to pour out the ocean of His love, which finds its own happiness in
giving happiness to all created things, from the loftiest of rational
beings down to the gnat which dances in the sun, and for aught we know,
to the very lichen which nestles in the Alpine rock.

This is the character of God, unless Scripture be a dream of man's
imagination.  Thus far you may know God; thus far you may see God as He
is; and know and see that He is just with the justice of a man, only more
just; merciful with the mercy of a man, only more merciful; truthful with
the truthfulness of a man, only more truthful; gracious with the
graciousness of a man, only more gracious; and loving?  That we dare not
say:  for if we say so much, the Scripture commands us to say more.  The
Scripture tells us that the whole absolute morality of God is summed up--
as our own human morality ought to be--in His Love.  That love is the
fulfilment of the Moral Law in Him as in us; that it is the root and
cause and spirit of His justice, mercy, truth, and graciousness; that it
belongs not to His attributes, as they may be said to be, but to His
essence and His spirit; that we must not, if we be careful of our words,
say, God is loving, because we are bidden to say, "God is Love."

Thus, the commands, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God--and thy neighbour
as thyself, are shown to be not arbitrary and impossible demands,
miscalled moral obligations, while they are merely legal and external
ones; but true moral obligations, in the moral sense, to which heart and
spirit can answer, "I rejoice to do thy will, O God; Thy law is within my
heart."  You ought to love God, because He is supremely loveable and
worthy of your love.  You can love God, because you can appreciate and
know God; for you are His child, made in His moral likeness, and capable
of seeing Him as He is morally, and of seeing in Him the full perfection
of all that attracts your moral sense, when it is manifested in any human
being.  And you can love your neighbour as yourselves, because, and in as
far as you have in you the Spirit of God, the spirit of universal love,
which proceedeth out for ever both from the Father and the Son to all
beings and things which They have made.

And of one thing I am sure, that in proportion as you are led and
inspired by that Spirit of God which showed in our Lord, in the very
deepest and truest sense, as the spirit of humanity, just so you will
feel a genial and hearty pleasure in lessening all human suffering,
however slight; in increasing all harmless human pleasure, however
transitory; and in copying Him who, at the marriage feast, gracefully and
graciously turned the water into wine.  I do not, of course, mean that
you are to do no more than that; to prefer sentiment to duty, to amuse
and glorify yourselves by paying tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, and
neglect the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.
But I do mean that you are not to distrust your own sentiments, not to
crush your own instinctive sympathies.  The very lowest of them--that
which makes you shrink at the sight of pain, and rejoice in the sight of
pleasure, is not natural, and common to you with the animals; it is
supernatural and divine.  It is a schoolmaster to bring you to Christ, to
that higher inspiration of His, which tells your heart to alleviate the
unseen woes which will never come into painful contact with your
sensibilities, to bestow pleasures in which you yourself have no
immediate share.  It will tell your hearts especially in the case of this
very Hospital for Consumption not to be slack in giving, because so much
of what you will give--it is painful to recollect how much--will be
spent, not in prevention, not even in cure, but in mere alleviation, mere
increased bodily ease, mere savoury food, even mere passing amusements
for wearied minds.  Be it so.  If (which God forbid) we could do nothing
SAVE alleviate; if (which God forbid) permanent cure, even lengthening of
life, were impossible, I should say just as much, Give.  Give money to
alleviate; give, even though what you give were, in the strictly economic
sense, WASTED.  We are ready enough, most of us, to waste upon ourselves.
It is well for us to taste once in a way the luxury of wasting on others;
though I have yet to learn that anything can be called wasted which
lessens, even for a moment, the amount of human suffering.  A plan, for
instance, is on foot for sending twenty of the patients to Madeira for
the winter.  The British Consul, to his honour, guarantees their
maintenance, if the Hospital will pay their passage out and home.  Some
may say--An unnecessary expense--a problematical benefit.  Be it so.  I
believe that it will not be such; that it may save many lives--they may
revive:  but were it not so, I would still say Give.  Let them go, even
if every soul in that ship were doomed.  Let them go.  Let them drink the
fresh sea breeze before they die; let them see the green tropic world;
let them forget their sorrow for a while; let them feel springing up
afresh in them the celestial fount of hope.  We let the guilty criminal
eat and drink well the morn ere he is led forth to die--shall we not do
as much by those who are innocent?

But especially would I say, try to lessen such suffering as that for
which I plead to-day, because it is undeserved in the true sense of that
word--not earned by any act of their own.  These poor souls suffer for no
sins of their own; they have done nothing to bring on themselves a
disease which attacks too often the fairest, the seemingly strongest and
healthiest, the most temperate and most pure.  They suffer, some it may
be for the sins of their forefathers, some from causes of disease which
science cannot as yet control, cannot even discover.  They are objects of
unmixed pity and sympathy:  they should be so to us; for they are so to
Him who made them.  On this disease God does bestow a special
alleviation--a special mark of His pity, of His tenderness, in a word of
His grace.  That unclouded intellect, that unruffled temper, that
cheerful resignation, that brave and yet calm facing of the inevitable
future, that ever-fresh hope, which is no delusion but a token that God
Himself has taken away the sting of death and the victory of the grave,
till the very thought of death has vanished, or is looked on merely as
the gate to a life of health, and strength, and peace, and joy:--all
these symptoms, so common, so normal, all but universal--this Euthanasia
which God has provided for those who, humanly speaking, are innocent, yet
must, for the general good of humanity, leave this world for another;--
what are they but the voice of God to us, telling that He loves, that He
pities, that He alleviates; and bidding us go and do likewise?  God has
alleviated where we cannot.  He has bidden us thereby, if His likeness
and spirit be indeed in us, to alleviate where we can; and believe that
by every additional comfort, however petty, which we provide, we are
copying the Ideal Man, who, because He was very God of very God, could
condescend, at the marriage feast, to turn the water into wine.

SERMON XXXVI.  USELESS SACRIFICE

Preached at Southsea for the Mission of the Good Shepherd.  October 1871.

Isaiah i. 11-17.  "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices
unto me? saith the Lord:  . . .  When ye come to appear before me, who
hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?  Bring no more vain
oblations; incense is an abomination to me; the new moons and sabbaths,
the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the
solemn meeting.  Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth:
they are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them.  And when ye spread
forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you:  yea, when ye make many
prayers, I will not hear:  your hands are full of blood.  Wash you, make
you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease
to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgement, relieve the oppressed,
judge the fatherless, plead for the widow."

I have been asked to plead to-day for the mission of the Good Shepherd in
Portsea.

I am informed that Portsea contains some thirteen thousand souls, divided
between two parishes.  That they, as I feared, include some of the most
ignorant and vicious of both sexes which can be found in the kingdom;
that there are few or no rich people in the place; that the rich who have
an interest in the labour of these masses live away from the place, and
from the dwellings of those whom they employ--a social evil new to
England; but growing, alas! fearfully common in it; and that vice, and
unthrift, uncertain wages, and unhealthy dwellings produce there, as
elsewhere, misery and savagery most deplorable.  I am told, too, that
this mission has been working, nobly and self-denyingly, among these
unhappy people for some years past.  That it can, and ought to largely
extend its operations; that it is in want of fresh funds; that it is
proposed to build a new church, which, it is hoped, will be a centre of
civilization and organization, as well as of religion and morality, for
the district; and I am bidden to invite you, as close neighbours of
Portsea, to help in the good work.  I, of course, know too little of
local facts, or of the temper of the people of Southsea.  But I am bound
to believe it to be the same as I have found it elsewhere.  And I
therefore shall confine myself to general questions, and shall treat this
case of Portsea, as what it is, alas! one among a hundred similar ones,
and say to you simply what I have said for twenty-five years, wherever
and whenever I can get a hearing.  And therefore if I seem here and there
to speak sharply and sternly, recollect that I pay you a compliment in so
doing--first, that I speak not to you, but to all English men and women;
and next, that I speak as to those who have noble instincts, if they will
be only true to them:--as to English people, who are not afraid of being
told the truth; to English people who do wrong rather from forgetfulness
and luxury, than from meanness and cruelty aforethought; who, as far as I
have seen, need, for the most part, only to be reminded that they are
doing wrong, to reawaken them to their better selves, and set them trying
honestly and bravely to do right.

Let me then begin this sermon with a parable.  Alas! that the parable
should represent a common and notorious fact.  Suppose yourselves in some
stately palace, amid marbles and bronzes, statues and pictures, and all
that cunning brain and cunning hand, when wedded to the high instinct of
beauty, can produce.  The furniture is of the very richest, and kept with
the most fastidious cleanliness.  The floors of precious wood are
polished like mirrors.  The rooms have every appliance for the ease of
the luxurious inmates.  Everywhere you see, not mere brute wealth, but
taste, purity, and comfort.  There is no lack of intellect either:--wise
and learned books fill the library shelves; maps and scientific
instruments crowd the tables.  Nor of religion either;--for the house
contains a private chapel, fitted up in the richest style of mediaeval
ecclesiastical art.  And as you walk along from polished floor to
polished floor, you seem to pass in review every object which the body,
or the mind, or the spirit, of the most civilized human being can need
for its satisfaction.

But, next to the chapel itself, a scent of carrion makes you start.  You
look, against the will of your smart and ostentatious guide, through a
half-open door, and see another sight--a room, dark and foul, mildewed
and ruinous; and, swept carelessly into a corner, a heap of dirt, rags,
bones, waifs and strays of every kind, decaying all together.

You ask, with astonishment and disgust, how comes that there? and are
told, to your fresh astonishment and disgust, that that is only where the
servants sweep the litter.  But crouching behind the litter, in the
darkest corner, something moves.  You go up to it, in spite of the
entreaties of your guide, and find an aged idiot gibbering in her rags.

Who is she?  Oh, an old servant--or a child, or possibly a grand-child,
of some old servant--your guide does not remember which.  She is better
out of the way there in the corner.  At all events she can find plenty to
eat among the dirt-heap; and as for her soul, if she has one, the
clergyman is said to come and see her now and then, so probably it will
be saved.

Would you not turn away from that palace with the contemptuous thought--
Civilized?  Refined?  These people's civilization is but skin-deep.
Their refinement is but an outside show.  Look into the first back room,
and you find that they are foul barbarians still.

And yet such, literally such and no better, is the refinement of modern
England; such, and no better, is the civilization of our great towns.
Such I fear from what I am told, is the civilization of Southsea, beside
the barbarism to be found in Portsea close at hand.  Dirt and squalor,
brutality and ignorance close beside such luxury as the world has not
seen, it may be, since the bad days of Heathen Rome.

But more, if you turned away, you would say to yourselves, if you were
thoughtful persons--not only what barbarism, but what folly.  The owner
and his household are in daily danger.  The idiot in discontent, or even
in mere folly, may seize a lighted candle, burn petroleum, as she did in
Paris of late, and set the whole palace on fire.  And more, the very dirt
is in itself inflammable, and capable, as it festers, of spontaneous
combustion.  How many a stately house has been burnt down ere now, simply
by the heating of greasy rags, thrust away in some neglected closet.  Let
the owner of the house beware.  He is living, voluntarily, over a volcano
of his own making.

But more--what if you were told that the fault lay not so much in the
negligence of servants as in that of the owner himself, that the master
of that palace had over him a King, to whom all that was foul,
neglectful, cruel, was inexpressibly hateful, so hateful that He once had
actually stepped off the throne of the universe to die for such creatures
as that poor idiot and her forgotten parents?  Would you not question
whether the prayers offered up in that chapel would have any answer from
Him, save that awful answer He once gave?  "When ye spread forth your
hands, I will hide mine eyes:  yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not
hear; your hands are full of blood."

