FAH. 
 
A SERMON 
 
 Preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter’s, Maritziiuiu;, 
 On Sunday Evening, September 16, l SCO, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 RIGHT REVEREND TIIE LORD BISHOP OF NATAL. 
 
 1 Cor. i. 30, 31. — But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus , tcho of 
 God is made unto us Wisdom , and Righteousness, and 
 Sanctif cation, and Redemption : that, according as it is 
 written, he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. 
 
 W E see from the very first the Church of Christ splitting 
 itself into sects and parties. Even while their Master was 
 with them, we know that his disciples disputed who should 
 lead, who should be the greatest among them, when one 
 would have thought that the presence of such a Master and 
 Teacher would have repressed in them all thought of self, 
 except the one desire to be nearest to him, to sit at his feet, 
 to share most of his instructions, or the more generous 
 longing to be foremost in duty at his command, most faith- 
 ful in service, to see him satisfied, to hear him say, “ Well 
 said ! Well done ! ” 
 
 In thinking of the state of the Apostolic Band, when 
 they had no more the sensible presence of their Lord among 
 them, we are apt to imagine that their love for him must 
 surely have become so exalted and intensified, their whole 
 being so spiritualised, by the close intercourse which they 
 had enjoyed with him during his earthly ministry, by the 
 communication of his spirit to them, that they must have 
 been bound together in the strictest unity, — that all their 
 thoughts and feelings, as well as their worldly goods, must 
 have been in common, — that one single aim — to spread his 
 Gospel — to advance his Kingdom — must have taken the 
 place of every separate, selfish, consideration. And this is, 
 
0 
 
 indeed, the Ideal of the Christian Church : this is what the 
 Church should be. But, if it was ever realised, it must 
 have been but for a very little while, when their hearts 
 were bowed and crushed, and all their worldly fancies 
 dissipated for a time, by the overpowering sense of their 
 bereavement. That ‘ new Jerusalem,’ descending out of 
 heaven from God, has only come down to Earth by flashes, 
 as it were, in glimpses. It has been shown to favored 
 mortals at happy moments, as a “pattern,” a “ thing in the 
 heavens” — not to make us impatient of the shortcomings of 
 this earthly life, but to cheer us on to work unweariedly 
 towards it, as a standard ever to be kept in view. There 
 ought, assuredly, to be a spirit of unity, a spirit of charity, 
 pervading the whole Church of Christ — which shall enable 
 us to welcome the signs of God’s Spirit, “ all things true, 
 honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report,” wherever 
 we see them. If we indeed love God who begat, we 
 ought to love also whatsoever is begotten of Him, in 
 whomsoever we may find it, in or out of our own small 
 circle, our own sect, our own church. 
 
 But we see in the writings of St. Paul himself — the most 
 undoubtedly authentic of all the precious relics of that early 
 age — how far even in his day the Church had already 
 departed from this unity of heart and feeling, this all- 
 embracing charity. We sec how amongst the Corinthian 
 Christians parties or sects were formed under various 
 teachers, the union of whose members rested upon their 
 holding certain intellectual notions, certain dogmas or 
 creeds, which those teachers severally maintained — dogmas, 
 which, if they did not actually exclude each other, yet 
 received each an undue prominence, some m the discourses 
 of one teacher, some in those of another, according to the 
 peculiar bias of his mind, whether to the old traditional 
 Judaism of Peter, or to the more liberal, and in those days, 
 more modern , views of Paul, — whether towards the Greek 
 Philosophy, or towards the Hebrew Law and Prophets. 
 And so there were “ contentions among them” : and “ one 
 said, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, and another, 
 I am of Cephas, and another, I am of Christ.” And they were 
 very bitter contentions: there was “envying, stiife, and 
 divisions among them,” the apostle says : they were walk- 
 ing as carnal, not as spiritually minded, — as babes, not as 
 men. And the truth is, that any union, which is founded 
 
3 
 
 on mere intellectual agreement, must l>c narrow ; it must 
 be temporary and shifting, as the minds of men are differ- 
 ently constituted, as they move with different degrees of 
 rapidity along the paths? of thought. Such a union as this 
 can never he a basis for the kingdom of God — for that 
 kingdom which we believe is to be set up upon the earth, 
 — for that Church which is to embrace the whole world. A 
 union founded on a forced intellectual agreement, on the 
 imposition of a certain creed, the same for every degree of 
 enlightenment, — such as the good old Fathers dreamed of 
 in the days gone by, when they met in Synods and Councils, 
 to lay down formula; which were to bind all future ages, 
 and for some trifling difference of opinion, for a mcredispute 
 about a letter of a creed, anathematised and excommunicated 
 the minority as heretics, though numbering among them 
 men meek, merciful, and pure in heart and life even as them- 
 selves, men whom their Master would have called “ blessed,” 
 — such a union, I say, as this, is a false, a dead, union, a 
 union in death, stagnating all life, the precursor of cor- 
 ruption. 
 
 Yet there is a real union possible among true-hearted 
 men as followers of Christ — a union in spirit amongst those 
 who come to the Father as revealed to us through Christ, 
 through his divine teaching, through the revelation which 
 he has made to us of the Father’s Love in life and in death, 
 — among those who recognize thus the Son of Man in his 
 blessed ministry as the way to the Father, who take up the 
 Cross as their badge, who look to it as the explanation of 
 the perplexed enigma of this earthly life, as symbolizing in 
 one sign the Christian’s watchword, “ Love made perfect 
 through suffering.” The heart of man, in its best moments, 
 craves for the cross — though the flesh shrinks from it. 
 The child, who clings to the thought of a wise and loving 
 Father, is ready to embrace it ; the self-righteous and self- 
 sufficient, who despise their fellow creatures, and think to 
 mount upwards by steps laid by their own superior powers 
 and virtues, look down upon it with contempt. 
 
 For, truly, the great Idea of Christianity, that in him, 
 the Son of Man, — the obscure child of an obscure family, in 
 a despised portion of a subject people, a people powerless, 
 contemptible, in the eyes of the proud masters of the world — 
 that in him, I say, God’s Truth, God’s Love, God’s glorious 
 Excellency, the Goodness of the eternal Father who “dwelt 
 
4 
 
 in him,” was revealed to man, and in like manner is even 
 now being 1 revealed in our measure by each one of us, 
 the very humblest and weakest of his followers, if we also 
 dwell in love, and so “ dwell in God, and God in us,” — the 
 great idea, I say, of Christianity, — yes, and its great 
 Symbol , the Cross, shame and pain and personal extinction 
 in the ministry of love, in the utterance of truth, in the 
 discharge of duty, the sense of abandonment by man, — 
 seemingly by God also, it may be, — yet this too borne 
 willingly, meekly, with only love and pity for others on the 
 sufferer’s lips, — these things are not mere dogmas to be 
 received or rejected by the intellect, to be the shibboleths of 
 a party, to be the insignia of a worship, to be announced to 
 the outer world by threats of vengeance for the unbeliever, 
 to be expressed for the “faithful” by gorgeous ceremonials, 
 vestments, processions, pomps, and vanities. The depth of 
 meaning involved in that Idea, the power of that divine 
 Symbol, must be realised by the heart, and their influence 
 expressed in the daily life, before we can truly call ourselves 
 Christians, before we can understand the apostle’s words, 
 “ Christ in us, the hope of glory.” 
 
 How far, indeed, have the elaborate creeds of Christen- 
 dom, dogma upon dogma, piled up into the clouds of 
 mysticism, gone beyond that one pure and perfect revelation, 
 that God is indeed “ our Father in Heaven” — our Father 
 — the very Father of all mankind — that — 
 
 “ God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing our 
 trespasses unto us,” — 
 
 that God was in Christ, — and is now in every true follower 
 of Christ, in every thought of tender pity and love which 
 swells our hearts for our brethren, downtrodden and oppres- 
 sed by evil, — manifesting forth II is Love to all, showing 
 Himself to be the Father of the spirits of all flesh, of every 
 forlorn, solitary, human being, — hearing every sigh, even 
 as Jesus said, “ He heareth me always” — sighs of ours for 
 our sinning brother, sighs of the sinner for himself — not 
 casting off that sad and lonely one because of his sins, 
 misery and guilt — but having already in His heart forgiven 
 him, as the father in the Gospel, who ran to meet his 
 wayward child, and fell upon his neck with tears and kisses! 
 Are any of you too conscious of your own umvorthiness, of 
 your sins and sinful infirmities, to dare to look up to the 
 excellent glory ? Behold! if you believe in Jesus, in his 
 
5 
 
 testimony concerning t lie Father, — il you believe that in his 
 life of love the Love ol God was pouring out itself to man, 
 and streams forth still in every act of true love which tee 
 show to one another, — why, then you must be sure, that as 
 he claimed in God’s Name the publican and sinner as 
 members of God’s Family, so yon too, with all your faults, 
 arc looked upon by the Heavenly Father as brethren of 
 Christ and children of God. 
 
 And “ all things are of God,” remember, “ who hath 
 reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ.” Not only the 
 message of His Love, which Christ has brought to us, but 
 the power to believe iu it, is of God — that movement of the 
 heart which induces you and me, in the sense of our sinful- 
 ness, to say ‘ I will arise and go to my Father/ — to throw 
 ourselves at His Feet and cry, ‘ I am not worthy to be called 
 Thy child/ — that readiness, too, when His gracious Hand 
 shall raise us, and draw us to His Bosom, to take the Cross 
 which He gives us to bear, and, instead of wishing to live 
 any longer selfish lives for our own satisfaction, to go 
 thankfully and do our part, whatever it may be, in filling 
 up, as the apostle says, “ that which is behind of the afllic- 
 tions of Christ,” — in finishing the work which yet remains 
 to be done on earth for the good of our brethren. Yes — as 
 the text says — “ Of Him are we in Christ Jesus.” It is 
 God by His Spirit, who works such conviction as this in 
 the hearts of men. Mere following of preachers, adherence 
 to parties and sects, a zeal for what we deem to be orthodoxy, 
 violent denunciation of those who differ, — this is not Christi- 
 anity ; there is no sign of the work of God’s Spirit here. 
 To be ‘ in Christ’ is to be built up in the spirit of Christ — 
 to be one with him in that spiritual building, of which he is 
 the chief corner-stone, and which consists of the meek and 
 lowly, the pure and loving, the speakers of truth, the doers 
 of righteousness, whatever their Church or their Creed may 
 be. And “ of Him are we in Christ Jesus.” Not Paul, 
 nor Apollos, nor Cephas — not this or that Teacher or Pastor 
 — not the Bible — not the Priest — not the Church — but 
 God Himself, our Heavenly Father, has made us what we 
 are, if we are true Christians, has given us that living faith, 
 that filial spirit of trust and obedience, by which we are 
 truly one with Christ, — 
 
 “ who of God is made unto us Wisdom, both Righteousness and Sanctification 
 and Redemption." 
 
0 
 
 He is “ made of God unto us,” says 1 lie epistle — what he 
 is. If we go to Christ himself to explain his mission, to 
 expound for us the Mystery — how it is that from such 
 antecedents a light has arisen, which has brightened the 
 world, which has shone like a central sun upon mankind 
 ever since, whose beams have shed comfort and hope in the 
 darkest and lowest quarters, the most forlorn and miserable 
 spots of humanity, and have been also the guiding star of 
 the most profound philosophy, have helped to form, or at 
 least to modify, all social institutions, — he will say to us, as 
 he did to the Jews, — 
 
 “ I am not come of myself, but He — that is, the Father — hath sent me”; 
 “ the word which ye hear is not mine, hut the Father’s which sent me “ as 
 the Father gave me commandment, even so I do.” 
 
