Any breach in that 
 sacred line of honest English hearts, any failure 
 of duty, of vigilance, or of faithfulness on our 
 part lays open the way for the destroyer to 
 come in and lay waste the innermost sanctuary 
 of the State itself. Our prayers, our thanks- 
 givings, if they are to last beyond the passing 
 moment, must take the shape, not of idle 
 flattery or fond endearments, but of stern re- 
 quirements of duty both from others and from 
 ourselves. 
 
 We justly look down with mingled indigna- 
 tion and contempt on the miserable outrage 
 against the Gracious Majesty of these realms. 
 We are accustomed to regard with scorn the 
 handful of misguided men, who seek to win 
 
56 THE DAY OF [serm. in. 
 
 popular favour by appeals to the prejudices, 
 the passions, and the ignorance of the people. 
 But let us remember that these are not the 
 only or the chief dangers against which the 
 Nation is bound to protect the Throne. If 
 there be, as there have been in other times and 
 in other countries, those who, hovering round 
 the footsteps of the great, either for their own 
 selfish ends, or from mere weakness and com- 
 plaisance, or from mere vanity of vanities, 
 strive to serve them by smoothing the path 
 to sin, by making a mock at goodness, by 
 hiding the unwelcome truth, or repeating the 
 welcome falsehood if there be any who, under 
 the guise of friends, play the part of tempter 
 and evil counsellor, who lie in wait for every 
 occasion to flatter, to indulge, and to Corrupt 
 if there be any such anywhere, these, far 
 more than wild fanatics or the feeble parasites 
 of the multitude, these are the real traitors, 
 the real enemies of Sovereign, Prince, and people 
 all alike. 
 
 It is for the growth of such as these that we, 
 
Ps.cxxii. i.] THANKSGIVING. 57 
 
 the nation of England, are, in great measure, re- 
 sponsible before God and man. They are bone 
 of our bone and flesh of our flesh. It is by our 
 levity, if so be, that characters such as these are 
 encouraged in their wretched folly, as it is by our 
 firmness that they are discouraged and cowed. 
 They come out when the moral atmosphere 
 has been made dark around them, * wherein 
 ' all the beasts of the forest creep forth for their 
 ' prey.' But ' when the sun ariseth/ when the 
 bright burning light of a sound public opinion 
 is brought to bear upon them, ' they get them- 
 ' selves together and lay them down again in 
 ' their dens.' 
 
 On these then, and such as these, whoso- 
 ever they be, men or women, high or low, 
 the Day of Thanksgiving is or ought to be a 
 Day of Doom. Against these, and such as these, 
 the nation is called upon to echo the voice of 
 most just judgment that goes up from every 
 honest heart. On these, if on any human being 
 whatever, Christian society, English society, 
 ought to place its deliberate ban, its unmistake- 
 
5 8 THE DAY OF [Serm. III. 
 
 able mark of righteous indignation. What- 
 ever may have been before, yet now, if after 
 the experience of these never-to-be-forgotten 
 weeks and days if, after this solemn recogni- 
 tion of the value of our great institutions, of 
 the incalculable importance of the character of 
 our rulers if, after this, the nation relaxes its 
 hold on the high vocation, which has thus been 
 marked out, our last state shall indeed be 
 worse than our first. If, after this, any' such 
 as I have described, shall be .found, betraying, 
 misleading, ensnaring those whom by every 
 call, human and divine, they are bound to lead 
 into all good and keep from all evil, such, if 
 there be any such,, deserve the contempt- of 
 man and the vengeance of GOD, as amongst 
 the meanest, or the weakest, or the most de- 
 testable of mankind. 
 
 There is yet one more topic on which I would 
 dwell. In those ancient days of the Jewish 
 monarchy and Jewish people to which the text 
 belongs, it was customary, on solemn occasions 
 
Ps. cxxii. i.] THANKSGIVING. 59 
 
 when, as we read, ' the King and the people 
 ' made a covenant with each other and with 
 ' God/ to erect some monument, some towering 
 pillar, some massive altar, as a permanent 
 witness to themselves and to the world, in order 
 that they and all might for ever be reminded 
 of what they had pledged themselves to do. 
 It was a just and natural safeguard. Human 
 emotions are so transitory that they need some 
 such external monument or form in which they 
 may be consolidated and fixed. Such a monu- 
 ment we are asked now to erect most suitable 
 to the occasion, most lasting in duration, most 
 significant to the eye and the mind of England 
 for all future time. 
 
