CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY arV15427 Ephphatha Cornell University Library 3 1924 031 216 553 olin.anx The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 924031 21 6553 WORKS OF THE REV. CANON FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S. EPHPHATHA; OR, THE AMELIORATION OF THE WORLD, izmo, $1.50 ETERNAL HOPE, Sermons on Eternal Punishment. l2mo, . 1.75 THE SILENCE AND THE VOICES OF GOD, and other Sermons. l2mo, . . . . . 1. 25 THE WITNESS OF HISTORY TO CHRIST. Hulsean Lectures. l2mo, .... 1.50 THE FALL OF MAN, and other Sermons. i2mo, 1.75 IN THE DAYS OF THY YOUTH. Marlborough College Sermons. i2mo, . . . . 1.75 SEEKERS AFTER GOD. With Illustrations. l2mo, 1.75 SAINTLY WORKERS. Lenten Lectures. Martyrs- Hermits — Monks — Early Franciscans — Missionaries. i2mo, 1.25 The Eight Volumes in Paper Box, Ten Dollars. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE, with Maps, Notes, and Introduction. By Frederick W. Farrar, D.D. i6mo, . . . . i.io London and New York : MACMILLAN & CO. LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGES. i2mo. . $2.50 THE COLLEGE LIBRARY. New and Improved Editon. 3 vols each, . . . . . 1.50 Eric ; or, Little by Little. St. Winifred ; or. The World of School. Julian Home ; A Tale OF College Life. Three volumes in box, $4. 50. THE LIFE OF CHRIST. i vol. 8vo. Without Notes. Cloth, . ..... 1. 00 THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 2 vols. 8vo. With Maps, Notes, etc., 4.00 THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 2 vols. 8vo. Half calf, 8.00 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAUL, i vol. 8vo, 3.00 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAUL. 2 vols. 8vo. Cloth, ...... 5.00 ETERNAL PIOPE. Sermons on Eternal Punishment. I2mo, . I.oo New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO. EPHPHATHA Zit aiiuliotation ot tbt SSiaoria SERMONS PREACHED AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY WITH TWO SERMONS PREACHED IN ST. MARGARET'S CHURCH AT THE OPENING OF PARLIAMENT ,><>-' ^ VJf FARRARrp.b., F.R.S. CANON OF WESTMINSTER, AND RECTOR OF ST. MARGAEEt's, WESTMINSTER NEW YORK MACMILLAN AND CO. 1880 TO THE VERY REV. ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D., DEAN OF WESTMINSTER, THAN WHOM FEW LIVING MEN HAVE SHOWN A DEEPER INTEREST IN EVERY GOOD WORK WHICH CAN HELP FORWARD THE HAPPINESS OF ALL CLASSES, WHETHER RICH OR POOR, ^ES£ ^ermoits uu ^ziicuhh WITH SINCERE AFFECTION AND RESPECT. PREFACE. The seven Sermons which give their title to this little volume were preached in the ordi- nary course of my duties at Westminster Abbey during the months of December 1879 and January 1880. I publish them partly in obedience to the requests of many who desired to possess them in a permanent form, but chiefly because they carry out one con- secutive line of thought, and deal with some topics which are not frequently touched upon in pulpit exhortations. " Pauperism," it has been said, is national dishonour ; so is drunkenness ; so is pre- ventible disease ; so is the miserable squalor in which our poorest classes in the large towns live, even when they escape the workhouse. viii PREFACE. These are the most real and formidable ene- mies we have (as a nation) to contend with, and if we attack them sincerely, we shall have fighting enough to last our time." If these Sermons be even in a very slight degree effectual in diverting the thoughts of Chris- tians from controversies about things doubtful or non-essential, — if they tend to deepen the feeling of mutual charity among all who earnestly desire to- carry on the work of Christ in the world, — they will have fulfilled the object which has mainly induced me to let them see the light. If the main thoughts here urged be true and right, perhaps others may pursue them with greater power and more advantage to the general good. We are told by Bishop Burnett that it was the noble study of the Cambridge Platonists " to propagate better thoughts, to take men off from being in parties, or from narrow notions, superstitious conceits, and fierceness ' Speech of Lord Deiby at the Mansion House, March 1st, 1880. FREFACE. IX about opinions." They endeavoured to achieve these aims by their large catholicity of spirit in dealing with questions of theology; but the same end may perhaps be also furthered by the humble endeavour to call attention to those vast fields of labour in which all sects and classes of Christians may strenuously and joyfully take a common part. The eighth and ninth Sermons were preached at my own church at the opening of two ses- sions of Parliament. They may perhaps serve to show that