Oh, my friends, you who understand my parable, has the awful thought
never struck you that such may be God's answer to the prayers of a nation
which leaves in its midst such barbarism, such heathenism, as exists in
every great town of this realm?  And what if you were told next that the
laws of His kingdom were eternal and inexorable, and that one of His
cardinal laws is--that as a man sows, so shall he reap; that every sin
punishes itself, even though the sinner does not know that he has sinned;
that he who knew not his master's will, and did it not, shall be beaten
with few stripes; that the innocent babe does not escape unburnt, because
it knew not that fire burns; that the good man who lives in a malarious
alley does not escape fever and cholera, because he does not know that
dirt breeds pestilence; that, in a word, he who knew not his master's
will, and did it not, shall be beaten with few stripes; but that he who
knew his master's will, and did it not, shall be beaten with many
stripes?  Then of how many and how heavy stripes, think you, will the
inhabitant of that palace be counted worthy, who has been taught by
Christianity for the last fifteen hundred years, and by physical science
and political economy for the last fifty years, and yet persists, in
defiance of his own knowledge, in leaving his used-up servants, and their
children and grand-children after them, to rot, body, mind, and soul, in
the very precincts of the palace, having no other excuse to offer for
this than that it is too much trouble to treat them better, and that, on
the whole, he can make money more rapidly by thus throwing away that
human dirt, and leaving it to decay where it can, regardless what it
pollutes and poisons; just as the manufacturer can make money more
rapidly by not consuming his own smoke, but letting it stream out of the
chimney to poison with blackness and desolation the green fields where
God meant little children to gather flowers?

Ladies, to you I appeal, not merely as women, but as Ladies, if (as I am
assured by those who know you), ladies you are, in the grand old meaning
of that grand old word.

If so--you know then, what it is to be a lady and what not.  You know
that it is not to go, like the daughters of Zion in Isaiah's time, with
mincing gait, and borrowed head-gear, and tasteless finery, the head
well-nigh empty, the heart full of little save vanity and vexation of
spirit, busy all the week over cheap novels and expensive dresses, and on
Sunday over a little dilettante devotion.  You know, I take for granted,
that whatever the world may think or say, that to be that, is not to be a
lady.

For you know, I take for granted, what that word lady meant at first.
That it meant she who gave out the loaves, the housewife who provided
food and clothes; the stewardess of her household and dependants; the
spinner among her maidens; the almsgiver to the poor; the worshipper in
the chapel, praying for wild men away in battle.  The being from whom
flowed forth all gracious influences of thought and order, of bounty and
compassion, of purity and piety, civilizing and Christianizing a whole
family, a whole domain.  This it was to be a lady, in the old days when
too many men had little care save to make war.  And this it is to be a
lady still, in the new days in which too many men have little care save
to make money.  Show then that you can be ladies still.  That the spirit
is the spirit of your ancestresses, though the form in which it must show
itself is changed with the change of society.

To you I appeal; to as many in this church as are ladies, not in name
only, but in spirit and in truth.  Say to your fathers, husbands,
brothers, sons, and say too, and that boldly, to the tradesmen with whom
you deal--Do you hear this?  Do you hear that there are savages and
heathens, generations of them, within a rifle-shot of the house?  And you
cannot exterminate them; cannot drive them out, much less kill them.  You
must convert them, improve them, make them civilized and Christian, if
not for their own sakes, at least for our sakes, and for our children.

And if they should answer:  My dears, it is too true.  But we did not
make them or put them there, and they are not in our parish.  They are no
concern of ours, and besides they will not hurt us.

Answer them:  Not made by our fault!  True, our hands are more or less
clean:  but what of that?  There they are.  If you had a tribe of Red
Indians on the frontier of your settlement, would you take the less guard
against them, because you did not put them there?  Not in our parish, and
what of that?  They are in our county; they are in England.  Has man the
right, has man the power in the sight of God to draw any imaginary line
of demarcation between Englishman and Englishman, especially when that
line is drawn between rich and poor?  England knows no line of
demarcation, save the shore of the great sea; and even that her
generosity is overleaping at this moment at the call of mere humanity, in
bounty to sufferers by the West Indian hurricane, and by the Chicago
fire.  Will you send your help across the Atlantic; and deny it to the
sufferers at your own doors?  At least, if the rich be confined by an
imaginary line across, the poor on the other side will not--they will
cross it freely enough; and what they will bring with them will be
concern enough of ours.  Would it not be our concern if there was small-
pox, scarlet fever, cholera among them?  Should we not fear lest that
might hurt us?  Would you not bestir yourselves then?  And do you not
know that it is among such people as these that pestilence is always
bred?  And if not, is not the pestilence of the soul more subtle and more
contagious than any pestilence of the body?  What is the spreading power
of fever to the spreading power of vice, which springs from tongue to
tongue, from eye to eye, from heart to heart?  What matter whether they
be one mile off or five?  Will not they corrupt our servants; and those
servants again our children?

And say to them, if you be prudent and thrifty housewives, Do not tell us
that their condition costs you nothing.  Even in pocket you are suffering
now--as all England is suffering--from the existence of heathens and
savages, reckless, profligate, pauperized.  For if you pay no poor-rates
for their support, the shop-keepers with whom you deal pay poor-rates;
and must and do repay themselves, out of your pockets, in the form of
increased prices for their goods.

And when you have said all this, ladies, and more,--for more will suggest
itself to your woman's wit,--say to them with St Paul--"And yet show we
unto you a more excellent way,"--a nobler argument--and that is Charity.

Not almsgiving.  I had almost said, anything but that; making bad worse,
the improvident more improvident, the liar more ready to lie, the idler
more ready to idle.  But the Charity which is Humanity, which is the
spirit of pure pity, the Spirit of Christ and of God.

Say then, Even if these poor creatures did us no harm, as they must and
will do--civilize and christianize them for their own sakes, simply
because they must be so very miserable--miserable too often with acute
and conscious misery; too often with a worse misery, dull and
unconscious, which knows not, stupified by ignorance and vice, that it is
miserable, and ought to be more miserable still.  For who is so worthy of
our pity, as he who knows not that he is pitiable?--who takes ignorance,
dirt, vice, passion, and the wretchedness which vice and passion bring,
as all in the day's work, as he takes the rain and hail, the frost and
snow,--as unavoidable necessities of mortal life, for which the only
temporary alleviation is--drink?

If the refined and pure-minded lady does not pity such beings as that, I
know not of what her refinement is made.  If the religious lady will not
bestir herself, and make sacrifices to teach such people that that is not
what God meant them to be--to stir up in them a noble self-discontent, a
noble self-abhorrence, which may be the beginning of repentance and
amendment of life--I know not of what her religion is made.

One word more--I know that such thoughts as I have put before you to-day
are painful.  I know that we all--I as much as anyone in this church--are
tempted to put them by, and say, I will think of things beautiful, not of
things ugly; of art, poetry, science--all that is orderly, graceful,
ennobling; and not of dirt, ignorance, vice, misery, all that is
disorderly, degrading.  Nay, even the most pious at times are tempted to
say, I will think of heaven and not of earth.  I will lift up my heart,
and try to behold the glory and the goodness of God, and not the disgrace
and sin of man.

But only for a time may they thus think and speak.  Happy if they can, at
moments, lift up their hearts unto the Lord, and catch one glimpse of Him
enthroned in perfect serenity and perfect order, governing the worlds
with that all-embracing justice, which is at the same time all-embracing
love, and so, giving Him thanks for His great glory, gain heart and hope
to--what?  To descend again, even were it from the beatific vision
itself, to this disordered earth, to work a little--and, alas how little-
-at lessening the sum of human ignorance, human vice, human misery--even
as their Lord and Saviour stooped from the throne of the universe, and
from the bosom of the Father, to toil and die for such as curse about the
streets outside.

SERMON XXXVII.  THE SURPRISE OF THE RIGHTEOUS

Preached at Southsea for the Mission of the Good Shepherd.  October 1871.

St Matt. xxv. 34-37.  "Then shall the King say unto them on his right
hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world:  For I was an hungred, and ye gave me
meat:  I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink:  I was a stranger, and ye
took me in:  naked, and ye clothed me:  I was sick, and ye visited me:  I
was in prison, and ye came unto me.  Then shall the righteous answer him,
saying, Lord, when saw we Thee an hungred, and fed Thee? or thirsty, and
gave Thee drink?"

Let us consider awhile this magnificent parable, and consider it
carefully, lest we mistake its meaning.  And let us specially consider
one point about it, which is at first sight puzzling, and which has
caused, ere now, many to miss (as I believe, with some of the best
commentators, ) the meaning of the whole--which is this:  that the
righteous in the parable did not know that when they did good to their
fellow-creatures, they did it to Christ the Lord.

Now there are two kinds of people who do know that, because they have
been taught it by Holy Scripture, who would make two very different
answers to the Lord, when He spoke in such words to them.  At least so we
may suppose, for they are ready to make such answers here on earth; and
therefore, we may suppose that if they dared, they would answer so at the
day of judgment.  One party would--or at least might say, "Yes, Lord, I
knew that whatever I did to the poor, I did to Thee; and therefore I did
all I could for the poor.  I started charitable institutions, I spoke at
missionary meetings, I put my name down for large sums in every
subscription list, I built churches and chapels, schools and hospitals; I
gained the reputation among men of being a leading philanthropist,
foremost in every good work."

What answer the man who said that would receive from the Lord, I know
not; for who am I that I should put words into the mouth of my Creator
and my God?  But I think that the awful majesty of the Lord's very
countenance might strike such a man dumb, ere he had time to say those
vain proud words, and strike his conscience through with the thought,
Yes, I have been charitable:  but have I been humane?  I have been a
philanthropist:  but have I really loved my fellow-men?  Have I not made
my interest in the heathen whom I have not seen, an excuse for despising
and hating my countrymen whom I have seen, if they dared to differ from
me in religion or in politics?  I have given large sums in charity:  but
have I ever sacrificed anything for my fellow-men?  I have given Christ
back a pound in every hundred--perhaps even out of every ten which He has
given me:  but what did I do with the other nine pounds save spend them
on myself?  Is there a luxury in which a respectable man could safely
indulge, which I have denied myself?  What have I been after all, with
all my philanthropy and charity, but a selfish, luxurious, pompous
personage? an actor doing my alms to be seen of men?  I did my good works
as unto Christ?--No; I did them as unto myself--to get honour from men
while I lived, and to save my selfish soul when I died.  God be merciful
to me a sinner!  That such thoughts ought to pass through too many
persons' hearts in this generation, I fear is too certain.  God grant
that they may do so before it is too late.  But it is plain, at least,
that these are not the sheep of whom Christ speaks.

Again, there are another, and a very different kind of persons, who we
have a right to fancy, would answer the Lord somewhat thus:  "Oh Lord,
speak not of it.  It may be I have tried to do a little good to a poor
suffering creature here and there; to feed a few hungry, clothe a few
naked, visit a few sick and prisoners.  But Lord, how could I do less?
after all that Thou hast done and suffered for me; and after Thy own
gracious saying, that inasmuch as I did anything to the least of Thy
brethren, I did it to Thee.  What less could I do, Lord?--and after all,
what a pitifully small amount I have done!  Thou did'st hunger for me--
for whom have I ever hungered?  Thou did'st suffer for me--for whom have
I ever suffered?  Thou did'st die for me--for whom have I ever died?  And
I did not--I fear in the depth of my heart--do what I did really for
Thee; but for the very pleasure of doing it.  I began to do good from a
sense of duty to Thee; but after a while I did good, I fear, only because
it was so pleasant--so pleasant to see human faces looking up into mine
with gratitude; so pleasant to have little children, even though they
were none of my own, clinging to me in trust; so pleasant when I went
home at night to feel that I had made one human being a little happier, a
little better, even only a little more comfortable; so pleasant to give
up my own pleasure, in order to give pleasure to others, that I fear I
forgot Thee in my own enjoyment.  If I sinned in that, Lord forgive.  But
at least, I have had my reward.  My work among Thy poor was its own
reward, a reward of inward happiness beyond all that earth can give--and
now Thou speakest of rewarding me over and above, with I know not what of
undeserved bliss.  Thou art too good, O Lord, as is Thy wont from all
eternity.  Let me go and hide myself--a more than unprofitable servant,
who has not done the hundredth part of that which it was my duty to do."