 But, even without such plain w r ords as these, we need not 
 have doubted whether so good and perfect a gift to poor, 
 wandering, lost humanity, as the teaching, the life, the 
 death, of that holy and loving one, were indeed from God, 
 the Father of lights, were glimpses of llis Goodness, were 
 meant to shine upon the path that leads us omvard to our 
 Home. Man cannot by searching find out God. God must 
 come down, as it were, and hold out a helping hand to His 
 creature, whose every breath of spiritual, as well as of bodily, 
 life, is drawn by virtue of His .Presence and Aid, His 
 creating, life-giving, life-sustaining, power. Without Him, 
 ‘in whom we live and move and have our being/ physically 
 we know, we should all fall instantly back into nothingness, 
 from which His Word, His Spirit, has drawn us. And 
 shall our inner, higher, diviner life, that life which we have 
 not as His creatures merely but as his children, be less 
 dependent on His Will and Power and Wisdom? Nay, 
 surely each word of truth is a message to our souls from 
 the God of Truth. And even now God is building us up 
 in Christ Jesus — is seeking to form in 11s more and more of 
 the fdial spirit which becomes llis children — by those 
 gracious words of every kind which He is still speaking to 
 us, by the revelations of the present age as well as of the 
 past. We must not for a moment lose sight of the fact 
 that “ all things are of God” — the discoveries of Science, 
 which come in these our days by God’s Will to modify so 
 many of our former religious notions, as well as that mani- 
 festation of the Divine Love, which Christ “ of God was 
 made” to be unto us, and which wc shall not receive, as 
 
God meruit us to receive it, unless blended also with the 
 light of our own times. 
 
 But in “Christ Jesus,” says the Apostle, was shown forth 
 especially God’s “ Wisdom.” God’s mode of blessing I Lis 
 spiritual creatures upon earth with what they need is so 
 wise, so powerful, and yet so utterly different from man’s 
 expectations ! The Jews, we know, looked for a great 
 Messiah, coming with a strong hand and a stretched-out 
 arm, to redeem them from evil — to show forth the Might and 
 Majesty of God working on their behalf with signs and 
 wonders : and to them the cross of Christ was a “ stumbling- 
 block.” It is still so to many who reject Christianity, 
 because it has not swept away at once, as with a flood, the 
 various social plagues and evils which still beset the world. 
 And the same mistaken estimate of the nature of Christ’s 
 kingdom was entertained by many in the early ages of the 
 Church, who heaped in their traditions miracle on miracle 
 upon the life of Christ, the Apostles, the Virgin, and the 
 Saints, — as if a mighty wonder was so sure a token of the 
 Presence of God’s Spirit, or had such a power to convince 
 and subdue the heart, as one single word of truth, one act 
 of love ! It still lingers in the minds of others even in these 
 days, who expect from some great event “ coming with 
 observation,” such as the visible appearing of the Son of 
 Man in the clouds of heaven, a renewal of the whole moral 
 and social uuiverse, the setting-up of the kingdom of God, 
 the kingdom of Christ, amongst men. No ! “ he shall 
 reign” — but not by such means as these. The kingdom of 
 God in men’s hearts, — love, self-renunciation, for the cause 
 of truth, for the cause of our fellowman, — the kingdom of 
 the Crucified, — can never be set up from without, by signs 
 and wonders, by outward evidences of pomp and power, — 
 that kingdom which is “ righteousness, peace, and joy in 
 the Holy Ghost.” It must grow up within the heart. It 
 deals in secret with each individual soul and conscience, not 
 outwardly with masses, by the storm, the earthquake, and 
 the fire, but by the still-small voice — bringing each of us, 
 one by one, out of our own little sphere, in which we were 
 revolving on ourselves, into God’s great harmonious universe, 
 making us members in that mystical body, which is “ the 
 blessed company of all faithful people.” 
 
 But, if to the Jews the Cross of Christ was a stumbling- 
 block, to the Greeks it was “foolishness.” “The Jew 
 
3 
 
 sought after a sign, and the Greek after wisdom.” And 
 one would have said that to seek after wisdom was the 
 highest object that man could have — that it was the exact 
 correlative to his highest duty, to “ bear witness to the 
 Truth,” — that the ambassador from God would be most 
 gladly received and welcomed by those, who were “ seeking 
 after God, if haply they might find Him.” And so, indeed, 
 it would be, if the love of Truth were not so rare even 
 amongst those who profess to be searching for it, — if, at 
 least, it were not so rare to find it pure and undefiled, — if it 
 were not so apt to become mixed with other lower motives, 
 to become lost in prepossessions and prejudices. It is so in 
 our own day, and it was so, doubtless, with many of those 
 Greeks. If Socrates, indeed, or Plato, had been alive when 
 Paul stood on Mars’ Hill, how joyfully, we may believe, 
 would he have welcomed the substance of the apostle’s 
 message, even if he had disputed, as perhaps he would have 
 done, about some of the details of it. But the Greek 
 philosophers generally of St. Paul’s time, in the arrogance of 
 intellectual superiority, were careless of a divine message, 
 such as that of the Gospel of Christ, which was not expressed 
 in the language of their schools, which did not deal with 
 lofty metaphysical abstractions, which spoke of a crucified 
 man as the Brother and Lord and Leader of men — which 
 spoke of the Cross, as the badge of God’s children — the 
 Cross now sanctified to our eyes, as an emblem of the most 
 sublime morality, but which to them was merely the instru- 
 ment of a felon’s death. They turned with contempt from 
 a teaching, which was not built upon argument, but upon 
 the mere inward conviction of the preacher, and was addressed 
 not to the learned few, the wise, the scribes, the disputers 
 of this world, but to all, to the many whom they despised, 
 as much as to themselves. Such a message they set down 
 at once as “ foolishness.” 
 
 But yet the “ foolishness of God is wiser than men, and 
 the weakness of God is stronger than men”; and to those, 
 who do truly receive the Divine Message in the Gospel, 
 it is in very deed “ the Power of God and the "Wisdom of 
 God.” It is the Wisdom of God, says the apostle — because 
 it does that which nothing else, that we can conceive of, 
 could have done : it shows forth God's Lore to vs in human 
 action — it brings home the proofs of that Love to all that 
 hear it — to the poorest, and humblest, and most ignorant, 
 
9 
 
 as well as to the highest ami wisest. To know that in 
 every word ot' grace whieh Christ spoke, in every act ot 
 kindness which he did, in every emotion of pity whieh he 
 showed, the Love of God was manifested — the Love of his 
 Father who dwelt in him, with whose spirit lie was Idled — 
 that was indeed a proof that the human race, notwithstand- 
 ing all their faults, shortcomings, provocations, have not 
 been forsaken, abandoned, cast olf, by their Heavenly 
 Father. To hear that holy and loving one, fresh from his 
 prayers, from his close communion with God, declare in 
 his Father’s Name forgiveness to the trembling sinner, 
 “ Neither do I condemn thee — go, and sin no more,” — 
 bind up the broken-hearted, soothe the mourner, cheer on 
 the faithful to bear the cross after him even unto death, — 
 to see him still, even unto the end, loving, forgiving, 
 triumphing in dying, this is the means whieh the AN isdom 
 of God has provided for us, that we may know the Mind of 
 God Himself towards us, from whom the Saviour brought 
 each word of truth and love he uttered. This is God’s 
 method of declaring forgiveness to us, of sending glad 
 tidings, of publishing peace. In this way we have received 
 the at-one-ment, the reconciliation, the plainest proof that 
 our iniquities are pardoned, that God has made us at-one 
 with Himself through the Son of Ilis Love. 
 
 And so St. Paul says, Christ is made of God unto us--- 
 “ Righteousness, and Sanctification, and Redemption.” 
 
 (i) We need “ Righteonsness ” — to feel that we are 
 counted righteous belore God — that we are regarded by 
 Him as children — unworthy, it may be, disobedient, prodigal 
 — yet still children — children of our Father’s House, 
 children of Ilis heart, not miserable outcasts. And see how 
 in Christ this Righteousness is given us. We know by 
 Christ’s words and deeds that we are loved — that God loves 
 us — that God’s Spirit dwells with men — that God is one 
 with us, as a Father with His children. The proofs of 
 God’s Presence with us, as a Father and Friend, are indeed 
 on every side of us : the gi’een earth, and the blue sky, the 
 wayside flower, the running brook, all bring a message to 
 the thoughtful heart from Him who is not far from any 
 one of us. Rut as moral and spiritual creatures, sensible of 
 our many sins, our breaches of God’s Laws, our provocations 
 of His Displeasure, we need something more than this to 
 establish our hearts in peace before him. And this He has 
 
 c 
 
10 
 
 given us in Christ; and, if the Mind that was in Christ he 
 ours, He gives it also even now in all our ministry of love to 
 one another. Each man or woman or child, who helps to bear 
 another’s burden, and so fulfils the law of Christ, — every 
 true Christian who goes forth daily in God’s Name, fdled 
 with 1 1 is Spirit, to cast some bread upon the waters, to 
 speak some word of truth or do some act of brotherly-love 
 — those above all, who in different paths of duty are 
 patiently, courageously, “ bearing the cross,” enduring 
 hardships for love’s sake, “ laying down their lives for the 
 brethren” — all these are witnessing, each in his measure, of 
 the Father’s Favor and Forgiveness to all — are assuring us 
 that, however sinful in ourselves, we are yet accounted 
 righteous before God — are dealt with as children — as “ sons 
 and daughters of the Lord Almighty.” 
 
 (ii) But God has provided for us also in this way 
 “ Sanctification,” says the apostle. We have now the 
 strongest possible motives to holiness of life. M e know that 
 God loves us and cares for us — that He has called us with a 
 holy calling, in order that we may be conformed to II is 
 Likeness — that lie has set before us an Image of that per- 
 fection in the life of Jesus our Lord, and sets before us now 
 a thousand bright examples of what true men and women 
 should he, in the lives of those who have gone before us, or 
 who are treading with us the path of life. And we know 
 also that His Spirit is with us now, as it was with the holy 
 men of old, by whose gracious influences our souls are daily 
 quickened, checked in the thought of evil, prompted to what 
 is good. Shall wc grieve our Heavenly Father anymore by 
 continuance in what we know to be wrong? Shall we not 
 strive to be “ followers of God as dear children ” ? Since 
 He has reconciled us to Himself by II is Messages of Love, 
 shall we not lift up our hearts with holy joy and thankful- 
 ness, and be reconciled to Him — be at-onc with the Blessed 
 God ? 
 
 (iii) Yes! for we have also “ Redemption ” provided for 
 us in the Gospel of Christ — complete deliverance from the 
 power of evil. M T e can conquer our besetting sins in the 
 strength of this faith. Though often foiled in the struggle, 
 heart-sore, it may be, at times, and weary, yet, assured of 
 God’s Fatherly Love, of God’s ever-present help, we can 
 arise again, and strive, until we shall beat down our enemy 
 under our feet. And then, in the sense of our own deliver- 
 
n 
 
 anee, wo shall lon»»* to lend a helping hand to others in the 
 great conflict. Instead of being ourselves the thralls ami 
 slaves of sin, we shall stand up in the joyous freedom ol 
 God’s children, and go forth at 1 1 is bidding to liberate 
 others — to break the iron fetters of sin and ignorance — to 
 bring light to those that sit in darkness — “ to set at liberty 
 them that are bruised, to pieach the acceptable year of the 
 Lord.” 
 
 Thus ‘ all things are of God,’ all Love, all strength, all 
 Messing — whose “ Wisdom” has provided for us in the Gos- 
 pel “ Righteousness, and Sanctification, and Redemption.” 
 Wherefore “ let him that glorieth glory in the Lord.” Let 
 us put all our trust in Him — in 1 1 is Love for us — not in 
 our Creeds and Rites and Formularies — not in our Books, 
 even the Best of Books — not in our Minister, our Sect, our 
 Church — hut in the Living God Himself who truly loves 
 us. And let us hope that, as the only M ise God our 
 Saviour — the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ — 
 his Father and our Father — his God and our God — is better 
 known, more worthily adored, among the children of men, 
 a wider, more comprehensive, charity will at last he found 
 among us — so that all minor differences, all varieties in 
 our modes of worship, even in our articles of belief, will be 
 deemed of infinitely less importance than that common 
 bond of faith and love, which binds us all to the footsteps of 
 His Throne. There are sigus, we trust, even now, of the 
 increase of this spirit in the great religious movement of 
 the present age, notwithstanding the doubts and fears of 
 many, the opposition of some, the occasional bursts of 
 violence with which it must needs be accompanied. There 
 are signs that a brighter day is beaming on mankind than 
 the world has yet seen — of a day when the true Christian 
 spirit shall reign among us, the spirit that embraces lovingly 
 all truth, all goodness, wherever it is found,— under the 
 influence of which human teachers, prophets, messengers, 
 will be lost sight of, forgotten, in their message, in the 
 glory they reflect from Him in whose name they come, and 
 men will say no more, “ I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, 
 and 1 am of Cephas,” for their whole souls shall be at-one 
 with Christ — shall lie full of God. 
 
