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 SERMONS.
 
 GEORGE BELL & SONS 
 LONDON: YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN 
 NEW YORK : 66, FIFTH AVENUE, AND 
 BOMBAY : 53, ESPLANADE ROAD 
 CAMBRIDGE : DEIGHTON, BELL & CO.
 
 SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED IN 
 
 ETON COLLEGE CHAPEL 
 1870 1897 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS ST. JOHN THACKERAY, M.A., F.S.A. 
 
 VICAR OF MAPLEDURHAM, FORMERLY FELLOW OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, 
 OXFORD, AND ASSISTANT MASTER AT ETON. 
 
 
 LONDON 
 
 GEORGE BELL AND SONS 
 1897
 
 PR^-CHA,^ 
 
 CHISW1CK PRHSt : CHARLES WH1TTINGHAM AND CO. 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANS, LONDON.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SERMON I. June i6tk, 1870. 
 Blessings forfeited through neglect (Isaiah v. 4). i 
 
 SERMON II. May 14^, 1871. 
 The Great Alternative (John vi. 68) . . .15 
 
 SERMON III. November 26?%, 1871. 
 The Tyranny of Sin (Romans vi. 14) . . . 31 
 
 SERMON IV. Quinquagesima Sunday. 
 February 23^, 1873. 
 
 God's Final Revelation of Himself in Christ 
 
 (Hebrews i. i) 47 
 
 SERMON V. May \%th, 1873. 
 Permanence amidst Change (Psalm cii. 26, 27) . 61 
 
 SERMON VI. November gth, 1873. 
 These three years (Luke xiii. 7) . . . .76 
 
 SERMON VII. February 28^, 1875. 
 The Book of Job (Job xiii. 26) . . . .90 
 
 SERMON VIII. February 6th, 1876. 
 Light Natural and Spiritual (Psalm xxxvi. 9) . 105 
 
 107^371
 
 vi Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SERMON IX. October $th, 1879. 
 The Regulation of Thoughts (Psalm cxxxix. 23) . 120 
 
 SERMON X. September 2$th, 1881. 
 
 The Misuse of Words : Perversion of Language 
 
 (Isaiah xxxii. 5) 135 
 
 SERMON XI. April zgth, 1883. 
 The Recovery of Hezekiah (Isaiah xxxviii. 5) . 147 
 
 SERMON XII. July %th, 1883. 
 A Farewell (John xxi. 21) . . ... . 161 
 
 SERMON XIII. June igth, 1892. 
 The Healing of the Demoniac Boy (Luke ix. 42) 178 
 
 SERMON XIV. June i8//&, 1893. 
 God's Lamp never extinguished (i Samuel iii. 3) 190 
 
 SERMON XV. Quinquagesima Sunday. 
 February ilth, 1897. 
 
 The Value of Inequality (Matthew xxv. 29) . 202
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 BLESSINGS FORFEITED THROUGH 
 NEGLECT. 1 
 
 " What could have been done more to my vineyard, 
 that I have not done in it ? Wherefore, when I looked 
 that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild 
 grapes ? " Isaiah, v. 4. 
 
 THE vine (it has often been remarked) 
 furnished the inspired writers with a 
 ready and appropriate metaphor. It is em- 
 ployed by them sometimes as a type of plenty 
 and a symbol of prosperity ; at other times, 
 in a more restricted sense, as an emblem of 
 the Hebrew polity and the Jewish Church. 
 Nor can this surprise us, when we reflect 
 upon the numerous properties for which it is 
 conspicuous. The exuberant fertility of the 
 vine, its quickness of growth, the great age to 
 which it has been known to live, the degree in 
 which the temperate enjoyment of its fruits 
 
 1 June 26th, 1870. 
 B
 
 2 Blessings Forfeited [i 
 
 promotes man's comfort above . all, the 
 watchful and incessant care which it demands 
 as the price of its full benefits all combine 
 to point it out as a singularly prompt and ex- 
 pressive illustration of the blessings of Pro- 
 vidence, blessings bestowed, indeed, with a 
 large and bountiful hand, but still not lavished 
 unconditionally, or so as to dispense with the 
 need of labour on the part of the recipient ; 
 not shared equally by the careless and the 
 diligent, but ever increasing in value, in pro- 
 portion both to the use to which they are 
 applied, and to the degree of cultivation with 
 which we foster them. 
 
 I need not dwell upon the familiar instances 
 of this figure, such as the Psalmist's * appeal 
 to God to look down and visit the vine which 
 he had brought out of Egypt ; it recurs again 
 and again in the Prophets ; 2 and our text can 
 hardly have failed to arrest our attention, as 
 well from the intrinsic beauty of the passage 
 as from the resemblance which it bears, in its 
 general structure, to our Saviour's parable of 
 the wicked husbandman. But while there is 
 much that is common to both, they are not 
 identical. The transfer of the vineyard to 
 others has no counterpart in the Hebrew pro- 
 phet. The central idea of the one is the trans- 
 
 1 Ps. Ixxx. 8- 1 6. 
 
 2 E.g., Hos. x. i ; Jer. ii. 21 ; Ez. xix. 10.
 
 i] through Neglect. 3 
 
 fer of the vineyard from its first possessors 
 through their own misconduct. The central 
 idea in the Hebrew prophet is the Jewish 
 nation and Church : " The vineyard of the 
 Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the 
 men of Judah his pleasant plant." 
 
 Now, if we study the history of this extra- 
 ordinary people if we weigh well the causes 
 and the consequences of their failure we 
 shall find that their fortunes are not some- 
 thing unconnected with ourselves, but that 
 like causes will produce like effects, and the 
 words of Isaiah, through the same Holy Spirit 
 which dictated their original utterance, may 
 become instinct with new force and life to 
 each one of us present here this day. 
 
 Let us try to realize the circumstances 
 which suggested them. The chapter where 
 they occur stands by itself, and is directed 
 against the growing corruptions of the nation, 
 its warnings being probably called forth by 
 the closing events of the reign of Jotham. 
 
 It was a time of material prosperity. Never 
 since the separation of the northern kingdom 
 had Judah reached such a height as she did 
 under the auspices of Jotham and his father 
 Uzziah. The latter had recovered from the 
 Edomites the port of Elath on the Red Sea, 
 had succeeded in reducing the outlying tribes, 
 had organized a standing army, and fortified
 
 4 Blessings Forfeited [i 
 
 the capital with improved military engines. 
 Nor had he paid less attention to the arts 
 of peace. At home and abroad he had raised 
 the position of his subjects. These advan- 
 tages were maintained and even extended 
 under the prudent reign of his son Jotham. 
 But, again (as is too frequently the result of 
 great material prosperity), it was a time of care- 
 less ease, of that overbearing pride and insol- 
 ence, in which we so often recognize the parent 
 of tyranny, and the forerunner of inevitable 
 ruin. The growing affluence of the times had 
 moved the Hebrew commonwealth farther 
 and farther away from its original constitu- 
 tion. A commercial spirit had by degrees 
 succeeded to the simplicity of earlier days. 
 Gold and silver, introduced in abundance by 
 the traffic lately reopened with the East, had 
 brought in their train a love of effeminate 
 delicacies, often stigmatized by the Prophets. 
 Hence the six woes denounced in this fifth 
 chapter of Isaiah against covetousness, riotous 
 feasting, and reckless defiance of holy things ; 
 against the misguided conscience which comes 
 at last to call evil good, and good evil ; against 
 the infatuated blindness of all who are " wise 
 in their own eyes, and prudent in their own 
 sight ; " and, lastly, against those who per- 
 verted the administration of law for bribes. 
 Jehovah looked for righteousness but beheld
 
 i] through Neglect. 5 
 
 oppression. Well might the Lord of the Vine- 
 yard expostulate with it for its unfruitfulness: 
 " What could have been done more to my 
 vineyard, that I have not done in it ? Where- 
 fore, when I looked that it should bring forth 
 grapes, brought it forth poisonous berries ? " 
 For such is the sense of the term wild grapes. 
 No mere unprofitableness, but what is posi- 
 tively noxious and pernicious is signified. 
 As by the tares in S. Matthew, not a different 
 kind of seed, but a degenerate wheat, so here 
 a degenerate grape is intended. 
 
 The tree once so fair a vine of Sorek, 1 
 that is, the type of excellence in its class 
 has deteriorated from its primal perfection. 
 And yet what more could have been done 
 for God's own people in preparing the soil to 
 be the depository of revealed truth ? The 
 vineyard was already fenced in by the geo- 
 graphical 2 peculiarities of Palestine. The re- 
 markable cleft of the deep valley of the Jordan, 
 the coast line with its scanty harbourage, the 
 desert on the south, and the ranges of Lebanon 
 on the north, formed each so many natural 
 barriers. Nor were they less clearly marked 
 out by the Mosaic law, with its distinctive 
 
 1 Jer. ii. 21, &fnri\ov KapTrotpopov iraaav aXrjOivriv. Cf. 
 John, xv. I, iyia tlfii r'i dfiirtXof >y dXrjOivi], "the true, the 
 ideal vine." WESTCOTT. 
 
 2 Cf. Stanley, " Sinai and Palestine," pt. ii., ch. ii.
 
 6 Blessings Forfeited [i 
 
 institutions, as destined to " dwell alone, and 
 not to be reckoned among the nations." 
 
 And then, what could have been done more 
 for the development of the Jewish race ? 
 Their whole history points to the gradual 
 recovery of the knowledge of God, and the 
 appearance of a Redeemer as the thread 
 which binds together its several parts. We 
 see a separation going on of families and 
 tribes, whence there was the best hope of moral 
 influence. There is a unity in the successive 
 yearnings, aspirations, and promises which 
 become gradually more and more explicit,until 
 an image appears with sufficient distinctness 
 of a Being Divine, yet Human in whom is 
 centred the restoration of man's lapsed and 
 corrupted powers. In the life and teaching 
 of Jesus Christ this wonderful history culmi- 
 nates. 
 
 And yet we know, in spite of all these pre- 
 cautions and advantages, selected as they were, 
 and isolated from their neighbours, sheltered 
 by their law, and honoured with special 
 favours and miracles, how signally they failed. 
 Nations have their time of trial, after which 
 their doom is sealed. The piety of Hezekiah, 
 the reforms of Josiah, could not avert the ruin 
 which Isaiah saw to be impending. The Cap- 
 tivity, indeed, did much (as the discipline of 
 sorrow will often do much) to purify the heart.
 
 i] through Neglect. 7 
 
 Among its lasting results were a keener sense 
 of the evil of sin, and the value of prayer ; a 
 deeper insight into the sacrifice of the heart 
 and will ; a more enlightened belief as to the 
 future life ; above all, the old taint of idolatry- 
 was banished, never to return. But neither 
 the Captivity, nor the humiliations of later 
 years, when Judah had entered on a new 
 career, could break their innate pride, or teach 
 them to recognize their Messiah when they 
 saw Him. 
 
 We know the sequel the literal fulfilment 
 of Christ's words " the trench cast around 
 them," the capital destroyed, the Temple 
 polluted and demolished, the political exist- 
 ence of the people wiped out for ever. The 
 horrors of that siege forms one of the blackest 
 pages in history. "Jerusalem itself," it has 
 been said, "has probably witnessed a far 
 greater portion of human misery than any 
 other spot upon the earth." 1 
 
 And of the fortunes of this devoted race 
 through succeeding ages (which have been 
 vividly described by an historian whose boy- 
 hood was spent in this place) who is ignorant ? 
 at least of the general outline, if he be not 
 familiar with the details of that melancholy 
 picture ? We have the extraordinary spectacle 
 
 1 Milman, " History of the Jews," vol. ii., bk. xvi.
 
 8 Blessings Forfeited [i 
 
 of a people brought, on several occasions, to 
 the brink of extermination. We have a series 
 of exactions and persecutions, often no doubt 
 wantonly and cruelly inflicted, but often, too, 
 the result of their own turbulence. 
 
 " Lost branches of the once-lov'd vine, 
 
 Now wither'd, spent, and sere, 
 See Israel's sons, like glowing brands, 
 Tost wildly o'er a thousand lands, 
 For twice a thousand year." 1 
 
 One bright spot in the gloom of the Middle 
 Ages stands out ; one oasis in the desert 
 of their woes. In Spain, from the tenth to 
 the fifteenth century, the Jews not only lived 
 unmolested in their traffic, but enjoyed pro- 
 sperity as financiers, as physicians, and confi- 
 dential ministers at the courts of kings. This 
 was also the noonday of their literature, when 
 schools of theology sprang up at Seville, at 
 Cordova, and the other great cities of the 
 south. The spirit of the Hebrew poetry was 
 then, too, revived, and their harp reawoke an 
 echo of its earlier music, even in a strange 
 land. But this Golden Age was succeeded by an 
 Iron Age, when the daylight set in utter dark- 
 ness. And there are few scenes more touching 
 than that in which we see the exiles forced to 
 quit those smiling provinces which their com- 
 
 1 The Christian Year, fifth Sunday in Lent.
 
 i] through Neglect. 9 
 
 merce, their industry, and their superior intel- 
 ligence had done so much to improve. 1 
 
 And now, if we pass from the history of the 
 chosen race to the inner history of our personal 
 lives, may not the words of our text afford 
 matter for grave and earnest reflection for each 
 one of us ? 
 
 " What could have been done more to my 
 vineyard ? " What (may it not be said without 
 irreverence) could the Creator in the beginning 
 have done more when he framed our nature ? 
 He made man a little lower than the angels, 
 to crown him with that glorious prerogative of 
 his nature, the power to choose the evil or the 
 good, 
 
 " Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall." 
 
 Had it been otherwise, had man been placed 
 outside the pale of possible danger, and been 
 denied the mysterious gift of an individual 
 free will, with all the honour and peril it 
 entails, would he not have been a mere auto- 
 maton, capable indeed of mechanically going 
 through a dull routine of prescribed action, 
 but utterly incapable of any ardent affection 
 for a heavenly Father, of any allegiance to a 
 Divine Master, of any lofty aspiration after 
 the unseen and eternal ? 
 
 1 Milman, " History of the Jews," vol. iii., bk. xxvi.
 
 io Blessings Forfeited [i 
 
 What, again, could have been done more 
 than has been done in the stupendous scheme 
 of salvation, God the Father sending us a 
 perfect pattern of a faultless life, and of self- 
 sacrifice in his dear Son, who loved us and 
 gave Himself for us, God the ever-blessed 
 Comforter pleading for us, convincing us of 
 sin, and guiding us into all truth? And 
 shall we then leave any portion of our 
 hearts, any moment of our existence unconse- 
 crated to Him ? For what could have been 
 done more for each of us here? Each must 
 acknowledge that he has received countless 
 mercies, opportunities, it is to be feared, too 
 often slighted, talents too often left to rust and 
 moulder unused. 
 
 Will you not remember that you each have 
 your vineyard to tend, your garden to culti- 
 vate ? Will you allow it to run to waste, and 
 become choked with unsightly weeds? Will 
 you not look well that there be in it no branch 
 with useless tendrils requiring to be lopped 
 off, no poisonous berries of any one noxious 
 habit. 
 
 In the varied life of this favoured spot, in- 
 heriting as it does a rich treasure of memories 
 from the past, and continually engrafting 
 on the past fresh improvements demanded 
 by the wider scope and requirements of the 
 present, none can excuse themselves for
 
 i] through Neglect. 1 1 
 
 standing idle instead of going into the vine- 
 yard, on the plea that he has no field for his 
 energies. None can say that he does not find 
 here an adequate sphere for his individual 
 genius : none can fairly complain that his 
 own special pursuit is passed by unrecognized 
 and unrewarded. And if misgivings arise in 
 the minds of any of us as to unfruitfulness, and 
 if we question ourselves WHEREFORE when 
 God looks for grapes, the vintage is so dispro- 
 portionate to the care and culture and advan- 
 tages we have received shall we not find one 
 great reason for this to lie in ourselves ? The 
 rank weeds grow up and the wild berries 
 swell because we do not look within, and 
 because we are so easily satisfied. Self- 
 complacency is ever a source of stagnation, 
 whether moral or intellectual. When that 
 great restorer of Philosophy, Lord Bacon, 
 in his masterly survey of human know- 
 ledge, passed in review the systems that 
 had existed before his day, and asked why 
 they had produced so little, he laid great 
 stress upon the complacency with which men 
 had regarded those feeble results, as not the 
 least among the impediments by which science 
 had been retarded. The idea of plenty (he 
 says) was one of the causes of want. 1 The 
 
 1 " Opinio copiae inter causas inopiae est." De 
 Augmentis Scientiarum (lib. ii.).
 
 1 2 Blessings Forfeited [i 
 
 words are no less true of the laws which regu- 
 late spiritual growth, than they were of the 
 search into the laws of Nature. Does not the 
 propensity to believe that we have " already 
 attained," that " we are rich and have need of 
 nothing " lie at the root of more than half our 
 failures ? Can we not often trace deterioration 
 to our making light of such helps as prayer, 
 and dismissing them at once without a trial ? 
 A few moments' quiet withdrawal from the 
 world, a few verses of the New Testament 
 allowed to lodge daily in the mind and the 
 memory, may protect the defences of your vine- 
 yard past all belief, may guard it from being 
 broken in upon and spoiled by the evil one. 
 
 Moral thoughtfulness and sober minded- 
 ness, a due distrust of self, a timely dread of 
 lethargy, these are among the qualities we 
 desire when we pray (as Christ bids us do) for 
 labourers for His harvest, and reinforcements 
 for His army. Yes ! here His work may and 
 must be furthered by you. There is ground 
 untilled at our doors, and the modes of culture 
 are manifold. Not by one channel does the 
 Holy Spirit reach you. Not into any one 
 groove or type would true wisdom force the 
 ardent energies of youth. The stronger 
 character, who will use the influence which he 
 possesses over his friend for good and not for 
 evil ; the scrupulous adherent to truthfulness,
 
 i] through Neglect. 1 3 
 
 who will not circulate groundless reports or 
 damaging slander ; the merciful and con- 
 siderate boy, who will not by harsh act, or 
 perhaps harsher word, needlessly pain his 
 more sensitive companion ; the guileless spirit 
 that will not suffer itself to be entangled in 
 the web of current fallacies and pernicious 
 school traditions ; the patient student, steadily 
 advancing from strength to strength ; the 
 young man, who, in the full enjoyment of 
 physical strength while he thanks God for 
 the glow of health and the consciousness of 
 vigour which animates his frame yet re- 
 members that he must give account for all 
 this who, if the Saviour Himself with earnest, 
 searching gaze bent on him, were to ask him, 
 " Lovest thou me more than these ? " these 
 amusements of a day could answer from his 
 heart, " Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee" 
 all these, and such as these, are doing good 
 work in their Master's vineyard. Their tree 
 will blossom and fructify in due season. Let 
 them take comfort and go on. Whatsoever 
 their hand findeth to do, let them do it with 
 their might. Only let them not rely on self. 
 Let them listen to Christ, who tells us that 
 the sole source of goodness is in Himself,, 
 as the boughs derive quickening life only 
 from the sap that is sent them from the root 
 and from the stem.
 
 14 Blessings Forfeited. [i 
 
 " Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch 
 cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in 
 the vine ; no more can ye, except ye abide in 
 me. I am the vine, ye are the branches : he 
 that abideth in me, and I in him, the same 
 bringeth forth much fruit : for without me ye 
 can do nothing."
 
 SERMON II. 
 THE GREAT ALTERNATIVE. 1 
 
 " Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom 
 shall we go ? thou hast the words of eternal life." 
 St. John, vi. 68. 
 
 THESE words remind us of a sad and 
 startling defection. The chapter at the 
 close of which they occur, contains one of 
 those touches of reality by which the Gospel 
 is throughout stamped, even where we least 
 look for it. In describing the rise of any 
 other society, it would not have been thought 
 necessary to mention the apparent failures 
 that obstructed it in its earlier stages. But 
 the Evangelists are too deeply penetrated 
 with the truth of their message, too com- 
 pletely convinced of its sacred origin, to keep 
 back any circumstance, because at the first 
 glance it might seem to indicate imperfection. 
 There is no attempt to tone down or sup- 
 press what might make against their cause. 
 As St. Matthew tells us that our Lord did not 
 many miracles among his own countrymen, 
 
 1 May I4th, 1871.
 
 1 6 The Great [n 
 
 "because of their unbelief," as St. Luke 
 frankly admits of Paul's first preaching at 
 Rome, that while " some believed the things 
 that were spoken, some believed them not" so 
 the passage before us refers to that critical 
 period when "many went back and walked 
 no more with Christ." The air of reality, the 
 simplicity, the candour with which such state- 
 ments are made, has been pointed out * as one 
 link in the chain of evidence to its truth 
 which Christianity furnishes out of its own 
 records. 
 
 And undoubtedly that divine discourse 
 which St. John adds to the account of the 
 miraculous feeding of the 5,ooo, must have 
 been full of difficulty to those who received it 
 in a hostile and carping spirit. It would 
 naturally rouse opposition when taken in its 
 bare and literal sense. We find, accordingly, 
 that the very same men, who, while impressed 
 by a momentary awe, had wished to come 
 and take Jesus by force and make Him a 
 king, who had followed Him across the 
 Galilaean Lake, and gone so far in their pro- 
 fessions of attachment as to ask what works 
 they should do that they might work the 
 works of God we find that these same men 
 refused to hear him any longer when He 
 
 1 Paley, " Evidences of Christianity," pt. ii., ch. iii.
 
 n] Alternative. 17 
 
 began to unfold the inner significance of that 
 supernatural act which they had witnessed on 
 the previous day. 
 
 Scarcely does He begin when they demand 
 a sign, as though none had been already 
 given. They murmur because He says, " I am 
 the bread which came down from heaven." 
 They strive among themselves. " How can 
 this man give us his flesh to eat ? " 
 
 And not they alone were offended. Even 
 to the more immediate group of the disciples 
 the words were scarcely less hard. Neither 
 did His brethren, His own kindred, bound to 
 him by ties of earthly relationship, neither did 
 they at this time believe in Him. And Christ 
 could foresee a yet greater loneliness. The 
 very words that reveal the fount of strength 
 within Him, " I am not alone, because the 
 Father is with me," how much do they at the 
 same time suggest of isolation from those 
 around Him ! Consider what that isolation 
 must have been. Imagine what it is to the 
 founder of even a human brotherhood to be 
 gradually deserted by the inner circle of 
 trusted friends ; what a sharp pang must be 
 felt as, one after another, followers are 
 estranged and alienated ; when coldness 
 takes the place of attachment, and apathy, if 
 not professed dislike, succeeds to ardent and 
 enthusiastic devotion. Think of Elijah, left 
 C
 
 1 8 The Great [n 
 
 to stem the torrent of idolatry, when, from 
 the solitude of Horeb, he cries out in despair- 
 ing accents, " I have been very jealous for the 
 Lord God of hosts, for I, even I only am left, 
 and they seek my life to take it away." 
 Think of Athanasius, four times an exile, 
 bearing witness in his single person to the 
 Faith, so that Athanasius contra mundum was 
 scarcely an exaggeration of the truth. 
 
 Still all such instances of desertion are but 
 the faintest and feeblest images of Christ's 
 loneliness. In the first place He only could 
 know all the peril that this rejection of Him 
 involved. None other without the grossest 
 blasphemy could say, / am the Light of the 
 world. None else, therefore, could fathom 
 the abyss of darkness which remained for 
 those who wilfully shut their eyes against it. 
 
 And secondly, from the perfection of His 
 human nature, his sense of isolation must 
 have been unparalleled. For His affections, 
 and the sensibilities of that nature were such, 
 in their keenness and intensity, as we can but 
 dimly conceive. Infinitely more, therefore, 
 than we experience when the ties of the 
 closest friendship or the warmest allegiance 
 are snapped, must He have felt as His friends 
 fell off from His side. 
 
 Then it was, when the defection even of 
 the Apostles seemed imminent, that in answer
 
 n] Alternative. 19 
 
 to this sorrowful inquiry, " Will ye also go 
 away?" Peter's deeply suggestive question 
 was put, " Lord, to whom shall we go ? " Let 
 us consider the question more particularly 
 and the answer so like his celebrated con- 
 fession, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of 
 the living God," which that loving, impulsive, 
 earnest character spontaneously supplied 
 " THOU hast the words of eternal life." 
 
 To whom could they go ? To the cramped 
 and shallow system of Judaism, overlaid by 
 the glosses and perversions of its false ex- 
 ponents? Surely not to those "weak and 
 beggarly elements " could they again return ? 
 Illiterate and unpractised men, as they were, 
 what comfort or support in their daily life, 
 what hope for the future, what solution of 
 their difficulties, what enlightenment in their 
 ignorance could they discern amid the clouds 
 and mists in which the teachers of the day 
 had wrapped the truth? those blind leaders 
 of the blind, who had taken away the key of 
 knowledge, entering not in themselves, and 
 hindering those who were anxious to enter in ? 
 Should they go to the Pharisees? whose hypo- 
 crisy they had seen unmasked, who would 
 help an ox out of a pit, but not a human 
 sufferer out of his infirmity on the Sabbath, 
 and whose distorted teaching was powerless 
 to lift a soul out of the mire of sin.
 
 2O The Great [n 
 
 Surely after what they had seen it was not 
 from such that they could expect guidance. 
 After hearing the voice that hushed the angry 
 elements, breathed vigour into the Centurion's 
 servant, and forgiveness to the restored para- 
 lytic, none other could satisfy their longings. 
 After having seen the glory of the Son, full 
 of grace and truth, could they go back to 
 prophet, priest, or lawgiver ? After gazing on 
 the substance, could they rest content with 
 the shadow or the type ? 
 
 And if we now enlarge the horizon of our 
 view beyond the limits of the Holy Land, if 
 we regard the question " To whom shall we 
 go ? " as coming from the human race at the 
 time of Christ's advent, what hope of deliver- 
 ance was elsewhere to be found ? The empire 
 of Rome, with all its network of civilization, 
 its magnificent roads, its system of jurispru- 
 dence, its rich inheritance of material and 
 intellectual wealth, was corrupt at the core. 
 Fair and dazzling as the surface might be, the 
 malady was deeply seated, and was, in truth, 
 ineradicable save by divine agency. 
 
 We have but to remember the dark picture 
 drawn in the first chapter of the Epistle to the 
 Romans, the mass of accumulated sins, which 
 age after age the troubled waters of heathen- 
 dom had thrown up. Forgetfulness of the 
 Creator led to pride ; pride (as it will ever do)
 
 u] Alternative. 2 1 
 
 brought with it ignorance, and from ignorance 
 resulted the most frightful rebellion against 
 God and Nature, until God also gave man 
 over to a reprobate mind. 
 
 And yet in this continuous declension, in 
 this onward tide of wickedness, to which each 
 generation contributed its share, there must 
 have been many an earnest spirit that strove 
 to resist the current. Many a simple un- 
 educated Greek or Roman, like the Centurion 
 of Capernaum, or the jailor at Philippi, must 
 have longed to break the bondage of society, 
 under which he bowed, and to disentangle 
 himself, even were it mortal agony to do so, 
 from the poisoned robe of evil habits, which 
 was clinging round and eating into his soul. 
 Many a sincere thinker, again, did contend 
 patiently for truth and certainty upon the 
 great subjects of Virtue and Happiness, Death, 
 Judgment, and Immortality. 
 
 But each of these classes, the learned and 
 the unlearned alike, must have confessed the 
 nothingness of unaided human effort; each 
 must have felt a void that could only be filled 
 by the authoritative "words of eternal life." 
 From each must the thought have again and 
 again been wrung, " To whom shall we go ? " 
 
 For consider their religious life x in some of 
 
 1 Cf. Dollinger, " The Gentile and the Jew in the 
 Courts of the Temple of Christ," bks. ii. and iii., by
 
 22 The Great [n 
 
 its aspects. The popular worship, with all its 
 elaborate pomp and " palpable array of sense," 
 had nothing to offer to the deepest instincts 
 of mankind. It did not even pretend to 
 smooth the path of daily life. It was addressed 
 to the fancy, not to the conscience. As to 
 who or what the Supreme Being was the 
 ordinary pagan had but a confused notion. 
 And this perplexity increased as successive 
 additions were made to the national cult, both 
 by the creative imagination of the Greek, and 
 the free importation of foreign deities. The 
 deification of the powers of Nature, and the 
 assigning to each element and spot its tutelary 
 god, opened out a boundless field for invention. 
 The next step was to subject them to the 
 conditions of time and space, and clothe them 
 with the passions and infirmities of men. The 
 stream could not rise higher than its source ; 
 and though a few might grasp a more elevated 
 belief in a Providence, and see how it conflicted 
 with the degrading legends of mythology, to 
 the bulk of mankind the objects of their wor- 
 ship were removed from themselves only in 
 degree. 
 
 But religion was woven into their whole 
 public and private existence. True : there 
 were the externals of ritual and ceremony. 
 
 which much of this and the following paragraphs were 
 suggested.
 
 u] Alternative. 23 
 
 There were the oracles, which for a time at 
 least were perhaps overruled for good. There 
 were prescribed formulae of prayer, solemn 
 sacrifices, temples, and a priesthood. But no 
 religious instruction was expected from the 
 priests, no life-giving words issued from the 
 temples, and the prayers and sacrifices (if we 
 except a few occasional expressions in the 
 poets) were prompted by nothing higher than 
 a hope of winning some material benefits, or 
 appeasing the divine jealousy, or at best were 
 a thanksgiving for past protection. There 
 remained the purifications and the mysteries, 
 particularly those of Eleusis, which some have 
 regarded as the best and noblest feature in 
 the religion of the Greeks. Is it to be sup- 
 posed for a moment that these wrought any 
 lasting change in the spectators ? The pro- 
 mise was indeed held out that the future of 
 the initiated would be more favoured than 
 that of others, but this advantage was not 
 forfeited by subsequent transgression. They 
 did not counteract the errors of the popular 
 creed. They were simply a dramatic repre- 
 sentation of legends, in which deceit and 
 imposture rather than any lessons of purity 
 predominated. In truth, the idea of purifica- 
 tion as a moral rather than a physical cleans- 
 ing, apart from a few isolated passages, is 
 foreign to the whole range of heathen thought.
 
 24 The Great [n 
 
 So feeble then was the reed upon which the 
 heathen had to rely in his Religion. Should 
 he go to Philosophy^ and would he fare better 
 at her hands ? Here at least, amid the comfort- 
 less views of life which met anxious seekers 
 after God, some peace of mind, some firm 
 basis of teaching might be anticipated. For 
 Philosophy was not without reason, called by 
 Clement of Alexandria a gift entrusted by 
 Providence to the best of the Greeks, as an 
 education for Christianity. 1 How far it was 
 this, is of course much too large a subject 
 for a sermon : we can only speak, and that 
 very briefly, of its most brilliant representative, 
 Plato. 
 
 That rare and gifted intellect, whose writings 
 for seven centuries exercised a profound in- 
 fluence upon human thought, had set before 
 himself the noblest of ends : to clear away 
 the false notions engendered by the state 
 religion ; to liberate the mind from error ; and 
 to direct it upwards to the Future, the In- 
 visible, the Eternal. 
 
 And had his system (pruned of some ex- 
 travagances) attained sufficient mastery and 
 scope, it would perhaps have done more than 
 anything else short of Revelation to regenerate 
 ancient society. He could grasp the idea of 
 
 1 Clem. Alex. Strom., vi. 693, 694.
 
 n] Alternative. 25 
 
 the one supreme good (though he confessed 
 that his essence was unfathomable), by ap- 
 proximating to whom, as far as possible, 1 man 
 could alone escape from the evil around him 
 and in him. 
 
 Into this degenerate condition he held that 
 we .had lapsed by some primitive fall, whence 
 our powers for virtue were greatly enfeebled, 
 and the present life (he taught) contained the 
 germ, and decided the complexion for happi- 
 ness or misery of a future life. He could 
 reason on the same truths which made Felix 
 tremble " on righteousness, temperance, and a 
 judgment to come." But (and here we see the 
 limits of mere human speculations), he could 
 not go on to declare that this judgment should 
 be by a man, by Jesus, who was yet the Eternal 
 Son of God, who was to live and die for us ; 
 touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but 
 not tainted with our guilt. 
 
 Much as Platonism stimulated man's higher 
 affections, and brought them to a clearer con- 
 sciousness of their wants, we may trace at least 
 three serious defects under which it laboured. 
 It could contribute nothing to the knowledge 
 of God as a Person. It raised the mind to- 
 wards Goodness in the abstract, rather than to- 
 wards the perfectly Good Being. And secondly, 
 
 1 irtipaoOai \pr) tvBivde tictioe 0uytiv o TI TaxiOTa. <j>vyr) Si 
 f Kara TO Svvarov. Thecetetus^ 176. A.
 
 26 The Great [n 
 
 it shared the common error of heathen senti- 
 ment in failingto apprehend the deadly nature of 
 Sin. Moral evil was in general estimated far too 
 lightly by the Greeks, whose language scarcely 
 discriminated between what was in itself sinful, 
 and what was repulsive to the sense of beauty. 
 Sin with Plato was a defect of intellectual 
 insight, affecting a part only of our nature, 
 instead of being the ruin of the whole man. 
 Thus, then, as wisdom was the one universal 
 virtue, ignorance the one deadly disease, and 
 as none (he held) could know what was good 
 without recognizing it as good, and instantly 
 practising it, therefore the soul had but to be 
 brought face to face with the heavenly ideas, 
 in order to accomplish its redemption. 
 