What answer the Lord would make to the modest misgivings of that sweet
soul, I cannot say; for again, who am I, that I should put words into the
mouth of my Creator and my God?  But this I know, that I had rather be--
what I am not, and never shall be--such a soul as that in the last day,
than own all the kingdoms of the world and the glory thereof.  Still, it
is plain that such persons, however holy, however loving, are not those
of whom our Lord speaks in this parable.  For they, too, know, and must
know, that inasmuch as they showed mercy unto one of the least of the
Lord's brethren, they showed it unto Him.  But the special peculiarity of
the persons of whom our Lord speaks, is that they did not know, that they
had no suspicion, that in showing kindness to men, they were showing
kindness to Christ.  "Lord," they answer, "when saw we Thee?"

It is a revelation to them, in the strictest and deepest sense of the
word.  A revelation, that is an unveiling, a drawing away of a veil which
was before their eyes and hiding from them a divine and most blessed
fact, of which they had been unaware.  But who are they?  I think we must
agree with some of the best commentators, among others with that
excellent divine and excellent man, now lost to the Church on earth, the
late Dean of Canterbury, that they are persons who, till the day of
judgment, have never heard of Christ; but who then, for the first time,
as Dean Alford says, "are overwhelmed with the sight of the grace which
has been working in and for them, and the glory which is now their
blessed portion."  Such persons, perhaps, as those two poor negresses--to
remind you of a story which was famous in our fathers' time--those two
poor negresses, I say, who found the African traveller, Mungo Park, dying
of fever and starvation, and saved his life, simply from human love--as
they sung to themselves by his bedside--

"Let us pity the poor white man;
He has no mother to make his bed,
No wife to grind his corn."

Perhaps it is such as those, who have succoured human beings they knew
not why, simply from a divine instinct, from the voice of Christ within
their hearts, which they felt they must obey, though they knew not whose
voice it was.  Perhaps, I say, it is such as those, that Christ will
astonish at the last day by the words, "Come ye blessed of my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."

If this be the true meaning of our Lord's words, what comfort and hope
they may give us, when we think, as we are bound to think, if we have a
true humanity in us, of the hundreds of millions of heathen now alive,
and of the thousands of millions of heathen who have lived and died.
Sinful they are as a whole.  Sinning, it may be, without law, but
perishing without law.  For the wages of sin are death, and can be
nothing else.  But may not Christ have His elect among them?  May not His
Spirit be working in some of them?  May He not have His sheep among them,
who hear His voice though they know not that it is His voice?  They hear
a voice within their hearts whispering to them, "Be loving, be merciful,
be humane, in one word be just, and do to others as you would they should
do to you."  And whose voice can that be but the voice of Christ, and the
Spirit of God?  Those loving instincts come not from the fleshly fallen
nature, or natural man.  That says to us, "Be selfish; do not be loving.
Do to others not what you would they should do to you, but do to others
whatever is pleasant and profitable to yourselves."  And alas! the
heathen, and too many who call themselves Christians, listen to that
carnal voice, and live the life of selfishness and pleasure, of anger and
revenge, of tyranny and cruelty--the end of which is death.

But if any among those heathen--hearing within their hearts the other
voice, the gracious voice which says, "Do unto others as you would they
should do unto you,"--feel that that voice is a good voice and a right
command, which must be obeyed, and which it is beautiful and delightful
to obey, and so obey it; may we not hope then, that Christ, who has
called them, will perfect His own work; and in His own good way, and His
own good time, deliver them from their sin and ignorance, and vouchsafe
to them at last that knowledge of the true and holy God, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, whom truly to know is everlasting life?  They are Christ's
lost sheep:  but they are still His sheep who hear His voice.  May He not
fulfil His own words to them, and go forth and seek such souls, and lay
them on His shoulder, and bring them home; saying to His Church on earth,
and to His Church in heaven, "Rejoice with Me:  for I have found my sheep
which was lost?"

Now if we can thus have hope for some among the heathen abroad, shall we
not have hope, too, for some among the heathen at home? for some among
that mass of human corruption which welters around the walls of so many
of our cities?  I am not going to make vain excuses for them; and say
they are but the victims of circumstance.  The great majority of them are
the victims of their own low instincts.  They have chosen the broad and
easy road of animalism, which leads to destruction.  They have sown to
the flesh, and they will of the flesh reap corruption.  For the laws of
God are inexorable; and the curse of the law is sure, namely, "The wages
of sin are death."  Neither dare I encourage too vast hopes and say, If
we had money enough, if we had machinery enough, if we had zeal enough,
we might convert them all, and save them all.  I dare not believe it.
The many, I fear, will always go the broad road; the few the narrow one.
And all we dare say is, if we have faith enough, we can convert some.  We
can at least fulfil our ordination vow.  We can seek out Christ's sheep
scattered abroad about this naughty world, and tell them of His fold, and
try to bring them home.

But how shall we know Christ's sheep when we see them?  How, but by the
very test which Christ has laid down, it seems to me, in this very
parable?  Is there in one of them the high instincts--even the desire to
do a merciful act?  Let us watch for that:  and when in the most brutal
man, and--alas that I should have to use the words--in the most brutal
woman, we see any touch of nobleness, justice, benevolence, pity,
tenderness--in one word, any touch, however momentary, of unselfishness,-
-let us spring at that, knowing that there is the soul we seek; there is
a lost sheep of Christ; there is Christ Himself, working unknown upon a
human soul; there is a soul ready for the gospel, and not far from the
kingdom of God.  But what shall we say to that lost sheep?  Shall we
terrify it by threats of hell?  Shall we even allure it by promises of
heaven?  Not so--not so at least at first--for that would be to appeal to
bodily fear and bodily pleasure, to the very selfishness from which
Christ is trying to deliver it; and to neglect the very prevenient grace,
the very hold on the soul which Christ Himself offers us.  Let us
determine with St. Paul to know nothing among our fellow-men but Christ
crucified.  Let us appeal just to that in the soul which is unselfish;
not to the instincts of loss and gain, but to those nobler instincts of
justice and mercy; just because they are not the man's or the woman's
instincts; but Christ's within them, the light of Christ and the Spirit
of Christ, the spirit of love and justice saying, "Do unto others as you
would they should do unto you."  Do you doubt that?  I trust not.  For to
doubt that is to doubt whether God be truly the Giver of all good things.
To doubt that is to begin to disbelieve St. Paul's great saying, "In me,
that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing."  To doubt that is to lay
our hearts and minds open to the insidious poison of that Pelagian heresy
which, received under new shapes and names, is becoming the cardinal
heresy of modern disbelief.  No; we will have faith in Christ, faith in
our creeds, faith in catholic doctrine; and will say to that man or that
woman, even as they wallow still in the darkness and the mire, "Behold
your God!  That cup of cold water which you gave, you knew not why,--
Christ told you to give it, and to Him you gave.  That night watch beside
the bed of a woman as fallen as yourself,--Christ bade you watch, and you
watched by Him.  For that drunken ruffian, whom you, a drunken ruffian
yourself, leaped into the sea to save, Christ bade you leap, and like St.
Christopher of old, you bore, though you knew it not, your Saviour and
your God to land."  And if they shall make answer, "And who is He that I
did not know Him? who is He that I should know Him now?"  Let us point
them--and whither else should we point them in heaven or earth?--to
Christ upon the cross, and say, "Behold your God!  This He did, this He
condescended, this He dared, this He suffered for you, and such as you.
This is what He, the Maker of the universe, is like.  This is what He has
been trying to make you like, in your small degree, every time a noble, a
generous, a pitiful, a merciful emotion crossed your heart; every time
you forgot yourself, even for a moment, and thought of the welfare of a
fellow-man."

If that tale, if that sight, if that revelation and unveiling of Christ
to the poor sinful soul does not work in it an abhorrence of past sin, a
craving after future holiness, an admiration and a reverence for Christ
Himself, which is, ipso facto, saving faith; if that soul does not reply-
-it may not be in words, but in feelings too deep for words,--"Yes; this
is indeed noble, indeed Godlike, worthy of a God, and worthy therefore to
be at once imitated and adored:" then, indeed, the Cross of Christ must
have lost that miraculous power which it has possessed, for more than
eighteen hundred years, as the highest "moral ideal" which ever was seen,
or ever can be seen, by the reason and the heart of man.

SERMON XXXVIII.  THE LORD'S PRAYER

Windsor Castle, 1867.  Chester Cathedral, 1870.

Matthew vi. 9, 10.  "After this manner, therefore, pray ye, Our Father
which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be
done, on earth as it is in heaven."

Let us think for a while on these great words.  Let us remember that some
day or other they will certainly be fulfilled.  Let us remember that
Christ would not have bidden us use them, unless He intended that they
should be fulfilled.  And let us remember, likewise, that we must help to
fulfil them.  We need to be reminded of this from time to time, for we
are all inclined to forget it.  We are inclined to forget that mankind
has a Father in heaven, who is ruling, and guiding, and educating us, His
human children, to

   "One far off divine event,
Toward which the whole creation moves."

We are apt to fancy that the world will always go on very much as it goes
on now; that it will be guided, not by the will of God, but by the will
of man; by man's craft; by man's ambition; by man's self-interest; by
man's cravings after the luxuries, and even after the mere necessities of
this life.  In a word, we are apt to fancy that man, not God, is the
master of this earth on which we live, and that men have no king over
them in heaven.

The Lord's Prayer tells us that men HAVE a king over them in heaven, and
that that king is a Father likewise--a Father whose name will one day be
hallowed above all names.  That the world will not always go on as it
goes on now, but that the Father's kingdom will come.  That above the
will of man, there is a will of God, which must be done, and therefore
will be done some day.  In a word, the Lord's Prayer tells us that this
world is under a Divine government; that the Lord, even Jesus Christ our
Saviour, is King, be the people never so impatient.  That He sitteth
between the cherubim, master of all the powers of nature, be the earth
never so unquiet.  That His power loves justice.  That He has prepared
equity.  That He has executed, and therefore will execute to the end,
judgment and righteousness in the earth.  That Christ reigns in justice
and in love.  That He has for those who disobey His laws the most
terrible penalties; for those who obey them blessings such as eye hath
not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to
conceive.  That He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet
and delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father.  That on that great
day He will prove His royalty, and His Father's royalty, in the sight of
all heaven and earth, and make every soul of man aware, in a fashion
which none shall mistake, that He is Lord and King.  This is the message
which the Lord's Prayer brings--a message of mingled fear and joy.

But a message of more joy than fear.  Else why does our Lord bid us pray
for it that it may come to pass?--pray daily, before we even pray for our
daily bread, or the forgiveness of our sins--that His Father's name may
be hallowed, His Father's kingdom come, His Father's will be done?

He bids us pray for that because it will bring blessings.  Blessings to
every soul of man who desires to be good and true.  Because it will
satisfy every aspiration which has ever risen up from the heart of man
after what is noble, what is generous, what is just, what is useful, what
is pure.  Surely it is so.  Consider but these short words of my text,
and think what the world would be like if they were fulfilled; what the
next world will actually be like when they are fulfilled.

"Hallowed be thy name."  But what name?  The name of Father.  If that
name were hallowed by men, there would be an end of all superstitions.
The root of all superstitions, fanaticisms, and false religions is this--
that they do not hallow the name of Father.  They do not see that it is a
Holy name, a beautiful and tender as well as an awful and venerable name.
They think of fathers, like too many among themselves, proud, and
arbitrary, selfish and cruel.  They say in their hearts, even such
fathers as we are, such is God.  Therefore, they shrink from God, and
turn from Him to idols, to the Virgin Mary, or Saints, or any other
beings who can deliver them (as they fancy) out of the hands of their
Father in heaven.  If men once learnt to hallow the name of Father, to
think of a father as one who not only possessed power but felt love, who
not only had rights which he would enforce, and issued commands which
must be obeyed, but who felt yearning sympathy for his children's
weakness, an active interest in their education, and was ready to labour
for, to sacrifice himself for, his family--That would be truly to hallow
the name of Father, and look on it as a holy thing, whether in heaven
above or in earth beneath.

To hallow the Father's name would abolish all the superstition of the
world.  And so the coming of the Father's kingdom would abolish all the
misrule and anarchy of the world.  For the kingdom of God the Father is a
kingdom of perfect order, perfect justice, perfect usefulness.  Surely
the first consequences of that kingdom's coming would be, that every one
would be exactly in his right place, and that every one would get his
exact deserts.  That would indeed be the kingdom of God on earth.  The
prospect of such a kingdom would be painful enough to those who were in
their wrong place, to those who were undeserving.  All who were useless,
taking wages either from man or from God, without doing any work in
return, all these would have but too good reason to dread the coming of
the kingdom of God.