A SERMON 
 
 Preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter’s, Maritzul k 
 On Sunday Morning, September i), 18GG, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 RIGHT REVEREND THE LORD BISHOP OF NATAL. 
 
 Gal.u. 14,15 . — But Gocl 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. For in Christ 
 Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncir- 
 cumcision, but a new creature. 
 
 It is a temptation, to which all religious teachers are exposed, 
 to wish their converts to make what St. Paul calls in the 
 words before the text “ a fair show in the flesh,” — such as 
 may do them and their teaching credit in the eyes of the 
 world, more especially of the religious world. It seems 
 excusable, natural, even right and commendable, in many 
 cases, to aim at this. Jlow are the alms of the faithful to 
 be obtained for religious purposes, for the support of 
 ministers, for the support of missions, unless men see some 
 practical results, decent and orderly congregations, flourish- 
 ing schools, prosperous communities ? Yes ! man looks, and 
 must look, very much on the outward appearance. For that 
 part of our work, therefore, which depends on man, we 
 must, perhaps, consult appearances : we must wish, and 
 rightly wish, to make some “ show in the flesh.” 
 
 But there is, notwithstanding, danger in this : for appear- 
 ances are proverbially deceitful; and to aim at them is 
 almost inevitably to shoot far wide of the mark which we 
 ought to have had in view. Large and attentive congrega- 
 tions — liberal contributions for Church purposes — punctual 
 observance of Church ceremonies — full numbers at flic com- 
 munion — arc not in themselves sure signs that Cod’s work 
 
is being done among a people. The only eertaiu evidence 
 of this is the growth of a Christian spirit among them — the 
 spirit of selfsacritiee — the spirit of meekness and charity — 
 the spirit which urges men on to the faithful discharge of 
 their daily duty amidst all difficulties and discouragements, 
 - — the spirit that makes them long for the truth for the 
 truth’s sake, — the spirit that can welcome toil and suffering, 
 yea, the layiug down, if needful, of life itself, for the sake of 
 the brethren, — in one word, the spirit described in the text, 
 that glories in nothing — 
 
 “ save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified 
 unto it, and it unto the world.” 
 
 Those teachers and preachers who followed St. Paul 
 among the Galatian churches, anxious that their converts 
 should be known to all the world as the worshippers of 
 Jehovah, the God of Israel, — anxious especially that the 
 Jewish Church should admit them into its ranks, that so 
 their old ancestral faith might be more abundantly glorified, 
 — compelled them, we are told, to be circumcised. This 
 rite, which the Jewish people regarded as Divine, as the 
 sign of their national covenant with God, was indeed 
 unmeaning to these Gentiles, who had had another covenant 
 preached to them, wide as the earth, embracing every child 
 of man within its gracious provisions. But what then ? 
 They would seem in this way, by submitting to this rite, to 
 make a more emphatic and unmistakeable protest against 
 the Paganism which surrounded them: they would also be 
 more acceptable to the Mother Church at Jerusalem, which 
 was still bound very strongly to t he fetters of Judaism. 
 Their teachers would be able to point exultingly to them, 
 as witnesses to the triumphant effect of their labours, 
 which had brought these heathen to accept the Messiah of 
 the Jewish Nation as their prophet, to become Jews in fact, 
 with all their exclusiveness, under the name of Christians. 
 
 But see how the apostle scatters indignantly to the winds 
 these fair pretences, though they seemed to have the spread 
 of Christianity, the welfare and increase of the Church, for 
 their motive and apology. “ God forbid that I should 
 glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” — save 
 in that which is to the Jew a stumbling-block and to the 
 Greek foolishness ! Circumcision, for a Gentile convert to 
 Christianity, lie says in effect, is a lie. The Cross of Christ 
 — the exhibition to the world of faith and love made perfect 
 
I>y suffering — of the entire filial confidence of the Son of 
 Man in his Heavenly Father — the meek acceptance of shame 
 and suffering, of death itself, for the sake of the truth, — 
 this is the open way into the presence of God, — open to all 
 of us, who will follow our Lord,- — open to the humblest and 
 lowest, as well as to the highest, — to the despised and 
 ignorant heathen, as well as to the proud, selfrighteous 
 Jew and the learned Greek,— a way not to be closed up 
 again by rites and ceremonies, by the claims of a law which 
 had been done away, for all God’s children everywhere, by 
 the law of love. No half-measures will suit our fervent 
 apostle. A Jew himself — a Hebrew of the Hebrews — 
 brought up in the straitest sect of the Pharisees— he now 
 exclaims : — 
 
 “ ltehold, I Paul say unto you, that, if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit 
 you nothing. For I testify again, to every man that is circumcised, that he is 
 a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of none effect unto you, 
 whosoever of you are justified by the law : ye are fallen from grace. For in 
 Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircunicisiou : but 
 faith which worketh by love.” 
 
 A principle was here involved: circumcision was represented 
 as a means of admission into God’s nearer presence, from 
 which the uncireumeised were excluded; even as baptism is 
 now regarded by some within the Christian Church, instead 
 of being looked upon as a sign of fellowship with Christ, a 
 pledge of taking up the cross with him, who lived and died 
 that he might declare God’s LoveAo us all. Away with it 
 then ! said St. Paul : it has become an idol : it pretends to 
 limit the free grace of God, which the Cross of Christ pro- 
 claims. And if St. Paul had lived in these days, he would 
 in like manner — not indeed have abolished baptism, because 
 in its true meaning it never was exclusive, but was meant 
 to be a sign of the Kingdom of God set up upon the earth, a 
 witness of the good tidings sent for all mankind, of the 
 Gospel preached to every creature, — but he would have pro- 
 tested against its being used, as many have used it, and still 
 do use it, as well as the other Sacrament, to limit God’s 
 Love, to bar the way into His Presence. 
 
 “ In Christ Jesus,” he says, “ neither circumcision 
 availeth anything nor uncireumcision, but a new creature,” 
 or, in the parallel passage, “ but faith working by love.” 
 Neit her the reception of some out ward rite, t he performance 
 of some eeremnnv, nor yet, on the other hand, as sortie in 
 our days seem to imagine, t he mere protest against such 
 
rites when they have become perverted, when they have 
 been made into idols, — neither Catholicism nor Protestant- 
 ism, neither Rome nor Luther, — avail anything, but faith 
 alone, that faith which was in Christ, that faith of which 
 the symbol is the Cross, “ faith working by live,” re- 
 moving the mountains of human perverseness, unquenched 
 amidst the many waters of sorrow and of suffering, conquer- 
 ing by patience, triumphant in death, t hat “ faith working 
 by love,” which St. Paul himself exhibited so brightly ” 
 when he said — 
 
 “ We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed ; we are perplexed, but 
 not in despair — persecuted, but not forsaken — cast down, but not destroyed; 
 always bearing about in tbe body tbe dying of the Lord Jesus, that the lilo 
 also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal tlcsh.” 
 
 This “ faith ” — this doctrine of the cross, as the Christ- 
 ian’s watchword — was totally dill’erent from the national 
 expectation of (he Jews, of the coming of an earthly king 
 with great pomp and glory, who should tread flic nations 
 under his feet, and raise them to posts of special honour in 
 his kingdom. It was so new to the Jewish people — that 
 they stood aghast at it, as something monstrous. J 5 u t those 
 who received it, who drank in this Divine teaching, and 
 followed Christ as their Lord and Leader in the battle of 
 life, — these felt that a new day had risen upon their souls, 
 — felt that through him they had found a Father, — felt 
 that in him their Father was speaking to them, — felt that 
 their one great work in this world was now to follow his 
 example, and by daily labour and toil and suffering, if need 
 be, by death, to show forth their Father’s Love to all. 
 
 For not by any of those vague, though grand, expressions, 
 which yet we must use if we would speak of God in our 
 imperfect words, do we come into 1 1 is Presence. “ Omni- 
 potence ” - — “ Omnipresence” — “ Omniscience” — these 
 attributes of the Divine Being arc indisputable: but with 
 our feeble intellects we cannot realise them. Even tbe 
 sublime words, “God is Light ! God is Love!” express 
 ideas too vast and great for our minds to grasp. No ! not 
 in mere abstract words or notions is God truly revealed to 
 us, — not in the definitions of a creed is His Glory and 1 1 is 
 Goodness set forth. He conies to us in the Son of Man, 
 full of warm human feeling, blessing the little ones, loving 
 with more than mother’s tenderest love that angel in the 
 helpless babe, which that God-given, God-revealing, mother’s 
 love would die for. He comes to us in him — in Jesus our 
 
It) 
 
 Lord — pitying and helping the sorrowful, the sufferer, pity- 
 ing still and calling back the wanderer, the lost, — teaching 
 the ignorant, — warning the careless, — only stern to the 
 selfish and inhuman, to the hard, proud, selfrighteous 
 Pharisee, the dcspiser of his brethren. Herein is Love — 
 not that we found out the Hidden God, came forward into 
 II is Presence, and brought our hearts and offerings to the 
 feet of the Creator and Sustainer of all this glorious universe 
 — but that He loved us, and in the Son of Man displayed 
 to us II is own Excellencies, showed us the Love and Truth 
 of the Father who dwelt in him, exhibited to us glimpses of 
 that perfection, of that Divine Human Perfection, of what 
 Humanity is when truly one with the Divine, with which 
 the Father is well pleased, for the sake of which our sins 
 and our shortcomings are pardoned and past by. And we 
 too as followers of Christ must each in our measure seek to 
 reflect something of that bright image of our Father’s 
 glory, as “ broken lights ” of Him from whom we draw our 
 birth, striving to be righteous as He is righteous, true as 
 He is true, holy as He is holy — yes, and loving as He is 
 loving — setting the Cross of Christ before us as the symbol 
 of our own lives, since by that our Lord and Master sealed 
 his witness of God’s Love to us. 
 
 But let us consider a little more closely the actual words 
 of St. Paul in the text. 
 
 “ In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, 
 hut a new creature.” 
 
 In another passage he shows us what lie means by this 
 expression, a “ new creature,” or a “ new creation,” where 
 he says, — 
 
 “ Therefore if any man he in Christ, he is a new creature, or there is a new 
 creation : old things arc passed away ; behold ! all tilings are become new.” 
 
 (i) The doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of the Cross, 
 sets a new life before us. It is no longer unmeaning, pur- 
 poseless, as if we were put here, merely like insects of a 
 day, to flutter our wings in the sunshine and die, or perhaps 
 have our little lives cut short by some midday storm, while 
 yet it is high noon. The recollection of that Cross of Jesus 
 — borne not only as he trod the way to Calvary, but borne 
 in spirit by him his whole life long — reminds us that we 
 are not here for our own pleasure, or without an object, but 
 for work — for labour and toil, and, if need be, for suffering. 
 We know how an eminent writer of our own day lias 
 
17 
 
 employed his masterly pen in describing the lovely scenes 
 in which our Saviour’s childhood and youth were passed — 
 has told us how he must have looked out upon the beautiful 
 hills of Galilee, and drunk in the peaceful joy of nature as 
 he gazed, and steeped his spirit in calm and quiet repose. 
 u Such, above all,” says Dean Stanley, “ is Nazareth.” 
 
