(LIBRARY I 
 UNI VIHSITY Of 
 CAtlFOftNIA 
 SAN DIEGO J

 
 The Oxford Library 
 
 of 
 Practical Theology 
 
 EDITED BY THE 
 REV. W. C. E. NEWBOLT, M.A. 
 
 CANON AND CHANCELLOR OF 8. PAUL'S 
 
 AND THE 
 
 REV. DARWELL STONE, M.A. 
 
 LIBRARIAN OF THE PUSEY HOUSE, OXFORD
 
 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN'S MANUAL 
 
 BY THE REV. 
 W. C. E./NEWBOLT, M.A. 
 
 Canon :md Chancellor of S. Paul's 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 39 Paternoster Row: London 
 
 New York, and Bombay 
 
 1903 
 
 A II rights reserved
 
 TO THE REVERED MEMORY OF 
 
 MY MOTHER 
 
 FROM WHOSE LIPS I LEARNED THE CATECHISM AS A CHILD 
 THE PRECEPTS OF WHICH AS A MAN 
 
 I CHERISH 
 
 WITH EVER-INCREASING 
 VENERATION
 
 EDITORS 1 PREFACE 
 
 THE object of the Oxford Library of Practical Theology 
 is to supply some carefully considered teaching on 
 matters of Religion to that large body of devout 
 laymen, who desire instruction, but are not attracted 
 by the learned treatises which appeal to the theo- 
 logian. One of the needs of the time would seem to 
 be, to translate the solid theological learning, of which 
 there is no lack, into the vernacular of every-day prac- 
 tical religion ; and while steering a course between what 
 is called plain teaching on the one hand and erudition 
 on the other, to supply some sound and readable in- 
 struction to those who require it, on the subjects 
 included under the common title 'The Christian 
 Religion, 1 that they may be ready always to give an 
 answer to every man that asketh them a reason of the 
 hope that is in them, with meekness and fear. 
 
 The Editors, while not holding themselves precluded 
 from suggesting criticisms, have regarded their proper 
 task as that of editing, and accordingly they have not 
 interfered with the responsibility of each writer for his 
 treatment of his own subject. 
 
 W. C. E. N. 
 
 D. S.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ........ 1 
 
 PART I 
 
 I. THE INDIVIDUAL . . . . . . . 11 
 
 II. THE INFLUENCE OF OTHERS ON LIFE .... 34 
 
 III. RENUNCIATION OF EVIL INFLUENCE .... 62 
 IV. OBLIGATION ........ 86 
 
 PART II 
 
 I. FAITH .... . . . . 113 
 
 II. THE FAITH . . . . . . . 135 
 
 PART III 
 
 I. PRACTICE . . . . . . . . 161 
 
 II. PRACTICE . . . . . . . . 185 
 
 III. THE SERVICE OF GOD ...... 222 
 
 IV. THE SERVICE OF MAN ...... 241 
 
 PART IV 
 
 PRAYER 263 
 
 PART V 
 
 I. THE SACRAMENTS ....... 287 
 
 II. THE RIGHT DISPOSITION FOR THE USE OF THE SACRA- 
 MENTS . . . 313
 
 INTRODUCTORY
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 FEW thinking men can contemplate unmoved the mag- 
 nificent pile of ecclesiastical buildings, which crowns 
 the hill at Ely, and rising above the vast flats of the 
 Fens, seems to gaze out solemnly upon the mystery of 
 their blue distances. The chequered history of Eng- 
 land is written on these walls, and the storms which 
 have passed over the Church have left on them dark 
 scars and deep furrows. Character in them, as in the 
 life of a human being, is evolved out of failure, re- 
 covery, restoration, and new beginnings. 
 
 But to those who know where to seek for it, there 
 is one record of peculiar significance, which bears on 
 the subject of these pages. In the gallery adjoining 
 the western wing of the Bishop's Palace, in the 
 panels of a bay-window, bearing the arms of Bishop 
 Goodrich, who occupied the see during the crisis 
 of the Reformation, is carved 'the Duty towards 
 God 1 on the left, and 'the Duty towards our neigh- 
 bour 1 on the right, indicating perhaps the authorship 
 of this particular part of the Church Catechism ; but 
 speaking to us certainly with a voice out of those 
 troublous times of one more effort made to adjust faith 
 to practice, and to reconcile the conflict, so congenial 
 to our fallen nature, between orthodoxy in creed and 
 integrity of life, and to take up the challenge of the 
 Epistle of S. James : ' Shew me thy faith without thy 
 works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.' l 
 
 For a glance at the Book of Common Prayer will 
 show how remarkable is the position occupied in its 
 1 S. James ii. 18. 
 A
 
 2 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 pages by the Church Catechism. Amidst structural 
 services, offices, and Liturgy, with their rubrics and 
 explanatory notes, it stands as an indication of the 
 spiritual mood in which he who uses the book should 
 approach the worship of Almighty God. It is, further, 
 an endeavour to enlist the intelligence as well as the 
 spiritual apprehension of the worshipper, so that he may 
 pray with the spirit, and pray with the understanding 
 also, and that he may sing with the spirit, and sing 
 with the understanding also. "The Catechism appears 
 to occupy the position which it does, in obedience to 
 the same principle which has given us the long exhorta- 
 tions in the various parts of the book, here however 
 carried much further into the inmost recesses of the 
 Faith. Every child must be taught the relation in 
 which he stands to the God Whom he worships : Who 
 He is in His Being and Nature, how He is to be 
 approached, and what He requires as His own right, 
 and what He expects from us as regards our fellow- 
 men, and finally what is the underlying deep significance, 
 in the region of grace, of the outward ceremonies and 
 ecclesiastical terms which are here imposed on tin 
 devout Churchman. 
 
 A short explanation of the history of the Catechism, 
 where it stood first in the Prayer Book, when it was 
 produced, how it has been amplified, and who were 
 its probable authors, has already appeared in a previous 
 volume of this series, to which we must refer our readers. 1 
 It is only necessary now to attempt to justify this fuller 
 treatment of that which was originally a manual for 
 children about to be confirmed, as a working r<>ni|H>n- 
 dium of rules of faith and practice for grown-up mm. 
 
 It surely will not be maintained that the Catct hi>in 
 is one of the childish things to be put away when one 
 becomes a man ; rather we believe that those who com- 
 piled it gathered up into brief, pregnant, and servict - 
 able sentences, so much of the principles of religion a 
 
 1 Pullan, Hiitoryoftht Book f Common Prayer, pp. 207-8. 
 

 
 INTRODUCTORY 3 
 
 would form the basis of a man's spiritual life, when he 
 had passed out of the region of childhood into the 
 hard facts of practical experience. The Church here 
 trains up the child in the way he should go, in the 
 express earnest hope that when he is old he will not 
 depart from it. And it will be found, that in many 
 cases at all events it is true, that the inner meaning 
 underlying these questions and answers has only been 
 understood when life has given its fuller teaching, and 
 experience its deeper explanation. And so we find, 
 that, although from time to time there has been a desire 
 to simplify the teaching of the Catechism on the one 
 hand, and enlarge its scope on the other, hitherto 
 it has remained unchanged since Overall added the 
 section on Sacraments in 1604. A manual which 
 is to survive childhood must needs be couched in solid 
 terms, and words which are to be committed to memory 
 will of necessity be brief. 
 
 The object of these chapters is to show the excellent 
 grounding in faith and practice which he has received 
 who has been trained in the teaching of the Church 
 Catechism ; and how it may be to us a point of de- 
 parture for graver lessons than those which appear on 
 the surface ; while it supplies a valuable scheme and 
 arrangement under which to group those vital truths 
 of religion which bear upon our life. 
 
 And so Archbishop Benson has said in his address to 
 his Diocesan Conference in 1891 : ' I believe that there 
 never has been in the hands of any Church any manual re- 
 presenting the doctrines, the true spirit of the Bible, to 
 compare with the Catechism of the Church of England. 11 
 
 In taking the Church Catechism as a sufficient 
 manual of instruction for the Churchman of to-day, we 
 lay ourselves open to objections from many quarters. 
 
 A book of instruction which appears in the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries can hardly be adapted to the 
 requirements of the twentieth, it must needs amplify or 
 1 Quoted in Robinson, Chttrch. Catechism Explained.
 
 4 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 exaggerate much which, if of importance then, has since 
 become exploded and obsolete. It must needs be out 
 of touch with modern methods, and irresponsive to the 
 wants and difficulties which have been created by the 
 extraordinary developments of modern life ; further, 
 however suspiciously we may view the term, there is a 
 legitimate development in the life of the Church, and 
 no one can deny that what has been called the Reforma- 
 tion settlement is much nearer settlement as a system 
 in the Church of England, than it was when the 
 Catechism appeared, or in the turbulent times which 
 have fallen on the Church at subsequent epochs of her 
 career. Certainly there is an old-world ring about the 
 phrases so familiar to us. He who penned the answers 
 to these questions, and planned the scheme on which 
 the questions are based, had no doubt as to the 
 importance of definite dogmatic Faith. He had no 
 thoughts of a conscience clause drawn as a bar across 
 the entrance to elementary truth. He had no idea of 
 a system of education which should proceed in absolute 
 ignorance of God's revealed Word, or pass it through 
 the close meshes of the sieve of prejudice, until only a 
 thin residuum survived barely reducible to the contents 
 of one of the answers here put before the Christian 
 child. It is true that for the last thirty-two years the 
 Church Catechism has had to bear the brunt of the 
 assault on what is called denominational religion ; and 
 the spirit of the age has been favourable to the assault. 
 The Catechism has been attacked in the schools, tin 
 Bible in the critical workshops, the Chnrrh on contro- 
 versial platforms. Any positive statement because it 
 is positive, any definite system because it is definite, 
 seems to act as an irritant, and to challenge- immediate 
 attack. * O God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I 
 have a soul/ is a more popular formula than tliiM 
 proposition^ which speak of 4 a state of salvation," 1 of a 
 definite faith, of sacraments necessary to salvation, and 
 of duties to God, as well as duties to man. \Yr 1
 
 INTRODUCTORY 5 
 
 been told again and again that children do not under- 
 stand dogmatic distinctions, and so the Fatherhood of 
 God is taught them with such dilution as the spirit of 
 the age demands, and the child must be left to learn as 
 best he may about the Saviour, and be extremely care- 
 ful to avoid superstition, if he goes on to learn of God 
 the Sanctifier. 
 
 Thirty-two years is a long enough period by which 
 to test the probable trend of a widespread, well- 
 developed system of education, which represents the 
 exact opposite to the principles enunciated in the 
 Church Catechism, and no one can say that the outlook 
 is reassuring. Here are two admissions side by side 
 made by one entirely in sympathy with modern methods, 
 and in a book where ' the voluntary school system ' is 
 unsparingly denounced. ' Upon these city generations 
 there has operated the now widely spread influence of 
 thirty years of elementary school teaching. The result 
 is a mental change ; each individual has been endowed 
 with the power of reading, and a certain dim and 
 cloudy capacity for apprehending what he reads. 
 Hence the vogue of the new sensational press, with its 
 enormous circulation and baneful influence; the per- 
 petual demand for fiercer excitement . . . from his 
 papers.' l This is the one statement, the other follows 
 later on : ' Virtually it may be said the only forces 
 operating among the new city race, the only attempts 
 at spiritual or collective effort with which any dweller 
 in it is ever likely to come into contact, are the forces 
 of the older creeds of Christianity.' 2 The writer goes 
 on to speak of them as developing and broadening, but 
 still to him ' they offer the only adequate machinery 
 for the warfare against the degenerating influences of 
 modern town life.' This would seem to be profoundly 
 true, and to offer the only hope for realising modern 
 ideals, which hitherto have assumed it to be possible 
 to do our duty towards our neighbour, before we know 
 1 The Church and the Empire, p. 8. J Ibid. p. 34.
 
 6 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 our duty towards God, and that God is what we conceive 
 that He might possibly be, not what Revelation has 
 shown that He is. 
 
 The simple strength of the principles embodied in the 
 Catechism stands out more firmly than ever from the 
 wreckage of the flimsy buildings which were erected to 
 hide it. And the more these principles are studied 
 the more they will be seen to represent not'an attenu- 
 ated residuum of truth, to which no one has any objec- 
 tion, but a serviceable minimum such as a child may 
 learn, and a busy man remember, of facts in the spiri- 
 tual world as true now as when they were written, 
 and which always must be true, because they are based 
 on elementary principles and historical evidence. The 
 existence and nature of God as He has been pleased to 
 declare it either in natural or revealed religion, is 
 susceptible of no change. Our right relation to this 
 truth is of constant and vital importance, it must 
 regulate our conduct, and act as a restraint on the one 
 hand and an encouragement on the other. What God 
 has done and is doing for us, is as important for us 
 to know, as what we are doing for Him. Here is no 
 region where we should expect to find change. God 
 loves us, and always has loved and always will love 
 us, as certainly as the sun shines in the heaven above. 
 Sin ruins, the devil kills, and the world corrupts, with 
 the same undeviating regularity as that with which fire 
 burns, or water drowns, or poison kills. 
 
 Everything which God has said is of extreme im- 
 portance for us to know and act upon, more especially 
 such things as He has emphasised as necessary. And 
 He Who knew what was best for man, because 1 It-- 
 was Man, and knew what was in man, gave us the 
 Catholic Church. And here is a manual instructing 
 every child as to what he will find in the Church as he 
 passes through life, and recalling every man to the 
 trm- principles by which he is to guide his COUI-.M.' 
 through its many difficulties.
 
 INTRODUCTORY 7 
 
 If there is a tendency to regulate modern life on the 
 principle that ' what a person is, is of more importance 
 in God's sight than what particular religious formulas 
 of belief he affirms or denies,' the principle, on the other 
 hand, which runs through the Catechism is rather this, 
 ' what a man is in God's sight depends on the particular 
 religious formulae of belief he affirms or denies.' 
 Religion is not a department of a man's life which lies 
 on the outside of it, but a regulating principle which 
 governs the whole, and right practice is of necessity 
 the outcome of a right faith which governs that practice : 
 4 a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit,' and a 
 man's life depends in the very last degree on what he 
 believes, as is stated in its most extreme form in the 
 Athanasian Creed, viz. that a right faith is necessary 
 to salvation, which does not mean that we shall have 
 to pass an examination in theology as a preliminary to 
 entering heaven, but that the way of life can only be 
 trodden in safety by those who know its conditions, 
 and that Horeb, the Mount of God, is a place too dis- 
 tant, and a goal too arduous, for those who know 
 nothing of the meat in whose strength they must 
 undertake the journey otherwise too great for them. 
 
 It is in this spirit that the child is taught the dog- 
 matic truths of the Catechism, and returns to them 
 again and again when he is older, to assure himself 
 that he is in the right path, by the sight of the 
 familiar beacons of the Faith, the protecting hedge of 
 the moral law, and the river of grace which runs beside 
 the path. It is possible that two classes of readers may 
 consult these pages : those who are put in charge with 
 children and are earnestly anxious to impart to them 
 sound principles as to the way of life ; and those who 
 desire to test the working value of principles long since 
 committed to memory, and now challenged by the 
 newer methods of the day, and the changing fashions 
 which affect religion as well as other things. As to 
 the first, they will not find, except it may be
 
 8 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 incidentally, any explanatory or historical treatment 
 of the text : this has been done already in many simple 
 and accessible books of instruction. They will find 
 rather the exposition of certain principles which form 
 the basis of such instruction : the importance of the 
 individual, the power of influence, the life of principle, 
 the influence of conscience, the importance of faith, the 
 conception of duty, and the rationale and power of 
 sacraments. While at the same time those who are 
 seeking for themselves to deepen their hold on religion 
 and religious truth will see the importance of a firm 
 hold of first principles in faith and conduct, as the 
 best safeguard of that progress which means to advance 
 in the way of truth, and of that liberty which means 
 a freedom to do right. 
 
 It is now more than fifty years since a book was 
 brought out on similar lines by Mr. Isaac Williams 
 in the series of 'Plain Sermons by contributors to 
 Tract* for the Times? The Catechism has not altered 
 since then, neither have the great truths altered to 
 which the learner is there directed, but the con- 
 ditions of life are changed considerably, and its 
 perplexities and difficulties multiplied. Nothing is 
 more wonderful in Christianity than its applicability 
 to the shifting circumstances of an ever-changing 
 world, and to the various types of humanity which 
 come under its sway. So it will be found with this 
 Catechism, which embodies its precepts, that while suit- 
 able for a child it appeals to the grown-up man, while 
 drawn up in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it 
 has a clear message also to the twentieth, and that com- 
 plex life in cities as well as the quiet life in the country 
 are alike calmer and fuller if based on an intelligent 
 appreciation of these elementary truths, which begin 
 with the Christian name of the individual and end with 
 ' charity to all men, 1 as the Creed also begins with * I ' 
 and loses itself in * the Catholic Church ' and * the Com- 
 munion of Saints " in that life which is everlasting.
 
 PART I 
 
 Question. What is your Name ? 
 
 Answer. N or M. 
 
 Question. Who gave you the Name ? 
 
 Answer. My Godfathers and Godmothers in my Baptism : 
 wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and 
 an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 Question. What did your Godfathers and Godmothers then for 
 you? 
 
 Answer. They did promise and vow three things in my name. 
 First, that I should renounce the devil and all his works, the 
 pomps and vanity of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts 
 of the flesh. Secondly, that I should believe all the Articles of 
 the Christian Faith. And thirdly, that I should keep God's holy 
 will and commandments, and walk in the same all the days of 
 my life. 
 
 Question. Dost thou not think that thou art bound to believe, 
 and to do, as they have promised for thee ? 
 
 Answer. Yes, verily ; and by God's help so I will. And I 
 heartily thank our heavenly Father that He hath called me to 
 this state of salvation, through Jesus Christ our Saviour. And 
 I pray unto God to give me His grace, that I may continue in 
 the same unto my life's end.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 'And they made signs to his father, how he would 
 have him called.' 
 
 I said, M. de Saint Antoine est beau-pere de M. le due 
 de Gazes, n'est-ce pas ? Non monsieur, said Talleyrand, 
 1'on disait il y a douze ans, que M. de Saint Antoine etait 
 beau-pere de M. de Gazes : Ton dit maintenant queM. de 
 Gazes est gendre de M. de Saint Antoine. 
 
 THE familiarity of familiar things is the chief obstacle 
 to our bestowing any serious thought upon them. 
 Now and then, for instance, a specialist arises who 
 shows us the mysteries and possibilities of light or the 
 wondrous properties of air. But the majority of men 
 are quite contented to believe that there always have 
 been light and air, and that there is nothing more to be 
 said about them. So with such a familiar thing as a 
 man's name, few stop to think of the possibility of any 
 underlying mystery being attached to it, or of any 
 important teaching belonging to it, and would be dis- 
 posed to compare unfavourably the abrupt and prosaic 
 opening of the Church Catechism with others which 
 seem to be more dignified and profound. ' What is 
 your Name ? ' This seemed to be the first and all- 
 important question to be asked of and answered by 
 children, in the estimation of those who compiled this 
 manual of instruction. Not surely in itself, that is, 
 from the fact of a child possessing this or that name, 
 
 but inferentially from the fact of his having a name at 
 
 11
 
 12 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 all, as distinct from a number or other subdivision 
 of a family. 
 
 That this is no trick of fancy nor forced explanation 
 to account for a weak feature, may be seen in several 
 directions. First, in the obvious importance attached 
 to names in Holy Scripture; secondly, in the very 
 great care and thought which is still in some cases 
 bestowed in the giving of them, coupled of course with 
 absolute indifference in others; and thirdly, in the 
 vital importance of the underlying truths which are 
 thereby symbolised, which act and react upon the 
 character of those that think. 
 
 The importance attached to names in Holy 
 Scripture is so patent as hardly to need demonstra- 
 tion : but it may be useful to try and tabulate or 
 classify the usages respecting them. First, we may 
 distinguish generally a tendency to emphasise the 
 significance of individual names, and to point to a 
 message which lies hid in them, to a revelation which 
 they are able to give. Any one who has investigated 
 not only the names of people but the names of things 
 in a good dictionary will know what a fascinating and 
 instructive study it is, as he finds that we are sur- 
 rounded with eloquent and appealing symbols, not with 
 arbitrary signs for mere convenience. Holy Scripture 
 draws attention to this, and shows us at times how the 
 names themselves came to be, and how their signifi- 
 cance expanded itself. The most striking example of 
 this is the Name of God, which is appealed to again 
 and again as a matter of the utmost solemnity and 
 of the most extreme importance, a name given by 
 God Almighty to Himself in stages of progressive 
 revelation, each stage significant, each appealing 
 to men to recognise the character and claims of
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL 13 
 
 Him Whom they invoked, and clothing the great 
 mystery of the Godhead in the ideas which underlie 
 the expression of Almightiness, simple existence, 
 Fatherhood, Sonship, and Spirit. 
 
 And so throughout the pages of Holy Scripture 
 we are directed by the interpreting Spirit not to 
 forget the significance of names. Ichabod, the child 
 of the unhappy Phineas's wife, is a living witness 
 to a forfeited glory, and to the causes which brought 
 it about. 1 Nabal is the speaking embodiment of a 
 fool; 2 the pool of Siloam, whither the blind man 
 goes at the command of Christ, is ' by interpretation, 
 Sent.' 3 While Zacharias 'the remembrancer of God,' 
 Elizabeth 'the oath of God, 1 and John 'the favour 
 of God, 1 are all obviously adapted to the memorable 
 incidents in which they appear at the threshold of 
 the Gospel. 4 The fact of this underlying significance 
 is only what we should expect in a world which 
 seems to be hung with diagrams, and vocal with 
 sermons, and resounding with warnings. But the 
 appeal to their significance shows us how liable we 
 are to forget the manifold appeals of God under the 
 stupefying influence of familiarity or of repeated 
 impressions. The parable of the Sower, the lesson from 
 the lilies and the ravens, and Maher-shalal-hash-baz 
 the child of Isaiah, 5 and Jezreel the child of Hosea, 6 
 are examples of the same kind of living appeal which 
 God has made and still makes to the heart of His 
 people through the imagination, in a world where 
 nothing is wasted and everything is significant. 
 
 Closely connected with this, and yet with a more 
 personal bearing on the individual, we have the ex- 
 amples of names given to men, either as a prophecy of 
 some latent power yet to be developed, or as a title 
 commemorative of some achievement won, or of a good 
 
 1 i Sam. iv. 21. 2 i Sam. xxv. 25. 3 S. John ix. 7. 
 
 * S. Luke i. 5, 13. 5 Isa. viii. 3. 6 Hos. i. 4.
 
 14 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 quality discovered in the character. So with reverence 
 it may be said that the Holy Name of Jesus, twice in- 
 sisted on by supernatural intervention before the sacred 
 virgin birth, was a prophecy and an indication of the 
 objects to be fulfilled in the life of the Incarnate God. 
 So Cephas fixed indelibly upon the apostle the strong 
 character to be carved out of his yielding and vacillat- 
 ing nature. So Boanerges marked the existence of 
 strong capacities to be used or misused by those who 
 possessed them. So the apostles stamped the depth 
 of their affection on Barnabas, and Paul marked out 
 the new life which lay before Saul. And it is only a 
 variation of this usage to notice how, especially in the 
 Old Testament, names were changed, such as Abram 
 to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, Jacob to Israel, as a sign 
 of certain crises of character, or of covenanted rela- 
 tions which God then entered into with those that 
 bore them. 
 
 And this giving of names is not confined to in- 
 dividuals, it is in some cases associated in very deep 
 -iuMiificance with cities or even a whole people. 'Take 
 a good heart, O Jerusalem,' says Baruch, ' for He that 
 gave thee that name will comfort thee.' 1 Or again of 
 /ion Isaiah says, *Thou shalt be called the city of 
 righteousness, the faithful city/ 2 Or more remarkably 
 still, * Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken ; neither 
 shall thy land any more be termed Desolate ; but thou 
 shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land Beulah ; for 
 the Lord delighteth in thee, and thv land shall be 
 married.'' 3 While of Christians, beside the notice of 
 the first use of that name at Antioch, 4 we read, that 
 they shall have the name of God and of Christ written 
 upon them. 6 
 
 In reviewing these few instances, at least we may 
 say that God has used names in connection with 
 
 1 Baruch iv. 30. * IM. i. 26. * Isa. Ixii. 4. 
 
 4 Acts xi. 26. Rev. iii. 12.
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL 15 
 
 places, peoples, things, and persons as symbols and 
 indications of very special relations which He had 
 towards them, that He designed them to act through 
 the imagination upon the heart, that in His hands 
 they became prophecies and warnings, acting as a 
 stimulant or deterrent ; and further, that He knew how 
 to reach the heart and stir the conscience to quicken 
 love or kindle regret by the sympathetic chords which 
 resounded in a man's personal name. 'Mary, 1 the 
 sound of her own name roused the Magdalene to a 
 quickened apprehension of heavenly things, and to 
 a recognition of His Risen Presence, Who alone 
 could awaken such memories, and kindle such ardent 
 faith. 1 'Thomas,' the sound of his own name, once 
 more, opened up to the apostle the gloom of his over- 
 shadowed life, and the misery of his halting faith. 2 
 ' Simon, son of Jonas,' was a sound which sent the rock 
 apostle back on himself to a time when as yet the 
 light of Christ's countenance had not risen on his life ; 3 
 while ' Saul, Saul ' is the first articulate sound which 
 burst upon the future apostle lying blinded and dazed 
 in the throes of his conversion on the Damascus road. 4 
 
 There are said to be savages who look upon the 
 telegraph wires which stretch across their country, in 
 communication with European civilisation, only as 
 so much wire from which they may surreptitiously 
 filch material for arrow-heads he is scarcely more 
 intelligent who despises the simplicity of simple things, 
 or supposes it to be impossible that God can use 
 common names, the ordinary designation of common 
 life, as means of conveying His messages and uttering 
 His warnings. 
 
 And there is one other indication yet in Holy 
 Scripture, which if it be only an indication, should 
 still be noted by any one who wishes to study fully the 
 
 1 S. John xx. 16. 2 S. John xx. 29. 
 
 3 S. John xxi. 15. 4 Acts ix. 4.
 
 16 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 subject In two remarkable instances, at least, in the 
 New Testament, a conspicuous failure in life is signal- 
 ised by the absence of a distinguishing name in him 
 who thus failed to answer to the end for which he was 
 created. The rich man in the parable is nameless, 
 where the name of Lazarus, the beggar, is familiar to 
 every Christian child. 1 And the young man who 
 feared to lose his riches and position, and so remained 
 deaf to the call of Christ, is known only as one of those 
 who have 'made the great refusal.' His riches have 
 gone, they have perished with him, and in the gospel 
 which records his history he is nameless. 2 
 
 II 
 
 If such be some of the indications in Holy Scripture, 
 which seem to justify the position of the first question 
 and answer in the Church Catechism, it will be found 
 that, on investigation, the customs and habits which 
 govern human experience yield a similar result. 
 
 It is easy, of course, to point to the large number 
 of frivolous and meaningless names all around us, 
 chosen either because the parents lacked imagination, 
 or as mere labels, with as little moral significance 
 as if the children were numbered ; or apparently 
 dug out of the quarry of the last novel or news- 
 paper romance. But even here we cannot alto- 
 gether escape from some sort of significance. The 
 careless naming indicates the careless parent, the care- 
 less parent brings into more solemn relief the real 
 responsibilities and duties laid upon those who found 
 a family. It cannot fail to strike any thinking man. 
 that any idea of marriage which looks upon children 
 only as accidents or hindrances incident to that estate ; 
 which neither looks backwards into a past however 
 near, nor forwards into a future however immediate. 
 1 S. Lukexvi. 19. S. Mark x. 17.
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL 17 
 
 must have failed to grasp the true significance and 
 dignity of that mysterious union. A builder who puts 
 in his stones regardless of the plan which has hitherto 
 governed the construction of the building, and has no 
 idea of ' a consecutive art,' stands self-condemned as a 
 constructor ; he is a workman who sooner or later must 
 needs be ashamed. So, as the wrongness of wrong 
 work, when we see it, bears witness to the inherent 
 Tightness of that which is right, the obvious unfitness 
 of that which throws any indignity on family life bears 
 indirect witness to the beauty and congruity of a right 
 conception of its meaning. But a little investigation 
 of the principles which would seem to govern the 
 naming of children would, we are confident, produce 
 a different result. It would open up visions of much 
 that is pathetic, much that is dignified, sometimes of 
 much that is fantastic; but in a very large number 
 of cases the result would be deeply significant, and 
 show how Holy Scripture is not only the guide to 
 human action, but is also a true mirror of the interests 
 and motives which govern the habits of mankind. 
 
 Who has not paused to notice in a suburban district, 
 or when walking among the villas of a watering-place, 
 the strange and incongruous names which distinguish 
 the houses one from another in preference to street or 
 number designation ? Here is the name of a mountain 
 in Scotland, or the title of a famous general, here is 
 the name of some quiet country town or village trans- 
 planted into new surroundings, here it is the name of 
 a woman or a man, there some local characteristic or 
 singular beauty of place or landscape that has been em- 
 phasised. Irritating and perplexing as it may be to the 
 ordinary visitor, we may have in it the sort of principle 
 which we shall see underlying the giving of names to 
 children. Here the builder is recalling some very 
 happy or important moment in his life, and calls the 
 house which he is to occupy by a name which is to 
 
 B
 
 18 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 give him the pleasure of a fond retrospect. Here he 
 has called it by the name of some advantage of site 
 or prospect which he hopes to profit by in the future. 
 Here the title recalls to him some favourite hero, or 
 some dear child or friend who has passed away. Here 
 it indicates that he is a colonist who has taken to his 
 new home some of the sacred fire of affection and 
 memory which gathered round the place of his birth. 
 There is a romance about the commonest things to 
 those who will pause to look for it, because human 
 nature finds it hard to escape from kindly imagination, 
 which enables a man to see in the ordinary things of 
 life the memories, the hopes, and the beauties with 
 which he fondly clothes them. 
 
 So we shall find it to be with the names of children, 
 they are not always the dull and prosaic things which 
 we take them to be. As in the case of Holy Scripture, 
 so also in the wayward regions of human choice, we 
 may detect a principle, and classify the modes of 
 action which are apparently pursued by those who 
 exercise an unrestrained freedom in the giving of a 
 name to the child now about to take his place in the 
 world. 
 
 In one group of names we trace the influence "of 
 tradition. The choice is determined by some person 
 or event in the past. Here it is an ancestral name 
 which has distinguished the family for many genera- 
 tions, it appears in the pedigree and title-deeds 
 of the estate, it is to be traced again and again on the 
 monuments in the parish church, and is written in 
 various characters in the registers of birth, marriage, 
 and death. An estate may depend on it, the family 
 honour is bound up in it He who holds it feels the 
 strong grip of history and tradition behind him, he 
 has one motive at all events to hold him up until 
 he can place the flaming torch in the hands of his 
 Here ngain the tradition is taken up out-
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL 19 
 
 side the family, perhaps the family has no tradition or 
 has lost it, but the father of the child who is to 
 succeed him in the world is fired with enthusiasm for 
 some hero out of the past of history, or in the con- 
 temporary history of the times. He wishes his child 
 to recall to him and to himself the name of that great 
 divine, or statesman, or general. He wishes for him 
 such powers of mind or body as made the possessor 
 of that name great among his fellows. Sometimes the 
 result may be ludicrous : Alexander may turn out 
 a coward, or Martin Luther an atheist, or Raphael an 
 iconoclast, but for all that the name so given repre- 
 sents a veneration for the past, a longing to see what is 
 good once more reproduced in the world, and a desire 
 that the child now born should be a child of promise, 
 to inherit past blessings and distribute new benefits to 
 the race. 
 
 It is only a variation of this feeling which 
 brings about the common practice of calling the 
 new-born child after the name of some canonised 
 saint. It is quite true that here we come across 
 the belief, sometimes held only implicitly, that 
 the child so named is put under the immediate 
 patronage of the saint whose name he bears, and on 
 whose feast-day he most probably came into the 
 world. This is a belief held with great fervour in 
 many parts of the Church, and together with the belief 
 in the Guardian Angel, is calculated to lift up the 
 heart into that region of supernatural life, which, 
 although it is all around us, so few seem able to reach, 
 and fewer still even to realise. But apart from this, 
 it is no mean inducement to estimate aright the 
 dignity of life, thus to be bound by name to a spiritual 
 ancestry, to have ever before his eyes the example of 
 one who saw God, and passed through the world as 
 conqueror, who was honoured in his generation, and has 
 received the homage and admiration of the Church.
 
 20 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 He who binds his child to a noble past, has no doubt 
 done more than satisfy his own enthusiasm for great- 
 ness, or gratify his own family pride ; he has given to 
 the child the power of a tradition of singular efficacy 
 in forming life. 
 
 Passing on, we find ourselves face to face with 
 another principle which would seem to underlie 
 the name given to some children, barely separable 
 from the former and yet distinct. If some names 
 are retrospective and represent a tradition, others 
 are prospective and represent a prophecy. David 
 still hopes that Solomon his son may see the peace 
 which was denied to him, and carry out the schemes 
 for which he had made provision. We see in the names 
 of some children hopes perhaps never destined to be 
 realised, ambitions destined only to be disappointed, 
 but also they serve to many in after-life as an embodi- 
 ment of * the prophecies which went before on ' them, 1 
 to lift up and encourage the feeble heart, and to nerve 
 to high endeavour. The mother of Zebedee's children 
 has no doubt that her two sons are qualified to sit on 
 the right hand and on the left of Christ in His king- 
 dom, and she succeeds in inspiring them with the same 
 belief, and helped them no doubt to face the reality of 
 that which they had so imperfectly conceived. 'They 
 who trust us educate us": and the name given by 
 a good mother, if it fails as a prophecy, may yet 
 remain as a strong inducement to realise that excel- 
 lence to which others supposed us to be capable of 
 attaining. 
 
 But there are many names which represent neither 
 tradition nor prophecy, which are linked to no achieve- 
 ment or dignity in the past, and speak of no pinnacle 
 of glory to be attained in the future, which vet 
 represent a strong determination that the child shall 
 take its place in the world as one who recognises the 
 1 I Tim. i. 18.
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL 21 
 
 dignity of ordinary life, unperturbed by sentiment, 
 undisturbed by ambitions, resolute in filling the 
 assigned part or rendering the prescribed service, and 
 inflexible in the course of simple duty. The prosaic 
 names of unknown people are a pledge, no less than 
 the high-sounding title or the ambitious name, of 
 the due recognition of the dignity of simple life, of 
 hard work, and plain duty, and of the service of 
 others, which is the highest claim to greatness. 
 
 If this be in any sense a true account of the principles 
 to be detected in a thing apparently so arbitrary as the 
 giving of a name to a child, we may see how useful it 
 may be thus to recall the name given, in a solemn 
 way, and before God, and to remind the child that, as 
 he daily passes through a world full of mysteries and 
 stamped with significance, so he, his existence, his 
 position, his very name should form food to himself for 
 reflection and encouragement. It may rest with him 
 to justify his existence, and show that every life 
 that is lived, even the most insignificant, has its own 
 peculiar message to the world. Or he may be taught 
 to see how much of responsibility reposes in him to 
 carry on the traditions of his race ; his name, whenever 
 he hears it pronounced, should say to him 'respice,"* 
 consider the past and how its influence touches your 
 life, remember how God Who called Himself the God 
 of Abraham, Isaac, and of Jacob, would have you 
 correct the present by the past, and regulate present 
 conduct by registered experience, and shape your 
 actions by the force of tradition. Or his name might 
 teach him the simpler lesson of ' aspicej that he had 
 inherited a rich treasure in the present now lying at 
 his feet, which he must resolutely set himself to adorn. 
 Or once more, the future with its ambitions and glory 
 might open up before him as an unfulfilled prophecy 
 to which he was destined to answer, and 'prospice ' be 
 the ever-widening task which he sets himself to fulfil.
 
 22 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 III 
 
 But leaving these considerations, which some will 
 regard as perhaps disputable and certainly fanciful, we 
 shall h'nd ourselves on more solid ground if we see in 
 the distinguishing name an endeavour to single out 
 the individual on the part of those who have been 
 taught the importance of single lives, and an effort on 
 the part of tnose who thus emphasised the Christian 
 name in the Church Catechism to recall the possessor 
 to a sense of his own value. 
 
 The individual name should certainly remind us of 
 two things, of our vocation and of our individuality, 
 both of them of the utmost importance in forming a 
 right estimate of our position in the world. 
 
 Vocation, that is the great truth that we are where 
 we are in response to the call of God, is an idea which 
 lies scattered over almost the whole of the Bible. It 
 is especially prominent in the New Testament, where 
 Christians are besought to walk answerably to their 
 vocation, where they are reminded that they are called 
 to be Saints, that they have been called according to 
 God's purpose, called into the fellowship of His Son 
 Jesus Christ our Lord, called out of darkness, 
 called to liberty, called to Eternal Life, called to 
 inherit a blessing, called to glory and virtue. And it 
 represents the fact that whether he knows it or not 
 every one has been summoned into the world for an 
 especial purpose and to do an especial work, for which 
 God will provide the time and the means and the 
 opportunity of its fulfilment, and to which an especial 
 blessing is attached. 
 
 It is easy enough to recognise this truth in certain 
 prominent cases, or when a work has manifestly been 
 assigned to its proper workman. But it is idle to 
 deny that vocation as an universal doctrine explana- 
 tory of the position of every living soul in thi>
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL 23 
 
 teeming world, is difficult to grasp, and at first sight 
 repugnant to common-sense. 
 
 Apart from the overpowering consideration of God's 
 foreknowledge and predestination, back to which it is 
 possible to carry the first beginnings of vocation, it 
 seems impossible to believe that every stick and straw 
 as it eddies along in the stream, every unknown unit 
 of city life with its bundle or burden, slow or fast, 
 has its definite aim and purpose in the evolution of a 
 great scheme, and is, where it is, in obedience to a call. 
 It seems difficult to believe that the butterfly has 
 a vocation as it skims across the surface of life, just 
 lighting on the busy throng to gaze and wonder, and 
 then flying away, empty, useless, frivolous. 1 But the 
 God Who has proclaimed His interest in the sparrows, 
 and His minute care for our individual life, would 
 seem to tell us that He admits of no intruders in His 
 world ; all who are there are there by His knowledge ; 
 more than that, they are there in obedience to His 
 Will. If we once allow ourselves to be weighed down 
 with doctrines of chance or fatalism, we shall find our- 
 selves involved in theories which are incompatible 
 either with God's Providence, God's Love, or God's 
 Omnipotence. All those little lives which swarm in 
 the alleys and byways of the city must be taken out 
 of the statistics of the census or the average of attend- 
 ance at the board school, they must be rescued from 
 the contemptuous pity of the philanthropist, or the 
 mechanical methods of the reformer, and we must 
 claim for them that they each have a name, that in 
 having a name they have a vocation, and that there is 
 a place for each of them on God's earth, and a special 
 mansion awaiting them in Heaven. God still comes to 
 find His Moses in the ranks of the infants whom 
 Pharaoh condemns to a promiscuous destruction. He 
 still singles out of the gay and thoughtless throng the 
 1 See also the author's Religion, p. 16.
 
 24 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 Ignatius who is to do Him service, or out of the care- 
 less listeners an Augustine or a Francis. But those 
 who are left behind with their one talent, are equally 
 called with those who have their five or their two. 
 If we lose the sense of God's guidance in vocation as 
 a power in the world, we fall at once into wrong 
 theories of life, and into errors worse than the diffi- 
 culties from which we would fain escape. 
 
 But the bearing of this error on the individual life is 
 even more disastrous. What can a unit in an undesir- 
 able class know of the dignity and importance of life ? If 
 he has come into life only to add to its social difficulties, 
 to fill up still further an overcrowded world, to live 
 unloved, and to die undesired, what motive has he to 
 generous purpose or heroic action ? It is indispensable 
 to a right estimate of things, it is indispensable to a 
 true life, that God should retain His hold on every 
 portion of His own world, and on all that move in it. 
 And so we ask of every child, great or small, wise or 
 simple, * What is your name ? ' For if you are impor- 
 tant enough to live, you are important enough to have 
 a name. You are known unto God ; at least therefore, 
 you ought to be known unto those who are thrown 
 with you in the rough intercourse of life. 
 
 The call of God in its simplest form is a call to do 
 two things : it is a call to live and a call to serve. 
 
 Perhaps the Jews of old, whose manifold imperfec- 
 tions we are disposed to sneer at, had a more vivid 
 sense of the importance and privilege of simply living, 
 than we have. They passed through life in the hope 
 of the fulfilment of a great promise made to their race, 
 and every child of Israel as ne stepped into rank in the 
 line of conscious existence felt himself to be in some 
 way an heir to a rich inheritance of promise. Prophets 
 and kings were not satisfied with whatever personal 
 aggrandisement they might gain from the world : they 
 waited long and earnestly for the manifestation to
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL 25 
 
 Israel. Every Jewish mother would rejoice at the 
 prospect opened up to her, every childless wife would 
 lament her loss, while she praised God for what He 
 withheld, as well as for what He gave. The privilege 
 of simply living in the world of God's creating, with a 
 share in His counsels and power to further His king- 
 dom this is a conception which we find more and 
 more difficult to realise for ourselves and much more 
 for the waifs and strays of society, who seem to us to be 
 of no more use in the world than the flies and insects 
 which sport about where men are toiling and working 
 out the problem of life. It is possible that we are 
 learning a greater respect for life, that we realise that 
 all who are born are entitled to live, and that the con- 
 ditions of their life should be made as healthy and 
 happy as possible. It may be that we recognise the 
 possible chances of finding a Moses among the out- 
 casts, and a David in the sheepfolds : but we still 
 have to learn for ourselves and to make others feel that 
 there are no useless mouths in God's city, that those 
 who faint and fail or hinder and block the way, have 
 missed their vocation and have frustrated God's pur- 
 pose concerning them. We must honour and train 
 up the young, not in the hope merely of finding a 
 chance Moses among many outcasts, but because we 
 are dealing with immortal beings whom God has called 
 upon to live, as workmen in His building and as citizens 
 in His kingdom, all of whom, therefore, we mark off 
 with a name as those who exercise an independent 
 function for Him. For, in the second place, God's 
 call is a call to serve. The work is large and there is 
 need for many workmen, some He is calling here, some 
 there ; and we have labelled the work to be done under 
 several departments which we call professions, trades, 
 or occupations, to which we assign the several workmen, 
 as the call of God which brought them into the world 
 became the louder vocation which called them to the
 
 26 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 particular work which He gives them to do. This is a 
 truth recognised in the case of certain professions, but 
 we ought not to rest until we have recognised it in all, 
 that the call of God is not an exceptional thing be- 
 longing only to the more dignified professions, but that 
 we should go here and go there, wherever it may be, 
 in answer to a vocation, and that in following out our 
 vocation will consist our perfection, and God's answer 
 to our frequent prayer, * Thy will be done in earth as 
 it is in Heaven/ Life, then, apart from the sense of the 
 responsibility and privilege of living at all, acquires a 
 fresh dignity, as we take up our position in it, not 
 merely as a place where we can hope to get on or 
 succeed, but as a post where we can do a real and 
 effectual work for God. 
 
 There is no doubt as to this call of God, first to 
 Himself and then to the special work which He assigns 
 to us. 
 
 It was His call, as we have seen, that caused us first 
 to be, which caused us to look out on this world of 
 experience just opening out before us, with wondering 
 and expectant eyes. It was His call that sent us to 
 school, and gave us those keys of knowledge, with 
 which we might open hereafter the as yet hidden 
 treasures of the world. It was His call that gave 
 us those aptitudes, tastes as we called them, which 
 seemed to determine the direction of our after-life. 
 The wishes of parents and friends were part of the call, 
 circumstances, as we call them, were also included in it. 
 But more than all there was the voice, now faint, now 
 clear, which spoke to us alone, which we recognised as 
 the voice of God. This, or something like this, con- 
 stituted our vocation. 'Son, go work to-day in My 
 vinryard': 1 and on our acceptance or rejection of it 
 depends our perfection. 
 
 If we grasp this great truth we shall the better see 
 1 S. Matt xxi. 28.
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL 27 
 
 why the shore is strewed with wrecks, and littered with 
 failures. They are the wrecked and ruined lives of 
 those who have missed their vocation and despised the 
 work which God gave them to do. Here are servants 
 who refuse the call of God to an honourable condition 
 of service that they may grasp at a perilous freedom 
 to be bought only at a great risk out of the very 
 jaws of temptation. Here are young men and young 
 women who despise the quiet life of their fore- 
 fathers in the country town or village and escape to 
 London and the big towns as if the streets were paved 
 with gold, to find out their mistake only when it is 
 too late. Here are the young people who start with 
 the idea that self-pleasing is the first aim, and so seek- 
 ing their life most miserably lose it. The steady 
 voice of vocation is shouted down by the attractions 
 of more tempting offers, and because men shrink from 
 serious life or the responsibilities of an arduous post 
 they think that unfitness for other things is a sufficient 
 indication of their capacity for doing what they like. 
 It is not merely the inadequate stipend, nor the voice 
 of controversy, nor the general unsettlement which are 
 responsible for the present diminution in the numbers 
 of those who present themselves as candidates for Holy 
 Orders. This profession is not alone in suffering from 
 a want of seriousness which would regard life as a 
 lottery where success depends on a successful choice, 
 not as a vocation in which we follow out the call of 
 God. 
 
 Once to have grasped the great truth of vocation 
 that life itself is a call from God to every one who is 
 dowered with this perilous gift, and also a call to do 
 some special work for Him, is to have advanced several 
 steps towards the proper realisation of the importance 
 of our own individuality. ' I have called thee by thy 
 name : thou art Mine. 1 1 Every one has a special work 
 1 Isa. xliii. I.
 
 28 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 to do, however insignificant that work may appear to 
 be, and the work of God is to that extent crippled by 
 those who misuse their five talents and by those that 
 bury their one. There is no doubt as to the minute 
 care which the Church bestows upon the individual. 
 The office of Infant Baptism in our Prayer Book 
 might seem at first sight to be out of all proportion to 
 the importance of the tiny recipient of that Sacrament. 
 But it bears testimony to the extreme value in God's 
 sight of all His children, and to the greatness and 
 necessity of the gift there bestowed for the proper dis- 
 charge of His special service. And a singular harm is 
 done by those who slur over or disfigure this office in 
 which the Church honours with an equal and impartial 
 recognition all who are heirs of the grace of life, and are 
 here born again of water and of the Spirit. So when 
 the same child is brought to be confirmed the Bishop 
 lays his hand upon his head individually. When he 
 kneels at the Altar to receive the Bread of Life, it is 
 the Body which is given for him, and the Blood which 
 is shed for him, as if no one else beside existed. Ab- 
 solution by the precious Blood of Jesus is for him 
 as if all the infinite worth of the Atonement were 
 centred on him. Never, perhaps, does the loving care 
 of the Church for the individual stand out more clearly 
 than at those moments when it is contrasted with the 
 vulgarity of those who would consign to the grave, with 
 every sign of neglect, the body of one contemptuously 
 called * a pauper.' The dead body of one whom God 
 has called upon to live in His world, albeit in a rude 
 coffin and treated with scant honour, is equally the 
 shrine of the soul of a ' dear brother/ with those whom 
 the world honours with a splendid funeral. Dives has 
 his funeral, and Lazarus is uorne of angels. It is this 
 individuality which is being constantly threatened, and 
 which must needs be defended all through life. 
 
 We are conscious in this \n-y opening of the Gate-
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL 29 
 
 chism, and also in the services of Holy Baptism and 
 Confirmation, of one especial danger which has to be 
 met and warded off', not once nor twice, but constantly 
 in the Christian course, and that is the danger of a 
 ruined and distorted self, by reason of outward foes 
 and inward tendencies, which must be considered later 
 on. The delicate proportion which exists between 
 body, soul, and spirit is in danger of being destroyed, 
 and therefore the devil is bidden to stand away from 
 the passions lest they should rebel against the authority 
 of the Will ; the mind is kept fixed by a right belief on 
 God, and the spirit is kept open and free by the hedge 
 of duty, which prevents the encroachment of any evil 
 which might shut out God, or hinder the freedom of 
 approach to Him. It must never be forgotten that sin 
 is the great solvent of our individual worth and great- 
 ness. If we wish to do good in the world we must be 
 good ourselves. Every nerve and fibre of our being 
 must be strained to that end, and consecrated to that 
 purpose. 
 
 In spite of the fact that empires have been reared in 
 blood, and fortunes made in reckless contempt for 
 public and private honesty, still the records of the 
 world go to show that only good men will do any per- 
 manent good in the world ; and if there seem to be 
 instances that prove the contrary, it will be seen that 
 the good was done, not by, but in spite of, those who 
 insulted the just decrees of God. A good deal more 
 than our own salvation depends on the sanctification of 
 our lives. God's work requires good men, and God 
 honours the individual for what by His grace he 
 may become. Every sin, every evil habit, every 
 neglect impairs the usefulness of an agent in God's 
 world. And it is a sad thing to contemplate how 
 much of our time, by reason of sin, has to be spent 
 in moral repair, which might have been spent in useful 
 work. More than half our strength is diverted to keep
 
 30 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 sin from invading our life by a ruinous overthrow ; 
 while perhaps the work of God is marred by our 
 rebellious self, a self which greedily grasps at the 
 good things of life and is selfish and evil. It is no 
 slight indication of the worth set by the Church on 
 individual life, that after she has marked her sense 
 of its importance by the giving of a name, she at 
 once proclaims open war with everything which might 
 damage its usefulness or impair its worth. 
 
 But apart from this danger which is always imminent, 
 the honour which we have seen to be bestowed without 
 distinction upon the individual is surely designed to 
 correct another evil. The ungodly lies in wait to 
 destroy, but also the child of God may forget his own 
 worth. There is a tendency to leave the battle to 
 champions, and to allow Goliath to threaten rather 
 than make oneself ridiculous by going against him in 
 an unequal combat. It is only where a David steps 
 out of the ranks, a child ill-matched in strength as 
 regards his adversary and utterly unequipped in weapons 
 of war, it is only when the champion lies beaten and 
 destroyed at the hands of a boy, that it occurs to the 
 faint-hearted and feeble that what he has accomplished 
 might have been equally effected by the resolute faith 
 of the poorest and weakest among them. No one may 
 refuse to fight because he is no giant, nor withhold his 
 testimony because he is afraid of adverse criticism. 
 The possession of great gifts has not always rendered 
 the possessor of them a blessing to his fellow-men. 
 His Knowledge may be kept only as a chained library 
 to which others have no access ; his powers and endow- 
 ments may all be used for self, or made to minister to 
 a spirit of rivalry in the battle of life. Holy Scripture 
 puts before us in more than one place the triumph of 
 the weak over the strong, the preference of the younger 
 to the elder, the election of the alien before the nirmhn- 
 of the privileged race, the Gentile before the Jew, the
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL 31 
 
 Samaritan before the Israelite who despised him, the 
 Publican before the Pharisee. Our Blessed Lord Him- 
 self rose upon the world out of the low and depressed 
 ranks of the poor, and chose His apostles from the un- 
 known and illiterate. So of old Joseph the despised 
 boy, the victim of cruel wrong, torn from his father's 
 home, sent among strangers, tempted, punished, de- 
 graded, and forgotten, is prepared by God for the 
 moment for which His Providence had designed him. 
 The frightened boy who had been sold and banished 
 lived to say that ' God did send me before you to pre- 
 serve life.' 1 A little maid, an unknown and unnamed 
 unit from among the captives, brings to Naaman in his 
 affliction the good news which secured to him his recovery 
 from leprosy. 2 From time to time Christ still comes to 
 the fisherman's net, and places the peasant on a pedestal 
 as a benefactor of the race. Sometimes He comes to 
 the shop, and singles out some Matthew from the 
 receipt of custom to be an Apostle and Evangelist of 
 fame and honour. Sometimes He singles out an 
 officer in the army, a lawyer, a runaway slave. But 
 there are Andrews whom the world never hears of, 
 Matthews who still remain at the receipt of custom, 
 although in heart they have followed Jesus ; there is 
 many a Cornelius still in the army, many a repentant 
 sinner whose repentance never comes abroad. God gives 
 to those who listen to His call a work beyond their work, 
 which elevates drudgery into an imperial enterprise, 
 and puts His own servants into the posts best suited for 
 them, and calls the most unlikely agents to do that 
 particular work for which He has fitted them, at that 
 particular time when He has need of their especial 
 powers. God's work is not done by a series of men of 
 genius, all excellent in the same sort of degree, and 
 conspicuous for striking capacities. A great building 
 is not raised by a series of architects, there is a place 
 1 Gen. xlv. 5. 2 2 Kings v. 2.
 
 32 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 among those who rear it for the common labourer who 
 knows the value of honest work even in places where 
 
 * scamping 1 would not be liable to detection. A cam- 
 paign is not successfully carried through by an army of 
 generals, there -is a place in it for the humblest member 
 of the commissariat who supplies the marching power 
 of the army. Here is a truth of individuality which 
 it is well firmly to grasp, that every individual life is 
 to be welcomed and honoured and named, not because 
 it is a life which may possibly develop into what we 
 call greatness, but because, if it can be kept to its pur- 
 pose, it must of necessity be a useful life, in the varied 
 fields of work which open out in the manifold counsel 
 of God. 
 
 And so as we name the child with his separate name, 
 and start him off on his separate course, we shall fight, 
 once more, against that tendency which would look 
 upon single lives as belonging to groups and families, 
 turned out as it were from one mould, and separable 
 into abstract classifications. So we shall refuse to allow 
 an unloving poor law to classify the poor, the unfortu- 
 nate, the afflicted, the idle and vagabond under the 
 head of ' paupers/ as if they were so much social refuse 
 who had lost the rights of individuality, as if society 
 had no further interest in their condition, and as if 
 humanity refused to own them. We shall resent the 
 idea which underlies the convenient appellation of 
 
 * hands ' if it means that the owner has no care for 
 the souls and individual interests of those who are 
 employed by him, whom he regards as so many mem- 
 ber* to be used, not as so many names to be honoured. 
 We shall refuse again to use generalisations as con- 
 venient folds of destruction into which to drive those 
 who disagree with us, without taking the trouble to 
 understand either the position or the meaning of our 
 antagonists. We have not disposed of ZMOOMM by 
 saying that all Publicans are sinners, or answered the
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL 33 
 
 challenge of Christ by saying that He is a Samaritan. 
 Nothing is more remarkable in Christ's teaching than 
 to see how His conduct, whether tender or severe, His 
 methods, His teaching, varied with the individual He 
 addressed. Pilate was a man, not a Roman governor; 
 Zacchaeus was an earnest inquirer, not a dishonest 
 Publican ; Nicodemus was an ardent seeker after truth, 
 not a member of the sect which most vehemently 
 opposed him. ' Honour all men. 1 It is the apostolic 
 precept, which would teach us to give to every one the 
 honour which belongs to a being, dowered by God with 
 life, redeemed by the precious Blood, and sanctified 
 by the Holy Spirit. It is a call to us further to 
 recognise a possible leader of mankind, certainly one 
 who has been called into the world with a work to do 
 and a message to give, and therefore we ask, ' What is 
 your name ? ' God has called you, we would welcome 
 you, most of all we would bid you remember your own 
 worth, and the greatness of the issues which lie before 
 you.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF OTHERS ON LIFE 
 
 ' And they come unto Him, bringing one sick of the 
 palsy, which was borne of four.' 
 
 I am sure that Nature is a teacher, and a great 
 teacher, if so be that we have been in another school 
 first. 
 
 DIRECTLY we have asserted our strong belief in the 
 inalienable rights of individuality which belong to us 
 all, we become conscious of that other set of facts 
 which exhibit man in various stages of dependence on 
 others, from the healthy influence which ministers to 
 his more perfect development, to the entire subjuga- 
 tion by another's will which leaves him a slave instead 
 of a free man, a copy instead of an original, a machine 
 instead of a human being. A glance will show us how 
 dependent our natural life is on others ; the cries which 
 the infant first utters are typical of his utter depen- 
 dence on external aid during the early years of his 
 life ; as he grows up he is fed and warmed and clothed 
 and healed of his sicknesses by different branches of 
 organised human skill and labour : the most indepen- 
 dent mind will own that it owes something at least to 
 the intellectual bent given to it by its earliest teachers ; 
 while morally for good or for evil the character has 
 been moulded and formed either by accepting or re- 
 sisting the influences which have surrounded its growth. 
 The circumstances of our life lie embedded like strata 
 
 84
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF OTHERS ON LIFE 35 
 
 in the recesses of our character, some virtues for which 
 we are now conspicuous are rooted in a remote past, 
 certain influences which have ceased to move us are 
 buried away as fossils or as hidden seams of still useful 
 potentiality. Like Ulysses, we can almost say, ' I am 
 a part of all that I have met,' so powerful is the impact 
 of other lives and other powers on our own, from our 
 childhood to our grave. 
 
 This great principle of influence as a prime factor in 
 the formation of character is recognised and carried 
 up into the very highest region of the spiritual life, by 
 the old institution of sureties, or godfathers and god- 
 mothers, in Baptism, which the Catechism in more 
 than one place emphasises and explains as a matter 
 of extreme significance. The meaning, advantages, 
 and responsibilities of sponsors, together with their 
 historical status, have been dwelt upon in a previous 
 volume of this series. 1 It is only necessary, therefore, 
 in this place to insist on their representative character, 
 i.e. as representing the Church which brings helpless 
 infants to Holy Baptism, as the faithful four bore the 
 helpless cripple into the presence of Christ : and 
 further, to show how they fulfil a very definite function 
 in doing for the child a necessary act which he cannot 
 then do for himself, and in promising to do more, to 
 make him ' perfect, throughly furnished unto all good 
 works.' 2 Roughly speaking, the special work done by 
 the sponsors is twofold: at the moment they act as 
 the child's proxies in the definite contribution which 
 every recipient of God's bounty is required to make as 
 a condition of receiving it ; and further, they promise 
 for the future that the child shall enter on life pledged 
 to a course of action, to believe and to do and to avoid 
 1 Stone, Holy Baptism, pp. 100-109. 2 2 Tim. iii. 17.
 
 36 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 certain things, as to all of which he shall be definitely 
 and carefully instructed by those who themselves know 
 and believe and are conscious of the great issues which 
 are at stake. 
 
 As representatives of the Church, they bear witness 
 to a great principle that the followers of the Crucified, 
 like their Master before them, are to seek and to save 
 that which was lost : that the disciples have ' to go,' to 
 take definite steps and to exert themselves to extend the 
 flock of Christ : that they have to make disciples of all 
 nations by baptizing them into the Name of the Father 
 and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. 1 The presence of 
 the sponsors bringing the child to Holy Baptism bears 
 witness to the principle which underlies all good in- 
 fluence, and our responsibility in using it; it is the 
 same principle which is at the bottom of all schemes of 
 true education, and of missionary effort at home and 
 abroad, and is in itself a perpetual protest against the 
 indolent rebellion of the first murderer expressed in 
 the selfish phrase, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' 2 
 
 And in noticing this it is not a little significant to 
 see how abundantly our Lord rewarded the faith shown 
 by others for those in whom they were interested. A\V 
 have already noticed the instance of the healing of the 
 palsied man brought before Jesus by the exertions of 
 his friends, and we are expressly told that His action 
 of healing was manifested, * when He saw their faith.' 3 
 Our Lord praises again in terms of admiration the 
 faith of the Centurion displayed on behalf of his 
 servant. 4 The belief of the nobleman is made the 
 measure of his reward as regards the healing of his 
 son. 6 The belief of Martha is put forward as a pre- 
 liminary necessity to the manifestation of God's glory 
 in the raising of Lazarus. 8 We cannot ourselves escape 
 from the influence of others, and we cannot perform 
 
 1 S. Matt, xxviii. 19. Gen. iv. 9. * S. Mark ii. 3. 
 
 4 S. Luke vii. 9. S. John iv. 50. S. John xi. 40. 

 
 THE INFLUENCE OF OTHERS ON LIFE 37 
 
 our actions so that they should have no bearing on the 
 lives of others; but we are not prepared to see the 
 persistence with which this influence is put before 
 us as a duty, or to recognise in the sponsors at the 
 Font a type of a Christian's attitude to his fellow- 
 men throughout his life. 
 
 But the sponsors are not merely representative 
 whether of the whole church or of a principle ; we have 
 already noted two very definite functions which they 
 have to undertake. In the first place, they have, as we 
 have seen, to act as proxies for the child in a notable 
 action which that child is required to perform, while as 
 yet he is incapable of doing it. At the Font the child 
 is confronted with the first exhibition in his life of a 
 great principle of divine action, that God requires as a 
 preliminary to the bestowal of His grace, a recognition 
 on the part of the recipient that he understands, 
 accepts, and values the gift there bestowed upon him. 
 God has willed to show us again and again that He 
 respects and cherishes human freewill, that all His 
 blessings are bestowed, saving the integrity of this, 
 and all His discipline exercised to maintain it. The 
 fact that He requires us to ask for in prayer that 
 which He wills to bestow without our prayer, is a con- 
 spicuous indication of the principle. God will not 
 pauperise the recipients of His bounty, or force His 
 blessings upon unkindly and unwilling hearts. 
 
 And so in Holy Baptism, God gives to the child the 
 gift of new-birth, i.e. ' in the case of infants, who 
 inherit the taint and distortion of original sin, the 
 love of God provides that they may be unconsciously 
 set free from that which they have unconsciously 
 received,' 1 but at the same time He demands from the 
 child, on his part,repentance whereby he forsakes sin, and 
 faith whereby he stedfastly believes the promises of God 
 made to him in that Sacrament. 2 And this repentance 
 1 Stone, Holy Baptism, p. 100. 2 Church Catechism.
 
 38 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 and faith the sponsors must guarantee until, when the 
 child is of an age to know right from wrong, he can 
 furnish them himself. Here clearly there is no room 
 for moral bankrupts and spiritual paupers who promise 
 and offer that of which they themselves are quite 
 destitute. God, we believe, will not allow the child to 
 suffer for the sin of others, but it is robbing God of 
 the respect due to Him to represent repentance and 
 faith on the part of the recipient of Baptism out of 
 a life dead in trespasses and sins, and a heart which 
 neither has seen God nor known Him. But in a more 
 intelligible way than this the sponsors commit them- 
 selves to a definite line of action as regards the child 
 who has been baptized. As far as they can use their 
 influence, the child goes forth pledged to a decided 
 course throughout his life. They are not of those who 
 launch the child into the waves of this troublesome 
 world, and tell him to find out the course which best 
 commends itself to him, to keep an open mind and to 
 think for himself. They are not of those who say, if 
 there has been a Fall at all, it was a fall upwards ; or 
 of those who believe that God's commands are useless 
 and obsolete. They stand there with their hand on 
 the child, representing to him experience, and Faith, 
 and they tell him that they pledged him in the most 
 solemn manner while he was yet unconscious to believe 
 and to do certain things of the utmost consequence to 
 his moral welfare, and that their whole endeavour will 
 be directed to enable him to act intelligently, bravely, 
 and skilfully as a free agent in matters where to 
 hesitate is to be lost, and to be uncertain is to fail. 
 
 It is to guardians such as these that the Church 
 commits the child still freshly sprinkled with Bap- 
 tismal dew; and the nature of their undertaking 
 is explained to them in no uncertain tones. The 
 Priest is instructed to speak to the godparents of the 
 child, before they leave the church, as follows : * For-
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF OTHERS ON LIFE 39 
 
 asmuch as this child hath promised by you his sureties 
 to renounce the devil and all his works, to believe in 
 God, and to serve Him ; ye must remember, that it is 
 your parts and duties to see that this infant be taught, 
 so soon as he shall be able to learn, what a solemn 
 vow, promise, and profession he hath here made by 
 you. And that he may know these things the better, 
 ye shall call upon him to hear sermons ; and chiefly 
 ye shall provide that he may learn the Creed, the 
 Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments in the 
 vulgar tongue, and all other things which a Christian 
 ought to know and believe to his souFs health : and 
 that this child may be virtuously brought up to lead a 
 godly and a Christian life : remembering always that 
 Baptism doth represent unto us our profession : which 
 is to follow the example of our Saviour Christ, and to 
 be made like unto Him ; that as He died and rose 
 again for us, so should we, who are baptized, die from 
 sin, and rise again unto righteousness : continually 
 mortifying all our evil and corrupt affections, and 
 daily proceeding in all virtues and godliness of living. 1 l 
 And then follows an earnest reminder that the child 
 is to be brought to the Bishop for Confirmation at a 
 suitable time and with due preparation for that Rite. 
 
 II 
 
 With this solemn injunction laid upon them the 
 sponsors must of necessity seek proxies to enable them 
 to carry out this serious charge to the well being and 
 proper development of the child. The child must be 
 trained, there is no escaping this : if he is not trained 
 by duly qualified teachers he will be trained by what 
 are called circumstances. The tender vine may be 
 either nailed upon the sunny wall, where training and 
 restraint mean freedom to expand and develop into 
 1 The Ministration of the Public Baptism of Infants.
 
 40 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 fruitf ulness, or it may trail along the ground through 
 the mire, laying hold of such chance sticks and stones 
 as come in its path, trodden down, unpruned, un- 
 directed in a barren liberty to go astray. Human 
 nature cannot stand alone, it must needs lay hold 
 of some prop and guidance; it is for those who are 
 interested in the child's welfare to choose what these 
 shall be. 
 
 The conscientious god-parent knows that his first 
 representatives will be the parents of the child, or 
 whatever represents the home influence which will be 
 brought to bear on his early years. The question of 
 whether it is right or wrong to baptize a child which 
 can only be handed back to degrading and sinister 
 influences, has already been discussed in the volume 
 above alluded to. 1 Allowance perhaps, however, ought 
 to be made in nominally Christian countries for the 
 general atmosphere of Christianity in which the child 
 will find himself; and, also, we have not exhausted the 
 depth of mercy which underlies the experience of the 
 Psalmist, * When my father and my mother forsake me, 
 the Lord taketh *me up.' 2 But apart from such im- 
 portant and anxious questions, the godparent must 
 feel how very much must of necessity depend on the 
 character of the home training to which the child is 
 committed by him. * That this child may be virtuously 
 brought up to lead a godly and a Christian life. 11 This 
 injunction obviously lays a great charge on those who 
 are responsible for the home life, where the child 
 receives his first impressions, his first encouragement s. 
 and his first rebukes : where he should learn to pray, 
 and grow up shielded, if possible, by the sheltering 
 leaves of tenderness, affection, and reverence. We are 
 elaborating painfully, and with faltering steps, our 
 systems of education for the young. Here is an 
 
 1 Stone, Holy Baptism, pp. 106, 107. 
 * P>. xxvii. 10.
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF OTHERS ON LIFE 41 
 
 elementary education of the very first importance 
 which it is the peculiar function of the home to impart. 
 What this means, we know too well, in the case of 
 those who are swaddled, nurtured, and degraded in 
 every circumstance of cruelty, want, and wickedness ; 
 but apart from this, there is a growing fear that the 
 sponsors who give the child back cannot depend, as 
 they ought to be able to depend, on the right training 
 of the Christian home. There are children who are 
 looked upon as encumbrances, there are those who are 
 left entirely to servants, and there are those who drink 
 in insensibly from their earliest years a spirit of 
 worldliness and indifference, which is the atmosphere 
 which pervades a godless home, the home which seems 
 to have its conscience clause to prevent the intrusion 
 of religion after family prayers, or its system of daily 
 routine from which any exhibition of its beauty and 
 obligations is rigorously excluded lest it should offend 
 the worldly members of the household; and which, like 
 an obtrusive toy, must on no account be brought from 
 the nursery into the drawing-room. 
 