it is possible for a clergyman without offence to deal with questions which may be fairly called political. They were kindly received by many members of Parlia- ment who differ in their political views, and their publication was even requested by some of these, as well as by one whose high rank and office might well entitle him to regard his request almost in the light of a command. The last Sermon was preached in the Abbey in June 1879. This Sermon also touches more or less on political considera- PREFACE. tions, and is added to the rest in obedience to a wish which I could not disregard. Perhaps it is superfluous to say even thus much about these few Sermons. Apart from the living voice, and such interest as may have been derived from the places and circum- stances in which they were spoken, they can but be regarded as dead leaves. Yet even dead leaves may have their use. "They will reach the hands of the reader chill and dis- coloured ; but when, in the autumn evenings, the leaves fall and lie on the ground, more than one glance may still fall on them, more than one hand still gather them. And even if they were despised of all alike, the wind may sweep them away, and prepare with them a couch for some poor man, on whom Pro- vidence looks down with love from the height of heaven.'' F, W. FARRAR. St. Margaret's Rectory, Westminster. CONTENTS. SERMON I. PAGB WHY JESUS SIGHED I SERMON II. SINCERITY OF HEART AS THE FIRST CONDITION OF SERVICE 4' SERMON III. ENERGY OF CHRISTIAN SERVICE 79 SERMON IV. TyiE WINGS OF A DOVE II9 SERMON V. WORK IN THK GROANING CREATION IS3 SERMON VI. THE MENDING AND MARRING OF HUMAN LIFE . . . I9I xii CONTENTS. SERMON VII. PAGE LAST LESSONS FROM THE SIGH OF CHRIST 225 SERMON VIII. LEGISLATIVE DUTIES 259 SERMON IX. THE AIMS OF CHRISTIAN STATESMANSHIP 287 SERMON X. MANV FOLDS : ONE FLOCK 315 SERMON I. WHY JESUS SIGHED: THE SIGH OF PITY A STIMULUS TO ACTIOM, WHY JESUS SIGHED. Almighty God, who hast given thine only Son to be unto us both a sacrifice for sin, and also an ensample of godly life ; give us grace that we may always most thankfully receive that His inestimable benefit, and also daily endeavour ourselves to follow the blessed steps of His most holy life, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. " Pereant commenta philosophorum qui negant in sapientem cadere perturbationes animorum." — Aug. in yaann. xiii. 21. " Sight so deform what heart of rock could long Dry-eyed behold ? Adam could not, but wept, Though not of woman born : compassion quell'd His best of man, and gave him up to tears A space, till firmer thoughts restrained excess, And scarce recovering words, his plaint renew'd : — ' O miserable Mankind, to what fall Degraded, to what wretched state reserv'd ! ' " Milton, Paradise Lost, xi. 494 — 510. ' Ahi quanto a dir quel era e cosa dura Questa selva selvaggia ed aspra e forte, Che nel pensier rinnova la paura 1 Tanto h amara, che poco h piu morte.'' Dante, Inferno, i. 4 — 7. B 2 SERMON I, WHY ySSUS SIGHED. Mark vii. 34. "And looking up to heaven. He sighed, and saith unto mm, Ephphatha! that is, 'Be opened'" " The incident to which this verse alludes happened during that period of wandering — we might almost say of flight — in foreign and half- heathen countries, which was forced upon our In the English version of the text we may notice (a) that a more definite sense would be given to the word Siamlx^TiTi by rendering it " Be thou opened." The miraculous command seems to be addressed to the sufferer himself, whose whole existence is, as it were, closed by his being deaf and dumb. Further, the aorist implies that the result was instantaneous ; and the compound verb that it was complete. (iS) The heavenward glance was doubtless a glance of prayer 6 EPHPHATHA. [serm. i. Lord by the hatred and jealousy of the religious authorities of His nation, after the brief year (John xi. 41), and served incidentally to refute those who attri- buted the Lord's miracles to evil powers (Matt. ix. 34 ; Mark iii. 22 ; Luke xi. 15), which was a favourite slander of the Pharisees. {7) The word lo-TcVofc might equally well be rendered "He groaned," as the same verb is rendered in Rom. viii. 23, "even we ourselves groan within ourselves" ; 2 Cor. v. 2, "for in this we groan,'' and verse 4. In Heb. xiii. 17, y.'i] aTiva^ovres is ren- dered "not with grief;" and in James v. 9, /iJ) (rrevaCere koIt' &\\i]\(iiv is rendered "grudge not one against another," with the marginal alternative of "groan" or "grieve not." There is no more'exact word in Greek, as there is in Latin, to differentiate a sigh from a. groan. In the LXX. aTcvdCa is used as the rendering for various Hebrew verbs implying outward expressions of sadness. In the English Version "sighing" and "groaning" are alike used as renderings of the Hebrew anach, anachah {e.g. Job iii. 24, "my sighing;" id. xxiii. 