 Fifteen gently rounded hills seem as if they had met to form an enclosure 
 for this peaceful basin ; they rise round it, like the edge of a shell, to guard it 
 from intrusion. It is a rich and beautiful field in the midst of these green 
 hills — abounding in gay flowers, in fig-trees, small gardens, hedges of the 
 prickly pear ; and the dense rich grass affords an abundant pasture. The 
 expression of the old topographer was as happy as it is poetical — ‘ Nazareth is 
 a rose, and, like a rose, has the same rounded form, enclosed by mountains as 
 the flower by its leaves.’ . . . These are the natural features, which for nearly 
 thirty years met the almost daily view of Him, who “ increased in wisdom and 
 stature ” within this beautiful seclusion. Sinai and Palestine. p.3C5. 
 
 It might have been what the world would call a happy lot 
 to have remained in that peaceful home — never to have 
 come down from those hills to the bustling scene by the 
 Lake of Gennesarelh, to mingle with its crowds, to draw 
 the multitudes around him, to find a sphere for his words 
 and works of mercy, to begin that ministry of love for God, 
 of love for his brethren, which should lead him to the crown 
 of thorns, the scourge, the cross. But his Father’s call was 
 heard in his heart, and he obeyed it : he “ came not to do 
 his own will but the Will of Him that sent him, and to 
 finish His work.” He went forth, at that word, — 
 
 ‘‘ to preach the Gospel to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to preach 
 deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind ” — 
 
 to bear witness to the truth, aud, after a life of faithful, 
 loving labour, to suffer and to die. 
 
 And I say, my brethren, he has taught us thus to take a 
 new view of life — as a time for work, not for pleasure or 
 repose. There were moments, no doubt, when Ms spirit 
 was refreshed amidst his daily toils with the sight of the 
 blue sky above and the green hills around him, with the 
 tokens of his Father’s presence on every side, and the 
 assurance which they gave that those who lose — at God’s 
 command and in the path of duty — the full enjoyment here 
 of all this glory and beauty, shall save it unto Life Eternal, 
 shall have the lon^ino'S of their nature satisfied in the world 
 beyond the grave. And the same refreshment will God 
 give us, from time to time, as we go about our daily duties. 
 But the symbol of our life is the cross — a work to be done 
 — a labour to be carried through — a course to be run — a 
 
 D 
 
IS 
 
 fight to be fought — looking for none of earth’s rewards — 
 content whether God in His Wisdom gives or withholds 
 them — looking only for that “ crown of righteousness,” the 
 reward of a faithful life, which “ the Lord, the righteous 
 Judge, shall give at that day.” 
 
 Does this sound enthusiastic and romantic? Yet it is 
 the very faith which “ overcomes the world,” as St. John 
 says, — the faith by which, as St. Paul tells us in the text, 
 “ the world is crucified unto us and we unto the world.” 
 It is the faith in which the noblest of our race have lived 
 and died, even those who knew not the name of him whose 
 cross they bore — like the good old man of Athens, of whom 
 we heard the other day, who spent his life in seeking to 
 enlighten, instruct, improve, his fellowraen, and had for his 
 reward on earth the cup of poison. But if this new view 
 of life, which is taught by the cross, seems to us extra- 
 vagant, wherein then are we Christians ? Wherein do we 
 differ from the materialist, the mere deist, the worshipper of 
 expediency, who, no doubt, finds a sober and just life, 
 relieved by a certain amount of kindness and sympathy for 
 those about him, the nearest way to ease of body and mind ? 
 Why do we talk about religion at all, what means our 
 worship, our yearning for another life beyond the grave, if 
 our code of duty culminates in self-interest? This is the 
 old Adam — the selfish nature — in whom we all die : there is 
 no hope of immortality here. The life of love, grounded on 
 the knowledge of the Blessed God, our Heavenly Father 
 and our Friend, the Father of our crucified Lord, is the life 
 in Christ, the second Adam, in whom we are all to be made 
 alive. 
 
 (ii) For, secondly, this knowledge of the Blessed God , our 
 Father and Friend, is part of the “ new creation ” — the new 
 state of things into which we are brought by the Gospel — 
 part of the revelation made to us by the Cross of Christ. 
 We might have thought that surely that Blessed one — that 
 dear Son of God, whose heart was full of filial love, and fer- 
 vent affection to all that was “ honest, just, pure, lovely, 
 and of good report,” — he who was never heard to strive nor 
 cry, “ nor did any man hear his voice in the streets,” — who 
 was meek and lowly, gentle and merciful, — who never broke 
 a bruised reed, nor quenched the smoking flame, — we might 
 have thought, I say, that one so dear as this to the Father’s 
 heart would have been spared those sorrows, those burdens 
 
I!) 
 
 and pains, which fall so justly to our lot, — would not have 
 been suffered to meet with disappointment and rejection, to 
 “ endure such contradiction of sinners against himself,” to 
 “ resist unto blood, striving against sin.” We might 
 rather have thought that some Divine Help would have 
 been given him to overcome the unruly spirits of men — to 
 crush them into subjection — to bring down their stubborn- 
 ness — to do away their unbelief. But, we know, it was not 
 so. The holy and loving one was despised and rejected of 
 men, — was scorned and scouted, scoffed at, spitted at, — was 
 all his life long a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, 
 and in his hour of death forsaken and alone. It was the 
 Father’s Will that by that death upon the cross the work of 
 his life should be consummated, and the triumph be won, — 
 that not by the power of mighty works, not by the storm, 
 aud the earthquake, and the fire, should the Gospel spread 
 and the kingdom of God be set up ou earth, but by the still 
 small voice of the “ truth spoken in love.” 
 
 And shall the disciple be above his lord? Must not we 
 expect, must not we be willing, — if we take up the cross, as 
 the symbol of our faith, — to witness the like result in our ex- 
 perience, and “ couut it not strange, as if some strange 
 thing happened unto us,” when, in the path of duty, trial 
 disappointment, contempt and opposition, meet us, and we 
 are made in our measure partakers of Christ’s sufferings — 
 
 “ who did no sin, neither was evil found in his mouth ; who, when he was 
 reviled, reviled not again ; when he suffered, he threatened not ; but committed 
 himself to Him that judgetli righteously, leaving us an example that we should 
 follow his steps ” ? 
 
 It is enough for us to know that God’s work will be done, 
 in us and by us, but done in H : s own way. Our business 
 is to sow the seed, leaving it to Him to give the increase, — 
 to “ cast our bread upon the waters,” whether we may find 
 it again speedily, or find it after many days, or find it not 
 at all in this life, but only in the life to come, when every 
 faithful deed on earth shall be remembered, and the lost 
 shall be found, gathered up in the garner of God. 
 
 (iii) But, lastly, the Cross of Christ teaches us another 
 Lesson — it throws a new light upon our relations to each 
 other. There have been many, we know, who have gone 
 out of this world to do, as they thought, their duty to God, 
 — who have cut themselves off from human ties of every 
 kind, from human fellowship, and have buried themselves iu 
 
20 
 
 privacy and solitude, that there, undisturbed by the world, 
 they might pour out their hearts to God in prayer, and 
 wash away their sins with tears of penitence. In our Lord’s 
 time, we know, there were such as these, of whom Neander 
 writes as follows, Ch. Hist. i. 59 : — - 
 
 About two centuries before the birth of Christ, there arose in the quiet 
 country, lying on the W. side of the Dead Sea, a society of piously disposed 
 men, who sought in these solitudes a refuge from reigning corruptions, from 
 the strifes of parties, and the storms and conflicts of the world. Their society 
 sprung up precisely as the monastic system did at a later period. They are 
 thus described by the elder Pliny. ‘ On the W. border of that lake dwell the 
 Essenes, a race entirely by themselves, and, beyond every other in the world, 
 deserving of wonder — men living in communion with nature — without wives, 
 without money. Every day their number is replenished by a new troop of 
 settlers, since they are much visited by those whom the reverses of fortune 
 have driven, tired of the world, to their modes of living. Thus happens, what 
 might seem incredible, that a community, in which no one is bom, yet con- 
 tinues to subsist through the lapse of centuries. So fruitful for them is 
 disgust of life in others. 
 
 But ‘ disgust of life 5 is not wbat we are taught by the 
 Cross of Christ. Without wishing to judge those, who in 
 that and later days have had recourse to monastic seclusion, 
 as a refuge from the world, as the best means of preparing 
 themselves for heaven, yet this is not what the Cross of 
 Jesus teaches, or what St. Paul learned at its foot. Doubt- 
 less, our Lord might have retired to that quiet shore, might 
 have fed his soul there with holy and peaceful thoughts, 
 might have had sweet “ communion wtth nature,” and 
 kindly intercourse with his fellow-hermits. And St. Paul 
 might have done the same: and 'they would both, humanly 
 speaking, have escaped thereby a painful life and a bloody 
 death. But the Cross of Christ teaches us another Lesson 
 than this — that we must not go out of the world, to find a 
 refuge from its griefs or its temptations, or to make our- 
 selves ready for heaven. It teaches vis that we are not 
 placed here to seek the selfish end of securing our own 
 quiet, or of saving our own souls, — if, indeed, true peace 
 can be gained, or the soul’s highest welfare won — its “ sal- 
 vation worked out,” as St. Paul says — in this way. It 
 teaches us that we are not to shrink from our duties — not 
 to avoid our fellowmen — not to abandon them. Bather, it 
 teaches us that we have work to do among them, — that 
 God will have us go forth with the word of truth upon our 
 lips, and faith, hope, and love, possessing our hearts, to do 
 pur Father’s Will in the world, to serve our brethren, to 
 spend and be spent, and, if need be, lay down our lives for 
 
21 
 
 them. Often, no doubt, it might he very pleasant for us to 
 withdraw from stations of danger and difficulty, to forsake 
 the post which God has given us to keep for him in the 
 battle-field of life, and retire to the silken tent of ease — 
 carrying with us, however, the bitter consciousness that we 
 have been unfaithful to our duty, false to the cause of truth, 
 false to the Master whose name we bear, false to that Cross 
 on which he died, and the sign of which was set on our 
 brow. But it must not be so. When God indeed gives us 
 the signal, by some act of his Providence, or by some stroke 
 of sickness, — it may be, the stroke of death, — to retire from 
 the field, we wdl bow to Ilis Divine Decree, assured that 
 the battle will be won, and the victory gained, without our 
 further labour. But till then, we are bound to be true and 
 faithful, even unto death — “ in the work of faith, and labour 
 of love, and patience of hope ” — whatever be the special 
 course of duty, to which our God in His Wisdom has called 
 us. Meanwhile, from time to time, let us meet, whenever 
 we are summoned, around the Sacred Table, and renew 
 those vows which were laid upon us at our Baptism — pledg- 
 ing ourselves to stand firm together, foot to foot, shoulder 
 to shoulder, as soldiers of Christ — taking there that bread 
 and wine which are the symbols of his body that was 
 broken, and his blood that was shed, as a sign that we 
 too expect the cross before the crown. 
 
A SERMON 
 
 Preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter’s, Maritzburg, 
 On Sunday Evening, August 26, 1866, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 RIGHT REVEREND THE LORD BISHOP OF NATAL. 
 
 1 John iii. 16. — Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he 
 laid down his life for us ; and we ought to lay down our 
 lives for the brethren. 
 
 If you look at this text in your Bibles, you will see that 
 the words “ of God ” are printed in italics, to show that 
 they are not in the original Greek. Our English translators 
 have supplied these words from the Latin Vulgate, in 
 which they occur: but, by inserting them, they have quite 
 perverted the writer’s meaning, and spoiled the whole 
 sense of the passage. “ Herein is love,” says the apostle, 
 or whoever it was that wrote this* epistle — “ Herein is an 
 evidence of the most true, unselfish, love, in that he, Christ 
 Jesus, laid down his life for us : and we ought also to lay 
 down our lives for the brethren.” As it reads in the 
 English Version, many would suppose that it was meant to 
 say , — “ Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He 
 (God) laid down His Life for us” — which, of course, we 
 know to be impossible, since God is ever-living: He cannot 
 lay down His Life, that Life Eternal, by which all beings 
 exist. 
 