 Parents should remember that they are as godfathers 
 and godmothers to their own children in their own 
 house, and that no amount of public service in Church 
 or State will compensate for the neglect at home of 
 a primary duty to God. There is evidently a strong 
 temptation to inscribe Corban over home duties, and 
 those unromantic claims which seem incompatible with 
 the loud calls of public activities. A man is not a 
 hero to his own servant, too often, alas ! because his 
 servant sees too much, but also because he sees too 
 little, of the man in his private life. Why is there a cer- 
 tain sting in the taunt that the sons of clergymen most 
 often turn out badly ? Untrue as most of these sweep- 
 ing generalisations are, still no one can deny that there 
 are still Elis, who by neglecting their own house bring 
 scandal on the people of the Lord. There are still
 
 42 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 Lots, who fail to make their influence felt at home, so 
 that a wife fails at a critical moment, sons-in-law 
 mock, and daughters are contaminated with the evil 
 influence of the place where they live. We English 
 people are proud of our homes, we think much of thrm, 
 and show that we value them ; and, no doubt, as the 
 Roman Empire made its strides of annexation and 
 progress by the colonies which it planted throbbing 
 with imperial life, and strong in law and order and 
 civilisation, to we should make greater strides in 
 winning the world for Christ, if we could plant down 
 Christian families in our streets and squares, in our 
 towns and villages, through which the individual could 
 make himself felt, because he had obtained that which 
 was promised for him that he should obtain, the virtuous 
 bringing-up, and the constant sight of people, pledged 
 like himself, paying their vows unto the Lord, and 
 walking at liberty because they seek His command- 
 ments. Surely philanthropy, and religious exercises, 
 and even works of Christian charity done at the ex- 
 pense or even in defiance of family life are, to say the 
 least of it, a mistake. In old days the family used to 
 worship together, even if it were in the family pew ; l 
 now, one goes here, and another goes there, and one is 
 busy pursuing this scheme and another that, very often 
 at the expense of home duties. Next to the duty of 
 personal holiness should come the sense of obligation 
 which belongs to father and mother, brother and sister, 
 to study the duties of home life, and to endeavour to 
 make this a circle of living fire which shall brighten 
 and burn with the glow of Christian excellence and 
 Christian love. 
 
 1 For a curious defence of the family pew, see Life of Phillips 
 Brock:, vol. i. pp. 32, 33. ' This family life was also extended into the 
 church, where the family met in its pew as a family in the Divine pre- 
 sence. It is one of the gifts of the much-derided eighteenth century, 
 this family feeling it bequeathed, symbolised by the pewing of 
 churches,' etc.
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF OTHERS ON LIFE 43 
 
 There would seem to be two things especially 
 which are lacking at the present moment, and which 
 must be supplied, if home is to take its proper place 
 in the scheme of religious training which sponsors 
 undertake to provide for the children whom they 
 bring to the Font. We need Christian discipline 
 and Christian persuasion. In a luxurious age there 
 will always be a shrinking from anything which may 
 seem to give trouble at the moment. Discipline 
 involves assertion of authority coupled sometimes with 
 disagreeable scenes, and so the child is allowed to 
 stumble on, as best he can, with faults uncorrected, 
 habits of self-control unformed, unwarned of his 
 dangers, unaware of his helps, and unassisted in form- 
 ing his ideas. He is not helped to renounce, because he 
 must know a little of the world ; he is not encouraged 
 to believe, because he must keep an open mind; he is 
 not worried about duty so long as his inclinations 
 do not openly violate the laws of propriety or the 
 dictates of convenience. An indolent parent is at no 
 loss for a formula to justify him in his masterly 
 inaction, which he dignifies by the idea of natural 
 development in the perceptive powers of the child. 
 Coleridge's botanical garden has many varieties, over- 
 grown with weeds, because never prejudiced to straw- 
 berries or roses. Much can be done, and ought to be 
 done, by the elder in warning the younger against the 
 inevitable temptations of life, which made their bap- 
 tismal promises so necessary. And also much could be 
 done in helping them to answer to the vocation of 
 which we were thinking in the preceding chapter. We 
 know how in old days the highest profession, such as 
 Holy Orders, was enterprised in obedience to a father's 
 command. JVlen unfitted and unwilling were coerced 
 into the service of the Sanctuary in order to hold a 
 family living or to satisfy some parental desire. Now 
 all has been altered; we have gone into the other
 
 44 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 extreme; valuable talents are thrown away, and perhaps 
 young lives are spending their energies in driving 
 cattle which, by the help of a little encouragement at 
 home, might have been devoting their powers to the 
 highest needs and interests of mankind. The old 
 coercion is gone, thank God for it, but we might fairly 
 look for that reasonable and gentle persuasion for lack 
 of which many a child of God is losing his way, and is 
 being false to his plighted vows without knowing it. 
 
 A great deal is being said about the dearth of 
 candidates for Holy Orders in quarters where we might 
 reasonably look for some exhibition of Christian chivalry 
 and devotion. Many reasons are assigned for it ; most 
 probably there are a variety of reasons. But it remains 
 a sad fact, that when the army and navy and other 
 noble professions make their appeal to our public 
 schools and meet with a generous response from the 
 best and noblest of our sons, the immediate service of 
 Christ in the ministry of His Church seems to offer 
 attractions to a diminishing number. It is only too 
 possible that some of the chill air which damps ardour 
 comes from the home, where religion too often is 
 criticised and despised ; where the utmost encourage- 
 ment that can be looked for is negatively a non-refusal, 
 which is not incompatible with a good deal of subtle 
 discouragement and contemptuous wonder. The en- 
 couragement which the Church ought to be able to 
 depend upon in the homes of her children should be 
 positive, a leading that way, even if it be the way of 
 sacrifice, towards the generous undertaking of difficult 
 and unpopular tasks. It must always be a hard matter 
 rightly to estimate influence at its proper worth, but if 
 the lives of some of our greatest men could be analysed, 
 it would be seen how much this quiet unobserved 
 power has added to the formation of cKaracter. It 
 will be a blow indeed to the Christian training of our 
 children if sponsors can no longer reckon on the good
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF OTHERS ON LIFE 45 
 
 influence of home. Every one who is concerned with 
 so delicate and subtle a blessing as that which belongs 
 to a Christian home, must look to it that he maintains 
 its sanctity and develops more and more its powers for 
 good, lest when God visits His people, and His judg- 
 ments are abroad, His servant stands forth ashamed, 
 who in working for Him neglected his own soul, and 
 forgot his duties, and was false to those whom it was 
 his duty to cherish. 
 
 But if home teaching and home influence are the 
 first and most important factors, in the formation of 
 the child's character, on which the sponsors ought to 
 be able to depend, there speedily comes a time when 
 other and more direct pressure must be brought to 
 bear in the form of a systematic and definite education 
 which will include instruction, training, and discipline, 
 and the forming of habits which are to last through 
 life. The sponsors, then, to whom the spiritual guar- 
 dianship of the child was committed, ought to be able 
 to count in a Christian country on a Christian system 
 of education, reaching up from the elementary schools 
 in the different parishes to the highest educational 
 systems in the land. There are few subjects which have 
 so fully occupied public attention during the last thirty 
 years as that of education. We have sacrificed much 
 and have been promised much in connection with this 
 great cause, but the prevailing sentiment at the present 
 moment is one of profound disappointment that 
 schemes which promised so much have conferred so 
 little real benefit on the children at large. A generation 
 is rising up wilful, disobedient, selfish, and irreverent, 
 keeping perhaps more free from some of the brutali- 
 ties of sin which would render them obnoxious to 
 criminal penalties, but even more tainted with all the 
 subtler indications of alienation from God. We see a 
 sharp contrast between instruction and education, and 
 the sad phenomenon of those who are rendered unfitted
 
 46 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 by what they learn, for posts of usefulness which they 
 might fill. There is no question more full of anxiety 
 at the present moment to those who have the care of 
 children than this, What is the nature of that system 
 to which I commit my child to be educated, that is, 
 the machinery whereby all his latent powers may be 
 drawn out and developed for his work in life, by which 
 all tendencies may be encouraged and nurtured if they 
 are good, and checked and redirected if they are 
 bad? For school is not a place for training merely 
 the head or the intellect, but the whole man ; a place 
 where we hope to get ready and send out those who 
 are to fill the different places in Church and State, 
 able for their work, furnished and equipped as men 
 whose sole aim in life is the glory of God, whose 
 motive-principle is duty, and whose ambition is to 
 do good. When the child was given back from the 
 Font into the hands of those who were to train him 
 and remind him of his promises, everything seemed to 
 be full of God. The things to be avoided were those 
 things which were displeasing to God ; the guiding 
 principle of his life was to be faith in God, the path 
 of duty was to begin, continue, and end in God. But 
 when the child passes the door of the school, at the 
 time when he is most sensitive to impressions, most 
 observant, and most inquisitive what does he find ? 
 A strange and chilling reserve about that subject 
 which he was taught to believe to be the most 
 important. * We do not talk much about God here ' 
 would seem to be the fittest expression of the attitude 
 of those around him. Either religion is kept out 
 with a conscience clause as if it were a dangerous 
 explosive, or it is treated as a sort of extra subject for 
 those who like to take it up, like French or Latin, or 
 it is expelled altogether as a thing about which the 
 child must ask his mother, and not those who are 
 concerned to impart to him useful knowledge.
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF OTHERS ON LIFE 47 
 
 It is not the question of how much or how little 
 religion is to be taught which is so disastrous, it is rather 
 the attitude of those who are responsible for schemes 
 of education. For many years now, in schools and in 
 dealing with her heathen subjects, the State has pro- 
 claimed with no uncertain voice, ' I am ashamed of the 
 Gospel of Christ,' and ostrich-like would shut her eyes 
 to the unwelcome conclusion, that under the plea of 
 a more perfect education her children are being robbed 
 of excellences and powers which once were theirs 
 before they forgot God. Until religion has its proper 
 place of honour as pervading all education, and not as 
 an optional subject, the guardians of the child can only 
 feel that their responsibilities increase when they hand 
 the child over to its so-called teachers. At school he 
 may learn evil without being taught he has to renounce 
 it, he may be taught how to make his way in the world 
 without learning the faith which is to make him wise 
 unto salvation, and the rough path of duty may be 
 forsaken for the smooth road of inclination. Never 
 does sectarian bitterness show itself in more ugly 
 colours than when it stands at the door of the school 
 and says to the Christian guardians of the Christian 
 child, not ' You shall not teach my children in your 
 way, 1 but 'You shall not teach your own children 
 in your own faith.' A wise Solomon would surely 
 indicate still, as the true mother of the child, who 
 loves it and cherishes it, her who says, ' Give her (my 
 rival) the living child,' if she claims it, ' and in no 
 wise slay it ' ; if she claims the child let her take it, 
 and teach it at least something about God ; while he 
 would refuse to recognise any signs of motherhood in 
 her who, in the desperate exigencies of party bitterness, 
 says, 'Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.' 1 
 Education is a thing at once so grand and so vital that 
 our very existence as a nation depends on it. It is a 
 1 I Kings iii. 16-28.
 
 48 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 divorce which ought never to be contemplated between 
 religious and secular education ; all true education 
 must be religious, and those who have the care of 
 children know better than all beside, that the tree of 
 Life must be planted close to the tree of Knowledge. 
 
 But in the exhortation to god-parents, quoted above, 
 special mention is made of one form of instruction 
 which strikes upon our ear with an old-world sound, 
 but of which there is still a considerable survival 
 among us. The child, as a means of instruction, is to 
 be called upon ' to hear sermons.' The sermon in 
 church is looked upon as having a very definite place 
 in helping him to realise his duties and know his dangers. 
 The suggestions given to clergy how they are to preach 
 are many and varied, friendly and the reverse, but 
 we seldom read of any advice as to how the people 
 are to hear and receive sermons. The extraordinary 
 numbers of sermons preached, and the attraction which 
 they still have, indicate that this mode of instruction 
 is still popular ; but on the other hand, as at the 
 door of the school, so at the door of the church, it is 
 quite possible that the child may meet with deterrents 
 instead of encouragements to hear sermons. He may 
 meet crowds of the young and unemployed flocking 
 out of church in the face of the preacher, evidently 
 believing themselves to need no such instruction. He 
 will become conscious of the critical attitude among 
 some of those that remain, as those who would still 
 inquire, 'What will this babbler say? 11 When he 
 leaves the church he will find it difficult to believe, 
 from the conversation around him, that any or all of 
 the audience were not better competent to instruct 
 than the preacher. Children have to be taught not 
 only to hear but also how to hear ; and some of the 
 advice which is now given to preachers might well be 
 transferred to the hearers. First of all, there should 
 1 Acts xvii. 1 8.
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF OTHERS ON LIFE 49 
 
 be a clear conception of what the sermon is, and is 
 not, meant to effect. It is wrong to despise sermons, 
 but it is also a mistake to misunderstand their posi- 
 tion in the ecclesiastical economy. We have traces 
 of a sermon occupying very much the place which it 
 does now in the Holy Eucharist, at a very early period 
 in the Church, 1 where it probably speedily merged into 
 an exposition of the Gospel and Epistle. The Holy 
 Eucharist is the only service in which a sermon is specific- 
 ally ordered in the Prayer Book ; but with the expansion 
 of our needs, and in view of the manifold calls and 
 opportunities which lie before the preacher, not once or 
 twice on Sundays and holy days, but frequently as the 
 occasion may require, the ministry of preaching is 
 made use of for correction, reproof, and instruction in 
 righteousness, and has been sometimes, and might be 
 always, a mighty engine for spreading the Truth, and 
 be helpful both in building up the faithful as well 
 as in bringing to those outside Christian influences the 
 glorious gospel of the Blessed God. Those who have 
 the care of children might at least fulfil their duty in 
 this respect, that they set themselves to stop the 
 foolish and unwise criticism of sermons, and that they 
 endeavour, by their own patience and seriousness, to 
 set the ministry of preaching once more on the basis 
 which it ought to occupy as an important part of the 
 teaching office of the Church. And if the child is 
 warned not to despise, so he must be warned not to 
 over - estimate sermons. Religion no doubt has 
 suffered, and suffers still, from those who make the 
 hearing of a sermon their sole religious duty. * Preach- 
 ing the gospel ! " is a phrase which in many cases has 
 been pressed out of all meaning, as if there were a 
 virtue in the mere reading of the doctor's prescrip- 
 tion, or as if the study of the signpost were 
 equivalent to an actual progress in the journey of life. 
 1 S. Just. Mart. Apolog. i. 67. 
 D
 
 60 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 And while he recognises the importance of respect for 
 sermons on the one hand, and the necessity for not 
 over-rating them on the other, the Christian child must 
 be taught to feel that there is a duty which belongs to 
 those who hear sermons as well as to those who preach 
 them, and that if the preacher must say, as he fixes his 
 eyes upon God, ' Yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not 
 the gospel,' 1 the listener must say to himself with all 
 earnestness and persistency, * Take heed therefore how 
 ye hear/ 2 For the child must be taught to believe 
 that in hearing the sermon he is hearing a message 
 from God, from Whom he comes and to Whom he is 
 going, and to Whose service he has been pledged. It 
 will be difficult sometimes even for a child to believe 
 this, and the attitude of his superiors may make it 
 more difficult. The utterance which he is called upon 
 to accept is faltering, feeble, and quite unworthy, or it 
 is an undisguised display of self, or it is an enunciation 
 of doctrine which seems to contradict all that he has 
 been taught to believe most sacred, and which it would be 
 a peril to the soul to follow. This is a difficulty whirh 
 our Blessed Lord seems to have dealt with when He 
 stated the principle on which His followers should deal 
 with the authorised yet false teaching of His own day : 
 ' The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses" seat : all 
 therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe 
 and do ; but do not ye after their works : for they say, 
 and do not/ 8 That is, in so far as the Scribes and 
 Pharisees enforce the law and precepts of Moses, obey 
 them, but do not imitate their conduct. We should 
 indeed be in a spiritual difficulty, if we felt ourselves 
 bound to carry out the precepts of every sermon which 
 we hear. But as the duty of honouring our parents 
 is never more conspicuously beautiful than when it is 
 displayed towards a dishonourable, unkind, or even 
 brutal parent, so Christian reverence is never more 
 1 I Cor. ix. 16. * S. Luke viii. 18. * S. Matt, xxiii. 2, 3.
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF OTHERS ON LIFE 61 
 
 lovely than when it is displayed in the face of 
 what is unworthy, of what must be received even 
 with protest from those who are set over us in the 
 Lord. The most successful sermon ever recorded is 
 the one brief cry of woe uttered by the prophet 
 Jonah : ' Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be over- 
 thrown.' 1 It carried with it the conversion of a 
 city. There have been times when the dignity of the 
 message surpassed and swallowed up the personality of 
 the messenger, j ust as there have been times when the 
 messenger seems to have strangled the message by his 
 own obtrusive personality. There have not been 
 wanting examples of great men who have strongly 
 resisted the evening criticism of the Sunday's sermon. 
 Certainly it will be of little use to call upon children 
 to hear sermons if at the same time we make no secret 
 of our own contempt for them, and show them where 
 to look for weak points, and how generally to disre- 
 gard their teachers. 
 
 Nor is this spirit of contemptuous criticism damag- 
 ing only to those who are taught, it reacts also in 
 imperceptible ways on the teacher as well. Too 
 often there comes to be a tacit understanding be- 
 tween the preacher and those to whom he ministers 
 which seems to say to him, ' If you are willing to 
 say something of the usual length, which does not 
 offend us, or jar upon our feelings, or have the ap- 
 pearance of dictating to us, we will listen to you ; if 
 not, our remedy is simple. 1 And then what can be 
 expected from him but the dead perfunctory enuncia- 
 tion of platitudes as from a man who must say some- 
 thing ? But if, on the other hand, he were to feel that 
 he was speaking to those who say, ' We have to labour 
 much in other parts of God's vineyard; we have neither 
 the time nor the aptitude for the special study of these 
 questions ; you are there to teach us ; we look to you 
 1 Jonah iii. 4.
 
 52 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 to guide us, while we reserve to ourselves the verifica- 
 tion of our own reading, and the obedience due to the 
 authoritative teaching of the Church/ here a man 
 would be encouraged to do his best. The faults are 
 by no means always on the side of the preacher. How- 
 ever unworthy and perfunctory the address may be, no 
 speaker could fail to catch some inspiration from the 
 moral confidence which mounts up from the audience 
 to the spokesman whom they trust, and who exhibit 
 something of that humble and teachable mind which 
 is prepared to extract some good even from the 
 worst sermon, if it be only patience, which George 
 Herbert found as a Pandora legacy at the bottom of the 
 box, which had contained only a mass of useless trifles. 
 How to hear, how to receive instruction, is a spiritual 
 acquirement of which the young should be made speedy 
 possessors, for if it be true, as Dean Church says, that 
 one of the things which a preacher will least care to 
 meet at the Day of Judgment will be his own sermons, 
 it may be also true that one of the saddest things 
 which will then befall the ordinary listener will be the 
 condemnation of the old prophet, which wails out in its 
 sadness, * This is the refreshing : yet they would not 
 hear/ l 
 
 III 
 
 Everything has conspired to show the godparents 
 the exceeding value, in God's sight, of every one, even 
 the smallest of His children. No training or instruc- 
 tion must be spared to fit them for their high destiny, 
 and to make them worthy of what has been already 
 done for them. But the privileges of the baptized 
 are summarised for us in the Catechism in forcible 
 and pregnant terms. The giving of the name marked 
 a great occasion in life, and the bestowal of pre- 
 cious gifts. The name given, and the promises so 
 
 1 Is*, xxviii. 12.
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF OTHERS ON LIFE 53 
 
 earnestly plighted, coincided with and signalised that 
 moment to which a child may look back with pride 
 and say, then ' I was made a member of Christ, the 
 child of Go<J, and an inheritor of the kingdom of 
 Heaven. 1 It is well to examine carefully these terms 
 that we may value more our own privileges, and 
 consider more earnestly the responsibility of influence 
 laid upon all who are entrusted with God's children, 
 to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of 
 the Lord. It is, and always must be, a matter of 
 exceeding difficulty to reconcile the great results which 
 are promised with the apparent insignificance of the 
 means employed. People rebel against a doctrine 
 which seems to attach an almost mechanical power 
 to a Sacrament, and which indicates an exact moment 
 in which a great spiritual change takes place in the 
 recipient. They point to the impossibility of noting 
 any striking and obvious difference between the bap- 
 tized and the unbaptized in after-life. They would 
 even point to instances where the unbaptized are 
 apparently men of greater integrity and usefulness 
 than the baptized. But after all, we should do well to 
 remember that spiritual facts require a special mode of 
 investigation, and a special aptitude in those who so 
 investigate; that everything tends to show that 
 spiritual facts all hang together, and are closely 
 correlated : that the condition of original sinfulness in 
 which the child is born is equally hidden from us with 
 that condition of grace in which the child is born 
 again ; further, that we may support our faith by the 
 well-known result of one definite act of wilful sin as 
 altering a man's whole life, and also of one deliberate 
 choice of good as shaping his whole career, a single act 
 at a given time does, as a matter of fact, produce 
 constantly a momentous and lasting change ; that 
 once more in the rough and ready challenge to com- 
 parisons, which seem so fair, but which are in reality
 
 54 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 so fallacious, we must at least be careful in the selection 
 of our specimens, and not compare a good Agnostic 
 who is unbaptized, and yet is faithful to that measure 
 of light which is vouchsafed to him, with one who, 
 although baptized, has in act and deed repudiated his 
 obligations, and has added to moral faults spiritual 
 apostasy. It may be unhesitatingly asserted that the* 
 goodness of a good man who is baptized, and remains 
 in sacramental union with Christ, will be found to be 
 of a higher type than the goodness of one not so 
 baptized, and simply strong in the moral excellences 
 of a well-regulated nature. The one has, in addition 
 to the other, an endowment of Christian graces which 
 are the direct product of union with Christ. If we 
 are to believe the testimony of the Church, which 
 speaks to us reposing on the revelation of God, the 
 child we receive back from the Font is of inestimable 
 value, with great possibilities open to him, and en- 
 titled to our utmost honour and respect. We know 
 how we should feel our responsibility if we were told 
 as we received the infant, ' This child will some day be 
 another Shakespeare," 1 or * This child will be the ruler 
 over a vast domain,"* or 'This child is the heir to 
 millions of pounds 1 ; but instead of this we are told 
 more important things still, 'This child is a member of 
 Christ; this child is a child of God ; this child is an 
 inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven "* ; as such he must 
 be guarded from affinity with everything that is bad ; 
 he must be taught to know his parentage, and be 
 instructed in the way of life. 
 
 Are, then, these terms rhetorical ? Do they simply 
 mean there arc religious capabilities in the child, into 
 corresponding religious duties? Or is there a fit: 
 and precision about them which we do well to ponder r 
 For there is a danger about unreal words especially 
 in religion, that they produce a habit of looking upon 
 it as a sentimental and visionary thing, instead of the
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF OTHERS ON LIFE 55 
 
 precise and definite scheme to which appertain our 
 actual welfare and ultimate salvation. The Church 
 attaches as real a meaning to these terms, 'member 
 of Christ,' ' child of God, 1 * inheritor of the kingdom of 
 Heaven, 1 as we do to ' a future genius,' ' heir to a large 
 property,' or ' a great landowner.' 
 . The child, then, is given back by the Church into the 
 hands of those who are responsible for his after-training, 
 as ' a member of Christ.' Of all three conceptions this 
 is the most difficult to grasp, and it is safe to say that 
 to the majority of people it means nothing but a rhe- 
 torical expression for a professed and nominal Christian ; 
 and yet it is a title which comes direct from the New 
 Testament, 1 and is further worked out by S. Paul at 
 considerable length in another passage, 2 and is again 
 alluded to in two special places where the same apostle 
 specifically refers to Holy Baptism. 3 The members of 
 the body are the different parts by which the whole 
 man expresses himself, by the imperial power of the 
 will : 4 and the child at Baptism becomes like a limb 
 which, at first useless either by disease or accident, has 
 recovered its proper use ; into it through the veins the 
 blood courses once more in freedom and health, it 
 performs its proper functions, and takes its place in 
 the body under the controlling power of the will, as a 
 member or part of Christ. Unless anything intervenes 
 to prevent it, that child will be acting under the 
 guiding and directing power of Christ to carry out a 
 portion of His working, however minute and unim- 
 portant it may be. It will make all the difference to 
 that child and it will make all the difference to that 
 portion of life which is brought under his influence, 
 whether or not the motive-power which sways the will 
 
 1 I Cor. vi. 15. 2 i Cor. xii. 12-27. 
 
 3 Galat. iii. 27 ; Ephes. v. 30. 
 
 4 See a striking passage on the will in Memoirs and Letters of Sir 
 James Paget, pp. 373, 374.
 
 66 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 continues to be Christ; roughly speaking, this will 
 determine whether the child as he grows up will become 
 a worker together with God, a promoter of His great 
 plans in glad and willing submission to His will, or 
 whether he will aim at a wrong individualism and 
 look upon life and all its opportunities as only so 
 many occasions of private aggrandisement. If he is a 
 member of Christ, he will say, 'I offer to Thee my 
 body, soul, and spirit, to be a reasonable, holy, and 
 lively sacrifice unto Thee." 1 If, on the other hand, 
 there is a severance from the general life, it becomes a 
 question of * my powers and the might of mine hand ' 
 and the acquisition of wealth, which is the sure 
 prelude to the dread casting forth as an unprofitable 
 branch which ceased to abide in the true vine. 1 To 
 one who is jealously guarding a member of Christ, 
 there is an additional malice in the influence of the 
 world, the flesh, and the devil, which are the enemies 
 of all true vitality : there is an additional stimulus to 
 the keeping alive of faith, as that which tends to keep 
 him in union with God : and the path of duty becomes 
 the only path of safety, in which access to God may be 
 maintained, and the devious paths of sin avoided into 
 which that life may run away and expend itself, which 
 was once hid with Christ in God. 
 
 If, as a member of Christ, the child appeals to us to 
 nourish him, protect him, and develop him, so as the 
 child of God he appeals to us for our especial reverence. 
 It is true that, as S. Paul taught the Athenians out of 
 their own poets, ' We are also His offspring.' 2 It is 
 true that all men may say with the prophet, ' Doubtless 
 Thou art our Father.' 8 For every one who is descended 
 from Adam is the son of God ; but the baptized becomes 
 God's child in a special sense, * being by nature born in 
 sin the children of wrath, we are hereby made the 
 children of grace.' And if it be asked in what sense 
 1 See S. John XT. Acts xvii. 28. ' Isa. Ixiii. 16.
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF OTHERS ON LIFE 57 
 
 the child newly baptized is the child of God more than 
 he was before, we may answer, ' By adoption. 1 ' We are 
 by Baptism brought into this new relation with God, 
 in which we were not by nature.' 1 So we read, ' When 
 we were children, God sent forth His Son that we 
 might receive the adoption of sons.' 2 In the service 
 for Holy Baptism we give thanks to Almighty God, 
 that He has been pleased to regenerate the infant 
 with His Holy Spirit, and to receive him for His own 
 child by adoption. And this is echoed further in the 
 collect for Christmas Day, ' that we being regenerate 
 and made Thy children by adoption and grace.' Here 
 again is another title which has to be rescued from 
 the utter meaninglessness with which familiarity has 
 invested it, and from the unreality which we allow to 
 attach to fair-sounding terms. We must try and 
 translate it once more into the language which is real 
 to us, and which we do to a certain extent understand. 
 It is as if the Church said to us, * Take this child home 
 and nourish it, for it is a little Prince, his Father is a 
 great potentate Who dearly loves all His children, and 
 has especially desired that this child should be near 
 Him.' It is an appeal to our reverence not only for 
 man as such, but for man as a member of ' the house- 
 hold of faith.' There is a dignity which belongs to 
 little children which Christianity has largely taught us 
 to recognise. The Christian school in our parochial 
 system ranks only second to the parish church ; the 
 Font is only second in its sanctity to the Altar. ' Suffer 
 the little children to come unto Me and forbid them 
 not' stands in plaintive opposition to all harsh and 
 worldly systems of education, which would consider 
 little children incapable of appreciating the great 
 truths of our Holy Religion. Reverence for a child of 
 God, while it explains the awful denunciation pro- 
 nounced against those who offend them, will add a 
 1 Isaac Williams, Plain Sermons, serai. 278. 2 Galat. iv. 3-5.
 
 68 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 fresh impulse to all movements designed to protect 
 them from sin and spiritual harm. There is a concep- 
 tion of child-life which views it as an anxious and per- 
 plexing problem in the statistics of national and city 
 life, which leaves education to be paid by the rates, 
 and to be dictated by the caprice of public opinion in 
 an elected board. There is a conception of child-life 
 which views it with interest and anxiety as the stuff' 
 out of which future citizens are to be made, the men 
 and women who are to sway the destinies of the State. 
 But there is a higher conception still, which views 
 children as the children of God, baptized children as 
 His special sons, to be cherished and reverenced not 
 for what they may become, but for what they are, not 
 only as those who must be taught, but as those who 
 have much to teach us. 
 
 It is a bad sign when a nation displays a diminishing 
 population, if it means that parents no longer see the 
 blessing which attaches to children, or the strength of 
 those arrows in the hand of the giant. It is a bad si^n 
 when education becomes a subject of party warfare, if it 
 means that men have forgotten the reverence which is 
 the first duty towards those who appeal to their love and 
 sympathy as the sons of God. Most certainly, instead 
 of being the last thing to be considered, and then made 
 subject to indignity, religion should occupy a prominent 
 place in the teaching of the young, as reminding them 
 of God, of their sonship, and of Him Who claims them 
 for Himself. Much is to be done in reminding the child 
 of what he can claim from a Father Who is Almighty, 
 much can be done in telling him of the wonders of his 
 complex nature, what he may be, and what he can do. 
 and what God is meaning him to he and do in flu- 
 place which He has assigned to him. The son of God 
 must be taught the power of prayer, that God is more 
 ready to hear than he to pray. He must be taught to 
 trust in God, and that it is wrong to be anxious, how
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF OTHERS ON LIFE 59 
 
 that all his life through, in great things and in little, 
 he must cast down his care upon God, because God 
 cares for him. He must be taught his own value in 
 his Father's sight, not to listen to the belittling of 
 the slanderer, or the dull despondency of his own 
 indolence. He must learn to aim at great things, and 
 bear hard ones. He must learn the worth of his own 
 soul by contemplating the infinite worth of the Son of 
 God Who redeemed him, and he must learn his capa- 
 bilities from the ideal which is put before him of being 
 perfect even as his Father is perfect. A low standard 
 awaits him in the world through which he must make 
 his way to God : again and again he will be told that 
 anything else but low aims and low achievements are 
 impossible to his weak nature ; but he who has learned 
 the secret of his birth, that he was born to be a king, 
 and that he was made in the image and likeness of 
 God, will throw off this disabling sense of his own 
 impotency, and will confess himself bound by the 
 nobility of his extraction to walk worthy of the voca- 
 tion wherewith he is called, and to attempt great 
 things as the adopted child of Almighty God. 
 
 And the kingdom of Heaven is his inheritance : this 
 too must be put before him as a sure token of his 
 great value in God's sight. 
 
 ' The Kingdom of Heaven ' is a phrase which occurs 
 in the Bible in three different senses. It means the 
 future and eternal kingdom which awaits us after 
 death, or it means the reign of Christ in our hearts, 
 as when He says ' the kingdom of God is within you," 1 1 
 or it means the Church of God upon earth. Of these 
 three meanings, the inheritance here spoken of seems 
 to belong to the first, for we read in the Baptismal 
 Service that we must not doubt but earnestly believe 
 that God will give unto the child the blessing of 
 eternal life, and make him partaker of His everlasting 
 1 S. Luke xvii. 21.
 
 60 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 kingdom. And we pray again, in the same service, 
 that the child may be made an heir of everlasting 
 salvation, and that our Lord Jesus Christ would give 
 him the kingdom of Heaven and everlasting life. It 
 would be interesting to note the precise bearing which 
 the promise of this inheritance of everlasting life has 
 on the daily life and conversation of the Christian. It 
 stands forth as a prominent motive in the history of 
 God's people Israel ; and those who are scornfully 
 taunted with having no definite conception of a future 
 state are conspicuous as the great example of men 
 who lived in the future, and who went out from home 
 and fatherland and all that men hold dear, declaring 
 plainly that they sought a country, and who died in 
 faith, not having received the promises. 1 Yet how 
 much is the child of God affected by the thought of 
 his future inheritance ? Sin brings with it shame, 
 remorse, punishment, pain, and loss : is it also repudi- 
 ated and thrust away because it might damage tlu- 
 promise of an eternal inheritance and cause the sinmr 
 to forfeit Heaven? There are those who would be 
 \\iser than God, and reject as unworthy any appeal to 
 right-doing which is based on pains and penalties, or 
 promises of reward as utilitarian and unworthy : who 
 tell us that we ought to pursue good because it is 
 good, and avoid wrong because it is wrong. And yet 
 such reasoning, plausible and even noble as it sounds, 
 proceeds from a very imperfect knowledge of human 
 nature as it is. No one attempts to educate children, 
 who wishes for any success, without some system of 
 rewards and punishments ; and mankind, even the best 
 and wisest, are but as children in the hands of the 
 seductive influences which make for evil : while we are 
 in this world we cannot depend on the abstract pursuit 
 of good for its own sake as a sufficient stimulus to its 
 attainment. The extreme difficulty of doing good 
 1 Heb. zi. 13, 14, etc.
 
 61 
 
 makes us gladly accept the help of any motive to its 
 performance, short of those which are absolutely bad ; 
 we gladly accept ' the terror of the Lord ' as a motive 
 to right-doing, and we should accept the promises of 
 the Lord, too, if they were more real to us. The joys 
 of the promised inheritance pale before the joys of 
 actual possession of the good things of the world. 
 Few would have the faith, if the choice was open to 
 them of remaining in the flesh, to choose 'to be with 
 Christ ' as far better. And yet this is to be a motive 
 to the child to good living, it should be a motive to every 
 one, that heaven is our inheritance. If this is to be so, 
 surely it will not be brought about by imagination, by 
 hymns descriptive of the beauties of the New Jerusalem, 
 by longings unreal and sentimental for the joys of 
 Paradise, it will be rather by producing here foretastes 
 of Heaven, by sending in spies to bring us out some of 
 the fruit of the good land. He had learned something 
 of this method who said, 'Paradise is but a first Com- 
 munion which lasts for ever.' We shall make our 
 children realise the richness of their inheritance, and 
 we ourselves shall be able to speak of it as a motive to 
 good living, without insincerity and unreality, if we 
 open up more and more the treasures of Christ's 
 kingdom on earth ; for the dividing line between earth 
 and Heaven is not drawn with stern exactitude, they 
 melt into each other; and the joys of Christ's Church 
 on earth are the best incentives to reach out after the 
 fuller and eternal joys of His kingdom in Heaven.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 RENUNCIATION OF EVIL INFLUENCE 
 
 You will find, on fairly thinking of it, that it is his 
 restraint which is honourable to a man, not his liberty. 
 
 THE child, when he has reached the years of discretion, 
 will become conscious that he has been introduced by 
 his god-parents to three great conceptions with which 
 he will have definite relations all through his life. 
 These are renunciation, faith, and duty. 
 
 Of these three, faith and duty are expanded with 
 detail subsequently in the Catechism, and their neces- 
 sity and difficulty, more especially in the matter of 
 Christian duty, are clearly set forth. But with renuncia- 
 tion there is no such expansion or explanation given ; 
 it may be because the mind of childhood is to be drawn 
 away as quickly as possible from even the contempla- 
 of evil, or it may be that while renunciation must 
 always be one of the most difficult things to perform, 
 especially in the matter of foes at once so dangerous 
 and so intimate as those of which the renunciation is 
 demanded, yet faith and the objects of faith, duty and 
 the field of duty, will need more explanation in their 
 bearing on Christian life and allegiance. The object 
 of this chapter is, however, to examine more in detail 
 the promise of renunciation in itself, the principles on 
 which it rests, the objects to which it extends, and the 
 difficulties of its full and proper performance, lest any 
 Christian should be tempted to forget that at his 
 
 OS
 
 RENUNCIATION OF EVIL INFLUENCE 63 
 
 Baptism he was enlisted as a soldier, and plunged into 
 a battle, the issue of which will be doubtful, and the 
 conflict unceasing, until he lays down his arms in death. 
 It is easy enough to describe these things, they involve 
 few subtleties such as those which are bound up with 
 faith or morals, but the achievement is a lifelong task. 
 Kinglake has told us of our Light Brigade drawn up 
 at Balaclava facing the guns of the enemy at the end 
 of a valley flanked on either side by formidable 
 batteries and menacing squadrons. An aide-de-camp 
 dashes up with an order to Lord Lucan to send his 
 cavalry to charge into the death-trap, with a heroism 
 which might be magnificent but was certainly not war. 
 He hesitates, he questions the order, and receives in 
 reply a contemptuous wave of the hand, and words 
 which stung him, in spite of his better judgment, to 
 order Lord Cardigan to charge : ' There, my Lord, is 
 your enemy ; there are your guns.' 
 
 So in issuing this order, so complete and so over- 
 whelming, the Church cannot but feel that explana- 
 tion is almost out of place, it must be done without 
 counting the cost or reckoning up the odds : re- 
 nunciation of such things as the world, the flesh, and 
 the devil is to open up at once a deadly fire, to 
 surround oneself with foes, and apparently to court 
 destruction. And yet nothing else can be done, as we 
 shall hope to show in the sequel. This stern, unex- 
 plained order admits of no mitigations and no com- 
 promise, and literally binds the follower of Christ to 
 the terms of his allegiance to his Divine Master, which 
 lay upon him, under penalty of forfeited companionship, 
 the obligation to take up his cross daily and follow 
 Him that was crucified. 
 
 And here we are struck, first of all, with the severity 
 of the word which is bound upon us. We may avoid
 
 64 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 or shrink from or dislike evil, but there is a reckless- 
 ness of defiance about the word 'renounce' which may 
 well startle a thinking man who believes words to be 
 chosen, one word rather than another, because they 
 mean something which could not otherwise be so fully 
 expressed. 'Renounce 1 carries with it the idea of a 
 defiant message sent back to an enemy, such as Isaiah 
 inspired by God sent back to the king of Assyria. 1 
 ' Renounce 1 reminds us of the worthlessness as against 
 evil of what Bishop Andrewes calls ' the faint virtue " of 
 Lot's wife, who unwillingly left the sights and sounds 
 of Sodom, without renouncing the evils which gathered 
 round them. It reminds us of Balaam, who dexterously 
 conveyed to the messengers of Balak, whose hands were 
 heavy with coveted bribes, that he looked upon apostasy 
 to truth as wrong only in that it was forbidden, not 
 because a true heart abhorred and detested it as an 
 accursed thing ; it reminds us of Judas, who gave up all 
 and kept back part of the price, who forsook but did 
 not renounce the evil which came back upon him with 
 such deadly and insidious onslaught. 
 
 Certainly the spirit of the present age would seem 
 to shrink from anything quite so pronounced as renun- 
 ciation of evil. An age which deals in views and 
 opinions, and shudders at the bad taste of a dogmatic 
 expression, is very careful not to hazard an opinion 
 which might seem definite and compromising. Further, 
 no one can read a good deal of the literature of the 
 day without seeing that the curious taste for revivals 
 is at present sedulously studying the Italian Renais- 
 sance with a regard to more than the interests of art. 
 We read indeed in a modern life of Fra Filippo Lippi 
 that 'he lived at a time when Art was just beginning 
 to emerge from the churches and cloisters which had 
 guarded her lovingly, together with her sisters, Science 
 and Learning, like a shy and beautiful maiden only 
 1 Isa. xxxvii. 21, etc.
 
 RENUNCIATION OF EVIL INFLUENCE 65 
 
 half awake and still smiling at the strange dreams of 
 her long sleep, with one foothold on the threshold of 
 the convent and another timidly dipping in the cold, 
 bracing waters of Paganism. Before taking the final 
 plunge, from which she emerged rejuvenated and more 
 beautiful than ever, Art lingered many years among 
 those hallowed walls . . . and showed her gratitude 
 by adorning them with the first manifestations of her 
 reacquired power. . . . n There is a strong feeling 
 that a renunciation of evil breathes the same spirit 
 which forbade the use of the classic masterpieces of 
 literature in education, by reason of the impurities 
 which they contain : that renunciation condemns a 
 man to view life from the window of a convent cell, 
 instead of plunging into the fulness of its enlighten- 
 ment. Neither in art, nor in literature, nor in morals, 
 nor in social behaviour, shall we find much favour shown 
 to-day to the spirit of * renunciation.' 
 
 Evil certainly has made great strides by pulling down 
 the barrier between right and wrong, and carrying on so 
 much of its operations in the borderland of the doubtful. 
 How can a man, for instance, who attaches any sort 
 of meaning to words, regard it as compatible with his 
 baptismal vow to study or take pleasure in the strong 
 situations, as they are called, of a problem-novel ? It 
 may be the painful duty of certain casuists or moralists 
 or even psychological students to study these things in 
 the interests of mankind ; but a surgeon who is making 
 delicate experiments does not admit a crowd of gaping 
 seekers after sensation to his theatre, nor does he 
 publish in fascinating guise for the benefit of the 
 world the mysteries of his medical research. He does 
 not invite those whom he would warn from the dangers 
 of typhus to study the evil effects of bad drainage by 
 hanging over a sewer. How many of those who read 
 the modern situation-novel, or who throng the theatre 
 1 G. C. Strutt, Fra Filippo Lifpi, pp. 2, 3. 
 E
 
 r,<; THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 to witness a problem-play, are of those who wish to 
 study evil with a view to its extirpation, with hatred 
 and dread? Is there not rather a direct evil subtly 
 developing itself from the habituation with evil, in the 
 lowered moral tone, in the deadly poison of the infected 
 air? It may be only long after, in all the misery of a 
 polluted memory, and in the agony of a shattered moral 
 life, that the soul recognises the wisdom of a promise 
 which exacted a complete standing aside from the 
 infected area, an isolation of the healthy from the 
 diseased, an avoiding of germs of fever which plenti- 
 fully infest certain spots of danger. Men noted and 
 dreaded the deadly malaria which attacked the dwellers 
 in the marsh ; they did not know until recently that 
 immunity was to be obtained by keeping entirely 
 excluded from their dwelling the poisonous insect 
 which inoculated the sufferer with its germs. All 
 medical science tends towards the keeping away of 
 germs and microbes from the healthy organism. It is 
 but an extension of the same principle to the higher 
 regions of life, when the Church says * renounce' the 
 evil, which may not be simply avoided or disliked, but 
 which must be altogether kept away from the soul 
 in which irreparable mischief may be set up by the 
 venomous gnat of an evil suggestion. 
 
 4 Renunciation," however, will not be a popular word 
 in a generation whose most crying defect is want of 
 seriousness. Unsectarian religion, which has been the 
 evil creation of the present age, speedily craves as its 
 complement an enlightened system of cosmopolitan 
 morality. It has been proclaimed to be a mistake 
 sedulously fostered by priests and bigots to claim for 
 any one form of religion a greater or less possession of 
 the truth than belongs to any other. Creeds and 
 warning clauses have been proclaimed to be a mistake, 
 and true religion to be a precipitate thrown off from 
 all forms and systems in which the heart feels out for
 
 RENUNCIATION OF EVIL INFLUENCE 67 
 
 the Unknowable, and for a general sanction for a moral 
 life. With a religious system such as this, it is not 
 wonderful that morality has also been broadened and, 
 so to speak, catholicised. Who will deny the beautiful 
 moral basis which underlay ancient Paganism ? Who 
 will deny the strict moral rectitude which in certain 
 ways animates many of those who profess no reljgion ? 
 No one is concerned to maintain that Islam is utterly 
 devoid of moral beauty, or that even the code of 
 honour which belongs to a man of the world is 
 worthless. But it is another thing to seek to dignify 
 a religion of nature, so called, as a beautiful expansion 
 of the perfection of human life. It is a different thing 
 to take as a working principle, that various grades of 
 society may well have their varying moral standards, 
 or that what is disgraceful in a woman is tolerable in 
 a man. It is not to be admitted for one moment that 
 one set of moral rules may run in India, and another 
 in England ; or that, as in unsectarian religion, so in 
 morality there can be a residuum from all moral systems 
 which shall be the standard for all those who are 
 admitted to society ; and that it shall not be allowed 
 as a condition of obtaining social favour or fashionable 
 recognition that any code of morality distinctive of 
 any religious sect shall be ostentatiously displayed. 
 It is a great thing to see good in everybody, for one 
 who is himself good. But goodness is not to be 
 attained by a polite compliance with all those moral 
 customs to which no man of the world has any 
 objection. 
 
 We can see a trace of the spirit which would reject 
 any principle of renunciation in a good many of the 
 utterances which have to do with 'war.' There can 
 be no sort of doubt that an unjust war, a war of pride 
 or aggression or ambition, is wrong and deplorable. 
 But it is difficult to see how, in certain cases, a Christian 
 nation could refuse to go to war without a dereliction
 
 68 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 of duty. On the one hand are all the miseries, sorrows, 
 and degradations of war ; en the other is the uphold- 
 ing of justice, international rights, or even those prin- 
 ciples on which the stability of the world is based. 
 No self-respecting nation could for one moment put 
 aside the claims of justice in view of the horrors of 
 war, any more than a judge could refuse to pronounce 
 sentence on a criminal, albeit he knows that it may 
 mean blackened homesteads, party feuds, bloodshed, 
 and perhaps his own assassination. The apparent 
 gentleness which tells us not to judge others, the 
 apparent charity which tells us not to condemn the 
 ways of good people, whom we do not understand, by 
 our aloofness, may very easily come under the con- 
 demnation of those who do ' not abhor anything that 
 is evil. 1 
 
 * Renunciation * means protest as well as avoidance, 
 and a man who simply shuns what is evil for his own 
 health's sake, and in view of his own salvation, and 
 yet neglects his protest, has not practised to the full 
 his renunciation. The vendors of evil trade on the 
 supineness of the good. They point to art and ancient 
 Paganism in its beauty, they talk of nature, and 
 physical development, of culture, a widened outlook 
 and a liberal estimate of life. And the simple man 
 with his straitened morality is afraid to make his 
 protest, and the fabric of society totters by reason of 
 the withdrawal of support by those who were meant to 
 steady it. An easy-going age deals in comprehension. 
 compromise, and that which causes no dispute; the 
 Church, on the other hand, proclaims and binds on 
 her children renunciation, opposition, protest, and all 
 which the apostle felt able to summarise in his pregnant 
 expression, as * the offence of the cross/
 
 RENUNCIATION OF EVIL INFLUENCE 69 
 
 II 
 
 Three enemies are specified as the objects of this 
 renunciation. These have been already considered at 
 some length in the first volume of this series, 1 both in 
 themselves and in what they indicate; it would be 
 more convenient, therefore, in this place to endeavour 
 to show how their methods of attack are most fully 
 met by the attitude which is summed up in the word 
 ' renounce ' ; to show if we may the peculiar malignity 
 and deep-seated power for evil which make compromise 
 impossible, and all half-measures quite inadequate in 
 meeting an attack at once so well organised, persistent, 
 and deadly. 
 
 It may be said with certainty that no one yet has 
 succeeded in escaping without serious loss who has 
 attempted to make terms with the devil. He is always 
 exhibited in Holy Scripture as exceedingly clever as 
 well as powerful; indeed, our Blessed Lord in His 
 well-known parable seems to direct the attention of the 
 children of light to the better organised wisdom of the 
 children of this world. On another occasion He warned 
 His too-confident apostle, that the process which was 
 to try him and his fellow-apostles was analogous to 
 the sifting of wheat; and His own attitude in the 
 wilderness towards the Tempter was by no means the 
 attitude of One Who despised and temporised, but of 
 One Who had gathered Himself up for a very real 
 encounter with a very serious foe. And a little con- 
 sideration will show that the modes of attack adopted 
 by the devil more than anything else necessitate the 
 precise attitude of resistance here bound upon the 
 newly baptized Christian by a solemn pledge. 
 
 The devil makes his first assault on the will; knowing 
 that he can only gain entrance by admission, he tries 
 
 1 See Author's Religion, pp. 125-176.
 
 70 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 by ways, direct and indirect, to master the will, so that 
 it shall move under his guidance and carry out his 
 policy. And here he especially uses those powi-rs 
 which have given him the pre-eminent title of * the 
 father of lies/ ' Yea, hath God said ? ' * Command that 
 these stones be made bread '; * Cast Thyself down'; * Fall 
 down and worship me," in the different modifications 
 in which they are presented to different men, are direct 
 contraventions of the policy hitherto pursued by the 
 enlightened will ; each has its appropriate inducement 
 and its rational justification, as the will is urged 
 towards acceptance or goaded into compromise. It is 
 in this region that the skill of devilry is made most 
 manifest. It is not only the ordinary moral fool who 
 is taken in by the tales of the wandering pedlar to 
 exchange his magical treasure, because it seems to be 
 old, for others which are new and yet worthless in spite 
 of their attractiveness ; but the good man, the earnest 
 man, falls a victim also to the cunning craftiness 
 whereby the adversary lies in wait to deceive. Many 
 have received their first impetus towards deterioration 
 because they believed themselves already to be com- 
 promised by suggestions, which really came from with- 
 out, which they thought to be evil imaginations which 
 came from within. The will is forced almost without 
 knowing it to accept suggestions whose origin it has 
 failed to detect ; and hence come that deadly brood of 
 scruples which are the perplexity of those who have to 
 deal with the guidance of souls; scruples which strike 
 a heavy blow against Christian joy and Christian con- 
 tentment. If the joy of the Lord is our strength, the 
 gloom of Satan is our weakness. The joy of Heaven 
 uplifts, but the sorrow of the world worketh death ; 
 for gloom and spiritual depression, a sense of failure 
 and guilt, if they are once set up within the soul, 
 become a veritable seed-bed of evil. 
 
 We are familiar with this state in the mind of a man
 
 RENUNCIATION OF EVIL INFLUENCE 71 
 
 who has persuaded himself that he only does good from 
 wrong motives, that all that he does is therefore wrong, 
 and that it is useless therefore to continue his good 
 courses when the whole of his motives are vitiated. 
 The man at last begins to doubt his own identity, he 
 takes the voice of another to be his voice, the sugges- 
 tions imputed to him as his own motives, to proceed 
 from himself, and his own actions to be the precise 
 opposite of what he took them to be. Any one may 
 see, in the case of one in whom the devil has contrived 
 so to implant his scruples, what a veritable reign of 
 terror is set up ; how he works upon tendencies to sin 
 to produce hopelessness, how he construes momentary 
 concessions into downright surrender, and goads the 
 man on into a final submission of the will. To consider 
 these things is the better to understand the heartfelt 
 words of Zacharias when he sings his song of thankful- 
 ness, ' that we, being delivered out of the hand of our 
 enemies, might serve Him without fear.' l It is just 
 this fear which stands out so prominently in more than 
 one place of Holy Scripture as an integral part, not 
 only of the misery, but also of the danger involved in 
 Satan's attacks. 
 
 We may now see more clearly how renunciation is the 
 true way of dealing with him in his wily onslaught. In 
 ordinary temptations which beset the man in his daily 
 life, it is all-important that he should keep the enemy 
 from the citadel where sits the imperial will. He must 
 make it a rule to fight the battle in the outer regions 
 of suggestion, to hurl back the temptation when it is 
 just presented to him, and not welcome it in within the 
 first lines of his defence, with a desire that half yields 
 as it fights, which is engaged in reckoning up the 
 advantages, or even the pleasures of being tempted, 
 while ostensibly it is repelling the attack. There is 
 only one end to this, as a general rule, if the mind 
 1 S. Luke i. 74.
 
 72 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 has once accepted the idea that the forbidden fruit is a 
 tree to be desired to make one wise, the putting forth 
 the hand to pluck the fruit is only a question of time 
 and detail, when the will has been subdued to sin. It 
 is equally true in the more subtle temptations indicated 
 above, that the only chance of successfully resisting 
 Satan is to renounce him at the outset. If we once 
 realise that we are dealing with a person, and not 
 a subtle unknown tendency, we shall know that we are 
 only undergoing a common experience which belongs 
 to everyday life. We are familiar with the detractor, 
 the unfriendly critic, or even one who simply practises 
 annovance as his method of doing injury. The boy at 
 school is familiar with the idler who tries to stop his 
 work by imputing unworthy motives as the cause, 
 either a desire for praise or distinction, or a wish to 
 curry favour with those in authority, and the like, and 
 he knows how to treat the suggestion. The public 
 man knows well enough the methods of the interested 
 and disreputable opponent, who tries to stop his can t r 
 by the imputation of motives both unworthy of the 
 man and discreditable to his cause : he again knows how 
 to deal with them. No one in his senses would li>U n 
 to the partisan accusations of the professional contro- 
 versialist, or turn by one hair's breadth from his pur- 
 pose by reason of the calumnious accusations which dre 
 the stock-in-trade of the so-called religious agitator. 
 So with the attacks made on the soul, they must be 
 hurled back in the same fearless manner. For this 
 craving for self-satisfaction in all that we do may after 
 all be referrible to a higher sort of pride, which \vi>lu>s 
 for the gratification which comes from the sense of 
 the highest motives in every action. Constituted as 
 we are, we must often be thankful that we are able to 
 do what is right from any motive whatever, even if 
 they be very short of the highest. 
 
 Satan must be resolutely resisted when he suggests
 
 RENUNCIATION OF EVIL INFLUENCE 73 
 
 that, unless we can please ourselves in doing good, we 
 had better not do good at all, like an artist who refuses 
 to work for fear of criticism, or one who will not use 
 the talents which he has because he does not possess 
 those talents which have been denied to him. The man 
 who does his best, knowing it not to be the highest, is 
 of more value than he who will not work at all because 
 he cannot satisfy his own conceptions of what his work 
 ought to be. 
 
 Whether they come in the form of a rude assault, 
 like the spring of the lion, or whether they come in 
 the subtle region of scruples and doubtfulness, as 
 secret and deadly as the crafty devices of the serpent, 
 the assaults of Satan must equally be renounced. 
 
 Many a man who is buffeted by temptation must have 
 asked himself how these attacks, so painful and per- 
 sistent, are best to be met. And if he studies the record 
 of our Blessed Lord's temptation in the wilderness, he 
 will there see how renunciation plays the principal 
 part in the defeat and rout of the enemy. With our 
 Blessed Lord all temptation was external, there was no 
 sinful principle within, no evil desire which came forth 
 to meet the temptation. But still He kept at bay the 
 suggestion which could effect no foothold in the spot- 
 less soul, or capture the absolutely inflexible human will. 
 Much more, then, is this a necessity with us, where 
 there is so much sympathy with evil, such a paralysing 
 weakness, and such infirmity of purpose, to keep Satan 
 back and in meeting temptation, to make this our first 
 care to repudiate the suggestion and renounce the 
 tempter. The lives of the saints are full of quaint en- 
 counters with the Evil One ; there may be more reality 
 about these than we sometimes care to believe. The 
 ancient ceremonies of renunciation in the Baptismal 
 services are also very suggestive, and indicate that to 
 depart from evil is the first step towards attaining to 
 good. The order in the Baptismal vows follows the
 
 74 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 same course : first renounce, then believe, then do. So 
 when Satan is repudiated, then the will may certainly 
 need to be strengthened by falling back on the Divine 
 aid, and the path of rectitude may only be attainable 
 by the grace of God working with and confirming the 
 resolution which has spurned the evil and chosen the 
 good, with a firmness which knows no forebodings, and 
 a determination which has rejected all compromise. 
 
 It is necessary to notice further that in the terms 
 of the renunciation are included not only the devil, but 
 also all his works." It might be supposed that this 
 was a tautological expression for all sinful actions, but 
 this is hardly likely in view of the further division 
 of evil agencies which follow. It would rather seem 
 to glance at those especial works which are character- 
 istic of a fallen spirit, spiritual sins with all their 
 subtle malignity and peculiar danger. The most 
 notable of these would be pride running on into pre- 
 sumption ; falsehood, the peculiar characteristic of the 
 father of lies ; hatred of good and a desire to hear evil, 
 to do evil and to promote evil, which is so notable in 
 those who have abandoned themselves to evil courses. 
 Envy and malice, and all forms of such sins as militate 
 against the law of love, might once more be classified 
 as spiritual sins, and as part of the especial works of 
 the devil. Certainly those who have escaped from 
 lower developments of evil suggestion have reason to 
 look with anxiety at forms of sin often unreprobated, 
 sometimes even praised, but which yet take rank as 
 the peculiar and appropriate works of the enemy of 
 mankind. 
 
 The second enemy who must be renounced is the 
 World. And this is a foe which is particularly slow in 
 declaring itself, and whose precise position it is difficult 
 to fix. Once more we must refer our readers to the 
 first volume of this series for an attempt to gauge the 
 force of this deadly onslaught, and to fix the limits of
 
 RENUNCIATION OF EVIL INFLUENCE 75 
 
 its influence. In this chapter we are engaged in look- 
 ing at the nature of the resistance to be offered and 
 the character of the defence, as embodied in the words 
 of the pledge twice made at solemn crises in life, that 
 whatever the World might mean to us, in whatever 
 shape it might come, our attitude would be one of 
 absolute renunciation. Certainly the World is like a foe 
 who fights disguised in the uniform of a friendly power, 
 there is nothing in its assaults to suggest renunciation, 
 but much to urge cordial co-operation, so that the 
 terms of our resistance are curiously emphasised in 
 view of the deceitful guise in which it approaches. 
 We must learn not to be taken in by a pomp, that 
 long procession of treasure-bearing slaves which the 
 World displays to us as it approaches ; we must learn 
 to weigh its gifts, and understand the value of things, 
 which those who know cast away into the worthless 
 dustheap of vanity. 
 
 We have an example of the resistance to be offered 
 to the World, as for the moment it affected his teach- 
 ing, in the words and actions of the great apostle of 
 the Gentiles. In speaking to the Galatian Judaisers 
 he says in effect : ' For myself, God forbid I should glory 
 in anything save in the cross of Christ. On that cross 
 I have been crucified to the World, and the World has 
 been crucified to me. Henceforth we are dead each to 
 the other. In Christ Jesus old things have passed 
 away. Circumcision is not, and uncircumcision is not. 
 All external distinctions have vanished. The new 
 spiritual creation is all in all.'' 1 For the World is 
 everywhere, it dresses up in the uniform of religion 
 just as readily as in the spangled cloak of voluptuous- 
 ness, and its assault may be delivered under the guise 
 of religious zeal just as effectually as in the vain 
 seduction of social gaiety. It is startling to listen to 
 the impassioned emphasis with which S. Paul appeals 
 1 Bishop Lightfoot on Galat. vi. 14.
 
 76 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 to the cross as his only refuge in a contest of peculiar 
 deadliness. For it is only in the cross that we shall 
 be able to renounce the World. This is our Lord's 
 own summary, not only of a burden which He was 
 constrained to lay upon His followers, but also of the 
 grace which would flow from that burden. And so 
 S. Paul uses it as a summary of Christian life and 
 teaching, he adopts it as an attitude, and assumes it 
 as a defence. When he speaks of the cross, his mind 
 has passed far away from the mere material symbol ; he 
 means more than a tragic incident in the past, he 
 refers to a living system, which makes demands upon 
 him, and regulates his attitude towards God and holy 
 things on the one hand, and towards all external life 
 on the other. And we can trace in the eagerness of 
 S. Paul, his emphatic language and indignant remon- 
 strance as he writes his letter to the Galatians, how 
 keenly he felt the pressure of the dangerous foe. He 
 thrusts the cross forward, he brandishes it in the face 
 of his opponents, because he is confronted with the 
 old enemy the World, never so dangerous as when it 
 masquerades in the garb of religion. 
 
 Christianity then, as now, was unpopular; then as now 
 there were people who would take selections out of its 
 teaching and weave them into whatsoever form of religion 
 happened to be fashionable at the time, while they dis- 
 liked it as a whole. In Galatia, for instance, the Jews 
 resented the religion of the cross because it abolished 
 their Mosaic rites, and therefore nothing could be 
 easier for those who disliked serious trouble than to 
 take a selection out of Christianity and make it a 
 graceful appendage to Judaism, leaving out its stern 
 aspects, its exclusiveness, and severity ; so it would be 
 easy to pass as a good Jew and a fair Christian, to 
 upset nobody, and trample on no man's prejudices, 
 and so get the good out of each form of religion. 
 But S. Paul would not allow this for one moment.
 
 RENUNCIATION OF EVIL INFLUENCE 77 
 
 Christianity could never be a tolerated religion at the 
 price of its integrity. Again and again it might have 
 been admitted as a religio licita in the Empire, had it 
 agreed to renounce its claim to be an absolute religion, 
 and its right to supplant all others. S. Paul knows 
 how to classify this at once : it is the World follow- 
 ing out its own peculiar cult, it is the World which 
 disbelieves in anything stronger than a view or an 
 opinion, which shudders at a definite statement as a 
 display of bad taste. Let all, it would say, be mixed 
 up together, the best in Judaism and the best in 
 Christianity, and do not let us push to an extreme 
 the unpalatable doctrines which offend our common 
 sense of religion. But this will not satisfy S. Paul : 
 ' Zeal in conciliating public opinion ? ' he would say, ' I 
 know of no such thing. I have only one thing to be 
 proud of, and that is the cross of Christ. By means 
 of it I can shrink from the World as if it were a crucified 
 abhorrent thing, and the World dreads me as if I were 
 a creature of shame, and cursed with the ban of one 
 who hangs upon the tree.' 
 
 This is, perhaps, the most deadly form of the World's 
 assault, and renunciation is the only way to resist it. It 
 is a serious matter when we find an enemy disguised 
 as a friend in the very citadel of our life; and the 
 World disguised in the garb of religion is able the easier 
 to destroy principle and methods of resistance which a 
 more open onslaught would have failed to dislodge. 
 This method of attack is being delivered at this present 
 moment with consummate skill. There is much in 
 Christianity which every one will admit to be beautiful 
 and fascinating. No one can deny that it has shaped 
 and coloured civilisation itself ; but there is also much 
 which is stern and distasteful, and which makes large 
 demands on faith and conduct. What is easier than 
 to excerpt the glorious precepts of Christianity, its 
 simple morality, its human kindliness, and to put on
 
 78 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 one side all that may give offence ? Christianity with- 
 out the miraculous element, without the supernatural 
 claims, Christ of the Gospels, in the simple idyl of 
 Nazareth, without the dogma of the Epistles, or, 
 worse still, of the Councils. Let us set up Christ 
 as an example of pure morality, instead of a foun- 
 tain of supernatural grace, and then all will accept 
 Him, and conflict will cease, offence and prejudice will 
 die away, and no earnest man be alienated. But the 
 Christian who is true to his promise has only one 
 answer, *I renounce' 'God forbid. 1 The cross of 
 Christ, the offence of the cross, that which separates 
 off the Church and the World, is the only thing worth 
 contending for, the only thing worth preserving. * God 
 forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom the World is crucified 
 unto me, and I unto the World. 1 Why? For two 
 reasons, because the cross represents a system, and 
 because it represents power. Without either of these 
 we should be helpless in the hands of a foe such as is 
 the world. 
 
 The cross represents first of all a system : a system 
 which could not be broken without serious damage 
 to its integrity and proportion. To take out the 
 cross from Christianity is to take away the essential 
 element in the scheme of salvation as the Church 
 has received it. And to say that the Gospel is in 
 the Sermon on the Mount rather than in the mystery 
 of Calvary, is to labour under a fatal misapprehen- 
 sion. Redemption is something done for us, not 
 something told to us; salvation more than reforma- 
 tion is the need of the world. And yet this is the 
 point where the World as we know it delivers its most 
 serious attack. The World will receive Christ as a 
 Reformer but not as a Saviour. The offence of the 
 cro^s is very strong still, and finds it- expression in 
 the dislike to the claims and obligations set up by
 
 RENUNCIATION OF EVIL INFLUENCE 79 
 
 Christianity. The World sets itself to reduce religion 
 to the dimensions of a small chapel in a magnificently 
 furnished house. It too may be beautiful, but it is 
 very small. Here we may go to elevate our feelings 
 and cultivate a higher aestheticism at certain well- 
 defined moments in life. But let there be none of the 
 uncouth asceticism which is connoted by the cross, 
 intruding out of its place with its gaunt outline and 
 dreary shadows. The religion of the World is graceful 
 and pliant, not stern and angular. 
 
 But this gospel, which is no gospel, can only be sent 
 back, returned with courageous refusal in the power of 
 the cross. The cross is the golden reed by which we 
 measure the city of God. 1 Its shame, and anguish, and 
 lingering struggle mark out the true outlines of the 
 life which is lived by the grace of the Son of God. 
 Here is a system which is a perpetual protest against an 
 easy-going life decorated with solemn sentiments and 
 flowered with terms of piety. It means a stern expia- 
 tion, a vigorous warfare, a consistent exhibition of a 
 crucified life, in which a man shrinks back from that 
 heartless nonentity known as the World as he would 
 shrink from a crucified malefactor, and in the strength 
 of which he does not fear if he finds himself an 
 object of scorn, as he is gibbeted as pious, or shunned 
 as unsociable, or disliked as a living protest. 
 
 And even more does the cross represent to us power. 
 S. Paul, when he breaks forth in his impassioned cry, 
 speaks as one who had found much more than an 
 appendage to Judaism. He had found in Christianity, 
 that which Judaism had not, power against the malice 
 and malignity of sin. The Law had brought to him 
 the knowledge of sin, its sacrifices had shown its awful 
 power and the complete exhaustion of the wrath of 
 God against all defilement, which yet they were power- 
 less to remove ; here was a religion which offered power 
 1 Rev. xxi. 15.
 
 80 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 and grace flowing from a crucified Saviour. ' The 
 Blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." No 
 wonder the apostle refused to banish this religion of 
 power as if it were a thing immaterial. We cannot 
 put the clock of the world back, and become again as 
 the Jew, neither can we be persuaded simply by the 
 fascination of good into the avoidance of what is evil. 
 The World's most dangerous attack on our religious 
 life must be met by the same simple renunciation 
 which breathes through the rejection of S. Paul, and 
 all tampering with our privileges must be hurled back 
 with a simple * God forbid/ 
 
 The horizon of the World is low, the outlook narrow, 
 but its creed is fenced with anathema, and bristles with 
 damnatory clauses. To resist the claims of society, to 
 go against the prevailing fashion of the hour, requires 
 from a man a serious appeal to the obligation of his 
 promised renunciation. There are some people who 
 fear being cast out of the smart set, more than they 
 fear being cast out of Heaven. There are some who 
 will condone any iniquity if it be fashionable, and 
 shrink from even apostolic goodness if it seem to be 
 vulgar. 
 
 The World with its strange creed, its ritual of fashion, 
 its morality of expediency, with all its powers of excom- 
 munication from its circle, and its compact band of 
 adoring worshippers, is a serious enemy which has to 
 be met, and can only be met effectually by complete 
 renunciation. 
 
 There yet remains a third enemy who is included 
 in the stern attitude demanded by the Baptismal 
 promise, and that is * The Flesh/ 1 
 
 In this region, if anywhere, the prudent man will 
 realise that any attitude short of renunciation would be 
 quite inadequate. It has been already pointed out that 
 
 1 For a fuller examination of this subject, see Author's Religion, 
 chap. yiii.
 
 RENUNCIATION OF EVIL INFLUENCE 81 
 
 ' there is no detailed exposition given subsequently in 
 the Catechism of the first obligation as there is of the 
 second and third.' l Is this a counsel of prudence, or 
 the shrinking of timidity ? Various answers would be 
 given to this question, or rather to the alternative 
 policy suggested by this question, at the present day. 
 There are some who shrink with their whole heart 
 from a possible breaking down of innocency which 
 comes from the knowledge of evil. It seems to them 
 like an inoculation with the germ of the plague, as 
 against the attack of the contagion of the plague 
 itself; and they shrink from the inevitable fever which 
 will be caused, and the suffering which, if comparatively 
 slight, is almost certain to ensue. They are told that 
 ignorance and innocency are not the same thing. But, 
 in the first place, ignorance of evil must in nearly every 
 case have been won by the deliberate suppression of 
 evil curiosity, and the avoidance of bad company, bad 
 literature, and evil cravings. Ignorance of evil is by 
 no means confined to gentle girls brought up in homes 
 where every tainted breath is carefully kept away from 
 them, but is also, if not common, certainly not un- 
 known among boys and youths who have passed a long 
 way through the trials of a public school. Ignorance 
 of evil may very well be able to lay claim to some, 
 perhaps to a great deal, of the beauty of innocence, if 
 that ignorance has been brought about and preserved 
 by keeping from the way of the destroyer. And man 
 being what he is, it is almost impossible that know- 
 ledge of evil should simply remain under lock and key 
 in the poison chest of the mind, as information only 
 to be used for prophylactic purposes, under the absolute 
 control of the will, which knows the how, the when, 
 the how much, and all the minute dispensing of a 
 dangerous drug. There are times when the will is 
 weak and imagination is strong. There are moments 
 1 Robinson, Church Catechism Explained, p. 29. 
 F
 
 82 . THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 when the key of that chest seems to have passed into 
 the hands of the enemy, and the brightest things 
 become poisoned, and a fierce conflict is aroused between 
 will and passion. There is war in Heaven, resulting 
 from the presence of evil which has to be cast out, an 
 evil which once admitted will never cease to make its 
 presence felt. 
 
 Who has not known the haunting depreciation 
 of some parody, which fastens itself upon the beauti- 
 ful rhythm of a well-loved poem, or the criticism 
 unjust and unlovely which yet intrudes itself into 
 our appreciation of a work of art? And we say to 
 the parodist and the critic, *I wish you had never 
 told me.' There it remains as a blot on our enjoyment, 
 a ciphering note in the organ symphony which we 
 cannot ignore or forget. Innocence is such a beautiful 
 thing, so easily shattered and so completely irrecover- 
 able, that we may well hesitate before we even run the 
 risk of breaking it in a single soul. Wordswortlfs 
 matchless lines addressed to the child now six years old 
 may well be transferred to innocence itself. 
 
 Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth, 
 
 111 fitted to sustain unkindly shocks, 
 
 Or to be trailed along the soiling earth ; 
 
 A gem that glitters while it lives, 
 
 And no forewarning gives ; 
 
 But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife 
 
 Slips in a moment out of life. 1 
 
 But, on the other hand, there are those who say that 
 innocence is too tender a thing to be launched forth 
 into this rough world. The disillusion must conic 
 sooner or later. It is better that it should be done 
 wisely by friends, with a good object in view, than 
 recklessly by enemies, who only seek to destroy. At 
 the worst it may be doing a little evil that good may 
 come, at the best it is giving innocence the protection 
 
 1 Wordsworth to ' II. C., six years old.'
 
 RENUNCIATION OF EVIL INFLUENCE 83 
 
 which comes from a proper forewarning, and elevating 
 ignorance of evil into the deliberate rejection of that 
 which is known only to be hated, and indicated only 
 to be shunned. It is a question as to which much 
 may be said on both sides. 
 
 But perhaps older people, on whom the knowledge 
 of evil has been forced in many ways, would do well 
 to imitate the reticence of the Church Catechism in 
 this, that such knowledge, if it is to be imparted, is 
 not the fit subject for books or catechisms. These 
 are open to all, and may fall on dangerous matter 
 and precipitate evil just as easily as they light upon 
 the tender heart and warn it from danger. These 
 things are the subjects rather of individual counsel, 
 subjects to be dealt with tenderly and discreetly by 
 parents and clergy who know something of those whom 
 they have to warn. 1 Nothing can be more revolting 
 than to see such themes scattered broadcast without 
 reserve by those who trade on pruriency in the name 
 of religion for the sake of gain. But also great harm 
 may be done by those who, with the best motives, 
 publish warnings which are lacking in reserve, or which 
 tend to pull down that modesty which they hope to 
 preserve. 
 
 There is no doubt that ' The Flesh ' represents a very 
 citadel of Satan, a tower of Antonia which dominates 
 the temple of God, because it represents a perversion 
 of human nature in its most intimate and sacred shrine. 
 Here is a hostile occupation of all those instincts which 
 have to do with the mystery f life. Sloth paralyses 
 its activities; drunkenness and gluttony prevent its 
 repair; lust fastens on its transmission ; and therefore 
 merely to represent the attacks of the Flesh as the 
 invitation to excess addressed to natural appetite is to 
 misconceive the whole position. The Flesh represents 
 
 1 See a paper entitled 'Chastity,' by Rev. G. E. Jelf, Canon of 
 Rochester, White Cross League Papers, 1901.
 
 84 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 an utter perversion in principle, of that which God 
 designed for the highest ends. This may be seen best 
 in the case of the glutton. God gave him the appetite 
 for food that he might grow thereby, that he might be 
 induced to eat in order that he might live. Under the 
 influence of Satan he perverts this instinct, and lives 
 to eat. The appetite is used for the appetite's sake, 
 not for an end beyond itself, and speedily the intel- 
 lectual refinement and the spiritual insight go. The 
 Flesh is on the throne, and intellect and spirit, if 
 possible, must work for it, not it for the higher reason 
 enthroned within, anointed by the Spirit of God. 
 
 So easily and so imperceptibly does this perversion 
 take place that the only possible attitude to ensure 
 success is renunciation. All the beginnings of appeal 
 to appetite must be resisted, the terrible affinity of the 
 desire within to what is evil must be reckoned with. 
 Any dwelling on appetite for appetite's sake must be 
 resisted. The gourmand who chooses the particular 
 joint he is going to eat, who minutely follows its 
 preparation, who whets his appetite in every possible 
 way, and bends his whole mind to enjoy, as he 
 says, what he eats, is typical of all who in any way 
 follow perverted instincts. He who would keep to 
 the spirit of this promise must resolutely set his face 
 against all that appeals to appetite or passion as such, 
 and fix his eye on the life which is more than meat, 
 and that true living which is not to be brought about 
 by mere bread alone, but by every word which pro- 
 ceedeth out of the mouth of God. The spirit of this 
 pledge binds us to renounce all appeal to appetite or 
 passion in itself. 
 
 If this be so there must be a firm and uncompromis- 
 ing resistance to a sinister return to Paganism, under 
 the guise of the cultivation of nature, with the artist 
 and poet as its priests, and the theatre as its temple. 
 Nature as regenerated in Christ, not the nature
 
 RENUNCIATION OF EVIL INFLUENCE 85 
 
 which satisfied the heathen world, is the only form 
 which a Christian can aim at. There is a seamy side 
 to this modern renaissance, no less than there was 
 to the renaissance of the sixteenth century, and the 
 semi-paganism of the eighteenth. True manliness, 
 healthy imagination, noble aims, and the abiding sense 
 of the presence of the King of Glory are the best 
 correctives to much that is sickly and morbid in our 
 modern civilisation. No beauty of form can com- 
 pensate for anything which suggests evil. No intricate 
 development of a subtle plot, or the working out of a 
 complicated problem, can redeem what is inwardly foul 
 from its moral ugliness, or restore the power of edifica- 
 tion to that which is inwardly unsound and deadly. 
 Evil, as we have seen, flourishes in the low marsh-land 
 which lies between the mountains of integrity and the 
 burning plains of sin. Here and there a man may 
 escape, whom duty or love for another's soul has 
 brought into this deadly region, but the way of escape 
 for the generality of mankind is through utter and 
 complete renunciation.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 OBLIGATION 
 
 For whether in one or other form (i.e. of faith) there is rest 
 and peacefuluess, the 'standing still' in both, the quiet- 
 ness of action determined, of spirit unalanned, of expecta- 
 tion unimpatient : beautiful even when based only, as of 
 old, on the self-command and self-possession, the per- 
 sistent dignity or the uncalculating love, of the creatures ; 
 but more beautiful yet when the rest is one of humility 
 instead of pride, and the trust no more in the resolution 
 we have taken, but in the hand we hold. 
 
 "Ayou d /i . . . 
 oiroi iro6' vfjiiv dpi dtarcrayiic'vor, 
 o>f tyo/j.ai y' UOKVOS' fjv fit 
 Kaicos ytvoptvos ovtoiv rjrrnv 
 
 IT is a common misconception of the true meaning of 
 the rite of Confirmation which represents it as the time 
 when children take upon themselves their Baptismal 
 vows hitherto made for them by others. It is a view 
 of Confirmation which fits in with that subjective con- 
 ception of Christianity which never loses sight of the 
 man in his impressionable nature, his need of edifica- 
 tion and moral instruction, and which has largely 
 forsaken God and the operations of His grace towards 
 us. This shutting of the eyes to the Godward side of 
 the Church ordinance is a strange comment on that 
 aspect of religion, which makes its boast in excluding 
 anything and everything which might come bebvt t n 
 man and God. Here it should be noticed that the 
 
 86
 
 OBLIGATION 87 
 
 Catechism opportunely reminds us of the terms of the 
 Baptismal promises, that they were made by the 
 sponsors only until the children came of age to take 
 them upon themselves. And accordingly, every time 
 the child says this part of the Catechism, he openly with 
 his own mouth and consent ratifies and confirms his 
 promises, saying in answer to the question which tests 
 his sense of obligation to that which was done in his 
 name, ' Yes, verily ; and by God's help so I will. 1 
 Every time the child says his Catechism, and not for 
 the first time during the service of Confirmation, he 
 takes upon himself, or rather renews, the solemn pro- 
 mises and vows made in his name at his Baptism. 
 
 But this question and answer introduce us to a far 
 wider question than that of the Baptismal vows and 
 their renewal, wide as that question is. They intro- 
 duce us to a very solemn term which was meant to 
 dominate our moral life, known as obligation ; a term 
 which opposes ' because I ought ' to ' because I like, 1 
 and which represents to us the stern outline of duty, 
 cutting right across the indefinite wavy line which 
 indicates the capricious and uncertain government of 
 like and dislike. Man in a kingdom of Law is subject 
 to natural laws, which he is bound to obey or suffer 
 for his disobedience : he is also under the dominion of 
 moral and spiritual laws equally exacting and severe. 
 At Baptism these moral and spiritual laws are pre- 
 sented by the Church, in a codified and intelligible 
 form, for the adhesion of him who is about to pass 
 through a world where he Avill be daily tempted to 
 forget them, and to mistake the liberty of the child of 
 God for a licence to do wrong and forsake the path 
 of duty. We have seen in the last chapter how his 
 attitude towards certain well-defined enemies, grouped 
 under the banners of the World, the Flesh, and the 
 Devil, is clearly and unmistakably marked out. He 
 must make no alliance with Syria, however powerful
 
 88 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 Syria may seem, or do a little evil to secure a great 
 good. He must not go down into Egypt to multiply 
 horses ; to do good in a way which pleases the world 
 may command instant and wide popularity, but it 
 offends God, and ends in disaster and defeat. Edom, 
 our brother and our congenital foe, can never be 
 trusted with his offer of help and his appeal to nature. 
 The child of God passes through the midst of these 
 foes in safety, only on one condition, that he 
 remembers to maintain his pledged attitude towards 
 them. He can no more ignore with impunity the laws 
 which regulate his conduct, than he can ignore the 
 laws of gravitation in descending from a height, or 
 the laws of health in regulating his diet, or the laws of 
 business in the daily transactions of his life. He is a 
 man under authority having soldiers under him. It 
 is only as he recognises the obligation of the moral 
 and spiritual laws of God to which he is pledged that 
 he can govern the rebellious and vigorous powers which 
 march under the banner of and own allegiance to his will. 
 We shall have to see in subsequent chapters, that not 
 even the empire of the mind is free from obligation : 
 there are laws of Thought and there are laws of Faith. 
 There are some regions where speculation is barred, at 
 least, as to conclusions, if it be permitted in investigat- 
 ing the premises. We shall see further how nil our 
 life is hedged round by law reaching right up into the 
 region of thought and motive, and how ' Thou shalt ' 
 is only possible to him who has carefully studied the 
 limits of * Thou shalt not." 1 
 
 The whole life of a Christian is under obligation. 
 He is bound to believe and to do those things which 
 were undertaken for him, not as an arbitrary imposi- 
 tion, but as the necessary obligation of the laws of life, 
 without which a true conversation would be impossible. 
 
 It needs no depth of observation to see, as has been 
 stated above, that there is a general unloosing at the
 
 OBLIGATION 89 
 
 present time of the bands of obligation. In the rela- 
 tions of a man to his God, to himself, and to his 
 neighbours, new sanctions of morality seem to be 
 springing up. God must justify His commands to 
 man before they can obtain his ready obedience. The 
 Church's days of obligation, of fast or festival, are 
 held to be of obligation only in this sense, that they 
 fit in with health, or instruction, or improvement, and 
 generally render themselves agreeable to the prevailing 
 law of public opinion. Children obey their parents 
 if they can command obedience, and respect them 
 if they seem worthy of respect, and not otherwise. 
 Parents love their children if they are lovable, and 
 look after their interests if they do not conflict with 
 their own, and not otherwise. Restraint, reproof, 
 much more coercion in any region are repulsive terms. 
 Men have turned their backs on Hell, it is unworthy 
 of a free man to be frightened into being good ; they 
 do not look at Heaven, it is mercenary to be coaxed 
 by prizes. ' I will,' * I like,' ' I choose,' these are the 
 verbs most in use in the new grammar of religion. 
 ' I must,' ' I ought ' are obsolete forms suitable only to 
 a religious dialect which has long since passed away 
 and become inoperative. Yet still failure and disaster, 
 broken lives, society out of joint, failure of ideals, and 
 a general impasse, show us that God's laws never alter, 
 and that if a man refuse to own his obligation by 
 assent, he is sooner or later bound to confess his 
 obligation by failure. 
 
 ' Dost thou not think that thou art bound ? ' Many 
 valuable lives are lost for want of a little thought. 
 Many souls are wandering in the paths of self-pleasing 
 because they have not stopped to think that a path so 
 beset with guidance and warning must needs be marked
 
 90 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 out with great strictness and hemmed in by the most 
 severe obligation. 
 
 The sense of obligation will only become apparent 
 to those who think. Renunciation of evil, faith in 
 God, readiness to do, are only details of a permanent 
 attitude in which the soul stands to the Divine Will 
 which called it into being, endowed it, and adapted it 
 to fulfil a certain function in a vast scheme. The world 
 rolls on, its treasures are ransacked, its resources 
 developed. There it is in its main features unchanged, 
 in its details ceaselessly changing. Generation after 
 generation leaves its impress upon it, life after life 
 appears and does its work and disappears, to be 
 succeeded by another and yet another. Great events 
 are worked out through centuries of national life. 
 Judaism, through Patriarch, Law, and Prophet, bears 
 its one great flower in the Incarnation, and as a 
 system passes away. Generation succeeds generation, 
 and gradually with pain and difficulty, and after 
 great effort, the growth of Christian principles produces 
 the true idea of the dignity of man, and slavery dies 
 away. Wars of rapine and aggression disappear pain- 
 fully and slowly in the same way. Gigantic evils still 
 remain to be dislodged, powers of good still remain to 
 be developed. The world becomes fuller and fuller of 
 workmen, and the plan of God becomes more and more 
 developed ; and it is into this world that new labourers 
 are ever entering, stepping into rank, where their pre- 
 decessors have fallen down, pressing on where the work 
 seemed likely to flag, entering into the labours of 
 those who worked and were not allowed to finish. 
 
 To the thoughtful man, to the man who looks round 
 him and thinks, there dawns at once the idea of an 
 obligation deeper and more commanding than the 
 obligation to any specific duty. It is the obligation of 
 position, the obligation which comes to him lx cause he 
 lives at one precise moment in the world's history, and
 
 OBLIGATION 91 
 
 occupies one especial position, and commands one set 
 of tools, and faces one set of obstacles and one par- 
 ticular detail in the world's plan. Here is an obligation 
 which lies at the bottom of all life-work, the obligation 
 to stay where we are and work at what lies before us, 
 and carry out the details which God has committed to 
 our especial care. We are face to face with a restless- 
 ness which ignores this obligation. Women are leaving 
 the particular excellence of womanhood and striving 
 to be men in a zealous rivalry of peculiar excellences 
 which are not theirs. We see it in the art and 
 literature of the day, in the Madonna of the modern 
 artist, who escapes as far as possible from the con- 
 ception of Divine motherhood, to the sadness of the 
 speculator perplexed with the problem of modern life. 
 We see it in daily life in the competition with men in 
 their follies, their pursuits, their very vices. And so 
 man and woman cease to be the complement, the one to 
 the other, because they have lost sight of the obliga- 
 tion which God has imposed upon their lives. 
 
 We see the same restlessness in religion. A man who 
 has been brought up in an imperfect form of religion, 
 who has been deprived of those privileges which might 
 have been his, may well turn in answer to God's grace 
 to higher calls of richer and fuller promise. He may 
 feel that where he is, he is even imperilling his salva- 
 tion, and that to refuse to answer to God would be 
 moral suicide. But it is a very different thing for one 
 who has been nourished and brought up in the full 
 light of God's truth to give way to a spiritual 
 valetudinarianism and an impatient desire for change. 
 Many people have been led to doubt and even forsake 
 the church of their youth, because somebody has 
 whispered to them that it does not show on the face 
 of it that it belongs to the Catholic Church. And 
 a partisan who can accept the career of Alexander 
 vi., the massacre of S. Bartholomew, and the Gun-
 
 92 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 powder Plot, is able to unsettle the stedfastness which 
 should have grown with years of sacramental nourish- 
 ment, by the satirical criticism of a bishop's ephemeral 
 charge. There is a flippancy of argument and a reckless- 
 ness in changing the convictions of a lifetime which 
 bear witness to the same absence of a sense of obliga- 
 tion in those who change their religious principles as 
 easily as they would change their coat. To find one- 
 self placed by God in a certain position in life is a 
 priori a reason why we should continue to stay there, 
 and strive to improve it. The greater the trials, the 
 fiercer the conflict, the more exacting the demands 
 made upon our allegiance, the more reason is there 
 that we should continue stedfast, and strive to effect 
 an improvement from within rather than desert our 
 post, tnat we may contribute to pull down that which 
 we ought to have saved. 
 
 So it is with all life. We have already considered 
 vocation and the duties which it lays upon us. And 
 we shall see how great men in history are those \\lm 
 have recognised the obligation arising from even a 
 temporary position in which God's providence has 
 placed them. Joseph in the prison in which he \\ ;i> 
 unjustly immured, Daniel in the heathen court, 
 S. Vincent de Paul among the galley slaves, are 
 examples which suggest themselves at once as showing 
 what can be done by, and what apparently is expected 
 of, those who, having given themselves first wholly to 
 God, have then recognised the obligation laid upon 
 them to perform the work, however distasteful, which 
 God thus gives them to do. 
 
 Besides the position in which we find ourselves and 
 the obligation thus laid upon us to fulfil its duties, we 
 find ourselves hemmed in by certain restrictions and 
 precepts in which we have grown up, and to which 
 almost unconsciously we have given in our adhesion. 
 There are the rules of society, what is known as manners
 
 OBLIGATION 93 
 
 or etiquette ; there is the code of tradition which 
 hedges in the significant conception of what is known 
 as a gentleman. There is a code of morality which 
 governs the life which aims at respectability; there 
 are the customs of the school, the college, or the com- 
 munity in which we live ; while coming higher we 
 awake to find ourselves pledged men in the region of 
 conduct, faith, and Christian morality. Here once 
 more it is all-important to rouse the sense of obliga- 
 tion. Here is a code of rules of conduct, in the forma- 
 tion of which we had no share : it has come down to 
 us by tradition and the mysterious power of public 
 opinion. Here is the general consensus of many 
 generations of men formed into an unwritten law ; 
 here is the record of long years of success and failure 
 codified into working regulations ; here is the wisdom 
 of God Himself displayed in working rules adapted to 
 my life : sooner or later the time will come when inclina- 
 tion, aided by sinister advice and bad example, will 
 come into conflict with these restrictions. It is therefore 
 all-important that we should recognise the sanction on 
 which they repose, and make sure our sense of obliga- 
 tion towards them. Why should I accept the verdict 
 of society, or the arbitrary restrictions as they seem of 
 public opinion, or the rules of a community, or even the 
 pledges of a narrow religionism ? Here, once more, is 
 being felt most keenly at the present day the thrust of 
 independence which presses on these old walls and 
 buttresses by which the fabric of society is reared. It 
 is only too easy to discard social propriety as a foolish 
 prudery : to discard old maxims under the sacred name 
 of progress, and to pose as an example of a much 
 idolised originality which is too magnificent to be con- 
 fined within the limits of conventional forms. 
 
 Faith and morals have no more dangerous enemies 
 than those which attack them from the vantage-ground 
 of an affected superiority, and a more complete religion
 
 94 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 of nature. It is all-important, therefore, that no one 
 should rest contented with a passive acquiescence in 
 things as they are, but recognise the obligation of 
 consent, at once rational and deliberate. The tradi- 
 tions which govern society are sacred things which 
 no one can afford to neglect. Who has not despised, 
 at one time or another, the heartlessness of society, 
 which, while ignoring the grave sins which disfigure a 
 man's career, has yet ostracised him for the first breach 
 of social propriety ? And yet it is a ritual restriction, 
 poor and worthless it may be, which safeguards things 
 much deeper than itself. The rules and regulations 
 which govern conduct are the case-law which represent 
 the verdicts of many and varied examples. Societies 
 have groped their way to rules through long steps of 
 painful experience, the reason of which only becomes 
 apparent very often when they are transgressed ; 
 whereas God's rules, as we have already seen, are 
 based on deep immutable laws, which nothing can 
 supersede. Promise as Satan may, the servant of God 
 knows that he must consent to the obligation laid upon 
 him of absolute renunciation, as the only possible 
 attitude of resistance. Nothing short of entire abnega- 
 tion will suffice for the World, or anything but utter 
 detestation for the Flesh. All this he must consent to 
 as an obligation which he accepts, if In- i> \\i>i', without 
 attempting to verify for himself by costly experiment 
 that which a wise provision lent to him without sub- 
 jecting him to the costly expenditure of a personal 
 purchase. And gradually there will dawn upon him 
 the obligation which comes from conviction. 
 
 * I should,' * I ought,' * I must ' represent to him three 
 stages in which the sense of obligation attains to its 
 development. Strangely and reluctantly at first the 
 child turns back from barriers which he is taught to 
 respect, but which he regards as superfluous annoyances 
 ana checks on freedom. Gradually he recognises that
 
 OBLIGATION 95 
 
 there is an authority behind the restrictions which he 
 ought to respect, even where he despises, until at last 
 he justifies wisdom as being her own child, and owns 
 the Tightness and real value of the restrictions, whose 
 irksome nature he still deplores. 
 
 II 
 
 It is well, therefore, that the sense of obligation 
 should be stayed by such helps and props as may be 
 found. It can never be regarded as satisfactory that 
 the sanction for moral obligation should remain purely 
 negative : that a man should be moral because he 
 fears to be immoral, or seek God because he is told to 
 seek Him, or because the other side of the hedge is 
 littered with disaster and disfigured with failures. 
 ' Dost thou not think that thou art bound? 1 is speedily 
 followed by ' I heartily thank our heavenly Father.' 
 We must never rest until we have secured for the 
 narrow road, not the same popularity it may be, but 
 a more complete and obvious joy than that which 
 belongs to the broad way of destruction. Pleasure is a 
 word which must be rescued from the painted misery of 
 vice ; there is no pleasure in wickedness, and never can 
 be. Gaiety must be brought into her true home away 
 from those who have used her to conceal a heavy heart; 
 while joy remains in her grand dignity as the great 
 Christian experience, which sin rarely dares even to 
 claim. The radiant happiness of joy which belongs to 
 a good life, the joy and peace in believing, and the 
 abounding delight which belongs to the life which has 
 chosen God's law, these are real helps towards main- 
 taining the sense of obligation unbroken and entire. 
 ' Think and thank ' 1 go hand in hand ; for even greater 
 than the misery of sin is the joy of goodness, as an aid 
 
 1 See Robinson, Church Catechism Explained ', p. 31.
 
 96 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 in rousing the sense of obligation in the heart of a 
 Christian. 
 
 And there are few things for which a man may feel 
 more daily and hourly thankful than for a sense of 
 safety. Day by day, in view of life's perils and its 
 awful catastrophes, ' What must I do to be saved ? * 
 becomes an anxious and an absorbing question. And 
 as he thinks and looks round on his position, the 
 Christian finds himself placed in ' a state of salvation, 1 
 i.e. in a state in which, unless he opposes obstacles, he 
 can be, and is being, saved. So complete and far- 
 reaching is this state, that just as a man fails to realise 
 the full blessings of a life lived under the protection of 
 law, until he has experienced the miseries of a state in 
 which freedom is not secure, so it is only in comparison 
 with the slavery of sin and its awful tyranny that we 
 fully comprehend the privileges which belong to a 
 state of salvation. Again and again the taint of 
 heredity, which threatens to overwhelm even reason 
 itself, falls back paralysed by the innate force of lie- 
 generation. Confirmation, with its abiding legacy of 
 strength ; Holy Communion, with its constantly re- 
 newed food of immortality ; the life of protection and 
 the life of progress, all bear witness to the mighty 
 salvation which is being wrought in us : and the while 
 we feel that ' His commandments are not grievous." 1 
 
 True, at times the strain will be immense, because 
 we have not been faithful to His loving leadership. 
 If we had gone on quietly following the path under 
 the guidance of His eye, all would have been smooth 
 and easy : Baptism would have led us on to the 
 grace of Confirmation; Confirmation would have held 
 us firm in its strong bands until by Communion after 
 Communion we grew in grace, ancf Christ was formed 
 in us, so that we could not sin because we were born of 
 God. 1 Hut as it is, our progress in the life of holi: 
 1 I S. John iii. 9.
 
 OBLIGATION 97 
 
 has been spasmodic and uneven, so that the strain of 
 keeping pace with God has made us feel weary in well- 
 doing. Still, on looking back, what are ' the days of 
 the Son of Man 1 to which we turn with a fondness 
 which has no bitterness in it ? Are they not those days 
 when God was nearer, and earth with its cries further 
 removed ? Are they not those days when we seemed 
 to get glimpses of Heaven and heavenly things and 
 of a joy which no man could take from us ; days 
 when the sacramental veils which hide God's presence 
 were thinner, and the glory pierced through and 
 flooded the whole temple of our life; days when the 
 Bread and Wine became transfigured and lo ! there 
 was God ; days when the clouds of the summer sky 
 became His chariot, and all the green things of the 
 earth seemed alive with His touch, when we heard the 
 chant of His worship in the song of the birds, and 
 felt His terror in the thunder, and His gentleness in the 
 flowers ? Among the things for which we may daily 
 and hourly thank Him Who is our .salvation,, we may 
 reckon that clearness of vision and that delicacy of 
 hearing which belong to those who, living in the fulness 
 of God's grace, having ears hear, having eyes see, and 
 have escaped the unutterable anguish of those who are 
 without God in the world. 
 
 But thoughtfulness and thankfulness bring a man 
 to the feet of God, and open up at once a sense of 
 dependence on Him so complete that the power to 
 remain in this state of salvation is felt to depend 
 entirely on the constant and never-failing supply of 
 His grace. Perseverance, even, in the pursuit of our 
 own highest interest and greatest happiness, is, by 
 reason of the strange paradoxes of sin, itself dependent 
 on the goodwill produced in us by the grace of God. 
 
 In thinking, therefore, of the helps provided by God 
 towards the full recognising of our obligations, we 
 shall not do wrong to consider that particular work of
 
 98 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 grace within us which is wrought by the voice of God, 
 speaking to us and guiding us, which we know under 
 tne name of * conscience.' Every day there comes to us 
 all, the occasion when we feel the strain of our Baptismal 
 promises, in the constant invitations to accept what we 
 nave promised to renounce, to ignore what we have 
 pledged ourselves to believe, and to do what we have 
 sworn to forsake. It is all-important at such moments 
 that we should have a monitor at hand, whose decision 
 is final and whose judgment is absolute, which almost 
 instinctively approves or condemns, so that rarely even 
 is there any conflict or doubt as to its decisions. God 
 Himself will keep us in this state of salvation, if we 
 will hear His voice with unhardened heart in the Per- 
 sonal guidance which He gives us, in our conscience ; 
 for conscience is an inward adviser which God has 
 given to man, in view of the difficult path which he 
 has to follow. From his knowledge of good and evil 
 man is able to classify his actions under one head or 
 the other. 
 
 It has been said of our first parents that they lost 
 Eden and they found a conscience. Lost spirits do 
 not know good, angels do not know evil, man being 
 what he is knows both, and values his actions accord- 
 ingly. And yet, common as is the recognition of 
 God's voice in conscience even by those who seldom 
 listen to its warnings, it is by no means clear what 
 are its limits and methods of working. It would 
 seem that it has counterfeits which pretend to its 
 powers, or that in itself it can become degenerate, 
 or that we do not understand the secrets of its work- 
 ing; for a moment's reflection will satisfy us, that 
 just as every promulgator of heresy rests his errors 
 on some passage in the Bible from which he claims 
 support and justification, so actions, the most con- 
 trary the one to the other, are often supported and 
 advanced on the plea of conscience. But lately this
 
 OBLIGATION 99 
 
 great imperial nation was impelled by its national 
 conscience to take up arms against the Dutch of 
 the independent South African states ; the Dutch 
 were impelled equally by their national conscience to 
 attempt to drive our forces into the sea in the cause of 
 freedom. Each appealed to justice ; each called upon 
 God to recognise their singleness of heart, and the 
 sacredness of the cause for which they were fighting. 
 Here is a man dying for conscience-sake at Smithfield ; 
 here is a man equally impelled to send him there 
 for conscience-sake. Here is S. Paul conscientiously 
 pursuing the Christians to a cruel death ; here is the 
 same apostle conscientiously reversing his policy, and 
 covering with honour those whom before he had 
 loaded with infamy. What is it ? Can I ever make 
 a mistake in obeying my conscience? Can I go 
 conscientiously wrong? or may I still believe that if 
 my heart condemns me not, I have confidence and 
 freedom of approach towards God P 1 
 
 Conscience, as we know it as a permanent voice 
 within the heart, seems, in divine literature, to take 
 the place, in the New Testament, of the occasional 
 direct voice of God, which appealed to the fathers 
 in the Old Testament either directly or through the 
 prophets; while in the great systems of morality 
 which lay outside the gospel it seems to have repre- 
 sented the voice of God now become more direct and 
 more explicit in proportion as the feeling after Him 
 became more earnest, and the love of truth more 
 constant and sincere. 
 
 The term conscience, as we know it, does not im- 
 mediately explain itself, and indeed has been variously 
 interpreted. Conscience means apparently a simul- 
 taneous knowledge, whether this be the knowledge 
 of a law and of our actions as agreeing or disagreeing 
 with this law, or whether it be an inner reflective 
 1 I S. John iii. 20, 21.
 
 100 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 knowledge, a knowledge within a knowledge which 
 sits in judgment on our actions as we do them, a 
 knowledge beyond and above the knowledge necessary 
 for the due performance of our actions. Or it may 
 mean, following another line of its derivation, simply 
 a penetrating intensive knowledge which enables a 
 man to be his own judge, and so even anticipate the 
 final decrees of the last great day. 
 
 It is only as we look into it that the difficulties 
 and contradictions which surround our conception of 
 conscience begin to resolve themselves. It is not 
 unknown in the history of our naval and mercantile 
 marine that a ship, going in accordance with the care- 
 fully studied indications of the compass, has run upon 
 a rock, or, in other words, has been scientifically steered 
 by the aid of the compass to destruction. We do 
 not therefore seek henceforth to banish the mariner's 
 compass from our ships in favour of some other 
 method of guidance, but we do study, if we may 
 perchance discover, what causes, if any, account for 
 its aberration, whether these are to be found in cer- 
 tain electric currents, or in the nature of the cargo 
 which the ship was carrying, or in some neglect of 
 proper rectification. So, if it be true that conscience 
 at times leads us wrong, we need not therefore seek 
 to disparage or doubt the existence of this Heaven-sent 
 guide, but rather search for causes which may account 
 for its deflection, and explain its aberration. There 
 is no doubt that in conscience we have a highly delicate 
 faculty of judgment, which needs watching and pro- 
 tecting, and which can very easily either become 
 inactive or even be put out of gear altogether. 
 
 Certainly we may recognise these simple rules respect- 
 ing it. First of all, this is a faculty which must never 
 be trifled with. It must be a common experience with 
 many that actions are done, or duties left undone, as 
 to which conscience has uttered a vigorous protest.
 
 OBLIGATION 101 
 
 We say, *I do not feel happy about this particular 
 course, I feel that I am doing wrong.' But if, in 
 spite of this appeal, we still persist in doing it, if 
 stifling the voice we persevere in the course we have 
 taken, then next time the voice is feebler and the 
 protest less energetic. Balaam is confronted with a 
 doubtful suggestion, but one rendered attractive by 
 the hope of gain ; the voice of God is absolute to him 
 in forbidding it, but the inclination of Balaam is 
 evidently towards evil. The next time the voice is 
 fainter : ' If the men come to call thee, rise up, and 
 go with them ; but yet the word which I shall say 
 unto thee, that thou shalt do'; 1 and Balaam does not 
 realise the wickedness of what he is doing until God 
 actively interposes to forbid the madness of the 
 prophet. It is a serious thing in the history of our 
 own responsibility, and in view of the great Judgment 
 Day, to go against conscience, and neglect its warnings, 
 but it is also serious in view of the integrity and com- 
 pleteness of our moral nature. For to tamper with 
 God's warnings means an injury inflicted on this 
 sensitive faculty. If it is a serious thing to make even a 
 resolution which we do not keep, because it impairs 
 the power of the will ; even worse is it to turn a deaf 
 ear to the voice of conscience, for to do so is to deprive 
 us of that check and criticism upon our conduct which 
 will hinder us from a contented acquiescence in evil. 
 A good man contentedly going wrong is a sorry sight, 
 for it may mean that he has first stifled his conscience, 
 and then is falling further and further away because 
 he has lost his natural corrective and restraint. 
 
 Once more, if the conscience can become im- 
 paired, it also needs constant education. 2 It deals 
 with knowledge, assorts it and classifies it as it comes ; 
 
 1 Num. xxii. 20. 
 
 2 The writer is indebted for many thoughts in this section to a 
 report of a sermon by Dr. Gore, Bishop of Worcester.
 
 102 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 but if knowledge is withheld from it, the sphere of its 
 influence is necessarily curtailed. There is a right and 
 a wrong in more things than we sometimes care to 
 believe. There are people who have fallen into grave 
 moral offences, and have burdened themselves with an 
 entail of evil, because they say they did not know that 
 what they did was wrong. Where was conscience? 
 It had remained uninformed, and had never been 
 instructed. There have been those who affirm that they 
 have never broken one of God's commandments in 
 their lives; here again the conscience has been kept 
 uninformed ; evil has been associated only with cer- 
 tain well-known defined and notorious sins, and all the 
 delicate shades of mischief which gather round grave 
 offences have been overlooked ; the adultery of a wrong 
 gaze, the murder of an angry word, the false witness 
 of scandal, the theft of wasted time, the irreverence 
 which may be shown to authority not directly 
 parental all these have not been brought into the 
 category of evil, and conscience, after some misgivings 
 and obstinate questionings, has decided that it knows 
 nothing about them, and is not concerned with them 
 at all. How long it takes before a man can bring 
 such a simple thing as likes and dislikes in food under 
 the control of conscience, and believe that, quite apart 
 from the question of temperance or excess, a man is 
 morally responsible for injuring his health, impairing 
 his usefulness, or even doing anything to interfere 
 with the hardness which belongs to the good soldier of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 Some there are, again, who have never informed their 
 conscience as to the right use of money, and who will 
 take * my own ' to be a formula which covers any sort 
 of extravagance and waste, who will spend thousands 
 of pounds on some idle amusement without one pang 
 of conscience, who use money without attempting to 
 govern or estimate its expenditure. There are some
 
 OBLIGATION 103 
 
 again who pass all their time in neighbourhoods 
 which need their help without subscribing a farthing 
 to the schools in which their poorer neighbours 
 are being educated in the principles of the re- 
 ligion of Christ and His Church ; who do nothing 
 to alleviate the sorrows which multiply so thickly 
 around them. War, famine, pestilence may devastate 
 the land, still they contribute a conventional coin on 
 Sunday, and write down their names in a few sub- 
 scription-lists, without care or interest in that to which 
 they contribute. They neither miss the money nor 
 hope to see any good effects resulting from its expen- 
 diture. Their home arouses in them no sense of duty. 
 Children, servants, dependants all revolve in their 
 orbits around a great central self. If the day is wet, 
 it is for their annoyance ; if it is fine, it is for their 
 especial convenience. Prosperity is welcomed as it 
 affects their balance at the bank ; adversity is disliked 
 as it causes a depression. There are men and women 
 who pass through the world without sense of respon- 
 sibility to any living being, and their conscience does 
 not reprove them, because it has never been instructed. 
 ' Am I my brother's keeper ? ' albeit Cain was the 
 speaker, represents to them a sufficiently sound moral 
 attitude to repress any intrusion on the part of 
 conscience into regions where its influence does not run, 
 and its interference is severely deprecated. 
 
 There is no doubt that conscience, if it is to help us 
 towards recognising our obligations, must be informed, 
 and then, if kept sensitive, may be trusted to give a 
 right and proper warning. 
 
 There are few words which mean so much when 
 rightly applied as the term ' conscientious ' ; for it 
 means that a man in great things, and in little things 
 no less, keeps his actions under the control of con- 
 science, that conscience has its say on the Tightness or 
 wrongness of every action, and is not kept for long
 
 104 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 voyages, stormy seas, and well-defined perils. It is 
 a duty incumbent on all those who have pledged 
 themselves before God to a definite course of action 
 to keep their consciences accurately informed. There 
 are questions of the day which must needs be tested 
 and examined, about which the Christian must make 
 up his mind as to whether they are right or wrong, 
 and act accordingly. It is his duty to read, study, 
 listen, and to avail himself of the experience which is 
 in so many ways placed at his disposal. He must not 
 sail along in an easy way, saying always, ' There shall 
 no harm happen unto me/ It was not without reason, 
 as we were considering above, that the Christian child, 
 with all his promises fresh upon him, was to be called 
 upon to hear sermons. It is a responsibility laid on 
 those who preach, to rouse and quicken the under- 
 standing and inform the conscience, that it may see 
 how very much greater than is sometimes supposed is 
 the area of evil, extending, as our Blessed Lord has 
 told us, to regions as remote from sinful actions as the 
 thoughts and intents of the heart. And it is incum- 
 bent on those that hear to rectify accordingly their 
 line of defence and their methods of resistance. For 
 it is now and always, while men sleep, that the enemy 
 comes and sows tares among the wheat, and goes his 
 way to wait for the crop of evil which carelessness was 
 too negligent to avert. 
 
 Further still, where the conscience has been in- 
 formed it must also be trained. One of the sevenfold 
 gifts of the Holy Spirit which are poured upon the 
 baptized child has to do with this. By the spirit of 
 counsel there is conferred a greater power of choosing, 
 not so much between the good and the bad as between 
 the good and the better. One great department of 
 the action of conscience is to choose aright in the case 
 of conflicting duties, or in what are pre-eminently 
 called 'cases of conscience.'* There are places where
 
 OBLIGATION 105 
 
 two roads diverge, both apparently equally to be 
 desired, both equally right, but which conflict the one 
 with the other in a perfect dilemma of duty. In cases 
 like this the blessing of a trained conscience will be 
 seen, which has learned to trace, even by a faint indica- 
 tion, an intimation, or a suggestion, the way of the 
 Spirit; which has been able to see just the one little 
 mark of superiority which singles it out as the truest 
 and most right path of the two. 
 
 No doubt conscience may easily slip into the position 
 of an indolent adviser who formulates the verdict 
 which ignorance or self-pleasing suggests, but if it is 
 kept open in all its delicate power in the soul, it will 
 be to the child of God a sanction sacred and inviol- 
 able, speaking to him as from God Himself; it will 
 shed abroad the glow of His approbation, and reflect 
 the terror of His wrath. Its condemnation will bring 
 him to his knees in fear, its approval will lift him up 
 on the wings of confidence into the glory of His smile. 
 
 It follows, if these considerations be true, that con- 
 science, however delicate, however much it may need 
 instruction, cannot be superseded in favour of any 
 substitute. ' The light that is in thee ' is given us for 
 our illumination and guidance, and we cannot go to 
 another, however wise, and say 'give us of your oil, 
 for our lamps are gone out. 1 Any direction by another 
 which is worthy of the name must be a direction of 
 conscience, a direction which puts before us what is 
 right and true, and fearlessly indicates what is evil, 
 but the choice is, and always must be, our own. No 
 man may give over to another the ultimate decision, 
 which governs his actions and decides on their rectitude 
 or error. All direction should tend to enable a man 
 to see for himself, for not to use the inward eye which 
 God has given us is a sure road to spiritual and intel- 
 lectual blindness. 
 
 But most often the attacks which are made on so-
 
 106 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 called direction of conscience, are levelled against a 
 danger largely imaginary, or at least a danger which 
 it is perfectly easy to conjure up in theory, but which 
 is comparatively little known in practice. 
 
 However this may be, there are plenty of directors 
 of conscience in the world, who know no scruple, and 
 stick at no wickedness, if so be they can gain their 
 end, and that end is to destroy the individual person- 
 ality, to make the weak the followers, the adherents, 
 and finally the slaves of the strong ; and to get into 
 rank so many living machines who will act in a uniform 
 way, ask no question, give no trouble, nor produce 
 disturbing and disagreeable scruples, which interfere 
 with the peace of the strong man armed who keeps his 
 palace, the undisputed owner of its goods. It is needful 
 to insist that a man should not set up in the place of 
 his conscience the voice and authority of his party. 
 Many a man finds himself involved in questionable 
 actions, such as his heart cannot sanction, in obedience 
 to the supposed orders of the party to which he has 
 given in his allegiance. He does not agree, he cannot 
 approve, but he must pronounce shibboleth with the 
 right accent. Individually he reprobates the action 
 altogether, it is unworthy of his own tradition, of the 
 best tradition of an Englishman ; politically he must 
 stick to his party, and vote as they expect him to 
 vote. He cannot believe it to be right, the voice within 
 him tells him that it is wrong, the Bible tells him it is 
 wrong, still he must be true to his party : he must 
 applaud their doubtful speeches, and approve their 
 violent actions, and give a dishonourable acquiescence 
 or accept with an even more dishonourable silence. 
 
 Or his heart is convinced, his mind acquiesces, the 
 calumnies which have obliterated for him the truth 
 are shattered, and he sees now as he never saw before 
 what he ought to do; and the voice of party rises up 
 'Art thou also of Galilee?* 4 Surely thou art one of
 
 OBLIGATION 107 
 
 this man's disciples.' The cry of tendencies waxes 
 loud, truth is no longer regarded in itself, but in so 
 far as it fits in with the watchwords and war cries of 
 party, and conscience goes down trampled under foot 
 by the mob, and the man is false to himself, but true 
 to his party. 
 
 The World which the Christian has renounced appears 
 disguised as another director of conscience. 'Do as 
 others do ' is the formula which represents its influence, 
 which is the direct opposite of ' do as your conscience 
 tells you you ought to do. 1 This is how the World our 
 sworn enemy wins its way by deliberately laying siege 
 to the conscience of men, and causing them to surrender. 
 It never can be right in a man to abdicate his absolute 
 claim to a free and independent exercise of his unbiassed 
 judgment. To do so, is to deprive society of its natural 
 protectors. God has given to each man a post to fill, 
 a protest to make, a judgment to give, an action to 
 perform, and he only can do it. Sad will it be for 
 him, if at the Last Day God marks him out as the one 
 man who, stored, enlightened and strengthened to keep 
 that post for Him, was yet the one man who was false 
 to his conscience, and hopelessly betrayed the trust 
 reposed in him. 
 
 But in view of the help which conscience can 
 bestow upon a man who would be true to his vows, 
 and cherish a sense of his obligations, it must be further 
 remembered that by its help a man is enabled, in view 
 of the Last Day, in view of the tendency to fall away 
 which ever haunts him, so to judge himself that he 
 may not be judged of the Lord. Self-examination is 
 regarded too often as a common-place of books of 
 devotion, or as an exercise enjoined on candidates for 
 Confirmation, but in itself meaningless and unprofit- 
 able; consisting in reading over questions as to sins 
 which the man never commits, and which it is not well 
 even to think about, and suggesting a self-analysis at
 
 108 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 once morbid and unprofitable, conducive to the belief 
 that everything which he does is wrong. 
 
 And so the court of conscience remains idle, and 
 things which might very easily have been remedied, 
 mount up to a prodigious head, and the sinner drifts 
 on to the day of judgment, without self-knowledge 
 or real repentance, to hear the verdict pronounced 
 with all the terrors of a surprise, because he had 
 neglected to profit by the injunctions ' Know thyself 1 
 and * Judge thyself. 1 No careful and well-instructed 
 Christian should retire to rest each night without some 
 effort, not to read through a string of questions, but to 
 pass in review before conscience the things which he 
 has done during the day. If he is living near to God, 
 conscience will tell him at once if anything has been 
 done amiss. If he is living carelessly, a little reflection 
 will recall him to a sense of his position, and further, 
 at certain seasons, or, as the Prayer Book orders, before 
 Holy Communion, he will make a special self-examina- 
 tion and a special confession, either immediately to 
 God, or mediately to God before His priest. This 
 must be no acknowledgment of sinfulness, but a con- 
 fession of sins, which if we believe God's word, we are 
 bound to pour out before Him, and realise, if we may, 
 their blackness and ingratitude, and their exceeding 
 sinfulness. 
 
 Certainly in conscience we have one of God^s greatest 
 helps to enable us to realise the vastness of our obliga- 
 tions, and our difficulty in keeping them, if only we 
 could be wise unto salvation in listening to its voice. 
 * For a man's mind is sometimes wont to tell him more 
 than seven watchmen that sit above in a high tower." 11 
 
 1 Ecclesiasticus xxxvii. 14.
 
 OBLIGATION 109 
 
 III 
 
 It is not without reason that the special prayer here 
 suggested in the Catechism should be determined in 
 the way of perseverance. We can see of old how 
 even in the direct presence of God, and under the 
 immediate shadow of His wrath, Israel shrank from 
 their privileges as the peculiar people, and gave the 
 rein to their lower self, which lusted after Egypt with 
 its flesh-pots, even if it meant slavery, rather than 
 after goodness and God, if it meant a struggle. Many 
 a soul has sat down wearied, and given up in very 
 despair, as, having fought its way through the fiery 
 heats of youth, it finds still the tempter, with his 
 * then ' and ' then ' waiting for him in every turn and 
 circumstance of life. It is at such a time perhaps that 
 he learns as a secret of perseverance, and not only as 
 a lesson of trust, the deep and abiding strength of the 
 counsel, which bids him take no thought for the 
 morrow, but to live to-day in the strength of to-day's 
 bread. We must not look forward in despair at the 
 length and trials of the road; but make our calling 
 and election sure, by the single victories of single days, 
 which carry us on unto our life's end.
 
 PART II 
 
 Catechist. Rehearse the articles of thy belief. 
 
 Answer. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of 
 Heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ His only Son, our 
 Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin 
 Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and 
 buried, He descended into hell ; the third day He rose again 
 from the dead, He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the 
 right hand of God the Father Almighty ; from thence He shall 
 come to judge the quick and the dead. 
 
 I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church, the 
 Communion of Saints ; the Forgiveness of sins ; the Resurrection 
 of the body ; and the life everlasting. Amen. 
 
 Question. What dost thou chiefly learn in these Articles of 
 thy Belief? 
 
 Answer. First, I learn to believe in God the Father, Who 
 hath made me, and all the world. Secondly, in God the Son, Who 
 hath redeemed me, and all mankind. Thirdly, in God the Holy 
 Ghost, Who sanctifieth me, and all the elect people of God.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FAITH 
 
 Thou hast been, Thou art our Refuge, 
 
 When this day of surging thought 
 Brings all sanctities to question, 
 
 And all hollow faiths to nought ; 
 Oh what doubts, what drear negations, 
 
 Straightway 'neath our feet are trod, 
 When we answer with our Credo 
 
 In a true and living God ! 
 
 WE spoke in a previous chapter of three great con- 
 ceptions which the child will realise in after life have 
 been put before him by his god-parents. The Catechism 
 proceeds now to state and briefly explain the second of 
 these, which has to do with faith. 
 
 The child wakes in his growing consciousness to find 
 himself pledged to believe, and to exercise a mysterious 
 virtue known as faith : while certain propositions are 
 put before him to which he has given assent as being 
 true, and which are to be woven more and more into 
 the texture of his life until they become living prin- 
 ciples of action, and the starting-point for further ex- 
 plorations of the unseen. 
 
 We are so accustomed to the sound of the word 
 Faith, and it may mean so little to us, that we should 
 not do amiss to try and see why we were thus pledged 
 as infants, and whether we have been altogether true 
 to our promise that we would believe, as well as 
 renounce, and do.
 
 114 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 In asking us to believe, and in exacting a promise 
 from our god-parents that we should believe, the 
 Church makes a great assumption, namely, that there 
 is a branch of useful knowledge which is not known to 
 the ordinary official inspection with which the world 
 will test a child's proficiency, that there is a region of 
 things invisible which can be brought into sight, and 
 of things unknowable by ordinary methods which can 
 be known. This is something quite different from the 
 inculcation of principles of morality, which in the 
 long run are necessary to the proper fulfilment of his 
 task as a citizen and his proper development as a 
 rational being. It is different from the ordinary pre- 
 sentment of the obligations of duty, or of things to be 
 done under the sanction of ' undenominational ethics. 1 
 Faith and the duty of believing open up the whole 
 question of relations with an unseen personal Being, 
 with things which are eternal in contradistinction to 
 those which are temporal, with duties which are not 
 sanctioned by any merely human law, or dictated by 
 any will of man, but which appeal to a supernatural 
 sanction and the laws of a spiritual society. For a 
 period of years during the Commonwealth our children 
 were refused Holy Baptism, and were registered as 
 citizens of the world, instead of being started forth on 
 the quest of Faith to find Heaven and Heavenly things, 
 and the result was seen in the absolute reign of sensualism 
 in the days of the Restoration. Now, once more in 
 England, since the year 1870, the Government of this 
 country has turned its back on such matters as Faith 
 as a requirement of good education for children, and 
 has determined to leave the development of any 
 believing faculty there may be in a cnild to private 
 enterprise, and has made religion an optional matter,
 
 FAITH 115 
 
 as if it were some special subject outside the ordinary 
 equipment of a child's life. 
 
 And the result has been a maiming and deforming 
 of character; a large region full of rich treasures 
 has been shut off from the children, it has been 
 suggested to them, that if there are things eternal 
 and invisible at all, they have no profitable bearing 
 on human life, and the eye of faith has been closed 
 from disuse, and has perished through atrophy, while 
 the requirement here made from the godfathers as to 
 the instruction of their children has received a fresh 
 sanction in view of the calamity which is seen to follow 
 on its neglect. The following is the testimony of one 
 who may be regarded as an impartial observer, as to 
 the blow struck at the fulness of human character by a 
 system of education in which faith is either eliminated 
 or, at the best, condemned with faint praise. ' Upon 
 these city generations there has operated the now 
 widely-spread influence of thirty years of elementary 
 school-teaching. The result is a mental change ; each 
 individual has been endowed with the power of reading, 
 and a certain dim and cloudy capacity for comprehend- 
 ing what he reads. ... A change more vital and more 
 ominous for the future is widely attested by those 
 familiar with the new city type : the almost universal 
 decay, amongst these masses and unheeded populations, 
 of any form of spiritual religion. Morally, indeed, 
 they for the most part accept a standard which is the 
 astonishment of their friends. Patience under mis- 
 fortune, a persistent cheerfulness, family affection, and 
 neighbourly helpfulness are wide-spread amongst them. 
 But the spiritual world, whether in nature, in art, or 
 in definite Religion, has vanished, and the curtain of 
 the horizon has descended round the material things 
 and the pitiful duration of human life. In former 
 time, in England, for better or worse, the things of 
 the earth were shot with spiritual significance ; Heaven
 
 116 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 and Hell stretched out as permanent realities; the 
 " kingdom of all the worlds " rose up as " the theatre 
 of man's achievements,"" and "the measure of his 
 destiny." To-day amongst the masses of our great 
 towns, God is faintly apprehended as an amiable but 
 absentee Ruler; Heaven and Hell are passing to the 
 memories of a far-off childhood, the one ceasing to 
 attract, the other to alarm/ 1 It is possible that it is 
 not too late yet to learn not only that without Faith 
 it is impossible to please God, but also that life with- 
 out it is robbed of its chief excellence and highest 
 source of productiveness. A savage in the Library 
 of the British Museum, or a blind man in the National 
 Gallery, is not a more pitiable example of maimed 
 capacity, than a child or a grown-up man moving 
 amidst all the wonders of life, with God's hand upon 
 him and His love encircling him, of which he is all 
 unconscious, and towards which he has no relations or 
 apparent desire for their development. 
 
 Those who pledged us to believe, and started us with 
 an endowment of Faith, believed, or acted as though they 
 believed, in a rich store-house of blessing all around us, 
 to be reached by supernatural effort, and full of 
 promise, for the life which now is and not only for the 
 life which is to come. 
 
 II 
 
 There is no doubt that we need to realise more than 
 we do the vastness of the area into which we were 
 introduced, its exceeding fniitfulness, and its rich 
 capacity of development, which are represented to us 
 by the word Faith, and suggested to us by the exercise 
 of that power known as believing. Faith is no altar 
 * to the unknown God ' erected by one who wishes, at 
 
 1 Charles Masterman, The Heart of the Empire ; pp. 8, 9.
 
 FAITH 117 
 
 least, to be on the safe side if certain opinions should 
 prove to be true ; believing is no mere payment of a 
 life insurance which will bring in some advantage after 
 death, which it is the part of a prudent man to pay. It 
 is rather, as we have already hinted, the opening up of 
 relations with all that is most powerful, most beautiful, 
 most real in the world, without which the highest 
 developments of character are not possible, and life's 
 highest joys fail to be realised. All around us there 
 is a vast system of life, which for lack of a better name 
 we call the supernatural, but which for all that is just 
 as real as that of which we are cognisant by our bodily 
 sensations. Wordsworth l has told us in his magnificent 
 ode (whatever deductions we may make from some of 
 its underlying assumptions) how this inner world is the 
 most real of all worlds to the infant, how he sees this 
 phenomenal state of things at first lit up in all the 
 radiance of Heavenly glow, so that no impressions ever 
 exceed or even approach in intensity to the first im- 
 pressions of childhood ; and then how gradually all 
 this glory melts away as the world-stream comes flood- 
 ing in with its materialism and the glowing East 
 recedes farther and farther. He speaks elsewhere in 
 the same strain of the child living in the unseen, when 
 he says : 
 
 Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year ; 
 And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine, 
 God being with thee when we know it not. 2 
 
 And so Cardinal Newman has spoken in well-known 
 lines of the hope which cheers the man to whom this 
 radiance is only a memory, and who longs for the 
 bright visions of his childhood, that in the end of the 
 days at life's even-tide it may be light, and with the 
 dawn of the new life the angel faces may smile again 
 
 1 Wordsworth's Ode, ' Intimations of Immortality,' etc. 
 
 2 Wordsworth's Sonnet, 'A Calm Evening.'
 
 118 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 which cheered the heart of childhood, and which were 
 loved always, but for a time lost. There are people to 
 whom all through their lives these visions remain as 
 realities which brighten more and more towards the 
 dawn. As the poet and painter live in a richer world 
 than we do, and sometimes lure us out of ourselves to 
 see eye to eye with them the glories which flit before 
 their vision, so those who are masters of Faith inspire 
 us sometimes with a desire to catch a glimpse of 
 what is so real to them, and we are cheered by a sight 
 fleeting and transitory, yet eloquent to us of a reality 
 which forbids us to doubt the possibilities which open 
 up to us in believing. There are men who say with 
 Cardinal Newman, in his famous sermon for Michaelmas 
 Day, 1 that they can detect the fluttering robes of angels 
 in the beauties of nature. There are men who spend 
 large portions of the day in talking with a Being Whom 
 they call God, who tell us that they find His 1'n sence 
 in the simple rites of religion, and hear His voice in 
 the words of an ancient book ; men who tell us that 
 the world is full of God, that He is guiding and ruling 
 every action of their lives, that He has told them what 
 to do and they do it ; what to avoid and they avoid 
 it ; what awaits them in the future and they look for 
 it; what is the true clue for understanding the past 
 and they follow it; and if you ask them how they have 
 attained, not to this knowledge merely, not to this 
 opinion, but to this certainty, they will tell you that 
 it is by Faith, which brings spiritual things within 
 their horizon ; Faith which causes the spiritual world 
 to dawn upon the soul; Faith which 'liberate the 
 intellectual being of man, his soul, and all his thoughts, 
 so as to move in the presence of divine realities, so as to 
 apprehend the substantial revelation which is awaiting 
 him, so as to be with God in the spirit/* This Faith, 
 
 1 Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. ii., Sermon xxix. 
 
 2 Fr. Waggett.
 
 FAITH 119 
 
 they will tell you with S. Paul, is a gift of God ; 
 with Hope and Love, its own sisters, it is a virtue 
 which has God for its object, and is ever being guided 
 and enriched by Him in those means which He has 
 devised for its development. 
 
 There is no doubt that there is this region of Faith, 
 and this power of believing, which have been and are 
 still intense realities to multitudes of thinking men, 
 who have cheerfully responded to the venture made 
 for them by their god-parents, and have thanked God 
 again and again that their eyes have been opened to 
 see the wondrous things of His Law. We have seen 
 before now rising up on the surface of the waves which 
 roll through the narrow straits which separate England 
 from France the three towers which beckon us forward 
 to the port of Calais : ' the lighthouse for life and the 
 belfry for labour, 1 and the church tower ' for patience 
 and grace. 1 There they stand in an honourable trium- 
 virate. He who built the church tower knew of 
 regions beyond the sound of the belfry, and of shores 
 where the beacon- warning of the lighthouse could not 
 penetrate; He who built it saw God; the courts of 
 heaven were as real to him as the wind-swept floor of 
 the sea, or the citizen-thronged area of the market- 
 place. 
 
 If we look down from some height over London, 
 or study it in a picture which represents the days of 
 Faith, those days when men did not busy themselves 
 in pulling down churches but in multiplying them to 
 an extent at which in our more materialistic days we 
 marvel, we see before us in every direction the church 
 towers and steeples which point up to Heaven with 
 beckoning finger, and would cheer us with the sound 
 of their bells, or steady us by their silent protest. 
 Here again, must we not say as we look at them, they 
 who raised those towers saw God ? They were con- 
 scious of a Presence around and about them; the
 
 120 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 buildings which they raised were the expressions of 
 their Faith. Just as the chimneys and shaft openings 
 represent to the traveller in the Black country a 
 hidden subterranean life and industry of which he 
 knows nothing, but which here comes to the surface, 
 so these buildings, so costly and so beautiful, speak to 
 us of a vast celestial life which here finds an expression 
 on earth in the Faith of those who reared them. Of 
 course it is possible to deny the existence of such a 
 faculty as Faith at all, and to refer it to the large class 
 of mental and spiritual delusions by which men mistake 
 fancies for facts, and project their own visions into an 
 objective reality which they call upon others to believe 
 under pain of anathema. There are numbers of people 
 who tell you that they believe that the Bible is the 
 Word of God, because they have been told so, but 
 who, if you press them far enough, are bound to confess 
 that they have never detected any flow of inspiration in 
 its pages, they have never looked for it, and nave never 
 found it, and would be unable to recognise it if they 
 did, so completely is inspiration a term to them, and 
 nothing more. There are numbers again who are only 
 irritated by the lofty rhapsodies and impassioned utter- 
 ances in which the Saints have spoken of the Sacrament 
 of the Body and Blood of Christ. The words seem 
 high-strung and unreal, and to correspond with nothing 
 which they have either experienced or have seemed likely 
 to experience. These same men will resent what they 
 call undue familiarity with the name of God, or per- 
 sonal appeals to our Lord Jesus Christ, or the Holy 
 Spirit. God to them is a name, an idea, an empty 
 throne before which they bow, but there are no 
 relations opening up between God and the soul, such 
 as the rapturous votary of Faith would have us all 
 believe not only to be possible but necessary. 
 
 There is no doubt that Faith as a faculty at all will 
 be challenged, and will be reminded of some gloomy
 
 FAITH 121 
 
 and disreputable chapters in the world's history, where 
 it has been stripped of the royal garments to which 
 it had no right, and driven away as superstition, with 
 the applause of all right-thinking men. 
 
 And what has Faith to say for itself ? What defence 
 can it make when so attacked ? 
 
 Faith appeals to an innate instinct in man, such as 
 we have considered above, which leads human nature 
 to believe that there is more around us than that 
 which is cognisable by our senses. More than this : 
 there is a craving after a Supreme Being, some Power 
 outside us, which is described in Bible language, as 
 4 feeling after God. 1 And when in response to this 
 instinct men have followed up its leading they have 
 ' found Him Who is not far from every one of us. 1 We 
 believe that we can account for Faith ; we believe that 
 it is based on a spiritual appetite for God, implanted 
 like any other appetite. We believe that God gives 
 it to His children as a means of reaching out to the 
 supernatural, just as He gives us means of attaining 
 to the riches of life, which are within the reach of all 
 of us. 
 
 And this Faith appeals to the verification of experi- 
 ment. When much time has been spent at the bottom 
 of the mountain arguing for and against the possibility 
 of a glorious view from the summit, Faith says as 
 the ultimate appeal, ' come and see. 1 Climb the 
 mountain, fulfil the conditions which are imposed, 
 and then ' If any man will do His will, he shall 
 know of the doctrine whether it be of God. 11 We 
 were told as children that there was a God in the 
 world, and that we must act upon this belief: follow- 
 ing out this command we found God, and He became 
 a reality to us. We were told of supernatural grace, 
 of Sacramental virtues, of divine messages, of paths 
 which led up to God and landed us in the glory of His 
 1 S. John vii. 17.
 
 122 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 Presence ; we heard and saw and knew, and by experi- 
 mental religion we developed that most sure and 
 stedfast certainty known as conviction, when Faith 
 passed out of the region of an imposed duty, and a 
 pledge made in the name of an unconscious child, into 
 a certainty based on the conclusion of fixed and definite 
 experiment. 
 
 And yet what are we to say to those who have 
 climbed and have seen no view, who have made the 
 experiment and have only found failure and disappoint- 
 ment ? Is it not a matter of temperament after all ? 
 Just as some with a strong imagination will see ghosts 
 and fairies, where others with more robust nerves will 
 only see shadows and shifting lights, so may it not be 
 once more that here too, as with the playgoer, * each 
 man sees what he carries in his heart ' ? * And may not 
 Faith be only the projection of an image in our heart, 
 thrown, by the strong light of imagination, on to the 
 screen of material things? It might be so, did we 
 not believe ourselves able to account, as in the one 
 case for the presence, so here for the absence, of Faith. 
 What happens to our bodily powers if they, are not 
 exercised? What happens to our reason if it is not 
 cultivated ? And what happens to Faith, if it is not 
 developed, or even if it is actively destroyed? It 
 perishes, not to be revived. Even those who are 
 endowed with the advantages of a costly education, 
 and are put in the way of securing their own material 
 interests, often lamentably fail in deriving the benefits 
 placed within their reach, or in attaining the ideal 
 sketched out for them : so it is with many who havi- 
 received the gift of Faith. The capacity is thru . 
 instruction has pointed out the way of development, 
 the way of truth is opened out, but there is no appre- 
 ciation, and the supernatural world remains sealed to 
 
 1 Ein Jcdcr sieht, was cr im Herzen triigt. GOETHE'S Faust, 
 Prolog, line 179.
 
 FAITH 123 
 
 them ; either because Faith has never been put into 
 practice, or else because in some way it has been 
 actively injured by vicious courses or materialised by 
 indolence and want of appreciation. It is not in vain 
 that we pray in the Collect for the Fourth Sunday 
 after Easter, that we may love the thing which God 
 commands, and desire that which He promises. The 
 approaches to Faith, as to many other valuable regions 
 of discovery, are stern and difficult, and we must love 
 God and Holy things before they will seem worthy of 
 our love. Science, too, has its fairy regions of dis- 
 covery, which are open only to those who have the 
 scientific disposition and aptitude for their discovery. 
 And no one attaches much importance to the scepticism 
 of the unscientific who refuse to believe things to be 
 true which cannot be demonstrated in a popular 
 manner, but only by attention to minute and labor- 
 ious calculations which they are unable or unwilling 
 to undertake. No one, for instance, would be pre- 
 pared to assert that a star does not exist because it 
 can only be seen through a telescope, or that the 
 minute organisms which teem in the water are only 
 creatures of the brain because they can only be 
 discerned through a microscope. Let us remember 
 that the wondrous joys of science are within the reach 
 of all. The oscillations of a lamp, and the fall of an 
 apple to the ground, are keys which were in every 
 hand before Galileo and Newton found the lock to 
 which they fitted. And so it is true to say that the 
 wondrous joys of science, although they are within 
 the reach of every one, are yet, for all that, not the 
 property of the average man. 
 
 May it not be equally true that the experiences of 
 Faith, which also are open to and within the reach of 
 all, are yet withheld from those who have not qualified 
 themselves to fit the key which unlocks their mysteries? 
 Spiritual things are spiritually discerned, This is an
 
 124 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 axiom both of Holy Scripture and of common experi- 
 ence. If a new comet has been observed in the heavens 
 we do not ask the man in the street if he has seen it, 
 and accept his verdict as final. We rather seek to 
 know what opinion the astronomer is able to pro- 
 nounce, who has patiently studied and investigated the 
 probabilities of its appearance, who has sat for long 
 hours in his observatory looking out into the night, 
 who has used with scientific accuracy the delicate 
 instruments best suited to his quest, and who has 
 followed the indications which ages of research have 
 pointed out as the path of discovery, and which his 
 scientific Bible has illuminated with the light of 
 certainty. We need not be disturbed because the 
 verities of Faith are questioned by the careless and 
 indifferent or by the average observer. We should 
 have more reason for perplexity if they were not. But 
 the fact that spiritual experiences are questioned, and 
 the power of Faith denied, should make us all the 
 more ready to look well to our methods and test our 
 religious habits. It is not demonstration that we 
 want, but the knowledge of the proper use of the 
 telescope. It is not a diminishing series of objects 
 of belief that will give us relief, but the power to 
 realise spiritual things when we see them, and the 
 power of rightly scrutinising those regions where they 
 are to be found. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It is abundantly clear that Faith requires to be 
 scientifically handled and scientifically developed. It 
 is by no means the easy thing which every one can 
 enterprise with a good-natured acquiescence in what 
 is told to him. Faith is not credulity, nor the sur- 
 rendering to another the proper use and direction of 
 those faculties which God gave us to use. To be
 
 FAITH 125 
 
 shown the site of a gold mine is not the same thing 
 as making a fortune, although it indicates where a 
 fortune can be made. So Faith makes certain demands 
 from those who would profit by its powers, and who 
 would know the strength as well as the joy and peace 
 of believing. 
 
 1. First of all, much that has been said above will 
 prepare us to recognise that Faith demands an effort 
 on the part of him who would use it. No one can 
 imagine, if he will pause to think, that the roads which 
 open into any of the rich spiritual regions which sur- 
 round his path are accessible to anything but earnest 
 endeavour. Science has its wealth of treasures which 
 lie within the reach of all of us, but the scientific man 
 will be the first to tell us, that the riches of which he 
 has cognisance can only be won by labour, obedience, 
 patience and self-denial. He will tell us that we need 
 capacity for using aright the scientific instruments by 
 which discovery is made possible, and humility in sub- 
 mitting private judgment to the dogmas of science 
 which are stored in the Bible of ascertained facts. 
 The rich world of music again, with all its delights of 
 sound, and its fascinating themes which, like Orpheus 
 of old, draw the listener after them into the regions 
 of pure celestial joy, is not open to him who despises 
 labour and practice, and contents himself with the 
 general attitude of an amateur. 
 