 It is the restoration, the completion of the 
 great metropolitan Cathedral of St. Paul, that 
 witnessed the solemn service which we here this 
 day, in the sister Abbey of St. Peter, have also 
 met, in our humbler measure, to commemorate. 
 It is in accordance with the varying characteris- 
 tics of these two venerable and majestic Churches, 
 that, whilst the Abbey of Westminster is inter- 
 
60 THE DAY OF [Serm. in. 
 
 woven by a gradual, silent, continuous chain, as 
 by ' the links of natural piety/ with the even 
 tenor, the stately pageants, the silent depar- 
 tures of our country's rulers and heroes, St. 
 Paul's Cathedral derives its historical interest 
 from single stirring incidents, from the sudden 
 and terrible vicissitudes of its own rise and fall, 
 from the thunders of the Reformation at its 
 pulpit cross. It has received the burst of national 
 exultation at the destruction of the Armada, the 
 victories of Blenheim and of Trafalgar. It has 
 mourned with a mourning people over the 
 graves of Nelson and Wellington 
 
 Who is this that cometh like an honoured guest, 
 With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest ? 
 Mighty seaman, this was he, great by land as thou by sea. 
 
 It has rejoiced with the universal rejoicing at 
 the unexpected recovery of an aged Sovereign 
 at the close of the century that is past. It has 
 now rejoiced, yet again, with the still wider joy, 
 over the yet more wonderful restoration of the 
 youthful Prince. In the circles of that same 
 dome, round those same wide- embracing walls, 
 
Ps. cxxii. i.] THANKSGIVING. 61 
 
 that witnessed the covenant, as it may well be 
 called, between the Heir of the Throne and his 
 future people, shall now be carried on that glori- 
 ous work which the mighty architect of the 
 Cathedral was compelled to leave unfinished, 
 which its most venerable historian and illus- 
 trious divine laboured in vain to accomplish, but 
 which, when completed, shall make the great 
 Protestant Cathedral of England worthy to look 
 in the face the great Roman Basilica, of which it 
 is even now a noble rival, worthy also of the 
 magnificent future which more and more seems 
 opening before it, as the centre of instruction and 
 edification to the thousands of worshippers, 
 week by week, assembled within its almost 
 illimitable space. 
 
 For such a completion as this the greatness of 
 the Imperial Thanksgiving demands the united 
 help of the British Empire. For such a comple- 
 tion as this, let every Englishman give, far and 
 near, according to his means. Let none think 
 they can give too much, let none think their 
 contributions too insignificant, to commemorate 
 
62 THE DAY OF [Serm. in. 
 
 a day in which they have all taken part 
 towards a great work, a world-renowned edifice, 
 which ought to have been finished long ago, 
 which, so long as a National Church exists 
 amongst us, every Englishman may call his 
 own, from the Queen in her palace down to the 
 humblest peasant or the most remote Noncon- 
 formist, throughout the length and breadth of 
 the land. 
 
 And when, in after days, Prince and people 
 alike shall gaze with admiration on its vast 
 interior, bright with all the splendours which 
 art and wealth can bestow, as even now they 
 look from far on those sublime proportions 
 which rise above all the smoke and stir of this 
 bewildering multitudinous city may he and we 
 be ever reminded of the solemn thoughts which 
 have now filled our hearts may he and we be 
 always able to look back upon this week with 
 thankfulness and not with shame may he and 
 we then behold in that august edifice a standing 
 memorial of good resolutions, not broken but 
 accomplished, of noble hopes, not disappointed 
 
Ps. cxxii. i.] THANKSGIVING. 63 
 
 but fulfilled, of splendid opportunities, not lost 
 but cherished to the utmost, of generous devo- 
 tion, on our part, to our Queen and country, not 
 wasted in party strife but spent in the common 
 good, of love for God's holy Name, not shown 
 in futile and fierce disputes about trifles but in 
 the great causes of justice, charity, and truth. 
 May we all be able to say ten, twenty years 
 hence, with as much sincerity as now, ' I was 
 * glad when they said unto me, Let us go into 
 ' the house of the Lord.' 
 
 LONDON: PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE ATS'I) CO., N KW-STKEET SQUARE 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 
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