 That you may not suppose that this view of the text is a 
 mere explanation of mine, a novelty of the present day, 1 
 will quote the words of one of the most orthodox modern 
 commentaries on this point, (Webster and Wilkinson, Gr. 
 Test. ii. p.729) : — 
 
 fn this wc recognize and understand love, we experience the true influence 
 and power of perfect love, — not “ the love of God," not " his love — Christ's 
 love — to us,” but— love in the abstract, what love is. 
 
Yet surely the tlealh of Jesus did manifest the Love of 
 God to man, and not his death only but his whole life, so 
 far as the records of it have come down to ns. In that 
 biography of Christ, which we have in the Gospels, frag- 
 mentary though it be and imperfect, yet supplemented by the 
 love and faith of Christendom, — of the many, who through 
 so many centuries have recognized in the Son of Man their 
 King and Lord, their Teacher and Mediator to bring them 
 near to God, their Guide to the Father, their Leader in the 
 battle of life, we see the witness of the Father’s Love 
 throughout going forth towards Ilis children in countless 
 words and deeds of tender pity, of the Father who “ dwelt 
 in him,” of the Father whose Work and Will lie did in the 
 world, of the Father whose message he brought to the sons 
 of men. Too many of our brethren, we know, are sunk in 
 sin, degraded from that high ideal of perfect humanity 
 which is the Image of God. We might doubt the testimony 
 which any of these , in their best moments, might give to us 
 in loving words and acts, even acts of the greatest self- 
 sacrifice, of the Love of God towards us, — though that Love 
 would be the real spring after all of theirs. But here was 
 one who was most dear to God, who trusted in God and 
 loved Him absolutely, in whom the Father was well pleased, 
 who in calling God his Father spoke the very truth. And 
 yet for our sakes, in witnessing to us the Love of God, that 
 Father did not screen his soul from death, that violent and 
 shameful death which his testimony to the truth, his minis- 
 try of love, brought upon him. That death God willed as 
 the needful seal to his testimony ; it was the clearest, 
 brightest sign of that burning Love, that Divine Love, 
 which possessed his whole being. And it bound all his 
 immediate disciples together in a passionate devotion as to 
 one, who had laid down his life for the service of men and 
 in submission to the Will of God. It bound them also to a 
 life of love, of self-sacrifice, of labour and longing to bring 
 all men everywhere to acknowledge the Crucified as Lord 
 and Master, to sit at his feet, to listen to his teaching, to 
 drink into his spirit, to take his yoke upon them and learn 
 of him. His law, they felt, the law of self-sacrificing love, 
 was the law of true human life, in its fruits surpassing 
 infinitely the hard, self-sufficing, self-glorifying virtue of 
 the Pagan world. In his character they beheld a revelation 
 of God, far transcending anything which had visited the 
 
mind of saint or sage, whether in the heathen world, or in 
 the old Jewish dispensation. He had taught them, not by- 
 words alone, but by his own life and death, that God, in 
 whose Name, by whose Command, through whose Spirit, 
 he spoke and suffered, is Love, — not Mercy alone, not Pity 
 merely, not calm passive Benevolence, — but that Love — 
 that active, burning, soul-devouring Love — which man can 
 only express by suffering, by dying. 
 
 It passes, indeed, our power to conceive how a creature 
 like man — ignorant, weak, erring, unfaithful, often stained 
 with foul deeds of sin — can be an object of Love to the 
 Infinite Absolute Being. But we know that true human 
 love, an act of the will issuing in selfsacrifice, is the highest, 
 noblest thing in man. We are sure, therefore, that this 
 must be a faint shadow — true, though faint — of Him who 
 is the Fountain of all that is good, of all true being in the 
 world of spirit. And, without attempting to sound the 
 mystery of the Divine Nature, we joyfully acknowledge 
 that our God is Love — that — 
 
 “ herein is Love, not that we loved God but that God loved us, and sent His 
 Son to be the propitiation for our sins,” — 
 
 sent him to be an offering, pure and holy, in his life and in 
 his death, for the sake of all, that he might manifest God’s 
 Love to all, that he might minister in life, and seal in death, 
 that truth which was the heritage of all. 
 
 And God’s Spirit too, will ena'ble us also, each in our 
 measure, to show forth the mind that was in Christ, to be 
 followers of Christ, to “ lay down our lives for the brethren.” 
 The sacred writer uses here, as elsewhere, repeatedly, the 
 very same language to express what true Christians, each 
 in their measure, must do, as he uses to express what Christ 
 himself has done. If he “ laid down his life for us,” on 
 behalf of us, so must we “ lay down our lives for the 
 brethren ” ; and so shall we also, each in our measure, be 
 manifesting love — true love — Divine Love — the Love of 
 God, which dwells in us — to man. 
 
 “ Hereby know we that we dwell in God, and God in us, because lie hath 
 given us of His Spirit. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one 
 another, God dwclleth in us, and His Love is perfected in us. Ueloved, if 
 God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” 
 
 Who can be good, who can show forth the Goodness of 
 God before men and angels, but by the power of that Divine 
 Spirit, who can be traced only by Ilis elfects, Ilis workings, 
 
1 »y all tilings ami thoughts, which are good, lovely, atul 
 pure? When our Lord was preparing his diseiples to 
 appear before kings and rulers for his sake, we remember 
 how he exhorted them not to take anxious thought as to 
 what they should say, as if so much depended upon the 
 judgment of their fellowmen, and the sentences which ihey 
 might pass upon them. He bade them to cast aside self- 
 consciousness, to forget themselves in their mission, to 
 speak simply and boldly what they believed. For then, 
 said he, “ it is not ye who speak, but the Spirit of your 
 Father that speaketh in you.” Jesus our Lord himself, we 
 know, was singularly free from all self- exaltation ; though 
 he magnified his office us the true Messiah of Israel, the 
 Messenger of Cod “ Why callest thou me good?” he 
 said to one: “ there is none good but One, that is God.” 
 “ Who made me a judge and divider over you?” he said to 
 another. And to the woman, who called down blessings on 
 his mother for his sake, he replied, “ Yea, rather, blessed are 
 they that hear the Word of God and keep it ! ” 1 1 is word 
 
 was continually : — 
 
 “ My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me.” “ He that sent me is 
 true, and l speak to the world those things w hich I have heard of Him.” “ I 
 do nothing of myself; but, as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.” 
 “ My meat is to do the Will of Him that sent me and to finish His work.” 
 
 And the same Spirit, which inspired him, inspires also 
 the humblest of his followers. It is the filial spirit, which 
 says, “ Abba, Father ! ” — which prays that the Father’s Will 
 may be done, 1 1 is Name hallowed, Ilis Kingdom come, 
 amongst the children of men, — which in every follower of 
 the Crucified, who lays down bis life, or perhaps what is 
 dearer than life, for the sake of conscience, for the sake of 
 the truth, for the sake of his fellowmen, shows forth the 
 true character of Him by whose Spirit he is actuated, the 
 Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Love. 
 
 In this way every true Christian, to use the words of 
 St. Paul, — 
 
 “ fills up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ for his body's sane, 
 which is the Church” — 
 
 yea, for the sake of the whole family of man, whose nature 
 he shared, and whom he has called his brethren. In this 
 way, the whole body of redeemed humanity, by the power 
 of the indwelling Word, is offering unto God continually 
 “ a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,” the service 
 
2G 
 
 of reasonable creatures, — the sacrifice of self for the good of 
 others, of selfwill subdued to the AVill of God, of the flesh 
 subdued to the spirit, — a sacrifice offered not without sorrow 
 and pain, not without a share in the cross, not without lay- 
 ing down of life in some way or other. 
 
 For death is not by any means always in itself the 
 greatest act of selfsacrifice. A momentary flash of heroism, 
 in an otherwise feeble character, may arm some to face 
 willingly, for a great end, the pang, short, though it may be 
 sharp, which separates soul and body. In the case of Jesus, 
 the “ sorrows of death” were indeed aggravated in many 
 ways. The treachery of his friends, the desertion of that 
 people who had so lately crowded round him with eager 
 enthusiasm, the charge of blasphemy brought against one 
 so pious, so pure, so humble, and doubtless fully believed in 
 by many of the devout souls of that time, the malefactor’s 
 end for one who had called so many from the error of their 
 ways, the consciousness of the utter disappointment for the 
 present of such fond hopes as had been fixed on him, — all 
 these things, added to cruel bodily pains, to mental prostra- 
 tion, to spiritual desolation, when that sense of his utter 
 loneliness came over him, as he hung upon the cross, reviled, 
 rejected, the scorn of men and the outcast of the people, 
 and that bitter cry was forced from his lips, “ My God, my 
 God, why hast Thou forsaken me ! ” — must have filled up 
 Ids cup to the brim, and he drank it — he drank it, and, in 
 his dying love, showed forth the Love of God to us. 
 
 Yet the fact of death is often not painful, and death itself 
 is but the gate of life for those, who can with him commend 
 their spirit into their Father’s hands. It is that daily 
 dying, of which St. Paul speaks, and of which our Lord’s 
 passion on the cross was to him but the consummation, 
 which is the most prolonged, the most perfect, sacrifice. 
 Often, indeed, arc men called upon actually at God’s com- 
 mand — that is, from a sense of duty — to “ lay down their 
 lives for their brethren,” — called upon, not as to do some 
 exceptional act, but simply as men,— in the battle-field for 
 instance, where the soldier will not desert his standard, 
 though it leads him into the very jaws of a cruel death, lie, 
 may, indeed, do this from mere animal courage : lie may do 
 it from a desire of human praise, and the admiration or 
 rewards which may be the just meed of his bravery. But, 
 if he docs it from a sense of duty, as a servant of the Queen, 
 
a servant of God, because lie feels that to shrink from death 
 in the hour of danger would be to be false and faithless to 
 those who have trusted him, he acts as a true follower of Christ, 
 and like him, too, in dying he shows forth the Love of God, 
 “ while he lays down his life for his brethren.” Thousands, 
 again, there are who risk their lives at sea for the sake of 
 others — some, indeed, whom habit has long made callous to 
 danger, but more whom choice or necessity binds to their 
 lot, as the means of livelihood, — for whom to face the dangers 
 of the sea is their duty, their calling, and they would be 
 untrue to themselves to shirk them. Others there are who 
 are laying down their lives in thg mission-field, a field so 
 much despised and sneered at, yet thank God not yet 
 deserted, — rather, full of labourers. Some of these, no doubt, 
 may be feeble, inefficient, ignorant, unwise, — may be seek- 
 ing their own, while seeming to seek the good of the flock, 
 — may be seeking to secure their own comfort and dignity, to 
 extend their own system, to establish their own Church, to 
 force old traditions, in which they have themselves been 
 trained, upon the untaught native mind, instead of furnish- 
 ing the truth, the bread of life. But most of them, by 
 their very presence amidst a heathen population, by their 
 absence from their native land, are testifying that God’s 
 Love is working in the hearts of men at home, that the 
 Church of Christ remembers still his commission to teach 
 all nations, — that command which is indeed the fitting sup- 
 plement to his own teaching concerning the Father, that 
 He was seeking “ in every nation” spiritual worshippers, — to 
 his teaching which broke down the middle-wall of partition 
 between Jews and Gentiles, claiming them all for children 
 of God. Another age, we trust, may see missionary labours 
 among the heathen more successful, because carried on in a 
 larger, nobler spirit, because more wisely guided. Mean- 
 while, the true missionary spirit, which leaves home and 
 country, friends and prospects, for the sake of blessing those 
 who sit in darkness with the light of life, is a most essential 
 feature of Christianity, is a standing witness against the 
 selfishness of human nature, a witness for the universality 
 of the Love of God. 
 
 But, without leaving England, without leaving home, 
 wherever that may he, there are calls innumerable to “ lav- 
 down our lives,” to live a life which is a daily dying, for 
 God’s sake, that is, lor the sake of man. How much 
 
28 
 
 wretchedness there still is in our mother land, unremedied, 
 unsoothed, alas ! uncared for ! Advanced civilization, and 
 its sure consequence a crowded population, seems to have 
 brought heathen darkness, and misery which savage lands 
 known nothing of, close to the doors of those who inherit the 
 intellectual light, the wealth and culture, of all the ages. 
 But there go the home-missionary, the Scripture-reader, the 
 district-visitor, the sister of mercy, into the midst of con- 
 tagious disease, of depravity, of ferocity, to carry hope and 
 help and comfort and teaching to those who are God’s 
 children as well as they. And is not theirs a “ laying- 
 down of life for the brethren ” ? 
 
 Yet neither the soldier nor the sailor, nor, let us hope, 
 the missionary at home or abroad, thinks of himself as 
 something heroic or extraordinary, thinks of himself other- 
 wise than as an unprofitable servant, who has done but 
 what it was his duty to do. And so, we see, the doctrine of 
 the cross is, after all, the true teaching for man. To refuse 
 to take up the cross, when it meets us in the path of duty, 
 and to bear it patiently, after the example of our Lord and 
 Elder Brother, is to be untrue to ourselves, to our proper 
 humanity. 
 
 In the most ordinary times these things have been done, 
 and will be. But extraordinary times, we know, have 
 arisen in the history of mankind, when, from the first ages 
 of Christianity downwards, martyrs have sealed their testi- 
 mony with their blood. Times have been, — and they may 
 come again, — when unusual fortitude was required of those 
 who lived by faith, to wdiom the truth which had been revealed 
 to them concerning God was something so real and precious, 
 that they were willing to suffer anything rather than deny 
 it, rather than not proclaim it. Such was the fate of pro- 
 phets all through the course of Israel’s history. Such was 
 the fate of Jesus himself, and of his first witnesses at 
 Jerusalem and at Rome, and of the multitudes who would 
 not worship Caesar nor “say that Jtsus Christ was ana- 
 thema,” to save themselves from the lions. Such has 
 been the fate of countless multitudes, alas! all through the 
 course of the Church’s history ; she has slain her prophets, 
 even as Israel did of old. As soon as any one has laid hold 
 of some new truth with earnestness, and preached it, and 
 spoken it with realising fervour, the cry of heresy has been 
 raised against him. The truth, lying buried in creeds, and 
 
articles, and conventional phrases, was harmless. It shook 
 oir no crust of abuse which had gathered round it : it inter- 
 fered with no custom however corrupt, which had grown up 
 alongside of it. But let this same truth, like a sharp two- 
 edged sword, be carried home by God’s Spirit to the heart 
 of a living man, even as the doctrine of the forgiveness of 
 sins was to that of Luther; and how does that man spring 
 up with a new life ! The fire cannot be restrained that burns 
 within him ; it breaks out and blazes round him, lighting 
 up the dark places in the popular creed, showing the dark 
 practices, the evils and falsehoods, that were hid beneath 
 the gloom. How, then, are those terrified, who are afraid 
 of change, — who have no real trust in the Living God, but 
 fear lest, when their idols are broken, the heavens and the 
 earth should fall upon their heads and give way under their 
 feet! How are those irritated and disgusted, who care 
 nothing for truth, as truth, but are well satisfied with the 
 present state of things, and are saying to their souls, “ Soul, 
 take thine ease ! ” 
 
 But not in Judiea, not even in Christendom alone, have 
 there been martyrs for the truth. The Spirit of Christ has 
 been in the world all along, confined by neither place nor 
 time. Last Sunday I spoke of certain sects of philosophers 
 at Athens in St. Paul’s time — the Stoics and Epicureans, 
 with whom he disputed. But, centuries before St. Paul 
 stood upon Mars’ Hill, an Athenian had lived and died, 
 who lived and died to teach his fellowmen, and to witness 
 for the truth of his own teaching, — to teach that the limits 
 of our knowledge are indeed narrow, that to know our own 
 ignorance is not the first step, but a great achievement, in 
 wisdom, — yet at the same time to teach most complete trust 
 and affiance in the Divine Being so dimly apprehended, the 
 most entire submission to the Divine Will and Wisdom, 
 contempt of the world, contempt of death. That man, as 
 you know, was Socrates, of whose life and teaching, and of 
 whose most touching death for the truth’s sake, we have 
 such deeply interesting records left us in the writings of his 
 two disciples, Plato and Xenophon. 
 
 I quoted last Sunday some words of Athenagoras, who 
 lived about the year a.d. 170, wherein he rccoguized that 
 Plato and Aristotle, and other Greek philosophers and poets, 
 were under the teaching of the Spirit of God, and defended 
 himself and Christians generally from the charge of being 
 
 O V O C5 
 
30 
 
 atheists, because they believed in One Living God, by 
 alleging that these philosophers did the very same. Justin 
 Martyr also, who lived about thirty years before him, says — 
 
 ‘ The whole race of man partakes of the Logos or Word, the Universal 
 Reason ; and therefore those who live by Reason are in some sort Christians, 
 notwithstanding that they may pass with you for atheists ; such among the 
 Greeks were Socrates, Heraclitus, and the like. So, on the other hand, those, 
 who have lived in defiance of Reason, were unChristian and enemies to the 
 Logos; but they, who make Reason the rule of their actions, are Christians. 
 
 Clement of Alexandria, who lived about 50 years later, yet 
 still before the end of the second century, writes as follows 
 (1 Strom.vii) : — 
 
 * This philosophy they received from the fertilising influence of the Logos or 
 Divine Wisdom, which descended at the same time upon the Jews, giving 
 them the Law and the Prophets, and upon the Gentiles, giving them Philo- 
 sophy, like the rain which falls upon the house-tops, as well as in the fields.’ 
 
 And in another place he writes (6 Strom.xvii): 
 
 ‘ All virtuous thoughts are imparted by Divine Inspiration ; and that cannot 
 be evil, or of evil origin, which tends to produce good. The Greek Philosophy 
 has this virtuous tendency ; therefore the Greek Philosophy is good. And 
 God is the author of all good ; but the Greek Philosophy is good ; therefore 
 the Greek Philosophy is from God. It follows that the Law was given to the 
 Jews, and Philosophy to the Greeks, until the Advent of our Lord.' 
 
 By Greek Philosophy these writers meant more expressly 
 the Platonic Philosophy, which was taught in the schools of 
 Alexandria, and of which they had all three been students. 
 You will have felt how much the language used by them 
 reminds us of that of the Fourth^ Gospel, in which Gospel, 
 and in the epistles ascribed to St. John, as well as in Uie 
 Epistle to the Hebrews, we find, as I have before now had 
 occasion to show, very plain intimations that the writer, like 
 these Christian Fathers, was strongly tinctured with the 
 tenets, and accustomed to use the terms, of that Philosophy. 
 
 You will see, however, how justly these Fathers spoke of 
 the “ Greek Philosophy being from God,” — at h'ast in some 
 of its main particulars, — if I quote a few of the principles 
 laid down by Plato in his works, such as the following: — 
 
 That there is but One God, that, we ought to love and serve Him, and to 
 endeavour to resemble Him in holiness and righteousness, that this God rewards 
 humility and punishes pride ; 
 
 That the true happiness of man consists in being united to God, and his only 
 misery in being separated from him ; 
 
 That the soul is mere darkness unless it be illuminated by God; that men 
 arc incapable even of praying well, unless God teaches them that prayer, which 
 alone can be useful to them ; 
 
 That there is nothing solid and substantial but piety, that this is the source 
 of virtues, and that it is the gift of God ; 
 
 That it is better to die than sin ; 
 
That we ought continually to be learning to die, and yet to endure lift in 
 obedience to God ; 
 
 That it is a crime to hurt our enemies, and revenge ourselves for the injuries 
 we have received. 
 
 That it is better to suffer wrong than to do it ; 
 
 That God is the sole cause of good, and cannot be the cause of evil, which 
 always proceeds only from our disobedience, and the ill use we make of our 
 liberty ; 
 
 That self-love produces that discord and division, which reign among men 
 and are th£ cause of their sins ; while the love of our neighbours, which proceeds 
 from the love of God as its principle, produces that sacred union which makes 
 families, republics, and kingdoms happy ; 
 
 That the soul is immortal, — that the dead shall live again, — that there shall 
 he a final judgment both of the righteous and the wicked, who shall appear only 
 with their virtues or vices, which shall be the occasion of their eternal happiness 
 or misery. Dacier's Plato, Iutrod. Discourse. 
 
 But there is one passage in Plato’s works (Rep. ii.5), 
 which I will quote in his own words, as they illustrate very 
 forcibly the subject of this evening’s discourse. If a per- 
 fectly good man, he says, were to appear in the world, — 
 
 just, simple-minded, largehearted, one who desires less to seem than really to 
 be good, — 
 
 his fate would he to find so much opposition in the world, 
 that he would be — 
 
 scourged, tortured, fettered, and in fine suffer all manner of evil, and be 
 crucified, — 
 
 by men, who, though in reality corrupt and wicked, would 
 yet pass for righteous men. How remarkably this predic- 
 tion of Plato was fulfilled four centuries afterwards in the 
 sufferings of Christ, we cannot help seeing. But in truth 
 it was fulfilled in a measure in the ease of his master 
 Socrates himself, of whose teaching the Platonic Philosophy 
 was but the development and full expression. 
 
 At the age of seventy Socrates was brought to trial at 
 the bar of Athens on a charge of “ not honouring the Gods 
 whom the state honoured, and of corrupting also the young 
 men.” This accusation was based upon these three facts: — 
 
 (i) That he rose above the idolatrous notions of his 
 contrymen, and realised the existence of one Living and 
 True God ; 
 
 (ii) That he believed himself continually under the 
 direction of a kind of guardian angel, which lie called his 
 ihemon, that is, his divine spirit, by which he was guided in 
 difficulty, and instructed what to do, and what not to do; 
 
 (iii) That he spent his whole life in free discourse with 
 any who came to him, seeking, by discussions on subjects of 
 all kinds which happened to be raised before him, to deepen 
 
within them a true piety, a true luvc of what is right aiul 
 good and true, for its own sake, without any regard to its 
 consequences. 
 
 Well might Xenophon say : — 
 
 I wonder how the Athenians ever came to he persuaded that Socrates had 
 not right views about the Gods, who never said and never did anything impious 
 with respect to the Gods, but was always saying and doing such things as 
 became the most pious of men. 
 
 But the power of calumny was too great at that moment; 
 and, after defending himself in a speech of exquisite candour 
 and simplicity, the old man was condemned, by a majority 
 of six only out of 556 judges, to drink the poison of hemlock 
 and die. I will quote the closing words of his address to 
 the judges, when his sentence had been announced to him. 
 
 You too, my judges, ought to meet death with good hopes, as being persuaded 
 of this certain truth, that a good man needs fear no evil either in this life or in 
 the life to come, and his affairs are not neglected by the gods. Nor has this, 
 which has now happened to me, come upon us by chance; but I am convinced 
 that it was best for me now to die, and be freed from the troubles of life, 
 lienee it was that the spirit-sign did not divert me to day from the course 
 which I pursued. And I for my part feel no resentment whatever against 
 those who have condemned and accused me ; although they did not intend me 
 this benefit by condemning and accusing me, but expected to injure me ; and 
 in this I think they were worthy of blame. It is time now that we should 
 separate, I to die, you to live : but which of us is going on the best expedition 
 is known only to God. 
 