But those who were trying earnestly to do their work, though amid many
mistakes and failures, why should they dread the coming of the kingdom of
God?  Why should they shrink from remembering that, though God's kingdom
is not come in perfection and fulness, it is here already, and they are
in it?  Why should they shrink from that thought?  They will find it full
of comfort, of strength, and hope, if they will but hallow their Father's
name, and remember the fact of all facts--that they have a Father in
heaven.  There are thousands on earth, from the highest to the lowest,
who can say honestly--to take the commonest instance--every parent can
say it--"I have a heavy work to do, a heavy responsibility to fulfil.
God knows I did not seek it, thrust myself into it; it was thrust upon
me.  It came to me in the course of nature or of society, and
circumstances over which I had no control.  In one word it was MY DUTY.
But now that I have my duty to do, behold I cannot do it.  I try my best,
but I fail.  I come short daily of my own low standard of duty.  How much
more of God's perfect standard of it!  And the burden of responsibility,
the regret for failure, is more than I can bear.

To such we may answer, hallow your Father's name, and be of good cheer.
YOUR FATHER has given you your work.  Because He is a Father, He is
surely educating you for your work.  Because He is a Father, He will
surely set you no task which you are unable to fulfil.  Because He is a
Father, He will help you to fulfil your task.  Your station and calling
is His will; and because it is a Father's will it is a good will.

And the Judge of your work--He is no stern taskmaster, no unfeeling
tyrant, but Jesus Christ, your Lord, who died for you on the Cross.  He
knows what is in man.  He remembereth that we are but dust.  Else the
spirit would fail before Him and the souls which He has made.  He can be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities, seeing that He was tempted
in all things like as we are, yet without sin.  He can sympathise
utterly; He can make all just allowances; He will judge not by outward
results, but by the inward will and desire.  He will judge not by the
hearing of the ear, nor the seeing of the eye, as the shallow cruel world
judges, but He will judge righteous judgment.  Trust your cause to Him,
and trust yourself to Him.  Believe that if He can sympathise, He can
also help; for from Him, as well as from His Father, proceeds the Holy
Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, the spirit of wisdom and
understanding, the spirit of power and might, the spirit of knowledge and
the fear of the Lord, and He will inspire you to see your duty, and do
your duty, and rejoice in your duty, in spite of weariness and failure,
and all the burdens of the flesh and of the spirit.

"Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."  If that were done, it
would abolish all the vice of the world, and therefore the misery which
springs from vice.  Ah, that God's will were but done on earth as it is
in the material heaven overhead, in perfect order and obedience, as the
stars roll in their courses, without rest, yet without haste; as all
created things, even the most awful, fire and hail, snow and vapour, wind
and storm, fulfil God's word, who hath made them sure for ever and ever,
and given them a law which shall not be broken.  But above them; above
the divine and wonderful order of the material universe, and the winds
which are God's angels, and the flames of fire which are His messengers;
above all, the prophets and apostles have caught sight of another divine
and wonderful order of RATIONAL beings, of races, loftier and purer than
man--angels and archangels, thrones and dominions, principalities and
powers, fulfilling God's will in heaven as it is not alas! fulfilled on
earth.

And beside them, beside the innumerable company of angels, are there not
the spirits of just men made perfect, freed from the fetters of the gross
animal body, and now somewhere in that boundless universe in which this
earth is but a tiny speck, doing God's will, as they longed to do it on
earth, with clearer light, fuller faith, deeper love, mightier powers of
usefulness?  Ah, that we were like to them!  Ah, that we could perform
the least part of our day's work on earth as it is performed by saints
and angels for ever in heaven!  When we think of what this poor confused
world is, and then what it might be, were God's will done therein as it
is done in heaven; what it might be if even the little of God's will
which we already know, the little of God's laws which are proved already
to be certain, were carried out with any earnestness by the majority of
mankind, or even of one civilized nation--when we think--to take the very
lowest ground--of the health and wealth, the peace and happiness, which
would cover this earth did men only do the will of God; then, if we have
human hearts within us--if we care at all for the welfare of our fellow-
men--ought not this to be the prayer of all our prayers, and ought we not
to welcome any event, however awful, which would bring mankind to reason
and to virtue, and to God, and abolish the sin and misery of this unhappy
world?

To abolish the superstition, the misrule, the vice, the misery of this
world.  That is what Christ will do in the day when He has put all
enemies under His feet.  That is what Christ has been doing, step by
step, ever since that day when first He came to do His Father's will on
earth in great humility.  Therefore, that is what we must do, each in our
place and station, if we be indeed His subjects, fellow-workers with Him
in the improvement of the human race, fellow-soldiers with Him in the
battle against evil.

But what we wish to do for our fellow-creatures, we must do first for
ourselves.  We can give them nothing save what God has already given us.
We must become good before we can make them good, and wise before we can
make them wise.  Let us pray, then, the Lord's Prayer in spirit and in
truth.  Let us pray that we may hallow the name of God, our Father.  Let
us pray that His kingdom may come in our own hearts.  Let us pray that we
may do His will on earth as those whom we love and honour do it in
heaven.  Let us keep that before us, day and night, as the aim and
purpose of our lives.  Let us pray for forgiveness of our failures in
that; for help to do that better as our years run on.  So we shall be
ready for the day in which Christ shall have accomplished the number of
His elect, and hastened His kingdom.  So we shall be found in that dread
day, not on the side of evil, but of God; not on the side of darkness,
anarchy, and vice, but on the side of light, of justice, and of virtue,
which is the side of Christ and of God.  And so we, with all those that
are departed in the faith of His holy name, shall have our perfect
consummation and bliss in His eternal and everlasting glory, to which may
He, of His great mercy, bring us all.  Amen.

SERMON XXXIX.  THE DISTRACTED MIND

Eversley. 1871.

Matthew vi. 34.  "Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall
take thought for the things of itself.  Sufficient unto the day is the
evil thereof."

Scholars will tell you that the words "take no thought" do not exactly
express our Lord's meaning in this text.  That they should rather stand,
"Be not anxious about to-morrow."  And doubtless they are right on the
whole.  But the truth is, that we have no word in English which exactly
expresses the Greek word which St Matthew uses in his gospel, and which
we are bound to believe exactly expresses our Lord's meaning, in whatever
language He spoke.  The nearest English word, I believe, is--distracted.
Be ye not distracted about to-morrow.  I do not mean the vulgar sense of
the word--which is losing one's senses.  But the old and true sense,
which is still used by those who speak good English.

To distract, means literally to pull a thing two different ways--even to
pull it asunder.  We speak of distracting a man's attention, when we call
him off from looking at one thing to make him look at something else, and
we call anything which interrupts us in our business, or puts a thought
suddenly out of our heads, a distraction.  Now the Greek word which St
Matthew uses, means very nearly this--Be not divided in your thoughts--do
not think of two things at once--do not distract your attention from to-
day's work, by fearing and hoping about to-morrow.  Sufficient for the
day is the evil thereof; and you will have quite trouble enough to get
through to-day honestly and well, without troubling yourself with to-
morrow--which may turn out very unlike anything which you can dream.
This, I think, is the true meaning of the text; and with it, I think,
agrees another word of our Lord's which St Luke gives--And be ye not of
doubtful mind.  Literally, Do not be up in the air--blown helpless hither
and thither, by every gust of wind, instead of keeping on the firm
ground, and walking straight on about your business, stoutly and
patiently, step after step.  Have no vain fears or vain hopes about the
future; but do your duty here and now.  That is our Lord's command, and
in it lies the secret of success in life.

For do we not find, do we not find, my friends, in practice, that our
Lord's words are true?  Who are the people who get through most work in
their lives, with the least wear and tear, not merely to their bodily
health, but to their tempers and their characters?  Are they the anxious
people?  Those who imagine to themselves possible misfortunes, and ask
continually--What if this happened--or that?  What would become of me
then?  How should I be able to pull through such a trouble?  Where shall
I find friends?  How shall I make myself safe against the chances and
changes of life?  Do we not know that those people are the very ones who
do little work, and often less than none, by thus distracting their
attention and their strength from their daily duty, daily business?  That
while they are looking anxiously for future opportunities, they are
neglecting the opportunities which they have already.  While they are
making interest with others to help them, they forget to help themselves.
That in proportion as they lose faith in God and His goodness, they lose
courage and lose cheerfulness; and have too often to find a false courage
and a false cheerfulness, by drowning their cares in drink, or in mean
cunning and plotting and planning, which usually ends in failure and in
shame?

Are those who do most work, either the plotting or intriguing people?  I
do not mean base false people.  Of them I do not speak here.  But really
good and kind people, honest at heart, who yet are full of distractions
of another sort; who are of double mind--look two ways at once, and are
afraid to be quite open, quite straightforward--who like to COMPASS their
ends, as the old saying is, that is to go round about, towards what they
want, instead of going boldly up to it; who like to try two or more ways
of getting the same thing done; and, as the proverb has it, have many
irons in the fire; who love little schemes, and plots, and mysteries,
even when there is no need for them.  Do such people get most work done?
Far, far from it.  They take more trouble about getting a little matter
done, than simpler and braver men take about getting great matters done.
They fret themselves, they weary themselves, they waste their brains and
hearts--and sometimes their honesty besides--and if they fail, as in the
chances and changes of this mortal life they must too often fail, have
nothing for all their schemings save vanity and vexation of spirit.

But the man who will get most work done, and done with the least trouble,
whether for himself, for his family, or in the calling and duty to which
God has called him, will be the man who takes our Lord's advice.  Who
takes no thought for the morrow, and leaves the morrow to take thought
for itself.  That man will believe that this world is a well-ordered
world, as it needs must be, seeing that God made it, God redeemed it, God
governs it; and that God is merciful in this--that He rewardeth every man
according to his works.  That man will take thought for to-day, earnestly
and diligently, even at times anxiously and in fear and trembling; but he
will not distract, and divide, and weaken his mind by taking thought for
to-morrow also.  Each day he will set about the duty which lies nearest
him, with a whole heart and with a single eye, giving himself to it for
the time, as if there was nothing else to be done in the world.  As for
what he is to do next, he will think little of that.  Little, even, will
he think of whether his work will succeed or not.  That must be as God
shall will.  All that he is bound to do is to do his best; and his best
he can only do by throwing his whole soul into his work.  As his day, he
trusts his strength will be; and he must not waste the strength which God
has given him for to-day on vain fears or vain dreams about to-morrow.
To-day is quite full enough of anxiety, of care, of toil, of ignorance.
Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.  Yes; and sufficient for the
day is the good thereof likewise.  To-day, and to-morrow, too, may end
very differently from what he hoped.  Yes; but they may end, too, very
differently from what he feared.  Let him throw his whole soul into the
thing which he is about, and leave the rest to God.

For so only will he come to the day's end in that wholesome and manful
temper, contented if not cheerful, satisfied with the work he has had to
do, if not satisfied with the way in which he has done it, which will
leave his mind free to remember all his comforts, all his blessings, even
to those commonest of all blessings, which we are all too apt to forget,
just because they are as necessary as the air we breathe; which will show
him how much light there is, even on the darkest day.

He has not got this or that fine thing, it may be, for which he longed:
but he has at least his life, at least his reason, at least his
conscience, at least his God.  Are not they enough to possess?  Are not
they enough wherewith to lie down at night in peace, and rise to-morrow
to take what comes to-morrow, even as he took what came to-day?  And will
he not be most fit to take what comes to-morrow like a Christian man,
whether it be good or evil, with his spirit braced and yet chastened, by
honest and patient labour, instead of being weakened and irritated by
idling over to-day, while he dreamed and fretted about to-morrow?