 And this shows us the third cardinal error 
 of his system. The redemption which it held 
 out was not universal. It was confined to but 
 a few, to that small section of mankind which 
 could scale the heights of Philosophy. 
 
 How wide a gulf separates this from the 
 offer of Christ ! " Come unto me all ye that 
 labour and are heavy laden and I will give you 
 rest." The gospel is likened to a net cast into 
 the sea, that gathered of every kind. It claims 
 every region of man's being, it embraces every 
 diversity of character ; the active life of de- 
 votion to others, no less than the life of con- 
 templation, and the search after truth. It is
 
 n] Alternative. 2 7 
 
 the common heritage of the weak and of the 
 strong, the rich and the poor, of the highest 
 and of the lowest in the scale of culture and 
 civilization. All must ask themselves, as the 
 most vital of questions, Lord, to whom shall 
 we go ? all must echo the response, " Thou 
 hast the words of eternal life." TJie words of 
 Christ ! Oh that you would store them up, 
 as an antidote against the poison of evil ! 
 Study the Sermon on the Mount, the treasures 
 contained in the Parables, the depth of love in 
 the fourteenth and following chapters of St. 
 John. Many noble and beautiful and spirit-stir- 
 ring utterances we owe to the sages and poets 
 of old. But they possess no healing power. 
 They convey no message of pardon as Christ 
 could. For He is the true Ao'yoj, the Revealer 
 of God's love and mercy ; the solver of the 
 doubts that so long had tormented the human 
 mind. " TJie words oftlie Lord are pure words" 
 In their light you will see light. Ask your- 
 selves if His Blessing is indeed resting on your 
 life ; as it must rest, believe me, for any real 
 happiness ; as it will do, if there be not any 
 root of bitterness the total absence of zeal for 
 goodness, the cold indifference about those 
 who are struggling after holiness. 
 
 When you are tottering on the brink of 
 actual wrong-doing when you recall some act 
 of which you now are ashamed, or when your
 
 28 The Great [n 
 
 life is steeped in some sudden sorrow or loss 
 oh ! to whom then shall you go ? Surely to 
 Him, who knows you through and through, 
 who has watched over you all these years, 
 who will cleanse every guilt save that which 
 scorns to be forgiven. Again, The words of 
 the Lord are authoritative, convincing words. 
 We instinctively feel that there is no appeal 
 from them. " They were astonished " (we 
 read) " at his doctrine, for his word was with 
 power." 
 
 But, thirdly, there is not only the greatest 
 majesty and authority in Christ's words. There 
 is also the greatest tenderness. " All bare him 
 witness and wondered at the gracious words 
 which proceeded out of his mouth." " Peace I 
 leave with you my peace I give unto you." 
 Or again, " Father, forgive them, for they know 
 not what they do." He could sympathize with 
 ordinary man, as none other could, while he 
 hates the sin as perfect Goodness must ever- 
 lastingly hate it. And often words of whole- 
 some warning follow close upon acts of mercy : 
 " Behold, thou art made whole " (he says to 
 the man whom he had healed), " sin no more, 
 lest a worse thing come unto tJiee" 
 
 Once more, too, the words of Jesus Christ 
 are the exact reflex and mirror of His life. 
 " I am come not to do my own will, but the 
 will of him that sent me." " Not as I will, but
 
 n] Alternative. 29 
 
 as thou wilt." Think of this, and when angry 
 thoughts throng upon you, will you not recall 
 His meekness, " who, when he was reviled, re- 
 viled not again ? " Pray for a portion of that 
 spirit of self-sacrifice ! Be ashamed of many an 
 idle word, of many a disingenuous evasion ! Oh 
 how mournfully will they rise up again to the 
 memory in the day when they are viewed in 
 immediate contrast with the image of death, 
 and the solemnity of the life to come ! 
 
 Well do we pray in the Litany, " From con- 
 tempt OF THY WORD and Commandment, 
 good Lord deliver us." " Heaven and earth," 
 Christ said, " shall pass away, but my words 
 shall not pass away." Yes ! the heavens may 
 " depart as a scroll that is rolled together ; " 
 the solid earth may witness a still mightier 
 revolution than those vast gradual changes 
 which geology tells us she has already under- 
 gone ; but Christ's words " no time, no change 
 can falsify." In the new heavens and new 
 earth they shall still be heard, and willing or 
 loth we must all listen to them. Why then 
 reject them now? It surely cannot be from 
 indifference to them : for they are " the words 
 of eternal life." And no human being ever 
 yet really longed for death. 
 
 " 'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant, 
 Oh life, not death, for which we pant ; 
 More life and fuller that I want."
 
 30 The Great Alternative. [n 
 
 Such, I am convinced, is the faithful expres- 
 sion of the aspirations of all who hear me. It 
 must be then that we shrink from those 
 sterner sayings which we feel condemn us. 
 But we dare not dissever the compassionate 
 tenderness of Christ from his wholesome and 
 truthful severity. And, if our heart con- 
 demn us, still the question returns upon us 
 " to whom shall we go ? " Remember, " God is 
 greater than our heart, and knoweth all things." 
 Remember Christ's promise, " him that cometh 
 unto me will I in no wise cast out." * 
 
 1 In connection with the subject of this sermon the 
 following passage from the conclusion of Milman's 
 " History of Latin Christianity" may be here quoted : 
 
 " As it is my own confident belief that the words of 
 Christ, and his words alone (the primal, indefeasible 
 truths of Christianity), shall not pass away ; so I cannot 
 presume to say that men may not attain to a clearer, 
 at the same time more full, comprehensive, and 
 balanced sense of those words, than has as yet been 
 generally received in the Christian world. As all else 
 is transient and mutable, these only eternal and uni- 
 versal, assuredly, whatever light may be thrown on the 
 mental constitution of man, even on the constitution 
 of nature, and the laws which govern the world, will be 
 concentered so as to give a more penetrating vision of 
 those undying truths."
 
 SERMON III. 
 THE TYRANNY OF SIN. 
 
 " Sin shall not have dominion over you : for ye 
 are not under the law, but under grace." Romans, 
 vi. 14. 
 
 NONE but an inspired writer would have 
 ventured upon such an assertion. For 
 it must have seemed to be contradicted, at 
 first sight, by daily and hourly experience. 
 What a blest assurance, what a sustaining 
 thought, what a real gospel for those to whom 
 it was sent ! May we not say that this was 
 indeed one of those spiritual gifts, which 
 at the opening of the epistle St. Paul says he 
 longed to impart to the Roman converts whom 
 as yet he had not seen ? 
 
 How much do these few words contain ! 
 There is the great truth of gratuitous salva- 
 tion through faith in Christ. And secondly, 
 the announcement of freedom, freedom to the 
 Jews from the oppressive weight of ordinances, 
 which they could never hope to observe in 
 each particular ; freedom to the heathen from 
 the galling fetters of the society in which he
 
 32 The Tyranny of Sin. [in 
 
 lived ; freedom in the highest sense to the 
 despised and neglected slave. 
 
 And yet how hard for those to whom it was 
 sent to realize the message in all its depth ! 
 For consider what was the moral atmosphere 
 breathed by a resident in Rome in the middle 
 of the first century of our era. 
 
 It is easy, indeed, to draw an exaggerated 
 contrast between the old and new world, and 
 to dwell too exclusively on the depravity of 
 Pagan life. There is a twofold danger in this. 
 There is the danger of forgetting our own far 
 heavier responsibilities and the danger of un- 
 duly depreciating the virtues which ancient 
 civilization did undoubtedly produce and 
 foster. Loyalty to the state, self-surrender 
 for the public good, respect for the august 
 majesty of law, manly courage, and dignity 
 or gravity, to use his own favourite word, 
 were you will readily remember the charac- 
 teristic qualities of the Roman, at least during 
 the earlier stages of his history. And we may 
 admit that so far as these virtues had not 
 wholly degenerated under foreign influences, 
 so far there was much on which the higher 
 teaching of Christianity would hope to build. 
 
 We may admit that, even under the Empire, 
 there were some bright examples (such as 
 Agricola and Thrasea) of guilelessness and 
 unsullied faithfulness in the discharge of
 
 in] The Tyranny of Sin. 33 
 
 duty, to redeem the darker features of the age. 
 Still after all honour is done to such names, 
 whether in the camp or the senate, in philo- 
 sophy or in private life, we must confess that 
 Rome at this time was a most uncongenial 
 soil for the development of the Christian 
 graces. Uncongenial, truly, to human eyes ; 
 but God seeth not as man seeth. The wealthy 
 voluptuaries, sated with the enervating in- 
 dulgences of the bath, the banquet, and the 
 circus, united softness of living with a callous 
 insensibility to suffering in others. There 
 could have been little cordiality among those 
 troops of visitors who each morning thronged 
 the vestibule of their patron ; little feeling 
 of home attachment among those crowds 
 of slaves whom their lords scarcely recognized 
 by sight. The poorer classes, on the other 
 hand, with their appetite for amusement 
 stimulated and gratified to excess, were un- 
 naturally hardened by the constant spectacle 
 of death exhibited in the amphitheatre. 
 
 And lastly, though freedom of discussion 
 was permitted, it could not cure the mental 
 and moral diseases of the more thoughtful 
 who withdrew themselves from such corrupt- 
 ing influences. Stoicism was, perhaps, the 
 best resource for the unaided intellect of 
 the time : but Stoicism could promise no real 
 comfort amidst the business of life. It rather 
 D
 
 34 The Tyranny of Sin. [in 
 
 counselled retirement from its temptations. 
 It became, as has been said, " a consolation 
 for inactivity, rather than a stimulus to 
 action." 
 
 Such were some aspects of life in Rome 
 when St. Paul wrote his Epistle. The first 
 five years of Nero's reign, "the torrent's still- 
 ness ere it dash below" from the external 
 tranquility of which men fondly augured so 
 well for the remainder were now drawing 
 to a close, when the enormities by which it 
 will ever be remembered were to commence. 
 And yet it was in a capital like this that 
 St. Paul could find a noble sphere for the 
 work of an Evangelizer. It was to the faithful 
 few, almost lost in the vast mass of the 
 heathen population, to some servants in 
 princely households, some freedmen, some 
 soldiers in the praetorian barracks, witnesses 
 of so much misery and so much guilt as 
 they must have been, that he could say confi- 
 dently, " Sin shall not have dominion over you? 
 The term he uses, " Sin shall not lord it over 
 yon" is a remarkable one. Originally it de- 
 noted an authority that owns limitation, and 
 is exercised for the good of its subjects, as 
 opposed to despotic unrestricted power. But 
 it passes on to this latter signification, so 
 that the two terms are frequently inter- 
 changed.
 
 in] The Tyranny of Sin. 35 
 
 And is such language, dear brethren, too 
 strong to express the final dominion, or 
 rather domination of Sin ? Alas ! Those 
 who have ever felt, if only for a time, the 
 enthralling power of any one over-mastering 
 passion, how imperiously it carries every- 
 thing before it, will bear witness to its truth. 
 The ungovernable spirit which will brook no 
 thwarting, the force of appetites clamouring 
 for instant gratification, the indulgence of law- 
 less and rebellious thoughts, the unchecked 
 utterance of hasty words, these are facts too 
 common not to warrant the assertion that sin 
 can, and often does, exercise a fearful sway 
 over man's nature : that it can mar the har- 
 mony and destroy the balance which should 
 subsist between the different parts of which 
 it is so wonderfully composed. 
 
 "Boundless intemperance in nature is a 
 tyranny." And yet the subject of this tyranny 
 is often the last to be aware of his condition. 
 He would resent the name of slave. Does he 
 not act exactly as he wishes ? Yes, as his 
 wishes and impulses prompt him, perhaps, but 
 not as his will, his moral choice, his better 
 judgment, direct. Thus the extremes of weak- 
 ness and violence meet. You recollect the 
 double use of the Latin word impotens, signi- 
 fying first, weakness, then violence, and lastly, 
 that union of passion with feebleness which is
 
 36 The Tyranny of Sin. [in 
 
 the precise state of one, who in fancied strength 
 is really under the control of whatever appe- 
 tite is uppermost. 
 
 How vivid an image of the thorough de- 
 rangement of a man's being when the tyran- 
 nical element has gained the mastery, do we 
 trace in the Grecian despot of old ! He is de- 
 picted as one in whom a single absorbing 
 passion has gradually become predominant. 
 His nobler qualities are crushed and enslaved. 
 His soul is rent by perturbation, anxiety, and 
 remorse. He is full of all kinds of cravings 
 which he is ready to satisfy at any price, but 
 which never are, or are destined to be, satisfied. 
 He is a prey to abject terrors and convulsions, 
 so that if the heart of the tyrant could be 
 opened, it would be found full of wounds and 
 lacerations inflicted by an evil conscience. 
 He cannot abdicate, from fear of those whom 
 he has injured. If one penetrates beneath his 
 outward pomp, he is seen to be the most 
 poverty-stricken of beings. 
 
 Such is Plato's description of the despot, 1 
 through which there runs an analogy between 
 the government of a state that has been 
 broken in upon, and the little commonwealth 
 in man's constitution, where the lower and 
 subordinate faculties have prevailed over the 
 rational and ruling principle. Is it too much, 
 1 Rep. ix. 580.
 
 m] The Tyranny of Sin. 37 
 
 dear brethren, to apply this to Sin ? And if 
 elsewhere l the same philosopher when think- 
 ing of the effect produced on untrained minds 
 by the popular assemblies at Athens, with 
 their indiscriminate praise and blame could 
 ask what education was to save the young 
 men of his day from being swept away by the 
 tide of public opinion, with how much greater 
 solicitude must the Christian minister and 
 anxious tutor of the present day ask, what is 
 to preserve those entrusted to him, when he 
 looks out upon the ferment and tide of eager 
 life in this place, and when he reflects upon 
 the ordeal which they must pass in later years, 
 and upon the everlasting interests that are at 
 stake hereafter ? There are stages in the pro- 
 gress of this tyranny of Sin. By God's mercy 
 it is not at once or till after frequent struggles 
 that a man is brought beneath its yoke. There 
 is a time when little transgressions lie heavy 
 on the conscience, and when their load cannot 
 be lightened without instant acknowledg- 
 ment, reparation, and forgiveness. And well 
 it is for us if we do not resist this call to 
 amendment. There is a later and a sadder 
 stage, when it is far harder to burst the bonds 
 of engrained habit : when it clings round its 
 victim, and cannot be laid aside. 
 
 Sin is in truth a hard master ; one conces- 
 1 Rep. vi. 492.
 
 38 The Tyranny of Sin. [in 
 
 sion to him invariably demands another. And 
 what mental misery does it entail ! The 
 memory of a shameful deed, what torture is 
 that ! and if not confessed and repented of, 
 what tenfold torture to him that harbours 
 it! 
 
 If then, dear brethren, the thraldom of Sin 
 is so real and unmistakable, so subtle and 
 insidious in its approaches, so deadly in its 
 poison, so potent and permanent in its results, 
 as to make God our Father hide his face for 
 ever from it, what are the restorative influences 
 by which we may hope to be freed from our 
 mortal foe into the liberty of the glorified 
 state of the children of God ? 
 
 First, do we enough consider what it is to 
 be a Christian ? Do we enough prize our 
 position ? Do we realize this vital truth, that 
 since Christ came on earth in our form, we 
 are no longer helplessly and irretrievably sold 
 to Sin as bondmen. He has done that for 
 our nature which cuts off from it the excuse 
 that it cannot choose but fall. A Christian 
 may be overtaken in a fault, by ignorance, 
 by infirmity, but he must rise at once and go 
 straight to the source of strength. "If any 
 should commit a sin," l says St. John, " we 
 have an Advocate with the Father ; " but in 
 the next chapter we read, "he that doeth 
 1 lav Tie apdpTy (the aorist). i John, ii. i.
 
 m] The Tyranny of Sin. 39 
 
 sin," lives a sinful life not as an occasional 
 lapse, but as a wilful habitual deliberate self- 
 surrender, he " is of the Devil." 
 
 No Christian can live in any known evil 
 habit, daily or constantly practised. It is a 
 contradiction in terms to say that such a state 
 is possible. This, then, is one reason why so 
 many fall : they make light of and therefore 
 forfeit the divine image in which they have 
 been recreated. " As many as received him, 
 to them gave he power to become the sons of 
 God." And a second reason is that they shun 
 the medicine which they need, and refuse such 
 helps as Prayer. Why are we here, to-day, 
 dear brethren, but that besides offering up 
 praise and thanksgiving, we may address our 
 wants to one who knows them, and who can 
 and will supply them, as is most expedient, if 
 only we ask aright ? Can we wonder that in 
 one form or another evil should win an en- 
 trance into the citadel if it is left unguarded ? 
 I would earnestly ask those whose voices are 
 silent during the Confession have they ever 
 really thought what confession is? that it 
 must be the utterance of the individual heart. 
 Do they really fancy that they can confess by 
 deputy? No! "Therein the patient must 
 minister to himself." 
 
 And if this last cause of failure is the result 
 of thoughtless indifference, there is another
 
 4O The Tyranny of Sin. [in 
 
 which is more deliberate, and more fatal, 
 springing from a despair of the possibility of 
 any signal victory. In some it assumes the 
 form of an indolent palliation of admitted 
 faults. " I am not worse than others." " I 
 shall not be judged individually." In others 
 it settles down, after something of a struggle, 
 into a compromise. " If I cannot conquer this 
 or that failing, as my experience tells me I 
 cannot, I will live up to the highest standard 
 of which I am capable," the result being a tacit 
 concession to some deep-seated habit, perhaps 
 the very one with which the contest should 
 never be relaxed. 
 
 Or again, it takes the more dangerous form 
 of a belief that none can be holy, that all in some 
 direction or other drift helplessly before Sin. 
 Scarcely any delusion of the Tempter is more 
 deadly. One decisive answer is given by the 
 biographies of good men. No candid mind can 
 reject the evidence that many by God's grace 
 have at all times successfully resisted unto the 
 end. 
 
 Had Sin dominion over Joseph in his 
 Egyptian, or over Daniel in his Babylonian 
 temptation ? Had Sin dominion over Saul of 
 Tarsus when he was at first a blasphemer and 
 a persecutor ? or after his conversion, in sharp 
 differences with his dearest friends, in struggles 
 against his thorn in the flesh (whatever that
 
 in] The Tyranny of Sin. 4 1 
 
 trial was) in his thirty years of missionary 
 toil, did he give place, and not steer right 
 onward for his haven ? You remember when 
 provoked to an outburst of resentment, before 
 the Sanhedrin, how immediately and how 
 gracefully he retracted his hasty expres- 
 sion ! 
 
 Had Sin dominion over the great St. 
 Augustine ? No ! It could not vanquish him, 
 though in early life he passed through the 
 agonies of a terrible crisis until the memorable 
 day of his baptism at Milan. It could not lead 
 him captive, in spite of the waywardness of his 
 boyhood, in spite of evil associates and evil 
 courses in later youth, of wild opinions adopted 
 afterwards for a time. All this and more we 
 read in those imperishable Confessions, the 
 chief reason for writing which was (he tells us) 
 to praise God for raising him from such a 
 depth, " lest any other might sleep in despair, 
 and say, ' I cannot awake ! ' " l Oh ! what a 
 record is t/iat of the internal struggle of the 
 soul ! what a lesson of intense earnestness ! 
 Nor can we forget that God's gratuitous gift 
 of grace (spoken of in the text) was the vital 
 truth, to enforce which Augustine devoted his 
 long life and his mighty intellect. 
 
 Or turn from Augustine to one who, ten 
 centuries later, was largely influenced by his 
 
 1 " Confessions," Bk. ii. ch. iii., and Bk. x. ch. iii.
 
 42 The Tyranny of Sin. [m 
 
 works. Had Sin dominion over Luther ? And 
 yet his passions were naturally strong. He 
 was distinguished from other youths of his 
 age only by the greater power of his feelings 
 and the vividness of his imagination. And 
 when, from the sudden death of a friend, and 
 from deep disquietude about himself, he sought 
 the shelter of a cloister, he did not thereby 
 shut out temptation. The natural bent of his 
 character was not towards monasticism ; and 
 had he not resisted strenuously, the formalities 
 and mock-religion of the convent might have 
 carried him too away, and silenced the voice 
 which was to change the face of Europe. But 
 he triumphed over sin, first in himself, and so 
 was enabled to re-light the dying lamp of 
 Christendom. What was it which constituted 
 the turning point in his religious history ? It 
 was the gaining access to what is open to you 
 and to me, and, alas ! how little prized ! In the 
 Library at Erfurt he had discovered a book 
 which he had hitherto known only in frag- 
 ments. It was a Latin Bible, and in that Bible 
 it has been said with truth, was hid the Re- 
 formation. 
 
 Once more, to come to our own country, 
 had sin dominion over the stainless virtue of 
 Bishop Ken? That good man exhibited as 
 near an approach to the perfect Christian ideal 
 as has probably ever been reached. Courage
 
 in] The Tyranny of Sin. 43 
 
 and meekness were united in him in a degree 
 seldom paralleled. His lot was cast in most 
 difficult scenes : in a dissolute court, and in 
 an age of faithlessness and want of love. It 
 was no slight task to live innocently and con- 
 sistently as he did under three successive 
 monarchies : to rebuke, like another John the 
 Baptist, the profligacy of one sovereign, and 
 on his deathbed to call him solemnly to re- 
 pentance ; before another to bear undaunted 
 testimony to the truth, and to suffer imprison- 
 ment for it ; under a third, to relinquish his 
 bishopric rather than abandon his principles. 
 And what was the clue which guided Ken 
 through the labyrinth of those three reigns ? 
 It was the abiding sense of God's presence, 
 which cast out (as the rival force of any 
 virtuous habit steadily cultivated will ever 
 cast out) evil. It was the Love of God which 
 grew with his growth, bore fruit in the love of 
 man, and dictated to him those Morning and 
 Evening Hymns (composed in the first in- 
 stance for the scholars of Winchester) which 
 will live as long as the English tongue en- 
 dures. And in our own times may we not point 
 to many who unmistakably refute the shallow 
 fallacy that all succumb to the corruption of 
 their nature? Had sin dominion over the lofty 
 zeal and the unwearied energy of Arnold? 
 over the gentle and saintly spirit of Keble ?
 
 44 The Tyranny of Sin. [in 
 
 over the ardent, the fearless, the self-sacrificing 
 Robertson ? 
 
 But you will say that these are heroic 
 characters far transcending our ordinary ex- 
 perience. I reply that they were men of like 
 passions with ourselves ; that out of weakness 
 they were made strong ; that their excellence 
 was the fruit of many a conflict, and that they 
 possessed that invariable attendant upon real 
 nobility of character, a constant sense of their 
 own infirmities. St. Paul calls himself, with 
 reference to his former life, the chief of sinners. 
 St. Augustine prays earnestly and repeatedly 
 for deliverance from his own lower nature. 
 " Libera me a me ! " And Luther's doubts and 
 misgivings were often so serious that at times 
 they amounted to a belief that he was lost. 
 
 Sin shall not have dominion over YOU if 
 you likewise persevere. The very same wea- 
 pons that they plied are yours ; the same 
 words of eternal life ; the same Holy Spirit 
 to strengthen and to sanctify you ; the same 
 Redeemer with whom you may have com- 
 munion. If their special crown may not be 
 ours, we still may and must press on for a 
 place (however lowly it may be) in one of 
 those many mansions which He has gone to 
 prepare for them and for us. I most earnestly 
 warn you who are younger as you would 
 desire the retrospect of an innocent boyhood
 
 in] The Tyranny of Sin. 45 
 
 not to trust any who may tell you that the 
 life of hearty work, of sustained diligence, of 
 sober self-control, is irksome or contemptible, 
 instead of being the only life that deserves the 
 name of a happy life. I warn you again not 
 to tamper with anything doubtful, anything 
 that will not bear the light of day, or in doing 
 so to shelter yourselves under the miserable 
 plea, too often advanced, " Others older, others 
 better, have done the same before me." A 
 day is assuredly coming when we shall not 
 be asked if any or how many have preceded 
 us in a course of evil ; but when the ques- 
 tion of questions will be, whether we have 
 taken pains to enlighten our conscience, and 
 to follow whithersoever its plain directions 
 lead us. I charge you who are older, as you 
 would not hear their voice of agony upbraid- 
 ing you hereafter, to pause, before you pass on 
 to others, the lurid torch of some corrupt tra- 
 dition, when you may hold out the steady 
 and starlike beacon of a good example, the 
 averter of many and many a spiritual ship- 
 wreck. 
 
 I entreat you once more, never by hint or 
 innuendo much less by definite act or incite- 
 ment to make one of these little ones to 
 offend, and cause their guardian angels in 
 heaven to relinquish this their sacred charge. 
 
 Surely this day, dear brethren, calls on us
 
 46 The Tyranny of Sin. [in 
 
 all to pass in review before the tribunal of our 
 hearts and memories the months that are 
 irrevocably gone by. 
 
 We have reached the end of the Christian 
 year. Another Sunday, and the trumpet-call 
 of Advent will again be summoning us to put 
 on the armour of light. Oh, what a solemn 
 thought that for some here it may be im- 
 possible to see another, that for some of us the 
 next and only Advent will be Chrisfs second 
 Advent in glory ! Whatever we believe of 
 " that divine event, to which the whole creation 
 moves," one thing is certain, that Good must 
 triumph everlastingly. But what if sin be then 
 found to have dominion over us ? We cannot 
 then change sides, if we are not already mar- 
 shalled in the ranks of the Conqueror. And 
 there will then be no place found for neutrals. 
 May we so struggle now, dear brethren, against 
 sin, that that Dies Irce, as it must be to the false- 
 hearted, to the coward and the renegade, may 
 be a Dies Gratia to you and to me, through 
 Christ, who alone giveth us the Victory !
 
 47 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 GOD'S FINAL REVELATION OF 
 HIMSELF IN CHRIST. 1 
 
 " God, who at sundry times and in divers manners 
 spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, 
 hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son." 
 Hebrews, i. i. 
 
 THE majestic opening of the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews cannot fail to strike the 
 most careless reader. The student of the 
 Greek Testament cannot overlook its fault- 
 less structure, its euphonious rhythm, its 
 evenly - balanced periods. The thoughtful 
 reader cannot but find in it abundant material 
 for meditation. It forms a fit prelude to the 
 great Epistle to which, from the uncertainty 
 of its authorship, there attaches something 
 mysterious, going forth (as has been said 2 ), 
 like the Melchizedek whom it describes, in 
 lonely, royal, and sacerdotal dignity. We know 
 not with positive assurance whence it cometh, 
 nor whither it goeth. All is in harmony with 
 
 1 Quinquagesima Sunday, February 23rd, 1873. 
 3 Delitzsch.
 
 48 God's Final Revelation of [iv 
 
 its solemn and superhuman subject. It at 
 once arrests our attention, it draws it away 
 from lower objects, and fixes it upon lofty 
 and unearthly truths. These grand opening 
 words look back to the remotest ages of the 
 past ; they look forward also to the end of 
 time. They speak of the earlier, less distinct, 
 more partial revelations to men of old, and 
 then of God's later, final crowning revelation 
 of a Son. 
 
 While we compare these revelations with 
 each other we must not press their differences 
 too far. For the historical continuity, the 
 substantial identity underlying them, as well 
 as the broad contrast between them, is implied 
 in the text. The various manifestations of 
 God are brought as it were into a focus in the 
 transcendent brilliance of the Gospel light. 
 
 In many portions then (for such is the more 
 adequate rendering) and in divers manners, 
 i.e., not all at once nor uniformly in the same 
 way, but in many distinct fragments and after 
 manifold fashions did God speak to the fathers 
 of old in the prophets ; while he spake at the 
 close of that long period of the world's history 
 to their successors, and to all mankind through 
 all succeeding times, as he speaks to us, too, in 
 our generation, in His Son, who is above 
 angel, above prophet, above priest : " whom 
 he appointed heir of all things, by whom also
 
 iv] Himself in Christ. 49 
 
 he made the worlds ; who, being the brightness 
 of his glory, and the express image of his 
 person, and upholding all things by the word 
 of his power, when he had by himself purged 
 our sins, sat down on the right hand of the 
 Majesty on high." 
 
 Think, first, what is included in the very 
 notion of a Revelation the unveiling of an 
 Infinite Being to the Finite ; of the Divine to 
 the Human ; of the Eternal to those whose 
 thoughts and actions are, and must be, limited 
 by time ; the disclosure of things of perfect 
 beauty, perfect truth, perfect harmony, to be- 
 ings conscious that they are imperfect ; the un- 
 folding of a world hidden from the natural, 
 but discernible to the spiritual eye. 
 
 In a lower sense of the word other revela- 
 tions no doubt there have been. God, who 
 is Love, God, who made man in His own 
 image, we must believe, could not but from 
 the first reveal so much of His nature as 
 it was necessary for His creatures to know. 
 " He left not Himself without witness " (as 
 St Paul reminded the men of Lystra) " in 
 that he did good and gave us rain from 
 heaven, filling our hearts with food and 
 gladness." 
 
 In the beauty and order of the universe (the 
 Hotpot, as the Greeks learnt to call it) who could 
 fail to interpret the symbols of a fatherly 
 E
 
 50 God's Final Revelation of [iv 
 
 interest and a providential care ? Men might 
 abuse the lesson, as they did by deifying the 
 powers and properties of nature, or, as in 
 Chaldaea and Persia, by worshipping the stars 
 of heaven, which shine so brilliantly in that 
 clear atmosphere : but still the Divine purpose 
 remained firm. It was that they might seek 
 after the Lord, if haply they might feel after 
 Him and find Him, and recognize in Him the 
 sole sustainer of their existence. 
 
 And a further Revelation (however faint it 
 may have become at times and in places) 
 must have reached every tribe and every indi- 
 vidual. I mean in natural affection. The 
 instinctive love of parents and children, of 
 brothers and sisters, the bonds of devoted 
 friendship, the mutual concessions required 
 to insure any social harmony, must have led 
 men on to grasp, in some measure, the great 
 truths of a Common Father who is in 
 Heaven. 
 
 Such broken lights of the one perfect ray 
 there were. But all such teaching, whether- of 
 natural theology or of natural affection, was 
 necessarily imperfect, for it contained in itself 
 no sufficient element of hope, no promise of 
 a higher enlightenment. When, however, we 
 turn to the chosen race, we are struck at once 
 by this broad difference. We trace a design 
 pervading the Scriptures. We see God deign-
 
 iv] Himself in Christ. 51 
 
 ing to reveal Himself more and more in modes 
 intelligible to the human mind, and that, too, 
 in a constantly progressive order. 
 
 I would ask you, dear brethren, to follow 
 me in dwelling upon a few of the diverse man- 
 ners in which God educated His people. 
 
 God spake to the patriarchs in ways in which 
 He still speaks to us when our hearts are 
 hardened by prosperity, distracted by doubt, 
 or lifted up by self-reliance. The trials by 
 which Abraham and Isaac were brought nearer 
 to Him in their wanderings and chequered 
 fortunes ; the lessons of suffering in his own 
 family by which Jacob was made to see at 
 last the folly of timidity and the misery of 
 deceit ; these are not without their counter- 
 part in the severe but merciful accents in 
 which we, too, " in these last days," can often 
 recognize the voice of God. This is a form 
 of the Divine training for which the world 
 never grows too old or too wise. This gives the 
 Scriptures their undying interest ; this stamps 
 them with the seal of genuine truthfulness. 
 
 Have you, too, my friends, not felt something 
 of this yourselves ? How, if one method of the 
 Divine discipline fails to touch your heart, 
 then in another and yet another tone God 
 addresses you ? If you have not been pricked 
 by the still small voice of conscience, in mo- 
 ments of quiet reflection ; if you have ever
 
 5 2 God's Final Revelation of [iv 
 
 slighted the voice of friendly counsel, often 
 repeated, then the Great Teacher Himself 
 comes to you and speaks to you in a different 
 and an unmistakable language, by sickness 
 perhaps, perhaps by disappointment, by the 
 loss of something on which you have set your 
 heart. By one or by many of these or similar 
 channels, God's message does at last reach us 
 to win us to Him, if by any means it may be 
 before it be too late. 
 
 This portion of our subject, the training of 
 life, as shown in the Old Testament, is bound- 
 less. We can but glance at it. The exile of 
 Joseph ; the rise of Moses, out of weakness 
 made strong ; the half-heartedness and insin- 
 cerity of Balaam ; the habitual converse with 
 God begun in early childhood by Samuel ; the 
 anarchy of conflicting impulses in the way- 
 ward spirit of Saul ; the troubles brought 
 upon himself by David ; these are but a few 
 of the most obvious instances of the way in 
 which God spake unto the fathers in times past ', 
 in and through the incidents of their lives. 
 The more we study them, the more we see 
 that He did not do so only in the graver and 
 (as we fancy) more critical moments of life, 
 but that quite as often it was on their be- 
 haviour under the simplest and most ordinary 
 circumstances that their characters hinged 
 and by them that their destiny was determined
 
 iv] Himself in Christ. 53 
 
 We might pursue the train of thought still 
 further, and note how God spoke not only to 
 individuals, but to the nation. How he proved 
 his people by their long Egyptian servitude, 
 drawing them closer to each other by their 
 sense of a common suffering, drawing them 
 closer to Him, and penetrating them with the 
 belief in His Unity, in contrast with the idola- 
 tries they witnessed. How he led them through 
 the desert, in spite of relapses and discontent ; 
 granting them one blessing, denying them 
 another. How during the lawless and turbu- 
 lent period of the Judges He drew out their 
 patriotism, and deepened their trust in a 
 Heavenly Protector. How He concentrated 
 their power and developed their resources 
 under the monarchy, but yet again and again 
 reminded them of a kingdom not of this world 
 by all the misery in which they were so often 
 entangled through their rulers. 
 
