SERMONS
BIOGRAPHICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS

SERMONS
BIOGRAPHICAL & MISCELLANEOUS

BY THE LATE

BENJAMIN JOWETT, M.A.
MASTER OF BALLIOL COLLEGE

EDITED BY THB VERY REV. THE HON.
W. H. FREMANTLE, M.A.
DEAN OF RIPON

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1899

©*fot6
HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

PREFACE

THIS volume consists of two parts, according to
its title. The Biographies are very various in -the
characters they bring before us, the epochs to which
they belong, and the mode of treating them. Jowett
seems indeed to have intended to make a regular
series of such sermons, but he did not carry this
intention into effect. The sermons were produced
one by one as some great character struck his imagi
nation, or, in the case of contemporaries, as one and
another passed away. In some cases, as in the
sermon on Loyola, the life is embedded in reflexions ;
in others, as in that on Wycliffe or on Pascal, it is left
to tell its own tale. ' I do not think it desirable,' he
says, ' that we should be always drawing morals or
seeking for edification. Of great men it may be truly
said that it does us good only to look at them.' In
some cases incongruous personalities are brought into
juxtaposition by the time of their death, as in the
sermon on Archbishop Tait which is preceded by an
eulogy on Gambetta, or in the short appreciation of

vi PREFACE
Disraeli which is appended to the sermon on Loyola.
In one case he purposely brought together men so
different as Bunyan and Spinoza, in order to show
how the same spirit of truth might be working in
characters who would have been mutually repulsive.
The subjects of some of the sermons are intimate
friends like Stanley or Henry Smith, those of others
men strange to him in time and character. But they
show the width and depth of his sympathy with all
developments of goodness.
The sermons have been arranged, not in the order
in which they were preached, but historically; the
life of Wycliffe being the most ancient, and that of
Green the most modern of those treated.
The Miscellaneous Sermons have been selected
partly because of the impression which each is known
to have made on those who heard them, partly as
showing the range of the preacher's interests. The
first belongs to a time so remote as the year 1852,
and marks the epoch between the Tractarian and
the Liberal movements. It shows the new prob
lems then arising, and the steadiness with which
the preacher faced them. There is in it a thorough
acceptance of natural law in its widest sense, both
physical and social, combined with the power of
rising above it and making it subservient to
the higher spiritual life. Then come two sermons
on Church life ; one on ' Church parties,' viewed,
after the example of Baxter, from the stand-point of

PREFACE vii
calm old age ; the other on the Church, that is the
whole system of Christian institutions, which shows
a thorough sympathy with the Church system when
not pushed to extravagance, but made the true
reflexion of divine goodness.
Then follow two sermons, each in a category of its
own : that on War, a temperate answer to the well-
known sermon of Professor Mozley in which war was
defended as a necessary element even of the Christian
state : that on Courage, which is a discussion of the
idea of courage given by Aristotle, and shows the
elements added to this by Christian faith. This last
was intended to be one of a series on Aristotle's list
of virtues, but no other of the series was ever written.
Lastly, we have three which may be termed
sermons of the affections : the first, on family life,
in which the question of heredity is incidentally
discussed, and the making of the home, as well as
its use, is put forward as the object of endeavour ;
the second, a simple sermon to servants, one of
many which Jowett preached at a service instituted
by him on the first Sunday of each vacation. On
these occasions the College servants with their wives
came to the College chapel, and Jowett preached
and administered the Communion to them1. The
1 I may relate here an interesting story connected with
one of these occasions. Robert Browning, the poet, was
staying with Jowett a year or so before he died, and he had
long wished to hear him preach. Jowett, with his usual

viii PREFACE
last sermon is one preached at Alderley in 1867, for
Christmas and the New Year, a sermon in which
the memories of Arthur Stanley and his father (so
long and so usefully connected with the Church
there), and other members of the Stanley family, are
blended with personal reminiscences ; and full reins
are given to the happy domestic feelings and hopes
of the season.
The volume of College Sermons showed Jowett as
the wise Christian adviser of young men, the colleagues
and pupils among whom the work of his life was
done. The present volume will bring him before the
world as the citizen and Churchman of wide and
varied sympathies, reaching out to many times and
scenes, looking genially upon the world and its
interests, and laying the ground for the religious
developments of the future. It is hoped that a third,
volume, of Doctrinal Sermons, will exhibit his position
as a theologian. •
reticence, said nothing about the service, but slipped out for
an hour or so after breakfast, and on his return Browning
found to his great disappointment that he had missed the
occasion which he had so much desired. ' 1 am perfectly
indignant with him,' he said, half in jest, half in earnest;
' he does not treat me as a Christian. He will walk with
me and talk with me, eat with me and drink with me ; but
he won't pray with me.'

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. BIOGRAPHICAL SERMONS
SERMON PAGE
I. Isaiah xl. 3.
John Wycliffe . (Balliol, Nov. 13, 1881) 1
II. Heb. xi. 4.
Ignatius Loyola . (Balliol, April 24, 1881) 30
III. 2 Pet. i. 5.
JOHNBUNYAN AND BENEDICT SPINOZA
(Greyfriars, Edinburgh, Dec. 24, 1871) 44
IV. Ps. xxxvii. 25.
Richard Baxter (Westminster Abbey, July 4, 1891) 65
V. Wisdom iv. 13.
Blaise Pascal . (Balliol, May 22, 1881) 86
VI. Acts xiii. 36.
John Wesley . (Balliol, /<z#. 23, 1881) 108
VII. Heb.xi.4.
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley
(Balliol, Oct. 16, 1881) 130
VIII. Acts xiii. 36.
Canon Hugh Pearson
(Sonning, April 23, 1882) 152

x TABLE OF CONTENTS
SERMON PAGE
IX. Rev. xiv. 13.
Leon Gambetta and Archbishop Tait
(Balliol,/a«. 15, 1883) 170
X. John v. 35.
Professor Henry Smith (Balliol, April 15, 1883) 190
XI. 2 Sam. xii. 23.
Professor T. H. Green
(Balliol, April 16, 1882) 207
II. MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
I. Matt. x. 30.
Statistics and Faith
(St. Mary's, Oxford, Jan. 25, 1852) 227
II. 2 Cor. i. 12, 13.
Church Parties (Westminster Abbey, June 19, 1870) 253
(with addition on Charles Dickens.)
III. Gal. iv. 25, 26.
The Church, Past, Present, and Future
(Westminster Abbey, July, 1883) 276
IV. Luke xiv. 31, 32 ; and Isa. ii. 4.
War . (St. Lawrence, Jewry, March, 1885) 299
V. Ps. xxxi. 24.
Courage . . (Balliol, Jan, 20, 1884) 320
VI. Ps. cxxxiii. I.
Ecce, quam bonum ! (Balliol, April 28, 1892) 338
VII. Eph. vi. 5-9.
Servants . . . (Balliol, Undated) 348
VIII. 2 Cor. v. 17.
Christmas and New Year (Alderley, 1867) 356

BIOGRAPHICAL SERMONS

I. JOHN WYCLIFFE1.
THE VOICE OF HIM THAT CRIETH IN THE WILDER
NESS, PREPARE YE THE WAY OF THE LORD.
Isaiah xl. 3.
There is a great interest in belonging to an ancient
institution. The members of it are bound by a peculiar
tie to those who have gone before them ; they are in
a manner our spiritual ancestors ; if they had not been,
neither should we have been, and we are indebted to
them for more than we know. Without vanity we may
regard ourselves as belonging to an historical family
which has continued during many ages and which
numbers among its sons many distinguished and even
illustrious persons. Upon this spot, if not exactly
within these walls, for more than six hundred years,
one generation after another has studied, written,
conversed, meditated, prayed ; in this haven they
1 Preached in Balliol Chapel, Nov. 13, 1881.
B

2 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [i.
have witnessed the changes which have passed over
the English nation, in language, in politics, in
religion — which have passed over the University too —
since the foundation of the Colleges, from the turbu
lent democracy of the Middle Ages, to the cultivated
and quiet mode of life which prevails among ourselves,
of which change the altered form of our buildings
may be taken as a symbol. A few years ago I might
have said to you what might be equally said of most
country churches in England, that the walls of this
chapel had witnessed the mediaeval service of the
Mass, the worship of the Elizabethan Reformers, with
the Communion Table east and west, the Puritan
changes, the re-establishment of Anglicanism. It is
interesting also to contrast the permanence of an
Institution such as this College with the compara
tively transient character of some other religious
foundations. All through Europe the great Monastic
houses, the creation of St. Bruno, St. Bernard,
St. Francis, St. Dominic, have disappeared or are
disappearing, as they did in this island more than
300 years ago. But Colleges and Universities have
remained, for they had a link with the future, as well
as with the past. The royal lady who about the year
1265 first established this College, also founded in
Scotland a fair abbey in the valley of the Neith by
the sea. It is now only a beautiful ruin. But the
College which was created by her liberality, after
many vicissitudes,— great before the Reformation and

i.] WYCLIFFE AND FITZ RALPH 3
declining afterwards, — still exists, and has gained for
itself in the present century a new life and career
for which we have reason to be thankful.
There were some among those who preceded us
in this ancient home whom we should have rejoiced
to know personally, and whom we would fain recall
in the mind's eye. There were ' Reformers before
the Reformation,' themselves walking in twilight, yet
seeing a great light towards which they turned in the
distance. There were statesmen too, such as Duke
Humphrey of Gloucester, brother of King Henry V,
who built the Divinity schools, Archbishop Nevill,
Chancellor of England in the reign of King
Edward IV, the Earl of Worcester, Lord High
Treasurer, who was beheaded in 1471, Cardinal
Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor
of King Henry VII, the Lord Keeper Coventry in
James I's time : and there were others. Two students
of the last century we should also have gladly known,
Adam Smith complaining of the instruction which the
College afforded to him, Robert Southey in his Re
publican days, when he wore his hair cut short, as an
outward symbol of his revolutionary principles. Of
two of our far off ancestors I propose to speak to you
in this sermon. One of them is a name famous where-
ever the English language is spoken ; the other of
a somewhat earlier date, little known except to pro
fessed students of history, yet bearing unmistakeably
the stamp of a great man. B 2

4 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [i.
Richard Fitz Ralph, Archbishop of Armagh, called
also St. Richard of Dundalk, was a fellow of this
College, probably about the year 1300, as he became
Vice Chancellor of the University in the year 1333.
He was one of those great churchmen whose saintly
lives and force of character left a deep impression on
the English Church. He may be ranked with Brad-
wardine and Grosstete, both in different ways pre
cursors of the Reformation. In his own day he was
famous as a theologian and exerted a great influence
on writers of the next generation, by whom he is
often quoted. His writings are to be found in several
College Libraries (Merton, Magdalen, New College,
Lincoln), but they have never been printed. Hence
the comparative oblivion into which his name has
sunk. He retired to Avignon, where he died in 1360.
Some of his writings were lectures delivered in the
University of Oxford. In his day the national church
of Armenia spught to be reunited to the Catholic
Roman Church, and the Archbishop was induced in
consequence of this movement to write a ' Summa
Theologiae ' in which he reviewed the points of
difference between the two churches. But the more
important side of his work was practical rather than
theological. The great effort and struggle of his life
was directed against the Mendicant orders, founded
by St. Francis of Assisi about a century before, and
now grown into a political power which threatened
to be too much for the regular clergy. Against these

i. J WYCLIFFE AND FITZ RALPH 5
degenerate followers of St. Francis the Archbishop
lifts up his voice. Their poverty was converted into
riches, their humility had become a tyranny; they
force their way into houses and carry away the food
which they find there ; since they have had the
privilege of hearing confessions, they have built
everywhere beautiful monasteries and princely
palaces, while they will do nothing for the repair of
a road or of a bridge or of a parish church.
Two points in this controversy which he presses with
great earnestness are still of interest in our own day.
One is the evil of intrusion on the parochial minister
whose office is in danger of being superseded by the
wandering monk. They hear the confessions of per
sons about whom they know nothing (and who for
aught they know may be excommunicate) ; they
alienate the minister from his parishioners ; they entice
young men from the Universities into their orders ;
they kidnap children, a crime worse than cattle steal
ing : laymen are afraid to send their sons to Oxford
because of their acts. If it be said that the youngsters
whom they draw after them will serve God with all
the more devotion, and therefore it is allowable to
gain them by promises and lies, he replies that ' no
man should do evil that good may come ' ; the man-
stealing and the lie are both mortal sins. Another
point which was eagerly discussed in the fourteenth
century, and which still retains an interest for us, is
the merit of Apostolic poverty. Is the life of mendi-

6 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [i.
cancy a virtue ? Was begging permitted to Christian
men ? The begging friars asserted that Jesus Christ
was himself a beggar. To this the Archbishop in
eight sermons preached at St. Paul's, London, and
also in a treatise entitled ' De Paupertate Christi,'
replies that Jesus Christ during his sojourn on earth
was indeed always a poor man, but that he never
practised begging and never taught any man to beg :
rather he taught the contrary ; and no man can either
prudently or holily determine to follow a life of mendi
cancy. He also declares that begging was not a part
of the original rule of the Franciscans but a corruption
of it. With strange rapidity the followers of St. Fran
cis had left their first love, and while professing to
lead the higher life had sunk deep in the lower. In
this great struggle the Archbishop represents the
common sense, the order, the morality of the church
against spiritual enthusiasm easily degenerating into
licence, an antagonism which repeatedly occurs in
ecclesiastical htstory.
The character of St. Richard of Dundalk must
be gathered from his writings; for of his life there
is hardly anything recorded. One of the few
memorials of him which have survived relates to
this College. The fellows of that day about the
year 1325 wanted to study theology and the higher
sciences, and not merely to confine themselves to the
curricula of arts. After the dispute had raged among
them for some time it was agreed to leave the

i.] WYCLIFFE AND FITZ RALPH 7
decision with four referees, one of whom was ' Richard
Fitz Ralph quondam socius.' The decision of this
dispute was in the negative. The record of it is
still preserved in the College archives.
It has been thought that Richard Fitz Ralph was
the spiritual father of John Wycliffe — that they may
have been acquainted at this College — that Wycliffe
took up the conflict against the mendicants which
had been begun by the Archbishop. There is no
proof that they were personally known to each
other; their life at Balliol College must have been
separated by an interval of thirty or forty years;
and the struggle of Wycliffe against the mendicants
was commenced quite towards the end of his life,
and twenty years after Fitz Ralph's death. So little
truth is there in many critical combinations. The
life of Wycliffe in his own time became overgrown
with errors and misrepresentations. From such un
certain materials I shall endeavour to extract a few
undoubted facts and to give you some account of his
opinions. John Wycliffe, though a parish minister only, the
greatest of English churchmen, was born at Spress-
well near Wycliffe in Yorkshire, about the year
1320: the exact date is unknown — we can only
calculate backwards from the time of his death on
December 31, 1385, and we know from his own
statements that he reached old age. The period of
his greatest fame and activity was the last ten years

8 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [i.
of his life. He was Master of this College from the
year 1360 to 1366: in the latter year he resigned
the Mastership for the College living of Fillingham
in Lincolnshire, which he exchanged for Ludgershall
in 1374, and this again for Lutterworth, which he
retained until his death. It is a curious fact that
there were one or two other persons of the same
name among his contemporaries, John Wycliffe,
Fellow of Merton, and a John Wycliffe who was
Warden of Canterbury Hall. That the Master of
Balliol College was the Reformer is proved by the
near connection of the College with the place of
Wycliffe's birth ; as well as by the date of succession
to his livings, showing that the Rector of Filling-
ham was also the Rector of Lutterworth. That the
Reformer was not the Fellow of Merton is shown
by the improbability that the Fellows of Balliol would
in violation of their own statutes have elected Master
one who was not a Fellow of their own house,
or that, at a time when the two factions ran high
in the University, a northern College would have
chosen a head from a southern one. That the
Reformer was not the first Warden of Canterbury
Hall is I think conclusively proved by a slight but
curious circumstance: that Canterbury Hall was en
dowed with the tithes of Mayfield in Kent (at least
such was the intention of Archbishop Islip the
founder), and of this parish Mayfield in Kent another
John Wycliffe, probably the Fellow of Merton, was

i.] WYCLIFFE 9
the incumbent, The unlikelihood of this coincidence
seems far to outweigh the testimony of a malicious
opponent given about forty years afterwards. May-
field was the parish in which the Archbishop lived
and therefore the Rector of the parish would have
been personally known to him. Nor does it seem
likely that the Warden who appealed to the Pope
against his own expulsion about sixteen months
afterwards could have been our John Wycliffe.
So much for questions which have been greatly
discussed and are interesting from an antiquarian
point of view, but are not really important. It is far
more important to place before the mind the misery
and confusion of the age in which Wycliffe lived.
It was the age of the black death, in which half the
people of England perished. It was the age of the
peasant revolt, in which for the first time the villein
rose against the gentleman. It was the age of the
Papal Schism, in which one half of the world was
ready to make a crusade against the other half.
What wonder that at such a time a mind like that of
Wycliffe 's should have been stirred to examine the
very foundation of society and of the Church ; or
that he should sometimes have thought that Antichrist
was already come, yea that there were two Antichrists
and that the day of the Lord must soon be revealed ?
The earlier life of Wycliffe from his twentieth
to his forty-fifth year was passed chiefly at Oxford
and probably in this College. He was, what he

io SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [i.
always continued to be, the great scholar, suspected
of being a disciple of Ockham and protesting
against the fanciful uses of Scripture which pre
vailed among his contemporaries, yet almost as far
removed as they were from our modern methods
of exegesis. It is remarked that he frequently
refers in his writings to the mathematical and
natural sciences; and hence it may be conjectured
that he partook of the spirit which Roger Bacon
had stirred up in Oxford during the preceding
century. It is curious that of this time, from the
year 1340 to 1365, we know nothing; nor do we
find any indication of that mighty spirit which burst
forth so fiercely during the last twenty years of his
life. Wycliffe above all things was an Englishman,
and he entered heart and soul into the struggle of
the English nation and clergy against the encroach
ments of Rome. Whether he was a member of
Parliament or not is uncertain ; the passages quoted
from his writings by recent biographers are not
sufficient to establish this fact. But there was another
struggle into which he was soon forced to enter,
nearer home, against the vices and corruption of
the English clergy themselves. In this struggle for
a time he received the support of John of Gaunt,
yet he was also popular with the citizens of London,
the enemies of the Duke. The scene is well known
of his appearance in the old St. Paul's Cathedral to
answer before the Bishop of London for his opinion

i.J WYCLIFFE n
respecting the property of the clergy — how he came
not alone, but accompanied by the Duke and his
retainers ; how fierce words passed between the rival
parties, ending in a riot; how Wycliffe without
uttering a word retired unharmed from the scene of
conflict. The struggle in which he was engaged led Wycliffe
to examine deeply into the origin of civil and ecclesi
astical society. In the most famous of his works
De Dominio Divino, which we may translate ' On the
Kingdom of God,' he frames a sort of ideal of the
Christian world. All authority is from God ; all
property is the gift of God. The Church includes
both the clergy and the laity, but only the good
of either. It is uncertain how far Wycliffe would
have carried out this Utopia of philosophy in practical
life, but the tendency of it is obvious. His inheritance
of grace is Catholic or Christian socialism. He who
is condemned by a bishop or a pope may appeal
to a higher judgment, that of God himself ; he may
correct their decisions by the Scripture, which is the
word of God. The clergy and nobles are quarrelling
about their lands and goods: what have either of
them which is their own, or which they have not
received from the giver of all good ? Let the clergy-
give up their property for national purposes and
return to apostolical poverty. Here we have a doctrine
perilously near ' la propriete c'est le vol'; which never
theless might seem to receive a foundation from the

12 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [i.
language of Scripture. And the objection to put
Scripture into the hands of the poor may probably
have been as much a political as a religious one.
That such a doctrine, though veiled in the Latin
language and appearing only in a Summa Theo
logiae, should have terrified the well-to-do classes,
whether clergy or laity, throughout the kingdom is
certainly not surprising ; and it is very probable that
this ideal of the kingdom of God and of the inheri
tance of grace which sustained Wycliffe in the great
struggle, misunderstood or partly understood, may
have stimulated John Ball and his followers to law
lessness and bloodshed. To use a modern phrase, it
was in the air, that is in the minds of men, that some
better state of the world was possible than that existing
among themselves. And the miserable peasants, too,
in their own ignorant way, yet with a kind of sense,
were crying to heaven for deliverance.
Some of these tenets of Wycliffe are taken second
hand from Plato, whom he knew either through the
Fathers or in Latin translation. ' Ideas,' he says, ' are
the thought of God,' and he supposes St. Paul when
caught up into heaven to have beheld the world of
ideas. Everywhere, as probably in all the deeper
thinkers of the Middle Ages, there is the trace of
Plato, though seen only through a coloured mist.
' Every existing thing is the word of God, but not
God ' — ' God must of necessity create the world, and
he could only create it as he did.' He too is troubled

I.] WYCLIFFE 13
with the vexed question of the origin of evil. And
he solves it by saying with Augustine that evil is
only defect or negative, and that it may be even
the cause of good, 'Non habet peccatum ideam.'
The readers of Plato will easily recognize how much
of these important statements, though strained through
the Fathers, is originally derived from his writings.
In his more special Christian teaching Wycliffe
dwells on the nature and character of Christ, to
whom he applies many curious images, as well as
figures of speech derived from earthly authority. He
is the head, the centre of humanity ; he is also the
circle of which the circumference is everywhere, the
centre nowhere. He is the prior, abbot, pope,
the saint of all saints, the true man, the only mediator
between God and man. As Christ is to other men
so the word of Christ, that is the Gospel, is to other
books. Wycliffe enlarges on the humility, the gentle
ness, the poverty of Christ. His conception of the
Christian life might be summed up in two words
' the imitation of Christ.' ' If,' he says, ' we had
Christ alone before our eyes, and if we served Him
continually in teaching and learning, in prayer and
work and rest, then would we all be brother, sister,
and mother of our Lord Jesus Christ.'
Like Luther he held a doctrine of salvation by
faith, but not in Luther's precise and technical sense,
which opposes faith to love and other Christian graces.
And in general we may remark that the struggle

14 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [i.
of Wycliffe has a more distinct moral aim than
that of the Reformers of the sixteenth century. He
is more of the prophet denouncing evil and
oppression, and less of the theologian defining
doctrinal terms. On the other hand he had not
the assistance which they received from the parallel
movement of the Renaissance. He is harsher and
further removed from the modern way of thinking.
Though a critic, he is a critic walking in darkness,
quite unable to shake off the mists of ecclesiastical
tradition in which he had been educated. Believing
as he did that the Bible must be freed from the
Patristic Interpretation, he is unable to see the natural
meaning of words except through the medium of an
illogical logic.
In the last seven years of his life, the deepening
sense of the miseries and unkindness of the age, the
schism of the Papacy, and his detestation of the
crusade against the Antipope, led him further and
further into antagonism with the Roman Church.
Already before that time he had declared that the
Pope like Peter might err ; and that church property
was robbery of the nation. In the short time that
remained he seems to have given up one by one
the distinctive tenets of the Church of Rome, and in
modern phraseology to have become a Protestant.
He now affirmed, that the Pope was Antichrist, that
both Popes, Urban the Frenchman at Avignon of
whom he had once hoped better things, and Clement

i.J WYCLIFFE 15
the Italian at Rome, were alike Antichrists, and he
denounces the begging friars as the slavish instru
ments of one or other of them. A short time
previously he had held the doctrine of transubstantia-
tion ; but writing in 1381, about four years before
his death, he says, 'the Scripture is in favour of
the doctrine that bread is bread.' Soon the worship
of the mass appeared to him to be idolatry : the
sacrament was only a sign in which the body of
Christ was spiritually present. The wicked do not
really eat the flesh of Christ, but bread only. Here
he is in advance of Luther, who always retained in
some sense the notion of a corporeal presence. He
repudiated also the worship of saints and images ;
he disapproved of saints' days and pilgrimages ; he
denied the authority of the Church to canonize, and
more completely than any of the reformers who
succeeded him he preached the disendowment of the
Church — he taught that there was no distinction
between clergy and laity (still less of bishops and
priests). The Church might consist of the laity only.
The world was sinking lower and lower ; the common
people were bad, the secular rulers worse, the
spiritual prelates worst of all. When the man of
sin is finally revealed, Christ will restore His kingdom.
Among many omissions which have been unavoid
able I must not forget to mention two great works
of his later life. 1. The translation of the Bible.
2. The institution of itinerant preachers.

16 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [i.
The first of these great works was completed in
1382, three years before his death ; the New Testa
ment having been translated by himself from the
Latin Vulgate (for Wycliffe knew no Greek), and
the Old Testament by John Purvey, one of his
followers. Like Luther's Bible it is full of beauty
and- eloquence ; the language bursting forth in new
power to express the thoughts which were contained
in it. Like Luther, Wycliffe opposed the written
word of God to the traditions of the faith. And we
may easily imagine the joy with which the common
people received the purer idea of the Gospel; and
how they would point the words of St. Paul, or of
the old prophets or of Christ himself, against the
abuses of the age, against simony, against luxury,
against the rapacity of the clergy, against the oppres
sion of the nobles, against spiritual wickedness in high
places. The institutipn of itinerant preachers had a parallel
in the begging friars of Wycliffe 's time and may also
be compared with John Wesley's lay helpers and
preachers in the last centuries. They were poor
men, not necessarily clergymen, who went about
without shoes and clad in a russet serge to preach the
Gospel to the poor. It has been conjectured that it was
at Oxford that he must have collected and organized
them ; at his country parish of Lutterworth it would
have been more difficult to house and lodge them.
Doubtless, he sometimes thought of Christ sending

i.j WYCLIFFE 17
out the seventy, two and two, who returned to Him
with joy. Their teaching sped far and wide over
the land. They refused to take benefices for two
reasons: first, because they could only be obtained
by simony ; secondly, because the beneficed priest
was compelled to give the, surplus of his benefice,
which belongs to the poor, to his ecclesiastical
superiors. Yet I will add a few sayings of Wycliffe, serious
as well as humorous, which show in a lively manner
the character of the man. There is a Summa Theo
logiae contained in the following two or three lines.
'The kernel of all Christianity is (1) the love of
God, and (2) the love of our neighbour. The love
of God has degrees, a high degree of love for His
own sake, and a lower degree of love for the sake
of reward. And the true love of our neighbour
springs from the love of God, and must be dis
tinguished from mere fondness, having even an
element of sorrow, for, Whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth.' Here is an excellent saying : ' God regards
not the "what" but the "how."' Here again is a
humorous one : ' The only text in scripture which
has any relation to the friars is that word of Christ's,
" I know you not." ' There is a similar vein of humour
in the often-quoted words : ' I shall not die but live
and declare the works of the friars,' said the paralytic
shortly before his death.
Wycliffe ardently desired a martyr's death, because

18 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [i.
it had been the death of Christ. The question has
been often asked why he was allowed to escape.
I think there are two answers to it. First, the age
was not one of religious persecution ; that lesson had
not yet been learned, at least in England. There was
cruelty and bloodshed enough, but practised on
political rather than on religious grounds. Though
such things may have been laid to his charge by his
enemies, the world did not really suppose him to be
in league with John Ball or with Wat Tyler. When
first persecuted by the clergy, he had the support
of the nobles ; the court and the whole Lancastrian
party was interested in his cause. But secondly,
when in the course of his life he left the party of
the nobles and threw himself upon the people, his
great influence made it dangerous to meddle with
him. He was growing old, and the prelates thought
it more prudent to leave him alone. He was one
of those great personalities who cannot be dealt with
as ordinary men. It would have seemed shocking
that so famous and saintly a person should have died
by the hand of the executioner. He was the ex
pression of what men were thinking in their hearts.
And so the singular wish that, as he had striven to
follow Christ in His life, he might also follow Him
in His death, remained unfulfilled.
Thus I have ventured to bring before you in rude
and imperfect outline the image of one whom this
College, and the University of Oxford, may justly

i.] WYCLIFFE 19
regard as the greatest of her sons. Some one will
ask what religious lessons can be gathered from it ?
I do not think it desirable that we should always
be drawing morals or seeking for edification. Of
great men it may be truly said, ' That it does good
only to look at them.' Out of their greatness there
flows imperceptibly something to our littleness. We
gather from them a higher point of view, a firmer
grasp, an elevation above the petty interests of life.
There may be the spirit of greatness even in men
who are made after a smaller pattern. All the greatest
have had an interest in the progress of virtue and
knowledge, of their country, of the human race. In
these they are imitable by us. The Jesuit prophet,
the great English reformer, are transported with
indignation at the corruptions of a church or nation,
at the oppression of the poor, at the falsehoods which
are propagated in the name of religion under the
disguise of truth. We know too, that a Church or
nation will decline morally unless a portion of their
prophetic spirit rest upon us. Let us grasp with our
whole souls great and simple truths : let us rise
above the opinions of men to a higher judgment;
let us think of this world in the light of another ;
let us live, as they did, in the practice of the presence
of God.

C 2

II. IGNATIUS LOYOLA1.
HE BEING DEAD YET SPEAKETH.
Hebrews xi. 4.
If there are sermons in stones, much more are there
sermons in the lives of men. The great multitude
of human beings pass away unnoticed, yet to those
who knew them there was something to be gathered
from their faults and their virtues, from their weak
ness or their strength. Some words fall even from
the lips of commonplace persons, which are long
remembered and valued by their relatives or friends.
A very few rise to distinction by their abilities, their
industry, their integrity, and are much talked of by
their fellow-men in their own circle. Still fewer find
their way into the page of history : not more than two
or three in a century can be said to have set their
mark upon the world. Many have been great men
during a part of their lives, but have outlived them
selves. They have in a manner become deaf and
dumb. They do not understand the younger genera-
1 Preached in Balliol College Chapel, April 24, 1881.

ii.J LOYOLA 21
tion which has grown up since their day, and have
nothing to say to them ; nor does the sweet sound of
their own popularity any longer enter into their ears.
The memories which have lasted longest in this
world are those of men who have imparted, whether
by speaking or writing, new ideas to mankind, or who
have founded new institutions : and these two are the
complement of each other. The spoken word is but
an animating breath which passes away and is gone ;
the written word too is fleeting, and requires to be
embodied in a system and to have a place assigned
to it in human thought. And how can the teacher
diffuse his new ideas unless he gather around him
a band of disciples ? and how can the disciples con
tinue after he is withdrawn from them, unless they
have a local habitation and are formed into a society ?
There is the life of Christ and the Christian Church,
and in these two all Christianity and all theology is
contained. They are the most general and also the
most scientific divisions of the subject which can be
framed. They may be regarded as the very types
of Christian and of other societies. There is the life
of the man within and without the system, the school,
the college, the institution, the building which he has
created for himself. The one may be called in a
figure, the house made with hands, the other the
house not made with hands. And we find by ex
perience, that the outer investiture or environment
never exactly expresses the inner life or idea ; it

22 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [h.
limits, it cramps, it perverts it; it sometimes even
turns it into its opposite. Such has been the history
of all churches, of all monastic orders, of all schools
and colleges at some time in their existence. They
have begun in poverty, they have ended in wealth ;
they have begun in industry, they have ended in
sloth ; they have begun in love, they have degenerated
into hate; they have begun with the intention of
promoting religion and education, and they have
ended by being an incubus on them. They have been
adapted to the age which gave them birth ; they have
continued when they were only doing harm. And
then if the idea of their founders was true and pure,
we can sometimes appeal from their works to them :
and breathe a new life from time to time into the
institutions which are called by their names. When
wearied with superstitious rites and ceremonies, we
can return to the simple teaching of Christ, from the
Church to the Gospel. And there have been other
great teachers (though we do not place them on
a level with Him), who have been better than their
followers, to whose life and works posterity may
appeal against the traditions and practices which have
grown up under their authority.
I propose in this sermon to speak to you of a re
markable man. I wish that it was in my power to
conceal his name ; for he would then have a fairer
chance of being truly estimated. So many enmities
have gathered around his memory, such crimes have

ii.] LOYOLA

23

been perpetrated in his name, that his holiness of life,
his self-devotion, his far-reaching and elevated aims
are no longer remembered, and both in this and other
countries he has passed into a byword, and has
become a sort of outcast from both the Church and
the world. While by some he has been regarded
a greater benefactor to Christianity than the Aposdes
themselves, by others he has been considered almost
as the spirit of evil. He was not a great literary
genius like Augustine, or Bunyan, or Luther ; nor was
there any ' sweet reasonableness ' in him or ' gentle
goodness ' which would attract mankind : nor was he
a thinker, hke St. Thomas Aquinas, who sought to
systematize theology and reconcile it with secular k now-
ledge. He himself was, as his biographer says, ' homo
plane illiteratus,' ' a man without education ' ; his great
power was an indomitable will absolutely devoted to
what he believed to be the service of God. He felt
himself during the whole of life to be endowed with
power from on high. The fire when once lighted
up in him was never extinguished or abated. And
during two centuries this man and his works were the
greatest power in Europe.
Ignatius Loyola was born in the year 1491, eight
years later than Luther, whom he survived about ten
years. We have a Hfe of him written by one of his
earliest disciples, apparently truthful and natural, which
does not load his memory either with praises or with
miracles, but represents him as he himself would

24 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [n.
doubtless have wished to be represented, as an in
strument in the hands of God. ' Not unto us, O Lord,
not unto us.' There is no shade of egotism, or per
sonal ambition, or love of reputation, in this great man.
He was wholly absorbed in the work that he had set
himself. Born of a noble Spanish family, he belonged
to a country now seemingly degenerate, but which
at that time produced heroes and statesmen and eccle
siastics of a power and force of character which may
be truly described as terrible. He was brought up
at the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella, a courtier and
also a soldier, a fair and chivalrous person who
attracted to himself the eyes of fair and noble ladies,
famed for feats of arms in which he might have rivalled
the feats of the great Spaniards who planted Europe
in America, had not his military ardour taken another
direction. At the siege of Pampeluna, which he de
fended with desperate energy, being then in the thir
tieth year of his age, both his legs were shattered with
a cannon ball. *After a time the wounds healed, but left
him a deformed person, and he, as he told his pupil
and biographer, Ribadeneira, out of personal vanity
had the limbs cut open and reset, suffering agonies in
the operation in the hope of regaining his handsome
appearance : although this, as Ribadeneira tells us, was
denied, for one leg always remained longer than the
other. During his illness, tales of chivalry were sent
to him for his amusement ; and among them, as if by
accident, a life of Christ and some lives of the saints.

n.J LOYOLA 25
Then suddenly a change came over his spirit. He
was no longer the fireux chevalier, the man of the
world, it was another warfare to which he now
aspired. ' What,' said he, ' if I were to do what
St. Francis did, if I were to emulate St. Dominic ? '
He figured to himself the vision of the lady to whom
he had devoted himself in his inmost heart in the city
where she dwelt. ' She was no countess, no duchess,
but one of yet higher degree.' These are the very
words not of Ribadeneira but of Ignatius himself, and
so did his mind play between earth and heaven. And
still he was a soldier every inch, and ready to do battle
under the banner of Christ against the infidels. Soon
he left his father's house and went to live on Mount
Montserrat, not in contrition for his sin, but solely in
the hope that he would achieve deeds as great as the
saints of old. His mind was full of the romances of
chivalry, and acts similar to those recorded in them,
but in another sphere, occurred to his mind. He
would go to Jerusalem and convert the heathen, not
by fire and sword, but by prayer and preaching. He
gave away his clothes to a beggar, and, hanging up
his lance and shield before an image of the Virgin at
Montserrat, passed the night in prayer and devoted
three days to a confession of his past life.
And now there came over him, as there has over
other men, a horror of great darkness, in which he
was overwhelmed by the memory of sin. He thought
that there was no pardon for him or possibility of

26 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [n.
acceptance with God. Sometimes he was tempted to
dash himself out of the window, and was recalled by
the thought, ' Lord, I will not sin against Thee.' He
would fast from Sunday to Sunday, and only desist
when commanded by his confessor ; for, soldier-like,
he still regarded obedience as the first of virtues. At
times the oppression seemed to fall from him ; but his
mental agony presently returned. His life, had been
nothing but a succession of sins.
Such terrors of sin and seeming possession by the
evil one (in the judgment of men out of all proportion
to actual sin), recur not only in the life of Loyola, but
of other extraordinary men, as well Protestant as
Catholic,of Luther, of Bunyan,of Whitefield, of Wesley
and his followers, and of many others. The inward
feeling was essentially the same in them all, though
manifesting itself in different ways. All of them seemed
to have been relieved almost in an instant, and to have
passed once for all into a state of peace and joy.
And all of them, especially Loyola himself, would
have regarded that agony as the power of evil over
the soul, and the joy and peace as the grace of God
himself. Luther found his peace in the written word
of God, Bunyan in the internal consciousness of
salvation ; while to Loyola, Christ and the holy
mother, and the mystery of the Trinity itself, were
visibly revealed. He says ' that from what he had
seen himself, even if no word of scripture told of
these mysteries of faith, he had made up his mind

n.] LOYOLA 27
that for them he must be ready to die.' He lived
as one in immediate intercourse with the world of
spirits, like Stephen looking up and seeing the
heavens opened. Henceforward he determined to
have done with his past life; there were to be no
more doubts and fears. His whole nature under the
control of his own despotic will was absolutely
devoted to the service of God and of the Church.
And so, an ignorant man, but full of visions and
revelations of the Lord, he went forth to preach,
scarcely knowing whither he went or what he was
to say. He bent his steps first towards Italy, and
then, after many trials and misadventures, to the Holy
Land. Here he records with what intense interest
he followed in the footprints of the Lord, recalling
at every turn the scenes of His life ; and how, when
he was driven out of Jerusalem, and had been himself
convinced that this was not his field of work, he
suddenly disappeared from his companions that he
might take a last farewell of Mount Olivet. Re
turning to Spain he continued his wanderings, attired
in the meanest of poor habits, preaching and begging
by the way : to the outward eye he would probably
have appeared like one of the ' illuminati ' of that
day, visionary heretics, hardly sane, who like himself
lived in trances and revelation. Twice he fell into
the hands of the Inquisition, and was imprisoned by
the Holy Office as a dangerous person; but the
innocency of his life, and the ascendency of his

28 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [n.
character, on both occasions delivered him. On the
second occasion at Salamanca he was acquitted of
offences against the Church, but told by the Father
of the Inquisition that he would be guilty of mortal
sin unless, before he resumed his office of preaching,
he spent four years in the study of theology. (You
must remember that he had no orders and no sort
of commission from any ecclesiastical authority for
the continuance of his work.) Instantly, regarding
obedience as the first of virtues, he repaired to Paris,
and became a student at the college of St. Barbara.
Already, before this time, he had met with a famous
solitary, Simon, who like St. Anthony of old, devoted
his life to asceticism and contemplation ; and Ignatius
had been inclined to follow his example. But a great
angel with terrible words forbade him to take that
path, and he returned to the world. For four years,
or according to some accounts for seven years, the
rude illiterate knight remained in Paris, occupied in
grammar and logic, not forgetting his great idea, but
in the fulfilment of it. At this time (between the
years 1530 and 1535) he was already more than forty
years of age; for his life, into which so much was
compressed, begins late (until fifty he was almost an
unknown man) and is short, for he died at the age
of sixty-five. At the age of about forty we may
picture him to our minds learning the inflexions of
Latin verbs and the rules of syllogistic logic. And
ever and anon, amid the inflexions of verbs and the

H.] LOYOLA

29

forms of the syllogism, the old religious raptures
return upon him ; he sees visions and dreams dreams.
But these he acknowledges were inspired by the evil
one, who was seeking to seduce him from the right
path. ' An sua cuique Deus fit dira cupido ? '
It is hard, when a few minutes only can be devoted
to the task, to give any adequate idea of this wonderful
life. In the same cell with him at the college of
St. Barbara were two men, only less remarkable than
himself, one a Spaniard, Francis Xavier, the saint
and apostle of the Indies ; the other a Savoyard, Peter
Faber, who had grown up amid his father's flocks, and
under the roof of heaven had solemnly devoted
himself to God and to Italy. Xavier was a noble,
courtier, scholar, who gave up not military achieve
ments but the fame of learning for the cross of Christ.
Faber, the simple enthusiast, needed the direction and
spiritual experience of Ignatius. These were the
brethren of his soul, from whom he was never parted,
until almost by an accident, through the illness of
another member of the Order, Xavier went forth on
his mission to the Indies. Over the minds of both
of them Ignatius soon exerted his ascendency, com
pelling them to fast three days and three nights at
a time during the coldest of winters.
Three other Spaniards now joined them. Their
course of study had drawn to a close, and now all six
repaired over to the Church of Montmartre : after

30 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [ii,
attending mass they swore to pass their lives at
Jerusalem in chastity and poverty, devoted to the
care of the Christians or to the conversion of the
Saracens. Should this be impossible, they would
offer themselves to the Pope for any service in which
he might be pleased to employ them, without reward
or condition. In the year 1537, the forty-sixth year
of Loyola's age, they went forth on this mission, and
being unable in consequence of a war to proceed to
Jerusalem, they preached at Venice and Vicenza and
other Italian cities ' an unintelligible mixture of
Spanish and Italian.' After a year or two, they
found their way to Rome, where they endured many
hardships. There they began to win their way at
last, and in the year 1541 they took the vow of
obedience, and elected Ignatius the general of their
Order. The Church had gone after the world, and the
better feelings of the world had revolted against
the Church. Nbt more than twenty years had elapsed
since the excommunication of Luther ; and the move
ment had gone forward almost without check, until
more than half Europe had fallen under its power.
And now the counter-reformation began. The six
men who met in the Church of Montmartre were now
called the Company of Jesus (it is said that Ignatius
chose this name for them out of the fear that, like
the other great Orders, they might be called after
their earthly founder). These men saved the papacy.

ii.] LOYOLA 31
In fifteen years they had spread over the whole of
Europe. The society included fifteen provinces, among
which were included Brazil, Japan, Ethiopia, the East
Indies. It drove back the tide of the Reformation in
France and Germany ; it stamped out the beginnings
of it in Italy and Spain. No such work probably
was ever effected in so short a space of time ; no man
ever saw so much of the fruits of his labour in his
own lifetime as Ignatius.
We naturally ask the means by which this extra
ordinary result was accomplished. First of all, there
was the union in these men of undying energy with
extraordinary practical talents. They were ready to
become martyrs, and at the same time men of the
world. When a whole society moves as one man,
animated by one thought, ' perinde ac cadaver,' its
power becomes terrible. They are eyes all over the
world, seeing into the hearts of men ; they are soldiers
dispersed and in plain clothes, but moving in concert
to an end which is unperceived by other men. They
hold the consciences of men in their grasp through
the confessional, in their fears not only for another
world but for this ; they draw into their schools the
youth of Europe, whom they bind to themselves by
ties stronger than those of family. It is a significant
fact that none of them ever took preferment in the
Church. Those were not the weapons with which
they sought to conquer the world. And we must
not forget that there was an element of good in the

32 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [n.
end itself. In a sensuous and luxurious world they
went about saying ' Repent ' ; they sought to purify
the Roman court of its scandals : it was a true human
feehng, not mere zeal against Protestants, which sent
the Fathers into Paraguay or Japan, there to live and
die unknown. They truly, more than any other
missionaries, overcame the difficulties of colour and
race for the love of Christ. And when we hear that
Ignatius, by a special memorial to the Pope, en
couraged the revival of the Inquisition in Italy, we
should not condemn him wholly on that account,
but rather wonder that the religious nature of men
should be capable of such singular extremes. And
strange contrasts there are also in the history of the
Order : the severity and asceticism of the early Jesuits
passing into a laxity of training and practice supported
by casuistry; their rude and almost fierce character
into subtility and complaisance ; their puritanical
enmity to the^Renaissance into a spurious classicalism.
For a century after the death of Ignatius they may
be truly regarded as the greatest power in Europe,
a power behind the throne of the Pope and of every
other Catholic sovereign. Then they began to wane
until their final expulsion from nearly every country
in Europe in the latter half of the last century. They
had been too much for the world, and the world
in turn was too much for them. Their lax casuistry
exposed by Pascal revolted the consciences of man
kind. The crimes, such as the Gunpowder Plot

ii.] LOYOLA 33
and the many times attempted assassination of
Henry IV, with which they were directly or indirectly
connected, rose up in judgment against them. They
seem to have contributed no lasting element to the
religion of men, and to have killed every seed of
genius or originality which came in contact with
them. The despised Protestant can point with pride
to Milton and Bunyan; the Church of England can
boast of a Richard Hooker and a Jeremy Taylor.
But no name of the first or even the second rank in
poetry, philosophy, or indeed theology, is to be
found in the ranks of the Jesuits. Their fall was as
remarkable as their rise, and their virtues as well as
their crimes may be reckoned among the causes
of it. In 1759 they were expelled from Portugal
on suspicion of complicity in a plot against the
king's life ; in 1 762 they were driven out of France on
their refusal to absolve the king's mistress Madame de
Pompadour ; a few years later from Spain and Austria ;
in Paraguay they gave up their fatherly govern
ment of the Indians, the most successful attempt ever
made for the Christianization of barbarians. At
length the whole society, which at the time of its
dissolution numbered above 22,000 members (more
than the clergy of the Church of England), was
driven out of nearly every country in Europe.
Pope Ganganelli, at the instigation of the Catholic
powers in the year 1773, issued the bull designed to
put an end to it altogether. D

34 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [n.
These facts, which I have meagrely narrated, are
the fragments of a sermon which each one of us
may read in them for ourselves. When Ignatius
in the sixty-fifth year of his age, burnt up, as his
biographer describes, with the desire of seeing God
and being with Christ, left the care of earthly things,
he could point to seventeen provinces administered
by him, to 104 colleges established in his lifetime,
to the face of Europe changed by him. No thought
of this earthly greatness appears for a moment to
have touched him at any time in his life. But if he
could have extended his. vision rather more than two
centuries, and have seen the result of which I have
been just speaking, would he have acknowledged
that there was some fatal flaw in the original idea
which had given birth to these vast institutions?
Or would he simply have regarded the ruin of his
followers as an evil which God had permitted,
perhaps, for his and their sins, and have looked
forward to a time, never to arrive, in which they
should be reinstated among the great cities of
Europe, with still greater power and glory than
before ?
In the silence of the grave there is no answer to
this question. But we may still ask it for our own in
struction, and obtain such answer as we can. In what
lay the power and where was the flaw of this great
system ? We may consider this question first in
reference to the means employed : secondly as to the

ii.] LOYOLA 35
principle or end which Ignatius and his followers
proposed to themselves.
And first as to the means employed. Willing to
devote themselves wholly to the service of God and
of the Order, the Jesuits under the guidance of
Ignatius were taught to make of themselves instru
ments perfectly adapted to the work. They were
to let those qualities grow in them which made them
good members of the Order, and to eradicate those
which had the opposite tendency. , No teachers ever
impressed on themselves and others the lesson of
self-control like the first Jesuits. They seem first
of all men to have made a study of the human mind
with a view to education. Man was not to live by
fasting alone but by action, by obedience, by
bringing every thought and word into harmony with
one aim. He was to pass his days in meditation
according to a prescribed course, but his meditations
were to bring forth fruits day by day. He was to
combat his faults, not altogether but one by one ;
to fight, not against some general conception of sin,
but against definite recurring sins which he was in
the habit of committing. He was to bring before
his mind all the associations of sense which could
assist him in mounting upward. In the little book
called Spiritual Exercises, which Ignatius partly wrote
and partly compiled for the use of his disciples, he is
inexhaustible. The exercises are framed so as to
employ four weeks, and every day at the commence-
D 2

36 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [n.
ment of them the novice is desired to place himself
in the midst of some sacred scene, such as the house
in which Christ lived, or the village through which
He passed, the temple in which He preached, the
garden in which His agony was accomplished. On
another day the mind is to transport itself into the
highest heaven and to behold the Three Persons
sitting in council; beneath them is lying the whole
¦ earth, with its peoples, black, white, in war and at
peace, laughing, weeping, living, dying, in sickness
or health, or some other condition of being. Or the
believer is to envisage to himself the two camps of
Jerusalem and Babylon, and mankind ranged under
the two banners of Lucifer and Christ. These are
to be the environments of his thoughts— called by
Ignatius praeludia — and they are to be accompanied
by one distinct motive such as hope, fear, love, which
is to occupy the whole exercise. The mode of
humility, for example, is as follows: — First, the dis
ciple is to offer himself to God in all his actions ;
secondly he is to place before himself the goods and
ills of life, and pray that he may never in seeking the
one or avoiding the other fall from his resolution.
Once more he is to place before himself the goods
and ills of life, and deliberately to choose the latter.
We see how such a discipline was designed to bow
the whole spirit and mind of a man into obedience
to the supposed will of God or his fellow-men. We
see how from being a natural he would become an

n.] LOYOLA

37

artificial man, how he would lose the moral in the
religious sense, how instead of walking and standing,
he would crawl and wind in and out of impossible
places. The Jesuits were not wrong in seeking to
understand human nature before they acted upon
it; or in their efforts after self-improvement which
were based on a sort of scientific principle. The
gentler methods which they introduced into education
have been of great value to the world. But they
were wrong in attempting to destroy independence,
to stamp out character, to extinguish life. They did
not see that a human creature, to whom God had
given reason, could not be ' perinde ac cadaver ' in
the hands of his superiors without sinking below the
level of humanity. Their means were to a certain
extent good, and may be studied by us with ad
vantage. But they were carried too far ; and their
discipline became a death not only to the intellectual
but to the moral nature of man.
Yet before we part from the first founders of the
Company of Jesus, while tracing the fatal con
sequences of their mission, we must acknowledge
that there are no men now living in any branch of
the Christian Church so devoted as they were to
a great religious work, so careless of self and of their
own lives, so regardless of the bubble reputation or
of the more solid advantages of great preferments.
If we think of them as engaged in doubtful con
spiracies against the lives and governments of

38 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [n.
Protestant princes, we must also think of them as
dying of hunger and thirst among the Indians,
unknown men, cheered only by the thought of
Christ and the love of God in the wilderness of this
world. A great deal too we may learn from their
methods. We cannot say that men should not fix
their minds on high aims (never was the world or
this country more in need of such) ; or that they
should not, instead of resting in vague ideas, seek
to reduce their aims at once to practice; or that
they will not find in prayer and devotion a powerful
stimulus and support to them amid the difficulties of
their task; or that in learning to pray and hold
communion with the unseen we should take no
account of the laws of the human mind. Nor can
we say that the Jesuit Fathers were intentionally
corruptors of morality. They sought rather to bring
back in the courts of Popes and Princes an impossible
strictness: bj the help of casuistry they made a
compromise with human nature, and so the letter
got the better of the spirit, the means of the end.
And this leads me in conclusion to speak of the
great error of Jesuitism as conceived by its founder,
an error which though not on that grand scale or
attended with such terrible and far-reaching conse
quences, has to be guarded against by every Christian
teacher in our own as well as in other ages. It is
the separation of religion from morality and truth.
There is no trace in any Jesuit author of the love

ii.] LOYOLA 39
of truth for its own sake, though some of them are
brought round by the windings of dialectics to admit
the Protestant doctrine of freedom of conscience.
And this, perhaps, is the explanation in part of the
phenomenon which I have already noticed that, able
and educated as they were, not one of them ever rose
to any great distinction in literature. They never
thought of God as the God of truth, but only as
the God of the Church, who had entrusted to them
the tradition of the Church. Truth, or the pretence of
truth, was to them only, a means by which they sought
to govern mankind in the interests of Catholicism,
which they believed also to be those of Europe and
of the human race. They were men of pure and holy
lives, capable not merely of devotion, but of self-
annihilation in the service of the God. This was the
secret of their power. But in the service of what God ?
The God who regarded with benignant eye all races
of mankind, white and black, in all stages of civiliza
tion, the Indian, the Ethiopian, the Paraguayan, the
inhabitant of Mexico and Peru, the God of love ; but
the God of the Inquisition also, the God who was
so jealous of His honour that He would scarcely
allow faith to be kept with heretics; the God who
sought only to destroy Calvinists and Lutherans,
who looked down approvingly on the foretaste of
eternal sufferings which was granted them in an
auto da fe. So, side by side with almost divine
virtues, human or rather diabolical passions are

40 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [ii.
sanctioned, enthroned, canonized. Such tremendous
power for evil has a great and even noble nature, when
not altogether rooted in justice and truth. And this
should make us consider in all our undertakings,
especially ecclesiastical undertakings, whether when
most successful they may not carry with them some
consequence unforeseen by us, which in a few years
or in another generation will be the opposite of what
we intended. We may sometimes buy a controversial
victory at the expense of truth; we may stimulate
a religious feeling which soon passes away and leaves
the soul vacant and dark ; we may gain political power
and lose the better empire over the heart ; we may be
all things to all men, and arouse mistrust and suspicion
in the minds of all ; we may stir up a great religious
movement, only to be followed by a still greater re
action. All actions and all qualities, the virtues them
selves as we call them, when narrowed and isolated
and intensified, carry the seeds of their own destruction
in themselves. Only of holiness and truth, and of
justice which is a form of truth, there can never be any
exaggeration or excess. These are the only true
basis on which to raise a church, a society, a nation.
These are the two aspects under which we can most
nearly approach the nature of God. They may seem
to be general and commonplace words ; he who
seriously endeavours to carry them out in life will
learn their meaning and power. He who in his con
ception of God departs from them, who allows the

n.] LOYOLA AND DISRAELI 41
mirror of divine perfection to be tarnished or dis
coloured by the breath of earthly passion, will
insensibly set up his own party or Church in the
place of God, and will end by putting himself in
the place of his Church.
I have detained you long, but it might seem
neglectful if I were not to make some reference to
a subject which has been in the minds of all of us
during the past week. One has been taken from the
midst of us, about whom the world during the last
forty years has had more to say for good and for evil
than of any other Englishman. No political person
has ever had such long continued, such unsparing
abuse heaped upon him, yet he survived it all. For
as no man 'can be written down except by himself
— a noble saying, — so no man can be extinguished
except by his own indolence and weakness. He
concentrated upon himself the bitterest enmity of
party ; he was called alien, adventurer, courtier ; he
was supposed to practise upon mankind ; to regard
politics as a game of chess, in which there were no
principles, but only pieces and players, — as a stage
in which one man could play many parts. The
mourning of a whole nation over his grave shows
that this is not the final judgment passed upon him
by his countrymen. But this is not the time or the
place for criticism : he was not one of those who
would have supposed himself to be always in the
right; probably he might have been willing to say

42 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [n.
with Lord Bolingbroke, of some passages in his
own career, ' I must confess that we were intolerably
factious ' ; or in his own serious and noble words
spoken on going out of office about ten years ago,
' In the past there are many things I condemn, many
things I deplore, but a man's life must be taken as
a whole.' Notwithstanding the personal bitterness
with which he was assailed, he appears never to have
entertained a feeling of enmity towards others ; never
in any degree to have lost his self-control. He was
great, not so much by virtue of what he did, as of
what he was : eager to gain the high prize of ambition,
it seems to have cost him nothing to lay it aside.
Among the statesmen of his day he had that quality
which, upon the whole, seems of all others the most
necessary in politics — strength. And though in that
personality there was something upon which men did
not venture to intrude, there were also the gentlest
and most loyal feelings towards those to whom he
was bound by any ties of gratitude, to a few friends
whom he grappled to himself with hooks of steel.
To young men especially, his career has a peculiar
interest. For there was perhaps no man who had
greater tenacity of purpose, or who more clearly fore
saw from the beginning of his life the end of it.
There is one passage in a speech of his addressed
to the students of Glasgow (I only remember the
substance) on which we may do well to ponder.
He describes in it, perhaps with a recollection of his

II.J DISRAELI 43
own youth, the literary follies and fancies of young
men, their desire to become poets and critics and
orators, and the ludicrous failures which often attend
them. But the true test of a man is whether he can
stand that laughter, that disappointment, whether he
is stimulated by opposition, whether he can rise from
failure. These words (or something like these),
spoken from the heart, express the spirit in which
a man should live who means to do anything in the
world. It is not ambition which is to be discouraged
in youth, but ineffectual ambition without industry,
without self-control, which ends only in restlessness
and vanity.
These are a few of the reflections which the life
of this great statesman naturally suggests to those
who knew him only at a distance and were not bound
to him by political ties. And so we bid him farewell,
not heaping upon him unmeaning praises, but with
a mournful feeling, that there is no one in every
respect able to take his place.