 Art in painting or sculpture has started its inspira- 
 tions in the dark uncongenial atmosphere of long, 
 minute and technical study. In like manner Faith has 
 nothing to show to the amateur. He may pass through 
 the richest regions and yet see nothing of the gold 
 which lies buried therein. He may even be as one who 
 takes the rich auriferous site and builds cottages upon 
 it because he distrusts the result of mining operations 
 beneath the surface, or the promise of a treasure which 
 has nothing to show to the ordinary passer-by. The
 
 126 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 average man who discredits the existence of objects 
 of Faith may climb up the mountain side and see 
 nothing but mist and drizzling rain where he had 
 been told that he would see the glorious landscape 
 unrolling at his feet. He may gaze out into the 
 midnight sky and fail to detect the bright star which 
 he has been led confidently to look for and admire. 
 Spiritual indolence is a fatal bar to the acquisition 
 of the treasures of Faith. ' Ask, and ye shall have ; 
 seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened 
 unto you. n The region which is swept by the eye of 
 Faith must be approached through the humiliation 
 of asking, the diligence of seeking, and the persistence 
 of knocking. There are paths and steps of ascent 
 which lead up into it, along which we must push our 
 spiritual observations, and if these are not enterprised, 
 or if they are blocked by indolence, there is really no 
 connection between us and the supernatural. The in- 
 vestigation of heavenly things not only needs a special 
 aptitude in him who thus investigates, but it needs 
 habitual and long-sustained practice in breathing the 
 rarefied air of the supernatural heights, and a prolonged 
 and sustained effort in following up the path which 
 leads into the presence of mysteries. Prayer, as will 
 be considered in a future chapter, is the ordinary 
 medium between us and the objects of Faith, and if 
 this becomes useless or inoperative, if this is blocked, 
 we may very easily be led to believe that Faith has 
 nothing to offer, whereas in reality we had put out no 
 hand to receive it. Nothing can make up for or 
 supersede personal effort. And when we hear, in the 
 full light of God's splendour, which is sweeping 
 over the Church, and filling the world with glory, 
 the piteous cry, * I cannot see,' most often a closer 
 inspection will show us that the path which lends 
 to God is still untrodden, that the poor hesitating 
 1 Quoted from the Publick Baptism of Infantt Prayer Book.
 
 FAITH 127 
 
 soul still lingers below in the region of fog and un- 
 certainty, that if he would see he must climb with 
 painful effort, and laborious foot, and only then will 
 the vision of the city of God burst upon him in its 
 overwhelming magnificence rising out of the mists, and 
 enthroned in majesty on the darkness of this lower 
 world. 
 
 2. But besides long and sustained effort, Faith also 
 demands, from him who would know the fulness of its 
 riches, something of the spirit of venture. ' The ven- 
 tures of Faith ' is a well known phrase which might be 
 written as a motto over the long roll of heroism which 
 is spread out before us in the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 Obviously he who would push his spiritual enterprises 
 into the region of the unseen, must be prepared tosacrifice 
 much of time and energy which might be employed in 
 the affairs of the things which are seen, and are of 
 present mercantile value. 'We fools accounted his 
 life madness ' l is an estimate as true now as when 
 the words were first written, of the average attitude of 
 public opinion towards those who devote themselves to 
 the service and enterprise of Faith. It is only with an 
 effort that even religious men bring themselves to 
 believe that time spent in prayer is not so much time 
 wasted, as being subtracted from more useful and pro- 
 fitable work. A provision for eternity may be regarded 
 as an excess of caution, more frequently as so much 
 energy wasted, which might have been profitably 
 expended in propping up a prosperous earthly career. 
 It is startling sometimes to remind ourselves of what 
 the martyrs staked on the truth of their convictions. 
 A Christian may well ask himself at the present day 
 what loss he would have incurred, supposing that it 
 were demonstrated that all his religious beliefs were 
 vain and groundless. What has he staked on the 
 truth of his religious beliefs ? If it be a question of 
 1 Wisdom, v. 4.
 
 128 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 worldly speculation, a company or a mining project, or 
 some country to be opened up for commerce, then there 
 is no question of what is meant by having a stake in 
 a venture whose issue is yet doubtful. It is done with 
 deliberation, calculation, and care, but a great deal 
 depends on the success or failure of the scheme, our 
 interests are aroused, our apprehensions quickened, our 
 hopes and our fears are a sure indication of how much 
 we have risked in the venture. We have trusted our 
 property in a place which promises a return, in a 
 place in which we have confidence, and where we 
 believe success to be assured, but where failure would 
 be disastrous. But the ventures made on behalf of 
 Faith are not always so obvious, our best and our 
 dearest interests are not embarked in it, and therefore 
 its success or failure is not so much a matter of vital 
 importance. But for all that, we never can hope to 
 secure any large share in the riches of Faith without 
 some ventures. There is no doubt that the working 
 path of prayer, which was alluded to above, can only 
 be traversed at a great expenditure of time and effort. 
 He who prays much takes many valuable hours which 
 have their money value, and lavishes them on that 
 which many people assure him will give him no 
 adequate return. The long efforts of asceticism, the 
 devotion of almsgiving, the time and money bestowed 
 on works of love and mercy as done to Christ, are all 
 largely based on the belief that here in these directions 
 lies the true life, which alone is worth living, and is 
 crowned with immortality and honour. 
 
 Many a young man who has been allured by the 
 so-called pleasures of sin has only refrained in 
 obedience to the dictates of religion ; there are times 
 when he even wishes that he could cast off the restric- 
 tion of Faith, in order to satisfy his evil desires, and 
 enjoy that which in his blindness he believes can give 
 him pleasure. But there comes a time when the path
 
 FAITH 129 
 
 which he followed, in obedience to the dictates of an 
 unwelcome belief, opens out into the wide and full 
 pleasures of holiness and truth. He learns how the 
 craving of the spirit after what is good rivals the 
 craving of the flesh after what is evil ; and having made 
 the venture of Faith, he knows that he has done much 
 more than ensure himself against future punishment : 
 he has realised something of that godliness which has 
 the promise of the life which now is, as well as of that 
 which is promised to him in the future. 
 
 3. And this brings before us a third demand which 
 Faith makes upon her votaries. Any one who would 
 thus enter on the rich fields opened to him in the 
 supernatural world around him must set before himself 
 a high standard of moral purity without which all 
 progress will be impossible. There can be no spiritual 
 discernment if there is no spiritual vision. If God is 
 to be seen, it must be by the pure in heart, to whom 
 alone that vision is possible. It is the terrible curse 
 of an age of materialism that it develops a moral 
 barrier which cuts it off more and more from the 
 higher regions of Faith. The inner supernatural world 
 gets fainter and fainter, as the outer material world 
 becomes grosser and more absorbing. We have not 
 only to lament the striking and obvious dangers which 
 threaten a nation which tampers with the laws of 
 morality, or allows them to be tampered with ; we have 
 not only to dread the degradation, bodily and mental, 
 which follows the youth who has made a plunge into 
 sensual sin ; more than this, a chasm is thereby opened 
 between the material life here and the bright world 
 of beauty beyond. The Holy Spirit leaves His de- 
 secrated temple in the heart of David before the 
 approach of overmastering sin, and the voice of melody 
 gasps itself away in a life which has been shattered 
 and shivered by sensuality. 
 
 Spiritualism and necromancy are some of the obscene 
 i
 
 130 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 forms which crowd upon Saul, once the anointed king, 
 now the apostate, out of the darkness which obscures 
 the heart which has been turned away from God in 
 rebellious sin. The flattering appeal made to us in an 
 age of self-sufficiency to come out of a timid prudery 
 which mistakes ignorance for innocence, and from foolish 
 limitations of experience which are only degrading to 
 grown men, and belong to the immaturity of un- 
 developed childhood, is not to be welcomed altogether 
 as a counsel of prudence. Innocence, after all, has 
 something to say for itself, and is not the worthless 
 portion of babies and fools. 'Knowledge of wicked- 
 ness is not wisdom,' and wisdom often suffers from 
 the contiguity of wickedness which has been heedlessly 
 admitted. The evil secret, or the tale of unlovely 
 sin, may possibly leave the soul untarnished in tin- 
 sense that no actual moral corruption immediate! \ 
 follows ; but who shall say that they have left it 
 unharmed ? Is it a dimness of vision which makes 
 Heaven and Heavenly things sink farther back on the 
 horizon ? Is it a distaste for prayer which robs it of 
 its peace and joy? Is it that the rim of fire and 
 the black spots of dancing evil are projected on the 
 image once so fair and clean ? The spiritual expert 
 who wishes to study closely the wondrous things of 
 God's law will not care for those things which, if they 
 fail to defile, yet have a strange power of dimming the 
 brightness of the eye which is accustomed to look upon 
 God. There is no scepticism to compare with that 
 which settles down upon a life of contented sin. To 
 sin is to sever, one by one, all the connections which 
 open up into the region of Faith. If proof of tlii- 
 is needed, there is the common experience in tlu> life 
 of a sinner ready to our hand. When the heart has 
 deliberately yielded to a course of sin, prayer is the first 
 thing which is given up. So S. Theresa has tourhini;ly 
 counselled in her writings: ' Never let any one leave on
 
 FAITH 131 
 
 prayer on any pretence : great sins committed, or any 
 other pretence whatsoever. For by leaving oft' prayer 
 the soul will be finally lost, while every return to 
 prayer is new life and new strength, as I am continually 
 telling you. I tell you that the leaving off' of prayer 
 was the most devilish and the most deadly temptation 
 I ever met with. 1 1 ' I could not pray,' says the sinner. 
 No, because prayer and sin cannot exist together, and 
 prayer which is not prayer becomes intolerable ; while 
 prayer which is no longer loved, striving with sin that 
 is cherished, has but little chance in the unequal strife. 
 
 IV 
 
 It is not without reason, therefore, that the Church 
 would send forth her children pledged to a life of 
 Faith, when there is so much to distract and divert the 
 mind from anything which is unseen to that which is 
 pressing, visible, and of present advantage. The child 
 is reminded by the terms of his promises that there is 
 more in this world than the eye beholds. It is some- 
 thing to have been reminded of God, of salvation and 
 sanctification, and of the mighty issues which surround 
 our life here. Faith has a great work to do which may 
 be the salvation of the coming age. And Faith has 
 also a work to do in the individual life which far sur- 
 passes all our expectations. Faith is the remedy for a 
 disabling pessimism, and for the sense of weariness and 
 monotony which settles down over an earth-bound life. 
 Progress enterprised without God totters on to its 
 inevitable failure; and failure takes the spring out 
 of enthusiasm and the earnestness out of effort. But 
 Faith, in giving God His proper place, is able to 
 realise a power which triumphs over failure. Faith 
 will show us not only the cause of failure, but the 
 
 1 Saint Teresa, selected passages by Alexander Whyte, p. 73.
 
 132 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 remedy for it. Faith will show us that we may not 
 contemptuously take what we like of revealed truth, 
 and disregard what we consider to be unimportant. 
 Faith will show us that the Fatherhood of God, as a 
 belief which is supposed to support the most advanced 
 schemes of human progress, is powerless as a doctrine, 
 unless we also add to it that which God has revealed 
 to be added, the belief in His saving and sanctifying 
 grace. God has revealed Himself not only as a 
 Father, Who has pleasure in the prosperity of His 
 servants, but also as One Who saves from the inevit- 
 able disaster and opposition which threaten progress, 
 and also as One Who gives the power to keep the whole 
 nature, body, soul, and spirit, complete and entire 
 under the disintegrating forces of human infirmity. 
 Again and again the soul will sink under the dead 
 weight of failure, crushed by the monotony of life 
 and the weariness of the combat, unless supported 
 by that Faith in a higher power, which shows us 
 God ruling in His own world, honoured in His 
 own methods, and sanctified in His own plan of 
 redemption. 
 
 Faith also, more than aught else, will save us from 
 the grossness of a materialism which is a perpetual 
 menace to all real progress. * A man^s life consisteth 
 not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." 1 
 This is the appeal of Faith, whether to the nation or to 
 the individual. The world becomes coarser and poorer 
 when Faith is allowed to die out of it. The decay of 
 spiritual aspiration is marked on the art, the buildings, 
 the manners, the dress, and the literature of the timrs. 
 A lack of refinement, a want of chivalry, a cynical 
 selfishness may be the last expressions of a lost Faith, 
 which has cast God out of the world, and droops and 
 fails in the gloom of its snnU^s noonday. 
 
 Faith after all is the best corrective for disabling 
 1 S. Luke xii. 15*
 
 FAITH 133 
 
 sin, for it not only supplies the means of resisting it, 
 not only does it throw into our beleaguered natures the 
 hosts of God and all those strong powers which make 
 for righteousness, but even more than this, Faith opens 
 up those visions of beauty and of perfect satisfaction 
 which reveal sin as a hideous disfigurement and rob 
 temptation of its attractiveness. A soul sick with the 
 so-called pleasures of sin will not be able long to resist 
 the satisfaction of the pleasures of God's House. A 
 soul which knows something of the joys of the Father's 
 home will not long remain content with the husks of 
 swine. The satisfaction of the highest part of our 
 being, the joy of the spirit, must in the end supersede 
 and put to shame those lower attractions which pre- 
 tend to the name of pleasure. If we take our stand by 
 the side of Faith's greatest triumph, which has robbed 
 death of its sting and emptied the grave of its terrors ; if, 
 in view of that great certainty where Faith is our only 
 guide through the gloom, we take its hand where no other 
 even pretends to lead us to the other shore, let us re- 
 member that there are other regions still over which 
 Faith sheds the quickening light of its glory, which 
 chases away the shadows and banishes the gloom. Sin 
 has no place in our life, it is unnatural and ought not 
 to be there. ' How shall we that died to sin live any 
 longer therein ? ' Melancholy and disabling depression 
 ought once for all to be banished, they too are un- 
 natural and ought not to be there. ' Hast thou not 
 known ? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, 
 the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth 
 not, neither is weary. There is no searching of His 
 understanding. He giveth power to the faint ; and to 
 them that have no might He increaseth strength. 
 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the 
 young men shall utterly fall : but they that wait upon 
 the Lord shall renew their strength ; they shall mount 
 up with wings as eagles ; they shall run, and not be
 
 134 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 weary, and they shall walk and not faint.' 1 Poverty 
 of life once more is unnatural, and ought not to be 
 there, for Faith has treasures within her grasp which 
 surpass all other riches. The great Italian has told 
 us of the fascination of goodness and the joy of those 
 unspeakable delights which Faith reaches out after, 
 and which Faith alone can see. 
 
 Nella corte del Ciel ond' io rivegno, 
 Si trovan molte gioie care e belle 
 Tanto che non si posson trar del regno, 
 
 Chi non s'impenna si che lassu voli, 
 Dal muto aspetti quindi le novelle. 2 
 
 He is but repeating in other language what the 
 apostle has once for all spoken by the inspiration of 
 God. * Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have 
 entered into tfie heart of man, the things which God 
 hath prepared for them that love Him. 13 This was a 
 truth which the stern author of the record of the 
 French revolution had grasped, when speaking of that 
 blood-stained epoch of nistory. He said, * Strong was 
 he that had a church, what we can call a church ; he 
 stood thereby, though in the centre of immensities, 
 in the conflux of Eternities. Yet manlike towards 
 God and men, the vague shoreless universe had become 
 for him a firm city, and dwelling which he knew. 
 Such virtue was in Belief, in these words well spoken, 
 " I believe." Well might men prize their Crafo, and 
 raise stateliest temples for it, and reverent hierarchies, 
 and give it the tithe of their substance. It was worth 
 living and dying for." 1 4 
 
 1 Isa. xl. 28-31. 
 
 1 Dante, ParaJiso, cant. x. 70. 
 
 * I Cor. ii. 9. 
 
 4 Carlyle, Frenth Revolution, vol. i. chap. 2, p. 8.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE FAITH 
 
 Expect great things, also expect the least things. For 
 the greatest faith, I often think, is shown about the 
 least matters. People will believe the soul is sure to be 
 saved, who have not the heart to believe that God will 
 take away some small evil, if they pray for it. 
 
 II n'y a pas de petites choses dans ce monde, attendu 
 que Dieu se mele de toutes. 
 
 WHEN the area which is swept by the eye of * faith is 
 so vast, it is necessary that the vision should be 
 steadied by certain fixed and unalterable landmarks, 
 without which any certainty would be impossible and 
 any real progress be gravely retarded. 
 
 Just as in science there are certain first principles 
 about which all are agreed, and which no one but a 
 madman would dispute, so in Faith there are certain 
 points of belief which have been revealed as absolute 
 certainties, from which he who would investigate in 
 the region of Faith must start on his quest, to which he 
 will return if he finds himself perplexed or in manifest 
 error, or brought up by conclusions contrary to those 
 things which are most surely believed among us. It is 
 sometimes forgotten that true liberty is best secured 
 within limits. A liberty to disbelieve first principles, 
 whether gained by human experience or revealed to 
 human faith, only results in a waste of time and 
 mental energy, and retards progress. A man who 
 takes his place in the long line of scientific research 
 
 135
 
 136 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 starts from a vantage-ground secured to him by the 
 labours and skill of past generations, and he does 
 not make it his first aim to rebuild for himself the 
 staging from which he works, or reconstruct every 
 plank of his scientific platform. So the Christian 
 child enters on the life of Faith with a certain position 
 secured to him. Certain points he may regard as 
 definitely settled for ever by the sacred tradition of 
 the Church, acting on revelations made to and adapted 
 by her. He may attempt to reconstruct these, if he 
 will ; but it will be at his own risk, and at a loss of 
 valuable time in a life none too long for the work com- 
 mitted to it. For we shall see that the objects of 
 Faith set in the spiritual firmament, and the powers 
 and duties of Faith entrusted to the Christian, are not 
 merely his for the purposes of stimulating a scientific 
 curiosity, or even ultimately of steadying his footsteps 
 in his passage through a difficult world ; but they are 
 his, that he may the better fulfil the end and object of 
 his being, which is to glorify God in carrying on the 
 work in which every man has a share, and to which 
 every man is bound to contribute. It is obvious 
 that it will be of serious consequence to a man 
 at the outset of his career, and will continue to affect 
 his actions to the end of his life, that he should have a 
 right theory of the condition of things in which he 
 finds himself placed. 
 
 It will make all the difference to him, for instance, 
 whether he regards this world around him as a good 
 world, gradually developing its perfections, or whether 
 he believes it to be an imperfect, a fallen world, per- 
 petually struggling to throw off inherent corruptions 
 and defects ; whether, in fine, the Fall, if there were a 
 Fall, was a fall upwards into a more perfect state out 
 of savagery, or a rail downwards from a state of felt 
 union with God into a state of alienation from Him. 
 
 It will be very important, again, for a man to know
 
 THE FAITH 137 
 
 for certain whether there is a God in Heaven at all ; if 
 so, to know Who He is, and What He is, as far as He 
 has been pleased to reveal Himself, or as far as Man 
 can discover Him. Is He a God who dwells in the 
 Epicurean security of Olympus; as Lucretius has 
 painted Him ? 
 
 Omnis enim per se Divum natura necesse est 
 Immortal! aevo summa cum pace fruatur 
 Semota ab nostris rebus sejunctaque longe : 
 Nam privata dolore omni, privata periclis, 
 Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nil indiga nostri, 
 Nee bene promeritis capitur nee tangitur ira. 1 
 
 Or is He a God Who is touched with the feeling of 
 our infirmities, and rewards and punishes men for their 
 doings ? 
 
 Even more it is of the last importance that there 
 should be some knowledge, if knowledge may be had, 
 as to the communication, if any, between earth and 
 Heaven ; that all that can be known about grace and 
 divine help should be at the disposal of his Faith ; 
 and that he should be able to use those means of access 
 to God, and open up those channels of approach of God 
 to him, which make life so different in its weakness 
 and in its struggles to him who possesses this saving 
 knowledge. 
 
 The Church believes herself to possess a compendium 
 of such necessary principles of the things which every 
 man ought to know and believe to his soul's health in 
 the Catholic Creeds. And therefore every child at his 
 Baptism not only promises to renounce all that God 
 hates, but also to believe all that God teaches. Which 
 is summed up for him in its simplest shape in what is 
 known as the Apostles 1 Creed. Here is contained in a 
 handy form, which, without any serious effort, can be 
 committed to memory, those great root-principles on 
 which the life of Faith is based, and which cannot be 
 
 1 Lucretius, De rerum naturd, ii. 646-651.
 
 138 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 disputed without serious harm to the development and 
 progress of the Christian soul. 
 
 It is not the object of this particular volume of the 
 series to discuss the history or inner structure of the 
 Apostles' 1 Creed. The present object is rather to show 
 the far-reaching consequences of such a profession of 
 faith if it be conscientiously acted upon ; and it will be 
 recognised at once how the Church Catechism narrows 
 down all the mysteries and subtle doctrines of the Creed 
 into this one issue, namely, their direct bearing on the 
 individual soul ; while it shows the child that he learns 
 to believe in the Creed in God the Father, Who made 
 him and all the world ; secondly, in God the Son, Who 
 has redeemed him and all mankind ; and thirdly, in 
 God the Holy Ghost, Who sanctifies him and all the 
 elect people of God. 
 
 It is to this inner bearing of the Creed on life, to 
 the thought of the influence of what we have promised 
 on what we habitually practise, that our thoughts as 
 baptized Christians should sometimes be directed. 
 
 First of all, the life of the Christian is the life of 
 one who believes in the Fatherhood of God. 'He 
 professeth to have the knowledge of God : and he 
 calleth himself the child of the Lord ... he pro- 
 nounceth the end of the just to be blessed, and maketh 
 his boast that God is his father/ 1 The very terms of 
 his profession, short and pregnant as they are, ought 
 all to be helpful to him. The Christian's father is the 
 Father, the Being on Whom all things depend for life 
 and breath, and Who pre-eminently is the Father of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, and from Whom all fatherhood 
 in Heaven and in earth takes its name. 2 The tender- 
 1 Wisdom ii. 13, 16. * Ephes. iii. 15.
 
 THE FAITH 139 
 
 ness of the term in which the personal Principle of all 
 life is named in itself should dissipate any sense of 
 fate or chance, much more any sense of loneliness and 
 insignificance, as an incitement to moral incapacity. 
 The Creed which turns the mind full upon a God who 
 is a father is supported by the divine form of prayer, 
 which also supplicates Him by this same Name. A 
 man who believes in the Fatherhood of God believes 
 at once in his own importance, and in the certainty of 
 receiving loving help, and the abundant manifestations 
 of a tender love. 
 
 He is further led on to believe that this Father is 
 Almighty. That He shares His throne with no rival ; 
 that there is no divided empire in the world, partly 
 belonging to the powers of good, partly to the powers 
 of evil. 
 
 At first this may seem but a barren theological 
 truth which orthodoxy must ever be concerned to 
 maintain. But as he passes along his way and becomes 
 battered in the battle of life, there is hardly any truth 
 which is more precious to him, no strength which is 
 more supporting, than the Almightiness of the Al- 
 mighty. Here is a point in which Satan pushes 
 continually his usurping claims, that there are situa- 
 tions in which man is powerless in his struggles after 
 good, attitudes of life in which evil is irresistible. 
 And again and again it may be seen how men are 
 borne down by the fascinations of the approach of evil, 
 as a man is rendered powerless by the approach of 
 some dread monster; and the Christian becomes the 
 victim of his foe, not because he is powerless to resist, 
 but because he believes himself unable to escape. So 
 the legend of S. Christopher, which so impressed itself 
 on the mediaeval Church, represents the joy of a man 
 who, in his veneration for strength, found himself at 
 last in the service of the strongest man, who yet was 
 found in the fashion of an infant, and not in the
 
 140 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 strength of a warrior, nor in the powers of pitiless 
 evil. 
 
 And further, the son of God is fortified still more 
 by the knowledge that all things were made by his 
 Father in Heaven, and of right belong to Him, and that 
 he moves amidst the abundant evidences of God's power 
 and benevolence. It gives an added lustre to the earth 
 to know that it all comes from and is preserved by 
 God : the lilies in their beauty attract His notice, the 
 birds as they fly or drop to the ground are under His 
 special care. Such homely principles as thrift and 
 benevolence, kindness to animals, and the dignity of 
 labour become fortified with a fresh sanction, when 
 they are felt to be the attitude which is due to God 
 from those who move about in a world which belongs 
 to Him, amidst the manifold signs of His presence 
 and protecting care. 
 
 The Christian's belief, then, in the Fatherhood of 
 God leads him to a truer sense of his own worth, and 
 of his real position in the economy of creation. ' Of 
 His own will begat He us with the word of truth, that 
 we should be a Kind of first-fruits of His creatures/ 1 
 And truly, to him who realises what is meant by it, it 
 is a wonderful thing to live ; to have been started in 
 the world by such a Father, with such powers ; to be 
 able to fall back on so much might, and to be surrounded 
 with so many evidences of beauty and resource. 
 
 The Christian who says his creed from his heart may 
 feel, as he says it, that he is the noblest expression of 
 God's fatherly love, the fullest witness to His might, 
 and the choicest exhibition of the beauty of His 
 handiwork. 
 
 If he looks at his body alone he feels that every 
 
 generation of the world adds a depth of meaning to 
 
 the expression of the Psalmist : * I will give thanks 
 
 unto Tnee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.' 2 
 
 1 S. James i. 18. * Ps. cxxxix. 13.
 
 THE FAITH 141 
 
 He goes with the artist and sees in it the wonderful 
 beauty of form and colour and expression, which have 
 made physical beauty one of Satan's deadliest baits 
 wherewith to entrap souls which have forgotten God, 
 while he recognises the real dignity which underlies 
 the outward expression of the life within. He goes 
 with the surgeon and sees with him the wondrous 
 mechanism of bone and muscle, vein and artery, 
 and all the subtle functions of life so delicately ad- 
 justed, and so admirably contrived, that the many 
 members different in themselves all contribute to the 
 welfare of the one body. He goes further with the 
 philosopher and traces the power of the mind through 
 the regions of thought, imagination, and memory. He 
 pauses in admiration before the throne of the Will 
 sitting supreme in control over the network of adminis- 
 tration which passes before it. While taking the hand 
 of Religion he goes higher still, and sees in the region 
 of the spirit the boundless possibilities which are open 
 to man, in whose heart God Himself condescends to 
 dwell, vouchsafing the light of His countenance and 
 the greatness of His strength. 
 
 It is an awful thing to see a man who has gone 
 wrong. There is nothing to compare to the degrada- 
 tion of the sinner in the world of God's creating. 
 Whatever may be thought of the phenomena of actual 
 possession by evil spirits, such as appears to have been 
 common when our Blessed Lord was on earth, the 
 adverse occupation of man by evil suggests many points 
 of resemblance to it. When sin gets possession of a 
 man all his most precious and dignified powers seem 
 to be worked in the interests of evil, and to his own 
 degradation. The very greatness of his gifts marks out 
 his capacity for humiliation and depravity. 
 
 But, on the other hand, there is nothing more wonder- 
 ful than a man in whom all the beautiful mechanism of 
 his being is directed to a right end. Here at last may
 
 142 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 be seen how completely man is the first-fruits of God's 
 creatures. If the word 'sinner" 1 is a sad one, suggestive of 
 waste and ruin and misapplied powers, the word * saint/ 
 on the other hand, is a glorious one, showing how man 
 may shine as the stars around the greater light of the 
 Incarnate Son of God, Who rules the day of this 
 world's splendour. To believe in the Fatherhood of 
 God is to believe in the importance of our own mission, 
 the dignity of our extraction, and the greatness of our 
 powers. It is to submit ourselves to the education 
 wherewith He forms those who are to live with Him 
 in the dignity of sonship for ever. It is to submit to 
 chastening and discipline to secure the peaceable fruits 
 of righteousness. It is to refuse to submit to the 
 tyranny of evil as being powerless to enslave one who 
 was born to be a king. It is to move with awe amidst 
 the beauties of creation, palpitating with the warmth 
 of life, fresh from the impress of the hand of God. It 
 is to close the great hymn of praise which ceaselessly 
 mounts up on high from all creation singing at its 
 work, with the conscious praise of rational creatures who 
 know what great things God has done for them, and 
 that it is a joyful and pleasant thing to be thankful. 
 For so it is that when all other created things have 
 poured out their praise, the heavens above and the 
 earth beneath, the sun in its splendour, the moon and 
 the stars in their glory, the showers and the wind, the 
 seasons in their ordered course, the mountains, the 
 seas, the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the earth, 
 man closes the great hymn man as God created him, 
 man as God singled him out to be the child of His 
 inheritance, man in his humble dependence on Him, 
 or in self-devotion to His service and proclaims that 
 the end of all creation is to glorify God, and that to 
 believe in the Fatherhood of God is to proclaim His 
 honour.
 
 THE FAITH 143 
 
 II 
 
 In the second place, the life of a Christian is the life 
 of one who believes in the saving grace of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, ' Who hath redeemed me, and all man- 
 kind.' 
 
 It is needful to insist on this fact, at the outset, 
 that it is impossible for a Christian to dwell on the 
 Fatherhood of God without going on to think of His 
 redemptive grace. It is deliberately suggested in 
 certain popular schemes of education that to believe 
 in God as the great Father of us all is a belief amply 
 sufficient for the mental or spiritual capacity of a child; 
 that it is a simple doctrine on which generally all are 
 agreed, and which does not require any deep subtlety 
 of theological apprehension. The Incarnation of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ and His Atonement, on the other 
 hand, open up at once the way to theological distinc- 
 tions, and sectarian bitterness, and are doctrines which 
 may well be added, where necessary, afterwards by those 
 who wish to give a more theological flavour to the 
 simplicity of a plain and undisputed religion. Nothing 
 can be more unsound than such a contention, and 
 nothing more disastrous in its results. The Christian 
 child who wakes up to the sense of his privileges con- 
 veyed to him in Baptism may well say : 
 
 Non haec in foedera veni. 
 
 The creed of his Baptism, which the Church ordered 
 to be explained to him, knows of no such mutilation, 
 and for these reasons. Who shall dare to pronounce 
 that to be indifferent which the Lord declared to be 
 essential ? Not to dwell on the testimony of certain 
 definite statements, whose genuineness has never been 
 seriously disputed, it would be difficult to deny that 
 the words which close the twentieth chapter of S. John's
 
 144 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 Gospel represent the message proclaimed to the world 
 in the record of our Lord's life and teaching contained 
 in the New Testament : ' These are written, that ye 
 might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God : 
 ana that, believing, ye might have life through His 
 name/ 1 The message proclaimed in the Gospel is the 
 message of salvation through Jesus Christ, and no 
 system of education can afford to despise it. 
 
 Further, experience has shown, ana is showing every 
 day, as will be seen from testimony quoted above, 2 
 that to advance through the world with hands out- 
 stretched to snatch the bounty of the Father must 
 needs be to court disaster, unless there be also the 
 protecting grace of a Saviour. The materials through 
 which the machine of life is pushed, blunt and injure 
 its delicate mechanism, if it be unprotected and 
 guarded. The Father, the Saviour, the Sanctifier 
 move on together in the unity of the undivided and 
 indivisible Trinity, and as the Catechism clearly 
 indicates, each Person of the Godhead is related 
 to the inmost life of the Christian in a unity of 
 beneficence. 
 
 The disasters which attend our advanced civilisation 
 are the disasters which spring from an unprotected 
 use of material advantages in a heart which has grown 
 up unfortified by that sanctity, which enables a man 
 to separate himself from what is hurtful, and separate 
 himself to what is good. 
 
 The life of a Christian, then, who believes in Christ 
 must exhibit the distinctive characteristics which belong 
 to a redeemed man. It has been asserted that modrni 
 Christianity is only a civilised heathenism. Certainly 
 men have a right to ask that there should be displayed 
 in the Christian life features of beauty unknown to 
 the ages before the coming of Christ, something which 
 distinguishes one who believes himself to have luvn 
 1 S. John xx. 31. * P. 115, 116.
 
 THE FAITH 145 
 
 redeemed by the precious Blood of Christ, and to have 
 learned at His lips the lesson of a pure morality. 
 
 The Creed exhibits step by step the salient facts of 
 the incarnation, birth, death, resurrection, and ascension 
 of Jesus Christ, with the same venerating insistence 
 which characterises the obsecrations of the Litany, as 
 if each separate act constituted a fresh appeal to our 
 thankfulness and adoring love. And from the enumera- 
 tion of the facts of our Blessed Lord's life there emerges 
 this great truth, the belief in which must profoundly 
 influence our conduct, namely, that our Saviour entered 
 the world to do two things : to be, first of all, ' a sacrifice 
 for sin, 1 and then secondly, 'an ensample of godly 
 life.' The life of a Christian who believes in his pro- 
 fession of faith must clearly be a life which is answering 
 to these two characteristics. If Christ came into the 
 world definitely to deal with sin, and to make real 
 goodness possible, it must be a life which negatively 
 has a power over sin in resisting it, and positively a 
 power over righteousness in attaining to it. 
 
 Every Christian to whom these articles of the Creed 
 are a reality should be exhibiting the power of Christ's 
 Sacrifice, which has passed into his ordinary life of 
 struggle with evil. There will be marks and fruits 
 of the Sacrifice coming forth in the daily life, as from 
 one who says, ' Thou art worthy . . . for Thou wast 
 slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood. 1 1 
 In the first place, a man to whom the Creed is a reality, 
 who has grasped some of the mystery which underlies 
 the simplicity of the stated facts, might be expected 
 to exhibit something of the seriousness of Christ's 
 Sacrifice. There is a seriousness in the conversation 
 of a man who has seen some of the horrors of war, 
 which is absent from the light-hearted talk of him 
 who has only read about it or studied it at a distance. 
 There is a seriousness which is never far absent from 
 1 Rev. v. 9. 
 
 K
 
 146 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 the face of a great doctor who is daily face to face 
 with vital issues in his wrestling with disease. There 
 is a seriousness also in the face of a man who has just 
 looked death in the face. And in like manner, if the 
 Creed goes not out of feigned lips, it ought to be setting 
 up in the life of the Christian the seriousness which 
 belongs to one who realises that he has been rescued 
 by the Sacrifice of the death of Christ, that he is one 
 who has been bought back, to whom the word has 
 been uttered, 'Take up the Cross, and follow Me, 1 whose 
 life has been deemed sufficiently valuable to receive such 
 a ransom, and who has accepted it again at the hands 
 of God. 
 
 There is some reason to fear that the serious- 
 ness of the ordinary Christian is not commensurate 
 with the seriousness of his Creed. The struggle with 
 sin exhibits few marks of conflict, the purpose of life 
 but a slight sense of its amazing importance. Nothing 
 is so striking as the profound seriousness of the Church 
 in all the ordered structure of her graduated scheme of 
 sanctified beneficence. Holy Baptism speaks at once 
 of an hereditary taint which when eradicated may sur- 
 vive even in a persistent moral weakness. Absolution 
 is a perpetual witness to the rough and dangerous 
 nature of the paths through which life is conducted. 
 Confirmation tells of vacillation and weakness, and of 
 failing strength. Holy Communion tells of spiritual 
 starvation ; the clergy, as they move about, suggest a 
 ministry of healing in an unhealthy world. The very 
 symbolism of a material Church, with its Font and 
 Altar, spiritually recalls the sacrificial blood and puri- 
 ficatory rites of the old covenant, in a way which ought 
 to appeal to what is serious in the heart of man, in an 
 intensity of meaning which an auditorium converging 
 on a pulpit must utterly fail to secure. The very per- 
 sistence of the Creed, under which the proud intolK-ct 
 of man chafes, or which the superficial regard as a
 
 THE FAITH 147 
 
 kind of ecclesiastical impertinence, is weighted with the 
 same serious assumption that a right faith is necessary 
 to salvation. Would that this aspect of the Creed had 
 branded itself deeper on this frivolous age. The Religion 
 of Jesus Christ, whose foundation is marked with such 
 precision, can never be the easy-going expression of 
 individual views and opinions shifting and adapting 
 themselves to every age. It cannot be a matter of good 
 advice, or a theme to be expressed in good music, or over- 
 loaded with what is bright and beautiful to conceal its 
 bareness. If the religion of the Jew, which was the 
 shadow of good things to come, was a religion of great 
 obligations, much more will the religion of the Christian, 
 which deals with the substance, be reared up on strong 
 obligations also. 
 
 A religion which costs nothing and is easy gives the 
 lie to the second great division of the Creed, for it 
 shows that he who professes it has not taken the 
 trouble to master the mystery which underlies the 
 simple facts which are there threaded together in a 
 string of consecutive importance. 
 
 Besides this seriousness which has been described, a 
 man to whom the Creed is a reality will be exhibiting 
 something of the strength of Christ's Sacrifice. Ezra 
 said of old, that it was idle to profess belief in the pro- 
 tecting hand of God, and at the same time to ask for 
 the material help which the king was ready to afford 
 him; 1 and so in like manner it ill becomes those who 
 believe in the efficacy of Christ's Sacrifice, who believe 
 that it was ' for us men and for our salvation ' that 
 Christ came down from heaven, to show signs of weak- 
 ness. This cannot be the attitude of those whose daily 
 Prayer is this, 'We therefore pray Thee, help Thy 
 servants whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious 
 blood. 1 2 One of Satan's most effective weapons is fear. 
 There are hundreds of men and women falling a prey 
 
 1 Ezra viii. 22, 2 Book of Common Prayer, Te Deum,
 
 148 i THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 to his wiles, not by reason of anything that is, but 
 from fear of what might be. The devil, exercising his 
 characteristic influence, loosens the hold of the Christian 
 on the different sources of strength which are open to 
 him, either by a subtle disparagement or a downright 
 opposition, until only failure and disappointment 
 remain. Despair is causing the overthrow of many a 
 champion of God at the present day. Despair of 
 goodness in the face of organised evil ; despair of 
 nobility of character in the presence of the low tone 
 which pervades society ; despair of success when every- 
 where first principles seem to be giving way ; despair 
 of finding leaders, where the path is strewed with the 
 bodies of fallen warriors. Whereas a real belief in 
 Jesus Christ the Lord, and in the power of His Sacrifice, 
 ought to make such an attitude impossible. God 
 reigns in His own world, He is where He was before 
 the perplexing mist settled down over the face of the 
 world, and the theatre of our action. There has no 
 strange thing happened to us but such as is common 
 to man. When that great mystery took place, of which 
 we now joyously sing in the confident tones of our 
 Creed, when Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, 
 Roman civilisation stood aloof from an event which, 
 without dispute, has revolutionised the world, in com- 
 plete ignorance and indifference as to that which was 
 nothing else than the turning-point or hinge of history. 
 When Rome became conscious of Christ it was to 
 crucify Him ; when it became confronted with Chris- 
 tianity it was to endeavour to extirpate it as a 
 degraded superstition. The religious world was no 
 less indifferent, and afterwards no less hostile, all the 
 
 E reparation of God seemed to have failed, the laborious 
 uilding-up of the chosen race as the shrine of the Incar- 
 nation seemed to have failed. The people of God were 
 apostate and faithless, the sceptre had departed from 
 Judah, and the Law-giver from between his feet ; when
 
 THE FAITH 149 
 
 Christ came unto His own His own received Him 
 not; the expectation of Israel was represented by 
 a handful of old men and women, mere reactionary 
 relics of the past as they appeared; the very genealogy 
 of the Messiah seemed tainted, of the three women 
 there recorded, one was an alien, and two were sinners. 
 And so the cause of God has gone on. Not many 
 wise, not many mighty, not many noble are called, the 
 truth of God may at times have been considered the 
 peculiar property of slaves and outcasts ; the glorious 
 promises of the Gospel again and again seemed to 
 shrivel up in the utterly incongruous result which they 
 produced in the lives of men ; and so it continues to be, 
 men boast of the freedom proclaimed and secured by 
 the gospel, and they are everywhere in chains. Men's 
 hearts fail them for fear, even while they proclaim 
 their belief in the strength of Christ's Sacrifice. And 
 yet there can be no doubt that the strength is there, 
 the stream of redemption seems to disappear and 
 plunge into the earth, but soon it emerges again. 
 There is what men call a movement, the ecclesiastical 
 apathy of the middle ages is flooded by the earnestness 
 of the preaching Friars; the utter deadness of the 
 eighteenth century in England is quickened by the 
 outburst of Evangelical fervour, and the nineteenth is 
 roused by the earnestness and vitality of a movement 
 beginning at Oxford, almost as despised and thwarted 
 as Christianity itself; as with the Church and nation 
 so with the individual, men are startled with what 
 they call a conversion ; in the Providence of God, it is 
 but the stream of His redemptive grace surging up to 
 find the level from which it sprang. Perhaps the 
 sense of strength which underlies the profession of our 
 belief in Christ is the motive which is needed more 
 than any other to help us to face the prevailing despair 
 and the sense of failure which paralyses effort, and pro- 
 duces public panic and private cowardice. 'Strong
 
 150 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 Son of God ' is still the passionate cry of those who 
 believe in a Saviour, and who refuse to believe it 
 possible that help should be denied to those whom 
 Christ has purchased with His precious Blood. It is 
 but to extend this confidence of belief a little further 
 that the Christian should feel and act as one who 
 knows that the effect of the Sacrifice of Christ in which 
 he believes is a present active power in full operation 
 in his own life. 
 
 The Christian who professes his belief in Christ is 
 not only a serious man and a strong man, but he is a 
 forgiven man. The conscience which makes cowards 
 of us all may be soothed and comforted by the present 
 efficacy of Christ's atoning Sacrifice. And for the man 
 who goes about his work cowed and beaten by sin 
 there can be no real belief in the power of the Sacrifice 
 of the death of Christ and of the benefits which we 
 receive thereby. Every thinking being must look with 
 thankfulness and wonder at the gigantic strides made 
 by modern surgery in dealing with human disease and 
 the results of accident. He would receive scant pity 
 who spent his life nourishing a disabling impotence 
 which a trifling surgical operation would remove. So 
 to compare God's great gifts to the life of the human 
 body with His greater gifts to the life of the human 
 soul, it would ill become one who professes his belief in 
 the power of Christ's redemptive Blood to pass through 
 life unrelieved, unhealed, and unforgiven. Spiritual 
 surgery, to speak with reverence, has been revolu- 
 tionised by the Atonement. Spiritual operations are 
 now possible, which before could not be attempted 
 with any hope of success. The redemptive power of 
 the Cross has been concentrated for us into certain 
 great acts of sovereign efficacy, one of which has already 
 Been considered in Holy Baptism, a second of whieo 
 must be considered later in Holy Communion, mid a 
 third is known as Absolution, not indeed incident to
 
 THE FAITH 151 
 
 all, and, unlike the other two, not generally necessary 
 to salvation, and which will in its turn form the subject 
 of a separate volume in this series. 
 
 It is not that confession is not necessary for every 
 one. Every one must confess his sins to God, who 
 wishes to be forgiven ; but the use of the spiritual 
 doctor is not forced upon any one ; although in an un- 
 healthy climate like the world, so far from it being 
 undesirable constantly to take medicine, the constant 
 use of confession to God, with or without the doctor, 
 is as necessary as the constant use of drugs to a man 
 living on a fever-stricken marsh. It is one of the mis- 
 fortunes incident to controversy, that men have been 
 led to fix their eyes on the bitterness of confession 
 rather than on the unspeakable benefit of Absolution. 
 They have thought more of the medicine than the cure. 
 But here, to those who have experienced the wonder- 
 ful strength of God's pardoning grace conveyed in 
 Absolution, is an extension of the Redemption into his 
 daily life which renders more fervent the expression of 
 his belief in Jesus his Redeemer. Here is an evidence 
 of power within the region of experience, which lights 
 up with a fresh glow the simple expression of his belief 
 in a Saviour Who has redeemed him and all mankind. 
 
 And so it is with that other store-house of redemptive- 
 grace the Holy Communion. No one ought to remain 
 a slave to sin and burdened with guilt within reach 
 of that Blessed Sacrament. For God, ' to the end that 
 we should alway remember the exceeding great love of 
 our Master and only Saviour, Jesus Christ, thus dying 
 for us, and the innumerable benefits which, by His 
 precious blood-shedding He hath obtained to us . . . 
 hath instituted and ordained holy mysteries as pledges 
 of His love, and for a continual remembrance of His 
 death, to our great and endless comfort.'' 1 In this 
 Holy Sacrament we have not only a mighty witness, in 
 1 Book of Common Prayer, ' Holy Communion. '
 
 152 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 the unbroken tradition of the Church, to the truth of 
 those articles of the Creed which express our belief in 
 the redemptive death of Christ, but we have also a 
 living exhibition of its present power, an active be- 
 lief in which renders the dominion of sin within us 
 impossible. 
 
 But the belief in Jesus Christ carries us one step 
 further: it not only enables a man to profit by the 
 great sacrifice of the Cross, the fruits of which have 
 passed into his life, it also brings him face to face with 
 an example, not an ideal portrait of what might have 
 been, but an actual representation of a life which really 
 existed in the form of humanity. A belief in Jesus Christ 
 pledges a Christian to an imitation, however feeble it 
 may be, of that life which exhibited, once for all, the 
 perfection which might be attained by a man with a 
 body, mind, and spirit constituted in the way we 
 know, Who adapted Himself to the habits of a fallen 
 world, exhibiting the only possible methods of a return 
 to perfection in conditions rendered dangerous and 
 difficult by Adam's transgression. We are familiar 
 with many modes and suggestions for the fuller imita- 
 tion of Christ. * What would Christ have done ? ' is 
 pressed as a formula, sometimes with disastrous results, 
 oy those who have not realised the principles, as far 
 as we may know them, which seem to have governed 
 the actions of the perfect Man. Certainly we may see 
 two principles which a belief in Him entails on those 
 who profess it; the one is a complete detachment from 
 all the long tale of acquisitiveness which has marked 
 the progress of Adam's children, who have followed his 
 ideal of happiness in sei/ing and acquiring anything 
 and everything which gives promise of immediate 
 satisfaction of appetite or a prospective acquirement 
 of worldly wisdom ; and the other is a deliberate 
 attachment to all the minute requirements which God 
 has laid down in the world as the embodiim nt of His
 
 THE FAITH 153 
 
 will for man. Not even a superficial observer can fail 
 to notice that the liberty of the perfect Man was 
 maintained in constant and minute obedience to a law 
 which was imperfect in itself, and to religious obser- 
 vances which represented to Him places where man 
 could stand before God, and points of contact between 
 earth and Heaven. A man who believes in the second 
 great division of the Creed will exhibit a life, not 
 necessarily fantastically adapted to the conditions of 
 existence in Judaea in the first century of the Christian 
 era, but suited to the conditions of this world, which 
 never vary, in so far as it is a fallen and therefore a 
 dangerous world. And pre-eminently, therefore, he will 
 turn himself away from anything that might entangle 
 him, while he studies with earnestness those regulations 
 imposed from on high, assisted by which he may pass 
 through the shifting circumstances of the road of life 
 protected by the power in which he has learned to 
 believe. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In the third place the life of a Christian will exhibit 
 the characteristics of one who believes himself to be 
 endowed with the Holy Ghost. The creed to which 
 the Christian is pledged binds him to regard himself 
 not only as made by a loving Father, and redeemed by 
 a powerful Saviour, but also as sanctified by the Holy 
 Ghost together with all those who are the elect people 
 of God. 1 So the privileges become closer; 'all the 
 world," 1 'all mankind 1 become narrowed down into 'the 
 elect people of God,' those who are called into His 
 Church for the reception of special blessings, which they 
 hold in trust to distribute to every creature ; to all the 
 world. 
 
 1 See on this phrase, Robinson, The Church Catechism Explained, 
 P- 43-
 
 154 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 The belief in the Holy Ghost pledges a man to 
 exhibit the supernatural power of the Church as the 
 instrument of his sanctification, a sense of fellow- 
 citizenship with the saints, the blessedness of a life of 
 non-imputed sin, and the aspirations of immortality in 
 the godliness which has the promise of the life which 
 now is and of that which is to come. In another 
 volume of this series an attempt has been made to 
 describe in a rough sketch the divine society known as 
 the Church, 1 which is holy because the Holy Spirit 
 works in it ; and yet, although this is the chief, it 
 is not by any means the only region in which the 
 Christian becomes conscious of this sacred influence 
 and Divine Presence. 
 
 There are certainly four regions in which we are 
 accustomed to trace the power of the Holy Spirit. 
 There is this world of beauty all around us, in the 
 order and laws of which we are invited to see the 
 handiwork of Him Who once brooded over chaos at 
 the beginning. * The Spirit of the Lord filleth the 
 world : and that which containeth all things hath 
 knowledge of the voice ;^ 2 there is the region of 
 conscience, on which we have dwelt at some length 
 above ; there is the inspired page of Holy Scripture, 
 in which we are accustomed to trace the real presence 
 of the Holy Ghost; and there is the divine society, 
 known as the Church, with its four marks of unit\. 
 holiness, catholicity, and Apostolic foundation. Out 
 of each and all of these regions there is ever passing 
 into the heart of the believer the sanctification wlm-h 
 js the distinguishing mark of one who not only h;^ 
 heard that there is a Holy Ghost, but has actually 
 received Him. 
 
 We all of us profess to believe that certainly at two 
 great periods in our lives the Holy Ghost came to d\M 11 
 with us, and be in us: at our Baptism and at our 
 1 Religion, chap. xi. a Wisdom i. 7.
 
 THE FAITH 155 
 
 Confirmation. These may represent two parts of one 
 action, and two separate modes of approach of the 
 Blessed Spirit, 1 but the result is described for us by 
 S. Paul that we have become temples of the Holy 
 Spirit. 2 And it is always to be remembered that these 
 are not two solitary and isolated events in the past, but 
 that they are of living and permanent consequence in 
 the present. A baptized man can never be as though 
 he had never been baptized, and Confirmation is never 
 repeated. Baptism is a sacrament that gives character, 
 and Confirmation is the complement of Baptism. And 
 therefore a belief in the Holy Ghost which is real 
 ought to be exhibiting in life the permanent effects of 
 an indwelling Spirit. In my Baptism I was born again, 
 I received there the capacity for holiness ; here all my 
 natural endowments were spiritualised ; not only were 
 bad tendencies kept under, or at least put under con- 
 trol, but they were made capable of being utilised by 
 a spiritually developed will. Here the disabling 
 powers of heredity were met, recognised, and turned 
 into powers of good, so that I could go forward still 
 with my own endowment, and the characteristics of 
 my own personality, but vitalised and endowed with 
 power from on High. 
 
 So in my Confirmation I received a gift of strength 
 in view of that which God might see fit to put upon 
 me, in view of the never-ceasing machinations of Satan 
 and in view of myown weak nature. I received the gift of 
 strength. I became an anointed king over the province 
 where God set me. I became sealed for His purpose 
 and marked for His own possession. And to believe in 
 this is to exhibit a strength and firmness in life, a pride 
 of possession, an endowment of strength which sharply 
 marks off the baptized and confirmed Christian as one 
 of the chosen recipients of God's especial favour. And 
 
 1 See Holy Baptism and Confirmation in this series. 
 
 2 I Cor. vi. 19.
 
 156 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 so out of these other regions also, the Holy Spirit in 
 Whom we believe will be manifested. The sacramental 
 indwelling of the Holy Ghost is unique, and transcends 
 all other manifestations of His power, yet we ought 
 also to be examples of those who are instructed and 
 made wise by His guidance. English people are apt 
 to be a little insincere in this respect. They make it 
 their boast that they have access to an open Bible, 
 in which they believe that they can hear the word of 
 God. Any endeavour to deprive them of this right 
 would be keenly resented, and with justice, and yet 
 but little use is being made of the Bible as a devotional 
 book ; the claim to treat it as you would treat any 
 other book is depriving it of the reverence hitherto 
 bestowed upon it ; eagerness to understand the conun- 
 drums of critics supersedes the eagerness to listen to 
 the message of God. It becomes of comparatively 
 little importance to study devotionally a book which 
 presents no points of solid superiority to the sacred 
 books of other ancient religions. The devotional use 
 of the Old Testament Scriptures by our Blessed Lord 
 alone might lead many to seek the same source of help 
 for their spiritual life. The commentary has yet to be 
 written in which is exhibited the part which different 
 books and different verses even of Holy Scripture have 
 played in the lives and destinies of men. Those who 
 are accustomed to its frequent and ordered use know 
 something of the strange and mysterious approprinh - 
 ness with which it identifies itself with the sequence 
 of events both public and private in human life. There 
 is no doubt whatever that by constant spiritual inter- 
 course with God in Holy Scripture a particular grace 
 and beauty passes into the soul. It was said of 
 the late Dr. Liddon, * His life was n clear channel, 
 down which the news of a life of grace might |>.i-> 
 to us without derision. Can there be a Letter test 
 of the spiritual sincerity of a man than this, that
 
 THE FAITH 157 
 
 we feel no shock when he speaks to us in Bible 
 language P' 1 
 
 So in the life guided by conscience, so in the life of 
 reverence lived in the felt presence of the majesty of 
 God, we may proclaim our belief in the Holy Ghost 
 Who sanctifies, that Power which comes like the 
 rushing wind from an unknown quarter, subtle and 
 penetrating, filling the whole house we inhabit. 
 
 It is not a little cheering to notice amidst much 
 that might cause depression, and even despair, how 
 goodness still holds its own as the great appealing 
 power of the world. It stands out conspicuously in 
 the life of our late sovereign, Victoria ; amidst her 
 many excellences and gifts her goodness makes its 
 supreme appeal to the homage and gratitude of man- 
 kind. Those memories which seem most likely to 
 survive out of the traditions of famous men which 
 they have left behind them seem to be the memories 
 of goodness which remain where the reputation for 
 greatness, as the world counts greatness, has died out. 
 
 A man is false to his pledged faith when he shrinks 
 from meeting the force of evil with the forces of 
 goodness. Spiritual pride, cant, hypocrisy are all 
 ugly names from which we shrink, but He who told us 
 to do good in secret also told us to let our light so 
 shine before men that they might see our good works, 
 and glorify our Father which is in Heaven. 
 
 It is a bad sign when good men shrink from posts of 
 responsibility, when good men shrink from the witness 
 which may mean martyrdom in its most sinister signi- 
 fication. No doubt it will be with any good man, as 
 it was with our Blessed Lord, that He cannot be hid ; 
 but apart from this the duty remains of using the 
 power of influence which is given by the belief in God, 
 in the conflict with evil which is ever raging in the 
 world. 
 
 1 H. Scott Holland.
 
 168 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 A man who believes in the Fatherhood of God be- 
 lieves in the truth of his own mission, and in the 
 importance of his personal message. A man who 
 believes in the Redemptive power of God moves un- 
 harmed amidst the perils and temptations which he 
 knows to be powerless to entrap him ; while if he 
 believes in the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit 
 he will refuse to be paralysed by the doctrine of 
 human corruption, but will ever press on to exhibit in 
 his own life that excellence of which he knows himself 
 to be capable, in the power of the triune God 
 Whom he knows, and in Whom he has believed.
 
 PART III 
 
 THE COMMANDMENTS 
 
 Question. You said, that your godfathers and godmothers did 
 promise for you, that you should keep God's commandments. 
 Tell me how many there be ? 
 
 Answer. Ten. 
 
 Question. Which be they ? 
 
 Answer. The same which God spake in the twentieth chapter 
 of Exodus, saying, I am the Lord thy God, Who brought thee 
 out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 
 
 I. Thou shalt have none other gods but me. 
 
 II. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor 
 the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the 
 earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. Thou shalt 
 not bow down to them, nor worship them : for I the Lord thy 
 God am a jealous God, and visit the sins of the fathers upon 
 the children unto the third and fourth generation of them 
 that hate Me, and shew mercy unto thousands in them that love 
 Me, and keep My commandments. 
 
 III. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in 
 vain : for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His 
 Name in vain. 
 
 IV. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day. Six 
 days shalt thou labour, and do all that thou hast to do ; but 
 the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou 
 shalt do no manner of work, thou, and thy son, and thy 
 daughter, thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, thy cattle, 
 and the stranger that is within thy gates. For in six the 
 Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, 
 and rested the seventh day ; wherefore the Lord blessed the 
 seventh day, and hallowed it. 
 
 V. Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may 
 be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. 
 
 VI. Thou shalt do no murder. 
 
 159
 
 160 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 
 
 VIII. Thou shalt not steal. 
 
 IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. 
 
 X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt 
 not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his servant, nor his maid, 
 nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is his. 
 
 yue.ftion. What dost thou chiefly learn by these command- 
 ments ? 
 
 Answer. 1 learn two things : my duty towards God, and my 
 duty towards my neighbour. 
 
 (Question. What is thy duty towards God ? 
 
 Answer. My duty towards God is to believe in Him, to fear 
 Him, and to love Him with all my heart, with all my mind, 
 with all my soul, and with all my strength : to worship Him, 
 to give Him thanks, to put my whole trust in Him, to call upon 
 Him, to honour His Holy Name and His Word, and to serve 
 Him truly all the days of my life. 
 
 Question. What is thy duty towards thy neighbour? 
 
 Answer. My duty towards my neighbour, is to love him as 
 myself, and to do to all men as I would they should do unto 
 me : to love, honour, and succour my father and mother : to 
 honour and obey the king, and all that are put in authority 
 under him : to submit myself to all my governors, teachers, 
 spiritual pastors and masters : to order myself lowly and 
 reverently to all my betters : to hurt nobody by word nor deed : 
 to be true and just in all my dealings : to bear no malice nor 
 hatred in my heart : to keep my hands from picking and 
 stealing, and my tongue from evil-speaking, lying, and slander- 
 ing : to keep my body in temperance, soberness, and chastity : 
 not to covet nor desire other men's goods, but to learn and 
 labour truly to get mine own living, and to do my duty in 
 that state of life unto which it shall please God to call me.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PRACTICE 
 
 God's fashion is another ; day by day 
 
 And year by year He tarrieth : little need 
 
 The Lord should hasten ; whom He loves the most 
 
 He seeks not oftenest nor woos him long; 
 
 But by denial quickens his desire 
 
 And in forgetting best remembers him, 
 
 Till that man's heart grows humble, and reaches out 
 
 To the least glimmers of the feet of God, 
 
 Grass on the mountain tops, or the early note 
 
 Of wild-birds before the day 
 
 Wherever sweetly in the ends of earth 
 
 Are fragments of a peace, that knows not man. 
 
 THE renunciation of evil, and the definite acceptance 
 of God on the part of the baptized, have now been 
 examined as showing what was involved in the pledge 
 imposed upon us by the Church in the persons of our 
 god-parents. We received a great blessing from God, 
 and on our part we made some far-reaching promises 
 whose influence extends into the most remote regions 
 of faith and conduct. 
 
 It remains now to examine the third of those 
 promises, by which we were sent forth pledged not only 
 to renounce all that God hates, and to believe all that 
 He teaches, but also to do all that He wills. 
 
 If in the wide region of faith we were able to lean 
 on the expressed tradition of the Church, as to the 
 things which we ought most surely to believe to our 
 soul's health, so in the equally wide field of practice
 
 162 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 the laws of God's kingdom are codified for us into 
 certain broad principles promulgated by God Himself 
 at a period of dread solemnity, with every circum- 
 stance of awe to emphasise their obligation ; and 
 further, as if to show us that the divine sanction still 
 rested upon them under the freer laws of the Christian 
 kingdom, certain specimens of the old law are taken 
 up and expounded in the Sermon on the Mount, and 
 the obligation is carried further still into the region 
 of thought and motive where human cognisance does 
 not reach, nor human penalties run. 
 
 An effort is now being made by those who habitually 
 disparage the Old Testament to represent the Ten Com- 
 mandments as certain crude human enactments imposed 
 by Moses on a people of low moral capacity, enforced 
 by sanctions, where enforced at all,whicn were based on 
 low conceptions of temporal rewards and punishments. 
 We are bidden to turn away from them, with their stern 
 negative prohibitions, to the freer light of the Beati- 
 tudes and the spiritual commands of the gospel. 
 Attention is drawn to the supposed disparagement 
 implied in the words of Christ, * Ye have heard that 
 it was said by them of old time"*: 'but I say unto 
 you,' 1 as if a contrast was there being drawn between 
 a mistaken human ordinance and a divine injunction. 
 But, in the first place, we ought almost certainly to 
 read : * it was said to them [not * by them '] of old time." 1 
 The promulgator of the Law of Sinai and the law of 
 the Beatitudes, and of the divine sermon, is one and 
 the same Lord. The fuller precept contains the less 
 full, and does not abolish it, and the murder of an 
 angry thought does nothing to abrogate the murder 
 of a violent hand. Further, an attitude of contemp- 
 tuous criticism, and a proud disregard for anything 
 based on a system of rewards and punishments, meets 
 with no sanction in the pages of the Prayer Book with 
 1 S. Matt. v. 27, 28.
 
 PRACTICE 163 
 
 which we are now concerned. Every child who is 
 handed back to the parents and god-parents from the 
 Font is pledged to learn by heart the Ten Command- 
 ments given by God on Sinai in all their entirety, subsi- 
 dised but not superseded by other things which a Chris- 
 tian ought to know and believe to his soul's health. 
 Further, every time he is present at the Holy Eucharist 
 he hears read as a lection from the Old Testament, 
 with accompanying responds, the portion of Exodus 
 which contains these commandments. When he is 
 preparing himself for confession, he is bidden to ex- 
 amine himself by ' the rule of God's commandments. 11 
 In former days it was customary, in obedience to a 
 canon still not obsolete, to set up the tables of the 
 Law in Churches ; and Dr. Liddon has said with truth 
 that ' the Ten Commandments are at this moment the 
 moral rule of Christendom, and contain in a compen- 
 dious form an exhaustive statement of human duty 
 towards the Author of our being, and towards our 
 fellow - creatures.' Father Coleridge has also well 
 said : ' They [the commandments] set forth certain 
 principles of the eternal law of morality by taking 
 them, as it were, at the lowest possible point at 
 which their violation sinks to the level of direct 
 grievous sin of the most obvious and unquestionable 
 heinousness.' 2 
 
 As the Creed is the Creed adapted to the needs of a 
 fallen man, so the Law which enforces his obedience is 
 designed in the interests of those who in understanding 
 are children and in malice are men. Generations of 
 Christian children have grown up to maturity, genera- 
 tions of men have passed to their last account, grateful 
 for the Law of God, whose stern prohibition has been 
 best adapted to the weakness of their moral resistance. 
 
 1 Book of Common Prayer, ' Holy Communion.' 
 
 2 Father Coleridge, The Public Life of our Lord, vol. ii. p. 142.
 
 164 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 The Catechism sharply divides the ten laws of God 
 into two divisions, which it will be necessary to consider 
 later under their respective summaries, as containing 
 the duty of a man to his God, and his duty to his 
 neighbour. 
 
 The first four commandments are to be com- 
 mitted to heart by every baptized Christian, as con- 
 taining for him four distinct attitudes which are of 
 obligation to him in dealing with the Lord his Maker. 
 The struggles and failures of Israel of old in keeping 
 these commandments, the conditions which rendered 
 their imposition necessary, are still eloquent to him. 
 The things which happened to Israel of old * happened 
 unto them for ensamples : and they are written for our 
 admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are 
 come/ J 
 
 Of these four the first law sets up with unmistakable 
 emphasis the form of God as the dominating principle 
 of a man's life. Once more it must be insisted upon 
 that man is not at liberty to cast about and dabble in 
 Atheism, Pantheism, or Agnosticism, or whatever takes 
 his fancy. 
 
 ' Thou shalt have a God ' stands forth with startling 
 prominence at the forefront, not only of his life of 
 faith, but of his life of practice. 
 
 It would seem to be a perpetual, or at least a recur- 
 ring, danger in all generations that men should forget 
 God. It was this danger that underlay the whole 
 system of memorials with which the life of a Jew was 
 surrounded, that he might be led on from the thought 
 of what God had done to the expectation of that which 
 He was ready to do. 
 
 When there is so much to make us forget God, there 
 
 1 i Cor. x. 1 1 .
 
 PRACTICE 165 
 
 is but little chance of His presence retaining its rightful 
 position, unless each day has consecrated portions, each 
 week at least one consecrated day, to proclaim by their 
 recurrence the sense of an abiding, ever-present God. 
 It is so easy in every station of life to forget God. The 
 labourer who is face to face with the ordered laws of 
 nature may very soon become a fatalist in his submis- 
 sion to the inevitable sequence of cause and effect, and 
 believe in the direction of the wind, or the power 
 of sun, or the influence of rain, rather than in the 
 immanent interposition of God, Who sits enthroned on 
 order and is upheld by law. There seems to be a 
 peculiarly deadening influence in trade, which makes 
 us wonder when we see how the call of Christ, once at 
 all events, penetrated to the receipt of custom. The 
 rich man and the scientific man are both apt to live as 
 those who have found a world in which they can trace 
 no necessity for the interference of God. The very 
 service of God may become so mechanical as to inter- 
 pose a barrier of formalism between God and the souls 
 of those who by profession are supposed to be most 
 interested in His service. 
 
 The child who has learned the true meaning of this 
 commandment which he has promised to keep, goes 
 forth into the world as one who is pledged at least to 
 this to have a God. It meets him at the very outset 
 of his career ; he steps into rank as one who has been 
 called to occupy a post, and not merely to amuse him- 
 self with a game of chance, in which his interest is to 
 be ever on the side of fortune. The days as they come, 
 the temptations as they approach, the troubles as they 
 threaten, the advantages as they smile upon him, all 
 form to him a part of a rich experience which he can 
 use in the service of God. 
 
 To have a God gives a dignity to life which nothing 
 else can supply. There are times when God manifestly 
 interposes, and the best laid schemes of men are seen
 
 166 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 to fail before the working of a hidden power. But the 
 Christian is pledged not merely to recognise these 
 interpositions, which cannot well be denied, but in all 
 his ways to acknowledge God, in the confidence that 
 He will be found ready at hand to direct his paths. 
 
 The scope of the obligation of this commandment 
 goes even further. If there is a danger of having no 
 God at all, there is a danger of having another God 
 other than the true God. 
 
 A man may regulate his life by a constant appeal to 
 the approval of Almighty God ; or he may guide his 
 cause by the approbation or disapproval of some other 
 power, which he makes the supreme arbiter of his 
 actions. Public opinion, the verdict of the public 
 conscience, may very easily take the place of the 
 allegiance due to Almighty God. Public opinion is 
 not a thing to be despised. In the form of tradition 
 it is entitled to veneration and respect, in the form of 
 proverb and maxim it often represents the common- 
 sense of the world, and the rich accumulation of that 
 result of experience which is most worth preserving ; 
 as propriety or rules of conduct, again, it may wi-11 
 represent a barrier which prudence has raised between 
 the ordinary life of man and the habitual dangers 
 wherewith it is beset. No one can afford to be in- 
 different to the state of feeling around him, even to 
 the prejudices of those with whom he is thrown. Hut 
 the pledge of the baptized binds him down to maintain 
 in all the absolute supremacy of God. If public tradi- 
 tion decrees that the law of the king must override the 
 religious obligation of divine worship, Daniel may not 
 hesitate for a moment, even if the den of lions be the 
 punishment of his refusal. Pilate, whatever be the 
 state of feeling at court, must feel that safety may 
 not be bought at the price of injustice. The child of 
 God goes forth pledged to the absolute supremacy of 
 God in the face of adverse public opinion God first as
 
 PRACTICE 167 
 
 the absolute claimant of an unswerving loyalty ; and he 
 learns to push by the fear of ridicule which besets 
 him as a child, the promise of advantage which meets 
 him as a man, to reach forth to those posts of eminence 
 which God reserves for those who have learned to stand 
 alone, or who have realised that God, and God only, 
 is to be feared, and not the fleeting supremacy of a bad 
 public opinion. 
 