 They lose their unity so dearly won ; again 
 they suffer bondage ; again they repent ; again 
 they are restored, in part at least, to Pales- 
 tine. Such is the training spread over many 
 centuries, now by prosperity, now by ad- 
 versity, by dissatisfaction with their state, and 
 longings after "a better, that is a heavenly 
 country." 
 
 Thus did God speak to them by the lessons 
 of life and the education of history.
 
 54 God's Final Revelation of [iv 
 
 But beyond this, and in more special ways, 
 were deep truths conveyed to the fathers. 
 Not all at once, but part by part, and as they 
 were able to bear it, was the fulness of God's 
 face revealed. "Thou spakest sometimes in 
 visions unto thy Saints." In visions to the 
 patriarchs, by a more direct, but still by an 
 imperfect and partial mode of revelation, did 
 He speak to Moses. 
 
 To different persons and at important epochs 
 did He gradually unfold His nature by the 
 various Names by which He proclaimed His 
 Being, to one as the Almighty, the Strong 
 One to another as / am, the Eternal, the 
 Unchangeable One to another as the Lord 
 of Hosts. 
 
 Above all, as ages rolled on, more and 
 more clearly was the value of goodness revealed 
 of honesty of heart and intention the utter 
 worthlessness, in the sight of God, of outward 
 respectability if unaccompanied by inward 
 purity. In the infancy of the nation these 
 lessons were less dwelt upon. A standard for 
 which they were not ripe was not forced upon 
 them. Step by step were they led up at last 
 to higher conceptions. Still, to Moses, God 
 declared Himself to be " merciful and gracious, 
 long suffering and abundant in goodness and 
 truth," and from Moses to Isaiah and Micah, 
 and from Isaiah to Malachi, there is the
 
 iv] Himself in Christ. 55 
 
 same unfaltering assurance that " He dwells 
 in the high and holy place, with him also that 
 is a of a contrite spirit," that what He requires 
 is " to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk 
 humbly with him." 
 
 Need I quote those stirring protests in the 
 Psalter against mere formal worship? Are 
 not those warnings of abiding force now " in 
 these last days ? " 
 
 Such are some of the various ways in which 
 Divine Truth was brought home to the 
 Israelites by the Prophets, that is (to use the 
 title in its widest sense) by the interpreters 
 and expounders of God's will, whose hearts 
 were overflowing, as the word " prophet " 
 implies, with the heavenly message they were 
 inspired to impart. 
 
 But we must hasten on to what is of vital 
 importance. We must apply the latter part 
 of the text to our own lives. 
 
 Has God in these last days spoken to us by 
 His Son? In Him were centred all those 
 yearnings after a Deliverer (which became 
 more and more plain) all that growing belief 
 in an immortal life of the soul all those 
 visions of a reign of peace and holiness anti- 
 cipated by the " goodly fellowship of the 
 Prophets." In none of them did God speak 
 fully and finally as He did in Christ. Of none 
 of them could it be said, without blasphemy,
 
 56 God 's Final Revelation of [iv 
 
 " This is my beloved Son in whom I am well 
 pleased." For in Him was absolute goodness 
 not goodness only in some aspects ; not the 
 perfection only of wisdom in words and teach- 
 ing ; but the perfection of love and sympathy 
 in active life, the one ideal sacrifice exhibited 
 in a human person. 
 
 Our own times are included in these last 
 days. The revelation of God in Christ, though 
 final, is capable of infinite expansion. It 
 meets the wants of all ages, all circumstances, 
 all characters. It proposes one aim, one ideal 
 to rise, through Divine power, superior to 
 temptation, to live after the pattern of Christ. 
 
 It is not like those fossil palms and ferrls 
 which long ago grew in luxuriant beauty, but 
 are now rigid and sapless in their stony 
 prison. No, it contains within itself a growing 
 principle of life. The Gospel of the Hebrew 
 Christians of the first century is the Gospel 
 equally of the nineteenth century. The 
 Gospel of the darkest ages of ignorance of 
 the time, for instance, of the accession of Alfred, 
 when not a single priest south of the Thames 
 understood the ordinary prayers, or could 
 translate Latin into his mother tongue, is still 
 the same Gospel which speaks to us, armed 
 with all the resources of modern learning, and 
 with all the latest aids of textual criticism 
 accumulated since the last revision.
 
 iv] Himself in Christ. 57 
 
 Yes, all our fresh springs must be in it! 
 Do not misunderstand me. The study of it 
 cannot indeed work a miracle in us ; it is not 
 by itself a universal remedy much else must 
 go with it. But I say that the more we read 
 Old or New Testament, reverentially, thought- 
 fully, prayerfully, the more clearly shall we 
 discern a divine hand guiding us, and hear a 
 divine voice suggesting to us " new thoughts 
 of God, new hopes of heaven." 
 
 Let me, then, ask you in all seriousness, has 
 God spoken to you yet by His Son ? By all 
 that He did to ennoble our nature and to 
 show us what it might become? Has he 
 spoken to tutors and pupils to labour to- 
 gether for one common, one lofty end ? Has 
 He spoken to you to put away follies, to 
 consecrate to Him this coming Lent ? Is 
 there nothing you can do for Him during 
 it F Surely there is very much for all for 
 the youngest of us to do. Oh those harsh 
 and hasty judgments we pass on persons 
 and motives so hateful in the sight of our 
 merciful Father, the righteous Judge, who is 
 strong and patient though He is provoked every 
 day ; so contrary to the charity which (as 
 we have just read) " is not easily provoked, 
 thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity but 
 rejoiceth in the truth." 
 
 Oh that specious show of work, the fruit of
 
 58 God 's Final Revelation of [iv 
 
 another's brain ! Oh those flimsy evasions 
 and prevarications which gained you, perhaps, 
 a slight and superficial advantage, but which 
 wounded the moral sense deeply, perhaps 
 mortally ! 
 
 Oh that purpose to work which never is 
 but always to be accomplished ! Oh that 
 indolent saunter to questionable, unprofitable, 
 if not actually forbidden haunts! Oh that 
 relapse into the mire of sin, when we thought 
 that our feet were now at last upon the Rock ! 
 Oh that debt, which it is vain to try to fill up 
 while you constantly pour in more, a self- 
 renewing trouble, worse than the leaky vessel 
 of the fabled daughters a woe for future 
 years ! How long, how long shall these things 
 be ? Is there no escape ? Yes ! Will you not 
 come to the Great Physician ? His touch has 
 still its ancient power ; He and He alone can 
 restore to you the years that the cankerworm 
 has eaten. 
 
 The time may come, remember, when the 
 Book may be spread before us, but it will be 
 like song to the deaf, or like characters in an 
 unknown tongue. What then will all else 
 avail ? For lastly, my friends, if God has not 
 yet spoken to us convincingly in His Son, 
 while Scepticism is speaking to the intellect, 
 questioning Gospel truth, and banishing every 
 vestige of the supernatural as if it were a
 
 iv] Himself in Christ. 59 
 
 superfluous intrusion, or while Fashion is speak- 
 ing to our affections and enticing them away, 
 what avails it that we are the heirs of all the 
 ages ? Can all our boasted civilization minister 
 to a troubled conscience ? Thankful, deeply 
 thankful should we be that we live now. But 
 let us never forget that 
 
 " all those trophied arts 
 Heal'd not a passion or a pang 
 Entail'd on human hearts." 
 
 Be the thoughts of man ever so much widened, 
 be our culture ever so refined, if we rest on 
 these things alone " it profiteth us nothing." 
 Whether the past have its prophecies, they 
 belong to time, and with it they shall 
 cease ; whether there be knowledge, the 
 accumulated treasures of " these last days," 
 the treasures yet to be gathered in, in days 
 far hence, when we are gone knowledge, too, 
 precious as it is, shall vanish away. It shall 
 serve its turn ; its place shall be taken by 
 other knowledge. It shall finally be lost and 
 merged in the higher knowledge of God, who 
 is Love. Love alone is imperishable. In it 
 what we now see through a glass darkly we 
 shall then see face to face. All that now per- 
 plexes the mind, all that now baffles and dis- 
 appoints the heart in our conflict with evil, 
 shall be solved. If we must be content " to
 
 60 God's Final Revelation. [iv 
 
 know in part," where even the wisest cannot 
 pierce the veil, at least the light shines clear 
 and steady on the path of daily duty. " The 
 secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." 
 May our prayer be daily, " Speak, Lord, for 
 Thy servant heareth." And oh may no wiles 
 of the evil one, no sophistry of man, no deceit- 
 fulness of self ever drown that Voice, or draw 
 us away from following it, whithersoever it 
 would lead us !
 
 SERMON V. 
 PERMANENCE AMIDST CHANGE. 1 
 
 " They shall perish, but thou shalt endure : yea, all 
 of them shall wax old like a garment ; as a vesture 
 shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed ; 
 but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no 
 end." Psalm cii. 26, 27. 
 
 MANY deep thoughts are suggested to us 
 by this and the two following Psalms. 
 They breathe the language of spiritual security, 
 the sense of trustful gladness in seasons of 
 happiness, of resignation in seasons of de- 
 pression. The greatness, and at the same time 
 the tenderness of God, the beauty, the multi- 
 plicity, the complexity of the wonderful objects 
 of this earth, the absolute dependence of all 
 living creatures on their Maker, find here per- 
 haps their noblest expression. 
 
 But two thoughts stand out prominently 
 through them. First, there is the thought of the 
 One Unchangeable Being, in sharp contrast 
 with the vanishing objects of sense. And next, 
 in the verse immediately following the text, 
 there is another great thought : namely, that in 
 spite of the mutability of all created things, still 
 1 May 1 8th, 1873.
 
 62 Permanence amidst Change. [v 
 
 there is something even here which has in it an 
 element of permanence, and a ground of hope : 
 " The children of thy servants shall continue, 
 and their seed shall be established before thee." 
 
 To reflect on the unchangeable Deity is 
 one of those vast and overpowering reflections 
 which seem at times almost to appal us when 
 we try to dwell steadily upon it. It is like 
 the idea of the infinity of space, which our 
 minds can neither grasp nor yet refuse to 
 accept. When we look out on the starry 
 heavens, sown with countless worlds beyond 
 worlds, we cannot conceive that space can 
 be bounded : for the mind at once overleaps 
 any limit that we imagine, however immeasur- 
 able the distance at which we fix it. Nor, again, 
 can we picture to ourselves the illimitable. 
 It is like it in its overpowering intensity. 
 But it is a far profounder thought, and one on 
 which it is far more profitable to dwell, and to 
 realize it so far as we may do so ; for this 
 reason, that it sets us upon meditating on a 
 Being, and not on any one of His creations. 
 It brings before us One who is unchangeable 
 in His perfection, unchangeable in His attri- 
 butes, unchangeable therefore in His attitude 
 towards good and towards evil. 
 
 It is from this point of view that I would 
 ask you to consider the subject of the text. 
 I would attempt to bring home to you the
 
 v] Permanence amidst Change. 63 
 
 practical bearing of the text and deepen the 
 sense of what is beyond doubt, and to mark 
 out some reasons why it is good for us, again 
 and again, to pause in our hurried course to 
 meditate upon the One unwearied worker, and 
 remember the great truth that God is Im- 
 mutable, and that with Him is no variableness, 
 neither shadow caused by change. 
 
 That we and all around us are frail and 
 mutable, never continuing in one stay, we 
 know full well ; but do we not put the thought 
 away from us, and do we not fail to profit by 
 it as we might do ? We see the great Law 
 written upon all we behold. The solid earth, 
 what changes has it witnessed ! The waves 
 of ocean roll over spots where the busy tide of 
 human life once ebbed and flowed. The hill- 
 sides, now clothed with vegetation, were once 
 tenanted by the creatures of the great deep. 
 Again, what is all history, we may say, but 
 the chronicle of constant change ? Of pro- 
 gress, as we trust, towards a higher and a better 
 state of things ; but, however we may regret 
 it, of change, of the abandonment of what is 
 antiquated and outworn, of the removal of 
 what was long believed to be fixed and 
 durable, of the gradual melting away of the 
 past into the present? Look at the change 
 in our bodies. Their daily waste is constantly 
 being repaired ; so much so that they are
 
 64 Permanence amidst Change. [v. 
 
 different from what they were in childhood, 
 or a few years ago. Our habits of thought, 
 our tempers and hearts are not exactly such 
 as they once were. 
 
 In this scene, within us and without us, of 
 incessant change, oh ! what a salutary, what 
 a sustaining, what a comforting and ennobling 
 thought is the grand one of the text, " Thou 
 art the same." 
 
 It is, first, a very humbling reflection, sober- 
 ing and solemnizing our lives. What are all 
 our little systems, our ambitious schemes, our 
 eager wishes and fears, 
 
 " those unsolid hopes 
 Of happiness, those longings after fame, 
 Those restless cares, those busy bustling days," 
 
 which were so intensely important at the time? 
 What are they in the retrospect ? Weighed 
 in the balance of calmer judgment, how 
 paltry and insignificant do they appear ! 
 The only part worthy to last is what has in 
 any way promoted God's will. And how marred 
 by imperfection, by vanity, or self-love, is the 
 utmost that the best of us can perform ! When 
 we review the past do we not feel that God 
 was not in the earthquake or the fire of our 
 trepidation and anxiety, but that He was and 
 is in the still small voice of conscience which 
 it is ours to slight or to obey ? He has been 
 constant while we have been eddying to and
 
 v] Permanence amidst Change. 65 
 
 fro. He rules the troubled sea of our dis- 
 quietude. He sitteth above the waterflood of 
 our frequent relapses, our wilfulness and pre- 
 sumption. He will guide our restless bark into 
 the haven where we would be, if we will only 
 commit it to Him, and not shape our self- 
 chosen course according to our own fancies. 
 Consider, too, for a moment, how shallow, how 
 hasty our judgments often are : how the ex- 
 perience of a few years reverses a sentence 
 pronounced with the utmost confidence. The 
 estimate of all but a very few of the most 
 celebrated characters and reputations is per- 
 petually being re-examined, sifted, and cor- 
 rected by later criticism. The next time, 
 therefore, we are tempted to defer blindly to 
 current opinion or popular applause, let us 
 pause and ask ourselves, Is this to which I 
 am paying the homage of my heart worthy of 
 it is this the judgment that would be passed 
 by the most enlightened is it, above all, in har- 
 mony with the Divine Will ? " But the counsel 
 of the Lord shall endure for ever." The broad 
 distinctions of right and wrong are absolutely 
 unalterable. The angry thought, the pas- 
 sionate word or deed of yesterday, is as hate- 
 ful in His sight as was the sin of Cain. 
 
 And secondly, what a comforting thought is 
 this, " Thou are the same." It consoled Moses 
 after his forty years of seemingly fruitless toil, 
 F
 
 66 Permanence amidst Change. [v 
 
 when he sang, "Lord, thou hast been our refuge 
 from one generation to another" that inspired 
 hymn which is still fresh and strong after 
 thousands of years, with the freshness and 
 strength of imperishable truth, and which day 
 after day to the mourners still breathes the 
 same unfaltering trust and the same primal 
 sympathy. 
 
 This thought reassured the author of the 
 7/th Psalm, when, in his momentary despond- 
 ency, he said, " Hath God forgotten to be 
 gracious ? " It consoled St. Paul when, though 
 his prayer was not literally granted, he heard 
 Christ say, " My grace is sufficient for thee, for 
 my strength is made perfect in weakness." 
 It has cheered every earnest seeker after God 
 in high or low estate. It has nerved saints 
 and martyrs, statesmen and poets the sick 
 bowed down by affliction, the vigorous baffled 
 and perplexed by their failure to extirpate 
 evil. When all visible help is gone, then does 
 resignation cling closer to the invisible. 
 
 When wave after wave of trial has passed 
 over a man, is it consolation to tell him that 
 others have suffered, or are now suffering simi- 
 larly? Is it comforting to talk to him of the 
 uniformity of the laws of nature, or to remind 
 him that a particular course of action must 
 lead to a corresponding result ? It is indeed 
 most true. The laws of matter and of mind
 
 V] Permanence amidst Change. 67 
 
 are inexorable. They cannot be trifled with' 
 Their regularity forms the most striking ex- 
 ception to the fleeting scenes around us. But 
 on whom depend those invariable sequences 
 of phenomena, in which we know no break 
 and no pause ? The words immediately pre- 
 ceding the text give us the answer : " Thou, 
 Lord, in the beginning hath laid the founda- 
 tion of the earth, and the heavens are the 
 work of thy hands." Those laws are un- 
 erring ; sustained by their author, the law- 
 giver, during His pleasure. But not on laws 
 alone, though of the utmost wisdom, can we 
 rest. No, it is on a person we must lean : 
 " Our heart and our flesh cry out for the 
 living God." There is genuine, truest comfort 
 in the recollection, " Thou art the same." All 
 this past, with its mistakes and its follies, has 
 taught me to see this more clearly, to be dis- 
 satisfied with self. Leave me not, now I 
 have found Thee, to my own fickle and 
 treacherous heart. Guide me, uphold me, 
 stablish me ! 
 
 Again, thirdly, " Thou art the same " is a 
 stimulating, an elevating thought. 
 
 It bids us never be satisfied, never be self- 
 complacent. We have a Father in heaven who 
 is perfect ; we have an ideal Life in the Gospel, 
 after which we are to struggle, " faint yet pur- 
 suing." Forwards ! Forwards ! and Upwards !
 
 68 Permanence amidst Change. [v 
 
 is the Christian's watchword. It is only the 
 lowest and poorest minds that rest content 
 with what they have already accomplished. 
 Higher and nobler natures feel that the ideal 
 they have had before them nothing can truly 
 represent. The hour of their greatest success 
 will be the hour when they feel this most 
 keenly. To rest content with what it has 
 achieved is fatal to true genius. 
 
 There is a story told of the Danish sculptor 
 Thorwaldsen, 1 which maybe read in the spirit 
 of St. Paul's words, " not as though I had 
 already attained, or were made perfect," how 
 a friend found him one day in low spirits. 
 Being asked whether anything had distressed 
 him, he answered : " My genius is decaying." 
 " What do you mean ? " said the visitor. 
 " Why ! here is my statue of Christ," he re- 
 plied ; " it is the first of my works that I have 
 ever felt satisfied with. Till now my idea has 
 always been far beyond what I could execute. 
 But it is no longer so. / shall never have a 
 great idea again" It is indeed the glorious 
 prerogative of God, to be able to look down 
 upon His Creation, and behold that it was 
 very good. 
 
 But we still must ask how and to whom is 
 the thought of God's unchangeableness a 
 
 1 See "Guesses at Truth," 1871, p. 59.
 
 v] Permanence amidst Change. 69 
 
 solemnizing, a comforting, an ennobling one ? 
 If you are the slave of one known evil habit, 
 it cannot be so : for then the thought of His 
 unchangeable attitude towards sin will be as a 
 consuming fire. It will terrify you by the 
 everlasting rebuke it gives to the contradiction 
 your lives are presenting to Him. Or again, 
 if He is as yet nothing but a vague and 
 remote abstraction to you, if you have 
 never regarded yourselves as standing in 
 any definite and close relation to Him, to 
 think of Him can no more bring healing to 
 you, than to meditate over any abstract 
 scientific truth can do so. It is only when 
 you are penetrated with the belief that He 
 loves you with a love such as words cannot 
 describe, that you can repose upon the Ever- 
 lasting Arms ; it is not till we can exclaim with 
 Isaiah from our hearts, " Doubtless Thou 
 art our Father, Thou, O Lord, art our 
 Father, our Redeemer," that we can bear the 
 contrast between the sin-bluired image of 
 our lives, and His glorious and unfading per- 
 fection. 
 
 But there remains another aspect of our 
 subject too important to be omitted. Is there 
 nothing in our nature but what is shifting and 
 changing perpetually ? Is there nothing in it 
 permanent and undecaying ? 
 
 All that has ever been said or done by the
 
 70 Permanence amidst Change. [v 
 
 good and the wise of old (so far as it partakes of 
 the everlasting attributes of the Deity), " those 
 truths that wake to perish never," we may be- 
 lieve will last and triumph. And, more than 
 this, whatever we have done, whether for good 
 or evil, remains in its effects. It has shaped 
 us and made us what we are at the present 
 moment. 
 
 The earnest prayer for others, the hour which 
 you devoted to some good act when you were 
 tempted, perhaps, to squander it upon trivial or 
 sensual pleasure, the word of warning which it 
 was so hard to speak out, but which you did 
 speak out in season to your friend all these re- 
 main. Like the ripples traced by geology upon 
 what are now far inland sands so do those 
 past actions remain indelibly imprinted on the 
 character. Their living result in confirmed 
 habit points as plainly to past struggles, as 
 those ancient wave-marks point to the exist- 
 ence of seas which have long since vanished. 
 
 But apart from the intrinsic colour and 
 character of our actions, is there not some- 
 thing else which is permanent and inseparable 
 from our being ? Yes ! there is the awful but 
 indisputable fact of Personal Identity. 
 
 " There is (to borrow Bishop Butler's lan- 
 guage *) the conviction which necessarily and 
 
 1 Dissertation X., On Personal Identity.
 
 v] Permanence amidst Change. 7 1 
 
 every moment rises within us, when we 
 turn our thoughts upon ourselves, and re- 
 flect upon that which is ourself now, and 
 that which was ourself twenty years ago, 
 that they are not two but one and the 
 same self: the consciousness that we are 
 the same agents or living beings now which 
 we were as far back as our remembrance 
 reaches." 
 
 Oh what a marvellous thing is this Personal 
 Identity ! To think that it can survive, can 
 bridge over the broad gulfs which seem to 
 separate portions of a life ! Think to what an 
 abyss man can sink ! " Grande proftmdum est 
 ipse homo" 1 Could David, the ingenuous 
 shepherd-boy, fall as low as he afterwards 
 did ? Could Peter, indeed, deny his Master 
 and his Friend? Could Constantine yield 
 so fatally to jealousy and passion as, on a 
 groundless charge and untried to execute 
 his son Crispus? Could the noble-minded 
 Theodosius give his sanction to the frightful 
 massacre at Thessalonica ? Could the great 
 Bacon have been guilty of corruption and 
 venality ? 
 
 Alas, such are the possibilities of our nature 
 when left to itself. We can often recognize 
 here the sharply defined differences in char- 
 
 1 Augustine, Conf., Lib. IV. xiv.
 
 72 Permanence amidst Change. [v 
 
 acter which an interval will produce. That 
 boy who came among us so fresh and un- 
 sullied, recollecting and repeating the prayer 
 learnt at his mother's knee ; can he be the 
 same that we see after a few brief school-times 
 so grievously altered ? That stubborn dispo- 
 sition, on the other hand, once so difficult 
 to rouse, or influence, so vapid, so unprofitable, 
 so impracticable, can it have been transfigured, 
 as by God's grace it has been, into the thought- 
 ful, orderly, diligent, and considerate char- 
 acter? That youth who seemed so hopeless 
 and intractable, can he (as we say) be the 
 same person ? Yes, he is the very same in all 
 that constitutes his essential being. He is 
 not the same in the direction which his 
 chastened will has taken, in his language, his 
 demeanour, in the whole tone and tenor of his 
 daily life. But in his power to choose the 
 evil or the good, in his relation to his Maker, 
 in a word in his Responsibility, he is and ever 
 will remain the same. 
 
 O shall we not then do well to pray for 
 perseverance in goodness ? Shall we not strive 
 that our days may be " bound each to each by 
 natural piety ? " For holiness, while life lasts, 
 is exposed to the merciless and unremitting 
 attacks of the evil one, with all his versatile 
 resources. Specially during the earlier stages 
 of its growth is it a delicate and sensitive
 
 v] Permanence amidst Change. 73 
 
 flower, needing the most tender nurture and 
 the most careful vigilance. Transplanted from 
 the pure atmosphere of home to scenes of ruder 
 and sterner experience it must encounter much 
 to imperil it. Coldness and contempt may 
 freeze and nip it in the bud. Fashion or tra- 
 dition may easily trample it down and succeed 
 in crushing the life out of it. The contagious 
 breath of pernicious example may scatter over 
 it a poisonous blight. 
 
 But Christ's prayer for his own was, " I pray 
 not that thou shouldest take them out of the 
 world, but that thou shouldest keep them 
 from the evil." There is no necessary reason 
 why holiness should not survive such dangers, 
 why the soil of Eton should be less congenial 
 to it than the soil of home, or why her sons 
 should not " grow up as the young plants ; " 
 why a Christian boyhood should not here 
 burgeon and blossom into a robuster type, 
 if only it be watered and trained by daily 
 prayer and penitence, fed by the sacramental 
 graces of Christ, warmed and illuminated by 
 His health-giving rays, and enabled through 
 Him to absorb all the good influences of this 
 place and cast out all the bad. Therefore pray 
 to* perseverance, the secret of a thousand suc- 
 cesses ; the antidote to a thousand disappoint- 
 ments, the equivalent, in the wise and merciful 
 economy of Heaven's bounty, for genius and
 
 74 Permanence amidst Change. [v 
 
 great gifts which many of us cannot have, and 
 which without some measure of it often prove 
 a snare to their possessor. 
 
 And lastly, recollect, I beseech you I say 
 it not to cloud one innocent joy, or check one 
 lofty or legitimate aim, but to temper all with a 
 holier and loftier light recollect the certainty 
 of the Four Last Things. 
 
 Does not the utmost amount of revolution 
 that our fortunes can possibly undergo shrink 
 into absolutely nothing compared with the 
 unutterable transformation in store for us here- 
 after ? for we shall all be changed, we know 
 not how. But we know that through and be- 
 yond that crowning change the man himself 
 shall be preserved, shall stand before his Maker, 
 in his incommunicable identity. 
 
 May it be ours to enter then on that sphere 
 of happy labour and of holy love : labour that 
 shall fear no languor, no discouragement, no 
 failure ; love that shall feel no yearning un- 
 satisfied, together with those whom we have 
 known here in their hour of trial, the spirits 
 of just men now made perfect, whom we 
 cannot think of as subject any longer to decay. 
 May you, may we all be so steadfast and 
 un movable, so abounding in the work of the 
 Lord, that when the final, the indelible stamp 
 is set upon the character, we may be sealed as 
 the servants of Him who, change as everything
 
 v] Permanence amidst Change. 75 
 
 else around us may and does change, is " the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." 
 
 u But Thou art true, Incarnate Lord, 
 Who didst vouchsafe for man to die ; 
 Thy smile is sure, Thy plighted word 
 No change can falsify."
 
 7 6 
 
 SERMON VI. 
 
 THESE THREE YEARS. 
 
 " Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on 
 this fig tree." St. Luke, xiii. 7. 
 
 VERY deaf to the appeal made by Scripture 
 to the enlightened conscience must he 
 be who, in these words, can hear nothing 
 addressed to himself. Very hard and literal 
 must that interpretation be which can trace 
 in them a reference to the three successive 
 dispensations under Moses, under the Pro- 
 phets, and under Christ, but can go no further. 
 There is a depth, an intensity in all Christ's 
 words, which refuses to be imprisoned within 
 such narrow limits. The study of our Saviour's 
 words, searching and minute as it must ever 
 be if we would penetrate below the surface, 
 if it does not descend into the heart, if it fail 
 to touch the springs of action, " profiteth 
 nothing." It will degenerate into a mere 
 verbal study instead of soaring upwards to 
 the life-giving Spirit. There is, however, one 
 among the various interpretatious of the text 
 which claims our more particular considera-
 
 vi] These Three Years. 77 
 
 tion. It does seem natural and obvious to 
 find in the three years an allusion to the term 
 of Christ's ministry, the third year of which 
 was now lapsing. For in an especial manner 
 " the owner of the vineyard " by whom, prob- 
 ably, Christ Himself is intended, did then come 
 unto his own, and watch to see what fruits 
 they would bear ; and the " dresser of the 
 vineyard," that is the Holy Spirit, at the 
 eleventh hour of their long day of grace, was 
 then specially pleading for them. 
 
 But even this view must not be pressed un- 
 duly, for there is force in the objection that if 
 a chronological order be sought in the first 
 part of the parable, it ought in equal strictness 
 to be applied to its close. For if the three 
 years denote only our Lord's earthly visita- 
 tion, then (it is urged with some force) the 
 sentence, " cut it down, why cumbereth it the 
 ground ? " would naturally follow, not as it 
 did after an interval of forty years, but in the 
 year that immediately followed its utterance. 
 
 Waiving, then, any interpretations which 
 would limit the scope of the parable too 
 narrowly, may we not attach a broader sense 
 to the words ? and may we not trace in them 
 that warning Voice which speaks to nations 
 in all the more striking epochs of their exist- 
 ence ? and which speaks to us, my friends, in 
 the retrospect of any marked period of our
 
 78 These Three Years. [vi 
 
 lives, those halting-places so mercifully granted 
 us, those division and landmarks into which the 
 little history of each of us so easily falls those 
 critical turning-points in the state of each 
 individual soul, which seem to cry aloud to 
 the Christian as he surveys the past, Respice, 
 A spice, Prospice. 
 
 Nations have their special warnings, and to 
 them Christ comes seeking fruit. The Church, 
 too, has had her more momentous periods and 
 stages, when her Master's Voice might seem 
 to have sounded forth more solemnly than at 
 other seasons, in language like that of the 
 Angel in the Apocalypse, " I will come to 
 thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick 
 out of his place, except thou repent." Often 
 and often must the thoughtful student of her 
 annals pause, in wonder and thankfulness 
 at the mercy which has spared her so long 
 and brought her alive out of such trials 
 as she has witnessed. Whether he reflect 
 on her condition at the close of the tenth 
 century, when "men's hearts failed them 
 for fear, and for looking after those things 
 which they deemed were coming upon the 
 earth ; " when so widespread was the anarchy 
 and so crushing the misery, that the end of 
 the world was universally expected to be at 
 hand. Whether he recall the degradation of 
 the Papacy both before and after that epoch ;
 
 vi] These Three Years. 79 
 
 or whether again he come nearer to our own 
 times, and think of the dreary spectacle pre- 
 sented by the eighteenth century, its torpor, 
 its want of faith, when the love of many 
 waxed cold, and, with some rare exceptions, 
 like Wesley, all true religion might seem to 
 have slumbered and slept. 
 
 But while the historical element is more or 
 less traceable in most of our Lord's parables, 
 and forms indeed in some of them their pro- 
 minent feature, their moral value can never 
 be ignored. And the parable before us is, 
 in this respect, one of the most pointed and 
 direct. Its personal application is of para- 
 mount importance if we would benefit by it 
 at all. For it is not (observe) the world at 
 large that we have to consider, it is not even 
 any selected portion of it, it is the one particular 
 tree planted in it, on which our thoughts are 
 centred. "A certain man had a fig tree 
 planted in his vineyard ; and he came and 
 sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then 
 said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Be- 
 hold, these three years I come seeking fruit on 
 this fig tree, and find none : cut it down ; why 
 cumbereth it the ground ? And he answering 
 said unto him, ' Lord, let it alone this year 
 also, till I shall dig about it and dung it, and 
 if it bear fruit, well : and if not, then after that 
 thou shalt cut it down.' "
 
 8o These Three Years. [vi 
 
 The opening image, a fig tree in a vineyard 
 strange as it may seem to us, was natural in 
 Palestine, where any trees are allowed to grow 
 freely wherever they can get root ; and it rivets 
 the thought upon the one tree which cannot in 
 the crowd of other trees escape the eye of the 
 owner when he comes to examine his property. 
 He singles out at a glance the unfruitful 
 specimen, the unprofitable individual, who has 
 his station among Christ's trees, with the broad 
 leaves of profession to catch the eye, while de- 
 void of real fruit, and that, too, when basking 
 in the sunshine of his many privileges. 
 
 Let us regard our text in this light, bearing 
 in mind the two great thoughts that underlie 
 the parable, God's long-suffering, and God's 
 severity, His mercy and His judgment : the 
 certainty of mercy if we look aright for it, in 
 every moment of our lives; the certainty of 
 judgment, if by apathy and neglect, no less 
 than by active misdeeds, we forfeit the right of 
 appeal to mercy. 
 
 These three years. There is an advantage 
 in taking any clear precise period over which 
 the memory can range with less chance of 
 self-deception in its estimate of results. To 
 some they may represent the exact number of 
 years they have spent in this place, or during 
 which they have worshipped in this chapel. 
 To others they have been the last three years
 
 vi] These Three Years. 81 
 
 of their time here, the close of one distinct 
 period of probation, before the new page of 
 University life is opened with its three years, 
 its increased liberty, its graver temptations, its 
 enlarged opportunities for good. 
 
 Ask yourselves candidly, what have I done 
 with these three last years ? Can I survey 
 them without misgiving? Am I really at all 
 advanced on my way ? If I can look back on 
 some few victories gained, has it been only, 
 after all, in a sudden, fitful, transient emotion for 
 good, or in what alone will stand, a matured 
 habit of self-control and self-mastery for the 
 highest motive, namely, to conform more and 
 more to my heavenly Master's pattern, and 
 not merely because the contrary has been 
 found by experience in the end to be most 
 troublesome ? Is it still a painful effort to do 
 right ? or has it at last come to resemble an 
 instinct ? 
 