2, " my groaning ; " Ps. vii. 6, "lam weary with my groaning;" Ps. xxxi. 10, "my years with sighing," &c.). The substantive imvayiiAs is rendel-ed " groaning " m Acts vii. 34, Rom. viii. 26. The words rendered " He groaned in the spirit," and " Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself," in John xi. 33, 38, are different. See n. 3, p. 8. (S) The word Ephfhatha is variously regarded as a Greek transliteration of the Aramaic imperative Hithpahel of Pdthach, " he opened," or as the imperative Niphal of that verb. (Comp. Is'. XXXV. S, "then shall the ears of the deaf be unstopped.") (e) It may be asked why the Evangelist, writing for Roman readers, reproduces the Aramaic word, which they would not understand, as he does also in v, 41, Talitha Cumi; x. 51, SERM. I.] IVJiy yESUS SIGHED. of His acceptable ministry on the shores oi Lake Sennesareth.' He was returning to Gali- lee, apparently by devious paths, and on the lonelier eastern side of the lake, when they brought to Him a poor deaf stammerer, and besought Him to put His hand upon him. Never indifferent to the appeal of sorrow, Jesus led the poor man aside, put His fingers into his ears, spat, and touched his tongue, and then raising His eyes to Heaven for one brief moment of silent prayer to His Rabloni (in the Greek) ; xv. 34, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani. The answer is, that these are introduced because they had made on St. Peter — who, according to early tradition, furnished these narratives to St. Mark — an impression so indelible that no other words seemed adequate to give it force. Incidentally they are valuable as bearing on the question of the language which our Lord ordinarily spoke. It is for a somewhat different reason that St. Mark and the other Evangelists so freely availed themselves of many other technical terms (Pharisees, Sadducees, Rabbi, Corban, Abba, Boanerges, Gehenna, &c.). They used them because no one equivalent word, and even no periphrasis, would have ade- quately conveyed their exact meaning, and it was better to give currency to an unfamiliar term than td employ an inadequate and misleading translation of it. ' Perhaps I may be allowed to refer, by way of elucidation of these expressions, to my Life of Christ, i. 4.73 to ii. 40. 8 EPHPHATHA. [serm. Heavenly Father, He sighed and said unto him, " Ephpkatlia ! " that is, " Be opened!" I. This is not the only record of the sighs, and tears, and troubled heart of Jesus. We are told in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that " in the days of His flesh He offered up supplications, with strong crying and tears." ' We read in the next chapter of St. Mark, how, when He was met by the Pharisees with the faithless and mocking demand for a sign from heaven, He sighed deeply in His spirit.^ And by the grave of Lazarus, when He saw Mary weeping, and the Jews also weep- ing, He "groaned in the spirit," and the silent tears streamed down His face.' And on that day ' Heb. V. 7, jtierA Kfa.v^T\s lirxupSs Kal BaKpvcov. ' Mark viii. 12, ivanTevA^as rif irvetJ/taTi aiiroB. 3 John xi. 33, Jxe/Spi/t^iroTo t$ irvt^fiari. 38, ifiPpiii^nevos iv eavT$. The expressions which I have used are sufficiently supported by verse 35 {^Sdxpvirev d 'Iijirous, which means that He shed silent tears), but the verb in verses 33 and 38 can hardly mean "groaned." In the New Testament it only occurs elsewhere in Matt. ix. 30, Mark i. 43, where it is rendered "straitly charged," though it is in reality more emphatic. A comparison of these verses with Luke v. 14, seems to show that the meaning involved in the verb is "vehemently threatened " ; comp. Ecclus. xiii. 3. In the Old Testament the verb is used by Symmachus in Is. xvii. 13 (E.V. "rebuke"), SERM. I.] WJiy yESUS SIGHED. 9 of humble triumph when the multitude escorted Him from Bethany to Jerusalem with shouted Hosannas and waving palms, as soon as He turned the shoulder of the hill, and the view of and the noun by the LXX. in Lam. ii. 6 ; and wherever it occurs it always seems to imply indignation rather than grief. If Tif irycu/iari is the dative of the object, the phrase can only express an act of strong self-control ("He sternly charged His spirit" — roused His spirit to the conflict with Death). If, on the other hand, Tiy iryeu^ari means "in spirit," as in xiii. 21, then the expression means " He was indignant in spirit" ; indig- nant at the want of faith of those around Him, or at the power- ful presentment of the sin and sorrow of the world which was forced upon His notice by the circumstances of the moment. Some have supposed that the remark of the Jews in John xi. 37 was a sort of mocking taunt. This would indeed account for His feeling of indignation ; but the Jews seem to have felt a genuine sympathy with the weeping sisters, and the reifiark — which was only made by some of them — has an accent of sincerity. The words translated "and was troubled" are literally "and troubled Himself." TTiis certainly does not mean that He only allowed Himself a certain definite amount of emotion {ij.