 Such was the end of Soerates, one of those who has been 
 called a Christian before Christ, and a Martyr, if any ever 
 was, for the cause of truth, — one who “ laid down his life,” 
 not only at the last, but in lifelong labour, “ for his bre- 
 thren.” Shall I read to you the account of another martyr- 
 dom, of a heathen too, like Socrates, who died for the cause 
 of truth, four centuries after Christ, as Socrates four cen- 
 turies before him, but who was put to death, not under the 
 forms of a Court of Justice, hut by the brutal ferocity of a 
 mob calling itself Christian, instigated, or at least en- 
 couraged, it must be feared, by a Christian Bishop, Cyril of 
 Alexandria. You have most of you probably read the 
 account of the death of Hypatia, to which I referred last 
 Sunday, in one of the most powerful novels of the present 
 day. But I will read to you the simple story of her fate as it 
 stands recorded, a melancholy instance of the horrible frenzy 
 of religious fanaticism, in the annals of the time composed 
 by the ecclesiastical historian Socrates, who lived in that age. 
 
 There was a woman at Alexandria named Ilypatia, daughter of the philoso- 
 pher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far 
 
surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school 
 of l’lato and l’hotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her 
 hearers, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions. 
 Such was her self-possession and ease of manner, arising from the refinement 
 and cultivation of her mind, that she not unfrequently appeared in public in 
 presence of the magistrates, without ever losing in an assembly of men that 
 dignified modesty of deportment for which she was conspicuous, and which 
 gained for her universal respect and admiration. Yet even she fell a victim 
 to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For, as she had frequent 
 interviews with Orestes, the Governor, it was calumniously reported among 
 the Christian populace, that it was by her influence he was prevented from 
 being reconciled to Cyril. Some of them, therefore, hurried away by a fierce 
 and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, entered into a 
 conspiracy against her, and, observing her returning home in her carriage, they 
 dragged her from it, and carried her to the church called CiEsareum, where 
 they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with oyster-shells. 
 After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called 
 Cinaron, and there burnt them. An act so inhuman could not fail to bring 
 the greatest opprobrium not only upon Cyril, but also upon the whole Alexan- 
 drian Church. And surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity 
 than the allowance of massacres, lights, and transactions of that sort. 
 
 Such is the account of this Christian historian ; and the 
 preceding chapter gives some additional facts, which throw 
 light upon the cause of the difference between Cyril and 
 Orestes, and, upon the character of Cyril. The writer says : — 
 
 Some of the monks inhabiting the mountains of Nitria, of a very fiery 
 disposition, being again transported with an ardent zeal, resolved to fight 
 valiantly on behalf of Cyril. About 500 of them, therefore, quitting their 
 monasteries, came into the city ; and, meeting the prefect Orestes in his chariot, 
 they called him a Pagan idolater, and applied to him many other abusive 
 epithets. One of them, named Ammonius, threw a stone at Orestes, which 
 struck him on the head, and covered him with blood. All the guards, with a 
 few exceptions, fled, fearing to be stoned to death. But the populace, among 
 whom the fugitive guards had mingled, running to the rescue of the governor, 
 put the rest of the monks to flight, and, having secured Ammonius, delivered him 
 up to the prefect. Orestes immediately put him publicly to the torture, which 
 was inflicted with such severity, that he died under the effects of it. Cyril, on 
 the other hand, causing the body of Ammonius to be deposited in a certain 
 church, gave him the new name of ‘ Admirable,’ ordering him to be enrolled 
 among the martyrs, and eulogizing his magnanimity, as that of one who had 
 fallen in a conflict in defence of piety. This approval of Ammonius, on the 
 part of Cyril, met with no sympathy on the part of the more soberminded 
 Christians : for they well knew that he had suffered the punishment due to his 
 temerity, and had not lost his life under the torture because he would not deny 
 Christ. 
 
 Such then was Hypatia, such the monks, and such was 
 Cyril of Alexandria. And can we doubt which of these was 
 the truest Christian, which lived most truly in the spirit of 
 Christ, this overbearing prelate, these bigoted bloodthirsty 
 monks, or this modest philosopher, teaching diligently that 
 which she believed to be the truth, and practising, as best 
 she could, in a virtuous life, the precepts which she taught? 
 
 F 
 
31 
 
 But this lesson remains for us all, as taught hy the 
 example of so many of our brethren in every age — as taught 
 by these heathen philosophers, — by martyrs and confessors, 
 — by prophets and apostles, — above all, by the Son of Man 
 himself, — that the disciple of Christ must not expect — 
 must not desire — to be above his Lord. If we will be true 
 Christians, if we will be faithful to our duty in any sphere 
 of life, if we will act on higher principles than those which 
 the world and worldly-minded Christians acknowledge, if 
 we will bear witness for God and the Truth, we must share 
 the cross, and be ready, if need be, to lay down our life, or 
 what makes life dear, for the sake of the brethren. As a 
 Bishop of our Church has lately said in the House of Con- 
 vocation (Bishop Wilberforce), — 
 
 The history of Christ’s Churoh shows us this, that the truth has only been 
 maintained to this day by men venturing into danger to maintain it, — setting 
 the maintenance of fundamental truth above every possible circumstance not 
 of absolute exigency. It is by risking something for the Lord that His Truth 
 has been, and must be, maintained on this earth. 
 
A SERMON 
 
 Preached in the Cathedral Chcrcii of Sr. Peter’s, Maritzbvkc, 
 On Sunday Evening, August 5, 1SG6, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 EIGHT REVEREND THE LORD BISHOP OF NATAL. 
 
 Ps.xxvii. 10,11. — When my father and my mother forsake me, 
 then the Lord mil take me up. Teach me Thy way, 0 
 Lord, and lead me in a plain path because of mine 
 enemies. 
 
 This is one of the many passages of the Old Testament, 
 which make us feel that the Gospel of Christ was not 
 altogether a strange doctrine to those who first heard it — 
 that his teaching concerning the Father, however it might 
 transcend in clearness and fulness the old faith, bore yet the 
 same relation to it as the noontide to the dawn. That God, 
 his heavenly Father, of whom he spake to them, was the 
 same God whom their Fathers had known; and that God 
 had been a Father to men ; this, at least, had been the 
 aspect in which He had appeared to those that feared Him. 
 “ Doubtless,” said the Prophet of old, Is.lxiii.16 — 
 
 “ Doubtless, Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and 
 Israel acknowledge us not; thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer; Thy 
 Name is from everlasting.” 
 
 And He appeared thus to them because He was so, — 
 because He is the true and Living God, the Faithful Creator, 
 who will not, nay, who caDnot lie, — who cannot prove false 
 to His own gracious promises, made by that still-small 
 voice which witnesses for God within us, — who cannot 
 deceive us by wakening in us longing desires after Him 
 which He does not mean to satisfy, — who cannot disappoint 
 the expectations, which His own Spirit has begotten in us, 
 which His own creative work has expressly formed and fitted 
 
36 
 
 us for cherishing towards the Author of our Being, by 
 giving us that human nature which we share together, with 
 all its tender feelings, affections, sympathies, — in one word, 
 by making us know the heart of a parent. 
 
 Some, indeed, there are, who are continually warning us 
 against the deceitfulness of our own hearts, against trusting 
 to their plainest utterances, against placing our reliance on 
 any voice that comes from within, from the depths of our 
 own inner being. And there is a sense, no doubt, in which 
 our hearts are “ deceitful,” when they persuade us to yield 
 to our own sinful inclinations, whether to indulge in what 
 we know and feel to be positive sin, or, far more frequently, 
 to shrink from what we know to be our positive duty, to 
 shrink weakly from the pain or sorrow, which may fall to 
 our lot in that path of duty, — from the pain, amongst 
 others, which accompanies doubt, from that which some feel 
 to be such a very painful labour, the labour of thought. 
 Yes ! often the ‘ deceitfulness, ’ the ‘ desperate wickedness,’ 
 of the human heart may persuade us to believe that we are 
 right in taking the smooth and easy path, trodden by the 
 multitude in matters of religion, — to spare ourselves the 
 trouble and pain, from within and from without, of search- 
 ing after truth, of proving all things that we may hold fast 
 that which is really good and true, — may make us take for 
 truth what we wish to be true, for right what we like to do. 
 But there is a voice speaking in every heart which is not 
 deceitful : it is the voice of God Himself. To deny it, is to 
 accuse Him of misleading us, of leaving us in the dark as 
 to our duty before Him. For though God may bless us — 
 though, as we fully believe, He has blessed us — with a 
 revelation from without, as in the pages of the Bible, or in 
 the teaching of His prophets, the Good and True, of every 
 age, — yet we can only know such external revelation to be 
 Divine, so far as it accords with, however much it may sur- 
 pass in strength and power, that inner revelation, which He 
 makes by 11 is Spirit within us, — in the secrets of our own 
 spiritual being. External revelation is the same voice of God, 
 which we hear in our own hearts, as it has been heard bj r 
 our fellowmen, whether in past ages or in the present, lie 
 may have taught some more freely than He has taught us ; 
 the Voice may have said more, or may have said it more 
 clearly and powerfully : but assuredly lie has taught them 
 nothing contradictory to that which He is now teaching us. 
 
37 
 
 From the beginning, then, the instinct of man’s heart 
 lias been to cling to his Creator as the Father of spirits. 
 Perhaps for this very reason the overwhelming immensity 
 of the material Universe may have been left so long shrouded 
 in mystery, that so the faith in a Personal God, and in 
 Man’s relation to Him as a child, might have time to root 
 itself deep in humanity, and grow high and strong, sending 
 its branches into all the earth, and more or less imbuing, if 
 not indeed creating, the literature of every people. Not 
 indeed that an enlarged acquaintance with the Works of 
 God in Nature, when viewed in the Light of Reason, 
 exhibits anything to contradict a living faith in a Personal 
 God, which is the real strength of our spirits’ life. But the 
 grand results of Modern Science, — the immeasureable exten- 
 sion of the age of the earth, — the unutterable vastness of the 
 heavenly host, their size, their numbers, — the awful void 
 between two separate points of star-dust, which seem to 
 uninstructed eyes in closest contiguity, — nay, the infinite 
 profusion of life which the microscope reveals to us, the 
 wonders on wonders of creative wisdom displayed in the 
 construction of the minutest animalcule, the fact that a few 
 drops of water may be seen to contain a universe of living 
 beings, each according to its kind, full of energy and 
 activity, — such truths as these, brought vividly home to 
 our minds, are quite overwhelmning to the imagination. 
 “ When I consider the heavens,” said the Hebrew Psalmist — 
 
 “ The work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, 
 what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou 
 visitest him ? ” 
 
 What might he have said or thought, if there had flashed 
 upon him suddenly the knowledge, which we have acquired, 
 by slow degrees, about the starry host ? 
 
 But we need not ascend into heaven, nor dive into the 
 depths of hell, to find our God. The word is “ very nigh 
 us.” The nearest friends and guardians of our infancy tell 
 us of Him — tell us of our Father. Not man alone, but all 
 things are provided for by God, in the instinctive love and 
 pity of parents for their offspring while it needs their care. 
 What a new discovery to the human parent is this feeling, 
 when first it comes, this feeling of tender compassionate 
 love for the helpless infant ! Surely, it is not human virtue 
 or wisdom that produces it : it comes by no effort of mind, 
 no sense of duty : it is a gift from the Heavenly Father. 
 
38 
 
 It is so, because He wills it, because be cared for us before 
 we were boru, and in His tenderness and love provided thus 
 for us. 
 
 But more than this. It is the free outflowing of that 
 nature which God has given us, to be the faint reflection of 
 His own. The parent’s love is not only the Creator’s wise 
 and gracious provision for the child ; it is the very image 
 to the child of the Creator’s Love, that Love which gave it 
 birth. Nay ! He has expressly fitted the love of parents to 
 show forth His own Fatherly Love to us. Parents stand 
 at first in God’s place to their little-ones. And, when they 
 are first able to receive the idea of a Heavenly Father, it is 
 formed in their minds on the pattern of what they have 
 found their earthly parents to be. Wisdom and Tenderness, 
 Governance and Protection, they know in their measure by 
 experience ; and so they learn to ascribe them to One 
 Unseen, the Maker of heaven and earth. Happy children, 
 who have had this first lesson written in fair unblotted 
 characters upon the first page of their life’s history ! And 
 thrice unhappy parents, whose children cannot think, at 
 least, of goodness and of tenderness, without their early 
 days recurring to them as a time when for them such things 
 were not ! 
 