 After taking account of many disheartening 
 failures, perhaps of many sad declensions from 
 the high standard I remember to have once set 
 before me, is there a clear gain on the side of 
 improvement ? Are the feelings brought more 
 under the guidance of the judgment ? Are 
 sloth and temper and passion still the same 
 dangerous enemies that they were three years 
 ago? Not yet vanquished, but constantly mu- 
 tinous, and clamorously reasserting their do- 
 G
 
 82 These Three Years. [vi 
 
 minion ? Or have you set any definite plan 
 before you after which you have been building 
 up your character ? Are the three years in 
 the retrospect but a chaos of confusion, an 
 unlovely picture, from which you would fain 
 turn away altogether a tangled web of un- 
 chastened wishes, of unreasonable hopes, of 
 eager pursuit after one futile object exchanged 
 for others equally futile ? Oh, if so, pause, I 
 pray you ! Think 
 
 " Will God, indeed, with fragments bear, 
 Snatched late from the decaying year ? " 
 
 Will He indeed make allowance in the great 
 account for what is already wasted? These 
 three years Have not the seasons read their 
 lessons to you ? 
 
 " three winters cold 
 
 Have from the forests shook three summers' pride ; 
 
 Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd ; 
 
 Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd." 
 
 As they, in their solemn process, have gradu- 
 ally faded into each other, so are our lives im- 
 perceptibly but surely passing through their 
 several stages, and leading us on from one 
 sphere of duty to another. 
 
 If they have been years in which your cup 
 of enjoyment has been full and running over, 
 have they brought more thoughtfulness for 
 others perhaps less prosperous than your-
 
 vi] These Three Years. 83 
 
 selves ? More desire to enter into their views, 
 and help them onward by kind deed, by sym- 
 pathy or suggestion ? Have you ever thought 
 of uninterrupted prosperity as involving some 
 danger ? Have you ever taken to heart that 
 " unto whomsoever much is given, of the same 
 shall be much required ? " Or if, on the other 
 hand, you have had to bear some check or 
 rebuff have they brought with them a deeper 
 conviction that life is not all enjoyment, that 
 here we can have no continuing city ? That 
 fancied slight, that imaginary grievance, has it 
 been seen in its right proportions, and the due 
 amount of blame apportioned to self? Or 
 again, this real and unmistakable trial, which 
 must be looked in the face and met manfully, 
 has it been accepted as part of the Divine 
 scheme by which God is leading us to Him 
 as the Supreme Good ? 
 
 Thus if we review the years, neither com- 
 placently, nor again too despondently, but 
 humbly and sincerely anxious to read them 
 aright, the dry bones of the past will become 
 instinct with life, while the Divine breath 
 passes over them, and will shape themselves 
 with a definite outline into the special lesson 
 they contain for each. Again tJiese three 
 years how much might we have gained from 
 them in other ways. Mentally, how many 
 difficulties have been surmounted ? Ask your-
 
 84 These Three Years. [vi 
 
 selves. The inveterate persistence in some 
 grammatical error the inability to grasp and 
 apply some property of numbers, again and 
 again elucidated, how do these things clog and 
 hamper the learner ? And is not this as often 
 from a want of thoroughness, of zeal, and of 
 concentrated effort, from a perfunctory way of 
 going through a certain amount of routine, 
 as from any real and rooted impossibility to 
 master the difficulty once and for ever ? And 
 to mount to a higher region, granted that the 
 mind has been strengthened and informed 
 have reverence and humility grown side by 
 side with knowledge ? What spiritual harvest 
 has been gathered in from these services 
 worthy to be garnered in the everlasting store- 
 house? During these three years you have 
 heard upwards of one hundred sermons from 
 this pulpit from strangers and from friends. 
 What permanent influence have their counsels 
 left behind them ? Far be it from me to say 
 they have left none, but I would venture to 
 make a suggestion, though to some it may 
 appear too obvious and homely a one to make. 
 If each Sunday some short note or record were 
 kept, were it but the text and a few leading 
 thoughts, the word would be less likely to 
 be spoken in vain. It would, I am convinced, 
 lay a firmer hold upon your memory, and 
 through your memory upon your hearts, and
 
 vi] These Three Years. 85 
 
 good impressions would less rapidly melt 
 away and evaporate. 
 
 But to turn to the last part of the text 
 'These three years I come seeking fruit." 
 My Christian friends, is it not one of the most 
 solemn questions, What fruit would Christ find 
 in us ? Some there must be. If not that of 
 the good then that of the corrupt tree. If not 
 figs or grapes, there will be thorns and thistles, 
 the rank growth of past neglect, the conse- 
 quences of which are telling on the character 
 at this moment. 
 
 Need I dwell on the many passages where 
 the Bible enforces the absolute necessity of 
 fruit ? Need I remind you how St. Paul groups 
 the fruits of the spirit under three heads, " love, 
 joy, peace," as an inner settled habit of mind ? 
 then "honesty, gentleness, temperance," to 
 guide the whole conduct outwardly ; and in our 
 intercourse with others, " long-suffering, kind- 
 ness, and beneficence." Need I repeat his 
 question to any who have ever been the slaves 
 of lust ? " What fruit had ye then ? " Did that 
 life repay you, did it leave anything else but 
 shame and remorse and an enfeebled will be- 
 hind it ? 
 
 O think, if the Lord were suddenly to come 
 to you, could you abide the dayof His coming? 
 Think if He were to come to you whose bodies 
 are consecrated to be His Temple, and sur-
 
 86 These Three Years. [vi 
 
 prise you defiling that Temple ? or still worse, 
 teaching, encouraging, soliciting another to do 
 so ? Or think if He were to find it only swept 
 and garnished, one bad habit having died out, 
 not having been truly cast out by Him ; and 
 the chamber standing open and vacant, too 
 ready for another more fatal occupant to enter 
 in and take possession ? 
 
 Do your studies bear fruit ? The answer de- 
 pends in a large measure on yourselves ; in 
 the spirit in which you approach them ; on 
 the humility, patience, and self-surrender with 
 which you cultivate portions of the field of 
 knowledge, which may at the first survey 
 appear unattractive, but without which you 
 cannot advance. 
 
 Do your friendships bear fruit? On what 
 motives are they founded ? Do they lead you 
 into actions or haunts which a few years hence 
 you would willingly forget ? Do they stimulate 
 a healthy and rational interchange of thought 
 and debate on those questions which, however 
 old, are of ever fresh and undying interest ? Or 
 does conversation too often revolve in a dreary 
 round of petty gossip or personal scandal ? 
 
 Depend upon it, if our tree does not fructify, 
 however showy be the profusion of its foliage, 
 its very existence will be endangered. What 
 we seem to have will be taken away from us. 
 The age in which we live is emphatically a
 
 vi] These Three Years. 87 
 
 scrutinizing and a fruit-seeking age. It is in- 
 tolerant of shams, of mere leaves. It demands 
 realities. This tendency may at times show 
 too exclusive a devotion to what can be gauged 
 by tangible and immediate results. But in 
 the main it is a good sign, and honest work 
 and empty profession are more than ever rated 
 at their proper value. " Any institution " (it 
 has been truly said) " which will not march is 
 doomed. Any establishment, any order, any 
 work, any individual man, not giving proof of 
 vitality, by growth, by work, by fruit, must 
 sooner or later, and probably soon rather than 
 late, hear the stern mandate, with the axe 
 lying at its root, ' Cut it down : why cumbereth 
 it the ground.' " 
 
 Do not let us fancy that we can escape the 
 demand for fruit, or that others will not enter 
 in and reap our inherited advantages, if we are 
 occupying the good soil in vain ; if you are not 
 only bearing no fruit on it yourselves, but 
 positively hindering it from rendering the 
 return it might otherwise have rendered. For 
 this is to cumber the ground, to impoverish 
 and exhaust it, to mar and mischief it ; to in- 
 tercept the blessed air and sunshine, and to 
 draw off and uselessly absorb the fatness and 
 the nourishment around. 
 
 And again, let us ask who is the cumberer 
 of the ground, if it be not one who is with-
 
 88 These Three Years. [vi 
 
 out a spark of zeal for good : the indifferent 
 spectator rather than the earnest actor in life's 
 solemn drama, the insidious tempter, who with 
 a light jest will impede honest work in another, 
 and break down the barrier of good impressions 
 which has hitherto preserved his innocence ? 
 
 But there is another aspect of the parable 
 which may not be overlooked, and is implied 
 in the tender intercession of the vine-dresser 
 pleading for the reprieve of another year. 
 
 I mean this. Does Christ come only seeking 
 fruit ? Does He not also give the germs, the 
 means of bearing fruit ? Does he not freely be- 
 stow the sweet influence of His Holy Spirit on 
 those who ask? Is He a hard taskmaster? Does 
 He expect you to grow in goodness, unaided 
 and unrenewed ? No ! He knows our nature, 
 which He bore Himself, too well for that. " In 
 that he himself hath suffered being tempted, 
 he is able to succour them that are tempted." 
 
 But He does expect the offering of our 
 hearts. He "who in the days of his flesh 
 offered up prayers and supplications with strong 
 crying and tears," does expect that when we 
 look into ourselves and find help from within 
 hopeless, we will turn to Him for help, in order 
 to bring forth the fruits of righteousness which 
 are by Jesus Christ. And whether it be in the 
 fresh morning of youth, in the noonday toil 
 and heat of mature life, or after the calm sun-
 
 vi] These Three Years. 89 
 
 set of old age, of each one of us we know that 
 ere very long God will impartially and search- 
 ingly and finally demand fruit. As He will 
 come at the end of the ages, at the great in- 
 gathering, when the cry shall go forth, " Thrust 
 in thy sickle and reap, for the time is come for 
 thee to reap, for the earth is ripe." Evil will then 
 be no longer permitted to encumber the good 
 ground. The second part of the parable will 
 then be acted out. The term of longsuffering 
 will be past. The hour for judgment will have 
 arrived. Let us all strive with one heart and 
 with one aim to be fellow labourers with Christ 
 (what a noble title !), to be of use in our gener- 
 ation, in the true sense of that oft abused term 
 Utility : 
 
 " At least, not rotting like a weed, 
 But, having sown some generous seed, 
 Fruitful of further thought and deed, 
 To pass, when Life her light withdraws." 
 
 Yes ! then and then only for you and for 
 me if our tree have something to show better 
 than mere leaves, " if it bear fruit well ; " well 
 in moments of joy and exultation, or it may 
 be in periods of gloom, of disappointment, and 
 depression. Well in glowing health, or, if your 
 Father so wills it, in the sick chamber : well 
 in riches or in poverty, in high or low estate 
 as He shall think best ; well in Time, and well 
 to all Eternity.
 
 90 
 
 SERMON VII. 
 THE BOOK OF JOB. 1 
 
 " Thou writest bitter things against me, and makest 
 me to possess the iniquities of my youth." Job> xiii. 
 26. 
 
 UPON one of those earliest monuments, 
 the Egyptian sepulchres, there is a re- 
 presentation of a Future Judgment. The 
 deceased person advances to receive his sen- 
 tence at the throne of the god Osiris. His 
 actions are being weighed in the scales of 
 Truth. Beside them stands a god, his accuser 
 or his advocate, with a tablet in his left hand, 
 and in his right the recording pen. The 
 tribunal of the unseen world is shadowed 
 forth under forms which we know were em- 
 ployed in Egypt from the earliest times, 
 where the writing of the adversary was always 
 produced in court, and read aloud. 
 
 Those blurred and faded, yet still surviving, 
 colours speak to us out of the long past ages. 
 And whether we regard them as vestiges of 
 
 1 February 28th, 1875 5 a d at Durham Cathedral, 
 February i8th, 1894.
 
 vn] The Book of Job. 9 1 
 
 some very early revelation, or whether we 
 trace them to a belief deeply seated in every 
 human heart, a forecast of a future certainty, 
 in either case, how forcibly do they illustrate 
 those words, "Thou writest bitter things 
 against me." 
 
 " Thou writest bitter things against me, and 
 makest me to possess the iniquities of my 
 youth." Yes ! Such (varying no doubt in 
 widely differing degrees), must be the universal 
 confession. One, and one only, could ever 
 say "The Prince of this world cometh and 
 hath nothing in me," no weak yielding; no 
 point whereon to fasten his attack. Such 
 must be the universal language of Con- 
 science. 
 
 And now reflect what manner of man it was 
 that spoke these words. If of one of the best 
 of men, steadily surveying his former life, they 
 were more or less true, how much more must 
 they be true of many, whose past, as it is out 
 of sight, so it is out of mind ; how much 
 more should a passage like this, holding up 
 the mirror of Scripture to the heart and the 
 memory, stir the lethargic and arrest the in- 
 different, when one who takes his stand upon 
 his general integrity, and will not relinquish it, 
 when even he thus frankly acknowledges his 
 inherent corruption. For Job is described on 
 no less than Divine testimony as " a perfect
 
 92 The Book of Job. [vn 
 
 and upright man, without his like on all the 
 earth," as " one that feared God and eschewed 
 evil." He is brought before us at the opening 
 of that wonderful Book as the friend of the 
 poor, of unaffected piety, humble when in 
 wealth and power, combining in his own 
 person the utmost goodness with the highest 
 degree of earthly happiness. His patience 
 under suffering has passed into a proverb. 
 
 The outlines of the story which follows are 
 depicted in colours too vivid to be effaced 
 from the recollection of any who has once 
 read it. Look at the malice of the fiend who 
 in the heavenly council suggests that all this 
 goodness is not disinterested. He is permitted 
 to put forth his hand and try him. Then a 
 storm of successive calamities falls upon him 
 with startling, with bewildering rapidity, ruin 
 of house, destruction of family, utter desola- 
 tion. He stands the trial, but a second time 
 the heavenly council is held, and a severer test 
 is allowed to be applied, a fresh stroke felt in 
 his own person. He feels the direst disease of 
 the East in its most malignant form. And 
 last, and far worst of all to a warm and gener- 
 ous heart, the agony caused by the defection 
 of those nearest and dearest to him, the im- 
 putation by friends (at first through dark hints, 
 and at last by definite statement), of a plague- 
 spot hidden in his bosom, of a dark under-
 
 vn] The Book of Job. 93 
 
 current of crime, concealed beneath the smooth 
 surface of his outward prosperity. 1 
 
 What think you must all this have been ! 
 And observe, the sting of the taunt lay in this, 
 that it was grounded on an appearance of 
 truth. Ordinary experience does seem to bear 
 out his friends' accusations. And in those 
 early days there was the traditional belief in a 
 speedy retribution overtaking the wicked. It 
 pervades much of the Psalms. Misery is in 
 most cases the fruit of a vicious life. Pro- 
 sperity does generally attend Virtue. Generally, 
 but not invariably. There lay their mistake 
 in overstating this view of life (in making 
 prosperity an absolute test of God's favour, an 
 indispensable proof of inner righteousness). 
 And in urging this, they are led further and 
 further away from the truth, into intemperate 
 language, while he grows calmer, more col- 
 lected, and more resigned. We know that 
 virtue is not always rewarded in life ; that 
 sorrow and misfortune are often parts of God's 
 dealing with us in ways which we can only half 
 understand. We know that they do not 
 necessarily prove the commission of sin, 
 for it is but an imperfect account of them 
 which makes their only object a penal one. 
 They have other and not less precious pur- 
 
 1 Eliphaz specifies inhumanity, avarice, and abuse of 
 power.
 
 94 The Book of Job. [vn 
 
 poses : to try our faith, to enlighten, and to 
 humble. 
 
 But are Job's friends the only persons who 
 have hastily argued from suffering to guilt ? 
 Christ himself, you remember, on more than 
 one occasion rebuked such superficial reason- 
 ing : " Suppose ye that these Galileans were 
 sinners above all the Galileans, because they 
 suffered such things ? " " Or those'eighteen on 
 whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, 
 think ye that they were sinners above all men 
 that dwelt in Jerusalem ? I tell you, 'Nay ; 
 but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise 
 perish." And again, when asked, " Master, 
 who did sin, this man or his parents, that he 
 was born blind ? " did He not check the spirit 
 in which the question was put ? " Neither hath 
 this man sinned, nor his parents : but that the 
 works of God should be made manifest in 
 him." Can we be surprised if the complete 
 solution was hidden from Job ? It is only in 
 part revealed to us. The answer at last 
 granted was, that God's wisdom is indissolubly 
 bound up with His justice. Why Evil is per- 
 mitted to exist at all, why it visits the righteous, 
 this he is not told. Enough to know that all 
 is well in the hands of its Creator. A higher 
 answer is to be read by us in the light of the 
 Sacrifice on Calvary, and of all that is involved 
 in the mystery of the Cross.
 
 vn] The Book of Job. 95 
 
 Tortured as Job is at once by outward 
 calamity and by inward distraction, feeling 
 each upbraiding speech as a fresh wound, 
 what wonder if his language is not wholly 
 blameless, and if he is led on to utter some 
 rash words, as he admits in his confession, 
 " Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust 
 and ashes." What wonder while he gropes 
 after some support, if 
 
 " oft his cogitations sink as low 
 As, through the abysses of a joyless heart 
 The heaviest plummet of despair can go ? " 
 
 But not so. Still his faith remains unbroken, 
 " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." 
 Again and again does he call on the great 
 Reader of hearts to witness that he is innocent 
 of the sins so cruelly insinuated, and which he 
 could not have admitted without hypocrisy. 
 
 And thus there comes the great controversy 
 in which "God and man are brought face to face 
 as it were in the desert." Thus it is that good 
 is brought out of the machinations of Satan, 
 and the shallow judgments of human ignorance. 
 Thus the ways of God are justified to man. 
 
 Certainly there is much in this book to 
 engage our attention and enlist our sympathy : 
 much, too, I venture to think, that may check 
 the restlessness and sober the thoughts of us 
 "in these last days." Does it not speak to 
 us calmly, dispassionately, but with intense
 
 96 The Book of Job. [vn 
 
 earnestness, on the most absorbing topic that 
 can occupy a rational being ? the position in 
 which he stands to his Maker ? 
 
 Again, to glance at another portion of it : 
 Has the mighty advance of Science, with all 
 its latest discoveries in the world of Nature, 
 and especially in its surprising additions to 
 our knowledge of the heavenly bodies, has 
 all this detracted in the smallest degree from 
 the sublimity and the truth of those majestic 
 chapters in which God the Creator answers 
 Job out of the whirlwind ? x In statement and 
 in form the book may be antiquated, but in 
 spirit it will never grow old. 
 
 1 "The attempt which is here made to group to- 
 gether the overwhelming marvels of nature, to employ 
 them for the purpose of providing an approximate im- 
 pression of the majesty of the Creator, though de- 
 pendent upon the child-like, but at the same time 
 deeply poetical, view of nature prevalent in antiquity, 
 still retains not only its full poetical beauty, but also an 
 imperishable religious worth. For though many of the 
 phenomena here propounded as inexplicable, are re- 
 ferred by modern science to their proximate causes, 
 and comprehended under the general laws of nature, 
 yet these laws themselves, by their unalterable stability 
 and potent operation only the more evoke our amaze- 
 ment, and will never cease to inspire the religious 
 mind with adoring wonder of the infinite Power, 
 Wisdom, and Love by which the individual laws, and 
 forces, and elements are sustained and ruled." DILL- 
 MANN, quoted by Driver, " Introduction to the Litera- 
 ure of the Old Testament," ch. ix.
 
 vn] The Book of Job. 97 
 
 And can we forget that it is the book whose 
 language is interwoven with one of our most 
 solemn and beautiful services ? Can we forget 
 that declaration of the sufferer's unfaltering 
 and inextinguishable reliance on a Redeemer, 
 however dimly descried, whom " his eyes shall 
 behold " which greets the mourner at the 
 churchyard gate wherever our English Prayer 
 Book is used ? Can we forget that simple yet 
 venerable record of man's precarious existence, 
 which again by the graveside, follows after 
 the triumphant aspiration of St. Paul, and 
 blends with that inspired message from the 
 unseen world, " I heard a voice from heaven, 
 saying unto me, Write, from henceforth 
 blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, 
 even so saith the Spirit, for they rest from 
 their labours." 
 
 Strong are the claims which this Book has 
 upon our reverence, and beyond this, it stands 
 alone in Hebrew literature. Around it have 
 gathered various questions of great interest as 
 to the age to which it is to be referred, and 
 the scene in which the story is laid, which 
 cannot be adequately treated here. 
 
 But one of these should be perhaps men- 
 tioned ; it is this. Is it after all only a 
 parable ? a weighty and solemn parable, 
 indeed, but one that is wholly devoid of 
 historical interest a pure invention (an idea 
 H
 
 98 The Book of Job. [vn 
 
 which was first broached in the Talmud) or 
 does it describe a real character and actual 
 events ? 
 
 Probably the truth lies between the two 
 extremes. It cannot be a literal history, for 
 the dialogue is too subtle, too weighted with 
 thought and argument, to have been ex- 
 temporized ; it is the result of leisure and 
 reflection. Nor again is it entirely the work 
 of the imagination ; for Job is spoken of by 
 Ezekiel as a real person, and since the author 
 of the book writes as a teacher, he would have 
 succeeded better by taking a popular character 
 as his hero than one who was unfamiliar. 
 But on neither view does the Book lose its 
 value to us. Its moral teaching does not 
 stand or fall with the literal accuracy of the 
 details, any more than does the moral value 
 of the parable of Dives and Lazarus depend 
 upon the reality of the subjects of that aweful 
 picture. 
 
 Or if we believe it to be in the main a pro- 
 duct of creative genius, but resting on historical 
 fact, having a basis of truth preserved by 
 tradition (as was Luther's opinion) we need 
 not be embarrassed. We need not perplex 
 ourselves by trying to disentangle from the 
 original tradition what is due to a later age. 
 In either case it speaks to us as nothing less 
 than the voice of God.
 
 vii] The Book of Job. 99 
 
 But you may say, I grant this story of one 
 who lived and suffered long ago in a remote 
 corner of the globe, is indeed deeply pathetic. 
 It is, if you will, a mighty tragedy ; but is 
 it, you may ask, of any great value to us 
 Christians ? 
 
 I will endeavour to point out one or two 
 ways in which it may be so, both generally 
 and in the special warning of the text. 
 
 I. Never suffer yourselves to despise any 
 human being however abject his lot, however 
 degraded his condition. It is not unneces- 
 sary to remind you of this, enjoying as you do 
 so largely the comforts of wealth, and liable 
 as you are both here and in later life, when 
 you will have great opportunities, to use it 
 well, or to forget the poor with their slender 
 store and their hard struggle for existence. 
 
 Worldly blessings come and go. Weighed 
 in the balance against integrity of life, against 
 purity of purpose, they are absolutely as 
 nothing. That miserable man begging in the 
 streets whom you feel tempted to pass by 
 with scorn, has still something in him which 
 demands respect. He bears the human form 
 which Christ deigned to bear. He has an 
 immortal spirit, for which Christ lived and 
 died. We may dismiss him with the thought 
 that perhaps he deserves his present state ; 
 but there is in him the possibility of restora-
 
 ioo The Book of Job. [vn 
 
 tion ; at least we know not his trials in the 
 past. We know not his scant measure of 
 opportunity compared with our own. We 
 cannot tell what may be in store for him 
 hereafter. 
 
 Sometimes over the face of some miserable 
 person, as the mists of wretchedness clear off, 
 and the end is unmistakeably drawing near, 
 there comes a dignity which it never wore 
 before. This I have seen, and a new light has 
 flashed upon those wondrous words : " Who 
 shall change the body of our humiliation, that 
 it may be fashioned like unto His glorious 
 body." 
 
 I look upon Job in prosperity as the 
 pattern priest and head of a family, who feels 
 that there exists something far beyond earthly 
 comfort, and recognizes its certain danger, its 
 proneness to self-reliance, to softness, and to 
 wantonness. Very touching is his anxiety for 
 his sons, and the glimpse we have of his 
 sanctifying them, and offering sacrifices for 
 them after the days of their feasting : " For it 
 may be," he said, " that my sons have sinned 
 and cursed God in their hearts." 
 
 I look upon him again in adversity as a 
 type of Him, to whom no shade of human 
 misery was unfamiliar, in sympathy at least if 
 not in actual experience, "whose lovers and 
 friends were put away from him," who was
 
 vii] The Book of Job. 101 
 
 " made perfect by suffering," who was " de- 
 spised and rejected of men, smitten of God 
 and afflicted ... a man of sorrows and ac- 
 quainted with grief." 
 
 II. Another lesson we may learn, I think, 
 from this Book, is that the rule of duty is the 
 best remedy for the perplexities of doubt. All 
 paths of inquiry if pursued in a proper spirit 
 will emerge at last into light, the light which 
 shines down upon a well-spent life. " Man is 
 born not to solve the problem of the universe 
 (as has been well said), but to find out where 
 the problem begins, and then to restrain him- 
 self within the limits of the comprehensible." l 
 Everyone who reflects has some time or other 
 been startled at the apparent inequalities of 
 fortune ; but even where the union of good- 
 ness and suffering is beyond all doubt, let 
 nothing make us fret ourselves at this, or 
 forget that we are in God's kingdom, and 
 that all things work together for good to 
 them that love Him. Many problems in life 
 are difficult. The wisest cannot need not 
 attain to them ; but there is one thing also 
 most difficult to attain unto, and yet which 
 we must strive to reach, and that is Heaven. 
 And however dark may be the riddle of this 
 painful world, we have light enough if we look 
 
 1 " Goethe's Conversations with Eckermann," Oxen- 
 ford's Translation, p. 161.
 
 102 The Book of Job. [vn 
 
 for it in the right direction, to guide our steps 
 thither. " The sphere of active Duty is wide, 
 sufficing, and ennobling." 
 
 " Thou who art Victory and Law 
 
 When empty terrors overawe ; 
 
 From vain temptations dost set free, 
 
 And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity." 
 
 Lastly, to follow this thought one step 
 further and clothe it if possible in a definite 
 form. Shun all you know to be dangerous. 
 If Job could use the words of our text ; if 
 David, after saying in child-like simplicity (as 
 he could before his great sin) " I have kept 
 the ways of the Lord, I have an eye unto all 
 his laws," could yet in the very next verse say, 
 "/ eschewed mine own zvzckedness" and thus 
 recognize an inherent sinfulness, against which 
 he had ever to be on his guard, who can feel 
 himself safe ? Whatever it be, lay your finger 
 upon any one festering sore and bring it 
 before the Great Physician. It may be some- 
 thing locked in the secret chamber of your 
 own heart unknown to your dearest friend. 
 It is surprising how the expulsion of any one 
 noxious habit can purify the whole moral 
 atmosphere of a man. One thorough act of 
 self-searching, one calm prayer, one chapter 
 or one psalm, read as if we were children 
 listening to a loving father, one high and holy 
 thought garnered and treasured up against
 
 vn] The Book of Job. 103 
 
 temptation, oh, how much may even these 
 accomplish ! 
 
 And then think again how God must be 
 offended by sin, provoked every day by it. 
 " Such as be foolish shall not stand in Thy 
 sight." It is only by His Holy Spirit working 
 in our conscience that we can see the true 
 nature of wrong acts. Oh suffer Him then to 
 convince you now, so shall he not convict you 
 eternally ! " Thou writest bitter things against 
 me ! " Yes, there lies the true significance of 
 sin, to which the heathen could never pene- 
 trate. It is not merely a missing the mark, a 
 falling short of the highest ideal of beauty. 
 It is not only depravity, i.e. a perversion of 
 man's being ; it is not only defilement it is 
 all this, but it is infinitely more. It is not 
 mere discovering or branding by society that 
 embitters it. "It is against thee, thee only 
 that I have sinned and done this evil in thy 
 sight." 
 
 I might dwell upon what it must be " to 
 possess the iniquities of youth," upon their 
 hampering and enfeebling effects, upon the 
 shame inevitably caused before companions 
 by the memories of a past made far less lovely 
 than it might have been ; upon the tears of 
 parents ; upon the terrible power gained over 
 their victims by those who tempt and are 
 listened to ; upon the difficulty of breaking
 
 104 The Book of Job. [vn 
 
 the fatal spell and escaping free from its 
 influence. But I forbear to do so. Rather 
 would I point to the strong stimulus, the 
 sustaining support, the sweet comfort there is 
 to be found in thoughts of good together done 
 in boyhood ; and to the special blessings 
 promised to those who have set God always 
 before them. 
 
 May Christ's precious atonement blot out 
 the handwriting of anything that is against 
 any one of us ! May he take it out of the way 
 and nail it to His Cross ! May it never be 
 yours to say, when you revisit Eton, " Thou 
 writest bitter things against me." 
 
 And if memory will at times haunt us with 
 the thought of " the iniquities of our youth," 
 let us bear that pain meekly, as part of sin's 
 penalty, remembering our old faults, not so as 
 to give way to despair, but so as to abhor them 
 more thoroughly, and trusting that at last this 
 bitterness too will cease in that high world where 
 there shall be no more curse, and therefore no 
 more torturing recollections, but where, when 
 we wake up after God's likeness, we shall be 
 satisfied with it, and shall hear His voice 
 saying, " Behold I make all things new."
 
 105 
 
 SERMON VIII. 
 LIGHT, NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL. 1 
 
 " With thee is the well of life, and in thy light shall 
 we see light." Psalm xxxvi. 9. 
 
 WE may never know for certain the 
 author of this Psalm, but we feel in- 
 stinctively that the words are no mere human 
 utterance. They recur again and again to the 
 memory, like the cadence of some familiar 
 music. Can we wonder that this verse was 
 among St. Augustine's favourite passages? For 
 it contains two great words, suggests two deep 
 and wide subjects, Life and Light, God as the 
 origin of Life, God as the source of Light. 
 Under both of these images we remember that 
 Christ has spoken of Himself, " I am the 
 resurrection and the life," " I am the light 
 of the world," and these two figures are com- 
 bined by St. John in the opening of his Gospel, 
 " In him was life, and the life was the light of 
 men." How* much, then, is wrapped up in 
 these few words ! To-day we will venture to 
 
 1 February 6th, 1876.
 
 io6 Light, Natural and Spiritual, [vm 
 
 speak but of one of these subjects, that con- 
 tained in the latter part of the verse, " In thy 
 light shall we see light" 
 
 Let me ask you to pause and consider for a 
 few minutes the marvellous nature of light. 
 
 How wonderful, may we not say how divine 
 a thing it is ! Few of us but must have felt 
 this who have ever reflected about it at all. 
 To the sick and weakly how cheering and in- 
 vigorating ; to the prisoner the only solace 
 perhaps that he has, is the sunbeam glimmer- 
 ing through a crevice in his dungeon. And to 
 all that are free and in health, after long 
 periods of gloom, of dimness, and of depression, 
 how does the glorious sun coming forth from 
 his chamber restore the spirits, quicken the 
 languid pulse, and add a fresh zest to existence. 
 In the brief days of winter how we cherish its 
 rays, and how eagerly, as the year proceeds, 
 do we hail each indication that the hours of 
 light are beginning to gain upon those of dark- 
 ness ! It is the absence of sunshine through 
 nine dreary months that is the chief trial to 
 those who have to winter in the arctic seas. 
 
 And what a world of hidden and forgotten 
 life around us does it reanimate ! For almost 
 all life, indeed, light is a first necessity. It is 
 true that animals can subsist for a time with- 
 out it, but in most cases they soon lose health 
 and pine away. It has been ascertained by
 
 vin] Light, Natural and Spiritual. 107 
 
 the latest researches, that even at a vast depth 
 the bed of the ocean contains a varied mass 
 of animal existence. But still, it is of the 
 very lowest type, and the creatures which 
 tenant that dark abode, manifest scarcely any 
 vital activity, while it would seem that no 
 vegetation can thrive without some, though it 
 be but ever so scanty a light. Below 100 
 fathoms a very rapid diminution of such life 
 takes place. At the depth of 150 fathoms 
 very few ordinary seaweeds are met with, and 
 below this depth almost all traces of them dis- 
 appear. 
 
 Think again of the vast space over which 
 light has to travel, and at the same time of its 
 rapidity. Fast as our planet sweeps along its 
 orbit, Light travels about 10,000 times faster. 
 Are not both of these facts marvellous ? The 
 enormous distances which it traverses while its 
 transmission seems to us instantaneous, and 
 again, the enormous speed with which those 
 distances are accomplished? 
 
 What wonder, then, if impressed only by 
 the mere obvious properties of light, the 
 greatest poets have dwelt upon it, have created 
 images of new worlds by ideas and impressions 
 with which it supplied them. It illuminates 
 Dante's noble poem. Into his description of 
 Paradise nothing gross or earthly is admitted. 
 " Light, simple, unalloyed, unshadowed.eternal,
 
 io8 Light, Natural and Spiritual, [vm 
 
 never fails him as the expression of gra- 
 dations of bliss." x And who can forget the 
 words of Milton, " Hail holy light, offspring 
 of heaven first born " ? Written though 
 they were twenty years after blindness had 
 settled upon him, how exquisitely true are 
 they ! How full is his memory of the blessings 
 of that " sovran vital lamp," how keen his 
 sensibility to its power, and still how resigned 
 is his prayer ! 
 