III. JOHN BUNYAN AND
BENEDICT SPINOZA1.
ADD TO YOUR FAITH VIRTUE, AND TO VIRTUE
KNOWLEDGE.
2 Peter i. 5.
A DISTINGUISHED living writer has traced the steps
by which reason has gradually taken the place of
superstitious beliefs. He has shown how, within the
last two centuries, the governments of Europe have
become emancipated from ecclesiastical influences;
how the spirit of persecution has given way to milder
and gentler thoughts about those who differ from
us ; how, within little more than a century, the last
remains of the belief in witchcraft, which was once
held universally by all Christian writers, died out in
this country, leading to the inference that there may
still be great changes in the belief of Christians which
will also pass over us silently. He has shown, too,
how the imagination of men has become purified in
their conceptions of God and of another world ; how
the miraculous has tended to retire into the distance ;
and how that view of religion which is interpenetrated
1 Preached at Greyfriars' Church, Edinburgh, December
24, 1871.

in.] BUNYAN AND SPINOZA 45
with morality, in which faith is identified with the
conscience, appears more and more to be true, and
that other view of religion which is fanciful, senti
mental, traditional, retaining as words unrealized the
horrible shadows of former ages, seems to be fading
away in the minds of all but a small minority of
mankind. There is reason to be thankful for these
signs, not of the decline and fall, but of the new life
and progress of the Christian faith. For now there
begins to be a hope that Christians may lay aside
some part of that load which a weary world is ever
increasing in the course of ages, and that, instead of
wandering amid difficulties and perplexities, they
may find in the example and teaching of Christ the
solution of their difficulties. But still, as the writer
to whom I have already referred appears to feel, in
all this triumph of civilization there has been some
thing lost as well as gained to the cause of true
progress. When we look back, as he says, to the
cheerful alacrity with which, in some former times,
'men sacrificed all their material and intellectual
interests to what they believed to be right,' we are
tempted to imagine that the ages of faith have gone,
and that an age of mechanism, of industry, and of
social improvement, has succeeded to them. There
is more toleration, more knowledge, than formerly;
but is there the same heroism, the same self-sacrifice,
the same intensity, the same elevation of character,
the same aspiration after an ideal life, the same death

46 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [m.
to the world, the same continued struggle for the
good of man ? People ask, ' Who would be a martyr
nowadays ? ' and the sting of the jest lies in the truth
of it. For, indeed, we can scarcely imagine such
a power of faith in our own age as would enable a
man to give up not only his preferment or means
of livelihood, but life itself, in defence of some
doctrine or principle. Nor do we see around us
that intense perception of the miseries of others which
makes happiness impossible while they remain un
relieved. There is more good sense in the world,
and greater material prosperity, and less of great evil,
than formerly. But those higher types of character,
which in former ages have guided and enlightened
whole countries and communities, seem to us now
further and further off, and with a diminished bright
ness, like the lights on the shore to the departing
mariner. I propose to inquire, in the course of this sermon,
how far such an opposition of reason and faith, of
zeal and toleration, of knowledge and love, of the
secular and religious element in the world, is necessary,
or only accidental. Why have some persons sought
after goodness only, and others after truth ? Is there
no probability of a union of them, or rather ought
they not to be indissolubly connected ? This is the
question which I am going to ask. And, first, I will
endeavour to place before you two types of character
(in eminent instances), the one living almost solely

in. J BUNYAN AND SPINOZA 47
in the circle of religious feeling, taken up with the
salvation of souls, convinced of sin, and finally of
grace and deliverance ; the other absorbed in thoughts
of another kind, dwelling in a wholly different world
amid principles of law and morality, or in the investi
gation of the wonders of nature : the first, realizing
the ideal of the saint ; and the second, that of the
philosopher ; and then I will examine how far these
seemingly diverging characters may approximate to
one another, both in idea and in common life. There
may be something higher than the saint, and higher
than the philosopher, which is the union of the two.
There may be also in common life a rare union of
perfect good sense and religious feeling, which is the
greatest of blessings to a family or a village. When
they are separated there seems to be some defect,
some want of power, or drawback of prejudice, in
one or the other of them ; when united they can
overcome the world. If from the beginning the
ministers of Christ had always been on the side of
justice, of knowledge, of progress, there seems at
least to be a probability that the kingdoms of this
world, in the course of eighteen centuries, might have
become the kingdoms of Christ and of the truth.
And because the lives of men speak to us more
plainly than abstract terms, and in the hope that I
may be able to illustrate this contrast or division in
human nature, I will take two examples — one of each
sort — and try to read the lesson of their hves.

48 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [in.
The first shall be a great writer, whose name is
familiar to almost every child in this congregation.
There are few more interesting narratives than the
little work entitled, Grace Abounding to the Chief
of Sinners; or, The Life of John Bunyan. Written,
by himself. Any one will be the better for studying
this book ; and he may perhaps discover a page in
human nature with which he has been hitherto un
acquainted, and depths which have not been revealed
to him ; for there he will find the faithful account
of a true servant of God, who lived wholly in the
thoughts of another world, first having the conscious
ness of sin, then of forgiveness ; one who passed from
darkness to light, or rather, was always passing from
one to the other until he attained to his final rest.
He describes himself as continually in an agony of
terror and hope and joy, tortured as on a rack for
whole days together, having fetters of brass on his
legs; falling suddenly into great guilt and despair,
hke a bird who is shot from the top of a tree, until
he at last wings his way heavenward. Sometimes he
will tell you of the wounds inflicted upon him by
misapplied passages of Scripture, and then of other
passages by which the wounds were healed, and he
obtained peace again. Then he will compare himself
to a child fallen into a mill-pit, which, though it could
make some shift to scramble and sprawl in the water,
yet, because it could find neither hold for hand or
foot, at last must die in this condition. But the time

in.] BUNYAN AND SPINOZA 49
would fail me to tell of all the images under which
the author of the Pilgrim's Progress describes the
dealings of God with his soul. At length the clouds
begin to lift up partially, and he becomes a preacher
of the Word. He speaks of this part of his course
in a remarkable passage, of which I will transcribe
a part: —
' I have been as one sent to them from the dead ;
I went myself in chains to preach to them in chains,
and carried that fire in my own conscience that I
persuaded them to beware of. I can truly say, and
that without dissembling, that, when I have been to
preach, I have gone full of guilt and terror, even to
the pulpit door, and there it hath been taken off, and
I- have been at liberty in my mind until I have done
my work ; and then immediately, even before I could
get down the pulpit stairs, I have been as bad as
I was before ; yet God carried me on, but surely
with a strong hand, for neither guilt nor hell could
take me off my work.'
Five years had been thus passed by him in trying
to convince men : first, of the anger of God against
sin, and then of the blessedness of the grace of Christ;
and lastly, of the mystery of union with Christ ; when
he was caught and cast into prison; and there, he
says, he lay for above twelve years, to confirm the
truth by the way of suffering to which he had before
testified by the way of preaching. In which condi
tion I have continued with much content, . . . having

50 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [in.
never had in all my life so great an inlet into the
Word of God as now; those Scriptures that I saw
nothing in before were made in this place and state
to shine upon me.' And again : —
' I have had sweet sights of the forgiveness of my
sins in this place, and of my being with Jesus in another
world. ... I have seen that here that I am persuaded
I shall never, while in this world, be able to express ;
I have seen a truth in this Scripture : " whom having
not seen, ye love ; in whom, though now ye see
Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeak
able and full of glory." '
Thus, living upon God, and trusting in God
through Christ, this strange man went through his
own pilgrim's progress. There was one trouble,
however, which afflicted him in the prison more
than all the rest besides. This was the thought of
his poor blind child, whom he commemorates in
the most touching words : —
' Poor child, thought I, what sorrow art thou like
to have for thy portion in this world! Thou must
be beaten, must beg, suffer hunger, cold, naked
ness, and a thousand calamities, though I cannot now
endure the wind should blow upon thee. But yet,
thought I, recalling myself, I must venture you all
with God.'
So intense was the feeling of human affection in
one who seemed to be absorbed in the contemplation
of divine things.

in.] BUNYAN AND SPINOZA 51
And now some one, perhaps, will be found to say
scoffingly that the long and the short of the matter is,
that from the beginning to the end of his life, John
Bunyan was more or less mad. But stop a moment,
and consider that this man was one of the greatest
geniuses that ever lived, that he showed remarkable
prudence in ordinary affairs, and much shrewdness in
politics. Others will say : ' Well, but did he not live
amid visions and fancies, in a world of evil spirits ?
Was not all this a dream, and did he not interpret
Scripture just as he pleased, and had he not a
dangerous behef in supernatural signs and intima
tions ? ' My brethren, it seems to me that before
we can understand such characters, or do them any
justice, or gather any lesson from them, we must
learn to separate the essential from the accidental
in them. Their use of Scripture, their technical
theology, their visions and revelations, belong for
the most part to their age and country, or to their
early bringing up. But that which is essential, or
(if I may use the expression) eternal, in them, that
which is to be found in Catholic, as well as Puritan,
in St. Theresa, Madame Guion, or St. Francis Xavier,
as well as in John Bunyan and George Fox, is their
absolute devotion to the will of God: their entire
single-mindedness, their perfect disinterestedness, their
willingness to spend and be spent in their Master's
service, which will make many in the present day
ready to cry out, ' Oh, for a spirit like theirs ! ' I am
E 2

52 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [in.
not saying that any of them supply the perfect type
of the Christian character, but they supply elements
which are greatly wanting among us. For, in the
present day, when so many comparisons are made
of things that were formerly separated, now that
Protestants are beginning to think more kindly of
Catholics, and Catholics of Protestants, and the
different religions of men are beginning to know
one another, and to recognize the common human
element as well as the higher purpose of them, it
seems to be of great importance that we should bring
together good and truth in all things, not limited only
by our own narrow circle. If, instead of reverting to
the follies of the past, we could really extract the
wisdom of the past, a new prospect of Christian
progress would open to us, and the Gospel might
really be before the age. If, instead of returning to
antiquated practices and disused symbols, the higher
purpose of the eleventh century were capable of being
translated into the language and customs of the nine
teenth ; then, perhaps, a truer ideal of religion and
nobler forms of life might spring up among us. Or
if the spirit of the Reformers and of the great scholars
of the Reformation could be re- awakened in this and
other European countries, the ruinous barriers which
divide the Christian world might fall down, and an
intelligent study of Scripture again become the bond
and centre of Christians. But in religion we are
always returning to the past, instead of starting from

in.] BUNYAN AND SPINOZA 53
the past ; learning nothing, forgetting nothing ; trying
to force back modern thought into the old conditions
instead of breathing anew the spirit of Christ into an
altered world.
And this leads me to speak of the other type of
character which I promised to describe. By the side
of John Bunyan I will venture to place one who was
his contemporary in a neighbouring country, and
who was at the opposite pole of truth and hfe. I will
not tell you his name until I have first of all told you
something about him. He was of Jewish extraction,
but left the Synagogue, and died at the early age
of forty-four. His memoirs are not written by his own
hand, but by a Lutheran minister who was acquainted
with him, and who, believing that he had gone to
eternal perdition, has nevertheless given us a picture of
an almost faultless nature, of whom it might be said
as truly as of any saint or apostle, that he was dead
to the world. It is impossible to resist the conviction
that he was one of the best men that ever lived.
Excommunicated, disinherited as he was, he refused
all legacies and pensions, and preferred to maintain
himself by grinding glasses for optical instruments.
All his life was passed in the pursuit of one object,
which was to him what the attainment of salvation
had been to John Bunyan, the search after truth.
Like Bunyan, too, though from a different point of
view, he was absolutely resigned to the will of God
and the order of the world. Unlike him, he was

54 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [in.
remarkable for pursuing the even tenor of his way ;
no cloud of superstition, of doubt, or of fear, ever
darkened that great mind. He has no enmities to
other men ; when his life is attempted he simply
preserves the cloak which bore the marks of the
assassin's weapon. There is a touching story told
of his habit of waiting for his landlady when she
came home from church, and trying to explain the
sermon for her benefit, at which we shall hardly be
inclined to smile when we remember that this was
one of the greatest men who ever Hved. The influence
of his writings is doubtful ; he is one of those who
lost sight of man in God, and who seemed to find
in the fixed order of the universe the foundation of
human Hfe. I will quote one or two extracts from
him about which there can be no doubt, and which
seem to be appropriate to us at the present day : —
' It is not necessary to salvation to know Christ
after the flesh, but it is necessary to know the eternal
Son of God. That is the eternal wisdom which
alone enables us to distinguish between true and false,
good and evil.' Or, again : —
' Justice and charity are the only sure pledge of the
true Catholic faith and the fruit of the true Holy Spirit :
where these are, there Christ is ; where these are not,
there Christ is not ; for only by the spirit of Christ
can we be led into the love of justice and charity.'
These are the words of the Jewish philosopher
Spinoza, the pantheist as he would be sometimes

in.] BUNYAN AND SPINOZA 55
termed, to whom German philosophy and German
criticism seem to trace their first origin. I do not
mean to conceal that his name has been regarded
as of evil omen in the Christian Church. But if we
are to speak in the language of Him who is no
respecter of persons, of men such as Spinoza we
must say (whatever may have been their speculative
errors), ' Thou art not far from the kingdom of
heaven.' For as some of the best of Protestants
have been condemned by Catholics, and some of the
best of Catholics by Protestants, so there are judg
ments in which the whole Christian world has con
curred, which will nevertheless have to be reversed
before the judgment-seat of God.
These two men were living together at the same
time. There are no such men living now as they were ;
no such reHgious genius as Bunyan ; no spirit so
deeply absorbed in philosophy as Spinoza. They
had probably never heard of one another's names ;
but if they had, one would have devoted the other
to eternal flames, and that other would have regarded
him as an ignorant fellow and a madman. Such
awful misunderstandings there have been in this world.
If we could imagine them knowing one another
intimately (for all persons think differently of those
whom they know), then perhaps a feeling of surprise
might have arisen at so much good being united with
so much evil. They might have wondered to see
how by different roads they had arrived, if not quite,

56 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [hi.
yet nearly, at a common end. They might have
learned partly to understand one another, and the
calmness and wisdom of the one might have tempered
the fire and enthusiasm of the other. But I will not
inquire further how two such different types of
character could have been recast in the same mould.
For I may be reminded that
' God fulfils Himself in many ways,'
and in many characters of men. I wiU only remark
that the highest qualities of either seem to be also
the characteristics of the other. Humility, simplicity,
disinterestedness, the absence of envy or malice, the
temper of a little child, are the attributes of the philo
sopher as well as of the Christian ; for moral qualities,
when they rise to a certain height, seem to involve
intellectual qualities ; and intellectual quaHties, when
viewed in their highest aspect, become moral ones.
No man can be perfectly good who is not also wise ;
no man can walk safely amid the temptations of the
world who has no knowledge of the world ; no man
can act rightly who is incapable of foreseeing the
consequences of his actions ; and there are many more
links than at first sight appears by which reason and
faith are bound together, righteousness and truth
meet one another. In what remains of this sermon
I shaU endeavour to show how this union may be
perfected by some common instances taken from
ordinary life, and the danger of separating them.

in.] BUNYAN AND SPINOZA 57
1. Faith without knowledge is a wilful and un
meaning thing, which can never guide men into light
and truth. It will pervert their notions of God ; it
will transfer them from one religion to another ;
it may and often has undermined their sense of right
and wrong. It has no experience of life or of history,
no power of understanding or foreseeing the nature
of the struggle which is going on in the human heart
or the movements which affect Churches, and which,
as ecclesiastical history shows, always have been and
will be again. It is apt to rest on some misapplied
quotation from Scripture, and to claim for its own
creed, theories, and fancies, the authority of inspiration.
It is ready to assent to anything, or at least to any
thing which is in accordance with its own religious
feeling, and it has no sense of falsehood and truth. It
is fatal to the bringing up of children, because it never
takes the right means to its ends, and has never
learned to discern differences of character. It never
perceives where it is in this world. It is narrowed
to its own faith and the articles of its creed, and has
no power of embracing all men in the arms of love,
or in the purposes of God. It is an element of
division among mankind, and not of union. It might
be compared to a fire, which gives warmth but not
life or growth — which, instead of training or cherishing
the tender plants, dries them up, and takes away their
spring of youth.
2. But then, again, knowledge without faith is

58 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [in.
feeble and powerless, unsuited to our condition in this
world, supplying no sufficient motive of human action.
It is apt to sink into isolation and selfishness, and
seems rather to detach us from God and our fellow-
men than to unite us to them. It is likely to pass
into a cold and sceptical temper of mind, which sees
only the difficulties that surround us, and thinks that
one thing is as good as another, and that nothing in
this world signifies. This is a temper of mind which
is the ruin of the head as well as of the heart ; for no
man can pursue knowledge with success who has not
some sense of the higher purposes of knowledge,
some faith in the future, some hope that the far-off
result of his labours will be the good of man, and the
fulfilment of the will of God in the world.
What we seem to want in this more than in any
other age of the Church is the drawing together of
these seemingly diverging elements, not allowing these
two spirits to be at war with one another, regarding
each other with angry looks, as if preparing for a final
struggle. Can we persuade them that they are
brethren, and that the harmony of human life can
only be restored by their acting together for the good
of man ? Shall we tell the one that no knowledge or
inquiry can be displeasing to the God of truth ?
Shall we try to convince the other that there is some
thing more valuable than the mere material results of
scientific inquiries, which is the spirit in which they are
pursued ? Shall we endeavour to make him see that

in.] BUNYAN AND SPINOZA 59
he must look upon knowledge from the human and
divine, as well as from the scientific point of view ?
Shall we seek to persuade the one to give up his
old definitions and controversial evidences, and other
weapons of war, and present as his best defence the
Christian life? Shall we show the 'other that the
Christian faith is not merely something which is
written in a book, or confirmed by the authority of
the Church, but a truth to which his own heart and
conscience witnesses ? And when peace has begun
to be made between these discordant elements, then we
may go on to consider how the life of Christ in the soul
may be worked out under the conditions of the nine
teenth century — that is to say, how the spirit of Christ
may be infused into all knowledge and experience,
and include our ordinary avocations and common life —
comprehending aH, and leaving nothing out to grow
up as extraneous to the religion of Christ, and here
after to become hostile to it. Then Christians would
adapt means to ends ; they would no longer separate
the physical from the moral, or man from his circum
stances. Then would cease this foolish antagonism
of philosophy and faith, which can hardly be regarded
with patience when we reflect on the condition of the
suffering masses in our large towns and elsewhere.
Then there might be a zeal, of which there would be
no fear that it should exceed the bounds of toleration,
for it would be the zeal of universal charity towards
all men everywhere. Thus many duties relating to

60 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [in.
the health and well-being of others would reappear
to us in a new light, as the express command of
Christ, not indeed found in the words of the Gospel,
but as the true correlative of them in our own age
and country. In such difficult matters the Christian
would feel, not as a matter of prudence but of duty,
that he must not allow vague impulses of benevolence
to prevail over the consideration of consequences, or
expose himself to the reproof that in following the
example or the precepts of Christ he was doing more
harm than good.
To conclude, we may easily narrow the Gospel of
Christ into a ' letter ' by taking the accidents of a par
ticular age and country, the ways of life, the forms
of government, the modes of thought, and the com
mentaries which succeeding ages have made upon
them, and elevating them into the essence of the
Christian faith. But we may also receive the words
of Christ in the spirit ; and then, interpreted by the
conscience and read in the light of experience, they
wiU be found wide enough for all ages. And every
age and every individual must be carrying on this
work if the Gospel of Christ is still to bear fruit in the
world and in the human heart.
I beheve that on this occasion for the first, or nearly
the first time the minister of another denomination has
preached in this ancient church, and to avoid mis
understanding, and also that I may not be thought to
intrude myself, I should like to explain very briefly

in.] BUNYAN AND SPINOZA 61
what appears to me to be the significance of such an
act. Certainly a clergyman of the Church of England
does not come here to tell you anything new ; he has
no lesson to impart which you might not have learned
better from your own ministers ; still less does he
desire to raise a question of right ; he is only availing
himself of a privilege which, though little used, seems
allowed, or not denied, by the Church of Scotland.
But the occasion is a trifle ; the thing signified is of
more importance. For we cannot help feeling weary
and ashamed of the contentions and divisions which
disturb the Christian Church. We meet together in
business, in society, in the family, but at the door of
the church we part, and that which ought tq be the
highest bond of union amongst us becomes the most
lasting element of discord — ' our greatest love turned
to our greatest hate.' Does any one believe that this
separation and antagonism is altogether right ? Nations
seem to come together and enter into relations with
one another ; but Churches, when once divided, are
always divided — the hard lines which were fixed two
or three centuries ago are not obhterated, but deep
ened by time. We do not, of course, suppose that
Churches can be pulled down and rebuilt in a day
on a larger and more comprehensive plan. Like
laws, they are the growth of ages, and national feelings
and peculiarities are reflected and embodied in them.
But while admitting the fixed character of national
institutions, we desire also sometimes to regard the

62 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [ni.
members of other reHgious bodies and all men every
where as they are in the sight of God, according to
the natural feelings of the human heart— not divided
as Episcopalians and Presbyterians, or Catholics
and Protestants, or even as Christians and heathen.
We wish to think of these differences as they will
appear to us in the hour of death, when we shall be
occupied with our own lives, and not with forms of
faith — with our own sins, and not with the errors of
Churches — with the thought of another world, and
not with the controversies of this. We feel that the
points in which we are agreed are immeasurably
more important than those in which we differ, and
we are sensible that all Christian Churches have
so far failed in their mission that we cannot set up
one as the rival of another. We desire, too, that the
unity of the invisible Church, breaking through the
visible like the sun in the heavens overcoming the
mists and fogs of winter, should sometimes smile upon
us and be spread around and in our hearts. Nor can
we deny that the spirit of division has had a baneful
effect not only on our own Hves, but on the nation at
large ; not only on other ages, but also on this. How
much of our class jealousies seem to arise from this
cause ? That those who are naturally connected — say,
as landlord and tenant, or in any other natural re
lation — should be separated by religion, is surely a sad
evil which every one in his place should be seeking
to remedy. Again, there is the question of national

in.] BUNYAN AND SPINOZA 63
education, about which we are often told that the great
difficulty is religion. If the religious communities of
England and Scotland are charged before a higher
than man's judgment-seat with having delayed the
progress of education for a generation, what can they
say ? ' Lord, we have maintained the Confessions of
faith ; we have taught the Catechism ; we have
preached in the synagogue ; we have denounced
heresy and Erastianism.' But must not the answer
be : ' Forasmuch as ye allowed these children to perish
through your divisions — ' ? Or, once more, are we not
often alarmed at the hideous spread of pauperism
and vice, with which the Church or Churches of
Christ seem unable to cope? But while we are
divided amongst ourselves, how can we expect to
carry on a straightforward batde against evil — while
we are more interested about points in which we
differ than about the great truths of religion and
morality in which we are agreed ? And although we
do not dream of a union of Churches, yet may we not
hope to see a true sense of proportion amongst us ;
that the external may no longer prevail over the
internal, and that we may recognize the ties which
unite us to be far greater and more enduring than the
accidents which separate us ? All opinions are not
the same or indifferent, but we have to learn that they
are only valuable as they tend to quicken in us the
Christian life. Let a man fix his mind on the image
of Christ set before us in the Gospels—' He went

64 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [in.
about doing good ' — and the lines which divide
Churches, and which once appeared so strongly
marked, will fade away before his eyes. In some
common work of charity — the management of a
school, the care of a home, the improvement of the
dwelHngs of the poor — he will find the solution of
a difficulty for which theologians have sought in
vain.

IV. RICHARD BAXTER1.
/ HAVE BEEN YOUNG AND NOW AM OLD; YET HAVE
I NOT SEEN THE RIGHTEOUS FORSAKEN.
Psalm xxxvii. 25.
A GREAT man, Richard Baxter, who died about
two hundred years ago, towards the close of his life
drew up a narrative of the errors into which upon
reflection he seemed to himself to have faUen in the
course of it. This is not the exact anniversary of
his death, which topk place on Dec. 8, 1691. But
I may, perhaps, without impropriety, speak to you
of him on this day. The lives of great and good
men are the best sermons which we ever read or
hear; and the preacher may do well sometimes to
shield himself behind them, and so to speak with
greater authority than his own words could fairly
claim. It is probable that the name of Baxter has
never been celebrated before within these walls; for
he was the leader of the Nonconformists of his day ;
and it is not to be supposed that perfect justice was
¦done him in a later generation any more than in his
1 Preached in Westminster Abbey, July 4, 1891.

66 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [iv.
own by his opponents. But now that both he and
they are gone to their account, we can think of
them only as the servants of God who by some
strange accident were parted from one another here,
but have now entered into common rest and dwell
together in His presence.
I propose in this sermon to do three things — First,
I shall give a brief account of the Hfe of this remark
able man ; one of the greatest of Englishmen, not
only of his own, but of any time. Secondly, I shall
enumerate a few particulars remarked by him about
himself in that singular review of his own errors and
misconceptions to which I have already referred, and
which may with truth be said to be unique in
EngHsh Hterature. Thirdly, I shall ask you to
consider how you or I or any of us may, in a humble
way, either towards the end of life or in the middle
of it, examine our own lives in a similar spirit and
see ourselves as we truly are, not gilded by self-love
or self-conceit, but as we appear in the sight of other
men and women of sense and in the sight of God.
The life of Richard Baxter coincides with a long
period of political trouble. He was born in the year
1 615, and died about three years after the Revolution
of 1688. Both he and his father, who was an
exceUent man, seem to have passed through the
awakening of Puritanism. In 1641 we find him
settled at Kidderminster, in which town he continued
to minister, with some interruptions, for seventeen

iv.] BAXTER 67
years. Wonderful stories are told of the effects of
his preaching. It might be said of him that as the
people of Nineveh repented at the preaching of
Jonah, so did the people of Kidderminster at the
preaching of Richard Baxter. Nor was he more
occupied in preaching the Gospel to his own flock
than in opposing the Anabaptists and other sectaries,
including the soldiers of Cromwell's army, with in
exhaustible energy and irresistible logic. He was
on the side of the Parliament, but believed for a time
that both he and they were loyal subjects of the king.
Under the Commonwealth he was appointed chaplain
to CromweU, and seems to have spoken his mind to
him with astonishing freedom about King Charles
the First. Neither of them liked or trusted the
other. After the Restoration, during the short period
when it was the policy of the Court to conciliate the
Nonconformists, he was offered the Bishopric of
Hereford. The offer was declined. Baxter con
tinued to struggle for peace and toleration until,
on Aug. 22, 1662, the Nonconformist ministers were
finally expelled by the Act of Uniformity. That
was the greatest misfortune that has ever befallen this
country, a misfortune which has never been retrieved.
For it has made two nations of us instead of one, in
politics, in religion, almost in our notion of right
and wrong : it has arrayed one class of society per-.
manently against another. And many of the political
F 2

68 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [iv.
difficulties of our own time have their origin in the
enmities caused by the rout of Aug. 22, 1662, called
Black Bartholomew's Day, which Baxter vainly strove
to avert.
When the policy of the Church and the Court
could no longer be resisted, Baxter, who might have
been Bishop of Hereford, thought only of retiring to
his beloved Kidderminster. He was not permitted
to do so. For the next twenty-six years his life
was that of an exile in his own land and a prisoner
for conscience sake. Often there must have come into
his mind those words of St. Paul, which in a measure
represented his own sufferings : ' In labours more
abundant, ... in prisons more frequent, in deaths
oft. ... In perils by mine own countrymen, ... in perils
in the city, ... in perils among false brethren. . . .
Besides that which cometh upon me daily, the care of
all the churches.' He was also afflicted during nearly
the whole of his life with painful and terrible disorders
of the body, which had often to be endured in prison
and without the necessary means of support. Yet
was this the time when the activity of his mind was
greatest. He is said to have been the most volumin
ous of English divines. He published 168 volumes;
and among them one book which, with the single
exception of the Pilgrim's Progress, has had a wider
diffusion and found a nearer way to the hearts of
religious men in England than any other devotional
writing, and may still be read for its style as well as

iv.] BAXTER 69
for its high merits with a deep interest, The Saints'
Everlasting Rest.
When we hear of such men and their labours, who
combined the persevering industry of the great scholar
with the moral force of a hero and a leader of man
kind, we are apt to say, ' There were giants on the
earth in those days.' It would be better to say, that
they were the sons of God who fought not in their
own strength — one man more than a thousand, for
they endured as seeing Him who is invisible.
Yet in this life of suffering, in the prison, in the
court of the oppressed, in the poor and mean abode,
amid disease and all the ills which flesh is heir to,
there was one star or bright spot which shed a ray
upon his darkness. This was a lady of gentle birth
and breeding who, when he was near fifty years of
age and she little more than twenty, gave herself to
God and to him. He had once thought that it was
better for a minister to be unmarried ; he might have
added the reason given by St. Paul — because of the
troubles of the times. But now he came to see that
a lot might be possible for two joined in sweet society,
which to a single person might have been death and
despair only. We may be confident that to her no
other life would have been acceptable. She lived
after her marriage nineteen years. Her name was
Margaret Charlton. Her husband wrote what he
called the breviate of her life, from which and from
other sources an eloquent writer of the present day

70 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [iv.
has drawn a portrait of her. She was one of those
remarkable women who have effaced themselves that
they might help and save others, who have found
their lives in losing them. After" mentioning that
' her strangely vivid wit ' was celebrated by John
Howe, the great Nonconformist divine, the writer to
whom I have referred continues as follows : ' Timid,
gentle, and reserved, and nursed amid all the luxuries of
her age, her heart was the abode of affection so intense
and of fortitude so enduring that her meek spirit, im
patient of one selfish wish, progressively acquired all
the heroism of benevolence, and seemed at length
incapable of one selfish fear. In prison, in sickness,
in every form of danger and fatigue, she was still
with unabated cheerfulness at the side of her husband,
prompting him to the discharge of every duty,
calming the asperities of his temper, his associate in
unnumbered acts of philanthropy, embellishing his
humble home by the little arts with which a cultivated
mind imparts its own gracefulness to the meanest
dwelling-place; and during the nineteen years of
their union joining with him in one unbroken strain
of filial affiance to the divine mercy. Her tastes and
habits had been moulded with a perfect conformity
to his. He celebrates her catholic charity to the
opponents of their religious opinions and her in
flexible adherence to her own; her high esteem of
the active and passive virtues of the Christian Hfe,
as contrasted with a barren orthodoxy; her noble

iv.] BAXTER 71
disinterestedness, her skill in casuistry, her love of
music and her medicinal arts.'
There is still one more fact in Richard Baxter's
life which, even in the shortest account of him, ought
not to be passed over in silence : his refusal to join
with the Roman Catholics against the Church of
England, who had been his persecutors during the
twenty years previous. When the crisis which pre
ceded the Revolution of 1688 was approaching, the
government of James the Second sought to enlist
the Nonconformists in their interest by a promise of
toleration in their struggle against the Church of
England. Baxter, who had been recently imprisoned,
refused to join this new league and covenant, and
by his great influence with his brethren succeeded in
detaching them from it. He had no thought of
revenging himself on the clerical party for their per
secution of him. And certainly no one ever conferred
a greater benefit on the Church of England or on
the country. For it is easy to see that, if James the
Second could have carried with him the Dissenters, he
could have settled things as he pleased. This was
what Baxter by his statesmanlike insight foresaw,
and was not disposed to gain advantages for Non
conformists at the cost of the destruction of the
Church of England or the establishment of Popery.
He was the same man who, when he was committed
twenty years before to Clerkenwell gaol for some
sHght infringement of ecclesiastical law, at the same

72 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [iv.
time obtained from King Charles the Second, through
the influence of one of his disciples, the charter of
the original Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel. And so this eminent servant of God passed to his
rest. Considering his character and popularity, the
extent of his writings, his genius and learning, he
may be said to be the greatest of English theologians
(or one of the greatest), as he has certainly been one
of the most lasting influences on popular theology.
He was not without faults, of which, we gather from
his writings and also from the narrative to which
I referred at first, too great pugnacity and con
tentiousness were the most serious. In the days of
his youth he was too fervid and vehement and
inconsiderate. But we are now to hear of him from
his own just judgment of himself. He left no de
scendants. The scholar may be interested to know
that William Baxter, the contemporary of Bentley
and the editor" of Anacreon and Horace, was the son
of Richard Baxter's brother.
Baxter wrote a voluminous autobiography, in which
at the end of the first part is found the review of
his own life which I am going to describe to you.
Why is this passage so remarkable ? Because it is
one of the few theological writings in which the love
of holiness and the love of truth seem altogether to
take the place of ecclesiastical and party interests;
because it gets rid of conventionalities into which

iv.] BAXTER 73
we all of us so readily fall when writing of things which
are beyond us; because it admits us behind the veil
into the holy place of a good man's soul. Many
persons have written about themselves, but no one
has done so with the same calm judgment or the
same breadth of charity towards all other men.
He looks back into the vista of the past and judges
his own motives and actions with the impartiality
of history. He sees more clearly his own errors
and prejudices when he is at a distance from them,
as we sometimes have a wider and truer view of the
landscape when the sun is going down and the heat
of the day is past. He tells us that in his youth he
was very apt to start upon controversies in ignorance
of the antipathies and enmities which were engendered
by them; now he is disposed to ignore differences,
and to think with Lord Bacon that 'it is a great
benefit of Church peace and concord, when writing
controversies is turned into books of practical de
votion.' He has learned to doubt whether men can
be reasoned into their opinions. He does not venture
to say anything of his opponents, because his testi
mony respecting them is hardly to be believed. His
observation of the world has led him to doubt the
value of professions of religion ; he had once thought
that all who could pray movingly were saints, but
now he has more charity for many who are wanting
in such gifts. He is not for narrowing the Church
more than Christ himself alloweth ; nor for robbing

74 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [iv.
Him of any of His flock. He is not so much inclined
to pass a peremptory sentence of damnation upon
aU who never heard of Christ, having much more
reason, he says, than I knew of before to think that
God's dealings with such are much unknown to us.
His censures of Papists too differ much from what
they were at first. For he is now assured that their
misexpressions and misunderstandings of us, and our
mistakings of them and inconvenient expression of
our own opinions, has made the differences between
Protestant and Catholic on many points, such as
Justification, to seem much greater than they are,
and that in some points there is no difference at aU.
The great and irreconcileable differences He in their
church tyranny and usurpations, in their corruptions
and abasement of God's worship, and their befriending
of ignorance and vice. Yet he doubts not that God
hath many sanctified ones among them ; and he
cannot believe that God will ever cast a soul into
heU that truly loveth Him. He is farther than ever
from expecting unity and prosperity to the Church
on earth ; or that saints should dream of a kingdom
of this world, or flatter themselves with hopes of
a Golden Age, or reigning over the ungodly. The
observation of God's deaHng with the Church in
every age, and His befooling of them who have
dreamed of glorious times, as the Anabaptists, the
Fifth Monarchy Men, and others, confirms him in this.
If he were among the Greeks, the Lutherans, the

iv.] BAXTER 75
Independents, yea, even the Anabaptists, he would
sometimes hold communion with them. ' I cannot
be of their mind that think God will not accept him
that prayeth by the Common Prayer, nor yet can I be
of their mind that say the like of extempore prayers.'
One more example of his toleration shall be added
which, considering the country and age in which he
lived, is reahy wonderful: it goes back far into the
history of the past. After speaking of the prodi
gious lies which had been told in his own age in the
interests of religion, and the tendency to believe
everything on the one side and nothing on the other,
he continues : ' Therefore I confess that I give but
halting credit to most histories that are written, not
only against the Albigenses and Waldenses, but
against most of the ancient heretics who have left us
none of their own writings in which they speak for
themselves ; and I heartily lament that the historical
writings of the ancient schismatics and heretics (as
they were called) perished, and that partiality suffered
them not to survive, that we might have had more
Hght on the Church affairs of those times and been
better able to judge between the Fathers and them.
And as I am prone to think that few of them were
so bad as their adversaries made them, so I am apt
to think that such as the Novatians, whom their
adversaries commend, were very good men and more
godly than most Catholics, however mistaken in
some one point.'

76 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [iv.
Two characteristics he notes of advancing years.
First, he feels a decline of the zeal of his youth, for
which he is half incfined to blame himself; he thinks
that he is like a person travelling a way which he
hath often gone, or casting up an account which
he hath often cast up, or playing upon an instrument
which he hath often played upon. And no doubt
there have been many whose religions, like their
other affections, have in a manner withered when
life was beginning to decay, and who by frequent
repetitions have grown tired of religious exercises.
But he also finds better reasons for this decline of
devotional fervour. For he has learned to value
things more truly as he grows older and to see them
in a juster proportion. In his youth he was quickly
past fundamentals, and was running up into a multi
tude of controversies, and greatly delighted with
metaphysical and scholastic writings, but in later life
he laid less stress upon those controversies and curiosi
ties, and found less and less certainty in them. The
subjective certainty of an opinion cannot go beyond
the objective evidence for it ; and he will not pretend
to be more certain than he is. He strongly urges
that religion should rest on the broadest foundations ;
on the Being of God rather than on a future state
of rewards and punishments, on that state itself
rather than on the endless duration of it; on the
essentials of the Christian faith rather than on the
meaning of particular texts or the canonicalness of

iv.J BAXTER

11

some certain books. They must allow him to use
to Christians the arguments by which alone a heathen
can be touched, such as the being of a God and the
necessity of holiness.
There are some things for which he believes that
God may have forgiven him, but he cannot forgive
himself, especially for very rash words or deeds by
which he may have seemed injurious or less tender
and kind than he should have been to near and dear
relations, ' whose love,' he says, ' abundandy obliged
me. When such are dead, though we never differed
in point of interest or any grave matter, every pro
voking word which I gave them maketh me almost
irreconcileable to myself, and tells me how repentance
brought some of old to pray to the dead whom they
had wronged to forgive them in the passion of
their soul.'
There is another confession which he makes true
to the experience, not only of himself, but probably
of most religious men. He says that as he grew
old he is troubled not so much by the consciousness
of past sins, but by the sensible want of the love of
God shed abroad in the heart. This he conceives to
be the top of all religion which gives value to all
the rest because it alters and elevates the mind. He
used to think such meditations tiresome, and that
everybody knew God to be good and great, and heaven
to be a blessed place, but now he would sooner read,
hear, or meditate on such truths than on anything else.

78 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [iv.
One more extract which speaks to our own and
to every other age of the Christian Church : ' I appre
hend it,' he says, ' to be a matter of great necessity
to imprint true Catholicism in the minds of Christians,
it being a most lamentable thing to observe how few
Christians in the world there be that fall not into
one sect or trie other, and wrong not the common
interest of Christianity for the promotion of the
interest of their sect. And how lamentably love is
thereby destroyed, so that most men think they are
not bound to love men as the members of Christ
which are against their party. And if they can but
get to be of a sect which they think to be the holiest
or which is the largest, they think that they are
sufficiently warranted to deny others to be God's
Church, or at least to deny them Christian love and
communion.' So I have endeavoured to place before you, very
imperfectly, a fragment or two of a great mind. He
was one who Hved as well as preached, and whose
life was his most powerful sermon to posterity, as
well as to his own age. Some of his words speak to
us heart to heart, and have a far-reaching meaning
to the wants of our days ; there are others which are
not equally appropriate because the relations of the
Church and of the world have become different, and
the thoughts of men ' have widened with the process
of the suns.' There have been controversies in our
own day, not so virulent, but as widely diffused as in

iv.] BAXTER 79
the days of the Commonwealth and of the Restoration ;
and must we not aU of us admit that we have changed
many of our religious opinions during the last fifty
years? There are a few here present who can
remember how forty years ago, or again rather more
than sixty years, the panic about Popery spread
through the country. There may have been some
indirect benefit which arose from such a movement,
but it can hardly be said to have conduced to Christian
charity. Reflecting on the past, and remembering all
the evils which for a century and more have been
the result of this anti-Catholic bigotry, must we not
apply to ourselves the censure which Christ passed
on His disciples, ' Ye know not what manner of spirit
ye are of,' or perhaps on this as on some other great
historical occasion ask the question ' Whether nations,
like individuals, may not go mad ? ' Or, once more,
we may note a remarkable change of opinion in
which many of us no longer agree with our former
selves, when the results of historical criticism in their
bearing on the Old and New Testament began to be
made known in this country; and now that we are
becoming familiar with them, wiU any one say that
we ought not in some degree to alter our attitude
towards such inquiries as light and knowledge
increase, and not embark the religion of Christ in
such a hopeless and unmeaning controversy ? ' While
we wrangle here in the dark,' I am once more quoting
Baxter — ' while we wrangle here in the dark, we are

80 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [iv.
dying and passing to the world which will decide
all our controversies, and the safest passage is by
peaceable holiness. It is a great source of calm and
repose in our religious life always to turn from small
things to great, from things far away to things near
at hand, from the foolishness of controversy to the
truths which are simple and eternal, from man to God.'
And now, leaving history and controversy and
subjects which most of us only hear about at a distance,
I will suppose a similar vein of reflection to be enter
tained by an elder person living not two hundred
years ago, but a contemporary of our own, present
in this Abbey here to-night. He too has something to
say to us which is of interest to himself and to others.
Now on the threshold of old age, he may be supposed
to take a look backward over the sixty or seventy
years which have passed, not in the great world, but
within the Hmits of his own home. His religion is
not derived from books, but comes to him from his
experience of life.
First he has a deep sense of thankfulness to God
for all His mercies. He may have had troubles and
disappointments in life, but he acknowledges that all
things have been ordered for the best. The days
pass more quickly with him now than formerly and
make less impression on him. He will soon be
crossing the bar and going forth upon the ocean.
He is not afraid of death, it seems natural to him;
he is soon about to pass into the hands of God. He

iv.] BAXTER 81
has many thoughts about the past which he does not
communicate to others — about some persons in whom
he has had a peculiar interest, about places in which
he has lived, about words spoken to him in his youth
which have strangely imprinted themselves on his
mind, about many things which no one living but
himself can remember. He wonders how he ever
escaped from the temptations of youth, and is some
times inclined to think that the Providence which
watches over children and drunken people must have
had a special care of him. He may have been guilty
too of some meannesses or sins which are concealed
from his fellow-men ; he is thankful that they are
known to God only. He is not greatly troubled at
the remembrance of them, if he have been delivered
from them, but much more at the unprofitableness of
his whole life.
Before he depart he has some things to say to his
children or to hie mends. He will tell them that he
now sees this world in different proportions, and that
what was once greatly valued by him now seems no
longer of importance. The dreams of love and of
ambition have fled away ; he is no longer under the
dominion of the hour. The disappointments which
he has undergone no more affect him ; he is incfined
to think that they may have been for his good. He
sees many things in his life which might have been
better ; opportunities lost which could never afterwards
be by him recovered. He might have been wiser

82 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [iv.
about health, or the education of his children, or his
choice of friends, or the management of his business.
He would like to warn younger persons against some
of the mistakes which he had himself made. He
would tell them that no man in later life rejoiced in
the remembrance of a quarrel ; and that the trifles of
Hfe, good temper, a gracious manner, trifles as they
are thought, are among the most important elements
of success. Above all he would exhort them to get
rid of selfishness and self-conceit, which are the two
greatest sources of human evil.
There are some reflections which would often occur
to his own mind though he might not speak of them
to others. A sharp thrill of pain might sometimes
pierce his heart when he remembered any irremediable
wrong of which he had been the author, or when he
recaUed any unkind word to a parent which he had
hastily uttered, or any dishonourable conduct of which
he had been guilty. He need not disclose his fault to
men, but neither will he disguise it from himself;
least of all, if he have repented of the sin and is no
longer the servant of it, should his conscience be
overpowered by the remembrance of it. For sin too,
like sorrow, is healed by time ; and he who is really
delivered from its bondage need not fear lest God
should create it anew in him that He may inflict
punishment upon him. For in the sight of God we
are what we are, not what we have been at some
particular moment; nor yet what we are in some

iv.] BAXTER 83
detail or in reference to some particular act, but what
we are on the whole.
Once more, when a man is drawing towards the
end, he will be apt to think of the blessings of
friendship and of family life. He has done so little
for others and received so much from them. The
old days of his childhood come back to him : the
memory of his father and mother and brothers and
sisters, all in the house together, and the lessons and
the games and the birthday feasts and rejoicings as
in a picture crowd upon his thoughts. When we
have grown old they are most of them taken before
us ; no one else can ever fill their place in our lives.
Also there have been friends who have been like
brothers and sisters to us ; many of these too are
gone and cannot be replaced. They have sympathized
with our trials; they have inspired us with higher
thoughts ; they have spoken words which have been
for ever imprinted on our mind. They have taken
trouble to do us good — sometimes a remark of one
of them thrown out as if by accident, or a letter
written at a critical time, may have saved us from
a fatal mistake. They have cared for our interests
more than for their own, they would have died for
us. Such experiences of disinterested friendship
many men have had; and we reflect upon them
more as we are left more alone, and the world
is withdrawing from us. Living or dead the true
friend can never be forgotten by faithful and loyal
G 2

84 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [iv.
hearts. And as the days become fewer, we think
more of them as they once were in Hfe — as they are
now with God where we too soon shall be.
Yet once more, we may suppose the statesman, who
is within a measurable distance of the end,
'When the hurlyburly 's done,
When the battle's lost and won,'
to make similar reflections on his own poHtical life.
Perhaps he will say in the words of one who ten
years ago was so familiar a figure among us : 'In
the past there are many things I condemn, many
things that I deplore, but a man's life must be
taken as a whole.' He will not look back to party
triumphs or great displays of oratory with the
satisfaction which he once felt in them. He will
acknowledge that he has made endless mistakes, and
will sometimes wish that he had been more independent
of popular opinion. He has done little compared
with what he once hoped to do. He will value most
that part of his work which tended to promote
justice, or to save life or to increase health, or to diffuse
education, or to establish the foundation of peace
between nations and classes. And in the words of
one of the greatest of English statesmen, he will be
glad to be remembered with expressions of goodwill
in the abode of those whose lot it is to labour and to
earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow.
Lastly, we may extend the spirit of the reflections

iv.] BAXTER 85
of Richard Baxter to the religious difficulties of our
own day. We may imagine an aged man who has
lived through the last fifty or sixty years, and has
been watching the movements which have agitated the
Church from extreme to extreme and back again, each
tendency seeming to have as great or even a greater
reaction. He would see, as Baxter saw in his old age,
that all other things come to an end, but that of the
love of God and man there is no end. He would not
raise questions about the rites of the Church, or the
canonicity of the books of Scripture : these belong to
criticism and ecclesiastical history, not to the spiritual
life. He would seek for the permanent and essential
only in the books of Scripture, in the lives of good
men, in the religion of the world. To follow Christ,
to speak the truth in love, to do to others as you
would they should do to you, these are the eternal
elements of religion which can never pass away, and
he who lives in these lives in God.

V. BLAISE PASCAL1.
HE BEING MADE PERFECT IN A SHORT TIME
FULFILLED A LONG TIME.
Wisdom of Solomon iv. 13.
Time cannot measure the value or fullness of
human life. There have been young persons dying
in their teens who have left behind them a memory
and an example to those older as well as younger
than themselves. We hardly wished them to have
lived longer : Hke some fair plant they grew up at
once to perfection. Their ways were so gentle and
gracious that they seemed almost too good for this
world. Years pass away, and we ourselves may be
approaching the appointed term, but the recollection
of some such frail, innocent Hfe has a place in the
hearts of many of us. We look back upon them as
they were at fifteen, eighteen, nineteen : the image of
them may sometimes come between us and selfishness
or sin. We cannot think of them as they are or as
they would have been ; not a year can be added to
their age, though we ourselves may be growing
1 Preached at Balliol Chapel, May 22, 1881.

v.] PASCAL 87
worn out and grey. What impression the world would
have produced upon them had they survived ; whether
it would have been better for them to have lived a
little longer or not ; what they are doing or what
is happening to them it is impossible for us to
conceive. Yet they have not Hved in vain if they have left
some recollection of themselves which in a wider or
narrower sphere had affected others for good. It
might have been better that they had gone on to the
fullness of the stature of the perfect man or woman ;
it might have been that the trials and temptations of
the world would have been too much for them, and
they would have brought forth no fruit. We some
times say, ' If such an one's life had been spared
what a difference it would have made to a family or
to a state, to the advancement of knowledge, or to
the history of a country.' And yet in a short time
also such great things have been done by some men,
that they could hardly have accomplished more had
their lives been protracted beyond the usual span of
human existence a few years ; sometimes, as for
example in war, a few hours are the critical or
momentous periods in a man's career. The younger
William Pitt was, perhaps, the greatest man in Europe
at the age of thirty or thirty-four, and one of the
greatest at twenty-five. The greatness both of the
Emperor Napoleon and of the Duke of WelHngton
may be said to have terminated in the year 1815,

88 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [v.
when they were both about forty-six or forty-seven
years of age. The poet Byron died at the age of
thirty -seven ; SheUey was much younger. Of the
great classic names of a former age, Marlowe, by
some deemed the founder of the Enghsh drama, was
only twenty-eight at the time of his death. Burns
was thirty-seven. The great philosopher Spinoza
died at forty -seven ; Shakespeare himself at fifty-two.
The greatest and best of French statesmen, Turgot,
resolved when young to begin at once, because his
own family had been generally short-lived. He, too,
having left a mark, not only on the politics of his
country, but on the political ideas of all Europe, died
at the age of fifty- three.
Such great things have been accomplished by a
few men in half or less than half the working-day of
life. They had not much repose, nor did they care
about it ; and in some instances their days may have
been shortened by labour and excitement. Even in
this short tinle they were not for the most part
performing regular tasks. Great geniuses often seem
to have uncontrollable fits of intellectual and moral
energy, called forth by occasion or necessity, and then
to sink back in a kind of exhaustion. We are not
sure that Shakespeare, had he attained the threescore
years and ten, would have added much to his fame
or to his writings ; or that Spinoza, had he lived
thirty years longer, would have reached any further
point in philosophy. It is possible, on the other

v.] PASCAL 89
hand, that later years might have added something of
reflection or experience or moderation to them ; some
new strain of thought which could not have been
communicated to them until they had become the
spectators of their own past lives. But these are only
curious speculations. The thought of the duration of
human life affects men differently at different ages.
To a young man thirty years seem enough, and more
than enough, for the accomplishment of all his pur
poses, for the fulfilment of all his dreams. But as he
grows older he finds that the performance has faUen
far short of the promise, and he would like, if he has
any purpose in life at all, to stay a little longer, that
he may, if possible, make up for the incompleteness of
the past.
One of those persons who in a short time fulfilled
a long time, I propose to bring before you to-day,
in accordance with the plan of these sermons. He
died in the thirty-ninth year of his age. I do not
exactly propose him as an example. For he was a
great man, much above the measure of any one now
living, not only in this University, but in England or
in Europe. Yet there are some elements of life and
character which we may gather from the lives of those
who are far above us in genius and virtue ; or rather
it seems as if the more uncommon qualities of human
nature, the hidden gifts, require to be brought before
us in some conspicuous instance if they are to make
an adequate impression on our minds. And I think

go SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [v.
that the great and good man of whom I am about
to speak touches us very nearly, by his sufferings and
his self-devotion, and in some degree by his very
weakness, and that there is a great deal which we
indirectly learn from his character. He is believed
almost to have created anew his native language,
that is, to have imparted to it a grace and refinement
and clearness which was impressed for ever afterwards
on its literature. He was not by nature of a strong
and commanding will ; at any rate this was true of him
in early life, though he was pure and innocent ; but
he was a mighty genius, subjected to and inspired by
a strong religious influence. In his youth he had
tasted the pleasures of life, had formed connexions
with the great, and had been a sort of wonder of
society and of the world. His later years were passed
in almost continuous sufferings, at which he never
seems to have repined ; never to have wished that
they should be allayed or diminished ; and, as if his
natural trials were not enough, he never allowed him
self the solace of any pleasure. Yet the sweet mirth
and gaiety of his society made him the deHght of all
who knew him. He was composed of opposites, or
at least of qualities, which hardly ever exist in the
same person. The finest mathematical genius was
united in him with the most exquisite moral sensi-
biHty ; he was at once the first, or one of the first,
men of science, and he was by far the greatest and
most finished writer of his age — of all modern writers

v.] PASCAL

9i

perhaps the one who most nearly approaches classical
perfection. Not that he is imaginative or poetical ;
his charm is of another kind. There are other con
trasts which appear in him. For though he was a
philosopher and a saint, yet the far-off echo of
Vanity Fair is to be found everywhere in his writings,
the recollection of a world which he well knew, but
with which he had ceased to be concerned. In early
life he seems to have loved a lady much above him
in rank, whose name is now only known by the cir
cumstance that she is supposed, perhaps unconsciously
to herself, to have occupied a place in his affections.
He remarks with some bitterness that not to have
been born in the rank of a noble is thirty years of
life lost. He says (the work in which the words occur
is probably a youthful one) that there are two things
worth Hving for — first love, secondly ambition, which
are the two great master passions of mankind. He
was a saint and a sceptic in one, or rather he may be
said to have made scepticism the foundation of his
religion. As he advanced in years he was very
severe on his own weaknesses, and, after the manner of
another age, he had a girdle made of iron points with
which he pierced himself when he found the tempta
tion of pleasure or vanity rising in him. In later life
he is recorded to have been on principle cold and
repelling, because he was afraid of others becoming
too much attached to him. Yet this ascetic, or fanatic,
if you Hke to call him so, had the keenest love of

92 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [v.
truth (not generally deemed the virtue of a saint), and
the most intense sympathy with the poor, among whom
he desired to live and die.
Many persons here present will have anticipated
that there is only one man to whom aU these various
traits are applicable, the author of the Pensees and
the Lettres a un Provincial. Pascal was born in
the year 1623, of an honourable though not of a noble
stock, and from his earHest childhood gave proofs of
extraordinary genius. At the age of fifteen he had
composed a treatise on Conic Sections; at nineteen
he had invented a calculating machine ; at twenty-
three he made experiments on the gravity of air in
confirmation of Torricelli's discoveries. Once after
wards, in the last year or two of his life, during a
night sleepless from toothache, some thoughts unde
signedly came into his head concerning the Roulette
or Cycloid ; a second thought followed the first, and
a third the second, until the demonstration of the
various mathematical properties of the machine was
complete. With this single exception, from the
twenty-fifth year of his life onwards, he devoted him
self exclusively to reHgious study and contemplation.
His zeal soon inspired the whole family, especially
his celebrated sister, Jacqueline Pascal, who became
a nun at the Port Royal Monastery, and she in her
turn seems to have exercised an extraordinary influ
ence over him. At about thirty years of age he
retired into the country and withdrew altogether from

v.] PASCAL 93
the world. For five years he employed himself exclu
sively in self-discipline and in composing a book
against Atheism and unbelief; this is the work of
which fragments are preserved in the Pensees. One
of his great studies seems to have been how to reduce
himself in every respect to the condition of the poor ;
he always kept the love of poverty present in his
thoughts ; he would in every respect be like them,
despising the conveniences of life in his sickness,
and only keeping his property that he might use it
for their good. He seemed also to have risen above
ordinary human affection ; when his sister died, he
would only repeat perpetually, ' Blessed are the dead
that die in the Lord,' and ' May God give us grace to
die as well.' The surviving sister, who has written
down these particulars of his life, tells us how she had
once imagined that he had no affection for them, but
was led soon afterwards to discover her mistake.
The last four years of his Hfe, from thirty-five to
thirty-nine, were, as she describes, a sort of languish
ing death, in which he was able neither to read nor
write, and could scarcely see any one. In the two
years which preceded, that is, in the thirty-fourth and
thirty-fifth years of his own age, he wrote the famous
Provincial Letters. A few of the ' thoughts ' are
probably of a still later date. And so this great intelli
gence gradually closed up and became extinguished,
and the spirit fled away from a long and lingering
agony to final rest. In his last illness he desired

94 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [v.
that some poor sick person might be brought into
his chamber and share the comforts with which he
was so plentifully provided, * or at least that he him
self might be carried to the hospital of incurables, for
he had a great desire to die in the company of the
poor.' This singular request the physicians would
not allow his sister to grant, deeming it dangerous to
move him in his present condition.
I have endeavoured to bring before you in rough
outline a few traits of this remarkable man, this mathe
matical genius, this greatest of all controversialists,
this philosopher-saint, this most accomplished of
French writers, this enthusiast for poverty and the
poor. And now I wiU proceed to his writings, in
which he yet lives more than any other French writer
of modern times. Of these, the two principal ones
are Pensees, or Thoughts, and the Provincial
Letters. The first of these two works is a series of frag
ments, jotted down as they occurred to his mind,
without much form except that natural beauty of
style, clear as crystal, which was characteristic of him
always. They extend over many years ; and different
reflections belong to very different times in his life —
to what may be called, for shortness, the period
before as well as after his conversion. There are say
ings which remind us of Montaigne and La Roche
foucauld, such as this : ' If every one knew what was
said of him behind his back, there could not be three

v.] PASCAL 95
friends in the world.' This is a hard saying, and not
altogether true. For every man of sense is aware
that many things are said of him in his absence which
would not be said in his presence ; he will not on
that account discard his friends; and he may some
times, perhaps, wish that he had the gift to see him
self as others see him, and, for his own improvement,
could know what they said of him. Like other sensi
tive minds, Pascal was attracted towards the world,
and also shrunk from it, and he had a great insight
into its weaknesses and follies, as well as into the
weaknesses and follies of religious professors. Take
the following examples : ' Men generally want to
know, that they may talk about their knowledge ; '
' Men never do evil so heartily and gaily as for con
science sake ; ' * Men are bound by ties of necessity,
and force is the foundation of government ; ' ' There
are only two sorts of men, the righteous who believe
that they are sinners, and the sinners who believe that
they are righteous ; ' ' Often we confuse the heart and
the imagination, and believe that we are converted
when we are only sentimentalizing about it ; ' ' While
speaking after the manner of other men, we should
keep a thought in the background and judge every
thing by that ' — a word which may perhaps have an
innocent meaning, yet is more in the manner of the
Jesuits than of Pascal. The very amusing saying,
' Had Cleopatra's nose been shorter, the face of the
world would have been changed,' is one of Pascal's

96 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [v.
reflections. Here is another : ' Man who is ignorant
at his birth, at the other end of his life knows only
that he is ignorant.' One more saying recently dis
covered among his papers, in which he seems to be
describing himself, has been the subject of much com
ment: 'A man should be three things — a mathe
matician, a sceptic, a humble follower of Christ.'
That is clearly not the description of a well-balanced
or really philosophical mind. For mathematics are
far from covering the whole field of truth, and he
who doubts about all other things can never have
a rational belief in the Christian religion. The words
describe very truly the character of Pascal, but they
cannot be said to contain a safe or true principle.
I have already quoted some of his sceptical sayings,
and there are still stronger ones. ' Mankind are
necessarily mad, and not to be mad is only a new kind
of madness ; ' ' Of all the schools of philosophy, one
only deserves, or rather compels, attention, that of
the Pyrrhonists ; ' ' Magistrates and physicians and
doctors of the law could never have duped the world
if they had not imposed upon us by their dress, their
red robes and furs, and cassocks, and square caps ; '
' Pyrrhonism was the truth before Christ, for after all
without revelation men know nothing.' Yet see also
how justly and beautifully he can express himself on
philosophy : ' The Stoics fancy that you can be always
doing what you are doing sometimes ; ' ' Truth is
not only the agreement of ideas with facts, but of

v.] PASCAL 97
facts with ideas ; ' ' The sensibility of man to small
things, and in his insensibility to great things, is the
overturning of human nature.' Even in his scepti
cism there is a kind of Platonism in the background,
and though we cannot defend him from the charge of
exaggeration and inconsistency, yet his doubts arise
partly from his intense desire to realize intellectual
truth, pardy from his intense conviction of the truth
of religion.
The greater part of the Thoughts of Pascal, in
cluding nearly all the later ones, are the fragments
of a work on the truth of the Christian faith. Many
of these are only the commonplace arguments from
prophecy and miracles, and from the relation of
Judaism to Christianity. There is nothing new or
original in them. In his own family he had, or rather
thought that he had, the evidence of miracles. His
niece, the daughter of Madame Perier, had been cured
of a loathsome disfigurement by a touch of a Holy
Thorn. The miracle was investigated at the time
by the command of the court, and for a while saved
from demolition the Monastery of Port Royal. Pascal
was not aware of the wonderful effects which the
mind may have over the body in sensitive frames.
1 The Jesuits,' he said, ' were worse than the Jews, for
the Jews refused to believe in the miracles of Christ,
but the Jesuits were compelled to believe in the
miracles of the Port Royal and yet were not con
vinced by them.' He did not foresee that this miracle,
H

98 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [v.
which to him appeared to rest on such irrefragable
evidence, would be rejected by all orthodox Catholics,
though sometimes made the subject of curious inquiry
by Protestants.
It is not by arguments of this kind that Pascal
really tends to confirm the truths of the Gospel.
His own life and belief, and intelligence of them, is
the deeper argument. Granted that he is not alto
gether free from the trammels of a conventional
theology, he is also able to raise himself above them
into a clearer and purer region. He believes with
his whole soul in the unity of truth and goodness.
He realizes human nature in all its extent, having on
the one side eternity and infinity, and on the other
moments of time and space too small to be appre
hended by man. The immensity of the heavens ter
rifies him ; he recognizes that life is the creation of
innumerable accidents ; yet he also feels that man is
above all these external things, however vast, how
ever minute, because he alone is conscious of them.
' I see myself in the midst of eternities and infinities,
and cannot tell why I am attached to this small point
of time and space, rather than to some other, in all the
eternity which has preceded and followed me.' He
rises by regular stages to the contemplation of the
whole earth ; this again is but a point in comparison
of the vast space which is included in its orbit, and
this again a point hardly visible in the ocean of in
finity. ' Let man return once more to himself and his

v.] PASCAL

99

prison-house, and learn to estimate the earth and
its kingdoms and its cities and his own being also.
Then let him take some small insect and observe its
minute anatomy, the curious construction of its limbs
and joints, the drops of blood coursing in its veins ;
has he not found the least thing in nature ? I will
show him a depth beyond. Not only this world
which we see, but all that we can conceive of the
world, may exist within the limits of an atom. He
who reflects after this manner will be awestruck at
himself; he will consider that he is supported between
two infinities ; he wiH contemplate in silence the
wonders of which he is a part.'
Another train of reflection which is familiar to the
mind of Pascal is the restlessness of man. Why is he
always wanting amusement, why cannot he bear to be
alone ? Because he has wants which are not satisfied
by himself. His first want is his individual happiness ;
his second want is the good of all ; his third want is
justice and truth. He is miserable, but his misery
arises out of his greatness. Nature may blot him out
from existence, yet he will be more noble than that
which crushes him, because he knows that he dies,
but nature is unconscious of her powers. This is
what raises us up again ; we must think thus, and
labour to think rightly. This is the beginning of
morality. 'We are miserable, like the dispossessed
monarch, because we have lost our inheritance. We
know too little and we know too much ; we see in
H 2

ioo SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [v.
nature only matters of doubt and inquietude [Pascal
the life-long sufferer is far from thinking this the best
possible of worlds]. But I see also the traces of God,
and my whole soul is absorbed in the desire of
knowing the true good, that I may follow it.'
We note the mind of the Geometrician in the
opposition of the infinite and infinitesimal ; we may
also observe the author of a treatise on Chances in
another often -repeated argument which I cannot com
mend (though it is repeated in another form by
Butler), viz. ' That if Revelation is true, we gain in
finitely ; if false, we lose nothing by believing it.'
It is not by such arguments as this, in which the
very nature of belief seems to be misapprehended,
that man will be drawn to Christ. Nor does Pascal
himself seriously dweU upon them ; and it is possible
that if we had the Pensees in their finished form (for
we must remember that they are only the notes of a
book), reflections of this sort might have been omitted.
But we have still to ask what is the final foundation
on which he rests the belief in Religion. Pascal
shall answer for himself. ' There are three means or
instruments of belief: Reason, Custom, Inspiration or
the heart. We should open our minds to evidence,
we should strengthen ourselves by custom, by acts
of humility, we should open our hearts to inspirations:
these alone have the true and life-giving effect.' And
again, ' Simple persons believe without reasoning or
evidence: God inclines their hearts to him. In one

v.] PASCAL 101
word, faith is God present not to the reason but to
the heart; or, to express the same thought in the
words of Scripture, " He that wills to do the will of
my Father shall know if my doctrine is of God, or
whether I speak of myself." ' And if we ask, ' How am
I to distinguish this true will from any mystical fancy ?'
Pascal would have answered, or at least the answer
may be gathered from his writings : ' the true will is
that which is akin to the holiest and best within me,
the will that prevails when the passions leave a vacant
space for it, the will that I may feel working in me
at any time when I renounce pleasure ; the will that
draws me towards God the holy and true, and away
from myself.'
Any account of Pascal, which leaves out of sight
the Provincials, would omit the better half of his
writings. Yet how, in the few minutes which remain,
can I give you any adequate account of this extra
ordinary work ? To understand the purpose of it, we
must recall to mind the nature of casuistry. There
had always been a tendency in the Catholic church,
probably arising out of the needs of confession,
to analyze and define human actions in a greater
degree than their subtle nature really admits. This
tendency was carried to the furthest extreme by the
Jesuits, who for more than a century were the great
spiritual power of the continent of Europe. As a
matter of science, they divided and distinguished sins
according to their kinds ; they separated the intention

102 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [v.
from the act, the word from the thought ; they aUowed
the judgment of any teacher to be the measure of
right and wrong. Having failed in raising up the
world to the precepts of the Gospel, they were
satisfied if they could bring down the Gospel to the
world ; provided only the rulers of the world, society
however profligate, commerce however dishonest,
could be retained within the limits of the Church.
They took away the life of a moral being, and sub
stituted for it a dead anatomy of human actions
reduced to mere abstractions. From some point of
view or other, it was impossible to utter a complete
untruth or to commit a perfect sin.
It is strange to reflect that the inventors of these
doctrines were many of them men of saintly Hfe,
devoted to the service of their fellow-men and of God.
Yet, not the less, was their teaching fatal both to
moraUty and religion. Had they succeeded, common
honesty and common sense must have disappeared
from the world. We should have been compelled to
turn not to the Christian church, but to the great
Gentile philosophers, for the first principles of ethics.
A vast literature sprang up in many volumes, which
expounded the distinction of this false science ; and
books founded on the writings of the first Jesuits are
stiU used by the CathoHc clergy.
What Plato did for the Sophists, Pascal did for the
Casuists: he made them eternahy ridiculous. The
Jesuits contradict the Dominicans, one another, them-

v.] PASCAL 103
selves ; there is one article of faith in which they are
agreed, in hatred of the Port Royal. They dispute
about the terms, ' a sufficient grace ' which is explained
to be not sufficient, and ' an efficacious grace ' which is
somehow different from it ; and a ' next power ' which
cannot be defined, but if you approve of the word
there is no need to approve of the thing; on the
other hand, if your approval of the thing disapproves
of the word, your salvation may be seriously com
promised. Ecce qui lollit peccata mundi; that is to
say, ' not Christ but the Jesuit Father.' For a man
to sin he must first know whether the thing he is
going to do is bad : no action can be accounted sinful,
if God does not give us before we commit it the
knowledge of what evil is in it, and an inspiration to
avoid it. To this Pascal opposes the idea of the
voluntary in the third book of Aristotle's Ethics, at
which the Jesuit is posed, but is suddenly called away
in the service of some noble ladies. Thus Pascal
exposes ironically the character of the Order. In
their own words, they are imago primi saeculi.
Theirs is a society of men, or rather of angels, con
cerning whom Isaiah prophesied in these words, Lie
angeli veloces. They tell us they have changed the
face of Christianity : that they have certainly ; not
that they want to corrupt men's morals, any more
than they want to reform them ; either would be
bad policy : but they want to govern the whole world,
and regulate the conscience of everybody. And for

104 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [v.
this purpose of governing all mankind, they have
casuists of many kinds, strict as well as lax, who
supply all sorts of people with all sorts of evasions.
It is probable that a single wise man has a weighty
reason for his opinions, and the opinions of a single
man can generally be found in favour of any rule or
exception to a rule. ' To give alms is right in theory,
but not in practice ; to make restitution for a fraud is
necessary according to the ancient, but not according
to the modern fathers ; assassins are not to be ex
communicated unless they take money ; fasting means
a good supper ; giving money to incline the will
of a patron towards conferring a living on you is not
simony ; servants have a right to steal, when they are
not paid wages enough.' Then follows the story of
Jean d'Albo, the servant of the Jesuits, who having
become versed in their books, carries off their pewter
plates. He is brought before the magistrates and
sentenced to be whipped ; and here arises a difficulty :
supposing a %ood Christian to avail himself of all
these privileges, how can he escape the authority of
the magistrates ? The answer is, that the Jesuits must
take the magistrates into council, and become their
confessors. There is no vice veiled under the name of honour
or gallantry, no petty dishonesty of tradesmen, that is
not provided for in some passage or other of the
Casuists. I have said as much as time allows of the
general character of the Provincial Letters ; but of

v.] PASCAL 105
the humour, the sustained irony, the verisimiHtude of
the argument, it is impossible to give even a faint
notion. It is this work, with its exquisite purity
and simplicity of style, equalled only by Plato, its
perfect clearness, its logical accuracy, its varied rhythm
and intonation, which more than any other has fixed
the French language. And this intellectual perfection
flows immediately from the moral purpose which
animates it ; there is passion in his logic and logic in
his passion ; he is fighting the battle of all mankind
against the corrupting influence of casuistry : and as
the multitude of his proofs increases, so also does the
intensity of his indignation.
And now returning to his life, we must acknowledge
that both his theory and practice of religion have a
taint of exaggeration, and that his passionate love of
truth, though never losing sight of an ethical principle,
is limited by the Roman Catholic faith. We do not
take him as a guide either in philosophy or in
theology. We do not think of his opinions so much
as of himself. For his was one of those illuminating
lives which cast a radiance far and wide over the path
of humanity. It is the clearness and penetration of
his intellect, not the consecutiveness or consistency of
his system, that we admire and seek to imitate. No
man ever freed himself more completely from the
conventionalities of religion. No man ever combined
sue strong and simple faith with such a profound
knowledge of human nature. No man ever suffered

io6 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [v.
and at the same time did so much. In no one were
such intellectual gifts united with such moral graces.
The literary man in modern times has been too often
jealous and sensitive ; he has despised and hated his
fellow- men, with the exception of that section of them
who worshipped at his shrine ; he has claimed a kind
of superiority to moral laws ; strong in words, but
weak and egotistical in character, he has drawn after
him followers, who in his weakness have found the
expression of their own. There have even been good
men, who have never been able to get rid of vanity
and conceit. What a contrast to them is presented
by this man, of whose life self-control is the law;
who is utterly indifferent to Hterary fame; who
writes only as a duty which he owes to God and to
his fellow-creatures ! Again, in this world of selfish
ness and self-seeking, in which most of us place
before ourselves wealth or honour, or high position
in the State, or preferment in the Church, as one of
the strongest, if not the only motive by which Hfe is
to be actuated, how great a thing it is to have one
man recalling us to the image of Christ, to simplicity,
to disinterestedness, to truth, which we might all
follow if we would ! Or, in this strife about classes,
which seems so threatening in our own day, is it not
striking to turn to the example of one in whom the
feeling of caste or of class was altogether dead ; who,
like Christ, neither assailing nor yet defending the
rights of property, identified himself altogether with

v.] PASCAL 107
the poor, whose sufferings quickened in him, not the
sense of his own misery, but of the misery of others ;
in whom what he calls the ' moi ' of humanity is anni
hilated and lost in the thought of God and his
fellow- men ? Or, again, when we think of professing
Christians hardly ever realizing the words which they
use, ready almost to fight about doctrines which have
ceased to have any meaning to them, how singular it
is to meet with a man whose language is the very
expression of the thought in which he daily lived.
He, like any other man, may be criticized : you may
point out, as I have been doing to-day, the inequality
of his genius, or the fragmentary character of his
writings. Tried by the standard of metaphysics or of
political philosophy, he may fall short of the require
ments of system-makers. Yet among the sons of men
you will hardly find one who had a greater insight
into man and nature, in whom faith and life were more
completely one, or who more truly bore the Hkeness
of Christ.

VI. JOHN WESLEY1.
DAVID, AFTER HE HAD SERVED HIS OWN GENERA
TION BY THE WILL OF GOD, FELL ON SLEEP.
Acts xiii. 36.
THE greatest influence which is exerted over the
mind and character is the personal influence of other
men. When youth has passed and we begin to look
back, most of us can trace the makings of ourselves
to one or two persons, sometimes within the circle of
our own families and sometimes outside of them, who
gave us new ideas about conduct or about books,
who told us plainly of some flagrant defect in our
behaviour which had hitherto passed unnoticed, who
raised our standard of knowledge and encouraged our
youthful aspirations, who made us feel the value of
purity and unselfishness and sincerity in our daily
walk. A word spoken in season, how good was it !
They taught us to see ourselves as others see us ; they
dispelled our nervous fancies ; they thought kindly
of us, remembering their own struggles. These were
the true friends of our youth, and their memory will
1 Preached in Balliol Chapel, January 23, 1881.

vi.] WESLEY 109
be fondly cherished by us while life lasts. As we get
older they pass away, and we see them no more. But
they remain in the mind's eye, and the image of their
goodness and wisdom may often have the effect of
saving us from evil or foolish actions. There is
nothing for which men are more grateful in later life
than the desire to do them good in the days of their
temptation and inexperience.
And, as individuals whom we know, so the lives of
men whom we never saw, may have a great hold on
our minds. It is a most valuable element of education
that we should become intimately acquainted with
the biographies of a few great and good men, who
have left such a full picture of themselves that we
can not only conjecture but know their interior
character and Hfe. We are all of us tending to faU
under the power of custom or fashion : we repeat,
parrot-like, the literary or artistic opinions of the age
in which we live, the newspaper reflections of the
passing hour. The lives of great and good men take,
us into a different region, away from ourselves and
our own prejudices: they enlarge our views, they
teach us to think in a more manly and comprehensive
manner, not according to the principles of our country
or of our generation only, but of justice and truth.
They may reveal to us sometimes what latent energy
and fire may be treasured up in the bosom of an
ordinary man. They may show us how different is the
religion of a saint and a prophet from that attenuated

no SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vi.
form of the Christian faith which most of us profess
and practise. True, they are cast in a larger mould
than we, and to their great virtues and powers we can
scarcely hope to attain ; nevertheless we may find in
them something which will be a stimulus to us. Many
of their trials and conquests over self are our trials and
conquests ; and from their companionship we may
receive support in our Pilgrim's Progress. And they
had the ' defects of their qualities ' ; the shadow of
their light followed them. We may discern in the
great thinker the error of mistaking system for philo
sophy, or generalities for truth ; the scholar or man
of learning may be wanting in any higher judgment ;
he who professes to be seeking after holiness may be
ready to do evil that good may come ; the man of
genius may be whoUy devoid of common sense ; the
religious teacher may be a fanatic or an Antinomian ;
the social reformer a tyrant. So strangely is human
nature compounded, so difficult is it for the necessary
balance of qualities to exist in the same person.
It has not been uncommon for the preacher to draw
lessons from the characters of Scripture. But the
record of them aU, with the exception of our Lord
and St. Paul, is too fragmentary for us to be able to
form any complete picture of them. From a few
words, from a passing notice, we cannot obtain a
consistent idea of James the Less, or of Philip, or
Nathaniel, or Thomas, or even of Peter and John. In
the attempt to do so we easily invent with a view to

vi.] WESLEY in
edification. Thus there arises a sort of religious
romance, which may be compared to the traditional
portrait of a great painter, but no real likeness of a
human character. And in the present day we impa
tiently ask whether edification may not be the enemy
of truth, and would rather remain within the limits
of our actual knowledge.
It has occurred to me, therefore, that it might be
better to find materials for sermons, or rather sermons
themselves, in the lives of great and good men who
are more fully known to us, and who perhaps have
more in common with us, because they belong to our
modern world. ' He being dead yet speaketh.' And
shall we not sometimes listen to their voices, clear and
simple, above the babel of half- articulate sounds which
dins into our ears day by day ? In the past there is rest,
even as they themselves are at rest ; in their society
we escape from the small things of life ; we feel that
we have a sympathy with them, and are confident that
if we could have known them we should have appre
ciated them and understood what they meant. From
their faults, too, we may gain instruction. There is
no reason why a vacant idealism should overspread
biography, until the heroes of it lose all feature and
character, so as to be scarcely recognizable by their
friends. A great biography, like a great picture, will
present a man as he was, not greater or wiser or fairer,
but having in him some touch of human weakness and
error, such as he would himself allow to be true.

112 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vi.
I shall speak to you to-day of one who for several
years resided in Oxford, and was one of ourselves,
who was an undergraduate and fellow of a neigh
bouring college, and who preached publicly in the
University. He was not exactly a man of genius or a
great writer ; and in his younger days he would have
seemed chiefly remarkable to the common observer
for a certain degree of eccentricity and want of sense.
Even good men would have remarked of him that he
was always pushing his opinion to extremes. And
his opinions were changing, for in the course of life
he seems to have passed almost from one pole of
theology to the other. Yet this was the man who has
a greater present influence on the religion of the
Christian world than any apostle or saint or prophet
since the Reformation, perhaps it may be said with
truth since St. Paul himself.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was born
at Epworth, in Lincolnshire, on June 17, 1703.
He was sprung from a clerical family, who in the
religious changes of the preceding century had met
with various fortunes. His father (who was the rector
of the parish) and his mother were both of them re
markable persons. The house in which he and his
brothers, Samuel and Charles (who has been called
the sweet singer of Methodism), and their sisters, were
brought up, like many other English parsonages, was
a model of simplicity and refinement. There was
a Hght in that frugal dwelling, which shines with a

vi.] WESLEY 113
diminished clearness in great and luxurious mansions.
For in such homes the inhabitants are everything;
the externals of life are as nothing. May there be
many such throughout the land in which there is grace
and inteUigence , and the love of knowledge, not yet
buried beneath the load of wealth. John Wesley him
self, though his great work lay almost entirely among
the lower and middle classes, was throughout life in
all his words and actions emphatically a Christian
gentleman. He was possessed of that modest dignity
which makes itself felt in aU societies. He had known
something of the struggles of poverty from childhood.
They were a valuable experience to him, and he was
not soured or degraded by them.
When a little child, his father's house was burnt,
and he was the last to be saved from destruction.
In allusion to this circumstance, he adopted the motto,
partly fanciful, partly dictated by deep feeling, 'Is
not this a brand plucked out of the burning ? ' As
years went on he was sent to the Charterhouse
School, and from the Charterhouse to Lincoln Col
lege, Oxford. We are told that late in life, when
he was in London, he deHghted to visit the play
ground of his old school, which seemed to recall to
him so many youthful recollections.
At Oxford began that stirring and movement of
soul which lasted in him for nearly seventy years.
The world of the eighteenth century at Oxford and
elsewhere was very unlike the life and teaching of

114 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vi.
his good and simple home. And such states of
society seem often to call forth and develop the
characters which are most diametrically opposed to
them. Here the mind of John Wesley became ab
sorbed in reHgious thought and feeling. Already
he had laid aside aU desire for advancement in the
Church. There soon gathered round him a few per
sons like-minded with himself, who formed themselves
into a society, and were derisively called ' The Godly
Club.' They met for prayer and religious conversa
tion ; they visited the prisoners at the gaol ; they
lived on vegetables, that out of their small means they
might be able to help the poor ; they had their
inward doubts and temptations, fancying often that
they were not called or were not saved. They felt
what aU great Christian teachers have felt, a longing
desire to make men better — ' Woe is me if I preach
not the Gospel ' ; yet, amid the controversies which
had sprung up in England, they hardly knew what
the Gospel was.
As might be expected of young men of twenty or
twenty-one, overpowered by such strong convictions,
they easily feU into eccentricities and became the
laughing-stock of their fellows ; nor did they meet
with much more encouragement from their superiors.
They found the difficulty of living in an unsympa-
thizing society. They were full of questionings ;
without were fightings, within were fears. At this
time of Wesley's life the religious books which he

vi.] WESLEY 115
chiefly valued (though in later years he would have
thought them unevangeUcal or unspiritual) were three
of the great religious books of the world — The fmi-
tation of Christ, Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and
Dying, and Law's Serious Call. They are books with
which we shall all do weU to make acquaintance ;
for although not in every respect suited to our age,
they are more calculated than any others to keep
aHve and strengthen the sentiment of religion in the
mind. Notwithstanding the feehng which he had excited
against himself, shortly after he had taken his degree,
in the twenty-third year of his age, Wesley was
elected (partly, it is said, through the good-wiU of the
Rector, Dr. Morley) a Fellow of Lincoln College.
He seems at this time to have devoted himself vigor
ously to the pursuit, not merely of theological, but of
secular studies. We read of Mondays and Tuesdays
allotted to Classics, Wednesdays to Logic and Ethics,
Thursdays to Hebrew and Arabic, Fridays to Meta
physics and Natural Philosophy, Saturdays to Oratory
and Poetry, but chiefly to composition in those arts,
and the Sabbath to Divinity. These are the notes
of his diary, which he kept from this time forward
during his whole life. In forming this scheme of
study he had come to the conclusion, he says, that
there are many things of which the most learned must
content themselves to be ignorant. At this time dis
putations were held six times a week, in the haU of
I 2

116 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vi.
Lincoln CoUege, and he presided over them. ' I could
not avoid,' he said, ' acquiring hereby some degree of
expertness in arguing, and especially in discerning
fallacies, and I have since found abundant reason to
praise God for giving me this honest art.' His elec
tion to a fellowship spread the same kind of joy in
his family which it has spread in so many families
before and since; and his father's words are so ex
pressive of the feelings of other parents declining
into the vale of years, that though they are homely,
I venture to transcribe them. ' Whatever becomes
of me,' the old man said, 'my Jack is a Fellow of
Lincoln.' And now, leaving for a little space the life of this
remarkable man at the same stage in which most of
those present here find themselves, let us think of our
own lives, looking first up to him and then down
to ourselves. A few commonplace reflections soon
occur to us. He was eccentric, and eccentricity is
a great mistake : what necessity was there for his
wearing long hair and making himself remarkable by
the badness of his clothes ? Could he not do good
without all this affectation ? My brethren, it is quite
true that eccentricity is a great mistake, in most cases
a fatal and incurable mistake, which sets the world
against a man (and the world is too many for most of
us),, and creates within him a fixed idea or mode of
thinking, pervading his whole life. Beware bf eccen
tricity. It has been the ruin of many, and is the more

vi.] WESLEY 117
dangerous for this very reason, that no moral guilt
attaches to it. Wesley himself would have acknow
ledged in later life how mistaken he was in all this.
But, on the other hand, it must be admitted that if
a great religious movement were always governed
by what educated men call good sense, if it waited
for good sense and the approbation of sensible men,
the world would have remained as it was from the
beginning to the end. In the present day we may
pray, ' Oh, that we had a spirit like his ! ' and we may
also pray ' that such a spirit should always be under
the control of good sense ; ' and indeed it sometimes
seems, even amid many follies, as if the good sense of
religion were the only part of religion which survives
in many of us. Was it eccentricity in Wesley tc
deprive himself of food, that he might give to the
poor ? I dare not say yes, remembering who it was
who taught, ' Go, sell all that thou hast, and give
to the poor.' Was it eccentricity, again, to sacrifice
his whole life to the salvation of his soul ? Neither
can this be maintained by any one who acknowledges
as the author of his faith Him who said, ' What shaU
a man give in exchange for his soul ? '
You see that there is a great difference between
the first apostolic fervour of a great teacher, such as
St. Bernard or Luther or John Wesley, and the cus
tomary religion in which we live ; and that you cannot
judge one by the other. But there is another point
of view in which Wesley's career may be more imit-

n8 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vi.
able by us. He placed before himself an ideal which
he pursued through a long life ; no object of earthly
ambition was ever allowed to obstruct the realization
of this great idea ; and we too may place before our
selves an ideal (not exactly like his, for the world
has changed, and needs perhaps missionaries of
another sort), and it may be a very humble ideal
compared with his, such as the reform of our own
lives, the improvement of an estate or of a parish,
the diligent care of a school or of pupils, or of a
family, so that we may be able to say at last 'of
those that Thou gavest me I have not lost one.'
Some persons whose powers are greater may be more
aspiring in their views; they may think passion
ately of the evils of the times, of religious indifference,
of political corruption, of the tendency to undermine
morality by sentimentalism, of a prevailing care
lessness about truth ; and they may resolve to devote
themselves body and soul to counteract these evils,
and to implant in the minds of men, amid the seeming
decay of religion, a higher standard of life and action.
And perhaps the thought may occur to them that
there is religion enough in the world and good sense
enough in the world, but that there has never been in
the highest degree a union of the two. Such a voice
may be heard by some one here present calling him,
and if he hears it let him follow, not exactly in the
spirit of Wesley, but making allowance for his own
inexperience. For in this age of reflection we should

vi.] WESLEY 119
surely have the fruits of reflection ; and though he
may have never been able to realize that ideal in
its fullness, though the task which he set himself
was beyond his strength, yet in after years he will
look back upon the heavenly vision, as St. Paul did
upon the vision which met him on the way to
Damascus, as one of the best and most precious
things in life.
After Wesley had resided some time in Oxford,
where he remained altogether about nine years, he
seems to have felt a strong desire (often experienced
by persons of a deeply religious temper of mind) to
retire and be alone with God. He travelled several
miles to see what is called a serious man. ' Sir,' said
this man to him (the words are more remarkable than
they sound) : ' Sir, you wish to serve God and go to
heaven. Remember you cannot serve Him alone ;
you must therefore find companions or make them ;
the Bible knows nothing of solitary religion.' For
three years Wesley had retired from Oxford, and had
held his father's curacy of Wroot, in Lincolnshire.
He now returned thither and continued his missionary
and eccentric course of life. In the thirty-third year
of his age his father died ; and with the leave of his
mother, who rejoiced that he should be so employed,
he went as a missionary to preach the Gospel among
the settlers and Indians in the new colony of Georgia.
His brother Charles accompanied him in the capacity
of secretary to General Oglethorpe, the Governor,

120 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vi.
the same who has been immortaHzed in the fine lines
of Pope :
'Or fly like Oglethorpe from pole to pole,
Impelled by strong benevolence of soul.'
On his voyage and in the colony he became acquainted
with the Moravian settlers, whose mystic piety for
a time made a strong impression upon his mind.
At this period of his life he might be described as
a High Church Puritan, or as a Puritan High Church
man. As nothing could exceed his readiness to
sacrifice himself for the service of God (he had come
there, as he said, not to gain the dregs and dross of
riches and honours, but simply to save his soul, to live
wholly for the glory of God), so nothing could exceed
his estimate of his own priestly authority ; his conduct
may be said to have equalled the most injudicious
sayings or actions of the most injudicious clergy of
our own day. The colonists, already divided among
themselves, were in an uproar. Without much fault on
his part, Wesley made and broke an engagement of
marriage. It often happens in this world that men
and women make these terrible mistakes in the hurry
and tumult of passion, in their inexperience of them
selves and of each other. And so either the lives of
both are spoiled and ruined, or the good faith of one
or other of them is in some degree tarnished.
Wesley was no longer able to remain in the
colony. He returned to England two years after he
had left it, in the thirty-fifth year of his age. Himself

vi.] WESLEY 121
an unknown man, he found that Whitefield, the young
servitor of Pembroke College, had risen to a height
of fame and popularity. For a short time Whitefield
took his place in Georgia, but soon returned to Eng
land ; he had already preached in the open air at
Bristol, 'when the tears ran down the colliers' cheeks.'
Here he was afterwards joined by Wesley, and they
both became field preachers. There was a great deal
of disorder among those vast multitudes whom the
eloquence of Wesley and Whitefield first convinced
of sin, greater perhaps than occurs in any of our
modern revivalist meetings. A spirit was stirred
which went through England. First John Wesley
separated from' the Moravians, and their strange Arch-
hierophant, the Count Zinzendorff; afterwards from
Whitefield, who for twenty years had been his dearest
friend and helper. But like Paul and Barnabas,
they now parted, and in the great Calvinistic contro
versy one went to the right hand and the other to
the left.
Deprived of the use of the churches, the followers
of Wesley (now beginning to be called by the name
Methodists) resorted to the fields and to any build
ings of a poor and humble sort which they could
obtain for their use. Another necessity arose. As there
were but few clergymen among his disciples — indeed
hardly any, with the exception of his brother Charles,
Fletcher of Madeley, and at a later period Dr. Coke,
the apostle and bishop of Wesleyanism in the United

122 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vi.
States — it was necessary for him to have recourse to
lay preachers, whom at a later period of his life he
thought fit to ordain. Many criticisms have been
made on this last step, which definitely separated him
and his followers from the Church of England. He
justified his conduct by the work which he had ac
complished, and perhaps the defence was sufficient
for usurping what would be called episcopal functions.
No doubt the words of St. Paul often occurred to his
mind : ' Am I not an apostle ? am I not free ? are not
ye my work in the Lord ? If I be not an apostle unto
others, yet doubdess I am to you : for the seal of mine
apostleship are ye in the Lord.'
Two other institutions of Methodism should be
studied carefully by those who would understand its
nature : first, the institution of classes in which men
and women were to confer together about the affairs
of their souls. (For Wesley had not forgotten the
advice which was given him by the serious man in
the days of his youth, ' Sir, you cannot serve God
alone.') Secondly, the visitations from house to house
for the collection of a penny weekly subscription from
all members of the society. Thus throughout the
society was spread life and intercourse, and the spirit
of mutual help. It should not be forgotten also that
as Wesley himself itinerated through England, so
itinerant preaching became the permanent form of
the Methodist ministry. And now that Wesleyan
chapels and the houses of ministers cover the land,

vi.] WESLEY 123
the same rule is observed, and no regular minister
remains in the same place more than three years.
Between the years 1 740 and 1 750 Methodism had
fairly taken root in the land. For forty years longer
the servant of God was allowed to extend and con
tinue his work. The time would fail me to tell much
more of his life and labours, of his daily preaching
and travelling, of his poverty and abstinence, of the
resistance and violence which his teaching aroused
among all classes, sometimes strangely melting into
repentance and love, of the inexpressible power which
was given to his words by the intensity of his con
victions : as one of his hearers said, ' He spoke to them
like the inhabitant of another world.' He gathered
around him a band of preachers like himself, fiery
spirits, consumed with the fear of hell, and then
breaking forth into psalms in the consciousness of
salvation. One of them, Thomas OHver the shoe
maker, I mention by name, because he is the author
of the hymn often sung in this chapel, ' The God of
Abraham praise.' They were unlike Wesley in one
respect, that they were uneducated, and he himself in
the later years of his life certainly seems to have
thought that spiritual gifts were far more important
than education, and might even supersede it. This
was perhaps the greatest mistake which he made in
the establishment of his society ; yet as he grew older
he also grew gentler, and used to wonder at many of
the extravagances of his earHer life. He mentions

124 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vi.
with peculiar pleasure in extreme old age his receiv
ing the Sacrament at the hands of Bishop Lavington,
his old opponent, the, same who wrote the Enthusiasm
of the Methodists and Papists compared. To the
last he retained his strong conviction that ' Poverty
was of the essence of the Gospel ' : ' I have only four
silver teaspoons,' he wrote to the Commissioner of
Excise, ' two here and two in London ; and I do not
intend to buy any more, while there are so many poor
wanting bread.'
There is one feature of Wesley's teaching which
I must not omit to notice, even in this rapid sketch ;
for it was probably the corner-stone of his society, as
the want of education was for a long time its stumbling-
block. He was what is called in theological language
an Arminian. That is to say, he denied predestination.
No one was more impressed than Wesley with the
tendency and danger which always exists in the
religion of the uneducated, of degenerating into
Antinomianism. As it has been briefly said: '990
out of 1,000 are lost, do what they can ; the remaining
ten are saved, do what they wiU. ' Against this terrible
doctrine Wesley directed one of the most remarkable
sermons in any language; I have only room for
a short extract.
' This doctrine,' he says, ' represents the Most High
God as worse than the Devil — as more false, more
cruel, and more unjust. More false, because the Devil,
liar as he is, hath never said he wiUeth aU mankind to

vi.] WESLEY 125
be saved ; more unjust — the Devil cannot if he would
be guilty of such injustice as you ascribe to God, when
you say that God condemned millions of souls to
everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels,
for continuing in sin which, for want of that grace
He will not give them, they cannot avoid ; and more
cruel, because that unhappy spirit seeketh rest and
findeth none, so that his own restless misery is a kind
of temptation to him to tempt others ; but God
resteth in His high and holy place, so that to suppose
Him out of His mere motion, of His pure will and
pleasure, happy as He is, to doom His creatures —
whether they will or no — to endless misery, is to impute
such cruelty to Him as we cannot impute even to the
great enemy of God and man. It is to represent the
Most High God (he that hath ears to hear, let him
hear) as more cruel, false and unjust than the Devil.'
There is no time for more, though I fear that this
short extract gives but an imperfect idea of the whole
discourse. This passage, as well as the events of Wesley's
life, have been chiefly taken from Robert Southey's
biography of him, a curious and interesting work,
in which the great literary man turns what may be
called the ' dual lantern ' of his knowledge of history
and mankind on Wesley and his society. It cannot
be supposed that such a biography would give much
satisfaction to his disciples, who regarded him as the
example of that doctrine of Christian perfection which

126 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vi.
he preached ; nor can we wonder that one of them
should have addressed the biographer in these quaint
words : ' Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the
well is deep.' Yet upon this most interesting and valu
able book I shall venture to make two observations: the
first is, that nothing would be more useful to religious
men and religious societies, if they would bear it, than
the criticism of the outer world. Thus they would
find their weaknesses revealed, their self-deception
exposed, their dangers foreseen — they would see them
selves, in short, as others see them. The second remark
which I have to make is that, although Southey's
life of Wesley is written from an impartial point of
view, probably no book of the present century has
had a greater effect in quickening the seed of religion
in the minds of the young, or in stimulating the
religious thought of the country.
Wesley had no knowledge of the world in the true
sense of the word. He knew neither his own nature
nor that of other men. He grew more charitable and
considerate as he grew older ; he can hardly be said
to have become wiser. In some respects he was
almost behind his age ; for he appears to have been
one of the last persons who upheld the reality of
witchcraft, and defended his opinion by experience
and Scripture. Naturally and consistently he was
fond of the supernatural — he had always from early
life drawn lots from the Bible for the regulation of his
conduct ; in a similar spirit of ignorance he wrote

vi.] WESLEY 127
a treatise called Primitive Physics, for the use of his
foUowers — a sort of family medicine book of a descrip
tion by no means harmless, which led some of his
enemies with great probability, if not with truth, to
declare that he had been guilty of homicide. He
never understood the wonder of man, the involution
of self-deceit, the half-sincerity of hypocrisy, the almost
animal form which religious emotion may sometimes
take. Some of his doctrines can hardly be thought
less dangerous than those of his Calvinistic opponents :
he taught the direct witness of the spirit hardly dis
tinguishable from ' whatever a man believe to be
true, that is true to him,' and he conceived that by the
exertion of faith a man might at once pass from
darkness to light. Though taught by experience,
he never fully realized the truth which the superior
insight of Bunyan enabled him to discern : ' That
close to the gate of heaven there is a road leading
to hell.'
But let us not seek further to criticize the imperfec
tions of this great man and eminent servant of God ;
we may have dwelt too much upon them already:
let us rather pray that some portion of his spirit may
descend upon us. Let us think of his purity, his
disinterestedness, his love of the poor, his willingness
to take up the cross and follow Christ. Consider
what a great thing this is, that a man should devote
all his powers to the good of his fellow-men ; that his
thoughts should be wholly turned, not on himself but

128 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vi.
on God. Try and imagine seriously the effect of
his life-long labours on this country, on the British
colonies, on the United States. He may be truly
said to have changed the face of the religious world.
The English High Churchman may sometimes regret
that the Wesleyan has got the start of him in
Wales, or Cornwall, or in the towns of Yorkshire
and Lancashire, and will be inclined to hope that aU
may come right in the end, as they say. But we
may be aUowed to regard the labours of Wesley in
a very different spirit ; for we know that every year,
for many generations, thousands and tens of thousands
have gone to their rest all over the world, men and
women, young and old, blessing God that they were
brought to the knowledge of Him and of His truth
through the teaching of John Wesley. There is
probably no considerable town, wherever the English
language is spoken, in which one of his chapels has
not been erected. And he who went on his ill-starred
expedition t6 Georgia, and returned again with scant
success, was in one respect like Columbus : he did
not know that he had called into existence a new world.
John Wesley was born on June 17,1 703 : he died on
February 1 7, 1 791 , in the eighty-eighth year of his age.
About a fortnight previously he had preached his last
sermon. He was buried in London, in a ground set
apart by himself for the preachers of his communion.
The funeral service of the Church of England was
read over him. When the minister came to that part

vi.] WESLEY 129
of the service ' Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty
God to take to Himself this our dear brother,' he
substituted the word 'father.' The whole congrega
tion burst at once into loud weeping.
' So David, after he had served his own generation,
fell on sleep.'

K

VII. ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY,
DEAN OF WESTMINSTER1-
HE BEING DEAD YET SPEAKETH.
Hebrews xi. 4.
THERE are times at which the memory of the
departed returns upon us with peculiar force and
vividness. All churches commemorate them ; aU men
regard some one at least among those countless mul
titudes with kindness and regret. Because they have
passed out of our sight, we would not have them pass
out of our minds. The loss of friends and kindred
makes Hfe perceptibly different to us. The world
goes on the same as before, but it is not the same to
those who are bereaved of their children, and we
sometimes feel, especially in later Hfe, that —
' The tender grace of a day that is gone
Will never come back to us.'
and comparing the survivors with those who are gone,
we repeat the famous line —
'We ne'er shall look upon their like again.'
We are also touched by the fashion of the world which
forgets them so soon, and is occupied by some new
1 Preached in Balliol Chapel, October 16, 1881.

vn.] STANLEY 131
pleasure or interest. ' There is a hope that a great
man's memory may out-last his life half a year, but
then he must build churches or endow colleges and
hospitals,' and we should be inclined to think man
kind shallow and cold-hearted in this particular, if we
did not experience the same influence of time stealing
over ourselves.
How different are our recollections of the dead as
they pass from us, at one age or another, in all the
various circumstances of human life, some flentes in
limine primo, having never tasted of good and evil,
others sinking to rest after many years and the fulfil
ment of many duties, some famous and opulent, others
sleeping in a nameless grave. Almost every family,
however humble, has its tale of love and death. There
was the little child, who if it had survived would have
long since grown up to the estate of man or woman,
with its prattle and its playthings and its innocent
ways, who still after twenty years and more has a
corner in the soul of some one. There was the elder
brother or sister, whose loving and peaceful end, whose
thought of others and thoughtlessness of themselves,
have left an impression which the rest of the family
carry with them to the grave. There was the aged
man, who seemed to be already the inhabitant of
another world. There were our parents, too, who
did so much for us, on whom looking back in later
life we feel that we hardly recognized the debt that
was due to them. We may not always have under-
K 2

132 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vn.
stood them ; we sometimes took offence at them need
lessly. There are some things which we should like
to say to them, but the time for speaking has passed.
There are some chapters of Hfe (not our whole lives)
that we should like to have over again ; this, however,
is not possible. These are some of the reflections
which, when they dive into the past, older persons
find arising in their minds ; which the young when
they cease to be young, ' and the time for speaking
has past,' may find occurring to themselves.
There are other relations which are severed by
death-^such as, above all, the tie of husband and wife,
of the lover and his beloved :
' But she is in her grave, and oh !
The difference to me ! '
Friends, too, must part who have loved each other as
their own souls. Sometimes they may have conversed
together in perfect friendship, and sometimes there
may have been an imperfect sympathy, or a slight
exactingness* on the part of either, or a change of
circumstances may have prevented the talking freely
together, or interposed a cloud or distance between
them. How different do all these things appear in the
presence of death : then we feel that we cannot say
too much good of a beloved friend ; we are happy if
in moments of temporary alienation we never uttered
a word against them. And the estimate which we
form of them and of other men after they are gone is
reaUy more just, because it is not disturbed by personal

vn.] STANLEY T33
feeling. History, too, is more just to great men than
their own contemporaries are apt to be. For they are
removed from us by distance, so that we see them in
their true proportions. A man's Hfe, regarded as a
whole, is better and truer than the running commen
tary on his words and actions which is made from
day to day. And so too with private friends : we
are no longer exigeant in our view of them ; we take
them now as they are ; we do not ask of them
superhuman virtue or a combination of impossible
qualities. It is good from time to time to think of the dead,
but neither should we resist the healing influence
which days and months have upon sorrow. Grief, too,
may be excessive, Hke any other passion : ' Rachel
weeping for her husband or her son, and refusing to
be comforted because they are not,' and therefore, we
may add, fulfilhng inadequately or not at all the every
day duties of life. It is an unnatural strain to try and
keep before the mind the dead, as if they were still in
existence. Each generation in a sense lives to itself,
and dies to itself. It once had joys and sorrows as
keen and Hvely as our own, and innumerable feelings
and interests of politics and society. But all these are
with the past and with God, and we cannot with our
finite faculties live in the past, though we do some
times and to a certain extent recall it. Time, like a
strong river, carries us away, and we are helpless :
looking back into the distance we resign our beloved

134 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vn.
ones, unable any longer to take care of them, into the
hands of God.
Those of us who have lived long in Oxford return
this term with peculiar feelings : so many houses are
left desolate ; so many familiar figures have disappeared
since we last met here. There are vacancies in our
ranks which have to be filled up. There is the able
and enthusiastic professor1, whose energy knew no
rest, greatly beloved by his pupils, greatly honoured
in the world of science. That perfervidum ingenium
has been called away before the time, in the fullness
of his powers, seemingly exhausted by his own un
tiring mind. Then there is our friend 2 the Librarian
of the University, the friend of all men, overflowing
with human kindness, who charmed us all by his
courtesy and grace, as well as by his taste and anti
quarian knowledge : his characteristic and noble form
wiU be no more seen in our streets and dwellings.
There is our neighbour 3, too, the distinguished medical
man who had been the witness of many sad scenes in
this college and elsewhere, during about forty years
since he first settled in Oxford ; a kind friend to the
poor, devoting his time to them unsparingly, a helper
in any sort of trouble, and especially the wise friend
and counsellor of youth in their faults and follies ; a
manly character, whose rough gentleness had a charm
of its own. He, too, has been taken somewhat sooner
1 Professor Rolleston. s Rev. H. O. Coxe.
3 Mr. Symonds.

vn.] STANLEY 135
than we expected, and leaves a name respected among
us, a name known wherever Oxford men are to be
found. And now within a day or two, almost as I
write, I hear of another good man 1 holding a high
position in the University, who after a long and pain
ful Alness, borne with great patience and resignation,
has been taken from among us. ' These all rest from
their labours, and their works do follow them.' But
he of whom I am about chiefly to speak to you in this
sermon was bound to us by nearer ties than these.
For he was a scholar of this college : his youth was
passed at Rugby and at BaUiol, and this was one of the
places which he ever afterwards regarded with great
affection. He was in the habit, you know, during the
last ten or eleven years, of preaching in this chapel
once or twice in the year. It was a great privilege to
have him here, which was fondly claimed. Many of
you will remember his discourses on the Command
ments, and on the Lord's Prayer, and one on the four
' idols ' of Bacon, the last of all. He was preaching at
Westminster Abbey on the Beatitudes, which he
characteristically proposed to illustrate by the lives
of persons buried in the Abbey, when the fatal iUness
seized him. His own Hfe would have been a good
iUustration of two of them : the first, ' Blessed are the
peace-makers ' ; the second, ' Blessed are the pure in
heart.' It would be useless for me to repeat what was said
1 Rev. F. K. Leighton, Warden of All Souls.

136 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vn.
of him in sermons and newspapers three months ago ;
' three Htde months, or ere those shoes were old.'
There were two or three things which greatly struck
and even surprised his friends. First, the contrast
between the innumerable attacks which were made
upon him during his life (for no one was attacked
more bitterly), and the universal expression of sorrow
and goodwill that foUowed his death. No one but a
great statesman or hero ever had such a funeral.
Secondly, the feeling of regard and attachment which
he had evidently inspired among the poor of London.
They had not forgotten his flower-shows and garden-
parties ; they remembered the manner in which he
would show them over the Abbey, as no one else
could have done, telling them stories and answering
their questions, himself the verger for their sakes ; and
they knew that they had lost a friend. The laity, too,
who did not always support him adequately during
his life (for they have sometimes a strange way of
finding fault with the bigotry of the clergy, and yet
asserting that a man of liberal principles ought not to
be a clergyman) ; the laity, too, at the time of his death
seemed to recognize that his was the voice which most
clearly and adequately gave expression to the religious
opinion of educated men in England.
My earliest recoUections of him, though they do not
extend to his life at school, go back a long way, to the
year 1835 or 1836. We used to sit together at the
scholars' table in the old college hall, at the end on

vn.] STANLEY 137
the right hand as you enter; there were several of
our companions who afterwards rose to eminence,
especiaUy two men of very different character, the
late Vice-Chancellor Wickens, whom we regarded as a
perfect phoenix of conversation, and who, though he
afterwards buried himself in the law, was certainly a
very remarkable person ; the other, the poet Clough,
a man of genius and of the highest character, already
beginning to be over-burdened with conscientiousness
and disturbed about the question, What is truth ?
Among the tutors, the two who had the greatest influ
ence over us were the present Archbishop of Canter
bury \ whose good sense and knowledge of the world
were an invaluable guide to many of us, and whose
example as a tutor was a great help to those of us
who soon afterwards became tutors ; and I am bound
also to mention another person who gave a great
stimulus to Oxford in his day, Mr. Ward, the author
of the f deal of a Christian Church, who afterwards
became a Roman Catholic. Though limited in his
views, he was the best arguer from given premises
that I have ever known, a very prince of dialecticians.
It would be hardly an exaggeration to say that he
spent the greater part of the day in arguing : I have
always considered that he did us no harm, but good,
for he always held up before us a high and pure
standard, and opened our views into life and theology
very much. He used to point out to us how well he
1 A. C. Tait.

138 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vn.
got on with the other tutors, though in religious
opinions they were wide as the poles asunder, because
they all equally desired the good of the college. This
eminent person, who left a lasting impression on the
minds of many of us, was the intimate friend of
Stanley and Clough.
At the time when I first knew the late Dean of
Westminster, his greatest interests were history and
geography. These tastes, which were natural to him,
were greatly stimulated by the influence of Dr. Ar
nold. He used to like nothing so much as digging
away at the truth. Soon after he took his degree,
he studied from original authorities the history of
the EngHsh Reformation, and early discarded many
opinions respecting it which were commonly received
as gospel in those days. He used to teU me, as one
of the results of his studies, that he thought King
Henry VIII a better and Archbishop Cranmer a worse
man than the ordinary traditions of them represented.
At that timfi he was more addiclus j'urare in verba
magistri than he afterwards became. From Dr.
Arnold he had received a noble impulse which he
communicated to others ; he had received also a very
impracticable theory of Church and State about which
he used to argue with us. The theory was that the
Church and the State were really one, and that the
division of them was a late corruption of which there
was no trace in the New Testament. Put roughly,
the theory might be stated thus: 'That the Arch-

vn.] STANLEY 139
bishop of Canterbury should be a layman.' One of
the consequences was a certain degree of persecution ;
for if the Christian Church and the Christian State
were identical, then it foHowed that only those who
in some sense or other were Christians could be
admitted to a share of poHtical power. I well remem
ber the disastrous effects which were produced by
the communication of this theory to one of the col
lege tutors, a weU-meaning but narrow-minded man.
There is no trace of this theory, as far as I remem
ber, in the Dean's late ' writings ; and whatever may
be thought of it in the abstract, it is certainly not
within the horizon of practical politics.
He was very shy in those days (I am speaking of
his undergraduate and bachelor time), and even ten
years later I have observed him hardly able to speak
at a dinner-table. In later Hfe he had entirely con
quered this weakness, and, when he was in good
health, no one was better company or more agree
able. He had something to say to everybody, and
could set them at their ease. I think his example
worth mentioning, because probably there are many
here present who are similarly afflicted, and they may
learn from him that this ridiculous malady is far from
being incurable, but passes away in most persons
when they begin to be engaged in the real business of
life. With him it was far from being a sense of un
popularity, for he was a universal favourite ; his gentle
ness, his unassumingness, his pleasant looks, won all

140 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vn.
hearts. There was always something of the child about
him, which he retained to the end of his Hfe, though
he was also a man of the world. He preserved to
the last the joyousness, the curiosity, the simplicity of
youth. In early life he was the enfant gate du
monde, upon whom prizes and other youthful honours
were showered in profusion, yet he was unspoiled by
them. He was a child, too, in another and a higher
sense. For he was guileless and innocent ; of him, if
of any one, it might be said that he never knowingly
did a wrong thing. No false or impure word was
ever heard to fall from his Hps ; no one would have
ever poured the licentious tale into his ear. Wher
ever he was, in youth, as in after-life, his influence was
for good. And ' of such is the kingdom of heaven.'
There was one quality which I think he possessed
in a greater degree than any one I ever knew —
indifference to pubHc opinion. He never thought of
himself or cared what others thought of him. He
never diverged to the right hand or to the left from
a love of popularity ; nor did the attacks made upon
him by his theological opponents ever cause him
a shadow of uneasiness ; whether a jest was made at
his own or somebody else's expense seemed not to
concern him. There was an epithet which a man of
genius (who was also gifted with a talent for uttering
sayings more remarkable for their point than for their
truth) applied to him — ' the body snatcher.' I remem
ber his telling me of this the last time he was in

vn.] STANLEY i4I
Oxford, as we walked in the Parks, laughing in his
peculiar way at the joke, as though it had related
to anybody rather than himself. He would have
deHghted at a notice which appeared of him in a
reHgious newspaper the day after his death : ' the
Dean of Westminster has closed his brilliant but
melancholy career.'
The two years after he took his M.A. degree, from
1842 to 1844, were chiefly spent in writing the life of
Dr. Arnold. No biography which has been written
since, and not more than one or two which pre
ceded it, have ever produced an equal impression on
the English-speaking world. I am not quite certain
whether he may not have detracted something both
from the native strength and also from the singularity
of his great master. But the greater regularity of
the portrait, if this criticism is just, made it certainly
more acceptable and also more intelligible to the
world at large. To many it was a kind of revelation
in those days to find that the friend of freedom, the
ardent supporter of Reform and Catholic Emancipa
tion, could be a humble and devoted Christian.
Through the influence of this book Arnold may be
said to have Hved after his death more truly than in his
life, for there is no public school in the kingdom which
has not been profoundly affected by the picture which
the disciple drew of his beloved teacher and friend.
His great and almost only relaxation was foreign
travel ; he had a great interest in seeing new places

142 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vn.
and persons. On two of these tours, in the years
1844 and 1845, we went together, chiefly with the
object of seeing the many distinguished men, especi
ally the theologians and scholars, who were still
surviving from the golden age of Germany. There, to
his great delight, he made the acquaintance of Ewald,
whose genius and learning he always heartily ad
mired, without perhaps sufficiently allowing for his
fanciful and sanguine nature. He also became ac
quainted with Neander, a good and learned man, who
told us, speaking of Blanco White, that there were
Christians mehr in Unbewusstsein als in Bewusstsein,
that is to say, ' there were unconscious as well as
conscious Christians.' , There were many others, such
as Tholuck, and De Wette, the patriot and theolo
gian, Godfrey Hermann, the great scholar, Ranke,
the celebrated historian, who kindly conversed with
us. We were greatly flattered by a visit from Schel-
ling, courtier and philosopher, who about that time
transferred Himself from Munich to Berlin. He had
already had six systems of philosophy, and was re
vealing the seventh and newest to a Beriin audience.
He was very kind to us, and we regarded him with
immeasurable respect. All his systems of philosophy
were the creation of a man of genius, and showed
a great deal of thought and insight, but they had
no definite relation to history or fact. All of them
claimed to be based on first principles and eternal truths.
In a few years they were no longer remembered. When

vn.] STANLEY 143
I was at Munich a short time since, I asked whether
SchelHng had left any disciples. The answer was:
'Yes, he has left one, and he has no disciple.'
But it is time that I should pass on to speak of our
friend's later years, as he appeared on the scene of
the world. Oxford and Canterbury formed two long
chapters of his life ; in both he took an intense
interest, and to both he rendered eminent service.
Indeed, wherever he setded, he seemed to create a
new social life ; he found out facts, or revived memo
ries which had been forgotten ; he brought persons
together who had not previously known one another,
himself being one of those few who have the gift of
making all things kin. He knew well that men who
conceive harsh opinions of one another at a distance,
have very different feelings when they meet. And so
through the whole course of his life, without any
loss of dignity, and certainly not from any social
ambition, he pursued this — which I may call his voca
tion — of making men better known to one another,
that they might also think more kindly of each other ;
' every one turns out to be a very good sort of person
when you are acquainted with him.' And there were
some of his bitterest opponents who were almost
ashamed when they found the unaffected kindness
with which they were received by him in his own
house. He used to accuse himself of a want of decision,
but I do not think that this was true, or would be

144 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vn.
truly charged upon him in any great matters, though
he was sometimes undecided about small ones,
' whether he should pay a visit, go on a journey,
and the Hke.' Also his physical constitution, though
fairly good, was never quite equal to the strain which
he imposed upon it ; and anxiety sometimes took too
great a hold upon him. He was finely strung, and
rather shrank from the contest with rougher or more
unscrupulous natures. But he never hesitated in the
duty of speaking out, whatever might be the conse
quences to himself. There was no balancing or
indecision when he had to maintain the cause of
a friend. He knew, of course, from the first that the
free expression of his opinions would not make him
agreeable to the Church of England, nor to any
minister of state who regarded the wishes of a majority
of the clergy. He knew, therefore, that he must
resign the higher rewards of his profession for what
to him was the really important point, the power of
fighting the battle of freedom and comprehension on
equal terms. ' Though mitres should rain from heaven
as thick as hail, the head was so oddly shaped that
not one of them would fit it.'
It has been said both of him and of others, that
a Hberal clergyman has no true place in the Church
of England, that he subscribes what he does not
believe, that he repeats words in a sense which they
do not mean. I think he would have admitted that
liberal clergymen are in a position of difficulty, and

vn.] STANLEY 145
that many changes are needed in the Church of
England. before it can be adapted to them, or adapted
to the wants of the laity. And he himself would
often lament the indifference which the laity them
selves showed to the great question whether the
Church of England could continue to be maintained
as the Church of the English nation, or whether
(as in other European countries) Church and State,
the secular and reHgious elements, should be allowed
to drift into a condition of hopeless antagonism. To
the question which I just now raised, whether a
person of what are termed liberal opinions can sub
scribe the Thirty- nine Articles, I think that the best
answer is given in the striking words of the Dean of
Westminster himself, ' that if subscription is strictly
enforced, then every one, from the Archbishop of
Canterbury to the humblest clergyman in the wilds of
Cumberland, must leave the Church. For the difficulty
is not one which presses upon one party only, but
almost equally upon aU.' On the other hand there are
weighty considerations, which may induce men of a
liberal cast of mind to take Orders in the present day :
firsdy, the greater need of them than ever before :
secondly, the evil of giving up a noble profession, for
which a man is naturally fitted, on somewhat doubtful
and casuistical grounds : thirdly, the weakness of iso
lation in good works ; for a man who lives apart from
the Church of England will probably Hve apart from
every other religious society : fourthly, the necessity

146 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vn.
of co-operation and common action ; and common
action, whether in a church or in any other institution,
involves some sacrifice of opinions, tastes, wishes.
It was an accusation very commonly brought against
the Dean of Westminster that he ' had no definite
beliefs,' and it was not unnatural that such a notion
should be entertained by ecclesiastical opponents
whose idea of rehgion was bound up with the
Athanasian Creed. Yet it was wholly mistaken ; one
of those mistakes which men make in judging those
whose opinions about religion are different from their
own. He did not Hve in a region of poetry or
rhetoric, nor was his belief indefinite because it was
not minute and microscopic. He was impressible,
and did not always distinguish between figures and
realities, between the language of prophecy and of
history. The truths on which he Hved, and which he
sought to impress upon others, were strong and
simple — enough for himself, enough for all the world.
And I think that I cannot do better in the short time
which remains to me (though I fear that I may not do
him justice) than bring together in a short compass
what may be termed the leading ideas or ' behefs ' of
his life.
First of all he beHeved in toleration — that is, com
prehension — that is, charity, extending far and wide,
the love of God and man shed abroad in the human
heart. He thought that theological differences were
much more differences of words than was usually

vii.] STANLEY 147
allowed. He would ask whether, if the three terms
'Nature, Person, Substance,' which occur in the
Athanasian Creed, had been transposed, any alteration
would be made in the meaning. He could not believe
that those whom we meet daily here, often our relations
and friends, whom we hoped hereafter to meet in
heaven, could be reaUy divided from us by barriers
of sects and churches. He delighted to repeat (as
he repeated in this chapel) the familiar story told first
by John Wesley, of the old man who went to the gate
of heaven, and asked to be admitted as a Wesleyan,
but was told in reply that there were no Wesleyans
there, nor yet Presbyterians nor Independents, neither
Churchmen nor Dissenters, Protestants nor Catholics,
but all one in Christ Jesus. He had a great pleasure
in preaching in a Presbyterian church, and in inviting
a distinguished Presbyterian minister to give a lecture
in the Abbey. He liked to act with Dissenters, and
he reckoned many eminent dissenting clergymen
among his personal friends. Such connection seemed
to him an outward sign that the old reign of bigotry
and intolerance had passed away. To such manifes
tations he sometimes attributed rather too much
importance ; and even a friendly critic must allow
that he occasionally overstrained the meaning of
words, in the generous attempt to make all men
(including his opponents) think alike.
But it would be a mistake to suppose that he was
lost in any dream of universal philanthropy, or that
i. 2

148 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vn.
he held any theory about the salvation of all man
kind. He took the world as it was, and was far from
ignoring the practical difficulties which surrounded
him. He knew that freedom could not be perfected
in this world ; we can only approach it. Mere
freedom is a negative idea,, negative of certain evils
from which mankind have suffered in former ages,
and from which they still in a measure continue to
suffer ; but without union and order it is impossible
and unmeaning. The first principle of toleration
needed to be supplemented by a second principle:
'the interpenetration of religion and morality, of
holiness and truth, of the secular and religious life.'
He would not have attached much importance to the
ordinary evidences of Christianity, whether internal
or external. Wherever he saw good in any land, in
any religion, there he found a witness to the Gospel
of Christ. Not that he would have had us go forth
in search of a new doctrine ; the religion of our
homes, the church in which we were baptized — these
were to us the gate of all truth. Without seeking to
repress any inquiry, he would have answered the
newest doubt by the nearest duty. To him Christianity
was essentially of the nature of good. Hence the
question of miracles was to him comparatively un
important ; whether they could be proved by sufficient
evidence or not, or some only and not others, or
what was their precise nature, were questions upon
which he hardly ever touched. Metaphysical dis-

vn.] STANLEY 149
cussions, whether disguised in theology or not, were
not at all to his taste. He was far from denying the
supernatural, but he had no doubt that without
miracles or with them, a good man might be accepted
by God ; once he said to me ' that if the evidence of
the life of Christ was fading into the distance through
the lapse of time, we must ourselves become Christs.'
What is this but the language of Scripture ' conforming
to the image of Christ,' ' renewal after the image of
Christ,' ' filling up what was behind of the sufferings
of Christ'?
Third among the ideas or principles which possessed
his mind was what I would call the historical sense.
He wished to bind the present with the past ; he liked
the history of the Church to be continuous, and to
find the element of unity in different ages. Old
customs, old places, historical scenes, the geography
of Palestine or Greece, had an indescribable interest to
him. He was fond of showing the growth of rites
and ceremonies ; the great differences in the mode
of administering the Sacraments in earlier and later
centuries to him seemed to point to a unity of another
kind, that is, a spiritual. While some of his brethren
were fiercely disputing about church vestments, he
would amuse himself and others by tracing their very
casual and commonplace origin. There was more
of unity in these lesser things than appeared : they
all bore upon the main purpose of his life ; and the
general effect of that life was very great, not the less

150 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vn.
so for the many enmities which his counsels of charity
necessarily provoked.
He would not willingly have broken any link with
the olden time. ' To stand upon the old paths ' would
have been his motto ; but he would have added the
other half of the sentence : ' that we may look out
for new ones.' His sympathies, notwithstanding his
liberal opinions, were rather with the old order of
things than with the new. He would have liked to
see the Church and the Universities freed from re
striction, but still rooted in the past. Had the short
comings of the Church of England been manifold
greater than they are, he would never have consented
to her Disestablishment; though no one probably
had a keener indignation against the persecuting
spirit of former ages, or was more sensitive to its
existence among ourselves. He would have felt that
the Church was a part of the nation, a part of English
history, in every parish a centre and a witness of
what was ancifint and sacred. He would have wished
the years of a nation, like those of an individual, to
be bound ' each to each by natural piety.'
Thus I have endeavoured, as far as the time allowed,
truly I hope though imperfectly, and with the freedom
of one speaking among friends, to recall a few traits
of a distinguished man in whose light we rejoiced for
a season. I have not attempted to praise him ; and
he would not have wished me to conceal his defects.
Some persons say that ' now he is dead, the spirit or

vn.] STANLEY 151
feeling of which he was the representative is dead
also.' I believe rather that he has helped to create a
spirit which will never die out in the English people.
It is the spirit of comprehensive charity, the spirit
which makes men to be of one mind in a church, the
spirit which calls them out of differences into unity,
which raises them above their own miserable quarrels
into the presence of the eternal and true. This is the
work of which his life was the expression ; it may be
described also as the better mind of the nineteenth
century, acting upon the Christian Church. No
follower will take up his mantle, no sect will call
itself by his name ; but to him we look back as
more than any one in the Church of England the
aposde of this great and simple truth ; our friend and
teacher, who but a few months since was speaking
from this place :
' In perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.'

VIII. CANON HUGH PEARSON1.
DAVID, AFTER HE HAD SERVED HIS OWN GENERA
TION BY THE WILL OF GOD, FELL ON SLEEP.
Acts xiii. 36.
THESE words come home to us because they are so
simple and free from exaggeration. They might be
the epitaph of a great king ; they might also be
written over the graves of some whom we have known,
both rich and poor. They are a noble expression of
man's better life in this world. It is a service to his
generation ; a service which lasts all his days, very
long in one point of view, but limited to his own place
and time. For every one has his little spot of earth,
and his aUotte^d years which he cannot exceed ; the
days of his years come to an end, and another rises
up in his stead. One man's influence may extend
further than another's, but not far in comparison with
the whole. One man's fame may be spread abroad
for a few months or years ; another, not less happy,
or less accounted of in the sight of God, rests in an
unknown burial-place.
But this ' service of a generation,' though it does
1 Preached in Sonning Church, Sunday, April 23, 1882.

vin.] HUGH PEARSON 153
not imply earthly greatness, and may be hidden from
the eye of the world, is not the ordinary life of man.
It does not mean that we buy and sell and supply the
wants of mankind ; that we make money and bring up
a family creditably in our own station ; or that we
successfully follow some higher calling, such as that
of a clergyman or of a lawyer ; or that we hold office
in a parish, or even in a kingdom. It means much
more than this — it is the service of man, which is also
the service of God. He who in the ordinary business
of Hfe finds a higher business ; who to honesty and
punctuaHty adds disinterestedness and public spirit ;
who, in his calling or out of his calling, has done what
good he can ; who has set things right which were
going wrong ; who has lived for others and not for
himself; who has freely given his time and his money
and his thoughts to some cause or institution ; who
has trained young children, has built churches, has
improved a neighbourhood — such an one may be
truly said to have ' served his generation.' Whether
consciously or unconsciously to himself, he has been
working together with God ; he has been fulfilling the
task which he came into the world to perform. And
the small affairs of human life, and the things which
we hardly name in connection with religion, if they
are done in a true and simple manner, partake of
this higher, this divine character. The duties of a
servant, for example, may be performed ' as unto the
Lord and not to men.' Such persons when they die

154 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vin.
maybe said to have ' served their generation.' In this
parish or in any other, if a tradesman or a farmer is
taken away, it is easy to find some one else who will
occupy his land and foUow his calling. But when one
of these true servants of God and man is missed from
his accustomed place, we look around sadly ; it seems
as if the blank could never be filled up.
And what shall we say of their work ? does that end
here, or does it follow them into another state of
being ? The transitoriness and imperfection of this
world naturally carries our thoughts to a life beyond.
There are many questions which we should like to ask
about a future life, if they could only be answered.
The innumerable souls of men who have once lived
and toiled upon the earth, where are they, and what
are they doing ? Have they any form or character
conceivable or distinguishable by us? Is their dwelling-
place any house of God, like this church, or do they
rest in some innocent or happy seat, like the garden
of Eden, or kave they their habitation in the stars as
men have sometimes fancied ? And do they see and
know one another, and converse about the things
which happened to them on earth ? And how are
they affected by time ? Are they always at the same
point of life, while we are drifting onwards ? Is there
neither youth nor age, but all renewed and equal in
the light of His presence ? And may we suppose
them to be going on to perfection, to be passing
through new stages of education, rising to higher

vin.] HUGH PEARSON 155
spheres of knowledge in the course of ages, just as
this world has epochs and makes a kind of progress
according to the laws which God has prescribed for it ?
He, of whom we are all thinking to-day, would have
bid us put aside these questions. He would not have
given us any false comfort by drawing pictures of
another life, or pretending to a greater knowledge of
things unseen than is really granted to us. He would
have acknowledged that questions like these are un
answerable ; for that no one has ever returned to tell.
But still he would have bid us follow Christ in the
' valley of the shadow of death, and fear no evil.' He
would have said that neither did Christ answer the
question of the Sadducees, ' Whose wife is she in the
resurrection ? ' He would have taught us that the
struggle of good against evil in this world, that the
effort which any one of us may make against sin, is a
better witness than books of evidences can supply for
the reality of a life to come. He would have argued
that the very attempt to grasp at certainty has been
detrimental to a deeper faith. He would have re
minded us that the language of all good and great
men, or of all but a few of them, has gone beyond
this world ; and that in our own age, when conven
tionalities are crumbling away, it is only by living the
life of Christ that we can hope to become partakers of
His Resurrection.
Such was in fact the drift of a sermon which he
preached to you from this place only a fortnight since,

156 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vm.
and of another sermon which he was to have preached
on the same day, when his work was cut short. In
this second sermon he points out that in the scripture
itself we find the same doubts and questionings. And
yet ' there is a prevailing infinite hope.' The Psalmist,
who says one day, ' The grave cannot praise Thee,
death cannot celebrate Thee, they that go down into
the pit cannot hope for Thy truth,' says also, ' I have
set God always before me, for He is on my right
hand, therefore I shall not fall.' ' Wherefore my heart
was glad and my glory rejoiced, my flesh also shaU
rest in hope ; for Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,
neither wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corrup
tion.' Both these notes may be heard in the book of
Psalms and in the Prophets. And so it is with our
selves ; one day darkness, another day light, but the
light shines more and more. It is not a Hght which
enables us to discern objects, but which enables us to
reahze more truly the love and goodness and wisdom
of God, and to trust Him in life and death. And he
quotes with great delight a striking passage from the
German poet and philosopher Goethe, to the follow
ing effect : ' I should say all those are dead, even for
the present life, who do not believe in another. I
have a firm conviction that the soul is an existence of
an indescribable nature, whose working is from eter
nity to eternity. It is like the sun, which seems
indeed to set, but really never sets, shining on in
unchangeable splendour.'

vin.] HUGH PEARSON 157
And still let me add a few more words taken from
the same sermon, by which ' he being dead yet
speaketh.' He had been acknowledging that much
of the evidence of a future Hfe was of a precarious
nature ; useful, perhaps, to some other generation, not
equally adapted to our own. The evidence of im-
mortahty which could not be destroyed is the life of
God in the soul; with this present life the future is
bound up. Hear the last words :
' What is the great conclusion ? Let me press two
thoughts. First — Remember that any of the common
difficulties and doubts concerning the future which
will obtrude themselves, do not touch the evidence of
which we have been speaking. The life of the soul
was meant by God to be its own evidence of the
eternal world. David found it so ; holy men have
ever found it so : where this supreme evidence is
wanting, it is idle to complain of the failure of other
and less constraining evidence. Life with God now
makes Hfe eternal a certainty. St. Paul would quite
as soon have questioned whether he Were alive in the
body as whether he would live with Christ for ever.
Do you ask who have this life with God ? With the
infinite varieties of character around us, it is not for
us to pronounce who have and who have not
set God before their eyes. For all who have their
faces turned towards him, who do not lose their
trust in Him, who, whatever be the trials, the
.sorrows, the sins of life, yet never let go their

158 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [viii.
hold on God — for all these there is the infinite
hope, and the more they strive to walk in the path -
of Hfe the brighter wiU the hope be. Let them
press on, let them stiU set God before their eyes
—at last they will rise up to Him. It has taken
coundess ages to mould the world into a place fit for
man to dwell in, it may take ages to make him fit for
the courts of God's own house above. But those who
keep God and duty as a bright beacon before their
eyes, they carry with them the germ of an immortal
being over the threshold of the scene where, in the
boundless mercy of God, nothing that enters can
ever die. Lastly, remember this. There is no truth,
however lofty, however surpassing this earthly Hfe,
but that truth may be ennobled and brightened by
work. Arise then, and listen to the aposde as he
closes his great chapter on the world to come :
" Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast,
immoveable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord." Wark is the universal brightener of the
soul's windows ; it keeps open heaven's gate, and
makes the way plain to those who would enter in.
Thus, then, there are two ways in which the truth of
immortahtycan be made clear to us— by keeping God
always before us, and by constant labour in the work
of the Lord. In this way the solid fabric of the
eternal building wiU surely rise up ; the character, the
Hfe, to which eternity belongs, will be begun, to pass
together, of God's infinite love, into His presence,

vin.] HUGH PEARSON 159
where is the fullness of joy, and to His right hand,
where there is pleasure for evermore.'
These words occur at the end of the sermon which
was written, but not preached, when the fatal illness
laid him low. He who wrote them is now numbered
with the inhabitants of the unseen world. We cannot
say where he is, or what he is doing ; but we know
that ' the souls of the righteous are in the hand of
God, and that there shall no evil touch them.'
And now let me speak to you of himself, as he still
lives to us in the mind's eye — for forty years the Rector
of this parish. I know that to some here present the
death of our dear friend is Hke the death of a parent,
or a husband, or a brother. And we aU of us feel
sadly that we shall no more receive that friendly
welcome, no more hear that cheerful voice ; that we
shall look in vain for the encouragement and sympathy
which he was always so ready to give. There were
few things which were more pleasant to most of us
than a visit to him. What an interest he took in all
our concerns, as if they had been his own : how
thoughtful he was about us in the most minute parti
culars ! He had always some new anecdote to relate ;
some new book about which he would talk to us ;
some person or character he liked to discuss. He
was full of life and laughter and geniality. There was
no social gathering that was not lighted up by his
presence. And now the house to which we loved to
go is strangely vacant and desolate ; this beautiful

i6o SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vm.
village, too, of which he was so fond, wears a look of
sadness and melancholy to the friends who came to
visit him here.
I do not think he would have wished us to be
grieving for his loss, and still less would he have been
wiUing to be the subject of a funeral panegyric. But
he would have liked us to remember him sometimes,
not sadly but cheerfully, in the silence of our hearts,
and occasionally to talk of him, and of those whom he
loved, when we meet one another from time to time.
In many ways he strikes me as one of the most
remarkable men I have ever known. This would
have occurred to no one at first sight, because he was
always willing himself to take the lower place. He
was so humble and modest that you were in danger of
doing him an injustice. Nor did every one perceive
under that singular ease of manner how fixed a pur
pose animated him. He had plenty of courage too,
when the occasion required it. There was no want
of energy or eharacter when anything had to be done.
He took to heart any oppression or ill-treatment of the
poor, and was deeply stirred by it. Himself the
kindest of men, he had numberless friends in all ranks ;
and I should not think that he could ever have made
an enemy. The secret of the universal regard which
he inspired was not far to seek: he was beloved
because ' he loved much.' He was the friend of the
lowly and the friend of the great, and he equally
delighted in the affection of both. He had the gift of

vin.] HUGH PEARSON 161
always being able to talk to others, and the value of
his words was enhanced by his manner of saying
them. There is no one in this parish who did not
turn to him in a time of sorrow or difficulty. The
relations of the Rector and his people had not been
always amicable ; there are persons here present who
remember that the face of the country was very
different forty years ago from what it now is. He
was told that he was going into a nest of hornets (that
was the phrase), and it was hinted to him that the
more he kept out of the way of his parishioners the
better. But that was not the spirit in which it was
possible for him to live and act. He knew that all
men, when we become acquainted with them, have
some element of goodness or sociability ; he drew
them to him by a kindly or humorous word, by a
friendly smile, by a social gathering. In time he
became the trusted friend of everybody in the parish.
It was a great charm about him that he never
thought of himself. He was entirely free from
egotism and ambition. He never seemed to care
about his own interests. It was said by some per
sons that he was destined for high preferment in the
Church if he had lived, but such an idea never
appeared to enter even into his dreams. He was
greatly amused by a friend who once said to him
that ' he hoped better things for him.' He was quite
contented to live among his own people. He had
enough to occupy his mind, and he was never weary
.. M

162 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vin.
of doing his work, and never desirous of doing more :
he did not grasp at what he was unable to perform.
He had friends and duties elsewhere, but from all
other places he came back to this, with an inexpres
sible sense of rest and relief. Here was the home of
his affections, where he felt as other men feel in the
bosom of their own family.
But he was not only kind ; he was also wise, and
had great skill in affairs, and a good judgment of
character. He had the true Christian judgment,
which is not high-minded towards an erring brother
or sister, but makes allowance for the varieties of
human nature and the force of circumstances. His
wisdom was a kind of love, yet not weak or waver
ing, for he would act with decision when necessary.
Without being in the least degree worldly, he was
a perfect man of the world ; he had a great know
ledge of human nature, and great experience of it.
For others knew him to be one whom they could
trust, and they poured forth without reserve to him
the secrets of their souls. I need not remind you
how this parish grew under his hands ; how he created
new feehngs, and inspired a new Hfe in it ; how by
the generous help of a family in this neighbourhood,
who have now aU gone to their rest, he built and
endowed churches, and founded schools and other
institutions, which are the pride of the district. He
was supported in his undertakings by a lady, the last
surviving member of the famfly to whom I was allud-

vin.] HUGH PEARSON 163
ing, and he used to say that he had been greatly
assisted by her strong sense and force of character,
especiaUy in the first years of his ministry. To that
dear friend he had within the last few weeks placed
a memorial window, of which he wrote a short notice
in the last number of the Sonning Magazine. There
are many monuments of his good taste in this parish ;
and there are many spots in which he delighted to
linger, such as the Terrace at Windsor, or the Choir
of St. George's Chapel. But there was nothing
which so dehghted and filled his mind, or which
was so expressive and characteristic of him, as this
church. ShaU I remind you of the sermons which for many
years you have heard from this pulpit ? They were
in some respects different from the sermons of any
one else. While truly spiritual and Christian in their
character, yet they were such as a scientific man or
a scholar, if he had entered the church and heard
them, would not have disapproved. For to our de
parted friend the foundation of religion was not that
in which all men differed, but that in which they
agreed. He used to dwell not so much on the doc
trine of the Trinity, as upon the soul living to God ;
not upon the miracles of Christ, but upon the imita
tion of Christ ; not upon the evidences, but upon the
substance of rehgion. He often repeated to you that
' without holiness no man can see the Lord,' and
always he would have withdrawn from the speculative
M 2

164 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vm.
to the practical, and brought his hearers back from
statements of doctrine to the consideration of their
own lives. And sometimes I have heard him in this
church speak to you of other reHgions, in which, as
well as in that which was called by His name, he
would say that Christ was dimly seen ; and that in all
of them there is an element of good and bad, and
that we do not act fairly when we compare the good
of one religion with the corruption of another. He
could hardly be held to belong to any party in the
Church, but he was the friend of all. He had a great
natural love for architecture and music ; he felt that
these two were gracious handmaids of religion. His
mind was constantly engaged on religious subjects,
yet not quite in the manner of ordinary theologians :
for he was always thinking whether, in the nine
teenth century, it was possible that there should be a
reconciliation of the secular and religious elements, of
Christianity and of science ; whether the Church of
England too might not enlarge her borders and take
in some of those who refuse to be bound by Articles
and Creeds, and yet desire to be the servants of Christ.
And sometimes, though it was not the permanent
habit of his mind, he would ask himself whether he
was altogether right in retaining his position in the
Church, when there were so many commonly re
ceived statements about which he had ceased to be
confident. I was going to speak to you also of his friends ;

vin.] HUGH PEARSON 165
they were always a great part of his life. For many
he entertained a brotherly affection ; there was one
especially for whom he had a love ' passing the love
of women.' I need hardly tell you that this dearest
of friends was the late Dean of Westminster, who was
well known in this parish. For he used to preach an
annual sermon in this church, coming with the excel
lent lady his wife for several years, and then for six
years after her death in sadness and solitude until the
end. This was a very ancient friendship, having
commenced forty-five years before, when they first
met at Oxford. It was a friendship never ruffled by
the breath of a disagreement, the reverse of jealous
or exclusive. He of whom I am speaking to you
seemed to wish that everybody else should esteem and
love his friend as he himself did, and should partici
pate in his friendship for him. One Sunday evening
last summer (July 16), as he was walking round the
garden, he first heard that the iUness of his friend
was likely to be fatal — he said, ' I know not how I
shall live without him.' Indeed, I know not how
either could have lived without the other. There
was another friend of his youth, whose name is not
unknown in this parish, and to whom he clung with
strong affection, the late Vice-Chancellor, Sir John
Wickens, a very eminent lawyer, and in other ways
also a remarkable man, gifted with powers of conver
sation which would have distinguished him in any
society, and yet Hving comparatively retired from the

166 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vin.
world. They were both of them great readers, de-
vourers of books, and were full of literary interests.
Next to Arthur Stanley, this was the friend of whom
he most often spoke to me ; we had all been together
at BalHol College, where Arthur Hugh Clough fol
lowed in the next year. Besides these two friends,
there were several of his curates to whom he was
warmly attached, and probably no one ever worked
in this parish without deriving great benefit from the
association with him. There was one especially who
gained his tender regard: he must be remembered
by many persons here present, as he afterwards held
the district church of Earley ; a man of large heart
and affectionate nature, a great lover of children, full
of prejudices, gifted with a vein of humour, to whose
memory, though his Hfe closed (not from his own
fault) in darkness, I think that our friend would have
Hked me to pay this tribute. He, too, was of the
college which has formed a link in the lives of so
many of us. *
So we go over the memories of the past, not with
out sadness, and think sometimes that the ' tender
grace of a day that is gone will never come back to
us ' ; or that, ' he is in his grave, and oh ! the difference
to me.' Life, as we get older, is apt to become rather
soHtary; there seem to be so few persons surviving
who knew us when we were younger. We are
' within a measurable distance ' of the end. Yet
because we seem forsaken, let us not throw away

vin.] HUGH PEARSON 167
the later years of Hfe. To the oldest person here
present I would say : let us consider whether we
cannot find something still to do, something better
than we have done, something that we have missed,
to do, something that we may do sitting in an arm
chair if we are unable to walk, something that he
would have wished us to do. It may be some repara
tion for former neglect, some reconciHation of the
members of a family, something in our own lives
which has to be changed before we can be fit to
appear before God. ' Turn again then unto thy rest,
O my soul ' : ' for I will yet praise Him, who is the
help of my countenance and my God.'
If our dear friend could speak to us once more,
I think he would teU us that he had lived such a life
as he desired, not without trials, not without faults
(his feeling was always ' God be merciful to me ! '), but
it was such a life as was well suited to him in this
pleasant viUage, nestled in his own quiet home. He
would have told us that he had been happy. ' It was
a bitter wrench to leave aU you dear ones, but the
will of God be done.' Many of you came to see him
by his invitation, on the last evening of his Hfe ; and
you remember how he was thinking of others and their
concerns, not of himself, just as he had been when in
health. There were many words carried away from his
bedside. To one of his old parishioners he said, ' Do
weU, get on well, old friend ; how many happy hours
we have spent together.' To a youth, ' Dear boy,

168 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [vin.
live weU ; live a good life.' To his dear choir-boys
he sent his love. At two o'clock on the day of his
death he signed a codicil to his will. His first word
to the lawyer was, ' Have you had a proper luncheon ;
have they looked after you ? ' To one who had come
from a distance he said, ' Oh ! the love of friends ! '
For one of his young men, whom it is supposed that he
had forgotten in his will, he signed a cheque for £50
(this was between 7 and 8 o'clock in the evening).
He remained perfectly calm and collected until 10.45 !
between 10 o'clock and 10.45 ne m°re than once
gave the blessing, ' The Peace of God,' repeating all
the words to those who were in the room. He was
thinking much of Arthur Stanley during his last
moments. An hour later his spirit had fled away.
' All the time,' says one who was present, ' he was
giving, not receiving; ministering, not being minis
tered to.'
He would not have wished us to mourn for him ;
nor, indeed, can we think of such an end except as
happy and blessed. The light from heaven was
already shining upon him. But I will tell you what
I think would have pleased him. If he could have
supposed that we remembered any word of consola
tion which he had given to us in the hour of trouble ;
any caU to duty ; any remonstrance against evil : if
there is any one among his parishioners whom he has
warned against intoxication ; any young person of
either sex who is beginning to be led away by evU

viii.] HUGH PEARSON 169
company; any house which is divided against itself;
any family in which the children are not properly
cared for ; and they could hear his voice once more
speaking to them from the grave, as for forty years
he spoke to them from this place, concerning temper
ance, concerning purity of life, concerning peace,
concerning the irreparable character of the first years
of Hfe : if he could imagine that love of him, or
recoUection of any word of his, hindered some one
from falling into sin, or infused into some home or
society the blessing of peace, or brought some one
nearer to God and Christ, or supported some one in
their last hours — that would have been the way in
which he would have wished to be remembered ; that
would be a true memorial of his life and work.
And so, dear friend, fareweU. We who have met
here to-day are aU friends for thy sake; we thank
God for having given us such a friend, and we do not
repine that He has taken thee to Himself. May thy
' sweet example ' ever Hve in our hearts, and, Hke
a star, shine upon us when we pass through the
shadow of death.

IX. LEON GAMBETTA AND
ARCHBISHOP TAIT1.
THEY REST FROM THEIR LABOURS, AND THEIR
WORKS DO FOLLOW THEM.
Revelations xiv, part of verse 13.
THERE are times in the history of nations when
great men die and leave no one to succeed them ; and
there are times in the lives of individuals when friends
are taken from them and they are left more and more
alone in the world. In private life we go back upon
the past, it may be only two or three years ; it seems
as if it were yesterday when we were talking with
those who are now silent in the grave ; and in the
larger sphere of public men and affairs we make
similar reflections. Had the life of a great statesman
been spared we should not have drifted into that
calamitous war, or the strong hand of the soldier
might have averted a revolution, or the financial
genius of such an one might have foreseen and pro
vided against a ' great national distress.' So we caU
the men of a past generation from the tomb and place
them again on the stage. In their life-time they
1 Preached in Balliol Chapel, January 15, 1883.

ix.] GAMBETTA 171
were variously regarded by their countrymen, and
sometimes their reputation and power lasted to the
end, and sometimes the combination of lesser men
has been too much for them, so perhaps their ambi
tion has been disproportioned to their age and
country, and they have fallen before their time. But
when their star sets and their light disappears from
the heavens, then follows a period of sameness and
monotony in national history, or perhaps of restless
ness ; and nothing great is thought or done. There
are no kings nowadays, says Aristotle, because no
one is very superior to his fellows. When a country
gets into the hands of lesser men the pulses of
national life beat lower ; the love of making money
takes the place of ideas and aspirations ; instead of
uniting in great enterprises, men lose themselves in
factious debate and personalities, and are incapable of
heroic action.
Within the last few days a great man has been
taken from us ; he was one of those very few leaders
of mankind who make the history of a nation. For
though we sometimes speak of history as well as
nations being governed by general laws, we must
admit also that great men rise above these laws, or if
we like so to turn the phrase, enter into them and
make them. Such was Cromwell, or Mirabeau, or
Napoleon the first, or the great Prussian statesman
of our own day, or the great Frenchman who has
just departed — all these were not only the expression

172 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [ix.
of a national feeHng or tendency, but they controlled
and sometimes even defied it. If they had not ap
peared on the scene, who can tell what would have
been the course of European history in our own day ?
Whether we agreed with them in politics or not,
whether we approved or disapproved of their notions,
we stand respectfully by their graves and are willing
to make some aUowance for them, considering that
they were men cast in a larger mould than ourselves,
of whose character it was not possible for us to form
a perfectly true judgment.
The great man of whom we have been thinking and
reading during the last ten days was one of the most
gifted of human beings. He was a true patriot and
lover of the French people, who sought to realize the
idea of his nation such as it presented itself to the
minds of many in the first French revolution, yet
also looking forward into the future. He was a man
of courage and resource, endowed with a superhuman
energy, of charming manners and of a wonderful
eloquence. Some men govern the world by severity,
others attract by their geniality : he belonged to the
latter class. Yet he was by no means deficient in
firmness and force of character. He knew how to
set aside private enmities when public interests were
involved ; he was willing to wait if in another genera
tion his conception could be realized : but he was cut
off in the midst of his designs, his political Hfe ended
when that of most men is only beginning. He was

ix.] GAMBETTA 173
the adversary of the old order of things, and the
representative of the new ; you may say that he was
ambitious, but the ambition of a great man is rarely,
if ever, far removed from what he believes to be the
good of his country : and some will be inclined to
think that if he had lived longer, he would have
shipwrecked France, and that his death has done more
for him than his Hfe could have done. He was the
friend of state education, and therefore necessarily
the enemy of the Church, who after his death, having
him now in her power, has been ready to consign him
to every form of perdition which she was able to
imagine. For in this respect the Roman Catholic,
and perhaps not only the Roman Catholic Church,
is most unlike her Lord and Master, in that, whUe
preaching forgiveness to all men, she has never
forgiven her enemies.
It is with other feelings that we regard the death
of a great man. His errors and his frailties we leave
with his Father and his God. Into that judgment
of him we know that no personality or party
spirit can re-enter ; God judgeth not as man judgeth.
The Hfe given for others in any form is accepted of
Him; the patriot, too, whether he have been the
friend of the Church, or the enemy of her corruption,
shall not want his reward. Those who have been
His instruments in governing the world shaU be
regarded not as they are by their contemporaries, but
with a reference to all the circumstances of their own

174 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [ix.
Hves, and of their age and country. When they die,
the world is the poorer for the want of them, and we
(though at a distance from them) would like to do
justice to their motives, and offer them the tribute of
our sorrow and admiration.
And not only in pubHc, but also in private life
there are times when death strikes home at us, and
friends fall at our side, and more and more we are left
alone. The links become fewer which bind us to the
past ; in this chapel there are not more than one or
two persons who remember the Oxford of forty or
fifty years ago. In childhood or youth it was a rare
thing to lose a relation or a friend ; those who were
taken were not so much to us, and we easily replaced
them by new friends and companions ; and in middle
Hfe we may often go on for many years without any
break in our family or friends. But there comes a
time when so many begin to be taken away, and we
do not at once reahze the greatness of our loss or the
changes of tift world in which we are living. The
aged man, who has survived his contemporaries, sadly
complains that none of those who knew him in the
days of his youth are stiU remaining, and he feels cold
and solitary. There is a world of recollections within
him, which to others have become unmeaning. The
husband and wife have shared one another's thoughts
and feelings, and the time comes when they must part.
The condition of life becomes very hard to the survivor
of them because their earthly support is taken from

ix.] TAIT 175
them. Their only comfort and truest hope is to make
out of the sorrow a stepping stone to some higher
self; if the love of a friend or companion, without
losing the recollection of the past, can be transfigured
into the love of God, and of all good, and the desire
to heal the broken heart when we ourselves are
broken in heart. Brothers and sisters too are called
upon to part ; they again have so many memories in
common, which do not exist in others, going back so
far into childhood ; memories of early struggles and
difficulties, of the days when they all lived together
in the same house, of fair children early taken to
their rest, whose little Hfe was rounded with a sleep,
and of whom there is no one to think or to keep
them in remembrance. A private life passed in
innocence and kindness and the desire to make
others happy, and in intellectual cultivation and self-
improvement, is not of much importance to the world,
it is almost hidden from the eye of man ; but when
taken from this world it makes a great difference to
a few, to one person, to know that they will never
again look upon those features or hear that voice.
The links with the past are being broken, as I was
saying to you : first one and then another has been
taken during the last year ; and since I last addressed
you from this place a great and distinguished man,
closely connected with this college, the dear friend
of some of us, has gone to his rest. More than fifty
years ago, the late Archbishop of Canterbury was

176 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [ix.
elected a scholar of Balliol ; within about forty years,
and within the remembrance of one or two persons
here present, he was fellow and tutor. Since his
death a good deal has been said of him in newspapers
and funeral sermons. I shall speak of him as I knew
him, and chiefly of that part of his life in which .
I was brought into connection with him. I shall
speak of him as I think he would have wished to be
spoken of, as he truly was. A good man having his
own infirmities, when he has passed into the world
in which public opinion has ceased to exist, would
hardly like to be made the subject of undiscriminating
eulogy. Yet he would not be unwiUing that his
own character and life should be truly known and
should become an example to others. The words of
Socrates in the Symposium of Plato admit of an
application to this and also to some other subjects:
' In my simplicity I imagined that the topics of praise
should be true, and that out of them the speaker
would choosfi the best and arrange them in the best
order ; whereas I now see that the intention was to
attribute to love (whom you make your theme) every
species of greatness and glory : you say that he is aU
this and the cause of aU that, making him appear to
be the fairest and best of aU to those who know him
not, for you cannot impose upon those who know
him. Farewell then to such a strain, for I do not
praise in that way ; no, indeed, I cannot.' And such
wiU be the feeling which those who know the

ix.] TAIT 177
truest measure of human worth will entertain towards
a departed friend.
The Oxford in which Archbishop Tait resided
when a tutor of Balliol was a different place from the
Oxford of to-day. From one extreme it has almost
passed into another, from Toryism to Liberalism,
from Protestantism to Catholicism. In those days it
continued to be what it had been for two centuries —
the chosen seat of conservatism and orthodoxy ; it
would have prided itself on being behind the age,
certainly not before it. It consecrated all that has
passed away during the last forty years. He who
advocated the changes which (with the assent of all
wise men, including some of their strongest opponents)
have since become law, would have been regarded by
the majority of the University as a heathen man and
a publican. He would certainly have subjected him
self to a considerable amount of persecution and
dislike. He who could hit hardest in a controversy,
who could attack Dissenters, or raise a laugh at their
expense, was most in harmony with the spirit of the
time. The animosity against Dr. Arnold, that revered
name ; the fury which was shown by the opponents
of Dr. Hampden, can hardly be imagined. Ad nos
vix tenuis famae perlabitur aura. And not only was
there theological and political partisanship, but college
dislikes were also rife in the Oxford of the day. The
manners of the University were very different, they
were stiffer and more formal ; and the interval which
N

178 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [ix.
separated older and younger persons was far greater.
Religion itself was of a more strict and compulsory
character. There was a good deal of learning and
old-fashioned scholarship, yet valued not so much for
its own sake as for the support which it was supposed
to lend to orthodoxy. The University was eager, as
far as she was able, to do battle against Utilitarianism,
against Popery, against any kind of reform either in
Church or State.
Yet in this comparatively narrow world, which lived
very much to itself, there was a great deal of character
as weU as of genuine goodness. The level of con
versation was probably higher than among ourselves ;
life was fresher and more interesting ; and certainly in
the ten years which followed the time of which I am
speaking, there was more aspiration and self-sacrifice.
We wonder at the strange fancies which possessed
the minds of some men in those days ; how they
sought to frame their conduct by the obscure light
found in the pages of the Fathers. But we must also
remember that we cannot show the same devoted
lives, the same willingness to give up worldly
interests for the sake of an idea. While this new
spirit was growing up, there also lingered here longer
than elsewhere not only the old Enghsh love of
sport, but some of the less admirable features of
English country life. The old greatly predominated
over the new in this singular society. The younger
members of it were not less conservative than their

ix.] TAIT 179
elders ; and certainly much more turbulent and un
reasonable than the generations which succeeded them.
There was little enthusiasm for education, but a great
deal for maintaining the traditions of the place. And
yet this condition of things was soon to be over
thrown, not from without but from within: a small
band of eminent men, and especially the genius of
one man, called out and brought to the surface hidden
elements of opinion which had always existed in this
place, and changed the form of reHgion, first in the
University, and secondly in the country. They did
not foresee, and perhaps hardly now see, that the
change which they effected led, not only in this
University but in the country, to a stiU greater and
more widely-spread reaction. They derived their in
fluence chiefly from their regardlessness of themselves
and of their own interests : a gift which, in times of
apathy and indifference to religion, alone possesses
the power of recaUing men's hearts to it.
Into this Oxford of fifty years ago, at a critical
period of his own Hfe and of the history of the
University, the distinguished man of whom I am
about to speak to you was suddenly introduced.
From his earliest youth he had always been under
strong impressions of religion, which he never lost
in after life, though his outward bearing might
have seemed less than that of many other men
to indicate them. He had been brought up a
Presbyterian — a fact often laid to his charge by
N 2

i8o SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [ix.
opponents, and probably not without a real influence
on his theological opinions and his government of
the Church. He distinguished himself at Oxford as
a speaker at the Union ; and was remembered long
afterwards for a deserved castigation which he inflicted
on a fooHsh person who had wasted the time of the
society. His gifts of speech were always far greater
than those of writing. In the days of his youth he
used to complain, as many others have done, of
his own shyness. Yet he would have struck others
as genial and agreeable, ready to take part in con
versation, and possessing a considerable gift of
humour. He was not a man of great intellectual
power ; his talents were practical rather than specu
lative. He had a happy characteristic way of speaking
and acting : and as he was always growing, he soon
overtook those who in earlier life would have been
considered to be more than his equals.
He was the first, or one of the first persons who
broke down" the wall of partition which used to
separate undergraduates from their teachers. He
was very kind to us, though sometimes what is called
' brusque.' We felt that he was a good man and
also a man of the world, and we profited by his sense
and force of character. He had a way, which he
recommended another tutor to practise when matters
were growing warm between himself and one of his
pupils, of restoring good humour by a jest. Many of
us had to thank him for piloting us safely through

TAIT 181
the rocks and shoals of theology. For the new
tendency to Catholicism came upon Oxford like
a flood, and we needed such a guide as he was
to keep us in the straight path of common sense.
He did not attempt the higher flights of metaphysical
philosophy, yet his lectures were very interesting and
useful. He did not read but spoke them; and he
knew how to keep the attention of his class alive by
questions and salhes of various kinds. There were
two lectures especiaUy, of which I entertain a grateful
recollection — the lecture on the Ethics of Aristotle,
and the lecture on the Articles, which was really
a lecture on the history of the English Reformation.
They were always plain and clear, though the knots
were sometimes cut after the Gordian fashion ; they
bore the impress of the teacher, being, like his whole
life, eminently characteristic.
For five or six years (from 1 835 to 1 842) he continued
a feUow and tutor of the college. They were the
years in which the Tractarian movement commenced
and gained force. Many were the arguments which
we used to hear in the common-room and elsewhere,
upon theological questions which would now hardly
interest any one. There has never been a time in
Oxford when so many ideas were floating in the air.
From being the Palladium of orthodoxy, the Univer
sity began to be a focus of innovation. It was very
surprising to some of us, coming from quiet country
homes, to hear the Reformers denounced ; the doctrine

182 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [ix.
of the Real Presence maintained ; the use of prayers
for the dead advocated ; the duty of confession in
sisted upon : and all this was attempted to be proved
by the testimony of Scripture and the Fathers, and
declared to be tenable in the English Church. Not
long before he left Oxford, the future archbishop
(with three other tutors of colleges) wrote a protest
against the celebrated Tract No. 90, in which the
ingenious author had endeavoured to show that the
Articles of the Church of England were capable of an
almost complete reconcilement with what were then
regarded as the doctrines of Popery. He was quite
right in making the protest ; for whatever views may
be entertained respecting the limits of toleration in
the English or in any other church, there can be
no question respecting the injury done to morality
by the attempt to undermine the obvious meaning
of words.
The great institution of which the archbishop
became headmaster in 1842 was probably never
more successful than under his administration. He
was not a great scholar, nor skilful in the niceties
of Greek metres ; but he took a strong individual
interest in his pupils, and understood their needs and
characters. Rugby, like Oxford, in those days was
full of individual life, and therefore not easily managed
and held together. But he had always a kind of
governing instinct which enabled him to hold his own
against others. It was among many other striking

ix.] TAIT 183
things which he said a few days before his death,
referring probably to his Rugby experiences, that he
wondered why, in the days of his youth, he was so
Hable to quarrel with people. Not that he was really
at all quarrelsome, but there was in him the perfer-
vidum ingenium which sometimes brought him into
collision with others. The reflection which he made
on his own life is one which is often made by older
persons, and it would be well if young men could
take it to heart : ' Why was I so sensitive ? Why did
I elevate into a principle a matter which only affected
my own amour propre ? Why, instead of exag
gerating the defects of another, did I not bear with
him and win him over ? ' Let us remember that no
one ever quarrelled with another without some degree
of fault, whatever may have been the seeming justi
fication. And oh, that it were possible for us to
make in youth some of the reflections which will
come home to us in later life ! — But to return.
After eight years of successful administration of
Rugby School, at a time when his health seemed to
be failing, the archbishop accepted the Deanery of
Carlisle. Here he laboured happily for six or seven
years, engaged in the restoration of the cathedral,
and in voluntary parochial work, when a terrible
calamity overtook him. At one fell stroke, within
a few weeks, five of his children were carried off by
a fever. The remembrance of that calamity weighed
upon him and his wife during all the years that

184 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [ix.
remained ; his thoughts and feelings seemed to
become deeper, and he Hved more of a reserved and
hidden life than formerly. Those who had known
the children were bound to him by a peculiar tie.
Soon afterwards he was thrown into the world of
London ; now projecting and carrying out the Bishop
of London's fund, as it was called, for the provision
of churches in new districts of the diocese ; now ad
ministering the Ecclesiastical Commission ; now setting
on foot some new movement for the neglected or
destitute classes of the metropolis, to which he desired
to give a personal impulse ; now trying to make
peace between a clergyman and his parishioners ;
now addressing the House of Lords in a manner
which commanded universal attention, or appearing
in the Pan-AngHcan Synod as the champion of
Protestantism and moderation, ready to stand up
against aU opponents. It was a very full and varied
life; yet the great strain of it did not prevent him
from taking a kindly interest in society, and wher
ever he went he was felt to be one of its chief
ornaments. At his own house he gathered around
him sometimes distinguished guests, but also much
oftener persons who for some kind reason were
invited there. There was no clerical mannerism or
formality in that household ; the archbishop would
take a natural part in everything that was going on ;
he would read aloud a novel to his friends with
genuine enjoyment. He once admitted that ' a bishop

ix.] TAIT 185
who had no sense of humour was lost.' He was by
no means afraid of a little fun, when directed against
the order to which he belonged. Sydney Smith's
saUies were greatly appreciated by him. He could
meet all sorts of people without taking offence at
their free thinking or random remarks, and without
giving up anything of his own dignity. He was the
man of the world in the best sense of the word, who
knew persons, and knew how to treat them. To him,
more than to any other single individual, is to be
attributed the comparative good feeling which appears
to prevail between the Anglican and Dissenting bodies
in this country, and also the removal 1 of the great
cause of contention which lately divided them.
Two qualities strike me which were eminently
characteristic of him. First, he acted on his own
judgment, and was not led by the opinions of others ;
he had self-reliance, and was willing to take respon
sibiHty. He was not always consistent, but the times
were changing ; and though shrewd, he was not
a man who marked out for himself a course of action
long beforehand. Secondly, he had the instincts of
a statesman ; he saw events and parties in their true
proportions ; he was entirely free from clerical pre
judices ; he desired, above all things, to hold the
Church of England together. As years went oh,
especiaUy towards the end of his Hfe, he was more
1 By the Burials Bill, which the Archbishop steadily
supported.

186 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [ix.
and more disposed to disregard differences of reli
gious opinion in comparison with the great social
and political interests which seemed to him to be at
stake. He has been charged with regardlessness of the
truth ; and this, rightly explained, is not an accusation
wholty without foundation. There was always a limi
tation in his ideas, and this limitation was increased
by his position and the hurry of business in which
his days were passed. His mind was fixed upon
practical good, and he was impatient of critical or
speculative inquiries. To the one party he would
have said, ' Why are you busy with candles and vest
ments, and church ceremonies, when there is so much
sin and misery in the world ? ' To the other he would
have said, ' Why are you investigating the evidences
of Christianity, the dates and authorship of the books
of Scripture, the nature and proof of miracles, when
all these questions have been settled long ago by
divines more* learned than yourselves ? ' Perhaps in
neither case did he perceive the whole import of the
discussion. He did not understand how to many
minds the inward truth of religion blends with the
outward form, or that in some far-off way the right
determination of critical questions is inseparable from
a sound religious Hfe among educated men. In his
later years he became, I think, more aware of the
change which is passing over the world : arising partly
out of the progress of science, partly out of the

IX.] TAIT 187
increasing knowledge of the great Eastern religions,
as well as from the critical examination of the Old
and New Testament. When his attention was drawn
to the apparent contradiction of the Gospel narrative,
he would say, ' I know that ' ; but he felt that such
inquiries lay beyond his horizon, and that the work
to be done by him lay nearer home. He used to
insist on the great relief afforded to scrupulous con
sciences by the last change in the form of clerical
subscription. His words, ' If you cannot come to us
with the miracles, come to us without the miracles,'
represents the true attitude of the Catholic Church
towards the world of science.
The last time he was at Oxford, he reminded us of
a piece of advice which was given in the days of his
youth by a dignitary of the old school, that he should
keep his eyes upon Church preferment. ' WeU, but,'
he said, laughing, ' you see that I have done it.' I tell
you this story that I may at the same time express
my conviction that in no part of his Hfe, in nothing
that he ever said or did, or abstained from doing, was
he ever influenced either by his own interest or by the
love of popularity. His position came to him by a sort
of accident, and his character was wholly unaffected
by it. He was never divided by differences of opinion
from the friends of former days. Old servants who
had commenced their service forty years ago at
Rugby remained with him to the last. The great
worldly success of his Hfe had been balanced by still

188 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [ix.
greater trials. Two nearly fatal illnesses had given
him a lively sense of the precarious hold which he had
upon the things of earth. Yet he went on bravely
with his duties, never flinching or sparing himself.
On the latter of the two occasions to which I have
referred, when he had a seizure about thirteen years
ago, he said (speaking from his old Scottish recoUec-
tions), 'The best part of Dr. Chalmers's work was
done after a stroke of paralysis.' A few years more
elapsed, and his only son was taken from him ; the
death of his wife shortly followed. And still for
four years he continued at his post without any
perceptible diminution of vigour or interest. Eight
months ago, at a meeting caUed to promote the Royal
College of Music, he made an admirable and amusing
speech in the character of one who was wholly
ignorant of music. A week or two later he paid
a visit to this college, which he regarded with a sin
cere affection. But the hand of death was already
upon him. In the month of August the illness began
from which he never recovered. The faith and
courage which animated him during his whole life
did not fail him when the end approached. He was
thinking of others, not of himself. To a friend who
visited him in those last days he said, ' You have had
great trials, greater than mine have been ; may God
give you more and more of His Spirit.' There were
several such half- articulate words, which wfll always
be treasured in the minds of those who heard them.

ix.] TAIT 189
And so, having survived his generation, he was taken
to his rest, and was laid by the side of those whom he
loved. He knew that his work was done, and he had
no desire to be called back to this world. His life,
with all his sorrows, had not been unhappy. He had
been found equal to his great position ; his wife,
though belonging to a different school of religious
thought, had been a singularly efficient helper in his
work. He had set an example of moderation, of
liberality, of good sense, to another generation of
Churchmen. And though unavoidably regarded with
suspicion by a section of the clergy, he had won
a place in the hearts of the English laity, and was
better known to them than any of his predecessors
since the Reformation.
May something of his spirit continue to rest on this
college that in former times owed so much to him.
May the qualities which were conspicuous in him,
such as the desire to retain dissimilar elements in the
same society; a zeal for religion not divorced from
a true knowledge of ourselves and of the world ; an
indefatigable courage and energy in promoting every
good work — may these qualities not be found wanting
among us. And may we learn more and more to
have a common Hfe in the service of God and our
fellow-men.

X. PROFESSOR HENRY SMITH1.
YE WERE WILLING FOR A SEASON TO REJOICE
IN HIS LIGHT. John v. 35.
WHEN a friend is taken from us, we do not at once
realize the greatness of our loss. We have known
him for many years, for a considerable part of life,
and we cannot believe that he is no longer here. We
reckon up the days which have passed since we last
saw him, since he came into our room to have a
friendly word with us, since we were engaged together
in some business, or we met him at some entertainment,
or perhaps heard him make a speech. It may have
been a week, a month, two months since :
' Two little months, or e'er those shoes were old' ;
and we have gone back to our employments feeling
the poorer in that which makes the true wealth of
life — friendship; and sometimes feehng that the society
in which we move, and even the world, was poorer
for our loss. And soon everything returns to its
accustomed course ; Httle thought is given to the
1 Preached in Balliol Chapel, Sunday, April 15, 1883.

x.] HENRY SMITH 191
dead in comparison with the living. The memory
of our friend, even though he was an eminent man,
is beginning to fade away, and is only recalled at
intervals ; his loss is not greatly felt, except by a very
few who go down to the grave sorrowing. There is
no reason to complain of this as showing any levity
or want of depth in human nature. Time was in
tended to heal sorrow and suffering ; it would not be
weU that at the end of a year we should have the
same poignant feelings which we had when the wound
was fresh. The business of the world must be carried
on ; and it is better in every way that we should not
waste our Hves grieving over the dead. The night
cometh when no man can work ; meanwhile we
must be up and doing. We cannot perpetuate the
generations which have passed with their loves and
their sorrows, which have been so intense to them
and which have so little reality to us. They are with
God, and we leave them in His hands.
Yet it is also natural that at times the memory of
the dead should come back to us with a peculiar force.
The thought of what a father or friend has said to us
in their last hour, or on some other occasion which
called for serious words, is constantly treasured by us,
and perhaps the more so as we get older. We can
not be young when we are advancing in years, but
familiar faces may sometimes crowd around us and
bring back the past as if it were yesterday. Such
thoughts are not morbid ; they soothe if they also

192 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [x.
sadden us. They tend to elevate life, and they make
us see it more as it really is. WiU the friend never
come to see us again, who was the companion of our
lives ? We go to his house, but there is no hand
stretched out to welcome us ; we look up at the
windows, but strangers appear, who cannot teU what
has become of him. And so we return home and
think of him and of our other friends ; and slowly we
begin to realize that they are not here, but with God,
where we too soon shaU be.
My purpose in this sermon is to bring back to you
the image of a remarkable man, whom I shall always
seem to see in the mind's eye. It is a little more
than two months since he was taken from us, pre
maturely, unexpectedly, in the fullness of his mind
and powers. It is nearly forty years since he was
elected a scholar of the coUege, and about five years
later a feUow. During almost the whole of that
time he lived daily with us, devoting his great gifts
and talents to. the service of the college, and always
taking the warmest interest in its concerns. I have
no hesitation in saying that he was one of the most
distinguished men of this century. Yet, partly from
his manner of Hfe, and partly from the abstruseness
of the subjects in which he was absorbed, he was
scarcely known to the world at large. He had won
University honours, such as have been gained by no
one now living, and will probably never be won
again ; and a few years since, a large majority of

x.J HENRY SMITH 193
the residents seemed to think that he was the person
most worthy to represent the University in Parliament.
But these are externals only. If I can I should
rather like to represent him to you in his inner life
and character. And yet before I embark upon this
theme, I am reminded that still more recently another
dear friend1 has been taken from us who will be
in the thoughts of many here present. For these
troubles have come thick and fast upon us during the
last year or two. This college has been deprived of
her most distinguished sons, who two years ago used
to gladden us from time to time with their presence.
Of some of them it may be truly said, ' We shaU
hardly look upon their like again.' Their names
and memories are fresh in the minds of many ; I need
not mention them. To us who survive, the burden of
Hfe seems to be greater, and there are fewer to bear
it. We cannot go to them and receive help or
sympathy or counsel, which they were so ready to
give. May we hope that their mantle will descend
upon others, that something of their spirit may re
main in this college which is our inheritance ! Again
and again I have spoken to you of them from this
place. We will keep them all in our recoUection
to-day, though one of them only will be the subject
of this sermon. And that other dear friend is not
forgotten by us, but we cannot express aU that we
feel about him just now.
1 Mr. Arnold Toynbee.
«•» O

194 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [x.
He of whom I am about to speak to you more
particularly was happy in the external circumstances
of his life. The son of gifted parents, like many
other men of genius by birth an Irishman, he in
herited qualities which are not formed to grow in
other soils. He had gone to Rugby in the last years
of Dr. Arnold, and had carried away a remembrance
of that great man. In 1844 he obtained a scholarship
at Balliol ; and at this distance of time I can well
remember the impression produced upon the examiners
by his Enghsh Essay, so far superior in mind and
powers of expression to the work of any of his com
petitors. Shortly afterwards he was struck down by
an iUness, wliich lasted during nearly half his under
graduate career. Once more he was attacked by
a long and serious illness about ten years later. But
no illness seemed much to affect either the growth
of his mental powers or his hearty enjoyment of Hfe.
For indeed he was by temperament, as well as by
circumstances', one of the happiest of men. No care
ruffled him ; no sorrow long darkened his horizon . You
could not say of him, when he was taken away, that ' he
was delivered from this miserable world,' for he would
have acknowledged it to have been a very pleasant
world to him. He had probably never had an enemy ;
he had been the delight of all who knew him. Coming
into a room a little late, as his manner was both on
serious and on festive occasions, he was the most
welcome of guests, and the person for whom the

x.] HENRY SMITH 195
opinions of others used to wait. Like a ray of sun
shine he would pierce the dullest atmosphere : I am
reminded of the words of the text, ' We were willing
to rejoice in his light for a season.' He was always
ready with the quiet reply, the fanciful jest, the apt
saying, and equally ready to make a speech or to
take part in an argument. His mind never seemed
to flag or to grow weary. No one was so capable of
adapting himself to all moods and to all characters,
or so easily gave himself out to any comer or passer
by. Yet in this perfect adaptability there was no
insincerity or want of manliness. He was not one of
those feeble sympathizers who become all things to
all men ; while he adapted himself to others, he re
mained what he was. And under that charming
gaiety and unconsciousness of self, he preserved, I
think, a very distinct purpose — that of keeping society
together, of making aU men and things akin and one.
He was not a professed philanthropist who went
about doing good, but indirectly he was always doing
good. He lent his strength to support others ; he
gave them the best advice in the clearest words ; his
great insight into human nature enabled him to see
and relieve the need without intruding upon it, and
his self-control prevented him from speaking of it to
others. You were surprised to find that this gay
laughter-loving person was also one of the kindest of
friends to those who were in trouble ; that he would
spend days in disentangling and arranging their affairs ;
O 2

196 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [x.
and you would learn this not from himself, but through
some accident which revealed to you one among many
acts of kindness. He was the least vain and the
most unambitious of men. He never spoke against
others, nor did he depend on their good opinion ;
nor did he seek to form a party in Oxford, or to gain
an influence over his contemporaries. He preferred
on principle, I believe, his own free and easy way of
life. But there was no disagreeable or laborious work
which he was unwiUing to undertake, no good cause
that he would have failed to support, however greatly
it might have interfered with his own pleasures or
pursuits. Some persons thought that he was wanting
in seriousness, that he dealt too much in irony and
persiflage, that he had not set before himself a
sufficiently high ideal of philosophy or of life ; and
very likely his influence in the University may have
been impaired by this conception of his character.
But the truth was that he was afraid of saying more
than he thought ; many words naturaUy come to the
lips of others which he would have abstained from
using. He wanted to live and act, not to talk about
morals and religion ; and sometimes he threw the veil
of irony over his own seriousness. Besides, he was
very reserved ; he did not easily communicate his
feelings to any one, and hence he was misunderstood.
In this coUege we owe him a long debt of gratitude
for his services as a teacher. For about twenty-five
years he was the only mathematical Tutor, and he

x.] HENRY SMITH 197
was ready to lavish all his gifts and powers on the
humblest and least promising of his pupils. He would
take an interest in their success and failure ; he would
tell them that even on the Sabbath day he thought
it no sin to pluck one of them out of the ditch. He
intuitively perceived their difficulties, and in a few
minutes would do as much for them as another
teacher would have accomplished in as many hours.
He had not only the power of thinking clearly, but
he had also another quaHty, which is not always
granted to thinkers — a singular lucidity of expression.
The teaching of mathematics became with him a
general training. For he took in the characters of
his pupils, and would advise them respecting their
conduct ; sometimes reproving them by a sly jest or
playful sarcasm, which left no sting, and sent them
away almost as well pleased as if they had been
praised by him. And in later years, when they had
left the University, he always took an interest in them,
trying to do the best for some who had not done the
best for themselves — his ' young friends,' as he used
to caU them — and throwing the light of his strong
common sense on their paths in life.
Hardly less was the debt owed to him by the
University at large; more than any single person,
during the last twenty years, he had managed its
business and directed its course. He bore the load
Hghtly ; nor did it seem seriously to interfere with
his scientific occupations. A smile or a humorous

198 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [x.
word made matters go easily in private and in public ;
and he spoke with a clearness and a force which
carried persuasion to the minds of his auditors. He
was a peacemaker, not only between men but between
studies and interests. For in any great University
there are opposite parties, and studies which are apt
to become the enemies of other studies. Those who
are exclusively trained in science imagine that nothing
can be gained from Hterature, which is to them a land
of phrases and shadows ; those who are greatly
interested in literature regard science as engrossing
and materializing, and as tending to draw the minds
of men to the earth instead of raising them to heaven.
The one has the retrospect of the past, the other the
promise of the future. Both would claim a monopoly
of education. There can of course be no real oppo
sition between different parts or sides of truth ; but
to mediate between them, to reconcile them, to hold
the balance between them, requires no little force of
mind and strength of character. And this was the
service which our distinguished friend did to the
University, and which could have been performed
equally well by no one else. For being himself an
eminent scholar as weU as a great mathematician, he
never fell exclusively under the dominion of one class
of ideas. He would have liked, if it were possible,
that some knowledge of physical science should be
acquired by aU students of schools and Universities ;
and on the other hand he lamented the want of literary

x.] HENRY SMITH 199
culture and interest in mere men of science. He
would have made the higher education liberal and
comprehensive, not professional or special. He was
full of inteUectual interests himself, and seemed able to
form a correct judgment of many subjects with which
he had a comparatively slight acquaintance. One
of his greatest pleasures was the reading of Greek,
and he used to say that he did not like to leave
Oxford unprovided with one or two Greek books.
Though a distinguished person prophesied of him in
early days ' that he would write better than he did
anything else,' he was not fond of writing ; the main
bent of his mind became scientific rather than Hterary.
There were some subjects for which he had even
a distaste. In the labyrinth of metaphysics, I beheve
that he never wandered — his philosophy was of
another sort. He was not fond of discussing the
freedom of the wiU, or the origin of knowledge ; nor
were theological problems at aU more congenial to
him. Yet he seemed always shrewdly to guess where
abouts the truth lay in such inquiries, and that it
could not be claimed by any one school. He knew
that the methods by which we study the bodily frame
of man were distinct from those which guide us in the
study of the mind. He never confused physical and
mental science. As little did he suppose that in
minute investigation into the origin and changes of
species, however valuable, or in the popular use of the
words development, evolution, struggle for existence,

200 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [x.
survival of the fittest, the secret of the Universe was
to be found. If he was free from the thraldom in
which metaphysical speculation seems sometimes to
hold the minds of able men, he was equally free from
that other form of metaphysics which applies to facts
the language of ideas, and after gathering a few
pebbles on the shore reaches forward into the in
finite. Here again he seemed to know exacdy
whereabouts the truth lay, neither underrating the
great discoveries which have been made by naturalists
in the last twenty years, nor supposing that they
were to be transferred to other fields and other forms
of knowledge. And on this, as on almost every
subject, he struck those who conversed with him as
the fairest and most luminous of minds, the justest and
safest in his conclusions, the most capable of taking
in all the circumstances of a case and presenting them
clearly to others, that it had been their fortune to meet.
I have not yet spoken to you of what was the
crowning glory and distinction of his life — his mathe
matical genius. For you must remember that he
whom I have been describing was one of the greatest
mathematical geniuses of this century. Perhaps we
hardly realized this while he was aHve ; a prophet is
not always sufficiently honoured in his own country.
Nor do I think that he was himself fully conscious of
his own great powers. He once said to me, ' that in
his own judgment he had this advantage over some
pf his mathematical friends — that he could understand

x.] HENRY SMITH 201
the writings of other mathematicians.' Nor is it pos
sible to do justice to him, or even to appreciate what
I have been saying, unless we remember that his chief
and highest intellectual interests lay in an unknown
world into which not more than two or three persons
could follow. In that world he traveUed alone. There
was a time probably when he could have attained
a great success at the law or in literature. But the
mind, when it has once taken a direction, cannot after
wards return into the path which it has left. I re
member more than thirty years ago his discussing
a half-formed project of going to the bar. Had he
carried out his intention, he might have risen to the
highest place. But he would not have added to the
science of mathematics.
Those of us who are not mathematicians may yet
be able to understand or imagine somewhat of the
intense interest which is felt in mathematical truths.
The purest of knowledge, the truest of knowledge,
the most luminous of knowledge, mathematics, begins
from the least things in this world until the whole
visible universe is comprehended in its laws. One
two three are a small matter, yet by these all the
harmonies of nature may be expressed. The addition
made by number to the human faculties is second only
to that made by language itself. And ever and anon
there is a possibility of constructing those expressions
afresh, of reducing the complex to the simple, of
creating the complex out of the simple, of contracting

202 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [x-
them into roots, of extending them into figures ; and by
the use of symbols of many kinds the means are found
of enlarging the powers of the mind, as muscular
powers are aided and increased manifold by the use
of levers and puUeys. And for this world created
slowly by the human inteUigence, there is another
world found waiting ready to verify beyond all expec
tation the truths which the human mind has dis
covered for itself. And sometimes mathematical laws
are found to go beyond experience, and sometimes
also to faU short of the subtlety of nature. For there
are combinations of forces in nature which no mathe
matics can express. There is a well-known passage
in Plato which describes the ecstacy of the pure
mathematician contemplating true forms and figures
having their true and proper motions, not, Hke the
stars in the heavens, imperfect motions ; and making
a music, not like that which we hear, but fairer and
diviner far, because based upon true principles of
proportion. The philosopher seems to mean that
the glory of mathematics is to be found not in the
skies, but in the mind. There is a higher truth and
a greater accuracy than can be attained by the eye of
man. Such I beheve to be stiU the feehng of those few
inteUigences which are capable of Hving and breathing
in the atmosphere of pure mathematics. They have
the dehght of creation, and their creations have abso
lute certainty free from every imperfection of matter
or sense. They dweU in the highest and purest of

x.] HENRY SMITH 203
aU ethers, which may be described ' as having the
body of heaven in its clearness.' The great Isaac
Barrow, one of the most eminent of English divines
and mathematicians, who died at the early age of
forty-seven, is said, when on his death-bed, to have
expressed a hope that he might in heaven intuitively
perceive the truths of numbers and figures. Such
words may appear curious and fanciful, but they
indicate to us the absorbing deHght which may be
felt in such studies.
Nor do I doubt that the happiest hours of our dear
friend's life were those passed not in company (much
as he delighted in the society of his friends), but those
which he devoted to pure mathematics. That was
the true love, the untold love and secret of his soul.
The last year of his life, during a part of which he
was an invalid, was perhaps the most fruitful of any
in these researches. We used to go and see him as
he lay on his couch, the table Uttered with mathe
matical books and papers. And we were struck by
his never-faihng gaiety and courtesy, his interest in
all our interests, his wiUingness to receive one after
another, almost as if he liked to be interrupted. But
we did not know that he was carrying out, amid all
these interruptions, the great work of his life, some
fragments of which were to be read and crowned
after his death by the academy of a foreign nation.
His was a very full life, crowded with many engage
ments at Oxford and elsewhere, journeys to and fro,

204 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [x.
businesses private and public, some undertaken out
of regard for friends, others on behalf of the Univer
sity. For, indeed, wherever there was a difficulty, he
was deemed to be the person most likely to dis
entangle the threads of it ; wherever there were
opposite elements, personal jealousies, differences of
character and the like, he, if any one, knew how to
conciliate them. He would pass from one employ
ment to another with the happiest versatility; yet
probably the load was in the end too heavy for him,
and may have shortened his life. He was not only
unsparing, but careless, almost reckless of himself.
And as his mind never flagged or grew weary, he
had no warning of the danger which was impending.
A few months before his death he saw that he must
' gather up his sheaves.' And in one sense his work,
or rather his many works, were left unfinished, and
some of them have to be put into form by others.
Yet in the years .which were granted to him he may
be said to ha^e accompHshed more than almost any
one. And in what he did there was no drawback ;
no party influence which does good to one and harm
to another ; no fruidess struggle against the tendencies
of the age. The good which he did was universal,
and those who were associated with him as friends
and pupils wiU remember, while life lasts, the bene
ficial power which his nature exercised over them.
And yet I have not spoken of the greatest thing of
all, and that perhaps on which we dweU most fondly

x.] HENRY SMITH 205
in the recollection of the departed — ' his innocent and
blameless Hfe.' No thought of jealousy or meanness,
or comparison of self with others, ever seemed to
enter into his mind. Though reserved (for notwith
standing his great flow of spirits, he never spoke of
himself and his occupations), he had nothing to con
ceal ; there was no corner in which anything base
or false ever entered. He was liberal to a degree,
always ready to give; and being inexpensive in his
tastes, his own pecuniary interests were hardly con
sidered by him. He lived in unbroken friendship
and affection with his distinguished sister, who was
worthy to be the companion of his life ; and he
appeared to wish for nothing more. The weaknesses
and errors which are sometimes thought to be excus
able in men of genius were not seen in him. Manli
ness, and truthfulness, and common sense shone forth
in all his actions.
He would not have wished his Hfe to be set before
you as an example : there is nothing perhaps which
he would have so disliked. Nor do I propose now
to draw a lesson from it. I have endeavoured (though
imperfectly) to describe him as he was, in the hope
of recalhng to some of those here present what they
knew and remember of him. Neither would he have
liked us to sorrow for him. But he would have
Uked, as his life was happy and cheerful, that we
should have happy thoughts and recoUections of him ;
that he should not be forgotten by those who loved

206 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [x.
him, his old friends and contemporaries who looked
up to him with so much respect and admiration ; his
former pupils in whose instruction he passed so many
not uncongenial hours ; the very few persons who
were capable of appreciating his mathematical work.
And though not ambitious of fame, I think that he
would have wished his memory to be cherished in
this College and University, which were so much in
his thoughts, and to whose service his great gifts and
attainments were so unsparingly devoted.
And so we say farewell to him who was the dear
friend of some here present. He has passed into the
unseen world, where we can no longer follow : ' We
shaU go to him, but he shall not return to us.' Yet
we may be allowed to think of him as in the presence
of God, with whom is the fountain of light, and in
whom the parts of knowledge which we see through
a glass darkly, the laws of nature, the truths of
figures and numbers, the ideas of justice, love, and
truth, which are his attributes, are beheld face to face.
But there is no tongue of man or of angels in which
such things can be expressed. We meditate on the
infinite possibilities of another life, and are silent.

XI. PROFESSOR THOMAS HILL GREEN1.
7 SHALL GO TO HIM, BUT HE SHALL NOT
RETURN TO ME.
2 Samuel xii. 23.
There are many passages in Scripture which
speak to us of the departed in language of hope and
comfort. Even in the Old Testament, which has
been sometimes caUed the ' temporal dispensation,'
there are ghmpses of a Hfe beyond. He who used
the words of the text for the first time (words which
have expressed the sorrow of so many mourners in
other ages and countries) did not mean to say only
that he would rest in the grave side by side with his
beloved one, nor yet did he intend to express any
distinct hope of meeting him again, such as is con
veyed by the words of the poet, ' that we shaU see and
know our friends in heaven,' but he meant to express,
first of aU, his resignation to the will of God and his
acquiescence in His judgments. He knew that the
souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, and
1 Preached in Balliol Chapel, April 16, 1882.

208 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [xi.
that no evil should touch them. So the author of the
Book of Eeclesiastes, who finds nothing new and
nothing good under the sun, is nevertheless convinced
that God wiU bring every work unto judgment,
whether it be good or whether it be evil. And
there are many other words of the Old Testament
which we sometimes apply in a Christian or figurative
sense, such as the words of the Psalmist, ' As for me
I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be
satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness,' which do
reaUy point to something different from the world of
sense which surrounds us. For the aspirations and
beliefs of the human soul in different ages, though
veiled by different modes of thought, are in their
essence much more alike than we suppose.
Lasdy, when the hour of darkness falls upon us,
and the vision of God Himself is clearer to us than of
the world beyond the grave, we still cry with the
Psalmist : ' Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place
from one genaration to another. Before the mountains
were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world
were made, thou art God from everlasting, and world
without end. Thou turnest man to destruction : again
thou sayest, Come again ye children of men.' Or, in
the words of the Christian hymn :
' O God, our help in, ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.'

xi.] T. H. GREEN

209

If we turn to the New Testament, and seek to find
there a revelation of another world, we are struck by
two things : first of all the certainty, the intensity
of the hope, the clearness of the light which is given
men. Another Hfe is not the indistinct reflection of
this, but this world becomes the accident of another.
' Absent from the body, present with the Lord ; '
' Having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ
which is far better : Nevertheless to abide in the flesh
is more needful for you ; ' ' If we be dead with Christ
we shall also live with Him ; ' 'If we have borne the
image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of
the heavenly.' But neither in the New Testament do
we find any description of the nature of another life ;
not even he who was caught up into the third heaven,
and heard unspeakable words, has anything to tell us
of the inhabitants of the other world, of their pursuits
and occupations, of the effect of time upon them, if
indeed such an expression has any meaning. Nor do
our Lord or the Apostles ever speak of these invisible
things in a manner which enables us to draw pictures
about them in our own minds, but only, ' We shall aU
be changed,' and ' It doth not yet appear what we
shall be,' and ' There is a natural body, and there is
a spiritual body,' and ' God giveth it a body as it hath
pleased Him.' We see indeed a great light, but
objects are not discernible in it. We cannot say what
our friends are doing; what thoughts are passing
through their minds ; what reahties are present to
P

210 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [xi.
them. We do not wish to rest in external facts, or to
put together figures of speech. The life of Christ,
the lives of saints and prophets, the lives of all
seekers after God and the truth, the higher witness
of our own souls — these all testify to us of a world
beyond, and we leave the rest with Him.
And so we return to think of our friends as we
knew them in this life. There are many reflections
which crowd upon us when any one is taken from us.
Those are among the best moments of our lives which
we spend in such recollections. We should like to
be always in some respects what we are able to be
then. The light of death gives us a true conception
of many things which we are unable to attain at
other times. It takes us out of conventions, prejudices,
enmities ; it lifts us into a higher region. It makes
us see our friends and ourselves more truly. The
bitterness of party spirit is hushed over the grave.
We can hardly imagine how we ever came to entertain
a feeling of jealousy or dislike towards one who is
gone. We may regret that we did not understand or
appreciate him better ; or that through some fancy or
pride we did not do more for him, or see more of
him — that we were too much estranged from him by
distance or by indolence. There were so many things
which we should like to have said to him ; so much
about which we should have liked to hear him speak.
But the time for speaking is past ; he can speak to us
now only by his example. There may be some for-

xi.] T. H. GREEN

211

giveness, too, which we should have wished to ask.
Well, our minds may be at rest about that ; for it was
granted before it was asked. We seem certainly to
know him now as we never knew him before, and to
value him more dearly. The circumstances of his life
return upon us — the first time when we made his
acquaintance ; how he looked upon some memorable
occasion ; the remarkable things which he said ; his
disinterested actions, and the like — and we supplement
our recollections by those of others, and are perhaps
surprised to find that he said things to them which he
did not say to us, and that though we were intimate
friends, yet that there was a side of his character
which he never showed to us. For men are drawn
out differently by different persons : we speak on
one subject to one, on another to another; we look
to one for sympathy, and to another for light and
strength, so that the whole character of any man
is hardly ever known to any single acquaintance.
Some portion remains a mystery even to his dearest
friend. That we should regard the dead with an especial
kindness is natural to man. We should all of us like
to be remembered for a little while, though aware
that the recollection must soon pass away. And as
we are no longer there to plead our cause, we might
like to have some excuses made for us — such excuses
as a good man who has known the world is willing
to make for others. Yet it is surely a misfortune that
p 2

212 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [xi.
a departed friend should be represented so differently
during his lifetime and after his death : we may have
known personally some one whose life has been written ;
and we hardly seem to recognize him in the dress or
disguise which he is made to wear. His failings have
disappeared ; his virtues, like the shadows of men
seen on an opposite hill, are so protracted that they
no longer retain the form of humanity. The evil of
such panegyrics is that the true lesson and example
of a life is lost in them. They are insipid portraits,
trying in vain to be more beautiful than the original.
The greatest of all biographers was far enough above
this error. He has given us the image of his master
as he truly was ; to one who reads between the lines,
his defects, and even his littlenesses, are sufficiently
indicated, yet without abating one jot of the love and
admiration which his biographer feels towards that
truly great genius and noble character, of which he
has stamped the impression on the world.
The dear friend of whom I am about to speak to
you to-day would, I think, have liked to be known as
he really was. He never cared much what others said
of him while he was ahve ; and he would not have
wished to be painted in water-colours after his death.
He was cast in a larger mould than other men ; he
had a work to do, and he did it with all his might.
I shall speak of him as he appeared to me — perhaps
from a one-sided view (for others had more oppor
tunity of knowing him than I had) — bringing together

xi.] T. H. GREEN 213
such memorials of him as I have. Yet the old diffi
culty which the historian has put into the mouth of
Pericles recurs : ' It is difficult to say neither too little
nor too much, and even moderation is apt not to give
the impression of truthfulness. The friend who knows
the facts is likely to think that the words of the
speaker fall short of his knowledge and of his wishes,
while another who is not so well informed, when he
hears of anything which surpasses his own powers,
will suspect exaggeration.'
It is strange to me to reflect that ' one little month '
only has passed since our dear friend was in the midst
of us in nearly his usual health and strength — that
two months ago at this time he was in his accustomed
place in this chapel. ' We cannot but remember
these things were,' and now they seem to be at such
a great distance from us. We hardly realize at once
the loss we have sustained; no one could make a
greater blank in any coUege. For though he had
become a Professor in the University, he was still
loyally and individually attached to this college, in
which he was elected a Fellow about twenty- two
years ago. He was always ready to help us with his
advice and influence. He had what in Oxford we
seem to need more than anywhere— strength. He
was not made to drag upon others, but to give
support and independence to them. No jealousy of
another who might have different views of education
from his own ever seemed in the least degree to affect

214 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [xi.
him, nor did he ever grasp at influence ; he was not
one of those who imagine that the spread of their
own philosophical or theological opinions is syno
nymous with the good of the human race. Rather
he seemed to acknowledge that his teaching was not
equally suited to everybody, and was afraid lest to
some it might prove injurious and confusing. Of this
singular moderation I have hardly known another
example. It was not himself, but the truth, which he
was desirous of teaching ; and while feeling that he
had a sort of mission, he was aware that the truth is
relative as well as absolute, and must be adapted to
the capacity of the hearer.
Of all teachers the teacher of the high philosophy
has the greatest responsibility and the greatest diffi
culty. If he be a thinker of any force or originality,
his own ideas gain such a hold upon him that he is
apt to lose the power of estimating them, or of seeing
the opposite sides of a question. He may often be
betrayed into inconsistencies of which he is not aware;
he imparts to the mind a power like that which a
lever communicates to the arm. The danger is that
it is a lever which he cannot lay aside at will, but
which is liable to encumber him in all his movements.
Or, to use another metaphor, the student of meta
physics may be compared to a man who, having
impaired the use of his natural sight, is only able to
read the world through powerful glasses, and cannot
fix his eye at aU upon small objects. And whether he

xi.] T. H. GREEN 215
enlarges his view, clears up his notions of life, grasps
the relation of knowledge more truly, seems to depend
on his power of maintaining some proportion in his
thoughts between things seen and things unseen,
between expression and ideas, between poetry and
philosophy. It is a remark often made by those who criticize
metaphysics, that while metaphysicians profess to treat
of eternal or primary truths, their systems are always
passing away almost with the rapidity of the last new
novel or sermon. There are few philosophers who
have passed middle life and have not changed their
opinion or outlived their influence. The country
which fifty years ago was the natural home of such
speculations, seems now, more completely than any
other, to .have disowned and disinherited them. Yet,
though always derided, they are always reappearing,
and will reappear, if human nature continues the same.
Nor is there any reason to doubt that there are still
ideas lying hidden in a corner of some original mind
which may produce great effects on future generations.
No one without metaphysics can get rid of meta
physics. He cannot free himself from the influence
of fatalism or materialism, which, through the power
of system or the charm of some misunderstood
word, or the excessive study of some one aspect of
the world to the exclusion of the others, are ever
returning upon us. The high and noble forms of
thought have their birth not in Germany, but in

216 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [xi.
ancient Hellas, or rather in every age and country,
in which men have begun to look within and to rise
above the clouds of mythology and the first chaos of
the affections.
To this most important but precarious branch of
knowledge our departed friend devoted the best ener
gies of his mind and life. He soon gathered around
him a band of disciples ; and to him, perhaps more
than to any one in this country, those who were
interested in the subject looked for a revival of the
systematic study of philosophy. They seemed to
wait for some new exposition of the truth which
should deliver them from the lowering tendencies
of the age. Whether this hope would have been
altogether realized, or realized in the way in which
they expected, or whether any such hope was enter
tained by himself, I cannot tell. His memory and his
reputation do not depend on the completeness of his
system. He was o»ce told by a friend that his preface to
Hume was written too much in the spirit of a con
temporary controversialist ; and he acknowledged the
truth of the criticism. He may be gently censured
for not having treated with proper reverence the
great Englishman, John Locke — like himself, a lover
of liberty and of toleration. (I am sure he would
have forgiven me for saying this.) It is very difficult
for any one who has a very strong conviction, whether
in speculation or in life, to see its relation to other

xi.] T. H. GREEN 217
truths in the right proportion, or to recognize that, in
speculation as in history,
'God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.'
What his pupils and friends saw in him may have
been partly a philosophical system, but it may much
more truly be described as a Christian and a philo
sophical life. They saw a man of great capacity and
of uncommon intensity of mind, of undoubted genius
for speculation, sounding a note of opposition to the
prevailing tendencies of the age, to the exaltation of
physical science over mental, of the material and
visible over the eternal and unseen. They found one
who seemed to respond to their own higher and
better aspirations. They felt that he was a man to
whom an inner and future life was a reality, to whom,
in the language of his own philosophy, the absolute
good was his good, and truth itself the gate of another
world. And whether or no they take as great an
interest hereafter in the subtleties of philosophy as in
the days of youth (for such impressions are apt to
fade away with advancing years), I venture to think
that this general impression will remain : and it will
be thought by them one of the greatest blessings of
their early Hves to have been acquainted with one
whose force of mind was so inseparably linked with
a noble character.
Those who knew him were well aware that he
could act as well as think, and that he was gifted

218 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [xi.
not only with philosophical, but with practical talents,
if indeed the opposition of these two is to be re
garded as at all necessary or natural. He was very
observant of the foibles of mankind, and sometimes
could not avoid a hearty laugh at them. He had
a great insight into human nature, which was in part
the secret of his influence. He was not without
considerable humour, which broke out upon occa
sions. His temper was reserved, and therefore to
some persons he appeared cold and proud ; yet there
was also a reserve of kindness in him which, though
not demonstrative, never failed when it was needed.
Such reserved natures have a difficulty in communi
cating themselves to others ; they go through many
struggles, which remain all their life a secret with
their own heart. There is an anecdote of some one
looking steadfastly in Goethe's face and saying to him,
' that he looked like one who had suffered much.'
' Say, rather,' was the reply, ' like one who had
struggled mufh.' The same might have been said of
our friend. In youth he had the look, partly arising
out of some physical weakness, of one on whom the
world was weighing heavily, and who bore the cares
of many. I think that he may have felt ajso a diffi
culty in making himself understood, and that a com
parison with others who were more strong or successful
may have suggested to him that he was not duly
appreciated. Something of this sort remains in my
impression of him. But he had entirely conquered

xi.] T. H. GREEN 219
the feeling in later life. I remember also that from
the first he always had that marked influence among
his contemporaries which he exerted in later years.
One of them, now a very eminent person, told me
half laughingly that he ' regarded it as a distinction
to go out for a walk with him.' And another has
assured me that ' in their old undergraduate days he
had already formed his plan of Hfe, to which he had
adhered undeviatingly ever since.' One person only,
among all whom I remember here, in any degree
resembled him, Arthur Hugh Clough. They were
unlike in some ways : the mind of one was naturally
drawn towards poetry, and of the other towards
philosophy. But they were alike in other respects,
which distinguished them from the rest of the world :
in their reserved and self-contained characters, in their
singular unworldliness and high principle, in their
interest in social questions, and their efforts to solve
the problems of the age, and of human thought.
They were parted by nearly twenty years, an interval
which makes a great change of opinion in Oxford ;
and both of them, being at different stages in the
same movement, when old landmarks were disap
pearing, had to make for themselves and others, not
without pain and struggling, new foundations of
truth, new motives of life and action, new anchors in
the flux and reflux of thought which was going on
around them.
There is another side of our dear friend's Hfe

220 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [xi.
which I must not pass over in silence ; he was the
friend not only of this college and of the University,
but of the city. He broke down the ancient foolish
jealousy of town and gown, and won a place in the
hearts of the citizens. Their good wiU was certainly
not gained by the use of popular arts ; nor did he
encourage them in mere party triumphs. He was not
the pliable pohtician who would readily hush up a
scandal. For his liberal views, which some may have
thought carried to an extreme, rested on moral and
philosophical principles. And so not by cleverness
or flattery or money, but by force of character and
disinterestedness, he acquired a great and increasing
influence for good in this place. His fellow-townsmen
were proud of him, and trusted him ; they saw him
devoting his great abilities to their service ; they
heard his voice raised always on behalf of education
(the best of liberal causes), and on the side of improve
ment and public spirit. That voice is silent now, and
yet in a manaer seems to say to the two great cor
porations which flourish side by side in this place,
' Sirs, ye are brethren.' And the public high school, of
which the foundation was mainly due to his exertion
and to that of leading persons in the city, may be
regarded as a monument that the old foolish strife
has passed away, and that we rejoice to work to
gether in education, in the improvement of the town
and neighbourhood, in the fulfilment of every charitable
and religious duty.

xi.] T. H. GREEN 221
There was another quality characteristic of him
which I should like to mention to you — his dis
regard of money. Like an ancient philosopher, he
seemed to think that ' he only needed so much as
was necessary for a good life.' The rest he was
ready to give away wholesale for any public object.
He said characteristically, ' that he would rather sell
the furniture of his house than that a recent inquiry
should not proceed.' In this college, as I gratefully
remember, he was always teaching both by word and
example the lesson that private interests should be
subordinated to public ones. The more I think of
him, the more I feel the debt which we owe him. On
the resignation of his tutorship some years ago, he
was elected to a fellowship, but he would never
receive the emolument annexed to it. Quite recently
he wrote to me to say that, ' in the present financial
condition of the college he could no longer support
the renewal of a grant of £200 a year for five years
made' to an institution with which this college had
connexion, ' but that he desired to contribute out
of his own means half the required sum.' He
might perhaps have reproached me for speaking
to you of these things (and there were many similar
acts of his). I mention them not in honour of him,
but as examples of the fulfilment of a great duty,
in this age of accumulation rarely thought of
(yet constantly to be thought of by one having
a true Christian love of others)— the right use of

222 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [xi.
¦money. ' For what hast thou that thou hast not
received ? ' ' And who made thee to differ from
another ? '
I have brought together hastily, I fear, and roughly
a few recollections of our departed friend. His life,
in one sense, is only a fragment, for he was cut off
in the prime of his faculties and of his usefulness.
There are many ties of affection and friendship which
are suddenly snapped, many possibilities of good
which can no longer be realized, and some addition
to philosophical truth which might have been ex
pected from him. His disciples will be apt to think
that we cannot do justice to his writings, or know
him as he really was. But let us also look at this
matter in a larger and more liberal spirit : the
greatness or the lesson of a man's life does not
depend on the length of it ; ' he being made perfect
in a short time fulfilled a long time.' The value of
his philosophy is not to be measured by the clearness
or completeness with which he expounded it, but by
the essential spirit and truth of it. To do justice to
any philosophical writer, we must not criticize him
from some foreign point of view, but try to under
stand him from his own, and see whether we can
gather from him help and light. All Hves, even of
the greatest men, are in some sense fragments ; they
are mortal, and hand on their work to others. And
some half-developed thought of one long dead may
fall upon congenial soil, and bring forth fruit in

xi.] T. H. GREEN 223
another generation. Like seeds in the air, men's
words are carried to and fro upon the earth. And
therefore let us not grieve over this seeming incom
pleteness of life (he might have done so much
more, and the like), but rather thank God that our
brother was able to do so much. He, ' when he
had served his generation by the will of God, fell
asleep,' and ' we were willing to rejoice in his light
for a season.'
As soldiers close their ranks when their general or
one of their comrades falls, so must we remember,
especially in this college, that there is a vacant place
among us, which the increasing efforts of us all are
required to fill up. He was a bond of union among
us, never allowing us to be divided into parties, or
broken up by personal misunderstandings. Nothing
better could be wished for this college than that his
public spirit, and liberality, and impersonality might
always animate us. Those who were his disciples
and more intimate friends should seek to show in
their lives what his life would have been ; they should
make it clear to the world that they are not confused
or dreamy thinkers, or party politicians who tolerate
inconsistency in their actions or opinions — they have
learned from him a higher lesson than that. And all
of us, old and young, both those who have a long
vista of years before them, and those who are within
a measurable distance of the end, should call to mind
his earnestness and simplicity of nature, his disin-

224 SERMONS, BIOGRAPHICAL [xi.
terestedness and disregard of the opinions of men, his
force of character, his temper of greatness, and pray
to God in the words of the prophet of old, that if it
be possible, some portion of his spirit may rest upon
them and upon this place.

MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS

I. STATISTICS AND FAITH *.
THE VERY HAIRS OF YOUR HEAD ARE ALL
NUMBERED.
Matthew x. 30.
It sometimes seems as if there were a great difference
between the lesson which faith teaches and which
experience teaches about the world and about our
selves. Faith tells of another Hfe, experience of this ;
the one assures us of the infinite power, and goodness
of God, the other recalls us to the knowledge of
human nature and the sense of our own weakness.
Faith speaks to us of divine grace, of spiritual gifts,
of the heart turned in a moment from darkness to
light. Experience reminds us of the force of circum
stances, of the slow growth of habit, of the ever-
returning power of passions, prejudices, and opinions.
The one comforts us with the thought that at any
1 A University Sermon, preached at St. Mary's, Oxford,
January 25, 1852.
Q 2

228 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [i.
moment God can forgive ; the other warns us again
that after a certain age it is almost impossible for
us to change. Faith and hope joining hands lead
us to believe that ere we die we shall be fit to die,
and in some way or other renewed in the image of
Christ. Experience assures us that, in nine cases out
of ten, we shaU be as we are though years increase
upon us, and death draws to our gates, and that
until our eyes close to it this world will not vanish
from our sight. Lastly, faith tells us that in a thousand
ways God's watchful care is about our bed and about
our path, that our life itself is a miracle of so many
years' standing, that He hears our prayers and pro
vides for our wants. Experience presents us with the
other side of the truth, which whether we will or
no takes us by force, and compels us to admit that
never in any case have the laws of nature been
interfered with for our sake, or the slightest appear
ance been discernible of any variation in the order
of the world.*
Such are a few of the contrasts between faith and
sight, involving obviously a different set of principles,
and leading to different ways of acting ; affecting our
practice at least as much as speculation.
The Scriptures of course treat of the first of these
two aspects of human things, and leave the second,
our religious life that is, freed from its material in
cumbrances. They do not speak of the influence of
health or of original differences of character, or of the

i.] CONTRASTS OF FAITH AND EXPERIENCE 229
power of habit, or of the importance of education,
but of all men one and alike in the presence of God
who made them, receiving ' every good and every
perfect gift' from the Author and Father of Light.
They teU not of the natural which comes first, but
of the spiritual, and occasionally, and by the way,
of the natural also. Even in the moral world there
is a difference in the view of Scripture, and that
which we see around us and which forms a part
of ourselves. The colours of good and evil are, as
it were, deepened in Scripture, and mankind are
divided into two classes, the friends and enemies of
God ; whereas in that portion of mankind with which
we come into contact no such line of demarcation
can be safely drawn, the wheat and the tares are
growing together, and good and evil pass into each
other by insensible gradations. And thus, while
reading Scripture or hearing sermons or even at our
very prayers, while using the words, ' faith, grace,
the Spirit, pardon,' we seem to be in danger of
putting an iUusion on ourselves, of gazing on a picture
which is all light and no shadow, of Hving in a world
of faith without experience — that is, in a religious
circle of our own — instead of that great and common
world, all the thoughts, influences, opinions, laws,
experiences, which God intended us in some way
to make the elements of our religious life. It may
seem at first sight wrong for us to dwell on two such
opposite and distracting aspects of our nature. The

230 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [1.
breath of the Spirit of God is frozen up in the icy
chains of necessity when we speak of the order of
the world ; the miracles of grace also are made subject
to material laws. It is well, therefore, for us to begin
by acknowledging that true faith can never be at
variance with what experience teaches. In youth
they may sometimes appear to diverge for a time,
and our knowledge of life to get the better of our
early religious lessons, and the facts of science to
array themselves like an armed host against revela
tion. But as we grow older it often happens that
the truth seems to rest where we began as children,
not where we stopped as men ; not that the facts
of science are untrue, or our experience of life false,
but that they become sanctified to us, as it were the
new soil in which the tree of life is planted, the plane
of earth on which we move to and fro beneath the arch
of heaven. Experience seems to overbalance faith and
win all for itself, and yet faith rises higher to rest in
experience as the will of God: not 'quod fidei certum,'
but ' quod certum fidei est.'
The trial of our faith in the present day is in a
certain sense to return to sight, to look upon the
world not as it is often presented to us by the Hght
of revelation or of prophecy, reflecting upon its face
the hues of the heavenly Jerusalem, or darkened
beneath the shadow of God's wrath, but as it reaUy
is in our homes and among our acquaintance, neither
very good nor very bad, with its weakness, meanness,

i.] THE TRIAL OF FAITH

231

hollowness, its good nature, its kindness, its human
feelings, a scene in which most are labouring for
themselves and making their standard the opinion
of others. Yet perhaps a higher trial of our faith
would it be to look upon ourselves personally, not
as we may appear in the momentary sunshine of
hope or of enthusiasm, as youth pictures or age veils
the story of life, nor yet as included under some
general category of sin or condemnation, but as we
truly are, as other men know that we are, as facts
prove us to be, neither better nor worse. And yet
a further trial of faith it may be to some persons who
read the world truly and read themselves truly, to
look upon the facts of science and of history, however
much they seem to militate with the Bible or with
morality, as nevertheless true, knowing that God is
able to make even these work together for His glory,
or rather that there is no truth, though distant from
religion, which is not the manifestation of His
goodness. In what follows I propose to consider a particular
subject in which this outward matter-of-fact aspect
of the world and of ourselves is undeniably brought
home to us ; which, as it has been sometimes feared
as an enemy to religion, may also be made to teach
an important religious lesson — the results of statistical
observations respecting the uniformity of human
actions. ' Even the hairs of your head are all numbered.'

232 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [i.
' In Thy book were all my members written.' And,
if even the least details of our physical being are, as
it were, noted by God, shall we suppose that there
are no higher laws which govern our actions, and
not rather ask the further question, ' Are not these
things also registered in Thy book ? ' Whether we
like to admit it or not, it seems to be an undoubted
fact that human actions, so far as we are able to trace
them, exhibit uniform averages varying only with
variation of circumstances, and are thus seen to be
subject to as unchangeable laws as health and disease,
or life and death.
As from knowing the ages of a certain number
of persons we can teU by observation how many will
be left ahve in each year, or any similar question,
so out of a given number of persons placed in a
given set of circumstances we can tell almost with
absolute certainty how many will commit a particular
crime or perform any other action such as can be
recorded; and what age, time of the year, climate
or other circumstances would make such an action
most frequent. Or to put the case once more in
a different way, if we could imagine a superior
being possessed of knowledge not divine and infinite,
but like our own, only somewhat more extended,
acquainted with facts of science and gifted with a
wider power of observation, and could conceive him
looking upon the stars in their courses, and the winds
wandering to and fro upon the earth, and plants

i.] THE LAW OF AVERAGES 233
growing up we know not how, and animals on plain
and mountain moving whither they will, and man
with his boasted free agency, doing as seems to him
good in his own eyes, he would observe that the
same limit was really imposed upon aU ; that all alike
were finite beings : ' Hitherto shalt thou come and no
further.' Of all the instruments of human thought there
is none more wonderful than number. Barren as
speculations respecting it may seem in themselves,
they are of all others most fruitful in their applica
tion. Without number we could never have formed
a conception of the material universe. It is to the
knowledge of nature in a higher sense what in a
lower sense language is to thought and knowledge
in general. It appears like the first link in the
manifold chain by which mind and matter are con
nected with each other, the first stage of human
thought in which the mind could rest, seeming to
primitive man to be possessed of a divine and magic
power, as to ourselves also it seems to be that use
of reason in which most nearly we approach the
infinity of the divine knowledge. It expresses to
us the laws of the heavenly bodies and the pro
portions of natural substances, as well as the hidden
agencies which pervade them, and seems to transcend
nature itself in its ideal perfection. It tells us the
history bf life and death, the tale of poverty, disease,
and crime. It shows that even in what we term

234 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [i.
accident there is nothing of caprice or irregularity,
that chance itself is no longer chance, but that even
in chance the traces of law are distinctly visible. It
has become a sort of thread which Providence has
given us to wind our way through the labyrinth
of our social and political state, that mankind may
attain not so much to a clearer knowledge of the
divine nature, as to a clearer knowledge of God's
deahngs with them; and that they may be taught
to look not only on the material world as subject,
down to its minutest portions, to law and order,
made after the pattern on the mount, but on human
nature itself as a part of this order ; and learn their
duty to their fellow-men to consist not merely in way
ward and isolated efforts, but in their co-operation with
the laws that God Himself has fixed for them.
The Hght and knowledge of nature and of man
kind which we enjoy at the present day appears
very striking when compared with the earher ages
ot the humaa race. In the infancy of the world
there is something almost affecting in considering
how little men knew, not only of their past history
and future destiny, but also of the very laws of their
being. Living on one narrow spot, or roaming in
a pathless wilderness, incapable of forming a con
ception of the world at large, they seem Hke children
left to themselves, ignorant of the very meaning of
death and disease, ignorant also of the ties which
bound them to their fellow-men, the ' one blood '

i.] RESPONSIBILITY OF KNOWLEDGE 235
of which God had created all the families of the earth.
And, if we proceed to a later stage of human history
in which states had formed themselves, and laws were
established, and the elements of knowledge had begun
to unfold themselves, reaching even to the golden
age of the ancient world, we cannot help feeling how
very different their acquaintance with the world was
from our own, how partial and fragmentary, how
Httle they knew of the hidden causes of life and death ;
how incapable they were of comprehending or
analysing that social and commercial state which,
far more than forms of government or political
opinions, forms the basis of modern European society.
And passing over the times which succeeded, which
were even yet more ignorant and unconscious
respecting the world around them, and casting our
thoughts only a hundred years back, how different,
we might say, is our knowledge from that of a
generation or two since : the conception of the world
itself with its peoples and languages, and the new
sciences, as it were new worlds themselves, which
have been caUed into existence ; and the laws by
which human industry is governed, as it were some
great sea ever finding its level ; and the causes which
influence life or health, how plainly are they exhibited
to us by facts in comparison with the guesses of past
ages. It seems as if everything had its appointed
place, and all things were balanced one against the
other. ' Even the hairs of your head are all numbered.'

236 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [1.
What God always knew, what was in the beginning
coeval with human nature itself, that man himself
is now permitted to know — the rule of his own actions.
This order of things which number enables us to
express, which we have been gradually aUowed to
perceive in the moral no less than in the natural
world, may be considered in two ways, and seems to
lead to two opposite lines of reflection. First, as
facts of statistics, seemingly resolving all into circum
stances, tend to interfere with our free agency by
making us depend upon external causes. If from
year to year there is the same average of crime or
immorality, the human will seems to lose its natural
power of resistance to temptation, and to become, as
it may be expressed, the unseen pole of the revolving
circle of circumstances. If, as is certainly the case,
from observation of the like, or from a knowledge of
similar antecedent causes, such as temptation, punish
ment, previous character or habits, we know before
hand — first, Jiow individuals will act, and still more
how classes of men — at first sight it might appear as
if they could not do otherwise, or escape from the
fatal law which Providence had imposed upon them.
To answer such objections will form the first part of
our present subject. Secondly, we have to extend
our view and to consider circumstances not as in
fluencing the will but as themselves influenced by it.
If our experience leads us to regard mankind as much
more under the power of circumstances than they

i.] STATISTICS AND THE HUMAN WILL 237
appear to be to themselves, and are sometimes
supposed to be by writers on moral philosophy, side
by side with this must be placed another fact, that
they have the power of altering circumstances much
more than could at first sight have been imagined.
To struggle against many sins, for example, directly,
as individuals, is a hopeless task; to take ourselves
out of their way, and place ourselves in a different
position, among other companions, under other
influences, is comparatively easy. And so with man
kind in general, if our power of directly acting upon
them seems to be confined within narrow limits, if we
cannot hope for the conversions of great multitudes
by the word of the preacher, yet 'we seem also to
possess a power almost indefinitely great of altering
their condition, and so indirectly influencing their
Hfe and conduct.
I. First then, let us consider this appearance of
necessity. Ih looking over statistical tables of morality,
there is something startling in the infinity which they
present, something startling at first hearing, in the
expression used by writers on these subjects, ' average
moral capacity,' and in the notion that at once suggests
itself, that a limit is set to our moral power by the
very constitution of nature. As if God said to us,
' We should not become as good as we pleased ' ; as
if, at a certain point, the will recoiled powerless on
itself, because it had reached the limit of human
goodness.

238 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [1.
Some would perhaps think that if, in the case of
an individual, there is so much uncertainty respecting
future conduct, this uncertainty would be yet greater
when many individuals are brought into consideration ;
that to predict the future of many would be more
difficult than to predict the future of one ; and that, if
we are reaUy free agents, as the circle widens the
fluctuation must increase. Such a difficulty is of
course an obvious fallacy. As in the height or age
of individuals there may be the greatest possible
difference, and yet a uniform average may be safely
predicted, if the examined instances be sufficiently
numerous ; so also in morality, the extremes of virtue
and vice may be as far as the poles asunder in
different individuals, and yet this in no degree interferes
with a uniform moral average. As, if we look over
the tempestuous ocean, the waves may be some higher,
and some lower, mounting up to heaven, or going
down into the deep, and yet if it were possible to
measure then* all, the level of the ocean would stiU be
the same, neither on the whole higher or lower during
the storm ; so also there is a certain law of human
action above which we may rise, and below which we
may fall, without thereby altering the general average.
So far the question seems to resolve itself. Each
individual, considered by himself, foUows his own
impulse. There is no Hmit of evil set which he may
not pass, there is no goal of virtue which he may not
reach. The world is as it was before, a many-coloured

i.J AVERAGES AND NECESSITY

239

scene of good and ill ; there is the same diversity of
purpose, character, taste, opinion among mankind,
which Providence may be considered as combining, in
various proportions, in various ways, and after unseen
manners, to harmonize with His laws. When we use
the term ' uniform moral average,' this does not imply
that men are all aHke in their moral tendencies or
capacities, but only that, in any class where circum
stances remain the same, however different individuals
may be, the state of morality on the whole is not
materially changed. Yet stiU it may be thought that
the difficulty recurs in another shape. For as
individuals are free agents, it might be expected
that the mass, coUectively, should, as it were, by
a spontaneous effort have the power to become what
they please ; that nations as weU as persons should
by a simultaneous movement burst their thraldom
and actually pass into some ideal state such as
philosophers have imagined and visionaries conceived
possible. The very statement of such a speculation
seems to prove its absurdity. First, it is obvious that
to conceive such a simultaneous movement we must
drop all the peculiarities of individual character.
Men must be no longer different and, as it were,
compensating each other by their mutual excellences
and defects, but must all tend onwards with single
heart and aim to some special object. Or if we mean
to ask the question, ' Why is not human nature gifted
with greater energy of good and of evU ? ' this, if we

240 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [i.
could answer it, would in no respect meet our difficulty.
There might be many better and many worse, without
altering what has been termed 'the average moral
capacity.' Or we may merely mean to inquire, ' Why
are not mankind, preserving all their individual
differences, raised to a higher standard ? ' To which
there is no other answer but to ask another question,
' Why each one of us as an individual does not lead
a higher and better life?'
Or consider the subject in another way. There
have been times in the history of the world, in which
bodies of men —that is, nations and states — seem to have
acted as one man, sometimes for good, more often for
evil. In requiring that' the limits of human action
should be extended, we are but in fact requiring that
such times of crisis and revolution should be perpetual ;
that there should be nothing stable or continuous in
the world ; that as the force of human motives changes"
from month to month, or from year to year, individuals
should be freed from the control of habit, and nations
no longer bound by laws or institutions. Every
century would exhibit the spectacle of the sixteenth,
of reformation and counter-reformation, like two seas,
borne over the earth until at last their force is spent
and the dry land appears. As individuals we could
neither act together nor by ourselves. There would
be no stopping in our conclusions until we had reached
a state of moral anarchy, the result we commonly
arrive at when, instead of taking the world as it is,

i.] ADVANTAGES OF LIMITATION 241
we readjust it, to meet supposed difficulties, on a new
model. Were we to go no further into the entanglement
of the question which we are considering, we might
infer that God had fixed an order for the moral world
no wider than that for the natural ; that moral laws
were the same as physical, and contracted within the
same narrow limits. We might perhaps interpret
the intention of Providence, as He has given us rest
within as the source of moral strength, so also, in the
earth which He has made the scene of their actions,
to provide for the repose of His creatures, in the same
spirit as the Psalmist says, ' He hath set the round
world so fast that it cannot be moved.' And if our
freedom (as the philosopher has expressed it) were
nothing more than 'the consciousness of our necessity,'
the sense that we were parts of the great machine,
we might stiU resign ourselves to His power, and as
individuals at least fulfil the purpose of life. In the
arms of nature we should Hve and die, for this at
least thankful to God, that He had revealed to us our
place in the world, and refreshed us with His presence
ere we went hence.
What effect this identification of ourselves with the
laws of nature might have upon our actions we can
scarcely judge ; whether it would produce indolence
and sluggishness, or infuse peace and repose. But,
whatever tendencies adverse or favourable to morality
or religion such a view might involve, it would only

242 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [i.
embrace half our present subject. Facts prove to us,
on the one hand, that we are the creatures of circum
stances ; but they also show, on the other hand, that we
have the power of altering circumstances as weU, that
we are subject to them and yet above them: which
second division of our inquiry we may consider first
briefly as the final answer to our perplexity, and
secondly, as involving important moral and religious
consequences. II. It is quite true that we are much more the
creatures of habit, and more under the influences of
circumstances, and in a greater degree subject to
purely physical causes than we appear to ourselves
to be. Every individual forms a higher notion of the
limits of his own free agency than is the truth ; in
other words, he never sees himself as others see him.
So far the facts of statistics teach us a new and
important lesson, to limit ourselves as we are finite
beings. But, on the other hand, we must not forget
that the distinction between the will and circumstances,
though it holds to a certain extent, is in part also
illusive. For the truth is, we cannot imagine a change
in the will without a change being produced in the
conditions under which the will acts, any more than
we can conceive a cause without an effect. If, as has
been said, the mind never acts without being affected
by the body, it may with equal truth be maintained
that the body never acts without being affected by
the mind.

i.J ACTION OF MAN UPON CIRCUMSTANCES 243
And so, if we conceive of society as having in
a manner a soul and body — that is, an internal and
external aspect — and place on the one side motives
and impulses to good and sympathies with others,
and on the other, actions, laws, institutions ; these two
are not separate from each other, but are absolutely
one and indissoluble. What considered from within
is the wiU of man, the moment it develops itself in
action is circumstance. And thus the life of a good
man, though it too has its appointed place in the
order of nature, does not pass away as a vapour, but
clothes itself in works of good, by which being dead
it yet speaks to men, and leaves its mark behind it in
the school, in the church, in the material condition of
those among whom he has been placed, sometimes in
unseen influences on the character of others which are
known to God only.
In this way the facts of statistics may be regarded,
not as the conditions of our actions, but with equal
truth as their effect also. To suppose that circum
stances were a wall that we could not surmount, or
a fence by which we were enclosed, would be the
same error as to suppose that there was no distinction
between dead involuntary matter, and those portions
of matter endowed with life and organization, in which,
as Bishop Butler has expressed it, we have a more
immediate interest. When we speak of facts or cir
cumstances, let us not be imposed upon by language,
but consider also these facts and circumstances as
R 2

244 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [i.
instinct with life, emanating, we know not how, from
that hidden cause which we call the wiU of man, the
regulator of which it is the spring, the body of which
it is the soul. We must change the word necessity,
and think only of regularity instead. So may we
pass onward from the lowest things on earth to the
highest things in heaven, by many stages, through
many gradations, neither denying any nor inverting
their order, but acknowledging that the lower, as they
are the condition of the higher, so also are the means
to them ; and that the moral and social world, no less
than the frame of nature itself, is but as the crust in
which the presence of God, like some inward fire, is
hidden and encircled.
Yet more important for its own sake than as the
means of disentangHng a logical perplexity, is the truth
which experience shows, that if in one sense we are the
creatures of circumstances, we are also able to make
them work together for our moral and religious good.
It is by acknowledging them that we place ourselves
above them. All power of self-improvement must
proceed from self-knowledge, not based merely on
some general notion of human nature, or losing itself
in dreamy aspirations after unattainable good, or cir
cling in morbid self-consciousness about our present
state, but a knowledge of what we are and have
been, of the errors we may have made in life, of the
peculiarities of our individual character.
There is no road to moral or inteUectual improve-

i.] MORAL POWER LIMITED YET REAL 245
ment like the knowledge of our own defects. Such
facts are the easiest to forget and the hardest to bear
in mind. Vanity casts its transparent veil over them,
and the praise of other men makes them glitter for
a moment in the sunshine ; and high position or office
covers them with the conventionalities of Hfe ; and
sometimes even religion blinds or seems to blind
us, by showing us the end without the means, and
exhorting us to enter into communion with God, as
if we could thus lay aside what the Apostle terms the
body of death, that is, old habits, tastes, passions, or
the peculiar temptations of our natural constitution
itself. Then comes the painful lesson of experience,
that to a Hmited extent only we are capable of
receiving impressions of religion, and that often
times the most intense spiritual states are followed
by disgust and after-reaction. We begin to reflect
why it is that Christian life is so little like a progress
towards perfection ; why, as they get older, men seem
to grow in knowledge or experience of life, but (if
such an expression may be allowed) to have taken
in aU the rehgion of which they are capable. Why,
we ask, do the same failings so often remain, even
after men are regenerate and under the influence
of religion — irritabihty, gloom, want of straight
forwardness, jealousy, the spirit of detraction, the
desire of advancement and the Hke ; so that some
reHgious men seem to be of Httle more use in
their day and generation, than those who have no

246 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [1.
religion ? They have sought for rehgion in the
abstract, and they have got a rehgion unequal to
any of the duties of Hfe. They did not recognize
how they are the creatures of habit and of circum
stances, and how dependent on natural constitution
and bodny state; and they have done, as it were,
violence to nature, in taking spiritual means only,
to compass natural ends. As if in medicine, we
attempted to strengthen the muscles by exciting
the nerves, or hoped to cure a deeply seated or
ganic disease by merely composing the mind.
And, if there is anything in which this voice of
experience might hope to make itself heard, it is
when it speaks to the young, not of the unseen
world which appears so distant from them, but of
the earthly things which they believe, of this present
Hfe which looks so fair and seems to open so long
a vista of pleasures and interests and hopes and pros
pects. Humanly speaking, youth has everything in
its power. TJhere is no rational plan of happiness or
of good which we can lay out for ourselves, which
by the right use of means we may not attain. The
smallest of aU seeds may grow up into a great tree
in the course of a long life ; the grain of wheat cast
into the ground may bring forth fruit an hundredfold.
But the time is short in which we can accomplish
this, two or three years at most perhaps, in which we
are free agents, free to choose our own course, and
at the same time inteUigent of our true interest. As

i.] CIRCUMSTANCE WEAKER IN YOUTH 247
certainly as the bodily frame sets and fixes itself, and
passes from the suppleness of youth to the life and
bloom of early manhood, and from that to the full
form and matured strength of middle age : so also,
the character, though unseen, has its regular and
necessary growth, and it is only within very slight
limits that we can invert the order of nature. There
is a time for discipline, and a time to lay aside dis
cipline ; a time for obedience to others, a time for
self-command ; a time to learn, and a time to use our
knowledge ; a time to acquire habits, and a time to
act freely. We cannot do at thirty what might have
been possible at five-and-twenty, or at five-and-twenty
what might have been done at twenty, or in after-life
make up for the neglect of our education here.
Each succeeding age will seem more intractable
than the last, and more determined by our past life.
What we shaU be depends upon what we are ; and
whether in after years we are to be happy or miser
able, whether disappointment will blight us, or the
loss of health wither us ere our tale is told, or the
canker of immorahty gnaw our souls: or whether
our Hfe is blessed and the source of blessing to our
fellow-men, a well-spring of health and happiness
flowing onward to everlasting life, is as much the
result of our use of circumstances here, as any
other natural effects are the result of their causes.
And as, in reference to ourselves, there must ever
be disappointment when we walk by faith without

248 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [1.
experience, and seek the end without the means, still
more evidently is this the case in our efforts to do
good to others. The direct influence of the individual
in the world is fleeting and transitory : the voice of
the preacher passes into the air and is no more heard.
And often has the clergyman of a parish, after a life
of fruitless toil, concluded that it was the will of God
that ' few should be saved,' when the cause of his ill
success was really in himself. He has poured forth
his words like water ; he has written his memorial on
the sand. He has taken care of the old and neglected
the young ; he has watched over the religious life of
his people, and never remembered that their secular
life was his concern also. He has spoken to them
of the love of Christ, of the purity and holiness of
God, of Christians heirs of God and joint -heirs with
Christ, while their homes and aU things around them
told only the tale of misery and degradation. He
has been diligent at the church, and scarcely entered
the school. £Ie has engaged in the most difficult
of all occupations without that worldly tact which is
necessary for the success of any. What wonder if,
instead of widely-diffused good as the fruit of his
labours, he can point only to some two or three whom
a secret sympathy or personal kindness or community
of opinion may have linked to himself!
Or to turn to another field of labour, in which the
direct power of Christianity has been apparently so
small and its indirect might be so great, may not the

i.] PARISH AND MISSION WORK 249
reason why the result of missions often disappoints
us be because we have done so little to improve the
industrial state of those among whom our missionaries
are sent ? The world is changed since the days when
the Apostles went forth with the word of Christ, and
the relation of civilized to barbarous nations has
become altogether different. We know very weU
that the diffusion of arts and manufactures, or the
improvements of the social state, and the introduc
tion of regular habits of labour, is at least as important
in a rude community, as the receipt of Christian truth
itself. All experience shows us that Christianity,
though divine in its origin, cannot be separated from
that state of life in which we are; we must carry
both or neither with us, not only because we cannot
trust ourselves to form Christian communities on a
new model, but because we are otherwise throwing
away the very weapons that Providence has given us
to destroy the prejudices of caste and the inveterate
power of ancient modes of Hfe, and the terrors of
superstition itself.
Once more, if the difficulty of carrying out such
suggestions in foreign lands seem to be almost in
superable, and to belong rather to the mission of
governments than of individuals, there can be no
such difficulty in applying them at home. Among
those who are here present, the greater proportion,
perhaps, are not designed to be preachers of the
Gospel ; and there may be many who instinctively

250 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [1.
shrink from making a profession of rehgion or
venturing to give advice to others. But there is no
one who, in the course of life, will not have it in his
power to do some real and permanent good for his
poorer brethren. Of such things let us dream, if we
are to dream, and not of impossible unities or ideals
of a visible Church. The opening of schools, the
improvement of the dwelHngs of the poor, the en
lightened management of an estate, the active interest
in all measures that have for their object health, clean-
Hness or morality ; the promotion of an intellectual,
which to the poor is a moral, almost a spiritual,
good: aU these are the very parts and elements of
a Christian's duty towards his neighbour.
Such interests are a thousand times better for
ourselves, ten thousand times more useful to others,
than phases of religious experience or the excite
ments of religious controversy. They are, when
translated into the language of Scripture, ' the cup of
cold water giiren to the disciple' ; ' the unrighteous
mammon ' which has already become the true riches ;
' the chfldren of this world ' no longer ' wiser than
the children of Hght.' Things change their names
in the present day, and the most secular duties be
come the most religious. If any one, 'not slothful
in business ' have cared for those employed by him ;
if any have sought to help the poor by quickening
in them the sense of independence and the pride of
honest industry, they shaU not want their reward

i.] SPIRITUAL GOOD BY SECULAR MEANS 251
when Christ asks them what they have done for
Him in that day, and makes a reckoning with His
servants. It seems almost a truism to repeat that we
live in an age in which every industrial and every
material improvement has been developed far beyond
the furthest conception possible a few years back.
The progress of the arts and sciences we may look
upon, if with hope and gratitude, yet also as a fearful
and wonderful scene, which is hurrying past us ere
we are able to catch its fuU meaning, and may separate
another generation yet more widely in thought and
feeling from ourselves, than we are separated from the
generations which have preceded us. But, however
little we are able from knowledge or experience to
appreciate what is passing before our eyes, one thing
seems clear, that these are as a long lever, through
which we must move the world, against which we
can do nothing. These go steadily on their way,
whatever may be the controversies which agitate a
portion of mankind. For nine-tenths of the education
of the poor is not obtained at the church or at the
school, nor under the influence of the public press
or of the literature of the day (sometimes so much
dreaded), but is indeed the mere result of their
occupations. He who has found the way to connect these occu
pations with their moral and religious life, to add to
industry temperance, to temperance purity, to purity
brotherly love and kindness to one another ; who has

252 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [i.
made those under him comprehend the length and
breadth of the love of Christ towards men by the
love that he himself shows them: such an one in
his own sphere has solved the great problem of our
social life, and linked together in one earth and
heaven.

II. CHURCH PARTIES1.
NOW THIS I SAY, THAT EVERY ONE OF YOU SAITH,
I AM OF PAUL ; AND I OF APOLLOS ; AND I OF CEPHAS ;
AND I OF CHRIST. IS CHRIST DIVIDED? WAS PAUL
CRUCIFIED FOR YOU? OR WERE YE BAPTIZED IN THE
NAME OF PAUL? i Corinthians i. 12, 13.
THIS is a picture of the disorder which prevaUed
among the early Christians at a time when the
Apostles were nearly all aHve, and when the Church
was separated only by a generation from the teaching
of Christ Himself. In one small community, perhaps
containing only a few hundred, possibly a few
thousand believers, there had already sprung up
three or four sects or parties. First there were
the adherents of Paul himself, whose teaching may
be summed up in a verse or two taken from his
own writings : ' In Christ Jesus neither circumcision
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new
creature — but faith working by love — but Christ all
and in aU.' ' For he is not a Jew who is one out-
1 Westminster Abbey, June 19, 1870.

254 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [ii.
wardly, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly ; and
circumcision is that of the heart.' Or again, ' We
are justified by faith without the deeds of the law.'
Or, as he says in another place, ' There is neither
Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, but
ye are all one in Christ Jesus.' It must have been
smaU consolation to the Apostle to find that these
noble lessons were converted into a sort of sec
tarianism which was attached to the name of St. Paul.
Then there was the party of ApoUos, who is described
in the Acts of the Apostles as an eloquent man
and learned in the Scriptures ; he was a Jew of
Alexandria, who at first preached only the baptism
of John, but afterwards, when he had been instructed
by Aquila and Priscilla, became the coadjutor of the
Apostle, and of whom he says in this Epistle, ' Paul
may plant, Apollos may water.' Yet between these two
friends the Corinthian Christians seemed to have made
a kind of split, or difference. Far more important
is the distinction indicated by the name of Cephas,
or Peter, which is the greater distinction between
Jew and Gentile, between circumcision and uncircum
cision, between the Christian who became a Jewish
proselyte and the Christian who was without the
lavv — a difference which agitated all the Churches,
and extended in some degree to the Apostles them
selves (as we gather from the second chapter of the
Epistle to the Galatians), and was the chief source
of that opposition which St. Paul everywhere ex-

n.] PARTIES IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 255
perienced, of that want of support from ' those who
seemed to be piUars ' ; of that ' turning away of aU
Asia ' which he so pathetically describes in his later
Epistles, and which seems rather to have increased
than diminished towards the close of his life.
Still there remains a fourth party, which is spoken
of in this text as the party of Christ. Reading the
two Epistles to the Corinthians carefully, we shall
remark that this is not merely a general description
of other beHevers, but has a precise reference to an
actual party who set up Christ against Paul and
Cephas, and not only against Jewish or Gentile
errors. The same persons seem to be indicated of
whom the Apostle complains in the second Epistle
(x. 7) when he says, ' If any man trust to himself
that he is Christ's, let him of himself think this again,
that, as he is Christ's, even so are we Christ's.' Nor
is there any difficulty in imagining that in the early
as in later ages of the Church, there may have been
those who clung to Christ in some narrow, extreme,
pedantic, technical sense very unhke that word of the
Aposde : * Ye are all one in Christ Jesus.' At this
distance of time, when a veil covers the history of
the early Church, and considering that the answer to
this question is to be gathered from allusions only,
we cannot certainly determine who were the party
of Christ. The most probable explanation is that
they were the followers of the brethren of Christ,
and especially of James, the Lord's brother, whom

256 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [11.
after-ages have called the first Bishop of Jerusalem.
They may have said : ' We too are the disciples
of Christ, and now that He is taken from us we
acknowledge His brethren as His true and legitimate
successors — not St. Paul, for he never saw Him except
in a vision. To their authority we submit, and after
their manner we live in all that concerns the law
of Moses.' Such may have been the spirit of those
who called themselves by the name of Christ and yet
opposed the authority of St. Paul ; and who, though
numbered in the Christian community, still retained
the character and tenets of a Jewish ascetic sect.
The controversies between these three or four parties
seem to have been carried on with extraordinary
bitterness and heat. To say the truth, they were
conducted much like the controversies of our own
and of other times, with a tolerably free use of the
weapons of personal slander and detraction. Some
factious, pretentious persons, such as there are in
every society^ drew up a sort of indictment against
the Aposde : what business had he to be receiving
pay ? (but he had not done so, as he passionately
rephed) ; what right had he to lead about a woman
who was a sister ? (a slight hint of his manner of life,
upon which the imagination of the second century
built up the romance of Paul and Thekla). And at
the very time these censorious accusations were being
made there were immoraUties (not even named among
the Gentiles) which were almost permitted among

ii.] ORIGIN OF CHURCH PARTIES 257
them, wild errors and excesses both of teaching and
practice, strange religious illusions which had crept into
the Church, and which the Apostle (not indifferent to
these charges against himself, but far more sensitive
to the miserable falling away of his converts) is vainly
endeavouring, by commands and entreaties, to restrain.
But some one will ask: how did these divisions
arise at a time when the Apostles were still alive,
and many of the elder disciples must have remembered
the person and teaching of Christ Himself? Well,
because human nature then was Hke human nature
now, and the minds of men varied according to their
national character and education. And, ' no one,'
as I may add in the words of the Gospel, ' no one
drinking old wine straightway desireth new, for he
saith " the old is better." ' When a man had been
all his Hfe a Jew, and his father before him, and had
never eaten anything common or unclean, and had
lived in aU the traditions of the law, he could not
easily lay aside that which grew to him and was
a part of him, any more than an Oriental by changing
his dress could at once become a European. And
the feeling, the scruple, the irrational instinct would
always be liable to return, as was the case with the
Apostle St. Peter at Antioch, when he fell under
the influence of ' certain who came from James.' The
doctrine of St. Paul fell strangely upon Jewish
ears. If a preacher were to come among us saying
that there is no difference between Churchmen and

258 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [11.
Dissenters, but that our Lord is gracious to all them
that caU upon Him, are we certain that he would
be favourably received ? Would all of us be wiUing
to acknowledge that the teachers or disciples of other
Christian communions are our brethren in Christ ?
We can appreciate then, from our own experience,
the kind of difficulties which the Apostle would
encounter in the early Church. The arguments
which would be used are not unknown among our
selves ; they are common to all ages. The danger of
novelty, the disregard of authority and tradition, the
dishonour to the institutions of Moses and to the
letter of Scripture, the change of his own opinions —
these would be the sort of charges brought against
him by those who had neither the heart nor the head
to conceive that ' increasing purpose which through
the ages ran.'
The divisions of the Corinthian and Galatian
Churches, though they have had important conse
quences to the Christian faith, yet, considered with
reference to their mere extent, might be compared
to the disputes of some small Christian sect in our
own day, and could hardly even have reached the
ears of a Roman governor — of Gallio, or Festus, or
Felix. They belong to the beginnings of the
Christian Church, when the mustard seed had not yet
grown into a tree, nor the kings of the earth taken
shelter under its branches.
I am now going to speak of other divisions which

n.J DIVISIONS IN THE CHRISTIAN WORLD 259
are the divisions of the Christian world itself — not
those temporary parties which have their well-known
names, but rather the deeper and broader distinctions
which are not wholly unconnected with them ; and
which run up into history and past ages, and will
continue to exist in the remote future as far as the
eye can see. For in religion as in other respects
we are what we are, not only through our individual
efforts, but also as the result of ages which have
preceded us. And to see whither the ship is going
is necessary even to safety ; no one can view things
in their true proportions who does not read his own
life in the light of history and of the world. And
he who takes this wider view may have a larger
charity and (shall I say?) a diviner knowledge —
more like that of God Himself, who is very far
from judging His creatures according to their own
irrational judgments of one another, or dividing
them into the sects or classes in which they distribute
themselves on earth.
There seem to have been in the Christian Church,
almost from the beginning, three powers working,
three spirits ' moving upon the face of the waters,'
three types of feehng and action ; all of which are
in some degree reflected in the communion to which
we belong, and may be traced in the characters of
individuals at the present day. And first I wiU
endeavour to describe these three spirits, as they
may be termed, according to their original idea and
S 2

260 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [n.
intention ; and secondly in their perversion : and
then I shall offer some tests by which they must be
tried, and by which all religion must be tried, and
our own lives also. And lastly I will inquire how
far there may be a spirit which recognizes them and
yet rises above them, and which remains unshaken
amid the diversities and movements of religious
opinion, as well as among the other conditions and
crises of human life.
First, there are those whose eye is fixed upon the
past, and who look backwards to the Church of
the Fathers, or of the Middle Ages, and seem to find
in the order of a visible hierarchy and in the sacra
ments the golden Hnks of a chain extending from
the beginning until now. They do not like to
venture on the path of new knowledge ; rather they
appear to have a system of reHgious truth which
is enough for them. The memories of holy men
of old, the glories of art and of religious ceremonial,
the association of men and women in religious
orders — these are regarded by them as the natural
means and instruments of religious life, and of the
reformation of mankind. They do not set up their
own judgment against that of Apostles or Saints or
Fathers, such as were St. Augustine or St. Athanasius
in the Nicene Church, or in later ages St. Anselm
or St. Bernard: the very law of their being is
obedience to authority. This is the spirit of antiquity,
of Catholicity, of organization, of union, which would

II.] REVERENCE FOR ANTIQUITY 261
fain bring all men into a single fold of Christ ; and
if such a spirit be really fulfiUed with the love of
man, it may shed a light on some dark places still
(as in former ages it contributed to the civilization of
Europe), doing the works of a divine charity in the
lanes and alleys of our towns, bearing the image
of Christ in an altered world until His coming again.
For I think we can hardly say that the same ex
pression of religion is suited to all ages, and to all
countries, and to all ranks in society. In the multi
tude of human characters there will always be some
anachronisms, survivals of the past, aspirers after
the future, who do not really belong to the age in
which their lot is cast. The hope of persons who
are animated by this feeling is that, in spite of all
appearances to the contrary, the ground which has
been lost may stiU be regained. The prayer and
aspiration of their Hves might perhaps be summed
up in words such as these : ' the Catholic Church, one
and continuous throughout the world and in all ages.'
Secondly, there are those who have found a nearer
way to God, not through the priesthood, or the
sacraments, or any ordinance of the Church, but in
the immediate approach to God through Christ. They
have been impatient of any person or rite or in
stitution coming between themselves and God ; these
all seemed to obscure rather than to reveal Him.
They go at once to Scripture — the intermediate history
of Christianity is almost a blank to them. The

262 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [n.
glories of art, the memories of antiquity, are scarcely
admitted by them into the service of God 'who
dwelleth not in temples made with hands.' They,
too, have great names to whom they appeal — the
Fathers, not of the Catholic, but of the Reformed
Church ; such as Martin Luther, that great man to
whom the world owes so much, and whose life,
directly or indirectly, has affected the mind of
every one here present ; such as were in later
years Leighton, Baxter, Bunyan, and Wesley; and
almost in our own time Richard Cecil, Henry
Martyn, and John Newton — names affectionately re
garded in the last generation and not altogether
forgotten in this. To this section of the Christian
world there is reason to attribute the improvement
of morals and manners which appears to have taken
place in this country during the first thirty years
of this century. And many of us may remember
with gratitude that to good and simple-minded
persons of this school of opinion we owe our earliest
rehgious impressions. And many good causes have
been fought by them in times past : such, for example,
as the reformation of prisons, the aboHtion of slavery
and the slave trade, or the protection of children in
factories. And many an one in pious stiUness and
humility has led a Hfe of absolute self-devotion, of
heavenly resignation, sustained on what appear to
some of us to be exaggerated and narrow views of
religion. For they have found or seemed to find

ii.] SPIRIT OF FAITH; AND OF KNOWLEDGE 263
religious truth isolated, separated from the experience
of Hfe and the increase of human knowledge : a con
dition not without danger to themselves and their
children, when they came into collision with the facts
of human nature or the realities of science. And
if we were to describe this division of the Christian
world in our own or other ages, perhaps a motto
might be found for them in that famous expression
' the Bible the religion of Protestants ' ; or the inner
life of the Reformed Churches might be better
described in the words of the Apostle : ' By grace
are ye saved through faith; and that not of your
selves ; it is the gift of God.'
Thirdly, there is the spirit of knowledge, which
has arisen later in the Christian world than the two
others, and is sometimes thought to be at variance
with them. This is the spirit which would pursue
truth as a duty, in the faith that no inquiry either
into the origin of man, or his duration upon the
earth, nor into the facts of Scripture history, or any
other investigation which relates to us as mortal or
immortal beings, can ever be displeasing to the God
of Truth. They do not seek to defend this or that
belief which has been handed down from past ages ;
if they are true to themselves they are not a party,
and have no party interests ; they would test all
religious beliefs by the principles of morality, and
read all controversies in the light of history. Among
the clergy their number is inconsiderable, but the

264 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [ii.
majority of the educated laity are on their side. They,
too, find a support in appeahng to the great names
of the world, the great thinkers and teachers of
mankind — such as were some of the Gentile philoso
phers, or again our own countrymen, Bacon,
Newton, or Locke, whom they feel to be the instru
ments of God in the enlargement of the powers of
the human mind, and more comprehensive teachers
of the ways of God to man than mere doctrinal
theologians. And if we were to sum up their hopes
and aspirations in a very few words, perhaps such
a motto as the following might describe them : ' The
truth, one and indivisible, in religion, in philosophy, in
history and in nature ' ; or we may select a motto for
them from Scripture : ' The truth shall make you free.'
And each of these spirits might be traced in
their perversion as well as in their ideal. You might
show how the first of them, from being a principle
of order and civilization in the world, had become
an element of disorder only, overliving itself and
degenerating into tyranny ; or again at a later period
vainly seeking to recover a lost supremacy in this
and in other countries. Or you might note how
the second of them had grown narrower as time
went on, having less hold on the heart of man and
more of formalism and worldhness, putting the word
or formula about Christ in the place of the life of
Christ in the soul. Or you might remark how the
third of them had become shaUow and meagre,

II.] PERVERSIONS OF EACH TENDENCY 265
pursuing one branch of knowledge to the exclusion
of others, seeming even to enslave the higher nature
of man to the lower, forgetting the needs of the
many for the few, and in the love of truth losing
sight of goodness. And it might be further shown
of all these parties how at times in the history of the
world the light of Christ and the truth had been
quenched by them in blood — how the corruption
of the best had been the worst, and yet how even
in corruption good and evil, error and truth, had
been strangely blended with one another. But instead
of pursuing this further, I will rather endeavour to
propose two or three tests by which all parties and
all Churches must be tried at the bar of history, and
at the judgment-seat of God ; and by which we must
try ourselves and our own actions if they are to abide
in that day.
First there is the effect on morality and on social
life. Are the clergy of a Church teaching very plain
and simple truths : ' fear the Lord and depart from
evil ' ; 'a false balance is an abomination to the
Lord ' ? Or are they immersed in disputes of party,
which never can and never wiU do anybody any
good ? Are their sermons those of the schools only,
artificially put together, or do they speak to men
heart to heart about their common duties? Do the
lay members of a Church feel that the chief part of
religion must be seen in their daily lives, in their
integrity in business, in the care of their family and

266 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [ii.
household, in their sense of justice, in their regard
for truth, in the fulfilment of their duty towards their
neighbour ? These are questions so simple that they
are hardly to be asked, and yet extending to the
whole life of a good and Christian man. Again, is
there a manly tone in religion, which clearly discerns
the limits of right and wrong, and though falling
into sin, can never be made to think lightly of sin :
or is religion a matter of personal influences, and
impressions and sentimentalities; a high rule of
life, or only a sort of comfort and anodyne in death ;
a healing of sorrow and trouble, or a conforming to
the law of God ?
Secondly, there is another simple test of the true
life both of individuals and Churches : ' What are we
doing for others ? ' ' What efforts are being made by
us for the good of mankind ? ' In this great progress
of civilization, in this corresponding want and misery
of large masses of mankind (when the need perhaps
is greater thaji ever before, and the means of help are
also greater), are we fulfilling our part, uniting in
common efforts to help those who cannot help them
selves, to raise the degraded and outcast portion of
the population ; or are we hindered by our prejudices
and divisions in such public and Christian objects as
the education of the poor ? Do we regard the persons
with whom we act, rather than the work to be done ?
Can we be said to have Christian feUowship with one
another at all, if we cannot combine in the performance

ii.] CHURCH TENDENCIES TESTED 267
of some great and obvious duty? This is the real
folly and guilt of schism— when co-operation in good
works is made impossible. Do we ever think of
the blessedness of living solely for others? What
a power of good is there in this, what freedom and
rest to ourselves! Do we look upon our property
only as a trust, of which we are the stewards, and of
which God has given us the use for the sake of our
fellow-creatures ? The remark is a true one, that this
age in which we live, and which, in toleration, in
humanity, in enlightenment, is so far in advance of
former ages, yet seems gready to fall short of them
in the power of self-sacrifice. Persons have so many
excuses to make ; they have such a want of originahty
in devising means to ends; they are so afraid of
doing more harm than good, as if there were not
a way of doing good which could never do any harm !
And these are the sort of questions we must ask of
ourselves if we mean to get out of the conventionalities
of religion and live as in the sight of God. And this
is the sort of spirit in which a Church must work and
teach, the spirit of comprehension, not of exclusion ;
the spirit of disinterestedness, not of ambition ; if it
would bear the image of Christ.
Thirdly, I will propose one more test of individuals
and Churches — the simplest of all religious truths, in
which the error is liable to be the greater, and which
may be said to be the great article of a standing or
falling Church : ' What do we think of the nature of

268 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [n.
God ? ' For indeed Christianity would have utterly
failed of its purpose if it has not revealed Him to us
as a God of justice and truth, who cannot suffer any
one to be tempted beyond what he is able to endure,
and will not punish any one more than he deserves ;
who cannot see us other than we truly are, or permit
us to suffer for what we never did ; a God in whom
there is no shadow of fiction, no human Ukes or
dislikes, who as far as we can think of Him at aU is
to be thought of by us as a Moral Being who is one
and the same to all His creatures, the most just Judge,
the most loving Father, the God of Truth. But men
through their fears and vain reasonings have been
always tending to lose and pervert this image ; they
have not regarded the lessons which experience taught
them about God ; they have hidden from themselves
and others the likeness which He has given of Himself
in their own heart and conscience; the beggarly
elements of Jewish and Gentile religions have come
back upon them: they have perplexed themselves
about ' Fate, predestination, and free will,
And found no end in wand'ring mazes lost.'
Instead of getting nearer to God they have got farther
from Him ; instead of recognizing Him as the God in
whom they live and move, they have placed Him, if
I may use such an expression, at the end of a theo
logical treatise.
When a man's mind is full of the simple truths of

II.] GOD, NOT PARTY 269
Christianity and of the simple duties of the Christian
life, he will not be much affected by the strife of
parties or the controversies of the hour. He knows
that such controversies have always gone on from the
days of St. Paul until now, and that they wiU be
stiU going on in the next generation, when we are
removed from the scene. He is amazed at their
pertinacity and sometimes at their unmeaningness,
but they do not take any hold on his mind or fill
him with alarms about the future of religion. For
he is seeking to lay a foundation of another sort ; to
bring men together, not to divide them ; to show them
their misunderstandings, to be able to say to them
amid all their dissensions : ' Ye are aU one in Christ
Jesus.' And his anxieties are not about the definition
of some doctrine, but about his own life : ' Is he
becoming better ? Is he doing enough for his feUow-
creatures? Is he making this Hfe a preparation for
another ? ' When he hears of great religious move
ments he will be prone to ask : ' What practical good
wiU result from them ? ' and will be eager to turn them
to the improvement of mankind before the bhghting
influence of party has taken possession of them.
Perhaps he may sometimes have to stand out of the
way, ' under the shelter of a wall,' until the storm has
passed over. But as he finds that his inward peace
is unshaken, so too he will find that the world is not
so intolerant as it is said to be, and that with a Httle
prudence he may possess his soul in peace.

270 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [n.
There are many things which appear differently to
us as we advance in years. The eye of the mind,
like the bodily eye, seems to take in a wider range,
though with a less keen power of vision. And I think
we can imagine a good man whose active work has
fallen within the last half century, who has borne
a part in the religious questions of the day, after the
manner of Richard Baxter in his review of his own
life : we can imagine such a person as I have described
living in our own day, who has attained old age,
making reflections something like the foUowing:
' I meant weU, but I helped to delay the education of
the poor for fifteen or twenty years ; or, I carried
that vote of censure a generation ago on one who
has now departed, whither I too soon must go ; but
I never read a page of his writings, and I am not
certain that I understood either his meaning, or my
own. Or, there was that measure of relief to my
fellow-subjects, in the justice and policy of which
the greater part of the world seem now to have
acquiesced, — therefore I suppose that they are right ;
which at the time I thought a dishonour to God, and
an insult to His Church. Or again, there is my old
adversary, the Bishop of  , gone, with whom I had
the controversy in the year 1834. May he and I
meet in heaven ! But then what were we disputing
about ? I can remember the time when I used to
think that some matter of ecclesiastical order, or some
slight alteration in the marriage law, was of more

il] AN OLD MAN'S REFLECTIONS 271
importance than the salvation of nations and of armies.
How could I have been absorbed in such fancies ? '
And as age has the privilege of garrulity, we may
listen to our friend for a few minutes longer, while he
makes some other reflections on his own life and
times : ' I observe,' he says, ' new churches rising
everywhere ; the services of the Church are more
carefully performed than when I was young; the
poor are better attended to in the House of God.
All this is weU: but in order to measure the level
of Christian Hfe I must apply other tests than these.
Is there more of the spirit of Christ among us ;
more charity and liberty ; less of division ; a higher
tone in society ; more light in the poor man's home ?
Sixty years ago there was no trace of the great
ecclesiastical movement which seems to fill the minds
of many, and to overspread the land. But that may
melt away, like other ecclesiastical movements, as
rapidly as it has arisen. AU such movements tend
to provoke a reaction ; and in that which appears to
be most opposed to them, in the inquiries of physical
science, in the criticism of Scripture, there may be
elements of truth hitherto unknown, yet needed
by a future generation. Extremes are often mere
oppositions of names ; even the being of God may
be implied in the words that deny Him. The older
I get the more inclined I am to cling to a simple
faith, for I see that " all things come to an end, but
Thy commandment is exceeding broad." And oh !

272 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [n.
that I could persuade all men, and especially the
young, of the deep seriousness of human life, of which
I often think as I sit in my chair by the fireside, or
in the sunshine, now that I am not able to do much,
and feel that, as far as my own Hfe is concerned, " the
batde is either lost or won." I know that in another
world there can be no differences of parties in
a Church, no oppositions of theology and science,
such as have separated us in this. But when I think
of these things, I sometimes feel that if I could have
my life over again I would join no party, enter into
no controversy, but would seek only to awaken in
members of the same Church, or in different Churches,
and in all men everywhere, the love of truth for its
own sake, the spirit of charity, and mutual under
standing.' These are the sort of reflections which we may
suppose an aged Christian man, the sands of whose
life have nearly run out, to make on the tendencies
of thought during the last fifty years. They have
been remarkable years in the history of the Church ;
and without wishing to exaggerate the importance or
interest of the times in which we live, we may expect
that the next fifty years will not be less eventful.
What struggles, and changes of opinion, will be
witnessed by many here present who will be Hving
fifty years hence, and how they may be called upon
to bear a part in them, we cannot anticipate. ' The
things which are shaken wiU be removed, that the

ii.] CHARITY SUPREME AND ABIDING 273
things which cannot be shaken may remain.' And
when new discussions arise about the Church, about
the Scriptures, about the connection of religion and
science. — the nature of which no one can precisely
foresee — these are the lessons which, amid the strife
of tongues, and the storm of religious partisanship,
the still small voice of Christian experience may be
heard repeating to us.

I have already detained you too long, and yet I do
not like to conclude without saying one word more,
that word which has been in the hearts and on the
tongues of most of us during the past week 1.
You know that we cannot leave the grave of
a departed friend without taking a last look. And
we Hke to think of the rays of the setting sun falhng
upon his resting-place. For he of whom we are
thinking was the friend of mankind, the philanthropist
in the true sense, the friend of youth, the friend of
the poor, the enemy of every form of meanness and
oppression. I am not going to attempt to draw
a portrait of him. Men of genius are in many ways
different from what we suppose them to be; they
have greater pleasures and greater pains, greater
affections and greater temptations, than the generality
of mankind, and they can never be altogether under
stood by their fellow-men. We do not wish to
1 Charles Dickens, died June 9, 1870, and was buried in
Westminster Abbey, June 14.

274 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [n.
intrude upon them or analyze their lives and characters;
they are extraordinary persons, and we cannot
prescribe to them what they should be. But we feel
that a light has gone out — the world is darker to us
when they depart. There are so very few of them
that we cannot afford to lose them one by one, and
look vainly round for others who may supply their
places. And he whose loss we now mourn occupied
a greater space than any other writer in the minds of
Englishmen during the last thirty-five years. We
read him, talked about him, acted him ; we laughed
with him, we were roused by him to a consciousness
of the misery of others, and to a pathetic interest in
human life. The workhouse child, the cripple, the
half-clothed and half-starved inhabitant of a debtor's
prison, found a way to his heart ; and through the
creations of his genius touch our hearts also. Works
of fiction would be intolerable if they attempted, like
sermons, directly to instruct us, but indirectly they
are great instructors of the world ; and we can hardly
calculate the debt of gratitude which is due to a writer
who has led us through our better feelings to sym
pathize with the good, the true, the sincere, the honest
English character of ordinary life ; and he has done
us no harm in laughing at the egotism, the hypocrisy,
the false respectability of religious professors and
others. To another great humourist, who lies in this
church, the words have been applied, that ' the gaiety
of nations has been eclipsed by his death.' But of

n.] CHARLES DICKENS 275
him who has been recently taken I would rather say
in humble language that no one was ever so much
beloved or so much mourned. There is no house in
which books are read which did not receive a shock
when it became known ten days ago that he, over
whose pages we had pored with such thrilling interest,
was no longer amongst us. Men seemed to have lost,
not a great writer only, but one whom they had
personally known ; who was the friend of them and
of their famiHes.
And so we bid him ' farewell ' once more, and return
to our daily occupations. He has passed into the state
of being in which, we may believe, human souls are
drawn to one another by nearer ties, and the envious
lines of demarcation which separate them here are
broken down. And, if we could conceive that other
world, we might perhaps imagine him still at home,
rejoicing to have a place at that banquet to which the
poor and the friendless, the halt and the lame, are
specially invited. ' The small and the great are there,
and the servant is free from his master ' ; ' there the
prisoners rest together, they hear not the voice of the
oppressor '; ' there the weary are at rest.'