€Tpioird- Bfia as opposed to the Stoic apathy). This sense is attached by St. Cyril, Euthymius, and Theophylact to the previous expres- sion {evePpt/iiiffaTo t$ iriiev^aTt), and Theophylact comments on it by saying that hard and unsympathetic tearlessness is monstrous {flijpiaSts), but that undue indulgence in tears and lamentations is effeminate {yvvaiKuSes). They are followed by Bengel, who says that, at this point, Jesus sternly checked the tears which, a little later He allowed to flow. In the Life of Christ, ii. 169, I rejected 10 EPHPHATHA. [serm. i, the city burst on Him, He wept aloud' over its hypocrisy and crime. Truly he was " a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." So, to some extent, have all His saints and children been. " Prosperity," as has been justly said, "is consistent with intense worldliness, intense selfishness, intense hardness of heart, while the grander features of human character, self- sacrifice, disregard of pleasure, patriotism, knowledge, devotion to any great cause, have no tendency to bring good fortune. The wrongs, the cruelties, the wretchedness of all kinds which the analogous explanation of " He troubled Himself," for that of Euthymius and Meyer, who explain it of a physical act — "a powerful shudder ran through Him " (as a consequence, Euthy- mius adds, of the stern repression of His feelings). On careful recDnsideration of the passage I incline to the view that it im- plies the voluntary act by which our Lord suffered His sympathy to have play ; yielded Himself to the deep emotions of the hour, and suffered those emotions to express themselves by outward signs. [In other passages we find the more ordinary passive xiii. 21, irapiixSv t^ vpei/iaTt ; xii. 27, vSv tj xjivxh fiov TerdpaKTai.} Thus the two phrases together imply a mixture of indignation and grief ; the indignation stirred by close contact with the workings of sin and death ; the grief awakened by the sight of overwhelming sorrow. " Luke xix. 14, iKXavaev, ploravit ; llixfvaiv, flevit. SERM. I.] wify y£sus sighed. i i for ever prevail among mankind, his own short- comings, of which he grows ever more and more conscious, these things will prevent a noble- minded man from ever being particularly light- hearted ; so that if you see a man happy as the world goes, contented with himself, and con- tented with what is around him, he may be decent and respectable, but the highest is not in him, and the highest will not come out of him." ' But in the case of Jesus, you must add the mysterious agony of Him who bore the vast burden, not of individual sins, but of the sins and sorrows of all mankind.'' You must not in- deed suppose that our blessed Saviour had no bright and joyous hours on earth, or that the legend is true which says that men had seen Him weep often, but never smile.^ I believe that in those long quiet earlier years which " breathed beneath the Syrian blue" in Nazareth, — as a child, as a boy, as a youth, among its happy ' P'roude, Short Studies, i. p. in. = Matt. viii. 17 ; Is. liii. 4 ; i Tet. ii. 24. 3 Letter of the pseudo-Lentulus, Hofmann, Leben Jesu, p. 291 ; B. H. Cowper, Afoc. Gospels, p. 221. 12 EPHPHATHA. [serm. i. children, and on its fresh thyme-sprinkled hills — He drank sweet draughts of joy and sunlight. I believe that in His words of gentle and almost playful, irony to Martha, and to Philip, and to Peter,' we may almost see the heavenly smile playing upon His features ; and once we are expressly told not only that He " was glad," but that He '^exulted" in spirit, as He also bade His disciples do.= This joy of Jesus, — deep joy, though noble and subdued — is not our subject to-day, but I touch on it for one moment only lest any of you should take a false view of the life of man, or fatally imagine that in this world the children of the devil have a monopoly of happiness. Happiness .' — they have none. Guilty happiness .' there is no such thing .'3 Guilty pleasure for a moment there is ; — the sweetness ■ See Luke x. 40 ; John xiv. 9 ; Matt. xvii. 26, and Luther's remarks on the latter passage. = Luke X. 21, -liiaKKiiawTa t^ irvei/iart. Matt. v. 12, xa'pe" KoL ayaWiSo-fle. For other instances in which the word occurs see Luke i. 47 ; John v. 35, viii. 56 ; Acts ii. 26. 