 And yet little did he know of the wonders 
 of light, compared with what was to be revealed. 
 It was not till the year after Milton's death 
 (1675) that Sir Isaac Newton published his 
 discovery that white light is a compound, a 
 compound of many different colours. And 
 since Newton's time, and more especially of 
 late years, what a series of discoveries has 
 there been ! what astonishing truths have been 
 established by gradual, by patient, by cautious 
 observation ! Think for a moment of the 
 secret revealed by those coloured bands, the 
 rainbow-tinted streak of the solar spectrum. 
 That the delicate examination and minute 
 mapping out of a ray of light passed through 
 a prism, and of the dark lines which cross and 
 break those bands of light, that this should 
 reveal the chemical constitution of our sun, 
 millions of miles as it is removed from us, 
 1 Dean Church.
 
 vm] Light, Natural and Spiritual. 109 
 
 that it should be possible to assert the existence 
 in its atmosphere of metals in a state of vapour, 
 might have seemed not long since the wildest 
 of dreams. And yet this is only a part of what 
 has been done. For the same principle has 
 been extended to the stars. How amazing, 
 then, is this great discovery ! Those dark 
 spaces and gaps are not the result of caprice, 
 but of strict, unerring law. They point to 
 particular rays which are absent, which have 
 been arrested in their passage, and prove that 
 the substance which gives out that kind of 
 light is now burning in the sun. How truly 
 has it been said, " A ray of light is a world in 
 miniature ! " 
 
 These reflections but glance at the stupen- 
 dous results of the investigations by which the 
 astronomer has penetrated almost into the 
 very laboratory of heat and light. The sole 
 object had in view in making them, and which 
 I trust will justify them in this place, is that 
 they may lead us to consider with feelings of 
 more and more reverence what must be the 
 Author of Light, what must be essential, 
 original, underived Light, TO fo5f TO axn&vo'v. 
 "He that made the eye, shall not he see?" 
 and He that spake the word, the very first 
 word, remember, that is recorded to have been 
 pronounced, " Let there be light ! " shall there 
 be any darkness at all in Him ? Shall it not
 
 no Light, Natural and Spiritual, [vm 
 
 be emphatically true that in Him, in the 
 fullest and deepest sense, shall we see Light ? 
 
 Let us then from this thought strive to carry 
 home, each of us, something that may brighten 
 our common days and seemingly prosaic cares, 
 whether it be greater clearness and definite- 
 ness of vision in times of perplexity, or solace 
 under affliction, or fresh strength and support 
 to lift the burden from our heart and to raise 
 us above our lower nature, whenever temper 
 or passion, or self in any of its subtle forms 
 would assert its dominion over us. 
 
 I. In thy Light, O everlasting Father, shall 
 we see Light. " God is Light, says St. John, 
 adding as is his manner when he would 
 strengthen a statement the denial of its 
 opposite " and in Him is no darkness at all." 
 What means he by this ? " In the material 
 world, darkness is the absence of light ; in the 
 spiritual world darkness, that is, untruthful- 
 ness, deceit, falsehood, is the absence of God." 
 For does not Light, of all things, most readily 
 lend itself to such a figure, from its purity, 
 from its beauty, from its life-sustaining proper- 
 ties? St. Paul can scarce find language to 
 describe the desperate state of the Ephesians, 
 so long as they were aliens, strangers having 
 no hope, and without God in the world. Of 
 the same Ephesians, when they had washed 
 their robes, he says, " Now are ye light, walk
 
 vm] Light, Natural and Spiritual. 1 1 1 
 
 as children of the light." Yes, out of God all 
 is, and must be, darkness. There may be a 
 glitter, a delusive appearance, but it will fade 
 away, it will not bear the test, if brought into 
 contact with that holiness. Just as the 
 brightest light that we can produce is as 
 nothing to sunlight ; so are all such specious 
 imitations. There is a light (the limelight) so 
 brilliant that we cannot look at it, any more 
 than we can gaze unharmed at the sun. But 
 if you place it in front of the sun, and look at 
 it through a darkened glass, it is reduced to a 
 black spot. So is it with man's most splendid 
 triumphs. The highest intellectual enlighten- 
 ment, the keenest human joy, the noblest 
 achievements, the most fascinating society, 
 what are they all when viewed in comparison 
 with the intensity of Divine Light? And 
 what is their worth in themselves, excepting 
 so far as they partake of, and are confessed to 
 depend upon it, as their sanction and their 
 primal source ? 
 
 Often in history has " an age of light, light 
 without love, glared on the aching sight." 
 The period preceding the preaching of Chris- 
 tianity was such an age. " Across the night 
 of Paganism " it has been said, " Philosophy 
 flitted on, like the lantern-fly of the tropics, a 
 light to itself, and an ornament, but alas ! no 
 more than an ornament to the surrounding
 
 H2 Light, Natural and Spiritual, [vin 
 
 darkness." The error consisted in attempting 
 to reach, and cleanse, and convert the heart 
 through the understanding, instead of appeal- 
 ing in the first instance to the heart. 
 
 Have you not felt it to be true that all is 
 darkness out of God ? Once habituate your- 
 self to rely upon your own unaided powers 
 "to walk" (as Isaiah says)" in the light of 
 your fire, and in the sparks that you have 
 kindled," to use His name lightly, to sneer at 
 holy things, to trifle with daily prayer, to 
 harbour the thought that this delightful life of 
 yours is not God's gift, or rather a precious 
 trust to be demanded with interest, but yours 
 to use or abuse, to ennoble or degrade as you 
 think fit, and do not the avenues of light 
 become stopped and clogged from that 
 moment ? O beware, I pray you, lest without 
 His rays streaming in upon your soul to en- 
 lighten it, it remains as it must then remain 
 a confused chaos of wayward propensities. 
 " If the light that is in thee be darkness, how 
 great is that darkness ! " 
 
 II. In thy Light, O Christ, shall we see 
 light. How hopeless, how impossible, to have 
 light apart from Him, in whom " dwelleth all 
 the fulness of the Godhead bodily!" All 
 that was best and loftiest in the utterances of 
 the sages of old, was due to the true Light, 
 which lighteth every man that cometh into
 
 vm] Light) Natiiral and Spiritual. 113 
 
 the world. He is " the express image of the 
 Father," no mere reflection, but standing in 
 the same relation to .Him as does the sun- 
 light to the sun. By filling ourselves with the 
 effulgence that streams from His life on earth, 
 His intensity of love and self-sacrifice, His 
 sweetness and His strength, we shall draw in 
 light that will reach beyond the region of the 
 heart. The eyes of the understanding also 
 will be opened to welcome the truth. We 
 shall no longer wander away into the dusky 
 wilderness of sin, wherever the ignis fatuus 
 of our own fancies and follies chance to lead us. 
 Each day will be felt more and more to be 
 stamping us whose we are, and reminding us 
 to whom we should consecrate every faculty 
 we possess, every blessing we enjoy, every 
 trial it may be good for us to undergo. 
 
 III. In thy Light, Holy Ghost, tlie Com- 
 forter, sJiall we see light. Can it be that any 
 true insight, any abiding influence for good 
 shall exist apart from Him ? Think of the 
 prayer in the Confirmation Service, for His 
 sevenfold gifts ! Through Him you will be 
 enabled, not only to walk in the Light, but to 
 be centres of Light to others. Few minds, 
 one has said, are sunlike, even among the 
 best. The generality are content to absorb 
 light, without reflecting it. To be eager to be 
 illuminated, to resolve not to be left to our 
 I
 
 H4 Light, Natural and Spiritual, [vm 
 
 own phantoms, this is, indeed, a great step. 
 But it is not all. All the grandest types of 
 character, prophets and saints like Elijah, and 
 John the Baptist, and St. Paul, or like Anselm 
 and Bernard in mediaeval times, have been 
 such sources of light to the world around 
 them. And though few can rival them, still 
 all in their degree may strive to burn like 
 lamps ; to shine with steady rays from the 
 heaven of noble thoughts, and the serenity of 
 calm and well-spent lives. 
 
 Were it not well to set before yourselves 
 such an ideal ; to be fired with such an 
 ambition now, while you are young ? Not to 
 dim and enfeeble, but to brighten and hand 
 on brighter to others, the original light within 
 you ? 
 
 Believe me there are very many ways in 
 which this is possible. 
 
 First, there is the Lamp of Intelligence, of 
 clear and piercing insight, which sees things 
 as they really are, and calls things by their 
 true names ; which will not knowingly be 
 misled, or lured on into what is questionable ; 
 which can set its proper value upon what is 
 fleeting, as compared with what is abiding 
 and precious. This gift of an unclouded 
 vision is the privilege of all in early youth. 
 But it is a birthright far too often forfeited 
 and lightly esteemed. This Lamp, if you are
 
 vm] Light, Natural and Spiritual. 115 
 
 careful to trim it, and nourish it with all that 
 is healthy in what you see and read and 
 meditate upon ; if you guard it from being 
 extinguished by violent gusts of appetite or 
 passion, if you pray God daily to keep it fresh 
 and undimmed, this Lamp of Intelligence, 
 and of a right judgment in all things will 
 enable you not only to steer your own bark, 
 but to help others to shape their course 
 aright. You will see the dangers that beset 
 them ; you will speak a good word in season ; 
 you will not look on with neglect and indif- 
 ference, whilst they drift on helplessly upon 
 the rocks and shoals, which you may have 
 escaped, but by which their young life is still 
 encompassed. 
 
 Then again, there is the Lamp of Learning : 
 the thirst for knowledge, the desire to have a 
 firm grasp and possession of some one portion, 
 whatever it be, and be it ever so small, of the 
 vast and ever-increasing field of science. This 
 is a lamp, which here at least ought never to be 
 in danger of being extinguished. In pursuing 
 this, our central aim, let all of us work together. 
 How much we can all of us learn from each 
 other ! pupils from the experience of tutors ; 
 tutors from the daily sight of and intercourse 
 with boyhood, gaining sympathy with its 
 struggles, interest in its pursuits, and elasticity 
 and fresh vigour for their work !
 
 1 1 6 Light, Natural and Spiritual, [vin 
 
 And there is a third way in which we may 
 both see the light, and be centres of light to 
 others. I mean the Lamp of Holiness, of an 
 innocent and unstained life. Whatever else 
 we study, let us study " holiness, without which 
 no man shall see the Lord." This is absolutely 
 necessary for any genuine light. The Lamp 
 of Learning will burn but faintly and feebly 
 if it be not fed by daily prayer to God that 
 He may sanctify it with His Spirit : 
 
 " Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
 But more of reverence in us dwell." 
 
 One of the most profound scholars of the 
 seventeenth century, Casaubon, never began 
 his morning labours without first studying the 
 Scriptures, and never closes the record of his 
 daily work without thankfulness for having 
 accomplished what he had done (avv eo). This 
 is within the reach of all. Genius, great accom- 
 plishments, high place in the world, may or 
 may not be yours. But all, if they strive 
 earnestly after them, can aim at moral courage, 
 at gentleness, at sincerity, at guilelessness, 
 without a misgiving that their efforts will 
 prove utterly vain. 
 
 One further characteristic of this lamp is, 
 that it glows, with an ever-increasing bright- 
 ness, in those who value and cherish it. Have 
 you not felt, after some more than ordinarily
 
 vm] LigJit, Natural and Spiritual. 117 
 
 severe struggle with yourself, after communing 
 with your own heart and in your chamber, 
 that times of refreshing, times of illumination 
 have come, and that you have been able to say 
 and feel as you have never said or felt before, 
 With tJiee is the well of life, and in Thy Light 
 have I seen light ? 
 
 Pray then for this heavenly guidance more 
 and more ! Feel that you must go forth to do 
 battle with your foes, arrayed in a panoply of 
 divinely-wrought armour, and with a radiant 
 light upon your head, kindled by no human 
 hand. Feed your Lamp with the oil of prayer, 
 and well-directed study of the Sacred Volume. 
 
 " Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a 
 light unto my path." To revert for a moment 
 to those wonderful discoveries of our times : 
 if by intense and patient examination of those 
 lines in the solar ray fresh knowledge is being 
 every day wrested from the far-off realms of 
 space, so by reading the highest page of revela- 
 tion, may not we too penetrate nearer into 
 the secret of Christ's life, and see what we 
 must be, if we would be like Him, as He bids 
 us be? 
 
 Yes ! We must become like him. Let us 
 ask ourselves in all seriousness, Am I trying in 
 any degree to reflect in my own mind the 
 mind which was in Christ Jesus ? Am I sur- 
 prised, startled, ashamed, to feel at times how
 
 1 1 8 Light, Natural and Spiritiial. [vin 
 
 very unlike Him I am? Do I suffer any counter- 
 feit religion to pass current for His Word ? Am 
 I very watchful lest by dallying with what is 
 doubtful in thought, or fatal in act, by letting 
 the little cloud of any one pernicious habit rise 
 above the horizon and gather silent force, the 
 soul's fair sunshine may become (as too surely 
 it will then become) darkened and overcast ? 
 
 It is with a fine perception of the truth," that 
 only by the spiritually-minded can spiritual 
 things be discerned, that Tennyson has de- 
 scribed the various fortunes of those knights 
 who rashly vowed they would go in search of 
 the Holy Grail. Alas ! they had not counted 
 the cost when they sallied forth into the wilder- 
 ness. How many of them followed wandering 
 fires, and were lost in quagmires ! How few 
 returned scarce a tithe of that goodly com- 
 pany, weary and faint and footsore, confessing 
 sorrowfully that the quest was not for them. 
 For one knight alone was the mystic vision 
 reserved. Yes ! so it is, and ever will be. To 
 Isaiah, to Ezekiel, to the aged apostle in Pat- 
 mos, to such as can lose themselves to save 
 themselves who live, even here, in an element 
 of heaven, and even here can catch its melo- 
 dies whose senses are quickened, and whose 
 mortal armour is transfigured and made light, 
 to such as these is it granted to pierce behind 
 the veil. In Thy light shall he see light, whose
 
 vm] Light, Natural and Spiritual. 119 
 
 heart is pure, whose example is a daily comfort 
 and encouragement to his friends, whose path 
 shineth more and more unto the perfect day, 
 because he humbly and steadfastly pursues to 
 the end the one fixed goal. Of him, when at 
 last the shadows seem, but only seem, to close 
 around him (for he is passing from shadows 
 to substance) of him can it be confidently said, 
 
 " Oh, just and faithful knight of God ! 
 Ride on ! the prize is near ! "
 
 120 
 
 SERMON IX. 
 THE REGULATION OF THOUGHTS. 1 
 
 " Try me, O God, and seek the ground of my heart : 
 prove me, and examine my thoughts." Psalm cxxxix. 
 23- 
 
 EXAMINE my thoughts, O God ! How 
 few of us here really desire that ! How 
 few would endure such an ordeal ! And this, 
 whatever we understand by thought, whether 
 we take it in its stricter sense, as the faculty in 
 us by which we reflect, compare, and reason ; 
 or whether we employ the word in its wider 
 and larger sense of the whole region of the 
 mind, so as to include what the Bible calls 
 " the imaginations of the heart," all those de- 
 vices, notions, purposes, which we are so con- 
 stantly forming. 
 
 When we pause, and turn our gaze inward 
 upon our thoughts (using the word as we will 
 do in its broader and scriptural sense), may we 
 not well be filled with wonder at what they 
 reveal, and almost with despair at what the 
 regulation of them involves ? These thoughts 
 
 1 October 5th, 1879.
 
 ix] The Regulation of Thoughts. 121 
 
 of ours (are we not sometimes tempted to say ?) 
 so impalpable, so fugitive, so evanescent, one 
 flash of which often imperils our best pur- 
 poses ; how are we to command them ? For 
 word and act we are responsible, but can we 
 be accountable for what seems to come and go 
 independent of our own will ? Shall we really 
 be judged for these hereafter ? 
 
 Think what stages there are in the growth 
 and history of a single mind. Think, alas ! by 
 what gusts of passion it is swayed ! To what 
 stagnation it is reduced by sloth or by the pre- 
 dominance of the sensual element. What a 
 paralysis comes over it at times, perhaps for 
 long intervals, through neglect, and lethargy, 
 through frivolous and unworthy habits ! What 
 breaks and chasms there are in the plans and 
 projects of even the noblest minds ! some of 
 them being abandoned, others taken up in 
 their place mere sketches and outlines ! how 
 many are begun and never carried out un- 
 ravelled at the end of a month or a year, like 
 the fabled web that seemed destined never to 
 be completed. 
 
 Or, think again of all those roving, restless 
 imaginations, that interrupt the steady course 
 of thought ! those unbidden and unwelcome 
 guests that will insist on being with us those 
 visionary schemes, in which we are too apt to 
 indulge that are so resolutely intrusive, that
 
 122 The Regulation of Thoughts. [ix 
 
 will invade the chambers of memory, and will 
 make us listen to their appeal. 
 
 Nevertheless, in spite of (or rather in con- 
 sequence of all this), we must study to curb and 
 control our own thoughts. " God shall bring 
 every work into judgment, with every secret 
 thing, whether it be good or whether it be 
 evil." x He understandeth our thoughts long 
 before. He can, and if we earnestly pray Him 
 to do so, He will, cleanse them by the inspira- 
 tion of His Holy Spirit. 
 
 This duty is emphatically a Christian duty. 
 Not that there are not some traces of it in 
 heathen philosophies, besides several enforce- 
 ments of it in the Old Testament. To take 
 one heathen instance, the Emperor Marcus 
 Aurelius says, in those " Meditations " (com- 
 posed in hours snatched from the labours of 
 the camp) : " Since it is possible that thou 
 mayest depart from life this very moment, 
 regulate every act and every thought accord- 
 ingly ! " and again, " Such as are thy habitual 
 thoughts, such also will be the character of 
 thy mind, for the Soul is dyed by the thought." 
 
 If we open the Psalter we find many a 
 warning that the region of thought is a 
 dangerous region. " O let not mine heart be 
 inclined to any evil thing." " Let (not merely) 
 the words of my mouth but also the medita- 
 1 Eccles. xii. 14.
 
 ix] The Regulation of Thoughts. 123 
 
 tions of my heart be always acceptable in thy 
 sight ! " " Thou requirest truth in the inward 
 parts." " Make me a clean heart, O God, and 
 renew a right spirit within me ! " 
 
 Specially is this brought out in this mar- 
 vellous 1 39th psalm. The key-note is God's 
 omniscience : " O Lord thou hast searched me 
 out and known me. Thou understandest my 
 thoughts long before." Clear and manifest to 
 His scrutiny are their hidden workings ; as 
 too, were the mysterious beginnings of life 
 itself, its yet undeveloped course, its thread 
 rolled as it were in a ball, to be unwound as 
 days pass on. All was fashioned by Him, 
 and it is to Him that the psalmist, over- 
 whelmed by such a presence, lifts the con- 
 cluding prayer, " Try me, O God, and seek 
 the ground of my heart. Prove me and 
 examine my thoughts." 
 
 But still more brightly does this truth shine 
 forth from the gospel page. Christ claims to 
 be Lord of the Christian's innermost being. 
 He penetrates to the very depths of the 
 human heart. His word is "a discerner of 
 the thoughts and intents." Could it be other- 
 wise with Him who pierced through the 
 hypocrisy of Scribe and Pharisee, who read 
 the unuttered reasonings of the twelve, as to 
 which of them should be the greatest ? Could 
 He fail to claim the allegiance of those parts
 
 1 24 The Regidation of Thoughts. [ix 
 
 of our nature which constitute the springs of 
 character? He to whom Peter exclaimed, 
 " Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest 
 that I love thee." He, whose whole Sermon 
 on the Mount proposes the highest ideal of 
 inward holiness, and insists upon the single 
 eye, the entire unselfishness of motive, the 
 strictest purity of imagination ? 
 
 Now if Christ " knew what was in man " 
 He would not surely demand of him any- 
 thing beyond his powers. How far then, let 
 us ask, can we command these thoughts of 
 ours over which He asserts such an intense, 
 such an absolute hold ? 
 
 First, we can largely influence them through 
 Memory and its two great aids Attention and 
 Association. Original differences in the power 
 of memory will always exist in different minds ; 
 still the excuse we are so prone to plead of 
 bad memory, generally means feeble atten- 
 tion. Without intense direction of the mind 
 to what is before it, there can be no distinct 
 recollection. And this is equally true, is it 
 not, of religious thought ? Nor let us forget 
 how our Saviour enforces this, " He that hath 
 ears to hear, let him hear." 
 
 And then even more powerful is that 
 familiar law of the Association of Ideas. Con- 
 template two or more facts or notions together, 
 or in immediate succession, and they will soon
 
 ix] The Regulation of Thoughts. 125 
 
 become so connected that one of them at a 
 future time is sure to recall the other. Con- 
 template them frequently and attentively, and 
 a train of ideas, without any mental effort, 
 will follow in a more and more strong and 
 steady current. Of what infinite importance 
 then is correct association ; for as surely as 
 men do not " gather grapes of thorns or figs of 
 thistles," so surely will impure, envious, sordid, 
 unfeeling thoughts the fatal outcome of 
 ideas wrongly associated bring forth a rank 
 and grievous crop of evil living, a woe for 
 future years. 
 
 This, then, is the first power we each 
 possess over our thoughts (and is it, I would 
 ask, anywhere more vital, more influential, 
 than here among you ?) the germ of child- 
 hood's crudest notions, the key to much of the 
 history of youth, the basis of a large part of 
 the habits of maturer age this noble, this 
 perilous, this mysterious faculty of association. 
 
 But secondly, we can select from our thoughts 
 and we can reject. "We can arrest these 
 noiseless travellers (as they have been called) 
 in their course, and question them as to their 
 ultimate destination." l We can select the 
 healthy. " Whatsoever things are true, what- 
 soever things are worthy of respect and rever- 
 
 1 Sermons by T. Grant, 1812.
 
 126 The Regulation of Thoughts. [ix 
 
 ence, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever 
 things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, 
 whatsoever things are of good report." ' 
 
 These things, rather than their deadly oppo- 
 sites, we can think of if we care to make the 
 effort. Or we can, alas, put sweet for bitter, 
 and bitter for sweet. 
 
 Think how we employ this power every 
 day of our lives, how we can change and 
 divert the stream of images and recollections. 
 When we refer to a book or the index of a 
 book for a special object, we find it possible, 
 do we not, to keep out irrelevant thoughts, 
 and to refuse to entertain all but the particular 
 one for which we opened it. We force the 
 mind in this case into an opposite channel to 
 that which it would spontaneously take. We 
 direct it whither we would. Oh, then, let us 
 direct it and force it in other cases ! If we 
 can choose whether we will embrace and 
 cherish evil imaginations as they arise, or 
 strangle them at their birth, if we can bid 
 them welcome or bid them "avaunt," shall 
 we not say to our souls, " How long shall thy 
 vain thoughts lodge within thee ? " 2 Shall we 
 not in their place treasure up the holy text, 
 the ejaculatory prayer, the heroic ideal, and 
 have them ready for use as antidotes against 
 the poison of temptation ? 
 
 1 Phil. iv. 8. 2 Jer. iv. 14.
 
 ix] The Regulation of Thoughts. 127 
 
 And then, again, we can concentrate our 
 thoughts. We can turn a deaf ear to wander- 
 ing digressions and chance solicitations. With- 
 out, this how would anything great be ever 
 written ? How would anything difficult ever 
 be achieved ? Has not the historian to throw 
 himself heart and soul into past ages ; has he 
 not to live in them, as it were, if he would 
 give us a vivid picture of them ? Yes, precious 
 is this gift of concentration, never perhaps 
 more needed than now. As precious as its 
 opposite is worthless ; that desultory habit of 
 mind which skims the surface of many sub- 
 jects, never settling on any one ; without sus- 
 tained effort, without method, or definiteness 
 of aim. 
 
 But thirdly, we can further discipline our 
 thoughts. We can review and marshal them 
 by self-observation. Man not only has the 
 prerogative of reflecting upon things outside 
 him, but he can turn his gaze upon the phe- 
 nomena of his inner being. And he must do 
 so. For, consider, what a capacity for good 
 or evil there is in his heart ! " It is Pandora's 
 box," * says an old writer, " which lets fly in- 
 numerable plagues and mischiefs." "It is a 
 noisy inn or hostelry full of turmoil, with 
 fresh arrivals and departures every instant, 
 
 1 Chilcot, "Evil Thoughts," 1698.
 
 128 The Regulation of Thoughts. [ix 
 
 every passing thought seeking admittance." 
 Conversation, books, friendships, habits, open 
 a thousand avenues to it. What is to reduce 
 it to harmony with itself and with all around 
 it? What, indeed, but constant recollected- 
 ness, constant challenging of our thoughts and 
 sentiments, making them " give up their pass- 
 ports," constant bearing in mind the One great 
 Reader of Thoughts ? 
 
 All this (you will say) is very easy in theory 
 and on paper. It is one thing to map out the 
 region, it is a very different thing to conquer 
 it, and establish firm dominion over it. " Who 
 is sufficient for these things ? " It is, indeed, 
 difficult to control our thoughts. It belongs 
 to the highest branch of self-discipline. It 
 cannot be gained at once. The deep-seated 
 tendencies of each man and each boy's nature 
 are not to be made light of. Often there are 
 two opposing forces to be met. We have 
 the tendency of the mind to flow in the 
 direction of the strongest association, to cherish 
 one class of thought. We have also the feel- 
 ings influencing the thoughts. But the difficult 
 is not the impossible. By patient training 
 where the disposition is weak, by sterner force 
 used on ourselves where passion is strong and 
 thought rebellious, by perseverance, by self- 
 knowledge, by self-distrust, by prayer to God 
 the Father that He will not leave His children
 
 ix] The Regulation of Thoughts. 129 
 
 to drift without a rudder to the mind He has 
 implanted in them ; by prayer to Christ and 
 His Holy Spirit that They will reduce to 
 order whatever is turbulent in us ; by sedulous 
 avoidance of all we know to be dangerous, 
 gradually, if not at once, we can stem the 
 vehement flood of our unruly imaginations. 
 
 Let me, then, with all earnestness endea- 
 vour by a few suggestions to press home to 
 you this vital subject of which we have 
 touched, as it were, but the fringe. 
 
 First, let your thoughts be real. Let them, 
 as far as can be, be genuinely your own. Let 
 them be steadily and distinctly thought out. 
 Where exactness is required direct the mind 
 in all its intensity to what is before it. Grapple 
 with the difficult problem, return to it, leave 
 it not till it have yielded up its secret. Never 
 let us give way to a listless inactive habit of 
 mind. If we echo the sentiments of others, let 
 us do so because we have really meditated over 
 them and are convinced of their truth. This 
 vigorous tension of the faculties will reach, 
 believe me, beyond the sphere of mental ac- 
 quirements. It will give sincerity and stability 
 to your whole life. It will go to build up the 
 character of the man, who, " whatsoever his 
 hand findeth to do, doeth it with his might." 
 
 And, next, dwell frequently on what is 
 exalted and elevated. Let there be chambers 
 K
 
 130 The Regulation of Thoughts. [ix 
 
 in your mind where, despite of all that is seem- 
 ingly prosaic in life, noble images may remain 
 enshrined. Our studies here would indeed be 
 open to exception did they not aim at fixing 
 our attention on the loftiest ideals in legend, 
 in history, in poetry. Treasure up those truths 
 that wake to perish never. If in what you 
 read in private, you habitually breathe an un- 
 wholesome atmosphere ; if you dwell upon 
 what you know by experience will impair the 
 energy and dull the brightness of the mind by 
 its paltriness and emptiness, even if it does not 
 positively corrupt it ; or, again, if we wilfully 
 harbour the uncharitable thought that rests 
 upon slender or upon no foundation, how then 
 can we honestly say, " Lead me not into temp- 
 tation " ? Still, at the same time, thirdly, let 
 our thoughts be sober and orderly. Retaining 
 the ardour of enthusiasm, it is good also for 
 young men to be sober-minded. Ask your- 
 selves after the excitement of each day, What 
 have been my prevailing thoughts this day ? 
 What is their general colour and tone ? Are 
 they roving, restless, unsatisfied ? What do I 
 most think of ; and why do I think of it ? This 
 characteristic of order is seen in all great minds. 
 It was a marked feature in James Watt, the 
 improver of the steam engine, so much so that 
 " he could reject instinctively everything im- 
 material. Every notion suggested to him
 
 ix] The Regulation of Thoughts. 131 
 
 seemed instantly to take its proper place 
 among the other rich furniture of his mind." 
 
 But once more, it is much that our thoughts 
 be real, free from all hypocrisy and affectation ; 
 it is much that they be lofty, free from all that 
 is sordid ; it is much that they be orderly. But 
 it is not all. They must also be holy. 
 
 There is a sense in which God can be in all 
 our thoughts ; and we can bring into captivity 
 every imagination to the obedience of Christ, 
 that He may keep ward over them, as in a 
 strong fortress ; not, of course, that direct, con- 
 tinuous meditation on exclusively sacred sub- 
 jects is meant. Only let the remembrance of 
 Him who is " about your path and about your 
 bed " so pervade your life, that you may say 
 from your heart, " the darkness is no darkness 
 with Thee," and that you may feel at rising, 
 ' When I wake up I am present with Thee." 
 
 Alas ! must not some of us confess that so 
 far from seeking God's kingdom, the question 
 has been, How can I crowd the greatest 
 amount of pleasure, perhaps of dangerous 
 pleasure, into this day ? Doubtless there will 
 be times when we have less glow and fervour. 
 There are " tides of the spirit " and of the 
 higher energies. Still throughout the day 
 keep some holy text not far from the memory 
 " Thou, O God, seest me." How can I do 
 how can I even imagine this wickedness ?
 
 1 32 The Regulation of Thoughts. [ix 
 
 Say not, It was a mere thought. Remember 
 " the greatest sin ever committed was at first 
 but a thought." * That wild fancy, if fostered, 
 is the germ of you know not what misery. 
 Those unhallowed thoughts, dally not with 
 them ! Dream not of conquering them un- 
 aided ! Go at once to Him who can dry up 
 the tainted current at the fountain head ! And 
 above all, specially within these walls, sur- 
 render to Him the entire domain of your 
 inner being. Recollect that strong, but not 
 too strong, description of the guilty king, and 
 his fruitless attempt to pray : 
 
 " My words fly up, my thoughts remain below : 
 Words, without thoughts, never to Heaven go." 2 
 
 And now this evening to clothe in an out- 
 ward practical form these laws of mind on 
 which we have been dwelling I call on you 
 to link the thought of your own health and 
 happiness with the thought of the sickness 
 and suffering of others. Your alms are asked 
 for the Windsor and Eton Infirmary. Many 
 of you, it may be, the mere force of contrast 
 will influence to help towards supporting 
 and furthering its good work. But may it 
 not be with some here that there is the asso- 
 ciation of personal experience ? Some of you 
 
 1 Chilcot, ut supra. 
 
 2 " Hamlet," act iii., sc. 3.
 
 ix] The Regulation of Thoughts. 133 
 
 have known, have you not, what the hours 
 are spent in the sick chamber? how slow 
 they pass, how monotonous they seem, how 
 helpless they make you feel, and how de- 
 pendent upon the thoughtfulness, the kind- 
 ness, the gentle ministrations of others ? 
 
 And if you, with all the tenderest care and 
 all the surroundings of wealth have felt this, 
 how much more those for whom we plead ! 
 Set their want against your plenty ; set their 
 feebleness against your buoyant strength ; set 
 their confinement against your ample liberty 
 of girding yourselves and walking whither 
 you would ! Oh; think how much of Christ's 
 work on earth was devoted to visiting, com- 
 forting, and healing those in bodily pain ! 
 The very name of hospital existed not for 
 the thing did not exist before He came. 
 
 I know few sights more touching than the 
 one that can be witnessed from that bridge in 
 London, where, facing England's great council 
 chambers, stands that series of buildings, with 
 its terraces, on which you may sometimes dis- 
 cern the pale, weary, emaciated forms of a few 
 poor convalescents, able once more to refresh 
 and gladden themselves with the blessed air 
 and light of heaven. The river beneath them, 
 with its alternate current, gives only too apt 
 an emblem of the ebb and flow in the pre- 
 carious lives of those poor sufferers.
 
 1 34 The Regulation of Thoughts. [ix 
 
 It is such an institution one near us that 
 appeals to you this evening. Oh ! if you have 
 of late been strengthened and exhilarated, if 
 your pulses have beat high with the full cur- 
 rent of healthy exercise, on moor or moun- 
 tain ; if nobler thoughts and aspirations have 
 sprung up in you, sailing over some rock-girt 
 loch, or gazing up some Alpine height ; re- 
 collect those less fortunate ones who mean- 
 time have had patiently to endure, to hope 
 against hope, to resign themselves perhaps to 
 the certainty of no distant departure. Cut 
 off some superfluous extravagance, some 
 wasteful habit ! Seize gladly this oppor- 
 tunity ! Surely here, if anywhere, those lines 
 are true : 
 
 " Largely Thou givest, gracious Lord, 
 Largely Thy gifts should be restor'd ; 
 Freely Thou givest, and Thy word 
 
 Is ' Freely give.' 
 He only, who forgets to hoard, 
 
 Has learn'd to live."
 
 135 
 
 SERMON X. 
 
 THE MISUSE OF WORDS : PERVER- 
 SION OF LANGUAGE. 1 
 
 "The vile person shall be no more called liberal 
 nor the churl said to be bountiful." Isaiah^ xxxii. 5. 
 
 OF what blest period in the history of the 
 human race is the Prophet Isaiah here 
 speaking ? Of what golden age when " Truth 
 shall flourish out of the earth and righteous- 
 ness look down from heaven," is this the 
 description ? When will this and all the 
 other glowing language of this chapter be 
 realized? Never in our own time. Never 
 can we hope to see the vision fulfilled, liter- 
 ally, perfectly, and universally. It were vain 
 to look for the supreme and absolute triumph 
 of truth, until that time when Satan shall no 
 longer be permitted to go forth and deceive 
 the nations ; until, in the words of the Litany, 
 he is finally beaten down under our feet. 
 Still, is there not, brethren, a sense in which 
 we may recognize the truth of the text as 
 belonging in part to the present state of 
 
 1 September 25th, 1881.
 
 1 36 The Misuse of Words : [ x 
 
 existence? Is it not for each of us, in our 
 own measure, to hasten on and further its 
 accomplishment? Is it not our duty to do 
 so ? Is it not what we really mean, when day 
 by day we breathe the prayer, or raise the 
 hymn, " Thy Kingdom come, O Lord" ? 
 