Ah!  I fancy that I hear some one say--perhaps a woman--"So easy to
preach, but so difficult to practise.  So difficult to think of one thing
at a time.  So difficult not to plot, not to fret, with a whole family of
children dependent on you!  What does the preacher know of a woman's
troubles?  How many things she has to think of, day by day, not one of
which she dares forget--and yet can seldom or never, for all her
recollecting, contrive to get them all done?  How can she help being
distracted by the thought of to-morrow?  Can he feel for frail me?  Does
he know what I go through?"  Yes.  I do know; and I wonder, and admire.
To me the sight of any poor woman managing her family respectably and
thriftily, is one of the most surprising sights on earth, as it is one of
the most beautiful sights on earth.  How she finds time for it, wit for
it, patience for it, courage for it, I cannot conceive.  I have wondered
often why many a woman does not lie down and die, for sheer weariness of
body and soul.  I have fancied often that God must give some special
grace to all good mothers, to enable them to do all that they do, and
bear all they bear.  But still, the women who do most, who bring up their
families best, are surely those who obey their Lord's command, who give
their whole souls to each day's work, and think as little as they can of
to-morrow.  With them, surely, the true wisdom is, not to fret, not to
plot, to do the duty which lies nearest them, and leave the rest to God;
to get each week's bill paid, trusting to God to send money for the week
to come; to get their children every day to school; to correct in them
each fault as it shews itself, without looking forward too much to how
the child will turn out at last.  For them, and for parents of all ranks,
the wisest plan, I believe, is to make no far-fetched plans for their
children's future, certainly no ambitious intrigues for their marriage:
but simply to educate them--that is, to bring out in them, day by day,
all that is purest and best, wisest and ablest, and leave the rest to
God; sure that if they are worth anything, their Father in heaven will
find them work to do, and a place at His table, in this life and in the
life to come.

Yes, my dear friends, this is the true philosophy, the philosophy which
Christ preaches to us all--to old and young, rich and poor, ploughman and
scholar, maid, wife, and widow, all alike.

Fret not.  Plot not.  Look not too far ahead.

Fret not--lest you lose temper, and be moved to do evil.  Plot not--lest
you lose faith in God, and be moved to be dishonest.  Look not too far
ahead--So far only, as to keep yourselves out of open and certain danger-
-lest you see what is coming before you are ready for the sight.  If we
foresaw the troubles which may be coming, perhaps it would break our
hearts; and if we foresaw the happiness which is coming, perhaps it would
turn our heads.  Let us not meddle with the future, and matters which are
too high for us, but refrain our souls, and keep them low, like little
children, content with the day's food, and the day's schooling, and the
day's play-hours, sure that the Divine Master knows that all is right,
and how to train us, and whither to lead us, though we know not, and need
not know, save this--that the path by which He is leading each of us--if
we will but obey and follow, step by step--leads up to Everlasting Life.

SERMON XL.  THE LESSON OF LIFE

Fifth Sunday in Lent.

Chester Training College, 1870.  Windsor Castle, 1871.

Hebrews v. 7, 8.  "Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up
prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was
able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared; though He
were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered."

This is the lesson of life.  This is God's way of educating us, of making
us men and women worthy of the name of men and women, worthy of the name
of children of God.  As Christ learnt, so must we.  If it was necessary
for Him who know no sin, how much more for us who have sins enough and to
spare.  Though He was the eternal Son of God, yet He learnt obedience by
the things which He suffered.  Though we are God's adopted children, we
must learn obedience by what we suffer.  He had to offer up prayer with
strong crying.  So shall we have to do again and again before we die.  He
was heard in that He feared God, and said, "Father not my will, but Thine
be done."  And so shall we.  He was perfected by sufferings.  God grant
that we may be so likewise.  He had to do like us.  God grant that we may
do like Him.

God grant it.  That is all I can say.  I cannot be sure of it, for myself
or for any of you.  I can only hope, and trust in God.  Life is hard
work--any life at least which is worth being called life, which is not
the life of a swine, who thinks of nothing but feeding himself, or of a
butterfly which thinks of nothing but enjoying itself.  Those are easy
lives enough:  but the end thereof is death.  The swine goes to the
slaughter.  The butterfly dies of the frost--and there is an end of them.
But the manly life, the life of good deeds and noble thoughts, and
usefulness, and purity, the life which is discontented with itself, and
which the better it is, longs the more to be better still; the life which
will endure through this world into the world to come, and on and upward
for ever and for ever.--That life is not an easy life to live; it is very
often not a pleasant life; very often a sad life--so sad that that is
true of it which the great poet says--

"Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,
Who never in the midnight hours
Sat weeping on his lonely bed,
He knows you not, you Heavenly Powers."

You may say this is bad news.  I do not believe it is.  I believe it is
good news, and the very best of news:  but if it is bad news, I cannot
help it.  I did not make it so.  God made it so.  And God must know best.
God is love.  And we are His children, and He loves us.  And therefore
His ways with us must be good and loving ways, and any news about them
must be good news, and a gospel, though we cannot see it so at first.

In any case, if it is so, it is better to remember that it is so.  And
Lent, and Passion Week, and Good Friday are meant to put us in mind of it
year by year, because we are all of us only too ready to forget it, and
shut our eyes to it.  Lent and Passion Week, I say, are meant to put us
in mind.  And the preacher is bound to put you in mind of it now and
then.  He is bound, not too often perhaps, lest he should discourage
young hearts, but now and then, to put you in mind of the old Greek
proverb, the very words of which St. Paul uses in the text, that ta
pa??æata æa??æata--sorrows are lessons; and that the most truly pitiable
people often are those who have no sorrows, and ask for no man's pity.

For so it is.  The very worst calamity, I should say, which could befall
any human being would be this--To have his own way from his cradle to his
grave; to have everything he liked for the asking, or even for the
buying; never to be forced to say, "I should like that:  but I cannot
afford it.  I should like this:  but I must not do it"--Never to deny
himself, never to exert himself, never to work, and never to want.  That
man's soul would be in as great danger as if he were committing great
crimes.  Indeed, he would very probably before he died commit great
crimes--like certain negroes whom I have seen abroad, who live a life of
such lazy comfort and safety, and superabundance of food, that they are
beginning more and more to live the life of animals rather than men.
They are like those of whom the Psalmist says, "Their eyes swell out with
fatness, and they do even what they lust."  So do they, and indulge in
gross vices, which, if not checked in some way, will end in destroying
them off the face of the earth in a few generations more.  I had rather,
for the sake of my character, my manhood, my immortal soul, I had rather,
I say, a hundred times over, be an English labourer, struggling on on
twelve shillings a week, and learning obedience, self-denial, self-
respect, and trust in God, by the things suffered in that hard life here
at home, than be a Negro in Tropic islands, fattening himself in sloth
under that perpetual sunshine, and thinking nought of God, because, poor
fool, he can get all he wants without God's help.

No, my dear young friends, this is good for a man.  It is necessary for a
man, if he is to be a man and a child of God, and not a mere animal, to
have to work hard whether he likes or not.  It is good for a man to bear
the yoke in his youth, as Jeremiah told the Jews, when, because they
would not bear God's light yoke in their youth, but ran riot into luxury
and wantonness, and superstition and idolatry which come thereof, they
had to bear the heavy yoke of the Babylonish captivity in their old age.
It is good for a man to be checked, crossed, disappointed, made to feel
his own ignorance, weakness, folly; made to feel his need of God; to feel
that, in spite of all his cunning and self-confidence, he is no better
off in this world than a lost child in a dark forest, unless he has a
Father in Heaven, who loves him with an eternal love, and a Holy Spirit
in Heaven, who will give him a right judgment in all things; who will put
into his mind good desires, and enable him to bring those desires to good
effect; and a Saviour in Heaven who can be touched with the feeling of
his infirmities, because He too was made perfect by sufferings; He too
was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.

And, therefore, my dear friends, those words which we read in the
Visitation of the Sick about this matter are not mere kind words, meant
to give comfort for the moment.  They are truth and fact and sound
philosophy.  They are as true for the young lad in health and spirits as
for the old folk crawling towards their graves.  It is true, and you will
find it true, that sickness and all sorts of troubles, are sent to
correct and amend in us whatever doth offend the eyes of our Heavenly
Father.  It is true, and you will find it true, that whom the Lord loveth
He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.  It is true,
and you will find it true (though God knows it is a difficult lesson
enough to learn), that there should be no greater comfort to Christian
persons, than to be made like Christ, by suffering patiently not only the
hard work of every-day life, but adversities, troubles, and sicknesses,
and our Heavenly Father's correction, whensoever, by any manner of
adversity, it shall please His gracious goodness to visit them.  For
Christ Himself went not up to joy, but first He suffered pain; He entered
not into His glory, before He was crucified.

So truly our way to eternal joy is to labour and to suffer here with
Christ.  It is true, and you will find it true, when years hence you look
back, as I trust you all will, calmly and intelligently, on the events of
your own lives--you will find, I say, that the very events in your lives
which seemed at the time most trying, most vexing, most disastrous, have
been those which wore most necessary for you, to call out what was good
in you, and to purge out what was bad; that by those very troubles your
Lord, who knows the value of suffering, because He has suffered Himself,
was making true men, true women of you; hardening your heads, while He
softened your hearts; teaching you to obey Him, while He taught you not
to obey your own fancies and your own passions; refining and tempering
your characters in the furnace of trial, as the smith refines soft iron
into trusty steel; teaching you, as the great poet says--

   "That life is not as idle ore,
But heated hot with burning fears,
And bathed in baths of hissing tears,
   And battered with the strokes of doom,
   To shape and use."

Yes, you will learn that, and more than that, and say in peace--"Before I
was troubled I went wrong, but now have I kept thy commandments."  And to
such an old age may our Lord Jesus Christ bring you and me and all we
love.  Amen.

SERMON XLI.  SACRIFICE TO CAESAR OR TO GOD

Eversley, 1869.  Chester Cathedral, 1872.

Matthew xxii. 21.  "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are
Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's."

Many a sermon has been preached, and many a pamphlet written, on this
text, and (as too often has happened to Holy Scripture), it has been made
to mean the most opposite doctrines, and twisted in every direction, to
suit men's opinions and superstitions.  Some have found in it a command
to obey tyrants, invaders, any and every government, just or unjust.
Others have found in it rules for drawing a line between the authority of
the State and of the Church, i.e., between what the Government have a
right to command, and what the Clergy have a right to demand; and many
more matters have they fancied that they discovered in the text which I
do not believe are in it at all.

For to understand the original question--Is it lawful to pay tribute to
Caesar or no? we must imagine to ourselves a state of things in Judea
utterly different, thank God, from anything which has been in these
realms for now eight hundred years.  The Caesar, or Emperor of Rome, had
obtained by conquest an authority over the Jews very like that which we
have over the Hindoos in India.  And what was working in the mind of the
Jews was very like that which was working in the minds of the Hindoos in
the Sepoy Rebellion--whether it was not a sacred and religious duty to
rise against their conquerors and drive them out.  We know from the New
Testament that both our Lord and His apostles again and again warned them
not to rebel, warned them that they would not succeed:  but ruin
themselves thereby; for that those who took the sword would perish by the
sword.  And we know, too, that the Jews would not take our Lord's advice,
nor the apostles', but did rise again and again, both in Judea and
elsewhere, gallantly and desperately enough, poor creatures, in mad
useless rebellion, till the Romans all but destroyed them off the face of
the earth.  But what has that to do with us, free self-governed
Englishmen, in this peaceful and prosperous land?  In the early middle
age, when the clergy represented and defended Roman pure Christianity and
civilization against the half-heathen and half-barbaric Teutons who had
conquered the Roman Empire, then doubtless the text became once more full
of meaning, and the clergy had again and again to defend the things which
belonged to God against the rapacity or the wilfulness of many a barbaric
Caesar.  But what has that, again, to do with us?  Those who apply the
text to any questions which can at present arise between the Church and
the State, mistake alike, it seems to me, the nature and functions of an
Established Church, and the nature and functions of a free Government.

Do I mean, then, that the text has nothing to do with us?  God forbid!  I
believe that every word of our Lord's has to do with us, and with every
human being, for their meaning is infinite, eternal, and inexhaustible.
And what the latter half of the text has to do with us, I will try to
show you, while I tell you openly, that the first half of it, about
rendering to Caesar the things which are Caesar's, has nothing to do with
us, and never need, save through our own cowardice and effeminacy, or
folly.