3 "Crede mihi res severa est verum gatidium."— &«. £^. xxiii. 92. "Cette joie dont je parle est severe, chaste, serieuse, soli- taire, et incompatible."— BOSSUET, Serm. sur la Circoncision. SERM. I.] WHY yESUS SIGHED. 13 of the cup whose draught is poison, the glitter of the serpent whose bite is death. Guilty mirth there is ; — the laughter of fools, which is as the crackling of thorns under a pot. But guilty happiness there never has been in any life, nor ever can there be. True happiness, happiness in the midst of even scorn and per- secution, happiness even in the felon's prison and in the martyr's flame, is the high pre- rogative of God's saints alone — of God's saints, and therefore assuredly, even in His earthly life, of Him the King of Saints; since there is in misery but otie intolerable sting, the sting of iniquity, and He had none. 2. But you will not have failed to notice that on two of the occasions on which we are told that Jesus sighed and wept, He was immediately about to dispel the cause of the misery.' He was about to heal the deaf. Why then should He have sighed 1 He was about to raise the dead. Why then did the silent tears stream down His face .' ' Mark vii. 34 ; John xi. 36. 14 EPHPHATHA. [serm. i. My friends,' the Lord sighed because He was not thinking only of , the individual case. That He had power to remedy ; but how many myriads were there of the bereaved whom He could not then console ? of the deaf and dumb who in this world could never hear and never speak ? Even in the individual cases there was, to His quick sympathy, cause enough to sigh for the wreck caused by the sin of man and the malice of Satan, in deforming the beauty of God's fair creation. His sigh for these was not the sigh of Powerlessness — it was the sigh of Sympathy.' But more than this. He was thinking of all the world, looking down to the very depths of its drear abyss of sorrow. His act of healing could be but a drop in the ocean. " That sigh," says Luther, " was not drawn from Him on ' At the same time we should bear in mind that the sympathy of our Lord, even as sympathy, was something more intense, something more deep and mysterious, than the ordinary sympathy of which we are capable. In some unspeakable manner He bore, as though it were His own, the burden of our griefs and iniquities. Is. liii. 4; Matt. viii. 17 (?\o;8e . . . ^jSiJcrTaiTf) ; John i. 29 {i&fav) ; \ Pet. ii. 24 (aurbj a.vi\vfyKiv . . . ^tt! ri SERM. I.] WHY JESUS SIGHED. 15 account of the single tongue and ears of this poor man, but it is a common sigh over all tongues and ears, yea over all hearts, bodies, and souls, and over all men, from Adam to his last descendant."' The doing of good is not a work of unmixed happiness, for good men can never do all the good that they desire. " We can, indeed, only have the highest happi- ness, such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as for ourselves ; and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain with it, that we can only tell it from pain by its being what we should choose before everything." "^ What wonder then that our Saviour, even in the act of healing, heaved the deep sigh of sympathy } ' So too St. Chrysostom, who says that Jesus sighed, t))>' toC a.vQ^4nrov ^iiffiv 4\e&v els iroiav rairelyoxriy iiyayev ra^rjv '6 re fiiff6Ka\os Std^oKos Koi tj twv vp(oTOtr\dfrTcitv oKpotre^laj — i.e. because He pitied the humiliation to which our human nature has been reduced by the Devil, who hates all fairness, and by the incontinence of our first parents. " Somola. 1 6 EPHPHATHA. [serm. i. " O'erwhelming thoughts of pain and grief Over his sinking spirit sweep ; What boots it gathering one lost leaf Out of yon sere and withered heap, Where souls and bodies, hopes and joys, All that earth owns, or sin destroys. Under the spurning hoof are cast Or tossing in the autumnal blast ? " " 3. My friends, there was in truth cause enough, and more than enough, why the Lord should sigh. In that poor afflicted man He saw but one more sign of that vast crack and flaw which sin causes in everything which God has made. When God had finished His work, He saw that it was very good ; but since then tares have been sown amid His harvest; an alien element in- truded into His world ; a jangling discord clashed into His music. Earth is no longer Eden. Look out even on the inanimate creation ; its storm, and earthquake, and eclipse ; the devastating fury of its elements; the pitiless rush of its waters ; the deadly pestilence of its malaria ; the invisible germs of corruption which im- pregnate its waters with pollution and people ' Keble, "Twelfth Sunday after Trinity." SERM. I.] WHY y£SUS SIGHED. 1 7 its air with death : — these surely are signs of something wrong somewhere. Or look at the animal world, and the finish and frightfulness of the lethal armour with which it is provided, — the shark's teeth, the hornet's sting, the tiger's claw, the serpent's fang. What do we see .' Not the lion lying down with the lamb, or the leopard playing with the kid ; but the bright creatures bounding through the forest with hungry rage, and the dull eye of the snake in the dry leaves. Nay, there is massacre daily going on, daily raging among the blithe birds of the air, and the mute fishes of the sea. The air, the field, the wave are one vast slaughter- house.' What is the meaning of it all, but this, — that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now ? ^ And was there not ' "The May-fly is torn by the swallow, the swallow speared by the shrike, And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey."^TENNYSON. ' Rom. viii. 22 — 25, where the words of the original— avaTivdC^i Kci avvaStvei &XP' '''O' "''" — ^^^ ^^"^7 powerful. But C 1 8 EPHPHATHA. [serm. i. enough in this rapine and fury to make Jesus look up to Heaven and sigh ? 4. And alas, it is not only the unintelligent creation which groans and travails. We our- selves, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we ourselves also groan within ourselves, wait- ing for the adoption, to wit the redemption of the body. We are apt to be very proud of ourselves and of our marvellous discoveries and scientific achievements ; but, after all, what a feeble creature is man ! what a little breed his race ! what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue ! We fade as the grass, and are crushed before the moth. If we knew no more than' Nature can tell us, and had no help but what Science can give to us, what sigh would be too deep for beings born to sorrow as the sparks fly upwards .' " Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery;" so we say at the solemn truthful moment when we drop the body the universal groan is full of hopefulness, for it is represented as being called forth by the travail-pangs of a new birth. SERM. I.] WHY JESUS SIGHED. 19 into the grave, and man is full of misery indeed ! i. Look, for instance, at the world of disease and pain. You need not go far to look. One house will suffice you to see the wretchedness of the human race.' We are met in this great Abbey close beside the Palaces of the Legis- lature, and on one side of us is Westminster Hospital, and on the other St. Thomas's Hos- pital, as though to bear their solemn witness how vast is the task before us, how dread is the necessity for religion and for government, to battle against human sin and human pain. Go into either of these great hospitals, and what will you see .' Oh, what varied evidences of human anguish ! On that bed lies a strong workman, crippled for life by an accident, and forgetting his own pain as the tears rush into his eyes to think of his worn wife and starving little ones. That little child, trained on gin, ■ " Humani generis mores tibi nosse volenti, Sufficit una domus ; paucos consume dies et Dicere te miserum, postquam illinc veneris aude." — Juv. Sat. xiii. 159. C 2 20 EPHPHATHA. [serm. i. and screaming for every bottle which it thinks must contain gin, is dying of atrophy, the re- sult of vile neglect. That poor half-witted old woman ends here, in the anguish of some in- ward complaint, her harmless life of unbroken struggle with affliction. The muttering lips, the clutching hands of yonder man are the signs of the fell disease which is the Nemesis of drunkenness. The bones of that other, the victim of dissolute courses, are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust. And Jesus had seen such things. He had healed the impotent man at Bethesda, and the frenzied boy at Hermon, and the poor wretch who was deaf and dumb, and blind and mad at Capernaum; and the ten lepers at En Gaunim ; and had seen " All maladies Of ghasdy spasm, or racking torture, qualms Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds. Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs ; " ' and many more which I dare not dwell upon, ■ Milton, Par, Ij>st, xL 480. SERM. I.] WHY yESUS SIGHED. 21 — and can you wonder that He looked up to heaven and sighed ? ii. We have been glancing-at some of the con- ditions which affect the physical world of man; the anguish which, in one form or another, by sickness or by accident, seizes ere we die the poor mortal bodies of most of us ; but ah ! that is not the worst. In the terrible picture of the " Last Judgment," by Michael Angelo, in the Sistine Chapel at Rome, — where the great painter's conception of Him who sighed for human sorrow, is an awful avenging figure, with hand wrathfully uplifted, grasping ten thousand thunders, and hurling down men's souls by millions into the abyss, — he has painted one lost spirit who is being dragged down by a horrible fiend. This fiend has driven his fangs into the flesh of the doomed victim ; but the poor wretch is wholly uncon- scious of the agony ; he is looking up in mental anguish, thinking only of the lost heaven. Even so it is that the sorrows of the body are swal- lowed up in the keener anguish of the soul. 22 EPHPHATHA. [serm. i. and the wounded affection aches more painfully than the throbbing nerve. Look, then, at the world of man's heart. How sweet is the un- broken home ; how happy ! Ah, but of what brittle glass is this our home-happiness made ! How many of our homes are unbroken ? into how many has the silent shadow never glided .' how many have not been overshadowed by the icy hand.' Ye who have reached middle age, has not your path in life been marked by the gravestones of your earlier friends .' Has the light of your eyes been taken from none of you at a stroke ? Fathers, have none of you followed to the tomb the dear youth who should have been the prop of your old age ? Mothers, have you never seen the dust strewn on the little flower-like face .' Will there be no vacant chairs this Christmas by your firesides .' Weep not ; we shall go to them, though they shall not return to us. " Oh Ibrahim, Ibrahim," ex- claimed Mahomet — over the body of his dead child — " if it were not that the promise is faith- ful, and the hope of resurrection sure ; if it SERM. I.] WHY JESUS SIGHED. 23 were not that this is the way to be trodden by all, and the last of us shall join the first ; I would grieve for thee with a grief deeper even than this," and with uncontrollable sob- bings the strong man put the little body back into the nurse's arms. "I am torn up by the roots and lie prostrate on the earth," wrote Edmund Burke on the loss of his only son. '' I am now old, feeble, bent, and miserable," said Sir William Napier, "and my eyes are dim, very dim, with weeping for my lost child." — How many millions of the nameless have had to utter the same bitter wail! But this has been going on for ever, and Jesus had seen it all. He had seen, laid stark upon the bier, the widow's only son. He had seen the little maid of Jairus lying pale and cold. He had seen Mary weeping for Lazarus dead. And, as He looked out upon a world of death, can you wonder, I ask again, if. looking up to heaven, He sighed? iii. For even this, alas, was not all, and not the worst. Sickness may be cured ; and pain 24 EPHPHATHA. [serm. i. assuaged ; and Time lays his healing hand on the wounds of death. And again sickness may be as the fire purging the gold ; and when we think of the death of the righteous, we hardly dare to wish them back again. In all these things there may be a soul of goodness in things evil. But oh, the ravages of sin ! there is mischief, and unmingled mischief, there. It is told of Queen Blanche of Navarre, mother of St. Louis of France, that she often said she would rather see her son a corpse at her feet, than knovy that he had committed a deadly sin. It is told of another sad queen, Queen Marie Antoinette of France, that to her the sorrow which, like Aaron's rod, swallowed up all other sorrows, was to know what vile hands would have the train- ing of her princely boy.' But is that sorrow of ' " This fear it was— a fear like this I have often thought — which must among her other woes have been the Aaron-woe that swallowed up all the rest to the unhappy Marie Antoinette. This must have been the sting pf death to her maternal heart, the grief paramount, the crowning grief, — the thought, namely, that her royal boy would not be dismissed from the honours of royalty to peace and humble innocence ; but that his fair cheek would be ravaged by vice as well as by sorrow ; that he would SERM. 1.] WHY JESUS SIGHED. 25 watching the degeneracy of a bright life, the cor- ruption of an innocent spirit, — is it a strange, abnormal sorrow? Has no parent among you had to send a child to start for life in some great school, or in some great city, and watched with an aching heart "the fine gradations of vice or intemperance by which the clear-browed boy has grown into the sullen, troubled, dissatis- fied youth " ? Would the story of the Prodigal have touched as it has touched the heart of the world if it were rare ? Does the .world offer at this moment an exhilarating spectacle ? Wars costing so many precious lives ; sedition trying to rear its head ; reckless, murderous conspiracies ; widespread distress ; the sinful- ness of waste; the baseness of dishonesty; the adulteration of food ; selfish luxury ; mad greed of gain ; houses where, because of bad passions, the fires of hell mix with the hearth ; the be tempted into brntal orgies and eveiy mode of moral pollution, until, like poor Constance with her young Arthur, but for a sadder reason, even if it were possible that the royal mother should see her son in the courts of heaven, she would not l7 for sacrifice," we are told in the Talmud, put its head, moaning, into the lap of Rabbi Judah the Holy, and he repelled it with the remark, "Go hence ; for this thou wast created." " Lo ! " said the Angels, " he is pitiless ; let affliction come upon him." Again, one day it happened that, -in sweeping the room, his maidservant disturbed some young kittens. " Leave them alone," said Rabbi,' " for it is written, ' His tender mercies are over all His works.' " ^ Then said the Angels, " Let us have pity on him ; for lo ! he has learnt pity. "3 And how exquisite is the story which tells us that when Moses was a shepherd in Midian a little lamb left the flock and went frisking into the wilderness ; and Moses followed it over rocks and through briers till he had recovered it, and then laying it in his bosom he said, "Little » Rabi Judah Hakkodesh, the compiler of the Mishna, is called "Kabhi" par excellence. ' Ps. cxly. 9. 3 Bava Metzia, f. 85. 1 . In the original it is not " the Angels," but the indefinite "they" ("They said," nDN). Comp. Luke xii. 20 (Greek) and xvi. 9. 38 EPHPHATHA. [serm, i. lamb, thou knowest not what is good for thee ; trust me, thy shepherd, and I will guide thee right." And when God saw his tenderness to the straying lamb. He said, " Thou shalt be the shepherd of my people Israel. " Might not the old Rabbis teach us the lesson so exquisitely taught us by our own poet in the Ancient Mariner, that " He prayeth well who loveth well Both man, and bird, and beast. He prayeth best who loveth best All things, both great and small, For the dear God who loveth us He made and loveth all." ■ ii. And there is the world of sickness and pain ; — but how infinitely is it alleviated by human care, by human skill, by human sym- pathy, because everywhere, like white-winged ' We are sometimes apt to flatter ourselves that such senti- ments as those illustrated by the Ancient Manner and Wordsworth's Heart-leap Well are peculiarly modem ; but the Jews (e.g. Abarbanel) found them in many parts of the Pentateuch (e.g. Ex. xxiii. 4, Lev. xxii. 28, Deut. xxv. 4, xxii. 10, V. 14), and especially in the thrice-repeated command, "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk" (Ex. xxiii, ig, xxxiv. 26, Deut. xiv. 21). SERM. I.] WHY yEsus sighed. 39 ministers of mercy, the children of God move in and out in the midst of it, heahng its ravages, smoothing the sleepless pillow, cooling the fevered brow, shining down upon the suffering with looks and smiles which are a healing in themselves. And we, if we cannot do all this, if we are not good enough to do it, not gifted enough to do it, — too cold, too vulgar, too grasping, too impure to do it, — yet we can help those who are doing it, and love to do it, and we can help at least by our poor gifts to render their efforts possible. iii. And there is the world of sorrow ; and though it must continue while time lasts, there is not one of us who cannot help to make it less sorrowful. We can do so passively by ab- staining from all churlish deeds and all false and cruel words. We can do so actively by the constant endeavour to cultivate every gentle and kindly feeling, to rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. We can do so both actively and passively by the^ strenuous determination to be kind to many, 40 EPHPHATHA. [serm. i. to wish to be kind to all, willingly to do injury to none. " Be ye kind one to another, tender- hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." ' Begin with this : of more we may speak another day, but begin with this. This we can all do. All this let us do, and, if often in doing it, we shall have to sigh as Jesus sighed, we shall find that, however the world may treat us. He will also grant to us to become " partakers of His vision and His Sabbath," to share in the infinitude of His peacefulness, to enter into His boundless joy. ' Oeis iv Xpi.(rr^ txapl