 Isaiah himself lived to witness a partial ful- 
 filment of his own prediction. Under the 
 government of a good king like Hezekiah, 
 princes and magistrates did rule in judgment 
 and execute their office with integrity and 
 righteousness. He by his example and by 
 the deliverance granted in his day, was for a 
 time a refuge to his people, and " a covert 
 from the tempest " of Assyrian invasion, when 
 the " blast of the terrible ones was as a storm 
 against the wall." But the sublime tone and 
 the scope of these chapters refuse to be satis- 
 fied by such an inadequate account of their 
 meaning. We may not imprison the heavenly 
 spirit of prophecy within the earthly vessels 
 of such interpretations. The vista of increas- 
 ing happiness down which Isaiah gazed 
 reached out far into the distant ages. He 
 does but glance at the reign of the King of 
 Judah, and the deliverance it conferred. They 
 are but passing illustrations, shadows and 
 images of the reign of Messiah ; of the gradual 
 but certain triumph of the Gospel, and of 
 " that far-off Divine event to which the whole
 
 x] Perversion of Language. 137 
 
 Creation moves," that crowning consumma- 
 tion, when " the kingdoms of this world shall 
 have become the kingdoms of our Lord and 
 of his Christ." 
 
 What privilege can be higher than to pro- 
 mote the coming of that Kingdom, the dawn 
 of that day when Christ shall at last have 
 " put all enemies under his feet " ? And 
 of that blest time, of that perfect state, of 
 that better land, there is one unmistakable 
 characteristic (the only one on which we can 
 dwell to-day), and that is the one given in our 
 text. 
 
 There shall be a reversal of wrong judg- 
 ments, a rectification, a setting right, a final 
 and supreme readjustment, that shall strike 
 conviction home at once to every mind and to 
 every conscience, and from which there shall 
 thenceforth be no possibility of appeal. Dark- 
 ness shall no more be confounded with light, 
 nor light with darkness. Sweet shall no 
 longer be put for bitter, nor bitter for sweet. 
 Evil men and evil opinions shall no longer be 
 preferred to good men and good opinions. 
 Doubtful or seemingly doubtful actions shall 
 no longer be veiled under the superficial 
 varnish of specious terms. They will be seen 
 as they are in their essential nature. Doubt 
 itself will vanish from that Kingdom, and be 
 absorbed in the piercing light of truth ; for
 
 138 The Misuse of Words: [x 
 
 * all things are naked and opened unto the 
 eyes of him with whom we have to do." 
 " Eripitur persona manet res." The mask will 
 be torn off, the reality will be left. Names 
 shall correspond to things. " The vile person 
 shall no longer be called liberal, nor the churl 
 said to be bountiful." 
 
 The value of names, the danger of being 
 misled by erroneous estimates this I would 
 endeavour to put briefly before you this 
 evening, as I believe it to be of the utmost 
 importance to us all. 
 
 " O purblind race of miserable men, 
 How many among us at this very hour 
 Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves, 
 By taking true for false, or false for true ; 
 Here, thro' the feeble twilight of this world 
 Groping, how many, until we pass and reach 
 That other, where we see as we are seen ! " 
 
 In no society, perhaps, does the power might 
 one not say the tyranny of words exercise 
 so powerful and so vital an influence, as it 
 does here. Nowhere else, probably, can a 
 word, according as it is rightly or wrongly 
 applied, stamp upon a person, upon an in- 
 stitution, upon a custom so abiding a character. 
 Nowhere else are words so readily caught up, 
 or so eagerly repeated, or employed in so 
 direct and plain a manner, and in terms so 
 broad and unqualified, whether it be for praise
 
 x] Perversion of Language. 139 
 
 or dispraise, as here in the large liberty of un- 
 restricted intercourse which the members of a 
 public school enjoy. 
 
 The judgments of the young often, like well- 
 directed arrows, go straight to the mark ; 
 straighter, it may be, at times than even those 
 of the older, if the mind has become warped 
 and perverted by misleading prejudices of 
 later years. This much we may admit, when 
 they dart forth from a generous and unbiassed 
 understanding, in simple cases of right and 
 wrong, where neither their own personal 
 interest, nor that of their companions, is at 
 stake. But beyond this, do they not often 
 need most serious qualification and correction ? 
 Are they not as frequently judgments that 
 require to be again and again informed ? Is 
 not a little deeper insight destined to reverse 
 them? You begin to see this as school-life 
 draws to a close. You will see it more clearly 
 when you have left us. But in the mean- 
 time the seed which has been scattered broad- 
 cast in the rash and indiscriminate judgment 
 of earlier years is left to germinate in the 
 minds of others. The light estimate of sins 
 against purity, the half-profane jest, the facile 
 designation that stereotypes some pernicious 
 custom, the flimsy excuse that veils some 
 dereliction of daily work, the perversions of 
 language by which those who make a bold
 
 1 40 The Misuse of Words : [x 
 
 stand for duty are misrepresented, all 'these 
 are instances of the abuse of words which 
 often, alas, outlives their author. They are 
 propagated in one form or another. They 
 do not lose strength or vitality for want of 
 fresh material. They grow steadily into a 
 tradition, and that tradition may live on to 
 mislead many a future generation. 
 
 My dear friends, in touching on the false 
 estimates of character, which we are all so prone 
 to make, let me ask you to pause and ponder 
 with me the solemn truth that there is One 
 who has sounded every depth of the human 
 heart, and every variety of human character, 
 and who reads each one of us here present 
 this day exactly as he is, with infinite mercy 
 and compassion, " with larger, other eyes than 
 ours to make allowance for us all," yet at the 
 same time (let us remember) with infinite 
 truth, holding the balance with unswerving 
 exactitude, because He, and He only, is the 
 great reader of hearts, to whom all secrets are 
 open. What if He were to describe us at this 
 moment by the precise term, the proper epithet 
 which suits our character ? What are all our 
 judgments which we pass so glibly and so 
 unhesitatingly upon each other, when we 
 think of that ? How paltry, how insufficient, 
 how one-sided ! " Such as are foolish cannot 
 stand" in the light of His scrutinizing and
 
 x] Perversion of Language. 141 
 
 unerring gaze. The vile person, that is the 
 Nabal, the fool, who has raised himself by 
 successful scheming before Him is not the 
 Nadib, the Prince, the gentleman (such is the 
 force of the original) however much he may 
 pass muster as such with the world that looks 
 only on the surface. The churl, however much 
 he may veil his nature, and be courted, and 
 caressed, and flattered, is seen by Him in his true 
 colours. The proud Dives of this life (in the 
 fine language of St. Augustine l ) is the beggar 
 of Hades. Superbus temporis mendicus inferni. 
 
 And so we are assured throughout the 
 Bible that God is no respecter of persons ; 
 that is, He regards not the exterior semblance, 
 but pierces to the inner reality. You re- 
 collect how He chose David, and took him 
 away from the sheepfolds how his seven 
 brethren passed each before Samuel, and how 
 when the prophet fancied that surely now the 
 Lord's anointed was before him, he was un- 
 deceived. " Look not on his countenance or 
 on the height of his stature ... for man 
 looketh on the outward appearance, but the 
 Lord looketh on the heart." 
 
 And do we not often misjudge those around 
 us ? Does not the open free-handedness of a 
 boy who is somewhat richer than his com- 
 
 1 Sermon CIII. on Luke, x. 16, " Qui vos spernit, me 
 spernit."
 
 142 The Misuse of Words : [x 
 
 panions, veil from their view the less striking 
 but not less real liberality of another, who pos- 
 sesses in a larger measure the elements of true 
 generosity ? Do we never allow fluent readi- 
 ness and cleverness to weigh with us above 
 more sterling, though less dazzling qualities ? 
 Those, too, who have higher aims, and who 
 do not catch at mere fleeting popularity, are 
 exposed to errors in their judgments. The 
 pride of culture and refinement is apt to look 
 down on the illiterate and the backward, to 
 pronounce them hopeless, and to depreciate 
 the good there is in those whose characters 
 are cast in a different mould to their own. 
 
 Again, how easy it is to read amiss actions 
 and motives of others ! This is shown by the 
 way in which time and circumstances modify 
 our once so confident assertions. After the 
 lapse of a few years, with the larger oppor- 
 tunities they have given us for forming our 
 opinion, how different is our verdict ! Have 
 we not to confess that the fault lay in our- 
 selves ? in some dulness of perception, some 
 readiness to acquiesce too hastily in popular 
 judgments? some want of delicate apprecia- 
 tion, some failure to discriminate, that hurried 
 us on to label, and to label wrongly with the 
 title of vile or liberal, a character which as yet 
 we had but dimly deciphered ? And then how 
 frequently does suffering or death come in to
 
 x] Perversion of Language. 143 
 
 correct our judgments ! Too late is inscribed 
 upon much of human estimate. How often 
 are we forced to soften down the sentence we 
 used to pass upon our friend ! Now that he is 
 removed from us, we see to how much good 
 we were blind during his lifetime. How 
 bitterly do we regret the stinted measure of 
 acknowledgment we yielded to his merits 
 while he lived so near us ! Such are some of 
 the obvious dangers to which we are exposed 
 in reviewing the actions and the motives of 
 others. 
 
 What, then, is to be our rule ? Is it not the 
 divine one, "Judge not that ye be not judged, 
 condemn not that ye be not condemned" ? Is it 
 not to suspend the hasty decision, and to check 
 the too impulsive language, even it may be to 
 keep silence at times, unless we are plainly 
 and unmistakably called upon to speak out, 
 where some broad principle of right and 
 wrong is at stake, and where conscience can 
 utter her decision in no faltering accents? 
 Such occasions there may and must be. But 
 in all cases let what we say be seasoned with 
 the charity that thinketh no evil. In all cases, 
 let our aim be to "judge not according to the 
 appearance but to judge righteous judgment," 
 and divert conversation away from the turbid 
 channels in which it is so apt to run the 
 faults and foibles of our friend ; to strive to
 
 1 44 The Misuse of Words : [x 
 
 hurt him, no, not by word, any more than by 
 deed ; to think, what if he knew all my secret 
 life, my inner weakness? How humbling 
 and sobering is that thought ! How mercifully 
 is the veil drawn ! Oh ! if he knew all, how 
 could we bear it ? 
 
 Let us then be more vigilant over words. 
 " Care over them is the very secret and key of 
 care over the whole life." "If any man offend 
 not in word " (says St. James) " the same is a 
 perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole 
 body." Let us treasure our Saviour's warnings. 
 " Every idle word which men shall speak, they 
 shall give account thereof in the day of judg- 
 ment." Not words, of course, of innocent 
 recreation, nor words which sparkle with real 
 wit and wisdom, but vapid, frivolous, unedify- 
 ing, unfruitful words. Be sure that they are 
 the beginning of half the hollowness and faith- 
 lessness and waste there is in the world. Let 
 us call things by their right names, and not be 
 deluded by the abuse of speech, as were the 
 men of Isaiah's time, and as far too many are 
 in our own day. 
 
 Never has the inner meaning of language 
 been more laid open than by the researches 
 into its origin made in our own time. By the 
 language of a nation the rise and fall of its 
 moral life may be indicated. Some of you 
 will remember that striking chapter in which
 
 x] Perversion of Language. 145 
 
 the Greek historian dwells upon the deadly 
 bitterness of party spirit, and notes as one 
 special symptom of it, that men " changed the 
 accepted signification of words in their refer- 
 ence to action, by the way in which they 
 thought proper to look at them." l Courage 
 and rashness, prudence and cunning changed 
 places in their vocabulary. Thus did they 
 undermine the very foundations of society. 
 
 And the language in which he wrote con- 
 tained one most expressive term 2 for the 
 baneful alteration in the value of common 
 words denoting blame or praise, whether it 
 be for the disparagement of the good, or for 
 the glozing over and palliating the evil. 
 
 Oh, may God teach us so to use the blessing 
 of speech that He has given us, as never to 
 abuse it ! may He grant to His minister that 
 no weakness of his may impair the message 
 he should deliver ! When next we are tempted 
 to err by random or hasty utterances, let us 
 think of the Recording Angel, ready with his 
 iron pen to write down on the indelible tablets 
 what we shall vainly wish to recall. Let us 
 refrain our lips and be more swift to hear, 
 more slow to speak. And if ever we are 
 being imposed upon by the fallacies of lan- 
 guage, let us return again and again to Him 
 
 1 Thucydides, iii. 82. 
 3
 
 146 The Misuse of Words. [x 
 
 " who spake as never man spake," in " whose 
 mouth was found no guile," and let us believe 
 that, as He is Himself the Truth, so can He 
 impart to all who ask of Him all the healing 
 virtue of " the words of eternal life."
 
 147 
 
 SERMON XI. 
 THE RECOVERY OF HEZEKIAH. 1 
 
 " I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears : 
 behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years." Isaiah^ 
 xxxviii. 5. 
 
 SUCH was the message Isaiah was bidden 
 to carry back to King Hezekiah when 
 sick unto death ; sick, that is, of a malady 
 which in the natural course of things must have 
 proved fatal. The command had gone forth : 
 " Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die 
 and not live." And then came the brighter 
 vision granted to the Prophet, even before he 
 had passed forth from the precincts of the 
 palace ; and these gracious words conveying 
 the assurance of the reprieve, and the rapid 
 recovery within three days. 
 
 Fifteen years ! how insignificant a period 
 when compared with those mighty revolutions 
 of time in which Providence works ; with the 
 progress of the human race, or the history of a 
 single nation : how long, on the other hand, in 
 the retrospect, and still more in the prospect, 
 
 1 April 29th, 1883.
 
 148 The Recovery of Hezekiah. [xi 
 
 of an individual's existence : " grande mortalis 
 aevi spatium ; " a large portion of human life, 
 as the historian Tacitus calls this identical 
 space of time, when touching upon his own 
 career. How much does it comprise in its 
 outward events, whether mournful or joyful ; 
 changes of fortune or circumstances, losses 
 and gains, bereavements and blessings, and in 
 God's inward dealings with the undying con- 
 science, in the momentous lessons of the 
 spirit's experience, how coloured is it with far 
 deeper hues ! If we look back with any seri- 
 ousness with what a voice must the retrospect 
 of fifteen years speak to us ! How plainly do 
 they tell us not to rely upon our life here (all 
 important as are its uses and its issues). How 
 do they bid us regard it as a mere atom in 
 comparison with our whole, our higher being ? 
 How do they whisper to us that it is self- 
 surrender, not self-seeking that will win us 
 victory at last? If we look forward, which of 
 us can venture to forecast the years? or to 
 presume that fifteen years, or anything like 
 such a period may be granted to us ? and if it 
 should so be, which of us can look onward 
 without a wholesome dread borne in upon him 
 by the lessons of the past ? or without earnest 
 prayer for that guiding Hand, without which, 
 what we deem strength may prove in the day 
 of trial to be but the most miserable weakness ?
 
 xi] The Recovery of Hezekiah. 149 
 
 Fifteen years ! Would this boon turn out to 
 be an unmixed blessing? Was it likely to 
 prove so in the instance before us ? Was it in 
 fact and in the result a real gain to the pro- 
 strate and passionate sufferer ? Who shall ven- 
 ture to decide whether the prolongation of any 
 given life by such an extension (an extension of 
 more than a fifth of the Psalmist's limitation 
 of human life) would or would not be desirable ? 
 
 Let us dwell (i) On some features in the 
 history of Hezekiah ; (2) his prayer for length 
 of days ; (3) the answer to that prayer, and the 
 sequel of his recovery. 
 
 What then is the general impression left on 
 us by the life of this monarch from first to 
 last ? Is it not of one who had a lofty ideal, 
 but united to it some weakness of character ? 
 Of one profoundly stirred by the grandeur of 
 his mission, though his horizon was somewhat 
 limited to the things of earth ? 
 
 We must take the whole of a career before 
 we pronounce upon it. We must not select a 
 part here or a part there. Scripture stamps 
 its broad clear character upon the personages 
 that are its subjects. It sums up their life as 
 on the whole of this or that complexion. Of 
 one it says, " He wrought evil in the eyes of 
 the Lord ; " of another, " He did that which 
 was right in the sight of the Lord." It shows 
 how the timid Jacob had yet something in
 
 150 The Recovery of Hezekiah. [xi 
 
 him which could develop into the saintlike, 
 and be accepted before the seeming frank and 
 genial Esau. It discerns in the rugged heroes 
 of the Book of Judges an undercurrent of 
 goodness, half- hidden beneath the turbid 
 stream of their adventures, and a redeeming 
 element of trust in God lurking in each one of 
 them. It speaks of David in one place, in 
 spite of the serious blots that marred that 
 strong but tender spirit, as " the man after 
 God's own heart." And what is the verdict 
 of the sacred record on Hezekiah ? " He did 
 that which was right in the sight of the Lord," 
 said (remember) of three Kings only of Judah. 
 " He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that 
 after him was none like him among all the 
 Kings of Judah nor any that were before him." 
 In the Apocrypha, he is classed among the 
 three perfect rulers : " Except David, Hezekiah, 
 and Josiah, all committed trespass." l Many 
 would think they had reached the highest 
 attainable ideal, did they deserve such a glow- 
 ing eulogy. But for our instruction neither 
 are his faults ignored. 
 
 Let us glance rapidly at his reign. From 
 his father Ahaz that weak and idolatrous 
 ruler he had inherited an empire much im- 
 paired in resources, and sadly demoralized in 
 
 1 Ecclesiasticus, xlix. 4 (R. V.).
 
 xi] The Recovery of Hezekiah. 151 
 
 religion. He enters at once upon a course of 
 reform, and by a happy conjuncture of circum- 
 stances, the best of kings is seconded by the 
 noblest of prophets. The temple is cleansed. 
 The brazen serpent, the time-honoured relic 
 of the desert-wanderings, is destroyed, because 
 abused by superstition. The passover is cele- 
 brated with a splendour unknown since the 
 reign of Solomon. A new life dawned upon 
 Judah. Nor can we forget his efforts in re- 
 storing the musical services of the temple ; the 
 revival of lyric poetry, after languishing for 
 two centuries ; the collection of many psalms 
 that otherwise would have perished, and the 
 addition of new ones. The era, too, of Heze- 
 kiah is the special era of prophecy, and the 
 period of its highest development. 
 
 These are some of the brightest features of 
 his reign. We must pass lightly over the 
 great event of Sennacherib's invasion ; his de- 
 mands for tribute, at first rejected but after- 
 wards complied with in humiliating terms. 
 That striking chapter, 1 the siege, the peril, the 
 deliverance, when 
 
 "The Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
 And breathed on the face of the foe as he passed." 
 
 does it not live in the memory of all who have 
 ever heard it read ? 
 
 1 2 Kings, xix.
 
 152 The Recovery of Hezekiah. [xi 
 
 (2) We will come at once to the sickness of 
 Hezekiah, our more immediate subject. The 
 anxiety and the intense strain caused by the 
 critical moment of its occurrence had no doubt 
 brought it on, or in any case had aggravated 
 it. 
 
 Those hours spent in the sick chamber at 
 Jerusalem were no less monotonous, no less 
 irksome and weary than are such hours now 
 (what they are some of us can testify by ex- 
 perience). Could the feelings of an invalid 
 be more faithfully described than they are in 
 the plaintive language of the sick king when 
 he says his tent was struck, his thread of life 
 severed. " He will cut me off with pining 
 sickness : from day even to night wilt thou 
 make an end of me. . . . Like a crane or a 
 swallow, so did I chatter : I did mourn as a 
 dove. Mine eyes fail with looking upward : 
 O Lord, I am oppressed : undertake for me." x 
 And next, that intense desire for life, so 
 noticeable in him let us pause awhile to 
 consider that. It was not in him, the shrink- 
 ing, almost cowardly feeling that at first it 
 might appear to be. This yearning for life 
 varies much, we know, with circumstances, 
 with health, with animal spirits. No doubt ; 
 in general, the truer instinct is that expressed 
 by Tennyson : 
 
 1 Isaiah, xxxviii. 12.
 
 xi] The Recovery of Hezekiah. 153 
 
 " 3 Tis life whereof our nerves are scant, 
 Oh, life, not death, for which we pant, 
 More life and fuller that I want." 
 
 Times there are, that come to most of us, 
 when, from no overweening pride of health, 
 but rather, perhaps, from deepest gratitude, 
 we feel this to the uttermost : times when it 
 seems an insult to have the question put to us, 
 " Is life worth living ? " times when we can see 
 nothing but its preciousness, its sacredness, its 
 endless possibilities and opportunities for good. 
 But should some startling calamity, or the 
 sense of some insidious malady, jar upon our 
 sense of security, should some cherished hope 
 be crushed, some idol shattered, does not the 
 desire for a better state lay hold of us with a 
 new and more solemnizing power than we ever 
 realized before? And even without this, 
 have we not seen the willingness to die (and 
 that in no weak temper, no sad or sour spirit) 
 exhibited by one or two of the noblest charac- 
 ters of our times ? The late Prince Consort, 
 shortly before his fatal illness, in speaking to 
 the Queen, said, " I do not cling to life. I set 
 no store by it. If I knew that those I love 
 were well cared for, I should be quite ready to 
 depart to-morrow." Did this arise from in- 
 difference or distaste for life? Far from it. 
 None enjoyed it more keenly, none was 
 happier or more cheerful in his work. But,
 
 154 The Recovery of Hezekiah. [xi 
 
 like St. Paul, he was ready to be with Christ, 
 which was far better, and death to him was 
 but the portal to a higher sphere. And 
 another whom no one ever accused of languor 
 or stagnation felt something similar I mean 
 Charles Kingsley. To one who on his last 
 American journey wished him long life he 
 replied, " That is the last thing I desire. It 
 may be, as we grow older, one acquires more 
 and more the painful consciousness of the 
 difference between what ought to be done 
 and what can be done." 
 
 But to turn our thoughts back again over 
 more than twenty-five centuries. In a mon- 
 arch like Hezekiah, can we be surprised at 
 expressions breathing something of a hope- 
 less horror at the prospect of being deprived 
 of the residue of his days ? In that remote 
 age some of the best of men trembled at dis- 
 solution as separating them from the light of 
 the Divine presence. But most of all did 
 they shrink from a premature end, as if it 
 were a clear token of God's displeasure. " I 
 said O my God, take me not away in the 
 midst of my days." Added to this, in the 
 case of Hezekiah, there were two strong feel- 
 ings that we can hardly over-estimate. His 
 life seemed essential for the promotion of 
 God's glory. His energies seemed most needed 
 after the shock so recently sustained by the
 
 xi] The Recovery of Hezekiah. 155 
 
 nation. He was the mainstay of their con- 
 fidence. And secondly, there was the desire 
 to leave an heir to the throne, for as yet there 
 was none. At the time of his death, fifteen 
 years later, his son was only twelve, and there- 
 fore not yet born. Thus we see how patriotic 
 and disinterested motives were blended with 
 natural feelings in his prayer for restoration 
 to life and prolongation of life. 
 
 (3.) That restoration was immediately 
 granted ; and on it, before concluding, I will 
 ask you to dwell. 
 
 How will it now fare with the King ? How 
 will he stand the test ? How will he play his 
 part ? We look with intense interest to the 
 record of those added fifteen years. For here 
 we have not indeed a Lazarus actually brought 
 back from the sepulchre, but what is next to 
 it, we have one rescued from the very gates 
 of death. We can compare the state of sus- 
 pense and dejection with the realized deliver- 
 ance. Will those sick-bed vows prove fleeting 
 and evanescent, " like showers across an April 
 sky ? " Or will the whole sequel of his life 
 be purified, after it has passed through that 
 crucible of suffering ? We are not told much, 
 but we can trace somewhat of its effects. We 
 notice the tender, thankful spirit that breathes 
 through the touching hymn written when 
 peace had succeeded to anguish, and security
 
 156 The Recovery of Hezekiah. [xi 
 
 to fear. " The living, the living he shall 
 praise thee as I do this day: the father to 
 the children shall make known thy truth." 
 He reigns in honour and prosperity. He 
 improves the capital in many ways. The 
 shock given to Assyria had magnified Judah 
 in the eyes of other nations, and distant 
 princes send ambassadors to congratulate him 
 on his recovery. Among them are some from 
 Babylon. And here comes a weakness, a 
 declension, a failure. Oh ! how it must have 
 grieved and disappointed his counsellor Isaiah, 
 who sees at once through their flattery ! With 
 too much self-confidence, alas ! and compla- 
 cency he displays to them his accumulated 
 treasures. He was not quite proof against 
 this particular peril incident to the granting 
 of his prayer. 
 
 And then, again, was the gift of a son, to 
 sit upon his throne, an unmixed boon ? For 
 what manner of son did that heir prove him- 
 self to be ? That heir was Manasseh, the very 
 worst of all the kings, one from whose reign 
 posterity turned away its eyes, or looked back 
 on it as the lowest point of degradation. True, 
 Hezekiah was spared the misery of witnessing 
 the destruction of the fair edifice he had built 
 up with such loving care, felix opportunitate 
 mortis. But though when he died his son 
 was but twelve, by the age of twelve, the
 
 xi] The Recovery of Hezekiah. 157 
 
 character has begun to show itself, and some 
 misgivings and forebodings of what was to 
 come must have more than once dawned upon 
 and disturbed the father. 
 
 And how will it fare with us, dear friends ? 
 That is the vital question, is it not, for each 
 of us, should length of days (as may not be 
 the case) be added to us? If tranquil happy 
 times are ours, with scarce a cloud to ruffle 
 their serenity no anxiety about those we 
 love, no shadow of doubt or distrust of their 
 affection, no serious derangement of health 
 will our hearts be lifted up, as we see by his 
 momentary lapse, that the heart of the King 
 of Judah was lifted up ? Shall we not rather 
 be humbled, shall we not ascribe it all to God 
 as its source, and pray Him to bless it all to 
 us ? Or if some sharp trial be sent, will we 
 take it with us, as Hezekiah took the bitter, 
 taunting letter of the Assyrian, into the house 
 of the Lord, and spread it there before the 
 Lord ? Will you trust Him with your whole 
 life, and leave the issues of it to Him ? trust 
 Him not merely at stated seasons of prayer, 
 whether in private or here in this chapel, but 
 trust Him with all your days. Yes, trust 
 Him alike with your times of work and with 
 your bright hours of recreation. Will you 
 pray Him to defend you under His wings 
 from dangers special to your Eton life yes,
 
 1 5 8 The Recovery of Hezekiah. [xi 
 
 special to this portion of it, the long, glorious 
 summer days, to which you are naturally 
 looking forward from the pestilence of evil 
 habits and evil thoughts that walketh in the 
 darkness, and also from the vapid, frivolous, 
 sauntering indolence that destroyeth in the 
 noonday? Pause and reflect before your 
 characters have crystallized, as in very much 
 less than fifteen years they must crystallize, 
 so that no great change in them will then be 
 any longer possible : and when next tempted 
 and tried where your armour is weakest (and 
 we know each of us where that is), think, oh ! 
 think, I beg you, what it would be to hear 
 said of you, not that you had not fifteen years 
 or even months or weeks left you, but that you 
 had not fifteen minutes, or may be twice fifteen 
 minutes, before rendering your account. 
 
 " Hamlet, thou art slain ; 
 No medicine in the world can do thee good, 
 In thee there is not half an hour's life." 
 
 And this (unless we are cut offin a moment), 
 yes, this or its equivalent we must hear. If 
 we do not hear it from others, it will flash 
 upon our inner consciousness, with the cer- 
 tainty of absolute conviction. 
 
 Warnings we have had too, have we not ? 
 on which I need not dwell, coming very near 
 our homes. One has been taken from us.
 
 xi] The Recovery of Hezekiah. 159 
 
 After many weeks of painful illness borne 
 with great patience ; after many prayers 
 offered up for him here, " God's finger touched 
 him and he slept." While you were in the 
 enjoyment of your homes, He took him to his 
 last and best home. One has been taken, and 
 how many others have been left ! In each 
 case we must believe it was done in mercy. 
 Oh, may these warnings not be lost upon any 
 of us ! In that supreme moment which has 
 come to him, and must come to us, unless we 
 have indeed built upon the Rock, what will it 
 be to feel the world and all here slipping from 
 beneath us ? 
 
 " O could we see that hour go by 
 
 Whilst youthful pulses stir, 
 With all our future to forgive, 
 We scarce could bear the sight, and live ! 
 Thou who for us hast suffer'd death, 
 
 Remember we are men ; 
 Thou on the right hand of the throne, 
 
 Have mercy on us then ! " l 
 
 And oh, lastly, let us use the interval, as if 
 we felt it were (as in truth it is), but a very 
 brief one. Let each holy season impart to us 
 its special strength ! Let us press onwards to- 
 day. It is Rogation Sunday, the day of ask- 
 ing ! to-day, when we are beckoned on to cele- 
 brate the Feast of Thursday next, " to ascend 
 
 1 Hymns by F. T. Palgrave.
 
 1 60 The Recovery of Hezekiah. [xi 
 
 in heart and mind to Christ, and with Him 
 continually to dwell." Let us ask of Christ, 
 and most assuredly He will grant us here and 
 hereafter, the true, the higher, the better life ; 
 the life that brings forth not thorns and thistles, 
 parents' tears and wasted opportunities, but 
 such fruit as shall remain. He will grant us 
 not the mere fifteen years it may be of pro- 
 longed and necessarily chequered existence, 
 but an immortality of joy and glory, " the 
 haven where we would be " won at last : the 
 " house not builded with hands, eternal in the 
 heavens." So may that word come true of 
 each one of us, " He asked life of thee, and 
 thou gavest him a long life, even for ever 
 and ever."
 
 SERMON XII. 
 A FAREWELL. 1 
 
 "Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what 
 shall this man do?" St. John, xxi. 21. 
 
 THE chapter in which these words have 
 been preserved is one of the most pre- 
 cious of the Divine records. When we read a 
 passage like this, standing by itself, so full of 
 interest, so rich in details, so solemn and 
 unearthly in its whole tone and character, we 
 are led to prize more highly than perhaps we 
 have ever yet done, every page and every 
 incident, every gracious look or word or act of 
 our Lord, treasured up for us by one or other 
 of the Evangelists. 
 
 Above all we are led, in this instance, to 
 reflect how great were our loss, were this fourth 
 Gospel removed from our Bibles ; so intimately 
 bound up as it is with the very heart and core 
 of the creed of Christendom, the battlefield, 
 as it has been truly called, of the New Testa- 
 ment ; the record in which are enshrined side 
 
 1 July 8th, 1883. 
 M
 
 1 62 A Farewell. [xn 
 
 by side the tenderest companionship with 
 Jesus, and the strongest witness to His 
 Divinity ; the rock against which the surging 
 waves of scepticism have persistently beaten, 
 but evermore have beaten in vain. 
 
 In this concluding chapter, added evidently 
 at a later date, after the rest of the Gospel had 
 been completed, the beloved disciple's recol- 
 lections are enshrined of one of the last ap- 
 pearances of Christ before His Ascension : 
 principally, no doubt, to dispel the error grow- 
 ing up about himself that he should not die. 
 But we can trace another object that the 
 writer had in view. The second miraculous 
 draught of fishes is narrated with such minute- 
 ness, as to point to a further purpose, and 
 that is to be found in the whole of the con- 
 versation which grew out of the miracle. 
 
 We can touch but very rapidly upon the 
 impressive scene, full of interest and full of 
 instruction as it is. 
 
 The disciples had gone back to their own 
 homes and their own occupations, in trustful 
 waiting. They were again fishing in the blue 
 waters of the Galilean lake, that lake that had 
 been so eventful in the last three years of their 
 lives. Through the night they had caught 
 nothing. But as the day was breaking, there 
 stood on the shelving beach One whom they 
 failed to recognize, calling to them, "Children,
 
 xn] A Farewell. 163 
 
 have ye aught to eat ? " And then, on His 
 bidding them cast the net on the right side 
 of the ship, the truth flashes instinctively 
 on St. John, It is the Lord. Full of great 
 fishes the net is drawn unbroken to the land, 
 where they find the morning meal already 
 spread, and the Lord, " Himself their host, 
 waiting to give rather than to receive." * It 
 was after that solemn, mysterious meal, a 
 symbol doubtless of the Great Festival to be 
 held upon the everlasting shore of Heaven, 
 that the searching question was put to Peter, 
 " Lovest thou Me ? " Thrice is it put, and in 
 answer to the reiterated assurance of personal 
 attachment (piMi a-e) the threefold Apostolic 
 charge is given, and the issues of that personal 
 love are revealed ; the decline of the old im- 
 petuous vigour ; the feeble arms stretched out 
 on the Cross the death by which he should 
 glorify God. And then the final command 
 that could turn weakness into strength and 
 the pangs of martyrdom into the joy of self- 
 surrender, Follow thou Me. 
 
 They were walking along the side of the 
 lake: and we may suppose that St. Peter 
 with our Lord was slightly in front of the 
 rest, when he turns and sees his favourite 
 friend and chosen companion following behind 
 
 1 Westcott, "The Revelation of the Risen Lord," 
 vi.
 
 164 A Farewell. [xn 
 
 them, as though silently signifying that he too 
 was ready to follow whithersoever his Master 
 might lead him. The question, prompted by 
 loving interest in the fortunes of his brother- 
 apostle naturally rises to his lips, Lord, and 
 what sliall this man do? In the original it is 
 still more brief and rapid, Lord, and this man 
 what ? What of him ? what shall he do or 
 suffer? What glimpse of his destiny, what 
 indication of the path before him wilt Thou 
 reveal ? The man of active energy would fain 
 know something of the man of contempla- 
 tion. So may one here show a wistful anxiety 
 about a comrade, whose pursuits and tastes 
 are very different from his own. So may the 
 young man, before whom a busy public life 
 lies already marked out, ask with affectionate 
 wonder what career is in store for his school- 
 fellow of more retiring habits and less ambi- 
 tious temperament ? The more buoyant, self- 
 confident, eager character, is not indifferent 
 to the fortunes of his more quiet neighbour. 
 The humble may inquire about those whom it 
 feels to be far better than itself. There was 
 genuine, sincere interest in St. Peter's question : 
 but there was also some tinge of curiosity, some 
 desire perhaps to know and to guide another's 
 life and work at the risk of weakening the 
 force of his own. Our Saviour's answer seems 
 to check this spirit so far as it required check-
 
 xn] A Farewell. 165 
 
 ing : " If I will that he tarry till I come, what 
 is that to thee? follow thou Me." It is 
 characteristic of the way in which He con- 
 stantly met His questioners. It is so charac- 
 teristic of it that, if proof were needed (which 
 it is not) of the genuineness of this last chapter, 
 it might be found in this reply of Christ. You 
 remember the solemn answer with which He 
 met the spirit of unwise, though not unnatural 
 curiosity shewn in asking, " Lord, are there 
 few that be saved ? " " Strive," He said, 
 " strive to enter in at the strait gate," turning 
 the thoughts of the questioner into a healthier 
 and more profitable channel. The answer in 
 this instance is partly special, dealing with 
 the individual case before Him. " If I will 
 that he abide while I come : if I will that he 
 survive that great shaking of the earth and 
 heaven in the destruction of the Holy City, 
 what is that to thee ? Go on thy way, straight- 
 forward, and cast no look behind." It is partly 
 universal, for us and for all ages. Follow thou 
 Me. Trust and wait. 
 
 Each phase and development of character, 
 however diverse, each life with all its mani- 
 fold windings and perplexities, lies spread out as 
 an open map before His unerring gaze. Leave 
 to Him the fashioning, the ordering, the dis- 
 posal of it all, whether for thyself or for thy 
 friends. Do the work appointed thee, without
 
 1 66 A Farewell. [xn 
 
 haste and without pause, without anxiety and 
 without self-confidence. To the end, what- 
 ever that end may be, through disappoint- 
 ments or through successes, through the 
 tangled course of events (as they seem to you), 
 however different the shape they assume from 
 what you looked for in glowing health or in 
 the sick chamber, cheered and encouraged, 
 sustained and invigorated by My Presence, 
 Follow thou Me. 
 
 We pause not this morning to dwell upon 
 the future of the Great Apostle, about whom 
 St. Peter asked : the thirty years' silence and 
 seclusion ; the patient tarrying ; the precious 
 contributions at last added to seal and com- 
 plete the sacred volume. 
 
 To-day, when the time for parting is draw- 
 ing near for so many of those before me, the 
 application of the text is so obvious, so urgent, 
 and so inevitable that we must hasten to it at 
 once. For we cannot but hear in it a warning 
 voice, an alarum to rouse us to very serious 
 and very practical reflections. Not assuredly 
 that we would attempt to label any individual 
 character, or prejudge any career : not that we 
 would forecast the mysterious future of any 
 son of Eton, whose time here is drawing to its 
 close. But speaking broadly, and limiting 
 ourselves to certain representative types, may 
 we not pray and hope that some word may be
 
 xn] A Farewell. 167 
 
 spoken in season, that the arrow may in some 
 cases fly to its mark, and press home the 
 momentous question, What shall this man 
 do? 
 
 WJtat sJiall this youth do, who is standing 
 upon the very verge and opening of manhood ? 
 the border-land of two stages of education, 
 looking back on the education of this place, 
 and looking forward to the education of the 
 University ? The education of school must 
 (if he review it calmly and impartially 
 if he is honest with himself), must, I say, 
 have revealed to him something of his real 
 inner being. Can he help acknowledging 
 in the retrospect some falling off from the 
 higher standard he originally set before him- 
 self? Can he but feel some compunction, 
 some regrets at having insufficiently grappled 
 with the evil within him ? Is he not at any 
 rate conscious of some faulty tendencies to 
 make him pause, to cause him apprehension 
 and stir him to greater vigilance ? 
 
 How is he prepared to go forth upon the 
 wider arena, to use without abusing the less 
 restricted liberty, to meet and to endure the 
 unknown ordeal that is certain in one direction 
 or another to shape and mould his maturer 
 habits, upon more rigid and more indelible 
 lines ? 
 
 Oh ! how much may hinge upon those next
 
 1 68 A Farewell. [xn 
 
 three or four years ! Will he take what should 
 be the seed-plot of a life's usefulness, and treat 
 it as a mere playground ? I will not contem- 
 plate the prospect of one who wastes term and 
 vacation on reckless expenditure, or on one 
 who is led on gradually but surely through 
 the flowery paths of dissipation, till he become 
 the victim of those grosser temptations that 
 assail our lower nature. He may indeed be 
 saved, yet so as by fire ; but he will bear 
 through life the scars and wounds of such an 
 encounter. God grant that he may never fall 
 so low ! God grant that he may never incur so 
 tremendous a risk ! Still let me say, in all 
 earnestness, that it is not a mere matter of 
 course that this may not happen when the 
 current sets strongly in the direction given it 
 by some tyrant passion. It is not of course 
 that he keep the one true path, if he once 
 relax his hold upon the vital safeguards of 
 religion ; upon Prayer, and Vigilance, and 
 Endurance. 
 
 But granted that he rise superior to these 
 graver perils. Will he, when he leaves these 
 walls, fall into other snares ? Will he palter 
 with the priceless opportunities that are his ? 
 Will he fritter away his time on trifles ? Will 
 he allow himself to be drawn into the vortex 
 of frivolity, and abuse the egitimate refresh- 
 ments of social intercourse ? Will he regard
 
 xn] A Farewell. 169 
 
 the amusements of boyhood as the adequate 
 end and object of life ? instead of feeling that 
 they are fair and good and have their place 
 and use, but that to put them ever first, is to 
 invert the relative proportions of things ? Will 
 he emancipate himself from some unworthy 
 traditions or some narrow code of fashion, 
 that hitherto he may have cherished ? Will he 
 gain a larger view of life by converse with 
 robuster minds no longer echo the prejudices 
 of others, but learn to judge for himself on 
 the great questions of right and wrong ? The 
 choice of a profession will have dawned already 
 upon some of you. But the choice of a definite 
 line of study, out of the many that offer them- 
 selves, cannot safely be deferred. That some 
 line of serious study must be selected may be 
 assumed, for why else go at all to a place 
 whose final cause is the building up of the 
 fabric of the mind ? Little do those who look 
 with pity or with supercilious indifference 
 upon the University student know what they 
 are forfeiting. They are forfeiting, in most 
 cases, the power of doing solid work in the 
 world. It is not a mere question of extending 
 the subjects of school studies ; of acquiring a 
 command over some portions of history ; a 
 grasp of and critical insight into the systems 
 of ancient philosophy. The case is widely 
 different from this. Apart from the bracing
 
 170 A Farewell. [xn 
 
 and disciplining of the mind, those to whom 
 steady persevering adherence to some one line 
 of study is a mystery and enigma, are losing 
 what they would give anything hereafter to 
 recover. The capability of sustained toil is not 
 a thing to be taken up when and how you choose. 
 It is not a matter depending on an effort of 
 the will at any time or under any circum- 
 stances. It is the outcome and the fruit of 
 training. It is a treasure ; a treasure not 
 casually lighted upon by the indolent or the 
 dilettante ; but the result of searching and 
 delvingwith a reasonable prospect of discovery. 
 And when this power of work takes the form 
 of labour for others, what fairer sight can we 
 see, what securer basis is there for the love 
 and admiration of your fellow-men ? Who are 
 those who most earn the gratitude of their 
 age ? where is the likeness of the lineaments 
 of Christ most to be traced ? Is it not in 
 such as will bend themselves to severe work ; 
 who have prepared themselves to discover 
 and to choose the best causes to which to 
 devote their energies ? and this power of 
 service, this noble zeal to " scorn delights 
 and live laborious days," depend upon it, will 
 be more and more in request from all classes 
 (high as well as low) amidst the accumulating 
 problems of the times in which you will have 
 to live.
 
 xn] A Farewell. 171 
 
 Lord, and what shall this man do ? this one, 
 who has mastered passion, or at least will not 
 be her slave ? who has the genuine thirst for 
 knowledge, who is fired with the zeal for true 
 enlightenment of mind ? In this higher and 
 purer region is there still no danger? Yes, 
 much, though of a different kind. There is 
 pride of intellect, there is intense and undue 
 absorption in the task of self-culture to be 
 guarded against. Will such a one shut him- 
 self up in the past and be blind to the mo- 
 mentous interests and lessons of the present ? 
 Will he stand aloof from his fellows in 
 fancied self-improvement, and lose the varied 
 play of mind, the interchange" of thought 
 which constitutes half the value of College 
 life? And then as maturer age draws on, 
 will he take no part in the sounding labour- 
 house of life, but look on at it from outside 
 finding fault with this or that part of the 
 machinery with fastidious smile criticising 
 everything, himself constructing nothing ? Or 
 again, will he give the rein to free inquiry? 
 Shall he become deeply versed in German 
 metaphysics or French criticism, while the 
 grand old Hebrew record and Christ's words 
 of eternal life pall upon him and are slighted 
 or forgotten ? Oh ! let him return to them 
 day by day ! Let him be sure that he will 
 need them more than ever now, to sober
 
 1 72 A Farewell. [xn 
 
 and to humble him, to save him at the 
 last from that saddest utterance of the Roman 
 Emperor 1 strenuous and unwearied as was 
 his energy and industry Omnia fui et nihil 
 expedit. 
 
 Lord, and what shall this man do? This 
 one who has learnt to conquer self in these its 
 more insidious and subtle forms? Who will 
 regard his physical strength but as a trust 
 committed to him, and his body but as the 
 ready instrument of his soul ? Who will bring 
 the gold of his philosophy and solid learning, 
 and the myrrh of his poetry and lighter ac- 
 complishments, and the frankincense of all 
 those gentler graces and courtesies that shed 
 a charm round the worker, and prevent him 
 from seeming hard and cold and repellent, 
 and will lay them all at the feet of his 
 Master. 
 
 Rather shall we not say, " what will such a 
 one not do ? " Whether his character be cast 
 in the mould of the ardent energetic Peter, 
 or of the thoughtful, patient, contemplative 
 John? 
 
 I have spoken but of one branch of after- 
 life to those who are about to leave ; but in 
 truth the spirit of hearty work on which we 
 have dwelt is the same for all its phases. What 
 
 1 Septimius Severus.
 
 xn] A Farewell. 173 
 
 shall this and this man do in the various 
 paths to which he may be summoned ? 
 
 What shall he do, we say ? Yes, but recol- 
 lect that to do in the sense of to achieve some- 
 thing brilliant, is granted only to the gifted 
 few. It is not necessary for us to do anything 
 heroic, it is necessary for us to strive to be 
 perfect. " Perfection is being, not doing. In 
 Christian life, every moment and every act 
 is an opportunity for doing the one thing of 
 becoming Christ-like." 1 Still let me press on 
 all, two great principles of action : First, the 
 duty of aiming at personal influence, " the key 
 of great movements," as it has been called, "the 
 soul of all that is deep and powerful, both in 
 what lasts and in what makes change." 2 And 
 how far you will exert personal influence, de- 
 pends very largely upon what you are here. Be 
 pure, be courageous, be merciful, be unswerv- 
 ing in right-doing now, and you will be centres 
 of good ; you will radiate light on all around 
 you hereafter. 
 
 And secondly, have enthusiasm : enthu- 
 siasm for some noble cause, which by the 
 antagonistic power of good shall cast out and 
 leave no place for the mean, the trivial, the 
 
 1 F. W. Robertson, " Christian Progress by Oblivion 
 of the Past." 
 
 2 Dean Church, University Sermons.
 
 174 ^ Farewell. [xn 
 
 ignoble : enthusiasm, the handmaid of the 
 Faith that removes mountains, and of the 
 Love that thinks the best it can of all ; the 
 antidote of sloth, and of depression : Enthu- 
 siasm, which (be it said with reverence) was in 
 Christ, when He was consumed with a holy 
 zeal for His Father's House, and when He 
 rejoiced or exulted in spirit, on beholding 
 Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Have 
 enthusiasm for your school, for your country, 
 for your own future ! Who would not 
 choose the enthusiastic with all his liability 
 to error, rather than the cold marble char- 
 acter of one who walks too cautiously ever 
 to stumble ; but narrows his horizon to the 
 things of earth, and never lifts his gaze to 
 heaven ? 
 
 And yet one word more, which not to utter 
 would be affectation in him who addresses you. 
 Were he not to express the sense of what he 
 owes to this place, " the stone would " indeed 
 " cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the 
 timber would answer it," to reprove him. 
 Bear with him if he does so for a few moments. 
 As his life here passes silently before him : 
 profoundly conscious as he is of many failings 
 and shortcomings as boy and as master : from 
 that day distant but never to be forgotten, 
 when he was brought here, and committed 
 like you by a mother's tender prayer and
 
 xn] A Farewell. 175 
 
 aspirations, to the perils of a public school, 
 here where every footstep calls up associations 
 of some old companionship, some kind, cheer- 
 ing word, some germ it may be of thought and 
 resolve, this Eton which must remain till 
 death blended indissolubly with all that is most 
 sacred and precious to him what should be 
 the predominant feeling on going from it to 
 a sphere where watchfulness and prayer and 
 patience will be needed more than ever? 
 Surely it should be humbled thoughts and 
 thankfulness. " Tho' much is taken, much 
 abides." If there are memories of sharpest 
 sorrow, there are memories also of undeserved 
 blessings. When a few Sundays since I 
 listened to my valued friend and colleague 
 (once with me in the same pupil-room, and 
 for many years united with me in our common 
 work here) preaching from this pulpit ; when 
 a fortnight ago, I heard an honoured pupil 
 addressing the rest of our body in their Chapel ; 
 when we can trace (what is far better than 
 their triumphs) the steady growth in goodness 
 of those we have taught ; or when one sees 
 reflected in pupils the features of their fathers 
 who were with us here, and recognize in them 
 the same generous spirit, the thought must 
 arise, that this continuity of affection, this 
 handing on of the lamp of truth and know- 
 ledge, this perpetual self-renewal of youth
 
 176 A Farewell. [xn 
 
 amidst the old scenes, are among the things 
 that add a zest to existence, far beyond its 
 vaunted prizes. 
 
 " This does not come with houses or with gold, 
 'Tis not in the world's market bought and sold." 
 
 Oh, let us treasure to the utmost such a 
 heritage! "Thanks to the human heart by 
 which we live." Let it not be for nothing that 
 we have been brought up under the shadow 
 of a venerable past ! At least let us give 
 this proof of sincerity and loyalty, that we per- 
 form the duties of these few remaining weeks 
 conscientiously, punctually, and unflinchingly. 
 Let us gather up the fragments that remain of 
 a school-time, of a boyhood, of a life ! What- 
 ever be the future in store for you, lofty or hum- 
 ble, arduous or tranquil, whether it be to battle 
 for the rights of man in the great Council- 
 Chamber of the nation, to rule some vast and 
 distant province, or to minister for Christ in 
 some lowly hamlet, remember that " to w/iom 
 muck has been given, of the same shall much be 
 required? 
 
 Continue in the things that you have learnt 
 in the sweet services of this Chapel. Follow 
 Christ, in an ordered sober life of self-control, 
 which is only another term for His easy yoke. 
 Strive to do nothing unworthy of your Alma 
 Mater. Strive to promote her true welfare !
 
 xn] A Farewell. 177 
 
 For her and for all her sons the fervent prayer 
 shall go up : 
 
 " Peace be within thy walls, 
 And plenteousness within thy palaces. 
 
 For my brethren and companions 3 sakes, - 
 I will wish thee prosperity. 
 
 Yea, because of the house of the Lord our God, 
 I will seek to do thee good."
 
 SERMON XIII. 
 
 THE HEALING OF THE DEMONIAC 
 BOY. 1 
 
 " But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed 
 the boy, and gave him back to his father." St. Luke, 
 ix. 42 (R. V.). 
 
 CAN we not almost see that agonized 
 father going down on his knees to 
 Christ ? Can we not hear his passionate en- 
 treaty, " Lord, have mercy on my son, for he 
 is epileptic, and suffereth grievously. I be- 
 seech Thee to look upon him, for he is mine 
 only child, and behold a spirit taketh him, 
 and he suddenly crieth out, and it teareth him 
 that he foameth, and it hardly departeth from 
 him, bruising him sorely. Ofttimes it hath 
 cast him into the fire and into the water to 
 destroy him. And I besought thy disciples 
 to cast him out, and they could not." 
 
 And then, that graphic account in St. Mark, 
 
 giving all the unmistakable symptoms of the 
 
 malady, and how our Lord, pierced to the 
 
 heart by the distressful scene that burst upon 
 
 1 June igth, 1892.
 
 xm] Healing of the Demoniac Boy. 1 79 
 
 Him the inquisitive crowd, the wrangling 
 scribes, the failure of the disciples trusting to 
 exorcise the demon by the mere magic of His 
 Name, said, " Bring him unto Me ; " how no 
 sooner did the poor stricken boy meet Jesus' 
 eye than he was seized by a fresh paroxysm, 
 the worst of all Christ had ever confronted ; 
 how He questioned the half-despairing father, 
 as a kind physician would do, and drew out 
 his faltering faith and accepted it, weak as it 
 was in its expression, " Lord, I believe, help 
 thou mine unbelief" How at last Jesus spake 
 the word of irresistible power, and then 
 though not till after another and yet direr 
 seizure a spasm that convulsed the whole 
 frame, and left him rigid and still as a corpse, 
 the demon departed from him. Then Jesus 
 took him gently by the hand, and raised him 
 up calm and tranquillized after that desolating 
 storm, and gave him back to his father, and 
 the boy was healed from that hour. 
 
 It is a scene in the gospel history most 
 vividly brought before us by all the three first 
 Evangelists. 
 
 Is it only that ? Does it only deal with a 
 condition of things long since passed away, a 
 set of phenomena peculiar to the time and 
 place when and where Christ's life was spent 
 upon earth ? Has it no counterpart in our 
 own age ? Has it no special lesson for us here
 
 1 80 Healing of the Demoniac Boy. [xni 
 
 this morning yes, for you whom I especially 
 address ? 
 
 Surely it bears with it this most comforting 
 truth, that the temptations, the trials that 
 beset boyhood, whatever they be, and where- 
 ever they are permitted for a time to over- 
 cloud the sunshine of youth, whether as then 
 under Syrian skies, or in English homes, or 
 amidst the flower and hope of England's 
 coming race, are indeed sympathized with by 
 Christ, and that the thraldom of the Evil 
 Spirit, that so vexes and possesses, can be 
 overmastered and conquered by Christ, and by 
 Him alone. 
 
 " And Jesus rebuked the devil, and he de- 
 parted from him, and the boy was healed from 
 tliat hour" 
 
 I detached part of one verse, as my text, 
 and yet one feels that it can hardly be dis- 
 sociated from the whole of the foregoing nar- 
 rative. It is closely connected with the sub- 
 ject of the Transfiguration, as that centra 
 event in Christ's ministry had itself a twofold 
 aspect ; on the one side being a glimpse of 
 the final glory, and on the other being linked 
 to His decease, the subject you remember of 
 the discourse on the Mount, the ignominious 
 details of that decease being for the first time 
 deliberately and distinctly announced to the 
 startled three on their way down immediately
 
 xm] Healing of the Demoniac Boy. 181 
 
 afterwards. So, too, with this sad story. It 
 has another side to it. The most opposite 
 things are brought together. They are so 
 connected we know on the canvas of Raphael. 
 Up above is the radiance that emanates from 
 the very fountain of light ; down below, poor 
 humanity with its struggles, its passions, its 
 vain attempts to cope with misery, its wrang- 
 ling, its failure. Agitation, alarm, helplessness, 
 malicious pleasure at the discomfiture of the 
 disciples are depicted on the different counten- 
 ances, while the open volume seems to suggest 
 the idea of some spell or form of words having 
 been tried, as if perchance it might succeed. 
 Up above, all is perfect peace, serene tran- 
 quillity ; down below, all is strife, trouble, and 
 unrest. 
 
 It is true that the two events could not 
 really have synchronized ; for the vision took 
 place at night, and St. Luke tells us that it 
 was on the following day that our Lord was 
 met by the crowd. Still there is, is there not, 
 a deep truth underlying that picture, the last 
 that Raphael ever painted, the one which 
 after his death was hung with its lower part 
 unfinished, over his bier, in the chamber where 
 he was accustomed to work ? 
 
 There are occasions like the present when 
 the sweet and solemn services of this chapel, 
 revisited for the first time on a Sunday after
 
 1 82 Healing of the Demoniac Boy, [xm 
 
 an interval of several years, touch the feelings 
 and raise the spirit in an unwonted manner. 
 And to many of you I can well believe that 
 times of refreshing come each week, and at 
 each service in the week that you attend here. 
 But we have each of us to go back again to 
 our duties homely, and even irksome as they 
 may be in our several spheres in this work- 
 a-day world. 
 
 St. Peter, while on the Mount, in the pre- 
 sence of those two glorified saints (whose 
 luminous bodies were a prophetic intimation 
 of the brightness of the redeemed in their 
 after form), was carried beyond himself in an 
 ecstasy of delight, rapt into another world in 
 the bliss of that heavenly communion. While 
 gazing on his transfigured Master he felt strong 
 in the spirit, and wished to remain where he 
 was. "It is good for us to be here." But he 
 could not remain there. He had to go back 
 again and to face all the suffering that awaited 
 them at the foot of the Mount. He had to 
 hear very soon of such coming shame and 
 agony as he had never imagined possible. 
 And we, too, must rely upon no mere mo- 
 mentary fervour, no transient emotion. The 
 conflict with evil has to be renewed again and 
 again. After a nearer insight into heaven it 
 is often sharper than before. After coming 
 to the Holy Communion it is more necessary
 
 xm] Healing of the Demoniac Boy. 183 
 
 than ever to be watchful. Indeed, as Bishop 
 Ken says, " it is then that your greatest work 
 is but beginning." 
 
 I know not whether there are any specially 
 new forms of evil of which I should speak, or 
 whether there exist foes more to be dreaded 
 by you now than there used to be in this 
 place ; but I know from my own experience 
 and memory of school how hard the Tempter 
 tries to ruin, and I know also, from a later 
 and much more lengthened experience, how 
 he is ever sowing tares among the wheat, and 
 doing all he can to mar the good work going 
 on in this favoured place, where, with so many 
 advantages, with such helps and blessings as 
 it possesses, it ought not to be so difficult to 
 be good. It is not to be believed that he has 
 relaxed the virulence of his hatred, or the 
 pertinacity of his assaults, or that he will ever 
 do so, so long as evil exists. 
 
 Is it using too strong language to say that 
 he has ofttimes ere now cast many a youth of 
 fairest promise into the fire and into the water, 
 to destroy him ? into the fire of some strong 
 over-mastering passion some uncurbed de- 
 sire, some fatal habit and that, too, in spite 
 of the tenderest memories and claims of home, 
 and of grave remonstrance, and affectionate 
 warning of tutors ? 
 
 Is it too much to say, after that when the
 
 184 Healing of the Demoniac Boy. [xm 
 
 horror of such a falling away comes home to 
 the young and as yet unseared conscience 
 when the glory and the loveliness of the life 
 once known is seen to be departed when the 
 thought arises, " where shall I hide my fore- 
 head and my eyes ? " " Can I ever be like that 
 again ? " " Can I ever know the simplicity, 
 the joy of that comparative innocence ? " 
 when companions of stronger will drag down 
 whispering, " it is no good, what is the use of 
 trying to be better than everyone else?" when 
 the misdeeds of the past seem to throw their 
 baleful shadow over the whole coming future, 
 is it too much to say that the Evil One casts 
 the poor lad into the waters the deep waters 
 of despair for a time, or else into the stagnant, 
 fetid, deadly waters of indifference, and cold- 
 ness, and apathy to all higher impulse ? But 
 even out of that hottest furnace, even out of 
 those deadly waters, there is an escape : 
 
 " At last I heard a voice upon the slope, 
 Cry to the summit, Is there any Hope ?" 
 
 Yes, the Healer is already on the way. He 
 is coming down from the Mount. He is 
 leaving all its glories to come to you. He is 
 entering into and sympathizing with all the 
 difficulties and fierce trials of boyhood. He 
 is hastening to help you. He is very near. 
 In a few moments He will be standing by
 
 xui] Healing of the Demoniac Boy. 185 
 
 you and rebuking the evil spirit that has such 
 a hold over you, whatever it be, however per- 
 tinacious and inveterate ! 
 
 " And he gave the boy back to his father" 
 Let us not miss that touching conclusion 
 given us by St. Luke. Yes ! He will give you 
 back to reverence for yourself, to confiding 
 thoughts, to the deeper love of your earthly 
 parent, and of your Heavenly Father, both of 
 which for a time you fancied you had forfeited 
 for ever. He will never refuse His aid so long 
 as the Prayer of Faith, " Lord, I believe, help 
 Thou mine unbelief," be sincerely lifted up to 
 him. He will command the demon to depart ; 
 He will so powerfully and so thoroughly 
 expel it, that it shall not merely go out of 
 itself, to return after a season with seven 
 others more evil than itself, but He will cast 
 it out. Oh ! if I could make the echo of that 
 vital distinction as I first heard it long ago 
 from Bishop Wilberforce ring in your ears 
 again ! for is not this indeed the lesson of 
 that poor possessed boy, that we never rest 
 till the voice of sovereign power and authority 
 go forth ? Till not merely one bad habit give 
 place to another, as the fiery passions and 
 impetuosities of early life are so often followed 
 by the colder calculating vices of age, avarice, 
 moroseness, hardness, but the whole man is 
 renovated, and the purified nature is made
 
 1 86 Healing of the Demoniac Boy. [xm 
 
 fit to be a temple for the Holy Spirit, instead 
 of the resort of everything that can defile and 
 disturb. 
 
 These that I have touched on are the more 
 serious, the fiercer, the more terrible assaults 
 on the citadel of Christian boyhood. There 
 are others of a different kind, subtle and 
 insidious rather than violent, infirmities of 
 character, lowerings of the tone and influ- 
 ence of your lives, which still cannot be set 
 right by any mere efforts of your own, but 
 call for the hand of the Divine Healer. 
 
 There is the cynical or the critical spirit of 
 one who is content to look on at the efforts 
 toward higher good, the storm and stress 
 and struggle going on outside itself, giving 
 no help, but steering clear of it as far as may 
 be. I do but glance at this. There is another 
 danger, almost the opposite one, on which I 
 would say a little ; it may not apply to many, 
 but it may come home to some. I mean the 
 restless, feverish desire to make a name, to 
 win applause, the intolerance of all that looks 
 like mediocrity or failure, the haunting idea, 
 the suggestion implied or hinted that if you 
 cannot excel in one line you must in another, 
 that school life is a very poor thing unless 
 you are to the front and make a decided 
 mark in some branch or other of its pursuits 
 and interests. This is indeed the abuse of a
 
 xm] Healing of the Demoniac Boy. 187 
 
 noble thing, the excess of a right feeling, and 
 therefore one would not willingly be mis- 
 understood in speaking of it, for who would 
 breathe a syllable against lofty ambition and 
 enthusiasm ? There is far too little of it here 
 or - elsewhere ; still I venture to think that 
 secret pain and trouble is sometimes caused 
 by such reflection on those who are not fitted, 
 or not as yet fitted for the keener struggles 
 and severer competitions. But why should 
 they go out of their proper nature to strive 
 after that for which they are not suited ? 
 
 The great Head Master, Dr. Arnold (the 
 fiftieth anniversary of whose death was com- 
 memorated last Sunday) once said, " If there 
 be one thing on earth which is truly admir- 
 able, it is to see God's wisdom blessing an 
 inferiority of natural powers where they have 
 been honestly, truly, and zealously cultivated." 
 Let them lay to heart those words. Let them 
 not be discouraged. Let them not mind if 
 they do not reach fame here. Early distinc- 
 tion is indeed often the herald of later 
 eminence ; but it is not always so, or of 
 necessity so. Some of the men in the very 
 first rank at the present day, whose words are 
 listened to with the greatest respect, won no 
 special honour, while at Eton, whether as 
 scholars or as athletes. They went quietly 
 along their way. They had a reserve of
 
 1 88 Healing of the Demoniac Boy. [xm 
 
 strength, due in part to daily tasks unos- 
 tentatiously performed, and in their case it 
 has come true that 
 
 " Not once or twice in our fair island-story 
 The path of duty was the way to glory." 
 
 If the rather exaggerated deference shown 
 to the successful and the popular be some- 
 times a little trial to temper, if the pride of 
 strength seem at times to trample down the 
 less robust nature, let the thought come back 
 of the serene, peace-breathing presence of 
 Christ, calming all that jarring discord and 
 unseemly strife for triumph at the foot of the 
 mount. By taking His easy yoke you will find 
 rest to your souls, and will win the true 
 honour that comes from above, and is sure to 
 come eventually to those who deserve it. 
 Other distinctions you will let come and go 
 as He shall bid them. 
 
 And so we are brought back again to the 
 truth interpreted in the great picture. The 
 peace of Heaven lies very near (if we seek for 
 it) to all the wrangling and tumults, the weak- 
 ness and helplessness of earth. The radiance 
 of the Transfiguration is shining down upon 
 the disconsolate father and upon his stricken 
 boy. When Christ comes, He brings with 
 Him bright glimpses of glory still lingering 
 around Him. The force, the energy required
 
 xm] Healing of the Demoniac Boy. 189 
 
 to vanquish the stubborn evil spirit, whateve 
 it be, however malignant, and however in- 
 veterate, is indeed great, superhuman. But it 
 is there. It is ready to be put forth. Every- 
 thing depends upon faith, in the want 01 
 which lay the secret of failure hitherto. " If 
 thou canst ! all things are possible to him that 
 believeth." 
 
 The Lord's arm is not shortened that it 
 cannot save. To Him we must turn. By 
 none else can the deliverance be wrought out. 
 
 " Oh tortuous paths ! " says St. Augustine, 
 " woe to the presumptuous spirit that hopes, 
 if it withdraws from Thee, that it will find 
 anything better. Thou alone art our Rest. 
 Thou alone settest us free from our miserable 
 wanderings, and establishest our goings in 
 Thy way." 1 
 
 1 " Confessions," bk. vi., ch. xvi.
 
 190 
 
 SERMON XIV. 
 
 GOD'S LAMP NEVER EXTIN- 
 GUISHED. 1 
 
 " The lamp of God was not yet gone out." I Samuel, 
 iii. 3 (R. V.). 
 
 VERY beautiful is the sight of unsullied 
 youth ministering in holy places, separate 
 from contact with the outer world, wholly de- 
 voted to religious service. Even in the cult 
 of a heathen god, when we meet with anything 
 resembling such a dedication of the freshest 
 period of life, we cannot help being arrested 
 by its charm. The young Ion 2 in Greek 
 Tragedy has a strange fascination for us, as 
 he tends the altar of Apollo at Delphi, as he 
 scares away the birds that swoop down from 
 the cliffs of Parnassus ; as he sings his joyous 
 
 1 June 1 8th, 1893. 
 
 K\IVO S' O 7TOVOQ fj.01, 
 
 Otolfftv SovXav )(ko' t%iv, 
 
 ov Ovarois, dXA' aQava.TOi . . . 
 
 fid' ovrtiiQ del &oi[3<i> 
 
 ,rt Travffaiftav, r\ 
 
 EURIP. Ion, 130.
 
 xiv] God's Lamp never Extinguished. 191 
 
 morning hymn, boasting that his ministrations 
 are rendered to no mortal, but to the immor- 
 tals, and praying that such happy toil as his 
 may never cease, but with his life. How much 
 more lovely is the vision of the son of many 
 prayers, the child-priest, Samuel, girded with 
 his linen ephod, consecrated from the first to 
 the true God in the tabernacle at Shiloh ! 
 The historian seems gladly to pause in his 
 narrative of those dark days that were calling 
 down swift destruction upon priest and people, 
 in order to linger awhile over the picture of 
 the blameless lad of twelve years old, tending 
 the Sanctuary by day, lying down within its 
 precincts by night, and opening its doors at 
 sunrise. Other pictures of childhood and youth 
 spent in special service to God we have brought 
 before us in Scripture. We have one of Josiah, 
 who in the eighth year of his reign (i.e., when 
 he was but sixteen years old) took the first 
 steps in that reform which he afterwards 
 carried out so fully. Of him the record is that 
 " while he was yet young, he began to seek after the 
 God of David his fatlier" We have another in 
 Timothy, of whose early days St. Paul gives 
 us a glimpse : " From a child thou hast known 
 the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make 
 thee wise unto salvation, through faith which 
 is in Christ Jesus." But far, far beyond all, we 
 have Him before whom all images of early
 
 192 God's Lamp [xiv 
 
 innocence and guilelessness grow faint and 
 pale the Holy Child, who, when he was 
 twelve years old was found in His Father's 
 house, bent on doing His Father's business, 
 sitting in the Temple, in the midst of the 
 astonished doctors of the law, both hearing 
 and asking them questions. Well might such 
 an ideal of unearthly devotedness inspire (as 
 in most of the instances mentioned, it has 
 inspired) the pencil of artists ! 
 