We have no Caesar over us in free England, and shall not have, while
Queen Victoria, and her children after her reign; but if ever one, or
many (which God forbid!), should arise and try to set themselves up as
despots over us, I trust we shall know how to render them their due, be
they native or foreigner, in the same coin in which our forefathers have
always paid tyrants and invaders.  No.  The only Caesar which we have to
fear--and he is a tyrant who seems ready, nowadays, to oppose and exalt
himself above all that is called God, or is worshipped,--patronizing, of
course, Religion, as a harmless sanction for order and respectability,
but dictating morality, while telling us all day long, with a thousand
voices and a thousand pens--"Right is not the eternal law of God.
Whatever profits me, whatever I like, whatever I vote--that and that
alone is right, and you must do it at your peril."  Do you know who that
Caesar is, my friends?  He is called Public Opinion--the huge anonymous
idol which we ourselves help to make, and then tremble before the
creation of our own cowardice; whereas, if we will but face him, in the
fear of God and the faith of Christ, determined to say the thing which is
true, and do the thing which is right, we shall find the modern Caesar
but a phantom of our own imagination; a tyrant, indeed, as long as he is
feared, but a coward as soon as he is defied.

To that Caesar let us never bow the knee.  Render to him all that he
deserves--the homage of common courtesy, common respectability, common
charity--not in reverence for his wisdom and strength, but in pity for
his ignorance and weakness.  But render always to God the things which
are God's.  That duty, my good friends, lies on us, as on all mankind
still, from our cradle to our grave, and after that through all eternity.
Let us go back, or rather, let us go home to the eternal laws of God,
which were, ages before we were born, and will be, ages after we are
dead--to the everlasting Rock on which we all stand, which is the will
and mind of our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, to whom all power is
given (as He said Himself) in heaven and on earth.  And we have need to
do so, for in such times of change as these are, there will always be too
many who fancy that changes in society and government change their duty
about religion, and are, some of them, sorely puzzled as to their duty to
God:  and others ready to take advantage of the change to throw off their
duty to God, and run into licence and schism and fanaticism.

Now let all people clearly understand, and settle it in their hearts,
that no change in Church or in State can change in the least their duty
to God and to man.  If the world were turned upside down, God would still
be where He is, and we where we are--in His presence.  Right would still
be right, my friends, and wrong wrong, though all the loud voices in the
world shouted that wrong is right and right wrong.  No change of time,
place, society, government, circumstance of any kind, can alter our duty
to God, and our power of doing that duty.  Whatever the Caesar of the
hour may require us to render to him, what we are bound to render to God
remains the same.  The two things are different IN KIND, so different,
that they never need interfere with each other.

Even if, which God forbid, the connection between Church and State were
dissolved; even if, which God forbid, the Church of England were
destroyed for a while--if all Churches were destroyed--yea, if not a
place of worship were left for a while in this or any other land; yet
even then, I say, we could still render to God the things which are
God's, and offer to Him spiritual sacrifices, more pleasing to Him than
the most gorgeous ceremonies which the devotion, and art, and wealth of
man ever devised--sacrifices, by virtue of which the Church would arise
out of her ruins, like the Jewish Church after the captivity, more pure,
more glorious, and more triumphant than ever.

What do I mean?  I mean this--that there are three sacrifices which every
man, woman, and child can offer, and should offer, however lowly, however
uneducated in what the world calls education nowadays.  Those they can
offer to God, and with them they can worship God, and render to God the
things which are God's, wherever they are, whatever they are doing,
whatever be the laws of their country, or the state of society round
them.  For of these sacrifices our Lord Himself said, The true
worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth:  for the
Father seeketh such to worship Him.

Now what are these spiritual sacrifices?

First and foremost, surely, the sacrifice of repentance, of which it is
written, "The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit.  A broken and a
contrite heart, oh God, Thou wilt not despise."  Surely when we--even the
best of us--look back on our past lives; when we recollect, if not great
and positive sins and crimes, yet the opportunities which we have
neglected; the time, and often the money which we have wasted; the
meannesses, the tempers, the spite, the vanity, the selfishness, which we
have too often indulged--When we think of what we have been, and what we
might have been, what we are, and what we might be; when we measure
ourselves, not by the paltry, low, and often impure standard of the world
around us, but by the pure, lofty, truly heroical standard of our Lord
Jesus Christ--what can we say, but that we are miserable--that is,
pitiful and pitiable sinners, who have left undone what we ought to have
done, and done that which we ought not to have done, till there is no
health in us?

And if you ask me, How is it a sacrifice to God to confess to Him that we
are sinners? the answer is simple.  It is a sacrifice to God, and a
sacrifice well-pleasing to Him, simply because it is The Truth.  God
wants nothing from us; we can give Him nothing.  The wild beasts of the
forest are His, and so are the cattle on a thousand hills.  If He be
hungry He will not tell us for the whole world is His and all that is
therein.  But what He asks is, that for our own sakes we should see the
truth about ourselves, see what we really are, and sacrifice that self-
conceit which prevents our seeing ourselves as God our Father sees us.
And why does that please God?  Simply because it puts us in our right
state, and in our right place, where we can begin to become better men,
let us be as bad as we may.  If a man be a fool, the best possible thing
for him is that he should find out that he is a fool, and confess that he
is a fool, as the first, and the absolutely necessary first step to
becoming wise.  Therefore repentance, contrition, humility, is the very
foundation-stone of all goodness, virtue, holiness, usefulness; and God
desires to see us contrite, simply because He desires to see us good men
and good women.

Next, the sacrifice of thankfulness, of which it is written, "I will
offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name
of the Lord."  And again--By Christ let us offer the sacrifice of praise
continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks unto His name.
Ah! my friends, if we offered that sacrifice oftener, we should have more
seldom need to offer the first sacrifice of repentance.  I am astonished
when I look at my own heart, by which alone I can judge the hearts of
others, to see how unthankful one is.  How one takes as a matter of
course, without one aspiration of gratitude to our Father in heaven--how
one takes, as a matter of course, I say, life, health, reason, freedom,
education, comfort, safety, and all the blessings of humanity, and of
this favoured land.  How we never really feel that these are all God's
undeserved and unearned mercies; and then, how, if we set our hearts on
anything which we have not got, forget all that we have already, and
begin entreating God to give us something which, if we had, we know not
whether it would be good for us; like children crying peevishly for
sweets, after their parents have given them all the wholesome food they
need.  Ah! that we would offer to God more frankly the sacrifice of
thanksgiving!  So we should do God justice, by confessing all we owe to
Him; and so, we must believe, we should please God; for if God be indeed
our Father in heaven, as surely as a parent is pleased with the affection
and gratitude of his child, so will our Father in heaven be pleased when
He sees us love Him, who first loved us.

Next--the sacrifice of righteousness, of which it is written, "Present
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your
reasonable service."  To be good and to do good, even to long to be good
and to long to do good, to hunger and thirst after righteousness, is the
best and highest sacrifice which any human being can offer to his Father
in heaven.  For so he honours his father most truly; for he longs and
strives to be like that Father; to be good as God is good, holy as God is
holy, beneficent and useful even as God is infinitely beneficent and
useful; being, in one word, perfect, as his Father in heaven is perfect.
This is the best and highest act of worship, the truest devotion.  For
pure worship (says St James), and undefiled before God and the Father, is
this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep
ourselves unspotted from the world.

Yes--every time we perform an act of kindness to any human being, aye,
even to a dumb animal; every time we conquer our own worldliness, love of
pleasure, ease, praise, ambition, money, for the sake of doing what our
conscience tells us to be our duty, we are indeed worshipping God the
Father in spirit and in truth, and offering him a sacrifice which He will
surely accept, for the sake of His beloved Son, by whose spirit all good
deeds and thoughts are inspired.

Think of these things, my friends, always, but, above all, think of them
as often as you come--as would to God all would come--to the altar of the
Lord, and the Holy Communion of His body and blood.  For there, indeed,
you render to God that which is God's--namely, yourselves; there you
offer to God the true sacrifice, which is the sacrifice of yourselves--
the sacrifice of repentance, the sacrifice of thanksgiving, the sacrifice
of righteousness, or at least of hunger and thirst after righteousness;
and there you receive in return your share of God's sacrifice, the
sacrifice which you did not make for Him, but which He made for you, when
He spared not His only-begotten Son but freely gave Him for us.

That is the sacrifice of all sacrifices, the wonder of all wonders, the
mystery of all mysteries; and it is also the righteousness of all
righteousness, the generosity of all generosity, the nobleness of all
nobleness, the beauty of all beauty, the love of all love.  Thinking of
that, beholding in that bread and wine the tokens of the boundless love
of God, then surely, surely, our repentance for past follies, our
thankfulness for present blessings, our longing to be good, pure, useful,
humane, generous, high-minded--in one word, to be holy--ought to rise up
in us, into a passion, as it were, of noble shame at our own selfishness,
and admiration of God's unselfishness, a longing to follow His divine
example, and to live, not for ourselves, but for our fellow-men.  If we
could but once understand the full meaning of those awful yet glorious
words, "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,
how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" then, indeed,
we should understand that the one overpowering reason for being unselfish
and doing good is this--that we are God's children, and that God our
Father is utterly unselfish, and utterly does good, even at the sacrifice
of Himself; and that therefore when we are unselfish, and do good, even
at the sacrifice of ourselves, we do indeed, in spirit and in truth,
"render unto God the things that are God's."

SERMON XLII.  THE UNJUST STEWARD

Eversley, 1866.  NINTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

Luke xvi. 8.  "And the Lord commended the unjust steward, because he had
done wisely."

None of our Lord's parables has been as difficult to explain as this one.
Learned and pious men have confessed freely, in all ages, that there is
much in the parable which they cannot understand; and I am bound to
confess the same.  The puzzle is, plainly, why our Lord should SEEM to
bid us to copy the conduct of a bad man and a cheat.  For this is the
usual interpretation.  The steward has been cheating his master already.
When he is found out and about to be dismissed, he cheats his master
still further, by telling his debtors to cheat, and so wins favour with
them.

But does our Lord bid us copy a cheat?  I cannot believe that; and the
text I should have said ought to give us a very different notion.  We
read that the lord--that is, the steward's master--commended the unjust
steward.  What?  Commended him for cheating him a second time, and
teaching his debtors to cheat him?  He must have been a man of a strange
character--very unlike any man whom we know, or, at all events, any man
whom we should wish to know--to have done that.  But it is said--he
commended him for having acted wisely.  Now that word "wisely" may merely
mean prudently, sensibly, and with common sense.  But if the master
thought that to cheat, or to teach others to cheat, was acting either
wisely or prudently, then he was a very foolish and short-sighted man,
and altogether mistaken.  For be sure and certain, and settle it in your
minds, that neither falsehood or dishonesty is ever either wise or
prudent, but short-sighted, foolish, certain to punish itself.  Such
teaching is totally contrary to our Lord's own teaching.  Agree with
thine adversary quickly, He says, while thou art in the way with him,
lest he deliver thee to the Judge.  If thou hast done wrong, right it
again as soon as possible; for your sin will surely find you out, and
avenge itself.  Give the devil his due, says the good old proverb.  Pay
him at once and be done with him:  but never think to escape out of his
clutches, as too many wretched and foolish sinners do, by running up a
fresh score with him, and trying to hide old sins by new ones.  Be sure
that if the steward cheated his master a second time, the master was
foolish and mistaken, and as it were a partner in the steward's sin by
commending him.  But if so; why does our Lord mention it?  What had our
Lord to do, what have we to do, with the opinion of so foolish a man?

It seems to me that the only reason for our Lord's using the words of the
text, must be, that the master was right, not wrong, in commending the
steward.  But it seems to me, also, that the master could be right only,
if the steward was right also--if the steward had done the right and just
thing at last, and, instead of cheating his master a second time, had
done his best to make restitution for his own sins.

But how could that be?  We know nothing of what these debtors were.  All
we know is that one believed that he owed the Lord a hundred measures of
oil; and another believed that he owed him a hundred measures of wheat;
and that the steward told one to put down in his bill eighty, and the
other fifty.  Now suppose that the steward had been cheating and
oppressing these men, as was common enough in those days with stewards,
and has been common enough since; suppose that he had been charging them
more than they really owed, and, it may be, putting the surplus into his
own pocket, and so wasting his master's goods--that the one really owed
only eighty measures of oil, and the other really owed only fifty of
wheat; what could be more simple, or more truly wise either, when he was
found out, than to do this--to go round to the debtors and confess:  I
have been overcharging you; you do not owe what I have demanded of you;
take your bill and write four-score, for that is what you really owe?