T 2

III. THE CHURCH:
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE1.
JERUSALEM WHICH NOW IS, IS IN BONDAGE WITH
HER CHILDREN. BUT JERUSALEM WHICH IS ABOVE
IS FREE, WHICH IS THE MOTHER OF US ALL.
Galatians iv. 25, 26.
The Church has been often regarded by theolo
gians under two forms or aspects, the visible Church
and the invisible. The first is the outward embodi
ment of the Christian society ; and is expressed first
of all in the material building of wood and stone, Hke
this fairest of churches in which we are assembled ; Hke
other great edifices of the middle ages which some of
us contemplate with such intense delight, the cathe
drals of Lincoln, York, Canterbury, Salisbury, Dur
ham, Wells, in our land ; the still grander and larger
structures of Cologne, Milan, or of St. Peter's, in
foreign countries. We delight to look upon their fair
proportions (their beauty based upon utility, as some
tell us, yet also containing a principle higher far), their
architecture melting into sculpture, their stained win
dows, their spires pointing to heaven. And sometimes
1 Preached at Westminster Abbey, July, 1883.

in.] THE VISIBLE AND HISTORICAL CHURCH 277
we may also see the pavement from end to end of
the vast building thronged with a sea of worshippers.
Have we not here the nearest approach that we can
make in any earthly expression or image to that
great multitude whom no man can number, out of
every people and nation and language, * who are
singing the praises of God and of the Lamb ?
But there is also another and a higher aspect, of
a different kind, under which the visible Church of
Christ may be regarded, viz., the historical. Besides
the mere continuance of wood and stone, which is so
affecting to us and caUs up so many association's,
there is the far greater antiquity of the priesthood
and the congregation. You may read in any alma
nack that the present Bishop of London is the 106th
in succession, the present Archbishop of Canterbury
the 93rd in succession from the first bishop and
archbishop who respectively held those offices. Con
sider what is implied in this simple fact. During
more than twelve centuries, through aU the changes
by which the inhabitants of this country have passed
from barbarism to civilization, from the days when
Saxons or Normans nailed the skins of the Danes to
the doors of churches, and blood mingled with the
sacrifices of the altar, down to our own peaceful and
undisturbed times, in which we and our children walk
about anywhere without the least thought of harm or
danger ; through civil wars and ecclesiastical reforma
tions ; through ages in which the very idea of Chris-

278 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [m.
tianity seemed to be lost in the troubles and evils of
the world, and then again began to be quickened
and revived : still the uninterrupted succession of
ministers animated by a common spirit, and the con
tinual worship of Christians (though not always in the
same form), has been maintained from the seventh or
eighth century A.D., down to this day on which we are
assembled to worship God in this place. Generation
after generation have gone to their rest, but the
Church which was their mother remains : under the
shadow of her waUs they repose while the world lasts,
— that is, while existing forms of human society con
tinue. This is the visible Church of England, in
which most of us have grown up : the historical
Church containing so many memories of the past, the
greater memories of events which have affected the
nation; the lesser memories of family life, of kings and
queens who are interred within these walls ; of the
' dear child ' taken to her rest two hundred years ago,
and whose name alone is preserved in the cloisters :
the Church which, whether estabHshed or disestab
lished, seems destined to survive any other English
institution and to remain in any vision of the future
to which the eye of man can reach. The fact and the
idea of such an institution has worked powerfuUy on
the minds of the English people for good, and in
some respects for evil. For in thinking of our own
Church we are apt to forget that those who are
without it are equaUy with ourselves the sons of

in.] THE INVISIBLE, UNIVERSAL CHURCH 279
God and the followers of Christ ; and in contem- C
plating the beauty of the outward fabric and the
splendour of its ceremonial we may lose sight of
that other temple, the house not made with hands.
' Solomon built Him an house ; howbeit the Most High
dwelleth not in temples made with hands : as saith
the prophet, "Heaven is My throne, and earth is My
footstool."' And in this church it is not the grace
and dignity of the architecture, however attractive
and impressive they may be to us, which God looks
upon, but the lowly spirit of some one, perhaps
a poor person, who has learned to receive the
kingdom of God in lowliness and simplicity.
Yet higher and more ideal than any outward and
visible Church is the invisible, of which our conception
is greater and vaster, and also more vacant and
shadowy and mysterious. It is described in the words
of the Bidding Prayer as ' the congregation of faithful
ones throughout the world.' But who they are no eye
of man can discern ; for the wheat grows together
with the tares in this world, and many are called
but few are chosen, and many are hearers not doers
of the word, and the first shall be last and the last
first ; and there are other sheep that are not of this
fold ; and there are those who have not seen and yet
have believed ; and the hour cometh when neither in
Jerusalem nor yet on Mount Gerizim shaU men wor
ship the Father. And, as there are in any Christian
Church or country a certain number of true Christians,

28o SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [in.
so, on the other hand, in distant lands there are those
to whom Christ in His individual Person has never
been revealed, who yet have had the temper of Christ,
and in a way of their own have followed Him. And
in this invisible Church we include all those who in
former ages, as well as in other countries, have Hved
for others and not for themselves. This great fellow
ship, this communion of souls and of good men every
where, who, if they could have known, would have
recognized one another as the great family of the sons
of God, is called the invisible Church. It binds to
gether the present with the past, it is the true though
hidden source of progress, it links us with the world
to come. We rejoice in the thought of it, and are
comforted and strengthened by the reflection that in
this congregation, and to the furthest Hmits of the
world, in the old times as well as in our own, there
are those who stand in the same attitude towards
God as we would fain hope that we ourselves do,
seeking to make His will our wiU, and working
together with Him for the good of the human race in
a common hope and faith.
And sometimes men have sought to clothe the
visible Church with the attributes of the invisible.
They have confounded the Church of history with the
Church of prophecy ; as the ancient philosophers also
sometimes confused the actual with the ideal state,
the constitution regulated by law and custom with
the more perfect conception which exists only in the

in.] ACTUAL AND IDEAL CHURCH CONFUSED 281
thoughts of men. The external or visible Church has
been lighted up with false or imperfect lights, which
fall very far short of the clearness of the sun in
heaven. And there are times when the outward
walls seem to fall down, and we stand under the blue
sky. The confusion of what exists, and what men
hope for, is not peculiar to Christianity : it is natural
to the human mind. So Plato, after having con
structed a perfect state in the Republic, seems at last
to lose faith in his own creation, and finally admits
that such a state cannot be realized among men, but
only in heaven and in the human soul. Hear his
words : ' " Then if that be his motive, he will not be a
politician." " By the dog of Egypt he will, in the city
which is his own, though in the land of his birth
perhaps not, unless by some providential accident."
" I understand ; you mean in that city of which we
are the founders, and which exists in idea only, for
I do not believe that there is such an one anywhere
on earth." " In heaven, I replied, there is laid up a
pattern of it, methinks, which he who desires may
behold, and beholding may set his own house in
order. But whether such an one exists or ever wiU
exist in fact is no matter, for he wiU live after the
manner of that city, having nothing to do with any
other." ' [Republic, end of B. ix.]
So the invisible Church has ever blended in men's
thoughts with the visible, and sometimes they have
transferred to the outward institutions the glories of

282 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [in.
the heavenly, which the prophets saw in a vision
only. For example, the words : ' Kings shall be thy
nursing fathers, and queens thy nursing mothers,'
have been quoted as a proof that the Church was to
be set in authority over the State, and that the noblest
function of princes was to minister to its earthly
greatness. They have converted the cross of Christ
into the symbol of a great ecclesiastical dominion.
The poverty which had not where to lay its head,
has become the inmate of a glorious palace ; and
true light reflected from the characters of great men
has also shone upon it. On the other hand there
have been times in the history of the world when
men have sought to confine the Church to the true
beHevers only : they have framed strict rules of dis
cipline by which they have sought to get rid of
heretics and unbelievers ; but they have ended, not
in purifying the Church, but in dividing it. For ever
and anon, within the narrowed circle, human nature
has begun tojeappear — the same sins, the same errors,
and a still greater hostility to the world. ' See how
these Christians love one another,' has been turned
into ' See how these Christians hate one another.'
Such a principle has been the source of great wars,
Uke those which were caused by the schism of
Donatus in the fourth century; or, like the rigid
Calvinism of the Covenanters and Cameronians, has
set a false stamp and impress on Christian life. And
often the powers of this world have had to preserve

in.] IRREGULARITIES IN EARLY CHURCH 283
the peace between contending parties in the Church,
and with stern hand to repress the violence and
extravagances of Christians towards one another.
I propose to speak to you in this sermon of the
Church of Christ; having especial reference to the
Church of England, which is established in this
country : under three forms — the Church of the past,
the Church of the present, and the Church of the future.
If we look back over eighteen centuries to the
Church which we believe to have been founded by
Christ and His Apostles, we are apt to think that it
had one faith and one Lord, that it was governed by
a regular order of ministers, that the individual dis
ciples were subject to a godly and primitive discipline,
that it was almost free from the taint of earthly imper
fection, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
The recoUection of Christ in the minds of the
Apostles, the sight of St. Paul, might be supposed
to have produced an everlasting impression on the
hearts of believers ; and we say to ourselves, had
we seen the Lord or heard the burning words of
St. Paul, how easy to have beHeved. But if we scan
closely the most authentic records of the Apostolic
Church — that is to say, the Epistles to the Romans,
Corinthians, and Galatians — a very different picture is
presented to us. There is the same, or even greater
laxity of morals ; the same or even greater dissen
sions of opinion ; an irregularity of practice, greater
far ; and no trace of a regularly ordained ministry.

284 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [in.
In the Corinthian Church there was one who had
committed fornication not even heard of among the
Gentiles ; there were some who said that the resur
rection had passed already ; at the Communion of the
Lord's Supper one was hungry and another was
drunken : of what existing Christian Church would
this be a true representation ? Yet it is the picture
given us in the New Testament of the primitive
Church. Nor can we wonder that, in the confluence
of east and west, of Judaism and heathenism, when
every strange opinion was combined with a strange
asceticism or self-indulgence, great virtues and great
vices should have started into life together ; and that
this compound of good and evil should have been
tolerated, or not at once excommunicated, by the
Christian Church. Gradually Christians acquired a
stricter rule of morality and a regular form of govern
ment. Even in the third and fourth centuries the
language in which TertulHan and Augustine speak of
the corruption, not of the world, but of the Church,
could not without great exaggeration be applied to
our own times. We sometimes argue that the world
has grown better and happier in the course of cen
turies ; but few would be inclined, on first thoughts, to
admit the same of the Church. The temper of man
kind tends rather in religion to regard what is old as the
better ; and this is probably true of the lives of some
men to which we can show nothing comparable : but
it is not equally true of bodies of men. No modern

in.] THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE FABRIC 285
Synod — neither the Council of Trent, nor the more
recent Vatican Council — exhibited such a fanatical
hatred and indecorous tumult as the Councils of Nicaea
or of Ephesus. And the Church of England, what
ever may be her faults during the last century, will
indeed bear a favourable comparison with the Papacy
in the century before the Reformation, or the Church
of Constantinople in the age of Justician.
The truth is that men are apt to look (1) in edifices
of wood and stone, (2) in great and ancient institutions,
for that perfection which, if it can be found at all
on earth, is to be sought in the lives of individuals.
The true temple of God is the heart of man, and there
the image of Christ may be renewed again and again,
and effaced again and again. Neither is there any
Hmit to the perfection which is attainable by any one
of us, for Christ says : ' Be ye therefore perfect even
as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.' But
there is a limit to the perfection of outward institu
tions. These1 seem to be at their best when the good
ness or genius of some one or two men has inspired
them : the monastic orders, when reformed by such
a man as St. Bernard ; the mediaeval Church, when
governed by such great prelates as Anselm or Gros-
teste. All institutions flourish when they are ordered
by men who have great aims, who understand their
true character ; and know how to derive a strength
from them, and to impart a strength of their own to
them. They are not mere abstractions, but com-

286 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [hi.
munities of living beings ; and a common spirit or
soul animates them. And sometimes they faU into
corruption and decay ; their schools and churches are
unroofed, their very stones are carted away, and there
is nothing to indicate the place where they once
stood. And sometimes they remain vacant, tenant-
less, to another generation ; unmeaning, but waiting
for some one to take possession of them. The build
ing wliich once resounded with the voice of the choir
may be turned to some other, secular, use, as has often
been the case on the continent of Europe ; or, as
in our own country, a new and reformed Chris
tianity may take up its abode in them, while we
regret that so many of them have been destroyed by
the zeal or by the neglect of our fathers.
And if we proceed to cast our eye on the great
religious movements of the world, we shall see that
they are the work, not of institutions, but of indi
viduals. The individuals have come first, the insti
tutions have fbUowed. In the former has been found
the element of movement, in the latter of rest and
repose. Not great ecclesiastics, but rather those out
side Churches, or on what may be termed the border
land of Churches — such as Wychffe, and Savonarola,
and Colet, and Erasmus ; or who have broken away
from churches — like Luther and Calvin, were the
Fathers of the Reformation. But when they are
gathered to their rest, the Church of which they were
the founders or reformers stiU remains ; the spirit in

in.] CRITICISM OF CHURCH INSTITUTIONS 287
which they lived cannot be wholly maintained by
their followers ; it may perhaps become corrupted.
The advantage that it gains is a second and longer life ;
and the institution to which it gives birth is a sort of
house in which another generation grows up, and is
educated either to think like their fathers before them
or to strike out a new path for themselves.
Time would fail me if I were to attempt to extend
the lessons of ecclesiastical history : I would rather
ask you to study the Church of the past for your
selves, from the remains of it which are preserved in
this country, the very stones of this and of other
churches ; the names of places so full of significance
to the historical student, and often the only memorial
of a world which has disappeared; the records of
parishes in this city; and all that the ecclesiastical
historian teaches us about great institutions like the
monasteries which have passed away ; about burning
and raging controversies which have long ceased to
have any meaning ; about critical periods at which
strange and almost incredible changes of opinion
spread over the whole nation at once. And let us
remember of ecclesiastical, and of all history, that the
actors on the scene were men like ourselves, and
much more like ourselves in the inner nature and
character than in their outward circumstances.
But I must not linger any longer about the Church
of the past. The Church of the present is nearer
home, and is far more closely intertwined with our

288 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [in.
lives; and by the Church of the present I mean
chiefly the Church of England. We know that we
are not to expect perfection in outward institutions,
though sometimes, like the memory of the dead, they
may be idealized in after ages. The value of institu
tions (supposing that they are not positively hurtful)
is rather to be judged by their permanence than by
their usefulness at any particular time. What Church
or constitution has lasted longest, is a very fair test of
political or ecclesiastical greatness.
In this age all such institutions are destined to be
criticized. There was a time when it would have
seemed irreverent to pass a judgment on the Church,
which is our mother, any more than upon the cha
racter of a parent; no praises or laudation would
have seemed excessive, even of abuses. But human
institutions are made of human beings, and human
beings need to be reminded of their defects in their
corporate as well as in their individual capacity.
Those who, have sometimes been considered the
greatest enemies of the Church, such as Voltaire or
Diderot, may from another point of view be regarded
rather as her benefactors. For, to Churches as well
as to individuals, it would have been the greatest of
misfortunes that they should never have been rebuked
for their crimes, that they should be wholly above
public opinion, that they should never have heard
the voice of common sense and of the world recalling
them from their extravagances, or denouncing their

m.] THE CHURCH IN COUNTRY AND TOWN 289
cruelties. It is an observation frequently made that
a knowledge of the weaknesses of others does not
interfere with a genuine admiration and affection for
them. And so it may be with Churches. A keen
perception of their defects is by no means irrecon-
cileable with a deep gratitude for the blessings which
they have conferred upon us.
And first let me speak of the external aspect of the
Church of England in town and country.
Shall we imagine ourselves ascending in thought
to the top of some hills : the hiUs near London, the
Surrey or Berkshire hills, or any other pleasant
eminence with which we are familiar, and survey the
wide prospect which lies beneath ? On every side, at
two or three miles' distance from one another, we
see churches standing out in the plain or peeping
through the trees ; some newly built of white stone,
others weather-beaten by the storms of ages ; some
of which — perhaps the greater number — may date
back to the twelfth century or even earlier, others
in the latest style of revived Gothic architec
ture. Around them the ' rude forefathers of the
hamlet sleep,' their names almost lost in the grass of
the churchyard, and preserved for about a century,
rarely for more. Near to the church is the house of
the clergyman, generaUy small and unpretending, yet
bearing even in its outward aspect the stamp of some
refitment and education. If we enter the church
we find in most parts of the country that it has been
u

290 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [m.
newly restored ; it looks Hke a building which some
persons loved, and in which they took a pride. The
excrescences which have been added during the last
three centuries are removed ; the stained windows are
beginning to reappear; the invidious distinctions of
pews no longer mar the symmetry of the building, or
interfere with the amity of the congregation. When
we have looked around us, and have seen the inside
as well as the outside of some of the churches which
lie in the surrounding country, let us remember that
there is nothing like this to be seen except in a
Christian land, and nothing in every respect com
parable except in England.
Or let us go into the monotonous and dingy streets
of one of our great manufacturing towns, in which the
rows of factory buildings and their chimneys tower
above the lowly dwellings of the working-man. In
those hives of industry there is not much upon which
the eye can rest with pleasure. They cannot be
described aS ' fair places which are the joy of the
whole earth'; they are full of noise and smoke and
steam. Yet in the midst of them the old abbey, or the
parish church, or the newly-built spire still preserves
the recollection of a higher interest. They are pro
bably the objects to which the stranger most naturaUy
turns for relief. They seem to say that in the world
of money-making there are some persons whose rela
tion to their fellow-men is not of a purely commercial
or material kind ; who endure a comparatively hard

in.] THE CLERGY 291
lot in Hfe for the good of others ; who are educated
themselves, and devote their lives to the education
of the poor and their children ; who are their best
friends in sorrow and suffering, and who do not
forsake them in death.
The churches which we see in town or country
are the symbols of that great organization which is
spread throughout the country for the promotion of
morality and religion. We must not expect that all
its ministers will be wise, or learned, or holy: they
are men like ourselves, raised somewhat above the
standard of their fellows by their clerical profession.
The clergyman's life is the standard and example of
good manners, as well as morals, to the inhabitants of
the district. More or less, as a fact, he does care for
the welfare of his neighbours : the oppressed can go
to him with their tale; the friendless can claim his
aid, and often be set in the way of making a honest
livelihood. In the country he is the poor squire or
gendeman, who shows how a house may be refined
without luxury ; how on slender means a family may
be educated and brought up (not without effort) in
their own condition of life. In the town he is busily
occupied fighting a battle against vice and immo
rality, building schools, forming societies, striving to
improve the dweUings of the poor, or to erect the
additional church which is so much needed ; speaking
to men week by week about temperance, honesty, and
judgment to come. U 2

292 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [m.
So I have endeavoured to set before you without
exaggeration the Church of England as it is. It may
be said that the clergy are prejudiced ; and so they
are — and so are all men who are bound together by
any corporate or party tie : as I said before, we must
not expect to find in large bodies of men the standard
of freedom or of intelligence which is attainable by
a few individuals. Then again their sermons are
criticized ; they often seem to be too far removed
from ordinary Hfe, and to make little or no impression
on the hearer. But the fault is partly in ourselves
for listening to them with rebellious ears, and for
expecting in the many the rare gifts which are found
only in the few. Do we consider what would be the
effect of having no word of moral and religious
teaching over the whole country from one year to
the other — especially among the poor, who are so
dependent on the half-understood words of their
clergyman for any spiritual or intellectual life ? Again,
it wiU be safti that many clergymen are slothful and
ignorant, and seekers after preferment — so are indi
viduals in aU classes. And yet admitting these and
many other defects to be truly charged against the
clergy of the Church of England — that is, against
ourselves : without boasting and self-glorification we
may be thankful to God who has preserved us this
ancient house of our fathers, with all its faults the
best and most tolerant of the Churches of Christendom,
and the least opposed to the spirit of the age.

in. J THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 293
And now I have to speak to you of the Church of
the future ; not that Church which is spoken of in the
Book of Revelation, coming down from heaven like
a bride adorned for her husband, but a Church com
posed of men Hke ourselves, yet in some respects
different from that in which we live. The ideal which
I shall suppose is not an impossibility. As there is
progress in poHtical institutions, so also there may
be progress in ecclesiastical institutions. People often
speak in a mysterious manner of the great changes
which they expect to pass over the religious world.
Is it wrong that we should seek to anticipate these
in some measure from tendencies which already
exist? For example, there is greater toleration
than formerly towards persons outside the Church ;
both towards our nonconformist brethren and towards
men of science. Is it impossible that toleration may
extend yet further, and embrace those who are with
out in the arms of Christian love ? The same family
may live in two mansions, but the walls which separate
them may be no bar to their affections ; for we
are not straitened by external accidents, but we are
straitened in ourselves. So again, we may observe
that the critical questions about the date and origin
of the books of Scripture, and the truth of facts
related in them, are now regarded in a very different
manner from formerly. No sensible person would
think nowadays of resting the evidence of Chris
tianity on the basis of miracles ; and may not this

294 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [m.
stumbling-block, which has so long almost necessarily
divided the Christian from the scientific world, in the
course of another generation altogether disappear ?
Such a change would certainly not be greater than
many other changes of opinion, which some here
present have witnessed in their own lifetime. The
change will not be effected by argument, but there
will be a growing sense among men that neither
belief in this nor unbehef availeth anything, but only
a life like that of Christ. There will be an increasing
conviction that nothing in the past can ever be of
equal importance with the present ; that no opinion
about religion is to be weighed in the balance with
practice; and more and more we may expect to
find that religion will be indissolubly bound up with
morality, and that the idea of the nature of God will
become ennobled, enlarged, idealized. No doctrine
which is at war with men's highest notions of justice
and truth ; no pagan fancies of a wild and dispro-
portioned retribution ; no imagination that God can
see men other than they really are, or punish them
for what they never did, will bewilder the minds
of Christians. There are many great controversies,
like that of predestination, which once reddened the
heavens and deluged the earth with blood ; but they
are only extinct volcanoes. There are spectres of
superstition, like the belief in witchcraft, which once
universally prevailed among Christians ; and within
the last century or two they have flitted away to an

in.] MELIORA 295
underground world. The daylight of the nineteenth
century may so shine on the religion of Christ that
every unreal word, every untrue fact, every un
charitable and immoral doctrine shall be dissociated
from the words of Christ. The seeming assent to
some hundred disputed propositions may no longer
be required of the ministers of religion. And as
men are now drawn together by a common belief in
the essentials of religion, in the religion of almost all
good men, in the religion of almost all men when
they are approaching death — so there may also be a
somewhat greater variety in outward things, suitable
to different countries or classes of men, or to differences
of individual character. The changes of which I have
spoken may very possibly come to pass during the
hfetime of some here present. The Church of
England may be disencumbered of some old traditions
which weigh upon her; may become wider, larger,
freer, more charitable, more tolerant, more in accord
with the spirit of the age : and yet the result may be
altogether disappointing to those who have sought
to effect it. Just as there are individuals who think
fairly and truly on most subjects, who are not fanatical
partisans, and have a correct insight into the world,
and conduct themselves with civility and moderation,
and are therefore thought to do little harm ; but they
do as Httle good, because they have no fire or energy
in them, they never go out of their way to remove
the misery or vice which is at their doorsteps : so it

296 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [in.
may be with Churches. A Church which is Hberal
may be also indifferent ; and having attained the form
of truth, may have lost the power of it : and when
all that I have described is accomplished, the Church
which has accommodated the character of its behef to
the wants of another age may still be sapless, lifeless,
spiritless. It may be sunk in rationalism and in-
differentism, and never lift a hand for the improve
ment of mankind. It will be free from many draw
backs ; will it continue to have any mission or
vocation ? Will there be a religious revival, a greater
sense of justice and truth, a greater care of the poor,
a greater desire to elevate the masses corresponding
to the progress of enHghtenment ? We can only
conjecture : there seem to be signs that men are feeling
more strongly than formerly the common needs of
humanity, that they are more deeply sensible of their
duty to one another; and from time to time they
hear strange half-articulate voices speaking within
them, and calling them out of the slums of vice and
ignorance to acknowledge their Father and our Father,
and their God and our God. The mind of the
philosopher often seems to yearn for something more
than he knows, and would fain receive the kingdom
of heaven as a little child. Whenever there is zeal
or energy for the improvement of ma*nkind, there is
an element of Christian life. Slowly these elements
may again unite on the basis of a Christianity truer and
deeper than that which has satisfied former ages. The

hi.] BUILDING UP THE CHURCH 297
Church of the future will be what we make it : we
must not theorize, we must live. In the present day
we may easily desert the form of belief in which we
have been brought up, but shall we have risen to
anything higher ? Will our characters become stronger
and more harmonious ? Will our lives be purer, holier,
better ? Shall we be more ready to bear the cross of
Christ? Will the Church, to which we belong, be
made by our efforts a more loving and faithful com
munion, more truly instinct with the spirit of Christ,
more devoted to the good of men ? That is a re
sponsibility which presses on the coming generation,
especially on those of us who feel that old things are
passing away, and that we must help ourselves and
other men to a new Hfe.
And in seeking to build up the Church of Christ,
in this as in any other age, we should remember that
there are two aspects or parts of the work to which
our attention should be directed : the outward and
visible means, the inward and invisible spirit. On
the one hand we have to organize the Church and
society, in such a manner that we may be less divided
and more united among ourselves ; that we may
minister more abundantly to the wants of our fellow-
men ; that the missing links between classes may be
supplied, and the poorest and meanest brought into
relation with the whole body, and elements of order
be introduced into the chaos of our vast multitude.
No rule can be laid down, as to the manner in which

298 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [m.
any parish or district should be organized : the work
which we have to do is relative to circumstances, and
the mode of performing it must be gathered from
experience. But we may be sure of this, that without
organization, without system, without a local habitation,
any Christian effort, however disinterested or noble,
will soon pass away and leave no trace.
And on the other hand mere organization, the
outward and visible Church or other institution, con
tinues indeed, but has only a<mechanical and unmeaning
existence. It is vain to expect that men can be made
better, unless we can speak to them heart to heart ;
giving to them higher conceptions of God and of the
truth, and a deeper sense of their duties to one another.
It is vain to suppose that they will listen to a religion
of which any part is at variance with their own
conscience, or with common sense, or with the morality
of the age in which they live. They need something
higher, holier, better : and this better thing for which
they ask is the revelation of a divine perfection in
which all the elements of earthly goodness are
realized and fulfilled.

IV. WAR1.
WHAT KING, GOING TO MAKE WAR AGAINST
ANOTHER KING, SITTETH NOT DOWN FIRST, AND
CONSULTETH WHETHER HE BE ABLE WITH TEN
THOUSAND TO MEET HIM THAT COMETH AGAINST
HIM WITH TWENTY THOUSAND? OR ELSE, WHILE
THE OTHER IS YET A GREAT WAY OFF, HE SENDETH
AN AMBASSAGE, AND DESIRETH CONDITIONS OF
PEACE.
Luke xiv. 31, 32.
NEITHER SHALL THEY LEARN WAR ANY MORE.
Isaiah ii. 4.
It has been argued by a recent writer on theology2
that Christianity is not opposed to war, for it has
sanctioned the existence of nations ; and nations
must fight for their rights, because there is no
authority higher than their own to which their
differences can be submitted. Thus war is supposed
to be justified by necessity : it is a rude ' court of
justice ' in which the disputes of all the world are
finally determined. The religion of Christ looks
upon the combatants with pity and sadness, but it
stands aside and does not interfere with them ; for
1 Preached at St. Lawrence, Jewry, March, 1885.
2 See Prof. Mozley's University Sermons, Sermon V, on
War.

300 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [iv.
Christ has said, ' My kingdom is not of this world.'
Wars may arise from good or from bad motives, from
a love of liberty, or from a spirit of aggression and
conquest; and it should be remembered that the
more unjustifiable the motives are on the one side,
the more justifiable they are on the other. The two
Christian nations who are using the utmost ingenuity
to destroy one another are both within the pale of
the Christian Church. There is not the slightest
breach in the spiritual communion and fellowship
whilst they are engaged in the work of mutual
slaughter. When the battle is over the religion of
Christ resumes its active power: for a time it has
been in abeyance ; but the day after the battle, when
the wounded are dying on the field, when the fever
breaks out in the hospital, then it shines forth with
a fresh beauty and power, and men and women
exert their best energies not to kill but to save.
The more we think of this contrast, the stranger it
will appear,
I have endeavoured to summarize the argument of
the late Professor Mozley on the relations of Chris
tianity to war. His conclusions have not met with
general acceptance ; they are stated in language
rather too plain for the ordinary hearer (though that
seems paradoxical), but they help to make us think.
They are not merely the speculations of an indivi
dual ; the spirit of which they are the expression
has been widely diffused both in the CathoHc and

iv.] WAR AND THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL 301
Protestant world. For in all ages there seem to
have been two schools of Christian teachers : the one
opposing to the utmost the Church and the world ;
the other (Hke the disciples of Loyola, and the
English clergy of the last century), seeking in different
ways to bring them back to one another, not alto
gether from indifference to sin and evil, but lest in
their extreme separation the very connexion between
them might be lost, and the thought of religion itself
banished from the hearts of aU but a very few.
Those who regard the relation of the world to the
Church in this manner would say that, if we want to
make men the disciples of Christ, we must take them
as they are, and not preach an ideal which may be
realized in another world, but never in this : we
must not confound earth and heaven. But we, on
the other hand — I mean those of us who take a
simpler and plainer view of the rehgion of Christ —
are afraid that in this, as in other matters, our prin
ciples may be brought down to our practice, instead
of our practice being raised to our principles.
We admit that many evils may arise out of pre
mature attempts to live the life of angels, forgetting
that we are but men : but the ideal would be useless
if it exercised no influence on our lives and actions,
if it brought the world no nearer to Christ. At some
time, we know not when ; at some place, we know
not where ; in our hearts, if not in the history of
nations, we believe that truth and peace will prevail.

302 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [iv.
The ultimate end is the love 'of God and man dif
fused throughout the world and in every age ; and
we may make some progress towards the reaUzation
of this great hope. But the end on which we fix
our eyes is a long way off, and we cannot anticipate
the silent influence of opinion. If a man, when a
country was on the eve of a great war, attempted to
prove to his feUow-citizens out of Scripture that aU
war was contrary to the will of God ; if in a battle
he rushed between the combatants with a Bible in his
hands, telling them that the service of their country
was a sin against God, he would be rightly deemed
a traitor or a madman. As a matter of fact, there is
as much of a martial as of a peaceful spirit breathed
in the pages of Scripture. According to a well-
known story, Ulfilas, the Apostle of the Goths, when
he translated the Bible into the old German language,
omitted those portions of the book which contained
the wars of the Jews against the Canaanites, in the
belief that *they would do no good to his half-
Christianized barbarians. Neither can it be denied
that the Christian religion has been the cause of
more wars than it has prevented ; and that these
wars have been of a more cruel and exterminating
sort than any which are recorded in Greek or Roman
history. For the corruption of the best is often the
worst, and there is a compound of good and evil
which is more deadly, because more lasting, than evil
itself.

iv.] THE SCRIPTURES ON WAR 303
Still, however natural war may be to the state of
man, and however little Christianity, falsely so called,
may have done to mitigate or prevent it, we cannot
allow that the religion of Christ or the better mind
of the world are really insensible or indifferent to the
guilt and misery which flow from it ; but they seem
powerless to arrest the evil which they condemn.
The still small voice, ' Blessed are the peacemakers,'
cannot be heard between the ranks of contending
armies, or amid the roar of the cannon. Not then
would be the time for such a word. And this war
like spirit or tendency is not to be attributed wholly
to the wickedness of human nature, but also in a great
measure to the force of circumstances. When Christ
says to the individual, ' Peace I leave with you,' or
when St. Paul says, ' Love and hate not,' there is
nothing to hinder us from giving ear to their words,
except what the Scripture caUs the ' hardness of men's
hearts.' Bui the collective action of mankind is not
equally free. When we say to two nations, ' Lay
aside antipathies of race, forget the old feud, cast out
the mind diseased,' we are asking them in a moment
of time to make a change which can only be accom
plished, if at all, by centuries of education. The
precept, ' When a man smites thee on the right cheek,
turn to him the other also,' is out of place in such
circumstances. Other words of Scripture are more to
the purpose : ' Agree with thine adversary quickly ' ;
or the scorn which is poured upon the children of

304 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [iv.
Ephraim, 'who being harnessed and carrying bows
turned themselves back in the day of battle ' ; or the
tale of David's heroism, who, when he was athirst,
poured out unto the Lord the water from the brook
which his valiant followers had brought him at the
risk of their lives ; or the words of the text, ' What
king, going to make war against another king, sitteth
not down first, and consulteth whether he be able
with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against
him with twenty thousand ? ' Here are lessons
of valour and prudence, mottoes for diplomatists
and generals, and also for nations, when, as is often
the case, in ignorance of their own resources, or
spurred on by a false notion of honour, they are
hurried into an unequal conflict. ' For,' as the great
historian tells us, ' men are persuaded to go to war in
one temper of mind, and act when the time comes in
another : and their resolution changes with the course
of events.' And, again, ' If you begin the war in haste
you will end* it at your leisure, because you took up
arms without sufficient preparation.' This is the voice
of ancient wisdom which reaches from a thousand
years to the nations of modern Europe. Even the
text, which is sometimes quoted in derision, ' If thine
enemy smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him
the other also,' may admit of two applications in the
poHtical world of the present. If you are in the
wrong, and even if you are in the right, do not shrink
from some humiliation, some sacrifice of prestige, if

iv.] INCENTIVES TO PEACE AND TO WAR 305
a great object is to be obtained. Our first thoughts
about war are generally wrong ; our thoughts five
years afterwards are Hkely to be right, because they
are the result of reflection and experience. Therefore
about this, as of many other political measures, let
us inquire of ourselves : What shall we think a few
years hence ? What will be our reflections on the
past, when the consequences, which are now veiled
from us, have become palpable and obvious ? Or,
once more, ' Men fight first and negotiate afterwards.'
They should negotiate first and then fight.
The question has sometimes been asked, ' Whether
wars will ever cease in the world ? ' After a long
peace men have been inclined to believe that wars
would never reoccur, and that a new reign was about
to be inaugurated on earth. Such I remember to
have been a prevaiHng feeling thirty or forty years
ago. Not a cloud was to be seen on the horizon ; and
in a few hours (as we may say in a figure) the heaven
was rent with storms. Perhaps the long peace has of
itself a tendency to come to an end, when men have
forgotten the horrors of war, and are too apt to
welcome its excitements. The hope was at that time,
at any rate, premature, when there were so many
evils in the world which needed to be reformed,
and could only be put to rights by force ; so many
limbs which required resetting, such disproportion
and dislocation of kingdoms. Looking at the question
more generally we may note that, upon the whole,
»* X

306 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [iv.
notwithstanding some appearances to the contrary,
the course of the world is towards peace rather than
war. Wars of conquest, wars arising out of the
ambition of princes, wars of religion, have almost or
altogether disappeared. And commerce has been
a great peacemaker, working through men's interests,
which are apt to be more profound than their prin
ciples : for the whole commercial world is in a league
against war, though the passions of men also not
infrequently on a sudden impulse get the better of
their interests. Neither could it be at all true to
say that moral considerations are wholly left out of
sight in the politics of Europe. It is an old vaunt
that no one ' can preach immorality without being
pelted ' ; and in a similar vein of reflection it may be
observed that a nation cannot publicly defy justice in
its dealings with another nation, but sooner or later
there will be a retribution, and the world will rise up
against it. On the other hand, the antipathies of
nations, if they are not growing stronger, do not
become manifestly weaker ; and the facilities of loco
motion, the ease with which men pass from one part
of the world to another in our own day — from Russia
to the frontiers of India, from France to Burmah or
China — render the occasions of war more frequent, and
the points of contact more numerous than in former
ages. Nor can any one who casts his eye over the
nations of Europe, who marks the jealousies and
rivalries which spring up among them from day to

iv.] SYMPATHY WITH COMBATANTS 307
day, Hke winds blowing from all quarters of the
heavens; who sees the greatest military power in
the world on either side flanked by her natural
antagonists ; who observes the helpless condition of
the smaller states of Europe lying at the mercy of
their mighty neighbours ; who extends his view to the
places at which the east and west seem to touch : no
one, who considers all these things, will feel very con
fident that, in spite of all the efforts of statesmen,
a great European conflict wiU be avoided even in our
own day.
Recently we have been engaged in what may be
termed one of ' a great nation's little wars ' : and our
soldiers, under another sun, shut up in a fortress, or
marching through an endless desert, some of them
wounded and weary, have undergone many hardships.
It seems natural that we, who live in ease at home,
should sometimes affectionately think of them: it
does us good, while pursuing our business or amuse
ments, in the eagerness of commerce, in the height of
the season, to remember that other men are suffering
for us. It softens our hearts to picture to ourselves
the manner of life of our countrymen, divided from
us by two thousand miles. There are few persons
here present who have not some connexion, near or
distant, with the expedition to the Soudan ; who have
not had some friend, or relation, or acquaintance, who
are numbered among those noble soldiers : there
are weU-known faces whom we shaU never see again.
x 2

308 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [iv.
And we are led by other reasons to think of war at
the present moment, for, until within the last few days
(if indeed the danger is now past), we seemed to be
approaching nearer and nearer to a conflict greater
far, of which no man could foresee either the extent
or the end; and which, as some would teU us, is
deferred only for a time.
Therefore, I think it may not be unsuitable for us
to consider once more a question which has often
been discussed : the relation of Christianity to war.
What is the justification of war, and under what
circumstances is it our duty to repel or even attack
an enemy ? Is the life of a soldier to be regarded
as immoral ? Have not some of the greatest of man
kind been soldiers, and are theirs not virtues — virtues
of the camp, which hardly find an opportunity to
grow elsewhere? There is something noble, above
ordinary virtue, in a man laying down his life for his
country or his friends. The earthly warfare, which
under some aspects is so repugnant to the teaching
and spirit of Christ, yet has qualities which partake of
the nature of that higher warfare which the Christian
soldier carries on against the world and against him
self, against the spirit of injustice and the spirit of
untruth, the two great powers or kingdoms of evil by
which human nature is enslaved.
We all of us deplore the horrors of war : hardly any
thing which can be said of them is exaggerated ; we
do not mean to extenuate them. The hour or tw o after

iv.] CAN WAR BE JUSTIFIED? 309
the battle, when the sound of the cannon is hushed,
and the shades of evening descend, and the field is
strewn in the stillness of the night with the dead or
dying; the hospital, to which bearers are carrying
those who have just escaped with life ; the weeping
and lamentation of the bereaved home — Rachel weep
ing for her children, and will not be comforted because
they are not : these are the outward signs of the
misery of war. In time of peace, as was said of old,
children bury their fathers, but in war fathers bury
their children. The state of war has been sometimes
said to be natural to man, and certainly ancient nations
seem to have been more often at war than at peace.
The Greeks, the Romans, the Jews, lived in an almost
uninterrupted state of warfare ; and probably every
former condition of mankind, even the Thirty Years'
War of the seventeenth century, the first fifteen years
of this (not to speak of civil strife), would in this
respect appear intolerable to us. In all ages and
countries, almost up to our own day, such has been
the history of mankind.
Upon what grounds then can war, which seems to
be the greatest enemy of the human race, be defended
or vindicated ?
War is a terrible evil, and it is right that a sense of
the miseries which it brings upon the earth should be
fully acknowledged, and be constantly present to our
minds. But there may be evils — such as slavery
and oppression — which are greater still. Never to

3io SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [iv.
resist or punish a great pubHc wrong would reduce
the world to anarchy. In this country any man of
courage and spirit would rather die than submit to
the yoke of the foreigner. The sword was not allowed
to drop from the hands of our fathers, while all that
they held most dear seemed to be at the mercy of the
great conqueror who over-ran Europe ; and we, who
are their descendants, would no more think of ad
mitting the invader to our shores, than of allowing
the burglar or murderer to force a way into our
houses. The justification is in both cases the same
— the duty and necessity of self-defence.
So far the question which has been raised seems to
answer itself; for no reasonable person doubts that
on some occasions nations, like individuals, must
defend themselves against assaults or attack. May
we go a step further, and extend the term self-
defence so as to include not only present but future
dangers ? May we go out to meet our enemy who
is still far off, or must we wait until he is knocking
at our gates ? We must admit, I think, that distance
makes no difference, and that a war in India or China
may be as justifiable as the war nearer home. If we
are to keep the citadel we cannot give up the out
works ; if we are to defend our shores we must also
secure the sea to our ships ; and the greater the
preparation for war, the greater also will be our
chance of escaping from it. We must not make the
love of peace an excuse for indolence or vacillation

iv.] DEFENCE OF OURSELVES AND OTHERS 311
of purpose, or impatience of the burden which we
have to bear in order to assure to ourselves the
blessings of freedom.
Let me put another class of cases. May we ever
go beyond the rights or interests of our own coun
try ? May we ever be allowed to assist the weak and
oppressed by going to war with the oppressors ?
For example, should we have been right in taking up
arms to restore the fallen nationality of Italy, to
enfranchise the enslaved subjects of Turkey ? Or
when some signal crime or wickedness is disgracing
the civilized world — such as the slave trade was in the
days of our forefathers— are we not justified, even at
the risk of war with other nations, in interfering to
prevent it ? Can it be maintained that vast tracts of
country are to be left to the occupation of barbarous
hordes, or that the fairest regions of earth are for
ever to be desolated by tyranny and oppression?
Many and great are the miseries of the world ; and
we cannot by turning aside from them get rid of our
obHgations respecting them. We cannot escape war
merely by abstaining from it ; we cannot get rid of
responsibiHty by doing nothing. The nations of the
world are connected by many ties, and touch one
another at many points : no one of them can be a
hermit and dwell apart from the rest. The attempt
to do so is Hke the attempt of an individual to retire
into some desert place : stiU he finds the world
returning upon him when he least expects it ; and

312 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [iv.
in the hour of need he has no friends ; having never
assisted others, he cannot expect to receive assistance
from them.
As there are duties which individuals of the same
nation owe one another, so there are duties of a
somewhat different kind which nations are called
upon to fulfil towards other nations from time to
time. When we can promote freedom or good
government in another country, when we can pre
vent aggression, when we can stop by our good
offices an impending struggle, then to stand aloof
in a selfish regard to our own interests is neither wise
nor right. We know that to confer benefits on others
may sometimes involve a loss or risk to ourselves ; but
for nations, as for individuals, generosity is the best
poHcy. The greatest of all risks is for a single nation to
be isolated when aU the jealousies of the world are
arrayed against her. And yet we must acknowledge
in a parenthesis that aU these fair reasons may often
be made to cover the spirit of conquest and aggression.
So we seem to come to the conclusion that a war
undertaken in self-defence is natural and right; and
that under the rights of self-defence may be included
the protection of our citizens in distant lands, and ot
our interests in the future as well as the present. It
must be carried on with a serious mind, with a consis
tent purpose, and not without the hope of benefiting
other nations as well as ourselves. It can only be

iv.] WAR HAS ITS COMPENSATIONS 313
justified when it leaves the world better off than it
found it. For many evils it provides the only remedy,
and we cannot say that centuries of oppression are
better than the struggle for independence. Whether,
upon the whole, it may not have tended to the progress
of mankind admits of an argument. A strange writer
says that if a genius gave the world the choice of two
hundred years of profound peace or two hundred
years of constant war the world would do weU to
accept the latter. But such paradoxes, strong as
poison and original as sin, which are striking to us
in youth only, may be put out of our minds. The
rehgion of Christ gives no sanction or encourage
ment to war, and the conscience of mankind
acknowledges that while wars continue there is a
something not altogether right in the constitution of
the world. Yet under given circumstances it may be
the duty of a nation to strike the blow, and the
greatest safety may be in the wilhngness to meet the
greatest danger.
Yet there are other aspects under which the rela
tion of Christianity to war admits of being considered.
The difference in the manner of conducting war now
and in former times, even in the last century, is as
great truly as the difference between the lives and
actions of civilized men and of savages. In ancient
times it was thought that, while the event was uncer
tain, discipline and order must be observed ; but when
the victory was won then aU the lusts and passions of

314 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [iv.
men might be allowed to break forth, and human
nature was to compensate itself for the restraints
which had been imposed upon it. But in the last
great struggle of two neighbouring nations the more
repulsive features of war seem almost to have dis
appeared; while the physical horrors were as great
as ever, the moral evils appear to have been mini
mized. And we shall not be fanciful in attributing
this happy change to the greater influence of
Christianity, to the spread of education, to the
higher standard of opinion which prevails in the
world. Let me put the matter in another way. A great
nation is not necessarily demorahzed by war, nor are
our sailors and soldiers at all worse than other men.
We deUght to hear from their own lips the story of
their brave deeds; we often seek them out that we
may place them, when their time of active service is
over, in positions of trust and responsibility. There
is one quahjy in them which raises them above all
other classes of their countrymen — they have over
come the fear o'f death. There is a nobility and
freedom of character in a man who is wilHng to part
with his life, which atones for many lesser failings.
And often the bravest is also the gendest : he cannot
weep for his dying or faUen friend, he must steel
himself against such weaknesses. In the moment of
victory the news may be brought to him that the
brother in arms who is dearest to him has met a

iv.] HONOUR AND ARMS 315
soldier's death. In the soHtude of the night his
thoughts will sometimes turn to the home in which
his wife sits waiting for his return, in which his young
children are asleep or at play. He cannot but ' know
that these things are, and are most precious to him ' ;
he has no fear for himself, but he must feel for them.
So we may picture to ourselves the thoughts and lives
of our soldiers, who in a more special manner than is
possible for us are devoting themselves to the service
of their country. The sacrifices which we are called
upon to make are slight indeed in comparison with
theirs. We welcome them home ; and we pray that
the work in which they have been engaged may not
end in a mere idle waste of human life, but in some
permanent benefit, in the extirpation of slavery, in the
restoration of peace and order, in the extension of
commerce and civilization to the most degraded races
of earth. And so that ancient and famous country
whose history has so deep an interest, whose people
have been trodden under foot for so many centuries,
may renew her life, and — if we may hope so much —
may receive at our hands the gift of good govern
ment ; and the poor of the land, no longer harassed by
exactions, may at last find rest, and obtain the just
reward of their labours.
Let me add another aspect of the question. War is
full of splendid actions, and some of the noblest and
greatest examples on which the eye of a nation can
be fixed are to be found among sailors and soldiers.

316 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [iv.
So our fathers loved the great sailor, who ' expected
every man to do his duty,' almost like a friend or a
brother. He had his faihngs, not to be defended ; but
in the case of great public men I incHne to think
it is a sound instinct which forbids us to pry too
closely into their private frailties. The greatest
soldier, too, whom some of us here present may
have seen in the days of our youth — has not his
character been a treasure to the army and to the
nation ? He was the simplest and most truthful of
men, in whom common sense was a kind of genius
or inspiration : the most obvious words flowing from
his Hps were felt to have more weight than the most
eloquent orations. For he meant what he said, and
he knew what he meant ; his methods of action were
direct and straightforward — he had never anything to
excuse or to be ashamed of. He had that in his
bearing which gave men confidence — authority. No
one doubted his patriotism or disinterestedness.
During the long war he had to contend with enemies
at home as weU as abroad ; and afterwards, as some
wiU remember, he was equaUy ready to serve Her
Majesty in office or out of office; and in the midst
of a great party conflict he was strong only in the
conviction that ' the Queen's government must be
carried on.' His modesty seemed rather to wonder
at his own exploits. ' I cannot think how I wrote
those dispatches,' was a saying of his. He seemed
rather to decline than affect popularity ; he was

iv.] GENERAL GORDON 317
certainly unmoved by it. I have endeavoured to
recall a few traits of the great captain as he was
present to ' the minds of his countrymen ' thirty years
ago ; let him not be forgotten merely because ' the old
order changeth, yielding place to new.' And quite
recently there was one of whom all here are still think
ing, the hero 1 whose death has pierced the heart of a
nation as if he had been personaUy known to every one
of us. His character was of another sort, and his Hfe
was attuned to another and yet higher strain. The term
' good sense ' could not with propriety be apphed to
him ; rather he was like a prophet, newly inspired
to give deliverance to the slave and the captive, and to
reform the oppressions upon the earth. No one in
our own day has ever set such an example of devo
tion to duty, to his country and to God. He being
dead yet speaks to us ; his life has been a help to
many ; and it may be that the remembrance of his
name wiU restore peace and happiness to an oppressed
country. The world thought him mad because he
was not of the world. Men of his class, Hke the
prophets and saints of old, are considered extrava
gant, partly because they take no thought for the
morrow, what they shaU eat or what they shaU drink,
or wherewithal they shaU be clothed: living in the
presence of the Eternal, they are really different from
other men, and have their own ways of speaking
and of acting ; partly because there is some weakness
1 General Gordon.

318 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [iv.
in human nature which at these heights seems in
capable of sustaining itself, and mingles the fancies
of the hour with everlasting truths.
Lastly, my brethren, the soldier's Hfe is the figure
under which St. Paul represents that other warfare
which the servant of Christ is ever carrying on
against himself and against the world. ' Take unto
you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able
to withstand in the evil day, and having done aU, to
stand.' We speak of the Church militant here on
earth against various forms of evil ; there is a batde
going on between the spirit and the flesh, between
knowledge and ignorance, between the higher and
the lower principles of human nature, and we
imagine to ourselves alhes fighting on either side,
and that in this battle God and the angels are
spectators. And we sometimes contrast the disorder
of this world with the peace and order of another.
' Thy wiU be done on earth as it is in heaven.' Yet
we know a]so how greatly aU Churches have fallen
short of their mission ; how they have often made a
compromise with the world, instead of resisting its
evils ; and how in our own lives there is comparatively
Httle of struggle and effort, but a faUing in with the
world, and acquiescence in the customs and opinions
of men. A life such as that which I have just been
describing awakens us to a sense of the unreality of
our own lives. For no man can be at peace with
himself who has not also been at war with himself

iv.] HEROISM AND CHRISTIANITY 319
at some time or other ; and there is a victory which
a man wins over himself when he has subjugated his
passions to the purposes of God in the government of
the world, when he has fought against the sins and
prejudices which so easily beset us, when he has learnt
to live not to himself but to God — this is what the
Scripture calls the good soldier of Jesus Christ. The
best and highest things in this world seem to flow out
of the lives of a few men who have devoted themselves
to the service of their fellow -men. They have fought
against the evils of the world ; they have sought to
raise the sense of truth and the standard of public
opinion, which are ever tending to dechne among us.
And the best times in our own lives, from which all
the good in them seems to be derived, have been the
moments when we have been awakened out of sleep,
when we have resolved, when we have acted, when we
are no longer pleasers of men, when we become con
scious that we are in the presence of God, and see
things as they truly are.

V. COURAGE *.
BE OF GOOD COURAGE, AND THE LORD SHALL
STRENGTHEN YOUR HEART.
Psalm xxxi. 24.
In a treatise on Moral Philosophy, which is very
familiar to most of us in this place, and has perhaps
exerted a greater influence on the mind of Oxford
than any other book — the Ethics of Aristotle, we are
taught to look forward to a supreme end in which
aU our ideas of goodness and truth finally meet. It
is also caUed happiness, well-being, the perfect Hfe,
the self-sufficing energy which is the highest motive
both of individuals and states. The chief element of
this perfect life is virtue, which is slowly built up out
of good actions inward and outward — these are to be
performed for their own sake, the motive or inward
act being that which gives them their true character :
good actions are said to be in a mean, and to avoid
excess and defect. Virtue, again, is divided into par
ticular virtues, such as the four cardinal ones — courage,
temperance, justice, wisdom — which are originaUy found
in Plato, and may be even older ; and several lesser
1 Preached in Balliol College Chapel, Jan. 20, 1884.

v.] ARISTOTELIAN AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS 321
habits or states of mind — some of them termed by us
moral, such as Hberality, modesty, and the like : others
which we caU intellectual — some of these are prudence,
opinion, judgment, contemplation. And the whole
relation of the moral to the inteUectual nature of man
is for the first time analyzed and explained. Nor
is it forgotten that there are imperfect stages of virtue
and vice : all of us, or almost all of us, are at some
intermediate point between the extremes of good and
evil. Behind this intermediate world in which we
live and move and act, yet also entering into it,
appears the question of the human will (then first
beginning to perplex mankind a Htde, hereafter to
become a great power, affecting not only the schools
of philosophers, but nations and armies), and before
us at a distance— dimly seen and rather present than
future, but scarcely seeming to touch our daily life —
some vision of a higher truth and divine knowledge,
called also Being, or Essence, or God, the most real of
all things, yet perceived also in the most uncertain
and precarious manner — a great light or law in which
the world is enveloped; visible through a mist only,
and giving neither light nor warmth to those who
with the utmost straining of the inteUectual eye seek
to attain it. Yet before this vision can be in any
degree realized, the house must be set in order ; the
noise of passion must be hushed ; the mind must be
purged from the distractions of sense. Then in some
far-off heaven of abstraction we may hope to con-

322 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [v.
template the final truth, of which philosophy speaks
to us in figure only.
The scheme of morality which is presented to us in
the New Testament differs from that of Aristotle both
in form and substance : it is indeed so different that
some persons wiU doubt whether we are right in
comparing them at all. It is concrete, not abstract ;
a picture of society, a few fragments of biography,
rather than a system of Ethics : the precepts which it
contains are chiefly the natural manifestations of
a divine life ; they arise out of ordinary circumstances,
and some of them are relative to particular stages of
society, and can only be applied to other stages of
society with a difference. The Gospel says nothing
of energies and faculties, or of good actions producing
good habits ; it does not inquire into the relation of
the moral to the intellectual virtues ; the words habit
or virtue are scarcely to be found in its pages. It
makes use of mixed modes of thought : spirit or soul,
rather than, mind; faith and belief, not science and
opinion ; of the heart rather than of the will ; not of
the contemplation of true being, but of the life of
Christ in the soul. The revelation of the Son of God
is the form of all goodness : ' Believe and ye shall be
saved' is the word in which truth is summed up.
' Believe in Me, not as one among My prophets, but
believe in the righteousness, and holiness, and truth
which I am ' in which God is revealed to you ; and, in
proportion to the depth and intensity of your belief

v.] CHRIST AND THE NATURAL VIRTUES 323
shall be your deliverance from sin and evil, and the
renewal in you of all powers. The law and the
prophets (may we not say all religion and aU morals ?)
are contained in two commandments : ' Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy
neighbour as thyself: and the spirit which enables us
to fulfil these two commandments is the spirit of Christ
Himself, who also loved us and gave Himself for us.
So we might go on contrasting the teaching of
Aristode and Christ — the one the more moral, the
other more spiritual ; the one the more abstract, the
other the more concrete and occasional ; one a
system, the other a life; the one resting in the ordinary
maxims of men or rising a little above them, the
other seeking to transform and mould anew the whole
of human nature. Yet, though so different, they have
deeply mingled in the education of the world ; so that
at the present day we seem hardly able to determine
how much of our rule of life has been derived from
one source, how much from the other. There have
been many schoolmasters to bring men to Christ,
Jewish, Greek, Roman, Oriental : and since the Gospel
was first preached there have been many schoolmasters
completing and adapting the sublime truth which we
have received ; the doctrine of good actions producing
good habits is recognized by Christian teachers not
to be necessarily inconsistent with the word of the
Gospel : ' Believe and ye shall be saved.' The Ethics
and Logic of Aristotle have found their way into the
Y 2

324. SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [v.
New Testament, or rather shall we say, the New
Testament has taken them up into itself. That which
was originally the reverse of a system, has become
a great system drawing after it the consequences for
good or evil which naturally follow. For the effect
of system is to give a support to the mind, but also to
Unfit it and in a manner confine it : the house is also
the prison. In books of theology, the forms of
argument, the precision in the use of language, the
method of thought, remind us of Aristotle rather than
of the New Testament. There are principles, too,
which are needed in practical Hfe and in poHtics — such
as patriotism or the love of freedom, or the duty of
toleration— which cannot be directly gathered from
Scripture ; some of them seem to be relics of Greek
and Roman virtues, others to have grown up with our
modern civilization. Ancient philosophy, the history
of rehgion, the ever widening knowledge of nature,
the record of the earth and of the human race : — these
have becom^ a part of our age and of our minds ; we
cannot go back from them, or put them aside from us
in our religious life. It would be the most fatal blow to
the teaching of Christ and his Apostles, which limited
the truth to their words only ; or rather which refused
to acknowledge that aU truth everywhere, however
parted by words and modes of thought, however
seemingly opposed and antagonistic, was an integral
part of that truth which Christ came into the world
to reveal.

v.] COURAGE: ITS GROUNDS 325
I propose in this sermon, and perhaps in successive
sermons 1, to consider one or more of the Aristotelian
virtues, in reference to our own conduct and the state
of society in which we are living. No doubt they are
rudimentary and imperfect ; the religion of Christ
throws a new light upon several of them ; they are
thought to be trite and commonplace, and the re
flections which can be made about them to partake of
the nature of truisms. But these truisms were once
the most interesting truths in the world ; they are
still the most important, and, if we could only think
about them, might be found to be not without interest.
The ancient philosopher went about asking ' What is
temperance ? ' ' What is courage ? ' ' What is justice ? '
Are we sure that we have attained such clear ideas
about these old Gentile virtues that we can afford
altogether to neglect the consideration of them ? It
has been sometimes thought that morality was dis
covered once for all, and that our knowledge of it is
incapable of receiving any material addition. It would
be more true to say that morality had from the
begiuuing a hidden life, which was developed and is
always developing in the course of ages (like the seed
or germ to the flower or tree), varying in different
stages of the world's history, and ever receiving new
lights and applications, yet one and continuous from
the time when man first received the gift of speech
and began to reason about the just and the good.
1 This expectation was not fulfilled.