 The scene in the sanctuary at Shiloh the 
 deep silence of the early morning the young 
 child hearing a voice and mistaking it at first 
 in a childish manner ; the contrast between 
 him and the aged Eli, feeble and infirm of 
 will, having to hear his doom from the lips of 
 his own pupil who was to succeed him as 
 Judge there is no need to dwell on it. It is 
 a scene which once read fixes itself indelibly 
 upon the memory. 
 
 Let us return to the text : " The lamp of God 
 was not yet gone out" as we read it in the 
 Revised Version, for " ere the lamp of God 
 went out" There were times many times 
 in the history of Israel when that lamp was 
 all but extinguished. There was the period 
 when the hideous worship of the Phoenicians 
 had been imported by Ahab to rival the 
 worship of Jehovah, the moment when it 
 seemed even to Elijah that all was lost ; yet
 
 xiv] Never Extinguished. 193 
 
 even then amidst the growing apostasy, the 
 Lord had kept to Himself those 7,000 who were 
 secretly faithful, and had not bowed the knee 
 to Baal. There was the time of deepest de- 
 gradation into which the nation sunk when 
 transplanted to Babylon, but even then the 
 voice of the prophets of the Captivity was 
 heard, and Judah was to rise from her ashes, 
 and a new era was to dawn. And so it has 
 been again and again ; there have been periods 
 of gloom when it might seem that the lamp 
 was to go out ; but at such critical moments 
 the sacred fire has ever been burning, there 
 have been " the few names even in Sardis 
 which have not denied their garments," the 
 ten righteous men the custodians of the dy- 
 ing flame the regenerators and survivors of 
 Christ's Church. 
 
 In the final horrors of the Siege of Rome 
 by Alaric, the lamp of God was not extin- 
 guished. It burnt on with undying light, and 
 some striking examples of Christian goodness 
 and mercy relieved the general gloom. The 
 belief in the divinity of Rome, so long and so 
 passionately clung to by the heathen, could 
 not survive the fall of her temples and idols ; 
 but was it not just then, when the discredited 
 city seemed crumbling into ruin, that St. 
 Augustine put forth his great work, " The 
 City of God " ? appealing in it to conscience, 
 O
 
 194 God's Lamp [xiv 
 
 appealing to past history, and justifying the 
 ways of Providence to man ? And the more 
 that research is carried into any parts of 
 what we call the Dark Ages, not yet fully 
 explored, probably the more will the words of 
 our text be illustrated. At the close of the 
 sixth century, Ireland was the centre of light 
 and learning, and from Ireland there radiated 
 beams of missionary enterprise to the north 
 and to the east : we see Columba bearing the 
 lamp to lona, and a little later on Columban 
 penetrating the wild forests of the Vosges. 
 The worst miseries, perhaps, that Europe ever 
 has known, were witnessed during the eighth, 
 ninth, and tenth centuries. Yet even in those 
 desert tracts here and there an oasis appears. 
 Karl, the great Charles 1 stands out, as has 
 been finely said, " like a beacon upon a waste, 
 or a rock in the broad ocean." Stained as he 
 was with some vices, he must still be regarded 
 as wonderfully enlightened when contrasted 
 with the barbarian world around him. And 
 then look at our noble-hearted Alfred ! What 
 historical character so nearly approaches per- 
 fection ? Weak in body, and " at the head of 
 a weak and degenerate society whose hour of 
 dissolution had wellnigh struck," 2 how gal- 
 
 1 Hallam, " Middle Ages," ch. i., pt. i. 
 8 Merivale, "The Romans under the Empire," ch. 
 Ixviii., in his comparison of M. Aurelius with Alfred.
 
 xiv] Never Extinguished. 195 
 
 lantly he struggled on ! Surely he is the very 
 type of the Happy Warrior, 
 
 " The generous Spirit, who, when brought 
 Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought 
 Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought: 
 ' Whose high endeavours are an inward light 
 That makes the path before him always bright." 
 
 The Lamp of God was not yet gone out in 
 England under such a ruler ; no, nor when 
 those drearier and desperate times ensued, 
 when in the expressive figure of the Church 
 Historian l " Christ seemed to be asleep in the 
 hinder part of the vessel." The benefits con- 
 ferred upon mediaeval life by the Monasteries 
 cannot be ignored ; the greatest of them were 
 founded before the Conquest, and in them 
 were nurtured some men who in self-denial, 
 in singleness of purpose and courage, have 
 seldom been surpassed. 
 
 The close of the tenth century was the close 
 of an iron age. " Men's hearts everywhere 
 were failing them for fear and for looking after 
 those things which were coming upon the 
 earth." But no sooner was the dreaded one 
 thousandth year passed, than the skies seemed 
 to become serener, and Hope renewed itself. 
 The Christian world received a new impulse 
 
 1 Cardinal Baronius.
 
 196 God's Lamp [xiv 
 
 and from the religious excitement of that 
 date, and out of its agonies and birth-pangsy 
 arose the dawn of Christian Art in Europe. 
 The lamp of Norman architecture was lit, if 
 not to inspire the beauty and devotion of its 
 successor, yet still breathing awe and solemnity 
 in its massive creations. Thus we see that 
 
 " Sprinkled along the waste of years 
 Full many a soft green isle appears." 
 
 There was the lamp of missionary zeal in the 
 sixth and seventh, there was the lamp of 
 architecture beginning to illuminate even the 
 last years of the tenth century, and destined 
 to burst forth into a magnificent future. 
 
 There is a third lamp, which was to shine 
 forth with more and more brilliance after the 
 revival of letters, but which even before that 
 had sent forth no obscure rays I mean the 
 lamp of education. Time forbids my dwelling 
 on it : but here, if anywhere, in this training 
 ground of character, and within the walls of 
 this chapel, with its hallowed associations and 
 far-reaching memories, it could not be passed 
 by in silence. Light out of darkness, hope out 
 of despair, order out of disorder, is not that 
 the teaching of the mediaeval times, and, we 
 may trust, of all history ? It was a time of 
 national discontent, distress, and disorganiza- 
 tion when Wiclif died, but he was a morning
 
 xiv] Never Extinguished. 1 97 
 
 star, heralding the coming daylight And nine 
 years after Wiclif's death, just five hundred 
 years ago, when William of Wykeham founded 
 Winchester, and about the time whence several 
 Colleges at both Universities date their charters 
 the lamp of God assuredly had not gone 
 out in England. It was a period, too, saddened 
 by defeat abroad, and troubled by factions at 
 home, a period of the utmost depression in 
 literature and learning, when not quite half a 
 century later the good work of Henry VI. was 
 begun, and the first stone was laid of the 
 chapel in which we worship God to-day. And 
 not less from the annals of our church and our 
 nation in their sequel might the truth of our 
 text be illustrated. The religious condition 
 of England during the last century will occur 
 to every one as an instance. " There have 
 been seasons of torpor and depression, but 
 after each such interval Christ's Church has 
 manifested her own recuperative power." 
 
 Perhaps I may seem already to have dwelt 
 too long upon the past, although in but a 
 fragmentary manner, in this glance across the 
 pages of history, long before Eton was known 
 as a place devoted to learning. But to any 
 thoughtful mind must not the past have a 
 perpetual value? We cannot, if we would, 
 dissociate ourselves from it. And just as with 
 nations their present rests on and is but the
 
 198 God's Lamp [xiv 
 
 outcome of all their past, so it is with indi- 
 viduals. Our character is continually being 
 constructed upon what is vanishing and out of 
 sight. It is every day being built up upon the 
 sinking, subsiding, yet still sustaining reefs of 
 our past. 
 
 I forego to pause upon the long roll of 
 Eton's illustrious sons. To dwell upon such 
 a record is sometimes to run the risk of 
 ministering to complacent pride rather than 
 to rouse to an imitation of their virtues. And 
 I will only say of these latter days of our 
 school's history, that the lamp of God has 
 assuredly not gone out in them with the rise 
 and extension of such good work in East 
 London as they have witnessed. In the few 
 words that remain, I would desire to deepen 
 in you the sense of the immense value of the 
 lamp burning in each one of you, which is 
 nothing less than God's Holy Spirit ; how 
 very serious must the danger be of putting 
 out that light, given you to be your guide 
 through life's journey ; how necessary to 
 guard against letting it gradually get low, 
 against the relaxing of vigilance ; dropping 
 morning or evening prayer for one day, and 
 the next day finding it hard to take it up 
 again ; the coming to Holy Communion 
 hurriedly or carelessly, or not coming at all ; 
 the trusting to any false lights, like those lit
 
 xiv] Never Extinguished. 199 
 
 by the cruel wrecker to lure the ship upon the 
 rocks, instead of to the sure Word of God, 
 which is " a lantern to your feet, and a light 
 unto your paths." It is thus that the lamp 
 begins to fail and flicker, till at last it goes 
 out. 
 
 Hand on the torch to others ! Not only 
 have light in yourselves, but be centres of 
 light, radiating it to others ! Hand it on, and 
 take care that you hand it on not less bright 
 than you received it ! Let your ideal of Eton 
 be a noble, a worthy one ! Whatever it may 
 be given you to accomplish, let there be ever 
 associated with its name a sense of great 
 things, of things greater than yourself. A 
 gracious, abiding, life-long influence ! not 
 merely the honour of your house, or the 
 memory of your own intimate friends, good 
 and precious as these are, but superadded to 
 these, the love and reverence due to the 
 common home, the generous mother of us 
 all. 
 
 The last decade of the nineteenth century 
 is passing away. The twentieth is approach- 
 ing. It may seem a bold thing to say, but 
 can we doubt that what its colour and tone 
 will be in England depends in no slight degree 
 on what those who are being brought up here, 
 and in other public schools, shall become? 
 We who are older may not hope to behold the
 
 200 God's Lamp [xiv 
 
 working out of the momentous changes whose 
 foreshadowing we already discern, and some 
 of which we can hardly watch without awe. 
 But you, by being true to your Christian 
 belief, by your influence, by the part you take 
 in the warfare of good against evil, you will 
 have it in your power to mould the coming 
 age. One cannot over-estimate the possi- 
 bilities that hinge upon your boyhood. 
 
 Never to suffer the lamp of God to go out 
 in the shrine of your hearts and your con- 
 sciences, never to forfeit your inheritance, or 
 any of the vantage ground on which you stand, 
 by indifference to or neglect or misuse of 
 blessings won long ago for you laboriously by 
 others, upon whose labours you have entered, 
 but to be " a link among the days, to knit the 
 generations each to each," let this be your 
 aim and your resolve ! 
 
 It is one thing to rest idly upon the achieve- 
 ments of our fathers ; it is another to see in 
 them the strongest call to fresh energy. It 
 should be our aim " never to be forgetful of a 
 truth once obtained from them, but never to 
 sink into inertness in consequence of its at- 
 tainment ; " l or we may express the same duty 
 thus : " Not to break with the past, but to put 
 off the accretions of age." Does not that give 
 us the proper mean between an unnecessary 
 1 Mazzini.
 
 xiv] Never Extinguished. 201 
 
 idolatry of antiquity and a cutting ourselves 
 adrift from it altogether ? 
 
 To break with the past ! Some there may 
 be who are ready enough to do so not afraid 
 to slight all its monitory lessons as there are 
 some who with a light heart would make a 
 tabula rasa, and treat as open questions every- 
 thing hitherto regarded as most sacred. But 
 which of us here would be among them ? We 
 cannot do so with the history of our school, 
 or our nation, or our Christian religion. We 
 cannot do so with our own individual lives. 
 No ! However much a man may chafe against 
 the fetters of what he has been and what he 
 has done, however much he may try to laugh 
 at old warnings of experience, however fondly 
 he may fancy that he can start afresh any 
 morning on a career of independence, still 
 the solemn and sobering truth remains that 
 " God requiretJi " 1 of each one of us of you 
 and of me He requireth " for judgment that 
 which is past" 
 
 1 Eccles. iii. 15.
 
 202 
 
 SERMON XV. 
 THE VALUE OF INEQUALITY. 1 
 
 " Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he 
 shall have abundance : but from him that hath not, 
 shall be taken away even that which he hath." 
 Matthew, xxv. 29. 
 
 OUR Saviour not rarely spoke in paradox 
 in unexpected and startling language, 
 uttering words not to be pressed in the letter, 
 but purposely put in such a form, in order 
 that his hearers might stir themselves to get at 
 their inner and spiritual, their larger and deeper 
 meaning. 
 
 This verse of my text is one of these rather 
 hard sayings. Not that it drove people away. 
 It is so, in a different way from that in which 
 the discourse on the Bread of Life was hard. 
 Then we read that many of the disciples said, 
 " This is a hard saying, who can hear it ? " 
 and " many of them went back and walked 
 no more with him." 2 But here there are no 
 murmurs of dissent and disapproval. We are 
 not told that any on this ground fell away 
 
 1 Quinquagesima Sunday, February 28th, 1897. 
 
 2 St. John, vi. 60, 66.
 
 xv] The Value of Inequality. 203 
 
 from Christ whenever the words were spoken. 
 For they were repeated, and prominence is 
 given to them. They were delivered on at 
 least three different occasions, and very likely 
 on others that have not been recorded. 
 
 This verse expresses, indeed, one of the 
 profoundest laws of the moral world. We 
 know that our Saviour often embodied parts 
 of the best teaching of the past in His dis- 
 courses. Transmuting them into the fine gold 
 of perfect truth, he brought out of them more 
 than had hitherto been detected within them. 
 As He did not disdain to use such homely 
 proverbial expressions as " Physician, heal 
 thyself," " If the blind lead the blind, shall 
 they not both fall into the ditch ? " or, as when 
 He gave the model of all prayer, He employed 
 for some of its clauses what already existed in 
 germ in Jewish forms of prayer, so it may 
 have been in this case. 
 
 " To him that hath shall be given " has the 
 ring of a proverb applicable in its literal sense 
 to the conditions of human prosperity. It 
 was probably familiar to the shrewd worldly 
 men of the time, like such sayings current 
 among ourselves as " Money comes to money," 
 " Nothing succeeds like success," " Fortune 
 smiles on the fortunate." The words them- 
 selves were not novel. What was novel, and 
 even startling (as has been remarked), was
 
 2O4 The Value of Inequality. [xv 
 
 "that this principle should be adopted by 
 Christ and laid down as one of those upon 
 which God's government is carried on." 1 But 
 we remember the parable in which the sharp- 
 ness and quickness of the business-like steward 
 forms the groundwork for the highest moral 
 and spiritual teaching. And here, too, may 
 we not say that something like that law of 
 nothing succeeding like success may be traced 
 in the conditions of growth in Christ-like, 
 heavenly wisdom ? 
 
 This aphorism, I said, we meet with at least 
 three times ; first, in St. Matthew's thirteenth 
 chapter, when our Lord gave His reasons for 
 speaking in parables ; next, as the moral of 
 the Parable of the Talents ; and then again in 
 that of the Parable of the Pounds, in St. Luke. 
 The truth thrown out at first, to set the hearer 
 thinking, was afterwards developed and ex- 
 panded in those two longer passages. 
 
 " Unto him that hath shall be given" I be- 
 lieve that one of the chief reasons why we 
 find these words hard is because we will read 
 into them our own narrow interpretation. We 
 mistake their object ; we do not grasp their 
 fulness and their depth. We think of the 
 opulent, the powerful, the influential, the 
 
 1 Latham, " Pastor Pastorum," ch. x., to which I am 
 indebted for the main thought, and for some expres- 
 sions, in this sermon.
 
 xv] The Value of Inequality. 205 
 
 strong in physique, the robust in health, or 
 persons constitutionally cheerful and buoyant ; 
 and so long as we limit the saying to such as 
 are girt about with advantages of this sort, we 
 must see in it little beyond a benediction upon 
 the fortunate, and a curse, or something like 
 a curse, pronounced on others who lack these 
 gifts, and lack them through no fault of their 
 own. 
 
 It is one thing to have a blessing, a grace 
 or gift in the barest and most literal sense of 
 having. It is another, and a very different 
 thing to hold it, to appropriate it, to assimilate 
 it. The very best and most nutritious food 
 does not profit unless it be assimilated, con- 
 verted into animal substance, so as to repair 
 the daily waste of our bodily frames. If we 
 see a young man started for life with a 
 splendid equipment (apo^y or %opjy/a in Greek 
 phrase), with all the advantages that can be 
 supplied by birth and position, and freedom 
 from all cares as to making his livelihood, 
 endowed with sufficient powers of body and 
 mind if we follow him after the seed-time of 
 education is past, and then see him squander- 
 ing all in a few years, throwing it all away 
 through intemperance, or infatuation of one 
 kind or another, or, if he does not come to 
 that, sinking into a mere lounger and saun- 
 terer through life, can we say that he really
 
 2o6 The Value of Inequality. [xv 
 
 has these blessings ? He holds them by such 
 a precarious tenure that, sooner or later, he 
 will be parted from them. In the one case 
 the laws of the moral government of the world 
 will intervene ; in the other, the spirit of our 
 age will not tolerate him. There will be no 
 room for the mere saunterer. The trifler and 
 the idler are doomed. He has not acquired 
 those advantages for himself. He has not 
 earned them by toiling to improve them. He 
 has not traded with his talents, whatever 
 their original number, and made other two or 
 other five besides them. To have endow- 
 ments, in the highest sense of the word, we 
 must feel their true value and be alive to 
 the importance the necessity of cultivating 
 what was bestowed. 
 
 " For blessings which while they were ours 
 
 Alas ! we knew not how to prize, 
 Until they spread their snow-white wings, 
 
 And faded, faded from our eyes, 
 Forgive us, Lord, forgive ! " l 
 
 This law of the using of blessings holds 
 good, you know, in Nature. A muscle which 
 is not exercised tends to degenerate. A 
 limb that is used is strengthened ; if disused, it 
 becomes weak. And it penetrates the whole 
 of a Christian's life. 
 
 1 " Regrets " in " Fra Angelico and other Poems," 
 y Dr. Gregory Smith.
 
 xvj The Vahie of Inequality. 207 
 
 If, then, we may say that to have, in its 
 deeper sense, involves appreciating the posses- 
 sion, and using well the opportunities given 
 do we not see what follows ? We can under- 
 stand how still more comes to the enlightened 
 owner of a gift ; how (as it has been tersely 
 put) " the storing of achievement becomes the 
 basis of additional achievement." * He alone 
 who assimilates Christ's teaching can hope to 
 receive continually more. If anyone is con- 
 tent to hear without appropriating and profit- 
 ing by and by he will obtain nothing, and 
 at last even lose everything. It matters not 
 whether we say he hath or he seemeth to have. 
 For he who does not use (as Bengel says), 
 " only seems to have." 
 
 The Bible will supply many an illustration 
 of our text. The Apostles having some ele- 
 ments of spiritual wisdom, by using them 
 rightly could pass on from strength to strength, 
 from their earlier timid or faithless state, to 
 the higher plane on which we find them mov- 
 ing in the Acts. So too, to take an example 
 or two of those who had not, and from whom, 
 therefore, was taken that which they had, 
 the kingly power misused by Saul was trans- 
 ferred to David. The people of our Lord's 
 day, even the rulers and teachers, with few cr 
 
 1 Canon Eyton, "The Search for God," Sermon II.
 
 208 The Value of Inequality. [xv 
 
 no sparks of true wisdom, and not using the 
 little they had, were in danger of losing even 
 that. The crowds upon the shores of the 
 Lake of Galilee, after the feeding of the four 
 thousand, forfeited what they had. They lost 
 the presence of our Lord, when He left them 
 and went to preach elsewhere. And so, to 
 glance at the final lesson of Jewish History, 
 the privileges that people had not known 
 how to value, were " taken from them, and 
 given to a nation bringing forth the fruits 
 thereof." 
 
 But you may say, all this may be very true, 
 but how does it clear up the inherent difficulty 
 of the text ? Your interpretation of it, by 
 qualifying the meaning of its leading word " to 
 have," does not altogether satisfy us. So 
 read, the verse either becomes a truism, or 
 remains a hard saying. Why choose a passage 
 in which there still lingers an undertone of 
 sadness ? Yes, when we are in certain moods, 
 almost of fatalism, and that haunts us ever 
 and again with a feeling of perplexity ? Why 
 bring back to the mind what we would fain 
 banish from it, " the burden of the mystery, 
 the heavy and the weary weight, of all this 
 unintelligible world ? " 
 
 Let me then ask you to consider this ques- 
 tion of inequalities, and see if we cannot divest 
 of its severity the sentence that sounds so
 
 xv] The Value of Inequality. 209 
 
 terrible, "To him that hath shall be given 
 . . . from him that hath not shall be taken away 
 even that which he hath." 
 
 God's world (let us first remember) is estab- 
 lished and ordered on a basis not of equality, 
 but of inequalities. It must, therefore, be right 
 that they exist. It cannot be unjust ; we 
 should see it, if we could weigh all the equiva- 
 lents in a just balance. It cannot be a curse, 
 if we could regard it, as we may believe 
 superior beings do, " with larger, other eyes 
 than ours." 
 
 Look at one proof of it, in Nature, in vege- 
 tation, in the trees to whose " annual resurrec- 
 tion " we are beginning again to look forward, 
 when 
 
 " all this leafless and uncolour'd scene 
 Shall flush into variety again." 
 
 " Each tree has (we are told) its own peculiar 
 leaf-venation, corresponding to the peculiar 
 arrangement of its own branches." * There is 
 nothing like rigid equality or uniformity. The 
 leaves of plants are variously modified, so as to 
 suit their requirements. There is no end to 
 their diversity of shape. Almost every species 
 of plant has a different kind of leaf, adapted to 
 the situation in which it grows, or to its general 
 
 1 Hugh Macmillan, "Bible Teachings in Nature," 
 ch. vii. ; and see Sir John Lubbock's " Flowers, 
 Fruits, and Leaves," ch. v. 
 P
 
 2io The Value of Inequality. [xv 
 
 structure and texture. And yet amidst all 
 this diversity, nothing is capricious, nothing is 
 accidental. 
 
 But further, take another thought about in- 
 equality, a far larger one, that of the great law 
 of which vegetation is but one out of many 
 examples. It has been shown in our time 
 that it is out of inequality that all progress 
 comes. " One little superiority gives an ad- 
 vantage for gaining a still greater superi- 
 ority." " This orderly beautiful world is now 
 and has always been the scene of incessant 
 rivalry. . . From this stress of Nature, has fol- 
 lowed the highest result we are capable of 
 conceiving, continual advance towards higher 
 and more perfect forms of life." " To it we 
 owe all that is best and most perfect in life 
 at the present day, as well as all its highest 
 promise for the future." ' Is it not striking 
 to reflect that the law "he that hath to him 
 shall be given" is the law of individual ex- 
 cellence, the law by which " the world is so 
 ordered as to favour the growth of one be- 
 ginning to out-top the rest." Is it not, then, 
 a miserable thing to dwarf our ideas of this 
 subject to such a degree as to let it suggest 
 nothing but the conditions of man's life on 
 earth, and the differences between the fortunate 
 
 1 Benjamin Kidd, " Social Evolution."
 
 xv] The Value of Inequality. 211 
 
 and the less favoured. Surely that is not all. 
 It is but a portion, a section of the working 
 out of God's law. Angels in this scene of in- 
 equality would discern a very different spec- 
 tacle. We know but in part, as we are re- 
 minded in to-day's epistle, and as we require 
 to be reminded again and again. It is a 
 miserable thing to talk as Socialism does of 
 redistributing and equalizing properties. I 
 need not dwell on that. But one word may be 
 allowed on capital, which the Socialist so 
 hates. In this, too, is it not the use, not 
 the mere possession, that is all important? 
 " Capital," it has been said, " has no value at 
 all, except when vivified by use." 1 Yes ! 
 vivified by use ! Does not that expression 
 help us to understand " He that hath to him 
 shall be given, and he shall have abundance." 
 More, much more, might be added on the 
 beneficial tendencies of this law of inequality. 
 Oh, " how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable " 
 would this life become, did the opposite hold 
 good ! How monotonous the existence, how 
 depressing the outlook, how great the paralysis 
 to energy, if there were nothing else in store 
 for our race but the dead level of uniformity, 
 which, according to the forecast of some 
 writers, is all that awaits it in the future. 2 
 
 1 Mallock, " Labour and the Popular Welfare." 
 
 a " National Life and Character," by C. H. Pearson.
 
 212 The Value of Inequality. [xv 
 
 St. Paul, at any rate, did not believe in 
 any such dead level or monotonous drill. In 
 the chapter 1 immediately preceding to-day's 
 Epistle, he allows the widest play for indi- 
 vidual character, for " diversities of gifts," yet 
 with the same spirit working through them 
 all. The best, the highest of these are to be 
 earnestly desired, and carefully cultivated. 
 Yet in the last verse, the link between the 
 twelfth and thirteenth chapter, he says, " I 
 show unto you a still more excellent way." 
 Need I tell you in what that more excellent 
 way consists ? It is enshrined in those glowing 
 words that describe Love, Charity, as it never 
 before had been described. And believe that 
 there is ample scope for its exercise here by 
 you ! How so ? In recognizing, in accept- 
 ing, in making the best of different types of 
 character among yourselves, in loving and 
 admiring what is above yourselves. 
 
 Thank God that the Christian character is 
 not to be framed in any stereotyped or cast- 
 iron mould. The largeness of Christ's teach- 
 ing appears in nothing more than in the in- 
 finite variety of talents which He enlists in 
 His service. Look at the Apostles. Each of 
 them had a turn of mind that was specially 
 his own. There was the thoughtful, con- 
 templative John, there was the eager, practical, 
 1 i Cor. xii.
 
 xvj The Value of Inequality. 213 
 
 impetuous Peter, and also the silent, reserved, 
 yet honest and truthful Thomas. And so, 
 may we not apply St. Paul's language and 
 say : Are all to be great athletes ? Are all to 
 be eminent scholars ? There is no reason why 
 they should be. Let no tyranny of opinion, 
 no rule of a narrow clique frighten any one of 
 you from pursuing what he feels to be the 
 true ideal for him. Let no cynical talk lower 
 your high ambition, your ideal of becoming all 
 you are capable of, and of turning your talent 
 to the best possible account. There is an 
 eternal, an essential distinctness in any char- 
 acter worth anything. It will never be merely 
 a feeble repetition or imitation of another 
 character. Let one who has physical strength, 
 use it mercifully, value it, train it ! Such 
 training has braced many brought up here, to 
 endure hardship as good soldiers of Christ, 
 whether in some distant missionary field, or 
 in the teeming populations of our English 
 cities. He who has the gift of command and 
 influence over others, let him study well how 
 he employs that precious gift, not for private 
 ends, but for the good of those who naturally 
 look up to him as their leader. He who sets 
 out with but a moderate equipment, but has 
 the grace of perseverance, let him husband 
 what he has, and go on steadily. Very likely 
 he will hereafter distance some who may feel
 
 214 The Value of Inequality. [xv 
 
 inclined to smile now at his humble efforts. 
 Oh, how faulty are our predictions ! That 
 ideal hero of our times, Gordon, did not give 
 very much promise at first of success in his 
 profession. He had a delicate constitution 
 which in later days hardened into iron. When 
 at Woolwich, he was once told that he never 
 would make an officer. His temper would 
 blaze out fiercely in his younger days, but he 
 gained the mastery over it. The roughest 
 material is precious in the sight of its Maker 
 and Fashioner. A sculptor was passing with 
 a party of friends into his studio, when one of 
 them, seeing a large, uncouth block, said, 
 " That can never be turned to account." " Do 
 not say so," was the reply, " I can see an angel 
 in it." 
 
 Our Saviour, as we have seen, does not 
 shrink from the consequences of inequalities. 
 He prepares us for the fact that they widen, 
 and more than this, that they are widened 
 purposely. He implies that something like 
 this holds good in all progress. It holds in 
 Education. A clever boy, eager to learn, and 
 asking intelligent questions, must forge ahead 
 of the rest ; he must get more attention, how- 
 ever conscientiously the teacher may dis- 
 tribute his pains. It holds in Religion. One 
 who has no spark, or only the feeblest spark 
 of desire for the things of the spirit, loses even
 
 xv] The Value of Inequality. 215 
 
 the poor confusions he started with. While 
 the trifler and indifferent find their powers 
 first stagnate, and then dry up altogether, the 
 earnest-minded grow and develop. 
 
 And it will hold, we may reverently believe, 
 in that other state foreshadowed by the return 
 of the Lord, in each of the two parables, the 
 pounds and the talents. There is no hint of a 
 dead level in that high world, in that home 
 with the many mansions, where Christ said he 
 would go to prepare a place for his followers, 
 a place best fitted for each of them. What is 
 the reward promised to the faithful servant, 
 who has proved himself efficient in little things, 
 or in a few matters ? Is it something to be 
 spent on his own gratification, a folding of the 
 hands, a sitting down to a feast of selfish 
 enjoyment ? Very far from it ! He is to 
 have more authority, that is, more work, a 
 wider range of duties, an ampler field for 
 activity. A fresh and extended set of oppor- 
 tunities will be assigned to each individual 
 and carefully graduated to every shade of 
 character. More and more of the true riches 
 is for those who have appreciated what they 
 mean. More and more of the delight of being 
 employed in God's service, in that kingdom 
 where each shall humbly and thankfully accept 
 the sphere appointed for him. 
 
 Such, or something like it, we may believe
 
 2 1 6 The Value of Inequality. [xv 
 
 to be the final goal, the Crown of Righteous- 
 ness. But meanwhile, life with its responsi- 
 bilities, and its priceless opportunities is yours. 
 Looking on you, and forecasting what may be 
 in store for you, who can help being pene- 
 trated with the thought of the momentous 
 importance of this period of youth to you, the 
 perilous choice it lays before you ; the vital 
 issues that it involves ? True it is, on the one 
 hand, that there is the mystery of the germs 
 of evil springing up at a very early date how 
 subtle and secret in their origin, how fright- 
 fully rapid in their growth ! But on the other 
 hand, what glorious possibilities are yours ! 
 There is not one of you, who can have become 
 so entangled in wrong-doing, as for the skein 
 not to be unravelled betimes, and the clue to 
 the right path recovered. Not one can there 
 be upon whom the shades of the prison-house 
 have already closed. The heaven that lay 
 about your infancy is not yet very far off. 
 
 And what a prospect lies before you ! We 
 who have passed far beyond the middle arch 
 of life, even if we are spared to witness the 
 dawn of the next century, can hope to see but 
 a very few pages of its book opened to us. 
 But for you the bulk of that volume will be 
 unfolded. The oldest among you may hope 
 to live on to the middle of it. Grave ques- 
 tions, social, political, educational, religious,
 
 xv] The Value of Inequality . 217 
 
 are coming to the birth, and you will have to 
 take your part in solving them. They will 
 vitally affect you, whatever be your rank, your 
 wealth, or the past achievements of your 
 fathers. The spirit of the coming generation 
 will, we may be sure, require much more from 
 those entrusted with much, than from others 
 to whom less has been committed. 
 
 Suffer me then to say, as my last word, 
 Learn your real self, and live up to it. 1 Follow 
 after, cling to everything in this place that will 
 foster it, and that can draw out your best, your 
 highest powers. Remember those words of 
 Bishop Butler : 2 " We are naturally trusted 
 with ourselves ; with our own conduct, and 
 our own interest. We have temptations to be 
 unfaithful to this trust, to forfeit this interest, 
 to neglect it, to run ourselves into misery and 
 ruin." Do not chafe at discipline. Believe 
 that " it is good for a man that he bear the 
 yoke in his youth." Have we not a convincing 
 proof of its value, and at the same time a 
 signal living example of the great law we have 
 been considering, the law of struggle re- 
 warded, of talent cultivated bringing in an 
 abundant return, in the marvellous story of 
 the great Norwegian explorer, Nansen, that is 
 
 1 Cf. Pindar, " Pythian Odes," ii. 72, yivoi oloc iaai 
 . 
 Analogy," pt. i., ch. viii. 
 
 Q
 
 2 [ 8 The Value of Inequality. [xv 
 
 now in every mouth ? How was he brought 
 through difficulties, hardships, perils that 
 might have made the stoutest heart quail ? 
 Was it not by having trained himself from 
 youth to bear hardness? By deep study of 
 the conditions of the problem before him? 
 By unwearied attention to each minutest 
 detail ? Much he had indeed received to start 
 with, but because he sedulously improved all 
 his natural gifts, and never suffered one of 
 them to rust, much more was added unto 
 him. 
 
 Brave and temperate, cheerful, and patient, 
 full of resource. What a lesson to our age is 
 such a character as his ! How it speaks to 
 every ardent, enthusiastic spirit ! How it 
 seems to say to all : Do your very best ! Never 
 presume ! Never despair ! Never shrink from 
 taking infinite pains ! 
 
 " Each in one thing excel the rest ! 
 
 Strive ! and hold fast this truth of Heaven, 
 
 To him that hath shall more be given ! " 1 
 
 1 Robert Bridges, " Founder's Day." 
 
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