 But the best of fathers and mothers are with us only for 
 a time — not for the whole term of our earthly pilgirmage 
 The same wise and kind Providence, which placed them by 
 our cradle, and left them with us through our early life, calls 
 them most often home, long before our own time for 
 departure comes. This is, as we say, “ in the course of 
 nature that is, more properly speaking, it is as He, who 
 is the Author of Nature and the Father of spirits, has 
 ordained it. It seems fitting, natural, inevitable, that one 
 generation should pass away and another come, in order to 
 the progress of the species. At all events, so it is, and 
 therefore it must be best. But, looking at the individual 
 as an immortal spirit, to be trained here by God’s Spirit for 
 a more perfect state, through all outward things as media, 
 we can at least think we sec the wisdom of the arrangement, 
 which consigns one generation, if not to the grave, at any 
 rate to comparative inactivity, that the next, which it has 
 reared and cherished, should be left to independent life and 
 action. 
 
 “ When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." 
 
30 
 
 It is hard to nature, it is painful to the surviving children, 
 when death takes away from their midst those whom they 
 love and reverence. But must it not he a special call to 
 them to look to Him who ever lives and reigns, and who 
 calls them 1 1 is children in the Gospel? We “live by faith,” 
 says the apostle. Our true life is in that which is unseen : 
 and thus we may interpret all our temporal losses into 
 gains. Who are those who know what it is to he ‘ taken 
 up ’ by the Lord, but those whom the failure of earthly 
 hopes and confidences has taught to look above this world 
 for comfort — to lean the more heavily upon the Everlasting 
 Arm, when other supports have been withdrawn from them ? 
 
 We cannot help seeiug that orphans, great as is their 
 loss, arc more tenderly cared for by the common charity of 
 Christians than any other class. It is a real fruit of Chris- 
 tianity, of his teaching, who was ever leading the minds of 
 his disciples to his Father and their Father, that they, who 
 truly “say that Jesus Christ is Lord,” should bear specially 
 in mind the duties which they owe, as sons and daughters 
 of the Common Father of all, to bereaved and destitute 
 children, — that, when “ father and mother” fail or forsake 
 their little-ones, they in the name of the Lord should “ take 
 them up.” Yet such labours of love, though quickened 
 and enforced by the spirit of the Christian religion, are not 
 peculiar to it. The Deuteronomist of old had enjoined all 
 faithful Israelites, again and again, to “ remember the 
 stranger, the widow, and the fatherless,” to let them share 
 in their feasts and rejoice in their happiness, and to bear in 
 mind also that “ the Lord their God, the God of gods and 
 Lord of lords, the Great God, the mighty and the terrible,” 
 who “ regardeth not persons nor taketh reward,” — 
 
 “ He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and lovetli the 
 stranger, in giving him food and raiment.” 
 
 But, in truth, in every nation, Jewish, Christian, Mahome- 
 dan, or Heathen, this primary instinct of our Humanity — 
 and because of our true Humanity, therefore also of our 
 Christianity — has more or less clearly developed itself. 
 And those, in whom the Living Word was speaking, — in 
 whose hearts that Light was shining, which is the true 
 Life of men, — have felt a sacred call — not the less Divine, 
 because most truly human — to show forth a fatherly care 
 and compassion to the orphan. In this way, by first 
 implanting, and then quickening these human feelings in 
 
40 
 
 us, the Lord “ taketli up ” those, whom death has deprived 
 ot' their natural guardians, that were meant to represent 
 the Heavenly Father to them. And for those whom not 
 death, but vice, has deprived of parents, — the vice, I mean, 
 of the parents themselves, making those who should have 
 been their guardians their cruel tyrants, those who should 
 have led them upwards into the light, the means of throw- 
 ing them down into darkness and the tyranny of evil, — 
 though we cannot see, we yet earnestly believe, that God 
 will do all things well, — that “ the son shall not bear the 
 iniquity of the father,” — that by means beyond our know- 
 ledge, by processes beyond our comprehension, in this world 
 or in the next, the righteous and merciful Lord will “ take 
 them up.” 
 
 But Pai’ents, in the sense of Protectors, may forsake or ' 
 fail us. Even the best of parents are powerless to protect 
 their children from many sorrows, many temptations, many 
 evils, — however gladly, were it possible, they would even lay 
 down their own lives for their loved ones. Or they may 
 not be wise : they may even fail in sympathy, in insight 
 into their children’s hearts: they may not know how to 
 help them. Or God may have called their sons or daughters 
 to tread some higher path, which their own feet have never 
 trodden, to enter on painful and difficult duties, of which 
 they themselves have had no experience. Nay, we have 
 most of us felt, as we grew in years, and became more and 
 more involved in the active work of life, that parents, 
 though still living, could render but little help to us in the 
 way by which the hand of God’s Providence has led us, — 
 that they could not relieve us from our own weight of 
 responsibility, — from the burden of toil and care, which we 
 must bear, as living men and women, — from the trials by 
 which our own spirits must be disciplined, and trained here 
 on earth for the kingdom of God. 
 
 In all such cases, where the earthly parent fails, our 
 Heavenly Father’s Presence more than suffices for all our 
 needs. ‘ Is anything too hard for the Lord?’ No sorrow 
 can come without His permission, who makes all things 
 “ work together for good to those who love Him.” There 
 is no hidden depth in any heart, whieh His searching Eye 
 does not penetrate : there is no secret path that we are 
 taking, which He does not know. He may lead us by a 
 way which we know not — by which we had never dreamed 
 
41 
 
 of going. But, if we lean upon His arm we shall go safely 
 through it, and find that His Promise has not failed us. 
 And if the way be dark, so dark, that we cannot see, as it 
 were, His Presence near us, and we cannot even feel for a 
 time His guiding hand, yet surely He is there, in the dark- 
 ness as well as in the light. Then we must learn to say, 
 with Job of old, xxiii.8-10, — 
 
 “ Behold ! I go forward, but he is not there ; 
 
 And backward, hut I cannot perceive Him ; 
 
 On the left hand, where He doth work, but 1 cannot behold Him; 
 
 He hideth Himself on the right hand that I cannot see Him ; 
 
 But He knoweth the way that I take ; 
 
 When He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold." 
 
 But, again, we may lose the love even of our parents by our 
 own fault. May we? Is it not almost impossible? Can 
 a parent ever really refuse forgiveness, refuse to open his 
 arms to the returning prodigal, however far he may have 
 strayed, however deeply he may have fallen, however much 
 he may have become degraded ? Hardly, I think, unless the 
 spring of true parent’s love within the heart has been over- 
 grown and choked with the weeds of pride and selfishness. 
 And in this our father and mother represent more com- 
 pletely to us than anything else can do the Infinite Mercy 
 and Pity of God. And so the Psalmist says in the text, 
 “When my father and mother forsake me,” — in that 
 extreme, almost inconceivable case , — “ then shall the Lord 
 take me up.” 
 
 But when they — our parents — our nearest and dearest 
 ones — those who knew us best — are gone, it is not so hard, 
 so impossible, to lose the friendship, the favour of our pro- 
 tectors, our relations, our benefactors. If we by our folly 
 disgrace them, perhaps they would feel relieved from any 
 further charge concerning us ; for the sake of others, they 
 may deem that it is their duty to cast us out, and leave us 
 to our fate. 
 
 It is not thus with Him who is “ of purer eyes than to 
 look upon iniquity,” — to whom all moral pollution must be 
 more offensive than to the most exalted human being. 
 “ He knows our frame; He remembers that we are but 
 dust.” He looks upon us also as redeemed creatures, — who 
 have been quickened with the Word of Life, — who have been 
 sealed, as children, with the Spirit of Grace. And “ the 
 gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” Though 
 He chasten and correct us, lie will not give us over unto 
 
 G 
 
death. “All souls are mine,” saitli the Lord: and when 
 the dearest earthly friends forsake us, and abandon our case 
 as hopeless and incurable, then the Lord will take us up, — 
 will take us, it may be, for sore judgment, for heavy chastise- 
 ment, but He will not cast us quite away. Yet consider, O 
 sinner, what bitter anguish thou art laying up for thyself 
 by continuing in sin ! Consider, further, what certain loss 
 thou art incurring, through all the ages of eternity, by 
 wilfully persisting in known evil, — what sears thou art 
 leaving on thy conscience, — what dire recollections within 
 thy memory ! Consider, once more, if a spark of gracious 
 feeling lingers within thee, how thou art insulting the 
 Blessed God and Father of all, by preferring the husks 
 which the swine do eat to a return to His Presence ! 
 
 Lastly, we may lose the favour, if not of our natural 
 parents, yet of those friends to whom we have been used to 
 look for advice, support, encouragement, sympathy, even by 
 our own faithfulness, — by obeying some call of duty which 
 they do not hear, — by doing acts which seem to them foolish 
 or even wicked, though done, as wo believe, at God’s com- 
 mand, because we could not, as true-hearted men, do other- 
 wise, — by speaking truths which they do not welcome, 
 which come into collision with their opinions and prejudices. 
 We may lose them as friends ! Yes, we may transmute 
 them into violent and angry foes, who shall make us 
 offenders for a word, shall watch' to see when we stumble, 
 and rejoice at our falling, — yea, think they are even doing 
 God service, by finding occasion to overthrow us, by tread- 
 ing us down, if possible, and trampling us under their feet. 
 It was some trial, apparently, of this kind, to which the 
 Psalmist was exposed in the text, when he says — 
 
 Teach me Thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine 
 enemies, or, — rather, because of those who observe me, who mark my steps, 
 when they wait for my soul. Deliver me not over unto the will of mine 
 enemies : for false witnesses have risen up against me, and such as breathe 
 out cruelty. I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the Goodness of the 
 Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord ! be of good courage, and 
 he shall strengthen thine heart : wait, l say, on the Lord !” 
 
 But, if all the world were against us, we may go to our 
 Father in Heaven and say, ‘ Teach me Thy way ! * This is 
 all we need care about — to be in the way of duty — the 
 Lord’s way — the right path. Frail as we know ourselves 
 to be, it is a comfort to trust that He who is mighty will 
 watch over us, and, if we are sincere in our desire to serve 
 
43 
 
 Him, will hold up our goings lest we fall. Meanwhile, we 
 must go forward in our work, though friends may fail, and 
 those whom we revered and loved — whom we still revere 
 and love — forsake us. We must go forward at his bidding 
 who * came into the world that he might bear witness unto 
 the Truth,’ and who in his blessed life and death has taught 
 us, trusting in God, to do the same. We must each do our 
 part, as God in His Providence shall call us, to advance the 
 great work of the age in which we live. For our lot truly 
 has been east in a wondrous time, which is thus described in 
 the eloquent words of one of our great living statesmen, 
 which have just reached us: — 
 
 Not merely in physical science, and the universality of its application, is a 
 mighty change perceptible ; but in morals, in philosophy proper, and in religion 
 itself, we find the same distrust of mere dogmatic teaching, the same deter- 
 mination to ascertain what is actually true, the same fearless resolve to brave 
 tradition and assertion equally, when they teach an arrogant infallibility denied 
 to our finite nature, or when they exhibit an audacious spirit of denial still 
 more arrogant and senseless. To some the revolution may seem mournful, 
 because it has for ever banished the beautiful childlike faith of other days ; 
 and to those men this may seem an age of universal scepticism. On the con- 
 trary. it is an age of universal reverence for truth, and universal fearlessness in 
 the pursuit of that ever-receding beacon-light of humanity. It is a time of 
 unquiet, no doubt, because the old moorings, that bound people to dogmatic 
 creeds, are breaking, and men find themselves on the restless sea w hereon every 
 searcher for truth must journey. But the stars are overhead, and there is a 
 light cast upon the waters, that leads towards peace, towards home ! 
 

 
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