326 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [v.
The first place among the AristoteHan virtues is
assigned to courage, not because it is the safeguard
of aU the rest, but rather because in the beginnings
of society it is the first which takes any distinct
form. According to Aristotle there are five imper
fect or spurious kinds of courage, which are classified
under five heads. There is the courage which is
maintained by the fear of public opinion or of
punishment, or is inspired by the sense of honour ;
there is the courage which is given by experience,
when the practised veteran has learned to distinguish
the real from the unreal danger ; there is a third kind
of courage which arises from inconsiderate anger ; a
fourth which is given by self-confidence ; a fifth which
is to be attributed only to ignorance. Neither shaU
we be disposed altogether to despise the inferior
sorts of courage when we consider how large a
proportion even of the better actions of men spring
from similar motives. But the true courage is of a
higher nature far ; when a man is fuUy conscious of
all the perils which surround him, and has no hope
beyond the grave, yet at the call of duty is wilHng
to renounce the greatest of earthly goods or enjoy
ments. It cannot be said that the virtue of such a man
is attended with pleasure ; the pleasure of posthumous
fame is not to be placed on the scale against the loss
of Hfe or limb. But he is satisfied, for he has
attained his end ; he may be unnoticed among the
slain, but he is to be deemed happy — he is in possession

v.] COURAGE: ITS DEVELOPMENT 327
of a blessedness greater than can be given by any
external goods, not according to the measure of fair
houses or rich banquets, or any of the rewards or
honours in which men most delight. In the service
of his country it is better for him to die than live.
This is not an exaggerated picture of Aristotle's
courage, which, like all his other virtues in their
truest form, is pursued for its own sake, and not for
honour or advantage. And in this principle of dis
interestedness all the higher forms of religion and
morality seem to agree. ' What shall a man give in
exchange for his soul ? ' and ' whosoever will lose
his life shall save it.'
And now, leaving any further consideration of the
Aristotelian virtues, I propose to consider in the re
mainder of this sermon what is the nature and origin
of courage, what in modern and civilized ages and
countries is its use and value, and on what occasions
it is our duty to show it. It seems naturally to arise
out of the necessities of self-defence : in primitive
times men have to protect themselves and their families
against robbery and violence, and so they are com-
peUed to unite and stand by one another. He who is
found wanting to his comrades and friends in the hour
of danger is stigmatized as a coward. The fierce
instinct of the savage is strengthened by pride of
race, and by the public opinion of his fellows.
When bodies of men are trained to act together in
complex movements, this instinct of the savage,

328 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [v.
regulated by discipHne, inherited through many
generations, becomes the courage of the soldier,
who graduaUy learns to distinguish between the
practice of civilized and uncivihzed warfare. The
cry of wild revenge is no more heard, but gives way
to the sense of honour and to a regular code of rules
and usages, in which the idea of personal enmity is
extinguished or suppressed. Here are seeds of
character and conduct which have sunk very deep
into the heart of the human race ; and there is some
thing probably in every one of us which is derived
from those former states of society. Through long
centuries the ideas of the soldier — sometimes mingling
with Christianity, as in the age of chivalry or of the
Crusades ; sometimes bitterly hostile to it, as in the
French Revolution — have held sway over the mind of
Europe. The military ideal has fascinated the world,
not altogether for good, but not wholly for evil. We
often wish that wars might cease upon the earth,
though at tlje present time the prospect of such a
mUlennium seems to be distant. But are we quite
certain — if a military age were succeeded by an
industrial one, if the weapons of war were converted
into machines for the creation of wealth, and we might
assume no other change to take place in the habits
and lives of men— that the character of nations or of
individuals would be greatly elevated or improved ?
Without the least desire to defend or encourage
war, we may recognize that in the life of the soldier

v.]. THE HAPPY WARRIOR 329
there are many noble elements. The mere fact that
in a luxurious age, when any one in the middle or
upper classes must go out of his way to find hard
ships, he alone does not turn away from wounds and
death, places him on an eminence above his fellow-
men — he alone is a martyr in the nineteenth century.
He may have the spurious form of courage which
delights in war as an art or a profession ; which loves
the idleness or excitement of a military life ; which
seeks reputation only at the cannon's mouth : but he
may also have thoughts higher far. For he may be
thinking, not how to destroy, but how to save ; he
may be eager to fight, but even more eager to make
peace ; while moving or directing great bodies, he may
feel that every individual among them has a home and
a country and parents and children, which, like himself,
they hope to revisit ; and that with God there is no
distinction of nations, but all are equally precious in
His sight. He may unite the resolve of the warrior
with the tenderness of a child ; where the danger is
thickest his mind wfil be clearest ; when he has most
fo care for in life, he will be most ready to resign all
for his country's sake. Or, as he is described in the
noble lines of a great English poet :
' If he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a lover ; and attired
With sudden brightness, like a man inspired ;

330 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [v.
And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw ; '
And once more, who is only
1 More brave for this, that he hath much to lose.'
These thoughts may seem to be a long way off from
us, and to have no immediate application to our lives :
and this is true in one sense, but not in another. We
are not likely to be generals of armies, nor do most of
us aspire to any form of greatness ; yet the characters
of great men may exercise a sensible influence on our
lives. No one can read the letters and dispatches of
our great English commander, in their unadorned
simplicity and good sense and precision of statement,
without feeling that they contain a lesson which he
may apply to himself. He will learn from them that
facts are more important than words ; that directness
and plain speaking are better than indirectness ; that
the greatest honours and the most glorious mihtary
successes do not necessarily fire a man's ambition or
impair his sense of justice, or in any degree affect his
character. But though we may learn much from the character
of such a man, it is not the courage of the soldier
which we require most in ordinary life, but moral
courage — the courage which fights not against weapons
or engines of war, but against the opinions, and preju
dices, and meannesses of mankind. It is a courage
of which Aristotle had no distinct conception;
nor can we define its exact limits. It might also be

v.] SOCIAL HEROISMS 331
described as high spirit or force of character ; it is
likewise akin to the love of truth. The person who
is gifted with it is himself under all circumstances ; he
is perhaps rather too much given to fighting the
hypocrisies and unrealities of the world, yet a few
examples may bring his character out in a clearer
light. At a school or coUege he will not simply fall
into the ways of others, talk as they talk, do as they
do, amuse himself after their manner ; he will not
aUow low language to be used, or low principles to be
maintained in his presence ; neither will he suffer a
friend to be traduced or ridiculed without standing up
for him. He wiU have no false shame about himself
and his circumstances, knowing that simplicity and
truth are always better than pretence or concealment.
If he has opinions he is willing to assert them. When
a decision is required of him he does not stand
lingering on the bank, but makes up his mind upon
the best information which he can obtain. The breath
of opposition does not flutter him, nor the loud voice
terrify him ; he is not dependent on. accidents of time
and place ; he is no regarder of persons, neither will
he be much affected by compliments and flattery ; on
all occasions, whenever we meet him, in business or
society, he shows himself to be a man.
This is another kind of hero whom I have briefly
sketched : shall I caU him the hero of ordinary life ?
And such characters are rarer perhaps than formerly,
yet the need of them is greater than ever : for the

332 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [v.
world as it grows wiser seems also to grow weaker ;
both in peoples and in individuals
' the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought'
There are no hardships nowadays, such as our ancestors
endured ; the lot of the poorest is probably somewhat
alleviated. In literature and science we open up
regions which to our fathers were unknown ; yet the
great geniuses of the last fifty years seem one by one
to be departing from us, and no one to replace them.
There are so many opinions among us, but so little
strength or power in them to form character. Is it
not our duty to give ourselves that discipline and
training which the circumstances of this age seem
to deny us ? Because life is made so easy to aU of
us, we must not therefore take it easily, or lose our
selves in self-indulgence, in sentimentalism, or the
feeble criticism of aU things. Is it impossible that the
latter half of the nineteenth century may bring back
some of the, virtues of the eighteenth ; that the old-
fashioned hospitality and courtesy, and loyalty to
friends and comrades, and willingness to make sacri
fices for the public good, may continue to flourish
among us ; that the courage and endurance which our
ancestors showed in war may yet appear in other
fields — in the struggle with disease and death, in the
cause of truth, or of public improvement, in the
attempt to remove the evils which in an old country
constantly beset an increasing population, or the errors

v.] COURAGE IN PRIVATE LIFE 333
which in the course of ages gather around all forms of
religion ?
And let us not suppose that this higher courage can
be attained by a passing wish or resolution. It is the
outcome of a noble Hfe, not a mode of spirit or action
to be assumed upon occasion. We must have the
sense of truth and right before we can stand forth to
maintain them ; we must be truly loyal and sincere
before we can convey the impression of loyalty and
sincerity to others ; we must see ourselves as others
see us — as God sees us. It requires no small courage
to foil our internal enemies : there is a troop of
weaknesses and meannesses in our souls ; harpy vices,
which are scared away and return again ; the pang of
envy which prevented us from rejoicing in a rival's
success ; the half untruth which we told when there
was no danger of being discovered. And there were
things graver far. We should hardly like to speak to
another if we certainly knew of him what some of us
know of ourselves : yet, as I was saying, we must look
these things in the face before we can expect to have
any solid growth or improvement of character.
There is a sort of modesty in the courage of the
soldier, as weU as in this other courage of which I have
been speaking. It is not self-confident, but diffident ;
it prepares itself for the battle, not by empty resolu
tions, but by taking advantage of circumstances ; it
says, ' I will try, I will do my best.' Even so he who
would fight the good fight is distrustful of himself:

334 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [v.
he does not say, ' I will do this or that,' but, ' May
strength be given me ; may God help me ! ' And he
wiU not depend upon good resolutions only, which
are imaginations, but he wiU take means towards ends ;
he will think of the places or persons or occasions
which have led him into evil ; he will foresee what
may happen before the day, before the week closes ;
he wiU avail himself of circumstances, and sometimes
feel support in the presence or conversation of a
friend. Yet once more let me apply the idea of courage to
the least things of life, and the things which we all
know by experience. Some persons are subject to
depression of mind ; they would probably be ashamed
to acknowledge the causes which affect them. Some
fancy that they are not properly considered : some
imaginary coldness on the part of a friend, some jest
in which their name has been freely used ; or perhaps
some external cause, such as a change of the weather,
the discomfort of a journey — there is nothing so trifling
which may not affect weak minds. These and similar
causes overshadow and darken for a time the horizon
of many a one. When we are in such moods of mind,
then is the time for courage : we may determine to
continue our employment ; we may say to ourselves,
' Let us be up and doing ' ; we may resolve to go out
and change the air both literally and figuratively ; we
may strive to keep the mind above the body ; we may
remember that in the darkest days the sun sometimes

v.] COURAGE IN SICKNESS AND DEATH 335
reappears suddenly, and that behind the clouds (if we
could lift them up or rise above them) he would be seen
shining still, as on the brightest day of summer.
Again, let us take the case of illness more or less
serious. Some persons pass their lives in a state of
prolonged suffering ; and then we certainly need
faith and courage and hope never failing, and all
those sources of consolation ' which deeper are than
sorrow's deepest.' Most of us have had experience
of sickness, of painful days, of restless nights ; and
the attitude of mind in which we receive them not
only greatly affects our chance of recovery, but also
our own characters. The physician may do a great
deal for us, nature more ; but there is much also in
which the patient must minister to himself. First,
we should strive to live, for the love of Hfe is natural,
and there are few of us who can say that they have
done aU they ought or wish to do in this world.
Secondly, we should be resigned to the wiU of God :
have we not received good at His hand ; shall we
not bear in patience the sorrow and pain, which in the
order of nature He has allowed to be inflicted upon
us ? Thirdly, we should submit to the rules of life
laid down for us ; we must implicitly trust others
when we are unable to help ourselves. At such a
time we may cast all our care upon God, for He
careth for us ; and we may take thought in the inter
vals of our pain to say a kind word or to do a kind
thing for some one else, that they may be comforted,

336 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [v.
and our souls refreshed by their cheerfulness. Sick
ness as well as health may be a blessing ; it may wean
us from the world, it may prepare us for death.
Lastly, my brethren, there is one occasion which
we have all to meet ; one enemy whom we have to
face ; one event which is appointed alike to all. To
that event we hardly ever refer in conversation, and in
youth it is so far off that it rarely enters into our
thoughts : but as years advance it is within a measur
able distance ; we view it again and again ; our Hfe
and actions are rounded off and limited by it. All
our days we should be gathering up strength against
that hour ; we may not turn aside from it, or put it
out of our minds. True courage requires of us that
we should see it as it is — an inevitable fact, not terrible
but natural, and to each of us individually the most
important of all facts. We should Hke (if it be the will
of God) to die in the full possession of our faculties, to
render up our spirit unclouded to its Maker ; and
we should desire above all things to have completed
the work which He gave us to do ; to have made the
most of the talents which He entrusted to us ; to have
lived innocently, or, at any rate, not to have left the
sins, whether of youth or later years, uncorrected and
unrepented of. Strange thoughts doubtless arise in
the minds of men when they are about to depart ; they
remember as in a dream the days of their childhood
and youth, and the faces of those lost ones who have
gone before ; and some of the feehngs and interests of

v.] LAST THOUGHTS 337
earth linger with them stiU. But there is one voice
speaking within them, which is stronger and louder
than aU the rest : ' Let me die the death of the
righteous, and let my last end be Hke his ! '
And even if we are beset by fears and our minds
clouded with doubt, His strength in whom we trust
may be sufficient for us. ' Yea, though I walk through
the vaUey of the shadow of death, I wiU fear no evil :
for Thou art with me.' And when our strength fails,
and the world begins to withdraw from our Hght —
' Be of good courage, and the Lord shall strengthen
your heart.'

VI. ECCE, QUAM BONUM!1
BEHOLD, HOW GOOD AND JOYFUL A THING IT IS,
BRETHREN, TO DWELL TOGETHER IN UNITY!
Psalm cxxxiii. i.
THERE are innumerable ways in which we are
bound together in Hfe. There are ties of relation
ship or of friendship, nearer or more distant, of class
and occupation, of common tastes, of personal Hkings,
of religious feeling, of natural affection. There is that
higher tie by which men are united in the endeavour
to become better, and to live above the world. There
is a still higher union which, in our imperfect state,
may be thought visionary or impossible, when the
wiUs of men meet in God, and they know no other
law or rule of life but His will. Yet there have been
those in whom such a unity of the human and divine
has reaUy existed — it might exist in any of us. All
these unities have in them elements of diversity arising
out of circumstance or character or education. And
to preserve the ' one in many ' (as the ancient phUo-
sopher would have said) is the first duty of any
1 Preached in Balliol College Chapel, April 28, 1892.

vi.] EARLY HOME LIFE 339
society, of mankind, of a family, a school, a college,
a church, a nation.
Out of these various relations or aspects of human
life I propose to select one for consideration in this
sermon : it is one of which we almost all of us have
experience — the life of the family. At the same time
we may bear in our minds, when we consider it, that
no kind of human nature is separable from any other
part, and that the family is but a section and also an
aspect of a larger whole— that is to say, of society and
of the state — and is indivisible from the greater family
of heaven and earth.
Most of us have come from our homes within the
last day or two, and some of us may be already
thinking of the day when we shall return to them.
To most persons home is the dearest and happiest
place which they know: the merest trifles which
relate to it when we are absent are fuU of interest
to us : there are treasures of affection inexhaustible,
and familiar sights and scenes which have become
endeared to us by time. We do not speak much
of our homes at school or college ; they are sacred
places into which we do not wish the stranger always
to intrude. They have a peculiar charm for us because
we have grown up in them. No other home can ever
be like our own. There has been the centre of our
early life, which has left an everlasting impression
in our minds; no one can forget the years when
reason first awoke in him — all before was vacancy
Z 2

340 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [vi.
and silence. And soon there was a certain unity
impressed upon the family: each one began to Hve
for himself and for others, and to grow strong; and yet
there was also a circle of ideas and habits in which,
unconsciously to themselves, they were enclosed. We
may fancifully compare a family to a fortress or castle
which is able to defend itself against attacks from
without, because the members of it are true to one
another. It may be figured also as a temple which
is consecrated by love and affection, a holy place in
which the God of love takes up His abode. Of aU
things in this world, it is most like the kingdom of
heaven. There are heavenly virtues such as dis
interestedness, which finds it often more blessed to
give than to receive, and which is as much delighted
to hear of some good happening to another as to him
or herself. There is to be seen that fatherly goodness
which God Himself shows towards the unthankful
and the evil. Even in growing children there is
implanted the germ of divine truths, and there arises
in them a sort of mimic practice of Christian virtues
when they learn to love one another, to live for one
another ; when they begin to have the sense of truth
and honour, and have the fear of God before their
eyes, and know that to quarrel is displeasing to Him.
All of which and much more is meant by Christ when
He says ' of such is the kingdom of heaven ' ; and
looking back on those early days, in after years when
the world has got too much the better of us, we are

vi.] HEREDITY

341

apt to think ' how near God was to us then, how far
removed from us now.'
The family is often regarded as an ordinance of
nature ; let us also think of it as created by ourselves.
We are supposed to have inherited from our parents,
or remoter ancestors, a certain bodily constitution,
and to start in the race of life under conditions and
circumstances which have arisen antecedently to our
birth ; nor can we deny that there is a certain degree
of truth in this picture of the family, which has been
secredy wrought in the generations which have pre
ceded it. But let us also remember that this influence
of circumstances can be greatly modified by our own
effort ; not indeed without limit, but to such an extent
as to make the difference between right and wrong,
between good and evil. We are the creation of the
past ; but we make a new beginning in the present, if
I may so express it. We are effects, but we are also
causes, or rather by being effects we become causes.
Therefore we refuse to listen to those who suggest
that not we, but our ancestors, are responsible for our
misbehaviour, or who seek by metaphysical theories
to get rid of the reproofs of conscience. To apply
what has been said to family Hfe : children are not
born into the world having a fixed type of character,
but the larger part of their nature is malleable and
mobile, and may be moulded and fashioned by
education. And it is right that we should study the
original bent of disposition in each one, that we

342 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [vi.
may either encourage it or fight against it. We may
reasonably hope that in the course of life the original
element of good that is in men will find expression,
and the traces of evil be stamped out and effaced.
This seems to be the true doctrine of heredity, that
we. should learn by careful, observation the physical
temptations which beset us and those who are con
nected with us, and by being aware of them be better
able to resist them. In families we see that there is
much which appears to us unaccountable, but that
there is a great deal more which is due to training
and education. In ourselves there is something unac
countable, some physical element which is too strong
for us at times ; but upon the whole we can so order
our lives as to control our desires and affections, and
bring them into harmony with the will of God.
Not to discuss further this preliminary question —
so interesting in speculation, so important in practice
— which seems rather to haunt some minds in the
present dayji let us think of the family as we know it,
and as it comes within the range of our experience.
All the members of a family, when they begin to
grow up, contribute to its happiness by affection, by
unselfishness, by example, by variety of dispositions ;
they supply, some one element some another, to
the common stock. Among them there is often an
individual who is superior to all the rest, who thinks
for aU and has a care of aU — ' the angel of the house '
from whom the good which is in it seems to be

vi.] FAMILY LOVE AND SERVICE 343
derived. So it is in the world, so it is in the family :
those who originate any sort of good in the world
are a comparatively small number of persons, but of
inestimable value. There is a word not often used
but very expressive, by which such persons have
been described : ' self- less.' They are like Christ in this
world ; they Hve for others and not for themselves ;
they think for all and have a care of all. Such men
may be found among saints and religious teachers;
they also exist unknown in families, where one person
is the guide and manager of all, and yet (like Christ)
also the servant of all; counting their dearest wish
fulfilled if they may devote their gifts and means to
supply the wants of their relatives, and never weary
of the burden which has fallen on them. In the
family, more than in any other sphere of life, ' Bear ye
one another's burdens ' -is the fulfilment of the law
of Christ ; and the spring of all is affection, by which
alone we can draw out of the family the benefits which
are contained in it. No motive comes so sweetly from
nature as this ; the thought of one whom our action
wiU greatly please or pain is the strongest incentive
to the performance of a duty, the strongest deterrent
from evil. The love of our own family, like the love
of God Himself, can never be in excess : it is pious
and holy, and peaceable and reasonable ; it takes us
out of ourselves and raises us above ourselves ; it is
the kingdom of heaven upon earth.
And now let us come down from the extraordinary

344 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [vi.
to the common — from singular examples of virtue and
goodness to the experiences of daily life. The family,
Hke the home in which they live, needs to be kept in
repair, lest some little rift in the waUs should appear
and let in the wind and rain. The happiness of a
family depends very much on attention to Httle things.
Order, comfort, regularity, cheerfulness, good taste,
pleasant conversation — these are the ornaments of
daily life, deprived of which it degenerates into a
wearisome routine. There must be light in the
dwelhng and brightness, and pure spirits and cheerful
smiles. Home is not usuaUy the place of toil, but the
place to which we return and rest from our labours ;
in which parents and children meet together and pass
a joyful and careless hour. To have nothing to say
to others at such times, in any rank of life, is a very
unfortunate temper of mind, and may perhaps be
regarded as a serious fault ; at any rate, it makes a
house vacant and joyless, and persons who are afflicted
by this distemper should remember seriously that if it
is not cured in time it will pursue them through life.
It is one of the lesser troubles of the family : and
there is yet another trouble — members of a family
often misunderstand one another's characters. They
are sensitive or shy, or retired ; or they have some
fanciful sorrow which they cannot communicate to
Others; or something which was said to them has
produced too deep an impression on their minds. In
their own family they are like strangers; the inex-

vi.] PARTINGS 345
perience of youth exaggerates this trial, and they
have no one to whom they can turn for advice or
help. This is the time for sympathy — the sympathy
of a brother or sister, or father or mother— which
unlocks the hidden sorrow, and purges away the
perilous stuff which was depressing the mind and
injuring the character. Sympathy, too, is the noblest
exercise ; of it is the Spirit of God working together
with our spirit ; it is warmth as well as light, putting
into us a new heart, and taking away the stony heart
wliich is dead to its natural surroundings.
The best things in life seem to fall short of what we
hope or wish. I would not say that wherever good
is, evil will be standing near : it would be true to say
that in every good there is some degree of evil, and
in every evil there is some degree of good ; but there
is some kind of good which is apt to fade away like
a flower, and never continue in one stay. So there
is something in the charm and beauty of family life
which we feel to be precarious : it is always changing
and passing away. The young are ever growing to
middle age in it, and the middle-aged old, and the old
are declining and disappearing. Death comes and
takes first one and then another — the fair young child
who has been the darHng of the family, the brother
who has been the support of it, the father and mother
who have been the centres of it, the sister who has
been the minister of aU. There have been long and
fatal iUnesses too, which have called out rare virtues

346 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [vi.
both in the sufferers and in those who tended them.
There have been weddings and funerals, great joys
as well as great sorrows, in which the members of
the family have taken part. In the next generation
the very home in which they lived has become the
abode of strangers, who know nothing of its former
inhabitants. We cannot reconstruct the past, it is
only a memory to us.
So we are driven back from the consolations of
earth to the consolation which is to be found only in
the Author and Father of all things. We walk about
the house, but they are no longer within ; we cannot
throw our arms about them while we are in the body,
or fancy that we are reunited to them in any way, or
they to us. We know that we could not have had
them living always, nor ourselves; yet every one of
the members of our families whom God has taken from
us is present to us and to Him ; and seems, as it were,
to have become a part of us, and We are assured that
they exist as4 truly as we ourselves do. We do not
wish to indulge in fancies or to adapt our beliefs to
our wishes. We cannot attach much importance to
tales about appearances of the departed either at
the time of death or afterwards. Many a one has
anxiously asked the question : ' Whether we shall see
and know our friends in heaven ? ' and many books
have been written to prove that we shaU. But we
must not sorrow, as those without hope, if we hear
only such words as these : ' The souls of the righteous

vi.] OUR HOME IN GOD 347
are in the hands of God, and there shaU no evil
touch them '; and ' In the resurrection they neither
marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the
angels of God in heaven ' ; or ' God is not the God of
the dead but the God of the living, for aU live unto
Him ' ; or ' Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord,
for they rest from their labours ' ; or ' We are spilled
on the earth like waters, yet hath God provided a
way that His banished ones be not expelled from
Him.' ' For all live unto Him.'

VII. SERVANTS1.
SERVANTS, OBEY YOUR MASTERS ACCORDING TO THE
FLESH, WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING, IN SINGLENESS
OF YOUR HEART, AS UNTO THE LORD: NOT WITH
EYE-SERVICE, AS MEN-PLEASERS; BUT AS SERVANTS
OF CHRIST, DOING THE WILL OF GOD FROM THE
HEART; WITH GOOD WILL DOING SERVICE, AS UNTO
THE LORD, AND NOT TO MEN: KNOWING THAT WHAT
SOEVER GOOD EACH MAN DOETH, THE SAME SHALL
HE RECEIVE FROM THE LORD, WHETHER HE BE A
SERVANT OR FREE. AND, YE MASTERS, DO THE SAME
THINGS TO THEM, FORBEARING THREATENING: KNOW-
ING THAT YOUR MASTER IS IN HEAVEN, AND THERE
IS NO RESPECT OF PERSONS WITH HIM.
Ephesians vi. 5-9.
The words of the text refer to a state of society
which in civilized countries has passed away. In the
age of St. Paul the world was not divided into
masters and servants, but into masters and slaves.
There were slaves of many kinds: slaves working
in the fields, slaves living in the house, artisans and
craftsmen and clerks, tutors and nurses who had the
care of children ; slaves of all sorts, who ministered
to the wants of their owners, or who were let out for
1 Preached in Balliol College Chapel. No date. See Preface.

vn.] SLAVES OF OLD: SERVANTS NOW 349
hire. This was a state of society very different from
ours, and not to be judged of by our standard. It
was not intolerable, for the slave was bound to the
master by ties of affection and of habit ; yet it had
many evils. The slave and his master were not equal
in the eye of the law, as the poor and the rich are
among ourselves ; and they had not the Hght of
liberty, which is the greatest of God's blessings to
man. But his condition did not become worse in the
course of ages ; it gradually improved, and (partly
through the influence of the Christian Church, and
also from other causes) underwent a great change
many centuries ago ; and it is a very interesting
chapter in human history which tells how mankind
passed from slavery to freedom, from being things
to becoming persons, from being in the power of
others to ordering their own Hfe for themselves.
It is not, however, with the past, but with the
present, that we are chiefly concerned— not with
what was going on eighteen centuries ago, but with
what is happening among ourselves. And the civil
ized world is fuU now, not of masters and slaves, but
of masters and servants : some carrying on the daily
life of the family ; others co-operating in trade, whole
sale and retail, by the exchange of capital and labour ;
others collected in great factories by hundreds and
thousands, using the aid of machinery ; others scattered
over the fields, among whom also the power of
machinery is beginning to make itself felt ; and there

350 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [vn.
are many other classes who stand in some relation
of superiority and subordination to one another.
And both the two classes have some sort of rights,
and owe some sort of duty towards one another.
This is the subject of which I propose to speak
briefly, which I shall divide into two parts in this
sermon : the duties of masters towards servants ; the
duties of servants towards their masters.
The first duty of the master is to preserve order
and regularity in his own household : a home is not
a home when times and seasons are not observed
in it; or in which there are enmities or differences
among the dwellers in it ; or when silent grudges or
jealousies are aUowed to spring up, either among the
members of the family or among the servants. There
is no happiness or quiet or comfort in such a home.
The master of the house should be the friend, as well
as the master, of all — of his servants, as of his children
— and he should seek to bind his children and his
servants together by ties of affection. The child
should not be trained to observe the difference of
rank ; but he should rather be taught that there are
no such differences in the sight of God, and that they
are all one in Christ Jesus. It is a great blessing
to have had good and faithful servants who have
refused to leave their masters when they were in
trouble, who have watched over their sick children,
who have shared their afflictions — no one can be too
grateful to them. The master who can attach servants

vn.] DUTIES OF MASTERS 351
by his kindness always has the best servants, who
are drawn to him by a natural feeling that in his
employment they will be happier than in that of
another, and so he will be the gainer in the way
of service only. The wisest rulers of mankind,
whether in a state or in a family, are those who know
how to rule best by gentleness, by kindness, by
example, by self-control, not by harshness or force
of character. And though in a great concern it is
impossible for the master to be acquainted intimately
with aU his servants, yet he may show that he cares
for them, and that he regards their interest as well
as his own ; he may be scrupulously equitable and just
towards them ; he may have a cheerful word for some
of them when he meets them ; or he may regard them,
in a wider sense, as friends and brethren still.
Again, the servant has his rights as well as his
duties: his employment should be clearly defined;
his Uberty should not be infringed upon more than
is necessary; his hours of work should not be excessive,
nor his times of leisure broken in upon. He has
a right to be spoken to by his master with civility,
with courtesy, with consideration, as one gentleman
speaks to another. A request is better than a command
— more agreeable both to him who gives, and to him
who receives it. And it is weU that some few words
of conversation should pass daily between the master
and his servants about the weather, or the crops, or
the theatre, or about politics or some local topic —

352 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [vn.
perhaps either might learn a good deal from the
other ; especiaUy they might be better informed how
different classes think and feel about one another,
which is the beginning of political wisdom.
There are other ways in which the master of a
household, or the manager of a business, may do
a great deal for those in his employment. He may,
by his greater knowledge of the world, be able to
protect them against the frauds and deceptions of
quacks and swindlers ; he may maintain their cause
when they are wronged ; he may prevent them from
wasting their money in fooHsh speculations ; he may
preach to them on the homely text ' that they should
not have all their eggs in the same basket,' or repeat
to them the saying that 'high interest is another name
for bad security.'
And there are ways stiU more important in which
he may help them : he may teach them the nature of
true rehgion, that it is simple, humble, gentle — that
it is shown in the Christian Hfe, not in noisy and
enthusiastic* professions. He may help them too in
the education of their children, a matter about which
many of them know least and most require help.
Lasdy, he may help them to help themselves ; he
may apply his knowledge of common things to their
use, and in every way try to raise the spirit of their
lives above their outward condition.
The duty of servants towards their masters is
to be loyal to them, and zealous in their service.

vn.] DUTIES OF SERVANTS 353
The duties of servants are for the most part a daily
routine of little things, but these little things make
up life, and they are ennobled by the manner in
which they are performed, as ' unto the Lord and not
unto man ' — ' as unto the Lord, but also unto men ' ;
for it is natural that they should become attached to
their masters and mistresses ; that they should be glad
to see him, and he to see them, when he returns after
an absence ; that the house should seem pleasanter,
brighter, warmer, while he is with them.
The servants, too, must help their masters in main
taining order and regularity in the household. They
must seek to keep up its character for hospitality.
They are part of the family and also, if they deserve
to be so, in a measure the friends of his friends.
They are not serving for him: but for the sense
of duty, for the love of God. There is one thing
which it may seem almost vulgar to mention : it is
cleanliness. Cleanliness, it has been said, is next to
godhness ; and it is impossible to exaggerate the
importance of it, to health, to good looks, to the
fairness and growth of everybody and everything.
AU persons should be alike scrupulous about it ; for
it has an effect upon the mind, and is itself the mark
of a superior mind. Let it be admitted also that it
causes a great deal of trouble, and that there are
many excuses for neglecting it. Let me take one
point in which the good and faithful servant is
especially discerned : dishke of waste. This is shown
»» A a

354 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [vn.
chiefly in little things, and requires thought and
attention. The master should be liberal to his
servants, and they should be careful of his interests,
and thrifty in his behalf. They are not like rival
traders who are trying in every way to outwit each
other, but brothers and friends. Yet one more duty
of servants I wiU speak of, perhaps the most important
of all. The children of the household are their
pecuHar trust — they have, almost as much as their
parents, the formation of their character in infancy
and early youth ; and they are responsible for the
bad temper, the evil practice, false word, mean thought,
which so easily insinuates itself, and is so readily
caught from others in the first years. And it is one
of the first duties of servants, as it is also one of their
highest motives, to become an example to chfldren,
that they retain their respect in after life.
And now, my brethren, let me sum up all that
I have to say to you on this subject in two passages
of Scripture.
One from the Old Testament : — ' Behold, how good
and how joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell
together in unity !
' It is Hke the dew of Hermon which fell upon the
mountains of Zion.'
And, once more repeating the words of St. Paul : —
' Servants, obey your masters according to the flesh
with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart,
as unto the Lord.

vn.] THE TRUE SERVICE 355
' Not with eye-service, as men-pleasers ; but as
servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the
heart ;
' With good will doing service, as unto the Lord,
and not to men :
' Knowing that whatsoever good each man doeth,
the same shall he receive from the Lord, whether he
be a servant or free.
'And, ye masters, do the same things to them,
forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master
is in heaven, and there is no respect of persons with
Him.'

A a 2

VIII. CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR
AT ALDERLEY1.
OLD THINGS ARE PASSED AWAY; AND, BEHOLD,
ALL THINGS ARE BECOME NEW.
2 Corinthians v. 17.
THE approach of Christmas and of the New Year
is always a time of rejoicing and festivity, in which
family ties are renewed and old friends meet again,
and the absent are remembered, and the world is
hohday-making for a few days. And although in
this country the time of festival falls in the middle
of winter, and the winds are generally cold and
piercing, and the snow is often lying on the ground,
yet there is a blazing fire within the house and a
warm welcome too. It seems to be very fair that
those who work hard, should have some Httle abate
ment of their toil. And the Scripture nowhere bids
us to be of a sad countenance, especially in a season
of joy.
But every man, in the silence of his heart, has
reflections which creep over him at this time of the year,
1 Preached at Alderley Church, Christmas, 1867.

vin.] REFLECTIONS FOR THE PASSING YEAR 357
which he probably never mentions to others. There
are serious thoughts which accompany the joyful ones,
which he is apt to keep to himself because they are
serious. Not that they are skeletons hidden in the
closet or sitting veiled at the feast, but joy and serious
ness are in this world closely intertwined, and every
joy should have a groundwork of seriousness, and be
based on the realities of Hfe. The years as they pass
mark the time of day with him : the morning, the noon,
the afternoon, the evening of life, as he is transferred
slowly from one to the other, or is on the debateable
space between them. Without sadness and without
fear a good man cannot help sometimes asking him
self the questions : — ' Shall I be alive this time next
year ? ' (and that is most probable) ; ' Will all those
who are near and dear to me be alive next year ? '
(that is not so probable). These are some of the
conditions of life which he has to consider. And
again, without wishing to weaken and perplex his
mind by too strict an examination of self, he cannot
help asking himself in a rough but distinct manner :
' Where am I ? ' ' Have I made any progress during
the past year in my profession, in my life, in myself,
and in the knowledge of myself? Have I overcome
that defect which, as I am told by others, will ruin all
my good quahties — that vice which is the curse of
me ? Have I any ideal which I set before me ? Any
perfection to which I aspire ? Or am I content with
the common life of all men, doing as they do, thinking

358 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [vin.
as they think, conforming in every respect to their
ways and customs ? ' For this seems to be the great
difference between one man and another — whether he
is living to the world, or not living to the world,
rising or sinking, growing or not growing ; whether
he is narrowing as he advances in years in his affec
tions, opinions, wishes, or whether he becomes wider
and seems to expand and have a greater interest in
others, when his personal interests are beginning to
pass away. And this is the sort of feehng which
presses upon a good man — not only at the end of the
old year and the beginning of the new, but at all
times when he sees how quickly the hour flies : he
would like to get something done if he only could,
he would like to have his thoughts and feelings widened
a Httle ' with the process of the suns.' And many who
hardly know the meaning of this, may stiU ask with
a trembling anxiety ' How can I become better ? ' —
that simple question which has so many forms and
which is the best answered, at least to most of us, in
the words of Scripture. Try and be like the Lord
Jesus Christ as far as the difference in your state and
circumstances allows, but at any rate, seek to be like
Him in His resignation to the will of God, in His
love to man, in His charity to aU men, in His sense
that God was His Father and their Father, and that
He could not be separated either from Him or them.
For those are qualities of which no man can ever have
enough, and of which the world can never have enough.

vm.] CHANGES OF HALF A CENTURY 359
But leaving these more general religious considera
tions, let us return again to the time of the year.
There seem to be reflections which naturally arise
in our mind at any marked period of time. There
can be no more proper occasions on which to recall
the past, or to look forward as far as we can into
the future. Recollections and hopes encircle life : in
youth, we are made up of hopes and desires and
fears, and there is comparatively little of recollection.
But in middle and later life, there is a great charm
in recollection also, a strange feeling of the past as
a sort of ancient home, which sometimes appears to
us as more peaceful, more lovely, more endearing,
than the present scene in which we live. I propose
to consider life under these two aspects, trying to
make the past a point of departure or beginning of
the future.
There are many persons here present who remember
the world a generation or a generation and a half ago,
whose memory reaches to forty, fifty, or perhaps even
sixty years since. What changes they have witnessed
in the world, if they have attended at all to the course
of events ! The early years of a few of these were
contemporary with the great war, in which so many
heroic actions were done, and every post might be
said to bring the news of some thrilling event : the
issues of which have so greatly affected the history
of Europe during our own time, and yet, like most
other wars, has been disappointing to the conquerors

360 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [vm.
in the advantages to be gained from it. Then came
a time of peace, which hardly brought the blessings
of peace, but was a time of restlessness and discontent,
ending at last in the great political change of thirty-
five years ago, which is within the memory of many
of us. That was a great battle, into which the men of
that generation, on both sides, threw their whole souls,
and about which the older persons who are still living
have much to tell. Political subjects are out of place
in the pulpit, and it is not in that sense that I speak
of them. For we do not come to church as members
of this or that religious or political party, but as
Christians who feel that they are in the presence of
their common Lord. Still we recognize with thank
fulness, that upon the whole a great change for the
better has taken place during the last forty years,
whoever may have been the authors of it, and to what
ever political party the improvement maybe attributed.
Is there not more regard for the poor than formerly,
and more desire to give them education and to raise
their condition ? Is there not a more humane feeling
towards the prisoner and criminal than formerly ? Men
are beginning to learn that they have more power of
altering the state of life which promotes crime, than
they have of deterring from crime by penalties if they
allow that state of life to exist. Have we not got
rid of the great national evil of slavery, for which
another nation has had to pay so awful a penalty ? Is
there not more order and also more freedom among

vm.] SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT 361
us ? Is there not greater attention to sanitary improve
ment (that was a word hardly known thirty years ago)
— I mean to the provision of good water, good air, good
dwellings of the poorer sort, which some persons may
think not to be a religious duty at all, but which is
really one of the first of them, if, as appears to be
the case, the health of children and the temporal
weU-being of life depend upon this almost more
than upon anything. These seem to be very real
improvements which we have ourselves witnessed.
And they show that the world is not always getting
worse and worse, but is upon the whole in some
degree better than formerly, whatever we may be as
individuals. There may be some temporary distress
during the present year, but upon the whole we are
all better off, both in material and moral well-being.
I know that I might have drawn the opposite picture,
if I had tried to show you, not what had been done,
but what remains to be done, in the accomplishment
of which some of us here present may hope to be
feUow-workers. Leaving this, I think that we can
hardly deny — no impartial person will deny — that
things are better with us than they formerly were.
And although we are far from perfect, and the worst
thing that we can do is to be praising ourselves, still
there seems to be in the history of the past thirty
years great hope for the future.
And not only a nation but a parish has also a
history. This parish has changed less than many

362 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [vin.
others ; and still retains the pleasant look of its fields
and its woods. But it has not, of course, escaped
the effect of the great change introduced by railways,
which like the other great change of the introduction
of steam in manufactures about half a century earlier,
has so altered the face of the country and the manners
and ways of life of men. And some of you, no doubt,
can tell your descendants, sitting by the fireside of an
evening, about the dangers of long journeys and the
difficulties of moving about in the old times, of old
fashions and customs of dress or of behaviour, which
have passed away or died out ; perhaps of persons
who have made their fortunes in distant places and
risen upon the tide of wealth. But there are far more
interesting things than this in the history of a parish !
I am sure that there are persons here present, who
could tell me of sterling examples of piety and good
ness which there have been in this parish, of sufferers
who have endured long illnesses with heavenly patience
and resignation ; of simple women who have brought
up orphans Sy the labour of their own hands ; of many
others who had in them some superiority of mind or
manners or feeling.
And I can tell you of one whom I knew *, who was
a former rector of this parish thirty years ago and
more, and who certainly cared for you all, if ever a
parish clergyman cared about his flock. (I have heard
him express his great affection for this parish of
1 Bishop Stanley of Norwich, father of Dean Stanley.

vm.] CHANGES IN PARISH AND HOME 363
Alderley.) I think his voice and figure and manner
must still live in the memory of some of you: he
was full of life and energy and character, and he was
afraid of no man. It is a great event in a parish
when a school is first opened ; and I believe that he
was the founder of the school in this parish. For
in those days, I mean fifty years ago, schools were
not so common as they are now ; neither the clergy
nor the parents of the poor were at all alive to
the great duty of educating the poor and the great
sin of neglecting it. And this parish was probably one
of the first in England in which a good school was
estabhshed, and there is no greater blessing than this.
Yet once more, not only has a nation or a parish
a history; there is something which comes nearer
home to us than this. For every family has a history.
Every family, whether in a higher or lower rank, has
a tale of love and death ; sorrows and joys, flowers
and thorns, have been scattered along the pathway of
every one. They are with the past and the recollec
tion of them is pleasant to us, and full of interest and
instruction. There are our father and mother who
are now taken from us, and to whom our heart always
seems to turn in the greater trials of life. Perhaps
there may have been some things in their conduct to
us, and many things in our conduct to them, which
were not quite wise or right or considerate. But now
that they are gone we can only think of them with
reverence and love, and grieve at the recollection that

364 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [vm.
we ever spoke a word or gave a look which caused
them sorrow. Then again, among our own contem
poraries, there are many who have been cut off in
childhood, in youth, in early manhood, who might
have been standing by our side now, but for the fatal
stroke of accident or disease. They appear to us in
the mind's eye as we last saw them, although we may
be old and grey-headed men. And some among
them may have been remarkable for goodness and
sense, for noble and simple characters, for strong
affection, for special attachment to some one of us,
which makes their memory very dear to us. And
there is one person who can never forget her children,
who will always, amid all the changes of life, retain
in her mind and in her heart a corner for them — the
mother who has been bereaved of them.
So many elements of sadness there are in human life,
and yet death is not always the worst of them. For
there are often nameless sorrows, blighted affections,
wasted and withered lives, which have no proper end
or meaning; or, perhaps, disgraces or unexpected
reverses of fortune, which affect the history of families
even more than death. These are the sort of evils
which imagination does so much to heighten, and
which prudence and decision and firmness might do
so much, if not to avert, at least to meet, but which
are hardly ever recognized until too late. Great as
the evils may have been, we can often see that the
greater and only irremediable evil is the effect on our

vm.] CHANGES OF INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER 365
own minds. Then again, in almost every family there
are differences of character," leading in some cases to
alienation and dislike. For a family is like a state,
and is sometimes divided into factions, and he who
would govern them must have a piece of a king or
queen in him. But what I was going chiefly to say
is this, that such differences are not so much wrong
(although they are to a certain extent wrong) because
they are involuntary, but they are very sad and un
meaning. And often in after years, when distance
has enabled us to see things as they truly are, when
death has taken away one of the parties to the dispute,
a sharp thriU of pain wiU come across our minds at
the recollection that one whom we did really love
the best or almost the best of any one in this world,
has been through some misunderstanding alienated
or estranged from us. For quarrels and differences,
and jealousies, and perhaps every sort of passion, are
very absorbing at the time, but always appear, when
we look back upon them, to have been a mistake and
a weakness, and are a sort of drain upon our lives.
Still there is another history of which there might
be much to say — the history of the individual soul : —
its mixed good and evil, its aspirations and sorrows,
its light and darkness, its changing thoughts and
feelings, its seekings after the invisible. If there
are some of us whose days have been bound each
to each by natural piety, there are others of us
who have experienced great changes and abrupt

366 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [vm.
transitions in the history of our mind. Owing to
the changes of opinion going on around us, or the
influence of persons or tendencies within and without
us seeming to meet in us, we have been like persons
seeking for a home, and it has been long before we
have reached the desired resting-place. And yet
we have not altogether lost faith and hope : we may
observe also, that it was better to have changed than
to stand still, if the change of opinion brought with
it a real and deep desire to live, not according to the
opinions of men, but according to the truth, and to
be in deed what we would be called in name. Some
times the reflection will occur to us: Why did we
spend such a long time in going up and down hill,
in following this movement or that, when we might
have found a nearer way ? What profit was there in
disputing about the person of Christ, or the inspiration
of Scripture, or the manner of Christ's presence in
the Sacraments, when the sum of all is that we should
be like Christ ? For I think we can hardly imagine
anything more absurd than Christ coming again on
earth and saying, not ' I was hungry and ye gave Me
no meat, I was thirsty and ye gave Me no drink,' and
' forasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these, ye
did it unto Me,' but ' You do not interpret this text
in the right way ; you do not believe the evidence of
this fact to be sufficient ; you do not hold the true theory
of My nature and person.' If, I say, we could have
seen from the first, that the religion of Christ meant

vm.] HOPES FOR THE FUTURE 367
something altogether different from this, we might
have found a shorter way and sooner have attained
to peace, and led a simpler and more Christian life.
And when people who are terrified at the advance
of new opinions, ask us in a sort of despair ' What
am I to teach my children now ? ' may we not answer
' Something better and deeper and truer than satisfied
the last century, or any century of the Christian
Church'? And now I have to ask the question which I have
partly endeavoured to answer by anticipation. What
does the past teach of the future? What is that
lesson which we gather from our own individual ex
perience, which may be taken home with us and
applied to our own lives?
I will not attempt to picture the political life of the
future ten or twenty or thirty years. No one can
imagine that. But I think that we certainly gather
from the past, the lesson of confidence and hope of
good upon the whole increased, and evils likely to
be diminished, because they begin to be more realized.
And although there are some dark spots on the horizon
at present, yet there is no reason to think that any
dangers are coming upon us which may not be averted
by firmness and prudence ; especially if we do not
aUow ourselves to be diverted from plain duties by
panic fears and unreasoning prejudices.
And so again in the Church; there may be a good
deal of excitement (which is perhaps, also a sign of

368 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [vm.
life) about opinions and practices which were unheard
of in the times of our fathers, and are very strange to
us, yet are often accompanied with much goodness
and self-devotion. And sensible people can separate
the good from the evil of them, and will not allow
themselves to be excited or disturbed about them.
For they know that these are external things, and
that God is a Spirit, and must be worshipped in spirit
and in truth. When these sort of disputes are going
on in the Church, I think that we can imagine our
Saviour taking a little child and setting him in the
midst of the disputants, and saying to them ' Of such
is the kingdom of Heaven.' That would probably
have been His answer to them. I will not inquire
what form the Christ of the future may take, or in
what way the Christian religion may become adapted
to the altered circumstances of knowledge and human
life. But one thing seems to be clear, that it must
be more of a spirit and less of a letter, more of a life
and less of a party, more of an union with goodness
and truth everywhere, and less of that temper which
says ' We forbid him because he followeth not us.'
Lastly, let me apply the lesson of the past to our
selves. Experience is the great teacher which shows
us the faults and errors of our own lives. He that
hath eyes to see, let him see. But often persons have
no eyes, and the history of their own Hves and of the
lives of others passes unheeded by them as a series
of external events which convey no meaning to them.

vm.] UPWARD AND ONWARD 369
And when they come to have children of their own,
they have no recollection of their own childhood, and
they are unable to enter into their ways or to perceive
their danger, or sometimes, even to make allowances
for them. Oh, let us be young sometimes for the sake
of the young, and try to remember how we felt at
their age, and what evils befell us from sentiment or
passion, or from evil companionship, or from being
misunderstood, or not sympathized with, or any other
similar cause, and link our lives with theirs. They
are beginning to look out upon life, just as we were
a few years back. Let us save them, as far as we
can, from the errors and mistakes into which we fell
ourselves. And not only for them but for ourselves, we cannot
give up the hope that life may be happier, simpler,
better, as years advance upon us, and that the last
years of life may be more useful than the first. And
this is to be attained chiefly by knowing ourselves
better, and by knowing the world better. The long
experience of years should have given us a firm hold
of Hfe : we have fewer iUusions, and we know better
what Hfe has to offer and where the true hope must at
last rest. It is true that the faculties in some degree
change as we get older, yet in this too there are
compensations. For if the memory is weaker, the
judgment is stronger ; if the energy and fire of youth
are wanting, the authority and self-control, and even
the intellectual interests, are far greater. And some-
Bb

370 SERMONS, MISCELLANEOUS [vm.
times, when human feelings are beginning to deaden
within us, and we are getting weary and isolated, the
Divine love may seem to encircle us and breathe into
us. For ever in this life, it is true, as the Apostle
says, that as our outward man decays, the inward man
is renewed day by day. So God has ordered the
stages of human life, that they should succeed one
another graduaUy, and that one should be the prepara
tion for another, and that all of them should be happy
enough, and that there should be a hope beyond.
For the evening of life does not set in clouds, but has
the promise of another day.
And if a person says ' Yes, but I know too Httle of
that, and I have doubts and fears as to whether the
soul when parted from the body, may not as the
philosopher suggests, " vanish into air and be no
more".' I would address him in the language of
one who, perhaps, had similar thoughts passing
through his own mind :
'Lord, tiiou hast been our dwelling place from
generation to generation.
' Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever
the world or the earth were formed, from everlasting
to everlasting Thou art God.'

YALE UNIVERSITY

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