This is but a guess on my part.  But all other explanations are only
guesses likewise, because we do not know how business was transacted in
those days and in that country.  We do not know whether these debtors
were tenants, paying rent in kind, or traders to whom goods had been
advanced, or what they were.  We do not know whether the steward was
agent of the estate, or house steward, or what he was.  But this we do
know--that to mend one act of villainy by committing a fresh one, is not
wisdom, but foolishness; and we may be sure that our Lord would never
have held up the unjust steward as an example to us, or quoted his
master's opinion of him, if all he did was to commit fraud on fraud, and
make bad worse, thereby risking his own more utter ruin.  And this view
of the parable surely agrees with our Lord's own lesson, which He draws
from it.  "And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon
of righteousness."  But what does that mean?  Wise men have been puzzled
by that text as much as by the parable; but surely our Lord Himself
explains it in the verses which follow:  "He that is faithful in that
which is least, is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in that
which is least, is unjust also in much."  He that is FAITHFUL.  The
unjust steward was commended for acting wisely.  Now, it seems the way to
act wisely is to act faithfully--that is honestly.  Our Lord bids us copy
the unjust steward, and make ourselves friends of the mammon of
unrighteousness.  Now, it seems, He tells us that the way to make friends
of men by money transactions is to deal faithfully and honestly by them.
This then was perhaps why the Lord commended the unjust steward, because
he had been converted in time, and seen his true interest; and for once
at least in his life become just.  He had found out that after all,
honesty is the best policy; as God grant all of us may find out if any of
us have not found it out already.  Honesty is the best policy.
Faithfulness, as our Lord calls it, is the true wisdom.  And in that, as
our Lord says, the children of this world are wiser in their generation
than the children of light.  The children of this world, the plain
worldly men of business, find that to conduct their business they must be
faithful, diligent, punctual, accurate, cautious, business-like.  They
must have practical common sense, which is itself a kind of honesty.
They must be men of their word, just and true in their dealings, or
sooner or later, they will fail.  Their schemes, their money, their
credit, their character, will fail them, and they will be overwhelmed by
ruin.

And that is just what too often the children of light forget.  The
children of light have a higher light, a deeper teaching from God, than
the children of the world.  They have a great insight into what ought to
be; they see that mankind might be far wiser, happier, better, holier
than they are; they have noble and lofty hopes for the future; they
desire the welfare and the holiness of mankind.  But they are too apt to
want practical common sense.  And so they are laughed at (and deservedly)
as dreamers, as fanatics, as foolish unpractical people, who are wasting
their talents on impossible fancies.  Often while their minds are full of
really useful and noble schemes, they neglect their business, their
families, their common duties, till they cause misery to those around
them, and shame to themselves.  Often, too, they are tempted to be
actually dishonest, to fancy that the means sanctify the end; that it is
lawful to do evil that good may come; and so, in order to carry out some
fine scheme of theirs, to say false things, or do mean or cruel things,
not for their own interest, but, as they fancy, for the cause of God:  as
if God, and God's cause, could ever be helped by the devil and his works.
And so they cast a scandal on religion, and give the enemies of the Lord
reason to blaspheme.  So it was, it seems, in our Lord's time--so it has
been too often since.  The children of light--those who ought to be of
most use to their own generation--are sometimes of least use to it,
through their own weaknesses and follies.  They will not remember that he
that is not faithful in that which is least, in the every-day concerns of
life, is not likely to be faithful in that which is greatest; that if
they will not be faithful in the unrighteous mammon--that is, if they
cannot resist the temptations to meanness and unfairness which come with
all money transactions, God will not commit to them the true riches--the
power of making their fellow creatures wiser, happier, better.  If they
will not be faithful in that which is another man's--in plain English, if
they will not pay their debts honestly, who will give them that which is
their own--the inspiration of God's indwelling Spirit?  Would to God all
high religious professors would recollect that, and be just and honest,
before they pretend to higher graces and counsels of perfection.

This lesson, then, I think our Lord means to teach us.  I do not say it
is the only lesson in the parable; God forbid.  But I think that our
Lord's own words show us that this IS one lesson.  That, however pious we
are, however enlightened we are, however useful we wish to be; in one
word, however much we are, or fancy ourselves to be, children of light,
our first duty as Christian men is the duty which lies nearest us--that
of which it is written:  "If a man know not how to rule his own house,
how shall he take care of the Church of God?"  And again, "If any provide
not for his own and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied
the faith, and is worse than an infidel."  Our first duty, I say, as
Christian men, is to be just and honest in money matters and every-day
business; and over and above that, to be generous and liberal therein.
Not merely to pay--which the very publicans in our Lord's time did--but
to give, generously, liberally; lending, if we can afford it, as our Lord
bids us, hoping for nothing again; and remembering that he who giveth to
the poor lendeth to the Lord, and whatsoever he layeth out, it shall be
repaid him again.

Yes, my friends, we must all needs take our Lord's advice--make to
yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail,
they may receive you into everlasting habitations.  WHEN YE FAIL--
literally, when you are eclipsed, as the sun is eclipsed.  That must
happen to all of us, to the best, the wisest, the most famous.  Each must
be eclipsed, and passed in the race of life, and forgotten for some
younger man.  Each in turn must fail.  One may fail in money--the mammon
for which he toiled may take to itself wings and fly away; or he may fail
in his plans, noble plans, and useful though they seemed; and he may
find, as he grows old, that the world has not gone HIS way, but quite
another one; or he may fail in health, and be cut down and crippled, and
laid by in the midst of his work.  And even if he escapes all these
disasters, he must needs fail at last, by mere old age, when the days
come "when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;" when the sun and
the light are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain, when the
strong men bow themselves, and those who look out of the windows are
dark; and he shall rise up at the voice of a bird, and fears shall be in
the way, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail:
because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the
streets.  Think for yourselves.  What would you wish your end to be--
lonely, unhappy, without the love, the respect, the care of your fellow-
men; or surrounded by friends who comfort your failing body and soul on
earth, and receive you at last into everlasting habitations?

Make friends, make friends against that day, whether or not you make them
out of the mammon of unrighteousness.  If you have been unrighteous,
bring friends back to you, as the steward did, by being just and fair, by
confessing your faults freely, by doing your best to atone for them.  And
if you have no share in the mammon of unrighteousness, still make
friends.  Make them by truth and justice, make them by generosity and
usefulness.  To ease every burden, and let the oppressed go free, to feed
the hungry, clothe the naked, and what the very poorest can do--comfort
the mourner; to nurse the sick, to visit the fatherless and widows in
their affliction, and so keep ourselves unspotted from the selfishness of
the world--This is that true Religion, acceptable in the sight of God the
Father--and happy he who has so served God.  Happy for him, when he
begins to fail, to see round him attached hearts, and grateful faces,
hands ready to tend him, as he has tended others.  And happier still to
remember that on the other side of the dark river of death are other
grateful faces, other loving hearts, ready to welcome him into
everlasting habitations--and among them, and above them all, one whose
form is as the Son of Man, full of all humanity Himself, and loving and
rewarding all humanity in His creatures, saying, "Inasmuch as ye did it
to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me."

SERMON XLIII.  THE RICH AND THE POOR

Chapel Royal, Whitehall, 1871.

Proverbs xxii. 2.  "The rich and poor meet together:  the Lord is the
maker of them all."

I have been asked to preach here this afternoon on behalf of the
Parochial Mission Women's Fund.  I may best describe the object for which
I plead, as an attempt to civilise and Christianise the women of the
lower classes in the poorer districts of London and other great towns, by
means of women of their own class--women, who have gone through the same
struggles as they have, and who will be trusted by them to understand and
to sympathize with their needs and difficulties.  These mission women are
in communication with lady-superintendents in each ecclesiastical
district.  These are, I understand, usually the wives of small tradesmen,
or of clerks.  They, again, are in communication with ladies at the West
End of London, who are willing to give personal help and money for
certain objects, but not indiscriminate alms.  And thus a series of links
is established between the most prosperous and the least prosperous
classes, by means of which the rich and the poor may meet together, and
learn--to the infinite benefit of both--that the Lord is the maker of
them all.  Considering this excellent scheme, I could not help seeing as
a background to it, a very different and a far darker scene.  I could not
help remembering that during these very days, the poorer classes of
another great city had taken up an attitude full of awful lessons to us,
and to every civilized country upon earth.  We have been reading of a
hundred thousand armed men encamped in the suburbs of Belleville and
Montmartre, with cannon and mitrailleuses, uttering through their organs,
threats which leave no doubt that the meaning of this movement is--as
some of them boldly phrase it,--a war of the poor against the rich.
There is no mistaking what that means.  This madness has been stopped for
the time, we are told, principally (as was to be expected), by the
superior common sense of their wives.  But only, I fear, for a time.
Such men will go far, if not this time, then some other time.  For they
believe what they say, and know what they want.  They have done with
phrases, done with illusions.  They are no longer deceived and hampered
by party cries against this and that grievance, real or imaginary, the
abolition of which the working classes demand so eagerly from time to
time, in the vain belief that if it were only got rid of the millennium
would be at hand.  They have done long ago with remedial half-measures.
Landed aristocracy, Established Church, military classes, privileged
classes, restricted suffrage, and all the rest, have been abolished in
their country for two generations and more:  but behold, the poor man
finds himself (or fancies himself, which is just as dangerous) no richer,
safer, happier after all, and begins to see a far simpler remedy for all
his ills.  He has too little of this world's goods, while others have too
much.  What more fair, more simple, than that he should take some of the
rich man's goods, and if he resists, kill him, crying, "Thou sayest, let
me eat and drink, for to-morrow I die.  Then I too will eat and drink,
for to-morrow _I_ die?"  And so will the rich and poor meet together with
a vengeance, simply because neither of them has learnt that the Lord is
the maker of them all.

This is a hideous conclusion.  But it is one towards which the poor will
tend in every country in which the rich are merely rich, spending their
wealth in self-enjoyment, atoned for by a modicum of alms.

I said a modicum of alms.  I ought to have said, any amount of alms, any
amount of charity.  Throughout the great cities of Europe--in London as
much as anywhere--hundreds of thousands are saying, "We want no alms.  We
intend to reconstitute society, even at the expense of blood, so that no
man, woman, or child, shall need the rich man's alms.  We do not choose,
for it is not just, that he should take credit to himself for giving us a
shilling when he owes us a pound, ten, a hundred pounds--owes us, in
fact, all by which he and his class are richer than us and our class.
And we will make him pay his debt."

I do not say that such words are wise.  I believe them to be foolish--
suicidal.  I believe that it is those who patiently wait on the Lord, and
not the discontented who fret themselves till they do evil, who will
inherit the land, and be refreshed in peace.  I believe that all those
who take the sword will perish by the sword; that those who appeal to
brute force will always find it--just because it is brute force--always
strongest on the side of the rich, who can hire it for evil, as for good.

I only say, that so hundreds of thousands think; so they speak, and will
speak more and more loudly, as long as the present tone of society
endures,--good-natured and well meaning, but luxurious, covetous,
ignoble, frivolous, ignorant; believing--all classes alike, not only that
money makes the man, but worse far--that money makes the woman also; and
all the while half-ashamed of itself, half-distrustful of itself, and
trying to buy off man by alms, and God by superstition.

So long as the great mass of the poor of any city know nothing of the
great mass of the rich of that city, save as folk who roll past them in
their carriages, seemingly easy while they are struggling, seemingly
happy while they are wretched, so long will the rich of that city be
supposed, however falsely, to be what the French workmen used to call
mangeurs d'hommes--exploiteurs d'hommes--to get their wealth by means of
the poverty, their comfort by means of the misery of their fellow-men;
and so long will they be exposed to that mere envy and hatred which
pursues always the more prosperous, till, in some national crisis, when
the rich and poor meet together, both parties will be but too apt to
behave, through mutual fear and hate, as if not God, but the devil, was
the maker of them all.

These words are strong.  How can they be too strong, in face of what is
now passing in a neighbouring land?  Not too strong, either, in view of
the actual state of vast masses of the poor in London itself, and indeed
of any one of our great cities.

That matter has been reported on, preached on, spoken on, till all other
civilized countries reproach Britain with the unique contrast between the
exceeding wealth of some classes and the exceeding poverty of others;
till we, instead of being startled by the reproach, take the present
state of things as a matter of course, a physical necessity, a law of
nature and society, that there should be, in the back streets of every
great city, hordes of, must I say, savages? neither decently civilized
nor decently Christianized, uncertain, most of them, of regular
livelihood, and therefore shiftless and reckless, extravagant in
prosperity, and in adversity falling at once into want and pauperism.
You may ask any clergyman, any minister of religion of any denomination,
whether the thing is not so.  Or if you want to read the latest news
about the degradation of your fellow-subjects, read a little book called
"East and West," and judge for yourselves, whether such a population,
numbered by hundreds of thousands, are in a state pleasing to God, or
safe for those classes of whom they only know that they pay them wages,
and that these wages are as small as they can be forced to take.  Read
that book; and then ask yourselves, is it wonderful that, in one
district, before the mission of the society for which I plead was
established, the poor used seriously to believe that it was the wish and
endeavour of the rich to grind them down, and keep them poor.  We, of
course, know that the poor folk were mistaken but do we not know, too--
some of us--that there are political economists in the world, who, though
they would not willingly make the poor poorer than they are, are still of
opinion that it is good for the nation, on the whole, that the present
state of things should continue; that there should be always a reserve of
labour, in plain English, a vast multitude who have not quite work enough
to live on, ready to be called on in any emergency of business, and used,
to beat down, by their competition, the wages of their fellow-workmen?
Is this theory altogether novel and unheard of?  Or this theory also,
that for this very reason, Emigration, which looks the very simplest
remedy for most of this want,--while nine-tenths of the bounteous earth
is waiting to be subdued and replenished by the poor wretches who cannot
get at it--that Emigration, I say, is an unnecessary movement--that the
people are all wanted at home--to be such as the parson and the mission
women find them?

And it may be that the poor folk have heard--for a bird of the air may
carry the matter in these days of a free press--that some rich folk, at
least, hold this opinion, and translate it freely out of the delicate
language of political economy, into the more vigorous dialect used in the
fever alleys and smallpox courts in which the poor are left to wait for
work.  But if there be any rich persons in this congregation who hold
these peculiar economic doctrines, let me recommend to them, more than to
any other persons present, that they would support a society which
alleviates the hard pressure of their system; which helps to make it
tolerable and prudent by teaching the poor to save; by teaching them, in
London alone,--how to save œ54,000 in the last eleven years.  Let them
help this society heartily.

The children of this world are--in their generation--wiser than the
children of light.  But how long their generation will last, depends
mainly (we are told) on how far they make themselves friends out of the
mammon of unrighteousness.

But if, again, there be rich people in this congregation, as I trust
there are many and many, who start, indignant, at such an imputation, and
utterly deny its truth--then,--if it be false, why in the name of God,
and of humanity, and of common prudence, why do they not go to these
people and tell them so?  Why do they not prove that it is not so, by
showing a little more human sympathy, not merely for them behind their
backs, but sympathy with them face to face?  If they wish to know how
much can be done by only a little active kindness, they have only to read
the pages of that painful, and yet pleasant, book--"East and West,"--
which I have just quoted; and to read, also, an appendix to it--a Paper
originally read at the Church Congress, Manchester, by the present Lord
Chancellor--a document which it would be an impertinence in me to
recommend or praise.

Bring yourselves then boldly into contact with these classes, and
especially into contact with the women--with the wives and mothers.  For
it is through the women, through them mainly, if not altogether, that
civilization and religion can be introduced among any degraded class.  It
was so in the Middle Age.  The legends which tell us how woman was then
the civilizer, the softener, the purifier, the perpetual witness to
fierce and coarse men, that there were nobler aims in life than pleasure,
and power, and the gratification of revenge; that not self-assertion, but
self-sacrifice was the Divine ideal, toward which all must aspire.  These
old legends are immortal; for they speak of facts and laws which will
endure as long as there are women upon earth.  Through the woman, the
civilizer and the Christianizer must reach the man.  Through the wife, he
must reach the husband.  Through the mother, he must reach the children.
I say he must.  It is easy to complain that the clergy in every age and
country have tried to obtain influence over women.  They have been forced
to do so, because otherwise they could obtain no influence at all.  And
if a priesthood should arise hereafter, whose calling was to teach not
religion but irreligion, not the good news that there is a good God, and
that we can know Him; but the bad news that there is no God, or, if there
is, we cannot know Him; then would that priesthood find it necessary to
appeal like all other priesthoods, to the women, and to teach them how to
teach their children.

But more.  It is not religion only which must be taught through the wives
and mothers, but sound science also, and sound economy.  If you intend
(as I trust some here intend) to teach the labouring classes those laws
of health and life, on which depend the comfort, the wholesomeness, often
the decency and the morality of the poor man's home, then you must teach
those laws first to the house-mother, who brings the children into the
world, and brings them up, who puts them to bed at night, and prepares
their food by day.  If you wish to teach habits of thrift, and sound
notions of economy to the labouring classes, you must teach them first to
the housewife, who has to make the weekly earnings cover, if possible,
the week's expenses.  If you wish to soften and to purify the man, you
must first soften and purify the woman, or at least encourage her not to
lose what womanliness she has left, amid sights, and sounds, and habits
which tend continually to destroy her womanhood.  You must encourage her,
I say, to remember always that she is a woman still, and let her teach--
as none can teach like her--true manfulness to her husband and her sons.

And how can you best do that?  Not by giving her shillings, not by
preaching at her, not by scolding her:  but by behaving to her as what
she is--a woman and a sister--and cheering her heavy heart by simple
human kindliness.  What she wants amid all her poverty and toil, her
child-bearing and child-rearing, what she wants, I say, to keep her brave
and strong, is to know by actual sight and speech that she is still not
an outcast; not alone; that she is still a member of the human family,
that her fellow-woman has not forgotten her; and that, therefore, it may
be, He that was born of woman has not forgotten her either.  That she
has, after all, a God in heaven, who can be touched with the feeling of
her infirmities, and can help her and those she loves, to struggle
through all their temptations, seeing that He too was tempted in all
things like them, yet without sin.

It is only personal intercourse with them--only the meeting of the rich
and poor together, in the belief that God is the maker of them all, that
will do that.  But it will do it.

Only personal intercourse will reconcile these people to their condition,
in as far as they OUGHT to be reconciled to it.  But personal intercourse
will reconcile them to it, as far as it ought, but no further.  And I
think that the system of personal intercourse attempted by this Society
is, on the whole, the best yet devised.  It is imperfect, as all attempts
to make that straight which is crooked, and to number that which is
wanting--to patch, in a word, a radically vicious system of society,--
must be imperfect; but it is the best plan which I have yet seen.  I find
no fault with other plans, God forbid!  Wisdom is justified of all her
children; and the amount of evil is so great, and (as I believe, so
dangerous), that I must bid God-speed to any persons who will do
anything, always saving and excepting indiscriminate almsgiving.

But it seems to me that the soothing and civilizing, and in due time
Christianising, effect of personal intercourse cannot begin better than
through a woman, herself of the working class, who has struggled as these
poor souls have struggled, and conquered, more or less, where they are
failing.  That through her they should be brought in contact with women
of the more comfortable and cultivated class, who are their immediate
employers, if not their immediate neighbours; and through them, again,
brought in contact with women of that class, of whom I shall only say,
that if they were not meant for some such noble work as this--and not for
mere pleasure and mere display, then for what purpose, in heaven or
earth, were they made? and why has Providence taken the trouble (as it
were) to elaborate, by long ages of civilization, that most exquisite of
all products of nature and of art--A Lady?

Ah! what the ladies of England might do, and that without interfering in
the least with their duties as wives and mothers, if they would work
together, as a class!  If they would work as well and humanly while they
are in towns, as most of them do work while they are in the country; as
some of them do, to their honour, in the towns already!  But how many?
what proportion do those who do good bear to those who do nothing?  What
a small amount of humanizing and civilizing intercourse with some women
of the labouring class is there in the case of the wives of rich men who
come up to town, merely for the season, and forget that it is their
temporary and uncertain stay in London which causes much of the temporary
and uncertain employment of the London poor, and their consequent
temptation to unthrift and recklessness!  How little humanizing and
civilizing intercourse with the poor is carried on by the wives of those
employers of labour who surely, surely owe something more to their
husband's work people, than to be aware (by hearsay) that they are duly
paid every Saturday night?

But I shall be told:  We need not fear--we can justify ourselves before
God and man.  I shall be reminded of all that has been done, and done
well too, for the poor during the last generation, and bidden not to
calumniate my countrymen.  True, much has been done; and done well.  And
true also it is that no effort to make the rich and poor meet together,
to bring the different classes of society into contact with each other,
but has succeeded--has sown good seed--which I trust may bring forth good
fruit in the day when every tree shall be judged by its fruit.  The
events of 1830, startling and warning, and those of 1848, more pregnant,
if possible, with warning than the former, awakened a spirit of humanity
in England, which was also a spirit of prudence and of common sense.

But I cannot conceal from myself, or you, that the earnestness which was
awakened in those days is dying out in these.  The richer classes of
every country are tempted from time to time to fits of laziness--fits of
frivolity and luxury, surfeits, in which men say, with a shrug and a
yawn--"Why be very much in earnest?  Why take so much trouble?  Somebody
must always be rich, why should not I?  Somebody must enjoy the money,
why should not I?  At all events, things will last my time."  And that
such a surfeit has fallen upon the rich of this land, is a fact; for that
this is the tone of to-day, and that the tone increases, none can deny
who knows that which calls itself the WORLD, and calls itself so only too
truly; the world of which it is written, that all that is in the world--
the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life--
is not of the Father, but of the world.  And the world passeth away, and
the lust thereof.  But he who doeth the will of God, he alone abideth for
ever.

God grant that we, who have just seen the most cunningly organized and
daintily bedizened specimen of a world, which ever flaunted on the earth
since men began to build their towers of Babel, collapse and crumble at a
single blow, may take God's hint, that the fashion of this world passeth
away.  Let the idle, the frivolous, the sensual, and those who, like
Figaro's Marquis, have earned all earthly happiness by only taking the
trouble to be born--let them look back on this last awful Christmas-tide,
and hear, speaking in fact unmistakeable, the voice of the Lord.  Think
ye that they whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices were
sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?  I
tell you, "Nay:  but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."

There are those who will hear such words with a smile, even with a sneer,
and say, Such wholesale judgments of God, even granting that there are
such things, are, after all, very rare:  it is very seldom that a whole
class, a whole system of society, is punished in mass--and why then need
we trouble ourselves about so remote a probability?

Then know this--that as surely as God sometimes punishes wholesale, so
surely is He always punishing in detail.  By that infinite concatenation
of moral causes and effects, which makes the whole world one mass of
special Providences, every sin of ours will punish itself, and probably
punish itself in kind.  Are we selfish?  We shall call out selfishness in
others.  Do we neglect our duty?  Then others will neglect their duty to
us.  Do we indulge our passions?  Then others, who depend on us, will
indulge theirs, to our detriment and misery.  Do we squander our money?
Then our children and our servants will squander our money for us.

Do we?--but what use to go on reminding men of truths which no one
believes, because they are too painful and searching to be believed in
comfort?  What use to tell men what they never will confess to be true--
that by every crime, folly, even neglect of theirs, they drive a thorn
into their own flesh, which will trouble them for years to come, it may
be to their dying day?  And yet so it is.

Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.

As those who neglect their fellow-creatures will discover, by the most
patent undeniable proofs, in that last great day, when the rich and poor
shall meet together, and then, at least, discover that the Lord is the
maker of them all.

Footnotes:

{1}  These sermons by the Rev. Charles Kingsley M.A., late rector of
Eversley and Canon of Westminster, were edited by the Rev. W. Harrison,
M.A., rector of Brington.--DP.