 The Christian is pledged even further than this. 
 He must have a God, he must have the true God, and 
 he must have but one God. There is a constant 
 danger which besets a man of having two Gods, a 
 Sunday God and a week-day God ; One God Who rules 
 in this set of circumstances, and Another Who rules in 
 that. Inconsistency is the besetting sin of good people, 
 and inconsistency is the sin of those whose life is lived 
 under a divided allegiance. The aim of the Christian 
 is to bring all his life under a unity of obligation ; 
 whether he eats or drinks, or whatsoever he does, to do 
 all to the glory of God. God always, God only, God 
 everywhere, is the end of this commandment for every 
 one who has pledged himself to keep it, and to forget 
 its solemn obligation is to inflict on life an irreparable 
 loss. When a man has lost God out of life, then he 
 begins to feel the peculiarity of his position and the 
 irksomeness of his restraints. When the Israelite 
 ceased to feel his privilege as the son of God, there 
 only remained his singularity as one of a peculiar 
 people. The distinctions between clean and unclean, 
 the prohibition to multiply horses, the minute cere- 
 monial, the ordered ritual, became only badges of 
 servitude. ' Let us be as the other nations ' not only 
 represented a loss of faith, it represented a loss of 
 privilege. Ceasing to love the thing which God com- 
 manded, they failed to desire that which He promised. 
 To be without God in the world speedily turns away 
 the face of a man from his promised land, and he
 
 168 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 foregoes the milk and honey which are the reward of 
 warfare, for the fleshpots of Egypt, which mean slavery 
 with satiety. 
 
 II 
 
 The Law of the love of God is imposed on the 
 Christian with still further obligations. Not only is 
 he bound to the service of a God the object of his one 
 and only allegiance, but he is further bound to give to 
 this God that which he gives to no other being in the 
 scale of creation, and to give it in the right way. God 
 Almighty demands the worship of His creatures, and 
 every true Christian is pledged from his new birth at 
 the Font to the due and rational performance of this 
 worship. 1 It may well be doubted whether this atti- 
 tude of the creature to his Creator is taking its proper 
 place, not among the accessories, but in the forefront 
 of the obligations of human life. The language here 
 employed concerning it is extremely suggestive, even 
 startling, and contains for us the will of the Almighty 
 to guide our thoughts and practice in so important a 
 matter. God represents Himself as craving our wor- 
 ship with a desire whose intensity can best be expressed 
 in the language of human passion. Worship mis- 
 directed arouses in the heart of Almighty God a feeling 
 akin to that experienced by a human heart which is 
 jealous of a rival. In no other commandment, except 
 the third, is God's wrath so denounced against those 
 who disregard its prohibition. A punishment which 
 lingers on to the third and fourth generation is not 
 obscurely threatened against those who violate it. 
 The value, then, attached to this commandment, at least 
 by implication, prepares us to receive with less astonish- 
 ment the fact that it is a spiritual sin, in the New 
 
 1 See on this subject, Religion, by the Author, chap, xii., vol. i. o 
 this series.
 
 PRACTICE 169 
 
 Testament, which is pre-eminently overshadowed with 
 the wrath of God. The blasphemy against the Holy 
 Ghost, a sin so subtle and remote, as to be even imper- 
 fectly defined in human consciousness, is singled out 
 as the one sin of which we may even despair of 
 forgiveness. 1 
 
 There are other indications in Holy Scripture which 
 suggest a continuity of treatment in this matter both 
 in the Old and New Testament. 
 
 The judgment on Uzzah for an act of irreverent 
 haste is deeply significant; 2 and the punishment of 
 Uzziah for profanity seems to have connected itself 
 in the mind of the prophet Isaiah with the mystery 
 of divine worship as it was revealed to him. 3 We 
 remember that our Blessed Lord cleansed the Temple 
 twice over, once at the beginning and once at the end of 
 His ministry, and how in point of fact the indignation 
 aroused by this action was the immediate precedent 
 cause to His loss of popularity and His death. 4 Later 
 on in the history of the Church we find irregularities 
 of worship in connection with the Holy Eucharist the 
 cause of serious manifestations of divine displeasure in 
 the Corinthian Church. 5 So that it is quite open to 
 a Christian to-day to wonder whether he has sufficiently 
 gauged the extent of his obligations in this respect, 
 involved in his old Baptismal pledge : as he gazes at 
 the hundreds of religious denominations, some with this 
 and some with that form of worship, some with no wor- 
 ship at all ; as he listens to the contemptuous expressions 
 of those who regard themselves as superior to any such 
 exercises of devotion, he may well ponder over these 
 solemn utterances and eloquent actions, and look to 
 his own worship, and see if his heart is right in this 
 respect towards God. Worship is evidently a good 
 deal more than prayer; public worship is something 
 
 1 S. Luke xii. 10. z 2 Sam. vi. 6. 3 2 Chron. xxvi. 21. 
 
 4 S. Luke xix. 45. 5 i Cor. xi. 30.
 
 170 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 greater than the common recitation of private prayers 
 in public. Worship is rather the expression of the 
 conformity of the human will to Goo's will in glad 
 adoration; the offering made by a rational creature 
 endued with free will of that which is offered uncon- 
 sciously by the irrational creation in conformity to 
 the instinct or tendency of their being and growth. 
 And worship will be therefore always a difficult matter, 
 and will advance a serious claim on the self-sufficiency 
 and obedience of man, that he should be asked to 
 sacrifice so much time and energy on a Being Who is 
 out of sight, thereby expressing indebtedness and 
 dependence on Another Whom many find it possible 
 to ignore with impunity, at least up to a certain point, 
 and Whose requirements cut right across the self- 
 confident materialism of a self-satisfied age. 
 
 It is well that the Christian should realise in time, 
 that which the terrible sanction imposed upon this com- 
 mandment might suggest, that in promising to keep this 
 law of God, he has promised a hard thing. Worship 
 most clearly demands a threefold capacity in him who 
 would exercise himself in it, and be true to his plighted 
 word. Worship presupposes in the worshipper a 
 spiritual, moral, and intellectual capacity for his task. 
 
 A man may fail in his worship, until he give it up 
 from very weariness, because he has done nothing to 
 cultivate a spiritual capacity for it. The history of 
 idolatry is a melancholy one, because men have failed, 
 and do fail again and again, to see how closely the 
 tendency to idolatry is bound up with human nature, 
 and how inevitably the tendency, unless resisted, leads 
 to an intellectual and even moral degradation as 
 complete as the degradation of the sensualist and the 
 drunkard. 
 
 In the very face of Almighty God, within the echo 
 of the voice of Sinai, there was a tendency to calf 
 worship, with all the degradation involved in that cult.
 
 PRACTICE 171 
 
 And if the reason is sought for, the answer is obvious, 
 indeed it is involved in the excuse advanced for the 
 idolatry. The worship of a material image at hand is 
 easier than the worship of an immaterial God remote in 
 the Heavens. ' Up, make us gods, which shall go before 
 us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out 
 of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. n 
 The spiritual strain of worshipping the Unseen will 
 always be great. And the Christian who would perform 
 his obligation to worship will have no chance unless 
 he has accustomed himself for shorter or longer periods 
 to breathe the rarefied air of Heaven. Even apostles 
 fell asleep on the Mount of Transfiguration, and failed 
 to assist at the unfolding of the mystery of the Agony 
 in Gethsemane. The mere spiritual strain of feeling 
 God's presence will always be great ; it will always be 
 easier to rest in some material substitute for Him, and 
 never to reach beyond the accessories of divine worship 
 to the cloud -enwrapped throne circled by the veiled 
 Cherubim. The worship of God in the substance of our 
 flesh when He became incarnate was not only legiti- 
 mate, it was obligatory. The worship of Christ in His 
 Eucharistic manifestation of His presence, can never 
 be idolatrous, for Christ, wherever He is, is to be wor- 
 shipped. But it may become possible even to abuse 
 this gift so as to be incapable of feeling out after God, 
 unless we have some visible point of contact with His 
 presence. Worship should become to the Christian 
 an habitual attitude, not an occasional exercise. There 
 is a fragment of truth in Pantheism together with 
 much error. The personal God of the Christian, Who 
 is distinct from all His creatures, yet manifests Him- 
 self beneath the Sacrament of Creation, and being 
 everywhere, is everywhere adored. 
 
 There is obviously a need also to develop a moral 
 capacity for worship. Our Blessed Lord has told us 
 
 1 Exodus xxxii. I.
 
 172 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 of the purity of vision which is rewarded with the 
 sight of God. It is not hard to discover beneath this 
 gracious promise of beatitude a damnatory clause 
 which threatens admitted sin. 
 
 There is no vision of God vouchsafed in the presence 
 of the barrier of moral guilt. The worship of the calf 
 is not far removed from the licentious dance at the 
 foot of the mount : and the licentious dance explains 
 the easy transition from the awe-struck terror which 
 surrounded Sinai to the senseless worship of the work 
 of their own hands, and the product of their own 
 inanimate ornaments. The loneliness produced by sin is 
 responsible for the misdirected worship of idolatry. 
 And it is not an uncommon thing to find that people 
 who have forgotten God in a life of sensuous ease, and 
 yet have not finally parted with their higher aspirations 
 and capacities, are driven to console themselves with 
 the puerilities and profanities, and even dangers of 
 spiritualism ; having lost the moral capacity for true 
 worship, they console themselves with a dangerous and 
 illicit peering into the unseen, and dance around the 
 calf which their own hands have made. 
 
 Neither must it be forgotten that worship makes a 
 demand on the intellectual powers as well. It requires 
 a good deal of the energy which is now expended on 
 business and the more exacting pursuits of the day, in 
 order rightly to develop the capacity for worship. He 
 who would worship God aright must have learned how 
 to endure mental fatigue, how to manage his thoughts, 
 how to concentrate his efforts, and direct the power of 
 the will. Worship suffers very much from the fact 
 that it is supposed to be an easy exercise of untrained 
 effort, to be undertaken without preparation, ami 
 persevered in without labour, and the meagre result 
 chills and drives back the aspiration of the man, who 
 never feeling after God has never found Him, and goes 
 on his way in all the bareness of an existence which has
 
 PRACTICE 173 
 
 parted with the refinements, the exaltation, and beauty 
 of worship. 
 
 The stress of this command would however seem 
 chiefly to lie in those words ' Make to thyself. ' The 
 making of images in itself was not forbidden to the 
 Jew, who by the direct command of God placed 
 images of Cherubim in the most Holy Place, and after- 
 wards in the Temple was accustomed even to images 
 of oxen. Much less to a Christian is the making of any 
 human semblance forbidden, for in the Incarnate Son 
 of God we have seen a similitude. But the making 
 objects of idolatry, the providing for worship in a 
 wrong and unauthorised manner, comes under the 
 sternest prohibition of this law of God. Worship is 
 no easy and haphazard arrangement, but is a matter 
 of very definite order and of great importance. The 
 worship of the Church is based on the direct command 
 of our Lord and Saviour, Who in the night before He 
 suffered, instituted and ordained holy mysteries for 
 perpetual obligation laid upon all believers. 
 
 The Holy Eucharist is not a form of worship which 
 might conceivably have been otherwise ordered, but is 
 linked in with the very worship of Heaven, and would 
 seem to be a part of the divine economy, and there- 
 fore it is not open to any one without censure either to 
 forsake, alter, or omit the ordered worship of the 
 Church; neither will he be tempted, with this com- 
 mandment before his eyes, to think divine worship to 
 be an easy, light, or unimportant matter, but will feel 
 that to part with worship is to part with the fear of 
 God out of his life, and is to incur the displeasure of 
 Him Who is a jealous God. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In the Third Commandment the Christian finds 
 himself pledged, still under the same awful obligations
 
 174 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 as before, and still in the same indefinite region, 
 where the censure of the world is slight in a matter 
 which has to do with an attitude of the soul towards 
 its Maker. ' Thou shalt not bring or lift up the Name 
 of the Lord thy God to a vanity.'' This command- 
 ment stands, without doubt, as a great barrier against 
 irreverence ; that which, perhaps more than anything 
 else, is the besetting sin of an advanced and advanc- 
 ing age ; which has but little recognition of anything 
 great with a greatness greater than itself; which is 
 not too ready to recognise the hand of the Lord, and 
 which is not unduly sensitive to the awe of His 
 presence. There stands out very conspicuously in 
 this commandment that designation which is so fre- 
 quently to be met with in Holy Scripture The Name 
 of God. It is taken into the very heart of Christian 
 teaching by our Blessed Lord, Who makes it the sub- 
 ject of His commission to His Church. * Go ye there- 
 fore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing 
 them into the Name of the Father and of the Son 
 and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all 
 things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am 
 with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 1 1 
 
 In the Name of God we recognise ' certain revela- 
 tions of Himself which He has made to man ; certain 
 discoveries of Himself which represent to man just as 
 much as he is able to apprehend of the divine nature/ 
 The Name of God which He in His condescension has 
 imparted to man at certain points of his history repre- 
 sent certain liftings up of the veil between earth and 
 heaven, points of observation for man, points of venera- 
 tion, almost points of worship; so that the Name of 
 God would seem in the challenge made to our reverence 
 to stand for God Himself. 2 
 
 The Christian is pledged at his Baptism by the terms 
 
 1 S. Matt, xxviii. 19, 20. 
 
 9 Bp. Wctcott : S. John i. 12.
 
 PRACTICE 175 
 
 of this commandment to adopt a certain attitude 
 towards this revealed Name. He promises, in effect, 
 that he will never lift it up in vain or misuse it. This 
 is a danger into which it is only too easy to fall. It is 
 possible to slight or pass by a Name of God, which has 
 been revealed to man, in preference for an aspect of 
 God, which has been attained by speculation and 
 human conjecture. It has been already pointed out 
 that it is quite impossible for a Christian to be content 
 with a religious acknowledgment of God which reposes 
 simply on His Fatherhood, without any recognition of 
 Him as Saviour and Sanctifier. The confident claims 
 advanced by what is called undenominational religion 
 are in direct defiance of this commandment. For that 
 which God has revealed can never in the smallest par- 
 ticular be an indifferent matter to the Christian ; to 
 hear and to reject, to receive a revelation of the Name 
 of God and to put it on one side, is to lift that Holy 
 Name up to a vanity, and to despise the loving con- 
 descension of the Lord. 
 
 But all his life through the Christian will feel the 
 pressure of this pledge. Having promised to reverence 
 God as his Father, he is constantly tempted to flout 
 His providence. He nourishes and maintains serious 
 sins and defects in the face of a nominal acceptance of 
 the help of a Saviour, while sanctity is a condition 
 which a careless life has emptied of its meaning by the 
 profanity of unchastened actions. Obviously the 
 pledge to keep this commandment bars the way to 
 careless beliefs and dishonouring practice. It is a call 
 to him who has promised to keep it, to remind him 
 that he who names the Name of Christ must depart 
 from iniquity. 
 
 But more intimately still the terms of this com- 
 mandment bar the way to a definite sin, known as 
 profanity. God in His tender compassion for our 
 infirmities has exposed Himself to all the petty insults
 
 176 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 of human ignorance. Nothing is easier than to insult 
 God. The glory and honour which belong to His 
 name lie like sunshine over certain things connected 
 with His honour. Some of these will suggest them- 
 selves at once. There is the House wherein He has 
 willed to place His name, the seat of His presence, the 
 sanctuary of His worship. If there has been a marked 
 improvement in reverence for the House of God since 
 the days of the unspeakable profanities of * Paul's 
 walk, 1 there is still much to be desired. How little 
 the ordinary Englishman seems to be able to realise 
 the presence of God in the empty church, or the honour 
 due to Him symbolised by the doffed hat and the out- 
 ward respect imposed by conventional decency. Then 
 there is Divine Service itself, over which is spread the 
 glory of the Name of God, as to much of which it can 
 only be said in excuse for the coldness, indifference, 
 and listlessness of the worshippers, ' There standeth 
 One among you, Whom ye know not. 11 But more 
 conspicuously still, there is one region in which the 
 honour due to God is increasingly being withheld, and 
 that is in the respect and reverence due to the Book 
 which is called the Holy Bible, as being, in a way, 
 unique and solemn, inspired by the Holy Ghost. 
 There are abundant indications to show that the Bible 
 is not receiving the reverence due to it from those who 
 are pledged not to take the Name of God in vain. 
 Scholars have seized upon it with avidity, as if it had 
 been a closed library from which they had been too 
 long excluded. The claim to treat it like any other 
 book has been pushed to an extreme, so that it would 
 be more true to say now that no other book is treated 
 like the Bible. Holy Scripture is made a lesson book 
 at school by those who do not always believe in it. It 
 is read for its archaeology, its poetry, its moral precepts 
 rather than for itself as the Word of God. And hence 
 1 S. John i. 26.
 
 PRACTICE 177 
 
 there has sprung up an increasing flippancy in the use 
 of Bible words and Bible phrases which cannot be 
 acquitted of the charge of profanity. Modern writers 
 of fiction do not hesitate to use the most sacred words 
 of Scripture in the lightest and most unworthy set- 
 tings. There have been parodies even of the Lord's 
 Prayer and parodies of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, 
 some have suggested new Beatitudes, or used even the 
 sayings of Gethsemane in a light and unworthy way. 
 Nothing is cheaper or easier than to raise a laugh by a 
 wrong use of Scripture. If there be any truth in the 
 theory that laughter is produced by the sudden con- 
 trast between what is usual and what is abnormal, here 
 will be a conspicuous example, where words and actions 
 which have hitherto been treated with a supreme and 
 singular veneration are dressed up in incongruous and 
 unworthy accessories. The cheapness of the jest does 
 not, however, diminish from its profanity. It can only 
 do harm and make the world poorer and more un- 
 worthy, to dethrone from its pedestal, and to strip 
 bare of the honour due to it, the Word of God which 
 has been enthroned at the great councils of the church, 
 and at the present day is treated with special Liturgi- 
 cal honour in the ceremonies which appertain to the 
 reading of the Gospel in the service of the Altar. 
 Surely a man who can only make himself merry at the 
 expense of the Bible ought to feel that, being born 
 without a sense of humour, he should not attempt to 
 be witty. For it is one of the first principles of 
 genuine humour to know the limits which shade them- 
 selves off through bad taste and vulgarity to profanity 
 and utter unworthiness. 
 
 And so it will be felt that the prohibitions of this 
 commandment reach even further still, and stop the 
 way to all those offences against beauty which so easily 
 develop themselves in those who have lost sight of God. 
 It is one of the mysteries of iniquity, that in a world 
 
 M
 
 178 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 of beauty such as this there should be a perfect cult of 
 ugliness, moral, physical, and intellectual, on the part 
 of those who are the votaries of sin. God surrounds 
 the work of His creating and ordering love with 
 beauty. The outgoings of the morning and evening 
 praise Him. The birds and beasts, as they fulfil their 
 several functions, minister to the beauty of the world, 
 and fill the heaven with the melody of their unconscious 
 hymn of praise to their Creator. Man walks beneath 
 the canopy of a glorious heaven hung with the majesty 
 of clouds, and treads upon the earth carpeted with grass 
 and flowers. If God speaks to him and proclaims His 
 great Name it is in words of awe and beauty filled with 
 dignity and poetry. Those whom He inspires and 
 dowers with His gifts are known to bring to an excel- 
 lent work the God-given art which belongs to them. 
 And yet in the face of this there is a perfect cult of 
 ugliness. No one can walk through the streets of a 
 great city, or linger long amidst any concourse of men, 
 without being struck with the gratuitous and needless 
 ugliness of words and ideas, in which God seems to be 
 provoked with a reckless disregard for His presence, 
 by that which seems to be a needless profanity. 
 The obscenity and indignity of the language of the 
 streets seem to pass into the flippant slang of higher 
 strata of society. Books and plays and conversation 
 vie with each other in stripping life of its dignity 
 and emptying language of its beauty and robbing con- 
 temporary events of their significance and mystery. 
 
 Every Christian man who has roused himself to the 
 sense of the pledge which he has made to keep this 
 commandment must feel himself constrained to do 
 something to stop the attacks which are being made 
 on beauty which is the outward expression of the 
 presence of God. It is not a little disquieting to know 
 that there is an active propaganda of foul ugliness in 
 our midst which is barely kept even within the bounds
 
 PRACTICE 179 
 
 of simple decency by a feebly administered law. Our 
 schools, our streets, oiJr homes, our book-stalls, are 
 being attacked by the agents of evil, whose aim is to 
 dethrone the God of beauty and to slay innocence and 
 purity in the deadly overflowings of ungodliness. 
 
 He who would realise the extent of his promise must 
 do something for public opinion in the interests of 
 moral beauty. He must walk through the world as 
 one who is conscious of the divine Presence, and of the 
 duties which he owes to it. The Name of God must 
 be honoured in His Church by all that beauty can do 
 for it. In the pages of His holy Word, in the inner 
 refinements of life, and everywhere must God be 
 honoured, for He is everywhere. It is recorded in an 
 appreciation of Archbishop Benson, written after his 
 death, that he reproved a man with whom he was 
 walking for lightly knocking off with his stick the 
 bright buds of the bushes just bursting into beauty. 
 ' Don't do that, 1 he said, ' it is breaking the third 
 commandment.' Certainly one who has learned to feel 
 that God is everywhere in the beautiful world of His 
 creation will not need to be told of the awful sanctions 
 which enforce the command of reverence. He will 
 walk everywhere with bared head and careful foot, 
 lest even unwittingly he should take the Name of God 
 in vain. 
 
 IV 
 
 The law of the love of God receives a yet further 
 amplification in a commandment which, originally 
 given to the Jews, and invested by them with many 
 enactments which were but provisional and temporary, 
 still lingers on and is held to be binding, in principle 
 at all events, on those who as Christians have been 
 made obedient to the law, only as it is fulfilled in 
 Christ.
 
 180 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 The origin and meaning of the Christian Sunday 
 has been discussed at some length in a preceding 
 volume of this series. 1 It will be sufficient to say here, 
 that our Lord Jesus Christ, when He proclaimed His 
 Lordship over the Sabbath, did not profess absolutely 
 to abolish it. He did away with that which was 
 peculiar to the Mosaic treatment of the Sabbath, and 
 much that had been added to it of human institution. 
 He proclaimed that the law of the Sabbath was to be 
 understood as including works of mercy and love, and 
 as in the law of marriage so in the law of the Sabbath, 
 He took men's minds back in thought to the time of 
 its first promulgation, and proclaimed Himself Lord 
 of the institution which God had made for the service 
 of man. And so when we find the Christian Sunday 
 appearing in the life of the early Church, apparently 
 from its earliest start, when we see it mounting higher 
 in the firmament and shedding off the mists which veil 
 its first appearance, we feel that we are in the presence 
 of no human invention, but of an institution which 
 owes its origin either directly to Christ or indirectly 
 to His inspiration, and that here is a day on which 
 has descended the principle embodied in the now 
 vanished Sabbath ; that the Sunday with its different 
 date in the week, its different underlying sanction, 
 and its different observance, has vet taken over all 
 that is permanent from the old Sablbath law ; and that 
 in it we have a new shoot on the old Sabbath root to 
 the honouring of which we are pledged by our Baptismal 
 vow in the terms of the Fourth Commandment. 
 
 This commandment obviously stands on a different 
 footing to all the others, at its first promulgation it 
 was liable to be challenged, and even more now its 
 authority is questioned and disputed. It is a bit of 
 positive Law embedded in the ten commandments. 
 That is to say, a law whose sanction rests only on the 
 1 Trevelyan, Sunday.
 
 PRACTICE 181 
 
 fact of its being enjoined by authority, not on any 
 inner sanction of self-evident importance. The Sabbath 
 was not enjoined upon the Jews because it represented 
 a law of absolute right, but it became right to them to 
 observe it because it was ordered. So now there are 
 many who are willing to accept the law of Sunday as 
 perhaps a wise and salutary regulation, but there are 
 not so many who are willing to accept the observance 
 as an obligation laid upon them under a sanction as 
 strong as that which forbids them to steal or to 
 commit murder. 
 
 The baptized Christian has to remember that in 
 making this promise he is pledged to the principle of 
 days of obligation, especially Sunday, as laid upon him 
 by the Church; and that he submits to these injunc- 
 tions not merely because he deems them to be salutary 
 and can demonstrate the observance of them to be 
 based on sound principles, but because an authority 
 which has the power has laid this obligation upon 
 him. 
 
 But at the same time it is only reasonable and wise 
 to search for the underlying principles of this obliga- 
 tion, to see what are the permanent features which the 
 Christian Sunday has taken over from the Jewish 
 Sabbath, that with greater intelligence and more 
 earnest zeal the Christian may maintain the integrity 
 of that pledge whereby he has bound himself to observe 
 God's Holy will and commandments, and walk in the 
 same all the days of his life. 
 
 The most obvious principle which manifests itself in 
 this commandment is the importance of memorials in 
 the system of duty and service which binds men to 
 God. The Sabbath was designed to be a memorial 
 in every week to ensure a due and thankful remem- 
 brance of God's blessings in creation, and of the 
 deliverance of the Children of Israel out of the house 
 of bondage. The Passover in the same way was a
 
 182 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 yearly memorial of a great deliverance, Pentecost of 
 a great treasure imparted in the giving of the Law, 
 and the Feast of Tabernacles of a strong and unique 
 national experience. So in the Christian Church there 
 is designed to be a weekly memorial of the deliverance 
 from the power of the grave effected by our Lord's 
 resurrection ; while the whole cycle of fast and festival 
 is to men who are only too ready to forget, for a per- 
 petual witness and memorial of the great facts of their 
 Redemption. And this is only one side, and the least 
 mystenous side, of the system of memorials. There is 
 a God ward aspect as well as a man ward aspect in 
 memorials. God has willed it to be recorded that it 
 is in accordance with His will that there should be 
 definite and recurrent settings forth before Him of some 
 of the great events in which His mercy and power 
 have been displayed towards men ; as if the memorial 
 of them were a sort of obsecration and persuasive 
 power whereby His love became quickened and renewed 
 towards us. 
 
 We have indications of this mystery in the language 
 put into the mouth of God with reference to the rain- 
 bow, ' I will look upon it, that I may remember the 
 everlasting covenant between God and every living 
 creature of all flesh ; and the waters shall no more 
 become a flood to destroy all flesh/ 1 So it was with 
 the Feast of Trumpets, it was to be * a memorial of 
 blowing of trumpets/ 2 Equally the rite of circum- 
 cision and the ordinance of the shewbread \vt-rr 
 charged with this memorial aspect before God ; until 
 we reach the consummation of this mystery in the 
 Eucharistic Sacrifice which is designed to be a perpetual 
 memory in the presence of God of the one great sacrilit v 
 once offered on Calvary. 
 
 There can be little doubt of the importance of 
 memorials as regards man, in a life where there is so 
 1 Gen. ix. 16. * Levit. xxiii. 24.
 
 PRACTICE 183 
 
 much to tempt him to forget ; but it is only by long 
 and patient waiting upon God that man may learn the 
 mystery of the pleading before God, or understand how 
 a neglected Sunday and an omitted Eucharist are in 
 some way breaks in the ordered economy which connects 
 God with man. 
 
 But there stands out even more clearly in this com- 
 mand which is bound upon the Christian, that he 
 needs a pledge to secure to himself the very necessities 
 of his being. Man by an enactment pledging him to 
 rest is saved from a tendency to dissipate his powers 
 by unrelieved labour. There is a principle of rest 
 from labour, rest in order to labour which is very con- 
 spicuous in all sabbath institutions. Perhaps there is 
 a great and increasing need that men should learn not 
 only to rest, but also how to consecrate rest. Rest 
 apart from God has become only another form of 
 oppressive labour. The toilsome holidays in which 
 recreation is pursued with hard toil to the ruin of 
 happiness are but another indication of the restlessness 
 which overtakes a heart which has forgotten God. 
 The bank holidays, with their long hours of desperate 
 labour after pleasure, are a poor substitute for the 
 quiet rest of our old English Sundays and festivals. 
 'Blessed is the people, O Lord, that can rejoice in 
 Thee.' 1 Many will agree that we have not learned as 
 a nation, and find it hard as individuals, to take a 
 holiday; and we forget that we are pledged by the 
 author of our Being to make ourselves fit for His 
 service by stated periods of consecrated rest. 
 
 And this brings out into prominence a still more 
 important principle of Sabbath enactment, viz., the 
 consecration of time. ' The seventh day is the Sabbath 
 of the Lord Thy God.' 2 'I was in the Spirit on the 
 Lord's Day.' 3 All time belongs to God, but as God 
 allowed the Levites to be set apart as representatives 
 1 Psalm Ixxxix. 16. 2 Exod. xx. 10. 3 Rev. i. 10.
 
 184 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 of the firstborn of the consecrated nation, as God will 
 accept a tithe as the representation of our ownership 
 under Him of all property, so He accepts one day out of 
 seven as representing the consecration of all the days 
 of a man's life to His perfect service. It is an indica- 
 tion of a life which has broken away from God, that 
 an effort should be made to deprive the I^ord of that 
 which is His peculiar portion, the proportion of time 
 which has been dedicated to Him as a sign that He 
 owns all. Consecrated men, consecrated space, conse- 
 crated time, consecrated property, this is what God 
 seeks from His children. And the believing Christian 
 pledges himself to nothing short of absolute allegiance, 
 humble worship, devout reverence, and complete con- 
 secration, when he offers himself to the service of the 
 Almighty.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 PRACTICE 
 
 The reader may have been surprised to find that the 
 following of beauty brought him always under a sterner 
 dominion of mysterious law, that brightness was con- 
 tinually based upon obedience, and all majesty only 
 another form of submission. . . . The thing to be shown 
 him was not a pleasure to be snatched, but a law to be 
 learned. 
 
 WE now reach the second division of God's command- 
 ments, including six which enjoin on us the law of the 
 love of our neighbour. The child, while yet under 
 tutors and governors, will find himself constantly 
 drawn towards a greedy selfishness. It takes some 
 time for one who is yet a stranger to the world in 
 which he suddenly finds himself placed, to realise that 
 others, even the lower animals, have their rights, and 
 that all he sees around him is not merely so much 
 material designed to administer to his amusement and 
 satisfaction. As he grows up he becomes imbued with 
 the spirit of competition and rivalry. That others 
 should claim their rights means that so much possible 
 advantage is being subtracted from the sum of his 
 own welfare. And even at the last when the world 
 and all it offers is slipping from his grasp, ambition, 
 that last infirmity of noble minds, suggests to him 
 that the demolition of the rights of others would 
 leave a larger scope for his own interests and a greater 
 
 185
 
 186 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 freedom for his own self-display, so that it is not 
 without reason that the Church emphasises under the 
 sanction of a solemn promise the law of God which 
 protects our neighbour's rights, and does not leave it 
 to the whim or the caprice of the individual, that his 
 love should follow his inclination, but rather demands 
 that it should follow that rule of justice which regards 
 the whole world as our neighbour, and orders that we 
 should love that neighbour as ourselves. 
 
 The first of these commandments which safeguard 
 the right of our neighbour to our practical love 
 extends its beneficent provisions over that early en- 
 vironment in which the young life first encounters 
 rival claims and realises the substantial existence of 
 a life apart from itself. The fifth commandment, both 
 by its position, its terms, and its sanction, emphasises 
 the extreme importance of home, and the abiding 
 nature of the duties which have their root in its sacred 
 enclosure. 
 
 There is much to lead us to suppose that we have 
 in this commandment a precept which is embedded in 
 the very heart of the well-being of the world. Its 
 observance was vital to the Jew, that is obvious, and 
 a matter of divine injunction. The peculiar govern- 
 ment of the Jewish people rested on the basis of the 
 family ; the assertion of parental authority was neces- 
 sary to the security of the State. The parents repre- 
 sented to the Israelite a system of religious education 
 and the maintenance of the great tradition of God's 
 dealings with His people, so that the very permanence 
 of their existence, which was wrapped up in the promise 
 of long life in the land of Canaan, acpended on it. 
 This is true and obvious, but when the precept passes
 
 PRACTICE 187 
 
 into the fuller stream of Christianity, there too it seems 
 to assert itself with startling prominence amidst the 
 very noblest precepts of the gospel. It is like a stream 
 which colours throughout its course the river into 
 which it flows, making its individuality felt amidst the 
 full volume of the beauty of Christian character. 
 Both by example and precept our Blessed Lord 
 emphatically dignifies this commandment. All through 
 His sojourn on earth He laid especial stress on the 
 duties which are here safeguarded, and which have 
 home for their centre. Out of the short span of years 
 in which He willed to dwell on earth, thirty were spent 
 under the sheltering cloud of home. And still at the 
 supreme moment of the consummation of the sacrifice 
 of Calvary, home finds a place in the solemn utterances 
 of the Cross, and forms a part of the very canon of its 
 Eucharistic mystery. As with His example, so with 
 His words; His denunciation of the law of Corban, 
 which He declared to be in violation of this vital 
 precept, was severe and unmeasured ; and in the stream 
 of apostolic precept which flows from Him there 
 emerges the injunction ' Children obey your parents 
 in the Lord 1 : l as if indeed we should not do wrong 
 in transferring the hope of a long life in the promised 
 land, to the fuller enjoyment of the Mansions of 
 Heaven, as a reward for this commandment faithfully 
 kept. 
 
 The supreme position occupied by this divine in- 
 junction must always act as a steadying influence in 
 ages when the tide of a false independence sets in 
 against the barriers which seem to check its progress. 
 For good or for evil the manners of children towards 
 their parents, in England at all events, have been 
 considerably altered. Whether it be in the withdraw- 
 ing of outward titles of courtesy or signs of respect, 
 or whether it be in ill-concealed contempt for their 
 1 Ephes. vi. i.
 
 188 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 authority and advice, the supremacy assumed by parents 
 in matters affecting the conduct of their children has 
 given way to a persuasive pleading on a basis of 
 equality. Instead of honouring father or mother as a 
 duty, for what they are, and what they have done and 
 suffered in the past, there is a tendency to demand that 
 the parents should do something to earn this respect, 
 and show themselves worthy of the honour to which 
 they lay claim. But the commandment does not onK-r 
 us merely to honour our father and mother when they 
 seem to deserve it, but to honour them always as such; 
 and never is the duty thus inculcated more beautifully 
 exhibited than in the case of a child showing respect 
 to an unworthy parent. 1 
 
 An examination of this divine precept will show us 
 that it embodies certain principles whicn are the very 
 pillars of the world, and the bulwarks of society. 
 
 Parents first of all represent authority, and without 
 authority the world could not go on for one moment. 
 We are placed in a kingdom of law sustained by that 
 higher intelligence, power, and love which represent 
 divine government. When the old Greeks looked out 
 on this world with all its wonderful obedience to 
 authority, where law worked itself out in its hundred 
 minute adjustments, where the Heavens declared the 
 glory of God, and the firmament showed His handi- 
 work, they called the system which they observed by 
 a name signifying order. Cosmos represented to them 
 the prevailing impression stamped upon the cunning 
 workmanship of the universe and its well-ordered force. 
 The homage paid to law is prominent again in all the 
 ungrudging honour paid to kings who represent to i lu- 
 nation the fountain-nead of its laws. ' God save the 
 kin^!' would rise with its glad acclaim equally fora 
 weak and profligate prince as fora wise and benevolent 
 monarch in so far as both were the representatives of 
 1 See Dale, The Ten Commandments, p. 118 and foil.
 
 PRACTICE 189 
 
 the personified majesty of law and order. For law 
 is divine, and therefore to be honoured in the person 
 of the king, in the person of the magistrate, and in 
 the person of the parent who, as father or mother, 
 wields God's delegated powers in the family. A re- 
 bellious, disobedient and wilful child contrives to do 
 a great deal more mischief than is represented by the 
 unhappiness of his home, and his father's and mother's 
 shame. He strikes a blow also against authority, that 
 respect for law and order, rank and merit, which, traced 
 far enough back, reaches up to God Almighty Himself. 
 Irreverence is the same spirit in essence wherever it 
 manifests itself, whether it is seen in the sweeping 
 away of barriers and the iconoclasm of revolutions, 
 where liberty is confused with licence, equality with a 
 uniform mediocrity, and fraternity with a dull level of 
 selfishness ; or whether it be seen in the fury of anti- 
 religious upheavals, or as here in the revolt against 
 the restraints and decencies of home life. It may be 
 said to reach even farther than this, and to display 
 itself within, in the revolt which the passions some- 
 times stir up against the will, depriving it of its 
 sovereign power, and cutting off the succours which 
 reason and the higher spirit were ready to minister. 
 The English people are by nature a reverent race. It 
 has been said of us by a critic of our ways on the other 
 side of the Atlantic, 'The Englishman is a reverent 
 man ; it seems to be natural to him. And the lessons 
 of reverence once engrained in the national character 
 appear everywhere. The well-educated and refined 
 Englishman carries with him a higher regard for 
 authority, a more tender respect and esteem for the 
 parental relation, and he is more impressed with what 
 is grand and inspiring in nature than one who has been 
 educated in a different school.' If this testimony be 
 true, we owe a great deal of this spirit of veneration to 
 our homes, which are in so many cases the guardians of
 
 190 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 reverence, and where our children learn the priceless 
 value of obedience to authority. 
 
 But a second principle will be found to underlie this 
 precept, and that is, roughly speaking, the value of 
 experience. 
 
 Just as parents are the embodiment to their children 
 of authority, so they are also of experience. God has 
 put into their hands a book which contains the record 
 of many a dark hour, some of whose pages are written 
 in blood, and illuminated with light which has been 
 vouchsafed to them before the opening responsibilities 
 of fatherhood and motherhood, in order that they 
 might impart to those that came after them the wise 
 principles which may govern life, what to do, what to 
 avoid, how to suffer, how to bear prosperity, and how 
 to make the world better than they found it 
 
 And this teaching by means of experience seems to 
 be a method of divine instruction, that is, a method 
 used by God Almighty Himself. It figures largely, 
 for instance, in Psalm Ixxviii., where one generation is 
 constituted the instructor of the next in the history 
 and methods of God's dealing with His people. Some- 
 times this experience would seem to be gathered up in 
 a word or a title where God is pleased to reveal Himself 
 as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of 
 Jacob, associating Himself with all the experience 
 which gathers round those names. 
 
 So it is possible for children now to learn the 
 graduated lessons of life at the mouth of experience, 
 from those who can tell them the truth about good 
 and evil, about sin and temptation, and not leave them 
 bare of those early restraints, which are as the leaves 
 which protect the rising growth of the tree, and 
 provide lungs for its forming fruit. Nor is the teach- 
 ing of experience all prohibitory or monitory : there is 
 the bright memory of God's laws as well ; there is 
 the road to the green pastures and the waters of com-
 
 PRACTICE 191 
 
 fort to which it is the parent's privilege to show the 
 way. For a parent, who can only offer as the results of 
 experience a theory of life to which his practice gives 
 the lie, will only reap the unfruitfulness which is the 
 inevitable result of that instruction which can only 
 proclaim : ' Do as I say, not as I do.' 
 
 But a third and more obvious principle still underlies 
 this precept, and that is the grandest of all principles 
 love. God puts into the hands of parents those 
 ' cords of a man,' those * bands of love,' which often 
 serve to draw back the wanderer from the paths of sin. 
 When the child is told to honour his father and 
 mother, he knows that, in many cases at all events, he 
 is called upon to do this not merely because it is his 
 duty, but also because honour and respect are some- 
 thing of the nature of a debt due in return for love 
 and self-denial so lavishly showered upon him. 
 
 There cannot be any pledge more important than this, 
 in those relations with the world which is outside self, 
 which binds the child from his earliest years to respect 
 authority, to listen to experience, and respond to love. 
 Entrenched within the principles safeguarded by this 
 commandment he may await with confidence the heavy 
 responsibilities which devolve upon him in all that is 
 meant by the word ' neighbour.' 
 
 II 
 
 Another commandment is now imposed which deals 
 with the respect which must be shown for life as such. 
 ' Thou shalt not kill ' is a very wide precept of far- 
 reaching significance. 
 
 The child must learn to respect life when he sees 
 it, and although, as he grows up, he will find that the 
 laws of civilised communities enforce this respect in its 
 outward manifestations, yet at the same time there will 
 be a large field of motive, expression, and unprotected
 
 192 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 activity in which he will find the strength and support 
 of being able to fall back upon an absolute injunction 
 of Almighty God imposed upon him under the obliga- 
 tion of a strong pledge. It is well to note at the 
 outset that when our Blessed Lord wished to describe 
 Satan to the Jews who had become his children, He 
 spoke of him in a very significant phrase as * a 
 murderer from the beginning ' ; l as if this were the 
 expression which best summarised his achievements, 
 and characterised the issue of the sinful principles 
 gathered up in his nature. It has been pointed out 2 
 that the devil is a deliberate agent who works for 
 death in a world whose Sovereign Creator works for 
 life. The mission of Satan is to kill, not only as 
 the author of sin which ends in the disintegration of 
 destruction, but also as one who barbs every bait of 
 his powerful seductions with concealed death. It is 
 the long record of a malignant career ; for whether posi- 
 tively in goading men into sin, or negatively in turn inn: 
 them away from grace, Satan deliberately sets himself 
 to kill. Wherever we see murder, death, or blighted 
 hopes, if we trace the causes back sufficiently far, we 
 shall find the murderer, before whom the land is as 
 the garden of Eden, behind whom it is a desolate 
 wilderness. 
 
 In pledging himself therefore not to kill, the child 
 of God is standing aside from the hosts of Satan, and 
 ranging himself on the side of God, Whose glorious 
 work it is to create, save, and build up. Here is one 
 of the commandments which our Blessed Lord Himself 
 explained, so that we have the mind of Him Who first 
 imposed it, showing the wide scope of its injunction-. 
 And He shows us that anger finding vent in con- 
 temptuous terms and expressions is as hateful in the 
 sight of God as any offence punished in the local law- 
 
 1 S. John viii. 44. 
 
 1 See Hutchings, The Mystery of the Temptation, p. 146.
 
 PRACTICE 193 
 
 courts, or by the Sanhedrin with capital punishment, 
 and is liable to similar degrees of punishment in the 
 tribunal of God. 1 For anger of this description is but 
 murder in essence, only needing to be mixed with cir- 
 cumstance to be fully developed ; and the Christian 
 man who has pledged himself to the terms of this 
 commandment finds that he is constrained to resist the 
 temptation to kill, even in the remotest frontier of his 
 being, and that he must recognise as the spirit of 
 murder a causeless, malignant, uncontrollable anger 
 springing from wrong and distorted motives. 
 
 He who has thus pledged himself will find, as life 
 goes on, that the commandment is by no means the 
 easy thing which at first sight it seems to be. * Thou 
 shalt not kill ' would seem certainly to embrace within 
 its purview ' Thou shalt not kill thyself. 1 Suicide is a 
 painful but an interesting subject which has a history 
 attached to it. There is no doubt as to the mind of 
 the Church on the subject, and the law of England 
 upholds the law of the Church in regarding suicide 
 as a felony, because it is equivalent to self-murder. 
 And if the old barbarous and useless indignities offered 
 to the poor dead body have been abandoned, it is 
 from a sense of their incongruity and repulsiveness, 
 not because there has been any change in the attitude 
 adopted towards this sin. 2 It is a subject of painful 
 interest at a time when the selfishness of a high civilisa- 
 tion is working out in so many cases a weariness of 
 and a distaste for life itself in those who are sickened 
 with satiety ; and when an age which seems marching 
 through gambling to ruin does not hesitate to pay its 
 creditors with the last remaining capital its life, and 
 play suicide as a final stake. 
 
 1 S. Matt. v. 22. 
 
 2 Some have imagined that the burial of suicides at the cross-roads 
 was not meant as an indignity, but rather to place the body, debarred 
 from resting in the churchyard, under the shelter of the cross, which 
 generally stood at the meeting of the ways. 
 
 N
 
 194 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 In the old world, in its better times, suicide was 
 discouraged, and looked upon for the most part as 
 contemptible. ' No man/ says Cicero, * must leave his 
 post without the order of his commanding officer, 
 that is God.' l ' To die in avoiding poverty or love, 
 or anything grievous, is the act, not of a brave man, 
 but rather of a coward,' 2 says another who bears a 
 great name. On the other hand, the great Latin 
 epic poet places the suicides in his hell among the 
 unfortunates rather than among the guilty. 8 But it 
 was left for the Stoics, when the Roman Empire was 
 tottering to its fall, to dignify self-destruction with 
 almost a religious lustre. They euphemistically styled 
 it 070)77;, an ushering oneself out of the world. 
 ' There is nothing more contemptible than to wish for 
 death,' says Seneca. ' Why wish for that which is 
 in your own power? Die at once if you wish to 
 do so.' 4 Here the murderer had so prevailed on men's 
 feelings, and so warped their mental estimate of the 
 matter, as to induce them to court self-murder as a 
 virtue. * The doctrine of suicide was the culminating 
 point of Roman Stoicism.' And while emperors were 
 offering a reward for a new pleasure, men were found 
 who sought that pleasure in death, or at least an 
 escape from a life made intolerable by those things 
 which were called its pleasures. 6 
 
 Neither must he who so interprets the meaning of 
 
 1 Vetatque Pythagoras injussu imperatoris, id est Dei, de praesidio 
 et statione vitae discedere. Goto Major, chap. xx. 
 
 * rb V&-rodvt)ffKt(.v ifx&yovra Trevla.tr i) fpwra 4] n \virripoi' O&K fo&ptlov, 
 d\\4 fia\\ov 8ei\ov. Aristotle, Nick. Eth. iii. 7, 13. See also ix. 4-8. 
 
 * Virgil, /fin. vi. 434. 
 
 4 Seneca, Epist, 117. See Grant's Aristotle, vol. i. p. 291. 
 
 * For a valuable rtsumt of the history of suicide, see Liddon, Some 
 Elements of Religion, Lecture iii. p. 121, and foil, (first edition). 
 See the quotation there from Lecky, History of European Morals, 
 ii. 52. See also a paper read before the Statistical Society of London 
 by Dr. Ogle. For Dante's estimate of the suicide as compared with 
 Virgil's, see Inferno, canto xi. 41, and also canto xiii.
 
 PRACTICE 195 
 
 his pledge merely suppose himself to be committed to 
 an attitude as to self-murder. He who has followed 
 up our Blessed Lord's exposition of this command- 
 ment will easily see that if there is a murder of 
 intention and a murder of word, so there may be a 
 suicide which comes under the condemnation of no 
 earthly tribunal, and of which no court of inquest 
 takes cognisance. Many a man has ruined himself, 
 both body and soul, by a simple want of self-restraint. 
 To impair the body or the mind by sin, to stifle the 
 spirit, to follow greedily after those things whose end 
 is death, is to commit spiritual suicide. The pro- 
 hibition is a stern and also a wide one : ' Thou shalt 
 not kill thy body, thou shalt not kill thy life, thou 
 shalt not kill thy soul, 1 for life comes from God, and 
 must be rendered back again as a precious charge to 
 Him Who gave it. 
 
 But in its more obvious sense the prohibition ' Thou 
 shalt not kill ' enjoins on the Christian that he shall 
 not, out of causeless anger or malignity, kill his 
 neighbour. The plain and literal offence which is for- 
 bidden by this commandment is safeguarded by the 
 law of the land. That which is a sin against God is 
 also a crime against the State, and murder is punishable 
 by death. 
 
 It would be a shallow and perverted judgment, how- 
 ever, which would nail up these words as a motto 
 over our regimental barracks, or inscribe them over 
 the judgment-seat in our courts of assize, or brand 
 them upon the brow of one who has slain another in 
 defence of life or trust. God who punishes with 
 death in the pestilence, the influence of seasons, earth- 
 quake or fire, still uses men as His agents in the 
 awful 'assize of nations' known as war, or in the 
 unsheathing of the sword of justice in the hands of 
 those who are armed with power to wield it. 
 
 But while we hand over the integrity of this com-
 
 196 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 mandment in its obvious meaning to the custody of the 
 State, it must be with no slight self-abasement as a 
 nation, that crimes of violence and brutality show so 
 little signs of diminution among Christians, and that 
 civilisation has been able to do little more than 
 check murder. 
 
 In binding himself, however, to keep this command- 
 ment the Christian will remember that here, too, it is 
 perfectly easy to kill out that which makes up the 
 fulness of life to our neighbour without finding him- 
 self amenable to any penalty of the law. 
 
 Such things as spite, malignity, and envious back- 
 biting are really of the essence of murder, for they 
 take away from a man that which goes to make up 
 his life and happiness. There is many a man who is 
 stabbed to death by a malignant paragraph in a society 
 journal, inserted to make a heading, propagated to 
 ensure a sale, but unverified, unauthenticated, and 
 untrue. The contradiction passes unnoticed, the 
 scandal lives, and the tender reputation crawls away 
 mortally wounded to die of malignant gossip. 
 
 So it is with passion, ill-temper, selfishness, and all 
 those imperfections, as they are thought to be, which 
 lay such a burden on those who have to put up with 
 them : they all strike a blow against the fulness and 
 completeness of life. Here the husband is chilled in 
 his professional life by the exacting unsympathetic 
 wife, or the wife is crushed down by the harshness and 
 neglect of the husband, or the children are soured in 
 the fresh spring of their youth and spirits, and life is 
 impaired in its fulness and deprived of its legitimate 
 expansion. 
 
 The commandment once more touches with its pro- 
 hibition the withholding of goods from the poor, 
 overcrowding and overworking, or overburdening those 
 who are set under us. These are common sins which 
 the child of God is pledged to avoid.
 
 PRACTICE 197 
 
 But the murder of a neighbour's soul is an offence 
 which is even more common, and far more deadly. 
 One of the most awful curses in God's Holy Word is 
 directed against this sin : ' Whoso shall offend one of 
 these little ones which believe in Me, it were better 
 for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, 
 and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. 
 Woe unto the world because of offences ! for it must 
 needs be that offences come ; but woe to that man by 
 whom the offence cometh!' 1 And yet this murder goes 
 on with brutal persistency. Here it is a full-grown man 
 maddened with sin, and restless in his guilt, who snaps 
 out from his poisoned jaws the hideous mysteries of 
 iniquity, which poison the life of the young boy who 
 has j ust stepped out from the protection of home into 
 the wild rush of town life. Here it is the drunkard 
 giving his child a sip out of his glass, or letting him 
 come or wait for him amidst scenes of debauchery and 
 sin. The selfish brutality which injures another's soul 
 without pain or remorse, whatever form it takes, is a 
 terrible form of murder, and can only expect the curse 
 which awaits those who injure souls for whom Christ 
 died. 
 
 Perhaps it would not be wrong to extend even 
 further the purview of this commandment, and to 
 interpret the precept 'Thou shalt not kill' into a 
 general prohibition which forbids killing anything 
 needlessly. The Christian must ever feel that it is 
 incumbent on him to be a power of life in all his 
 dealings with the world. He never can regard the 
 beautiful world around him without a sense of his 
 responsibilities towards it. The cornfields are preach- 
 ing, the lilies are comforting us, the birds are teaching 
 us how to depend upon God. The whole creation in 
 its strange suffering, and mute upturned longing, is 
 linked with our hopes and fears. It is only a stupid 
 1 S. Matt, xviii. 6, 7.
 
 198 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 and coarse brutality which scatters broadcast death and 
 suffering, and emphasises the mark of the brand of 
 failure. Cruelty, waste, wanton destruction stand 
 self-condemned in the world of God's creating. It is 
 a solemn thing to take life, even the life of a poor 
 creature that crawls at our feet, for life comes before 
 us warm with the impress of the hand of God. We 
 can imitate in painting or in moulding the bird or 
 the flower which we destroy, but we cannot give it 
 life. Life is a great mystery, as it thrusts itself 
 upwards, even in the grass at our feet ; and waste of 
 life where necessity or utility, or the higher needs of 
 the world, are not concerned, cannot but come under 
 the deeper prohibition of the commandment which 
 forbids its destruction. 
 
 No one can be cruel or wasteful, or deal out needless 
 death, who has learned to say, * I believe in God the 
 Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth." 1 
 
 * The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof ' ; 
 hence the commandment : 'Thou shalt not kill.' 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Christian is pledged to yet another command- 
 ment which, as explained by our Blessed Lord in the 
 Sermon on the Mount, carries him right away to the 
 region of thoughts, looks, and motives. 
 
 It is surely one of the most fundamental of all the 
 commandments because, like its predecessor, it has to 
 do with the sacred gift of life, and with the due 
 regulation of the great power of love, whose wayward- 
 ness underlies almost every tragedy, and whose power 
 seems to defy every barrier. Murder and adultery are 
 evil shapes which look in upon the child out of the 
 untrodden paths of life, when as yet, perhaps, he has 
 been brought face to face only with the tenderness of 
 fostering care and the sanctities of a loving home.
 
 PRACTICE 199 
 
 We find it difficult to realise the completeness of 
 Satan's victory over humanity. The innocence of our 
 first parents, who knew no shame, is the measure of 
 the degradation which has left a taint of shame on 
 parentage. The problem-play and the sex-novel of 
 the nineteenth century, the obscene literature and the 
 degrading depravity of Christian cities are flagrant 
 examples of the corruptio optimi which is pessima, 
 whereby those functions of human nature wherein man, 
 as such, makes his nearest approach to the Creator, 
 are degraded to the perversion of his supremacy as the 
 head of creation. 
 
 Obscenity and irreverent coarseness must never be 
 allowed to blind our eyes to the extreme dignity of 
 the human body. It is God that made us. ' I will 
 give thanks unto Thee,' says the Psalmist, ' for I am 
 fearfully and wonderfully made. 1 1 And the fact that 
 marriage is a sacrament, and the only sacrament insti- 
 tuted by God before sin appeared, 2 whereas other 
 sacraments have their origin after sin and by reason 
 of sin, must lead us to regard even those passions 
 which are most perplexing and most dangerous as 
 sacred to Him Who ' maketh His messengers of winds, 
 and His ministers in the flames of fire.' 3 
 
 The degradation of sacred powers and the perver- 
 sion of life in its authorised channels of transmission 
 are possibilities, however, which are bravely put before 
 the Christian child that he may resolutely resist their 
 insidious approach in the long struggle which lies 
 before him. Strange accusations are sometimes brought 
 against the Holy Bible, even against the Prayer Book, 
 of an unwise or even indelicate plainness of speech 
 in condemning evil, or enforcing the claims of moral 
 rectitude. It is strange that society, which has long 
 cast all reserve to the winds, in the dramatic situations 
 of the stage, or the discussions and developments of 
 1 Ps. cxxxix. 13. 2 S. Thorn. Aq., Suppl. xlii. 2. 3 Ps. civ. 4.
 
 200 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 life's mysteries in fiction, should shrink with indignation 
 from the plain speaking of the exhortation in the 
 marriage service. It is conceivable that in a state of 
 idyllic innocency, when the knowledge of evil was kept 
 back at every barrier, it might be well to abstain 
 from even the suggestion of possible sin, its meaning 
 and its degradation. But as things are, and have 
 been in every age of civilisation, in varying degrees 
 of less or more, it is ostrich-like to suppose an utter 
 ignorance of sin ; it is impolitic to refuse to treat sin 
 as from the side of God, with all the sternness which 
 belongs to the violation of divine command, and with 
 all the solemnity of divine prohibition, when the same 
 subjects are being treated with all the levity of 
 dramatic handling, or at the most represented as for- 
 bidden luxuries, branded for the time being with a 
 social artfiia. 
 
 As it is, the outspoken words of the Bible, and the 
 plain prohibition of the Prayer Book, are often the only 
 guidance which some souls receive as they pass beside 
 abysses of which there is no fathoming, and snares 
 so cleverly concealed that they begin with death. 
 The prohibition which the Christian pledges himself 
 most solemnly to observe, in its plain literal meaning, 
 enforces his neighbour's rights in the most sacred 
 region of possession which is safeguarded by the 
 marriage tie. The husband must be the husband of 
 and faithful to one wife ; the wife must be the wife of 
 and faithful to one husband. The sacredness of the 
 approach to marriage must also be regarded, and the 
 motives or impulses which might tend to its perversion 
 must be regulated. 
 
 But, in the first place, the Christian, by his 
 Baptismal promise, pledges himself to regard with 
 a never-failing respect the sacred law of marriage. 
 Marriage is held by the Church to be an indis- 
 soluble union of one man and one woman into a
 
 PRACTICE 201 
 
 complete and undivided humanity. It is duality in 
 of unity. There is no union like it save the union 
 God and man in one Christ, and the mystical union 
 which is betwixt Christ and His Church. 1 It is this 
 union which a lax morality is ever seeking to loose, 
 while it turns marriage into a mere companionship, 
 lightly enterprised, lightly dissolved. Whereas mar- 
 riage is no mere contract between individuals, but a 
 state entered into by contract which a man can no 
 more dissolve, unless death severs the partnership, 
 than he can dissolve fatherhood or sonship, or any 
 other natural state in which he finds himself placed. 
 Marriage is the natural expansion of manhood or 
 womanhood sanctioned by God in accordance with 
 natural design as the foundation of the family. And 
 therefore that a man should have more wives than one, 
 or that there should be any unfaithfulness in the 
 marriage state, is a blot upon nature and a blow to 
 the great scheme of God ; so that the faithlessness of 
 either party in the married state as a pretext for 
 divorce is altogether beside the question. The Church, 
 when superintending the contract whereby this state is 
 enterprised, expressly provides for every contingency, 
 when besides riches and poverty, sickness and health, 
 she recognises what she calls ' better' or 'worse,' that is, 
 conditions under which there might be a temptation to 
 endeavour to break the indissoluble bond. If it be 
 said that our Blessed Lord recognised a possible dissolu- 
 tion in certain circumstances which He describes, it must 
 be remembered that, first of all, it is extremely doubt- 
 ful whether His actual words have been transmitted 
 to us on this point in the chapter of S. Matthew's 
 gospel which most seems to suggest this possibility. 
 Further, that it has been held by some that the 
 liberty apparently permitted refers to putting away, 
 and not to marrying another, which after all would 
 1 See also John Walter Lea, A Memoir, p. 371, etc.
 
 202 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 not be a pressing question to a Jew in our Lord's time, 
 when polygamy was not only permitted but encouraged 
 by the Rabbis. 1 Further, that no less authority than 
 Dr. Dollinger, endorsed by Dr. Liddon, 2 looked upon 
 our Lord as referring in this passage to the Jewish 
 treatment of pre-nuptial, not post-nuptial, sin. The 
 fact that this interpretation is largely disowned does 
 not alter the weight that is to be attached to the 
 opinion of both these authorities. And after all that 
 can be said, our Blessed Lord distinctly affirmed that 
 the divorce permitted by Moses, which was in a case 
 very similar to that whicn is now called the case of the 
 innocent party, was contrary to primitive purity, and 
 only a concession to the hardness of the human heart, 
 so that at the very best the so-called re-marriage of 
 the innocent party, if submitted to our Blessed Lord, 
 would be branded with this stigma, that it was contrary 
 to primitive purity, and argued a heart hardened to the 
 sense of divine truth. 
 
 And those who are best able to speak from ex- 
 perience corroborate the a priori fears of those who 
 argue from the standpoint of theological truth, 
 and associate any laxity in granting permission for 
 divorce with a general corruption of public morals. 8 
 Marriage was one of the first injunctions of the Holy 
 Spirit in bringing order out of chaos and tranquillity 
 out of confusion. But within the sacred enclosure of 
 the Church it becomes a great deal more than a bare 
 sign of a great union, it becomes ' an effectual sign/ 
 The mutual consent and plighting of troth before the 
 priest receives from him the blessing which tends to 
 make it to be that which it signifies, a union like that 
 
 1 See Bishop Lightfoot's Notts on the Epistles of S. Paul, \ Cor. 
 vii. 2, and the references there given, p. 221. 
 
 * See Liddon, 'Christ and Human Law,' University Sermons, 
 second series. 
 
 1 See the subject treated fully in Knox Little, Holy Matrimony, 
 in this series.
 
 PRACTICE 203 
 
 between Christ and His Church in something more than 
 a sign, and one of the many important ways in which 
 the Holy Spirit works for the good of the individual, 
 and the furthering of the cause of God. It is sad that 
 marriage should ever be regarded unworthily ; it is sad 
 also that it should be regarded with frivolity. No 
 one is allowed to approach this rite in the Church with- 
 out very solemn warning, and the warning is only the 
 prelude to the fulness of the gift, in which is cemented 
 a union like that betwixt Christ and His Church ; of 
 which we are told by the apostle that Christ 'gave 
 Himself for it ; that He might sanctify and cleanse it 
 with the washing of water by the word/ l Here is the 
 true character of the union, a union brought about 
 by self-surrender, in which the husband gives himself, 
 and the wife submits herself to her own husband in 
 everything : and a union further enterprised with this 
 object, that each many sanctify the other. 
 
 It is well that these two notes of holy marriage 
 should be kept prominently forward : a union founded 
 on sacrifice, and a union tending to sanctify. It is a 
 grand thing, in days when the elaboration of civilisa- 
 tion makes selfishness in minute things more and more 
 possible, that there should be some one to love more 
 than self, some one on whom to bestow the fulness of 
 self-devotion. The self-denial of a single life under- 
 taken for God, that self may be placed more and more 
 at His service, is a noble thing ; but there is a great 
 and true self-denial possible in the married state as 
 well which renders it capable of a sacrifice which may 
 be even comparable with the great sacrifice referred to 
 above. 
 
 It may be, for instance, that a young man who has 
 
 no ties upon him, who has no call on his daily sympathies 
 
 and tenderness, who has no one's comfort to consider 
 
 but his own, who can move about as he pleases, and 
 
 1 Ephes. v. 25, 26.
 
 204 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 spend his money on self, and choose those friends and 
 companions which suit the whim of the hour, knows 
 little of the bracing and stimulating effect of living for 
 another, of living with another, perhaps of different 
 mould and character, where mutual concession in him 
 who sacrifices, in her who submits her will, constitutes 
 a third life which is the outcome of both. And then 
 following on this there is the joy of fatherhood and 
 motherhood demanding unselfish surrender in the 
 interests of the children. These things in themselves 
 strike a blow at mere selfishness, while in all the 
 sufferings, trials, and separations incident to the married 
 state, the supernatural grace of God now tends to 
 assert itself until man and wife, in the power of the 
 mystic union, become like Christ ready to give, like 
 the Church ready to submit. 
 
 And if mutual sanctification be an object, sin 
 makes men and women more and more unfit for this 
 holy bond. Browning has told us of the painter 
 drawn down from the heights of his God-given art 
 by the lack of sympathy in her who took his gold 
 and withheld her inspiration. The marriage of 
 Samson with Delilah is the history of many a 
 marriage unhallowed by God. And who shall probe 
 the depths of cruelty which leaves a young life, 
 snatched away from home, to pine and die, the children 
 to starve, and despair to take up its abode, while in 
 one set of circumstances he is gambling at the club, in 
 another he is drinking away his wages at the public- 
 house. 
 
 But the pledge involved in obedience to this com- 
 mandment goea further than this. All the approaches 
 to marriage have to be sanctified, and all that would 
 tend to its perversion must be removed. The Christian 
 ideal sets oefore itself the absolute purity of the 
 individual, whether he be married in all the responsi- 
 bility of that wondrous union, or whether from set
 
 PRACTICE 205 
 
 purpose, either of devotion or circumstance, he remains 
 unmarried. In the Sermon on the Mount our Lord 
 removes, as it were, this warning from being the ex- 
 clusive safeguard of marriage, and puts it over the 
 whole life of man as the protection of its purity. He 
 aims at purifying those units which make up society, 
 and attacking sin in the strongholds of the heart 
 before it issues forth in the tragedies of wanton passion. 
 Painters and poets, and writers of fiction, have vied 
 with each other in depicting these awful tragedies, but 
 still men and women for whom Christ died are driven 
 in troops towards sin's slaughter-house which is the 
 grave of happiness, and among them are those who 
 have been sheltered in the protection of Christian 
 homes, and trained, taught, and nourished by the 
 Church, their mother. 
 
 And therefore, as we have seen, the child, as yet 
 unassaulted, promises ; buffeted with his first tempta- 
 tions, he promises yet again to renounce the flesh ; 
 while Nature herself bars the way, and God threatens, 
 and conscience pleads, and even a weak public opinion 
 feebly protests in the interest of a self-control which 
 can defy temptation, and of the noble pride of a self- 
 reverence which shrinks from defiling God's image and 
 defacing His likeness. 
 
 IV 
 
 The Christian is pledged, by the terms of his Bap- 
 tismal vow, to faithfully keep another of God's com- 
 mandments, which intimately concerns his place and 
 integrity in this world of God's creating. ' Thou shalt 
 not steal,' if it be no longer upheld in this land by the 
 awful and excessive punishment of death, is still sanc- 
 tioned with heavy criminal penalties, and comes before 
 man not as a mere State enactment, but as part of the 
 moral law of God, dealing with an offence which ranks
 
 206 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 in God's sight with murder and adultery, and presum- 
 ably has so many ramifications in the hearts of profess- 
 ing Christians as to make the prohibition of it not 
 unsuitable at the most solemn service of the Church, 
 and the avoidance of it a subject of a twice-repeated 
 pledge in the course of a man's life. 
 
 If the two commandments considered above have to 
 do with respect for life and respect for the marriage 
 laws, which regulate the transmission of life, this 
 commandment has to do with the outward accessories 
 of life ; it is based on respect for property, and this 
 property, something which we can call our own, some- 
 thing which to all intents and purposes is our own, is 
 what we all cling to. There are few delights so keen 
 as that first delight of the child in possessing some- 
 thing which he can call his very own. It is a joy of 
 opening life to feel the thrill of power which comes 
 with the sense of having earned something for oneself. 
 And in later life, there is a peculiar delight in pro- 
 prietorship, the possession of house, land, or capital. 
 And even the rich man does not always care so much 
 for that which money brings as for the sense of owner- 
 ship which comes with it. This sentiment may be 
 traced again even in the national aspirations of a 
 people which is sensitive as to any diminution of its 
 territory or control, and proud if it can boast of an 
 empire which is ever expanding in extent and influence. 
 
 It may be disputed as to whether this is not an 
 unworthy sentiment of human complacency. It has 
 been said that Property is the thief which ties up in 
 a few hands treasure and even sustenance which was 
 meant for all, which prowls through life snatching on 
 all sides, and holding its own by brute strength, pur- 
 sued by a hungry pack of yelping sins which are a 
 danger to the community and a disgrace to civilisa- 
 ilbeit the natural product of Property. 
 
 Perhaps it would not be too much to say that by
 
 PRACTICE 207 
 
 reason of this very commandment Property can claim 
 God on its side. It can open the book of Revelation 
 and say, 'The God Who forbad theft, sanctioned 
 thereby the rights of property.' 
 
 But Property can go further and appeal to an instinct 
 of humanity, a sentiment that is innate in man, that a 
 man has a right to his own work, to use it and to 
 dispose of it, and that to deprive a man of the rights 
 of his own production is nothing else but slavery. 
 And Christianity has recognised this fact and legis- 
 lated upon it. That which a man calls his own is 
 and will be unequally distributed ; still the rights of 
 property must be respected ; but upon these rights 
 Christianity has imposed other duties and responsi- 
 bilities. Abundance after satisfying every legitimate 
 need, must never degenerate into luxury. The surplus 
 funds stored with those who have most of this world's 
 goods must be used for the benefit of those who have 
 less, in well-ordered schemes of Christian benevolence ; 
 while Christ Himself, and His followers in all ages, 
 have for ever removed the stigma from poverty, inas- 
 much as in both precept and example He has pro- 
 claimed to us, ' A man's life consisteth not in the 
 abundance of the things which he possesseth.' 1 
 
 Property, if part of the divine economy, is liable to 
 serious corruption, and among the many evils which 
 surround its possession there are the constant attempts 
 to add to property unjustly by violent or dishonest 
 means. And it is this sinful principle which is met by 
 the commandment which enacts under divine sanction, 
 ' Thou shalt not steal.' 
 
 This precept penetrates into regions as deep as any 
 of those which it was necessary to enter in considering 
 the last two commandments. A man must not take 
 it for granted that he is free as regards any possible 
 infraction of this divine law, if he regards dishonesty 
 1 S. Luke xii. 15.
 
 208 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 as a crime unworthy of an honourable man, and only 
 possible to inferior natures. This command would 
 seem to say, for instance, in its widest possible applica- 
 tion, * Thou shalt not steal from God.' If it be con- 
 ceded that God allows us to hold property, it should 
 be explained, for the sake of greater accuracy, that we 
 only hold this property as tenants at His will, and 
 therefore that we owe to God our tenant dues, and 
 especially His tithe. 
 
 Man is very powerful, but he does not own the world 
 after all. He may push his boundary farther and 
 farther out, and capture for the well-defined regions of 
 explained law those things which his forefathers as- 
 signed to the unexplained, or, as it was to them, the 
 miraculous. God may open up for us more and more 
 the riches and resources of the world ; still if we rob 
 Him, if we contemptuously say, ' We will not have 
 this Man to rule over us,' sooner or later we hear, 
 * Thou shalt not steal. 1 
 
 God has lifted the veil which conceals His working, 
 and has shown to His prophets the great empires mount- 
 ing up before them and passing away, one after another, 
 as if they had never been. Nations like men are 
 immortal until their work is done, but they cannot 
 resist God. * Beware lest thou forget the Lord thy God ' 
 this constant warning of Holy Scripture is but the 
 expression on a large scale of the prohibition, * Thou 
 shalt not steal.' And in this wider sense the possi- 
 bility of dishonesty in the highest things is a danger 
 ever present to every one who makes his pledge to 
 observe God's holy laws. If it be true that God gives 
 us the brain to think, the hand to work, the soul to 
 live; and if, knowing this, a man allows himself to 
 forget it and to say, 'By my own power, my own 
 strength, and the mightiness of my hand, I have done 
 it,' he is robbing God ; and every prayerless day, every 
 week without its Sunday, every action done in proud
 
 PRACTICE 209 
 
 self-satisfaction, is a spiritual theft, inasmuch as it is a 
 withholding from God His dues. 
 
 If the rights of God are to be respected under pain 
 of incurring the guilt of dishonesty, so also a Christian 
 is bound to respect the claims of religion and the 
 Church. 'Thou shalt not rob the Church' may be 
 an unpopular reading of this injunction, but is never- 
 theless a true one. Men are beginning slowly and 
 with tardy justice to realise the monstrous iniquity 
 which characterised the sweeping away of the religious 
 foundations in England in the sixteenth century. A 
 modern writer, who speaks temperately on the subject, 
 has said that it is impossible to read any account of 
 the work done by the monastic institutions for the 
 poor, without perceiving in how many directions the 
 present generation has been compelled by very necessity 
 to devise some substitute for the consideration exercised 
 by them. It is impossible to read without shame the 
 record of the destruction, under the name of religion, 
 of the two great hospitals of St. Mary and St. Bartho- 
 lomew in London ; l and these revenues thus set free did 
 little good to the nation at large, and, if tradition can 
 be credited, have proved a damnosa hasreditas to those 
 presently benefited by them. At times when the Church 
 is unpopular and the State needy, there arises the 
 temptation to alienate endowments set apart for God ; 
 and, while the income of the nation is said to be a 
 thousand millions a year, to sacrifice the little ewe- 
 lamb of the Church to satisfy the wayfaring man who 
 casts greedy eyes on that which belongs neither to him 
 who asks for it, nor to the nation that offers it. Money 
 given to God, whether it be in the hands of the Church 
 or of some other society, may never be secularised with- 
 out fear of impiety. 
 
 And in this connection it may be only too possible 
 to find that scanty almsgiving, a neglect to give God 
 1 See Hake, Suffering London, p. xxxv. 
 O
 
 210 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 His tithe, an eager appropriation of that which was 
 given to a man to distribute, may also be a violation 
 of this precept, * Will a man rob God ? Yet ye have 
 robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed 
 Thee ? In tithes and offerings/ * 
 
 But the Christian pledges himself, in the plain and 
 obvious meaning of this precept, not to rob his neigh- 
 bour. There is a popular yet unworthy proverb which 
 speaks of * honesty as being the best policy.' Although 
 tnis is true, yet, as Whately pointed out, he who is 
 honest because it is the best policy is little better than 
 a rogue. A man should be honest because it is right 
 and noble so to be, and because it is God's law ; and yet 
 few people who have thoroughly examined the subject 
 will be disposed to admit either that dishonesty is 
 uncommon, or that it is a sin from which those who 
 might presumably be supposed to know better, hold 
 themselves aloof. At one time we are sickened with 
 the exposure of commercial dishonesty which puts gain 
 before patriotism, and sends out soldiers to certain 
 death, because to secure a little profit the contractor 
 has supplied them with unfit food or unserviceable 
 weapons, for which he has charged the full price. There 
 is the dishonesty of the man who runs into debt, and 
 buys things for which he cannot pay, and for which he 
 makes no effort to pay. This is in effect only a form 
 of stealing. One man goes into a shop, and steals an 
 article for which he is punished by a term of imprison- 
 ment; another goes into the same shop and procures a 
 similar article by buying it and not paying for it. 
 
 There is the dishonesty of betting and its almost 
 certain concomitants, where a man takes money given 
 him by God for His own purposes, and trifles it away 
 or risks it in an unworthy manner, without realising 
 the responsibility of ownership or the value of money 
 as a gift from God. Here a dereliction of principle is 
 1 Mai. iii. 8.
 
 PRACTICE 211 
 
 followed almost certainly by alienating sums of money 
 which might be spent on good purposes, and in doing 
 that which ministers to the corruption of others, and not 
 unfrequently leads to downright dishonesty in order to 
 satisfy what is ironically called a debt of honour. 
 
 God has implanted in the human soul a sense of 
 truth and justice, a delicacy of soul learned in His 
 presence, and this sense of honour the Christian is 
 bound jealously to maintain; a little sharp practice 
 in a game on which nothing depends, a little dishonesty 
 at the custom-house, a little carelessness about things 
 borrowed, a mild fraud on the railway company, these 
 and other common tricks of everyday life may be 
 charged with consequences altogether incommensurate 
 with the slightness of the deviation from strict duty and 
 honour. They may be the little bits of moral grit which 
 blunt the keen edge of rectitude and the sense of duty. 
 
 Money, position, and the things of the world are 
 some of the material out of which character is being 
 formed. They are the testing-places for posts of trust 
 in God's kingdom hereafter. One of the few Apocry- 
 phal sayings attributed to our Blessed Lord bears on 
 this : ' Be ye, 1 He said to His disciples, ' good bankers, 
 tried money-changers.' 1 Take the things of the world 
 which the sinner uses wrongly, and out of them 
 develop virtue here and happiness hereafter. A dis- 
 honesty in trifles penetrates through to the deepest 
 principles of Christian life, and damages that true 
 estimate of perfection which it is the honour of Chris- 
 tianity to have produced. 
 
 There is another commandment, in which 'our 
 neighbour 1 now figures by name, which the Christian 
 pledges himself to observe. 
 
 1 See Westcott, Introduction to the Gospels, App. C. , yli>e<r6e rpaire^irai
 
 212 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 Here, again, as in the other commandments, the 
 sin is taken in its most extreme manifestation, where 
 human law would step in with prohibition and penalty. 
 The law of perjury and libel in civilised countries is 
 sanctioned by no less stringent penalties than the law 
 of theft. And the moral stigma attached to its viola- 
 tion is almost equally severe. 
 
 False witness in its basest form has a sinister history. 
 It figures in the history of the Passion as that which 
 made it possible to put our Lord to death ; and in the 
 cruel tragedy also of the first martyrdom, it was a false 
 witness which drove S. Stephen to his end : * This man 
 ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this 
 holy place, and the Law." 1 * And the record of the law- 
 courts or the annals of a general Parliamentary election 
 show how terribly common such crimes still are, and 
 how little restraint is exercised by higher considerations 
 over the wayward jealousies and passions of men. 
 
 If the eighth commandment is based upon a respect 
 for property, this commandment has to do with the 
 use and abuse of God's great gift to men in language. 
 Its power is amply recognised ; more and more the 
 written word of an irresponsible Press sways the for- 
 tunes of states as well as men. The obligations 
 imposed by the gift, its responsibilities and dangers, 
 are not so commonly recognised. And yet, if it be 
 considered that a word spolcen can never be recalled, 
 that it goes forth like an arrow from a bow into an 
 unknown space, its importance is manifest. There 
 can be no more awful thought, for instance, for him 
 who has published some book, which he would fain 
 recall a book which saps the foundations of morality, 
 or whose epigrammatic sarcasm has flashed across the 
 delicate beauties of religious life with scorching flame 
 that what he has written or said has gone out of his 
 reach, accumulating an account only to be reckoned 
 1 Acts vi. 13.
 
 PRACTICE 213 
 
 up at the Last Day as a terrible addition to the tale 
 of personal sins, already swollen to the dimensions of 
 an unpayable debt. 
 
 Just a little word is heedlessly dropped by a 
 passionate king, and the pavement of Canterbury 
 Cathedral is stained with the blood of a great arch- 
 bishop. It is only an unconsidered title of fulsome 
 adulation, but by it the ambition is fired which 
 treachery and murder can scarcely appease. It is but 
 the little streak of snow which drops and falls away, 
 but presently a village is in ruins overwhelmed by an 
 avalanche. 
 
 An old Spanish fable tells that the Tongue and the 
 Sword were locked up in prison together for brawling, 
 and that the Tongue asked the Sword what crime had 
 been brought against him that he found himself in such 
 a sorry plight. The Sword answered that he had made 
 some ugly cuts, that he had been drawn in an unjust 
 war, and had taken away life. ' Is that all ? ' said the 
 Tongue. ' I every day speak blasphemies, I swear, I 
 lie, I grumble, I speak scandals, I break off, I destroy 
 friendships, I extinguish peace, I flatter, I sow distrust, 
 I wear a man down by unjust accusations. 1 'Stay, 1 
 said the Sword, ' my crimes are as nothing compared 
 with yours, they are but as a spark to your fire.' 
 
 Two principles would seem to stand out conspicu- 
 ously from this commandment : the one is the utterly 
 sacred nature of truth, and the other our solemn respon- 
 sibility to our neighbour. 
 
 Most men, in their better moments, have an innate 
 appreciation of the beauty and value of truth. The 
 fall of a dishonest man who has been trading on the 
 confidence of his neighbour is welcomed almost with 
 a sense of relief, as if some vital part of the world's 
 machinery had been freed from a disabling complica- 
 tion. One of the most genuine manifestations of this 
 feeling is seen in the unconscious homage paid to a
 
 214 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 fine impersonation of the cheat on the stage, where the 
 audience, instead of applauding the successful acting, 
 are carried out of themselves by the truthfulness of 
 the delineation, and instead of acclaiming the actor, 
 hiss the villain. 
 
 The same feeling of relief manifests itself in the 
 gradual discrediting of fanaticisms, when results 
 avowedly based on false principles dwindle away and 
 die, as the little measure of truth which kept them 
 alive is exhausted, and the rock-bound roots fade hope- 
 lessly in the heat of the merciless sun. 
 
 Truth has its triumph, and when it is recognised is 
 sure of its applause. Here it is the revival of dry and 
 barren branches, as the living sap has still power to 
 course through their veins. Here it is the tardy vindi- 
 cation of some scientific, political, or social principle 
 which wins its way through obloquy and opposition, 
 where Galileo is tortured but his science triumphs, 
 where the martyrs are put to death but their cause is 
 victorious, where reforms which were denounced are 
 recognised as sound and salutary, and schemes of im- 
 provement once voted dangerous are honoured as the 
 simplest expression of true philanthropy. If there be 
 such a thing as a national virtue Englishmen are dis- 
 posed to be proud of their traditional bluntness and 
 absence of affectation, because, they say, it witnesses 
 to a national straightforwardness, a national love of 
 truth, which would condemn any form of hypocrisy, 
 disdain unreality, and banish shams. 
 
 More than all this, Truth must be a sacred thing, 
 for it is an attribute of God that cannot lie: * I am the 
 truth * ; and a criticism of the Holy Scriptures which 
 affects to say that the distinction between genuine and 
 spurious, true and imaginary, history and legend has no 
 bearing on the value of the books, cannot expect to 
 carry with it the common instinct of human nature. 
 
 As to the importance of recognising our responsi-
 
 PRACTICE 215 
 
 bility to our neighbour, this is a responsibility which 
 rests upon us equally as inhabitants of the world, as 
 members of the church, as component parts of a great 
 nation, as citizens of a city, as members of any com- 
 munity, and children of a family. ' Wherefore, 1 says 
 Holy Scripture, ' putting away lying, speak every man 
 truth with his neighbour : for we are members one of 
 another.' 1 
 
 It is a great truth, which must be faced, that God 
 has fitted our lives into each other by a marvellous 
 adjustment. It meets us at the beginning, in the pro- 
 vision made for the fuller development of Adam, and 
 it meets us again in the divinely ordained church, 
 calculated to impress upon man the necessary fact that 
 he is not left to himself to struggle as he best may to 
 Heaven, but that he is part and parcel of a community 
 which has duties towards him and towards which he 
 has duties in return. The creed which he professes 
 brings this home to him and leads him on still further 
 to recognise the communion of saints. 
 
 And just as God seems to have put different pro- 
 ducts of the earth in different places that He might 
 draw the world together, as nation trades with nation 
 for the necessities of life, so we are made to depend on 
 each other for our bodily, mental, and spiritual sup- 
 plies. One man's plenty is to minister to the deficiency 
 of another. The parable of the Good Samaritan has 
 so widened the connotation of the word 'neighbour' 
 that it is made to include all the world. To be 
 4 unneighbourly ' is much more than a social offence, it 
 is to be untrue to the great principle of this com- 
 mandment, the second pillar of its integrity, a principle 
 of which he was ignorant who asked the Saviour of the 
 world, * And who is my neighbour ? ' 
 
 If it be true that these are the two great principles 
 which underlie this commandment, the abiding sanctity 
 1 Ephes. iv. 25.
 
 216 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 of truth and the sacredness of the unity which binds 
 together the human race, it must also be allowed that 
 there is a deep-seated tendency in human nature to fall 
 into the sins which this commandment so sternly for- 
 bids. A glance at the records of human experience 
 which are given in Holy Scripture will show how 
 largely untruthfulness enters into those combinations 
 of motives which produce the grave catastrophes of a 
 moral fall. Only in the little circle of our Lord's 
 apostles there is displayed the untruthfulness of fear 
 and the untruthfulness of avarice playing their deadly 
 part. The devil, who is certainly not unacquainted 
 with the methods of destruction, seems to act so uni- 
 formly in this direction that he is known as ' the father 
 of lies, ' and a lie even in its most naked form is not 
 beneath those who call themselves Christians and pride 
 themselves on the nobility of their conduct. A lie is 
 a coward's refuge, and is a distinct act of unbelief, for 
 it regards man, who is seen and menacing, and pays no 
 regard to God, Who is out of sight and patient under 
 the insult. 
 
 It is easy to buy off the Danes who threaten disgrace, 
 and to rob us of a position gained by much toil and 
 care, the lie is quickly told and the relief is immediate ; 
 but soon they are back again and demand a bigger 
 price to secure their retirement. At first S. Peter 
 simply denied and the danger passed away, but soon it 
 returned, and this time a denial was not enough : * Then 
 began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not 
 the man. 11 1 In the old German legend a huntsman, to 
 further his own ends, seeks the devil; together they cast 
 seven bullets, six of them are to strike and bring down 
 whatever the caster wills, but the seventh is to belong 
 to the devil and recoil and strike him who fires it, while- 
 he is never certain which bullet he is putting into the 
 rifle, and at last he is struck dead by his own shot; so 
 1 S. Matt. xxvi. 74.
 
 PRACTICE 217 
 
 the career bolstered up by lies answers for a time ; at 
 last comes the fatal move which recoils with fearful 
 effect upon him who uses such weapons, and covers him 
 with shame and dishonour. 
 
 Neither is it the simple lie alone which violates this 
 commandment. There is the equivocation which speaks 
 words in themselves true but which convey a false im- 
 pression. There is the serviceable lie which does duty 
 in the times of a general election or to promote a party 
 measure ; or the subterfuge which contrives to push on 
 one side the inconvenient question, the answer to 
 which would rouse popular prejudice on one side or 
 the other. There is the blind forgetfulness of the 
 plighted word, when such remembrance might be a 
 cause of personal hindrance. There is the lie which is 
 half the truth, the advertising lie, the exaggeration, the 
 scandal, the habitual inaccuracy, the cynicism which 
 takes the brightness out of excellence and the refinement 
 from truth, and all that brood of evil which is gathered 
 up into his name who is known as the devil or slanderer. 
 
 It is something that public opinion still affects to 
 despise the baseness of one who is not true, while it 
 drives him away and dethrones him from the pinnacle 
 of respect. And what is this but a reflection of that 
 righteous wrath which at the end will cast away for 
 ever from the golden city and from the home of truth 
 whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie? 1 
 
 VI 
 
 The last commandment, to the observation of which 
 the Christian finds himself pledged, resembles the pre- 
 ceding in this, that it takes us through its broken 
 hedge right up into the sacred region of our Blessed 
 Lord's Passion. The sin of covetousness played a 
 large part in the betrayal which brought about the 
 1 Rev. xxi. 27.
 
 218 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 Crucifixion ; and it was this sin that stole away the 
 heart of an apostle at his very Master's side. Judas 
 stands, as it were, beside this commandment to warn 
 us from considering covetousness merely as an anti- 
 social offence, or as a breach of good manners, or as 
 pushing the spirit of enterprise too far. It was this 
 inner sin, largely unknown and unsuspected by those 
 with whom he was most intimate, which led him who 
 had given up all gradually to retract the offer of his 
 life's service, and led him, by pilfering, to a gradual 
 deterioration of character, until, in the awful language 
 of Holy Scripture, he went to his own place. 1 
 
 The history of Judas Iscariot must ever be a mena- 
 cing and disquieting one to those who feel safe in the 
 sincerity of their profession and in the consciousness of 
 their own devotion to the cause of religion. For he 
 himself seemed to be barely conscious of whither he 
 was drifting, and when he was accused as a traitor, his 
 companion apostles, in their perplexity and dismay, 
 could say nothing else but, each thinking of himself 
 and suspecting his own fidelity, * Lord, is it I ? ' 
 
 And so this commandment has a characteristic of its 
 own, which distinguishes it from all the rest, and 
 renders its scope unusually undefined and difficult. 
 We have thought of commandments which govern our 
 words and our actions, but who but God can carry a 
 commandment into the region of thought? This 
 precept has to do with motives in that region where 
 no human law reaches, which lies outside the cog- 
 nisance of the closest and most intimate friend, where 
 a man himself may easily be taken in, and find out 
 all too late that the desire which he attributed to 
 peculiarity of temperament, or right ambition, or 
 worldly prudence, or, at the most, a trifling discontent, 
 stands forth as a sin in the eyes of God, ranking with 
 murder, adultery, and theft. 
 
 1 Acts i. 25.
 
 PRACTICE 219 
 
 It may well be questioned whether enough attention 
 is given to this sin. Covetousness is a great deal more 
 than a merely social fault. The covetous man will 
 never be a popular character, for he thrives on that 
 which he subtracts from the portion of others. 
 Certainly, in its most aggravated form, human ex- 
 perience is unanimous in condemning his conduct ; the 
 man who hoards up money for money's sake is the 
 miser, the miserable one, who has misunderstood the 
 true use and significance of money, and is as much 
 to be pitied as the man in the fable who prayed that 
 all that he touched might turn to gold. 
 
 And yet, as compared with the spendthrift or the 
 dishonest man, the world would be disposed to make 
 allowances for him, and to think it, at the worst, a dis- 
 agreeable peculiarity, that a man should so love his 
 own interests as to forget his social duties. 
 
 But Holy Scripture takes a much more severe view 
 than this of the offence. It is emphatic in asserting 
 that covetousness is a sin. We read of ' the covetous, 
 whom God abhorreth. 1 l ' Thefts, covetousness, wicked- 
 ness, 1 we are told, ' come from within, and defile the 
 man. 12 ' Take heed and beware of covetousness 1 : says 
 our Blessed Lord once more, * for a man's life con- 
 sisteth not in the abundance of the things which he 
 possesseth/ 3 Or again, 'Nor thieves, nor covetous, 
 nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall 
 inherit the kingdom of God. 14 Once more, 'For 
 this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean 
 person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath 
 any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of 
 God. 15 While it is startling to notice that it is so 
 often associated with uncleanness, as if it were a 
 characteristic of this sin that it should be stamped 
 with the marks of unbridled desire. 
 
 1 Ps. x. 3. 2 S. Mark vii. 22, 23. 3 S. Luke xii. 15. 
 4 I Cor. vi. 10. 5 Ephes. v. 5.
 
 220 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 In its manifestations this sin is multiform. In its 
 most simple form it can be traced as greediness, 
 as it shows itself in the child, and reaches on some- 
 times into gluttonous old age. In the modern cult 
 of undenominationalism, where an attempt is made to 
 inculcate virtues apart from religion, there is no little 
 danger in this direction. One of the especial virtues of 
 this form of religion is thrift, in itself an excellent 
 thing, but if unbalanced by religious safeguards very 
 easily pressed into a dangerous attitude of mind which 
 runs counter to the commandment of God. The child 
 who has his account at the Savings Bank, and can 
 hoard up postage-stamps, may very easily begin to 
 believe that it is more blessed to receive than to give. 
 The saving child may very easily become a greedy 
 child, and perhaps develop into one of those fathers 
 who murders his son in order that he may secure the 
 money for which he has insured him. 
 
 In the face of the cult of thrift there must be also 
 the cult of giving. Almsgiving after all, not thrift, 
 was the burden of our Lord's treatment of money in the 
 Sermon on the Mount. And it is only too possible to 
 develop in ourselves a spirit of avarice which, com- 
 mencing with greediness and love of self, is continued 
 in that spirit which withholds from God His due, and 
 from man his rights. 
 
 But perhaps the most common development of the 
 sin against which this commandment is directed is 
 discontent. Men reach out after something which God 
 has not given them, and, like the dog in the fable, they 
 drop the substance while snatching at the shadow. 
 The neighbour's house, the neighbour's wife, his ox or 
 ass, represent something which he has and we have 
 not, and the history of Naboth's vineyard repeats 
 itself. The desire for the thing coveted outweighs all 
 considerations as to the manner of getting it, and dis- 
 honesty, robbery, defamation of character, even murder,
 
 PRACTICE 221 
 
 quickly follow in the train of ill-regulated love of 
 acquisition. The desire to get on, apparently so 
 innocent, even laudable, encouraged by competitive 
 examinations and rewarded with prizes, may once 
 more, like thrift, if unbalanced and unguarded, lead 
 to developments of conduct which are severely de- 
 nounced by the prohibition of this commandment. In 
 one class of life it leads the boy or girl to place them- 
 selves in posts of danger simply because high wages 
 offer an attraction which they cannot resist. In 
 another class of life it develops the unlovely character 
 known as the disappointed man, who neglects the 
 obvious duties which God has put before him, and 
 does the little he consents to do grudgingly and un- 
 willingly because his heart has gone after this or that 
 post of honour to which God has not called him, and 
 for which he is daily more and more disqualifying 
 himself by being unfaithful in that which is least. 
 Covetousness is at the bottom of many unhappy 
 marriages, where money, or position, or personal 
 attraction, not love, and honour, and worth, are the 
 ruling motives. It is covetousness which seeks to 
 demolish the reputation of another in order to rise 
 higher upon the ruins. And there are few sins in 
 which it does not appear as a motive ever pushing 
 forward self, which is never satisfied, in defiance of the 
 great lesson of the Cross, which preaches self-denial, 
 self-sacrifice, and contempt of the world to all who 
 aspire to be followers of the Crucified. 
 
 So God exacts from His children a recognition of 
 the rights of others so profound and so complete that 
 not only are the outward duties of life safeguarded as 
 they respect Him, but even the inner motives of the 
 heart. ' Love worketh no ill to his neighbour : there- 
 fore love is the fulfilling of the law. 1 1 
 1 Rom. xiii. 10.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE SERVICE OF GOD 
 
 Deus auctor pacis et amator, Quern nosse vivere : Cui 
 servire regnare est. 
 
 OUR Blessed Lord was once asked which was the great 
 commandment in the Law, 1 as if there were some one 
 precept or class of precepts which was the keystone to 
 the whole fabric, which being duly observed all else 
 might be regarded as negligible; and the answer He gave 
 was tantamount to saying the whole Law. There was 
 a first commandment which enjoined the utter and 
 complete love of God, and this carried with it a second, 
 which embraced the complete love of our fellow-men ; 
 so that the Catechism is adapting the divine summary 
 of the Law of God when it divides the commandments 
 into two great divisions, which it explains and am- 
 plifies, the one as representing a man's duty towards 
 God, and the other his duty towards his neighbour. 
 
 We hear a great deal of moral duties, but not so 
 much of religious duties. An unreasonable dislike 
 to the Church has resulted in many places in the 
 silencing of her Catechism ; undenominational ethics 
 have been substituted as a study in place of religious 
 precepts, with the sad result among others that the 
 love of God and the service of God no longer take 
 their places among the duties of life. Religion may 
 be taught to those who desire it, but it is not in- 
 cluded among the rudiments of useful knowledge, and 
 1 S. Matt. xxii. 36.
 
 THE SERVICE OF GOD 223 
 
 godliness is no longer regarded as the root of good 
 conduct, or holy fear as the best guardian of morality. 
 
 The 'Duty towards God' sounds in our ears with 
 an old-fashioned ring about it which in itself is an 
 indication of the growing chasm which separates us 
 from the piety of the past. When Bishop Goodrich l 
 penned this simple summary of The Law of the Love 
 of God, the new learning was just beginning to apply 
 its solvent to the old religious position now sadly 
 weakened by superstition and faithlessness to spiritual 
 and moral truth; he was still, however, removed by 
 an interval of more than three hundred years from 
 a godlessness which poses as anti-clericalism on the 
 Continent and as unsectarianism in England. 
 
 His words must have sounded in the upheaval of 
 the sixteenth century as a plaintive appeal not to 
 forget God whilst wrangling about His service, or to 
 make piety impossible by the fierceness of religious 
 claims. There it stands, like an old building with its 
 chapel and finial crosses, amidst a mass of modern 
 shops, public buildings, and Government schools. It 
 is the witness of an age when hitherto everything had 
 been stamped with God, when the difference between 
 secular and sacred barely existed, an age in which 
 we sometimes feel it difficult to say, on looking back, 
 whether at a given time the secular is overwhelming 
 the sacred, or the sacred absorbing the secular. When 
 the images of Christ and His saints looked down upon 
 the busy streets, and the Judge sat on his tribunal, 
 overshadowed with the everlasting arms stretched 
 out on the cross behind him ; when the image of 
 Gabriel saluting Mary would greet the eye of the 
 guest as he entered the rich man's house ; and the 
 citizen's hall of meeting, or the school, or the college 
 would each appeal to the soul, with statue or legend, 
 or glowing frieze, or brilliant fresco. Men were not 
 * See Introduction, p. I.
 
 224 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 ashamed of God in those days, nor thought it neces- 
 sary to leave religion behind in the pressing affairs 
 of daily life. Men did not then cast covetous eyes 
 on churches within the precincts of their places of 
 business, but rather vied with each other in building 
 and adorning them. A Christian city of the middle 
 ages must have been, as far as outward seeming went, 
 a beautiful sight. It was the aim and object of men, 
 like the author of this pious summary, to make the 
 inward life correspond to the outward seeming, and to 
 drive away the spirit of godlessness, which is summed 
 up in the words of the Psalmist : ' Neither is God in 
 all his thoughts.' 1 
 
 Where the Catechism can make its voice to be 
 heard, God and religion are not left to such chance 
 respect as individual piety may suggest, or a conscience 
 clause allow. The Christian child must be taught as 
 soon as he can learn, and the Christian man must 
 remember, lest the world make him forget, that his 
 attitude towards God is regulated by duty, and stands 
 in the forefront of all moral excellence. 
 
 Now this summary of * The Law of the Love of 
 God' postulates no less than nine attitudes of the 
 soul towards the Author of its being, which may, for 
 the sake of convenience, be gathered up into four. 
 
 We owe God a debt of belief, fear, love, and service, 
 a service which will express itself in worship, thanks- 
 giving, and trustfulness, while, like the seraphs whom 
 Isaiah saw, the soul pours itself out with glad voice, 
 veils itself in reverence, and devotes itself with a holy 
 activity to follow the guidance of His will. 
 
 I 
 
 It seems almost of the nature of a hard saying to 
 assert that we owe to God a belief in Him as a duty. 
 There is almost an ostentatious assertion of the right 
 1 Pi. x. 4.
 
 THE SERVICE OF GOD 225 
 
 to do without God, and to diminish as far as possible 
 the field of the supernatural. Man is like a school- 
 boy just beginning to assert his independence, who 
 resents anything which would suggest home influence 
 or home duties. We see it in a contemptuous attitude 
 towards Revelation and the mysteries of religion ; we 
 see it in daily life as it expresses itself in word and 
 action. The verdict of a coroner's jury in 1890 passed 
 upon a man who had been killed by lightning is 
 symptomatic of the general attitude of modern 
 thought. The verdict in question, correct enough no 
 doubt in expression and enunciation of the cause of 
 death, ran as follows : ' Death from exhaustion follow- 
 ing shock caused by being struck by lightning'; on 
 which the coroner dryly remarked that the old verdict 
 used to be : ' Died by the visitation of God.' 
 
 It has been already suggested, under the head of 
 the first commandment of those here summarised, 
 that there is a constant temptation to live a life in 
 which practically there is no God. This has been the 
 real danger which underlies the demand that secular 
 education only shall be entertained by the State, and 
 religious education be left to denominational effort. 
 Quite apart from any question of convenience or 
 economy, or avoiding of controversy, such action would 
 amount to a serious apostasy on the part of the nation, 
 and would deprive religion of its rightful place as a 
 permanent and all-important factor of education, and 
 as an influence which should permeate all training. 
 
 But this summary is rather designed to bring home 
 this belief in God as a personal duty, and to remind 
 the Christian of the obligation that is laid upon him 
 to a life of godliness, to carry out in his own life all 
 that is meant by the power of moving in the felt 
 presence of God, or, in one word, of being devout. 
 
 This in itself is one of the sevenfold gifts of the 
 Holy Spirit which is imparted at Baptism and Con- 
 
 p
 
 226 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 firmation, which will lead a man to make God an ever- 
 present influence and power, not merely a help reserved 
 for occasions which transcend human foresight. The 
 ordinary man who has not parted with religion believes 
 that there is nothing too hard for the Lord, the 
 devout man believes that there is nothing too small 
 for Him. 
 
 A man who believes in God takes to Him his little 
 troubles, and shares with Him his little joys. From 
 the time of Enoch, who walked with God, to the days 
 of S. John, who leaned on Jesus' bosom, and received 
 His divine sympathy this has been the privilege of the 
 devout, to share their life with God, in all their ways 
 to acknowledge Him, and to find in Him a director of 
 their paths. And so, by believing in God as a deity, 
 the Christian ends by reposing in Him as a friend. 
 
 And herein the old principle which is expressed in 
 the word * duty * and * I ought "* is in direct antagonism 
 to the modern spirit of inclination and * I like/ 
 
 It is unusual now for a child to be told that he 
 ought to love God, to go to church, to be devout, be- 
 cause this is a duty incumbent upon him. As we have 
 already seen in treating of the fourth commandment, 
 modern sentiment has substituted the drawing of the 
 individual inclination in the place of the obligation 
 of duty. 
 
 And the result has not been successful. * Strait is 
 the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, 1 
 and duty, like the Law of old, must be the slave to 
 lead us down to the school of Christ. Even the priest 
 must learn to say his office under the obligations laid 
 upon him, i.e. by duty, before he realises in his daily 
 devotions the strength and joy of his life. And until 
 the ordinary Christian recognises the importance of a 
 solid framework of prayer and devotion for his day, 
 and the importance of days of religious obligation for 
 his week, he will not enjoy the felt pleasures of devotion
 
 THE SERVICE OF GOD 227 
 
 and communing with God. Times of devotion, of 
 meditation and communion, are the paths in which the 
 Lord God walks in the garden in the cool of the day. 1 
 It is by following these up that we find ourselves in 
 His Presence, and are able to repose in the light of 
 His countenance, and feel that peace which passeth 
 all understanding as the protection of our hearts and 
 minds. 
 
 II 
 
 A glance at the stern obligations of the second and 
 third commandments will show at once the wisdom 
 of insisting not only on a belief in God, but also on 
 a fear of Him. Here once more there has been a 
 deliberate smoothing down, and even contemptuous 
 rejection, of anything which speaks of the terror of 
 the Lord. While many are asking anxiously and 
 earnestly, How shall I perfect my nature, how shall I 
 answer to the dignity of my calling, and respond to 
 the wealth of my endowment ? there are few anxious 
 inquirers saying, 'What must I do to be saved?' 
 ' How shall I flee from the wrath to come ? ' The 
 thought of the day of judgment and the fear of hell 
 are put on one side, with the warning clauses of the 
 Athanasian Creed, as not only disagreeable topics, but 
 as making an unworthy appeal to human nature which 
 is, or should be, too dignified to be coaxed towards 
 good by the promise of reward, or driven to it by the 
 fear of punishment. 
 
 But further, the appeal to the fear of God as a 
 motive of action, and as a duty, does but draw our 
 attention to the significance of much which we must 
 recognise, even if we cannot explain it, in the existing 
 state of things in which life is passed. The signs of 
 wrath are visible on all sides. It is for us to say whether 
 they are the automatic results of wrong-doing, or the 
 1 Gen. iii. 8.
 
 228 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 unequal incidence of fate or luck ; or, as the Catechism 
 would have us believe, the manifest tokens of a God 
 Who is very greatly to be feared. It is a fact of every- 
 day experience that wrong-doing is punished, and the 
 punishment is such as to lead us to believe that it 
 comes from the hands of God, Who has revealed Him- 
 self as a consuming fire, and has bid us not only to 
 believe in Him, and to love Him, but to fear Him. 
 
 There would seem to be three well-defined forms of 
 punishment which wait upon sin. First, there is that 
 form which seizes on the imagination of mankind, 
 where wrong-doing is succeeded in a striking and 
 dramatic way by a corresponding and nicely adjusted 
 penalty. 
 
 It would be difficult to eradicate the idea of retribu- 
 tion from the mind of the human race. Vengeance 
 tracking the sinner through the long and devious 
 error of his flight is a familiar figure in ancient Greek 
 tragedy. Nero, the matricide, terrified by fearful 
 sights and sounds which never leave him, and dying 
 the death of a hunted dog, is sketched in, on the page 
 of history, by those who recognised in it the appro- 
 priate retribution for a singularly atrocious crime. 
 
 In the highest of all examples of expiation the 
 Christian recognises, in at least one aspect of the 
 Atonement, pain and loss inflicted on the guiltless Son 
 of God, because as Son of Man He represented fallen 
 humanity, and paid the penalty of sin in the suffering 
 which had been deserved by past wrong-doing, accord- 
 ing to the Law of Righteousness, whereby ' if the 
 penalties of sin are remitted, some other divine act, 
 of at least equal intensity, in which the ill-desert of sin 
 is expressed with at least equal energy, must take its 
 place. 11 The Atonement as a necessity of divine for- 
 giveness emphasises, as nothing else can, the idea of 
 retribution as a consequence following on sin. 
 1 Dale, The Atonement, p. 391.
 
 THE SERVICE OF GOD 229 
 
 We are accustomed to trace the same principle of 
 retribution in everyday experience. 'Though hand 
 join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished,' 1 
 meets with a strange and terrible comment in the 
 facts of daily life. Even more it can be said with the 
 author of the book of Wisdom, ' Wherewithal a man 
 sinneth by the same also shall he be punished,' 2 as we 
 trace the nicely adjusted and carefully apportioned 
 nature of the punishment, so that we see standing out 
 behind the penalty inflicted the outline of the sin for 
 which retribution is exacted. There are two striking 
 examples of this in Holy Scripture. There is, in the first 
 place, the graphic history of Jacob, in which truthful- 
 ness to life is stamped on every line of the narrative. 
 Here it is not a little significant to notice how the 
 troubles which overshadowed his later life so strangely 
 took the shape of his sins committed in earlier years. 
 As in a spring morning we may see the clouds which 
 hang upon the mountain ridge strangely following 
 their every peak and indentation, so it was with Jacob : 
 he had played upon the hunger of his brother, and 
 made a disgraceful bargain with a starving man, and 
 we accordingly find famine playing a large part in 
 the perplexities and troubles which dogged his foot- 
 steps. He had trifled with a father's love, and imposed 
 upon his bodily infirmities that he might greedily 
 snatch the blessing for which he could not wait ; his 
 own fatherly heart was rent with a cruel deception, 
 and the trouble which followed in its path threatened 
 to bring down his grey hairs with sorrow to the 
 grave. 
 
 The other instance is David, in whose history we 
 have the example of a successful sin punished by a 
 series of sorrows which lingered on to the end of his 
 life. He, the anointed king of Israel, selfishly ruined a 
 home through sin, and, penitent though he was, the 
 1 Prov. xi. 21. 2 Wisdom, xi. 10.
 
 230 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 sword never left his house; and in the rebellion of 
 those nearest to him, in loss of respect, in the con- 
 tempt of those who participated in his crime, he learnt 
 how a man must expiate even a forgiven sin. 
 
 And this is the stern fact which meets us still in 
 daily experience: penitence, amendment, conversion 
 from the error of his ways do not remove from a man 
 the retribution which is attached to his wrong-doing, 
 at least in part. The penitent drunkard suffers the 
 same penalties of ruined health, and the like, as the 
 impenitent; while we have an extreme example of 
 this retribution on wrong-doing in the penalty which, 
 as a matter of notoriety, lingers on to after-descend- 
 ants, whether in the scourge of hereditary taint, or in 
 the lingering suffering which sometimes scars with a 
 track of vengeance the sinner's race. 
 
 If it be said that retribution is by no means invari- 
 able, and that sometimes the comparatively innocent 
 are punished while the guilty go free, it may be an- 
 swered, that man is but a poor judge of ( (imperative 
 innocence and guilt, and that further, God's puni>h- 
 ments are not always those which are striking and 
 obvious : spiritual and mental punishments, penalties 
 which a man hides beneath an outward composure 
 or cheerful demeanour, may exceed in severity those 
 which are more conspicuous; and that remorse, the 
 sense of guilt or failure, may exceed in intensity the 
 physical pain or dramatic penalties which are so strik- 
 ing to the imagination, and which contribute so 
 convincingly to the widespread belief in an inevitable 
 retribution inflicted by a God of Justice. 
 
 But there is a second form of punishment which it 
 is still more easy to recognise, namely, that punish- 
 ment which would seem to be inflicted as part of the 
 moral discipline of the world. 
 
 If we hesitate to accept the idea of retribution, \u- 
 shall at least feel that the punishment of sin, which
 
 THE SERVICE OF GOD 231 
 
 acts as a deterrent to other offenders, is of necessity a 
 component part in the due and proper regulation of 
 human conduct. 
 
 The punishment which awaits wrong-doing is a 
 powerful deterrent to those who have not a sufficient 
 love of the true, the beautiful, and the good as their 
 best happiness, or a sufficiency of moral strength to 
 stand alone. God's punishment on sin as a penalty 
 inflicted by a law-giver is a conception with which we 
 are familiar, and for which, while we fear Him, we may 
 also earnestly thank Him. 
 
 It may seem to be a sorry thing that a man should 
 follow the ways of God, only because he is afraid of 
 Him : that he should hesitate to sin because he fears 
 the penalty of his misdeeds. Fear may not be the 
 highest motive, but it is a motive which may pave the 
 way for that which is higher than itself. Certainly it 
 is a strength and support to a man to feel, that he has 
 to do with a God of Justice, and not merely with a 
 kindly and indulgent Father Whom he may talk over, 
 and Who will allow him to sin and then remit the 
 penalty of it. This is a conception of God (or, in the 
 form it sometimes takes, of a complacent saint who 
 will intervene between man and the punishment of his 
 sins) which is absolutely fatal to a true and healthy 
 morality. A conception of God which allows a man 
 to sin and confess, to confess and sin, to keep his sins 
 and at the same time to evade the penalty of them by 
 a dexterous travesty of penitence, is fatally opposed 
 to any true conception of His goodness. There is no 
 attribute of God more to be cherished than that of 
 His Justice. And the punishment which follows on 
 sin as a corrective is part of the education of the 
 world. Without it, children as we are, we ourselves 
 should lose the strength of a strong deterrent, without 
 it religion and the mercy of God would be but en- 
 couragements to the moral deterioration of the race ;
 
 232 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 the child of God may now feel God will forgive, but 
 still will punish, instead of feeling the enervating 
 expectancy of a punishment averted in the face of a 
 guilty desert, by One Who has accepted the feeble 
 prayer of the sinner who has not the strength to suffer 
 nor the bravery to expiate his offence. 
 
 There yet remains a third conception of punishment 
 as inflicted by Almighty God, for which indeed He is 
 to be feared, and yet to be thanked. 
 
 Punishment is not only a deterrent, a penalty which 
 adds to the moral instruction of the world, it is also a 
 discipline to the individual of the greatest value. 
 
 When a man is being punished he may feel that he 
 is in the hands of a loving God, Who is too loving not 
 to punish, because He wills our perfection. We should 
 know, even if God had not told us, that ' whom the Lord 
 loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom 
 He receiveth/ 1 It is only the child who calls out 
 against the pain which is to bring him healing. One 
 of God's sorest judgments is that recorded in the 
 Prophets, where He says, * I will not punish/ 2 It is 
 the surgeon refusing to operate in a hopeless case ; it 
 is the abandoning by Him, Who knows that His heal- 
 ing hand will be rejected and His discipline refused. 
 So by the cross of suffering is humanity perfected. 
 Discipline is the chisel which is to let the angel out 
 from the rough block of our life, and hammer out the 
 image and likeness of God which has been overlaid and 
 disfigured by sin. In view of God's chastisement the 
 soul may say, * For there is mercy with Thee : therefore 
 shalt Thou be feared/ 8 
 
 III 
 
 The Love of God, once more, is not left to us as a 
 matter of inclination, but in its turn is imposed as a 
 duty. Here, in two ways, it might seem to be a strange 
 1 Heb. xii. 6. 8 Hos. iv. 14. * Ps. cxxx. 4.
 
 THE SERVICE OF GOD 233 
 
 thing to be commanded to love God. It might be 
 supposed, that God being what He is, such a command 
 would be unnecessary ; while we being what we are, it 
 would very easily become inoperative. 
 
 God is certainly our oldest friend. He not only has 
 known us from our birth, but in the secrets of His 
 predestination has caused us to be, and sent us into 
 the world knowing what we should become. It is He 
 Who watched over those infant years, when we were 
 so uninteresting except to those who formed a very 
 small circle round us, so opposed to the rough ways 
 and needs of the world, showing such little signs of 
 individuality, capacity, or importance. It is He Who 
 watched over those perilous years of education, and 
 shielded us through the attacks of bodily, moral, and 
 spiritual disease. He is our guide unto death, true 
 to His unswerving promise, ' I will never leave thee, 
 nor forsake thee. 1 1 He is also our best friend ; all 
 that we have of good comes from Him ; but the 
 chiefest blessings of our life, our Baptism, our Confir- 
 mation, our Absolutions, our Communions, our Bible, 
 we feel in an especial manner come from Him. While 
 more than all, He is the constant friend Who will not 
 give up the prodigal. The world has long turned 
 with shuddering horror from the youth who, following 
 its ways, has found himself naked and among swine, 
 but God has never given up the hopes of his return, 
 and awaits him without a reproach with food, and 
 raiment, and honour. God being what He is, what 
 He has proved Himself to be, surely we do not need 
 to be commanded to love Him. 
 
 But it also remains true, that human nature being 
 what it is, we have to ask anxiously, How can I 
 have imposed on me as a duty that to which pre- 
 sumably I may have no inclination? If my heart 
 loves God, as it ought to do, it will love Him 
 1 Heb. xiii. 5.
 
 234 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 spontaneously in a way to which no obligation of 
 duty could add either force or inducement. On 
 the other hand, if my heart is cold and rebellious, 
 the fact that I ought to love God does not make 
 any easier or more possible the wayward and feeble 
 flickerings which I seem hardly able to evoke towards 
 the great God, much less dignify by the name of 
 love. Here, perhaps, the author may be allowed to 
 quote more fully the helpful passage from Dr. Mozley's 
 great volume of sermons to which he has already 
 briefly alluded in another work : l ' All agree that we 
 cannot make our own feelings. We can make our- 
 selves perform certain acts by an effort of the will, but 
 this is a very different thing from making our inclina- 
 tions go along with them. It is evident then that we 
 do not possess this power over ourselves. How often 
 indeed do we wish we did, when we know we ought to 
 feel something which we do not feel : when we are 
 conscious of doing something coldly and indifferent ly 
 which we ought to do with real heart. . . . Are we to 
 stop here ; to say that our affections are simply out of 
 our power, and that if we have them it is well, if not, 
 we cannot help it? To leave the subject thus would 
 be far from satisfactory, and would hardly be in accord- 
 ance with the exhortations in Scripture, to strive after 
 the spiritual dispositions and good affections, as if 
 they were in some way connected with our wills, and 
 our use of them. . . . The first explanation to which 
 we have recourse is the simple doctrine of habits 
 that although we cannot by an effort of the will pro- 
 duce an affection or inclination at the time, a succession 
 of such acts will at last produce it, that it is of the 
 nature of habits to make acts easier and easier, till 
 what was at first distasteful, at last becomes pleasant. 
 . . . But this act, let it be ever so often repeated, and 
 
 1 Tke Fruit of the Spirit, p. 1 8. Motley's Sermons, The Work of 
 the Spirit,' pp. 153, 154.
 
 THE SERVICE OF GOD 235 
 
 facilitated by repetition, can never become a feeling, 
 but must always remain in substance what it was to 
 begin with, an act of self-control, only made easier 
 instead of more difficult ; it cannot pass into another 
 thing from what it was at first. 
 
 4 But though acquired habit is not strictly in itself 
 of the nature of a feeling or affection, it has a connec- 
 tion, and an important one, with the due growth of 
 the feelings, in the way that it removes obstructions 
 which stand in the way of their coming out, and 
 obtaining their proper place in the character. 
 
 ' There is undoubtedly a root of love at the bottom 
 of the human heart, which it has received from God, 
 and which only requires the removal of the pressure of 
 other matter upon it, to bring it out as the true 
 part of man. But there is too apt to be an immense 
 pressure upon it, as we can plainly see. There is the 
 pressure upon it of selfish aims and desires of all kinds, 
 low cares, jealousies, enmities, and the general agita- 
 tion of worldly life. It is impossible that this implanted 
 feeling or love can come out as a real force and power 
 in our nature, so long as it is overwhelmed and crushed 
 by a mixed mass of secular and indifferent motives, 
 which occupy the whole mind, e.g. malice, irritation, 
 etc. There must be acts of the will to resist this 
 adverse occupation of the mind, to remove these 
 bad feelings and passions : then in proportion as the 
 ground clears and room is given to the good ones, 
 these good feelings and affections have a natural ten- 
 dency of their own to come up and take possession of 
 the vacant space. It is because the good part ofj our 
 nature has been kept down by a weight upon it that 
 it has not acted. . . . Thus though it is true that we 
 cannot make ourselves feel at the time by an act of the 
 will, acts of the will do eventually, not create feelings 
 indeed, for feeling is a divine gift, but elicit and bring 
 it into play, by removing the obstruction to it.'
 
 236 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 So it will be with the love for God ; if we can but 
 move the obstructions, the love for other things which 
 keep it down, it will assert itself in the region of the 
 feelings at the call of duty. 
 
 And yet this love of God which we owe Him as a 
 duty is to be no half-hearted emotion, it is to be a 
 thorough and complete rendering up of the will to His 
 Will. We are to love Him with all the heart, with 
 all the mind, with all the soul, and with all the 
 strength. And so in its completest manifestation it 
 becomes the love of a person to a Person Who holds a 
 unique place in the heart to which all other love for 
 all other persons is subordinate. This has been ex- 
 hibited in the mystic raptures of the saints in language 
 and in action which have been a puzzle and even a 
 cause of offence to their sober-minded biographers ; it 
 has not been lost sight of in the psychological criticism 
 of Saintliness put before us in a recent study of human 
 nature on its phenomenal side. 1 But this love of God 
 is displayed no less in the love of the things com- 
 manded by God as absolutely the best, and of supreme 
 obligation. So it has been admirably said in a recent 
 review of a life of S. Francis and his followers. ' The 
 Franciscan mysticism was opposed to the mysticism 
 of the East, because its rule of life enforced an inces- 
 sant daily personal activity making of spiritual rapture 
 a reward for work accomplished, and not a substitute 
 for work disdained/ ... So also, ' St. Francis did not 
 ask for, or dream of, the equalisation of chances or the 
 fairer distribution of the world's wealth. Social in- 
 equality never troubled him : he never fought against 
 it because he never admitted its importance or its 
 existence. That burning sense of a common claim 
 upon the goods of life, and the opportunities and 
 the satisfactions of life, which lies at the root of all 
 socialism, was entirely indifferent to him and to his 
 1 See James, Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 276.
 
 THE SERVICE OF GOD 237 
 
 immediate followers. To them, as to the little children 
 who shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven, the love 
 of all created things filled the universe with ineffable 
 and engrossing joys. Love was their answer to every 
 human problem. Love of God, of man, of animal and 
 plant, and running water and earthly stone. . . . Love, 
 which is its own reward, and willing poverty, which 
 stands for much freedom, and the emancipation of the 
 care-encrusted soul of man, made up their creed and 
 practice. 1 1 
 
 IV 
 
 And so we come to the service of God, which is no 
 less a duty than His faith, fear, or love. And this 
 service includes worship and prayer, trust in His guid- 
 ance, respect for His will and orders, and an entire 
 devotion to duty. It means the whole giving of self 
 to the work which God has given him to do by the 
 man who has just given himself wholly to God. It is 
 difficult to secure either for worship or for prayer any 
 recognition in the department of work. It is true that 
 the idea still lives on in belated terms out of a 
 discredited vocabulary. Men and women still attend 
 devotions in church, which they know by the name of 
 ' service. 1 A cleric still calls those prayers and praises 
 which the Church lays upon him by the name of 
 'office. 1 And the old-fashioned phrase was wont to 
 remind the parish priest that he had ' to take his duty 1 
 at least on Sundays. 
 
 But now the platform rather than the Church is at 
 all events the field in which to display activity. A 
 missionary is required to be a man, a student, a 
 gentleman, and an athlete, but piety is taken for 
 granted. There are many men fired with the ambition 
 
 1 St. Francis and his Followers, by Anne Macdonell. Reviewed, 
 the Times, Dec. 12, 1902.
 
 238 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 of being good organisers, good preachers, good educa- 
 tors : are there many labouring to qualify themselves 
 as men of prayer ? 
 
 And yet what a large demand is made in Holy 
 Scripture not only on the strength, but on the time of 
 man, for especial and direct offering of worship and 
 homage unto God. The attempts to disparage the 
 Old Testament have led men less and less to study it, 
 less and Itess to listen to the divine principles which 
 are embodied even in those commandments which were 
 local and transitory, and certainly the conception of 
 a busy priest whose business lies away from the direct 
 service of God does not emerge there. The direct 
 service of God was a first charge on time, and became 
 the all-absorbing joy and delight of those who gave 
 themselves up to it, as we still see in the rapture and 
 exultation of the Psalms, which sometimes sound 
 strangely on modern lips, where the man on duty who 
 discharges an unwilling service is heard to declare that 
 one day in God^s house is * better than a thousand." 
 Much remains to be done in bringing before the minds 
 of people something of what is meant by services of 
 obligation, and a recognition of that principle which 
 stood out so clearly in the life of our Blessed Lord on 
 earth, Who refused all exemption from the ordinance 
 of God which were binding on the ordinary Jew, and 
 Who received circumcision, the Baptism of S. John, 
 the ordinary instruction of the Rabbis, attended the 
 feasts of obligation, and frequented the temple, showing 
 us what is meant by the service of God. 
 
 We have already considered in a previous volume of 
 this series the principles which seem to underlie wor- 
 ship and thanksgiving as the glad recognition on the 
 part of creatures endowed with free-will of that ab- 
 solute Tightness and fitness of the will of God, which 
 other created things express by their ordered working 
 and regulated functions ; so we are prepared to see
 
 THE SERVICE OF GOD 239 
 
 that a perfect trust in God forms part of the service 
 due to Him from His sons and daughters. Distrust 
 of the ways of God has formed a prominent hindrance 
 to His perfect service from the very first. A timid 
 people mistook their peculiarity for isolation, and 
 wished to be as the other nations. Rulers inaugurated 
 a faithless policy of Egyptian alliances and a trust in 
 the arm of flesh. So it is now ; a passing wave or 
 fashion of unbelief will drive into a frenzy of fear those 
 who hold in trust the ordinances and designs of God. 
 The peculiar doctrines and dogmatic precision of the 
 Church, instead of being her pride, become her shame. 
 And the creeds are emasculated of all that savours of 
 sternness, or which might offend the refined sensibilities 
 of those who have no particular desire to win Heaven, 
 nor any particular anxiety as to escaping Hell. We 
 do not trust God when He uses sternness as a necessary 
 part of our education, and tells us the truth as to 
 the dangers with which we are encompassed. When 
 doctors are pronouncing with ever greater emphasis 
 their monitory clauses as to the physical damnation 
 which underlies much of our most refined luxury, 
 when men of science are loud in their proclamation of 
 the dangers which lie very close to the wonders of 
 modern machinery and electricity, the Church alone 
 in her faithlessness to God's warnings is tempted to 
 cast aside the salutary warnings which proclaim that 
 a right faith is necessary to salvation, and that strait 
 is the gate and narrow the way which leads to real 
 life here and hereafter, and that there are few that 
 find it; and this service of God must never cease 
 with life. 
 
 There are different forms of service for different 
 periods of a man's career. There is the vigorous 
 service of youth which lays all its strength and ardour 
 at the feet of God. There is the service of the 
 matured and developed life which has answered to
 
 240 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 the call of God assigning his post of usefulness. And 
 there is the service of those who suffer, the service 
 of those who wait still upon God, who, out of the 
 quiet of an old age, stand in the more immediate 
 Presence, as they linger on the threshold of eternity, 
 and look for the privilege of those who serve God 
 day and night in His heavenly temple.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN 
 
 There is no injunction of a general love of men, <iA- 
 avdpo)7ria, in God's word. He who is not our brother is 
 our neighbour. 
 
 This above all to thine own self be true ; 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man. 
 
 WE have had occasion already, while treating tof the 
 six last commandments, to notice the growing claims 
 of that personality known as our neighbour; all, 
 that is, with whom we are brought in contact in the 
 vicissitudes of life, all to whom we minister, all who 
 minister to us, all with whom in mysterious connection 
 we work out the eternal purpose of God. Now a man 
 forgets the sacredness of his own individuality ; now 
 he can remember nothing else ; now he is submerged 
 in the crowd ; now he recognises no rights but his 
 own. God has given us the conception of neighbour, 
 we have evolved the idea of rival, the man who dwells 
 on the other side of the stream, ever seeking to intrude 
 and encroach, a Naboth whose chief offence is his 
 thoughtless claim on property for which we have con- 
 ceived a desire. The records of the world's conflicts, 
 the statute-books of civilised countries, the manners 
 and customs of savages are all comments on the mis- 
 understood, ill-learnt lesson of neighbourliness ; and 
 we may thank God that He has enforced as a duty that 
 
 o.
 
 242 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 which men are so little disposed to accept as a 
 principle of perfection. 
 
 See the little child, a mass of wants and desires, in a 
 world which as yet he only knows as something which 
 occasionally gives him pain, and from which he demands 
 chiefly the satisfaction of his cravings. It takes some 
 time for him to realise other personalities which are 
 not self, with their claims on the same surroundings, 
 at least as beings who are not put there merely to 
 minister to his wants. Until there opens up before 
 him, first the conception of those who make demands on 
 him, in the way of love, obedience, or respect, then the 
 idea of some one who may be to him an alter ego in 
 the mysteries of friendship ; then further, and with 
 difficulty, the conception of those who have rights and 
 claims upon him simply because they arc men, a con- 
 ception which receives its most complete and utter 
 development in the love of enemies, where personal 
 bitterness, estrangement and injury are swept away 
 and merged in the rights to active love which one 
 human being has from another. * The duty towards my 
 neighbour * sets before us this graduated conception. 
 
 In the first place, it begins and ends with a distinct 
 and emphasised presentment of self. The instinct of 
 the infant is a right one ; for the purposes of his life, 
 and the purposes of God's plan, he is to be the centre 
 of the environment in which he finds himself. The 
 way to do my duty to my neighbour is to do my duty 
 to myself. And the measure of my love to him will 
 be the measure of my love for self; and the best 
 remedy for greediness which feeds on the rights of 
 others is to * learn and labour truly to get mine own 
 living, and to do my duty in that state of life unto 
 which it shall please God to call me.' The infant i^ 
 right in his instinct of self-importance, the welfare and 
 happiness of the world depends on the fullness and 
 completeness of its working units. The Tightness or
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN 243 
 
 wrongness of his subsequent career depends on his 
 ideas and methods of developing self. 
 
 We have much to remind us of our insignificance, 
 many humiliations to guard us from conceit, it is worth 
 while therefore at times to realise our own importance. 
 It is sad to see how little men and women realise their 
 own worth, and to witness the many useless lives that 
 are being lived in the world. There are men and 
 women who are like the lay figures in the shop 
 windows, so many forms on which to hang clothes, or 
 glittering decorations. There are those who are like 
 animals in some zoological garden, who are fed and 
 looked at, and commented on, and admired, or the 
 contrary, and then pass away to be succeeded by new 
 occupants of the cage, fresh candidates for popular 
 admiration, or a new addition to the world's show. 
 There are many of course who have not found their 
 lifers work, and who bury their one talent because they 
 cannot find any use for it ; but God will soon point out 
 His work to those who are ready to take it up, and 
 have recognised their own value. Some have tried to 
 maintain that the service of our neighbour can be 
 performed at the expense of self-neglect and self- 
 degradation, that a spendthrift who wastes his substance 
 is a good distributor of money, that a good-natured 
 libertine adds to the stock of the world's easy merri- 
 ment, and that if he is any man's enemy he is his own. 
 This is not the conception which underlies the strong 
 sketch of the good neighbour in the Catechism. Self, 
 as we have seen, is an honoured standard of measure- 
 ment by which to estimate a neighbour's claim to love. 
 And further, it is by self-development in the appointed 
 line of duty that the store is accumulated, and the way 
 of life smoothed, in whose orderly tranquillity others can 
 do their allotted work, and reap the satisfaction of the 
 proper discharge of their functions in the scheme of God. 
 
 We recognise that a good man does good by setting
 
 244 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 a high example. We recognise that a good citizen is 
 of a distinct and appreciable value to the State where 
 he lives, inasmuch as he contributes to the taxes and 
 imposts, and adds to the general good government of 
 the community. It is not so commonly recognised 
 that, quite apart from good example, there is a distinct 
 profit to the community to be derived from the ordered 
 life of hidden goodness: that it is better for us that 
 our neighbour simply and conscientiously does his 
 duty : that his submission to authority, and complete 
 regulation of his desires, makes it easier for us to move 
 in our appointed orbit under the impulse of duty ; 
 that the regular performance of his religious duties to 
 God, including therein the service of man, contributes 
 more to the moral welfare of the community than his 
 money and public service do to the public welfare of 
 the body politic. 
 
 A really good man will ipso facto be a good 
 neighbour, and will tend by a reciprocity to make 
 others reflections of his own work. Our neighbour, then, 
 first takes bodily shape in the form of those who have 
 claims on our childish love, obedience and respect. 
 The father and the mother are the first natural points 
 of contact with the great conception of * neighbour "" in 
 which the subsequent life is to be developed. Man 
 has no meaning stand ing alone, his nature demands for 
 its complement relationship with others ; and so in 
 natural order, and most often in fact the parents 
 elicit those first feelings which are not selfisn, and 
 exact those first obligations which are not optional, 
 but in the nature of things imposed as a duty, which 
 widen out through friend and foe in varying degrees 
 of respect, love, or esteem to all the world. 
 
 Homo sum : humani nihil a me alienum puto. 1 The 
 whole world is my neighbour, and I must love my 
 neighbour as myself. 
 
 1 Terence, fftaut. Tim. i. i. 25.
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN 245 
 
 In dealing with the rights of those who have especial 
 claims upon us, the Catechism puts in chronological 
 order the dealing of child with parent as first of all 
 arousing the feeling of love, and then, as life expands, 
 of honour as from those who recognise their position, 
 and then as life goes on demanding the right of succour 
 and even support in the reversal of relationship which 
 springs up with advancing age. 
 
 Here it is well to notice once more the full signi- 
 ficance of the idea of duty. The hedge of God's 
 commandments would seem to be planted chiefly for 
 the sake of those who are most disposed to stray unless 
 kept in by the bristling barrier of a restriction. The 
 child whose affection and conscience are rightly regu- 
 lated may be trusted to love good and kind parents, 
 to recognise, as he grows up, the honour due to the 
 earthly authors of his being, and the right that they 
 have to his succour and protection. But with the 
 careless child of bad or even cruel parents it is not 
 always recognised that, as with the love of God, so 
 with the love of man, it is not merely an irresponsible 
 feeling, to be expressed where it exists, and to be with- 
 held where there is no precedent inclination. The love 
 of parents is a duty laid upon all. Bad parents as 
 well as good are to be honoured, and thriftless parents 
 as well as those who have been benevolent to their 
 children are to be succoured by them in distress or 
 in old age. 
 
 Surely there is a need to recall ourselves to first 
 principles as regards family duty, in that which is the 
 unit of social life. The initial fear of being the 
 parents of large families is in itself a bad sign. A 
 man who is a citizen first and a father afterwards, 
 a woman who is benevolent first and a mother after- 
 wards, have both of them wrong ideas, even as to the 
 true welfare of the State. And it is not difficult to 
 see when the fear of a diminishing income, or the fear
 
 246 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 of losing time and capacity for pleasure, bend the will 
 in the same direction that selfishness of the worst 
 kind is ousting duty. 
 
 The same spirit needs watching in the relationship 
 of children with parents in modern society. A re- 
 action from austerity seems likely to degenerate into 
 a flippant friendship, or a studied aloofness as between 
 friends or acquaintance on a basis of equality, rather 
 than as between child and parent. Children will now 
 call their parents by nick-names, mock at their infir- 
 mities, reject their interference, shun their society, or 
 treat them with condescension as equals, or with tolera- 
 tion as inferiors. The honour due to parents as such 
 is a safeguard in a world which has been ruined by the 
 pursuit of an inclination in defiance of a duty, and 
 where the only chance of salvation is by observing the 
 barriers of restraint, and in following the trend of 
 obedience to authority. 
 
 So selfishness had to be repressed, which regarded 
 the world of men and things as existing only for self. 
 Then love and respect to parents had to be grafted as 
 a duty upon natural inclination, and then the idea of 
 authority widened into the recognition of all who had 
 claims on honour and obedience, whether the king, or 
 magistrates, or teachers, or those who were in any sense 
 our ' betters. 1 Here the Catechism is sharply arraigned 
 first by those who disclaim any arrangement of society 
 which interferes with the absolute equality of man, 
 and secondly by those who fail to recognise any arbi- 
 trary distinctions of rank or position, or any aristocracy 
 but the absolute aristocracy of merit which a man wins 
 for himself, and maintains by his own efforts. The 
 absolute equality of man is too obviously in conflict 
 with even nature's distribution of honours to need any 
 serious recognition ; but the right of king, or governor, 
 or teacher, or spiritual pastor, or master, as such, to 
 honour and respect is not so obvious, \\liile the idea
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN 247 
 
 of ' betters ' seen* to be a survival of the worst times 
 of vulgar servility. Is it so ? Does not the principle 
 which the English nation seems to have firmly grasped 
 with regard to the monarchy, hold good in other 
 departments of rank which claim our recognition ? 
 We have already seen that while we despise a John 
 Lackland, we can still acclaim a King John. It 
 may be that Queen Victoria rescued the sentiment of 
 loyalty which had been almost crushed out of the 
 English nation by her Hanoverian predecessors. Still 
 it is there, strong and vigorous, intelligently held and 
 fearlessly expressed. Why should the same sentiment 
 be withheld in its subordinate expression as the recog- 
 nition of a great and authoritative position, even where 
 the particular incumbent is unworthy of his office ? 
 There is no difficulty in recognising the right to our 
 respect of those who uphold the majesty of the Law. 
 Those, for instance, who would remain covered in 
 court in the presence of a judge, would speedily be 
 reminded of their duty, and would recognise the justice 
 of their reproof. Respect for the majesty of law out- 
 weighs any disrespect for the particular person who 
 administers it. Why should a similar respect be with- 
 held from a teacher who is incapable of enforcing it ? 
 Is not the possession of learning a claim to respect ? 
 May he not be honoured as the representative of a great 
 profession, even if he himself seems to be unworthy of 
 honour? It is recorded of Edward Thring, head- 
 master of Uppingham, that he would treat the actual 
 school-room almost as if it were a sacred place, to be 
 adorned with art and beauty, to pay honour, as he 
 would say, ' to lessons.' 
 
 The absolute freedom of intercourse between master 
 and scholar is not unmixed gain, if it diminishes the 
 honour due not merely from boy to man, but from a 
 boy to the incumbent of one of the world's greatest 
 posts of honour, to the steward of learning.
 
 248 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 So again with ' spiritual pastors antl masters.' There 
 have been ages, and there are countries, where the 
 separation is complete between the man and his office ; 
 where the sacerdotium is honoured as a divine and splen- 
 did thing, while the priest is despised for himself and 
 his failings. Here again in England the tide seems 
 to be setting strongly in the other direction at the 
 present moment. Men for the sake of the individual 
 shortcomings, despise the office, and refuse the respect 
 due to it as such. No doubt much harm is done to 
 religion by the careless lives of clergy, but more harm 
 is done by the unsparing criticism and the grudging 
 recognition of the claims of the clergy as such to 
 respect and obedience. Mr. Gladstone set the good 
 example of a resolute refusal to criticise the sermon, 
 however bad, which had been just addressed to him by 
 the minister of God. But now, not only the sermon, 
 but every action of those who minister to us in the 
 name of God, appear to be ridiculed and criticised by 
 those who would seem to be eager to show their reven-jv 
 on religion for the restraints which it imposes, by pull- 
 ing down from their pedestal those who proclaim its 
 blessings and its threats. 
 
 But the duty of submission to authority as due to 
 our neighbour is most fiercely assailed when it takes 
 the form of ordering * myself lowly and reverently to 
 all my betters.' Who are my betters other than those 
 who have been already indicated as wielding a delegated 
 authority in an official position ? Are we in danger 
 of putting ourselves under a yoke riveted by social 
 inequality and the claim to respect on the part of 
 those who rather merit our contempt ? 
 
 The glories of our birth and state 
 Are shadows, not substantial things. 
 
 Is respect for ancestry, for superior birth, for social 
 rank, anything but a delusion based on the innate
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN 249 
 
 vulgarity of human nature and a survival of feudal 
 abuses, a spirit once for all driven away in a whirlwind 
 of convulsion in the upheaval of the French revolution ? 
 The distinction between gentleman and non-gentle- 
 man is one which is very difficult to maintain, and yet it is 
 a distinction which experience would forbid any sensible 
 man to ignore in practice. No one who has had experi- 
 ence of work, and of work with others in the world, 
 will deny the extraordinary merit, undefined and inde- 
 finable, which underlies that term ' gentleman.' A 
 man may betray it and be false to it, another of inferior 
 grade and humbler origin may surpass him in the 
 nobility of character and unselfish chivalry which we 
 associate with the term. Still it is there, a fineness of 
 nature, a refinement in moral fibre, which is not to be 
 ignored even in that corruptio of frivolous and dissolute 
 living which is in every sense pessima. There are race- 
 horses and cart-horses, there are various breeds of 
 oxen and other animals, quite apart from their respec- 
 tive adaptations for their several works : and there 
 would seem to be a distinction in human birth, a power 
 in pedigree which may not be ignored even if it be 
 despised. The recognition of 'our betters 1 in social 
 rank is by no means a thing to be discredited or 
 destroyed. There is a strong growth of reactionary 
 feeling in this direction, but not always with the 
 happiest results. Civility, courtesy, reverence, are in 
 themselves such beautiful virtues, that the sphere of 
 their expression should be enlarged rather than re- 
 stricted. It is possible now to contrast the old type 
 with the new in country districts, where modern ideas 
 have not largely penetrated. Here the old labourer 
 who was brought up under the influence of the teaching 
 of forty or fifty years ago, will meet the stranger whom 
 he recognises as being in a higher grade of the social 
 scale, with a civil gesture, with polite reverence and a 
 respectful greeting. ' Sir ' and ' madam ' on his lips
 
 250 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 suggest no sort of servility, but are part of the order 
 and regulation of a well-governed society. On the 
 other hand the modern workman, who knows no betters, 
 who has been taught, it may be, that to recognise 
 distinctions of rank is but a sign of slavery, will slouch 
 by with defiant mien, with no sign of recognition or 
 token of respect even as between man and man. 
 
