'REMEMBER THE DAYS OF OLD' SERMON PREACHED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY BEFORE THE MEMBERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORICAL CONGRESS THE RIGHT REVEREND THE DEAN HERBERT EDWARD RYLE, D.D. ON SUNDAY, APRIL 6, 1913 HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON, NEW YORK, TORONTO, MELBOURNE AND BOMBAY Price Sixpence net 'REMEMBER DAYS OF OE SERMON PREACHED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY BEFORE THE MEMBERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORICAL CONGRESS BY THE RIGHT REVEREND THE DEAN HERBERT EDWARD RYLE, D.D. ON SUNDAY, APRIL 6, 1913 HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON, NEW YORK, TORONTO, MELBOURNE AND BOMBAY OXFORD: HORACE HART PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 'REMEMBER THE DAYS OF OLD.' Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations. Deut. xxxii. 7. This utterance of the ancient Hebrew poet may fitly serve as our text this afternoon. For which of us, in a building such as this, encompassed with the historic memorials of the illustrious dead, can fail to feel the thrill of the power of the past ? The domain of the historian has received in the last 100 years an amazing extension. Great as were the changes produced by the intellectual movement of the nineteenth century, few surpassed in interest and in magnitude the revolution that was effected both in the scope and in the ideals of the historian. Suddenly he found access to a countless wealth of material. Suddenly the Middle Ages lived again. New scientific methods aroused the enthusiasm of research. Prejudices of scepticism and of credulity alike were dissipated. The very hand-books of popular history were trans- formed. Dreary annals made way for drum and trumpet narratives ; and these in turn for partisan political discussion of former centuries. And now politics themselves are being driven into the background by the claims of social and economic problems. It must not be supposed that changes so vast and far reaching have failed to influence profoundly the thought and literature of the Christian Church. Neither the history of Israel nor the history of the Church, neither the Gospel narratives nor the lives of saints, nor the acts of councils, nor the growth of ceremonies and institutions, can ever again claim to be exempt from the searching and faithful scrutiny which the methods of this new age of historical science have rendered necessary. Speaking for the Church of England this afternoon from this 888637 .;*Vpulpijt/I ;kjien\5 I ma y be permitted, nay expected, to express the .' grateful apjjreciatipn which in an ever-increasing degree is felt for the : * 'larger recognition- t>f historical science. The time is long past when it could be met with timid outcries and anxious protests. Undoubtedly there will ever be some literary swash-bucklers who hope to win a cheap and sordid popularity by the flippant and irreverent treat- ment of sacred subjects. But the true spirit of the historian is different. We have learned to recognize it in patient dignity, in the courtesy and forbearance of dispassionate criticism. The Church of Christ looks with gladness and confidence of faith upon every step by which we are guided nearer to the vision of the truth. And yet we must acknowledge, with a sense of humiliation, the small degree of interest and sympathy which the growth of historic knowledge is able to excite among faithful adherents of the Church and devout students of Holy Scripture. Let me take but two examples. The Bible reader could have no more thrilling experience than that which has been furnished by the decipherment of the Babylonian inscriptions during the past forty years. It has produced a revolution in our whole conception of the background of Hebrew life and culture. The Empires of Nineveh and Babylon seem suddenly to emerge from the darkness of the tomb in which they lay hid for more than two thousand years. The cerements of the grave have been stripped from them by the discoveries of scholars like Rawlinson and Hincks, Sayce and George Smith, Oppert and Schrader, and in our own day, Friedr. Delitzsch, Hilprecht, Jensen, Johns, and King. The effect produced upon the minds of scholars was intensified thirty years ago by the discovery of the Tel-el- Amarna cuneiform tablets, describing in vivid and varied ways the social life of Palestine in the Patriarchal era. And yet the famous lectures given in 1902 by Delitzsch in Berlin seemed to take the Christian world by surprise. The agitation was immense. Thousands of good church people seemed then for the first time to have heard of the discoveries which had rendered famous the latter half of the nineteenth century. Looked at in the most superficial way, the mere literary interest of these discoveries as a means of illustrating and explaining the books of the Bible was of arresting interest and of extraordinary value. We can no longer speak of Israel in its sheltered nook withdrawn from the currents of the outer world, as the standard histories used to tell us ! Israel stood on the very highway of Western Asia. The proud armies of Egypt and Assyria, the world powers which disputed together for the hegemony over Syria and Phoenicia and Canaan, passed and repassed along the roads of Israel and Judah ! Babylonian civilization, Babylonian thought, Babylonian worship, entered deeply into the social existence of the subject countries. Insignificant in dimensions and importance was the tiny province of the land of Israel. The Empires of Elam and Assyria and Babylonia, the kingdoms of Egypt, of the Hittites, and of Syria, which in turn gave laws to the Asiatic world, have passed away. The message of Israel has outlived them. The mystery of its enduring influence has been the slow unfolding of the Divine purpose. There has been more of eternal truth, more of abiding comfort, more of moral purity, in the witness of the Hebrew prophets than in all the colossal magnitude of the world powers that scarcely knew of Israel by name. Turn to another department of historical study, the period of the Christian era itself: who does not rejoice that upon this period the full force of historic inquiry is continually being concentrated? How full of unexpected interest the centuries immediately preceding and immediately following it have proved to be ! How continually we learn of fresh illustrations, here from archaeology, there from inscriptions, respecting the life and social conditions of the early Roman Empire! The contribution of our countryman, Professor Ramsay, to mention but a single instance, is all too little known and understood. The monumental erudition of the late lamented Pro- fessor Schiirer has laid the whole Church under a lasting obligation. The vast range of literature dealing with the early Church has in the last thirty years been subjected to