 It is quite possible that civility and the ordinary 
 salutation as due to a superior may be part of the 
 ritual which safeguards many precious refinements of 
 character. The word vfipis has an ugly history : and 
 the recognition of 'our betters'" in those of a higher 
 social rank may safeguard, more than we think, some 
 of the most delicate traits of human excellence. 
 
 It is even more difficult to see 'our betters' in 
 those who are merely the possessors of great wealth, 
 who with a great sum have obtained that position to 
 which others were born : and very often from their 
 vulgar display and reckless extravagance, they are 
 more to be despised than honoured. Still in a sense 
 the possessor of wealth' is to be honoured, not for him- 
 self, but for his position. As with the extreme advo- 
 cates of temperance reform, so with those who are most 
 opposed to the horrors of a plutocracy, there is a danger 
 of confusing the familiar use and abuse of that which 
 is in itself a gift of God. In a day when money is 
 being treated with reckless and criminal levity, there 
 would seem to be more and more a duty incumbent 
 on thinking men to treat the possession of it with 
 seriousness and even respect. The Question is often 
 asked, What is the precise sin of gambling and betting ? 
 Why, if a man can afford it, may he not buy his 
 recreation in this way as in any other? Quite apart 
 from the consequences to others, and the secondary 
 accidents of evil incident to it, what is the harm of 
 the practice in itself, viewed x'nn/rficitcr? Would it 
 not be fair to say, that money in itself is too sacred a
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN 251 
 
 thing in view of what it represents in face of the 
 world's needs, and that the use of money is too 
 serious a responsibility, for it to be expended in such 
 trivial and unworthy ways ? Many men who could 
 well afford the waste, would yet be ashamed to be seen 
 deliberately throwing away loaves of bread in the face 
 of a starving multitude. Quite apart from waste of 
 time and bad example, and all the evil consequences 
 that follow, is the mere fact of gambling wrong, because 
 it is putting money to an unworthy purpose, and de- 
 grading it from its great possibilities ? 
 
 If this be so, it is possible, and perhaps even right, 
 to regard the possessors of immense wealth as entitled to 
 our respect, as those who are the possessors of immense 
 power, and who are the incumbents of a post of great 
 responsibility as stewards for God of the wealth which 
 has been entrusted to them. 
 
 Most men are prepared to recognise in the great, the 
 successful, the honoured ones of the world, those who 
 are their betters. Hero worship, if it has its dangers, 
 is not always and everywhere to be despised. He is 
 much to be pitied who passes through the world with- 
 out the consciousness of inferiority to others, at least 
 in some departments of life, who withholds the outward 
 expression of respect because he clutches at an equality, 
 who tries to pull down by detraction to his own level 
 those whom the world has elevated to posts of honour, 
 who makes the world poorer and more dreary by the 
 spread of a shabby mediocrity, in a jealous pride which 
 fears servility, and in a self-adulation which has learned 
 even to despise merit. 
 
 After the recognition of those who have claims 
 upon his natural love, obedience, and respect, there 
 arises in most cases the predominant love and devo- 
 tion towards one and another in the sacred ties 
 of friendship. It is true that this is to be inferred 
 rather than directly gathered from this summary of
 
 252 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 neighbourly duty. But the universal love of all men, 
 is accentuated and emphasised by the particular love 
 of one, or at least of a few. A conspicuous example of 
 this is to be seen in the case of our Blessed Lord, Who 
 although He came as the Saviour of all men, and for 
 all, yet willed to single out twelve especial companions 
 of His ministerial life, and of these whom He loved, 
 one especially, S. John, whom He loved as His own 
 familiar friend in the ties of an intimate affection. 
 Friendship, in its responsibilities and duties as well as 
 in its opportunities, is a subject of great importance in 
 those who recognise their duty towards their neighbour 
 and the power of affecting or being affected by others 
 in the ties of companionship. 
 
 Much has been written about friendship in its origin, 
 essence, and development. Thinking men have dis- 
 covered that which God indeed has revealed, that it is 
 not good for the man to be alone ; and the welfare of 
 the world would seem to be bound up, not only in the 
 individual improvement of single beings, but in the 
 mutual help and co-operation of man with man, 
 whereby the fuller life is developed. It may be that 
 the earliest awakenings of friendship for others is due 
 to a sense of pleasure or even of advantage to be 
 gained, but to most men there comes the time when 
 the answering agreement of mind with mind, which 
 cannot be hid, 1 produces that perfect sympathy of 
 friendship wherein one becomes to the other the half of 
 his own self. The joys of friendship and the sacredness 
 of the tie which binds friends together are common- 
 places in the record of human experience. Friendship 
 chiefly detains us now as a stage in that universal love 
 for all, who have become or shall become our neigh- 
 bours, and as an example of what is meant by loving 
 another as oneself. 
 
 Sacrifice of self even unto death has been the pre- 
 1 Aristot., Nit. Eth. viii. 2.
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN 253 
 
 vailing characteristic of true friendship, an unsparing, 
 uncalculating devotion to another, which in its turn 
 has developed some of the finest points in character : 
 friend complementing friend, the fulness of one sup- 
 plying the deficiency of another, and mutual love and 
 esteem supplying a common interest in life's work, 
 which renders the work of friends so many circles of 
 living fire upon the earth. It is to the extension of 
 friendly love that the Catechism looks, until we view 
 in all who cross our path, a neighbour who is another 
 self, whom we should learn to treat with the same 
 unselfish devotion which we lavish on our familiar 
 friends. If the heart which feels deeply is incapable of 
 welcoming many to the closest union of friendship, it 
 can at least learn from the very sacredness and depth 
 of its emotion the difference between a love of humanity 
 and a love of those whom we are bidden to regard as 
 our neighbour. 
 
 But the injunctions of the Catechism are mainly 
 negative in telling us what a friend may never do to 
 a friend, or a neighbour to a neighbour. No hurt, no 
 fraud, no malice, no robbery or deceiving, no defile- 
 ment, no coveting. These are to be the encircling 
 hedges which define our area of duty towards them. 
 And most certainly this summary of the second table of 
 God's commands serves to emphasise the extreme sel- 
 fishness of sin. ' Sirs, ye are brethren ; why do ye wrong 
 one to another ? ' 1 would seem to be written across the 
 stern and plain prohibitions of God's absolute Law. 
 There is a vast amount of broken machinery in the 
 world, which is the result of a selfish indifference to 
 anything but the so-called pleasure of the sinner. 
 Large sums of money are spent in repairs, which might 
 be spent in active progressive work. Large institutions 
 have to be maintained as the hospitals and ambu* 
 lance which wait on the march of the libertine. Anger, 
 1 Acts vii. 26.
 
 254 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 fraud, malice, lust, ambition, march through the world 
 destroying as they go, and are the solvents of all 
 neighbourly feeling. There have been descriptions 
 ana pictorial representations of a conqueror revisiting 
 the battle-field after his victory. It would be a salu- 
 tary lesson if the sinner could revisit more frequently 
 the results of his selfishness, and be confronted with 
 the misery which waits upon a single sin. 
 
 The results of great and notorious wickedness stand 
 out with a tragic solemnity. There comes a time even 
 to a Nero when his hideous cruelty turns upon him, 
 and dins in his ears the awful cries of vengeance. 
 Goethe has immortalised in his terrible tragedy 
 the wreck and misery which overtake the victim of 
 lust, and the cruelty inflicted by an indulged passion. 
 Those who suffer from trusting dishonest counsellors, 
 those ruined by fraud and wicked greed, seem to cry 
 for retribution to the Eternal Justice. But there 
 are ramifications of sin whose ravages are seldom 
 seen or known ; where those who have been injured 
 by its heartless selfishness crawl away like some 
 wounded animal to die out of sight, alone with 
 their pain. There are those young lives whose bright- 
 ness and joy fade away and die under the cruel negleet 
 of those who promised to love and cherish them. 
 There are children whose hearts are gladdened by no 
 word of love, servants who grind away their strength in 
 the forced drudgery of service extorted by coercion, 
 and unrewarded by iust wages. There are young men 
 and women who are lured into the ways of sin by those 
 who from simple devilry implant in their minds the 
 seeds of death. There are those again who are led into 
 the ways of dishonesty, which end too often in ruin, 
 disgrace, and prison, and, worst of all, in a dishonoured 
 conscience. The selfishness of sin, which feeds on the 
 riirhU of others with a reckless brutality, stamps it at 
 once as unneighbourly as well as ungodly. The broken
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN 255 
 
 machinery of the world and its hampered action is due 
 in most cases to the ravages of selfish sin. So that 
 besides the injury done to God, the sinner is defrauding 
 the world of its rights and man of his just dues, and 
 the field of guilt becomes greatly enlarged, because 
 besides the offence of a sin he has committed a breach 
 of duty. 
 
 If a man escapes, then, the guilt of an injury done 
 to his neighbour, if he can truly say, I have hurt 
 nobody in word nor deed ; I have been true and just in 
 all my dealings ; I have borne no malice nor hatred in 
 my heart ; I have kept my hands from picking and 
 stealing, and my tongue from evil-speaking, lying, and 
 slandering ; I have kept from the ravages of evil lust 
 or the unholy covetousness of an unbridled desire 
 still, he would not be satisfied with a negative duty 
 such as this : if he loved his neighbour as himself he 
 would never rest contented until he reached out to him 
 helping hands in his distress, and loving counsel in his 
 perplexity ; until he had made all the world which 
 came within his reach, as far as lay within his power, 
 capable of attaining to the end for which they were 
 created, and earnest workers towards perfection. How 
 is he, when he steps outside the limits of the family, 
 and the circle of his betters, to whom he had obvious 
 duties, and the charmed precincts of friendship, wherein 
 soul answered to soul to reach the outer fringe of 
 mankind with whom he comes in" contact and be a 
 neighbour to the degraded and outcast, to the despised 
 and uninteresting, and even to those whom he might 
 regard as his enemies ? 
 
 It was noticed in the earlier days of missionary 
 enterprise that there was a tendency in choosing a 
 sphere of work to plunge into the most remote and 
 savage regions of heathendom, to go as solitary . 
 enthusiasts away from all that civilisation had achieved, 
 and in a spirit of chivalrous sacrifice to seek that
 
 256 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 which was most distant, most repelling, and most 
 dangerous. Now a wiser policy has directed to work 
 rather from the coast to the inland, from civilisation 
 to savagedom, not with the isolated devotion of indi- 
 vidual enterprise, but in the spirit and power of church 
 life, advancing with the organisation, if possible, of the 
 kingdom of God. So if we would reach an outcast 
 and hostile neighbour, we should do well not to study 
 the dictates of a wide and generous enthusiasm, but 
 to work outwards from the near to the far, from the 
 neighbour at home bound to us by certain ties to 
 the neighbour who is removed from us by many 
 barriers, and whom in the end we may be able only 
 to meet perhaps by vicarious energy and the organised 
 help of representatives. 
 
 Every well-instructed priest who is entrusted with 
 the care of souls knows that if he means to reach all 
 those who are entrusted to his care, and not to content 
 himself with ministering to a favoured remnant, he 
 must work outwards in ever-widening circles until he 
 reaches the fringe of carelessness, indifference, and sin, 
 which is at first outside the reach of all humanising 
 influence, but which he eventually hopes to touch. 
 He spends himself on his choir, his guilds, his com- 
 municants, his church-goers, and so strengthening as 
 he goes reaches the outer rim at last of those who 
 are as much his care as the more favoured worshippers 
 and instructed church-people who gather round him. 
 So if we hope to do our duty to our neighbour we 
 must here too work outwards. There are those, first 
 of all, who look up to us as their betters in the re- 
 lationship of family life, or as pupils, dependants, 
 servants, or even acquaintances. A wonderful chapter 
 in history might be written about the devotion of 
 servants towards their masters, but a correspondingly 
 dark chapter about the recognition by masters of tlu-ir 
 duty and responsibility towards servants. The servant
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN 257 
 
 and his rights appear in the fourth commandment; 
 and in the modern desecration of Sunday the sup- 
 pression of the rights of servants to worship and rest 
 plays a sad and prominent part. Here is one point 
 where our neighbour touches us closely, and where 
 the service of our neighbour may well begin in the 
 recognition of those rights, and in the performance of 
 those duties which the servant may claim from us, not 
 only as our fellowman, but as member of our family, 
 entitled to his share of privileges. 
 
 But widening outwards, in seeking to benefit our 
 neighbour, we find ourselves, in the good Providence 
 of God, to be placed by an ecclesiastical arrangement, 
 ancient and almost universal, in what is known as a 
 parish, a district, that is, limited and defined, entrusted 
 to the spiritual care of an especial representative 
 of ecclesiastical authority. Here there is close at 
 hand a means of working through accredited agencies, 
 and with all the help which co-operation bestows, 
 which no earnest man would despise. Every one who 
 thinks seriously will surely feel that he has duties to, 
 and will wish to benefit, the particular parish in which 
 he dwells. So it is, at the present day, that men have 
 become rather congregational than parochial in their 
 relations with the Church. Each one worships in the 
 building which he likes, supports the institution he 
 likes, and follows the guidance of the clergyman whom 
 he likes, and so the parish spirit evaporates, and the 
 parish life dwindles and dies. This is a question about 
 which it would be rash to dogmatise, but it would be 
 well if there were a more generous recognition of 
 obligations due to the particular parish in which a man 
 finds himself to be placed. The wants of the Church 
 are focussed for him in the wants of the parish. Great 
 public questions assume there a concrete form, and 
 offer themselves in a manageable shape. The cause of 
 Education ceases to be merely a polemic of platforms,
 
 258 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 when it comes before a man in the practical needs of 
 his parish school. It has been asserted again and 
 again that the religious difficulty, which figures so 
 largely in the debates of Parliament, is virtually non- 
 existent in the schools. And conversely, some of the 
 most ardent exponents of the hardships inflicted by 
 this or that scheme of educational reform are totally 
 unacquainted with the interior of the parish school- 
 room. So once more the wants of the Church take a 
 definite and practical form in the different appeals 
 which come before the members of the parish in the 
 ordinary claims made on their interest and charity. 
 
 As in so many other things men are affected by the 
 parish spirit in two opposite directions. Either they 
 allow it to make them narrow and unpatriotic, so that 
 they forget all outside it, such as missions and the needs 
 of other places and such institutions and schemes as are 
 non-parochial, or else they become simply eclectic, sup- 
 port what is near if they like it, neglect it if they do not, 
 and parish life, parish patriotism, and parish enthusiasm 
 faint away and die. Here a man may learn to get rid 
 of his dangerous unneighbourly selfishness, while he 
 studies the general needs and the public good. The 
 ecclesiastical history of the last sixty years has taught 
 us that in no department of life is it so easy to hurt 
 by word and deed, to bear malice and hatred in our 
 heart, to use our tongue for evil-speaking, lying and 
 slandering, as in those regions in which our neighbour 
 figures as a religious opponent. Here a man may 
 learn that conscientious convictions and love of truth 
 are not always necessarily on his side, and that the 
 parish, besides offering him convenient opportunities 
 of exercising an organised benevolence, has much also 
 to teach him as to his own place in reference to his 
 neighbour, and that c my own ' is a formula which has 
 its limitations not only in practical life, but also in 
 the regions of religious truth.
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN 269 
 
 But even where there is the greatest devotion to 
 the parish, and the duties which it imposes, there 
 still remains the great expanse of road from Jerusalem 
 to Jericho, where our neighbour is to be found in 
 the stripped and wounded victims of this world's 
 cruelty. There is the vast heathen world calling 
 out to us : * Come over and help us.' There are 
 the wants of great cities with their constant tendency 
 to lapse into practical heathenism. There is the open 
 sore of the world, in the white slavery which dogs 
 the footsteps of advancing civilisation and shames it, 
 which needs all that sympathy, work, devotion, and 
 money can do to prevent it encroaching still farther 
 with its deadly fangs. There are the countless 
 schemes of benevolence in which we are invited to help 
 the body, soul and spirit of our poor neighbour. 
 Here, in the first place, is a call to a more systematic 
 arrangement of alms that we may have to give to those 
 that need ; and then, further, the recognition that in 
 most cases the need is most effectually met, and our 
 own duty best performed by the employment of those 
 skilled agencies which have made the particular work a 
 study, and which are able to do as our deputies that 
 which we should have done if only we had possessed 
 the requisite education, skill and opportunity. 
 
 There is an immense field open to all, which widens 
 out round the word ' neighbour.' A word which adds 
 greater dignity to our fellow-men, and a deeper re- 
 sponsibility to ourselves. * Love worketh no ill to his 
 neighbour : therefore love is the fulfilling of the Law.' 1 
 It should tend to make sin more impossible, and 
 selfishness more sinful, if once it were realised that both 
 sins of commission and sins of omission are not only 
 sins against God, but also sins against the true concep- 
 tion of man. 
 
 1 Rom. xiii. IO.
 
 PART IV 
 PRAYER 
 
 Catechist. My good child, know this, that thou art not able 
 to do these things of thyself, nor to walk in the commandments 
 of God, and to serve Him, without His special grace ; which 
 thou must learn at all times to call for by diligent prayer. Let 
 me hear therefore, if thou canst say the Lord's Prayer. 
 
 Answer. Our Father, Which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy 
 Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it 
 is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us 
 our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. 
 And lead us not into temptation ; but deliver us from evil. 
 Amen. * 
 
 Question. What desirestthou of God in this Prayer? 
 
 Answer. I desire my Lord God our heavenly Father, Who 
 is the giver of all goodness, to send His grace unto me, and 
 to all people ; that we may worship Him, serve Him, and obey 
 Him, as we ought to do. And I pray unto God, that He will 
 send us all things that be needful both for our souls and bodies; 
 and that He will be merciful unto us, and forgive us our sins; 
 and that it will please Him to save and defend us in all dangers 
 ghostly and bodily ; and that He will keep us from all sin 
 and wickedness, and from our ghostly enemy, and from ever- 
 lasting death. And this I trust He will do of His mercy and 
 goodness, through our Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore I 
 say, Amen. So be it. 
 
 261
 
 PRAYER 
 
 'Also he bade them teach the children of Judah the 
 use of the bow.' 
 
 We too will stand beside that shrine 
 
 Occult, withheld, untrod, 
 Whose lamps are stirred continually 
 
 With prayer sent up to God : 
 And see our old prayers granted, melt 
 
 Each like a little cloud. 
 
 WE are all of us more or less Pelagians in our heart of 
 hearts, and quite prepared to enterprise our duty both 
 towards God and towards our neighbour without any 
 except a conventional reference to grace. This spirit 
 has been diligently fostered by the educational schemes 
 of the last quarter of a century ; while there is even a 
 lingering belief that piety may be an enemy to manli- 
 ness, and that devotion should be left to women ; and 
 learned and grave divines will be found who affirm 
 that Confession is damaging to strength of character, 
 and that Confirmation is chiefly useful as an occasion 
 of self-confident protestation that those promises which 
 we have seen to be of such wide-reaching significance 
 shall be faithfully kept, by the resolute and self-con- 
 tained Christian. The controversies as to religious 
 education which have played so prominent a part in 
 the opening years of the twentieth century indicate, at 
 least in some quarters, a fundamental misconception 
 that religious education consists mainly in the impart- 
 ing of knowledge on Biblical and moral subjects, rather 
 than in the painful and laborious efforts of teaching a 
 child how to be religious. And it would be a very 
 
 263
 
 264 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 serious disaster, and a blow to the religious sense of 
 the nation, if in frantic endeavour to stem an attack, 
 to make a scientific educational frontier, or even secure 
 an equitable money settlement, all national educa- 
 tion should become secular, and religious education be 
 thus definitely severed from it, to be taken up with 
 such efficiency as might be commanded, by different 
 denominations who had energy enough to care for it, 
 and by those children whose parents might think it 
 well to give them this extra instruction, taken out of 
 their hours of play or industry, commanding no public 
 recognition of its worth, and perhaps coming to be 
 regarded as a fresh torment imposed by the clergy. 
 
 The Catechism, with its emphatic protest * Thou art 
 not able to do these things of thyself, nor to walk in the 
 commandments of God, and to serve Him, without His 
 special grace, 1 is a recall to us to see that a doctrine of 
 prayer and grace should be inwoven in our system of 
 education, and that what God hath joined together 
 man should not put asunder. 
 
 In insisting strongly on the necessity and value of 
 prayer this Christian manual faithfully reflects the 
 practice and precepts of Christ, and the teaching 
 generally of the Church. The importance of prayer, 
 and the stress which has been ever laid upon it, will 
 be evident to all who have mastered the contents of 
 the volume in this series devoted to this subject ; and 
 any remarks here offered must be viewed as subsidiary 
 to the principles there set forth, and the investigations 
 there so fully entered into. 1 
 
 It is obvious, in the first place, to remark that the 
 Christian child has here put in his hands a form of 
 prayer, in a Catechism which is contained in a book 
 
 1 See Prayer, by A. J. Worlledge, and especially chap. viii. on 
 ' The Lord's Prayer.'
 
 PRAYER 265 
 
 which is also full of forms of prayer. And while those 
 other forms have to do with public prayer, where a 
 form is more intelligible, and even necessary, this 
 instruction put before him has to do with private 
 prayers. The child is, in fact, started on his religious 
 course with an exhortation to use a form in his private 
 prayers, and if he remains stedfast to his religious 
 training at all, in the great majority of cases, when he 
 is old he will not depart from it, but continue in 
 mature life to use a form of private prayer, as he was 
 instructed to do, while yet a child. 
 
 And yet it would be idle to ignore the challenge 
 which is brought against this system as conducing 
 to formalism, and the danger that undoubtedly 
 exists of a lapse into mechanical devotion and un- 
 spiritual prayer. It is a sufficient answer to most 
 objectors to say, that when our Blessed Lord was 
 appealed to for instruction on this point, His answer 
 to ' Lord, teach us to pray ' was to enunciate the form 
 of words known as ' the Lord's Prayer, 1 which is here 
 set forth for every child to commit to memory. And 
 if it be said that ' the Lord's Prayer ' was only meant 
 as a model of arrangement, subjects, and conditions of 
 prayer, it would be well to point out that the testimony 
 of Christian tradition is against this interpretation. 
 The Liturgical use of the Lord's Prayer, its jealous 
 guardianship from profanation at the hands of the 
 heathen, its undoubted history, all exhibit it as being 
 cherished not merely as a model of prayer, but as a 
 form of sacred words in itself venerable and efficacious 
 with God. 
 
 Cardinal Newman, in his once famous Parochial and 
 Plain Sermons, 1 has elaborated the advantages of a 
 form of words in private prayer, showing how such a 
 form is adapted to steady excited feelings, and to 
 educate our aspirations, and to give us right instruc- 
 1 Newman, Sermons, vol. i. Sermon xx.
 
 266 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 tion in the modes of approaching God ; while to the 
 grown-up man it may furnish one of those links of piety 
 with the past whereby his advancing life may be con- 
 nected with, or at least not severed from, a holier and 
 a purer past. 
 
 A striking instance of this is given in the life of 
 Mgr. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, where he de- 
 scribes his summons to minister to the last necessity 
 of one of Napoleon's veterans, when the mind of the 
 old man, now become hardened and insensible to all 
 religious sentiments and aspirations, was roused and 
 quickened by the sound of the Lord's Prayer, one 
 petition of which was connected in his mind with a 
 mother's voice and a mother's teaching given in the 
 far-off days of his childhood, and which proved to be 
 the only cord which bound him to religion, as yet 
 unsnapped, a cord of silver wound round his heart by 
 a mother's love, and fastened to the words of the 
 Lord's Prayer. 
 
 There is no doubt that the association which gathers 
 round actual forms of words is extremely valuable ; 
 and that the meaning of words which are in themselves 
 unaltered alter indefinitely with our varying moods. 
 Holy Scripture, holy prayer, holy words seem to 
 need almost the expenence of a lifetime to develop 
 their meaning. They are like the sea, or the moun- 
 tains, or the rolling expanse of a home landscape ; 
 they weep when we weep, and laugh when we laugh in 
 sympathetic friendliness, and speak to our varying 
 moods. 
 
 It is not a little significant to notice in this con- 
 nection the use made by our Blessed Lord, and by the 
 saints, of the Psalms and other passages of Holy 
 Scripture, as if these consecrated words formed the 
 most ready vehicle in which the aspirations and 
 emotions of the heart could best be wafted heaven- 
 wards, and teach us the value of words fulfilled with
 
 PRAYER 267 
 
 saintly utterance, and fasjiioned indeed by the divine 
 lips, which come to us almost as a form of petition 
 ready prepared, for each petitioner to fill up with his 
 own needs, and signed with the all-availing signature 
 of Christ Himself: 
 
 In His own words we Christ adore, 
 
 But Angels as we speak, 
 Higher above our meaning soar 
 
 Than we o'er children weak ; 
 And yet His words mean more than they, 
 
 And yet He owns their praise : 
 Why should we think He turns away 
 
 From infant's simple lays ? 1 
 
 II 
 
 But to use this form of prayer, or indeed any other 
 form aright, we shall need the power of praying : a 
 power in which we require exercise and instruction for 
 its full development ; and a power which, as we shall see, 
 suffers from nothing so much as contempt and want 
 of effort. 
 
 We have been warned against narrow conceptions of 
 prayer, and have been reminded that * prayer is nothing 
 else but an ascent of the mind to God.' 2 And indeed 
 it is of supreme importance that we should rectify our 
 judgments from time to time, and steady our concep- 
 tions, and firmly lay hold of the absolute greatness 
 of that which is not only a subject of divine precept, 
 but also a matter of divine instruction, and which is 
 farther consecrated by that formula which is expressed 
 or understood in all prayer: 'Through Jesus Christ 
 our Lord. 1 If prayer represents the consecrated en- 
 closure of our life, these words represent the position 
 of the Altar in the temple. They show us that prayer 
 
 1 Keble, Christian Year, Catechism. 
 
 2 Worlledge, Prayer, p. 9.
 
 268 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 is no dreamy elevation of sentiment into an atmosphere 
 of poetic musing, no childish asking for everything we 
 see, and everything we fancy, no fretful cry from the 
 sick-bed of pain, or moan from the querulousness of 
 disappointment, but rather a solemn union of our- 
 selves with our Blessed Lord's mediatorial work. 
 
 He offered Himself in the eternal counsels of God. 
 He took our sins upon His head, He was slain, the 
 victim offered for the sins of the world, and now He 
 has gone within the veil, there to make intercession for 
 us through His blood ; and every prayer that is prayed, 
 and every supplication that is offered, must be sprinkled 
 with that atoning blood. Every petition must be 
 capable of being adapted to this its seal and sanctifica- 
 tion * through Jesus Christ.' No petulance or careless- 
 ness, no sinfulness or imperfect devotion can stand the 
 weight of that tremendous impress, under which 
 crumbles away all that is unworthy of the dignity and 
 majesty of God, and unfit to be presented before Him 
 in that Name. 
 
 The idea of the court of Heaven up to which our 
 petitions pass, and in which they must be presented, 
 might well steady the wayward utterance and the 
 unworthy desire. Here is the place where the destiny 
 of the world is being worked out, the Presence before 
 Whom have passed the great empires of the world. 
 Here is the Council Chamber in which all the business 
 of this active scene is being carried out, and those 
 ordered motions regulated, which from their observed 
 uniformity of action we know as laws of the universe. 
 Here is being organised and equipped the never-ceasing 
 campaign of the Church against the carelessness and 
 disorder of the world ; here are being administered 
 with minute care the different lives of men. Here are 
 pouring in the impassioned cries for pardon, the 
 piteous wail of pain, the solemn prayer of the saint, 
 the tender voice of the little child. ' Through Jesus
 
 PRAYER 269 
 
 Christ ' : this steadies and softens all, this reduces prayer 
 to those dimensions without which, as we are here 
 taught, it cannot pass into * Heaven.' * Hallowed be Thy 
 Name 1 : the prayer must subserve this great end. * Thy 
 kingdom come' : it must advance true progress. * Thy 
 will be done ' : it must fit into the laws of God's working. 
 And saving these conditions God expects us to pray, 
 and help in the administration of His universe on the 
 principles which underlie prayer. Is then prayer after 
 all a sort of make-believe to make a man credit his 
 own effort with that which really comes from Almighty 
 God, and would be ours without the asking? Is it 
 something like that pleasant fiction with which a 
 strong man will gratify a tiny child by letting him 
 put his hand on the powerful instrument with which 
 he is working at his full strength ? 
 
 It sounds sensible, and even reverent, to say, that 
 God being omnipotent and all-loving, He cannot need 
 either our petitions or our help. On the same principle 
 we might refuse to dig, or sow, or reap, because we 
 might trust God to give us loaves of bread ready made 
 without our working for them. It sounds a fair 
 challenge, that a Christian should take a ward in a 
 hospital, and if he believes what he says he believes, 
 pray the patients well, because God has promised to 
 hear prayer : we might on the same principle educate, 
 clothe, feed ourselves, do our daily work by prayer, 
 ignoring the fact that God has always chosen, except 
 on very special occasions, to use secondary causes in 
 carrying out His beneficent schemes. 
 
 It sounds like a real jealousy for God's honour to 
 say, that our prayer for rain or for fair weather might 
 ruin one portion of the community at the expense of 
 another, did we not remember that we have no warrant 
 for supposing that prayer is like the fatal gift in the 
 fairy story, which must work itself out by a mechanical 
 force, with no restraint of discretion or equity.
 
 270 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 It does seem important to remember, that prayer is 
 a great deal more than a recognition of Almighty God, 
 and a concession on His part to our childish love of 
 importance. Prayer, unless Holy Scripture has been 
 misunderstood, and unless our instinct has misled us, 
 would seem to be a necessity for a right participation 
 in God's gifts on the part of man, and a recognised 
 contribution to the working of the world. He who is 
 set to hold a rope, or loosen a wedge, or pour oil or 
 other lubricant may seem to have little or nothing to 
 do with the launching of the huge ship as it glides into 
 the water. And yet if he acted on this feeling, and 
 neglected his part, however humble, he might very 
 easily find that the success of the whole transaction 
 was impeded. 
 
 God expects us to pray, that would seem to be 
 certain. Prayer would seem to be as much a contribu- 
 tion to our own welfare and the welfare of the world 
 as ploughing, sowing, and reaping are to the labourer 
 and to agriculture. 
 
 That man has to do his part, would seem to be a law 
 stamped on every part of God's dealings with His 
 creatures. He makes us, and we can throw away our 
 position. He redeems us, and we can refuse to be 
 saved. He gives us sacraments, and we may refuse 
 to use them ; blessings, and we may refuse to ask for 
 them. The respect paid to the liberty of man by 
 Almighty God makes us almost wonder whether coercive 
 legislation, morality by Act of Parliament, liberality 
 which is enforced, and consideration which is based 
 on coercion, are linked on true principles ; although it 
 may well be that legislation may prepare the field in 
 which higher principles may have their proper unre- 
 stricted field of action. 
 
 In prayer we would seem to have the utmost possible 
 development of the liberty of choice. The riches of 
 God are stored up in the greatest profusion for the
 
 PRAYER 271 
 
 world, the Church, and our own souls, and man is 
 set to regulate their distribution. He must ask for 
 them before they can be dispensed, and his demands 
 will be governed by the intercession and the sanctifica- 
 tion of Jesus Christ. 
 
 To realise this is to put prayer on its proper basis, 
 it is to understand that which is an instinct of humanity, 
 where fear and superstition have not crushed it out. 
 Men in their loneliness have put up prayers to the sun 
 and moon, and to the creations of their fancy, to give 
 them gifts which they felt might be had, and yet were 
 wanting to them. They felt a longing for something 
 higher, always for something more, something richer 
 and fuller, for which, if necessary, they would sacrifice 
 comfort, and live in a cave ; or ease, and live a life of 
 maimed asceticism ; or affection, and give up even their 
 children, and all that they held most dear, if only they 
 might gain this mysterious treasure as yet denied to 
 them. The world gropes after God like a starving 
 crowd, which hears that there is some dole to be dis- 
 tributed, some advantage, some benefit, they know not 
 what ; and they wait for hours in the cold street, now 
 they surge this way, now that, towards their supposed 
 benefactor, only to curse their disappointment and 
 bewail their folly. And so Prayer, the feeling that we 
 ought to ask, is an instinct of humanity ; God educated 
 and trained it all through the days of Judaism, until the 
 Cross at once made it easier and imposed its conditions. 
 
 The Altar in Heaven and the Altar on earth both 
 meet in this, they both invite us to pray, and they both 
 assure us that all prayer will be answered which mounts 
 up before God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 Ill 
 
 If this be true we need not wonder at the great stress 
 laid on prayer in the Catechism, and we shall see that 
 ' Lord, teach us to pray ' is a request which we still need
 
 272 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 to make both for ourselves and for our children. For 
 it is quite possible to set up a counterfeit kind of 
 prayer, and to charge real prayer with all those imper- 
 fections, disappointments, and failures which do not 
 really belong to it. 
 
 First of all, then, prayer is an exercise which we 
 must never allow ourselves to despise. A careful study 
 of Dr. Liddon^s valuable sermon on ' Prayer ' will show 
 us how very largely the element of effort and difficulty 
 enters into the Bible estimate of prayer which he there 
 unfolds to us. 1 And yet the popular estimate of its 
 difficulty is very dissimilar. The ordinary man thinks 
 that as all are ordered to pray, prayer must be easy for 
 every one ; and so with little or no preparation, with 
 scant effort, and no attempt to shut off distractions, 
 he plunges into the most solemn address which a 
 creature can offer to his Creator, he takes on his lips 
 psalms and devotions wrung from the very heart of 
 men who were inspired by the Holy Ghost, and expects 
 them to win their way in a heart charged with frivolity 
 and worldliness, or even sin. If it is worth praying at 
 all, obviously it is worth while to take trouble in the 
 exercise, otherwise it will degenerate into the most 
 insipid and worthless occupation, of which loss of time 
 is the least evil thing with which it can be charged. 
 There are three faculties, it has been pointed out, 2 
 which are energetically engaged in any real act of 
 prayer ; they are, the understanding, the affections, 
 and the will. And so, accordingly, some effort must 
 be made to secure the active co-operation of each and 
 all of these faculties in our devotions. Before we 
 engage in prayer, before a word has been said or an 
 aspiration formed, our understanding must put us in 
 the presence of God, and make us remember what we 
 really are attempting to do. Here, too, * He that 
 
 1 Liddon, Some Elements of Religion, chap. v. 
 9 JoMm.pp. 172, 173.
 
 PRAYER 273 
 
 cometh to God must believe that He is. 1 1 There He 
 is the Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 
 Whom no man hath seen nor can see ; the great Being 
 before Whose presence mortal men have crouched in 
 fear, before Whose face the angels cover themselves in 
 reverence, abasemeflt and awe. It is He, Who loves 
 us with no divided affection, Who has graven us on the 
 palms of His hands, 2 and has ever before Him the 
 possibilities of our highest welfare. It is He Whose 
 Presence shakes the earth and kindles tongues of fire. 
 It is only too certain that very little stress is laid by 
 the ordinary worshipper on this preparation, which is 
 so necessary to him before he ventures to approach so 
 great a Majesty. Man trips in and out before the 
 Holiness of God, and says words which he does not feel, 
 towards a Person of Whom he has no cognisance or 
 intelligent perception. It is here that the affections 
 should be summoned to aid. After all, it is a child 
 who is approaching his most loving Father ; it is a 
 friend who is holding communion with his dearest 
 companion ; it is needy man seeking his greatest bene- 
 factor, and One Who loves him more than he loves 
 himself, and Who is always more ready to hear than 
 we are to pray. And then the will, firm and stedfast, 
 must be summoned to keep him earnest and steady 
 in purpose and resolute in attitude. And the will, 
 accustomed to restrain the whims and caprices of the 
 various powers which are marshalled under its direction, 
 will know how to seize on every help, and make the 
 most of every auxiliary. 
 
 The common foe to earnest prayer is distraction, 
 caused by wandering thoughts and divided attention. 
 Other thoughts come in and snatch the thought of God 
 away. The smoke of our sacrifice has scarcely begun 
 to rise when the eddying winds of distraction catch it 
 and whirl it hither and thither, so that it seems to be 
 1 Heb. xi. 6. 2 Is. xlix. 16.
 
 274 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 incapable of rising stedfastly towards Heaven. In a 
 pane of mediaeval glass, preserved in the Bodleian 
 Library at Oxford, there is a representation of divine 
 worship, in which every worshipper has at his elbow 
 some demon of distraction, energetically engaged in 
 dissipating holy thoughts, and drawing them away 
 from their proper object by holding up before his eyes 
 here his money-bags, there some object of interest, 
 there some news of the day, or some message of ft-.ir. 
 It is a faithful parable of what goes on within the 
 experience of most devout Christians. With many a 
 man, to pray seems only to be the opening of the door 
 of imagination to every sort of intruder, while it floods 
 the mind with every kind of fancy, which course each 
 other with startling rapidity and marvellous power of 
 transformation across the mind. It is easy, of course, 
 to acquiesce in this, to say that it is after all human 
 nature, and that we cannot help it. But, be it observed, 
 a man does not so lightly acquiesce in a distraction 
 which makes him useless as an accountant, or which 
 invalidates his power of investigation, more especially 
 where the prizes of the world depend on his steadiness, 
 and on the concentration which he is able to exerc -i>c 
 towards any given point. And it becomes evident that 
 there ought not to be a readiness to acquiesce too 
 easily in so serious a spiritual defect, and which is so 
 deeply charged with danger to the soul. 
 
 An honest introspection will show that a great deal 
 of this distraction is self-caused. It may be that habits 
 of discipline have never been formed, and the mind, 
 which has gone its own way outside the control of the 
 will, is not to be brought into subjection simply becniiM- 
 we desire its compliance for one particular object. 
 The want of concentration, the restlessness, the slip- 
 shod smattering of the day, which lead us to attempt 
 to do a hundred things badly rather than ono thing 
 \vi-ll, dog the footsteps which ascend the mount of
 
 PRAYER 275 
 
 prayer, and mercilessly punish with a painful distraction 
 the mind which intellectually and morally has cast off 
 discipline. 
 
 How many, again, ignore all preparation for prayer, 
 and nearly all the helps which are provided for them. 
 From the earliest days we read of places where men 
 ' stood before the Lord.' x ' Put off thy shoes from off 
 thy feet,' said God to Moses, 'for the place whereon thou 
 standest is holy ground.' 2 ' Thou shalt set bounds unto 
 the people round about. Lest they break through unto 
 the Lord to gaze.' 3 ' Keep thy foot when thou goest to 
 the house of God,' 4 says the wise preacher. And when 
 our Blessed Lord Himself is giving His directions about 
 prayer, in His Sermon on the Mount, He bids His 
 hearers as a preliminary to enter into their closet and 
 shut the door, 6 concentrate, that is, themselves, with- 
 draw from observation, which not only ministers to 
 pride but to distraction, and pray to their Father which 
 is in secret. 
 
 There is a graveyard or an enclosure of some kind 
 around most churches which separates them off from 
 the roadway of everyday life, and so around prayer 
 there should be set the neutral ground which repre- 
 sents the hush and seclusion of preparation, the strip 
 of quiet between us and the world of business and 
 pleasure, with its distractions and annoyance. 
 
 No doubt it would be a thing to aim at to try and 
 realise the apostolic precept, ' pray without ceasing,' 6 
 in the sense that prayer should be the normal attitude 
 of our mind from which we descend to do the works, 
 and speak the words, and think the thoughts which 
 the business of life requires, and then fly back again 
 to that from which we were perforce diverted by the 
 claims of duty. This may be a condition to be aimed 
 at, but we are very far from it as yet, and certainly 
 
 1 Gen. xix. 27. 2 Exod. iii. 5. 3 Exod. xix. 12, 21. 
 
 4 Eccles. v. I. B S. Matt. vi. 6. 6 i Thess. v. 17.
 
 276 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 to rush into devotion without a moment's pause, straight 
 from our letters, our conversation, or our work, is to 
 court failure. Old-fashioned people still retain the 
 habit of silence and quiet as they pass through the 
 churchyard into the church, they still retain the custom 
 of an act of recollection before beginning divine worship: 
 it would be well if the same habit held good in all 
 acts of prayer, whether private or public ; as we prepare 
 to seek the throne of grace, and remember that God 
 is in Heaven and we upon earth, therefore our words 
 should be few. 1 
 
 We must remember, further, that the office of the 
 will does not cease here. The concentration which was 
 necessary before beginning prayer, will be necessary in 
 the form of attention during the prayer itself. 
 
 To some the chief difficulty occurs in adapting the 
 mind to the stately forms of public prayer ; to another, 
 the difficulty comes in using forms at all, whether in 
 public or in private. We have already partially dis- 
 cussed the question of the use of forms in prayer, and 
 the testimony of tradition and the long custom of the 
 Church are in favour of their retention in public, and 
 seem to indicate that we must school ourselves to their 
 right and proper use ; but there is no reason why at 
 times, or indeed always, the prayers used in private 
 should not take the form of expressions which the heart 
 knows how to frame at the moment, and which seem to 
 offer a freer vent to the inmost desire than the expres- 
 sions and forms of another, however devout. It would 
 be well, however, to be on the watch against those 
 dangers which lie, indeed, in the opposite direction to 
 formalism, but are no less real ana prejudicial to true 
 devotion. 
 
 As regards, however, the difficulty in using form- of 
 prayer without distraction, it may well be questioned 
 whether there is anything like sufficient attention 
 1 Eccles. v. 2.
 
 PRAYER 277 
 
 bestowed on that which has been spoken of here and 
 elsewhere, namely the extreme difficulty of prayer. Let 
 us compare the ordinary aspect of an examination-room, 
 in which men are working for some post which is open 
 to competition, on which their honour and welfare 
 depend, with that of a congregation engaged in worship 
 in church. In the one we are struck with the extreme 
 concentration on the work before them, no distraction 
 is permitted, the whole being seems gathered up in 
 painful tension to wrestle with certain problems which 
 will only give up their solution to the most absolute 
 and complete determination. Eyes and ears and hand 
 and brain are all held in complete subservience to the 
 one master purpose of conquering a difficult task in the 
 highest and best way. 
 
 Take, on the other hand, the congregation who are 
 supposed to be engaged in the far more difficult task 
 of worshipping God. Obviously with the great majority 
 there is little effort and no struggle, eyes and ears are 
 open to any sights or sounds which may affect them. 
 The one set of men were resolute in achieving a difficult 
 task, the other are languidly engaged in pretending to 
 enter on an exercise in which apparently they have little 
 interest, on which nothing seems to depend and towards 
 which they make but a slight contribution of earnest- 
 ness. Distraction in prayer is a sad scourge, but it is 
 more : it will produce, if not mastered, a dislike to, and 
 a discontinuance of devotion itself. The congregation, 
 such as we have imagined above, is preparing itself for 
 a discontinuance of divine worship in the near future. 
 If we do not love prayer we shall end in disliking it. 
 It is an exercise which almost more than any other 
 revenges itself on the idle and indifferent. And there- 
 fore the banishment of distraction is necessary in the 
 interests of prayer itself as well as of the comfort of the 
 worshipper. 
 
 It will be found to depend largely on little things
 
 278 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 whether or not our prayers are distracted and rendered 
 lifeless. Such a thing as the custody of the eyes, or 
 the following of the words in the book, or the reading 
 of the lessons in the Bible, or the attitude of the body, 
 will be found to assume an importance quite out of 
 proportion to their apparent littleness. While a wise 
 man will know that he must not rest in these things 
 which are largely negative as against this world, he 
 will press on until he brings himself within the attrac- 
 tion of heavenly things. It is carrying out in another 
 sphere the old principles of detachment and attachment. 
 It will be found that by pushing up these paths of 
 prayer, he finds himself reaching those regions where 
 the voice of the Lord God is heard speaking in clear 
 accents to his soul. He will find treasures lying at the 
 roots of familiar words which he had often passed by 
 unnoticed. He will find the Psalms leading him up by 
 paths which seem endless in their possibility of approach 
 nearer and nearer to the presence of God. He will 
 find that, as in the conflict with sin, so in the struggle 
 with disabling distraction, delight in the service of 
 God is the best remedy against the vain intrusion of 
 unhallowed thoughts. The headings of the collects, 
 the first words of the Psalms, the structure of the 
 service, the ritual directions may all form points of 
 departure into that region where lie in such profusion 
 those jewels which cannot be seen elsewhere. Until 
 distraction becomes a hateful intruder, instead of a 
 welcomed companion ; until the danger becomes rather 
 lest we should distract business with devotion than 
 devotion with business, and forget to apply to our work 
 that principle which has helped us to enrich our 
 devotion : * Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it 
 with thy might." 1 1 
 
 If prayer needs earnestness and trouble, it also needs 
 time. A vigorous effort was made by the Tractarian 
 1 Ecclcs. ix. ID.
 
 PRAYER 279 
 
 leaders, which was crowned with much success, to secure 
 for God a greater recognition in the dedication of more 
 time to His honour, in the daily services of the Church. 
 It would seem that some reaction is already begin- 
 ning in the interests of the world. The speed of 
 modern life seems to render men incapable of spending 
 much time on any one serious thing. The length of 
 services in Church is made a subject of frequent com- 
 plaint, and the ordinary services on a week-day have 
 been permissively shortened, with a result which seems 
 to show that while their shortening has alienated those 
 who loved them in their integrity, that which it was 
 sought to accomplish was their abolishing rather than 
 their shortening. It would be well to consider whether 
 the time devoted to divine service be not a thing to be 
 carefully considered, as well as the earnestness and 
 concentration which we bring to bear on its perform- 
 ance. If prayer be an integral part of our Blessed 
 Lord's mediatorial work, if again it is part of the 
 work which He has entrusted to us for our co-operation, 
 then neither on Sunday nor on week-day can we afford 
 to neglect it. The sevenfold hours of prayer were 
 altered, condensed, and amalgamated into two, partly 
 for the benefit of the laity : but still the proportion 
 of the laity who avail themselves of the opportunity 
 is small. It seems to be altogether impossible to 
 get ordinary men to believe not merely that prayer is 
 a work, but that it is anything else but a waste of 
 valuable time, which might be otherwise better spent 
 for the advantage of the community. To many people 
 their daily private prayers have become a form, which 
 twice aday,morning andevening,or even less,theydeduct 
 as a tax on time enforced by propriety ; while family 
 prayer again becomes an economical institution adapted 
 to keep the household in regular habits, and Sunday 
 itself, which is the Lord's own day, degenerates into a 
 bad imitation of the Continental Sunday without its
 
 280 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 religious exercises ; and half an hour devoted to the 
 Lord satisfies an idea of obligation which has taken 
 the place of the joy of service. The institution of the 
 Sabbath, as we have seen, was deep-seated in the heart 
 of those regulations which God gave to man, and one 
 of its underlying principles is the necessity for the 
 consecration of time. If prayer needs earnestness, we 
 may feel equally certain that it lays a claim upon time. 
 Long services and prolonged devotions are not in them- 
 selves the mistakes and the burdens which we are 
 sometimes tempted to think them. We are they who 
 need strengthening, not the service which needs 
 weakening. It is our devotion which needs increasing, 
 not the service which needs shortening. 
 
 But the greatest barrier to fervent prayer must 
 needs be sin. ' Prayer and sin cannot exist together.' 
 This is a comfort to the sinner who wishes to for- 
 sake his sin ; it is a perpetual protest to the careless 
 soul, who thinks that he can pray and sin together, 
 and approach God out of an impure heart, with 
 lips whose utterance is stifled by the clamour of 
 a guilty secret within. In old days we read of the 
 prophet who, when his servant stood before him, 
 straight from his deceit, his covetousness and treachery, 
 said to him, * Whence comest thou, Gehazi? 11 God 
 may Himself address a similar question, and search 
 Jerusalem with candles, 2 as He sees us coming hastily 
 and lightly into His presence, putting on the vestment 
 of worship over a rough and dishevelled life. 
 
 ' Whence ' is a word which echoes back into the far-off 
 corridors of life, to the time when the Church gave us 
 back regenerate into our mother's arms at the Font, 
 pledged to maintain the quarrel of God against the 
 devil, the world, and the flesh, to times when the con- 
 flict waxed fiercer, and the resistance grew faint IT, 
 when the vows of Confirmation seemed to have been 
 1 2 Kings v. 25. 8 Zeph. i. 12.
 
 PRAYER 281 
 
 made only to be broken, and formalism set in with its 
 numbing frost, nipping off all the bloom of resolution, 
 and destroying all hopes of good fruit. It is only too 
 possible to take the solemn words of prayer and praise 
 on our lips from which the life has emptied all their 
 meaning. Here is one praying not to be led into temp- 
 tation, who is trying in every way to discover fresh 
 incitements to sin, and who would be displeased beyond 
 measure if, in answer to his prayer, the ordinary means 
 of temptation were closed to him as he left the Church. 
 Here is another who has been saturating his mind 
 with records of foul sin, for whom fiction only exists 
 as an incitement to his passions, and he prays, 'Al- 
 mighty God, unto Whom all hearts be open, all desires 
 known, and from whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the 
 thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Thy Holy 
 Spirit.' Here is a man praying ' deliver us from evil ' 
 who is conscious to himself of not one single effort to 
 subdue the evil which is within him ; who habitually 
 despises and neglects all the helps which God has 
 provided against sin, and has again and again done 
 despite to the Spirit of Grace ; who says * Our Father ' 
 with the heart of a fatalist, and 'hallowed be Thy 
 Name ' from a conversation that dishonours it, ' Thy 
 kingdom come ' from a life that knows no wider horizon 
 than the limits of business or society, ' Thy Will be 
 done ' with a heart full of covetousness, ' in earth as it 
 is in Heaven ' with a complete ignorance of, and indif- 
 ference to, the things of God. To him * Give us this 
 day our daily bread' is at the most recognised by a 
 grudging grace followed by a grumble. ' Forgive us 
 our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against 
 us,' is a mere figure of speech, accompanied by the 
 frequent assertion, that he for his part is one of those 
 who if he forgives never forgets. 
 
 And so prayer goes up emptied of its meaning by sin, 
 until it becomes a distasteful mockery, and almost a
 
 282 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 curse. And thus sin hinders the onward march, spoils 
 the victory, and robs the man of his fruit of conquest, 
 as, like the Babylonish garment and wedge of gold to 
 Achan, a hidden sin becomes a stumbling-block to 
 advance, and turns the things that should have been 
 to our wealth into an occasion of falling, so that the 
 very prayers and praises which cheered our innocence 
 become the solemn dirges which bemoan our guilt. 
 
 The frequent Absolutions of the Prayer Book, as also 
 those in the offices of the Breviary andM issal,from which 
 they were adapted, bear witness to the need of a heart 
 free from sin in those who approach the Sanctuary. 
 Those sprinklings of pardon seem to be so adapted 
 * that those things may please Him which we do at 
 this present'; and to provide for purity in the 
 worshippers. And so where there is everything to 
 indicate the extreme importance of freedom from sin 
 in those who draw near, it would be folly indeed to 
 approach without the full assurance of faith, and the 
 cleansing which God has always demanded from them 
 that draw near to His awful throne. 
 
 The prominent place assigned to the Lord's Prayer 
 in the Catechism is but a symbol of the honour which 
 has always been paid to it in the devotions of the 
 Church. It is honoured in itself as the form which 
 the Lord taught us : it is honoured as the pattern of 
 all prayer. And every Christian must see to it that 
 prayer has its due and rightful place in his life. 
 
 It is not without significance that the Church has 
 taken over from the ancient world the name of Liturgy 
 as applied to the highest service of the Altar, Liturgy 
 being the public work performed by a few for the good 
 of the many. Here was the tax put upon the wealthy 
 citizen for the benefit of the community, and in like 
 manner it is a tax put upon the Christian now to plead 
 the Great Sacrifice of Calvary for the good of the 
 world.
 
 PRAYER 283 
 
 A man who never prays, who never joins the 
 Eucharistic pleading of the Church, is not only depriv- 
 ing himself of strength and blessing, he is defrauding 
 the Church and the world besides. He is a dumb note 
 in the harmony of creation, he is failing to fulfil an 
 office which God sent him into the world to discharge. 
 4 All things are ours by prayer, 1 but the mute lips and the 
 cold heart draw down no blessing on the world around 
 them. There is no contact and no union with the inter- 
 cession of the ascended Lord, and so no response. 
 
 More things are wrought by prayer 
 
 Than this world dreams of. ... 
 
 For what are men better than sheep or goats * 
 
 That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
 
 If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer " 
 
 Both for themselves and those who call them friends ?
 
 PART V 
 
 THE SACRAMENTS 
 
 Question. How many Sacraments hath Christ ordained in His 
 Church ? 
 
 Answer. Two only, as generally necessary to salvation : that 
 is to say, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord. 
 
 Question. What meanest thou by this word Sacrament ? 
 
 Answer. I mean an outward and visible sign of an inward 
 and spiritual grace given unto us, ordained by Christ Himself, 
 as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure 
 us thereof. 
 
 Question. How many parts are there in a Sacrament? 
 
 Answer. Two ; the outward visible sign, and the inward 
 spiritual grace. 
 
 Question. What is the outward visible sign or form in Baptism ? 
 
 Answer. Water : wherein the person is baptized, In the Name 
 of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Question. What is the inward and spiritual grace ? 
 
 Answer. A death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteous- 
 ness : for being by nature born in sin, and the children of 
 wrath, we are hereby made the children of grace. 
 
 Question. What is required of persons to be baptized ? 
 
 Answer. Repentance, whereby they forsake sin ; and Faith, 
 whereby they stedfastly believe the promises of God, made to 
 them in that Sacrament. 
 
 Question. Why then are Infants baptized, when by reason of 
 their tender age they cannot perform them ? 
 
 Answer. Because they promise them both by their sureties : 
 which promise, when they come to age, themselves are bound to 
 perform. 
 
 Question. Why was the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper or- 
 dained ? 
 
 Answer. For the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of 
 the death of Christ, and of the benefits which we receive 
 thereby. 
 
 285
 
 286 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 Question. What is the outward part or sign of the Lord's 
 Supper ? 
 
 Answer. Bread and Wine, which the Lord hath commanded 
 to be received. 
 
 Question. What is the inward part, or thing signified ? 
 
 Answer. The Body and Blood of Christ, which are verily and 
 indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper. 
 
 Question. What are the benefits whereof we are partakers 
 thereby ? 
 
 Answer. The strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the 
 Body and Blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the Bread and 
 Wine. 
 
 Question. What is required of them who come to the Lord's 
 Supper ? 
 
 Answer. To examine themselves, whether they repent them 
 truly of their former sins, stedfastly purposing to lead a new 
 life ; have a lively faith in God's mercy through Christ, with a 
 thankful remembrance of His death ; and be in charity with all 
 men.
 
 THE SACRAMENTS 
 
 Tranquil times have little history, but yet they are the 
 times of growth and maturing life. 
 
 1 do not doubt that your Communions profit you, they 
 do more they save you. 
 
 THE sources from which our Blessed Lord drew His 
 parables are eminently suggestive to us of a hidden 
 world which lies within the phenomenal world and 
 which it is the privilege of the few to penetrate. It 
 was He Who was never tired of pointing out how 
 
 This our life, exempt from public haunt, 
 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything. 
 
 The sower sowing the seed, the tares growing in a wheat 
 field, a woman preparing her bread for the oven, even 
 the prosaic details of a law-court were exhibited as 
 God's messages written in the Heavenly cipher, of 
 which only a few had the key. The Parables were 
 not spoken to make truth more intelligible, but to 
 convey it to the heart which was ready to receive 
 the message couched in these terms. 
 
 And so we find that the world has more than one 
 cipher in which to speak to the heart. Sound carries 
 the musician into a region where he hears mysteries 
 which are hidden from those who have not learned the 
 melodious key which unlocks them; or the painter 
 
 287
 
 288 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 communes with an ideal where the ordinary man is only 
 conscious of the commonplace. The world around us 
 speaks in this mystic language through the imagination 
 to the mind ; and the result is edification, a lifting up 
 of the whole being into a richer and fuller state. 
 
 But God has shown us that there is a higher medium 
 of communication still, which uses the instrument of 
 faith, that power by which we realise the unseen, and 
 which speaks to the spirit, the higher side of the in- 
 corporeal nature of man, to produce that which is greater 
 even than edification, namely grace, in a direct action of 
 God upon the soul, through external means. 
 
 And not only has God shown us the existence of this 
 communication between Himself and the spirit of man 
 through the agency of faith, but He has more than once 
 willed to use it in remarkable ways ; and even more than 
 this, He has made this means of dealing with man 
 a matter of obligation, so that on certain occasions the 
 way to God has been barred except through these out- 
 ward symbols at once significant and effectual. God 
 had not abdicated His throne of mercy when Israel was 
 bitten by the serpents in the wilderness. He was still 
 not far from any one of the sufferers, but He willed that 
 He should be approached, and that healing should be 
 conveyed by the eye of faith making its appeal to the 
 spirit by means of a brazen serpent. 
 
 God was still the God of healing, ready and willing to 
 accept out of Syria as out of every nation any who 
 feared Him and worked righteousness; but Naaman the 
 leper found the way of restoration barred except through 
 the actual contact with the waters of Jordan. His rage 
 and disappointment were typical of the feeling which 
 still turns in sullen disapproval from the message which 
 the irresponsive spirit is unable to receive. 
 
 So it is that the Catechism, after exhibiting the power- 
 lessness of human nature in itself either to will or to do 
 such things as are pleasing to God, and after insisting
 
 THE SACRAMENTS 289 
 
 on the efficacy and importance of prayer, finds it 
 necessary to put before the Christian child the scheme 
 of the Sacraments. It would be impossible to do 
 otherwise, were it a question only of God's habitual 
 dealings with men through outward means which are 
 charged with inward grace ; but such instruction 
 becomes doubly necessary when we remember that, as 
 with the Israelites and with Naaman so with the 
 Christian child, particular grace is attached to par- 
 ticular means, in an exclusive and absolute way, so that 
 it is not an exaggeration to affirm that two Sacraments 
 or outward means of grace are necessary to salvation, 
 generally, that is for all, and where they may be had ; 
 or, in other words, that life is not to be secured in any 
 other way except as the free bounty of Him Who is 
 not tied to Sacraments, nor works in merely mechanical 
 ways, but where man is most bound by His laws, sets 
 in motion the effect of higher laws, and saves by His 
 divine prerogative. 
 
 It is not for us to question the why and wherefore 
 of the use of means : God has so willed it, and that 
 is sufficient. At the same time we are allowed to see 
 that there is some reason in this method of working 
 which it is not outside our powers of comprehension to 
 understand. There would seem to be two underlying 
 principles which govern this Sacramental action. The 
 one of them is alluded to in the Catechism under the 
 word ' pledge 1 : ' Lord, show me a sign.' ' How shall I 
 know Thee ? ' ' How shall we know that the Lord hath 
 spoken ? ' Sayings of this sort appear again and again 
 in Holy Scripture, indicating the greatness of the barrier 
 which separates the working of God's wisdom from the 
 understanding of men. Man seems to be seized with 
 sudden panics, with inroads of incapacity to believe. 
 He is like a frightened child, who tired and disappointed 
 begins to doubt the power and even the sincerity of the 
 leader in whose guidance he has hitherto reposed. We 
 
 T
 
 290 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 seem unable to deal for any length of time in the 
 abstractions of faith, we need an assurance, an earnest, 
 a security by which we may be enabled to feel the 
 certainty of the supernatural gift promised and bestowed 
 upon us. So some have thought that the destruction 
 of the Gadarene swine was ' necessary for the permanent 
 healing of the man ' (i.e. the demoniac), that he should 
 have an outward evidence and testimony that the hellish 
 powers which held him in bondage had quitted their 
 hold. He wanted his deliverance sealed and realised to 
 him in the open destruction of his enemies ; not else 
 would he have been persuaded of the truth of that 
 deliverance, and that Christ had indeed and for ever set 
 him free ; as the children of Israel coming out of Egypt 
 must see the dead bodies of their oppressors on the 
 shore, ere they could believe that these never again 
 should bring them into their old bondage. 1 And so God 
 in the Sacramental system has mercifully given to man 
 a system of pledges, that he may be assured of the 
 reality of a transaction which takes place in the region 
 of spirit by outward visible signs which are part and 
 parcel of his everyday life, at once suggestive by an 
 appropriate symbolism, and conveying the reality of 
 that which they signify. Perhaps the human craving 
 for a pledge is most manifest in the case of a sinner, who 
 while he does not for one moment doubt the power and 
 willingness of God to pardon, yet craves for and is 
 satisfied with the actual message of forgiveness pro- 
 nounced by human lips, where God uses the instru- 
 mentality of human language as a pledge of His perfect 
 remission of sins to the contrite sinner who confesses 
 them. 
 
 The other principle alluded to above would seem to 
 
 repose on an opposite need of human nature, the need 
 
 for testing and bracing the power of faith on which so 
 
 much of his spiritual life and efficiency depends. * My 
 
 1 Trench, Notci on tht Miracles of our Lord, pp. 173, 174.
 
 THE SACRAMENTS 291 
 
 father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, 
 wouldest thou not have done it ? How much rather 
 then, when he saith to thee, Wash and be clean'? 1 
 seems to be the formula which exactly expresses the 
 state of mind to be dealt with by Sacraments. The 
 demands of faith, which must be and which are very 
 great, are to be prepared for by the willingness exacted 
 from the believer to do some little thing on his part to 
 obtain a great thing on the part of God. Faith is the 
 necessary medium between man and God, Who makes 
 the acceptance of the will, working freely, a condition 
 of the bestowal of His benefits. God will never pauperise 
 by the dower of blessings to which man has contributed 
 nothing. ' By faith ye are saved, 1 but faith means a 
 real effort on the part of man, a real contribution to 
 the working out of his own salvation with fear and 
 trembling. 
 
 II 
 
 Two of these sacraments, at once * pledges ' which 
 confirm faith, and ' means ' which test it by their 
 simplicity, are here put before the child, explained 
 and emphasised in a very solemn manner. It will not 
 be necessary to enter into a discussion in this place as to 
 the exact number of Sacraments. It has been pointed 
 out in a recent series of learned lectures, that there is 
 no fixed number which can claim any Catholic authority 
 for their limitation. The grouping together into seven 
 with which we are so familiar is not earlier than the 
 twelfth century, and rests on the authority of Peter 
 Lombard, spreading gradually to the East, and adopted 
 there apparently not earlier than the thirteenth century, 
 and even then in many cases with a difference as to the 
 Sacraments so included. 2 Obviously, unless there is 
 
 1 2 Kings v. 13. 
 
 2 Fr. Puller on the ' Unction of the Sick,' the Guardian, Jan. 28, 
 1903.
 
 292 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 some authoritative decision on the subject, the number 
 of Sacraments, that is, means of grace, will vary accord- 
 ing to the strictness or looseness of the definition 
 employed. In the Catechism the definition is an 
 exceedingly close one, and so the Sacraments there 
 referred to are reduced to two, as ordinances 'generally 
 necessary to salvation/ of which the sign was ' ordained 
 by Christ Himself, 1 'that is in His own Person, mid not 
 through His apostles or their successors ; or, ;is it is 
 expressed in Article xxv., 'ordained by Christ our Lord 
 in the Gospel. 11 And so it is asserted in the Homilies 
 that Matrimony and Confirmation are Sacraments, but 
 not in such significance as Baptism and Holy Com- 
 munion. Here, the definition being looser, the number 
 of Sacraments is larger ; in the Catechism and in the 
 Articles the definition is stricter, and so the number of 
 Sacraments in the restricted sense is smaller; although 
 in Article xxv. we find the distinction drawn with suffi- 
 cient plainness between those ' commonly called Sacra- 
 ments 1 and ' Sacraments of the Gospel, 1 the diflcrt-niiu 
 being the ' visible sign or ceremony ordained of God. 12 
 
 Nothing can be stricter, however, than the insistence 
 which is laid on these two, Baptism and the Supper of 
 the Lord, as being ' generally necessary to salvation, 1 
 that is to say, necessary for all, and where they can be 
 had, and not merely counsels of perfections for the few, 
 or incident to certain states of life. 
 
 That anything should be seriously viewed as in < v^.-u -v 
 to salvation is a doctrine abhorrent to present-day 
 principles. Monitory clauses are being removed from 
 the social code, from the Bible, and from the Creed. It 
 is thought a piece of savage brutality even to allude to 
 Hell, and an illiberal impertinence to warn, while to say 
 that a man is held responsible to God for what ' vii 
 he adopts as regards the Sacraments, or that any doctrine 
 
 1 Robinson, The Church Catechism Explained, p. 139. 
 * Art. xxv.
 
 THE SACRAMENTS 293 
 
 peculiar to any one denomination should be regarded as 
 essential, is looked upon as the very embodiment of 
 sectarian bigotry. But here these words remain, and it 
 is worth while inquiring what they mean. In the first 
 place it is extremely desirable to rid our minds of the 
 strange notions that sentences of warning, and an 
 emphatic assertion of certain revealed truths, are 
 intolerant and cruel. No one can read only the New 
 Testament without being struck with the predominant 
 tone of warning which pervades its pages from end to 
 end. If we try to realise only the Gospel scheme and 
 what it means; if we try to penetrate the depth of 
 meaning which underlies the word ' Saviour,' or the 
 confident assertion again and again repeated that a man 
 is responsible for what he thinks as well as for what he 
 does ; there is much to make us pause. But even more, 
 no one can read the Holy Scriptures without discovering 
 another train of solemn admonition, and that is as to 
 the danger which accompanies a familiarity with Holy 
 things and the peril which waits on privilege. It meets 
 us in the Old Testament, and more strikingly still in 
 the New Testament, as for instance in the awful and 
 mysterious threatenings which surround the sin of the 
 blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, and the frequent 
 and reiterated denunciation of those who, living in the 
 full privilege and opportunity of welcoming Christ, yet 
 to their own unutterable condemnation rejected Him. 
 We read in the pages of the Old Testament of the king 
 who cut out with his penknife and burned the obnoxious 
 leaves which contained for him the message of God's 
 wrath, 1 and yet that did not alter the sentence pro- 
 nounced against him. 
 
 We want more monitory clauses, not less, in every 
 
 direction. One of the most serious symptoms of the 
 
 age is the absence of holy fear. The spirit of the age 
 
 which says, 'Do as you like,' 'Think as you like,' 
 
 1 Jer. xxxvi. 20.
 
 294 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 'Believe as you like, 1 'Criticise as you like, 1 may well 
 chafe at such words as 'necessary to salvation. 1 A 
 hardihood of irreverence such as that which dominates 
 the prevailing thought of the day will question the 
 authority on which such words rest, or deny the 
 church's right to make such an inference. Still they 
 do not stand alone ; and if we believe in revelation at all, 
 it is not for us to say, I will accept such revelation, in so 
 far and no farther, as it commends itself to my under- 
 standing. 
 
 It has been well said : 'The supposition of religious 
 rationalism is that doctrines should justify themselves 
 to us, and fit into our thoughts harmoniously; that 
 until they do so . . .we cannot really be said to 
 believe them or take them home, or to have an insight 
 into them. Faith would not lie, therefore, in the sub- 
 mission of the reason to belief in external realities only 
 partially disclosed and imperfectly apprehended, but in 
 the readiness of his mind to enter into intelligent agree- 
 ment with what is revealed. . . . The words and ordin- 
 ances in which those divine truths were couched might 
 not be tampered with, just for the very reason that 
 they did not, and could not, correspond exactly to the 
 reality which they half hid and half disclosed, 1 hence 
 4 no man might trust himself to depart from the form 
 of words and the ordinances under which it conn's to 
 us, through which it is revealed to us, and apart from 
 which revelation does not exist, there being nothing 
 else given to us by which to ascertain or enter into it. 
 It is this last point which is so strangely ignored by 
 the rationalising Christian, who sits in judgment on 
 the adequacy of the ideas and expressions in which 
 divine truth has been wrapt, as though he had some 
 direct insight into supernatural realities apart from 
 revelation, and could compare the two forms of know- 
 ledge one with another. 1 1 
 
 1 Tyrrell, The Faith of the Millions, pp. 93, 9$, 96.
 
 THE SACRAMENTS 295 
 
 And yet it is worth while to inquire what is meant 
 by such a phrase as 'necessary to salvation.' Surely 
 not that participation in the Sacraments is required 
 by a Spiritual Test Act, as a condition of entering 
 Heaven ; but that human nature being what it is, and 
 God being what He is, and the scheme of salvation 
 being what it is, the necessary freedom from sin and the 
 necessary infusion of grace, both of them prerequisites 
 to eternal salvation, can only be attained by a devout 
 participation in that Sacramental means which Christ, 
 when He took upon Him to deliver man, devised for 
 the perfecting and salvation of those whom He redeemed 
 by His precious blood, and would save by progressive 
 sanctification. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It is necessary now to glance at these two Sacra- 
 ments which are treated of with a dogmatic precision 
 such as cannot be surpassed in the other formularies 
 of the Anglican Church : and inasmuch as both of 
 them form the subject of separate volumes in this 
 Library, it will be well to confine ourselves to certain 
 practical aspects of these means of grace as bearing 
 on the Christian life, as is suggested indeed in the 
 questions and answers in the Catechism which describe 
 in each case the blessings conferred on the devout 
 receiver. 
 
 Holy Baptism has for the most part ceased to be 
 regarded by the ordinary man as having any present 
 bearing on his daily life. If he thinks of it at all it is 
 as being connected in his mind with past controversy 
 and with the doctrine of regeneration, with the inner 
 significance of which he has no sympathy, for indeed 
 he does not understand what it means. Baptism re- 
 presents to him a concession to a theological propriety 
 which his parents submitted to in his case, something
 
 296 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 past and gone, an initiatory rite, perhaps a symbolical 
 ceremony which he may look back to in imagination in 
 his better moments, and which he may use as a certifi- 
 cate of authority and a passport to those few remain- 
 ing posts which are confined exclusively to churchnu n. 
 
 The hurry of modern life, the impatience of any- 
 thing which might delay divine service for a few 
 minutes, has led to the removal of the celebration 
 of Holy Baptism from the place which it was designed 
 to occupy in the public services of the Church. This 
 Sacrament is administered, almost privately, at a time 
 when few adult members of the congregation are 
 present, and the result is that many grow up to man- 
 hood without ever having witnessed a Baptism, and 
 without hearing the words of great solemnity there 
 employed, or understanding the important position 
 which it claims to occupy in the Christian life. 
 
 And yet an ordinary reader of the Bible cannot 
 fail to be struck by the extreme significance therein 
 attached to this Sacrament. S. Paul, for instance, in 
 a well-known passage says, that the Christian is by 
 Baptism introduced to a life of which the motto may 
 be said to be ' dead unto sin. 1 The baptized man is, if 
 he answers to God's purpose, as insensible to sin as a 
 dead man to the objects which he encounters in this 
 world of sense. 'Therefore we are buried with Him 
 by Baptism unto death: that like as Christ was raised 
 up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so 
 we also should walk in newness of life/ 1 
 
 And when men began to think seriously about the 
 
 Church and her teaching here in England, now about 
 
 nty years ago, they insisted, and that rightly, on 
 
 setting forth in the very forefront of their teaching 
 
 the extreme significance and utter importance of IIolv 
 
 Baptism. In season and out of season this was the 
 
 topic of sermons, the subject of discussion, the object 
 
 1 Rom. yi. 4.
 
 THE SACRAMENTS 297 
 
 of controversy new birth in Holy Baptism. The 
 apparent denial, or what is even more fatal, the per- 
 missive denial of this fundamental Bible truth, was 
 the first of those Pyrrhine victories won by lax public 
 opinion over the growing and prevailing belief of Church 
 people in their own rights and privileges as set forth 
 in the Prayer Book. To-day, either because the battle 
 has shifted, or from indifference and misconception, we 
 hear little about Holy Baptism. The idea that this 
 Sacrament has any present spiritual bearing on their 
 life, unless it be that certain promises conducive to a 
 good life were there made in their name, many would 
 ridicule as fantastic, at least as poetical, possibly even 
 superstitious. But there is an obstinate persistency in 
 the Bible and in the unbroken tradition of the Church 
 in the opposite direction. 
 
 Holy Baptism, so far from being a piece of fanciful 
 symbolism, which may be cast away by a majority 
 of ratepayers into a lumber-room of denominational 
 fanaticisms, or which might certainly be abolished in 
 favour of some new form of initiation into Church 
 membership, is treated in the Bible as fundamental, as 
 one of the main exhibitions of the permanent victory 
 over sin won by Christ in His resurrection. S. Paul, in 
 the passage quoted above, speaks of the impossibility 
 of living in sin for his converts, because at a specific 
 moment ' they died to it ' ; or, as he goes on to say, ' did 
 you not realise that this was the effect of Baptism ? Did 
 you not know, that then you were immersed into Christ 
 into His death that is, that you were introduced 
 by Baptism into a state of conformity with, participa- 
 tion of, His death ? When you entered into the water 
 you died, when you passed under it you were buried, 
 when you emerged you rose again, in the symbolical 
 acceptance of all these necessary processes wherein 
 Christ threw off the body of our death and rose to 
 newness of life.' Christ's resurrection, in all the import-
 
 298 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 ance of that cardinal doctrine of the Faith, is bound 
 up with the Sacrament of Baptism. At the Font 
 every Christian, not symbolically only, but really, is 
 made partaker of that great triumph, and empowered 
 to walk in newness of living, with a fresh capacity, 
 that is, of life. And this is no isolated nor rhetorical 
 utterance. In precept and in practice we find the same 
 thought throughout the New Testament. There are 
 our Lord's own words of commission so startling and 
 so stern : * Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all 
 the nations, baptizing them into the Name of the 
 Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost : teaching 
 them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded 
 you : and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end 
 of the world. ' l 
 
 We have S. Paul's words once more : * Not by works 
 of righteousness which we have done, but according to 
 His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, 
 and renewing of the Holy Ghost.' 2 Or there is the 
 equally strong statement of S. Peter : * The like figure 
 whereunto even Baptism doth also now save us (not the 
 putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of 
 a good conscience towards God) by the resurrection of 
 Jesus Christ.' 3 And Apostolic practice is even more 
 emphatic than Apostolic precept. It has been asserted 
 with some hardihood that conversion and not Baptism 
 is the necessity for a new life. And yet Saul of Tarsus 
 was, if any one, converted by the direct interposition 
 of God. The blinding flash and the overwhelming 
 voice met that proud and vigorous nature running 
 away in headstrong impetuosity into vain and useless 
 channels, and wrenched the dialectical disputant into 
 the burning Apostle of the Crucified ; but to him, 
 penitent, crushed, and indeed converted, Ananias was 
 sent with the water which brings new birth, and with 
 
 1 S. Matt, xxviii. 19, 20. R.V. * Titus iii. 5. 
 
 * I S. Peter iii. 21 ; cf. also S. John iii. 5.
 
 THE SACRAMENTS 299 
 
 the grace which immersed the sinful soul into Christ, 
 into active participation with His death, burial, and 
 resurrection. 1 And so afterwards, when the same 
 Apostle was asked by the trembling gaoler at Philippi, 
 ' What must I do to be saved?' he answered speedily 
 and certainly, ' Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 thou shalt be saved. 12 But the expression of that 
 belief on the part of the gaoler was the immediate 
 acceptance of that which the Lord Jesus commanded, 
 in the Baptism of himself and all his house. 
 
 So that with our eyes on Holy Scripture we acquit 
 the Catechism of an unbalanced dogmatism when it 
 puts into the mouths of the children this strong and 
 uncompromising statement, that Baptism as well as 
 Holy Communion is one of those Sacraments ' generally 
 necessary to salvation. 1 
 
 But the more immediate object of this present 
 chapter is to exhibit Holy Baptism as a permanent 
 factor in our everyday spiritual life, and not a remote 
 action in a vanished past. 
 
 We cannot think of this Sacrament, as was suggested 
 above, as an arbitrary thing imposed by God on 
 mankind under pains and penalties, to be accepted 
 without any clear idea of its value, to be rejected on 
 pain of eternal damnation. It is this method of view- 
 ing the decrees of Almighty God which lead men to 
 attempt to apologise for their supposed abruptness, 
 and to attempt to save the reputation of His love 
 by arbitrary interference with His warnings. But, 
 once more, God Almighty, if we may say so with 
 reverence, does not propound certain abstract pro- 
 positions which are to be assented to under pain of 
 a tremendous penalty, but He does order us to carry 
 out certain principles of faith and practice as our 
 only safeguard amidst conditions which belong to an 
 unhealthy and dangerous world. The obligation of 
 1 Acts ix. 17. 2 Acts xvi. 30, 31.
 
 300 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 Holy Baptism is rooted in the very nature of man, and 
 is an outcome of his pitiful weakness. All schemes for 
 the amelioration of mankind, all Utopias and Republics 
 and Commonwealths, have been wrecked again and again 
 on this rock, the innate corruption of man, which has 
 earned for him the distinction of being a very prince 
 in depravity. This predisposition to vice is known to 
 theologians under the title of original or birth-sin, and 
 is recognised by those who shrink from theological 
 terms and have no concern about sin, as hereditary 
 taint, sometimes more, sometimes less, but always 
 existing to this extent that, whereas it is possible for 
 any living thing to stay as it is or to get better or to 
 get worse, man, if left to himself, has an inevitable 
 tendency to deterioration. 
 
 It was with this doctrine of birth-sin belonging to 
 the children of Adam, and of farther hereditary taint 
 descending from parents, that Christ had first to deal, 
 if we may say so with reverence, in delivering man 
 from the bondage of moral death. 1 
 
 Man must needs be made capable of the higher 
 goodness, and therefore * Ye must be born again ' is 
 the first and most obligatory command which meets 
 the Christian entering on his life here on earth. And 
 so Baptism, or the new birth, is lifted out of any 
 arbitrary or artificial position which it might have 
 been supposed to hold, and takes its place, as being as 
 necessary to the spiritual life as natural birth is to 
 the natural life. To those who will accept Christ's 
 gift with the hand of faith, Holy Baptism, not as a 
 charm acting independently of the man, but co-operat- 
 ing with his faith, will give him that nature which will 
 enable him to produce in his poor and crumbling 
 humanity that image of Christ which would have bi m 
 impossible without it ; we must always carefully 
 remember that Holy Baptism is not connected with 
 1 See also the Author's Religion, chap. lit.
 
 THE SACRAMENTS 301 
 
 an historical date in our individual past to be regarded 
 as a name-day, a promise-day, or a day of new- 
 birth according to the theological propensity of the 
 individual thinker, but is rather to be regarded as 
 a living force within the man now. He ' died to sin 
 once," 1 that is true in the dim past before the full dawn 
 of his consciousness; but when he had been buried with 
 Christ by Baptism into death he emerged into newness 
 of living. The life which we now live in the flesh we 
 live by the faith of the Son of God, of Whom every one 
 may say : ' He loved me, and gave Himself for me.' 
 
 But the question is even more pressing than this. 
 There are few subjects of such vital importance as the 
 precise bearing of what we call nature on our conduct. 
 Is nature a weight tied round our neck to render futile 
 from the very first the frantic plungings which we 
 mistake for the efforts of freedom to escape drowning ? 
 Is nature, on the other hand, a carefully adjusted life- 
 buoy, so that, without any effort or struggle on our 
 part, we can trust it to sustain us amidst the breaking 
 waves of this troublesome world ? Has Baptism any- 
 thing to say to these difficulties, or is nature an 
 obstinate fact which laughs at the niceties of theologi- 
 cal speculations ? 
 
 There can be no doubt as to transmitted qualities 
 which came to us from our ancestors ; a look, a 
 gesture, an attitude, the formation of handwriting, 
 the intonation of language, quite unconsciously to 
 ourselves, will reproduce some distinctive charac- 
 teristic of father or mother, or even some remoter 
 ancestor who only remains to us in a portrait, or an 
 historical record. But are moral qualities transmitted 
 also ? Is the son of a drunkard necessarily a drunkard 
 too ? Is the son of a murderer started on his course 
 with irresistible tendencies to homicide? Can the 
 child of the saintly father or mother trust to the 
 long-measured swell of a wave of goodness to carry
 
 302 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 him on safely without an effort on his part ? If so, 
 there is obviously no room for free-will or moral 
 responsibility. No careful steering or good seaman- 
 ship will save the boat which starts forth with a 
 gaping rent in its side, through which more and 
 more the water is bound to enter with inevitable and 
 irresistible inroads. An unalterable heredity is only 
 fate under another name, and moralists and social- 
 improvers and clergy must cease their futile labours 
 and turn their attention to ridding the world gradually 
 of diseased and deadly stocks rather than playing witn 
 forces which will always be too strong for them. 
 
 Heredity will always be an interesting subject to think- 
 ing men, but those who have the most right to speak are 
 bidding us not to be too hasty, nor to conclude on an 
 imperfect induction of facts. Let it be remembered 
 that we inherit a great deal more than the immediate 
 characteristics of our father and mother; that behind 
 them reach back a long series of traits, the effects of 
 which have probably passed into our nature. The son 
 of a drunken father may be impressed by that of which 
 he has some sort of cognisance ; he may be conscious 
 of this tendency as one of overwhelming preponderance. 
 But there are other tendencies at worlc within him, 
 straining at his inclinations, and clamouring to be 
 heard. It is his, in the last resort, to choose and 
 to affirm by means of his will, which he will follow and 
 by which he will be guided. 
 
 It may sometimes be seen in a large family, the 
 members of which have all presumably received the 
 same hereditary tendencies, how these are di-nlt 
 with variously by different members of that family 
 accordingly as the will in each has determined. Here. 
 for instance, are the children of a spendthrift who 
 presumably have inherited a tendency to extrava- 
 gance. One has given rein to his inclinations, and 
 has plunged into prodigality and debt ; but other
 
 THE SACRAMENTS 303 
 
 members, under the influence of religion and education, 
 have either curbed the inclination, or in some instances 
 have turned it into a right and generous liberality. 
 The children of misers are not all miserly. While 
 some will be niggards, others will show that they have 
 learned the right use of money, and will be liberal in a 
 good and judicious way. If there be predominating 
 tendencies in our nature there are also a great variety 
 of tendencies which have come down to us, all striving 
 for the mastery, and which seem to demand some 
 guiding and dominating faculty such as the will, even 
 to allow full play for their development. 1 
 
 And here perhaps we may advance a step farther 
 and see the wonderful power of Baptism, and how it is 
 ' a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness. 1 
 Every child who is brought to the Font brings with 
 him, if the above statements are true, a large series of 
 hereditary moral tendencies to be worked out in his 
 life. When he passes down into the death of Christ, 
 and is buried in the waters of Baptism, and rises again 
 to newness of living, he does not enter on life deprived 
 of his characteristics either in the direction of good 
 or evil inherited qualities. Baptism is no levelling 
 process which starts all men on an equality from the 
 first, to pick up for themselves fresh distinction and 
 differences. Surely we may believe that two things 
 take place in and by reason of Baptism : first, that a 
 fresh power is given to the will of dealing with the 
 large number of characteristic traits and tendencies 
 which are marshalled under the name of nature ; and 
 farther, that the characteristics themselves are spiritual- 
 ised, the very poisons being invested with a salutary 
 power. And so accordingly we find in the lives of men 
 two phenomena which answer to this suggested process 
 of regeneration. We find some who are triumphing 
 
 1 See Fr. Waggett, Science and Conduct, Pusey House Papers, 
 No. 4.
 
 304 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 over what has obviously been an hereditary taint ; 
 and further, we find those who turn what is in itself an 
 hereditary taint into a source of positive virtue. 
 Experience is too strong ever to allow us to think 
 that an hereditary tendency is too powerful to be over- 
 come. There are magnificent examples in the lives of 
 the saints which are the common property of all men. 
 The wild sensual nature of S. Augustine, who prayed 
 the impious prayer that he might be made pure, but 
 not yet, was turned into the magnificent personality 
 of him who is venerated as one of the four great 
 doctors of the Western Church. In Holy Writ, what- 
 ever may be the exact bearing of demoniacal possession 
 on this question, S. Mary Magdalene is an example of 
 a nature swept apparently by a sevenfold gust of 
 passion, passing into the patient stedfastness of a 
 saint. And so it is with any one who has striven 
 against a besetting sin, an overmastering passion, 
 against something which he has persuaded himself he 
 cannot help, as being a wild taint in his blood he 
 will have found again and again what a surprising 
 strength is given to him, if he once summon up courage 
 to resist the tyranny of ingrained habit. 
 
 So that every baptized Christian feels that he may 
 at least count upon this, that it is no fated necessity 
 which causes him to submit to the dismemberment of 
 his life, or the unchecked forays of marauding passion. 
 He feels in his truer self that he is free, and he is fn i ; 
 and it is the will of His Maker that he should reign as 
 master over the whole domain of his being, and that he 
 should not rest until he has brought into captivity every 
 thought to the obedience of Christ. 
 
 And the immediate effect of Baptism is to mnke 
 this dominion possible, for the effect of that Sacramrnt 
 is to strengthen the will. There is the seat of judg- 
 ment ; there is the place where every battle is lost or 
 won. A man who wills to sin has sinned, a man who
 
 THE SACRAMENTS 305 
 
 wills to conquer, will by the grace of God overcome. 
 Oftentimes the struggle is a long one ; it is always a 
 fierce one, because it is a battle for independence. 
 Even when beaten again and again, if he refuses to 
 submit, and if he has energy to rally his forces, and 
 seat the will once more firmly on the throne, then 
 slowly, and by degrees, the supremacy is won, and the 
 man reigns as a free man over a free nature. It is 
 only the philosophy of despair which counsels other- 
 wise, or an indolent complaisance which acquiesces in 
 sin as the only course possible, and refuses to add the 
 pain of a useless struggle to the humiliation of a fore- 
 doomed failure. 
 
 But this is not all ; as we have seen, not only is 
 the will strengthened in Holy Baptism, but the 
 hereditary tendencies in all their complexity are 
 spiritualised. Terrible and anxious as may be the 
 responsibility of retaining those sleeping fires within, 
 yet still there is a proper outlet and development for 
 them. The electricity which kills and burns if im- 
 properly handled may yet be utilised for light and 
 motion. It is a mistake to allow ourselves to be 
 subdued and terrified by the machinations of Satan. 
 After all God made us, and not we ourselves. And 
 not only did He make us, but He regenerated us 
 at the Font, and it was His will that we should retain 
 these tendencies and desires which frighten and some- 
 times even impede us. Whatever be the history of 
 their existence within a man, most surely his perfection 
 lies in the right and proper treatment of them. God 
 wills to save us as we are, and not, except in the last 
 resort, as those who have been compelled to cut off 
 the right foot and pluck out the right eye in the 
 desperate struggle for salvation. 
 
 Every Christian man, while he reads over the 
 Catechism in its clear statements as to the effect of 
 Holy Baptism, ought to feel that it is a moral resurrec- 
 
 u
 
 306 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 tion whose effect is still with him. He died then, and 
 lived again then, and by means of it lives still. And 
 he will feel that here is a power which will help him to 
 resist the disintegration of sin, so that he may present 
 his whole being to God perfect and complete, lacking 
 nothing. For He Who created our human nature has 
 yet more wonderfully regenerated it. And there is 
 something more wonderful than our human birth by 
 nature, and that is our supernatural birth by grace. 
 
 II 
 
 The doctrine and importance of Holy Communion, 
 the other great Sacrament of the Gospel which is 
 necessary to salvation, is here sketched in with great 
 firmness and theological precision. 
 
 If it be said that the Church of England is less 
 explicit about the Eucharistic Sacrifice than she is 
 about Communion, it is certainly remarkable to notice 
 the great prominence given in this place to this 
 tremendous mystery. * Why was the Sacrament of 
 the Lord's Supper ordained ?"" is the question, and the 
 answer is, *For the continual remembrance of the 
 sacrifice of the death of Christ, and of the benefits 
 which we receive thereby/ without at first one word 
 about Communion. This great doctrine will be treated 
 in a forthcoming volume of this series, but a short state- 
 ment may be permitted here in its bearing on this Sacra- 
 ment as generally * necessary to salvation/ The Altar 
 being on a line with the Heavenly intercession, it brings 
 us under the perpetual power of the great pleading, and 
 the precious Blood of sprinkling. It is the emphatic 
 assertion of that by which prayer alone is made 
 acceptable to God ' through Jesus Christ." 1 It is the 
 means whereby we are united to the great service 
 of Heaven. It is our burnt-offering with which we 
 should labour to associate ourselves in complete detach-
 
 THE SACRAMENTS 307 
 
 ment and freedom from sin and absolute devotion. It 
 is our sin-offering, speaking to us of intercession, and 
 our need of it for ourselves, and of our duty to practise 
 it on behalf of others. It is our peace-offering which 
 the soul can offer when at peace with God ; it is the 
 sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, which it pours out 
 before God, by reason of ' His great glory.' 
 
 So Dr. Milligan asserts : * The worship of the 
 Christian Church is thus again no mere independent 
 arrangement, provided by the goodness of God to 
 guide us to communion with Him. It is no mere 
 token of His love which might have been replaced by 
 another equally precious and effective. It flows from 
 communion with the Father through the Son as an 
 already existing reality, and it is because it flows from 
 that communion that it leads us to it. Hence it is 
 that from the very beginning of her history the Church 
 has instinctively regarded the Sacrament of Holy 
 Communion as the central act of her worship.' 1 
 
 But it is especially in view of our Lord's own words 
 with regard to actual communion that the necessity and 
 benefits of this Sacrament are insisted on. It is well 
 known that the application to the Holy Communion 
 of S. John vi. and of the words, ' Except ye eat the 
 flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have 
 no life in you,' 2 has been denied. It is not so generally 
 known that the Eucharistic application of this chapter 
 was first called in question, as far as can be traced, 
 by Cardinal Caietan in the sixteenth century, because 
 it was used against him by the disciples of Huss as 
 rendering of obligation the administering of the Com- 
 munion in both kinds. 3 This unprimitive interpreta- 
 tion was largely followed afterwards, and for other 
 
 1 Milligan, The Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood of our Lord, 
 p. 309. 
 
 2 S. John vi. 53. 
 
 3 See Wilberforce, The Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, p. 181.
 
 308 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 reasons by Protestants, and is a current theory with 
 them now. Other and more sober writers, as for 
 instance the late learned Bishop of Durham, have 
 maintained that we are not justified in giving an 
 exclusively Eucharistic interpretation to these words, 
 although the spiritual food of the Holy Sacrament 
 would be included in the miraculous feeding promised 
 by Christ to His faithful ones. The compilers of the 
 Prayer Book would seem, however, to endorse the 
 Eucharistic application, for the words of this chapter 
 are manifestly referred to in connection with Com- 
 munion in the long exhortation to intending communi- 
 cants. 'For as the benefit is great, if with a true 
 penitent heart and lively faith we receive that Holy 
 Sacrament, for then we spiritually eat the flesh of 
 Christ, and drink His blood ; then we dwell in Christ 
 and Christ in us/ 1 However this may be, no one 
 would wish to pin down a great doctrine to the varying 
 interpretation of a few texts. The modern destructive 1 
 school of critics make great play with this mistaken 
 idea. They bid us watch the last quotations from 
 Germany as if the value of the Gospels fluctuated 
 like shares in the money market, as this or that 
 commentator professed himself unable to receive this 
 or that text, or was pleased to speak of undoubted 
 portions of S. Matthew's and S. Luke's writings as ' the 
 birth-narratives ' which were accepted as canonical at a 
 certain period. The prominent truths of the Faith are 
 provable by certain passages in the canonical scriptures 
 which have not been tampered with even by those who 
 have a theory to maintain, or an hypothesis to push, 
 but they depend for their validity on the great Catholic 
 tradition, on the Gospel before the Gospels. And even 
 if it were possible to prove, which it is not, that 
 S. John vi. does not refer to the Holy Eucharist at all, 
 we should still believe that this Holy Sacrament was 
 1 Book of Common Prayer, ' Holy Communion.' 

 
 THE SACRAMENTS 309 
 
 generally necessary to salvation by reason of the 
 importance which the Church has always assigned to 
 it, and in virtue of its place in the economy of 
 Christian life. 
 
 And this is the strength of the appeal made in the 
 Catechism : the Holy Communion being what it is, it 
 is impossible to believe anything else but that it is 
 necessary to the salvation of that soul, which knows 
 that its only hope amidst the disintegration of temp- 
 tation and trouble is to live and grow by the aid of 
 the spiritual food which Christ has provided for its 
 strengthening and refreshment. Once more, we do 
 not eat and drink the Body and the Blood of the 
 Lord in accordance with the provisions of a spiritual 
 Test Act, but we eat and drink that we may live 
 and not die. 
 
 The careful and precise enunciation of Eucharistic 
 truth, then, in the Catechism is especially valuable not 
 only as showing how completely the Church of England 
 has retained the Catholic faith and doctrine, but also 
 as showing the intense and extraordinary value of this 
 means of grace which, being so great, we could obviously 
 only neglect to our soul's great harm and loss. 
 
 It is with this Holy Sacrament as with God's revela- 
 tion generally ; men shrink from the fulness of it, and 
 in trying to put up with something which makes less 
 demands on their faith have found that they at last 
 have robbed themselves of the soundness and fulness of 
 truth, and so have missed the foundation and motive 
 of right Christian practice. 
 
 When our Lord Jesus Christ said of the Bread 
 which He took in His hands at the first Eucharist, 
 ' This is My Body,' the word * is ' was capable of 
 being employed in three ways, either as asserting This 
 is identical with My Body, or This represents My 
 Body, simply having regard to the effect produced 
 upon the receiver or spectator, or This represents My
 
 310 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 Body, as expressing the intention of the giver to 
 bestow a special blessing on a select body of favoured 
 Christians. 
 
 These two last interpretations have been the resting- 
 place of those who hesitated to take Christ at His 
 Word. 
 
 It was easier to believe that, instead of being the 
 conveyance of an objective spiritual gift, the Holy 
 Sacrament was simply a bare memorial of a past his- 
 torical action which Christ was ordaining to keep alive 
 and fresh, the memory of His passion and death, in the 
 hearts of those who would be willing to employ this 
 means as a kindling of their desire. 
 
 Or it served at least to remove the doctrine into a 
 region where mysteries demanded less explanation, to 
 believe that the Sacrament was only a pledge or sign 
 of a spiritual Presence, which God at the same time 
 was imparting to the heart of him who received bread 
 and wine in thankful remembrance of His death, the 
 only connection between the Sacrament and the Grace 
 of the Sacrament being that their reception was simul- 
 taneous. And so in this sense it might be said, without 
 an undue strain on faith, that our Lord was virtually 
 present in His Sacrament, retaining as far as possible 
 the old terms, but emptying them of that which was a 
 strain upon faith, for so the elements of the Sacrament 
 became nothing more than an assurance of a subtle 
 process of grace which was taking place in the soul of 
 those who were especially the objects of God's favour. 
 
 But the Catechism was emphatic in rejecting tl 
 unworthy and inadequate conceptions of the intention 
 of Christ, as conveyed to us in the tradition of the 
 Church, and bade us retain the natural and historical 
 interpretation of Christ's words, which bids us 
 Sacramental identification of Christ's Body, as ll 
 inward part or thing signified, with the Sacrnnirnt 
 which conveys His presence. And in saying thi-. it
 
 THE SACRAMENTS 311 
 
 the same time there is no attempt at definition or 
 description of the mode and manner of His Presence. 
 There is no balancing of Transubstantiation or Consub- 
 stantiation. They are not even mentioned, but the old 
 theological distinction traceable to S. Augustine is main- 
 tained of the Sacramentum, i.e. the Bread and Wine sub- 
 stantially and really present ; the Res Sacramenti, i.e. 
 the ' thing signified,' which is the Body and Blood of 
 Christ which are ' taken ' as well as received or, in the 
 words of Article xxviii., ' given, taken and eaten 1 'by 
 the faithful in the Lord's Supper 1 ; and the Virtus 
 Sacramenti, i.e. the spiritual feeding on Christ, whereby 
 the faithful are made partakers of Christ, so that the 
 actual gift bestowed in the Holy Communion would 
 be the objective gift of the Body and Blood of Christ, 
 which are present really and truly, but spiritually and 
 ineffably, as a * spiritual substance ' l under the outward 
 visible part, sign, or form of Bread and Wine. 
 
 It is on this careful and precise statement of doctrine 
 that the Catechism is able to rest, the necessity of this 
 Sacrament where it can be had, and also the clear 
 enunciation of the benefits to the devout receiver. 
 
 It has been pointed out elsewhere 2 that a very great 
 deal depends on whether we regard this Holy Sacra- 
 ment as a pious memorial of occasional and infrequent 
 use, or whether we regard it as a definite means of 
 grace for those who wish to grow in strength and 
 spiritual vigour ; whether it is to be regarded as manna 
 in the desert, or a victor's feast when the stress of 
 battle is over, and the pilgrim has reached the 
 promised land. 
 
 There can be little doubt that in the Catechism the 
 Holy Communion is regarded as a \ery definite means 
 of grace, that the Body of Christ is to the soul what 
 
 1 Homily of the worthy receiving of the Sacrament : This, and not 
 ' sustenance,' is undoubtedly the true reading. 
 
 2 Author's Religion, p. 251.
 
 312 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 the element of bread is to the physical life, and the 
 Blood of Christ is to the soul what wine is to those 
 who are refreshed by it. And we may well believe 
 with Bishop Forbes, that those who have so presump- 
 tuously separated that which Christ Himself never 
 pronouncea to be so separated, have deprived the laity 
 of a very special blessing. * While the Sacrament 
 under one kind conveys all the graces necessary to 
 salvation, the Chalice has a special grace of its own 
 the grace of gladdening. If the Sacraments cause that 
 which they signify, the species of bread and wine must 
 signify in different ways ; and that diversity will refer 
 both to the sign, and to the mode of the signifying, 
 and also to the thing signified. Therefore the effect of 
 the two will not be common, but diverse. Both species 
 together signify the plenitude of the Heavenly feast, 
 and the perfect satisfaction of the soul which each by 
 itself does not signify.' 1 
 
 The Catechism, in these very pregnant and solemn 
 sentences, would surely seem to be urging on the 
 Christian the intense importance of the Sacramental 
 life. Life which for him began with one Saorament 
 must be carried on to perfection by another ; as the 
 bread speaks of growth and the wine of joy, so he must 
 be growing in grace until he throws off* the sin which 
 doth so easily beset him, and until Christ be formed in 
 him, until he can say with the Apostle : * I am 
 crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, 
 but Christ liveth in me/ 1 
 
 1 Bishop Forbes, Explanation of XXXIX Articles t on Article xxx., 
 vol. ii. p. 597. 
 f Gal. ii. 20.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE RIGHT DISPOSITION FOR THE USE OF THE 
 SACRAMENTS 
 
 Neque enim litigaverunt inter se, aut quisquam eorum 
 se alter! praeposuit, Zaccaeus et ille centurio, cum alter 
 eorum gaudens in domum suam susceperit Dominum, 
 alter dixerit, 'non sum dignus ut iutres sub tectum 
 meum ' ; ambo Salvatorem honorificantes diverse et 
 quasi contrario modo ; ambo peccatis miseri, ambo mise- 
 ricordiam consecuti. 
 
 Contemtum solum non vult cibus iste, sicut nee 
 manna fastidium. 
 
 THE Catechism is careful to lay great stress upon a 
 right disposition in all who approach to receive God's 
 gifts through the Sacraments. We have already dis- 
 cussed the provision made in the case of Baptism for 
 a representative protestation of repentance and faith 
 in the person of god-parents chosen for that purpose, 
 whose duty it is to prepare the understanding and 
 will of the child to take up that pledge, as soon as 
 he is old enough to understand what grace and 
 responsibility mean, what is wrong and what is right, 
 what to seek and what to avoid. 
 
 And this pledging of the unconscious child, in full 
 confidence that he will take up his pledge, is a very 
 strong witness to the need of the prepared heart, and 
 of the co-operation of man with God even in receiving 
 gifts which depend entirely on God's bounty. It is so, 
 
 313
 
 314 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 as we have seen, in Prayer itself ; however ready God 
 may be to give, there must be the asking on the part 
 of man, for God will not bless us without ourselves. 
 * Ask, and ye shall have ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, 
 and it shall be opened unto you/ 1 God will not 
 pauperise with a dole the recipients of His bounty, nor 
 give us blessings in which we have had no conscious 
 share. If we look at the dreadful power of hindering 
 possessed by human nature, it will be further manifest 
 how necessary it is that the human heart should be 
 prepared. We are told by S. Mark, of Nazareth our 
 Blessed Lord's ' own country/ that He * could there do 
 no mighty work/ And S. Matthew adds, * because of 
 their unbelief. 2 In the parable of the sower the good 
 seed sown is vitiated in three cases out of four by 
 bad soil. And indeed it is a commonplace of human 
 moral experience. 
 
 Sincerum est ni-i vas, quodcunque iufundis acescit. 3 
 
 It will be well, therefore, to consider carefully the 
 necessary preparation to which a child is pledged from 
 his earliest years, as often as he approaches to receive 
 God's gifts, under veils whose very simplicity might 
 deceive him, and whose easiness of access might breed 
 a familiarity both delusive and dangerous. 
 
 The requirements for the reception of both these 
 great Sacraments are substantially the same Repent- 
 ance and Faith ; to which is added in the case of that 
 Sacrament which is to form the constant food of 
 conscious life love, which secures the right and proper 
 discharge of those duties which devolve on a man as 
 he takes his place in the world. 
 
 Indeed, it has been pointed out that the 'require- 
 ments for Holy Communion are in reality no other 
 
 1 Quoted in service for Public Baptism of Infants. 
 9 S. Mark vi. 5 ; S. Matt. xiii. 5. 
 1 Hor. Epitt. i. ii. 54.
 
 RIGHT DISPOSITION FOR USE OF SACRAMENTS 315 
 
 than those of the three great Christian vows to 
 renounce, believe, and obey of which we were taught 
 in the beginning of the Catechism. Progress in holi- 
 ness consists not in learning things that are new, but 
 in a more full understanding and more faithful fulfil- 
 ment of the earliest lessons. 1 1 
 
 There has been a great and rapid multiplication of 
 celebrations of the Holy Eucharist in the English 
 Church, for which we ought to be extremely thankful. 
 And as a consequence men and women receive this 
 Holy Sacrament with a frequency unheard of, at least 
 as a common thing, sixty years ago. We are far 
 removed from those times when the Canon of the 
 Eucharist was printed in small type in the Prayer 
 Book, as among the most occasional of occasional 
 services ; and from that dread of receiving the Holy 
 Sacrament, which would lead a man to believe that 
 there was no forgiveness of sins committed after a 
 Communion. And therefore we are living now in all 
 the danger of multiplied privilege, lest it should be 
 accompanied by scant devotion and meagre preparation. 
 The solemn and salutary warnings of the Prayer Book 
 invitation to Communion also are seldom heard. In 
 some churches it is thrust out by the dread of anything 
 which might lengthen the service by five minutes, 
 although with a strange inconsistency even a longer 
 time is expended on strings of unnecessary and incom- 
 prehensible notices. In other churches it is omitted 
 because it contains a warning to the unworthy com- 
 municant, and all warnings, whether in the Creeds or 
 elsewhere, are considered illiberal. In other churches 
 the outspoken invitation to Confession renders it un- 
 palatable, and so our congregations are invited to 
 Communion, but never publicly warned to prepare 
 themselves by cultivating the right disposition for the 
 due and proper receiving of that Sacrament. And so, 
 1 Robinson, Church Catechism Explained, pp. 152, 153.
 
 316 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 in the service itself, there is an attempt made to 
 minimise the penitential element. The Litany, before 
 the High Celebration, is in most cases gone. A deter- 
 mined attack is made upon the penitential opening of 
 the service. Those who are in a hurry find it long; 
 those who disparage the Old Testament cannot conceal 
 their contempt for the Mosaic Law ; those who think 
 that nothing can be right which is not to be found in 
 the Roman Missal equally dislike it; and so it goes out, 
 in that spirit of reckless eclecticism which is now cast- 
 ing out the Catechism itself from schools, that Non- 
 conformists may not be offended, and cutting up the 
 Creeds that unbelievers may not be disturbed. But 
 those who have felt the true and deep importance of 
 the plea made in the Catechism, for the due cultivation 
 of repentance, faith, and love, in preparation for Com- 
 munion, will feel again the distinct loss which accrues 
 to the soul from ceasing to be reminded of God's great 
 Law, to which he owes obedience, and as to which he 
 is conscious of many an act of treachery, and many a 
 faithless transgression, which forces him into the 
 heartfelt cry, * Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline 
 our hearts to keep this law." 1 
 
 But obviously the devout communicant has no right 
 to content himself with the public forms of penitence 
 in which the ascent is made to the Sacramental pres- 
 ence of Christ, not even with the public Confession and 
 Absolution there provided. Any one who carefully 
 studies the Prayer Book, of which this Catechism is a 
 part, will see that Repentance and Faith, such as are 
 necessary to the worthy communicant, are to form a 
 very special subject or private endeavour. ' In the 
 meantime, 1 between hearing the invitation and recriv- 
 ing the Holy Communion, the Christian who so minds 
 to draw near to the Altar of God, is as here exhorted 
 to * examine himself," 1 by the rule of God's command- 
 ments, and whereinsoever he shall perceive himself to
 
 RIGHT DISPOSITION FOR USE OF SACRAMENTS 317 
 
 have offended, either by will, word, or deed, there to 
 bewail his own sinfulness, and to confess himself to 
 Almighty God, with full purpose of amendment of 
 life. He is also to consider carefully his actions as 
 regards his neighbour, and if necessary to make resti- 
 tution and satisfaction for all injuries done to another ; 
 and generally to repent and amend, or else not to 
 approach that Holy Table, lest he incur the penalty 
 which awaits the unworthy communicant. He is 
 farther urged, that if by this ordinary self-examination 
 and confession he cannot quiet his own conscience, but 
 requires farther comfort or counsel, he is to seek the 
 help of the minister of God's word, and from him 
 receive the benefit of Absolution, together with ghostly 
 counsel and advice for the quieting of his conscience 
 and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness. 1 
 
 Here two courses are open to the penitent, both 
 presupposing the self-examination enjoined by the 
 Catechism : either as the result of that self-examina- 
 tion to confess the sins so discovered to God immediately, 
 or else to confess them to God before His priest. In 
 both cases examination, sorrow for sins, confession of 
 sins, and amendment of life are necessary. In both cases 
 the pardon comes from God, but in the second case it 
 becomes articulate in a human voice, and conveys a 
 particular grace of Absolution. And here it may be 
 necessary to assert, that the compilers of the Prayer 
 Book did not brandish old names from which all 
 meaning had been evacuated. 
 
 Making deductions for theories of penance, and 
 minute regulating principles which guided practice in 
 the mediaeval Church, whatever Absolution meant then 
 it means now ; and there is no authority for saying 
 that it merely signifies relief from ecclesiastical censure, 
 or the proclaiming, with a good deal of circumstance, 
 that which a child could assert equally well, that God 
 1 Book of Common Prayer, ' Holy Communion.'
 
 318 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 forgives our sins if we are penitent. Absolution has 
 attached to it a special value, and is a particular 
 benefit attached to a particular expression of repent- 
 ance. It has been said with great truth, that * For- 
 giveness is just one aspect of the truth of redemption ; 
 it is not the " sending away " of God's vengeance, or the 
 " sending away " of man's penalty, but it is, according 
 to the literal meaning of the words by which it is 
 commonly described, the "sending away of sins," 17 
 afacris T&V afjiapTiwv ' the real nature of God's for- 
 giveness being not so much a sentence of indemnity 
 for sins past as the cure of the disease of sin, and so 
 the chief end of this forgiveness would not be *the 
 consolation of the penitent, but his restoration to 
 health and service. 11 Hence we may contend that 
 Absolution is something more than simple forgiveness, 
 it is forgiveness of a particular kind; as indeed the 
 Prayer Book speaks of * the benefit of Absolution ' 2 
 as something to be obtained in a special manner for a 
 distinct purpose, differing perhaps from ordinary for- 
 giveness in the same way as Sacramental means of 
 grace differ from the more ordinary means of grace. 
 
 It may be said, a man cannot be more than forgiven 
 if he seeks for pardon. But surely it would be true to 
 say that he can be forgiven, and receive in addition a 
 special grace for the renewal of his life shattered by sin. 
 It is the difference, as is pointed out in the book on 
 Confession by Canon Carter, mentioned in the previous 
 note, between the action of the Jewish priest who 
 declared the leper clean, and the action of the disciples 
 of the Lord who loosed Lazarus from his K-uuls and 
 let him go. 
 
 As regards practice, one thing would seem to be 
 quite clear, that the Church requires confession from 
 every one as a prerequisite to a devout Communion. 
 
 1 Church Quarterly^ January 1903, ' Confession and Absolution.' 
 1 See Confession, by Canon Carter, p. 254.
 
 RIGHT DISPOSITION FOR USE OF SACRAMENTS 319 
 
 In view of the declarations of Holy Scripture nothing 
 short of this could be maintained : and this confession 
 must be a confession not of sinfulness but of sins, 
 according to the directions quoted above from the 
 exhortation in the Communion Service. 
 
 But this confession, as already has been stated, may 
 be made either to God alone immediately in the secrecy 
 of the penitent's own chamber, or to God mediately 
 with the help of His priest. In the first case it is 
 evidently regarded as a serious and complete matter, 
 carrying with it restitution to an offended neighbour 
 and the like, and being blessed with the full assurance 
 of God's pardon. In the second case the priest is 
 empowered to confer a Sacramental blessing known as 
 the benefit of Absolution, after a complete opening of 
 his grief on the part of the penitent, who obtains all 
 that the penitent in the first case obtained, together 
 with a special grace conveyed to him in Absolution. 
 
 It would seem in this latter case that confession was a 
 necessary prerequisite to Absolution : and that examples 
 which have been supposed of grave and incapacitating 
 sickness, or of partial dumbness, would be cases not for 
 Absolution proper, but for something analogous to 
 spiritual Communion and of equal benefit to the 
 receiver, while it does not involve such a serious re- 
 sponsibility on the part of the priest, in remitting sins 
 of which he has no cognisance. 
 
 It would seem, further, that a complete enumeration 
 of sins, as far as that is possible, would be necessary, 
 and not a selected few, the penitent being scarcely the 
 best judge of the heinousness of his own sins, and 
 having no right further to assert that there is any 
 unrighteousness which is not sin, and does not need 
 confessing. If the penitent feels that these sins are 
 already forgiven, and do not need to be included in 
 this Absolution, we may remember once more, in the 
 words of Canon Carter, that it does not follow, that
 
 320 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 'even although through the force of contrition the 
 forgiveness of sins has been obtained before Absolution 
 be given, that therefore the Absolution is vain. God 
 will surely honour His own ordinances, if used in 
 dependence upon His promises, and the sealing of His 
 gifts by a sacramental ministry is part of the divine 
 purpose. . . . The Absolution may be a continuance, 
 or an increase of the grace already bestowed ; it may 
 still be necessary for the abiding effect of the spiritual 
 healing. 1 1 
 
 It may be allowed that the words of the exhortation 
 alluded to, and the terms of the rubric in the visitation 
 of the sick, may be pressed in the direction of a con- 
 fession of such sins only as seem to the penitent to be 
 burdensome, but, on the other hand, the ordinary 
 practice and the extreme danger of self-deceit ought 
 to be decisive against it. 
 
 It may be said then, that in view of a devout prepara- 
 tion for the Holy Eucharist a confession of sins is con- 
 templated by the Church, as necessary for all, while 
 Absolution is the privilege of some. 
 
 Here occurs at once the difficulty as to what relation 
 the Absolutions in the Divine office and in the Com- 
 munion Service bear towards the forgiveness of sins dis- 
 cussed above. Are the Absolutions in the Prayer Book 
 real Absolutions or not, and if they are, why should not 
 the penitent be content with these ? The author has 
 expressed his views on that subject elsewhere, to which 
 in order to avoid repetition the reader is referred. 1 It 
 may be sufficient to say here, that the Absolutions in 
 the offices of the Church are real Absolutions, but 
 Absolutions pronounced over men already forgiven after 
 an earnest penitence, for the purposes of the service in 
 which they are engaged. They are the cleansing IMMT 
 set before the sanctuary in which those who are about 
 
 1 See Confession, by Canon Carter, p. 253. 
 9 Priestly Ideals, p. 68 and following.
 
 RIGHT DISPOSITION FOR USE OF SACRAMENTS 321 
 
 to offer the service may wash. They are comparable 
 to that merciful action of the Lord, Who washed the 
 feet of those who, being already washed, needed not save 
 to wash their feet. 1 They are general Absolutions de- 
 signed to cover a general disabling sinfulness generally 
 confessed, and have existed and do exist in the service 
 books of the rest of the Western Church, where private 
 confession is of obligation. 
 
 It may be possible, where Absolution cannot other- 
 wise be had, that a penitent may so deepen his contri- 
 tion that he may obtain a fulness of Sacramental 
 blessing in the public confessions and Absolutions; but 
 this would not be their normal nor designed use, the 
 general scheme of penitence being as has been stated 
 above. 
 
 Further questions may be raised, as to who are the 
 persons qualified to receive special Absolution in its 
 narrower sense, and whether there are any who can 
 obtain forgiveness in no other way. 
 
 To answer the second question first, it might be said 
 that there would certainly appear to be nothing in our 
 formularies which would justify any one in saying that 
 there is no forgiveness for certain deadly sins, or for 
 any deadly sin, except by Absolution. It is well to 
 remember also that it is doubtful whether in the 
 primitive Church reconciliation was originally given 
 after such sins as adultery and apostasy. It would be 
 curious if it should be generally asserted that there was 
 no forgiveness for this kind of sins except through 
 that which is the direct heir and survivor of the public 
 discipline. Apart from this, there will always be a 
 tendency in human nature to regard Absolution as a 
 complete, easy, and short means of restoration even 
 after the most deadly sin. It may be that this is the 
 fact, but it is quite possible that the long struggle and 
 wrestling with God, which belong to the man who seeks 
 1 S. John xiii. 10. 
 X
 
 322 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 God's forgiveness through simple contrition, may be 
 even more efficacious as a matter of discipline than the 
 hastily won Absolution. No one would venture to say 
 a word to minimise the importance of Absolution for 
 deadly sin. It would seem to be only right and proper, 
 that the remedy should be won by the contrition which 
 takes shape in a humiliating confession. And further, 
 there would seem to be some sins which can only be 
 healed by the power of Absolution. But things being 
 as they are, it would not seem to be right to tie down 
 forgiveness of deadly sin to formal Absolution. 
 
 As to the first question suggested, as to who and 
 what sort of persons are qualified to receive formal 
 Absolution, it would seem sufficient to say that the 
 Church of England leaves this point entirely to the 
 discretion of the penitent. It is for him to decide 
 whether he will seek such Absolution or not. And it 
 would be difficult to repel a person on the grounds 
 that presumably he was living in a normal condition 
 of pardon, and therefore did not need it. 
 
 And this for two reasons: if mortal sin be in its 
 essence a sin in grave matters forbidden under grave 
 obligation, if it be rooted and grounded in deliberate 
 aversion from God, still what is known as venial sin, 
 namely a giving way to wrong without any such conscious 
 aversion from God, may in a given case, and in matters 
 which do not appear in themselves grave, very easily 
 pass into that aversion from God which produces moral 
 death. 
 
 *Our soul loatheth this light bread/ 1 in its modern 
 equivalent of laxity at prayer and Communion, may 
 rank in the sight of God with the uncleanness and 
 murders of a rougher class of sinner, whose opportu- 
 nities have been less, and who have done less despite 
 to the Spirit of grace. But apart from this distinction 
 of mortal and venial sin, a plea may be raised for 
 1 Numb. xxi. 5.
 
 RIGHT DISPOSITION FOR USE OF SACRAMENTS 323 
 
 Absolution i.e. for the comfort of Absolution, not 
 in its sense of consolation, but in its old sense of 
 strengthening for those who are living in a normal 
 condition of pardon, but who at the same time, having 
 reached a higher plane of life, become obnoxious to a 
 new set of faults and offences, of which they who are 
 living in a non-normal condition of occasional pardon 
 are hardly conscious. 
 
 There is the real disgrace and pain which come 
 upon a courtier who has been guilty of a breach of 
 etiquette. Would he not feel the disgrace of having 
 failed in his courtly duties, or of having offended in the 
 code which governs the actions of society, as keenly as 
 an ordinary man feels the weight of some serious mis- 
 demeanour or even crime ? 
 
 Let us take the case of the scholar, again, in the 
 society of critics, or even in the sense of abstract fit- 
 ness which governs his work. Would he not be pained 
 and burdened by an offence against scholarship ? Or 
 would not a musician be pained and hurt by an 
 offence against music, or an artist by a departure from 
 the higher laws of art ? 
 
 Living on a higher level of excellence, such men 
 become obnoxious to fresh laws of right and harmony, 
 the breach of which is a serious offence, and productive 
 of a real sense of failure and unworthiness. 
 
 Is there not, then, such a thing as the scholarship of 
 holiness ? Is there not a sense of defilement and a real 
 cause for sorrow in a failure to attain to a knowledge of 
 ' the manner of the god of the land, 1 1 in a breach of 
 those laws which govern the Communion of Saints ? 
 
 To those who call to mind S. Peter's sense of humi- 
 liation in the presence of the miraculous power of 
 Christ, 2 or S. John's self-abasement in the consciousness 
 of Christ's majesty, 3 it will not be hard to realise that 
 Absolution to the saint is as real and as necessary as 
 
 1 2 Kings xvii. 26. 2 S. Luke v. 8. 3 Rev. i. 17.
 
 324 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 was the cleansing fire to Isaiah, when he felt his own 
 impurity of life, made acute by contrast in the divine 
 presence and the worship of the celestial choir. 1 
 
 Absolution may seem to be too great a thing to 
 leave to the discretion of the penitent, yet so it is, and 
 the history of repentance done to order often seems 
 but the formal grief of the ordered minstrels making a 
 noise, when what we need for the dead soul is the 
 hand and voice of Jesus, which lifts up with an action 
 and word of power, ' I say unto thee, Arise/ 2 
 
 But a second requisite of equal importance with a 
 true repentance is a lively faith in God's mercy through 
 Christ. It is possible to push too far the weary im- 
 patience of controversy such as that which possessed 
 Hooker when he said, ' " This is My Body M and " This 
 is My Blood " being words of promise, sith we all agree 
 that by the sacrament Christ doth really and truly in 
 us perform His promise, why do we vainly trouble 
 ourselves with so fierce contentions whether by consub- 
 stantiation, or else by transubstantiation the sacrament 
 itself be first possessed with Christ or no ? A thing 
 which no way can either further or hinder us howso- 
 ever it stand, because our participation of Christ in 
 this sacrament dependeth on the co-operation of His 
 omnipotent power which maketh it His Body and 
 Blood to us, whether with change or without alteration 
 of the element, such as they imagine we need not 
 greatly to care or inquire. 18 Surely the very fierce 
 of the controversy and the stress laid on the ri^ht 
 apprehension of Eucharistic doctrine are in tlu'in- 
 selves indications that it is of great importance that 
 we should think and speak aright of this mystrrv. 
 And a right faith in the Holy Sacrament has often 
 seemed to be a help to a right faith in respect of the 
 Incarnation itself. It is only when orthodoxy takes 
 
 1 Is. vi. 5. a S. Luke vii. 14. 
 
 J Hooker's Works, vol. ii. ; Eccl. Pol. book v. p. Ixvii. 6.
 
 RIGHT DISPOSITION FOR USE OF SACRAMENTS 325 
 
 the place of love, and when people are more ready to 
 dispute than to receive, that a reverent inquiry into 
 the truth of that which the Church teaches and holds 
 becomes barren and deceptive. 
 
 It cannot fail, for instance, to influence our earnest- 
 ness in approaching, whether we believe that we are 
 drawing near to a special manifestation of Christ, com- 
 parable to the presence of God on the Mercy Seat, and 
 an extension of His manifestation in the flesh in the 
 Incarnation, or whether we are simply assisting at a 
 religious drama elevating and inspiring, but in no 
 way associated with a special presence of Christ. Low 
 views of the Sacramental mystery have certainly an 
 adverse influence on preparation for that Sacrament, as 
 witness the rise of the uncatholic practice of Evening 
 Communion, not only in defiance of the long-prescribed 
 fast before Communion, but also resulting in this, that 
 the Holy Communion is driven off to the end of the 
 day, not a day spent in fasting and devotion as in the 
 recorded cases of Afternoon Communion on fast days 
 in the primitive church, 1 but a day with its usual inter- 
 course, meals, and distractions, when the first-fruits 
 of our energies can no longer be offered, but only the 
 jaded residuum of spiritual devotion and pious effort. 
 It cannot be without its effect on our conduct also, 
 even if the preparation is the same, whether we regard 
 the elements as simple bread and wine or whether in 
 regard to the inward part, of which the Catechism 
 speaks, we feel entitled to ' worship and fall down and 
 kneel before the Lord our Maker,' in accordance with 
 the words of a famous declaration submitted to the 
 then Archbishop of Canterbury in 1867, signed by 
 twenty-one priests, while * we repudiate all " adoration" 
 of the " Sacramental Bread and Wine," which would 
 be idolatry ; regarding them with the reverence due to 
 them because of their Sacramental relation to the Body 
 1 Puller, Concerning the Fast before Communion, p. 1 7.
 
 326 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 and Blood of our Lord ... we believe that Christ 
 Himself, really and truly, but Spiritually and ineffably, 
 present in jthe Sacrament, is therein to be adored. 1 
 
 But a lively faith in God's mercy through Christ 
 would also most powerfully affect our attitude and 
 disposition towards the Holy Sacrament as part and 
 parcel of our inner spiritual life. We need more pur- 
 pose in our communions, to feel that they are not 
 things which can lightly be taken up or let alone, not 
 to be enterprised or omitted as the whim takes us. 
 Lacordaire's extreme statement has an element of truth 
 in it : ' It is impossible to estimate the effect of one 
 communion less in the life of a Christian.' The 
 frequent communicant must not endure a state of 
 spiritual stagnation. He, if any one, must know what 
 it is to grow in grace. A life in which the besetting 
 sin is hardly held in check is not a Eucharistic life. A 
 life which exhibits no supernatural fruit, no extraordi- 
 nary gifts, can hardly be answering to God's mercy 
 through Christ in this Holy Sacrament. So that a 
 sense of God's condescending love would certainly in- 
 dicate the necessity of regularity, eager desire, and 
 earnest preparation on our part, and an effort to weave 
 this Heavenly food into the very texture of our lives. 
 
 It is interesting to see how trie Church strives to do 
 this for us, and impresses on us the greatness of the 
 gift which we have in our midst as the precious fruit 
 of Christ's atoning death. The week begins with this 
 solemn feast, a Sunday without its Eucharist is an 
 anomaly unknown to the primitive ages of faith. To 
 many the privilege is vouchsafed of beginning not 
 each week only, but each day, in the same manner. 
 True, our daily Eucharists are offered on the field of 
 battle. In them Christ stands between us and our 
 enemies as a refuge from the storm and a covert from 
 the tempest, the shadow of a great rock in a weary 
 land. In them He shows us the value of single days,
 
 RIGHT DISPOSITION FOR USE OF SACRAMENTS 327 
 
 and the treasure which has to be won by patient 
 struggle out of our daily experience. Happy is the 
 man who can so work together with Christ, without 
 lapsing into formalism, or losing the fervour of his 
 first faith, or falling asleep on the Mount of Trans- 
 figuration by reason of the abundance of the revelation 
 vouchsafed unto him. 
 
 Also, on three occasions at least in our domestic 
 life, the Holy Eucharist is woven into our inmost 
 actions, to consecrate the solemnisation of Holy Matri- 
 mony, to sanctify the burial of the dead, and to 
 prepare the sick soul for its last journey. It is much 
 to be regretted that it has been left to private devotion 
 to supply in the two first instances that which is the 
 crown and beauty of each service. 
 
 Even now, largely owing to late hours and modern 
 laxity, the nuptial Eucharist, if celebrated at all, is 
 separated from the actual marriage-rite. And that, 
 whose memory strangely enough lasted on only in the 
 wedding breakfast after the fast before the nuptial 
 communion, is either omitted or placed at an earlier 
 hour. 
 
 Still this was and is the mind of the Church, to 
 invite Christ as He was invited of old at Cana to the 
 marriage-feast. And it would surely be less easy to 
 forget the sacredness of the marriage-tie which Christ 
 Himself had bound upon the newly married pair, and 
 the iniquity of the divorce court would slink away 
 like a guilty thing ashamed from those whose union 
 had been sprinkled with the sacrificial blood of the 
 Eucharist. 
 
 And at the solemn hour of committing to the grave 
 the body of one who has died in the faith of Christ, 
 and rests in the sleep of peace, no comfort can compare 
 with the pleading of that great sacrifice, not for the 
 dead but for the living departed, for him who is gone 
 before his Maker and his Judge, his probation ended
 
 328 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 and eternity before him. While to those who remain 
 with torn affections and aching heart, striving with 
 difficulty to learn their stern lesson of detachment, as 
 one more link is severed which binds them to earth, 
 there lies before them this golden cord of attachment 
 in Christ. In Him there is no separation, in Him we 
 are all made one, who shall separate us from the love 
 of Christ ? 
 
 O mystic fellowship divine, 
 
 Hound by the one prevailing sign ! 
 
 The Altar spans death's icy tide. 
 
 The dead seem kneeling at our side. 
 
 Angels adore the Eternal Son, 
 
 Earth, Heaven, and Spirit-sphere are one. 
 
 A power more strong than death is here, 
 
 A mystery which makes all clear : 
 
 Now Faith can those cold hands embrace 
 
 Which from their quiet resting-place 
 
 The chalice of the Lord pass on. 
 
 Love lives although the loved are gone. 
 
 So when the sick man lies upon his bed, and can no 
 longer go up into the house of the Lord, Christ comes 
 to him to tell him that the same love follows him that 
 waited of old upon Lazarus, or the sick slave, or the 
 daughter of Jairus; that whom the Lord loveth He 
 chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth; 
 that sickness in itself is a sacrament charged with bless- 
 ing, and that faith in God's mercy will enrich even the 
 most sombre scenes and span with the rainbow the 
 driving storm which seemed for the moment to shut 
 out the light of God's presence. 
 
 And Love must on no account be forgotten as pre- 
 disposing the devout communicant to a worthy recep- 
 tion of the Holy Communion. 
 
 There is a sad irony about the fact that round the 
 Sacrament of love have gathered some of the fiercest 
 conflicts that have disgraced Christianity. Nowhere, 
 perhaps, has there been such a long and continuous
 
 RIGHT DISPOSITION FOR USE OF SACRAMENTS 329 
 
 display of the odium theologicum as in the definitions 
 and counter definitions which men have hurled at each 
 other in endeavouring to answer the old question which 
 echoes round the door of all mysteries, ' How can this 
 be?' 
 
 We may well be thankful that as members of the 
 Church of England we stand pledged to no explanatory 
 definition, while we hold the Catholic Faith of the reality 
 of the Eucharistic Presence. But it seems impossible 
 to escape the bitterness which lingers on in spite of 
 explanations, disavowals, protests, and declarations of 
 Faith. This last generation has witnessed the especial 
 degradation of brawling in church, of the payment 
 of hired spies, of violence and imprisonment, of coarse 
 and envenomed attacks, of embittered letters in the 
 Public Press, and all the modern equivalents for the 
 fires of Smithfield. Men seem to learn nothing and 
 forget nothing in the miserable controversial warfare, 
 which is never so pitiable as when it invades the sacred 
 precincts of the Altar, and attempts to defend the 
 greatest exhibition of God's love by the saddest mani- 
 festation of the malignity of human passion. 
 
 But one glance at the rubrics which stand in the 
 forefront of the Communion Service, coupled with state- 
 ments in the exhortation to intending communicants 
 quoted above, shows also the great stress that is laid 
 by the Church on the peculiarly damaging nature of 
 all those sins which violate the law of love. Enmity 
 between neighbours is looked upon as in itself a dis- 
 ability in those intending to receive the Holy Sacra- 
 ment which must be brought under ecclesiastical 
 discipline. Malice or envy are mentioned in the 
 exhortation in conjunction with blasphemy, adultery, 
 and grievous crime. It is well that greater stress 
 should be laid on this in an age of Society Newspapers, 
 where gossip and scandal are in some cases almost the 
 staple of conversation, and where a man's character
 
 330 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 may be sacrificed, even in disregard of truth, if it does 
 something to amuse a social gathering, or even to 
 furnish a paragraph which serves to advertise a journal. 
 
 Defamation of character in the name of religion is 
 rife. Rivalry and jealousy stop at nothing in pursuit 
 of self-aggrandisement. We need daily more and more 
 to study our Lord's warning, * If thou bring thy gift to 
 the Altar, and there rememberest that thy brother 
 hath aught against thee; leave there thy gift before 
 the Altar and go thy way ; first be reconciled to thy 
 brother, and then come and offer thy gift. 1 * And it 
 must be remembered that love is no negative refusal 
 to hate, no mere avoidance of controversial bitterness 
 or social defamation. A man may shrink from such 
 things for various reasons, if it be only from the desire 
 to lead a quiet life. Love is an active, positive virtue, 
 which is ever seeking to extend and spread abroad the 
 power and the claims of Christ. Love sees in the 
 unloving exhibition of petty spite, in the fanatical 
 utterances of the controversialists, so many signs of 
 misplaced energy and misguided power running to 
 waste. And just as S. Barnabas brought Saul to the 
 Apostles and set going in the paths of usefulness those 
 powers which had been losing themselves in contro- 
 versial bitterness, so it seeks to see what is good and 
 to elicit it, and set it free to work for God even in 
 those who seem only to be hinderers and slanderers of 
 His word, and to be the exponents of doctrines to be 
 abhorred of all faithful Christians. 
 
 Love not only refuses to rejoice in the iniquity of 
 others because such rejoicing is evil, but also because 
 every man who suffers himself to be tied and bound by 
 sin is a man lost to progress and to God. And if once 
 we realised the strength of the forces which beleaguer 
 Sion, we could no more rejoice in a neighbour's fall 
 than an attenuated garrison could rejoice in the death 
 1 S. Matt. v. 23, 24.
 
 RIGHT DISPOSITION FOR USE OF SACRAMENTS 331 
 
 of one, perhaps personally distasteful, who was holding 
 a post against the enemy and whose death meant a 
 blow to the cause. 
 
 If the motto inscribed above the altar is, ' God so 
 loved the world, 11 surely the legend inscribed above the 
 porch is this, ' By this shall all men know that ye are 
 My disciples, if ye have love one to another.' 2 
 
 So it is found once more to be true that the highest 
 development of personal excellence is with the end and 
 object of making us more worthy to take our place in 
 the scheme of God's creation. The things which seem 
 most bound up in our own personality, our birth into 
 the world, our new birth into the Church, our renuncia- 
 tion of evil, our belief in good, our faithful performance 
 of the law of God, our Prayers, our Sacraments, all have 
 their man ward as well as their God ward side. A good 
 man is a better citizen than a bad man is. One who 
 prays is contributing his spiritual donation to the 
 community, and conferring upon them that which they 
 have a right to expect from him. One who believes in 
 God is a moral strength to his immediate neighbour- 
 hood. An evil liver is as one who owns an insanitary 
 house, which is a centre of infection and disease to all 
 around him. So Tertullian of old was able to plead : 
 ' Moreover ye put down by force those who know how 
 to ask it ' (i.e. health for the Emperor), ' and, in that 
 they know how to ask it, are able also to obtain it. 
 For we pray for the health of the Emperors to the 
 eternal God, the true God, the living God, Whom even 
 the Emperors themselves would rather have propitious 
 to them than all the rest. . . . This do, ye worthy 
 rulers, tear from us that breath which is praying to 
 God for your Emperor. Here will be the crime, where 
 is truth and devotion to God.' 3 That is to say, the 
 
 1 S. John iii. 1 6. 2 S. John xiii. 35. 
 
 3 Tertullian, Apolog. ch. xxix. xxx.
 
 332 THE CHURCH CATECHISM 
 
 Christians were able to appeal to the world for pro- 
 tection as a power not to be put down, by reason 
 of their right of access to the throne of God. We 
 have been reminded also in a remarkable book, that 
 * Economically the saintly group of qualities is in- 
 dispensable to the world's welfare. The great Saints 
 are immediate successes, the smaller ones are at least 
 heralds and harbingers, and they may be leavens also 
 of a better mundane order/ 1 Certainly we shall not 
 have learned our old Catechism in vain if we are able 
 to bring to its plain statements of the great truths 
 of Christianity the verification of our own experience. 
 And we shall find that this stands forth as a prominent 
 truth of that experience, that the way to do our 
 duty towards our neighbour is first to do our duty 
 towards God, and hence that our duty towards God is 
 the best way to fulfil our duty towards our neighbour, 
 or in the mysterious words uttered by our great High 
 Priest, ' For their sakes I sanctify Myself.' * 
 
 1 Professor W. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience , p. 377. 
 * S. John xvii. 19. 
 
 Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Hu Majesty 
 at the Edinburgh Univeriity Press
 
 C&e DrfortJ lifcrarp of Practical Cfjeologp 
 
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 of St. Paul's ; and the Rev. DARWELL STONE, M.A., Librarian of the 
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 Oxford. [Third Edition. 
 
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 OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM. By the Very Rev. HENRY WACE, 
 
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 CHURCH HISTORY. By the Rev. H. N. BATE, M.A., Fellow of 
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 CHURCH WORK. By the Rev. BERNARD REYNOLDS, M.A., Pre- 
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 VISITATION OF THE SICK. By the Rev. E. F. RUSSELL, M.A., 
 
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 THIRD IMPRESSION. 
 THE STUDY OF THE GOSPELS. By the Very Rev. J. 
 
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 [continued.
 
 14 A SELECTION OF WORKS 
 
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 16 A SELECTION OF WORKS 
 
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 IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 17 
 
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 i8 A SELECTION OF WORKS 
 
 Osborne. Works by EDWARD OSBORNE, Mission Priest of the 
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 Oxford (The) Library of Practical Theology. Edited by the 
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 CONFIRMATION. By the Right Rev. A. C. A. HALL, D.D., Bishop 
 
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 THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. By 
 
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 Oxford. 
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 THE HOLY COMMUNION. By the Rev. DARWKLL STONE. M.A.. 
 
 loint Editor of the Series. [/* preparation. 
 
 [continued.
 
 IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 19 
 
 Oxford (The) Library of Practical Theology. continued. 
 
 THE CHURCH CATECHISM THE CHRISTIAN'S MANUAL. 
 
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 RELIGIOUS CEREMONIAL. By the Rev. WALTER HOWARD 
 
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 VISITATION OF THE SICK. By the Rev. E. F. RUSSELL, M.A., 
 
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 CHURCH WORK. By the Rev. BERNARD REYNOLDS, M.A., 
 
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 OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM. By the Rev. HENRY WAGE, D.D., 
 
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 NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM. By the Rev. R. J. KNOWLING, 
 
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 [In preparation. 
 
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 20 A SELECTION OF WORKS 
 
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