close and searching investigation. The work of Lightfoot has left an enduring monument of accurate and judicious historical scholarship. It is only needful to mention the name of Harnack in order to pay, in passing, a grateful tribute from this place to one whose services to Church history are known in 6 every country, and whose writings of unrivalled knowledge and absorbing interest may, as we all trust, be continued for many more years of productive activity. I would not weary you with names of famous writers and famous books which necessarily are unknown to the members of an ordinary English congregation. And yet I would that the thought of the Church's history and the real study of its Scriptures, its worship, and its great leaders, could be more earnestly impressed upon the servants of Jesus Christ. Let them 4 remember the days of old, and consider the years of many generations '. There is no scarcity of literature such as our forefathers could complain of; in every field labourers multiply. The old books that were so wearisome and dull are replaced by literature that is varied and fresh and bright and inspiring. The Scriptures live with a new life. The Church becomes, if less perfect, yet more human in its influence and its sympathies. There is no need to detract an iota from the spiritual, evangelisti c, and philanthropic fervour of our day. But there is need to warn Churchmen against an attitude of acquiescence for themselves and for their children in a standard of ignorance upon the history of their communion and their Bible, upon the fundamental facts of their faith, and upon the origin and growth of their sacraments, their liturgy their service books, and their institutions. It is not enough to point to the great names of learned men who have adorned our communion, men in England like Lightfoot and Stubbs, and Creighton, and Hort and Westcott : men in Germany like Ewald, and Neander, and Dorner, and Dollinger. It is for the simple member of the Church, the ordinary communi- cant, to ' remember the days of old ', to make it a duty to master and study the elements of sacred learning, to take a living interest in the Scriptures and their contents. For there is nothing nobler than the love of truth. The honest search for it demands sacrifice in a self-indulgent age. It asks for independent effort of intellectual life in a generation that rarely reads any book save for purposes of distraction, and is little disciplined in the duty of mental concentration. We in this Abbey are privileged this afternoon to offer our respectful greeting to the Council and Members of the International Congress for Historical Studies. This collegiate Church stands, as we believe, in no imaginary sense, at the very centre of our country's history. It is the enduring symbol of its sacred national life, and of its progressive duties. Here in the place of some ruder smaller church the last Saxon king reared the massive Norman edifice, of which but small portions still survive. Strange and vast must those solid columns, those rounded arches, that lofty roof have seemed to our Saxon forefathers that gathered in the winter of 1065 to the dedication of this Abbey. 1 Yet these in their turn were destined to make way in the reign of Henry III to the loftier and more ornate proportions which still remain. It is a parable of changing form and abiding purpose. Here was the shrine of the Saxon founder ; here has taken place the coronation of every English sovereign. Many and various have been the changes of enlargement and enrichment to which the building has been subjected ; many too have been the vicissitudes through which the Royal House has passed. At this shrine each successive monarch from William of Normandy to our own beloved king has taken his oath to serve his people and "has received the hallowing oil from the Archbishop. How large a chapter of the country's history lies buried there ! warlike Plantage nets, wilful Tudors, vacillating Stuarts, prosaic Hanoverians. Pavements and walls contain the memorials of every rank and every calling. The men that did immortal deeds ; the men whose words have rendered those deeds imperishable ; the men whose thoughts and inventions have enriched the human race. Pass slowly down these famous aisles, and let but a few names strike and fix themselves on your attention. There are some of the country's poets, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning; there are some of the nation's historians, Hallam, Thirlwall, Macaulay, and Grote and Arnold. Think of the great company of statesmen, Fox, Canning and Peel and Beaconsfield and Gladstone ; the wonderful band of scientific genius, Newton and 1 See Stanley's Sermons on Special Occasions, pp. 18 ff. (1882). 8 Lyell and Darwin and Kelvin ; the group of illustrious philanthro- pists, Wilberforce and Shaftesbury and Livingstone and Gordon. As these great and famous names kindle in our hearts the recollec- tion of great achievement and of noble example, we feel that God has granted us a surpassing inheritance ; there hovers in this place the spirit of the country's history. Over its doorway might well be inscribed, ' Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations.' Humbly we kneel on the stones that cover the dust of illustrious fathers ; humbly we acknowledge the blessings of the past and the shortcomings and feebleness and frivolousness of the present. We can thank God, on the occasion of such a Congress as this that learned studies, which have noble rivalries, have no enmities ; the realm of knowledge has no armed frontiers ; the seas form no barrier to the interchange of thought. The brotherhood of study is of every clime : it reinforces the brotherhood of humanity. We can thank God that under the guidance of the Divine Spirit there reigns, throughout the whole world of historic studies, one pure and elevated motive, the pursuit of truth. Like the outward fabric of a sacred edifice, the external expression of a great study may undergo continual transformation. Its spiritual purpose remains unaltered, though the manner of its operation may vary from age to age. The manner of the twentieth century is strangely diverse from that of the eighteenth. In its pursuit of truth there is, we hope and believe, less of fear and more of freedom, less of prejudice and more of earnest sympathy. Its pathway is the way of Christ Himself; and every forward step leads nearer to the vision of God. ' A life devoted to truth ', as has been said, ' is a life of vanities abased and ambitions forsworn.' It is this life to which the historian dedicates his powers. That a benediction may rest upon his high aim and single motives is the prayer of all who would ' remember the days of old and consider the years of many generations '. ' BECEIYID Photomount Binder Makers" Inc ' Stocktoi 888637 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY